Distractions galore!

Worlds Greatest Shave 2012

by frogpondsrock on March 24, 2012

in cancer,Distractions galore!,Fun,good causes,Hope,potential insanity,real life

Today is the day my lovelies.

I am not nervous today at all which is a blessed relief. On Tuesday I was extremely nervous and  every time I thought about The Shave my chest would tighten and I would have to concentrate on my breathing until the moment of minor panic had passed.

With the ever useless gift of hindsight I can now see that it was the scheduled trip to hospital on Wednesday that was making me the most nervous, not the impending shave. Though I am having a little hyperventilate now *gulp*

Tonight at approximately 7.30 (ish) I will be shaving all my hair off.

I wont be shaving my hair off in a quiet corner of a locked bathroom somewhere, oh no that would be far too easy.

I will be shaving my hair off in the middle of a roller derby match.

How did I get here? How did I go from thinking, “Jeez I am sick to death of my fucking hair”, to “Let’s shave it all off in an arena  chocka blok full of strangers?”

I blame you.

I lay the blame squarely at your feet, internet.

It is all your fault.

You make me feel like I am ten feet tall and bullet proof.

You make me believe that I can do anything, that my harebrained schemes aren’t that harebrained after all.

Every single one of you that reads this blog, or leaves a comment, or sends me an encouraging email.

This is all your fault.

And I thank you from the very bottom of my heart.

Together we have raised over THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS and my total meter thermometer thingy, on my fundraising page is flashing and blinking and saying GOAL ACHIEVED with a shininess that hurts my eyes.

So any Hobartians out there reading this blog, you should come along to the DEC tonight, it promises to be a fun night and all proceeds go to the Leukaemia foundation. The doors open at 5pm (cash sales only though) and the first bout starts at 6.10 pm.

Scott Bacon MP will be wielding the clippers and I will lose my locks at about 7.40 pm.

Scott Bacon is the Minister for Tourism,Hospitality and Veterans Affairs and I will be sitting with him before the shave. It amuses me no end that I will have my very own hostage, I mean politician in the box with me tonight. So any questions you want asking of the local member for Denison you have about 5 hours notice to email them to me and I will engage the minister in polite conversation.

Veronica is coming along with me as my personal photographer and I hope to have some photos up on the blog tomorrow.

Thank you all so very, very much and hopefully I will see some of you at the DEC tonight.

 

{ 6 comments }

I am not brave, I just won’t look.

by frogpondsrock on March 20, 2012

in cancer,Distractions galore!,potential insanity

In four days time someone from the Leukaemia foundation is chopping off all my hair.

I will no longer be able to dramatically fling my plait over my shoulder for emphasis when I am being flippant.

Numerous people have told me How brave I am being, I don’t consider myself brave at all.

It is a good cause and I am losing my hair by choice, not necessity.

My hair will grow back, and in the meantime, if I am too horrified by how my lack of hair makes me look, well I just won’t look. I will look instead at the lovely long list of generous sponsors.

I will avoid mirrors and when I do see myself, I will  refuse to think  about my appearance. Scarlett O ‘ Hara was right on the money when she said, “I will think about that tomorrow.” As I find that philosophy works wonderfully well, especially when combined with rigorous avoidance of  reflective surfaces.

So today, I am determinedly not thinking about the Worlds Greatest Shave, instead I am thinking about food.

I didn’t realise how much food I had scattered about  my house. A banana in the fruit bowl, muesli on the shelf, dark chocolate in the cupboard.

Everywhere I look there is some sort of foodstuff.

And I cant eat any of it.

Today I am fasting and purging.

Tonight I will be horrendously grumpy.

Tomorrow I am scheduled for a colonoscopy.

I have been on the waiting list for this procedure since October 2009. My GP joked that if my symptoms were indicative of bowel cancer I would be dead by now.

So there is that, at least.

This week is shaping up to be a big week, all I need for the trifecta is a pedicure and I will have had something done to the top, middle and bottom of my body.

{ 15 comments }

I am lost in a novel.

by frogpondsrock on March 16, 2012

in Distractions galore!,dragons

I have dived headlong into the Game of Thrones series of books. I have nearly completed book two and I am at the stage where I am thinking about the characters as I go about my daily tasks. I even took the book up with me to the studio the other day and during the course of the day found a good rythm, whereby I made a couple of pots, read a few pages, gazed at the sky for a bit and then made a couple more pots. It was a good afternoon.

I am not quite at the stage where I am dreaming about the characters but I am sure that will happen as I immerse myself in the third book.

Life would be so empty without glorious, fat novels that transport me into another world and another time.

Thank you George R. R. Martin you are now firmly in my favourites list, right next to Robin Hobb and Pamela Freeman.

