The Australian Government, namely Senator Stephen Conroy has given the green light for a ‘Clean Feed’ to be applied to Australian internet.

News posts here, here and here.

In laymens terms, this means that come next August, MANDATORY ISP filtering will occur on all internet.

It’s not up to the Government to say what I can and can’t look at on the internet. I am an adult and so long as my activity isn’t illegal (ch*ld porn) then the Government should have NO RIGHT to filter my internet.

It is up to me to keep my children safe on the net. Not the Government.

See NoCleanFeed for more details and if you agree with me, sign the petition.

SIGN PETITION AGAINST CLEAN FEED.

As a web publisher, this scares me senseless. Officials have admitted that the filtering, while effective against the kind of sites they are wanting to filter (a blacklist, if you will. who knows what exactly they will be deeming ‘not suitable’) there are also plenty of false positives, ie: sites blocked that shouldn’t have been.

Does that mean I could ‘accidentally’ have Frog Ponds Rock blocked? Or what about you. What happens if your website gets blocked?

I don’t agree with it. It is censorship plain and simple.

Sign the petition against it. Please.

Reproduced with permission from Sleepless Nights

Robo-Mum could be programmed to stand at the doorway of my teenager’s bedroom repeating, “Get out of bed, get out of bed now!” every five minutes from 6.45 am to 7′15.

Then Robo-Mum would casually follow the teenager to the bathroom door and start repeating,”Move away from the mirror, get into the shower” from 7.20 to 7.30. Once the water had been running for 5 minutes, Robo-Mum would start chanting,”Get out of the shower.That’s long enough and my personal favourite, Do you think water just falls from the sky?”

Still stationed at the bathroom door Robo-Mum reverts back to the, “Move away from the mirror” cry at 5 minute intervals until her tune will change to the more frantic chorus of, “Hurry up, breakfast is ready,you are going to miss the bus.”

Robo-Mum will be skilled at juggling all the normal morning demands and wont even bat a robotic eye,when informed that the teenager needs some obscure item from deep within a Brazilian rainforest cave for a science project right this minute. Robo-Mum will just magically pull the obscure item out of her arse along with unlimited amounts of ready cash.

I doubt that David would even notice that I had employed a robot to do the repetitive hurry ups, the clean your teeths and the you are going to miss the bus, phrases that I  say eleventy billion times every single fucking morning. Aaaaaaaaaaaaarggggh!! He might be a tad surprised at the money out of the robots arse trick though, because I am sure he thinks it grows on trees.

This is where you, the reader can feel free to insert whatever dramatic quote you like. I was thinking of a bit of Dylan Thomas myself. Or even a bit of Shakespeare, the bard is always handy for a descriptive word or two.

Not into poetic quotes? What about a Doors song then? ‘ The End’ seems remarkably apt.

Scratching your head yet? Wondering what on earth I am blathering on about this time?

Sorry.

Fear makes me a little more scatterbrained than usual.

Today, in approximately three hours I am having all my teeth taken out. The whole twelve of them that I have left that is. All my teeth will be unceremoniously yanked out. One by painful one. Then I will be sent home with a brand new set of shiny plastic choppers.

So what are you doing today my lovelies?

Tell me a story to cheer me up. Come out of lurkerdom and say “Hello Kimmy”

It would be very nice to come home from the dentist and be totally distracted from the pain and the dreadful lisp by your fantastic comments. It would be especially nice to see where some of my lurkers come from.

If you need me in the next two hours or so, I will be hiding under the bed.Shhhh.

I met with the real estate agents at Mum’s on Monday and about 5 minutes into the conversation the tears started to roll down my cheeks. I walked to the window and watched the rain for a moment or two whilst I regained my composure. The real estate agents shuffled their feet and mumbled that it was perfectly understandable and were visibly relieved when we got back down to business.

A price has been set. There will be an open home in two weeks. It is all happening very quickly.

Yesterday I stood in the middle of Mum’s living area and tried to see the house with unbiased eyes and I couldn’t manage it. All I could see was my mother and my mothers things. After two hours of working like a cut cat I had the house presentable enough for marketing photos to be taken.

