AGEING

At long last ! – yaaaay !!

/ MR / 15 Comments

I’m back to my bad old ways.  🙂

Moving on Wednesday, 1st October. This I have no doubt will be my last rental, and that’s not being dismal, just sensible. I mean, one not only cannot but has no wish to go through what I have over the past year again – not even one more time !

I’m moving to a Melbourne suburb called Footscray: Chic was born there, but I never knew precisely where (nonetheless, that’s a very nice thing !) I know Footscray well; because when I first returned to Melbourne I spent nearly a year in a being-gentrified suburb called Maribyrnong, and trammed it to the train via Footscray-the-place to Footscray-the-station. It’s really multi-racial – Vietnamese and Chinese, mostly, with Arabic and Indian as well. The food !!! [swoon …] My favourite is Vietnamese, as when I was in Maribyrnong the building’s janitor’s wife – they were both from Vietnam – used to make extra meals for me, bring one up to my flat then come back and take away the plates !!! She it was, the gorgeous Oanh, who got me over my loathing of coriander. Her husband, the adorable Bang Pham, was the sweetest man; and the sole fly in the family ointment was their little girl – outrageously spoiled and commensurately demanding. Cute, but.

I’m longing to start over again with arranging my things. One of the best aspects will be that I have actual walls of which I can choose whichever to put my recliner against, and not have fucking reflections on my laptop screen driving me insane (as they are currently doing). I shall need to have my ground-floor balcony enclosed in bird netting so as to confine The Boodster and stop him from rushing down the yard and out onto the main road.  😦

An only slightly historical screen-grab for you, showing my flat (bike on the balcony) from the street forming the corner with the bigger road upon which block sits my flat-block. You can see the road of my address in the left centre.

I am so thrilled about this move, with my removal from vomit on pristine walkways, shopping trolleys filled with garbage, gardens choked with detritus— shut up, M-R ! Anyway, you get the picture. I am, I say, so thrilled that I shall entertain myself with describing my development of my final home. Here, I mean. You do not need to keep up; just accept that I’m truly happy … happier than I’ve been since my third move in Geelong to St Albans Park, and that was many years ago.

Nah, I’m just hopeless :(

/ MR / 7 Comments

I start out with high ideals.

I always end up having dropped ’em by the wayside.

Yeah, that’s me alright.

I do have a sort of excuse— no, I mean explanation: it’s the dwindling of energy that being almost unbelievably ancient causes … brings … is responsible for.

When I was young (about two years ago), I would NEVER take any easy way out of bloody anything ! – in fact, I was driven to being a kind of seeker of Trouble … right here in River City; and that rhymes with P and that stands for Pathetic. [Apologies to that extraordinary wordsmith, Meredith Wilson. Oh, there are some wonderful American musicals ! – no wonder Stringer loved them so.]

And the pathetic is what now characterizes me, alas. Rather than save muchos dollari and forego Microsoft, learning how to make the large change from Outlook to Thunderbird – also a downward step in terms of calendar function – and the only slightly less large change from Excel to LibreOffice’s Calc, within which I cannot find most of the functions I use regularly in Excel without having to open the online manual and search … Oh, and also take the plunge to NOT LOG IN TO MY MICROSOFT ACCOUNT when firing up the old laptop … Rather than take on all these challenges, I say, I have opted out. Pa-the-tic.

So, seeing as how I’ve capitulated to Bill’s software megalodon, I might as well do the same to Matt thingummy’s blog platform.

I have admitted under (blogging) oath to being weak and useless and totally unadmirable, so what’s the point of taking a stand about anything ?!

[sits back with satisfied sigh …]

This is fearfully unfair !

/ MR / 17 Comments

I spend far too much time on the Web, watching videos of crocheting, of cats, of dogs, of musical items, of American politics, of ‘amazing things’ … You get the picture: I’m a YouTube addict, basically. I even pay the bastards to keep their ads to themselves !

