Nothing a couple of panadol won’t fix

Its enormity, which I believed I understood, has been settling on me in waves.

Like yesterday, as I sat at the side of the bed of a man I love, a woman I have been smiling at all week but whose name I do not know, stopped and said ‘we’re going home’. Her nod, her smile, her look were small. ‘It’s at that point. There’s nothing more they can do for him’. I don’t speak because there is no need and because this time is hers.

I wonder how much more there is I am yet to understand. And how I ever will.

And then, in bed at seven, because I couldn’t stand or sit or think, my boys snuggled in with me. They brought me a glass of water, did sums together, took turns to pat me, and when the mister got home (delayed by fog) they said ‘shhhh…Mum’s got a thumping head’.

Told you I was sick…

Nah, really, the gym didn’t kill me. In fact, I went back this morning and almost enjoyed myself. Plus, I went to Sydney for a couple of days, had a meeting, saw a submarine and two whales in the harbour, used the hotel gym and got chatted up. I jest not. Along the lines of ‘haven’t I seen you somewhere before?’ Good grief.

My mind has been occupied with such questions as ‘how many more people are going to write letters to the editor talking about how we shouldn’t have maternity leave because not everyone will use it’? It is true that not everyone will use it. But thankfully, not everyone uses workcover either. Not everyone needs an unemployment benefit. Also, howcome our arts minister is making weird comments about art, but our sports minister sees no need to comment on poor attitudes to women (in my opinion, bordering on violence against women) as displayed on certain television shows.

Geese, the world is full of geese. And whales.

Am also very busy trying to act like an adult all the while feeling that certain elements of my existence are being given no respect and that particular important relationships are being given no oxygen. Life is complicated, no?

My boys are absolutely gorgeous at the moment. They give me spontaneous hugs and kisses and make up jokes to make me laugh.

The dog is slightly better trained, though he is still getting on the table to look for food scraps (of which there is a great many, this being one of those houses where the dishes do not get taken straight to the sink).

I am considering taking up golf though the mister feels that I will feel myself out of place.

I got a speeding ticket – the first one I have ever had. Nearly two hundred dollars. It made the twenty dollar parking ticket hurt less.

The mister rocks. He is also a rock. From time to time his rock-ness gives me the shits. But more often than not, his rock-ness keeps me keep-on keeping-on.

It is not a good time to be trying to sell a house. It is never a good time to be selling a house on someone else’s behalf.

And all the while, I am madly trying to write putting the finishing touches on my first solo show for its debut in August.

The colour-coded books are beginning to look most ace. Photos to come, hopefully after this weekend when I get them all finished.

New age TV

So, even though our television is circa 1988, we watch it the modern way. By waiting until things are way finished and then watching them back to back on DVD. We have been watching The West Wing. The result was a lot of late nights, because of that whole ‘just one more?’ thing. But I very much like watching things this way. It’s a lot more like reading a book than watching television.

Now we’re watching Love My Way. We haven’t finished The West Wing – we’ve still got series five and six to go – but no one feels like going to JB hi-fi right now to get series five. And since Love My Way was just sitting there waiting to be watched, we started on that.

I’ve got a small dilemma. The mister, who doesn’t know anything about such things unless I tell him, has no idea what is about to happen in Love My Way. And I’m not sure whether I should tell him. On the one hand, at least he’ll be prepared. He’s very bad at death and infedility. But on the other, he’s really gonna chuck the shits if I say ‘just one more’ and he stays up later than he wants to, and then…well, you know…

I guess it will resolve itself one way or another over the next couple of days.

And that’s fifteen minutes of my life I’ll never get back

This morning, I have been threading a shoelace through a shoe.

It all began when the dog chewed a significant length of the shoelace. The shoelace was too long anyway. But still.

The shoelaces are not old, but in the shoes of a boy who has fallen in love with soccer, they have fallen into a state of disrepair which, in combination with the efforts of the dog, left them difficult to lace.

I had to use a darning needle, a fork, and a well-time lashing of the mister’s patient follow-through.

But the shoelaces are now much easier to tie, and also do not need a triple knot to keep them almost not long enough to trip over a soccer-playing boy.

Any minute now, I’ll do something productive with my day

There’s a lot to do in Adelaide at the moment.

You could bore yourself to death listening to the local ABC in the afternoons (I don’t mean to be rude, but honestly, if I have to hear one more time about how there’s no manners like there used to be etc etc etc).

You could enter the community ideas competition to tell people what aorta be doing in Tarndanyangga (dudes, just add more detergent to the fountain more often, that’s always good for a laugh – it’s called the Three River fountain, I’d forgotten that I knew that).

Tonight, you could got to a meeting out at the dogs in Angle Park and learn how to join a greyhound syndicate. If you were so inclined.

You could go down to the Showgrounds and watch the Pig Hall being demolished and collect some memorabilia from Centennial Hall (Beatles floorboard or 1500 watt globe) . You could go to the zoo and look at the place where they’re going to put a new entrance to get you to see the new pandas. You could take a tour of the Treasury tunnels for History Week (actually, I’m supremely annoyed with myself for missing this).

Or, you could sit at your desk, refreshing bloglines and clicking Get Mail.