Harnessing the Inner Hippy

"Hello. My name in Pandora and I am a sugar addict."
"Hello, Pandora."
"It's been eighteen hours since my last sugar hit."
There is a round of applause. The throng nod in aknowledgement, muttering support and encouragement.

I'm coming  to terms with my sugar addiction, made more painful and prominent after a trip to the naturopath yesterday.

A bit of history - I suffer from hypertension, or high blood pressure. I've had this condition for years and it's something that I keep an eye on. It's a bit of a pain, but it's also not normally a problem. It's when it gets out of control it's really inconvenient, which it has been over the last few weeks. Getting symptomatic is a pain - normally I'm not like this, the hypertension has no effect on my daily life. However, being symptomatic, the hot flashes, the headaches, the lethargy, the palplitations - it's crap.

The last time I got symptomatic I went and saw the doctor. After a day attached to a sphygmomanometer having it go off every half hour and getting the diagnosis of mid-range hypertension, I was put on blood pressure medication - and there the horror stories start. The first lot my doctor tried me on made be feel comatose and it gave me a dry, hacking cough. The second lot of medication made me out on three kilograms in two weeks and my legs felt like somebody had run a couple of litres of water down my legs - it was dreadful. It stopped my life - I couldn't exercise, I couldn't think, I couldn't concentrate. She offered to try me on some other types of meds, but I promptly told her where to go. Nicely, of course.

On gaining her begrudging consent, I went off all medication and went to my naturopath, who brought the blood pressure down to acceptable levels in a few weeks with the use of herbs and some natural remedies.

We worked out that most of my hypertension triggers are stress, saturated fat, shock, salt and alcohol.

Eliminating as much salt and alcohol has been okay. There are lapses. It's the main reason I drink in strict moderation (along with the fact that too much grog starts depressive cycles). I try to manage my stress and suceed for the most part. Shock is a bit harder as there's no control over this - and my aunt's death a few weeks ago is one of the main reasons for this episode.

Calculating that the last time I got symptomatic, my uncle had died, things were crap at work, I was smoking and drinking too much... cleaning up my life, giving up smoking, curbing my alcohol intake to less than a glass a week, exercising more, losing weight. You get the gist. After a month, things were back to normal.

Two weeks ago I went back to the naturopath feeling like poo. The hot flushes were driving me up the wall - I was sleeping under one blanket in the middle of winter - just getting too hot at night. Other nasty things were happening too. After a salty, cheesy meal cooked by a friend, with a glass of wine, I was up with palpitations for most of the night. Stuff like that - it's horrible.

Two weeks back on the herbs - not much difference in the blood pressure but the symptoms have gone away. So it was back to the naturopath again. So now is time to go hardcore.

Part of me wants to berate my naturopath, Marta, for being a heartless hippy. Then again, I know what she says will help me. It also makes a modicum of sense what she says.

For the next month I have to follow the following regime:

• No processed sugar
• No red meat
• No salt
• Nothing processed - or if packaged, with as little sodium content as humanly possible
• No eggs
• No ham
• No cheese
• No alcohol
• No artificial sweetners
• No starchy foods - white rice and potatoes are out
• No additives if it can be avoided.

Add to this, dairy in moderation, limited fruit, keep bread to a minimum... And beans are good. Lots of beans.

I told you my naturopath was a heartless hippy.
Actually, she isn't. Really, it appears I have a hypersensitive system that needs some TLC.


It's a recommendation to keep me off of the blood pressure meds for the long term. If I can get on top of the triggers it will be better for me. And in her defence, I can still eat fish and chicken, yogurt and some low fat milk is okay and I can have my daily cup of caffiene  - just one cup, but she's aware that I need a vice - and coffee is my vice.

But no ice cream! My one staple comfort vice has been taken away from me. I did manage to con one macaron off her a week - but generally the rule is to eliminate as much sugar, sodium and saturated fat for the next month.

I know I could take an easier route. Go to the normal route and go to the "proper" doctor, go on the meds and eat what I like. I can't do that to myself - not after the last round of meds. Besides, once you're on them, getting off them is next to impossible. I don't want to be on medication which the long term effects aren't really understood, with side effects that are revolting. Stuff it. This is the way I have to go.

On the good side, my weekly grocery basket is a lot cheaper. I went to the check out today with such goodies as quinoa, freekah, aduki beans and lentils. I can have a  tablespoon of honey a day - that's allowed. At the checkout I looked at my stash and thought that I wouldn't be out of place in a health food shop. I even bought a cauliflower. It's not my favorite vegetable - up there with zucchini as a pointless vegetable.

I still have no idea what I'm going to do with the cauliflower - there is no dripping cheese sauce to go in it - but I've made it my mystery vegetable for the week and we will see what happens.

Dinner tonight was chicken chilli con carne with quinoa - the spice mix which worked well was a blend of cumin, coriander, a spot of smoked paprika and black pepper, garlic, bay and oregano.... just no salt.

Lunch will be taken to work for the most part. I have a few dinners to go to in the next month where I'll have to either be the restaurant client from hell or just order a side salad and eat later.

It will work out. I'm adamant that it will work out. I'm doing everything right - bar the ice cream.

My biggest surprise has been how crabby I've been about having to give up ice cream. I feel deprived, upset and just plain shitty about this. I know I crave it. I know it's easily available. It's my drug of choice.

It also appears that it may be a drug that I've overdosed on and it's slowly wrecking my internal health.

Wish me luck - and be pleased you don't have to follow me into the bathroom.

