My Day

the white tiger lily starts to open

Today I had to wake up early to take my daughter to work, but I slept in. So she came and woke me, and I fell back asleep right after saying ‘I’m awake, I’m awake. But after she woke me the second time I managed to hobble out of bed and drive her to work in my sleep. She got out of the car, as I pulled up to her workplace and reminded me that she finishes work at 12 o’clock today and could I please ‘do lunch’ with her and have some bonding time, as she is leaving next week to live in Canada. ‘Sure, I said, that would be nice’, and I drove home and collapsed back into my bed.

So when she phoned me at 12:05pm to find out where to meet me, she was kinda shocked to find out that I was once again sound asleep. Being quick witted I replied to her ‘are you, are you really shocked to find me sound asleep, are you?’ but I saved the day with a promise to take her shopping later in the afternoon and recommending that she did lunch with her father who would walk over fire, for the opportunity to ‘bond’ with her.

This afternoon I threw a ball to the dog as she loves to chase the ball. Only instead of throwing it or kicking it, I used the tennis ball thrower. The first time I threw it really, really hard because it is so much fun to use one of those thingys, and you kind of forget just how fast it goes. So it went speeding off, all the way down to the end the backyard, followed only centimetres away by my puppy’s nose. As the ball hit to garden bed barrier and bounced off, so did the puppy... awwwww poor puppy, only she didn’t seem to notice that she had practically knocked herself senseless, so I caught her (no, this is NOT a new game, puppy), picked her up and gave her a big hug and a rub on the head to make her all better (only she fought the whole time to get back down so she could chase that tennis ball again because she has a very thick head).

For the second throw, I thought better of repeating the big throw so I thought I would try a big bounce instead, as puppy loves to jump up and catch the ball mid flight too. Well, ha! Who knew how strong I was feeling today. The big bounce was really, a BIG bounce and the ball bounced off the garage roof (phew), onto the glasshouse roof (o-oh), then onto the path (yeah baby), before bouncing over the fence (drats)!  Of course puppy was practically on top of it the whole time, her poor little mouth chomping wildly at the elusive tennis ball before it disappeared over that fence.

Ohhh, what a naughty tennis ball, I said to puppy, and snuck after the ball as quietly as I could, so as not to alert my husband to the fact that I, in my super woman state, had done such a childish thing.

it opens some more

the tiger lily is almost fully open

finally, it is open

For my ‘one photo a day’ photo, I decided to take a few photos of the flowers my husband gave me last week. I took some photos the day I received them, (52 photos to be exact) but that was not enough for me now was it. I took 146 photos of the same flowers yesterday and today I took just a few more. (261 more to be precise and I might end up taking a few more before the night is over). The reason I got carried away today was that one flower opened up throughout the day and I just had to record the whole thing, but who knew it would take me that many shots to record the event. And the frustrating bit of the whole exercise is that I only use ONE PHOTO A DAY, so what does one do with the other 260 photos and counting?

By the time both my daughter and I remembered of the outing I had promised her today, it was 8 o’clock in the evening. But we were not deterred by the late hour and decided to swing by K Mart and the supermarket as she needed toiletries to take away with her to Canada. I did try to explain to her that Canada was actually quite a civilized country and she could buy all she needed over there, but her comeback to this was, ‘yes I am sure I could buy everything I need over there, but I know YOU will buy them for me here’, (insert sweet innocent ‘loving’ smile here), which was true of course, so I did.

But before we got into the stores, we had to park the car.... and what an experience that was.... eeeeew.

As I said, it was getting late, it was actually 8.30pm by the time we got ready and drove there so it was starting to get dark. I was darting in and out of car parks making my way to the best park, as you do, when I finally found it. As I pulled into the parking space, I saw what appeared to be ‘paper’ on the ground but took no notice of it and drove in anyway. Erm that turned out to be a bad move, for when I got out of the car, to my horror, it was NOT paper at all, it was a fully loaded soiled nappy, and as I ran the car tyre over it, it exploded and the contents sprayed everywhere... eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeew.

Well we both almost threw up, but what could we do, it was too late, the deed had been done. So we went to the supermarket and figured we would deal with the dilemma when we got back to the car, which we did.

