Merry .....

... Yeah, that.
Mr Brown's gifts, both of them, arrived by post in plenty of time.
I've received confirmation that parcels, posted in a panic mid-last-week, for the nieces and nephews, arrived in time.
Mine? Mine is being held by customs, not to be released until a lump of cash is handed over, up to 5 days after a tariff form is completed, and that won't be until after I return to work on the 3rd, because I fucked up the form and left all the paperwork on my desk.
Shit. Bugger. Bum.

Boooo .....

.... ooooooooooo.
It would seem Mr Brown cocked up dinner reservations, I will not be stuffing my face with sea pearls and 8 texture chocolate cake at Quay next week.
He has no back up plan. I may have a self-indulgent little weep.
*sob*

*sighs*

... Well, not a surprise really, given how toxic NSW Labour had become.
But still. Fuck. At least we kept Verity. I'm off to hibernate for the next 10 years or so.

I was just congratulating myself ...

... on not having come down with ennui, the blues or Reverse Seasonal Affective Disorder recently. But then it hit a day or so ago.
It's the season you see, and the weather, and having a sore back that won't get fully better, and being tired because I'm not sleeping well because of the sore back and the heat and the humidity.
O dear, me and my first-world problems and not really even seriously real depression.
Fuck it.

I know someone ...

... who's entire family have been suffering Whooping Cough, despite the fact that they've all been vaccinated.
How is this possible? Well, it's possible because fuckstumps with their hippy middle class, alternative woowoo shit heads up their arses don't vaccinate their children. Yep, one of her kids got it at school because some soppy prat didn't want to "put a disease in a perfectly healthy body". FFS!
Apparently you can't ban kids from kindy/school etc, if they aren't vaccinated. Yep, idiots are allowed to (a) keep a disease going and (b) give it to your kids.
So now this woman, her four sons and husband have had to live through a ghastly, and should-be-preventable illness for 12 months and months, miserable, because some prat thought they knew better than most of the medical establishment. Or, because it's too traumatic to watch little Tarquin get a needle!
I don't know about you but I'm seriously grateful my mum took me along and had me jabbed for ... polio, measles, whooping cough, and fuck knows what else! Because I don't ever want to have one of those, not even a bit!
And then I read this. Fuck people make me angry.

PS - I vaccinate the cats!

I won't go into the drama ...

... injury, stress or shouting.
We certainly won't mention the expense or panic.
Merry Merry, doodadoodaday!
Remind me, why is it we do this?

So, I'm free at last ...

... but feeling rather flat about it.
I've been sent home, dismissed, superfluous to requirements.
Yep, turns out only 12 jurors get to make that final, fateful decision, so they had a ballot to see which 12 that would be. My number was not pulled out of the box and home I was sent.
Mr Judge was very sweet, thanked me and all that, said I shouldn't feel my time has been wasted just because I don't get to make the decision.
But fuck, seriously, 70 days, over 3 months of my life has been spent on this jury. Interminable days of nitpicking evidence. Immeasurable days of summing up and then even more spent summing up the summaries! AND I DON'T GET TO MAKE A DECISION. Hell, I don't even get to know the decision, unless it's published in the newspaper or some obscure legal site.

However, bright side and all that, we do have a lovely new front path!Laid this very morning. I'm so very glad we stood our ground and went with the full pattern, well worth the cost I say.
Apparently, the furry girls kept a couple of supervisory eyes on things while I was out.That is all.

Idle time ...

... is essential, I believe. It's thinking time, the opportunity to mull over life, the universe and everything.
There are folk who believe it's important to be busy, to fill every imaginable second of their day with things to do. These are the people who keep telling you how busy they are, proclaim they're not enough hours in the day to get done what must get done, who express amazement that I have time to read, pootle, or do nothing but daydream. They bemoan their exhaustion and confess, patronisingly, how wonderful it would be to find a little me time.
They are judging me, I know that. They think I'm lazy and their busy, filled-to-the-brim days make them far superior beings.
If these people really wanted me time they could find it.
If they took a good hard look at all the things they had to do I'm pretty damn sure they could weed out some of those tasks. I'm quite sure that many of those essential duties are not at all crucial. They are time fillers, activities designed to keep one in motion, not thinking.

Because if they stopped, did nothing, and began to think about things, they may have to acknowledge just how sad and empty their lives actually are.*

from here

Me? When I just lie back and do nothing at all I often find myself smiling and have to confess to myself that I'm actually quite happy, comfortable and content with life**. There's not much I'd change at all.

