Since the readership of this blog seems to be almost non-existent, I have moved to a blog at MySpace.
So if you wish to keep reading my ramblings, go to http://blog.myspace.com/145270245
Thanks.
--
Allan
Monday, July 02, 2007
Saturday, May 26, 2007
The Mouse
The other day I discovered an astonishing thing. There has been a mouse in the house. It invaded my pantry and ate into a foil packet of Beef Stroganof mix. I can hear it talking to another neighbourhood mouse, now. “Found some food in No 40 Church Street. It was OK but it had a very strong metallic taste.”
But I’m still amazed that the mouse visited at all. Why, you ask, is that so astonishing?
Well, it’s such a death-defying thing for a mouse to do. After all, it runs the gauntlet of so many mouse-murderous things in my house.
Firstly, there is Greyder the Cat. Greyder is so-named because (a) he is grey and white, but mainly grey, (b) he is the size of your average grader and (c) at full purr, he sounds like one. While Greyder may be a little over-fed and slow in the pursuit department, the mouse would be in real trouble if Greyder sat on him.
And if Greyder mistook the mouse for a pouch of Jellimeat, the vermin’s days would be up.
And there are the other deadly mousetraps. Such as the automatic rubbish bins. There are times when these bins remind me of the finger-eating till in the TV program “Open All Hours”.
As they are designed to do, their lid flies open when you wave anything in front of the sensor on them. Then, a few seconds later, the lid snaps closed with a “whap!”
But these bins can be deadly! They are fine if you don’t dither around while dropping your waste into them. But if you hesitate in your rubbish disposal for just a second too long, as you stand close to the bin shedding your rubbish the bin beast will snap its lid shut onto any sensitive protuberance you may have within striking distance. Nasty!
For this reason, mice, being devotees of rubbish bins or, more to the point, the contents thereof, stand a ggreat chance of finding that the rubbish bin is one big mousetrap.
And, if those two anti-mouse features weren’t enough, Harvey, the vacuum cleaner, now lies in wait.
Well, rather than lying in wait, little round automatic vacuum cleaner Harvey is likely to be found scuttling around the floor like a demented, flat robot. He moves in quite unpredictable directions, bouncing off walls, performing ballet spirals at unexpected moments, and makes seemingly random direction changes that any human, cat, or mouse least expects.
Greyder the Cat has wised up now and gives Harvey a very wide berth. But any unawares mouse intruder is not likely to be so circumspect and would quickly fall victim to Harvey’s suction system. For this reason, whenever I empty Harvey’s dustbag, I half expect to find therein a sad little mouse carcase covered with the accumulated grunge and fluff that has been sucked up from this Edwardian villa’s floor coverings.
Of course, the mouse would be quite safe if it was making a night soirée. That’s because, at night when Harvey the vacuum cleaner can’t sense a light source, he automatically stops after seven minutes of searching. Then he just sits there and sulks until dawn.
If Harvey had been at work last night (instead he was recharging his batteries) this night-time cut out feature would have come into action as the lights went off. For there was a power cut here in Masterton last night. It not only plunged Masterton into darkness with a resulting high probability of a spike in births in nine months time, but also cut power to the nearby town of Carterton.
I know. With my computer deprived of life-giving electricity and having nothing else to do, I went for a drive to Carterton and looked. All was dark
I turned around and started to drive back. It was then I came upon a Police drink/drive checkpoint. A Policeman shoved what looked like a TV remote in my face and asked my name and address.
I recited name and address in my best BBC voice and saw that the alcohol-detector dial read “No Alcohol Detected”. As the Policeman stood there in the dark, I looked up at him and said: “Well, what else do your expect on a night like this. I only drink Light Beer”.
As I drove away, I saw his shoulders shaking. Sometimes they must feel like scragging smart alec motorists.
The power cut was the result of one suicidal possum. The creature climbed a tree near some very high voltage lines on Masterton’s Rennall Street, then swung to close to the lines. The electricity, sensing a nicely conductive body nearby, arced through the air and the possum, watched by some people wandering along the street below, disappeared in a pungent flash of light. Having been zapped into a small pile of cinders and smell, the creature would thus have been completely unaware of the achaos and activity he caused in Masterton and surrounding countryside both immediately after his act, and in nine months time.
And they reckon the dove is the symbol of love!
--
Allan
But I’m still amazed that the mouse visited at all. Why, you ask, is that so astonishing?
Well, it’s such a death-defying thing for a mouse to do. After all, it runs the gauntlet of so many mouse-murderous things in my house.
Firstly, there is Greyder the Cat. Greyder is so-named because (a) he is grey and white, but mainly grey, (b) he is the size of your average grader and (c) at full purr, he sounds like one. While Greyder may be a little over-fed and slow in the pursuit department, the mouse would be in real trouble if Greyder sat on him.
And if Greyder mistook the mouse for a pouch of Jellimeat, the vermin’s days would be up.
And there are the other deadly mousetraps. Such as the automatic rubbish bins. There are times when these bins remind me of the finger-eating till in the TV program “Open All Hours”.
As they are designed to do, their lid flies open when you wave anything in front of the sensor on them. Then, a few seconds later, the lid snaps closed with a “whap!”
But these bins can be deadly! They are fine if you don’t dither around while dropping your waste into them. But if you hesitate in your rubbish disposal for just a second too long, as you stand close to the bin shedding your rubbish the bin beast will snap its lid shut onto any sensitive protuberance you may have within striking distance. Nasty!
For this reason, mice, being devotees of rubbish bins or, more to the point, the contents thereof, stand a ggreat chance of finding that the rubbish bin is one big mousetrap.
And, if those two anti-mouse features weren’t enough, Harvey, the vacuum cleaner, now lies in wait.
Well, rather than lying in wait, little round automatic vacuum cleaner Harvey is likely to be found scuttling around the floor like a demented, flat robot. He moves in quite unpredictable directions, bouncing off walls, performing ballet spirals at unexpected moments, and makes seemingly random direction changes that any human, cat, or mouse least expects.
Greyder the Cat has wised up now and gives Harvey a very wide berth. But any unawares mouse intruder is not likely to be so circumspect and would quickly fall victim to Harvey’s suction system. For this reason, whenever I empty Harvey’s dustbag, I half expect to find therein a sad little mouse carcase covered with the accumulated grunge and fluff that has been sucked up from this Edwardian villa’s floor coverings.
Of course, the mouse would be quite safe if it was making a night soirée. That’s because, at night when Harvey the vacuum cleaner can’t sense a light source, he automatically stops after seven minutes of searching. Then he just sits there and sulks until dawn.
If Harvey had been at work last night (instead he was recharging his batteries) this night-time cut out feature would have come into action as the lights went off. For there was a power cut here in Masterton last night. It not only plunged Masterton into darkness with a resulting high probability of a spike in births in nine months time, but also cut power to the nearby town of Carterton.
I know. With my computer deprived of life-giving electricity and having nothing else to do, I went for a drive to Carterton and looked. All was dark
I turned around and started to drive back. It was then I came upon a Police drink/drive checkpoint. A Policeman shoved what looked like a TV remote in my face and asked my name and address.
I recited name and address in my best BBC voice and saw that the alcohol-detector dial read “No Alcohol Detected”. As the Policeman stood there in the dark, I looked up at him and said: “Well, what else do your expect on a night like this. I only drink Light Beer”.
As I drove away, I saw his shoulders shaking. Sometimes they must feel like scragging smart alec motorists.
The power cut was the result of one suicidal possum. The creature climbed a tree near some very high voltage lines on Masterton’s Rennall Street, then swung to close to the lines. The electricity, sensing a nicely conductive body nearby, arced through the air and the possum, watched by some people wandering along the street below, disappeared in a pungent flash of light. Having been zapped into a small pile of cinders and smell, the creature would thus have been completely unaware of the achaos and activity he caused in Masterton and surrounding countryside both immediately after his act, and in nine months time.
And they reckon the dove is the symbol of love!
--
Allan
Thursday, April 26, 2007
The Ideal Man
Me mate Linda, from Pahia, has just sent me the following:
-----------------
1. It is important that a man helps you around the house and has a job.
2. It is important that a man makes you laugh.
3. It is important to find a man you can count on and doesn't lie to you.
4. It is important that a man loves you and spoils you.
5. It is important that these four men don't know each other.
-------------------
Huh, why have four men to do the job of one? I mean, of the 1 to 4 requirements, I meet three of 'em and come close to the other.
Personally, I dunno why I don’t have so many ladies lining up at the bedroom door wanting to find out whether I am as good as I say I am -and I am. Of course! - that it scares the cat. And wears me out.
Then again, I'm no spring chicken anymore. Once a night is my lot.
OK. Once a night, all night, but ... once a night.
God, I'm the average woman's dreambloke.
~ wanders away singing "I'm Mr Wonderful." ~
-----------------
1. It is important that a man helps you around the house and has a job.
2. It is important that a man makes you laugh.
3. It is important to find a man you can count on and doesn't lie to you.
4. It is important that a man loves you and spoils you.
5. It is important that these four men don't know each other.
-------------------
Huh, why have four men to do the job of one? I mean, of the 1 to 4 requirements, I meet three of 'em and come close to the other.
Personally, I dunno why I don’t have so many ladies lining up at the bedroom door wanting to find out whether I am as good as I say I am -and I am. Of course! - that it scares the cat. And wears me out.
Then again, I'm no spring chicken anymore. Once a night is my lot.
OK. Once a night, all night, but ... once a night.
God, I'm the average woman's dreambloke.
~ wanders away singing "I'm Mr Wonderful." ~
Monday, April 23, 2007
The Chocolate Scan
Huh! You tell everyone your sad medical misadventure story and someone has to trump it.
Di, a Wellington friend, tells me that while she didn’t have a scan for kidney stones, she had one for gallstones.
She also didn't, she tells me, have to store the Huka Falls up her kilt until some sadistic son-of-a-so-and-so told her she could take a pee. She had something worse happen.
Now Di has always been a lover of white chocolate. Lots of women are. I’m not sure whether it’s a racist or a purity thing but some women seem to love white chocolate even more than they love the brown stuff.
So Di says that she thought all her Christmasses had come at once when, at her Ultrascan appointment, a radiographer handed her the largest block of white chocolate Di had ever seen produced and said they wanted a "before" and "after" shot of her insides.
“So,” said the radiographer to Di’s delight, “would you please eat the entire block after the first set of scans have been taken?”
As is to be expected, Di quickly agreed to do this.
So Di got kitted out in what she calls her flour sack gown and was led into the scanning room like the proverbial sheep to slaughter. She lay on the bed, had her tummy attacked with a scanner head and then led, as happily as the Vicar of Dibley, out to the waiting chocolate.
In gourmet heaven, Di started chomping her way through the white delight. Yum, Yum!
Before you could say weight gain, one row of the chocolate had disappeared into Di’s stomach.
Di licked her lips and started on the next row. It, too, disappeared into Di’s innards and another row was started.
But, by halfway through the block, Di’s stomach was starting to object a little. But it was just the odd rumble, Di told me, nothing a trooper like her couldn't cope with.
All the same, after another couple of rows of that sickly white substance, the gluttony was having its effect and Di almost felt like gagging.
Another row and she WAS gagging.
By now there were only three tiny pieces of chocolate left. But to Di, who had now gone a sickly green colour, they looked like a four-course meal of barf-inducing sweets and she started looking around desperately for somewhere to hide a mound of warm, regurgitated chocolate.
She had just spied a promising looking pot plant when what Di describes as a distressingly cheerful woman stuck her head out into the waiting room and said: " Cooee, you won't need to eat the chocolate after all - we got everything we need in the first set of xrays!"
The ultimate result of that experience, Di says, is that she has never been able to eat white chocolate again. Now, everytime she sees it, her stomach turns.
But she’s pleased to advise that she can still manage the brown chocolate! I must send her a very large bar…
--
Allan
Di, a Wellington friend, tells me that while she didn’t have a scan for kidney stones, she had one for gallstones.
She also didn't, she tells me, have to store the Huka Falls up her kilt until some sadistic son-of-a-so-and-so told her she could take a pee. She had something worse happen.
Now Di has always been a lover of white chocolate. Lots of women are. I’m not sure whether it’s a racist or a purity thing but some women seem to love white chocolate even more than they love the brown stuff.
So Di says that she thought all her Christmasses had come at once when, at her Ultrascan appointment, a radiographer handed her the largest block of white chocolate Di had ever seen produced and said they wanted a "before" and "after" shot of her insides.
“So,” said the radiographer to Di’s delight, “would you please eat the entire block after the first set of scans have been taken?”
As is to be expected, Di quickly agreed to do this.
