Read this...

.. in a very small font... so that no pesky interfering gods hear it.. 
Today we had a (small) win with the bank ..

The journey to mortgage-land has been rough, long, bumpy and nothing if not full of billabongs, culs-de-sac and backwards movements in all directions.

A few days ago I signed dozens of bits of paperwork and was told 'this is it'.  I've heard that before but this time it seemed to me that with my autograph all over things, it might mean something.

Nup.

MORE bits of paper required.  A certificate of currency (don't most people call that paper money?).  Registered thingies with the land titles office.  Double-header falling into a bureaucratic minefield of 'they said you have to', 'our lawyers said', 'it's required'... and such.  I had another request for such things this morning; my best (ie least aggressive, furious or bleep-laden) response was to turn my phone off.

Several hours later (and an/other huge medico-legal meeting over with) I turn the phone back on.  Many missed calls from Blocked.  Blocked rings me a lot. Mostly, Blocked is very shy and refuses to leave a message.  I get an auto-phone message saying 'An unknown caller from unknown number rang you and didn't leave a message'. Well, yeah..

But, but, I did get a call from The Bank Boss with a big apology. Apparently this week's paperwork requests are all wrong and the big boss never knew and there were bloods on the office carpet and quivering minions hiding in the shredder.. This is a easier thing to hear than all those reasons why *I* had to spend hours doing more things with no guarantee it would go smoothly.  I just sort of can't keep doing this stuff.  There be only one of me!!!  Anyway TBB also made a promise to front up at our place on Monday, bearing PROPER papers and another promise that after signing, yes of COURSE all those nice dollars will be ours, all ours.  A nice big debt to start off the week like good little (somewhat nervous) consumers.

And THAT means..

maybe

maybe  (shhhh)

possibly  (cross everything)

just about  (hopehopehope)

the house mods might start.

Don't gasp until I put up a photo of something REAL.  Like a bit of dug-up garden.. or a half-torn down wall.. or even a pile of builder's sand.  OOoooh, maybe even a concrete mixer!!  I like them.

We
shall
see.

This week brought to you by the quiet tears of a anguished angel watching over my shoulder; the memory of train doors closing in Paris (where my baby is right now, and where we were a little while ago, having a very different life, and we were very happy there);  aaaand the ghost of a suggestion of some Gucci, sprayed on my coat on a better day.

UPDATE: Yesterday we signed more zillions of papers. We took them to be witnessed and later the bank person rang to say the release of the first batch of dollars was available.  This cost us money!!  Nice one bank.  But then again, nice one, bank!


This update brought to you by eau-de-hydrotherapy pool, the hottest water I've ever swum in.  I am therapeutically dehydrated but fine.

Reflecting..

..on the understandable but not always easy to tolerate focus of the invalid. On the long-time resident of hospital recently discharged into the rather dodgy care of the wife. Or even on the battered relying on the lame..

Lame pretty much describes my abilities today.  Two friends are mourning two excellent moggies.  The new 'case' 'manager' visited and told us she's been approved for a whole five hours of work.  She'll be working very hard to get across all the services and coordination we need from her then!

Caveats, killer caveats.  The company that has this awesome power over our lives has managed to wield its stick quite effectively at us today.  We're upset, frustrated and horrified.  Somewhere in there we signed more important papers to do with the house mods starting.

I figure this blog has to stay real for me to be interested, so the bad days have to get some press as well.

Move along, no sunshiney sweetness here today.  Sorry.

Note to self:

  

- not a good idea to complain.  It just encourages those pesky gods of interference and nortiness.

- not a good idea to complain.  Doesn't make anything feel better.

- not a good idea to complain.  Gives others funny ideas about me not being made of tungsten after all

- not a good idea to complain.  I thought we had a good outcome following the NO rant; then the washing machine died.  The BRAND NEW washing machine.  Just a little failure-ette; the door won't open.  But it's full of washed clothes and (naturally) it's Friday arvo so I fear what festering fabric festiness awaits when a service dude can come (perhaps) on Monday!

- not a good idea to complain.  Makes me home-sick for my norty cat.

- not a good idea....

Better ideas:

- cats

- fresh-baked cinnamon rolls for brekkie ... AND

- FBCRFB baked by a bestie!  Purrfect.

- TGIF! So I can stop listing for a bit.

- strangely enough my middle name isn't Pollyanna, but I can count a few blessings..  and sit quietly Home Alone for a while.  M is out boozing with a dorter!

- sitting down in general.  Have I (yeah I know I have) ever mentioned (only a few dozen times) my fabbo Ikea chair?  My beloved Poang?  Yep, got it at the flat.  Am currently jiggling one leg whilst blogging on the other.  A form of purrfection fur sure.

- perfume.  Tricky choice today.  Partly cos I dropped in to Proper Home to apologise to my pusscat and get the mail.  She followed me to the bedroom and pointed at my cold, empty bed.  I agreed with the sentiment but got (easily) distracted by my collection of gorgeous lil bottles.  Settled on ... can you guess??







:-)

Things to ponder..

Week one ends.  Week two starts tomorrow and I hope some of the unexpected and disappointing things from week one are now OVER.

A sample:
- carers who didn't show; who showed up wearing thongs!!; who failed to provide basic care needs for M; who made more mess than I could cope with; who had some interesting ideas about 'just' sitting in the lounge for two hours between 10 and 12 pm, to wait for the midnight shift (when I said I didn't think this was sustainable for privacy reasons, the response was 'but I am praying for M to get up and walk'.  I don't argue with the intent but it doesn't really resolve the privacy issue!)..

