But the Tales Came Back, the Very Next Year

So, it has been a year to the day of hiatus for The Tales. This has been a long enough span for one to have a garnered a sense of their lack, with the conclusion that one shall once again be regaling you with regular Cautionary Tales.

Now, to catch everyone up, here are the high mid and lowlights of the missing year, in more or less chronological order:

• One's place of prominence in the nuptials of Pirate Dave and LED - particularly in the karaoke vows scene
  
  
• One’s ongoing stressful tussles with printers
  
  
• Farewelling Piggy with BestFriendSincePrep, Uncle Col and various other high school alumni
  
  
• The second annual hosting of Mt Disappointment at StumpyRudolph's since it restarted - it seems this is becoming an annual event much like The Tales
  
  
• One’s becoming a permanent fixture at the new workplace after three and one half years living on the crumbs of rolling contracts
  
  
• Further stressful tussles with printers
  
  
• The addition of Harvey to our family after a years wait on the production of this new hybrid wonder.
  
  
• An annual visit down South to My Guitarist
  
  
• A dodgy knee issue of One’s resolved by this new thing called an exercise regime
  
  
• Catching up with Mr Gates after some 30 odd years
  
  
• The continuing saga of stressful printer tussles
  
  
• The stressful journey to a Magpies premiership
  
  
• A bout of shingles brought on by unknown stress factors
  
  
• Freeloading Mum celebrating her 80th milestone
  
  
• Attending the NYE fireworks (early version) in the city with Hulk and Salsa Girl
  
  
• Yet another holiday week on the Berm
  
  
• A busy work schedule with new libraries, major upgrades, and, of course, printers
  
  
• Handy Dad miraculous coming out of a fall through the patio roof with naught but a few scratches and bruises, and maybe some lessons learned about capabilities of older gentlemen on ladders, and roofs. Maybe.
  
  
• Sportsball season starting again far too soon.
  
  
• New varieties of stressful printer tussles

So there you have it, the foundation for the restart of regular Tales posting. Only time will tell if One will be able to maintain this punishing ambitious annual publication schedule.

.

8 years, 10 years, & 8 years

So, for the past few months, One has had most of One's time consumed with work - of the From Home type - intertwined with educatory duties, causing One to, once again, neglect the Tales.
As well there have been several anniversereal events occurring that required One's attention and diligent application in the night before the exam kind of way.

Anniversary the first was the celebration of Hulk having attained 8 years. It was celebrated with a sprawling affair constituting our very own mystery - Harry Potter and the Sinister Simulacrum - replete with clue finds, classes, much table quidditch, and the stunningly original revelation that the new teacher Professor Robot Automa was in fact the Sinister Simulacrum and not Hulk's new automated lizard present that all clues pointed towards. (One has a mind to shop one's virtuoso script around Hollywood).

Preparations for this event included much creation of decorations which number among them these Every Flavour Beans, with attitude:

Beans with attitude...

Other preparations included a month of vigorous beard growing by oneself in order to get that Dumbledore look. It was successful on the axis of white colouring but the length was several feet short. Unfortunately Hulk as demanded that One keep growing said beard until it reaches the requisite length, which has resulted in much amusement in one's many video meetings. 

Anniversary the second was to celebrate the 10 years that Salsa Girl and I have been together. With all potential minders quarantined away from us it was celebrated joyfully as a family with Hulk cramping our style. There was a gastronomical event or two one evening feast and one a banquet that went for most of the weekend. Having not succumbed to any more grump towards one another during seclusion than usual it looks like Salsa Girl and I have another 10 (or more) wonderful years to look forward to.

The Third Anniversary was the anniversary of ones father's days which now number 8.
Astute readers will note that this number coincides with the Hulk number! Living in these apocryphal times has taught me that when numbers align like that it must mean something of great import, and that shadowing figures must be manipulating things behind the scenes!

