Three years of Badger's Dozen

I first started Badger's Dozen in December 2010 and, as usual with me, I had no idea what I was doing or where it would all end up.

It's now in its third year of existence, and I have no more idea now what I'm doing or where it's going than I did then. Still having fun, though.

PS Now on ZineWiki, too, thanks to the power of vanity entries!

Variations on a theme

There are two types of people in this world - you, and me.

There is one type of person in this world, and you're neither.

There are two types of men and women in this world, and... oh bugger.

Sartorialisms

Why is it that can never find my underpants when I want them? That's a sentence you might equally expect to come from a person with dementia, a nudist who is due to attend an important interview with a non-nude person, a person who has is secretly being stalked by the neighbourhood snowdropper, and me. Is it because my underpants are hiding from me or something? Or do I actually have dementia but forgot about it? (No, no, no need to tell me, I'm happy as I am.)

In other sartorial matters, I discovered on the train this evening that I had buttoned up my shirt the wrong way. Although I did put the bottom button in the bottom button hole, and proceeded up the shirt in the usual manner, I discovered too late that the bottom button hole and the bottom button didn't actually match up. So my shirt's ganging up on me now?

Also, any attempts to take a pink frilly brolly with spots in to work furtively, in order to make sure it is not noticed, are sadly misguided*. Who knew?

*And after all that it didn't rain anyway. I ask you! Whinge whinge grumble grumble harrumph grump.

A philosophical moment with Timothy Train

Speaking of trains of thought, here is a thought by a Train:

Um.... er.... er... hmmm.... ah..... er.... mmm.... right.... um....

Well, this is all frightfully embarassing, isn't it?

What disturbs our blood

Time! What is it, where does it come from, where does it go to, and what does time do when it gets some... time off? These, and other mysteries of science, have been contemplated by, um, scientists, throughout, er, time. Also, according to traditional Einsteinian theory, space is bent, time is queer, and the speed of light gets to go out to all the cool nightclubs after midnight when it's everyone else's bedtime. Though I have no idea what this has to do with anything anyway. (And now I should close this opening paragraph because, ladies and gentlemen, it's time.)

Traditional scientific models suggests that time is divided into 'centuries' and 'years' and 'months' and 'weeks' and 'days' and 'hours' and 'minutes' and 'seconds'. But traditional scientific models have been proven to be wrong, for, as we all know, time largely consists of 'those bits where we're doing stuff and it passes really quickly', 'those bits where we're not doing anything and time doesn't seem to pass at all', and 'the bits that fall in between'.

For this essay, we are concerned with that particular part of the space-time nexus known as 'holiday time'. Holiday time, as you know, has several peculiarities: when you are off it, you want to be on it, and when you are on it, you spend all the time wondering how long you have left before you will be off it again.

But anyway, what is the best type of holiday time? Some people are particularly fond of 'long weekend holiday time', others of 'two or three weeks overseas holiday time'. Some people have a lot to say for 'day off holiday time', which doesn't have many people left over for that piece of holiday time known as 'the weekend'.

Well, I say the weekend is definitely the best. Like the rest of Australia, I've taken off the Friday following Australia Day, and spent half of that time mooching around the house wondering what to do with myself. During the Christmas holidays I was even worse, getting under everybody's feet, and by the time it was half over I had no idea what day it was, and whether I should be back at work by tomorrow or whether I still had two weeks to go, which is pretty nerve-wracking, for you are not sure whether you should worry about not going back to a job that you should have already gone back to, or worrying about when you are going to have to start worrying about that. A two or three weeks overseas holiday is nearly the worst of all, because you spend most of that time wondering how much of it you've got left, and a good deal of it anxious that you don't miss your next flight. And if you have any time left over from that, you spend it fretting about the flight you just missed and now how the hell you're going to spend your time.

Not that I mean to suggest that work time is any better. My goodness, no. If you spend a lot of a normal holiday wondering what to do with yourself, you spend a lot of work knowing exactly what to do with yourself, and wanting intensely to do something different anyway.

