Stupid People With Dogs

Stupid people down the dog park yet again. We took Buddy and Floyd (he's staying for a few weeks). A couple turned up with a sandy coloured mutt and, maybe what was, an Italian Greyhound. I was doing perimeters of the park for exercise, when I saw both the mutt and the greyhound looking as though they were trying to bite Buddy. I changed the direction I was walking and headed over there. The two dogs seemed to bite at Buddy again, as I approached. I grabbed Buddy and checked the sides of his face, more for a show of strength than any real belief Buddy had been bitten. I checked where Floyd was, he was okay. I let Buddy go and the mutt and the greyhound had a go at him again.

Okay, that is enough. “Excuse me," I said to the couple, "but could you stop your dog's biting mine.”

“I’m sorry,” said the porridge-faced guy. Not sorry for what his dog’s had done, I got the impression that he was begging my pardon for questioning him.

“You dogs are attacking mine,” I said. “Either stop them doing it, or take them home.”

The bitch wife quickly put their dogs on leads. I don't really remember her, some rat-faced nonsense I suspect.

“I think you are being a bit precious,” said Dough-Face.

Precious? Really? “Either they stop biting my dog, or you take them home" I said. "They don’t belong here if they bite other dogs.”

“I don’t think you have any right to say what dogs can come here…”

“I do if your dogs are continually attacking mine.”

“They’ll sort it out,” the dough-faced guy said. He sighed, as though I was bugging him.

“They’ll sort it out. Of course dogs work it out,” I said. “However, there is a big difference between a growl and antisocial behaviour.

“All dogs…”

“My dogs don’t bite other dogs.”

The bitch wife let muttley and sharky off their leads again.

Now lets just stop for a minute and think about the mentality of a woman who let’s her dogs free, as they are being accused of biting other dogs.

His greyhound circled again and looked as though it was going to bite again. The dough-faced owner kind of did the same, walked towards me, chest puffed out, adopting the tone of a silent killer.

“Listen mate, I don’t think you have any right…”

“I do when it is one of the criteria of using this park,” I said. “Your dog can only be in this park if it doesn’t bite other dogs. It is a requirement. That gives me the right.”

“My dog never bites other dogs.”

“Fantastic,” said Sam. He’d been listening to all of this, biting his lip. The greyhound circle again and looked as though it was going to bite Buddy again. “If it does it again,” said Sam. “I am whipping it with this.” Sam had Floyd’s silver chain lead in his hands.

I wanted to wait it out and make them leave, but Sam wanted to go. So, we took Buddy and Floyd and left.

Ah, dog owners.

In another incident, we were walking passed outside tables at a pub, at which there was a couple with two small dogs. As we approached with Buddy and Floyd, the two small dogs went apoplectic, barking and growling, so we took a wide berth around them. Out of the corner of my eye, when the male owner couldn't get his dogs to shut up, he grabbed one of them by the snout with both hands and squeezed as tight as he could. Yep, that's the kind of training mate that has lead to your dogs being who they are today, I thought.

It's funny, or not, that people who try to intimidate end up with dogs that intimidate and aggressive owners end up with aggressive dogs.

Buddy and Floyd

I Have The Next Week Off

My boss, F, said to me, somewhere around the beginning of December, "You are having time off until the 11th of Jan, aren't you?"

No, I thought. I'm not.

A few weeks later, my boss, F, said to me, "You are having time off until the 11th, aren't you?"

No, I thought.

Then when we were finally getting around to talk about our Xmas leave, F said to me, "You are having until the 11th off, aren't you?"

"Yes," I said. "Yes, I am." What are you to do? I don't have to be told twice, or 3 times, as the case might be, not to come to work.

So, I have the next week off, just like that. Lovely. F's going back a week earlier than me, maybe she has something to prove, more likely she is just trying to be a fair manager. I don't know, I don't care really, I have a week off.

Family Lunch

We had a family lunch with my auntie and uncle and cousins. Will (my brother) had organised it.

"Lunch Sunday," commanded Will, as he likes to do in the oldest child of the family manor. "Sometime after midday."

Roz was coming, of course. 

Some of my cousins would be there, but only 2 of the 12, oh, 5 of the twelve, if you count the 3 of us, so not such a good turn out, but a representative of all 3 families, at least.

It was all very quaint. My uncle and auntie are in their 80's now, so, I guess, you'd expect it to be quaint.

Sam came with me and met the family.

It was nice.

It was in place of a funeral for Lottie. She would have been pleased, as she told us not to spend a cent on a funeral for her. She was outraged when she finally came out of her grief for my father and caught up on some of the bills, when she saw the bill for dad's funeral.

"What on earth were you kids thinking when you agreed to pay that amount of money," Lottie said. "I was sure I had taught you better than that. Do not waste a cent on me when I go. For goodness sake."

So, we didn't. We all got together over lunch instead, as she would have wanted.

A Week At Torquay

We drove home from a week down at Torquay, with no Internet. No dogs either, but that didn't stop Tulli bringing Floyd, the schnauzer,  because that's what Tulli does. Oh well. It was nice being away, I read books on the deck. The beginning of the week it was too hot to go to the beach. The end of the week was too cold to go to the beach. I think that is a first, that I have gone to the beach and not gone to the beach. I got a beetle in my ear right on new year, I'm not sure what that says. It killed me when it tried to dig its way out. Fortunately, Sam got a lighter and the beetle followed the light out of my ear. It rained early our last morning, as though the universe had run out of the sun.

New Year's Day

I woke at 8am. I grabbed my laptop, my shorts and the mull box. I turn the coffee machine on and roll a joint in the laundry. Sam is up and awake and catches me with the joint in my hand.

I tell him later that the dope is crap, he tells me, “You are just building up a resistance to it, slow down.”

We sit in the sun on the deck and drink our coffee and smoke the joint.

Jane gets up not long after. We see her walking around the lounge room as though she is looking for something. She comes out onto the deck with the bird and her handbag.

“This may sound weird, but I just have to go to the gym,” she says. “I feel all bloated and horrible.”

“I guess all those gymed up Torquay boys wouldn’t be going to the gym,” I say. “They’d have done all of that before they came down here.”

“I doubt they’d be there now,” says Jane.

I mentally check what day it is. New Year’s Day. “No, I guess not.”