This celebration was more subdued coming on the heels of the previous one and was interspersed with a video call to Handy Dad and Freeloading Mum, wherein they proceeded to ridicules one's beard with statements to the effect that One now resembled Handy Dad.

So now that these events are all over One should have plenty of time to .... ummm...

Oh no! 

Salsa Girl's birthing anniversary is coming up!!!!!!!

Excuse me, I have to get to it. We'll talk later.

.

A Handy Eighty

This weekend past was the occasion of the celebrating of Handy Dad passing his 80 year milestone.


A grand gathering of friends and family was had for a lunchtime feast and so Salsa Girl, Hulk, and Oneself dutifully set forth to dutifully stuff ourselves to the gills with entree, main and dessert (twice for Hulk who may not have fallen far from the tree).


For the ceremonial side of things Freeloading Mum insisted that one earn ones fill and say a few words over the raucous sounds of the lively bistro crowd. Being the reluctant public speaker you all know me to be I respectfully spouted some truths about dad to enlighten everyone to the changes he would be undergoing at his significant age - I believe that I have managed to keep my favourite son status intact despite his shock at the new requirements for beer intake.


When it was all done we headed home from the event to all partake in a celebratory nap in honour of the birthday boys favoured afternoon hobby.
.

The Paradox of Holiday Freetime

It would seem, on the face of it, that One having ample holiday time at home should enable the copious posting to The Tales which is the stuff of legends from the dim dark ages of 2008.

However, as it transpires, there is a distinct lack of posting about the few happenings of this restful time.
Happenings such as:

• The annual Star Wars pilgrimage with Sidekick

• Providing several days of nurturing care at home for Hulk who's illness was extended mysteriously
  
• Commencement of the Tuesday Knights new game - Blades in The Dark. Now with added Miasmakat. Including the group deciding to choose the gang type One advised against, *twitch*, sigh.
  
• Hulk's last day of kinder including concert in which she was one of the loudest voices. One was surprised to see a graduation cap being employed.
  
• Xmas day filled with Mousetrap and Botanical picnics.
  
• Boxing day lunch at Freeloading Mum and Handy Dad's. Replete with cousins and uncles and aunts and the touch of sadness that is an aunts early Alzheimers.
  
• A 50th birthday dinner for The Great Sandro with yours truly, Sneaky Pete, Salsa Girl, and Hulk as the requested guests of honour.
  
• Several rushed last days of work before the big holiday break - everyone loves stats.
  
• New Years' Eve beach birthday parties then early evening Rummy contests - with One being the year's humble awesome champion.
  
• A four day visit from Doctor David.
  
• Building inspections for the repair of the great dripping roof saga.
  
• Backyard camping at Nana's, wherein' Hulk had her longest staying up ever due to the excitement of Midnight Feast and the unexpectedly high light levels of a suburban camping sky.

One wonders when the pace of the year is going to pick up a little...

.

Going Back to my Old School

This Saturday past Salsa Girl, Hulk and oneself returned to one's old primary school, Viewbank Primary, for it's 50th anniversary celebrations.

Of course we first visited BestFriendSincePrep to see his new house which is located quite nearby - and by new house I refer to the one he has been in for nigh on three years without having us over.

Eventually we made our way up to the school and explored the grounds to see what had changed - and the large amount that was the same. We also had rather a futile attempt to locate any old class mates in the throng, which proves that any occasional bouts of laziness one may exhibit are generational in nature.

We did run into Handy Dad revisiting his school committee days, Freeloading Mum, Legion 4, and numerous members of the BestFriendSincePrep clan.

Hulk enjoyed herself exploring many things and even the obligatory trip to the library was made - although one was sorely disappointed to find the reading mezzanine space was now given over to several dozen computers.

All in all a good day spent marvelling at how much things have shrunk since the late seventies.
.

The Sad Tales of Neglect

So - without doing any fact checking as one is too lazy for that - it has been one's longest break from the tales.

