Tick, Tick, Tick

39 degrees today. We get up early and toke the dogs for a walk, you know, before the world cooks.

I water the garden early before the day gets hot.

I spend most of the day listening to Roberta Flack and eating cashews. It is too hot to do much else. Even fast music seems a struggle.

I have a whole bunch of Joe Cocker Greatest Hits CDs, four to be exact. I upload them into iTunes combining them making, I guess you might call them, mixed tapes with tracks ordered by date.

Sam spends the day receiving parcels, whatever he'd bought online I don't know, and sitting in our bedroom with the aircon on with the bulldogs who are definitely not made for this heat.

We have no plans for New Year. We're just going to hang out at home.

Another year down. Tick.

Happy New Year

- I've been trying to write stuff all week, but none of it has been all that interesting, so, I haven't posted any of it. We've not been doing much, we've just been at home.

I'm now lying on the bed with Sam in the aircon. Maybe I'll trying and make the stuff I have written interesting, I've got a few hours before the end of time the year. (Oh, I wrote this a few hours ago)

Sam

I like it when I make Sam laugh. He laughs so freely. We laugh about the same things. When he really laughs, he falls about. It is adorable. We laugh all morning.

Lemongrass is Sublime

The sun shines. Sam and I clean the house. He cleans the windows. I clean the stove. The sun shone. I play my favourite Nancy Wilson album, Naturally. Sam is never happier than when he is cleaning, actually, he is never happier than when he has me cleaning too. (It’s a character flaw) The stove shines after I am done. I am surprised by how good it looks.

We eat Thai food in Smith Street with the bulldogs. I have Lemongrass Beef. Lemongrass is sublime.

Sam has Rad Na.

The sky is a perfect sky blue tile overhead. 

The sun is bright. The light is crisp.

Lunch & Shoes

Midday, we went looking for shoes and lunch. Sam wanted new runners.

There were more people around, despite it also being a public holiday and all. It was a shorts and t-shirt kind of day by this stage.

We head down Smith Street heading to the New Balance shoe shop which is just near to the pork roll shop. Well, just past.

We meet Goose the Bedlington outside New Balance, the dogs I grew up with, which you hardly ever see. Sam heads in to look at shoes, I cross the road to the Salvos, which was closed.

I head back and find Sam surrounded by shoe boxes upstairs at New Balance. I am standing watching him try on multiple pairs.

A girl walks towards me adjusting herself, which I think is very unusual, until I realise it is a boy with a very girlie haircut and a girl’s arse.

Then there is a chick in large ultra pointy red sling back shoes, which she wears without the back straps across her ankle. She has feet like a bloke. I have to look twice to see if she was, you know, born a bloke. Not that I care either way, just saying.

I don’t know why people feel as though they need to have an opinion about transsexuals? I mean, I don’t have opinions about bigots and idiots, well, I guess I do have opinions about bigots and idiots, but not opinions with which I want to use to change their lives. It is perfectly acceptable to not have opinions about things you know nothing about.

A couple of mates come in looking for shoes together. I guess mates got shopping together now a days. Maybe, they always have, it just doesn’t seem like something straight boys would do? They are cute together. 

I think what I’d like my super power to be? Make them fall for each other. Then, of course, I’d have to turn myself into a fly, or invisible would be better, which, I suppose, is two super powers. But, I wouldn’t be doing this for them, I’d be doing this for me, and I’d want to watch it unfold, you know, see what happens.

There is some old guy with bleach blond hair, shorty shorts and a rainbow wife beater who seems to have underwear in his hand. I try not to visualise him in the undies doing, oh, you know what he’d be doing? What would it involve, a bottle of amyl and a middle aged chick in crotchless panties? Love handles and back boobs. 

I think they are probably shorts in his hand, as the shoe shop doesn’t sell undies. 

I sit on the bench.

There is a gay guy in small black shorts with pale muscular legs and a red and black cap, who tries on really awful pastel coloured runners. I give him the bench to sit on since he is trying on shoes.

“I’m just taking up space,” I say.

He doesn’t thank me. He doesn’t have to.

Everyone is wearing a mask, which is good.

Sam buys a new grey pair of runners. He stops at the bin on the first corner and puts the new pair on, throwing his old pair and the box the new pair came in in the bin.