No, I put it to you that nothing could be more special than a weekend, that time when you have nothing special to do. What could be better than 'nothing special'? And what could be more suitable for nothing special than the weekend, when you have time to potter around, doing all the usual things you ordinarily do, in an exceedingly everyday manner? The weekend is the best time, I say. There ought to be more of them. (Now, if scientists could only figure out how to do that, life would be sweet.)

Then again, we could adopt an alternative philosophy, as expressed by poet W B Yeats:

THROUGH winter-time we call on spring,
And through the spring on summer call,
And when abounding hedges ring
Declare that winter's best of all;
And after that there s nothing good
Because the spring-time has not come -
Nor know that what disturbs our blood
Is but its longing for the tomb.

Hope you're having a cheerful time, cheerful people!

Awkwardness

awkwardness (n) - a red car with green Christmas tinsel... on Australia Day.

Misunderstatement

"It was hot, so I was standing around the house in my underwear when the neighbour walked in with a jar of pickled onions."

How many people have used that excuse, do you think?

Add one to the list.

UPDATE! - It's fun playing around with sentences! Instead of...

"It was hot, so I was standing around the house in my underwear when the neighbour walked in with a jar of pickled onions."

... imagine that I'd rearranged the words, thusly:

"So, I was standing around the house in my underwear when the neighbour walked in with a jar of pickled onions. It was hot."

Or even -

"So, I was standing around the house when the neighbour walked in with a jar of pickled onions in my underwear. It was hot."

I'm not thinking what you're not thinking either, and I'm sure you'll be relieved to know that none of that happened. At all.

Send a social worker for the social networker

3000 facebook friends
And some are really real.
An evening watching YouTubes
With crackers for a meal.

*

Nine comments on my blogpost!
A fluffy kitten. SQUEE!
If people like my status,
Does that mean they like me?

*

Attending three events -
That's just about my day.
OMFG I got
A tweet on Q&A!

The bloodcurdling battle between man and paper bag

The paper bag that held the mushrooms had somehow developed an extra hole in it, so when I took it out of the fridge, all the mushrooms fell out.

I immediately uttered a barbaric yawp*, and, crying, "Stupid bloody mushroom bag," hurled the paper bag across the room.

The paper bag, now unemcumbered by mushrooms, or, apparently, gravity, floated languidly in the air, twisting and twining elegantly in the wind currents that I had no idea existed in the kitchen, and performed several graceful pirouettes before coming to a peaceful rest on the floor, five centimetres from my feet.

You win this round, paper bag. You win this round.

*'Barbaric yawp' - is any other form of yawp possible? What say you, scholars of yawp?

The rise and fall and rise and fall and rise and rise and rise and rise and fall of the Steve Reich

I wanted to listen to some meditative, repetitive music, somewhat in the style of those American minimalists you all will never have heard of. You know, Phillip Glass, Terry Riley...

But then I listened to Steve Reich and realised that I didn't want to listen to what I wanted to listen to.

Communications devolution

Seeing an e-reader on the train the other day, I was inspired with an overwhelming desire not to get one. No surprises there as I am an old grouch in a younger person's body, and I have that inspiration almost every day, but seriously, why buy them? Because you can't get a paper book with buttons on it? If I had a book like that, I'd spend all my time changing channels and never bother actually reading a book, which would somewhat defeat the purpose, old bean.

