SOUTH PERTH: “Sure, he dropped me on my head countless times as a boy, but he had to try to equalise somehow,” Payton L. Inkletter says of his sibling

Be all that as it may, meanwhile:

In other news…

07-11^th March 2009:

Saturday: …before driving over to Umple Dais’ in the dark at 6 a.m., and taking him back to his workplace at Bluescope Lysaght, back at Forrestfield, where his car started this time, having had the night to evaporate the flooding from the carby. It was running rough though, and I followed him all the way back just in case he broke down.

Back at home, daylight now, that took about one hour. I did a proper kitchen clean up while Janny slept on, then watered out in the back garden, finally returning to write and research a few things on Google. And yes, it’s Sarrerdi! Then a dual posting of yesterday’s diary.

Instead of being sensible and retiring to the cot for some much needed shuteye, I began more editing of Venty Still, among other modifications splicing in a paragraph on biological immortality, in which that self promoted know it all, Frank R. Wallace aka Wallace Ward gets a mention. I hope over time that many readers get the ‘teapot with an alligatored patina’ qualification, in regard to said ‘expert’. And so it wasn’t till after two that I did put crown to pillow. I also did something most rare: I turned the computer off. It has run 24/7 with rare exceptions for the past 10 years. I was prompted in my decision by the desire to extend the fast download speed I get commencing on the 7^th of each month with Optus, but which disappears in about one day when I leave Netants on unthrottled, downloading Librivox audio books.

My alarm beat the alabaster dragon to rouse me about half six, and I de-zombified until sitting to watch My Beloved with Pa pree, Janny having got him for a shopping expedition earlier in the afternoon. While there still was daylight, I charged out the back and fertilized and watered like a man dying of thirst, for there were some sections further out back in the wilds that were desperate for water.

Dark well and truly settled upon this little sanctuary, I came inside to heat up my scrambled eggs vittles which I declined earlier, just as Janny was about to take Pa pree home. I watched some of Hulk on free to air while eating, and I didn’t realise that the straight parts of the film were far better than the animation quality. Later a marriage building discussion didn’t go as smoothly as it could have, and then the rest of the night involved writing (pooter back on about midnight), a late walk on which the boys in blue slowed down and eyeballed me, and the usual kitchen cleaning up. I tried to stay up till Janny’s brother Umple Dais was due at nine to pick up the Swift to take his mate car shopping, but I couldn’t make it, having to retire by six. I turned the computer back off, which the astute reader will recall is most rare.

+paytontedwithlove+

08^th March 2009:

Sunday: A hot 34 Celsius, I managed a little outdoor watering before spending a fruitless half hour trying to get Pa pree’s computer to work when I delivered his vittles; it now just freezes at the XP Welcome window.

Back home for my vittles, and after My Beloved Missus Inkles and I watched a couple of the Sixty Minutes stories, and what should we see in Liam Bartlett’s piece but the Gila Monster, that spit-filled lizard which is improving Janny’s health greatly through the drug in Byetta, at the cost of much nausea. Good thing the young somewhat chesty pear had those 5mm thick gloves on, or we’d have had another Steve Irwin tragedy. Coldplay will give U2 a run for their fortune, and that will be good thing, for what Bono won’t do of his own accord – learn humility – maybe he will when external pressures give him an assist.

I did some more fertilizing and watering under lights, before returning to The Box for Compass, and its excellent documentary ‘Bridge Over The Wadi’. The problems faced by that school are so immense that I suggest it won’t get too far unless, somehow, somewhere, it can find bi-lingual neutral teachers and staff to do the job the Palestinian and Jewish staff are trying to do. I admire the attempt; I despair of them getting far; I hope I’m wrong.

After this we both set to work cleaning up the lounge kitchen area, myself on the vacuum, Janny on the wax and polish as you dust, Missus Inklesheen, in preparation for tomorrow afternoon’s visit by Esther Grainey. While I was doing my share, I noticed an interesting program on Aunty, and by the time the work was done it was half over, but we watched the last half: a documentary about the life of writer Howard Fast, and it was fascinating. I must learn more about him.

I went for a late walk, at an early one o’clock, if that makes any sense, on a very still night. I did not even turn the computer on today, which is very rare. I showered from the sweaty walk, and had an ‘early’ night.

+paytontedwithlove+

09^th March 2009:

Monday: Barely three hours sleep, and my alarm told me it was time to get up and drive to Ultratune for 8 o’clock, to meet Umple Daffyd, who delivered his car there for work to fix the problem which led to it’s refusing to start after his work at Bluescope Lysaght on Friday. I dropped him back at his place where he fired up his hog and went in Triumph to work, late, but with good reason.

I returned to bed beside the slumbering alabaster dragon, and got another couple of hours, then my alarm again rudely informed me that Bob was depending on me to take him swimming today, having had to cancel at the last minute last Friday over Umple Daffyd’s needing transport when his wheels refused to cooperate after his work. I did a clean up inside, after Janny’s nausea required her to return to the cot to sleep the feeling off, which worked, and I woke her at two at her prior request, in the meantime having done a bit of badly needed watering in the backyard, on this hot mid thirties Celsius day. I fired the computer up briefly for emails and the like, but shut it down again.

Bob was relieved to see me, and I took him to a busy Swan Aquatic, where he got cracking on many walking laps and duck dives. I wrote a draft for replacing the explanatory notes at my Progressive (Cumulative) Stories page, as I’m intending to remove the caveat on Venty Still, not being really happy with putting it there in the first place. My new explanatory notes will include terms and conditions that are very open and generous, in my opinion, to all contributors to any progressive story that ever develops there.

