I lost two days this week to the most Herbert-awful headache; probably the longest-lasting headache I've ever had. I would have willingly hammered a six inch nail into my forehead to relieve the pressure. I did everything. Visualised packing the headache into a tiny box and shooting it into space, every over the counter painkiller you could think of until I was near a dangerous dosage, but to no avail. I was stuck with lying down in a not-very-light room until I woke up yesterday and it had all but vanished. Thank Herbert.
I lost a third day of work yesterday for a different reason. New contact Susie runs a brilliant new startup called My Face My Body My Soul. She does facials, has a whole body vibration machine, and is a reiki practitioner. Face, Body, Soul, geddit?
My visit to her was to take pics of her relaxing little room so she could put them on her website; in return she gave me a mini combination facial and a turn on the vibration machine and the foot massager. With half the day gone by then, including a sushi lunch, I asked her for a reiki session at my cost.
Before I get onto the reiki, which is the real purpose of this post, a brief note about the facials. The combo was half an hour of the Micro Current Facial, which uses a very week electrical impulse to stimulate facial muscles and tighten them, followed by half an hour of an serum delivered deep into the skin via an oxygen machine, using a device that was first cousin to an airbrush. This plumps the skin up and fills in minor wrinkles and if you have deep lines helps them too. I swear I looked about 30 by the time she'd finished. Ideally you'd have a full course - six weeks - of both these treatments for maximum and longer lasting results.
And then the vibration machine. I want one! :-) It stimulates your muscles and gives you the equivalent toning of a one-hour aerobics class. In ten minutes. Given my host Susie's trim taut body, and she uses it every day, if I lived closer to her salon I'd be in there every week using it.
But now to the soul bit. I asked for reiki as I've had it before and was blissed out for about 3 days afterwards. If anything was going to kick that headache into touch, it would be reiki.
Many people are sceptical about reiki and other 'new age' and alternative therapies. Not that reiki is new, it's been around for millennia. I'm a hippie at heart and believe that 'there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your constitution'. (Shakespeare occasionally comes in handy, although I am more likely to quote 'blow wind, and crack your cheeks!' when I hear someone fart.)
The lovely Susie is a grade 2 reiki practitioner - the first person I went to was a reiki master and I did get more of a sensation out of the first person, but I gradually sat up at the end of an hour feeling very much at peace and a bit tingly all over.
The really interesting thing was what Susie said afterwards.
"When I started with you, I got this very clear image of a little girl of about ten or so on a swing. She was wearing a long white dress, old-fashioned, and in a beautiful garden. Lots of roses and other flowers, flowers twining up the side of the swing even."
Bizarrely, my first reiki person saw that same little girl, although she was wandering in the garden rather than sitting swinging. She was wearing the same white dress and had the same long brown wavy/curled hair. I told Susie that and asked what it might mean. She said, as did the first person, that the girl was either me in a former life or a guardian angel or spirit. Susie suggested that if I'm passing a children's playground, I should get on the swings :-). It could help lower my stress and clear my thinking.
I'm wondering if that little girl is my grandmother as a child. Nan and I were the best of friends, and a tarot reader once told me that Nan was still about, looking over/after me. In my head now I'm calling that little girl Ivy, my nan's name.
Susie also had a strong vision of me walking by an ocean with a dog, and told me I was at my happiest and healthiest near the coast. "You need the negative ions you get from salt water and the surf, even if you don't swim. You work all day with computers which emit positive ions so you need to balance it. Heading out to the Blue Mountains for a day will help restore your negative ions too. But try to get to the beach regularly all year around, just walk by the water in winter. You could also try standing in the rain." Fat chance with the rain, I hate getting wet when I'm fully clothed! :-) The ocean is nearly an hour's drive away but I think I'll have to make a regular effort; it's true I am happiest near water, whether it's the river or the ocean. I'm a Virgo, an earth sign, so my need for water is a bit weird!
The headache, she said, was coming from my stomach area, and she did a lot of work around that chakra (which made me fart later when I went to the loo after my reiki session!). It was stress-related. Given that it's January and my stress levels are pretty low as work is light at the moment, I wonder whether it was a year's worth of stress just releasing itself.
Isn't it weird that both reiki people saw the little girl? She is obviously a key part of my psyche.
Friday, January 13, 2012
Friday, January 6, 2012
The Not The New Year's Resolution
This year the only new year's resolutions I made were:
Not for me the give up smoking/drinking/eating/chocolate/anything enjoyable that most people put on their lists, because trust me, it doesn't work and you just end up miserable because you've given something up and then more miserable because you've failed and launched back into the smoking/drinking/eating/chocolate/anything enjoyable a few weeks later.
Every year I have muttered at one minute to midnight on New Year's Eve, "This year I'm going to lose weight!" And I do, in a Bridget Jones sort of way. A bit off here, a bit back on there, with my weight typically being the same on December 31 the next year. This year I thought, "Stuff it!" instead.
And now here I am, reading The Clean and Lean Diet book. More on that later but honest, I wasn't looking for a diet.