So Di got kitted out in what she calls her flour sack gown and was led into the scanning room like the proverbial sheep to slaughter. She lay on the bed, had her tummy attacked with a scanner head and then led, as happily as the Vicar of Dibley, out to the waiting chocolate.
In gourmet heaven, Di started chomping her way through the white delight. Yum, Yum!
Before you could say weight gain, one row of the chocolate had disappeared into Di’s stomach.
Di licked her lips and started on the next row. It, too, disappeared into Di’s innards and another row was started.
But, by halfway through the block, Di’s stomach was starting to object a little. But it was just the odd rumble, Di told me, nothing a trooper like her couldn't cope with.
All the same, after another couple of rows of that sickly white substance, the gluttony was having its effect and Di almost felt like gagging.
Another row and she WAS gagging.
By now there were only three tiny pieces of chocolate left. But to Di, who had now gone a sickly green colour, they looked like a four-course meal of barf-inducing sweets and she started looking around desperately for somewhere to hide a mound of warm, regurgitated chocolate.
She had just spied a promising looking pot plant when what Di describes as a distressingly cheerful woman stuck her head out into the waiting room and said: " Cooee, you won't need to eat the chocolate after all - we got everything we need in the first set of xrays!"
The ultimate result of that experience, Di says, is that she has never been able to eat white chocolate again. Now, everytime she sees it, her stomach turns.
But she’s pleased to advise that she can still manage the brown chocolate! I must send her a very large bar…
--
Allan
Sunday, April 22, 2007
The Ultrasound Scan
Yesterday I went to see a urologist who cheerfully informed me that I have kidney stones. I have to admit that I don’t feel any heavier than normal, so they can’t be very big stones.
The urologist seemed concerned about them though, so I sat and listened carefully to what he had to say.
He mentioned something about the fact that kidney stones often broke up and were passed in the urine. I could see why he was worried. If I start peeing bits of gravel, I could chip the pan.
The specialist though, seemed to be more worried about the pane when I passed them. The pane?! Did he think I was going to pee on windows or something?!
Since kidney stones are no fashionable, I apparently have to get rid of them. So, he told me, they are going to put me to sleep (only temporarily, I hope) and they will use a fancy machine that makes sound waves that blast the stones into tiny fragments. He has assured me that nothing else will be blasted into tiny fragments. Me and my internal organs are happy about that.
This stone-blaster, he assures me, is very hi-tech, expensive equipment. So, this is a costly procedure. I asked him whether I could just stand at the side of the road and get a few boy racers and their boom boxes to drive past and achieve the same effect, but he didn’t seem to think that this idea would work. To a man of Scots heritage like me, that is a great pity.
I should mention here that the urologist discovered there were kidney stones in my kidneys because of the ultrasound scan I had a few weeks ago. Having an ultrasound scan is a very interesting experience.
I had to go to Upper Hutt to have the scan because there is no ultrasound scanner in the Wairarapa. Well, only those used for scanning racehorses and other valuable animals. Human animals are apparently don’t make enough start money to warrant the provision of this sort of equipment here.
I was told that I must drink lots of water before I went for my scan. Apparently bloated people scan better than less waterlogged individuals.
So, on the day of my appointment I packed my bottle of water and headed off on the one hour drive to Upper Hutt. Now I know that one is not supposed to drink and drive but this was on doctor’s orders! Not many drink drivers can honestly claim that!
I had finished about two thirds of the contents of the 750ml bottle by the time I reached my destination, a nondescript bunch of buildings in Upper Hutt that apparently houses a variety of medical-related organisations, if the number of obviously intellectually handicapped folk entering one part of the building was any indication. I have to admit that, as I took yet another swig of water into my full tummy, I wondered whether I could be considered intellectually handicapped for doing this.
But, I bravely took another swig, then capped the bottle, opened the car door, and soggily walked around to the entrance to the Ultrasound laboratory.
I didn’t have to wait long before my time on the machine came, but the operator made one scan then told me that the water I had drunk had not yet worked its way through my system. I was apparently supposed to have drunk lots of water at least an hour beforehand. It would have been nice to have been told that. ~sigh~
So I was sent to sit in the waiting room to continue drinking lots of water, and wait.
As all domesticated males do, I quietly obeyed orders and sat, drank, and waited. After half an hour the water started to work and I began to be uncomfortable. After three quarters of an hour I was busting, but the ultrasound specialist was working on other patients. It got so bad that I idly toyed with the idea of sneaking outside and relieving myself behind a tree. But, hey, I had come all this way and what was a little bit of utter agony …
Finally, it got so bad that I approached the receptionist and in my best plaintive tone asked how long it was going to be. The receptionist smiled at me and told me to hold on because it wouldn’t be long. She didn’t say *what* to hold onto, but I got the idea. Actually, the urge to pee was so bad I more needed to tie a knot in it than just hold onto it!
Half an agonising hour later, I was just about ready to water the nearby pot plant when the ultrasound operator came out and invited me into the ultrasound room.
I went into as fast as any person walking with crossed legs can.
As I climbed onto the scanning table, the ultrasound lady smilingly told me that not letting people pee used to be a medieval torture. I imagined her in a hood and medieval robes and they suited her!
She then spent the next 15 minutes pushing painfully hard on my overfull stomach and ribs with this thing that looked like a overlarge checkout barcode scanner, then finally told me that I could go relieve myself. She’d finish off the rest after that, she said. I heard the last bit as I was heading out the door.
Having found the loo (I wonder whether they have ever considered the risks of putting a storeroom between the scanning room and the toilet) and spent quite some time watering the bowl, idly thinking that if a fire broke out right then it wouldn’t stand a hope in hell with a hose as well stocked as mine.
After that I went back to the scanning room and the operator continued to take lots of sound pictures of my internal organs before letting me rearrange my clothing and depart, still slightly soggy but no longer feeling like an over-inflated airbed.
As a momento of my exciting experience, the ultrasound lady gave me lots of ultrasound negatives - black TV screen pictures seemingly made up of random white lines. Apparently the expert can see pictures in them that mere mortals can’t. I’d frame them and have them hanging as modern art except for the memories they would rekindled.
On the other hand, they could hang in the toilet…
--
Allan
The urologist seemed concerned about them though, so I sat and listened carefully to what he had to say.
He mentioned something about the fact that kidney stones often broke up and were passed in the urine. I could see why he was worried. If I start peeing bits of gravel, I could chip the pan.
The specialist though, seemed to be more worried about the pane when I passed them. The pane?! Did he think I was going to pee on windows or something?!
Since kidney stones are no fashionable, I apparently have to get rid of them. So, he told me, they are going to put me to sleep (only temporarily, I hope) and they will use a fancy machine that makes sound waves that blast the stones into tiny fragments. He has assured me that nothing else will be blasted into tiny fragments. Me and my internal organs are happy about that.
This stone-blaster, he assures me, is very hi-tech, expensive equipment. So, this is a costly procedure. I asked him whether I could just stand at the side of the road and get a few boy racers and their boom boxes to drive past and achieve the same effect, but he didn’t seem to think that this idea would work. To a man of Scots heritage like me, that is a great pity.
I should mention here that the urologist discovered there were kidney stones in my kidneys because of the ultrasound scan I had a few weeks ago. Having an ultrasound scan is a very interesting experience.
I had to go to Upper Hutt to have the scan because there is no ultrasound scanner in the Wairarapa. Well, only those used for scanning racehorses and other valuable animals. Human animals are apparently don’t make enough start money to warrant the provision of this sort of equipment here.
I was told that I must drink lots of water before I went for my scan. Apparently bloated people scan better than less waterlogged individuals.
So, on the day of my appointment I packed my bottle of water and headed off on the one hour drive to Upper Hutt. Now I know that one is not supposed to drink and drive but this was on doctor’s orders! Not many drink drivers can honestly claim that!
I had finished about two thirds of the contents of the 750ml bottle by the time I reached my destination, a nondescript bunch of buildings in Upper Hutt that apparently houses a variety of medical-related organisations, if the number of obviously intellectually handicapped folk entering one part of the building was any indication. I have to admit that, as I took yet another swig of water into my full tummy, I wondered whether I could be considered intellectually handicapped for doing this.
But, I bravely took another swig, then capped the bottle, opened the car door, and soggily walked around to the entrance to the Ultrasound laboratory.
I didn’t have to wait long before my time on the machine came, but the operator made one scan then told me that the water I had drunk had not yet worked its way through my system. I was apparently supposed to have drunk lots of water at least an hour beforehand. It would have been nice to have been told that. ~sigh~
So I was sent to sit in the waiting room to continue drinking lots of water, and wait.
As all domesticated males do, I quietly obeyed orders and sat, drank, and waited. After half an hour the water started to work and I began to be uncomfortable. After three quarters of an hour I was busting, but the ultrasound specialist was working on other patients. It got so bad that I idly toyed with the idea of sneaking outside and relieving myself behind a tree. But, hey, I had come all this way and what was a little bit of utter agony …
Finally, it got so bad that I approached the receptionist and in my best plaintive tone asked how long it was going to be. The receptionist smiled at me and told me to hold on because it wouldn’t be long. She didn’t say *what* to hold onto, but I got the idea. Actually, the urge to pee was so bad I more needed to tie a knot in it than just hold onto it!
Half an agonising hour later, I was just about ready to water the nearby pot plant when the ultrasound operator came out and invited me into the ultrasound room.
I went into as fast as any person walking with crossed legs can.
As I climbed onto the scanning table, the ultrasound lady smilingly told me that not letting people pee used to be a medieval torture. I imagined her in a hood and medieval robes and they suited her!
She then spent the next 15 minutes pushing painfully hard on my overfull stomach and ribs with this thing that looked like a overlarge checkout barcode scanner, then finally told me that I could go relieve myself. She’d finish off the rest after that, she said. I heard the last bit as I was heading out the door.
Having found the loo (I wonder whether they have ever considered the risks of putting a storeroom between the scanning room and the toilet) and spent quite some time watering the bowl, idly thinking that if a fire broke out right then it wouldn’t stand a hope in hell with a hose as well stocked as mine.
After that I went back to the scanning room and the operator continued to take lots of sound pictures of my internal organs before letting me rearrange my clothing and depart, still slightly soggy but no longer feeling like an over-inflated airbed.
As a momento of my exciting experience, the ultrasound lady gave me lots of ultrasound negatives - black TV screen pictures seemingly made up of random white lines. Apparently the expert can see pictures in them that mere mortals can’t. I’d frame them and have them hanging as modern art except for the memories they would rekindled.
On the other hand, they could hang in the toilet…
--
Allan
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Out And About
I have just been on an exciting trip to Hamilton.
Exciting because Hamilton has four-lane roadways. That HAS to be exciting for someone from little old Masterton.
It was a journey of questions. Questions of great human importance that sprang up in the strangest of places.
For instance, Hamilton has this big Wharehouse store where you go up on an escalator while your trolley goes up on it’s own little escalator (a trolleylator?) beside the human one. It’s all very exciting because, when you reach the top or bottom, you have to dive off the human escalator and grab your trolley before it is ejected madly from the trolleylator, to cause chaos and mayhem amidst the milling Wharehouse customers nearby.
This modern trolleylator technology raised many questions. After all, many shopping trolleys have little seats for toddlers. So, do the toddlers go up on the escalator with you, or on the trolley on the trolleylator? And if you have granny with you, do you put her wheelchair on the trolleylator and … yes. Does she go up with her wheelchair?
Sadly, technology creates more questions than it answers!
Another question came to mind while driving up to Hamilton. I went up to Hamilton with Palmerston North-based friend Shirley, to help her finalise the sale of her house in Hamilton and bring the last of her stuff back to Palmy.
We were accompanied by her mother.
Now, I’m not sure how I should feel about the fact that a chaperone accompanied us. I could have been upset, but, then again, it’s nice to know that Shirley’s mother thinks that I’m such a nubile hunk that her daughter needed a chaperone.
The question that came up on the trip up to Hamilton was why do about 90% of other drivers you pass all speed up when you are passing? Is it that 90% of New Zealand drivers have a very unhealthy competitive instinct? Or did they speed up just because they saw Shirley’s mother, who is a very religious type, crossing herself throughout the passing manoeuvre and thought that she was giving them the fingers?
The classic example of this competitive instinct came at the end of the journey as I wended my way home alone through the Wairarapa. I came up behind an elderly man in a small car and was stuck behind him for ages. The opportunity to pass came and I took it: firmly, smoothly, and with no fuss. I had just settled down to a steady speed after passing him when the old guy hurtled back past me at a most illegal rate of knots determined to get back in front of me.
