tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26818013192252475972024-03-04T23:12:05.606-08:00Strange NestWhat it's like to be young, and live with my elderly parents. It's an interesting social experiment. It's a challenge. It's hilarious. It's heartbreaking. It's exhausting. It's life as I know it.Starryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02206613832444557494noreply@blogger.comBlogger29125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2681801319225247597.post-77645585857323845332021-09-27T19:48:00.000-07:002021-09-27T19:48:27.807-07:00a better class of drug dealer<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhslTIj_1gGCadmLEtJcyk8PU4ZjzZzQbOYsxIQu1FHwI7n5mXobTeE6o-RM1cAOXA9aVBPePDCYarml3a05G1Bw19U9cAolQ_P9nFcFIOgOD1oPF0ep5_7cke2-MdmLhvTwRyZDDKxP8/s1080/6BF3A283-4FB2-4020-899F-89D47F098AD9.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="bereavement flowers" border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhslTIj_1gGCadmLEtJcyk8PU4ZjzZzQbOYsxIQu1FHwI7n5mXobTeE6o-RM1cAOXA9aVBPePDCYarml3a05G1Bw19U9cAolQ_P9nFcFIOgOD1oPF0ep5_7cke2-MdmLhvTwRyZDDKxP8/w320-h320/6BF3A283-4FB2-4020-899F-89D47F098AD9.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Recently, my neighbour passed away suddenly at home, it was a real shock and so very sad. He was my closest neighbour, in fact I've mentioned him here before - he was the man who laughed his ass off when I yelled at my family to bring me some toilet paper. I actually used to make him laugh a lot. One time I farted prodigiously under my patio when I thought I was alone only to hear him tittering away laughing on his side of the fence. I then grumbled "bloody suburbs the houses are too close together" only to have him completely piss himself laughing. That was him.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">We used to pass each other walking our dogs a lot and stop and chat and swap gossip and make a fuss of each other's dogs and I will miss him and his dog very much. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I will also miss the security of him living next to me, as his house faced the notorious drug house and he could see what was going on over there, our house faces the other direction and we couldn't really keep an eye on what the heck was happening when there were "indicidents" going on (the definition of "incidents" ranges from fiery domestics, to full on bogan battle brawls, to police raids, to their clientele smashing their car into our house) so having a trusty neighbour with CCTV cameras and a terrific watchdog gave me so much peace of mind.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">With all the trouble we've had over the years with neighbours, I can't help being very nervous about who my new neighbour will turn out to be. We also have 3 other houses close to us for sale right now, and one of them is immediately next door to the 'drug house' so I'm not wildly optimistic about who will be inclined to buy it. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I think you should "meet" the chief occupant of the drug house.... this is his photo fit....</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPOYUn4v_a37DA_f1OMzGi3fJe3kERrupD5KUdyqUTsNDZZhZSV8mHWWKJSZSv5yfqoo7QOWFwGNN7X3rOR-zH6pgoyfbjpZ-Oue9MDpz9hkGLAbycE6p-yW1VuCU9AOpjATy0Reuk9xk/s1080/9464B6FC-2E3F-432F-BC3E-734FC97CE1A8.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="my male neighbour actually looks like the upstairs neighbour in There's Something About Mary" border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPOYUn4v_a37DA_f1OMzGi3fJe3kERrupD5KUdyqUTsNDZZhZSV8mHWWKJSZSv5yfqoo7QOWFwGNN7X3rOR-zH6pgoyfbjpZ-Oue9MDpz9hkGLAbycE6p-yW1VuCU9AOpjATy0Reuk9xk/w320-h320/9464B6FC-2E3F-432F-BC3E-734FC97CE1A8.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I swear to God this is what he looks like: same bleached hair, tanned, leathery skin, and I know he has saggy tits because he is always gardening with no shirt on. And that's on a good day.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">On a bad day a car pulls up on the verge, out pours a bunch of bogans with metal pipes, bars, and bats ready to swarm the premises as they reassure passers by that "its okay, they flogged our daughter so we're just here to settle the score" and everyone feels just peachy and super safe and... who am I kidding?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">On a bad night I hear car alarms screaming, followed by the sound of broken glass being swept up and awake in the morning to see someone had come and smashed every windscreen and window of their infamous ute. Or I wonder if there will be a murder. Maybe one day something will blow up. Or the house will burn down. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Once they were in the front yard washing their car in the dark at 10.30 at night - you know who washes their car in the dark? Hit and run drivers, that's who.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxQGv8X9-Nnn2o0n4eQ-umt962_l5L-I-nuJhDrt8WvRImbgN9CeMhlXrzoT-kKA1eoYFRh6XojZJLKNJiB-zsiqpInkRez-XHlmLTgT8HYZJ-DZj6uDvv7Q_mTOcShb_o2M2M0NhZccg/s940/E195B575-ED74-4B80-924E-06A13F0F633F.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="when your neighbour's DIY evokes Breaking Bad vibes" border="0" data-original-height="788" data-original-width="940" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxQGv8X9-Nnn2o0n4eQ-umt962_l5L-I-nuJhDrt8WvRImbgN9CeMhlXrzoT-kKA1eoYFRh6XojZJLKNJiB-zsiqpInkRez-XHlmLTgT8HYZJ-DZj6uDvv7Q_mTOcShb_o2M2M0NhZccg/w320-h268/E195B575-ED74-4B80-924E-06A13F0F633F.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Then you find the reject van from Breaking Bad on the lawn while they DIY it at high volume during the nights. And you think... that's it.... I actually miss the drug dealer we had next door in the 90's. I actually feel sentimental about the time we had a better class of drug dealer living beside us, he seems so cute and innocent now. Let's talk about him for a moment:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">When I was away at university my parents got a new couple next door on our other side, they didn't know it but the pair were doing an incessant cannabis trade, if you picture the man of the house like this, you'd be pretty accurate:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiN9QfQSM8_plfmWU0vI1JQ78kPevCVwlODZ4J9Z_boYnHr-se7yAAse1HOunlJyZ3A1RT5CmEelejF6D-muU-sOJ8xNT8LyV_g0_7lTgWZ1xWWdnSma_tCSHdQTmbn3MjYGk3DvrgrEI/s475/EF74E807-CC49-498D-BC50-F8B7C042F3A6.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="there is some resemblance to my neighbour" border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="468" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiN9QfQSM8_plfmWU0vI1JQ78kPevCVwlODZ4J9Z_boYnHr-se7yAAse1HOunlJyZ3A1RT5CmEelejF6D-muU-sOJ8xNT8LyV_g0_7lTgWZ1xWWdnSma_tCSHdQTmbn3MjYGk3DvrgrEI/w315-h320/EF74E807-CC49-498D-BC50-F8B7C042F3A6.jpeg" width="315" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> Dude was clueless... I remember once housesitting for my parents and when they came back and were working damn hard to back the caravan in around the side of the house and getting super stressed about it, he was standing there gabbing away about absolute shite oblivious to the fact no one was listening to him. These were adorable druggies in the grand scheme of things because they were quiet except that their house was constantly being burglarised. Once when they wanted to go away for a quick vacation they gave my Dad the keys to their house (for when the alarm was ear raping them at all hours) the keys had a troll doll on the keyring, and my Dad thought it was annoying so he savagely hacked the hair off a drug dealer's troll doll with no remorse. I told him the hair was the whole point of the thing and he said "its my keys so I can do what I like" leading to a much bigger conversation about it not being his keys at all and that on Monday you give the keys back. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXZSK9KDvkvjFSTe7mkRInob5mhyphenhyphenGiNtYF8ke9NEwxiNsJkC8LvjNkOkdMubdcussI7SA8XqfrRIJS90wmbW1PcbRZk0CNRKfc4mmyhIfK40aPvnQ39BWd9ozSMHOuAvTsPaq85S4T2Z8/s1043/BF08AA77-4D91-4E51-AF37-A8BADCACDF5D.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="troll doll keyring with pink hair" border="0" data-original-height="1043" data-original-width="1004" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXZSK9KDvkvjFSTe7mkRInob5mhyphenhyphenGiNtYF8ke9NEwxiNsJkC8LvjNkOkdMubdcussI7SA8XqfrRIJS90wmbW1PcbRZk0CNRKfc4mmyhIfK40aPvnQ39BWd9ozSMHOuAvTsPaq85S4T2Z8/w308-h320/BF08AA77-4D91-4E51-AF37-A8BADCACDF5D.jpeg" width="308" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Wonderfully in the late 90's our other immediate next door neighbours bought that house, and after airing it out for long enough thought it would be excellent to raise their children there, who are now grown and we still are blessed with this lovely couple and their extended family and who intend to remain there for the rest of their days. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And so as I reflect on the loss of my neighbour and wait to see what happens with his house and others around me, I feel such mixed feelings. We loved having our neighbour J*** next door to us, it was a real camaraderie and we did all the neighbourly things like swap produce, take care of each other - I once rescued him and his dog from a dog fight, and I know he was always having an ear out for us if we were in distress. Even if that distress was gastrointestinal lol. A friend next door is such a comfort. I can only hope we can be blessed again.</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><p></p>Starryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02206613832444557494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2681801319225247597.post-37585783183910382502021-08-24T21:23:00.006-07:002021-08-24T21:23:55.466-07:00a real day in the life of dementia care<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXlWlpl_7QmqN_OhE6qtLZ9YqpxxydCQLc83ZWy5MfQvGqT3TO0U-1ZUetYYWGsYFCfrld2li8DWJ-7TAamzyLNnkQVxmkqIlZiwIxlv1PYIhFFpdpS1SvaKkj8hgpR1_1huS-Jl4ojOA/s2048/02F646BF-280E-495F-AFCF-2963B64C1A13.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="broken egg shell in a nest" border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="2048" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXlWlpl_7QmqN_OhE6qtLZ9YqpxxydCQLc83ZWy5MfQvGqT3TO0U-1ZUetYYWGsYFCfrld2li8DWJ-7TAamzyLNnkQVxmkqIlZiwIxlv1PYIhFFpdpS1SvaKkj8hgpR1_1huS-Jl4ojOA/w400-h400/02F646BF-280E-495F-AFCF-2963B64C1A13.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p>When I started this blog in 2015, one of the first posts I ever wrote was this: <a href="https://strangenest.blogspot.com/2015/07/a-typical-day-in-nest.html" target="_blank">A Typical Day in the Nest </a> and I had no idea how very different my life would be in just a few years, or how difficult it would be to share with people in my life how terrible things are here at home now, in 2021. Standing on the spot trying to tell people, in person, how incredibly relentless and draining it is to care for Dad at home is just not working - they don't really get it, or they don't want to. It is all just met with "oh it must be so hard for <i>him</i>". </p><p>I feel I have no choice but to do this. This is the current "typical" day in the nest. I'm documenting a full day of living in this house so that you can understand when I'm angry, upset, or stressed, and why the number one goal in my life is to get my Dad into full time dementia care. And you need to know what it is like to do this 24 hours a day yourself so that you don't end up trying to do this 24 hours a day yourself. Because you absolutely should not do this. No one should live like this:</p><p>04.00am I am woken up suddenly, by loud shouting. Mum gets up everyday to take her thyroid medication so that she can have cereal with milk when she gets up later for breakfast. Dad has turned the light off leaving her stranded in the house in the dark, nowhere near a light switch. My heart is pounding and I'm stressed already. </p><p>04.30am There is a lot of sounds of doors and drawers slamming. Dad wants to get up for the day and Mum is trying to tell him to go back to bed. This is necessary because Mum needs more rest, and Dad cannot get up unsupervised anymore. Without someone getting up first and lighting the fire, he will try and do that himself and that's just too dangerous (we actually have to hide the matches) he can also decide to feed chocolate to the dog (more on that later) and make a complete mess of the house (imagine the police ransacked your house while executing a warrant and you'll be in the vicinity of the tornado that is my father)</p><p>06.30am I have not been able to get more sleep and its time to get up and walk my dog. </p><p>07.30am I feed the dog, and get my breakfast Dad is not dressed yet and I can hear him arguing with Mum because he wants her to fasten his shirt buttons at the wrist, which is impossible because his shirts are for tiny men (he is a tiny man) but on each wrist he (and we do not understand why) has taken to wearing two sweatbands on top of each other, and a watch fastened around that.... so he would need a shirt made for a much larger man if he wants the buttons fastened. We actually argue about this 2-3 times a day. Trying to dress dad is like trying to wrestle a piranha into tuxedo. If a piranha had Tourettes.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_pizJcwka7PPip214cs4KMylrCu2Igwt2p8eraVDXVI54SSLdDGl4w7FGJGpQKO_H-tu1mAQYRzYmKRqTJiBDKoTiY1pA5w81HWSO1q0Nor_dNKju40apQLc_IrEJazG9x2n8zbIBFz8/s2048/E073B5C2-E012-4473-9610-3A9FFA58F2F9.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Piranha Teeth" border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="2048" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_pizJcwka7PPip214cs4KMylrCu2Igwt2p8eraVDXVI54SSLdDGl4w7FGJGpQKO_H-tu1mAQYRzYmKRqTJiBDKoTiY1pA5w81HWSO1q0Nor_dNKju40apQLc_IrEJazG9x2n8zbIBFz8/w400-h400/E073B5C2-E012-4473-9610-3A9FFA58F2F9.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p>07.45am I enter the only bathroom in this house, to brush my teeth and wash my face. I am lucky if I get ten minutes in the bathroom in the entire day - and the ten minutes is rarely when I need them. Dad can see me in the bathroom but decides to push his way in, one shuffling step at a time, with his walker, and basically tries to force me to move away from the sink even though I'm in the middle of my self care. I stand my ground because if I move from the sink he will start to comb his hair, which involves him standing at the sink for five minutes with the tap running the whole time and I'm in the middle of cleaning my teeth. Dad starts to use my facial cleanser as aftershave right in front of me, even though he hasn't had a shave and I tell him its mine, he tells me straight to my face "no its not" and keeps rifling through my things using them all. There goes my tiny bottles of Sukin. This is a big issue for me because Dad's misuse of products is a huge drain on finances. He can use a tube of Savlon in a week. I have no idea what he does with toothpaste. He wants to eat 20 Strepsils a day and will have a melt down if you say no have a lolly instead. I reckon he'd shove a tampon up his ass if he thought it would help his haemorrhoids.</p><p>07.56am Code Brown. Dad has come out into the hallway looking for Mum because she didn't hear him call her the first time. First thing Mum says is "come into the bathroom" (which is right there) and he snarls "no, go away, I'll do it myself!" because his brain has interpreted Mum asking him to come into the one room actually equipped to help in this situation as an insult and is raging about it.</p><p>08.45am Dad is about to go for his morning walk, Mum checks what he has in his pockets and in the basket of his walker to prevent him taking anything he doesn't need as he tends to lose everything. He had his wallet, which Mum asks him to put back in his bedside drawer. A battle ensues because Dad is absolutely adamant he will take his wallet and Mum repeatedly reminds him that there is nowhere to spend any money and he doesn't need to take his wallet. I can hear him repeatedly screaming at her "give me my fucken cash!" Which is what you should imagine every time I tell you there is an argument in the house. On top of this, Mum is trying to get Dad to put his coins in the zippered coin compartment of his wallet instead of loose where it falls out everywhere and this too is earning her considerable resistance. He has lost the ten dollar note Mum left in his wallet when she cleaned it out of things he should not lose (like his credit card, pension card, and everything important or identifying)</p><p>During the time that Dad goes for his walk, we have some peace and quiet, though no one actually ever has enough time to unwind from the chronic hostility in which we live.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqX7zKzLxX8QJuYnxrl8Q6CLRxsHor6SC9e0piH8RoWzEt9fUMHSFb7KmkOLfiPdS7CX8dzH_NvOU_W9icONOOxslLKh7VFUEMPZwCqTXV8o1aNvALYW0l4U8mW6XxWbwPo0sP6fhxWFU/s2048/D12434F8-8D26-4C7B-BB36-0C617B004132.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="lost and found" border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="2048" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqX7zKzLxX8QJuYnxrl8Q6CLRxsHor6SC9e0piH8RoWzEt9fUMHSFb7KmkOLfiPdS7CX8dzH_NvOU_W9icONOOxslLKh7VFUEMPZwCqTXV8o1aNvALYW0l4U8mW6XxWbwPo0sP6fhxWFU/w400-h400/D12434F8-8D26-4C7B-BB36-0C617B004132.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p>10.30am Dad has lost the fabric cover he stores his sunglasses in. Its not valuable in the grand scheme of things but he obsesses over it the way he does anything that he loses. During the search we discover he has also lost a pair of eyeglasses and that is more concerning. Dad is demanding we look in the car. He hasn't been in the car since last Thursday when he was taken to dementia day care. The glasses have only been missing since breakfast so Mum doesn't want to waste time looking where they can't be. Dad is not capable of having this explained to him. Lots of shouting and dummy spits about this. </p><p>11.25am Dad has found the fabric sunglasses cover and throws it into the face of my Mum who is sitting having a cup of coffee at the dining table. I told him not to throw it at her, she didn't lose it, and asked him if he intends to use it or not. He puts his sunglasses in it. I try to have a word to Dad about how, considering how stressed he gets when he can't find something, he should appreciate Mum more when she tries to remind him how to prevent losing things instead of abusing her. He tells me to fucking shut up.</p><p>11.58am Mum found Dad's missing eyeglasses in their wardrobe. He tells her she lost them and snarls "give them to me" </p><p>12.00 Lunch time. Dad wants takeaway. That's not going to happen. During a sour, terse lunch time Dad repeatedly harasses Mum for information as to "what time are we leaving?" even though no one is going anywhere today. He insists that they are going out. After every time Mum explains that we are staying home and doing housework today he asks again "when are you going to be ready to go?" He also insists Mum take him to our old house, that they sold over 30 years ago because he thinks he still owns it, or that Mum sold it out from under him and he has to go and speak to the people who live there to "ask them some questions" Terrific!</p><p>13.30ish Mum is making some loud noises around the fireplace as she moves things to sweep and I am vacuuming. Dad snarls "what the bloody hell are you doing now?" because he appears to be angry that we are mucking around instead of taking him out. This evolves into Dad thinking he should be attending his dementia day care today (he doesn't call it that, as he doesn't really know that he has dementia) he just calls it Ella's House or "the place I go to.... with the other people" We explain that the group only runs on Thursday and today is not Thursday. He screams at Mum that she has to take him there so he can put in his apologies (for not being there) and we try to calmly explain that he has nothing to apologise for and that no one is expecting him there today. Dad screams "that's what you reckon" and a few other things about us being bullshit.</p><p>14.05pm Mum has entered her bedroom to find paperwork scattered all over the bed. Dad has been searching for proof that he stills owns the old house. Which is impossible to find since it does not exist. This is upsetting for Mum because she has to take it all off the bed and try to put it into order and pray nothing has been lost or thrown out by Dad. </p><p>This seems like the point in which I need to tell you that it simply is not possible for us to hide everything we can't let Dad use or lose, there is nowhere left to hide anything. I have his car key in my box of medications in my bedroom. He lost his house keys. Mum and I hide our house keys. We hide the matches. We hide the paperwork from My Aged Care and the applications for nursing homes. We hide Dad's hearing aid batteries because if he knew where they are he would change the batteries five times in one afternoon. But that's it we simply cannot hide everything. </p><p>15.00pm Afternoon tea time, Dad likes biscuits or chocolate. Unfortunately he has to be watched like a hawk as he does get caught feeding the dog. He is caught trying to slip chocolate to the dog, when Mum asks him "are you trying to kill the dog?" he snarls "I will kill the dog if you don't sit down" (since she is sitting I think he means shut the fuck up, which is his typical response)</p><p>I take the dog for a walk at this point.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqARbiHI0MgyMHzv6fRAcbptOZ0JYF9gGeo745L7F5wyAAv6_-PJGtj5pGlKrivSgzIpf5xmJ0BV1pbQrg4m88iCr5GrUfsOgNFA0kT-F3Tp2JLzIa4NHl2CF2V9mrqVmye2QuQLHHTxk/s2048/52C6FFC0-A662-4635-8AA3-34F83B559870.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="my dog Captain" border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqARbiHI0MgyMHzv6fRAcbptOZ0JYF9gGeo745L7F5wyAAv6_-PJGtj5pGlKrivSgzIpf5xmJ0BV1pbQrg4m88iCr5GrUfsOgNFA0kT-F3Tp2JLzIa4NHl2CF2V9mrqVmye2QuQLHHTxk/w300-h400/52C6FFC0-A662-4635-8AA3-34F83B559870.png" width="300" /></a></div><br /><p>16.15pm Dad has had a shower and now he wants his shirt wrist button fastened for him. I try but let him know that I can't do it and that I will only do it if he removes his sweat bands. Mum comes over because she says she can do it. I stand back and wait for her to realise that she can't do it because this time he has 3 sweat bands on one wrist, plus the watch. I have no idea where this madness came from, in my entire life he never even owned a sweatband but now he is totally obsessed with them. During this effort Mum realises Dad can't hear, and we think Dad has worn his hearing aids in the shower again, so he won't be able to communicate with us until they are fully dry (that might be tomorrow morning) Dad insists that he needs new batteries in the hearing aids but that won't do a damn thing for a wet hearing aid. Lots of screaming is going on right now.</p><p>Another code brown, right when Mum is busy cooking dinner and I can't help Dad with this matter. I think the sad thing is that Dad calls Mum because he needs her, and she comes because she wants to help him, but the whole time he fights her and is hostile. Mum used to have a partner but now she just has the world's nastiest toddler. That must be terribly lonely for her. </p><p>17.30pm While Mum and I are busy cleaning the kitchen and washing dishes Dad has gone to change into his pjs. Unfortunately Mum will discover that he has changed out of his adult diaper and put his underwear inside the new diaper instead of on the outside of it. There are also clean clothes everywhere that Mum has to put back where they came from before she can even sit on the bed or get changed herself. </p><p>Dad sits in the front lounge room to read, and then asks Mum why she isn't sitting next to him. She is sitting in the family room where my parents have sat side by side for over 30 years, he has taken to sitting somewhere else and then wonders why he is alone. As an interesting side note, Dad is reading a massive book by Ken Follett, for the third consecutive time. He doesn't know. This might be the most cost effective part of caring for Dad.