What did I ever do to you???

I was sitting here minding my own business trying to think about what to write when the next thing I know I get and email saying a comment had been left on one of my post by this lovely man. That comment turned out to be a “Tag” for a meme. I’m not sure if filling out this meme is going to be easier or harder than creating a random post either way I’ve been tagged so like a good little soldier, I do what I got to do.

Here are the rules of the meme:

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

(Note to Bigezbear “I’ll get you my pretty…and your little dog too”)

7 facts about myself, some random and some wired:

1. I’ve never had a broken bone and the closest I’ve come is a sprained ankle
2. I had what is described as juvenile epilepsy, but I’ve been seizure free since about the age of 16-17. Apparently the abnormal brain pattern that let doctors know I have/had epilepsy can still be found today however it’s not active. I was told that when I hit puberty the hormones put the epilepsy in check. So what I’m really telling you is I was a late bloomer.
3. I hate the taste of coffee but love the smell. (I know that’s not very unusual but what the hell it’s true and this meme is about me) PS I love tea
4. I’m allergic, and will die, to intravenous iodine. You know, the type used for contrasting in certain types of x-rays. Nine times out of ten whenever I’m about to have an x-ray that requires views both with and without contrasting I have to argue with the lab technician who wants to inject me with the iodine because someone has forgotten to note the allergy on my chart. The doctor in charge has to be called and I have to explain; then nine time out of ten I’m told I won’t get the best images due to the lack of the iodine and my response is well that’s okay at least I’ll still be alive. Go figure
5. I hate snakes so much I can’t even look at them through the glass displays at the zoo. I will even go so much as to change the channel on television if I come upon a show about them.
6. I didn’t come out until I was 24. (Once again a late bloomer although looking back I have memories of same-sex attractions as far back as age 8)
7. Last but not least I was not always a cat person, in fact for a very long time I hated cats. I thought they were sneaky and just plain creepy. I used to have dogs for pets growing up. It’s not that I don’t like dogs now; it’s just that I’ve found cats easier to maintain. However, if/when something happens to the current cat in residence it will be time to switch sides

Well that wasn’t so hard, although it also wasn’t that enlightening either. I thought about telling you a few really bizarre things but then thought better of it. As I said they were really bizarre and best kept a secret, if you know what I mean.

Now who shall be tagged? I don’t usually tag people but in the spirit of playfulness and what’s good for me is good for a few well chosen others here goes. Please don’t hate me because I’m beautiful merely do so because you were tagged.

Nathan Exposed
Our View on Superior
Zeitzeuge
The Banal Chew
Spirit of Saint Lewis
Spo-reflections
Esoteric Diversions

Enjoy…

Not sure if I'm insulted...

Your Slogan Should Be

So Easy Tony Can Do It.

The Slogan Generator

I'll have a better post in the next day or two. Until then hope everyone is well.

HUGE Apologies!!!

I want to apologise here and now for the last post. I should have never tried to be funny. I thought I could write something witty like many of the bloggers I read but the reality is I can't. I will go back to my bland, tepid posts about my feet pain, house remodeling and pictures in the park. At least those posts were real albeit real boring but none the less real. Anyway, I again apologise for my lack of thought and for of those of you unfortunate enough to run into that post I'd pay to have your eyes surgically fixed if I could from the damage done reading said post but since I am in no position to pay such bills please know that I would have liked to think that i could. OK, I'm going to stop typing now as I'm just so ashamed of myself. I'm going to stand in the corner and think about what I did.

My pussy isn't well...

The past days or so my pussy has not felt right. One of the best indicators that my pussy is not well is that the hair on it becomes dull and lifeless. Now I take good care of my pussy. I play with it almost every day. I'd do it every day but I don't want to wear myself out. My pussy wakes me up every morning at 5:00am because it needs to go to the bathroom. So I of course have to take care of that right away or I'll never get back to sleep. I buy the best food so that my pussy has everything it needs to work properly and to maintain it's health. In general I'd say I pamper my pussy. I mean it's the only one I've got so I want to be nice to it. I just don't don't know why of late he isn't acting the way he normally does.

I just don't know what to do with my pussy, any suggestions?


(Hats off to Misses Slocombe from "Are You Being Served". You did know I was talking about my pussy. I am a guy after all, so I have a...well you know what I mean)

All quiet on the not so western front...

...or eastern front depending on which way your flying to get to us here in the land down under. I'm sorry I have been a bit slack in post as of late but we have been keeping a low profile on this end of the earth. The reason being is that James' mum's cancer has turned into not such good news. The doctors were planing this huge operation which given James' medical knowledge we weren't so sure for 1) they could even do that kind of surgery and 2) if his mum had the surgery it would have been a strong possibility that she would have never survived. None the less even knowing this his mum said she wanted the surgery.

A week and a half ago James' mum had one of a battery of tests and small investigative procedures looking at various areas of her system to see if the cancer had spread. This time they were looking to see if there was any spread and involvement in her liver. James went up last week to spend a couple of days with his mum as he will do more often over the coming months and understandable so. Anyway, he actually had not told his mum he was coming because she of course would have told him not to come and that when she really needed him she would definitely tell him. Given his mum's attempts to have James stay at home so as not to disrupt his work schedule, studies and his life in general; James just figured it would be best to surprise her. As it came out his timing was great because came to find out his mum was going to see the oncologist the day after he arrived to see her. She was going to get the results of the liver scan/test thingy. James would then be able to explain anything his mum didn't understand from the results and also then be able to answer any questions she might have when she was back at home.

