The Poltergeists in my wall

Scared me nearly half to death. Well, ok, I exaggerate a little. Gave me a jolly good start though.

Some of the conference work is picking up a little. Now there are five of us in the team we will be having regular meetings to keep abreast of things. I like this - makes me feel much more included. At our first meeting I actually sounded like I was busy. I like that too.

I'm still exhausted but still no wiser as to the cause. The doctor's surgery haven't phoned me to make an appointment so I am assuming they don't have the results yet. MOTH and I were discussing and wondering if the constant lethargy might very well be tied to the depression rather than something else. I guess I might get more of a clue when I find out the results. Yeah, I know, not much of a clue now. No Joe, they didn't wake me up to put the CPAP machine on. They didn't wake me at all. I don't know if this is a good thing or bad thing.

This week Bestie contacts me to ask if I would like to go for coffee on Saturday. She's made contact with an old school friend. I check with MOTH to make sure it's not going to affect any plans he might have. Just a girl thing I tell him. Oh, ok. Luckily she's given me plenty of notice so I can budget for the bus fare and the coffee. A couple of days roll by and ... nothing. I'll wait and see what happens. If it doesn't go ahead I can use the money for something else.

Shopping night and there's a little left over to buy take away. We think we'll have doner kebab. It's "under new management". The woman behind the counter is not a native English speaker and somehow I end up with yoghurt and garlic sauce AND tahini. Makes for an interesting combination, but not one I'd necessarily like to repeat. Disappointing isn't it when a place you love changes hands and it's just not the same...

Friday comes around and still nothing. Ah well. Suddenly Bestie lets me know that it's all on, the friend had forgotten to get back to her. We've arranged to meet at a coffee shop in the city. It's a nice looking little place although I haven't been there before.

Saturday morning for something to do I join MOTH with the Club. I haven't seen them for a while. Wombat is there, surprising me by occasionally laughing, not surprising me by complaining about stuff. John makes me laugh by deliberately bringing up a topic we know will generate complaints. I play a game on the phone while keeping an ear attuned to their conversation. I'm feeling cheeky so I give Stan a hard time when he asks me a question about a book and author he can't remember the name of but he's sure I will know. I did. We finish up there about 10:30am and buy some supplies for dinner.

It's nearly time to head out for the bus. Got all my kit ready. Yup, I'm a girl so I need to take lots of stuff. No. Not really. The less I have to carry the better I like it. Alas, the new phone doesn't fit my "wallet" so I have to find something else. I have a little tiny handbag and I can just squeeze the phone in there. Along with my bus pass (go card), my licence, and the money. All set. I'll have to tuck my glasses somewhere else. The weather is a stinker, hot and humid. Sure do pick the good days to go out! I jump on the bus and swipe my card. It doesn't register. What? I look. I've just tried to swipe my licence. *rolls eyes* The man sitting in the front bus seat calls out "Wrong one girl" and laughs his fool head off.... yeah, great.

I'm there first. But not for long. We look for the long lost one, not sure if she will even look the same. She does. It's great to catch up, we think it's probably been about twenty years and there's plenty to talk about. No photo of us, but I have one of the view from my spot at the table. There's deck chairs set up under the trees and we wonder if they are there for anyone to use. Nifty, hey...

The afternoon passes quickly and we vow it will become a regular thing.

It's hot again today. I'm too hot to do much. The air is still and humid. The fan is on full blast and if I sit on the couch I can get a good breeze. If I sit at the desk, it's too far away to pick up much. How can I fix that? I don't want to run the airconditioner. Evening sets in, the breeze picks up. The sky darkens and I can hear a rumble or two. Lightening flashes and the storm arrives. It's crackling enough that I turn off the tv at the wall. The computer too. Maybe now will be a good time to move things around? I get MOTH to help. I guess it's even a good chance to vacuum the carpet. A little. It's really too hot for this and I've managed to give myself a headache. The storm is over and the air is cooler. I don't think that will last. Finally the room is finished. Looks a bit odd, but at least I can get some air circulating around the desk...

The tv is out of frame to the right.

Showered and in bed, sliding into the sweet oblivion of sleep. Thump! Bang! Not far above my head. Whoa! I'm awake now! My heart is still going pitty pat but no other noise ensues. You'd think that if something inside the wall fell *and that's what it sounded like, some furry body losing it's balance* there would be some other noise, wouldn't there. Scratching? Scrabbling? No, all is silent.... What sort of Things are living in my wall!?

So I'd better get me some bloggin....

Time is slippin slippin slippin into the future... and I am still trying to catch up.