What started out as a short break for Easter gradually accumulated extra breaks for illnesses long and short, a patch of settling struggles with Hulk, long work project nights, late footy nights with The Great Sandro and Legion2, new bed buying, finally starting to late night watch Groovy Spirits's Spartacus TV Series DVDs, applying oneself to application writing for a promising opportunity, Handy Dad's seventy fifth milestone, and finally one becoming well-deserved Rummy night champion over Salsa Girl - ending her run of every night we've played up until now.

But don't worry, content has begun again now.

At least information of import has.

Well, okay then, information of self-import?
.

No Job Too Small

So, Salsa Girl and I are having Handy Dad construct a palatial deck in our rear courtyard.

Some of you may realise this after coming to haul wooden planks from the front of house to the back this morning. It's amazing what the mirage of a gaming session can inspire isn't it ElfBoy and Pirate Dave?

Anyway, as part of the process we have excavated a pile of dirt and need it removed.

To this end Salsa Girl was collecting quotes last week which allowed one to hear this heartwarming telephonic exchange.

Salsa Girl (on Phone): Hello, I'm calling to get a quote for the removal of one to two cubic metres of soil and gravel.

[listens]

Salsa Girl: Oh, too small a job. I'm sorry I must have misread your add that said no job too small.

.

A Very Important Party

It seems to me that a very important party is quite the fitting topic as one stumbles into one's 450th post to The Tales.



Several weeks ago Salsa Girl, Hulk and oneself made the rather long Southwards journey to partake of the Libraries celebration of Xmas. After some initial trepidation Hulk decided to cut loose on the dance floor with Groovy Spirits and indulge in much important running backwards and forwards.
We partook of some yummy food and headed home at a decent hour and definitely well before the karaoke was begun.


But that was not the very important party.


Last week was the User group Xmas lunch. It was preceded by a meeting but that is not one's focus for the day. There was once again an abundance of food available and I feel that the library was well represented by oneself, Sidekick and Supervisor Grand Chief K as together we made Bayside the clear leader in the consumption stakes.
One also took the opportunity to give Young Jim a telling off for his non-attendance at gaming this past half year. He muttered a promise of 110% attendance in the new year and I let him off easy due to some excellent wine.
In the end a large part of the afternoon was spent in important networking activities until the wine ran out and we ambled on home.


But that was not the very important party.


On the weekend past - or so - Salsa Girl, Hulk and oneself made our way to one's ancestral home for the important event of Freeloading Mum's 70th birthday celebrations. Of course all of Legion was in attendance as well as Handy Dad and many friends of the family.
Unfortunately young Hulk was feeling a little crowd-shy so we had minimal time to circulate, although one did manage to fit in an impromptu speech and several rounds of cake.

The party was, of course followed up in subsequent days with the gifting of Freeloading Mum's asked for electronic device and the resultant tech support from yours truly to get said device into a workable state.

All in all this time of year does seem to through up many a laudable reason for having a very important party.
.

A Moving Time

So we have mostly* finished the move into our new demesne.
         (* for values of mostly that include dozens of boxes still unpacked)

And I have finally unpacked the box that contained The Tales and so I am able to blow the dust off and recommence my commitment to regularly Blog once more.

Obviously it may take a little time to establish one's posting rhythm again - hmm, unless one chooses bimonthly as ones new frequency.


Some of the plethora of things that have whizzed by in these short two months of silence include, in sort of chronological order (imagine long and witty posts about each of these, if you will):

