Two Dozen roses

I’ve never received a dozen roses before...... much less two... A magnificent display now graces my writing table, the delicate scent wafting past me as the day warms. Each long stemmed flower is perfect, no doubt picked late yesterday - perhaps this morning as the ends of the stems are crisp and bright green still.

I’d always been a carnation girl. As a treat to myself during uni days, I‘d buy a single carnation and babys breath and arrange it on my study desk, staring at it rather than the dreary papers i was meant to look at. ( ahh the days before computers, when assignments were had written.) It was an affordable luxury - under $2 at the time - the price of a bus fare.

When Adrian and I were courting ( and I feel so old to be able to say that) He’d always bring me a bunch of carnations on a Friday evening before we went out. back then, I felt roses never lasted, were pretentious and a little ugly when compared with the radiance of a carnation.

I sit now and drink in the beauty of my roses. A statement to be certain, but one of acceptance. I am fully embracing my new stage in life, my new age grouping. The rose reminds me of youths momentary flare, but even as it dries, is still beautiful. Stately and graceful, powerful and delicate, soft but barbed. The rose represents a woman who is ready to step into her power.

I farewell my love affair with carnations; for they truely are a young girls flower; highly perfumed, frilly and fluffy, but handled roughly quickly becomes ragged and unattractive; discarded quickly and the next cheap one brought on board.

A dozen roses, so many statements within that cluster,beautiful on its own, magnificent together.

Virus be damned....

It would seem that after over six weeks of Adrians mystery illness getting worse and worse , that we may have an answer… and certainly not something we had anticipated. Its not something we have really talked about much as its been traumatic - but hopefully we see the light at a less serious tunnel this time.

With the stress of his work and just general stuff, Age has gotten run down and tired and very open to picking up whatever was going round - which he obviously did. A bad chesty cough went deeper and lower and evolved into a lower lung infection - which in old terms was pneumonia. We don’t go much for Doctors - so Age had a day or two off and lay around in the sun dosing up on love and Vit C and garlic.

Only marginally better, trudged off to work, but suffered fevers, aches and pains and never really got better. One night I got home from one of my courses to find him picking up the pieces of a kitchen drawer which contained our Dolton - which to the most was left unscathed ( phew!!) the drawer however was smashed from the sheer impact of him collapsing into it after a coughing fit left him with no air - and he blacked out. His coughing became spiratic but violent. One late night we ended up in hospital ( thats another story - bleeding hopeless public system… 8 hour wait.) A trip to a doc saw him come out clutching antibiotics which didn’t really do a great deal but stuff his stomach up and make him feel even worse. Another collapse in the kitchen while I was at a class resulted in the kids being taught how to call the ambo and other emergency care - and another smashed drawer.

The worst part was that he was getting more exhausted, stressed and the coughing seemed to trigger seizures. After collapsing in the street and finding out that the myth that you falling lightly if you black out is crap ( huge bruises and blood) - off to another doc and tests done - all seeming to be fine - except the exhaustion…so more antibiotics…..( just for good measure) Adrians seizures are unexplainable at the best of times - so really hard to pin that one…

A few more collapsing tricks later and all we had was the vague diagnosis that it was viral and all connected with the asthma and tumour…..

You need a good sense of humour on this journey - and Adrian is the master jester of this situation. I queried if he was going to demolish any more drawers then could I have a new kitchen? One morning he collapsed in the bathroom and when I rushed in to help him, Adrian accused me of hitting him on the back of the head! He was deadly serious as he stood there with cuts on his head and just goes to show that he DOES love me that he didn’t immediately launch an defensive attack back at me!

Anyway, not really any better and now forced to be the passenger where ever we go as there is little warning of a black out; you can only imagine how impressed Age is about the whole thing. Of a little comfort though, is the self diagnosis of Whooping Cough. A little known disease in adults - but after a bit of research on medical sites and listening to other adult patients recordings of the cough - its little doubt that this is what it is. No cure - just rest and it sticks around for 100 days.. Concerning is the link to his asthma and weakened lungs, compromised immune system and possible links to the seizures.

We are hoping that our week holiday doing NOTHING on board a cruise ship will prove a huge curative for him - 11 days and counting….

