Less is more in the Garden.

It's been a satisfying kinda day. 

Full bill of health from the Eye Doctor and we all know how rare it is that I get a full bill of any sort of health. Yippee!!! Steve's was good too, but then that is no surprise.

Ran the ugly gauntlet of pusher fuckers at the pre-voting place and got that crossed off our lists too. I fancied having a slap at some of those well meaning folk as they thrust their shit in my face, but figured that they were only trying as hard as they were to ward off the utter boredom of standing there all day, or maybe all week.

And finally we got into our farmer Joe outfits and had an almighty go at The Tree.

I have enjoyed allowing it to become very fringe heavy, and visitors could easily be forgiven for thinking that they might not be very welcome cos they had to dive under all the mess. Of course we always use the trademen's entrance through the garage so the low hanging branches never slapped us around. 

Still I have had a hankering for a view of The Tree as a sculpture and so the leafy camouflage had to go. We started conservatively but then went boldly on the attack.

There was an enormous pile of tree on the ground, and now there is a wonderful open space where maybe tomorrow, if I can convince Stevc to climb that shitty ladder again, maybe we can pop up some solar lights so I can enjoy The Tree day and night. Ah...Lovely. 

International Women's Day - Oh Ho Hum!!

The dichotomy between ladylike and free and easy. I love both of these and am not sure why they need to be mutually exclusive. 

I am now gonna bravely stick my head above the parapet and ask why we need this?

Yeh I know that there is about as many whinges to be shouted as there are women to shout 'em, and there is stuff that goes on that needs to be addressed. And yeh there are too many to mention, women who are doing great stuff all the time.

I just wonder why we need a day to celebrate or notify or campaign or protest about it all.

I can't help feeling that it all becomes trite and perfunctory and not really at all self-serving or satisfactory.

As I was driving up to Brisvegas yesterday I had the radio blaring and every channel I switched to had some self congratulating woman going on about it all and bigging herself up because she was playing songs by women singers, and I guess it pointed out to me that apart from the harpies, the music content was pretty much the same as any other day. I really wondered what all the nonsense was about.

Then when my girl told me of her day, I realised that actually women are our own worst enemies. It's not always the menfolk who keep us down.

My lovely works hard. She wears her steel capped boots with pride and she is never happier than when she is sweating up a storm and driving some machine that would seriously scare the shit out of me. Yesterday a customer came in and said to her, ' I want a man to serve me'. Bell repiled, 'This is your lucky day cos I am your man.' She had to convince the customer that she was the only person there to serve and so reluctantly she was allowed to throw about 50 besser blocks onto the ute. She managed to carry 2 at a time - better by far than me. I reckon I might have been good if I could have toppled one into a wheel barrow and toted 'em that way.

There was no gracious, 'Thank you' or anything of that ilk. Just a hurried exit.

The customer was a woman.

Belly called her a lady, but I don't even know what that means anymore. Is a lady someone who wears the right clothes and doesn't swear, and is aglow instead of sweaty?  Is she someone who has a clear expectation of what a female should do and what a man should do?

While we as women play the sex card, how can we expect men not to?

So I say bahumbug to a special day for women. I would so much prefer us all just to look up and speak for ourselves all the time. I would like us to acknowledge greatness without pausing to comment on gender. I would like it if women weren't lining up to put each other down.

And I'd like this ALL the time not just on one silly day of the year, cos somehow that seems to me to be a license to forget about it for the rest of the year.

Did you do something yesterday that made you proud to be a woman? 
How about today?

Dog's got arthriitis

Dog has arthritis.

We have known for some time that her back end ain't what it used to be, but in typical feisty female fashion she just refuses to slow down and be other than what she is, which is a running-after-the-ball-like-a-maniac-dog. So twice a day she makes her her presence well and truly felt by chasing us and shoving the ball at us or tripping us up or sitting mournfully looking at the back gate. And when she is in the park she just runs and runs. If we go to the beach she just runs and runs and swims and digs. When Zig visits she is on the go all day - no time for sleeping - plenty of time to that when she's dead she reckons.

So after a big day she collapses onto the floor or the couch and is off to the land of nod, in a heartbeat, after of course she has hoovered up whatever was left on our plates...yeh disgusting, but they do go through the disher so ho bloody hum.

And there she stays until it's time to go out for a final pee-wee before heading up to bed. The mind might be willing but the body is now beginning to protest. She all too often struggles to stand up and as the owner of 2 artificial knees, I can feel her pain.

There are a couple of ladies who come most days to the park with their dog, who clearly has had a long life of dreadful arthritis. They told me that recently a vet told them that there are needles for dogs which can help out.

I took Dog to the Vet today to see what he thought. He said there was some tension in her back end but that he could easily believe that she might suffer after a big day out.

He said that if she was lame in the evening we could give her a squirt of anti-inflammatory meds. This stuff is specially for dogs and does in deed cost a bomb. But I have a bottle and will use it as and when. He said we could try some Blackmores Glucosamine/Fish Oil combo pill - one a day and then yes there are the needles. One a week for 4 weeks and then monthly and then finally every 3 months.