When I came home, The Spouse had cooked dinner and as he hugged me he asked if I was okay. I told him that I was and that I had a bit of a cry.What I didn’t describe to him was how I had stood for ages, just staring at the suitcase that I had brought home from the hospital, willing myself to open it. When I finally did open it I could smell the hospital and my Mother. I buried my face into Mum’s favourite pjs and in between my sobs I tried to capture her scent.

Today, finally after weeks of grey, grey weather that has been slowly sending me a little insane, the sky is blue. Mum’s good friend Lyn rang me last night and it was a relief to be able to talk to someone other than Veronica that actually gets how much we miss Mum.

It has been ten weeks and somedays the pain is so raw it hurts to breathe.

At least I have this place, my blog, where I can just dump all the words that are in my head and walk away. Contrary to what Veronica’s evil little troll thinks, I am not writing for sympathy. I am writing for myself. I am writing  out the pain so that today I can go outside and enjoy the blue sky before I have to go back down to Mum’s and pack away more of her life into cardboard boxes.

Previously my blog had been a semi private affair, well as private as anything on the internet can be. Now it seems that every man and his dog has my blog address and I feel that some sort of explanation of how I use my blog is required.

When I first moved up here, to the block of land my Mother gave me, I struggled with the isolation. I didn’t know how to drive and I found myself  spending days alone with my toddler Veronica, whilst Jeff was off pretending that he was still a single man. We were both in our early twenties and we still had a lot of growing up to do.

I kept a diary. I wrote long  letters to friends and I found a kindred spirit in my Mother in Law, who was a passionate letter writer as well. The simple act of writing eased my loneliness and in my MIL, I found a ready ear for all my dreams and aspirations for the future. Sadly Deanna passed away when Vonnie was small and writing this has reminded me to ask Jeff’s Dad if he still has those old letters.

I also found that once I had written out my pain or anger or frustrations into my diary they didn’t trouble me any more and I was able to get on with the business of raising my family and building our home.

My blog is a lot like those early diaries. Here I can dream about the future as well as write out my anguish.

Mum understood what my blog meant and she understood how I used it to get all the words out of my head.

I am an artist and I read a quote somewhere that I have mangled but the gist of it is, “when the pain of not working is greater than the pain of working“  That is how I feel about my ceramic work. The simple act of making Boganvillainy was enough. The making of the work was the important part, the fact that I actually exhibited the work was secondary.

The work needed to be made and sometimes when the work demands to be made I end up going places that are quite unexpected.

The words are the same. I need to get them out of my head. This blog is the place where I dump all my excess words, not quite the literary equivalent of a toilet but the act is very similar, cleansing and cathartic.

At this moment in time I am grieving my Mother and my brain is still not working. I am struggling to stay afloat in a sea of tears and I do feel as though I am drowning in sorrow.

I am expecting a horde of ravenous teenagers up here tomorrow to celebrate Dave’s birthday,(which is on Tuesday, the day of Mum’s funeral *sigh*) I am deliberately not thinking about the mud that will be tracked through the house via the shed (eeek).

Dave’s original plan was to have his friends, who are all city kids come up here and camp in the bush. Tents, campfires, junkfood and a  large bonfire and ‘voila’ with the minimum of fuss, a good time is had by all .

Except that it is the middle of winter and it wont stop raining.

So now the modified plan is for the kids to all cram into Dave’s room as well as take over Jeff’s shed. Jeff is understandably less than thrilled at the prospect of his space being filled with strange teenagers.  All I can do at the moment is try not to think about it too much.

I have bought essential supplies as per the list David gave me. Coke, pizza, chippies and ice-cream, seem to have all the essential food groups covered.

Think of me tomorrow. I will be the one rocking in the corner.

Mum and I have always had a close relationship even when I was engaging in ‘destructive behaviours’ Mum was always there as an unwavering constant in my life.

It  may seem like a tired cliche but Family is really all that matters.

Now for the update.