‘Hmm’, so where can we find a puddle of water to drive through at this time of night’ I asked my daughter, to which she answered ‘the river’. ‘Yeah right, I said, ‘I will just go drive in the river to clear this mess off the tyre, not! For once luck was on my side today and as I drove out of the shopping centre’s carpark, I saw not only large puddles across the road, but a park with grass I could drive on as well, so off I drove.

Ok, you have to picture this. It is after 9pm now so it is totally dark outside. Neither of us has a clue as to where we are driving or how deep the puddles are, but I have a 4x4 so I figure it’s all good. There I am driving through puddles and then up on the grass turning the wheels, left, right, left, right, to rub the poo off the tyre. We are laughing and having a great time. My daughter laughs and says ‘this is just like rubbing a shoe on grass to get dog poo off it’ and we laugh some more. I get to a puddle that looks just a tad too deep to drive through so I turn down the cute little road beside it and say ‘I think the car is ok now, let’s just drive home’. Only, it was not a cute little road at all, it was a walking path and I was driving alone it, in the dark.

It wasn’t until my daughter says ‘umm, Mum, do you realise you are driving along a walking path?’ that I stopped, reversed and went back the way I had come. It turned out I was zigzagging across this walking path the whole time. But never mind, no one saw us, the car is clean, and it is just our little secret. 

I Walk To Lose Weight

I walk to lose weight, that’s it, bottom line, no other reason.

I am not a health freak and I do NOT enjoy walking. I don’t find it pleasurable nor do I consider it fun. I don’t mind being outdoors and I don’t mind a stroll, but I have never been the fit or sporty type. I was blessed with a fast metabolism which I took for granted my whole life until I gained weight last year because of medication I was taking, medication I could not live without.

I gained 18 kilos before I told the doctor enough is enough, that I couldn’t handle the weight gain any longer and I would rather die than gain one more kilo. I had asked the doctor twice before if I could stop the medication and each time she said ‘no, not yet’. Neither the doctor or anyone else believed me when I said I had gained that much weight as I was kinda underweight at the start, so to them, I was only just over the upper limits of ‘the healthy weight range’, but to me it was scaring me beyond belief to see my body explode from a loose size 10 to a size 16. I am tall at 178cm or 5’10 so carrying the extra weight was easy to do.

Yes, I know it sounds a tad dramatic but I have never ever been obese in my life. I have always been one of those people who could eat anything I want, in fact I am a chocoholic and used to eat up to one kilo of chocolate a day and not gain an ounce of weight, so to put on a minimum of one or two kilo a week, every week, for no reason was very, very hard to take.

I cut back on food, although I was barely eating in the first place. Chocolate had to go, in fact I was only eating one 55 gram bar a day, which has now been cut back to one every second day. Usually I would have withdrawals from lack of chocolate, but this weight gain was so serious to me, that I barely even noticed the side effects of no chocolate. As chocolate has been my main food type for years I had to find something to replace it so I went to cereal... bowls and bowls of cereal, until I could eat no more, right now I am into vegetables, bowls and bowls of vegetables. I am almost over vegetables too, and have no idea what I will move onto next. You may say, why don’t I eat a normal diet... well if you hadn’t noticed by now, there is nothing normal about me!

I am losing weight slowly, and have been since I stopped the meds. The doctor told me it would fall off once I stopped and I couldn’t wait for it to ‘fall off’ all by itself, but it didn’t. It didn’t because, to rub salt into the wound, my body decided to go into early menopause without permission or prior arrangement from me ... arhhhhhhh.

So, I walk. Every day I walk. I walk until I can’t walk any more. I walk until I need to take 2 or 3 or 4 puffs of ventolin, I walk until I am wet through with sweat and my feet are dragging. I walk to lose weight, full stop.

I have gone down one clothing size so far, I am a size 14, a comfortable size 14. But a 14 is not a 10, nor is it a 12, so I walk and walk and walk. I am starting to see good results now and I am starting to feel better about myself. But I have to get back to at least a size 12 before I can start to be calmer about what has been a nightmare to me.

I have a new found respect for all overweight people, the world over. I am ashamed to say that I used to think every single overweight person everywhere in the entire world was that way because of overeating. I am ashamed at how naive I was, I am ashamed and angry at myself for being so narrow minded.

