Hell’va Weekend

My weekend felt like it started on Wednesday last week. Not because I wasn’t working, but because my Sister, Little, arrived from Melbourne for a few days. Her flight landed fifteen minutes early, just to keep me on my toes.

We haven’t stopped, since. She, even though she has a cast on her left wrist, due to a DIY accident last weekend, clean my house from top to toe on Thursday while I was at work. She was supposed to put her feet up in the sun drenched garden and read, but she decided to clean the windows in the kitchen instead. Incidentally, you have to stand on the bench tops to get to my kitchen windows. D’Oh! And that’s all I have to say about that. Except, thanks for cleaning Little.


On Thursday night, we popped to OfficeWorks to get new school stuff. Pencil case, pens, highlighters and Post-its®. Just like we did as gals. Muv would take us to WHSmith before the start of the new school year and stock us up with the required goodies. This may be where I got my love of stationary from, by the smell of new pencils, rubbers (erasers) and the sight of protractors and set squares are like heaven to me. Anyway, we stocked up on things to write with and in.

On Friday we caught the train to North Sydney and commenced our training to be Wedding Celebrants. There were 14 of us in total in the class, four boys, ten girls and the teacher. I was, quite frankly, the most exhausting weekend I have had in a very long time.

We listened, we shared, we role played, we conducted ceremonies. I got married twice, held the hands of a stranger and Little was my son. It was weird. But we passed that part of the course.

Now begins the paperwork part.

Reading, writing and filling in online forms.

But first, I need to catch up on my sleep because 12 days with no weekend is taking it's toll.

Poor Service

I have been confused by the apparent lack of ‘service’ in Sydney. Being somewhat service orientated I am often surprised that business manage to survive, let alone thrive, considering treating their customers as an inconvenience rather than a precious commodity to be nurtured in order to keep them coming back.

I experienced two such examples today in a 45 minute period.

The first was a SheepSkin sales place that have the rather lovely heeled Ugg Boots. When I went in to ask the price last week I was told, ‘two fifdy’ by the Asian lady behind the counter. I went back today to try on and purchase, ‘two seventy nine’, I was told, less than a week and they had gone up in price by $29…pretty good inflation rate.

As I have been looking at them for so long I requested to try them on…’you lean’. I was told, ‘no seat for try on’. So I found myself perching on the sideboard removing the shoe and sock from my left foot. This is no mean feat for someone with the balance of a wobble toy. The shoe that I had selected (my size) was tiny, I couldn’t even get my heel through the ankle part of the shoe. When I asked if they had a larger size, she yelled to the guy in back in Cantonese, he appeared, looked at the boxes lining the wall behind me and said to me, ‘no big feet shoes’.

I replaced my own sock and shoe and left.

The next incident was in a discount store, I needed a small box for people to put money when they buy eggs (I have chickens, I sell the eggs at work). I knew the discount place had those little gift boxes, which are perfect for my need.

I selected a box, about 10x5x5cm and took it to the counter. The girl scanned it, the machine bleeped and she turned to the Indian guy on the phone next to her. He snatched it from her, placed it on the shelf behind him and said, ‘no sale’, completely ignoring the dumbstruck customer (me). The girl informed him that a customer wished to purchase the box. He yelled at her, ‘we don’t know price, we might get wrong, no sale!’

I was a little ticked off by this and said, ‘you can’t do that, the product was for sale, I wish to purchase that box and there are no others like it or even that size.’ He tutted and waved his hands at me as if shooing a fly away. I decided to ignore him and deal with the girl. I paid $1 for the box. Seemed fair to me considering how rude the manager had been.

These are two stores I shall not patronise again. I do that you see. Provide me with woeful service and I take my money elsewhere.

Just like there are plumbers, electricians, and petrol stations I will not frequent.

I don’t understand how in this time of a record decline in retail sales why every shopkeeper isn’t doing everything their power to lure and keep customers. Think people:

happy customers = good word of mouth recommendations = good sales = you don’t lose your livelihood

Facebook

Facebook has it moments.

