Pillspills

The childproof packaging on American medication does my head in. 

Every time.

I'm too used to Australian blister packs, where it's easy 

to push the tablets through a layer of foil. Done.

American blister packs are a little more difficult to open.

To the untrained eye, they look the same.

The fact that scissors are mentioned in the instructions

should be warning of the frustration level involved.

You see, in addition to the foil, there is a layer of thick paper.

Impossible to just 'pop' the tablets through.

In theory, the paper is supposed to peel away first,

leaving just the foil. Easy.

In my time here, though, I've yet to have this happen.

Scissors are always required, and the pack ends up a mangled mess.

So annoying if I need to pop some of these when I'm out and about.

It's not like I carry scissors on me.

I needed to pop some of these today, and had the brilliant idea

of documenting just how ridiculous it is. 

I should have known - Murphy's Law.

WTF? 

The pack opened for me in a way it's never done before. 

Never.

I was gobsmacked.

I threw away the empty packaging, put the camera back, 

and grabbed some water to swallow the tablets with...

...only there were no tablets on the table.

WTF?

I searched everywhere.

They were in the bin, on top of the coffee grounds.

Nice one, MJ.

You can probably guess that in my sneezing foggy haze,

with genuine surprise thrown into the mix, 

I'd accidentally thrown out the proverbial baby with the bath water.

Yeah.

I won't combine medication and blogging again...

My life in review

Being December, most people look back over the past year and reflect. Good? Bad? Bring on the New Year? Be sad to see this one go?

All the magazines use this time of year as the perfect excuse to rehash photos and news stories. Revel once again in the scandals, ogle even more over celebrity transformations.

Last December, I found myself looking back a bit further than just the year, when I found myself scanning my favourite old travel photos.

This week has seen a similar trip down memory lane, courtesy of Facebook. You see, I decided to take a leap and embrace the new timeline format on my profile page. I figured I might as well, if it was going to be forced on us eventually. Plus, it does look rather fetching with the nice large cover photos.

A nifty new feature of the timeline format is that the dates on photos can be changed. This appealed - immensely - to the OCD part of my brain that likes to categorise things into proper chronological sequence. Rather than languishing in a December 2010 album, those travel photos that I'd scanned a year ago are now nicely dispersed along my timeline, neatly prettying up the years from 1999-2003.

Once I'd started, I couldn't stop. I found other old photos that I'd been tagged in over the years, even pics from the mid-2000s (before everyone was on Facebook) that had been added in retrospect. I had to change those dates, too.

Before I knew it, every year from 1999 onwards had been documented on my timeline, along with a few random school photos from the mid-late 80s and early 90s.

Looking at it all, I felt the need to start hiding some of the 'stories' from the timeline. Even though the stories were nothing new, and photos were ones that had always been available in albums for friends to view, it seemed like an overshare and needed culling.

There are the options of adding 'life events' to the timeline, and there are several categories, each broken into further suggestions. I'm sure it's only natural that people will want to add in special times such as graduations, weddings, births of kids... and that's where I draw the line for myself. Facebook has categories such as: New Roommate, New Vehicle, New Eating Habit, Broken Bone, Quit a Habit, Tattoos, Piercings, First Kiss... you get the picture.

Why not just add farts and nose picking to the timeline? Surely everyone wants to know that too?

Maybe it's just me. While I love looking at other friends' photos (I do!) I have very little interest in so many of the potential life events that some other people will no doubt be including on their timeline. I just don't care, and in that same vein, I don't imagine that my friends will be looking at my timeline and annoyed with me for not documenting my various body piercings and drunken antics.

Now that I have my timeline updated and looking pretty, something strange has seeped into the nostalgia factor. It's more than nostalgic. Seeing one's life spread out into neatly compartmentalised categories for others to view, it almost feels like preparation for an obituary. Born in -, graduated in -, married in -, X number of children, worked at -, travelled to -.

Packaged up, ready to go... how convenient.

I'm going to keep the photos on the timeline - because now that I've been thinking about it, the morbid part of my brain thinks what if? If something suddenly happened to me, and I was no longer around, my blog and my Facebook account would probably be the most easily accessible part of me that my daughters may want to access one day. It may be the best way for them to get a sense of my life when I was younger.

Hopefully, it won't come to that. We just never know, though.

FAQ

I've been having such fun with the writing prompts from MamaKatsLosinIt that I decided to do another round. This is a list of FAQs and I swear - I did not invent a single question. Some of them are surprisingly frequent.

(Click here for link)

So, your accent. Swedish? South African? Russian? Scottish?
Nope. Cold, cold, cold, cold.

From across the pond or down under?
Ah. You're getting warmer...

Australian?
Bingo.

What line of work are you in?
I spent the better part of the last decade teaching English as a language to foreign students, refugees and immigrants. Prior to that, I've been a bar maid, worked in retail (mostly chocolates - lucky me, huh?), and even a volunteer phone counsellor. Not sure what's next, but I'm open to cool job offers.

Can you really see kangaroos hopping down the street in lots of places? I bet a lot of people have asked you that.
Quite a few people have asked. And no, it's not like you see them hopping through the city or suburban streets. It's something only really seen in the less urban areas, but I have seen them in people's front yards - in small towns - on a few occasions.

What brings you to L.A. then?
My husband accepted a job here. It's a good job and we were keen to experience living in yet another city/country for a while. You only live once.

What do you normally do for Thanksgiving in Australia?
Well, considering it's a holiday that celebrates an important time in North American history... nothing. It's a normal day. We're happy to go along with the excuse for a good feast while we're living in the US, though!

Would you like your latte hot or cold?
People drink them cold? Ugh, no thanks. Hot, please.

Do you want whipped cream on top?
Oh, you think I need more dairy in my latte? I'll pass, thanks.

Can I have your social security number?
Despite what your store manager may have told you, I'm not legally required to give that information to anyone other than government services. So, no - you can't.

I've only just realised that you're quite tall, aren't you? Just how tall are you?
A little over 6"... or 183cm to the rest of the world.

How old are your daughters?
My eldest recently turned five, and the little one will be two in January.

Can she breathe under that thing?
You really have to ask? Okay, I shouldn't get snarky. It is Southern California after all, and you genuinely may have never seen a rain cover on a stroller before.

What are your pet hates?
The biggest one is chewing gum. So glad that these days, I don't have to sit next to people chewing it loudly on buses and trains. Likewise, I'm glad I spend less time in close proximity to women who drown themselves in perfume. Why do they do that? It makes me nauseous. A third one is balloons drifting around in my apartment. Kids can be so annoying that way.

Favourite colour?
These days, I'm gravitating back to turquoise and teal. Purple is so nineties.

Where do you badly want to visit, that you haven't been before?
I can now scratch San Francisco off my list, so New York is number one... followed by Japan. While we're in the US, there are loads of other places I'd love to see: Las Vegas, New Orleans, Utah, Montana, Arizona...

What's for dinner?
If you ask one more time, I'm going to stab my eyeball with something blunt.

Are we nearly there?
If you ask one more time, I'm going to stab my eyeball with something even blunter.

Can I stay up a bit later?
No. Mum needs her 'me' time.

EAT! APPOOL? APPOOOOOOOL?
Sure kiddo. Here's your third apple for the day...

NOOO????!!!
Um, I'm confused. Again.

Have you seen my glasses?
Wherever you left them last...

You coming to bed soon?
Depends...