Disco Knitter

One down

One more to go.

Had a job interview this morning, which went relatively well. I’m not qualified for the job, but they might offer to train me at a lower salary. Or they might not. I think it’s easier to learn technical stuff than it is to learn sales skills, so I am a good prospect, and I think they liked me. I’ll hear next week.

Another interview on Monday morning.

Popped over to Mosman to see the shop where I’ll be working for the next few weeks, and I can see that I will be able to make a difference there. Then off to the doc to get the results of last weeks blood test. Hep A immunity is OK, but I should have the Hep B shots. And Typhoid. Or was it cholera? No nasty stomach bugs causing my reflux, but I do have a vitamin D deficiency. Apparently it’s somewhat of an epidemic in IT workers who never see the sun. No problem, I just have to “take some fish oil supplements”, says the doctor. “Fish are friends, not food”, says Lara. General hilarity ensues. Apparently my freaky aversion to eating sentient creatures will lead to cancer, bone deformation, osteoporosis, tiredness, depression, muscle loss, fractures, muscles spasms, low calcium, eczema, tourettes, halitosis, acne, syphilis, obsessive compulsive disorder, mange, plague and an escalation of conflict in the middle east. And someone, somewhere will be mean to a puppy.

Or at lease some of the above. And I already have a very mild form of tourettes. Hardly noticeable at all.

I need 1000 “international units” of a vitamin d supplement per day for a few months to normalise my levels before I have another blood test and can use sun exposure and diet to keep my levels at a normal level. Right now, they are so low that diet and sun exposure alone won’t cut the mustard.

The thought of eating fish (even in capsule form) makes me gag, but I’ve always said that if my diet came down to me and a cow on a desert island with no other source of food, I’d be chasing after the cow with an axe.

Has it come to that ?

A quote

Tonight we had a Greens meeting that was a little more interesting than usual. We were supposed to preselect a candidate for the state seat of Epping, but a health scare and a work commitment prevented the candidate from standing, which is a great pity. She isn’t someone I know very well, but apparently she is a woman of faith, and she quoted St Augustine of Hippo in conversation. He was born in Africa in the 5th Century, and is believed to have said,

“Hope has two beautiful daughters, and their names are anger and courage. Anger about those things that need to be changed, and the courage to change them.”

Lee Rhiannon spoke about the Lane Cove Tunnel, as did Ray Kearney, Chair of the Lane Cove Tunnel Action Group, and Professor of Immunology and infectious Diseases at Sydney University.

Two things made me angry. Apparently the CSIRO are quashing the findings from emissions research for financial gain. I knew they accepted large grants from the Meat and Livestock Corporation and then released a diet book heavy in red meat. But I didn’t know that the problem was widespread. I was also shocked just now after doing a google search for meat and livestock csiro to see just how many links there were containing those words. Apparently you can buy the CSIRO.

Secondly, we are all aware that cars are dangerous. We are bombarded with media attention on young drivers in fatal accidents, kiddies that get squashed by high speed police chases and lose limbs when cars crash into day care centers. But I had no idea that the number of pollution related deaths in Australia each year outnumbers road fatalities by a factor of about three to one. That the cost to our public health system of air quality related illness is absolutely massive, and makes a poor joke of arguments that we can’t filter tunnel emissions because the cost is too high.

I had no idea. None at all. Isn’t it funny that we can live in a world and think that we are aware of the issues that affect our day to day lives, and yet there are massive issues like this lurking literally like clouds over our heads, and we are oblivious.

I am finding the anger, just waiting on the courage.

And in knitting news…..

My last Christmas knitting project is nearing completion. Last night I was on the 5th line of the last chart when I discovered I was about 50cm away from the end of the ball. The only ball. So today I popped in to Rubi + Lana to pick up another ball. BUT THERE WAS NONE ON THE SHELF.

Cue panic attack. Rapid inhalation and exhalation, resulting in not much oxygen getting to the brain, and I almost cried. I am waaaay overdue for a big cry, but this was not the time, nor the place. Pamela, this is where you come in. Apparently, you ordered two large balls of the same colour, and some clever person had put aside on small ball for you. Apparently, there is more yarn at the warehouse with your name on it, but some helpful person snaffled the last small ball and hid it from view, just in case you might want that before the two large balls came from the warehouse. Apparently, I was able to convince the very helpful staff that my need was greater than yours, and they you would understand.

Apparently, the universe owes me a few blessings, and I am now well on the road to finishing. And Pamela, I owe you one. (And I won’t use much of this ball, and it’s yours when I’m done!)

Pauline Hanson is revolting

Is it the iced vovo mumu, the nasal voice, the fish and chip shop accent ?

No, it’s her opinions. The way she thinks. It’s personal. Deeply personal. How can a human being reach her age, and still be sooooo bloody selfish. It beggars belief that the woman has ever met anyone with a disability, a disadvantage, or from a minority group. She takes such stock from being “a voice of the people”, but I would prefer not to live in a country full of such arrogant, ignorant, selfish, stupid people. In bad clothes.

Tell me it’s not just me.

And now, some pictures

But you might want to put on the “Lara is about to be tasteless” filter….

When I was growing up, Eastwood was the place we went to to “go to the shops”. We did our grocery shopping locally, but Eastwood was where the big new flash shopping center was. They had a big Target, and I think there might have been a Grace Brothers (showing my age again), and going there was always an adventure.

