So, I can’t write anything nice, I can’t write what’s on my mind, therefore I can’t write anything at all.

This is my blog, though, isn’t it?

Consider yourselves warned.

It is exhausting having to put on the cheerful, functional act for people in the real world. I can’t say to most people – Yes, I am in pain. Yes, still. No, I’m not any better. No, those 43 helpful suggestions of things I might like to try to make-myself-better-and-why-aren’t-I-doing-them-already are not any more helpful or useful than the last time you made them to me. There is no simple thing that just hadn’t occurred to me before that will suddenly make it all better.

It’s just so very much easier to say, “I am fine, pelvis is fine thanks”.

So, in case you were wondering, pelvis is not fine. I am not fine. But what do you do? You can’t get a replacement body.

I had pelvis x-rays the other day. I am convinced that they will show a normal, happy pelvis. Pelvis knows how to turn it on for the doctors. The rheum will tell me that my pain is in my head and I will be back in the land of no-one gives a shit.

Gee, I’m an upbeat little thing, aren’t I?

*****************

He gets out on Monday. His detention is coming to an end, our piece of mind with it. He appealed his detention, subjecting us all to more stress but thank goodness it was upheld. He has been on his best behaviour though (we think, no way of knowing for sure) because he has been transferred back to local, not so secure public hospital ward.

The police screwed up the restraining order. A typo means it started and ended on the exact same date. It went back through the magistrates court to correct that today but the paperwork Mum received still shows the typo. The police can’t serve him with the typo in place. Did I mention he gets out on Monday?

We are hoping that the court mistakenly faxed her the old, unaltered one and he will be served tomorrow. I am not that hopeful.

If it doesn’t happen before he gets out then we will have to convince her to hide somewhere.

***********

As my more astute readers will have surmised, Beefcake is, um, beefy. He’s been that way since shortly after we met. I like to joke that once he’d snagged me he just let it all go. It’s kind of true. So. I was whining to him about it tonight. I’m not annoyed about his huskyness so much as the vast sums of money we’ve sunk into his weight loss in recent times only to have him turn around, sit down and gain it all back again.

He takes my annoyance (mostly) good naturedly as he knows it’s just the general background drone of whining I like to produce to accompany our lives. Tonight though, he came up with a phrase that I felt was so genius, I had to share.

Apparently all of this losing and gaining has been of benifit to him after all as he is working towards “adjusting his fat paradigm”. His father subjected him to many a self-help tape as a child and it has obviously had an effect. Imagine trying to have a serious whinge to someone who is adjusting their fat paradigm. Ain’t gonna happen.

At least he makes me laugh.

Update: The magistrate’s court did indeed put it through complete with typo AGAIN! Seriously.

Where to begin?

My mother. Those of you who read regularly will know that I recently severed ties with her. Well, to be honest, my exact words to her were “I can’t see you for a while”. I just couldn’t bring myself to make a more final statement than that. Not with her. For my father it’s easy. I know that I will never want to see him again. It is pure relief to have him out of my life and I would not go back to what was. Not for anything.

My mother though. It is so much more complex. While she was living with him, I told myself, I had to separate myself. For my sanity, for my heart. It had to be done. I feel guilty at how brilliantly easy and peaceful this last little while has been without her around. I have found more serenity than I have felt in a long time.

Around Christmas she reappeared in subtle ways. At first asking to buy gifts for the children. I thought about denying her that but then decided that I couldn’t do that. Either to her or the children.

When I saw her on Christmas day she seemed so fragile and small and….. on the edge. Just at the edge of tolerance for what life could throw at her. I couldn’t bear to tell her that she had to continue to stay away. Instead I told her that we would see her again. I held the little woman and said that it would be okay. That she could see her grandkids and us and we would be there for her again. I felt very ashamed at the gratitude she showed me then. She has done some things that were not okay, I don’t always respect her actions but I hadn’t meant to cause her the kind of pain that I saw.

She was still living with him though. Telling us that she was making plans to leave, that things had progressed and that they were moving towards the sale of the house and separation. This, to my mind, is far too sane a path to take in this situation but we just haven’t been able to get through to her.

