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Christmas
Our Christmas went really well. It was a pretty low-key day with just family over during the evening. Normally we go to a breakfast that is hosted by family friends on Christmas Day but it was cancelled this year and we were home all day. Actually, that’s not entirely true because I went out to a shop at some local markets that was open to get a couple things needed for food preparation. The shop was pretty busy, probably because aside from another major shop and some food outlets, every other place around was closed.
While the annual breakfast is nice, It was also good to sleep in and not to be rushing off early in the day. I wanted to do this when the kids were younger but it kind of became an obligatory thing and so it has continued.
While the boys enjoyed their Christmas gifts, the Scientist and I worked on various tasks before family came over in the evening. The evening went really well with everyone enjoying the food. There was too much again and I can’t help thinking I might only make one veggie item next year instead of a salad and veggie item. I usually do veggie chickpea patties but changed to a different type this year. The new recipe was a lot easier and less time consuming and it came out well. I was going to look for the recipe but now I can’t recall it and it’s been so long I don’t know if I will find it again. I also made tabbouleh this time and it came out pretty well for a first try. Most of the works seems to be chopping up the herbs. The wheat bulgur is pretty quick and easy to cook. The Scientist prepared a turkey and also a roast beef because Lego Lover doesn’t like turkey.
We ate outside on the patio and had a nice relaxing time with the family for a long while afterwards. Then Game Fanatic had organised some party games to be played using his laptop and the tv. That turned out to be lots of fun and before we knew it, 9pm rolled around and everyone was still here and wanting to play a bit more. But soon afterwards things did wrap up and almost everyone left. It was at this point while saying goodbye to the Scientist’s brother that we realised we hadn’t done the birthday cake for this BIL. The Scientist and I did a quick sing of Happy birthday and then we cut the cake and sent him home with some. The rest was left here for us to eat. We’ve never forgotten before so it was pretty embarrassing and I think the Scientist felt the worst about it…just that we were all so wrapped up in the other parts it got overlooked. Anyway…
After that there was tag team clean up with the Scientist and I taking turns washing dishes until he finally went to bed. Almost everything was cleaned up so it looked pretty good in here. Then it was just time to relax a bit until the evening was over. And then it was done and dusted, as they say around here.
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All adults here
Lego Lover turned eighteen last month and the house is now filled with adults. Sure, maybe some of the adults are still quite dependent up the parents, but they are still legally adults. That’s kind of weird to think about because part of me still thinks of that baby and little boy when I think of him.
The birthday itself was pretty quiet. Lego Lover wasn’t interested in any sort of party so it was just us plus the Scientist’s mum, who dropped by early in the day. He got some of the presents he was hoping for and I went out and got another one for him on the day because the item in question was finally available. He asked for tandoori chicken for his birthday meal. Last year he’d asked for pizza from our local shop but he found it made him too full. The chicken came out well with some basmati rice. Later on we played some video games that were of interest and it was all good.
Later in the night, after his birthday was technically over, we had a rather emotional chat that touched on subjects that needed to be discussed. I won’t share that here but I will say it was good for us to share what we did. It was one of those times when it became clear what sort of things matter most to him…at least the ones that he isn’t already quite vocal about.
Anyway, Lego Lover is such an amazing young man and he continues to grow and become more interesting all the time. I must remember this when we are dealing with the harder stuff because it’s so easy to get lost in the tedious everyday issues.
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Still stewing
It’s now eleven days post-election and I am still stewing about the result. I remember when Al Gore was robbed of the election in 2000 and I don’t remember feeling anywhere near this mad. My stomach is churning quite as much but it is still churning. Part of me is so glad I am not there but I think if I were there I might feel more equipped to take an active part in things.
Fortunately there’s not nearly as much garbage being posted as there was. But there are still jabs at Obama, which aren’t in the least bit warranted. I don’t get the hatred. I like Obama and always have. He has been somewhat disappointing in some areas but as presidents go he’s been decent and he’s a class act.
An interesting point is that I didn’t really care for Hilary Clinton all that much in the early days of campaigning. I leant towards Bernie Sanders back then although I wasn’t sure he was capable of winning against anyone from the Republican party. It’s hard to know how he really would have done but I honestly doubt he’d have beaten Trump either. After all, he’s a socialist and many of those same people voting for Trump hate socialism at all levels. Later on in the campaign I started considering Clinton more seriously. I think she had the experience and power to get things done in ways that Sanders possibly wouldn’t have. Towards the end of the election season, my feelings towards her were more positive than ever. I think what got to me was the way she held herself against all that on-going antagonism. It reminded me of when Julia Gillard was prime minister and receiving similar treatment although not on anywhere the same scale as has been levelled at Clinton. Hillary stood head and shoulders above the opponent right to the end. My respect for her has grown considerably.
