Dreaming

In the last week I have been having weird (as in not nice) and frequent dreams. I'm guessing it's the drugs...

So three or four times a night I wake up having dreamt of being in a car accident, opening my credit card statement to find big charges I haven't made, of one of my children dead, the stock attacked by dogs, a bulldozer running amok through the house and others. Now I am not of a nervous disposition normally, anything that is not an immediate threat is really not worth worrying about in my mind (and all insurance premium payments are up to date).

I've just spent a while looking up a couple of dream analysis sites. And all these dreams indicate that I have a feeling of having lost control, and have real and deepseated fears that I am having trouble addressing.

Maybe that is the standard reply to all bad dreams. Or remarkable accuracy.

Roll on better dreams.

A room with a view

Have just got back from a five day stay in a ninth floor Auckland room with amazing views of the harbour and the skytower. I even had this fabulous room to myself and it had an ensuite. I only wish I had thought to take the camera.

The room service sucked though and the cost of staying included feeling like I had been run over by a truck, and some interesting staple effects in my stomach.

They didn't manage to kill me while under anaesthetic, but I don't think they did a lot of good either, they didn't remove a great deal of the cancer which has now spread.

So it's on to chemo. It's not over by a long shot.

Nominated as the best short joke of the year....

A three-year-old little boy was examining his testicles while taking a bath.

"Mama," he asked, "Are these my brains?"

Mama answered, "Not yet."

It never rains but it pours

SEVERE WEATHER WARNING.
ISSUED BY MetService AT 5:52 pm 18-May-2005

FURTHER HEAVY DOWNPOURS LIKELY FOR COROMANDEL PENINSULA, BAY OF PLENTY AND ABOUT MT TARANAKI A moist northeasterly flow covers the North Island with a trough expected to cross northern areas overnight. The trough is likely to bring further heavy downpours and thunderstorms to Coromandel Peninsula and Bay of Plenty through to late Thursday morning, with another 60 to 100mm possible, especially west of Kawerau. The heavy rain about Mt Taranaki should ease overnight, however another 100mm is possible about higher slopes through to the early hours of Thursday morning. People in these areas are advised to be on the alert for rapidly rising rivers and the potential for further flooding. More rain is likely about the parts of Gisborne and Hawkes Bay through to Thursday afternoon, but amounts are not expected to reach warning criteria, with only 30 to 40mm possible about the ranges.


It definitely rained. It poured down at home last night but had settled into a steady rain when I went to work. Got into town and it was bucketting down. Checked the building for leaks but it appears that the last lot of repairs are holding up. And it continued raining - rather a lot. Wasn't particularly unpleasant, not cold and little wind, just torrential straight down rain.

Didn't think too much about it until I went out about 11am. Rivers down the roads and some pretty big puddles, rather deep too. Collegue went home for lunch and reported he couldn't drive into his place - had to park up the road and paddle - and he came back with photos on his cellphone of his local pub sitting in the middle of a deep looking pond with water half way up to the windows (guess they won't be doing their usual smorgasbord tonight) and the nearby retirement home had been evacuated. Then we heard they had closed the harbour bridge and some houses had fallen off the hill at Otomoetai, cars had been abandoned in Welcome Bay, sister-in-law had to wade through waist deep water to collect the children from school. 309 mm of rain fell in the last 24 hours apparently and they expect another 120mm tonight. They have announced a 24 hour state of emergency.

Left my car in town and went home with husband in the 4WD as we weren't sure how bad our gravel road would be (actually gravel is a misnomer there isn't any gravel on it only mud) but it wasn't that bad. Suspect we didn't have that much rain at our place.

Nature is tough when you least expect it.

Blah

It's one of those days....

It's raining. I wish I hadn't bothered going to work, it was more trouble than it was worth....

You'll be pleased to know I ate well though - I had a muesli bar and an anzac biscuit for lunch, another muesli bar for afternoon tea and dinner was popcorn, toast and icecream.

I wonder why it is okay for me to eat this way, I wouldn't allow my children to do so (at least not in front of me).

Seeking positive forward moving things I changed the template on my blog. Not sure if I like it or not - may change it again later.

After I have rounded out my diet with some chocolate - as long as I can find some. And a glass of vino....

Update on the broken cat

Herbie the roadkill escapee is pretty much as good as new. After two weeks in a cage so his hip could settle back into place he was allowed out in the house. He's now allowed outside again - something he is very pleased about. The impatience was not helped by Mitzi the other cat bringing her catches (mice, rabbits, lizards) up to the outside of the door to show him and proceeding to play with the live ones just inches from him through the glass.

Not sure his intelligence has improved at all - the catdoor is fitted in the fixed side of the ranchsliders so when the door is open the catdoor doesn't work. Have just watched him run full tilt into the catdoor and find it extremely unyielding since the door next to it was wide open.

