Tuesday, August 27, 2013

first slug of the year

I know you want to see a picture but just imagine a small black blot. The first slug of the year was on the side of one of the dog's bowls (I'd say 'dogs' bowls' but the bowls are interchangeable and indeed I believe were originally Millie's and Silver's bowls, or at very least Millie's and Charlie's). It would have stretched across a 10c piece, size wise. I put it on the dog food fork but it fell off onto the newspaper where the cats are fed so I ripped the piece of paper off and put it back in the garden. The second slug of the year was very big - maybe the size of my little finger. I stepped on it in the morning when I went to pick up the dog's bowls. I didn't kill it, so I guess either I'm very light or I just didn't put my weight on it much. It moved on.

I just hope they were not the same slug, because then things look grim for this evening.

so it goes


Dear Diary
It had recently been my mother Jane’s and my sister Tamsin’s birthdays so Mia and I held an early dinner for both of them, Tamsin’s daughters Olivia and Alice and my brother Michael and his children Laurie and Florence. Their mother Nicola was also invited of course but is sick with the flu. Mia did all the cooking, a very appropriate quiche (replete with notbacon), tabouli and an excellent chocolate chip cake. Most of us drank fruit juice with soda water in it, very suave.

Tamsin brought some presents to welcome Ferdinand of which a plastic bone with a rope through it was a particular favourite. Barry is still enough of a puppy, or at least puppy-curious (he never really had a puppydom of his own, with cruel Nurse Charlie as his guardian) to get a kick out of these kinds of things.

On Saturday night I made a quick trip to Westmeadows to get some videos. Just before I backed out of the driveway a maroon (I think) car from the 80s (damn those 80s) sped through Lorraine Cres towards Johnstone St (that’s no description; both ends go towards Johnstone St. How about, ‘going west’?). I was behind it at the corner of Lorraine/Johnson when it turned right into Johnstone, which has a nature strip in the middle of it and so you can’t turn right – you have to go left and do a u-turn. It drove on the footpath, up the hill causing three or more people on the footpath to jump out of the way – good reflexes. It then went onto the road (still traveling in the wrong direction, of course) and then across the nature strip and onto the right side of the road.

It was one of those things that I could barely process. I did note that on the other side of the road, placed where you would have had to pass it if you were doing the u-turn, was a tow truck with a flashing blue light. I suppose that (I only just remembered this and put two and two together) the maroon driver saw the light, thought it was a booze bus, and decided to make a quick getaway. Way to draw attention to yourself massively if it was a booze bus, of course. But that was probably it, what do you think.

The videos I got – well, I can only say I must have been in shock. I got two things that were actually made for tv movies. Cinema Verite, mainly because I’m pretty sure that anything with Tim Robbins in it is quality but also for the James Gandolfini and some other cast, also, Jack Irish with Guy Pearce which I really wanted to see partly because of any Melbournisms but also because I wanted to see how Guy Pearce, international star of the screen, handled this ABC-TV drama.

After those, we watched a big mess of documentary that the moment as I type, I can remember absolutely nothing about. Oh that’s right, the overlong examination of Ozzy Osbourne by his son Jack. It was too long, also, there was too much music in it, and unfortunately, the music was by Ozzy Osbourne. The scenes of him walking around his childhood home were funny; he just goes from room to room saying fookin’ eck, or words to that effect. 

Thursday, August 15, 2013

as i write

...Ferdinand and Barry are up to their morning hijinx. Barry likes to play the persecuted one, as Ferdinand routinely jumps on him, bites his legs and chases him. Barry will not obviously initiate such play, though he puts himself in the line of fire as often as he can, as long as there's the excitement in the air. At a certain point, when Ferdinand goes to sleep (there may be one or two false starts), Barry will also curl up.



These pictures are of them yesterday, when I was in the vegetable garden putting the lid back on the compost bin. I am in hindsight slightly disturbed by what might be happening in the middle picture since it seems to involve the pulling back of a lot of face skin, like kids do to see what they'd look like with plastick surgery.* Ferdinand definitely needs to grow into his body, mainly his snout which is too short for his ears, not generally speaking an issue except practically: he gets his ears wet when he drinks water.



* I have a bug in my computer which means that when I spell this properly a program creates a link to sites advertising particular services. Misspelling it is my luddite way of subverting this. I assume it doesn't happen to everyone but just on my computer? If misspelling doesn't work, I don't know what will. 

Wednesday, August 07, 2013

Three days of Ferdinand

Ferdinand has now been with us for three days, and he is part of the family. It has been most intriguing watching him interact with Barry, who was (day 1) alarmed, (day 2) strategising ('this thing keeps demonstrating dominance over me... how do I deal with that?) (day 3) inviting play/ showing cameraderie (back in the old 'we're the dogs at the back door' mindset).

Already I am anticipating big Ferdinand. Our heater broke so Mia's mother bought him a little jacket, and already I was looking at it this morning thinking, this isn't going to fit you long (as it stands not all the studs do up).

He is affectionate, loves attention, and has yet to piss in the house or chew up something valuable (of course these things are only a matter of time, but that's not bad in three days).



weekend

I just get so tired. I have been extremely exhausted on weekends recently. But it might be because of the heatwaves.  So, see below. Do you ...