I let him go. Hey, if he wanted to be traveling in front of me at naughty speeds I was quite willing to let him be there. After all, I am always willing to follow, at a reasonable distance, any sacrificial pinhead as he speeds towards any oncoming traffic policeman. And when the traffic policeman has u-turned and pulled the sacrificial pinhead over, I will, of course, barp and wave my thanks as I go past.
While I was in Hamilton I went to lots of cafés and did lots of critiques for my developing website - the Kirk’s Kiwi Café Critique website. In one café, the lady who served was about as friendly as an Iraqi hit squad. In another, called the Sahara Tent, the décor was all Middle East and they had these tent thingys in which you sat on cushions around a table to have your repast. A neat little touch was that the cooks all wore a fez. Well, they each wore a separate fez. It would have to have been a LARGE fez if they were all wearing the same one. But I digress…
While in Hamilton I was also the victim of a rapacious ATM. My only fault was that I got engrossed reading the bad news on the statement the ATM had printed for me and walked away looking at it, leaving my card behind in the slot. As I walked away, the ATM machine beeped raucously at me and attracted the attention of a man nearby who came across to me and asked me if I had left my card in the machine.
Shocked, I hurried back to the ATM and reached out for my card. With all the innate nastiness of the average bank manager, the ATM waited until my fingers were about to close on the card before it silently and mockingly swallowed it up.
Thankfully, a visit to the central Westpac branch saw the staff there provide me with a new card on the spot.
I am a reluctant Westpac customer and no fan of the bank, but I have always found Westpac staff to be great. And the staff in Hamilton were brilliant. Thanks folks!
Armed with a new card and access to money once more, I now had the opportunity to see all the highlights of Hamilton. So I visited the tip.
The tip was very exciting. They even had their own little recycling shop there. It seemed to sell almost everything except used nappies. And given half a chance and a strong local organic fertiliser community, it would probably sell those, as well.
Interestingly, they not only throw away rubbish in Hamilton. They also throw away wallets.
I was in the Pak’N’Save carpark when I saw something lying on the ground. Being naturally curious, I wandered across to see what it was. It was a wallet linked by chord to a wrist attachment. It’s obvious that the owner knew how easily she lost things! Yet didn’t use the wrist attachment.
I picked it the wallet and opened it. Inside were all the usual collection of plastic cards – ATM, credit card, driver’s licence, etc, plus well over $100 in cash.
It was obvious by the photo on the driver’s licence that the wallet was owned by a young lady who probably couldn’t afford to lose that money, let alone go through the hassles of cancelling and renewing all those plastic cards. So I wandered back into Pak’n’Save and left a message with their Customer Service (Customer service? At Pak’N’Save?) that I had the wallet. I also left my phone number just in case the Samantha Rimmington who owned the wallet enquired there.
Then I got a loan of a phone book from the local BP station and rang the only Rimmington in Hamilton. The lady on the answerphone said that she regretted that she and her hubby couldn’t answer the phone but they were away sailing on their yacht. Huh! With that much money I would have thought they’d have had their landline diverted to their cellphone!
After that, I decided to take the wallet to the Police Station and let the Police worry about it.
So I did that. The trouble was there were no parking spaces empty outside the Hamilton Central Police Station at 7pm at night. So I had to do a U-turn on a busy highway to get to an available one. U-turns over four lanes feel rather weird. It’s like doing a U-turn in the middle of a motorway. You expect to have a car slam into you at 120kph. Maybe that’s why Shirley was giving advice from the passenger’s seat. And why I could have sworn her mother was praying quietly in the back.
But I got to the parking space, did a quick six-point park, and took the wallet into the reception area where warning signs advising me that I couldn't get bail unless I met specific criteria began to make me carefully search my memory for anything illegal I had done recently. I decided that, other than that u-turn, I was OK.
Then a nice police lady came to the counter, all the Lost and Found paperwork was filled out, and I left. About an hour later, a nice constable from the police station rang me on my cellphone to say that the young lady had been in to claim her wallet. Aaaaaah, I’d done good. Warm fuzzy feelings!
Then, on Wednesday it was time to drive home, a long journey broken only by the occasional stop to critique a café.
By the time we got back to Palmerston North, it was too late for me to pick up pussy Scrooch from the cattery, so he had to stay an extra night. I must admit that missed him attacking my feet through the duvet that night.
Today, I had to attend a business skills course, even though I’m recovering from car lag. What is car lag, you ask? Car lag is like jet lag, only lower.
And don’t be like a friend of mine who, when I told her that in a txt, txted me back asking “Lower?!”
As I said in my reply: “Yes. Lower. All that bracing yourself for corners later plays merry hell with one’s leg muscles. And I won’t even mention the bladder!”
--
Allan
Exciting because Hamilton has four-lane roadways. That HAS to be exciting for someone from little old Masterton.
It was a journey of questions. Questions of great human importance that sprang up in the strangest of places.
For instance, Hamilton has this big Wharehouse store where you go up on an escalator while your trolley goes up on it’s own little escalator (a trolleylator?) beside the human one. It’s all very exciting because, when you reach the top or bottom, you have to dive off the human escalator and grab your trolley before it is ejected madly from the trolleylator, to cause chaos and mayhem amidst the milling Wharehouse customers nearby.
This modern trolleylator technology raised many questions. After all, many shopping trolleys have little seats for toddlers. So, do the toddlers go up on the escalator with you, or on the trolley on the trolleylator? And if you have granny with you, do you put her wheelchair on the trolleylator and … yes. Does she go up with her wheelchair?
Sadly, technology creates more questions than it answers!
Another question came to mind while driving up to Hamilton. I went up to Hamilton with Palmerston North-based friend Shirley, to help her finalise the sale of her house in Hamilton and bring the last of her stuff back to Palmy.
We were accompanied by her mother.
Now, I’m not sure how I should feel about the fact that a chaperone accompanied us. I could have been upset, but, then again, it’s nice to know that Shirley’s mother thinks that I’m such a nubile hunk that her daughter needed a chaperone.
The question that came up on the trip up to Hamilton was why do about 90% of other drivers you pass all speed up when you are passing? Is it that 90% of New Zealand drivers have a very unhealthy competitive instinct? Or did they speed up just because they saw Shirley’s mother, who is a very religious type, crossing herself throughout the passing manoeuvre and thought that she was giving them the fingers?
The classic example of this competitive instinct came at the end of the journey as I wended my way home alone through the Wairarapa. I came up behind an elderly man in a small car and was stuck behind him for ages. The opportunity to pass came and I took it: firmly, smoothly, and with no fuss. I had just settled down to a steady speed after passing him when the old guy hurtled back past me at a most illegal rate of knots determined to get back in front of me.
I let him go. Hey, if he wanted to be traveling in front of me at naughty speeds I was quite willing to let him be there. After all, I am always willing to follow, at a reasonable distance, any sacrificial pinhead as he speeds towards any oncoming traffic policeman. And when the traffic policeman has u-turned and pulled the sacrificial pinhead over, I will, of course, barp and wave my thanks as I go past.
While I was in Hamilton I went to lots of cafés and did lots of critiques for my developing website - the Kirk’s Kiwi Café Critique website. In one café, the lady who served was about as friendly as an Iraqi hit squad. In another, called the Sahara Tent, the décor was all Middle East and they had these tent thingys in which you sat on cushions around a table to have your repast. A neat little touch was that the cooks all wore a fez. Well, they each wore a separate fez. It would have to have been a LARGE fez if they were all wearing the same one. But I digress…
While in Hamilton I was also the victim of a rapacious ATM. My only fault was that I got engrossed reading the bad news on the statement the ATM had printed for me and walked away looking at it, leaving my card behind in the slot. As I walked away, the ATM machine beeped raucously at me and attracted the attention of a man nearby who came across to me and asked me if I had left my card in the machine.
Shocked, I hurried back to the ATM and reached out for my card. With all the innate nastiness of the average bank manager, the ATM waited until my fingers were about to close on the card before it silently and mockingly swallowed it up.
Thankfully, a visit to the central Westpac branch saw the staff there provide me with a new card on the spot.
I am a reluctant Westpac customer and no fan of the bank, but I have always found Westpac staff to be great. And the staff in Hamilton were brilliant. Thanks folks!
Armed with a new card and access to money once more, I now had the opportunity to see all the highlights of Hamilton. So I visited the tip.
The tip was very exciting. They even had their own little recycling shop there. It seemed to sell almost everything except used nappies. And given half a chance and a strong local organic fertiliser community, it would probably sell those, as well.
Interestingly, they not only throw away rubbish in Hamilton. They also throw away wallets.
I was in the Pak’N’Save carpark when I saw something lying on the ground. Being naturally curious, I wandered across to see what it was. It was a wallet linked by chord to a wrist attachment. It’s obvious that the owner knew how easily she lost things! Yet didn’t use the wrist attachment.
I picked it the wallet and opened it. Inside were all the usual collection of plastic cards – ATM, credit card, driver’s licence, etc, plus well over $100 in cash.
It was obvious by the photo on the driver’s licence that the wallet was owned by a young lady who probably couldn’t afford to lose that money, let alone go through the hassles of cancelling and renewing all those plastic cards. So I wandered back into Pak’n’Save and left a message with their Customer Service (Customer service? At Pak’N’Save?) that I had the wallet. I also left my phone number just in case the Samantha Rimmington who owned the wallet enquired there.
Then I got a loan of a phone book from the local BP station and rang the only Rimmington in Hamilton. The lady on the answerphone said that she regretted that she and her hubby couldn’t answer the phone but they were away sailing on their yacht. Huh! With that much money I would have thought they’d have had their landline diverted to their cellphone!
After that, I decided to take the wallet to the Police Station and let the Police worry about it.
So I did that. The trouble was there were no parking spaces empty outside the Hamilton Central Police Station at 7pm at night. So I had to do a U-turn on a busy highway to get to an available one. U-turns over four lanes feel rather weird. It’s like doing a U-turn in the middle of a motorway. You expect to have a car slam into you at 120kph. Maybe that’s why Shirley was giving advice from the passenger’s seat. And why I could have sworn her mother was praying quietly in the back.
But I got to the parking space, did a quick six-point park, and took the wallet into the reception area where warning signs advising me that I couldn't get bail unless I met specific criteria began to make me carefully search my memory for anything illegal I had done recently. I decided that, other than that u-turn, I was OK.
Then a nice police lady came to the counter, all the Lost and Found paperwork was filled out, and I left. About an hour later, a nice constable from the police station rang me on my cellphone to say that the young lady had been in to claim her wallet. Aaaaaah, I’d done good. Warm fuzzy feelings!
Then, on Wednesday it was time to drive home, a long journey broken only by the occasional stop to critique a café.
By the time we got back to Palmerston North, it was too late for me to pick up pussy Scrooch from the cattery, so he had to stay an extra night. I must admit that missed him attacking my feet through the duvet that night.
Today, I had to attend a business skills course, even though I’m recovering from car lag. What is car lag, you ask? Car lag is like jet lag, only lower.
And don’t be like a friend of mine who, when I told her that in a txt, txted me back asking “Lower?!”
As I said in my reply: “Yes. Lower. All that bracing yourself for corners later plays merry hell with one’s leg muscles. And I won’t even mention the bladder!”
--
Allan
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Messages about Money
Guess what! I have just received a message on NZ Dating from an 18-year-old woman from the West Coast. Of course, if the way she writes is any indication, that's the West Coast of Senegal.
Geez, I'm always getting these messages from young foreign women who are madly in love with me and only want me to send them a few thousand dollars so that they buy a plane ticket to come rushing to me. Maybe I should just charter a plane and bring ‘em all over at once.
But, it’s so sad to think that these women are only after my money, and not my brilliant brain and gorgeous body. ~sigh~
I tell you, what with that and because of problems with my landlord, life has been rather a drag lately.
But the landlord problem got sorted out on Tuesday and yesterday life swung upwards again as I received two letters.
One came from Creative New Zealand.
When a Kiwi author writes books and they go into New Zealand’s public libraries, people read the books without paying for them. Because of this, authors lose out on a cut from what would otherwise have been the sale of their book. So there is a government grant given to authors by Creative New Zealand to make up for that cost. This ensures that authors will allow their books to be bought by libraries.
Up until now, the payment for authors of children's books has been 30% of the adult book rate. Now, according to Creative New Zealand, they are going to stop discriminating and will pay children's authors like me the whole 100%. That means I get a 75% pay rise.
Hey, I like this game!
And, as much as my horoscope failed to mention it, yesterday was a money-making day for me. Because the second letter I received yesterday was from the Bank of New Zealand. The letter said:
"Dear Mr Kirk,
You may be aware from recent publicity that Bank of New Zealand has breached the Fair Trading Act 1986 by not adequately disclosing to customers fees charged when using credit or debit cards for international transactions. We have reached a settlement with the Commerce Commission and as part of that settlement we will compensate all affected current and former customers. This compensation reflects a loss of opportunity to compare our rates with those of other card issuers, choose a card with a lower rate, or choose an alternative payment method.
