Common Sense

When my father retired in his latter years, I recall having a conversation with him about common sense. He said that he had thought the common sense was everywhere but since his retirement had instead found it to be as rare as hen's teeth...he was astounded at the total lack of common sense displayed by the general population.

Like the person who asked me a few weeks ago if breaking a board with a punch hurt? Well what do you reckon, if you hit a solid object with your hand of course there is going to be some discomfort Einstein, I mean really, did you expect me to say it didn't??? Sure it doesn't last long but yes you can feel when you have hit it!!!



Or the morons that think the merge lane is in fact a ticket to plant your foot in order to beat the other guy into the lane...oh the fact there is a round about less than 50m ahead of you and you have to jump on the breaks to avoid rear ending the person in front of you, clearly not something to be considered let alone worried about.



Or that person at work that asks that you do something for them which you dutifully do, only to have them return to collect the work looking totally confused. A few questions from you and it becomes painfully obvious they have not even read what they gave you to do first. It would seem kind of obvious that you read it first to make sure it is what you want before giving it to someone else to do??? I mean really what is with people today?



Is it the "its all about me" part of this generation that they have no clue about how their behaviour might impact on other people?



Like the shopping centre carpark yesterday. One shopper wanted to reverse out of a carpark, but the person behind had stopped too close - did they reverse up to assist the person getting out of the park? Nope, nada, bugger them, let them do it the hard way, I ain't moving Jack. So this person undertakes the equivalent of the 52 point turn in reverse to get out of this park. At the same time traffic is building to the equivalent of the Harbour Bridge with one lane closed for repair during peak hour. This person cares not a jot. Afterall "I'm alright Jack, don't really give a toss if anyone else is alright"



I just don't get the headspace between these people's ears. Nine times out of ten, their behaviour ultimately does impact on them but are they just too dumb to get it? It isn't about being the equivalent of a graduate from ladettes to ladies here people, it isn't rocket science! It is afterall in essence a bit of courtesy and consideration of others and most of all common sense. Before you open your mouth, or do something that actually demonstrates your capacity to be a moron, pause and just think it through. Is this the best way I can do this, or will it cause problems for others and can I achieve the same thing without causing a full scale disaster in my small corner or the world?



Perhaps if more people adhered to this simple principle the rest of us would not spend so many of our waking hours resisting the urge to slap people like this sideways everytime they demonstrate to us just how lacking on common sense they are!

Memories

It has been a kind of funny time of late - much time spent in the company of my own gorgeous teenagers, chasing each other around the table tennis table and dodging a well timed thwack of the table tennis bat paddled in the direction of your rear end!

We often mourn those that we have lost and those feelings of loss are so strong in the early days and over time, the loss doesn't go away but the way we respond to it changes. Maybe because we let our minds wander to those that we have lost, we open the door again to the memories of life with them.

A good friend of mine recently lost his father, so I guess it was kind of inevitable my thoughts would turn to my own father. Interestingly there have been conversations with another friend about an upcoming event in her life which again directed my thoughts back to my father.

My mum reckons I remind her of him at times with my mannerisms. My brother on the other hand is the living image of my father, right down to the way in which he answers the telephone!

Dad grew up in fairly tough times with his father having to work on the railways to make a living, leaving his mother largely to raise the family on her own during those times his father was away. As the oldest son, I think in many ways he took on much of the responsibility for his mother and his younger siblings.

I'm sure it was his upbringing that made him the way he was, he was a pretty forthright guy...one of the things I remember most as an adult was him saying "If you want to hear me say what you want to hear, then don't ask me, because if you ask me what I think I am going to tell you what I think whether you like it or not!" Well like he said, we were warned! Many a time family members asked him his opinion, with no concept that what would come out was the honest truth as he saw it, no softly softly, no bullshit, just his thoughts laid out there on the table.

He did his stint in national service as a young man, and well all that routine and rigidity of life must have sure suited him because it sure became a way of life in our household. It wasn't a dull, scary, nasty place, quite the opposite but there was a routine and heaven help he who didn't follow the routine.

Of course as the youngest and the only daughter, I was always Daddy's Princess and he sooo loved having a daughter as father's often do. Sadly for him, his wasn't the prissy feminine thing seen sitting delicately on the seat in a sea of pink tulle and lace...nope his daughter was the jeans and T-shirt girl, tearing around the yard like a mad thing, trying to keep up with my older brother and his friends...none of that girlie stuff for this girl - what a bore!