But I am conflicted cos she was so chipper today and I remember clearly the trauma for her and me when she had to have weekly injections for mites when she was but a girl. This went on for the requisite 8 weeks and finally she just went nutso in the car on the way. It never got easy. I rather doubt this would get easy either and I don't want to cause her stress.

What is interesting is that the medical approach is the same as for a person, except that Dog would need a full general anesthetic to get an Xray, I guess cos she wouldn't understand the need to be completely still.

I have always thought Dog was close to human.

Gold Coast City Council Fairytale

Once upon a rainy old Saturday there was an aging woman just minding her own business. She was not beautiful nor fashionably slim, in fact in Hollywood terms she'd have been closer to the villain than the heroine.

Saturdays are quiet and peaceful in the castle. The Lord goes forth to do battle with a ball, by wildly swinging a stick and after Dog is seen to, it's up with the feet and on with a movie. Ahhh bliss.

But all was not well in the Old Woman's kingdom. There had been trouble afoot for months and the tension had been rising. There was evil brewing.

The anonymous evil ruler, had been stretching and flexing his ever increasing tentacles. The seemingly omnipotent ruler had put in place sufficient buffers to see him quite removed from the day to day dirty gritty nitty, and the system had allowed for favoritism and corruption. But the foot soldiers who did his bidding had been seen alternating between lazing around and trying to intimidate and wheel nonexistent power.    

Our Old Woman hero, had spent a goodly while documenting the corruption and misadventures of the Ruler's Fellas. She had not shied away from calling a spade a shovel and it seemed these tools were more than a little foreign to the Fellas.

This tardy slothful band of bozos had begun to get a little angsty. They were not happy having their work ethic or effectiveness questioned, and the Ruler also had had a bellyful of our Old Woman and her letters and social media exposes. The Ruler had firmly stuck his head in the sand but naturally kept his snout in the public money trough, as he hoped against hope that he would be re-elected so his reign could continue. The sloths, however,  began a campaign of destruction and intimidation. They broke laws and fist pumped with glee. They smashed up our heroine's property and they drove their chariots at the Old Woman's castle and when that didn't frighten her they marched right up to her becoming a very unattractive shade of puce, shouting and swearing like the banshees they were. They tried to frighten our Old Woman and scare her off. The tentacles swept in from many directions and tried to slap at her, but still she stood firm.

It seemed that our Old Woman was out of options and that she might have to just ride out the abuse and intimidation and threats unless one of the Fellas actually bashed her up, cos only then could the White Knights ride in with all guns blazing.

Perhaps a change in Rulers, might restore some sanity in the Kingdom?

George Pell should die in prison.

Decades ago I found myself teaching in a Catholic Girls' school. I started as a part timer and so my admitted atheism was no impediment to my work. Yeh I took the girls to Mass and my lot were exceptionally well behaved because I didn't want my quiet enjoyment of the church architecture and the iconic artwork and the smell of the incense to be interrupted by getting up teenagers. They prayed or thought rude thoughts, who knows what really went on in their minds and I didn't care so long as they knelt and sat and stood and sang on cue.

By the time I wanted to work full time I guess the powers that be were impressed enough in my teaching and my general morality, that they kept me on even though there was that small issue of belief to hurdle. I guess the Head Teacher, pulled on her track pants cos she was happy for me to stay.

Anyway, sadly the school was closing so I found another job and when I left the same Head Teacher gave me a plaque with that quote on it. I kept that plaque for many years, and even though it is now long gone I remember it fondly, even with the Godly reference.

Yeh she knew me well.

She knew that I never flinched from an argument or a fight that needed to be had. But she was a wise woman and she could also see that I sometimes lacked the ability to see that a particular brick wall had my name written all over it. She knew that I would go forward and spend an appalling amount of time and energy fighting important hopeless cases cos she saw that there was no OFF switch here. And this has been my painful head - banging truth.

It drives Steve mad. I see something that is irrational or unfair or illogical or dishonest and I have to go at it, too often like that bull in a china shop. I shout and thrash about and things get broken and sometimes, certainly not as often as I'd like, change happens.

I don't stop to wonder about the success of my protest, cos I argue that even if the probability of success is slim, the fight is not just worthwhile, it's vital that a voice be heard.

And so we get to George Pell.

I can barely contain my rage.

The idea that he has been party to long term abuse of more children than we can know about and that he now sits in luxury, cloistered and pampered and plays the bullshit card, is abhorrent to me. I feel the bile rising just thinking about it. And I am completely and utterly incredulous  as to how anyone reconciles this abuse and cover up and complete vacuum of justice, with a loving god.

I remember, 'Blessed be the Children'.... I don't recall 'Cover the fuck up all that abuse to try to save face'

Fuck him and all those other bastards who stole children's innocence and left them irreparably damaged. Send this scum off to the worst jail imaginable to suffer the consequences from less than forgiving in-mates. If I believed in a God it would have to be a wrathful deity who dealt out fitting punishments, certainly not forgiveness for a Hail Mary.

Roles and Lies

Does this look like an authentic signature?