</p><p>18.00 We are entering the sundowning stage of the day now, where once we all began to unwind and relax for a few hours prior to going to bed this is now the worst time of day because the screaming and stress that goes on now makes it harder and harder to be physically and mentally relaxed enough to sleep even though we are exhausted from pretty much non stop fighting all day.</p><p>I spend my evenings in my own room, watching Netflix, or reading, and typically just when I think, all is quiet, it erupts into complete madness. I'll hear screaming, banging, often I'll hear the front door being unlocked and Mum going out to the garage all because Dad has realised he has lost something and has to have it right that moment. It is never anything he has to have right at that moment. It is not something that anyone needs in order to have a good night's sleep, it's nothing that will be needed first thing in the morning. It is nothing that is worth upsetting and reversing what little relaxation we had managed to begin to achieve but it is fireworks and anger until the whole premises has been tipped upside down for in a futile effort to find a trivial thing and everyone is pissed off with each other and I sit in my room comforting my dog who is also stressed by the yelling, and I begin to understand why elderly couples commit murder suicide. I don't think that will happen here, but I begin to see how it happens.</p><p>20.15pm I can hear screaming about toothpicks. We have this argument a lot. It goes nuclear every time. Dad wants toothpicks for his teeth. We had to ban toothpicks in this house because he drops them all the time without even knowing it and the dog got 6 in one month. Fortunately not in his intestines. But I would find them chewed up on the dog bed, or on the floor of my bedroom, or in my office and there is only one person who uses toothpicks. They have all come from Dad. When we first stopped buying toothpicks Dad went through a terrible stage of sneaking out to the garage to use sandpaper on his teeth (including his expensive false teeth) so that every time he said he wanted to go out to the garage we had to ask him why, and he got very angry because he knew we were trying to prevent him from sandpapering his teeth. Aren't we horrible? Mum tried to supervise him using a toothpick, but he kept on hiding the used one in his glasses case instead of giving it back to her to dispose of. Then it turns out Mum can't even buy the type of toothpicks he likes now and we have tried to explain that for environmental reasons a lot of products just aren't profitable for companies anymore and that's why we can't find them and buy them for him. He does not believe this, and keeps on insisting he walk to the shops to buy some (he is not capable of walking that far and we'd never let him) but Mum did take him with her to the shop one day and asked for the toothpicks and he was standing right there when they told him they don't sell them anymore. Same with most shops. Dad now is fixated on whittling a match into a toothpick and is very angry about the fact that he cannot find the matches, which of course are hidden for safety reasons. But this is a fight nearly every day.</p><p>I wait it out in my room. Until eventually I think, now I can pop my night medication and begin the final stages of getting ready for bed. I've waited an hour for my Dad to finish in the bathroom so I can brush my teeth and I go in there and my brand new toothbrush is gone. I keep my toothbrush in a cup under the sink in the cupboard because I kept catching dad using my toothbrush and my nice new toothbrush is gone. Then I see its been jammed into one of the holes in my parent's toothbrush holder jammed in with another toothbrush and cannot be removed, we are probably going to break this thing trying to get the brushes out, not that I want to ever use my toothbrush again now. I sigh and take out another new toothbrush out of the packet I only just bought. After I finish cleaning my teeth I go to wash my face and find my Sukin sensitive cleansing lotion is empty and I can't even take care of my skin at the end of a horrible day. I sigh and pack up all my things from the counter top of the bathroom and take them into my room. I dump them into a toiletries bag knowing from now on I'll be carrying a travel bag into my own bathroom like a tourist in my own home because of a man who has hurt me more than any person in my entire life who thanks me for caring about him and preventing him from coming to harm by screaming abuse at me every day of my life.</p><p>We have gone an entire day under great duress without any thank you's, or I love you's, or apologies, or any kind words. And we'll do the same tomorrow. </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Starryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02206613832444557494noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2681801319225247597.post-89649559965911260702021-06-23T20:36:00.001-07:002021-06-24T21:41:47.597-07:00there is no escape<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJGGGsmKemtg1Gxx6wvFgB0Th4F2evzTf6M4dQielIUdYRQjaGtxPcd0DxWluTuVLfi3NQaowSqSdkuQQUUBi17TOVN3WuGFiwI-EAAK7PjsRWJR7MJeVpL-140eciPtSWpqWGrS_e-M8/s1080/BA36A481-AC2F-44E1-ADCB-5CCFA242926B.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="image of a labyrinth with the exits closed off, one by dementia, one by narcissism" border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJGGGsmKemtg1Gxx6wvFgB0Th4F2evzTf6M4dQielIUdYRQjaGtxPcd0DxWluTuVLfi3NQaowSqSdkuQQUUBi17TOVN3WuGFiwI-EAAK7PjsRWJR7MJeVpL-140eciPtSWpqWGrS_e-M8/w400-h400/BA36A481-AC2F-44E1-ADCB-5CCFA242926B.png" title="there is no escape" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>In a previous post, "<a href="https://strangenest.blogspot.com/2020/05/invisible-friends-imaginary-enemies.html" target="_blank">Invisible Friends, Imaginary Enemies</a>" I wrote about what it is like to care for a relative (in this case, my father) who has both narcissism and dementia, a situation in which not only is the carer never truly seen by the outside world, but the person they are caring for can't see them as a friend only as an enemy. It is devastating and being any kind of carer for anyone is already incredibly fatiguing, challenging beyond belief, and difficult to get any kind of respite, and news flash: most carers are dying for some kind of relief... but lately I have felt, more than ever, that there is no escape.</p><p>I feel like I'm in a labyrinth with the exits sealed off, one by dementia, and one by narcissism and I'm never getting out of here. </p><p>Every single person feeds the narcissist and not one person ever feeds the carer. Not only are we starving, but when people pander to a narcissist they ultimately make the narcissist's personality and the conditions surrounding them so much worse, for everyone. Because it has to be said:</p><blockquote><p><span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="font-size: medium;">You cannot feed a narcissist, because you cannot fill a narcissist. They are a bottomless pit. A sink hole of humanity. A parasite. Engorged by glory, they expect more glory. More of everything they want. Without consideration for anyone else. Without appreciation for anyone else. Without reciprocation. Without pause</span>.</span></p></blockquote><p>Even aged care, dementia, and medical professionals pander to this man. No one has formally explained to my father that he has dementia. Let's think about that one for a moment.... most people with dementia, are given their diagnosis, yes it is distressing, (and sometimes they might even forget it temporarily) but over all, what happens is - they are given time to prepare. They lean on their family, they allow a spouse or family member to cover for them when they forget what day it is, or an important birthday, or can't remember where the car is parked. They trust their family to help them when they are confused or frightened - yes eventually the cruelty of this disease (or condition) is that they will eventually find little comfort even in their family, their panic and confusion escalates, but at least in the beginning, they were aware that something was happening, and that they could harness their family and friends to face this responsibly.</p><p>Even when my father is assessed for dementia, and the progression of his dementia, he is told "you did so well!" he emerges dripping with praise - now its well meaning, I grant you, it is said to make the person feel better after being probed, quizzed, and asked to jump through mental hoops, I get that - but all he remembers is that he did well.... he uses it as proof there is nothing wrong with him. </p><p>NO ONE HAS TOLD HIM and we, his family are copping the brunt of it all. I am the only person who attempts to explain to him, and my mother rushes in, tells me to be quiet and then gives Dad whatever the hell he wants. And he's not so far gone that he hasn't learned that temper tantrums get rewarded because he at least has the savvy of a two year old.</p><p>He does not understand why he cannot have the house keys anymore. He doesn't understand why he is not legally allowed to drive. He doesn't know he doesn't still own a house he sold over 30 years ago and accuses my mother of selling it out from under him and taking all the money. He doesn't remember his sons, even in photographs from the past, because his particular brand of dementia is not making him an expert on every tiny detail of the past, it is destroying his brain and his entire mental capacity across time - his memories of the past are not even correct. He tells me he likes my sister better than me and I don't even have a fucking sister (its not however news to me that he doesn't like me)</p><p>And yippee, in the middle of this we get approved for an entire day of dementia day care for Dad once a week. Please make sure you read yippee in my most drippingly sarcastic voice because this is what we needed for Dad two years ago, and now my greatest fear is that this one day of "relief" a week will simply allow my mother to keep us all living in this untenable situation for even longer. Because the one day a week does nothing to improve our daily home life - it does not give us superhuman strength to fully supervise my father like a toddler holding a button battery needs to be supervised. It does not keep any of us safe, de-stressed, or lessen in any way the relentless screaming and fighting in this household. It does, however, increase it. So thanks for that people. That's fucking awesome.</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu79lIatl2F5kjLcXrHkffQFiJ7EWGG2oySWxkJEZ2l10_YM9IwWx_deCnDXHnl_kJHxua2yfUfs72Gn86qe_jr-hv90AwN1AMqAfOk3SydxxWvq7Qzm7LqGF0FBb_-5s7zhcpdq1ktRE/s1080/6FC86988-F8FE-4681-BE4B-650D3B0C2991.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="yes I will look a gift horse in the mouth, have you seen how dirty the teeth are?" border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu79lIatl2F5kjLcXrHkffQFiJ7EWGG2oySWxkJEZ2l10_YM9IwWx_deCnDXHnl_kJHxua2yfUfs72Gn86qe_jr-hv90AwN1AMqAfOk3SydxxWvq7Qzm7LqGF0FBb_-5s7zhcpdq1ktRE/w400-h400/6FC86988-F8FE-4681-BE4B-650D3B0C2991.png" title="looking a gift horse in the mouth" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p>In order to get our day of "relief" we have to fight with Dad every day for a week because he does not remember the days of the week anymore and cannot believe us that it is not Thursday yet. In fact Dad has some theories about the calendar being changed and that weekends never come anymore, and that he liked the way the calendar used to be. And because he is a narcissist, the thing is, if he doesn't know what day of the week it is, we sure as shit don't know either. Because we are lesser. </p><p>Then on Thursday mornings we have to search dad for "show off materials" because the only way he knows how to socialise is to show off all his accomplishments (as an artist and before that as a competitive cyclist) with photo albums, books, scrapbooks, certificates and all kinds of vintage papers that we have been asked not to allow him to bring because this is just a day where people socialise as naturally as possible. Which is completely unnatural to a narcissist. And we have nuclear tantrums over this every week. </p><p>At the end of a very long day, really too long for my father, we bring home an over tired, cranky old man and have trouble getting through the necessary end of day activities made even harder by the fact that any time my father leaves this house, upon return we can have 2-3 hours of screaming about things he has lost and that are in the car. That are not in the car. Because they are on the table right in front of all of our very eyes. Usually it is his eye glasses. He has one pair of sunglasses, two current prescription sets of glasses, and one old prescription set of glasses. And you can lay all the glasses cases out in front of him, with a pair of glasses in each and he swears black and blue they are not there they are in the car and we have to let him search the car for things that cannot possibly be there... because they are here but he cannot believe us and he cannot let go of the idea that he has to search the car. Even if we let him futilely search the car multiple times. And then it arcs up again right before bed when we all should be relaxing and getting ready for some sleep.</p><p>And that brings me to my next point... I don't even have the escape of sleep anymore. It takes hours to get to sleep. It takes Dad about 2 hours from when he says goodnight to when he stops yelling and fighting and faffing about. I need a couple of hours to unwind. Then if I do achieve sleep, Dad comes into my room in the middle of the night saying things like "there is someone at the front door" followed by "I guess she is staying out all night" (meaning my sister, who doesn't exist... but might possibly be a memory of me... because I have a theory that he thinks bout the relationship he used to have with me before he was my childhood abuser and our relationship was altered forever) but he worries incessantly about someone not being here who should be here, and opens all the doors and turns on all the lights and I just need some fucking sleep.</p><p>I also used to escape by taking my dog for a walk, but even that escape has been taken from me.... and this is how narcissism is a tricky devil. My Dad, who still goes for walks in the neighbourhood on his own (I personally don't approve of this at all, but Mum lets him) anyway.... he tells everyone he meets about me and my dog, Captain, so now all the people in the neighbourhood who used to be my friends, and part of my escape.... first thing they ever do now is ask me "how's your Dad?" I JUST WANT TO GET AWAY FROM HIM AND ALL THOUGHTS OF HIM is that too much to ask? But all the people have to tell me in great detail how concerned they are about him when they see him walking, because he struggles so hard with his mobility, he is so slow, he is oblivious, he can't hear traffic or people calling out to him, he walks in the rain, he walks in the cold, he walks in the heat wave of summer, he walks on the road if there is no foot path and sometimes, worst of all, he walks without his walker and then tells concerned people that his wife has the walker (a. she doesn't need a walker b. he has two walkers) and then he wonders how I could possibly know any of this about him... because he doesn't realise telling every single person in the entire neighbourhood identifiable things about myself and my dog is the reason everyone knows exactly who to come to with their worries about him. And when is the last time he ever thanked me for being concerned bout him? Twelfth of Never. That's when. </p><p>And I forgot to mention that the day of "respite" actually cost us another essential service we use - transport. Because Dad got assessed at a higher level, my parents now have lost their transport service because that provider can only cater to entry level care and so even though mum is entry level, dad is now higher and they can't have access to subsidised transport with their original provider AND NO REPLACEMENT has been offered. And we can't cancel the daycare because its under contract and although my parents do not pay a cent for the daycare, they would have to pay to cancel the contract. And the only way we are getting out of this is to put Dad in a home, which is what I want, and what we all need, and is probably never going to happen. </p><p>And that is how you get a pressure cooker of a care situation. And since I'm venting, please, don't expect me to magically resolve this for everyone right here and now. I feel like am trapped and have no escape and I am not ending this post on a positive note. I just am not. I'm too lost and broken to do anything but lay it out for you. Caring for someone with dementia is hard. Caring for someone with dementia and narcissism is full nuclear and should not be attempted in your own home. And people in the dementia and aged care fields need special training to identify dementia patients who have narcissism so that they can respond appropriately to the patient and their family. That's it. That's the post.</p><p>If I'm still here next week instead of rotting in an insane asylum I will try and write a new post. With humour. </p>Starryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02206613832444557494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2681801319225247597.post-11676667893263128922021-06-16T18:13:00.000-07:002021-06-16T18:13:21.251-07:00the lunatic waving a bag of poo<p> I think I need to talk about the day that I had yesterday. It was a day of frustrations, disappointments, extreme stress, a fleeting moment of extraordinary good cheer, and then earth shattering awkwardness. Are you ready?... let's delve.</p><p>I woke up much earlier than I was ready for, in the dark, and the chilly winter morn, to walk my dog. When I got home I had to bring in the day's firewood, which I dropped on my bare foot. Don't worry it only tickled. Of course it didn't, it hurt like blazes. For goodness sake!</p><p>It was Wednesday so that meant it was grocery day, and it was very people-y out there and I Eleven-Out-of-Ten do not recommend. After completing my shop with the speed and efficiency of a well oiled machine, I sat in the car for over an hour waiting for my mother to finish her shop. Then we staggered home to COVID clean our groceries and fall on some muffins to save our lives. The muffins were okay-ish.</p><p>Now get ready, if you are one of my overseas readers, I am about to shatter some of the illusions you have about living in Australia. </p><p>What people imagine my life in Australia is like:</p><p>I live on a massive property, the kind it takes a day to drive across, and there are kangaroos hopping around everywhere, and I have Koala Butlers, and we eat wattle seed ice cream melting over lamingtons and shout out Coo-eee! to help lost people find their way to safety. Then we all go swimming at Bondi Beach and play cricket and call in sick from work the next day even though we're just hung over. And when we prank call people we say "G-day mate!"</p><p>What my life in Australia is actually like:</p><p>Sometimes a kangaroo swims across the river and gets lost in my suburb and panic hops at high speeds into culdesacs and frightens the living shit out of my dog who tears my arm out of the socket as we run away. A patron of the drug dealer across the road drove their car into my house, I was inhospitable (I didn't crack open a cold one and wait for the police, I screamed "I am going to fucking kill you!") I hate cricket. And football. And my house is so close to my neighbour's patio that when I'm in my toilet yelling at my family to bring me some toilet paper, I can hear him laughing.</p><p>Which is to say, yesterday I had to repeatedly yell out for someone to please, for the love of God, bring me some fucking toilet paper. I really fantasised hard about having a butler koala at that time.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPnqUO3bR8cKRA-orlYaS7Oxmg_OkMoIv95qQkZIMr_Fnf1pWiEE5JPZPWCWJs88hwIcAO56kkmCdSSkuMv45yFcpX-8zo1N1U69_dfIFazEEXfoVfdcxf0DQom4CkvsemHjQr8jaABhI/s1080/B9387AB3-7161-49A9-B31D-70D0E61D0247.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="my fantasy Koala Butler" border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPnqUO3bR8cKRA-orlYaS7Oxmg_OkMoIv95qQkZIMr_Fnf1pWiEE5JPZPWCWJs88hwIcAO56kkmCdSSkuMv45yFcpX-8zo1N1U69_dfIFazEEXfoVfdcxf0DQom4CkvsemHjQr8jaABhI/w400-h400/B9387AB3-7161-49A9-B31D-70D0E61D0247.png" title="Koala Butler" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><br /><p>But to shatter another of your Aussie illusions... koalas are fucking lazy bastards. They sleep nearly all the time because they have barely adequate nutrition from eating only eucalyptus leaves and when they are awake they are mostly disagreeable, grumpy bastards. But we deserve it because we are destroying their habitat. Sorry about that. You have to know actual Australian people care very deeply about this, we just have really shitty government.</p><p>But still, I couldn't let go of the idea of a Butler Koala. </p><p>Until my Dad wore his $8000 hearing aids in the shower. That was the cause of the extreme stress mentioned in the intro of this post. I can't even talk about this - which is really telling because I never shut up about anything. This was really unbelievably bad.</p><p>Then I took my dog for his afternoon walk, and was absolutely cheered to see my niece's husband driving the van used to drop off elderly clients after a social day, he was waving, and I had one hand bound in several loops of dog lead, and the other hand was carrying something. Okay it was dog poo. I waved a bag of dog poo with a massive smile on my face.</p><p>After dinner I messaged my niece's husband and said "you're not really my friend until I've waved a bag of dog poo at you" </p><p>A couple of hours later I was messaged by my niece (not his wife, my other niece, who works with him) and she said "I waved at you today, but I don't think you knew who it was, based on the way you were waving"</p><p>WHAT THE FUCK!!! </p><p>The van has tinted windows, and I had dark sunglasses on, and I have shitty vision, and I thought I was waving at Stuart and I was actually waving at Amber, and to make things worse, although they work together, Stuart was not even in the van.</p><p>So... the first private message I sent Stuart in two years, (the last one was welcoming him into the family the night before his wedding) and that came in after... well... my niece and he might be (but probably are) separating was to say "you're not really my friend until I've waved a bag of dog poo at you" AND I HADN'T WAVED A BAG OF DOG POO AT HIM sounds like goodbye, you weren't even thought highly enough to have me wave a bag of excrement at you. Which is not the truth Stuart. I promise.</p><p>The one thing that cheered me up about this whole craptastrophe (crap catastrophe) is thinking Amber would have seen me when she was driving the van and said, "Hey, there's my Aun- [sees me waving a bag of poo] never mind, I don't know that person"</p><p>Amber tells me she totally would have still claimed me as her own, even waving a bag of dog poo at a van of senior citizens, and I believe her.</p><p>Because we are truly kindreds.</p><p>And Stuart is a mighty calm man, because when I did send him that, unfortunate message, his reply was not "what the heck are you talking about?" it was "I didn't notice" like he totally had seen me, just hadn't seen the poo. What a champ. </p><p>And I am sitting here feeling a lot of love right now, for everyone in this story (except the druggie who drove into my house) and that is why talking about this stuff helps. Thanks for listening. Or reading. You know what I mean. </p><p>So how was your day?