Halloween

All Hallows Eve in Twisted Pines
A night to stay inside
A gibbous moon ‘neath hazy cloud
Casts feeble light but wide
Goblins, ghouls and skeletons
Are creeping round outside
I sit by the fire and wonder
What’s going on out there?
A ghostly force quite playfully
Starts lifting up my hair
I hear cackling and rattling
Strange shadows pass close by
My hands are weak and trembling
I let out a quiet sigh
The doorbell rings, I start to shake
Perhaps it’s Frankensnail?
I creep to the door my knees a-quake
I fear my legs will fail
I open up that dread portal
My heart skips half a beat
It’s far, far worse than I imagined
Surprise! It’s Trick or Treat!

<©> Calamity Jane

I See Dread People

OK this will be my last rant for a while, just need to get this out of my system.

Just lately I've developed an enormous core of bubbling contempt and resentment that I fear I'm about to go off like Krakatoa. My boss had the misfortune of walking in yesterday just when the pyroclastic flow was about the reach the surface. Just as well that it was him really, if it had some dumb little Airman he'd be forming some rare exotic igneous rock called Ignoranticite by now.

As is usual with us gals it's the stupid things that set us off, we're dealing with the heavy stuff just fine but someone comes along and utters some banality and suddenly the end of the world is nigh.

Episode the First: Last week I was talking to the Shirt outside. A Tech Sergeant comes along and asks the Shirt how he likes his Volvo. Shirt says he likes it just fine. The TSgt say he's unhappy with his brand new Volvo, just had to have the fuel tank stripped out because of some fault with a sensor. Shirt says oh did you have that fixed by the dealer in Bury? TSgt says no, he's ha ha, been, ha ha, barred from that one ha ha, he takes his to ha ha, Downham Market.

Mental screech of brakes - barred from a Volvo dealership? WTF? What the fudge did he do? The Shirt asks the same question.

Apparently the TSgt went in one day to see if they could take a look at the problem, they tell him that he really needs to make an appointment as they are rather busy. TSgt says what do you mean I need to make an appointment, I want my car fixed! So it turns out that to appease him they take a look under the bonnet and there appears to be a faulty sensor which they fix and he goes away.

2 months later the same fault happens again. TSgt screeches to a halt outside the showroom storms in and throws his car keys at the service manager and yells at him something to the effect of you said you fixed it, I want it fixed properly NOW! The service manager of course doesn't take too kindly to this attitude and he throws the car keys back at TSgt. TSgt loses his rag and in the ensuing slanging match makes a mess of the service manager's desk and the receptionist's desk. TSgt gets ejected and is barred.

Now I know the service manager, the sales manager and several of the staff at this dealership - my husband has bought 2 new Volvos from them in the last 3 years. They are extremely nice people. I am ashamed that someone from my squadron could be such an arsehole to them and relate the story in such a braggardly and unashamed fashion with a British national standing by. I am even more ashamed that I didn't have the nerve to say something to this guy but he was escorted away by the Shirt before I had a chance. I'm having to suppress keying his Volvo every time I drive past, I content myself with giving him Paddington stares instead.

Episode the Second: The RAF Commander gave me a message for my boss that there had been a complaint about engine noise from our engine testing facility and could we supply him with our rules of conduct as far as noise ordinance goes. I passed on the message and we had a little conversation about noise in general. My boss said if I was bothered by the noise then I should move. I took it in the way it was intended, as a joke but when a senior NCO made the same remark but with more barbs round the edges I got a tad annoyed.

It was the general tone rather than the words - We, the Mighty US Air Force, are Your Protectors! Bow down before us and be grateful that are here to wake you at 4:45 am every morning! If you don't like it move! Forget that your family has lived here for generations! Never mind that house rental to Americans has pushed the house sale prices up to unaffordable levels!

And when the Shirt chimed in with we should restrict everyone to base so they don't spend their money "on the Economy" and we'll soon show the local populace how grateful they should be. Puhlease!! The only businesses that will notice the difference will be the pubs!

Episode the Oh Whatever: I'm too tired to relate the rest of what I hear every day like it's so expensive in this country (oh really, maybe you should try living on a British salary without COLA (no not the Real Thing, Cost Of Living Allowance) or utilities allowance or housing allowance - we'll see how you manage on 975 quid a month) or we get ripped off at the garage because we're American (no you get ripped off because you're a punter just like everyone else trying to get their clutch fixed) or we're a target for crime (try not leaving your thousand dollar stereo on display in your unlocked car or maybe throw a little council tax our way to fund the police so they can do something about it) or raining AGAIN?! (after the driest July and Autumn in living memory? Hurrah! It's raining!) or the roads here are sooo narrow and the cars are soo small and no free refills when you go to McDonalds and where's the nearest mall and gas is sooooo expensive I can't afford to drive up to Scotland for the weekend ... Boo effing bloody hoo!