• many many hours of box packing activities and fending off repeated suggestions from Salsa Girl along the lines of "you could just throw out that bottle top" when it obviously has sentimental value.
• many hours of unpacking The Tiger from said packing boxes
• a gaming session at Gavman's new demesne
• the horror and panic of finding that Google had decided to close Google reader. Luckily Fantomas was on the case and things are happily humming along on Feedly these days.
• Hulk making the transition to her new cot
• a gadget upgrade and modernisation courtesy of work - the downside being the expectation that work will be done on work devices
• a mostly regular return to gaming at the hands of Badger with Fantomas, Pirate Dave, and Legion2 rounding out the party.
• the scary issues of mortgage documents going missing in the mail and much scrambling to create a replacement set in time
• news that Fantomas would forsake gaming for romance in a move to far distant realms of the city - pod person replacement is suspected - however the formulation of wresting back the hosting began at this moment
• inspections of the new place including obligatory revealing of heretofore unseen marks and stains
• drop by attacks on FridgePower, Judge Mingus, and their cohort
• a settlement day free of problems
• 2 dad's and a moving day both Handy Frank and Doctor David proving their worth
• the debut of The Gaming Garage as a venue for, well, gaming actually
• patching up the old place in preparation for becoming a bloody landlord
• introducing The Tiger to her new courtyard lifestyle
• quite a few hard settling nights as Hulk put her newly learned resistance skills into practise
• bidding a happy farewell to Supervisor Grand Chief K and Big J as they head OS (separately) leaving the rest of us to run amuck with the library service

to be continued . . .

Hulk - The Early Weeks

When one began composing this post it was rather naively entitles - Hulk, the Early Days.

Well since then the piecemeal nature at which one was able to add ones brilliant thoughts to the draft had made me believe that I was looking at having to re title it as - Hulk. Year One. While one would surely have enjoyed basking in the kudos this would have brought from such graphical story telling literati as Zombie Monkey and The Real Greg Dean, it has eventuated that my deadline has stretched out to mere weeks.

In any case many are the things that have occurred during the early days weeks of the time of Hulk.

One has been head down in reading materials wide and sundry - finishing long bookmark-laden tomes and making visible progress on one's to-be-read stacks, various. In fact all but the nigh insurmountable penultimate Wheel of Tedium volume have fallen beneath the scythe of my reading gaze.

One has had occasion to watch many a late night movie and has begun filling in may of the glaring holes in ones experience of the past few decades cinema. For example one now knows that Tom Hanks gets off the island.

One has even managed to make some small steps of progress in ones gaming projects in a way that may even make Fantomas believe that they could become real when one next attends the Tuesday Knights.

One has had several meetings in passing with Salsa Girl and even shared several meals.

Of course there has been some time spent with young Hulk. Why we've had special daddy-daughter time watching the mighty pies (and another team that looks similar but seems to have lost the mighty bit).

Hulk unable to bear the skill errors.

We also tried our hand at bonding over some solo gaming - managing to see off those pesky Persians at Thermopylae and winning the Battle of the Five Armies for the Orcs.

There have been visit from relatives various, a handful of friends, and late night hallucinations of the interesting kind.

As predicted by FridgePower one has been able to indulge in the ancient art of poo smearing - although much of the training I undertook cleaning up after The Tiger has gone to waste as there has been a suspicious lack of any positing (the nice word for baby vomiting) particularly of the furball kind.

In amongst all this Legion2 and the BrotherStealer have seen fit to try and steal my hard-earned spotlight by delivering their second a full six weeks early. One can only be glad that Freeloading Mum and Handy Dad have been away all this time so there would be no unseemly squabbling for the favour that is rightfully mine.

In any case this disjointed report has brought you up to date with the trials and tribulations we have been undergoing for the past few days weeks.

It only gets easier from here they tell me.

And then they snigger.
.

Shelving Plans due to baby

So, with the nigh imminent arrival of our adorable Hulk, it was decided by Salsa Girl and oneself that we'd better start some of that preparing.

Therefore last weekend was given over to baby shopping in the morning followed by the execution of our most excellent plan for shelving installation to safe-terise our vast collection of laundry items.

We invited Handy Dad and Freeloading Mum around for afternoon tea, some footy watching, and a little bit of "some help putting these shelves up" - knowing that afternoon tea would ensure that Freeloading Mum would bring Handy Dad and tools.

Of course no plan can survive contact with the cunning of Handy Dad who promptly set about instructing me in what to do in order that I could do it all myself!
He then partook of conversation and afternoon tea in between bouts of advice before they headed home.

