Bruno and the Doberman and Lunch

It was a gorgeous Sunday morning, the sun was shining, the sky was blue. So, we took Bruno for a run along the Yarra River, as you do. It was a lovely morning.

Off-lead, green grass to run on. There were lots of people down there with dogs, it being a lovely day. Oh, when I say lots of people, you know four, or five, dogs and their owners.

The first thing Bruno does, is he runs over and takes a tennis ball from a Doberman. 

Jesus, I think, as I run over.

Remember, Bruno is obsessed with tennis balls.

Luckily, the Doberman turned out to be a really lovely Doberman. I mean, you have to admire Bruno's pluck and courage, but that could have gone seriously wrong. 

You don't have to worry too much in an off-lead area, of course, generally aggressive dogs aren't let off their lead, that doesn't guarantee idiot dog owners and their dogs.

"Oh, sorry about that," I say. "I'll get the ball back for you."

"Don't worry, she just found it down here," says the Doberman's owner.

"Oh, I'm sorry, he is obsessed with tennis balls," I say.

"So, is she," she says deadpan, so much so that I couldn't, actually, read if she was okay with it, or not?

"I'll get it back..."

"It's, okay, don't worry." Again, not sure if she meant that, or the opposite, so Bruno and I skipped off undeterred. What can you do?

After that we headed to a Vietnamese restaurant we like sitting outside in the sun with Bruno laying at our feet exhausted from running around.

People came and people went, lots of people were walking past. It was lovely sitting there. Sparkly sun. Blue sky.

Then two girls came and sat at the table next to us, one of them had a really annoying laugh. She continually laughed loudly and uproariously, a laugh that had a kind of yodel to it. It was really detestable, such a 'look at me, look at me' kind of laugh.

I'd be putting in a call to my hit squad. Oh yes, The Christians, do you like how I use that ironically? Well, not so ironically, if you think about evangelical x'tians. If I was a billionaire, or a evil mastermind (actually, I want to give myself a title that isn’t evil, but can't think of one presently? An anti hero type like Tom Ripley), I’d have a hit squad, tall dark-haired boys dressed in black who'd be summoned at the first sign of my displeasure. 

“Yes, hello, I have two to dispatch. Richmond, come quickly.”

But then, as I chuckled to myself about the girl's imminent demise, at the hands of Hugo and Felix and Leo and Max, an old couple came along. He was very dotted i's and crossed t's type of guy. You know, collar button buttoned up and all. She was an old show girl, by the look of her, her now grey hair still trying to give that 'just-fucked' vibe, all swishy and lose.

"Do you mind if we sit here?" he said more as a command than a request. And they sat on the table with them, and the laughing stopped.

Poetic justice can be as cruel as it is beautiful.

Saturday Night

We walked into the city for haircuts in the morning. The sun shone in the cool autumn morning. The sky was blue even if the air was crisp. It was nice in the sun, the rays like warm honey.

Afterwards, we took Bruno to Melbourne Central for lunch. Lately, I have discovered I can take Bruno to all sorts of shops that I never thought I'd be allowed. I've even seen two different people take their dogs into Aldi and Coles in shopping trolleys. And Melbourne Central has alleyways, after all, and we only just went inside a little way up the alley way, and the restaurant didn't object. He just lay out on the floor quietly after all the walking he'd done.

Saturday afternoons are kind of melancholic, just by their very being. I think it is kind of like the middle child of days, not really the earlier day, nor the later day, of the weekend.

After I had got bored with myself as much as I had with YouTube and my headphones, I put on Vanishing Point first, and I followed this by Bullitt, two of the greatest car chase movies ever filmed, as they say. A 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T and a 1968 Mustang GT 390 respectively. Both cars were modified for the films. I'd have either one of them, but if I had to choose, I'd probably choose the Mustang. Maybe?

They are not really Sam's thing, those two films, but he didn't mind me putting them on, as he half watched and half played one of his games. He's a gamer, so he can always entertain himself.

And other than Vanishing Point's stupid ending, which I always forget and which always annoys me, it was a lovely way to spend an afternoon.

We ate corn soup and thick crusty bread for dinner.

Then we put on Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Sam's pick, for the evening.

I lie on the couch, and Bruno climbs onto the couch behind me and lies like a little papoose and he keeps me warm like a hot water bottle. It takes me all my time not to fall asleep from his warmth, but luckily, he gets too hot too and he goes and lies on the floor for a time, before he climbs back on the couch behind me all papooselike. Or he goes and lies like a papoose behind Sam, it just depends who is lying on the bigger couch, on Saturday night I was lying on the bigger couch.

Jill's Cardigan

Jill arrived with sausage rolls for lunch.

She had been to her dermatologist who has stopped her hair falling out and, in fact, had got it to grow back. So, yay to him. I can't remember why her hair was falling out in the first place. Diabetes 2? Maybe?

She had on really big outsized clothes. Now, Jill is a big girl, but I wouldn't have thought wearing huge clothes would disguise that fact. She had on a cardigan in her favourite blue, which is that dirty aqua blue colour, which I thought looked absolutely awful on her, huge with no shape at all, it was doing her no favours, at all. She had on pants, I wondered if they were work pants, which also looked like she was a kid dressing up in her dad’s cloths. Yeah, sure, perhaps she’d put on more weight, but surely, really huge, stupid clothes isn’t the answer.

She took 3 sausage rolls out of a carry bag and then put the fourth sausage roll on the floor next to the couch where she’d put her bag and the awful cardigan, to take home for her dinner. I'm pretty sure, Bruno was still in excited someone-has-come-to-visit-mode and he was straight into the place where Jill put the sausage roll, with her cardigan and bag next to the couch on the floor. We wrestled him away from the area. We commented on it being unusual for him to act that way.

I was getting the sausage rolls ready to go in the oven, when I could see out of the corner of my eye that Bruno was chewing something that was of a blue colour that wasn’t anything of his and I said, 

“What is Bruno doing? What is Bruno chewing?”

Yes, of course, it was the terrible cardigan he was chewing it and he'd already ripped holes in it. Damn!

Now, don't get me wrong, it was terrible at the time. I offered to pay for her to buy a new one, but apparently it was some name brand which she'd just happened across in a discount shop, which, of course, there had only been one. 

We settled on her getting it invisibly mended, as she left a few hours later, for which, of course, I would pay.

