WTF!

Santo was mental this morning. WTF? Last night, coming back from dinner with a friend, Santo decided that we just had to have fabric conditioner. Lovely, sweet, soft fabric conditioner to make our lives better. I don't know why, just stupid really.

"You do realise that you are being conned into buy twice as much detergent for you washing." I said, "by the advertising people?"

"Oh no, lovely and soft."

Well this morning at 9am, he announced that we must wash the bed clothes with the new fabric conditioner.

"Now?"

"Now!"

"No," I protested. "Do it later, why does it have to be done now?"

"No now!" And after playing 'The boy does nothing,' he said it was time to be productive.

"No," I protested again.

"Get out of the bed."

"No!"

"You leave me no choice!"

Then he started to rip the bed clothes from the bed while I was still in it, as if I wasn't even there.

"No! Stop!" I hung onto hands full of bed clothes with failing hands. "Noooooo!" He pulled! I pulled! I protested. He ripped the doona and sheets out of my hands. "No!"

He was tenacious, I lost every thing. "Nooooooooooooo!!!!!!"

When you are left clinging to the corner of a doona and nothing else, the morning lie in is, pretty much, over.

"Ahhhhhh!!!!!!!"

I was left sitting on a bare mattress clinging to a bare pillow. Sad Face.

Good fucking morning!

And now I am off to Craigiburn, because my sister is caught up doing stuff and as she said, in the nicest sisterly kind of way, "It is, after all, always me making the drive to Fitzroy."

Welcome to the weekend.

At least the sun is shining.

Smoking outside in the street

Smoking outside in the street, who'd have thought that would get so PC, hey? Next to my current job there is one of those new, hideous concrete tilt slab - destroy the suburbs and make the property developers rich at everyone else's expense - 21st century blocks of flats. As a part of HR's induction jibber jabber about how the company works, the HR chick in charge of enlightening me gave me a run down on the areas you can, and can't, smoke around the company.

"Please don't smoke over there (pointing out the window to the street between the company building and the before mention block of atrocity) as there are sick children living in the tilt slab fiasco." (okay, I said fiasco, not her)

"Oh, okay," I said. Really? I wouldn't be heading into their lounge room to put my feet up on the coffee table as I light a durry. (The thought almost made me giggle)

All I could think was that I was glad that I had quit smoking, it is really nice not to be bothered about some things any more... but, really, are we going to be that stupid? I ask you?

The anti smoking lobby is really winning now, isn't it. The (idiot) public are really falling for it, now aren't they. You can't have a cigarette out in the fresh air at least 10 metres from any windows because you might affect some sick children. Really? Have we really become that brainwashed?

Oh yes, think of the children.

Don't get me started on modern day mothers, or their children. Inner city cafes seem to be over run by mothers and their noisy infants and, you know, you wouldn't dare suggest that maybe they take the screaming, crying, noisy little treasures home until they are, say, sixteen.

I know what I'd be saying to "the sick-child mother" if she hung out the window, mid puff.

"Excuse me, excuse me! I'm sorry but I have sick children up here."

"Oh really?" Exhale. "Is this just a general announcement? Or have you singled me out for some sort of special treatment? I'm not a doctor."

"No." Laugh. "The cigarette. Could you take it some where else?"

"Where would you suggest?" Holding it up in the air like a finger giving the bird.

"Oh, I don't know, just away from here."

"Oh really, for what reason?"

"I don't want it to affecting my children."

"Oh really." Looking around, as if I had missed someone close by. "Will they ask me for one?"

Modern day mothers, they think the invented the art form. Mothering, not smoking. They give the impression that they, and they alone, are the only ones that have been saddled with the burden of procreation, that it has never been more difficult or a greater responsibility. Children.

I'm not sure how they think the human race got to this point... but there you go.

I'm sure it has something to do with the "have it all" mantra that modern day mums have been saddled with. Super women. They are all super women, or have the potential for it, or should have the potential for it. And when they turn out to be mere mortals after all, they get cranky and stressed and shake and start with the unreasonable requests.