It would have been really cool for there to be a female president. That doesn’t mean I was ever going to vote for her just to have a woman in office though. In the end there just was no competition to beat her.
Meanwhile, I look at my Facebook feed and I see the hatred is alive and well towards Obama. I had to look beyond my filters to see that but it was there. My cousin (who isn’t gullible like so many in my family) posted a story about Trump claiming Ford jobs stayed in the US because of him. Or something along those lines. The comments on that article proved to me that people are happy to believe anything that agrees with their view, regardless of facts. Also that two people can read a news story and come away with totally different information. I don’t get how that can be so different.
Although I don’t want to continue having the churning stomach I don’t want that anger to go away because I want to have that motivation to fight back in any way I can. Even though I live in Australia, the United States is my home and I am worried that it will turn into a place I can’t return.
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Despondency
It was another night with not much sleep. I stayed up until I was so tired I was sure I would fall asleep. And I did sleep for a couple hours but woke up and had to force myself back to sleep. It still wasn’t enough but I think it will get me through the day.
While I am incredibly angry that Trump was elected, that’s not really the source of my despondency. When I made the decision to cut off all conversation about politics with much of my family was when it became obvious that the problem for us is a fundamental difference in our views. There’s just no way I can bring someone else around to my thinking because I see the world so differently and I always have. I’ve been made to feel a traitor to family and country because I don’t agree with what most of them think. I have never been all that great at persuasion so it’s not even like I made any real attempt to change minds within this group. My main goal had always been to call out lies and misinformation but it didn’t make any difference and just increased the gulf between them and me. The funny thing is I ran across two articles in the past couple of weeks with more reasonable arguments against Hilary as president. Sadly I never saw anything like this from those trying to sway my opinion.
The worst part of all, though, is the meanness that comes along with these differences. It was bad enough to see all the name-calling of anyone with any association with liberals or liberal views. Some of these posts on social media were directed at me specifically and at me within a tiny group of family members who didn’t see things the same. But the worst thing I saw was after the result was announced and there was much mockery of those supporting Hilary. It was uncalled for. If Hilary had won and the conservatives had done this I would have been equally upset. It just made me feel that we are at a low point in humanity when there is so little regard for other humans, especially those different from us. I say this from a point of considerable privilege as a white person living in a western country.
On top of this I was also very dismayed to see reports of non-peaceful protests occurring. If these reports are true then I am truly disappointed. At the same time I do imagine that had Hilary won, there would have been not just protests but widespread riots throughout the country. This was a big source of anxiety for me even if she had won. Sigh…
Meanwhile, it’s a matter of moving on in some way at this point. I can’t change what’s happened so it’s important to brace myself to deal with the fallout. For the time being I plan to keep some distance from most of my family. That said, this was made a bit difficult because one of those people just happened to have a birthday yesterday. I really wanted to stay silent at this time but I wasn’t going to be ignore a birthday just because I was feeling angry…it’s not like it’s this person fault to have a birthday…of course, this person was really happy so maybe it wouldn’t have mattered. Sigh!
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22 years being a mother
It was around this time 22 years ago today that I became a mother for the first time after a long night of full-on labour. Some aspects of being a mother have been as expected but there have been lots of surprises along the way. Game Fanatic is like no other person his age but he is still amazing and remarkable in his own ways.
Happy birthday to Game Fanatic. Hope today will be a great day for him and I have good thoughts for his year ahead.
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End of being fifty
A year ago I had my fiftieth birthday and I was kind of excited about it. Aside from the year I turned twenty, I have never been very bothered by birthdays with regard to getting older. Last year was no exception and it was kind of cool reaching that nice milestone. I didn’t think about it too much but as I approached my birthday recently, I was feeling a bit sad because my year of being fifty was drawing to a close.
On Wednesday I reached fifty-one and it’s just not quite the same. I liked being fifty quite a bit. I’m still not bothered about yet another year but I think perhaps that was my favorite year as ages go. Funny how that came to be without me really realising it until it was nearly over.
