I have read a lot of bloggers answers to
There is a natural disaster headed your way. You get 4 standard sized canvas grocery totes to fill with valuables and provisions to bring with you to a safe place. What would you put into your 4 bags and why
I have yet to see anyone say TOILET PAPER. If you want to be reduced to using great-grannies needlework sampler that you thought so important to save, I would suggest some toilet paper, people. And maybe a pillow?
]]>1. If you see a pair of shoes tied together and thrown over power lines it means that the area is one where dugs are sold (someone just told them too). I always thought it was just mean bullies who stole peoples shoes.
2.There is a gadget that one can buy to turn the television off at a predetermined time. One of their friends lives with someone who insists on keeping the television on to all hours of the night even if they fall alseep on the couch. So friend attached one of the cut off devices and the TV goes off at 1 am every night. Roomie can't work out what is happening and has now connected TV to another power point thinking the power point is the problem.
3.That it is entirely possible to put the filer in the Britta water jug upside down and still have it click into place as the directions said it must if it was in the correct position. Daughter 2 was able to show me, as apparently I had managed to do just that...and I followed the instructions very closely to achieve it too. No one was surprised.
4. That a girl who can do multi million dollar deals and negoiations can be brought to the state of a blithering idiot over which lock, keyed or combination, to buy for her suitcase. We also had to choose a "secret" document holder, a carry on bag, a small back pack, a travel clothesline and some underwear. Now I know why 2 year olds throw themselves down in supermarket aisles and scream. I envied them the privilege today.
5. That mothers of grown daughters do not have the right to decide on their own hair styles....total grey is going to be a little way off it appears. In fact they do not have the right to decide much at all, except how much guilt they will take upon themselves for ruining their children's lives. You are never too old to blame your parents...I know, I am still doing it!
6. That it is possible to con one of your children into taking your car and filling it with fuel every week. Of course you still pay but they will do the physical side of pumping the petrol. Even if a daughter lives away from home, they contiue thinking you are so incompetent that they offer to take you car and fill it. Putting the filter in the Britta jug probably helps to prolong that opinion.
7. That sitting in a booth at Gloria Jeans for an hour with a daughter can be the best fun in the whole world. Having little daughters is wonderful but having grown daughters makes your heart sing.
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Randy Pausch, a terminally ill professor whose earnest farewell lecture at Carnegie Mellon University became an Internet phenomenon and bestselling book that turned him into a symbol for living and dying well, died Friday. He was 47.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/reviews/critics/la-me-pausch26-2008jul26,0,5191339.story
]]>I have brilliant insights into life, love and the cosmos as I go about my daily chaos, but unless I scratch some cryptic, no not cryptic, very obvious message to myself I forget what it was that I was going to dazzle you all with and have a zilch memory for blogging time.
No death defying stunts this morning – thank you to all those people who expressed gratitude for my continuing survival. Very much appreciated. I have a small suspicion though that it all makes you feel better about your own lives when you read that my life is in fact the basis for the formation of the chaos theory and maybe even an argument for eugenics. Loved the fact that my demise could have been brought about by a Flamingo Flattener as so named by gcgal . I had this vision of little pink flamingo legs sticking out beneath the carnage of me. I laugh in the face of adversity…that’s a lie. I usually perform an adversity dance something akin to a Polish Polka for at least two days. My children can confirm. Mr FD can’t as he is usually 45 polka steps ahead of me and not looking behind only onwards to more global disaster…
Crazy season at work is drawing to a close, earlier than usual. I would like to think it is because my little department is such a well oiled machine, but I think it is really just God given luck. Either way, gratefully accepted. Next crazy season Feb next year…as regular as clock work. Lots of time to plot revenge and sabotage.
Today's Basement of Discontent issue however was that at 3pm MegaMegaBoss sent out a mass email to all permanent employees calling them to a meeting in the Boadroom on Tuesday morning....mass hysteria. MegaBoss was nowhere to be seen and Boss was off site, so I had people coming to me, as next inline, asking me if they were all getting the sack and should start stockpiling one minute noodles. I was not 100% in the loop about this meeting, but have gut feeling it is about the takeover of the related work section and an overhaul of it into a new format as was told to me last week, but I couldn't say anything. It may not be that either - I may need to ask you all to mail me one minute noodles shortly. I can't help but think it was so cruel to send out a short, noninformative email on a Friday afternoon and worry people all weekend. I know it was probably due to the fact that they wanted to ensure everyone was there, but MegaBossBitch the self-proclaimed HR expert should have looked at the wording and made sure it didn't send people into a spin. Stupid people.
