Date:	2009-12-24 08:12
Subject:	Tuesday-Wednesday
Security:	Public
Mood:	should get up and do something

No gym either day.

Tuesday - did the washing, spent money, started wrapping presents. Trimmed the tree I park under and deadheaded the roses. Vacuumed. Watered the garden (rostered day) and packed up the gazebo. Wonderful music at the Blues Club party - house band joined by any regular artist including Chelsea Gibson and Ritchie Pavledis. When your house band has Rick Steele (Luke, Jake and Katy Steeles dad)(The Vision, Hot Biscuit Band, Blue Shaddy), Dave Brewer (The Elks, The Catholics)and Bob Patient, its got to be good. Some fool drove into one of the cars parked outside and the cops came looking for the owner. Stayed to the end.

Wednesday - the furry alarm insisted on waking me up after less than four hours sleep. Let him out, tried to go back to sleep. Gave up. Didnt actually get up properly until after 10. Made some baked beans in the slow cooker - it was meant to be just cooking them for salad, but they got left too long. Discovered I didnt have wrapping paper for the bigger presents. Shopping for Xmas food. Tried to call parents twice to talk about Xmas plans - they were at the Petanque Xmas lunch (which apparently was absolutely amazing due to having been cooked almost entirely by a retired chef) - the second time they didnt pick up/ring back I figured it was all too much and drove across town to talk to them. Keeping them focused on a discussion is like herding cats. Managed to leave my list there - which was also a Xmas present list with their presents listed on it ... will they be blind enough not to read it? :P

Saw from a distance the remains of a nasty accident on Loftus Street - fire engines, two ambulances, at least two police cars, a waiting towtruck - in the dark, it was just flashing lights and the green and white sides of the ambulances lit by the cars banking up waiting to be guided through the intersection. Why, if you can see an accident up ahead (and its uphill, so you couldnt miss it) didnt some of them turn off into Carr Street and go round?

In the last few days I finished reading Terry Dowlings Rynemoon (after about the third time trying - kept getting distracted from it - this time I was determined to finish it), and read Ruth Rendells Keys to the Street. Now Im reading Alastair Macleans Dark Crusader. Theres a history of MI5 face down on my beadhead waiting to be finished. And a text on records management that I should make the effort to read before going back to work.

No gym
Spent most of the day driving around the metro area - and in the country - looking at picnic sites. I also spent more money than I should on odds and ends I decided I needed - flynet sides for the gazebo - which dont really work because they are for the swish new foldup version (that has straight legs) - net curtain as a flyscreen for the middle back door - and in the process of getting that, picked up an expensive card-making bit of machinery that Id ordered (and which will need more money spent on it to be useful) - itty bits for curtain wires for the side room - a bag to put gazebo bits in (the cheapest thing I bought) - and after visiting the parents to announce that if we are having a picnic it will be at Point Walter - some petrol, having gone through half a tank in a day.

Stopped for a drink at a roadhouse on Brookton Highway called "Yule Do" - run by a pair of very efficient young people who seem to have got the recipe just right - without spending a fortune on decoration. Even the road setup with laybys and lanes for the roadtrains was well thought out. Very busy at 2pm with roadtrain crews stopping for a bite before taking off.

The countryside is drying off fast - no green grass anywhere, just yellow. The trees arent dusty yet though. Churchmans Brook Dam has been prettied up and would make a fine visit on a winters day - lots of channels for runoff. Saw a small blue heron in the pool. Wungong has been closed off a lot - didnt look much like I remember it, but I may be confusing it with Serpentine. Canning was downright boring - Id forgotten how enormous the dam wall is. Found my way back in an almost direct straight line to Stock Road and followed it to its end at Point Walter - which was an oasis of green, splendid kiosk and cafe and extraordinarily well set up for coping with crowds and parents who need disabled parking spaces ...

Came home, caught an episode of that BBC thing about Chelsea pensioners, tried out the gazebo sides and flaked out watching The Magnificent Seven (falling asleep a bit over two thirds through). Made some food and here I am.

