Eww...

Being out of work again I’m spending a lot of time on the internet looking for a new job. My mind often wanders and I find myself reading email, random website and what parades itself as news. After the last week of bushfire news and exploitative journalism I saw the headline ‘8.6m fingernails broken in crash’. I couldn’t resist, I clicked on the link.

The story was of a woman who had had a car accident and broken her record breaking fingernails. There was no picture, so I typed her name into Google Images and many pictures appeared.

Personally I like it when my nails are long and painted scarlet, they look sexy, but this is just excessive.

I don't want too...

read
eat
shower
get out of bed

well, most things really

Pinch Punch

I went to see 'The Curious case of Benjamin Button' yesterday. I cried all the way through without a tissue to control the flow of water from my eyes or the pale watery snot from my nose. I was not because the film was sad,although, to be honest I've seen happier joy joy movies. It was because of the opening sequence and small plot exploration sequences that kept cropping up throughout. The girlfriend I was with understood the problem and handed me a tissue.

Today I saw 'Slumdog Millionaire'. It didn't make me cry, but it made me think about how life is passing me by and how I'm missing a few things at the moment. When I got to the home of my companion for the afternoon, I sliced a few vegetables for the BBQ then went outside and laid on his recently mowed back lawn. He stayed inside to watch the cricket. The grass was spiky were it touched my bear shoulders causing a not unpleasant inching sensation. I lay there looking up at the sky, watching the clouds
roll across the blue sky. Clouds of brilliant white and pale grey bringing with them the first cool change in days.

I lay there looking up, feeling the breeze lick across my skin. I listened to the sounds around me. The lorikeet singing in the jacaranda tree behind me. The native miner bird walking across the roof of the veranda a couple of yards from my feet. I saw the silloette of a magpie flying above me. I noticed that from the angle I was looking at the white concrete ballistraid of the neighbor really didn't look as pristine as when looking from a standing position.

I felt a tickle on my right forearm. I lifted it to see a single black ant carrying a crumb. The ant worked its way toward the inside of my elbow before I gave it a gentle flick back onto the grass. The grass had made its temporary mark on my skin, leaving tiny red, uneven indents all over my arms.

I looked back up at the sky. The blue now almost completely gone, covered with the rapidly shifting clouds. As I watched they cleared a little, allowing the blue to once more peek through. A pair of shadowed passed over me, their cry revealing two more lorikeets.

I'm not quite sure how long I lay there, but I realised something while I did.

I miss doing nothing with someone special.

What's in A Name?

When I first saw the headline on Yahoo! this morning I thought I had read it wrong.

'Adolf Hitler taken by US Child Services'

Then the thought that maybe the US really did believe there were God and had managed to travel back in time and removed the youngster from Mr. and Mrs. Hitler befour he caused so much trouble and angst for everyone.

I was, of course, being completely ridiculous and read the story anyway. Only to find out that a couple in New York State have named their three children Adolf Hitler, Aryan Nation and Hienrich Himmler. Child services became involved when the parents asked a local cake maker to put young Adolf's name on top of his birthday cake. The shop refused saying it was an unreasonable request.

The part that makes me smile, is that the parent think it perfectly reasonable to name their after the WWII dictator, his ideals and his right hand man and say they aren't subjecting the children to cruelty. They believe the names to be unique and the swastiker to be a work of art. Dumbarses.

The part that makes me sad, those children have to live with those names for the rest of their lives or at least until they are old enough (and hopefully smart enough) to change them.

Poor Planning

As you may have gathered from numerous posts on the topic, but I am less that satisfied with my current employment. I find myself in the position of being up to my eyeballs in work due to poor planning by the Project Manager and not giving a rats arse.

I spent an extra three hours last night writing a document at home. I've spent several hours in meeting that have absolutely no relevance to me because it's deemed (by the PM) that I be there. I could be writing the 45 odd page document that I have a week to write. Now, it's not just me that feels this is a bit wrong. Two other people on the project don't remember hearing about this document before Friday last week. Also, it's important to know, there are only four people on the team.

Today I was thinking about how I'm going to write my parts of the document, while in a two hour meeting for another document that didn't require my input, and did a couple of doodles I'm quite happy with.



Anyone know what doodles tell us about what the artist is thinking at the time of drawing?