So along with all the dietary changes, I have to come to terms with the fact I'm an addict - a sugar addict.

Let's hope the come down isn't too bad...

Masquerade

If you want to push every button in my body, ask me to a black tie affair, tell me to bring a plus one and wear a mask. Oh, and to add insult to injury, make it an affair to which you're ordered. Thought not mandatory, it's been made clear that you're to at least show your face at this shindig, in a matter of speaking. How are you supposed to show your face when you're wearing a mask?

It is a masquerade party after all. My consultancy's annual black tie affair. These are the people who pay me. It's been made clear that you're expected to turn up.

Well, I've had every button pushed well and truly - but instead of putting in my excuses, crying off with the ebola virus or telling all and sundry I'm on a six p.m. flight to Adelaide, I put in an acceptance to the RSVP and with bated breath, I'm turning up to this affair tomorrow night, alone, but I'm going.

Jonella had a bit to do with my accepting the invitation. Jonella's been with the consultancy for a  few years. She's been telling me of how good these events are. I'm not so sure. It's a corporate do. It's a corporate do in a swanky hotel. It's a corporate event in a swanky hotel to which I have to drive to and at which I cannot drink alcohol. Phah! Adding to my discomfort, then only person I know on more than a hello in the lift basis is Jonella.

Oh well, I get to have a look around the ballroom at the Windsor Hotel, one of the loveliest old style hotel's in Melbourne - it's something I've wanted to do for a long time.

In the past, getting an invite to an affair with a "and partner" attached has left me in a flurry of tears and in a quandry. I've never had a plus one and these invites have made me feel "defective" in the past. The only event I can remember taking a plus one to was Lachlan's wedding many years ago - and I took this mate who I'm sure is now living in Barcelona under the name of Narelle. Hmmm. Thank goodness I've got over this one well and truly. I'm fine going alone.

Saying this, I was telling Pinochet about this event tonight as he held me captive on the leg press machine with 100 kgs bearing down on my glutes. I told him that I wasn't overly wrapped about going to this shindig - to which he said "Pick me! Pick me!" Hmm. I told him that it was a black tie. "I have a black tie! It goes well with my yellow suit." Hmm. Maybe next time, sweetie. And though I must admit to adoring my personal trainer, I'm not sure I want to take him to my consultancy's black tie affair. A friend's barbeque maybe, but not to this excuse for a drunken networking night with people I don't know.

I have the dress. I'll wear the black one that I wore to the 12 wbt party a few months ago. That's elegant enough without being too over the top. I have the shoes. I have the make up. All I needed to go to this was the mask.

And this too caused a bit of a dilemma. Masking up. Eww. The first instinct for me was to go to the Spellbox, my witch shit shop, where I get all of my tarot cards and other assorted "witchy" stuff that I use in my healing work. They have these fabulous leather masks that have always taken a fancy to. Leather ritual masks, not gimp masks, half-faced, slighty sprightly, slightly demonic, delicately detailed - used for working some rather interesting rituals. I spotted a really fetching blue one - but at $150 - there is no way I could afford it - my dress cost that ten years ago! Jonella also mentioned that such a mask would probably make a few waves. Probably a good thing it was out of my price range.

So I found one one on ebay - a fairly simple black one with a few sequins for good measure - elegant, simple and most importantly, cheap. Even with postage, it was the right price at less than ten percent of the Spellbox one. I bought this online a week ago. It was still to turn up at my post office box this afternoon.

So it was a quick trip to Bernard's Joke Shop at lunchtime for a contingency plan mask. Something to cover my face while I stand there wishing I could be downing champagne by the bucket load whilst trying to be pleasant and interesting to people I don't know. Saturday morning's boxing class will be enough of a deterent for the drinking - you can't box with a hangover. Besides, I'm seeing the naturopath at 2 pm the next day - she'll have my guts for garters if she hears I've been drinking. There were a few options but I settled on the one that was the most comfortable, with a comfortable material backing and a nose pad. It shouldn't make any waves.

What do you reckon?

Nothing controversial about my mask in the slightest.

I just like pusscats....

Snippets from a Busy Week

Not having time to put a proper blog entry together I'm going to give you some snippets of what is going on at the moment. It might read a bit like meme, but it's all that I can write for the moment. Finding more than half an hour to sit and write at the moment is proving hard. Making matters worse, I'm writing all day at work. I find that when I'm stuck writing all day, it's the last thing I want to do when I get home.

But I can blurt out stuff between documents - so here goes.


1. Proudest acheivement of the week.

I went to Pump with Emm at the Collins Street franchise of the gym last night. This is my back-up gym, the one I go to when I have to go to the gym but have something on after. To walk a few doors down from work, throw on my gym clothes and get home for seven is a good thing. Last night, we queued up, got our weights and participated in a great class. A new instructor for me - he had the voice of a 1970's radio DJ - with great form. Not too annoying. Emm and I have a slight competetive streak. Emm has heavier squat and back weights to me (by 2 kgs) - I'm a bit stronger on the lunge and shoulder tracks. I noticed the gym was far cooler than my normal one - so breaking a sweat was getting hard. I also noticed the instructor looking over our way regularly. It was a great class. 400 calories burned an hour later. Emm and I got a high five off the instructor. "You guys ROCK! You pump some serious weights. There are a lot of blokes you put to shame out there." Emm and I blushed.'Yeah, we're hard core - and stupidly competetive." We grinned at each other. We are stupidly competetive - in a very friendly way. The recognition felt really good.