We had a cup of tea and a walk at Fishmarket Reserve, and while on the walk a couple’s husky dog got attacked by bees from a tree, not hurt, but definitely stirred up. A pup, but big, and very pretty.

I got home after half seven, and took vittles straight away to Pa pree, then returned to eat and watch the remainder of Kezza on The 7.30 Report and then the inspiring story of Matt Laffan on Australian Story, a choice for airing by producer Ben Cheshire and an excellent choice at that. What do most of us have to complain about? Matt made the most of the hand life dealt him, and so makes a great role model. Janny remembers the original program of years ago, but I’m a bit fuzzy on it. Next was Four Corners, Liz Jackson’s report ‘Heat on the Hill’, but try as I might, I couldn’t stay awake, which is no reflection on the program, for I was utterly whacked.

Janny helped me get to bed, and I was afraid of being struck by lightning, or at least the lovely dentist Sidrah, because I didn’t clean my teeth. I was asleep about nine.

+paytontedwithlove+

10^th March 2009:

Tuesday: If you can believe it, I slept for 16 hours! Yes, there were breaks, for peeing, during which I noted the perfectly still night, the second such in a row. When Janny drove to pick Pa pree up to spend the rest of the afternoon and evening here it woke me up, but it was two o’clock. I worked hard to revive myself, showered, and due to Janny having leg pains, I drove her to her three o’clock appointment with Samantha the wonderful shrinking doctor. Pa pree remained in the airconditioned lounge at our place, for the day was a stinking 37 Celsius. I waited in the atrium area at the doctors’ centre, listening to my fabulous favourite talking book, and then we went nearby to the major shopping centre and shopped till we dropped.

Janny had the very pleasant experience of being able to buy a couple of items (on sposhull) straight off the shelf at Autograph, and she would probably hit me if she knew I mentioned it here, but this is a small reward for the nausea hell she’s been through with the otherwise wonderful Byetta. We didn’t get back home till about half six, and I was shopped out, as well as lighter in the in the already emaciated wallet, as all husbands know when they accompany their wives shopping.

I fired up the pooter before din dins, and made a comment on Jothiek’s page, where he has a spiffy new design. Then My Beloved over vittles followed by Kezza and his The 7.30 Report, and my only comment tonight on the segments he covered is on the Murray-Darling Rivers Water Buyback program, which I’m in two minds about: the rivers system desperately needs all the water it can get, and the irrigation that will be lost will impact on Australia’s food production. Rising food prices won’t help us, and neither will a dying river system. Between a rock and a hard place…

I took a rest, laying down and trying to perk my health up, then wrote until after half nine, before taking Pa pree home. Janny and I watched Jennifer Byrne’s book show ‘Hoaxes’, which was really good, and I noted the curious fact that two of her four guests’ surnames ended in ‘x’: Malcolm Knox and Jack Marx; not a hoax I presume. Now Jennifer, as I’ve complained before, you don’t bring us enough of these programs; I want one a week every week of the year. Get cracking, you can do it, I have complete confidence in your ability. Earn your stipend from Aunty.

Lateline was a treat because Tony Jones interviewed that Federal Minister who, despite often being wite, is always wong, Penny Wong, that penny from Kevin. But my, notwithstanding my enjoyment of her – it’s her cute and lovely nose I think – what a steely stare she can give her interlocutor, and what amazing emotional control she maintains. She would make a brilliant inquisitor overseeing torture if the Catholics reinstate that old method of assisting God’s work in society. You can’t help but notice the nuancing of interviewing technique employed by Tony Jones according to the nature of the beast he’s trying to extract useful information from, and he’s sized up Penny before today and has an approach to try to break through her tough exterior, but I think Penny wins each time.

Letterman is a funny bloke, which I noticed over twenty years ago when I first began watching him, and he shone through a couple of times tonight with classics: his ending remark about his first wife was a beauty, brilliantly timed, and his request of Jack Hanna’s female assistant to come on in Jack’s place, in order to lift the knowledge quotient, was superb. I don’t quite know what to make of Russel Brand, but you’ve got to hand it to Letterman, for he is very often very generous to some of his borderline guests. Also the repartee between Paul Shaffer and Dave tonight had some very good moments. I literally this second have just googled Shaffer, to ascertain for which side he kicks, for I couldn’t recall his missus or children ever being mentioned, although of course that could be simply memory lapse, and Wikipedia has just informed me that he is married with two children, so that settles that.

An email from a relative arrived asking for advice on some very important matters, and this has been occupying my mind since, and hopefully I’ll be able to send an answer back tomorrow night. I thought much about it all on my late walk, on this third night of the doldrums, a very surreally still night. But then this is not uncommon in March. On my return I came back to the keyboard, and finally got up to date with my diary, although I didn’t actually post the finished days.

It was not too far off dawn when I got to bed, again turning the computer off, about the fourth or fifth day of doing this for the first time in so many years.

+paytontedwithlove+

11^th March 2009:

Wednesday: Although in bed for two hours, I might have got an hour’s sleep, before the alarm got me out of bed and preparing to pick up Pa pree and take him for a blood test down at the major local shopping centre; ‘in and out’ was his expectation relayed to me, before ‘not long in the centre’. Well, all up, two hours, and when I dropped him back at his place I came home and returned to bed, very tired indeed, slipping in beside the alabaster dragon. While waiting at the centre I listened to my favourite talking book.