* This is not, of course, a rant against the genuinely can't get it all done folk, them I feel for and wish upon them much me time and soon!
** Except, obviously, when I'm being a moody cow grumbling about others :)

I've watched this 16 million times ...

... it does not get old (turn the sound down if you're grumpy like me - girly giggles drive me NUTS).

There's this one bloke ...

... on the jury I'm (STILL) on that I actively dislike.
Seriously dislike. Want to punch-in-the-face dislike.
It's got to the point that every.single.thing he says or does fills me with rage.
I've taken to getting in later and later, just so I spend as little time as possible in his presence. Up until today I've kept it hidden pretty well, I think, my intense dislike of his very being. Kept myself nice and all.
Until this morning!
Because this morning, day 57 I believe, when I walked and greeted my fellows with a cheery "morning" he said it. He said "good morgen Morgan".
No really, he actually said it.
I know I groaned. I'm pretty sure my face took on a look of pained disgust before I took control of it again.
He thought he was being funny and original, he said so. I pointed out that over the past 40-odd years I'd heard that particular phrase A LOT (somanytimesIcouldfuckingscream) and so no, it is neither funny nor original.
I'm pretty sure he's under no misconception as to my opinion of him.
Fuckwit.
I think I may be ready to return to work now.

Today I made my annual $2 donation ...

... to stupidity*.
I drew horse 13 (Manighar). I won nothing.
As we would say in Twitter, #thatisall.




* This means I popped $2 in the Jury Sweep. A testimony to folks willing to throw away their $$ - of a jury of 13 people we managed to run 2 sweeps!

Also, "I'm so busy"...

Footballers ...

... they've been at it again.
Honestly, I'm beginning to get more than a little tired of this shit.
Blokes, if you are not sure if she's "asking for it" or not, read this helpful 7-point handy guide on how not to rape people. It may help.
Other men, of the non-rape type, thanks and please go and slap your fellow men upside their heads.Click to enbiggen the FirstDog cartoon - from here.

I'm Crushed ...

.. faithful readers with good memories will remember my devotion to Pears Transparent Soap.
I love the stuff, used it from when I was wee, and snitched a bar from my mother's pantry/store cupboard upon finally leaving home. I've been using it ever since. I introduced it to our co-habitable/matrimonial home.
You take the last wafer-thin bit of soap, mold it into the dip of the new bar and carry on. If you believe in the theory behind Bach Flower Remedies, I don't by the way, but if you did, you could argue that we are still using the same soap I took from home over 20 years ago. It's a lovely thought.
Anyway, just the other week Mr Brown opened a new box, slipped out a new bar, popped the old snippet of soap on top, to find it didn't have that concave space (created, apparently, not by deliberate, careful molding, but by shrinkage asthe soap dries). Hmmmmm.
I was next in the bathroom. It smelled wrong, strong, overpowering and wrong. It was the soap. "This isn't Pears" I declared to Mr Brown, "we've been sold dud soap, fucking Coles is selling counterfeit Pears! The Fuckers." (Not an unfair charge I contend, they've been sneaky before.) I was accused of overreacting, possible defamation, and told to hurry up we were going to be late for work.
Some judicious Googling proved me right ... and wrong. It wasn't counterfeit soap, Pears had changed the ingredients and the formula. The ingredients list for the soap I love is - Sodium Palmitate, Natural Rosin, Glycerin, Water, Sodium Cocoate, Rosemary and Thyme Extract and Pears Fragrance, a nice, short relatively natural and safe list.
The new list is Sorbitol, Aqua, Sodium Palmate/stearate, Sodium Palmkernelate, Sodium Rosinate, Propylene Glycol, Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (nasty) PEG-4, Alcohol, Glycerin, Perfume, Sodium Chloride, Sodium Meta Bisulfite, Etidronic acid, Tetra Sodium EDTA, BHT, CL 12490, CL 47005, Benzyl Benzoate, Benzyl Salicylate, Cinnamal, Eugenol Limonene, Linalool. A nasty list of toxicity.
I DO NOT WANT.
Turns out a shit load of other people did not want either. Pears has apparently stated it will abandon the new forumla and use one "much closer to the original".
Now I dealt with the packaging change, the disappointing, dull box and cellophane replacing the lovely proper paper individually enclosing each individual tablet. But I won't deal with the new smell, the funny "feel" (it's sort of softish, creepy) and the horrid shape. "Much closer to the original" just isn't good enough Pears, you've lost a customer of some 40-odd years.
Goodbye Pears, hello Dr Bronner's Magic Soaps! The ingredient list for the bar soap isn't quite as comforting as old Pears, but it's a shit load better than what Pears became.
Here endith my rant.