I have lost count of the number of lies that have fallen out of anonymous Optus call centre operatives' gobs over the last 2 weeks. Today's epic call to Zac, who I am pretty sure had pushed the speaker button so that I could be the brunt of hysterical laughter with his co-workers, gave me cause to wonder just how honest anyone is, and in deed how honest I am, cos it's really only my integrity that I routinely doff my pride hat to.

So to the roles I have played and the lies I have told:

Daughter: Yeh Dad it is hot today- (My flushed face has nothing to do with that young fella I have been snogging like a maniac and who is now stashed in my wardrobe.)

Babysitter: The kids have been excellent. ( The little fuckers locked me out of the house for 2 hours)

Checkout Chick: I slipped with the scissors when I took my uniform up and now this is how it needs                               to be. (I have good legs and I will show 'em off not like these old fogies in the Deli.)

Student: I had to go home Sir cos I got my period - ( Yeh NO I was wagging class and going to the                   pictures.)
Retail Agent: Petrol, Tyres....just told it as it was.

Wife: Yeh I am happy - (And so I want a divorce.)

Teacher: I have no political opinions at all. ( What a walloper!)
               Your child is a little talkative (Your kid is a royal pain in the arse!)
                Mongolian herders live in yurts ( And they have no toilets so they get fatter and fatter until                   they go outsde and burst.)
                Yeh I think there might be so many lies told during my 30 years teaching that that's a whole                 other post.

Mother: Santa, Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny
              No I never did....
 
Call Centre Worker: Nope, it just wasn't important enough to lie...Sometimes the Bosses were not                                         amused but actual lies is where I drew the line. I was selling stuff so glossing up                                   was ok but actual lies were NOT  

Nah, I reckon I got into far more trouble telling the truth, but the truths had it, at least I have never had any trouble remembering the truths, and I reckon I am just not smart enough to keep a bunch of lies in order.

And that's exactly the problem faced by the Optus people I have had the very great misfortune to speak to this week. Once they lie, they need to remember what they have said and oh how they hate it when you point out that whatever crap that just fell outta their gobs contradicts what they said mere minutes before, they get all shitty. The list of lies told by Zac and Ryan and Brennon and Mandy, is just too long and bile making to bother with here, but suffice to say not one of these folk is bright enough keep even ONE lie in line let alone a string of 'em.    

I have now been told by these 4 gatekeepers that they would all email HARVEY WRIGHT on my behalf. Harvey, of the variable title, and of the 'I have never heard of him' fame. Harvey who has supposedly signed a business letter to me, but who has no business address that anyone is permitted to give me, yeh that's the same Harvey who is protected from return correspondence, and who does not have to take responsibility for his own correspondence. It's the same Harvey that one call centre worker said was so high up in the hierarchy that no details were available and that yeh he has a PA, but the PA needed to be protected from incoming letters too, yep even emails are considered too dangerous so it seemed.

Ho Hum huh?

I reckon if you asked a cross section of folk where they would be most likely to find an overwhelming percentage of lying scumbags, they'd probably start with politicians and car sales people and I'd agree, but now after the last 2 weeks, I reckon my list is topped by Optus call centre workers.

What's the biggest LIE you have heard recently? 


     

Do Artificial Colours scare you?

Autumn today! If such a thing happened here in the Goldie, it would herald the browns and oranges and the crunch of leaves underfoot. But as is well documented, no such thing exists here in the land of the perpetual stink, instead all it means to me is that the birthday month of February has come to a close and now as is too often the case, I am spending far too much time checking out poo cos I wonder if all the food colouring in the party fare is absorbed or just passes through.

I am happy to agree  that it's a strange thing to wonder about, but wondcr I do.

My girl can whip up a cake in just about any form you can think of and once upon a time the requests were pretty simple and covered in lots of chocolaty mess. But yesterday's bright bloody blue tardis might have taken the cake - sorry about that lame-o pun. The blue lingered on teeth and tongues of us all, and not cos we had chomped up a huge big chunk each.

We'd had lots of healthy meat and salad and the kids had vacuumed up some lolly water, and we'd cheered each other on over the snooker table. The kids had taught me to play hand ball in the garage - yeh very patient they were too. We had all siphoned up what seemed like gallons of water cos it was so bloody hot. Suffice to say we were all about full to pussy's bow and could only fit in a ladylike chunk.

It was delicious. I reckon it might have been the best tasting cake Belly has ever made, even if we had to dodge the straws she'd used as part of the engineering necessary to hold the tardis upright. But it was the instant BLUE which was most remarkable. We are all used to the yummo stuff she makes, but the big BLUE was new.

Now it can be no secret that there is very little artificial stuff that I won't shove in my gob, anything full of fat and sugar is fine with me, and I just don't give a shit what colour it is. All those sweeties that proudly proclaim they are artificial colourings free can only jump into my mouth if they are on sale, cos I only care about the sugar content and the price. Colourings don't scare me.

The bright blue of last night did fascinate me though. It stained fingers cos god knows no-one bothered with spoons or forks, shit I thought we did well to even pop the slices on the plates provided cos we ate it up with such gusto.

This is some serious blue stain.

If it appears anywhere else I will let you know.

Do you worry about what you pop into your gob?