Stars

On a work daily basis I read my stars while on the train platform. Then I go into Facebook and catch up. It's become a bit of a morning ritual that I quiet like although I have turned into one of those commuters that is wired for sound and more interested in my mobile than those around me. What I'm not too happy about is that for the last week my stars have been forecasting doom and gloom;

Romance: Thunder
Finance: Rain
Work: Snow
Mental: Snow
Physical: Sun
Emotional: Snow
Spiitual: Thunder

Today, as with everyday, it goes on to detail each of these aspects of my life and it doesn't look good. Power struggles, toxic envirnments, not rushing into friendships and today it even told me I should call my Mum. On the plus side, I do have some sun in my physical today.

I console myself with the fact that Year of the Rat is nearly over and next year it should get better.

What a lot of old bollocks horoscopes are ;-)

Err...No!

Expectation and Annoyance

On Christmas Eve I surprised and delighted a customer at work by agreeing to have a coffee with him in the New Year. I even gave him my number to prove I was in earnest and explained I was away until the 7th Jan.

While I was on my abortive road trip (I really should write about that) he rang me twice. I was actually driving at the time, ignored the call once and picked up and explained I was on the road with no hands free. I asked him to call me upon or just after my return to Sydney on the 6th. He agreed.

He texted me on a couple of occasions and I chose to ignore these.

Yesterday, just as I was leaving for lunch he rang me. I asked when I would be available for that coffee today. I explained that I already had lunch plans and that I wasn't available until next week. I start swimming again tomorrow; I don't want to put it off anymore.

'Well, dinner then?'

'I'm sorry, but I have plans.' He didn't need to know I was rushing home for the first episode of Dexter Season 3.

He then ranted a bit about how he might be going to America next week for business.

At this point I was getting closer to my lunch rendezvous with a friend and wanted my caller gone.

'I only agreed to have coffee with you in the first instance. I very busy and have offered you a chance to meet next week if you are able. That is the best I can do at the moment.' I was calm.

'Well,' he said, 'in that case why don't you call me when you're free.'

'I sure will.' was my reply.

As the escalators took me to my lovely lunch company, I found Bonne Annee in my phone and pressed delete.

Morning Giggle

I seem to spend a lot of time on trains. Last night, on my way home a derailment caused my 45 minutes trip to be 70mins of unair-conditioned boredom (I forgot my book and my iPod) in 40 degree heat. I was glad to be home at twenty past seven so I could remove my sweat soaked trousers and jump a cool shower.

This morning, random stops outside Lidcombe and Newtown meant I had an extra ten minutes on the train, but a dramatic over night drop in temperature meant I got to work with a dry seat.

I had my iPod this morning (not making that mistake again) and I was happily listening to Cat Stevens and looking outside the window, watching the world whoosh by at 30kph. Our trains don’t move very fast.

I had noticed earlier in the ride that the Christmas reprieve was coming to an end and few people were having to stand. The people that did have seats had their noses buried in books, school work and newspapers, or just like me, had music soothing them towards another day at the office.

The three men sitting in the seat in front of me were a combination of newspaper, school-work and book. None of them had music. The guy next to me though, he pulled out an old Sony Discman that I remember having when I was 16, but I digress…

Back to the guys in front. The school-work guy was sat in the middle. Wedged in between the two larger guys like a party popper about to be pulled, he was looking at accountancy sheets. The print was large and bold, and very easy to read from my position. He was flipping the pages, reading about credit and debits and P&L before moving onto end of year. It was all so riveting just outside Stanmore he started to get the head bob.

You know the one, the I’m falling asleep and I have no control, one. I want to stay awake, but, I. Just. Can’t.

His black haired head was slowly swinging to the left, then jerking upward. Then back down again until his chin hit his chest, then back up again with a start. This went on for a few minutes and then his head came to a stop. Nestled against the shoulder of the man to his left.

I watched as Cat sang ‘The Boy with the Moons and Stars’ as the man slowly put his newspaper on his lap and with his index finger pushed the sleeping mans head into the upright position. The continued support meant he didn’t wake up. The finger was bent rapidly, taking it away from the man head, then the whole hand was slowly moved across its owners chest so as not to wake the sleeping neighbour. The sleeping man stayed like that for a moment, then despite his head already being upright, his head snapped back with such force his whole body spasmed, he stood up then sat back down again.

After resuming his set he looked around to make sure no one had seem him, then continued to read his school-work.

mobile

this is my first post written on my mobile (cell) phone. Uppercase is hard to get and functionality is limited, but otherwise it's all good. I can't figure out how to do paragraphs either. Maybe this should be an emergency only posting option:-)

Noise

Whilst enjoying my Nam Pho yesterday I witnessed an injustice. It didn't spoil my day (nothing could have done that yesterday, I was far too chilled out) but once again it made me wonder about the way society lets parents and children get away with almost anything.

