%%USERNAME%%    %%ACCWORDS%% %%ONOFF%% |
 |  My Blog. Generally Intended for Reading-Not Eating!. |
|
Rose-Tinted Ramblings ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** A Little of What You Might Expect & A Lot of Everything Else that You Don't!. My writing style for my blog is invariably 'snarkastic'. This is because I am a nice, unassuming and quietly-spoken person IRL-and this blog is where my innermost moments and torments happen. Trust me, I am no exception to that delightful rule. Greetings! Welcome to my THIRD blog here on WDC. A re-incarnation of my earlier version of my Blog, here "Insanties and Sensibilities" this v.03 should prove to be equally...challenging and hopefully, entertaining. That said, life often weaves through our writing in mysterious ways, and this Blog will probably prove to be no exception to that. We are very likely all quite different, yet the same, us writers and our collective little whims, fascinations and insecurities. |
| October 29, 2008. Whether the Weather be: 46 (F) Cold and cloudy. Events of Note: Tiredness, but that's not really noteworthy. An everyday equation. In the Nudes: Earthquake in Pakistan.  I'm waning on my reviewing on here for today. I don't cope very well with writers (in any context) who are trying to be simultaneously witty/clever and/or obscure-and then get all touchy about the fact, to boot. One reason why I appreciate Kåre Enga in Montana   's poetry-I don't have to stand on my head to 'get it'. What he writes, more often than not, makes me stop and think, or to laugh out loud, or lets me give some other purely spontaneous and almost always, immediate reaction.  Six days and America will be re-invented. Then, the real litmus test comes. Walking walks. Not "what's" or "How's" but, "So, now what's".  My husband quietly and strategically dismantled the duck's cage, while "Beanie" slept, today. We're contemplating goats. Perhaps. We need some good brush-cutters...It's been a long day, and I need to slip into the hot-tub, and slip into sleep, soonest. P.S: A case in point: a sign that I saw in a film tonight, "If we see you smoking, we'll assume that you're on fire, and will take the appropriate actions  |
October 28, 2008. Following an impromptu family game of 'ball' out in the yard, this afternoon, I've concluded that, either I'm a rapid breather, or, I'm extremely out of shape (bent or otherwise). I've always had a hunch-backed style of running, anyway-more like staggering drunkenly, because of my balance difficulties. On a sadder note, "Beanie"'s one remaining duck-girl was snatched from her cage, by roving predators, last night. I'm still not sure how much my darling daughter understands about the finality and complexity of death, but following so closely on the loss of our dear, beloved cat, this has been a doubly difficult day. A lot of confusion, bewilderment and tears shed. Earlier, I observed as "Beanie" crouched by her little friend's cage and crooned a little song into the eerie emptiness. It was heart-breaking to hear and watch - this lonesome little figure, lamenting the loss of her constant companion, who always trailed behind her faithfully. It's just so senseless to her, as death can sometimes be. If anyone has any knowledge of good books out there about the subject, for toddlers-I'd surely be glad to know about them. I've made an executive family decision and decided to 'cancel' all festive activities, for the rest of this year, and for the beginning of the next. Aside from Christmas morning, mainly because of "Beanie". No "traditional" meals, and concentrating on creating simple decorations only, such as general floral arrangements, perhaps a hand-made wreath or two, and a string of plain fairy lights. I'm feeling rather disgusted by the degeneration in the quality of Christmas kitsch currently cluttering up retail stores, especially with so many people throughout the world who are confronting a miserable holiday season.  I was very heartened by everyone who stopped by here to leave their thoughts on what they consider to be "creative writing". It certainly is a subjective judgment call. I really appreciated hearing your point-of-view, and am glad that I generated some discussion on this. So, thank-you!. I'm off to see if I can't do a few more reviews before hunkering down for the night. Stay Warm ! . |