The last laugh is on him though as several hours later - once the shelves were finished - I sat down to enjoy the footy with all of the chips and drinks to myself.
.

The Strain and The Fall

No the title of this post is not referring to any unfortunate results of the festivities of one's just-passed birthday week.

Instead it relates to the last two books that one recently finished reading - The Strain and The Fall are two books by famed moving picture director Guillermo del Toro. They are the first two parts of his vampire trilogy as recommended to me by Groovy Spirits via Mr Prada. I found them to be a quick and entertaining read that was reminiscent of the very cinematic oeuvre of Matthew Reilly. I await my reserved copy of the final instalment to arrive from the library.


Speaking of the birthday week it has gone rather well - despite Legion2 stealing most of the glory with his 40th.

As it turns out when turning 42 the meaning of life is friends - or rather Facebook Friends as one received bountiful birthday wishes on the actual day. I was also pleased to see that one's birthday twin CC celebrated hard enough for both of us.

The birthday week produced many wishes and a pile of chocolate as cake substitute from Days of our Libraries rightfully shamed for her culinary oversight.

Finally a day of presents arrived on Friday, although one did have to gift many of them to oneself - those being the latest supplements in one's favourite gaming line, the Commands and Colors(sic) series.
Further gifts awaited one's return home with the arrival of an overseas order of gaming cards and the special gifts from Salsa Girl.

Early Saturday morning BestFriendSincePrep did his part in making one's birthday special by thrashing me soundly in Memoir'44 Online all the way from Denver - and whilst preparing dinner.

The birthday week was topped off with drinks and nibbles at a local establishment attended by the likes of Salsa Girl, Freeloading Mum, Handy Dad, Legion2, and Badger.


All in all a good birthday week - although a little light on the feasting side, which one shall correct in only another 51 weeks.
.

Mother Days

My weekend just past was overwhelmingly about the multitude of mothers in the company of whom the vast majority of my time was spent.

The first, and most nerve-rackingly important, was Salsa Girl's mother. This meeting was long-arrange and consisted of a few gin and tonics whilst we snacked on some lovely cheese and crackers, followed by some assemble-it-yourself sandwich snacking for lunch and then it was all topped off with delicious scones with cream and jam.
One seems to have passed the test as one's invite to Xmas lunch still stands. I look forward to not having to hold myself back now that I've achieved acceptance.


The evening of that same day consisted of myself and Salsa Girl taking Freeloading Mum, Handy Dad, Legion4 out to dinner at one of their local establishments. The occasion was, of course, Freeloading Mum's birthday of the day before. Freeloading Mum took firm advantage of my offer to cover costs and treated herself to not only a main but also a dessert AND a glass of wine. Honestly I don't know where some people get the idea that it's okay to sponge off the benevolence of others - she's just lucky I haven't picked up any behavioural habits from growing up under her bad influence.

My Sunday afternoon was devoted to a trek way out west to visit new mum Rugrat Twin. Said trip ended up dropping my loyal companion Salsa Girl and I in the midst of roughly a million visiting relatives - several of them mothers of various generations. In fact it was only when Wolverine returned home somewhat later in the afternoon that the gender balance was redressed somewhat. Honestly it was like a libraryland workplace in there!


So there you have it, my days of mothers...
.

Manoeuvres with the 4th Legion

This fortnight past has seen many an exciting event, including: my discovery of a Blogger keyboard shortcut that efficiently deletes text that one has been slaving over for nigh on half an hour and autosaves the now-blank post, all in the blink of an eye; brave attendance at a gaming Sunday by a Candidate; unbelievable attendance at a gaming Sunday by Doom and The Doctor; and arrival of exciting new technologies.

Amongst such occurrences I found myself called upon to assist Handy Dad and Freeloading Mum in bringing about the relocation of Legion4. He was forsaking the company of Jamo in order to return to the ancestral abode and, requiring both spacious vehicles and astute packing skills, naturally called on my gracious and humble help.