Missing my joie de vivre ...

... I hate when this happens, this sudden onset blues.
I've lost motivation, fun, appetite, bladyblabla.
It's not helping that it's hot and humid.Cruising for pictures of Spring is not making things better.Coming across pictures of Small, actually makes things worse.The round of intense retail therapy I underwent this week has not helped either.
I really, really need for (a) it to cool the fuck down and get on with autumn already (b) for Mr Brown to spend a weekend at home now and again. Pathetically, things get done when he's there doing or helping alongside.
Bah.

Australia Day ...

... Google it if you must, there's loads for and against. I think this chap says it best.
Anyhoo, I'm Australian. I'm not proud to be Australian, since I've had nothing to do with the fact that I am. It's not something I've worked for or achieved, it's a quirk of birth. The luck of the draw.
I am, however, glad I'm Australian. That this big brown, green-beribboned country is my home. For all its faults, and there are many, it's far from perfect, I really wouldn't want to live, long-term, anywhere else.*






* That's not to say I wouldn't do a little dance of glee if Mr Brown announced we were off to live in London or New York for a year or two. But I'd be wanting to come home after that, of that I'm sure.

What he said ....

... from here.

Last night I got trapped in my building foyer ...

... for 40 minutes.
I, a colleague and 2 poor "members of the public" could not get out.
The after-hours door button just didn't work. Press, press, press. No joy.
The fire door, the access to the stairs was locked and could only be opened by one of those lucky folk with magical 24-hour access swipe cards.
Because it was after 6pm the lifts, once they had deposited you on the ground floor, would not take you upstairs again, unless you had one of those magical 24-hour access swipe cards. O, and the lift alarm button, when pressed, made an impressive noise but nobody responded.
Now, I'm not a fan of the mobile telephone, I have one but only for my benefit, that is I use it to call Mr Brown from a couple of stops away, so he can come pick me up at the station, that sort of thing. The only numbers I have stored on it are personal friends and family.
I chose to have it this way because I don't want to be one of those people who can't put their fucking phone away, can't not look at it, can't not answer it EVEN IF THEY ARE EATING THEIR DINNER! One of those folk per family is more than enough.
So, clearly I couldn't ring any work folk to come let me out, not that there were any still in the office. Lucky the colleague had her boss's number, and that boss called the building owners, to come let us out. And a security guard did eventually saunter up.
Guess who is now the proud possessor of one of those magical 24-hour access swipe cards?

Day 2, 2010 ...

... It's hot, 30 degrees, not exactly sunny, no breeze, humidity 60-odd %.
Mr Brown left for Victoria about 5am.

I'm a sailing widow for a week. The week that I'll be the only person in the office. Yes, that's right, I'll be doing the work of 5, including the manager's position, which I hate with a passion.
Even these shots of my lovely blue banded bees were taken in 2009. 2010, so far a dud.

FFS ...

... one of the ever-increasing list of reasons we don't have children, is that they would probably be taken away from us, by well-meaning authorities, for all the poor-parenting choices we'd make.
We would smack, not abuse, whip, beat black and blue, but we would smack.
We would read them Where the Wild Things Are and Roald Dahl's The Fantastic Mr Fox and all the others besides.
We would take them to see the new Where the Wild Things Are movie. And a whole bunch of other nightmare-inducing stuff - Bambi, Old Yella, that Red Fern movie, The Wizard of Oz, all of them (they all gave me nightmares and made me cry)
We would feed them peanut butter, things from the yellow food group, strawberries, tuna and everything else you're not supposed to.
We would make them walk to school, or ride their bikes, or catch a bus.
We would probably make them latch-key children.
We would not "educate" them incessantly in loud middle-class voices.
We would keep the cats.
We would let them eat dirt and would not use antibacterial anything.
We would make them go to bed early, so we could have some alone, grown-up time.
We would dress them inappropriately for our own entertainment, and if they were girls would not purchase mini bras, midriff tops or anysuchstuff. Plain cotton knickers all round, possibly with a kitten or butterfly on the front.
We would call it Mucus, or Ianthe, for laughs.