Category: Copy

Memories from 2011 about Christmas and some other Subjects

https://auntyuta.com/2011/12/

Following is something I wrote in November 2007 and I published it in 2011.  It sounds like I could have written it today.

“Time is running out? . . .  how much time do I have left? With every year time seems to be getting more precious. Whatever I still want to do in life, I should be doing it soon, very soon. There is no need to panic. It is just this feeling in me that I ought not to waste time; in other words, I should make the best use of it I possibly can. Making time for reflections as I do right now, I do not regard this as a waste of time. It nourishes my soul, it makes me look forward to spend the day in a productive way. There are the Christmas preparations to consider. How can I keep them to a minimum with that special Christmas Spirit in mind? Some spiritual songs usually help me along to get into the mood. Even in shopping centres the odd Christmas song can bring about temporary elation, a feeling of peace and comfort in a buzzing shopping centre! And even if this sort of mood happens only for brief moments while doing the shopping , it is still appreciated and helps to cope with the mad commercialism that surrounds us everywhere.

The special food at Christmas I like very much. On the other hand I hate it, if food is being wasted. I rather have not too much food of everything. How awful, if food has to be thrown out because we cannot keep it fresh enough in the Australian heat once it leaves the fridge. There may be one and a half dozen people at our family gathering. People bring food along. I would like to keep the food that I am going to provide to a strict minimum. Unfortunately I know already that this is an impossibility at Christmas time! I suppose I’ll just have to grin and bear it. I am determined to make the most of the Christmas Spirit where-ever I may come across it and enjoy the closeness of family and friends. Indeed I am looking forward to a Joyful and Happy Christmas. I did not always feel joyful and happy at Christmas time: There are some happy memories about Christmas, but there are also some very unhappy ones . . . . May the truly happy hours at Christmas time be plentiful and greatly outnumber the sad and lonely hours! This is what I wish for everyone.

This is the link to some more posts I published in 2011:

These posts from 2011 have the following titles:

Daddy’s Anger:  https://auntyuta.com/2011/12/17/memories/

MY MOTHER:  https://auntyuta.com/2011/12/17/out-of-last-years-files/

After the War (1945):

https://auntyuta.com/2011/12/12/after-the-war-1945/

Reflections

Post W W  II:   https://auntyuta.com/2011/12/11/reflections/

 

In Love with Leipzig:

https://auntyuta.com/2011/12/10/in-love-with-leipzig/

 

OUR LUCKY ESCAPE;  https://auntyuta.com/2011/12/08/our-lucky-escape/

My Family’s Reaction  https://auntyuta.com/2011/12/06/575/

https://auntyuta.com/2011/12/06/thirty-three-years-ago/

https://auntyuta.com/2011/12/05/utas-diary/

So the following is still something I did publish in Decermber of 2011:

“5th of December, our second daughter’s birthday; the youngest daughter’s birthday is coming up in four days. The two girls are exactly twenty years apart!

Tomorrow, Tuesday, is Thai Yoga for beginners with Chaija Noradechanunt from the University of Wollongong. In the pamphlet it says:

‘Enjoy stretches, breathing work and relaxation practices in a women only place.’

On Tuesday, the 13th December, is going to be the last class for this year.

I like these Thai Yoga classes. I hope they’re going to continue next year. For the Thai Yoga I go to Coniston, which is two trainstops away from where I live.  The Older Women’s Network hire the Community Hall in Coniston for these classes. They say:

‘You’re in good company with Illawarra OWN Wellness Centre. What is a Wellness Centre?

A Wellness Centre provides older women with a different model of health and wellbeing. We offer a holistic approach to improving and maintaining health and coping with illness by providing a variety of choices for healthy living. The Wellness Centre provides an informal, friendly and supportive environment.

We are committed to:

.  Flexible, “drop in” attendance

.  Learning from each other, as well as from health professionals

.  Consumer involvement & participation

‘Social isolation is a threat to the well being and health of us all. As women tend to live longer than men, they are more likely to feel isolated. Being on a limited income further restricts many people and decreases our ability to lead full and productive lives. To enjoy healthy senior years our minds and bodies need to be active and we need to do all we can to ensure we foster a willingness to stay well by keeping active.

An older woman is generally considered to be 50 years and over. Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Women aged 45 Years and over. All are welcome at the Wellnes Centre.’

Thursdays I usually go to a class here in Dapto. It’s a gentle exercise class with Marta Venegas. This class is to improve core strength and balance. I  like these classes. Marta always brings stimulating music along. She sees to it that we keep up with a bit of dancing and also some more serious fitness training. Some of the exercises can be done sitting or standing. This class is breaking up next week. The break lasts to the beginning of February! I must aim at going to the swimming pool more often to maintain some kind of fitness.