I've been going through a bit of a crisis mentally *quiet peanut gallery!* and possibly, just maybe, the idea that I'm not coping as well as I had hoped. MOTH suggests I should draft a letter to HR, ready to send if things to get worse. I wonder if I should, or would that just be too tempting to click the Send button instead of taking a deep breath and a walk. When my eldest daughter was very small my then treating doctor diagnosed me with depression. I have been self managing it for years, but about two years ago my now treating doctor said You have depression. I've decided to continue to self manage rather than medicate but boy it's getting difficult some days. The idea of the letter to HR would be to find out if they would help me transfer if I need to. As John Denver once said, some days are diamonds some days are stone.

But on the sunshine side, I'd been toying with the idea of changing my phone. I think I mentioned it last post. I like to do my research so I spend ages looking to see what's there and reading about things that catch my eye. And thinking about what I want. Then I go in store and see if I can see a physical example. It's fun. And I find something I like the look of. I've done some basic searching, the store only has a dummy model so I can't play with it. Fair enough but at least I can see what size the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 really is. Hard to visualise measurements y'know. I leave the store and think about it some more. I research some more, reading specs and reviews. This looks likely. LG Optimus G. I read the reviews. I check the specs. Beauty. I go in store and ask about it. He gives me dimensions. They don't match what I have. Weird. He doesn't have one for me to look at anyway. I go home and think some more. And do more research. Oh. I've been looking at the PRO! No wonder. So more research. More thinking. The store can let me peek at one when it comes in. That's right, it's not even on the market here yet.

The more I think about it, the more I think this might be the phone. Finally, they're in. I can come and have a look. SWEET! *loves me some tech* And ... there it is. Smooth, black and beckoning. I'm sold and I transfer my phone. This is it LG Optimus G. My biggest bug bear? It's not compatible with anything Apple. Because it's Android. Sheesh. This includes iTunes.

Sleep study. I'm a little nervous about it. Heck who am I kidding. I'm VERY nervous about it. I have a general idea of what to expect and it's not pretty. I do have the following day off work though, so at least I'll have time to recover. I need to be there by 7:15pm. MOTH and I hook up Karen and off we go. It's about an hour drive away. We can't find it. Karen says it should be on the left. But where? We've no idea. Pull into a shopping centre while we try to work it out. We're looking at a paper copy of the map sort of directions thing that was included with the appointment information. No go. We can't figure out where we are. I key the address into Google maps. Oh, there we go! Karen took us past it. We need to be on the other side of the road. When we do find it, yes, the information on the paper was accurate. But only as far as now we knew what landmarks we were looking at. Whew. We sit in the car park for about fifteen minutes before I get out and head for the clinic. Eep!

I walk in the clinic. No foyer, just a little space with some chairs and a pretty cabinet with flowers on it. The hall is short with two doors on the right. There's no one there. I walk down the hall a bit and soon this tiny chap bustles up and checks my name. He's got my paperwork and directs me to the first room. Uh oh. Scales. And height. I'm a couple of kilos off my weight estimate but I've not been near a set of scales for years. And I've not checked my height for many years. Oh! Look at that! I thought I was shorter than that. But now I've looked at a conversion tool, maybe I've always been that height.

That done, I'm shown to my room for the night. On the way he shows me a the shower, a kitchenette, loos and here we are, I'm in room 6. There are other patients here already. I see one in his jammies already sitting on his bed reading. Another room has two beds in it. My room is pleasantly surprising. It looks like a very basic motel room, a low bed, paintings and a mirror on the wall. He pulls the blankets from one side of the bed, tells me to change and he'll be back soon to start the hook up. I change, check out the loo, and go back to wait. Up to the front room for a breathing test. This means shoving a mask against your face while one nostril is blocked. Yep, grab the mask handle, shove the styrofoam thingo attached to that tube up your nose, clamp the mask to your face *careful, don't let any air leak!* and now breathe! Left nostril was fine but boy! Did I have trouble trying to breathe through my right.

