What gives you the right???

Every now and then something will happen to me and I'll just sit back and think 'Did that really just happen'.

This occurred yesterday when I went to check my Facebook page and found I had a message waiting for me from a lady I worked with when I first started at the bank. As happens with probably the majority of people's FB friends, I had very little contact with this lady, saw the odd one or two of her updates but never commented or posted on her wall. She was just there, a virtual acquaintance. I hadn't worked with her in a number of years and apart from FB, I didn't have any contact with her whatsoever in the real world.

When I checked the message all it had was a frowny face. I was a little confused and thought I would check her wall to see if it would shed any light on the matter. I found a status update from last week saying (and I'm doing this from memory, I didn't save it) 'Just found out that a lady I used to work with had an affair with a co-workers hubby. And you think you know people! Well, Karma is a bitch, especially to sluts who do stuff like that'.
A few people had commented, begging for a name and the lady had said 'No names ladies but I'm sure that when the slut in question reads this she'll know exactly who she is.'

Ahhhh! thought I, I never saw that status and apparently after getting no reaction she thought she'd send me a enigmatic message so I would find it.

Now on principle, I haven't replied to any of the nasty messages I received during all of this but I felt like I had to respond to this one. Why? Well this lady wasn't at the branch I was at when all of this happened. She was on maternity leave I think. Apparently she had only transferred to that branch a couple of weeks ago. And I couldn't help but ask myself 'What gives her the right to judge me on something that a) happened a year ago and b) didn't involve her at all, in any capacity since she wasn't even a co-worker of the people involved.
I was rather pissed to be honest. I had thought that after a year it would be safe to turn on my computer without getting harassed every second.

So I replied. At length. I'll just summarise it here since it really is too long to do in full.
I asked her if she had ever made a mistake before because apparently I am the only person in the history of the world to have done so judging by the reactions I have had. I then went on to dispel all the false rumours I knew had been spread about me. No, I haven't broken up any other marriages, no I hadn't tried to sleep with every man who had worked at the bank and considering I've only slept with two men in my entire life I'm hardly a slut. I told her that I didn't do what I did out of spite or viciousness, it just happened and I am truly sorry for the hurt I caused but at the end of the day it is no one else's business and people need to keep their noses out from where they don't belong. I will not tolerate any more abuse or threats towards me or my family and then I said I had deleted her from my account and I hoped she had a happy life.

I got back this.
'Well I didn't expect such a full on response but just for the record no one has been gossiping about you, I only found out last week I think in error & all I can say I was shocked, I truly was stunned & I've struggled with it over the past few days, I hope that you & your husband deal with it, I hope it's something you have learnt from & I do truly believe that you AREN'T a spiteful person. If you have been threatened I am sorry that your family has been, I haven't heard anything like that or do I know who would so such a thing, I don't believe that is the right way to deal with anything, I haven't mentioned your name on facebook, I don't believe that is the action anyone should take or do, I would never try to upset you on purpose either, the whole situation saddened me. I do wish you well though, so take from that what you will & I guess in closing have a happy life too.....'

I know this is turning into a bit of a rant but honestly! She didn't expect such a full on response??? Did she just expect to be able to say whatever she damn well pleases and not expect a reaction? I felt like replying back and addressing some if the things she mentioned (like the fact that this all happened a YEAR ago - Christian and I have already dealt with it!) but in the end I didn't think it was worth the hassle.
I've blocked her entirely now like I have done with all the people at the bank, but I honestly hadn't even thought of blocking her before since I didn't know she would take it upon herself to get involved. I toyed with the idea of having as a status update 'I had an affair a year ago. For those of you who didn't know and would like to send a nasty message, please do so now and just get it over with. Thankyou' but I'm sure that's not the best idea lol.

Gah, I'm just so miffed by this whole thing, it just seems some days that I would have been better off committing genocide or something. I'm sure people wouldn't have kicked up anywhere near as much fuss then...probably because they'd be either dead or too scared of me but that's beside the point! At least I'd have some sort of a chance of getting my life back on track. I guess what most people don't realise is that no matter how hard they are on me, I've been hardest on myself. I know I did an awful, unforgivable thing but what's done is done, I can't go back and change things and no amount of abuse will change that.