It's getting harder to keep up with the latest thing in the world of stuff. we don't just have to deal with the communications revolution, but the communications insurrection that happened after the first communications revolution, and then the communications putsch that happened after the communications insurrection, and then the communications coup, and the ongoing communications civil war, and so on, and so on. If I had kept up with all the things I was meant to keep up with in the thirty odd years that I have been on this earth, I would now be in possession of not only a laptop, and a blog, and an email, and a mobile phone, and a television, but I would also have an iPod, an iPad, an iBook, a video player, a cassette deck, a tape answering machine, a Super 8 player, a twitter account, a tumblr account, a fax machine, a Nintendo, an Atari, a Commodore 64, a Kodak camera, a ham radio set, a UHF, several phrase books of Japanese-English, French-English, Auslan-English, and possibly a set of message flags, a pigeon farm, and a telegraph machine. What would I do with all those things? I don't even want a bloody NBN, which Stephen Conroy keeps threatening me with.*

I mean, it's all a bit much for me. When I was a kid, communications was simple: the phone would ring, you would race your brothers to get it, and wrestle it out of their hands before shouting

HELLOTWOOHONEFOURONESIX!

And waiting for the lovely connection ladies on the other end to ask you nicely if your parents were around.** Now that is what communications should be about, ladies and gentlemen. Why did things ever change?

*Should be another ten years or so before it arrives anyway, there is that at least.

**Yes, we had a telephone exchange in Balranald. I guess we must have been one of the last places in Australia to get a wired up properly.

Piffolous poffolous

You just know when you're reading a political article about Tony Abbott, and you're scratching your head, and the words 'homophilous thought leader' and 'monomorphic thought leader' and 'heterophily' and 'polymorphic heterophil' all appear, and you have no idea what it all means, that you're reading an article by a teacher of political communication. Who else could write such a thing?

Anyway, Tony Abbott is apparently monomorphic and homophilous. Aren't we all, really, from time to time? But the thing that's really getting my knickers in a knot is this: when I get up in the morning, what with all the 'homo' this and 'mono' that and 'philous' every other thing, how am I going to be able to tell my heterophilous from my homophilous from my Sophie Panopolous from my acidophilous, hey? Tell me that.

Homophilous.


Achidophilous.

It's all very confusing.

Train things

People have curious habits on the train. I like to sit in one of those sets of four seats facing one another, with the wall on my right, facing in the direction the train goes, ideally with room to stretch, although I'd just settle for the first. Others seem to shun these seats that face one another, and prefer the boxed-in variety. They make me feel claustrophobic just looking at them.

This morning, sitting on one of the only available seats in a crowded train, I noticed a woman get on, and give the seat next to me a swift brushing off with her fingers, several times, before sitting down. I'm pretty sure the seat didn't have any dirt on it. Was she just brushing off the imaginary dirt?

The night before, I had seen, a few seats over - again on one of the sets of four facing seats - a woman, in pink, facing away from the direction the train was travelling in. Opposite her were two MX papers and a chip wrapper. When someone on the seat in front of her got up and left, she stood up and walked over to that seat and sat down, now facing in the direction the train was going. This - rather than picking up the chip packet and MX papers! I found that rather strange.

Then again, I have changed seats several times on the one train journey, in order to get a slightly more optimum seat. Sometimes, I have changed seats just to get a nicer view (and wouldn't you?)

A girl fainted on the train this morning. This has happened before; a hot crowded train can do that to you, especially if you're tired and dehydrated. Well, what with everyone the train moving back to give her room, and several people moving forward to help, and the train driver coming to meet her and assure her staff would be there to meet her at Flinders Street, and almost everyone staring at her for the rest of the trip, I was feeling quite sorry for her. I'm sure she got her water at Flinders - but is there a cure for chronic embarrassment?

Last night, on the train from work to Spencer Street station (where I changed over), I was also rather impressed by Spiffing Spanish Guy. He stood at the door I was planning to get off, resplendent in yellow lycra and sunglasses, balancing a bike in one hand, and holding a mobile in the other while he spoke in rapid Spanish to someone on the other end. As the train rattled and clunked and he rolled his rrrrs and intoned his intonations, something seemed to happen, and quite suddenly, he began saying, over and over again: "Hallo? Hallo? Sophia. Hallo? Sophia. Sophia. Hallo?" However, as the train pulled into Spencer Street, the reception seemed to clear up, and somehow - not sure how he did this - he managed to open the door, balance the bike, and keep the phone to his ear at the one time, and, still talking continuously to his Sophia, carried the bike up the escalator in front of me. He even got on the same train as me, and sat up the back with his bike and his phone, talking for the next half hour until we pulled into Lalor station. Spiffing work, Spiffing Spanish guy.

