The Art of morning’s Bed straightening.(for Seniors)

Almost There

It’s a forlorn hope and belief by some, that with age comes wisdom. Some say, a good politician reaches their top when over seventy. Cynics often contradict this and might well say: they only achieve that level of pure wisdom, when they are richly fermenting in the Mount Calvary cask below ground level, or sometimes, elevated above ground as in an Argentinian Mausoleum. I believe that in Buenos Aires’ La Recoleta cemetery, a number of those past buried politicians are still believed as being a little bit alive.

We did not see much evidence of life of those dearly departed souls. Many cats and dozens of volunteer ladies feeding them is as much an attraction as touring this enormous cemetery. Some of the graves are multi storied, have dining rooms and bedrooms with imagery so real of the dead, one whispers in fear of being overheard.

But, back to gaining wisdom in the search for reasons and answers of what the heck we are doing here, it pays to remain humble in its pursuits. That is if there is such a thing as getting answers. It would be nice that between birth and the veneered Mount Calvary cask we get snippets of information leading us to some rest of the anxious mind in our nodding years.

The day could not start less ambitious and humble than just making the bed without any creases in its top cover. This is what I have been trying to achieve of late. It is more than depressing to discover, just prior to hopping in, that the bed is still unmade. Those days are rare. Of course, most times H makes the bed. Her manner of bed making is perfect, a level that I want to achieve in my quest gaining better and more wisdom. Where does perfect bed making come from? It is a joy to contemplate and watch a bed without flaws before finally diving under the doona.

No matter how it is tried, the efforts I make always includes some little imperfection or fault. It might be that a sock found its way down the bottom of the bed and buried itself between sheet and mattress. To rectify that, after you completed the bed making, is dispiriting, but this has to be overcome in the search for life’s answers.

Sometimes I find that the electric blanked switch gear found itself the wrong side up, showing a lump just below the pillow. Of course, I try and cover it up by throwing a book over it. H reckons that is not honest. In any case, you can lie to others but not to yourself. You know the book was put there for a reason. Your wife might be fooled but not your conscience. It nags you, and results in your search for wisdom down a notch to boot.

I noticed the old lady higher up always puts her bed pillows in the sun on a chair. I asked her some years ago, and she said; ‘It kills germs and keeps me healthy.’ She should know. She worked her whole life as a nurse. Is that why one often sees hospital patients sitting outside in the sun? Some smoke though!

It is part of this bunched together lot of townhouses, and perhaps also old age, that things like pillows on chairs outside get noticed. Sometimes I even say to H. while driving past, ‘oh, Mrs so and so must be home, her pillows are outside.’ Sometimes, but not often, a reply might come from H, ‘oh I haven’t noticed she was gone, ‘I don’t keep an eye out for those sort of banal signals.’ Why, and how come do you? This hurts a little. I am caught out once again being involved in the triviality of life.

What hope for answers and wisdom can there be when I seem stuck between bed making and adventures at Aldi?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01EM6NC0C/ref=nav_timeline_asin?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

The Budget.

Our family about 1960. Frank second from left.

Our treasurer, Mr Scott Morrison had all the manners of a Moses holding his staff moments before parting the Red Sea. In fact a sea of red and obstinate budget debts is really closer to the truth. In the aftermath of his reading of the budget and recommending it triumphantly to the House, he started to be interviewed and questioned by prominent journalists. Those, whose job it is to keep the finger on the pulse and report back to the population at large. Millions of viewers were glued to the flat screens, sound bars turned up, not a word to be missed.
Innovation, jobs and growth were the catch words.

Now if this was Germany or Finland, the innovation would be pared to alternative energy. You know, solar- wind, saving the planet, showing the world real innovation. Australia, the sunniest and windiest continent in the world, but…no. Not a word. Our PM knows his hands are tied. The old guard fuddy-duddies, the clueless uncles of clinging to the past still holding him to ransom. But, hang on, our Turnbull was going to change and steer us into the future. Get away from onion eating monarchy loving PMs.