My laptop is playing up sometimes. I think I need to take it for another service.”

 

The Story of Valentines Bakehouse

https://www.valentinessourdough.com.au/our-story

“The Valentine’s artisan sourdough bakery and coffee shop operates out of three locations – Rutherglen, Albury and Wodonga.”

Recently Peter and I had a lunch break at Wodonga. We went to the Valentine’s coffee shop in Wodonga. The bread was very much to our liking. There were a variety of fresh healthy options to go with the bread. And the coffee was very good too.

We had been staying overnight in Gundagai and were on our way back home to Dapto. We were travelling in our ancient Audi. Peter’s driving went very well. He loves driving the Audi long distances. The Hume Motorway is not a bad road to drive on.

Filling out an Application Form to apply for a Cataract Operation

In that application form I was asked when was the last time I had an operation. I could remember that I had a Carpel Tunnel Relief operation and that it was probably in November some years ago. But I could not remember which year it was. I remembered though that the day after the operation we had had a break-in and that I had written something about it in one of my blogs. So I searched for the blog and voila, I found it here:

https://auntyuta.com/2013/11/25/after-the-op/

Thursday, 21st November 2013, was the day after my operation. We were out for ninety minutes. When we arrived back home we soon noticed that our place had been burgled. . . . . .

In my blog from the 25th of November 2013 I did not write about a lot of details regarding the burglary. However, I found in the some of the comment sections a bit more about what had happened, and  I copy it  here:

  2. It happened to us before, Gerard. The last burglary we had was in 1994. We had become rather confident that we couldn’t possibly have another burglary. So after nineteen years it happened again. What a shock to come home after a quick lunch and find the place burgled. It was lucky that Caroline and Matthew were with us at the time. We had had lunch at a beautiful place in Wollongong.. Matthew had driven us home from Wollongong as fast as possible for I was in need of some rest after the operation the previous evening. Caroline was the first to enter the house. Everything looked all right at first. Only gradually did we find out that there must have been some intruders in the house. Then Caroline looked around a bit more and discovered the broken in bathroom-window!

    During the following hours Caroline handled a lot of phone-calls for us, namely to the police and the insurance who all asked for a lot of details. In the meantime Matthew had gone with one of our neighbours to the back of our house looking in the parkland reserve whether they could still see any culprits around. On a bench they found a screw-driver, and then they noticed close by in the bush some of the contents of my handbag. They retrieved my wallet with all my cards in it! But of course all the cash had gone.

    Gee, was I glad when they handed me all the personal things out of my handbag! 🙂
    It was such a relief that I didn’t have to renew all my cards! 🙂

    Reply

  3. What a lousy act to have happened Auntyuta, at least you got some personal stuff back, but it still makes you feel sick to think someone has violated your home.
    You look in great shape even with that arm wrapped up Auntyuta.
    Cheers
    Emu

    Reply

    1. Yes, dear Emu, that I got my personal stuff back was a real blessing. The surprising thing was the intruders left no mess behind. They just took a few things and escaped the way they had come in, namely through the bathroom window. Luckily they did not bother to take our laptops along. The cash that Peter left behind in a drawer in the living-room had gone. But we did not notice immediately. It was not apparent, that the drawer had been opened. I had a fairly new handbag (goat-leather). I did not get this back, only my purse/wallet (minus all my cash) and the personal papers and cards out of my hand {shoulder} -bag, well, luckily all this stuff was found in some bushes in the park behind our property.
      We haven’t heard from our insurance yet what they are going to do.
      But our daughter saw to it that we handed in all our claims.
      Cheers, Auntyuta

      . . . . .

      When I found the above blog I was astounded to find nearly five years had elapsed since all this happened. I remember Caroline and Matthew had been staying with us overnight. After lunch in Wollongong they had planned on going back to their place in Sydney. Their things were already packed and waiting near the entrance door. Some things of Caroline and Matthew had been taken out of their bags. Caroline noticed some moisture in her bag. She asked herself, whatever could that mean? Later on we had the idea to get our bottle of vodka out of the freezer. It was not there any more! Gone. So maybe the moisture in Caroline’s bag had come from the bottle of vodka that the burglars had taken out of the freezer. We all agreed that this was the only explanation.

      In due time the police and someone from the insurance came around. They looked at the broken in window, and we mentioned the screwdriver that was found on the park bench. The police woman explained that the screwdriver could not be counted as evidence even though my discarded purse was found nearby. Anyway, the police were very friendly. Also, the insurance were very good in handling everything. They assessed the value of all the stolen goods and gave us reimbursement in the form of money.

