All Things Current and the Sh*t Time of Year

Published December 22, 2025 by helentastic67

All Things Current and the Shit Time of Year

So, you may have noticed I don’t comment often on current news stories or politics on this forum. I generally ignore the news and media on weekends and so good to let the dust settle on horrific stories that are commented on around the world. I don’t appreciate the unnecessary commentary that feeds hate or any one person’s political agenda. It is to say the horrible shooting that marred Sydney’s Bondi Beach over a week ago was the worst terrorist event in Australia ever ending not only fifteen people’s lives but injuring many others. It was perpetrated by two individuals that subscribe to a version of their beliefs not shared by all that hold the same faith. The victims were being Jewish and the two perpetrators being of the Muslim faith that had been radicalized.

I have known and befriended people of both faiths in my time on this earth and while my beliefs are not the same as theirs, I just wish we could all put our differences aside and learn to get along without the need for bloodshed. There is never a need.

I can count one less than one hand how many times there has been a mass shooting in my lifetime. We don’t have gun violence in this country. We are not prepared for it to happen ever again.

Why can’t people agree to disagree and learn to get along? Don’t answer that. I know it’s a simplistic view on it, but it’s not rocket science.

It’s generally a shit time of year in my home as I don’t love Christmas. People often forget it’s not a super fun and exciting time for everybody. This year I’m preferring to spend the day home alone rather than take up the one offer I have received that was to join some friends who were participating in a gathering at their church. To which I answered, “You will do fucking anything to get me to your church!” Thankfully, she laughed as much as I appreciated the offer. I’m planning to go solo at home with the fur-kids. Make turkey or ham sandwiches and roast a few things in my oven. There will definitely be a special version of French toast for breakfast and a weird creation of trifle using no homemade ingredients and it will be shared to whoever is here to partake until all portions are gone. I even bought myself a bottle of Bailey’s even if I need to put a note in my diary once a month to have a nip to remind myself, I’d got to be had. I didn’t say I never drink I always say I barely drink. That’s what that looks like.

While most have holidays, catch up with family and friends and generally take it easy I will have a staycation at home and attempt to do things I never get to. I will finally sort my oven tray cupboard and get the last few off my bench. I don’t know when I last had a holiday. So, just remember this time of year is not as much fun for everybody as you might imagine or hope yours will be?

It’s also with great sadness I must report the recent passing of another friend who I’d known since primary school. She had a rare condition called F.O.P. Which does not stand for Fairly Odd Parents as your first google search might yield? But here’s one I’ve prepared for you earlier.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibrodysplasia_ossificans_progressiva

Try saying that five times fast. Try just saying it once. So, it is with great sadness we will no longer see Lyn Smiths brightly dyed hair in my media feed or her posts about her beloved cat her snuggly sleeping companion, but her regular visits to hospitals she reminded us she was still here. Still doing her best but here. Now, I have to start 2026 with a funeral. Thought she would outlive us all.

Just remember, I often write the right thing at the wrong time or the wrong thing at the right time.

Everybody, enjoy the holiday season, just as long as you eat lots drink liberally, and try to do a little less damage to those who don’t deserve it.

And to finish on a lighter note.

With the passing of the great cartoonist Leunig late last year, I’ve been asking what calendar would grace my bathroom door considering a Hot firemen calendar so I could tease my carers each month. You are aware I’ve met a few firemen needing to evacuate the apartment complex I’ve lived in in recent years and having been through the MFB training centre when I was still working and none of them looked like the men in the calendar. False advertising much.

Just learnt there is a Leunig calendar for 2026. It’s sold out, Hot firemen then? Pity the zoo sent me a calendar.

Stay safe!

October Woes

Published October 23, 2023 by helentastic67

October Woes

Part of October sucks. It’s not because it’s my birthday and I’m getting older. Not at all, if you think in simple terms, you get older or you die. You choose. Exactly, so I’m perfectly OK with being 51 this year.

