comments

So I started moderating comments on my blog and I am now fending off about ten advertising comments a day, most of them completely nonsensical. What I don't understand is that changing to 'moderating' comments seems to attract a lot more of these kinds of comments. Doesn't make sense, unless the advertisers are keen for one person (me) to read the comments. Anyway, I just delete them on a regular basis.

Charlie and Barry and I went on an 11 km walk (maybe more) today - is that a long way? I'm not sure. It was more or less the first day of spring, you know, in real terms. It was pretty decent.

I got back from Swan Hill yesterday, which was also extraordinary in lots of ways, but I'll hold off on writing about that for the moment, or in fact probably for ever.

(Later: the comments are flooding my email for moderation, it is dreadful, I don't know who these idiots are). 

the mighty (temporarily) fallen

So yesterday Barry and Charlie were under the house barking because there was a cat in there (doing the worst thing a cat can do as far as they're concerned: it was out of their reach and seemingly didn't give a loose root about their presence). After I got them out for a second time, I noticed Barry had quite a bit of blood on his foot. I called the vet and the vet nurse said well if it's stopped bleeding and it's not obviously deep just wash it in salty water and it should be fine. There was a lot of blood around, but Barry wasn't bleeding, so I washed his leg and went to work.

Still, I am pernickety about Barry so I called the vet and made an appointment for later in the afternoon. When I got back, both Barry and Charlie were up the back of the garden barking at the dogs over the fence (this happens about 10 times a day, they're so creative). There was blood everywhere, including in their bed. It finally dawned on me - it wasn't Barry that had been bleeding at all, just Charlie. And copiously enough that it looked like Barry was bleeding because he was just happily trotting through Charlie's blood.

So Charlie and I went to the vet and it was nowhere near as bad as it looked. She had spent all day with it (the cut is somewhere in the paw, but not on the pads) so she had blood all over her face, she looked like she'd been in some kind of traumatic horror crash or something, but she was fine. There she is above with her tail wrapped as tightly as possible round her arse (of course for all she knows she'll have a thermometer stuck up there a second time, though she didn't seem to mind the first) and looking determinedly towards freedom.

She's comfortable now, though panting a bit. I just forced a pill into her mouth, something I never thought was possible.

Oh yeah and my sister Nicola had a baby (Jemima) and my friend and colleague at work, Anna, did too (Evelyne). But Charlie cut her foot! 

day 17,308

Today I took Mia to the train at Glenroy and figured dropping in at the Glenroy op shops might be fruitful and yes and no. I picked up a couple of nice vinyls at the Vinnies. One was Hans Poulsen's Natural High, which I remember seeing in Tecoma for $20 ten years ago - got it today for $2, so, glad I waited. In nice condition too though it might be a reissue (don't care about those things unless I missed out on a gatefold or something). It's still on the Fable label, however. Also, The Best of the Original Strangers, which has some really cool stuff on it and some very nice playing/arrangements, it's almost all covers (since John Farrar went on to write some huge hits in the 70s, I am not sure when his songwriting blossomed, but whatever, it wasn't blossoming here but other stuff was). I looked them up on the computer and was surprised to discover that all but one of the 'original' (not sure if that includes Farrar) Strangers were from Glenroy...! But the record I was most stoked to find was from the Salvos, the Happyland album, which I had been hoping to come across for years (I'd even looked for that one on eBay periodically). Once again, only $2. And, since it was actually a compact disc, I could enjoy it all the way home - 2 1/2 songs of it anyway.


This was not the limit of my purchasing. Yesterday I observed to Mia that I had seen many many ladies in the last few weeks reading 50 Shades of Grey on the train, and how weird I found it that people were happy to read porn in public. And she said what do you know about it. And I said I've heard a lot about it, it's S&M porn. And she said I was not in a position to judge, considering I actually hadn't read it. She was right.

Also, over the last few days I have been griping about the new Bob Dylan album, reviewed in this morning's paper, a bit played on the radio yesterday, and I griped to Mia about how dreadful it sounded, and she pointed out... I'm not sure, maybe that I should shut up. Before I picked up the Happyland CD I had RRR on (for about two mins) and they played this song off the new BD album about the Titanic. I thought, this is the most tragic shit I have ever heard. If some dunderhead from... Belgrave wrote this song and tried to sing it somewhere they'd be shitcanned (whatever that literally means) offstage before they got to the crap about... well, all of it's crap about something. So I thought I just have to buy this record and face it.

So I went to Broady Plaza and I bought 50 Shades of Grey and the Bob Dylan album whatever it's called. Tempest, Pestilence. A review will follow.

Also, I baked some bread, put out some washing, hung some pictures, that's all that springs to mind.

porn asha

Like a lot of individuals with hangups when Asha cuts loose she really cuts loose. This is a cat who spends most of her days hiding in enclosed spaces, be it under the blankets, in the sock drawer, under the spare bed or in some other place actually unknown. Then every so often she shows this other side of her personality, as happened recently when it was sunny outside and she found a spot on the spare bed with the sun coming through the window. She thought this picture was tasteful. 

* Five months later (Dec 2012): a big huzzah for the hundreds of dickheads who have come to this blog post looking, I assume, for porn. Hope you enjoyed the cat porn. If you were a cat looking for porn I imagine the pose here probably doesn't have the visceral thrill cats want in cat cheesecake, though a few toms might have tastes that way. Asha says hi.