Wet Saturday

6.46am. I was up.

I empty the dishwasher. I make coffee.

I create AI images for my FletcherBeaver blog.

8.11am. Sam was up.

8.30am. I make toast. When I see how much bread is left, I dash to the bakery and get another loaf. I make avocado toast for both of us.

Otto is up. He goes out for a wee. The rain is falling lightly.

Sam makes more coffee.

9.15am. The rain falls quite heavily momentarily

When I get sick of staring at my computer screen, I go out into the garden and chop up the Strelitzia that I chopped out yesterday from around my pond. The once smaller bush of Strelitzia has increased exponentially, and a smaller clump has sprung up which is now challenging the original clump for superiority. I chopped out the second clump completely, and reduced the original clump significantly. 

It’s always kind of nice to do gardening in the light, sprinkly rain. I’m not exactly sure why, I think it has a slightly romantic overtone to it.

The rain fell. I stood back and observed my handiwork. I now had back a huge section of my red brick wall. It all looked much brighter and much lighter. I nodded in agreement with, er, myself of course. Good job done.

What to do on a wet Saturday? What to do indeed?

1pm. We take the Bulldogs for a walk into the city to get a haircut.

It’s overcast but kind of warm.

We met an Aussie Shepherd at our front gate. And while Otto was already to fire up and bounce the Shepherd, the Shepherd’s owner was very calm and proved how much she knew about dogs by not reacting to bouncy boos antics. And Otto calmed right down.

I see my neighbour Jackson Wagg as we walked to Gertrude Street, he says Jill’s been sick and off work looking after his mother for a month. [small world, Jill looks after Jackson’s mother. Have I told you that, after taking some time off, Jill traded the high paced marketing executive career to work as a carer? I’m sure I have mentioned that.]

I called Jill. She’s in East Doncaster having lunch with a friend. No, she hasn’t been sick and no, she hasn’t had a month off.

“Um, er, no, I haven’t,” said Jill. “Not really sure what else to tell you.”

At which point Otto took a big dump on the footpath and Jill and I said we’d talk later.

We walked into the city our usual way. Sam and Otto lead the way

Cnr of Albert Street, there are many people photographing Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, I have no idea why? A Catholic Bus & Truck tour of the sites of Melbourne? I don’t know. We walked through Parliamentary Reserve.

As we pass Pellegrini’s a woman behind asks how old is Brun.

“He’s 6 years old,” I say.

“See, he’s not that old," she says to her husband.

“No, he’s not that old,” I say.

Brun must have got a wriggle on at that point.

“Oh, so he does have a faster speed?” she says.

“Oh yes,” I say. “He has a faster speed alright, he just doesn’t want to use it if he doesn’t have to.”

She laughs.

“They are quite stubborn, and you just have to motor them along otherwise you'll spend all day at it.”

Her husband acknowledges what I’d say with a knowing nod.

“They can run fast and jump high, they just choose not to.”

“They just choose not to,” she says.

“If you offer them a chicken leg, they will jump high just fine.”

She and her husband laughed.

As we passed Florentino’s, the handsome waiter at the outdoor waiter’s station made big eyes at the bulldogs.

So, half an hour later, Brun, Otto and I are in Bourke Street. As we walk to the seat on which we sit and wait while Sam has first haircut, one of the socially challenged is crossing Bourke Street towards us, saying something about the men over the road working on the building site being dirty old men.

I knew straight away she would be straight over to the Bulldogs because there’s nothing the socially challenged like more than a couple of dogs with which they can relate. And I was right, as I got tissues from my pockets with which to dry the wet seat, cursing the fact that I’d chucked that serviette from my pocket only this morning, she was straight over and flopped down on the ground gooing and gah’ing about the bulldogs.

She was dressed in small shorts and a hoodie. She had on very insubstantial shoes. She, of course, had a bag full of rubbish, which seems to be a mandatory fashion item for the socially challenged. She had long dark hair and a not unattractive face, in fact, she could have once been beautiful, could still, in fact, be beautiful, if her, um, circumstance were different.

She looked up at me with dead eyes and asked if she could pat Brun, I said she could, the next thing she is holding Brun by the ears with her face pushed up against Brun’s face telling him how beautiful he is, in baby talk, of course she was. Brun just kind of looked at her expressionless.

We’re a bit later than normal and the footpath is busy with people. People. People. Sam would remind me later it was Black Friday. (Black Friday means nothing to me. I guess it should, but it doesn’t)

A couple stop and tell me that I must stop under feeding my dogs. I told her Brun is very keen on his food and she said she could see that.

Less than half an hour, Sam reappears, just as an Indian chick asks if she can pat the bulldogs because they are just so cute. It is curious timing as I’m trying to get my shit together and hand over to Sam. I have leads, and phones and wallets and dogs going in different directions and Sam asking me questions, and this chick asking to pat the dogs.

So, I’m in the salon waiting. There are four guys before me, and the three hairdressers seem to be doing chick’s hair, which always takes longer.

The ugly cute skinny hairdresser has died his black hair a kind of dead blond grey colour. Awful! Not a good advert for the salon, I wouldn’t have thought.

Half an hour goes by, I finish reading the Guardian and I am still waiting, but reading had passed the time quickly.

A few minutes later, a cute dark haired guy with serial killer’s eyes arrives and sits opposite me.

Not long after that, I should be in the chair, hopefully. The big, boof blond boy is just about finished with the girl owner. The hairdresser with the fire engine red hair has just about finished with his bob style and blow wave. The Ugly, cute guy has finished with his client who is saying she is going to send her husband in for a haircut tomorrow,

So, it’s 2:42pm by the time we’re eating Thai food in Bourke Street in the light rain, but our table has an umbrella over it and also an awning of the shop above the umbrella.

I ate five different kinds of pork in a spiced noodle soup. Sam has dry Tom Yum noodles.

Crowds of people pass by as we eat. Lots of people, a never ending parade of them.

3:15pm, we’ve finished eating and I am thinking about something sweet, so Sam goes off to find sweeties.

Some idiot parents have bought their toddler squeaky shoes, shoes that squeak with every step the toddler makes. This idiot kid takes many steps. I want to exterminate the whole family. Seriously, what the fuck were they thinking?

We head home up Bourke Street. Brun continues to be resistant to walking most of the way home.

We get drinks at the optometrist and the dress shop where the people working know the bulldogs and they get pats. Fitzroy is now full of tourists eating.

We’re home before 4pm.

We do screens.

We ate fancy doughnuts that Charlie had bought with tea as soon as we got home. You know arvo tea, despite having a late lunch.

The 9news comes on. The Prime Minister marries his girlfriend.

Jetstar chaos as Jetstar cancels flights due to a software update on A380s. 

The whiny new female leader of the Liberal Party in Victoria has an uphill battle as there is no electorate in the state that thinks the Victorian Liberals are any good.

Skyhooks guitarist Bob ‘Bongo’ Starkie dies aged 73. Starkie has died of leukaemia surrounded by friends and family and ‘listening to Chuck Berry’, his daughter says.

We ate mango and sticky rice.

We watched SBS news and ABC news. We all of the above three times. I don’t think Sam has got over The Project getting cancelled.

We ate Thai sausage.

We turned the TV off.

I continued creating AI images for my blogs.

My eyes are bothering me today, they have been good ever since my eye doctor appointment up until today, but today they are sore.

I wrote my journal. This, what you are reading.

11pm. We go to bed.