Tuesday, May 01, 2012

I've got ceiling fans and chipped paint

If two people are talking at the same time, how many voices do I hear?  Or rather, comprehend?  None.  Is that normal?

When someone phones with a foreign accent, has there ever been a time when not one word out of the entire message on a message bank was understood?  It has happened for me even after replay.  They are actually speaking English.  Is that normal for a 57 year old?  I don't think it would make any difference with hearing aids in.

I'm still wearing sunglasses around lights inside although I can tolerate going without for a while now.  Cod liver oil could be helping but I have developed a real distaste for it - something like Movicol which I now try and avoid but I had better do something about an alternative like NOW.  I did skip my chia seeds for a day or so and I have been popping a few extra pills lately.

Not feeling so great right now - maybe it is post scooter malaise or just that I have been up too long.  Yesterday I thought the pain was improved, today I started off improved but not so good now.  I got to the shops on the scooter by using the path on the other side of the main road.  I was not feeling well but I did not expect it to make me any worse.  I did walk inside the shop which was nothing bigger than the milk bar at Ronald Street.  Odi's fruit shop.  The Odi who used to work with B for the Village Fruit Shop and then Pelican Waters fruit shop although Odi had left them by the second shop opening.  From fruit selling to mechanics to welding.  Anything else?  Odi wasn't there anyway.

I can't say I got much joy out of it today because of the way I feel but I must have got some.  I smiled at the shop keepers.  I was concerned about the battery because by the time I got to the shops it was already half-way down the green section which meant I could not risk going down to the water or to Karla's which I may well have done.  I needed the distraction from the way I felt.  So it was not to be and I came back here to be on the safe side.  I am going to have to phone to ask how low you can let it go and whether it "recovers" if you stop riding it for a while.  It seemed to when I went in the shop.  Not that I was in there for long.  I also grabbed a cold chook because I doubt if I will be able to go shopping today - well I just won't be.  It will last me several meals and I will make some of it into something.  I am getting pretty good at throwing something edible together in the shortest amount of time possible but it is never "complete" lately.  I'll survive on it anyway.  I probably have done myself a favor not eating much wheat but it rules out sandwiches which I think are a nutritious meal apart from the bread with it's lovely soft texture I miss so much.  There is nothing that can replace the texture and taste of a highly processed, nutrient devoid slice of fibre.  I will eat it when I am out.  And I still like to buy the occasional cake.  But I think the effects accumulate because I have so much less heartburn/acid reflux these days but I can get away with maybe once a week and maybe crumbing on a piece of meat.  Toasting makes it more tolerable but I really like Spelt bread toasted - not so much the sourdough version.

But how often can I get to a shop that sells Spelt Bread?  Probably more often than I think now I come to think of it.  It means driving a distance that's all.  Petrol money - yes.  But maybe I should make a monthly habit of it just to take the car for a run haha and me for a drive up the highway.  $26 dollars or more for 4 loaves of bread is probably worth driving for and it is quite close to the Botanical Gardens which might be nice to sit in the car there for a while but no way can I walk in there feeling like this.  To the toilet and back - yes.  Today I am going to say no to that idea.

I think I am writing today mainly to distract myself from doing what I should be doing which is going to have a proper rest.  But I suppose I had better say something about the new ceiling fans that were installed yesterday.  I wasn't feeling too well then either so I mostly sat in the car while the workmen had tools in every room all at the same time.  I did speak up when the electrician proposed running conduit up the lounge room wall.  When I protested he said he could do it on the garage wall side and I was relieved.  It was something to do with the earthing in old houses being sent back to one central light and then back or something that is not done now days so that the fittings are not designed for it.  He figured it out and his offsider unpacked and assembled fans out of a whole lot of useless packaging.  I see one looks crooked.  You can imagine what the ceiling looks like in the bedrooms where a wide based light fitting was replaced by a small-based fan, and the chips of paint that came off with that.  I did not expect the paint around the wall plates where the light switches were replaced with fan switches, to be chipped off but the layers of new paint stick together till they reach a nice smooth un-sanded old paintwork.  So with the taxpayers money, the painters will be sent back again because they cannot get things done in the right order.  Maybe next year?
So now that I have fans, there are no lights of the type that I can add my shades to.  That crystal (plastic) chandelier doo dad with the extended drop I bought from Bunnings is now obsolete.  The other shade cost me $15 and Zena, you can have your Baton Fix plain light back again if you want it.  It is a bit like me wasting money on getting fly screens only for them to come along a couple of years later and replacing them with security screens.  That was my first expense here and do you realize that it was TEN years ago this month?  I was working maybe 6 hours a week tutoring then plus prep and marking for 13 week semesters.  I think I had given up my sights on anything else in academia though. I think I had quit finishing my Masters Degree.  Just remembering.

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