Thursday.

Thursday night I get a call from Patchouli! (my sister). Have you had Mum’s message? She sounded very shaken, not okay. My first thoughts are always what has he done?, what has happened?, is she hurt?

The message says that nothing has happened. Nothing dramatic. She has left though, is staying with my aunt. Nothing dramatic but she just feels that he has drifted so much closer to that edge. He is not really there at all, he is becoming psychotic, he is warning her to get out, leave the house. He has done strange things. She knows she just can’t go there again.

I tell her he is dangerous. She doesn’t want to believe this but agrees that it could be true. She has left.

He has gone around the house and smashed things while she has been out and then hidden the evidence. Mostly inconsequential things but also a beautiful statuette that was his grandmothers. I have always loved it. I know that he did too.

He stands in the yard and stares at the sky, muttering to himself for hours.

Realistically he is barely holding it together. He is already psychotic.

And people? Do you know why? The antipsychotic drug was causing some (quite bad) long term physical side effects and so the fucking arsehole psych took him off of them. Sent this man who, without anti-psychotic drugs is, well, psychotic, home to live with my mother. Knowing they are in the midst of separating. Knowing he has planned, let’s just say violent things before in a state of psychosis.

No extra monitoring or plan in place for his care.

If it weren’t so exhaustingly predictable it would be laughable. Does he think that my father will recognise his own psychosis and trot himself off to Glenside? Yeah, realistic.

There is nothing that anyone can do. The last time that we tried to have him sectioned under very similar circumstances it was a farce. They had “lost” all record of his two previous sections. His doctor would not recommend section as it was a breach of trust with his patient (no, not joking). We just had to wait until he attended a psych appointment and the psych was able to talk him into voluntary hospitilisation.

It makes me feel so…. tired.

I wish that I cared to intervene but I don’t. I will not write here what I wish to happen.

I am not letting myself hope too much. We have been here before and she has returned to live with him. If we can just get her to make a decent break this time though….

Maybe.

My face is very much improved. There are just a few faint red marks now, which is so hard to believe. You would never know that last Thursday morning I awoke to huge open weeping sores that looked as though they would never heal. At that point I couldn’t imagine getting away without scars but it seems that they will heal completely (Dr Google said that they would but they seriously looked so heinous that I just couldn’t believe it).

So, work preparation.

I knew that there would be a good deal of work involved in regaining my professional accreditation as it has been four-and-a-half years since I last worked. The standard for my profession states that I need to have worked at least 1000 hours in the past five years, which I might have had if I had initiated this process earlier but now do not. Also, as I only worked very briefly (about 6 months) before Pudding was giving my body such a thrashing that I was put on bed rest, it is unclear whether they will view my application as that of a new graduate (which actually means I had only three years for my qualification to remain current before I would need to do a lot of work to get it back). Complicated enough for you?

Anyway. I received the packet from the association yesterday containing all of the relevant forms. All that remains is for me to gather my “evidence” of skill and write a cv. This sounds much simpler than it is. The evidence part is a complete nightmare. They want a whole bunch of actual documents and things that I did when I was working and they each must be numbered and assigned to a relevant skill area. There are 70 skill areas for me to address. Luckily there is some overlap between skill areas and I can use the same piece of evidence for multiple areas. I also am not expected to have demonstrated competence in each area. I am able to use “inferred” competence in some areas. All in all though, it will be about as straight forward as bombing our house and then trying to glue the pieces back together with my own snot. I am tempted to just say to hell with it and apply to begin my degree again. Four more years at uni seem almost preferable to this process but I already have a massive HECS* debt so that rules that out.

No, truth be told I am actually really positive and optimistic about how this will go. I can put aside that the association woman responsible for re-entry was almost obstructive to my getting the process underway, which is odd as they charge a fortune for it. I am fortunate to have at least one very special uni friend who has been sending me lovely bolstering emails and has promised to go over my paperwork with a fine-tooth comb. She even threatened to come and pour wine down my throat if necessary so I think I am in good hands.