To make a long story short. they found spots on his mum's liver, so the cancer has spread. This of course means the surgery is off and now it's just a matter of trying to give his mum whatever we can to fight against the the war that is and will be raging within her both physically and mentally. His mum is being very stoic about the whole thing and it's what we would have expected knowing his mum's general demeanour. James is actually quite calm. I think once again with his medical background he is in some ways shutting down the emotional side of all this and is looking at the situation from a clinical stand point. Now that's not to say he is being all cold and heartless. He could would of course never do that to his mum. He just needs to sometimes be clinical so he will be able to give his mum the best information and advice he can give her when she asks. As it also happens James has started his Masters degree in Adult Education and that goes a long way when it comes to a form of distraction.

So to wrap this real bummer of a post we are concentrating a lot on home and life in general. In my case I suppose not writing as many posts is wrong and I should be writing even more so not unlike James and his school work I can distract myself. We are both trying very hard to ignore the big pink elephant in the corner of the room. Thing is; it's not going to go away and we know it.

A day communing with nature...

...well nature within a controlled environment that is. I recently spent the day with friends at the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens here in Hobart. We had planned this day as a day of photo shooting using or digital SLR cameras. It was to be my first real day of taking photos with the new camera that I got for my birthday back in November. Now I've taken plenty of pictures with that camera since I got it but I've never spent any real time focusing specifically on taking photos of one topic so this was the day.

I've never owned a really good camera and I am just learning how to use this one properly. My friends that came along also like to take photos. Tanya took several courses for two years so she knows what she's talking about and her son Conor is a budding photographer. He has taken some amazing photos, one of which we have framed and hung in our office. I think he has a great eye for photography and I only hope I will be able to take photos like he does, but to do that you need to practice and practice I did.

I took 50 photos in all  and I have edited and uploaded the best of those up onto my Flickr account. So if you would like to run through the photos I took have a look at the rest of the photos you can see them here. Enjoy...

The weather outside is frightful...

... but I'm not talking about let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. As I've mentioned recently we are in the middle of autumn here in the southern hemisphere and with that comes changes in the weather. Not unlike you in the northern hemisphere we get fronts which bring in colder air. The difference is the fronts in the northern hemisphere usually come from the north or west. The cold fronts push cold air down from the North Pole (Santa country), which pushes the warm moist air from the south down and out of the way. Usually when this happens it results in rain or even a thunderstorm or two.

The fronts here in our neck of the woods also come from the west but the cold fronts come in from the south out of the Antarctic (the south pole (Santa's summer home). It's just a little reversed but the same occurrences happen in respect to the storms. Last night we had such a storm. As a side note there is nothing but water, specifically the Great Southern Ocean, between us and the Antarctic so we are the first port of call for those cold fronts. Lucky us.

The front started coming through about midday yesterday. The winds picked up and you could see the battle being fought between the warm air from the north and the cold air from the south, because our big maple tree in the back was pummeled by wind gust from one direction and then the other. Now when I say wind I mean wind like in gale force. We live on a very, very high hill looking down on the city and the harbour so it's not unusual to get high winds and even higher wind gusts but yesterday and last night were exceptional. We were getting gusts at the height of of the storm of 85-95 mph with sustained winds of 35 mph. This morning the wind gusts are still reaching 45 mph and sustained winds of 25 mph.

About midnight I heard this loud crash so I got up to investigate but couldn't figure out what or where it had come from or what had actually happened to cause such a crash and by then it was sheeting down with rain and I just figured there wasn't a hole in my roof or the doors so it could wait until the morning. I sure wasn't going to venture outside to have a better look. As I said it could wait.

I slept on the couch last night as James was at work (he works night duty in the ER) and because the winds were so bad I was worried about the new doors we had put in because basically we now have a huge wall of glass covering the back of our house which faces north. So the northerly warm winds were fighting the cold Antarctic winds off the Southern Ocean and they were buffeting our back doors like there's no tomorrow. I fought my way outside and put away our wooden table and chairs to make sure they weren't going to be picked up and pushed (thrown) into the new doors. I spent the rest of the night nodding off only to be jerked out of my slumber by yet another rattling of the doors. Rattling was an understatement as the entire house had been shaken so much that I could feel it through the couch where I was sleeping and I was waiting for the house to start showing some damage, what kind I don't know and don't want to know but I just knew it was going to happen. Luckily damage to the house never eventuated.

Now I don't know what I was worried about in reference to this little house. It's a quaint little wooden cottage with a corrugated iron roof which is wonderful when it rains as it bounces and pings against the roof and lulls you off to sleep, but that's a different story. Anyway as I said, I don't know what I was worried about as far as the house is concerned. I mean it's been here over 115+ years and I'm sure it's seen it's share of storms and I'm sure last nights storm won't be it's last. At the end of the day 115+ years later and this house is still standing. What's to worry

So come this morning as the sun was coming up even though it's still pouring out none the less it is getting light outside I was having look around in the back yard from the kitchen windows and to my surprise and not in a good way I found one of our large ceramic pots has been turned over on it's side by the wind. Now you need to know that this pot holds a four foot fir tree. She ain't light weight by any means. In fact pot, soil and tree I imagine weighs at least 150 maybe 180 pounds. I can only imagine what might have happened with the table. Actually sitting here thinking about the tree, I suppose it could have just as well be knocked into the windows also seeing that it was sitting just 1 foot from the doors and ended up 3 feet away.

Anyway, the back side of the cold front is moving through as we speak and as I mentioned early the winds have died down but still are a nice gentle breeze at 20-25 mph. This should pass and when it's all over the only thing we will have to deal with is some very fresh, crisp, cool autumn days (heck who am I kidding it will be down right cold). I have the fireplace on in the office as I type this and I can only imagine what winter has in store for us. I don't much care as long as it keeps the winds to itself.