Until I experienced this scary phenomenon first hand, until I felt the self hatred and insecurity, until I personally out grew 3 dress sizes in clothing, I had no idea what so ever, of what other people were going through. I apologise from the bottom of my heart to anyone who is reading this and is overweight. I apologise for every look, thought or comment I or anyone else had ever undertaken. I hope that every one of you can achieve a weight that you are comfortable with, or if medication prevents this, I hope, unlike me, you are able to deal with it and live with the extra weight brought on by the medication. 

The Beat Of A Different Drum

Andy Bull - Dog ft. Lisa Mitchell, my latest new song

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBOe660BYjI&feature=related

I am home alone...

Husband is at meeting, check

Daughter is at sleepover, check

Dog is outside, check.

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.... so what is the obvious move to make, thing to shake, choice to take...

Crank up the music of course, chill out and consume the melodies, bop along to the tunes, get lost in the rhythm, dance to the beat of a different drum. I love my music. I love the good songs and even the bad songs, sometimes.

I am one of those crazy people who must listen to a new song over and over and over again, driving people mad, but embedding the song deep within my brain. Doing this though, makes me into one of those crazy people that blurt out lyrics, or part thereof, at random and sometimes inappropriate moments in time, singing to the songs playing only in my head. 

Sometimes, like tonight, I like to feel the music and to feel the music it must be loud. So the music is LOUD and I can feel the base hitting me as the songs are blaring out from the MP3 player connected to the stereo, thanks to my trusty mega speakers.  Yes I know, you would think I was a teenager the way I listen to music, but I can’t help it... music is my escape. . I can get ‘into’ music the way other people get ‘into’ books or movies.  I get lost in it and when I listen, there is nothing else. It consumes me and everything else is forgotten while the music is playing. Tonight there is nothing else and no one else, tonight, there is only me and my music.  

I like all kinds of music and most of the styles don’t mix at all, but that is what makes me ‘unique’. I like the boppy songs from the current top 40 charts like Pink’s ‘Perfect’ or even though Katy Perry’s lyrics are very bizarre, I do like ‘Firework’.  

I also like to listen to radio station Triple J because they are not main stream and play lots of independent artists, who unfortunately become main stream after all the airplay they get from Triple J. I found Angus and Julia Stone, Lisa Mitchell and countless others from that radio station. I mean, how could you not love, Big Jet Plane or Coin laundry?

I love classical music too.... my fav all time piece is Pachelbel – Canon in D major, which I am proud to say, I can play just over half of it on the piano (I only got to 2^nd grade in lessons). You should see me struggle to keep the tempo throughout the piece. My kids tell me I am quite the sight, I play until my fingers give up and can twinkle no more.

I also listen to movie soundtracks, but only the cool ones ... of course that is my opinion of cool, like Amelie- Comptine D' un Autre Ete is one of my classics.  Oh and I love European traditional music too, like Zorba the Greek and The Chicken Dance ... giggle.

 

I grew up listening to my mother’s music, so I kinda hate the Beetles and Elvis Presley, Tom Jones and most of the other 60’s music she refused to part with, but only because I could recite it all verbatim from as long as I can remember.

 

I can even listen to some blues tunes too, but it is not my favourite kind of music. There is one kind of music I can NOT tolerate at all. I do NOT consider country or western styles of music. That noise makes me twinge and I have to block my ears. I think that kind of ‘music’ is like vegemite, unless you grew up with it, you can’t eat it!

Well, I have done with moving to the groove tonight, the loudness of the music has given me a headache, which is my cue to depart... laters cool cats.  

Valentine's Day

Today, by today I mean one minute past midnight last night, my husband disappeared for a moment then walked back into the room with a bunch of flowers and a huge smile on his face, and as he presented them to me he said, ‘It’s Valentine’s Day, be my Valentine?’

Cream roses 

Awww, wasn’t that nice... I wonder what he would have said had I replied ‘Umm, can I get back to you on that’, or ‘ohhh sorry, the guy over there got in first’, or ‘depends, what comes with those flowers?’

Of course I didn’t say any of those things, but just imagine if I had... giggle, the look of confusion on his face would have been something interesting to write about.

Instead I said, ‘awww they are lovely, is it tomorrow already? Thank you so much, erm this is awkward, I didn’t get you anything, sorry. But of course I will be your Valentine.’ Kiss, Kiss!

