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Be all that as it may, meanwhile:
In other news…
Friday: The infernal mobble woke me an hour before I planned to get up, which mobble is the bane of the twenty four carrot diametric’s and my life, and it was not an emergency or anything such like. We are ‘forbidden’ to ever turn it off lest The Dear Leader should need us, and it has ever been thus 24/7 for about a decade, maybe more. And it wasn’t the last time today that the damn thing was an unwarranted and unwelcome interruption to our day.
Having got to bed last ‘night’ after dawn the last thing I needed was for the phone to disturb us, and neither did the luscious lemon, for she had her typical type of poor sleeping night. Nevertheless, I returned to sleep for an hour then got up and pushed on, and got ready for taking Bob swimming. I got an update from Mum when I phoned her in hospital on what is happening regarding her abdominal pains – none the wiser yet – then was about to leave for Bob’s…
I noticed a message had been received on the evil mobble, and asked the wily wonder to check it, and then my plans rapidly changed… The Ashford Traveller’s Joy single treadle spinning wheel we ordered three weeks ago had finally arrived at Bilby Yarns in Myaree, so the message said: I offered the serendipitous spindle that we go to pick it up rather than have me go to Bob’s, and it took little convincing of the crafty crocodile to say ‘Yes!’. We got on the phone to Bob’s people, and they arranged for me to see Bob on Wednesday next week instead, bless his and their caring socks, and we got cracking and organised ourselves, for this meant we would be able to visit my mother in hospital a few suburbs away from Myaree, in Murdoch, after getting the coveted goods for the delirious (sheep) duffer, all a thousand miles south of us in this ridiculously spread out capital city known as Perth.
On the way, I needed to find a toilet for a badly needed wee wee, and we pulled into the park on at the intersection of Charles and Vincent Streets, Beatty Park in fact, and I had to hoof it from the car park to the amenities block maybe a hundred and fifty metres, only to find the gents’ padlocked, and it was all of three o’clock. There is a toilets logo at this park in the UBD mapbook, and I was pissed off to tell the truth, so I hope if any householders were looking over their back fences into the vacant block near the amenities block that they can find some effective and free counselling, in case they saw Payton L. Inkletter watering the kikuyu in broad daylight near the red brick wall; this park has children’s play gear, and it is large and has reticulated mown lawn, but the council can’t keep the toilets open during the middle of the bloody day; sue me, but how damn parsimonious; and from the smell emanating from the grass, many others had been reduced to the same desperate relief.
The freeway was slow going south, as the long weekend traffic picked up, yet we made it in to Bilby Yarns half an hour before closing time. We had a close moment of danger on said Kwinana Freeway when a non-generous sod surged forward lest I move into his left lane and deny him one car length, despite my long advance warning by indicating; in front of us and unrelated the exact same bastardry by another driver almost caused a serious accident between three other cars.
After taking possession of, and paying the remainder owed, of the Ashford wheel, the spoilt sparrow and I drove to St John of God Hospital in Murdoch, where, when we found her room in the Bridget Clancy Ward, I had to gently arouse my mother, who looked so small and frail, in her bed. She was surprised and pleased to see us, and we spent an hour chatting about all the apparent non-treatment she’d had so far, and the tests and such, as well as general chit chat. While we were there a staff member came in and informed us of an ominous transfer of Mum’s case to a different specialty, so it might not be a simple case of gall stone trouble after all.
That second nuisance phone call on the mobble came while we were visiting with Mum; it was someone who can never seem to understand that in his case, this number is for emergencies only, yet the culprit regularly uses it for anything but, as again this instance. It caused Missus Inkletter much consternation, and as I took the call I made a snap decision to reveal information it was preferable to us both to have kept to ourselves about our whereandwhatabouts, but now no longer possible.
On our return journey the freeway south was choked for tens of kilometres, poor suckers, while we had a good run north; at least they’ll have the new Perth to Bunbury Highway to help make up for it once they escape the gridlock of the city. We managed to get in almost half an hour’s shopping at Woolies at Dog Swamp before closing time, a couple of attractive middle aged love-birds, hankering to get their rocks off, or however Kath and Kel express it.
We stopped at our local centre and bought some kosher halal chicken takeaway, Chooks, for The Dear Leader, and then dropped it to him, before finally getting home and getting some baked beans on toast rustling up for moi, and a sandwich for the tantalising takeaway, given that we were too late to do the normal meal preparation. (Those who know me know that I speak in wide generalities when I say ‘we’ in regard to the rustling up, for I busied myself with my business, while the bootiful booticoot busied herself with the kitchen stuff.)