You’ll note that I didn’t include videos of cooking: this is because I haven’t done any real cooking for absolutely yonks, now. I have their prepared meals delivered from a terrific place up in Queensland – although I had no idea of its location when I first started ordering from it. Because I believed I was safe from cooking I gave away my entire kitchen infrastructure.

Today – which might become a day of infamy (in M-R terms, that is) – I came across this site:

https://www.youtube.com/@BOSHTV/videos

and have only stopped watching some of its contents ten minutes ago – when I got to my feet, went to the frig and, having removed a carton with 7 eggs in it, hard-boiled them and ate one.  It was A Kind Of Statement, I think …

Some of the blokes’ multi videos are on topics like tempeh, lentils, beans … I drooled, positively drooled, and had to wipe my front. I LOVED being vegetarian (although these blokes are vegan, I can live with it) and found vegetarian cooking hugely more tasty and certainly more easy than omnivore cooking.

I have written slightly savage comments under one or two videos, as is my wont – the comments, rather than their being slightly savage, that is – in trying to explain to the pair of chefs just how unfair they are in presenting a cooking-infrastructure-less person with dishes such as those they present. They’ve written a cookbook. I see a possible out, albeit an expensive one …

Hang on ! – that’s a different one ! Oh Jesus, they’ve published two … I’m lost.

Have to admit it … :\

/ MR / 22 Comments

I started reading this article in the NYT because recently I was abandoned with cold deliberation by someone I love greatly. Well, that is … that’s how it seems to me. But maybe – just maybe – there’s no cold deliberation but a temporary surfeit of ME.

RSD, eh …?

ADHD ????? – why not then ? Certainly I have it in spades with regard to reading, as all who know me are aware.

Sighh … If you feel like finding out what this pertickler ancient is like, seems you have only to peruse the linked article. Would it were not so.

A large part of the problem stems from

 

The joy of being a cat’s mama

/ MR / 17 Comments

I’d made an appointment with the Lort Smith Animal Hospital to take Boodie to have his horrid claws clipped. This is so … so FRAUGHT an occupation that the last time we had such an appointment the clipping didn’t happen; as the vet – a large bloke – was unable to hold Boodie (and I am utterly useless: when he’s having anything done to him, his strength is astonishing). The next time he was there it was to have most of the rest of his teeth extracted; so of course they did it while he was under.

I bought a new cat-carrier: one with wheels and a pulling handle – or not – and had put it, open, on my crochet table in the loungeroom, ready …

I picked him up in the bedroom and he was immediately wary as I carried him out. Then he spotted the cat-carrier and went absolutely ballistic. Like, BALLISTIC !

I was trying to stuff him into the carrier and he was doing his insane starfish imitation – his very, very strong insane starfish imitation – and suddenly he’d twisted half around, knocking the carrier to the floor and inserting ONE SINGLE CLAW into the back of my right hand.

Dunno about you guys, but on the backs of my hands there are two very large veins that form a Y – the two hands matching fairly well – and you can make it out under that long horizontal wrinkle. Will you be astounded if I tell you that this single claw sank into the junction of the Y (on the other hand, I mean) …?!

Well, I screamed and swore very loudly indeed, flung him down and sat down on the couch to sob – largely with fear, although it was fairly sore. After a while of doing this I realised the inanity and stopped. My fears appeared to’ve been greatly over-dramatised because there wasn’t a shitload of blood. In fact, having blotted the hand with several tissues, I was able to make a cross of bandaids over the wound …

I spent the next 20 minutes cancelling the taxi (had to go down and pay the driver, as he’s been requested and had come out from the CBD) and Boodie’s appointment, this latter being much more difficult as the LSAH takes forever to answer the phone.

And then I realised there were blobs of blood popping through the bandaids – where they were in a double layer, as well …

I crossed the corridor and asked my neighbour Michelle to give me a hand with replacing the bandaids with something larger, of which I had a collection (no idea where they came from).  She came in most willingly and we started to remove the normal-sized bandaids … and then we stopped immediately. There was blood almost gushing from underneath – kind of dark blood. She said, in a matter-of-fact kind of tone, “I think you should go to a hospital” and I agreed fervently, but hadn’t the faintest idea of how this was to be done. Happily for me in my ancient hopelessness, Michelle – roughly young enough to be my daughter – has a functioning brain: she called for an Uber and off we went to The Alfred because it’s only a few blocks away.

