The sky was bright blue, such a gorgeous blue

Enjoying the Cool While I Can

I'm sitting outside in the cool air, not yet 7am. 40 degrees today, over 40. I'm enjoying the cool while I can. There is the slightest whisper of a breeze. The air is faintly cool.

The leaves rustle on the branches and there is a burst of fresh air. But then it is still, pretty much, the whole world is still, holding its breath in anticipation of the heat to come. The sky is bright blue.

I should water the garden. I'm going to go and water the garden. A bit of Norah Jones is in order to water.

I should go for a walk, I have been a lazy arse. Funny how I think to go for a walk on the hottest day.

I did give up (my holiday) smoking on Monday, though, so that is one thing crossed off the list. What is that? 5 days.

I'm going for a walk before it gets too hot. A little Donny Hathaway. Lovely.

I'm Addicted to Ice Water

Don't you love the promise of a hot day. The prelude to it, the before. The mornings are cool, crisply cool, there is shade in the shadows. Night stretching into the day light hours.

Get things done in the morning, that's all there is for it, before the sun burns. 40 degrees for 2 days.

Pay bills early. Buy food for dinner first up. Cash Converters wasn't open at 9am. Get home.

I went out for lunch. Pad Thai with Sam. And iced water. I'm addicted to ice water though, 40 degrees, or not.

I only drink coffee, or water. A chick I worked with said to me once, "Well, that can't be true." I was taken back, at the time, as she said it like an accusation, she kind of verbally attacked me with it. It's nearly true, I thought, its more, or less, true. Then I thought, why would I say that, if it weren't true. Apparently, she couldn't believe that I didn't drink soft drink, coke and the like, which I don't, not really, no, I don't. Now it just makes me laugh now. "Well that can't be true!" I can still picture her rat face with its nose scrunched up. What the fuck did she care what I drank? Why would I lie to her? I didn't care if she lived, or died, quite frankly, what the hell did I care what she thought? People are weird.

Since meeting Sam, I do drink more juice and some coconut water, as he likes both of them and he does the shopping. That would give old “that can’t be true,” the ammunition she needs. What was her name? I think it is a good thing I can’t remember her name. It is good to clear the shit out of your life, it does you good. And she was shit. It wasn’t just that, she was a great source of negativity, some people just are. She was a right cow. (I love that expression) Her mother didn’t love her enough, he father was distant? It is always the parents, don’t you think? Bad parents, like bad dog owners, always to blame. There are no bad kids, like there are no bad dogs, just bad owners and parents.

When I am stoned, I drink a lot of tea, there is something about pot and tea, pun intended. Of course, the Millennials will be saying, “I don’t get it.” But as I don’t smoke much marijuana any longer, I don’t drink much tea, hardly any. But, left to my own devices, it would be water and coffee all the way.

Oh and, you shouldn’t drink iced water, it isn’t so good for you, you should always drink water at room temperature, but I like it with plenty of ice, it changes it, it makes it exciting. My last vice, ice… in my water. Living large.

My favourite begonia has been relentlessly attacked by caterpillars, lately. I have had to keep going over and over and over it to pluck off all the little green monsters to stop their destruction. Damn things. They just seem to keep coming and keep coming. I've got to wonder where they come from on an indoor plants, I'm sure there is a perfectly logical explanation, for which I have no time, as I have to put all of my energy into the fight against them.

Actually, that is my second favourite begonia. I have another one that was the first plant I ever have grew. I got it from some friend of my mother's when I was fifteen, so that is more years than I care to remember. It is now on the veranda, as it is too big to have inside, but it seems to love it out there.

Spectacular Weather

The weather has been spectacular these last few days, more perfect weather I don't believe you would get anywhere. The sparkling sunshine was dazzling me all morning. The leaves in the garden sparkled with the light shining down on them.

