Thursday, i think

BHJ has been brilliant again.  In fact ... actually ... I don't even mean again.  I mean consistantly.  BHJ has been consistantly brilliant. Again. 

He most certainly deserves a cookie for his latest post.

Another unfinished project

Partially painted faces.

close-up of my two favourites :)

Lunch

So my step-father misheard mother's meal order at the cafe and bought her a marinaded beef strip wrap instead of the thai beef salad, so mother unwrapped it, whilst making disappointed mutterings about how she doesn't like to eat bread more than once a day and only ate the innards and left the wrap limp and lonely on the plate.  It was one of the more silly things I have seen her do.

But she didn't cry - so I feel it didn't go to bad over all. 

She did attempt to kidnap me and take me for a long drive - I managed to cut it short by saying I needed to go to the toilet.  My first excuse that I had intended to go home and do my washing whilst there was some dry weather not considered good enough, even though I only have one set of clean underwear left.  I am notorious for not perforrming domestic chores.  Everybody knows me too well.

If I have to hear about the tiger breadroll again I shall harm myself.  It was mislabeled as being $0.  Four times so far, even though I was actually there when they came back from the bakers Christmas Eve.  I just don't find it that interesting.

Christmas

Oh woe is me.
I STILL cannot hoola.

Pink champagne is consoling.

Painted bits for mobile for niece wot never has gotten made - have I mentioned previously how crap I am at painting?  Still I like the pig.

I still have trouble believing I forgot what a giraffe looks like - oy vey.

Woolliff in a dirty pan

Blossom on the new table

Merry Christmas

Chickens are roaming the yard and brother-in-law is pacing about chatting on the cordless phone, whilst in the kitchen mum is messing about.  I can here clanging.  Not sure what she is doing, but it probably involves cleaning.  She has been in a cleaning frenzy since she arrived.

I am sick.
I have a cold.
Feel relatively miserable, but content with my relatives.

Breakfast at eldest's.  Ham and cheese croisants.  Fruit salad.  Muffins.  Rasberry and blueberry and chocolate chip all in one muffin.  Exo.

Thought I might die yesterday.  Shopping did not agree with me.  Didn't finish it all either.  Lines at the bottle shop HUGE.  Sister agreed she was happy to wait until new year for her present.  Eldest's present is terrible.  Have no idea what to buy.  Felt like my brain exploded and for some reason have bought her some preserved lemons?

I have given her other things as well, but nothing she will like.  And she gave me a computer.  Preserved lemons = computer, not.  sigh

Sister told parent that she still had bon bons that parent bought last year, but then couldn't find them and had to buy more and sneak them into the house so that parent wouldn't know - lol.

I know I shouldn't think in terms of giving something of equal or better value when it comes to gifts, but I always do.  I have always been a little obsessive about balance.  The waking  nightmares I used to have as a child were all to do with imbalance (and some of the sleeping ones).  I went through a stage where if I walked on one type of surface with one foot, I needed to also walk it with my other foot.  A little back step leap when moving from pavement to grass.  It was silly though, so I made myself stop.   I know it is to early, but my new years resolution is all about balance.  Balance food and drink with exercise.  Expenditure with saving.  etc etc etc as the king would say.

Perhaps I shall mould a little set of scales from my used tissues to commenorate the decision?

Not my business, but anyway ...

Perhaps I've just had time to become accustomed to it now?
Looks quite good here.

Actuishly hic

Actually, I am not babysitting tonight, but I didn't know that till I arrived and anyway now I've had three glasses of wine and a fajita (sp?) and I gotta stay until I sober up enough to drive - has nothing to do with having access to my sister's internet - nope - not at all - I love the company of family - indeed

Nigella's express is taunting me with awesome cocktails and perfect hair.  and massive bossoms.  can't go past her bossoms.  The are so prominate though restrainedly featured.

I think I need another fajita (sp?) now.

blah

I am restless today.

If I were at home I would be wondering aimlessly from room to room and opening the fridge only to then shut it again because there is nothing in there I want.

I cannot settle to work.  I don't want to.  I want it to be four o'clock so I can go home.  Only today is babysitting day so I wouldn't be doing that either.

Every now and then the phrase 'chickin in a bra' drifts through my brain and I giggle slightly.

So ... I've a vague distracted air, restless movements, lack of concentration and I occasionally giggle for no apparent reason. 

Things that might have been ...

Okay - just thing - the birthday card Glenn Richards isn't going to receive this year (because I don't want to be creepy and he seems to be having enough trouble with mad fans at the moment anyway), would have been this ...

Isn't it awesome?

I saw it on the weekend :)

By Edward Monkton

Saturday Afternoon

My beautiful niece Caitlyn is one on Monday.
She is soo cute and sooo bloodyminded.
She refuses to crawl and will only sit up and scoot along the ground on her bum.

 It is the funniest thing to watch, but probably you kind of have to be there for it, ey?

Saturday

It is Saturday and hot.  The sun battles the clouds, resulting in a stink of humidity that suffocates skin.  Rough palms scuff and scrap delicate skin on face as sweat is swiped from upper lips and chins leaving red whimpering rashes that burn in the too harsh light, and perhaps I should have worn a shirt over my too skimpily topped dress?  The scooter trip to my sisters is probably just long enough for my bossom to get sunburnt.  Must remember not to lean forward.  Why do they make women's clothes so lowcut that one is nearly forced to wear a t-shirt under them?  Do they not know how hot it gets here?

BBQ today, but I think I may mostly eat dip and salad.  Can't face hot greasy bbqed sausage in this weather.  Perhaps I shall just wimp out in the airconditioning?  I've no reputation for socialbility to defend.

Have seen lots of things I would quite like to buy myself, but very little to actually buy for family members.  Agreed to go shopping with the parent tomorrow, which will probably be traumatic.  She asks me what she should buy me for Christmas, but she doesn't like any of the things I have suggested.  She has decided she is going to buy me clothes.  Only I rather fear I shall end up outfitted in clothes exactly like mothers.  Like the time she bought us matching vest coats.

Astonished

*blinks*
Good Lord

Oh the strain - the temptation

I saw Ninja shaped cookie cutters and I am desperate to buy them, but I don't got nobody to give them to?  But I needz to buy them.  They need buying. 

Maybe Secret Squirrel would like them?
Does Bec bake?
Maybe I should send them to Dan Kelly?  He cooks.
But I don't know if he bakes?

You should have seen all the cool stuff in the swanky baby/kids shop.  I wanted to buy nearly the whole store.

ARGH!!!
Christmas shopping is a trial.

Yo

Four hours I played Bejewlled Quest.
I thought surely it must end soon?
But no. 
And don't call me Shirley.

So last night I stopped myself at 9:30 (instead of the 11:38 of the previous evening) and thought ... hum ... I'll just have a little bit of a read and then ... lo ... it was 12:38.

What is with the 38's?

Still.  I didn't even have a glass of wine the other night. Or any snacks.

Perhaps I shall call this 'the bling diet'?

Still amused

Graduation ceremony went well, though long.  Slightly over two and a half hours of listening to speechs and individual introductions of children and their awards or other comments, such as "could be a good team member" and "sometimes contributed to class" - lol - and teachers bravely continuting to talk on and on even though they were starting to cry. 

Beautiful niece played in wind trio introduction music and another little bit and experienced a wardrobe malfunction (shoe broke) with beautiful comic timing.

Kids were very dressed up.  One little girl out the front chatting to other niece awed at her own dress costing a whole $90.  I think much of that was surprise that her parents willingly bought it for her.

Niece decided against the gold beaded glovish things.