We get four pork rolls on the way home. I watch pigeons walk in the door and head under the counter to eat the crumbs, I presume, and then they just waddle out again. There isn’t a queue like there normally is, but there is a queue as we leave the shop. Not sure what happened there? Was that good timing? Or did our four Banh Mi’s take that much time?

We pig out and then lie on the couches and watch out screens. 

I finish watching the doco I had started on YouTube this morning about Chuck Holmes the creator of Falcon Studios. I watched [name of car show] on YouTube. Then my headphones run out of power. Grrr!

We ate noodles for dinner.

We watch Adoration with Naomi Watts, Robin Wright, Xavier Samuel and James Frencheville. The two boys are adorable.

Day 1 – I Did Nothing

What can you do Boxing Day public holiday? The streets are surprisingly quiet. The shops all seem closed, or am I just out early?

We don’t have quite enough milk so I walk to Coles, first thing. It is overcast and raining ever so slightly, like a hairnet of rain. I’m listening to Dear April by Frank Ocean.

It is a melancholy morning, walking in the rain.

I lay on the couch and watch YouTube all day. I watch Jordan Petersen who is really interesting talking about his book 12 Rules For Life. What is all the controversy about him, I think? He introduces me to Serial killer Carl Panzram. I love a good serial killer.

I watch Harry’s Garage. The green XJC is back from the restorer. 67K later.

I watch FriendlyJordies, everyone should give Friendly Jordies a watch. He’s great. I watch Trevor Noah, Kathy Griffin, Friends Bloopers, and some straight German boy named Mario Adrian who, from what I can make out, makes gay content.

I’m on holidays, fuck it, I don’t have to do anything. I did fuck all. Nothing. But, there is something really relaxing lying back on the couch.

This is where you think… I think, first day, two whole weeks to go. And I just know, my next thought will be, work tomorrow. Blink.

Xmas Lunch

5.30am. I get up and take Bruno out for a wee. He jumps up on the side of the bed and rubs his fuzzy face against mine when he wants to go outside. Yeah, I know, about the time?

7.30am. I get up and have a shower. It still feels strange to get up and shower straight away. We're heading to my niece, Kellie's place just over the NSW border for Xmas lunch. She said there was plenty of room for us to stay, if we didn't feel like driving home. We said we would.

Sam gets up.

7.45am. I make porridge and coffee, of course. We have to get going, no time to waste, but I still make breakfast, of course, I’m a breakfast kind of boy.

Buddy gets up too.

Bruno is last out of bed.

9.15am. I’m at ChemistWarehouse in Collingwood getting my scripts filled. Cute [name of pharmacist] is on shift. What a cutie pie.

We head up the Hume. It is raining when we leave Melbourne. We’re aiming for an ETA of 12.30pm. 3 hours.

We stop at two road stops to give the bulldogs a wee stop, and a wee stop for us. The sun comes out after we leave Melbourne.

We turn off to Shepparton. As we were approaching Shepparton Sam exclaims, “Oh shit!”

“What?” Had I nearly run something over? What?

“I forgot my laptop,” he said. 

He is on call all over the holidays, if something goes wrong at work. “But you packed my laptop in the backpack.”

“I know.”

“Well, didn’t that trigger anything?”

“Obviously not.”

We had a few kilometres of panic, until Sam worked out what he could do. He could use my laptop and probably use the forgot password function. “That should work,” he said. “Or I call my colleague who isn’t on call and ask him for a favour.”

“Crisis solved,” I said.

“He won’t be happy.”

We turn off to Tatura/Murchison. There seem to be an awful lot of turn offs.

“Isn’t there a more direct way?” I ask. Sam has gone by Apple Maps.

We get to [just over the NSW border] just before 1pm. In time for lunch. It was hot over the border.

 

There were 9 dogs at the family gathering. The bulldogs just barrelled outside to greet the dog pack of 5 face on, as bulldogs do. Kammo was kept separate as he doesn’t get on with others. Benny arrive a bit later.

Buddy, 11 years old.

Bruno, 2 years and 11 months. 

Billie (niece Lucy’s dog) 1 ½.

