A Tentative Return from the Dark Depths of Reality

I’m gonna maybe hesitantly dip my toe into the pool of blogging again.

Hello all. It’s been about three years since I last blogged. In my extended absence, a lot has happened in my life, and stuff has actually happened on my blog, it would appear. I have gained followers, some of whom I think are legitimate human beings, which is kind of astounding, given all the quality content I’ve been failing to post for literal years. But hey, whatever, hi to you all, sorry but I’m gonna be pretty dull here. This is more of an ‘I’m alive’ blog post than any humorous anecdote.

In the last three years, my actively and obviously dying mother has responded well to her first three years of antibiotic treatment. I’m not sure how much I divulged over various posts in years gone by, but at the point of my last blog post, she was pretty sick. I was doing everything bar driving (which I still can’t do but hope to try again at the end of the year). We left Caboolture and ended up in Beerwah, a small suburban-rural area famous for being where Australia Zoo is. And for pineapples, I think, which are in fashion at the moment.

Who would’ve thought a fruit could be ‘in fashion’? Human beings are strange creatures.

We have recently moved again, back onto the coast properly. Anyway, Mum now looks and sounds normal most of the time. We don’t tend to go out when she’s having obvious cognitive issues, although there are some times you just can’t avoid it, doctor’s appointments and such. From a mostly wheelchair and house-bound individual, she now only uses the walking stick for dizziness and balance issues, and because occasionally her knees can go out from under her. We no longer need to hire a scooter for shopping outings, and we no longer have to plan them so stringently and so far apart.

I’m entering my third year of treatment. It’s rough going, but I’m still nowhere near as ill as Mum ever got, or I would never have been able to care for her at all. I can deal with the pain you get, I’m mostly just flipping exhausted, although I plod along and get things done. I’m currently unemployed, although I wasn’t for about two years between this post and the last. When health rules your life, moving house means leaving your job, but that’s okay, because I don’t think I can handle working in a supermarket any more anyway.

Jobs are scarce up here, it being such a huge population growth area. It’ll be interesting to see how I go job hunting when I get back into it. Gonna give it a rest for a while, because I have that option, and just focus on getting better, keeping house, ‘keeping mum’ on the things that bog me down. Same old, same old.

My crippling anxiety is almost completely gone, thanks to the antibiotics. That’s because it was caused by long-term bacterial infections, a few of them which target the nervous system specifically. Mum’s ended up with MS from them (we suspect that they’re the cause, given that some MS symptoms improved on antibiotics), among other things. I get weird little twitches and itches and tingles with mine. Makes me wonder how many people are out there suffering neurological issues that are a result of infections and so cannot be treated using psychiatric medicine and expect to see consistent results.

It’s slow going, but we’re getting there. Things are getting better, and they are so markedly improved from when I last posted. It’s quite something to see someone you love slowly and then suddenly decline in an obvious death march, and then to watch them gradually but also comparatively swiftly and miraculously regain health. It’s all been sort of surreal, and it’s been my reality for a long time. I’m surprisingly alright, too, considering everything that’s happened in my life thus far. We’re born with good strong immune systems and good strong minds, in this family. We’re very resilient.

I turn 28 tomorrow. It’s a good day for a birthday, because the whole world celebrates by supplying me with cut-price novelty chocolates in the shape of hearts and roses and such. I’m of mixed emotions, although I’m  largely not fussed when it comes to my birthday. Milestones are interesting in that, when you count them as things to reach, passing them by is a wonderful achievement; when you’re looking at them as points to stop and look back at where you’ve been, sometimes you can feel despairing upon reaching one.

I’m not despairing. Sometimes I get a little down at how stagnant I’ve been, or how stagnant I appear to have been – despite the fact that I’ve been working hard and struggling against various life-problems this whole time. I know, logically, that you can only be where you are, and make the best decisions in given circumstances. I know that if somebody told me they’d had the exact same situation I would be very understanding and forgiving. But I’m not someone else, I’m me, and so I have to talk myself around the obvious look at how much you haven’t achieved, at your age; look, your time is running out! Time is always running out. That’s what it does. That’s what it’ll always do, until we stop thinking of it like this finite thing we’re losing, and start thinking of it as the experience of life.

It’s only 28. I’m practically an infant. I have time. I am doing my best.

This is what I say to myself when I get negative. But normally, I’m cheerful, if tired. Over the years, I’ve had my eyes open to so many of the hardships that other people are struggling through. There are so many people all around us, coping with extraordinary things, thinking they are drowning in it, but who are in fact doing quite magnificently well, given the circumstances.

