Anniversary Blues

Anniversary Blues

This is insane! It’s supposed to be our 25th Wedding Anniversary and I’m supposed to be able to sit back, relax and enjoy the day as my friends and family treat us to a special celebration.

Instead, I’ll be the one running around doing all the work, making and serving all the food and cleaning up afterwards. I’m really pissed off about this. [Not that you could tell, huh?]

No-one has even had the decency to organize a nice cake for us.

My ELBs -  ‘ever loving bridesmaids’ - were supposed to organize everything as a surprise for us. They dumped all the worry on our kids who don’t have the money or the time to do this, nor do they live here, which makes it very difficult for them. Now, I’ve ended up doing it all and have been left to pay for everything as well. So much for being treated to a special day! Huh!

Above all else I HATE INSINCERITY.

I loathe the fact that the ELBs are sitting back laughing and sniggering about what they’ve done. How could they be so cruel? They know we don’t have the money to hire caterers. They know I have to do it all myself. This is just not fair. I even asked one ELB if she would help me organize a cake. She just laughed and said there were cake decorators in the yellow pages.

YOU BET I’M PISSED OFF!!!

This is NOT going to go unpunished. Revenge has surfaced in my usually mild mannered accepting peaceful mind.

I don’t know how just yet, but justice is coming. They’d better look out!

If I can handle an alien love scene, I can handle the ELBs.

[Insert evil laugh here]

My Very First Pantou

My Very First Pantoum

Land Dreaming

Beyond the dreaming land,
ardent sunsets weave
magic bands of promises
upon this canvass scape.

Ardent sunsets weave
the colour of tomorrow’s songs
upon this canvass scape
in reds and blues that waltz to tunes unheard.

The colour of tomorrow’s songs –
magic bands of promises
in reds and blues that waltz to tunes unheard
beyond the dreaming land.

My very first pantoum
© Friday, September 30, 2005



OK. So it’s not perfect yet, but at least I’m giving it a go.

PANTOUM OR NOT PANTO

PANTOUM OR NOT PANTOUM

And I used to think haikus were tough!

Have you ever tried a pantoum? Challenge is one word to describe it. There are a few other words that spring to mind though.

Well, I’ve never shrunk from a challenge, so… a pantouming we go.

Great New Tool

Great New Tool

Hey, this Blogger for Word is great.

Give it a go.

Poems, Plays & Ghosts

I sent a couple of haikus off to a competition on Monday, Sept. 12. I haven't entered any competitions for years. I must start doing that again. It's fun. Don't know how I'll go, but you never know, do you.

The Beechworth Theartre Company's night of one act plays is on tonight - Friday, Sept. 16. First play is "Evidence", a little murder mystery by Ian Austin. The second is "Gosforth's Fete" a comedy by Alan Ayckbourn. Very funny. Very English. The full dress rehearsal was last night and it went rather well. There's a mix of experienced and inexperienced actors on the stage in both plays, but I think they'll go really well.

I'm not on the stage this time. I'm behind it. Literally! I'm the prompt. That's the worst job in theatre, I reckon. You sit in a little dark space following the script by torch light in case the actors forget a line. Not exactly glamorous. But, fun anyway.

It's on at the Bijou Theatre up at the old Mayday Hills mental asylum. What a creepy old place that is. It was built in the 1870s and most of it is still standing. It's now a university and most of the buildings have been renovated. The grounds are lovely. The old parts of the place, though, are still old, abandoned and ghostly.

There's a ghost in the Bijou Theatre. There's an old abandoned stair well that has had the first flight of stairs removed so nobody can get up to the bell tower. The entrance to it is behind the stage. If you go in there and look up, you can see a man leaning over from the top rail looking back down at you. He's harmless, but it gives you a bit of a scare to see him staring at you.

There are other ghosts there too. I took a friend on a night time ghost tour and we both saw a man in a white lab coat walk out of the wall one of the old buildings, through three rooms [by going through their walls] and disappear into the wall at the end. Wow! Exciting.

I'm taking a camera tonight to get a shot or two. Maybe I'll catch a ghost. Do you think? We'll see.

Break a leg -- as they say.

What the...?

What the hell are the Shadow Runners up to?

Every time I think I have them heading towards the climax of the story, they throw me a curve ball.

Ranger really should have executed that human girl. She's giving him something to think about besides himself. And it seems, she's doing quite a bit of thinking about him. Hmmmm...!

What have Brashahl and Dahrrrgh really done to Jaxxlar? What are they not telling him, or anyone else?

Guys... guys... can we stop fighting and work together here? We have a novel to finish.

Goodbye Rusty

Sad, sad weekend.

On Saturday, Rusty, my brown kelpie, ran out on the road and was killed.

Rusty was one of those special spirits that come along so few times in life. I found him at the local RSPCA shelter. I looked into his eyes and recognised him instantly. He was Jock. My black kelpie x dingo who died quite a few years ago. I knew him and he knew me -- though he didn't really understand why he thought he knew me.