</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Starryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02206613832444557494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2681801319225247597.post-28850185499472403342021-04-23T01:08:00.000-07:002021-04-23T01:08:58.806-07:00Along came a spider<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgyhCKZXToJ47uW9Lo0IhbhiYxaHjdItV6R4wux6fFIOZu7TjHI0sHwwhXnr7BkzEth1KJyrOahVM9oCYmwXeFRUTmu4SiT8jKHuS_CUnxzJpDaqg2u789tyZ9Fs-UZ8kuJebleNZNlzU/s2048/0059156C-B6B4-4F7C-A4A2-BE4997DCA8DE.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Roy Orbison the Spider, a female banded orb weaving spider in Western Australia" border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="2048" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgyhCKZXToJ47uW9Lo0IhbhiYxaHjdItV6R4wux6fFIOZu7TjHI0sHwwhXnr7BkzEth1KJyrOahVM9oCYmwXeFRUTmu4SiT8jKHuS_CUnxzJpDaqg2u789tyZ9Fs-UZ8kuJebleNZNlzU/w400-h400/0059156C-B6B4-4F7C-A4A2-BE4997DCA8DE.jpeg" title="the first photograph I took, on New Year's Eve 2020" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>On a hot summer afternoon, New Year's Eve 2020 to be precise, I discovered a spider in the middle of one of my lavender bushes, which was a trifle alarming as I was sticking my hand in to remove fallen, dead branch from the tree overhead. At that point in time I had little interest in spiders but thinking I might never see this one again (I've never seen one like it in my garden before) I ran inside for my phone and snapped a photo of it before it disappeared. This blog post is the journey of how "it" became "her" and then an absolutely revered poster child and the highlight of my day, every day. Its inconceivable how much this spider came to mean to me but with life caring for my dementia suffering father at home being so stressful, both my mother and I became obsessed with our little garden pet who was there, faithfully, unfailingly in any weather, day or night. She gave us a very great gift, an escape, and it became impossible for us to walk past without checking what she was doing, in short she was like having a television in the back yard - we watched every episode of her show, and here are the highlights, just for you...</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFghus1Lt-Wvhvl6XPBJ78PCWumG_vxaYPIuqwBFa2s6568mpq6i_-Pv8qviDQfWlMFNNHmBVZfRJWUugYnJqH1jqPbigbLnryW17_iA8XWGKBBb0dwMYkRb3YQNfWutKu2N5hyKB4lyw/s2048/FFB46F21-2329-4A20-BDEB-432B1D11B082.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Australian banded orb spider with zig zag web" border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFghus1Lt-Wvhvl6XPBJ78PCWumG_vxaYPIuqwBFa2s6568mpq6i_-Pv8qviDQfWlMFNNHmBVZfRJWUugYnJqH1jqPbigbLnryW17_iA8XWGKBBb0dwMYkRb3YQNfWutKu2N5hyKB4lyw/w400-h300/FFB46F21-2329-4A20-BDEB-432B1D11B082.png" title="Roy Orbison the Spider, with web" width="400" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>It was exciting to me that every time I looked, right there, in the same place in the web, my spider was there, after two weeks I felt safe to give it a name, as an orb spider I decided to name it Roy Orbison, I did this before I even knew that Roy was a female, but the name stuck. So love it or hate it, my spider is Roy Orbison The Spider. Basically as soon as I posted the name announcement I decided to try and find out if Roy was male or female, so I googled, as you do, and stumbled into some fascinating but also horrifying information that I jokingly refer to as Violent Spider Erotica, which I will briefly recap, but you can read the highly entertaining account from Southern Forest Life <a href="https://southernforestlife.net/happenings/2017/7/25/orb-weaver-spider-mating-a-dangerous-business" target="_blank">here</a>. I felt like I needed a stiff drink after I read it. <div><br /></div><div>Basically I became certain that Roy was female and I was prepared to look for smaller spiders around the edge of the web that may be males, and I learned that should they attempt to mate they were certainly taking their life in their hands, and if they survived it might be at the cost of some of their eight limbs. In fact those poor little virgin spiders are probably the only boys to have all their legs. The detailed description of the spider copulation had me amused and horrified but I tell you, as someone who has no interest in being courted, Roy became my poster girl. LOVE YOU ROY!</div><div><br /></div><div>I also learned that Roy was not a Golden Orb Spider but a Banded Orb Spider - which to my eye, have the more interesting markings. Both the photos I've shown so far are of her underside - the most photographed side because the markings are so very interesting, and I could get closer and clearer images than from the other side. The image below shows her top side, and Roy was consuming a tasty snack of cricket, which was a very exciting day for us, it prompted another google search and I learned that she has no teeth but will suck the moisture out of her prey and then discard the shell - this took her about 20 hours and as a proud mama I took lots of photo, and some video.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR8cObtMaK4yJWEbv-9MCm6osFn_tT2Ruvmv4IohsUT2C-yeuP9Ue9KDbfJiMUMqa-YOpRMwOfb75deAbs_Wo1jJYtgFXafRuXEYnULk275dOBibZFuoRuwtPvQCFGHfiC3C_vON8Z-do/s1482/58B57591-14F6-49BF-BCA9-C719FD4266CE.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Roy Orbison the Spider, top side view, banded orb spider" border="0" data-original-height="1482" data-original-width="1482" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR8cObtMaK4yJWEbv-9MCm6osFn_tT2Ruvmv4IohsUT2C-yeuP9Ue9KDbfJiMUMqa-YOpRMwOfb75deAbs_Wo1jJYtgFXafRuXEYnULk275dOBibZFuoRuwtPvQCFGHfiC3C_vON8Z-do/w400-h400/58B57591-14F6-49BF-BCA9-C719FD4266CE.jpeg" title="Roby Orbison the Spider, top side" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div>However, I've gotten ahead of myself sharing that image - that happened after what we call The Regrettable Incident. You see, as much as we loved looking at Roy, for a long time she really didn't appear to do anything. There were never any males hanging around the outside of the web, there was never sign of prey in the web, the web and her position in the web remained so very "same". Even the position of her legs was perfectly the same. She faced the same way every day. Still it wasn't until we had several days of extreme stormy weather, bucketing rain, thunder, lightning, severe winds and she just sat there in the open the whole time. Before the storm I had mentioned to mum a few times that I thought she might be dead. That she never took shelter in the storm made us sure she was dead. Still we just kept on saying "Good morning Roy" cheerfully every day, ignoring our growing sinking feeling that she was certainly no longer one of the living. </div><div><br /></div><div>One day I decided to lightly toss a little Chinese Tallow tree seed pod into the web to see if she would move. Nothing. I tossed another and accidentally hit her. Nothing. I thought she was dead. Another day I got a stick and poked it towards her in the web. Nothing. No reaction. I then video taped putting a twig near her front leg. Nothing. I posted the video on Facebook and can famously be heard saying "damn, Roy, you're dead"</div><div><br /></div><div>Mum and I were very disappointed about it, but that sinking feeling had been with us for many days, I felt it was time to face reality. That's why the <b>Regrettable Incident </b>occurred. I got the pooper scooper and put it into her web to retrieve her body, I thought I could take a few close up photos and then maybe dispose of her. Well fuck me! She bloody fell into the bush, where I couldn't see her. I wasn't sure but I thought maybe her leg had moved as the blue plastic shovel touched her for the first time, but it was possible that moving the web made her appear to move, I mean the shovel was fairly trashing the web. But I went inside and told mum that I lost Roy in the bush and we moped a little bit.</div><div><br /></div><div>In just three hours, I walked past that bush to find Roy building her web again. I ran to the dining room window and shouted "Roy Orbison is alive!" (which might be disturbing to my neighbours, but they probably already think I'm crazy anyway) and Mum jumped up and came straight away to watch as Roy Orbison The Spider spun her web again from scratch, in exactly the same place. We were overjoyed. Really, almost to tears of joy. So relieved. Then I realised that I owed Roy a massive apology. I am shit. And to be honest, what I would have looked like the time I gently poked her with the twig, is like the episode of Friends when they thought ugly naked guy was dead....</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg48wtLKt5viczVOj4S-H-e_e3S28-NF-Lgu6Zkoi_w6Gh_zPFH3DPhCzKQcKmTuBR55FbGC-vk2BNVGmWxMBqASZ6VfeOts1_3UEbOaIeOw8HTGwi8c1wyGJcejtMghKJlPXurrLqfsnI/s512/A1F6970D-267B-4D33-9B3B-364F1BAE7846.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="366" data-original-width="512" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg48wtLKt5viczVOj4S-H-e_e3S28-NF-Lgu6Zkoi_w6Gh_zPFH3DPhCzKQcKmTuBR55FbGC-vk2BNVGmWxMBqASZ6VfeOts1_3UEbOaIeOw8HTGwi8c1wyGJcejtMghKJlPXurrLqfsnI/s320/A1F6970D-267B-4D33-9B3B-364F1BAE7846.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I swear I looked like this....</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><div>I can still feel what I felt that day, I was elated, just so, so happy to have more time with Roy. I also felt quite terrible about smashing up her web and probably stressing her out. With friends like me, who needs enemies! I was saying sorry to her all the time, and that triggered my next google search to know whether spiders can hear or not. I was glad to know that although they don't have ears, they seem to respond to sound, probably from vibrations. So I continued to apologise and say good morning every day. </div><div><br /></div><div>I tell you this though, life with Roy became a heck of a lot more interesting after the regrettable incident - she gave me daily Proof of Life, which was smart on her part because she knew what was coming for her when she died - a blue plastic children's sandpit shovel that serves as our pooper scooper. Who wants that when they die?</div><div><br /></div><div>After that, it seems like so many more fascinating things happened with Roy, which I also took as more than just her waving hello with one leg, and giving me the assurance I needed that she was still with me, but I felt that with her beginning to devour quite large snacks for days on end that she might be preparing for sex, babies, and maybe even actual death. Most female orb spiders will die in late Autumn after having babies and we were in summer. I documented everything she did because I knew time was ticking by. Roy was here for a good time, not a long time.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqfwbz5jqWjytd2NRhwVX46dLFspXFHD88PrEDFuQHnfpBPVkOK1EPsEREG0vI9RirMVqatlffNK11LqghlvEA7qsJ3cMqqTbArrOhPK94TLLgcpBbAU5BZOf5VsDosr1DXONCl3019lI/s1950/377A9D48-EC62-404A-A14C-38E492295544.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Banded orb spider, eating a cricket" border="0" data-original-height="1950" data-original-width="1950" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqfwbz5jqWjytd2NRhwVX46dLFspXFHD88PrEDFuQHnfpBPVkOK1EPsEREG0vI9RirMVqatlffNK11LqghlvEA7qsJ3cMqqTbArrOhPK94TLLgcpBbAU5BZOf5VsDosr1DXONCl3019lI/w400-h400/377A9D48-EC62-404A-A14C-38E492295544.jpeg" title="Roy Orbison with cricket prey" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div>Roy caught and consumed this cricket one Saturday morning as I cheered her on. And every time she did something I learned more and more. I was delighted to be able to see her pedipalps in this image (after checking what the heck they are called) more googling, lol. Actually when I googled "how to spiders eat" the first result google gave me was how to eat Roy because apparently she tastes like patè and I was horrified. That's not what I meant Google! </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXzioNNXqRlwD6D3FnDP3iC7FPA_YADTL8hhIOjL-luAQDW-IBO2dpkrm9emxgts5QJNjGAVg9J2VyxDNG_G7BYpkVRUe5ncBSNPV9uWJFT_dxtjJGXxPAehJOVEsUhHEF-SUpxvHDFls/s2048/B6DFE541-AED0-4581-ACDC-EED46B5FCD29.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Roy Orbison the Spider consumes more prey" border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="2048" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXzioNNXqRlwD6D3FnDP3iC7FPA_YADTL8hhIOjL-luAQDW-IBO2dpkrm9emxgts5QJNjGAVg9J2VyxDNG_G7BYpkVRUe5ncBSNPV9uWJFT_dxtjJGXxPAehJOVEsUhHEF-SUpxvHDFls/w400-h400/B6DFE541-AED0-4581-ACDC-EED46B5FCD29.jpeg" title="Banded Orb Weaver consuming prey" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Another snack, I was certain Roy was beginning to consume food almost like a bear preparing for hibernation - she needed energy for the big adventures before her - babies and death. I was excited but also aware that Roy wasn't going to be with us forever... so that's when I did a completely ridiculous and unnecessary thing... I designed a t-shirt with her on it.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfnsdeZdIZDprULczYkNzQHRfgSHIGJ__-hmqzsTwIBIalIOvfSWFa3rss7t_FowvWlsnXYrxrdad2c_wQgkkrPfE7aIJFDG447T3GTDtv2nboXYE28DHgsCW4f8besw1IfGzDKoG1-GA/s1000/E14DDA1C-D20B-46E6-8B9F-68167E8894DB.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Vote For Roy Orbison the Spider t-shirt" border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="750" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfnsdeZdIZDprULczYkNzQHRfgSHIGJ__-hmqzsTwIBIalIOvfSWFa3rss7t_FowvWlsnXYrxrdad2c_wQgkkrPfE7aIJFDG447T3GTDtv2nboXYE28DHgsCW4f8besw1IfGzDKoG1-GA/w300-h400/E14DDA1C-D20B-46E6-8B9F-68167E8894DB.jpeg" title="Starzyia Redbubble spider shirt" width="300" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I considered making a shirt that said "security by Roy Orbison the Spider" but we were having a state election and I couldn't resist the thought of wearing this shirt to the polling booth. I also had some stickers made with a white background. Vote for Roy Orbison The Spider!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_CVJRFAAwL617E1JAoDArr_MxnTBo_HDoSzX0tnqxDDsI3h0rsoZFePS4UxHYbhkENgyrRwIvo2X4-O7fdjZMjuQeorpU8Q_qRt5iV_NqHL1ZqCl3R_0ICsSGhfGUw6rUrNQZZblKkto/s2048/80D31858-FD60-4707-9A23-2A4E9A913AC0.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="the last photo I took of Roy Orbison the Spider" border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_CVJRFAAwL617E1JAoDArr_MxnTBo_HDoSzX0tnqxDDsI3h0rsoZFePS4UxHYbhkENgyrRwIvo2X4-O7fdjZMjuQeorpU8Q_qRt5iV_NqHL1ZqCl3R_0ICsSGhfGUw6rUrNQZZblKkto/w400-h300/80D31858-FD60-4707-9A23-2A4E9A913AC0.png" title="Roy Orbison the Spider, final photo" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">When I took the very first photograph of Roy, I didn't know it would be the first of many and when I took the photograph above, I didn't know it would be the last photograph I ever took of her... but turns out... it was.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">One morning I went outside and Roy was not there. The only time she was ever not in that web was the time I knocked her into the bush in an ill fated attempt to retrieve her body with a used pooper scooper. My heart sank. I examined the bush for any sign of her and here is what I found....</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibCQeTm_Lz0rDlC147sBhi0mSXBdq0VLMMfI5kx3p_ZEzQJj7tJWtaI7-fr_8Xa-FfRbP0HnUJeWHSILGp-dy9LnX8t9TBVaGW1r3Aj8J0IR9wnF6Hjpp2ZlOLq6Zmy6oEdamTyi0MT-w/s2048/F1155EBF-7EAE-4AD1-B008-43BBF48BCFC8.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Roy Orbison The Spider's egg sac" border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibCQeTm_Lz0rDlC147sBhi0mSXBdq0VLMMfI5kx3p_ZEzQJj7tJWtaI7-fr_8Xa-FfRbP0HnUJeWHSILGp-dy9LnX8t9TBVaGW1r3Aj8J0IR9wnF6Hjpp2ZlOLq6Zmy6oEdamTyi0MT-w/w400-h300/F1155EBF-7EAE-4AD1-B008-43BBF48BCFC8.jpeg" title="Banded Orb Weaver Spider egg sac" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div>something I thought, (to be honest) at least fifty percent resembled a bird shit, and the other fifty percent like a tiny green turtle. Another sprint to google confirmed that this indeed resembled known egg sacs of spiders of this kind, and we never saw Roy again. <div><br /></div><div>Genius that Roy is, she knew better than to leave me completely bereft by her sudden departure she left me her babies... which is not unusual her kind often fail to protect their egg sac and abscond or die after creating their first haven. I do think Roy probably died before I even found the egg sac, but certainly she will die this season if she has not already, and this is her eulogy.</div><div><br /></div><div>A eulogy for a spider, because she came into my life, took my mind of the absolute insanity of caring for a dementia patient in my home, and gave me a reason to learn about as well as document nature, and she made me feel totally okay about my anti-romance stance. For the rest of my life I may never have the relationship with a spider that I've enjoyed with Roy - they come and they go, you see them once and never see them again, or you do but you have no way of knowing its the same one. Some of them are dangerous, but I've learned that I can be this involved, this absorbed with a spider and not have nightmares... not once. </div><div><br /></div><div>And here are Roy's babies, life goes on, she has left me a legion of babies... some will perish, some may eat the others, some will float in the wind off to new homes, and maybe, just maybe one will make a home in the lavender bush, and the story will resume. Only time will tell. </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4X6o0mY19lZtbE28FiWSxzv8lWLVMKXRFSX-FS4tdNmot_j3tebEW1EC-o7ZCrsTILKAQNSuHO7T3qeC1j5YPCKFHWIit42JCYFrLRMiERhVrar_fTeoZravTFgNlFIhKdXctu_STNdU/s2048/8288708C-DF04-41D3-B779-0860D6B2B361.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="about the size of a blackberry this teeming mass is a legion of baby orb spiders" border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4X6o0mY19lZtbE28FiWSxzv8lWLVMKXRFSX-FS4tdNmot_j3tebEW1EC-o7ZCrsTILKAQNSuHO7T3qeC1j5YPCKFHWIit42JCYFrLRMiERhVrar_fTeoZravTFgNlFIhKdXctu_STNdU/w400-h300/8288708C-DF04-41D3-B779-0860D6B2B361.jpeg" title="Roy Orbison's babies, day one" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIerEsZEp-nd3IhV9Z8oD3KhaWhrG1mTP2kBkoUwdqc6PCIjqKa1HcTtEy-_-wDStkPf3fDTySJtNb-GVBRj5X8wH3wbAI7BfrRrC9w27SpwCAVdx_ZwONN4q0T2UuFotR6PDPvwg7qes/s2048/6E4C564C-C2A4-485C-855A-9D67739A95ED.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="the baby orb spiders disperse" border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="2048" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIerEsZEp-nd3IhV9Z8oD3KhaWhrG1mTP2kBkoUwdqc6PCIjqKa1HcTtEy-_-wDStkPf3fDTySJtNb-GVBRj5X8wH3wbAI7BfrRrC9w27SpwCAVdx_ZwONN4q0T2UuFotR6PDPvwg7qes/w400-h400/6E4C564C-C2A4-485C-855A-9D67739A95ED.jpeg" title="Roy Orbison's babies disperse" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifWm10XnUffw04_QuL206-JWXWQQsS7K-TkEqVB2UsYVSOPR69XLQyIyzl4yvPLiV05iw4_zt8VOP9WehWvaFa-1RZ5HfsA9L_0RBUMQKh7a7BQREpOMILXnLM-oCiA9ivg-YdZUUFTSw/s2048/43DD6492-2730-476B-8252-D370BAC4806A.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Roy's babies begin to explore the world" border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifWm10XnUffw04_QuL206-JWXWQQsS7K-TkEqVB2UsYVSOPR69XLQyIyzl4yvPLiV05iw4_zt8VOP9WehWvaFa-1RZ5HfsA9L_0RBUMQKh7a7BQREpOMILXnLM-oCiA9ivg-YdZUUFTSw/w400-h300/43DD6492-2730-476B-8252-D370BAC4806A.jpeg" title="Roy Orbison's babies day two" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div>Yesterday morning I found what looked like a blackberry in the web, but it is a teeming mass of baby orb spiders, if you look carefully you can see individual spiders with all their legs and stripes like their Mama. Today the blackberry is breaking up, the spiders disperse and begin to explore the world and its so exciting. I will have to be patient as once they disperse they are so tiny I'll never find them, but if, in time I find one or two have stayed in my garden, I will let you know. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div><br /><p><br /></p></div></div>Starryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02206613832444557494noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2681801319225247597.post-28294969093496948732020-12-31T19:36:00.000-08:002020-12-31T19:36:09.031-08:00countdown of moments I really lost my shit in 2020<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaWq3f6xsUAPN0eS4fc8QWExaSeve07ucXNXHUagAAg3V8hrBXaK6V9TOA6A0je_o6F4jjR_i9CsQf_AsEcYw9gASvij9gSz9IUmpiyw7SBRGGbxCb7MtntujkDF7rE0-4cJ77gsMoDy4/s1080/9055CC20-8F98-4FCA-B3E6-46A2A9B26627.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="sample motivational t-shirt by Starzyia" border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaWq3f6xsUAPN0eS4fc8QWExaSeve07ucXNXHUagAAg3V8hrBXaK6V9TOA6A0je_o6F4jjR_i9CsQf_AsEcYw9gASvij9gSz9IUmpiyw7SBRGGbxCb7MtntujkDF7rE0-4cJ77gsMoDy4/w400-h400/9055CC20-8F98-4FCA-B3E6-46A2A9B26627.png" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Ten years ago, I designed and printed for myself a t-shirt that was supposed to be highly motivational (to me) it read: Success or Institutionalisation by 2020" and here we are, coming out of a year in which many of us were in some way, for some time, driven absolutely bonkers and taken out of circulation under some kind of lockdown. And if I were to be dropped off, or picked up, to go into a mental institution, here are the 10 moments of 2020 that would be responsible for said occasion:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">1. When people physically brawled with each other to grab toilet paper. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">2. When I stumbled into some kind of juvenile grudge match with a feral couple and their two virtually rabid dogs while walking my dog. Said feral couple were walking towards my dog and I, and because they haven't trained their dogs (they've settled for simply holding onto the lead while they go absolutely insane with aggression) the man crossed the road with the two dogs and the woman walked passed me on my side of the road to wait at their car. Considering the absolute spectacle these two dogs were making, my dog was doing a beautiful job calmly walking on our side of the road, until we drew level with the rabid little bastards - he stopped. He stopped because if we kept going the dogs would be out of his sightline, behind him, and before he turned his back on two practically rabid dogs he wants to assess whether to do so is safe for him, and for me. I have a great partnership with my dog, so I allowed him this moment to stop. Feral Woman yelled out "KEEP WALKING!" to which I turned in amazement to say "what the fuck?" Lady I would like to keep walking, but your feral dogs are disrupting my nice, peaceful walk with my fully and beautifully trained dog, and you have no idea about pack behaviour - you out number us in dogs, in people, and with a large vehicle behind us, you represent an encircling threat and are the reason there is a problem. After a moment my dog is ready to go onwards, because he trusts me, and is a good boy. After walking on our way the couple drove past us, screamed out the window "learn some manners" and I yelled back "fuck you!" because I save my manners for people who aren't rude and ignorant in the first place. So they flipped me off out their car windows and I flipped them back. I mean, sheesh! Talk about clueless. I was livid. They've been rude to many other dog walkers in the neighbourhood and have a poor relationship with the general community of regulars, but have no idea the problem their dog handling skills pose.