Life is just a collection of moments and milestones and landmines. We’re all just stumbling along. Some of us do a lot of groundwork and planning, and those people don’t always yield the results they’re after, while some people amble along and fall into happy circumstances with seemingly no effort at all. You can’t use anybody else’s apparent success as a standard to hold yourself to. There’s too much at stake. You’re at stake. It’s a lot easier to enjoy moments in life when all your energy isn’t going into making sure you’re having the right moments in the right order according to everyone else.

No humorous anecdote today. Be kind to yourself. Be kind to others. Be the best person that you can be in the circumstances you’re in. Sit still for a moment and just be.

 

 

I Live in a Situational Comedy

The hunt for a new house is on, as we have to be out in less than a month. This is both a huge relief, and a massive burden. Moving twice in six months when one of you is often in pain and unable to function properly both physically and cognitively is difficult, and being so removed from people who might help is also difficult. And then there’s me, with my sudden crippling anxiety which sees me building myself up to a phone call one day while being confident the next.

BUT

That does not mean we cannot do it.

I have packed a few boxes of DVDs and left out the ones Mum watches the most. She hates it, but often the only thing she can do is sit and when her brain isn’t working or she’s too exhausted to function, she watches movies to cope.  As Mum sifts through these DVDs looking  for something to watch, six months’ time (and two complete sorting-outs and re-storings notwithstanding) has resulted in the DVDs unsurprisingly and infuriatingly encroaching on my computer space.

I have my computer in the spare bedroom, with the empty boxes for our electrics, and haphazard piles of  DVDs are spreading across the floor towards my desk.

The other night Mum came in and recruited me in her search for the perfect movie for her mood.

“I need one I haven’t seen for ages.”

“So, a movie we don’t own?”

“Just help me out.”

Basically the conversation then deteriorated into me suggesting a title and Mum telling me she’s watched it recently. Then she said she wanted something she hadn’t seen in the last six months, and I pointed out to her that our lease was for six months and it wasn’t up yet and she’s basically watched every movie we own in that time.

“I know you’ve watched them,” I said, letting my irritation show in my voice but tempering it with amusement because she’s my Mum, and I understand; and if I step outside the situation a bit I have to admit it’s kind of funny to watch my own exasperation. “I know you’ve watched them, because they’re out of the cupboard and all over the floor!”

I have always been very organised with my DVDs. I have always been very careful with them, and I treat my property well. This situation actually hurts me and I’m only coping because it’s my mother.

Mum chose to ignore my statement and continued bemoaning the dearth of good movies. The cat came in and I had wrangled him into a purring heap of fluff in my lap to soothe my irritation. Mum reached for a DVD in one of the many teetering piles beside me. She pulled it from the middle of the pile. Unsurprisingly, the pile collapsed and sent DVDs shooting out across the floor in front of me. The cat flinched at the noise.

Mum looked over at the cat.

“Oh, sorry.”

“…did you just apologise to the cat?”

“Yeah, the noise startled him.”

“So you were apologising to the cat.” It really wasn’t a question.

“What?”

“Nothing.” I was for a moment contemplating my twitching eye, but the absurdity of sitting there, coping with the DVD mess and having my mother apologise to the cat for the noise of what she is doing to my DVDs flicked a switch in my brain and I just started laughing. I couldn’t stop laughing, and Mum kept getting annoyed thinking I was laughing at her (I was a bit) and I had to keep reassuring her that it was nothing (not true).

There’s a moment inside you when a situation reaches breaking point, and there are two strings that can be cut: the anger string, and the hysteria string, and it was the hysteria one that snapped first.

Anyway, I ended up falling backwards to laugh, which meant I dragged the cat out of the comfort of my lap and up to my chest. He was not amused, and in scrabbling to get footing on me so he could leap away he stuck his claw up my nostril, which hurt but only made me laugh harder.

I am looking for houses and organising inspections and cleaning and packing and in general coping with my life and the bizarre things that happen in it. I’m certain I’m in for a world of escalating stress this coming month, but I am lucky because I am not at the mercy of the things that happen in my life; I’m at the mercy of my reactions to the things that happen in my life, and I’m almost always finding something to laugh at. It would concern me if I could find time to be more concerned than amused.

Yet More Rambling…

An almost review, a brief description of my sister, an apology for sucking so bad of late and something my Mum just said to me while I was writing this very post…

Well, last night my friend and I went and saw Tomorrow When the War Began. And I gotta say, if you’re avoiding watching this movie with the thought ‘it’s just gonna be a crappy Australian movie’ in your head, you are wrong! You will regret not seeing it! Absolutely fantastic.

Actually, it scared the hell outta me.

Not because it’s a scary movie, but because it really hit home. It just seemed so possible! I know, which country could possibly do it, what about our allies and yada yada… but it really hit me close to home.

