I am not the only client my home-care worker has who doesn't want workers coming in when they have colds or influenza (or anything likely to be contagious). When you have chronic medical problems and you're sick to start with, and maybe you're on a truckload of things that effect your immune system, it's a reasonable request.

My home-care worker is recovering from a cold. A few days ago, when the cold was in full swing, she was supposed to visit a client who has also said she doesn't want contagious people coming in.

When she told her boss that she was unwell with a cold, her boss advised her to tell the client in question that she had hayfever. I believe she did not, and took time off instead.

~~~

I don't remember the outcome, but I also know she had trouble getting time off to get the Swine 'flu vaccine. Health care people like her are considered one of the most important groups to get vaccinated.

I am in a bind here. This sucks beyond belief but I do not want to get this woman in trouble. If I speak up, she'll be in for it. And *she* isn't the one behaving badly.

While I entirely appreciate that a court case is the best way of determining culpability, if you ever think I whine too much about quality of care for disabled people, consider the following.

An excerpt From The Age, November 3, 2009:

Four Charged Over Betts Killing

(I'm not including the details, they are distressing and not relevant to my gripe. Suffice to say it's a murder trial and this woman has been charged with being an accessory to murder.)

Godfrey in contrast was red-eyed and cried as she applied for bail, which was rejected.

Dressed in black and with a ponytail, she said she was not a flight risk and was due to start a new job today as a disability carer. She said she was filled with fear over what had happened. ''I did not say anything as I was too scared,'' she said.

The point being, that if you ever need a job where the employers won't care where you've been and don't care where you're going, you can get work with disabled people. Going into the homes of people who often live alone, are isolated and dependent on *you*.

And if I may be cynical for a moment, it has the added advantage that working with disabled people tends to get you brownie points if you do need to provide proof of good character/good prospects of rehabilitation at any point.

I know there's much more to the story than this, there may well be extenuating circumstances, but the care industry really needs an overhaul. A good employer will surely look for more than a criminal records check, which only provides information on convictions, before employing someone for this sort of work. I find it hard to believe that a reasonably conducted job interview would not have uncovered some anomalies in this woman's presentation of herself. If not her impending court case, a work record and CV that would have reflected what appears to have been a very erratic lifestyle.

Yep, overhaul needed.

While it's traditional to put emoticons all over the place to avoid misunderstandings, I'm sure you can all work out the following for yourself.

Today's home carer was

-friendly,
-thorough,
-not afraid to ask me if she'd done things to my satisfaction,
-morbidly afraid of cats,
-allergic to dust.

I had a bucket of stuff I was going to do today.

Well okay, maybe not a bucket. But a few things. A bit of this and that.

Unfortunately this pretty much sums up my week. I am somewhat lacking in motivation. Yes, motivation, not just capacity, which is the usual deficit. I am attributing it to the prednisolone decrease, a touch of PMS and the fact that I'm permanently emotionally unbalanced.

And let's not forget the stupidly hot weather. It's 29C at the moment, which is normally hot enough for me but now feels really quite mild (nice even) compared to the last few days. I'd been hiding out under our airconditioners (yes we have two - one in the bedroom, one in the study) and regularly congratulating us on our wisdom in getting them.

But even so, I've only needed to stick my head out for a moment to start to wilt and couldn't stay in here or the bedroom the whole time. And there was *something* about the last few days - the heat was so absolute that I was still aware of it. Maybe it was a psychological thing, I don't know.

~~~

My new carer came yesterday. He is a likeable chap and so far seems quite okay re-domestic tasks, but he doesn't appear to have a car. He travels by bicycle, which kind of makes him somewhat less useful. I am rather surprised my case manager didn't check this.

This time, I walked him through a whole lot of tasks and he coped with this intrusion quite well. Funnily enough I was the one that kept referring to the list and explanations I'd prepared. But it did keep me on track and stop me from just backing off from being fussy about things or not 'bothering' about things...because of ocurse, it was all on the list that I was using.

But it also made the time quite exhausting, especially because it meant I was up and about either outside or in the hot parts of the house.

Gee, you'd hate to be really sick and trying to train up a new helper at the same time.