I've been listening to Amy Winehouse, a more perfect singer is hard to find, such a talent. I heard Tony Bennett say she was comparable to Ella Fitzgerald, or Dinah Washington. Her voice was mesmerising me all morning

At lunch time, I suddenly (not quite like a bolt of lightning, or a slap to the face, but it came to me at that point, rather than earlier in the day, rather than in the morning, when it wouldn't have been so pressing, when it would have been more convenient) thought I should get some washing done and get it outside in the perfect weather so it will dry and be done and finished with before dusk.

I thought of my mother and how she used to say such things on the weekend. "I've got to get the washing out early, so it dries and I can take it in before tea time."

I'd run and hide, well, not so much leave the premises as suddenly (there is that word again?) become busy so I didn't have to hang the wet clothes from the wicker laundry basket onto the rotary clothesline, seemingly marooned in the middle of the quarter ache block of a back yard, just some square concrete stepping stones to the base of the wretched thing. I could not imagine anything more boring than hanging clothes, ah the naivety of the young with their life stretched out before them, with so many boring bits yet to be discovered. I’d head to my room and close the door, maybe, I’d have a Matchbox Car emergency. Go for a bike ride. Run in next door to Mrs Smith for a visit, hang out with her in her antique kitchen, with its broken lino floor tiles, and its funny mantel piece over the stove. Something. Abandon ship. I hated hanging out the washing, it used to make me so cross when my mother asked me. I don't really know why now? I guess, I was just being a kid. It was nearly as bad as the gritted-teeth agony of washing up the dishes in the evening when I could have been watching TV, although a kitchen remodel, early in the peace, and the instillation of a shiny gold coloured dishwasher that matched the new kitchen cupboards took that particular torture out of the equation.

I'm Vacuuming the Pond

I'm vacuuming the pond. Yes, you read it right. That is not a sentence I thought I'd ever write. Sam bought a pond vacuum, one of the many mystery packages that arrive here daily from his online shopping habit. And now I'm hoovering up the fish shit. Headphones on, Frank Ocean, somehow he seemed appropriate, playing in my ears. The day is warm, there is a slight breeze. It's not a bad way to spend the afternoon.

The vacuum works on water pressure, you attach the hose to the nozzle and the flow of water sucks the crap into the crap catcher. As the big, fat gold fish seem to love fresh water, they follow the nozzle about, it's kind of cool. I feel like the pied piper of fish.

The afternoon sparkled, it really did. A couple of times when I went inside to get something, as I returned – if I said that it took my breath away I'd be over stating it – I noticed how bright and sparkling the sunshine was shining down into my back yard, dancing across every leaf surface, like thousands of simmering, tiny mirrors.


The vacuum is slow, though. I feel like a council worker – as I stand there slowly pushing the vacuum nozzle backwards and forwards – sweeping with his broom swish, swish. Back of my hand across my forehead. Adjusting the handkerchief with is four corners tied in knots stretched across my head. Hands and chin resting on the tip of my broom handle. Slowly, slowly catchee the monkey/fish shit.

Then when I think I must have filled up the pooh catcher, I pull it from the water, and it stretches down like a giant scrotum, errrRRRRrrrrr, and I feel the flush of success, that is until all the water seeps from the ball sack and after all that time I have stood there with my back aching slowly from standing in one spot, I have sucked up a (small) clenched fist worth of shit from the pond floor. And what I feel is a little disappointment and lot a discouragement, as there is so much muck to clean up, and so little time, if that is how long it is going to take, and I chastise myself for the years of neglect that I have put in.

Rainy Saturday

We headed into the city for Indian food for lunch, it’s kind of a Saturday tradition. Ha ha, tradition, I say. How long do you have to be doing something for it to become a tradition? Our Saturday routine. Married couple. “On Saturday, me and the missus like going into town for some of that Indian food.”