3 legged Kally (niece Kellie and her boyfriend Tuppin’s) She had cancer in her leg a few years ago. She keeps up with all the other dogs just fine. I’m not sure I’d want a 3 legged dog, stupid, I know.

Mack (Kellie and Tuppin’s) Black and tan kelpie/Aussie cattle dog x, looks like a Kelpie and is the matching pair to Mog

Mog (My sister, Roz & her husband Grant) Black and tan kelpie, matching pair to Mack except a little smaller. She is like Mack’s shadow when they are together, moving in perfect sync. They are really cute to watch.

Pumpkin (Roz & Grant) 11 year old brown kelpie. She's very quiet, really in her twilight years.

Benny, I think 2 years old, black and white (Tuppin’s sister’s dog) gorgeous dog, the other dogs wouldn’t let him play. It was like he wasn’t picked for the team 

Kammo (Tuppin’s dad’s dog) Kind of a brown Border Collie x. Tuppin’s dad kept him under control when he was out with the others. He is older, I think 8, or 9 years old.

The dogs had their moments, a few of them didn’t get along initially, Mack and Billie were against Benny, but they all seemed to get along in the end. Roz was a gun with the hose when the dogs played up.

Kellie threw the ball for the dog pack, then Roz threw the ball for the dog pack. We sat outside, it was dry and dusty. It was nice sitting outside, don’t get me wrong, a nice afternoon was had by all, especially the dogs, but the wind did blow up the dirt occasionally in gusts. Their lawn was dead, pretty much. It looked as though it had been really dry up there.

 

We ate prawns first up, cooked. I’m used to fresh, or is that cold, with sauce, not hot.

Then it was Xmas lunch, of course. All the normal stuff. Chicken, turkey, ham. Roast veggies. Roast carrots with honey. Mango salad. Fresh bread that didn’t travel well, too hot and dry.

There was cheese cake and pav, and plum pudding with brandy butter for desert. 

There was lots of alcohol, of course. 

We decided not to stay. Oh, just because it is nice to sleep in your own bed. And Sam had forgotten his computer, and all. And Buddy had started to limp. And the drive up had been easy, so it didn’t seem like a chore to drive home.

 

We leave [just over the NSW border] maybe at 6.15pm. I asked them what way they would go as we were pulling out. Turn left at Elmore – have you ever heard of Elmore? – and head to Heathcote. 

I drank two glasses of champagne and two glasses of red wine, in 6 hours. I said to Sam, “I’m sure that doesn’t put me over the limit.”

He shrugged.

What is it, 2 drinks in the first hour then one drink per hour after that. I was counting on my fingers as we drove away.

We drove down the Northern Highway B75. It was nice, green and leafy. Dare I say picturesque. The towns were pretty, with nice architecture.

We drove through Rochester. I thought of Father Bill, from my old youth group days. He left Balwyn for Rochester all those years ago.

7.45pm. Heathcote. We got to the IGA, which looked closed from the outside so much so I almost didn’t bother checking to see if it was open, but it was. It was big and happening inside with plenty of shoppers. Funny how it looked shut down from the outside. I guess the locals know.

I bought a Mother Energy drink (my go to drink for a long drive, in fact the only time I drink them) and a packet of white chocolate and macadamia biscuits. Sam looked disparagingly at my purchases and he went over after me and came back with two packets karaage chicken and two packets of octopus balls. He fed them to me in the car as we drove along.

The Northern Highway is a nice drive back from NSW, it’s not divided, but it was fairly quiet traffic wise anyway.

We got home at 9.30pm.

We both had showers to wash the sweat and the dust off.

11.11pm. We go to bed.

Lights out 11.40pm.

So, that was Xmas. Not really the same as when mum and dad were alive, but that is what it is now, I thought, as I drifted off to sleep. Mum's been dead for 6 years, dad has been dead for 20 years. Weird to think that is where I am at, as my life flashes before my eyes lying there in the dark? 

Isn't that what happens when you die? Your life flashes before your eyes? I chuckle to myself, it would want to be more dramatic than the flash before my eyes I just had. You'd want it to be surely, if it was the end.

I think I'd feel gypped if it was that pedestrian. You'd want it to be a fanfare. This Is Your Life'esque.

But I must have fallen asleep pretty soon after that... and I didn't die, obviously.