The settlement with the Commerce Commission stipulates that no matter how small, compensation is to be offered to all affected customers. As you made foreign currency transactions between January 2002 and December 2004 using a Bank of New Zealand card, you will receive payment on 31 October 2006. The payment amount will be a pro-rata portion of the currency conversion fees paid during this period. The amount will also earn interest at a rate of 7% per annum between 31 July 2006 and the date of payment. The compensation, including interest, is detailed below:"
My eyes eagerly scanned down. And there it was!
I was due for a refund of 78 cents!
I tell you, I was in the money yesterday! Now I can put a deposit down on a Wendy house. Well, I could never afford a full sized one.
Hey, you keep smiling. (That way, they know you have teeth.)
--
Allan
Geez, I'm always getting these messages from young foreign women who are madly in love with me and only want me to send them a few thousand dollars so that they buy a plane ticket to come rushing to me. Maybe I should just charter a plane and bring ‘em all over at once.
But, it’s so sad to think that these women are only after my money, and not my brilliant brain and gorgeous body. ~sigh~
I tell you, what with that and because of problems with my landlord, life has been rather a drag lately.
But the landlord problem got sorted out on Tuesday and yesterday life swung upwards again as I received two letters.
One came from Creative New Zealand.
When a Kiwi author writes books and they go into New Zealand’s public libraries, people read the books without paying for them. Because of this, authors lose out on a cut from what would otherwise have been the sale of their book. So there is a government grant given to authors by Creative New Zealand to make up for that cost. This ensures that authors will allow their books to be bought by libraries.
Up until now, the payment for authors of children's books has been 30% of the adult book rate. Now, according to Creative New Zealand, they are going to stop discriminating and will pay children's authors like me the whole 100%. That means I get a 75% pay rise.
Hey, I like this game!
And, as much as my horoscope failed to mention it, yesterday was a money-making day for me. Because the second letter I received yesterday was from the Bank of New Zealand. The letter said:
"Dear Mr Kirk,
You may be aware from recent publicity that Bank of New Zealand has breached the Fair Trading Act 1986 by not adequately disclosing to customers fees charged when using credit or debit cards for international transactions. We have reached a settlement with the Commerce Commission and as part of that settlement we will compensate all affected current and former customers. This compensation reflects a loss of opportunity to compare our rates with those of other card issuers, choose a card with a lower rate, or choose an alternative payment method.
The settlement with the Commerce Commission stipulates that no matter how small, compensation is to be offered to all affected customers. As you made foreign currency transactions between January 2002 and December 2004 using a Bank of New Zealand card, you will receive payment on 31 October 2006. The payment amount will be a pro-rata portion of the currency conversion fees paid during this period. The amount will also earn interest at a rate of 7% per annum between 31 July 2006 and the date of payment. The compensation, including interest, is detailed below:"
My eyes eagerly scanned down. And there it was!
I was due for a refund of 78 cents!
I tell you, I was in the money yesterday! Now I can put a deposit down on a Wendy house. Well, I could never afford a full sized one.
Hey, you keep smiling. (That way, they know you have teeth.)
--
Allan
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Money ... what's that?
Guess what! I have just received a message on NZ Dating from an 18-year-old woman from the West Coast. Of course, if the way she writes is any indication, that's the West Coast of Senegal.
Geez, I'm always getting these messages from young foreign women who are madly in love with me and only want me to send them a few thousand dollars so that they buy a plane ticket to come rushing to me. Maybe I should just charter a plane and bring ‘em all over at once.
But, it’s so sad to think that these women are only after my money, and not my brilliant brain and gorgeous body. ~sigh~
I tell you, what with that and because of problems with my landlord, life has been rather a drag lately.
But the landlord problem got sorted out on Tuesday and yesterday life swung upwards again as I received two letters.
One came from Creative New Zealand.
When a Kiwi author writes books and they go into New Zealand’s public libraries, people read the books without paying for them. Because of this, authors lose out on a cut from what would otherwise have been the sale of their book. So there is a government grant given to authors by Creative New Zealand to make up for that cost. This ensures that authors will allow their books to be bought by libraries.
Up until now, the payment for authors of children's books has been 30% of the adult book rate. Now, according to Creative New Zealand, they are going to stop discriminating and will pay children's authors like me the whole 100%. That means I get a 75% pay rise.
Hey, I like this game!
And, as much as my horoscope failed to mention it, yesterday was a money-making day for me. Because the second letter I received yesterday was from the Bank of New Zealand. The letter said:
"Dear Mr Kirk,
You may be aware from recent publicity that Bank of New Zealand has breached the Fair Trading Act 1986 by not adequately disclosing to customers fees charged when using credit or debit cards for international transactions. We have reached a settlement with the Commerce Commission and as part of that settlement we will compensate all affected current and former customers. This compensation reflects a loss of opportunity to compare our rates with those of other card issuers, choose a card with a lower rate, or choose an alternative payment method.
The settlement with the Commerce Commission stipulates that no matter how small, compensation is to be offered to all affected customers. As you made foreign currency transactions between January 2002 and December 2004 using a Bank of New Zealand card, you will receive payment on 31 October 2006. The payment amount will be a pro-rata portion of the currency conversion fees paid during this period. The amount will also earn interest at a rate of 7% per annum between 31 July 2006 and the date of payment. The compensation, including interest, is detailed below:"
My eyes eagerly scanned down. And there it was!
I was due for a refund of 78 cents!
I tell you, I was in the money yesterday! Now I can put a deposit down on a Wendy house. Well, I could never afford a full sized one.
Hey, you keep smiling. (That way, they know you have teeth.)
Geez, I'm always getting these messages from young foreign women who are madly in love with me and only want me to send them a few thousand dollars so that they buy a plane ticket to come rushing to me. Maybe I should just charter a plane and bring ‘em all over at once.
But, it’s so sad to think that these women are only after my money, and not my brilliant brain and gorgeous body. ~sigh~
I tell you, what with that and because of problems with my landlord, life has been rather a drag lately.
But the landlord problem got sorted out on Tuesday and yesterday life swung upwards again as I received two letters.
One came from Creative New Zealand.
When a Kiwi author writes books and they go into New Zealand’s public libraries, people read the books without paying for them. Because of this, authors lose out on a cut from what would otherwise have been the sale of their book. So there is a government grant given to authors by Creative New Zealand to make up for that cost. This ensures that authors will allow their books to be bought by libraries.
Up until now, the payment for authors of children's books has been 30% of the adult book rate. Now, according to Creative New Zealand, they are going to stop discriminating and will pay children's authors like me the whole 100%. That means I get a 75% pay rise.
Hey, I like this game!
And, as much as my horoscope failed to mention it, yesterday was a money-making day for me. Because the second letter I received yesterday was from the Bank of New Zealand. The letter said:
"Dear Mr Kirk,
You may be aware from recent publicity that Bank of New Zealand has breached the Fair Trading Act 1986 by not adequately disclosing to customers fees charged when using credit or debit cards for international transactions. We have reached a settlement with the Commerce Commission and as part of that settlement we will compensate all affected current and former customers. This compensation reflects a loss of opportunity to compare our rates with those of other card issuers, choose a card with a lower rate, or choose an alternative payment method.
The settlement with the Commerce Commission stipulates that no matter how small, compensation is to be offered to all affected customers. As you made foreign currency transactions between January 2002 and December 2004 using a Bank of New Zealand card, you will receive payment on 31 October 2006. The payment amount will be a pro-rata portion of the currency conversion fees paid during this period. The amount will also earn interest at a rate of 7% per annum between 31 July 2006 and the date of payment. The compensation, including interest, is detailed below:"
My eyes eagerly scanned down. And there it was!
I was due for a refund of 78 cents!
I tell you, I was in the money yesterday! Now I can put a deposit down on a Wendy house. Well, I could never afford a full sized one.
Hey, you keep smiling. (That way, they know you have teeth.)
Thursday, March 08, 2007
A Truly Modern Fairy Tales
Do you get lots of emails, of varying degrees of funniness forwarded to you by friends?
I do. Some are quite funny, some not so funny.
Some are just plain out of date.
For example, take the Modern Fairy Tale that’s doing the rounds.
================
Once upon a time, a guy asked a girl "Will you marry me?"
The girl said "NO!"
And the girl lived happily ever after and went shopping, dancing, camping, drank martinis, always had a clean house, never had to cook, had sex with whomever she pleased... did whatever the hell she wanted, never argued, didn't get fat, travelled more, had many boyfriends, didn't save money, and
had all the hot water to herself. She went to the theatre, never watched football, never wore fricken lacy lingerie that went up her ass, had high self-esteem, never cried or yelled, felt and looked fabulous in sweat pants, burped, swore, farted all the time.
THE END
=============
I got it in my email and I decided that it wasn’t modern. If it was really a fairy tale, today it read differently.
It would read:
“Once upon a time a guy asked his boyfriend: "Will you marry me?"
The boyfriend said: "Ooooh you saucy thing, you." Then he gave him the bum's rush.
And the boyfriend lived happily ever after and went shopping, dancing, and did ever so much camping. The boyfriend drank ever so lovely martinis, never had to cook, had sex with whomever he pleased whenever he pleased; did whatever the heck he wanted; never argued but sulked a lot; didn't get fat; travelled lots; had many boyfriends; didn't save money; and had all the hot water to himself, except when he and a boyfriend showered together. He always wore frilly lacy lingerie that went up his ass, had high self-esteem and even higher cocks, he always cried, wore fabulous sweat pants, and felt and looked at anything in trousers, especially if it farted all the time.”
See, the modern versions are always so much better...
I do. Some are quite funny, some not so funny.
Some are just plain out of date.
For example, take the Modern Fairy Tale that’s doing the rounds.
================
Once upon a time, a guy asked a girl "Will you marry me?"
The girl said "NO!"
And the girl lived happily ever after and went shopping, dancing, camping, drank martinis, always had a clean house, never had to cook, had sex with whomever she pleased... did whatever the hell she wanted, never argued, didn't get fat, travelled more, had many boyfriends, didn't save money, and
had all the hot water to herself. She went to the theatre, never watched football, never wore fricken lacy lingerie that went up her ass, had high self-esteem, never cried or yelled, felt and looked fabulous in sweat pants, burped, swore, farted all the time.
THE END
=============
I got it in my email and I decided that it wasn’t modern. If it was really a fairy tale, today it read differently.
It would read:
“Once upon a time a guy asked his boyfriend: "Will you marry me?"
The boyfriend said: "Ooooh you saucy thing, you." Then he gave him the bum's rush.
And the boyfriend lived happily ever after and went shopping, dancing, and did ever so much camping. The boyfriend drank ever so lovely martinis, never had to cook, had sex with whomever he pleased whenever he pleased; did whatever the heck he wanted; never argued but sulked a lot; didn't get fat; travelled lots; had many boyfriends; didn't save money; and had all the hot water to himself, except when he and a boyfriend showered together. He always wore frilly lacy lingerie that went up his ass, had high self-esteem and even higher cocks, he always cried, wore fabulous sweat pants, and felt and looked at anything in trousers, especially if it farted all the time.”
See, the modern versions are always so much better...
Sunday, March 04, 2007
Moths and manure
Today has been generally unexciting. I have been earnestly trying to sort out and dispose of unwanted magazines today, since I intend to shift to a larger flat in the near future and don't want to have to shift lots of junk.
And I also went and did some grocery shopping. Well, if you call what a bachelor does grocery shopping. It's more just a grab and go. But I was very pleased. On grocery purchases that would normally cost $27, I saved over $11 by buying specials. Ah, it warms the Scottish heritage cockles of my heart, that sort of thing does.
Scrooch, the cat, went out last night and came back about midday. These young males and their all night dalliances!
The other night he was being a pain in the bedroom, skittery and wanting to go out all the time. Since he had just eaten a large moth or two off the front door, I wasn't inclined to put him out. So I turned off the light to go to sleep. Then there was a funny scratching noise and a smell filled the room. I turned on the light and the little beast had done a big runny poo (moth remains included) on my jeans, which were on the floor!
I quickly washed the poo off my jeans and threw Scrooch out!
Today bought some kitty litter. I’m sure he’ll like it more than my jeans. I know it was an urgent call of nature, but it was all his own fault. He would eat all those big juicy moths that were flocking to the light coming through the glass front door.
But, enough from me. I must go and get my dinner. Tonight I will try to avoid burning my tea as I did last night. Interestingly enough, eating burnt crumbed fish has certain similarities to eating burnt toast. I wonder why...