“I guess I am under .05,” says Jane. “I didn’t have that much to drink last night.”

I think my ‘not a lot to drink’ and Jane’s idea of ‘not a lot to drink’ are clearly different. “What is it they say, you sober up one drink per hour?” I say. “Is that it?” I wonder if I have any idea what it is? “What time did you go to bed?”

“1am?”

“8 hours.” I think to myself, No, that’s not right.”

“They’d be pretty mean to be out this morning,” says Jane.

I wonder if this is exactly the day they’d be out breath-testing people.

She takes Jay and heads to the car.

I roll another joint and sit on the deck and write my journal. Sam takes to the couch due to the head spins associated with smoking. I wonder if I am not treating him, my most precious thing, as well as I could, by making him smoke at the rate I do?

9.30am.

The gentle breeze rustles the leaves in the trees. The birds cheap and whistle from trees near and far. The sun sparkles.

I have ringing in my ears. It rings against the whistle of the wind around me.

I take a half smoked cigarette out of the ashtray from last night and smoke it.

Sam and I do our morning walk to the bitumen. I tap the hard, grey road with my foot and headed back. No hurry. Saunter along.

It was the coldest day of the holiday, overcast and the sun kept disappearing.

Bonnie and her friend and her friend’s son, Nico, arrived in the morning in their Mazda CX-3 Maxx.

They headed off to the beach.

Shane, Tulli and Sebastain headed off to the beach.

I wanted to go to the beach, I really did, but really today is just too cold, half of the time there was no sun. There was a cool breeze. Fancy going to the beach and not setting foot on the beach, that must be a first? The beginning of the week was too hot and after the cool change came it has been too cold.

Julien went shopping.

I read my book. It was a lazy day.

We watched TV in the afternoon.

Shane asked if he could still come and stay.

“Of course you can.” There goes my week off to myself, dam, I thought. I hope it didn’t show because, of course, I want Shane and Tulli to stay, but I am sure he said he was going back on the 15th. Maybe he means the weekend. Next weekend.

Shane cooked Devilled Eggs. Apparently, Tulli’s favourite. I told them how I’d made them a couple of times, paprika and something and mayonnaise and spring onion, but I always ate them as I made them and I never ended up with enough to serve to anyone.

Shane did paprika and anchovy.

Sebastain cooked hamburgers for dinner. Yum, yum. And he made coleslaw. We watched the movie Julie and Julia sitting on the couches in the lounge room.

We sat around. I rolled joints continually because that is what I felt like doing.

We went to bed at midnight. Sam said that he couldn’t wait to go home, he thinks we are wasting our time sitting around at the beach house now.

Buddy Goes On Camp

I woke up on the couch at 2am, Luke was reading, The Rosie Batty saga, the others weren’t in view. My tshirt was wet from my sweating as I slept. If I get all scrunched up when I sleep, I sweat a lot. I’m a bit of a sweater at the best of times. I sat up and felt the vile touch of wet fabric on bare skin. Shiver creeper, shiver cold. Like the wet side of skin from another creature wrapped around me. It grabbed at my skin, as I reached for the mulli and the mull bowl. Luke and I smoked it in silence. I shuffled off to bed. That time in the wee small ams when I feel like Quasimodo dragging my sorry arse up those stairs. The bedroom airconditioner was whirring, surprisingly quietly, and the room was sealed shut. Lovely. I like to sleep with the same doona all year round, is that indulgent? If I was an eccentric Billionaire, I’d sleep in a chilled marble vault.

I’d have a house in the country, sadly I think it would have to be the tropics, that was built in accordance with air flow and natural heating and cooling. You have to harness the cool, night air to survive the harsh, hot days. If I was a billionaire, I could do it anywhere, I guess. There is nothing like sleeping in the natural warmth of the day, though, or showering with an open air bathroom, which is sublime in the topical parts of Australia.

Are we going to have to provide a granny flat for poor mad aunt Annie, I fear so. You know, if I was a billionaire. I’d need to be a billionaire, with a compound. Antony is hopeless, not dangerous.

Mark has totally shunned Antony. “I’m sick of making excuses for the addicts in my life,” Mark said.

There has to be something said for it. If Anthony wants to drink himself to death in Mitcham, who are we to get in the way?

Money… addiction… anxiety… greed… failure (deliberate failure on all levels) is the sickness today.


I woke up at 5am to the aircondioner buzzing away next to me in a 21st century computerised way. I looked over Sam’s head to the bedside clock, to see what time it was? He got to his feet and drank a glass of water. He walked over to the aircondioner and it stopped with a kerthud. He opened the balcony door and a wildly cold breeze blew in and the patter of heavy rain could be heard on the road beyond. The breeze was new and full of joy. The feeling of the room turned inside out.

I made coffee and rolled a joint.

The rain fell continuously for hours, heavy, substantial rain. It was cold sitting in the lounge room with the windows and the doors open, airing it from the heat of the days now passed. We had to close them. Funny old weather. I wonder if any one else has noticed a change? Or is it just me?

I made coffee and smoked a second joint.

I have to take Buddy to Cheltenham today, and I have to drive to Torquay on Sunday, but other than that, I don’t have to do anything until 11th January. I’m on holidays.

Sam is still chastising me for taking the 4th Jan to the 11th Jan off, unsupervised, if you like. “Go back on the 4th,” he said. “You don’t need any more time off after that.”

“A week to myself, to do nothing, you know that is my favourite kind of week to take off,” I said. “What could I say, F kept offering it to me right up until the last day. She said, “You decided, I’m happy either way.”

“I’ll see you on the 11th,” I said.

The assertion from Sam is that I will do nothing, if I am left unsupervised. Don’t you sometimes just need your own company for a week, or thereabouts, just to completely recharge and top up completely? Don’t you?


Mark and Sister Chrisy spoke for hours about Fen. Apparently, psycho boy’s written efforts are ramping up, with several members of the family receiving their annual Fen missive. Mark called Sister Chrisy to see if she had received one, which indeed she had. All lovely, kittens and puppies, charming Fen, just reaching out to his loved ones. The last time he tried this, with Lissa (cousin) and Rob (uncle), it rapidly descended into mindless ranting and physical threats and he is now blocked from their lives.

Shrug.

The sun shone outside. The sky was blue.

