Eleven Weeks

Is how long I’ve lived in my new apartment.

You’d think there would be nothing new left to discover, but you would be wrong. Yesterday, while checking the height of the powerpoint above the fridge, I found a tap!

Tap? (Faucet I think you say in the US) But a tap up there? This is in the kitchen, in the place/gap left for a refrigerator?

No, wait. Some fridges come with ice-machines, I suppose they need a water supply.

And I suppose by giving residents these little luxuries, the designers and owners thought they could pull the wool over their residents’ eyes where ventilation is concerned.

Ventilation is a problem. In this apartment, the laundry is in a cupboard along the middle of the corridor. At one end of the corridor is the master bedroom and adjacent bathroom, and at the other end is the multi purpose room and so-called powder room. All three wet areas are provided with a ceiling fan.

The impending trouble is mold. Already there is often a smell of it in the laundry. I’m probably meant to run the laundry fan 24/7 but it’s noisy and uses a lot of electricity.

There is a Dry cycle on the aircon that I’ve used once, which is something to test out further. I’d like to know, though, whether and how the air in the apartment circulates? (I might wend to renew.com.au later to find out more about that.)

There are aircon vents and overhead vaned fans in the main room, the bedroom and the MPR. There’s no aircon vent in the corridor and it’s only possible to isolate the main room. The obvious solution is to run the aircon in the whole house to ventilate the corridor.

Without being sure that that will send air into the laundry. Because the laundry doors are bifold. Leave them closed for style and beauty? Leave them open for utility and inconvenience as they protrude into the corridor? Still can’t be sure. Air flow around obstacles is a mystery.

I’m seriously thinking about hiring a shed in the shed room, taking the laundry doors off and storing them in the shed.

Out for a Walk

On this good weathered Friday of sunny patches among increasing cloud, I open my door and see this:

…a friendly little display.

Walking to the beginning of the corridor past another unit and then the Refuse Room, turn right and then I see this …

… the elevators to the right, the fire escape at the end. (I’ve missed my favorite painting and the Easter Welcome basket on the left for a reason)

Down one floor and turning right to see a similar corridor to the one above (haha, in both senses) but at the end a door out onto the so-called podium.

I’m an old hand at podiums now, the first one I had anything to do with was in 2020 at the place where I went for respite after my hospitalisation. The only podiums I had anything to do with up to then, were back in the Netherlands in the 1950s, when the ordinary Australian English ‘stage’ was the ‘podium’.

Nowadays, the term seems to used for the first couple of floors of a large tall building. The podium surrounding Vista, the building I live in, is brand new. No moss grows in the between the stones.

Anyway, returning to my walk, once I’m outside the exit door, I see this …

… a painting I’ll be talking about in my Visual Art Project. Shifting my gaze to the right, I see this …

Walk out, turn left and we see the stairs. I’ve been up them twice. Down them once. When I have my walker with me it’s elevators all the way.

Round the corner to the left … in the sun as you can see … is a seat. I do my old lady thing and sit down for a breather … take my final pic for this little jaunt … the view.

LDN!

Yes!

This is the day I celebrate.

Finally I get a go at LDN, prescribed by my new super GP (general pratitioner).

I’m excited and hopeful this medicine will decrease some of the symptoms of the ME/CFS that I have been living with for 27 years.

We’re starting extremely small, with 0.1 mg in the evening for seven days.

The doctor warned me I might have dreams. I said I love dreams. Grist for the mill of my Dream Interpretation course.

Note that I said ‘decrease’. There is no cure and I accept that. I

f I have less pain that will already be an improvement. Less fatigue would be a wonderful win. I don’t know yet what other effects I can expect. There will be journalling

In Between …

I’m sitting in a green chair, different from last time I was here when I was directed to a black chair, in the waiting area of my local Centrelink branch. Gone are the days of queueing … one thing Covid was good for.

I’m here to explain the ‘flow of my finances’ and although I have nothing to hide, Centrelink’s power and layers of bureaucracy and impenetrable behaviour, I’m as nervous as everyone else sitting here waiting for their appointments. Centrelink of course likes to keep us on our toes, we think.

I have with me plastic folder of proofs in two bunches as my printer/scanner has not recovered from the move yet and refuses to shake hands with the computer. First thing this morning had to beg the village’s admin to print stuff off for me, that CL can keep. The other bunch are the paper copies CL will need to copy.

To top off the day, the good news is that my previous unit, where I broke the lease, has new tenants. Meaning, I don’t need to pay any more rent there.

And the bad news is that my hearing aids have spat the dummy. Switched themselves off. I’ve tried everything I know, to get a sign of life, but no go. All verbal communication is like talking and listening through a wad of cotton wool.

I’m outside now, finishing this off. It’s raining. I didn’t bring an umbrella, or raincoat. Probably better wait for my ride.

Guess how high this tree is …

The Hush Button …

Up in the upper left. Ever met one of these? First time for me too.

I had so much to learn, move, stack, shift and unpack that I just looked it for the whole first seven days I was here, while I learned the other three.

Me saying ‘learned’ up there instead of ‘learnt’ will tell you the learning is ongoing. My control over the downlight switches needs fine tuning.

The fan, which is great, is controlled contrarily. 3 = 1 and 1 = 3 if that makes any sense. Thankfully, all three fans in the house work the same.

The left hand light ‘switch’ works the far four downlights in the living area. The right hand switch operates the nearer downlights.

The kitchen has its own array of controls.

The HUSH button?

I asked Deb from Admin when she came yesterday to talk me through my first monthly EEVI check. Which is a whole other kettle of fish.

The HUSH button will calm the fire alarm, say you set it off accidentally burning your toast, or something.

WiFi Connected …

Snail eating dead fish … even a snail like me can get connected back into the web of life …

So yeah, I’m back online, I’m happy to say. Hotspotting is great if WiFi is impossible due to your geographical position, but it is limiting. For instance anytime I tried to share a post from WordPress to a FaceBook page or to any other platform, for example, I got the We-Are-Having-Trouble-Finding-This-Site screen.

The provider is Connected Australia (www.connectedoz.com.au) and the connection was all done by email and someone talking me through the process on the mobile. The quickest and easiest of the organizational processes I still have to achieve.

Next are a few changes of my address. That should also be as easy as eating pie. Yesterday I was an hour at it trying to convince the MyGov website that yes, I’ve moved house. The good thing about that effort is that my details for Medicare, the ATO and Centrelink were also automatically updated.

I could ask why not the rest of the government institutions connected to the MyGov site. Have to do them by hand, apparently. There’s no logic in that.

One thing AI could be used for is to ferret out such stupidities and correct them. I’d love the government to outlay a few dollars to do a content-defrag in their bureaucracy.

Getting Back Online …

Is a puzzle. The complex comes with an embedded network. Not all providers accept them among their customers. Nor does the embedded network accept ‘others’.

And some of the acceptable providers seem not to be in existence any longer since they were listed.

Luckily I can hot-spot my laptop to my mobile phone, but not ideal. Laptop on footstool in front with a cord to power outlet to my right. Another cord from laptop to hub on the left. Mobile/cell on the couch beside me with a cord to the hub.

No sudden moves recommended. Trippy enough to trip over.

Today I might rustle through the spare cords for one to hotspot the TV to my mobile. Another kind of trippy!