Monday 30 June 2008

Off to the Dentist again!

Recently the Princess had surgery to remove her four front teeth as her adult left tooth came through the roof of her mouth. As her tooth came behind the baby tooth it wasn't going to fall out on it's own. Apparently the adult tooth absorbs the roots of the baby teeth hence why they fall out. And as she has such large adult teeth and a small jaw there isn't enough room for the new teeth. So off to the dentist. The Princess would not allow the local dentist to pull out the tooth so off to the paediatric dentist who has lovely fairy gas. The fairy gas got nowhere near the Princess' nose, so off to surgery we went.

The dentist recommended we do 2 or 3 years worth of dentistry work while she was under because he didn't think he would get near her mouth any time soon. OK we went ahead and had the surgery done, a mold was taken while under so a plate could be made to push the tooth forward over the bottom teeth. All goes well. We are surprised how well the Princess recovers and quite happily has the plate fitted and really enjoys wearing it. (She enjoys it because she's the only one in her class with a plate and all the other kids want one now!) We even pay the bill quite happily and thank the Lord for our private health insurance.

Last Friday night the Princess had a sleep over at a friends house. She wrapped her plate in a tissue and put it next to her dinner plate as she forgot her plate holder in the car. I guess in all the excitement she overlooked it and did the best she could to look after the plate itself. Dinner was finished and off she went. In the meantime her friends Dad cleared the table and threw all the tissues and serviettes in the fire. Yep plate and all! They looked in the fire and the next morning and not a scrap of it was left. It must of melted. Even the the metal pieces.

Great! My friend was extremely apologetic and is insisting on paying but we won't have a bar of that. It's an accident and that's all. So now on Wednesday I have to take her back and have another mold taken of her mouth. If you hear screaming and crying on Wednesday morning coming from Mount Hawthorn you can rest assured that will be me trying to get the Princess to have this mold done.... again!

Tuesday 24 June 2008

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's 2BarRiff!

And I am cute, too

I wasn't going to use this place, or any other, to eulogize my brother. After all the emotion and hassle of the last couple of months, I just wanted it over and done with and then get on with my own life.

One of my most enduring memories of 1BarRiff was him as a child, spending hours upon hours on the backyard trampoline. He would create vast worlds that he would inhabit as a superhero such as Super-1BarRiff, Bat-1BarRiff, Spider-1BarRiff or Wonder-1BarRiff (which was kinda creepy).

All this wasn't so bad, gender experimentation aside, until the day he started turning up at school proclaiming his super identities to all and sundry. To the other kids in the family this was mortifying as we were subjected to humiliation by association, while 1BarRiff, oblivious to our pain and his tormentors, tore around the school grounds it the classic Superman pose. Or tried to stick to walls in the classic, but doomed to fail, Spiderman pose. I'm glad he was never seen to do the old Wonder Woman, arms outstretched, twirly costume change thingy as I would have had to kill him to avoid the abuse from my classmates.

Now, far be it for me to let this website be about anything else, so I now need to segue into how this is all relevant to, and about, me.

I could never be a superhero, for two reasons:

1. I use my powers for evil at worst and self interest at best; and
2. I'm not good with lycra.

As the mornings have gotten colder, I did a major re-assessment of my running clothes and so ended up wearing bikeshorts and a long sleeve SKINS top while running. The SKINS gear, btw, gets a 2BarRiff 2ThumbsUp - they simply do a great job of, well, everything they claim it to do.

The main problem is that it takes so long to put this stuff on. Stuggling to get the gear over and under all the bits, and then getting the arms and, ahem, package, just so - all while not tearing the bathroom up as I waltz about, is a major endeavour.

And so Super2BarRiff would be a less than super hero as banks would be robbed and buildings burned down in the time it would take to put my underwear on over my pants.

I look good in lycra, though.

Depression? Oh right, I nearly forgot.

Silly me

I realised today that I haven't talked about depression much on the blog. And there's a good reason - it's because I haven't been thinking about it all that much.

(At this point in time the old self would now go back and calculate how many days it's been since
I last posted about depression. The new self now doesn't really care.)

In some ways this is good. Not having to deal with it minute by minute has shown me that I may be some way through the worst of it. Life has been a little on autopilot, aided by medication (of the non-vodka kind) and continuing therapy. I've now fallen into a pattern that's reasonably happy and easy to coast along with.

This is where the post could end. Life, as the fairy tale, ends with happily ever afters and the book is closed.

In other ways, though, I still need to work on the depression. According to my therapist, I'm
at the point where I can either take things deeper or leave them, but I'm over the worst. My
emotional development has been restarted, I'm more aware and thoughtful of things and have a
generally happy outlook.

I still live with depression, though. While the drugs do work, they haven't killed the beast,
merely cut it's claws and thrown a blanket over it. There are still fears in my life such as the fear that the beast will get loose again; the fear of failure; the fear of not having the answers and the fear of not being what I was meant to be.

My feeling now is that I have the benefit now of choosing to fight these battles, or not. So it's not a battle for my life, merely a breather while I maneuver into position.

So good point: I only stare into the abyss now, rather than teetering over the edge.
Bad point: Not much fuel for writing. I guess there's always cat-blogging.

Saturday 14 June 2008

More running

It beats thinking about depression

I run to beat my depression or, failing that, to have a part of my week where I don't have to think about depression.

Thought I'd use the awsome power of my GPS to upload some of my runs here.

If all goes well, today's run will appear below:

Friday 13 June 2008

Freinds don't let friends drink alone

Unless the friends are myself and a bottle of this.

While Madame2Bar is out with her mates, I'm looking after the kids and myself. Tonight's drink is my own invention called the 'Shy Martini'.

Basically, you take a martini glass from the cupboard and a bottle of your favourite gin from the freezer. Contemplate a list of ingredients (vermouth, ice, olives) but decide that your gin doesn't like mixing with others. Pour the gin in the martini glass. Drink. Repeat.

(The irony of talking about fitness and alcohol in adjoining posts is not lost on me. I choose to ignore it).

Running Update for May

May
Total Kms: 29.46
Total Calories: 3162
Average Pace: 5.57
Total Time: 2:34:37

Quite a bit down from the last 2 months as work and health (or lack of) got in the way. I finished May by getting lost in Lesmurdie looking for a way down the hills with an empty battery in my GPS watch, so there should be at least 20 slow kilometers on the tally and another 1500 calories or so.

Oh well. June isn't looking too bright either but that's because it's too freakin' cold in the mornings. I'd like to have more willpower but at 5.30 am, and with the temperature almost zero, the 2% of me that wants to run can't enforce their reign of terror over the other 98%.

The current aim is to achieve a sub 50 minute 10Km run, and to do the City to Surf this year. My training schedule has been left on the shelf a bit, but I should have the first done by the end of June and the second is at the end of August, giving enough time to do the 12 km in an hour. After that it's a half marathon. Then hopefully a full one.

Friday 6 June 2008

Big Bucks Part IIl

Is it revenge though when I would also benefit from a $500 spending spree at Cellarbrations? I'm fairly sure there would be a few bottles of vodak, scotch and white wines in the haul.

See, I know you very well sweetheart!! Mahahahahaha!

Wednesday 4 June 2008

Big Bucks Part II

Of course I wouldn't throw a fit.

I'd go and spend $500 at Cellarbrations.