Wednesday, November 30, 2011

... and there WAS light

The electrician came this morning and fixed the light over my computer. He began by changing the globe and the transformer but it still didn't work so he looked further and found that the connecting leads were loose so he replaced them and, yeah, the light works again.

I have been measured for cat-mesh and have paid a deposit to ensure that it is installed this month (it is December 1st here in Australia). Having sorted all that I felt that perhaps I could tempt fate enough to visit my kittens so I phoned the kitten breeder and I will be seeing them on Monday morning. I just hope that everything doesn't fall down before the mesh goes in or that no-one complains about it afterwards.

I feel rather the way I did when I first went to boarding school: not sure of the rules, not sure how much I could get away with and with a sense that my life wasn't totally my own any more. Coming from over 30 years of being my own boss with the ability to do exactly what I wanted in my own house I am really not enjoying having to obey rules again.

And Big Brother is watching; there is a security camera in the lobby.

Friday, November 25, 2011

Dem Dry Bones

My Family TreeMaker 2012 disc arrived last week and I have installed it and do not like it a bit. The format is quite different so I have had to try to work out how to add the information which I only have in printed form and is the information my half third cousin and I collected about the Davies side of the family.

Foolishly I started from the wrong end - a cardinal sin in genealogy - and I have spent the morning 'merging individuals' because I suddenly found that I was duplicating people already in the system. Hopefully I have now blended all those who need to be blended and can get on to working out how to add notes, sources and citations.

At least it is keeping me occupied. The smoke from the big fire at Margaret River has caused a smoke haze over the city and I have retreated to my sealed, air conditioned, apartment on account of my asthma. This works both ways because I have been forced, therefore, to come to terms with FTM and get all those Davies' sorted out and they are complicated. They had a habit of multiple marriages, multiple partners, name changes and disappearing into Darkest Africa or New Zealand.

Win 7 has a lot to answer for, making me do all the entries again since FTM16 doesn't work with Win 7. I think that I have the up to date version on the computer 'minette' so that I can check things if I need to but why, oh why, did FTM have to make things so much harder. It used to be so simple.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Let there be light Mk.3

After a day of 36 degree temperatures the light over my computer has just turned itself on again.

It has been off for weeks now and I wondered if the humid weather we have been having was one of the reasons it wasn't working.

But this time - when the electrician finally comes to fix it I am going to get him to see if he can find the cause.

Grrrrr - I'll bet that he comes tomorrow ...

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Turning a blind eye?

This morning I phoned the cat screen people to try to get some idea of if or when they were coming to measure and quote for kitten screening. They hadn't opened my email of 9th November with the pictures of the balcony. I discovered this when the girl I spoke to suggested that I should send some photos so that they could give a rough estimate and I told her that I had already done that. Anyway, the outcome was that two men arrived about 3 hours later and had a good look and worked out how to fix the screens, promising a quote for the work.

The
Corporate Body doesn't appear to have either opened or read my email. If he is away this week then his assistant should be letting me know or dealing with it herself but I am going to go ahead on the assumption that he is turning a blind eye. Of course, it could still all come crashing down but at least I have tried to do the correct thing and ask first.

Monday, November 21, 2011

Between a rock and a hard place

I am still waiting for the cat screen man to contact me and arrange a time to give me a measure and quote for the cat mesh. He is only here for another two days so I'll phone his base tomorrow to make sure that he is actually going to come.

In the meanwhile, my conscience got the better of me and I decided to ask permission to put up the screening. The odds are that I will be refused and that will mean no Bombay kittens but I was feeling very uncomfortable about arranging to have it erected without asking first.

If the worst comes to the worst and my request is refused then I'll have to look at other options such as R3's Burmese breeder; however I still want my black babies if I can; but legally ...

I cried my eyes out writing and sending the email to the Strata Manager and now all I can do is wait and hope.

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Passing in on the other side

Yesterday I attended the auction of the apartment at the other end of the corridor and facing north. It has been fairly extensively modified and was fully furnished. There were no initial bids so the auctioneer made a vendor bid of $1,900,000 but their was no response so the property was passed in at $2,200,000 which appears to have been another vendor bid as the auctioneer said that he would negotiate from that price to any interested party and that it would sell at the reserve price which, I gather, was in the mid to high $2 millions.

I'm not sure what happens from there but it doesn't look good the the apartment opposite it which is on the market for $2,450,000; but that one does have river views.

