Easter Sunday

Ah, easter. I didn't eat any chocolate eggs. I did eat chocolate ice cream with strawberries, though, does that count?

Oh, I did eat a chocolate hot cross bun with lashings of butter and a cup of tea, that's more like it, huh?

That was today. I guess it doesn't matter what day you eat them as long as you get into the spirit, huh? That's what they say, isn't it?

I can't even remember when one is supposed to eat the chocolate eggs, is it Friday? No, I guess not. I guess it is today, isn't it, thinking about it logically, it would be today, I guess, keeping up with the easter myth tradition, of new life and all that. It would be today.

So, there you go, I bought into it all, ate the chocolate today. Well done me.

And we still have another day off, gotta luv that, good old easter.

The feast day of Easter was first a pagan holiday of renewal and rebirth. Honoured in the early spring, it praised the pagan goddess of fertility and spring known as 'Ostara', 'Eastre' or 'Eostre'. The word “Easter” finds its etymology from the goddess's name.

Easter Saturday

What did he do? How does the myth go? Did he die? Did he live? Did he die, er, for our sins? But wasn't that only for 3 days? How does that even make sense?

What is that, dead for 3 days to forgive us for our sins for eternity? That hardly seems like an imposition to the all powerful, creator of all things, that's how the story goes.

We were created in ‘the big guy's’ own image, that’s it, isn’t it? When things don’t make sense they are hard to understand? He was the father, but then wasn’t he the son too? Wasn't he? And somewhere in there there is some kind of spirit, what that’s about, who knows?

So presumably if we were created in ‘the big guy's’ image, we are him and he is us? So everything we do/did is what he’d do/did, being in the same image.

So, then, for all the times we have misbehaved, he killed his son.

Can anybody make sense of that?

He loved us so much - which is straying rapidly into narcism, in his own image, which is him loving himself - he killed his son.

He loved us so much, he killed his only son. Why?

Are you following? No?

That’s it. That’s Christianity.

Chocolate egg?

Good Morning

I went to bed late and intended to sleep in and I was on track with that until a big, wet, pink tongue decided to lick my face.

“Ah?”

I opened my eyes and Otto was standing over me, he seemed to lick more intently when he'd seen he had woken me up.

I tried to push him away, but, still being a puppy, he thought that was a great game.

So, we ended up wrestling in the bedclothes which only got him going and put an end to any more sleep I might have been thinking about.

I laughed. Pretty adorable.

My Poor Stomach

5 days off. Lovely. All the time in the world, I think.

I take the dogs for a walk, early. The weather has been lovely this last week.

I head down the street late morning, to have a sniff around the shops. Actually, I went to get cigarettes, (it's temporary, after the gunger) I'll stop any day. I should have stopped today. (actually, they make me feel sick too, go figure)

Anyway, I felt like I wanted something sweet, so I bought a 6 pack of macadamia and white chocolate biscuits, which I ate as I wandered the shops. I fully intended to take half of them home to Sam, but you know how things go, and I scoffed all six.

Then, I didn't tell Sam what I'd done. Oh that roll of the eyes.

He got hamburgers and chips for lunch, and I could barely eat them, but forced them down rather than confess to what else I'd eaten.

Then I felt bloated all afternoon, uncomfortable and bloated. And then, if it had been up to me, and honesty, I wouldn't have eaten anything else today.

But Sam presented me with a giant bowl of Laksa for dinner, with prawns and fish. I so didn't feel like it. I ate perhaps a quarter of it. Then when he was eying off my slow process of eating dinner, I told him I was full, and mercifully, he took it away.

Then came a big bowl of black grapes to share for dessert. (I nearly laughed)

And even now, I feel so uncomfortable. No, I mean really bloated uncomfortable.

Tuesday, um, er Wednesday

I'm up early. It's raining, I feel better. That damn headache has gone. It was debilitating. I almost felt like I could have a day off sick, but I had a sick day recently. I haven't had a sick day since 2019. I'm really all for employees taking all their sick leave, don't get me wrong, in fact, I'd encourage people to take a day off if they don't feel well. I just haven't been sick.

