The one night of the week

Most nights Jenny comes over and cooks dinner for herself, myself and Joe.  So we regularly have family dinners!

On Wednesday, however, Jenny stays home at her place and has a craft night with her lady friends.  On that night I cook for myself and Joe.  I am no chef but there are a few simple things that I cook which turn out fairly well.

I have a Ukrainian tenant named Vlad who lives downststairs.  He doesn't seem to have much of a life but is always cheerful, helpful and ready for a chat.  Recently, he had some medical problems that were clearly getting him down.  So I thought to cheer him up by inviting him  to share our Wednesday dinners.

That worked out well.  Some nights Joe is held up at work and misses the set dinnertime.  On those occasions I do still have company at dinner -- Vlad.  I much prefer that to eating alone, though I have done plenty of solo dining over the years

And Vlad also happens to like classical music so is also happy to sit with me  when I put on classical music after dinner.  So including Vlad works well.

Costume Jewellery

There is often a lot of thought and craftsmanship put into costume jewellery.  In some ways it is a superior form of jewellery as it does not rely for its interest on containing precious stones.  It has to please in its own right.  I regard it an underappreciated form of art.

So it is in keeping that I give Anne a lot of costume jewellery.   She and I seem to have very similar taste in what looks good. -- something striking but not ostentatious

At our meeting this morning, Anne was wearing a pair of ear-rings that I gave her quite recently.  I think they exemplify our joint taste

Good sex

Most people who know me are aware that I have been married four times.  In getting to that point, it is obvious that I have been to bed with a lot of women over the years.  

I make no claim however about my performance in bed.  As far as I know, it is completely average, unoriginal and unadventurous.  The ladies concerned have however never complained about my performance at the time and I have always been happy with them. I can in fact take sex or leave it and I have often left it for long periods.

But there is just one episode in my career that I think is worth recording.  I will call the lady X as I obviously cannot reveal her identity.  The sex was only one part of a very good relationship that lasted for more than a year but I think it was notable in its own right.

As we entered the bedroom, the lady would close the door behind us.  She would then let down her long hair.  She normally wore it up.  In my experience women do normally let their hair down before sex.  I think it is from that that we have the expression "letting your hair down" to mean having unrestrained fun of any sort.  At any event I always liked it when my partners did that.  It seemed very symbolic.

After the usual foreplay, I would get us started by getting on top of her in the best missionary tradition.  But that did not last.  After a minute or so she would get on top of me.  I would just lie there flat out while she did all the work.  The great benefit of that is that the man takes longer to come that way. So the lady gets more time to come and the man has an extended period of pleasure.  It worked so well that X would often come with a scream.  I like a screamer. There are not a lot of them but it seems to confirm that I have done something well.

At any event I would recommend that system to anybody who is inclined to it.  It is a win-win situation.

An eventful day

Yesterday I had lunch at the Phams with an old friend from Sydney in the 70s, John H. We saw a lot of one another in the old days so we had a lot to talk about. He was very concerned with my health during my recent illness so I appreciated that. He lives in Brisbane these days so we have arranged to meet more frequently. As you can see below, he is in a lot better shape than I am



And then that night we had a blackout!

We have been having frequent blackouts in Brisbane lately. But they have been short-lived and happened after midnight, so the only bother from them has been a frequent need to reset your electric clocks.

But last night was different. The power outage was for about 2 hours starting at about 8:30pm. It didn't bother me much though. I have about 15 oil lamps and various candles so I was soon well lit up again.

My hurricane lamp was particularly useful. I could walk around with it lighting my path. I also set it up to act as a night light I generally have some source of light on at sleep-time. It was well positioned in the room to give light to the whole room. You will see it below on its elevated shelf.



In the old days one would normally lose work in progress on your computer during a blackout. But now that laptops are almost universally used as your main personal computer, that is no longer a worry. The laptop battery keeps the computer going without interruption. I in fact was able to resume exactly what I was doing before the blackout.

Fortunately, I had put all my blogs up well before the blackout so the blackout did not delay their availability

Light on the situation

Most weeks I give Anne a small present, usually costume jewellery.  I have a pretty good idea of her taste so she is usually enthusiastic about what I give her.  She says that when she wears it, other ladies often compliment her on it.

My most recent present was a bit different, however.  I gave her a new but old-fashioned hurricane lamp!  That probably sounds bizarre but she, George and I all like oil lamps.  George has given her a very nice large table lamp. So I decided to give her an oil lamp that she can carry about during blackouts or for nights when she is caravanning.

