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!"

Life Gets Tejus, Don't It (4)

I opened the door an' the fly's swarm in

Closed the door and I'm sweatin' again

And in the pros... (a huchh) crack my shin

Just one darn thing after another.

(Recorded by Walter Breennan)

We are still in lockdown here in the West but if all goes to plan we will be open to interstate travellers tomorrow so contact tracing has been put in place.  I have an app which is supposed to record any place where I sit down with other people but I had some difficulty loading it onto my smart phone and haven't tried it out yet.  I will do so tomorrow when I go to knitting over in the Library where the librarians will be able to point me in the right direction.  I loaded it last week in the library but it refused to connect until I returned to my apartment (traffic overload?) so I am not quite sure how may numbers I put after my password.  I will find out tomorrow.

I have been neglecting my blog recently due to the hospitals gearing up to do as much surgery as possible before the State opens up so I have had my long-overdue left cataract removed (short in the left eye to balance the long distance in the right eye as the right eye has no short vision, a thing which I discovered when i got home with the left eye covered and found that I was not able to measure out Poppy's anti-inflamatory drops and had to get GB1, who was babysitting me, to do the measuring.

I have also finally had my painful toe shortened and fused at one joint, something which I have been trying to get fixed for over five years.  The toe is still very swollen and I am wearing a funny shoe thingy to protect it. Hopefully I will be able to get back to exercising in the new year.

And back to my problems with banking on-line;  last time I paid an account everything was shrunken so it looks as though the Bank is planning on making everything Smartphone size.  Grrrrr!

Enough with the bitching;  The Limerick:-

A newlywed lady from Young

Asked the doctor to fix her torn lung.

When asked how it ripped

She replied as she stripped,

"The man that I married is hung!"

Life Gets Tejus, Don't It (3)

 The water in the well just gettin' lower and lower

Can't take a bath at six months more

But I've heared it said and it's true, I'm sure

That to much bathin' will, will weaken you

(Recorded by Walter Brennan)

Life has been busy for the last couple of weeks.  Parsifal has finally been unblocked but it took several days before we got any results. He is now on a small dose of laxative a couple of times per week and has become very cuddly (when he is not beating up his sister who gives as good as she gets) and is mostly in bed with me when I wake up in the morning.  Poppy, now that her loose tooth is out has become very playful and kittenish which is lovely to see . . .so I now have two happy cats.

Last week I received a letter to remind me that I was due for a mammogram so I went and had that done three days ago.  It is something which I hate having done.  I know that it is designed to save me from something worse but now I am waiting for the results.  The technicians who do the ultrasound are not allowed to let the victim know the findings but they usually give some hint if all is OK and I understood that all is well but I need to know for sure as it is easy to misinterpret the hint such as I received this time, “all over and that is good.”

I spent yesterday sorting out my finances to send off to my accountant and only hope that there is enough for him to work with.  What with the dreaded NBN and the chaos it created with my banking I am not sure that I haven’t missed something vital.  I still get a sinking feeling whenever I have to do any on-line banking and since I now seem to have two passwords into my account there is still uncertainty about getting into my bank online.

And since the advent of the NBN my answer phone doesn’t work so I have switched it off and maybe I will have to get a new online phone as I hate my mobile phone which I had to buy in order to get back into my bank account; there is an app which gives me a code in response to a password which I have to enter.  It is all getting very complicated and I pity people in my age group who are being forced to use the internet for the first time in their 75 – 80 years in order to access their social security.

This coming week I have an appointment with the ophthalmologist regarding the removal of my second cataract which should have been done in March until Dr C. decided to take six months off and cancelled my appointment; and a visit to a foot surgeon for about a fifth opinion on the treatment of my sore toes which are seriously affecting my balance which, due to Meniere’s Disease is mostly by guess and by God and keeping my eyes fixed on where I want to walk to; and using my toes  -  which hurts.

The Limerick:-

There once was a pious young priest

Who lived almost wholly on yeast;

"For," he said, " it is plain

We must all rise again,

And I want to get started at least."

 

Life gets tee-jus (2)

My shoes untied but I don't care
I ain't a-figurin' on goin' nowhere
For I'd have to wash and comb my hair
And that's just wasted effort

(Recorded by Walter Brennan)

For a quiet life in lockdown the last week has been surprisingly busy.  On Monday evening I realised that one of Poppy's last teeth  -  a bottom canine - was hanging quite literally by a thread and the tooth was sitting outside her top lip but sometimes pointing up and sometimes down so I decided to take her to the vet the next morning and and have it removed.  Knowing how they both react to the vet I decided to give her a sedative.  As she resisted having her mouth opened I knocked the tooth and it fell out.  It was HUGE.  She was ecstatic that she was rid of  it and galloped around like a kitten.

Then the day before yesterday Parsifal started vomiting all over the apartment; mostly bile (fur balls) and it stains so I spent a lot of the morning cleaning up and by evening I realised that he was not using the litter tray so yesterday morning I phoned the vet, dosed him with a sedative and took him in two hours later.  He was not sedated enough and ripped his clipped claws down my hand; blood everywhere.  The vet and I  decided that he needed more sedation so I brought him home for another pill.   Then yesterday afternoon, using a very devious manoeuvre she anaesthetised him and did a thorough physical examination  including X-ray, heart, lungs and abdominal palpation before pronouncing him constipated but healthy.

He was still asleep when we got home and Poppy was convinced that he had been out on the town without her and growled and spat at him whenever she saw him.  Only now, 24 hours later, will she let him  even approach anywhere near her.  Now I have realised that Poppy is also constipated so they were both given a laxative with their evening meal.  And they are both curled up together finally to sleep.