Call me old fashioned, but I don’t like sharing my lunch with sparrows, one of the problems at Melbourne Central with its open walkways. Some of them have black faces, and some of them have pale faces, and some of them have brown stripes. The little monsters are all around, hopping from rafters to tables to peck at the dishes, a swish of the hand and they are gone, but they are soon back. I guess they are just trying to eke out an existence like the rest of us. “Get away,” I say. I flap out my hand. Swish, swish. They jump and fly up to the roof again, only to drop back down once my hands are busy again. “Get away.” I swish my hand once more. The whole thing repeats. My lunch is accompanied by the constant flapping of little wings. Oh, I know, I shouldn’t be so precious, there are people in the world who don’t have access to fresh water.

Then we went to Myer to buy iTunes card which were on sale at a 20% discount, which Sam bought with a Myer gift card which he bought when they were on sale at a 10% discount. So, we’ll be getting all our music 30% cheaper for the foreseeable future. Sam likes a good deal. He is never embarrassed to ask for a discount for paying cash, or if the seller can do better than the marked price, and more often than not he gets a better price.

When we came out of Myer it was raining. We dashed up Little Bourke Street dodging the raindrops as best we could, but then again, everybody else were trying to dodge the rain drops as well, jockeying for the position closest to the shop fronts. It is funny the attitude those closest to the shop fronts display, the strongest show pluck not giving way to anyone. I’m walking here! I’m walking here! And they are those remain the driest. I try it for a while, but it takes attitude, it takes being fearless, it takes bravado, which suck my energy. Sam hates walking in the rain, I don’t mind it so much, so I end up giving way. It eventually somehow seems rude not to.

We came home and watched the entire 2nd series of Stranger Things. What else do you do on a rainy Saturday afternoon.

I’m Not an Atheist

I’m not an atheist, although I won’t be offended if you call me one. I will accept it, but here is why I might not like the label.

I got thinking about it with all the religious opposition to gay marriage. And when I see the tall Somalian Jesus man sprouting on fervently in the dog park, seemingly always to a young Somalin boy who was too young to defend himself against such talk. And I think about it when I see the buttoned up middle aged conservatives staking out the corner near the commission flats, in my mind, picking on the vulnerable and the less educated.

Just because I don’t believe in your super natural stories about a supreme being, it doesn’t mean I have to be labelled, which buys into the religious paradigm just by its very nature. Giving me a label is just justifying your religious beliefs, in a sense, which I think are absurd.

It’s called not buying into it, I guess. You know, when you debate somebody, it is legitimising the other person’s argument by you simply mounting a defence.

I believe in reality, the here and now. I believe in human beings. I believe in the real world.

There are five thousand supposed God’s, that is how ridiculous the god story is. Why is your god the real god? Who says? As Joseph Campbell so famously said, (I’m paraphrasing) “There are many gods, just pick one, they all do the same thing.”

If I am really honest, to put it bluntly, I find religious belief delusional. I look at people sprouting on about Jesus loves you, and God is the supreme being, live your life according to a 2000 year old book, and I just hear blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah….

It’s just thoughts, as I said. Sorting thoughts. What do I think? I don’t want to buy into the religious narrative, as I find that narrative ridiculous. So don’t try and drag me in by giving me a label that best fits your beliefs.

The usual disclaimer applies. I’m not trying to tell you what to believe in, believe in whatever you like, the great sky fairy, jesussmesus, the great gobbling turkey, you know, whatever makes you happy, whatever flats Noah's boat. I am just telling you what I believe.

 

She Must Be 100 years Old

6.30am. I woke to the sounds of Buddy barfing up a chicken bone on the floorboards, lovely. Beige slime and small white bones. Then I lay in bed watching him eat it again, like a car crash I couldn’t look away. Good morning world, I thought. Then I thought, at least I don’t have to mop it up. Then, of course, Bear wouldn’t come downstairs with me for a wee, as she was nervous having to walk passed Buddy while he was eating, he was licking the floorboards by this stage. Buddy is laid back and gentle, but he is food aggressive with other dogs. I’m trying to whisper her name, so as not to wake Sam, but to no avail. I catch my whisper getting more and more angry, which makes me laugh, ridiculous, so I decide to give up on trying to take her outside.