Amused

A nieces grade seven graduation tonight.  Whilst babysitting last night offerred up jewellery choices for her perusal. 

Her older sister approved the pearls, but then she would.  I think she is growing up to be the Queen in her solidcoloured suits and pillbox hats.  I've never known a teenager with such restrained taste.

Graduating niece has gone with flash multicoloured jewlled chocker with green glass earings, together with gold beaded wrist cuffs with a middle finger attachment.  Though judging from the streak of lightning she became rushing to the bathroom to strip off accessories when her Uncle Peter turned up, perhaps she won't wear the glovesish thingies.

Dum-de-dum-de-da

The others have gone to buy food and I have the office to myself for a bit and therefore opportunity to check my blog :)

I miss my blog, but worry that even if I had a working computer at home in which to blog regularly on, I would have nothing to say.  Not a lot happening.  Not much cogitation experienced.  Certainly very little in the way of cleaning happening.  I think the cats and well and truly fed up with the state of the flat.  Their patience wearing thin.  Soon retribution will be enacted. 

I dreamed I was reconciling databases about cat poop the other night.

I fully meant to start on Sunday, since I bought the vacuum cleaner Saturday, but I had such a dreadful headache and it was so very hot.  35 degrees inside and the ceiling fans having very little positive effect.

When did I get so soft, that 35 degrees and probably only 80% humidity would have such an effect on me?  I blame Sydney  *shakes fist south* 

Cackling

Is THIS not one of the more marvelous clips for a song eva?

Saturday and I've got Friday on my mind

It is 9:30 in the morning.  I am on public access internet calling itself "Xpress Internet Access" and it has taken three and a half minutes just to log into my blogspot account. 

I've had my first eggs benedict in months and now feel ill.  Bing Crosby is crooning Silent Night over the shopping centre speakers accompanied by the stadium-like echo of babbling voices, footsteps and little shopping related rattles, clangs and rusles (how does one spell russels? I can't believe I've forgotten how to spell russles) (rustles?)(argh).

I treated myself badly last night - since I now can afford to do so - and feel a little shaky, which is probably contributing to the ill feeling.

I am up to Night Four in How to Make Gravy and am finding it a pleasant way to spend time in bed.

Off to go see how little money I have left, since I have been foolish and wasteful with my money and then possibly retire back to my digs to whimper and self castigate myself, before spending more time with Paul.

What are your plans?

Hermit Crab

I am all at sixs and sevens.  A messy desk and bits and pieces I am not sure how to do and pinning the lady down to find out has, so far, proved unsuccessful.  I do hate the beginning months of a new job when I don't really know what I am doing or where everything fits together - grrrrrr

I am going to put 'Stop Breathing' (Augie March song from album titled 'thanks for the memes') on repeat for the rest of the afternoon and do something finishable to put myself in a better frame of mind.

Blah blah blah

Thursday and I spent far too much money last night. I could have bought a vacuum cleaner for the amount I spent on books – sigh – but I’ve been wanting Paul Kelly’s book since it came out - I couldn’t resist any more - AND there was a new Jasper Fforde book – I can’t walk past a Jasper Fforde book! Tis unthinkable.

I am not in the mood to be here today darnit – I can see blue sky!

I should be at the strand reading a book on the grass in the shade of a tree, with the prospect of chicken and mango pizza in that café over the water later in the afternoon and perhaps then a nap in my hammock.

Gentleman brings his dog to work. Should be more of it. She is a cutey and has this little football she occasionally comes and begs me to throw.

If he ever stops bringing her I wonder if I can talk them into letting me bring a cat to work? That would be so awesome.

Something LISTENS!!!

I made jokes about having the sick lady cough on me, so that my mother would avoid me a bit while she is in town (since she thinks I have less cats than I actually do, so avoidance is a state much to be desired) AND NOW I AM GETTING SICK!

I fear to make idle wishes. 
Wot if the tire of the car that rudely barges past me really does burst?
PEOPLES LIVES ARE IN MY HANDS!

Pottering

Alone and abandoned, so I've decided to actually stop for lunch today.  Think only the fourth time I have done so since I've been here (including Melbourne Cup Day) - (which has been great cause I've lost a bit of weight - w00t! - though of course starving oneself is not a good way to go about such things, eh? *slaps wrist unrepetantly because is wearing a shirt I haven't been able to wear for a while*)

Have my fingers crossed that somebody with keys will turn up before closing to lock the office up, since I've none myself.

I am feeling terribly relaxed today.
In a pottering mood.
I think I shall put some Augie March/Glenn Richards on repeat and clean out the work fridge :)

Boss man is away at other office in different town.
Boss lady is on a personal day.
Lady leaving Friday has been sick all week, but popped in for a few hours today to go through some stuff with me and has gone again.  She is genuinely sick with a chest infection (which I would have turned up to work with if I were just about to finish and inflicted on everybody, but she has the added difficulty of not having anybody to look after her baby-daughter cause the mother-in-law who does the childcare for her is the one who gave her the chest infection - lol) - so must remember to speak up positively for her to boss when he comes back.

I am alone in a donga/office in front of an empty warehouse/shed in an industrial area.
It's lovely and quiet.
I always expected industrial areas would be more noisey during the day-time?
My fantasy of living in a big old empty warehouse is sounding better and better to me :)
Everytime I wonder through the workshop I imagine what it would look like furnished with masses of cheap crap bookcases to divide it into areas and old sheets hanging from the ceiling.  One could put all the bookcases on bricks and just hose the floor out when one needed to clean.  It would be great!

The cats would love it.

Gibbering with delight

... and to make my week complete the ever so fabulous whatever his name is, but currently his myspace page is under the name "The Commas" has a new song up *happy sigh*

I melt into a little happy puddle of sighs listening to him *sigh*

I think his name is Marc Pearl, but I can't remember why I think that.  I'm sure I probably put some effort into trying to find out more about him after I came across that song of his that I adore before (letter you wrote), like, last year or the year before or something.

So started work.  Two ladies in office.  Second week there second lady resigns.  Second lady is calling in sick all the time and therefore not available to teach me stuff for after she is gone.  First lady is stressed and overworked and nearly  having nervous breakdown (and near quitting too - the jokes about it are sounding less jokey).   It's rather like sharing a room with Rose Porteous flying off the handle during a 60 minute interview.

I'm sure it's not me.
I'm lovely to work with.
Honest!
People tell me so.





I am sure they are not just humouring me.

I made her listen to Dan Kelly's latest album this morning and she likes it a lot :) 

Yo

Oh god the frustration.
I have the album and no way of playing it.

I did spend some time reading the lyrics, which are cool and one of which mentions a bear riding a bicycle which made me think of Ed - lol.

I am not entirely sure how I managed to spend quite as much money as I have and I haven't yet bought cat supplies for the fortnight and I want shoes and a vaccum cleaner - why doesn't anybody sell cd walkman anymore?  Arse.

I had breakfast out.  It was nice, but uneventful. 

The lady I am working with is charming, but excessive and vocal.  A scene-maker.  Dramatic throwing of hands and working of ridiculously long hours and excitement in her personal life.  I wanted to gag her on Thursday.  I have definitely become an old cranky woman.  Probably I should just give up and go out and buy full brief knickers now.  Accept the inevitability.