Midnight epiphany last night was that I started to become worried that my mother’s old photograph album, which must be about 60 years old, might have book worm. Her housekeeping, never a major strength, has slipped a tad or two in the last 20 years. Daughter 2 thought she spied some tiny weeny creepy crawly. As we have a large home library and I had not cared over the past 5 nights I decided Thursday night was my night to be concerned. So at 3 am I went downstairs and found the album and sealed it in a zip lock bag until further examination. I walked back twice to make sure the zip lock was really zip locked…and am not 100 % sure now but have to accept for now. I was going to put it in two zip lock bags, but we only had one. I think I may have even “borrowed” it from work, as you do.
Daughter 1 off on a lunch date with her new elove friend Saturday . When they speak on the phone all I hear is lots of laughter from behind her closed door (yes you still have to speak to boys behind closed doors if you are 29 and live at home) I think the shared sense of humor is a big plus, something missing in her other relationships. One of his first questions was whether she wanted to have children, and she does, very much, so that cleared the air on that one too. So, for the very early stages, a couple of positives there. Mothers must just wait and see… I wont say what else we are capable of, but I hazard a guess you all know anyway! I have 3 children and I would like to play mother of the bride/groom at least once. I can be hysterical with the best of them.
Daughter 2 is very against my decision to return my hair to its grey beauty. Well, not that it has ever really been grey before, but it is now. She told me in no uncertain turns that I was not going to and if I had to dye it weekly I would. Her expression was akin, and speaking to Australians here, Aunty Jack promising to Rip Yur Bloody Arms Off! I am at the stage of letting it fade a little with a lovely grey stripe down the part area which I try to camouflage each day with some artistic fluffing of the hair and very specific application of hair spray. My BIL asked me the other day if I had been in a wind storm – I thought I was looking good! My sister said don’t speak to a woman like that and BIL replied That’s not a woman that’s FD. BIL’s give you no respect if they have known you since you were 13 and watched you grown up….he is 67 in October so I may have mentioned that he might need the wheel chair before dear old Mother. End of conversation. Sister, who though 8 years older, is not as grey as I, and having spent $160 on a dye job last week, which 1. she cannot afford, and 2. still looks like a bad home job, is considering following my lead. I can sense a ground swell of boomers forsaking the bottle. Come on ladies, and gentlemen too, let’s get off the bottle and face the rest of our life au natural. Hair, on head, only of course. Not the body au natural. That would lead to a major lobby group calling for euthanasia, I feel.
I am thinking now of a Springsteen song in which he described making love to a red haired woman. He made it very clear and went into some depth at the concert making sure we understood that it 1. was his wife he was singing about and 2. that it wasn’t the hair on her head he was referring too. We wont go there, shall we? I am going to sleep for 37 hours tomorrow and not rise until lunch time ... just in time to wave off Daughter 1 on her e-date. Then I may go back to bed again. Mr FD arrived home tonight - said hello and settled down to watch Friday night football. Isn't marriage grand? I know he is just waiting for me to fall alseep and then he will come up all full of chatter and wake me up with some crazy remark about tiger penis soup or something. It is how he gets HIS big jollies.
Another day, another $1.50.
]]>I had a near, near death experience this morning driving to work. A semi trailer truck loaded with a small earth mover and other construction equipment entered the round about just ahead of me and started to turn right up the hill, the same way I was going. I heard the truck make an odd noise and so I stopped my car on the roundabout. The truck shuddered and then started to slide back a little, obviously unable to gain traction in the wet. It was coming my way so I slammed the car into reverse and started to reverse as much as I could, which wasn’t far, thanks to the idiot behind me who could have moved back but didn’t. I don’t now if they were slow to react, or a #$%^$#%#* pig, but they sat there while my life looked as though it was being potentially drastically shortened.
Thanks to the good driving skills of the truck driver his vehicle missed the front of mine by a sand grain. No exaggeration or being over emotional here, it was what it was. For a second I thought my fifteen minutes of fame had arrived “READ ALL ABOUT IT! WOMAN FLATTENED BENEATH EARTH MOVER”. Shaken and stirred.
MegaBoss was required to do a financial transaction yesterday. It is a transaction that she is responsible for 3 times a year. She has done it since 2005 so should have a pretty good grip on how, what, why etc. From her emailed questions yesterday it became very obvious that she had totally lost the plot and couldn’t remember a single thing about the process. I kept very quiet. Her emails went to a wider circle showing her total lack of knowledge and as she asked more questions she looked sillier and sillier. Finally, today, for the sake of others, I quietly reminded her of the tasks she had to do and how the process worked. What goes around comes around and revenge is sweet. I may rot in hell but I have had a moment. Is it mean to hope for more?