Why I blog

No this isn't an essay on how many people I know in Cyberspace or how much satisfaction this gives me....

It's more a conversation with myself (I do that - have chats to myself)

I have a stats counter on this blog, but I hardly ever look at it - it makes me nervous because I really don't know if I want thousands of readers or none. But I guess I don't want none, otherwise I would be writing this in a Word document and keeping it on my C: drive. And I don't think I want thousands - big parties make me feel shy and I drink too much.

So I can't decide if I should be happy or sad if no one drops in to see what I am doing. Usually someone or two or ten does so I know I'm not talking to myself, and then I start wondering just who I am talking to.... I know who some of you are, but I get some unidentified extras....not that that matters much (I mean if they decide I'm an idiot they can just go away again, not really a problem, or if they want to come back occasionally that's fine by me too)

So probably I should just give the stats counter a miss, then I wouldn't have to worry about it.

Teambuilding the return

I've just got back from a two day training session.

The sort of thing that raises more questions than it answers like:
If we -the chosen few - are so valued why do they put us two to a small room in a cheap motel and offer us food that looks suspiciously reheated.
Why isn't the bar tab bigger.
Where was the cooked breakfast (the reason for getting up in time to go to breakfast on these occasions)
Why is aircon and heating in conference rooms always so inefficient
Why did everyone spend hours on a preparation exercise that was hardly touched on over the course
And... how much do they pay that guy to stay enthusiastic for two whole days.

Actually I got a lot out of it. I learnt there are more productive ways of making staff behave than yelling and screaming. (I knew that really but it amused me to say I was kicking the staff into shape, now I have training I will have to use PC speak, I'll give them some feedback in a non threatening manner). And I learnt to write shorter sentences - not something I have put into practice immediately - because apparently brackets and colons and semi-colons make things hard to understand. (Note that I hardly ever use colons or semicolons - they are in the wrong place on the keyboard I find)

But there was a significant leaning towards teambuilding in this one. Not as bad as the 90s when being part of the team was the most important thing in the world and you could just go home without your bat and ball if you didn't want to play, but none the less that T word kept coming up.

If they want to blindfold anyone I'm going home.

And more autumn

Central Otago colour - again from last year.

Terribly chocolate boxy - but rather gorgeous.

Autumn

Every autumn I wish for more deciduous trees. This is one of last years photos, autumn in Nelson.

Think positive thoughts for me

They ('they' being some unidentified number of surgeons who consult each other and make decisions - I only got to meet one of them but I am assured I was the subject of serious discussion) have decided to cut me open on May 23rd.

It doesn't sound like much fun.... but they didn't suggest any other options that sounded any more entertaining so guess this is what I have to do.

My mother is just about eight weeks behind me in the process with a probable recurrance of her cancer.

Fatally flawed as a family.... (mutant DNA)

No need for a reason for being

It was raining cats and dogs the other night (strange saying I've always thought, it was raining large amounts of H2O to be more precise) and I was standing out in the paddock supervising horse dinners because if I don't supervise the horse equivilent of sibling rivalry will break out and they'll all start biting and kicking each other in an attempt to get the 'best' feedbin. It was just getting dark and the rain was dripping steadily down my neck... and suddenly it became one of those moments of perfect contentment that happen every now and then, where there was no place I would rather be than standing in the rain and the dark with one large and two small horses.

Life isn't all bad and I should take the time to enjoy it more often.

It was so much fun working for the Government

I mentioned a word that got me thinking. TEAMBUILDING.

It's gone out of fashion now and we are back to every man for himself but it was THE training choice for a while.

And I was mulling this over and I can honestly say

I loved working for the Government in the 90s.

That is probably a bit insensitive as many people found it a very threatening time - but it was great!

First there was all this training. And training could involve so much drinking that some people were too sick the next day to get more training. And there is nothing like watching your previously superior workmates get all messy and uncouth. so good! Often I laughed so much I cried. Sometimes I laughed till I cried about things that weren't even funny.

And I learnt to be Culturally Sensitive. See I never realised that it wasn't enough to not care what colour or religion or whatever people were, you have to be sensitive to these differences as well. So I took that on board. And I am grateful I learned that, even if there are some gaps in the training - I learnt cultural sensitivity towards all things Maori but never got the equivilent training in Chinese or French for instance. Still it was a start.