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">3. When the power went out and my Dad kept badgering me to check our electrical switches, both Mum and I repeatedly explained to him that we were not going to do that because the power was out in the whole street. After 30 minutes of bitter arguing I got my phone out and googled power outage in our neighbourhood and learned that a transformer had blown and 20,000 households were without power. To which he replied in all seriousness that we don't live in our neighbourhood. And I drank all the vodka. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz_oqGqQMK8pllN1WdBShtEg4GJee9lKEqe3vm6ddagEMZtX_NlT_kge24jXIFe7xLUiitTfKQVjhQuVgOd6lNFg2LkzBnjT_6ts2BOXKACTkFOjYXrWYEloDkmZD_dE4XaVuHfVPVCH4/s2048/B183DA85-E37B-44B7-B81F-07DCBBA4D3C6.heic" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz_oqGqQMK8pllN1WdBShtEg4GJee9lKEqe3vm6ddagEMZtX_NlT_kge24jXIFe7xLUiitTfKQVjhQuVgOd6lNFg2LkzBnjT_6ts2BOXKACTkFOjYXrWYEloDkmZD_dE4XaVuHfVPVCH4/s320/B183DA85-E37B-44B7-B81F-07DCBBA4D3C6.heic" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">4. When my Dad brought home a book he chose from the discount table outside the newsagent that was described as being about a hybrid-demon and a girl who is used to playing dirty and billed with the nausea inducing blurb "passion like this will scorch you to the very soul" And again two weeks later when he complained the book was rubbish. And again at least once a week for several months as he kept the book on our coffee table for reasons unknown.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">5. When I woke up in the middle of the night with an insane deathbed regret: I never won pass the parcel at a birthday party when I was a kid. Seriously this random thought had my heart pounding and seemed so important that I couldn't function, while the tiny unaffected part of me screamed "shut up, it doesn't matter, go to fucking sleep!"</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">6. When I accidentally ingested very, very expired whipped cream from a can during lockdown. It tasted a little piney but I kept eating. Then I thought, maybe don't eat this... and yeah it was months out of date. MONTHS. It was a long night, but not the worst night I ever had (food wise)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-py44Q-8RYHX0mL7hbTIelQoiWKRDoyC3Sw6lxEJq8N1mgpZRNg5mESRMzKPec87Yz-DlI3IkMjs6T1Ub8xOuX7tOtSoQRMHKnELR_ZNArAu61l_HgkQjZNObNO4uTCEyDuq_MqYGvlc/s1080/C9D0CE91-24DB-4055-9F83-86DBCA8C3B8B.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-py44Q-8RYHX0mL7hbTIelQoiWKRDoyC3Sw6lxEJq8N1mgpZRNg5mESRMzKPec87Yz-DlI3IkMjs6T1Ub8xOuX7tOtSoQRMHKnELR_ZNArAu61l_HgkQjZNObNO4uTCEyDuq_MqYGvlc/w400-h400/C9D0CE91-24DB-4055-9F83-86DBCA8C3B8B.png" title="pickles" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">7. Another crazy night time thought was when, out of the blue, in the middle of the night, I thought about how my sister in law doesn't like cucumbers. I've known this about her for years. But all of a sudden I sat bolt upright in bed saying "oh my God, does that mean she doesn't like pickles?" I mean I really, really love pickles and all of a sudden I was dying to know if she doesn't eat pickles. It was like an emergency, only about absolute shite. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">8. During this year I might also have developed the reputation as a bit of a sociopath in the consumer focus group I'm part of. When we were asked about how we prevent ourselves from getting stressed out from being busy I just flat out told them "I prevent becoming busy by telling people I'm busy, when I'm not, and then doing whatever the hell I want" I'm either a genius or a sociopath.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">9. Recently we have had to ban my Dad from having toothpicks (because he loses them all the time, he doesn't even notice they are on the floor) my dog has been caught chewing them up several times and so no more toothpicks in this household! Then my Dad became obsessed with the idea of sneaking out to the garage to find some sandpaper to rub on his teeth. Which just about finished the hatchet job on the sanity of both Mum and myself.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">10. The strange incident at the dog park, where my dog, and another dog poo'd in the same area about the same time and the other owner and I both had to walk all the way there to pick poo up. I was coming from closer, so I got there first. I was just tying a knot in the bag when this man said to me "that's my dog's poo" It honestly took me a few cold seconds to register that this had actually been said. I had no idea why it had been said or what he was expecting... so I just waited to see if he would say anything else. He did not. Eventually I asked him "do you.... erm.... want.... your dog's poo?" while waving the dog poo at him. He said nothing. He eventually snapped the dog lead onto his dog's collar, and walked off. And I stood there thinking "what the fuck just happened?" Really what was that? Who was that? </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And somehow I made it through the year... maybe my sanity is a little dinged up but... its 2021 here and I'm sure I'll continue losing my shit every now and then, and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in that. So anyway, I'm glad you made it through 2020 too, and I wish you the very best for 2021. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><br /><p></p>Starryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02206613832444557494noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2681801319225247597.post-7498690644378738822020-11-26T02:28:00.002-08:002020-11-26T02:28:42.456-08:00a strange tale about dog poo<p> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8S7edU9jA69IqI7B1CVa0Qh56vzOQnIb1SjF4ntHHjp95TmpXZWPJMgksXXJA2tjiksOoaV0i3K0pxcncNjJv1-pyhReRwcSblr0k3MFi9x5IPGTE_PGREwElDYLKEKPipw_c99IQK64/s3106/7FB71C75-6BE7-4C1A-968E-D4A3C012C8C0.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3106" data-original-width="1700" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8S7edU9jA69IqI7B1CVa0Qh56vzOQnIb1SjF4ntHHjp95TmpXZWPJMgksXXJA2tjiksOoaV0i3K0pxcncNjJv1-pyhReRwcSblr0k3MFi9x5IPGTE_PGREwElDYLKEKPipw_c99IQK64/w219-h400/7FB71C75-6BE7-4C1A-968E-D4A3C012C8C0.png" width="219" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">O Captain, My Captain<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div></td></tr></tbody></table></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Tomorrow I celebrate an entire year with my totally adorable sidekick, Captain, a kelpie x black lab who is so funny and so sweet that he is the one redeeming feature of this dung heap of a year. I was planning to write a little tribute to him - but basically who needs it - we all know that dogs are the best! and rescue is fabulous, and of course I reckon he is the best dog and a GOOD BOI. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">What I can write about that is possibly the most unique thing that has happened to me this year is what happened when I took Captain out for our morning walk today. Which is incredible. Even by Mandurah standards.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">So here we go....</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">This morning, Captain was in the off leash, and so was another dog. Now I'm not sure who started it but somehow both dogs were pooping in the same area at pretty much the same time. Maybe they were racing? Competing for turf? Who knows... but they both pooped and I had to walk all the way over to pick up poo and so did this other guy. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I was just tying a knot in the poop bag when this guy says to me "that is my dog's poo"</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i>Alrighty then.</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Taken aback, I waited to see if he had anything else to say.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Which he did not.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">So eventually I said, "Do you.... erm.... want... your dog's poo?" and held the bag out towards him.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">He eyed me.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">We stood in complete silence.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Then he clipped his lead on his dog's collar and walked off without saying anything.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I thought at first maybe he didn't want to pick up strange dog's poo (like germ wise?) and then I thought maybe he needed the poo for a sample for the vet? But he said nothing. The first and only thing he said to me is "that is my dog's poo"</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">How did he say it? Flat. Statement of Fact. Kind of soulless. A little bit like someone who has been brainwashed or hypnotised. Possibly stoned out of his gourd.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And there you go, it is Mandurah, after all.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And I stood there (possibly) holding someone else's dog's poo and wondering if I was supposed to pick up the second poo. And wondering if someone just totally played me to get out of picking up dog shit at 6.30 in the morning.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And I still really don't know.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">But I've met a lot of people while walking my dog, and this one has just become a Hall of Famer. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">In an ideal world I have another 10-15 years with Captain and a lot of people to share wonderful and awkward moments with. So here is to my dog, Captain, long may he live.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><br /><p></p>Starryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02206613832444557494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2681801319225247597.post-76548177632409626052020-05-24T17:39:00.000-07:002020-05-24T17:39:07.672-07:00One year ago, today<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_LelLIIXT-KCM4BiGLtmihhzCoF6Lf-YBrtUI4z8epQWl0TMEFbmZHhNJV-qJ3OdqmMdtSbkA748rYFUv3O5uU96pGLqlU4icQbhMg97T4FWE_bf5e8v0Hl_lUdFtP8U0hg_ynyliqKk/s1600/A29CEEFF-1CEF-4756-8361-8EA4A8CD894B.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_LelLIIXT-KCM4BiGLtmihhzCoF6Lf-YBrtUI4z8epQWl0TMEFbmZHhNJV-qJ3OdqmMdtSbkA748rYFUv3O5uU96pGLqlU4icQbhMg97T4FWE_bf5e8v0Hl_lUdFtP8U0hg_ynyliqKk/s400/A29CEEFF-1CEF-4756-8361-8EA4A8CD894B.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
A year ago today, my beautiful niece, Diana, married the man who was absolutely without question made for her: Stuart, and our family and friends looked on with such joy and pride. Which makes it time for me to wish them the happiest of First Anniversaries, and also give thanks that my life didn't end in a fiery car crash on the way home from that wonderful wedding - not that I was in a crash at all, but as you will see when we relive our post wedding wrap up - it could have happened.....<br />
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On a beautiful day in late Autumn, nearly Winter, the weather was gloriously kind for an outdoor wedding in the gorgeous parklands at Araluen with a light buffet and beverages provided by bride and groom - and transported by family friend Mick, and me, proud aunt, not without some hijinks and cursing.<br />
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When Mick arrived to pick me up for the drive to the park, he was sweating, cursing, and basically freaking out - the catering trays didn't fit in his car fridge and when he opened the door at least one tray of sandwiches and wraps fell onto my driveway. Luckily he came to the right place. Operation Esky came into play. We got an extra esky out of my garage, and filled it with these 2 litre juice bottles that are filled with frozen water and kept in our freezer for emergencies just such as this (only kidding, they are for when we defrost the freezer) the platter trays wouldn't fit in the eskies Mick and I had, so we got all the largest tuppawares in the house and filled them manually with food knowing we had to keep them as neat and tidy as possible and later transfer them back onto serving platters in the park before the guests arrived. Mick literally thanked me a hundred times and said "don't tell Diana until after" and I said "absolutely!"<br />
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I hadn't even had time to get my hair and makeup done.... this was me on the day waiting to get picked up... it wasn't exactly what I had in mind but I was stoked to be able to do anything for my niece on her wedding day!<br />
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We left in the height of haste with grated carrot, lettuce, and all kinds of scraps littering my driveway in what was surely going to become a carnival for the local birds and dogs, and tried to relax with some light conversation on the way. The definition of light conversation: embarrassing stories about my family and a lot of walking down memory lane.<br />
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Mick and I made it to the park in time, and I can't tell you how magical that first sight of the wedding area was with the little white chairs, the arbour, the flowers, the welcome sign... just gorgeous and as every new guest arrived it was all building up the excitement waiting to see, or hear that the bride had arrived and we could witness what we were all just dying to see happen.<br />
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This day would not have been complete without the little prince - my great nephew Owen in his suit being carried down the aisle ahead of Diana and her mum, Cheryl (my sister with all of my heart) and for some reason the bridal party were absolutely hysterical with laughter.... its not out of character for them to be laughing, especially if a little nervous or over excited but what, what could possibly be so devastatingly hilarious? Turns out right before they were entering the wedding my sis in law said "I look like a drag queen" the poor love had submitted to having her makeup done as part of the bridal party and the result was incredibly heavy handed and comedic. We couldn't help agree that my bombshell sister was looking, well, like a dehydrated transvestite.<br />
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More hilarity ensued in the ceremony which included heartfelt speeches by bride and groom, with Diana regaling us with the story of how Stuart used to carry the dog poop bag for her when they took her dogs to the beach. And we all felt he was even more perfect than we already did.<br />
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We laughed, we cried, we celebrated love, we watched as a young mother, father, and baby became formally and for all time forged into a family, and the day is etched into my heart forever as one of the best days in our family ever.<br />
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We talked about it for days, and weeks making sure we all filled each other in on all the little things we couldn't possibly have all been party to, but made our memory and experience of the day stronger, brighter, and more complete. And so we get to the part where I informed Diana of my car ride home with the gallant Mick and thank him for not veering off the road or into oncoming traffic when this all transpired....<br />
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It is out there, I warn you that, but it absolutely fits into the gloriously awkward realm in which we live, and I've gone all the way back through a year's worth of messages to find it for you.<br />
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Still with me? Cool... so without further ado, I'd like to wish Diana and Stuart the happiest of wedding anniversaries. It is no secret how much I love my family, and I want to make it absolutely clear how much I admire Stuart and include him in that love I feel towards the most wonderful bunch of weirdos you could ever meet... my family.</div>
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<br />Starryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02206613832444557494noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2681801319225247597.post-91425526987670655362020-05-07T01:50:00.001-07:002020-05-07T01:50:42.840-07:00Invisible Friends, Imaginary Enemies: what happens when a narcissist has dementia<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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What I'm writing about today is really hard, really honest, and not a comfortable read but I've been getting a lot of sympathy lately, and not a lot of empathy and when you get sympathy instead of empathy you might as well just disappear - because its empathy that helps acknowledge you and sympathy that for all intensive purposes sweeps you, your thoughts, and feelings under the carpet. The truth is that the cookie cutter sympathy people give the families of dementia patients is incredibly condescending, and very painful when we are lumped all together as if our dementia journey is the same and that we are all witnessing the decay of a brilliant and beloved family member to a savage condition and that the ways in which dementia patients act out or lash out is a new behaviour they cannot help. There are families in which the dementia patient was always abusive and the ill-fitting sympathetic noises the family members receive is adding to a lifetime of being marginalised and unacknowledged. This article is about what happens when a narcissist develops dementia.<br />
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In order for you to understand the double whammy that is narcissistic personality and dementia, please allow me to take you on a journey of what it was like to be raised by a narcissist parent and what that parent's baseline was before he developed significant memory and cognitive impairment.<br />
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In a nutshell a narcissist has:<br />
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<li>An extreme preoccupation with their own importance.</li>
<li>A lack of genuine modesty. When modesty is expressed it is shallow and used as a means of fishing for compliments.</li>
<li>A deep emotional need for things to be about them - and to have attention placed on them. They will dominate conversations and are notorious show offs.</li>
<li>Shallow charm - often seen as charismatic and entertaining their public persona often masks deep bitterness, pettiness, and a quick temper.</li>
<li>They are never wrong and never sorry.</li>
<li>A lack of empathy for others. While it is easy to injure their feelings (pride) they have little understanding and no sympathy for hurt feelings in others. </li>
<li>Relationships scarred by a pattern of praise followed by disappointment, abuse, gaslighting, and threats.</li>
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There are two ways you get hurt by a narcissist. The first is directly - what they do and say to you. The second is indirectly - its by the way other people treat the narcissist or how they treat you in comparison to how they treat the narcissist, or how they treat you because of what the narcissist has told them about you.</div>
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Socially, my father has always been praised as good natured, cheeky and charming but few people use the word charm correctly - its actually not a good thing, it literally means control, manipulation, deception a type of confidence trick. My mother and I have witnessed my entire life the way other people respond to my father, as he is coddled, favoured, given preferential treatment, and treated as an endearing overgrown child. </div>
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Behind closed doors he has struggled to exert control and the ultimate power over his family a very difficult thing for him to achieve when he is neither the brightest nor most able person present and the only way he could achieve such a thing is through an extremely volatile combination of threats, manipulation, and emotional blackmail. </div>
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Like all bullies, he works by isolating his subjects. Mum never returned to work after I was born, and I was systematically brainwashed to think that I was "an uncontrollable little monster" and taught to think that "if anyone ever finds out who you really are they won't love you" and that all my family and friends would be horrified to find out who I am and that he was protecting me from their disapproval. But really I was being taught not to trust the people I loved and given no protection from the emotional rollercoaster he was taking us on. I could not tell anyone what was happening to me for fear that it would backfire on me - "if people find out I have to treat you this way they will think you deserve it and you don't want that to happen"<br />
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There were times when I was simply howling with tears saying "I'm good, I'm good, I'm good!" and that was seen as <b>backchat</b> and that in his day children were to be seen and not heard. My mother never defended me or stood up to Dad, so the only thing I could do was try desperately to say that I was not bad. Sometimes he would get the phone book out and pretend to ring a children's home to come and take me away, (now as an adult I know he was pretending to look up a phone number and dial and its a bit embarrassing but he intended me to believe him and I did. I was 5) I was hysterical begging for my life crying "please don't, I'll do anything you want! Please!" and that is the one thing he absolutely wanted to hear, so he'd hang up the phone and I'd get to run off to my room in absolute turmoil between two concepts of myself - my own truth that I was good and had done nothing wrong, and his truth that I was being repeatedly and traumatically exposed to.<br />
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Dad was completely comfortable causing that level of distress in a very young child and to this day is alternately oblivious to, or satisfied by, emotional distress in people around him. He experiences only his own rudimentary feelings - mostly pride based - and views hardships in life by how they impact on him.<br />
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Late last year when my mother fell and fractured her face, the ambulance hadn't left the street when he said "now we can buy dinner". There was an entire roast nearing completion in the oven, but Dad is in the Chicky Nuggies stage of wanting to buy junk food as often as possible and views Mum as an obstacle to that. When Mum was two days into her recovery from that accident Dad threatened to leave her because she would not let him drive - which he is medically not allowed to do. He screamed at her that she was against him, and that she hates him and that "I can see I will have to leave you"<br />
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When I was trying to prevent my dad from having a fall himself, he growled "I wish I didn't have a daughter" a little stung I countered "I'm sorry I didn't die in my infancy!" and he was completely happy to leave me hanging on that. He likes to have the upper hand and he will never reach out, reconcile, comfort, or apologise. That one hurt a little more than you'd think because he used to have a favourite tangent when I was growing up about how he didn't want to have me and had to be talked into it by Mum (who hadn't had any kids when they met)<br />