Focus.  Shoes.  CD player.
Set top boxes and vaccum cleaners may need to wait for another day.
(only the humid weather has brought out the fleas and I soo wanted to get on top of the situation before it got on me - sigh)

Things that will make me mental

• not getting my grubby little paws on Glenn God Richards album in the near future (hopefully I will make it to JB Hi-Fi on my little scooter without getting run over by cars this evening - it is surrounded by a moat of 70/80 km roads)
• fleas
• hoighty-toity cats with opinions on the state of their litter trays on the day before I get paid
• lack of computer access (being very wicked and bad and sneaky using work computer right now, but very little opportunity to do so - sigh)
• Wet, rainy weather drowning my tomatos which were just about to finish producing their first set of fruit. 

but I am not all complaint.

I am actually feeling quite chipper and dashed into the shops between work and nieces end of year music concert to buy third & eigthth series of It Ain't Half Hot Mum - show I am watching over and over again obsessively lately for unknown reason.

Regression to childhood? 
Afternoon after school spent watching show?
Am I secretly hoping that this means someone else is going to magically turn up and cook my dinner?

Friday Afternoon

Gloomriden and overcast.
Concentration is shot and half the office is elsewhere.
It's quiet.
Too quiet.
The other chick is out the front sucking on down a ciggie.
I need her to show me stuff, but she seems to have given up on the day.
Boss lady left at lunchtime due to sick child and will go spare if I don't get to finish what I need to finish thing wot I need other chick to show me.

oOo OOO oOo

There's a clip for Dan Kelly's Dream!
Delightful and suitably disturbing.
If those young ladies lips were any bigger they would be in danger of swallowing their own heads - lol

(not going to get to read this tonight, so chucking it here for later)

Edit:  Was watching 'Last chance to see' cause I loved the book and I keep hoping I will like the show because Stephen Fry is lovely, but my attention always drift away and I start reading my book instead, but my nephew and his half brother were temporarily watching with me, instead of playing whatever computer game they were playing, maybe age of empires? I don't know and Stephen Fry and Mark were talking about sharks being killed for their fins and how they often just cut the fins off and chuck the still living sharks back in the water and my nephew piped up with "They should at least give them prosethtics first".

(sometimes I can't believe that I am one of those lame over fond aunties who bore complete strangers with things their young relatives have done - sorry)

Lazy Sunday Afternoon

This is how my day kind of started off ...

But actually, I didn't lack coffee - I lacked milk - but then after lunch when I started cutting the grass with scissors because I was soo bored (um ... not all the grass - this is the grass that has been growing up where my pumpkin vines have been going apeshit - it is still quite a lot of grass though) when I decided I should start making food and remembered that I had bought cream yesterday, because it was reduced to 90c (bargain!) - it has to be used by 1 November (which is tomorrow - which is not going to happen - but I like living on the edge, dude), so I had me some coffee and everything was much better then :)

My nephew won best dressed at the fancydress disco.
I do not know if there was any pashing.
The blister that developed on my finger from the scissors burst.
There's something very therapeutic about hacking at plants.
That's the real reason I garden.  I'm just growing scrubs so that I get to prune stuff.

Baby babysitting

Looking after my nearly one year old niece for an hour or so.
Lots of pretending it is really the stuffed toy tasmanian devil growlling with return growl.
(growlling babies are funny)
There is a little rubber cow and a little rubber pig.
She mooooo'ed back to me, but couldn't manage a piggie snort.
My sister has no rubber chickens *disappointed face*
I'm enjoy bokking.
I practice on my brother-in-laws chickens.
A bokking baby would be funny, ey?

Baby makes a liar of me and would not moo when parents came back.

Friday and I've got Zombies on my mind

Well hopefully I have done okay for my first week.
She said so anyway.
(but actually I could have done better ifin I'd not dithered so much and been overcareful because large sums of money was involved).

I wonder if I won the lotto whether I'd get over my allergy for large sums of money?
Maybe I should write to them?
Put it to the Golden Casket people and see wot they say?
Will you assist me in getting over a silly phobia about dealing with large sums of money, by giving me large sums of money?

I am deputised to apply my nephew's vampire makeup for the fancy dress school disco in my sister's stead.  She has made herself up as a zombie and is escorting my niece to her basketball semi-final (she isn't going to have time to get changed when she comes back to pick up the nephew, you see?)

Fuzzy - not wearing glasses

Three days down and contemplating finances today.

Will get tiny weeny bit of money from centrelink tomorrow and then possibly get four days pay from new job sometime mid-next week (fingers crossed) and then have to work out how to pay three weeks rent with it, since I will be getting paid fortnightly and their pay days run just two days ahead of my rent day (or is that behind? I am confused) - gah!

I knew I shouldn't have fantasied about buying Thai takeway and shoes.  I just knew it would lead to disappointment.  I said to myself "no NO! Don't think about stuff you could buy", but would I listen to myself? NooooOOOOOoooooooo.

So sometime mid-November I shall be able to eat something lovely.  Heck - maybe I shall take myself to a restaurant with a new book, ey?  Go the whole hog.  Perhaps I shall buy a frock?

But you know what this all means, don't you?  It means I might get to go see Mr Richards and the WHOLE band play sometime next year - if they play on a Saturday somewhere I can fly to in a day.  Maybe even Mr Kelly again.  Either Mr Kellys.  They're always an excellent night out :)

NO!

Stop thinking bout spending money - aaaarrrrrgggghhhhh
*slaps self in head*

WE HAVE ACHIEVED EMPLOYMENT!!!!

I can't believe I am this excited :)
I start Tuesday.
w00t w00t w00t

This means I get out of the participation interview with Centrelink too AND the uniform does not involve blue shirts like wot they wear in supermarkets :)

*bounce bounce bounce*
tra-la-la-LA
Happy happy joy joy

Riding a waffle to no where

Been doing nothing.
Rereading Terry Pratchett books.

Occasional job interviews that I don't get.  Fifteen year olds who can't spell 'administration' and have never seen the word 'negotiate' and don't know how to pronounce it get second interviews - lol .

Was asked to make a car out of a milkway bar and some smarties yesterday at the course.  Allegedly a little fun activity to show leadership, but there were only two of us there.  I led myself well, at any rate, it would seem.  They liked the little milkway scooter I made.

Interview at 1:30 today and was dressed by 7:30.  Restless.  Scooter-ed to a sisters and was given coffee and money.  I spent it all within a day of my dole payment and have run out of kitty litter a week too early.

Monday will see me head of a chocolate car creation team of five.  This time I shall instruct somebody to stick smarties to the chest of the second chocolate biscuit teddy, so she looks like a proper bikies moll.

I think the instructor is going to have some musk-sticks for us too.  Maybe I could have the biker teddy biscuit pulling up outside a strippers bar with an enhanced chocolate teddy biscuit pole-dancing?

Thursday

Please, oh god that i do not believe in, please send me a job so that i don't have to stay shut in a room with delinquent busty blonde hyperactive teenagers who never shut up anymore.  Please.
*sigh*

Update 8/10/10:  I mentioned this to my brother-in-law and he has started wondering if perhaps he should go back to do some study - lol

Nother song *bounce bounce bounce*

w00t!
nother song from Mr Richards to listen too :)  called long pigs
does not this man have an awesome talent for song titles or wot
and a seriously cute kitty too
i could not ask for more in a youtube clip

was terribly depressed last night after the first day of the course - do you know beauty and the geek? you know how many of the beauties had really quite lovely and bubbly personalities but were thick as bricks?  young girls in group did not know the word 'concise' or 'rapport' and one girl asked how to spell 'possible'

i am a cranky old woman who has too many cats and sometimes drinks sherry - it is cruel to stick me in a room with giggling teenage blondes in too tight clothes and vast expanses of bosom, being lectured by a lady with a very loud intense voice imparting her views on boat people and that choking can kill you (duh) - though she is also a very nice woman and i am being ungrateful - argh

so mother rang last night when i was feeling all sad and cryee and i ended up asking to borrow money so i could still go to cairns for my treat - i am pathetic sometimes, oui?