How many of you...

... read the phrase 'FAQ' and instantly think of a certain swear word?

FAQing hell, it can't be just me!

Problems are no problems with me!

Problem: your kitchen looks dirty. There are plates and cutlery everywhere.

Solution: squirt a lot of detergent into the sink, and begin running the hot water. The bubbles will start mounting up. Pretty soon you will be able to plop all of the plates and cutlery into the sink, and out of sight, as they will be covered up neatly by the bubbles.

Now, your kitchen doesn't look dirty at all. Rather, it gives the pleasing impression of industry and efficiency, and you can leave it that way for the next few hours. PROBLEM SOLVED.

This song goes out to a certain chicken mumma out there

Some say she's lazy,
Some say she's crazy,
Some say she's a member of the Asterecea or Compositae family coming in colours ranging from yellow pink or blue,
But Daisy,
Oh-oh-oh Daisy,
There's a little chick that loves you-ooooooo
And Daisy,
Oh Daisy,
Even though certain members of my species might frown upon the possibility of chicken-human amorous interconnections,
I do,
Just a little bit,
Too.

I'll leave you with this thought

The truth is not always black and white. Sometimes, it wears socks.

Getting away from the people who get away from it all

Years ago, the country used to go to the city in search of entertainment. Nowadays, the situation is reversed, and every week, great hordes of people from the city descend upon the country in search of - well, not always entertainment exactly. But enlightenment, maybe? Or possibly just at great expense? One or other of these things is certain to be found in the country, which is full of historic towns, and historic markers, at which historic incidents occurred at historic times in history, opposite this historic tree growing out of that historic grass underneath a historic sky full of historic clouds. (You can tell all these things from the signs telling you about them, which signs were made... historically.) How could you not find entertainment, enlightenment, or expense in these places?

And so it was that Tim joined the manic urban hordes rushing out into the countryside in search of enlightenment, and travelled out west to Kyneton and Castlemaine, where I found - a little entertainment, no enlightenment to speak of, and some more expense. But mostly, I found the city I had just left, poking its face into the doors of the country, crowding into the small country fairs, taking up all the seats at the bars and cafes, and then some of the standing places in the queues, getting in the way of the dogs and cats, tripping up the locals, and generally making a nuisance of itself (presumably in search of entertainment).

I did finally find a place to eat - it looked quiet enough, and seemed to be situated on a relatively tranquil stretch of road, and one or two more or less leafy gum trees seemed to be growing in close proximity. It was only after I had seated myself, and made orders, and got my hat balanced, and made it rather difficult (both physically and ethically) for me to leave that I learned that I had seated myself in a cafe that had just that morning received a good review in The Age. Blimmin' hell! I was surrounded by a flock of Fairfax readers, a mob of manic Melbournites in search of a dear little cafe, in a delightful nook, with wonderful prices. It made me wish I'd bought my copy of the Oz in order to ruffle it ostentatiously in the other customers' faces.

Anyway, after my trip to the country I can report that the leaves were suitably leafy, the grass was more or less golden, the scenery pretty much lived up to its reputation for being scenic, and the tranquility was pretty nea... well, it was impossible to tell from that cafe, but once I left it was pretty good, anyway. And I got several great deals from a huge bookstore at Campbell's Creek.

But by Jove, it's great to be back in a quiet suburb on the outskirts of Melbourne, a place where nobody who wants to go anywhere goes, and to have finally got away from all the people who are getting away from it all.

Iron chicken

When the former Mayor of London, Ken Whatsisname was first elected to the position, he apparently had a chance run in with Margaret Thatcher, and he took advantage of the occasion to ask her for a spot of advice. Her reply, the story goes, was simply this: "Resolution! Resolution!"