And so, on to the heavy stuff. I have diabetes and kidney failure. I need to lose about 70lbs before I can get on the transplant list, I've managed to lose about 1lb in the last 5 months of virtual starvation. My daily fluid allowance is only about 1.25litres. I take God knows how many pills very day. I have very little spare time these days, Sunday is my only free day. I'm quite likely going to need surgery on my arm again, this time to be cut from shoulder to elbow to bring those blasted blood vessels closer to the surface. My Mother has Parkinson's disease and is losing her marbles and her mobility. My Uncle-in-law has Prostate Cancer. My Dad can barely walk. I think I've started the menopause. I'm childless and too ill and too old to adopt, too broke for surrogacy. My brother has disowned me for reasons wholly unknown to me. I expect to get a 1.5% pay rise this year - wow what will I do with an extra £160 a year? Whee, let's hit Poundstretcher!!

It's no surprise really that I have to vent a little from time to time is it? Relax everyone the eruption is over.

Serial Monotony

I have a new officer working with me; she’s the Section Commander – basically the squadron personnel officer/customer service manager/Commander’s executive officer all rolled into one. She wants to take work from me and give it to someone else. I run the performance reporting program for the squadron, all military personnel have a written performance appraisal once a year, more often if they have a change of supervision; I request all the paperwork, read and make corrections, track everything and make sure it gets turned in on time.

I’m pretty darn good at it too – my squadron is the only one in the Group that has a 100% on-time rate. I’m a legend in my own lunchtime.

The thing is as the Commander’s Secretary it’s not actually my job, I got the program to look after temporarily about 3 years ago and for one reason and another I’ve kept it. The new Lieutenant wants it to go back where it belongs which will leave me with monitoring the Commander’s calendar and proofreading correspondence that comes in for his signature. Woo hoo.

Most people would be overjoyed at having their workload decreased but I get ground down by the tedium. The logical answer would be to find another job but that’s a tall order if you have diabetes & kidney failure, can you imagine sitting there in your interview finery clutching your CV and glowing references telling the interviewer that you’re wonderful and reliable and oh by the way you will need Tuesday and Thursday mornings off. New disability laws be buggered, you don’t stand a snowball in hell’s chance.

Even within the MOD it’s difficult especially as most jobs that are vacant are only open to staff who are due to be made redundant and have first dibs.

I joined the MOD to get away from being a secretary (not that there’s anything specifically wrong with being a secretary – I just had my midlife crisis early and thought there has got to be more that I can do apart from office management). I left school with the bog standard array of O levels and I took the path of least resistance as dictated by my parents who don’t hold any truck with careers, no dear what you want is a job.

I thought it would be a fresh start, I thought I could get my toe in the door and retrain to do something else. The dream was to do an OU degree or similar in Engineering and transfer into the Research & Development branch. At first I was assigned to Quality Assurance and for 3½ years I was happy. Then a US Air Force regulation decreed that foreign nationals couldn’t do the job I was doing so I had to take the next job that came up – a secretarial job.

According to the local personnel office, the MOD only fund training that relates to the job you’re in already so I can train to be an even more efficient administrator but little else. I feel like my life is slipping away before my eyes without ever having done anything worthwhile.

Sorry I’m just a miserable old bat today.

3 Gross Things

I recently discovered Clare's positively inspirational and inspirationally positive site which was being featured on Blogger's Blogs of Note. It's a wonderfully uplifting site, she sees beauty where most people see the mundane so at at first I thought I would mention a few beautiful things myself but then I thought why steal Clare's thunder, she has the beautiful stuff market cornered already so why not put my own icky spin on it.

1. I decided to give myself a beauty MOT today and have a pedicure, body scrub, exfoliate, depilate, etc, etc. While clipping my toenails I discovered that the lady who waxes my legs has been neglecting my toes. I had to tweeze out several hairs on both little piggies that were over an inch long. I didn't think toe hair could grow that long. I need to get better acquainted with my feet.

2. I found a small white lump in one of my armpits and being of the better out than in persuasion I gave it a squeeze. Out came a HUGE blackhead with a long, thick tail. I swear it winked at me.

