Waiting games

The waiting is the hardest part
Every day you get one more yard
You take it on faith, you take it to the heart
The waiting is the hardest part
(Lyrics "Waiting Game", Tom Petty)

It's almost 4 in the afternoon. I've been waiting since 8:3- this morning to see if the boy is about to be made redundant and leave us with three months on a lease in a house we do not want and no steady income.

We'd planned to move to the coast in May anyhow, but doing it sooner means we have no safety net in place yet, so we would need to make arrangements to exit a lease early, find money for the penalty for that and the deposit on a new one right away- or put everything in storage, board the animals out with friends, and crash with friends/mother in law/cheapie motel until we sort things out.

All of this is do-able, and really is not panicking me at all.

But fuck, do I hate waiting for the shoe to drop.

6 pm edit; They have told him he will have to wait until Friday for a formal decision, but told him to use the rest of the week making alternate plans for work.

Sneaking the boy's ritalin in the morning=kitchen bitch?

A quick pop into the shops yesterday for cat food saw me loading up the car boot with a box chick full of mixed vegetables going cheap but needing quick cooking.

And so by noon today as I write this, I've managed to cook the following;

-a large container of eggplant and tomato based cannelloni sauce,
-tonight's Sloppy Joe mix,
-the slow cooker is full to the lid with a hearty beef, pork and vegetable spaghetti sauce for the freezer,
-also, a rare treat for the doggies- a hodge podge of leftover vegetable bits, a mountain of chayote(Aussies call them Chokos) and chicken stock.
-Prawn dumpling soup for lunch today
-the start of a roast veg and chicken dinner for tomorrow night.

I've done three loads of laundry, and I am seriously considering making cookies this afternoon. I think I'm channeling Martha Stewart, but I'm not particularly bothered. Perhaps I should be.

As an aside, I almost did not get this entry written- damned blogger would not let me in claiming I was using the wrong name and password.

I had been trying to log in as "sloppywench"

Give up the Funk

A number of years ago, when things with my first husband were on the outs, I went through a deep funk. I won't call it depression for reasons too involved to get into here, it was a funk, ok?

It culminated for me one day when I spent some half hour or more standing on the end of a platform in the London Tube network. Trying to work up the energy to fall over. The next train. Ok, so the very next one I'll do it. I still remember the sound echoing in my ears, the wind whipping my hair about my face, and the smell of fuel, damp and stale urine. Each time I froze at a train, I was sure the next one would be the right one.

I'm sure there must have been literally hundreds of people on that platform with me in all that time, but I was alone in my head and did not notice till someone spoke very very softly to me- and still scared the bejesus outta me. Just a normal looking guy, business suit and breifcase, standing about ten feet away and speaking so softly I had to strain to hear him.

"Please don't do it. But if you are going to do it anyhow, please sit down and give me just five minutes of your time".

I assumed he was a jesus freak and wanted to pray for me or some such. So I sat down. I had five minutes, and while I'm an athiest, my Dad's a minister- so I felt I really should listen a while. And so I listened. He was not a religious nutter. He was just a guy who's brother used to be a tube driver. Until he collected a jumper and was out on permanent disability for the shock and trauma of watching some guy splattered over his screen.

The guy never got close enough to touch me. But he managed to haul me away from the edge that day.

The next day, I happened to met Paula, and coincidentally I started to live again.



The past couple of years the funkiness has been building again. I'd feel it coming, push it back and go one. But yesterday I caught myself reading the fine print in the life insurance policy that goes along with my superannuation (Australia's forced retirement savings plan thingamajigger). I was trying to figure out if Sean would get a payout if I topped myself- how much it would be, and if the policy was still valid as I have not worked for a while, but have still paid the fees for this year.

And so I have realized that I'm back on that edge again.

Time to back away and haul myself out of this funk.

Who's with me?