The trivia of the day

There was a wild storm in the late afternoon - the sort that makes you run around and check all the doors and windows. The rain bashed against the house, coming from the west, and by the time I had closed the windows, lots of water had been driven in underneath the doors to the balcony on the middle level. Three towels got sodden as a result. Lightning flashed and there were some thundery rumbles. Then as we watched the news, the night sky behind the news readers kept showing lightning flashes. Reality as we watched!

When I went outside to close the garage door it would not work. Turned out someone must have reached up and switched off the power to the roller door. Nice! Thanks, mate.

The weekend was spent going through all the things on my desk, sorting them into categories, putting them into folders, and then transferring them upstairs to the new two drawer filing cabinet that I raced out and bought last week. When I got it home I could not find its keys, so had to ring the shop and seek help. Somehow I assumed the keys would be in the lock, but no!

Obviously my eyesight is getting worse, as it transpired that the keys were in a clear plastic envelope stuck with clear tape to the clear plastic wrapping, and thus the dull silver of the keys blended nicely and invisibly with the dull grey of the cabinet. Being told this made me feel like a real dill. Especially since I did the helpless, hopeless little old lady act, evidently with a convincing air of verisimilitude. The cabinet is now in my bedroom cupboard, out of sight.

Part of my daily routine is to revise my travel summary document, which I will then email to myself, replete with scanned copy of passport and travel insurance. The phone card had to be checked. It had expired, but they waved a magic wand and reactivated it. I think I was talking to someone in India but fortunately we could understand each other. Then there is always the packing panic to contend with. I checked the baggage allowance - 40 kg - how can anyone lug that much around with them, especially on the way over, before any shopping can have been done?

However! I really am going to Italy. From the time I studied history at at school and encountered the art and learning of the Renaissance, it has been one of my abiding passions. I started learning the language while still at school, forgot a lot of it, and began again after my divorce. Isn't it interesting how unhappiness and misery manage to stimulate other interests, learning and different activities? And so you manage to heal.

Dr P gave me a trip early in our relationship, and I went with my third sister. We had six weeks away, and went to Paris as well as Italy. I was ecstatic, but my poor sister, who had never been away from home before, was desperately homesick. She cried every day and rang home constantly. I always knew I would love the country, and I did and still do, notwithstanding all its problems. It is so incredibly beautiful, the people are warm, generous and helpful, the history is splendid and fascinating, and so much of our civilisation originated there. Since that first trip Dr P, who is very generous in this way, has given me others, but with his increasing frailty and forgetfulness, I believed that it would not be possible for me to go away again. Even going to see family in Canberra or Melbourne is difficult. When my dearest friend died a year ago I went to her funeral, but had to come rushing home the next day, as Dr P had neglected himself, and was taken to hospital. So to be given the opportunity to have several weeks away is wonderful, and I am truly grateful. I hope he will be all right during my absence. And maybe his family will realise and understand better how much care I give him.

Five days to go! Then that long, long trip, with almost no sleep, and on Sunday afternoon, we arrive. I wish I could take some crochet with me to do on the flight, but apparently plastic crochet hooks are dangerous weapons and are prohibited. Easy to read books will have to suffice.

Dr P keeps asking me why I don't try another country, and the answer is that I have not finished Italy yet.

The weekend was spent going through all th

Looming touring

I, Persiflage, am going to Italy with a friend for three weeks from next Saturday night - barring disasters - and thus my mind is not totally focussed on my blog. Instead it is making lists, and working towards getting everything organised. Some of the work is being done very systematically, others rather haphazardly, a tiny bit at a time, or as I think of them. Naturally the best laid plans of mice and Persiflage are subject to disruption by unplanned events. Far be it from me to complain - but:

The printer broke down. The ink carriage would not move, and made a fearfully alarming and horrid rattle. I sought help from my local Cartridgeworks shop, which is run by a couple of very helpful blokes. They have a man on call who mends printers, and so I heaved it down the stairs, out to the car, drove around desperately seeking a parking spot and dropped it off, and some days later got it back, all nicely mended. Somehow we managed not to need to print anything in the meantime. All was well, or so I thought.