Then there was the teambuilding. Now quite early in the piece I realised that teambuilding was actually invented by trainers so they could have a great laugh at the expense of some poor (hungover) bastards that had been sent on a training course. They invented games like blindfolding everyone, telling them a number and then expecting them to line up in order without speaking to each other. Now stumbling round blind until you walk into someone who then thumps you three times is probably really funny if you are standing back watching but is not at all amusing when you are number 10 looking for 9 and 11 to stand between. Trust me I've tried it. And I didn't feel part of number 3s team at all... Then there was the catching people when they let themselves fall, and being led round an obstacle course blindfolded and in a line. Really lucky departments got to try rockclimbing and white water rafting and bungy jumping. WINZ staff got to try a private plane (that would have been a bonding experience)

Anyway it was all over when the restructuring came - cos the first to go were the trainers.

I survived three or four restructurings. It was honestly a whole heap of fun (serious). I know some people found the whole thing threatening but the redundancy payouts were big enough to be similar to a small lotto win so what the hell - either way you won. And I do have some sympathy for people round me who lost sleep over it, but I never did. It was just so crazy it was great.

First they would announce they were restructuring and X many people were to go. Then the Union would bowl in, promise not to take this lying down, and vanish again until the next restructuring. After that there would be some Counsellor employed, usually some dizzy female who would wander round one day a week stroking everyones egos and telling them it would be really good for them in the long run if they were redundant. After a bit she would realise some people weren't actually on any hit list and would ignore them, even if they wanted to talk about something (which would have been a foolish move anyway if you were looking for good advice - but I will keep my opinion on counselling until some later date)

Eventually they would devise some sort of test or interview and make a decision about who could stay and who could go. Usually the decision seemed to make no particular sense, the person who had been taking it easy for years got to stay and the efficient person got to go. Possibly they just drew names out of a hat and all the testing and stress was just for fun.

Some of the time they asked if anyone would like voluntary redundancy. Then they refused to give it to them. (probably in the hope that they intended to leave anyway so would resign and save the redundancy payout)

Someone who got made redundant in one of the early rounds ended up staying because someone else resigned. In the next round they applied for voluntary redundancy and were turned down as they were deemed essential.... amazing they could go from dispensible to indispensible in six months...

Someone who had a part time job scored a full time one while someone else had to go....

It made no sense whatsoever so you couldn't take it personally (not after all the counselling anyway)

Then there were heaps of leaving parties and more drunken debaucery and everything would settle down for a while until they decided it needed to be done again.

Sadly once there was only half as many staff there wasn't time to spend on training any more.

Just another day in the complaints department

Someone rang work the other day to complain. We still don't know who he was because he wouldn't say. He was most unimpressed with the level of service though.

First he spent 10 minutes berating the receptionist who was trying to find out who had upset him - eventually she identified the staff member responsible when he told her what type of car he drove, so that was a start. So she put the call through to me.

He started with "I didn't know there were women doing your job"
There's a dozen or so answers to that "no you are right - I've just checked and I'm a bloke really" or "yeah was a bit of an experiment giving me so much power, not sure how it is working out" or "I got the job before the sex change" and similar. Anyway I was in soothe mode so I said "Oh there's a few of us"

So he started on the complaint
"that guy is a bastard" (well I can't check the parentage of all staff, but I'm sure this one said his parents were married.... hmmm)
"he's a real wanker" (eeewwww not in work time surely, we have got problems)
"absolutely incompetent, never seen anyone as incompetent" (darn, training isn't working)
"should be fired" (hell no, I'd have to do some work then!)

After a bit more of this I asked him if he'd give me his name so I could investigate further. "I'm not letting you snoop into my affairs" (like I want to)
So I say "okay what is the problem then - in general terms"
"Well obviously his qualifications aren't worth the paper they are written on" (ohhh that's a hefty accusation but we can probably overlook it since you probably don't know what the said qualifications actually are)
"and he just smarms around the place like he owns it, very full of himself, all friendly and pretending he's got every right to come knocking on my door." (my God it's worse than I thought, I'm really not sure how I am going to handle this) try more soothe - "was it really that bad that he knocked on you door Mr.... (pause but no name supplied) I mean he only wanted to ask you a couple of questions I would imagine, he's not selling anything."
"It's an invasion of my privacy" (oh okay, sorry, didn't realise)
"you should know that" (umm, right I'm learning)
So try more soothe "You know most people don't mind,"
"Well they should, before you know it everyone will know everything about you." (very real and serious danger I have to admit, I'm glad he alerted me to this I hadn't realised)
"You wouldn't like it." "Well actually I wouldn't care at all."
"You're just a typical bloody woman, too stupid to know what's going on." (right 1. don't call all women stupid and 2. don't call me typical) "there is no need to be abusive thank you."

So I was abruptly hung up on.

I had made some notes:
bastard
wanker
incompetent
invasion of privacy

Still not sure who he was but I think I got his description.

Memo to all staff
We will no longer be tolerating illegitimacy, wanking, or incompetence in this office. Please make sure it doesn't happen again.

