Viv and I are home from our little trip! So, I thought I should post some photos from all the stuff we did that I haven’t already posted about 😅
So, firstly: Yesterday, Viv and I went on a walk through bushland in Hepburn Springs! It was a well-signposted walking track and all that, but it was still a bit uneven, and there were some fallen trees over some sections of the track, so there was …
We’ve spent the afternoon at the Hepburn Springs Brewings Co. premises 😅 Their playlist consists of too many bangers for these two millennials to be able to walk away!
After gin and chess yesterday afternoon, Viv and I took a walk up to the Wombat Hill Botanical Gardens to check that out. It’s only small, but it was definitely very green and it had this cool observation tower and wombat statues 😛 Here’s a bunch of the photos I took while we were there.
Our first activity this afternoon: we went to Hepburn Distillery, tried some delicious types of gin, and enjoyed a game of chess (which ended in an inexorable draw, as the two of us played so conservatively 🤣). Fun times!
We’ve made it up to Daylesford, where Viv and I are going to spend a couple of nights 😊 Just relaxing a little now as we decide what we want to do for the rest of the afternoon!
Yesterday I went to my folks’ house to catch up with my cousin and his wife, who are visiting from Seattle for a few weeks. We all had a good time chatting! Shame about the unwelcoming weather, but I guess living in Seattle, they’re used to the rain and the cold 😜
After my bad experience a few days ago, today I’m getting recurring “shocks” in my arm, running down the same path that hurt during that blood draw. I’d say particularly when I straighten my arm, but also if I bend my hand forward, or move the arm… Guess I need to see a doctor, huh.
Super relatable piece. Earlier in our relationship, Viv and I had a few arguments on this general topic. In my family, people never just barge into the kitchen of someone whose house they’re a guest at. They might ask if they can help, but if the answer is “no” (which it usually is), they never push and insist on doing so anyway. Doing that, actually, would be considered really rude, like a power play, telling everyone the host is so bad at being a host that they’re forcing the guests to do all the work.
Conversely, in Viv’s family, the women specifically are expected to run around like kitchen hands and serving staff while the men sit around doing fuck-all. Viv used to get annoyed with me that I never just leapt up to do shit, and always “had to be asked”. When I pointed out that none of the men ever got “asked” to do things, and that aside from Viv himself not a single one ever volunteered either, he backed off a bit. Just a month ago I had a conflict with one of Viv’s aunts (who wasn’t even the host of that particular gathering, tying it back into this article’s message of “let hosts host and everyone else back the fuck off”) barking orders at me and treating me like her maid. Just a totally unacceptable, disrespectful way to treat others.
So I just had to get a blood test done (for very mundane, routine reasons) and I almost fuckin’ FAINTED 😫 I knew something wasn’t right because the second she put the needle in, pain shot through my forearm to the hand, and then my hand started going numb, and then I started feeling hot and dizzy and nauseous and shortly after that, my vision started clouding over.
The technician was initially more concerned about why the blood sample was so slow to gather, but once I mentioned dizziness she swung into action and helped me get through it with water and cool wet paper towels to the forehead. She reassured me that people faint every day and I just need to tell them next time I need to lie down to get the sample drawn, but I’m still kind of distressed because I’ve had countless blood tests before and this has not happened. I’ve fainted before from overcrowded public transport but not this. Now I’m at home and just feeling physically drained, like I’ve done hours of hard labour. Not sure what happened but what a horrible experience 😫
My dad went into hospital this morning to have surgery to remove his left kidney, because of a large tumour inside it (see previous post). Thankfully, my sister’s been able to pass on the message from the surgeon that the operation was successful, that they think they got all the tumour, and that he should be able to come home in 5–7 days. I think the tumour still needs to be tested to see if it’s cancerous or “benign” (slightly misleading term for something that’s still caused him health issues by taking over his kidney!), but we can take that as it comes. At least for now, we can feel happy that one big step on his road to recovery has been accomplished.
Jessica Smith is a socialist and a feminist who loves animals, books, gaming, and cooking; she’s also interested in linguistics, history, technology and society.