It was a nice day, the temperature was up, which was great, so we could open the back of the house up and the smell of tea tree oil dissipated pretty well. It floated away on the fresh spring breeze.
Yay! Thank the universe.
In fact, the house smells quite nice now, now that the toxic rush of teatree is over.
I wrote poetry all day.
It was my day off.
We are just settling in to watch TV, when Sam goes to the kitchen to put some teatree oil on a scratch, or a pimple, or a blemish and he drops the brand new bottle on the kitchen floor and it, of course, shatters.
That was a palaver in itself, his cursing dropping a full bottle and the clean up that ensued.
Once he had finished mopping up, and wiping up, and cleaning up, we try to continue watching TV.
"It's pretty minty," says Sam.
Pretty fucken minty alright!
Pretty soon I can taste it on my lips. Not long after that, if I said my eyes were burning, it would be overstating it, but not by much. And pretty soon I could feel a head ache coming on, OMG! It was overwhelming. We were driven out of the ground floor and upstairs to bed.
Even upstairs with the bed room door closed, I could still taste it on my lips and feel it in my eyes, it was that strong.
We headed up to the hills, out into the Dandenongs for the day. We did a 3 kilometre walk in nature, me, Sam and Bruno. Just a gentle Sunday walk. It was nice. It was really busy. Where it was once our quiet, tranquil place to walk in the hills, it has now become really popular and much more crowded with people. We've never had to fight for a car park before. People ruin everything, now don't they.
How's this little beauty in a clothes warehouse near home. There was a classic Camaro, a black 911 and a Ferrari, in red, of course, but this was my choice a highly modified 356.
We walked Bruno. The sun shone. We bought gelato. I asked for one scoop, I got much more, not that I am complaining. We met a friend when we were nearly home, who looked at Bruno after which she casually asked where Buddy was with a smile. She teared up when we told her. Everybody loved Bud. We had to comfort her, as she comforted us.
Sad Face. I miss him, the way he'd gently lay his head on my thigh, the way he'd crawl into my lap when I'm sitting on the floor at the coffee table, the way he'd tap me with his paw if he wanted my attention, oh, so many ways. I feel like there is a physical piece of me missing, not sure if that makes any sense?
We have a friend with a couple of French Bulldogs that have always been kind of aggressive and have bitten, or attempted to bite, Buddy and Bruno on many occasions.
I call them Jekyll & Hyde.
Buddy was the master of turning away always with the oh-for-goodness-sake look on his face. He could manage to turn his whole body away from them and just walk away. (I so miss Bud)
Bruno is pretty laid back more, or less, like Buddy.
We have met up with the French Bull dogs twice since Buddy died, and on both occasions Bruno has turned into the Tasmanian Devil, growling and trying to get to the two of them as if to say, "I hate you guys! I hate you guys!" Turning into a bundle of anger at my feet.
It is really strange and so out of character for Bruno.
Of course, for years we have all just ignored the French Bulldogs aggression. I worry that Bruno might now be thought of as the aggressive one.
It's an odd change. I don't know if Bruno feels more vulnerable now that Bud is gone? I don't know.
He only does it with the two French Bulldogs, but then, the two French Bulldogs are the only ones that have treated him with aggression.
Later in the day...
We got a good park, 4 hours whats more on Beaconsfield Parade. We walked along the foreshore, with all the other people waking along the foreshore. The sun shone, the sky was blue. It wasn't, actually, that hot, 20 degrees, but warm enough when you were in the sun, but the day sparkled none the less. Ah Spring
There was lots of people with dogs, no other English Bulldogs, however, plenty of Frenchies. (none of which Bruno had a problem with, just his normal happy disposition, it is only Jekyll & Hyde that gets him going)
Ah, the bike riders, yelling and cursing and ringing their bells at people wandering onto the bike track, next to the walking track, the only thing the bike riders never seem to think to do is slow down.
We ate dumplings in Fitzroy Street. The adjacent table had a very smiley Rottweiler. Two hot boys were his handlers for the day.