As was the case for many fathers of his generation he was a master of the school of tough love. Not that we were really smacked that often that I can remember, although I do remember one or two summers as an up myself tween that I shot my mouth off, only to reel from the sting of a well timed thwack with the rubber thong deftly whipped off his foot and aimed across the back of my leg. Still I can honestly say I never had to wonder what it was I was being punished for, each time I wore one, I had been being a total smart mouthed pain in the arse and the pain finished up being mine just for a shortwhile til the sting went : - )

He had some classic sayings that to this day I chuckle when I think about them. Like when as kids we would hang off him with this constant whinging tirade of "Oh I wish we could have a ......." which we would then just repeat over and over again in an instinctive child knowledge of Japanese water torture (although we didn't know that is what it was at the time). He would put up with the whinging and whining for as long as he could and then smile sweetly at us and respond with "Wellll why don't you try wishing in one hand and spitting in the other and see which gets full first" LOL can you believe he used to say that to us kids?

Or the more stereotypic parental sayings like "If B wanted to jump off a cliff, would you want to do that too?" and perhaps most frightening of that little gem is the moment I first heard it come from my own mouth in discussion with my own children...arrrggghhhhh I'm turning into my own parents!!!!!

I don't actually recall this one happening but knowing what a total bitch I was as a tween, I have no doubt about its truth. One Saturday morning having collected me from gymnastics, Dad wanted to stop off at the shop to pick up a few things and get us some tasties for lunch from the bakery. Well of course I didn't go into the shops with him, are you kidding??? How embarrassing being seen in the company of your olds at the shop! Nope, not I!!! Having returned to the car to deposit the shopping, he enquired sweetly through my passenger side window as to what I might like (for lunch). It would appear that at some point in the morning he had managed to rearrange his pants and socks in such a way as to have his trouser leg tucked into his sock! So in response to his loving question about the possible cullinary delights I might like, the poor bugger got a mouthful....allegedly that went something like this "What I'd like is for you to take your pants of our your sock and stop looking like a dickhead!" What a complete and utter bitch, but you know as a tween there is nothing more sacred than not appearing like a total tool in front of your peers and well, what if someone had seen him dressed like that and recognised him as my father? Lordy, lordy I'd have to have hibernated for months to avoid the embarrassment of that one! I have no idea how I managed to escape his wrath for that little outburst, perhaps he too remembered those teen angst years and cut me some slack...as I now do for son number 2 when I speed up if I see anyone he knows in the distance so by the time they walk by us, I am several metres in front and number 2 son is clearly not "out with the olds".

Mind you my Dad wasn't always serious, far from it! He had a prized gi-normous wooden spoon hanging on the wall that said "World's Greatest Stirrer" given him to by work colleagues because he was most assuredly a shit stirrer with a very cutting, very witty sense of humour - see you can see that my father and I are nothing alike really...not!!

I remember my Dad giving son number 1 a big box wrapped up as a gift for his birthday. Beloved son had asked for a soccer ball and so expected to find that when he unwrapped his gift - you can imagine his surprise when he opened the box and it contained a roll of toilet paper! Of course my Dad thought he was just hilarious. So that became the standing gift between son and grandfather for several years, a version of the wrapped up roll of toilet paper given for birthdays or Christmas!

Sadly for my kids along with some of his parenting sayings I too have a decidedly immature sense of humour - yep there have been times when they have asked me one time too many what is for tea and I can't help myself but the words "pooh on toast" roll off my tongue with consumate ease!

I'm not sure why it is but karate and my Dad seemed to have been an intertwining story in my life. I signed up my oldest son and myself for karate mid week when one of those door to door folk appeared offering a package if 2 people signed up together. I spoke to my father a day or so later and told him I was planning on doing karate with my oldest - what could he say really? All those years of raising a tomboy, I'm not sure anything surprised him. Whilst he had been ill for sometime and we knew his time was limited, the suddeness of his death took us all by surprise, it was the early hours of a Wednesday morning. It was the Sunday of that week that son and mother were to partake of their first karate lesson. In an attempt to both keep a sense of normality to their lives and to not disappoint my son, off we went to that karate lesson. What a complete godsend that was! All the angst, turmoil and sadness left me for the duration of my time in the dojo. There was so much to learn, so much to absorb, all my energy and focus were directed at what was going on in front of me. I thought I was doing a pretty good job, til the clown in front said "now we will move forwards and backwards doing that"...hahaha pretty funny joke eh? Only he wasn't joking! I wonder whether it was that beautiful sense of calm, of invigoration of my spirit that I experienced that day, that has melded me to the practice of karate from that day forth.