Caspar decided to visit for food - he is always ravenous when he comes here. Cats that have been fending for themselves will always eat about twice as much as they need out of habit for at least a year after you adopt them, so Im not all that surprised. But he clearly stays somewhere, and when he shows up after days away is hungry to the point of telling me and making other protesting noises if it looks even vaguely like hes not going to get it. (For a cat that doesnt normally speak, thats a lot.) He ate more than two meals tonight before flaking on the carpet in the loungeroom. And he doesnt have a fat tum either.

Date:	2009-12-20 22:12
Subject:	Sunday
Security:	Public
Mood:	nuffin'

wasnt quite the way I wanted it.

Only managed 40 mins in the gym before boredom took hold. On the way home it occurred to me I was probably hungry as I hadnt had so much to eat the previous day (not unusual in my weekends) and I should probably have stopped for a drink at the cafe instead of leaving. However, I came home and showered, fully meaning to do the Xmas related stuff and vacuum the house.

Did I? No.

All I have actually managed is watering the posts and baskets, washing my big car and putting away in its jacket (and that was this evening after the sun went behind the trees and the house), and getting out and putting up the gazebo to see how it worked. And measuring it so I can go see if I can get some flyscreen curtains for it. Since it is an el cheapo that I bought (two of) from some $2 type shop that was going out of business over two years ago (bought two because the boxes were damaged and there was no way to know if all the bits were there) I am not certain this will be possible. But it seems to be a pretty standard size, and whilst its not an amazing foldup version that is now available, it does have straight poles to hang curtains on.

Maybe its been the heat. Perhaps I didnt eat enough. Maybe a full hour was too much for a first try. Perhaps it was a little late in the day for starting today - even though the gym is airconditioned and the growing heat shouldnt have affected me that much.

Try again tomorrow, when I have to go picnic-place hunting.

Incidentally - I know this is typically a flat period in Aus tv, but with all the extra channels, could we manage something worth watching? Multiple versions of the same nonsense is not going to keep me watching past Xmas. With the advent of ABC3, theyve even taken out the intelligent content from ABC2 - its full of kids stuff as well. Im going to be resorting to digital radio soon whilst I read the enormous pile of toread books beside my bed.

Date:	2009-12-20 07:04
Subject:	Satterberry
Security:	Public
Mood:	holiday mode

Gym - an hour of good reps and normal weights with some body mechanics and stretching included - freaked out a small group of people waiting for the group fitness room who watched through the window-wall as I did downward dog - complete with walking back to my feet - legmounts using equipment as a barre - a stretch I have no name for that lengthens the top of the sartorius, followed by the splits (not quite down there, but hey, its been nearly a year since I did class and my exercise routine has consisted, when it happened, of a 2 mile walk on the platform at lunchtime). (This morning I can feel where I did lots of situps, knee stuff, hip insertion points, and for some reason my lower back is grumbling.)

Spent more money than I should (albeit in small amounts) at the Vic Park markets (books, silver dragon pendants, day lily).

Parents - this is going to be a difficult Xmas. Pa had ideas of driving to Lancelin for our Xmas day picnic - at least a two hour drive each way and I have no idea what the town looks like these days, noway is it like it was last time they saw it. And in temps likely to be above 30C if the cyclone carries on wandering around up north. So, no Pa, not Lancelin, not Xmas. We can do it some other time if youd like. I shall continue researching picnic sites nearer to home. And also consider Xmas lunch contributions for nice airconditioned house if Laurence is misbehaving. The food question was complicated by sisters family coming sometime Boxing Day - with something of the normal "cant be bothered" attitude that reoccurs every year in some form. However, they are doing well, and the ladies at Petanque have persuaded Pa he should come regularly, especially now Ma is back playing (she plays left handed, and is, allowing for age, becoming a precise player of some skill).

Read the Xmas letters from aunts and cousins of various amplitudes - Ma has permission to kick me if I behave like one cousin-in-law was describing - she is a couple of years older than me and sounded older than the 80+ aunts (who have suddenly stopped talking about nothing but their grandkids and have discovered Life :) ).