"But I am mother, I've given up my life to be a mother." And there should be this fabulous reward for my selflessness... but, apparently, raising kids is hard work? 

Who'd have thought?

My mum worked full time and raised three kids, so did all of her friends... some of them had four kids, it wasn't uncommon. You never heard any of them complain about hard it was. Actually, never.

I'm glad I don't have them, kids. I, of course, I can stand on the sidelines and point and criticise the people who do have them. Naturally. I don't have to worry about who smokes where, or who is being reasonable. 

What do you call that? In conservative times "safe" is always the default position, reason doesn't have to enter into it. A mother will always trump a smoker, not matter how unreasonable she is being.

I'm glad that I don't smoke any longer, or I might be tempted to go and stand in the street to see if "the mother" really was so stupid as to challenge me. Thank god! Being a nonsmoker, I can just shrug and think, who cares. Being childless, I can point and laugh at how unreasonable people can be.

My sore foot

I've got a sore foot, my left foot, it aches. It has hurt for some time, since I went back to work. The Tuesday after Easter was the first time that I noticed it, as I walked into the city for my first assignment for the year, with Santo. There is a kind of lump in the arch of my foot, more like a swelling than a tumour, more like a strain than cancer, if you know what I mean. It hurts to walk. At first I thought it was my work shoes, walking into town in them, but it seems to hurt in other shoes too, now.

Santo is big with Deep Heat, he always has a tube handy. I hate the smell of it, quite frankly. Oh yuk. He said I should put some on my foot. "It should make it better."
But the smell? Er! I don't like it. (I could feel my hair go a tinge of red as I said that) So, I got the tube of ointment and thrust it at him and then I gave him my foot. And a pleading look.

"Please, can you rub it on? Please honey, please? You rub it in the best. Better than any one."
"Really?"
"Please honey, I hate the smell of it on my hands. (And I do) And you do it better than I do." (Puppy dog eyes)
"I do?"
"You do. And you don't seem to mind the smell."

So for the last two nights Santo has massaged my poor sore foot for me. I think the pain below his finger tips is all the therapy I need. It hurts to make it better. It feels nice, of course, who'd say the opposite. Nobody, I don't reckon.
He's lovely, my boyfriend.

He irons my shirts. Big smile. I said tonight that I had to go and iron a shirt for tomorrow night. 
"I've ironed them for you, for the rest of the week. The shirts are in the cupboard with mine."

He cooks dinner most nights, he makes the food. You may think this is a pretty sweet deal, however, I do the cleaning up afterwards. This, of course, gives him licence to use every dish, plate and implement in the kitchen. I, of course, taught him everything he knows. Oh, except for the stir fried noodles and the curries.
We both head to the supermarket daily. We never seem to be able to buy for more than one day's meals, we can't make that many food decisions. One nights dinner is the most I can decide on. We need to develop a menu, a style, a house cuisine.
Still, that means the dogs gets walked every day.

Santo puts the leftovers in my red lunch box for me to take to work. I haven't had to buy lunch for the last two weeks. You've got to luv that, I luv that.

He's lovely, really. Lucky me. Count my blessings? Every day.

Shake of the head

It is funny the things we do and we don’t notice. I headed into the kitchen, at work today, and I noticed that the, otherwise, silver coffee machine has a pooh brown stripe right down the middle. My first thought was that a service guy had been in and for some reason he’d changed the fascia of the machine. Really?

I wondered why he would do that? I thought, as I placed my mug under the spout and pushed the appropriate buttons. 3 cups nice and strong. Not too much extra water.

Fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff.

I pictured the service guy, with his blue canvass work pants and his   coloured briefs around his ankles as he held his arse cheeks, pulling them apart, as slid his crack up and down the facia of the coffee machine. His dark blue cotton work shirt would have been unbuttoned exposing his hairy chest as he tweaked his strawberry red nipples. In a world where everything was fair and equal, he'd be sniffing nitrous... but, that just may be my residual Blue Velvet fantasies coming to the fore, and it may not have anything to do with the real world. Because everybody knows that the workman who rub their warm arse cracks over kitchen appliances usually sniff amyl nitrate.

