GCCC There's a lot of Cs for ya.

It's no secret that I live next door to a park. When we were deciding about whether or not to buy the place, the park was a big factor. Would the visitors give me the shits with their little squeals of joy as they play on the swings? Would a dog be possible given that it's a DOG PARK? Would the Council keep it clean and tidy?

So the pros out weighed the cons and in we moved.

Mostly it has been pretty fab.

Except that the Council boy racers who whip around mowing the park have smashed into the brick fence a number of times and finally the bloody thing just gave up the ghost and fell over and the Council said, 'Tough shit, we don't have to be neighbourly and pay for half a new one, even if we did damage your old one, so fuck off, and fix it lickity split or else we will land you in all sorts of shit.'

So the insurance company helped us out.

And I painted the long bloody thing with 3 coats of sandy paint mix and then as soon as that was done and looking fab, the boy racers were back and the damage continues. Yeh Ho fucking Hum!

But at least twice a day we open the back gate and Dog does in deed go for a big old romp. She knows every blade of grass and tree trunk and just about every visitor. She is as much apart of the park furniture as the wheelie bins full of dog shit and the bench seating.

So whilst there has been some angst, mostly it has been a pleasure living next to 'The Old Girl'

Until a week and a half ago, the Council moved in a site office and a porta-loo and a rag tag bunch of fellas. They waved their hands around A LOT, and did quite a lot of leaning and pontificating and having smoko.

Finally I could bare the suspense no longer and so I trooped over to the site hut and asked what all the activity was about. See the thing is that a couple of weeks ago there was a council meeting about how to make the park safer from naughties and the overwhelming response was to add some lighting and make the place more family friendly, so I hoped that the fellas were all electricians in disguise and that lighting was gonna happen spit-spot. How efficient had the Council been after the meeting huh?

So it wouldn't have taken a gale force wind to knock me over when the foreman told me that they were putting in a walloping concrete path that was gonna cut right through the middle of the ball games area where the local kids throw a ball around and play a bit of cricket.

What the very fuck?

I am not sure who advocated for such lunacy, or how much it is costing, or how to go about putting a halt to it, but I do know it is a truly shit idea.

I speak to just about everyone who walks their dogs in the park. None of them thought it was even remotely necessary. I rang my Councillor and have managed to speak to his PA and was told the Councillor would ring me back. He didn't. Nor did anyone find it necessary to respond to my lengthy email requesting a halt to the work until the locals had been canvased.

Progress has been appallingly slow, but perhaps in council speak they have been cracking on just fine.

The park has been chopped in half.

There is nowhere for ball games.

I imagine that the path is gonna excite bike riders cos they are now gonna be able to rip right through the park, and I fear for my safety as well as Dog's.

I suppose that as soon as there is a crash between bike and dog and person, then there will be an edict sent down that dogs are no longer permitted to run free.

Who dreams up this shit?

The worker today said that the Council's explanation was that there was a need because if someone walks along the footpath and then onto the grass of the park and they fall over, then they can sue the Council. Sure, people in general have a great deal of trouble walking on grass - I don't think!

I don't know why I am giving this credence, perhaps because the Councillor has not seen fit to get back to me and it's the only explanation, regardless of how thin and ludicrous it is, that I have been given.

I have been in contact with the local paper and they don't seem to give a shit either. The only people who care are the actual folk who use the park. Yep the very same ones who are paying through the nose for the council to build that which they do not want to be built.

How can it happen that somewhere, last October a little group of anonymous council public money trough feeders got together and decided to put a walloping chunk of concrete in the middle of a public park. I am incredulous.

There was no consultation, no notice, no explanation, yet a meeting promoting safety can be organised at a moment's notice. It was well attended by locals and of course it would have been a perfect time to discuss the need for this shitting path. But the silence was deafening.

I am exhausted. Swallowing down bile for days and days at a time is just bloody tiring. Trying to find out What? and Why? and Who decided? and How much is it costing? is debilitating and anger making.

Seriously, what the very fuck?

Movie Review time: ' The Big Short'

It's that time of the year again when the movies that have been nominated for awards are being released, yep even here in Oz, and I do like to have a look at 'em to see if I can see what all the hype is about.

So last week I hopped off to see 'Joy' - I don't think it's nominated, but I really like Jennifer Lawrence and was looking forward to seeing this. UnfortunatelyI was a little underwhelmed. Yeh it's well put together , but the story line is just a little thin and predictable. I certainly wouldn't stump up Gold Class cash for this one.

