Sunday Walk

Today I was hanging around the house and decided to take myself out and go for a walk. Instead of doing the usual trek around the streets I drove down to the beach, parked the car and went walking.
There were hardly any people around which was a welcome change from the usual crowds down here. Grey sky but slightly warm air. The wind was coming of the water leaving a salty residue on my skin.

I love the trees that are near the beach. All coarse and grey. Bent over with the wind over the years. Made to survive the harsh conditions that go with the beach.

I wore my new runners, all white against my black pants. Every time I took a step I caught a glimpse of white in the corner of my eye.

The local council has spent a lot of time planting native flora down here and keeping it protected from traipsing feet. I like plants that are hardy. They have a defiant grip on the soil. The foliage is usually prickly and uninviting. But somehow they still manage to look beautiful in their own way.
The steps down to the water. The tide was in. Although, on this part of the beach there is hardly any sand to sit on at any time.
These pine trees are huge. They are in the backyard of a very substantial house, remnants of an time when old homes lined the beach here. Now, most of the property here is modern and ugly. And very expensive. I have always believed that the distance from a house to the beach should be significant to give beach users a sense of isolation when they walk along the path that lines the water. Needless to say, nobody agrees with me.

Birds contemplating their day.

Views from the walkway. Nobody in sight.
The coarse sand. In Summer this beach would be filled with sun bathers, bright towels and sun shelters. Today it was nice to see it empty.

I stopped for a cup of coffee.

Asked a girl to take a photo of me.

Then I jumped in the car and took a photo of myself.

Then went home.

Pottered around.

Made a lasagne.

And when I finish this post I shall get up and bake a cake.

Ciao
LC

Friday Work Twaddle

Here I am at work.

I should be doing work shouldn't I?

Actually, I am downloading a giant file from the Taxman and while that is happening I figure that a post is just the order of the day.

Sometimes I wonder what on earth there is for me to blog about. Not much on most days. But I think that is the same with everyone. Days come and go and we fill them with little events. Some intended and some not so. Some worthy of a mention, most definitely not.

I have noticed that the more I try to structure my days there is more likely to be some sort interference from an outside source. So I have a vague thought about how I would like each day to progress and if it happens that is good, if not then I am not surprised.

For example. Yesterday I came to work and my desk was covered in mouse poo. Plus some chewed up paper. They had avoided the tempting yet deadly food that had been left for them and just ran all over my desk leaving their calling card behind. I don't even eat at my desk so it is not like there was something there for them to graze on.

So I had to unload everything from the desk and clean it thoroughly. It was vile. Then I started to go through all the paperwork I had shifted from the desk top and managed to complete the most amazing amount of nasty work that I had carefully ignored to "do later".

By the end of the day my desk had nary any paperwork on it and it was very satisfying.

I have come to the conclusion that good things come out of bad - the mice should crap on my desk more often.

It gives good results.

Do you think I could sell that option to corporate companies?

Send in the mice to get work done.

Sounds better than "sending in the big guns".

Kind of cute.

Ciao
LC

Happiness Is....

Sitting at two computers, playing games and listening to Ipod.

Ciao
LC

Um

The other day my son and I chatting away.

The conversation was very general.

And then my son said this;

"Do you know, my friend Roger at school did not know that girls can masturbate and have an orgasm?"

Few seconds of silence followed allowing me to reply in a faux relaxed manner.

"Oh, really? Well, he knows now doesn't he."

"Yeah, I told him," my son replied before talking about something else.

I was a bit gobsmacked.

Ciao
LC

Mother And Son

Both growing older.

One growing up.

One growing out.

Ciao
LC

Boss Banana

Now and then I have mentioned what a good boss I have.

But he is a complete and utter pig when it comes to his desk.

One thing he does is come to work with a couple of pieces of fruit, the intention being to be healthy and eat them.

Sadly they sit on his desk in various stages of decay before they are tossed in the bin.

Whenever I see a piece of fruit on his desk I say "oh, another experiment?" to which he replies "no, no this time I am eating it".