Apparently, psycho boy and psycho mumma (mother Marie) have had another falling out and psycho mumma has been banned from seeing sproglet April for 3 years… psycho boy has banned his terminally ill mother from seeing his kid for an extended period of time? She says we all have to be on psycho boy’s side. The madness never ends. They deserve each other.

I don’t really care, as long as Fen is never bought back into my life, I feel like X Street is neutral ground. Otherwise, I really don’t care what he does, but it is quite interesting, none the less. Like it, or not, and I like it not, he is a part of my story and his character’s storyline deserves an update. Nothing more. Some of the regular bit players get to speak from time to time.

I am not invested. I expect no more contact forever.

Mark and Luke went to Jeff and Raymond’s for a late lunch. (Sam and I no longer get invited. Not fun enough, Sam asks? Was it something I said, I ask?) I told them to be back by 6pm so that we could take Buddy down to Rachel’s.

“I’ll be down after 6pm.”

“No problem,” said Rachel. “There will be a few people here eating Xmas leftovers for dinner.

Mark said 7pm to everyone of my 6pm’s, but I was sure he got the message in the end. They got home right on 7pm. Apparently, they are now going to stay a night at Jeff and Raymond’s and won’t becoming down to the beach house until Monday night.

Change you minds if you like… but again?

We left for Rachel’s.

Stopping on the white line as the next car to cross Bridge Road in the heavy traffic on Punt Road – if you can’t leave an intersection, people, you shouldn’t enter it. They are the road rules, learn them – Sam said, “Look there is one of those flashing light things.”

My eyesight stretched down Punt Road to red and blue flashing police lights seemingly at the beginning of this traffic jam that was in front of us. Oh? What? Is the light still green? It looked more like an accident, or did it? Fortunately, we were in the left lane, despite that intersection having a dedicated left turn lane, which I had just edged passed, I put my left blinker on and turned left into Bridge Road. Exit, stage left. Did I just dodge a breathalyser? Am I now a fugitive? Forward to Lennox Street, I hadn’t smoked pot for the last few hours, all afternoon, it was now 7pm, but I’d been choofing away quite heavily before that, in the morning, you do the maths. Forward to Swan Street, will a police car see me turn left and follow me? Are there flashing red and blue lights behind me? Turn right into Swan Street, which seems like party central with clear revellers lining the streets and filling the cafes. Momentarily, we are in Times Square. Jazz played. Safety in numbers, disappear into the crowd. People laughed. Lights flashed. Base speakers thumped. If Melbourne had a Gotham City section, this would be it. Turn left into Cremorne Street, just under the expansive bridge. The noise disappears. The street stretches out in front of us, a straight line into the dark. I push the Peugeot along, its exhaust barks out into the night air, as we gather speed, between the warehouse buildings, down the narrow street, seemingly, to the end of it, just when it threatens to veer away from the parallel to Punt Road, we take a side street right back onto Punt Road. Forward, over the river and up the Punt Road Hill. I can see the red and blue lights flashing in my rear vision mirror nearly all the way over the hill to Toorak Road.

Marg and David were there (Rachel’s parents). Craig (brother), Emily (daughter), and her very sexy fireman boyfriend Alex, Alexi, and her husband, Matt (neighbours). Oreya (daughter), Oliver (son), a visiting English couple, who were all full of the Xmas cheer. It is nice, it is really what Xmas is about. Such gatherings for my family are a thing of the past, I thought.

Buddy took it as a gathering of his fan club and greeted everyone accordingly. His natural bulldog swagger kicking in as he proceeded around his guests. He will be allowed to sit on the couch in this house. They all said how lovely he is.

Kaia (their gorgeous shaggy dog) was fine with him, but the cat (feline infuriated) was another story. NOT HAPPY! WHAT THE FUCK! Ears back. Hiss! Spit! She had to be removed. Let’s hope that Buddy has the good sense to keep away from that.
Kaia has grown up since last time I saw her, playing right into Buddies big dog fetish. Let's hope he doesn't get amorous with her. That would be a bad look. A fail to be invited back.

Marg was very chatty. She hasn’t changed one little bit over the years and is just a nice as ever. She said, “Gosh Christian, I wouldn’t have recognised you.” We haven’t seen each other for 20 years, but we did drive all over London together, Marg and I laughed at the memory.

“I know, I’ve got fat and grey.” Unlike you. She hasn’t changed in forty years. Not much. She must be in her seventies, late seventies, I reckon.

We ate another Xmas dinner. All the trappings. We were in the house of good cooks. I drank coke.

It poured with rain. I got wet standing in the back yard having a fag.

“What are you doing?” exclaimed Rachel when she saw a cigarette in my mouth.

We all laughed.

“Can Buddy have table scraps?” asked Rachel. I looked over to see his lordship up on his back legs, front paws on the bench, tonguing up into the air to get the table scraps in question with all the bulldog enthusiasm he could muster.

I wanted to answer, he has never had table scraps, but I simply said "Sure," instead.

“Once mum’s gone, he can sleep on my bed,” said Rachel.

“Remember, he snores.”


Rachel was a bit glassy-eyed by the time we left.

“They were feeding Buddy sausages,” said Sam in the car, aghast that I had some how allowed this to happen.

“He’s on camp,” I said.


The roads home at 11pm were clear of cars and, more importantly, clear of potential policemen with small machines in their hands. “I haven’t had one drop of alcohol, officer.”

“Could I test your saliva?”

“Can you test an alternative?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t follow?”

“A liquid, possibly,” I said. I sat back in the seat.

“I have a wife and kids.”

Duh!

Shake of the head.

Actually, I wouldn’t care. I don’t need my car for anything, and if I lost my licence I wouldn’t really care. I could easily not drive for the duration of the punishment. And they just give it back to you at the end. The trouble is that there is zero tolerance for it in your system, accordingly the punishments are punitive. I smoked in the morning, but I didn’t smoke any pot for the afternoon, the 7 hours preceding getting behind the wheel. I was fine to drive. If you want to take me to task over it, I would argue that 7 hours later the stoned effect had finished and warn off, if anything, I would be simply more relaxed and therefore better focused on driving than, possibly, at other times.

If I hadn’t drunk alcohol for 7 hours before driving, people would be applauding me.

I don’t care what people think, it is ridiculous, we should have a .05 tolerance like we do with alcohol.