To be honest, I don’t understand the whole Valentine’s Day thing. I mean, I have read the history of it of course, my kids studied it in school, and frankly it is a sad and horrible story. I don’t think people know the true events that lead to this day, for if they did, surely they would not want to celebrate it, would they, do you?

I have seen on facebook today that many people have called this day ‘Happy Hallmark Day’ and quite frankly, I think that is actually what it is about... marketing. All great events in history have been manipulated beyond recognition to make them into a marketable item for global companies. First they conquer America, then they conquer the WORLD!

But there I go digressing as usual, so...

This morning upon awakening, my husband’s love continued to be displayed as I was presented with breakfast in bed and told to have a lazy morning. Well, naturally I didn’t need any encouragement and I had a lovely lazy morning doing absolutely nothing. We all know that a lazy morning leads to a lazy afternoon so my day was very unproductive and all I managed to achieve today was going out to The Chocolate Room for afternoon tea, (hot chocolate) and cake, with my husband. They have to coolest mugs there to drink the hot chocolate out of and the chocolate is to die for mmmmm.

Well, that was my day, lazy, boring and not my typical Valentine’s Day at all. We are not one to celebrate this occasion usually, but this year for some reason my husband was caught up in the hype and his heart over floweth with love for me today. Aww wasn’t that lovely. 

I Bought The Shoes

Diana Ferrari Mattea 

Yesterday while shopping we walked into one of many shoe shops.

‘Daisy you have such bad taste in shoes’, my sister said to me as we were browsing. ‘Excuse me, how rude’, I replied to her, ‘my shoes are wonderful, how can you say that.’ ‘Easy’ she said, ‘Just look at them’. We all look down at my feet, my two sisters, the sales assistant and I. ‘What?’ I say as they all turn away and say nothing. ‘What is wrong with my shoes? These are great shoes, I love these shoes.’ I look toward the sales assistant with longing in my eyes, thinking she would back me up as I knew my other sister wouldn’t support me. But to my horror, the sales assistant says ‘they could be nicer!’

My shoes are black leather sandals, ‘since when are sandals horrible. Besides they are comfortable, shouldn’t shoes be comfy?’ I say in my defence. ‘Comfy and practical is fine if you are an old lady, but you are not an old lady, so they are horrible. Here try these shoes on’, my sister says with a big smile and a giggle as she hands me a pair of flats to try.

As I am checking out the shoes she had given me, she hands me 3 more pairs saying ‘come on, smile, this is fun’ and asks the sales assistant if she has my size in all these shoes. As I sigh and sit down, more shoes are thrown my way and the sales assistant comes back balancing nine shoe boxes in her arms.

The first pair of shoes I try on cost $130 and I gasp and say to no one in particular, yet to the whole shop... ‘Are you mad, these shoes cost $130! My sister looks at me and says, ‘so? They are beautiful, it’s not about the price, it’s about how they look and they look fabulous’.

I tried on what seemed like every pair of shoes they had in that shop before everyone had agreed on which pair of shoes I should buy. I tried on purple and red and black, both patent and regular. I tried on flats and wedges and heels. The cheapest pair was $95 but most were priced at $130.

Of course I had no say in the shoes I would buy and everyone was debating on how many pairs I should buy. They had decided on the wedding shoes but as my taste in shoes was so bad, should I buy 2 or 3 pairs in total so that I could throw out those hideous shoes I usually walk around in. Erm, 3 pairs at $130 each, I don’t think so. So I decided for them. I would take just the one pair from here, the wedding shoes, ‘that’s a start, isn’t it’, I say with that same false smile on my face that my sister had when she told me how horrible my shoes were just an hour earlier.

I don’t know how I did it, but I only left with one pair of shoes. As I dragged my tired body from shop to shop to shop, I must have tried on 50-60 pairs of shoes, easily. ‘We’ had found another pair of ‘must have’ shoes for me but luckily, I mean unluckily they were not in my size. Unfortunately I had to order them, in both regular and patent and I am dreading the day that phone call comes from the shoe shop. But as my sisters will NOT be around when it comes, I will find an excuse not to go back and buy them.

The only good thing about shopping was that I did manage to talk them out of forcing me to wear a frilly dress as in the end they could see that me running around with 3 cameras around my neck in heels and a frilly dress would kinda look ‘uncool’. So, one small victory to me, well, it was a huge victory actually but not in the whole scheme of things as my two fashion obsessed sisters were far from finished with me yet.

