Jenny says No

Originally yesterday I was going to visit Jenny after seeing the dietician.

However, just before I left home I got a phonecall from Jenny saying that she'd be "out for the day". I asked her if she was visiting Ron (her husband in the nursing home) and she said "sort of" to which I said well then I can pop in (it's two blocks away from the hospital) and if she wasn't there, go to the library. Then she said that she just didn't want me to come over, that it "wasn't working out" and that our tastes and interests were too different.

Well. I had been intending to take a DVD or two with me and watch them with her. Jenn's house-bound with MS so if someone else doesn't drive her places, she's always home. I didn't ask just what wasn't working out. All I've ever offered her is friendship, though I know in the past she's wanted more. Made a pass at me on one occassion, and afterwards I scaled down my visits a lot.

The last time I was over there was last Tuesday night, when I took a copy of "I Robot" to watch (an OK flick, but I really wonder what Asimov would have made of it). Hadn't been there for almost a fortnight before that.

Am I upset? Not sure.

She did this once before - asked me not to come, not to phone her and said that she was changing her phone number and so on. So I didn't go, and didn't phone. In her situation, I figured that complying with her request was respectful. Then she phoned me a few weeks later and said how silly she felt, and that I could drop in. However, with the car the way it is, I haven't been that much of frequent visitor, and most times I have visited she's asked me to buy a packet of smokes for her ($10 a packet). Last week I did, because I had money (and she still owes me for that) but I was feeling a bit used.

So I'm not that much upset I guess, not like the time I mentioned in my Friends Self Therapy posting. I'll miss her, but life is too short to worry about it.

Avril

I just bumped into Avril down at the uni.

It was good to see here again - she's doing some sort of Arts Open Foundation course. She also mentioned that Within the Crypt is on this weekend...

...I might just turn up!

AZZ CardFile

I've just downloaded something called Azz Cardfile to use to store recipes.

The blurb on the web page said...

Create your own custom recipe cards database, manage them with this free-form cardfile-type program. It is simple and flexible, same time incorporates powerful tools and customization options. Many cooks and recipe collectors have chosen Azz Cardfile as their favorite recipe software. Large free databases totaling over 7.000 recipes available to download, plus other useful collections.

They also said that users might be able to get it for free if they advertise it, so that's what I'm doing now. I checked out their sample collections and they look cool. Maybe you could all these up by hand, but they're already done.

OK, I have thousands dozens of cookbooks but I thought I might try something new. Truth is that I've always loved to cook, but got dishaeartened too quickly. Maybe a simple database like this might help.

Bus hell - almost

I had a research day at the uni today. As well as going to a Queer Collective meeting and seeing a counsellor, I hunted around for books related to Comics and Contemporary Art/Culture (got any references for me?). I ended up with two 10kg bags of books to cart home!

Anyway, as I was walking from Huxley library to the bus stop, I tripped over a "hidden" step on the footpath - the local light was out of order and I hadn't spotted it. I went flying forward - off came my specs and I scrapped my knee and palm. I was a bit shaken but finally got to the bus stop in time.

The ride home was less than pleasant however. There's one bus driver, who while very amiable, drives the buses like Mac Trucks. I'm starting to notice a pattern. Most of the buses I'm sick on are the later day / early night ones, and most by one or two drivers. A teenage boy got on tonight and talked to the driver for most of the trip. I was listening to this and it was clear that this was the driver's last trip and he was making an effort to make it a short one - that explains the driving. The boy was also saying how bus travel made him sick, and as I got off I paused next to him and said "You're right, I get bus sick too!"

Actually I was only mildly ill, but there was no way I could anything like read on the trip. Hmmm, I seem to be getting quite mixed experiences travelling on the buses. This morning I quite enjoyed it. I didn't get sick and I sat there, just letting the sights and sounds wash over me. I hadn't realised just how many families use the service. There was one group was was obviously: single mum, two kids, and both grand parents. There was heaps of chatter two, and it was fun to just overhear what people were saying.