Sadly, no such thing. Back to the past and sleep and snore…The LNP the slumber party.

As for the “Almost There,” just a few more days. The final proof has been done, but each time I open the file, another spelling or funny fault turns up. Yesterday an extra f in off. It should have been a single f. I am so sick of reading my own words. It is naval gazing at its worst. A kind of verbal attempt at bungie jumping at the end of a metal chain. A most jarring experience.

But, take heart, dear readers. I am almost ready to send my second book off to the editor, the brilliant David Burton in the UK. This time, the paper-back edition will appear first and then the kindle version. I have dug into my reservoir of short bits on my Word-Press blog and found enough for many publications into the future. In the meantime I will just ramble on as it comes. The aim is to publish the words in book format as well as on WP. I shall also try and upgrade the Heading of my blog, and advertise the books at the top that I have noticed many of you do as well.

There seems to have seeped a certain lethargy into the present. An autumnal sweeping of brown leaves swirling before the bare skeletons of trees shown up stark in the evening chill. Perhaps a trip up North to warm balmy ocean shores is needed. But then again, all that sand and harsh sun-light, bags of tourists’ fries and hamburgers wafting around. We are both lovers of shade and cinnamon. Perhaps a good walk with Milo will do the trick. We will be asked; ‘How old is your Jack Russell?’ ‘He is eleven now.’ ‘Gee, he still looks very young, almost like a puppy.’ Milo looks up, but goes into a fury when a Harley Davidson roars by. He strains at his lead. Intend on killing the bike and rider.

He lifts anyone’s spirit. He really does.

Congratulations, your book “Almost There” is now live and available

Almost There

It has been done. The book is on Amazon Kindle after days of handwringing accompanied by moments of a sobbing rage spent entangled with computer cables under the table with Milo. He understood and licked my hands. If there is a single thing that could kill off writing it would have to be getting published, even when doing it yourself.

Just try and visualise waves of relief washing over this household. The grass is now greener and all washing dries instantly, despite the rain. The toast doesn’t get burnt and all wine tastes sweet.

http://www.amazon.com.au/Almost-There-Fragments-Restless-Life-ebook/dp/B01EM6NC0C?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0

It is now, supposedly, also for sale at this place; https://authors-unlimited.org/author/gerard-oosterman

The next job will be to list the book with Amazon ‘Print on Demand’ but will take some time to just relish this moment.

Thank you all for your patience and comfort giving. You have all contributed by your support and kindness.

I now wait for it all to go viral. 😉 (and check the sales coming in, Ha ha)

Your order; 1×10 ISBNs have been purchased.

The autumn is almost mid-way and the shadows are getting longer. Long shadows are so much better than none. The summers close to the equator are often harshly baked and shadowless, something that tourists ought to be informed about when contemplating a trip to the tropics or semi tropical regions. The waving stalky palms don’t offer shade as an ageing nodding oak would in milder climes.

Both of us have been re-planting things at the front of our home together with spreading cow manure and hardwood mulch. It looks better already. One sometimes wonders if gardening is not a better occupation than getting a book off the ground. In the past books could be used as door-stops or even hurled around when locked in a frustrating temper or to emphasize an argument knowing full well, we were wrong.

With e-books on Kindle or Amazon, even that little benefit might be harder to achieve. I remember and wrote previous about using a public toilet in Paris, realising too late it was sans toilet paper. In desperation I used a couple of travel cheques, noting first down the numbers for a reclaim. What was I to do; use a sock or my cotton hanky?

It took a while to understand the complexities of getting something published and thought that a friendly edit with the occasional inclusions or deletions of a couple of commas here and there would be about the worst of it.