Missus InkleI’mDoctorHoffman’sstarpatient drove herself to a late afternoon doctor’s appointment, but her typical leaving commotion woke me up. I dozed off again, only to be awoken again not too long after by the phone. Where would I like to jam the phone?; let me count the places…

I did a kitchen clean up, with Janny back, reporting on her star patient status with her doctor, and his advice regarding her back induced worsening leg pain. I retreated then outside to water and fertilize and prune dead bits from the bamboos, and I wasn’t out there long when a pair of Mormon Elders arrived, which cemented my decision to remain outside and miss My Beloved as well as Kezza’a The 7.30 Report, while Missus Inklecan’tgetenoughofthemelders entertained them like houses on fire. When they finally left I came in and had vittles while watching The New Inventors, and for my ten cents worth the Rowergo Brace was good but way overpriced, and I wouldn’t have awarded the Aqualim first prize.

As always Spicks and Specks was tops, as was Chandon Pictures, though it was painful when they thought it was all over red rover financially, which just goes to show how well they are acting. I greatly enjoyed Ruddy Hell: It’s Harry and Paul, and fear it’s nearing its end if not already.

I did a few minutes watering outside again under lights, before charging back in to watch Lateline, putting Janny to bed about then, as she was asleep in the Ibis. Lisa Millar interviewed Professor Will Steffen, Executive Director of the Climate Change Institute at ANU, and it was most sobering to hear his assessments, from the meeting of climate scientists in Copenhagen, of likely ocean level rise this century. A hell of a lot of cities are going to need walls built around them if these predictions are correct, or exceeded. Before this story we had Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Managing Director of the IMF giving dire warnings of the possibility of war due to the Great Recession the globe is now in. Sadly, he has to be taken seriously.

Letterman had one of my favourite segments, Stupid Pet Tricks on tonight, and Janny had woken up and rejoined me in the lounge, so she enjoyed it also. The dog that played dead was our favourite, closely followed by the counting dog. Dave look-alikes is always fun as well.

I fired the computer up after midnight, and wrote a reply to my relative who asked for advice on the serious matters, and emailed it before going on a late walk, on this dead still night, in the full moonlight shrouded by an overcast sky. It’s the fourth night without a breath of wind, but it makes for a beautiful eerie walk, and there were few cars tonight.

I tried to establish a username and password for my online account with Optus, for the second time, the last being a year ago, when I wasted an hour going around in circles. Well, it happened again; I wasted heaps of time, so resorted to phoning them about four a.m., and Rahjet, bless his chapattis, spent almost 45 minutes setting it all up for me, which goes to show how complicated Optus have made it. All I wanted was to use the Optus offered option online of having the same username and password I have for my webmail account as for my financial and usage account. And after the dust settled – Rahjet was a paragon of patience and politeness by the way – it turns out that I have to have a different password for the financial account, although I can have the same username. Typical of businesses and institutions, full of anomalies. And to top it all off, once the financial account was accessible, the usage figures were not yet available!

I struggled for a while with some health problems, before hanging out Pa pree’s washing under lights, and then, after a shower, returned to the computer to write this diary while filling a gnawing hole in my stomach with a toasted sandwich, washed down with chocolate rice mullock, which was a UHT carton I bought six or twelve months or more ago and forgot about; it was nice.

I broke down and had too many scorched peanuts, Home Brand, which I bought yesterday while shopping to the point of dropping with Janny. And by the time it was all over I had polished off the whole litre of the chocolate rice mullock.

I dual posted five days of this diary to the Main Site and In other news…, and it took ages as usual, what with the usual html problems with the infernal Blogger editor. I finally got to bed dead tired about half ten, with the alabaster dragon just toying with the idea of getting up.

+paytontedwithlove+

HIGGINS: “Give us a TV warning that viewers could be disturbed when Peter Costello is seen in the following program,” complains Payton L. Inkletter.

Be all that as it may, meanwhile:

In other news…

06^th March 2009:

Friday: What with a pee break, the four hours sleep came and went in a flash. I toyed with the idea of not seeing Bob today, and returning to the cot, but decided to push on. While the dragon slept I cleaned up the kitchen, did a cowboy back garden watering, then got ready for Bob’s, shot around and picked up Pa pree Inkletter and delivered him back to Missus InkleIcan’tbelieveIslepttilltwo, then set of east along Marshall Road through Malaga. On Malaga’s eastern fringe the mobble rang, the alabaster dragon no less, informing me that her brother’s car had broken down at his workplace, and he needed a lift. I asked the dragon to phone Bob’s and explain, apologise for the late notice, and cancel today’s swimming expedition.

I chucked a righty down Beechboro Road, and wended my way onto Tonkin Highway eventually, and, by memory – big mistake – found myself in Forrestfield at Bluescope Steel, but no Umple Dais in sight. I mobbled him, and he put me right, or so he thought. After getting lost again I consulted the street directory I realised where I was botching things, but don’t entirely blame me, for how’s this for a convergence of double ups?: Two parallel roads separated by a railway line go under the Tonkin overpass in Forrestfield, and I took Abernethy, and a little way to the north is Bluescope Steel, beside the grain silos. I should have taken Dundas Road, on the other side of the line, a little to the north of which is Bluescope Lysaght, beside the grain silos of Quaker Oats, no bull. Anyway, a little delayed, I picked up Umple Daffyd, and drove him back home, then called at our local Dewsons for more Harvey Fresh UHT mullock, four 12 packs in fact, still on sposhull somehow. Poor farmers, poor cows.