Moments of annoyance; such as when you click on a video that you friend posted, only to find it’s actually a virus that is self replicating, and you realize you have to warn all your friends not to click on the video you just posted.

Moments of sadness; when you read that a friend has lost a loved one. Even ‘friends’ that you have never met, you still feel a pang of grief, because inside you know what they are going through, but you know you can never express how you feel for them.

Moments of jubilation; A baby has been born, a child has graduated, the test results where negative (in the good way), the rescue puppy has stopped peeing on the carpet. These are time when you happily click the ‘like’, because you genuinely feel a glow inside.

Moments of hilarity; that picture your friend posted made you laugh so hard, you wet your pants slightly. pmsl has never been more apt.

Moments of disappointment; when you realize that ‘random’ you added because they made you laugh on other friends profiles, turns out to be a God-bothering psycho that is just trying to convert everyone.

Moments when you just want to delete your profile; no-one has commented on anything you’ve posted, for HOURS!

And then there are moments when if forces you to reflect. A status update today gave me such a moment.

What my Mother taught me:
Religion: ‘You better pray that comes out of the carpet’.
Logic: ‘Because I said so, that's why’.
Irony: ‘Keep crying and I'll give you something to cry about.’
Wisdom: ‘When you get to my age you'll understand’.
Justice: ‘One day when you have kids, I hope they turn out just like you’.
Repost if your mother taught you right

I added, Discipline: ‘You’re never too old to be put over my knee’, because it felt right.


Here’s the situation where each of these (or near as) happened to me.

I was given some silly putty as a gift for Christmas. I decided to take an impression of my hair crown because, as it’s on the back of my head, I had never seen it. The silly putty got so stuck in the hair, nearly two hours of combing, Surfega, sunflower oil and finally diesel, saw it out. But at the beginning of the two hours Muv said to me, ‘You better pray this come out or all you’ll be left with is a tuft of hair.’

‘Why shouldn’t I shave my legs Muv?’ ‘Because I said so, that why. Plus, do you want your legs to feel like this?’ Quickly followed by a hand being run up her stubbly leg.

When I started my periods, I bit*hed and moaned about the pain and cramps. ‘Keep crying and I'll give you something to cry about.’ I kept crying, so Muv took me to have my ears pierced. That hurt much more.

I like to think I understand a lot more now I'm the age she was once. Life does indeed suck, and yes, you will die.

I’ve never had two legged children (as discussed in other posts) but my fur and feathered kids, sleep like me, eat food like me and love me to bits. Even the chookens. So in many ways…they are just like me.

When I was 18, we where having a laugh about something…I can’t remember what it was, but clearly I over stepped the bounds of the Mother/Daughter freedom of speech act, because she said the line. Despite being a couple of inches taller and wider than Muv, she could still say the words, 'You're never too old...', and I knew it was true.

So I had many moments all rolled into one today, and for that I an thankful to Facebook and a random add friend that didn't turn out to be a psycho, God-bothering or otherwise.

Moral Compass

There have been a few items in the news recently that have got me thinking about my own level morality.

I like to believe that I was dragged up by the scuff with quite a high moral grounding. My Muv and Dad instilled in my brother and sisters a belief that lying was bad, stealing was wrong because you have to earn the things you have and being a pyromaniac, while it fun to watch flames licking around logs in the fireplace, it’s not good burn things that aren’t in the hearth.

We were also taught to respect your elders, even if they are being a git. Smile and move on.

Don’t put your feet on seats, in public or your own home, you don’t know what you’ve stepped in. I never really understood this one, I got the public part, but I was pretty sure I didn’t have mud (or dog poop) between my toes. So I often engage in feet on sofa heresy, but never with shoes on.

***

I recently read that with the hike in banana prices in Australia, people using the self serve check out are putting bananas through for the price of carrots, or whatever is seasonally cheaper than $17 per kilogram. The question the press was asking was, is this stealing?

I say a resounding yes. It is stealing.

