Car-ma

Before the kids were born (about four weeks before, in fact - when I realised that no twin pram on the market was going to fit in the boot of my beloved Holden Astra), we traded in my still-new car for a 2002 Holden Commodore sedan.

Though I was gutted to lose my less-than-eight-months-old Holden Astra, I did grow very fond of the Commodore. It's comfy like a big old taxi, a dream to drive, and nicely powerful. I can even parallel park it.

In the last couple of years we have been toying with the idea of getting a newer car. While the Commodore was only 3 years old when I got it, it is now 12 years old and showing its age. Half the electrics no longer work, it increasingly needs repairs and attention, and it's looking and feeling a little worn.

But, as we only just paid off the loan on Y's car this year, we decided not to jump into another car loan, and to stick with what we had for another couple of years.

Then last Monday happened.

I've started taking the train to work regularly (though I confess I have slipped a little since I resolved in July to take the train 3 days a week).

On Sunday night I woke in the early hours of the morning and then had an uncharacteristic bout of insomnia. Unable to get back to sleep, I ended up sitting in the lounge with a cup of tea and the Sunday paper magazines, and then a book, for a couple of hours. Finally willing myself back to bed and then to sleep, I knew I was going to have trouble getting up the next morning.

I did eventually get up, but was too late to catch the train, so I drove.

I left work that evening in the middle of a massive downpour. Driving isn't fun in heavy rain, so I was careful, but right on the on-ramp to the freeway we passed an accident, and just as we did, I got a funny feeling and checked my mirror - just in time to see a car coming way too fast, then slamming into the back of my car.

The impact was incredible, and so was the noise. It felt and sounded as if the back half of my car had been caved in.  But - good old Commodore! - that was not quite the case. I was later surprised to see there was just what looked like a big dent, and the lid of the boot had buckled up a bit. Not even the rear lights were smashed.

The driver of the other car was very apologetic and admitted he had been distracted by the accident next to us and wasn't looking. We swapped details, and I drove home and phoned in the insurance claim the next day.

A week later, because multiple panels were buckled and due to its age, the insurer has declared the car a write-off.

Though we won't get much cash for it, we now get to go shopping for a new-to-us car (and loan!)

I admit I'm a bit excited. I already have an idea of the kind of car I want, and I don't plan to spend too much time shopping. I've already become comfortable with carrying another 4-year utterly extortionate fixed rate loan. Because: I get a car!

I suddenly remembered today the Commodore had a full tank of petrol.

But then I remembered it was also overdue for a service we hadn't paid for, and that we were on the verge of shelling out for a new radiator, plus re-tinting to repair the torn window tinting on the driver's side window. All these things I had put off for weeks, and now won't need to do at all.  And although we will need to take on a loan, we will get a car that is more economical to run and shouldn't need repairs (I hope) for some time. So all in all, we've come out of it OK.

So hooray for my strange sleepless night last Sunday!

Mr K's busy day

This happened one day last month.


My husband Y had a very stressful Friday. It ended with an eventful evening for our neighbors, a shock for us, and a very lucky outcome.

Y was busy that day. It was one of the first school days after the holidays, and my first day back at work. Y had to get the kids up and ready and off to school.

The kids were tired because they had been awake till late the night before, due to the heat (see: Melbourne Heatwave of 2014).

After a couple of hot weeks our front lawn was about a foot and a half in length and covered in prickly weeds and dandelions, and Y had promised to mow it.

He was also working that night and had a lot to do to get ready.

At around 1pm he rang me in consternation, asking how you look after newborn baby birds.

While mowing the lawn he had come across two tiny baby birds on the ground, with no nest anywhere in sight nearby. He picked them up and put them in a plastic container. Should he take them to the vet? he wondered.

I had hazy ideas about liquid food in eye-droppers and warm quiet boxes. I knew the neighbors across the road had once cared for a sick bird so I suggested he ask them, but they weren't home. I asked a couple of colleagues who said to ring the local council who would have a local wildlife care number. I looked up the council website and found nothing, so I Googled it.  It turns out, you can indeed take newborn wild birds to a vet, and in fact you definitely should do this if you are not experienced with baby birds, as they are very intensive to care for and obviously very fragile.

I rang our vet and they said they would take them. However - if they were really very little (newborns) they would most likely be put down, as they have to be fed every hour and need experienced care, and they would not survive the time it would take the vet to send them to a carer.

After one final search for the nest, Y had no choice, so he took them to the vet.

That was very very sad.  Knowing Y I know this would have upset him hugely, and of course it added stress and took a bit of time out of the little time he had.