But yesterday 'The Big Short' was on at a time that suited me so after a bit of a sanga and a successful mooch at Myer I slipped into the very lush seats at Gold Class at Pac Fair. An ordinary ticket in a little cinema there is 20 bucks and for 26 bucks I reckon the treat is worthwhile. The night time and weekend prices are just silly and it might be that there is some sort of pensioner discount monday thing going on, but anyway apart from all the old people, too thick to work out how to operate the recliners, it was bloody lovely to put my feet up in the cool aircon on such a stinker day.

Now anyone who owns a house or has ever had a mortgage, is probably aware of the financial melt down in 2007, so this movie based on truth, will not be too staggering, except that the scale of the deception and the bank fraud surprised me. I didn't expect to be surprised, but I bloody was.

The movie takes a bit of a doco look at some of the characters involved on the fringe who saw the avalanche coming and managed to warn and then buy up protection.

It was well put together and acted and the oldies might have been a smidge surprised by the language.

It made me cross, which I imagine was the point of the exercise.

And the final implication that the cycle is starting again truly gives me the screaming irrits.

If you haven't got a clear understanding of the melt down this movie explains things well, not easily but clearly. Pop along for an education and advice about what not to do if you are buying property, or Bonds. Yep steer clear of Bonds - not the undies, the bits of paper from the banks.

Is Long Hair just for Girls?

Me feeding the Sammy the Seal, the fella Jack maybe looking bored or is he wondering if I am a boy or a girl and the guy sucking on his pipe is my lovely Dad.

When I was a kid we'd troop off on our typical family holiday. For a long time that meant in an original open plan canvas tent, in the far northern beaches of NSW or the absolute southern end of the Goldie, in the middle of the torrential rain of the summer.

Dad didn't mind. He was a keen fisherman. Well actually he might well have been a 'keen to get away from 3 whinging kids and the wife, stuck in a leaky old canvas tent' fisherman, cos I don't think he cared whether or not his bucket was full on his return.

So he fished and we kids hit the beach.

Dad taught me to swim the old fashioned way, by throwing me onto a wave in medium sized surf and yelling 'Kick Hard!' For shits and giggles he'd occasionally pop me onto a dumper and when I surfaced I'd be giggling and choking in equal measure. I loved the surf! I don't believe his tried and tested method was nearly as effective with the other 2, and certainly the old woman never went in the surf for fear of getting her hair wet.

So, long before there was sun screen or compulsory hats or rashies or 'stay outta the sun at middays,' I was berry brown and had a mane of long blonde hair which would fill up with joy and salt and sunshine.

When I was about 7 or 8, the old girl had had a gut full, of what exactly I cannot say, but it's possible that I was a gobby little cow and had just pushed her too far, or maybe she was a snarky old bitch or perhaps it was a combination of the two. So, in the ultimate act of showing who was boss, she marched me down to the hairdressers and had all my hair cut off. I looked like a BOY. To say I was not best pleased, is perhaps the understatement of understatements. There started my hatred of my sticky out ears and my desperation to always hide behind my hair, until, that is, years later it all fell out as a result of the Chemo. Since then I have been far more sanguine about anything to do with hair. Bad colour? too bad - change it; shit hair cut - never mind it'll grow back ; hair breakage cos or all manner of abuse - suck it up and chop it off and start again. Of course now that it's falling out again I am going through a half minute of 'FUCK IT' but I am sure I will get over it, cos it is just hair. Hair that keeps your head a bit warm and clogs up the drain in the bathroom...just hair.

Anyway as the Grandie has been with us for a great deal of the summer, and as his hair is very long, I am reminded of how I hated the old woman's demand for the scissors. I would very much like him to get a haircut as part of his 'back to school' regime.

And it's not because I think it looks bad, although it does need a bit of a tidy up and he has taken to letting it fall across his face which means that I am forever telling him to brush it out of his eyes. He has great hair! A thick gloss mane of it!

I am worried that the kids at school are gonna tease and bully him about his hair and that will just be the start of another year of misery for him.

We were at the Southport Parklands today and his hair stood out like dog's balls, of course it is possible that I was the only one to think this. I didn't see kids charge away from him yelling out mean things or possies of girls all standing to one side pointing and laughing. But we all know just how cruel and mean kids can be. I feel like his hair is a time bombing ticking away, but really it must be his decision to go the chop.

He said yesterday that he just doesn't want to look like everyone else and I applaud that, I just wish he was a bit older and certainly a bit more resilient cos I watched last year as he crumbled under the bullies and I just don't want to give 'em anymore ammunition.

But maybe he'll become Samson as he swings those great locks. I sure as shit don't want to be his Delilah.

KMART just sucks.