Given this major rearrangement of the afternoon of this warm low thirties Celsius day, I had Janny feed me toast and her homemade plum jam with a giant marshmallowed topped Milo – the drink of which it is said the difference it makes is marvellous – while watching the Antique Roadshow thingy program with Pa pree, then crawled into bed for four hours of badly needed shuteye. The alabaster dragon woke me by arrangement soon after ten, she having taken Pa pree home earlier, and I watched Lateline while eating din dins.

Leigh Sales had, for a pleasant change, a pair of newspaper journo honchos, Laura Tingle of The Australian Financial Review and Melbourne based (where else?) George Megalogenis of The Australian. The distance from the puerile political performances of our pollys that these two enjoy gave their assessments of Australia’s political katzenjammer a refreshing flavour. Leigh, like Ali Moore, is savvy enough to draw intelligent commentary from her interlocutors, providing they have it in them in the first place, which is not always the case with our pollies. It is hard not to drool over Laura, and there must be some women feel that way about George. And correct me if I’m mistaken, but Leigh and Stephen Long seem to enjoy each other’s company as well. And I enjoy Stephen’s appearances on Lateline; the fellow seems to have a good economic head on his shoulders; and a cute weird smile, which I think he learnt from his pet Rover when he was a boy.

Wow what a wonderful piece of art is that Archibald Prize winning painting of blind since birth Arnhem Land singer Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu!; and how nice to see the artist Guy Maestri there with the adoring support of his dad; neither the canvas nor the father and son will the singer ever see.

Yuk, our TV screens have been smeared today with that political ejaculate that goes by the name of Peter Costello. I would feel much more charitable towards him if he wasn’t so intensely smug. Honestly, can he not do an internal work and come out shining and humble, so that any talents he has to offer in service to the public won’t be so hindered by his ego? My word doesn’t the long historical era we’re still in attract some objectionable ‘characters’ to politics! The list in Australia alone is a very long one through our short history.

Letterman’s interview with Jon Stewart demonstrated, if it was needed, that either he speaks before he thinks, or he is prepared to take risks. Oh, and I thought his Hitler joke regarding Bernard Madoff was very funny. The fourth U2 musical ending was good, and lining them up on the guest chairs for a shallow chat was interesting, slightly.

I did a cowboy kitchen clean up, some writing, and then went for a very very late walk on this blustery devil wind warm night, without my talking book, for I have to have it dangerously loud in such conditions to catch all the words. Missus InkleI’mhavingtroublegettingtosleep + (littlewonderyouslumberlush,havingslepttilltwo) got up for the second time because she couldn’t get to sleep, and saw me off into the oblivion of the inky night, pun intended. Once back I battled with my health for a while, then returned to writing.

A shower was just what the doctor ordered, before…

+paytontedwithlove+

NIDDRIE: Chris Clarke shakes in his jocks, as former pentathlon gold medallist, Payton L. Inkletter, trains for Palm Beach WCF croquet championship.

Be all that as it may, meanwhile:

In other news…

05^th March 2009:

Thursday: A low thirties Celsius day, typically March, with a very late almost non-existent sea breeze. I was woken by Janny, who didn’t realise that my alarm had done the job but minutes before. The alarm should make up its mind: the other day it went off almost an hour after the set time, today spot on.

I brushed my teeth, threw some clothes on – thank God for that – and did the typically westerner wasteful-of-fuel thing, and drove to the local shops and its mailbox just in time to post my brother’s 54^th birthday card, which includes a conversation I wrote in it between a dabchick and a butcher bird about his birthday. I hope it brings a smile to his face.

Back home I shaved, showered, and then picked up Pa pree then drove to the beautiful park nearby where Janny and I have had many lovely late night walks. The Babies Ink&Peggletter were there by arrangement, having just set up a croquet game. We played two games with them in the land drain section, where it was nice and flat, and green. I’ve never played before, and it was a great deal of fun. And it’s getting into my league of strenuousness – virtually none! Payton the Koala Bear joined in a bit, with photos to prove it, and before we knew where were, it was eight o’clock and time to go. Not before a walking woman’s husky dog piddled on the bag I brought Payton in, sitting on the lawn near us. She didn’t apologise, even though she did try to call the dog away. Another washing task for me back home. At least it didn’t get inside the bag where Baby Inkletter the Koala Bear and Basil the bear sat, with my camera batteries and case. So there was a mercy…

Poor old Missus InkleI’vecookedtheMorrocanyouorderedBabyInkletter was flat out in the kitchen preparing to feed us. She later confided in me that she would have liked to have been invited. I wish the Babies had. I tend to keep out of these no win situations if I can. We had a most delicious feast of the Morrocan Lamb dish, while the conversation was rather pessimistic, or rather, the pessimism of Baby Inkletter hung over the table, as the discussion waxed on about the world they and their generation are inheriting. I was essentially the sole voice of optimism despite any and all appearances and developments, but of course it is like trying to push water uphill when the climate is going haywire, greed and violence is rampant, immaturity reigns supreme, and the world economy is lying knocked out on the floor of the ring, nearing the count of ten.