Happy Xmas

Xmas kind of sneaks up on you, doesn't it? Well, I think it does. It is the beginning of December, then in no time we are halfway into December, and suddenly Xmas is a few days away.

And, then, there you are, it is Xmas Day and I am watching my favourite YouTube car channel’s Xmas Special and Sam is cleaning out the pond.

I haven't bought any Xmas presents for years. Sam and I don't buy each other Xmas presents and my family has everything it needs, there is no landfill I could get them (that they don’t already have). I don't know if that makes me really smart, or one sad bastard? I'm still not sure.

We’ll get together tomorrow for Xmas lunch.

Happy Xmas everyone.

I Worked All Week

I worked non stop all week to get everything done by today. It is kind of crazy.

We were going to log in the first few days of January to do some stuff we needed to do, but Boris decided at the last minute that we should have an unbroken break over the holidays, suggesting to me she wanted to go away somewhere over the break, or her plans had changed in some way, she sold it as something that would be good for us, which didn't bother me one way or the other. So, I worked today and yesterday, where I normally wouldn't.

We had an almighty fuck up at the beginning of the week, which was beyond our control. But, I had to fix it along with everything else. Boris gave it to me, here you fix it, but, I guess, that is one of the advantages of being the manager, and as I have said on numerous occasions, I don’t want to be that answerable to so many people. All care, and no responsibility, or something like that. But, it works the other way too, I deflect things back to her that should be dealt with by a manager. Nyr, you do it.

Anyway, my head spun with the increased workload and the decreased time frame, but I got it all done. I always get it done. I seem to have an infinite ability to kick it up a notch to get done what I have to get done.

Yay, us!

Triple Dosed

I went to my doctor [because my thumb had turned purple, but that is a story for another day] and while I was there I asked him if I could get a Covid vaccine booster, and he said he'd just had a cancellation and I got the vaccine 10 minutes later. No questions asked. Stuff you government vaccine hubs.

The Infection Spreads.

The infection in my thumb is spreading, despite having taken antibiotics for two days. I'm watching the red spread up to my first joint. I'm am concerned about it, especially after the infection in my elbow a number of years ago landed me in hospital.

Time to head back to see my doctor. I've really lucked in with my medical appointments in the last week, getting two appointments on both days a few hours after I called the clinic. And I got to see my own doc, too, where usually they'd say I could see him in 1, or 2, weeks' time. (so often thinking, I'll be dead by then)

The secret is to call right on opening time to get those cancelled appointments.

How Many Years Bad Luck?

Taking the dogs for a walk, this was on the side of our street. Yeah, that's what you do when you smash a mirror, you toss it into the street. Have you people never heard of rubbish bins? Not that I really care, as this way I get to photograph it and get to think about what happened to it? I reckon it was a dusting disaster, which is why people you never dust. 

And bad luck until the end of 2028. It is going to be a dud decade for someone.

Getting A Booster

I went to get a booster shot today, but they wouldn't give me one. They were only giving boosters to people who'd had vaccines up to 10 days before I had my last vaccine. 

"For people who had their second shot up to the 20th," she said. "When did you have yours?"

"I had mine on the 30th."

"No, I'm sorry."

"I'm here and willing to have one," I said. 

"No, sorry."

"10 days?" I said.

"I'm sorry," she said.

So, if I get covid and die (chuckle. What of it? The world would still turn) You can blame the govt fair and square.

Sore Thumb

I have had a sore thumb for the past week. You know when somewhere in the back of your mind it registers something is wrong when you go to do just normal things but you don’t really fully think about it until sometime later. That’s what my thumb has been like.

“Ouch. Oh?”

My thumb has been getting sorer and sorer and sorer and now I can’t even push the buttons on my mobile phone with it, or turn a door handle, or turn a tap off tight, pull on my socks, or do up the fly in your pants, or open a fucken zip lock bag. It is not until you can’t, of course, that you realise all the things you do with your thumb. Its mind blowing, such an ordinary appendage. Well, I guess it’s not mind blowing, as such, but try living without it?