We walked back along the sand, with our shoes off and in our hands. The ball obsessed Bruno found a ball as soon as we hit the beach, so he was very happy all the way back to the car, as we continually threw the ball up ahead for him. The magic of the sea enveloped us with the blue stretching out to the horizon, the fine white sand glinted in the afternoon sun, like crystals. Oh crystals is such a tired analogy, the sun glinted under the sun's rays
We were home late afternoon.
National day of mourning, hey? Good onya, Liz, you were a good stick.
And then what? The day before the Grand Final public holiday on Friday.
Two public holidays in a row. I don't work Thursdays and Fridays anyway so it doesn't make much a of difference to my life.
But Sam has the two days off, of course.
We can't just sit here on our arses, though, time to get out and enjoy the world.
The sun is shining, the sky is blue, it is a beautiful day. We're off to St Kilda Beach to run on the sand with Bruno. Dogs are allowed off lead on all the beaches until Sept 30th, best we get going.
Must be time for a spot of lunch too, of course.
We had some last minute changes that had to be done. Unforeseen. Sure, they were big dollars. So, I got to and made the changes first thing.
I sent them off to one of the desk jockeys higher up the food chain to me with an explanatory not in email form of what I had done.
The last line I wrote was, "other than that [the qualifier in the previous sentence] everything should be good" then I just couldn't help myself and I put, "cross your fingers, smiley face emoji."
Chief Financial Accountants do not have a sense of humour, I know that, really, I do, what was I thinking? Sheesh!
Back came a questioning email, along the lines, either it was all now correct, or did I need some more time to go through it all again to double check?
No dickwad, it is called humour. I know it was early in the day, but seriously learn a joke, watch something funny, lighten up. *
* actually, that didn't happen at all, not letting the truth get in the way of a good story and all that. I imagined it to be true, and it is true of the awful black law firm for which I used to work and the she-bitch psychopath chief financial accountant who used to, and from all accounts still does, haunt that firm like a poltergeist, or some tormented demon.
Truthfully, the guys I work with now find my funny asides endearing.
They want us back in the office, Boris told me the other day.
"They want to go back to how it was before the pandemic," said Boris.
We want to go back that far, I think?
"Really?"
"Yes."
But, what about the discoveries we have made? What about the preferable way to work that we have learned? They want to wipe that away? Seriously? That was significant.
But I don't want to go back to the office, I have been given a whole new way to work and I love it. I don't want to go back. I never want to go back. It is a waste of time.
I get up at 6am, just because I do now a days, have a shower, iron a shirt (is that the most boring, fucking thing in the world, I ask you?), eat my breakfast, walk to the office, - I cannot fathom the people who live an hour, or more, commute wanting to head back to the office - and I am in the office by about 7.30am. By the time I stop crying (well, I will be if this is my future), and get coffee, it is 7.45... I can do a huge amount of work in that time at home.
I don't care you are providing breakfast and coffee, big deal. I can make my own at home at my leisure whenever I feel like it.
No. That is a firm no from me.
(Of course, I am getting an arse like the fat girl next door from the lack of exercise, but surely, I'll be able to counteract that at some point in the future with a pill, or something) *
So, I'm ignoring it, for long as I can. What can they do? I'm not a manager, I'm not in charge of anybody, what does it matter where I work? Shake of the head. No.
I wonder how long I can get away with it? (I'm planning to get away with it indefinitely)
Sam is going to visit his family for most of October, and I'm planning a boys smoking month, so I don't want to be back in the office for that.
And, apparently, I have to look after Charlie, so I can't possibly go back to the office because of that, I'll have dependants. I'll practically be a working mother. And it is so difficult, they grow up so fast. Yeah, sure he's 19 and at uni but they still need guidance at any age.
No, I am just not going back. I ask you again, what can they do? In this era of staff shortages?
I had a cooked lunch at 1pm. I had a shower at 1.30pm, just to brighten up the afternoon, I can't do any of that in the office.
* of course, young Travis lives next door now, and seriously, if I had an arse like his, I'd be a happy man.
Oh, I'd forgotten what a palaver getting a new phone, actually, is. All that stuff that needs to be installed and updated. Grrr.