| October 26, 2008. Events of Note: Three earthquakes here in less than 12 hours: 4.6, 4.9, 3.5 International News Headlines: I'll keep you posted on that. In My Life: My head hurts, lol Reviewing Stats: 57 Given-in just over two days. What I Ate For Breakfast: 12 slices of bacon and two slices of toast. Now, you know about as much as I do  A novel, borrowed from my MIL, has been sitting in my backpack for the past...well, since we got back from New Zealand. I just cannot find the sort of focus that is needed to sit down and commit to reading something of that depth, so, I've been doing some reviewing here, instead. Some feedback received here expressed disappointment that I have no creative writing items in my portfolio. We cannot be all things to everyone, all at once. It's been 10 years since I've managed to pick up my creative writing pen. My last creative writing effort was some poetry - something that I have the least confidence in myself for coming up with. Besides, creative writing can be open to highly subjective interpretations, and can mean entirely different things to different people. Added to that, three university degrees later, my graduate research, and legislative work, and there hasn't been a whole lot of opportunity for me to write something fanciful, flowery, and fictional Have a Sweet Sunday!. |
| Part Two: In the meantime, W finished vacuuming out the house, while I gave my working dogs their last run around the place and a feed, and at the same time, burning the last of our rubbish. This took about two hours, and during this time, the new owner came through the place on his way home. He gave us permission to store what remained of our effects in the old house. They are still there, but as I shall explain presently, should come up here next weekend. We finally departed about 7:00pm, but were just leaving the house, when the local stock agent, who besides being the local rancher’s agent, is also an agent for the removal firm, rolled up to ask how everything had gone. I’m afraid the man got a bit of an ear-full from me. Meanwhile, we had decided to press on as far as about an hour short of our final destination. The neighbor gave us a meal at short notice. I don’t know what we would have done without them. I ought to have mentioned before, that I had engaged him for the previous day to help with the loading and other jobs. With the truck not turning up, this had turned out to be a wasted day for him. He did, however, help to stoke the final bonfire, and took a last load of junk to the dump for us on his truck. Also, he helped load his trailer which we were able to take North on the back of the car, with tools, fencing gear, etc. out of the shed. At the front of the trailer we left a space, padded with sacks, for my Fly-pup – the only dog we have brought up here. We departed from the neighbors about 8:15pm, having rung some friends further on, to cadge some beds. You might remember them. They are great friends of ours, who used to live opposite us on the ranch. The drive up was not too bad. There was little traffic on the road, and it was still a bright moonlight night. Really, after the trial of the past two days, it was quite relaxing, and we stopped just beyond a seaside town, to drink a flask of coffee that the neighbor had made up for us. T, as well as Fly, on the trailer, slept for most of the way, but Annabel stayed awake the whole time-excitement, probably. We arrived at our friends about half an hour after midnight, having been on the go for exactly 18 hours. We stayed up for another hour, telling yarns over beer, coffee and cheese snacks. About 9:30 the next morning, we arrived in the next major town and picked up our keys to the new property. Chris and Dawn had already been waiting at our new place for about an hour when we arrived, but this did not bother our consciences much. Unloading went smoothly enough. I dodged part of it by going in to see the Power Board in town, with an application to get our electricity turned on. Back at the new place, I found Chris struggling with the lashings that Bill had put on the section that he and I had loaded. He was unimpressed –“Did the bugger think he was tying up the QEII?!”. Dawn’s packing turned out better than one might have feared. There were just three breakages – a saucer from that old Aynsley coffee set of Granny’s, and a cup and saucer from the white and gold afternoon tea set (Tuscan) that Mum bought. Yesterday, I took them to the local antique dealer in the town to be valued for insurance purposes. He only put a value of NZ$15 on the coffee saucer, but thought that the Tuscan china was something special. He said that the handle and rims were best gold, and put a value of NZ$50 on the single cup and saucer. This rather startled me, for it would make the value of the whole set of 10 cups, saucers and plates around NZ$700. That just about ends the saga of our removal, which by now, you are probably