I think it has something to do with the fact that whenever my friends and I have finished watching a movie with some sort of disaster or horror element to it, we always joke about how we shouldn’t worry, because everything bad happens in America. But no longer. Now, a movie where bad shit happens and it happens here.

(Tourist serial killers stories and Ausploitation movies are not being considered here folks. Sorry.)

It helps that it wasn’t a low budget, over-acted, put-on extremely ocker Aussie accents, total dodge-up. It also helps that it wasn’t a modern-Disney-inspired, stupid humour, blindingly boppy technicolour-vomit production either. It was just a good movie, with characters you are made to love and a riveting story. I cannot wait for the next one. (2012, in case you were wondering. Be there or be a victim of the apocalypse predicted by a race who met their apocalyptic fate quite a while before their prediction.)

From the second the planes went overhead in the movie, my heart was thumping and my chest was tight with fear and anticipation. I wonder, is that how American’s feel after they watch a similar movie set in the US? I’ve never understood how some movies make such an impact but now I think I might understand.

On the other hand, it’s going to be tough to use that ‘only in America’ line from this point on.

***

In other news, I have yet to find my ‘ha ha’. It just seems to run away right when I think I have a hold of it! I mean, I should be publishing posts that have you all rolling on the floor laughing your bleeping bleeps off. But alas, I just don’t seem to have the touch lately.

Although if we’re talking everyday life, I’m certainly not short of quips to pepper throughout an otherwise mundane existence.

Like today, we went shopping, Delilah, Mum, myself, and my insane oldest younger sibling, who henceforth shall be known as Blondie.

You know, I just sat here and attempted to write her personality for you all, several times. But words fail me. You have to meet her to understand the joy of being with somebody who is sensitive, wears their heart on their sleeve, and yet manages to insult and offend every person within ear- or eye-shot, show her affection in a ridiculously body-breaking manner, embarrass you with her mere presence, and of course help you make up for all that ridiculously cringe-free time you have been spending lately.

No, all that is not even enough. In fact, I think Blondie is a bit off the track. She recently ditched her gorgeous, wavy blonde locks for a more modern, trashy hack-job dyed black and having the texture of only the finest kindling. If you wanna know what she looked like when she was little, go check out the Sean Paul Misheard Lyrics video, which is not only one of the most hilarious videos you will ever watch, but also has a clone of my sister to illustrate the ‘fish hat’ line.

But now, for lack of something fitting I shall call her Blondie. That works. In my mind she will be forever blonde.

Where the heck was I going with all this?? Oh right, as we were driving to the shops, Blondie exclaimed “Oh look! The Reject Shop! I love that place.”

“You hang out there a lot do you, Blondie?” I replied.

It all went down very well, we’re sisters after all, and everybody is used to my tongue at home. Well, I was in a bit of a bad mood because I had not prepared to see my dear rebellious sister, but it was all said in a joking manner so I wasn’t mean at all. No really, I never have a mean thought in my head.

Just ask all my stupid friends. XD

Once again I have nothing to write. I shall post this, and then write another shortly on ‘coming out’, as I feel this deserves its own post. It might get lost in all this rubbish, otherwise.

Please don’t abandon me, folks. Better things are yet to come.

***

PS: Mum just ‘informed’ me that one of the ingredients in cigarettes used to make them taste better is the urine from smokers. I responded thusly:

“What? You seriously believe that? How would that make them taste any better? And where would they get smokers’ urine, anyway? Is there a urine collection depot somewhere nearby that I don’t know about? Maybe I should ask Blondie where she pisses on the weekend.”

Mum, what does people meat taste like?

Aah, sweet youth. All the way up through primary school you think your mum knows everything. Which I suppose is why, at age eight, my brother asked Mum what people-meat tasted like.

Imagine a world without eyebrows. Imagine a cartoon world without eyebrows. Pretty bleak, huh?

I don’t remember asking such questions myself, but then I was an observer. That, plus Mum always said ‘you should try to find the answers yourself’. But I imagine that advice came after those ‘big questions’ kids ask.

Why is the sky blue? Why are bananas bent? Where does the wind start?

These are the questions that get the answer ‘because’.

<spoken>Because.</spoken> <thought>I’m not going to start explaining the laws of physics and genetics to a five year old.</thought> (This is what I imagine it was like, being the adult in this situation.)

But the flip-side of this questioning phase, which is both a bewildering and amusing one, are the ‘strange assumed truths’ questions that lead you down a path of questioning yourself.

Mum, why does that man have long hair? Is he a girl?

I asked that one, and Mum laughed and explained to me that boys could have long hair too. But the assumption that boys have short hair and girls have long hair came from all the images I saw on TV and in books. That was just how it was. Anything else was an anomaly.