All very funny I know but also totally gross.

In our previous office it was okay because we had no rodents to contend with so the fruit just kind of went mouldy or dried up until he chucked it out.

The office we are in now is temporary and attached to a huge factory in which mice, rats and possums frequent.

Recently we have had some of the vermin arrive in the office itself. And they crapped on my desk - totally vile. But we have to put up with the problem until the new factory and office is built.

However, my boss has stopped putting fruit on his desk after this happened.

A mouse came along and hollowed out his banana.

I took a photo of it and emailed it to my boss's phone while he was in a meeting with a client.

Needless to say, I left it there for him to clean up.

Maybe the mouse wanted it for a little house and was just making room.

Anyway, I now know that mice do not eat banana skin.....

Ciao
LC

Caught Out

Despite feeling a bit mopey when I woke up this morning I made myself get up, get showered and get ready for the day.

I made a point of ignoring the anxiety that has been plaguing me since the problem with my brother and his wife arose.

So, I cleaned the house. Hung out the washing. Read the newspaper.

And then went food shopping.

As I was walking around the supermarket I noticed that I had a giant pimple that had suddenly appeared under the corner of my lip.

Without even having to look at it I knew it was one that would be very visible to the naked eye. How on earth I left the house with that on my face just beggars belief.

I managed to finish the shopping without picking at it, despite the overwhelming urge to. There was no way I was going to tackle this monster without having the pleasure of seeing it in the mirror.

So, I loaded up the car and jumped in.

Now, normally I would not ever touch a pimple, pick my nose, pluck a chin hair, scratch my bum or pick my teeth if there was the faintest chance of a member of the public see me do it.

However, today I did such a thing (not all of the aforementioned, just the pimple thing). I looked in the rear vision mirror, spied the offending pimple and squeezed it.

Sure enough, just as I engaged in such a public pimple poke, a person walked by my car and saw me.

I am sure I saw a sense of disgust cross the face of the woman passing by. She was young of course.

It just confirmed her suspicion about the aging process.

Just an excuse to let yourself go.

Incidentally, the pimple was not worth the embarrassment of being caught out.

Next time I will pick my nose.

I mean, might as well get the most out of getting older.

Ciao
LC

Family

My brother and I are not speaking.

Well, he is not speaking to me.

I cannot even talk about reasons why because it makes me sick to the stomach and brings up some huge "ishoooos" just allowing the whole saga enter into my thinking space. Plus, he and I are very close and this is a dreadful thing for me (feeling sorry for myself a bit here).

Once I get past the initial emotional slug of the current situation I will recover and be able to write it down and think about how I could have avoided this or handled things better.

When things like this happen, I am reminded of what I have always disliked about family.

But then I talked to my younger sister and I remembered what I love about family as well.

Then I spoke to a blog buddy and she reminded me what I love about my special friends.

So, that is why blogs have been almost nil.

But I am not going to let a family spat infect my own world for long.

I just have to deal with it (love that term) and do what I do.

Be me.

Ciao
LC

Dunce

The other week I kind of had to to my son's homework.

I know I should not do it.

But the first assignment he did for English he did all by himself and the teacher gave him a low mark due to the layout.

I thought "that is not happening again if I can help it".

So, I "assisted" him with a project he had to do for Foodtech.

Which translates to "I made him look up the information and then I did the rest".

He did sit with me to read through it and made me changes things that were not worded as they way he would do it.

It was all about Chinese cuisine.

Anyway, I thought it looked pretty special. I even took it to work and laminated it.

Last night he came home and said;

"Mum, you only got 16 out of 20 for your project".

Ahem, I think he meant his project.

Apparently "he forgot" to answer one question. The teacher gave him the option of redoing it but he declined with the thought that he passed and that was fine with him. Besides, he probably had some other homework for me to do.

Fair go! You know, it has been a while since I did any homework and even then it was a big effort.

I need to study more.

Ciao
LC

Work Week

I am about as interested in work this week as I am in making a scuplture out of nail clippings.

And, no, these are not my nail clippings.