And I also went and did some grocery shopping. Well, if you call what a bachelor does grocery shopping. It's more just a grab and go. But I was very pleased. On grocery purchases that would normally cost $27, I saved over $11 by buying specials. Ah, it warms the Scottish heritage cockles of my heart, that sort of thing does.
Scrooch, the cat, went out last night and came back about midday. These young males and their all night dalliances!
The other night he was being a pain in the bedroom, skittery and wanting to go out all the time. Since he had just eaten a large moth or two off the front door, I wasn't inclined to put him out. So I turned off the light to go to sleep. Then there was a funny scratching noise and a smell filled the room. I turned on the light and the little beast had done a big runny poo (moth remains included) on my jeans, which were on the floor!
I quickly washed the poo off my jeans and threw Scrooch out!
Today bought some kitty litter. I’m sure he’ll like it more than my jeans. I know it was an urgent call of nature, but it was all his own fault. He would eat all those big juicy moths that were flocking to the light coming through the glass front door.
But, enough from me. I must go and get my dinner. Tonight I will try to avoid burning my tea as I did last night. Interestingly enough, eating burnt crumbed fish has certain similarities to eating burnt toast. I wonder why...
Friday, February 23, 2007
Never give up (as defined from never give out).
I have just been told by a lady friend that she has given up trying to find a delicious man!
I can see that I am going to have to adopt a serious tone, slip my reading glasses down onto the end of my nose, and have a stern word with her!
When it comes to finding a gorgeous man, a woman must never give up!
Now, I know that statistically there are more women than men in New Zealand and that men die earlier than women (this has, to me, always seemed to be a rather extreme way of getting away from her nagging) but these disadvantages don’t mean that one should ever give up hope of finding a live one.
For starters, I suspect that the excess women thing is all hype generated by dating sites eager to get as many women on them hunting for men as there are men hunting for women.
In truth, the excess number of available women has been greatly exaggerated. And dating site bachelors like me can attest to that.
The truth is that so many women these days are unobtainium, and for so many reasons.
One is that more women that man seem to turn all religious and unavailable to earthy (I said earthy, not dirty!) men like me. After all, anyone can see that there are many more nuns than priests, much to the relief of Mother Superiors and to the dismay of horny nuns and good-looking choirboys.
Another reason some women are unobtanium is because there are hundreds of otherwise-eligible and sensible women who have inexplicably sworn off all men, even absolutely hunky ones like me. As I’m sure that you will agree, this is as understandable as anyone not wanting to eat tripe!
And then there are those women who have a sexual preference for other women, despite the fact that they don’t have suitable … er … equipment for mating and that they will miss out on such enjoyable things as listening in regularly to an earnest discussion on the advantages of a V8 over an in-line six. Not to mention not having someone to retrieve the half-dead mouse the cat has left under the bed.
Then there is menopause and its side effects … But I won’t go there.
This means that there are thousands fewer women eager to snap up any delicious hunk of manhood you may espy poking up, panting, above the horizon.
Admittedly, there aren’t all that many delicious hunks of manhood poking up above the horizon at the best of times. Most pokers fall well short of the tasteful category, let alone deliciousness. While this may mean that you may have to settle for second best occasionally, what starving woman would refuse a McDonald’s Big Mac just because it isn’t a Gourmet Burger?
On the other hand, available women do have to exercise some restraint when it comes to taking what’s on offer. A lady friend of mine recently had a disturbing experience with a male acquaintance who turned into a stalker that even a court order couldn’t completely deter. I still can’t understand why she didn’t just set up a trap, nab the guy, and put his testicles through a mincer. This tends to remove a stalker’s aggressive tendencies in one short grind.
Then again, maybe only a man would have thought of that idea. See, there are many advantages to having men-friends … and that is why you should *never* give up on your search.
I can see that I am going to have to adopt a serious tone, slip my reading glasses down onto the end of my nose, and have a stern word with her!
When it comes to finding a gorgeous man, a woman must never give up!
Now, I know that statistically there are more women than men in New Zealand and that men die earlier than women (this has, to me, always seemed to be a rather extreme way of getting away from her nagging) but these disadvantages don’t mean that one should ever give up hope of finding a live one.
For starters, I suspect that the excess women thing is all hype generated by dating sites eager to get as many women on them hunting for men as there are men hunting for women.
In truth, the excess number of available women has been greatly exaggerated. And dating site bachelors like me can attest to that.
The truth is that so many women these days are unobtainium, and for so many reasons.
One is that more women that man seem to turn all religious and unavailable to earthy (I said earthy, not dirty!) men like me. After all, anyone can see that there are many more nuns than priests, much to the relief of Mother Superiors and to the dismay of horny nuns and good-looking choirboys.
Another reason some women are unobtanium is because there are hundreds of otherwise-eligible and sensible women who have inexplicably sworn off all men, even absolutely hunky ones like me. As I’m sure that you will agree, this is as understandable as anyone not wanting to eat tripe!
And then there are those women who have a sexual preference for other women, despite the fact that they don’t have suitable … er … equipment for mating and that they will miss out on such enjoyable things as listening in regularly to an earnest discussion on the advantages of a V8 over an in-line six. Not to mention not having someone to retrieve the half-dead mouse the cat has left under the bed.
Then there is menopause and its side effects … But I won’t go there.
This means that there are thousands fewer women eager to snap up any delicious hunk of manhood you may espy poking up, panting, above the horizon.
Admittedly, there aren’t all that many delicious hunks of manhood poking up above the horizon at the best of times. Most pokers fall well short of the tasteful category, let alone deliciousness. While this may mean that you may have to settle for second best occasionally, what starving woman would refuse a McDonald’s Big Mac just because it isn’t a Gourmet Burger?
On the other hand, available women do have to exercise some restraint when it comes to taking what’s on offer. A lady friend of mine recently had a disturbing experience with a male acquaintance who turned into a stalker that even a court order couldn’t completely deter. I still can’t understand why she didn’t just set up a trap, nab the guy, and put his testicles through a mincer. This tends to remove a stalker’s aggressive tendencies in one short grind.
Then again, maybe only a man would have thought of that idea. See, there are many advantages to having men-friends … and that is why you should *never* give up on your search.
Monday, February 19, 2007
How The Other Half Lives
Every now and then my boring, staid life is brightened by the opportunity to see how the other half lives.
I was about to get breakfast in my flat this morning, having cleared my emails and done the usual Friday domestic chores of taking the rubbish and recycling down to the gate, when all hell broke out next door.
I’m not exactly sure what it was all about, but two women were arguing like the proverbial shrews.
I couldn’t help but hear this. It was all going on in the yard next door and the women had voice volumes that would have been at home making public address announcements at the next Olympic Games in China.
Then again, the Chinese authorities would have probably censored the announcements since they seem to include a large number of expletives and accusations of one or the other being a whore, slag, or slut.
There are two men and a woman living next door (Don’t ask. I daren’t!) and these two live-in guys were standing in the middle of the warring factions looking most uncomfortable, standing first on one foot and then the other, like herons with sore feet. Then again, one of the guys has a false leg (This guy is not a nice person. My landlord calls him a loose cannon. I have other words for him, none of which I dare repeat here) so I guess he was standing on one foot then a stump. But, I digress…
The women – the older one who lived next door, and the other younger one who may have been the older woman’s daughter – continued to scream obscenities at each other with the volume and anger growing by the minute.
It got to the stage that they sounded so angry I thought they were going to attack each other, probably with some uniquely female-favoured weapon like knitting needles (although crochet needles are worse. They have barbs, and barbs can do lots of nasty damage. Just ask Steve Irwin. Oh, that’s right. You can’t. He’s dead. ~sigh~)
At one stage there, the older woman accused the younger one of sleeping with Chris. Now I gather that Chris was quite young because the younger woman screamingly advised the neighbourhood that she hadn’t rooted Chris and she regarded him as a son. I found myself wondering if the other neighbours were also pondering the popularity of incest.
Then the younger woman turned and advanced on Pegleg Pete.
“Did you tell her that I was rooting Chris?” she screamed.
With a tall angry lady advancing on him, Ankleless Arnold stepped back a little and quickly said
“I didn’t tell anyone that.” Ah, bravery from a loose cannon.
At this point I decided that Captain Spunkbubble was needed. Well, catfights are all very well but if they really got their claws out and the police got involved, as a witness I was going to be dragged away from my work for heaven-knows-how-long talking to policemen.
So I walked out into the back yard and said very loudly over the low fence:
“Could you please take your argument inside.”
There was a second’s silence before Limbless Larry said “Why don’t you mind your own business?”
Geez, some guys just don’t like being rescued from their own cesspools.
I just shrugged and said; “Listen mate, when the noise disturbs the whole neighbourhood, it is my business.”
Legless Lenny just had to avoid seeing the sense of that and decided to call me a dickhead and a few other things besides. It occurred to me that he was sounding just like the women. Which only goes to prove, I guess, that stupidity attracts stupidity.
So I just shrugged and said: “OK, if you don’t want to quieten down, I’ll just ring the cops and get them to do it.” And walked back inside.
As I walked back into the house, Pinless Pat proved to all in sundry just how thick he was by yelling: “You do that!”
I didn’t ring the cops. I didn’t need to bother. The fighting ceased immediately. I heard the car door slam as the younger woman got back into her car then, with a roar of engine and a squeal of tyres, she left.
Sitting inside, through the open door I heard Footfree Fred get his own. The older women started yelling at him, telling him that he hadn’t supported her in the argument.
Toeless Terry proved, yet again, his stupidity. Rule One: When an angry woman wants to argue, don’t argue back. He argued back.
The result was that she loudly proclaimed that Kneefree Norm had showed his lack of loyalty and she wasn’t staying around. Then I heard her call her scruffy dog to her as she walked away up the road. A minute later, I heard Calfless Craig climb into his ratty old SUV and disappear up the road. Whether it was to find his lady friend and bring her back, or go the pub and drown his sorrows, I know not. Although I’d plump for the latter.
Ah yes, the life of the stressed-up other half. When I was thinking about all this I couldn’t help but remember what friend Teresa, who used to teach in New Zealand but now teaches tiddlies in Japan, told me yesterday.
She said:
“My best Show and Tell happened at Takanini School when a little Maori girl told us that her Mum was very bad. I said why? She said her mum had stabbed their dog and it died. I haven’t forgotten that one.....”
Ah yes. Anyone for a gated community?
I was about to get breakfast in my flat this morning, having cleared my emails and done the usual Friday domestic chores of taking the rubbish and recycling down to the gate, when all hell broke out next door.
I’m not exactly sure what it was all about, but two women were arguing like the proverbial shrews.
I couldn’t help but hear this. It was all going on in the yard next door and the women had voice volumes that would have been at home making public address announcements at the next Olympic Games in China.
Then again, the Chinese authorities would have probably censored the announcements since they seem to include a large number of expletives and accusations of one or the other being a whore, slag, or slut.
There are two men and a woman living next door (Don’t ask. I daren’t!) and these two live-in guys were standing in the middle of the warring factions looking most uncomfortable, standing first on one foot and then the other, like herons with sore feet. Then again, one of the guys has a false leg (This guy is not a nice person. My landlord calls him a loose cannon. I have other words for him, none of which I dare repeat here) so I guess he was standing on one foot then a stump. But, I digress…
The women – the older one who lived next door, and the other younger one who may have been the older woman’s daughter – continued to scream obscenities at each other with the volume and anger growing by the minute.
It got to the stage that they sounded so angry I thought they were going to attack each other, probably with some uniquely female-favoured weapon like knitting needles (although crochet needles are worse. They have barbs, and barbs can do lots of nasty damage. Just ask Steve Irwin. Oh, that’s right. You can’t. He’s dead. ~sigh~)
At one stage there, the older woman accused the younger one of sleeping with Chris. Now I gather that Chris was quite young because the younger woman screamingly advised the neighbourhood that she hadn’t rooted Chris and she regarded him as a son. I found myself wondering if the other neighbours were also pondering the popularity of incest.
Then the younger woman turned and advanced on Pegleg Pete.
“Did you tell her that I was rooting Chris?” she screamed.
With a tall angry lady advancing on him, Ankleless Arnold stepped back a little and quickly said
“I didn’t tell anyone that.” Ah, bravery from a loose cannon.
At this point I decided that Captain Spunkbubble was needed. Well, catfights are all very well but if they really got their claws out and the police got involved, as a witness I was going to be dragged away from my work for heaven-knows-how-long talking to policemen.
So I walked out into the back yard and said very loudly over the low fence:
“Could you please take your argument inside.”
There was a second’s silence before Limbless Larry said “Why don’t you mind your own business?”
Geez, some guys just don’t like being rescued from their own cesspools.