Many years later, my brown belt grading was approaching, the biggie, the biggest one apart from the black belt shodan grading, so everyone said. I was the picture of calm and tranquility at that grading (most unusual for the nerve bucket I usually am pre-grading). However for this grading I was completely calm because I believed no matter what happened I was going to grade that day. Why? Because it was meant to be. The date of my brown belt grading fell on my father's birthdate.

This week precedes another big grading, in many ways the biggest yet. Where the shodan was the undergrad, the nidan becomes the post grad. The journey as much about me and what I have learnt and how I use what I know to help out others, as it is about learning specific moves or stances. And yet I still I find myself thinking of him and writing a blog to honour him - again the alignment is there in my life, that link that continues.

Memories are so good to have of those we love and when it comes to lost parents, I think we don't really appreciate them or who they really are until we become adults in the first instance and then more tellingly as parents ourselves in the second instance. We sure forgive our parents a multitude of "sins" when we take to the daunting task of parenting ourselves. We discover only too soon that kids don't come with instruction manuals and you just have to make the best decision you can at the time, sometimes it is the right one, sometimes it is the wrong one....but the decision was always made with love and with the best intentions!

The Simple Things

Well I am truly a gal of simple pleasures these days....

I don't know if it is a getting older kind of thing, maybe getting wiser...my kids might contest that point....maybe it is just getting more comfortable in your own shoes so you just worry less about the unimportant things.

It is of course school holidays - a living nightmare for some parents!

I have always been pretty lucky, when the boys were younger, their Dad being a teacher got to be home with them all the time! I didn't go back to more than 15 hours a week work til they were school age so we were home together a lot of the time. As they grew older I was back full time and still only had 4 weeks of leave to share with them each year.

Over the last 5 or so years, having become part of the school based employee club, I now get school holidays too!!! Oh how quickly I adapted to all that extra time off I can tell you.

It has been such a great thing. I am now mum's taxi to two teenage boys to and from school every day. Of course we get there earlier than their mates and leave after them too, but it gives extra time for homework or getting access to the classroom first thing in the morning to get that book you forgot but need in order to do your homework : - )

What it has brought is a lot of time to just hang with my boys. In this totally crazy world where life flies by and you wonder where the years have gone, this time to just hang is the most precious thing of all. Time spent in the car could be conversations of events of the day, or it could be silence as I drive, one sits and thinks to himself, the other attempts to blow his eardrums to pieces with Metallica blaring through the ear pieces of his mp4 player. One of our most favourite things to do on the drive home is to tune into Hamish and Andy. Fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately) the boys and I share the same sense of humour. Many a time we have driven home from school in stitches of laughter, and just when we manage to compose ourselves Hamish starts laughing and his infectious laugh starts us all off again! Or the days when a voice from behind me says "Mum can you just take a breath, and stop laughing. You are the driver, you need to focus on the road!" We have tried to share our stories with hubby and father when we arrive home, to no avail, it seems it is one of those "had to be there" kind of things.

I now know who their closest friends are, who the kids that drive them nuts because they act like morons are, which girls are part of the "in crowd" and which girls are just blah! Like I said time spent with them is so precious.

We have really been truly blessed by 2 gorgeous boys, well they will always be boys to me, but at almost 16 and 14, they are in fact on the verge of being young men. The 15 months between them (no of course it wasn't planned that way!!!!) has been brilliant because they get on so well together. Very rarely they have a spat but it is usually because one or the other is over tired or stressed and worried about something. As a general rule they are tight as, they hang out together and actually genuinely enjoy each others company. Yet for all their compatibility, they are in fact very different personalities. One is the confident, assertive, outgoing academic, loves school, loves learning, loves writing pages and pages...the other is much less confident, very hands on, loves the technical and the doing, loathes the writing, loves music and is quite a gifted guitar player.