I’m nervous about an infection, as years ago I ended up in St Vincent’s hospital for a week on intravenous antibiotics when a skin tear on my elbow that I didn’t take much notice of ended up infecting my whole arm. My elbow was reminiscent of a baboon’s arse which stretched nearly to my shoulder and nearly to my wrist quickly after only about three days. And the last place I want to end up is in emergency at Xmas when the Omicron variant is swirling in the community. Emergency looks something like Night of The Living Dead when there is no pandemic.

So, I call up The Clinic at 9am and I get an appointment at 11.30am with my own doctor, which is unheard of now a days. I reckon I must have just lucked in calling up at opening time when cancelled appointments are available.

It is hot and sunny already this morning. I am contemplating taking my bike to the doctor, because I am trying to ride my bike everywhere I can, (for health reasons and for environmental reasons) but I don’t know, it is quite a hot morning, but I think once I get going in my t-shirt and shorts I think the air will probably cooling, lovely even. That is the idea, any way.

11.11am. I leave for the doctor. I ride my bike. The air is not cool, in fact, it is hot and quite unpleasant when huge gusts of filthy wind blow through the Edinburgh Gardens and straight into my eyes.

It is always nice to see [name of doctor]. We discuss my recent blood test (which I had forgotten about) and my elevated cholesterol and sugar levels and decide that I should go on cholesterol tablets, Lipitor, (Yay) which he says they should just put in the water.

“Could you imagine the protests,” he says.

“The conspiracy theories would be rife,” I say.

I get a couple of scripts.

He signs both so I can get the whole lot dispensed at once. (I’m lazy and forgetful and the less trips to the chemist the better, I say) He says that pharmacists are one of the most protected professions and the reason they don’t want to dispense the entire script is because if they do it over 6 months they can charge 6 dispensing fees. 

So, it is just money. Fuckers, I think.

Apparently, I have an infected quick on the thumb on my left hand. Apparently, what I have to do is soak it in salt water at night when I am, say, watching the cricket. (I remember my doc is straight with these kinds of comments.) It should form a puss head in the corner of my nail and burst. He gives me a script for antibiotics just in case if it flares up during Xmas, after I tell him my fears of mixing with the living dead.

“Only use it if you have to,” he says. “The salt water should do the trick.”

So, I have been soaking my thumb in salt water, I think, it is supposed to draw the infection out, which I’ll be able to squeeze. It is drawing something out, I can feel it. It’s hard work, though. And slow. I’ve tried to squeeze it a little and it really fucken hurts. Brings tears to my eyes.

 

PS. You can't peel a mandarin with a sore thumb, (even if they are starting to get a bit iffy this time of year) and I am a mandarin fiend.

How Do You Stop A Giant Black Rabbit?

 

David sends me this with the caption, "Todays pain management."

Of course, he is Heath Ledger when it comes to pharmaceuticals, so that isn't the full story.

Got The Covid?

David calls. “I have the covid,” he says.

“What?” I say.

“Possibly,” he says. “I have been exposed.”

“Didn’t we used to do that in our 20s?”

“Ha ha,” he says.

He went to a party on Saturday night and now five people from that party have tested positive with it.

He had a party at his place Sunday night and four people from Saturday night attended and a girl has since tested positive to covid from his party.

His piano teacher called to tell him she has come down with it too. And David saw her on Monday.

“So, if I get through this it will be a fucking miracle,” he says.

“What the hell is going on in country NSW?” I ask.

“I was going to Sydney today,” he says. “I had tickets to two shows, Hamilton and Jagged Little Pill and I’ve had to cancel it all.”

“I always thought Alanis Morissette was a bit of a screamer,” I say.

$700 down the drain,” he says.

“Have you had a test?”

“I did one at the pharmacy and it came back negative,” he says. “And I have had my PCR test and I have to wait for that to come back.”

“Is that the up the nose test?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, tell me it is as uncomfortable as it looks?”

“No,” he says. (He didn’t get my humour) “I’ve had it before.”

“Well, you have to stay home until you get that back?”

“Do I?” (She’s such a space cadet sometimes)

“Yes,” I say. “You have to isolate.”

“Do I?” (Takes no notice of world events unless it is, actually, about him)

“Have you painted a red cross on your door?” I ask.

“I’m wearing a red triangle, does that count?” he replies drolly.