We had gathered in Mum’s room and were waiting for the Doctor to arrive. Isaac woke up from his nap and started to scream. And scream and scream and scream and scream. So when he wouldn’t settle at all, Veronica left the room and so did half my brain *sigh*

I had been relying on my daughter to be there for this meeting as Veronica remembers every word the doctors say and she asks proper questions.

So there I was, half of me listening to my grandson screaming and the other half trying to concentrate on Doctor D.

Mum has Radiation Pneumotitis again. This is a side effect from the radiation and it affects her lungs. Mum was sick with RP at Christmas and it was fixed with steroids. This time Mum is already on steroids so there is no fix at all. She is now permanently attached to that oxygen tube. Mum can go for half an hour or thereabouts without the oxygen as long as she is sitting still. As soon as she needs to walk she needs the oxygen.

The Xray showed that the pain in Mum’s shoulder is just Arthritis (yay). But it also showed a cancer in the bone above her right elbow. This is where I am hopeless because as Doctor D was showing us the Xray of Mum’s arm I found myself looking at the line of Mum’s ribcage and thinking that that particular Xray would make a nice template for a series of jugs.I found myself thinking that I must remember to ask if I could have the Xray and then I snapped back to reality. Shit!Shit!Shit! I really annoy myself when I do that.

Doctor D wants to give Mum’s right arm a quick Zap. He also wants an orthapaedic specialist to have a look at Mum’s arm. We have a catch 22 situation here. Do nothing and Mum’s arm could snap, just like that. Zap the cancer and we could find that the cancer is the only thing holding Mum’s bone in place and Mum’s arm could snap.

The orthapaedic specialist could decide to put a pin in Mums arm to strengthen it. Apparently it is a staight forward procedure, a keyhole surgery type of thing. Hmmm we will have to see about that and ask lots of questions.  Mum doesn’t want any surgery or any invasive procedures and honestly, I don’t think that she has the reserves of energy required to heal herself as well as fight the cancer.

I don’t know how my brother, Mick is feeling because he is being very stoic and he doesn’t ask questions when the Doctor is in the room. I think that Mick and Fee are a bit shocked by Mum and my open conversations about death. But as I have said before when you have been living with a terminal illness for twelve months your perspectives do change and conversations about death become quite ordinary.

Doctor D gazed into his crystal ball and told Mum that she has weeks possibly months left. I will need to organize some portable oxygen and a wheelchair so that Mum and I can get out for day trips. Or so her friends can kidnap her as well. St John’s isn’t exactly Alcatraz, so organizing a break-out shouldn’t be too hard.

Mum is also contactable via her email or her mobile phone. So dont be afraid to ring her.

I think that is all for now. Please ask me any questions you like because I am flying blind here and I don’t know what you want to know.

Now back to the screaming Grandson, Isaac is normally a sunny, placid baby so we just assumed that he was reacting to the stress in the air. Strange room, Strange people, blahdeblahblah.

Vonnie thought that Isaac might have an ear infection so they left Amy with me and took Isaac to the after hours doctor,who took one look at his hydrocele (enlarged testicle) and immediately sent them to hospital for an ultrasound to check for a strangulating hernia. Veronica and Isaac were admitted to hospital last night as a precaution and that is as much as I know so far.

I do know that Veronica had previously taken Isaac to our GP who had told her that Isaac was too young to have anything done about his hydrocele and to not worry about it until he was a bit older.*sigh*

So that is what’s happening here. What’s happening with you?

*takes a deeep breath*

(…and it was all my own idea as well *sigh*)

Last night I received confirmation that my friend Sue and I had secured gallery space for a short exhibition in October. The gallery’s calendar of exhibitions is always booked one year in advance. They squeezed us in as a mid-week exhibition which means we will open on Monday the 12th and close on Friday the 16th.

One half of me is feeling excitement and enthusiasm and the other half thinks, “Oh shit this is madness” and just wants to run away and hide..”

So now I really need to go and have a proper play with Barbara’s Bum because I think that my slipcast work is up to exhibition standard but my thrown work certainly isn’t.