I'm making breakfast this morning thinking about it. I chuckled to myself, "Jill, you have to remember he is a gay house's dog, he has certain style standards he is used to, it was really just a matter of taste. Seriously, like Oscar Wilde's alleged last words, either that wallpaper goes, or I do, I'm sure was what Bruno was thinking when he picked up the cardigan."

Is it terrible that I chuckled to myself, as I poured my coffee? Crimes against fashion and all that.

Seriously, she shouldn't even garden in that cardigan. (and I didn't have to guess why the cardigan was found in a discount shop, name brand, or not)

 

Street Art

A monster spitting out the earth on a sun's ray watched on by his monster mates.

A monster swallowing the earth and the sun in a big inhale. Gulp!

A monster licking the universe with his five pronged tongue.

It's an allegory to climate change and what is going to happen to the world. Let's face it, lets all be realistic, the human race is not going to make it.

A Plague of Scooters

Like urban rabbits, or cane toads, my street today... at least they aren't in front of my gate, which is usually the case.

Barry Humphries

I was walking up Bourke Street a few years ago, I can't remember how many, and I was nearly at Spring Street when Barry Humphries came walking down Bourke Street towards me.

I wanted to say hello. But, I thought that he was in his private time and that he probably didn't want people disturbing him, and I said nothing.

I wanted to say, "Hi Barry. And thanks. Thanks for everything." But, I didn't. I wish I had now.

The Kitchen Tap Explodes

We're heading out to lunch with Bruno to have ramen in Lygon Street. I headed into the kitchen at the last minute to rinse something, my hands, I can't remember what, and the kitchen tap exploded off the sink like a fucken rocket hitting the ceiling. "BANG!" Like Space X, oh, except it didn't blow up like Space X in mid air, it hit its mark. Water gushed every where, like a burst water main, like the United Nations Fountain. It took me seconds to realise what had, actually, happened, before I turned off it off.

"Jesus fuck," I said. The bang still sounding in my head.

Drips hung from the ceiling in multiple circles, like a shower rose having not been turned off completely.

"Fuck me dead," said Sam, standing at the kitchen door.

Water dripped from the kitchen bench onto the floor, drip, drip, drip.

"Oh seriously, talk about bad timing." Midday, Saturday. What a stupid time to have a semi emergency, I thought.

Pools of water formed on the kitchen floor.

The tap wasn't even 12 months old. We got it when we replaced the hot water service last May, getting those plumbers who installed the hot water service to install it, as no matter what I did with the original tap, replace washers, replace O rings, I couldn't get it to stop dripping. Drip, drip, dripping.

We bought a cheap tap as the hot water service plumber thought the cheap taps were just about as good as any other tap you might buy. I would never have bought a cheap tap, if it wasn't for him. (You can spend thousands of dollars on taps, it is mind boggling.) And maybe I was right, standing there midday Saturday with a fountain of water where I once had a tap.

"What are we going to do now?" I said. That was more of a thought process than a question. What the fuck to we do to fix this?

"Go out to lunch," said Sam. "We still have to eat."

"But we need to get this fixed," I said. "The whole house is practically unusable if the kitchen tap doesn't work."

"We've got all day," said Sam.

So, we ate ramen and gyoza for lunch sitting in the warm autumn sun on Lygon Street, with Bruno eating leaves, as he is want to do, with one of us trying to pull the leaves from his mouth between the gyoza and the ramen.

We pulled the old tap out, which wasn't as easy as you'd think, lots of square shapes going through round holes that never quite seemed big enough. Jiggling, jiggling, jiggling, jiggling, jiggling, jiggling and finally it was out.

We headed to Bunnings. Sam took the tap back, I'd never have thought to do it. They refunded the money, no questions asked. To be fair, I think taps come with a 5 year warranty as standard. Sam had kept an electronic copy of the receipt, as he does with all receipts.

Bunnings tap selection is crap, so we went to Ikea, pretty much the only other tap place open on a Saturday afternoon. All the plumbing supply places seem to close at 1pm, old school.

We got a new tap, easy as, and Sam had the new one installed by 3.30pm. He insisted on doing it. All he needed was overalls as his legs stuck out from the sink cupboard.

It's a shit colour, kind of burnished silver, not what I really wanted, I wanted a gold one, but gold only came in a taller tap, which is what the 8 month old tap was, but because it was so tall, an elegant golden swan neck to be sure, it used to splash water all over the bench, and we forever had pools of water on the granite, this one, despite its inferior looks, won't do that.

Yay! Done. The day was saved. Time for coffee.

Josh Is Back

Josh arrived early to go over the issues I had with his previous work. He arrived all wrapped up in his hi-viz gear and beanie, looking his adorable self.

"G'day."

"Josh."

So, he is here, ready to go, so I don't get to slap his arse like I did in previous posts. Pity. He's got a very slappable arse.

He was still in his shorts, still with a big, beefy butt to gaze at and nice hairy legs as, I followed him to the front door. The hair on the backs of his thighs would go all the way up to his... I thought.

Josh asked me what I do for a living and I told him. Jesus fuck, I never tell people that. I usually say I am a deep sea diver, or a train driver, or an astronaut, and people laugh at that and they don't usually follow it up with any more questions. I had just been editing my previous post, where I talk about this stuff. Funny how the mind works, hey. 

Am I ashamed of what I do? Absolutely. Ashamed that I didn't have any more imagination when I was eighteen to do something more exciting. I'd been a business student all through school and I just went with that, without too much thought. I knew nothing back then, really I didn't. I don't know how teenagers do it now. You know, 15 year olds on The Voice...

I knew I liked to write, but it never occurred to me that it could be anything but a hobby. I guess I still labour under that idea, really. Oh, stupid me.

Beau turned up eventually. The big, tall, string of...  that he is. And some how, the two of them coming to fix up work they had previously done morphed into me paying them more money to do extra work. Oh, I don't know. The flu pipe thing, that they previously coated with water proof paint, was still leaking in my toilet ceiling in the most recent heavy rain, so the entire boot thing had to be replaced, altogether. That made sense. Sure, I'd already paid him to fix it, but what can you do?