I've got cold feet, summer must be over.

Tuesday

I was going to sign into work 6am, but, I still have a head ache and still feel a little unwell.

I lay on the couch with Milo.

I signed into work at 7am.

My milk heater did a strange thing and nearly boiled over onto the bench, good thing I was watching it. I certainly wasn't in the mood to clean that up. Note to self, watch the milk heat in future.

7.45am. Sam is up. The bulldogs are still in bed.

Sam tells me there is a dial on the milk frother, who knew?

"Someone moved it," he says.

I'm pretty sure the implication is that it was me.

Felt Poorly

I have felt poorly for the last couple of days, it has been a struggle.

Sunday

I slept most of the day, shrug, what else are Sundays for?

Charlie's Bike

Someone stole the front tyre off Charlie's e-bike, which was tied to the front veranda post of the house. We have video of him doing it, the full operation, thanks to security cameras, but he wore a hoodie, so...

This is Charlie's second e-bike, the first one got stolen at uni.

I guess we should report it to the police? I wonder if Charlie did?

Friday

Sam's just starting to thaw, just around the edges. He's always had it in him, the silent treatment, and I have witnessed it for 24 hours in the past. But a week? Never.

The whole rental thing must have been stressing him out. But, he got it done, even without my help. He must have used a lot of PT.

It's been a weird week, not sure how I feel about it?

I took my car to be serviced yesterday, now it has to go to the crash repairer to get the damage of the fourth time it has been backed into in twelve months sorted out. An airbag warning light is on, and the window washers don't work. The whole bumper has to come off it to get to the broken stuff, so if I was going to have it repaired, anyway, it should be now.

Got to go early to pick it up and then it is done. Leave in an hour.

Beatles Vs Stones

Here’s one for the Beatles Vs the Stones argument, I think Beggars Banquet & Let It Bleed are superior albums to Abbey Road & Let it Be.

I've done a lot of lying on the couch.

What Happened?

I have two hot water bottle bulldogs lying on each foot, like big bulldog slippers, certainly all morning. 

That’s what I like about working from home, when my bulldog can stretch out his paw in the middle of the day pushing it up against my leg for minutes at a time.

I don't know how I got through today, chuckle, but I did, and here I am. It all worked out.

What I did?

I went out to the Guido estate, just after lunch, and got gunger.

Bull Dogs Playing

 

Maybe I'm Weird

Sam got home around 5.30pm yesterday and he clearly wasn't talking to me. And when he decides not to speak to me, it is total.

Sam is still not talking to me this morning and you know what, I don’t really mind it. I used to try and fight it and make him speak to me, on the very rare occasions that this happens, and that was stressful, but now, I find, relaxing into it, I kind of like it. 

I can do silence, it is oddly calming. No need to speak, no need to answer questions, no need to have anything to say. There is a part of me that kind of likes it. It makes me wonder if I'd like one of those silent retreats?

Anyway, you know, being the weird little loner that I, allegedly, am, I'm almost happiest in my own world, just writing everything is nice. And, you know, Sam spends a lot of his time telling me what to do, and this is sort of a relief. 

I could get to like this, I know, maybe I’m weird.

Friday

Oh, groan, back to the rental, to find out the model number of the cook top and to clean some more. Please let this be the last time. I'm so over it. Don't tell Sam. Oh, he knows, I find it hard to hide my displeasure. I just want it to be over, and it will be over next week when the new tenants move in.

I exhaled the wrong way, or too obviously, through my nose when I was putting on my shoes, and Sam cracked the shits.

"You don't have to go, don't worry. I'll go myself." 

You know, the people who don't drive, who have never bothered to put in the time and energy to get their licences can't really complain when their dedicated unpaid chauffeur doesn't particularly feel up to driving them about, there is always public transport, never the less...

"What?" I asked. Half heartedly, you know as if what he said was somehow ambiguous, yes that is true, it was very half hearted. And despite myself, maybe with just the slightest hint of hope at not going. You know, sometimes you can't help those things.

And Sam had packed a backpack in no time and had marched out the front door. And was gone.