Did I say 'resolution'? I think I did, and the word 'resolution' naturally leads me to the subject of our chickens, and Daisy in particular, who has been displaying admirable resolution of late in her sitting abilities. Up until about a week prior to Christmas, I had not really appreciated the sitting abilities of chickens very much. They sat, yes; but they also walked around and pecked at things; and occasionally they clucked.

As it turns out, 'sitting' turns out to be something chickens do very well indeed. They may, indeed, be described as efficient sitting devices with multi-functional pecking-and-clucking abilities programmed in as well. Daisy started sitting - and she jolly well hasn't stopped sitting yet. She is a superlative sitter, sitting at night, sitting during the day, getting up in the middle of the day to take a turn around the yard and some water before returning straight away to her sitting. She sat, she sat, she sat, and just when it seemed she wasn't getting anywhere with her sitting - and I suppose strictly speaking that not getting anywhere is one thing that sitting does very well - she sat some more. She was, in a word, clucky.

We weren't quite sure what to do with Daisy and her sitting at first. We adopted a wait-and-see approach, and we waited, and we saw that that wouldn't get anywhere. (Just like Daisy, who remained sitting in the coop while we waited.) Every morning, Griselda would jump up into the coop and lay her egg, which Daisy would deftly roll under herself. And every morning, we would go out to collect that egg, and Daisy would fluff herself up and chirrup indignantly, in a way which was obviously meant to be utterly terrifying (but which we found highly amusing).

Poor Daisy! We took pity on her, and gave her a golf ball. She rolled that under her feathery nethers, and sat on it. And stayed sitting on it, hour after hour, day after day. Eventually we saw that that plan (whatever our plan was - I'm not sure and I'm not sure if the Baron's sure either) wasn't working either. And besides, we started worrying that if Daisy kept on sitting on the golf ball in the determined way that she had sat so far, she might actually - well - hatch something out of it. And no-one wanted that.

So, we gave her a real egg this time, a fertile bantam egg, from the flock presided over by the Baron Mother. And, what do you know, Daisy rolled that under herself and sat on that. She sat on that for a week in Bright, from Christmas Eve, Christmas, Boxing Day, through to New Year's Day, and kept on sitting on it, and, with laborious regularity, sat on it right through the first week of the new year, up until yesterday.

And, of course, by now you will be able to see where this tale is really going, dear reader, and the conclusion will be in sight by now: eventually, as these things tend to happen in the normal chain of circumstances, the egg Daisy was sitting on hatched. And out popped a fine baby chick, which we called Henry.

And which Daisy, in an excess of maternal love, promptly sat on.

Daisy and (possibly) Henry.

Sitting. It's apparently all the rage in chicken parenting, don't you know. Hey guys, have you had any babies lately? Maybe you should try sitting on them.

An ambivalent poem about sweat

Life's better
Without sweat. Er...

UPDATE! - A grumpy poem about bureaucracy.

All of this
bumf -
I'm sick of it -
Humph!

Itch glitch

There was a man. He had an itch. He scratched it. It felt good.

And you know how it is when you have an itch and you scratch it and it feels good so you keep on scratching it and it keeps on feeling good so you keep on scratching it and it keeps on feeling good and you keep on scratching and you realise that you have scratched for quite a while now and you keep on scratching but you realise that it might be impolite and possibly unhygienic to keep on scratching but that makes it even better and you keep on scratching and you realise it is two hours later and you are on a bus and everyone is watching you and you should have got off five stops ago.

Which just goes to prove the truth of the old adage, give a man an itch and he'll take quite a while.

Oh, boy! Larson again!

Somewhere I have a cartoon of two dogs exclaiming joyously over their bowls, 'Oh boy! Dog food again!' It's a Gary Larson, of course.

Well, I just tried it on the cats as well, and it worked a treat. I don't mean I fed them dog food. (Or Gary Larson.) No, I went around and waved cat food around in their faces and they came racing into the house joyously, swirling around their bowls waiting for those great steaming lumps of pulpy gunk to plop unceremoniously down before their faces so they could dive down into it.