And the dripping guttering, morphed into more repairs to my roof, which I kind of knew had to be done - as my junkie mate Kim Wild used to get out there and piss around removing bolts, drilling holes, adding screens, hanging plants, adding blinds, removing blinds, when he was supposed to be detoxing from his IV drug habit. Yeah, sure, he took advantage like drug tend to addicts do - but did they have to be done now? Shrug? I don't know.

What can you do but say yes, if you are not a roof expert yourself. If you are not a tradie.

Was I ripped off? I don't know.

Gorgeous warehouse conversion with creeper growing across the facade

Summer fades. Autumn glows with colour. Winter is coming

It is lighter in the mornings, now that Day Light Savings has finished, but that will soon fade.

And then we will be into the dark of winter, the late mornings and the early afternoons, until we reach the solstice.

After which light will slowly leach back into our days, and the sun will come out again and day light will stretch late into the evening, once more.

Oh, You Are Welcome

I was tasked with transferring the company super from one fund to another, no big deal really, but a big deal at the same time. Yesterday was D Day, and I'd pulled it off without a problem. At the last minute there was a minor hiccup and I put through a payment to clear up the problem. Our Management Accountant, told me off for using the Director of Finance and herself to authorise the payment, because the transactions I usually do are for large sums, but this was a relatively minor amount and the rules say... I usually use the accounts girls, for such payment, but this time I just did it myself. I just didn’t think as I finished off my project.

After all that work, pulling all of that together, the only thing I got was to be reminded about the rules for payments and that I shouldn't use the Director of Finance for such trivial matters. Seriously?

Not that one is really related to the other, but in reality that was what I got.

Still, as the old adage goes, if you never expect praise, you will never be disappointed.

I now call her the Angry Midget, due to her 140 cm height and the fact she has been kind of pissy ever since she came back from having her first child

I know this sounds like a whinge, but after all that work, that is the only response I get. “Nyr nyr nyr nyr nyr nyr.” Oh, I so hate accountants – pernickety rule keepers. How the hell did I end up being one? 

Shhhh, don't tell anyone.

I never tell people I am an accountant, I usually say something really vague like I work in finance.

Or, I respond with, "So, what do you do?" People never really notice that trick, they just simply answer the question that was used to combat the question they asked. And let’s face it, most people are more interested in talking about themselves than listening to you. Well, true of extroverts, maybe not so true of introverts.

Dogs

I was taking Bruno on his afternoon walk. I was listening to Janis Joplin on my headphones. The sun was shining. We were having a lovely, meditative walk, the two of us. Gentle was the day, gazing at gardens and houses and the people going about their day.

A Malamute came the other way, the one on the ridiculously long lead. When the owner of the Malamute saw us coming towards him, he walked the Malamute onto the road to pass us on the other side of the parked cars, but when we came next to each other it was at a gap in the parked cars.

Bruno growled at the Malamute, which I have seen around before. It growled at Bruno.

That is really unusual for Bruno, as he gets on well with everybody – the only exception is a friend’s French bulldog, but that is because the French bulldog has attacked Bruno from when Bruno was a puppy, and after Buddy died, Bruno, maybe in his grief, just wasn't going to take it any longer.

I reckon Bruno sensed the aggression in the Malamute and was just standing up for himself. The size difference is significant, Bruno wasn't afraid. David and Goliath.

The owner of the Malamute said something about Bruno shouldn't make eye contact with the Malamute, which gave me a shiver, to tell you the truth.

I've never really like Malamutes that much, after two of them attacked Buddy on separate occasions.

We kept walking, of course, and the gorgeous day soon wiped any memory of the meeting away.

Sunday

2.28.am. I got up and had a wee.

I dreamed that I was giving someone some discounts on goods I was selling so I took them into Sam to check the price and he was in bed with the coffee machine all in pieces all over his chest and stomach.

I went back to bed.

I dreamed about smoking joints. I was somewhere where everyone had to leave, or clear out in a great hurry. I managed to take the big bag of pot and the joint rolling stuff. Our departure was so chaotic that I realised that no one would have known who took the huge bag of pot and the joint rolling stuff. Then I was home in my bedroom in my family home. I was having great trouble rolling a joint, they all kept failing. Someone came into my room, I’m not exactly sure who this was? Was it dad? Was it my brother Will? Was it some male figure. I finally got the joint rolled, after many attempts. I was very pleased with myself for grabbing all the pot and I had it safely put away in a cupboard. Then I headed outside to smoke the joint. The male figure came with me, followed me, questioned me. I had trouble getting outside, but eventually I made it, after several walls dematerialised and then rematerialised again. 

I was about to smoke the joint when there was someone in the lane (my family home’s garages came in off a laneway next to the house) at the gate. The male figure said, “It’s your mum.” The gates opened in a concertina fashion. She was in her brown Subaru Forrester (my mum never had a Subaru) and Tobias Beecher, actor, real name Lee Tergesen, with a full beard was driving.

11.35am. We drive to The Hive with Bruno. It would be too wet for a walk along the Yarra after 24 hours of rain.

11.40am. We’re parked in Nicholson Street.

It is post rain, water puddles everywhere all over the footpath.

Sam heads in to do the shopping. Bruno and I walk up Victoria Street. We follow a black and white Pomerthingie dog, not a Pomeranian but a Papillon... further up Victoria Street than we intended. Oh, you know, when you follow an ugly dog you kind of get mesmerised by its ugliness and lost in your thoughts wondering how anyone could own such an ugly dog. (It's a grand thing that we all like different things, hey?)

We walk all the way to Ferguson Street in which Jinda is, one of our favourite Thai restaurants, to explore any laneways that are there, we have time to kill, but there aren’t any laneways to explore, so we cut through the yoga studio’s car park like we have many times before but alas the gate is locked on Hoddle Street so we have to retrace our steps back down Ferguson Street cutting through the laneway almost at the end of that street to through Hoddle Street. 

We walk along Hoddle Street to Langridge Street where we meet up with a couple walking a Golden Retriever that seems to be scared of Bruno, initially. after which Bruno gives it his best whatever attitude and we walk to Nicholson Street and then to Minh Phat, after Sam messages asking where we are.

12.14pm. Bruno and I are back at Minh Phat watching the groceries, while Sam shops some more.

12.30pm. I take the groceries to the car. Sam takes Bruno to the pork roll shop to get pork rolls for lunch. There is always a queue at the pork roll shop, and I should be there to take Bruno before Sam progresses in the queue into the shop itself.