Truthfully, I was beginning to feel a little unwell again after eating lunch, and was a bit annoyed with myself at feeling unwell again, if I was feeling anything, that was really what the tired exhale was all about as I put on my shoes.

I didn't argue, though, bad me. After asking, what? I said nothing else until Sam left. I didn't say, you are being ridiculous, I just kept quiet.

I'm feeling tired and lacking in energy, that's why I was exhaling loudly. Truthfully. I don't want to be sick.

Sam knew I didn't want to go, though, that is true.

He thought... oh, I guess you get the picture.

I Feel Better

I feel better today.

Actually, not so much this morning, I was still a bit seedy this morning, when I took the dogs for a walk. I saw the will-you-clean-up-the-skerrick-of-poo-off-the-footpath-after-I'd-picked-up-my-dog's-poo guy, from the other side of the road. He gave me a look. I held his gaze, oh, I had to, momentarily, then I turned away thinking, you have a good day, mate.

I don't know what made me sick? Dizziness and vomiting? Nah, I don't know? I want to say food poisoning, off-food, but they aren't really the symptoms of bad food.

I made a full recovery by this afternoon, though. I listened to music.

I feel better now.

I can't complain. No-one listens anyway, you know, as 'they' say.

Sam bought a new Apple Watch, he gave me the run down on it, I'm still not really sure what it has that his old one didn't have. I got his old watch, of course. This one's face is always illuminated, I guess that was a (first world) problem with my old one. I haven't really noticed yet. But there were times, I remember, when I had both my hands full and I wanted to know the time - oh, yes, I know, a watch telling the time is pretty quaint - and I have tried to get the screen to light up by touching it with my nose. That never worked.

I'm Sick

4am. I roll over in the middle of the night and the room spins so severely that I just have to hang on and hope it will stop.

WTF? It is sudden and shocking.

Then I start to sweat so badly, I am cold if I pull the doona off me, but am hot if I pull the doona over me.

I try rolling onto my side again, and the room spins again, although not as badly as the first time, maybe it is because I am ready for it.

I get up and have a piss and put my towelling dressing gown on for the sweating and get back into bed.

At some point, I take my dressing gown off again as I was too hot.

8:30am. Otto jumps on the bed with me in it alone and I roll over to hug him and the room starts to spin again. Then I stretch out across the bed and lie on my stomach and really feel sick and the room spins and I think I am gonna vomit and I go to the bathroom and while the sensation of going-to-vomit lasts for some time, I don’t actually vomit.

Sam comes up stairs and finds me squatting in front of the toilet, moaning.

Sam gets me a bucket so I can lie in bed without the fear of vomiting over everything. Sam gets me headache tablets. 

Then he jokes that he hopes it wasn’t tasty cheesy off which he knocked the mould, or the chicken he bought on special at Coles because of its immanent use by date.

I tried to laugh, but I can’t.

Otto comes bouncing back upstairs while Sam is gazing at me. Sam tells me Bruno is under the bed sleeping still.

8:35am. I call Boris but she is on the tram and she says she has to call me back.

It’s raining outside.

9am. I stupidly, I rolled over and look under the bed to see Bruno, I have some idea about getting him up on the bed with me, as a big comfort bear, and everything spins and I start to vomit into my bucket and I vomit quite a few times but nothing really comes out. Bruno comes out from under the bed and stands next to me and watches me vomiting for a while and then he rushes out of the room and heads downstairs.

Sam comes upstairs saying something about Bruno coming downstairs to tell him something. “Are you all right?”

9.15am. Boris calls back. We chat about what has to be done. 

I fall asleep.

9:55am. I wake up to vomit again. It’s awful vomiting when the room is spinning. The heaving and retching go on for what seems like forever.

I can taste sesame seeds, or something like that. 

Ollie hops up on the bed and sleeps next to me. He climbs up onto my stomach and while I think that is not going to be good for me, it turns out it is. He is only light, after all.

Midday. Sam wakes me up to see if I’m okay.

I am wondering why he woke me up and he tells me he is dealing with all the things he has to do for the tenants to move into his rental. Some renters signed up at the first inspection.