finding rather tiresome anyway.. Not quite though-when Chris and Dawn got into the truck to leave, it wouldn’t start. They stayed on here for about three hours waiting for the auto-electrician to come out from town and fix it, when we would have been glad to see the rear end of them!. As a final footnote: when I was in town, I spotted a removal van owned by the same firm parked on the street. I waited for the driver to come back to it, and it turned out that he knew the whole story of our ‘adventures’. He told me that poor old Steve had broken his leg in two places – no wonder he was in so much pain. He also knew about the part of our load which had been left behind, and said he would probably have the job of bringing it up here next weekend. Let’s hope, anyway. We are gradually setting in here, and learning the good and bad points of the place. One thing which has surprised us is the amount of heavy traffic noise. We are surrounded on two of our three sides by very busy roads that carry a lot of heavy truck traffic. The house itself comes up to our every expectation. One thing that impresses me, are the many small details which have been well thought out and put into its construction. The garden is going to involve a lot of work. At the moment, it is swamped with Autumn leaves, which fall faster than you can rake them up. We hope to see you sometime in May. Love, RET en famille |
| I ran across the following narration [entirely true] written by my father. I transcribed it, partially for the sake of preservation, and partially for my own amusement. Then, I thought that Blogville might enjoy the tale of this adventure. My father was a great storyteller in the cowboy tradition. So, here is Part One for your enjoyment:  Remember, this is a true story of my family's move from our ranch in the South Island, to a smaller, lifestyle block, further North. Little did we know...Part One: Bad Beginnings: 7th May, 1985. Dear------------ Your card has been received and much appreciated. The reason you couldn’t get us on the phone last week, was that it had been cut off. Perhaps rather foolishly, I had noted the 30th on the Post Office form as our last day. In the meantime, the new owner had applied to have it continued in his name. He made an error of judgment, however, by doing this at the Waikari Post Office. As you know, Waikari and Hawarden have about as much in common as do the Mashona and the Matabele, so as a result, somewhere between the two places, all was lost, and we were without a phone for most of the last two, vital days. The moving truck, which was supposed to arrive and load on the Tuesday didn’t turn up. I went over to the neighbors to ring the removal firm. Of course, they hadn’t been able to get us on the phone, either, but it transpired that the truck was sitting somewhere quite a bit further South of us, with battery trouble. It would, however, definitely be at Hawarden by early afternoon. At 3’o’clock in the afternoon (said truck being still being conspicuous by its absence), I sloped off over to the neighbors to again phone up. According to the removal firm the battery trouble had now degenerated (if that is the right word) into generator trouble. Parts would have to be found and fitted, but the truck would be with us by 7:00am the next morning. They were as good as their word. At 6:30am, Toby came into our room and awoke us to say that the truck was here. The driver and his off-sider had not eaten for 24 hours, so, W fed them with porridge, bacon, sausage and eggs, toast and coffee. Loading finally began about 7:30. At 8:15 Steve, the driver, leapt from the back of the truck and put his foot in a hole in the garden (you know, the hole in the garden by the front verandah). I had been pulling a bed apart in the back bedroom, when I heard the scream of agony. W and I rushed outside to find Steve doubled up with agony, and his mate, Bill, doubled up with laughter – evidently thinking it was some kind of joke. It was no joke. W and Bill laid Steve out on the ramp which ran from the veranda to the back of the truck. He was in so much agony, that he was biting his own knee to try and distract himself from the pain in his lower leg. Once or twice, I have seen the same sort of thing in animals which were in severe pain, but never thought to see it in a human being. Once more, I drove over to the neighbors to ring up – this time – to the medical center in Waikari. The quack was not there, but J, who is more-or-less the boss of the place, said to pack Bill’s lower leg in ice and bring him down to the clinic. So, it was back home again, to manouever Steve into the car and take him to