How to ruin a good Sunday.
(Ha ha, I am being somewhat disingenuous, can you tell, as I have my very own resident computer programmer in Sam to take care of all the hard questions)
Still.
"Now I have to do what?"
"Didn't I just do that?"
"Don't look at me like that and just answer the question?"
"Oh, haven't I already done that?"
"Yes, yes, you were right."
"Again, I have to do that again?"
"Oh, can't you do that."
"Yes, I understand you can't do my facial recognition for me."
"Oh, come on, don't be like that."
"No, I don't think I am stupid."
"Oh, isn't it done yet?"
It's new iPhone day today. iPhone 14. Yay. Love a new iPhone day. Sam gets the new phone, because he loves technology, and I don't really give a toss, and I get Sam's old phone, iPhone 11.
He skipped 13 and 14 which is really unusual for him, and maybe my influence. Or was it because the changes were so minimal, maybe. But maybe it was me. "Seriously, you don't need to be quite such a slave to this stuff."
But, then contradictorily, I'm getting a new phone. Yay! (We are nothing is we aren't contradictory, us humans) Well, I can be excited about getting a new phone guilt free, because it is second hand it isn't, actually, using up any of the worlds resources, and it isn't, actually, contributing to the destruction of the planet, as it did all of that when Sam bought it, and I get it completely free of all of that, because it is just a transfer.
Do you like that?
Ha ha, I do.
I sit on the floor at my coffee table and eat my vegemite toast and drink my coffee (we all sit on the floor around my coffee table, it's a big coffee table) and Bruno curls up between my legs and sleeps. I'm pretty sure he does it for the warmth, bulldogs love a bit of warmth. It is something he has been doing more so since Buddy died. But, you know, Bruno weighs 27 kilos, so he's not exactly a chihuahua. It gets to feeling like, what I think it must feel like, those people who have their hips in plaster, you know, with the bar from one knee to another. He just grunts contentedly if I try to reposition him.
I don't mind the Royal Family. I'd say I quite like them, but that would make me sound something more than ambivalent. And while I wouldn't exactly say I am ambivalent, I find them quite interesting, I read about them, I take an interest in what they are doing, I wouldn't exactly call myself a fan, what is that expression everyone likes to use now a days, per se.
I found myself feeling a little sad about the Queen dying, which surprised me a little. Well, it was universally agreed that she was a good egg - is that in maintaining the elitist status quo, where nothing really changes for anyone less than blessed by birth, nyr, I'm guessing that is a conversation for another day.
I don't really think anything about the Australian system being changed, as I don't think it would, actually, change anything, well, nothing worthwhile exactly. You know, worst case scenario, we could end up with a political system like America, and, surely, nobody wants that.
Having said all of that, and, I guess, rather contradictorily, I find it hard to listen to people who mount arguments in favour of the Royal Family. I can't take people seriously who give those arguments. Their passion is misplaced, even kind of weird. They seem to be strange conservative types, and we all know conservative types are pretty much against any kind of change at all.
Really, if any argument should be given it should be for us being a republic. It is obvious that's what we should do, if we were going to do anything.
Having said that, I don't care if we ever change. I don't. I'm happy for the system to stay the same.
I guess what I am saying is that both positions can coexist.
We should be a republic, but I don't care if it never happens.
Bruno and I head out for a walk. It is a grey day, threatening to rain throughout the whole walk, although it never did.
Just me and Bruno, just the two of us.
I'm listening to Janis Joplin. I've been listening to all her albums right through the last few days, and I finish Kozmic Blues and start with Pearl.
The punters are lining up outside the cafes two and three deep and we have to push through. My friend Jill loves to send me articles on how Fitzroy is trendy, the latest how Gertrude Street has been voted the 2nd coolest street in the world, of some such shit. It is a joy to be so popular, I think, as I push through the tourists standing gormlessly about.
We head into the grey Carlton Gardens below the grey sky and Janis sings Cry Baby. It seems kind of fitting.
The park is melancholy under the heavy grey sky. I try to take some moody photos but Bruno is not cooperating and he continually pulls me away as I line up the shot.