... my cats could stand to lose some weight though

Maybe I could spend all tomorrow cutting old newspapers into strips to use as kitty litter?

Maybe the cats could live on dry cat food for a fortnight?

I have developed substantial fat reserves.  Probably I could get by on a spoon full of peanut butter?

Maybe ...

Bugger

Well ... arse.  I won't be able to afford to go to Cairns after all.  Annual account keeping fees etc leave me with not enough to pay for bus trip and cat food.

arse arse arse arse

(I shall spend the rest of the day kicking the dirt and muttering sulkily that I didn't want to spend twelve hours on a bus for what will probably end up being only six songs anyway - blatantly untrue, but perhaps if I tell myself enough I may come to believe it)

Chewing bottom lip thoughtfully

I am not sure how I feel about being placed into a government program to obtain a Certificate II in Business.  It appears to consist of basic customer service and word processing - both of which one would hope I had the hang of by now considering I have been working for twenty years - and then entrance into an apprenticeship or traineeship?

Ladies at the last permanent job I worked at used to come to me for assistance when they got stuck taking their Certificate IV.

Still ... it will be something for me to do during the day - which is a good thing because I go nuts sitting about at home.  9 till 3 Monday to Thursday.

Should I try and become an hairdresser? 

The last hairdresser said I had no talent for it when I went in for a tidy up after chopping off my split ends one frustrated evening when they kept knotting up when I was brushing my hair.

I can't help but think I am taking the place of somebody more deserving and who would appreciate it more.  I worry I shall be disruptive in class.  The lady at the last place of work who was training us banned me from answering anymore questions.  I was the 'Martin' of the group.

Blinks bewilderedly into the day

So in my dream this morning, I was working in something like a newsagency, except bigger with more staff and it was run by Richard Branson.  I also seemed to have bags of my old shoes there, along with a bag of the stuffed toys I had as a child.  Justin Beiber (sp?) wanted one of the used toys.  I offered the large fuzzy mouse, but he only wanted the chicken slippers.

Richard said there was lots of good buzz about me and I was an up and comer.

Then I woke up and Blossom-cat, who had been playing with one of my shoes, decided to leap on the bed - however a claw had still been attached to the shoe (which is a very light slipper type shoe) and consequently it was flung up a-la sling-shot and smacked me in the face.

Good morning, I think?

I accept my fate

My descent into mad old ladydom is complete.
I have started drinking dry sherry.

(they come in conveniently large 2 litre bottles - which would be handy to have laying about if one wants to store up drinking water at the commencement of a cyclone warning - is 17% alcohol, isn't too sweet and was only $10 - bargain)

Wednesday

i sit still
while without the wind moves
a chicken plucks a cherry tomato
and clucking removes now in search of bugs

breathe
summers moist air
like a caress to the throat
with eyes closed against glare
a cricket's song ends abruptly

bok bok bok
i chase chicken away from cat food

Saturday

Fourish hours work doing stocktake in a warehouse.
Bid wear black and closed shoes.
I whacked my pearls on to add some class.

Had not realised my hands had become so colour coordinated with my outfit (I was very focused on my counting).  Had been wiping the sweat from my upper lip and mouth.

*sigh* I think it would have been nice if somebody had mentioned to me that I had put black dirt smudges around my mouth - like a mustache and goatee beard.

I may yet get to go hear Mr Richards playing support for Clare Bowditch in Cairns.  I've found close and cheap accommodation and bought a ticket.  I just have to manage to get there.  I concede a twelve hour return bus trip may seem a little excessive to listen to a support act, but I would quite like to see Clare Bowditch perform too.

I am not totally nuts.

and then there were six

Michael Fuzzball

Missing since Sunday

I think there's something in that for all of us

I often wonder this also.

(I also wonder if the quote I used as the title was from the D-Generation or one of the other comedy skit shows that was on television around about that time - and what was that guys name again? - and why isn't he hosting Sunday Arts anymore? - and by the way my niece came second in her solo poem reading performance at the eisteddfod today portraying a sad mouse whose mother had just chucked her out of home because she was lactose intolerant and didn't eat cheese - it ended in the tragic death of the mother mouse snapped in a trap due to her addiction to the substance - a judgment on the intolerant against the intolerant, ey?)

Group Mime

Obviously I have a very stick-in-the-mud, old fashioned idea of what mime is.  In actually it turned out to be acting out something with no lines. 

Nary a person stuck in a box or walking against a wind in the lot of them.  The best bits was when the sad clown got pelted with imaginary juggling balls by the two mean clowns and when the bus crashed.

Also my niece does an excellent robber running from police to benny hill music.

Oh my gosh!

My 12 year old niece is competing in "Group Mime" as part of the Eisteddfod tonight.  Grades 4 to 7.  I had no idea there was such a thing as group mime.  I feel this is something I need to experience.

I shall report in tomorrow if I haven't tried to kill myself by the time Grade 5 comes out.

Lord Vetinari:  He has banned street theatre and hangs mime artists upside down in a scorpion pit opposite a sign that says "Learn The Words".  Terry Pratchett

Amused

Came across this clip on rage. The lady looks remarkably like one of my nieces. 

Have therefore showed it to said niece and she's played it four times in a row already - she only stopped because they had to leave for basketball - lol

Hangs head in shame

I am so crap at being unemployed and frugal.

New Terry Pratchett book out in hardback. 
Saw yesterday. 
Bought yesterday. 
Read yesterday. 

*sigh*

Over too soon.


Have three baby butternut pumpkins developing on my rampantly growing pumpkin vines.  On daily look-out for female flowers to interfere with.

Male flowers bloom at the beginning/middle of the mess of vines and lady flowers are more to the ends of the vines.  I could leave it up to the bees, but the idea of pollinating personally tickles my fancy.  Preggers on first go, poor little vine.

Born under a bad sign

Well ... it would appear that I am a doofus.
Again.

Show up for obligatory appointment with government employment agency to find that Centrelink were expecting me for my first lodgement Monday the 6th and not 16th as I had thought.  Sure she had a thick accent, but she was absolutely lovely and I thought I understood her perfectly at the time.

I only rang on Friday.
Monday seems terribly quick to get organised by when I gotta go to the other place first.  I haven't even received any paperwork in the mail yet.

So I couldn't have my interview/discussion at the government employment place, cause I am no longer on the system and have to start all over again.

Aye currambah.

I wonder if there is some kind of pagan ceremony I can perform to exorcise my doofusness?  I'm up for it.  As long as I don't gotta dance about nekkid.

Update:  back on track with unemployment stuff - some sort of computer gremlin - try book appointment with gov-emp Monday.

Sigh

I've been a good girl.  I have applied for a couple of jobs - even though, what I really want to do is slack about for a couple of weeks.

I thought the gardening would energise me a little.  Certainly the large solid looking gray spider that emerged from the ground when I was digging a hole caused some swift movement on my part, but mostly just resulted in me having flashbacks as I was about to go to sleep last night.  I think it was a wolf spider (picture at bottom of page of link) but am not sure - there are so many to chose from.

Bloody hate spiders.

Technically I appreciate them and their role in the ecosystem, but I just don't want them near me.  It wouldn't die either.  I kept missing with the hoe and when I did think I'd hit it, it seemed to have no effect.  I think it is still out there.  Doesn't make me want to do any more gardening.

If only it hadn't crawled towards me.  I could have coped if it'd gone the other direction.  I have to go now - I have the shudders again just thinking about it.