The pond fountain seemed to be even noisier this morning, so I switched it off. There. Done. Quiet. We have to get that timer, so the fountain doesn’t run all night, and it isn’t disturbing the peace of the morning. Although at the moment the filter has a lot of work to do, mopping up our years of neglect. Maybe buying the timer is a job for today?

It was a lovely, cool, gentle morning.

I lit a cigarette and immediately wondered when I was going to quit. It makes me feel like shit to boot, so go figure.

7.30am. I heard Sam in the shower, so I went to our room to get Bear for a wee. Buddy was standing in the middle of our bed. I wondered if he’d finished throwing up. Oh, that wouldn’t be nice, to say the least, dog sick in the doona, imagine if we didn’t discover it until we were getting into bed tonight. I winced at the idea. I called Bear, but Buddy came down instead. Roll of the eyes, dogs. Bear followed though and headed outside for a wee. Then Buddy went to the back door and once outside threw up again. I wondered if I needed to go and check our bed again?

We took Buddy and Bear to the dog park, it is a lovely way to start the day. The sunshine was gorgeous like warmed honey. Not too many people in the dog park this morning. Just us essentially. I wondered if it was like the beginning of the week at the gym. Monday is always guilt day, guilty from not attending over the weekend, so there are lots of people. Then it starts to drop off. Today it had dropped off to just to us. The old Asian lady was there, of course, with her decrepit Chihuahuas. One of her dogs has white eyes, which kind of creeps me out, as it looks like the devil. It barks aggressively if it senses any dog coming near it. Her other dog is a nasty piece of work, running at any dog that comes near it with its fangs out. She always looks like she’d blow over in a strong wind, as she teeters along with the two leads in each hand. She must be 100. Still she is always there walking her dogs. She seems quite lovely, oblivious to her bad tempered dogs, chatting away to us, saying hello, or whatever, except it is all in her native language, so I don’t understand a word she says. She has pleading eyes, as if she is willing me to understand her. It makes me feel sad, if it makes me feel anything at all.

9.30am. I’m sitting outside smoking in the sunshine. I love this time of day, as the whole day is in front of me. I’m cross with myself for still not having quit my holiday smoking. It infuriates Sam.

Then it was time to feed the kids. Oh, I would never use that expression in real life, but it amuses me to use it here. I don’t know why, as I would never say it. Buddy sits patiently. Bear keeps her eyes on me with more nervous energy. She is such a food scrounger, annoyingly so really, but in all other aspects she is a nice dog.

10am. What to do today? It is time I caught up my blog, so I must get busy writing. Time to catch up to present day, time to revise my blog entries rewriting many of them. My writing style is very much a rewriting style. All of my writing is very much improved with a rewrite.

We ate Japanese for lunch. I had a bento Box with stewed chicken, Sam had his usual fried chicken.

I tried to write in the afternoon. Oh, winding up the cogs in my head, and finding a comfortable place to write, is always difficult. Not getting endlessly distracted is even harder.

Sam bought home another one of his colleague’s plants to be repotted. I think this is the third plant he has bought home. I seem to be the go to guy when it comes to maintaining the plants in his office. I don’t mind, in fact, I kind of like it. It is sad to see a neglected plant, and it is easy for me to make them happy again.

We cleaned the pond some more. I got in there with my hands and dragged the debris out. Later, I saw a piece on the news about a flesh eating bacteria and how a guy had lost an arm and a lot of his torso in fighting it, and I remembered the cut on my finger after which I was in the kitchen pilling on the Betadine to my cut finger.

I made calamari and lemon risotto for dinner.

We watched Strange Things on Netflix. Sam kept telling me it was stupid. I kept telling him he needed to suspend his disbelief. I told him it was, after all, about friendship and truth. He remained unconvinced. He likes action movies/series.