I just shrugged and said; “Listen mate, when the noise disturbs the whole neighbourhood, it is my business.”
Legless Lenny just had to avoid seeing the sense of that and decided to call me a dickhead and a few other things besides. It occurred to me that he was sounding just like the women. Which only goes to prove, I guess, that stupidity attracts stupidity.
So I just shrugged and said: “OK, if you don’t want to quieten down, I’ll just ring the cops and get them to do it.” And walked back inside.
As I walked back into the house, Pinless Pat proved to all in sundry just how thick he was by yelling: “You do that!”
I didn’t ring the cops. I didn’t need to bother. The fighting ceased immediately. I heard the car door slam as the younger woman got back into her car then, with a roar of engine and a squeal of tyres, she left.
Sitting inside, through the open door I heard Footfree Fred get his own. The older women started yelling at him, telling him that he hadn’t supported her in the argument.
Toeless Terry proved, yet again, his stupidity. Rule One: When an angry woman wants to argue, don’t argue back. He argued back.
The result was that she loudly proclaimed that Kneefree Norm had showed his lack of loyalty and she wasn’t staying around. Then I heard her call her scruffy dog to her as she walked away up the road. A minute later, I heard Calfless Craig climb into his ratty old SUV and disappear up the road. Whether it was to find his lady friend and bring her back, or go the pub and drown his sorrows, I know not. Although I’d plump for the latter.
Ah yes, the life of the stressed-up other half. When I was thinking about all this I couldn’t help but remember what friend Teresa, who used to teach in New Zealand but now teaches tiddlies in Japan, told me yesterday.
She said:
“My best Show and Tell happened at Takanini School when a little Maori girl told us that her Mum was very bad. I said why? She said her mum had stabbed their dog and it died. I haven’t forgotten that one.....”
Ah yes. Anyone for a gated community?
Sunday, February 04, 2007
Trips and traps
I had an “interesting” week last week! It started off with my encountering all sorts of problems getting some book layouts to the printer. The layouts have to be sent to the printer as pdf files and the trouble was that the photographs being used would degenerate in quality when I converted the layouts into a pdf file. This meant that all the photos looked so blurred one would think that one had accidentally donned someone else’s glasses. Or emptied someone else’s glasses.
And since the man I was dealing with at the other end of the Internet was a Chinese gentleman who was about as helpful as a second bellybutton, life was getting frustrating.
So I rang a local printer and spoke to a lady expert there who told me to convert all my picture files to a special file format. Aha! The answer!
So I did that and tried it out. The result was worse than before. ~sigh~
However, I kept experimenting (and swearing) and I think that I may now have solved the problem.
All this is par for life, of course. To get things right, you just have to keep trying different techniques and combinations. Which is why, of course, us older men are such good lovers. Whatcha mean, where are my certificates to prove it?!
Anyway, late in the week I took Murray’s mid-sized truck from Palmerston North up to Hamilton to bring some furniture back to Palmerston North from Hamilton. It was an education.
Until you have driven an unloaded truck on New Zealand roads you do not realise just how many poor sections of road surface there are on these fair isles. Now, to be fair, overall New Zealand roads are of very good quality. Our back roads are far better than the back roads in other countries. But the quality of our main highways often leaves something to be desired.
I learnt that fact in particular when the unloaded truck hit some washboard bumps on a corner and bounced onto the wrong side of the road. Since nothing was coming the other way at the time, this was merely an entertaining rather than pants-pooing situation.
Should you rush to point out that an unloaded truck tends to bounce a lot and the driver should allow for this, I would point out that on the way back in the now-loaded truck I hit some more washboard bumps, thankfully on a straight stretch of road. I immediately felt as though I was attempting to ride a kangaroo on steroids. The only thing that kept me from reshaping the roof with my head was the fact that I was wearing a seatbelt.
But there is always a silver lining to any cumulonimbus. The experience has taught me to keep a weather-eye on trucks rounding a corner towards me in case they should hit a poor surface and float onto my side of the road. Because if there is one thing a selfish motorcyclist/driver like me hates, it’s sharing my side of the road with oncoming trucks.
Other than that, my truck-driving experience driving was relatively benign. Of course, the opportunity was regularly taken to stop off at cafés and sample their wares … and carry out a critique on the café for my planned Kirk Café Critique website.
Ah, it’s interesting carrying out secret assessments of cafés. The assessment has to be secret, of course. If they knew what I was doing I would never have encountered, as I did yesterday, the young girl serving in one café who didn’t know what Earl Grey tea was. ~gasp~
Or have the staff at another café forget to bring to bring the purchased (expensive) piece of cake with the tea. And when one politely asks a nearby waitress whether they had forgotten the cake, she rushes to point out that she hadn’t served one. Aaaaaargh! The customer doesn’t care *who* served him. He just wants the problem put right!
And do you know how many different types of Earl Grey tea there are? On Friday, in one café, I encountered a weird type of Earl Grey tea I had never tasted before. It was like taking a bite into a muffin only to find that it tasted like tripe!
Ah yes, café critiquing can be very entertaining. I was in Ruddies café in Taumaranui when a customer walked out wearing a T-shirt that proclaimed: “Nuttier than a squirrel’s turds”. When I took that mouthful of weird Earl Grey tea, I had to agree that that was also an apt description of me.
And last night, I proved it. When I was in Pak’N’Save in Hamilton on Saturday night, amongst the bulk food bins in the store was a bin full of “Nuts (no peanuts)”. So I bought a small amount because, although I’m allergic to peanuts, I like nuts and don’t seem to be allergic to cashew nuts or walnuts.
Last night I ate some of the nuts. Very nice, they were.
Today, I have one hell of a headache. Allergies are no fun!
Afflicted by my headache, I have now arrived back at my flat from my truck-driving adventure to find that, in the three days I have been away, the landlord has ripped out the cottage garden at the front of my flat and replaced it with an imitation, sterile, rocky Japanese-type garden. Eeeeeeek!
Although I loved the sensuality of the cottage garden, as a tenant I have no say in the matter, of course. But I guess it could have been worse. I could have been growing marijuana in it…
And since the man I was dealing with at the other end of the Internet was a Chinese gentleman who was about as helpful as a second bellybutton, life was getting frustrating.
So I rang a local printer and spoke to a lady expert there who told me to convert all my picture files to a special file format. Aha! The answer!
So I did that and tried it out. The result was worse than before. ~sigh~
However, I kept experimenting (and swearing) and I think that I may now have solved the problem.
All this is par for life, of course. To get things right, you just have to keep trying different techniques and combinations. Which is why, of course, us older men are such good lovers. Whatcha mean, where are my certificates to prove it?!
Anyway, late in the week I took Murray’s mid-sized truck from Palmerston North up to Hamilton to bring some furniture back to Palmerston North from Hamilton. It was an education.
Until you have driven an unloaded truck on New Zealand roads you do not realise just how many poor sections of road surface there are on these fair isles. Now, to be fair, overall New Zealand roads are of very good quality. Our back roads are far better than the back roads in other countries. But the quality of our main highways often leaves something to be desired.
I learnt that fact in particular when the unloaded truck hit some washboard bumps on a corner and bounced onto the wrong side of the road. Since nothing was coming the other way at the time, this was merely an entertaining rather than pants-pooing situation.
Should you rush to point out that an unloaded truck tends to bounce a lot and the driver should allow for this, I would point out that on the way back in the now-loaded truck I hit some more washboard bumps, thankfully on a straight stretch of road. I immediately felt as though I was attempting to ride a kangaroo on steroids. The only thing that kept me from reshaping the roof with my head was the fact that I was wearing a seatbelt.
But there is always a silver lining to any cumulonimbus. The experience has taught me to keep a weather-eye on trucks rounding a corner towards me in case they should hit a poor surface and float onto my side of the road. Because if there is one thing a selfish motorcyclist/driver like me hates, it’s sharing my side of the road with oncoming trucks.
Other than that, my truck-driving experience driving was relatively benign. Of course, the opportunity was regularly taken to stop off at cafés and sample their wares … and carry out a critique on the café for my planned Kirk Café Critique website.
Ah, it’s interesting carrying out secret assessments of cafés. The assessment has to be secret, of course. If they knew what I was doing I would never have encountered, as I did yesterday, the young girl serving in one café who didn’t know what Earl Grey tea was. ~gasp~
Or have the staff at another café forget to bring to bring the purchased (expensive) piece of cake with the tea. And when one politely asks a nearby waitress whether they had forgotten the cake, she rushes to point out that she hadn’t served one. Aaaaaargh! The customer doesn’t care *who* served him. He just wants the problem put right!
And do you know how many different types of Earl Grey tea there are? On Friday, in one café, I encountered a weird type of Earl Grey tea I had never tasted before. It was like taking a bite into a muffin only to find that it tasted like tripe!
Ah yes, café critiquing can be very entertaining. I was in Ruddies café in Taumaranui when a customer walked out wearing a T-shirt that proclaimed: “Nuttier than a squirrel’s turds”. When I took that mouthful of weird Earl Grey tea, I had to agree that that was also an apt description of me.
And last night, I proved it. When I was in Pak’N’Save in Hamilton on Saturday night, amongst the bulk food bins in the store was a bin full of “Nuts (no peanuts)”. So I bought a small amount because, although I’m allergic to peanuts, I like nuts and don’t seem to be allergic to cashew nuts or walnuts.
Last night I ate some of the nuts. Very nice, they were.
Today, I have one hell of a headache. Allergies are no fun!
Afflicted by my headache, I have now arrived back at my flat from my truck-driving adventure to find that, in the three days I have been away, the landlord has ripped out the cottage garden at the front of my flat and replaced it with an imitation, sterile, rocky Japanese-type garden. Eeeeeeek!
Although I loved the sensuality of the cottage garden, as a tenant I have no say in the matter, of course. But I guess it could have been worse. I could have been growing marijuana in it…
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Mega shops and mega meals
I went to Palmerston North on the weekend and visited the new Mitre 10 Mega store over there. They were blowing up and giving away promotional orange and black vinyl balls, so I decided to line up and get a couple to give away to appropriate little people. (If you fit into that category, I *do* have one left over...)
The Mitre 10 balls are fairly large balls, about the size of a netball and, after I scored a couple, I then had to walk around the store holding them. The most comfortable way to hold them was to hold them against one's chest but I saw myself in one of the mirrors sold by Mitre 10 and I looked like I had brightly coloured breasts bursting out of a bra. So I lugged them around under me arms, instead!
Palmerston North now has two huge hardware stores – Mitre 10 and Bunnings. They are both so large that, when you enter, they give you a map so that you can find your way around. The one I got from Mitre 10 had an X on it and so I quickly went to that spot just in case I’d accidentally been given a treasure map. Sadly, the X merely marked the spot where the garden tools were sited. I thought about grabbing a nearby pickaxe and digging up the floor just in case, but the shop management always get excited when you display initiative like that. So I just hitched up my balls and walked on.
These big hardware mega stores really have all sorts of stuff in them. Mitre 10 even sold ping pong balls.
Shirley, a caregiver friend of mine, tells me that they put ping pong balls in the toilet to teach intellectually handicapped guys to accurately pee in the loo. The idea is that the guys are taught to aim for the ping pong ball.
This got me to thinking. Maybe they should put ping pong balls in public urinals. Firstly, one finds in public urinals that the users seem to have peed everywhere *except* in the urinal and, secondly, the idea could be especially useful in a pub. They could put a sign up above the urinal – “If you can’t hit the ping pong ball, you’re too pissed to drive!”
Anyway, the reason I had gone into Bunnings was to buy a sophisticated technological marvel called a cuphook. The stick-on cuphooks on the ceiling of my crockery cupboard are unsticking and coming off. So I can be working at my computer when the next moment there will come a loud CRASH from the china cupboard as a hook gives way and a large mug lands on the plates below. Thank heavens I have unbreakable crockery. It’s bloody annoying, but I look on the bright side. Any ants in the cupboard will be running the gauntlet…
Anyway, I asked the lady where the cuphooks were and in the ensuing conversation it turned out she was an ex-Wairarapian. Of course, I should have guessed this because she had this sort of rugged beauty, just like all of us Wairarapians, although some suggest that my appearance is more a case of rugged than beauty. But I know they are just jealous of my country-boy looks.
Of course, the Bunnings lady may have looked just ordinarily beautiful out of her Bunning’s uniform. Actually, being a full-blooded man. I have to say that she probably would have looked *delightful* out of her Bunning’s uniform. The Bunning’s uniform, incidentally, is a sort of a cross between a boy scout outfit and a pinny. It’s an outfit that would make Charlize Theron look rugged.
After my busy day braving the mega shops, friend Shirley and I went out for tea. On the advice of Shirley’s brother, who has the girth of someone with good knowledge of eateries, we went to a restaurant called The Rat Hole.