OK, I should have known better. It's Saturday morning and the rain is lightly falling. I live in a tourist mecca and when it's wet the tourist punters head to the shops. The cheap skates with too many small children and pennies in their pockets head to Australia Fair Shopping Centre hunting out bargains to offset set against the rental on their tent spot. The folk with their AmX card loose in their pockets go to Marina Mirage. In this scenario, it would be perfectly fine to staff up your shop with firstly too few people, and then children who are too busy playing on their phones to give a shit about serving anyone. I mean after all you don't expect any repeat business and once the summer is over you might as well close up shop like they do in Greece and go on holiday yourself, until next year, or at least Easter School hols.

Except that that generalisation is just utter nonsense, cos it doesn't include what the locals are doing.

Yeh I should have known better than to front up to Australia Fair on a drizzly old Saturday in the middle of the summer holidays.

Parking up was fine and my little trip into Pillow Talk which was the draw card for the visit was very successful as I snavelled a couple more cushions for the outside couches to replace the old ones which were truly rotten. This shop must make it's money from serving the Locals. I mean not too many people go on holidays and spend their hard earned on cushions and mattress toppers in lieu of the usual souvenirs or long boozey lunches. So the staff here are helpful and pleasant and even looked after my big old bag of stuff until I was ready to go home. This could be because they recognise that they need to give reasonable service to encourage repeat business of the LOCALS, and it might also be because management sees the benefit in employing interested articulate adults.

So far so good.

I popped down to Woolies to grab a few bits for dinner and was in and out in a trice.

As I wandered I looked for hats. The truly shitful side effect of the poison is that my hair is falling out and so I thought I might just save myself all manner of anxiety by pulling on a hat anytime I go out the door. I found one I liked in David Jones the other day but the price nearly made me keel over and as I am not sure that I will in fact develop a hat habit I thought I should start more conservatively - yeh that means CHEAP.

So into KMART I went. The hat aisle was pretty close to the entrance which was excellent and I pulled on a few hats and then looked around for a mirror... NOPE! I don't know who buys a hat without seeing what it looks like on, although when I see at some people in the street, sporting all manner of awful millinery, I suppose it's more than I think. So I went in search of the change rooms at the far end of the store and tried 'em on. OK, but nothing fabulous, and they cost bugger all so you sort of get what you pay for I guess. 3 hats which are not hideous and off to the checkout.

I was bullied out of my spot in the self service line firstly by some huge bloke who not only pushed in front of me but 3 other people as well and that just led to an avalanche of pushing and shoving cos the polite system of wait your turn had well and truly broken down. I headed instead to the the old fashioned checkouts. Yeh I was spoiled for choice. Amid this madness there were 2 - yep TWO open. Both looked busy, so I figured it made no difference. Into line I chugged.

I was fourth in line - not too bad, and one guy only had a couple of pairs of socks. BONUS.

But don't count your chickens huh? I looked at the people ahead of me and then realised that this was a huge extended family of holiday punters and they had clearly come to Kmart to buy clothes sufficient to avoid doing any washing for any of the tribe for their entire stay, but they wanted a bargain. For the princely sum of $150 they must have had 40 different items, and each one was on sale and they argued the price of every other one. There were shoes and shirts and skirts and leggings and knickers of all sorts. Now that was some damn fine shopping!

To while away the time, I checked my emails and had a look on Facie and replied to a couple of text messages. The time inched along. About 15 minutes later I was still standing there. I Binged the store phone number and rang and asked if it was possible for them to open another register.

THE GIRL HUNG UP!

NO OTHER REGISTER WAS OPENED.

After I had paid for my 3 little hats, I asked to see the manager. The girl who I think almost certainly had hung up on me, grilled me for my reason for wanting the manager. I refused to discuss it with her and just asked again for the manager. She used the phone to call someone, she turned away from me so I was unable to hear what she was saying but I rather doubt it was polite, and I rather doubt she was speaking to the manager.

Cameron of the 'I don't have a name badge because I was climbing up a ladder' fame tried hard to be managerial but ultimately admitted that he was in deed NOT the manager cos the manager was Michael and he wasn't there.

Ok SO I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER.

REMINDER TO SELF - NEVER GO TO KMART ON A RAINY SATURDAY, OR MAYBE EVER!

For full and honest disclosure, Kmart ads should include that they are able to offer cheap prices because they are significantly under staffed and those children that are employed really just don't give a shit. And perhaps the store at Australia Fair should have a banner displayed at their entrance to advise punters to enter at their own risk, that they should expect nothing at all in terms of customer service, but that in deed the prices will be cheap enough to reflect third world exploitation.