He picked up the kids who were hot and tired and after the initial happiness of coming home and having a snack, quickly set to grizzling and "I'M HUNGRY!" for the rest of the afternoon.

As Y was running around, loading his car and trying to get the kids to hurry and change so he could drive them to Grandma's house and then go to work, they were dragging their feet and complaining they were hungry, so Y put some eggs on the stove to boil, while he got everything done.

At this point the kids (I learned later) were giving him grief, arguing and saying "We're not going to eat the eggs!" and Y was saying "Yes you will!" and still trying to get everyone ready and out the door.

Eventually after much yelling, threatening, pushing and complaining, they all got out and off they went.

With the eggs still boiling on the stove.


Meanwhile, I was having a lovely time at work. We finished at five, and it was just one of those things, there were drinks on and four of us ended up having a really good conversation, so I was there almost an hour later than usual, without really noticing the time.

My mobile was set to silent and I didn't notice three phone calls, until I picked up the messages two hours later at my mother's house.

Two were from a policeman at my house, and one was from the school.

Long story short:

The eggs had boiled dry and started to smoke, setting off the fire alarm.

Our neighbors heard the alarm, came to check and saw smoke, and not having my mobile number or a spare key, had had to call 000.

The police and fire brigade arrived, and had to break the door to get in. They turned off the stove, put the ruined pot on the front porch, and opened every window to get the smoke out. Searching for a mobile phone number, they got mine off the name tag on my daughter's schoolbag.

In a weird co-incidence, they first mis-dialled and rang the mobile number of a parent of one of my daughter's classmates, who then rang the school.

The school tried to reach me, and as I didn't answer the assistant principal drove round to our house to check if everything was alright.

I got the messages at 7.30 and rang back the police, and got the full story. I rang the school and filled them in and thanked them profusely. I asked who the other parent was who had alerted them, and it was someone I don't even know. I asked them to please pass on my thanks as well.

We went home and I thanked our neighbors profusely - not only did they potentially save our house from burning down, they were even apologetic for having to call the fire brigade and getting the door busted.  Are you kidding?? Don't even worry about it!


We did previously have a spare key at the neighbors - until I locked myself out one day and got it back, and just hadn't got round to returning it.

I am going to give the neighbors back a spare key and my mobile number, but I didn't do it straightaway because I didn't want it to look like "Here's our stuff so you can save our bacon next time we stuff up."  Does that sound paranoid?  I was a bit embarrassed though.


But: thank goodness for community. I am so glad - again - that we know our neighbors and are on good terms with them all, but everyone involved was magnificent, and they don't all know us. The other parent who alerted the school, the school itself which went out of its way to check we were ok, the police and fire brigade who went out of their way to minimise damage and did more than they had to to clear the smoke from the house. When we got home two neighbors seperately apologised for not being able to do more. Of course I apologised for the hassle and thanked them so, so much - as far as I'm concerned everyone involved saved our house.


And Mr K?   He had been so stressed out and busy that he never even recalled he had left eggs cooking on the stove. I had to wait up till after midnight till he came home to tell him, so he wouldn't freak out at coming home to a busted front door.

Not our house fortunately.
Photo by OldOldliner via Flickr Creative Commons

Things that threw me off course

Golly gee, look at me: a blog post after almost a month. It's been so long that I've put it off even longer thinking about how I should start a new blog post after so long. Apologise? Explain myself? Just blog a new post as if nothing happened?

I personally yawn and roll my eyes when I read a blog post that starts with "Wow it's been awhile, I'm so sorry, I hope my readers are still here?!.."  So I won't do that.  Except I kind of just did.

I was on a good roll in December-January. I was pretty organised, life was rolling along, and blogging was fun and easy. So what dire things happened to throw me off?

Here they are:

1. School started again. I know, I know - I work, my KIDS are in school, what's the difference? But it makes a difference. Lunchboxes. Homework. Notices. Trying to attend meet-the-teacher events. Somehow school holidays can be easier to manage while you're working than school is.  I love our kids' school, and it's very exciting having the kids in Grade Three - but there has been a flurry of busy-ness this last month.


2. Heat. Oh my god, the Melbourne Heat Wave of 2014 will surely be written about in history books. If this is what our kids and grandkids will be living with every day due to global warming, then can I just say to them all, I'M SORRY!  I know, it's summer, and summer is hot. We get taken by surprise by this fact every year. But as every Melburnian knows, though summer starts in December, December and January are variable, and the real heat hits in February. Except this year it hit in January, and it kept going all the way through February, until ... three days ago when it suddenly turned cold and rainy.