So just give it a damn rest.

In space no one can hear the thunder...

Nor can we in Perth.

BECAUSE THERE ISN'T ANY!!!

I am so over being told by people in the know that we'll be having thunderstorms and rain. All we're getting is fecking hot and humid weather and I'm really, really over it. Towards the end of a bitterly cold winter I shall never again look expectantly forward to summer.

I tell you, I think hell decided to relocate to the south of Western Australia.

Ok, enough ranting about the weather.

What have I been up to lately?
Well, I've been implementing one of my new years resolutions.
No, not the 'gym more, eat less crap' one because I think I'm going backwards with that. I shall be the size of a house by the time some of you come to visit me in October.
No, the one I've been implementing is the 'do more of the things that I want to do' one.

To put it simply, Christian and I don't exactly have similar tastes when it comes to hobbies. Sure there are some movies that we both like, TV shows are pretty on par and I've taken up an interest in cars, but on a base level we're quite different.
Now I don't have a problem with that at all but to actually spend time with each other it does mean that one if us ends up doing something that isn't a real interest to us.
That person tends to be me.
99.9% of the time.
Since we've been together I've ...

• Joined a rally team and hence spent many weekends being cold and wet in the middle of nowhere changing muddy tyres.
• Sat for many an hour watching Christian participate in track days plus attend numerous Motovations and car shows.
• Watched endless Jackie Chan movies plus other martial arts movies (to be fair I have developed a liking for some of these but they're still not my genre of choice).
• Spent hours on end and occasionally all night playing cards and board games.

• Spent hours on end and occasionally all night watching Christian play on his computer (once again I've developed a bit of a liking for this as I do enjoy chatting to the guys that attend LANS but it's not something I would have taken up by myself)

I wouldn't mind this if it went both ways but Christian is a stubborn male and absolutely refuses to do an activity if he won't enjoy it. Therefore all he has done in return is...

• Take up Squash (he refused to play Badminton as he doesn't like it but this was his compromise)
• Watch one or two girly movies with me at the cinema (Ever After being one and Harry Potter 5 being the other!)
• Once (and only once - it was last Sunday) help me in the garden.

I've discovered that I've kind of lost myself over the years and so I resolved to this year make more time for myself and do less things just because Christian is doing them. If this means that we spend less time together then so be it. If Christian wants to spend more time with me then he can participate in some of my activities.

Now I don't want to give the wrong impression - things are great between us. No marital problems or anything, I just need to do what's right for me. So in aid of this I have recently undertaken the following...

• Taken up Jazz Funk classes. These are classes in which we're taught a new routine every few weeks (the first is a hip hop routine, not sure what the next will be) with the intent of having fun and getting fit at the same time.
• I've stopped going to soccer on both Wednesdays and Sundays. I did like going to soccer but it was more for the perv value I think than out of any actual enjoyment for the game. I can perv on my hubby at home just as well as there and it does mean I can do more important things on the weekends instead of cutting them short just to sit around watching Christian exercise.
• I've chosen not to attend two games nights that our friend Daniel has held since the New Year. Now, there are a couple of board games that I quite enjoy but at these nights the boys tend to steer away from those and play more strategy based ones and I get bored and try to sleep on a mouldy old couch.
• There are a few movies that Christian has gone to watch that I haven't joined him with simply because I'm not interested in them. Instead I've seen a few chick flicks with some girls from work and my sisters.
• Barb and I are going to take up Belly Dancing when the new term starts. It's something I've always wanted to do, although I'm sure I'll be crap at it.

