araquel

Have just spent fifteen minutes chasing the mouse about the house in a bid to recapture it. Suspect one of the girls must have let it out of the cage to play and then completely forgotten about putting it back, and it's spent the last few hours prowling the house in search of food until it ended up in my room.

Fortunately food was a higher priority than freedom, so capturing the mouse was less aggravating than it might have been for all parties concerned.

Argh. Nasty collection of grinding, snapping and random stabs of pain from the connective tissue around my left shoulder, general battery of twinges from every other muscle down my back on that side, and even the intercostals seem to be getting in on the act (although they've been problematic for a long time*). Admittedly, I've been skimping on the exercise lately due to feeling generally wiped out and rubbish, but I'm a bit alarmed at just how messed up things get from not spending a few minutes each morning stretching everything out into its mostly correct place.

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* I only know what they are because I needed to find out what was causing the horrible and intermittent pains in my ribcage when I breathed. I still don't know how they can get cramp, but apparently they do. Go figure.

Traumatic night for the teenager. First, there was the $50 worth of calls to mobiles on the phone bill and the discovery that not only is the "my friend kept telling me to call her on her mobile" defense not recognised, but that in the telling-you-what-to-do-stakes, "parent" still trumps "friend". Is now banned from both home phone and mobile until further notice.

Teenager night went further downhill when she tried to tell me there was a note from the school stating it was closed due to swine flu. Very distraught to learn that "in the event of" does not mean "a week off school".

Mouse has mastered the art of building monster nest in which to hide for the winter. Of course, mouse is also monstrously fat and needs a supersized nest.

Lovebirds continue to express disdain for any fresh food other than Granny Smith apples, and have also decided they won't eat any dry food except seed logs and millet spray.  At the same time, they're madly shredding the sandsheets as soon as I put them in the cage, to the extent that I'm considering buying bulk rolls of sandpaper from the hardware store. Have also rediscovered their inner ground parrot and begun constructing this year's winter home on the bottom of the cage.

Budgies appear to be normal, however have begun demanding the rigorous enforcement of their bed time.

Middle child gets marks for correct use of the term hypocrite. Somewhat unfortunate that the subject of her accusation was the teenager, who didn't know what a hypocrite and was unhappy to be enlightened.

Youngest is being disconcertingly agreeable for the most part. She's plotting something. Probably how to dispose of me when I become too much trouble.

How to write your own Courier Mail front-page:

1. Brisbane's coldest/hottest/foggiest/wettest/driest/frog-rainiest morning since the last one;
2. traffic congestion problems on a randomly-selected major road;
3. the Queensland Labor government is incompetent scum;
4. Spoooooorrrrrtt!;
5. we hate the Queensland government.
   

Woah. Starting to think I'm a lot less over my headcold than I thought: spinning room, head-stuffed with cotton wool, uncooperative focus.  Possibly just pseudo ephedrine withdrawa (although I'd have expected that to hit yesterday)l, but apparently I also still sound sick.

Or else my nephew passed his cold on to me yesterday in revenge for me making fun of his lack of coordination.

I believe I might invest in some slippers. If, as seems likely, I'm going to spend the weekend sitting around the house nursing a cold, then I'll damn well do it with warm feet.

So it turns out that the fake McEgg thing* that MacDonalds put in their McMuffins is actually the catalyst for making the rest of the McMuffin not taste like complete McCrap.

Who knew?

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* I refuse to believe that anything that looks like it was sliced from a manufactured egg-loaf is even remotely real.

If most cold remedies only mask the symptoms ... and a Black Russian only masks the symptoms, and tastes damn good into the bargain ... why haven't the pharmaceutical companies gone out of business yet?  Because, honestly, it makes no sense otherwise.

Breathing space on a week night ... what a refreshing novelty. And now, bed.

Youngest turned 10 today. I'm wondering quite where the last decade went.

I no longer have a back yard, so much as a Squelch.  If this rain persists, I may need to begin planning for a Murloc cull.

On the other hand, having just done the washing, I can state that my children appear to be about as domesticated as Murlocs, so possibly it's too late.

Ow.

I'm sensing that tonight is going to be a sudden and spectacular crash. Perhaps I should just concede defeat and go to bed now.

And the house stinks of paint from having the kitchen cupboards repainted. This does not thrill me.

I think I might have to go out shortly. It's hard to relax in comfort when you have strangers climbing around the outside of your house attaching new gutters.

It's a grey, lightless day outside.  My work area is already largely devoid of even indirect natural lighting (courtesy of ugly architecture and the school of office design that dictates the best place to put enclosed offices is along the exterior walls); with no real illiuminationfiltering in from outside at all today, the light quality makes it feel like it's early evening.

I've been here just over an hour.

And I have two meetings today...

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Damn. Long weekend coming up. If I'd realised, I'd have thought about planning an escape for a few days. It's lovely weather for the Sunshine Coast right now.

Oh, dear god - I think the coffee may have just reached a new low. How do they do that? It's been a long time since I last had machine coffee, but I don't remember even it being this bad.

I'm not a coffee snob by any stretch of the imagination, but I really don't think I want to play this game anymore.

Oh. That wasn't smart. This could be a long day...

11.30 already? Where did the evening go, and why am I doing dishes at this time of night (answer: forgot to terrorise children earlier on into doing the washing up). I get up in less than seven hours. Argh.

... and, in authentic Island of Dr Moreau fashion, it's even complete with semi-evolved beast men.

Procrastination time while I get my head together after the "while you were out" briefing (which was far less painful than expected, and more like it should be - so I'm suspicious) and try to winnow down the email backlog.

• stiff and sore, with encroaching headache. Not from coming back to work, but from the amount of yard work I did yesterday in preparation for today's inspection, so I suspect I'm still a bit dehydrated as well as hav;
• usual pre-inspection panic. Experience tells me near enough *is* good enough, but some experiences I don't learn from. Exhaustion caught up and flattened me last night before I could do any more tidying, though, so the agents are now getting "near enough" by default;
• I still have nearly twenty days' rec leave even after a week off. Have obviously been taking even fewer breaks than I realised;
• ah, hot mutant goats' piss coffee ... how I've missed you;
• ow. Neck is now quite sore. I blame having to constantly turn my head to take in the panorama of dual widescreens;
• new jeans in need of some stretching. Apparently my body shape does not conform to ... Pakistani proportions?? Well, that's different. Is malnutrition a problem in Pakistan, I wonder?
• "Mac fleet". Now there's a phrase that makes me want to giggle at its sheer incongruity.