Mine are in the garden bed just near the back step.

Ciao
LC

Stinky Son

Last week my son went on a school camp.

He was away for two nights and three days.

I packed clean underwear, clothes, toiletries and a towel for him.

He came back Wednesday and it was not until Friday I got around to completely unpacking his camp bag.

Upon unpacking I discovered that he had not showered nor changed his underwear.

I spoke to him in about it, just wanting to clarify the fact.

"Listen, did you not shower on camp?" I asked him.

He replied with a series of eye rolls and shoulder shrugs.

"And, is it true that you did not change your underwear. Not once? At all?" I questioned him further.

"Nope," came the reply. He had the good grace to look a bit sheepish.

"You are disgusting," I told him (doing my utmost to not laugh).

"But I changed my socks each day. My feet were stinky," he said, as though to reassure me he was not a complete pig.

Yes, he did change his socks and then put the dirty ones straight in with the clean clothes to ensure a complete transfer of stink onto everything so I had to wash it all anyway - clean or not.

At least he is starting at his feet. If he just keeps working his way up the body eventually he will decide to change his underwear by, oh I don't know, by the age of 18?

Ciao
LC

The Pill

The other day there was a anniversary that many people would be grateful for.

The 50th Anniversary of The Contraceptive Pill.

The pill.

It allowed people to control when they would have children and how many children they would have. Women could enjoy sex without the fear of pregnancy. Men could too I suppose, but when it comes to pregnancy it does all fall onthe woman so the pressure was taken off them.

Women were able to consider having careers instead of being compelled to marry rather than have a child out of wedlock which, many years ago, was unacceptable. Heavy periods could be regulated.

Women had choices. Big choices and lots of them.

I don't need to go through the oooh's and aaaah's of all the good things that arrival of the pill brought with it as, by now, everyone knows.

Do a few negatives go with the advent of the pill?

Women may have felt compelled to say yes to sex. Once on the pill then a woman may not have felt right to say no. Perhaps men felt a sense of entitlement. I mean, if she wasn't going to end up the duff then why should she say no?

An increase in sexually transmitted diseases. That is not just about the pill by the way, but by using the pill as the only contraceptive it reduced the use of a barrier (condom) and let the sharing of std's be a more likely event. I think that if you were to not have a regular partner then the pill is not enough is it?

In particular is the increase in chlamydia that can leave a woman unable to have children later in life, at least not without assistance. Sadly, this STD has very negligible signs and treatment can be too late once it is discovered. And there is herpes, the lifelong STD that can affect someone greatly or not at all. Contracting an STD is not a reflection on the morality of the person either but it can certainly make a recipient of one feel awful.

I worked with a female once who was going on holiday with a guy she had just met only weeks before hand. At the time I thought it was a bit impulsive and asked her if she was going to use protection. She said "yeah, I am on the pill". This was during the days when Aids was still a new thing. I said 'what about std's" to which she said "I don't have to worry, he is a nice guy"......! STD's are not fussy about who they bed with.

There are health issues for some women who are on the pill. If you smoke and take the pill there is an increased risk of stroke etc. I mean, there are health risks with everything and in modern society we have to sometimes take the risks to live a normal life. I myself have never been able to go on the pill so for me it was always resist, panic if resistance failed or use condoms (despite having a latex allergy). Ironically I ended up having to go to IVF to have a child anyway which is nothing to do with the pill but was kind of funny considering how I wanted to avoid pregnancy for so many years.

The advent of the pill took away any sense of responsibility that men may have had about contraception. It was all left up to the women.

The pill has certainly not reduced the number of abortions that occur. In this day and age of many sources of contraception it is still confronting how many abortions are still performed here in Australia. I don't have a moral issue with abortions by the way but I believe that it is a difficult thing for a female to have to go through considering that it is almost avoidable.

Nor has it slowed down the population growth around the world.

There still needs to be a strong education not just about preventing pregnancy but teaching girls to be unafraid about insisting on using contraception. They need to know about sexually transmitted diseases and how to protect themselves against them. And boys have to take the same level of responsibility. I know I am being naive about all that, but if we don't try then nothing will happen.