Next it stopped printing in all colours despite the ink tanks still containing ink, so the nice men said they would clean it out for me by soaking it in some goop. (That's what they said.) It took three days, and as I had to print out my argomento for the Italian class, I connected the other printer, which is really intended for the computer I discarded when I turned to the iMac, and which Dr P uses for his card games. I felt quite techno-accomplished, despite the fact that the printer did not come with a printed cheat sheet and I had to insert a CD into the computer and follow the instructions that way. Naturally the CD did not tell me how to insert the ink tanks so that took several precious minutes. Eventually all was working, I printed the argomento, and rushed off to the class, which was the last of the series, due to the travel plans of three quarters of the class members. This class was a one-off evening class and we had a light meal, and talked so much about life, the universe, etcetera, that we never got around to my argomento, which suited me fine as it really was a rushed job.

In between usual domestic tasks and doing all my fun things (I went gathering cumquats again and made more marmalade) I am trying to pack, and to make sure everything is organised, like getting currency, making sure all my prescriptions are filled, and typing the details of the trip - the flights, the hotels and the contacts.

My new iPod needs to be filled with music and podcasts. A week went by without my using it, and then when I got it out the other day I noted the battery was low. When I tried to charge it later that day nothing happened: not a flicker of a response. I read the manual, I plugged it in and out, I jiggled it, and beat my brains out, all to no avail. My mind willow-walied about how I had only had it for five weeks and surely it could not be broken already??? Into my crowded schedule I squeezed in an appointment with a Genius at the Apple shop in the city, where the device was tested, found to be OK, got partially charged, and I was recommended to re-download iTunes. Having done that, at home, the iPod then accepted recharging. It is all very puzzling. And all these little hitches just gobble precious time.

Inspired by all this techno-success, I went to upload my latest photos. My Canberra daughter and her children came to stay last weekend (involving babysitting, making fruit and vegetable juice in my juice machine, carefully tossing a coin to determine which child had first go at inserting fruit, and then allowing four pieces per child per go before switching turns, sternly quelling incipient tantrums, joint cake and biscuit making so as to celebrate my daughter's birthday, and lots of time at the parks).

Where was I? The camera! It seemed most reluctant to upload anything, and went into total go-slow mode, before suddenly seething with activity and loading, much to my surprise, lots of old black and white baby photos which had been copied and put on a CD. Apart from the alarm it caused me, it was delightful to see all these baby photos on the computer screen and to remark upon how totally beautiful all my babies were.

The trip to Italy is happening because SD3 offered to look after her father to enable me to go, which is very kind of her. She won't be here for the entire duration, so extra help is being given by SD1 and her older son. I am trying not to panic about how they will cope as once I am on the plane there is nothing I can do about anything. The freezer is full, lots of shopping has been done, the beds will have clean sheets on them, and I will leave behind me a clean and tidy house.

Part of my preparations include visits to various physiotherapists, for my neck and head, my feet and legs and my back. In fact, there does not seem to be much of me which does not require regular treatment! Packing takes forever. I am not a light packer, and the decision making process can only be described as protracted. My mind envisages endless weather possibilities. Guidebooks must be selected, the dictionary packed, entertaining but disposable novels chosen.

I'm so excited! So much so that I am contemplating buying a new camera next week! I bet I can cope with one more techno-marvel!

Propensities

Let me declare a non-interest. I seldom watch sport, and the miniscule amount that penetrates my defence mechanisms rots away very quickly. Dr P does not switch it off the way I do, and thus it has been impossible not to notice that a foreign country beat us at some supposedly important cricket match.

It is distressing to see grown men weep, especially newsreaders and commentators, as they recount their litany of woe, about how the heart of a nation has been broken.

Huh?

While I know very little about this fearsomely boring game, as a child I actually read cricket books by the fabled Jack Fingleton, and thus I know all about the devilishly unsporting and brutal bodyline series by that very same foreign country. While I'd like to claim that there must have been a paucity of reading matter in the house, this is not at all true. So the books must have been good reading.

Let it be noted that my heart is not broken. Rhett Butler and I don't give a damn.

Earlier this evening, Dr P having declared that all he wanted for dinner was my fabulously delicious pea and ham soup, made to the ever-reliable recipe by Stephanie Alexander, I dashed into the kitchen. It was not only to hasten the enjoyable consumption of the soup, but more importantly to escape the braying voice of the commercial TV newsreader, who was presenting a story about how our Miss Australia was well on the way to winning the Miss Universe contest. Miss ???, he declared, is now an Australian icon. Amazing. All it takes these days, to become an icon, is being on commercial TV news 4 days running. The same shots of her waggling along a cakewalk in a skimpy bikini apparently confers iconic status. The shots were followed by some breathless speculation about whether the icon would be able to make pots of dough from her experience. Although she is already a household name, strangely enough I can't remember it.