After the main course we watched the recording we made of the recent Compass program featuring The Universal Brotherhood of Balingup, and we then, over some magnificent wog dessert of pastry, honey, and almond filling, had quite a discussion of my and Janny’s experience there and of what we thought and knew of various folk featured. I was there for a bit over a year in all, approaching 28 years ago, and while I must be honest and say the old bird running the place was a megalomaniac in a dove’s clothing, if I’d not gone there I wouldn’t have Baby Inkletter to enrich my life today, for I met and was entrapped by her mother, the alabaster dragon, there.

The Babies took Pa pree home when they left, and I watched the last part of the gorgeous, capable, and intelligent Ali Moore’s Lateline. I think she could talk even to Kevin Rudd and I’d be captivated, even Simon Crean, or Kim Beazley, for that matter. Actually, I think she’d make an interview with a dead person captivating. Ali, if Janny leaves me, you find yourself single, and you are turned on by an ageing bull koala, past his prime, give me a call…

In the half hour before the later start to Letterman we watched my recording of Compass from Sunday night, which I missed due to poor Missus InkleI’llspeweverlastspeckofsustenanceoutofme’s chundering attack, from the nausea inducing Byetta she’s trying to master the use of. And it was worth saving to see. I learnt more about Blanche D’Alpuget than I ever knew: she seems very sweet and fragile, sincere and decent. Has she always been so timid? Is it due to being, in the eyes of many, the bitch who stole Bob Hawke from Hazel? I don’t know, just surmisin…

Letterman had Dr Phil as his guest, which was not as rivetting as I was expecting; good, but not stratospheric. U2 finished the night again, and forgive me, but Bono owes a hell of a lot to his three band members.

I should have come straight to bed, as did Missus Inklealreadyfallingasleep, but my health problems weren’t conducive to that yet, and so I tackled writing my diary and googling for research on sundry things. I emailed a thank you to Gladys Hobson for her unfailing support and encouragement with my writing endeavours, this time for Venty Still. I edited it some more, adding dialogue and a little action, as well as tweaking some of the science content, which I’ve been doing for a couple of days, sneaking the editing in under the abomination that is the Blogger editor’s radar, by using it’s long winded and arcane ‘Edit Html’ mode, for ‘Compose’ mode smashes all my formatting to hell and I have to redo it all laboriously if I so much as place the cursor anywhere in the page field; Blogger editor, I hate your guts, just in case you’d been lulled into a false sense of security seeing that I have’nt complained about you for some week’s now (or is it days?).

The computer is playing up, running grindingly slow and freezing during simple procedures, which makes the work I want to do much slower. One day… (a computer with big balls, and an operating system worth the name: may you live in interesting times Bill Gates).

This all took ages, also considering that I did a double post of this very day’s diary on the Main Site and here, which is a very time consuming exercise in itself, and so it wasn’t till daylight was playing with the eastern horizon that I crawled in beside the alabaster dragon.

+paytontedwithlove+

JACK HILLS: “I often feel older than the rocks here,” declares a weary Payton L. Inkletter, when asked about the adage ‘as old as the woman you feel’.

Be all that as it may, meanwhile:

In other news…

01^st to 04^th March 2009:

Sunday: I found myself, after rising early afternoon, chained to the computer more than I wanted, preparing the linked page ‘Progressive (Cumulative) Stories’ in readiness for the text of the first story, ‘Venty Still’, which began as a prologue written last August by my daughter, Say H. aka ‘Baby’ Inkletter. It was a warm humid day, reaching 33 Celsius. Just when I would have ventured out, I heard the local Mormon elders who think this is their second home calling in, so I remained discreetly chained to the keyboard, tweaking the online page, while Janny entertained them in the lounge; I deftly managed to avoid another pointless palaver; that’s a bit harsh of me: make it rather another time consuming chinwag, where they are itching to tell me all about the Reformation and join me up to the one true church, and I am trying politely to avoid the stultifyingly immature idea and if that fails, expand the reality horizons to that of the invisible family of God, unrelated to any earthly institutional affiliations, which by almost all church membership cardholders, cannot be adequately processed.

When they had left, I took vittles to Pa pree, and returned in time for My Beloved and the first Sixty Minutes story about Greg Norman and Chris Evert; whatever else I think about him based on next to no knowledge other than the sensational media, at least he didn’t divorce to marry a far younger woman, the foible of many ageing wealthy men.

I began the big blood and bone once weekly fertilizing of the bamboos out the back and sundry waterings front and back, before coming back in for Compass at half nine, but as I began watching it, I heard Janny vomiting in the laundry, poor possum, and went to her aid, pressing her lower back and cleaning up after. For some reason she is vomiting everything up several times a week now, as though the Byetta is disagreeing with her system more not less; we must try to get to the bottom of it all and achieve a management of its use that eliminates the vomiting. So I recorded the remainder of Compass to watch another time.

Back to the computer, working on the linked site, and preparing the text of Venty Still for my dictation planned for later for the audio I want to do. I began the recording after one a.m., and finished it, breaking it up into about 5 segments, but first take only take for each, and had it recorded about one and three quarter hours later, the actual finished file being about 65 minutes in length. Unfortunately, only a quarter the way in I took a tiny sip of tea, and it went down the wrong way, and the coughing fit hurt my throat, so the remainder of my recording was done with a damaged and ticklish fractious throat – thems’ the breaks.

