Lots Of Rain

I was up early, Milo and I sitting on the couch. It was really pouring with rain. I had to dry Milo with a twoel as he jumped up on the couch next to me all wet.

The house is still heated up from those hot days we had. Crazy weather. Who'd know why we are having crazy weather.

Collectively, we all seem to be still in denial about it.

It seems like we are going to sleep walk our way into environmental chaos. You can't help but think.

I hear them talking about the calamitous fire season we are possibly going to have this summer. There is a lot of talk about greater funding needed for fire fighting, how we must be prepared with greater and greater resources. 

But there never seems to be any talk about the reasons why we might be having a potentially catastrophic fire season. That talk always seems to be missing.

I sit here and wonder what it is going to talk to shake us from our blinkers, as I listen to the rain fall.

Still, the rain sounds nice falling on the roof.

Rainy Saturday And Some Squealing Little Bitches

It rained, of course it did. It wouldn't be Melbourne if it didn't rain the day after we had our first 30 degree day since winter, now would it.

It was still warm. We still went out in shorts, of course we did. It was muggy warm. Everyone was out in the 30 degree day clothes, still, pretty much.

We ate lunch in Smith Street, in between rain showers, where the rain still fell in very fine sprinkles which felt nice falling on me, mostly under cover, if it felt anything at all, sort of relief from the muggy day.

There was a clutch of queens, with an ugly little dog, sitting behind us who were determined to be fabulous and loud. Oh! So! Loud! Er! go and be loud somewhere else, I thought. They were sitting in one of those stupid covid-era parkletts so, of course, I was hoping for a car loosing control and driving into them. Oh, not so bad that any of them would be injured, but just enough for them to collective shit the Gucci pants, so I could see it running down the backs of their legs and pooling in the leather loafers, requiring them to depart for parts some where other than there. But, you know, proving once again there is no god, that didn't happen.

Sam calls me Oscar the Grouch. Chuckle. That makes me laugh.

Afterwards, Sam shopped at the supermarket and I chatted to a friend about bulldogs. I told her how we'd applied to adopt an adult bulldog, which we didn't get by the way, apparently she had already found her 'forever home'.

Then we walked home in the finely spitting rain which was really quite nice.

Sunny Friday

Today it is too hot to do anything. Do you like that? First 30 degree day since winter. Er? Any excuse. Ha ha.

Nah, it takes a little acclimatising, it does. The sun is hot.

I take Otto for a walk early when it is still 24 degrees.

We walk through the dog park. A dog park buddy is sitting on the far side of the reserve in the shade of the trees, out of the sun, with his two dogs. We wave. He's a nice bloke. He is sitting there with a woman who has a curly haired dog.

There is a group of people standing in the middle of the park, I don’t know why? They look like a delegation, of some kind. Weird for the dog park. I hope they aren't property developers being surrounded by public housing.

The adolescent German Shepherd I've seen there before comes running over from the shade trees and sniffs Otto’s arse, which he doesn’t see for a minute. When he realises, it scares Mr Otto scardy pants and he races away from the big dog straight into my legs. The group of people see and laugh. The big puppy of a fully grown German Shepherd wants to play with Otto, but Otto wants none of the play with him.

The sun is getting hot.

Then it is the couch for the rest of the day. That is all I was going to accomplish.

That is all I did. 

I reacquaint myself with music in my headphones while watering my plants, late in the afternoon. It's therapeutic. I forget in between how therapeutic it is. A bit of The Rolling Stones while watching the droplets of water glisten in the bright sun light sprinkling down into my plants in their pots.

Adopting a Rescue

We applied to adopt an adult, female English Bulldog.

Wish us luck.

End of the Working Week

End of the week, my week, and the sun shines. The weather has been glorious. Otto and I went for a walk mid afternoon. Sam wanted to go too, but he had a half hour meeting starting fifteen minutes after I wanted to go for a walk, which meant he wouldn't be ready for an hour, potentially, and we'd be back by then, so Otto and I went without him. And, you know, there is something really nice about it just being you and your dog on a gorgeous afternoon.

I've got a sore back, can it really be from sawing up the garden cuttings? I don't know, but it really is sore.

I've been pruning the large tree in my front yard. I haven't pruned it for some time, so its getting a heavy prune, 50% of it is being removed. It's, apparently, good for it, it does it good. It is a flowering tree and a heavy prune will result in a lot more flowers. They say.

So, as you can understand, there are now some large limbs that have to be chopped off, which involves a lot of sawing up of cut sections. I have cut up all of the sections I have cut down by hand. It didn't hurt to do it, but a day, or so, later, I have an incredibly painful mid point, slightly to the right of my spine, like the area I would image the muscles are in my back for my sawing arm. 