Right so I am a nutter and here is my opinion

It started with a seemingly casual discussion at work, “why” asked someone “isn’t there fluoride in the local water?” At the same time as I said “because it’s a stupid idea” someone else said “because the nutters make too much of a fuss about it”. Interesting discussion followed – after I’d acknowledged and adopted the nutter tag. I work with a highly intelligent, well educated man who feels the GE is fine, fluoride in the water is fine and everyone should line up and get immunized for anything the Health Department (or whatever they call themselves these days) says you should be immunized for. I don’t get it…. (so perhaps it’s just me).

Fluoride: I mean to say… there are studies that indicate that fluoride intake can in susceptible individuals cause brittle bones, kidney problems, limit the uptake of other nutrients and possibly cause cancer. Other studies indicate that with or without fluoride the level of tooth decay is
reducing in most developed countries. So whether you believe in it or not… Why the hell would you want to forcibly medicate the whole population???? (especially as there is enough in toothpaste) Apart from anything else it’s such a hugely wasteful and inaccurate method of delivery.

Similarly he feels it is not great loss if every crop in the world is GE contaminated….

And that non immunized children shouldn’t be allowed in school or preschool (I pointed out that if immunization was so wonderful the only kids at risk were the non immunized ones). Don’t get me wrong here my kids were (more or less) immunized, just not necessarily as recommended (and I drove my GP mad asking about side effects and contra indications and demanding a scratchtest for one).

I thoroughly dislike having no freedom of choice… I don’t understand why other people would feel that is okay.

Deckadent

The addition to the deck was finished on Thursday. It is rather large. Even with the spa on it there is room to have a party. Now my task is to clean down and re-oil the outdoor furniture, husband has to put up a shade sail, I'll drag some potplants round in due course (after we've stained the deck which can't happen for a few weeks because the wood is still wet) and it should look just like home.

He's gonna have to learn to look both ways first

Herbie our mighty burmese hunter probably wishes he hadn't bothered getting up on Thursday. We wish he hadn't bothered, (and so does the bank account). Thursday night he struggled home with only his front legs working and well covered in blood. It appears he's been hit by a car, which probably isn't surprising since he has always considered the road is his own and the land across the road his too. He was luckier than he could have been, having a dislocated hip, a broken bone in the other hind leg, multiple bits of skin missing and some unidentified internal injuries that do not appear to be life threatening. He came home from the vets today and is going to have to spend three weeks in a cage while the hip heals and another month or two inside.

Eight lives left.

Twas International health and fitness week or some such

last week - apologies if I got the title wrong I wasn't paying that much attention....

Work got quite excited about this and told us all to do 3 hours worth of health and fitness things on work time. Which was all very generous. (But you wonder if anyone will be eligible for stress leave until further notice cos they told you to get some exercise and learn to relax)

The point I was coming to is they sent us all Pedometers. They sent us healthy snacks too, and instructions on how to quit smoking, meditate. and get more exercise (you know the walk to work bit... and take the stairs bit - theres's two steps in our office so we all take them always - and the walk a bustop or two bit...) But NZ Post misplaced our parcel till Friday morning. This meant that we missed out on the competition to count our steps and be the most active office. (sooooo disappointed - and if I hadn't been limping I would have been a contender *grin*)

Some woman somewhere in the company averages 22000 steps a day. I suggest her manager reviews her performance immediately cos she can't be doing much work when she's walking round all day!

Now this darn thing is ruling my life. I've calibrated it carefully, and I've spent all weekend worrying about getting to 10000 steps. Can get in a couple of thousand or so with a walk round the town at lunchtime, it is 300 metres to the end of our property which is 500 steps for me give or take so I need to do that a few times.... I have notified the IT department that there are insufficient steps between my desk and the printer and that I want this rectified ASAP.

Right now I am SO annoyed. I came home and got changed and buggered off down the paddocks to do various things and I forgot to put that darn pedometer back on, and I walked up and down for at least half an hour.... all those uncounted steps.

(I'm guessing it's at least 6000 because that's how many I'm short for today)

Testing

Just testing using Picasa Hello for loading photos. In theory this should save a step (loading into Photobucket) when adding photos to the blog. worked quite well actually.

Sent running for the dictionary

As fast as my ankle will let me.

Browsing - as I do - and the Morphess has remorphed - check it out here if you haven't already.... Was checking out the links (love My boyfriend is a twat, just as well the chair has arms or I'd have fallen off it laughing) and found Caroline has this clever little comment thing that comes up when you put your mouse over the link (way cool). Gratified enough just to be there in the list but the comment is Erudite and Honest. Who me! Had to check that erudite means what I thought it meant, which it does (phew, just as well since with a label like that I will have to try harder to live up to it.)

Left with this warm glow - feel very special.

Thank you Caroline