Emergency

Life is full of changes and yesterday my other half was at work and then had to go to hospital. Naturally he takes the bus. Naturally he goes to a hospital miles away from where he was when there’s one pretty much on his doorstep. You’d have to know him to understand. Actually maybe not.. I don’t feel like understanding that one even if I do.He did let me know so I went down to emergency. After calming down that is. I do love the bastard who refuses to take the ambulance or even the taxi or go to the nearest hospital or even tell me what bus he’s on. Parking was easy fortunately and I got there only seconds after he did. He was better than I expected but then I’m really skilled at expecting the worst. He was at work he said and couldn’t remember how to do the simplest of files he’d done for months. He also had a headache and while all nice and conscious was saying some out-of-place words at times. He’d collapsed a few days previously so it wasn’t entirely a shock.

After waiting a while, after the initial consulting and clerical stuff, you get to see emergency in action. I’d not been in hospital much never mind emergency. Not shall we say the kind of place I like to picnic. The place was pretty busy by my standards but it might have been a Sunday stroll to the staff for all I knew. We were in the sitting room mostly with non urgent cases (and a fantastic wait). There were beds everywhere in cubicles and along the hall of course moaning and puking and all that fun stuff. I lost count of the ambulances outside and it seemed like they were actually queued. They even started shoving beds in the waiting room for a while. My overall impression was of a kind of calm almost controlled chaos. There is no doubt it’s the nurses that keep things in order, not doctors.

Would you believe there is a snack bar there. Did good trade there too. After 5 hours which seemed like 5 mins or 5 centuries because time really wasn’t working for me, he’s in to see a Dr. The boy had already come from school which in his case is almost on top of the hospital and so I chatted to him about games to keep him a bit distracted and suddenly there are doctors and nurses everywhere talking and treating patients in the waiting room.

I’m called in with the boy and to the Dr’s credit not an eyelid batted over the gay thing which is a little unlike other responses I’ve had. This woman’s probably seen everything. He’s concussed without complications. I have to watch him for this and that and he has to do this and not do that, and we go home.

It’s a real pleasure leaving an emergency dept. and with a diagnosis that isn’t too awful.

Budgeting Cents

Well the Fates have intervened and my SO (I only add the B when I’m feeling really pissed off) now has gainful employment.

Given our relative poverty this is quite gainful indeed. As a result we’ve decided to do a budget. You know, that old fashioned thing with numbers and incomes and the really long expenses list.

We could have done one earlier I suppose and I could have even done one in the more extreme poverty of the past but one doesn’t focus on counting pennies when one is suicidal. Besides my real income and expenses were nowhere near predictable enough to write down and there would have been unfillable gaps.

From my perspective a budget is really a tool. It doesn’t actually change your income or expenses it just alerts you. Let’s you know if you’re living beyond your means and which expenses are out of hand. That sort of thing. The hardest thing is to stick to a budget. Even being fairly rich doesn’t make that easy because everyone loves to spend money without concerning yourself about the howmuch and whatfors of it.

So we wrote one up, it’s interesting how much has changed from my old marriage to now through all that no money land and fundamental change. My style here is to segregate money physically in plastic pockets. There are other ways of course and ours will likely change soon.

Bills take a chunk of course though for a family it’s not as severe as I expected. The internet is in here with the usual gas and electricity, it being really a luxury. There’s no insurance in our budget. You’d be amazed how much it would all total to if we had it. It’s just beyond our means at this time, so we are at risk I suppose.

We have a little of our own money to do with as we please which I think is important for all people doing a budget and we’re saving some money now which is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time with the hope it may move us forward.

The budget also easily balances, we are used to living light so the burst of income makes it easy. We shall see how it goes now but it is comforting to me that something is in place to assist us in our needs.

So… We Meet Again

Why am I back? After all that work the hordes put into getting rid of me i’d better get my excuses lined up. Things like realising I actually missed those multiple hours staring at text editors go without saying of course.

Truth be told I enjoy soapboxing my little views and the give and take of opinions (my opinions are titled facts btw ) can actually be educational. I’ll freely admit I’ve learnt a lot tossing myself into the den of military conservatives which, after all, doesn’t align with the kind of people one might assume would mix. Then there’s that little hope something I say might actually be beneficial out there in some form in some way.

Posts will therefore be mixed. A fair bit of politics and current affairs with all sorts of other things that strike my whimsical fancy and hopefully my readers interest. So to paraphrase some of the blogs I frequent.. the bloggings will continue until morale improves.

If you’ve wondered in here and are strangely compelled by my mystical powers of silver tongued reality editing enhancement to not desperately bash the escape key, you know you are one-of-us. You may be more enlightened by reading the About page. Assuming of course I write something for it.