It’s the fact that family don’t get on board to see I might need them around. If you have followed me for a while, you might recall I had a baby sister born on my 8th birthday? Yeah, best birthday present ever. However, we only shared one birthday together where we were both sick. I’ve one photo of us during the day with mum at the dining table tasting the ice cream cake mum had made and when my baby sister, let’s call her three. When three was only fifteen months and a week old and she was gone.

My aunt said to me last November at a family gathering. No idea how this came up, but my aunt said Three’s funeral to date was still the saddest funeral ever. I had been 8 years old changing nappies and getting up at night because when she got big enough for a cot, the cot outgrew my parents’ bedroom at the front of the house and she took up residence in my room. If she woke during the night and my mum, let’s face it dad isn’t the first parent to jump out of bed in the middle of the night, is he? I would get Three up and carry her towards my parents’ bedroom often intercepted by mum on the way. None of this is wrong, it’s just I think it only occurred to me in more recent years helping me celebrate my birthday means we are not celebrating Three’s birthday. This year, Three would be 43. That’s sobering isn’t it!? It’s a lifetime but it’s something one doesn’t forget.

Some years ago, two of my family members chose to call me at 11.55pm, chanting “it still counts!” Clearly, oblivious I’d been through every emotional roller coaster all day feeling no one gave a fuck. I even finally had my dad trained to call me on my birthday. You heard me, I had to “train” him.

Yeah, I offer a certificate 2 in how to get your parent/significant other to remember to call you on your actual birthday. It’s a Cert 2? I think it would be.

For years, I’d call my father on his birthday every year, he’d be a little embarrassed even telling me it didn’t mean anything and I’d remind him it was HIS Special Day and it should mean something. It was always a pity I couldn’t be there in person to do something nice for him. I regret now, I never sent him a card even. He would have lived off that forever if I had done that. He would have had it on display forever. My mum I would send a card too because obviously I love her too and there would actually be hell to pay if I didn’t. In more recent years with the going to hell that has become of my handwriting, I’d outsource my mum’s card to be written by one of my slaves, OK, my lovely assists, my carers, my mum wasn’t thrilled about that either, you would think she would appreciate not needing a translator. No.

So, sadly the shit birthday is the start of thinking what the plan is for Christmas and where I will be and who I will be with? Also, how accessible it will be and how much time I spend there alone despite being under the same roof as actual family. If I’m not in my apartment, who will love and feed Mika, who will water my plants? One of those cannot be revived, but they are all important.

I had decided to take a year off in what would have been my father’s last Christmas thinking I’d go spend the following year with him and I have to regret about that too, because he didn’t make it. I had gone home for Christmas the year my father had had his heart attack in the early era of the Plague. (You are all aware this is my term, for Covid 19?) and all my carers asked him polite questions “How are you? How long have you lived here? Is it you and your wife?” And oh my God! So dramatic, I could just feel how sad he was. It was overwhelming, my father was horrified by learning his heart had stopped on the table, I wasn’t belittling his trauma however, I kept needing to remind him the surgeons had warned him this can happen. I reminded him the surgeons hadn’t spent however many hours getting his heart and arteries in peak for him to die on the table. I also explained to him when they move you from the surgery trolley, they put a timber board under you by tilting your body up, sliding the board under you then pulling you on the timber to another trolley that you stay on when they relocate you to recovery and then even up to the ward. Yes, I know this because I was conscious when this happened with me. I was alert, needing to pee and very unhappy, I had iodine floating around my arteries in my brain that made my blood pressure drop and nurses start panicking I might expire so they panicked, running around the room. I had wanted to remind them “I’m awake you know? And I can see you! Just calm down” I guess I need to context that now too?

The Christmas I spent alone, my older sister had attempted to be supportive by telling me I could make the decision to be where I would be happiest, even if that meant home alone. I later learnt she had been in my neighbourhood spending Christmas with a friend, more socially isolated than I am, but that it hadn’t occurred to even stop in for a cup of tea, was brutal.

So, birthdays suck and generally so does Christmas. So, alas my heart and soul is death.

Please hit the like button and comment.