Abuse

Autobiographies by famous folk, are all too often poorly written and just an excuse to name drop. I know this cos I read a lot of 'em. Yeh I am a tragic. But when I saw this one with a great recommendation from Stephen Fry I thought I'd have a look. And I certainly was not disappointed.

It is well written and really draws you in, and Mr Cumming tells his yarn in a mystery, 'who done what?' manner. It was hard to put down. It is shocking, an appalling read of physical and mental abuse. I am so very pleased that Mr Cumming managed to come through it all still able to share his talent and until his work on 'The Goodwife', his penchant for wild hairdos. If you read the book you will understand, but I am not including any spoiler alerts here, except to say that I rather doubt I would ever have managed to drag myself out of his mire. Well done Mr Cumming!

Bruises and cuts and broken bones are clear evidence that something is going on, and in today's world one would hope that through the school system, where teachers are professionally liable to report any suspected abuse, the kids could get some help. I like to believe that if Mr Cumming was at a Queensland school today something would have been done to stop the dreadful. It must have been as clear as the nose on his face to his teachers.

But there is only so much a teacher can do. I taught a lovely boy in London who arrived every day late to school. He was immediately put on afternoon detention. That was the rule. Every afternoon, whether I was in charge of the detention or not I would pop in see his lovely little face, call him out, tick his name off the list, ask him if he had eaten, he'd say, 'No Miss', I'd give him some food and a cuddle and send him on his way. When, of a sudden I left that school, I worried for his well being.

Children's services knew of his situation. His whole family, mother and brothers, were living in a bedsit. Mum was a drug addict who needed to prostitute herself at night for money to pay for everything and so the little fella got not much sleep. He did extremely well to come to school at all. I do so very much hope that he has thrived liked Mr Cumming.

I guess the point is that even when authorities know what is going on, untenable situations can be left to fester.

And what of the poor souls whose abuse is mental rather than physical? Those kids whose behaviour is strange or loopy or mean or withdrawn or even unreasonably upbeat, masking all manner of hurt and fear, more than likely slide by under the radar, cos god knows teachers have enough to deal with without having to psycho analyse everyone of their kids.

I know it is fantasy dreaming, but how lovely would it be if we could all just manage to be pleasant, honest, say what you mean, mean what you say. I am aware that sometimes the abuse is perpetrated by folk with mental illness and this is Mr Cumming's explanation if not excuse, for his dreadful father, but all too often I reckon it's just the frustration of power hungry fools that bubbles over, meanness and anger obliquely directed and the kids get caught in the crossfire.

Sadly asking everyone to be decent respectful individuals so the abuse can stop, is just a waste of a wish, cos most of us already are this and those who aren't will never be.

Oh shit I am turning into a preacher!

Optimism.

I am a glass half full kinda gal, I am sure I have mentioned this before. If I was gonna go for full disclosure, I might be tempted to cop to being a fill that fucker up kinda gal, but the half full option is more polite.

A while back I planted some tomato seedlings and since then have periodically been flashing up progress pics. To say I am very impressed with myself is quite the understatement. Yeh I have managed to grow a bit of straggly rosemary and more recently even a bit of Basil which Belly harvested for me and then she showed me how to slow roast the extra stuff for later. I just chucked that dried extra into my spag bol for tonight's dinner. Yep I really am a farmer.

The tomatoes are taking forever. There have been hundreds of little yellow flowers and the bushes' smell takes me back to the crop my dad grew, but to date there has been nothing that looks like the ones in the shops and that is my sad old criteria. I wont be eating anything that looks wierd. Yep I want 'em to be perfect.

So imagine my delight when yesterday's inspection revealed a reddening up of the first couple of tommies. This might actually be working.

There are dozens of rungs of fruit. Are they called that? or maybe stalks or vines or ladders. Really as my status of Farmer is make believe I haven't a clue, but there are lots and lots of greenies coming and as 2 have started ripen I reckon the others might do so too.

So instead of chucking out the bottle from the cook in lazy man's Indian sauce I used for left over spark up dinner last night, I kept it and put it through the disher in the ever optimistic hope that my crop will be so vast that I will have to oven dry some and bottle 'em up.

The bottle is not big, but it made me giggle like a girl when I discovered how pleased I am with myself.

I got my scores back from Dr Greg yesterday. The drop from 80 to 36 to 5 - yeh that's right FIVE, is bloody remarkable. White cell counts should be between 4 and 10. Yippee for my body behaving itself.

He said I was doing well. I did a little celebratory jig in the bath where I was lying amid the rolled oats and olive oil salve, when I spoke to him. ( Lucky it wasn't a skype call!) I was very pleased with the speed and efficacy of this stuff. I might have some shitty side effects but that shit is really working!