I’m surprised it is midday.

12:10pm. I get up. I think I’m feeling better. I put on a T-shirt and as I’m pulling on my track pants the whole room starts to spin. I say out loud what the hell is wrong with me? I hold onto the bed end to steady myself.

I empty my sick bucket And I have a pee.

I sit on the side of the bed, but I don’t regain feeling as well as I did a few moments ago. Ollie is pestering me for pets.

12:15pm. I take my track pants off again and get back into bed.

12:20pm. Sam comes upstairs and says he’s got ginger so he can make congee. I say I want toast, but Sam insists it should be congee.

I feel a bit shaky again, it’s as if getting up and putting on my T-shirt and track pants took away all my energy, or caused a relapse of whatever the hell this is. I’m not really hungry, well it’s kind of odd it comes and goes.

I pull the doona up to my chin in a comforting way.

I think to myself, I’m not really frightened of dying, what the hell else is there left to do in life? I’m in Fitzroy where else would I want to be? I don’t feel bad about saying that, even though I am kind of joking, but half serious too. Of course, I don’t want to die, but you know I think about it, the only really bad thing would be leaving Sam, I don’t wanna leave him.

I think of David, who is always saying he is done with life, and I laugh.

Listen to me I’ve been sick for something like eight hours, imagine all those people who fight for life for the longest time, nyr, good for them.

And organ donation, what’s that about? Imagine if one of your organs had to live on in some thoroughly objectionable person? Could you imagine? If a conservative voter got my liver?

Funny the things you think when you are in the grip of illness.

12.45pm. I go downstairs and eat my conjee.

I still don’t feel great, but at least I feel better.

And a day off, the consolation prize to be sure.

Oh yes, I checked the other day, I don't know why, other than my eye surgery when I had a week off, I haven't had a sick day since 2019.

I googled the symptoms, really it could be anything from an inner ear infection to brain cancer and just about everything in between. Don't google your symptoms.

Walking The Dogs

As we cross over King William Street, as we approach the Blue Chilli Café there is a possum on the footpath, I don’t know, 20 metres in front of us. (I have no idea, really, but not right in front of us, some way ahead of us) 

There is a lesbian couple sitting at the tables outside the Blue Chili Café and one of them looks very concerned about the possum with two Bulldogs coming down Brunswick Street. She reminded me of James Garner. 

I’m not at all sure what she thought I was going to let the bulldogs do? Tear the possum apart in front of them? Presumably? Why else would we have switched over to panic stations, I ask you? 

Anyway, she gets up like the Bionic Man and starts to run up Brunswick Street towards us. I could almost hear the Steven Austin music start to play, I wanted to laugh. No, seriously? Get a grip you idiot. 

A moment later, the possum turns, it may, or may not have spotted the bulldogs, and runs up the nearest tree. I'm not at all sure the bulldogs even saw it.

Bruno, Otto and I stopped at the Blue Chili to drink some water from the dog bowl provided at the front door. The lesbians are sitting right outside the front door. The girlfriend reminded me of Harvey Keitel. 

I chat to some guy waiting in the doorway who says that Bulldogs were the original Looney Tunes hero. I say something like, “Hey he’s my hero, my hero.” The guy and I laugh. 

The guy says, “Anything you want, Spike, anything you want.” We both laugh again.

Bruno, having finished drinking, shakes his head and multiple Catherine Wheels of juicy bulldog saliva – oh, come on, it is most just excess fresh water from around his big gob – fly through the air covering the lesbians, whack, whack, whack, whack, whack, who, both sitting right next to the dog bowl, visibly recoil.

I say, “Oh yes, sorry, they do do that.” I tug on the dog leads and make a clear get away with the Bulldogs, for once in their non-working dog lives, setting off with me just as quick. 

Thank the universe for that legendary lesbian sense of humour? (Oh come on, it’s funny) is all I can think. 

And Then It Is Sunday

And suddenly it is Sunday, the days go by quicker and quicker, I swear.

