Saying No to the Culture of Death

It is almost a month since we moved from Sydney to Canberra. I still have over 100 boxes to unpack and I am taking my time. I am still feeling so very lonely and isolated. The isolation is made worse because I established such good friendships in Sydney, and the original friends that I had in Canberra in the past, well they were rather shallow friendships and I have not managed to re-connect with anyone.

Skittles and Ruby are settling into their new environment. It seems so strange, but Skittles is spending most of her time underneath my desk. She has done some outside exploration, but there have been days when she has point blank refused to go outside. However, what really gets me laughing has to be the way in which she will spend all day outside, and as soon as she comes in, she heads for her litter box !!

This week has been a small turning point because I managed to move outside of my confinement in the house. I have returned to daily Mass. It was such a relief to know that Mass is being offered in my new parish. I hit a snag when I made the first attempt to start going to the Mass. I did not know the precise location for this Mass and out of shyness I could not even ask anyone when I did attempt to turn up for the very first time. However, someone told me about the exact location and finally, I made the effort. I feel more at peace now.

There was one item of furniture that was damaged in the move - our wall unit that was over 20 years old. We went out to Fyshwick and found something as a replacement. We went to a few shops, and at the one that was probably the most expensive, the assistant had no idea what we meant by a wall unit!!. The new unit arrived last week, and to our dismay the mirror in the centre module has been cracked. With its arrival, though, we have begun to move a lot more of our good dishes and cutlery into this new unit. The entertainment unit that was used for the stereo and to hold our LP collection is to be dumped, for it is closer to 30 years old and it is looking very tatty these days. At the same time we purchased some new bar stool and this is where I came up with a new expression: The Goldilocks Test.

I have a very sore low back because of inflammation in my sacroiliac joint. If I sit on wooden seats for too long the pain can get out of control. Last November, when I fractured my coccyx for the second time in 30 years, I seemed to have sparked off a new round of inflammation, accompanied by pain. I did feel a lot better between March and June, and then I suffered a chill, followed by a secondary chest infection that needed to be treated with antibiotics, and it was hard to shake. As a result of this infection I have had a renewal of the pain. This also coincided with the amount of packing that I was doing on my own. Perhaps packing almost 10 boxes in a day was going a little too far, and yes I was rating more than 5 on the ouch factor scale. The pain was so bad at night, and once again, if I sat too long on any surface, I felt very stiff. There were other symtoms that were bothering me, and then I had a series of falls. The worst of these falls caused me to have a nasty scrape on my left knee, plus I had bruising on both knees at the same time. It was a real nightmare to have this happen just before the move. It meant that I was stiff and sore. Anyway, because of that sensitivity, I need to test the seats for comfort before purchase. Suddenly, it hit me, that testingout the furniture in this way is just like Goldilocks and the three bears. Some of the stool seats were too hard, none were too soft, and the ones that we purchased, were just right. 

 Alas, though, the new seats for the new church building in my new parish failed the Goldilocks test. The seat back is too low and it caused strain on my low back. I think that I can correct the problem with the use of an extra cushion that will support my back.