And if it turns out he doesn't have a car or ready access to one, I guess I'll be doing it again very soon.

~~~

Don't ask about the garden.

But feel free to pray for rain.

~~~

InsideCat(TM) has just started a four week course of cartrophin injections for osteoarthritis. Apparently she is now something of a legend at the vet's on account of her continued good health(touchwood). It's been a couple of years now since she was diagnosed with kidney disease and back then the vet was being optimistic about the possibility that she could last many more months. Since then, she's mostly been a pretty healthy and happy cat. It's really only been over the last few months that she's started looking a bit straggly again. Apparently when they get osteoarthritis they tend not to groom themselves so much, for obvious reasons.

I so so hope these injections help. We really don't want to have to make quality of life decisions on something as subjective as chronic pain. When the inevitable finally happens, I'd rather it be because critical has gone wrong, not because we've had to second guess how comfortable she is.

She is presently sitting on my feet and purring. :-)

~~~

Feel free to spam my friendspage with photos of snow, okay?

As weirdly avid readers may be aware, tenbears has been shuffling furniture around the place at my request and I have once again discovered that in order to tidy up, sometimes you have to make a bigger mess first.

I am still surrounded by Piles O'Crap(TM) but tenbears has reassembled the Noodle Communication Centre (ie: lifted necessary tables into position), cleared a path to same, and the floor rug is down. It's funny how much better I feel with the floor rug down.

Can now recommence normal lifestyle and deal with remaining Piles O'Crap(TM) and logical rearrangement as spoons allow. For all the ongoing chaos, great advances have been made. I can now lie down in comfort and stare out at the yard *at the same time*, am not feeling cloistered and stuck in a dim, dark corner, am feeling like mistress of my own domain.

Can now see people as they walk onto the verandah.

~~~~

tenbears has been a veritable sewing-bear. He's been repairing stuff and has also turned an old pair of pants into a pair of long shorts. Seriously, for all the training I received in the craft on account of having a uterus, I'll never match him. He knows how to put things together and that's what really makes the difference. All a machine does is give you a quick way to make it happen.

Now all I have to do is convince him he'd like to make stuff for me....I wonder if try this before or after I convince him that he'd really like to keep chickens.

~~~~

It should be a while before I get anything else productive done. In other words, I have a great urge to do stuff but I'm crashing, I can feel it and I know I should stop. Heart rate is up and arms are shaky. I'm flaking out, then hauling myself up to do some little thing that surely isn't a big deal, then crashing out again. Tired but wired, as they say. I think a small amount of diazepam is called for, to cut through the hyperness.

( Aaargh, care! )
~~~

Oh and I've decided I want new curtains of a lighter hue and probably retro. And cheerful rather than rich. Rich was okay when I was young and looking for things that felt old and important. Now I feel old and gnarly but much more like I have a right to be here so I just want yellow daisies, metaphorically speaking.

~~~

PS: InsideCat is unimpressed with the changes and is sniffing and poking around with an air of disapproval and occasional meows of complaint. A small amount of therapeutic chicken will soon be applied.

This Daylight Saving thing's always a bit of a shock to the system, no?

I'd like to have a good night's sleep tonight please.

~~~

I have a new carer starting tomorrow. No idea why the old one's gone. I do hope she didn't hate me. I hope this one's a super quick learner - showing people the ropes is always a bit of a drain.

~~~

I have stories to tell, really - I could make you laugh and make you cry. But they might have to wait until I am less bleary and muzzy headed. For today I am bleary.

And muzzy headed. Did I mention that?

A curse upon the beginning of Daylight Savings Time. But not it's end, because that extra hour is always cool.

One.

This morning I got up to go to the loo and as I was getting back into bed, I pulled a muscle in my back.

It was the sort of pain that makes you wonder if it's a muscle or your liver finally packing it in, which has you lying there for a few minutes just trying to work out what the hell you've done and being unable to actually get anyone's attention because that would involve moving. Eventually 10B wandered past the bedroom and heard my plaintive cry of distress. He and was kind enough to zap a wheatbag and bring me a glass of water with a straw(and no, I didn't need water because of my back, I was just thirsty although I must say the water did help take my mind off things). Also, the straw was a bendy straw but it had an extra hole in it somewhere so the challenge of trying to drink through it was almost as good as soduku.

Fortunately, within the hour the pain had subsided enough that I went back off to sleep and I was fine three hours later.

Weird.