Not that I can do much. I can only teach my son and hope he learns from it all.

I think the benefits of the pill far outweigh any negatives that go with it. And most likely some of those negatives are more about the education of young men and women rather than the pill per se.

It is one birthday I think that society can certainly celebrate.

Life certainly changed for many after it was invented.

I think for the better.

Ciao
LC

Sunday May 9th

Sunday was Mother's Day.

I had a lovely gift given to me by my husband and son. An original edition of a newspaper from the day I was born. When I opened up the package I was so surprised. And pleased. As I looked at it I noticed how aged it was and said something about it looking old......

We had a day out of the house. Headed of to a place called Ballarat where they had a heritage festival. The drive is about 1.5 hours and a nice opportunity to get away from the suburbs of Melbourne.
It has been a long time since we went for a long drive outside of Melbourne. When I was a child we seemed to always be going on these sorts of drives to quiet towns. You would go on for ever passing flat, dry, brown swathes of land with the odd gum tree standing on its own sucking some life out of the unfriendly earth.

In the past years a lot of that unforgiving and windblown land has been sold for housing development. Awful places with terrible infrastructure for transport and social conditions.

Anyway, as we drove along my son listened to his music as he sat in the back seat of the car. My husband and I listened to my music. Music from years ago when both of us were single. My husband used to play music all over town. He was out and about five nights a week. Leaving one venue to go and see a band playing late somewhere.

I kind of missed out on that really free and single life. Not sure what I was doing. Possibly spending most Saturday nights at home watching ABC tv. So I was free and I was single but I was also a bit of a boring stay at home kind of gal.

Ballarat is a pretty town with beautiful buildings. They were holding a heritage festival which was great in theory but in reality was a bit lame. Poor signage made things hard to find. Lots of cafes were closed and the few that were not closed did not want to serve up anything but coffee at 1.30 pm when we asked if they had lunch. We finally found a place that was willing and able to serve up some decent nosh.

As we drove into Ballarat I noticed all of the lovely old houses that lined the streets everywhere. Melbourne used to look like this before development just ate all of the places up, one after the other, to be replaced by very ugly dwellings with no character at all. I was a bit shocked when it occured to me just how much the landscape of Melbourne has change.

They probably should not have held the heritage festival on the Mother's Day weekend as many people would have been visiting their mother rather than go for a long drive.

There were some great vintage bikes to see.

It was nice to get away from the house. Sometimes all work and no play can make for a very dull person and I needed to get out.

The drive home was quiet and my son fell asleep in the warmth of the car. I looked out the window at the changing scenery. I thought to myself it would be nice to go on a driving holiday to nowhere and just listen to music. Just cruise along to unknown places with aimless intention.

Got home and made dinner.

Then baked some very delicious monte carlo biscuits. I made a double batch so that I could take some to work. Although easy to make they are time consuming. I always substitute the honey with golden syrup as it gives a better flavour.

The end result was good. My son ate three before he went to bed and two this morning after breakfast (on the sly).

Then I sat down and watched my very, very favorite show on television.

Foyle's War.

It was a lovely end to a restful weekend.

Ciao

LC

Hawthorn Tram Museum

Today we went to the Hawthorn Tram Museum.

Years ago this depot closed down and Melbourne almost lost its wonderful tram history.

Thankfully good sense prevailed and we now have a small but important museum that shows the wonderful trams that once road up and down many roads throughout Melbourne.

The museum is run by volunteers. Most of them would be ex employees of the once thriving tram depots around Melbourne.

The photo below shows S standing at the narrow doorway where the tram driver would step through to the start of his day. As you can see, there is not much room for a wide berth if you know what I mean.

I love the wooden doors and seats. The smell is great.

I love the leather strap handles hanging down in this small cable tram carriage. Beauty and practicality always seemed to go hand in hand years ago. Now it is all practical. Not so much aesthetics, but maybe I am old fashioned.