I fell asleep repeatedly on the couch, Sam woke me repeatedly and told me to go to bed.

Luke read Rosie Batty’s story.

I was in bed by 12.30am.

Xmas Day

I woke up in a pool of sweat at 4am. My pillow and my tshirt were dripping. It was one of those hot still nights, the late night cool only started to blow around 5am. I got up and changed my tshirt, but I had to put on a light to find my favourite, worst tshirt. In the dark of the lounge, who cares what I wear? Sam hissed from the dark "Why are you getting up so early."
"Dunno, just because."
I scratch my arse.

I had a piss. The light was just beginning to break beyond the clouds. I gazed out the window. I looked back at the bed. I felt more awake than sleepy, I could feel that. A quick mental calculation. This is what happens when you go to bed at 10.30pm, I think. 7 hours sleep, I’d had 7 hours sleep. They say that is the optimal amount of sleep. Or the optimal number of hours… 7 hours.

I make coffee, open the doors and windows. Smoke two joints.

The back door blows shut, as this back door always does. By the time I opened it again, Buddy was laying out tummy down on the cool paving. He saunters in at 5.30am, but he wants to go to the big bed straight away. And twinkle toes disappears fairly smartly. I find him at the bottom of the stairs. I stand next to him and he looks up at me with his big brown eyes. I say, “Come on.” And he motors up those stairs, all paw drive, immediately. What he lacks in stature, he makes up for in strength. Sam hissed about being woken up again, but then Buddy jumps on to the bed, and Sam is instantly distracted by him.

6am and I make another coffee.

I was going to wrap Xmas presents, but I couldn’t find the good sticky tape. When I think such things I wonder if I am turning into my mother? I laugh to myself. The magic tape, I knew what I meant.

The air was cool as I sat bare-legged in the lounge room. I edited my photos. I have to go through them. I often take 3 shots of the same image. I culled out as many as I can, all of those exactly the same shots. And all the dud ones, of course. The truth to digital photography is to take many shots, but edit hard and only keep the one true image in the end.

At 7.30am, I decide to go and get some milk. Sam commandeers my milk run to a run for Buddy in the park on the way to Woollies.

We’re back at 8.30am.

We all make a pact that we are to leave the house by 11am, to drive to Jane’s for Xmas lunch.

Mark is bemused by our present of Rosie Batty’s life story. “Oh yes, very clever,” he says. A wry smile appears on his face.

We gave Luke, The Book of He. Funny, Mark read that and giggled through out.

We leave by 11.45am.

The Geelong Road comes to a stand still twice, three times on the way down to Torquay, that is how busy it was. Two of those occasions, it was just because road works signs had been left out by the sides of the road and Muggins and Mrs Muggins live their lives in such 21st Century abject fear that they slow down automatically, we’re in danger of becoming glass half empty kind of civilisations. We are no longer the free sprits who speed on through. “Ha ha, ho ho, it’s Xmas day.”

We fill the car up with juice. We switch the airconditioning to high and motor on down to the coast.

It is really hot. There have been rumours of bushfires at Wye River. I feel a kinship as we had a beach house there once. That is confirmed when we get to Jane’s. A tripled front weatherboard, kind of funky, kind of old. Huge block, so I was mentally renovating from the first moment I stepped out into the desolate back yard, baked momentarily in the sun while I positioned the picnic chair into the meagre shade and lit a smoke.

(brother) Will called as we were driving down. I called him back. He told me that there is a meeting of all the cousins on Sunday 03rd January, we’re all going. Everybody will be there. It is probably some catholic wake by stealth, you know how tricky the Xtian’s are. There could be singing and praying. Ha ha. So, that is something to look forward to. (raised eyebrows) Oh, I am such a hermit now a days, even the thought of such large gatherings brings me out in a touch of the agoraphobia’s.

Luke rolled joints before we left, we smoked one. Outside in the baking sun.

The lounge room was airconditioned, so the first thing we did was to insist that we ate at the dinning room table. It didn’t seem logical but it did, at least, seem neat. However, lunch was grand, plentiful, delicious, fun. Sucking on whole roast garlic. Jay had blue hair throughout.

We watched Sherlock Holmes’s Smarter Brother, after dinner. We laughed.

I think it is the first time I have thought, Jane bares a striking resemblance to Demi Moore. I’ve never thought that before.

Julien arrived back from Melbourne and Xmas lunch with his sister Kym. Toorak, Faulkner Park, something of that combination. It was good to see him. He seems great. Good old Jules.

We laughed. We smoked another joint. Julien smoked too. Welcome back. The sun burned every time we stepped out into it.

Fen wasn’t mentioned once, even if there were a couple of obvious huddles between Mark and Jane to which I wasn’t privy.
Jane has shut her brother completely out of her life. She doesn't feel as though she can trust him. She lives with a huge dog and does her self defence classes regularly, because of him, because of her brother. Fen has never met Jay and Jay is now 12 years old.

Jules and Jane were going down to the beach for a drumming ceremony, no doubt a part of some vegan hippie cooperative Jane is a part off now, at which point we bid our adieu.

It was hot driving home. The Geelong Road was packed with cars, but at least it kept flowing. There was just one trouble spots when a gaggle of black 4WDs gathered together driving at 98 kilometres an hour back to their MacMasions at Point Cook, or Mill Park. They just seemed to gather, taking up all the lanes together, all three lanes. Black Sante Fe, Black X5, turquoise X3, a charcoal grey Q7, a charcoal grey Toureg, silver Mercedes ML. The bitch (I’m sorry, she was. She had bleach blond hair and she talked on her phone the whole way through oblivious to anything that was going on around her) in the turquoise X3 would never get out of the right lane whilst doggedly sticking to 98 kph. The Indian in the spotless white Camry was guilty of the same crime. All the other urban assault vehicles just gathered for a time around these main perpetrators of road etiquette crime. 

A black G Class following me, in my GTI, snaking our way through the conglomeration together. We finally broke free of them. I felt camaraderie. He sped off into the distance, his V8 roaring, his twin tail pipes smoking, like any frustrated AMG G Class driver would, once we made it clear.

Mid point there was road works 80 kph signs for a considerable length of time, 20 kilometres, or so, maybe more. And while the rest of us slowed down to 80, the Indian in the gleaming white Camry and the bitch in the turquoise X3, still chatting away on her phone, caught up just enough, to gathered with us again, you know, just in front of us, when we wanted to return to 100 kph.