It's amusing as how I found the diet was googling Nigella Lawson. I was blessed to get a copy of Nigella Kitchen from my Mum for Christmas; unlike some of Nigella's books this one isn't heavy on the fats and cream, and everything I've cooked out of it so far has been delicious. Put it this way, we've been living off the book's recipes since Boxing Day and haven't put weight on over the holiday season. However, we haven't been our usual sedentary desk-bound selves either, which helps. We have had plenty of walking and exercise and physical labour.
I like Nigella. Well, actually, that's not quite right. I fancy her rotten. She is sexy, warm and simply beautiful. And shit, she looks great for 51! I get the occasional crush on women (don't get me started on Sue Perkins or this blog post will run for days) and Nigella has been a crush for many years.
So I thought I'd do a search and see what the scrumptious Ms Lawson has been up to lately. Losing weight was the big one. She's gone from a size 18 to a size 12. Obviously she hasn't been eating anything from Nigella Express, her fat- and preservative-laden fast recipe book! A little more prodding produced the Clean and Lean diet as the secret to her new slenderness (she looks even hotter now!).
I've been hovering around the 5kg-too-heavy mark for about a year, after losing 7kg the year before that. Given my usual life of stuck at the desk from 9 to 6 most weekdays and often weekends too, it's a minor miracle I'm not the size of a house but I try to ensure both of us eat pretty carefully. You know, fat trimmed from meat, no package meals, as many fresh ingredients as possible, organic when I can a) afford it and b) find it in Western Sydney. We rarely have biscuits in the house, don't do fast food, and only eat crisps if we're at a friend's place and they are put in front of us as nibbles because I have the willpower of a marshmallow when I'm hungry.
We both fall down when it comes to wine, chocolate and the occasional sugary thing though. My husband is much worse than I. He will have toast laden with butter and marmalade at breakfast regardless of whatever else I serve up, even bacon and eggs. I might have toast and marmalade once a year; I prefer my toast with a hint of butter, and perhaps some Vegemite, if I have toast at all. He has two sugars in coffee and tea, I have none. No matter how large and delicious our evening meal, he'll pull out the chocolate and put it on the coffee table for afterwards; sometimes just looking at it makes me want to heave. And we both enjoy wine every night. It was only last week I'd had my first alcohol-free night in months. I like white wine, and typically drink it over a lot of ice, quite slowly, so during the evening I might have 1 to 2 standard drinks. He likes to guzzle beer before dinner in summer.
To my horror - but not unexpectedly - the Clean and Lean diet bans all alcohol and sugar for at least two weeks. The sugar I don't care about but there goes my delicious evening treat, my reward to myself for a hard day's work, my lovely glass of pinot grigio/sav blanc/chardy/whatever.
My husband has dipped into the book and grumbled copiously. Being a Scot he was born with a sweet tooth and now in middle age it's showing. He's a good 15 kg overweight. I don't know how far down this Clean and Lean journey he'll go with me. Mind you the diet features quite a bit of smoked salmon so that's cheered him up as it's one of his favourite foods.
I started the diet yesterday afternoon. I'd like to say I started it in the morning but I didn't, because I'd baked a Nigella chocolate cake earlier in the week and we had to finish it. You know what it's like. :-) So it got eaten yesterday and last night I sipped on soda water with a lime squeezed into it. No chocolate for either of us after dinner (grilled chicken with steamed veg). I couldn't get to sleep because I was hungry; I find on alcohol-free days I do get hungry late at night even if I've had a good meal.
The diet is a low-carb one (surprise!!) and we both lost weight on something similar a couple of years ago - I lost my 7kg on the paleo diet and my husband dropped a few kgs too although he cheated more than I did so didn't get quite as good a result. This one is very varied on what we CAN eat and if my husband starts seeing a result he'll stick with it I think.
After two weeks you can introduce some carbs and dairy back into your diet, eat fruit again (as fruit of course is sugar on the whole), and have a blowout meal once a week and the occasional drink, apparently only one per week but I suspect I will end up drinking every second or third night once I've got some weight off. Gin and tonic is apparently better for you than wine as far as calories go. Luckily it's also a favourite of mine. :-)
Reading through the recommendations of what to eat however the 'best' is typically organic produce, to reduce the toxins we put into our bodies. This makes sense but it also makes it a very expensive way to eat assuming you can find the stuff.
It's no surprise that wealthy celebrities can brag about how much they lost on this diet or that diet. Eating well typically means spending more money on your food. Replace sausages with steaks, and not supermarket steaks packaged in plastic and sprayed with preservatives; steaks from the butcher and preferably organic ones. Suddenly you've gone from paying $4.50/kilo for your sausages or $9.99/kilo for premium beef mince to $33/kilo for your steak. Not a problem if you're wealthy; if you're a typical working family with two or more kids and a mortgage those sausages or mince are going to sound a lot more tempting.
So we'll try this diet and pretend not to notice the cost of organic this and that. It's not a new year's resolution so it may well work :-). I'm betting now that I reach my goal weight but my husband will cheat too much and not make the scales.