“You have to ring a bell wherever you go calling out unclean, unclean?”

“Didn’t we have to do that in our 30s?”

“And we lived through that one.”

We both laugh.

“Hey, if you test positive,” I say. “I’ll finally be able to tell people I know someone who has had it.”

“I’m thrilled for you,” he says.

Some time later...

David calls me to say another person from his party tested positive

What We Do?

Have I ever been successful? Well, let me rephrase that. Have I ever felt successful? I guess I have had a successful career, less than stellar, but I’ve always been employed, so that must count as some sort of success. I have never much liked it, so the success is arguable. Most of my jobs have ended less than well. That’s not completely true, but, you know, true enough. I’m a little too outspoken. I’ve learnt to censor myself as I have got older, but if that is success, or growth, it’s kind of sad really. Learn to say less.

I studied the wrong thing at uni. I went to Swinburne and to think around the same time I was there their creative writing course was in its infancy.

My tier one private school advised me wrongly on what to do with my life. "Business student, business student." Even when I expressed an interest in architecture in year 12 when choosing courses, the careers woman laughed at me and said, “You don’t have maths, or physics, you can’t do architecture.”

I wish mum had insisted I went to Preshill School and not my normal private school to which my dad insisted I follow my brother. “Oh, you are Will Fletcher’s little brother?”

“Yes.”

Incredulous look. “You are nothing like him, now are you?” (not meant as a compliment)

“No.”

I wish I hadn’t been sent to my mother’s sisters farm with my sister in the school holidays in my early teenage years, where my poisonous aunt repeatedly told me I’d never amount to anything. Actually, it was way worse than even that. She was a horror. (was it poetic justice that she died at 99 3/4 and didn't make it to 100? Yeah, sure it was. Her family can never claim that for her)

I wish that piano teacher hadn’t said I was too old at 6 to start leaning the piano. I think my life may have been quite if I’d know how to play the piano from a young age.

Have I ever felt successful? I don’t know. No. What does that even mean? What does success mean?

Doing what you are good at? Maybe. And enjoying it, of course. Doing what you love?

What am I good at? Well? Er? Um? I can write. Okay, I know that much, without trying to sound immodest.

I’m good at growing plants in pots, my house is full of indoor plants. 

I can bake a cake.

I love architecture.

I’m really knowledgeable about cars. 

Truthfully, I should have left school and got a mechanic apprenticeship. I could have had a little workshop somewhere now and have been happily restoring VW Beetles. (Have you seen the price of vintage VW Beetles now a days?) Reciting poetry. With a nursery attached. And perhaps some baked goods.

You know writing that, it really suggests to me I should move to the country. I just pictured trees and rolling hills and open spaces. An old red brick barn just out of town somewhere on a back road. Up early and cook some apricot pastries, or lemon muffins. An espresso machine. Play some arias, ha ha, some, Aretha Franklin. 

I could bake bread. I have never cooked bread, I don’t know why I have never baked bread? But it sounds like a lovely thing to do. Bread in a basket on a gingham table cloth on a wrought iron table under a tree next to the workshop, with a country road winding its way through the valley off into the distance.

 

Awful People

We go for an early morning walk, me and Bud. He’s in rehab for his leg, which is going well, all better really. And I’ve been feeling really stressed lately, not really sure why, oh you know, life isn’t getting any longer, so a morning stroll in the sunshine seemed like a good thing.

We’re on our way back. And we’re walking down Smith Street crossing over Condell Street with Buddy in front, when a woman in a black BMW 4WD drives up as if she is going to turn into Condell Street. She immediately has a go at me for walking Buddy in front of her car, waving her hands about and pointing from Buddy to me, her mouth yapping, which fortunately I couldn’t hear, quite irrespective of the fact that we were crossing Condell Street before she got there, or that, actually, the road laws are that cars give way to pedestrians.

But really, the main point here is that Condell Street is no entry and one way going the wrong way for what she wanted to do.

Oh, er, I think.

She turns up Condell Street and accelerates up to the car park just up Condell Street a bit and all I can think is, oh bring on climate change. Euw!

Seriously, some people are just too awful.

Then I wonder if it is me, am I the negative one? Do I somehow attract these fuckwits? I seem to be the common denominator in all of my own negative stories, after all. 😬

Buddy trots on oblivious. Oh, to have his simple life.

