BIRMINGHAM: “How do some people manage to work so hard and succeed at not getting the bleeding obvious?” ponders a philosophical Payton L. Inkletter.

Be all that as it may, meanwhile:

In other news…

08^th February 2009:

Sunday: The big heat for Perth is returning; today was relatively mild, low thirties, but it’s coming…

I got the terrible news upon arising that the Victorian fire death toll had climbed to the seventies, and by the time I watched My Beloved it was in the eighties. I am in a kind of subdued shock about it all. Victoria, of all the Australian states, surely had suffered the most bushfire deaths in our short history as a colony and nation.

I watched most of a documentary on Aunty about wildlife in Greece, and it was a treat. Then I spoke to Mum on the phone, and she let me know that my cousin Vee is to have an 8 to 9 hour operation on his throat on Friday to excise the cancer, necessitating the breaking of his jaw bone and the removal of teeth with gold fillings. I hope and pray in earnest for a complete recovery for him, and his 45 years of age is on his side. He has two young children and a wife, and three brothers and both parents. My mum is highly concerned for her nephew.

Mum is anxious about her upcoming move to Ardross, where she will live alone again.

I tackled some writing and bits and pieces on this here pooter, all the while with a headache gradually growing, one of those that might go either way. So I have stayed the white comforters for now…

The new season of Compass has kicked off, and I watched Geraldine Doogue interview Tony Blair, back on September 11^th last year in London. I could just imagine Richard Dawkins wanting to throttle both of them for having, in his view, a useless discussion about non-reality. I don’t want to throttle Tony Blair, but I am a tad curious about the depth of his insight into religion, just what he understands that it is and what it isn’t, especially in light of his recently becoming a Catholic. I believe that the late life joining of any of the formalized religions on offer in this era is the equivalent, if it’s genuine, of cramming one’s intellect into a small box, and possibly limiting considerably the scope of one’s spiritual experience this side of the grave. However, I also think that some folk find these vehicles the way that they will best progress – ready made, structured, well trodden paths to follow, and so I won’t dismiss them as of no net value.

After Compass, and unrelated thereto, an hour of chatting ensued, and it was largely net positive I hope, but I must say that decades of being the one way psychologist is exceedingly tiring; unions work best that involve genuine mutual ‘psychologisting’. How would a psychologist feel about the same patient coming for an hour every week for thirty years making zero progress with applying all advice? And a pro bono one at that? And having no reciprocal opportunity?

I wrote some more of my notes for my ‘Healing Matters’ web page, then went for a late walk, with a fair bit of summer easterly wind deviling about. I was still struggling with headache, and was weighed down with great tiredness, and so I didn’t launch into writing on the pooter as I had planned to, nor did I do the watering outside, despite the hot day coming. I got to bed before daylight for a change. And what’s that, the Queen of the Night, did it flower? It must be a lot of pressure for millions of folk rushing to get home around the world to check this site, or sneak a peek online at work, to get the latest on the Inkletters’ Epiphyllum oxypetalum, so I’ll put you out of your tension for the moment: no it didn’t. But I’ll notch up the excitement for y’all: on my return from my walk I noticed two, yes two, large buds on one of the plants I have growing in my Sansevieria bed along under the front bedroom windows. I perused it the other day and didn’t notice them. This particular plant has grown up through the east bed end jade plant aka money plant which shares with the mother-in-law tongues and uses it for support. Missus Inklestinkles was up tinkling, so I took her out to show her something terrific in the woodshed, and she was impressed.

+paytontedwithlove+