12.37pm. I’m at the pork roll shop. I just get there in time to take Bruno’s lead out of Sam’s hand, who was at the head of the queue, as he stepped inside the shop.

There’s a cute young barefoot blond guy drinking straight from a goon bag waiting in the queue. He bends down immediately and says hello to Bruno.

Bruno is so funny. Next in line were a couple, the girl from which knelt down to say hello to Bruno and while he says hello for a minute, as is so often the case, he just turns away like he has little interest.

The cute young barefoot blond ended up chatting to, and humouring, everyone in the line, you know, as drunks do.

12.57pm. We’re back at the car.

1.05pm. We’re home to a torrential downpour.

What is with all this rain? It has rained for two days straight. Enough already.

Still, it gave me a chance to take a blanket to the couch and watch a movie. What else do you do on a rainy Sunday, I ask you?

I watched Tigerland, about recruits in training for the Vietnam war in 1971. 

1971. A nation stands divided over the escalating war in Vietnam. Thousands of young Americans lie dead on foreign soil. And at Fort Polk, Louisiana, thousands more prepare to join them. The spectre of combat hangs over the men of A-Company, Second Platoon, as they enter the final stage of infantry training. They will be sent to the war. But each man deals with this prospect in his own way. One man's defiance, however, galvanises every member of the platoon.

It had a handsome cast. Collin Farrell. Mathew Davis. (who I couldn't help but imagine as boyfriends, but that's just me) It was good, in fact, it made me tear up at one stage. So, it was more than buff young men hanging out in their white undies, as the homoerotic review said.

And the weekend drifted away.

What Do You Mean We Have To Leave Home?

We were supposed to be going to Fonda tonight with David, in Swan Street though, as Smith Street is booked out. 

Sam and I are such homebodies. And Sam isn't all that keen on Fonda. (More so because that is where David always insists on going)  Its funny, Sam has often said, "There are better places to eat, why does David always want to go to Fonda?"

“Margaritas,” I say.

So, this time I said to Sam, "Fonda is all booked out in Smith Street for dinner tonight..."

"Yay," said Sam, "So where are we going?"

"Fonda in Swan Street."

"You are kidding?"

"I shit you not."

Groan.

So, when it started to get close to going, you know, a few hours away, I said I couldn't be fagged getting to Swan Street. And Sam agreed. 

So, I called David and told him I had a migraine and we weren't going. David didn't answer, so I left a voice message, not ideal, but that's what I did. David called back pretending he hadn't heard the message, but I knew he had. I don’t think he was very happy about it, "You know some times you actually have to leave home," he said, but what could he do.

And we have a friend staying, so David couldn’t stay with us.

He's going overseas for 3 months, in a few days, but he does that every year to escape the cold, even now when he lives in Northern Rivers.

It would just be David holding court talking about himself with the converted… er… his friends, so as long as he has that, which he did, he’d be fine.

"What are we like?" I said to Sam.

"Fuck it," he replied.

Not long after it poured with rain, and continued to rain for the rest of the night.

Thursday

4.45am. I wake from a dream and go and have a piss. 

I dreamed, we’re on a laptop and we are recoding peoples moves, or turns, or movements, and it is being recorded on the edge of the case of the laptop in lines like spider’s webs, with squares, or crosses intertwined, recording the actual moves, or turns, or movements, the population is making, which is taking up every centimetre of the case of my laptop as there is so much to record.

Afterwards, I lie in bed, my mind starts to write the masculinity poem that I wrote and which was crap.

The cheek’s begun, love your mum

Hero or teacher, love your dad

Rip into life, get into strife

Grow your hair, what will I wear

Devil may care, have an affair

Children every week, that’s what you seek

They grow so fast, when did you see them last

I’m trying to keep it all in my head, but I know that doesn’t work. Not a chance, once I stop thinking about it, it will be gone.

So, I’m awake, anyway, so I get up and start to get dressed, when I hear Bruno’s paws on the floorboards in the dark next to me.

5.05am. So, Bruno and I head downstairs. Bruno goes straight outside for a wee. So do I, well, not outside, you understand.

It is dark and cold.

I write my masculinity poem. It’s crap, but it is kind of fleshed out. I wish I was a better poet, but what money is in poetry, I have to ask? So, why bother?

I guess I just wish I was better.

6.05am. I head over to the bakery to get bread. As I glance across to the shop from the end of [my street], I see that it is still closed. I wait in the dark on the street, which is extra dark because that street light is still out. A sexy boy walks passed in shorts with great legs. After he has passed, I see the bakery door open. Another sexy boy in shorts with great legs come walking up the Street as I walk down. What is it with sexy young men in shorts, I think, at 6am. 

I say too much to the baker guy in my attempt at small talk. 

“How are things with you he asks?” As he gets the machine out.”

“Things are good with me,” I say. I tentatively offer him $50. Tentatively, as it is early and he might not have change.

“Ah, cash,” he says. He glances in the till. “Yes, cash is good.”

“Things are good with me,” I say. “My weekend starts, but then my weekend always starts today.” I wince at my self-aggrandisement, or what may be seen as that.

He hands me back the change. He gives me $45 change, charging me $5 for the loaf, where his wife charges me $6 if I go later. This may not sound like much, but 5 loaves and I get a free one. He looks at me quizzically. 

“I only work 3 days.”

“Oh yes, good for you,” he says.

“I have worked hard enough, in my life,” I say. I wonder if he spotted the slight disingenuous tone in my voice hiding there amongst the syllables and consonants. Worked hard, I even question myself under my breath. Seriously, you have never worked that hard, you’ve never had to.

“Oh yes, good,” he says. “What do you do?”

“Oh,” I wasn’t expecting to answer that question, although where did I think this conversation was going to go? “I do finance work for a large law firm.” I instantly regretted saying large, that made it sound far more important than I meant for it to sound, fiancé work for a law firm, that is enough aggrandisement for what I do, without adding another layer.

“Oh yes,” he said. What could he say after that. “You have a good day.”

“You too,” I say. I step out into the dark and the cold and wonder about the possibility of having a great day.

I’m thinking perhaps the guys in the shorts with the good legs are going to the 24 hour gym before work. Such go-getters I always think about those guys who hit the gym before work.