      Postscript: My eyesight is not very good at the moment. I’ll send off my application form to Shellharbour Hospital tomorrow. This means they may put me on a waiting list, and in about 12 months I’ll get my operation on my right eye. My left eye is totally blind from a macular hole that was so bad 18 years ago that the operation at a hospital  in Sydney was without success. Ever since I am somewhat scared that something might happen to my good eye too. But if the cataract in my good eye gets worse and worse, that does not help, does it? So I better apply for an operation. . . . .

“Our Souls at Night”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Souls_at_Night_(film)

We watched this movie yesterday. Peter and I, we both thought it was a good one.  I read the plot in Wikipedia and it says beautifully in a condensed way everything about the theme of the movie.  I copy here the plot the way I found it in Wikipedia:

“Louis Waters is a widower. One evening he is visited by Addie, a widow who lives next door. She invites him to sometimes sleep over – platonically – talking in bed to combat loneliness. They try it out, and like it. The community finds out, but assume it’s a sexual relationship. After Louis’ coffee shop friends make a joke, Louis walks out mad. Addie’s friend Ruth asks her a few questions. To stop the gossip, the two have Sunday lunch together at a restaurant.

Addie’s son Gene dumps his seven year old child Jamie with her. Louis helps her care for him, sets up his train set and gets Jamie a dog. The boy even sleeps with the elderly couple in a real family setting. After Gene learns of the relationship, he takes Jamie back even though his wife has left him. Louis and Addie go on a trip and get around to having sex.

Addie falls down and ends up in the hospital. Her son wants her to move in with him and Jamie. She decides that family must come first and the couple spend their last night together. Both she and Louis are back to sleeping alone. So Louis sends her the train set and a cell-phone. After getting into bed, she calls him and they start talking as old friends. And the movie ends.”

Cast

. . . . .

“The film had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival on September 1, 2017.[6] It was released on September 29, 2017 on Netflix streaming. ”

Personally I do like movies that deal with relationships among people, be it romantic relationships or family relationships or important friendships. There is some of all of this in this slow moving movie.

I guess there are all sorts of ways to combat loneliness in old age. It seems to me we are bound to feel lonely without some significant personal contacts. 

 

Julian Burnside: The failings of super-minister Dutton

Julian Burnside is a barrister who specialises in commercial litigation and human rights.

The failings of super-minister Dutton:

This article by Julian Burnside was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on Apr 28, 2018 as “A silk terse at a sow’s ear”. 

Here are a few extracts from that article:

“. . .  When Dutton took over the immigration portfolio from Scott Morrison in December 2014, he adopted Morrison’s misleading characterisation of boat people as “illegal”. Morrison had decreed that the people referred to in the Migration Act as “Unauthorised Maritime Arrivals” should in future be called “Illegal Maritime Arrivals”. Dutton has picked up the idea, even though it is a lie.

Dutton shamelessly uses the “illegal” tag.

At the very least, this shows ignorance of some basic facts; at worst, it shows dishonesty. Boat people do not commit any offence by arriving in Australia without a visa, without an invitation, seeking to be protected from persecution. On the contrary, they are exercising a right acknowledged in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Article 14 of the Universal Declaration starts this way: “Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.”

Australia made a significant contribution to the creation of the Universal Declaration, and it was Doc Evatt, an Australian, who presided over the General Assembly of the United Nations when it was adopted on December 10, 1948. More than half a century later, on July 27, 2017, Dutton wrote an opinion piece about Operation Sovereign Borders, which included these words:

“It’s now been three years since a people-smuggler’s boat loaded with Illegal Maritime Arrivals (IMAs) reached Australia …

“Had the Coalition not mounted OSB – the boats and illegal arrivals would still be coming.”

“. . . .  Dutton told the public these refugees had received “an enormous amount of support” from Australian taxpayers for a long time, saying: “there is a very different scenario up on Nauru and Manus than people want you to believe”. Taxes cover the absurd cost of maintaining offshore processing arrangements. It costs about $570,000 per refugee per year to keep the men and women on Manus or Nauru. So in that sense, refugees receive support from taxpayers. . . . ”

“On April 7, 2018, Dutton called for “like-minded” countries to come together and review the relevance of the 1951 Refugee Convention.

So, here it is: Australia’s most powerful minister is wilfully mistreating innocent people at vast public expense. He is waging a propaganda war against refugees and against the people who try to help them. And he is trying to persuade other countries to back away from international human rights protection.

He tries to make it seem tolerable by hiding it all away in other countries, so that we can’t see the facts for ourselves.

Dutton has often expressed concern about people drowning in their attempt to get to Australia. But his concern about people drowning is a lie. If he were genuinely concerned about people drowning, he might treat survivors decently. Instead, if they don’t drown, he punishes them: he puts them in offshore detention for years. He does this in order to deter others from trying to seek safety in Australia.

