Covid Koala is back on the windowsill

Chaos reigns within.

Reflect, repent, and reboot

Order will return.

(24-12-21) As of seven pm last night there is a Statewide mask mandate due to a French backpacker who flew into the State, just before the border clamped shut, and proceeded to visit cafes, nightclubs and other crowded venues.  He had tested negative to Covid before he flew in from Queensland and unknowingly infected five people.  Fortunately he used the SafeWA App so his contacts are being trace and tested.

The Mask Mandate will continue until 28 December and will then be reviewed.

*  *  *

I took a break after the last paragraph and it is now Boxing Day.  We are in the middle of a heatwave; yesterday the temperature was 42 degrees and today is predicted to be 44 degrees.  I have very efficient air conditioning so it was good that the family all came to me for Christmas day.  After lunch we played a game which GB2 brought: very funny and not limited by such things as the number of players or political correctness.  I called a halt at 5.30 when Parsifal emerged to tell me that he was hungry and that it was past his dinnertime.

D1 and I had arranged for her to Skype me when she arrived home from her Christmas party (she is three hours ahead of us here in Perth) but I kept getting "slow connection.  Try again later" when she called me, so I tried again but no luck and this morning tried D1's mobile number and eventually reached her on the landline.  Obviously since the whole of Australia seems to be in lockdown now all the lines were busy.  It was a pity that the whole family were unable to get together but . . . maybe next year.

I have a wet towel over the poor worms as they are out on the balcony.  It could be worse; my balcony faces South but the air is stifling and no change in sight as far as I have heard and no sea breeze either.  Hopefully all the arsonists are sleeping off their 
Christmas dinners as the sky is clear of smoke.

The limerick:-

I knew a young lady named Clair

Who possessed a magnificent pair.

Or that's what I thought

'Till I saw one caught

On her brooch and began losing air.

I'm Triple Vaccinated . . .

 Errors have occurred.

We won't tell you where or why -

Lazy programmers!

I have been ruminating for a couple of weeks about the timing of the booster vaccination which is recommended for five months after the second dose of the Covid  vaccination.  Initially the recommended wait time was six  months and I had an appointment for that with my GP's Medical Centre but with the advent of the Omicrom variant the recommended time has been reduced to five months which was, for me, yesterday.

I had coffee with D2 this afternoon at a stand-up coffee shop next to my pharmacy and I asked her, in view of the fact that there is no Covid-19 here in Western Australia, if I should get my booster after five months.  Her recommendation was to get it at five months, which was yesterday, so after she left to get her hair cut I popped into the pharmacy to find out my options.

I was told that they had been busy with vaccinations all day but that everyone had now gone and that there was one dose left which I could have if I wanted it. So I was vaccinated then and there and feel much better having made the decision to get it done early.

The State is going to open up on February 5 so it will be back to masks, social distancing, masks on empty trains and buses, Covid Koala back on the window sill and the hassle of contact tracing which is almost the only use I have for my Smart Phone (its other use is for banking) which is why I now, against all my instincts,  walk around The Centre with my phone in my hand  -  something which I vowed I'd never do.  

Parsifal managed to get himself shut in my saucepan drawer this afternoon  -  don't ask me how  -  and only alerted me when he started rattling the saucepans. 

The Limerick:-

Said a girl, "This may sound idiotic

But I find sex in cars most exotic.

I've always adored

Making love in a Ford

For I'm really quite auto-erotic!"

Four Months Without a Post

 Rather than a beep

Or a rude error message:

These words: "File Not Found".

We are back to computer haiku, an echo of a long distant past in lieu of the Life Gets Tejus verses.  Life is still tejus as Western Australia is still in almost total lockdown due to the Corona Virus.  We have had almost no cases here and those were mostly returning travelers who had to spend time in quarantine.  However, the lockdown is due to end in a month or so but with rules and masks and unvaccinated people will not be able to work.