Back to the room to get hooked up. A belt goes around my chest. Is that too tight? No, ok. Then one around my stomach. Have to adjust that off a bit *dang*. Stand here and he begins. Two wires taped to each calf. Two to the chest. There might be some in the waist belt too. A throat mike is taped on. They are hooked to this little machine that is not much bigger than a desk phone. I get to read for a while before he comes back to hook up the rest. That's done down the other end of the clinic. I have to take the 'phone' with me. These are the ones that will be attached to my face and scalp. He uses a scrub on my cheeks just in front of my ears, behind my ears, on my forehead and another couple of places in my hair. Then some wax, electrodes on, wired into the 'phone', wires zipped into a cloth jacket. While we chat, I begin to get a little sleepy. I mention that if I go to bed too early, I'll be awake at three. He says it's nearly nine o'clock. In the course of the chatter he is called away to check something. One of the other patients is a young girl who has to have an extended ECG as well as the sleep study. She's here with her mother. Soon we're all done. Ready to go. Back to my room, phone on the cradle, oxygen wotsit on my fingertip, and lights out. Wait! But I'm not sleepy anymore! I've not a clue what the time is. He's moved my iPad to another chair. My sudoku puzzle book with it. I lie there a little while *oh no, i can't sleep* There's noise outside. I roll over and ..... zzzzz

I wake up. It's still dark. I wriggle a lot and finally get my hands on my phone. It's 3:40am. Dang. I lie there for a while. And a while. And more of a while. I'm finally beginning to relax and the light on my finger thingo goes blue. It's nearly 5:15am so I guess they've turned me off. A knock on the door and he pops his head in. Time to unhook and take off the tape. It's like getting a wax. The legs don't hurt too much. The scalp pulls some hair but not too badly. One of the ones in front of my ears has well and truly caught in my hair and I think half my face has torn off too. That hurt! I dress and go to the kitchen for a quick cuppa. I can't find milk in the fridge but I've not really looked. Looks like everyone uses it for their lunch and I don't want to accidentally take someone's stuff. I drink it black but I don't really have time to add cold water. I scald my tongue a bit and after a few sips I leave off and rinse the cup. All the other patients have long gone it seems and I'm the last to leave.

MOTH comes to pick me up around 6:00am. I'm so tired, yet I'm sure I slept relatively well. It's after 7:00am when I get home. I go to bed. Sleep till 8:30 then potter around the house. Nappage in the afternoon is good too.

Now I just have to wait a week or two till my doctor gets the results.

And on request ... here's a photo that suitably blurry cause I can't do selfies but it does give an idea of my hair. Heh.

How did we get here??

I suddenly realised it's Tuesday and I hadn't done a blog update. That nearly escaped me...

Not that there is anything to update really.

Nope, truly.

I think I mentioned I had been referred for a sleep test. I finally screwed up the courage to make the appointment. The paperwork arrived outlining the date, time, and address of the clinic. Along with a medical questionnaire about my sleep habits. Some of the questions I had to ask MOTH about *do i snore? how do i know? do i wake him up snoring? well i dunno* and he happily supplied answers. One of the questions on the form was How long does it take you to fall asleep at night? MOTH looked at me and grinned. Oh, till about the first letter E he says. We both giggle. Ok, I guess from that I fall asleep pretty quickly.

I'm hoping it's not aponea because I am so totally not enthused about having to wear a mask to bed. Just the idea of something on my face while I'm laying down makes my nose want to block. At any rate, I've done some research and while I don't think I have obstructive aponea, I may very well have the other. That's the one where you aren't getting enough oxygen. We shall see I guess.

Oh joy for me. Look, it says shampoo your hair the morning of the appointment. BUT! No using conditioners, hair oils, gels etc. WHAAA? If I don't use that stuff, how the heck am I going to even get a comb through? My hair is waist length, thick and bleached blonde. I suspect my sleep study will be disturbed by hearing my hair shafts snap off as I lay down or turn over. Ha! And never mind any sounds of the monitors, the noise level outside the cubicle, or them coming in on a regular basis to check the machines....

I've asked for the following day off work. I don't think drooling on the keyboard is acceptable office etiquette.

My Avon nail polish has arrived! Whoo! I had to stop and look at the packaging and compare it because it surely looks different in reality. I thought I was buying one of the 'sequin' ones but it seems it's only a shimmer. Absinthe. Guess what colour that is. Yes. Green. But not quite the green I was expecting. But I do like it. I put it on. Oh..... it's kinda green. A snotty sort of green really. Delightfully gross. Remember that slime stuff you had as a kid? Remember how if you played with it too much it changed colour? A dirty green? Yes, it's almost like that.

The other turns out to be black with a red shimmer. I haven't tried that on yet but it looks lovely in the bottle.

All in all it's been a quiet week. The project I'm working on for work is nearly finished; I'm just trying to whip myself into a frenzy of enthusiasm to finish the final report. Of course, my get up and go has well and truly got up and gone, so we are still waiting for said enthusiasm. And words. Got to have words to finish the report.