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In one of the more humiliating moments of my life I can remember a dinner when Dad's artist friend and his wife were staying at our house where Dad went into the tangent about not wanting to have me, and going on and on for so long about it and I was frozen in my chair with these tears quietly streaming down my face and the guests were not saying anything because they were horrified but you think he's eventually going to say "but look how great things turned out" but you'd be wrong.... its just a really long, really awful speech about his life and the way he feels and how he was manipulated into having me. Funnily enough those guests never came to see us again.<br />
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I think that actually stands out as the only time my father has revealed that side of his personality in public and I think it was an accident - I don't think he realised he looked like an asshole or that anyone was disturbed by it. Normally its good news for Mum and I if people are around because Dad is happy to show off and talk their ears off. His good mood is our bit of relief although it can be trying when someone comes to visit us and he insinuates himself into the visit and takes over the entire conversation. I have a friend who every time she comes for afternoon tea, Dad gets his book out (the definition of his book: a book of poetry written by someone and illustrated by Dad's art work) and he has to show off the entire thing and talk about it for the entire time they come and then the next time she comes he'll say to me "get my book out" and I'll say "no we're not having the book, you've shown her your book" and he'll go and find the book and make her look at it anyway. Or my Mum's cousin from interstate came for a short visit for morning coffee, they hadn't seen each other for 30 years and will probably never see each other again and he has to do all the talking - show off about his art, regale them with his very dramatic and long winded heart valve replacement stories - and every time someone manages to get a word in edgewise and change the topic... well he has the best stories about that topic too!<br />
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And the book! And his paintings! My God he'd give the mailman a painting. Every man and his dog gets a copy of the book pressed into their hands even if they don't fucking want it. Any doctor who has ever treated him gets a painting or a book. I can remember when he wanted to write in a card (to go with a gift of the book) to the doctor who operated on his cataracts. First of all he didn't even know how the surgery was going to turn out - we didn't know if his vision had improved or not or if there were going to be complications - and he's already writing in this card.... and he wanted to write this glorious, effusive message to her... a near complete stranger that has no personal relationship with him and kept asking me what else to say and I said "this is really inappropriate this is what you say to someone you know really well. You don't even say this much in a card to Mum" KABOOM nuclear explosion. You'd think suggesting saying "dear Dr ---, many thanks, from -----" on an unnecessary and maybe not even deserved gift was a personal attack on both him and the doctor. Lordy, back away.<br />
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So, with narcissism you have a really difficult, troubled personality that is on its own especially taxing to deal with and what happens when you add dementia into the mix is that you have all kinds of chaos. Dementia naturally causes a strong degree of self interest and loss of awareness of other people's feelings but it sends an actual narcissist into frenzy.</div>
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In the prime of his power, my Dad was someone who was afraid and threatened by the goodness and ability of other people, incapable of taking on board advice and ideas and hostile to those who offered them. In short My Mother and I have been his invisible friends and imaginary enemies my whole life.</div>
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Now as Dad loses his ability to remember, learn, and even reason or follow instructions, he needs to rely on other people - all dementia patients find this frightening but someone who has never appreciated the ability of his wife and daughter finds it extremely impossible to cope with.</div>
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He simply cannot believe us when we answer his questions. We can't be trusted to know what day of the week it is if he doesn't know. We can't be trusted to know if the bills have been paid if he doesn't know if they have been paid. He repeatedly asks questions (a hallmark of dementia) but one reason he has to keep asking is memory, but a large part of the reason he has to ask them repeatedly is because if he doesn't believe the answer he ignores it. He won't take in information he does not trust. And we have never been as trustworthy, capable, or good as him.</div>
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He has always doubted and ridiculed us. I was called a slow learner when I had trouble with my homework or left the hardest math problems to the last moment because I didn't want to have to sit there with him and be screamed at for an hour. If I were to treat him as he treated me it would be elder abuse. </div>
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He cannot remember being told he cannot drive, or the medical reasons, so with great hysteria and paranoia he battles us almost daily to extreme duress by all parties involved. </div>
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The cute show offy habits he had before? Well now I will be out walking my dog and total strangers will tell me "oh your dad is the artist, he invited me around to see his paintings one day" OH MY GOD. Please do not come to our house!</div>
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Now he can't always conceal his real personality - I was in the middle of Bunnings one day with him waiting for Mum to return to our waiting spot and explaining to Dad that we need to wait here so we don't lose Mum and he screams "I don't like listening to you!" in front of all the people. </div>
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I know Dad, I know. Whenever I open my mouth he has two responses - one if, I can see his face, is to pull a horrible face that is bitter rage and irritation that I would dare to speak, and the other if I'm behind him is to screech "Who's talking?" He is reverting to the "children should be seen and not heard" mantra and basically my role here is to be the servant and not have any say in anything. But if he needs an audience he will stagger all the way down the hall and into my office to talk to me, and then get cross at me, end up shouting, and leave in a huff.</div>
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One day I had some new photographs taken to be used as profile pics and just in case pics for my business and he wanted to see them. He took one look and said "you've gotten ugly". That stings a bit whenever you hear it from anyone, but from your Dad? When your profile pics look so much better than how you look with no makeup and shitty house clothes on? From the person who even if it was true, would be the one to say "you look beautiful to me?" And then I look up and realise he didn't have his glasses on. I let out this huge sigh of relief and said "you can't see properly. You haven't got your glasses on and you have cataracts" (this was before his surgery) and he screams at me "don't show me any more photos then! Agreed. I wouldn't want to anyway.</div>
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And this dementia phase of his life is the final stage of my mother and I becoming completely invisible.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwi0XIvP2NiNgT2yobIJUAUFbTRsP13YoPrycTq9IYsCP50knQuSi7uFsIP5E-uz8e-0XvTXdDNA3A3QFn20xVGsNA4rrp1BI1peok9honMxcsTS_89wa3vnlpqg4j8JEjr4dDA6Lb3yk/s1600/33043B86-B993-4CB1-80E7-328FDC5DB457.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="789" data-original-width="940" height="335" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwi0XIvP2NiNgT2yobIJUAUFbTRsP13YoPrycTq9IYsCP50knQuSi7uFsIP5E-uz8e-0XvTXdDNA3A3QFn20xVGsNA4rrp1BI1peok9honMxcsTS_89wa3vnlpqg4j8JEjr4dDA6Lb3yk/s400/33043B86-B993-4CB1-80E7-328FDC5DB457.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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It took me a long time to grow up, learn to speak for myself, learn to enjoy my personality, and I don't much care for being invisible and I definitely don't look kindly on comments that strip me of my identity or feelings. So I don't enjoy the sympathetic response of actual professionals in this industry when they say"it must be so hard for him". All I want to do is scream "he was always a cunt!" He has the same personality he always had and to treat him like an unfortunate victim is to spit in the face of the actual human baggage he leaves in his wake. Dementia patients are human beings, they are not saints. They come from all walks of life. They have all kinds of personalities, and have done all kinds of things to all kinds of people. </div>
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<b>Sympathy</b> is belittling and dismissive and assumes entirely too much. <b>Empathy </b>is finding out what a person is going through and reflecting that back to them in a way that indicates to them that they have been witnessed and acknowledged. Empathy brings someone who feels invisible into the light and warms them with your kindness. </div>
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Ask, explore, nurture... don't assume. Care. </div>
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I wrote this to help people understand dementia in people with narcissistic personalities because I see hardly anything about this online, and to support people who are carers for parents or partners and family members of narcissists. Fight hard not to be invisible. </div>
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<br />Starryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02206613832444557494noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2681801319225247597.post-73693356365135668452020-03-22T00:15:00.000-07:002020-03-22T00:15:07.176-07:00tales of quarantine and demon sex voyeurism <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I'm not sure when exactly were the "days of wine and roses" but the days of quarantine and demon sex voyeurism are right now, in the latter days of March 2020. If you're not entirely sure how the two things go together, sit right back and let me tell you how my family and I are faring so far in our preparations for (ideally) surviving the Corona pandemic.<br />
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I am a young(ish) adult with autoimmune disease who is shacked up with two elderly parents - one in particular is very infirm and ticks every box for being at extra risk of COVID19. As someone who has worked from home for over ten years, and before that was unemployed from home, and the age difference in my family meant that even with two older brothers I was raised in the same conditions as an only child... I am uniquely qualified to enjoy time in my home as long as I have books, Netflix, and food.<br />
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Having explained to my parents the concept of social distancing and also voluntary isolation (different from required isolation or quarantine) and having my Mum say to me repeatedly "if Dad gets the corona virus he'll die" and with me sharing what I know from my overseas friends where the pandemic is more advanced than here (we will soon catch up to them at the rate we are going) I thought it was excellent when they agreed with my plan that we would go out one day a week to shop for food, and otherwise stay home except to attend necessary medical appointments.<br />
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I feel tremendous weight upon me to uphold this isolation, a pressure that is coming not just from family, friends, and neighbours but from total strangers (and celebrities) who are diligently choosing to stay home for our sake.<br />
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This is how the first week of that plan went down:<br />
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Day 1, Monday: Mum and I went to the mall to do our grocery shopping. We were lucky to get food and not encounter the feral bogan riff raff who you will have seen scrapping over toilet paper. There is a joke somewhere in there about this footage going viral on social media.<br />
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Day 2, Tuesday: My 88 year old father was taken by his volunteer (who we pay... long story) for his weekly one on one social outing. They went to an art gallery. While Mum went to a hall packed with old ladies for her weight loss meeting (she does not need to lose weight). I stayed home. I insisted that Dad's social outings be cancelled until after the Apocalypse. Mum's weight loss club has been suspended in the wake of more stringent social gathering rules so that helps me out tremendously, thank you Australian Government.<br />
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Day 3, Wednesday: Both parents attend the local GP and pharmacy. Okay, not ideal, but better they go now before too many people in our community have been exposed to COVID19.<br />
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Day 4, Thursday: Mum goes to have a hair trim. I begin to think I am in a losing battle.<br />
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Day 5, Friday: Dad wakes up with a limp arm, we have to check if he has had a TIA or stroke.<br />
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Day 6, Saturday: I think, wow, no one has any appointments on the weekend, maybe we will slide into this isolation gently over the weekend.... but no my mother decides she has to go to the petrol station to buy a newspaper because she absolutely has to have a TV guide. And when I ask her what happened to our plan she screams at me "I have to have something to do!" Well she won't be bored when we are measuring my Dad for his coffin.<br />
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Day 7, Sunday: I share with Mum the news I have from overseas friend about how people won't get permission to leave their home to attend hospital but have to stay home and die, and how fucking hard it is to get an ambulance. I discuss with mum what options we have for if we need to quarantine one of us from the others within the home. Mum emphatically states that if Dad gets sick she will still share his bed. I begin to think that I am going to be trapped in this house with two people who will not lift a finger to protect me... even though I've been a good little girl and stayed home. I'm pretty sure they intend to take me with them when they leave this mortal coil.<br />
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This is seriously beginning to undermine the enjoyment I had at the start of the week for a calm, orderly, and really quite leisurely period of living it up at home. I had a binge watch list, a to-read list, and social media to grow. What else can I do, no one wants me to try and sell them jewellery right now they are worried about finances. So it should be play time?<br />
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A nice day of reading on the bed with my sweet, cuddly boy dog should be just what the doctor ordered. Well now, there's just one thing: a book lover like me should not have to share quarantine with a bibliophile's kryptonite aka... My Dad.<br />
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I stopped buying books for my 88 year old father after he came into my office and shared his unsolicited review of the last book I got him for his birthday. I had chosen what I thought was a moderately nerdy book about the world's first chess tournament held in the Ottoman Empire in 1546.<br />
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My father shuffled up to me when I was at my desk working and said, "I finished that book you got me" Oh yes? "It had lots of sex in it" Oh Dear God! Then he leaned in, delicately grasped the excess fabric of my sleeve, checked left and right for potential eavesdroppers before mock whispering "and FORNICATION"<br />
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I have no Earthly idea what my Dad thinks fornication is but I could tell from his voice that it is a great deal worse than sex and that is enough for me. Anyway that is the day I stopped buying books for my Dad. It did not stop him from constantly asking me if I had anything to read, and, Heaven help us all, he recently came home with his latest book choice.<br />
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He returned from buying lotto tickets at the mall with a discounted book called Eternal Flame with the book blurb "passion like this will scorch you to the very soul"<br />
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A quick scan of the back cover synopsis has me ready to take drastic self preservation measures, and that is why it is time for me to pluck out my eyes, cut off my ears, and incinerate my brain. Oh to be anywhere else when my Dad reads a scorching book about a hybrid demon and a girl who is used to playing dirty.<br />
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Yeah I just vomited a little bit in my mouth. Debate in our family raged: people who don't live with us giggle and suggest he is now into erotica. Mum and I are more exposed to his declining cognitive ability and suspect he simply did not understand the words "hybrid demon" on the back cover, and may not even be able to read the back cover as his eye sight is also pretty terrible these days.<br />
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It was two weeks ago that he bought the book and very quickly discarded it as "the worst kind of rubbish" which lead to me victoriously emailing family saying "see, I knew he wasn't a demon sex voyeur!" But he has now picked it back up and is ploughing through it whether or not he understands a word of it and God I hope I have heard the last of this book that I look forward to burning when we run short of fire wood this winter if we are still here, in quarantine, in our house of questionable repute.<br />
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So in these days of uncertainty and financial strain, I hope it gives you a giggle to think of me, with my 83 and 88 year old children and their sex books in this: our time of Quarantine and Demon Sex Voyeurism. And may God have mercy on our souls.Starryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02206613832444557494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2681801319225247597.post-3605661582565617852020-03-02T01:05:00.000-08:002020-03-02T01:05:32.874-08:00To Eleanor Oliphant with love - reexamining my empty life<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">this would be my classified ad, if I were to run one</span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">
This post is a follow up on a vintage post I wrote called <a href="http://strangenest.blogspot.com/2017/02/hows-my-love-life.html" target="_blank">How's My Love Life? </a>which contains quite possibly the most embarrassing thing about myself I've ever published (although <a href="http://strangenest.blogspot.com/2018/12/not-your-typical-mother-daughter-power.html" target="_blank">this post</a> comes in a tight second) </div>
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Here we are in March 2020 and<span style="font-size: large;"> </span>Valentine's Day came and went - just a day on the calendar for someone who is single but not really motivated to change that status. Neither a lonely or a painful day, nor one to be rushed through and hidden away from. I don't know what is wrong with me, or if indeed anything is wrong with me. On the surface each day I am doing things that I want to be doing, I have a very solid, consistent contentment in life and I am both cheerful and wickedly funny about the really bizarre moments that life throws my way.<br />
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However.... it seems to me, and this certainly occurred to me for the first time when I was reading <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31434883-eleanor-oliphant-is-completely-fine?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=uqhdsJahvI&rank=1" target="_blank">"Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine" by Gail Honeyman</a> that I am coasting through life not unlike Eleanor, she had her little routines and I have mine. I mean I am <i>choosing</i> to run a creative small business from home for not much money and little impact on the world, <i>choosing</i> to stay home with the dog and watch Netflix or devour a book + snacks. I get excited about online purchases I make and new music I add to my playlists. I like having friends I don't see <b>too often</b> because I have more time to just chill and be me and put my plantar fasciitis wracked foot up while lounging in my not-very-active-wear.<br />
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But then I realised that years have gone by with absolutely nothing to show for them. Where are the life adventures? God knows I don't have any money, so I must have really lived on all that dime, right? But not. It gets frittered away on books, and clothes, and food and that's what I've done... I've consumed time and money and built nothing lasting.<br />
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I'm doing what I want to do every day.... but not what I want to do every decade or for a lifetime. The individual moments are all very enjoyable, but the life..... where is the life? Have I published my book? Have I really travelled anywhere? I chose not to marry or have kids - though I am a little bit afraid of being home alone one day when I have my heart attack (because that's the other thing, I'm pretty sure that's only a matter of time too), and after my Mum dies I will have a loneliness that cuts me even now just thinking about how I will be the last person who remembers her family - they are all dead and gone, and when Mum goes I'll only have my Dad's family.<br />
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I'm maybe only semi-okay now.<br />
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But Eleanor began to expand her horizons and develop meaningful relationships and so can I. Even if I'm not quite convinced I want a love life, I am convinced I need to stop wasting so much time and actually do <b>some real stuff</b>. I might be okay staying single - if there is such a thing as a Spinster Gene it definitely runs in my Mum's family (and some of those ladies were total babes in their day) but I definitely need to allow life to change up on me and stop going with the flow.<br />
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So I am saying a massive thank you to Eleanor Oliphant and taking a leaf out of her book, no more coasting, no more wastage, if I can't fulfil my promise to Diane to find love, I promise to find LIFE.Starryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02206613832444557494noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2681801319225247597.post-3329880241712916342019-01-01T01:52:00.000-08:002019-01-01T01:52:03.357-08:00how to cope with people who criticise and undermine your new year's resolutions<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQfyQ75SYej0LPmgNEcO_iGP3wtera6F8NrY9lxwB2Nn7wR9vvTB4sB_rSwrNPvplzxp2vEYVRnVid8cWqCxrWgJewILlDuMRpMj4SNDkLnndMBiGm2d3G7JSv8Sv-5qPAPmW5weQmEeE/s1600/register+now+_+artshopseries.com_signup.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="in this blog article I share my tips for coping with people who undermine your new year's resolutions and dreams" border="0" data-original-height="1102" data-original-width="735" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQfyQ75SYej0LPmgNEcO_iGP3wtera6F8NrY9lxwB2Nn7wR9vvTB4sB_rSwrNPvplzxp2vEYVRnVid8cWqCxrWgJewILlDuMRpMj4SNDkLnndMBiGm2d3G7JSv8Sv-5qPAPmW5weQmEeE/s640/register+now+_+artshopseries.com_signup.png" title="" width="425" /></a></div>