Shake of the head. The morning come back into focus.

Oh, of course he didn’t do that, was my second thought, amused as I was with my 8.25am mind, just as strapping Karesh entered the kitchen stage right, and smiled, as he turned to me. "Hi,"he said.

Karesh wears his pants tight, so yes, I'd already noticed him.

"Hi," I said. Karesh filled his glass with water and headed back out the door. I watched him go.

Fff... fff... fff... fff...

I looked back at the coffee machine and wondered how I had missed the pooh brown stripe for the last week? Nobody has replaced the facia of the coffee machine. Ha, ha, ho, ho.

We so often look at things and don't see the details. We so often don't see the things that are right in front of our eyes. We so often don't see what is right in front of us.

It's a funny thing.

I drink my coffee as a double shot. I think about those girls in coffee shops who had dizzy turns from drinking double shots of espresso and think, amateurs. The coffee is bitter and full flavoured on my lips - just how I like my workmen - just as I like my coffee.

The morning slid towards lunch rapidly. You've got to luv that. It was midday when the head of HR came out and said that the system I was using was going to be shut down at 2pm, and he'd just remembered that I would be a problem. Did they have anything else for me to do? 

Apparently, not. 

Yes! wailed my still small voice.

I offered to head home early if they had nothing else for me to do for the afternoon. I tried not to offer too quickly, you know, not to be too keen to get out of the place. That never looks good. But, I was gagging to go, me, me, me, before he'd even stopped talking.

"Okay, work through to 2pm and then head home."

You've got to fucken luv that.

So my day finished at 2pm. Yay! The system I am using to update the org structure was changing over to internet based and it had to be shut down at 2pm so that the finer details could be checked before it went live. 

Ha ha, ho ho. 

I had to try very hard not to jump in the air and click my heals  together as I walked out the door. I'm sure I whistled.

Outside it was wet and grey.

Cleaning up, living life

OMG! Clean this. Mop that. Scrub it. Tidy over here. Dust over there. Do this! Do that! Wash the dog. Sweep the back yard. 
("I did not say..." He is reading over my shoulder, as I type, denying some of my claims. "Oh, maybe I did say that," he changes his mind)

It is Sunday.

Santo says we have to clean every week, scheduled, you know. It is something that has to be done routinely, or the world will cease to function as we know it. We will lose our home, jobs, and, no doubt, we will end up on the street. (I can only assume)

Really? All of that to be done on a Sunday morning. I took another spoonful of my Crunchy Nuts and returned my gaze to The Age (Australian newspaper) online.


Then he started singing that song, "The boy does nothing"... with very, very gay hand gestures. 
I objected and pointed at my laptop and I heard, "Does he clean up, no he never cleans up."
I tried to discuss this cleaning nonsense with him, and I heard, "Does he wash up, never wash up." Waggling his finger at me.
"Oh come on," I protested.
"He does nothing, the boy does nothing."

I'm more in the Quentin Crisp school of house keeping. You know, the dust doesn't get any thicker after 7 years. Well, I'm not quite as laid back about the cleaning as that, admittedly. If it looks dirty, give it a clean, that is my philosophy. I am definitely not in the school of everything must be cleaned every week to keep everything clean and tidy. No, I am not. And I can tell you, my Sunday morning will never be given over to house work... willingly.

But, Santo just started cleaning around me, giving me orders as he did so. Cleaning up around me. So, beaten down, guilted into it, I did clean the kitchen, washed up the saucepans, etc. Santo cooks and I clean, which has its downside, Santo is never backwards in using more dishes. I mopped the floors, put on some washing, cleaned up the dog shit in the back yard and hung out the clean clothes. 

And quite frankly, that was enough. Grrr!

But quietly, behind my hand, while Santo is looking the other way, the house is quite nice when it is clean, I have to admit. Oh fuck, it is such a drain to have to get up and do it, but it is nice when it is done. No, really. The problem is that as soon as we'd finished, we cooked rice and heated up the red curry left over from last night and the sink was covered in dirty dishes, yet again.