Immediately upon finishing the recording I went for a very late walk, after three a.m., but I had to get out for a change of pace. I was able to listen to the five segments on my iRiver T10 mp3 player on the walk, and despite the lack of practice (first take only take, straight from the computer screen, uncomfortable twisting sitting arrangement to be able to be close to the microphone, hurt throat, torturous words – Venty Still has some challenging sentences to speak aloud – it scrubbed up acceptably I reckon.

Once back I got cracking with my two wonderful freeware software tools, MP3DirectCut and 123AVMerger, and Venty Still audio in one long file was eventually born. I got it uploading to 4shared.com while doing the dishes in the kitchen, and the first attempt took almost an hour and it stalled at 97%! Fortunately the boffins at 4shared then had, in their near infinite apposite wisdom, an advert staring at me about broken uploads and invited me to download the 4shared Uploader program with its ‘resume’ facility should something go wrong. So I downloaded it, installed it, and tried again, this time it went perfectly, and four times faster it seemed.

Next I posted and tweaked the huge text of the story within the infernal Blogger editor, that abomination that should not speak its name, and finally I worked on putting in links around the various sites of mine, plus a dedicated posting at the Main Site to announce the story’s arrival. Phew! No wonder daylight had arrived hours ago by this stage.

+paytontedwithlove+

02^nd March 2009:

Monday: Carrying on from the last entry, I now had Venty Still delivered in rude good health, text and audio, with links and dedicated postings here and there. Now it remained to be found, and my bet was that Gladys Hobson would be the first to find it, and later I will confirm that indeed she did, but I had a sleep in between, but more on that shortly…

After all of this imprisonment at the computer and the kitchen sink, for the kitchen now sparkled like a new pin, I was hankering to go outside, despite being so tired I could sleep standing. Once outside I got pruning lavender, tying back and training bamboo culms, and the like, and my second wind arrived. Speaking of wind, there was some awfully gusty squalls happening periodically from early this morning, and the sky was grey, misty, and trying to rain. It cleared a bit as the morning wore on.

Missus InkleI’msorefromvomiting surfaced, and made me, at my greedy request, cheese, crackers, and sliced pears, with coffee, then, after taking her cornucopia of drugs, returned to bed, which technique sometimes stays her nausea. I settled in to watch The Midday Report on Aunty, and then Missus InkleI’mupnow joined me to catch a bit of that Drs show, the yankee one, something to do with Dr Phil’s spawn (doubtless with the McGrawl drawl), about children with high cholesterol and such. I eventually hit the sack toward two o’clock, with Missus InkleI’msometimesverynicetoPayton rubbing sorbolene into the skin of my pachydermic feet, powdering my bottom, and generally being nice to me (which always worries me…)

I went out like a light, had a pee break before dark, then went back out like a light till the alabaster dragon woke me, by arrangement, about ten o’clock. She had picked up Pa pree soon after I hit the silks, and entertained him here, fed him, and returned him about 9 this evening. The day was cold for early March, and this night is lovely and cold. Pa pree was so cold he insisted, apparently, on closing up all the windows, which is a bit counterproductive, for it’s the best way to naturally cool the house in preparation for the forecast increasing heat of the next few days, when doubtless he’ll want the airconditioning on when he’s over. Janny and I have become very adept over the years at using the windows and doors, curtains and outdoor blind for climate control, and we feel that just because we have an airconditioner in the lounge room now we shouldn’t stop using our age long proven methods at natural cooling and heating to assist matters.

Lateline saw Tony Jones interview Bettina Arndt, author of ‘The Sex Diaries’, with Emily Maguire, writer of ‘Princesses and Pornstars’ about findings from research with a hundred Australian couples on the subject of their sex lives. I think Bettina Arndt had some surprisingly sensible understandings and recommendations that I, and enlightened males like me, with the occasional female, have realized decades ago, and she summed it up very well when she said to the effect ‘monogamy then rationing!’ The toooftensubzerodragon and I attempted to have a mature discussion of the issues, but tonight was apparently not the time to try to explore the merits of the arguments covered on Lateline, so it was shelved for now into the too hard and stiff basket…

I will expand on this much more in my ‘The Marriage X-files’ revision when I eventually get around to it, but, stripped of most of the nuances for the purposes of this account now, it is a very great societal pity that it appears so few married women understand consciously the win-win probabilities that come from enlightened mutual management of the male sex drive, which imperative biology has thrown, like a hot ember among the tinder dry scrub with a forecast strong wind brewing, smack into the middle of male-female relations, and assured that it is tweaked such that it is to influence, and dictate – especially in the youthful male and his older immature ‘uncles’ – his everyday thinking and behaviour far more than hers: it’s not rocket science, despite it obviously being so for the Women’s Movement, who for four of five decades have been more comfortable simplistically, and thus invalidly, viewing the subject of sexual relations as an adversarial phenomenon. Imagine an enlightened marriage between two average beasts, Jack and Jill, in which two general kinds of sex were shared: Jill regularly gifts, graciously, briefer physiological release sex; and Jack and Jill (probably less) regularly share longer, more intensely physically and psychically satisfying for both, sex. Jack is not hankering and pestering for sex, Jill is getting satisfying sex when she wants it. Both understand what they are doing, and why, and it is a mutual decision.

Imagine the ordinary marriage between two average beasts, Mack and Mary, in which Mary rations the sex, and Mack pesters for more, in which Mary rarely gets deeply satisfying sex, and Mack is never happy with the quantity. This is sexual warfare, and both sides will not get what they want.