Literally three days ago I was sitting slumped at the kitchen table saying to Y, "I'm so sick of the heat!" - and verily the gods heard my call of despair, for the next day, weirdly, it was suddenly over.

But the heat, my god, the heat... it affected everything, sapped our energy and left us discombobulated for weeks. You couldn't do housework - it was too hot. You couldn't go out - it was too hot. You couldn't blog - it was too hot.


3. Broken door. I'm saving this story for next time, but suffice it to say for now, we had an incident, and our door got broken and needed to be fixed. These things take up time and mental energy!


4. Telstra. F...ing Telstra. Ever since we've been in this house, we've had recurring phone faults. Usually after rain, sometimes after nothing at all. Our phone will go crackly for a couple of days, and then dead. It has happened easily six or eight times, and each time I have to contact Telstra and go through the same old crap to get it fixed, until next time. Last year in June our phone was out for two weeks. This January it was out for a week. Then it was fixed and two days later it went out again, for another 3 days.

Last June I "escalated" the problem and insisted the history be looked at and the underlying problem addressed... yeah, that clearly didn't happen.  This time, when I reported the fault, I escalated it straight away and every time I called I asked the operator to look at our phone history and please fix the underlying problem.

All up technicians visited our street or our house four times. And that's not including the time one came round unknown to us while we were at work and Telstra sent me a text saying "A technician visited but was unable to gain entry to your house to fix the problem. If you still have a problem please report the fault to Telstra."  I got that message and just about went through the roof. I called them - sitting in my car, melting in the heat - and honestly I struggled not to cry huge fat tears of rage and frustration and self-pity, while still being polite and fair to the operator, because the phone operators are young and keen and always lovely and helpful, and it's not their fault.

You might think a dead landline is not a problem these days, but it is. For one thing, what about people who don't have mobiles? There are still some. How on earth do they get on if this happens? What about older people living on their own?  For another thing, it knocks your ADSL internet out, and being without the internet these days is unreasonable! I complained to Telstra about having to use our mobiles to make local calls and they adjusted my mobile to landline rates for the duration, but what if my mobile was with a different carrier? Our broadband is through a different carrier, so we still had to pay for our internet while we couldn't use it. Also, when you lose your mobile, you can't use the landline to call it to find it!

As it turns out, we had two problems: a faulty outside line (duh - we knew that much) and a faulty phone socket.

But finally, after the last technician visited, I was happy. Do you know why?  Because that fourth technician finally told me the truth. It turns out our street has a very old, frayed phone cable that really needs replacing, and Telstra have no immediate plans to replace it. At last! Honesty. It was a kind of relief.

So those have been my first world problems this summer. 

How have YOU been? 

sixninepixels / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Edit: unfortunately, I accidentally deleted this post last week, and lost all the lovely comments!  I recovered the post from Google Cache but had to re-post it, so I will try and recover and copy the comments below as I find them.

Thanks to everyone who visited and commented and welcomed me back!

 

The Charm of Coincidence

My dad just moved house and cleared out his stuff, and I was very happy to be given this relic from my childhood, now yellowed and cracked like ancient parchment.  When I was a kid my dad went on business trips to America and on one of them he brought back this:

You can read the list of Lincoln-Kennedy coincidences, and an explanation of the "mystery", at Snopes.

Before the internet could debunk this with a simple search, I was utterly captivated by this list of coincidences. It seemed so strange (though even I could see some of the comparisons were a bit of a stretch). I didn't for a minute believe there was any kind of "fate" or weird time travel conspiracy linking Lincoln and Kennedy. I just thought it was one of life's weird, puzzling little mysteries.

Like most humans I'm fascinated by questions of chance, risk, cause and coincidence. We find it so hard to believe things are random, pure luck or unconnected. Most scientists believe this is an evolutionary 'side effect' of our beneficial ability to 'join the dots', connect and analyse.

Some examples of things we find hard to accept are random (or at least not determined by the things we think they are), are:

• apparent psychic ability - telepathy, predicting the future
• the feeling of being stared at - the belief we can will someone to look at us by staring at them
• poker machine spins 
• human evolution
• lotteries
• surviving a disaster 
• meeting your partner

Some things truly are random coincidences, and some are not really coincidences at all, but just seem so because we assign meaning to the outcome.

As Richard Feynman apparently said at a lecture to demonstrate the fallacy of this type of automatic human thinking:

“You know, the most amazing thing happened to me tonight. I was coming here, on the way to the lecture, and I came in through the parking lot. And you won't believe what happened. I saw a car with the license plate ARW 357. Can you imagine? Of all the millions of license plates in the state, what was the chance I would see that particular one tonight? Amazing!”