Cats getting enthusiastic about cat food. Who would have thought it? I mean, here, on the one paw, you have these delicate, graceful, fastidious creatures, who, when they're not sleeping, are washing themselves or silently stalking something with wings. And there, on the other paw, you have this mass-produced slop that stinks to high heaven. It somehow doesn't seem right. Maybe I will try them out on Gary Larson after all.

The meaning of blife

The meaning of life! The meaning of dreams! The meaning of this! The meaning of that! Why is everyone going on about the meaning of everything that there is a meaning for? All you have to do if you want to know the meaning of something is open the dictionary to that word, and look to the right.

Adventures in interactive blogs

It's the world's first olfactory blog post! Just follow the instructions on the tab below to enhance your interactive blog experience!

UPDATE! - Bonus activity: print out this blog post, and scratch and sniff the tab. Now it smells like paper!

Not-so-happy anymore

It was just a week ago we were all going around saying 'happy new year' this and 'happy new year' that. Well there'll be no more of that, thank heavens. This year isn't old, but it's getting there. It's nine days into its increasingly fretful relationship with January, and isn't liking it, let me tell you that. This is a year that's starting to dislike some of January's habits, and is getting ready to move on. But if it thought January was bad, just wait until it starts on with February.

Happy new year? Not if this year's got anything to do with it. What's everyone want it to be happy for anyway? And it was never new for very long anyway. No, it'll be Increasingly-Grumpy-Fretful-Anxious-Inclined-To-Rant-At-The-Smallest-Things-Suffers-From-Aches-In-The-Morning-Swears-At-The-Slightest-Instigation-Ageing-Rapidly-As-We-Speak Year to you, thank you very much.

Pink punk think thunk

This is a confusing world we live in, what with all those sub-atomic particles whizzing all over the place, the polymorphic diversity of human sexualities polysexing one another here, there, and everywhere, and the ageless mysteries relating to socks. And then there are 'pinks' and 'punks'. One is a flower, the other is a rock musician of the 1970s. One is of the genus Dianthus and is native mainly to Europe and Asia, the other occurs all over the world, although it started in Europe and the US. One is a delicate bloom, sensitive to many changes in the environment, and the other is a plant. Is there any wonder people have been getting the two confused for generations? Well here at this blog, I reckon it's time all this confusion ended and we sorted out this difficult matter for once and for all, so I've drawn up this helpful little chart.

PINKS - Grow in the fields, meadows, and in pots by the windowsill - Often owned by friendly grandmothers - Come in a variety of attractive colours. -Can be worn in your ears. Wouldn't recommend wearing in your nose though. - The Queen likes them. - Have a pleasant aroma. - Make the place brighter, more cheerful, and happier.

PUNKS - Don't grow in the fields and meadows, and probably don't fit very well in pots by the windowsill either. - They have grandmothers though they probably don't see them much. - Come in a variety of attractive colours. - Often have a staple through their nose or ears. - Pretty sure the Queen doesn't like them, and they don't like her back. - I wouldn't recommend sniffing them to begin with, you might get an electric guitar over your head. - Er... hmmm.

In conclusion, here are some pictures of some pinks and some punks. Have a nice day.



Pinks



Punks

I'd rather an uncomfortable silence than an uncomfortable couch

I was telling a joke to the Baron and it was not going well. "Knock knock", I said. "Would you like some sauce?" said the Baron. "No!" I said. "Knock Knock!"

Not an uncommon experience, I suppose, telling jokes that don't seem to get anywhere. But does anyone have quite as much skill at telling jokes that don't get anywhere near as pointlessly as I do? Earlier at the Dan, I had tried out this one: "Doctor, doctor, I have a minute to live! NO, WAIT, THAT'S WRONG... Doctor, doctor, I have 59 seconds to live! Wait a minute."