~~~

Two.

Yesterday we went to the supermarket and I bought me a smoked trout. Mmm smoked trout.

Today I cheerfully pulled it out of the fridge and tried to cut off a slice for lunch. The texture wasn't right - it was kind of crumbly. That's when I did the second dumbest thing in the world and put some in my mouth and yes, it definitely was not right. Then I did the dumbest thing in the world and swallowed it, still trying to convince myself that it was okay because I was *really* looking forward to this little treat.

I've been feeling faintly queasy ever since and even though I've eaten other food and drunk ginger tea and bagged it all up and binned it, put the used utensils in the dishwasher and run it, washed my fishy fingers in dettol and two kinds of soap, I can still smell and taste the rotten thing.

And as I was throwing it out, I realised it was all bendy. Very bad sign.

~~~

What comes next?

So that's two things and things like this come in threes. I fear something else is going to happen.

Am sorely tempted to deliberately stub my toe on something just to get it over with.

It's a very good thing I forgot to do my B12 injection today, I probably would have stuck my eyeball by mistake. In the overall scheme of things I'd prefer a stubbed toe.

~~~

This can't be three.

Case manager came today and things are looking better regarding home care. This is good. Unless she's secretly an assassin just pretending to be a case manager, checking the layout of the place for when she comes back to do us in.

~~~

This can't be three either.

I rang my GP's practice and spoke to a nice man who said to just take something for the runs if I get them, and something for the nausea if I want. In other words (when I pushed him), no it doesn't sound like anything beyond unpleasant.

This is also good. Unless the GP in question is wildly incompetent and doesn't know that mild queasiness is the first sign of wildly dangerous food poisoning. Or is an assassin pretending to be a GP and no doubt probably responsible for the bad fish in the first place.


~~~

Also not three.
It's now midnight and I'm feeling okay as long as I don't dwell on the fact that I've eaten manky fish or remember the taste. I had dry bikkies with promite for tea, and a bit of kefir (that yoghurt drink that I'm trying to convert everyone to because it's so yum and good for you and *everything*, and if more people drank it, maybe it would actually be available more often and at more places), some milk arrowroot biscuits and some lemon cordial. All good things for a touchy stomach.

So this is good too, unless feeling okay is a sign of impending death.



~~~

Ooh - this could be three.

It has just occured to me that I have no desire to eat smoked trout at the moment. If this is one of those defining moments that makes me a non-eater of smoked fish, like those people who go green when they see an oyster and explain that once they loved oyster but one day there they were doing a technicolour yawn all over a nice fashionable restaurant and they haven't been able to eat oysters since, I think my time on this earth may as well be over. I'd rather stub my toe. Badly, every day forever. While pushing a rock up a mountain.

The gods, they are cruel.

I worry about our financial future, so I tend to browse blogs about managing household spending, but the biggest problem with reading stuff about managing money is one starts thinking about how nice it would be to feel in control of one's finances and have a secure future and how one doesn't really need to waste so much money on this, that and the other.

And this would be fine, but then one starts thinking about one's various wishlists and reevaluating them, only mostly they get rewritten in terms of how one definitely wants those things on the list not to mention the many more goods and services one would like to own or use.

One really needs to limit the time one spends trying to learn to be more prudent with money oh yes indeedy, one does.

~~~

In other news, my homehelp is here for the last time today. This is sad, because she's lovely and really good at her job. But unfortunately she can't do various things that need doing, mostly on account of the insane OH&S guidelines and insurance restrictions. It's taken them months - maybe a year by now - of negotiations to establish that she can't change the bed linen, for fuck's sake!

(And the problem is that if she quietly *does* do things that aren't on the plan, she's not covered in the event of injury.)

I have no problem with OH&S or insurance restrictions - except where it means that a service simply cannot be provided. Someone has to do it, it's not good enough to have a blanket ruling that, for example, one cannot help look after pets, change bed linen because the bed's low (even though you bend just as much to do the vacuuming),
or do any dusting lest one should break something.