Grrrr!

We all accelerated away from them again.

We were home by the evening, 6, or 7. I was asleep on the couch by 10.30pm. I remember, vaguely, Sam waking me repeatedly until I got cross with him. (He reminded me in the morning) I don’t remember anything after that.

Happy Xmas

Travelling to relatives, to eat pork and ham and roast veggies, it seemed as though the entire population of Melbourne were visiting relatives down the Geelong Road

Happy Fucken Xmas

The xenophobic overtone withstanding, as long as you mean the true meaning of Xmas, a present giving period of excess, and not some second hand birthday attributed to some mythical man who never existed and who certainly was never born on the 25th December, then I am with you. 

Max out your credit cards, give people shit they don't ever need, or want, and eat yourself to your artery clogged death, what could be better?

Sam

Your love is sublime, 

like putting ice cream

on waffles,

or strawberries and cream.

I Woke Up at 4am on the Couch Alone

I woke up at 4am on the couch alone. I smoked a joint and wrote this. I was going to go to work tomorrow, I really have to go to get it all done, but you know now at 4am, stoned off my brain, I’m thinking I don’t care. If you can’t take a day off because your mother died, when can you take a day off?

I didn’t really feel anything about mum, I was arguably too stoned to feel anything about anything. It had been one of those weekends where friends had arrived from interstate to stay for Xmas, I’d been in charge of the pot, as I supplied it, and I was nice and plastered, for two days. (If you want to get shitfaced, buy the gunger, it is a rule in life) It is different when your parent takes the long drawn out approach to dying, as mum did. I’d really cried it all out about her by now. I’ve driven home many days crying in the car. I cry easily and freely, I like to cry so I wouldn’t ever stop tears, but I haven’t felt any. She became a cadaver, she looked like she had been mummified in the end, with the fight to the very end. She never wanted to die. Any time you asked her, she had plans for the next ten years, she was always looking forward, no matter how cloudy that got in the end. I remember as a kid being frightened by a horror schlock movie called, When The Ants Attack. It was the first time I’d seen that dehydrated, sucken in kind of dead bodies, that was how Lottie was starting to look in her last few months. So it is was not unexpected. It is just a sense of relief, and then a sense of confusion, as it should have been so much more.

Better sneak up to bed and slip in next to Sam very quietly.

Sam woke and told me that he hadn’t put the alarm on. Yes, of course, Sam is on holidays and isn’t going to work. He sensed that I needed to wake up to message work about not going in. He assumed I wasn't going to work.

I woke up at 6.45am, there was a gorgeous cold breeze blowing in the balcony doors. I text F, as I smoked my first joint. She replied with take all the time you need. I could have easily gone to work, but really I am just too bonged over.

Another smoke before the others get up. And another coffee.

Sam was up just before 8am, just as I lost the joint I was going to smoke after I made my second coffee. But I misplaced it? I looked all around the lounge room, more than once. I felt like I was going blind and that it must be just in front of me somewhere. I looked in the kitchen again. I looked in the lounge room again. I was rolling a second one (okay, technically my third) when Sam came down stairs.

It felt cold today. It became too cold for the back door to remain open, so we closed it. Buddy is in my spot when I return to my laptop, so we cuddle up together.

The air is cold coming in the open, lounge room, window.

The first three words I see in this Facebook game I play mindlessly, as I shoved the first spoonful of muesli into my mouth,  an oblong set of letters, meant to described me.

I got, suicide, naked, malice.

Three of my favourite subjects. I raised my eyebrows.

Insert the grounds container, the coffee machine said for the longest time while Sam was cleaning it. A bit like the mantra to a 21st Century life, insert grounds container.

It was over cast, a cool wind blew. I put on Nora Jones.

I still haven’t found the lost joint. Its 9am. Mark is up.

Fen did put a tracker on Mini’s car, so he has always known where she is. She feels that he now has all the power and she has to now concede to his demands because she can’t hide from him. He wants to take April on Thursday to Mother Mary’s house. Yes, Big Boof Head Fen has run home to his (deranged) mother, as he always has. Mary is on his side, he is not to go back to Mini, because, “That girl is just not right, Mark,” said Mary. Apparently, Mary will never forgive Fen if he goes back to Mini. Seriously. Mary, you are the problem. Actually, name any member of the Smith family, they are probably to blame. (The mother's dysfunctional family)

"You have to be loyal to your son, Mark," hissed the mother of the nightmare down the phone.

"He tried to choke his wife," said Mark.

We took Buddy to the dog park, the guy with the Frenchie puppies was there, Honda and Gidget. And the mother, [insert name] Apparently we could have had Honda for $5000. It didn’t help that he ran around after Buddy, the two of them seemed to fit really easy together. Honda and his sister were adorable together. White with tan spots.

“Should I make an offer of $4000?” asked Sam.

“I tell you what,” I said. “I think we should get going to Woollies… before we own 2 dogs.”

I met up with Judi and Bruce, Nicholas’s mum and stepfather. Judi looked as ravishing as ever, purple fifties hat, black sheath, crimson leggings. There was some kind of ocelot, in the hat, as well. Bruce talk to me like he and I are the best of friends, like he always do. Up close and personal real fast.

“We’re just ducking in for a few Chrissy things,” said Judi.

“It’s good to see you.” I smiled at Judi.

“Have your heard from that son of mine?”

“No,” I said. “He said he’d call when I saw them just before they moved to Coburg.”

“Oh yes, the mansion in Coburg,” said Judi.

“But I haven’t heard,” I said.

“Do you want me to tell him when I see him?”

“Sure. Tell him.”

“Of course, I don’t know when that’ll be,” said Judi. “He never calls his mother.”

Judi and I smile at each other. Judi and I kind of flirt, not really. Sort of. Maybe just in my head? What does that say? I’m not sure. (Maybe she represents a safe space where I can flirt with her son, which I can’t do in real life) She adores Nicholas, so it isn’t hard to get her to talk about him.

We played Nora Jones and got stoned.

I spoke to the funeral people, their number is twenty four hours, 24 Hour Death. Roz laughed, "Do you think, do you?" Then she called them back and fixed it all. Lottie has a plot next to Alex (dad), Great Aunt Ada and Jimmy Mountbatten, Ada’s husband. Complete.