As for my birthday itself, it was a nice one. It was very low-key and I guess that’s how it should be after such a big one last year. It was just as well because I wasn’t feeling particularly great on the day. On Monday, my left shoulder suddenly started hurting for no apparent reason. It was better on Tuesday but didn’t feel great on Wednesday. On top of that, my period started early and it has been a rather unpleasant one…menopause is still a ways off, I guess. I’m still not feeling all that great a couple days later, enough that the planned visit to Fremantle was called off. I was up for it in one way but probably wouldn’t have dealt with it that well and we stayed home instead. I started back on iron tablets today because I figure I probably need them although I haven’t had that checked in a while.
Anyway, the birthday was nice. The Scientist took me out to lunch at a cafe we’d been wanting to try for a little while. It’s kind of a fusion east Asian sort of place. I chose stir-fried udon noodles and they were yummy. The sauce was a bit on the sweet side but it was good. I then got a bubble tea from one of my favoirte tea places, which also quite good. After that we came home and I got my presents. My gift from the Scientist is a fancy flash unit for my camera. I’ve been frustrated with the flash on mine for a while so I look forward to working out how to use it properly. The boys (really Game Fanatic) got me game for the Wii U with a few accesories and also got me a coupld of games to play on his Playstation 4. I haven’t tried out the Playstation games yet but they should get a bit of a workout over the weekend, particularly after I am feeling better. Not sure if I will play today or not since I’m feeling a bit run down.
The Scientist made me a nice chocolate cake which was enjoyed by all. I think Lego Lover particularly liked it since he ate so much of it. :) The Scientist’s mum came over in the evening and gave me a couple of things, including this lovely top that she got in Sri Lanka. And it even fits nicely too. She also got one those cards that you color in did it up for me. It was quite special.
I talked to my mom on Skype just after midnight at the start of my birthday and got many messages from friends and family via email and Facebook. It’s really nice to feel so loved.
So I guess now the thing is to get used to not being fifty any more. I’ll just have to put up with these odd years for the moment, particularly as I’m in no hurry to reach sixty. :D
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Happy New Year :D
It’s only been nearly three monts since my last post. In December life got rather busy, as it does, with preparations for Lego Lover’s birthday and Christmas. Lego Lover had a nice birthday and was very happy on his special day. This has always been the case with him and I hope it always will be. It’s a rather sharp contrast to his brother who has always struggled with little things ruining his experience. Two people with totally different outlooks. Anyway, it makes me so happy to see the joy Lego Lover experiences each year on his birthday.
Christmas also went well. We again had the family to our house, mostly because we now have our patio and we wanted to make good use of it. The food was nice and everyone got one really well. Even those that normally aren’t so lively seemed to have a good time and it was really just a very nice evening we spent togehter. The only negative was later on when my father-in-law had suddenly begun to feel unwell and had to lie down on the sofa until they left. That night he’d ended up going to the emergency room as he was feeling more unwell but he was sent home the following day with an infection.
The new year passed by and we stayed home as usual. Games Fanatic got his favorite potato salad on New Year’s Day instead of Christmas. I figured it was better for him since he’d get to eat more of it and it was less stressful than taking time to make it at Christmas too. I did something different with it and used three different types of potatoes which made it really yummy. The main reason for the change was there were some Kipfler potatoes being sold really cheaply and I wanted to try them since they are usually so expensive. Anyway, it was so good that I made another batch a week later for no special occasion at all. :)
January was a pretty difficult month for us. I won’t go into details here but it came out early in the month that the Scientist’s dad had liver cancer and he was given three to six months to live. Although he’d slowed down a lot in the last year or two, he was still fairly active for someone his age (nearly 88) so the change was marked. Turns out there were no months left for him and he died on the 24th. It happened so quickly and yet in other ways it seemed like a long and agonizing wait for the inevitable. My father-in-law was anything but perfect but I was quite fond of him and felt (feel)Â the loss quite strongly.
The rest of the month is a bit of a blur in my memory as it just didn’t seem very significant against the backdrop of the family at the time. Over a month later and the Scientist is still caught up on the after-effects of a parent dying as he is the executor and has been going through the stress and headaches of what that entails.
But life has moved on and is somewhat more normal now and with time, I’m sure the difficulty of this early part of the year will move into a memory of this experience. Our tai chi class restarted last month and the Scientist and I continue to also do the Tai chi fan class before that. I thought I had forgotten everything becuase I honestly didn’t put any effort into practice during our break. But I seemed to get back on track after a bit of revision and we continue to add new moves. I’m rather enjoying it except that it’s hard getting the timing right. The first section of the routine is pretty slow but in the next four sections it goes really fast. That transition from slow to fast is giving me some trouble but I am coming along with it slowly. :)
I need to get Lego Lover sorted out with some sort of educational activity to keep him occupied until the end of the year. It’s looking likely I will just have him try the course he tried last year and never completed. There’s no guarantee he will succeed this time but the least we can do is try again.