And then this corker: Mum, why did that man paint his face black?

That was my three year old brother, when we were walking past an Indian guy near Griffith University. It caused the guy to burst out laughing as he passed, and I had to try and hide a smile while Mum explained to my brother that it was just the colour of his skin. And that was because, despite growing up in Australia, we had never really lived in a place where there were many colours outside of the white-to-lightly-tanned range. In big cities like Sydney you have a huge mix of Caucasion, Lebanese, Asian, Aboriginal, Indian, the list goes on. And beyond the black stump you get a much higher density of Aboriginals. In fact the ratio of black to white is usually at least 7:3 (Funny how in Australia it’s just ‘Aboriginals’, whereas every other country’s aboriginals are named for their country. Maybe it’s a reflection of that horrible ‘White Australia’ policy and that deeply entrenched racism that is still being bred out.)

[Cue long-winded discussion about racism, societal values and the habit of ethnic groups to make a micro-society where they live and not really roam outside of it, and consequently becoming a minority simply due to their ostracism.]

Or something like that.

Of course, there are other big questions. Like: where do babies come from?

I don’t believe I ever asked this. I remember thinking they were in your general belly area, and you got pregnant by getting married and kissing. And then I remember knowing how it really worked. And in between, I cannot tell you how I found out, but it’s a 50/50 chance that it was either a book, or my peers. Probably the latter. It pretty much goes without saying that once you know how it happens, you become addicted to dirty jokes. I remember I was the one who told Delilah (nickname for my youngest sister). She was about eight at the time, and it gave her nightmares. What an awesome sister am I.

I do wonder just how addicted to dirty jokes I got, though. Because as a rule, mean and dirty jokes really hit my funny-bone. And despite always trying to be tasteful, when I was in year eleven I stumbled upon the well-known fact that I had a dirty mind. Knowledge to which the whole grade was privy, but as to how I actually got a reputation for having a dirty mind I had no idea. Because even in senior, I was never really ‘out there’, getting a reputation, talking to everyone. When I told my friends, they burst out laughing, and to this day I figure they were the ones telling everybody what I was really like.

Or maybe they could just tell by looking at me. It is possible.

Well, this is no longer interesting, it’s late, and I’m about to be interrupted for the five millionth time today, so I bid thee adieu. Until another day, dear readers.

~In the meantime, I think I’ll post up some of my old poetry (run for the hills) while I try to find where I hid my funny, so that I may once again use it to brighten up my blog.~

Nostalgia Part One: Innocence

I was getting all nostalgic the other day after my friend and I sat down and watched some episodes of that classic epic TV series, Xena: Warrior Princess, when I simultaneously remembered and rediscovered the joy of it. It’s one thing to reminisce about wholesome TV series and how much you loved them when you were young, and another thing entirely to rewatch them and realise how totally dirty, sexual and ridiculously daggily hilarious they really were.

I discovered things I never picked up on at all as a child! Like: Xena and Gabrielle were an item. Don’t believe me? Well, we watched ‘A Day in the Life’, or a similarly named episode, and there was a guy totally smitten with Xena. He asked Gabrielle if she thought Xena would ever settle down, get married and have children. Gabrielle’s response was to giggle and say “No, she likes what I do…”

0.0 I know, right?

A little part of me died when I discovered this. Not because they’re both chicks, but a part of my childhood revolved around this show. Even though I knew it would never happen, as a kid my romantic side had always hoped for the crossover with Hercules, and for Gabrielle and Iolus to get married. And then I was torn, because I thought the two ultimate good guys, Hercules and Xena, would be doing the world a great favour by getting married, but another part of me kinda thought that Aries and Xena should be a couple, even though Aries was a bad guy most of the time.

So as the child in me recoiled a little in horror and dismay as I listened to all the euphemisms being thrown around by Xena and Gabrielle, I slowly absorbed other facts I had overlooked as a young’un. Like, all the evil warriors the dynamic duo fought were Maori, and had that awesome Kiwi accent that disregards vowels entirely. And how dodgy some of the acting was. Although, when the actors’ true smiles were plastered ear to ear at something ridiculous that was just said, it kind of added a sincerity to the scenes which you don’t tend to get in A-Grade projects.

All this has made me realise how truly innocent a child’s mind is. (Or at least, how innocent I was; I think I actually was a little behind in that area as a child. Made life fun, though!) Well, rather than innocent, untainted is probably a more accurate description. It wasn’t that I heard what they said on the show and just didn’t understand it; it was that it had no deeper meaning to me at all! When Aphrodite said to her henchman that she didn’t want him to send her diamond to the heavens because she needed somebody with more thrust, and she didn’t think he could get it that high anyway, I honestly just took it as it was literally: he did not have the strength to get a diamond into the heavens. Meanwhile parents are choking on their coffees and I laughed because they were laughing, I guess.