So this weekend has been time spent with my most gorgeous boys. My guitarist has taken to downloading music off the net and teaching himself things to play. I love that he is so passionate about things and so keen to teach himself new things. When he plays and practices, I praise him on the good job that he is doing, whilst silently despairing that if I hear that same Metallica song played again and again for another hour I may well garrotte myself on the closest spare string I can find!

Then out of the blue yesterday Master 16 decided it was time to reclaim the table tennis table. It has for some months now been wearing a fetching green artificial lawn carpet which was of course home to the battlezone for Warhammer - a strategy game involving self assembled models, which is very popular with teen boys.

Thus we had the task of remembering just where were put the bats, the balls and the nets - which we found with surprising ease - hey gotta be lucky sometimes right.

The boys spent some time hanging out playing against each other, and all we could hear from inside was friendly sledging and copious amounts of laughter. When they asked us to come out to play, I realised that their friendly playing was in fact, time spent getting their eye in and rhythm back so that they might whip the asses of their parents! For awhile it worked too.

So last night, a swinging Saturday night in our household, was spent outside on the patio playing table tennis, just the 4 of us. It was just the best thing! We didn't talk about the problems of the world or how to solve them. We didn't grill the boys about where they had been or what they were doing or if they were taking drugs? No, we were just simply being together, enjoying each others company, sharing the fun and laughter of a family game of table tennis.

Yep the simplest things in life are truly the best.....

Exercise

Well exercise is a funny thing really isn't it? I must say I have always had a bit of a love/hate relationship with it really.

As kids we had the "you have to do one sport" rule in our house so couch surfing the weekends away wasn't ever going to be an option really.

My primary school and most of my high school years were dominated with two sports - gymnastics and hockey.

Ok I know I know, pick your stunned mullet selves off the floor and read on! Those of you that know the tomboy would find it oh so easy to see me covered in mud in the pouring rain, smacking that hockey ball right through the legs of the opposition defender! Oh and how much did I love that? There was something so cool about running on the field in the pouring rain, getting soaked to the skin, covered in mud and then home for a hot shower and something to eat! I wasn't half bad as a winger either, you may be suprised to learn. We were really fortunate that in both primary school and high school we had a brilliant rivalry between ourselves and another school. Different primary and high schools in similar areas but the rivalry was brutal. Come the top two play off it was always us against them and that was back in the days we cared not a jot about the self esteem of the losing team. There was never a suggestion we shouldn't share the scores with the young ones, lest they realise they are on the end of a pasting! I mean really, it isn't rocket science the ball goes flying past you to the other end and a goal is scored and it happens time and time again, you kinda get that you are being flogged! Luckily that didn't happen to us we had an awesome group of girls.

It is kind of funny looking back you know because for all our ferosity on the pitch, and the "die you b***h die" mentality on the field in the heat of battle, when that final whistle blew, it was like someone flicked a switch. Both teams of girls were all on the same team, flicking even more mud and muck on each other if that was even possible, having a great laugh and thanking each other for an awesome game irrespective of which of us won that round.

There was no such thing as fights on the field or worse yet parents fighting on the sidelines. As a parent of todays school sports players I now realise what bliss we lived in during those times. No-one was playing for sheep stations and it was all just a bit of good fun!

Soooo those of you that know me are really struggling to picture moi as the petite, delicately feminine model of a gymnast, right? Come on, don't try to pretend nice, you know you are thinking it, yes you are, go on just admit it!!!

I was but a wee thing as a child, a little short, skinny kid back then (oh puberty is a cruel cruel thing!) I started gymnastics at about age 8 and continued through til I was about 16. The latter years weren't quite so successful being 5' 7" and a little less than "rake like" in appearances didn't really do a lot for my future successes I can tell you.

However pretty, petite and delicate is part of the mix, but so too was power, speed, and strength, and I was good at that bit! It is funny how now we talk about developing upper body strength in girls and making sure we balance the exercises we do with them. Back then we did it all! Chin ups on the bars, sit ups, push ups, bouncing off of beat boards in handstands to build up shoulder strength and upper body strength.

The other thing we worked on of course was flexibility. Lots of painful contorsions of our bodies to see just how far we could push things without a zing/snap/tear happening. Now I think about I never really felt that sore the next day, oh the beauty of youth we took forgranted back then.