I'm up early. I had a rather disturbing dream about a previous colleague/manager. Belinda H who, clearly in the grip of anorexia, ruled the finance department like a skeletal poster child for Donald Trump, making everyone in the department hate their job having to work under her until she'd fired each of us for some made up reason. I always guessed it was on the days her body dysmorphia was at its worst, that she’d stride out into the main office {think the scream of a T-Rex}  and pick a victim to destroy just to make herself feel better. In the dream I was transferred to her department to be her assistant. (in real life, I'd stopped talking to her long before she sacked me because she was just so unpleasant to deal with) Oh the horror! I was forced to sit with her,(I could smell the evil exuding from her pores like battery acid) together we solved all the departments long standing financial problems, me feeling I was in a hostage situation.

She needed an assistant as she spent most of her time in the company's sex room, down the staircase next to her office. She gazed at me in a self satisfied kind of way.

I sat up in bed with a start. "Ah! What the hell?" I was sitting up at 6am thinking, I must never go into that room. Wide Eyes. It is not an image to which I want to give any thought. Oh? Er? You could never unsee that.

Where does this shit come from?

And then I was awake. 

I switch off the air-con and I head downstairs. It was still dark outside.

I'm drinking coffee with Milo in front of the fan. The house is hot, as you may well imagine. I open the window and the back door but it is no cooler outside. Nobody else is up, just me and Milo, cuddled up to my left leg, in a rather 'too hot' kind of way, but he has to get his love where he can when the dogs aren't around, so I don't push him away.

We take the dogs for a walk at 8am. And it was hot already, there was a coolish breeze, but the sun was already hot.

The whole neighbourhood is walking its dogs before the heat.

Hot Saturday

39 degrees today. It's going to be 39 degrees for 3 days, the whole long weekend, yes, we have Monday off. 

We went for a walk early. 8am.

After that, we stayed inside by the portable air con.

And it got to the forecast temperature. And it was hot outside.

I was going to write, but somehow, I got sucked into downloading historical photos of Fitzroy, Melbourne's first suburb after all. I'm fascinated by the buildings we have lost. I'm always looking for pictures of how the suburb used to look. You know, how you can be distracted by a pimple on an arse if you are supposed to be writing.

The dogs were feisty into the night, not really sure why, but none of us got to sleep until 2am. Really annoying.

Walking The Dogs Day 2

So, I’m taking the dogs for a walk along Johnson Street again this morning. We’re careful to walk on the other side of the road to what happened yesterday. As we get along Johnson Street, Clean-Up-Your-Poo man is at the front of his shop, again, this morning. He sees us, well, I guess two Bulldogs aren’t all that hard to spot. 

Johnson Street is having a relatively quiet moment and he walks out into the lane heading out of the city and says, “If you ever do again what you did yesterday, I’m gonna report you to the council.”

Oh, I think. You again. He’s like a dog with a bone, or a dog with a poo, as the case may be. And I think, well, I’m not entering into that argument with him today, so I say, as quick as a flash, and I’m not really sure where this came from, “Are there prescription drugs that you should be taking that you are neglecting to take by any chance?”

He says, “What the fuck are you talking about, mate?”

“Well, if there’s some sort of anxiety medication that you should be taking, that you are not taking, well, that could explain your behaviour.”

He starts to say that I’m a jerk, I think fucking jerk were the words, something about “people like you really shit…” 

Now, you understand the lights have changed at Brunswick Street, by this time, and cars are approaching him, still standing in the middle of Johnson Street, raving on, and they start to honk, effectively censoring his colourful language, and he had to do a tiptoe tiptoe Jeté, or is it Plié? Leaping, retreat back to his side of Johnson Street and the bulldogs and I walked away, with me, thinking that it was just a beautiful moment.

Walking The Dogs

I take the dogs for a walk in the morning. Otto has a shit in front of a homewares shop. I pick it up. There’s a couple of minuscule spots of shit left on the footpath, as there often is. Even if you got down and rubbed at it with a plastic poo bag, it probably wouldn’t change it. It might smear it a little, but nothing much else would happen.

There’s a guy out the front of the shop doing something with a ladder, not sure what. 