I have been very proactive. I have emailed my last boss because I need her help. When I left I was a bit consumed with dodgy pelvisness and just getting the loose ends tied up. It never occurred to me that I should be safe-guarding my future career prospects by keeping examples of all my work. I have emailed her and begged to be allowed to come to the office to photocopy some of my stuff. This sounds simple but again is fraught with difficulty that I can’t really discuss here without giving too much away. Suffice it to say that there is a good chance that she will say no and if she does she will be perfectly correct in doing so and I shall have no recourse but to submit my portfolio with evidence such as “See, I was working in this place then and they do this so I must have done it, so that makes me competent. The end.”. I’m sure that will be sufficient. Yes?

Okay.  What was the point I was driving for? Ah yes. I will be busy, I have actually got several blog posts planned and half written but I fear that the blog will remain quiet while I get all of this taken care of. 2010 submissions opened today and I really want it done as soon as humanly possible so I must focus.

Of course, now that I have said that you know what it means, don’t you? I will be on here blogging every day just to procrastinate. You must all promise to beat me soundly (in a non-bruising, internet based and loving sort of a way) should I try and weasle my way out of working. Agreed?

Good. I will hold you to it.

P.S. New iphone comes tomorrow (hopefully), yay, yay, yay!!

*Government student loan program – it gets deferred until you are working and then they take it automatically out of your pay with tax. It’s the debt you have when you’re not having a debt because you can almost forget it’s there, especially if you don’t actually earn any money to pay it back.

Obviously there are no photos, well actually, Beefy did take some on his phone for me but I have not gotten around to uploading them and quite frankly they are much the same as last year’s.

It was almost unbearably hot. We were very lucky really. We began by hovering at the back of the crowd right at the parade kick-off point. We made it just in time to witness the blowing of the whistle and there must be something a little wrong with me as I was overcome with nostalgic emotion, I still remember taking the big kids to Pageant when they were quite small and they are so big now it seems almost unbelievable. Anyway, we sweltered in the full glare of the headingto39degrees sun for a few minutes by which time we all needed to take a break. We retreated to the shade provided by the portico of a large office building and … There we stayed.

Once we were there we realised that it afforded us a pretty good view and there was no risk of sun stroke. A no-brainer really. We lifted the kids up when the Big Guy came past and Pudding was so thrilled when Father Christmas waved in our direction. I felt crushingly guilty that we were filling his little mind full of Father Christmas propganda, something I am ideologically opposed to. In practice I get caught up in the “magic” of it all and can’t resist spinning the tale for them. Terrible.

All in all Pageant was worth it, despite the heat. The walk wasn’t too bad and I feel like it’s such a special thing to give to my kids. I spent most of my childhood in Melbourne, although my extended family were all in SA. I always felt not quite Victorian and not quite South Australian and I guess I feel that sharing these intrinsically South Australian things with our kids will provide them with a more solid sense of identity. Maybe, or something.

It was not worth losing my iphone though. The camera has recovered from it’s dunking, probably because it was in it’s nice padded case and my poor wee phone was nude.

*Sob*

There is hope, however. Apparently Apple will replace a water damaged iphone under warranty for about $260 including postage and all. So, we can’t quite do that for a couple of weeks due to the state of our finances but fingers crossed in a couple of weeks I will be able to hold the that gorgeous piece of electronics in my hand once again. Seriously, I feel like I have lost a limb!

Take for example my encounter yesterday with the former owners of our house.

Just as we had pulled out of our street I saw them drive past us and turn into our street. Thinking that they were perhaps trying to contact us we decided to turn around and drive home to check.

We met them on the road and both stopped our cars to have a chat. We talked about things that we had done to the house. They were full of questions and wanted to hear all about it. They seem to have a very strong emotional connection to the house and I think they are a bit sad that they no longer live here.

It is here that I must add that, the day we took ownership of the house, they came around to collect some final property and have a chat. The owner went on and on about how she loved the great big old hills hoist. She said she would take it with her if she could. I knew then that we had plans to remove it but I didn’t want to hurt her feelings by saying that we didn’t like it*.