We pass a woman walking a staffy.
We head passed the tennis courts and the pop, pop, pop of the ball being hit, and we head down to the corner to get pooh bags. Bruno, of course, wants to go over to the courts to find tennis balls, his favourite thing, but with a little persuasion he sees it my way and trots along next to me.
We head up to the Rubick’s Cube and get 10 more pooh bags from the dispenser there. We're getting low and the rolls were full.
The woman and the staffy reappear heading towards us again. She is not keen for her staffy to say hello to Bruno and she pulls him away as we meet.
We walk back through the piazza between the museum and the Exhibition Buildings.
I try to walk diagonally across the square in front of a prep school group all dressed the same who were filing in five parallel lines in single file to their buses. We were just slipping across in front of them when Bruno stops as we got to the last line instead of continuing to walk and that line of children were on us quickly. And moments later we had the handsome teacher and many small hands patting Bruno.
“What a gorgeous creature,” says the handsome young teacher. “He must be popular around these parts.”
“Yes, he is,” I say.
“I bet,” says the handsome teacher.
Bruno laps up all the attention. I wish I'd had a camera. Well, of course I do have a camera, but it is all too quick for that.
We turn for home.
Mandarins are my thing, I love them. I eat them all the time. They are the perfect thing to eat. I eat so many of them, there is a high chance I might turn into one, one day. I could think of worse things. Oh, except for the short life span, of course. There is that.
Every day, is Mandarin Day, as far as I'm concerned. I think it is my favourite flavour.
Let’s hope I don’t turn orange, as that hasn’t worked for anyone recently, now has it. Ha ha.
Sam's house has a mandarin tree in the front yard, which is prolific with mandarins. Sam rents the house out to friends. They used to offer us bags of mandarins when it was mandarin season, but then they lost their jobs and they started not to pay their rent and the relationship soured somewhat and they don't offer us mandarins any longer. 😦
I was all for kicking them out and installing mandarin friendly tenants, ha ha, which is funny, as it is usually Sam making such suggestions with me saying, "You can't do that."
You know, I don't mind crying, I am not ashamed of it. There is the logistical problem of crying and talking at the same time, of course, but other than that, I never try to stop it, and I really don't care in front of whom I cry, generally. It is good to let it out. And, I always feel better afterwards, well, generally I do.
But, probably not with your boss, it is an awkward relationship into which to introduce crying, certainly not on too many occasions, that would be sure.
A melancholy cry can almost be a pleasure.
I've cried a lot over Buddy. So much so, I have a cyst on my eye lid - corner of my eye - which I am having removed next month, which has never irritated me, but it has over the last few days.
When I was looking after my mum when she was failing, I used to cry at the traffic lights driving home. Sometimes I'd look sideways to see someone looking at me. Oh, what must they have thought.
Mark is a big crier and cries more than me. Sam cries less than me, but he has cried a lot in the last few days.
I find men crying adorable, to tell you the truth.
Bruno was really sad and really not himself until Sunday, and then today he came good, like he'd moved on, and he was back to his old self. Animals are funny.
Where today I just lost it with Boris, my boss.
I got Buddy when he was 1 year old. On Sunday night I messaged his original owner to tell him Buddy had died. Yesterday, I was just reading his lovely response when Boris called me to let me know about a continuing problem with HR, which I had fixed, which was really their problem in the first place, kind of, and I... just... let loose down the phone about what I thought about the problem. And once my profanity laden tirade "Let HR call me and I'll fucken tell them what for, I'm not putting up with any of their shit today," had dissolved into sobbing tears about Buddy - seriously, she lost it - Boris replied, quietly, "Please don't answer the phone today."
You know, I hope it doesn't ever sound like I complain about Boris, I think sometimes it might, but the bottom line is Boris is one of the good ones and I wouldn't swap her for anyone.
David laughed when I told him later. "Please don't answer the phone today, that is hysterical."
"I know."
"Well good for her," said David. "As I know what you are like, oh so even tempered until you are not, and then... well, good for her for understanding."
"Oh, I let it all out."