the clinic. Then, I drove Bill back to our homestead, so that he could have a cup of coffee to steady his nerves and to think over the situation. We then drove into Hawarden so Bill could ring up his firm in town, while I filled the car with gasoline. The petrol gauge was reading empty after all of this running around. The Boss-Man in town said he would try and find a relief driver and be out with him within the next two hours. While at the garage, I ran into Jen from the Medical Center, who told me that she was not altogether happy about Steve, as he seemed to be in too much pain for a simple sprained ankle, and that the doctor had ordered an X-Ray. Soon after we got back to the ranch, the neighbor arrived with Steve, from the Medical Center. He was all bandaged up and had a nice pair of aluminium crutches. We sat about for about an hour with still no sign of the blokes from the City. Time of course, was marching on, so we moved the truck forward away from the veranda, and Bill and I shifted the entire contents of the house on to the front lawn. I think that it was at about this time, that the first, small seed of doubt had begun to grow. The pile of furniture on the lawn looked awfully big, and the space inside the van seemed to be getting smaller by the minute. I forgot to mention that the removal firm had already put a load on, further South, bound for further North than we were headed. The original intention had been that they would bring a trailer, but not only did the trailer not turn up, but the load from further South was a meter longer than the original estimate. A meter in one of these moving vans represents a lot of space, at least the equivalent of a ‘living room suite’. Once we had the bulk of the heavy furniture on the lawn, Bill and I started to load it into the van, under the direction of Steve, the expert, who had perked up a little, and was hobbling about on his crutches. Bill, by the way, was a Seaman who was temporarily between ships. He was giving Steve a hand, because he had a girlfriend stationed at the Air-Force Base, down the road from where we were headed, and this seemed like a Heaven-sent opportunity for him to visit her. He was not an employee of the moving firm, and nor was he on their payroll. In other words, he was doing the work for love, rather than for money. At any rate, his Seaman’s training was useful, for after we had loaded on the furniture, I would take the weight, while he attended to the lashings. I kept calling him “Barnacle Bill”, which Steve seemed to find amusing. In fact, there was a fairly nautical air about the whole business, what with Steve hobbling about on his crutches, with his tattooed arms and scraggly yellow beard, shouting out orders, looking for all the world like Long John Silver. Somewhere about the middle of the day, I had had a gutsful of the whole business, and said that I would drive down to local tavern and buy some fish and chips, and beer, for lunch. We were sitting in our best armchairs, in the middle of the homestead lawn, scoffing this, when the Boss arrived from town. The Boss was a bad-tempered looking sod, with pale blue eyes and a ginger beard and moustache. Fortunately, he only stayed long enough to throw his weight around for a few minutes, or else I might have come out with some remark that I might have regretted later. He took away Steve, who was to be dropped off at the Public Hospital, and poor old “Barnacle Bill”, who I suppose, never did get to shack up with his girlfriend at the Airforce Base. Left behind, was Chris, an ex-employee of the company, and his current woman, a lady named Dawn, who was to do the packing of our valuables. Chris was a fairly laid-back sort of a joker, who seemed to regard the careful, scientific sort of loading which Steve, Bill and I had done, with a certain amount of scorn. As for Dawn – I can best describe her as a person of colorful appearance. Her knowledge of packing crystal, china and silver was rudimentary. W gave her a hand for a while, but after half an hour or so, W could take no more, and shut her eyes and left Dawn to it. You must realize that when I said that we had moved everything on to the lawn, I meant the ordinary furniture, etc. Under the terms of our moving house and contents insurance policy, all valuables, such as china, glassware, paintings, etc. had to be packed and unpacked by an employee of the moving company. Around 4:30pm, the truck was full. We still had quite a pile of little stuff left, including things like the lawnmower, the wheelbarrow, one bed, and more besides. I am still convinced, that if Bill and I could have carried on loading the