In any case, at least with the 10 ISBN’s in possession, I feel it is at least getting there. The next move will be to push it towards a self-publish e-format that can be done through the service of the ASA ( Australia Society of Authors) which will also then suitably format it. I’ll be so pleased to actually find the book ‘Almost There,’ after searching it on the internet. I might even consider buying a couple of copies to kick it along. 😉

The published hard-print version by Austin Macauley is also still bubbling along even though, in case of a refusal or worse , the option of ‘print on demand’ by CreatSpace will be followed. The next book will be better, and having the benefit of hind-sight with better knowledge of Micro-soft Word 2013, it will be a cinch. At least a taller and larger shadow might be cast when asked; what is your occupation? ‘Oh, I am an author.’ This response has to be practised carefully and ought to be given without a slipping or sliding of dodgy eye movements. A nonchalant manner needs to be acquired, not an easy task.

In the previous picture painting days, the answer used to vary from house- painter to bank accountant, building contractor, renovator, share trader-dealer, art teacher, but rarely artist. Why was that so? I did answer ‘artist’ at the Dutch Government employment agency soon after our arrival back to Holland in 1973 with our three children. To my utter surprise a job was provided as an artist within a few days. It involved painting Dutch scenes on clock dials used in the manufacture of ‘antique’ Grandfather clocks. The following months I painted hundreds of those kind of scenes with windmills and lots of seagulls. The manager of this clock factory was very happy with them. For years I still look at shops selling those upright clocks but not once did I find an original Oosterman.

The Dilemma of an E-Reader

We all know things get worse as the years creep by. We don’t become wiser nor do we get any closer to the truth that we were so keenly after. In fact, it all becomes hazier not unlike a glass of iced water with the Pernod anise added to it but without the benefit of its sweet unctuousness. Perhaps that’s why, as we get older, we tend to throw caution to the wind and indulge in the Absinthe more often than might be good for us. Who cares? Does it really matter afterwards? I mean, we can never discount the possibility, no matter how distant, we would regret not having indulged even a bit more. So, let me be wise at least in the ‘reckless’ department.

I used to wear glasses which miraculously became superfluous in my middle years. Was I being rewarded for having been good? Who was looking after me, when I was told over and over again, that if you persist in doing that, you will go blind and encourage hairs to sprout on the inside of your hands and everybody will know!  Always keep hands above the blankets, think of ice bergs and what happened to the Titanic. Failing that, think of an approaching train with your head tied to the rails.

You are at the beginning of a calamitous journey into blindness with your right eye showing a clear stage of ‘degenerative macular’ disease. Well, not exactly in those words. But the eye specialist comforted me, with ‘it is quite common in getting older’ that eye sights might diminish somewhat. The ‘somewhat’ is something the specialist had been trained to say, depending on the level of alarm those first words of a more sinister ‘macular’ and ‘degenerative’ might cause.

Fortunately my left eye is needle sharp and I could even read the smallest print on a Jaguar car catalogue he was showing me.  I bet he had just bought a Jaguar. No doubt earned from his lucrative specialists business. I noticed his waiting room was full of patients with thick glasses, all at different levels on their macular degenerative journey! Perhaps, he was flipping through the catalogue in between patients. Good for him.

With my left eye being still close to perfect, I briefly thought of it perhaps being related to being right handed and therefore having spared my left eye in conjunction with hardly ever using my left hand. Who knows? Science sometimes brings out surprising results. If something is still working, let us still cling to the wreckage of our bodies and continue our journey to the best of our dysfunction.

This brings me to my original premise of the plight of the E-reader. It would not be surprising if the popularity of this latest electronic devise will go sky high. The canny retiree would be well advised to invest in Sony or go long on Kindle options and keep an eye out on Amazon shares. Our country and its Government are already generous in supplying hearing aids to the degenerative auditory of hearing impaired. The Prime minister would be foolish not to support generously the subsidizing of E-readers. The magic of the E-readers lies in that it can store thousands of books which can be read at different font sizes. All this is available in the palm of your hand and at the flick of a finger. The E-reader truly is magic and together with Pernod almost makes old age a dream come true…

This of course gives years of reading to those that are decrepit with batty eyes. It is not easy for those not tech savvy to download all the different features but just get your grand-kids to do that. I obstinately tried myself and now have eleven copies of Tolstoy’s’ “War and Peace”, not realizing that each time I pressed a certain page or button I would download yet another copy. I have yet to see my Credit Card account but now have eleven copies of over a thousand pages each of War and Peace together with Jules Verne Eighty days around the world and Rudyard Kipling’s, the Jungle Book. There is enough reading for at least a couple of years.