That was somewhere around 3:30; and I managed to persuade Michelle to leave me and go home somewhere around 6:00 but was myself home again only at 9:30. During these six hours I had bled over various areas of The Alfred’s emergency section and myself,

was re-bandaged, had my hand X-rayed in case of any bits of claw-casing’s remaining in the wound (anyone whose household contains a cat will understand this possibility when recalling cats’ claws’ castoffs so often found), was given a tetanus shot and then, as the bleeding had triumphantly regained its momentum,

re-bandaged again. All seemed well; they allowed me to go home by taxi.

I was welcomed home by a totally unaffected Boodster, who fell over sideways as is his wont upon seeing me so that I can rub his beautiful tummy. Then I ate a DELICIOUS warmed meal from my current (and forever, I hope and trust) supplier called Perfect Portion Meals, drank much mineral water and sat down for a few moments before going to bed.

Uh-oh …

It had started AGAIN. Sighh … I returned to where I’d tipped all the bandages and large bandaid thingies onto the table and started to apply them. I must’ve used about 7 or 8, sticking them madly all over the bandage and encasing/enclosing the gore. THEN I went grumpily to bed.

During the night I got up to have a wee, but as ever didn’t turn on any lights. Thank all the gods …

In the morning I awoke to find myself in an abattoir.    😦

This time I organized myself, as I was no longer in a state of fear and confusion. A pair of ambo drivers turned up without too much delay; but in the meantime I’d been kept talking, on and off, in a most pleasant manner, but a young woman who’d answered the Ambulance section phone when I dialled triple zero. Eventually she decided I could be left on my own; but about ten minutes later I was called by someone else, who carried on with the care. It’s impressive !    🙂

And back we went to The Alfred, where I was attended to by a young woman who had a secret solution, apparently: it’s a kind of soft bandage that you cut to fit a wound and press on it for a while as it works its magic – and that’s its being impregnated with something that causes the blood to congeal ! Then you cover it was one of the soft sticky plasticky bandages and a compression bandage over the hand and wrist, and Bob’s yer uncle !

I feel sure there must be a moral to this tale; but I’m not nearly as witty as someone like Hilaire Belloc –

so I can only think it has to do with remembering cats change their minds about things. Whereas Boodz was once perfectly amenable to going into a carrier, he ain’t any more.

B stands for Blood. It also stands for Boodz.
Remember that the latter makes the former ooze.

Sorry about that … [grin]

Back to my roots

/ MR / 21 Comments

No, not these roots that are white(ish) once again —

(and look ! – I’m showing you my shellacked nails, that actually needed to be filed right down so as to be same height as my fingers coz otherwise I couldn’t do anything !) but my … ahhh … occupational roots.

Which is to say, I think I remember starting up my blog again, however many years ago it was, with the intention of devoting it to crochet. Possibly knitting as well, back then; but I don’t do that any more on account of hand arthritis. Well, I MEAN ! – just look at those ancient hands … Sighh … But also grrrrrrrrrr ! owing to the fucking blood-thinners I am told I must take, which make all veins stick out like dogs’ balls. Stringer taught me that one: blame him. [grin]

ANYWAY … Here’s what I’m rabbiting on about:

I was seized suddenly with a desire to make a cardi from one cuff to the other. I know I’ve seen several of these designs on YouTube, but if you think I could find a single one for reference, you’re wrong.  So I had to work out the number for meself. Simple, eh ?

Nup. Far from. For a start, the cuff circumference has to be set by drawing an imaginary straight line up from the ‘edge’ of my somewhat gigantic hips as I see in the mirror, straight-on, which is because they are my widest point (scarcely surprisingly !) and the width of the front and back panels is reflected in that measurement. This means that the length of the sleeves is going to be measured from that same imaginary line to the cuff, not from the point of the shoulder. And you should try getting that point without anyone to hold the tape-measure !!!