{ 12 comments }

Blue Tongue Lizard Photos

by frogpondsrock on February 21, 2012

in Distractions galore!,fauna and flora,gardening,real life

The other night we were all outside, doing outside things. The Spouse was watering the veggie garden and I was picking what was left of the plums whilst loudly bemoaning the fact that the bloody possums were destroying my plum trees. I gave Harry the dog a stern talking to about keeping up with his end of the bargain. I reminded Harry that it was HIS job to bark at the possums, not mine and that he had better lift his bloody game. Harry gave me a shamefaced woof and promised to do better, ten minutes later he made amends by showed me where a a blue tongue lizard was lurking in the wood pile.

This is only a small blue tongue, compared to the resident lizard that lives under the water tank and often scares the shit out of me by impersonating a tiger snake.

Normally blue tongues are quite shy and it isn’t often we see them out in the open like this one. He didn’t seem to be frightened of us at all and posed for a number of photos. Harry decided that the middle of the photo shoot was the time to make amends for his lacksadaisical  possum scaring performance and was keen to protect me from this vicious, vicious lizard, sigh. I am sure that in Harry’s doggy mind the blue tongue was about to leap for my throat with all the ferocity of a pythonesque rabbit. So The Spouse caught the blue tongue for me and after we had checked him over for tics, we released him into the garden near the frog ponds and he disappeared under a large rock.

The next day the blue tongue was out in the middle of the yard again and I spent some time filming him as well as taking some more photos. I don’t know how long this lizard will survive here, as he is very nonchalant about his personal safety. He spent ages out in the middle of the yard in full view of any passing predators and at one stage he decided that it would be nice to rest against my foot for a bit.

It is quite difficult taking a photo of a lizard leaning against your shoe, as I had my foot tucked under the chair and I was on an awkward angle but I think this photo is quite sweet, in a this is what my life is really like kind of way.

Here are a couple of the macros I took yesterday and from these photos you can see why it is that when the large resident lizard does his tiger snake impersonation I nearly have a little heart attack. Those few seconds between the thought, “Eek a snake” and “Oh its only you” make my heart beat rather quickly.

So there you go my lovelies I hope you enjoyed these photos of one of my favourite wild creatures that share my backyard.

{ 8 comments }

We can’t let the shouters, silence the rest of us.

by frogpondsrock on January 18, 2012

in Distractions galore!,potential insanity,real life

Melinda Tankard-Reist shouts a lot.

She shouts about porn and the exploitation of women, she presents herself as a feminist and campaigns against the sexualisation of our girls.

Playboy bunnies on eight year old girls knickers make me a bit shouty as well and I think we should all be making a lot more noise about the sexualisation of our little girls.

BUT

What Melinda Tankard Reist would prefer that we didn’t know about her is that she is a fundamentalist Christian.

A god botherer of the first order who attends a Baptist church.

I didn’t know this, because to be honest even though I follow Melinda Tankard Reist on twitter I find her hysterical screechings to be a bit exhausting and I only notice her occasionally.

Once I was made aware of Melinda Tankard Reist’s religious leanings a lot of her opinions were immediately put into context.

A context that Melinda Tankard Reist doesn’t seem to like me having.

And it also seems that Melinda Tankard Reist  would prefer that her religious preferences aren’t talked about.

Melinda Tankard Reist says,

“She tries to follow Jesus, but she doesn’t want anybody focusing on her religion because that will distract from her work.”

I tend to disagree.

I think it is of critical importance that we have a context within which to frame our responses to Melinda Tankard Reist’s anti porn and anti abortion campaigns.

I think that  Melinda Tankard Reist’s religion is very, very important to how I perceive her and her work. It doesn’t distract me from her work at all, it gives me the previously mentioned context.

 

Dr Jennifer Wilson has been persistent in her  public questioning of Melinda Tankard Reist and Dr Wilson writes that she is now being sued by Tankard Reist for declaring on her blog, “No Place for Sheep” that Tankard Reist is a Baptist and attends a Baptist church.

MTR threatens Sheep with legal action if we don’t censor our posts about her immediately

In the conversation that ensued on twitter between No place for Sheep, Weezmgk and myself, I offered my public support to Dr Wilson

This conversation in turn inspired  Machine Gun Keyboard to write this post in support of Dr Wilson

Melinda Tankard-Reist is not the internet nor sex police

So here I stand on my soapbox on my blog declaring loudly that I am Spartacus, because it is incredibly, incredibly important that WE DO NOT LET THE SHOUTERS WIN.

We the public should always, always question the motivations of high profile public campaigners,politicians or anyone else that purports to speak in our name.

I AM SPARTACUS!

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →