(Also known as right wing neoliberal capitalist politicians to whom a dollar is worth more than your life.)
Black Friday March 2020. We went to town for one thing only, get Wifey to see a doctor and find out she has a lung infection, but probably not COVID19. Small mercies.
Also we both have a flu kind of thing but not the same one I think, and neither of us has CoV19 as far as we can tell. (Oh joy we can get twice as much sharing of illnesses done.)
People are so thick. Scott Morrison doesn’t understand the concepts of quarantine or isolation and is blithely making and unmaking decisions. Schools are to be closed, schools are to remain open. Large gatherings are going to be discouraged, but the Moto GP in Melbourne won’t be. No hang on, we’ll close down the GP mere hours before it’s due to start because it’s a large – LARGE – gathering.
But my Rabbitohs vs whoever football game on the weekend, that’s also a large gathering but it’s okay because I wanna see them play. All large gatherings are to be discouraged starting Monday. Except, of course, for the GP which is already discouraged.
Oh and my pentecostal church is having a large get-together so maybe they can hold that as a lot of small gatherings. In the same building at the same time. Churches are exempt from viruses doncha know?
My opinion is that if a whole bunch of Rabbitohs supporters and pentecostals get knocked off by COVID19 that’d be no great loss, especially the latter.
And my good mate the handyman – have been asking him to go out with me and pick up my two (two, count ’em, two!) IBC totes and two 200litre drums for water collection and storage since last week, he’s remained silent about it all right until – RIGHT NOW! I’M IN TOWN RIGHT NOW LET’S GO LET’S GO LET’S GO! And I had to explain that I need to give the farmer fair warning so he can meet us, my wife’s in Melbourne with her sister celebrating that gal’s 60th, and I need to organise all that first.
So he tells me he’s got people (loading? unloading?) Big W boxes or Bunnings boxes or – anyway, he can be here in ten minutes. So I ring Wifey to let her know but she’s obviously somewhere and didn’t hear the phone. I ring the farmer’s wife let’s call her Shirley and she’s not answering either. I leave a message and my phone rings – it’s Wifey and she just tried to ring me back but left a message instead, while she’s talking my call waiting goes off and I try to switch but it’s too late the other call’s gone to message bank.
So I check message bank and the first message from Wifey is about as I expected it would be, then Shirley saying she’d like to talk about timing, while I’m deleting messages Shirley rings again and predictably enough it goes to message bank as well… So I’m checking THAT message just as she rings again so now there’s another message but I’ll just hang up message bank and recall to get that one to break out of this phone tag cycle…
So I ring Shirley again and finally get to tell her that I can be out at their farm in 30 – 40 minutes and she says she’ll let – Jim – know as he’s out there right now. By this time ten minutes have definitely elapsed, I’m half full of flu, half full of rage at the handyman, and half full of “just stuff all this for a box of soldiers I’m ready to call it quits dammit.”
I still have to take the padlock off the back gate so I won’t have to run around later when the day warms up, find some tie down straps and ropes, and get out front to wait for the handyman.
Who shows up another ten minutes later, now fully half an hour after the moment he said he was just ten minutes out…
We drive out following my Google Maps nav on the phone. “Rusty” is convinced it’s taking us wrong, me saying I trust it. Did I mention his car leaks oil onto the exhaust system and there’s like a miasma of Essence Of OIl Of Sheikh surrounding and filling it. My lungs are in instant distress within a few minutes of hopping in the car.
The Google Maps nav takes us to the spot and says the destination is to the left of us, there’s just farm fences there. Rusty decides to drive a bit farther while I reckon it’s the gate just back from that spot and on the right but at that moment Wifey rings again.
So we drive a kilometre or two further and have to turn around. There’s now a white ute at that gate, and the farmer gets out and waves us in to a yard full of sheep, now THAT is a class bit of divination and manifestation and magic right there folks, he knew within a minute that we were there, saw the vehicle in the distance and knew that it was his customers.
Jim’s a lovely bloke and I hand him the moolah for the stuff and we sort of start talking, he’s proud that they’re organic and carbon-sinking and all the totes and drums are from organic fertilisers and one of them has enough organic stuff left in it for me to feed my veges for a year or two to come. I like Jim because he’s very proud of the operation and has every right to be. It’s a little pool of down home and I like it.
I now have to stay in touch and let him know when I start doing AGOCADA stuff and setting up, and he may even be interested in testing when I come up with a few units. So yay maybe there IS a non – pentecostal god sort of thing.
And of course also later this afternoon Wifey came back from the birthday bash and my stars came back into my heaven.