I have finally mastered my banking under the new rules imposed by my new modem and limits on the amount I can pay from the account without having to use the Smartphone which I had to buy to get the authenticator in order to be able to do online banking (if you follow that) and for the most part it is now just as it was in the olden days.

I have also found out how to answer my Smart Phone; it is a swipe from the bottom left to the top right and the phone is also useful as I have my vaccination record available to show if asked when we come out of lockdown.  To download that I had to tackle the MyGov site which, hitherto, I had tried to stay well away from;  but needs must and I can now access all the injections I have had over the last ten years or so.

I am going to revert to limericks which I have used before as the anthologies have the best ones and the modern ones are rather crass

The Limerick:-

There was a young man of Cape Horn

Who wished that he'd never been born;

And he wouldn't have been

If his father had seen

That the end of the rubber was torn.

Computers are getting very frustrating

Technology is getting more and more frustrating and I am starting to get angry as it all seems to be geared to mobile phones and I have just spent a frustrating few minutes trying to get this font for the draft up to a size which I can read.  It is not perfect but not minute and in the final posting I can, hopefully get it up to size.

Yesterday I decided to renew my virus scanner as T/M has been reminding me for weeks that it was due in the middle of next week.  However, it needed my password and when I looked up my list I realised that I had encountered problems before because I had listed the password as B******* and although I could have probably made an educated guess I had not recorded the number at the end so I decided to get a new one.  No problem except that T/M refused to recognise it.  Tried again T/M sent me an email after thinking about it for about ten minutes and it went through so now I am death to viruses for a couple more years.

Today I needed to update a spread sheet as I always do at the beginning of the financial year but found that it had transferred itself from Microsoft to Excel (I know, but the computer thinks that they are different systems) so I painstakingly re-entered all the formulae only to discover that when I saved it that it had reverted to its original format.  I have saved the new template but am not holding my breath that next year it will not have decided to use some other format to confuse me.

However, I managed to marry my medicare number and my MyGov account and was able to download my vaccination records onto my new Smart Phone along with a certificate to show that I am fully vaccinated against Covid-19 even though Western Australia is just about the only place in the world where we are pretty well free from the infection except for returned travellers in quarantine.

The Limerick:-

A restless young lass from Leigh Creek

Went to Yemen and married a sheikh.

She said in a letter,

'My lifestyle is better,

And it's only my turn once a week."

Life is Still Tejus but I have Run Out of Verses.

 I have had my second and final (I hope) Covid shot and the relief is enormous.  Not because I thought that I might catch the virus  -  Western Australia is probably the safest place in the world in that regard but because I have defeated technology in order to navigate MyGov and Medicare, combine the two, install an app on my newish smart phone and download a certificate to say that I am fully vaccinated.

I have been battling technology for about a year now, ever since I had the NBN  connected and found that I needed a new landline phone, new smart phone and fathom out how to work them.  This also encompassed the problems I had with banking and paying my bills which seems to be working at the moment although I still have some underlying unease that I might have a problem down the track.  This was due to the NBN creating a new persona for me without telling me so that I was unable to log in to my bank account and needed to keep on phoning the bank whenever I needed to do a transaction.

There is nothing else of note.  The knitting group was cancelled for one week when the State went into a sudden lockdown for five days and the supermarkets seem to have ample supplies of toilet paper if it happens again but our borders are firmly shut and I seriously doubt that D1 will be over for Christmas for the second year running.  However we chat regularly on Skype so there is contact.

I sponsored a guide dog this year and my puppy arrived a couple of weeks ago.  GB2 and I are going to visit "Visability" next Tuesday to meet her.  Her birthday was on 21st April so she is still a baby but already sits on command so she is a clever puppy.

The Limerick:-

Said a young Darwin lady, quite rude,

The first time she saw a man nude,

"I'm glad I'm the sex

That's concave not convex!

I don't fancy things that protrude,"

Life Gets Tejus, Don't It (10)

 

Grief and misery, pains and woes
Debts and taxes, yea, so it goes
I think I'm gettin' a cold in my nose
Life get tee-just don't it?.