Daughter 2 is being given an all expenses paid weekend away for two by her firm for a job well done thank you. She is taking her sister and she chose Melbourne, because her sister has never been there. They are getting air fares, theatre tickets, dinner at Neil Perry’s Rockpool restaurant, and staying at a very expensive inner city hotel. Daughter 2 is grateful but she has paid for it in toil and trouble. Daughter 1 is over the moon because she gets the goodies for being nothing more than her sister’s complaining post when she is tired and over worked. I am just happy for both of them. They go weekend after next, if firm doesn’t work Daughter 2 into the ground before then… a 13 hour day is a short day. Lucky I didn't get squashed it would have spoiled their weekend...maybe not....
Think I may be inheriting Daughter 1's cold. Even Brisbane has been cold the last couple of days, though I suspect Mr Snowy may be closer to experiencing his name at the moment in his cold city. Rain and cold doesn't usually bother me but today I have been feeling icy all day and I suspect it is part of getting ill. Bah humbug. Hope I am wrong.
Mr FD is back tomorrow - last night of bed freedom. Though if the cold weather keeps up a bed warmer might be handy! A man does have some uses! (That's a joke, gentlemen). Has anyone else noticed how it is ok for women to crack a joke about men, but men have a very fine line about the jokes they can make about women? Gender issues....I don't think we have got the balance right yet, and maybe never will. Got to keep trying though.
Goodnight.
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A New Zealand judge has ordered that the parents of an eight-year-old girl change her name, saying it is highly embarrassing and makes the child a target for ridicule.
The girl, who lives in New Plymouth on the west coast of the north island, is named "Talula Does the Hula From Hawaii".
The Family court was told that the child is so mortified she has not told any of her friends her real name.
Judge Robert Murfitt ruled that the name was a social disability.
The girl's parents have separated and she has been placed under the court's guardianship while a new name is selected.
Judge Murfitt says he is appalled by the judgement of some parents.
He says in New Zealand there are children called Midnight Chardonnay, Number 16 Bus Shelter and Violence.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/07/24/2313126.htm?section=justin
]]>It was raining as I drove to work this morning. As I waited at one set of stop lights, I noticed a young couple standing at the side of the road. Young man was holding a large umbrella over both their heads as they waited for a break in the traffic to cross the road. He finally judged that the time was right and raced off across the road ...and she stayed still.
He ran off through the cars, with the umbrella, and she stood perfectly in her spot as the rain fell upon her. The traffic started again and the lovers were stranded on`either side of the road. He perfectly dry and she looking at him as though his life was about to come to an immediate end, which no doubt it was about to!
I drove on then and did not see their reunion, but no doubt the very first then she said to him was that next time she held the umbrella.
If the had just walked another 30 meters they could have crossed at the lights...safely and together, under their umbrella.
when a fun day meant just sitting around on things with a group of friends...
Overheard this morning.
Her : "...Renoir was an artist."
Him: "Did he work for Picasso?"
]]>Daughter 2 and I went to visit my mother yesterday. We took the wheel chair and we actually got her to sit in it for a few minutes while my sister tried pushing her through the house. She has accepted it quite well, but of course in her mind she thinks she will never use it. She instructed my sister that she could not be seen sitting in a chair one day and standing somewhere the next, so we have a way to go. Nature takes care of these things often though - the need becomes too great to deny.
I had asked my mother if I could have her old black and white family photos, many taken with a little box brownie camera. She also has copies of old family group photos with my great-grandparents and their families. Mum has just had them lying around in a box and I want to get them and put them into archive albums to preserve them for the future. Luckily she agreed - she usually doesn't like to part with anything that is "hers".
Daughter 2 and I were looking at the photos and she would ask me who the people were and most of the time I knew as I had seen the photos so many times over the years, but with 10 children on mother's side and 18 children on my Dad's side sometimes I had to stop and think - is that Uncle Michael or Uncle Martin? Especially when they were very young and looked so much alike. Whenever I hesitated my Mum would say, give it to me I will tell you in a split second, and then we would hand it over and then sit there trying not to smile as she said, is that Michael or Martin? It was a fun afternoon.
Now of course I have to live up to my promise and actually put them in archive albums, with correct details! I will have to live to be a spry 102 to do all the things I say I am going to do...but not tonight. Tired.
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