Towards the end of my gymnastics training I took up coaching the younger kids. I sooo loved it and they, strangely enough, loved me too! I did some coaching courses in my late teens and was quite into it for awhile. My hubby reckons I am a frustrated teacher at heart, maybe he is right, life seems to keep bringing me back to teaching in one form or another.

I gave up on coaching gymnastics as things became so competitive, we had talent squads and then we had programs that bussed you to school after your morning training before school every day, then bussed you back there for after school training and the same again on weekends. These were babies of maybe 9 or 10 years of age being pushed as if they would be the next world champions. Of all the kids I know of that went there maybe 1 in 1000 might have made national success, none of them international. We were making them choose this sport over all others, we were making them give up their lives to be this supreme athlete. Nadia Commenich was my total hero growing up. I had seen what giving up gymnastics did in her life, because she knew no other and I couldn't willingly participate in doing that to any other children's lives. They must be kids first, sporting participants second - so in my late teens I walked away from gymnastics.

In the times that I trained in these sports I loved them - it wasn't exercise, it was hard work at times but it was fun, it was challening - it was enjoyable.

In my early twenties I decided I should do something so I did the whole join the gym thing that was big at the time. Weights were good, there was a challenge there but after awhile it became a bit ho-hum, here we go again. Tried my hand at aerobics too - hmmm definitely not my thing. Perhaps my gymnastics training served me too well and I was too co-ordinated, either that or I had arrived at Unco-s-R-Us aerobics class. I had never seen so many people who didn't know their left from their right and if the exercise called for doing different things with different hands, oh good Lord, stand clear you could lose an eye! So I would do this class thinking, hmm feeling a bit hot now, feeling tired now, oh for pete's sake can you just do the damn thing right and stop stepping on my feet because you are going the WRONG DAMN WAY!! These were the years of my hate relationship with exercise. It was torture, I hated it and still I felt this intrinsic sense of guilt to make myself keep going to re-live the nightmare on a daily basis.

Fortunately pregnancy and childbirth gave me ample excuse not to have to be fit looking and that stomach flab, I could wear it proudly as the post baby bulge...oh of course it doesn't look great but look at this baby!

I tried my hand at variations on the theme well as much as you can with two young kids.

Then at thirty something I found myself accompanying one son to karate lessons. He didn't want to go on his own, and there was some "sign up two it's cheaper deal", so off we went together. The plan, I would do the first 3 months and bow out gracefully and he could keep going. I don't think he even made it to 3 months you know. Over eight years on, I am still going!

Karate is the closest match to gymnastics I have ever found. No I haven't lost the plot! We are talking traditional karate here, kata and bunkai (self defence applications) not the kinds of karate that entails breaking cement tiles with your forehead.

Kata requires balance, grace, and precision - all of which gymnastics requires. Yet there is also a need to demonstrate power, strength, and speed - again all required in gymnastics. No wonder it is such a perfect fit for me....well it is in the sense of my enjoyment of it, perhaps not so in my ability to execute it?????

I like to think of the karate we do as "the thinking person's sport". There is so much detail to be aware of, there is a history and a purpose to each series of moves and their meaning. You are sooo busy thinking about all that stuff, it isn't until you finish that you realise just how knackered you are feeling. Yep most definitely back in the LOVE phase of exercise, I miss it when I can't go, it is like a drug now really, going to training!

Contrary to some of the media stereotypes karate brings people from all walks of life to have a go, people that were it not for karate, it is highly unlikely I would have crossed paths with them at all.

Remembering all those damn compulsory routines - a different one for floor, bars, and beam, and then all the optional ones too......I'm sure that is why I find remembering kata moves and patterns a little easier than others.

Those early years of strength training and flexibility - oh thank you God - without that my kicks would never be head high! Nor would I be able to use that strength when I need it.

Oh and for the last couple of years of my karate training, this too had lead me back to teaching. Teaching in another sport and loving it just as much. There is something quite humbling about teaching, putting yourself out there, knowing at some point you will screw up and your students will know you have screwed up!! At which point you can only really laugh at yourself and get on with it. Teaching in general but perhaps more so in karate is most definitely a showing of humility, and of learning together alongside your students with every member of the dojo a teacher and every member a student.