This establishment is probably a classic example of matter over mind in that the name of the place gives one all sorts of horrible images yet the food supplied at the establishment is so good that word of mouth has made the place very popular. It wasn’t a large place yet when we arrived there must have been about 150 people there either tucking into food or waiting for their meal to be cooked.
The food is what I suppose you could call country tucker – not particularly gourmet but basic tasteful meals of considerable size – you could have used the steaks for pillows. Well, at least until they started going off.
But, we had a very nice meal, I refrained from burping loudly after the meal, and no one threw us out. Well, in big cities of 75,000 people like Palmerston North, they aren’t used to our country customs.
--
Allan
The Mitre 10 balls are fairly large balls, about the size of a netball and, after I scored a couple, I then had to walk around the store holding them. The most comfortable way to hold them was to hold them against one's chest but I saw myself in one of the mirrors sold by Mitre 10 and I looked like I had brightly coloured breasts bursting out of a bra. So I lugged them around under me arms, instead!
Palmerston North now has two huge hardware stores – Mitre 10 and Bunnings. They are both so large that, when you enter, they give you a map so that you can find your way around. The one I got from Mitre 10 had an X on it and so I quickly went to that spot just in case I’d accidentally been given a treasure map. Sadly, the X merely marked the spot where the garden tools were sited. I thought about grabbing a nearby pickaxe and digging up the floor just in case, but the shop management always get excited when you display initiative like that. So I just hitched up my balls and walked on.
These big hardware mega stores really have all sorts of stuff in them. Mitre 10 even sold ping pong balls.
Shirley, a caregiver friend of mine, tells me that they put ping pong balls in the toilet to teach intellectually handicapped guys to accurately pee in the loo. The idea is that the guys are taught to aim for the ping pong ball.
This got me to thinking. Maybe they should put ping pong balls in public urinals. Firstly, one finds in public urinals that the users seem to have peed everywhere *except* in the urinal and, secondly, the idea could be especially useful in a pub. They could put a sign up above the urinal – “If you can’t hit the ping pong ball, you’re too pissed to drive!”
Anyway, the reason I had gone into Bunnings was to buy a sophisticated technological marvel called a cuphook. The stick-on cuphooks on the ceiling of my crockery cupboard are unsticking and coming off. So I can be working at my computer when the next moment there will come a loud CRASH from the china cupboard as a hook gives way and a large mug lands on the plates below. Thank heavens I have unbreakable crockery. It’s bloody annoying, but I look on the bright side. Any ants in the cupboard will be running the gauntlet…
Anyway, I asked the lady where the cuphooks were and in the ensuing conversation it turned out she was an ex-Wairarapian. Of course, I should have guessed this because she had this sort of rugged beauty, just like all of us Wairarapians, although some suggest that my appearance is more a case of rugged than beauty. But I know they are just jealous of my country-boy looks.
Of course, the Bunnings lady may have looked just ordinarily beautiful out of her Bunning’s uniform. Actually, being a full-blooded man. I have to say that she probably would have looked *delightful* out of her Bunning’s uniform. The Bunning’s uniform, incidentally, is a sort of a cross between a boy scout outfit and a pinny. It’s an outfit that would make Charlize Theron look rugged.
After my busy day braving the mega shops, friend Shirley and I went out for tea. On the advice of Shirley’s brother, who has the girth of someone with good knowledge of eateries, we went to a restaurant called The Rat Hole.
This establishment is probably a classic example of matter over mind in that the name of the place gives one all sorts of horrible images yet the food supplied at the establishment is so good that word of mouth has made the place very popular. It wasn’t a large place yet when we arrived there must have been about 150 people there either tucking into food or waiting for their meal to be cooked.
The food is what I suppose you could call country tucker – not particularly gourmet but basic tasteful meals of considerable size – you could have used the steaks for pillows. Well, at least until they started going off.
But, we had a very nice meal, I refrained from burping loudly after the meal, and no one threw us out. Well, in big cities of 75,000 people like Palmerston North, they aren’t used to our country customs.
--
Allan
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Of politics and bureaucracy
What did I do this weekend? I went to Hunterville to the opening of a friend's Art Gallery.
I had arranged for the local National MP, Simon Power, to do the opening bit. I was appointed to be the Master of Ceremonies. Dunno why...
Anyway, there was only about 30 people at the opening so, to introduce Simon, I stood up and said:
"Officially opening the gallery tonight is Simon Power MP for Rangitikei.
Simon just scraped into Parliament a couple of elections ago but he roared in this year. That, of course, was because he did the hard yard campaigning,
The rumour is that, to reach the country electorate he rode around on a draft horse called Gertrude. But he soon stopped doing that as all his constituents confused the horse with Helen Clark.
Well, that's to be expected really because when he first went into Parliament he told everyone that he'd always be on Helen Clark's back.
Yep. Simon got elected the hard way, going around meeting people, shaking them by the hand. I suspect that there are times he would have liked to have shaken them by the throat, but that's political life for you.
So, without further ado I'd like to invite Simon to come and do the ceremonial opening bit."
I'm not sure whether he took it all that well actually. He complained that the ribbon he had to cut was a red one and the National Party colours are blue...
Anyway, I got home yesterday and it's been one of those days today when one is unmotivated and can't seem to get down to work and everything goes wrong.
I must have PMT!
And I am beginning to think that New Zealand is rapidly going under in a sea of bureaucracy.
A week or more ago, I had to apply for a Customs Client Code to import my books. I was told I would be notified what the Customs-required code was within a day. A week later, I had received nothing.
Today I asked Customs what was going on. Apparently, because I have no fax number, I wasn’t advised what the number was. This is despite the fact that I had included an email address in the place of the fax number. It appears that people working in Customs don’t have the initiative to send a reply to an email address in the place of a fax….
I also found out on Friday that, in order to export anything over $1000, one has to fill out something called an Export Entry (even though the goods are exiting, and not entering…)
An Export Entry is, apparently, a form solely used for governmental statistical purposes … yet one is required to pay $5.50 for the privilege of filling it in!
Worse still, this form is required not because I am exporting anything but because I am sending back to a customer some motorcycle leathers that were repaired (for free).
I’m gobsmacked! Why the heck is New Zealand placing this sort of stupid obstacle in the way of people wanting to export and earn overseas currency? If Kiwis didn’t earn overseas currency, New Zealand would be in serious trouble. Indeed, right at the moment New Zealand is spending more on imports that it is earning through exports.
Personally, I’ve decided that all this export stuff is just too much hassle. New Zealand will have to do without any overseas funds I could earn through exporting.
I wonder how many others decide the same.
And my bad day continued.
I got a scam email from a man on msn.com
So I included the scam message in an email I sent off to the abuse section of msn.com to get them to close the account of the scam artist.
The msn.com server refused to accept the message because it contained spam...
However, just to prove that life goes on, my pet duck arrived today and demanded food. Her mate was nowhere to be seen. Probably sailing the oceans of the world. I gather Drakes do that.
So I fed the duck and she went away.
Then she came back again and demanded more food. I told her I wasn’t made of bread, so she stopped pecking my foot.
But, I gave her another couple of slices of bread, anyway. So she had her fill and left with nary a kiss for me. Women are so fickle.
They leave their mate behind for another guy who can give ‘em the goodies then, when the new male runs out of goodies, they nip off back to their mate for a bit of the old feather ruffling.
But enough of my sad day. I think tonight I will go zombie with a DVD. I have a choice of one with an M rating or a PG rating. Geez, decisions, decisions.
Hey, you have a good day tomorrow.
I had arranged for the local National MP, Simon Power, to do the opening bit. I was appointed to be the Master of Ceremonies. Dunno why...
Anyway, there was only about 30 people at the opening so, to introduce Simon, I stood up and said:
"Officially opening the gallery tonight is Simon Power MP for Rangitikei.
Simon just scraped into Parliament a couple of elections ago but he roared in this year. That, of course, was because he did the hard yard campaigning,
The rumour is that, to reach the country electorate he rode around on a draft horse called Gertrude. But he soon stopped doing that as all his constituents confused the horse with Helen Clark.
Well, that's to be expected really because when he first went into Parliament he told everyone that he'd always be on Helen Clark's back.
Yep. Simon got elected the hard way, going around meeting people, shaking them by the hand. I suspect that there are times he would have liked to have shaken them by the throat, but that's political life for you.
So, without further ado I'd like to invite Simon to come and do the ceremonial opening bit."
I'm not sure whether he took it all that well actually. He complained that the ribbon he had to cut was a red one and the National Party colours are blue...
Anyway, I got home yesterday and it's been one of those days today when one is unmotivated and can't seem to get down to work and everything goes wrong.
I must have PMT!
And I am beginning to think that New Zealand is rapidly going under in a sea of bureaucracy.
A week or more ago, I had to apply for a Customs Client Code to import my books. I was told I would be notified what the Customs-required code was within a day. A week later, I had received nothing.
Today I asked Customs what was going on. Apparently, because I have no fax number, I wasn’t advised what the number was. This is despite the fact that I had included an email address in the place of the fax number. It appears that people working in Customs don’t have the initiative to send a reply to an email address in the place of a fax….
I also found out on Friday that, in order to export anything over $1000, one has to fill out something called an Export Entry (even though the goods are exiting, and not entering…)
An Export Entry is, apparently, a form solely used for governmental statistical purposes … yet one is required to pay $5.50 for the privilege of filling it in!
Worse still, this form is required not because I am exporting anything but because I am sending back to a customer some motorcycle leathers that were repaired (for free).
I’m gobsmacked! Why the heck is New Zealand placing this sort of stupid obstacle in the way of people wanting to export and earn overseas currency? If Kiwis didn’t earn overseas currency, New Zealand would be in serious trouble. Indeed, right at the moment New Zealand is spending more on imports that it is earning through exports.
Personally, I’ve decided that all this export stuff is just too much hassle. New Zealand will have to do without any overseas funds I could earn through exporting.
I wonder how many others decide the same.
And my bad day continued.
I got a scam email from a man on msn.com
So I included the scam message in an email I sent off to the abuse section of msn.com to get them to close the account of the scam artist.
The msn.com server refused to accept the message because it contained spam...
However, just to prove that life goes on, my pet duck arrived today and demanded food. Her mate was nowhere to be seen. Probably sailing the oceans of the world. I gather Drakes do that.
So I fed the duck and she went away.
Then she came back again and demanded more food. I told her I wasn’t made of bread, so she stopped pecking my foot.
But, I gave her another couple of slices of bread, anyway. So she had her fill and left with nary a kiss for me. Women are so fickle.
They leave their mate behind for another guy who can give ‘em the goodies then, when the new male runs out of goodies, they nip off back to their mate for a bit of the old feather ruffling.
But enough of my sad day. I think tonight I will go zombie with a DVD. I have a choice of one with an M rating or a PG rating. Geez, decisions, decisions.
Hey, you have a good day tomorrow.
Blowing a fuse
Last night, when I turned on the bedside lamp, the bulb when Phfutt! And the radio died, the DVD wouldn’t go, the computer became silent and black, and my animated picture of the Queen Mum ground to the same restful halt that the old dear herself has now assumed. Well, my picture would have, if I’d had one.
I had blown a fuse.
Well, actually, I hadn’t blown a fuse. I don’t have any fuses, short or otherwise. A fuse had blown in the flat’s fusebox. All because a bulb had blown. I obviously have sympathetic fuses in my flat.
So, outside I went into the rain, looking for the fusebox.
Now you may dismiss this venture out into inclement weather as something trifling, but *you* aren’t bald (I hope). Bald people suffer in the rain. We have no hair to reduce the violent battering of raindrops on the noggin. When we go out in the rain, we are incessantly beaten over the head by vicious drops of water. It’s terrible, I tell you. I need comfort!
And I’ll bet that you thought that the worst thing about being bald is that you don’t get to choose designer combs. Although you do have more room for designer tattoos.
Anyway, search as I may while being viciously assaulted by the rain, I couldn’t find the fusebox. So I came back inside again. It was then that I noticed that the clock on the stove was still working. There was power to the stove - and the stove had two power-points on it! So all last night my computer was plugged into the stove. No comments, please, about half baked ideas.
This morning, my power problem is over. In the cold light of day, I found the fuse box. It is inside, for Pete's sake. One expects fuse boxes to be outside on the wall.
So I opened the fuse box door, pushed in the popped-up button on the fuse, and Hey Presto! I can once again recharge vibrators, heat up the electric blanket, play soft and seductive music, and all the others things a bachelor must do to keep his lady friends happy.
Aren’t I clever? Maybe I should get a job as an electrician.
Or maybe I should get a job photographing pieces of paper.
