Crazy Cat Lady

Published December 15, 2025 by helentastic67

Crazy Cat Lady

So, it is to say I think we are well overdue a crazy cat lady post. About a month ago a neighbour offered to take me out to the Cat Protection Society. We should all be aware she definitely meant Cat Protection Society. I had hoped to bring home a kitten. I was asked if I wanted a boy or a girl. Plus several other questions which I just wanted to smile serenely and say “Yes!” But alas, we were a bit early for kitten season, “I’m sorry, what?” I thought kitten season was all year round. Alas, if you also thought that you would be wrong also.

Kitten season falls between November and April. Which would be the warmer months here in Australia. My Oracle of Life just told me something completely different. But my friend, the mother to her four existing felines and one human and a foster Mum to boot and I were not so easily discouraged. We went to peruse the cats in the neat, clean and well set out cat hotel. We know it’s a cat shelter, but hotel sounds better, right? Stickers on each cat window indicated if the cat was ready for adoption, could live with other cats or dogs or what kind of environment would be ideal, family, no children, quiet older household, etc. You can open the door to the cat condo’s and meet the cats, using hand sanitiser in between obviously, and if you were really keen on a cat you could lift it out of its hidey hole and snuggle it or take it into a meeting room to spend a minute or two getting to know each other.

Anyone else thinking this is how dating could work better? I mean, don’t answer that.

We both met a few adorable cats. I met a beautiful guy called Ginge. He was a surrender cat. But he gave me head butts and I got him out and held him. I could have left that day with him and returned for a kitten a month later, if my friend didn’t point out to me, he had a medical note on his profile. We asked and he was prone to UTI’s. Poor bastard, my friend pointed out that would mean a special diet and expensive vet bills ongoing, I could not afford. So, alas we both departed empty handed. He was later adopted so that’s a happy outcome for Ginge.

Another couple were there and were also meeting and greeting the different cats. I suggested to them we should all just move in there, keep the staff to manage the litter trays and we could just spend all day and night with all the cats.

I don’t know if it’s obvious or not? I only have one cat, singular, however I practice being a multi-cat household often – at least in mentality, if not in reality.

A friend has five and I often point in her direction when meeting other people who start the cat conversation and they will look at me to suggest I should be advising my friend that she has too many. How dare they? I shut it down by informing them its inspirational. My friend catches on and tells them she used to have eight cats and even she realised that was to many and she rehomed three to her father.

Project Managing

Published December 7, 2025 by helentastic67

Project Managing

Lately, I’ve cut back on my appointments like physio, hence the lack of motivation or time to blog. I am not looking forward to the grumpy chastising from my acupuncturist who I should be seeing weekly as he is free. He is a GP and covered by Medicare so I really should be getting my ass there. And I think I haven’t been since April or earlier, but while I’ve been skipping my physio/neurophysiology and a few others, my pain increases as does the discomfort. It’s all been because they are using my funding to do report writing. Yes, you heard correctly. I’ve had to prioritise reports over pain management because I’m going to review again with the NDIA! Because I’m running out of funds.

I’m currently on my third Support Coordinator, who is like a case manager. Except, mine has run out of funds to do her job. I’ve been nudging with emails most of this year for her to get reports to people that are doing things for me anyway. So, I think every year I do more and more of that role. I’ve finally got a new Gun of an OT.

I’m hoping now, just celebrating the one-year anniversary of being in my forever home, that I can have a mobility scooter and somewhere safe and secure to keep it and charge it. And the NDIS funding in which to make that all happen and finally, not me to project manage all of that to make it happen. Even getting the Owner Corp and the board of residents, on board to allow these things to happen is a hair-pulling exercise as my existing shed is too tall and gets in the way of the sprinkler system.

I think the OC is largely against my installing a shed because it might set a precedent for others, also wanting to put up sheds. That whole “but she’s got a shed mentality…?”