So hopefully is all goes well I'll start actually having my own life as well as my married one. I think the problem I've had is that I've only been thinking of me in terms of 'us' and not as 'me'. Just because I'm married it doesn't mean I should give up my own life.
I'm already feeling much happier for it which is great although I don't think Christian realised just how resolved I was. I'm pretty sure he thought I was having a whinge but wouldn't make any changes. On Sunday I went off to the markets and received a txt saying 'Soccer's on at 3 will you be back in time to come'. I really wanted to reply 'You assume I'm going' but managed to restrain myself. There's no need to be snippy after all. Instead I waited till I got home five minutes later to inform him I wasn't going. He seemed a bit shocked as I always go but I'm sure he'll learn that that's all going to change.

So I'll let you know how all my new hobbies go. If Belly Dancing doesn't work out I'm thinking of taking up another type although most of them you need a partner for (and I'm sure it comes as no surprise to hear that Christian refuses to take up dancing lessons with me). We'll just have to wait and see I suppose.
Sorry if this seemed like one long rant. I'll try and make my next post a little cheerier. Till then, take care.

Straight Jacket Needed

I think I'm going insane.

Ok, maybe I was already there, but I'm certainly more insane now than I was two weeks ago.

The reason? My neighbour.

Andy, our delightful neighbour who lives directly across the road from us isn't exactly the ideal neighbour. Sure he seems friendly, waves when you're watering the garden, doesn't cause any trouble and seems to get along fairly well with everyone around. Unfortunately he has this...annoying habit that is the cause of my marbles going missing.

Andy likes to play music.

But he'll only play one song at a time.

Over and over.

For hours on end (and no, I'm NOT exaggerating)

Loud enough for the entire neighbourhood to hear.

Andy has a wide taste in music - he'll play anything from ACDC to folk music to kiddie nursery rhymes. Of late his song of choice has been a foreign language folk song that has lots of cow bell in it and has an eerily similar tune to Advance Australia Fair. Before this, for the longest time he would only play a Country and Western song which I guess to be called All you ever do is bring me down. When the children next door to him request it, he'll also play How Much is that Doggie in the Window or The Chicken Dance Song.

When we first moved in it took us a little while to figure out what was going on. You do kind of tune out the noise from around you but after a while your consciousness will prod you in the back of the head and say 'Oi, you can't ignore that any longer - it's the same song being played over and over!'.
It's amazing how mad it actually drives you.

The fact that I've been on holidays for the past two weeks and have been at home more than I usually am has really compounded the issue. You notice it all the time.

The problem I have is that I don't really feel like I can say anything to him about this. The volume he plays it at may be loud enough for us to hear it but I don't think it's actually anywhere near the volume of which you can make a complaint about. Add to this is the fact that not so long ago (before I moved in but I'm sure while my Dad was living here) Andy had a stroke. So I do wonder if this has affected his memory and he doesn't actually remember playing the song so he'll play it again. And then lastly, everyone else on the street has been here much longer than us and so it feels kind of rude for it to be the relative newbies on the street to complain. I'm pretty sure someone at some point must have said something anyway (out of everyone living in the area I'm sure someone has snapped in the past) so I don't think it would really do me any good.

The silver lining is that my holidays are over now and I go back to work on Monday so I should start to regain what little of my senses I have remaining to me.

If I don't, hopefully they'll allow my internet access at the asylum.

A rant not aimed at any of you

Warning - contains unlady-like language.

I've had a shitty week.

I've been sworn at by customers, had to put up with idiots of the road, been stressed because of understaffing at work and had generic crap happen pretty much every day of the week. This is on top of my Uncle Ian passing away on Tuesday.

It's all accumulated in me being in a very grumpy mood when I arrived home from work yesterday. In response to Christian's query of how my day had been I retorted 'I have come to the conclusion that the human race are a pack of c*#ts and on the whole I want nothing to do with them ever again.'

Now, I swear like a pirate at the best of times but Christian was rather shocked at my use of the C word. I'm sure there will be others of you out there who will be equally as shocked.

That's how crap my week has been.

The end.

P.S. I like stories.

