It's TIME!!!

I need to get my roots done! It always surprises me that one day you are happy enough with the coiffure such as it might be and then the next minute it is a desperate shambles that must be sorted immediate!

And thus it has always been for me. Steve seems to be able to carry on regardless for weeks after making the announcement. Maybe that’s just a boy thing.

I have always spent far too much time and money and healthy disregard for chemical poisoning getting my hair done. I reckon that money spent on a ‘DO’ is better than a new dress cos you can wear the hair everyday and let’s face it, the new gear gets a little tired after the first couple of  outings.

After trawling through the old photos yesterday, looking for the pic of Dad, I spent a lovely while reminiscing today. I realised that I have been excellent in terms of keeping the cogs of the economy clicking over. I have spent a shit load of cash at the hairdressers!  I have had every colour, shape length and curliness. I barely recognised some of that hair!!

All that change and phaffing and today I have the same colour hair as I had when I was a girl, straight from the sun and the surf, or the swimming pool. Of course the whiteness is only achieved today through the efforts of AnnBrit and shed loads of bleach and hours of patience on the part of all in the salon. Yeh I do get edgy after about the first 2 hours of sitting reading all that shit in the gossip mags.

Looking at all those colourful years flashing by in the albums I am tempted to go for a change except that any more abuse might just be a step too far. The whole bloody lot might just fall out and who could blame it.

White might just have to do or maybe not.

I do love the WIND

It’s  all blue skies and blowing a gale today.

I do love the wind. It gives an excellent excuse, if you need one that is, why your hair is just a big old mess. I am aware that in reality I look like shit, but in my mind I have the deluded image of some wind swept babe on a beach chomping up some choccie and slurping down a gallon of champers, all of course with the utmost grace and decorum.

I have been letting my hair grow, for no other reason than it has been easier to manage through all the shit of the last 6 months. Pull it back into a band and call it done. I reckon blow drying might well be a thing of the past. The wind today will be a good substitute! It will whip hair around to caress my neck and the rise and fall of it will be all very sensual. (I know the reality..... whipped into a frenzie, hair slapping my eyes, getting caught in my mouth and those shitful knots will be a killer....I know. I am just enjoying the delusion.)

But I do love the wind.

When it is running from the north as it is today, the traffic noise is taken off to the fairies and the water in the canal and the pool sparkles and moves. The sand at the beach is hurled around at warp speed, licking off skin and the blue bottles arrive for a stinging visit.

I do love the wind.

It sort of slows everything down a bit and so it feels almost like holidays. Oh I know, everyday is a holiday here, but it reminds me of childhood hols with my dad, fishing (I always hated fishing!) or better still sailing ( I did love sailing that old wooden tubbed boat, TIKU) I loved being there with him in the wind.

I really think Dad and I were the only ones that loved her. The old woman would go into melt down at the thought of going out for the day, far worse if a weekend was planned. She would sit in the airless cabin and complain of stomach upset or other such illness. The brother was always nervous about anytime in close proximity to Dad and the sister couldn’t swim so was terrified of being on the water.

Dad and I loved the adventure! On one particularly auspicious afternoon we were travelling home across Moreton Bay and the wind had really picked up. The motor was once again kaput so we were under sail. The others were in the cabin and Dad and I were enjoying the wind in our hair. The old girl leaned and leaned and leaned and then without a life jacket in sight I clearly heard Dad yell above the noise and the madness, ‘Oh we are gone this time!!’

Well we didn’t go. That little boat was like the Little Engine that Could, ‘I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.’ We made it home in one piece, Dad and I exhilarated and the others shattered. I am not sure, but it wouldn’t surprise me if that was the last time the old woman ever stepped foot on old TIKU.

I think the wind always makes me feel like an adventure is possible.

 

 

NAPLAN testing Ho Hum

 

The results are out!! Those pesky tests which every kid in certain year levels in Australia are meant to sit have been marked and calibrated and the results have been sent to schools and teachers and now parents.

I guess the Principals had a good hard look and worked out which teachers were to blame for shit results and which teachers they were gonna hang onto by hook or by crook.

The teachers will have had a look and decided which kids need extra help and how they need to moderate their curriculum so that results can be improved next year. They might also have spent time looking at how much ‘value adding’ has been achieved even if the results in their group were less than FABBO! This all in preparation for the ‘chat’ with the principal for a little ‘Please explain.’

What a shitful existence for these teachers, lurching from one statistic to another and trying to justify their methods and results based on a pretty perfunctory little exam. I mean the exam doesn’t measure joy or pleasure or anxiety or wonder or creative thinking. ( Is this a good time to admit that I haven’t seen the test so I am only surmising). It doesn’t take into account how well the teacher knows the kids’ circumstances and how the kids’ interests are met and explored. It doesn’t measure how happy the kids are in the room.