My Monday after the encounter with the spider may have slightly resembled this ExplodingDog Cartoon.

Flappy hand wave

It having been so long since I have interacted with anybody, I find it hard to start again.  Rather like the few times I saw my dad after the family broke up.  Nothing to talk about - and as it turned out, no real shared history to base anything on.  He'd always been off working the farm or watching television or talking to other adults.  Being thrown up into the air and caught again when I was a toddler, though thrilling at the time, doesn't leave one with much to converse about.

I am getting a lot of reading done.

I bought a quill and some ink on Thursday.  Perhaps I shall inflict some handwritten letters onto friends next week :) 

I'm FREE!

Called to assemble for a meeting Wednesday afternoon, five minutes before due to log-off and be let loose for the evening, we are informed instructions have come from on-high that all labour hire employees are no longer required and I attempt to stifle my joy discretely and fail, whilst one of my favourite ladies starts to cry.

I am not cut out for call centre work, though perhaps I judge harsh and unfairly? 

I wasn't busy enough because I only knew how to do a little bit of what was required and we weren't allowed to read books or surf the web in-between calls which left me starring off into space figuratively gnawing off a virtual leg and trying to work out finances - as if one is claiming unemployment one is not really supposed to voluntarily leave a job without a good reason and thus apparently incurring a eight week wait before payments will start. 

Enforced stillness has a bad effect on me.  I get emotional and paranoid and like to burst into tears at the slightest provocation.  Completely ridiculous, I know, but I've never had any control over that part of myself and therefore a further downward spiral into self-loathing is like to start, so really ... I cannot express how grateful I am to be let go :)

I have a fridge.  I have chairs.  I have met some very very nice people.  I have even managed to pay off my credit card (though that probably won't last for long).  I have done well out of my last temp job.

Other stuff I wrote whilst at work

O how I miss thee
ever reliable online rhyming dictionary
wot previous was a finger-tip type away
you always knew just what to say
***
Who was it who wrote that song what goes like "time keeps on ticking ticking ticking into the future"?  I want to punch them in the nose.
***
unhappy with my lot
I invest in lotto
***
I wonder if there is a limit to how much Camomile Tea one should drink a day?
***
I would like to live somewhere that has church bells that ring out the hour, like Hobart, but not actually in Hobart.  Hobart is too cold.
***
Like hyperactive ants at the start of their working day
Keen to go forth and produce for Queen and nest
They are feckin' little annoying pests
getting into sealed jars, cupboards and plastic packets, what choice is left?
but to poison the little bast--d pests
Camomile doesn't seem quite enough
or an appropriate equivalent to snuff
out rambunctious bothersome nerves
as poison to ants, what would better serve?
Has anybody got any proper d---s?
sigh, it's not even lunchtime yet.

Stuff I wrote at work

Nothing
my brain screams
stretching the word out to breaking
but quietly
and to itself
instead of shooting off its mouth
and disturbing others who might be less than understanding
at my inability to function without something to distract me
and why is it that when I have to the time to do something right
I will nearly always do it wrong?

***
raindrops keep falling on my head
and running through my brain
but only that one line
over and over again
and maybe i should sing the song that has no end
attack being the best way to defend
but that would just result in my attacking myself with something worse than I already am
farout, this is doing my head in

***
um ... a single rhyme to while the time
that is passing so slowly
but so
I find I'm lacking a rhyme
to torture and tease into some kind of line
leaving me in a bit of a bind
and bereft
loose
dangling in the wind
like unconfined genitalia
and the afternoon continues slowly

Sunday

Only five minutes left of paid internet and I've read hardly anything and how am I going to write anything in that time? gah!

Moooooaannnnnnnnnnn

Aye currumba - these new people - darn them - they leave no signs.  No checklists with insultingly large ticks.  No leaving the grill door open so you know they've been.  Nothing.  Nada.  I have to wait (and anticipate) a letter containing disheartening comments.  Probably they will say something about my old fridge which is currently residing in my carport until such time as I can find someone to take it away.  Maybe they will insist it be gone in two weeks and come back and inspect.  Who knows?  I could care less.  I am sick.  I care for nothing.  Lord please kill me now, so that I do not have to suffer this cold further.

There are no obvious coughs or running red nose to garner sympathy with.  I just feel really really bad.  I live on in vain hope that Glenn Richards will magically release his solo album over the weekend and I can at least die happy.  (I have fingers crossed it will be out by the end of the year).

I am an embarrassement of a fangirl *sigh*  I acknowledge my failings.  When working the election hotline I mentioned him and Augie March whenever Shepparton cropped up or some other town mentioned in one of his songs.  Even Melbourne airport was a trigger, cause the only reason I knew how to spell it was because of The night is a blackbird.

Having spent the last month answering questions about early voting, whether or not somebody is on the electoral roll and attempting to reassure panicing little old ladies about fines, I am afraid I am a little over the election. 

I am still considering watching the coverage this evening, which will make this only the second election I have ever done that for.

Leadup to latest Rental Inspection

Why do my cats always vomit when I clean house?  I woke to the sweet sounds of retching.  I gave gentle encouragement to Mary-cat to stay in the one spot and to please, please, vomit on the floor and not on an object. The time one of my cats vomited atop my flatmates black mesh entertainment stand and it dribbled through into the television and dvd player is still vivid in my memory.  They are not used to vomiting these inside cats.  They fight against it.  No history of habitual grass chewing and purging behind them.  She tries to swallow it down as it comes up and chews on the remnants like a ruminant.

Morning

I could but flee in horror.

I puttered over to Palmer Street to sit in the sun and breakfast but some middle-aged/old man with a microphone and an electric piano was singing some kind of easy listening/country music song.  Swear to god it was market music (you know ... there is always some older man with a punch and a PA singing "if I said you had a beautiful body would you hold it against me" or "sometimes you have to fight when your a man").  Insupportable at such an early hour.

So I went to my usual place where the food is not so great and the view is of a building sight.

I feel better now.

Sooooooo fuuunnnnnnnnnyyyyyyyy

This woman is just awesome

Monday Night

Michael-cat mewed to come in.  Late night snack time. When finished he hopped on to the ottoman near my chair.  I petted him.  He hissed and swatted my hand.  Blossom-cat approached.  Michael-cat hissed at him as well.  He stared and stared and stared at the door, looking desperate and nervy.  I got up to let him out and he promptly nicked my chair, sprawled out aggressively limp and went to sleep.

I'd been faked out by a fat old cat with dermatitis.
Sheesh.

Sunday Afternoon

The burst of domesticity passed quickly, leaving only a clean kitchen floor as evidence.  The lounge room lurked in diffused light.  Muted, soothing colours distracting the eye from the dust-laiden depths of packed and cluttered bookcases.  The gentle, lulling swish-swish-swish of the ceiling fan stirred the drifts of cat fur in the corners.  Dirt along the sideboards added definition to the divide between floor and wall. Books and papers were strewn carelessly next to table and chair.  Precarious piles of stuff teetered top bookcases from past half-hearted efforts at tidying.

Asleep in an old cane lounge chair with ancient floral pattern, feet resting on a white plastic basket filled with yet more random stuff, reposed a pudgy middle-aged woman; an open book and tabby cat on her lap.  

The afternoon had dawdled.  With only various types of football and other uninteresting offerings on television she had defaulted to reading, even though she had not really been in the mood for it.  Should-haves and ought-tos and vague amorphous worries cycled pointlessly through her brain, making it impossible to concentrate and sapping her will to continue in a physical activity she deemed pointless.  It will all just get dirty again.