Once that’s done there are all the other sums to be worked out, but they’re all just a matter of logic.

Here’s a better shot:

and you don’t need to have it explained why … but there’s my constant companion, the Boodster, shedding fur and being curious.

It looks unbalanced, but that’s one of the many failings of my detested phone, the Oppo somethingorother: not possible to get a shot wherein an object isn’t stretched in at least one dimension. I assure you(se) that both horizontal edges are … horizontal.

Having discovered a second yarn I LOVE working with – the first being Lion Brand Mandala Ombre – which is Fiddlesticks Superb 8 Prints (no idea what the solid colour yarns are like), the next one will be a jumper, with ribbing added afterwards. The challenge there will be the neck-hole, and how to make a roll-neck. Much studying of others’ patterns, I hope !

Searching but not finding

/ MR / 8 Comments 
Kendrick, Malcolm; MbChB, MRCGP. Medical Director; Adelphi Lifelong Learning. Adelphi Mill, Bollington, Macclesfield, Cheshire SK10 5JB, United Kingdom. Essays

is my health hero (you may recall that I have one only hero in just about every category that an old broad’s life can cover); and he it is who has caused me more trouble, anxiety, worry and frustration than, I think, any other individual in all my days.

Because Malcolm writes books about – well, check these:

that I find absolutely credible. I believe every word he writes – well, those I know the meanings of. Malcolm is no fly-by-night snakeoil salesman: he is a fully qualified and still practising medico; and were you to look him up on Google you would find that he is ubiquitous (to put it mildly). I am completely persuaded of Malcolm’s evidence-based beliefs; and will remain so to the end of my days.

The problem is that the medical fraternity is up in arms about Malcolm and what he writes, but they cannot come up with anything to prove him wrong. As has happened several times in the past, medicos worldwide have locked arms against “new” medicine – and they are wrong, which makes their arm-locking even tighter (of course).

What this division amongst doctors – for Malcolm is far from being a lone voice crying in the wilderness – means to people like me is that we have no access to those who understand what he has written and agree with him. They’re far too scared to raise their heads above the medical ramparts and identify themselves, because the majority have the power to not only make their lives hell, but to see them relieved of their qualifications and kicked out of their positions. And, needless to add (but I do), the majority feel hurt and injured and are behaving badly – petty, bitchy, thunderous, sneering … think of a pejorative and it is applicable.

So here is an ancient fattish broad who wants to go carnivore but needs to really understand her own medical condition and if/how it relates to such a radical step, and I cannot find any doctor, be it at GP level or cardiologist, who will say aught but how vital statins are to my long-term health !

Having with huge pleasure come across

— which made me feel a shitload better about the whole thing, seeing as how nearly all these people are fully qualified medicos, like Malcolm — I picked out all the Australians in the list and wrote a group email thus:

With the exception of Dr Kendrick, whose writings are what turned me into one of these – and I make ZERO claims for the right to be numbered amongst this august fraternity ! – all can be contacted in Australia — unhappily, none in Victoria.

My approach, gentlemen, is a fervent hope of anyone’s being able to refer me to someone in Melbourne to whom I can turn for medical advice.

My GP and my ex-cardiologist are both wedded to the status quo regarding the evils of cholesterol and the benefits of statins. As I’ve made it utterly clear that nothing on this earth will convince me to take statins and I would like my “cholesterol level” to be a lot higher, my GP is now more than somewhat off-side and the cardiologist gone. I have … ahh … interviewed one or two new GPs in hopes of their being more up-to-date, without success.

I seek a credible “medical supervisor” because I have, I’m told, hypercalcemia.

      • I had an ECG some years back, given at Cabrini because I’d been taken there by ambo after passing out at a laundromat, that showed AF – none has been seen since; but I’m told this is due to the rivaroxaban and the atenolol.
      • When sent back to the Cabrini cardio after a year, it was to a new one because he had retired. She sent me for a calcium score that showed calcium – I believe around the heart.
      • Then I was sent for a nuclear medicine stress test that again showed too much calcium.