3. I have a large lump and and enormous purpley-black bruise from yesterday's kerfuffle with dialysis and bleeding in Tesco's carpark. It is shaped roughly like the USA, except Maine and the northeast appear to have been flooded by the Great Lakes. The needle puncture appears to have taken out Chicago.

A Big Prick

I should have known today would be a terrible day when I was halfway to the hospital and realised that I had forgotten my insulin. Great no breakfast while I'm dialysing, I was starving too, so I had to make do with 2 small cups of tea and the salad out of my sandwich (1 slice of cucumber, 1 & a half slices tomato and a few shreds of lettuce = NHS salad sandwich ... I've had more salad garnish in their regular sarnies).

Sister Mac was assigned to me today and she successfully managed to get a needle in my arm which was used as the arterial supply for the dialysis machine, my chest line was used as the venous return so I got a really good dialysis for a change.

When it came to having the needle out I didn't stop bleeding for about 20 minutes - they had given me a mega dose of heparin which is an anticoagulant because I have a history of clotting the machine, and this prevented me from getting up as quickly as I would have liked. But eventually it did stop and I made my way home.

When I got to a village called Culford I got caught doing about 40 in a 30 limit. It's the first time in 19 years of driving that I've ever been caught, I'm not a speed freak as such but like most people I often do about 5 -10mph above the posted limit. I'm a bit peeved about the whole situation as I do normally stick to the limit through this village but I tend to coast from 40 down to 30 in my own time, the speed trap was round a corner about 200 yards in from the end of the 40 limit and the police were hiding behind a dark reddish-brown Range Rover so I didn't think it was very sporting of them. I expect that will be my first 3 points on my licence and a hefty fine.

When I got into Twisted Pines I needed to get a loaf of bread for bacon sandwiches for lunch so I stopped in at Tesco and parked in their back car park. As I was getting my stuff from the back seat an old geezer in a Corsa swooped in through the whole row of vacant spaces next to me and almost took my offside wing off! He then attempted to park in the spot next to me where I was standing with my doors open rummaging for my bag and jacket. Then he pulled forward again and revved his engine several times which I took to be impatience causing me to grab whatever I could so I could get out of his way. Why the other 10 spaces were no good to him I don't know but he wanted to park next to me - I almost said something to him but when I saw how doddery he was I thought better of it.

While I was walking towards the shop and putting my jacket on my arm felt warm and wet so I felt my elbow and sure enough I'd sprung a leak! I went back to the car because I had some gauze on the passenger seat and by the time I got back my arm was soaked. I stood there beside the car with pressure on the leak, covered in blood wondering what on Earth I should do. I have rarely felt so isolated as I did standing there in a public carpark covered in blood with no-one taking any notice.

The pad I was using soaked through pretty quickly but I didn't want to take the pressure off to put a clean one on, I just needed a nice thick pressure pad applied but wasn't sure where I was going to get one from. I decided to try and get someone to help and eventually managed to get someone's attention and the next thing I know is she's got someone from Tesco to call an ambulance!

A Tesco first aider came out to me and she was lovely, she obviuosly had some knowledge but what she lacked was equipment. I had a whole cluster of Tesco staff round me when the ambulance turned up - siren wailing, lights flashing - I was mortified. I'd been hoping for the first response guy rather than the full blown ambulance jobbie.

Anyway suffice to say they were great, I kept apologising to them for calling them out to such a minor event but they were OK about it and cleaned me up, patched me up and generally made a fuss of me. Thanks James and Graham the EMTs, and thanks Sharon for not walking away like everyone else!!

A Little Alliteration, Part 2

Desmond the debt-collector was only really dastardly by day. During his downtime he was indeed quite a dear, and dishy too with darned good diction. Desmond was becoming decidedly disaffected with dastardly debt-collecting and was only doing it for the dosh. His dearest desire was to design a dinghy and sail it down the Danube.

So Desmond with duplicity in his heart drove his Ducati to the Dilks’ domain over in deepest darkest Dorchester. He dismounted and dragged his despondent feet towards the door. With a trembling digit he depressed the doorbell. DING DONG! declared the doorbell while Desmond waited with a distinct feeling of dread.

Behind the door Desmond could discern a dissonant discussion debating the danger in opening the door on a day when the family was due a visit from the dastardly debt-collector. Deciding that Desmond looked a decent dude who definitely couldn't double as a debt-collector, Dilbert Dilks opened the door.

“Good day Mr Dilks, I’m Desmond the debt-collector” declared Desmond displaying his dazzling dental work.

