So many responsible bed times then there’s me still up and wired.
I napped and will pay the price
Alright. Trying for 6am round 2 tomorrow. Goodnight everyone ❤️
Goodnight and good luck!
Goodnight, I should be hitting the hay too because I need to leave the house by 7am tomorrow, but I had too much tea… 😒
I’m in the process of writing up a care agreement for my mother’s future (short version: Mum gives me house now, I take care of everything the house equity would have provided). It’s a lot like drafting a pre-nup, except instead of dividing up a house you haven’t bought yet and deciding custody of children that haven’t been born it’s all “what happens if Mum gets dementia” or “what happens if I get sick and need support too” type issues. Combined with reading lots of sobering stories about what can go wrong in caregiving and these sorts of agreements it’s a bit confronting. I have just signed myself up for a fairly expensive trauma/illness insurance policy, which also has a sobering list of all sorts of terrible things that could befall me in the future.
The whole process has also made me realise something - our society’s approach to aging is horribly broken. So many of the problems that happen with elderly people relate to a combination of abhorrence of the idea of aging leading to people not wanting to think/talk about options and a devaluing of carers so the job often gets foisted on vulnerable people who are often ill equipped to do the job and often exploited horribly. Add in our reverence for individual choice to be respected (which means people can lose capacity to make good decisions and no one has the power to do anything about it - refer to “scams”)
Just the way we generally talk about aging is illustrative - “when I get that way, just take me out and shoot me” is often the extent of planning for the future we do, and is often used to shut down conversations trying to do anything more. One problem with that sort of concept is it treats “getting old” as a one-time event that just happens, as if everything is fine one day, and the next you reach a point where you become valueless. That concept prevents people from taking a gradual approach to winding down as they get older. It’s no wonder elderly people often fight the slightest loss of independence, we set things up as an all-or-nothing situation, like walking off a cliff instead of a gentle downhill stroll.
The other problem with that is that no one actually has the power to “just” do anything - whether that be stopping you driving, “putting” you in a home, or shooting you. The only option people have to make decisions for you is if they can have you declared incompetent, both reinforcing the walking off a cliff feeling for older people and putting their family in the impossible position of being expected to look after them (both by society and earlier promises) without actually allowing the family any legal right to actually do so.
With the agreement I’m working on I hope to set things up to allow for a more dignified and gradual withdrawal from responsibility for Mum, allowing her to pass over the responsibilities that are getting harder to manage without losing choices of how she wants to live and what she wants to do. Hopefully I will be able to set myself up to eventually do the same in future.
Trigger warning - potential burglary
I swear the shithole area where I live is doing my head in. Yesterday I’m pretty sure two guys were looking for packages to steal and/or casing myself and my neighbours.
They made a beeline with one guy walking and the other crawling behind him in a distinctive coloured car I’ve never seen before, the walking guy coming onto the porch and moving every single one of my bins to check behind, going around to my neighbours to presumably do the same, even looking in a nearby hedge. On the way out the driver then got out of the car and openly leaned down to look closely through a neighbour’s side window. Then leaving in the car with the first guy walking behind.
I didn’t bother calling the cops because they almost never come and even if they did the sus dudes would be long gone by the time they showed. They usually are. Also I’ve got the security cam footage of that saved on my phone but it’s a pain in the arse or impossible to send anything more than a minute long so I’d probably have to go pull it off the recorder box. But I might report it tomorrow in case they come back or have hit someone else. If the cops even care.
And before you incredulously ask how come I’m so blase about this and didn’t immediately call the cops - please just don’t. Don’t blame or judge. It’s pure exhaustion. It happens all the fucking time.
Over the years I’ve had different and even the same people repetitively trying to break in while I was home, and once physically chased a woman out of my flat when I stupidly forgot to lock the door. She was later arrested having snuck in and stolen the house keys of the old man a few doors down. I’m not even getting into everything that’s happened here. The cops generally don’t care.
So like. Yeah. Fuck this place. I’m just hoping I don’t get broken into or assaulted before I can leave.
No judgement here, cops were absolutely useless at the old old place when we were being harassed by the neighbours’ brats and their arsehole mates. Until they got the call out by another neighbour after they had the house to themselves one long weekend and ran absolutely riot.
They treated me better with the robbery saga over Christmas/January but ultimately did/were able to do fuck all.
I ordered a heater from Kmart on May 30, and someone went and lost it. Kmart sent me an email the same day that they’d sent it, but the tracking never updated and when I contacted couriers please they said they’d never received it. When I checked on the Kmart page their tracking had changed from “fully shipped” to “we’re trying to find items for your order”. I contacted Kmart and they just refunded me stating it had been lost in transit.
Booooo
Also the other kid stole my water jug I keep in my fridge and now I don’t have cold water :(
Maybe look into getting yourself a little bar fridge? 2nd hand on marketplace you could get one for maybe 70 bucks delivered?
Save a lot of headaches.