Visited Subi on the way back. Exercised extreme discipline of the eyes in Jacksons in order to get out with my credit card intact - I was buying childrens glitter paint, stencil brushes to stencil large paper for a present - drooling over oilbars when I have no time to use them is not productive, but the visit was extremely satisfactory in the dreaming department. (And looking for that link isnt doing a whole lot for my sense of economy right now .... :P ) The ladies there were investigating a new piece of legislation designed to reduce graffiti - forbidding the sale of anything that can be used for it to minors (um - hey, many people done for graffiti are actually not minors ...) - which means putting spray paint in a locked cupboard (already done in hardware stores) but from their point of view includes large amounts of their stock ... chisel-point textas? Behind glass? Our current government really should learn to investigate the downstream effects of its legislation better. Much hilarity over my drooling as well.

Ran out of energy at home and finished watching a DVD of Brideshead Revisited - not the BBC series - *pout* perve allowance not met.

Date:	2009-12-19 05:57
Subject:	The turning of the year
Security:	Public
Mood:	kool

So - as my horoscope page reminds me - we are now at that part of the year where the sun will soon be rising and setting in the same spot on the horizon for three days as we pass through the solstice. So from now on, in the southern hemisphere, the days start getting shorter again.

And it only seems like yesterday I was still bemoaning getting up in the dark.

And we have, in the near future, that phenomenon known as New Year when resolutions and change are supposed to happen.

Today I start a fortnights leave. Unlike last year, crises notwithstanding (and extremely unlikely), I should actually get to take all this time off work.

Which is not to say I wont be doing anything. I still have Xmas to sort. Lights to put up, tinsel to spread around, decide just what is going to happen on Xmas Day (weather - unpredictable gratis cyclone Laurence, food either picnic or housebound, whereabouts to be decided or parents house) (this means a visit to the parents to get sorted, possibly visits to picnic sites to decide), presents to wrap (I think theyre all bought). I have a Xmas letter to write to my gf in UK - and post it with her traditional calendar of "bouncy, furry things".

I have resolved to go to the gym every day if I can manage it. I have gardening to do - which will also be subject to the weather if it gets too hot (weeding, mulching, sorting out the sprinklers AGAIN, pots and baskets to redo). I have housework to do, I have to finish making curtains for the side room to block out said hot. I have an office to tidy, a side room to finish sorting out, tapes to turn into CDs, some vinyl to listen to and maybe turn into CDs, this cute gadget to work out that rips videos for turning into DVDs (I have a feeling this is not going to be easy as it is designed for use with a laptop - ie the leads are stupidly short).

Supposedly I have a planetfantastic monthly dinner to go to. I have a Perth Blues Club Xmas party to go to.

At some point I must apply for jobs - as back up and because they have finally managed to get my old position advertised, and bossman has decided he will create a formal temporary position for the job I am currently doing because we need to do something about our lack of recordkeeping culture in the business unit.

Yesterday he was able to tell me stuff - and we are all slowly starting to claw our way out of the increasingly desperate mess we have been dragged into. Some people are not going to be happy, and nothing is yet certain, but we are fighting back better.

Oh, and of course, there is Xmas Day to celebrate.

(Blech! checked outside. Sun has been up about 40 mins and we already have heat clouds forming.)

So our current, first-of-the-season cyclone spent the day before yesterday going in a circle ...

And this morning, gratis some berk who set a fire down south the day before yesterday, the sun is getting up orange. (Yesterday we merely had smoke blown up here by a southerly, nearly all day and thick enough to have me thinking I needed to remember where my mostly-unused puffer is. Today we have cloud and smoke.) The smoke is thick enough that I could look at the sun. Now we wait until the temperature inversion burns off and lets the smoke go ...

Ah well, at least its only going to be 26C. Good day for driving down to Rockingham.

Summer in Aus starts on 1 December (our indigenous folk divide the year into 6 seasons, and I think they have the truth of the matter, at least in WA, but thats another story ...)

So yesterday was 35C where I live, and today was 37C. The sky is brilliant blue. The redgums along the railway are flowering, and the jacarandas are spreading their lavender veil of floppy flowers wherever they grow. I had to remember a hat for my foray to the Kalamunda markets, and to put not only the sunshield on my windscreen, but also the reflective cover on my steering wheel so I could touch it when I wanted to leave. I found myself hiding in the meagre shade of the stallholders gazebo-tents, and bought three bottled drinks during the day because I didnt have time to stop for tea. My roses have got burnt again - they burst into flower a few weeks ago in time to get scorched, and it seems to have happened again today *pout*.