I started reminiscing more about my youth, and just how differently my brain worked back then. I could read emotion very well, always have been able to; but as I had no concept of sexuality, I could not pick up on sexual context if it hit me in the face.

I distinctly remember my first two years of school, because it was a period in my life where a lot of stuff happened that only in retrospect have I gained a full understanding of.

I lived next to two young boys, and there was also a young boy who lived in the house behind us. I was always outside spying on critters in the garden, doing experiments and generally making my own fun. It was an extremely inquisitive part of my growth. I remember trading with the boy next door, who was my age.
The deal was: I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.

I was caught by my stepfather and got in deep shit, while my Mum totally understood there was nothing sexual about it at all. I know there wasn’t, because I can remember it vividly. (Stop laughing, that’s not what I mean by vividly…)

I was just curious. I knew boys had different bits; my baby brother had just been born. So I wanted to see what a boy my age had. And there was no way he was gonna drop his dacks for a girl! So we sated each other’s curiosity. I had no qualms about dropping mine, because I still bathed with my siblings, showered with Mum occasionally and was a kid who liked to know stuff.

I often played with this boy and his kindergarten-aged brother and my backdoor neighbour, in my back yard. I distinctly remember refusing to play marriage games like other girls my age, because I was terrified that if we got married we would have to kiss (ergo boy germs, and ewww!), and if we kissed I would have a baby. I wasn’t even afraid to have a baby because I knew it would hurt, or where it came out; but because I thought I was too young to have babies and I didn’t want to be a Mum, and because I thought I’d get in trouble if I had a baby.

So we stuck to playing chasey, climbing trees, building stuff out of junk and flora in the backyard, hide-and-seek, and experimenting. And life was simple. There was never any innuendo or subtlety in conversation. We said exactly what we wanted to say, expressed our feelings completely, lived our dreams of being superheroes in fantastically realistic games. The most complex it ever got was when I had to decide whether to be the pink Power Ranger or the yellow one. I liked pink better than yellow, but then I thought the girl who played the yellow ranger was prettier than the girl who played the pink one.

Actually, I had the same issues choosing between the Planeteers. I think I couldn’t decide which power I wanted the most, but I always wanted to be the blond girl. I guess that was an early recognition of how I looked, but I never thought about it at all until I hit puberty. I shit you not, it was like textbook stuff. I turned thirteen, became a woman, and suddenly got ridiculously, sobbingly mortified at how I looked in my togs when I went swimming.

I’m going on a bit here so I’ll wrap it up. I’m an old woman trapped in a young woman’s body so I’m undoubtedly going to spend more time doing the ‘when I was young’ routine, which is why I’ve given this blog title a ‘part one’ tag. But I’m going to watch the whole Xena series now, to get the stuff I never got the first time, and try to care for my inner child a bit. I want to watch Hercules now as well, because I’m curious about how that show really read!

And all this has made me wonder if parents petitioning for shows to be given higher ratings, and writing angry letters off to studios about innuendo, can even remember what it was like to be young and naive! Because I think they wouldn’t be so worried about their children if they just remembered what was important to them at that age. Boys were not important. Sex was not even on the radar. We didn’t want to watch yukky romances and we were never tainted by adult themes because they simply did not exist in our minds. The thing with themes is you only get them if you understand how to read them, and then only if you’ve been introduced to that theme before.

Dos and don’ts were simpler. You didn’t swear or you got your mouth soaped out and you knew you couldn’t watch TV shows with swearing in them (boo) and that you couldn’t watch TV shows with people kissing in them (yay!)! You cared about how tasty the food was, not about the calories; in fact with dessert, the bigger the better! You cared about staying up late, sleeping in, Christmas, birthdays, winning races and playing outside with your friends, getting tucked into bed and waiting until you were a grown up and you could do whatever you wanted whenever you wanted, and nobody could tell you what to do and you had no bedtime!

Now, of course, we’d all give anything to go back to the carefree lifestyle we had; not necessarily because it was care free, but in the sense that our minds were not burdened with the complexities that adulthood brings upon them.

And a part of me thinks that if we could just stop every now and then, and remember how we thought as children, we’d be happier. Because I was happier when I just said what I wanted to say, expressed exactly how I felt, did what I wanted to do even if I got in trouble, and never cared what other people thought about it.

Edit: Just grammatical errors…

Bus? What bus?!

