voodoo dolls and lunar loo

Good day fellow humans

I was watching the Artemis crew flitting around the moon and having real world problems with a toilet that wasn't working. No phoning the plumber from the dark side of the moon. Nope, they got busy fiddling with the issue. First they turned the toilet outlet pipe so that the sun could shine on it and melt the frozen pee. This lunar loo story became big news on Earth and strangely we were told that when we see a shooting star to wish on, sometimes we are wishing on a blob of frozen pee. When we have a meteor shower, is that aliens flying by and emptying out their sewerage tanks? It makes you wonder. There was also the issue of the fan not working to remove smells. Have you ever gone camping at those sites where it is a nightmare using those long drop toilets? The smell can knock you out from fifty paces. Flies buzzing around the toilet hole and no matter how much lime etc they pour in to control the odour, it really doesn't work. I have stood fifty meters away and taken a deep breath and then tried to dash and dump before needing another lung full. My aversion to camping is strong and bathroom issues are key to my ick factor.There's a new advert on TV where on the top of a mountain is a long drop and a man happily sitting in solitude doing what you do. Suddenly in this isolated spot, someone knocks and asks a question. He steps out of the little shed and answers their query before saying "Can I get back to finishing." Or something similar. The questioners, I note, are far enough from the loo to present their lines without going green in the face. Personally, no matter the amazing views, I am anti-camping and anti-long drop. I grew up in Zululand where our house was retrofitted with an inside toilet when I was about 3 or 4 years old. Aaah such luxury. But spare a moment for the astronauts who are in a tin can filled with technology and the biggest problem they faced is, not how are we going to get back to Earth in one piece, but rather, who stuffed up the toilet? They are now talking about setting up a station on the moon. Let's just hope they test the toilets before sending them aloft and just to be safe, send a plumber along as backup. The frozen pee situation etc will no doubt give scientists and astronauts plenty to work on over the next few years. Can you imagine going to a class reunion and being asked what you do for a living? "I'm in charge of waste management on the moon." Or should you just say "I'm a plumber for the man in the moon." Yes, that sounds plausible. Or Lady Luna's loo attendant?

Who here thinks that Voodoo dolls are from Haiti? Well, yes they did use them, but not as we are told by Hollywood movies. No such thing as sticking pins in people's dolls and the person being afflicted with pains. Maybe that is what is happening to me as I age? Someone had got hold of my own personal Voodoo doll and started poking holes in it with rusty pins and needles? What they were originally used for in the Caribbean was for healers to use as reminders of what they have previously treated the patient for. So, John or Jane walks into a priest's surgery and complains of a sore knee. The healer gives them some salve or ointment to use and then sticks a pin in the client's doll. Next time the person visits them, they check the doll and ask "How is your knee?" etc. Because most of these healers had no writing skills and this was a basic form of medical filing, in fact it was illegal for the black slaves in the area to read or write, and this was their record keeping. But in England, way back in the dark ages, you could visit your local witch and ask for a curse etc to be put on another person. Their dolls were called Poppets and the witch would curse the person for a price and then stick pins in the poppet. Yes, ladies and gentlemen and good friends, European history is rife with nasties who enjoy hateing on people with pokey stuff or vampires or Jack the Ripper awfulness. Of course English witches got the basics from Egypt and Greece. They just refined it to fill a need of their clients being vindictive. You can try this at home by putting two identical apples on a chair. To one you will whisper kind and loving words and the other you revile and verbally abuse the apple. Within a few days, you can see the difference in their appearances. Rotting skin and decay attends the abused apple and the other apple looks good as new. As a child I came across Sangomas who believed that all our ills are caused by bad juju from ancestors or others who are jealous or vindictive. After the agreed payment to the Sangoma (witch doctor) they will divine by the throwing of bones, or dances etc who has caused your affliction and give you the treatment. If it doesn't work, this can be explained away by other, sometimes psychological issues. I have been visiting modern doctors of late. Each one tells me something different. Of course most of them say to lose weight. Really, they would be better off sticking pins in me for no reason at all. Seriously there are so many misogynistic men in white coats out there that gas light us folks, that I despair of ever getting a straight answer. The latest has been where the doc (new doctor, misogynistic to the max and thinks he's a little god) tells me that it is all the fault of an 'inferior' surgeon who has severed or nicked a nerve that is now making my life hell. Treatment, None. Too bad, very sad, lose weight, go for a massage and glug down bottles of pain killers until you die. But the losing weight thing would involve more surgery and I am tired of being a pin cushion for idiots who might end up making my life ten times worse. And seriously, going under the knife doesn't hold out any hope anyway. 

Winter has been tickling my toes and Covid made an unwelcome appearance which then changed to a chest infection. I have become a semi-hermit. I suppose a full hermit is someone who lives in a cave and studies spiritual things and that is not me. I do live in a cave of sorts a.k.a. my bedroom. I have been sniffing menthol and Wintergreen etc  like a drug addict and drinking loads of lemon and hot honey. And am now down the the last of the dry coughs. Oh my goodness me, I am turning into my uncle Sid who always seemed to have a deadly illness of some sort. You dare not ask him how he was feeling without setting aside an hour or two to listen to his woes. Okay no more uncle Sid vibes. It has been nice to hibernate while taking care of myself ... and thanks to my children who made sure I was fed and watered. You would think that I would get all those half finished sewing jobs seen to and my basket of bits would be empty. You would be wrong. I put my feet up and watched Bridgerton and similar mindless entertainment videos. I read a slew of books and did a fair bit of genealogy. And I slept in my chair in the middle of the day. Unashamedly. I always thought that I had to be productive to be valued and apparently that is bollocks. I am loveable even when I can't do stuff. Who put that idea in my head that I have to prove something to be a part of this world? No. To be honest the best 'product' I have ever been a part of is a mother to great kids. This month is mother's day here in NZ. Telling your children about yourself and their ancestors is very good for their mental health. Well, they get that in spades from me. My brother-in-law, Quinton, died last month very suddenly and when I heard about it, the first thing I thought was I had better phone Quinton and tell him. Mainly because we had that sort of relationship. He would phone me to ask how I was doing and I would do the same. My next port of call was cousin Gayle. Not my cousin, but Quinton's cousin. She was shocked and very grateful to hear the news. She had tried to phone him the day before and wondered why he hadn't picked up the call. After speaking to her I sat quietly and thought "I wonder if the grapevine has let the others in the family know?" I phoned the only sister in the family expecting her to know more than I did. Firstly because I lived on the other side of the world and secondly, she lived ten minutes from Quinton's family. But she hadn't heard. Maybe my contribution to the world is communicating. The gift of the gab as my father would say and my mother would add 'verbal diarrhea' So, my two great successes are good kids and sharing my words.