I think we can all read that and immediately think of instances where we have mistaken randomness for coincidence, or coincidence for meaning.


Here is another little snippet on coincidences, from the Seinfeld episode 'The Statue'. You may remember, Jerry hired a cleaner, Ray, who he suspected of stealing a figurine from his home, when he saw the same figurine in Ray's apartment.  In this scene Elaine and Ray's girlfriend Rava are arguing about it.

ELAINE: Well, I mean, he was in the apartment, and then it's gone and it's in your apartment.

RAVA: Maybe you think we're in cahoots.

ELAINE: No, no... but it is quite a coincidence.

RAVA: Yes, that's all, a coincidence!

ELAINE: A BIG coincidence.

RAVA: Not a big coincidence. A coincidence!

ELAINE: No, that's a big coincidence.

RAVA: That's what a coincidence is! There are no small coincidences and big coincidences! There are just coincidences!

Yes, there are. And they will always fascinate us.

How about you? Succumbed to any good logical fallacies lately?

Wow, Really, Body? Really?

So I took a tumble stepping off a simple curb yesterday, sprained my ankle and am on crutches.

Yes. Less than a year after breaking my arm (which took almost a year to heal), my brain and body decided they were bored and it was time to hurt myself again.

All my life, up to 43 years of age, I suffered nothing. Not an illness, not an injury. At least nothing serious.  There were two minor injuries: a broken tailbone when I was twelve, and a lightly sprained ankle when I was 22.  The tailbone broke when I fell backwards on roller skates onto my bum on a tiled floor (because I was too scared to roller skate on the concrete outside). That hurt like a bastard and left me with a tiny little shooting pain every time I sat down for about ten years. But I didn't even know what I had done until I happened to read about broken tailbones about 12 years later.

The sprained ankle happened when I was on a camping trip, and I did nothing about it, because we were camping and I was 22 and I was an idiot. It wasn't so bad that I couldn't walk, so I carried on, and was left with a weak left ankle as a result.   It has a tendency to give way occasionally while walking and has caused me a couple of falls and near falls over the years.

So yesterday after visiting my dad with the kids, I stepped off the curb onto the street and my ankle rolled and down I fell. It didn't hurt much but I got such a shock I promptly burst into tears. My kids each reacted differently. A cried "Mummy!" and ran to my side, hugging me and trying to help me stand up. M turned tail and ran to the car and jumped into the back seat, not wanting a bar of it.

I drove home and was planning to hobble inside and put my foot up with an ice pack, but once home found I couldn't stand on my foot at all, so we ended up calling my mum who drove us to the hospital.

Outside the hospital we waited on the curb while mum went to get me a wheelchair, and A whispered to me, "Mummy, I'm scared."

"It's OK," I said. "I'm OK, and this is a nice hospital. It's NOTHING like the scary hospital in Greece." I grinned and made a scared face and she laughed so hard and so fast that I knew that was exactly what she had been thinking of.

And here I thought the kids had buried those memories.

The hospital was great. We were lucky, there weren't many people in emergency and we got in fairly quickly and I was x-rayed and iced and bandaged and out within a couple of hours. I was however shocked to learn that a sprained ankle takes 3-6 weeks to heal and I would be on crutches for a week! I'd been thinking 1-2 days.

A lovely physiotherapist showed me how to use the crutches - which is much harder than it looks, when you can't put weight on the bad foot at all (as I couldn't at that stage).

We got home and I was pretty embarrassed (even though it's just my mum, and she's not judgmental), because the house was a tip. Y. had been busy with music and had also been sick the past week so hadn't done his share of the housework, and my plan that afternoon was to come home and blitz the house.

So there are dust bunnies all over the floors, baskets full of clothes and stuff piled on every surface, and the bathroom is grimy.

Looks like Y gets to make up for his housework break this week!

Anyway, elevation and ice-on, ice-off have helped a lot and today I can put some weight on my bad foot (yes, even MY weight!) and hobble around a bit easier, so things are looking up.

A funny thing though, you never know how stuff like this will hit kids.  They went through so much with my broken arm saga, this little accident has freaked them out a bit.

Last night they couldn't sleep. M came out multiple times before Y installed her on the couch next to me, and she hugged me so tightly and sobbed, and told me she was scared of the dark.

M has been sleeping in a completely dark room through her choice for months. She hasn't been scared of the dark since she was five.

A came out too and also needed some hugs, and both girls took awhile to settle back to bed. M hugged my neck and whispered to me, ashamed: "Mum, when you fell I just ran to the car because I was a bit freaked out."