But when surveyed, the general public leaned more towards no, it’s not. The reasoning was that they had been paid for, even if not the full price, therefore it was OK. Before I read about the banana switch, it hadn’t even occurred to me that I could just press a different button in the check out. Even now it has been planted in my mind, I find the idea deplorable. I know that big business will bear the brunt of the theft, but do I know what other the consequences are?

Will the check out chick who’s supposed to ensure the self serve checkouts aren’t abused retain her position, if not job? Will prices elsewhere in the store rise? Will the banana farmer be screwed down on price? Will the truck driver who delivers them to the store be expected to drive that little bit quicker to ensure timely delivery…did I suddenly get into the Butterfly Effect?

My point here, is: I don’t do it, because it never occurred to me in the first place, but when I think about it, it makes my brain hurt.

***

Meanwhile, in the UK, scumbags where rioting in towns across the small island. One victim was Aaron Biber, no relation to Justin. The 89 year old barber survived the Second World War only to see his shop ransacked by looters, just for the hell of it. He didn’t have anything of value to steal, no plasma telly on the wall, no expensive hair product and even his scissors and certainly his door curtain, would have been older than most of the vandals.

Why would people do this. To me, and most of my peers, it’s unfathomable. We simply cannot comprehend the idea of trashing a place just because.

Don’t get me wrong, I have felt the rush that illegal activity gives you, but I’m a firm believer of ‘Make love, not war’. ;-)

It’s a thrill, but running through the streets setting fire to things, stealing things, smashing, just to smash and worse, running someone over that was trying to protect their property, leaves me scratching my head in a way that could leave scars.

Where these people not taught basic morality in their formative years? Video of a boy being helped with the right hand and being robbed with the left hand makes me think not.

Can we blame politics for taking away the rights of parents to give their kids a good clip round the ear? I had many, and worse, and it never did me any harm.

I know several people that have been too afraid to speak up in adverse situations for fear of harm. Instead, they have put their head down and kept quiet, unnoticed.

Are adults now being bullied by children in a passive aggressive way? Sometimes that’s how I feel. I have been on trains where teenagers in a group have had their feet on the seats, I desperately what to tell them to put their feet on the floor, but simple eye contact has lead me to think that I would be smacked or verbally abused if I dare to say something. Isn’t that bullying? We’re too sacred to stand up and say, enough is enough.

In the UK, they have. We used to complain about CCTV camera popping up all over the place like mushrooms. ‘It’s an invasion of privacy,’ was a common cry. Now they are being praised.

People are taking up brooms to battle and clean. It’s fabulous. In some ways I wish I was on the tiny island right now.

From a few nights of bedlam a mighty uprising of good has occurred. I hope this continues. People of all nations coming together to improve relations and the moral fabric of society.

I would never dream of saying my moral compass faces a firm North, but I do believe in thinking about my actions and the outcomes before I do them. I hope we can all learn a lesson for the last few weeks, think about the outcome of your actions. You’ll be surprised how often you cease to do what you were about the do.

Thank you to the following for the images:
Compass
Aaron Biber (this is a good story too)

Missing Kids

They have charged a 41 year old father of three for the murder of 13 year old Daniel Morcombe, that went missing nearly eight years ago.

I’m very pleased to hear that someone will finally pay for this shocking incident.

The parents have appeared on every news program this evening and some reporters have been saying by way of introduction to the story ‘For a parent, it’s the worst nightmare…’

Why does it just have to be the worst nightmare just for a parent?

Aunts, uncles, grandparents; are these not close enough to be affected by a child or family member going missing?

Un-frinkin'believable

It was my day off between gigs today. I went to the doctor for a check-up and blood test. While I was waiting to see the delightful Dr. Rosemary, I got a text message from the mole;

‘Hi, sorry to bother you but I can’t find the updated training report and I need to provide it as part of the handover. Can you tell where you saved it? Thnx KB.’

So I did tell her and that I was at the doctors.