The Limerick:-

To the nun said the priest drinking gin,

"Drinking gin is a terrible sin!

My condition is chronic

But I do need the tonic,

And something to put tonic in!"

Life Gets Tee-jus. (1)

 The sun comes up and the sun goes down

The hands on the clock keep a-goin' 'round

I just get up and it's time to lay down

Life gets tee-jus, don't it?

 (Walter Brennan recorded it but I do not know i he wrote it) 

My feelings exactly and now the Blog format has changed again and I am trying to find my way around the new one;  I don't need any more changes in my on-line life just right now.  The thought of paying bills still sends me into a cold sweat and now my printer has died.

I bought another one but when I started to read the installation instructions I got that cold sweaty feeling again so I have called on SIL and GB1 for help.  As SIL said, I could certainly do it on my own (probably he is right but . . .) -  and the document which I need to print arrived in some unknown format and I can't copy and paste it so I have sent it to another email address for safe keeping.  At least I can still email . . .

I ordered some carpet runners  -  12 metres of them  -  so that the cats' paws do not get damaged as they get older.  They arrived this morning and Poppy thinks that they are fine but Parsifal is avoiding them and jumps over them if he needs to cross over.  They are not very beautiful, being basically brown but so is the apartment so they look the part.

We are still in lock-down although the only Covid-19 cases here have been returned travelers and our border is still firmly closed so there are not many of those and they all have to go into quarantine.  We are all keeping social distancing but no-one is wearing masks.  I have mine ready for if they are needed.  There is talk of opening the border before Christmas so maybe we will have a first wave here and I will get to wear my masks eventually.

The Limerick:-

God's plan made a hopeful beginning

But man spoiled his chances by sinning.

We trust that the story

Will end in God's glory,

But at present the other side's winning.

 

Person Woman Man Camera TV

 Anyone who follows USA politics will recognise the title to this piece; it was supposedly a part of Mr Trump's Montreal Cognitive assessment.  When I was working in a psychiatric facility people were asked to punctuate the phrase "no ifs ands or buts" which, in my opinion is a trick question because the "and" stands in place for a comma and therefore a capital at the beginning and a full stop at the end would be sufficient but I think that the I was asked to read and recall the words when I did the test so maybe a couple of Oxford commas would suffice.

However, we are on the subject of cognition and last Saturday D2 and SIL came here with jump leads and trickle charger to try to get D2's silver classic Porsche up and running.

For years I have been babysitting a varying number of D2's classic cars, two Porsches and a classic VeeDub. A few weeks go the order went out that the secure parking to the Apartments was scheduled for cleaning and all cars needed to be removed for the duration.  As the silver Porsche which I was minding had a flat battery D2 brought the battery from the red Porsche which did not fit the slot but she connected it anyway and as the battery was in the boot (which is at the front) there was plenty of room for it.  All went to plan, the car was relocated for 24 hours and then back into my parking slot.

However, trouble struck when she came to return the batteries to their rightful cars; the bonnet had jammed the battery was flat and she was not able to do the exchange.  She consulted SIL who had two suggestions:  (1) recharge the battery through the cigarette lighter or (2) attempt to jump-start the car since the motor was in the back and therefore accessible.  I should add here that access to the residents' parking is via tight corners and a steep, narrow tight curve with no room for a flat-back truck and towing is illegal.

Shortly after these desperate attempts were to be tried they came back up to my apartment and told me that all had been fixed the batteries had been changed over and the car was operating just fine.

In trying to open the bonnet, D2 had been pulling the wrong lever.

The Limerick:-

I have posted this before but it is very clever.  This Limerick was posted in the Classified Ads of a London paper and it was a while before the public penny dropped:-

An Anglican curate in want of a second-hand portable font would exchange for the same a portrait (in frame) of the bishop-elect of Vermont.

A little Less light Now.

 I have fixed the blinking light on my fixed-line phone.  Once again I had to search the internet, ask pointed questions and then choose the simplest solution which worked and now I have the proper steady light which blinks only when the phone rings.  Not that it has rung very often and mostly it is people trying to persuade me that there is something wrong with my internet connection.  Since there were a couple of unanswered calls registered and which my phone identified by their number I was able to trace the calls to China, which figures, from the accent of the "technician".

For some reason all the cold calling spammers are convinced that Telstra rules the phone lines and that Telstra is going to disconnect my landline within 24 hours.  They do not seem to have realised that Telstra is not wireless and that if the telco disconnects my cables they would be cutting off the internet which they would be providing.

And my new mobile phone ran out of charge and would not re-boot once charged.  The only thing which the "how to" manual actually gives information about is how to turn it on again if it becomes unresponsive and that worked as well so I am learning all manner of new skills.  It has all been something of a wild ride and all I now have to document is how to delete the unanswered calls on my landline phone.  I have already done it twice but it is all a bit hit and miss so I need to write it down to fix it firmly in my mind.

Hopefully my final hurdle will be next week when I have to turn off my "computer" (for that read modem) for three consecutive nights while technicians check the connections of the shops below.  I used to turn off my last modem with gay abandon whenever a thunderstorm was in the offing but after the last few weeks I do not trust the new one to behave itself when I turn it  on again. That is an indication of how bruised I feel since the NBN was installed but I can always call Techie to fix it again.

The Limerick:-

Of a wounded war hero I sing

Coming home from the war in the spring:

Oh, he may have been lame

But he came just the same,

A discharge is a wonderful thing!