She twitched as she dreamed.  An acolyte of some esoteric order.  She had been tasked with filing documents scattered across the floor of a room.  As she achieved some semblance of order more papers would blow in and she would bend to work again.  In true dreamlike fashion there were no doors or windows for these documents to come in from and filing cabinet drawers seemed endlessly long.

The dream had a surprisingly soothing quality to it, unlike if it were real life.  Pressure-less occupation.  No rush. Just infinite filing.  An endless bloodless battle between order and chaos, in perfect balance.

Unlike my house, she thought when she woke, which is heavily weighted in favour with chaos.

The cat purred when she stretched.  Aggressively limp and immovable.  She pet him before pushing him off.

... and so

... and so, since I have a working fridge I have stocked it with food and cooked and therefore eaten excessively and uncomfortably of spagboll - it so hard to know when to stop *sigh*

oh woe
the excesses of the night
roosting in the day
rather uncomfortably in my belly

I said 'marvelous' when chatting to a woman between calls yesterday (the one who started laughing when I said I had cats).  She appeared to find this weird and laughed at me a bit.  Who knew saying marvelous was non-herd behaviour?  Why didn't someone tell me?  Just as well I know not to say 'rather' out loud.  Perhaps that would have earned a 'point at and laugh'?  It certainly didn't go down well in Grade four that time at school.

One gets gentle reminders if one starts back to early from the fifteen minute tea breaks and more gentle reminders if one is a minute or two late.  Said I'd been cracking at 14:30 and was advised to try and hack it out till 14:45.  I am counting down the remaining weeks and reminding myself that money is a useful thing and something we all need to be receiving on a regular basis in this modern world and that I have cats to feed.

We are not allowed to have books or magazines on the desks and have nothing to do between telephone calls.  I am going a little batty at the desk.

Yo

They are tearing our mall up and turning it back into a street.  Bits of concrete and dust everywhere.  Fences with shadecloth and that weird orange mesh to mark holes in the ground.  It's great.  I think I almost like it better than the trees.  The fences change each weekend I am here. 

Somewhat pissed I made a mess on a small square of canvas last night with some paint and in the morning light I wonder what I can do to it to make it look nice.  Perhaps you have never heard of Mr Squiggle?  It was a childrens show where kids would post in some scribble and Mr Squiggle would turn it into a picture of something with his pencil nose whilst it was upside down on a talking grumpy blackboard. 

I lack Mr Squiggles skills.  It may never look nice. 

Sadly, I am no artist.  I know bugger all about painting.  I am not much interested in learning.  Strangely though, every now and then, I get the urge to smack paint on a surface.  Perhaps it is just some kind of thwarted vocational urge showing itself and I was really meant to be a house painter?

Off in search of food.
Hungry now.
Bye.

P.S.  second hand fridge gets delivered Monday -woot!

Babysitting

I am very sleepy. 
Overhear part of eldest nieces phone conversation. 
Giggly mock fight in progress with friend. 
One of those "I hate you" "I hate you more" ones. 
She ups the anty by telling her friend "I hate your bunny".

Afternoon

Well ... I have layby (half now and half next week) a fridge and two old chairs with funky fabric.  I shall have to clean.  A fridge and freezer for $295 which is about thirty or forty dollars cheaper than the cute black barfridge.  Sadly they don't deliver on weekends.  The delivery dude is a seventh day Adventist and doesn't work Saturdays.

My wyrd is worn on sleeve, it appears.  Yesterday at work was chatting with another lady during a lull in the phones and she asked me if I had children or had ever been married.  I replied, no, I have cats.  Which caused her to collapse in giggles and slap the divide between herself and the other lady she is friends with and exclaim through the laughter "she has cats".  Apparently they had been speculating earlier in the day and she had remarked that I looked like a cat lady.

Morning :)

Michael-cat found the catnip I planted in the garden and has eaten it nearly down to the ground.  Had to put a plastic box over it this morning.  Think he discovered it yesterday and has been hopped up on it ever since.  Is no longer interested in the cat grass or the cat mint.  It's only the hard stuff he desires now.

I didn't mean to go into the African shop.  It has such lovely stuff in it.  They stock bits of fossils and old roman rings as well as cd's, clothes, jewellary and hair.  I'd love to have an old roman ring or a fossil necklace, but resisted only to fall at the shirts.  They looked like hybrid safari shirts.  Like they had taken the shoulders, sleeves and pockets and sown them onto funky fabric.  I am supposed to be buying a fridge today damnit!

*curses her own weakness and lack of control*

Breakfast was fantastic.  I was contemplating never going there again even though I love my table and balcony, but the eggs benedict is terrible and the normal eggs and bacon is just ordinary.  I had forgotten they do an awesome BLT.  *sighs happily*

I shall now go to the second hand shop before I get distracted by any other awesome potentially purchasable objects/stuff/clothes/books/music/things and look at old fridges.  I shall try and put the funky matte-black bar fridge I saw at Joyce Maine completely out of my head.  I shall think cheap.  I shall think worthy frugality.

ciao

Recommendation - book

Seriously fabulous books - Constance and Gwenyth Little - whodoneitbooks.

When I get a chance (and have some money which will be a while cause I gotta buy stuff and pay off credit card and stuff) am going to have a thorough look through the Rou Morgue Press catalog.

Same old same old

Well darn.
Scooter conked out on way to work.
Thought perhaps I'd just run out of petrol, since my petrol gage don't work, but sister picked me up after work with fuel and it didn't start, so we are thinking 'sparkplug'.

sigh

I soo shouldn't be trusted with machinery.

Where's my chauffeur?
Damnit.
*shakes fist at uncaring amorphous supreme being*

P.S.  still don't have a fridge yet - bought gardening stuff instead :)

Hahahahahaahhahahahahahaahha

My niece just showed me this - hahahahahah - it's so funny!

Chugging along

Call Centre training good.  Started on phones today.  Odd to have such a regimented work life.  Sign on, tea break, sign back, lunch break, sign back, tea break, sign back, sign off.  Don't think I stuffed up too much.

Catch up blogging in near future.
Fridge before computer.
Maybe both on weekend, ey?
That would be awesome :)

*** ten minutes later ***

Aye Currumba!  I logged on to the centrelink website to do the self service thing, but couldn't work out how to do it.  It may have something to do with not actually having to report until september sometime.  I shall have to ring and hope I get through in half an hour tomorrow morning at 8 am.

I am a doofus. 
I knew I should have tried calling before now. 
I've been putting it off.
Bad Sammy *slaps wrist*
prevarication never pays

Raided the teenage section of the library and found some fantasy books to read.  I am so immature :)

Argh

I swear I wrote comments, but they aren't there?  Maybe next time I login there will be thousands of the same comment because I just kept re-entering it.

Dan Kelly interview link for sometime when I have computer access/money/will to live.

More training. 
I think I have turned into a zombie.

There was a bottle of red wine for only $1.95 - bargain!

The freezer that thinks its a fridge is starting to think that perhaps what it really wants to be is a toaster.

Normal services will resume in a fortnight (i think)

I haven't read posts for nearly a week and I can't see when I am going to catch up.
*sigh*
I started a temp job Friday.  I shall be working in a call centre.  I got call from a recruitment place midday Thursday asking me to come in that afternoon for interview/tests and then started training the next day.  All day yesterday was about how to answer the telephone.  Hopefully Tuesday (monday public holiday) will be about what we have to actually talk about.  It's all very well to say to use positive language and to never say "I don't know" but it would be helpful to know enough not to be placed in the position of not actually knowing.

Still ... I need a fridge. 
I can do this for two months for a fridge.