We had talked about contacting her to ask if she would like it when we got around to taking it out. We definitely intended to. We did. The thing is, when we  actually came to pulling it out we just kinda forgot. We had the scrap metal guy coming to collect things the next day and we wanted to make sure it wasn’t going to be hanging around the yard for weeks at some point so we ripped it out a bit earlier than planned.

Fast forward to the car yesterday. There I am sitting in the car thinking “Don’t say anything about the clothesline, don’t say anything about the clothesline, don’t say anything about the clothesline, don’t say anything about the clothesline, don’t say anything about the clothesline”.

The conversation finished and I was so pleased. I managed not to say anything. I knew she would have been upset.

It wasn’t until a good five minutes later that I realised I had told her. I talked all about where we would put the “new clothesline”. She had looked upset, I just didn’t really follow what was happening because I am actually a social moron.

I was kicking myself. I felt so silly but then I thought, you know what? It’s MY house. Being worried about this is going to extremes in thinking about the feelings of others. It’s my clothesline.

Now I don’t feel guilty at all. Hardly. At. All.

But next time we see her – I’m hiding.

*Exception: I can omit things and bend the truth if it protects someone’s feelings and there is no need to be truthful that overrides this. Geez, I am not a total social moron.

Friday evening Pudding got a new and very manly haircut. It is still kind of longish and wild actually but we like it like that. He was so very proud of himself for sitting still (on Beefcake’s lap) while his locks were chopped. He ran  out of the shop afterwards saying

“Did you see how still I satted Mummy??” &  “Did I do a  good job?”

Awwwww. Heart-melty. He well and truly earned his choccie frog.

There was a belated birthday celebration for Poss with her friends. This meant the her room had to be primped and prepared with new cushions and curtains and things. Of course we like to cram a lot in so we had new insulation installed throughout the ceiling Friday and we had shifted all the attic storage into her room. Cue long tedious cleaning and prepping. Still it looked lovely and she was very pleased with her new room.We made cupcakes and decorated them. It was sugar-laden and fantastic. The girls stayed up very, very, very late and Poss has spent the day today at less than her best, slightly snippy with us all.

I have firmly established that no glucose-based products may be stored in the house, whilst I am in this frame of mind. I am unable to restrain myself. It is not safe to be a cake or a lolly in the vicinity of Ali. It is particularly annoying as I had been doing a fantastic job of not eating anything sinful. Today I ate a cupcake and a handfu of m&ms for lunch. Perhaps I should go now to the kitchen and eradicate all sweet treats, that way I won’t be able to indulge tomorrow, I’ll be starting with a clean slate. Okay, I’m obviously deranged. I have asked Rhubarb to hide the from me. Far better idea.

This morning we went to the fabulous Adelaide Showground Farmers Market, which is seriously never disappointing. We have been members for about a year, which affords us a small discount, but even without it it is the most fabulous, fresh produce and it is not expensive. It has such a lovely buzzing energy to it and it always makes me feel really upbeat and filled with energy when we do our weekly fresh food shopping there. I lurve it.

Filled with markety type vigour, I mentioned to Beefcake that I would like him to build the washing machine/dryer cupboard that will allow us to demolish the snakehaveny laundry shed. Earlier in the week I drove past a local salvage yard that had put out some of their less desirable timber etc as “free firewood” on the curb. I sent Beefcake down today and he managed to pick up enough structural pine to build the frame for the cupboard and a door to use for one of the sides. I’m pretty impressed actually at our cheapskate ecostylee laundry cupboard. It cost us about $25 for dynabolts and screws but the rest was completely free. It needs a nice coat of paint (and a roof and a door) to prevent it from looking like a dodgy nightmare DIY monster on the back wall of the house but all in all I am very pleased. Tomorrow we will be able to finish it enough to move the appliances in and start the shed demolition. I heart demolishing stuff and will post a blow by blow. You’ll love it.

I haven’t been on my computer much in the last couple of weeks.

I have been feeling quiet and insular. Wanting to hide from everyone in the real world and on the internets, cos, you know, that helps.