Still, the sun is shining. 

I must learn to laugh at these people. 

“Ha ha!”

 

Oh, I should write about nice things, I know. You’ve got to find the drama in it though, I guess, all my writing tutors told me so.

La vie en rose? We're all in the gutter, but some of us are looking to the stars.

Look, half a police car

Don't They Say The Police Have The best Drugs?

Seriously, what would be the reason for a police car to be left like this?

Perfect blue Sky. I was trying to get the palm trees with that shot... it didn't quite work out how I thought it would, still, it is a lovely shot of the blue sky.

Sunday

5:40am. Mr fuzzy face wakes me up from a deep sleep. I could slap him, seriously. I tried to ignore him, but he gets up on the side of the bed again and whacks me with his paw. Grrrr! I get up. I’d hate for this to be the morning that he really does need to go out for a piss. This morning he did need to go out for a piss, he dashed out the back door and up the back of the yard. I want him to wake me if he really needs to go, of course. But so often he gets down stairs and just sits and looks at me as if to say, it’s nice down here, hey?

We both have a piss and then lie on the couch together. He takes up far more of the couch than I would have given him.

The birds are singing outside, a cacophony of bird sound. 

I watched Turned Out: Sexual Assault Behind Bars on YouTube, as [favourite car YouTuber] hadn’t posted as yet. The boys were very open about their prison sex. I mean, very open. Lock them away with no women and suddenly they fancy each other something chronic.

7.30am. Sam was up.

I start watching [favourite car YouTuber] when Sam reminds me that we have to walk the dogs to Aldi and then get into the city early to get our hair cut hopefully beating the hairdresser queue. (Remembering yesterday)

8.40am. We walk the dogs to Aldi.

The sun is shining down and it is quite hot, bright and summery. The footpath stretches out in front of us, kind of shimmery in the bright morning sun. Morning shadows contrasting sharply with the silvery concrete.

It was Buddy's first walk since his recovery from a sore leg. The vet did say rest Buddy for a week, on Thursday, but it’s a short walk to the supermarket. And he did the injury last Saturday. And he's been wanting to go out the front door for a walk, which is kind of unusual for him to want to do.

Of course, that didn’t stop the two of us suddenly regretting our decision halfway down Smith Street to the shops. We both kind of decided at the same time that perhaps we'd done the wrong thing, and we halved the distance we were gonna walk.

The sun shone brightly it was really warm for 8.30am in the morning, really nice though, actually, summery, blue sky not a cloud in the sky, everybody is out about in shorts and t-shirts.

People are out getting coffee, waiting in groups outside the coffee houses, houses? Cafes. Buddy, of course, wants to say hello to all of them, and generally they’re quite captivated by Buddy being off his lead and all. He just loves people, he loves to say hello and, he just stands next to them and looks up as if to say pat me, I’m cute.

8.58am. We’re at Woolies. The shorter walk. Buddy, Bruno and I wait while Sam shops. I watch the world go by from my vantage point.

It never ceases to amaze me how pedestrians won’t claim their right of way to cars when they’re crossing at a side street intersection. I guess it’s all part of the “isn’t life scary” phenomena. Make cars give way to you people, then you’re making it safer for everybody else, in the long run.

9:20 am. We are walking home.

A boy on a scooter with tiny shorts and great legs with the tiny shorts seemingly ridden all the way up his patootie zips out of the side street with what looks like a food delivery. Do people have breakfast delivered, I think? Of course, it is Sunday.

We drop off the food and the dogs and head back out the door.

9.45am. We walk into the city for haircuts. We are leaving early so there is less of a queue to wait in. Or no queue at all.

The sun is hot, it’s hot walking in it. The sky is a flawless blue.

The jacarandas are out, beautiful blue.

Sam walks 20 metres in front of me like he is ashamed to be seen with me as we walk down a deserted little Burke Street. I shouldn’t feel hurt by it, I know, often he was just walks ahead always somewhere in the distance. He says it’s because I am always typing shit into notes on my phone.

There is a guy nearly on the corner of Russell Street and Little Bourke, who has the reddest face of anyone I’ve ever seen, he is staggering, he can barely stand up, he looks at me and he says, “Keep it moving.”

