fiona vs tree - week 1 update

my days have settled into a somewhat predictable routine thanks to last week's "altercation with tree".

wake up
take painkillers
sleep
wake up
take painkillers
sleep
wake up etc etc etc.

i was supposed to fly to sydney today (with my sister) for four days of theatre, markets, coffee festival, & Helpmann Awards.

Didn't happen.

my sister in law went instead of me and mum came down to melbourne to babysit. (which meant lots of home cooked meals)

arm is bruised from shoulder to elbow (looks like i'm wearing a large black armband.)

pain is manageable if i don't move.

otherwise owwww.

my brother & my 2 youngest nephews (aged 5 & 4) drove to pakenham to collect mum & bring her back to melb. my brother took the opportunity to deliver a paternal lecture to the boys on why vandalism is wrong and the law of unintended consequences.

master 4 however missed the moral of the story and announced to me that he was going to kick the vandal. And proudly showed me the shoes he was going to use for the kicking.

sounds like a plan to me.

Vale auntie Nan

Auntie Nan passed away this morning. She was 98 years old.

She was actually my great aunt, my dad's aunt, my grandfather's sister.

Auntie Nan was born Annie Charlotte Malcolm in Portland in 1913.

Latterly she lived in Glen Iris where she kept an eye on the ashburton staff for me.

After her husband george laidlaw died auntie nan decided she wasn't going to sit around & mope, she joined legacy widows, kept up her crafting and wrking for the monash hospital ladies auxilary. ( and many other charities as well)

Going to dinner at auntie nan's also became something of an experience. She was a good cook and would use our visits as an excuse to cook a roast & veges for us. One evening she served us roast beef with 13 (yes 13) veges. I, for one, didn't know there were 13 types of veges! Technically 12 i suppose as one was tomato & that's a fruit...

Anyway until about 3 years ago aunti nan lived in glen iris.

Every thursday morning she would walk the kilometre to ashburton library and return her library books. She would then meet some of her cronies for morning tea at the ashy shops before heading back to ashburton library to borrow her next lot of books.

I would often receive a phone call from her on thursday nights as she told me about the nice boy or girl (staff member) who'd helped her at the library, or filled me in in ashy library gossip. Or ask me if that nice person still worked at ashy cos she hadn't seen her for a while. I used to almost hope to be sent to AB on a thursday so that i could be sure of a decent lunch or dinner.

She was proud of the malcolm family & it's history. She used to love going back to penshurst & digby (and portland) each year to revisit her childhood and family haunts.

She had no desire to reach 100 (or get a telegram from the Queen) rather she wanted lo live a happy & fulfilled life.

When she moved into a nursing home in rosebud she took up watercolour painting because the nursing home ran watercolour classes.

Such was her enthusiasm for life.

She is survived by her three sons, clyde, tony & robin, & heaps of grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

We'll miss you auntie nan.

A week in the life...

So on saturday i came off second best in an altercation with a tree.

I had a bit of a run up but still could't move it.

The tree broke not only my fall but also the surgical neck of my right humerus.

This meant a ride in an ambulance and 4 hours lying in the emergency dept trying to avoid sick people.

So i am now living in an armchair in my sister's loungeroom while i keep the arm as still as possible (movement = pain)

The art of the brick.

Took littlest nephews (Huck aged 5, & Jughead just turned 4) to the Lego exhibition at Fed Square.

Both boys love lego& love going on adventures with aunty tapsister.

I picked them up from their home and watched them devour 2 slices of nutella toast, a pineapple ring, and a glass of milk (Jughead), and a ham and cheese sandwich, pineapple ring, glass of milk (Huck) before we headed to the tram. On the way we ran into Gus and emily's mum and told her about our plan. We also looked for snakes (especially cobras) in the long grass near elsternwick station.

We caught the tram to Fed Square and headed for the Lego exhibition. The boys loved the big T-rex made of lego, and the model of puffing billy, and the skulls.

The boys had brought money from their money boxes so that they could buy some lego in the shop. Huck bought a lego torch and Jughead bought some ninjago.

The we headed across to the acmi lounge for babycino's, popcorn, & the snacks that mummy had packed for the boys.

Then to the playground at Birrarung Marr where they worked off their morning tea on the slides.

Next up the merry-go-round next to the sky wheel.

By then it was lunch time (according to the boys) & we ate hotdogs, from the cart near fed square, while watching the boats on the Yarra River.

By now the boys were ready to go home but first they needed ice cream to round off their meals.

A fun train journey home, a play with the new lego, some afternoon tea before a very tired aunty tapsister headed back into the city for a tweet up and the boys looked forward to their dinner...