And along the hills and to the north today grew towering thunderheads of white icing-sugar clouds, smurched with a thin coating of smoke along their feet from a small fire over the hills. Of course, with the coming of the sea breeze (and yes, it got to the hills, I felt it in Kalamunda:) ), they all sedately sailed over the ranges and into the wheatbelt beyond, and I doubt anyone got rain from them.

This is rather early for heat. Not the earliest I have known it (girls sat their end of year exams in November with third-degree sunburn the year I finished high school), but still a sign that we could be having a long, hot summer before us.

Kudos to the Dell salesman last night - who didnt even blink when this woman old enough to be his mum said: "oh, I'll probably dual boot [the laptop]" but simply smoothly moved on to showing me a slightly larger, business-level version that came pre-loaded with XP. (Because I dont want 7 and I dont want Vista ... ) And proceeded to point out it wouldnt come with Word - and we progressed to a slightly more business-like approach after I said I had the discs.

No, I didnt buy one yet, I was just looking at costs and availabilities.

[*grin* and right next to this page is an advertisement for a replacement technology for Windows ...]

Date:	2009-12-03 06:00
Subject:
Security:	Public
Mood:	giggly

Lifted from takhisis - well, one of her friends:
"A white Xmas would be nice once in a while - a white Groundhog Day just isn't the same."

You know, really, Im with them, there. 40C in the shade and a beach party isnt quite the same!

Truly, waking up on Xmas Day to see snow on the window is something quite magical, and it suits the food so well.

Date:	2009-11-25 07:43
Subject:	Bring back the stocks!
Security:	Public
Mood:	disgusted

There are some people for whom jail is not suitable and a fine just will not cut it.

They should:
(Remember this is Norway, it gets COLD in November, you can die from exposure there)
Collect the shambles that is left - careful with that extinguisher foam, it can be caustic.
Rebuild their town in a tent.
Put the perpetrators in stocks in one corner of the tent. Visitors can then pelt them with the mess they left.
For the duration of the exhibition. No time off for sleep, only water to drink. It would be pleasant to say no toilet breaks, but they would probably be necessary given the public nature of the event.

Luser.
Once is unfortunate, twice is bad luck, in the wrong place at the wrong time, three times is just a slow learner!

A definite candidate for a cluebat. He is 19, he lives far enough out of the city that he needs a car to work, do college, go anywhere, do anything. On tv, he doesnt appear to be an idiot. Apparently he has no self discipline and cant plan ahead enough to understand what he is doing to himself. He is not going to get his licence back anytime soon, and with our system, will have to do the whole new licence thing from scratch - which is neither cheap nor convenient.

How do you get through our school system without learning how to plan ahead, think things through, etc? How have his parents let him grow up this way? We have a lot of doting parents who do absolutely everything for their kids - perhaps this is where the fault lies?

Date:	2009-11-22 07:42
Subject:	The price of wildlife ...
Security:	Public
Mood:	smiling

I have a heap of broken almond shells and assorted pieces of tree broken off by my black visitors - all need to be swept up or it will kill the grass under the tree ...

Even though I have been here for a good portion of my life, I still cant get over having such visitors as a host of black cockatoos, the odd sacred ibis .. and, in Mandurah on Thursday - flocks of pelicans playing with the wind (almost caused an accident gawping at those ...).

Date:	2009-11-21 07:26
Subject:	The black cockatoos visited my almond tree this morning
Security:	Public
Mood:	cool kat

and the tree in the garden behind mine.

Mango, who had just demonstrated his prowess by scooting up the vertical 6ft trunk of my neighbours street tree to attack some honeyeaters abusing him from its branches, was seen to be prowling the trunk of the almond tree whilst the cockatoos, bigger than he, looked sideways out of one eye and wondered what tiger dared their giant symmetry. And their big grey beaks, calmly crunching green almond shells.

The ginger puff ball came galumphing across the garden to me to gloat.

Date:	2009-11-16 07:39
Subject:	And there I was, thinking everything was cruisey
Security:	Public
Mood:	its Monday - you want bounces?