It just never stops; does it?

(With grateful acknowledgment to Frangipani, whereby, without her untiring support and encouragement, my E-Reader wonderment would most likely not have come to pass)

“Boredom”, a new artform.

“Boredom”, the modern Art form.
My father used to say that if you are bored it is because ‘you’ are boring. They were wise words. Parents knew more then. If fifty years ago someone would have said that in the future a majority of people would spend a large part of their lives staring at small square objects, they would have called for a strong nurse with a straightjacket and some tablets. My parents would probably conclude by saying, “you and the whole world have all become boring”.

Yet, today this has become the norm. No matter where one goes, it is the same sad sight. There they are, all stooped over their IPod, IPad, Kindle, mobile phone or some other small square object. It seems to have overtaken all in its path, a tsunami of hundreds of millions worldwide stooping down, staring at their laps, oblivious of climate, people, geographical situation or indeed life itself. Who on earth would have thought it even remotely possible?

How did this come about and why? Years ago, we used to talk, look at each other. Do you still remember the sound of words when people opened their mouths? We exchanged ideas became animated and bounced of each other’s differences and enjoyed social intercourse. Trains and trams had passengers that talked, used real words with utterances of sounds. It’s eerily quiet now on the train, heads bowed in obedience to the square gadget. People and voice connectivity has now been replaced with a set of electronic devices which connects us, supposedly, to a different level of public togetherness which is called ‘social media’. We have books now which instead of words in a certain and highly individual order, as in the past, have now been replaced with ‘face books’. It’s all part of this phenomenon of ‘social media’, and is a world- wide movement keeping us ‘in touch’. In touch with what? In touch with that square object in your lap, isn’t it?

Together with keeping in touch through the new ‘social media’ there has been a marked decline in children on the streets. There is no more need for that because they all keep in touch with each other through their electric Face- books. It even shows a picture of your friend, what more could you probably want from friendship? You exchange sharp little messages, such as “I am here, where are you”? Or, “how many friends have you on Face-book?” “I have thirty six now, but have dumped Sharon”; “she is such a bitch”. “Have you still got Sharon on yours?” Nah. (Three months later Sharon has hanged herself).

Of course, interconnectivity is what we are all on about. We connect as never before and have even become intimate with our TV, also involving it with our need to socially be ‘involved’. Rhythmically we sway in front of it, our Wii consoles talking to us, interlude and interactive with music, keeping us in touch with ourselves and as an extra bonus keeping us fit. A newer version has hit the market. It is a device that mirrors our movement in front of the TV. This is so great for involvement of many of us with immediate proof of it and directly in front of us on TV and our own eyes. Think of it, hundreds of millions in the most extraordinary physical contortions in front of the TV all busy with ‘media’ in one form or the other. And then there is all that texting and tweeting to get involved with. It just never stops with all that ‘socially connectivity.’ It’s all so much me and more of me.

At school drop-off’s and pick-ups, again the same world of those little square devices, mothers, sometimes fathers, all on their e-phones, texting while waving a hand to their off-spring. How will language as we know it survive? Tweeting limits itself to one hundred forty characters. In days gone by, the art of writing was abandonment in using words not counting characters.

Mind you, there is light at the tunnel. Already the innovation in pushing more of those devices onto the market has calmed down. Perhaps, the limit has been reached. After all, we cannot just phone, but also e-mail, send pictures and locate where we are, all on the one gadget. What more could one want? It seems that apart from ‘astral travel’ electronically, the end of this rather silly ‘social media’ might have been reached.
In my area, the local skate-board park is busy with kids queuing up. Are they getting fed up with all those little gadgets? I sincerely hope so. Kids are not boring but those addicted to ‘social media’ are. They are so….. utterly boring.