Ears pointed like a wolf tracking scent of deceit.
Jowls leer as teeth expand to dig into a bone -
or no, it is a heart turned into stone,
to prevent itself from bleeding.
How to dwell as the water rolls?
At least the duck is buoyant,
incapable of drowning.
Be weary of the scent - when for you,
should resemble the notes of;
eau de parfum.
A story of “what goes around, comes around†that I witnessed 10 years ago.
I was on my way to university, taking the “express†bus from Top Ryde to Ultimo in Sydney, on a very hot & dry day. The bus had stopped at Gladesville and picked up a *very* pregnant lady who had several bags of shopping. Her breathing was laboured with the heat of the day and she looked like she could give birth at any given moment. It was a great struggle for her to get on to the bus and it took her quite some time to get her groceries all settled on the seat at the very front of the bus.
About two stops later, the bus stopped to pick up this incredibly grouchy & bitter old Granny. As the front seats of the busses are always reserved for the elderly & handicapped, the old Granny began to verbally attack the pregnant woman for not standing up and moving to another seat at the back of the bus to free up the seat for her! Other seats were offered to the Granny, but she wouldn’t have a piece of it because she wanted to sit in the specific seat assigned for the elderly & handicapped.
The pregnant lady was perplexed and tried to explain how hard it was for her to move her very pregnant self and all of those shopping bags, but the old lady would hear nothing of it. The Granny was old and it was therefore her privilege to sit there as she repeatedly tapped at the sign with her fingers;
“Please keep these seats available for the elderly & handicapped.â€
Surely the pregnant lady’s condition was enough clearance to entitle her to sit there even though she was not blind or in a wheelchair! Unfortunately, the old granny was able to persevere with the attack which made the pregnant woman surrender to standing up and moving to another seat.
I was about to offer help to the pregnant woman as the amount of shopping she had to shuffle was ridiculous but another older woman who had been sitting near me stepped in. The manoeuvre of relocation to another seat while the bus was still in motion was difficult, but the pregnant woman had the sympathy & support of all the other passengers who helped to make way so she could get to another seat. The older woman helping out had a go at the Granny with something along the lines of,
“You should be ashamed of yourself, can’t you see how pregnant she is?!â€
The old granny was so consumed with herself that she didn’t hear any ounce of what was said.
Everyone on the bus was dismayed by the old Granny. We knew how unfair the situation was but people were powerless to do anything about it. I could feel everyone’s frustration at not being able to do jack shit about it.
A few stops later, the pregnant lady had to get off. The woman who had assisted her earlier had offered her a hand off the bus, to which the pregnant lady was incredibly appreciative of. Then that was it. This heavily pregnant lady was gone and out of all of our lives forever, never to be seen or known of ever again.
When the bus proceeded to move again, an incredibly curious thing happened to everyone on the bus. Old Granny appeared to be making the moves to stand up and pushed the stop button to signal the driver to stop, but this was an “express†bus! The stop which the pregnant lady got off was the last one for a very long time. It was as though the entire bus became gripped & possessed by a slowly emerging grin, wide as Chesire because this bus wasn’t going to stop!
Granny missed her stop… oh, the disappointment on her face. Her reaction to the bus not stopping for her was priceless due to how arrogant her stance was.
“Oh no! What’s happened? That was *my* stop. The bus didn’t stop at *my* stop! Maybe there’s something wrong with this button.â€
She proceeded to press the button harder several times, thinking that the button might’ve been broken. Every stab at that button made the whole crowd cringe because we knew it was not going to work. It was painful to watch but somewhat funny too. You could feel the crowd on the bus trying to hold back their laughter!
The bus drove past the next bus stop after that with manic speed. The old Granny became completely livid and began to make her journey towards the bus driver to give him a serving of what she did to the pregnant lady. She was delivered the same round of “finger pointing†from the bus driver. I recall the solemn & unforgiving directness of the bus driver’s voice,
“Express bus! Limited stops!â€
The bus driver was not going to stop for this Granny. The colossal distance that this old Granny would have to walk in order to get back to the stop she wanted to get off on - oh the humanity! A big headache for her alright.
The woman who had helped the pregnant lady had a big grin on her face. She got up at the next stop and I recall her muttering something at the old Granny to the degree of getting her ‘just desserts’.
Then they both hopped off the bus. I was again left with that amazing sensation of knowing that I’d never see those people in my entire life ever again, but I didn’t know that this would be a story I would keep on remembering for another 10 years!Â
For the remainder of that trip, I kept wondering about the pregnant lady and the scene she had just missed out on. If only she had remained on the bus, she would’ve received the gift of witnessing,
“What goes around, comes around†happening right in front of her face.
Ever since that day, I now know my life is going to be no different to that pregnant lady getting off one bus stop too soon. It was enough to let me know that whatever goes around, definitely does come around - even if you don’t get to see it with your own eyes.
Like,
“Every feeling you’re showing,
Is a boomerang you’re throwing.
Yes a bang, a boom-a-boomerang,
Dum-be-dum-dum be-dum-be-dum-dum…†ABBA
What feelings will you be throwing today?
Despite a very shaky beginning with the paediatrician upsetting us a few weeks ago, the progress of our son’s screening for Autism Spectrum Disorder has gone remarkably well.
Our first appointment with the Child Development team was in early January with the Social Worker, who spent a good hour collecting information from us about our history. It was fantastic, no trouble talking at all. I really appreciated how thorough it was.