There was a young women behind me who was talking with a friend. She was speculating about some young man she knew, saying that he was probably gay because his sister dressed him in girls clothes when he was young. Maybe she did, but that's such a cliché!

Don't know what's happening in my life lately, but I seem to be coping more than I used to.

Rat Traps

I have a rat problem.

At least, I think it's a rat problem. Every night I can hear them in the ceiling and walls, running about from spot to spot. I also hear signs of them in the kitchen and laundry, and find evidence of them afterwards.

They chewed through the plastic top of the dry dog food container, and ate some of the dry food. I found that they'd chewed the remaining two sticks of silverbeet that I had on the kitchen bench. There's a hole in one bottom corner of the kitchen, and also in a wall at the top of a partition that divides the bathroom from the laundry. And yet, they don't seem to eat the bread, which sometimes I've left out, still wrapped in plastic.

Anyway, I've decided to take steps about this. Gabby (who's mostly an "indoors" puss) sometimes tries to stalk them in the kitchen, but mostly she's given up on this. I've been afraid to set "standard" mouse traps in case the cats or Peggy get caught in them, and afraid to set baits in case they ate them.

However, recently I bought two different sorts of traps. One is a long tube with a bend in the middle at a slight angle. You put the bait at one end and when the mouse/rat runs down to that end it tips down, and a trap door at the other end closes shut and locked. The second trap it some sort of circular spring driven trap, that shuts after they enter it. I might try these in the kitchen.

I also got a set of three baits. I intend to put one in the dry food container, and two in the roof. None of my pets should be able to reach these baits in these positions (unless one of them is getting into the roof, though I doubt that), so they should be safe to deploy. I think this is reasonable - these aren't pets, like some of my friends have, but a nuisance.

We'll see - I'll place them tomorrow morning before I go to uni.

Drinking your own Piss

A few days ago the town of Toowoomba voted over whether or not to introduce a recycled system for drinking water. The results were 61% against. I heard some funny quotes about this leading up to the vote, on TripleJ. One was that the major was only considering this option in the case of a "Armageddon scenario". Well if the rapture comes and later the land is full of boiling blood and demons and angels fighting each other (as I believe it's mention in Revelations) then maybe drinking one's recycled urine might be the least of one's troubles.

However, just tonight, as I had channel Ten on in the background, the news update made a quote - someone was saying that within ten years Newcastle (and elsewhere) will be using recycled water.

Yikes!

Don't get me wrong, but if I wanted to "drink my own urine/poo" (as they put on ROVE LIVE directly after the news update) I'd do it properly. Might be a good reason to get a water filter, me thinks!

Money for Food

I decided to try the Vegie Coop at NUSA again.

Was doing this last year. You pay $5 or $10 and get a small or large (photocopy paper sized) box full of veggies. Last year, this was really good, as my car was still running properly. Earlier this year however it just didn't work out right. However, I paid $10 today, and the veggies will be there by Thursday at the earliest.

This week it seems I'll be down at the uni every day but Friday. I'm thinking of driving in on Thursday, just for the veggies, but maybe I should just take a "granny trolley" with me instead, to see how it works. I did this before with the spare trolley (used it for library books) and somehow damaged a wheel before I got home. On the way I stopped at Bunnings and got replacement wheels - each of which had a "30kg" rating (which means what? 30kg each?) and caps that keep them on the axle. Haven't needed them yet.

Anyway, it's pretty hard to get cheaper veggies than that. Later in the day however I found that although I still have $26 in my bank account, I'm (for unknown reasons) unable to withdraw $20 of it. I was going to do some shopping on the way home, but instead did research carted 20 kg of books home.

Just as well I have at least $2.50 in change - I can use the bus tomorrow (benefits pay day for me) on the way in, and get more money out for stuff. Mind you, maybe it's like that Dicken's quote:

"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery."
Wilkins Micawber, David Copperfield. 

IMBOLC THOUGHTS

It's Imbolc today and I ought to post something, but I think the posts I made today speak for themselves, about where I'm at right now.

Imbolc for me is... 

(for once)

...optimistic