Fuck! What a pussy, is all I could think.

It hurts a lot.

So, that's annoying.

I put up with it all day. Oh, the pain.

It wasn't until dinner time that I thought of taking some Ibuprofen. The drugs took the pain right away. Yay for drugs!

The thing is that I am only half way through the tree pruning. Grrr! I'm getting back to it tomorrow, I'm hoping that isn't going to make my sore back worse. I want to finish the job tomorrow, on my day off. Wish me luck. I'm guessing, I'll have to break out the Ibuprofen again tomorrow.

I went to Bunnings and bought a new pruning saw before I started. So far, I have managed to put all the cuttings in our bins to be taken away by the council. (fuck the council and our ever spiralling rates) The neighbours unfathomably putting out two empty bins for rubbish collection helped. I filled them with my cuttings too. Good for them!

Tuesday At Home With Otto

My day at home on my own with Otto. Sam went into his office. Charlie left early for whatever Charlie does. He says so little, it is hard to know.

I was up early. I made coffee and signed into work at 5.30am. That is not deliberate, well, the waking up, the signing into work is deliberate though, so I can sign out again early.

I bought Nip/Tuck series 2 from the charity shop on Saturday for $2. More DVDs I will probably never watch, but what can you do? The two main actors, Julian McMahon and the other guy, are so pretty, why not. (my addiction only costs me $2 @ a time, so I don't think I need a program anytime soon, even if Sam may disagree with that) When I looked at it more closely the 5th DVD disk was from series 3. Grrr!

I noticed, when I bought it that they had a second series 2 on the shelf, so I planned to go back and ask them if I could change the last disk for the correct one. (Sam rolled his eyes and said something about the waste of time Olympics)

So, I went down there this morning, at 9.30am. I decided when I got there not to ask the person behind the counter if I could swap the disk. They are all volunteers and there is often a wide variation in what they think is procedure. It would probably be okay, but maybe not.

So, I just went in, went to the DVD shelf and swapped the disk from mine with the one on the shelf, and left without saying anything to any one.

Easy.

It was a glorious day. I took Otto for a walk early in the after noon. It was a lovely walk. I've created a new playlist of Rolling Stones B sides and bonus tracks so I listened to that.

I signed out of work at 3pm when I got back from the walk. Nobody wanted me while I was gone. Is that cheating on my work hours, nyr, maybe? I just call it multi tasking.

I love working from home. I started at 5.30am, so, by 9.30am, I'd done 4 hours work, so after that, I figure I can do what I fucken like.

After I'd signed out of work, Otto and I lay on the couch and caught up with car restorer YouTubers. 

I may have fallen asleep. How's that? While my colleagues were seeing out the afternoon, I was taking a nap on the couch.

Monday in the Office

Monday, my day in the office, and you know how much I hate that. I have run out of excuses, no more injuries, no more electricians, and I just hate that too. Gotta go, and in the words of one of my all time favourite movies, it is beyond my control.

6am. I leave Home. It is still dark.

6:04am. a tram comes up Brunswick Street, lights on out of the dark.

The sky is turning the most glorious shade of silvery pale blue.

6:06am. St Vincent’s Plaza.

6:09am. Spring Street.

A cute guy with sandy brown wavy hair, a beard and glasses, square jaw, wearing a blue jacket in chinos with a significant bulge gets off. I’d like to see him get off. As Kick Gurry once said, you wanna see me masturbating like a monkey on the carpet. You got the idea, Kick.

6:13am. Swanston Street 

This should be where the tradies in hiviz get on, and they do. All the blokes. Lots of blokes. Young tradies, it is like the beginning of a porn movie.

6:16am. William Street.

I try to take some photos of the sunrise in the office buildings windows, when I notice the morning light reflecting in a most pleasing way.

I walk down Collins Street. I love the early morning light. And the deserted streets. You feel like you own the place, or, at least, it is all yours, just yours, to explore if you like, no one to disturb you.

6:20am. I see people smiling getting into a black Mercedes van as they are chauffeur driven away from the Intercontinental Hotel. Remember how exciting that is when travelling, getting up early in the morning and moving onto your next destination.

6:21am. I’m in the lift

I sign in.

I make coffee

6:35am. There is the most glorious sunrise out beyond my office windows in the canyon of high rise office towers.

I put my new B sides and Bonus Tracks Rolling Stones play list on.

I open my emails. How many annoying people do you think?

7.30am. I have everything finished.

My day is done. Can I go home now? Oh really, can't I go home?

I’m still the only one in the office so far.

Keith Richards’ sings, Losing My Touch. 

And slowly everyone else arrives and the morning gets going, and the solitude I was enjoying disappears. And that’s just how it goes.