Mother's Day Special

   Look, I don't generally do mother's day. Longtime readers of my blog will know this is because I'm adopted and well. It's awkward. I appreciate the people who have brought me up, but I don't feel comfortable calling them "parents" as such. I don't really know what to call them. Someone suggested "caregivers" but, as my lovely adoptive mother said, "I don't give and I don't care."

   I love her. Really.

   For that reason, I thought I'd do a lovely mother's day post about her.

Here she is! And me,  of course.

   I also thought I'd share a lovely story about her from the other day.

   We have had a problem lately with the plug for the kitchen sink. You know that little metal ring at the top that assists in the removal of the plug? Well, it had snapped clean off, and every time one of us went to wash the dishes, It would take about half an hour of persistence and swearing to get the plug back out again.

   Time for a shopping trip at Mitre 10.

   Now, as a pensioner, Liz has a gold card, which allows her to get free bus rides between 9am and 3pm. This is very convenient as it requires two buses to get to where Mitre 10 is, and being Queenstown, none of these come cheap. This becomes a crucial fact later on.

   She had purchased a plug which she assumed would fit the sink, however, she wanted to get back home, test it to make sure it would fit, then leave enough time to bus back to Mitre 10 should a replacement be required, all before 3pm so she wouldn't have to pay for the bus, because if I were to describe her in a single word, I would choose "economical." Being economical, she had also decided to do some grocery shopping while she was there because the supermarket near Mitre 10 had cheaper prices than the one closer to where we live.

   This was how my adoptive mother ended up in the carpark with a shopping trolley she was about to return when she saw the bus coming. Realising that she had to catch this bus in order to make it home in time, she ran towards it, taking the shopping trolley with her. I cannot tell you why she still had the trolley or what she planned to do with it once she reached the bus, but I can tell you that she would rather die than be one of those people that do not return the trolley to its allocated area of the carpark. Perhaps she would have tried to hold the bus while she went to return it. I do not know.

   Her rather hastily thought out plan involved taking one of those wheelchair ramps (as opposed to the stairs, as she still has this massive shopping trolley with her at this stage) towards the bus stop. Sprinting. Anyway, she was there. She had made it, just as the bus arrived. Or would have, had she not tripped on the curb.

   I don't know how much the average shopping trolley weighs, but it all fell down on top of her.

   One would suspect this situation was bad enough. There would be the pain, the humiliation, and still the possibility of missing the bus. But she had not suffered enough yet, it seemed, because she discovered that she was in fact trapped underneath the upturned trolley, and required assistance to get out.

   My readers, you will be relieved to know that after this, she made it home safely to test the plug.

   It appeared to fit correctly, but upon testing in a sink full of water, we found a leak, so it may yet require a second trip to Mitre 10. No trolleys this time though. Poor woman.

Putting the "troll" in "shopping trolley."

RIP Mark

RIP Mark Buckley

24/10/95 - 08/05/12

   I met Mark through some mutual friends in Dunedin- he went to the same high school as my little brothers, was in the same year as many of my friends. Although not universally liked, he was definitely well known, and the news of his death affected everyone that knew him.

   In fact, I'm nothing but impressed by the sincerity and maturity shown by his classmates and friends.

"I'm sorry for the shit I gave him. He wasn't that bad of a guy, we just didn't see things the same way at times. But he will be missed." said Jordan Stocks, who went to school with Buckley.

"It's a tragedy, he may not have been the most liked guy around, but it's still an awful thing, there should still be a level of respect that people have to abide by, not laugh and joke about it as if it's nothing. He was still a person, it's still a human life, and he will be missed by his family and friends. He was still a student of OBHS, [Otago Boys High School] some people need to step up," said Joe Dickinson, another fellow student.


   Mark was killed in a car crash last night. Although I will not go into the full details here, this article is available.

   I offer my condolences to his friends and family. RIP Mark, you will be missed.

   To share your own messages of support, please leave a post at RIP Mark Buckley.

I'm back!

   It's been a long time, hasn't it?

   I was thinking, briefly, of ending this blog on a high note. Leave it at a hundred posts, quit writing forever. It was becoming quite a chore at times and I wasn't doing it because I enjoyed it, but rather because getting it done makes me feel less of a lazy slob. But then I realised that the most recent thing I'd written was a song requested by my brother's friend (about threesomes, no less) and it was dreadful. I didn't want that to be my writing legacy. That's just embarrassing. I mean, I've been working on what could be a novel, but even that was feeling tedious lately.

   Everything was a chore.

   Oh, and then Scott got me a couple of pet rats and parenthood is time consuming.

Meet my babies, Carl Sagan and Kurt Cobain. Your children will never be as cute as mine.

   Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that I'm still alive, even if I spent last night watching Lion King over and over while cuddling with my rats and sobbing. I'm fine, its just that it will always be sad when Mufasa dies.

   Anyway, to compensate for this, here's a clip from Walk On The Wild Side.

   Bellez loves you. Quality content to come soon!