truck, we would have got the whole lot in. The truck finally departed at 5:00pm that night, with Chris and Dawn stating their full intention of making their final destination that night, and booking into a motel room. No doubt, they could scarcely wait - a couple of times during the afternoon, I had caught them in a passionate embrace in the back hallway. This scheme put us in a bit of a quandary, however, for it meant that we would have to be at our new place (5 hours drive away) the next morning to unlock the house for them. We had already had to go back to the neighbors again to use the phone to call the attorneys to say that we would be a day late, as they were holding our keys to the new place. Part Two-But wait-there's more!. Where are the new house keys?. What really happened to Steve The Mover, after his Unfortunate Accident?. |
| October 22, 2008. Our sincere thanks to everyone who sent supportive comments in relation to my husband's health. He has had a bit of a scare, but is improving, day by day. As long as he faithfully keeps taking his drugs, lol. I'm feeling pretty despondent about this site right now. Someone gave a rating of a 2 on one of my newer items, with no review, nor comment. I was so annoyed, that I put the 'offending' item into my recycle bin, and there it will stay, until I have the internal resources to either edit the item in question, or to ditch it. I have heard of others experiencing similar 'injustices' and it does not sit well with me, either. I don't mind criticism, insofar as it's constructive. Granted, it was the first static that I'd posted here in quite sometime. Heck, why should I even have to justify myself to an anonymous low rating anyway?. Maybe what I need to do, is refrain from being too involved here, until things here at home have settled sufficiently. My husband has entrusted the monitoring of his health and his drug regimen to me, versus being in what our friend here on WDC, Ken, calls being hospitalized in "The Sleep Deprivation Unit". Doesn't help though, that I'm the one who's sleep deprived instead!. |
| October 20, 2008. My husband is seriously ill, and I am needing to take care of him and "Beanie". I don't know when I'll be back here. So, I'm not answering emails, nor will I be making comments in your blogs from today onwards. Take care!. |
| October 18, 2008. Whether the Weather be: 48 (F) Cloudy. Events of Note: Nothing. Really. Absolutely. In the Nudes: Iraqis stage mass anti-U.S rallies. Well, today was such blisteringly exciting news that I have absolutely nothing worthy of writing here. Some days are like that. Nursing my disgusting guts, mostly. If I drink any more of this New Aged tropical citrus, b+guarana, I'll morph into an iguana. My SIL flew in from AL, but she wasn't any more coherent, either. Bless her, but she's more scatterbrained than Pippy Longstocking cross-bred with Pollyanna. Two years in AL have merely nurtured that particular personality flaw, er, trait. I'd forgotten just how much until I tried to have a phone conversation with her, today. Second time, I handed the phone to my haggard husband, who just loves his sister so much, you can just see the steam billowing out of his ears |
| October 17, 2008. Whether the Weather: 48 (F) Foggy and grey. Events of Note: Terrible tummy - again  In the Nudes: "Omar" a hurricane once again over the Atlantic.  I'm predicting a rather subdued weekend, surrounded by soft soda water and saltine crackers. I'm back in Squiffy-land. Probably not helped much by a maddening movie called Smart People starring Sarah Jessica Parker, and the young woman from "Juno"[Spoiler Warning]. Let's just say...it's an o.k. movie, but not really worth my time bothering with such a pathetic ending.  My husband's anniversary gift still hasn't arrived, much to my annoyance, especially since I paid extra shipping. I don't understand why people in this country even bother with working at all on Fridays. Many aren't interested in actually being at work, so what's the point?.  Looking like rain. I hope. My plants are desperate for some sustained moisture. Still, I like Fridays... |
| October 16, 2008. Whether the Weather: 50 (F) Mildly frosty and chilly Events of Note: It's our 4th... In the Nudes: That unremarkable Final Debate. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Here's my sweet husband and I, at the end of April, 2004. B.B [Before "Beanie] By May 18th, we were engaged in C.A, and by October 16th, we were married in New Zealand. "Beanie" was born on June 6th the following year. That means, technically, I was a preggers bride |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
