Just Add Water

Science states that the human body is up to 70% water.

Evolutionists say that life as we know it crawled out of the ocean some 3-4 billion years ago.

You only have to watch what happens when particular humans are placed near a body of water to see that it's true.

Take what happened to us late last year.

I noticed our front garden was looking a little lush, considering the lack of attention we give it - first a bit of extra moisture, then a trickle, then a faster flow into the carport beside.

It got to a point that the men of the neighbourhood did as men do, stood around and discussed the matter. After a suitable length of time, and appropriate number of beers, the menfolk decided a natural spring had sprung up in the midst of the front foliage.   

And left it at that.

Until the local Water Board left a little card in the mailbox saying our water usage was "higher than usual".  Still my Beloved thought it nothing of consequence, it was summertime after all and kids being kids had been splashing about a bit in recent times.

When the Water Board left a message on the phone that our bill was on its way and it was, again, a little higher than usual, I felt a trickle of concern.

It turned into a full blown flood the day the bill appeared- December 21. Whereas our regular bill was around the $400 mark, this one came in at $4521.18 (was that 18 cents really necessary?) I mean to say: Four Thousand, Five Hundred Dollars!! A "little higher"? Yes, like Lady Liberty is a little statue!

A discussion with the Water Board had me trying to track down a plumber to come take a look. Good luck with that, 4 days before Christmas. 45 minutes and countless phone calls later I still had not found a tradie willing to come before the holidays; the earliest any of them offered was the 4th of January!  Forget the sugarplums, I had visions of dollar bills running down the driveway. So back to the Water Board I go and beg them to help me find someone suitable to assess the situation. Finally a company agrees, for only $150 call out, plus $90 an hour. 

There go the kids' Christmas presents. I need a Secret Santa, stat!

Anyhow, plumber comes at the crack of dawn next day (pun fully intended, you know what tradespeople are like) and there's me out in the garden in my pjs, with him saying "You need someone with underground detection gear to find the pipe and save a lot of digging". I make no assumptions on the intelligence of the plumbing profession, but Einstein he ain't. So, why, I ask, did your company not send someone with said gear? His advice was to get someone else to do the dirty work, unless I was willing to pay two blokes the hourly rate apiece. Yeah, no.

Armed with shovels my Beloved and neighbouring blokes started shifting soil.

4 hours later, 6 feet down and 8 feet along, they found where the water was coming from.

But we seemed to have misplaced our menfolk.

Instead we had mud monsters of various shapes and sizes, three grown men had a total and terrific transformation back to boyhood, they were having so much fun playing in the mud. 

Our actual children, on the other hand, stood well back from the filth, in their gumboots. 

The womenfolk were standing a little further back again, armed with various  cameras and recording devices, capturing the moment for posterity...just in case one of the aforementioned fellas did something that might win us the big bucks on those Funniest Home Video Shows.

Sadly, while there was a lot of laughter, cursing, and occasionally squealing from 'the pit' (yes, squealing), there wasn't any footage worth submitting. Happily, they found where the Water Board were making their money, and after more swearing and squealing, they were able to clamp it off until the plumber could come back - using a system that would have made MacGyver proud- a bit of wire, a rubber glove, some duct tape, and a plastic bag.

They caused such a spectacle that the neighbours across the street had set up deckchairs and were sitting, drinking, and cheering everytime the water got turned back on and the men started their swearing and squealing again.

After much mirth and way too much mud, the boys reckoned their rubber glove/duct tape/clamp combination would do the job until the professionals came back (at the crack of dawn the next day). Surprisingly, it did.

Now all we had to do was unearth (literally) our spouses, by way of the garden hose on the lawn- no way was that much mud coming inside our homes.

And after a bit more begging, pleading, and form-filling for the Water Board, they accepted our submission that the original water pipe had simply given way due to old age (happens to us all), and they reduced the bill from 4-and-a-half grand, to a mere 500-hundred-and-something.  Plus the plumber's bill.

The kids got their Christmas presents after all.

The neighbours got a new drinking game out of it.

And next time the neighbourhood needs a bit of cheering up, we'll just add water.

Jx

©2012

Take a Break

We've learnt a very important lesson again this weekend. While most boys bounce, ours breaks.

You know how it is, around the age of 10 the male of our species gets a shot of testosterone in their system, and suddenly they are 10-foot-tall-and-bullet-proof.

They start getting into even more mischief than usual, playing hide & seek at bath or bed time (i.e. they hide, you reluctantly seek), some develop an intimate relationship with the principal's office, and more often than not engage mouth before putting brain into gear (some would argue that they never grow out of that one).

But hormones are not the only things with wings at this age; many a male has the sudden urge to fly ... on bicycles or skateboards, or off any height well above their own. If they're not careful (which, let's face it, is most of the time) they come back down to earth with a thud. 

My little man, though, came back with a crack.

It was simple enough: they were at a play centre, there was a jumping castle (AKA bouncy house), boys being boys got bored with jumping on the castle, so started jumping off it (totally against the rules and clearly signposted, but, well, these are 10 year old boys we're talking about).

While most of them made a safe landing, my son did not. And like I said, where others bounce, he broke.

Now I wasn't there (I was otherwise engaged at a funeral out of town) but I'm told that appropriate First Aid was applied, along with a mandatory rest period, before my boy hopped back up to play. Literally.

See, he has a mighty high pain threshold. A lifetime of juvenile arthritis has given him that. 

Unfortunately it's also given him brittle bones (years of steroids have leeched essential calcium), so no one thought he was that bad. Including the man of the moment.