I declare that if I hear any more references to icons, cricketing or otherwise, I will be tempted to hurl a rock through the TV screen.

What with iconic cricket games, and iconic identically hairstyled and semi-clad females, with bikinis cut below the pubic hair line, older females like me who found it outrageous to be shaved before giving birth, tend to seethe slightly. Our very own Murdoch paper, The Australian, manages regularly to bung in photographs of nubile girls revealing considerable amounts of their splendid and sexy anatomies. Columnists regularly write earnestly of the pressures on young girls and women, and how they are sexualised from a very young age, but manage to write in a way which inevitably glamorises such practices. A weekend supplement recently had a lengthy story about how much money young women spent on their appearance and clothes, including such necessities as botox, plastic surgery, breast 'enhancements', hair treatments, hair removal, fake tanning, not to mention cosmetics, clothes and shoes. The amounts were extremely large, and revealed a staggering degree of self-obsession and an evident belief that it was essential to be a sex object.

Today my own breasts were admired and declared to be in pretty good nick not only by Dr P, but by the breast cancer surgeon at my annual check up.

Much much less angst: instead, the mind can focus on trivia

At the end of the week it seems useful to reflect on it. As I have become more tranquil, and as our life has been settling back to being just the two of us, my mind is not whirring quite so much. Which really is rather nice. The migraine eventually folded up its tent and stole away into the night, and I have been following my own variety of pursuits all week.

Our little street stuffed up this week. We all put the wrong bins out and were surprised when they were not emptied. It should have been the paper bins, but we all put out the yellow bins with the bottles, etcetera. How foolish we all were, and felt ourselves to be, but we laughed a lot about it. In the course of the conversations I discovered that the neighbour next to the party-givers did actually call the police about the party, about the same time as I went storming across the street. How loud was the noise? the police asked. Listen, said my neighbour, and held up the phone. Oh, right, said the police and came around promptly.

Today I had lunch with my mate the bell-ringer, and we celebrated her happy use of the mezzaluna. I had not yet used my amazing device when makes spaghetti strings out of carrots, and joined discs out of cucumber, but tried it out tonight, and it worked. Of course, I had to actually read the instructions, something I really resent doing. But it is a necessary evil, alas.

Instructions and the reading thereof have been figuring more in my life recently. Dr P wants a mobile phone for when I am going to be away. He had asked his eldest daughter to organise it and she said she would. However I decided to get my act together. My own mobile is almost a genuine antique - in fact, when I bought it, unbeknownst to me, it was a superseded model. Recently the buttons have been developing a will of their own. Perhaps they have reached their teens and think they are old enough to make their own decisions.

So I went and bought a very el cheapo mobile, an unlocked one, and took it home to try it out.

By now I should know that when I touch technology, something bad and unexpected will happen. And so it did.

At this stage I must confess to having had an unused mobile account for several years. When I subscribed to broadband and changed ISPs, allegedly we got a better/cheaper deal if we bundled the broadband with an additional service. As Dr P refused to consider changing the home phone, I opted for the cheapest possible mobile plan - something like $5 a month, plus GST etc. I never used the account, although the SIM card was in my even older phone, but then SD1 took that phone for her 11 year old son, and I was too embarrassed to confess that there was a separate phone number attached to that phone, because she would have been very scornful and have wanted to know why I had done such a stupid thing - and I really wanted to keep such inanities to myself, and not to have to admit to them out loud and look as stupid as I felt. (Being much more mature now, of course, I am confessing on line.)

So. At home, I swapped the SIM cards around, and found that the old one did not work. Next day I took it to a shop, but they could not help me, as I could not remember the phone number. Oh dear. The shop was very unhelpful, but I kindly refrained from pointing this out. They will have added this to their doubtless innumerable stories about idiotic customers. Far be it from me to say they are wrong. Instead I went to the real ISP shop, where naturally they were able to ring HQ, who told me what my real phone number was, and then the shop supplied me with a new SIM card. Now all I have to do is explain to Dr P how to work the phone. He will not be able to remember these instructions, of course, but at least I am sufficiently aware of the inner workings of the phone to be able to explain it.

Back to reading instructions. There is a nice little booklet for the new phone and with a bit of luck it will not be necessary to read all of them - just enough to get me operating the phone on the basic level.