As I walk away, he says, looking frightfully concerned, “Can you clean that up better than that?” he asks. He points with his finger.

I look back. Seriously, how anal are you, I think. “No mate,” I say. “That’s it. It’s done.”

“Is that all you are going to do,” he asks.

“Yes mate,” I say. “What do you expect?”

“You’re a fuck wit,” he says kind of threateningly.

“Yeah, good onya,” I say as I walk away.

I must walk the dogs by there tomorrow morning, I think, and see if I can get Otto to do another shit. I chuckle to myself. I won’t pick it up at all and I can watch his head explode.

Nearly There

I've nearly pulled it all together before my 2 days off, and a public holiday Monday, Labour Day.

I've got really sore eyes which is not helping.

Sam swanned off to see a realestate agent about renting out his place. He left early to clean before the photographer turned up.

It's just me and the bulldogs lying at my feet.

I had everything done by the time I signed out, surprisingly. Public holiday Monday, so I don't have to work an extra day to get everything finished, which kind of negates the meaning of a public holiday. Lovely. 3 days off, bring them on.

You Want To Visit Today?

My head's spinning. I've got a million things in my head, going round and around, mentally juggling...

Jill messages me early to say she's be making one of her more and more infrequent visits, I could hardly say no.

I'm surprised I got through that today.

Jill didn't come until after 5pm, so that was good, just as well. Her and her gorgeous daughter played with Otto, first time meet.

It was hot. We took the woofs for a midnight walk. There is something lovely about a late night walk on a hot day.

A Mountain To Climb

It's just a shit show, this time of the year, 01st March everything changes. I've got a mountain of stuff to get through.

Later.

Sunday

Oh, look at that, it is nearly Monday again and I didn't win lotto.

And look at that, the weekend is nearly over and I still haven't written that best selling novel. What is wrong with me? How did I forget to do that? Brilliance is up for debate, or is that on the fritz?

Oh, look at that, Monday morning is just moments away, knocking on Sunday night's door, and work awaits. I can plug back into being a cog, like a rat running on a wheel. We're all little rats running on our wheels.

But you know what, despite everything I say, it's lucky that I don't really mind my job, especially working from home. Yeah, working from home. I know I've said that before.

In fact, when I finished work on Wednesday last, there were a couple of looming potential shit shows, so it will be interesting to see if Boris got blindsided by those in the ensuing days. Let's hope not. Hope not, I say? Well, do I really care? Nyr? She out ranks me, so go for it. I'll just mop it up, again, as I do.

Sam's rental is finally done, after a couple of days pulling it together finally, now its time to call in the lying bastard, er, realestate agents to get the tenant selection started and to see how many of their promises fall apart quickly, er, quickly they can fulfil the promises they made to get Sam to give them the job.

We discovered the local recycle centre and we took a car load of old paint tins and dropped them off. We'll take the rest of the rubbish there this week. And then we're done.

I thought the recycle centre would cost, but it doesn't, so, I guess I'll have to say something nice about the council, that was it, and I am going to load up the car with lots of shit and clean up this place too.

Time to put my feet up, or at least I would if Bruno wasn't taking up the other half of the couch. But I've got my half, really a quarter, so I'll take my something from nothing and just relax and enjoy what is left of Sunday.

Aging

There’s no advantage to aging, none, it just dying by degrees, on a glacial time table.

There is no wisdom gained, in fact, so many people become increasingly stupid with age, especially those of a conservative nature. More set in their ways, with even less logic. There is no contentment, as friends die before you at an alarming rate. There is just anxiety, at what's the next decrepitude to befall you.

Gone is the confidence in forever.

Gone is the illusion of time to spare.

That grease patch you hit at 25 years old that has propelled you towards your demise at an ever increasing rate of speed becomes even more apparent year by year.

And if you haven't lived your life to your utmost potential, there is the regret, that only death is going to put right.

Time is precious and with time you come to realise it is in short supply.

And all the while you are becoming more and more feeble with which to battle life's injustices.

And you become invisible.

Oh yes aging, when is someone going to cure it?