He also said that I am now Anemic - the shit is dragging away the red cells too. I should have guessed that cos I am tired and a bit breathless, ho fucking hum.

What I do wonder is how does the bone marrow know that the drugs have done their job and that attack on the white cells and all the rest of it can now stop.

I am to take this stuff til I am dead, and I don't know how the count down doesn't keep going down to nothing.

So for the second time this week I am aware of my optimism. I reckon I will that bottle and I reckon the Dr Greg knows what he's doing and that he will be able to explain it to me next time I am there.

Yippee.

  

New Techie gear gives me no thrills.

I am not a noted clumsy cow. I can generally make my way from A to B without falling over my own feet and without too many detours, unless there is an ice cream shop diversion involved. My fine motor skills are not too bad either, and whilst I wouldn't say that I can throw on earrings like I am playing darts, I can pop in a pair in a matter of seconds without the use of a mirror. Yeh I know that's not a lot to write home about, given that I have been feeling my way around said holes for nearly 40 years, but forgive me for feeling just a little proud given that it took me more than a year to take out the first installed sleepers cos the very idea made me feel more than a little nauseous. How I ever had a baby is anybody's guess.

So last Friday when I was grabbing my phone off the charger and when it flew out of my hands onto the very very concrete kitchen floor, well let's say I was a bit surprised and pissed off at myself. I hadn't quite managed to close the hard case protector - yeh fuck it!

I gathered it and had a look and even though I am no techie, I didn't think it looked too well. All down one side it was a bit cloudy and this cloud turned into a torrential storm system while I watched and pretty soon the whole fucking screen was pitch. The phone still worked and if I could just remember where all the swipe sensors were I could perhaps still use it, except that unlike in the old days when every important phone number was stored in MY HEAD, I have become reliant on the phone to remember all that shit for me. I do wonder when I became so bloody lazy. So as the screen was black and as I am to addicted to the tech to remember anything for myself, I had to see about fixing it.

I took it off to the mobile phone fix it pop up place at the local shopping centre and figured that some 11 year old there would be able to sort it out. There's a YouTube vid which shows a child fixing up a similar problem with electrical tape and a fine tipped soldering iron so I figured it must be possible.

But NO! The old girl was rooted. Well not terminally so, cos for 200 dollars the baby was gonna wave something akin to fairy dust over it and it might be better or it might not be. She encouraged me to buy a new phone instead.

But I hadn't done any research on that and I really liked my old one. It made sense to me. I had learned to navigate around the tiles and the photos were pretty good, not my photographer Carol good but ok for me. I went from phone shop to phone shop and spoke to so many children that I thought I might have been reincarnated as a prep school teacher, but to no avail. The agreement was that it was fucked. I planned a brief little funeral for her in my head and a sad tear slid down my face.

The choice of smart phones is just ridiculous! Except that I didn't want an I phone anything and the androids are ok and the Samsung looks pretty smick but what a price! 

The truth is I am used to my Nokia Windows phone. I like it. It makes sense to me. I can work it.

But Nokia was bought out by Microsoft and I wondered whether the new ones were as good as my Nokia.

Steve got stuck in and did some research.

We narrowed it down to a Nokia 820  - my old one and a Nokia 830. 

The 820 was a renovated one and I wondered just how much of other people's porn and family drama might be left behind so the 830 was a winner.

Now just for the best price. Online prices came in at about $320, but I hadn't actually held one and as the old one had done a swan dive outta my hands, I figured how it felt was important. Google told me that good old Harvey's nearby had 'em in stock and we decided that even if they were a bit more expensive then it might be better to get it from the as if there is any problem I wouldn't have to brush up on my mandarin to get it sorted.

Harvey's price was $350. The guy there, Guy, was very patient with this old bird who wanted comparative tables and a good old fashioned feel up of the handset. I liked it. But then it transpired that the only one they had was the demo model I had been playing with. Guy said he would be able to make it look like new and he'd remove all the shit on it and restore factory settings. We agreed a price of $280. What a bargain! 

Yippee. Guy took it in hand and called me when it was ready. Then he phaffed around with the sim card and got it all up and running. What a guy Guy was, is.

So now I need to get the newbie all sorted out so that she can become my new best friend. 

What I reckon is that there is an age cut off mark beyond which the excitement over new techie stuff dies a death. It's like a couple of old fellas that I know who kept hanging onto their Blackberries cos they were used to 'em. Finally when they died - the phones not the fellas, and new tech was needed there was not much thrill, only a lesson to be learned.  

Do you love new techie bits and bobs?