Recorded by Walt Brennan

Covid Koala the Drop Bear is back on my window sill as we have gone back into lockdown again but, at this stage, only for three days so I have unearthed my masks again.  We are lucky  -  only one local case, unlike New South Wales which has had over 30 infections and growing.  D1 lives and works in Greater Sydney so she is right in the thick of it and is back to working from home.

I am due to have my second Astra-Zenica injection on July 16 and will feel happier when I have full cover although I am not sure how effective it will be against the forth mutation of the virus which is the one which is the one making people sick in the Eastern States at the moment and which is highly infectious.

My most exciting news is that the guide-puppy which I have sponsored arrived unexpectedly late last Thursday night and is in the care of a puppy minder who's remit is to potty-train her according to a friend who has close connections with Visibility.  The puppy's name is Bridie and she has already learned the 'sit' command.  She is black but beautiful to quote the Bible's description of the Queen of Sheba.

My pictures are starting to fall down and I am going to have to get someone to put them up again.  Currently they are suspended by fishing line to a sort of gallery hook and rail system and the only picture hanger who seems to advertise online is called The Hangman so when the lockdown ends I will need to get him/them in to rehang everything after I have dusted the tops as I have been too afraid that I will bring them all down if I try and put on too much pressure.

The Limerick:-

There was an eccentric old boffin

Who said, when he couldn't stop coughin',

"It isn't the cough

That carries you off.

It's the coffin they carry you off in."

 

Life Gets Tejus, Don't It (9)

 Cow's gone dry and the hens won't lay

Fish quit bittin' and it's Saturday

Troubles are pilin' up day by day

And now I'm gettin' dandruff.

     (Recorded by Walter Brennan)

Life seems to be finally settling down.  I am now able to pay my bills without any hassle from my bank  -  as long as I remember to use my keyboard and not my numpad.  I have had my 'flu shot and my first Covid-19 shot with the second one due on July 16th.

I think that I have sorted out my hassles with my NBN phone.  Not happy with it but it mostly works (I think)  -  very few incoming calls and only one message left on the answerphone so far.  There is a bit of a delay before the recorded message and that might be putting people off but it does weed out the scam calls.

I have had my drooping shower door fixed and the big pink Persian has gone to the cleaners.  It is too heavy for me to lift so I am going to have to take up all the other rugs and wash the whole floor before it is returned to me (assuming that it is returned as there was, when I think about it, no paperwork, just an estimate but the carpet shop is just across the road next to the Post Office so I can go and beard the owners in their lair if necessary).

My accountant was miffed that I did not contribute to a worthy charity last year because I was annoyed that despite my annual charitable contribution I was still obliged to pay income tax.  So, with a promise to a distant cousin (I think that she is a fifth cousin; maybe a sixth)  who has written a book about her family (a branch which I have not researched)  she sent me a copy and asked me to contribute to a charity  as payment so I have sponsored a guide dog.

Originally I asked for a black boy but some puppies are on their way to Perth and the only black one in the litter is a bitch so I am going with a girl and have submitted two names as requested.  As soon as the name is settled I can write and tell her about what I have done.

The cats are well but a bit smelly at the moment  or my new nose-drops have woken up my scent sense.  The have not had their booster vaccination and that is a bit overdue but neither the vets or the cats are pushing the issue.  The cats do not behave at all well when we have to visit the vet and they never meet other cats to catch any nasties.  It will eventually have to be done though . . .

The limerick:-

A large part of this type of verse

About practices lewd and perverse

Is quite scatological,

Gynaecological

Bulls**t, and some is much worse.

Life Gets Tejus, Don't It (8)

 The tin roof leaks and chimney lean

An' there's a hole in the seat of my old blue jeans

And I ett the last of the pork and beans

Just can't depend on nothin'

(Recorded by Walter Brennan)

Don't hold your breath but I  think that I have finally mastered my new fixed-line phone.  I was finding that whenever I followed the instructions and pressed the HOME button to connect with a caller I was cut off after a couple of words.  I was usually able to recognise the voice and call back and the phone tends to record the numbers of aborted calls but it was getting ridiculous and very frustrating so I went back to the drawing board.