I had no great troubles getting everything packed into our domestic model moving vans - although I did think we were possibly creating a Dirk-Gently's-couch type situation as we folded a double mattress into the back of my automobile but it was easily extracted once we arrived at our destination.

With everything unpacked and Legion4 beginning the task of setting up his room I was quickly drafted in to giving Freeloading Mum's computer a quick going over and thereby forced to earn the dinner that was rightfully mine merely for showing up. Sigh. Sometimes it's awfully hard work being the dutiful son and having to participate in such strange rituals as "sharing" and "earning one's evening meal".

Thankfully there's always free cake in the library staffroom.
.

The Spamming Career of Freeloading Mum

Having recently returned from her overseas trip Freeloading Mum was in dire need of IT support.

It seems that her gmail account had been disabled after just one use and she had been unable to send any updates through to yours truly and the Legion.

Upon further investigation - which required partaking of dinner with Freeloading Mum and Handy Dad - it was discovered that apparently sending a long email recounting one's holiday adventures to eight (that's 8!) recipients is deemed by Google to have breached the limit for their Spam detection algorithms. The sending account is then automatically disabled because it is obviously a Spam factory pumping out annoying emails about how interesting it was to spend several days touring around London.

The alternate theory is that Google merely deems anything from the old country as Spam.


In the end it was a reasonably easy thing to have the disabledness removed - after one sorted out the problem of Freeloading Mum's contact address being one of the recently discontinued ones.
.

Becoming Crazy Uncle Phill

One has just heard from Legion2 that as of 9.40 tonight Mirri Cat Warrior has finally made good her arrival into this world.

Both she and BrotherStealer are doing well and the whole procedure was trouble free - well except for Legion2 unnecessarily missing Tuesday nights gaming.

The biggest problem we face now is tracking down Freeloading Mum and Handy Dad in the midst of their European Safari, and informing them of their new Grand status. But that is Legion2's concern which leaves me to ponder on how best to shape this new young mind into complete adoration of her crazy uncle Phill.
.

The Breakfast of Champions

With no Tales-worthy happenings at last evening's Lit-fest opening night I shall instead regale you with the happenings of today.

I was awake at the early hour of 8am to partake in a breakfast with Redneck Ben. Our venue of choice was in the local cafe precinct and we were served up a quite filling and delicious repast.

Our main topic of conversation - as we did wander somewhat, as one is want to do - was gaming and specifically our usage of the Fudge system to building systems that suit our own game running style and the particular groups of players we run games for. He did impart some advice for me that was eerily similar to both, advice that The Viking Hat GM has frequently espoused, and action that The Bastard frequently takes in the games he runs.
I expect much crying from my players when I deploy such strategies.


Breakfast was followed by The Afternoon of IT Support as I had to visit the family home to fix the internet connection yet again. Although this time Freeloading Mum and Handy Dad are away overseas. You would think that there would be no IT support required but, alas, the house-sitting friend has been having regular problems and leaving frantic telephone messages for me - my personal favourite being "the phone isn't working properly".

Sigh. An IT man's work is seldom done.
.

The Missing Weeks. Part the Fifth

Contrary to unpopular belief I am not instituting a new regimen of daily posting.
The recent frequency is merely a part of the effort to catch up to the present day - a form of time travel, if you will, where the events fly past much faster than normal as we spirit forwards into the future (well, the now actually).

So let's set the controls for the new year and see how far we get...


A Lazy Xmas Day
After a nice little sleep in I collected Legion's 2 & 3 and we made our way to Legion headquarters.

With Freeloading Mum working until the late afternoon lunch was only attended by Handy Dad and the Legion. We partook in a relaxed BBQ lunch with the sun shining down upon us.