If the Domestic Goddess, with her self-confessed greediness for delicious food, can stick it for a bit, so can I.
- to be happy
- to be less stressed about everything
Not for me the give up smoking/drinking/eating/chocolate/anything enjoyable that most people put on their lists, because trust me, it doesn't work and you just end up miserable because you've given something up and then more miserable because you've failed and launched back into the smoking/drinking/eating/chocolate/anything enjoyable a few weeks later.
Every year I have muttered at one minute to midnight on New Year's Eve, "This year I'm going to lose weight!" And I do, in a Bridget Jones sort of way. A bit off here, a bit back on there, with my weight typically being the same on December 31 the next year. This year I thought, "Stuff it!" instead.
And now here I am, reading The Clean and Lean Diet book. More on that later but honest, I wasn't looking for a diet.
 |
| Mmm... yummy Niigella! |
I like Nigella. Well, actually, that's not quite right. I fancy her rotten. She is sexy, warm and simply beautiful. And shit, she looks great for 51! I get the occasional crush on women (don't get me started on Sue Perkins or this blog post will run for days) and Nigella has been a crush for many years.
So I thought I'd do a search and see what the scrumptious Ms Lawson has been up to lately. Losing weight was the big one. She's gone from a size 18 to a size 12. Obviously she hasn't been eating anything from Nigella Express, her fat- and preservative-laden fast recipe book! A little more prodding produced the Clean and Lean diet as the secret to her new slenderness (she looks even hotter now!).
I've been hovering around the 5kg-too-heavy mark for about a year, after losing 7kg the year before that. Given my usual life of stuck at the desk from 9 to 6 most weekdays and often weekends too, it's a minor miracle I'm not the size of a house but I try to ensure both of us eat pretty carefully. You know, fat trimmed from meat, no package meals, as many fresh ingredients as possible, organic when I can a) afford it and b) find it in Western Sydney. We rarely have biscuits in the house, don't do fast food, and only eat crisps if we're at a friend's place and they are put in front of us as nibbles because I have the willpower of a marshmallow when I'm hungry.
We both fall down when it comes to wine, chocolate and the occasional sugary thing though. My husband is much worse than I. He will have toast laden with butter and marmalade at breakfast regardless of whatever else I serve up, even bacon and eggs. I might have toast and marmalade once a year; I prefer my toast with a hint of butter, and perhaps some Vegemite, if I have toast at all. He has two sugars in coffee and tea, I have none. No matter how large and delicious our evening meal, he'll pull out the chocolate and put it on the coffee table for afterwards; sometimes just looking at it makes me want to heave. And we both enjoy wine every night. It was only last week I'd had my first alcohol-free night in months. I like white wine, and typically drink it over a lot of ice, quite slowly, so during the evening I might have 1 to 2 standard drinks. He likes to guzzle beer before dinner in summer.
To my horror - but not unexpectedly - the Clean and Lean diet bans all alcohol and sugar for at least two weeks. The sugar I don't care about but there goes my delicious evening treat, my reward to myself for a hard day's work, my lovely glass of pinot grigio/sav blanc/chardy/whatever.
My husband has dipped into the book and grumbled copiously. Being a Scot he was born with a sweet tooth and now in middle age it's showing. He's a good 15 kg overweight. I don't know how far down this Clean and Lean journey he'll go with me. Mind you the diet features quite a bit of smoked salmon so that's cheered him up as it's one of his favourite foods.
I started the diet yesterday afternoon. I'd like to say I started it in the morning but I didn't, because I'd baked a Nigella chocolate cake earlier in the week and we had to finish it. You know what it's like. :-) So it got eaten yesterday and last night I sipped on soda water with a lime squeezed into it. No chocolate for either of us after dinner (grilled chicken with steamed veg). I couldn't get to sleep because I was hungry; I find on alcohol-free days I do get hungry late at night even if I've had a good meal.
The diet is a low-carb one (surprise!!) and we both lost weight on something similar a couple of years ago - I lost my 7kg on the paleo diet and my husband dropped a few kgs too although he cheated more than I did so didn't get quite as good a result. This one is very varied on what we CAN eat and if my husband starts seeing a result he'll stick with it I think.
After two weeks you can introduce some carbs and dairy back into your diet, eat fruit again (as fruit of course is sugar on the whole), and have a blowout meal once a week and the occasional drink, apparently only one per week but I suspect I will end up drinking every second or third night once I've got some weight off. Gin and tonic is apparently better for you than wine as far as calories go. Luckily it's also a favourite of mine. :-)
Reading through the recommendations of what to eat however the 'best' is typically organic produce, to reduce the toxins we put into our bodies. This makes sense but it also makes it a very expensive way to eat assuming you can find the stuff.
It's no surprise that wealthy celebrities can brag about how much they lost on this diet or that diet. Eating well typically means spending more money on your food. Replace sausages with steaks, and not supermarket steaks packaged in plastic and sprayed with preservatives; steaks from the butcher and preferably organic ones. Suddenly you've gone from paying $4.50/kilo for your sausages or $9.99/kilo for premium beef mince to $33/kilo for your steak. Not a problem if you're wealthy; if you're a typical working family with two or more kids and a mortgage those sausages or mince are going to sound a lot more tempting.