After six long exhausting hours of shopping, of trying on thousands of pairs of shoes, hundreds of items of clothing and being dragged sometimes forcibly into shops or change rooms, we had finally finished for the day. I had gotten out of it lightly having only bought those one pair of shoes and one shirt.... country road, no sleeves, $99... Am I insane? That shirt was not even for the wedding, it was an ‘everyday’ shirt, because, you guessed it, ‘Daisy, you have such bad taste in clothing’.

My sisters mean well, I think. I am the ‘baby’ so they think they have a duty to boss me around, even at this age. Even when I am 50 I can guarantee they will feel the need to ‘dress me’. I am not like them, I don’t need to have this seasons fashion items or latest accessories. Ugg don’t get me started on the chains and jewellery I had to try on to complete the outfits.

My husband and I live ‘comfortably’ and I could afford to spend all that money on clothes and shoes if I wanted to, but seriously, I neither feel the need to nor desire to buy, buy, buy. I am a jeans girl, I love my jeans, I will always love my jeans. I will never be like my sisters and I am happy to be the odd one out.

My sisters look at me and shake their heads, but I look at them and shake my head too. If that was fun, shoot me now! Oh and the worse part, we haven’t finished shopping yet, I have to go back again... Nooooooooooooooooo 

Random News

You would think that after yesterday’s horrible, awful, terrible very bad day that I would want to write about it, to get it off my chest, air the dirty laundry, communicate my commiserations and bring you all down to the depths of despair to which I find myself sinking to. But no, not me, not today, not on this blog sister.

Today I want to talk about something funny, uplifting, witty. Something boring, dull, senseless, something comical, random and light hearted.... now if only I could find something like that to share!

Ooooo, random fact... I saw a boy jump off a bridge the other day. I thought he would kill himself because the bridge was so high, but he didn’t, he landed in the river, way, way below. He landed on the back of his head and didn’t move at first, but then he shouted to his friends standing on the bank and slowly swam to them. Someone had already phoned the police, we walked past that person as he was still talking to the them on the phone, and they came just after the boy had managed to get out of the water and start to stagger away. It was quite a shock to witness. I had my camera with me as per usual, but I was too stunned to zip it out and snap him jumping. I have no idea how he got to the middle of that bridge to find his jumping position in the first place as there is no pedestrian access on that bridge. It was a very bizarre and unexpected event to have witnessed on what started out to be nothing other than my average dull walk. Anyway, moving on...

Ummm, another random fact...  today  whilst searching facebook for new friends to add to that horrid game I play, (I only need 25 more friends), I stumbled across Isabelle and became her new friend. Isabelle, as it turns out is the oldest Australian person to be using facebook and the second oldest facebooker in the world, she is 103 years old. Her family created an account for her because she ‘often wondered what all the young ones were talking about when they mentioned facebook’. Apparently she was featured on the channel 9 news in December and is going for some kind of record relating to that social networking site. I am her 2946^th friend on facebook and she now has 2954 friends in total. I actually think it is very cool as she really and truly does log on and look at her wall every day.

Isabelle

Oh, here’s some other news...it’s raining again!!!! Yep, we have had two floods within a few weeks of each other and it decides to rain again, just for something different. Annnnnd.... it is humid, again! One does NOT like this humidity, humidity does NOT agree with one’s hair. If one enjoyed this bizarre weather phenomenon, one would move to Queensland where people apparently don’t mind what their hair looks like each day. (Yep, that directly aimed at my funny haired Queenslander friends).

  

My final random news of the day is tomorrow’s news.... BIG SIGH... Tomorrow is Friday, it must be WEDDING SHOPPING DAY, Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

I don’t want to go shopping with both of my sisters for something frilly and girlie and totally impractical to wear to the wedding. I tried everything I could think of to get out of this shopping expedition. But apparently because I was rude enough to withdraw from being a bridesmaid, I have no option but to let them, my two older sisters, boss me around and make me buy some no doubt ridiculously over priced fashion items, that only two crazed manic fashion blinded, ‘must have’, old enough to know better, sisters could like. No amount of protesting thus far has achieved a thing in my defence. They are totally ignorant to the fact that I am the ‘Official Photographer’ and that as such I will need to run about snapping madly, which I did try to convey to them, I cannot do in high heels and a frilly dress!  

