Winter’s log, earthdate 201507.04

So where are the fireworks? The marching bands! The high-breasted and long-legged Drum Majorettes marching down the middle of the street in their natty uniforms? It is July 4th, isn’t it?! …What’s that you say? “…not America“? Isn’t it?! For real? But… we spell words like Americans (i.e. incorrectly!) …we pronounce words like Americans (i.e. incorrectly!) …we worship the Mighty Dollar like Americans (but doesn’t everyone, these days?) …and we’re even starting to enact laws that deny us civil liberties; curtail our personal privacy and freedoms, just like the Americans! (but that’s only because of the nasty terrorists!) Isn’t it a shame, though, that we don’t have a Federal Court to declare that it’s illegal for states to enforce laws that don’t allow same-sex marriage! If not for that, well, we’ve often been referred to as the 51st state of The United States – maybe we should all apply for United States citizenship! I’m only partially kidding, you know – we’ve “adopted” so many aspects of American life – their holidays, for instance – when I was growing up, “Halloween” was a quaint American custom that would never get a toe hold over here! As a child, I was resentful – it wasn’t fair that American kids could go out and get buckets full of lollies on Halloween (we called them “lollies”  back then, not “candy”) But what happens on October 31st these days in Australia? The kids, and quite often the Mums and Dads, all go out “Trick or Treating”! Some families, with no visible ties to America, even celebrate Thanksgiving! Yes, it’s lovely to celebrate – anything! But do we have to call it “Thanksgiving”?! It’s so close to Christmas, too – this year it’s on November 26th, just one month before Christmas! Shouldn’t we all be far too busy worshiping the Mighty Dollar by buying Christmas gifts that we really can’t afford, around November 26th? Or pulling out and dusting off the nativity set that used to belong to Grandma? Actually, I was just quietly musing to myself about what Public Holidays (apart from Christmas and Easter) our family “celebrate” – Australia Day (the day I stopped smoking, back in 2000! Also Julian’s siblings’ Birthday), Labour Day (spelt with a “u” in it, please! Also my Birthday!), ANZAC Day, the Queen’s Birthday, and Melbourne Cup Day. There used to be “Show Day”, too! A Public Holiday so that the plebs could go to the Royal Melbourne Agricultural Show and buy lots and lots of very expensive Show Bags full of …mostly advertising junk. It was abolished as a Public Holiday back in the 1990’s, but there are strong calls for it to be reinstated (I think that most people “take a sickie” on or around the second Thursday of the Show, anyway, so they might as well make it a legitimate holiday again!) And how do we celebrate these days? Why, the best and only way to celebrate a Public Holiday, of course! By sleeping in, eating far too much, and slopping lazily around all day! 😉

Well, it might have been the 4th of July today, but we didn’t celebrate it as a holiday, no siree! I Rifted, and got Chaviv up another couple of levels, and himself was going to clean out the cage down in the garage, but it was too cold! So he went shopping instead and got a proper pair of lace-up shoes in which to wear his orthotics, and a couple of pairs of jeans. He hasn’t had any jeans since before he started losing weight – when those started falling off him, he decided not to get anymore until he reached his goal weight, which he has, so he’s now got a couple of pairs of jeans. I don’t dare try jeans just yet – I’m still too fat, and will be for some time to come. I’ve started looking at myself critically lately, knowing that I only have about another 10 kilos to lose, and quite frankly, I don’t think that getting down to 75kg is going to be enough. I’m still going to be fat! I think I might have to go down to 60kg or lower (probably lower!) …anyway, we’ll see, if and when I ever get down to 75kg. (well, 70kg, actually, cos I’m giving myself 5kg to “play with” when I start my maintenance diet)

Weigh-in this morning. Well, it was more of a “weigh-up” this morning, thanks to those wretched, unmentionable, fluid retaining pills! I went up another point, from 84.1kg to 84.2kg! The air was a trifle blue around here this morning, and not just from the cold! I hope I do better tomorrow, but unfortunately, I don’t feel very hopeful

Oh, and talking about cold, I know that as I’m getting older, I’m feeling the cold more and more – but I’m the sort of person who flings the doona back off her feet because I don’t like having warm, or hot feet. Usually, the colder it is, the better I like it – but last night, we were sitting in the lounge room watching TV, and I moved my left foot and flexed my toes. Or rather, I tried to flex my toes…I almost couldn’t do it! My foot was almost frozen solid – I kid you not! My foot was numb with cold – it felt like I’d just had a massive injection of Novocaine in it or something! I could feel pressure on it, and I could feel my hands rubbing it, but other than that, it was totally numb, and I had a lot of trouble trying to wriggle my toes. My right foot was cold, yes, but not as cold as my left foot. In the end, walking around on the tiled floor helped – although it’s all tiled, our floor is always quite warm – whenever the people downstairs turn their lights on, the heat from their lights makes our floor warm! I feel it in my bathroom the most… I hope my foot doesn’t get that cold again tonight… it wasn’t very pleasant, even for someone who actually likes having cold feet!

Anyway, not much packing or de-cluttering “work” was done today, and as sure as eggs aren’t bananas, there won’t be any done tomorrow, either, because it’s out day in The Plain of Water, where we shall frolic with the mermaids and ride on footed sharks. It’s Monday that I’m dreading! Sharron is going to come over and see how very little work has been done as far as packing up is concerned – she’s not going to be a happy little Vegemite! Still, she’s not coming until 5pm-ish, we’ll have a bit of time to clean out the bookcases in the spare room – I think! Oh dear, I’m beginning to get anxious now – maybe we should only play a half day in The Plain of Water, and work on those bookcases instead… This room’s almost done, my bathroom is sort-of done (well, everything’s been hidden in the cupboards, anyway!) There’s the bedroom (nothing done yet!) and the hallway – one of the ornament cupboards has to be emptied out – and at this stage, I’m not sure if we’re keeping the cabinet or not – it’s fairly old fashioned… By the way, if any of you who have been here and know what we’ve got in the way of furniture, would like to take any of it off our hands, can provide a good home for it, or knows of someone else who would like it, please let us know! At the moment the only thing I’m pretty sure we’re keeping is the long sideboard with the marble top… and maybe the sofa bed. Julian will be putting things up for sale on Overclockers, and I’ll get him to give me all the gory details. I might create a special (temporary, just for the furniture) Page on the blog of “Furniture for Sale, or free to a good home” – we don’t want stuff left languishing in storage this time around!

And that’s about it from me for today – I shan’t apologise for my mini-rant at the beginning of the blog, I haven’t done a full-on rant for ages, and I was feeling a bit “harsh” (well, I do have a reputation to maintain! 😉 ) And sometimes, I just get a bit sick and tired of the amount of influence that those damn Yankees have on us Australians. Anyway, drop by again tomorrow night, and find out how much more my weight went up, and whether we frolicked with mermaids, or sorted out the bookcases in the spare room instead, rather than risk Sharron’s wrath on Monday evening. There’ll be lots more to tell you, anyway, so don’t miss out! In the meantime, please try to bee good, remember to learn constantly while you live; don’t wait in the hope that old age by itself will bring wisdom, and don’t forget to keep warm, look after yourselves, and to drive carefully… but please… above all, remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