2. Nuff Nuff moment of the week

Coming out of the gym after pump class, Emm and I clammer on the tram to go home. I hunt around for my house keys. No house keys to be found. Went though my bags and all the pockets. No house keys. ARGH. Called the gym - that was an ordeal in itself - stupid-centralised-bloody-computerised-switchboards. After five minutes, talked to the gym receptionist. No, no keys had been handed in - and she couldn't look in the locker rooms as she was the only one on the desk - but she took my details. I had my suspicions that my keys were either on my desk or in the lock of my locker at work (joys of hot desking - I keep my locker key with my house keys so I don't forget it)

Next, make a call to Glen Waverley, who lives a few streets away and is possession of my spare keys. He and Merijn were about to sit down to dinner. I said I'd be there in 20 minutes. Felt like a right idiot, in my gym gear, hobbit shoes flapping, tail firmly between my legs. The only good thing was that Merijn was looking just as fetching in her dressing gown as she greeted me at the door - both of us fashion plates. I'm really thankful that my contingency plan worked out. Glen Waverley drove me home with my spares. Without them, I'd have had to have stayed on Emm's new couch for the night. It's nice to know that this support network is in place.

My real house keys were found in the lock of my locker this morning when I got to work. Where I suspected they would be.

Still feel like a right nuffer.

3. Result of the Week

After a few weeks of having my blood pressure through the roof it appears to be coming down a little. The symptoms are subsiding and I'm feeling a lot more normal. This is thanks to the naturopath - and a clean up of my diet which had strayed from the course a little - and enough fish oil to make me feel like a salmon fillet. Sugar and salt (read sodium) have to be kept to a true minimum, milk is being imbibed in strict moderation. Cheese is banned. Back on 1400 calories a day with a slight gentling of my exercise regime. It all appears to be working in my favour. It's still a bit high, but not scary high. The energy is returning to it's normal levels. I have to say thanks to my naturopath - the thought of going onto blood pressure pills is as enamouring as having my armpit hairs plucked from my body with a set of pliers. Thankfully, the natural remedies are working well. Long may it remain.

Oh, and addition to this - as of this week, I've been six month clean of junk food. By junk food I mean McDonalds, KFC and that awful greasy take away stuff. I've had none of it for six months. One McDonalds coffee doesn't count. Subway doesn't count either as I only have the healthy choices there. Quite proud of myself. I also know that I can never have this stuff again. It does me no favours at all.

4. Discovery of the Week

Going out to dinner with the girls from my online weight loss support group on Saturday night, it was an everybody brings a dish affair. It was a lovely, healthy, varied meal. For dessert, one of the girls brought along this liqueur. Called Moonshine Madness, its brewed up in the Gold Coast Hinterland. This stuff, something like a mix of heavenly ambrosia and the devil's own private brew, is the perfect foil for quality vanilla ice cream. I swear, I could happily have drank the bottle, if I wasn't driving, and I didn't have to share it with the 14 others at dinner. The nip I had left me wanting more, and more, and more. A devilish mix of fortified wine, coffee and chocolate. At something like 26 percent alcohol, the one nip I had did me well in its grasp. Oh, my, oh my - I keep going back to that memory. Thinking of ordering a case. Then I rememeber that the naturopath has sworn me off alcohol as well as ice cream... dammit.

5. Outing of the Week

Another "dammit" moment - I got outed. .

Leaving work the other night, big boss asks me what I'm up to from across the desk. "Gym and client", I reply. "Client?" he asks. "Aha. Client." I respond.  Oops. Should have left it at "gym".

I'm not sure if I should add that I have a small soft spot for big boss. He's a bit enigmatic. I'm not normally one for suits, but there's a boyish, hyper-intelligent charm to this one .A bit too private school for my normal tastes, but he's proving to be a nice, intelligent, sometimes funny person to be around, as big bosses go.

I explained that I was a professional tarot reader, among other things. This was said with an immense blush. 'Really, what other services do you provide?" he questioned. "Oh, this and that." was my response. "No, really, what else do you do?" he pressed on.

"Reflexology, reiki, reference point therapy, aromatherapy, massage and website copy." I responded quickly, still blushing - aware that my "hobby jobs" probably made me sound like an alien to this corporate, career banker.

"A woman of many talents, eh."
"A woman with too much time on her hands and a real dislike of being bored."
"And you fit this in after the gym." he shakes his head.
"Yeah. It's called my life."
"When do you relax?"

"Between midnight and seven when I sleep - and Sunday nights." This is a bit of an overstatement, but there are times when it's true.

I felt very exposed. And a little bemused. Why would this ultra-corporate be interested in me - a lowly word nerd?

6. Tragedy of the week

It was announced in the paper today that Reader's Feast bookstore - an icon of the inner city, a place of peace among the heathens, an intelligent, rational haven of truth, beauty and wisdom - will be closing later in the year. This is an absolute travesty. This book store is run with dignity and honour. It's been an intelligent haven for many seeking a place away from the brash commercialism of Borders of the world. Run by the enigmatic Mary Dalmau, it will be sorely missed.

Mary is an institution among the book sellers of the world. It was noted in the paper that Mary championed the works of a Spanish writer, Carlos Zafon Ruiz - he who wrote "Shadows of the Wind. " (do read it - it's fabulous. Sure enough, a few years late, in the novelist's next book, there is a person working in a bookshop called Dalmau. Mary runs her bookshop with an iron fist. Is she wasn't running a book shop she'd be a school librarian. She's somebody I greatly admire for her taste, her dignity and her persistance.

