Author: ThirdCat

Wednesday morning

We had a movie night last night and watched Wayne’s World. I am shocked to discover that my children managed to learn a new swear word. Honestly, I thought by now they knew them all.

It’s raining again, which is nice and not complaining and so on and so forth, but the lads are starting to go a bit stir crazy with no proper runaround for a few days now.

Manuscript going okay, thanks for asking. The draft won’t be finished by the time I leave, but it won’t be too far off. Must. Finish. Draft. Twould be easier without two stir-crazed lads under my charge that’s for sure, but since a major theme of the book is ‘how it is, is how it is’ I’m taking a bit of my own advice, and accepting the imperfections of life. Plan is, one day I shall accept all and shout never.

Tuesday morning

Do you know the longer it goes on, the more calm I feel about the whole thing. The thought of Tony Rabbit as Prime Minister is still making me fall to the ground in a dizzy heap, but by and large I’m feeling okay with it all today. I was living in New Zealand when MMP was first introduced and when the first election was held, and we were waking up every morning to the news that another person had left their party to start their own, and the world didn’t end, it really didn’t.

There’s still two weeks before we go back to Abu Dhabi and the lads go back to school. That’s two weeks to finish off this draft and get the lads up to speed with their times tables. We’re off to a very lazy start today. Even eldest lad didn’t wake up until 8.30 this morning. It’s good, we can all use a bit of a rest. We’ve been having a wonderfully sociable time these last few weeks. ‘Who are we seeing today?’ eldest boy asked yesterday and was shocked when I said, ‘No one’.

Just now, as I walked out of the kitchen my plate of toast and cup of coffee in hand, youngest lad called after me, ‘Where are you going Mum?’ and I called, ‘Back to bed’. And now they’ve pulled out the car track and I’ve fired up the computer and I reckon I’ll get an hour’s work done. As soon as I’ve finished this coffee.

Some days, it is very cool being us, and today is one of those days.

Friday morning

My dad used to like saying, ‘A wise old man once told me you can bet on the horses, but never bet on the way people will vote’.

So, although I’ve got a feeling in my bones and in my waters, I’m holding my cards close to my chest, and also sticking my head in the sand.

In the meantime, the mister is on the banks of the Limpopo River where I am sure it is not all powerpoints and spreadsheets. Another place he would never have guessed he was going to be.

We’ve got more clarity about our Abu Dhabi exit strategy now which has involved no small amount of angst and over-thinking. Well, the mister’s departure date is clear, although, because of reasons, I’m not exactly sure when I’ll be leaving Abu Dhabi for good. I’m still in Adelaide, and the mister tells me that he is telling people, ‘I won’t be surprised if tracy doesn’t come back to Abu Dhabi at all.’ Just in case I don’t. Which I will, but I can see why he might think that I won’t.

Monday morning

This morning I woke up and I was still an adult, and I still had decisions to make, and I still had the results of previous decisions to live with.

On the upside, my aunty has left me a glorious dressing gown in which to be an adult with decisions to make. Also, my tummy muscles still ache from laughing my way through a bloody brilliant Sunday afternoon looking through my grandfather’s slides with my cousins and their families.

Open wide

I would like to talk with you today about geriatric dental care*. Yes, I really would.

I know it seems a bit peripheral, but I have, in the last week or so, discovered that this is a serious issue. And not a little distressing for all concerned (no link, just take my word for it). I’d love it if you’d join me in writing to health ministers about maybe getting dental care and visiting dentists to aged care facilities and including dental care in the services available and accessible to our grandparents and great aunts and great great uncles and so on. There have been enquiries, so they should know what you’re talking about. But in the meantime, just thought I’d let you know in case, like me, it’s a useful thing to think about, but a think you haven’t given enough thought. If you know what I mean.

Actually, while we’re on it, we should have better dental facilities available more generally. I’ve been over on the Australian Dental Association website (yes, yes, I have), and in one of their latest press releases they say:

“As with all national schemes that have been introduced (and have invariably failed), such plans deliver limited care to all and allow those that can afford dental care to ‘top up’ their treatment to achieve long-term oral health. Those already adequately accessing care will get subsidised treatment and the rest will have to ‘just do’ with the basic band-aid solutions offered.”

And that last sentence pretty much sums up one of my great sadnesses about the state of Australian politics at the moment. There’s just too much of this kind of thing.

And there ends the sexiest blog post you are likely to read today.

*I’m sure there’s a better way of saying this, but I wanted to get your attention as well as avoid telling you too much of the specific situation in which I am intimately involved

Ramadan Kareem

Ramadan has started in the UAE. I’ve never fasted before, not in any serious sense, and I thought I might this year, but since I ended up coming back to Australia for the summer vacation the thought sort of got replaced. My religious views are a bit all over the place and follow no consistent line of thinking, but I would one day like to explore the ideas of fasting and silence a little more. Probably not at the same time, but maybe. One day.

If you’re interested, there’s a bit about the Moon Sighting Committee in this article. I’m quite taken with the idea of a Moon Sighting Committee and I do think that a world with a Moon Sighting Committee is a better world than a world without one.

Wishing my head had fallen off

Reading or listening to Phillip Adams makes my head asplode, and so, over the years, I’ve learned to avoid having my eyes or ears in the same place as his words. Makes our relationship quite amicable. But twice this week I’ve accidentally come into contact with him. Once, because I’d forgotten to never have the radio tuned to Radio National when Late Night Live is repeated and then again today, because he has a piece in The Australian somewhere in the papery bit and not in the magazine.

Why did I do it? Why did I read that piece? The first sentence was innocuous enough, “We’d planned ‘Rudd’s first interview since the coup’ for the previous week.” Okay, trademark namedropping right from the opening ‘we’, but anyhoo and moving on. To the second sentence then, “Kevin knew I’d totally opposed the coup and resigned from the ALP in protest…”

And that was it, the point where it would have been better if my head had fallen off, because it would have forced me to stop reading.

Now, I get that people are unhappy with the change of leadership and the way it came about and I can see why you might not like it. I get it, because I have been uncomfortable with the way the ALP organises its affairs for a very great number of years. It’s one of the reasons I am not a member of the ALP.

What I don’t get – or perhaps what I wish I didn’t get – is why this particular manoeuvre is the one that makes you buy out of the process.