I am still largely in the midst of a not good period. It is still messing with my mind. Given that no solution appears to be forthcoming, I have decided that we shall ignore it. Good? I thought so.

Much has been happening in the land of the callapipper.

Grub was getting too dangerous to stay in her cot. She almost never used it anyway but such a climby bubba is she that we were terrified she would climb out of it one day very soon as  Pudding began climbing out of it at much the same age. Luckily it is a cot that converts into a quite low to the ground bed. We have put a small side onto it so that she can’t just fall out and she is now the proud owner of  a “big girl bed”. At fourteen and a half months. It seems ridiculously young but she is honestly far safer this way. Also, she actually seems keen to sleep in this new bed so that’s a boon.

In other Grub-related news she has also been cutting her first four molars. All at once.Yes, in case you were thinking of asking, that is as fun as it sounds. She has been a delight, poor little poppet. It wierdly seems to have given her some sort of cognitive hypercharge though and she has been learning new words at a rate of knots. My favourite of her most recent batch of things to say is the word “cool”. There is nothing more hilarious than her picking up some much desired bit of fluff and labeling it “cool”.

We went to the Royal Adelaide Show on Friday. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the show, it is like a fair with rides and money sapping treats to buy for the children as well as a large array of farm animals. Grub surprised us a all with her knowledge of baby animals, making loud moos as she neared the calves. Unfortunately, she also felt that the geese, pigs and sheep said “moo”. I’m pretty sure that the wombat had a good go at it too. Oh well, she did try.

Rhubarb invited three of his friends to join us and we left the four thirteen year old boys to wander around on their own. They spent all of their money on pointless and irritating whistles (that go inside your mouth -revoulting) and oversized novelty glasses. Sadly we kept  crossing paths with them as they giggled their way around the showgrounds annoying the other patrons.

It was a rather busy day on Friday actually as Rhubarb had the schools Spring rowing camp to go to on Friday evening. We had to drive him to Walker Flat, which is about 2 hours drive from Adelaide. We were completely shattered by the time we came home, but in a good way.

Poss has today and tomorrow off of school as it is inconceivable that anyone should have to miss out on going to the show. They give the kids two days off to enjoy it. She managed to help the small children make more mess in the house than I would have thought possible. Let it never be said that she doesn’t help out.

Finally, I had intended to blog a Happy Father’s Day to my darling husband yesterday. You are an excellent father. Our children are very lucky to have you. You so owe me on Mother’s Day.

P.S. I am so sorry I have not been visitng people and commenting. I will do my utmost to catch up but if I don’t, because I suck, just bear with me, k? I will at the very least comment on most recent happenings. How’s that?

It has been on a steady decline for a few months but today I have attained a whole new level of shitfulness*.

The GP was consulted last week when things began getting out of control, when I could no longer manage the pain without some prescription drugs.

The ridiculous thing is that it seems to have just continued to worsen since then. If it weren’t obscene to do so I would love to post some pics of the swelling. My lower back and …… lower front?? Anyway, the front of my pelvis, are both ridiculously swollen. Swollen as in makes your body look distorted. Freakishly swollen.

I cannot sit up. Every muscle from the middle of my back to my knees seems to spasm if I do.

I can’t really find the words to express the negativity in my thoughts at the moment. I have avoided this blog because what should I say?

I don’t know where this is heading. I am not getting better.

No one has any ideas. There is nothing that can be done to help me apparently. This is just fact. It has been over four years and I have investigated every quack, poking and prodding specialist and witch doctor there is.

What do you do if the doctor just says, “Oh, it should just be better by now. I would have thought it would be better”. That is not helpful.

What if this just continues? Continues to get worse, with no reason for it?

The pain is such a  strident factor in my life. It is like a loud hum that is the background noise for everything that I do. So loud is this white noise of pain that recently when we were out shopping I got a real shock. The pain stopped. I was standing next to Beefcake waiting for a lift and I turned to him and told him that all of a sudden there was no pain. It was indescribable. I could breath, I could hear, I could feel. It only lasted a few minutes but it made me realise how much this is affecting me.

I am not prepared to live like this for the rest of my life.