There I found an alternative:-  "Press Home or any dialing key" so last time I pressed 7 and connected with a man offering me $4,000.00 to install solar panels.  I have spoken to him before on one of my re-callings and for the second time carefully explained that I live in an apartment with no control as to what is installed on the roof.  I suggested that it would be fruitless to keep on phoning me but I am not holding my breath on that one.

So now my phone works (I hope) and my banking is back to what it was pre-NBN albeit I am now "person 2" so it is time to master my Smartphone which I can sort of use, mostly for the 'safeWA' app but I have made an occasional call on it.  As I rarely give out the number no-one actually phones me on it (yet).

We have been in partial lock down again for the last week with masks whenever we step outside our apartments -  ending at one minute after midnight tonight but will still have to wear masks on public transport.  That is a bit of a lost cause because the buses are almost empty and the trains are not stopping at the Claremont Station due to months of ongoing upgrades.

Mothers' Day is on Sunday and there is dinner at D2's place but no suggestion from anyone as to how I will be getting there.  I am hoping for a lift but there is a very convenient bus.  D1, at my suggestion has sent me some knitting wool as it is something which I can use when my knitting group re-convenes and I hope that D3 is getting me some rubber feet for my yoga chair which, at the moment, slides along my tiled floor and offers very little support when I need it.

. . .and now the Limerick:-

Auntie Val is a very smart cookie,

She likes to mix gambling with nookie.

Before a big race

She goes home to her place

And curls up with a very good bookie.

Life Gets Tejus, Don't It (7)

 Hound dog howlin' so forlorn

Laziest dog that was ever born

He's a-howlin' 'cause he's a-settin' on a thorn

An' just to tired to move over

(Recorded by Walter Brennan)

We are once again in Lockdown.  This time for only three days but I am not holding my breath as I think that there are a few more possible cases found over the last 24 hours.

I have had my first Astra-Zenica vaccination and the second one is due on 16th July.  If I survive that I should be in the clear until the next time but currently I am sporting a headache which feels like a migraine and hopefully that will go away in a few hours but D2 will be coming here to collect some cat food later today and she can check me out if I get concerned.

And speaking of cats  -  Parsifal has been vomiting again and it is definitely NOT a blockage this time so I am letting him sleep it off in the hope that it is nothing serious as visiting the Vet would be a bit difficult at the moment.

I am still having technical problems.  I think that I have finally sorted out the on-line banking and we are right back to where I was before the NBN with no need for the Authenticator or the Banking App and it is now problems with my new fixed-line phone which refuses to let me answer calls although it records the number so I can phone back.  So far it has only been nuisance calls and telemarketing so I am not that fussed and I am gradually putting my contact into the 'phone book' which seems to then recognise the callers and allows me to answer their calls.

And my E-reader has deleted all my books and emails and told  me that my e-mail address is invalid.  Not really a problem as it still allows me to download new books and maybe I just overloaded the library  -  I DID have the Mueller Report stored there and it must have taken up a huge amount of space.  I have it in hard copy but the print is so small that it is hard to read and not really relevant any more as the enquiry, if it ever eventuates, will all be reported by the NYT and Rachel Maddow.

I will try to get back to posting more often in the future as I use this blog as a diary.  But it has mostly been me and my struggle with technology over the last nine months and something I would prefer not to be reminded about  -  especially the banking.  When I phoned up for help (a frequent event) to be told, "Yes, we know who you are but you will still have to authenticate yourself."  even the bank must have realised that it was a bit silly.

The Limerick:-

An innocent bride from the mission

Remarked, on her first night's coition,

"So that intimate section

Is used for connection . . .

And in such an awkward position."