Another Year Over

Published December 19, 2022 by helentastic67

Another Year Over

Anyone else wondering where 2022 went? All year I’ve been desperate for this year to be OVER! Just when will it be OVER. So, now it almost is, I’m trying desperately to put the brakes on, as I’m not caught up yet.

Christmas is a week away and this week I normally deliver all my yummy rum balls to my regular appointments, locations. Seriously even the several post offices I use get a little delivery and they are not done yet.

Rain check anyone?

I confess, I’m usually stressed about Christmas, where I will be? If I can get carers? And will I be with family or home alone? Who will feed Mika? All of these things. It’s always such an emotionally charged and traumatic time. What Christmas, traumatic? Yes!

So, I’ve been frustrated, I have been short with people. I thought this was my default setting as it is my baseline every December. But no! Apparently, it’s grief! What the F? That does make sense.

Hate

Published November 1, 2021 by helentastic67

Hate

It’s a strong word and by November every year, it’s an emotion I find I’m overwhelmed by. It’s when I also purposely don’t write. I just shut down and deal because I’m so very grumpy, but if I never write about it, maybe everyone out there in the world will never know they are not alone.

So, months later, ok two months later, I sit to write, hopeful that the strong case of grumpy (or hate) has mellowed sufficiently so people I know don’t all quickly reach for the pills or razors or tequila (just don’t do it!).

Later October it’s my birthday, I mean, I normally try to upsize all of October to make it “my month” But while Covid kicked everyone in the face in 2020, the few things I look forward to in October, I missed out on. Going out for lunches, cake, coffee and adventures.

My birthday generally sucks anyway and not because It’s when we get older. Whatever, who gives a Tutti Frutti. (Trying to swear less this year? See how long that lasts!) but my birthday is not a big celebration.

Not since my 8th birthday when my baby sister was born and a year later, we were both sick on my 9^th birthday and her 1^st birthday. So, 15 months and a week after her birth, she passed away from cancer. It was very ordinary.

To say in the early 80’s people, family, complete strangers did not know how to deal with the grief of losing someone so young. Still don’t, but really didn’t back in the ’80s. So, anyway birthdays suck. Check!

November rolls around and I have to start thinking and planning what is happening for Christmas. The ladies, my mum, two sisters, one partner at sister and me, that’s five. Check!

We go out for a lovely lady’s lunch, somewhere nice. Often expensive. There is wine (not for me, thanks) yummy dessert and banter. The exchanging of gifts to be unwrapped later (maybe).

My older sister is often issued the warning “No shakey, shakey!” She is terrible, can’t help herself. It’s hilarious.

Money is always an issue, some of us worry about money, some don’t. So, there is a balance of power thing going on. Then there’s actual Christmas, who will be where? My mum and younger sister live in the country, I lived there with them for two years around 2000. The home is perfect for them and putting a third in the mix unhinges us all. Upon arrival there I’m issued a warning as soon as I get out of the car. Be careful. There is the constant OH & S (Occupational Health and Safety) warning. Yeah, I get it. It’s a fucking hazard! (That didn’t take long, did it?) I could slip or trip or just plain face-plant. There was the year I stepped onto my mum’s front verandah to smell the fresh country air. This was the warning I received, “Be careful! If you go for a walk over by the water tank! There’s a snake living in the weeds!” To which I promptly turned around and went back inside. FUCK NO! I did not come home to be messing with any snakes. No! No! No! No! No!

My older sister and her now fiancé, live in the opposite direction. We all used to gather down there so we had Christmas together, they have a holiday house that meant we could stay there without being all over each other. Obviously, there is always a matter of who does the most on the day in the kitchen, but even one-handed I can pack a dishwasher like a Pro and I do my share as best as I can. But I miss the fun times in the kitchen, planning some yummy pasta dish for Christmas Eve, the hands on making of it, the hunter, gathering to prepare all the ingredients, etc too. Unfortunately, I am excluded and that hurts.

For about 4-5 years now I’ve gone home to my mum’s. Yawn, the place I lose my independence as soon as I arrive. We are all tired, grumpy and have our own interests. By which I mean I am not sitting and watching Survivor or MasterChef episodes from earlier in the year. Just NO!