So we'll try this diet and pretend not to notice the cost of organic this and that. It's not a new year's resolution so it may well work :-). I'm betting now that I reach my goal weight but my husband will cheat too much and not make the scales.
If the Domestic Goddess, with her self-confessed greediness for delicious food, can stick it for a bit, so can I.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Bad carma
You know you're in trouble when a car mechanic or repair professional sucks in air through his teeth with a whistling sound, and shakes his head.
If this is accompanied by an "Ooo," the news is even worse.
We have had a run of bad luck with our cars in the last couple of weeks. On Boxing Day mine got hit by a garbage truck. The ironic thing is that I had driven it over to my mother's as we were staying there for three nights, thinking it would be safer outside her place than parked outside ours. We live in a low socio-economic area and I had visions of returning to a car minus wheels, windscreen wipers and groovy wing mirror covers.
I woke up on 26 December to find the garbo had reversed down Mum's hill, collected my car on the way and pushed it nearly four metres down the hill, up the gutter and up over Mum's low sandstone retaining wall.
The driver had to return later that morning to do the recyclables run and we were waiting for him. He denied doing the damage but seeing we'd found bits of his mudflap on the road at the point of impact, and the dent in my car's poor rear matched the curve of his tyres, there wasn't much doubt. His boss visited the site and agreed his company would take liability. Cue calls to the police, insurance company, panel beaters, towing company etc etc.
This time of year in Australia everything shuts between Christmas and New Year, so it was only yesterday that I was able to get Minerva towed to the panel beater. I followed her up there in my husband's trusty Subaru and was relieved when the panel beater said he thought it would only be panel damage, not chassis damage. There was no air sucking, head shaking or Ooohs.
That done, and as the mercury was rising steadily, I headed down to the river for a swim in the baths. It was heading for a stinker of a day, so I enjoyed the cool water and shady trees. I swam around slowly, keeping moving continuously for a solid forty minutes before drying off in the sun and enjoying Douglas Adams' The Salmon of Doubt. Nearing lunchtime I decided to head home. I should have really dropped in at my Mum's for a shower and lunch, as she was only five minutes away, but I had some work to do in the afternoon so decided to think about that crisp salad waiting for me at home.
Ten minutes down the road the clutch pedal refused to lift up when I changed gear. Little alarm bells started to ring in my head. I flipped it up with my foot and continued carefully. The Subi was NOT happy and started to judder underneath near the front of the car. When I put the clutch pedal down again I had trouble changing gear so pulled it into neutral and coasted to the side of the road, coming to rest under a huge Moreton Bay Fig. Acrid smoke was billowing from underneath as I turned the ignition off. Bugger! The clutch!!!
I made the call to the road service people and settled down to wait for the second tow truck of the day. The tree was shady, I had a book but I was madly hungry and also penniless. Even if there had been a sandwich shop open in the vicinity I could only have looked and drooled. Thankfully I had a bottle of water with me which kept the hunger at bay a bit.
My driver arrived and I told him what had happened. He shook his head, sucked in air through his teeth and said "Ooo."
By then I'd figured for myself it wasn't a simple clutch cable replacement but something more serious.
We got the Subaru onto the back of the tow truck and headed for the mechanic's.
While my driver unloaded the Subi I went to chat to the booking staff in the blessed cool of the office and explained what had happened.
Shake of head. Intake of breath through the teeth. Ooo.
I have a theory that the slower and longer the shake of the head, the worse the news is. The mechanic is clearly doing a quick calculation of just how expensive the job's going to be.
The mechanic shook his head very slowly indeed and my heart sank.
The Subaru is an all wheel drive, you see; in order to muck around with the clutch you have to take all four wheels off and half the underbelly and it's a sort of double clutch arrangement or something.... not what you get with a two wheel drive car, anyway. I forget the actual term he used but the estimate was $1700 if they had to replace the entire clutch. Hopefully it will just be replacing the clutch plate itself and that may cost less.
The kind tow truck driver gave me a lift towards home as he had to use a loop road underneath the main road to change direction, so in the 37 degree heat I luckily only had about 400 metres to walk. I arrived home sweaty, salty and hungry and just a bit grumpy.
So now we are carless for a while. Apart from public transport we will be totally reliant on our bikes for transportation, not just pleasure rides.
Maybe it's the universe telling us to slow down, as we haven't had a real break these holidays. There have been people, and dinners, and lunches, and car smashes and all the faffing around that involves. My husband has been fixing our boat and messing around rather badly with fibreglass, which has been full on physical work for him; I have been sanding and painting outdoor furniture. We haven't had the time to fulfil our intentions of simply relaxing and doing nothing. Nothing. Just sitting and reading, or drawing and painting. This weekend we'll have no choice as any journeys we make will be very local.
I think it's bad carma.
I just hope nothing goes wrong now with the bloody bikes!
If this is accompanied by an "Ooo," the news is even worse.