At the computer lessons I am exploring my nice new iPod, patiently explained to me by these brilliant young Apple workers. It does not come with a manual, although I am sure there is a book out there somewhere, which I have no intention of buying. Instead, inspired by the rush of blood/confidence which flooded my head once I had grasped the miraculous iPod in my hot little hand, my attention is turning towards choosing a new digital camera. My photographer daughter can help me with this one. She knows what she is talking about. I just know that I'd like a good optical zoom, a viewfinder (not much chance of this, apparently) and want the camera to be lighter than the old camera. Then, when I go away I can take lots of photos of fabulous places, and of course, load them on my iPod, and on anything else within cooee.

There is nothing like technology to soothe the fevered mind and the tumultuous emotions, or to displace worries about relationships with the nitty gritty of how to turn things on and off. I will only add that in reply to some pressure from Dr P to do something financial I told him I was too stressed to think about it myself this week but if he wanted to do it all for me, he could go ahead. And he did. Perhaps I am learning from experience. At last.

Fill in the blanks - Parting is such sweet......

They have gone. I survived. A combination of trips elsewhere, plus my usual activities, and a few carefully designed others. No further crises, and even perhaps a slight thaw. Offering to take 12 year old step-grandchild to the Harry Potter film (offer declined), making them pikelets for afternoon tea, and demonstrating and explaining cumquat marmalade making to her as well may have resulted in half a brownie point. I ensured that there was time and opportunity for the WSD and family to visit without my contaminating presence, and gave them space. Mind you, it might not have been appreciated, even by Dr P, who is likely to regard it as my being inhospitable, but the main point is that they had the time together, I survived it, and no further conversations took place. When they were leaving today, we kissed each other goodbye - precipitated by WSD blowing me a kiss (she gets half a brownie point for that), and my awareness that if I kissed the others and not her, it would NOT have been a good thing! I kept my cool, despite my inner turmoil, and held fast to my resolution. It has not been an easy time.

I wonder though. They must have noticed how bad Dr P's memory has become, as he kept asking them the same questions and forgetting the answers, and how much more feeble he is. And how dependent he is on me. Very little communication takes place. I feel very daunted. I wonder do they feel the same way?

I went to a concert with a friend on Sunday - we had arranged to do so weeks ago, as we were both members of this choir, and left, separately, when we could no longer abide the tantrums of our young genius conductor. When I got home I found furniture had been moved, even the chest of drawers in my bedroom, and cupboard doors had been opened and things disturbed. I freaked out a bit, my suspicious and paranoid nature leaping to wild conclusions, but it turned out the children had been playing hidey in the house. I don't think they should have done it, nor left me to move it all back again, but I bit my tongue and said nothing. And went to bed with my headache.

I had a migraine on Sunday, probably due to the fact that the young men living opposite had a party in their back yard on Saturday night, and it kept going until 3 am. As parties go it was not too bad, but the music and conversation were too loud for me to sleep. That relentless thump thump thump backing destroys any chance of peaceful slumber. I tossed and turned, thinking that surely they must stop soon. Finally I got up, put a jacket on, walked downstairs, outside and across the road, and asked them to stop in ten minutes, or I would call the police. The young men were apologetic, and it all wound down shortly afterwards, but I do find it hard being assertive like that. The migraine is still hanging around. Consequently I am not feeling kindly towards Dr P, who could have been more supportive overall. An arm around me, a hug, and some expression of appreciation or encouragement would not have gone astray. It is likely that the other side of the family will be visiting shortly, so Dr P will have that to cope with! Seems fair.

After God made Man, God had a good hard look at him, and decided to make a few fundamental design improvements to humanity. And so God created Woman. Weren't they lucky!

Abroad thoughts from home

After my travels I am settling down again, what with having to write something at speed for today's Italian class. Of course, it was full of mistakes, but we all learned a lot and had plenty to discuss - just hope I can remember not to make those mistakes again. But I do get confused about which tenses to use. Is it age and decrepitude creeping up on me? Perhaps!

Before I start I will have a mini rant. Why not?

Verdi's Otello was on the radio, and I was listening to it on my way home from choir practice. It reminded me of the things I dislike intensely about the character of Otello. Sorry, Othello, in Shakespeare. In days of yore when I studied Shakespeare, the theory of the great but flawed man was in vogue. I could never see that these men were so great.