So, I spend a lot of time alone. Mum gives me her bedroom so I can spread out. I take my cat (normally) who stays down that end of the house. We hibernate, I binge watch my TV shows too, because when I come out to see what’s happening, I’m literally shooed away. And if I don’t go home to mum’s, my older sister doesn’t think to include me. There’s the whole cat/dog ratio thing too.

Dog people/ Cat people!

When I have taken my cat home, they also have a cat, and they need to be kept apart. There’s are outdoor neighbourhood cats, they roam, looking for food. What a nightmare.

My father? Oh, my parents divorced twenty-five years ago, after twenty-five years of marriage. Don’t get me started, from my mum I never hear the end of it. I love both my parents.

I try every at Christmas, to see my father when I’m up north and It’s hard because my dad is not completely understanding all of my disability quirks. He is just very opinionated that I must move out of the city so one day maybe I can save some $$$$’s for a deposit and own something one day. He does not live in Helen’s real world. He does not know; he would not understand and there’s no point trying to teach him.

So, people think I’m included in Christmas and that’s the end of the stay. Last year (2020) I stayed home alone in the city, because it was better than being somewhere I need help all the time and lose my independence immediately.

Christmas and family time. I’m just saying. It’s death by 1000 cuts.

In January, I’m just glad IT’S OVER! I get next year off.

Busy

Published October 18, 2021 by helentastic67

Busy

I have never known how to not be busy. I’ve always been busy. When I was 16 years old (yes! back when there were dinosaurs!). In the 1980’s, I was a full-time high school student, I worked part time as a checkout chick. I was doing hours of art folio preparation to get into college, I was a live-in babysitter to baby sister and I definitely didn’t have time for a social life or boyfriend. I did the household ironing and more than my share of the housework.

All while planning to be a poor art student, didn’t do a 4,000-word assignment until my first year of tertiary. I was still living at home then and it was all hand written. No computers, so many drafts, then only the battle of whiteout back then. You kids don’t know how good you have it.

So, it shouldn’t be a surprise that when I moved to Melbourne to be a poor art student when I was nineteen, that while being a full-time student, I transferred my supermarket job so I was working part time and being 100% responsible for my shopping and cooking. I introduced a little social outing in the form of going to clubs. I met one woman at college that went to a big commercial club very close to me. In simple terms, it was a very big wog club that was like a meat market. Huge dance floor in the middle of the room, upstairs, you spent much time going for a walk around the perimeter with a friend. As you travelled around a line forward and you just kept to the left. To your right was a line of people going the other way. As people passed on your right A guy’s face would loom into you to go for a kiss. Brushing them aside, all of a sudden, they would be pulled away by their girlfriend who had them by the hand and asking why they seemed to be holding them up. This is not why I stopped going to this kind if club.

The first few years I studied in Melbourne (two years actually) and I would go home long weekends and maybe a week of term break.

At Christmas, I’d transfer my supermarket job back to the country and also pick up seasonal work in the farm of blueberry packing. The last season I did some picking too, but while very stressful, packing paid better.

But to take a break from study and be at home in the country over Christmas meant I was literally working from 6am until 9pm with only a few hours off in the middle. Not even after college, I picked up some work in retail and clubs, which I literally set the hours according to what I considered it required to ‘get the job done’. So, my weeks, day and night were full.

I guess I’m saying life before my disability was always hectic, maybe why little symptoms I could later contribute to my AVM diagnosis went unchecked. So busy, my life has always been busy and I’m sure it’s not the last time I will cover this topic, or topics.

Family

Published April 26, 2021 by helentastic67

Family

Family is a beautiful and evil thing when you have a disability and life in general, I often feel like my contribution is undervalued or thing’s I could do to contribute to get together’s, it’s assumed I would break things rather than help.

At most Christmas gatherings, I offer to help because I want to be apart of things and not feel like a freeloader, but it becomes easier to stay out of the way and come in later to pack and unpack the dishwasher. I may offer to hand wash (carefully) some things that don’t go into the dishwasher and I’m told very quickly “NO” like I might smash the Fine Bone China cups and saucers.