Imagine my dismay after a day away farewelling a friend, to come home to news that our boy's left foot was "a bit" swollen, and sore. A bit?? By next morning when he hopped out of bed (again, literally) it was a football rather than a foot, and it was off to hospital we went. Exactly 9 years to the day after we first took him to Emergency with a swollen left foot!

See, it's not the first time he's fractured something. Third, actually, both prior breaks being arms (left*, and right), both from 'falling off' chairs (he had a little help both times, but that's another story).

Long story short, 3+ hours in Emergency, a few xrays later, we got the diagnosis of fractured Metatarsal #2 on the left foot, and suspected fracture of the Talus too. Terrific- like the scaphoids of before*, only the trickiest bone to diagnose, and slowest to heal.

After a decent amount of plaster cast and bandages (back slab only at this stage- for those playing along at home- due to excessive swelling of the football, er, foot), a quick lesson in using crutches, and a referral to the orthopaedic surgeon at the fracture clinic, home we go- with strict instructions for no walking whatsoever. 

Forget flying.

But because it's merely the latest challenge in a long line, and with more hormones on the horizon, our boy will bounce back.

Hopefully this time he won't break!

Jx

©2012

My Name Is Joe...

I've developed an addiction.

I don't drink, I don't smoke, I don't do drugs. Nor do I gamble, and I am married- with children- so there's NO chance of me being a sex addict ("More's the pity" I hear my Beloved mutter). I've never had what you call an addictive personality (unless one counts an ongoing love affair with chocolate products).

Nonetheless, I have picked up a bad habit.

I seem to be slightly obsessed with social media.

Not that I'm on it 24/7 (maybe 2/7 is closer to the mark) but there's something about it that draws me in on an almost-daily-basis.

I'm not the only one. You only have to check out the collection of cartoons cropping up- on the internet of course- to see much of the modern world is similarly occupied. I'm sure, if I Googled it, there'd be support groups for it.

Some of my friends seem to live online...at the very least their lives are being narrated in a suite of tweets or a posse of posts. One friend got to the point where she would actually speak in status updates. Joe Bloggs thinks that's taking things a little too far!

I am also fascinated by the fascination with the number of 'friends' or followers one has. I mean, who in the real world can honestly say just how many friends they have on any given day? Simply consider BFFs, workmates, schoolfriends, various other associates, siblings, spouses and offspring (just for the record, I have 33 'first cousins' alone, and very quickly lose count after that)... Yet we're keen to keep an eye on the number of friends on Facebook, Inc. and the like. Heaven help us if we're unfriended for any reason. (Here's where I say, by some strange quirk, my tally changes depending on the device I'm using, so I tend to stick with the one where I have the most.) (See, only slightly obsessed!)

But yes, I confess to logging on to look at what others have got to say, how others are spending their day, and occasionally come up with suitably witty or thought-provoking comments of my own, in 140 characters or less (insert appropriate emoticon here).

In a world where so much is seen, not necessarily heard, one wants to be seen to be having as much fun as everybody else; hopefully the grass isn't greener on the other side of the screen.

Conversely, if things are a little rough in the real world, it's nice to escape to a virtual reality where one can hang with friends, blast those bubbles, or build a 'ville with no ill will.

So I admit my addiction, minor it may be, and happily click away each day, albeit at the expense of my study or the housework at times. (Seriously, who wouldn't rather surf the 'net than sort socks - we all know how much fun that can be, right?!)

Yes here I state that I am just a little OC with my PC.

And you know what? I "Like" it!

Now, I was going to write some more, but someone's just commented on my profile pic...

Jx

©2012

Yellow Belly

I am a coward.

Bit strange me saying that as I have never been known to back down from a fight, even stepping up for someone else at times. And one of my most useful (and most used) mantras is : "Feel the fear and do it anyway" (thank you Susan Jeffers). I'm forever telling my kids that it's ok to be nervous, that butterflies in the tummy can be good, and the true definition of bravery is being scared of something but having a go regardless- the ol' "get over it, get on with it" mentality.

But today I am a coward.

Too afraid and uncertain of how to act, what to say, that instead I'm keeping quiet.

Not that I'm not worried my silence will send the wrong message. It's just, I don't know what message to send.

So  I sit.

And send none.

And then fret that my fear will take too long and I'll miss the chance to say anything at all.

Here's my dilemna: two people are in two different hospitals, neither of them near, both fighting for their lives. It's been a while since I had an actual conversation with either of them and now the clock is ticking. Fast.

What do you say to someone you once had no trouble filling hours talking to? How do you express the feelings you yourself can't even clearly understand?

And when is the right time, when time is running out?

I've previously pondered the dynamics of human relationships that get waylaid by life. Friendships that are interrupted by the very act of living. Some you can pick up where you left off- if only the chance comes up. And I've philosophised before about the family connections that get cut off by word or deed - or both- from one party or the other. But the human animal is a funny creature- one that relies heavily on "later"...until it's too late.

So, coward that I am, and desperate to not have the final memories be bad ones or sad ones, I haven't actually spoken to either of these people, who were once so dear to me. I've sent balloons to one, SMSed the other, and left a slightly cringe-worthy message on the machine of the mother of my friend, I was so tongue-tied at the time.

Me, the one who they say was born talking (if family mythology can be believed). Me, who could allegedly talk under water with a mouth full of marbles (an untested rumour). Me, who has been known to get paid to speak for a living.  Me, who is sadly, strangely, silent now.

I simply cannot find the words. Nor trust my voice not to break.

A coward indeed.

And I am so afraid that when I find my courage, it'll be just too late to say anything at all.

Jx

©2012