The last week-and-a-half…well, let me explain it in textpics:

=.=  …  0.0  …  TnT  …  0\/0*  …  0.0  …  @.=

It started with our beautiful, fluffy Oscar-cat getting seriously ill, so we rushed him to the vet’s. What followed for a week was in and out of the vet’s, culminating in surgery and then an infection. Not good. But the morning I was woken up by my Mum telling me to spend time with Oscar as we may have to put him down… well, what a way to wake up!

So Delilah and I spend the morning with the cat, her crying and me refusing to cry and freak out my beautiful cat.

We set off with our poor, sore, feverish and generally unwell kitty at 8:30. Oscar is on my lap on a blanket in the front passenger seat, Mum is driving, Delilah is in the passenger seat behind Mum. Of course Oscar decides he hates car travel, as per usual, but since we don’t have him in his carrier because he’s sore he manages to jump down to my feet. Which is fine except he can feel the breeze coming out from the middle console and keeps trying to escape out there. So I have my head down near my feet fussing with Oscar, Mum is giving me advice and I guess Delilah is a silent observer.

All eyes are on the cat.

Who is watching the road? Anyone? 0.0

Suddenly Delilah yells – I have my head down near my feet fussing with Oscar, I look up out of the corner of my eye and where I should see sky I see a wall of white! There is a scream, a screech of tires, the cat darts under my chair, glass flies everywhere and then we are stopped.

And it becomes apparent that the wall of white  was in fact a wall of BUS.

So there’s the eternal second of silence where we all sit in shock, random settling noises from the car the only sounds I hear. Mum says “call the ambulance”, I whip out my mobile and dial 000. I see no window on Mum’s side, blood on her hands, glass everywhere and my sister in the back makes this low groan and then says “ugh, my thigh” — I whip around and yell at her “Don’t pull anything out! Whatever you do don’t pull anything out!”.

We have driven five houses up our street.

The operator gets me the ambulance but as I talk it becomes apparent we don’t need one. We’re in a Daihatsu Charade, and while it’s a crappy machine for safety, as my Mum says it could ‘turn on a dime’. When she realised she was driving into a bus Mum planted her foot on the brake and yanked the wheel to the left and narrowly avoided a face full of bus.  So the glass everywhere came from the shattered side mirror, Mum’s window was already down, there were a few tiny cuts on her hands and my sister was totally unharmed (although she was sobbing uncontrollably…).

They still sent the ambulance though; I’m guessing it’s because I said we’d had a minor accident with a bus, and they thought: “minor accident… bus… I think we’ve got some head injuries here…”

We live up the road from the hospital so three minutes later and they’re parked; I’m out of the car embarrassed, explaining the situation and I get a call from the fire department.

“We were just wondering how many people were in the bus?”

I face-palm, and force myself to tell the lady on the end of the phone – who now has my name and number and probably this whole conversation on record – that there was nobody in the bus, we hit a parked, empty bus on the other side of the road. I told her nobody was trapped, the ambulance was there and everyone was fine, so she didn’t need to send anyone.

The second I hang up a fire engine rounds the corner. Delilah and myself both put our head in our hands and groan in embarrassment. We got polite, swift service, smothered in grins and head shaking, and a bottle of water each before the emergency services headed off to deal with people who were actually in trouble, not just idiots.

I call work once we drive home (a three second drive).

“Oh, hey,” I say in a shaky voice, “I can’t come in this afternoon, my cat’s really sick and we might have to put him down… and we just had a minor car accident and I’m honestly an emotional wreck.”

“Are you sure you can’t come in?”

Yeah, we’re all fine, thanks for asking!

I get a call back three minutes later telling me they are understaffed (well yeah, we always are) and desperately need me, could I call as soon as we got back from the vet’s to let them know if I can work or not. (Basically, if our cat is not put down I’m working.)

! .\/.*

But after all this, a week later Oscar is fine, has a new haircut (I’ll have to post some before and after photos for you. He is adorable and now he has a spring in his step again!). And Delilah did my shift that evening (NO I am not a horrible sister who asked her sibling to do a shift after such a crappy day – she wanted to work and get out of the house to escape the stress.)

We still don’t have a side mirror. Did you know those mirrors, unlike the windows of a car are not designed to take impact or crumple in any way – they shatter into millions of sharp fragments, a lot as fine as sand, and they pepper your car to keep turning up even a week after being cleaned several times over. It’s like gravel rash for cars.

If you’ve ever had gravel rash you’ll know that months later you’ll be washing and you’ll pull a small pebble fragment out of your knee and just wonder…~

Delilah really put it in perspective for me that afternoon, though. We were lying on her bed and I said,

“You know, in the scheme of things, I guess today wasn’t the best day.”

“Are you KIDDING? I woke up and I thought our cat was gonna die, then I thought I was gonna die!”