Life Gets Tejus, Don't It! (6)

 

A mouse a-chewin' on the pantry door
He's been at it fer a month or more
When he gets through he'd sure be sore
'Cause there ain't a darned thing in there

(Recorded byWalter Brennan)

 

Life is truly tedious at the moment as there is one man with Covid-19 (English strain) who spent about ten days out in the community but fortunately using the “SafeWA” app so there is a record of where he went during the time he has been affected.

Meanwhile, we are all in total lockdown for five days  -  masks in the common areas in the Apartment building and everywhere else.  So far there has not been another case discovered but there is massive testing and D2 is a part of that as she is an emergency physician working in the main public hospital in the danger zone.

To add to Perth’s woes there is a massive bushfire upwind of us and the whole of the city is enveloped in smoke so all the doors are firmly closed and the air con is running.  The only thing going for it all is that my dental appointment in two days time has been canceled.

Covid Koala the Drop Bear is back on duty on the window sill of the dining area and I have taken the opportunity to wash all my bedding from the fleece under blanket to the duvet and everything in between.  Yesterday (and probably today from the feel of it) the temperature registered over 37 degrees (or 100 degrees in the old measurement) and even the down duvet dried so fast that I simply kept on washing everything and it was all back on my bed in time for me to sleep in clean everything.

I am getting over my phobia about paying my bills online.  After the problems which I encountered after the installation of the NBN I still get a bit nervous in case I encounter problems again  -  but I have an ‘authentication app’ (the reason I needed the smart phone) and, of course, the SafeWA app is the cherry on the cake for the phone.

My toe is finally pain-free although I have not yet tried wearing a shoe and my right eye has been lasered so I now have really good long distance vision, really good close-up vision and nothing in between.  New spectacles are pending for reading and computer but I haven’t needed spectacles for general seeing and am still getting used to not having to take them off and on for the first time for over 70 years.  I cover one eye when I use the computer . . .

The limerick:-

I have used this one before but it is one of my favourites.

There once was a student of Johns

Who wanted to bugger the swans.

But the loyal hall porter

Said “Sir, take my daughter,

Them birds is reserved for the Dons.”

 

Life Gets Tejus, Don't It (5)

"Old brown mule he must be sick
I jambed him in the rump with a pin on a stick
He humped his back but he wouldn't kick
Now there's something cock-eyed somewhere"

(Recorded by Walter Brennan)

We are still in lock-down throughout the State and any returning travelers need to spent two weeks in quarantine but the rest of us are able to go out mask-less.  There is an app on my smart phone which I can use to log in to any venue where it is accepted and which enables contact tracing.  I notice that almost no-one uses it but I do so to ensure that it still works after GB1 tweaked it and got it up and running again after it suddenly refused to work.

I seem to have spent an inordinate amount of time in waiting rooms because doctors here seem to have got the bit between their teeth and cleared their waiting lists before Christmas.  I have had a cataract removed from my left eye and laser treatment to my right eye and, after five years of trying I have finally had my sore toe shortened and fused and it no longer hurts to walk  but that entailed a visit to an anaesthetist a morning in surgery and several followup visits.

In the future I have a visit to the podiatrist, dentist and haemotologist and, hopefully, that will be the end of it for a while, but I will need to see my optometrist about new spectacles as I have one eye with close vision and one with long distance vision but nothing in between.  However, for the first time for 70 years I do not need to wear spectacles

Meanwhile our knitting group has continued every  Tuesday afternoon and our Lotto Lunches have resumed.

Being in lock-down I have been spending far too much time watching the goings on in the USA, as have most of my family and friends.  The thing which has struck me almost most forceably other than the goings-on there is the lack of knowledge of spelling and punctuation to the degree that it is sometimes impossible to understand what the person posting on Facebook is trying to say.  I am not sure if it is poor education, confusion about what is actually happening or the difficulty of typing small buttons with two thumbs.

The Limerick:-

Male squirrels, with tails in the air,

Keep collecting and never despair,

For they all know, one day

A female will say,

"A nice set of nuts you have there!"