I made coffee and cleaned the kitchen. It is my job, if you remember, and remiss of me not to have done it last night. Dish washer, Sam is the cook.
Sam was up not long after. It is this irrational want of his to always go to bed early.
“I’m tired.”
“It must be 10pm.”
I made him coffee, also my job. Barista and dish pig.
I toasted ciabatta bread and then I smothered it with butter and then topped it with just a scrape of Vegemite. Sam wanted olive oil and balsamic, but soon took mine and gave me his. Yum, yum! It has that crunchy, savoury taste. Ciabatta is just made for butter and vegemite, crusty, crisp and crunchy. And strong coffee… naturally.
Then I settled with my laptop. I wanted to catch up on my blog, get it up to date, which I never seem to do just lately.
Sam wanted to wash the woollen blanket from the couch, not long after breakfast. He is back on his fabric softener kick. I was happy to sit back on my arse and write on my laptop at the lounge room coffee table as I always am on the weekend. But there is a part, be it a small part, that cringes when the lazy arse that I am is pointed out to me. Sam wanted to wash everything, go, go, go, once he got started with the couch blanket and he did, blankets, jumpers, everything. He was like a whirlwind.
He told me that he thinks that the tiled kitchen floor has got damp from all the rain and he decides it must be mopped.
Really?
11am, I spoke to Jill. She says she feels awful. She says she is annoyed with Lachlan, that she is annoyed with his controlling characteristics.
Jill said that Lachlan’s sister asked him to go and live with her in Deniliquin, but he doesn’t want to live in the country. Wouldn’t it be nice to live out your final years with one of your sisters, in close proximity to your other sister? I would have thought?
I asked Jill what she thought the plan was for Bear to get to know Lachlan and to spend some time with her.
“Oh, I don’t think I’ll be able to bring her back here until… um… er… Lachlan is dead.”
Oh, I see, is what I think. I write the following message to Sam who is sitting on the couch behind me.
It looks like we have the corgi for good…
Sam doesn’t care, he is pleased, if anything.
I meant it as a temporary idea us looking after Bear, still, you know, there is a part of me – which I may end up regretting, for sure – who thinks it is kind of nice idea. So, I don’t say anything to Jill, I just let it play out. I mean, isn’t that what friends do for each other?
I kind of like the idea of us having two dogs to walk, one each, me and Sam. I have to pick up the dog shit anyway. Jill will pay the expenses relating to Bear, she wont cost me anything but time. What the hell.
We walked down to Sunny Bakery and got pork rolls for lunch. My hypoglycaemia was playing up big time by then. I was beginning to shake uncomfortably. I practically had to scoff it down right there at the counter to stop that awful feeling of losing it.
Roz arrived at 1pm to go and visit mum. Lottie wasn’t bad, quite alert. It was hot in the home and I suggested to take her outside. The nurses all looked kind of alarmed, but they get her a cardigan and we go outside.
Fuck it! Roz and I don’t care.
She talked about wanting to go home, for the first time in ages. My sister and I were a little perplexed. Later, when we took her back inside, she pointed at the new woman and said something about her taking her chair. Clearly, it is this new woman who has upset her.
Other than that, she seemed fine.
I got back home at 15.30.
Sam has been hinting at naughtiness for the June long weekend, if you know what I mean. He has been suggesting it subtly over the last few days, despite the two of us agreeing the last time that we wouldn’t be doing “it” again. A remark here, a comment there, a hint, a suggestion. So, then I got interested and I called Crystal South Yarra. It will be all go next week.
Sam started to rearrange the pictures on the walls. I find him up on the top staircase, heading up to the second floor. He got me interested in it too because the pictures needed to be moved around, it had been far too long. And then there was no stopping us.
We managed to change all of them around, just as well. I was rapidly falling into that category of someone who has the same pictures on the walls in the same places for years and years, how did that happen? I mean, I have changed a few, tweaked at the edges, moved a couple, but I haven’t had a big shuffle around for longer than I care to remember.
Sam had wanted to get rid of grand pa and grand ma from the second floor landing for the longest time… but I managed to talk him around. It is an oval Victoria portrait of two old people. Sam has never liked it, but I love them, they are like my great great grand parents. I have had them forever. Sam hates portraiture though.
I have hated my entrance hallway pictures for a long time, they are drab and uninteresting. I have wanted to add colour for quite a few years. I’ve had it in my mind that I wanted to buy some original art works, say two or three local painters. I wanted some oils, thick layers of colourful paint, maybe done with knives or spatulas. I don’t know, maybe modernist streetscapes or portraits. Maybe just two big pieces. Something new and interesting.
I didn’t realise how many, drawing, screen prints, paintings I had that essentially have white back grounds, as they were dotted around the house. Once I had moved them all into my bedroom and replaced the paintings I had on my bedroom walls, that left quite a few oil painting type paintings that needed new walls. And, I found some pictures that I have had stashed away for years that could be framed, but had never been framed.
Once those paintings are grouped together, they are perfect to replace half of the drab paintings in my front hallway. Lovely! My hallway is rejuvenated, essentially, with paintings I already had. If I frame up a couple of new ones, I’m sure it will all feel new again, refreshed.
It is lovely, really, being greeted by a gallery of paintings that are to my liking as I enter my house. Very nice.
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