Nobody ever believes the word of a woman. All it takes is some malign man to whisper a few critical words about a women, to impugn her virtue, her chastity and good character, and that man is instantly believed by the woman's husband or betrothed. She is denounced and disgraced. Everyone believes she is guilty, on evidence you would not swat a fly for. When the situation is set right, it only comes about because another man has contradicted the original calumny. Look at Much Ado about Nothing!

Now of course Desdemona is a bit stupid, she lost the handkerchief and did not raise a hue and a cry - although what good would it have done? and has not the common sense to shut up about Cassio, but really, she ought not to be strangled by her husband on this account. Othello, this grown man, this hero, rolls around the floor feeling sorry for himself, but he never a) asks Desdemona, or b) casts any sort of critical eye about any evidence of the alleged offence, and c) is totally ready to believe the worst about her, and what's more, insults and humiliates her in public. Then he bravely creeps up on her as she lies asleep, and kills her and won't even allow her to say her prayers. Goodness, she ran away with him despite her father's opposition - and you have to acknowledge her father really had a point about this bloke - and then Iago suggests that if she is the sort of women who was prepared to disobey her father and run off with Othello, well, of course she is likely to be an adulteress. A lose lose situation. But somehow we are all supposed to feel really sorry for this jealous murderer and to empathise about how much he suffered. I just hope that when he stabbed himself it really hurt, and that if there is a hell, he found his place in the right circle.

There!

My trip to Melbourne and my time with my family was lovely , as ever, yet somehow bitter-sweet, and I wound up in tears the day I left, wishing that somehow I had managed my life better and not moved away from family. And what's more, it really was (nearly) all my own work. When I see how other members of the family can all drop in on each other constantly, and are so much a part of each other's lives, I wish I were a part of all that. As it gets more difficult to have a few days away, I miss it more and more. My sister was able to help her youngest daughter, who had to have her infected sinuses cleared out in an emergency operation, and to drop into the hospital, and then take her some soup when she came home. I have to plan such things, they don't just happen as a regular and frequent occurrence, and I can't do them very often. It is not as though my life is totally dismal: it is in many ways full of things I enjoy, and I have made new friends. But they do not replace the old friends, and I do not want to lose them.

Never mind, I am just having a little whinge.

The return home also means I have to contend with the rest of the visit of the WSD and family. They are back from their week elsewhere but have not yet been in contact yet, and I am hoping to dodge them. I tell myself to just take it day by day. Tomorow is another busy day, and on Friday I am planning to see a film with a friend. I might even take myself off to see the Harry Potter film. At this stage I have no plans to cook a big family meal for everyone. The cupboard will remain rather bare. Let them eat takeaways, preferably elsewhere.

As I have to get up early in the morning, tidy up, finish reading the Dante for tomorrow's class, get organised for the lecture, and then get home in time to see to the cleaners, I should stop thinking with my fingers, and go and rest my weary body on the nice new bed.

Just pictures

This is for Isabelle:my friend's lovely clump of snowdrops. They are seldom seen in Australia. They are dazzlingly white.
My youngest - and possibly my last grandchild. He is a happy little boy.
The front of Parliament House in Canberra. The facade is white marble - Carrara, I think, and the flagpole a metal structure reaching high above the building, which is partially covered by grass.
These are the wonderful wooden marquetry, using Australian timbers, around the Great hall of Parliament House. There are other marquetry works in the Cabinet Room - which is not open to the public, but I saw them before the building was finished. There are marquetry insects in there - a conceit, as the room is subject to security measures.

The face-pulling phase. Boys!
Ten inch crocheted squares made to use up wool scraps, for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's sponsored Knit-In, at which lots of people join together to knit and join squares to make wraps to send to people in poor countries. I made enough squares for a wrap - or blanket, but did not have enough time to join them all together, so managed to do the long strips so as to make the best arrangement of the squares. Of course, once you start crocheting squares to use up all the wool scraps, you have to buy some more to get them finished.
Persiflage and Stomper in Melbourne yesterday. Photo taken by Cherub. Not bad for a five year old.
Icecreams. We went in search of Charmain's, which had the most superb icecream - but it seems to have vanished. These icecreams were not nearly as good.
This is the amazing gymea lily. It grows on a very long stem and is a large flower. It comes from New South Wales and there are lots growing around Sydney, but I was astonished to see it being grown in Melbourne, near the Arts complex of buildings in Southgate, on the Yarra River.
I have lots to write about, but have spent the evening doing domestic things, and writing my topic for tomorrow's Italian class. The topic? Melbourne!

I am glad to be home, but sad to leave my family there.