Three Hundred and Sixty One

I just ate half a can of canned pasketti. Because it was in the fridge.

I have been  keeping up with my running program, today will be day one of week three. Its getting easier, in fact after 20 minutes I want to keep going rather than start to cool down. I'll be back on the tready this arvo when I have finished tidying up after our recent guests.
 And the parrot that I found mangled in the hall because everyone forgot to close the cat flap this morning.
I visited a friend in Ballarat this morning who was having a garage sale - they sold their motor bike even though it wasn't for sale, and I came home with a 5 string banjo to babysit for a while - I don't know yet how to play a banjo, but am open to any suggestions about good tutorial websites.

I have always had a bit of a banjo fetish which was solidified when I first saw Harold & Maude when I was 12
Spolier alert!!

I am so going to learn to play the banjo

Yesterday I met up with one of my friends who is also my former boss who I would like to work with again because we work well together. I get shitty with him sometimes because his world doesn't hinge on my opinion, and he doesn't think its all about me. Equally this is why I love working with him and having a brutally honest friendship with him, we keep each other's feet firmly planted on planet earth. Anyway, I think we will be working together again this year when I finish what I am doing now, and that is enough to turn my frown upside down.
Although... we met at the art gallery in Ballarat in the cafe yesterday - it was about 43 degrees outside and so no hot drink was going to be right, we ordered 2 x iced coffees, which came to $17.00!!!
The lady assured us they would be worth it, but my friend/former/future boss and I had a discussion about the cut off point where something as simple as an iced coffee could be worth a certain amount. We came up with about 6 bux. These were way out of the park. And they tasted like iced coffees. And I got milk breath because I don't drink milk in anything because it gives me milk breath. So you know. That was a word of warning if you're planning on a trip to Ballarat art gallery on a hot day and you would like some coffee. Go to another cafe.


Back to Harold & Maude - it really is probably my favourite movie ever - that and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

Here is a little preview for the uninitiated - also "Don't Be Shy"is a song that must be played at my funeral

And from American New Wave Cinema (my favourite kind) to Howard Hawks Hollywood extravaganza:

Three hundred and sixty two

I am in pain today
I have a nasty sinus headache that just won't budge from under and behind my left eye.
I am up in Bendigo this morning and then off  to Kyneton and then back to Ballarat before driving home again. Complete madness.But it gives me time to listen to RadioNational and BBC podcasts. I have been enjoying the Infinite Monkey Cage lately and yesterday learned aboout a creature I might like to have in my top paddock. The Spider Goat. Anyone who knows me can tell you that I am rather fond of both goats and spiders and that making the most use of both of their attributes makes a whole lot of sense to me. Imagine this: you have a lovely wee saarinen nanny goat who keeps the grass down,makes poo for the garden and is a pleasure and joy to behold - and when you milk her, you get silk as strong as steel that you can make bullet proof vests out of in preparation for the shit going down. Brilliance.
OR you are playing tennis and TWANG!! there goes your achilies tendon... but wait, you have a spider goat in the back yard, you can just knit yourself up a replacement tendon.
I just tried on this dodgy laptop for about 20 minutes to put a pictureof a spider goat in this blog, but its not going to let me . Maybe just go here if you are interested.
My brother in law and his two kids have come to ours to stay for a couple of days- the last time they were here a few months back, my nephew ran through the screen door within about 2 minutes of arriving. Last night his sister did the same thing. Mars took the door off and repaired it and resinstalled it and then about 10 minutes later my nephew ran through it again... quick learners these ones. In this instance I am glad to say that I am not related by blood. I'n thinking we might weave some coloured thred into the mesh while they are staying so it doesn't keep happening



Three hundred and sixty three

Awkward moment just then
I was over at Central Square in Ballarat. Don't judge, just listen. Reading a bit more of Close Your Eyes, eating a very loose chicken beetroot and tomato sandwich on white bread with one hand because its a hard cover book (I'm posh, don't you know) and it won't stay open this close to the end - I was getting pretty absorbed in the story, it was a particularly graphic episode involving a scalpel and a young man's arm and it made me curl up a bit, losing chicken from my sandwich and grimacing with the horror of it - baring my teeth grimacing... with chicken and beetroot in my teeth. I looked up to see a woman of about 70 with dyed russet brown hair and painted on surprised eyebrows scowling at me, surprisedly and a little concerned.
After I had sucked all of the gunk off my teeth and regained my normal composure, I headed out to the Armstrong Street exit where normally there are wanton youths howling obscenities at each other. This is the kind of place where they pipe dreadful country and western music in a feeble and futile attempt to discourage the gathering of young folk with light fingers and bad language. But there were no youths today. I was half way up the side toward Sturt Street when I realised they were playing Belle & Sebastian's My Wandering Days Are Over

 

 

It took me so by surprise that they weren't playing something poxy that I started to drift back to the entrance to get a better sound, not looking where I was going at all, and ran straight into the person I referred to in my last post that I was composing diatribes to at 2am the other morning... and I said "Hi, how ARE you?". Thing is, it looked like I was purposefully walking toward him from his point of view, like I just really needed to know how he was today. Because I am thoughtful and concerned, and a little bit odd. After I had been assured by him that he was fine thank you for asking, I turned on my heel and headed back where I was originally going.

Some days I am beyond awkward.