I went into the doctor’s office and had my blood pressure taken. 131/90. She wasn’t happy with that. My phone blipped again. I looked, like a fool.

‘Hope u r ok.When you r done, can you send me your network password and I will retrieve it. KB.’

MY NETWORK PASSWORD!! Are you frinkin’ kidding me!? No way in a million years!

My doctor took me BP again. It had gone up to 142/110, all from a simple text.

This is what I put up with for four months, the woman contacted me, an ex employee, who for once in her career had not left an employer with the words ‘If you need anything, call me.’ I couldn’t give a rats bottom where the document was, despite spending 2 hours updating it and including all her nit picky edits.

My Doctor expressed concern over my weight gain, then immediately said, ‘but if you’ve had that for four months, it will drop off now you’ll stop comfort eating’. What a wise woman!?

Anyway, after my appointment I had a blood test, so now have a bruise like I’ve been shooting up.

I got another text, ‘Unfortunately the last version on the shared drive was modified on 5 Aug. That’s why I need to retrieve it s I don’t think it saved.’

I ignored it, but rang my friend Bling Bling. ‘could you please sort this out?’

I’m pretty sure she did, because I didn’t receive any more texts or emails. But seriously, who the hell does KB think she is.

After that, Cara and I had a nice day wandering around town. I brought myself a book that reminded me of my childhood, and a t-shirt for the little lady. We popped in to see the Chocolate lady, but after being told by the doc I had gained 6kgs I declined the kind offer of some free Rocky Road.

Tomorrow I start my new job.

Exit stage right

It’s my last day in the land of the mole. I would like to say that not everyone here has been awful...just the mole.

Bling Bling gave me a very nice leaving gift of a scented candle and a bling bling peacock, which I have called Homer, after the actual peacock that I had a few years ago.

Knitter had a good ole giggle when I demonstrated the noises that CatTV make when they laid the eggs I had just given her.

Mr Benefits and the rest of the office near me enjoyed the truffles I made on the weekend, they ate the calories I cooked and will no doubt be glad when I am gone, because there will no longer be anyone cooking sweet treats in the name of research.

I finished up the couple of documents I had to do, cleaned out my inbox and bequeathed RubberBandBall MkII to Bling Bling and Knitter. It left it at 62mm in diameter; I hope it continues to grow. I buried a small note beneath its layers, it said: ‘A symbol to those left behind, you too, can escape’


As I was coming in from lunch, I saw mole. She smiled, and i hoped it was the last I’ll ever see of her. Some people just bring out the worst in me.

Have fun in my absence.

Growth

Getting there. 51mm in diameter and growing. Two days to go until I leave it behind as my legacy :-)

Same designer you think?

images from www.imdb.com

A night at the museum

On Tuesday night I was lucky enough to attend the 2011 season of Jurassic Lounge at The Australian Museum.

A few weeks ago I put my name forward as a photographer for an evening or three. I was asked to come along on opening night and snap away.

This I did. I went in not really knowing all that much about the event, but really it a marketing vehicle to encourage people who wouldn’t normally go to the museum to go. Having been to the museum, I was familiar with it, but to see it lit differently with games, activities, bands, DJs and artists or the painting and performing types amongst the exhibits, the whole place came alive, which was nice, because it usually has a kinda stuffed feel about it.

I would encourage you all to get along to one of the evenings if you can, it was really fun.


Burlesque eyelashes


Pluck those strings


Create your own 'zine


Skeleton gallery


Mayor Clover arrives


Self portrait by funkyfotobooths (careful, this site has music!)

More photos can be found here, including a few more of mine :-)

That’s not real!

Next week I shall start my new job with a government agency. I’m looking forward to it.

I preparation for the start, my new agency are asking me to fill in all sorts of paperwork. That’s pretty normal. What isn’t normal is being asked to complete an online learning module about OH&S.

I used to teach this going back a few years, so it’s not that I know nothing about the subject it just strange because in all the year since I taught it, I have never been asked to sign an agreement that I understand my obligations under the work place safety act.