The style of tram is the one I remember the most. I used to travel on them when I went into the city. They had a lovely rattly sound and a great smell about them. Chilly in winter and stinking hot in summer. But they looked great.

Look at this one below. Gorgeous seats. Even the roof is beautiful.

Here I am taking a photo. If you look in the reflection behind me you will see a leadlight panel which gives the tram a personal touch.

Below is a cable tram from days of yore that once made its way through the streets of Melbourne.

Another great tram now in storage for ever.

Up until the 1960's many of the trams ran at night. Midnight until five in the morning. Not these days.

Here I am trying out for a tram driver's job. I think that it is not my thing as I laddered my tights on some pointy thing in the carriage.

Now we have modern trams. Slick and quiet with heating and cooling.

We no longer have conductors. They have been gone for ages. In fact, they were laid off about the same time that train station managers were done away with. As a result people feel unsafe on the train stations at night and there are often violent episodes at unmanned stations. With no conductors on the trams, women with prams are often unable to get on board.

There has been a system called Myki which is an automated train ticketing system. Around $1.5billion dollars has been spent on it and we still have major problems with it.

I wonder if it might not have been better to keep the conductors and station managers? They hand out tickets. They could have kept their jobs.

Oh, I am probably being old fashioned hey?

Not keeping with the times.

Not being modern enough and embracing change?

Anyway, we had a lovely time there and it was great to jump on all of the trams and pull the cords to make the bells ring.

You can never convince me that these trams are not the best way to make your way around the roads of Melbourne.

Ciao

LC

The Son

We have a few computers in our house.

No sharing of a computer. No fighting to use one.

Because we are all into computer activities it just makes life easy to have one each. Of course that has evolved over the years. Not as though we went out and bought three.

Anyway, my son has his own computer.

To prevent my son from "accidentally" landing on inappropriate websites I have installed a programme that lets me govern what he can and cannot see on the internet. My main concern is hard core pornography and violent and graphic sites.

I also have the programme automatically turn the internet off from 5pm to 7pm Monday to Thursday to kick him off and remind him that homework is to be done. Or just to give himself a break.

Anyway, it works pretty well. I don't want to have to make the restrictions an issue and he knows I set them to protect him. I mean, if he just stumbled on the odd nekked girl in a pouty pose I would not be concerned, but we all know what is out there and we all know that, especially when it comes to the developing minds of young people, it is best to keep things out of their head.

The other night I was doing bookwork on my husband's computer and he was on my son's just chatting to me.

"Hey, S has been on porn sites," he suddenly said.

"Really? How is that possible?" I asked.

I had a look and sure enough he had been visiting a few websites. Not many, but a couple of over the top ones.

I jumped on his computer and logged onto the K9 programme to see how it had happened. Some things had been changed (banned word searches and also the default settings). I readjusted things and logged out. Then my son came into the room.

I had a little talk with him (very casual) to remind him that it is important that he knows what he sees is not always a true representation of a relationship between people.

"Yeah, yeah, I know all that but I like to look. And the kids at school said they were good websites," he said without a hint of embarrassment. I just thought "great websites"? Sheesh.

"Well, great is not the word I would use but I understand, however, as a parent, it is my job to protect you from as much adult stuff as I can. And that is not just about porn, it is also about other stuff. I have upped the restrictions so you will have to look at other stuff on the internet," I told him.

"Ah, well, you better change the password then. I overheard you tell it to dad the other week," he kindly suggested to me. At the same time he had this wonderfully shamefaced smile and rolling of the eyes.

"You couldn't resist could you, having a look while you could?" I said (trying hard not to laugh).

"Nope," he answered.

So, I changed the password. I am sure he will get to an age where he can bypass it without me knowing but for now I just do what I can. I don't want to get angry and I do not want him to feel guilty about wanting to look. I just want him to be careful about what goes in his head until he is old enough to really understand it.

The next day I told my boss about it and he laughed.

"It's a boy thing. Don't worry. You are doing what you need to and at least you can talk to him about it without him feeling awkward," he reassured me.

Then he said "I cannot believe he fessed up about the password."