(I think this was the application I went very silly during applying and said something in response to telephone manner about having a jolly cheery voice and have been told I have a laugh like Betty Rubble from the flintstones, which I was unsure was a good thing or not)

I have a book recommendation for you all :)  My sister loaned it to me and it is awesome.  Colin Cotterill "The Coroner's Lunch".  Really great.

What day is it again?

I don't feel like applying for work today.
So I shan't.
Best not to anyway.
I will just be silly.
They would read it and remark to their colleagues something about 'it must be a full moon', which is so trite (yet distressingly frequently true - is it a full moon?) and I don't want to be involved.
I have standards.

My tea binge is worsening my arthritis and I turn painfully in bed late at night surrounded by tolerant small purring cats, close for warmth.

I am slowed.
Like a basking lizard.
In bed with familiar books.

Yesterday was marvelous.
I could do it again today.
Easily.

So I got up and scootered to my sisters to look at jobs on the computer.

But I don't feel like applying for work today.

Phew

Finally got to hear Dan Kelly's next single "Hold On".
It's a relief to find out I like it too, since I couldn't remember it from the show at the Troubadour.

P.S. and here is an interview on Undercover (which is quite long - sorry - but funny) which has him playing 'The Decommissioner" at the end :)

Changed my mind

Re-read my Dianne Wynne Jones Chrestomanci series and discovered I owned a book I hadn't read - SO AWESOME.  I love those books.  I almost wish I could get some kind of brain disease which left me with a memory that only lasted a week - I could just spend all my time re-reading all the books I love.  That would be so great.  It's given me a whole new perspective on my possible genie granted three wishes.

They used to be ability to speak lots of languages, to be good with my hands and to play & understand music.  Now I think I want a memory that only lasts a week; a steady income without working and a giant atrium for my cats. 

I would never be bored again.

Reminding myself to blink

All registered for unemployment and have discovered my memory has been playing tricks on me.  The amount is even less than I remembered. 

I've been doing sums and after taking out money for telephone, electricity, rent, cat food and kitty litter, I think I am left with about thirty dollars a week to buy food, toilet paper and stuff with.  I have no idea how people survive on unemployment for any length of time. 

Still - I've been meaning to lose weight for ages. 
Probably this is a godsend, ey?

I should quit turning the lights on?
Maybe turn the television off all together?
(except for Dr Who of course - missed last weeks episode cause was at nieces mid-year drama show - niece had lots of lines - got to say 1001 cockroaches)


My telephone is paid for July, but I think I shall get it cut off after that and make do with my crap mobile.  *sigh*  I shall miss my landline.  It doesn't feel like a real house without a wall phone hanging near the kitchen.

The Interview

She asked me if I knew how to sow? (okay fine - sew)
Sadly, the answer is no.

The things I do

Interview at 10:45 am.
A retail customer service/admin job.
Don't have any cash handling skills in any sense of the word.

I've always wanted to have a go at a retail job.  I think I am endlessly trying to construct the elements of a normal life.  I didn't read peter pan and alice in wonderland until high school and early twenties.   Lots of the books I'd read would mention characters having read them as children - or having them read to them - and I felt like I'd missed out on that part somewhere along the line (bawled my eyes out reading the Little Prince).  I never had that after school job or shitkicker school leaver job as a check out chick or shop assistant.

Odd to think that if I got this (which I probably won't) that it would be fulfilling a dream - hahahahaha.

However, I should not get distracted with these musings.  I need to focus on the important stuff like needing a fridge and needing to save up for a new scooter and getting my teeth fixed.

I shall go practice my giggle in the mirror.

Gawd

She was, like, twelve and came up to my knee.

You know it's time to retire when you just can't be arsed giggling and being girly for some blonde tweeny in a recruitment agency.

I think my midget niece is taller than the little chicky was.
(my niece isn't actually a midget - she's just short)
 
Don't think that job's going to happen.

But I don't care at the moment, because I finally got organised with the whole unemployment thing and hopefully will get paid some money next week, which is good cause I shall be sick of toast and cheesy pasta by then even though I am on a tea binge. Tea and books.

My days are zipping past immersed as I am in other worlds and magic and lisping golden haired children in blue suits who is actually a wizard in disguise, much to the disgust of his lady wife who finds the overwhelming cutesiness of it all revolting.

Dianne Wynne Jones is awesome.
I am excessively bummed to find out she has cancer.
Favourite authors are supposed to live forever so as to provide a steady stream of books I know I will like.
Damnit.

Dawdling

Interview with employment agency today. 

They were advertising for a receptionist/administration officer. 
Salary of $35,000 to $38,000. 

Which is not very much, but it would be nice to be working again soon, since I have a nieces birthday coming up and I would like to be able to buy her a present.  I am not fussy.  Besides the irony of me working at a Chartered Accountants would amuse me, as I am hopeless when it comes to personal finances.

Not that I am likely to get it, because they will consider me over qualified and likely to leave as soon as something better comes along.  Little do they know the deep-seated laziness that is my vice.  If they are nice to me, I don't hate the work and am paid enough to cover rent and bills, then I am satisfied.

Twiddling thumbs - still nothing happening

Gosh ... wouldn't $40 million be awesome, but I think I need to stop thinking about winning the lotto.  That way lies disappointment, ey? (but golly FORTY MILLION - what I could do with forty million)

Still waiting on a separation certificate, but am going to go register for unemployment today anyway and sic the centrelink lady onto them since I do not appear to be getting anywhere - not that I've been insistent, as such - I am too polite.

Re-reading Barbara Hambly since I can't find the rest of Tamora Pierce's Lioness series.  Knocked off "The Ladies of Mandrigyn" yesterday.  Wish I knew where the hell I've put "The Silent Tower".

It's a beautiful day, I have a pimple to the left and down of my mouth and I am feeling slightly grumpy.

My sister tells me at the baby check up that they check to see if the rolls/creases of fat on the baby match on both sides.  Well I thought that was sort of interesting anyway.  One of those aspects of a job one has never previously considered - checking symmetry of baby fat rolls. 

Out of here - ciao

This is all just so silly

Oh crumbs.

Have been on the job search websites applying willy-nilly.  Have put in nearly twenty applications in the last four days - I think.  It feels like that anyway.  Have been declined for one already :)

On government website, while cutting and pasting from previous application, realised I hadn't spell checked and there were a few spelling errors.  Clicked withdraw application and it withdrew both applications instead of just the one I'd ticked and had to reapply for them both.

Two more applications later realised I'd typed Manage instead of Manager - gah!

I hate applying for jobs and my discomfort with selection criteria manifests in stupidity, carelessness and inappropriate silliness that seemed funny at the time.

Three hours or more of this torture and I am ready to retire to bed with a bottle and chips for the day, but cannot because I can't afford to waste money on frivolous things like booze and junky things to eat (besides which it is babysitting night).  It's sandwiches and soup for me from now on.  Macaroni with cheese and two minute noodles and cups of tea.

Was commiserating with another sister yesterday whose temporary position which is coming to an end somewhat earlier than expected.  I am grateful I do not have children and a mortgage.

Lotto ticket buying time *sigh*

I am going to go home and let my cats console me :)

P.S.  The tour diary of Civil Civic goes from triumph to triumph.  I adore Ben more than Dan.  Possibly even as much as Kiernan, except Ben is more prolific.

Boggled

Woke early and decided to go out for breakfast, even though I've not washed my hair for days and am looking particularly slobbish.  When dressing discovered my cats have been eating my shoelaces.

wtf?

