I’ve written about this before: precognition.

Yesterday about 10am, the word zootsuit popped into my mind. It’s a 60s word like bodgie and winkle pickers and so on. I haven’t thought of it since about, well, the sixties.

Lying in bed last night reading Bill Clinton’s book, about 15 pages on from where I picked it up, there was the word! Zootsuit. It was in connection with a London visit in 1969. I would have fallen over backwards if I hadn’t been lying in bed.

This is weird. I hadn’t been flicking through the pages. There’s no way I could have known the word was there. Yet 12 hours before, I’d thought of it. How does this happen?

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I’ve just been driving on the freeway. You could go months without seeing a Toyota MR2, Toyota’s mid engined mini Ferrari. But I was passed by one, a green early model, the chunky square tail-lights one.

Then three minutes later, another one passed me! This was a red curvy looking model. To see one is unusual, but to see two in three minutes is unheard of. Except you’ve just heard of it now.

I’d love to own one, but I’d never be able to get into or out of it.

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Two beach stairs today.

I’ve just got back from my 1Km walk around the lake. I couldn’t do this six months ago. I was leaning on my stick, getting puffed. Now it’s easy. This is great!

I went to the stairs yesterday, by the way, while it was so stormy, and went halfway down, and up again of course, but it was so windy that I could hardly see. There was no beach – the waves were right up to the cliffs and the base of the stairs.

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Because it was so wet and windy, we called the stone chips removal off. Another day. I spoke to next-doors and they weren’t fussed at losing them. Actually, they showed me the area they want to cover and I don’t think there would have been enough anyway.

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I’m reading Bill Clinton’s autobiography, My Life, all 969 pages of it. I’m only up to age 22 when he goes to Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship, but I’m hooked. He writes very well and has an amazing memory (or he’s making a lot of it up, probably).

The thing that strikes me is how much student politics there is in American schools, from the beginning of high school. “Class leader”, “School President”, all that sort of stuff. Maybe there is here now too, I wouldn’t know, but Clinton and his friends were campaigning and making speeches from an early age.

There were also so many prizes and awards within the high school – Merit Certificates and so on. America seems to instil a prize winning, claw your way to the top mentality from adolescence on.

2 March 2008. Back when Minnie was a surf dog.

I found it, I found it! That thing I told a few people about that had become lost in my packing up and moving. I thought it would turn up eventually, but I was beginning to lose confidence.

I found it just now wrapped in plastic in a spare plastic box of bathroom cabinet stuff, down under the new basins. The plastic wrapping made it hardly visible, which was no doubt my intention back in February.

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This is embarrassing. As I’ve said, I don’t like the quartz chips and Barry said he had a mate who would take them away. But that was many weeks ago and I’d forgotten when I was talking to my next doors – they want them too.

Well, I had a call from Barry at lunch time – “We’ll be there tomorrow with a trailer to get the chips.”

Uh oh. I think I’ll just have to ask Dave and Val how much they want and see if there’s enough to go around. I think there will be.

What to put in its place? It will be bare yellow sand initially, which will make raking up Minnie’s mess a lot easier. I wouldn’t usually consider artificial lawn, but in this area, very difficult to mow, in shade most of the time, I’ll think about it. I saw a full front lawn done in artificial turf yesterday and it does look nice. The only giveaway is that it’s too perfect.

Yeah, black dogs are circling again, with vicious teeth, making me very, very nervous. I am taking appropriate steps, but it’s a bit hard at the moment.

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One of the appropriate steps is the beach stairs. Three days in a row I’ve done two sets. That’s a vast improvement on three months ago. No stick needed these days either. I can walk easily now.

I was shown how it’s done by meeting a woman on the stairs yesterday who was jogging up and down without pausing for breath. She would have done six up/down circuits in the time it took me to struggle to do two. That’s fitness. She would have been mid thirties, though.

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I’m back to Silver Chain every second day. I have to go to them now, at their headquarters in Kingsley. I’m happy to do it, but it’s 26Km one way, including 10Km on the freeway! Everywhere is a long, long way from here.

The reason is that my legs have developed lesions and discharge again, as last year, but both legs this time. The left leg is clearing up well, but there’s a big sore about the size of a 5c piece very red and open on the right. I’m hitting it with antiobiotic, so I hope we’ll beat it soon. Not painful. but both legs are bandaged again.