Dilbert Dilks dropped to the deck in a dead faint.

"Damn!" said a disgruntled Desmond and drooping his shoulders dejectedly, "I'm quite deficient in the discretion department, I do hope he isn't damaged."

To be continued ...

Saddle Up

Here in the rural hinterland of East Anglia, there are plenty of things you see everyday - tractors towing trailers laden with carrots & sugar beet, suicidal pheasants, F-15 fighter jets using 88,000lbs of thrust to get off the ground, even Asian mini-deer called Muntjacs who were introduced by some local landowner with a sense of humour, sometime last century.

But something you don't see everyday is gentlemen trundling down the pavement on invalid scooters wearing spaghetti ties and ten gallon hats. Yup bet your bottom dollar cowpokes, I saw one today. Yeeeehaawww!

Tray Bong

I've been told that the French refer to us Rosbifs as a nation of shopkeepers. I've never really been sure what that is supposed to mean except that it is derogatory. Well all I can say is it takes one to know one.

Last Saturday, Twisted Pines was the latest small market town to succumb to the curious spectacle of the traveling French Market. I had visited one when it came to a neighbouring town and I wasn't overly impressed but as the only alternative was laundry or paperwork I walked down to take a gander.

I had a Tony Bliar-type vision (cue heavenly choir and Vaseline smeared lens) of the Brits and the French trading side by side, working together on the free common market, each bringing trade to the other. However, clearly anticipating French embargo and tension between the natives and the visitors, the local council shrewdly set aside one of the car parks in town for the market instead.

Malheureusement it was a dozen stalls at the most selling goods that ranged from cheap Chinese-made belts to cheap Chinese-made straw baskets. Qu'elle deception! And this country just isn't ready for cured sausages, we like 'em plump and pink not turdlike! There was a stall that sold nothing but garlic - but zut alors £7 for 500g is too beaucoup de l'argent even for the likes of spendthrift gastronomes like myself.

My only hope of consolation for this blatant ripping off of the unsuspecting British public, is that the French traders had to buy petrol before driving home.

A Little Alliteration, Part 1

Dilbert Dilks the devilishly debonair Dane, along with his dame, the desirably delectable Dora and their delightfully dippy daughter Dinah, were doing their darnedest to dodge the deviously diabolical dilemma that was destroying their diverse Delicious Dildo Deliveries To Your Door service in deepest darkest Dorchester.

Determined to deliver only the dandiest dildos, they disdained to pay their dues and descended into the direst debt causing them to deliver the deeds of their dear domicile to the dastardly debt-collector, Desmond. Dear oh dear what a debacle, what will they do?

Thing 1, Thing 2

I’ve finally figured out why I was getting nauseous on dialysis – it’s all down to the rate at which I have fluid taken off. It seems I can’t tolerate much more than 800 mls per hour which means that I can only afford to gain about 2 litres between sessions (the computer adds an extra few hundred mls for saline and drinks during the session).

This puts my daily fluid allowance at about 1.5 litres to include all drinks, gravy, jelly, fruit, etc. It’s a tough regime to stick to and it takes its toll on the bowel – I haven’t had a proper No 2 since Monday because I’ve been so strict with my fluids.

I mentioned this to Sister Sailor today and we started joking about enemas and colonic irrigation then she came out with the startling fact that you can give yourself a DIY colonic by waterskiing. Being a sporty type she unwittingly managed this herself when unable to stand up and not wearing a wetsuit this position forced rather a lot of high pressure water where the sun doesn’t normally shine.

This reminded me of an acquaintance of mine who suffering a similar termination of regular bowel action took matters into her own hands with embarrassing consequences. Miss X took an old squeezy mustard bottle, rinsed it thoroughly (or so she thought), filled it with warm water and inserted it into her rectum. She was splattering mustardy poo for days afterwards – every time she sneezed, sat down, coughed, etc. out it would come.

I think I’ll stick to my plums and Senokot for now but I do have a squeezy curry sauce bottle knocking around in the kitchen somewhere …

I Am The Law

Working with the military, friends come and go as tours of duty begin and end. Initially I had difficulty accepting this rapid turnover and would get quite upset but now after 7 years it’s virtually a case of turn up at the leaving do, shake their hand and say “OK then, see ya!”

Occasionally you get people that you get close to and the goodbyes get harder. I’ve recently had to wave goodbye to Dave and Julie and their gorgeous cats Chester and Kensington. Dave was the First Sergeant for my squadron and was a good mate and confidant. My husband nursed his Porsche back to health after a long illness (just one of his many talents, among wall building, welding, plumbing, computer genius, CAD work) and Dave’s generosity in payment kept our heads above water while my husband was unemployed.