Fast forward 30 years, and the character of Eastwood has changed. A lot. The blue rinse nannas have been replaced by young chinese and koreans, and Target and GB’s have been replaced by a growing number of $2 shops. Eastwood has become a Mecca for the $2 shop lover, and yesterday I visited the newest member of the tribe, which has taken over the site of the old Target shop.

And I saw this.

First, the disembodied head of a deer in the headlights. I know how he feels.

An incestuous family of cane toads

Chain mail anyone ?

A garden sprite for your lounge room?

Homo erotica? Hobo erotica?

Rover on the attack.

Does it get much creepier than this ?

Yes, my children, it does…..

Run Rabbit, RUN!!!!!!!

Yay!

More good news.

I’ve been offered casual work for a friend between now and Christmas, and I just got a call from another reseller asking to meet me on friday. So surely someone will want to employ me and give me lots of money ?

And in other news, the whole “You’re redundant, and we might give you some holiday pay” thing took a turn for the worse yesterday when I discovered that it looked like I owed TRS some money. About $1200.

I work in sales. Part of my pay is in wages, and part in commission. Except, I was never paid commission – I got a laptop on salary sacrifice instead. All well and good, but for one small catch – I never had anything in writing telling me how much I was owed, and the invoices I made out to myself for goods that I had taken never were marked off as paid. So on paper, it looked like I owed the company about $6000. I pestered for a statement, which I got, but that only showed commission up to the beginning of the year, and there was a shortfall of about $1200.

Cue some very bad dreams.

But this morning I had an email showing my commission statement for the rest of the year, and I am covered. The balance is now $1000 in my favour. I won’t get paid this because of the entitlement capping (mutter, mumble, whinge), but at least the debt collectors won’t come knocking…..

And now, I am off to CherryHills for the funny little knitting circle thing they do. I can’t call it a stitch ‘n Bitch, it just wouldn’t be right.

And I promise I will do another post with pictures soon.

In the meantime, check out this wonderful traveling breakup song – it’s on the Aussie iTunes Music Store.

Every Fucking City from the album “Roll On Summer EP” by Paul Kelly

There is some good news

But the bad news is first.

First up, the bastards addressed my redundancy letter to “Mr” Lara Nettle. Talk about adding insult to injury. Then, on further reading, I discovered, that as a relative as the director, my entitlements are capped. That means I won’t get all my entitlements – most, but not all. Just because Adam is my brother. Bloody hell! How did they find out ? I changed my name and everything…

Secondly, Mark had an utterly shit day at work today, and has realised that he can’t work out the rest of the term. He’s taken sick leave till the end of the term, and is considering resigning. He’ll get most of his time off covered by sick leave, but there will be about a week at half pay, and then holiday pay until Feb – even if he does resign. In Feb, he’ll either do casual teaching until he feels confident enough to tackle his own classroom again, or perhaps look at going back to IT. But we can’t rely on his wages into next year – and the need for me to get a job, a job that pays well, is now at the forefront of my mind, right there with making sure that the man that I love is healthy and happy.

Mark is the most wonderful man I have ever met, and I haven’t for one second ever regretted marrying him. And even though I expected that marriage would bring with it trials and tribulations, I am not sure that I expected this. When I was single, I went through some bad shit, but the consequences were never that scary – I could always rely on friends or parents to help me through a bad patch. But as a couple, a committed, serious, married couple, the consequences are compounded, and scary beyond anything I have experienced before.

OK, the good news.

I have a job interview with the devil on monday, and high hopes for a well paying (and hopefully fun) job that would start in late Jan. I also have a few other fingers in various pies, and we’ll see what happens.

I still haven’t had a good cry. Tonight we’re going to have dinner with Mark’s parents (bless them!), and discuss our options, and what we can do to support him through this. After that, I’ll pull out “The Joy Luck Club”, and have a good weep.

I don’t do memes, but this is cute

and it appeals to my twisted literary pretensions. I’ll try to be honest, then you’ll all know exactly how tacky I am.

How it works: bold the ones you’ve read, italicize the ones you might read, cross out the ones you won’t, and underline the ones on your book shelf.

The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown – Not on my bookshelf. On the floor under the dirty clothes pile.
The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy – Douglas Adams
The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – J. K. Rowling
Life of Pi – Yann Martel It’s on my iPod – does that count ?
Animal Farm: A Fairy Story – George Orwell
Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
The Hobbit – J. R. R. Tolkien Dad read it to me as a kid. I blame him for a lot of things 🙂
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
Lord of the Flies – William Golding A school text. Not a fave.
Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
1984 – George Orwell
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban – J. K. Rowling
One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel García Márquez
Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
Slaughterhouse 5 – Kurt Vonnegut
Angels and Demons – Dan Brown
Fight Club – Chuck Palahniuk
Neuromancer – William Gibson
Cryptonomicon – Neal Stephenson
The Secret History – Donna Tartt
A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess
Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – C. S. Lewis
Middlesex – Jeffrey Eugenides
Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
The Lord of the Rings – J. R. R. Tolkien
Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë
Good Omens – Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman
Atonement – Ian McEwan
The Shadow Of The Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway
The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
Dune – Frank Herbert

So I think I am learning something about myself – I seem to have a need to own books. I appreciate libraries, but I prefer to won and revisit books that I really love. And I am not very strong on popular fiction, or poetry.