The first part of this entry will be on menstruation, so if you're not interested in reading about menstruation avoid the italicised text. Then I elucidate more terrible things that happened to me this weekend.
I don't get PMS, PMT or any kind of period pain. This is both a blessing and a curse, as I found out this weekend. A blessing for the obvious reasons but a curse because it means I never know for sure when to expect my monthly bleed. According to my calendar, where I meticulously keep a record of when my periods start so as to somehow form a general idea of when to expect it again, I was not due to get my period until Wednesday with view to it coming as early as Monday.
This meant that when I discovered that I had my period on Saturday, while at my parents' place, I was surprised. And alarmed. You see, I don't use tampons or napkins but a DivaCup as I have previously blogged so guess where my cup was when I was at my parents' place? In my apartment in Waverton. I had an emergency tampon in my bag so I used that and found a pad in my mum's bathroom so I used that as double protection and went to a housewarming.
When I arrived back home I searched high and low for an additional supply of sanitary provisions but apart from that one pad in my mum's bathroom there was nothing to be found. This is on account of my mum being menopausal and therefore in no need of such protection. So I had a shower and decided not to remove the tampon in case the pad wouldn't sustain me overnight, until the shops opened again at 8am.
I woke up at 4am feeling achey. At first I thought it might have been something I ate but it was definitely a reproductive ache, not a digestive ache so I figured I did get period pain after all. And then through my sleepy head I remembered that I'd left my tampon in. I went to the bathroom but it seemed the tampon was holding on okay, with no need to use the pad yet. So I went back to bed. But I couldn't sleep. Half an hour thinking about toxic shock syndrome led me to go back to the bathroom and remove it, hoping that the pad could serve me until the shops opened at 8am.
On the dot of 8am I woke up, dressed and drove to the shops (it's only a 10 min walk but I was not in the mood). I'm not certain of the last time I went to buy sanitary products but since when was everything made in China? And why do sanitary companies insist on wrapping each individual pad? Why do they charge GST?
I went home, had a shower and freshened up. I put one pad in my mum's bathroom to replace the one I borrowed and another four in the communal bathroom drawer so that should any other lady be caught short as I was, they would find relief in their search.
The menstrual problem solved, I decided to make some pancakes. I make pretty good pancakes and I'd bought strawberries to go with them, so I was all prepared. But I couldn't remember the recipe. And there was no milk. And there was no fry pan. In an upbeat decision, I decided to guess the ingredients, use my mum's emergency supply of soy milk and try pancakes in the wok. The result was a lumpy, laughable mess that took aaages to cook. It's one of the few times I wish I had a camera phone so I could show you how funny it was. Anyway, the key thing was they were edible, especially with brown sugar and strawberries. (A quick peek at my never-fail recipe shows that I added too much flour and not enough baking soda).
Half an hour of scrubbing lumpy batter from various cooking implements and then I was on the road. I planned to stop in at the Woolworth's on Epping Rd for groceries and petrol. As I crawled along Beecroft Rd, two fire engines zipped past. As it was a hot day I hoped Marsfield hadn't burst into flames (as it did in 1994). When I got onto the beginning of Epping Rd I realised the hold up - Epping Rd was closed and traffic was detoured behind the station or down Blaxland Rd.
I took Blaxland Rd as I knew it would eventually lead me to Woolworth's. The only problem was that because it was Sunday, people had parked in the left hand lane and so all the traffic meant for Epping Rd was bottlenecked into a single lane on Blaxland Rd.
About a kilometre down the road I realised another incident was holding up the traffic on Blaxland even more severely - a car accident on the other side of the road flanked by a fire engine and an ambulance. To get around the crash, cars had to cross over to our side of the road so the whole delicate operation of driving with care was being upheld by the principle of taking turns, tenuous at the best of times.
I did eventually make it to Woolworth's, a 15 min ride taking AN HOUR. Luckily I'd figured out how to change the radio station in my mum's car so I was well-entertained by the FBi crew, particularly a song mocking Arnold Schwarzenegger's claim that marijuana wasn't a drug but a leaf by The Axis of Awesome, which I'm hoping will be available as a download at some point. (I'm one of those people who can explain, on a scientific level, why detergent is bad for your skin or why carbon offsets are a crock but find changing the clock or the radio station in a car a lot of a challenge).
I eventually arrived back at Waverton but all the visitor's car spaces had been taken so I had to park on the street, which is not ideal. I had to parallel park in a tight spot and I think I nudged the car behind (though didn't leave a mark) but hope both the car in front and the one behind can get out without hitting my mum's NEW CAR. On top of that I had to carry four heavy bags to my apartment after a day of twisting my back (it's never good getting in and out of cars).
Waiting for me was a pile of work - I had to transcribe two interviews and upload stuff for Vanessa's freelance web contribution. My Project Manager deadline is tomorrow and I am uncharacteristically behind (even more so when you consider I'm supposed to be doing NaNoWriMo (my version = 1000 words a day). It's day four and my word count is ZERO when it should be 4000. Bloody hell! Words! You're asking for too many words!
All right, I'm getting back to it.
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