The representative from SecureaKat will be here this coming week and hopefully he will be contacting me to measure and quote for cat screening. I am not sure that I am going to get away with having it installed but I am hoping that it will go un-noticed since my apartment can only be seen from very few vantage points and there doesn't seem to be anything in the contract to say that I can't do it. But if I don't screen then I don't get the kittens I want although D3 has offered to introduce me to the breeder who sold them their little Burmese and who seemed to them to be much more reasonable about risk, telling them that they should keep him inside but it was up to them.

I'll get some cats one way or another, even if I have to adopt a couple of rescue kittens. There will be plenty of them about at this time of year, poor little babies.

Himself has been doctored (not the same way as cats are doctored) and I have a photo to prove it.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Cooking with gas - or not

The gasman came yesterday and showed me how to turn on my cooktop burners. It is all about electronics and if the plunger which releases the gas is too far from the electromagnet which holds the plunger in place the gas won't be released. Clear as mud but I have to be sure to give an extra push when I turn a burner on in order for the electromagnet to connect with the plunger. The bad news is that if the power goes off the electromagnet doesn't work and the gas goes off too.

All this electronic stuff is getting out of control; I can't open a window in my car without turning on the ignition. Crazy stuff. But I have managed to shut my fridge up. There is a button to turn off the open door alarm.

And my dishwasher, incredibly, actually does wash better if the dishes go in unrinsed. Since I only run it every three days, unless I am doing a lot of cooking, there is plenty of time for the food to dry onto the plates, but ...

I have just received, in my mail box, a brochure letting me know about all the delights which the Claremont Council is planning for us in the lead-up to Christmas and it is rather daunting. Imagine amplified live music in every nook, cranny and alleyway ... and fashion shows which will have their own amplified live music, and schoolkids singing carols and stalls selling various things - as though we didn't already have enough shops here. I am starting to sound like Scrooge but it is really rather over the top.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Now I have heard everything (I think)

I was talking to the Multiplex troubleshooter because the burners on my cooktop have become very erratic and this morning I could not get any of them to light, so one chicken carcass destined to become chicken stock has bitten the dust and will have to be thrown away because I had already thawed it. It has gone back into the freezer for the weekend and then it will go into the bin. We were discussing the merits of Asko appliances compared to Miele and I told her that I intended to replace my Miele dishwasher with an Asko because the Miele didn't get things clean. She said that she had heard that the Miele does a sensor wash so if I rinse the plates before I put them into the dishwasher, the dishwasher thinks that everything is clean and doesn't try very hard.
So I am going to try throwing everything in unrinsed and see if it manages to sense that they are in need of a thorough clean and acts accordingly.
My kittens are about five weeks old and about to be registered so I submitted a couple of names to their breeder. My first choice is Parsifal and Poppaea, neither of whom was a very desirable person. Parsifal appears to have been a few kangaroos short in the top paddock and Poppaea was not best friend material but maybe she had a hard life; well she had a hard death anyway - her husband kicked her in the stomach when she was pregnant and she died.
My second choice was my initials, Epsilon and Sigma. We will see. My main hurdle is going to be getting the breeder to hand them over as some conditions apply but hopefully I have that in hand and will be able to take them around the New Year.

Now I have heard everything (I think)

I was talking to the Multiplex troubleshooter because the burners on my cooktop have become very erratic and this morning I could not get any of them to light, so one chicken carcass destined to become chicken stock has bitten the dust and will have to be thrown away because I had already thawed it. It has gone back into the freezer for the weekend and then it will go into the bin. We were discussing the merits of Asko appliances compared to Miele and I told her that I intended to replace my Miele dishwasher with an Asko becaue the Miele didn't get things clean. She said that she had heard that the Miele does a sensor wash so if I rinse the plates before I put them into the dishwasher, the dishwasher thinks that everything is clean and doesn't try very hard.
So I am going to try throwing everything in unrinsed and see if it manages to sense that they are in need of a thorough clean and acts accordingly.
My kittens are about five weeks old and about to be registered so I submitted a couple of names to their breeder. My first choice is Parsifal and Poppaea, neither of whom was a very desirable person. Parsifal appears to have been a few kangaroos short in the top paddock and Poppaea was not best friend material but maybe she had a hard life; well she had a hard death anyway - her husband kicked her in the stomach when she was pregnant and she died.
My second choice was my initials, Epsilon and Sigma. We will see. My main hurdle is going to be getting the breeder to hand them over as some conditions apply but hopefully I have that in hand and will be able to take them around the New Year.