Goodbyes

My workplace, like many others is deep in the midst of change. Restructures and voluntary redundancies. Over the last few months there have been waves of farewells as those who take the redundancies all leave on the same date. 

Today was another wave. Half a dozen emails from staff who have worked for my organisation for 15 years, 20 years and one for 43 years.  This has happened 3 or 4 times in the last 12 months and it's sad that we are becoming complacent as they go. 

One of those who left was a lecturer who will be missed greatly by her team and by us mere library mortals. A great teacher and supporter of not only the library, but of her colleagues and students.  We went to her farewell afternoon tea which was light and humorous, (great cheesecake) but hiding beneath was a deep sadness that such a talent should be leaving.  

It's sad watching an organisation get rid of its best and talented. And sure doesn't seem like progress. 

It's not all about length.

For today's blog I have to go back a few days. 

The man is currently not working cos of an injury. And the man is bored. This has it's advantages because he has taken over a lot of housework. This has caused some minor irritations of late including washing my nice work clothes with towels and putting said nice clothes in the dryer to shrink 😁 

Anyway, I digress.. The latest incident started a few days ago when man informed me we were out of vacuum cleaner bags. Being pre-occupied at the time I filed this information on the kitchen bench in my brain. 

Last night I checked my brains bench, found the to do list and ordered new bags over ye olde interwebs. 

Today at work I received a phone call which went thus:

Man: I bought a new vacuum cleaner

Me: What!? Why? I like my vac! 

Man: well the bag was full wasn't it

Me: yes but I did order some yesterday

Man: yeah but I'm sick of changing them

(Now I surmise he bought. Bagless one, which I have tried, unsuccessfully before)

Me: Hmm ok. 

Man: It's got a 2400 watt motor!!

Me:........ Mmm

Man: And an extra long hose!!! 

Me: hmm, and I've told you before a long hose is no good if it doesn't work! 

So.... FOR SALE. One husband.  Cooks.  Will do housework, short hose.  

World Cup flags and a medium.

Despite my complete and utter disinterest I decided to do some kind of display for the World Cup. It occurred to me that the display I did in our TV room last time (coloured flags of all the countries) is actually still there. #lazylibrarian.  So for this year we made flag bunting. Which I didn't take a picture of so you will just have to imagine it's awesomeness. 

This evening I ranted at John Edward on the TV. Talks to the dead my bum. He's an expert at cold reading, a master of the art of reading humans and their frailties. That is all. 

A weekend

Slack blogger I am.  Took a day off yesterday to...well...slack off....  I did pluck up the motivation to attend a 60th birthday party, which turned out to be strangely lot of fun and laughs. There was a band playing all the old favourites and I, yes moi, I got up and...DANCED!!  When faced with the opportunity to do Nutbush who wouldn't!?  

The other highlight of the evening was watching a normally quiet restrained work colleague on the dance floor all night...accompanied by us or not..on she danced..

Today I have collected child B from his army cadet camp. Tired but clearly feeling confidant and proud of himself. Apparently spending the weekend soaking wet and dirty is actually character building. 

It's a fascinating thing to watch what makes people old and young tick. 

Comfort

There is something extremely comforting about sitting at home watching Eastenders, drinking coffee and eating ginger biscuits when it's cold and raining. The puppy is in the corner snuggled on a blanket and the heater is on. 

For lunch there is leftover lasagne and then a nap.   For dinner we will make shepherds pie. I'm not a fan of winter. But days like this are pretty cosy. 

Things to lighten the day.

So today I woke up to this. It is very nice to not only have friends all over the world who are equally obsessed with Mr Minchin, it is even handier that they are also very good at Photoshop 

Then later I did this...

And yes, I have been looking at it for months thinking he needed eyes and yes I spent $15 on a tin of Googly eyes from Amazon just for this very purpose. And yes there are more. One has to find something to do with ones day. Tomorrow I will spend trying to think of a suitable name.  Mr Benn? Aloisious?  

Today involved this.... Yes I did have to join in 

We are actually the queen. 

Life...and stuff.

I was just thinking I don't know what to write about today. It's been a quiet kind of day, and my 47th birthday.  My presence on this planet for this many years has got me thinking about a discussion with an online friend recently.  

As an atheist, I do not believe my presence here is especially magical or has any meaning beyond what it means to me. But something another atheist said to me this week I found a little confronting, yet thought provoking. This friend described himself as an antinatalist. For those who, like me have probably never heard of this concept it is the idea that life = suffering and that none of us have the choice to be brought into life and that doing so is to create suffering. Antinatalists chose not to bring life into the world because existence is ultimately futile. We will all die and all we are doing in the meantime is waiting it out. Antinatalists though are not necessarily hopeless people.  I kind of compared it to veganism in that they are choosing not to add to the pain of another.  I'll let you go google this for yourself. 

This discussion did get me thinking about why I had children and what is there to love about life.  It can get pretty tough sometimes, very boring a lot of the time but there are moments when I am in awe of the existence of my life. When I see a beautiful sunset, or hold a newborn baby, it's life full of such potential, the pleasure of sex, the smell of petrichor, that moment at the end of a brilliant book where you close it and just say a quiet 'Wow' to yourself. Tiny moments, but they are the ones that make it all worth the effort. 