How age has changed me

I've found that since I've gotten older I've become quite a lot more politically incorrect than I used to be.
I'm not saying I've turned into one of those dreadful old women who say whatever they feel like, usually uncomplimentary things about the person next to them in line at the shops, as loud as they possibly can.
It's more in my general conversations.
For example if I see someone doing something completely moronic I'm more often than not going to make the comment 'Gosh, are they retarded or something?'
Now when I was younger I would never use the word 'retarded'. This may or may not be due to my mothers' influence (Mum worked in Disabilities for years and would have cuffed me round the ear if she's heard that term come out of my mouth). I have just always thought it to be too derogatory a word to use. But something has changed in me and my way of thinking and I'm not too sure what it is.

Another example is I'll make bitchy comments about people in a grumbly sort of way. The other day Barbie and I were at the shops and this really tall guy was walking sooooo slowly down the middle of the isle and we couldn't get past. After we'd detoured out of our way I mumbled to myself 'Honestly, could you move any slower Goliath?'
Barbie heard me, gasped and told me off for being mean. As you may have guessed, she found this out of character for me.

I've also noticed that when it comes to the native population of Australia (and I'm sure calling them 'natives' isn't exactly PC) I've found myself becoming more and more cynical. When I worked in my last job I'd see a young Aboriginal girl walk in wearing a really nice top and I'd automatically think 'I wonder where she stole that from?'
Now I have a theory that I think this way about this particular group because almost every time I'd do a bag check as they left the store I'd find several small but valuable items shoved at the bottom of their bags.
I don't have this opinion about the whole race, I've met many upstanding citizens whose ancestors probably used to camp in what is now my backyard. It's just after a while the actions of a few really start to reflect badly on the rest of a group.

I guess in such a politically correct society any little thing I do I find myself over-evaluating. I'm just glad that I have a circle of friends who are probably just as un-PC as I am and don't get all huffy when I say something that I really shouldn't. And if any of you do, then you're probably hanging about with the wrong crowd.

Rant time!

I haven't had a good rant for a while now and I saw something today that annoyed me so I thought 'What the heck, that's what a blog's for'.

Now, as most of you would have figured out from my previous few posts, I'm not the skinniest person in the world. I do like to dress nicely though and go to I'd say the average amount of effort in my appearance. I always try to buy flattering clothes that fit nicely but don't make me look like a granny.

Now, today I was walking across the road from the parking lot to work when I saw a young girl walk up to the ATM. She was probably a size 12, maybe 14 at the most, pretty average I'd say but the thing that made me notice her was the fact that she was muffin-topping ridiculously badly. Her jeans must have been a full size too small for her and she was wearing this tight crop top that really didn't show off her figure to it's full advantage.

I hate it when people do this! If she was wearing jeans that actually fit properly, she would have looked really nice. But instead she looked...skanky.
Is it some obscure sense of pride that makes some women only buy one size of clothing even if it doesn't fit? Because that's just plain dumb. Clothing isn't always the same size. I have clothes that differ by as much as four sizes because one brand varies so much from the next. I'm not going to squeeze myself into something that obviously won't fit just so I can claim to be a certain size.

And you know what makes this really bad? When it's a case of mutton dressed as lamb. I find it particularly frightening when it's a 45 year old woman dressing in her teenage daughters clothes. I understand that you are only as old as you feel, blah blah blah, but come on, have a little decorum. There could be children present for crying out loud.

Ok, rant's over now. I just needed to get that off my chest.

How can anyone be THAT stupid???

We received a fraud alert at work the other day stating that an organisation known as 'The Independent Sovereign State of Australia' had been issuing currency and cheques that were being mistaken as legal tender. Attached to this memo was a scan of the notes and cheques that had been accepted.

They looked nothing like our currency!

I have phenomenal trouble understanding how someone who works in a bank would fail to recognise fake currency when they see it. It's like someone who works at Maccas making a whopper by mistake. It just aint gonna happen people!

Sometimes I truly worry about the future of mankind.

6.1% Term Deposits on Daylight!

I know that the majority of the world assumes daylight savings when summer comes knocking, but WA has shunned it for years.