So I have always questioned the validity of these results and the testing. I have been long concerned that teaching will be targeted towards these tests rather than a more creative curriculum.

Now having said all this it’s time to boast!! Yeah to Ziggy!! He aced his test across the board with the highest possible results in every category except spelling... Bloody brilliant little man!! Ma is so PROUD.

In a utopian world his teachers would now take these results and cater learning tasks to his interests and abilities, so that his school results would reflect his capabilities, but we all know that the truth is that instead things will be dumbed down to the lowest common denominator and he will continue to be bored and always in strife.

His mum and I are pleased as punch....he’s not fallen far from his mother tree! I only hope that the insistent use of these bloody tests don’t become the impetus behind his whole education. I reckon I would not want to be teaching him in high school if that is the case.

 

 

Finally some real Customer Service

 

What a difference it makes talking to an actual person!!

The lovely Belly’s phone contract was out of control, and there had been all sorts of interference and best intentioned advice all of which had combined to make making a choice virtually impossible. Confusion was reigning supreme, so here’s some advice about how to deal with the nasty necessary bureaucracy.

Always have an ‘End Game’. There is no point being undecided about what you want to achieve. The staff are gonna appreciate knowing where they are headed, even if they don’t want to go there.

Always ask politely to speak to the manager. The person out the front of the Optus store is almost certainly some underling who almost certainly will not be of much help. There will nearly always be an excuse why the manager is not available, but they magically become available when you politely say that you understand they are busy and that you are happy to wait. You must of course then just stand your ground - Don’t speak or move.

When the manager comes out, direct the meeting by choosing where to sit and outline your ‘end game’. This is often more than a little tricky which explains why customers are shrugged off with glossy brochures or tales of ridiculous additional charges and penalties.

Make it very clear that you have all day and that you are going nowhere until you get what you want.

Belly just wanted to be on a plan that she could afford. The manager soon realised that we were going nowhere so she had no choice but to ‘work in’

She accessed bills, reset passwords, printed out bills from the last 4 or 5 months, analysed useage and determined the best plan. She was patient and efficient and we left feeling all sorted. And we had her business card which she was happy for Belly to use in the future if more help is required.

I said to Bell later that it is important to limit what you say. You should not apologise for needing help. That’s what these people are paid for!

Natalie – the manager, initially wanted us to ring the customer services number that she had circled on the brochure and I told her that we weren’t going to do that, that we wanted to talk to a real person, to look them in the face. The brush off is the first attempt to get problem customers out of the shop, and had already been successful on at least 2 occasions. It should probably not be necessary to quietly demand more, but it seems to be the case today.

The folk in the shop probably work on a commission basis and so are only interested in ‘signing people up’. Anything else is too much trouble for no return.

I wonder when customer service became the barely intelligible drone on the end of a long distance line. Well done Natalie from Optus at Carindale, you have allowed us to cross something off Bell’s  long list of ‘To Dos’ , and have actually provided some customer SERVICE.

Renewal

There’s a gum tree outside the side gate into the park and it is truly majestic. It soars perhaps a more than  a hundred feet high and sways and dances in the breeze. If you lay down under it and just stare up, I reckon the  melody and the contrast with the blue blue sky would be plenty to hypnotise.

That’s the poetic view of it. The reality of living next door to this girl is that the pool is always full of long spindly leaves that require specialty vacuuming and once every year or 2 it grows too big for its breeches and it bursts out of its bark!! Bits of bark come lose and fly high for a while, before landing, – yeah you guessed it, in the pool. Some of these bits are tiny and so are sucked up easily enough but some of them are big enough to knock out a small child and so need to be individually scooped up.

We go from AHH to ARGH to Ahh in a moment.

The tree trunk beneath the shedding is smooth and beautiful and all the scars from its growth and lovers’s etchings are for a little while at least rubbed out.

It is such a curious thing watching this tree shrug off the bark. I have stood a picked off large chunks just to give it a bit of a hand. It has become something of an addiction. I do so enjoy testing myself to see what size of chunk I can remove in one go. It’s like picking off bits of skin when you are peeling only this is far more satisfying. Sadly I have done all I can without the use of a ladder or climbing onto Steve’s shoulders and that would be too obsessive and more than a little dangerous for me and for him!!

So now I get to watch the old girl’s arms slough off the dead stuff and wait for the whole tree to be smooth and lovely. Reckon this must mean there is still hope for my withered old feet and barnacled hands.

 

 

 

 

 

This is NOT a Merry Rant

So less of the merry and more of a rant!!!

Fucking doctors and their front of house staff, need a big lesson in honesty and humility.