Imagine Missy, a wily (married or single) woman who has designs on Mack. She knows in unawareness that Mack, even though married – because married – (odds are) will be sexually frustrated. She plays the sexual card, and charms the underwear off them both, wreaking havoc eventually with the marriage Mack represents.

Rerunning Missy’s attempted designs on Mack, with Mack and Mary in a marriage blessed with enlightened mutual management of Mack’s sex drive: Missy tries, but finds her sexual charms strangely less potent than she’s used to. She gives up, assuming that Mack’s marriage to Mary is a front: Mack must be gay. Anyway, as I said, I hope to expand on all this eventually in my revision of my The Marriage X-files.

I discovered that, yay, Gladys Hobson was the first to find Venty Still, bless her woolen socks, and she had already posted a comment, two in fact, one being at my Myspace page, which I might visit once in every three or four months. Baby Inkletter found it after I alerted her by email that I had finished it, and I’m awaiting more than the lapidary ‘*gulp*’ she shot back by email.

Time for a walk, it was half two, and a big day of visiting and car traveling coming up tomorrow; somehow I’ve got to get tired enough to sleep enough to function.

The walk was hard, but invigorating as well as exhausting, if that makes any sense. For the second time in a week my hands stung with cold, and we are just two days out of the last month of summer! I had time to think on my walk about Gladys’ suggestion in her first Venty Still comment that I consider not opening up the story, and instead first test sending it to sci-fi publishers. My initial thought was, no, I don’t want to go to the effort, but now I think I’ll test the waters a bit, and if it takes up too much time without a bite, I’ll drop the effort and go back to progressive.

So I put a caveat at the start of ‘Venty Still’ soon after getting back from my locomotions, as well as had something to eat, trying to get drowsy, all the while writing this very diary, which of course, acts to wake me up.

I took my life in my hands and slunk in beside the alabaster dragon, with white comforters to ease the pain (of my head, not the emotionally devastating pain of the fear of being compromised in my sleep), near five o’clock.

+paytontedwithlove+

03^rd March 2009:

Tuesday: The alarm clock went off almost an hour late, so it’s on the blink obviously. Missus Inkletter and I got cracking, trying to come to life for the day’s travel about the city, with our plan to visit two folk who have been in hospital or still are, and my mother, but due to health problems of mine, this cranking up took a lot longer than expected, delaying our leaving time and necessitating a reordering of the visiting.

So the delay meant a bit of watering was done by moi outside, and I was able to admire my largest ever Bambusa balcoa shoot, now about a foot and half high, and promising, if it can but beat the coming winter’s arrival, to be by far my highest ever culm upon it’s maturity.

Finally my health challenges were overcome sufficiently to leave the house, and we set off for Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital, where we visited Meg Deeler up on the seventh floor of G Block. The poor thing looked terribly unwell, sitting in a chair by the bed, having just had a nurse or whoever attending to her, tubed up to more drips than ferns beneath a waterfall. We spent a half hour with her, and she could only mime or write words to us, due to her tracheotomy, but she was very appreciative of the nighties that Janny had made for her, and smiled at some of my horsing around. Neither of us had ever seen her so ill, and her head and system was probably swimming with chemotherapy and what not.

Our next destination was cousin Vee’s in Kardinya, and blow us down if he did not walk out to greet us before we’d got out of the car! Just two and half weeks since his 8 hour throat cancer operation, and he looked amazingly good. We had never visitited him at his home before, and we spent toward two hours chatting with him and his wife Leah, and mother-in-law Coralie, as well as, briefly, the two children. Vee’s scars were long and numerous, from having his jaw split in half, his neck peeled back, his arm raided for vein and flesh to graft inside his throat, and his leg shaved for skin to graft onto his arm. But if I had to describe him in three words: rude good health. We left about five struck by the massive contrast between our two recuperant visits today.

Towards six we arrived at sister Mary’s in East Victoria Park and spent time with Mum, then Mary who arrived, and then, briefly, Michele, back from panel beating, and batching while wife Elizabeth is guiding a group of holidayers on holiday in the USA, including the Grand Canyon. Mum was looking tired and old, poor thing; I used some olive oil to ease a plastic sticky covering from a dressing on her arm where last week she had a growth cut out, and I recommend olive oil for the job: take your time, and keep rubbing, using a tissue or such, the oil into the leading edge of the lifted adhesive, until it comes free, including where the scab might be clinging to the dressing. It looked good when we got the dressing off.

Maximus Coccioli, the giant American Rottweiler, actually whimpered repeatedly and put his tail between his legs when he saw me, and while he went to Mum and Janny, he would not come near me. This was most odd, as each other time he’d ever seen me he’s been all over be like a dog possessed, overly much so at times. I surmised that since I’ve last seen him he had been hurt by a man. Well, I wasn’t wrong, for Mary let me know that Michele and a friend had to sit on him and struggle with him to remove a fish hook from his mouth the other day, which he had swallowed at the beach.

He came good after I threw the plastic bone for him a few times, and then it was like old times, and he became a big nuisance sook wuss; all 55 kilograms or more of him, big pup he is.

Janny and I got home a bit after half seven, and settled in for a typical Tuesday night. I caught The 7.30 Report, and how brutal and inhuman is the latest terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan Cricket Team! I can only hope that the cricket loving Pakistan nation will so turn against the Islamic fundamentalists – whether or not they are responsible for this particular barbarity – infecting it like a metastasis that it will mark a critical turn in national life. If only…

I watched only my second ‘Lead Balloon’, which I wish I’d caught from the beginning of the series, for I’m finding it very good and funny. To the computer for a while, then back for Foreign Correspondent, introduced by Mark Corcoran, as he so often does, in the plural; does he do this deliberately, or is he a bit daft? If you know, let me know please. The report was on Antarctica, and the increasing exploration by China and others, joining Australia’s presence. How good would it be if the United Nations could be in control of it the great ice covered south land, its exploitation, everything. I would support Australia giving up its massive 40% territory claim to the UN.