Yes, well, I did think that at the time.

He must have seen more than enough to last him a while.

Ciao
LC

Coins

The other week I emptied out my coin purse of excess 5 and 10 cent pieces.

There were also a few larger coins.

I said to my son that he could have them to put into his money box.

He came over to me looking rather excited and asked how much there was.

"Two dollars and fifty five cents," I told him.

"Nah, I don't want it. That is not much," said the ungrateful child.

"Oh, really? Tell me something. If everyday for ten days I emptied my purse out and there was "just" $2.55 in it would you think differently about that $2.55," I asked him.

He thought about it and when he added up the ten days his eyes opened wide. He then scooped the coins into his hand and put them in his money box.

"There is a saying that goes "if you save the pennies the pounds will save themselves"," I said to him and explained why every cent helped.

Then I gave a long rant about just what $2.55 can buy. Some apples. A second hand book. A newspaper.

"Sometimes, when money is tight and you are a bit down about it, a small amount of money can buy you something to cheer you up or feed you. Don't be casual about coins," I went on.

Now he asks if I have any spare coins for his money box. Even five cents goes into it.

Children really do have to be taught the value of money.

It does not come naturally.

Ciao
LC

Mind Twaddle

I am in a bit of a static place right now. Just standing still and the world is getting on by without me.

When I feel like this I call it my "robot" phase. Just moving along and doing what needs doing to get through to the next state of mind. Sometimes I actually like this phase because it gives me a break a constant emotive state and lets me manage to get more things done. It tends to follow an utter state of mental chaos.

So last week I managed to get a lot done at work and just fell into the solid autonomy needed. I was not distracted by the blue sky. The grey leaves on the eucalyptus trees I see out the window did not make my mind drift into daydream mode. The sound of heavy rain on Friday did not bother me. It was just a steady week which was very welcome.

The other night I spoke to my younger sister (via MSN) about how she was going on her new medication after being diagnosed with Bipolar 2.

She said she was in the down phase of the medication now that the up phase was finished. Just moving through the day and waiting for the medication to work and her low stage to settle.

It is not the first time she has had to go with the flow as far as her depression is concerned. But it is the first time she has gone onto medication (other than anti depressants) to help stabilise her moods. Previously the medication used kept putting her into a state of hyper mania which made life very difficult, even if a lot of fun. The last "up" mood nearly saw her in the psychiatric unit recently so she knew something new was happening.

However, the fact she has been diagnosed with Bipolar 2 (a mild version of Bipolar) helps explain a lot of how she had functioned in her life.

I compare the moods of depression with waiting at the airport to get to another country. There is no choice but to wait. Just wait it out and hope the airport (low mood) is not too crappy. Read a magazine, watch people, walk around and look out the window. Don't respond to the negative emotions. Ignore the grey and black clouds that arrive uninvited and unexpected. Well, perhaps not that unexpected because over the years the whole thing develops a cycle of its own and I suppose that you just move with it.

So I have been in the "waiting at the airport" frame of mind and so much gets done. Things around the house. Hanging up pictures that have been waiting for my attention for ever and a day. Lots of cooking. I even managed to go to the giant shopping centre and get some much needed items. I just did things like a little robot. Nothing bothered me much. I just got on with stuff.

The down side of being in that frame of mind is a the sensation of indifference which, for me, is most unpleasant. Why is that? I like to feel things. Whether it be fear, anger, intense happiness, sadness, agitation and excitement. I like to feel the negatives as well as the positives. I like to engage with emotions even if they rattle me.

I would rather struggle with the whole over emotive mood swings than have too much indifference. Indifference is one of those mindsets that fills me with fear.

Tomorrow I will wake up and look out from under the bedcovers and see the sky through the bedroom window. Whatever the day looks like won't matter to me because I know that once I swing my legs out of bed and onto the floor I will go through the day moving from one frame of mind and into another.

After that I will jump into the chaotic phase and let it have its turn.

I love that, even in my own head, life is a challenge.

It makes me feel very aware and I never want to lose that feeling.

Ciao
LC