In the last apartment complex the OC asked what I was storing in my shed. I didn’t immediately take their interest or concern seriously. I answered with my usual wit and humour “I’m not making Ice in there!” Breaking Bad made it seem like a good starting point to run successful manufacturing enterprise in a caravan in the desert. People these days make ice in rental properties which means they are no longer safe to live in. My real answer later was “My mobility scooter, gardening supplies and sometimes my excess tinned tomatoes and passata and panettone” I offered to use the light from my scooter to help better see what was really in my shed and I provided them with photos. It was exactly as my last statement and they dropped the issue.

Finding Time

Published December 1, 2025 by helentastic67

Finding Time

I’ve weirdly worked out the best sweet spot for blogging these days. As I’m always too busy to sit in any cafe let alone my favourite cafe in Clifton Hill. Actually, it’s in North Fitzroy. I still get to that cafe every Wednesday as my weekly Chiropractor appointment is very close to there now. However, stopping all the busyness long enough to type some words that tell a story and make sense; to share a lesson or learning, without being distracted.

Impossible! And I’m too easily distracted. Always something I want or need to do that isn’t typing words on a keyboard into an email I’m always drafting. I’ve now been in my forever home a whole year. Can you believe it? The 13th of November was the anniversary, a few months ago I would have said the perfect day/time of the week to sit and blog would be after getting home from physio, with a coffee by my side sitting at my dining table. Music in the background. However, while I should be fanging it home on hellonwheels after a kip at Physio, I would have had enough rest to not want to come home and go to sleep again and miss the perfect time I don’t need to do all the chores one-handed, cook dinner, bring in washing, maybe hand clothes on racks inside, etc, etc. So, it is to say, I’m as per usual behind.

Behind on the Adulting, behind on the responsibilities and the last fifteen plus years of trying to live well with disabilities, trying to maintain some parts of Original Helen and carve out a vision of Future Helen is catching up on me.

The Theft

Published November 24, 2025 by helentastic67

The Theft

Throughout the course of the week as I politely told friends about the theft of Hellonwheels, one friend I did not expect uttered the C-Bomb. You know the one, I’ll never utter the word in print even in this kind of context, but I will refer to it as rhymes with punt or UNT. When said friend uttered this word I cringed and shook my head. She asked if I was offended? I told her no but surprised she uttered the word out loud.

A gay male friend a little younger than me once said “It’s OK when you see your friend across the road and you yell out to them: Punt!” And all I could think was we have very different friends. I have a few friends who do use that word and I appreciate it in the context that it is used and allow it, but it’s not a word I use.

I did do a police report over the phone that day and eventually received an email stating I could do a Victims of Crime Application. Because I’ve all the time in the world for that. I have been advised I’m not likely to have it recovered.

So, by the end of the Tuesday I was a little calmer as I was consoling myself by suggesting there was a fuckwit out there walking around on two broken legs. They just didn’t know it yet.

I had at first wondered why someone would steal a mobility scooter. Getaway vehicle? Spare parts? Just what the actual fuck!

The problem if not obvious is the layers and complexity to solving this problem is so big. People would have no idea how hard it is.

I think there’s a whole bigger conversation about the word that rhymes with punt that is yet to happen. But I feel women should reclaim that word because it’s ours and we should reclaim it. If men think they can use that word because they came out of one. Yes, I’ve heard that line. No buddy! That’s not how that works.

Another carer and I were discussing while in her car one day that twenty years ago when I first moved to this area my voting enrolment district was called Batman. How cool is that? As well, in more recent years it was changed to Cooper. Boo! Because my carer stated bluntly, Batman was a punt. Which means he was a white early settler in this area who killed the original landowners in this area. So, punt indeed. Accurate.

Hectic Days

Published November 17, 2025 by helentastic67

Hectic Days

It often doesn’t occur to people that despite me not being able to return to work, they wrongly assume I do nothing all day but sit on my butt. Ok, it might be slightly true, but people don’t know how hectic my days often look.