When people are asking for help maintaining their independence, the agencies who purport to help need to be looking at OH&S guidelines and insurance cover that allow workers to do these things and protect them in doing these things. Get the insurance cover, provide the right support and training and equipment.

I've made it abundantly clear that it's not personal and that in fact, I'd have gone to another agency ages ago if she weren't so good.

Of course, the problem with having such a good person around is you start to get really picky. I'm planning to ask my case manager if I can actually interview the next lot, instead of going with the random, fingers-crossed approach.

I know where I want to be, I'm just having a bit of trouble getting there.

I'm still not sure how much I can attribute to the limits of my condition and how much I could overcome with better planning.

The self help course I've been doing looks at this stuff, but it's very brief and I really feel I've only just started. They do have another course starting in a few months time which is more specifically focussed on working out your levels and what you can do - I've registered my interest in this.

In the meanwhile, I'm wishing there was some sort of educated helping person who specialised in this sort of thing. Have not met one yet. Case Manager is on holidays and her stand-in is the person who does phone duty, so when she gets back I will be asking her. But I'm not wildly optimistic.

I find myself looking longingly at books and wishing I had the beans to read them and telling myself there's always tomorrow. Daydreaming about things I'd like to think about, and wishing I could get the beans to do so but never being able to think clearly enough for long enough.

Thought and voice are particularly hard to find at the moment and are sorely missed.

The carer I got today was alright. I've met her before and I think we can work together okay.

As for the carer I had last week: my case manager is making a formal complaint. She's advised the agency that I don't wish to take the matter further but that she is concerned on my behalf and on behalf of any other clients who may be effected.

So that's that.

Or maybe

"spends money freely"
"desperate - will try anything"
"seeks rescuing"

Meh. I'm about to add a further sentence to my introductory spiel for carers. One that will make me look like a person with a bit of bug up their arse about something which is fine given I am a person with a bit of a bug up her arse about something.

At present the spiel goes something like this:
It's not that I can't do any one particular thing, as such, it's just that over the course of a day, where you can do this much
*indicates with hands*
I can do this much
*indicates far smaller amount with fingers*
therefore I have to choose what I spend my energy on very carefully. So you're here to do certain tasks so that I can do other tasks with what energy I've got.

The new sentence at the end of all this, the one that will firmly place me in the camp of the bitter and twisted, the city of people with bugs up their arses, is this:


And please bear in mind that no matter how well intentioned you are, it is not okay for you to tell me about products that you think might help my condition.

I thought of adding further explanation as to why I now feel obliged to say this, but I shouldn't have to, so I won't, and I don't want a debate about it. It's a simple instruction and if they ignore it I'll complain, pure and simple.

~~~

Yes (in case you were wondering) I had a carer trying to tell me about a miracle cure today. There I am naked, having my hair washed by a total stranger and she starts up about how there's this thing that she's telling me about - not because she has anything to gain but because it might help me of course - designed for people with chronic fatigue blah blah...

At several points I explained why I'm not interested, those points were countered, and I was sorely tempted to bait her on some of the inconsistencies in her spiel and misunderstanding on several points about 'chronic fatigue', but I didn't have the ooomph today and she was washing me, for fuck's sake.

Then when she said it wasn't sold commercially but through a home business arrangement, I wondered if she has such a business and would have asked, but if she'd confirmed that she did I would have wanted to put in a formal complaint, but again I just don't have the oomph to be cranky today. And if she had been a distributor, I'd have been too angry to have her in the house for any longer. She's washing me, sorting my laundry, doing all that stuff - it's not an easy situation and I want it to be calm and amiable. And I do suspect she thinks she's doing the right thing(she takes the stuff herself), I don't want to cost her her job.

Although the more I think about it, now that she's safely gone and I'm fairly certain I won't have to see her again if I *do* complain, the more I wonder if maybe it wouldn't hurt at all for her to be advised that well intentioned or not, a carer doing that is abusing their power.

I'm just worried that then it'll be one of those situations where someone wants to know my side of the story, expects me to engage in some sort of dialogue with the person I'm complaining about, and then maybe says I 'wasn't assertive enough' or something, so I have no reason to complain. I shouldn't have to be, of course. This is not a situation where you can expect clients to be assertive, the onus is on the service provider to ensure that boundaries are not transgressed.

Same with teaching, employers, doctors, nurses, any of those professions and same with adults in relation to kids and anyone in relation to someone passed out drunk, it's not the behaviour of the customer/patient/employee/pupil/child/comatose person that warrants scrutiny, it's the behaviour of the person in a position of power in relation to them that matters.