I brought Rusty home. It was obvious he'd been very badly treated during his short life. He was only about 8 months old then. During the ten months he was with us, he blossomed into a wonderful, gentle spirit, full of confidence, joy and love.

Just when he was becoming himself again, he was snatched away. Why?

I always thought I had unfinished business with Jock. He was just becoming who he really was when he died.

I think, perhaps, Rusty was the unfinished business. Somewhere along the line, between his life as Jock and one or two other lives until Rusty, I think he lost himself. He came back "home" to find his true self.

Why do I keep doing this? I join my spirit with these animals and then I'm devastated when they leave. I guess that's just me. I can't do it any other way.

In a way, those special spirits haven't really left me. Bandit, my soul mate, the one who taught me everything he could about "real" communication with animals, is now one of my spirit guides. Bandit is the domestic dog link. Jock is another guide who has stayed with me. He is the wolf, the link to the wild. Another little spirit guide who stays in my background is Tess. Little old Tess who wasn't with us long either. She was another pound refugee and a gentle spirit.

It's nice to know they're still there. But I'm just so very sad that I can't reach out and hug them.

For my other little friends who are not spirit guides, but are living other lives, helping people and learning lessons, I look forward to seeing you again too. Blue the cattle dog, Merlin the Russian Blue cat, Nikki the Burmese x. I hope our paths cross again sometime.

All I can say is, they all knew love and happiness while they were with me. I hope I helped them in some small way, as they helped me, and continue to do so.

Goodbye Rusty. Be all that you were meant to be.

I'll see you again. That much I do know for sure.

All Things Mundane

Okay. No writing done this week.

It's the end of the financial year and the start of another. Jeez I hate working with numbers. I'm almost finished. I only have to do the last little fiddly bits, then I can sit back and relax and let the Accountant do the rest.

Then... back to writing.

I left Jaxxlar in rather a state. Raped, pillaged, plundered and not at all happy about it, Jaxx is in for a rather rough ride emotionally. Ranger, his friend and partner, is also in for a hard time as Jaxxlar comes to terms with what happened to him. Ranger will be a bit of a sounding board, I fear, and someone Jaxxlar can take all his frustrations out on. Well, for a while. Or, at least, until Ranger thumps him back to his senses... or whatever. I'm not sure how they're going to deal with this one.

Alice Cooper

Last night I took my two boys (Rhys aged 19 and Kris 21) to the Alice Cooper concert at the old Palais Theatre in St. Kilda, Melbourne.

What a show!

I tell you, that guy can really ROCK.

Even though the stage was smaller than what he's probably used to, he still managed to pack in as much as possible. He's the ultimate rocker and the ultimate showman. Kris and Rhys didn't really know what to expect. They sure got a rocking education.

Billy Thorpe was the opening act. Good on ya Billy. Loud and proud as ever.

Can't wait for Thorpey's new album to be released. He played some of the songs last night and I'll definitely be buying that one. Give it a listen if you get a chance.

Alice... well... what can I say? You've still got it, buddy. You're my number one.

I waited 30 years to go to an Alice Cooper concert and had to drive three and a half hours to get there. It was worth it. I'd go again... and again... and again...

We got home at 3 a.m. this morning and my ears are still ringing. I always say, "If you can still hear when you come out of a rock concert, then it wasn't a real ROCK concert."

And now... it's back to all things mundane. It's the end of the financial year and I'll have to leave The Shadow Runners for boring old tax stuff. Don't you hate that?

I'm not the best person to be doing the books. I'm dyslexic. I can't read numbers, symbols, tell left from right, and have a lot of trouble telling the time. Figures just don't mean anything to me. I get them backwards and see all sorts of funny things. Thank God I can read letters. I was the only one in my class from school who could do algebra. A + B = C made perfect sense to me.

I became a printer by trade after leaving school. Those were the days of hot metal composition. For that I had to learn to read upside down and back-to-front. I did that with no effort at all. Little did they know... I couldn't tell that it was upside down and back-to-front! It just looked like ordinary words to me.

Thank goodness for computers. I hated working with molten lead. It's dirty, dangerous and time consuming. I'll take technology any day!

Okay, I'd better get my poor tired brain around these numbers. I know what I'd rather be doing though...

Out of Danger?

Now that they're out of the city and on their way back to the stronghold of the shadow runners, what are Ranger, Jaxxlar and Vurrahl going to do with Brashahl and Dahrrrgh?

Is it really wise for Ranger to demand that Brashahl take his orders from Jaxxlar from now on?

Are they all going to survive the journey back to the mountains, or will they turn on each other? How deeply ingrained are their cultural differences? Can Brashahl and Dahrrrgh really overcome their indoctrinations enough to work with Jaxxlar? Can Jaxx forgive Brashahl and Dahrrrgh for what they did to him during his brief period of being Brashahl's pet?

Things could heat up a little here. I'll have to work hard to keep our heroes from tearing each other apart before the end of the book.