Sock is sitting so close to the heater I can smell her hair starting to singe. She seems unperturbed.
I must get her a new collar. This year's registration tags are bright fluro green and they don't go so well with the red-and-silver number she wore last year. The $2 Shop had some black-and-silver ones the other day, I must go see if they still have them.
I was driving round to D's place yesterday and I saw a woman run out in front of the car in front of me. I could hear her screaming and then realised she was holding/dragging a 5-yr-old-ish kid in front of her under the kid's arms. A guy was following her across the road and seemed to be trying to get her to get into a car. I pulled over and yelled out to the guy did he want me to call the cops? - cos it was definitely out of hand. He shouted back that he was the police (although he was in very plain clothes). The woman just kept screaming and screaming and dragging the kid around in front of her. God, it was really nasty. I was just sitting there frozen thinking, that poor kid. What kind of memory is that to have? I didn't hang around to see the outcome, it was very upsetting to watch.
Conclusion: The world is full of idiots who don't deserve to have children.
Secondary Conclusion: People suck.
Brrr. Every time we get a hard frost the pipes freeze. Then someone has to get the garden hose and shove it up the cold tap in the laundry until it blows the ice out and everyone can have a shower and use the loo. It is a quite freezing cold task because it usually involves getting sprayed with very cold water at some point.
(NB: must put anti-freeze in car. today.)
I've got to go see winz this morning and then psych services at 11.30 and then take D to one of her appointments at 1.30 and try very very hard not to punch Lala in the face.
I probably can't be explicit because the matter is before the court, but let's just say that she left her two kids in a dangerous, horrible situation for ten weeks with full knowledge. She told people she was in contact with CYPFS and the police etc, but she wasn't. She just left it until someone else stepped in. The 'caregiver' was arrested yesterday. I could spit on her. She nauseates me.
I'm supposed to be taking V8 to the movies tonight to see Tokyo Drift. D is paying for my ticket because, um, how do I put this? I'm thinking about sneaking in a book and a flashlight. But he will enjoy it and I will enjoy him enjoying it.
I just went to Winz and they cut my benefit by $20/week. Then I went to the dentist and got a quote for $1000 worth of emergency dental work. Apparently the non-emergency stuff will be more, but can wait until next year. It's never a good sign when the dentist takes just a look at your teeth, no instruments or anything, and says "you've got a couple of very large holes there..."
It's my own fault, that's what 13 years of an eating disorder will do for your teeth. There is no enamel at all on the inside of my jaw. And the restorations my last dentist did a year or so ago are chipping away as the teeth break.
It hasn't been a very good couple of weeks, really. I'm in quite a lot of pain at the moment and finding things a bit of a stuggle mentally as well - I've put on more weight and it's freaking me out quite a lot. On top of that I've just had so many bills - dog registration, car registration, wofs, doctors, debts... god. And I still owe telecom over $100 and have no idea how I'm going to find the money to pay that off.
Hopefully it will calm down in the next few weeks. I'm really annoyed about losing that $20 though. It doesn't sound like much but believe me, it is. That's petrol for the week, or half a dr's bill.
It's so frustrating not being able to work. You know, if I were pissing around on the dole, that's one thing - I might even enjoy it! But being on a long-term sickness/disability benefit is just so frustrating - there is never any money for anything other than necessary things. I want to work - goddam it! - and every time I have a good week or ten days I think, hey, I could get a job... and then I have a couple of seizures, or the pain gets too intense, or a migraine or whatever happens and I spend three or four days in bed. If I add it up, probably about 13-15 days in each month I would be in bed or severely limited. And that's just too much to expect of any employer to handle.
Practically, that means I can't work a normal job. And that means that my income is limited to only what Winz give me, and that means that there is never anything extra. Like, T's birthday is coming up and she's going out to dinner. To save up $20 or $30 is going to take weeks, and even then, it's money coming from something else. I wish (although I totally see why they don't) that there was some kind of 'entertainment allowance' of $10 or $15 a month for people on long-term benefits. I've only been to the movies once in the last 3 years, and they were free tickets I won off the radio!
Gah. Sorry, I don't mean to complain. I've got things much much better than many others. I just got to keep that in mind. I need to tattoo "Count Your Blessings" on my hand or something...
