Manic Monday # 136

What is the most useful gift you’ve ever been given?

An 66cm LCD HD TV for my birthday last week!


Name the most terrifying moment of your life so far.

Lying on the road, screaming, not being able to feel my right arm or shoulder, after being hit by a car whilst crossing the road, on March 28, this year!


One hot summer afternoon, while walking through a parking lot at a large shopping center, you notice a dog suffering badly from the heat inside a locked car. What would you do?

Call the police.

Unconscious Mutterings # 296

I say ... and you think ... ?


1. Hearing :: Listening

2. Aggression :: Waste

3. Charged :: Excessive

4. Traveler :: Traveller

5. Hydrate :: H2O

6. Detox :: Done

7. Qualify :: Competent

8. Prison :: Lockup

9. Frontal :: Lobe

10. Pep talk :: Necessary

Guess who's got a new camera ...

New camera practice ... clever aren't I?

Photo Friday - Spontaneous

OUCH!

... Spontaneous or ART ?

Manic Monday #135

Pick out the most important item you have in your purse/wallet and tell me why it's important to you. I went for the wad of hundred dollar bills but they've gone ... oh no ;)


What would you take from your house if you knew it would be flooded tomorrow? My Miss Blossom and a bag over my shoulder with purse, jewellery and anything else I could grab.


If you were stuck in a room for an hour with a chalk board, what would you draw on it? I'd write lists with doodling round the edge.

Manic Monday # 134

What's worse, physical or mental cheating? Why?

They're both as bad as each other ... though mental can be worse ... you can't see it. The question makes me shudder.


Do you think men and women can be just friends? Why or why not?

Most definitely they can be friends ... it's frequently the suspicion of others that causes friction.


How do you feel about dating co-workers?

What's that old saying? Don't get ya meat where ya get ya bread ...

Unconscious Mutterings 294

I say ... and you think ... ?


Cut the crap :: I'm over it

Scent :: objectionable

Vanishing :: act

Wetness :: moistness

Cheap :: as chips

Badges :: souvenirs

Puppy :: smoochie

Problem solver :: yours truly

Gambling :: life

Sophia :: wisdom

Unconscious Mutterings

I say ... and you think ... ?


1. House :: home

2. Think :: before you ...

3. Clot :: fool

4. Believe me :: trust me

5. Fumigation :: air

6. Bore :: drill

7. Luck :: fortunate

8. Patient :: stoic

9. Tremors :: shakes

10. Pickles :: pregnant

A genius Centrelink decision ... a miracle?

A gorgeous girl I met while in hospital is still having a really hard time. Twenty two weeks ago, while driving home from a church lunch something hit the windscreen of her car, she lost control, two of her three children were seriously injured. On impact the windows of the car smashed causing her right arm to be flung out the window, her right arm was trapped, mangled. She's back to where she started from after contracting the MRSA bacteria, plates in her arm had to be removed, her bones disintegrated, on Thursday she went to theatre for surgery number 16, it could be 18 ...

Due to the ridiculous insurance regulations she's not entitled to anything via her third party claim. She would have been if she'd become a quadraplegic, a paraplegic or lost a limb, she's almost lost her right arm and she's right handed. The family are struggling so she was told to apply to Australia's genius social security department known as "Centrelink" for a pension.

Yet some uneducated, efficious, bureacrat told her she she didn't qualify for a pension that she should be able to work 15 hours a week ...

With a massive frame on her right arm, she's was taking 150mg Tramadol 4 times a day, 40mg of Oxycontin twice a day, 600 mg Gabapentin 3 times day and two Panadol 4 times a day ... I'm curious to know what job she would qualify for ... maybe the said pen pushing idiots job!!!

Can you believe it??

Please say a prayer for Bec ... they're a good, hardworking, honest, family in need of a miracle ...

Write on Wednesday ... The Power of Place.

This week Bec asks about 'The Power of Place.'


How about you? How does place figure in your writing? Do you feel comfortable in the place you live, or do you feel at odds with your atmosphere? Do you convey that in your writing? What stories does your location have to tell?

For me, in writing, place is integral. If I there's no place then nothing happens. Place names make writing feasable, interesting, not only the name but the history, traditions and time frame in relation to the place you're writing about can take your reader there, either in their imagination or back to a place where they once might have been.

Judith Barrington in "Writing the Memoir" writes "how the names of people, places, stores, rivers, and so on are a particular kind of concrete detail that can play a vital role in making your writing interestring and believable and quotes from James Hamilton Patterson's "The Great Deep : The Sea and Its Thresholds", where there is a chapter entitled "Nothing is More Tedious than a Landscape without Names."

I'm comfortable in the place I live, I have to be, what's the point in angsting about being in a lavish environment with panoramic ocean views, the smell of the salt air wafting in and sending metal window frames rusty? Why waste precious time and energy on what, right now, isn't possible ... but that's me, ever practical.

Current place likes and dislikes aren't conveyed in my writing yet, one day, when I relate this episode place will emerge. People, mood, atmosphere, emotions, era, conditions, as well as the mores, values and traditions relating to place are inevitably conveyed when writing of the past. Research and memory prod thoughts. A found a bus timetable will jolt me back to school days. Reminding me of the fun, frolic and mischief of riding to and from school, of the days when we didn't make it ... wagged it, played hookey, jigged it ... ahhh those were the days!

Location is the basis for my stories ... if I or my ancestors hadn't been in that place who knows what might never have happened!

What about the times when you feel you've been in that place before? ... that's another story ...

Vale ALAN WADDELL

Sydney's most famous inspiring walker, Alan Waddell, died at 3am this morning.

At 94 years of age Alan recently underwent hip replacement surgery. He went home early last week but returned to hospital last Wednesday where his condition detiorated.

Alan was a much loved, motivated, respected, well known and well reported Sydney icon who will be greatly missed.

One of Alan's family will keep his web site going in his honour ... check it out here.

Keep walking Alan.

Manic Monday #132

If you were to name the one thing you have the most compassion for, what would it be? Women.

It's been said that, "The best things in life are free." Do you think this is true? Absolutely true, health, happiness and positive attitude are all free if you know how to go about gaining them!


What is the most valuable thing you own? My health, happiness and PMA.