There must be something about the name Dave because another Dave that I knew was hard to say goodbye to a few years ago. He should have arrived home again in California today after 15 months away from his lovely family on what’s called a “remote assignment” in Turkey. Most tours with the US Air Force are undertaken with your family in tow but with remotes the military member goes unaccompanied. As I understand it remotes are in places that are either too dangerous or too alien to take a civilian family to. They're off to Hawaii next so they had to endure the tough assignment before scoring the holy of holies.

Dave was a “pointy head” avionics whiz who worked in a microelectronics laboratory but he was assigned to a staff job in Quality Assurance at the same time that I was a Technical Order Distribution Officer – I procured, tracked, distributed and inspected all technical data required for maintaining F-15s and their support equipment and for flying them too. He’s retrained into Intelligence now and I’m sure he’s heard all the jokes before so I’m not even going to mention the one about not usually seeing the words Intelligence and Dave in the same sentence.

I thought of Dave as younger brother. Or a puppy. He was always dragging back some booty that he’d managed to dig up from somewhere, and dancing around all knees, elbows and big feet with his tongue hanging out excited about what he’d pulled off. I’m sure he’s grown out of that by now … maybe.

He also fed my Sour Skittles addiction – best not dip too much into that murky period, I was different person when I did Skittles.

One afternoon I was sitting working at my computer when a message flashed up saying that I was being monitored. I couldn’t carry on working while the message remained so as there was an “OK” button in the message I pressed it and it went away.

A minute later it happened again so I thought I’d better get the computer dude down to see what was going on – I wasn’t particularly concerned about being monitored, you sign a user agreement before you’re allowed a network account that says you’re likely to be monitored and as I hadn’t heard of chatrooms, Ebay and blogs back then I was reasonably compliant. I was worried in case it was some kind of virus, so off I went.

Before I got out of the door I couldn’t help but notice Dave curled up in hysterics on the floor.

It took him a full 5 minutes to tell me what he was laughing about because he was laughing so hard and it turned out that he’d learnt how to send messages through the network that pop up on the screen. He’d set me up. Hmm, time to neuter that puppy.

A few weeks went by when the perfect opportunity came along to play the joke on one of the other guys in the office, Jamie. Jamie had acquired a whole load of old .exe arcade type games. Needless to say those games are verboten on a military computer.

Jamie was busy at his desk playing Frogger and had a couple of other guys, his supervisor included, standing behind him when I sent the message through the network direct to his screen that OSI – The Office Of Special Investigations, the US Air Force's Secret Police was "watching his illegal activities".

Jamie totally freaked out – unsurprising really as he was waiting to go to Officer Training School in preparation for retraining as a fighter pilot. An OSI investigation would undoubtedly cost him his new career.

He started to shutdown his system. I managed to keep a straight face long enough to ask what was wrong but I couldn’t contain my laughter for long so I left and went to the office next door. While I was in there giggling hysterically the computer guy came in and asked me what was going on. With a stroke of genius he decided to go storming into my office and told Jamie that he was impounding the computer. He promptly dismantled everything and took it away leaving poor Jamie wondering what was going to happen next.

He got as far as explaining to the Group exec about what happened (the exec was playing along as he twigged that there was foul play afoot) and was prepared to go and talk to the Group Commander before he found out that it was all a big joke. But don’t feel too sorry for Jamie folks – he had that shock coming to him for a looooong time.

Welcome home Dave!! If you’re reading this I thought you’d like a trip down Memory Lane.

Soggy Pussy

Stubbed my little toe last night whilst trying to go through a door (note to self must allow more clearance). Naturally I used some ripe Anglo Saxon expletives which rather startled the cat that I was carrying at the time. Her ripe feline expletives, punctuated with claws, forced me to drop her and she ran off through the catflap. I opened the back door to try to entice her back in before she got too wet - it was blowing a gale and raining cats & dogs - a wet pussy tends to stain the sofa.

Imagine my surprise when I spot a cluster of my favourite molluscs outside forming a veritable picket line in the rain. They shook their eye stalks at me in fury and held up tiny placards proclaiming cute little phrases like “Temperance Mothers Against Beer Traps!” and “Make Slime not War!” and “Shock and Awe No More!”.

I fear my hostas could be in danger from gastropod guerillas so I shall have to tread very carefully