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Hopes, dreams, goals, New Year Resolutions, the things we want out of life - everyone has something they want, and this is the time of year we are most conditioned to think about them, and the chances are every single person who wants something in life and has voiced it has encountered someone who makes them feel really awful about their chances of success. You've had someone step on your dream right? Made you feel inadequate, whether intentionally or unintentionally? <br />
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My father has a way of wishing you luck that makes you feel like the most cursed and doomed person on the planet. Whenever I share a decision, hope, or plan with my Dad I am left shivering in my boots, wondering how he can foresee trouble in even the most mundane and non eventful life choice, certainly there have been many times I have regretted speaking to him. <br />
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For example, in preparation for (perhaps) leading a more public life (<i>if </i>I finish writing my novel and <i>if</i> I publish it) and because I sell online and don't want to put my home address any longer on the return labels of all my lovely <a href="https://starzyia.com/" target="_blank">Starzyia</a> orders, I finally decided to get a PO Box for myself. <br /><br />Last year I told my Dad, "I'm getting a PO Box" and he sounded so frightened when he said "well, I hope it works out for you" in such a way that I suddenly had visions of us huddling on the curb in the dark gazing upon the burnt out shell of our house and saying "sorry guys, I never should have got that PO Box"<br />
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That's the feeling he generates from something mundane and fully determined, in fact settled, so imagine the response to something really heartfelt and tenuous like a weight loss goal, wanting to expand my handmade business, or getting my novels published. His fear and doubt are so thinly disguised in his blessing that you want to run screaming for your pillow fort and not come out until next Christmas.<br />
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So, for everyone who has made a resolution this New Year, or has a hope, a dream, or a cause to pursue, may you find a kindred spirit who will not crush your confidence - everyone has a dream-crusher somewhere in their life, I just want to make sure you know that the confidence you had before you spoke to that person came from within you, and can be rekindled and nurtured and you can set the world on fire (just not my house)<br />
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I cope with my Dad more easily now than in the past, so I thought I'd share my top tips for coping with critics, cynics, and those who oppose your happiness or success:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju7bOaL223iR4pyrSfcZIxfOd0ehRzKzsiRyr5O8j3OOXDAdMWKBQwxAFfkIV9autrV-N3dD3Dullo5LG8TajnI0fOhPoLSSPfDJeyGMhfQ-8oorvjiiyTzRe3jEbVwjMttGHdVltcamE/s1600/register+now+_+artshopseries.com_signup%25281%2529.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="find out how I cope with negativity towards my goals and resolutions" border="0" data-original-height="1102" data-original-width="735" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju7bOaL223iR4pyrSfcZIxfOd0ehRzKzsiRyr5O8j3OOXDAdMWKBQwxAFfkIV9autrV-N3dD3Dullo5LG8TajnI0fOhPoLSSPfDJeyGMhfQ-8oorvjiiyTzRe3jEbVwjMttGHdVltcamE/s640/register+now+_+artshopseries.com_signup%25281%2529.png" title="" width="425" /></a></div>
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1. Determine whether you need to share your hopes, dreams, and goals with this person. If their co-operation or understanding is not essential to your success and they have a history of making you feel bad about the things you want to achieve, just start your dream without them. They may or may not catch on. They may or may not support you down the line, but if the beginning of something is fragile, I try to avoid sharing it with the toxic people where I can.<br />
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2. If you do need to share your dream with a potentially negative or known toxic person, brace yourself - know their pattern of resistance or the kinds of negative comments they are capable of and if possible fortify your heart. Their opinion of you is not your opinion of you. Don't doubt yourself or let your dream or goal be poisoned by someone outside of you.<br />
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3. Rally your inner "opposition defiant" qualities and decide that you are going to prove you are more than capable of achieving what you set out to do.<br />
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4. Before you share with a known toxic or nay-saying person, tee up a positive friend or family member who will talk to you after you have talked to that negative person, make sure you the last message you hear is a positive one.<br />
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5. Separate people who mock you or challenge you for spite, from those
who are accidentally hurting your feelings or doubting you out of a
misguided concern - you may need to rise above them, especially if they
are someone who is going to be in your life for a while longer. Remind
yourself of their true intentions, and move on. <br />
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6. Remember what I said: the confidence and the passion you had for your dream before you encountered the negative influences and messages came from inside you, you are the source. Tap into your original intention and reinforce your goal by assessing how you will face any pitfalls and challenges that have been revealed in your conversations. You might be better prepared to succeed because you have addressed the kinds of obstacles - especially emotional ones or thought patterns - and knowing how to respond and cope with an external critic can really help you sort out your responses to your internal ones.<br />
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7. Practice some TLC, process what is happening, don't let it all build up until it overwhelms you and remind yourself that what you want for your life is your primary business, its not up to someone else to tell you what you should dream or try to achieve. <br />
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So far these tips have really been sanity savers for me, as well as keeping a sense of humour about negatives - a lot of the Dad comments are being saved up mentally not to hurt myself with but to have a nice laugh about how my Dad really means me to have the best life possible. He just doesn't know how to say it. <br /><br />So I wish you a wonderful life. I have no fear or doubt in your ability at all. You have everything you need inside of you to make good decisions, to take positive actions, and to fulfill those goals and dreams. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX-ABMyB5X0FOfHkWxPFHKVuB5qpI_bvYUsCBqcmCZMr2y_ziSXHeP7VjsJFlMf8EBWxhO5tVz3QRaWlO86S4IJWPsWcMcIBLWuWWltu7sA9luqJQRHsX62UWnDyS2_-1bzAPtrP9Cch0/s1600/1.+Read+more+books+2.+Get+a+new+hobby+3.+Try+a+new+sport.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="work hard and chase your dreams" border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX-ABMyB5X0FOfHkWxPFHKVuB5qpI_bvYUsCBqcmCZMr2y_ziSXHeP7VjsJFlMf8EBWxhO5tVz3QRaWlO86S4IJWPsWcMcIBLWuWWltu7sA9luqJQRHsX62UWnDyS2_-1bzAPtrP9Cch0/s400/1.+Read+more+books+2.+Get+a+new+hobby+3.+Try+a+new+sport.png" title="" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br />Starryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02206613832444557494noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2681801319225247597.post-19958423340363865622018-12-10T02:42:00.000-08:002018-12-10T02:42:52.229-08:00not your typical mother - daughter power struggle<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9NZEfo9LrrDC8DEsCPPgwI7UkFZJamM5yBBL2d2lqLWVxD719bM_Je_aRAsoFNbAULeUYCkGDM2afu_XpJIP6G7lIHRMiGcx1bLmjOEvMtq65M71RLJBd32ZRuCqjE-S3-_jrMT4DnhM/s1600/IMG_6144.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="a family portrait that took blood, sweat and tears to achieve, literally" border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9NZEfo9LrrDC8DEsCPPgwI7UkFZJamM5yBBL2d2lqLWVxD719bM_Je_aRAsoFNbAULeUYCkGDM2afu_XpJIP6G7lIHRMiGcx1bLmjOEvMtq65M71RLJBd32ZRuCqjE-S3-_jrMT4DnhM/s400/IMG_6144.jpg" title="a photo of me holding my eldest niece" width="400" /></a></div>
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It would be fair to say that my mother and I have had our fair share of power struggles, but a recent flick through our family album has brought memories of one of our more unusual battles to light. Childlike stubbornness was never outgrown by my mum, and of course I am a strong person myself - strong but wise on most occasions. I was always a little more dignified than my parents with a sophisticated way of expressing my opinions (that didn't need to resort to the passive aggressive play book favoured by mum)<br />
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Which is why I'm absolutely pissing myself laughing about the time I made my mum shave my arm pits.<br />
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Not so sophisticated now, right? <br /><br />But how could a mother end up being forced to shave their daughter's underarms and could you ever lose power so much that this could happen to you? Nah, it won't happen to you, because you probably would have course corrected and come to an easier solution.<br />
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You probably aren't slaving over the making of "going out" outfits for your kids (although I must wave hello to my Etsy friends who may be the exception to this, although running your own businesses you probably dress everyone else's kids before your own) but had you slaved over a nice sleeveless dress for your daughter only to discover before a family party that said daughter had developed a small forest in their underarms you probably wouldn't try and force them to wear the dress, at least not after they turned their mortified face to you and said "I can't wear that"<br />
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Honestly I am quite fortunate to have buried this story in the darker recesses of my mind until now, when I am of course, pissing myself laughing about mum and I screaming at each other about whether or not I would wear <b>that dress</b><br />
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I can recall the words "no one will care" and hey, free parenting advice, if your kid is really upset about something, saying no one cares, or no one will care, or no one will notice are all things that make them feel like they are no one because believe it or not they care, very much, and are telling you they do. From their little heart to yours, and I know you can't cater to your child's every whim, but at least don't say their feelings don't matter. But you knew that right?<br />
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So it won't be you that ends up losing a heated battle and having their daughter scream "shave my arm pits!" before driving a long way to a family party and having them never take their cardigan off the whole time (yep can't even see that dress huh?) and you won't spend your life feeling like you are their body servant, although I believe you may feel like that for the first few years of diapers, bathing, dressing, and bottom wiping. But that's why mum's drink isn't it?<br />
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And that's the story behind this family portrait of me holding my first niece, who is now a new mum of a beautiful little boy named Owen, and may their power struggles be few and far between, but may they be fantastic and hilarious and easy to forgive when they do come. <br />
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<br />Starryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02206613832444557494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2681801319225247597.post-29630832671967484022018-05-17T03:30:00.000-07:002018-05-17T18:41:18.599-07:00live-in aged care: our journey so far...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC3M9UWYr-vO8bXIG1GQp4_fxtdHtjIhs9hFIrMAUy_2dVngWCWhxN_EDZdcv_eUlX1UZqja__8AzmrF_ao-Pe9EUgsW5lS9yO_4YgFbzo1q6VCkN3A-_z9xovGVrG0EASh6Oua0Vb17Q/s1600/In+the+time+it+takes+Dad+to+get+to+the+point+and+ask+me+for+a+favour%252C+which+begins+with+_can+I+ask+you+a+favour__+%2528and+then+descends+into+a+rambling+stroll+through+the+valley+of+the+shadow+of+death%2529+the+sun+has+shift.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="800" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC3M9UWYr-vO8bXIG1GQp4_fxtdHtjIhs9hFIrMAUy_2dVngWCWhxN_EDZdcv_eUlX1UZqja__8AzmrF_ao-Pe9EUgsW5lS9yO_4YgFbzo1q6VCkN3A-_z9xovGVrG0EASh6Oua0Vb17Q/s400/In+the+time+it+takes+Dad+to+get+to+the+point+and+ask+me+for+a+favour%252C+which+begins+with+_can+I+ask+you+a+favour__+%2528and+then+descends+into+a+rambling+stroll+through+the+valley+of+the+shadow+of+death%2529+the+sun+has+shift.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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I'm in the trenches every day, first hand witness to the decline and change in my parents, something many people prefer not to witness when it comes to their elderly relations. I'm not here to condemn anyone who decides that living with their aging parents is not for them - there are many reasons why its a wonderful thing to do and many more reasons why its probably not the greatest idea in the world.<br />
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I wrote about role reversals in the parent child relationship in the post <a href="http://bit.ly/2lRjffj" target="_blank">Every day is Freaky Friday</a> and one of the greatest changes you'll note, besides the increasing feelings or protectiveness you have over your parents (its like having the world's oldest children "don't touch! hot! Don't climb on the shelves to reach something! Put the axe down now....") is that while they once monitored and assessed your development, you are now constantly appraising their declining abilities. The social niceties can be the first to go. Table manners of course fall by the wayside. The ability to assess what is and is not interesting, what is and is not important, and they probably lost their memory 30 years ago we just weren't there to observe its departure.<br />
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The constant losing of keys is one of my great stresses, its mostly Dad, but this one time with Mum last year was particularly stressful, here is my Facebook post from that night: hello Barkeep, I need copious amounts of alkyhol, I know you don't know
me, that's because I don't usually drink. And I don't care what you
bring me I just need to blot out that my 80 year old mother lost her
keys half way through locking the house up, and whatever can obliterate
the screaming as my mother tries to explain (for the one billionth time)
to my Dad that the keys are not out the front or in the garage she's
quite sure because she locked the front door and then lost the key, and
the door is locked so the key has to be on this side of the door, and he
can't grasp it.... and whatever you recommend that will erase this I
will take immediately, and more.<br />
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But mum is still going on very strong, at 80 she actually can still wield a hack saw out in the garden for a couple of hours at a time, and I don't usually know she's at it until she's dragging the corpses of tree branches into the back yard for disposal by me. <br />
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Dad was the handiest guy in the world. He could design and make anything, he could repair anything, and was genius at substitutions for broken or missing parts. Somewhere along the way of course, certain jobs become physically too hard - not that he can admit it, and I'm still fighting a losing battle of stopping him from doing things he really shouldn't do. Just the other day he asked me where the little saw was he could use to cut up some hard roots invading the garden drain. Yes, at 85 years old, previously had two heart valves replaced, got dodgy knees, and a previously broken hip he wanted to get down on hands and knees and hack away at something. Its now at the point where I don't want him to do things anymore, that's to be expected, right? But now I can't even consult with him over how I should do things.<br />
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How I discovered this? Well, and this just came up in my Facebook memories from a few years ago, I wrote at the time: My Dad is making an adjustment to my furniture. This involves taking it apart, reassembling it with glue on the screws, dowels and bolts, and adding some support brackets.... but why has he come inside for a box of matches? I am so afraid to ask. Please don't burn my furniture Dad!<br />
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That would be about the last time I asked Dad for a favour. I actually sneak around now when I need to assemble something, or book a friend in to help me if I think I can't figure it out on my own.<br />
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Of course I'm here to basically do favours for my parents, that would be the service I provide them in return for economical living and a permanent address. Mum just comes straight out and asks me for things, and that is wonderful. Dad asks me in a way that arouses the most fear and dread possible. In the time it takes Dad to get to the point and ask me for a favour, which begins with "can I ask you a favour?" (and then descends into a rambling stroll through the Valley of the Shadow of Death) the sun has shifted significantly in the sky, I have imagined 50 things I hope he's not about to ask me, and a new billy goat hair has sprouted out of his ear. All to ask me if I have change for a fiver.<br />
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And those niceties, the little social graces, the supportive parenting statements.... its safe to say those are gone. Not long ago I was showing my mother some new photos of myself, they were nice photos taken so I'd have something to use if someone asked me for one for an article or a feature, of course Dad wanted to be included and asked to see them too. No problem, here you go, Dad.... "you've turned ugly!" he exclaims in horror. WTF? If those photos are ugly there is no hope for me as I am with no makeup and my hair not done the way he sees me every day. Stings a little, coming from my Dad. Oh wait.... he's got massive cataracts and he's not wearing his glasses. Crisis averted. "You can't see properly!" I exclaim "you're not wearing your glasses and you've got cataracts". Oh be fucked, that was the wrong thing to say he flung the photos down and screamed "don't show me anymore pictures then!". And he's the injured party. I won't lie, I was pretty upset after that. Not that he noticed.<br />
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And that's why I say that aged care is not for sissies. You just have to get out of bed every day and hide the damn hack saw. <br />
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<br />Starryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02206613832444557494noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2681801319225247597.post-43684595068572598552017-08-09T01:01:00.000-07:002017-08-09T01:01:51.964-07:00the chair that nearly started World War III<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0oQRj55yIss5lHssa5QJgJC6O01D0RuravgrL3uVkte9hKPMJP1HlBxcl66YUyTae9_rm9lxPNs7PDZ0i2-5IKiu14ptvqgiiQxTI-NpGgTay726m9py4ezOud9jxmoJ7-of-343TGrA/s1600/KalmarChairGrey.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0oQRj55yIss5lHssa5QJgJC6O01D0RuravgrL3uVkte9hKPMJP1HlBxcl66YUyTae9_rm9lxPNs7PDZ0i2-5IKiu14ptvqgiiQxTI-NpGgTay726m9py4ezOud9jxmoJ7-of-343TGrA/s320/KalmarChairGrey.jpg" width="276" /></a><br />
Today it is my task to relate to you the story of the chair that nearly started World War III and it wasn't the squeaky chair at the G20 Summit, it was the Kalmar Chair in Grey that boasts a sturdy and comfortable construction suitable for up to 5 hours of comfortable sitting at a time but couldn't deliver actual ability to be assembled in full, not once, but twice.<br />
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It may only be one woman's quest to obtain a comfortable chair for her home office and studio to you, but to me it has been quite the emotional roller coaster a tale of highs, and lows, judgement, recriminations, screaming, a LOT of curse words, exhaustion, and tears. So sit back, and observe how perilously close to the edge I have been brought by how utterly impossible it is to buy furniture that does not require assembly before use.<br />
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On the 27th of June, I decided that I would treat myself to a new computer chair before the end of financial year. This was quite a decadent decision on my part considering it would be the first time I purchased a chair before the current chair I'm using physically broke, and the only flaw of the chair I am currently sitting on is that it was cheap fake leather that is shedding large flaking patches of black all over the carpet and then distributed through the house by pets and shoes. I also felt I deserved a more ergonomic and comfortable chair considering the hours I sit in it and my back, neck, and shoulder problems.<br />
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My main priority in choosing a chair was to avoid a repeat of the fake leather shedding which has been raining down prolifically for years, so I wanted a fabric chair, with arms, tilt and tension adjust, and a high back. I started at Officeworks online, and was shocked by the price of the Kalmar at $199 - more than any chair I'd previously bought and I kept looking. Well prices just went higher and higher no matter where I looked it came down to it that the Kalmar was the best of the bunch (or so I thought) I felt guilty about the price but it was going to be hard to find a fabric chair with the same comfort and I decided that I would just not confess the REAL PRICE to my Dad, as I felt sure he'd be shocked by it.<br />
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I bought the chair that very day, online of course, and was pleased to have the chair by the 29 of June, wow, that was fast. Awesome. I hadn't been well for a long time but I spent the energy assembling the chair, of course the last part is attaching the arms - wait a minute, the holes don't line up, off by a good inch on the right arm and can't be attached. I was so disappointed, but oh well, I gave the customer service line a call and let them know. They said they'd get back to me. <br />
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I waited a week, no call back, so I spent more energy taking the chair apart and we drove it to the local branch and they ordered a new chair for me. I waited a few days, a bit longer this time, but my chair came and I started to assemble the second Kalmar. All was going well until, hold your horses, the right arm again, same problem, the holes didn't line up by about an inch. This time I did not take it calmly. There was yelling, swearing, I'd say I banged some tools around, but honestly how much sound does an alan key make when you throw it down in disgust? Surely not loud enough to be heard over my anguished cries.<br />