The cycle starts all over, and I never really know if having a spotless house is really worth it. Maybe, putting all that effort into finding the cure for cancer would be more worth while.

Then we took Buddy, and ourselves, for a walk in the Fitzroy Gardens. It was a fragile sunny day, where the sun shone crisply down, but with very little heat in it. Everybody wore jackets and scarves. The colours of the day sparkled.

The Fitzroy Gardens are beautiful in Autumn, I think it is my very favourite time for them. So majestic, so gorgeous, with a delicate multi-coloured carpet covering the rich green grass. Every tree seems to have its own rug below it. Every sharp edge is softened with a small patch of loveliness, with many, many "squares" of colour, like a magical quilt.

Eating and shopping and walking and perving

We were up to the cold and the rain dribbling from the sky, like wet sprinkles, a giant shaking his wet hands over the city, as I headed out first up to get wood for the open fire this morning. The chill had to be taken out of the air, you know. Lately, I have begun to think that it is an expensive way to heat the house. Usually, I use nearly 2 tons of wood for the cold six months in the middle of the year, which costs $600. My gas - running the central heating - bill is never that much, even for the whole year. But an open fire is always nice.

I forgot to put the dishwasher on last night and there are no clean bowls, so I put the dishwasher on first thing. And I have to wait to eat cereal.

Santo’s mum called, she had a girl from a wealthy family who is in Melbourne for Santo to call.

She said she will disown Santo if he doesn’t make contact with this girl. I think she is getting a little desperate now that Santo is in his 30's.

Santo called Charlie (who comes from Santo's home town) to ask him what he does? I shrug and tell him I can't help him. 

"We had to tell our mothers when they lived down the road. You guys don't even live in the same country."

I was getting hungry by the time Santo was talking to Charlie. I say to Santo when he gets off the phone, “do you realise that we are not eating breakfast because we are waiting for a machine to finish washing the 2 bowls that we need for our cereal.” We both laugh… nervously.

I wondered what my grandmother would have said.

Not long after, Santo decided that he has to achieve something clearly. He started tiding and he started telling me to clean up too. He was ironing as he repeatedly yelled out tasks for me to do. But, you know, I was happy on my laptop and I respond by putting on Aretha Franklin and headphones.

At 11.30am, Santo announced, “See, it isn’t that hard.” I looked around the room and I had to admit that the place looked really tidy. I guess, it took less than an hour. It smelt good too, as Santo used oxygen bleach wipes - I quite like that smell. It is kind of baking powder, wholesome and organic. Even if it isn't, it smelt like it is.

We decided that it was too late for breakfast by the time the dishwasher clicked over to its drying cycle and the clock’s hands were bending towards midday.

We headed out the door for Pho in Victoria Street. Gertrude Street and Smith Street have be come foodies destinations in the last few years, sure, but who would eat around here with the prices the eateries charge when Victoria Street is within walking distance. Gertrude Street is the place to be seen eating, but sadly none of the restaurants are as amazing as the hype that surrounds them.

It rained as soon as we left the house. We headed back to the house and got umbrellas. You know that Santo has an aversion to getting his hair wet... like a curly-haired chick who has used a hair straightener. Of course, it didn’t rain again and we had to carry umbrellas around for no reason. I hate that. It proves there is no god, because if there was a good that wouldn’t happen, obviously. Well, it was either umbrellas, or drive? And I need all the exercise I can get. I need to walk everywhere I need to go for the rest of my life.

We shopped in the Asian Grocery shops after we ate. I stood on the footpath and listened to the druggies chatting to each other.

“When did you get out?” asked the Asian girl with the very shiny skin.

“I made bail on Monday,” said the toothless, olive skinned lad in the red shirt.

A second guy, a tall Aussie guy pulled something from his pocket, I think it was money. The shiny-faced Asian girl seemingly dropped something out of her mouth and handed it to the second guy.