I’m a young 81. Until all this started I thought myself in perfect health; and I find this mysterious degree of hypercalcemia irritating to the point of infuriating: I feel absolutely fine !

I want to embark on a carnivore regimen. I now detest cooking and, having before that fainting episode managed to lose 30 kg (am now ±77 kg), I’m desperate to maintain (if not improve on) that weight loss. But I would greatly prefer to embark on something as radical as carnivore with rather than without medical advice.

Please, gentlemen, can you point to anyone whose medical opinion I can respect ?

In the words of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, that famous writer and poet, relevant to whom anyone knowing me is aware of my fondness for his work —

«but answer came there none.»

One had since died; one’s email sent an automatic reply saying he wasn’t there any more; two were simply silent and one actually replied – but it was so off-topic in terms of what I’d asked for that it might as well have not arrived. Total fizzog, basically,

I hope you now see why I describe the wonderful Dr Kendrick as the most infuriating, irritating, trouble-causing hero I have ever had …

 

This’ll rock you !

/ MR / 28 Comments

I’m going carnivore.

Yep, full carnivore – no plant material of any kind. Just meat, meat products like bone broth, and eggs. My only dairy will be the raw milk I have in my coffee – for I sure as anything cannot go without my coffee !

I’m planning to start on Monday, and will organize myself and my kitchen and pantry in the meantime.

You are probably wanting to shout at me “You’re kidding, right ? – how do you think you’re ever going to be able to afford it ?!!”, and there is some justification in that cynical question. But when you consider that these items are ALL that will be in my shopping lists – nothing else except the raw milk and possibly mineral water – you’ll realize that it won’t be as prohibitively costly as you first think. Besides, I don’t intend to be buying grass-fed Cape Grim: it’s unnecessary to consider as a carnivore that one must eat quality meat. No: I mean to visit the QV Market and do a lot of comparison note-taking. Also Aldi !

THE RATIONALE:
As some may recall, I’m a convert – a fanatical one – to the medical opinions of a Scottish GP who works in the UK, Malcolm Kendrick. Kendrick’s best book is “The Great Cholesterol Con”; and I believe unhesitatingly that anyone who reads it (not skipping through it, mind !) and is not convinced by his arguments and facts is a complete fool.

However, the worldwide medical fraternity is very foolish indeed – or perhaps I might describe it as being unwilling to backtrack and show itself up as having espoused for half a century belief in a deeply flawed view, conceived by a VERY deeply flawed medico who cherry-picked some countries from a much larger number in order to publish on his pre-conceived views. There it is: ‘research’ carried out to support a theory !

OK: the porpoise here is to point out that, while there are many doctors around the world who agree entirely with Kendrick, in the English-speaking world there is such opprobrium piled on his proven viewpoint that individual doctors are not prepared to come out and admit to their being so controversial. In Oz, the AMA has virtually threatened to strike off any doctor not toeing the line regarding cholesterol and its evil partner, statins, as treatment.

And since I absolutely refuse to have anything to do with the belief in cholesterol’s being in any way harmful, or to ever in my life agree to taking (ugh !) statins, I have no doctor who can care for my health according to my convictions.

So it’s up to me ! – gonna care for it myself.

STOP PRESS !
“it’s not the AMA (the doctors’ union) which is now down to just over 30% of doctors being members that GPs need to worry about. It’s AHPRA (Australian Health Practitioners Registration Authority) which can instantly deregister any doctor”

My bad: I had been told that, but forgot. (I can forget anything at 30 paces …)

…not to mention talking !

/ MR / 18 Comments

Been doing a lotta that.

After the eventual issue of the interview shot by the Homes Victoria cameraman – https://www.instagram.com/p/C8Wfa_8BSlD/ – you’d think the world had seen and heard enough of me to last a bloody lifetime ! But no: today I went into the offices of my beloved Care Services Provider, Aunty Grace, to do another.