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Another call to customer service was placed, and they were very kind, and when I said I did not wish to receive a third Kalmar they let me know they would authorize a return for refund, all I had to do was put it all back in the box it came from so their courier could collect it, and my refund would be processed after they got the chair back.<br />
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Hahaha, all I had to do was put it back in the box - okay the first chair that I took to the local store, I only kind of took it apart, but not all the way, after all I only had to fit it in the car, not the box. But how hard can it be? Um.... really, really hard. I asked my Dad if he knew how to get it apart, and he monkeyed around with it for a few minutes before telling me that "you buy rubbish" (and I never even lied about the price). This is the exact moment of the figurative gunshot heard round the world, aka the start of World War III.<br />
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I work hard. I felt guilty about the amount of money I spent on the chair. I didn't think it was cheap crap, it felt like an indulgence to me. I had twice assembled a chair I couldn't sit on. I had no part in the manufacturing process but was its victim. I was tired, and sick and emotional, and I cannot for the life of me find a store locally or online who will sell me an assembled chair, there is nothing to do but keep the chair I have (which will eventually break one day I'm sure, and isn't doing my back any favours in the meantime) or buy a chair that requires assembly. Words were had over this damn chair, angry, bitter words.<br />
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And I still couldn't take it apart completely and cram it back in its damn box. <br />
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So we drove to the local store and begged them to get a mallet out and take the base apart for us as the courier won't take it if its not in a box. Then wondered when the courier would come (sometime in the next 5 days) meanwhile I shopped online again from scratch for a chair, because hey, I had a hankering for a new chair and now by hook or by crook I will frigging get one, and it had better be comfortable.<br />
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Well, I couldn't find another fabric chair that has the armrests and high back, or can tilt etc, so I decided that I would have to risk getting the best quality PU I could get - hopefully for the price tag it would be thicker and more durable than the flaking horrible crumby chair I am hoping to replace.<br />
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At least it cost less than the Kalmar. But still, more than any chair I have bought previously. Enter the Knoxville. I still bought it before I got the refund from Officeworks, but oh well. I should at last be happy. It looked like it would be ridiculously comfortable compared to the shapeless black monster I'm on now.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyDzZ5zpW2hDbrvtAT0pM2sRdQm3ok9NJlE8iNK_uxK7Xwjtv96b5IuAFYBOrf4HVm7kEXCCqM6SxkmscZPzVv0M8gROQG0K3gVjxOtm603gU5IDFJsJzDrpipybhFuRQaJq7Yi1Az9cs/s1600/KnoxvilleChair.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyDzZ5zpW2hDbrvtAT0pM2sRdQm3ok9NJlE8iNK_uxK7Xwjtv96b5IuAFYBOrf4HVm7kEXCCqM6SxkmscZPzVv0M8gROQG0K3gVjxOtm603gU5IDFJsJzDrpipybhFuRQaJq7Yi1Az9cs/s320/KnoxvilleChair.jpg" width="307" /></a><br />
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Well the Knoxville came and I started to put it together, more energy, but hey, looks like a nice chair.... um, wait a minute, the sides of the back rest don't have holes cut where the screws of the arm rest are supposed to go in. OH FOR FUCK's SAKE!<br />
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Email support, wait a week, get told they will send me a new back. Okey doke. Wait a couple of weeks to be informed the back was in fact shipped. Wait a week to get it. Came today..... the bit that comes out of the back isn't long enough to attach to the seat of the chair. NUCLEAR IMPLOSION.<br />
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How is it possible that for a decision I made on June 27th, to treat myself to a new office chair before the end of financial year can have lead to weeks of having very large boxes of half assembled chairs taking up the available space in our front room all this time? How can I still not have a chair? Have I offended the God of Chairs in some way? Should I have paid through the nose to reupholster my current chair (that would cost more than buying a new chair but now wish I had done) Please, just, please, don't let office chairs defeat me. I really am not a bad person. I just wanted a nice chair and felt I deserved it. Please, please, a chair! My kingdom for a chair!Starryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02206613832444557494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2681801319225247597.post-33190359245823894562017-04-05T19:07:00.001-07:002017-04-05T19:07:05.544-07:00it turns out I needed some time to just enjoy this....<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Well, I did it, at last, I started my bedroom makeover. No photos yet as the other half of the makeover will be after I get back from Etsy Captain's Summit in Noosa. But so far, it has been the first real action since culling belongings on and off for a year, measuring, making furniture arranging possibility sketches, making little pencil marks on walls and sticking pins in my curtains to show where certain pieces would be positioned. Saving money, ordering flat packs, assembling, freaking out that the bed head I bought to go in front of my window was too high and having to make a whole new furniture arrangement, packing all my belongings, moving everything, and putting everything that made the cut back in the room. To be honest I felt like I'd been hit by a truck. I also had sinusitis and for a few days I didn't even make it to lunch time without needing a lie down. It turned out I needed to spend some time just looking at the water and doing basically, jack. Look who also enjoyed the down time...<br />
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But I'm back up and energized again, and since it has just been my parent's wedding anniversary, and we actually did nothing (I remembered a day late, and they didn't remember until I mentioned it) I thought I'd tell the story of how we celebrated my parent's 40th Wedding anniversary in a Coffee Club.<br />
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First of all, my parents eat at the senior citizen mandated dinner time of 4.30 pm, a time that fancy restaurants are not ready to take you, and if they did, my parents would still rather be at home squabbling about who is talking during the tv (Mum won't let Dad talk during The Bold and the Beautiful, Dad won't let mum talk during the news) and getting into their pjs and locking all the doors and windows by 5.30pm and thinking how contented they are to have their work done for the day.<br />
<br />
So to celebrate a special occasion, we eat out, at lunch time. In a place that Mum chooses, because she is wildly difficult to please, and there are maybe two Mum approved restaurants in all of Mandurah. It has to be a place that you can walk in without a reservation somewhere between 11.30 and 12.00 and lately, for the past few years that place has been Happy BBQ Chinese Restaurant. Of course Mum does absolutely no pre-special occasion research, so once we turned up on a day that they were closed.<br />
<br />
The year of the infamous 40th Wedding Anniversary, I recommended to Mum that she check that Happy's would be open, and she swore black and blue and two ways to Sunday that there is absolutely no way that they would not be open. However, when we arrived, they were, indeed, not open for business. So we were standing in the carpark at the mall, and I'm thinking, thank God we can go down to the foreshore and eat at one of the many wonderful restaurants in the area that I love. But NO, Mum thought that driving somewhere else when she was HANGRY and having to REPARK the car was too much effort so she suggested we go into the mall and eat at The Coffee Club.<br />
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We found a table for 4 (though really it seemed like it was only comfortable for 2 people) in a room packed with at least 50 people all talking at once so loud that no one at our table could hear each other and we sat more or less in silence for an hour, celebrating a Ruby Wedding Anniversary with grilled fish and chips.<br />
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Oh and when the waitress brought my meal, somehow, the fish came off the plate, flew through the air and landed in the palm of her hand. I know, what the? And she put the fish on my plate and then asked me "Oh, would you like a new piece of fish?" By the way, if you happen to be in food service, this is a terrible position to put your customer in - by making me the hard arse if I would prefer a clean piece of fish for my lunch. The correct thing to say is "let me get you a new piece of fish". I did very awkwardly and with much embarrassment request a new piece of fish, and I tell you that fish came back pretty freaking quick. I hope she just grabbed a piece of fish (not with her hands) that was about to be put on someone else's plate and make that someone else wait a little longer for their fish, but I admit there is a 50-50 chance that I got my original fish after a 10 second trip to the kitchen.<br />
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And so its probably just as well we did not attempt to celebrate, in any way, the passing of my parent's 42nd wedding anniversary. Its also lucky that I accidentally observed aloud the other day, that Happy's is open in a new location, after the anniversary had passed, though I guess we'll go there for Mum's birthday, in July, if they are open.Starryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02206613832444557494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2681801319225247597.post-2875970260678526692017-02-26T20:31:00.000-08:002017-02-26T20:31:50.011-08:00stuck in the middle with clowns"Clowns to the left of me, actually they're to the right, here I am stuck in the middle with clowns"<br />
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Its not just that I share my office with clowns that disturbs me, its that the clowns are smothered in plastic sheeting and they are really angry about it. I don't like clowns, that doesn't help either, I think they know it. THEY KNOW EVERYTHING.<br />
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The clowns aren't mine, they were handmade by my mother about 25 years ago as a series of baby mobiles that she never sold, and stopped making, and here they are, haunting my office, hanging around in the corner with dust sheets over them and their big eyes staring at me all the damn time.<br />
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There are 6 clowns right now, in my office and there's nothing I can really do about it. I had a photographer from a newspaper come to take photos of me in my office, and I had to say, hey, let's shoot this way so you don't get the creepy ass clowns in the background, and he looked in the corner and shuddered. He took a couple of photos in my office and then said "let's go outside to shoot" voluntarily making his job of photographing me and my jewellery designs almost 100% more difficult just to get away from the clowns.<br />
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We recently had a technician sent to our house by our internet provider and I left him sitting in my office chair facing my computer, when I came back he had turned the chair. Now, turning the towards the hallway would have allowed him to stretch his legs out and easily see me if I returned, but he turned the other direction, a rather unnatural and unusual choice but it meant he was facing the clowns, no way were these sick bastards going to sneak up on him!<br />
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They won't sneak up on me either - my dog sleeps in my office overnight, and he has my permission to tear them to shreds if they give him any provocation.<br />
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So how do you feel about clowns? Just in case you're not too fond, I have a bonus story to end with, about how my mum nearly flashed the Telstra tech when he was here.....<br />
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I was sitting at the dining table with my Mum, in the afternoon and she was complaining about it felt like she had an ant in her bra, after she'd been in the garden. I was doing some work and then the next thing I know, I look up and my nearly 80 year old mother had her shirt pulled up at the table, to her credit she did find an ant in there, however I was completely shocked, I said "don't forget there's someone here" and I swear, 2 seconds after she put her shirt down the guy walked in. I was nearly dying from not screaming with laughter. <br />
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<br />Starryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02206613832444557494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2681801319225247597.post-6749201831750513982017-02-17T16:52:00.000-08:002017-02-18T01:56:49.734-08:00the positive side of living with elderly family members<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
I've written a lot about the challenges of living with my elderly parents, and I will continue to do so - because it's honest, and it's important - no one should go into this blindly, and because I need to communicate and to laugh in order to cope. Its also really important I take some time to say that living with elderly family members can be really wonderful and beneficial to both old and young.<br />
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Of course I need a break from the bickering, of course I'd like the house to myself more often, of course the needs of my parents override my own, and life is very much focused on their medical needs and issues as a priority while scheduling for myself takes a back seat - but I can work on that.<br />
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In spite of needing to fight stress with laughter and go running to someone to say "guess what just happened?" a good 10-20 times a day, I also get quite a lot of peace of mind having my parents with me.<br />
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If my parents were living alone I'd be worried about them a lot more than I do now, even if we had a daily check in call, or they had a duress alarm with them at all times, things can go wrong. Someone can fall after their check in call and lie in pain for nearly 24 hours, and its hard to press that duress button when you're not conscious. With my parents here I know their baseline - I can easily see change and decline. I know they are eating, sleeping, going to the doctor when warranted, not climbing up ladders to change light bulbs, and they aren't shy about asking for what they need done for them - whereas if I lived out of home they might not want to bother me with requests, or they might not want to wait to get that light bulb changed - its all fairly immediate and the temptation to take risks is extinguished.<br />
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My parents are also far less vulnerable living with me, my presence helps deter scammers and intruders. I was shocked by the amount of scam callers my parents were receiving at home, but with me here to answer the phone that quickly stopped. Having someone young seen coming and going from the house all the time - and my trusty dog - helps people think twice about targeting our house for a break in or vandalism. My poor grandmother and aunt were constantly experiencing home break-ins in their final years, both were elderly and my aunt was vision and hearing impaired. It was very stressful and my grandmother was very lucky not to be beaten (it kills me that we have come to saying its lucky an old woman wasn't beaten in her own home) because she caught a guy in her room at night and started hitting him with her hot water bottle.<br />
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I watched my mother stress for many years because she lived interstate from her family at the time they needed her the most. Its very hard to be apart, not that being together is all roses either but it does allow a family to be able to personally care for and protect each other. My grandmother made it to 97 still living in her own home to her last day, and I'd like to think my parents won't need to leave their home either.<br />
<br />
Living together with family of different generations is one of the most amazing experiences - it gives an incredible perspective of life, it challenges and engages both old and young alike, and builds connections and empathy that I can personally attest were lacking in our family before this chapter of our lives began.<br />
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I carried with me for many years an incredible amount of pain and emotional baggage from the relationship I had with my dad when I was a child. His constant refusal to acknowledge or empathize with me caused more and more damage along the way and we just could not get along. The journey of living with my parents, feeling protective of them, caring for them, and even facing the possibility of losing them at different crisis points, has given me the opportunity to build a relationship in the here and now and let go of the need for a really very specific vision of closure that I had, and get actual closure.<br />
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As difficult as this journey can be, it has been the very thing I needed, and I believe has been essential and good for all three of us. My parents are safe with me, and I am here to enjoy them and be part of their lives and to share my life with them.<br />
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However, my friends are not facing this journey yet, and caring for seniors and the elderly can be fairly isolating and I am looking to build a like minded community for support, friendship, laughter, and inspiration. I'd love to hear from you if you have older parents, grandparents, or family/friends that you care about. Your comments, experiences, questions, and basically anything you would like to share can be so very helpful and will really be appreciated. Starryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02206613832444557494noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2681801319225247597.post-24192094046420818192017-02-13T21:31:00.001-08:002017-02-13T21:31:40.204-08:00my Valentine has really hairy legs<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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My Valentine has really hairy legs (and huge ears), now you're probably thinking I'm referring to my dog, but you're wrong. Fate, and a random woman in the mall have decided that my Valentine is my dear old Dad.<br />
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This was decided several years ago, in an incident that lead to me creating a rule that I would not go out in public on Valentine's Day (ever) again. I was innocently waiting on a bench in the mall, for my <strike>Valentine </strike>father and having my ears gnawed off by a strange woman, who when my father arrived, asked me "is that your husband?". Keeping in mind I look like I'm in my twenties, and my Dad looks like the crypt keeper. I said "no that's my Dad". For regular people that would result in an apology, or at the very least allowing the conversation to end, or move on to other topics, any of these was what I was expecting. Stranger Danger lady asked me "are you sure that's not your husband?"<br />
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OH MY GOD LADY are you freaking serious? I am not that desperate and I have not lost my god damn marbles, I am quite competent to determine who is and is not my husband and I run pretty hot under the collar so you might want to step off! Can you believe people?<br />
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But I will say this, living with your elderly parents is very much like being married to a couple of 80 year olds. We don't sleep together but I'm there for pretty much everything else. All the sights, sounds, and smells, constant loss of keys and other important things, squabbling, senior moments, loss of social and cognitive skills are mine to enjoy. Put it this way, if I get married now or in the future, and I end up staying with the person until we ourselves are elderly, it will be my second long term commitment to geriatric care.<br />
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But how about those hairy legs.... because I believe the title promises hairy legs. And my Dad has them galore. Well there's only 2 legs, but the hair, now that is some bad ass, long, curly, thick, incredible hair action that he has going on. What's up with that?<br />
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Its no exaggeration to say that my Dad has famously hairy legs. Its hard to say how hairy he would have been naturally (I suspect very hairy) <b>had he not routinely shaved himself as smooth as a baby's bottom </b>as you can see in the photo above (and please don't ask me why he is wearing a mini skirt. I really do not know and its freaking me out). Is that a come hither pose? A hairless man in a mini skirt (with his nephew playing in the foreground) should be my Dad's internet dating photo if, heaven forbid, something happen to my mum. I can answer why he shaved himself though, because my dad was a serious competitive cyclist - this is what they used to do I dunno for aerodynamics, and possibly also because it helps if you crash and get road rash and there are not massive hairy clumps between yourself and medical assistance. Serious enough to qualify for the Commonwealth Games, so I guess it paid off.<br />
<i> </i><br />
Of course the price he paid was being notoriously hairy for the rest of his life. One time on a family vacation we were in a cave, and the tour guide was pointing out different things that we should pay attention to, and he said "next to the man with the hairy, bandy legs" and pointed at my Dad..... and everyone looked at my Dad and probably not at all at the cave.<br />
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But I will say Dad is a good sport about the whole hairy thing.You can say anything about those legs and he just accepts it.<br />
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He once came into my office and said: your fan doesn't keep this room very cool.<br />
Me: that's because its not a circulating fan, its directed only at me.<br />
Dad: (after standing directly in front of fan, and blocking vital cool air off me) Its still not very cool.<br />
Me: that's because your legs are too hairy, you can't feel it.<br />
<br />
I'm sorry I can't stop staring at the photo of my Dad. Its just too hilarious. Considering my Dad came out of his first marriage - divorced and carrying less photographs than the average refugee - its bizarre that he kept this of all photos. Though not bizarre that first wife didn't keep it.<br />
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So all joking aside, my Dad and I have walked a hard road, we are completely different people who very often do not get along for both real and imagined reasons, but I am grateful he loves me enough to persevere and keep me around, and we do make each other laugh, and we love each other, and that makes him my Valentine, of sorts. Its not romantic, but its life. <br />