I have often given thought to the way parents let their young ones wander and get underfoot of other shoppers. Or how a pram is a licence to run toes over with no apology. How a pregnant woman, no matter how big her 'bump' is, gets the seat over the injured or aging. I may or may not have voiced my concerns here in the past, but I feel I had to tell this tale. It left me in a mild guppy like state until I stepped onto the bus.

As I said, I was enjoying my Nam Pho (with thinly sliced beef brisket) when a group of six twenty something’s came in and sat at the table next to me. They were laughing and joking, and having fun as a group of people do when lunching together socially. Behind them was a couple with a pram, occupied by a baby. I have no idea how old it was or what sex, it looked like a wrinkled prune, and I was thankful when they took a seat as far away as possible from me.

The twenty something’s took a little while to order as they where having fun, chatting and laughing and continuing the fun they were having when they came in. Eventually they ordered. As they where ordering the baby started to cry. Actually cry was being kind, it was screaming. Mum tried bouncing it up and down on her knee before putting her boob in its mouth. That didn't work, so dad tried the knee bobbing up and down thing. That didn’t work either. Neither did the dummy or the rattling keys.

Meanwhile the twenty something’s had resumed having fun after the momentary quite of ordering.

After about five minutes of screaming baby and the boisterous group, I was feeling glad that I could see the bottom of my bowl. The screaming was starting to pierce my ear drums.

What happened next, astounded me. The waitress walked up to the group and said, loudly, so she could be heard over the baby.

'Could you keep it down please, you are disrupting our other diners.'

At no point in the proceeding or follow five minutes did anyone approach the family with the screaming baby.

Something to Do

The day of my freedom from work dawned a few hours before I actually got up, but I made an effort, because I needed to sleep well, ready for my return to bondage.

I had a few errands to run and popped into Parramatta on the bus. I went to the Post Office, Rebel Sport and couple of other places. Just Dorising really. I had lunch at my favourite Vietnamese eatery. Even though it was 35degrees I really fancied a pho. Chicken/beef broth with rice noodles, bean sprouts, beef brisket and mint, vey yummy and considered to be the national dish of Vietnam.

After lunch I wanted to do something. So I step on the next bus that pulled up. I asked the driver, ‘Do you end up in Merrylands?’

‘Oh, yes, but I take a while to get there. Why don’t you get the 802, it takes 5 minutes.’

‘Yeah, see I want to kill some time and see some stuff I haven’t seen before.’

A woman in the first seat laughed and said, ‘this bus goes to Greystanes.’

The old lady next to her, joined her with a hearty giggle.

‘I haven’t been to Greystanes,’ I said.

I paid a $1.90 and took a seat at the back.

My only mistake. I’d picked an unconditioned bus.

If I hadn’t have taken my random bus trip I would never have seen a streets named after me and a mate with the correct spellings (e for me, no h for him). I wouldn’t have seen the Sri Lankan temple with all its bells and whistles and icons. I wouldn’t have spotted the pet feed store and I wouldn’t have realised just how many lovely houses are in Greystanes.

I actually quite enjoyed my little trip. I think I might get on a random bus again.

Eggs Benedict

Rivers Restaurant, Mylestom NSW
Eggs Benedict $16.00
Juice $6.00

A slight detour off the Pacific Highway and it was time for breakfast. I’d already been to the Mylestom beach and seen a diamond back python disappearing into the brush. On my way out of town I saw a sign, ‘Big Brekkie $18.50’, that made me stop at Rivers Restaurant.

I walked up the stairs and was shown to a seat on the balcony. I was then presented with a menu, a glass and a bottle of water. As I am a creature of habit I had my heart set on the advertised Big Brekkie, but ended up ordering the Eggs Benedict. I always end up ordering the Eggs Benedict. The menu promised leg ham on focaccia with poached locally grain fed eggs, and it was too much to resist.

Shortly after ordering my eggs in the form of Benedict, the waitress informed me that they were out of hollandaise sauce. Did I wan t anything else? She asked. I said, I’d still have the EB, sans the sauce. Next, my juice arrived. Carrot, orange, apple and ginger combined in perfect proportions to make a refreshing morning beverage, sweet, but not acidic.

The waitress came back and informed that the chef was making the sauce and it would be a few more minutes.

