There were children at the 90th birthday party

and they were all very well behaved.

I did not know them at all. They are the great-grandchildren and, until then, I had only come across grandchildren. 

I have since written a letter to one of the great-grandchildren. She is the one who is currently being home-schooled for medical reasons. She is also the one who loves to read and is reading well above her age group.

I had thought no more about the other, slightly younger, child. At the party I was told he was learning Auslan at school. His entire school is learning Auslan as their "other" language. When he came up to his great-aunt to ask something she told him that I knew some Auslan too. I signed a simple greeting to him and he looked surprised, very surprised. There was definitely more than a little disbelief there. With a nudge from his great-aunt he responded by showing me how he can sign the alphabet but the conversation did not get much further. What child wants to talk to a strange adult in a language he still knows very little about?

What I found of real interest however was something else. His great-grandmother was here for lunch as she usually is on that day each month. This time she said to me, "O... told his mother and then his grandmother about you and how you signed something to him. He thought it was very interesting you could do it."

"Interesting?" I have been thinking about that. I would find it very interesting to know why he was thinking like that. Does he believe that no hearing adult can sign - apart from his teacher? Is the idea of signing rather than speaking so different he does not see it as an actual language? 

I have known any number of non-disabled children who can sign or use an alternate or augmentative form of communication. They have done this because they have relatives or friends who use something. This child has no relatives or friends who use sign language and has quite possibly not seen it used outside the classroom or, at very least, the school. So, what was he thinking? Has he suddenly realised that signing really is a language and he can learn to use it?   

Sorting through the belongings of a deceased person

is not something I would do by choice. I have done it for my parents and helped to do it with my grandparents. Unexpected things have been found of course. 

I was always grateful my mother only had three days of "compassionate" leave when her mother died. I think it is fair to say there was only relief there. It was my great-aunt, her sister-in-law, who removed the most personal things from the house. Mum wanted nothing at all. 

"Not even her wedding rings?" my great-aunt inquired. Mum's response was "Throw them out. I don't want a thing."

My parents had no choice but to move into the house my grandmother had inherited from her husband but I know Mum loathed the place. It must have had some truly dreadful memories for her. When my parents finally managed to move into their own home Mum put her mark on it. The Senior Cat left it entirely up to her. I know there were things he would have changed but he wanted her to have her own space for the first time in her life.

I have thought of all that frequently in the last few weeks. For months I have been surrounded by boxes of goods belonging to someone else. I was not even really aware of what was in them. They were left with me when K... moved interstate with her husband. They were moving to be closer, much closer, to their daughter. K... was ill and had been told she had, at most, a year to live. The intention had always been to move back. The business she ran from home was closed. The stock had been run down over more than two years.

Her husband appeared at my door with box loads of what was left. He thought I already knew what was intended. I knew nothing. If I had been asked I would have said I could not do it, that I had no way of doing it.

I called K...to ask what she was doing. 

"Cat... I am giving you what is left. Sell what you can and use the funds for the children." She gave me no choice.

It has been sitting there for months. I went away and came back. S... was not well enough to help. More than one thing got in the way. S..., bless her, came and we made a start. It has been a lot of work. I spent most of yesterday working on sorting out a messy box of bits and pieces. Most of that cannot be sold on line. It can go to the local charity shop. People often go in for things like buttons. I think K... would approve of that.  

The funds are building up. Those most in need will be able to continue their education. Her husband left me a message late on Friday to say that "K...has left me - just went to sleep and didn't wake up." We both think K... would be happy. I don't mind the work involved. It just feels odd to do it.  

Someone still has to pay for it

if you shift a charge from one point to another. This is not taking a charge away. 

Our Prime Minister proudly announced that "your coffee" was going to be cheaper. He told us that prices would go down, that the price which was advertised was the price we would pay. 

There was more of the same. It sounded good. It is not true. Someone, somewhere had to absorb the cost of the card use fees and it was not going to be the person selling the goods but the customer. Of course it was going to be the customer.

The migrant couple who run the delightful little coffee place in our local shopping centre can only keep it going because their entire family is involved. They all work shifts. The young ones do it in addition to other work and the parents, who are both well over retiring age do the rest. It is hard work, very hard work. 

They did not want to raise their prices. They have a loyal customer base. They have people who see their little place as a sort of social service. It does not mean they can absorb the increased cost to them of the fees being charged. 

Their prices will rise by the bare minimum. Elsewhere in the shopping centre prices have also gone up. Adding fifty cents to the price of a coffee seems a lot but the way the change was implemented means that the price of everything else has also gone up as well. The grocery bill is going to be higher and so is everything else. 