So, dreading tomorrow, but oh dear, that is quite another story.  

Facebook Games I hate To Play

I play facebook games, but that is nothing new, practically everyone on facebook plays facebook games. But what is perhaps not so common is that I play facebook games that I hate to play. Like really and truly hate to play.

They frustrate me beyond belief yet I continue to play them.

Over the time I have been playing one of these games in particular, I have been obsessed to the point of ignoring my family, my friends and even my guests to make sure I am on facebook, poised and ready to ‘hunt’ at reset. Luckily I have overcome that particular obsession and I no longer find the need to run to the computer from another room like a crazy lady, drive home from a shopping trip, a luncheon, a party or any other occasion that happened to clash with reset, nor do I have to end phone conversations minutes before that magical time each day of 3 minutes past 3 in the afternoon.

This particular game, scavenger hunt, is highly addictive and highly competitive. When I first started playing, it was a lovely game, an enjoyable game, a team game. I had so much fun being in my little group of friends. We would help each other by sending links either publicly or privately to make sure that we were all able to finish the card each day, and the boards had so much chatter happening that some days we were laughing so hard and chatting about some things so totally removed from the game that we would even forget to hunt.

But then the creator changed the rules, the links we sent each other were disabled, there was to be no more helping friends out. The game had reached for a new level and in doing so, lost many of its happy players at the same time. It wasn’t until I started playing the game in its new format that I realised that I was actually quite the competitive person. Before this time, I was always easy going, happy to help out friends before myself and found it very satisfying to know that all my friends were able to finish. But now, things were different. This game had put friends against friends, now you had to fight to grab the daily items, now you had to fight to be in the top 100, now you had to fight to stay in the game. No more Mr Nice Guy.

Well I started fighting and I fought well. We had to start expanding our friends list so that we could have more places to hunt, so I started asking strangers to be my friend. Then Awards were introduced for the game so I had to aim to achieve them all. People were getting their facebook accounts closed down at one stage as one of the awards was to have 2000 friends playing the game at once. Of course you are not allowed to ask that many people to be your friend at once as facebook thinks you are soliciting people and they close down your account. So there were a lot of unhappy players about.

Other people started opening up second and third facebook accounts just to try and get an edge for places to look for the elusive ‘extremely rare’ items needed each day. Then, one day, things started to get nasty.

Anyone who managed to make it to the number one place on the ranking surely must be cheating. The competition was so fierce that everyone outside of the top 100 thought everyone inside the top 100 was cheating. And if you were ‘unlucky’ enough to make it to the number one place, well, need I say more... the fight was on.

I won season 14 and I was over the moon with joy, but I was accused of cheating every step of the way. I had ranked in the top 5 or 10 for a few seasons now so I was used to people popping up in chat asking me for tips, telling me to send them items or just to verbally abuse me, call me a cheater and disappear again. This mentality that had taken over the once pleasant and amusing game was so dark and disturbing that it actually started to make me sick. I had to stop reading the discussion boards and turn off facebook chat as the negativity was getting to me.

At one stage someone even started a thread to ‘delete daisy because she cheats’. The creator of the game had to step in and tell people that I was not a cheater and delete that thread himself. Times were not so good.

I started playing less and less but I still couldn’t give the game away, the game I now hated to play. People had ruined the atmosphere and the spirit of the game completely. I was not the only one to be accused of cheating, it was anyone who dared to make the effort to reach the number one place, anyone who was foolish enough to stand out from the crowd, anyone who put in 150% effort to claw their way to that placing. In fact, anyone in the top 5 or even the top 10 was open to bullying by the crowd struggling to keep up behind them.

The day I knew that I really had a problem with the game was the day I put the game ahead of my sick child. That day I crossed the line, that day should never have happened. I have quit the game three or four times but I keep going back to it. It may take weeks or months but I eventually keep going back, my hope is that one day I am able to quit and stay away from it forever. What kind of mother puts a dumb facebook game ahead of her sick child, that is inexcusable. This game has also shown me that I have an addictive personality, something else I never knew before playing scavenger hunt.

I am happy to say that although I continue to play this game, I am rarely on the computer at reset and if I miss a day, or two I don’t freak out anymore. I am even able to walk away from a whole season at a time now, but still can’t stay away forever.