We recently had our second appointment on Jan 16, where our son was reviewed by the psychologist & occupational therapist (OT). I was really impressed, it was just as thorough and they worked together with our son well. The initial feedback confirmed out thoughts. Our son is a very atypical case. While he has many qualities/skills that would rule out Autism, there are signs of ASD present. We had another early education specialist visit our home on the day to discuss strategies and has kindly offered to help us with the transition process if needed.
The psychologist made a home visit yesterday, and we went through another intensive autism screening questionnaire which was about 1.5hours long. The structure of the questions was really good in showing this pattern of illustrating our son’s strengths that would otherwise deem “obviously no problem there!†and the other instances of “yes – this is precisely one of the specific ‘quirks’ we’re dealing with.†The psychologist was really fantastic to talk to. She has a good sense of humour and is obviously very skilled in her field of work within this specialisation.
We also learnt that the school has already gone the extra mile with organising support for day one of school already, that they’ve got everything under control and are well prepared. This has taken a great burden off us due to the timing of this screening being so unnervingly close to the start of school. It has freed us from needing to refer to the former paediatrician we were not happy with to get things officially signed off. This means we can relax and take our time with having things followed up with another recommended paediatrician, Dr.Fletcher at Katoomba hospital – where we’re people have said that we’re likely to get along with him ok.
The incredible support we’ve received from so many to make sure that Aidan’s first day at school is as positive as possible has been overwhelming. I had so much trouble calming down yesterday because we’re not used to other people taking care of things like this. We’re not accustomed to others who pay as much attention to things as we do with the things in our lives. The treatment I had by hospital staff during pregnancy & childbirth was horrific so this has felt like a light at the end of a very long tunnel. Perhaps karma has begun to pay the hardly earnt dividends.
It’s been an extraordinary round of luck for us, but it’s sad that it’s reliant on ‘luck’ as opposed to critical services like these being in easy reach of anyone who needs them. The CDT is heavily under-resourced & under-funded. If my husband had not make a big stand and if we didn’t have the support of the school also pressing this matter for urgent attention as well – this review by the CDT would have never happened so soon for our son.
My son gets more closely reviewed by the OT next week and the speech pathologist after that.
Things are looking good. Counting our lucky stars, for now
Comments & permalinks are not working. Dang. I’m pinning bets that the installation of the Frontpage extensions have whacked something out at Bluehost. Not cool when i don’t have this issue at MDWebhosting that operates fine with wordpress+frontpage extensions. [Yes, I know that Frontpage sucks, but so does PHP and designing with “turtle scripts” via css files for me atm!].
Update:
Looks like the .htaccess was affected by the installation of FP extensions. An update of the permalink thing has thankfully fixed it. Looks like i will be saying au revoir to FrontPage as i think it’s truly had it’s day in this world for me. Blech!
I’ve been meaning to grow zucchini for over a year. It took me a while to realise that the “pumpkin” seeds i kept on getting in the seed packets were actually for zukes instead of pumpkins. The first flowers have arrived…
They are so delicate at the moment, only open for a single day! This is what i have loved the most about them so far. They remind me to appreciate the ’now’ of life every single day because life can be short and tomorrow isn’t guaranteed! Â
No female flowers yet, they’re all male at the moment. They currently reside in my miniature glasshouse, so I’ve been reading up on polinating techniques when plants like these have no access to bees or other insects. I read a suggestion to keep the pollen of the males in a container in the fridge. I can’t help but feel a little bit awkward upon harvesting the male sex organs at times!
Patiently awaiting for the arrival of a female to get pregnant with fruit!
How do i translate this Turkish title?
KIRMIZI - means the colour red
Biberli - hot? with a pepper?
yogurt - yoghurt. As for it’s pronounciation - the “soft G” has always been tricky for me to explain. Just try to pronounce the word “yoghurt” without the “GH” in the middle of it - i think that will be close. lol
Red Hot(with peppered) Yoghurt Recipe? I guess that’s close enough but my family refers to this dish as “Spag Yog”. An abbreviation of spaghetti with yoghurt, though we usually use macaroni for the meal.
The ‘heat’ in this dish is the Garlic… and i love that spice with yoghurt all the time. If there is any pepper involved in this, it’s the red paprika. I believe this sauce is used in the Iskender Kebab in particular, but i learnt the use of this with pasta from my mother.
Ok, time for the sexy picture - because I always prefer seeing sexy pictures when i look up recipes.
I didn’t enjoy this meal as a kid at all - but these days, i love it. This is always a great health-boosting meal for us that gives a great “kick”.
INGREDIENTS
- 4-6 cloves garlic, crushed/minced
- 500g natural yoghurt (i enjoy Dairy Farmers or Pauls low fat varieties)
- 500g pasta/spaghetti
- 1tb salt
- 25g butter (a knob)
- 1 tb paprika
METHOD
1. Yoghurt Sauce - crush garlic & mix it well into the tub of yoghurt - set aside in the fridge. (The longer you keep this mix in the fridge, the flavour of the garlic infuses more deeply into the yoghurt.)
2. Boil pasta with salt - it’s important that the pasta has that salty bite to it rather than just plain.
3. When the pasta has been boiled, drain and then serve into bowls.
4. Spoon garlic+yoghurt mix onto the pasta.
5. Paprika Sauce - melt butter in a seperate pan and then add the paprika. The paprika will begin to foam up, and this is when you must remove the pan away from the heat ASAP (before it burns, otherwise the paprika will taste too bitter if it burns)
6. Pour the butter/paprika over the yoghurt over the bowls as pictured in the photo above.
Enjoy, but please be careful of eating something like this before a very hot date you plan to kiss (unless they enjoy the garlic breath)!
For crazy thinking mums who have a bloody sense of humour!