Someone did not think about this. They did not think about the implications. If they did then they either did not care or they must believe it will be extra income for the government through the GST. I doubt the government cares very much at present. There will be reduced revenue for them in the future but they will put it down to other things.

And nobody has considered that anyone who pays cash is also going to be paying more for their coffee...and everything else. The card surcharge is going to affect everyone. No, you won't be paying less however you pay - you will be paying more.  

 

 

   

Performance cues and underscores

of the musical kind are part of a magician's repertoire. The music is as much a part of the entertainment as the illusion. Even in the earliest times a performer would have someone using music to help distract the audience at essential moments. 

The Senior Cat was very aware of the importance of music in the magician's repertoire. He was also aware of how difficult some magicians find it to build that sort of backing material for their performances. It was with that in mind he talked to someone who had an interest in theatre organs. He was then put in touch with someone else who performed regularly on both the organ in that theatre and on radio. 

Would this person be interested in developing some "music for magicians"? Could they work together on this? It was how the Senior Cat came to know someone else who died recently. 

The Senior Cat liked music but he was not musical. Does that make sense? He could, with difficulty, read the treble line and blow into a recorder. Mum would cover her ears. She was musical. Dad could not sing in tune. (I cannot sing in tune either but I know I cannot and there is a good reason for my not being able to do it.) At school dances Mum would warn the wife of the chairman of the School Committee (the chairman was always male back then) that the Senior Cat had "two left feet". Yes, he was that bad. It was a rather rotten family joke.

So how on earth did he manage to work with anyone on this? I came home on more than one occasion and there would be music issuing from the piano and "that car" would be parked outside. I knew B... was there and the two of them would be working on something. I would hear them discussing it. I would hear something be played faster or slower or with "more twiddly bits". I would hear it played up an octave or in a different key. 

"Got it!" "Yes that's it!" "What about this?" "How about we try this sort of..." and so it would go on. 

I would hear the Senior Cat saying, "Right...the patter goes like this and this is what I am doing....can you speed it up just a little...you're right that's even better..."

They worked well together. B... would give me a nod as I came in but he would not stop working until it was time to put the kettle on. I would make tea and leave them still talking. B...would take what he had recorded there away with him and make another recording in a studio somewhere. The result would be a tape for the Senior Cat and his fellow magicians to use.

It would all be done very differently now. Modern technology would make it much easier to use music from a wide variety of sources. It would not simply be a piano or theatre organ backing. There would be no tapes, not even a CD. 

I also suspect there would be many breaches of copyright. B... and the Senior Cat had permission for everything they used...and they worked for it.   

Do you remember when we had "department"

stores? You know the sort of thing I mean, one of those big shops which seemed to sell almost "everything". They were the sort of places where you could buy "bargains" in the basement and school uniforms on the third floor which you went to by passing the cosmetics and handbags on the first floor and the underwear and whatever on the second floor.

Our CBD had an entire street of them in the centre of the city itself. Women, dressed in a "good" dress, stockings, hat and gloves would spend "a day in town" and visit several at a time. It was where you bought what ready made clothing there was. It was where men who could not afford a tailor would go for their "Sundays and funerals" clothes. 

My maternal grandmother was among the first to get a "card" for one of the biggest of them. It was not a credit card as such but an "account" card. She would make purchases on it, often small purchases in the "habby" (haberdashery) area. She would have a fitting for her "corset" in the area which sold bras - always fitted bras - and other nightwear. Her Christmas shopping, such as it was, would be done there or in one of the neighbouring stores. At Christmas itself the footpaths would be crowded. Santa Claus was to be found in a "Magic Cave" - and elsewhere. Cars and buses could barely move along. It was our version of Oxford Street.

Then someone had the bright idea of turning the street into a pedestrian mall. Cars and buses were removed. The street was levelled and paved. Art work was put in.

And people went away. They went off to the "shopping centres" which were being built in the suburbs. The big stores tried to follow people there but they had to compete against the "chain" stores imported from America and Asia. 

Our CBD is dying. Whether it can be revived is anyone's guess. The mall might have seemed like a good thing but habits have changed. A very elderly friend who was here yesterday went into the city recently. She was wearing jeans and a casual jacket. She had no hat, indeed does not own one. She was wearing gloves but only because it was a cold day and she has issues with circulation.  We commented on how things had changed. She asked me when had I last been in to "the Mall". The answer was about three years before the Senior Cat died. I had to get him a pair of trousers and, after looking on line, I found a pair in one of those "department" stores...but it was no longer that sort of department store. It was one of many small stores within a big building. 