We have had a run of bad luck with our cars in the last couple of weeks. On Boxing Day mine got hit by a garbage truck. The ironic thing is that I had driven it over to my mother's as we were staying there for three nights, thinking it would be safer outside her place than parked outside ours. We live in a low socio-economic area and I had visions of returning to a car minus wheels, windscreen wipers and groovy wing mirror covers.
I woke up on 26 December to find the garbo had reversed down Mum's hill, collected my car on the way and pushed it nearly four metres down the hill, up the gutter and up over Mum's low sandstone retaining wall.
The driver had to return later that morning to do the recyclables run and we were waiting for him. He denied doing the damage but seeing we'd found bits of his mudflap on the road at the point of impact, and the dent in my car's poor rear matched the curve of his tyres, there wasn't much doubt. His boss visited the site and agreed his company would take liability. Cue calls to the police, insurance company, panel beaters, towing company etc etc.
This time of year in Australia everything shuts between Christmas and New Year, so it was only yesterday that I was able to get Minerva towed to the panel beater. I followed her up there in my husband's trusty Subaru and was relieved when the panel beater said he thought it would only be panel damage, not chassis damage. There was no air sucking, head shaking or Ooohs.
That done, and as the mercury was rising steadily, I headed down to the river for a swim in the baths. It was heading for a stinker of a day, so I enjoyed the cool water and shady trees. I swam around slowly, keeping moving continuously for a solid forty minutes before drying off in the sun and enjoying Douglas Adams' The Salmon of Doubt. Nearing lunchtime I decided to head home. I should have really dropped in at my Mum's for a shower and lunch, as she was only five minutes away, but I had some work to do in the afternoon so decided to think about that crisp salad waiting for me at home.
Ten minutes down the road the clutch pedal refused to lift up when I changed gear. Little alarm bells started to ring in my head. I flipped it up with my foot and continued carefully. The Subi was NOT happy and started to judder underneath near the front of the car. When I put the clutch pedal down again I had trouble changing gear so pulled it into neutral and coasted to the side of the road, coming to rest under a huge Moreton Bay Fig. Acrid smoke was billowing from underneath as I turned the ignition off. Bugger! The clutch!!!
I made the call to the road service people and settled down to wait for the second tow truck of the day. The tree was shady, I had a book but I was madly hungry and also penniless. Even if there had been a sandwich shop open in the vicinity I could only have looked and drooled. Thankfully I had a bottle of water with me which kept the hunger at bay a bit.
My driver arrived and I told him what had happened. He shook his head, sucked in air through his teeth and said "Ooo."
By then I'd figured for myself it wasn't a simple clutch cable replacement but something more serious.
We got the Subaru onto the back of the tow truck and headed for the mechanic's.
While my driver unloaded the Subi I went to chat to the booking staff in the blessed cool of the office and explained what had happened.
Shake of head. Intake of breath through the teeth. Ooo.
I have a theory that the slower and longer the shake of the head, the worse the news is. The mechanic is clearly doing a quick calculation of just how expensive the job's going to be.
The mechanic shook his head very slowly indeed and my heart sank.
The Subaru is an all wheel drive, you see; in order to muck around with the clutch you have to take all four wheels off and half the underbelly and it's a sort of double clutch arrangement or something.... not what you get with a two wheel drive car, anyway. I forget the actual term he used but the estimate was $1700 if they had to replace the entire clutch. Hopefully it will just be replacing the clutch plate itself and that may cost less.
The kind tow truck driver gave me a lift towards home as he had to use a loop road underneath the main road to change direction, so in the 37 degree heat I luckily only had about 400 metres to walk. I arrived home sweaty, salty and hungry and just a bit grumpy.
So now we are carless for a while. Apart from public transport we will be totally reliant on our bikes for transportation, not just pleasure rides.
Maybe it's the universe telling us to slow down, as we haven't had a real break these holidays. There have been people, and dinners, and lunches, and car smashes and all the faffing around that involves. My husband has been fixing our boat and messing around rather badly with fibreglass, which has been full on physical work for him; I have been sanding and painting outdoor furniture. We haven't had the time to fulfil our intentions of simply relaxing and doing nothing. Nothing. Just sitting and reading, or drawing and painting. This weekend we'll have no choice as any journeys we make will be very local.
I think it's bad carma.
I just hope nothing goes wrong now with the bloody bikes!
Friday, December 23, 2011
With friends like this who needs enemas?
Thinking about big loud wooden chimes got me thinking about one of my friends, who I shall for blog purposes name Whingy. Whingy hates wind chimes. My mother has a nice one on her balcony, and when Whingy and her husband, Mr Whingy (known collectively as The Whingies) visited a couple of years ago the beautiful tinkling noise the chimes were making as the pleasant north east wind swirled and twirled them drove Whingy mad.
"I HATE wind chimes!" she grumbled. "I'm going to take down those chimes and throw them in the bin!"
Whingy, it is worth adding here, seems to suffer from Narcissistic Personality Disorder, she has many of the symptoms. Whereever she goes she expects people to bow to her wishes, a self-appointed Queen of Everything She Surveys.