"I've seen it," said David. "Could you have bought uglier flowers." (I was pissed off once when David and I lived together. I came into the house furious, David was with a girlfriend, there were purple orchids on the kitchen bench. I said, "Could you have bought uglier flowers." David's friend had bought the flowers for him. She dissolved into tears and fled the house)
"I felt better... after." I laughed. "But maybe I won't choose my boss next time."
David laughed again.
In my grief I forgot to water my maiden hair ferns and two of them shrivelled up to a shadow of their former selves.
Not a sentence you’d expect to hear from a straight boy, I’m guessing.
I don't need to tell you how badly Queen Elizabeth took Buddy's death.😏
We're very sad. Grief is hard.
Bruno is very quiet. I catch him gazing into Buddy's lounge room bed several times, and from different angles. I've watched him out in the back yard as though he is looking for something. He has always had Buddy in his life from 10 weeks old. He and Buddy were mates from the moment they met. Bruno is very quiet, he is not his normal self at all.
 |
| Look at the two of them, like two peas in a pad, as they say |
Buddy’s condition deteriorated rapidly these last few days, despite our best efforts and all the modern medicine in the world. He changed from being our big snuffly wuffly guy to something that mindlessly wandered the house seemingly not being able to stop, except for moments where he just clearly exhausted himself and we got some precious moments of respite. But then he'd start again, mindlessly wandering, rapidly with less and less ability to do so, but still trying to.
So, yesterday at around 5pm Bud was put to sleep.
We’re really sad. We want more time with him, it just wasn’t long enough. I just always believed without question he would make it to his 12th birthday. We can’t quite believe he is gone. It is very quiet in the house without him.
Bruno is very quiet.
It was heart breaking all over again as Bruno went on his own to his singular food bowl and ate on his own this morning. His first morning without Buddy. I don’t know what he thinks? He has always had Buddy. They were mates from day 1.
Bruno walked on his own out to the garden after he ate. No more single file two bulldog arses waddling outside together, their morning routine every morning after eating. Just Bruno on his own.
The house is very quiet. Bruno is much quieter than Buddy. Buddy was the snuffly wuffly noisy one. It feels like life will never be the same without him, and it won’t. He was lovely, despite his grumpiness, despite his hangups. He loved people, he loved saying hello to everyone as we went for a walk. He’d wander up to people and look up at them waiting for them to pat him. And they did pat him. People were enchanted by his off-lead demeanour. People loved him because he genuinely loved people.
Buddy has had 4 seizures in the last month. Three of the seizures he recovered from completely. The last seizure did damage, permanent damage. And now my sweet Buddy boy is struggling.
In fact, he is not going to survive.
My sweet Bud, has gone from powering along in old age to a shadow of his former self, just like that. Bam! He's not going to make it much longer, it is very sad.
Sam and I have cried a lot about him.
Now, he's just got just a few days, most likely. He's not responding to any of the treatment, in fact he is steadily getting worse.
Lovely Buddy.
People are strange. I was on the right hand side of the footpath with shopping bags over each shoulder outside the house next to the house next to mine, because I was just about to go in my gate, I was looking down at my phone and when I looked up, because I sensed someone was in my proximity, a woman walking towards me on the same side of the footpath, had squashed herself up against the front wall of the house next door, with a nervous smile on her face, rather than walk around me. She looked deranged. It was all I could do to stop myself laughing at her. I didn't. I just smiled as I kept walking.
I’m standing in the queue for pork rolls. I order 4 crispy pork rolls and the nice lady behind the counter smiles with her eyes and puts an extra bag of something, which turns out to be spring rolls, into my bag. Funny, I thought, it doesn’t really make sense. It should be the person who only orders one pork roll, (not sure how you identify the person going without in this situation) not the person who orders 4 pork rolls, to whom she should have given extra food. But, I guess, that is the way of life, the people with abundance, so often, get more, and the people with less, so often don’t.
OMG! Applications that I have to continue to sign into, drive me absolutely fucking nuts. Do you know how many times a day I have to sign into all the applications I use? It is mindless repetition.