Next payday I reckon I will. I found a small fridge + freezer that I think should fit in my cupboard for 60 bucks. 3.5 energy efficiency, so I figured if it fits it’d be a good investment for when I move out too. But I needed a tape measure to confirm it would fit which I forgot to buy
Remember to leave a 5 cm gap around the fridge sides AND TOP to ensure that the heat exchange element gets enough air circulation to work properly. 10 cm is even better. Cutting a generous hole in the base of the cabinet and fitting a small fan to blow air through the hole will help the fridge work better too. Otherwise you’ll spend a lot of time defrosting the fridge and a lot of energy running it. Ikea has paper tape measures for free that are good for a limited number of uses, and you can write on them with a biro - eg width measurement and height measurement of cupboard.
Thanks TW. I meant wardrobe, not cupboard (I basically call everything a cupboard). Unfortunately it’s built into the walls so cutting anything is off the table, but I’ll remember to keep it back from the wall.
gumtree and facebook freebies have a lot of fridges.
Gotta pay for transport though and our guy is too young to have a licence.
Well technically I do have a license, just not a full one and I can’t tow anything. I do know someone with a trailer who’d be down to help, but he’s away on holidays for a few weeks
I would like to declare that I am now in bed and ready to fall asleep. I will not be responsible for any unnatural occurrences tonight.
Good bacon. I don’t want any more of these weird dreams. For the sake of everyone: please sleep tight
Strange but relevant dream...
I dreamt that I was resting against someone I barely know (I met her at some environmental workshop many many years ago and never stayed in touch beyond seeing her fb posts, but she is gentle and soft spoken, so acted like some kind of vaguely familiar avatar)
We were seated on a shaded amphitheatre near a sunlit park, watching the breeze rustle the trees and far off-people ambling along the paths, kids playing on the grass, still water reflecting a blue sky, the hint of a guitar strummed in the distance… some tan-coloured bulldogs were also prowling outside the amphitheatre, but ornate wrought iron black gates around the periphery prevented them from coming in. They were quiet and observant.
After a while, the person asked me softly whether I’ve rested well and why, and I started going on about how I’m so tired, but it’s been hard to sleep on holiday because of the feeling that something always needs to be organised, and I’ve never felt like I had enough time to just allow myself to completely relax into the space. In saying that, I felt a pang of sadness knowing that it was sunny, so I had to be on a holiday.
“At this rate you’ll never have time,” the avatar said, “there’s always something that needs doing next, for as long as you’re alive.”
“But this time was a lot easier,” I replied, “maybe because you were there and I felt like you were in such a state of peace and calm yourself, that I had the permission to rest as well. Or maybe it’s this place, because it’s not real,” and I looked at the dogs warily as one sat itself a short distance from us behind the gate and started a quiet, low growl.
“Although it would be nice if those dogs weren’t here,” I added. “Are they yours? Normally I’d be on edge with these dogs around, but it was so comfortable and serene earlier that I felt transported to my childhood years. I would’ve loved it to continue.”
The avatar said nothing but smiled sweetly. It was too good to be true, I knew it. The growling started getting louder and was breaking my immersion; I had to show her that I wouldn’t be safe once I left her little sacred area, so I turned around and leaned over a step to reach my water bottle…
… and almost immediately, I felt the angry breath of a bulldog on my neck as its teeth sank into my jugular, its snarling abruptly loud, right next to my ear. My entire being went limp in surrender except to notice from the corner of my eye that the avatar was still smiling blissfully onto the Elysium beyond, as if I were invisible.
I could feel myself fading fast even as adrenaline coursed through my veins, so I summoned what energy I could to let out a weak yelp…
…which translated to real life, and I woke up.
I guess that was trying to tell me something…
There’s a lot to unpack there, wow! What a beautiful piece of writing though, nicely done!
Came here to say the same thing about how well written that was - time for you to write a short story I think! =)
Aw thanks you guys, I thought it was pretty disjointed word salad but I admittedly got caught up in a poetic mood halfway through. I do get very vivid dreams from time to time and they are so symbolic and emotionally affecting that writing them out tends to have interesting results
Heading to Melbourne on Thursday, does anyone know of any good used book stores? I believe the one in Warrandyte is still operating? And I know the one in the city in the basement (which is huge but didnt have anything I was looking for :S)
I’m staying in the Bundoora area but will have a car so travel isn’t an issue.
Thanks.
It’s probably a bit out of the way but For Pete’s Sake in Queenscliff is my fave. Absolute chaos in there:
There’s a really good one in Thornbury, on the 86 tramline. The 86 tramline goes out to Bundoora so you can maybe avoid all the parking hassles by getting on the tram. Name is Fully Booked and is at 824 High St Thornbury. Broad selection of interesting bookies on a variety of topics including some real weirdies. Don’t bother with Perimeter Books down the street a little - not a good selection the last time I went in. Already Read at 98 Scotchmer St North Fitzroy is OK if you’re looking for fairly mainstream books with a few eclectic selections. It’s small but choice, and it’s just around the corner from Piedmonte’s supermarket (worth a visit too as it’s unique). The real gem is Kay Craddock in Collins Street - exxy but an INCREDIBLE selection of books on every possible topic.
Thanks. I will try to make it out to Fully Booked at the very least.