Back home, there is just enough time to drink coffee and contemplate life on my own. Feel the charge of one’s batteries charging from the undisturbed atmosphere surrounding me. The peace. The quiet. The hum of the world’s vibrations. Lovely.

7.10am. Sam is up.

7.30am. I make vegemite toast and coffee for breakfast.

8am. I make more coffee.

8.16am. I call cutiepants Josh and ask him about Beau coming to look into the issues I am having with the work they did on the roof. He says Beau has been off today and the last couple of days, but he’ll call and see how Beau is, otherwise he’d come himself. I think, I’d like to see him come himself.

I have a shower, the sun is beginning to shine.

9.11am. I venture out to fix my TattsLotto numbers on my TattsLotto card. When I went to do my lotto numbers yesterday, my numbers have been mysteriously wiped off my card. I tried to find an old lotto ticket but I couldn’t.

The TattsLotto shop is closed when I get there, but I googled it before I left, and they open at 9am. Then they are behind me, the nice couple who run the lotto shop, just getting there 1 minute after me.

I go and pay the bulldog registration. I am contemplating paying Buddy’s and telling them Bruno has died, as Buddy’s registration always said he was de-sexed, where Bruno’s doesn’t. That is $72 compared to $220. And it is just a tax on dogs, what does the council give us? Okay, they provide pooh bags in the parks, but I could buy a lot of pooh bags for $220.

I go to the Connie Benn Centre, but of course, they don’t take payments there any longer. Why would they? The Yarra Council doesn’t want to provide too many services to its residents, now does it. It is the story of the Yarra Council our rates keep going up and up and up, and the services keep reducing.

I feel so aggrieved, I take a whole roll of pooh bags from the park. I see a guy watching me. I see him head over as I leave to check the state of the pooh bags. I’d already checked, the second roll was full.

Beau calls he’ll be here tomorrow afternoon, but if it is raining, he’ll come next week. “I haven’t forgotten you,” he says. “Yours is the most dangerous roof I have ever worked on, and it’s too dangerous when it is wet, is that okay?”

“Yeah, sure it’s okay,” I say. “I don’t want you to fall off the roof.”

“Thanks,” says Beau. Was he touched that I didn’t want him to fall off the roof? Nah. I’m reading too much into it.

10.55am. I’m home again. Grrrr! Fuck the Yarra council I am still thinking

The sun is shining.

The sewn up doh pooh bag bag

I stuff the whole roll of pooh bags into the old recycle bag we use to store the pooh bags, but it has been split down one seam forever and they, pretty much, just fall out again. Grrrr, again! So, I think fuck it, or is that think it do it, and I get out my sewing box and sew up the pooh-bag bag once and for all. 

Yes, I have a sewing kit, ever since I moved out of home and the buttons kept falling off my shirts. There was no one to sew them back on, so I learned to do it myself. I can sew very roughly, enough to get by on simple tasks.

So, I walk to the Collingwood town hall, grumbling all the way. I’m listening to Tina Turner, What’s Love Got To Do With It.

I use the bathroom at the town hall to wash my sticky coffee scroll icing fingers. Shhhh, don’t say anything.

I pay Bruno’s registration and I tell them Buddy has died. 

If I paid Buddy’s rego as Bruno, you know when Bruno is 10 years old the records would show him as 17 years old. I guess that isn’t impossible. Oh, I should have done it.

11.03am. I’m back from the Collingwood town hall.

11.11am. I am fanning my sweaty body from all that walking. I always sweat when I walk, that’s why I like shorts, in fact, by the time summer is over I am addicted to shorts and putting on jeans feels really weird.

11.20am. I walk to The Salvos, why the fuck not. I wasn’t going to do the DVD thing every day off, but I’d got everything else done I had to do.

I’m in Chemistwarehouse getting a double pack of Nasonex.

I’m in Cash Converters getting Mash season 5 and season 8. They had a stack of Mash, but I had all of the rest that they had.

I’m in the Salvos getting Summersault (2004) DVD.

I walk up Smith Street not a care in the sunshine until I’d nearly got to Greeves Street when I realised, I had forgotten Bruno’s meat in Aldi and I had to walk back. Grr!

I’m getting the meat at Aldi.

I walk up Smith Street.

12.45pm. I’m home again.

We ate Char kuew Tiwi for lunch.

I uploaded Somersault DVD to my Plex. I uploaded some CDs I got the other day from St Marks Recycle, (Ha ha, oh yes) Kate Ceberano, Etta James, Ray Charles.

2.40pm. Bruno and I go for a walk. So, I had new music for Bruno and my walk.

It is finally a nice day.

Cute boy sitting at the pub, a bit David Eikeman – my step daughters sensationally handsome boyfriend who used to party with all of us, way back when. Then there was a cute boy in blue shorts walking down the footpath towards me, nice legs, I think. He may have just come from the gym?

Gertrude Street > Brunswick Street > Johnston Street > [my street].

3.25pm. And we’re home.

Sam had groceries delivered, apparently, from a grocery delivery company that is just about to close up business.

I felt kind of anxious as though there were things I should be doing when I had really organised all the things I have to do presently.

I’ve done everything I had on my list.

Why do I always feel guilty of something?

And then it was the big upload, Somersault and Mash season 5 & season 8. Unfortunately, Mash season 5 was a dud, only the 3rd DVD worked, so I am taking that back to Cash Converters tomorrow.

I went on eBay and bought Mash season 3 for $4.95, which is cheap. You have to be aware that you have to buy the complete season, because they also sell each season in 3 different volumes, so you don’t want to be buying just 33% of a season thinking you are buying the whole thing. I made a couple of offers on season 2 and vol 3 of season one (as I bought season one Vol 1 & Vol 2 on sale really cheap, maybe even as cheap as 50c each, I think from either Cash Converters in Elizabeth Street, or Cash Converters in Coburg) but all my offers were turned down, so I logged out of eBay.

We had miso soup and 3 gourmet dim sims for dinner. We ate ice cream for dessert.

We watched I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here.

We watched Gogglebox.

We watched Hard Quiz – Pineapples, Daniel Ricardo, Geoffrey Chaucer, Blade Runner where the topics of choice.

10.30pm. Bruno wanted to head outside and then to bed.

10.45pm. We went to bed.

I looked at my poetry and listened to Ray Charles.

11.11pm. Lights out.