~~~

Damn. Five o'clock and it's nearly dark already.

P.S.: I did send an email to my case manager, although I was way more concilitory about the carer than I really feel like being. After some thought and a bit of a debrief with bookgirlwa, I'm sending a second email requesting that my case manager contact me for a bit of a chat about what happenned. If, after we've talked, she feels it would be reasonable to give feedback to the agency about this, I'll probably give her permission to do so. But I personally won't take it any further with anyone. I'm not going to discuss it with the agency myself because I don't want to have to run through the whole thing with people I don't know from a bar of soap.

It's my case manager's job to advocate for me and stick up for me because frankly, I don't have the oomph (today's favourite word) to marshall all my personal resources to deal with this and this is a classic case of a situation where I shouldn't have to in the first place. And I'm willing to trust her judgement on this one.

~~~

So here's that medical update I really ought to do.

( Read on... )

The last two days I've been mostly dining on soy milk and sustagen, with small dinners of real food - some chicken and potato, some rice noodle soup with egg and tinned fish. Minimal fibre, very little fat.

( More medical ranting. )

On the plus side, I had a different home carer from usual today so I did my usual brief explanation of CFS, and she got it straight away and said I really didn't need to explain. Although I did mention one or two more things, which she wasn't aware of, but I was impressed that she took the new knowledge on board so quickly.

Basically, she did *not* do that thing that dumbarse people do where you tell them you have x symptom and they say "no you don't because it's not visible to me" (which is why I'm telling you, dickhead) or you say "x symptom incapacitates me" and they say "no it doesn't because I know how you feel", completely ignoring the bit about you saying that it incapacitates you. I've always wondering where such people get off. /rant

Point is, she politely assumed I know my situation better than she does and am a reliable witness to what is going on. I like that in human beings.

(Sorry I said I was going to end the rant and didn't. Oh well.)

Possibly I'm just older and gnarlier and not so simperingly apologetic about my incapacity as I was nine years ago. I've certainly had time to hone and rehearse the educational spiel (and stop being such a woos), but I prefer to think it's the carers who are improving. I doubt it's anything to do with training - carers are rarely trained - I suspect it reflects broader social attitudes. I hope so. Because improved attitudes are the first step towards better support and real money for research.

I think I deserve a nap. Then I deserve a chocolate croissant and a cup of tea.

Yesterday I had a carer+chair shopping trip and picked up the new glasses. I've been meaning to get these done for only about the last four years. It feels really good to cross that one off the list. I also looked at wool (for the knitting and crocheting of).

And you know the things on your to-do list that just don't get done because they are wigging you out, usually for no apparent reason?

I just did one of them. Or at least, got it started. I just had to ring the chemist and say "er,um I think you've overcharged me. And the overcharging dates back to at least last July". It was the last bit that was scaring me. God knows why, it's them that ought to be a little freaked because they owe me, I think, over $400.

But needless to say the accounts person was quite okay and fine and will get back to me tomorrow. (And she will - I sincerely doubt it's been intentional and I do know they don't want to lose a customer like me).

Feeling all buoyed by that, later today I'll probably tackle the *other* scary item on the current to-do list which is actually dead simple but has somehow grown three heads which all have snakes for hair.

I'm not sure what I'll do after that. World domination, perhaps?


The really nice thing is that I don't think there's anything else on the to-do list that's particularly daunting in that awful slightly-damp-under-the-armpits-for-no-good-reason kind of way. That perennial nightmare that is called Renovating The House isn't bothering me anymore either. It now lives in my head like an old shaggy dog who barks occasionally so I don't forget to feed it, then goes back to sleep. So all is well with the world.

Right. Off to have that nap.

( Just getting stuff of my chest. )

On a cheerier note, the OT was wearing a great outfit. It was a neat, tidy, work appropriate version of the extremely grungy purple mini-dress and black tights arrangement that I gave up on only last year.

Perhaps I should give myself a little bit more credit for my wardrobe, since fashionistas seem to be going through my rag-bags when they need inspiration.

Today I was surprised by the arrival of Saint Jenny, the Home Help from the council.

Then I was even more surprised by the arrival of a carer for a two hour outing/shopping trip.



The moral is:
it's all very well having a diary, but you do actually have to write things in it in order for it to be any use.