Later, when Freeloading Mum arrived, we commenced our giving of token presents and some catch up chat.
Legion followed this with a game of Shadows over Camelot which took us right up until BrotherStealer and the cousins arrived (separately).
Only one branch of cousinage was attending the evening this year on account of holidays I believe. We did see the ever reliable to be in attendance at family gatherings first-name-stealing-cos-he's-a-few-months-older-than-me Cousin Andrew, as well as Cousin Dave and wife and nearly newborn.
An evening feast was had and then the baby-burdened had to leave because of upsetness.
The rest of the 'kids' retired to the garage and thus ensued many hours of Kelly pool playing on the wonky family table.

Thankfully the behaviour of Legion4 was in stark contrast to the previous Xmas day as he had only a moderate number of drinks and was quite the enjoyable company for the whole day.


An Average Boxing Day Board Games
Upon consultation with Pirate Dave it was decided to hold the nigh-traditional board game playing day on the Sunday between the actual day and the public holiday - sort of an average of the two.
ElfBoy, however, had other ideas. Having only cleared his schedule for the actual day - and inexplicably not checking his email on Xmas - he twisted my arm and enforced card playing for the evening of the actual Boxing Day. Of course Pirate Dave and Legion2 were also dragooned into the event.

The next day we gathered for the actual boardgames, swapping Badger in for the unavailable ElfBoy. We managed to knock out a whole mini campaign of my go-to wargame - Memoir'44. However without the assistance of The Viking Hat GM we Belgians could not even muster up a single win and had to give over France to the Germans.



There was not much else happening in the week leading up to years end, a few days off, a few work days that felt like days off and otherwise life as usual.


The New Years Eve Movie Night
Our plan for this New Years was to gather at MatrixMan's to participate in what I like to call "Educating Vengeful Vic". You see MM and I decided it was the perfect opportunity to rectify that terrible Escape from New York shaped gap in Vengeful Vic's cult filmic experience.
We gathered that evening with Legion2, BrotherStealer and Pirate Dave. Of course Couch Killer was also there, hogging all the attention as usual.

We opened the evening with pizza and wine - always the best way to start a movie night - and then commenced our support feature The Ninth Gate up until that point unseen by yours truly.
It was a good supernatural thriller reminiscent of your Damiens and Rosemary's Babies, requiring some thinking to figure it out but between the roomful of us we managed to reach the level of intellect needed.

After that it was onto our main feature which still stood the test of time despite being set in the Now of 1997, and having ginormous mobile phones as state of the art tech.



And so, this brings us to the end of our little series of catch up postings. You should all be well versed in what exactly occurred to this auteur in those many weeks of blogging silence.
A new year would be the time to make all sorts of resolutions about more regular updates but, sadly, the time has passed as I write this and I shall have to wait for New Years next before the opportunity for the declaring of such a resolution arises once more.


up next: a return to the irregular scheduling you must surely have become used to over the last year.
.

The Knee Op and the Recovery

The big day of my knee fixing operation finally arrived last Thursday.

Despite the surgeon putting it down as routine afterwards I think it was anything but, as the list below should prove.

It all begins the day before when I receive the confirmation call from the hospital at 5pm. In amongst the machine-gun fast list of information passed on to me was this little doozy - "shave your knee before you come in".
My "excuse me? Did you just say I have to shave myself?" was met with a confirmation and the information that I could get hair remover cream at any chemist.
Taking it in my stride after the brief call finished I immediately enquired as to whether any of the immaculately presented librarians happened to have an emergency stash of said cream.
Unluckily there was not a depilatory to be had anywhere in the library so I had to venture to the supermarket and buy a huge basket of assorted groceries in which to hide my girly hair removal product.
At this point I must point out how disappointed I am with private medical care. For my last operation - under the public system - I was shaved by nurses, and you can't really ask for more then that (well except maybe for them to not sedate you before the shaving happens, but, you know, it's the thought that counts).

So in any case I was up extra early to take care of my knee smoothening. I have to say that I found it a simple process although my newly deforested knee did feel like a strangers knee - possibly something one could become used to...
ahem, but I digress.