 

Wednesday

11.11am. I take Bruno for a walk. I'm still working from home. I don't know if my job is getting easier, of if I am just getting better at it. The 3 days a week I work have never really taxed me, but just lately I seem to be a machine of super efficient abilities? Ha ha, do you like that? Translation, I seem to have more spare time than ever before. Time to burn.

At 11.11, I've finished work I was working on, I know I have an hour, or a few, before anyone is going to ask me for anything, most likely. And if they do, I can just say I went to an early lunch. Nobody is going to be stressed if I answer questions late. If anything is urgent, which it won't be, they can call me...

We stop in at the opshop and get Dark Passage, Bogart & Bacall. I'm guessing the kids don't know who they are now? I mean, they were before my time too, of course, so why would the kids know them, but if you like old movies... What is that song?

We had it all

Just like Bogie and Bacall

Starring in our old late, late show

Sailing away to Key Largo

It is a nice day. Bruno and I do our usual walk backwards. Bruno, of course, sniffs every goddam thing he can but, as they say, walks for dogs are as much about exercise, as they are about mental health and them getting out and sniffing the sniffs.

I bought a Fleetwood Mac cd for a dollar in one of the opshops, no cover just a cd in a broken case, but I don't care, as I upload it to iTunes, cheaper than buying a download. So, I am now listening to that on my phone and bone conducting headphones. I forget how good they were. Well, I wasn't such a huge Fleetwood Mac fan actually, so I guess, I am discovering how good they are now, today. They are good. I am pleased with this cd.

The rest of the day goes smoothly. Nobody asks too much of me. I am pissing around on my own laptop late in the afternoon when Sam comes in and asks me a question. As he is standing there and I am answering his question, he reads the pop up on my screen. "HR meeting in 5 minutes. Oh, lucky you," he says. (You know, he is enjoying the fact, just a little)

"Oh, yes, fuck, I forgot."

I immediately start logging into the zoom meeting. Unfortunately, the pop up was 10 minutes old, so the meeting has started. 

I can't find my earbuds, and the sound isn't working. 

I call out to Sam to ask him why my sound isn't working. The rest of the team in the meeting indicate they can hear me. I hadn't put my camera on by this stage so it was just audio they are hearing. Boris texts me. That makes me wonder if I have said anything I shouldn't have. I text Boris back to confirm, she says I didn't. Blogger just randomly makes some text bigger, I have no idea why, but I like to leave it that way when it happens. (What the fuck? Perhaps it is God talking through it, you know, instead of the burnt Jesus head in the toast, he chooses to speak through giant text. It makes as much sense as anything else the Jesus people try to claim)

Oh, shit, the full cliche.

Sam comes downstairs and clicks the settings, off headphones. I should have been able to do that.

I turn my camera on, disturbing the whole meeting. Yay, good one Christian. In a sign of a charmed life, I laugh to myself now, the meeting is, essentially, over. My only contribution was, pretty much, the disturbance I created. I should be concerned by that, but really, I am pleased. Translation, I don't care. Good job done, I think.

Bed Time

Every night almost to the minute of 10.30pm, Bruno gets up and heads to the back door where he looks back with a certain look that says let me out for a wee. Then when he comes back inside he will head straight upstairs to bed. That's the bed time routine.

Buddy used to do it to. He would sit at the end of the couch at 10.30pm and stare and his face would say, it is bed time. I could almost see Bud tap his wrist with his paw, "time people." I'd let him out, he'd go to the back of the garden and wee, then he would go to bed.

I presume, Bruno learned it from Buddy somehow. I guess? Unless it is just a bulldog thing?

They both do it, did it, almost exactly to the minute at 10.30pm almost every night.

I think that is interesting, don't you? Dogs, they are the best little guys, they make me smile.

Monday Morning

I get up early. I like it. 

Bruno gets up with me most mornings. I get dressed, and after I open the bedroom door, I hesitated for a second, and it is in that second Bruno lifts his head, seemingly from sleep, and gets wearily to his feet and heads out the bedroom door with me. He always does his dog shake on the landing as soon as I close the bed room door. The odd morning that he doesn't lift his head from his bed and come with me, I can't help but feel the tiniest bit disappointed, stupid really.

He and I get on the couch together downstairs. I make coffee. This morning he snores.

I love that time of the morning that is mine.  It is peaceful and quiet and kind of embracing. The world wakes up around me and it is mine to do with as I like. Just me and the world. Oh, and Bruno too.

This morning it is cold and wet.

I briefly glance at the news just to see if anything big happened in the world, which really translates to has my favourite personality done something? How are the ice shelves in Antarctica? Giancarlo Granda who met Becki Falwell at the Fontainebleu Hotel in Miami Beach in 2012, sure is cute. He was an employee attending to the wishes of the guests at the pool area, exposing the hypocrisy of the religious right in the process.

Oh yawn, China sends dozens of warplanes towards Taiwan after US  military drills. China is pathetic, I think. They'll throw a tantrum over anything and everything.

I write my journal, or I write my blog, or I write any story I might be writing. I'm currently writing a short story called Mark Stevens, about a guy I met at uni. He's made up, I didn't meet him, but I wish I did.

Bruno cuddles up to my left leg and keeps me comfortable.

And the day begins.

The last day of the chocolate festival long weekend, and work tomorrow, just don't think about it, I think.

Chocolate Festival

So, the annual chocolate festival is in full swing. Not that I have indulged, but I'm sure plenty have. In fact, they say that around 8% of the population is actively involved in the cross and the 3 days later nonsense... compared to? What? 80%? More, of the population getting into the chocolate eating festivities. 

The Jesus people stole the date from the pagans way back when to gain market share, anyway, it was the Pagans celebration of the spring equinox, so it wasn't even the god botherers in the first place, so... don't feel badly if you like the chocolate. It's as good a reason for a holidays as their's.

You know paganism always made much more sense than the big guy in the sky Jesus nonsense ever did. The pagans used the earth and the wonders of nature to explain the world around them, the god botherers made up fantastical stories. It is sort of like do you believe in David Attenborough, or JK Rowlings.

And you know, whatever, believe in what you like, but I think the believers in chocolate are winning by a long stretch of the Kit Kat.