Everywhere you turn, you seem to come across new reasons why things cannot be done, cannot be changed, cannot even be considered. Nor, though, can any of these things simply be accepted. Someone, somewhere is refusing to recognise a solution. So entrenched has this person's pessimism become that it has turned into a desire to cut off the nose to spite the face. Soft words and reassuring gestures are now required, regardless of how tempted you may feel to threaten, to argue or to fight.

Date:	2009-11-08 18:46
Subject:	Garden update
Security:	Public
Mood:	pleased

Didnt get the lawn mowed. But the sprinkler head out front was easy to fix - having stuck a stick in the small fountain and lifted the ornamental rock out of the subsidence and propping it up (it has white paint on it) to prevent anyone falling in the hole ... there was a nice hole there where the water had drained away and there was the pipe with the broken riser in the hole, nice and clean. Having the proper tool for getting the riser out helps.

Also removed the top half of a row of bushes along the back wall - they were badly affected by some miner infestation last year and I waited until they were green again before doing anything to them. The owner had pruned them extremely badly before I moved in so they were a mess. They dont look so hot now, but they will grow green again if they get watered well. I took heaps of dead wood out of them as well. We have a green waste pick up next week and there is no way I can do all the pruning thats necessary in one weekend.

Date:	2009-11-08 08:59
Subject:	Not thank you Elizabeth :D
Security:	Public
Mood:	laughing

So I googled Dogs in Elk. The comprehensive link I found was on Jerry Pournelles site. I looked at the latest post.

So now Im suffering the Productivity Virus that is PhD ..
I am way glad my PhD was never like this! (Check out PhD from 26 October to 31 October.)

Comment .. at least Oxford candidates can be guaranteed 10 meetings with their supervisors .... (more than one UWA graduate came back whilst I was there and said they had to hound their Oxford supers to get even one meeting a year).

Date:	2009-11-08 06:57
Subject:	What is it with bathrooms ...
Security:	Public
Mood:	what now?

and wildlife?
(Yeah, I know, the windows open most of the time, but bear with me here.)

I get out of the shower, wrapping the towel round me. Coincidently I am facing the corner where the door is - open - and in the corner above it I see this amorphous brown blob emerging from behind the door and crawling up the wall.

Now I have been getting progressively more blind since I was 7 so I am used to interpreting inarticulate blobs, but the articulation of this one made it clear it was a large brown spider.

We dont have too many large brown spiders that are dangerous in the metro area - those that are are so shy they wouldnt be crawling up my bathroom wall. So it was going to turn into a huntsman when I put my specs on - I mean, supposing (unlikely) that it fell off the wall - it wouldnt show up too well on black tiles ....

The question now is - how do I get it down from a 12 foot wall and put it outside where it can more profitably chase such things a moths? Preferably before Mango sees it and decides it is an admirable plaything.

_{And the last wildlife in the bathroom was a hyperactive male rat Mango had brought in to play witheat, that athletically used the shower screen and window bits as a gym before I managed to trap it in a bucket.)}

I bought something from Amazon this morning. When the confirming email came, it said it had been dispatched yesterday ...

It occurs to me, one of the reasons stuff posted from US takes longer to get here - it has to cross the dateline, thus adding a day ... :(

Date:	2009-11-06 06:14
Subject:	White Night
Security:	Public
Mood:	B***er

Yesterday I came home early-ish - Id been falling asleep at work from about 3 (whilst trying to find references in some particularly long-winded and not very well organised legislation - so there is some excuse), intending to go to the gym, but deciding I would have dinner first. But of course, I fell asleep watching tv, woke up feeling yuk, and decided not to bother. I did, however, migrate to the kitchen and did an enormous pile of washing up whilst watching the little tv.

Caspar, who the vet says is FIV +ve and I should keep him in at night to reduce fighting, actually walked in of his own accord looking for dinner (the last three nights I have picked him up and brought him in when he came for dinner - at about 5-6 - and kept him in until he had eaten breakfast the next morning at about 6). He has just started to put his tail up when I deliver the food. Not quite vertical yet, and only where there is food, but its getting there. Later in the evening he came into the lounge, wandered up to me and head-bonked my hand. Then sat at my feet. Yes he was asking to be let out, but its a head bonk!

