Shower

So, for the last day or so my sister and her husband have been visiting us. This may not seem all that significant but they feature in the following series of events rather heavily so I thought it would just be worth mentioning their presence straight up to avoid confusion and annoying questions later on.

I'm working a late shift today, which means, amongst other things, that I got up later than K, which isn't all bad for me on these cold cold mornings. After K had left for work this morning she sent me a message to say that there was a plumber working on a leaking pipe in the driveway, so I'd better make sure the car can get through before work at midday.

After K had left, my sister, JM, got out of bed and had a shower, then it was my turn.

So, I got in. All was going well until, just as I'd reached the point when I had the most shampoo bubbles in my hair possible, the water started to slack off a bit. "No big" I naively thought to myself, not bothering to try to use the reducing water supply to remedy the bubbles, "JM or D must be using the hot water". But then it happened, rather than picking back up, the water flow dribbled, dripped and then stopped altogether. I fiddled with the taps, turning the hot up to full, but to no avail. And then it hit me.

"The plumber!" He'd stopped the water without telling us. And there I was, covered in shampoo and gradually freezing to death. There was only one thing to be done, I put on a towel and went and explained the situation to JM and D, hoping they knew what the one thing that needed to be done was. They did, or at least, they thought they did, and they weren't far off the mark. D's brain-wave idea was that I should use all of the bitterly cold water in the fridge to rinse out my hair. I wasn't so keen on the idea. Then I realised, the kettle! That most excellent of kitchen appliances (no offence toaster). Combining some of the hot water in the kettle with some of the cold water in the fridge I'd soon rinsed my hair in a satisfactory, if not ideal, way. (Although I'd ended up with quite a few calcium flakes in my hair; an undesirable by product of the local water supply).

So problem solved, story over, right?

Well, in a sense, yes. But in a far more accurate sense, no.

Directly after the shower we went out to breakdfast with D's parents, (who were also staying in town). We didn't get back until about 1100, about an hour and a half after leaving. I estimate that it was probably also an hour and twenty-five minutes after the plumber switched the water back on. Bother.

With the bathroom door fully open and all of the windows closed, the shower has been pumping out hot water just as fast as it can for the length of shower a wealthy hippopotamus might need to take on a really lazy morning about two hours after a good wallow in his/her own filth (no offence hippo).

The windows were dripping with condensation.
I ran my hand along the lounge room wall and it came back to me wet.
The wall covered in maps in the spare room was quickly becoming a wall not covered in damp maps (they're falling off).
The light switch in the bathroom was a serious safety risk for it's users.

It took a good 45 minutes of fans at full bore and all windows open to reduce the humidity sufficiently to see out the kitchen window without impediment. I think the maps will survive.

And that, is the shower incident.

J

The Sky is Falling

On the two minute drive home K reminds me, twice, to be careful. Normally I would take this as an afront to my driving, but not tonight. A thick layer of smoke hangs in the still night air and the sound of nearby detonations breaks the illusion of separation from the outside world that Ford has gone to such lengths to create. This night is different. This is cracker night.

Earlier in the evening, at a friends place, we stand out the front watching and participating in what's happening in the ten metres or so of dirt between us and a busy road (busy by our local standar anyway). Bang, fzzzz, BOOM!. Or just a long FZZZZZZZZZ. Or even Bang, fzzzzzzzzzzzz (land on the ground, "everyone run for your lives!") BOOM!!. Generally up in the air but occassionally falling over after the first couple of shots and firing wildly on to the road, into the crowd or off into the park on the other side of the road, meaning that J2 has to run over and huriedly stamp it out before we set half the town on fire. Approximately every five-to-ten minutes a fire vehicle of some sort flies past, sirens screaming, and it's not hard to see why. Look left up the road, fireworks exploding. Look right up the road, arial explosions a plenty. look back into the rest of the town and they spatter the sky in a seemingly endless bombardment of the heavens.

The first explosions started around 5:30pm (the first we saw anyway). Still daylight, but they didn't care. What's more, I could still hear them as I left the house at quarter past eight this morning. The smoke is still there too, that bleary haze of a town hung over on bright lights, loud noises and show rides (the show was yesterday, had I mentioned?).

In the words of the age old tune, "oh what a night".

J

P.S.

Almost a week later, as the severe respiratory effects of prolonged smoke inhalation fade and the explosions gradually reduce to about one-per-day (that I hear), my mind turns away from the bright sparkles of yesterday and onto the coming explosion of the future. How will we top this next year?

Hope to see you all there.

God is sovereign.

I was asked a question by my wonderful husband and it has left me so amazed at God and His sovereignty that I just had to write it down. The question was, 'if you could go back 10 years in time and speak to yourself, what would you say?'. So.... whilst travelling through time in my mind, I thought of myself as a new teenager, and things I could have been told that would have helped me throughout that time.

"Don't worry about what other people think of you;" was the first thing I thought, "it doesn't matter what others think, only what God thinks. Make sure God is part of your personal life throughout your life, part of every day, and don't underestimate the importance of Christian fellowship". I think those would probably have been the most important things for me to hear before I spent some of my teenage years struggling with what others thought and not really thinking about what God wanted me to do.

And then J pointed out that even though I thought I needed to hear that stuff 10 years ago, God still had me in the place I'm in now. I'm in a relationship with Him, I'm saved, and I have a blessed life that I am SO thankful for. So even though I have some experiences in my past I would rather weren't there (and if I had the chance would erase), God in His sovereignty pulled me through to be where I would want to be anyway! And I still have lots of room to grow and become more like my 33 year old self would tell me to be if given the chance...but I am SO thankful that God has me where I am, has me in relationship with Him. Thank you God!!