We had it trialled for a year back in the late 80's (I think - I was about 10 or 11, or even maybe 12 so around about the change of the decade anyway) and it didn't do much for the people of the
west because in three consecutive referendums it was shot down.

Now, why do we need to save daylight? Electricity I can understand. That comes from valuable resources that are for the most part non-renewable and so we need to conserve them. Water, pretty much the same thing - there's only so much of it to go around. But sunlight? Heck, the sun's pretty big and with the hole in the ozone layer sitting pretty above this little island of ours, well let's just say I think we're getting our fair share. Do we really need to put a little bit of daylight away each day, in our little sunshine piggy banks, for a rainy day???

Now however there's been a call by politicians to bring it back (most likely because the businesses want it). They 'say' that enough time has passed that we have a new generation now that deserves the chance to experience daylight savings for themselves. This generation were just babies last time we had it, so why not give them a choice?

And herein lies my biggest issue. I'm not even really that dead set against daylight savings itself (it doesn't particularly faze me). What does bother me is that the pollies want to give this new generation the chance to mess with nature and conform it to humans expectations, but we don't actually get a say in whether we want it or not.

You see, the way it's going down is that the clocks get turned back come December 3, and every summer after for the next three years, and then, and only then will we go to a referendum to see if the people agree. Even though there has been a consistency in the past to let nature do what it intended to do, the politicians are going to walk over our right to a vote and force us into a three year trial.

Gah, it annoys me!

If they're so sure that this is what the people want, why not just let us have our say? Hell, trial it for a year and then let us vote, but don't force it on us for three years!

But, what's this? Do you see that? Oh my God! It's the big businesses that fund the election campaigns! *gasp* Who would have seen that coming?

Obviously not me.

Angel

I've stopped twice in the last three weeks to help out ladies who's cars have broken down, and I've been surprised both times by the amount of people who just drive past, ignoring their plight.
The first time was actually in the car park of my local shopping centre. A heavly pregnant woman got out of her car that was reversed half way out of a bay and said it wasn't starting but she thought I'd be able to reverse out around her. I said 'Um, do you need some help?' and she goes 'Oh, I don't want to be a pain'. I told her it was no trouble and we managed to roll her car back into another bay. But while we were doing this at least five people tried to drive past and honked at us for being in the middle of the road.
Can you believe it???
I mean, not only did I think people would stop to help anyone who had broken down, but the fact that this woman looked like she was about to have her waters break right then and there, I really thought that would have made more people want to help. Obviously I was wrong. Eventually though a couple came over to help and the guy turned out to be a mechanic so we managed to get the car started. As I was leaving the lady told me I was a complete angel and she was lucky I was passing by at that moment.
Tonight I was driving home from my Mum's place when I came across a car with their hazard lights on just around a corner. I pulled over and asked the lady behind the wheel if she needed any help and she informed me that she didn't have her phone with her, had a broken ankle and thought her car wasn't working because the guy at the petrol station had put in unleaded instead of diesel. I gave her my phone and she called her partner, who wouldn't come and get her because he was in the middle of a workout!!! It was at this point that she started swearing at him like a fishmongers wife, and really I don't blame her. I'd be the same if Christian refused to come pick me up when I'd broken down. She ended up hanging up in a huff and then bursting into tears. All the while car after car drove past and none stopped to help until a couple of guys who really could only be called 'derros' pulled up (Smerk will understand and maybe the Edinburgh crew, although I don't think we explained it all that well. http://www.aussieslang.com/slang/australian-slang-d.asp?page=2 hopefully this will help) . We rolled the car off the road and I gave the lady and her little boy a ride home, although I didn't stay to witness the murder that I'm sure took place shortly afterwards. But before I left, this lady also told me I was an angel and I left feeling really warm and fuzzy because I'd done a good thing.
It got me thinking though why more and more people today just prefer to look the other way and completely ignore those who are in need. It makes you feel really good when you help others and I think the world would be a better place if we all did more of it.
But somehow I don't think that's going to happen.