I will miss Reader's Feast even more, as this is the bookshop that employs me every year to do its stock take. It is also the bookstore that runs the festivals at which I volunteer. All good things must come to an end. I'm really bummed about this. I love it there.

7. Travesty of the week

Last weekend on our local tourism show, "Postcards", they featured my favourite macaron shop. Please note, it is 'macaron', a delight of almond meal, sugar and wonderful, delicate flavours and not "macaroon", that slab of dried pastry topped with jam and coconut that took a litre of milk to wash down which your nanna used to feed you. What used to be a twice weekly treat stop on the way to my post office box has become and ordeal. There's always a queue there now. I love La Belle Miette, but I don't like the queueing. I loved going in, having a chat with Cyril in French and ordering my Vanilla and Olive Oil macaron. Now the shop is filled with Japanese tourists and plebs who ask for a dozen "Macaroons". I want to scream at them "IT'S MAC-AR-ON! You dimwit - now piss off back to the suburbs."

Okay, it offends my delicate Myponga-bred sensibilities - how dare they let plebs in La Belle Miette. I have a feeling Caty and Cyril may just think the same way. (For those interested, check out their website www.labellemiette.com.au ) Okay, I'm just getting old and grumpy. And I'm a snob. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea sempre culpa. You can hear the beating of my breast.

8. Purchase of the Week

I'm not one for impulse buys at the moment as I'm saving for a car and a flat and funds in case the work dries up. However, I'm trying to also make sensible choices when it comes to replacing things. Last weekend, on sale at my local shopping centre were quilts. I call a quilt a duvet. Most people in Australia call it a doona. Regardless of nomenclature, I bought a new one - almost half price - a nice, new, warm, pure wool stuffed thing that will go in a cover and keep me warm at night.

I'm a bedding snob normally. I love my bed. I love my high-thread-count sheets - but my duvet.... Well, it's a duvet. I always thought that this one would be retired when I finally got married and got to banish my current bed to the spare room and a new bed could be bought and enjoyed - with new bedding to match. Unfortunately, this has not happened yet, though we wait with baited breath.

So what, you say. Well, it's a bit of an end of an era. I've had my last duvet for nearly twenty years. The one I was sleeping under at the moment was bought down the Edgeware Road Markets in London in 1993. I remember buying this as it was the time I'd just split with my boyfriend Seb and was about to move into a share house the other side of Willesden Green. I bought my duvet for ten quid. Over the last nearly twenty years it's seen me though umpteen share houses, a number of very cold winters, quite a few dodgy paramours, the odd longer term boyfriend, a surgery or two, numerous bouts of bronchitis and flu and has played host to a few visiting cats and dogs who have come to sleep behind my knees over the years. It's always been used with a cover, aired out and stored during summer as it's just too heavy to use during a Melbourne heatwave. I've also worked out that in the nearly twenty years I've had it, it's never been washed.... like eww.

Part of me thinks ridding myself of this piece of bedding may lift some bad juju. Well, we live in hope.

9. Peaceful moment of the week

Was around at Blarney's for my normal Sunday afternoon visit. Chance is still not very well, though not unwell enough to be in hospital. On walking in the door, I collect the Maow Maow and shove him on my shoulder. He stays there for his normal twenty minutes or so. It's what we do. Then I find Chance in his greyhound run - an oversized play pen. Poor little bugger looks wrecked. Blarney tells me to give him a cuddle while she gets some stuff done.

Spending some time cuddling a sick baby - who was thankfully not too whingy - was lovely. He the size of a small bar fridge. He snuggled into my chest, gave me the odd gummy smile and waited patiently for the baby panadol to work. I read him a book or two. I passed his sippy cup full of water to him. I fed him some sandwich and berries, all from the warmth of my lap.

Despite the fact that poor old Chance was lurgy-filled and listless, he was a complete joy to cuddle. I have to make the most of these things - he'll be a teenager in to time - and you can't cuddle teenagers - they bite - everybody knows this.

10. Rediscovery of the week

Work has dealt me the most boring of jobs at the moment. I'm transferring and reformating documents. I have a fortnight of doing this - a thankless task that will make life better in the future. But I know that without music it will do my head in. I've got my iPod with me to help make the time go quicker - and I'm finding some gems. When I don't have my iPod, I beg some music off another member of the team - with various results. I wanted to tip one of the BA's iPods down the loo. My bosses iPhone had some great stuff on it. Danger Dood and I did a swap - he asked to borrow my catelogue of music - poor, misguided lamb. Appears my somewhat eclectic taste is not seen as bad here. I've converted another one to the Pixies's brilliance.

Today's rediscovery is the magic of Portishead. No, not the town in Somerset, the 90's band. Superb, edgy, experimental, sublime. Beth Gibbons' smooth lyrics with a bass and techno edge thrown in for good measure. Glory Box is still one of my favorite tunes ever. The whole album reminds me of another, far more edgy, far more innocent time. A time of jaded streets, of dodgy evenings in dimly lit bars, with a pint in one hand and a cigarette in the other. It reminds me of Cool Water for Men, a hand playing with a tendril of my hair and late nights home on the Jubilee Line. It is the music of illicit nights making love on the roof terrace looking over the chimney pots of North London.

Okay, you didn't need to know the last bit.

Needless to say, it's a special album from a very different time in my life.