"It's OK," I said, hugging her back just as tight. "It's OK."  I smoothed her hair and kissed the top of her needs-a-wash hair (that was the other thing we had planned to do tonight).

It's lovely and heart-breaking at the same time when your kids want to look after you, and still need looking after themselves.

The Way Things Happen 2: A Break on a Break

We just got back home from five weeks' holiday in Greece. Yes, FIVE WEEKS! I know! Heaven.

It wasn't quite planned that way. See, our trip, or at least mine and the girls', was supposed to be three and a half weeks, timed so the kids would miss "only" two weeks of school at the end of Term 2. We would arrive back Thursday night on 12 July, in time to rest and start school for start of Term 3 on 16 July. I'd be back at work Wednesday, leaving me a further delicious two days to potter around by myself beforehand.

Y was staying an extra 2 weeks, coming back on 23 July. I had to talk him into this funnily enough, but I knew once he got there he'd want to stay longer than 3 weeks and spend more time with family, as he hadn't been back in nine years.

Our first day in Greece, as soon as the plane touched down at Athens, I was excited. It had been ten years since my last trip here and I love, love, love this country. As soon as I saw the city, the airport, the signage in Greek, the brilliant sunshine, I felt wonderful.

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

At the airport we had a couple of hours until our connecting flight. We whiled away some time at a cafe, then I visited the toilet.

In the toilet, I did what I had to do then waltzed towards the door. As I smiled at the lady cleaning the floors and thought to myself "Hmm, the floors are very wet, I'll be careful here", I suddenly skidded and fell on top of my outstretched arm. Next thing I knew I was wailing in shock and pain and the cleaning lady was trying to help me up while my arm flopped like jelly in front of me.

I'd never broken a bone before, unless you count my tailbone when I fell backwards on roller skates onto my bum when I was 11. They can't put a cast on that one, it just heals by itself - but I had a little shooting pain every time I sat down for the next 8 years.

Anyway, this time I had broken my humerus quite badly - it had snapped through in a jagged break, and the two halves were out of alignment. It was not too painful at first, but it certainly was by the time I got to the hospital. And that was just the beginning of things!

As I sat on a chair outside the toilets, the cleaning lady's supervisor and two policemen got details from me of what had happened, and the cleaning lady ran to get my family from the cafe. They arrived back at the same time as the ambulance, and the kids got to watch me being loaded onto a stretcher and wheeled to the ambulance. M. stared in shock and A. was in tears clutching her cuddly Rabbit to her face. I wasn't in huge pain and smiled and told jokes to the kids and said "Look what silly Mummy did, I had an accident! And look, now we get to ride in an ambulance!"

Inwardly I was a little shocked, because before we left for our trip Mum had told me all about the problems that Athens General Hospital was having due to the economic crisis, including severe shortages of essential medical supplies like bandages and medicines. "Whatever you do, don't do anything to be sent to hospital!" she'd said. "Yeah right!" I laughed; I bought a First Aid kit for our suitcase, and joked that I would take it to the hospital and sell it there.

Now as they loaded me into the ambulance I kept thinking "I can't believe it, I'm actually going to the hospital!"

Initially we were taken to the first aid clinic attached to the airport, which is airy, modern and impressive. By this stage I was in some pain, and they gave me a Panadol. The pain soon escalated and I asked for something stronger but they said "We do have stronger stuff but we can't give it to you now because you had the Panadol."

Oh.

The nurses guessed the arm was broken and wrapped it and put it in a sling, unfortunately having to cut through my favorite shirt to do it. Ah well.

We had to wait awhile for an ambulance to go to the real hospital. We were recommended to wait for the ambulance rather than take a taxi, to get quicker treatment at the emergency room.  So we sat on chairs outside the main door and the paramedics who'd brought us smoked and kept us company and chatted about the crisis and the political outlook. At one point as I grimaced and sweated in my chair, one of them considered me and said to Y, "I thought women were supposed to be good at handling pain?"

This was me just grimacing and squirming a little mind you - not crying and screaming.
"I am handling it!" I said shortly. 

Finally the ambulance came and in we went; the guys loading me in made soothing noises, and as any time I have been in the health system I felt overwhelmed with gratitude for the care given by paramedics and nurses; they are always not only professional and calm but so kind - it makes me tearful every time. 

As we drove through the city I played I Spy with the kids and we marveled at the glorious weather. The area around Athens has the best climate in the country - warm, dry and breezy.

When we arrived at the hospital the paramedic told us to wait while he got a wheelchair. "I don't need one!" I said but he insisted - with a wheelchair they'll take you seriously and you'll be seen sooner, he said. Also, we had to make sure to tell everyone I haven't yet been treated, as they might misinterpret my bandage and sling to mean I'd already been seen.