I’ve read a number of reports that it is a contagious disease, both Morgan and Lilly have had a slight cough a week or so ago and I have had a silly half hearted thing late at night - but we’ve put those down to stress rather than anything else….. so a check for anyone who has been near us in the last 6 weeks.. we might have passed something unwittingly to you.. that is, if you go in for the ‘passing diseases on’ theory..

Dreamworld Conquered

A bit of a reprieve from my NaNo writing today and the real official start to the silly season. This weekend is just the beginning of schedule clashes and running from one thing to another. From 8 on Sat morning we were at dance concert rehearsals, a quick lunch at home, change of uniforms and then off to Little Athletics. Sunday - we had a number of schedule clashes and just had to work around them to choose the best outcome.

Generally, I will be one of the supervisors for Morgans Age group at Little Athletics. This normally involves me organizing the kids into lines and ensuring they get their turns on each activity and recording times or distances. I bribe the kids often with lollies and cut up fruit as the waiting times between activities can be a little wearisome. They were training for the big competitions this week, so for the second time this season, I was handed the tiny tots to ‘play’ with as thier normal teachers were teaching relay races. We had a lot of fun teaching running ( how to start, when to run) - the kids like to just runn of in mobs - so its quite a challange to get them to line up and go at appointed times. discus - basically - “hit that dad over there with this rubber ring” ( not such a good idea - as Morgan - who was not training with the bigger kids as he was not competing, actually DID), then over to long jump were the kids ran like mad and hopped over a rubber rope to give them some focus to jump some distance. So

me just didn’t get it and just ran straight into the sandpit and fell on their faces. Its a laugh a minute!

Today - Sunday - we had to choose between Dreamworld and competing in the regional Little Athletics comp. As much as the kids are enjoying their time at LA, its really not a focus for me for them to compete - nor do I think they are really that inclined or gifted in that way…..we shot off to Dreamworld - it is the first of the Christmas Parties we have this year - Celebrated through the Social club at Adrians work - and the only one which anyone from Energex will be allowed to go to. How rough is this? Bah Humbug Energex, under the guise of concerns for public finances and accountability in the current financial crisis has all but canceled Christmas. The staff has in the past had an afternoon or an evening staff appreciate party - sometimes a big BBQ and entertainment, other times a theme park has been hired for a few out of hours session times - but this Christmas - not even an office party will be allowed. to make matters worse - a letter was sent home saying that they still appreciated the hard work staff members undertook - and understood the impact that long hours and on call hours have on people with families…. and STILL they canceled Christmas. ANYWAY.. best not dwell too much on that…

Today was about getting out of the house ( and all the jobs piling up) away from my writing, and away from Brisbane. Morgan is tall enough now to go on most of the rides - and Lilly is not too far away either. One of the sadder things about being overweight has been missing out on going on rides etc as I simply couldn’t fit. I was so delighted to be able to do so today. I’d been hanging out to get on the Mick Dohan motorbike one and it didn’t disappoint! Lilly and I went on it twice ( she was very disappointed to find she was too small to be on the bike so was consoled with the fact she could be in the sidecare beside me.

We are so proud of Morgan for making his own mind up about things! at first he was unsure of wanting to go on any of the bigger rides - so we honoured that decision - until he was really bored with the kid ones… THEN he got a taste for thrill - and there was no stopping him. His favourite is the Claw.. I was able to ride on the cyclone for the first itme as well - and gald I don’t have a neck problem as it really tips you about. Miss Lilly is desperate to be big enough to go on some of those stomach churning rides - but its still a good 15 cm away for her yet! After 3 consecutive goes on the Enterprise (one that rushes you round and round then then upside down) - I was really queezy - thankful I had nothing in my stomach - and glad to have the excuse of sitting down for a bit.

We had a birthday party to go to in the afternoon - which I am glad of - as by the time it was time to leave in order to get to it in time - I’d really had enough.

So - what were the clear favourite memories of the day at Dreamworld? For Lilly it was the tiny pink lollies she was allowed to have… For Morgan - he wanted to claim the big six te-shirt - however, he is not tall enough to go on two of them - plus the t-shirts were not his size - so he chose a trophy to go on his desk - a tower of terror one..