Anyone who’s known me for any length of time – and by ‘known’ I mean via blog as well as corporeally (is that a word ?) – is already clear on the fact that I can not only talk the hind leg off a donkey, but both hind legs and the tail too. Probably the entire second half, from behind its front legs backwards.

But my Aunty Grace friends gave me flowers, the dear hearts;

and not only flowers, but an EFTPOS Aunty Grace card to spend. You can readily understand why I’m so stuck on them.   🙂

Wondering if I should let Homes Victoria know, in a subtle-hint kind of way. [grin]

What should I buy myself ? I’m thinking some more Audible items – around eight more books ! But in truth I’d like something that related better back to my Aunty … can’t think of what.

In truth, I’m just commenting on the fact that grumpy old women can have pretty good lives, all told. Only the one complaint: how to eat a protein-packed but v. low-cal lunch every day … Oh, two (I lied): where to find a doctor who shares my thinking on cholesterol ?!

 

 

Thinking … and even doing

/ MR / 32 Comments

Thinking’s an interesting activity – far more so than most of the regular ones on offer to anyone like me.

Sighh … and now I’m obliged to define ‘like me’ – what a dickhead I am !

Well, that’s a beginning – I’m a dickhead, for starters. And then, I’m no longer young; no longer in possession of any noticeable degree of tolerance; no longer fat; and the key thing I want to get across is that I’m definitely no longer interested in watching drama on screens of any size.

Tonight when I’d finished glomming down my favourite food – Woolworths frozen (but thawed in the microwave !) blueberries and Greek-style yoghurt – and this combo has been eaten for brekkie and dinner every day since last October … when I finished, as I say, I realized that Boodie was ensconced on my recliner with me, tucked tightly between my knees. Now, as any cat person understands clearly, having a cat sitting on you means that you cannot change position. Well, not until the cat does, anyway. I’ve finished crocheting the back, the two fronts and the two sleeves of a new cardi and had intended to start assembly; but it’s all on the crochet table and out of reach.     😦

So I hauled up the laptop, opened my browser and went to my BritBox shortcut. After some wandering about its CRIME DRAMA menu I re-found a program I’d been watching and picked up from where I’d left off. A British police crime story set in Dublin (which looks truly dreary, I hafta say) about a Mancunian policewoman trying to solve her daughter’s murder and care for her two Irish grandchildren. (It was easy to remember what was going down when I’d last switched off. At least, I thought it was; but I’d remembered a totally different program !)

After ten minutes Boodie shifted position, distracting me; and I realized I was thinking about a new coffee shop in the CBD I discovered on Google and how I’ll go and look at it tomorrow, and— you get the picture. I had lost interest in the program roughly two minutes after starting it up.

I’m pretty sure this loss of interest in the final stage of an activity in which I once participated to earn my living is a result of being old. I’m not whingeing nor going to whinge coz I’m not characterized by my age, and there is a second possibility – the failing I’ve written about before: loss of ability to focus / concentrate. That failing was posted about in relation to reading; but it strikes me that watching stories on a screen (fact or fiction) is the same kind of activity as reading them on a page, requiring one to Pay Attention. And I don’t seem to be able to do that except when I’m conversing with a person or persons.

And yet that statement is actually untrue and uttered prior to thinking about it: I can Pay Attention to things I do on my own – of course I can. If I couldn’t I’d be where my eldest sister is now, in a care home.

So OK, so it must be how much interest I have in whatever it is, mustn’t it ?

But no: that would mean that I’m not interested in reading … oh, say, my favourite author’s novels – and that’s not at all true ! I remember when I first discovered them, through one my second-eldest sister sent me that made me buy all the other eight immediately. I was in love !!!

Still, since then I’ve been able to buy six of them as audiobooks; and the readers are pretty good … Hmmmm … sheer laziness ? Delight in discovering that a good reader can bring a book to life and let you find out all the little bits you missed because you skip when you’re reading ?

So why don’t I give a rat’s arse about television or movies any more ?