It seemed he might have been right about the wheelchair. Y pushed me into the emergency room and told the triage desk what had happened, and we were sent straight to the room with the doctors in it. I don't mean to be ignorant here, but that's what it was - a small room where the doctors were, where only a few patients were admitted at a time.

Now I know full-well that appearances can be deceiving, that things don't have to be pristine and shiny to work, and that every country has its own systems and standards. I also know that medical treatment differs in the details from country to country, and that broken arms don't need the same type of care and equipment as, say, trauma accidents and cancer. 

Nevertheless, I'm going to tell you that the interior of this hospital is a little frightening. No air-con in the corridors and most rooms I saw; peeling paint; grimy surfaces; very old and basic equipment; private security guards patrolling the halls and barking at patients; and patients in varying states of injury and distress lying on trolleys, sitting in chairs or standing in hallways waiting for their turn or (occasionally) yelling at staff. I was embarrassed to be in my wheelchair but frightened as well. I only offered to give it up once and a kindly doctor patted me on the shoulder and made me sit down again, and after that I didn't offer it again. I admit even surrounded by others with worse injuries than mine, I just wanted to do everything I could to make sure I got treated fast and out of there. 

We also had the kids with us, and some of the scenes were potentially traumatizing. At one point a doctor yelled out "Whose are these kids, they shouldn't be here!" but relented when told we had no one to leave them with - we were in transit in Athens. I also wasn't going to let Y out of my sight, as I needed him to get me through the system. My Greek is fluent but doesn't extend to medical and administrative jargon, and I was in shock.

So the kids saw it all, unfortunately. They saw the old lady moaning in pain on the trolley; they saw the badly gashed man from a car accident writhing and crying; they saw the man covered in blood with multiple stab wounds, including a slice from mouth to cheek, who insisted he had cut himself by accident; they saw people yelling at security guards and doctors and they saw their mum crying and yelling in pain when her bone was set without anaesthetic...

I (honestly) had no wish to push in line, but didn't want to get lost as well, so I paid attention when the doctor gave us a piece of paper and told us where to go to get an x-ray, and at the hallway outside the door where we waited I pushed Y. to knock on the door and make sure we were seen and put in the queue. We waited our turn with others and as everywhere in Greece people talked to each other; we had no shortage of kindly smiles and comments and compliments for our kids.

The x-ray room was air-conditioned and bare except for the huge machine. After the x-ray we saw the doctor again who considered it grimly, then gave that very Greek expression of lips pressed together and eye-brows raised, which means "things are bad".  "What can I tell you," he said. "You've broken it very badly. This is about the worst kind of fracture you can do. But these breaks usually heal. Usually."

The next step was to have the bone set and cast applied.  That took place in a small room with an open window to the street where the sun shone and a gentle breeze blew; there was one man working there, and the room contained a couple of chairs, a board to hang up x-rays, a cupboard of supplies and the vat of casting plaster. The man was sullen and unfriendly, and I soon understood why. His working conditions are difficult to say the least.

There was another woman in there with a broken arm who already had her cast on and was preparing to go, and then it was our turn. I handed over my x-ray and the technician hung it up, but before he could look at it some guy came in - a former patient from what I could make out, if that was even possible - and started yelling at him. Good God, I thought nervously, Don't make this guy angry! 

Unlike the nurses and doctors in the other rooms, the technician did not take the yelling calmly. He rounded on the interloper and yelled back, and they both went at it full boar for a good few minutes. 

When the man left I said nervously to the technician, "You have a difficult job."
He nodded grimly. "Joyless!" he said simply.

He removed my sling and set to work unwrapping my bandage, and though he was not unkind, he made no attempt to soothe or be gentle. I was soon crying out in pain.  He looked repeatedly from the x-ray to my arm and felt along with his fingers, and before I knew what was happening he was pushing the bone into place and pressing down hard on my arm. 

I tried not to yell, I really did. I had told Y to take the kids away but they all stood just outside the door looking in, so I did try not to yell. But it just came out involuntarily, every time he moved or pressed on my arm - which was lots. Not just to set the bone, but to apply the cast, as my arm had to be lifted each time he wrapped the bandages around it.  He ignored me when I asked for pain relief, and kept going, not letting up until the cast was complete.

I was feeling multiple things at once - pain and fear, incredulousness, embarrassment that I was yelling, anger that there was no anaesthetic, contrition when I reminded myself that others were more badly injured and the nation was suffering such shortages.