I was content to wait. I had an uninterrupted view of the Bellengen River, the fishermen, the water-skiers, and inappropriately dressed holiday makers, considering the foul weather. Ben Johnson was serenading me from the stereo and I felt relaxed, for the first time in a while.

When my breakfast was finally placed before me I was supremely chilled out.


I cut into the egg and the saffon yellow yolk poured out, covering the ham and toast, mingling with the pale yellow hollandaise. A half grilled tomato avoided being touched, but that could wait til later.

The flavours blended together perfectly. The sauce, which can lean towards lemony, was delicate and smooth. The eggs, the ham, the sauce and toast combined together into a month watering dish. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t because I was starvin’ marvin, but purely the skill of a chef in a sleepy holiday town six kilometres of the Pacific Highway (between Nambucca Heads and Coff Harbour).

Are You Joking?

Christmas Eve arrived, I got up, dressed in all black and went to work. The reason for all black? I had to do a three hour stint on the shop floor, from 2 – 5pm.

The store that I work has a credo. Surprise and Delight the customer

I think I may of actually have achieved that today during my shift.

I surprised the complete stranger who asked me for a coffee date by saying yes. I further delighted him by giving him my phone number.

Well, it's Christmas and I felt like giving.

Button Meltdown

This is getting out of hand now. Today I went to see a choir sing a few Christmas dittys on the ground floor of the building I work in. I was standing there while they sang 'The Holly and The Ivy' thinking I really love this song and feeling quite uplifted and happy. Then they sang I didn't know or recognise. Then they started to sing 'Hark the Herald Angels'.

My mind went straight back to when I was about 7, I was in the school choir and we were performing at a summer concert at Guildford Civic Hall (UK). I was sat in the back of the car singing 'Scarborough Fair' to myself and playing with my little ice creamed shaped metal and enamel buttons on my blue and white gingham school dress when Muv leaned back and said, 'You're supposed to be wearing your winter uniform.' I ended up, standing at the back of the choir singing my little heart out, still playing with my ice cream buttons.

Muv had a button jar. When she was sewing I would tip it out on the floor and sort through the buttons. The ice-cream buttons had been in the jar and I was always asking her to put them on something for me. She never did until that summer when she made me a couple of new summer school dresses. I didn't know she had put them on until one morning when I put my uniform on.

I had to stop watching this morning and leave. I have no idea why 'Hark the Herald Angels' should set me off by triggering that memory, but it did and now my eyes won't stop leaking.

Mannequin Smut

I was getting myself a cup of tea this afternoon when I noticed some off duty mannequins getting more action than me.

Weekend

I had a very relaxing but productive weekend. Washing was done, the groceries were purchased, the ironing was done. I had dinner guests on both Saturday and Sunday. I had several telephone conversations with mates that lastest up to and beyond twenty minutes. I even did some cleaning.

It was the busiest weekend I've had in quite sometime.

Last night I went to bed straight after the 8.30 movie (The Heartbreak Kid), read about four pages of my book then passed out. I slept so heavily I managed to completely ignor my alarm until ten past seven. I was late for work and I don't care because I felt healthy for the first time in weeks, nope scratch that, months!

Taxi!

It took me two hours to get a taxi on Friday night. I left the club on Oxford Street at twenty past one in the morning. I was tierd after a great night and jusy really wanted to go home. Actually, thinking about I didn't really want to go home I wanted to stay, but I had pre-christmas appointments starting at 10.30 on Saturday. So my need for sleep compelled me to leave. I was escorted by a friend out of Hellfire. He very kindly offered to wait with me.

Picture if you will to two people in fetish wear, surrounded by pissed bogans on the Friday before Christmas. He was dressed in head to toe black latex. I was dressed as a naughty schoolgirl right down to the really short skirt and ribbons on the back of my socks. Couple that with wanting to go 20kilometres from the city centre. It wasn't looking good.

I eventually walked to a hotel and asked them to book me one. May attempts to get a taxi to come to me, standing on the street had ended in spectaular failure. I finally climbed into the back of taxi at 0320, I was cold, cranky and very tired. I crawled into bed and wrapped myself around Puss for warmth at 0355.

I am never not driving again.

Another Moment

I had to do my Give Time yesterday. Three hours of standing on a shop floor being an information point for customers who don't know where they are going. I was dressed in the obligatory all black, comfortable shoes, armed with my name badge and big 'i' and a booklet full of hints and tips about which product lives where.

The first demand.

'Where's the Sorbolene?'

The second question, this time with a polite end.

'Where are the toilets, please?'