At least ten centimetres, if not more, missing from left shoelace of left shoe.  Chew marks on the others.  Did it swallow ten centimetres of shoelace?   There was a long cat poop in the tray yesterday, but I didn't think anything of it at the time.  Was it my shoelace holding it together?  Or was it just a fluke?

I telephoned nobody, but did mop half my kitchen floor.

This is not as slack as it sounds.  There was furniture moving involved.  Moved the fridge that doesn't work.  Moved the three door glassed door cabinet that mother gave me which only contains things I don't use and I don't know why I keep.

Maybe I should put my shoes in there?

Babbling

I am silly this evening.  Sometimes I would like to just go to sleep and not wake up.

Have been having the coolest dreams lately and they are much more interesting than anything that has been happening during the daytime :)  A couple of excellent spy type ones and only one uncomfortable one with sharks.

My shark dreams are usually set inside tiled buildings with large pools with tiny little narrow walkways between the pool and the wall and the pool next to the other pool and large leapy sharks.  This one was a little different.  It was a narrow beach with leapy sharks.  I wonder what leapy sharks signify in my twisted psyche?

Actually, I think the sharks are incidental.  It's really the teeth and the sudden unexpected leaping that scares the willys out of me.

I am supposed to be calling up dentists to make an appointment.  Probably leapy sharks is an entirely logical dream translation of fear of dentists, because it's not really the dentist's I am scared of.  I don't like needles in my mouth.  I am okay with needles in other places.  I just find it very difficult to cope with needles near my face and particularly inside my mouth.

When I fell off the scooter and the doctor had to riffle around inside the mince that was the inside of my upper lip to find all the little bits of broken tooth in there, he very kindly gave me the option of having the dental blocker needle from the outside, rather than the inside.  I coped with that a lot better.

Gosh he was lovely.
I think all doctors in emergency rooms should be attractive with lovely accents *sigh*

I swear I shall call dentists and mop my kitchen floor tomorrow and no more prevaricating.

Rushing past

No rest or responsible progress for me today.

A call from eldest sister (with the five and a half month old baby) to come and assist with a trip to the shops to return shoes, morphed into a shopping trip and have only just got home at a quarter past five. 

Them babies sure slow a person down. 

There again tomorrow to play with baby so sister can clean house.  Not sure how much use I am going to be. 

Babysitting tonight.  Babysitting tomorrow. Better be a good girl and start looking for a job soon.

I swear I will get my computer fixed soon and return to normal blogging and stop these boring catalogs of doing nothing..

Testing times

So ... the freezer section of my fridge is now only fridge cold (below 5 degrees) and the fridge section is around 13-15 degrees.  I thought to myself 'maybe its a sign - maybe 15 degrees is the perfect temperature for storing vegetables' or something - a sign I should be making more effort with the healthy eating thing - a sign of encouragement, but no.

It is a good temperature to store potatoes, pumpkin and bananas; but it is the perfect temperature to store wine.

oh hahahahahaha - the irony
and here was me hoping to achieve temperance for a period as an aid to weightloss
oh supreme being, i laugh
you are so funny

Well arse

I thought perhaps if I defrosted the fridge properly it might consider working again, but no.

I did a heap load of washing and hung it out (which is usually the bit which I dont' achieve - just an endless round of washing because I've left them in the machine) so it rained.

I am just not feeling lucky.

I should count my blessings, you say?

I am glad that Michael-cat waited until he was outside to vomit this morning.  I am glad I still have one piece of clothing respectable enough to wear outside the house.  I am glad I am weakwilled and am about to go eat breakfast out, because I like eating breakfast and it is much more enjoyable when somebody else makes it.  As well as being more likely to be edible. 

I hope you all had a lovely breakfast too :)

How you doing?

Tuesday was a day of rest and lovely.

Wednesday was meant to be productive (and partly it was - I went shopping and bought lots of healthy food and stuff - I even bought celery) but I forgot that I thought that maybe tomato soup gives me headaches and I made myself a vegetable soup which may possibly have been a little heavy on the tomato and retired in pain for the rest of the day.

Now my fridge appears to have ceased to function.
Obviously I am not meant to be thin and healthy.
Maybe I should go buy a case of wine and a caftan?

P.S.  Finally got to hear Civil Civic's Run Overdrive and it is rather awesome.  I need to listen to it again before I can decide about the other one, but I liked Run Overdrive immediately.  So that's two out of three of their songs that I have liked instantly :)

Quick hello

Well, it's 2 pm and I figured I should get out of bed.  Have been reading and napping all day.  Four cats curled on and around my legs.  Tolerant of my need to shift occasionally and an escort provided when I felt the need to get myself a glass of water or answer the telephone.

Am out in search of sustainance.

My resolve to eat fresh vegetables, fruit and other healthy things for the next week is shaky before I even start, though I did eat yoghurt this morning.

Last Day

reluctant to get out of bed this morning

but the cats fixed that

by running around like rum fuelled hoons

crashing and banging about the place

and getting into fights

drag racing eachother down the length of the living room

so I arrived at work early

tomorrow I intend to sleep in until at least ten

or if i can't sleep I shall read

either way

in bed till ten

one can get depressed when one is unemployed

i feel it behoves me to set myself some achieveable goals

to keep my spirits up

lol

P.S.  Civil Civic have released another couple of songs and I have it on good authority that Overdrive is great - I am hoping to find a computer with sound (or get mine working) tomorrow to get a listen to it myself :)

P.P.S.  Exploding Dog is just so awesome

Ugliest Bed EVA

lol - love the feet

Awesome!

Belatedly curious

Am re-reading Georgette Heyer books at the moment and realised I didn't actually know what a gig looks like, or a curricle or a phaeton, so spent some of yesterday looking at pictures.

Darned if I know how a lady would have gotten in and out of a high perch phaeton in those clothes.

And I perfectly understand why he would refuse a visit from his nephew to his deathbed if the nephew was wearing a sugarloaf hat.

Patting pockets absentmindedly

Triple J Dan Kelly Interview - popping this here to listen to later when I can access a computer that has sound.

(nice my arse - lets my drunken comments through on myspace - never answers my questions on his blog - lost weight whilst I gained - obviously devil incarnate)

And I'm getting a cold too *pout*

I am crap at commenting at the best of times.

Now is not the best of times.

I have comment block. 

It's quite frustrating.

Even though there are only a scant handful of blogs I actually comment on.

I blame it on not being able to listen to music on my headphones all day.  I was overflowing with chat when I had my headphones in my last job and since then *makes brrut noise with lips* nothing, nada, negator-ay.

What if people think I hate them because I am not commenting?

Or think that they bore me?

What if people are relieved I am not commenting?

Change of Seasons

I always forget the advent of winter turns cats into acrobats.  Woken repeatedly in the early hours by hyper actived dashes and crashes, bangs and thumps as aerial manoeuvres are launched from walls and the tops of cupboards and the clunk as such disturbed and disturbing whacks dislodge junk.

God only knows what my neighbour thinks is happening.

Waffling

Work having their biggest morning tea today, so I have to IOU until tomorrow when I get paid.

Everybody I have spoken to so far today has mentioned how sleepy they feel and that they nearly didn't get out of bed this morning.  Spooky when it seems so universal.  Reminds me of the day of the Triffods.  Not that I ever read the book.  Only saw the tv show.  One imagines some kind of giant gas leak and everybody is slowly asphyxiating.  Perhaps it is the first salvo of alien invasion?

Maybe Ming has arrived?

Darn it!  Couldn't you have waited another year?  I've not the figure for those outfits like wot Aurora and Dale wear.

Another note from a small office

I'm bored.