- endless meetings.  Twice we've had 11am appts which have run for 3 hours, effectively cutting us off from lunch and M's important siesta.  The first time we were caught unawares, the second we were gathering important info about how to deal with the shortcomings of the care agency and felt we needed to go on. But we've now decided to limit all meetings (in the flat I mean) to two hours maximum.  For my brain to have a chance of keeping up if for no other reason!  It's very hard to keep to a routine.  Even tho M's schedule of carers and meds and lectures etc is set in stone, having time to NOT do things is proving very difficult.

- too much WASHING.  We have a problem in that the bathroom floor doesn't adequately drain, so M's shower process inevitably leads to wet towel explosions.  The best carers have already worked out ways to reduce this load; the most gormless carer turned up in muddy sneakers and left footprints all over the carpet.  I have apologised to the waterways of the world this week, for my constant washing machine use.  Next I will be apologising to the electricity manufacturers for my almost equally constant use of the dryer. Yes I line dry, but that doesn't work when it's wet and muggy.  And when you have 15 towels a day to wash and dry!

- the usual complaint, not enough sleep.  I find I need time after M crashes, to sort of lie about and process things.  Process meaning NOT think thru, write lists, examine info, make calls, write emails, get angry/frustrated, but simply lie about reading or playing a dumb game or staring into the distance a bit.  The meetings are so important I find the mental energy I put into them costs more than I expect.  I'm kind of surprised about this; I just spend two years doing exactly that!  But somehow, being home makes it harder because now we don't have the support of the hospital system to back us up.  Hence meetings, of course, with all the ppl who are helping us.  That's a circle!

Good Things:
- air conditioning.

- a day at home home yesterday, when we collected more stuff to home-ify the flat and grovel to Mrs Puss.  She accepted our apologies and went so far as to let M pat her (she's still very wary of the wheelchair 'car'); sit on my lap AND jump on my head when I lay down for a bit.  She enjoyed all the helpers going in and out of the house, plenty of legs to ambush and poses to pose purrfectly for their envious consideration.

- finally, a bookcase in the flat.  THAT'S more like it.

- amazing feats of dinner-cooking by my mum, who is going for a gold star AND a koala stamp in keeping us fed and happy.  I haven't made friends with the kitchen yet so this is especially fabulous!

- the carers who are thorough, careful, friendly, considerate and neat.

- M's energy level.  Day two of his new life, he charged off to his first post-grad lecture of his next semester of studies.  Leaving me somewhat befuddled, what am I for?  Meh, I defaulted to the washing.

- I have lashed out and I now have three perfumes in the flat, along with two lovely bottles of body oil.  Maybe next trip home I'll get more.  The house seems to be full of completely unnecessary stuff!  I looked at it all yesterday and felt disengaged; tired; ashamed of all the money spent on THINGS.  I've felt like this, on and off, since we returned from Sydney nearly a year ago.  Unfortunately I can't simply heave it all out, it's not all mine.  I refuse to think about packing it all up for the house mods (I'll do another post about that soon).

and

- airconditioning.  Ghastly muggy summer.  HATE it.

Right, next lot of carers due shortly and here's me sitting on the couch.  Tsk tsk!!

Oh, *I* see...

I have realised that my plummeting mood is not only a larger than usual swing (thanks to the effects of taking oral steroids, gee willikers wow I'm so grateful etc etc), but because of the 'roids, I have a particular extra bonus wonderful ow-ey skin thing, always caused by 'roids plus stress plus fatigue.

THANKS to the smart-alec gods who thought up this charming combination of cause and effect.

THANKS to my ancestors for the genetic inheritance which makes me pre-disposed to this problem.

THANKS to the inventor of 'roids, who did a good thing even tho it are a bloody tricky drug and the side effects SUCK.

And lastly, THANKS to my body for being SO HOPELESS.

This evening brought to you by a lowering black cloud. Too far gone for purrfume. Incense is on altho not working much ... please send me cyber-immunesystemboosting vibes. I is not a happy vegemite...

Virgin blues..

I need to change some flight bookings.

There, that wasn't such a hard thing to say was it?

HUH!

Go to website, find Manage Bookings.  Insert booking number it says.  I look it up and duly insert.  BZZTT!!! Wrong info, go back, try again, har har we won't let you, ner ner ner.  I do this riveting circle several times, going back to check my booking details from a few weeks back when I made them.  It is too my booking number.

Nup says Virgin.

So how can I check what it is, then, if the dang website won't let me into the intimate details of what *I* paid for??  Mystery, frustration, grrrrr....

All I want to do is change the flight date, thereby giving them MORE money.  Why is it so hard?  Why is it so mysterious?  Who is the loser here??? ... no don't answer that.  Even armed with my trusty Velocity Club Exclusive Gadabout Customer Frequent Spender number I can't get nowhere.  This is something of a complication, given that we actually want to come home from where we're going.  Like, when WE want to.  A small point, somewhat selfish, I'll agree, but HONESTLY.  I've been working on it for an hour now and I just can't work it out.  I bet I'll have to ring the Customer Service ppls (and pay even more) to get it sorted.  Surely the website, sophisticated as it is, can manage better than triple secrecy after the customer has identified her poor innocent little self??

I think the perfume for this one has to be Draino..