Oh, that particular award of having 2000 active scavenger hunt friends on your friends is still eluding me to this day and I am still trying to achieve it, but I am taking it slowly. It seems for every one person I add as a new scavenger hunt friend, two more have just deleted me. I wonder if I will get that award before I give up on the game for good... or will I ever really be able to give up on this game, this game that I hate to play? 

My Hand

I dreamt that my doctor asked me to take her to see her doctor. She was scared of doctors and needed the support. I thought it was strange, as I dreamt it, yet in the dream itself, it seemed perfectly normal.

She wanted me to actually go in with her when her name was called and she held my hand as we walked along the corridor behind her doctor. She was very, very nervous but was putting on a brave face because I was with her. She was squeezing my hand so tightly that it was actually going numb and purple.

I did have faint thoughts in the back of my mind like...’hmm I really don’t think a doctor should be so scared of other doctors’ and ‘ha, I thought she was an iron lady, who knew she had a soft side’ and ‘she always seems so together and in control when I see her as a doctor’ and of course there was the whole ‘mental note to self, get a new doctor ASAP’ thing happening as well.

But when we got to the doctor’s office which was way, way, way down the end of the extraordinary long corridor, all those ‘strange’ thoughts disappeared and I was just sitting there with my friend, supporting her.

My doctor was all giggly and blushing and fidgety (I didn’t even know she knew how to giggle, she was always so ‘professional’ and serious), obviously giggling was her way of coping. She was so nervous that she could barely get the words out that she needed to say, which made me think WOW so she does understand how awkward it is to talk to a doctor sometimes, good to know.

Oh and all this time, my hand was still being squeezed harder and harder and harder. My hand was now the size of one of those football foam hands that you see in all the American movies, you know the kind that people use to show their support for their team. The size of my hand was starting to concern me and just then it reminded me of a cartoon hand.

Strange how no one seemed to noticed the size of my poor hand expect me. Her doctor was sitting there calmly waiting for her to get the words out and was acting like it was a perfectly normal situation. He was oblivious to my hand swelling to the point of exploding, which was actually blocking his view of his patient. My doctor was squirming about, umming and ahhing, still giggling a lot and trying to find her words. My hand starts to throb and I grimace in pain but don’t say a word.

My pain must have distracted me because the next thing I hear is her doctor saying ‘oh we can fix that with an injection. You will have to inject yourself 3 times a day, after meals with this’, and he brings out a huge syringe and tries to hand it to my doctor. My doctor takes one look, burst out in tears and screams ‘Nooooooooooooooooooooooo’. Her scream is accompanied by one last massive squeeze of my hand which now looks like a child’s balloon hovering above our heads.

I can’t restrain myself any longer and I let out the loudest  most ear piercing scream I can muster to try and relieve this pain. My doctor is looking at me and I am looking at her, our faces are but centimetres away from each other and we are both screaming hysterically with the most horrified expressions on our faces. Our gazes are fixed directly into each other’s eyes, then I hold my hand up and we both look towards it then back to each other’s eyes, then we focus on the syringe, then back to each other’s eyes again... screaming the entire time like two crazy women.

Her doctor doesn’t seem to notice this either and hands her the syringe (imagine one the size of a small child being handed to her) along with numerous ampules of clear liquid.

My doctor has to let go of my hand to take the syringe and ampules being forced into her lap and my hand drops lifelessly to the floor. I look down at it and feel very, very sad. My poor hand, it was such a good hand. I shake my head slowly from side to side and I actually start to grieve for it.

My doctor is feeling more confident with herself. ‘Ohhhhhhh is that all I have to do, I can do that, only some injections, I can do that. I do that all the time, I was so worried, but I can do that’. She actually looked relieved now and there was even a smile starting to form on her face. She was saying to her doctor that she ‘expected so much worse’. She looked at the drug and was laughing now, ‘oh it’s only that drug, that drug is fine, I prescribe that drug to my own patients every day’. The minute the syringe was in her hands, she was back to her regular self, she was ‘a doctor’ again and not my friend who needed support.  

She smiles happily looks at me and says ‘come on, it’s time to leave’. We walk out of the doctor’s office and back down the extraordinary very, very, very long corridor. She has her arms filled with syringes and ampules and is so proud of herself. I walk beside her looking sad and depressed dragging my very, very, very long and stretch out arm with the huge, dead purple hand attached to it, behind me. Again only I seem to notice my ‘cartoon style arm and hand’, all the way down the corridor. 