Away again, and back for Lateline, Tony Jones interviewing Pascal Lamy, the World Trade Organisation’s Director-General, and it was pleasing to hear his confidence that trade protectionism will be kept in check by the WTO’s monitoring of the trade policy developments worldwide and their reminders to nations to fulfil their commitments to freeing up world trade. I hope he’s more right than wrong. One of the big hopes for improving our global society is world trade, and its welding of national fates to each other. We all sink or swim, so let’s swim.

Letterman’s musical act this week is U2. My how Bono behaves like he believes he is a legend in his own mind! Yes they’re good, but a less inflated Bono would do wonders for them. Katie Couric was gorgeous as usual, but how naughty of her to complain of the non-manifestation of the 8-10 inches the weatherman promised last night.

I was as tired as all get out, but I soldiered on somehow, and my night achieved: a kitchen clean up, a late walk, emails, including one to Fremantle Press offering Venty Still so far, with the promise of development of it to novel length, and before leaving the computer I edited in some action and dialogue as per Gladys Hobson’s suggestion, which I will keep doing until its descriptive passages are broken up a few times with these brain resting and stimulating stretches. So I was mighty weary by the time I crept in beside the alabaster dragon, daylight a couple of hours old by then. It was a long shot with Fremantle Press, because I don’t have the 40,000 minimum words yet, nor in printed out manuscript form – I simply gave the website address of Venty Still – but then stranger things have happened in the world of publishing. It would give me much gratification to be published by a Western Australian publisher, if the happy day of standard model publishing ever arrives for me. On my walk I thought of a good direction to take Venty Still in. I reckon I can make it a hell of yarn.
+paytontedwithlove+

04^th March 2009:

Wednesday: Missus InkleIneedyoutotakemetothelocalshops - cozmylegisbad woke me after five, and let me know she didn’t want to risk driving given the leg pain she experienced overnight, and a bad stretch of it shortly after she got up this morning, while I slept on, having not long hit the low thread count polycottons. We think the unusual seating of yesterday’s marathon visiting we did, and the bending over to hug and hold poor ill Meg Deeler for long stretches of time might have brought the back nerve induced leg pain on.

So we picked up Pa pree, and I drove the little people to our local Dewsons’, then it was back home for a few minutes’ outside gardening titivation until My Beloved and the ensuing huge Aunty marathon that has become Wednesday evening. Kerry Kezza O’Brien had the interesting task/privilege of interviewing our Prime Minister, Kevin Integrated Circuit Rudd. I like the man, don’t get me wrong, but I also would like him to speak a little more like he’d had a few too many now and then, and stumble a bit with his sentences, just occasionally, and thus remind us that we are not listening to a pixie robot giving a pre-determined rendition in perfection. He managed to use his technique of asking questions and then immediately answering them several times during the interview. To his credit Kezza pulled the perfectionist up when he imputed that Turnbull was for leaving everything to the free market, that is, do nothing, by reminding him that Malcolm Turnbull was just saying the stimulus package needed to be done differently. I think politicians would advance their careers better by not twisting the words of the other side, and they all succumb it seems.

I thought The New Inventors measuring cap invention would win, but of all things, the Super (pooper) Scooper won, to make it easier to pick up horse shit from paddocks. As always, Spicks and Specks brightened the night, and then the treats kept coming, with Chandon Pictures, which really tickles my fancy, and the cream on the cake was Ruddy Hell! It’s Harry and Paul: Whitehouse and Enfield know their craft so well.

I took Pa pree home after ten, then returned to watch Leigh Sales interview that oxygen starved at birth gorilla Joe Hockey again, in his role as Shadow Treasurer. Hockey is another one of these naïve politicians whose behaviour suggests they believe that attack upon just about everything at any cost furthers their personal ambitious causes. I don’t know how many times I’ve suffered his ludicrous indignant little set mouth and face in Question Time as Turnbull or whoever lambasts the other side, just as Julie Bishop’s face used to be negatively entertaining as well. You’d think from the looks they pull that the greatest heist was being pulled on Australia by the Government, no matter the subject. My recollections are that the Labor Opposition were not quite as childish, but that would not be hard to achieve given the ambience and comportment of the current Opposition. They really need to grow up.

Letterman finished again with U2, and it was the second performance of the U2 week, and Bono was more bearable.

I began writing, and put more dialogue into the Venty Still posting, via the back door of the HTML mode, to avoid the Compose mode smashing all the existing formatting to blazes, as well as went for a late walk, cleaned up the kitchen (another marathon), and hung out washing, and it was daylight by then. I also struggled during the wee small hours with some of my health issues, costing me quite a bit of time and discomfort.

I did some watering of the bamboo – a cowboy job – and then I was very exhausted by the time I came to bed, again daylight some hours old. I wrote out a birthday card for my brother just before retiring, realizing that if I don’t mail it before six this evening, it will miss his day. I had the misplaced hope, given Janny’s bad leg, that she might post it today if she had to go to the shops, to save me the job.

+paytontedwithlove+