~~~
( Details, for those who really want to know about the minutae of my life. )

I just wrote a letter. The old fashioned way.

It's printing off even as I type. (Yes, not so old fashioned as to require the use of pointed implements and paper, vellum or rock.)

It's to one of the local pathology services. When I need blood taken, pathology nurses come to me rather than me to them. Most services are fine about this but one service insists I ask my doctor or their staff to call and book. I think this is a total pain in the arse, especially when a doctor has given you request slips months in advance so you have to ring the surgery that appears to be staffed by an ever-changing population of millions in order to explain to someone who has probably never met you that yes, pathology labs do do home visits and yes, I need one and no, I can't book it myself and no, the doctor doesn't have to do it herself you can do it on her behalf...yes, fair enough check with her if you want and whoo hoo she only works part time and won't be in until next Thursday.

So I wrote a letter. It seemed to me to be something I should put on paper rather than email and I'm glad I did. There's something about words on paper that encourages careful editting. Email encourages flippancy. I printed a copy off yesterday, I've now changed it substantially and it is now far more polite, less whiney and more succinct.

Although somehow it still contains the expression 'bat out of hell'.

I will revisit this after I've had about three more hours sleep.

~~~

Then the rest of the day will hopefully be devoted to locating a bunch of articles about nursing people with severe ME and the cognitive dysfunction of ME, then begging one or more of you good people with institutional access to actually try laying your hands on them for me.

~~~

I still cannot work out why it's so hard to get proper support if you have ME. As in, I can't understand why there's still so much ignorance among service providers.

~~~

Bah. Sleep. Now.

A very lazy day today. Lots of resting.

I've been pushing the boundaries the last few days. It's been nice, but today it was high time to vegetate.

However, rather than lie in bed, which I find irksome (especially after being more or less stuck there for so many months), I've pulled a rug onto the study floor with a couple of cushions.

Compared to where I have been, I've still been reasonably functional today, and I'm about to do a few useful little things

I go out tomorrow to a doctor's appointment. We have friends for dinner, probably Wednesday and possibly someone else on another night. Tomorrow, Thursday and Friday I've got assorted people coming to the house to do the various things that get done here.

~~~

Many moons ago, when a carer changed the bed linen I would sit on the bedroom floor because I was too stuffed to be doing anything else and too stir crazy to forego the opportunity to talk to someone. One one occasion, as she hauled the doona around, a carer remarked that changing our bed linen was really difficult. Naturally I thought she was alluding to the difficulty of working in the midst of the huge piles of assorted stuff that we have lying about the place, so I apologised. She said 'no that's fine', and went on to explain that it was just the size of the doona and mattress - I'm the only client she had with a double bed.