Mum, whose mildness conceals an iron fist in a velvet glove, said politely, "I like my wind chimes." There was the steady gaze that said, "This is MY house and you are NOT touching my wind chimes."
Whingy continued to grumble about the wind chimes all evening and I was glad when the wind dropped. Mr Whingy said nothing. Sometimes he has sense. Other times he backs her up.
Whingy, you see, has delicate hearing, attuned only to notes that are in tune. She has studied classical piano at a conservatorium. She KNOWS. She loves Music. The slightest bum note can send her into orbit, and our wind chimes sound just great to me, but I'm a bit tone deaf.
This delicate hearing extends beyond music. When the Whingies moved into their house nearly twenty years ago their next door neighbour had an aviary. The neighbour was an older man with his adult son living with him, along with about twenty birds, two of which were big white cockatoos.
I love cockies. I love their character, their screeches, the way their sulphur-coloured crests rise cheekily. These two cockies were of the cheerful, chatty, screechy variety, happy to yell at passing birds or wolf-whistle when the old man came out of the back door.
Whingy, naturally, hated them. She hated them so much, and wrote so many nasty letters to her neighbour, that he ended up getting rid of the cockies and finding them new owners.
Whingy was jubilant. I was disgusted. The poor bloody neighbours had had the birds for years before Madam moved next door.
That was the first of their neighbour issues. The old man moved into a home and the aviary was gone in its entirety, to be replaced by a family with small and noisy children. Then the neighbours next door to that changed and there was a kid who used to bounce a basketball (deliberately loudly I'm sure) on concrete outside the Whingies' living room. Five houses back onto one side of the Whingies' property, and they have had issues with nearly all the neighbours over the years, predominantly about noise. Kids jumping, shrieking, into swimming pools on a summer's day has annoyed them to the point where The Whingies would shout swear words at the top of their lungs, knowing the parents would hear and bring the kids inside away from the rude neighbours. Most of their neighbours have received a solicitor's letter about some misdemeanour or other.
The latest escapade is a shocker.
Last week one of her neighbours - new ones who are only now discovering what it's like to live next door to her - threw an afternoon BBQ for some mates. They have a small backyard and the grown up men starting playing ball games. A couple of tennis balls flew into Whingy's garden. Then - and she probably guessed it was coming - a soccer ball thumped over the fence. By now she was foaming at the mouth because the neighbours were making NOISE.
She stabbed the soccer ball with a knitting needle and gleefully watched it deflate.
A short time later the gate intercom rang and two burly blokes were waiting at the gate, presumably to get the ball back. She ignored the buzzer and, lo! two minutes later they'd climbed over the fence on the other side of her property and were wandering up the drive in search of the ball. She read them the riot act and told them they were trespassing; they said she should have at least acknowledged their buzzer if she was home or handed the ball back herself.
Later that night the new neighbour rang the intercom. A heated conversation between the Whingies and the new neighbour ensued. Turns out the soccer ball was brand new and cost $90. Whingy screamed on about trespassing and got mad at Mr Whingy because he was being wimpy and not standing up for her enough. "Can't we talk nicely about this?" pleaded the new neighbour. No, apparently not.
Now they have their pet solicitor - a good friend - writing a nasty letter to the new neighbours about trespass. Jeez!
A couple of years ago the house on the other side of theirs was up for sale and the Whingies urged us to try and buy it, principally so it wouldn't go to 'nasty' neighbours. We said, with sad faces, that there was no way we could afford it. What we were really thinking, apart from being financially downmarket, was the hell we'd go through with our choice of music trickling through open windows, our dog barking at birds or people knocking on the door, throwing a party and having to invite them or they'd be pissed off... and of course our selection of wind chimes.
I wonder if those big wooden ones will be cheaper in the Boxing Day sales? Heh heh heh.
Monday, December 19, 2011
Painting the new year in. I hope.
What a looong year it has been - but how quickly it has gone by! Looong in the sense that we haven't really taken any holidays this year. We have had a long weekend in Adelaide, all of three days, and another in Melbourne almost a year ago. Aside from that our fingers have been glued to the computer keyboards, but now we both have a break coming up.
This Christmas I'm determined to start drawing and painting again. You know, the stuff you do by hand, where you get pastel dust on everything and the dining table becomes a makeshift studio. I have been drawing on my iPad a lot this year and while it's been fun it also makes me lazy. If I make a mistake I can erase it, or undo it. Putting pen to paper (or pastel or paint to paper) is more unforgiving.
I stopped at my favourite art supply shop last week and as usual succumbed to a technique book, this one on drawing successful drapery, something I haven't mastered as well as I'd like.
Six years ago I was painting daily. I was invigorated, up sometimes until midnight during the week, when all was quiet and I the only one awake. I was very prolific, and these are some of my favourite images from that time.
This Christmas I'm determined to start drawing and painting again. You know, the stuff you do by hand, where you get pastel dust on everything and the dining table becomes a makeshift studio. I have been drawing on my iPad a lot this year and while it's been fun it also makes me lazy. If I make a mistake I can erase it, or undo it. Putting pen to paper (or pastel or paint to paper) is more unforgiving.