Everything can be emailed. Done.

It is sad, mum, it is the day after. The paperwork on your life can be completed by email. Roz checked.

I potted the agaves, we stole from the road side.

We ate prawn pasta for lunch.

I don’t know what happened in the afternoon, I think I may have passed out. Exhausted. Oops. It is not such a good look, now, hey. Mark and Luke seemed to have cat’s bum expressions when I woke up, so I guess, it mustn’t have been such a good look. Why does everyone seem to be anti fall-asleep-on-the-couch? Oh, but it is Xmas and I’m not even on holidays.

We ate salmon with chicken salad for dinner.

She Loved Me Until The Day She Died

It was hot from the get go, yesterday was 41, today 39. We were cooking okay.

I got up at 5.30am. I smoked a joint first up, so it had plenty of time to wear off. I just didn’t want to be mindless and consequently, incommunicado when Roz picked me up. I had 5 hours to dry out.

LouLou woke up.

Sam got up.

I checked the online papers had to say on bush fires, nothing much.

Roz picked me up at 11am. Mark got up, as I was heading out to Roz’s car. 

This time Lottie was in the bed, really doing the death mask now. We both jumped a bit when we saw her. Roz entered moments before me, she thought Lottie was dead, momentarily.

It was the first time the nurse had ever asked if we had Lottie’s funeral arrangements up to date. The nurse said, “It can only be a matter of days.”

The nurses got us chairs. We said we didn’t think we’d stay, but we sat and chatted to Lottie automatically.

I told her that if she didn’t want to die alone, this was the greatest crowd she was now ever going to get, the two of us, this was her last chance to die with us holding her hand.

We chatted for ages, we thought we were funny, we were sure Lottie would have agreed. We listened to her breath in and out, when we ran out of things to say.

We took the only thing of Lottie’s that we wanted, a photo of her and Will taken five years ago, sitting on her bedside table. We decided we didn't want anything else.

“Where are you going to put that?” asked Roz, as we walked out to the car.

“I’m not going to keep it,” I said. “I’m going to scan it and then toss it. Just need the image."

I was home chatting, when the phone rang. As I got up, it crossed my mind… could it be mum? It was the nurse we’d spoken to earlier in the morning, Lottie had died a few moments before. I thanked her for calling. I remember thinking that I should thank her. It was roughly 14.15 Sunday 20th December 2015.

I told the nurse I would tell Roz. I told Roz that dad had died too, in the entrance way to The Royal Melbourne, over ten years ago now.

I told Mark and Luke and Sam. It was nice they were with me.

My next thought, as I puffed on a joint in the blazing heat cooking the back veranda, I’ve been pretty well ripped on both the days my parents died.

I called Roz, she was having a new band fitted to her watch.

Roz rang Will.


(Psychologically disturbed step son) Fen was, apparently raging, somewhere in the distance. Suddenly, back in our lives.

Mark had to go to the police station, to give them a head’s up, about what, I didn’t ask. Whatever it was, it probably wasn’t going to happen. He'd threatened to attack before, but never had, let’s face it. Dear Universe don’t let that happen, could you imagine?

The only thing I could think was, Trust Fen to spoil the day my mum died.

Oh, who cares. It would be too boring for words. Don’t say his name out loud. Don’t engage in it, I say. But of course, Mark is involved, he’s communicating with Mini, so he can see April. I told him he should cut all ties, just for the time being, and let the police solve the problem once and for all, that is Fen. He didn’t agree.

It got dark and a storm brewed ominously.

A storm was coming, said all the weather channels.

Sebastian and LouLou left for LouLou’s new place in Gisborne. A bare-walled unit from, all accounts. It will be sad to see her move from abject beauty, that house on Mount Macedon couldn’t be nicer, to abject poverty, a brick veneer strata unit in Gisborne. Oh, I do hope it is nice.

I’m going to give LouLou a ficus, if any of my cuttings grow, it looks like about 5 might.

We ate leftover chicken skewers and prosciutto wrapped mushrooms, which tasted like they had ricotta cheese in them, or something.

We watched the teev together.

The Day of the Party

I was awake at 5.30am. Awake. Tossing and turning. I got up to look at the sunrise in the cool morning air at the balcony doors.

“What are you doing,” Sam asked.

“I’m awake.”

“Oh, you just want to spend time with your BFF (marijuana),” Sam hissed.

“It’s a beautiful morning.”

“You’ll go and smoke your head off unsupervised,” Sam hissed again.

I jumped on the bed and pinched his exposed leg. It shot out of the way. I pinched his arse. “Shut up grumpy pants.”

“You’re going to go and smoke like a train.”

I rubbed his head.

“Calm, calm, you are sleepy and will soon fall into a deep sleep,” I said.

Buddy came in momentarily, but went back to his house.

My joint kept going out and I had to keep lighting it, it was annoying.

I feel like I have a sty on my eyelid.

The cool wind blew in the back door.

A few birds cheeped outside.

I like getting up early and writing my journal in solitude. I write getting up in the morning. I write what happened the previous night. On a work day, I get to work and I spend at least half an hour on more of what happened in the morning, going over what I had written for the previous 24 hours. If I come home at 4.30pm and write up the day, all good then, otherwise that can be missed, although if I write later at night, this can be caught up, of course. I just hate it when I open my journal and I have missed 3 days. Damn!

I mixed the stewed apple through my now soaked-for-half-an-hour muesli, until it goes like a kind of bircher porridge.

The coffee is good. It must be my favourite thing, coffee. There is nothing as good. Ah, all bow down at the feet of the coffee god.

6.20am. I’m really stoned, on to my second coffee, extra long, extra strong, with milk to three bars on the machines milk dial. I hope Sam doesn’t get up just yet, all his predictions have come true, if he does. 

I might need to have a lie down on the couch. Suddenly it is too hard to look at the bright screen.

I only smoked 2 joints, but I had to lay back on the couch, my head was spinning. I had to hang on momentarily, as the room spun and I felt sick. What the hell. I’m on holidays. I had to think about the weather. Next week, working for four more days, I’m not on holidays at all. The Xmas party on Wednesday in the park and I thought of Louis (The intern from work), in his good pants. Then down the beach, Torquay. Buddy on his own. Hoping Anton (Rachel’s son) will come through on the dog sitting. I’m so glad my couch is so comfy. Still and quiet, not a sound, the silence of the early morning. Ah relaxed. When I closed my eyes it was dark outside, when I reopened them it was getting light, although they may, actually, be directly as a result of the time of the morning, more so than how long I slept.