Why has this happened? I suspect that being depressed has led me to spend much more time sitting at the computer instead of moving around. All the evidence says we must not sit still for long periods. Even getting exercise later is not the answer. We’ve got to move every 10-20mins to stop this kind of thing happening as we get older. It’s a worry. Ironic: the PC is the greatest tool we’ve ever developed, but it’s also going to slowly kill us.

Yup, sure is quiet around here. Unless you count those pesky kids. They turned my water off a few nights ago. Yeah, the main tap is right near the foot path. It didn’t tax my brain to work out what had happened and a few thoughts of rocks and pickaxe handles passed through. But then I’d be the one in trouble.

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I’m just completing my 9th piece of IKEA assembly (four chairs, four bookcases and the TV bench/cabinet). I quite enjoy putting it together. The instructions are very good and there are no missing parts.

Now to get some chests of drawers for the bedrooms and a sideboard for the dining room.

Having spent so much time looking at the web site and catalogues, I’m starting to recognise IKEA furniture in British TV shows!

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I’ve just taken Minnie for a walk around the block. She was quite ready to come at first, but I think it was hurting her a lot towards the end (arthritis), so I’m not sure I’ll find it so easy to get her to do it again. Maybe if I just take her out onto the grass verge via the back lane next time. She’s very reluctant to come through the front of the house because she slips on the tiles so easily.

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I’ve got some ulceration starting again on my legs, both shins. Uh oh. The doctor has taken a swab for testing – I’ll find out the result tomorrow. I sure hope it clears up. I never want to go through what I endured last October again. That was a terrible month of pain.

A car falls into a sink hole in Toledo, Ohio. Hence the saying, Holey Toledo!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2013/jul/04/ohio-sinkhole-swallows-car-video

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The power went off at about 1030 this morning and came back at 11:58am. Alarms! Not mine, thank goodness, but no-one being home to reset them, the nearby alarms ran for the full ten minutes. And I notice street lawn sprinklers are on. Retic systems need resetting now.

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I’ve just done the beach stairs, and managed one and a half ascents again, including one or two sets of three flights before pausing for panting. It’s definitely doing me good. No stick needed most of the time now. This is good!

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But gastric reflux isn’t. Why has it started up again now? It’s not too bad but was a bit uncomfortable last night. I didn’t have my usual medicine chest either, so no relief.

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Looks like I’ve got a taker for my quartz chips. A friend of Barry’s is coming next week to take ’em away. What shall I put in their place? Roll on lawn? Still deciding.

The incident was at the very bottom edge of this photo.
My house is near the top edge. The corner pub is
the smaller sandy patch (early Google photo - it's built now.)

Hey, it’s not every day your suburb gets mentioned on the national news.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-07-02/police-charge-woman-after-security-guard-hit/4793286

It’s not exactly the news we like, but the woman was from Balga. I heard a chopper in the mid afternoon yesterday and went outside to see the Seven chopper hovering motionless in the sky nearby. It stayed for quite a while and I wondered if it was a car crash or something. But all is revealed – a shoplifter and an altercation with a Coles security person. Quite a serious altercation.

It’s a pity the ABC couldn’t get their Google Map reference right, though. They show the incident in the next suburb north, Alkimos. C’mon ABC, it’s not that hard.

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Then last night about 8.30pm I heard a crack and a zing/whistle, like a sky rocket. Then another, and another. There were five in all, but I got to the door just after the fifth and couldn’t see any cause, except for a reflected red glow on something metal nearby. It may have been in the pub carpark, on the ground.

Never a dull moment around here. Well, quite a few dull moments actually.

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Reading the alarm instruction manual yesterday, I thought I’d change my PIN, since I’m still using the PIN the previous owners had. It looked simple to do.

Well, I know now that the alarm and siren works! I followed the instructions, but neglected to verify that it was in Program mode. That triggered the alarm. I had to hurriedly input the code and it’s hard to do when there’s a siren/squealer going off. Did everyone come running to catch the burglar? Not a chance. No-one takes any notice.

That means I haven’t got the right Master Code number. I’ll have to ring the makers, I think, or just carry on with the existing PIN.

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Did I mention that I met my other side neighbour last week? She seems nice. Now, if I can just get her yapping dog to know me …

I managed to get Minnie to come out to the front yesterday and watch the street, which she likes doing. She spent an hour or more out there, then when I brought her inside, she wanted to stay on the carpet next to me. She has trouble staying on her feet on the ceramic tiles, you see, so is reluctant to walk on them. Has to be done, Minnie. Take it slowly.