I also thought of the kids seeing and hearing all this, and how traumatising it probably was. I was traumatised myself!

One remembered phrase gave me comfort on this issue though - turn down the volume.  This is Martin Seligman's advice  to parents of children subjected to non-violent trauma: don't make a big deal of it, and they won't be traumatised. Kids are much better at processing and moving on from things than we think - perhaps because they don't fully understand them.

So that night in our hotel room I made jokes with the kids about the "scary" hospital and about Mum crying, and soon they joined in and everything was fine with them. There have been no nightmares, and I hope they will not be too frightened next time they need to go to a hospital or break a bone. I have told them since that if they break a bone it will not be as bad for them and they won't go to the same hospital.


I have to say too, that the kids have been amazing. I like to think the experience matured them a little bit and was in some way perhaps even good for them. They were unbelievably good throughout the whole 3-day ordeal (travel, hospital, finding a hotel, etc) and have been extremely helpful to me ever since - not just jumping up to help me, pass things to me, carry things etc, but also adjusting their behaviour and expectations to suit the circumstances.



And there were positive aspects to the experience: the whole episode at Athens General Hospital took  less time than we would have spent in an Australian hospital; the doctors and nurses were kind and impressive, working hard in a frankly horrible environment; and finally, follow-up x-rays showed the orthopedic technician had done a very god job setting the bone.  Also, I should mention, to be fair, that they did give me a jab of something for pain as we were leaving.


And... there were other positives.

I got to spend my holiday truly relaxing - sitting down doing very little in a Greek village is no mean feat for a woman, I can tell you! (I spent my time in a Greek village like a man, ho ho!)

We had a much slower holiday than planned - less travel, more staying put and relaxing with family and friends. The kind of holiday that in fact I have never had. Two weeks in the village, a few days in a beautiful spot under Mt Pelion, another week in the village and a few days on the beaches behind Mt Olympus. Perfect.

Platamonas, Olymbos

Out of the cast and into a splint

Afissos, Pelion

Afissos beach

And finally, my three-and-a-half week holiday became a five-week one! As I couldn't travel back with kids and luggage alone, we initially tried to change Y's flight to come back with us. There were no seats on that date, so we changed ours to come back with him. It was a bit costly, and it was inconvenient - for work, school, dog kennel, cat minder, mail, bills, etc etc etc - but it did make for a brilliantly lengthy and relaxing holiday.


It's always interesting the way things happen.

Yiayia's garden

The Way Things Happen

When I was a child I had a book of folk stories from around the world. My favorite story was from Mexico and was called "The Way Things Happen":

A poor young man left his village and looked for work in the city. He had no skills, so he applied for a job as a street sweeper. He was asked to write his name on an application form. "I can't write," he said, and they shooed him away. Everywhere he tried the same thing happened. Finally he stopped looking for work and sold a few tomatoes that he had brought with him from his village. With the money he made he bought some more tomatoes and sold those, and he did quite well. He continued on in this way, buying and selling tomatoes, and he continued to do well. He started to buy and sell more vegetables, and built a thriving business. Eventually, he had to open a bank account.

By this stage he was older and better dressed.  The bank staff were impressed. As the account was opened, the teller handed him a pen to sign the form. The man explained he could not write his name, and the bank teller was amazed. "But, senor," he said, "you are so rich and successful and yet you can't read or write? Imagine how successful you would be if you could!"

The man said, "If I could write my name I would be sweeping the streets out there."

And he smiled to himself at the way things happen.

Fiction Fridays: Tales From Everywhere

Tales From Everywhere

Stories selected and rewritten by Mae Bradley 

illustrated by Janet & Anne Grahame-Johnson

World Distributors (Manchester) Limited, 1975

In Maoriland there was once a chief called Kahukura.

I'm cheating a little - my kids are not reading this book. It's one from my own childhood which I deeply loved. As a child my dad was often away on business and he loved to travel; being the 70's there were slide nights and dolls for me and my sister dressed in traditional garb from each country he visited. I was hooked, fascinated with other countries and cultures from almost as far back as I can remember. 

The stories in this book are traditional stories from around the world, each one enhanced by the beautiful and haunting illustrations:

• The Fairy Fishermen - New Zealand
• The Swans of Islay - Scotland
• The Way Things Happen - Mexico
• The Story of Semerwater - England
• The Two Brothers and the Little Mother - Australia
• How the Tribes Began - Nigeria
• The Dog's Will - Iran
• The Chatterbox - Russia
• A Friend for Man - (?Africa)
• The Story of the White Snake Lady - China
• The Magic Harp - Norway(?)
• Hudden and Dudden and Donald McGrath - Ireland

What book from your childhood is special to you?

