Little Jo: No Mummy, I'll stay here (as she sat at our computer).
Later I said to Sister, you should have asked her to go Pokemon hunting. Sister agreed. Little Jo did later find one in our foyer. I am not sure how you catch the critters, but apparently, observing Little Jo, you count one, two, three and then say got it.
Mother is still in hospital, issuing orders to her minions, that is us. We follow some and don't follow others. I try ignore things about night time incontinence and the need for absorbent pads and two pair of underwear each night, but I could not ignore when I found one used pad wrapped in her dressing gown that she gave us to wash. Today's list was pens as she keeps loosing the one she has, a writing pad as her current one is running out, two packets of Marie biscuits and some Holeproof socks, mens, large. Jesus, they were on special at Coles supermarket reduced from $11 to $8. I've never in my life paid anything like that for one pair of socks. Nurse Rani is having days off, replaced by Rey, a drop dead gorgeous nurse, who at a guess by his name and looks is of Philippine heritage. Oldest Niece, Firefighting Niece and Little Em joined us at the hospital today. FF Niece thought he was gorgeous and Mother agreed, helped by him being very kind and good with demanding old ladies. Mother has nothing but praise for the nurses and the meals, but not for her treating doctor with the same name as one of our senior female politicians.
For the first time after having my tax return prepared, the return dollars have been outweighed by the cost of having the return prepared. I think I will do it myself next year. Someone told me it is very easy at the Australian Tax Office website. H&R Block is very good though, and I pay half what I used to with a private accountant.
Long Tan! What a mess. It was the site of a battle during the Vietnam war (or the American war if you are Vietnamese) and over the last decade or more, the victor Vietnam has been quite generous towards Australians who fought against the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese in the Long Tan rubber plantation and want to visit Vietnam. It goes without saying that we should never have been there fighting. All the way with LBJ indeed! 18 Australians and 500 Vietnamese were killed in the battle. I guess we won the battle but lost the war. I don't understand why the Vietnamese government cancelled the planned commemoration at the last minute when many Aussies who had fought in Vietnam were already there. Maybe it was because the commemoration had become bigger than Ben Hur. Clearly something went amiss. But if you think about it, should we have Japanese from WWII here in Darwin to commemorate the bombing of northern Australia? Clearly not enough Australians wanted to go to Vietnam to fight a stupid war at the behest of the USA, so they were conscripted. Many anti American feelings in Australia come from this war, certainly if you are my age.
Cruelty to animals continues, with a local report of a crate of live chickens falling off a truck outside a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet. Dead and injured birds were stuffed back into the crate and moved on, a cat skinned alive in the UK and again locally, a dog killed by having duct tape wrapped around its head. We humans are the quite despicable creatures of the world at times. Trivia, five horses were killed during the making of the 1925 Ben Hur movie.
Once again, Melbourne has been voted Melbourne's most livable city by one index. By another we are 16th and Sydney is 10th. While Melbourne is quite a good place to live, you try to get around on our roads and public transport. It is a misery. There are too many people in our large city of nearly 5 million people, yet our governments allows our population to grow unabated. Good for big business, but not so for the residents of our fair city. Vienna was runner up in the survey, but it is a very expensive place to live. Vancouver in third place is more affordable and also quite nice. I adored both cities, but the weather is better in Vancouver and it is more like Australia. That may or may not be a good thing, really. The survey is prepared for foreign companies to judge what a city is like before they ask executives to go there. I'll rephrase to the award being absolutely rubbish for anyone who is not a executive thinking of moving here
Deer have now been noted in Wilson's Promontory. Australia has very thin soils and a delicate environment. Cloven hoof animals have no place here and should be eradicated, except for on farm land. Wild buffalo, camels, deer, horses......get rid of them.
Lordy, we export gas to Japan for their consumption and for our gas, after shipping costs, the Japanese consumer pays AU$8 per gigajoule. Adelaide folk pay AU$14. On average we pay 33% higher in Australia for our gas than what is paid for our gas exported to Japan.
Still, it could be more absurd, like Britain sending their apples to South Africa to be washed and then returned to Britain for sale at Tescos and markets.
Shocking images from a youth detention centre in the Northern Territory and now awful images from a northern Queensland youth detention facility. Just be very grateful you are not one of the workers in either place. You will have to deal with the miscreants and management and the court of public opinion. Management creates the culture of such a work place, ipso facto, the government.
I have decided to have a frank conversation with Mother. I am rehearsing it. Mother, while you are sharp of mind and by your test results you will live to be very old, you are increasingly feeble. If not now, what in the future when the time comes do you want to do? Live near Sister where there is good care? Or stay in your town?
I could go on forever. To wrap on something good, Little M was in daycare today so we only saw Little Em. At six months old, she is a laughing blue eyed and just a lovely baby. Mother, her great grandmother, had a good nurse of her today, as did R. I don't nurse babies, lest I drop them (or get bored). Her mother, Oldest Niece, is now officially huge, but she is so pretty and makes up so well, along with dressing really well, unlike her sister FF Niece who looked like a slob. FF Niece did visit Brighton in England for a few days, but then the gay pride march was about to happen and prices shot up so, she left.
We are having some welcome rain that began this morning and continued for a few hours. Dog Jack is visiting for the weekend and I am not looking forward to the smell of wet dog. We were at the home of Dog Jack's mummy when he was delivered and our Dyke Friend did not like his name, which I don't remember. R suggested the name Jack and it stuck. The woman who handed over Dog Jack was in tears. Her circumstances had changed and could no longer keep Dog Jack. "R, do you remember Dog Jack's former name?" He did. It was Tarquin. Believe me, Jack is much more like a Jack than a Tarquin.