-K

Blogged

I've been rather hesistant towards the blogging trend. Actually to be honest, I've had no interest in it at all. To me blogs seem like a place where angry teenagers rant about how unfair their parents/school/work/whatever are/is, or a place full of other useless information. But then, when you move away from those you know, suddenly it seems to be a good way to keep people in the loop; to let people know what is going on in your life. But is it??

There are 2 reasons I remain unconvinced:

1. You pour your heart out into a blog that a few people read (but You have no idea who of your friends or anyone in this strange blogging world is actually reading it), and even though people may be interested, you have no knowledge of that. You don't know if people are actually keeping up with what's going on in your life. When you catch up with people, you don't know whether to tell them what you've written in your blog, because you don't know if they've read it. And then, if someone actually does read your blog, it is very unlikely they'll comment. So you don't know if they care, or have advice, or want to share a laugh about something that happened. There is no communication between friends. Just a few words in a one-sided conversation.

2. I read your blog. You read mine. That's great... except I still don't feel like we've gotten any closer, and I presume you feel the same about me. So why do we blog? What is the point? Why don't we just email, phone, or (gasp) even write a letter?! And then get one back in return. One that responds to what you've written as well as passing on new information. The problem with blogs, is that everyone writes about how they are going without responding to any one else. How is this caring for others? Is blogging just a waste of time; could that time be better spent in another pursuit - perhaps even that phone call?

I need convincing. Is there purpose in a blog? Is it actually communicating with those you miss? Do you feel any closer to me from reading my blog? And should I feel any closer to you for the fact that you've read it and made no comment? (That's assuming I somehow know you've read it.) The jury is still out on this one. But maybe not for long...

K

The State (or Territory) of Things

I've heard that in England, around the 16-1700s, lawlessness and alcoholism were at a peak. People called for stronger laws and harder policing. Permanent scaffolds were erected in London for the punishment/spectator sport of hanging. Unemployment due to reluctance to be employed and inability to be were at a height. The country was headed on a steep down hill slope.

I had my first day of work today. As a part of my orientation to the aboriginally centred health service that I am working for I went out on the bus that goes to collect people from the town camps (areas designated for Aboriginal people to live in) for appointments. I have been looking after people who live in these areas for over a year now at the local hospital, so I had some idea of what to expect, but was never-the-less a bit disturbed by the state of things. The first place we went to was a camp of maybe 10ish houses. Out the front of the house that we were headed to domestic rubbish was scattered everywhere with varying density, the thickest area being a metre-high pile. A woman sat out the front on a wheel chair stamped with the mark of ownership which indicates that it should remain in the hospital. At another house in the dry-zone camps someone had at some point been industrious enough to start collecting cans in a large cage, with obvious success, as the hundreds of cans (mostly Victoria Bitter) in the cage were now running over. I saw next to one house a group of children leaping off of a post-2000 model Mitsubishi Magna onto their trampoline. Every window of the car was smashed except for the rear wind-shield which acted as a seat for those waiting to take the jump. Indeed cars with no windows or tyres, with extensive denting and, on occasion, rolled and torched, littered each camp. Perhaps half of them around the same vintage as my own 2002 vehicle, often newer. The cars could have been taken as a statement of fashion; no home is complete without at least one wreck and many had up to four visible from the front.

Is stark contrast the people that we spoke to were quite polite. There was no sign of active violence, vandalism or anger amongst any of the people in any of the seven-or-so camps we saw. No one was overly keen to help and about half of the people we went to collect weren't at the agreed upon place (although one of those places was "the tin shed" in a fairly vast set of three camps), but neither was anyone abusive, or even vaguely derogatory towards us. Which led me to thinking about what happens in these places at night. There is no doubt that rampant alcoholism and resulting issues are a large part of the answer to the question for what changes between day and night.

So what do you do? In a town where robberies and assaults are commonplace. Where so many fathers and mothers, husbands and wives, and their children go out at night to get drunk whenever they can. Where the per capita rate makes us the stabbing capital of the world. Where sexual deviancy and assault is so thoroughly ingrained that people don't say "larrikin" because of what it has come to mean. What can be done?

The local news paper tells me that we are receiving more police to curb the increasing issues. Another state's police force has even donated us another police dog out of acknowledgement of our issues. There are calls for stronger laws and harder punishments against "alcohol abusers". But from past experience people know not to get their hopes too high when law enforcement beefs up. Enforced dry zones lie covered in cans. Police are beaten up at under 17s football matches.

A great part of the fault in this answer to the issue lies in the fact that, while civilised society writes to the editor with one hand calling for more enforcement and crack down on alcoholism, with the other it reaps the benefits of the 96 local licensed venues. People cannot encourage alcohol sales and fight alcoholism. Although, if history has anything to say, halting alcohol sales just results in a flourishing black market and a turn towards backyard stills.

Politicians from local to federal level come and go, each one vowing anew to fight "antisocial behaviour". In a recent local bi-election every candidate cited cracking down on antisocial behaviour as part of their primary goal (except for the guy who wanted to start recycling. I don't think he got many votes). They've not found a lot of success yet.

Antisocial behaviour is symptomatic, it isn't the heart of the issue.

So I ask again, what do you do?

In eighteenth century England, when the country faced the real prospect of civil wall and moral conscience of any variety lay at the bottom of the Thames with a duelling pistol's shot firmly in it's back, something happened. A band of men went about the country telling people that they were sinful and telling them of the one answer to sin. They were told what punishment they deserved and they were told that God had become a man to take that punishment for them. People turned, both the sellers and the buyers because, if a final sense, there is not distinction. Society turned from it's evil and saw it's wretchedness and knew that there is no hope outside God. And people followed Him. And things changed.

J