Much Excitement about Feets

I really love feets. I love feets, not in a kinky way, but I love feets all the same. Feets are wonderful. Feets support us. Feets are our connection to the earth. Feets are just lovely. Feets, like beer, are my friend. I particularly love clean feets that don't smell that much that aren't all crusty. Soft feets are the best.

Why?

Because I am a reflexologist in my spare time. I get to play with lots of feets. If you don't love feet, you'll never make a good reflexologist. Reflexologists tend to call them feets - rather than feet. One feet, two feets. None of this popular, one foot, two feet. It's feets - it makes them sound a lot more fun than they really are.

Reflexologists have a language of their own. We do feet swaps (Where one reflexologist treats another and then vice versa - also known as a contra), we talk about meridians and crunchies and hot spots and cracklings and caterpillars. Not that we can talk to the outside world like that. If we did, we'd be locked up.

Also, reflexology isn't something that's widely practiced in Australia. In Europe, it has a wide and well known following. In Asia it is commonplace. In Australia, tell somebody you're a reflexologist and they run a mile thinking you're going to poke something up their rectal cavity with a sharp stick.

Reflexology is my preferred modality. When I practice, I tend to mix it in with a bit of reiki and reference point therapy for good measure - and with very good results. I've been working on friends for years with this combined method with some wonderful results. Reflexology is guaranteed to relax and rejuvenate - I've never had an unhappy client.

And after eleven years, I have found a decent reflexologist - in Melbourne! And there is much rejoicing around the place. A hell of a lot of rejoicing.

It all started at work last week, another word nerd on the project and I were talking whilst making a cup of tea. I asked Jonella what she did the evening before and it turned out she did a feet swap. My eyes lit up.

"You're a reflexologist?!"
"You know what a feet swap is?!"
"Of course - I'm a reflexologist too!"

And we jumped and danced around the kitchen like a midget on the Spinal Tap set. I said that there was much rejoicing.

It's like finding the Promised Land after forty years in the wilderness.

Jonella is my work buddy. We're quite similar in may ways - both in our early forties, word nerds, having worked all around the city and travelled over the world. We've both got eclectic tastes and have a rather pragmatic view of the world - and we're both reflexologists. Yippee!

Another thing that alternative therapists won't tell you. Most of us will only get a treatment as a contra - gaining a treatment by working on another practitioner - we're all a bit tight like that. Over the years I've searched high and low for a reflexologist to do contras with. I rather begrudgingly pay for a monthly massage off an excellent massage therapist - it keeps me sane and balanced, but reflexology - finding a reflexologist to contra with was like finding Tony Abbott's human side or Julia Gillard's charm - next to impossible. I've never payed for feets treatments. I don't know of a sane reflexologist who would. When I left London, I left all my foot friends behind - and it's a bit hard to travel so far for a foot session.

I've contra'd out my reflexology skills for all sorts of things over the years - dinner, having my tax done, reiki sessions, having the odd piece of clothing taken in, you know - the odd jobs that people do on the side. My favorite contra buddy is my personal trainer - I swap massages and feet sessions for personal training on a regular basis. The barter system is alive and well.

Anyway, Jonella and I made an appointment for last night for the contra.

We found out that we work very differently - but this is not a bad thing. Jonella's a by-the-book reflexologist with an excellent way about her. Me - I work with energetics - picking up all sorts of things about her, much to Jonella's amazement. "How do you know that?" she'd yelp?

"Inverted little toenail....pouching on the arch....crunchy bit here..... hot spot there." After fifteen years of practice I've seen a lot of feet - and I'm very intuitive. I can normally tell what your bowel motions and menstrual cycle are doing. I know if you have your wisdom teeth, tonsils and appendix. I know about old broken bone, propensitiy for chest and bladder infections. I know when you need an eye test or if you had grommits in your ears as a kid. There is no hiding. All of this can be a bit confronting if you've never experienced this - but I mean no harm - and the information goes no further than the treatment room.

After the treatment, we swapped. I got my feets done. Pandora was in BLISS!

We related war stories. When I learned reflexology, I was taught by a mad Liverpudlian in London. The first test we had was to kiss our client's big toe. You have to remember that you ask your client to wash their feet before you start, after which you go over them with antibacterial wipes. They're just a bit of skin. Jonella blanched at this - then I asked her to think about all the places her mouth had been. She blushed, then agreed that there was a good point to that. My Liverpudlian teacher's thought behind this was if you couldn't kiss, or indeed bite a big toe of a clean foot, you had no business being a reflexologist.

And when you think about it - washed and wiped, what is the difference between kissing a foot or kissing a mouth?
 
After the treatment, both of us were all smooshie - reflexologist term for very relaxed.
 
I slept like a baby last night - almost a perfect night sleep. This morning I woke with a slight headache - common after a treatment - it normally means that there's a bit of a healing crisis going on. Speaking to Jonella later in the day she said the same thing - great sleep, a little whooshy (another reflexology term)
 
Most of all, we're both greatful we've found a very rare commodity in Melbourne.
 
Another Feets person.
 
There will be more rejoicing same time, next month.
 

Life Lessons

I've been dealt a few life lessons of late, hence being quiet on the blogging. This is not a bad thing - life is fine, but I've found I've needed a bit if time out of late to ponder these rather major lessons. I've also been racing around like a blue bottomed fly for the last two weeks - it's made making time for writing really difficult.

So, what have a I learned in the last ten days?