Sam came down. He chastised me for being so stoned already.

We took Buddy for a walk at 7.20am, before the day got too hot.

It was boiling hot by 9.30am. We’re all going to burn. I reckon something will burn, we’ll have to wait until tonight’s news.

I cleared the coffee table.

Mark vacuumed.

We played Cyndi Lauper.

By midday it was burning hot outside. The sun was blaring. The air was soup.

Mark and Luke worked around us. Sam and I sat in the lounge room at the spotlessly clean coffee table. The carpet had been deodorised. It was still cool inside. Buddy came in, it was so hot outside.

Sam and I laughed stoned from the coffee table.

We watched old episodes of Friends while we waited for the hordes to arrive for the 40th birthday.

Lolly and Rob were the first to arrive, sometime after 5pm. LouLou arrived, she even found her way unaided. Adriana was next. Perry and Wesley. David and Lachlan. We sat outside mostly, anywhere we could find fresh air. The day was hot.

The other’s had some party drug love from Adriana, but she didn’t give Sam and I any. “We’re obviously no fun,” said Sam.

There was lots of food. Fifteen people didn’t show up. Jeff & Raymond, Andrew & Saffy, Matt & Rob, Mark & Luke’s friend’s from Lismore, Jamie and pascal. Rachel La Vine.

By the end Adriana was controlling the dance music with her smart phone, as we all sat quietly in our chairs.

We went to bed at 2.30am.

Out to Lunch

I was up at 6.30am. It was lovely and cool when I got up, cool breeze blowing in the open balcony doors. Sam was up before the coffee machine had turned off.

The present seemed even sadder in the cold light of day, with it’s ill folded corners, it was a bad shape, with a smaller base to the top. The fact that it was wrapped upside down didn’t add to its cache.

We were out in the street in the hot morning sun when Sam said he’d forgotten his headphones, again.

Sam and I walked to work, Sam asking me, “What is wrong with you?” when I lit up a cigarette. I laugh and tell him he is funny. He says, “Ha ha, he he! You think it is funny to smoke like a train.”

I was in at 7.50am.

Obese Olwyn and Fat Guts Carol Brady were already in when I got to work.

I decided to sneak my present over to the Kriss Kringle box early before people were in the office and could see what I bought and I’d have to do the walk of shame, in full view. Ben was there, although he didn’t turn around. Fat Joy was there and she pointed me in the right direction. The big box in the far right hand front corner of the office. And so, I got my present in the box anonymously. Fat Joy didn’t care. Ha ha. She pointed, but she showed no interest in what I had in my hands.

I got a coffee and had a fag on the way back to my office. Alex Clover told me that the finance Xmas party was next week. Oh yay. The penny dropped how we were going to fit in lunch with HR and the Finance Xmas party in the same afternoon, that’s because he Finance Xmas party is next Week. Oh, good, I thought, maybe it will be cooler next Wednesday.

F was in when I got back at 8.30am with a coffee in my hand.

I took the mail over to the other building, mid morning, to have another smoke. Once I get going, there is no stopping me. It was hot and burning outside. I smoked under the umbrella outside the café, with the shade and the breeze and an ash tray, it was quite nice.

The HR Xmas party was on in Fitzroy at 1pm.

“Christian, I’m going to drive to the lunch today,” said F. “You are welcome to come with me, if you want.”

F’s got a nice car. “Sure,” I said.

F, Obese Olwyn and I drove to lunch in F’s Golf R32. Midnight Blue, 4 doors. We got a park that was nearly out the front. Margie turned up with her three week old son, Leo, and all the girl’s present ovulated. It looked like an aubergine to me. The girls chatted like chipmunks. Obese Olwyn and Fatty Snoop… no, she’s not that anymore, she’s F – still calling her fat, but it takes all the sting out of it if I don’t, actually, say it.

I notice with F, a lot of her leads her… um… out the front, shall we say, as she walks, when she is in my peripheral vision. She has this mountain attached to the front of her.

I don’t think of her as Fatty Snoop Cake Lady any more, so she needs a new name. My Cool Boss? How’s that? There’s a first. Not a first, Bec was a cool boss. F likes cakes and cars, what is there not to like? – she and Obese Olwyn sat with me at lunch. They are the most interesting, by a long shot.

The nice one, who’s name I keep forgetting, said, “We’ve got bubbles coming,” as soon as we walked up. Oooo, twirling my fingers in the air in front of me. Bubbles, I hate that expression. You have a mouth like a sloth, I thought to myself.

Barbie sat next to me, but she’s been on extended leave so she is greatly wound down, and we didn’t really talk directly to one another, although we spoke in group discussions. Fat Guts Carol Brady was next to her. Red-haired Anne, Andrea R, the loud smiley one (who is really nice) but who’s name I always forget was next, Spanky, looking cross-eyed with a jug of white wine in her grasp. Olwyn, enthusiastic about food, as always. Mingey Van Wort, looking thin and high-cheek boned, Fran Di Dio, seemingly as relaxed as always, and the Ginger Super Model, who seemingly was arriving for the longest time, with constant announcements of her progress, but who eventually did turn up to sit at the last person to arrive chair, on the end. She doesn’t really offer much of any discernable personality.

Nasty Raspy didn’t show up, thank the universe. Luck was on our side.

May Pang had already gone on holidays, to finish her newly renovated house in East Geelong, so she wasn’t there.

I drank cider, so did Olwyn. I also drank vodka, so did Olwyn. The drinks were being liberally ordered, and from the outset I sensed that somebody else was paying. I ate vegetable and goat’s cheese gnocchi, it was sublime.

F had got us an early pass card, she’d gone and spoken to Fran personally during the morning, and we got permission to leave at 3pm, the others we scheduled to lunch until 7pm.

The car temperature said 41 when we got back into it.

All I can say about today is thank the universe for air conditioning.

We hadn’t been back long when F said, “You’ve worked long hours this week, you can head home, if you like.” I never have to be told twice to go home.

“I’ll see you Monday, I said… moments later. (Big smile) I was packed up in record time.