Delilah said she was watching us approach the bus (at 40ish km/h) and had the following thoughts:

‘Does Mum realise she’s on the wrong side of the road?’

‘We’re heading straight for that bus, has Mum seen it?’

‘Gee, we’re so close to it, is Mum even watching where she’s going?’

(At two feet from the bus) “MUUUM!! BUUUS!!!”

Probably could’ve done with mentioning the bust a liiittle earlier! Still, she’s doing better than me; in an emergency situation, I lose the ability to freak. I would’ve thought really loud ‘oshitoshitoshitOSHIT!’ and then right at the last second managed to force out very steadily “Mum you’re going to crash into a bus”.

Oscar then:

Oscar now:

You know I was the only one who did not laugh at him when I saw his haircut. And I don’t think it shows it well enough in the pictures, but he always smelt like a wet sheep when washed, and now he’s been trimmed, he is all soft and fluffy like a sheep after it’s been shorn… he curls up extra close to me now to keep warm ^^

Feel free to leave me comments telling me how beautiful he is, he has low self-esteem at the moment and he needs the perks! (lol, well it’s nice to know if somebody sees these pics. Let me know if you have pics of your pet that you adore on  your blog – I will gladly check them out. I love animals!)

Dandy Ham and Flies…

Wowser, suddenly there are things to talk about! Embarrassing and awful things, really…

***

A Dandy Afternoon…

Well, Mother and myself are both into herbal remedies (ones that work, not hujuju like shark cartilage curing arthritis or anything…) Aaanyway, something fantastic about also being vegetarian is you get to know a lot more about plants’ nutritional properties than those healthy meat eaters. Like how to get complete proteins, enough iron etc. Anyway, a great source of iron is dandelion leaves, but the catch is there are two types of dandelion, and one, the hardiest one, is the crappy one. It has white sap, and it looks weedy in comparison to the other dandelion, and it’s the one that smells gross when you pick it.

Mum thought she’d found some decent dandelion, but as she is physically hindered, she needed me to help her get it. It was conveniently placed on a MEDIAN STRIP JUST DOWN FROM A ROUNDABOUT. For high visibility of the very obvious girl picking it up. And yes I’m obvious, because I’m about 180cm or so tall, uncoordinated, and bright red (not normally, but I blush easily…). I fought this idea (to no avail), saying things like “No way!”, “Can’t you just eat parsley?” and “What about buying seeds?!”

“I can’t buy seeds,” says Mum, “I’ve looked everywhere, gone online, called people, and the best response I’ve gotten is ‘just go down and pick some up off the side of the road, they’re weeds!’ So that’s what I’m doing!”

“No Mum, that’s what I’m doing, you’re just coming to watch!”

After that, we got in the car and all Mum did was laugh at me the entire time. And of course, I ended up standing there, in the middle of the road with a bright red bucket and a spade, peering at dandelions… And Delilah took photos of my red face because she found it hilarious.

*sigh*

And in the end, after that embarrassment, I could not find any good dandelion anyway. Just futile embarrassment.

***

Signs…

Work has gotten interesting again lately also… well by interesting, I of course mean frustrating as hell with funny moments to break the pattern of dull… and of course, that would include infuriating customers.

You know, when you work in customer service you only tend to vent by talking about people who piss you off, which invariably leads to the assumption that you, as the customer service officer, hate all customers.

Which is totally wrong, without them I would have no job. (The ability to live notwithstanding, a totally awesome idea if I do say so myself.) But in my job, I get pretty much everyone, because everybody eats. That includes creepy old guys, bitchy women with Napoleon complex, people who forget how to use manners when sex is not a possible outcome (usually women), people who want everything so fresh it should by rights still be breathing, the slightly abusive and also the women who complain about things for that sole purpose only.

But a fellow worker of mine – let’s call him Battle Orc – recently got a doozy.

Situation: Serving ham.

CUSTOMER: *looks at two remaining slices of ham* “Do you have anymore of that ham?”

BATTLE ORC : “No sorry, that’s it.”

CUSTOMER: “But the sign says $14.95 per kilo.”

BATTLE ORC: “Yes…”

“But you don’t have anymore?”

“No sorry.”

The customer then quickly becomes loud and irate

“Well then that’s false advertising, if you don’t have the ham you shouldn’t advertise it for $14.95 a kilo!”

“…We do have the ham, it’s right here” *gestures to the two slices of ham left*

I should point out here that Battle Orc does not have patience with irritating people, and this guy was more than that.

CUSTOMER: “WELL IF YOU ONLY HAVE TWO SLICES YOU SHOULD ONLY ADVERTISE TWO SLICES, NOT A KILO!”