And she definitely liked it.  Unprompted by me she has just sent the picture below of the lamp concerned lighting up a scrabble game

Surprising service

Qld Xray is the name of a private firm that seems to have tentacles in all Brisbane hospitals, public and private.  They do it all: Xrays, CT scans, PET scans, MRIs.  I have used their services  a number of times in different hospitals with no complaints but nothing worth mentioning either.

Last night it was different.  I went to their branch at the Mater Public hospital nearby to me.  My appointment was arranged only a few days beforehand and was down for 8pm.  I chose a night appointment as they bulk bill those (meaning they are "free" to me).  My specialist had asked for two scans, a CT scan and an MRI.  CT scans are routine but MRIs are a bit of a big deal.

I thought that,  with two scans to do, my time there would probably be fairly lengthy.  But, as it happened, they were super efficient and called me in with minutes of my arriving on time.  And they were also efficient in doing the two scans.  I went from one to the other in short order.  The result?  I walked out of there at 8:30.  They took only 30 minutes to put me through two scans!

Pretty amazing.  I will go to them again.  

I must be one of the most scanned people in Brisbane.  I seem always to be put through them by my doctors.  This one was to investigate a slightly cricked neck, probably arthritis.

Because it is almost always a private firm doing medical scans in Brisbane, one usually has to wait  only a few days to get any scan the doctors request.  I have had some done same-day or the next day.  I have also had some done after midnight when it seemed urgent.

Printer woes

My old printer died so I had to get a new one.  The one I chose -- a HP Deskjet 2700e -- was not expensive -- $55 -- as I don't need anything fancy.  

The setting up of a new printer has become a bigger and bigger challenge as the years have gone by so I was rather cheered by the motto on the box, which said: "Keep it simple".  I wish they had. The setup was incredibly long and difficult.  I worked at it for about 20 minutes and got so far and then Joe took over.  Joe is a computer maven.  He solves incredibly difficult computer problems for his work.

But it took another half hour of solid trying  before Joe got the thing to work.  How the ordinary citizen is supposed to make it work it I do not know,  I suspect that setting up printers will become a new trade.  You don't even try to do it yourself.  You call a printer guy

I do however have a handy hint for future printer installers:  Reboot your computer before you start.  It is only after Joe did that that things began to happen with my printer.

I guess a bonus is that printers don't get stolen these days.  My printer is specifically set up for my computer.  So it would not work on any other computer unless the thief was a setup genius.  Lesson:  Don't buy a secondhand printer

Joe x 2

I had a meal with son Joe twice today. The first was our usual Sunday breakfast at the pie shop.  For a change I ordered savoury mince and it was quite good.  I think they used some tomato product in it.

Then  I also had dinner with Joe.  It was Father's day so he asked me what I wanted.  I made my usual request that he give me a dinner on our verandah.  I asked for Wiener Schnitzel.  He looked in 3 supermarkets for oven-ready schnitzel but found none.  So he got chicken Kievs instead -- which is a good substitution as both dishes are crumbed.

He cooked it in his oven and said that it was the first time he had used that oven.  It was a new gas oven that I had installed about a year ago.  But he must have got the settings right as the Kievs were perfectly cooked.  He provided a pasta salad with it.

Necklaces

A strange habit I have is to give Anne a piece of costume jewellery almost every week -- usually after our Saturday morning breakfast. And she does like my choices and does wear a piece of it from time to time.  Today I excelled myself and gave her TWO necklaces, both of which she liked

There is a picture of the most interesting one below.  It is a costume copy of a black opal necklace and is very well done.  They have even gone to the trouble of making the "stones" into a shape into which opals are commonly cut -- a sort of rounded triangle. Only their large size tells you that they are not genuine.  Anne wears a lot of black so they will be useful to her.

An anniversary

Today was the 16th anniversary of Anne and me meeting.  Our relationship has undergone various changes over time but it is still warm and we do see one-another once a week -- and sometimes more. As usual, we did a celebration of the anniversary.  Our customary meal for special occasions is lamb cutlets and so it was at my place at lunchtime today.  We had fried onions, coleslaw and a French stick to go with it.  Anne did the cooking.

For starters we usually have natural oysters but a recent article on how sick you can get from eating raw oysters put us off.  So I bought us three different types of pate as an entree instead.  Anne took most of it home to have on toast

So we enjoyed our lunch and had a lie down afterward listening to music

I did of course buy flowers for Anne -- which she appreciated -- but I did not keep a picture of them

It was actually an eventful day for me as I also went to Nandos for dinner with Joe.  We too spent some time afterwards listening to classical music