The next "routine" thing that happened was for half a sky's worth of rain to fall in the morning and consequently my train to be delayed three stations from destination due to signal faults up the line. This was no measly delay, oh no. It was stated to be of 20 to 30 minutes duration. This delay would eat up all of my careful planning to be two trains early so a delay would not cause me any trouble. I guess Connex showed me in their final days.

So I finally arrived a mere 25 minutes late to bump into an old friend from high school who quickly informed me she was working as a nurse in recovery and would see me later.
Still stunned from the unusual and unexpected meeting I failed to take in that reception was not at all concerned about my lateness and seemed to have built it into their schedule - it's as if they knew all about me.

Much waiting around ensued, interspersed with physio instruction , paperwork and preliminary physical examination. During the physical I was informed that, although it is not stated on the literature about the operation they had given me, the patient (me) needs to be under supervision for 24 hours afterwards. "Humph", I mused. "Well luckily Handy Dad and Freeloading Mum should be accommodating for the evening".
I was also informed that I would absolutely need crutches so I dutifully hired myself a pair. In the very least I should be able to milk some LibraryLand sympathy with them.

Eventually I was called in to change into the exciting hospital robes and then, after sitting around in the cold for a while, loaded onto a bed and wheeled off for sedation.

The anaesthetist greeted me by my middle name, having taken a brief glance at my chart, and then proceeded to not find the vein for several minutes. He was muttering something about tough young manly vein walls so I forgive him - plus I have this cool looking bruise all over the back of my hand.
Once I had the thingamy in my hand he was called away before sedating me because a current operation had a patients "BP dropped to 68" or some such ER sounding thing.
This left me alone for a surreal moment with one of the theatre nurses who had the exact demeanour of Miss Amanda. Right down to the same turns of phrase - "ah yes, it's always soccer or football. My stupid husband had his knee done twice because of football." and so on.
I am fairly certain that there weren't any mind altering substances in my system causing me to hallucinate familiar faces in the hospital as I was next wheeled into the theatre and slid onto the table before the anaesthetist came rushing in and quickly had to knock me out before the knife men went to work.

I came to several hours later in recovery and had a nice little chat with my high school nurse before being okayed and sent back to the ward for some sandwiches and juice.

I recovered quite quickly and was waiting around for Handy Dad when the day's stormy weather caused an alarming power flicker - I thought that hospitals would have uninterruptable power supplies?

I was soon whisked away by Handy Dad and spent most of the evening at the ancestral abode enjoying a free dinner and supervisory company before being dropped home for the comfort of my own surroundings.


My last few days have been a whirlwind of recovery.
I've been cooped up inside going all Rear Window until this afternoon when I took myself for a short stroll.
I have been going slowly mad doing repetitive exercises, some of which have confusing instructions - how exactly is one to interpret "...hold for 6 seconds, do sets of 10. Increase number of sets as pain permits. 2-3 minutes, 3-4 times per day."

In any case I have watched TV and movies galore, read many books and magazines, and pontificated many a gaming quandary. I've also grappled with some mild afternoon nausea and some annoyingly planned road-works outside my flat for the whole day.
However most importantly I've discovered that The Tiger, and most probably all other cats, make for lousy nurses.

You know, I'm almost on the verge of being ready to return to work... almost.
.

... The Old Man's Party

Sunday last I was in attendance at the rip-roaring affair that was Handy Dad's 70th birthday party.

Kicking off at midday this raging event included a delicious lunch. Unfortunately I only partook lightly of the lunch as I Freeloading Mum had asked me to make a speech and I was suffering through a mild case of the inevitable 'speech tummy'. I suspect keeping me from eating all the food may have been the primary motivation despite my legendary speechmaking skills.

The party finally wound up late in the early afternoon and we were all surprisingly on our own by 4.30.

With Handy Dad on good behaviour and Legion4 not making it due to a odontalgia disaster I'm afraid I have no tales to tell of the day.
.