“Are you going to be here?” asked the second guy, as he walked away.

The shiny-faced Asian girl nodded.

“Because I don’t want to look for you later.”

We bought Buddy his weekly pork bone. He loves them. I noticed the shiny-faced Asian girl had left when we head home not long after. How is that tall Aussie guy going to find you for his drugs later, I thought. Now that is just rude. It is just annoying when a drug dealer doesn’t deliver as promised.

We loaded up the fire in the lounge room when we got home and drove Buddy to the dog park.

There were some young Sudanese kids playing football. As we walked passed, at one point, one of the kids turned to me and asked, “Can he walk on a lead yet?”

Fancy him remembering that, I thought. “Yes, he can, he has got used to it.” Once when we first started going to the dog park, Buddy wouldn’t walk on a lead at all when we were trying to leave. On that occasion, a large group of black kids surrounded us and wanted to know what was up with him. This kid obviously was one of those kids that day.

I was kind of delighted that the kid remembered Buddy and I was delighted on another level that he was interested enough to ask.

I didn’t remember him, though.

It is football season, for sure. There were plenty of boys kicking the football around.

He played football with his mate all afternoon

sexy boy

Those sports pants fitted him well

Good legs

nice arse

You can see buddy in the back ground

kick it to me

kick it to me

Oops, I think he is onto me

Happy working

The people at my new job are nice, despite what I said about how sad it is to work in the suburbs. Okay, so Richmond isn't exactly the burbs, but some mornings it feels like it when I am trickling down Victoria Street behind some sodding tram... and all those useless cunts who stick to the ridiculous 40 kph speed limits like the life of their first born depends on it. 

"Move along you dopey twat," I often hear myself saying out loud as I am up their arse gunning my engine. "Get out of my way!"

However...

My colleagues in the office think I am smart and switched on and that I am helping them splendidly. It is kind of nice to be thought of in that way, I am not used to it. It has been a long time. Maybe in the first years of the black law firm, but certainly not in the final 5, or so, years was I ever thought of as anything special.

Of course, in the last two years Jack has said that all of the companies, except one - and quite possibly Stupidity & Co before the present one, with that incompetent, stupid Elaine running the show - have all give me good reviews. But, I don't know, it doesn't seem the same as a permanent role.

So why does the current role impress with it's favourable assessment? I don't know. Maybe it is for the simple fact that they said it out loud to me. We all respond to a little praise, we all perk up with some favourable light being shone upon us, hey.

Am I making any sense? I am sitting up in bed with Santo, it is midnight and he has a sore throat and despite it being a Friday night, insisted on going to bed. Of course, Nana Santo is always in bed early. If he doesn't get his 8 hours sleep, he thinks his head will explode, or his bum will drop off, or something. I don't know. The piano music is already playing, like the wind up music for acceptance speeches at an awards ceremony.

So...

I am rewriting the companies Org Chart, at the moment. There have been many changes and they haven't had the time to rewrite it. It is a multi national company, with branches all over the place. They are impressed that I could just pick up the Org Chart and rearrange the departments and job positions and management structures and do it with minimal instruction, or some such thing. I mean, it is just lines and boxes, after all. It is just essentially this one goes with this one goes with that, let's face it.

So that is me done for the week. I'm not finding full time work too taxing, in fact, it has been quite a breeze. The week has just flown by.

I think the manager was intimating that they may have a role for me when she gets back... which would be great, however... I just don't want to drive to work, even if it is only a 10 minute drive. I want to walk into the CBD at my leisure, not having to battle the peak hour traffic. 

When you walk your whole life exists at such a different pace to the pace it accelerates to when you have to get behind the wheel.  The roads and the traffic and the cars are still around you, but it is as if you exist on another plane altogether.

Am I being too fussy?

Jill thinks I am.

Santo hasn't commented, yet.

I don't know?

Santo's doodle, which, of course, I think is lovely. But, I love everything he does. He could shit on the floor and I would find it adorable. (He wouldn't, actually, feel the same way about the shit on the floor)