I stopped at my favourite art supply shop last week and as usual succumbed to a technique book, this one on drawing successful drapery, something I haven't mastered as well as I'd like.
Six years ago I was painting daily. I was invigorated, up sometimes until midnight during the week, when all was quiet and I the only one awake. I was very prolific, and these are some of my favourite images from that time.
This is the one I'm most proud of. It won a Highly Commended at an art show. I called it Carry On Up The Vineyards.
This is me in 'realistic' mode - Gladesville Bridge at sunset. I cheated and painted from one of my own photos. It really was that colour. Deep sunset pinks and peaches.
Probably the first image I painted when I decided to try out pastels. My style is funky/modern usually. This is a whimsical image of the cat I had in my life then, Hamish MacFlea.
Friday, December 16, 2011
Coaly panties and freed willy
Reconnecting recently with an old friend whom I've known since we were both in primary school has brought some childhood memories flooding back. I hated school - but I hated high school more than primary. Teenage girls can be bitches; in primary school the teasing or bullying wasn't so nasty (apart from one of the teachers!).
I had been sent to kindergarten with the firm instruction to Do What I Was Told. Being an only child and not having gone to pre-school, I was a bit under-socialised with other kids apart from the neighbours' kids and my older cousins. Mum feared I might get a bit stroppy with the teachers too I think.
I took this directive very seriously.
So seriously in fact that when a little monster called Mark told me to put coal in my underpants one lunchtime, I did.
Mark was the sort of kid who'd play Fathers and Mothers and try to do the deed. Like many small boys he was intrigued in the differences between boys and girls. I suspect he took me to the coal heap and watched my pull down my panties and load them with coal to see if he could get a glimpse of what they'd been covering up. The coal heap was behind two of the buildings, out of sight; I'm not sure what the coal was used for but there was plenty of it, black and shiny and sharp.
Back in class Mrs B noticed me wriggling awkwardly on my seat and may have even heard crunchy noises. You can imagine her thought: If this kid has crapped in her pants what the hell has she been eating?
She drew me aside and asked a few questions. I don't know how she kept a straight face when I told her that Mark had made me put coal in my panties. I bet she roared with laughter once we kids had gone home and probably had hysterical giggling fits with her husband that night.
I don't remember what punishment Mark got, but I know Mrs B told my Mum what had happened when she came to collect me that afternoon. Mum then revised her instructions, realising I had taken them very literally: Do What The Teachers Tell You To Do, Not What Anyone Else Tells You.
It was some time later - that year? the year after? - when Mark bailed me up outside the loos, a stinky little block for the kids up to age 8. It was never really clean as little kids peed on the floor or missed the bowl completely, and I sometimes used to hang on all day rather than go in there to pee.
Mark proudly unzipped his fly and showed me his willy. I had never seen one before. I didn't gasp with horror or shock, or show amazement or delight. I didn't give him any reaction he wanted. I laughed. I know now with hindsight he'd been circumcised, but his willy looked for all the world like a pencil with an rubber (eraser) on top, one of those rubbers that were popular at the time, little pyramids with a round top. It was even much the same colour. His willy was a pencil with a rubber. I pointed and laughed.
These days I would probably have received counselling had I told anyone, and Mark would have been monitored for signs of sexualisation and therefore perhaps sexual abuse. His parents would have received A Visit From The Authorities.
Instead Mark crossly zipped himself up and didn't, that I recall, speak to me again unless the teacher made us work together. He did yell taunts at me a couple of years later when I started riding my bicycle to school and made fun of me and my purple bike. He made it a point to yell rude comments along the 'Fatso!" lines and jeer at the colour of my bike. I did, I think, try to ride at him once and run him over (as you do when you're 8) but he ran too fast and made more fun of me when I couldn't catch him.
I doubt I was the only girl he tried to expose himself to; most of the girls steered clear of him on reflection.
After I left to go to high school I didn't see him again, except once. I would have been about twenty or so and chatting with a girlfriend beside my car, Herbie. A couple of young guys clattered past in another old VW, this one hand-painted, clumsily, red. "I see red, I see red, I see red!" one of them sang out the window at me - it was a hit by Split Enz at the time. "Ugly car! Paint it red!" he continued. They drove back and forth a couple of times before dak-dakking into the distance, shouting at me about painting my car red and I looked at my friend Sarah, who seemed to know them.
"Who was THAT?"
"Mark W -, I think," she replied.
It made sense. I don't know if he recognised me or was still, frankly, the kid who made girls put coals in their panties and anyone was fair game.
What's he doing these days? No idea, but I suspect his destiny was to be a merchant banker.
Rhyming slang, folks, rhyming slang.
I had been sent to kindergarten with the firm instruction to Do What I Was Told. Being an only child and not having gone to pre-school, I was a bit under-socialised with other kids apart from the neighbours' kids and my older cousins. Mum feared I might get a bit stroppy with the teachers too I think.
I took this directive very seriously.