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<br />Starryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02206613832444557494noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2681801319225247597.post-66694585370074187862017-02-07T00:16:00.000-08:002020-03-02T01:14:00.388-08:00how's my love life?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Well you see, its like this. I'm not looking for love as much as I'm just sort of waiting for love to drop a piano on my head. If someone really amazing would come along without me having to make any kind of real effort, I'd be cool with that. That is pretty much the only way that I could be persuaded to change the life flow that I have going on now, that I'm happy with (although more money would also be nice).<br />
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However, I did promise my friend, Diane, who has since passed away, that I would make more of an effort, and I did say to her that I had a feeling that I would meet someone really great once I got my dog. You know, the dog that it turns out I've now had for almost 5 years. So maybe its time for a review of my progress (almost none!) and determine whether this is worth changing, or whether I really just want to keep letting the dog drool on my leg while I watch Netflix (every night).<br />
<br />
I got myself a really great, Aussie dog, a working dog, nothing too frou-frou or that looks like it should have its diamond encrusted scrawny neck poking out of a designer handbag. A dog that guys respect me for choosing, not saying that is why I chose him, just saying, he is at least not repelling potential dates. I make an effort to never wear leggings as pants, and I'm out there twice a day with fantastic hair, thanks to my hairdresser, Petra (<a href="https://www.facebook.com/Sapphire-Hair-Studio-152632171458546/" target="_blank">Sapphire Hair Studio, Mandurah</a>) and I'm not shy about talking to men, I can do it. Do I want to?<br />
<br />
The first guy in my age bracket (there are a lot of elderly men in my area, and no, I'm not looking to pull an Anna Nicole Smith in spite of suggesting earlier that I'd like more money) literally bumped into me as he walked out of the park..... zipping up his fly. Best case scenario he just peed in the park. Not eligible!<br />
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Then I met a great guy with a great dane (my actual favourite breed of dog) and we kept passing each other in the afternoons, until one day he was pushing a pram with twins in it and semi jogging holding hands with (I presume) their mother. Ineligible, move on!<br />
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I have to admit I sort of forgot about the whole meeting of a guy thing due to just being busy and happy and not feeling like anything was lacking in my life, you know, I have a life, it has a flow that I enjoy, and I'm not lonely.<br />
<br />
Then I met a really kind of cute guy that I started to talk to out in his front yard if he was there when Fizzy and I were walking. We had a good vibe going, relaxed, happy, have a laugh together, no sleazy moments. Then one day I audibly farted. I can't believe I'm telling you this. Anyway I instantly bark out "pretend that was the dog". He sort of paused for a moment and then the conversation resumed until <b>he said "it smells like the dog". </b>And I barked out another instruction "pretend it doesn't smell!" and then mentally heard myself and started laughing (until I cried) saying "Jesus Christ, I'm not high maintenance"<br />
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Because I'm really not. Damn flatulence. Ruined my love life. And that's why its just me and the dog, happy together (cue The Turtles) I can assure you, in spite of anything you might assume about my love life, I actually am happy. <br />
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March 2020 follow up post: <a href="https://strangenest.blogspot.com/2020/03/to-eleanor-oliphant-with-love.html">https://strangenest.blogspot.com/2020/03/to-eleanor-oliphant-with-love.html</a><br />
<br />Starryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02206613832444557494noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2681801319225247597.post-89357415379600325372017-01-31T19:44:00.000-08:002017-01-31T19:45:55.353-08:00the end of an era: no more chocolate throne<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Well, if I had to put my finger on the most distasteful part of my parents' home decorating decisions over the years, it'd be the choice of a brown toilet for the laundry toilet, from here forth known as "my toilet" or "the chocolate throne". The chocolate throne is going however, and I could not be more delighted, and at last, amused (having been most unamused by it for nearly 30 years). This is how I broke the news to my eldest niece (who is close to me in age)</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwAn6Axx8je87Ix3u08wT-NN5utpoBD4SfZWdVtdgsMFkyJ-hU7NS-9Ob8DBbrr-FhQgeGWrtVmqrF_jeqZS-k3Nyzd-60mMRzzd6WYfiprzf8v_NuhzqG6dY-ZDj6WtxyaRdCB4ttU7k/s1600/NewThroneChat1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="308" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwAn6Axx8je87Ix3u08wT-NN5utpoBD4SfZWdVtdgsMFkyJ-hU7NS-9Ob8DBbrr-FhQgeGWrtVmqrF_jeqZS-k3Nyzd-60mMRzzd6WYfiprzf8v_NuhzqG6dY-ZDj6WtxyaRdCB4ttU7k/s400/NewThroneChat1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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So there you have it, the essence of the whole distasteful thing - why would anyone make a poo coloured toilet, and who on Earth would buy one? When questioned on this, my mother responded that it was a choice between green and brown. OH MY GOD THERE WAS ANOTHER CHOICE?<br />
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Well wait actually, it gets stranger, because there was another choice altogether, the colour they put in their bathroom was a lovely light doe skin. Why not order two of these? The mind boggles!<br />
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My chocolate throne:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGaOgjgAZHz3B6OYlZ6PyJStRfMGmSooAwlGx98ZTiR2XrHboMi8EyMgX8piAtLmeqYSZ-Q66BFcDOUoO8HtV4-6eNw6Ghyphenhyphen8vmcji9fpfMaqUb-yk8KALbIV8D5LZO5nq44UFhqHYPn8k/s1600/Original2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGaOgjgAZHz3B6OYlZ6PyJStRfMGmSooAwlGx98ZTiR2XrHboMi8EyMgX8piAtLmeqYSZ-Q66BFcDOUoO8HtV4-6eNw6Ghyphenhyphen8vmcji9fpfMaqUb-yk8KALbIV8D5LZO5nq44UFhqHYPn8k/s320/Original2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Their doe skin throne:<br />
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Why would you think you couldn't have two toilets the same colour in the same house, oh wait, it was the 80's. PS the doe skin is getting replaced too. Currently you can only flush it by reaching in and pulling something up to manually flush.... yeah, not happy about that, so not doing that!<br />
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When breaking the news to my like minded niece, she inquired about something else I find distastefully Australian in my throne room (again, <i>not </i>decorated by me)<br />
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The dunny poem, The Australian Dunny by Roy T. H. Manning is printed on a tea towel hanging from dusty rod and twine.<br />
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It will frankly be the first thing I take down when given that power.<br />
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So tomorrow, while I unwind and enjoy getting my colour and cut done at my hairdresser's the chocolate throne shall be unceremoniously removed and replaced. Long live my new ivory throne, may it serve well for the lifetime of this house.<br />
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<br />Starryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02206613832444557494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2681801319225247597.post-28592697840008148442017-01-13T23:44:00.000-08:002017-01-13T23:44:17.478-08:00the state of the union<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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If you're wondering how we are getting along.... well you see, its like this:<br />
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Daily serious ruffling of the feathers, with intermittent outbreaks of fire, some passive aggression, the occasional bonding over dessert or a joke (at someone else's expense) and then we rupture over some other issue and it all starts again the next day.<br />
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Sadly it seems like a lot of our suffering has come from Dad not being diagnosed for Parkinson's and therefore having absolutely no assistance for his mental and emotional decline related to that over the past 15 years. Meaning, Mum and I cop the brunt of his depression, anxiety, low self esteem, and the fact that he can't hear us doesn't stop him from screaming "fucking shut up" at us like a total savage when we are not in fact having a go at him and might actually be discussing our shared loathing of Pokemon Go, or our Liberal government (state or federal, you pick).<br />
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My parents who probably should have been divorced in the mid 1980's will be married 42 years in March. People always say they stay together for the kids, in our case I think to torture the kid, but what can you do? They think they are a great couple. They say the nastiest and most juvenile things to each other multiple times a day before settling down to hold hands in front of the tv every evening, so go figure.<br />
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The house is starting to show its age. The windows sound like car crashes when you close them (its like screeching tyres followed by a loud impact). I did not get the lock fixed on the bathroom for my birthday and am still showering in a state of constant alert. My toilet was starting to have difficulty flushing on half flush, so my Dad, determined to fix it, rendered it more broken than ever before so that we can only use the full flush. He talks about having another go at it, and I'm afraid I'll end up with a totally broken toilet. Won't that be nice!<br />
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There aren't enough power outlets in the kitchen. There's not enough
bench space in the kitchen. There's a seriously dodgy corner pantry
(that is not a walk in, and you literally have to poke your arm in
blindly to the far corners and hope you get what you want without
smashing anything made of glass) and my excess food is stored in a
cupboard in my office but at least with the dog bed being pushed hard up
against those doors at night I'm pretty sure mice will never get in to
raid. <br />
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I constantly find disembodied band aids in the bathroom, kitchen, and laundry. Usually soggy, dirty looking things. The floor around the dining table is usually good for a used toothpick or two. The dog licks the carpet hoping for cheese and bread crumbs, but cereal is also a fave.<br />
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Anything I cull because I seem to be the only one aware of how limited space is in this house, gets adopted by one of my parents before it hits the bin or the roadside bring out your dead collection. At a time when I've switched to kindle and iBooks because we just can't keep accumulating books, my parents have stopped going to the library and are bringing in hundreds of books they've purchased and are mounting up in the house like I can't describe. They NEVER bought books all my life, only read for free from the library, but now apparently is the time to be fast and loose with the money! As long as its for fun things and not helpful things like I don't know home maintenance and getting a handyman.<br />
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Dad, in my opinion, is about ready to lose his key privileges. Its hard to say that to a parent, but honestly the number of alarmed searches for vital keys he has lost is getting to be too much. We have spares, but we don't want his keys falling into the wrong hands.<br />
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I'm not sure how long Mum will continue to drive for, though at least our lives improved in one significant way last year, and that was my parents were assessed and approved for subsidised gardening help and driving - since I don't drive at all, they really need that help getting to out of town medical appointments. Dear God, the medical appointments alone are never ending and overwhelming.<br />
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And somewhere, amid all this screaming, I manage to run my business, <a href="https://www.etsy.com/shop/starzyia" target="_blank">Starzyia</a>, and perhaps haven't completely lost my mind!<br />
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<br />Starryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02206613832444557494noreply@blogger.com2Mandurah WA 6210, Australia-32.529 115.72299999999996-32.5825535 115.64231899999996 -32.475446500000004 115.80368099999995tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2681801319225247597.post-73982776767285612982016-10-09T03:48:00.000-07:002016-10-09T03:48:50.473-07:00what I really want for my birthday<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Its about a week until my birthday, and I'll tell you what I want (what I really, really want, and that had better not be a Spice Girls song going through your head right now!) I want a damn lock on the bathroom door that actually works.<br />
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I'm the only person in the house who needs to use a lock on the bathroom. Half the time my parents don't completely close the door when they're inside, and Mum is only going to get walked in on by her husband or daughter, who cares right? But me.... I want the door knob fixed.<br />
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Dad can't hear the shower running. Dad can't remember someone is even in the bathroom. Dad won't knock. I just want to have a shower and relax without having my ears pricked for every little sound and worrying about getting barged in on.<br />
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I live with all manner of unsightly things. I live with constant bickering. I live with worrying about 84 year olds having surgery that they probably shouldn't really be having, and stopping people from doing crazy things they really shouldn't be doing.<br />
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I want to sing in the shower and forget my troubles.<br />
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When asking my mother about getting the door knob fixed by someone other than Dad I get told "things like that cost money". Oh right. Yep. That must be the world's most expensive big ticket home maintenance item. We can never scrape up enough pennies for that!<br />
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Give me a damn lock on the door! Or at least permission to personally pay for someone to come and restore my few minutes of escape each day. That is what I want for my birthday. Sorry for the rant.Starryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02206613832444557494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2681801319225247597.post-84987622833800429302016-07-14T23:08:00.000-07:002016-07-14T23:08:41.091-07:00how to kill a blog project you love, in really easy steps (and how to save it)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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(A gratuitious photo of the Heavenly place that I live)</div>
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Last year I did something I had been building up to and planning to begin for a long time, I started this blog. Yes this tiny thing. I happened to believe that it was worth sharing my experiences living with and caring for my elderly parents. I thought I had a lot to say (I always actually have a lot to say) and I thought it would be really great to build a supportive community for people of all ages as they face elder care and family issues. And then I nearly killed it in its infancy... here is a break down of how....</div>
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1. I started a large topic that might never be satisfactorily explained or factually expressed - why does the parent-child relationship get reversed as parents age? - right before my busy season. Busy season for me is preparing for a 3-4 month sales blitz leading up to Christmas, and the endless need to create tray after tray of art pendants, shrink plastic jewellery, air dry clay pendants, kilt and shawl pin brooches, art tiles, art canvases, wrapping and packaging, earwires, and market all of these things successfully online and at handmade markets.</div>
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2. I intended to resolve the theme/topic in my next post.</div>
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3. I realized I was not in the mental place to complete that topic but would not let go of the idea that the next post I wrote had to follow on exactly where I left the last post on this blog.</div>
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4. I lived in the fantasy land that I would one day feel up to the task of completing that topic.</div>
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5. More than 6 months of no posting on a new blog that should be gaining an audience and finding its niche were wasted, lets face it I haven't done the maths, but its probably more like 8-10 months. That's a huge period of idleness and hard to regain the attention of the actual people who were enjoying what I had created so far, who I said I'd be here for and wanted to build a community with... oh dear. Blog project death.</div>
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<i>But wait, there is light at the end of the tunnel</i></div>
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The magic of time and perspective have allowed me to face up to the mental hurdles and obstinacy that I am solely responsible for and have made me realize a few things. </div>
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The first is that there aren't really hard and fast rules for blogging, I can just write a new article about anything really. Anything I'm genuinely moved to say, and on this occasion its to encourage anyone who has ever boxed themselves into a blogging corner (I call it blogging oblivion) because the only way a blog truly dies is if you decide you can't or won't save it.</div>
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Secondly I really started to miss this blog, and realized that a lot of things I really wanted to share were being wasted simply because I wouldn't write them until after I'd resolved the un-resolvable situation I'd mentally created. </div>
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And finally I can say I have the maturity now to pull myself out of blog oblivion and at least for my own sake start processing the things I'm experiencing in life through the therapy of writing, and hopefully connecting with people who can also shed light on what happens to families and individuals as parent's age. </div>
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Phew! I'm so relieved. It feels great to break down those barriers and be free to write again, and if you're reading this, thank you! and please let me know how you feel about it. </div>
<br />Starryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02206613832444557494noreply@blogger.com0Mandurah WA, Australia-32.5361038 115.74240770000006-32.9640288 115.09696070000005 -32.1081788 116.38785470000006tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2681801319225247597.post-72291380828242510842015-07-12T22:51:00.000-07:002015-07-12T22:51:58.640-07:00every day is Freaky Friday, role reversals in the parent child relationship<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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There comes a time in life, when the parent - child relationship gets reversed somewhat, the extent of this depends on so many variables, but to a degree I'm sure you have experienced or witnessed grown adults who become protective of their parents - worrying about safety, worrying about health, advising, even "laying down the law".<br />
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My parents seem so innocent and gullible to me now. I have to tell them the people who ring them and say "I'm from Microsoft, please turn on your computer and login we've detected a massive threat to your computer" are lying scumbags from hell, and that its absolutely okay to yell at them "you are a fucking criminal ass wipe" and then hang up.<br />
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I have to practically tie my father to a chair to stop him from doing jobs he should not be doing, and that he promised me many times he will no longer do. After every heart valve replacement, and every code blue, broken hip, and hernia I have held him in front of me and looked deeply into his eyes and said "you cannot do any more hard work, you cannot chop firewood anymore or saw logs, or dig the edge of the garden beds to keep the front lawn from invading" and he has looked me in the eye and said "oh no, I won't do that anymore" and he has broken that promise one thousand times (or more)<br />
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Now I'm the one making sure Dad doesn't leave his jacket, walking stick, or cushion on the train.<br />
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I'm the one who checks the house is locked at night, or finds the keys when he's lost them, or thaws the 2 litres of soup out after someone has accidentally put it in the freezer instead of the fridge.<br />
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But this is the tip of the iceberg, these are the issues everyone talks about, but there's so much more, and I'm your girl, I'm the one who is prepared to say there are other ways that the relationship is reversed with age.<br />
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Because your parents are most likely the people who taught you the most about certain things. Like hygeine, and manners, and how to behave in public, and you've finally mastered all these things, and now they are unmastering them before your very eyes!<br />
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The woman who taught me not to pick my nose is the woman I walk in to find in up to her elbows while watching television, and I have caught my father using the car immobiliser lock to pick ear wax out of his ear, at the dinner table.<br />
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This is Freaky Friday, Twilight Zone, weirdness. Laughter is just about the only option. The others are nausea, outrage, and wondering how the hell your life turned out this way.<br />
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It is so weird to find out your parent's social skills include tantrums that the most devilish two year old would be proud to call their own, as well as the occasional bout of silent treatment, passive aggression, and deliberate property destruction.<br />
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Not to mention the faux pas. Oh my God, you will overhear so many terrible, terrible things. <br />
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Listening to my father on the telephone is like Verbal Waterboarding. He could patent it. I am absolutely beside myself at times, but now I really try to find something to do well out of earshot as a measure of self preservation.<br />
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And if you are considering being any part of your parent's lives as they become elderly, you will need to find ways to cope as well. My recommendation is to become inured to it - let it be like water off a duck's back, accept it for what it is.... and treasure the lighter moments because they become precious memories. Starryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02206613832444557494noreply@blogger.com0