The sun was burning, as I walked home.

Luke was home rolling a joint just as I walked in the door. “Good timing,” I said.

A cool change rolled in.

We opened the doors of the stuffy house. It was lovely, it was cool outside in the evening.

Mark got up.

Sam came home.

Italian Sebastian came in.

We smoked more pot. I felt sticky all over like I’d been seriously sweating during the day. All I felt like was a good shower, to wash the sweat away. So I had shower number 2 for the day.

We ate pizza for dinner. Luke went to the supermarket. We ordered home delivered pizza. I had my favourite corn chips and sour cream. Yum.

Large Mexican

Small roast pumpkin.

Buddy was banished to his house several times, but he still managed to waddle in and lie between me, and Sam, lying on the floor under the coffee table.

It was a gorgeous, cool night, everyone left feeling like they had spent the day on the beach in the sunlight, well, I did. I had a warm glow to my skin, I am sure.

We watched Shane Delia.

Kriss Kringle

I was up at 6am. It was one of those cool mornings threatening to be a hot day.

It is Buddy’s birthday, he is 5 years old. I left the back door open, he wandered in a couple of times. He eventually snuffled over and sat next to me.

The birds chirped outside.

It’s lovely to have a nice clean terrace to step out on to to smoke your fags.

As I walked out the front door with Sam, I thought, I should be wearing a t-shirt like him, but I was keeping my one short sleeved shirt until tomorrow when it was going to be hotter, and then I realised tomorrow is casual clothes day and I can wear a t-shirt.

“Hang on, I have to change my shirt,” I said at the front door.

Once we were out on the street, shirt changed, Sam said, “See, now I have forgotten my head phones,” so he went back inside.

So much for being quiet for the still sleeping Luke.

I got to work just after 8am. Obese Olwyn and Fat Guts Carol Brady are already in when I get in. They are always the first to arrive, the two of them and me.

It was hot walking to work and I had built up a sweat walking in the heat, so it was nice to sit in private at my desk and fan myself until the sweats go away.

Mingey Van Wort arrived next, in Jackie O sunglasses. She pretty soon started talking on the other side of the office, sounding like a retarded child, with her harsh accent.


I got all the winey people, “why did this happen, why did that happen to me? This didn’t happen. Why?”

This and that happened for these reasons, if you think something else, send me your calculations. That did happen, what is telling you that it didn’t happen?

Yes, you did get the money transferred to you.

You didn’t get money transferred to you because I have never heard of you before. Talk to HR.

Around the next one went, in huge circles, and now HR had sent it back to me to deal with for a second time. They must be spinning around circles in HR.

You want to get paid sick days for the unpaid leave you received, a month before you got retrenched, which is now a month ago. By some dodgy stat dec you have produced?

Yes, I have looked into it and you were never unpaid. Now will you shut up.

I recalculated the mistakes everybody else had made, F included. I caught up completely from yesterday, I got the inbox emails down to two emails. I left at 4.30pm.

It was hot, as I walked home. The sun burned. I walked up the shaded side on each street, feeling like a vampire when I was in the sun. Afternoon sun being what it is.

I rolled a joint when I got home. Two. Maybe another really soon.

The sun blazed outside. The fan blew inside.

I went to the supermarket to buy supplies. I slung the two green bags over my shoulders like a back pack and walked it home. The sun was just fading into a gorgeous evening.

Luke made curry. It was yum. I must learn how to cook them.

We watched English renovation shows on teev. Everything record, fast forwarding through all the ads, naturally.

Otherwise, just sitting around smoking pot. It’s Xmas.

Sam went to bed at 10.30pm, like Nan Sam does. I was falling asleep on the couch contemplating going to bed, elegantly wasted.

I was falling asleep on the couch and wanting to go to bed when I remembered my Kriss Kringle present. For work. Bugger! Bum! Shit! Oh the pain. It crossed my mind momentarily to say I had an emergency with my mother and had to rush to her side, so I couldn’t buy the present, but that seemed like saying my dog ate my homework. So, I went to the supermarket at 11 pm to get my Kriss Kringle present. I was wrapping it at midnight. It seemed like a sad little present when I was done. Then Luke said, “You’ve wrapped it upside down.”

Damn!

Working in the garden

The Doctor Calls

If the doctor tells you that you should come in sooner than later to see your mother because she can’t have too long to live, I guess you should take their advice. Too late is exactly that.

"She's taking very shallow breaths," said the doctor. "It's no kind of existence."

My sister and I were going Sunday, anyway. We'd go Sunday.

At the last minute, I decided to go tomorrow. My dad had died alone. Mark had offered and so had Luke.

When we woke up, Sam said he’d stay home and come with me to see Lottie.

Sam and I took Buddy for a walk to the dog park at 7am. It was shaping up to be a hot day. There were lots of people in the park with their dogs at that time of the morning. It was nice. The first visit back to the dog park since getting attacked by one of those pig faced looser dogs. This thing just latched onto Buddy’s face for no reason. Buddy is such a happy dog, he just wants to get on with everybody. He was his normal self. The air was fresh, crisp and clean.

Mark cleaned the back yard. Hosed the paving and scrubbed the green plastic chairs.

Sam and I went to see Lottie. The sun was shining. She was in her chair, as usual. I held her hand, feeling her skin against mine. I think you should do that when the doctor tells you she doesn’t have much time left. She didn’t really react to anything I said. I just sat there and held her hand and talked for as long as I could. I held her hand against my face. There was a man with a guitar singing Xmas carols. I sang along, singing Lottie Christmas carols, harmonising with the guitarist.

The nurse told me that Lottie had been taken off all her prescriptions. Everything.

Then we sat with her for a bit longer.

We ate lunch at Bamboo. Better be safe than sorry, the other two never eat until midnight.

Sam and I stopped into see Guido on our way home.

We worked in the garden. Potted plants. Took photos with my new camera in the golden afternoon sun.

We ate Korean for dinner.

Got stoned. Am I ashamed to say? I don’t think so. It’s Xmas.

Warwick Rowers 2016 Crowd Fund

 

Shopping for pears, look at those colours

When we were driving in Ballarat yesterday, we saw this 1964 Chevy Impala. What a cool, giant, car. Those Chevys of the 1960s were all very cool

It was a great day for a drive in the country. The sun shone. The sky was blue.