I find this profoundly disturbing.

~~~

I'm keen to change my care arrangements, and I'm on the verge of ditching care (except homecare) altogether. If I'm not able to go out, they only have about half an hour's work now, and they have an annoying habit of turning up early regardless of how many times I've explained that turning up early renders their visit moderately useless.

This has been the case all the way through, even when I was still needing a higher level of care and was rarely able to go out regardless of the time of day. Even back then, if I was to make good use of their time, I needed to be alert and together enough to tell them what to do and where things were, which I often was not. Tasks were written down for them, but I often had other one-off jobs I wanted done which invariably were a bit too complicated for written instructions...and you'd be amazed at how impossible it is for written instructions to cover everything. Then there are the jobs that can only be done with your input, like putting away clothes. So it was a problem and it is still a problem and it's now at the point where I'm not so desperate for the basics to be covered that I see the point.

And *shrugs shoulders* I'm still not really well enough to bank on the possibility of being well enough to go out once a week anyway. Oh, and they'd probably send me the one who drives me batshit insane. She's a bit high maintenance, and there's nothing worse than a high maintenance carer.

Corn on the cob for tea!

This, my friends, is why I garden.

But it's one of probably only half a dozen, because I've only got a few plants in this year on account of the drought.

Normally (or rather, in prior years when effort wasn't such an issue) I'd do a patch about 1.5x1.5, and feed it like mad, so we'd get a lot more (and it would grow dramatically taller too, although I suspect lack of water may have contributed to that as well as lack of manure).

I'm now putting some thought into autumn and winter plantings, but feeling more and more pessimistic about the water situation and thinking maybe we just need yet more boring filler plants. Bah again. Xeriscapes are boring.

~~~

I've bought a nice pile of books. I was up for a wheel to the shops today (much to my surprise, given the last few days have been total crap), so I rather predictably splashed some cash: Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness Of Being (*nods to vimsig, Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible, an accounting textbook (but still not one with answers included, meh), an old and ratty hardcover entitled Presumed Dead by one Quentin Reynolds, which looks like a bit of a boy's own war story (the selling point was seeing "Shanghai" and "1941" in the same sentence on the first page) and one by Nick Earls.

For $25 that's a good haul even though it turns out we already own the Nick Earls one.

I'm also expecting seven Thunderbirds DVDs in the mail within a couple of days too.

~~~

Here's a thing that I don't understand and don't feel exactly proud of: my carer and I were crossing the street and I noticed two people ahead of us in motorised scooters.

I normally feel a bit self-conscious (and it's settling down), but suddenly I felt absolutely bloody ridiculous, worse than ever. Oh and then of course, we pass a frail elderly guy getting out of a car with the help of a walking frame. This is all in the space of about ten metres and 15 seconds.

I'm still trying to work out just what all my reactions were about.

I think what's coming out is my own internalised prejudice. Funny how you think you're above such a horrible thing - until it's *you* in the chair.

People with a tendency to be self-conscious and worried about what others think(which arises from insecurity) are perhaps particularly prone to prejudice, I guess.

*shuffles feet*

I have some serious growing up to do.

Clever how I left this bit 'til last, dontcha think?

Today's carer (not one I've had for housework before) is working like a whirlwind in the kitchen.

Which would be great except I've *asked* her to stop. I've got other things I want her to do and 10B and I decided ages ago that the stress of other people dicking round in his kitchen far outweighs any benefit from their work. The kitchen is his domain, he knows where everything is and he likes it that way.

The only kitchen stuff that other people can helpfully do is empty the kitty litter and the various bins and mop the floor occasionally. Oh and there's one shelf that holds books which can be safely dusted. But anything that's actually kitchen, anything that's about food preparation and serving, is out of bounds.

The first time I asked her she said it was okay, she'll just do this little bit...then the second time she said it's okay, she's just cleaning around stuff...

I just asked her again and she said no - because she just had to clean out that little corner there so she could put the compost bucket back where it came from (emptying the compost bucket is on her list of things to do).

In other words, she's fucking determined that this is the work that needs doing and that's that.

She's worse than my Dad. At one point, things with Dad got so bad that whenever we went on holidays, tenbears would hide his cast iron fry pan and pray Dad wouldn't find it but we'd still come home to find the frypan red with rust on the dishdrainer.

~~~

I'm so over having carers. I mean, I like this woman well enough and it's kind of funny, but only because she'll be gone in five minutes and probably won't be back.

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Postscript:
15 minutes after her departure I looked up to see tenbears peering round the door, saucer-eyed.

"Is she gone?"

It seems she's the sole reason he spent the last hour or so in the shed.

We went into the kitchen and giggled for a bit and agreed she was a woman of strong opinion in matters of domestic hygiene.

Although I must say, she did do a very good job and did not, in fact, do any of the sorts of things that make his life particularly hard. And she didn't insist on washing the cast-iron frypan.