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A Surprisingly Easy and Lovely Week - but I'm very tired

The last 10 days my husband Y. has been away. I won't annoy the hard-working single parents I know and admire by saying "I was a single mum for a week!" as I know, I really do know, that it's not the same thing at all.
But it has been an interesting week.

It was not hard. I expected it to be a bit hard. I thought I'd be stressed and exhausted and angry.
Always the optimist, me.

I was not at all stressed, exhausted or angry - emotions that I tend to feel on a regular basis as do many mums I think.

On the contrary, I was relaxed, organised, calm and happy the whole time.

I know that sounds bad, but don't worry, my marriage is not on the skids and I do love my husband.
But I have always been something of a loner and very independent. I like being able to run my own show at home, do things how and when I want to do them, keep up with the household things I think are important and know my free time in the evenings and while the kids are occupied is 100% my own. I know that's not what life is all about, but to me it's a little bit lovely.

Though I like being married and Y. and I are tightly bonded and have a lot of laughs together, I have always found relationships a little... stressful, I suppose. And while I'm not going to fall into that thing of denigrating men by saying things like "it's like I have another kid" there is no denying that it can feel sometimes like everyone wants something all the time, and my teeth are set on edge by kids and husband all talking at me at the same time. So it's nice not to have that for a little while.

I wouldn't want this long-term of course. Even I get lonely, and there is no denying that two parents run a household (and raise kids) a lot easier than one.

At the simplest level, without Y. around I can't take the dog for a walk before the kids wake up, or nip out to the shops unless I take the kids with me. And there's no one to tidy the kitchen while I do laundry, do the morning drop-off at school so I can get to work on time, or pick up the slack when I lose my shit.

So these last 2 weeks, I did not lose my shit, not even inside my own head where the kids don't know I'm doing it. Where I am usually very organised, this week I was scary-robot-organised, because I had to be. I also decided I was going to keep up with everything and not let anything slide, to avoid the chaos-theory effect when little things keep adding to the pile until you have the full catastrophe at the end of the week and a crappy, catchy-up weekend. I figured the weekends should be free for the kids, who the first week especially, missed their daddy and felt a bit insecure at his absence.

Also, perhaps, if I'm honest, maybe I wanted to keep the house in really good shape (for our house) so I could show Y. that (a) my way is best and that's why we have to keep up with these various jobs I nag about every night, and (b) I'm not always an emotional stressed out wreck, I'm actually super capable and impressive.

So here's what I did:

• I used Smart Working Mother's tip to "commit to wash, dry and fold every single day". I folded and put away laundry every day so we didn't have (too many) baskets piled high around the living area.
• I made school lunches the night before, every single night.
• I tidied the kitchen and eating area every single night, so that I always got up to it clean and tidy.
• I laid out the girls' school clothes and my work clothes every single night.
• I vacuumed 3 times a week (as opposed to my usual rate of once every 2 weeks. It helped that we recently got a new vacuum cleaner)
• I changed all the bed sheets twice - but this was partly due to the dog weeing on them in the micro-seconds I wasn't watching him and before bedroom doors were closed.
• I maintained constant supply of snacks, fruit and veggies in the house, cooked rice in the fridge and meat for dinners. That's so much easier when you don't have to account for a spouse eating things from the fridge out of schedule!
• I re-used or froze leftovers.
• I didn't faff around with the snooze button or set a new alarm on my phone for an extra 15 minutes when the alarm went off - because there was no-one next to me to thump me and say "Wake up, and for Christ's sake get up or set your alarm later!"

None of this is new to me or anyone of course, and these are all things I have done before, but when you work full-time especially it is very hard to keep them all up consistently. And in fact - my main beef with all these well-meaning time management tips - it is not actually physically possible to keep them all up  consistently. Things happen, we get tired, we make mistakes, we have to work late or someone is sick, etc. But, I did it these last 2 weeks.

And along with all this - more awesomeness - I found I gave a lot more time to my kids. I spent more time talking with them, hanging around with them and doing stuff with them. What I did a lot less of was playing on my phone, tweeting, blogging, scanning news sites and Zite, talking on the phone, and reading.

Also, I have to say, it was fun and easy to spend time with them as just the three of us. That doesn't mean that's the way I want things to be. But it was nice.

The downside is, I rarely got to bed before midnight, so I am now a little bit exhausted.

And here it is midnight again, and I still have some tidying to do. We pick up Y. from the airport tomorrow and then take the kids to school and me to work, so I definitely need some sleep.

Goodnight!