'spose it's time to post the last 2011

Sigh. Another year! Hope you all enjoy 2012!

Winter is lingering.

I feel summery sometimes but I am a winter person. Maybe I was a polar bear in a former life? But I wouldn't have been a successful one because I'd hate to go fishing for dinner in the icey Arctic waters. I'm always cold.

Isn't funny how we always kind of think of ourselves in a former life as something constructive. Like... have you ever imagined you might have been a rattle snake? Or a rose bug who eats precious garden roses?

Or even a bag of compost - ie. thousands of tiny pieces of a horse's excrement?

But I am not really thinking of former lives at the moment. Now is really coping with the end of a life. A life of a talented woman, always proud and well dressed. One who prided herself on how she presented and conducted her life. Perhaps a little vain because she had plenty to be vain about. She was Grace Kelly beautiful. She painted and sang like a bird. She should have been famous in some way, but held back by a selfish very vain mother who sacrificed her family for her own selfish objectives. But...

Now the fading or even faded beauty has gone, and left in its place a shadow. One who shuffles down the hall of a behind-locked-doors old age facility. Shuffles off to a dining room where she indulges in overeating, something she's never done before. Is grossly overweight and has less of a memory than a goldfish.

For years she and my father turned up on a regular basis at the doctors to overdose on drugs they didn't need so many of, and looked after their health. My father died almost in his sleep. My mother isn't. She's as healthy as a horse where it doesn't count. She cannot do anything with her day except eat. I don't want to end up like this. They say it's only those left behind that suffer sadness but for my own personal ambitions, I don't want to leave anyone feeling this sad and sorry for me.

This person used to be my mother. Now she's just another vegetable. Is this to be my inheritance. Relief when she is no longer with us? Don't answer this question unless you are in the same boat because you will never never know what this feels like unless you are.

Ever get the feelin'

Ever get the feeling you are the only feather in the cap? That the blog is falling on deaf ears? That you are ringing the bell, ie., pulling the rope but the dingaling is missing? That you are making pea and ham soup but forgot to buy the ham? That you have a television but lost the remote control?

Um...

what the heck. At least the blog is being utilized today, and who knows, one day when I am really, really famous, somebody will be sorry they missed my famous tomes.

I really hate these phone calls from India at dinner time. They try to sell me all sorts of things. Holiday resort packages. Cheap holidays if I change electricity provider. Make my current cell phone redundant. Casino deals.

I usually hate their calls and do the Seinfeld thing. I ask them for their phone number and I'll ring them back at my convenience. They hang up.

The latest opinion poll was for what men want. Guess. How did you guess so quickly?

Yes. They want beautiful women with big breasts. They like beautiful women with big breasts and an open pleasant personality. They like beautiful women who want plenty of sex. For this a poll was wasted? For this some academic has written a Ph.d?

But I can do an opinion poll and save money on what women want.

George Clooney and a very large bank account. You see? It works both ways. And if Clooney isn't available then the large bank account will do. So? Okay! I'm not fussy!!!

Freedom of Speech.

We are on the very verge of losing it. This current government are hard at work to curb free speech. If it isn't in their favor they don't like it. Of course nobody likes adverse comments on their achievements or lack of them. And political bias has always existed. But as they say, "I don't agree but I will defend your right to say it".

At the moment there are steps underway by the Greens Party to hold an enquiry into what their leader considers to be adverse commentary on his party's policies. The Greens have formed an alliance with another party and gained power far beyond the mandate or lack of it by Australia's citizens.

I shudder when I think of the precedent set during WWII by Hitler. We saw the results of that.

We need to be vigilant. Drop your political beliefs. The right to say what you think, right or wrong is much more important.

What will they think of next...

Shopped supermarket on the internet. Registration is terrible. Eg. on the address they asked if it's business or residence... a little dot let's them know.

Then later they ask me what the House Nickname is... huh? Zara's little house on the prairie? Lady Penney's Palace?

I had to ring. It kept on getting rejected.

Oh that's simple ma'am. You just say if it's house or residence.

But you already asked me that...

Who am I to question some nerd designer with a ponytail and drives a porche...

So guess what... the bleedin' bloomin' unobvious worked and...

next morning I unpacked my goodies in the luxury of my kitchen without having to bust a gut hawking the stuff up the front steps...

a writer could get used to this.

Go the F***k to Sleep...

The book arrived yesterday. Author Adam Mansbach. It's clever and looks like a children's picture book. Nicely illustratored by Ricardo Cortes. Dangerous in a household of kids reading picture books. I hate censorship, but...

As a writer and illustrator of children's book I object to this book looking like what it isn't. Here's an example of some text:

The wind whispers soft through the grass, hon.
The field mice, they make not a peep.
It's been thirty-eight minutes already.
Jesus Christ, what the fu*k? Go to sleep.

I'm not a prude. It's a great book. Just a little bit dangerous for kid control in a household with real kids in it.

That's all folks. Nuf said.

BBC and Jane Austen.

I'm a fan of Jane Austen. But the marriage of the BBC and Austen is a miracle made in Heaven. I just cannot tire of anything they render in the historical genre. They do it so well and with such dignity.

I watched a new video just purchased. A new (for me) version of
Sense and Sensability.

Women had such a uphill battle for property rights. We get a sense of it in Pride and Prejudice with the cousin due to inherit the property with the lack of sons, and in Sense and Sensability, we see three young women and their mother relegated to the charity of a relative, while their half brother inherits the property and is persuaded by his evil wife there is no merit in over generosity in the upkeep of a promise to make sure the women are all secure in his care.

This seems an exaggeration, but I have seen that this happens in reality as late as the 1850's. The daughter of one of Australia's earliest free settlers, Mr. Mitchell the Surveyor General of the new settlement of New South Wales, and the name behind the NSW main Library (Mitchell Library). He had a vast library of books, and his offspring were all very well educated, even the girls, but once he was dead, his son soon let down the wife and daughters, despite a large portion of dowry brought to the marriage by Mrs. Mitchell. The brother was a drunk and a gambler and had other places to waste his money.

If anyone is interested the young lady's name is Blanche Mitchell. She is one of the last graves in the Newtown Cemetery buried next to her father. She died at an early age of consumption, but kept some significant diaries which are available in print. An insight into the life of a girl in the 1850's and the life she led in NSW during that time.

The most surprising thing is that a fifteen year old in 1850 is no different to a fifteen year old in 2011.