While doing the module I came across a couple of things that made me think, ‘That’s not a real thing.’ But it turns out they are both real, only one is completely the wrong use of the word.

The first was during the page of information about wrist rests. It says, ‘Wrist rests should not be used while typing or mousing – only while resting’.

Mousing, what the crap is mousing? Oren does mousing, Puss sometimes helps. Cara plays with Mousey Mousey and I use a mouse. Being the curious bunny that I am, I looked up the word ‘mousing’ and found that it has nothing to do with the use of a computer mouse, but more to do with fishing.

Should I tell the agency that their eLearning module is wrong?


The second thing was Occupational Overuse Syndrome. WTF!? RSI has been renamed it appears. I don’t know when this name change occurred because it hasn’t been communicated to anyone but the internet and quite frankly, it sounds rubbish. Everyone knows what RSI means. It’s called what it is, a repetitive strain that has caused an injury. This makes sense to me.

It sounds made up, like runcible. When Edward Lear made that up in the 1870s he was ridiculed, and it still get picked up by spell checkers despite being in the dictionary, now it appears that making things up is fully acceptable. Benifer, sexting, mousing and OOS...please stop making names up for things that already have perfecting good names.

It makes me smile, because it’s given me something to do for twenty minutes and I enjoyed reading about the life of the master of nonsense.


Thank you to this site for the graphic image of what my cats think mousing looks like.

Creative time wasting

I realised today, as I added another 40 rubber bands to RubberBandBallMkII that I have become a master of killing time on the job.

I am usually a very productive employee, but on occasion there are times when a lull in work causes the use of imagination to look busy. We’ve all done it; we take advantage of the slow days to refresh the brain for the onslaught that is bound to happen due to poor time management (by others and yourself). Having said that, I don’t think the following has every interfered with me actually getting something done on or before the required deadline.

The following are a few of the things I have done to occupy my time during the hours of 9 – 5.30 Monday – Friday.

- Internet shopping (I curse Amazon.com)
- Make Christmas cards (yes, I actually made cards one year, many moons ago)
- Read novels (with the advent of e-books came the chance to read a saucy novel in .pdf format that looks like a business document)
- Complete Uni assignments, and therefore my Masters degree (I know I’m not alone with this one)
- Write blog entries :-)
- Make paper clip necklaces (one colleague actually wore one out)

It takes a somewhat active imagination to do some of these things...but I’d be interested to know what you do to kill that down time when you can’t just get up out of your seat and walk out and do something more interesting.

Incidentally, RubberBandBallMkII is now 47mm in diameter.

Liar liar...

...pants on fire.

Last week I went to see a tax agent to submit my income tax for 2010/11. I had spent a large proportion of the weekend going through receipts, calculating percentages and generally going around in circles. Numbers are not my forte.

I presented the agent with three pages of spreadsheets, salary summaries and contributions to health fund. All she had to do was plug the information into the tax offices systems and it should have all been done. An hour and a half later, several explanations of why I claimed this, and why I claimed that, I signed the return, paid my $125 and left, thankful that it was done for another year.

Today, I received a call for Roman (name has not been changed to protect the douchebag), he explained that he was overseeing my return and he was ‘not convinced’ that I was eligible to claim certain items.

‘Are you calling me a liar?’ I asked.

‘No, I am just trying to clarify if you are claiming a home office as a convenience?’ he said.

I won’t go into the following conversation, but I ended up walking into the office, stating in a loud voice that I did not appreciate being called a liar, and demanding that all my paperwork be returned to me.

It’s been a while since I have been so offended. I don’t offend easily, but to be called into question about deductions that have been a repeated item for some 10 years, really p*ssed me off. I don’t claim charity donations (I could) and I don’t claim car expenses (I could). I have never in all my life tried to avoid paying tax, despite the fact I seemingly get very little in return for the 43% I pay.

To have some jumped up git who has no idea who I am, what I do or understand my circumstances doubt my honesty, well, let’s just say I was remarkably kind.