Happy Chocolate Festival everyone

Photographer Elliott Erwitt, 2001, Valdes Peninsula, Argentina. View of a barren hill-top on which a billboard advertising Pepsi flanks a large crucifix

Here's An Admission

I've got a dirty secret. I've always thought Don jnr was cute. Ah yes, Junior. I've always fancied him. I've tried not to, haven't wanted to, but each time I saw him, I just couldn't help it.

Well, more so a few years ago than today, to be truthful, but... still

And, yes I would. You know, just don't speak, boy, "No, no, not a word," and... unzip your pants.

That dark hair, those dimples, that handsome face, what can I say?

And yes, I am aware he is an absolute tosser, but what can you do?

The Orange Con Man

The only news I want to hear of Donald Trump, is today Donald Trump dropped dead in Florida.

Other than that, I don't even want to hear his name mentioned.

Jo Biden is proving what class he really is, with his repeated, "No comment."

That is what we should all be doing, just ignoring the bloated orange one altogether.

I don't, actually, wish him any harm, you know, I just wish he'd go away and never come back.

I just wish I'd never hear him mentioned ever again.

Oh, can you imagine another four years of its psychopathic voice spewing its narcissistic, self-serving lies, actually, almost six years as we have to get to 2024 yet. And with the Australian news service penchant for reporting everything it says. To quote Sheldon Cooper, Oh, the horror.

Tuesday

The sun is shining it is a gorgeous day. Well, Tuesday has to have something going for it, hey. I don't have much going on, don't you just loving working from home, I know I do. I guess that is why they are trying to get us to go back. Nyr? I don't know why they are trying to get us to go back, I suspect its power. You know, whose got the biggest dick in the corporation? That sort of thing. What else would it be? 

I say that in the sense that there was a shift in power with the workers finding that they liked working from home, and the bosses have had to wrestle that power back.

I'd done the work I had to do, early. I have been out and swept the front path, which always seems to be such a granny sort of thing to do. I hope they aren't counting the keystrokes, is that what they call it? As mine would have been pretty light on in the afternoon. Or is that just some conspiracy theory put forward by people who don't have enough to fill their lives, if you know what I mean? I don't care, anyway.

I did a bit of online shopping. I was looking for a book of short stories by Bridget O'Connor, an Irish writer who died early of breast cancer. I was trying to get a Kindle version of her last book of short stories, but no. There was a hard copy on eBay. I bought the last two Tina Turner CDs I didn't have, cheap, really cheap, on eBay. Lovely.

Sam has suspended our Apple music subscription, I am still not exactly sure why he has done that? I've asked him a couple of times why, and he has replied, "Tell me when you want it again?"

And I have replied, "I want it again."

And somehow, I still have no Apple music.

There is some agenda there but he is not being clear about what it is?

Sam works upstairs.

Charlie mopped the kitchen floor because that is all Charlie really does.

It's my second day without a shower, I must go and fix that.

I haven't been out of my track pants for weeks. Oh, well, haven't been out to get out of them. That's not entirely true, but it is almost true. I've worn track pants so much that I have worn a pair out and I must go buy a new pair and until I do that, I can't wash the pair I have on.

In the afternoon, we walked Bruno to the shops to do some grocery shopping.

The sun was that lovely honey golden late afternoon sun. Long shadows as the day draws to a close.

I See Progressive Political Parties In Australia's Future

Apparently, the Liberal Party under the leadership of the potato Dutton thinks no change to the policies - or historically with this guy a move further to the right - is the course they will be charting for the future with the policies that have wiped them politically off mainland Australia. 

You know, that is okay, in fact, good to hear as I think Australia will do nicely with two progressive parties, Labor and the Greens. In fact, it is exactly what Australia needs. Labor can take up the centre position and the Greens can occupy the position to the left.

Australia is more progressive than conservative, let's face it, and a lot of those old rusted on conservatives will be dead soon anyway.

The conservatives and the deluded religious and the racists can join Pauline Hanson's poisonous pack of pariahs with the other white nationalists and they can all dream about 'shitty dicks' together and the rest of us can just ignore them as is usually the case.

The future looks bright.

It is good to see, while the rest of the world is falling for the policy-light, ideology led, hollow promises of the conservative right, Australia is rejecting them.

So, we elected a progressive party federally and suddenly after 10 years of the conservative party do nothing, we have an energy policy closer to an energy policy that we've been lacking for the last to years. The same is true of climate policy and now this govt has moved on to sorting indigenous Australians, with the conservative party continuing to stand duplicitously in the way of it. 

Out to Lunch

It’s a lovely day, after we clean the house - you don’t think Sam is going to let me get out of that, do you? Visiting friends or not, Sunday morning is cleaning day - we go and visit friends, Charlie and Lenny.

Charlie cooks us Soto for lunch during which he updates us on the latest gossip about Sam's other friends Brian & Mark who are renting Sam’s house.

Apparently, as Sam has long suspected, Brian and Mark are in the grip of drug addiction - we once went over there unannounced and Sam knocked and when there was no immediate answer, Sam looked though the window and thought he could see a glass pipe on the table but when Mark eventually answered the door the glass pipe wasn't on the table any longer. Brian and Mark have both lost their jobs in the last few years and recently have struggled to pay Sam the rent for his house.

Charlie and Lenny thought it was in Sam's best interests to know what another friend, Pompi, had told them, that Brian & Mark are using ice. And while Sam has suspected for some time, this was the first time it had been confirmed.

Apparently, all their friends are now taking about it.

Brian and Mark have applied for public housing, which I told Charlie and Lenny immediately wondering if I’d said too much.

Then afterwards the four of us who are doing well in life took our gorgeous dogs for a walk along the parkland along the creek in the sun on a perfect day in perfect surroundings, having fully exorcised the worries of friends who have failed and lost everything... but what can you do, really, I ask you? Hope they'll find a job? Hopw it won’t happen to you? What else can you do? Thank the universe that there you are by the grace of our very existence not having succumbed to the downfalls in life.

It is really sad, Brian and Mark have nothing, and what they did own, two cars, I think both have been sold. Mark has tried to get a disability pension because of a back injury, but that was denied more recently. I hoped he'd get it, you know, in this day and age when corporations don't pay any tax, I reckon, Mark could be paid a disability pension, but no.

After that, Sam and I went grocery shopping with Bruno, Sam shopped, Bruno and I sat on the cool tiles outside and waited for him. People love Bruno and many of them want to pat him and even the ones that don't pat him, he makes smile. 