I shall end today's blog with a quote from my favourite person, the incredible Mr Tim Minchin

"There is only one thing to do with this empty existence, and that is fill it. Not Fillet, Fill. It. And in my opinion (until I change it) life is best filled by learning as much as you can about as much as you can, taking pride in whatever you are doing, having compassion, sharing ideas, running, being enthusiastic, and then there love and travel and wine and sex and art and kids and giving and mountain. Climbing..but you know all that already" 

In pursuit of technical perfection

Recently, I decided I wanted a new compact camera. I have a good but large, and heavy Olympus camera that's a few years old now and the last two times I went on holiday I barely used it in favour of my iPhone. 

I'm no photography geek but I do like to take nice photos and the problem with the phone is 

A) using it as a camera all day means it goes flat quickly and

B) it's got a crap zoom

So, after a quick mooch a few weeks ago I realised that you can now buy cheap compact cameras with better specs than my 'Good' Olympus for less than $200. I thought 'Cool one of those will do' and then it starts.  

I go from thinking any cheap, reasonably good spec camera will do...then I see that some have wifi so suddenly that becomes essential.... Then I see that some have 20x zoom and suddenly that becomes essential and slowly but surely the price of my 'cheap' camera starts to rise.  The compulsory online research starts to consume me and the more I look the harder a simple decision becomes.   Have you ever looked at online reviews for things?  I have come to the conclusion that they are written by people like me who are quite possibly never going to be happy with what they have as long as the possibility for something better (and possibly cheaper) is out there. 

Anyway, have ended up buying this. 

And after playing with the wifi (I can upload straight to Facebook and send the photos to my phone) 

Which is excellent, I take the inevitable puppy photos and start to be wracked with post purchase guilt as the pics aren't as good as I thought...I do this with pretty much every gadget I buy by the way... I obsess and I compare and wish I'd bought something else.  Until that is I get bored and just use the damn thing quite happily. 

Sooky puppy

Today was the day Princess here..aka Megs/Meggsy/Mrs Mop got 'done'. 

She was also microchipped and had two baby teeth removed. Poor puppy is wondering what hit her. Daddy (the human one) thinks this means she was too young to have had her bits removed and thinks I'm being mean. But not only will it lower her chances of getting girlie cancers, it will mean no more doggy periods and the boys wil leave her alone. She is after all the most stunning puppy you ever saw and the boys would have seen this.  I'm just not ready to be a grandma.  

Of conversations and umbrellas.

I spent half of yesterday making this.

  One of the English program's where I work wants to have "Conversations under the umbrella". I spent a lot of the last two weeks convincing someone who doesn't work here that a large outdoor umbrella would quite possibly be a WHS hazard in this library. (How she could not see the potential eye pokings out I cannot grasp). Then I had to convince same person that while it was a good idea to place a sign on the table saying

HELLO, YOU ARE SPEAKING TO FELICITY TODAY

That there was no point in putting on the back of said sign

FELICITY IS NOT AVAILABLE TODAY.

I'm not sure I actually even did convince her that despite learning English, students were still able to understand the idea that Felicitys none presence on the table did indeed mean she wasn't available. Or even the irony that the very act of asking a member of the library staff if Felicity was available was actually a conversation. Perhaps it didn't count cos it wasn't 'Under the umbrella' 

Sometimes I find idiot speak quite draining.  I so need this long weekend. 

Middle? Age?

Its my birthday this week. I share the birthday weekend with a colleague and friend and we have always joked that the long weekend is cos it's our birthdays. This year happens to be my friends 60th and there is much excitement for her.  Discussing this with another colleague she asks 'how old are you?' '47' I admit reluctantly. Ah, you don't count, she says...

Don't count? Does this mean I have reached the nowhere land that is Middle Age? What the hell is 'middle age' anyway?   Am I actually somewhere slap bang in the middle of birth and death? Not cute and full of the potential and optimism of life left to the young.  Not wise and elegant and with the respect and pride left to the old. I now just am. Apparently at the peak of what I will be...well that's fucking depressing, I not sure I like it.  I'm not even sure why I've always dreaded being called middle aged.. It's so insulting. I'm quite looking forward to being old, cos then I can act atrociously and no one will care "when I am old, I shall wear purple" til then I'm going to suggest a new name for the M word... I'm going to call it Gloriously Divine! What do you think? 

#Blogjune day one musings

So, Having a look at my last (Un)successful attempts to blog I can see I need some motivation. Those who know me, (or kind of social networkingly know me) know Im not averse to talking....or ranting...a lot, so #Blogjune should be something I have a go at.  So here goes...This is me....blogging. and already Im stuck for something to say.  I know its unusual, Shush.

There has been real coffee this morning, something I don't always partake in as to do so involves walking to the coffee shop leaving me racked with guilt that I have to leave my work to do so. But I have a new Library tech and well, I have to show her the sights don't I!

Anyway, apart from real coffee Ive already ranted at one email and done at least two 'Did she just ask that?' looks at my coworkers.  And Its only Tuesday.

Well there we go, #Blogjune day one (Well technically day three but we wont count..)