 

Lets put another awkward song on by an awkward band written for the awkward among us:

 

And what about our Jenny Macklin hey? She'd have to move house if she thinks she can live on $35 a day - I think she's on about $850 a day currently, bless her cottons. And a week is not long enough to try it out. Single parents not only have day to day costs and extra childcare costs etc, they may very well be going through family court dramas and have to pay significant legal costs as well - I'm not sure it can be tested by having a crack at not spending more than $35 a day for 7 days.

 

I left uni in 1990 smack in the middle of a recession and there were no jobs for over educated arts graduates with little or no practical skills, so I spent a number of years on and off the dole. Apart from not having any money, the invasion of privacy, of having to attend futile meetings with the likes of ,,, well, me now...and having them 'inspect' your home because both your flatmates are also on the dole and they want to make sure you're not sleeping with them and therefore be entitled to less payments - not something I would like to revisit

 



Three hundred and sixty four

Bloody Norah!
Back at work this morning.
I had every intention of rising early to go for a run before work this morning, however I was awake at 2am until about 4.30, so the alarm was not going to make any impact at all.
Not sure what woke me up at 2am, but whatever it was started off a chain of  pissed off thoughts about unrelated people and situations I can do nothing about, certainly not at 2am. At one moment, I found myself composing an imaginary conversation with someone who may or may not have done me wrong (depends on how you look at it) or may or may not be a ... bit of a prick...and how I might tell them so, should I ever get the chance, all the while knowing I would never say those things to that person, because I actually quite like them when all is said and done... see? Usefull, productive stuff to spend ruminating on in the wee small hours when you could be astral traveling.

So normally, the first day back at work after the Christmas break is pretty cruisy, innit? You know, organising your diary, getting your head around what needs to be done... tomorrow, catching up on emails and what not.
NUP. total freaking opposite. Yuck Yuck Yuck, I want to go back to bed.
I work in Disability Employment Services in rural Victoria and the organisation that I work with currently has lost the contract for disability employment from March this year, which means that a large portion of our employees are having their roles made redundant from then, including the role I currently hold as employment and quality manager. The organisation itself will survive with the social enterprise arm of the business and will continue to work closely with the incoming providers to ensure people with disabilities will have the same or better access to employment opportunities in this region blah blah bloo bloo all very good stuff.
I knew some of our employment consultants would be on leave at this time of year before we got the announcement and I also knew one of them was planning a move to the other side of the country, so I had lined up a team leader to join us along with a replacement consultant to be able to handle the caseloads effectively, however, I had to pull the pin on those placements when the news came through and try to manage a caseload of around 400 clients with a decreasing workforce of employment services staff. Which I might say, we are doing spectacularly well given the circumstances, but its a lot of work and strain on everyone running up to March.
When I said Yuck Yuck Yuck above, its because I am a melodramatic sook, not because the work I do is yucky or the people I work with are yucky, they are the opposite of yucky and I have the pleasure of working with people who really care about each other, not in a hippie nonsense way outlined in the book I am reading at the moment (Close Your Eyes) but in a 'give me a hug, you big sook' kinda way.

And meanwhile America is teetering on the edge of a fiscal cliff and I heard on Radio National this morning that the Republicans were pushing for cuts to social programs like Medicaid. I will let you guess my opinion on this one. In fact, I can't really have an opinion until I do more research, but it does make me think that the amendments made to the Corporations Act back in the early 2000's in Australia through the Financial Services Reform Act, as painful as it was at the time, were GOOD. Certainly taking the longview now, it seems to be a good thing. It took the HIH crash to make it happen (I think... please don't quote me on that), but bless us, we did something about it before it got to the magnitude that the US is experiencing - but you know... what happens there affects us here.

Three Hundred and Sixty Fifth Day

Its day one of 2013.

Where to start? I didn't have a big night, but it was bigger than I anticipated with the arrival of a friend and work colleague yesterday afternoon and the popping of champagne corks around about 10 seconds after she walked through the door.
We got through two bottles of sparkling between us and two Waterloo Sunsets (vodka, orange juice and grenadine) each between 1.30pm and 10pm
I had hit the wall by 10pm and was off to bed with a belly full of butter chicken and a reasonably nice countenance.
I am currently reading "Close Your Eyes"by Ewan Morrison which is compelling and horrific and a bit like having a scab on your knee that you can't keep from picking at - you know something not very pleasant is waiting there for you but you can't help taking a look, even though it hurts.
I got a few books for Chrimbo and my birthday, so I am sure there will be many reports of the books enjoyed or tossed to one side in boredom or disgust in the following posts
 I am also on day 1 of week two of my C25K program. I have attempted this feat a couple of times before (never say die, just say later maybe) but mostly using the printed out version and a stop watch on the treadmill in the nerd cave (more about the nerd cave later). Earlier this year I downloaded the app for C25K onto my iphone and its working a treat - sometimes I watch Boardwalk Empire or Mad Men (ruin of my life, that show. I just want to drink and smoke and wear nice clothes ALL the time) while I run, but I have to say, listening to good old fashioned music on the iphone while having the nice perky lady tell me when to run and when to walk is proving to be the most satisfactory. I have also been discovering newish music in this fashion - enjoying a bit of Northern Soul and rediscovering Tom Petty via listening to Noah and the Whale - is it just me or does LIFEGOESON sound like "Don't Come Around Here No More"met, fell in love with and married "Walk on the Wild Side"?