I’ve had some days look so hectic I’ve had deliveries being collected from my home while I’ve tried to jump in the shower and then I’ve had to make a call while in the shower so I can relieve someone else’s stress. My carer holding the phone with the shower screen door open and mopping the floor! This is not why I don’t do video chat, because sometimes everything seems time critical.

Thankfully, that particular day, the person picking up the delivery met me in my PJ’s but left thankfully after seeing me fully dressed ready to go seize the day. Ok, going to do adulting, not so much seizing the day.

Problem Solving

Published November 10, 2025 by helentastic67

Problem Solving

I’ve been trying to solve a problem in my new home since moving in last November. It’s such a mess.

There are so many moving parts and potential solutions but more people to ask permission from before implementing solutions to the problem. So, the work around feels like a real fuck around.

Sometimes, I wish a clairvoyant or divine entity would just point you in a direction and narrow the field for you.

Here’s a real estate example which has been the perfect example whenever I’ve been on the hunt for a new home. I gave this example to a friend earlier:

If you wanted to only live in Ivanhoe and you had a set budget, and you wanted a certain number of bedrooms, bathrooms, car spaces, etc, etc. And if you couldn’t budge on any of those parameters. Maybe money wasn’t a limiting factor and you absolutely had to live in Ivanhoe; you would spend what you needed to spend.

If budget was important you would start to compromise on different things depending on what you could live with. Maybe less bedrooms, or whatever, but eventually you didn’t even live in Ivanhoe.

Maybe a clairvoyant could point you in the right direction and suggest Ivanhoe. Yes! But start looking for something a little smaller, or …..xyz. Then you wouldn’t waste your time trying to find all these other solutions.

Just an FYI, I didn’t have Ivanhoe money so I’m just giving that as an example. People that live in Ivanhoe have Ivanhoe money. You can’t hate them. You just appreciate them.

This is one of the major things on my list I’ve been chipping away at and made all the worse by a “friend?” suggesting I needed to get on my issues, like I was being lazy? Who needs enemies when you have friends like this?

So, the problem? I feel a part two coming on

I’ve had my mobility scooter AKA Hellonwheels for the last 15+ years and every time I’ve moved, I’ve had varying degrees of storage and weather proofing, security, etc in storing my Hellonwheels.

Some places I’ve lived at were easier than others for scooter storage alone. One house I rented didn’t have room to put my shed up for the scooter, so I ended up putting a BBQ cover over the scooter in the backyard close to a power supply and using locker straps around the cover to secure the cover and waterproof my scooter. It was a fuck around solution.

At my last rented home, an apartment, my car space didn’t have power so I was able to swap with a neighbour so I could erect my shed, park my scooter inside and charge it. I also stored my gardening supplies, and at one point my oversupply of pasta and tinned tomatoes, and my panettone.

I am such a Nonna!

My landlord queried what I was storing in my shed and I suggest Owner Corp and landlords do not have a sense of humour. Don’t say what I did? I responded to their original query that I wasn’t cooking meth or anything. My shed wasn’t big enough for that and I ended up using the lights on the front of my scooter to illuminate the inside of the shed to show them the contents. Seriously!

And while I was living there, I could go in and out of the only entrance to the garage on my scooter, I could go straight into my shed or go up on my scooter in the lift without causing damage. Parking near my apartment door and transferring items gathered into my apartment one item at a time before returning my scooter down to the shed to store and recharge. When I had more to take up and less time, I’d unpack items into a market trolley I stored in my shed and take that up.

Every pedestrian entrance to that complex had zero access for a scooter, and therefore no access for a wheelchair, except the B1 level or the carpark, just to give you a bigger picture.

Good thing I only have used my scooter for solo shopping missions locally as well as prompt local appointments where I get to maintain a level of independence.

So, when I moved to my forever home, the real estate agent showed me the apartment. My car space, the lift, the direction of the closest power supply to my car space and basically gave advice on both my disability and access to things he had no working knowledge on and directed everything to be sorted by the owner Corp when the time came.