The Invitation

Today is Thursday.
I received the invitation last Friday.
I knew what it was the moment I saw it.
It was 'the invitation' because it came in a silver envelope instead of a boring old white one.
It also has a seal on the back, two love hearts linked together, entwined would be a more apt description. The heart thing was kinda a dead give away.
It is my invitation to 'the wedding'.
You know, the one where I am the 'official photographer', sigh.

Anyway I was so excited to receive the invitation that I 'filed it' in my desk draw, unopened, underneath a pile of other 'very important things to attend to'.
There was no rush I told myself, the wedding is months away, isn't it?
And, I haven't given it another thought until tonight.

I found the invitation tonight as I was ... well I have no idea what I was actually doing... I was in my desk draw for some reason, but for the life of me I can't bring it to mind. So I guess it was also very important, and probably to do with all the other very important things in my desk draw. Thinking, thinking, thinking... nope, no idea....what was I doing in that draw. Grrrrr that is really going to bug me now... what WAS I doing in that draw???

Well we will never know what I was doing in that draw, and I guess no one but me is curious. But I digress. Back to the invitation.

I took the invitation out when I saw it and studied it for just a moment. It is square and it is lumpy. I am curious about the lumpy bit, but not curious enough to open it .... yet. I studied the address, I don't like the way the address is written. The lines are far too spread out. It does not appear pleasing to the eye. I like things to be pleasing to the eye, don't you?

And the stamp, the stamp is far too small, now why didn't she buy pretty stamps? There are pretty stamps out there, I have gone to the post office and asked for pretty stamps before. Of course the lady behind the counter rolls her eyes when I say, 'oh don't you have any pretty stamps?' One time when she didn't have any pretty 50 cent stamps she made the mistake of saying, 'sorry the only stamps that are pretty are these 5 cent stamps!' 'Perfect' I say and ask for a sheet of those for my mail to be posted. Strange, she was not amused at all, she didn't appreciate 'pretty stamps' like I did. All she could say to me was, 'but you are NOT going to place them all over the front of the envelope are you?' 'Yes of course I am' I replied, 'they are prettier than the 50 cent stamp' I said with a satisfied smile on my face. She just rolled her eyes at that again... how rude, I thought to myself.

Oh dear, did I digress again, sorry.

Now where was I, oh yeah, the invitation.  So it is square, silver, lumpy, poorly addressed, love hearts on the back and a teeny tiny stamp squished into the top right hand corner. Ohhhhh and guess what I just noticed, it is missing the postmark! Ahhhh that would make a difference, it would add some much needed definition to the overall composition of the front of the envelope.

I feel better now. I feel better because in my mind, I have improved the appearance of that invitation immensely. I have added possibly 12 new stamps to each envelope, I have fixed the address and I would not have that lumpy bit inside the envelope either. Of course, I can't understand why she is so excited about all this and why she is making such a big hoo-ha over the whole wedding thing in the first place. She is old and it is NOT her first wedding. But that is a whole other story.

The invitation is now tucked safely away, back into the draw with all the other very important things I need to do. It is still unopened and I have yet to decided when I will open it. The problem with opening it is, if I open it then it makes the whole 'official wedding photographer' thing a reality. I don't honestly know if I am ready to think about that yet.

She phoned me a couple of days ago to ask if I liked the invitation.  My other sister sent me a text message which said 'isn't the invitation lovely' or words to that effect. I replied 'It was lumpy', what else could I say, I haven't opened it yet. That reply must have been funny because they both laughed and said things like 'only you would say that', and 'yes, it was lumpy yet it didn't get damaged in the post'. Phew, I got around that one relatively unscathed. How did that happen!

I guess I am going to have to open that envelope soon. But first I will have to 'find' it again as it is  hidden away in the very important things to do draw of my desk. The draw that I don't actually often look through. Anyone who knows me will know that this is true, because as you can see from the photo, there is a block of chocolate in that draw.... a block of unopened chocolate in that draw. I didn't put that chocolate in that draw and didn't know it was there. For had I known it was there, it would be opened and half eaten, not untouched as it appears now. mmmmmm chocolate :)

Chocolate mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm gotta love chocolate, what were we speaking about again, I have forgotten!