KARATE - OH YEAH STILL LOVING IT!!!

IF IT WAS EASY ANYONE COULD DO IT!!!!!!

Precious or just unprofessional?

Ok readers, it is time for that rant! I am going to be a little careful so as not to identify my work place, although to be honest I think those concerned would have a hard time spelling "blog" let alone finding and reading mine!



This blog has been awhile coming, and I have bided my time believing perhaps these were simply one of occasional happenings - sadly not!



Several years ago I had a career change from a private company to a school. Truly after being there awhile I thought I had crash landed on la-la land where truly anything goes! Don't get me wrong I really like my job and I work with some awesome people, but some of them, their professionalism is non-existent.



Let me share some of the more priceless examples so you can see why I had to write this blog as a form of catharsis, lest I totally explode at work and as that old work poster says, "find a place to hide the bodies!"



One of these professionals, you know letters after their name, bow, scrape, kiss my a**, has an office less than 50 metres from my work area. Yes we are in the middle of heat wave and yes it is hot. However what possesses someone to call me and ask me to put the airconditioners on in the room they will be using after the lunch break? "Oh but it is hot, and when the students are in there it will be even hotter?"



What a sudden and completely overwhelming paralysis has hit you leaving only telephoning hand and mouth working then? You are not capable of getting off your butt and walking the 50m from your desk to the room concerned?





The straw that broke the camel's back those was this week's little beauty. There is a piece of equipment that belongs in my work area. A member of staff needed to use it early this week and it wasn't there, so they were disadvantaged and had to scour the school looking for another one they could use. I was far from impressed because this equipment belongs in this work area and should not have been moved.



Since I didn't know who was responsible for its growing legs and walking, I did an email to all at the school. It was pretty blunt because I was mad but it wasn't rude...it went something like this



"Whoever has chosen to remove the X from room Y, without telling anyone where it is, you have just inconvenienced the staff member who was planning to use it.



Can you please return it to room x, and in future do not remove it without seeking permission first."



So within 2 hours I had an email advising me where it was but nobody wanted ownership of who moved it there. I didn't care at that point, because I had it back.



Two days later, first thing in the morning my phone rings, it is one of my line managers, enquiring if I the piece of equipment had been returned, I was happy to report that it had.



You can not imagine my disbelief, shortly there after followed by pure rage, at what came next.....this manager needed to talk to me about the fact that I sent the email to the whole of the school because someone had complained because they had received it and it had nothing to do with them



ARE YOU FREAKIN' SERIOUS????



So rather than do what anyone else would do, read it, decide it didn't concern them and delete it - some total moron who clearly has way too much time on their hands, picks up the phone to ring one of my line managers to complain! Clearly we are not at maximum work capacity on this cog in the wheel of the team then if they have the time to waste on such a childish pursuit.



What is that little joke that used to go around about how many muscles it takes to smile compared to that of a frown? So how many more muscles and time did it take to make the call as opposed to just hitting delete.



As for it not going to people who didn't need it, if they could direct me to the specific email address book contact list that contained the staff I would use it....."ah I don't think I know" Well perhaps your damn time might be better spent addressing this issue then.



But wait they had more.......



"In future if I was sending out emails like that I needed to watch my "tone", I had to think about how others might interpret my tone"



There was no tone, there was the message that I was not happy it had been moved and not returned, and thus inconveniencing another member of staff!



Within an hour of that call, I went to label the piece of equipment with instructions that it was not to be moved and bugger me it was gone again. I tried to call said line manager to ask how they might like me to go about retrieving it since it had gone again. Clearly my tone wasn't offensive enough, it hadn't offended the selfish turd that took it the first time because it was gone again!!



Oh but the manager's calls were going through to reception. So I wrote another one, making the subject line very specific, and apologising for those that received it that it didn't apply for but since there wasn't a specific list then this was the best I could do. It took every once of self control I have in this body not to augment that email with some super friendly advice that went like this .....

To those people that this email does not relate to, may I please introduce you to a special little key located half way down the keyboard on the right hand side, clearly labelled "delete". When an email arrives in your inbox that is not relevant to you, you can call on the assistance of the "delete" key. One simple tap and voila, offending email is gone, never to darken the door of your inbox again!