Eeeeeek!!!  This is where I pretend to be Tim Brooke-Taylor from “The Goodies” and start to yell “Don’t panic! Don’t panic” whilst pretending to be a tea-pot.

To be continued….

It is never a pleasant feeling knowing that you are unable to help a loved one.

I feel very frustrated and small in my inability to help my mother.

And now my daughter as well.

Though it has always been a bit different with Veronica. I always hoped that we would find a doctor that would look at Veronica and say, “Oh yes, I know what you have. It is blah blah blah, here take this magic pill and come back and see me Tuesday fortnight…”

*Sigh*Veronica has finally been diagnosed with Ehlers Danlos syndrome. So finally after a  seven year long search for answers, a geneticist examined Veronica and said,” Oh yes a straightforward case. Here are your answers, here is your validation.

” Unfortunately he didn’t have a magic pill.

So here I sit at the computer writing away madly,trying to stop myself from being all mimsy and formulate a plan of attack.

There isn’t much that I can do for my Mother or for Veronica either, apart from what I am doing already. And whilst that is a terrible thing for me to have to admit, that I, the supreme control freak cant actually control what is happening to the ones I love the most .” Hi Mum, Hi Von I love you.” It also means that I can stop looking for my vorpal sword and just focus on supporting the two women who mean the most to me in the whole wide world.

Also there is a voice in my head that whispers to me that things could be much worse.I know that it’s true because generally the voices in my head are full of helpful advice, well except for the one that goes on about zombies in the hospital, that voice needs to develop laryngitis…

Pfffffttt!!!! Gone in a blaze of almostness.

Like Hello, it is Tuesday already. What happened to Monday? I only just published my weekly winners a minute ago and now it is Tuesday?

Gah!!!! Something is going on but, mind you if I was a day of the week, I would probably try to vanish as well if I had to be a Monday.

I mean honestly what sort of a name is  Monday? Munnday? At least Wednesday has  tricky spelling to trip the unwary and Sunday has the promise of a good lie in even when it isn’t sunny..

Enough of that drivel. I need to get my internal dialogue under control. Thinking about that sort of stuff is probably why my days sneak off  anyway. Now Monday has probably gone and gotten all huffy with me, just because  I wanted to know what a Munn was?

You watch, next week it will be Thursday all of a sudden and then I will be really confused. *sigh*

Ceramics! Yay!

I had to type that in order to control myself and get back on track.

This year is all about Focus. Focus and Resolution.

But it is hard to focus on earthly things like housework and making pots, when I am so close to discovering where they keep the Zombies..

I am pretty sure there are Zombies at the Royal Hobart hospital. Mum and I have been traipsing all through the hospital lately. Up corridors and down elevators.There are lots of places in the hospital where you could stash a few Zombies and no-one would ever notice.

Ever.

Unless of course they escaped.

There are lots of closed off sections, with crumbling plaster ceilings and faded yellow tile walls, that look like they could have been used as a set for a Frances Farmer movie.

The last time that Veronica was with us we had to venture down into the dank depths of the hospital to make an appointment for a bone-scan. We had travelled deeper and deeper into the bowels of the hospital, passing locked rooms with innocent looking labels on the doors. Hmmm? Camera room? I wonder if that is where they filmed bits of Shawn of the dead?

We were getting further and further away from the modern section of the hospital. There wasn’t a pastel coloured wall in sight. Veronica and I were loudly discussing discreetly pondering the possibility of Zombies, when we suddenly came to an abrupt halt at a reception cubicle.  The receptionist (who looked uncannily similar to Norman Bate’s Mother, btw)  didn’t look pleased to see us at all. She was barely civil as she made Mum’s appointment and you could tell,that she knew, that we knew about the zombies. It was a good thing there were three of us,(and a baby) or we mightn’t have gotten out of there quite so easily…

I will try and get some photographic evidence next week when we go in for Mum’s chemo..

Ceramics Yay..

This year is going to be an exciting year in the Ceramic Studio.Very Exciting. But the zombies have exhausted my supply of words and I need to get off my bum and actually do some work..

Cheers Kim