Children's Hospitals are modelled on the eighth level of hell. Dante tells of the place where the fraudulent go, a placed that can only be reached by a winged creature down a steep ravine. The Royal Children's Hospital at 10.30 pm feels like such a place. One of Blarney's boys was in again with a bad chest cold - the only place for a little tacker who can't breathe that well. I got a call from Blarney after Masons on Monday, telling me that she was with Chance at the RCH. She also told me that she'd gone there straight from work and was a bit glum. Being a good friend, I raced home to collect some supplies for her - a toothbrush, toothpaste, some moisturiser, leggings and t-shirt, some dry shampoo and a pair of orange underpants. These along with a few stray magazines were taken to the hospital, where Blarney would wait for me at the McDonald's downstairs.

I can't be the only person who finds it strange that there is a McDonalds in the ground floor hospital of the Children's Hospital.

Regardless, arriving at 10.30 p.m., the main doors are all locked - the only way in is through the Emergency Department, which is badly sign posted and hard to get to being off the main road, down a ramp, around the corner and two storeys down in the hospital basement. It truly felt like I was descending into some Dante-esque oblivion. At least the gate keeper, a nice male nurse, gave me clear directions when I finally got there. The waiting room of the mmergency department was a flurry of sobs and shusshes - frazzled parents and even more frazzled children. Awful place.

Ten minutes later I find her, cup of tea drained, looking a bit ragged. We go up to the ward to see Chance. He's in the same ward as last time. He's in with the same thing as last time. Nothing life threatening, but in need of a bit of help to get him through. He's snoring like a steam train. That's a good sign.

"Never going to keep a girlfriend snoring like that, Little Mate." I tell him quietly, careful not to wake him. He looks like a normal little boy (or man for that matter - ever noticed that men look like little boys when they sleep?) just with a nasal canula taped to his face and a monitor strapped to his foot are the only anomilies.

Blarney looks around. "I could cope with this place if it wasn't for the bogans. The kid in the next bed has been having regular heart attacks. She's two. The other kid's mother is a drug addict. During the day the social worker is here. Both of them get fed McDonald's food. They're two."

"You realise how lucky you are, don't you."

She nods. Blarney is lucky. Her boys are ostensibly healthy - just being born early their lungs take a walloping when they get a cold. Nothing a day or so in hospital won't fix and they should grow out of it soon. Blarney also knows that her boys are going to have every opportunity to grow and live and enjoy a happy, healthy life. Not every child is that lucky.

I pass over the care package, showing her the items I'd brought for her.

"Orange underpants?" She questions. We're of a similar size. And yes, they're freshly laundered.

"Yep. How can you not have fun wearing orange underpants?"

I think her smile was the first genuine one I'd seen since I'd seen her two nights before when I was dropping the cat back.

I left the hospital twenty minutes later, absolutely drained. It's not a fun place. It's a place that reeks of illness and death and shattered dreams. I also know that it's a place where miracles happen as well to negate some of this bad stuff - but all I feel is the loss and sadness when I go there. I'm just thankful that Chance is now back to normal and that the time they spend there is minimal.

Life Lesson One: A small amount of gentle humour can go a very long way in most circumstances.

Life Lesson Two: Blessings can be found in the most awful of places. You have to look for them. Or look at what is going on around you to work out how blessed you are.

The next lessons have been found at work.

Bastard Bank has extended my contract for another three months. I can't complain about this. The consultancy will be happy. I'm fine where I am. The natives are friendly and the work is good when you can get through the bureacracy.

Yet I have been wondering about this work thing and the role the consultancy plays. I found myself at lunch in a boardroom full of men midweek. Standard catered sandwiches and party fare, cans of soft drink and a fruit platter. Anybody in corporate Australia knows this as the standard catered lunch.

I'm wearing a suit. My handshake meets that of the managing director and the rest of the board as confidently as the rest of the men in the room. I can hold my own. I'm a professional.

Yet I wonder, who is this woman? Why are they talking to me like an adult? Like somebody who knows what they are doing... I still don't get how people see me as this corporate flunky, but it appears it's the persona I take on at work. Hard working, professional, competent.

I had a similar reaction from another colleague later that afternoon. She was asking for my opinion on something. This is something I'm only just getting used to. I'm used to doing a good job and keeping under the radar. It seems I'm sticking out a bit more, for good reasons, of late. Another conversation with yet another friend had me meeting a similar comparison. I told her about the consultancy I was with to which she said ,"Oh, they only take on the best. I've been in the business for ten years - you only get top flight people from there." I was gobsmacked.

Life Lesson Three: How we perceive ourselves is not always how the world sees us.

This weekend has been lovely and quiet. Lots of exercise and a bit of cleaning thrown in for good measure. A trip the the naturopath has me back on herbs for blood pressure - herbs which taste a bit like a mix of dirt and compost. The mix might taste like crap, but it is good for me. Anything to keep me off the poisons the regular doctor will try and feed me. She's also made me swear off sugar, artificial sweetener and to give a wheat free diet a try to see if that makes any difference. My naturopath is a killjoy. She's also a realist. I've been told to give it a go and see if it helps bring my blood pressure down and my flagging energy levels up. If things don't get better quickly then I'll be encouraged to go back to the quack.

Speaking of pills, I've also been feeding another friend's cats this weekend - one lovely, but rather decrepit Burman and the fattest orange tomcat you'll ever meet. The Burman needs a pill twice a day. My friend gave me instructions the other night on how to use the cat pill giverer contraption - an item that looked like a large syringe. After two feeds I've worked out that shoving the pill down his throat with my finger was far easier, kinder and less problematic.

The cat is a junkie. He knows what's good for him, pill syringe or finger, it gets the job done.

Life lesson four: Medicine, in what ever form it comes in, may be revolting, but it is there to help. However it is administered. You have to trust the process.

The last lessons were learned at beer club. I popped in for the evening, catching up with a few old friends. Which is always good. I skulked home a few hours later, two beers down me.

I like beer. Beer keeps me honest. It makes me look at my life honestly - a bit too honestly at times.

Life lesson five: Beer is my friend.

Another friend was at beer club. One who I rarely see or speak to any more. We were once close but time and circumstances have deemed we have limited contact now. It's for the best. We're not the same people any more. It's not that we aren't friends any more, we just don't spend time together. It's not worth pushing it. Too much has happened. Glen Waverley brought it up at lunch the other day. I told him to leave it. Not worth pursuing. I can't go back there. There was too much pain associated with him. This loose friendship is all I can hope for and all I want. I'm better on the path I'm on now.

I can look at him now and no longer feel any remorse.

Life lesson six. Letting go is often the kindest thing to do when it comes to friendship. It's also the most humane for all concerned.

It's been a big week.

Stuff I Think About in Meetings

Meetings are the pimple on the boil on the butt of my life. Of my least favorite things, meetings are up there with John Howard, green beans, people who are nasty to children and animals,lasagne and bananas.

Working at Bastard Bank, I get to be in my fair share of meetings. I should be pleased I'm not a project manager or some sort of executive who appeart to live their lives in meetings. Being a plebby word nerd, I tend to lose around an hour a day to them on average. Some days I will be in meetings half the day. Other days there will be just one or two of the buggers to waste my time.

Meetings at which I'm an active participant I'm fine with too. These are normally the ones that I call, where I'll sit down with a programmer or some other road blocker for half an hour and hash things out. These are practical meetings. Meetings which take up half an hour or less - these are the good ones. They tend to get things done.

The meetings I really object to are the ones where you are invited to as fodder. "Oh, I thought you'd be interested..." is what comes from the convenor when you ask about your attendance because they need to make up numbers. There are also the meetings that Ah-sole convenes. I go running to my Project Manager to ask if I can skive off - normally to be told that somebody needs to keep and eye on him.Or the meeting at which your attendance is mandatory. This includes the extended weekly group meeting where one of the team will present a document and you, along with the rest of the team have to sit there whilst the upper echelons of the project discuss the matter at hand. There are hours of my life I will never get back. I really don't need to know about the stupidity and bitch fights of the executive committee - but I've been privy to all of this information.

However, this time in these fodder meetings - this is when some of my best thinking gets done. I deliberately leave my iPhone in my handbag back at my desk because playing Angry Birds whilst the boss is talking is bad form. I have my notebook and a pen. Good for jotting things down. But as a rule, while we're having these boredom sessions. And I get to thing.

I put on my best serious face and turn inward for a good thing. Fodder meetings are the lavatory of the workplace. You best thinking gets done when you're supposed to be concentrating on something else.

So, what do I think about when I'm in meetings.

Shopping lists.

The great thing about the note pad is that you can make cryptic notes about what you need at the supermarket that evening. If you're clever, it can even look like your taking notes. Some grilled eggplant here, a little feta cheese there, a notation that the test plan for the next release will be due out in a fortnight, milk, loo paper, tampons and the fact that Biggus Wiggus is now running the Under Architecture group.

It's great. You get back to your desk, rip the page out of your notebook and hope that you don't have to go find a Business Analyst with documenation skills at Coles later on.

Counting things.

Like the dentist's office where you count ceiling tiles and blackheads on your dentist's nose, dull meetings give you a chance to count stuff. How many facial tics will Eurotrash Intellectual succumb to in five minutes? How many top buttons does Ah-sole have undone? How many times does Hot Scouser check his phone in the meeting (Normally around 25 times) How many stains are on the Test Lead's cuff. How many earrings does Maggie have in her left ear. (I got to Eleven last count)

I haven't said much about Maggie yet. Maggie is an enigma. Probably around my age, she really knows her stuff. Like Margaret Thatcher, she is queen of the 1000 mile stare, has a voice with no discernable modulations and she never draws breath. She's a nice person, but she scares the hell out of me. She also has eleven earrings in her left ear.

Sex

Meetings are a great place to fantasise. I can't be the only one who daydreams about Hot Scouser in meetings. Or take myself off to another place normally involving Clive Owen, an oversized bathtub and a jar of nutella. Surely I can't be the only one who uses time in a semi-darkened room to do some inner happy time. Hands, of course, stay on the desk, normally writing the odd word from conversations, normally with a smile lurking at the corner of my mouth.

Plan my evenings

Monday - Masons, Tuesday, Gym, Wednesday Dream group.... meetings provide a perfect time to work out logistics - along with what you're having for dinner, what you might have to do in between work and what ever your doing, planning training and the like. It's a bit of time back for you.

Sex

With the screen showing some banal pie chart or table, the mind can go to far more interesting places. With your serious, "I'm interested" face on, your mind wanders to better places . As you feel the caress a large, soft, gentle hand across your cheek, the darkened room hides your blushes. You can concentrate hard on your note pad as that hand travels southward to your... oh you get the picture....

Where I want to Travel to Next

Ah, where will my perfect holiday be, away from this dull meeting room and this dreadful presentation that I really don't give a flying f*ck about. Oh, meetings let me plan holidays. Of course there is the New York Marathon next year, and maybe Bali at Xmas. Oh and if I win the lottery, I'd love to go to the Maldives and back to the UK to have a good look at Wales and the south... And then there are all the places in Australia I'd love to go...

But most of all, when I'm in boring meetings, I think about sex.

Oh, the other thing I think about when I'm in boring meetings - am I the only one in the room thinking about sex?

Will have to file this one under "just a bit wrong."

Random Lyric Long Weekend - Part Deux

Another long weekend. Another blitz on Facebook of random lyrics. This is my silly little facebook foible that I do on a long weekend. The last one in March was really successful, so I decided to do it again.Gives me something more to think about than work and shoving stuff on ebay.

As before, I got some great comments on my page - however, it appears most of my musical prowess is firmly entrenched in the eighties and nineties. I'm getting old.

Here was this long weekend's selection - with full links to the songs on YouTube.

Friday Evening. 10.43 pm

"Shall we have each other for tea, shall we have each other with cream.."



The Love Cats - The Cure

A bit of a testement to the fact that I have the Maow Maow for what was the weekend, but now it appears he's staying until Friday as Blarney and Barney are stuck in Tasmania due to the ash cloud. I saw The Cure in concert a few year ago. Robert Smith has been in a good paddock. They're still good and this song has good memories of the mid-eighties. Oh, and Robert Smith still has the "Flock of Seagulls" haircut.

Saturday, 9.20 am

"Whaddaya think you doo, eh, why you looking so sad, itsa not so bad...."

Joe Dolce - Shuddapa ya Face

Had to be done. Just had to be done. I haven't heard this for years. I do know that one of the best songs of the eighties was pipped by number one on the charts because of this wonderful ditty that most people over thirty in Australia can sing word for word. Midge Ure of Ultravox has never lived this down. (Vienna - what a song!) Have a look at the clip - Molly Meldrum makes a great Italian waiter on the accordian - just wish he'd paint is bloody front fence down the road.

Saturday, 2.09 pm

"Chopping wood won't stop the rage, We need targets on war we wage..."

Morcheeba, Part of the Process

Seriously, this is one of my favorite songs ever produced. Seriously naff clip for a seriously wonderful song. Rather pertinant at the moment with all the crap that's flying around at the moment. The lead singer has a fantastic voice. Really underated band.

Saturday, 8.13 pm

...systematically stepping on my head...

Crowded House, Sister Madly

This one's for my friend Bernadette, Crowded House's Number One fan. This got stuck in my head after hearing it in a shopping centre - but I really do like the band. The clip is a rather bittersweet though as the drummer, Paul Hester, took his own life in a bayside park a few years ago. Still, they're as tight as and thankfully this clip expound what this song is all about.

Sunday, 1.15 pm

"Inflamation of the foreskin, reminds me of your smile..."

Monty Python, The Medical Love Song

Ah bless. More of my badly spent youth. Love it, love it, love it! I sing this to myself to cheer myself up. Yes, it's filthy and peurile and dreadful - and it reminds me that Graham Chapman, the doctor of the group (Brian from the Life of Brian) died too, too young. But it still makes me laugh.

While going through you tube, I also found this little lovely from the Flying Circus - which had me chuckling for hours. Only the British can get away with this. So un-PC it's probably playing daily on New Zealand television.

Sunday, 7.41 pm

"Someday I'll have a disappearing hair line, and some day I'll wear pyjamas in the daytime, ooohhh, the afternoons, will be measured out, measured with coffee spoons."


Crash Test Dummies - Afternoons and Coffeespoons

More of my youth, this time from London and a wonderful share house I lived in at West Hampstead. This song is also a paraphrasing of my favorite poem, TS Eliot's "The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock". Daft thing is that I know everybody who know's this song - and indeed, this album, does a really bad imitation of the lead singer. Intelligent music, just wish he didn't have that  drunk footy player at a wedding voice on him.

Sunday, 10.09 pm

"I hope the smoking man's in this one.."

Barenaked Ladies - One Week

Another feel good song that for years I never knew the name of the band or the song. Most people know the lyrics know the "Chickety China the Chinese Chicken..." bit , but I like the bit about the Smoking Man. Always like the Smoking Man in that show. (Another song with the X Files reference is in the Bloodhound Gang's Bad Touch - where it goes something about doing it doggy style so we can watch X-Files) Sorta dates me, I know.

Monday, 9.22 am

"Some day somebody else besides me will call me by my stage name..."

They Might be Giants, Dr Worm

This one is for Glen Waverley. He HATES this song - mainly because I used to sing it to him when he was looking stressed. Thing is, I can't really sing that well and it sounds even more ridiculous. Other silly thing, I know many, many people, who like me, love this song - another cheer up song.

Monday, 6.43 pm

"I don't believe in an interventionist God, but darling, I know you do."

Nick Cave, Into my Arms

I was late in finding Nick Cave. He, like Ben Lee, are some of the best that Australia has produced in the music scene. I really do need to investigate his music more. Like Ben Lee, I love everything I hear of his. Like Leonard Cohen, most of it is music to slit your wrists by, but I still like it. Dark, moody, intelligent - what more do you need?

Monday, 10.40 om

"I said "I want to be a singer like Lou Reed."

The Pixies, I've Been Tired

It wouldn't be a Random Lyric Long Weekend  without a song by the Pixies. The perfect way to finish off a Random Lyric Long weekend.

The only bastard - the next Long weekend we're due isn't until Christmas! Argh.