For three hours this went on. I was asked for brand name after brand name, where Santa was, the toilets and mens sunglasses. I was even asked where the competition (as in main rival) was. The time passed quite quickly, but I had a few minutes where I had to control my emotions and suck the tears back.

A woman walked past me as I was talking to someone about an hour into my shift. She had her red striped back to me and was walking with another woman. But the smell was unmistakable. Chanel No. 5 and cigarettes. The prick of tears stung the back of my eyeballs.

Then as I stood there, I saw her again. She was standing next to the Chanel counter. The other woman was younger and they were laughing about something. I looked at what she was wearing. A red and white striped t-shirt with jeans and dockside slip on shoes. I looked at her hair, it was just above her shoulders, blond and highlighted. She was slim and not that tall. The other woman was wearing a shirt and jeans and sandals. A thought came to me.

I will never go shopping with my Muv, ever again. Ever.

The tear sprung forward and I tried to fight them back. But I couldn't prevent them from spilling over just a little. I was saved by a lady taking a tumble as she stepped off the escalator.

A little later, I saw this pair again. They were standing and talking on the desending escalator. Once again my eyes burned, water welled but I managed to breath through it. I was really thankful they seemed to know where there were going and didn't feel the need to talk to me.

2008 - A year in review

I've had one of those years that everyone has at some point in their life. My parent would say to me, 'if it doesn't kill you, it'll make you stronger.' when I had bad moments as a kid. You know the moments I'm talking about. Falling off your bike and flaying the right side of your face, your knee and knuckles. Falling out of a tree. Having the stick you're pretending is a cigerette jam into the back of your throut and giving you a nose bleed. Cutting your head open on the sight of an air rifle. At the time all of these things where the worst thing that could ever happen to me. And then this year happened. Every month has offered up a dossey and only a couple of months have given me something to counteract it (I highlighted those).

In early January a good friend took me along to her family's fortune teller. He was Vietnamese and didn't speak any other english apart from 'Hello' and 'Goodbye', but he managed to tell me (throught the translations of my friend) that as 2008 was 'Year of the Rat' and I was born in the year of the rat, I was either going to have a really great year, or a really bad year. He also told me I would travel, meet my soul mate, have bad health and if I had children I would have two.

I suppose I got a clue that it was it was going to be on the bad side of the coin when my Muv was finally diagnosed (after months of faffing) with lung cancer at the end of Jan. It pretty much went down hill for there.

Late Feb - evicted from my house when I asked for the leaking roof to be fixed.
Mid March - told my Muv was getting bad and moving back to the UK so she could be in a UK hospital
Late March - Moved house and depleted spare funds
Late March - Muv worse, get your arse back to the UK
Early April - First international travel, and a week in the UK, Muv sick, but seemed OK to return to Aus
Early May - Muv worse, get your arse back here ASAP
Mid May - Flat broke, trying to figure out how I was going to get back to the UK. Handed in notice for end of contract
Early June - House sold, booked flights
Mid June - Second International travel, flew to UK via a two day stop over in Seoul, Korea
Mid June - Spent 9 days with Muv, really bad, no hair and in hospice. Told her I wasn't going to the States, she told me and everyone who would listen I had to get on with my life and she wanted to see photos of New York and Washington DC.
Late June - Third international travel, went to America for two weeks
4th July - Muv Died, missed seeing photos by two days.
August - Failed to get job in UK due to economic downturn, despite 16 agent interviews
Early September - Flew back to Aus, missing Goyte in his London concert by four days
Mid September - Signed on at Centrelink
29th September - Graduated from Uni with a Masters Degree in Writing
September and October - Applied for over 150 jobs and attended more than 40 agent interviews, 6 job interviews
3rd November - Started new job that pays 30% less than previous job (only job on offer)
12th November - Fell on train and hurt hip, had to start using one crutch for support
28th November - Signed off work sick with Whooping cough (the plus side of bed rest meant that I could put the crutch away)
15th December - Laptop (Bigglesworth) died

I haven't got to the end of the year yet, but with an ophans Christmas dinner and a solo roadtrip (sleeping in the car on a futon matrtess, reading on the beaches of teh East coast:-) to the Gold Coast planned from 26th Dec - 7th Jan, It should end on a up note. After all, I really don't think it can get much worse.

I may or may not write another entry this year, depends on time and computer access (currently only have it during office hours due to Dead Biggles) so I'll say adieu until next year.

May you all Have a very Merry Christmas and a happy, healthy and joyous New Year.