Healthwise, there have been a couple of issues to come up lately. The Scientist had another bout of vertigo last month that still hasn’t totally resolved. He had one really horrible day where he couldn’t even get up without becoming really nauseous. For the first time ever, we called a locum doctor that comes to the house. The service has been around but we’ve just never used it. It worked out rather well and didn’t cost us anything out of pocket, which is actually cheaper than going to the doctor. That said, if there had been a chance of getting him there, it would have been far move convenient. The vertigo has been determined to be the BPPV type which is the most common.
Meanwhile, I had my yearly visit with the immunologist and there’s not a lot to report of that as nothing much has changed. I did have a couple liver tests that were high so I was sent off for an abdominal ultrasound to check on that along with an x-ray of my hands to check for rheumatoid arthritis since I have had persistent arthralgia in my hands. The reports on those were supposed to be sent to my gp for follow up but when I went to see her, they hadn’t arrived. Interestingly, I got a phone call from the doctor’s office a little while ago to see her for a follow up so I guess there must be something of note to report.  I have also had some ongoing bowel issues which my gp suspects might be irritable bowel but needs to rule out other problems. She brought up the colonoscopy word when I was last in and feels I should have one since I am now fifty. Is this a rite of passage in our culture? It’s not imminent but I’m not looking forward to that either. I guess I will find out more after my appointment next week.
Last week I got some sort of stomach bug that had my stomach hurting all the time and left me with no appetite. The good side of this was I wasn’t eating so much and even lost a bit of weight. Obviously that’s not going to continue long-term without other interventions. It took several days but I finally shook off whatever it was and seem to have a bit of control over my eating and exercise habits that I’d lost for quite a while. I am getting back into some more exercise again so hopefully that will carry on, Even if I never get back to the regularity of what I once did, just having the exercise more often will be beneficial for me, particularly for those liver tests that were high and probably related to fatty liver more than anything. At least I hope so.
After all these years of seeing bits of anime with Games Lover, I have suddenly found myself more interested in watching it myself. This started one Friday night when I happened to watch a couple of shows on the local ABC3 (aimed at older kids/teens). Neither show was the first episode but I watched anyway. The one program was only onto it’s third or fourth episode so I went back and watched the earlier ones on the channel’s online streaming service. Soon I was catching up on shows on Anime Lab, which streams shows here in Australia. Games Lover and, to a lesser degree, Lego Lover, have been watching programs there for quite a while but I have my own account now. This has led me to look at manga again to read source material for some of the shows. And then on to the live action drama adaptations in Japanese and in Korean. This came about after a Japanese drama started on Netflix. It’s pretty cheesy and cliched but it’s cute so I am sticking with it. This has led me to revisit my interest in learning more Japanese and now some Korean too.
And so that’s the super condensed version of the time I’ve be MIA.
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Shift in emotions
Before I related our loss of Rhianna, I mentioned how I had spent a couple days feeling really good and energetic. It’s a shame it was so short-lived but it seems events conspired against me after that.
We woke on Saturday to the news frenzy surrounding the Paris attacks, The event itself is horrific enough, not to mention over attacks in various parts of the world in the days around it. But then there was the aftermath of people lacking compassion for fellow human beings and being selfish. I sadly must say there are members of my family and friends who fall into this category and it left me very much in despair to know they felt like they did. I ended up in a seething rage for a couple of days. Part of me wanted to carry on but it is an exhausting and painful experience so I decided I had to close it down because I couldn’t sustain those feelings for long.
I didn’t have a plan on how to do this so my mission was to find a way to calm that feeling of rage. I did this by listening to music, disengaging from certain social media websites and doing some breathing exercises and relaxation. It was not necessarily in this order. I think the breathing was the first thing I did because I was feeling pretty stressed out by everything. The other things followed in various ways. I told myself I need to allow my eyes to glaze over and feel nothing when I read something that starts me feeling angry again. For the most part, it worked. I have stayed pretty calm over the past few days. I think my biggest mistake was engaging in discussion online with certain family members that stirred me up to raging feelings. I know better than to go there but I did. I just felt I couldn’t sit idly on the sidelines without making a comment regarding the truth in something posted. It was a mistake and hopefully I won’t go there again.