So seriously in fact that when a little monster called Mark told me to put coal in my underpants one lunchtime, I did.
Mark was the sort of kid who'd play Fathers and Mothers and try to do the deed. Like many small boys he was intrigued in the differences between boys and girls. I suspect he took me to the coal heap and watched my pull down my panties and load them with coal to see if he could get a glimpse of what they'd been covering up. The coal heap was behind two of the buildings, out of sight; I'm not sure what the coal was used for but there was plenty of it, black and shiny and sharp.
Back in class Mrs B noticed me wriggling awkwardly on my seat and may have even heard crunchy noises. You can imagine her thought: If this kid has crapped in her pants what the hell has she been eating?
She drew me aside and asked a few questions. I don't know how she kept a straight face when I told her that Mark had made me put coal in my panties. I bet she roared with laughter once we kids had gone home and probably had hysterical giggling fits with her husband that night.
I don't remember what punishment Mark got, but I know Mrs B told my Mum what had happened when she came to collect me that afternoon. Mum then revised her instructions, realising I had taken them very literally: Do What The Teachers Tell You To Do, Not What Anyone Else Tells You.
It was some time later - that year? the year after? - when Mark bailed me up outside the loos, a stinky little block for the kids up to age 8. It was never really clean as little kids peed on the floor or missed the bowl completely, and I sometimes used to hang on all day rather than go in there to pee.
Mark proudly unzipped his fly and showed me his willy. I had never seen one before. I didn't gasp with horror or shock, or show amazement or delight. I didn't give him any reaction he wanted. I laughed. I know now with hindsight he'd been circumcised, but his willy looked for all the world like a pencil with an rubber (eraser) on top, one of those rubbers that were popular at the time, little pyramids with a round top. It was even much the same colour. His willy was a pencil with a rubber. I pointed and laughed.
These days I would probably have received counselling had I told anyone, and Mark would have been monitored for signs of sexualisation and therefore perhaps sexual abuse. His parents would have received A Visit From The Authorities.
Instead Mark crossly zipped himself up and didn't, that I recall, speak to me again unless the teacher made us work together. He did yell taunts at me a couple of years later when I started riding my bicycle to school and made fun of me and my purple bike. He made it a point to yell rude comments along the 'Fatso!" lines and jeer at the colour of my bike. I did, I think, try to ride at him once and run him over (as you do when you're 8) but he ran too fast and made more fun of me when I couldn't catch him.
I doubt I was the only girl he tried to expose himself to; most of the girls steered clear of him on reflection.
After I left to go to high school I didn't see him again, except once. I would have been about twenty or so and chatting with a girlfriend beside my car, Herbie. A couple of young guys clattered past in another old VW, this one hand-painted, clumsily, red. "I see red, I see red, I see red!" one of them sang out the window at me - it was a hit by Split Enz at the time. "Ugly car! Paint it red!" he continued. They drove back and forth a couple of times before dak-dakking into the distance, shouting at me about painting my car red and I looked at my friend Sarah, who seemed to know them.
"Who was THAT?"
"Mark W -, I think," she replied.
It made sense. I don't know if he recognised me or was still, frankly, the kid who made girls put coals in their panties and anyone was fair game.
What's he doing these days? No idea, but I suspect his destiny was to be a merchant banker.
Rhyming slang, folks, rhyming slang.
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
I grump therefore I am
Human nature is such that we, of course, are the centre of our own universe, and we are, after all, animals. Self-centred grumpiness is pure animal behaviour. Neither of my cats would contemplate the greater world if they were in a bad mood. They'd probably narrow their eyes and grumble at me. They wouldn't consider poor little starving cats hanging around the docks in Piraeus Harbour or the cats facing death row at the RSPCA, for example, to bring their own minor or non-existent problems into perspective.
Part of today's grumpiness has been software-induced, fighting with a misbehaving menu in WordPress that won't do what I ask it no matter what. I found myself shouting at the computer (don't we all?) and before I embarked on some self-harm (a good hard bite of my own wrist eases my bouts of anger, I'm ashamed to say, and has done since I was a toddler) I emailed the theme developer instead. Another client had some major changes to a site under development, so that put my plans for the morning on the back burner while I sorted out those issues.
Part too has been the grey skies. I find as the years go on I feel happier on sunny days. When I was younger it didn't matter. Today started out gloriously sunny but as the clouds covered the sky during the course of the morning they covered my psyche as well.
I gave up on work at five and took the dog for a walk in the fresh air, with the chilly north-easter blowing in our faces. I think a lot of my grumpiness today is lack of exercise. I woke blearily at six this morning, thought I'd close my eyes for a moment and suddenly it was 7.30, too late to head out walking really as the email and phone pestering usually starts around 8.30. This time of year, coming on summer, I have broken sleep too; waking hot one moment, throwing off a blanket and then waking up cold an hour later.
A migraine has been slowly building all day which doesn't help; whether it was induced by grumpiness/blueness/anger or whether it's the cause of same I'm not sure.
At least I have one thing I have accomplished today - all the Christmas cards and interstate/overseas presents are now in the hands of Australia Post.
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