BATTLE ORC: ( .\/.*) “Well it’s just priced per kilo!”

This volley of “stupid guy bitching about sign” vs “you idiot it’s a sign” continued for a brief period before Battle Orc lost his cool completely, went “AARGH!”, ripped the sign out of the cabinet, hurled it on the bench and shouted “THERE, THE SIGN IS GONE, DOES THAT FIX YOUR PROBLEM?!!”

At this point I had to leave, but apparently the guy took the ham and said he was going to complain to the manager. But nothing came of it. Except a lot of laughing afterwards!

***

Caesar Salad ala Musca Domestica

I’m a vegetarian for crying out loud!! But I love salad from a certain place, ( I hesitate to name it, although nothing I print will be libellous but better to be safe than sorry), and today myself and Spazmo (good friend from school) decided to be healthy. It’s the beginning of a new era! I bought cross trainers and she bought a tennis racquet and we are gonna be hawt!

But anyway I opened my salad and lying on top in the dressing was Mr. Housefly.

He was stuck there upside down wiggling his little legs at me. I nearly threw up. But I wanted my salad, and I reasoned, well, it’s bound to happen, I mean it’s an open salad area they get the stuff from, and a random fly may get trapped. Lucky it was on top…

Aaanyway, I spent five minutes thinking positively (My friend removed the fly for me) and then chowed down. Paying more attention I must say. And then I finally got down to the bottom, to the last couple of mouthfuls, picked up my forkful and…. THERE WAS ANOTHER FLY. This one was wings stuck to body not out, legs stuck down… I had the fork near my face, and we established eye contact. Ever had eye contact with a fly in a sticky situation? It’s eyes said “help me, I’m stuck here in this tasty deathtrap” and my eyes said “Ohmygodi’mgonnahurl” (and yes as one word).

So that was it, I couldn’t eat any more. I mean between the top of the salad and the bottom, who knows how many flies I consumed? None? A dozen? My desperate need for another flavour in my mouth and depressedness led me to a lolly store where I loaded up…

And that’s it from me. Nothing amazing but I felt I had to share! Also I had pictures for the fly story but our scanner is dead… wants me to edit some menu shortcuts which refuse to be edited… 😦

“Her problem is you”

In his professionalism

he sided with an angry fifteen-year-old girl

against her heartbroken, determined Mother

because an hour is all it takes

to be brainwashed by

tears.

Caffeine and Terrorism: my life as an amateur psychologist

Being absolutely knackered, I am currently consuming a ‘V’ against both mine and my tastebuds’ better judgement. As the fourth caffeine-containing drink I have had today in the space of six hours, I would say the caffeine is either redundant in my system, or maintaining basic system function.

But I can’t be sure.

What I can be sure of is that my bladder is remarkably efficient with its output – so much so that a stimulant is enough to ensure maximum output of water with minimum input.

I am also sure that ‘V’, while tasting less offensively pink as ‘Red Bull’ (which –  according to the moving picture box – gives you wings, which I assume puts it in direct competition with Libra), is not in my top ten list of “things I don’t like but still consume”.

To help you out, you should know the list does include:

• yoghurt with the green fuzz removed;
• honeyed-toast that hit the ground spread-side down;
• suspect-looking leftovers in a bare and somewhat greasy fridge;
• fried onion rings with the unfortunate fried suicide bugs removed (if sighted);
• various pastries from the bakery down the road*.

(*bakery down the road somehow manages to make all pastries taste like sugared dirt, sugared oil, sugared cardboard or sugared all of the above. Leaves one queasy.)

Although my exhaustion can usually be attributed to university study, late bedtimes and early rises, today I think it’s safe to assume there is a separate major contributor.

That is to say, I am emotionally exhausted because I spent the morning negotiating with a terrorist.

Yeah, I know. But I won.

The terrorist was ‘managed’, shall we say… The trick was getting her to think I was ‘on her side’ so-to-speak, and then carefully picking her thoughts up and placing them in the ‘I made this decision’ box. She thinks she chose which path to tread today.

Sadly, Blondie is not a leader – she was programmed to think and she is easily brainwashed. On very few occasions, this being one, the brainwashing can work for me. Small blessings.

And unfortunately, Mother informs me I am predictable. She’s tried to reign me in for my assistance for the past week, and this morning while she was showering I sacrificed my post in no man’s land and ran at the tank screaming ‘Stop!’.

And how does this make me predictable? When Mother exited said shower, and I informed her that Blondie had changed her mind with some prompting from me, Mother showed me the extra bottle of Vodka she bought last night, because she, quote: “Knew you’d come through, kiddo.”

Thus, I leave you now with the one thought controlling my exhausted lack of emotion: disdain.