No, I will not, I hope to inherit a share of those one day. Three daughters, is cups, saucers and cake plates. So, no would definitely not smash them.

Fun Fact: You can put Wedgewood in your dishwasher just without the detergent and likely on a cooler wash.

You’re welcome.

Fresh Friday

Published December 20, 2019 by helentastic67

Fresh Friday

It’s not every Friday, it’s not even every other Friday but when it happens it’s fresh! And I’m writing it the day before it goes live because it’s time sensitive and needs to be said. That is because Christmas is only a week away – not even!

While there are many pluses to being a single barren spinster, there are a few negatives and the main obvious ones is the dilemma of Christmas. Before you ask, no my family do not read my blog! But it is also to say, despite the situation at Christmas time it’s not anyone’s fault. No one is to blame it still goes under the heading, it is what it is.

It’s just kinda crappy!

At Christmas, my family is in opposite ends of the state. My mum and younger sister live in one direction close to where I grew up. My older sister and her partner, sorry fiancé live in the other. My father is still in my hometown and I only generally get there to see him when I go to my mums at Christmas for about a week.

While arriving at my mums in the countryside, opening the car door usually late at night upon arrival, brings an instant breathe of fresh air, I fled with pine trees and wood smoke. But from the moment of my arrival, I need someone to help me do everything. There is slip and trip hazards everywhere. Also, doors that must be kept closed to keep this cat outside, my cat inside, me away from cobweb-hazards.

And while my mum very generously gives me her bedroom for the duration of my stay, I’m down the other end of the house from activity. It’s hot and isolating. We all like different things but mine is not at all in line with my hosts. I pitch in by way of packing and unpacking the dishwasher and usually upon arrival I get a wave of OCD, because so much doesn’t have a home, and they have both been so busy making it to Christmas the dust kick-starts my hay fever and I can’t sit still for collecting things for recycling, etc and that just drives them insane that I can’t sit and relax.

We are all tired and we mostly all go into a kind of survival mode. I hibernate, watch my TV shows and sleep.

There is a day I go to visit my high school friends for a few hours, I browse my favourite shop and go visit my father where he has arranged his two brothers and sister in law to visit for afternoon tea. My Aunty always asks, “do you still like honey bread?” Do we all of a sudden stop liking chocolate? Or needing air to survive? And I go home with honey bread. It’s rhetorical right?

My older sister and fiancé are dog people. They have three. Why are they not labelled crazy dog ladies??? No! Of course, it’s just cat-ladies that get a bad rap. They generally do their own thing Christmas Day, this year being the first Christmas my future sister in law without her mum, sadly.

In recent years, we have managed to get together for what I refer to as a lovely lady’s lunch. Usually early December, somewhere a bit special. This year, I offered to attempt to arrange where and when and something we could all afford to contribute to. We all have vastly different fluidity of funds. (That’s a lot of F’s, and none of them my favourite version) You gotta give me a point for that? And after early efforts it became obvious it was to be put off for January, I was fucking (sorry, not sorry!) busy and everyone was proving hard to please. So, I dropped the ball.

So, it has not happened. I made the decision to spend Christmas home with Mika in air-conditioned comfort where I can at least have my carers every day and maintain my independence without need for someone to stop what they’re doing to open a door or move something for me. Not to mention our blend of intolerable foodie intolerance’s. No turkey? Last year I was informed mum forgot the stuffed turkey roll only 30 minutes north of Melbourne in a 3.5-hour drive to the country. Take me back and no Christmas pudding! Because the youngest hates peel! What?

So, this year I decided to go it alone at home and I’m ok with that. I’ve got enough ham to last me a portion a day for two weeks and some for the freezer. Not yet sorted a pudding, but I can cope with that. Besides I have rum balls.