It's snowing! Hoorah! Well, I like snow, as long as I don't have to drive in it much. Luckily, being out by the beach means we don't get the snow settling as much as in other parts of town.
The kids' school closed yesterday around lunchtime so I did a snowy mission to go pick them up. They didn't look too unhappy!
God, this is going to be an expensive week for me. I've got to get the car wof'd and rego'd and also pay for whatever the car needs (it's bound to fail on something). Also I've got to visit the dr, dentist and physiotherapist, plus get some prescriptions filled, AND it is Sock's rego month as well, which means an extra $80 has to come from nowhere.
Was glad to see the voice of reason in the shape of the Parliamentary Select Committee on microchipping. It's a pity the government are going to ignore it. Microchipping benefits no-one except the vets. If people are irresponsible enoough to not register their dog now, why on earth would they pay $60 to get their dog microchipped as well? So the 'good' owners with non-dangerous dogs get hit financially for no reason at all.
I'm really glad Sock is pre-registered and therefore exempt. Otherwise I think I would challenge it legally on the grounds that it's a cruel and unneccessary procedure (the needle is hollow, about 5mm across, and they just stab it in with no anaesthetic) and that introducing a non-fixed foreign body into my dog's neck is medically indefensible. Chips can and do move around the body. What happens if one migrates to the wrong place and paralyses my baby girl? Perhaps I should register her as a Jehovah's Witness and claim it's against her religion.
Ways to spend a long weekend: clean out someone else's garage. You will find out just how strong your will to help is!
D & K rented a skip which they were going to use to clean out the garage. It's one of those large garages with space for a car, toolbenches, shelves etc and crammed with 13 years of it's-too-good-to-throw-out junk. Seriously, I found boxes that hadn't been unpacked since they moved down from Auckland, 13 years ago.
With everyone being incapacitated they were going to have to pay for the skip and return it empty, which was pretty stink, so I stuck up my hand and said, I'll do the garage. It was kind of dirty and spidery and mousey - you know what garages are like - but it was ok with gloves and long sleeves. And then I picked up the INNOCENT SHOPPING BAG OF DOOM!!!
Someone had left a supermarket bag full of raw brisket in the garage. At some stage. Not too recently, I'd say... I picked up the bag and hundreds - hundreds! - of maggots started raining out of the bottom of it. They'd eaten through two layers of plastic...
Ewwwwwwww. God. And with them spilling everywhere, I was like - shit, how do I get these from the garage to the skip while touching as few as humanly possible?!
But the end product is great - the garage has gone from 90% full to about 35% full. So that was a good result for a couple of day's work.
Apart from that I didn't do much at all this weekend. Must go and do dishes and washing now, actually, pull my weight as a flatmate...
The news last night was the funniest program I saw all evening. The US military is claiming that there will be no cover-up of the still-under-investigation Haditha maybe-massacre. (Read the UK report here.)
No cover-up. Scout's Honour! Seriously, though...
Well, it's the first day of winter and the sunniest day we've had all week. I'm going over to D's place today to do some housework and cooking and stuff for her and the family. They're so stressed they are tearing each other to pieces. I feel like I "know" how to help D and V8, to some extent, but I don't know K all that well and it's harder to get a feel for what might be helpful for him. I came to the conclusion that a tidy kitchen and living room and an easy dinner prepared when he finishes work is unlikely to make things worse, anyway.
Lala is a mutual aquaintance/friend who has lived with them for the last couple of months, and I'm just furious with her. She is taking up so much emotional space, and she's not helping out even with basics like housework and stuff. D managed to have a nasty accident the other day and is laid up in bed. V8 just had an operation two days ago, he's had cancer for the last two years, looks like hell, and is dealing with the loss of an *amputation*. K is working, self-employed, trying to support the family financially as well as hold it together emotionally. And Lala is sitting there doing NOTHING. Except swearing at V8 and acting self-righteous. She’s not even doing the little things like – vacuuming, or the dishes, or the washing. Selfish, spoilt self-righteous Christian hypocrite.
*end rant*
So. Off to do washing here and then head over there around lunch-time. I shall subject Lala to the 'eyebrows of silent disapproval', although she'll probably still be in bed.
*really end of rant*
It's sunny. I am not laid up in bed, dying, or working myself into a breakdown. My lovely Sock is sitting by my feet. I have a warm, dry, congenial place to live. I feel lucky.