At some point around 8:30 I registered there was water splashing. But it is a watering day so I didnt really think - probably Terrys retic has a broken head. At 9:30 I decided I would have a shower in the commercial breaks. The cistern on the loo didnt fill up after use. Oh dear. Last time that happened there was a broken water main up the street - that took two goes to fix. Water splashing .....

In my front lawn is a 4 foot hummock of grass where the water pressure is pushing up the nice thick thatch of buffalo/kikuyu lawn. And a large splashy fountain. Water is pouring down the street. B*****. I call the hotline. They know about it, someone is coming. I go to bed but not to sleep.

At some point I register that the noise is getting less and the fountain smaller. At midnight they show up. This is not quite as bad as it sounds - they turn off the water at the station some distance along the road. There is water in the pipe. It has to flow out before they can do anything. The valve is quite a distance away. There is a lot of water to flow away.

In the torchlight there is a deep depression in the grass where the hummock was, a frayed bit of grass where the fountain was, and a plume of dirt spread from the frayed bit, across the lawn and along the gutter in front of my house.

The guy with a little digger on a small truck showed up first. Then a large van which it turns out is set up as a portable workshop. I explain, pretty please, there is a retic pipe right there and could they try to not break it? without much hope of course, but its worth a try. I go back to bed.

They take a little more than an hour to fix it. The loudest bits were taking the digger off the truck and putting it back. But it is stupidly hard to go to sleep when there are things happening in your front yard. At 2 they leave. They have carefully swept up the dirt washed down the road to fill in the hole, and brushed the dirt off the lawn into the hole.

Then I realise one of the cats has made a mess - very much messy mess. I get up, grumble (at the wrong cat, I think) and fix it as much as I can.

There is a fly in the bedroom. Then there is a mozzy. I hear the guy across the road go to work. So it is gone 3 before I finally drift off. I have turned the alarm off, but I still wake up at just after 5 - moggy alarm is remarkably regular.

It is my watering day. I get up. Water the back yard. Turn on the front retic ... splashing. A neat little fountain on the edge of the small corral of bright orange safety curtain and star-pickets that has been left around a remarkably clean mains-fixing. I turn off the retic. It is all too hard to check properly, but I think they managed not to break the pipe, but theres a head gone missing. That is a job for this afternoon, tomorrow. Fortunately its not going to be hot enough for it to matter if the front doesnt get watered. If the pipe is broken I could use sprinklers on the roses whilst the owner gets round to fixing it ... TGIF!

You cannot step twice in the same river.

The Grads play was good. The theatre people were themselves, as all theatre people are, but busy with the celebration and performance. Other (university) people I have known for 20 years were dismissive and snubbed me. Did I really expect them to be different? They live in a sheltered, cotton-wool protected ivory tower world. I had forgotten how bad they can be. (Being where I am now has spoilt me for meeting interested, aware, engaged people :) )

Oh well, I tried. I could keep going to the Grads performances. I could include going to other local theatre productions - there are sufficient numbers to make a regular thing of it. But it would be difficult to go often enough to meet people on a regular basis. Perhaps if I made a point of going to first nights?

I had a sleep in the afternoon to make up for being awake most of the night. At least I wasnt falling asleep in the theatre :)

The presentation for the celebration was good - the theatre filled up with ghosts. So many of the larger than life figures I associate with it have passed one. As a lecture theatre it was a big part of my life for a long time. I realised I missed seeing some of the display because it was so crowded. Ah well, no problem. I could probably go back and see it later - I suspect it will still be there Monday. And as UWA building, the theatre is open to the public during the day. I could even go and dig the technical manager out of his office and get to see the costumes they had on display in the rehearsal room out the back where they served "dinner" ... (which I hadnt paid for, so I shouldnt grumble that, though very pleasant, there wasnt enough of it).

The parents want to take the visitor to Mundaring Weir. So I have a day out.
They have also engaged a lawn-mowing guy - so I dont have to so their lawn any more :D Ma is making strong efforts to find other assistance as well. All in all, her accident seems to have given her a new lease on life. Pa is a little more confused I suspect, which makes me think she is running him ragged still .. but .. they can at least manage together better than they were before the accident. BIL has finished the addition to the back fence. Ma says he left a lot of sand and stuff from the hole-digging, but she has tidied it up and it looks good.