The number of people who later asked why my most recent email was so full of apologies etc, why didn't I just send the same thing again, was astounding. I shared with them why I had to change the way I wrote it.....some equally stunned mullets!

Or better yet those that came up to me after the first one praising me for making the point that the person hadn't asked and hadn't returned it, something which makes them irate too!

The funniest thing about all of this is this notion of "professionals and professionalism". At the end of the day if people behaved as professionals and asked first, then made sure it was returned from whence it came, this would never have even happened! No instead we have the selfish generation of "I'm right mate, stuff everyone else. I don't give a rats about anyone else, so long as I'm ok" Great isn't it, and these are the people that are role models to the group of young people in their care....Now that is the scariest part of all!

Hopefully these young people have parents who when they witness this selfishness or total precious behaviour, will come down on them like the proverbial ton of bricks, tell them to get a grip and get over it.

As for the "professionals" well I'm still waiting........still if no-one is prepared to bite the bullet and demand some level of accountability in all areas of their professionalim, why would things change? Only a fool tries the same thing twice, expecting a different outcome.

Ok readers, that is my rant, done and dusted....so let me know, am I alone in the world of precious princes and princesses or are they alive and well in your workplaces too???

Not quite a rant...yet!

Well hello all

I'd love to blog about today and events that have led up to today, but I am too tired to type it, and correct it before I post.

I continue to be astounded by how "precious" some people in my work place are, truly it belies belief. Sometimes I think perhaps I crash landed on another planet and normal sane people with common sense died out, and became extinct, just like the dinosaurs. Instead this planet is populated by individuals too precious to cope with the real world, in fact in the real world, they wouldn't last 5 minutes, they'd be sacked and slapped sideways for being so damn precious and unprofessional.

So before I think too much about the events of today and how I am going to blog them, it is off to bed for moi....stay tuned over the weekend readers, and I will share with you the recent events that have my blood on a long slow simmer now, as compared to the total boil over they were ealier today.

Mutual unconditional love

Ok part 2 - the four legged friend who tests the limits of unconditional love.

Did you ever wonder if personality traits and psycho behaviour were limited to just humans? We have living proof that fodder for the canine equivalent of Dr Freud is alive well, and one of them lives at our house.

Xena came into our lives as a supposedly 6-7 month old German Shepherd/Kelpie cross rescued from the Animal Welfare League. Yes she is named after Xena Warrior Princess because at the time of adoption she was on additional feeds due to her being severely underweight and she had many nicks and scrapes on her body, evidence that life hadn't been kind to her. We decided this was clearly a survivor in need of a "girl power" name and so Xena it became.

For those of you that have kids, you know how from the time they pop out they know how to screw with your heads? You know no-one tells them but instinctively they know how to push the buttons so you go from calm in control adult to psychotic out of control parent in under 10 seconds. I mean even as newborns they pretend to stop breathing just long enough for you to be mid 000 before they gurgle and turn over!

Well this is just how Xena got in to this house. One of our German Shepherds (Clyde) had passed away and Bonnie was lonely without him. She was about 8 years old and truly elegant lady. So we decided we would head off to the pound in search of a friend for company for Bonnie.

There in this cage stood a lovely lady 6-7 months old, walks well on a lead said the card on the door. So back inside we went for the lead to take this girl into the play yards at the pound to get to know her. Well, I tell you, it is here her mind games began. Oh how beautifully she walked on the lead next to C, as if she knew just how she was supposed to behave. In went the boys, oh still Madam Perfection - no jumping, no scratching, no chasing. Of course when you have another dog you have to have the two of them meet at the pound before you can take them home.

Well Bonnie wasn't over the moon about Xena (hmmm perhaps we should have listened) but she didn't mind her that much either. Xena on the other hand played the placid, submissive underdog like she should have been the lead in Annie the musical! So of course we decided we should take her but we had to wait for her to be desexed prior to picking her up. I swear the little cow knew, you know, she knew she was in baby, no need to act that perfect pet now!

