What if the Hokey Pokey really IS What it's All About?

That's what is on the t shirt I bought myself today, I couldn't resist it.  I do like my funny t shirts, some of my Stewie ones get odd looks in the supermarket sometimes if I can't be bothered changing out of my housework clothes, especially the one that says "Why don't you burn in hell?"  My favourite, and oldest one (it's full of holes) has a picture of Stewie and says "Does not play well with others".  The hip dude/geeks in the computer shops used to smile knowingly at me when we lived in Sydney and I still get a few Family Guy fans give me the thumbs up even here in hicksville.
Phill and I drove up to Young yesterday and I got some new Christmas decorations.  Finally a light up star for the top of the tree, I've wanted one for ages, this one has a little battery pack and is perfect and really finishes the tree off nicely.  Got some new ornaments, one of which is a silver train (we are a railway family after all), a pretty candle centrepiece for the dining table and some other bits and pieces.  Paid some more off the kids' layby and then we saw a wireless printer on special.  It's fax machine, scanner etc as well, Canon Pixmar like the one we've got but the wireless part will be great now we'll all have our laptops, it will save us having to bring our work out here and plug it into the printer, really handy for the kids' schoolwork next year.
We saw the Blu Ray dvd/video player thingy that Phill wants for Christmas.  He said he's seen them cheaper and then wondered how we'd afford it with everything else we have to buy.  He ended up saying "Just get me a box of chocolates".  He's horrible to buy gifts for, in fact since he chose to be away for both his birthday and for Fathers Day (he was also away for his 50th last year) he didn't even get any presents or cards for that matter.  I know it sounds mean but he could have been home with us, just didn't choose to be.  But he does work hard, has very little for himself (mind you when he does buy stuff it's big ticket) and doesn't really deny me or the kids anything we really want.  So this morning after I dropped the kids off, I drove back up to Young (90km round trip) in the pelting rain and bought him his Blu Ray player with my OWN money that I've been saving, money he didn't earn.  It is a better brand than the one they had here in Woolies and it comes with six blu ray dvds, all titles we will enjoy and most of them are the manly shoot em up ones he loves.  Bugger me if he didn't beat me home (got off work early) so I called into the supermarket and got some big orange garden bags and put it in that then carried it around through the front door when he wasn't looking.  It's wrapped up and in my wardrobe now.  He might suspect that I bought it, but he won't see any evidence of it on the bank statement as I had the money in my own account.  This might not seem like a big deal, but I haven't earned my own money for nearly 22 years now so when I can get him something he really wants without him paying for it I feel really good.  I get a little bit of money from the government each fortnight, as a family allowance and as the children go without nothing, ever, I see that as my pocket money and it's usually spent on anything but me anyway. 
I got Josh's Christmas pjs, Family Guy ones, and today I saw a matching pair of boxer shorts which I got for Phill.  We each open one gift on Christmas Eve from under the tree and they are always new pjs so we look smart in our Christmas morning photos.  Still have to get Em's and mine.
I drove through lots of flooded areas this morning.  The airport here in Cootamundra is, or was, cut off and I noticed the house right next to that road had its driveway flooded and its garage floor underwater as well.  As I came home the road into the roundabout at Wallendbeen was underwater and any deeper and I might not have got through it.  And the creek was lapping the bottom of the bridge there also as I drove over it, which I have never ever seen even nearly happen.  The radio listed many places that were cut off by floodwaters and I was happy to get home safely.  Burrinjuck Dam, which flows into the Murrumbidgee, our nearest big river, has overflowed which has caused flooding in Wagga Wagga, Gundagai and other surrounding areas.

I thought of the cherry farmers as I drove to Young, many of them have lost crops due to splitting from the heavy rain. Young is a huge cherry growing region in NSW.  I saw some backpacker itinerant fruit picker type people at a rest area and it occurred to me that in the three Summers I've lived here, even in good weather I've never actually seen anyone picking the cherries, even though most of the orchards are right by the road.  Maybe they do it early in the morning, or they might wear invisible cloaks or something.

Today is the 156th anniversary of the Eureka Stockade.  This was an armed uprising in Ballarat, Victoria by gold miners, fed up with getting ripped off by the government with highly priced mining licenses and then getting taxed on top of that, and also the heavily marked up prices of gold mining equipment by merchants trying to cash in on the gold rush in unscrupulous ways.  Many see it as the birth of democracy and I see it as the precursor to the union movement in this country.

  I don't get why we can't adopt the charming flag of the Eureka Stockade as our national flag, it surely says more about our identity as a country than our current flag.  The goldfields were probably our very first true cultural melting pot, with people from all over the world coming to Australia to make their fortunes.  Our wonderful Asian population stems from those days, where we would Australia be without them, and the many other migrants who have made our beautiful country their home?
Oops, off to pick up the ferals.