I was not impressed to learn from the great hoon himself, Alan Carpenter, on Stateline, that he is retiring next weekend from politics, causing a by-election for his seat of Willagee. Not content to have cynically called an unnecessarily early State election, nor with losing that election, now he’s leaving 3 years early, when he won his seat and thus was committing to serve his electorate for the full term. Not impressed Alan! Yes your family might want to see more of you, but you committed to your electorate to serve for 4 years. Thanks for ending a mainly highly principled time in politics – before the tawdry tactic of calling a six month early election – on such an ordinary note. I called him a ‘hoon’ just now due to his mediocre stunt of calling that early election, an act of hoonery as far I’m concerned. It’s a pity, for he had done much at even personal cost to hold up principles in politics for years, unlike the majority of his peers.
After The Collectors I had to retire, being so weary I could hardly remain awake. I left the excited expatriate to practice spinning on her new toy, and fell asleep in the boudoir.
I was joined by the voltaged vouchsafer in the cot about half eleven, but by half twelve I was sneezing hard and had to arise, which of course was the end of having any hope of returning to the Land of Nod. So I got to see New Zealand Prime Minister John Key deliver Letterman’s Top Ten. It was funny, and he was a good sport, and his accent was almost a caricature of the Kiwi accent.
Next I watched a recording of Lateline: The (Leigh) Sales Graph: A departure tonight for Ms Sales jewellery wise, and a successful one, for she had a short necklace of green shaded stones which worked very well within her approaching inverse-fastigiate neckline, a dark long sleeved jacket, and subtle leaning make-up, with a flattering hair style. My first treat was her in-studio chit chat with Stephen Long: The (Stephen) Long and Short of It: What a relief to see him back in the flesh, for it crossed my suspicious mind that he might have met foul play at the direction if not the hands of the Ultimo dames, in order to eventually have a complete female takeover of the weekday evening schedules. And as always, Mr Long looked immaculate, his blue-grey tie setting off his crisp white shirt so well, encapsulated within a dark suit jacket. His hair had recently been retouched by the wizards in Make-up after his mum – who I’m sure still irons his shirts – in the green room, had yet again tousled it, for she can’t keep her fingers out of her boy’s gorgeous curls.
To the substance: in accord with his track record, Mr Long gave illuminating analysis of the global banking woes and the G20’s dillydallying and avoidance of the toxic assets problem; he noted that accounting practices that conceal reality are sadly being knowingly employed by the banks. He also incisively pointed out that the leading nations are acting as if the main banking problem is how to avoid the next catastrophe as if the current one is sorted. He was direct in his reply to Ms Sales’ question as to whether the G20 would succeed in avoiding another financial crisis: “No!” And I would take more notice of Mr Long than any politician. I wasn’t denied my icing: that inimitable teeth baring smile to end the interview with all the ferocity, the smouldering menace, of a month old Rottweiler puppy.
The final interview of the program was as profound as it was dignified and its subject disconsolate: Washington Post reporter David Finkel joined Ms Sales to discuss the subject matter of his book, ‘The Good Soldiers’: the experiences of the soldiers in the 2-16 battalion sent to Baghdad in 2007. I found it harrowing to listen and watch as Mr Finkel responded so fully and honestly to Ms Sales’ sensible questions, with a gentle voice giving away a soul which has witnessed much at the edge of hell, made the harder by its keen associated mind, and it seemed to me that the Post reporter was working hard at times to keep the rawness of the pain he had seen subdued. I was inspired by the humility of David Finkel, as he deferred to the trauma and stress inflicted upon the soldiers he lived with and accompanied.
Ms Sales gave Mr Finkel a singular accolade at interview’s end for the quality of his book ‘The Good Soldiers’, which he accepted with graciousness. I think that Leigh Sales was an ideal choice for conducting this interview, and in no small measure for the years she will have spent cultivating the many qualities, intellectual, emotional, and ‘characteral’, that are the salt needed to leverage the gems within her interlocutor. Another special interview now tucked away in my archive: thank you Ms Sales. I have more to add on this blue diamond of an interview, including pictures, here.
I wrote and researched, and the hours in my sanctuary flew by, until I joined the poor peevish peckerwood between the sheets. It was almost dawn, and the powdered possum had been coughing for hours, and was coughing without let up still. She is taking the virus serious harder than I did and am, but mine is still with me, lingering. I convinced her to take more cough mixture, a dash of the old Irish Moss, and we chatted in the cot about the likelihood of her having a touch of asthma.
+paytontedwithlove+
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