I’ve also been managing the guilt and expectation of others, at the last minute my mum has asked if I can invite some of my neighbours over on Christmas Day? Because Christmas is supposed to be about family and being together and putting all of your shit aside for one day, so you can celebrate together and I don’t want to inflict myself upon others and ruin some other family’s day. I told my mum the people she suggested I could invite over we’re going to be in the States for two weeks and the other neighbour is Muslim, so no ham for her, or rum balls.

So, as a gentle reminder to those with plans for Christmas Day. Please check in on a neighbour or elderly person or anyone you know who may be socially isolated. It means so much to hear a friendly voice when you feel you are all alone.

FYI, I’m off social media Christmas Day and both my numbers are silent. So, if you want to reach out be prepared beforehand.

Now, on a more upbeat note: I do have a really upbeat post planned for Christmas Day, so stay tuned. And JD, you will get your cat-friendly Christmas tree!

Cheers,
H

Today’s Lunch – 18th December 2019

Published December 18, 2019 by helentastic67

Today’s Lunch

Good Mental Health Day

It feels like just yesterday was the 1st December and all of a sudden Christmas is next week. I’m not ready! I still haven’t done my Christmas cards yet, not kidding. If you are expecting one? It’s coming, it will just be late.

Last week I had a stressful week thinking my laptop had died, I was not happy. Took a serious effort to work out the not one but both power cords for my laptop had been compromised. One cord had bare wires, the culprit?

Stay tuned Friday for a brand-new post about my plans for Christmas, spoiler alert. I’m staying home with the above alone and stay tuned to appreciate why it’s the best option.

Meanwhile, really need a stress-free lunch today. So, here it is, Chicken and Tumeric salad and medicine.

And I got a present from Robert & his wife Nikki.

Today’s Lunch – 4th December 2019

Published December 4, 2019 by helentastic67

Today’s Lunch

Good Mental Health Day

Anyone else thinking with the arrival of December that Christmas is too soon? I’m still planning to stay-cation. I might get a break, sufficient air-con and I may even watch a few films, I’ve been working on my never-ending list of TV shows. I can’t cull anything. I must watch everything. Since I can’t read books anymore.

Currently, I’m watching season 2 of Pose and crying. And all the appropriate uses of the word ‘Bitch’. Really, it’s eye-opening, sweet, beautiful and sad. But reality for gay men in the early 90’s. Oh, and legs that go on for days. Those bitches! Really!

Yesterday I went to the city to attend a launch of a project I participated with earlier this year. So, today I bring you the link to the website from the project Opening Doors. Watch my video if you dare.

Our Lived Experience

I’ve only seen a little of it so far but, you saw the photo of me in my study a few weeks back. When I walked into the gallery space and saw it, I thought I looked really pissed off, I was told others thought I looked strong. The space yesterday for the launch allowed some interaction. Here’s what I added to the picture of me.

Meanwhile, where were we? Oh yes. Our standard foodie post. Today’s lunch is brain grain salad and medicine to help my migraine!

Today’s Lunch – 27th November 2019

Published November 27, 2019 by helentastic67

Today’s Lunch

Good Mental Health Day

Where were we? I had an appointment today with a follow-up at the sleep clinic. Yes! Yes! It’s still going on and I booked an appointment in my 2020 diary today for next September. Looks like I’m carrying around two diaries until January already! Too soon! Just too soon!

Last Thursday night I went to see the world release of film called Spirits in the forest. It was amazing!

https://www.orlandoweekly.com/Blogs/archives/2019/11/20/depeche-modes-spirits-in-the-forest-documents-their-world-tour-at-maitlands-enzian

Take the time to watch it. My favourite quote is when a fan describes seeing Depeche Mode in concert as the closest thing to going to church. My other favourite quote includes a crown and a cape and retiring g the someone. I was not the only person to laugh! They are definitely my favourite band despite the fact they have not toured in Australia since 1994, when I went to the after party and met the band! You heard me!

Here is a quick shout out to my friend William the owner of this vlog! I know not much about V8 Super car, but then I don’t need to? I know someone who does………..

www.williamsperfectride.com

And just before summer hits in Melbourne, these are my first Christmas Lillie’s out on my balcony.