And just for something to do, here's a pic of Penny, the walking flea factory...

Stop that scratchiiiiing!

Cats! Fleas! Expense! It's driving me crazy. $60 later, just to treat one cat. $66 later for 3 months treatment for the other two. Just because *i think* Sheldon can lick his treatment off. I know, they say put it at the base of their neck. But no kidding, he can reach. He gets the oral dose. So there cat, lick that off. He's stopped scratching but the other two haven't. Sigh....

I'm liking the pan I bought recently. It's not cast iron but cast aluminium. Very light weight but it gets hot pretty quickly. I must remember to make sure that in future I use the mitts when I shift it from the stove...

The rain continues. Off and on all week and probably more to come. I thought I might have seen the sun peep out at one point, but I was mistaken. A friend of mine living further up the coast has observed that she thought it had rained for 40 days and 40 nights. The boy next door to her was named Noah and if he started building anything, she wanted in. I think I know where she's coming from.

Ultrasound this morning. One of those full bladder ones. So uncomfortable! But hey, all over and done with. Such sweet relief! Then off to work but at least I only had to work half a day.

I've had to take the motorway a couple of times this week due to the rain. One of the main roads closed due to flooding. It comes across the driving range, the road and submerges the park on the other side of the road. On a good afternoon *or morning* the drive home takes about half an hour. This day I discovered it closed the trip took about an hour and ten. Frustrating! I wish it had closed the motorway too so I couldn't get to work. What fun!

My heart sinks on the drive to work today. Someone's little dog lies in the middle of the double lane. I hate seeing road kill at the best of times *an awful lot of bandicoots and possums fall on the altar of asphalt around my way* but it's worse when it's someone's pet. I know traffic can get heavy but surely if you hit something you can pull off and shift it? I hate it so much. Hate, hate, hate.

MOTH drags me out of the house this morning for a cup of coffee. Alright, I'll go. He's already been out to join the Club so we take our time. The coffee is good and he's bought me a muffin. It's warm and has a side of cream. I don't usually eat muffins but this is delicious.

I'm toying with the idea of changing my phone. Not because I need to, but just because I want to. I have an iPhone 4 which works perfectly well. I usually update about every 18 months. I don't know why, it just seems to happen. I pop into the store but they don't have a working model of the one I'm thinking of. Disappointing! He offers to check and see how much is outstanding on my current contract. Not as much as I had thought. I also remember that once upon a time, my current carrier would have waived that when you changed over...

The power bill arrived this week. I'm totally gobsmacked. I know we had two extra people, but how can two extra nearly double the bill in a quarter? DOUBLE! The highest I've paid previously is around $350 for the quarter. This bill, including discounts is just short of $500. And the media is busy telling us that bills are expected to increase by 21% for next quarter, and power companies are posting huge profits. Disconnection rates are high and there are plenty of people around the poverty line who already get by in winter with lots of blankets and a one bar heater... It will be interesting to see what our next bill will be. MOTH has a habit of swapping power companies for a better deal. Our current *and original* company then phone him saying they'll match it or do better. However, I don't think he notes the tariff rates they promise so we can keep track. The only thing I can remember him saying is that the new discounted rate *still higher than our supposedly previous one* wouldn't come into effect until the next bill. Bloody power companies.

The Teen is still working a lot of weekend shifts and hunting for something a little more 9 to 5. Alas, she still has no license, no car and no way to get anywhere so things are pretty limited.

The Elder has worked her first shift at her new job. I had thought it would be mainland based but it appears that she was stationed out on the island. Her job is security based; I believe currently doing bag checks etcetera for project staff coming on to the island. Hopefully she enjoys it and sticks to it long term.

The cupboard is bugging me, but I can't really get motivated to clean it out. Except today! Today I took out the cast iron electric pan. I'm putting it out in the garage. MOTH says I can buy a new cord. But we don't know if it's the cord/thermostat that trips the circuit, or a fault in the pan itself. I don't know if it's worth investing in a new cord - MOTH never liked cleaning the pan from the get go. Too heavy. Amazing how taking that one thing out makes that much more space. But hey, that's exhausted my enthusiasm for today.

I've flea bombed the rumpus room. It's where the fleabags hang out most of the time. No, wait. Don't include me in that. Penny and Jerome spend a lot of time in there with me. If I'm not there, Penny sleeps in the space where I sit and Jerome .... could be anywhere. Sheldon spends most of his sleeping time curled up on a dining room chair. The whole house needs doing and I've earmarked this weekend as a possible start point. Think I shall do the garage too.... Damn kids and their fleas ...