Perhaps the most worrying thing about Dutton is not his dishonesty, but his propaganda war, which already has led the Australian people to accept things that would have been unthinkable even 10 or 20 years ago. He has blinded us to the fact that we are now deliberately harming innocent men, women and children, in ways that are completely inconsistent with our view of ourselves. After all, aren’t we the nation that believes in a fair go for everyone?

By small degrees Dutton is inducing Australians to tolerate the intolerable. His campaign to make cruelty acceptable has the potential to lead Australia to very dark places. Invested in him is great power to do so, more power than any minister has had before.”

ABC Roundtable Debates Melania Trump’s “I DON’T CARE, DO U?” Jacket: What Did She Mean?

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2018/06/24/abc_roundtable_debates_melania_trumps_i_dont_care_do_u_jacket.html

Ihis is what the president writes  in Twitter:

“I REALLY DON’T CARE, DO U?” written on the back of Melania’s jacket, refers to the Fake News Media. Melania has learned how dishonest they are, and she truly no longer cares!

I say good on her if she truly no longer cares what the Fake News Media writes. The question should be whether she cares about the children!

I think about this all the time. Do we for instance truly care about the children on Manus Island and Nauru? If we all wore jackets with some writing on the back: “We really care about the children on Manus Island and Nauru” – That would be utterly false, wouldn’t it? So what should we write on our jackets? Just ” WE REALLY DONT CARE” or what?

Melania Trump, CNN and other members of the media were at a facility with children aged 12-17.

Andre Rieu: Live In Maastricht 2015

This afternoon at 2 o’clock our TV station SBS did show a repeat of the Maastricht concert from 2015. Peter and I had great fun watching this performance!
Following is what I found in YouTube about it:

Affectionately known as ‘The King of Waltz’, André performs a series of concerts in his home town of Maastricht, in The Netherlands every year, which are always André’s most popular concerts of the year.

 

SBS OnDemandWatch Online

Uta’s Diary

In my ‘Childhood Memories’ I published this:

https://auntyuta.com/2016/05/24/my-paternal-grandparents/

In this post I wrote about the birth of my little brother. This ‘little’ brother is about to turn 80. Yes, on the 9th of June this year he is going to be 80. He still lives in Berlin in a home for the aged  where he is well looked after. On a visit to Berlin I was able to see brother Bodo on his 78th birthday. My younger brother Peter Uwe also came to Berlin at the time. So two years ago, on the 9th of June, Peter Uwe and I  went together to see our brother Bodo!   Now, in 2018, he is going to turn 80 . . . . !

DSCN1061
Bodo and Peter Uwe on the 9th of June 2016

So some time ago I published among other things the following:

9.Juni 1938 Bodo ist nur ein paar Stunden alt

On the 9th of June 1938 my brother Bodo Alexander was born. He was born at home in our apartment in Berlin, Bozener Strasse. Here in this picture he is only a few hours old. I was thrilled to have a baby brother! I believed the ‘Klapperstorch’ had brought him. Mum’s sister Ilse was very excited about this addition to the family as well. Later on I always heard stories about how this home delivery took place. And I did sleep through all of it.When I woke up in the morning, Tante Ilse led me to the cot in the parent’s bedroom. And surprise, surprise, der Klapperstorch had brought a beautiful baby boy. I do remember how he was there in his cot. Later on was  taken the above picture where the baby is in Mum’s bed and I am beside Mum looking at my beautiful little brother.

Very high levels of radioactive cesium along the planned torch relay route for the Tokyo Olympics?

“With the upcoming XXXII Olympiad in 2020 hosted by Japan, it is necessary to look into the radioactivity of Olympic venues as well as tourist attractions in the host cities. Previous studies pose a major gap because they focused on regions that are closer to the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, where the highest concentration of radioactive fallout is located. On the other hand, the radioactivity in other locations in Japan is relatively less studied. Since thousands of athletes and millions of visitors are travelling to Japan for the Olympics, there has been widespread concern from the international community about radiation exposure. Therefore, it is important to investigate the extent of radioactive fallout from the Fukushima Dai-ichi incident.”

I copied the above from this blog:

Very high levels of radioactive cesium along the planned torch relay route for the Tokyo Olympics

I wonder why on earth these places that might very well still be radioactive cannot be avoided for the torch route?

Here is another sample from this very interesting blog:

“With the Upcoming XXXII Olympiad in 2020 hosted by Japan, it is necessary to look into the radioactivity of Olympic venues as well as tourist attractions in the host cities”

I think it is well worth having a look at this site:

https://nuclear-news.net/