I am completely fucked if I can work out what makes them so fucking smug and self righteous!

I fail to see how it is possible for a specialist, Selena Young to see me more than 2 weeks ago and identify that I have lymphoedema in my right breast and for her to tell other doctors about this but then tell me that, ‘It’s nothing, it’s ok, it will go away, It’s nothing to worry about.’ She all but patted me on the head and condescendingly sent me on my way. That’ll be a $100 , thanks!

More than a month ago when I first started to feel pain in my boob and noticed it swelling up, watermelon size!! I rang to get an appointment with the surgeon Kate Stringer. I spoke to the girlie on the desk – Stacey - on 2 different occasions and told her I had pain in my boob and needed an appointment. The best she could do was have me wait for more than a month. I asked her directly if she had told Kate about the pain and even though she said she had the hesitation in her voice led me to believe otherwise.

So since then I have had the ‘laying on of hands’ by my GP Jane and the useless Selena. I have had a course of super sized antibiotics, - courtesy of Jane cos, ‘It might help and can do no harm’. I have been out and bought bigger and bigger boob control equipment and have endured severely interrupted sleep because of the pain. Yeh I am grouchy alright!!

Yesterday I drove the hour plus to Brisbane for my 4 o’clock appointment with Kate and arrived early cos god forbid a doctor is ever kept waiting. At 5 o’clock it was finally my turn. Kate turned to the right page on the screen and read the report from Selena in which she had diagnosed lymphoedema. Kate had a look and agreed. She said that treatment was possible and when she tried to find the name of someone on the Goldie who could help me she was stymied because they had all gone home because it was so fucking late!! She said her staff would look into it and give me a call today.

Then Stacey took over, and tried to make appointments and take money. I told her that I was not inclined to come back as ordered as I have another option and the other doctor had not kept me waiting even ONCE is more than 20 years. She harped on in her girl voice about my need to be seen for 7 years, even though she appeared to know nothing of my history ( she started by asking me if I had had any surgery). I do not know what made her think that she was an expert, or indeed even better placed to know my body and my needs than I am, but thus was the case.

Stacey who had, I believe, been instructed to find the name of someone to help treat the lymphoedema had done precisely NOTHING by 11 am this morning, so now I have found someone myself. Stacey refused to come to the phone when I rang. The girlie who answered the phone put me on hold twice and only finally gave ME the name of someone I could ring for helpful hints after I insisted that she did so. This number went straight to answer phone.

As I have now delayed the start of treatment for more than a month, because Stacey, with all her medical training and knowledge, didn’t deem it important to make an emergency appointment, there was for me, an urgency to get started. Quite apart from the pain, I am very very keen to avoid the swelling  continuing down my arm. This situation has filled me with fear for the last 20 years on my left side!! I did some sleuthing on my own and have an appointment for tomorrow morning. The people calling me back now from all sources that have already fleeced thousands from me, are just confirming what I have already discovered.

It might be possible to be more sanguine about all this had I been treated at the behest of the government, but this has all been private care, and I use the term very loosely, at enormous expense.

Just who the fuck do these people think they are.

 

 

An exercise in Patience.

 

The Girls – AKA as my little fishies have become increasingly more difficult to see. The green sludge has definitely taken over and the smell has begun wafting into the house, so it is TIME.

The instructions were to empty the pond by 80% and then re-fill it using the chemicals I bought yesterday.

I don’t know why my logical brain deserted me this morning, but I went about the usual routine of setting up the hose to siphon out the water and thought I will just be patient. I kept popping out to see the progress and scoop out some of the sludge but progress was stupidly slow. It wasn’t until about 3 and a half hours in that it dawned on me that I could have been using 2 hoses and better still 3 hoses. Progress was hastened and after about 5 hours I was ready to fill it up again. The slim buster goes in last!

The poor fish have been a bit nuts and I am hoping that they will survive. Some of them may well be too skittish but if that’s the case they might as well close up shop now cos I rather doubt that this will be the last of the fishie upsets.

There seems to be as many bits of advice as there are holes in the Governments ‘Turn back the boats’ policy, so I am not at all sure of the efficacy of my plan. Fill it up, slop in the chemicals, continue to slop more in until there is a miracle of science and the pond turns from green to clear, and all the while crossing fingers that The Girls survive. I am gonna get some more plants and see if I can kill them too, cos I reckon reducing the sunshine into the water sounds like good advice, but I have not been privy to any science education since I was 15 and yes, that’s some time ago, so who knows.

At least the pong should be gone for a now and the filter thing might not need to be rung out 2 times a day, and I should be able to see The Girls swim by.

If I was a Christian woman I would send up a prayer cos I recall that there was some affinity there with fishes, but as an atheist all I can do is be patient and see how it goes.