I don’t know if anyone else has had to deal with an owner Corp, or had to solve problems of access for someone with a disability? And under the NDIS I have people for that right?

I prompted my support co-ordinator if she could get on that and sort things so when I moved, I wouldn’t lose my independence around needing my mobility scooter. After multiple prompts I was provided with a company name and the comment that they were expensive.

You might imagine the title of that person, being a Support Co-ordinator would mean they um, Support and Coordinate?

But it often means THEY DO NEITHER OF THOSE TWO THINGS!

So…

Single

Published November 3, 2025 by helentastic67

Single

What’s that? HellOnWheels is single? I’m not desperately single and of course I do wish it weren’t so. However, I’m used to it.

I’m even good at flying solo. On occasion an old male friend or contact will enter my sphere. (Not a euphemism!) I’m not hoping they are single; I’m hoping life worked out that they are happily settled and life was more kind.

I’d just like to know what happened to people and how life panned out. Just because my existence is not what I envisaged, doesn’t mean I hate on others for ticking the boxes.

Cast Your Mind Back

Published October 27, 2025 by helentastic67

Cast Your Mind Back

Who remembers the time back in early 2024, when I had a wound on my left side? It was a slow healing wound that was being poked and packed and prodded by my GP and a nurse twice weekly for months. I had described it to a family member as my left side due to the bad circulation as like being diabetic. Wounds on my left heal slowly. They asked, “But you don’t have diabetes, do you?”

You know those day’s people do not pick up what you’re putting down? If I can’t get a family member to understand what I’m dealing with, how do I get anybody else understand?

This is again relevant as I’ve been nursing along pressure wounds on my left foot and as my only course of exercise is walking, I really need my scooter to reduce this. I also need my left foot not to have me grunt or swear every single time I put weight on my left foot.

The last few months I’ve been managing the outside of my left foot. I wear different bandaids or second skin level bandaids every day. I’m lucky I don’t have any wounds as in broken skin. People may not realise this would be the beginning of the end. I would be on the couch, house-bound, feet up, eating, eating, eating. So, I’m told, and flinging rubbish on the floor until case managers apply for me to have new carpets. Again, the stories I hear. I like the fact I get out and do things and get motivation and inspiration from being around people. Also, people I encounter out would have NFI this is what’s going on under everything.

Blogging

Published October 20, 2025 by helentastic67

Blogging

I remember reading a blog post in my early blogging days by a very prolific and consistent blogger who I think stopped posting in the last year or so did a very good public announcement about not doing comments longer than a post you are commenting on. I was so guilty of this in my early blogging days in my desire to share hints and tips of living with my kind of disability and how having carers really helped. I know commenting is a skill I’ve lost in the recent upgrades from blog site to webpage.

But something this particular blogger instil in me, is to not comment a longer comment than the actual post. Many a time, I’ve written a lengthy comment only to reread then delete the whole thing. I guess it’s nice to give someone a bit of positive reinforcement, but you need to hope they edit or read before approving your comment on their blog. Otherwise, use their post as inspiration and write a post on your blog to link to them.

Are You OK

Published October 12, 2025 by helentastic67

Are You OK

I always ask people how they are? I think it’s a good habit to have. My recent adventure to the market produced this response. They said they were good that day but on the weekend the market had featured an Italian theme. I had seen a mention in an email somewhere, they said it had been the same four songs on repeat all day.

Honestly, this is the jam in a day and why you ask people. I suggested the older Italians would die off one day and he just needed to outlive them. He picked up a serrated edged knife and using a sawing motion ran it across his wrist. I confess, I hadn’t seen it the first time he had done it. I then demonstrated how to indicate blowing one’s brains out. Which he appreciated.

Amusing still, this encounter proceeded the “I love you too” moment. Took a dark turn, didn’t it? This is the benefits of having regular places I go and people I see out in my community.