shadow and a wombat

Millie's older half sister. Is undergoing chemo, hence the hairloss on the back. I keep sticking little talks balloons onto the screen to make it look like she is saying witty things but I can't seem to get them into cyberspace.

We all know people who seem to have scored a rough deal in life. You know, chance and circumstance have left them with that slightly less rewarding career, or other aggravations that they just don’t need at the moment. Heck, sometimes you feel these people have a guardian angel who’s just a little distracted, or perhaps took their case on as a second job…

That’s what Charlie’s like. She’s always getting into trouble, with Millie or us or someone else in the park. Being told off, talked about, dissed. It’s not like she wants to be naughty, it just seems to happen.

Like when, as soon as we arrived in Perth, on being introduced to Millie’s half-sister Shadow, she somehow got into a vicious snarling altercation, and while she certainly didn’t mean Shadow’s claw to get stuck in her collar, it happened, and in fact the claw came right off. So this was probably not contrived as far as Charlie was concerned but I daresay she got some kind of satisfaction out of the whole thing.

So Shadow had to have her paw bandaged up, and Millie and Charlie had to be banished outside (poor Millie must feel she is being forever punished for the shit Charlie does to people, but the fact is Charlie goes spare if she is split up from Millie for instance if Millie comes in the house and Charlie is left outside, which happens very occasionally eg bath day, so what can you do) and Shadow banished inside. The paw bled profusely and it had to be put inside a plastic bag so Shadow (who cheered up almost immediately) had to prance around with a blood bag on her front left foot. Shadow has been undergoing chemo, etc and has a tumour in her neck and has lost a lot of fur on her back, so it’s only understandable that Charlie, being a child of the new millennium, would want to attack her violently.

Rohan, who is Mia’s sister Kerstin’s 10 month old son with her husband Andy, is a successful person who can already walk and say things, which is very impressive, he can also hold a saucer in one hand and bang it with a spoon and walk and eat simultaneously, which I believe is more than Gerald Ford could do at any age (is Gerald Ford still alive? I don’t care). He can also wave. I thought children were born and then just lay there for a couple of years and one day got up, so I was shocked that he was doing all of this so young.

Rohan is very attracted to remote controls and the like, so there has been comment on his technological abilities, I suppose in part something to do with being a child of the new millennium. I said something to Rohan along the lines of how he had such an active day, getting given toys and meeting new people and so on, and that I was looking forward to reading his blog (ho ho what a jolly uncle). Andy said, ‘a blog, what’s that?’ and I said ‘you’ll have to wait for Rohan to tell you.’ And Andy said, ‘is it like a diary you keep on line?’ and I said yes. And Andy said ‘H’mm. I’ve never heard of that before.’ Which makes you wonder where he’s coming from.

This morning we just pushed Shadow out into the back yard (she had pulled her bandage off and ‘cleaned up’ the wound as Mia’s mother put it) and although there was a bit of a barking thing, it all seemed fine. Mia and her father and I went shopping and apparently when we were away Shadow pushed Charlie on her (Charlie’s) back and stood on her, which would be enough for anyone I would imagine. Later in the evening we had more dog conflagration as Shadow attacked Charlie for showing too much attitude. Millie (surprisingly) took Charlie’s side, I assume once again because it is deemed world’s best practice amongst dogs to attack the weakened, sick one. Mia’s father intervened and got bitten on the hand for his trouble. I, never one to learn from either what I see or what I experience, also intervened and whisked Charlie out of the way and fortunately was not bitten. Charlie barked until 2 am.

Dog world aside, we went on three great driving trips. One was a shopping trip, as mentioned above. One trip was to Pickering Brook where Mia’s father keeps his Alfa Giulia alongside the broken and skeletal bodies of various other Alfas. Some are being harvested for parts and others are one day to rise again as proud Alfas. Mia saw her first car there, in a state of decrepitude.

The other trip was a meandering one ultimately to Mundaring but we went to Midland on the way for some reason, where we found an open Salvos and I bought some bowling shirts though I am not sure why. But I don’t regret it. Also a strange Canadian mug. Since that Salvos was open we thought maybe the one at Mundaring would be as well so we went there and it wasn’t. We also dropped in at Mundaring Arts Centre and had a look at their current exhibition which was a high school art exhibition of the type we generally often like. I was particularly up for a picture of a street scene in which all the commuters, passers-by etc were clowns. Good call. Also a picture divided into 9 squares with Howard’s face and ‘Sorry’ written on it, and the other 8 squares images from protests. I really don’t know if the whole exhibition had a theme but it might have.

In the evening I picked up The Da Vinci Code and read two thirds of it.