What is the alternative though?

Sorry people. You don’t need to say anything. I just needed to vent this. I am a tangled bundle of dark emotions. Decent pain relief was supposed to fix that but alas, this pain is a tough nut to crack.

*Now I wouldn’t have thought that was a real word but WP says that indeed it is so who am I to disagree.

A note about a super spectacular “Flight of Fantasy” art show to be held at the school.

“Fantastic “, you say, “how wonderful that the school is fostering the students’ creative abilities, it must be a very fine school indeed”.

Indeed it is a fine school.

When I first read the note this is just what I thought. I thought, “how nice”, as I glanced at the note, stuck it to the fridge and herded the children out the door for school. I really didn’t give it another thought until Beefcake asked me if I had read it.

Me: “Um, yeah, I’ve seen it, it’s an art show or something”

Beefcake: “Yes, but did you actually read the note, Ali?”

Me: “Um, kind of, it’s an art show?”

Beefcake “Yeah, it’s an art show for students. They say here that you don’t have to pay for entry”

Me: “Oh, okay, that’s nice, they usually make you pay for that sort of thing”

Beefcake: “Yeah, there’s no entry fee but you will be able to purchase your own child’s art for the very reasonable price of just $20″

Me: “What the #*%&????” (children were present)

Seriously people.

The note advertises an art show that is-

“to primarily be a celebration of the children’s art and a chance to come together for a fun afternoon with our community, with music food and refreshments”

Now, first of all, that is their run-on grammar-deficient sentence, not mine. I don’t need their help in that area. Second, I am sure that refreshments will be offered for a fairly extortionate reasonable price. It will be a delighful afternoon.

I am sure.

They are also looking for parents to assist with setup, picking up supplies (they have requested a small truck, if someone should have one spare) and framing the “artworks”.

So, just to clarify.

The school would like us to come along to an event, free of charge (picture the underlined portion in flashing neon lights, I do!) , pay three times the going rate for a can of warm lemonade and a stale cupcake, pay $20 for our child’s masterpiece, which we have both helped to frame and facilitate the exhibition of and give up a Sunday afternoon for the privilege.

Yeah.

The fundraising committee at Poss’ school need a little reality check. I knew that a fair few parents at the school had their heads up their own arses, but seriously??!!

They finish off by saying they will be offering a convenient pre-purchasing system to “avoid the rush on the day”. So we should also purchase the art just for the love of our children or something, without even sighting it first?

Somehow I don’t think there will be a rush on the day.

Does anyone else think that this is absolutely nuts??

Tell me I’m not alone here people. Poss’ school is crazy, no?

It is a bad sign that after only two months I already need to rearrange rooms to keep myself sane. I think I need to choose some nice paint colours and do some more decorating. For now the reorganising has done the trick and I feel very cheerful. This is a good thing as people with dodgy pelvises should never move furniture. It’s a pretty hard and fast rule, just so you know. So I am cheery and a bit sore but as I would have been sore regardless I feel a  bit of extra soreness as a trade-off for a new room is pretty good really.

I saw a show about plastic surgery this evening. It got me thinking. I have always hated my nose. It is kind of large and lumpy. I have a deviated septum. It is just ugly really. I used to think that I would most likely get it done one day. Anyway, on this show I saw, there was a 16-year-old girl getting a nose job. At that age, had I had the opportunity, I almost certainly would have been rid of my ugly and monstrous nose. These days, I don’t mind it so much. Sometimes one of the kids will make a comment about it or for some reason I’ll have a self-concious day but for the most part I know it’s not too bad. It’s my nose, it makes me, well,  me.  And who the fuck has time to think about that sort of thing anyway?

I wouldn’t bother getting my nose fixed these days. I guess I put that sort of energy into fixing up the house and rearranging rooms. I wonder about getting something like that done at such a young age. Would you live to regret it? Poss looks like she will end up developing my nose and I’m pretty sure that I would not let her have teengae plastic surgery, unless there was some really important reason for it to be done.

Are there aspects of your face, your body that you would change? Are there things you might have wanted to change once but now are happy with? I’m curious.