The whole thing has added to my resolve not to discuss politics or certain current events with certain members of my family. Sadly no good will come of it because we are so opposite in the ways we think about our place in the world. I will admit to feeling a bit of anger at times but I have managed to stay calm instead of losing the plot. Anyway, that has left me with a sadness because I realised I have such different values to so many people in my life. I have maintained some distance from family over the past several days but I will engage with people for Thanksgiving in some way. It’s a bit sooner than I’d have liked but I just have to rise above these feelings and make it work. After all, I at least do have the luxury of having these emotions and dealing with them in the best way I can.
I have many friends who think much more like I do and I take comfort that most of them still think the same way they did years ago when I first knew them. They don’t allow fear to rule them like some people in my family do.
Last Monday also was the birthday of my friend who died of cancer 3.5 years ago, which already made me feel a bit sad.
In addition to the emotional stuff, I also had essentially a toothache due to food continuing to get stuck under my one lower molar. It would become inflamed every time I ate and it was impossible to floss out the stuff that was stuck. I went back to the dentist last week and he replaced a filling on an adjacent tooth then did some work on a couple other things to try to solve the problem. He did an x-ray that showed it all looked quite good so was puzzled as to why it was causing me so much problems. Anyway, it seems the work he did has helped because I haven’t had any more issues since then,
For now, I will hope for some return of that lovely feeling of being really alive and happy and energetic at some point. And I will also hope for some inkling of what set that off because I would like it to happen more often.
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Sick house
It’s the season for allergies here but it seems it’s extended a bit further to the viral illnesses here too. The Scientist has been suffering from hay fever/ allergies for a few weeks now. Then Game Fanatic started soon after his birthday. Later in the week I started coughing a bit and it worsened with time. Sunday Lego Lover complained of a stuffed throat. He’s used this terminology since he was small and I presume it means it’s hard to swallow and possibly a sore throat. I found one throat lozenge in the medicine cabinet and gave it to him. I didn’t expect much from it because it’s one of the strong-tasting ones. As it turns out, he was quite pleased with it and felt some relief for a time. I promised to buy more on Monday.
Late that night, my throat started feeling like a knife was scraping it. Turns out the Scientist had also developed a sore throat. What a merry family we are with all the allergic and viral stuff happening. Yesterday I started sneezing and that could be the viral thing or it could just be a bit of my usual hay fever. Anyway. I’ve been mostly out of action these days, aside from a trip out to get those throat lozenges. I ended up buying the pharmacy brand and got three packs. We’ve already finished one and several out of the other two packs (different flavors). Hopefully the worst of it is or soon will be past for all of us with regard to the viral stuff and we can hope the hay fever doesn’t last too long this season.
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Important birthdays
Today happens to be the birthday of the older of my two brothers. This brother is about ten and a half months younger than me. So we are the “same” age for a few weeks each year. I remember when we were young that he made a big fuss over being the same age each year. Anyway, he’s starting the last year of his fifth decade from today while I am coming to the end of mine in a few weeks.
There are a few other family birthdays this month too. Three days ago it was my father-in-law’s birthday. Tomorrow is my brother-in-law’s birthday and at the beginning of the month it was my nephew’s birthday. It’s a bit like December with so many birthdays within such a short period of time.
It’s not just family either. It’s kind of a big year for turning fifty too. I have a cousin, actually a second cousin, who turned 50 last October. I think there were a couple other second cousins born around the same time but I am not in touch with them aside through other family members. This year, aside from my fiftieth birthday, I have several friends joining me in the 50s club. One of my friends going back to high school and college days has her birthday next month…essentially starting the ball rolling on this momentous year.
Many months ago, the Scientist hinted at something big being planned for my birthday this year. One of the possibilities was a trip back home to spend my birthday with my family. That would have been nice, but I do want to spend the day with my family here, namely the kids and the Scientist and decided that wasn’t going to be ideal if it was just me going. Financially it’s just not possible for all of us to go at the moment. Moving on a few weeks to a couple of months…
Wednesday night, the Scientist shares with me his early birthday present for me:
On Sunday, I’m getting on a plane and flying to Auckland, NZ and then I am staying in for the week while I have a look at the city. Then on Friday evening I am going to the zoo where I will see the Finns at the Zoo. This a musical show which will include Neil Finn, his brother TIm, and his son Liam as the main performers. But it will also include various other family members too. It looks to be a pretty special evening for all there.
There are a number of FInn fans who regularly travel to see them do shows far away but this will be my first time. It may well be the only time it happens as this is all in honor of this milestone year. But it will certainly be a memorable present.
The Scientist is pretty awesome!