Yesterday, I was in the local courthouse filing some papers with the disputes tribunal when this lady came in from a collection agency. She was given a big folder of court papers (I gather they were court decisions on debts) and promptly set up a small photographic studio (tripod and all) on a nearby public counter. Then she started photographing each piece of paper.
Apparently, she goes around the courthouses from Masterton up to Taupo taking these photographs of pieces of paper.
Well, I suppose it's better than trying to lug a photocopier around with you...
I had blown a fuse.
Well, actually, I hadn’t blown a fuse. I don’t have any fuses, short or otherwise. A fuse had blown in the flat’s fusebox. All because a bulb had blown. I obviously have sympathetic fuses in my flat.
So, outside I went into the rain, looking for the fusebox.
Now you may dismiss this venture out into inclement weather as something trifling, but *you* aren’t bald (I hope). Bald people suffer in the rain. We have no hair to reduce the violent battering of raindrops on the noggin. When we go out in the rain, we are incessantly beaten over the head by vicious drops of water. It’s terrible, I tell you. I need comfort!
And I’ll bet that you thought that the worst thing about being bald is that you don’t get to choose designer combs. Although you do have more room for designer tattoos.
Anyway, search as I may while being viciously assaulted by the rain, I couldn’t find the fusebox. So I came back inside again. It was then that I noticed that the clock on the stove was still working. There was power to the stove - and the stove had two power-points on it! So all last night my computer was plugged into the stove. No comments, please, about half baked ideas.
This morning, my power problem is over. In the cold light of day, I found the fuse box. It is inside, for Pete's sake. One expects fuse boxes to be outside on the wall.
So I opened the fuse box door, pushed in the popped-up button on the fuse, and Hey Presto! I can once again recharge vibrators, heat up the electric blanket, play soft and seductive music, and all the others things a bachelor must do to keep his lady friends happy.
Aren’t I clever? Maybe I should get a job as an electrician.
Or maybe I should get a job photographing pieces of paper.
Yesterday, I was in the local courthouse filing some papers with the disputes tribunal when this lady came in from a collection agency. She was given a big folder of court papers (I gather they were court decisions on debts) and promptly set up a small photographic studio (tripod and all) on a nearby public counter. Then she started photographing each piece of paper.
Apparently, she goes around the courthouses from Masterton up to Taupo taking these photographs of pieces of paper.
Well, I suppose it's better than trying to lug a photocopier around with you...
Saturday, January 13, 2007
A visit to the city
I went to Palmerston North on the weekend and visited the new Mitre 10 Mega store over there. They were blowing up and giving away promotional orange and black vinyl balls, so I decided to line up and get a couple to give away to appropriate little people. (If you fit into that category, I *do* have one left over...)
The Mitre 10 balls are fairly large balls, about the size of a netball and, after I scored a couple, I then had to walk around the store holding them. The most comfortable way to hold them was to hold them against one's chest but I saw myself in one of the mirrors sold by Mitre 10 and I looked like I had brightly coloured breasts bursting out of a bra. So I lugged them around under me arms, instead!
Palmerston North now has two huge hardware stores – Mitre 10 and Bunnings. They are both so large that, when you enter, they give you a map so that you can find your way around. The one I got from Mitre 10 had an X on it and so I quickly went to that spot just in case I’d accidentally been given a treasure map. Sadly, the X merely marked the spot where the garden tools were sited. I thought about grabbing a nearby pickaxe and digging up the floor just in case, but the shop management always get excited when you display initiative like that. So I just hitched up my balls and walked on.
These big hardware mega stores really have all sorts of stuff in them. Mitre 10 even sold ping pong balls.
Shirley, a caregiver friend of mine, tells me that they put ping pong balls in the toilet to teach intellectually handicapped guys to accurately pee in the loo. The idea is that the guys are taught to aim for the ping pong ball.
This got me to thinking. Maybe they should put ping pong balls in public urinals. Firstly, one finds in public urinals that the users seem to have peed everywhere *except* in the urinal and, secondly, the idea could be especially useful in a pub. They could put a sign up above the urinal – “If you can’t hit the ping pong ball, you’re too pissed to drive!”
Anyway, the reason I had gone into Bunnings was to buy a sophisticated technological marvel called a cuphook. The stick-on cuphooks on the ceiling of my crockery cupboard are unsticking and coming off. So I can be working at my computer when the next moment there will come a loud CRASH from the china cupboard as a hook gives way and a large mug lands on the plates below. Thank heavens I have unbreakable crockery. It’s bloody annoying, but I look on the bright side. Any ants in the cupboard will be running the gauntlet…
Anyway, I asked the lady where the cuphooks were and in the ensuing conversation it turned out she was an ex-Wairarapian. Of course, I should have guessed this because she had this sort of rugged beauty, just like all of us Wairarapians, although some suggest that my appearance is more a case of rugged than beauty. But I know they are just jealous of my country-boy looks.
Of course, the Bunnings lady may have looked just ordinarily beautiful out of her Bunning’s uniform. Actually, being a full-blooded man. I have to say that she probably would have looked *delightful* out of her Bunning’s uniform. The Bunning’s uniform, incidentally, is a sort of a cross between a boy scout outfit and a pinny. It’s an outfit that would make Charlize Theron look rugged.
After my busy day braving the mega shops, friend Shirley and I went out for tea. On the advice of Shirley’s brother, who has the girth of someone with good knowledge of eateries, we went to a restaurant called The Rat Hole.
This establishment is probably a classic example of matter over mind in that the name of the place gives one all sorts of horrible images yet the food supplied at the establishment is so good that word of mouth has made the place very popular. It wasn’t a large place yet when we arrived there must have been about 150 people there either tucking into food or waiting for their meal to be cooked.
The food is what I suppose you could call country tucker – not particularly gourmet but basic tasteful meals of considerable size – you could have used the steaks for pillows. Well, at least until they started going off.
But, we had a very nice meal, I refrained from burping loudly after the meal, and no one threw us out. Well, in big cities of 75,000 people like Palmerston North, they aren’t used to our country customs.
The Mitre 10 balls are fairly large balls, about the size of a netball and, after I scored a couple, I then had to walk around the store holding them. The most comfortable way to hold them was to hold them against one's chest but I saw myself in one of the mirrors sold by Mitre 10 and I looked like I had brightly coloured breasts bursting out of a bra. So I lugged them around under me arms, instead!
Palmerston North now has two huge hardware stores – Mitre 10 and Bunnings. They are both so large that, when you enter, they give you a map so that you can find your way around. The one I got from Mitre 10 had an X on it and so I quickly went to that spot just in case I’d accidentally been given a treasure map. Sadly, the X merely marked the spot where the garden tools were sited. I thought about grabbing a nearby pickaxe and digging up the floor just in case, but the shop management always get excited when you display initiative like that. So I just hitched up my balls and walked on.
These big hardware mega stores really have all sorts of stuff in them. Mitre 10 even sold ping pong balls.
Shirley, a caregiver friend of mine, tells me that they put ping pong balls in the toilet to teach intellectually handicapped guys to accurately pee in the loo. The idea is that the guys are taught to aim for the ping pong ball.
This got me to thinking. Maybe they should put ping pong balls in public urinals. Firstly, one finds in public urinals that the users seem to have peed everywhere *except* in the urinal and, secondly, the idea could be especially useful in a pub. They could put a sign up above the urinal – “If you can’t hit the ping pong ball, you’re too pissed to drive!”
Anyway, the reason I had gone into Bunnings was to buy a sophisticated technological marvel called a cuphook. The stick-on cuphooks on the ceiling of my crockery cupboard are unsticking and coming off. So I can be working at my computer when the next moment there will come a loud CRASH from the china cupboard as a hook gives way and a large mug lands on the plates below. Thank heavens I have unbreakable crockery. It’s bloody annoying, but I look on the bright side. Any ants in the cupboard will be running the gauntlet…
Anyway, I asked the lady where the cuphooks were and in the ensuing conversation it turned out she was an ex-Wairarapian. Of course, I should have guessed this because she had this sort of rugged beauty, just like all of us Wairarapians, although some suggest that my appearance is more a case of rugged than beauty. But I know they are just jealous of my country-boy looks.
Of course, the Bunnings lady may have looked just ordinarily beautiful out of her Bunning’s uniform. Actually, being a full-blooded man. I have to say that she probably would have looked *delightful* out of her Bunning’s uniform. The Bunning’s uniform, incidentally, is a sort of a cross between a boy scout outfit and a pinny. It’s an outfit that would make Charlize Theron look rugged.
After my busy day braving the mega shops, friend Shirley and I went out for tea. On the advice of Shirley’s brother, who has the girth of someone with good knowledge of eateries, we went to a restaurant called The Rat Hole.
This establishment is probably a classic example of matter over mind in that the name of the place gives one all sorts of horrible images yet the food supplied at the establishment is so good that word of mouth has made the place very popular. It wasn’t a large place yet when we arrived there must have been about 150 people there either tucking into food or waiting for their meal to be cooked.
The food is what I suppose you could call country tucker – not particularly gourmet but basic tasteful meals of considerable size – you could have used the steaks for pillows. Well, at least until they started going off.
But, we had a very nice meal, I refrained from burping loudly after the meal, and no one threw us out. Well, in big cities of 75,000 people like Palmerston North, they aren’t used to our country customs.
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Sometimes it's not a great New Year...
Today I received one of those messages that leave you wondering how to reply.
After I wished Alexandra a great New Year, she replied that her year could have started better. She said that she had been waiting for this year. The year of the Allessandra she had named it.
Alas, 12 hours after she wished Happy New Year to her mother at 12.05 am on January 1, 2007, her mother tripped on a mat and went flying through the air. She knocked her head on the dining room table, and, in reaching out to stop the fall, snapped her wrist and broke her hip!
The hip break was too bad to pin, so they put her under and were rebuilding her with a partial hip replacement.
“She is, as I type,” said Alexandra, “refusing to wake up after surgery.”
So Alexandra is sitting there waiting - either her mother will pull through or she won't.
“I am trying to be philosophical,” said Alexandra. “Other times I put my hands over my eyes like I remember my daughter doing as a wee tot, her thinking being that if she couldn't see me, nor I see her…”
“But,” Alexandra said., “perhaps I am just getting the worst of the year over and done with early.”
I think all of us who have lost one or both parents knows how she feels. How helpless, how alone, and how sad.
If I could reach out and hug Alexandra, I would, but she lives at the other end of New Zealand.
So what could I say?
In the end, I just said “Let's look at this another way. If mother is as extraordinary as her daughter, one would be led to the conclusion that mother is, at this very moment, away inspecting heaven to see whether it is sufficiently salubrious for her, in case she has to spend a bit of time there before she moves on to her next life.
That being the case, if she wakes up you’ll have the mixed emotions of being really glad you have your mother back, yet knowing that heaven isn't all it's cracked up to be.
Ya just can't win, kid!”
I don’t know whether that helped. I just hope it did.
(I have just received a joyful message from Alexandra. Her mum is breathing on her own and out of recovery .. high five!!!)
--
Allan
After I wished Alexandra a great New Year, she replied that her year could have started better. She said that she had been waiting for this year. The year of the Allessandra she had named it.
Alas, 12 hours after she wished Happy New Year to her mother at 12.05 am on January 1, 2007, her mother tripped on a mat and went flying through the air. She knocked her head on the dining room table, and, in reaching out to stop the fall, snapped her wrist and broke her hip!
The hip break was too bad to pin, so they put her under and were rebuilding her with a partial hip replacement.
“She is, as I type,” said Alexandra, “refusing to wake up after surgery.”
So Alexandra is sitting there waiting - either her mother will pull through or she won't.
“I am trying to be philosophical,” said Alexandra. “Other times I put my hands over my eyes like I remember my daughter doing as a wee tot, her thinking being that if she couldn't see me, nor I see her…”
“But,” Alexandra said., “perhaps I am just getting the worst of the year over and done with early.”
I think all of us who have lost one or both parents knows how she feels. How helpless, how alone, and how sad.
If I could reach out and hug Alexandra, I would, but she lives at the other end of New Zealand.
So what could I say?
In the end, I just said “Let's look at this another way. If mother is as extraordinary as her daughter, one would be led to the conclusion that mother is, at this very moment, away inspecting heaven to see whether it is sufficiently salubrious for her, in case she has to spend a bit of time there before she moves on to her next life.
That being the case, if she wakes up you’ll have the mixed emotions of being really glad you have your mother back, yet knowing that heaven isn't all it's cracked up to be.
Ya just can't win, kid!”
I don’t know whether that helped. I just hope it did.
(I have just received a joyful message from Alexandra. Her mum is breathing on her own and out of recovery .. high five!!!)
--
Allan
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