“You should go home mate,” I say. I don’t stop and wait for his reaction. The state he was in, he really needed a friend to put him in a taxi.

Sam & I catch up at the hairdresser, there is a sign on the door that says, “We are closed Sunday.” Dam it! We both just look at each other, big eyes. We try not to... er... smile. This was the whole point of...

We walk up Bourke Street to JB HiFi. There is nothing I want, (I just want a haircut) and we leave fairly soon.

Sam is hungry wanting breakfast, so we go to Bread Top. “Nothing for you,” says Sam. (I've already had breakfast, of course) I get a pineapple bun, he gets two savoury buns.

10.27am. We sitting at McDonalds cnr Burke Street and Russell Street eating Bread Top at McDonald’s outside tables. Oh, I know, bad us. Oh, who cares it is McDonalds and other than us the tables are empty.

After we have eaten, we head up Bourke Street.

(I was dictating my journal as I followed Sam up Bourke Street, and my dictation picked this up) “Oh that’s nothing but trouble.” A bunch of boys all dressed alike, in white t-shirts and black shorts, on the tram stop in the centre of Bourke Street. They are yahooing and messing about with each other. (At least two of them would be blind drunk by the end of the night and jerking each other off, in my mind. Neh? What can I say?)

 

At the top of Bourke Street there are a handful of protesters staking out parliament house. Apparently, there is another protest today.

Oh wow! The stupid people are gathering together again for another protest, the reason for which nobody really seems to know. (We just don’t lyk it! Somfink? Ah, Freedom! Er! You can’t tell me anyfing!) It is a procession of look-at-us, look-at-us, look how dumb we all really fucken are. 

If you head into the city it is like going for a look at the zoo, although more reminiscent of Mad Bruno than Toronga Park. 

They head down Bourke Street a veritable Dumb As A Box Of Rocks bus and truck tour of the CBD, chanting their nonsensical mantras, holding up their meaningless messages, inexplicably holding up political signs relevant to presidents of other countries. (I’m not sure if a lot of them even know who is in power in this country) 

Still, if you have nothing else on today, like you’ve already washed your hair, and made out your Xmas list for 2024, it’s good for a point and a giggle, just to see what the dumbest section of society gets up to on a Sunday.

“We’re sayin’ no!”

“To what?”

“No! We’re sayin’ NO!” AHHH!”

 

We’re home again at 10.55, to two very excited bulldogs.

We’re back on our screens.

It is shocking that we have all sat back and watched Julian Assange get torture by multiple governments for telling the truth about corruption, and now he has had a stroke.

So, what has our bag of wind Prime Minister been doing instead of helping Assange?

 

Morrison’s conduct has been disgraceful. It’s also been insidious. Insidious is a powerful word that should only ever be invoked proportionately, but the charge is warranted on this occasion. Morrison went to war with an institution important to safeguarding trust in democracies in order to serve his immediate political interests. This behaviour can’t be shrugged off. It needs to be called out, and forcefully.

It is insidious.

Gladys for Warringah isn’t just a mildly amusing example of Morrison hatching a cunning plan that ultimately goes to custard. Australia’s prime minister has, for the past few weeks, been publicly at war with a state anti-corruption commission, while at the same time trying to inoculate himself against entirely justifiable criticism that he’s failed to produce a credible body to watch politicians at the federal level despite promising one for three years.

Just let those basic facts settle on you for a few minutes, really think about what’s just happened. Process this case study, in all its dimensions.

You’ll get to insidious pretty quickly.

 - Katherine Murphy

 

I watch the rest of [favourite car YouTuber] on YouTube.

Midday the bulldogs get a wash. It is a lovely sunny day. They are good with a wash, no freaking out. They just get into the shower themselves. Bruno first, as he is the more excitable of the two, then Buddy who is very relaxed about the whole thing. They look adorable wrapped up in towels afterwards.

We ate hamburgers for lunch.

We’re on the couches on our screens with the fan blowing for the rest of the afternoon.

I read about Instagramer cakeontherun and look at her fabulous recipes.

Late afternoon, I water all my plants.

The sun still shines.

Anne Rice has died, she was a bloody good writer.