I've even asked IT about it and they have just passed the buck. I’ve asked big arsed Osmosis Smith, my IT guy – how I’d like to take handfuls of his big chunky arse and squeeze – and he has given me an obvious pass the buck answer, which was really disappointing from my own dedicated IT guy.
“It is all to do with the settings on your computer,” said Big Butt Guy Osmosis Smith.
I didn’t buy it for a minute, then I referred to my own helpdesk, Sam, and he told me Osmosis was talking bullshit, it is all to do with the applications. But as I haven’t gone back to him, I guess he pulled it off.
Oh yes, I know, privacy and safety are a major concern, but when I am working from home and I’m the only person who is in my study, it makes it particularly painful.
I’ve always had boyfriends who want to leave a restaurant as soon as the meal is finished. It is a common character trait of all my boyfriends. If you have finished eating, get up and leave, no sitting about. I don’t really know why? Mark was the first, he’d just get up and start walking to the front desk, seemingly oblivious. I found it a bit weird in the very beginning, but now, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Its good, it gets the night over and done. No messing about.
Of course, none of them were great coffee drinkers when they first met me, but it was quite different at the end, of course. My coffee habit infected them all. Although, having said that, we still left the restaurant, as soon as the meal was done.
I’m amazed at all these lawyers going off on Parental Leave, at the moment. These are educated women who, I can only assume, clearly don’t care about subjecting their children to an awful life, from all accounts, certainly in the second half of their lives when our inaction on climate really comes back to bite us all on the arse.
I’m not sure I’d be having children, if I were them, knowing what we know. (and I don’t think we are going to change it in time)
Really, the basic problem with the world is, you can call it climate change, you can call it what you like, but basically, there are just too many of us. And what are rich Western countries doing, paying women to have children. It really makes no sense.
Do these woman (and their partners, of course) just not care? Do they not believe climate change is real? They are university educated women, presumably couples? So, I guess the need for a kid is greater than the kid’s ultimate happiness, really survival.
What else can you think, I ask you?
It was a Thursday. I got to the cafe just before 10am for a late breakfast and a coffee and to do some writing on my laptop.
It was a quiet morning, genteel, still, not many people around, the kind of Fitzroy morning before the tourists turned up and spoiled it.
10am. A clearly hassled woman with a large pram and a kid came clanking through the cafe door. She sat at a table away from me.
No sooner had she sat down that her kid started to cry. And cry. And cry. And cry.
Half an hour later, I considered leaving myself, but I was enjoying the coffee and really wondered why I had to?
I kept expecting her to take the child away, but she didn’t.
Not long after 10.30am. It was clear she wasn’t going to do the decent thing and I decided all bets were off, as they say. And now it was me, or her.
As luck would have it, not long after I caught her eye. And it was time for words rather than action. “Do you think you could take that home?” Smile, be it nervous.
Her eyes 👀 grew abnormally large and her face flushed red. “Well!” (I could hear the winds of Kilimanjaro rush on the w) She got to her feet.
Oh, here we go!
“Thank you so much for being SO supportive!”
I wasn’t sure why I had to be supportive.
“That! You just don’t understand!” She started throwing things in the pram.
I understand your sprog is splitting my ear drums, relentlessly.
“You just don’t understand how hard it is!”
No, I don’t have children. I chose not to have children. Even if I weren’t, I still wouldn’t.
“It’s people like you who make life difficult.” She pointed the pram at the counter.
I think you have that the wrong way around.
“I really… I just can’t understand.” She handed cash to the person behind the counter. “It is so hard being… and then people like you…” she struggled with the door. “Thank you so so much.” She shoved the pram through the door. “For ruining what time I…” the door closed and there was silence. Lovely, silent silence.
Well, that went well.
I said nothing through the whole exit.
I looked around the café after she had gone. The only other person had headphones on and was staring at his laptop.
I ordered another coffee.
I sipped my hot coffee and thought maybe I would leave if that ever happened again.
I sometimes think about that woman and wonder how she is going? I wonder how that kid turned out with such a strung out mother?
Funny the things you think of sometimes.