My previous visit had been many years before that and I felt lost. It was not a friendly place. It would have been so much easier to go to the place where he had bought all such things after his father was no longer working. They kept a record of every customer and their measurements. If you went in they would update the record. Their fabric and workmanship lasted for years. I had contacted them but it had all gone and that was their suggested alternative. Yes, good trousers but not as good as theirs.

It all seems to be like that. I know things change. I am not sure I would like it if things did not change from time to time but there are things I wish were still there. I have a voucher to spend in a little store in an arcade off that mall.  I am told it is a very nice place to visit. Yes, it probably is but I am not sure when I am going to get there...or even if I want to do it. Shopping is not the same now. 

Just when you thought it could not get any sillier

 or any worse a former Greens politician has come up with the idea that the government should run the supermarkets. 

Yes, you read that correctly he thinks it would be a good idea if the government took over the supermarkets and ran them. According to him it would bring prices down and make them more accessible and efficient.

If you have now stopped laughing...

We have Coles and Woolworths, Aldi and the IGA (Independent Grocers) as the main players in the supermarket game. Our local shopping area has three of those. They vary in what they have to offer. The clientele varies too.

I choose to do most of my shopping at the independent one. The prices are much the same. They offer a discount of 5% for anyone with a Senior's or pension card. They deliver locally at a much cheaper rate. The staff are generally very good indeed. I have the boys trained to reach to the top shelf for me if they happen to see me. If they are collecting trolleys and I am parking my trike they will hand one to me as they are going inside. They long ago told me to leave the trolley where I park the trike. "It's easy to pick it up on the way in Cat."

Now can you imagine having that sort of relationship with a government owned entity? No, neither can I. The idea that we would all have a greatly reduced choice hedged around with increasing regulations and the inevitable shortages and delays is something nobody in their right mind would want to contemplate. This was tried back in the early part of last century in Queensland. It failed. It is the sort of thing which has been tried in Communist states. It has failed every time.

And imagine now if the government also decided that they needed to do something about our diet and could do it through controlling what was available on a supermarket shelf. What if we were told "no more meat" or "some people are allergic to X so we won't be stocking it any more." For many people food is one of the pleasures of life. They may eat sensibly and frugally most of the time but they want to break out sometimes! 

I suppose it might do something for a black market and then the lawyers and the courts when people got caught...but if we were trying not to break the law but wanted to eat? Just how silly can things get?

The ambulance service is

something for which I have a great deal of respect - at least at the face to face level. I am less sure about the administration of it.

My first encounter with the ambulance service that I am aware of was as a very small child. Along with another child I was taken away in one with a kangaroo on the side. It was dim inside and I remember the officer trying to keep me calm. Why I was there is a mystery because there had not been an accident and I was not critically ill. It was alarming for a small child but I remember kindness.

I have gone on to seeing children under my care in a special school being taken away in an ambulance on more than one occasion. As staff we never knew whether we would see them again. The ambulance staff were kind and caring and competent.

I have been in an ambulance tearing down the wrong side of the road in peak hour traffic with the siren going. It was terrifying but the driver kept telling me, "It will be all right."  Much, much later the one dealing with the Senior Cat stopped me in the local shopping centre and asked how he was doing. (He recovered.)

I have had the ambulance service pick me up on their way through to a hospital when I was needed there to act as "communication assist" for someone who was not able to speak.  I have always been treated with courtesy. 

There was only one I felt was not professional. Many of them were volunteers because that is the way the system works. 

Management apparently does not like this. There is word currently going around that one of the volunteers has been stripped of his duties not because he had done anything professionally wrong but because he failed to call the ambulance service by that name rather than the district it works out of and failed to provide a vegan meal for an officer from another district. There were complaints he failed to find cover for all the rosters he was responsible for too. That those who do it are a small team of volunteers apparently was not taken into account. 

If the complaints are true then they are administrative rather than ability complaints. The local people would refer to the service by the name of the town or the district. It is what happens out there. How on earth was he supposed to know about a vegan coming in? He might well not know what "vegan" means - many people do not. If there are not enough staff to cover a volunteer roster is that his fault? 

I suspect those higher up the ladder, those paid to do their jobs, are unhappy with his criticism of their roles. He might be outspoken but I suspect it might well be with good cause.

What has happened however is alarming. You do not bar a volunteer who is doing a good job and who is respected and supported in the community simply because he criticises the management - a management which should be supporting you. We need volunteers. This country would not run without them, particularly in rural areas.