So home she came that first night and we all fussed over her, then off to bed we went. Bonnie (& Clyde while he was alive) would never dream of touching food that wasn't for them. Having had them for 8 years we had kind of forgotten what was "normal dog behaviour". Oh joy! next morning, not only had she done assorted piles of business in the house...oh yeah number 2's as well as number 1's....she had helped herself to some lolly Christmas stockings that were waiting for some friends we had yet to catch up with yet. Holy Moly, this dog had eaten everything in 2 Christmas stockings except the "M & Ms" only because she couldn't get the packet open. So much for chocolate being deadly toxic for all dogs...oh no, no. no, no, no not for this mutt! She had 2 snickers bars, 2 small Cadbury chocolates, several Freddo Frogs and not so much as a runny bum! She was pretty damn lively that morning, doped to the eye balls on her nocturnal sugar fix. We on the otherhand were like "oh what have we done?"

C had 12 months of long service leave commencing about the time Xena came home. So Xena had the pleasure of his company all day for 12 months. It was the beginning of a beautiful relationship, well beautiful for one of them anyway!!! For her it was the beginning of her "C obsession". Smitten, obsessed you name it, she is his for life!

At times it takes me all my control not to laugh when she starts to behave like the attention seeking child, any attention being good attention. If he doesn't pat her when she comes up to him for attention, she waits til he is distracted and then using both paws encircles his feet. Well he may just pull away you know, so to prevent that, she must manage to gouge her claws into his feet, drawing blood should it be necessary to prevent his ultimate escape. The only way to end the bloodshed and severe pain of impaling by dog paw, is of course to pat her belly with his foot.

If she is unsure of his mood and she is not sure if she will get a happy reaction or a grumpy reaction, she approaches tail wagging at one end, lip curling back over the teeth at the other...talk about a screwed up mutt!

She gets on really well with Bella, hates every other dog...well perhaps that is a little unkind. She likes them from a distance, then when they get close she gets scared and then it is growls, teeth baring and hold onto the lead for dear live....so when we walk, we talk not to the other canines of the district.

As much as she loves C, she doesn't like men much, the only exception being my brother. People say he and I are a lot alike so maybe he is enough like me that she accepts him as part of the family. As for other males, when they get here it is a slow process. She is actually just scared of them but she has worked out if she growls and carries on and they get scared they back off and go away and she can rest without worrying about them, situation solved!! However she can't behave that way with all our male visitors. So usually we give her some space to get used to the idea they are in the house and she needs to get over it. So they sit there wondering if they are here for a meal or to in fact be the next meal! Over the course of the evening she decides that clearly she isn't going to get rid of them so she might as well go check them out. Usually before they leave she has decided they are actually quite nice, nice enough for me to stand on their chair and breathe my best doggy breath all over them and if they are really lucky, she might try to kiss them too.

I often say to her "only a "mother" could love you". She is the most loving, loyal dog with the most seriously annoying behaviour. If I go out to the washing line for 5-10 minutes, I don't need a welcome home reception befitting of 12 months away from home. I don't need to spend my time fending feet and other body parts away from my body - the karate block does help in this instance though! My favourite is all the experts that say "when your dog jumps up simply turn your back on them and they will stop, then turn around again"...helloooo come try that little number on Xena. When your clothes are stretched to tearing point, the layers of skin are peeling off like the skin of an onion, and any minute you expect to see blood seeping through the layers, at what point do I decide that ignoring her jumping up is not damn well working????

Add to that incidental psychosis at the time of getting ready for going for a walk, that means screaming around the house knocking stuff over, moving rugs and of course extra exuberant jumping up on the person carrying the lead. This dog gets more exercise from the carry on before we leave home than she actually gets on the damn walk!

Only our resident psycho works out how to push the "childproof gate" at the bottom of the stairs in order to sneak upstairs first thing in the morning when she hears the alarms or C talking to me. She sneaks up those stairs like a panther in the dark of night. How can a dog climb wooden stairs without a single tell tale sign, until you feel this body crash land onto the bed from a launch pad metres outside the door?

Still if my children were ever at threat or risk, I know with absolute certainty that Xena would put herself on the line to protect them. She is fiercely protective of what she considers to be her family.

Underneath that total psycho exterior is a very loving, very gentle nature, it just takes some time and patience to bring out the best in her.

I think she came to us for a reason, I fear if anyone else took her home she would have been returned too many times and would have been declared "not rehomeable" and she would have bought a needle and ticket to doggy heaven. I think it was only loonies like our household that would accept the idiosyncracies, see past them to the loving heart that she has.

That is why when it comes to Xena it has to be a case of mutual unconditional love for it to work!