30 things i did in june (as well as blog)

In no particular order

• Went to adelaide
• saw panda bears at adelaide zoo
• got stranded in adelaide
• went to hahndorf
• went to haighs chocolate factory in adelaide
• ate too much chocolate
• ate too much fudge
• saw daniel boys at adelaide cabaret festival
• saw gala concert at adelaide cabaret festival
• walked the red carpet after olivia newton-john & david campbell
• found bracegirdles chocolate in glenelg
• shopped til i dropped for work stuff (fun work stuff may i say)
• broke a tooth
• discovered fruchocs
• discovered cocolate, cikolatte, chocolate bean, swiss glory, blackebys, while in adelaide
• went to the charm shop in adelaide
• vowed never to fly tiger airways again
• spent way too much time at adelaide airport
• voted tiger airways worst customer service as worst ever
• ran the press gauntlet at adelaide airport -they were waiting for 'roo' to get back from hall of fame induction
• did 2 booktalks
• hosted an author talk
• got given an iphone 3gs
• had a(nother) career fail
• saw a careers counsellor
• enrolled in further study (probably)
• completed year 1 of alia pd scheme
• killed off my enemies in a short story (extremely violently & with great pleasure)
• spent time with my family (6th anniversary of my dad's death)
• persuaded work to take part in #blogjune

another vent/rant

look away now.

So I worked yesterday.

The day started fairly well.

We'd been warned during the week that IT would be doing some work Saturday morning so the library's computer system would probably be down until 11 am (we open to the public at 10) so we would probably be offering limited services for the early part of the day.

However when we arrived everything seemed to be working properly and just before 10 am IT rang to say they were finished and we wouldn't need to use offline or anything like that.

yay.

Now I work my rostered weekends at a different library to the one I work at weekdays. This (for some staff) adds a slightly more stressful edge to the weekend as there are subtle differences between branches & some branch specific routines that need to be remembered & dealt with.

Now one of my colleagues this weekend is a perfectionist who prepares in depth when working at a location other than her home branch. She also follows procedures to the letter - if procedure says turn around three times, click your heels, & wear gold lipstick, then that's exactly what she does.

So this colleague had memorised the new printing procedures for our weekend branch & was confident when her first customer wanted to print (& was not a member) that she knew what she was doing.

Meanwhile another staff member was also a bit stressed cos things had been moved around a bit (it was his home branch) while he was away ...

Then colleague 1 couldn't find undated printing cards, colleague 2 didn't know where there were any either, and all of a sudden you could see the tension increasing, the stress levels rising, and the need for a defibrillator becoming more obvious.

This was when I became aware of what was going on (I'd been helping others) .

- so I went thru to the workroom and found some undated cards,

- dealt with the person wanting to print (who was by now getting stressed because of all the stress she felt she was causing),

- made sure there was an ample supply of undated printing cards at the desk,

this all happened before 10.20 am ... so I sent the 2 stressed staff members in different directions so that they could calm down and regain equilibrium

- at morning tea time i raced to the supermarket and bought triple choc chip cookies to improve morale and lower stress levels (it worked)

It was obviously a full moon friday night - although we weren't especially busy there were a lot of angry people coming in.

My 'favourite' - the patron who wanted to complain about her treatment by a staff member a couple of weeks ago.

Apparently a few weeks ago she'd approached a 'staff member" ( a female standing at the paperback stand) and asked for some help with the computer. This person, helped her and then refused to give her her name when asked for it.

Now I'm not 100% sure the woman who helped her was actually a staff member. The patron hasn't seen her before or since at the library, she wasn't wearing a name badge, so she may have just been a 'good samaritan'.

Eventually the day ended and I headed off for dinner with friends.

Now I don't normally drink but I really deserved the couple of wines I had with dinner last night...

vent/rant

So I'd planned to take a couple of days annual leave next week. Nothing especially planned but just doing some stuff that it was tricky to fit in around work (medical appts, tradies, stuff like that).

So my leave had been approved then it was announce that there would be a work IT forum on one of the days I was annually leaveing.

I asked if i could come in on my annual leave so that i could go to the forum. After some discussion (& being told that it would be good for me to be there cos i speak the geek) i cancelled one day of my leave.

So imagine my surprise when i got my roster to see that i was rostered in such a way that I couldn't attend aforementioned forum. (not happy jan is an understatement).

So I reapplied for the day off - I figured I was prepared to rearrange my day off for the forum but not so that I could just be desk fodder (possibly unreasonable on my part but I did un-annual leave in good faith).

Apparently I've been rostered in such a way that i can 'leave the forum early' so i'll be back in time to do the desk (not sure about lunch, tho the forum is catered)

My leave application is still in limbo - neither approved nor disapproved.

So now do i let it slide (& probably stew about it) or do I give up part of my day off on monday to go sort it out? (Do i really want/need the stress or the argument?)