After that we headed home.

The sun shone, it was a gorgeous day.

The only downside is that it is Monday tomorrow. Boohoo.

Good Morning

4.15am. I wake from a dream. I lie in bed for a moment, just enjoying the warmth of the bedclothes, they feel extra luxurious as I lay there, as my consciousness catches up with the day.

I dreamed I’d been blowing leaves out of the bottom of a car with a leaf blower, kind of out of the very underneath of a car. The leaves were shooting out at right angles to the car in a constant spray of leaves travelling so fast they almost looked like lasers, but they were leaves being shot out constantly at speed.

I don’t know what that means?

I don't want to get out of bed, but I need a wee now that I am awake.

There was more to the dream which I try to remember, but it doesn’t come. No, it's gone.

I go for a wee, with my phone, as I have taken to writing my dreams down if I get up in the middle of the night. It has been getting cold, and I am sure I can feel a draft as I stand on the landing in my undies, so I go down to the front door with the light switched on on my phone – ever since I stood on a half eaten rat in the dark, it’s entrails squishing between my toes, I’ve used my phone light, otherwise, I can see well in the dark, always have been able to – and put the sausage over the large gap we unfortunately have under our front door through which the cold wind whistles in. Coming back upstairs, as I flash my phone light along the hallway carpet, there is, indeed, a half eaten rat on the carpet – Milo’s favourite dining room for eating rats he has caught, the front hallway. It could be worse, I always tell myself, I had a friend once whose cat would eat the things it had caught in the middle of their bed.

So, I went to the kitchen to get a plastic bag in which to put what remained of the rat. Always the face part and the body from the neck back remains, Milo seems to like the section between the face and the body, I guess you would call that the neck. That seems to be the preferred cut of the rat.

The lounge room lights are on, I hesitate in case Charlie is up for some reason and I am just in my jocks, stupid really. The lounge room is empty, I wonder if we left them on, which I doubt as both Sam and I are, shall we say, careful with money. I turn the lights off. (We have smart globes so all of our lamps work from our phones and sometimes they will turn off and then just come back on again, occasionally)

I go to the kitchen, with the light of my phone, to get a plastic bag and the pan and shovel. The kitchen pan and shovel isn’t in the bottom of the pantry where it should be. Grrr. I throw all the reusable shopping bags out of the bottom of the pantry into the kitchen in my hunt but still no pan and shovel appears. “Damn it.”

I momentary wonder if I could pick the rat carcass up by the tail. I know I should be able to, but all I could think is Euw!

So, I go to get the garden pan and shovel. 

I reach for the back door key from its hiding spot and I drop my phone on the carpet and it lands face down extinguishing the light. I’m good in the dark however, so I retrieve the key from where we hide it, but I drop it also onto the carpet. So then, I am on my hands and knees feeling around for my phone, which I find. I shine my phone light around and I find the key.

I open the back door and step out. I reach for the garden pan and shovel over the back of Buddy’s now disused kennel and that pan and shovel is also not where it should be. Duh!

I switch off the light on my phone, so my eyes adjust to the dark, as I said, I have really good night vision. So, it is 4.30am and I am in my undies, standing on my tiptoes, so my feet are connecting with less cold paving as is necessary, starting to feel the cold, wondering where two pans and shovels may now be, so I can clean up a dead rat, so I can head back to the bathroom, have a wee, and then hop back into my warm bed.

This is not where I expected to be 15 minutes ago, I think to myself. Brrrr.

Then it comes to me, I tossed the pan and shovel under the wicker chair, now to the right of me, in a rather cavalier fashion the last time I used it. I remember thinking, what the hell. I lean down and pick it up thinking, what the hell indeed.

I bag the rat. I leave it against the hallway wall thinking I will dispose of that in the morning.

I have a wee.

I get back to bed.

My eye is itchy. Does that mean a change of weather, I think to myself?

6.45am. I wake up from a dream. I sit up because I instantly think about going to the bakery and buying bread, but it is cold and dark, so I lay back down for a minute and the dream is gone. I try to recall it, but it is gone. It was some thing about pine trees and rubber bands. No, its gone.

I am awake, I am probably not going back to sleep again now no matter how much I think I am, I might as well get up and go and get the bread while it is just the guy there, as he gives it to me cheaper than when his wife is there.

So, I get up, get dressed and go to leave the bedroom when Bruno joins me, his claws making clip clop noises – scritch scratch noises? – on the floorboards in the dark. He shakes as soon as he is on the landing, he always shakes first thing on the landing. We head downstairs. I wait for him to sniff the bagged rat, but the plastic bag is on the opposite side of the hallway to where I left it and it is empty, clever Milo, I think. He’s come back and thought, what the hell! And he has finished his meal. All of it. Nothing of the rat is left. He has made two smallish holes in the bag and he has eaten the rat inside the bag. Cats.

Bruno goes out the back for a wee.

I head over to the bakery for bread. It is still dark and the ground is wet from rain. Summer is over, I think. The baker guy is chatty as always. 

“The only way I’d be better is if I won TattsLotto,” he says. “And we all know what the chances of that are.”

I fumble with my coins, in my pre-coffee dither as to how much he charges me for the bread.

“Oh well, you can always live in hope,” I say. I give him the coins.

“That is the problem with society today, too many people live on hope.”

I think I haven’t given him the right amount, I go to fish out another dollar, but he throws it in the money draw.

But for some people, hope is all they have got, I think.

“You have a nice weekend.”

Stop fumbling for the other dollar. Christian, he has accepted what you gave him. “Um… oh, yes, you have a nice weekend too.”

I head home with my cheap bread, pleased with myself? I don’t know, should I have said, I haven’t given you enough and then offered him the rest of the money? Should I have done that? I always go there, so I am a regular customer so what does it matter? Or, is that all the more reason to give him the correct money? Oh, I don’t know, I haven’t had coffee and my brain isn’t working. (We love the excuse, now don’t we) These are the things I think in the dark and the cold while I am concentrating on not standing in any puddles from the rain from last night in my crocs and socks.

7.15am. I make coffee. I sit on the couch with my laptop. Bruno climbs up on the couch next to me. It was just starting to get light, which I always think is the most magical part of the day, just when it is coming alive.