Children, my friends, are disgusting. But fun to write about.Of course, I've got her flu too, so I'm not at all in the mood to be patient with the endless tantrums either. She's nearly two. Gonna be a long arse year.
Anyway so we're home all day today (rare occurrence, children complain less when walked frequently, like dogs) because I didn't feel right about going out while my front door remained unlocked all day, seeming I live on a busy street and my front door is right next to a business's open door. Yay for living in a commercial zone. See, my energy provider (Origin for you Aussies, I can't say enough bad things about this company) sent me a text message and an email, letting me know they urgently needed to talk to me and that I should call them. What the hell kind of business does that? Come on mate, you probably claim all your calls back on tax or something. You call me! Meanwhile I don't have a calling plan on my phone (because what's the point of that? People with social anxiety generally aren't thrilled to be making calls and all) so it costs me $1 a minute to call these fuckers. So I call immediately. And the nice machine recording tells me that there is an unusually long wait time and that it would be in my best interests to phone another time. So I try again several days at different times and finally get through a week later. So much for urgent. Turns out that even though we've lived here well over a month now they haven't actually set up my account because they can't get to the meter.
Uh, yeah I know. That's why I was emailing back and forth with some guy in accounts a month ago. And like I said to him, the meter is inside the front door. I'm happy to let a guy in to read it or leave the door unlocked if they tell me he's coming. Anyway accounts man gets me to give him the meter number and never replies so I assume we're good. Evidently not. So when I got through on Wednesday I tell the nice lady (who actually speaks English that I can understand, score!) all this and she sets up someone to come read my meter, sometime between 7am and 7pm Friday. Because you couldn't narrow it down a bit more than that, eh?
The guy showed up a bit after midday, actually at a time where there was no screaming, I was wearing clothes and not sitting on the can (though I had Isis on hers) and Selene was sleeping. Nice. And he does his thing. He asks me when our business hours are and I'm like "the shop below isn't occupied" in case you're fucking blind "and up here is residential" (I'm leaning over the stairs talking to him). "Well how will the technician read your meter?" he asks me. To my credit I don't facepalm. I explain that if I know what day it will be I can leave the door unlocked, or they can phone me and I can run down and let them in. He's all "we couldn't possibly let you know the day, we do whole streets at a time" I'm like "and when you get in your car you have no idea what streets you're going to?"
Then he's like "and we can't call you and wait for you to unlock the door because we only get paid like 5c per building and have to move very quickly". Mate don't pull the poor man with a family to feed card on me, I'm only half as stupid as I look. I tell him "I know that's not true, you're paid by the hour. Australia has a minimum wage and unions to uphold standards". He grumbles and tells me the minimum wage isn't very good. Yeah mate, I'm a checkout chick, take your woes to someone else.Then he tells me that most of these abandoned shops just pay the estimate the company sends them, and they get their meters read at the end of the year, whereupon the company will refund them any overcharge. Suuure they will. Then he tells me that he supposes I can just leave a note on the door with my phone number and the meter reader can call me when he's out front. ... but didn't you just say..
oh never mind. Then he says he has work to do in a "shoo" kind of way and pulls out his iPhone. Bet he read a lot of 5c meters to buy that eh?In better news, my mate just messaged me and SHE'S PREGNANT!!
Which is a big deal because it's basically her last chance. See, her husband has this chromosomal abnormality, something or other missing from 99% of his sperm, anyway so they can get pregnant naturally but the chances of not miscarrying are so so slim as to be ridiculous (Because inevitably there will be something wrong with the embryo, something missing.)They have a three-ish year old, and at the beginning of the year they tried to implant their remaining embryo (they only got two viable potential-babies from that round of IVF). It took, but when she went for her first ultrasound there was a sac and placenta but no baby had developed. Obviously they were heart broken and I was super sad for them too. They tried to be all "well one is enough" but it was clear they wanted to try again. And eventually they did, for in excess of ten grand. And she's been sharing that journey with me. Telling me about the egg collections, hormone treatments etc. A few months back we had a stressful week to wait, five little blastocysts looked good... but by the end of the week only one was healthy. The others had the abnormality and died. So that was ten thousand dollars and months of stress for one chance.
Apparently an embryo has a better chance of implanting and going well if they are frozen first, so it got frozen and she waited til the right time in the cycle, they stuck it in (I assume with a needle. IVF seems to involve a lot of needles) and so for the past two weeks it's been the dreaded two week wait. She had the tests today. I'm just so happy and relived for her. Now I can shit myself for the next 12 odd weeks, til she gets out of the dreaded first trimester.
I'm so happy. I should do something nice for her. I should also do something nice for my other mate who just popped her baby two days ago, but what? Obi mentioned it last night, that we should make her something, because she cooked for us a bunch of times when Selene came, but she's already told me that she hopes people don't cook for her and she hates material gifts. What she wants is for someone to clean her house... and I know I should. But I've been there twice only, three other adults and a little boy live with her, and it's just... I dunno... awkward. Besides that, if I'm going to clean something it should probably be my kitchen. And I believe she has a maid once a month anyway. Flowers? Would she take that as a nice gesture or be a dick about the fact it's a blatant waste of money? Dunno, dunno.
My other mate (this one in Canada) is planning her wedding. (This is the chick who took out a loan to come to my wedding, bought non-refundable tickets, didn't put enough money aside to cover her rent for the two weeks she'd be away and ended up not going and letting the flight credit expire) I'm a bridesmaid, one of seven. Going to be interesting! I detest one of the chicks. But at least I'll have one almost-friend on the team. Anyway, this friend has an interesting style. Her and her SO were together for a couple of years before Obi and I went official (our anniversaries are four days apart hah!) so they have been together *counts on her fingers* about nine years. Still no proposal. And she's cracking it. So, this year she financed and has just finished paying off her engagement ring. Last night she made him ask for her step-dad's permission (in front of her, because he was taking too long). She's given her SO a date in September by which he needs to propose because they are traveling to visit his family and they need to be engaged by the time they finish the drive. (They were a LD couple) I imagine if he doesn't propose in time she'll simply put the ring on and consider herself engaged. She has a tentative date.
It's interesting. There was a time I'd have thought she was crazy and wrong. But well, it's nearly a decade. He has said in private to Obi that he does want to marry her, but he's wanted the proposal to be a surprise and that every time she brings it up he puts it off so she might "forget about it" and that he'd ask when he had a ring etc. Basically, he's lazy. So she's taking it out of his hands
That's one way to do it, right?Yay for gossip.
On the home front, I'm done with winter. My roof leaks. A lot! The hole is somewhere above the industrial range hood and the water drips in a steady stream onto my stove, so I can't cook on the hotplates if it rains. The other day it started raining mid-way through cooking and I had to transfer dinner to a dish and finish it off in the oven. Annoying. I've contacted the real estate, but so far nothing. The other thing is my bathroom windows don't close. At all. Like, they were build without the ability to be shut. Only in Australia I'm sure. Anyway so it's a super ball-freezing experience to take a shower, let me tell you. Will probably be a god-send come summer though.
I could ramble more, you know I love it. But I should go do something useful. I've been stalking everyone, thank you to those who blog! Often I read while I stand, listening to the same very loud song on repeat to placate the angry spawnling, so I don't really get to comment. But I do read and send good vibes. <3