"Who's there?" said the Baron. "Who!" I said. "Who who!" said the Baron. "Oh, wait, whoops, I stuffed that bit up, let's go back," I said. "Knock knock...."

Worst of all are the jokes in which you ask a person a question, and require them to answer that question in a certain way, but you are not allowed to tell them to answer the question in a certain way or it spoils them. I have never been able to tell the one that goes, "What are you eating under there? Under where? UNDERWEAR? You're eating UNDERWEAR? My goodness, that's disgusting!" properly. No-one ever seems to answer in the way that you'd expect them too:

Q: What are you eating under there?
A: I'm not eating anything.
A: I'm eating it on the top of the table, thanks.
A: Under this, you mean?
A: Chips.
A: Oh, I know that one, that's a good one!
A: What, sorry?

The Baron tried it out on me once, and I neatly sidestepped her line of questioning by answering: 'Underpants.' (I have actually eaten underwear, you know. Everyone should try it at least once*.)

"Who's there?" said the Baron. "To!" I said. "To who?" said the Baron. "To whom, surely." I cried victoriously. And we both fell into an uncomfortable silence that was eventually broken when Agatha the Chook wandered around from the back garden and started pecking determinedly at the window.

But anyway, it makes you wonder what mistakes I'll get up to next. How many ways can you get a joke wrong? "Why did the road cross the chicken?" "Why was the chicken cross?" Why did the road cross the road?" "Why was the cross chicken?" "Why was the chicken from Rhodes crossing the Australian, Englishman and Irishman for, and what did the magic slide have to do with it?" Blimey, it just gets worse and worse.

What's wrong with uncomfortable silences, anyway? Maybe I like uncomfortable silences.

*That really is true. My brother got some once as a joke present and we all had a taste. He didn't wear them. I don't think he wore them, anyway.

Thinkly thunkly

It's fun to look forward to the future, and to look back at people looking forward, and laugh at how wrong they were. But does anyone ever look forward to looking back to looking forward so they can laugh at themselves? I'm off to try it now.

Put down the handkerchief and step slowly away from the car

It's fedoras at forty paces with the December issue of the ABC's Organic Gardener magazine:

TOXIC TEXTILES
Are your clothes a health hazard?

Also in this issue, we find a recipe section entitled 'Slow Food Joy', with what by all appearances seem to be quite normal recipes, only with the word 'slow' tacked on; an article on how gardeners can 'reconnect' with their own plot ('we've just been so distant lately! The strawberries aren't talking to me anymore!'); and a lady who makes her dresses out of leaves.

Oh, and if you want to mount a military campaign against caterpillars apparently flowers are the thing. Flower Power, comrade!

Ah, the bucolic charms of our domestic life

Owing to requirements of a necessitous nature, making compulsory a number of mandatory commitments, the Baron and I have recently found ourselves confronted with an interregnum of the spatial, geographical, and sociological sort from the internet, the chooks, and the cats. While we had provided for the situation adequately by arranging for a pair of fellow primates to scrutinise the affairs of the felines and the gallus gallus domesticuses, yesterday while sitting upon a public transportation unit carrying us, in a somewhat expected fashion, from point A to point B, we found ourselves pondering upon the domestic situation. It was then that the Baron posited this statement: "It is soothing to think of the cats."

Indeed, it is soothing to think of the cats: for then, what do you have but Thought Cats? Leaping from lobe to lobe with the greatest of feline ease, crouching behind your neurones and stalking Thought Birds, and occasionally rubbing their faces against your cortex (whatever that is). It is exceedingly tranquil to have some Thought Cats in your head, almost as tranquil as having Thought Kittens, who are well-known to be very tranquil and soothing indeed. But vanquish that train of thought, for you have fully-grown Thought Cats in your head, not Thought Kittens; they have long since ceased to be Thought Kittens, and are now fully mature; - and as the train of thought vanishes into the nether recesses of your mind, what should the Thought Cats do but leap upon it as a cat does with a piece of string, and bat it about, and chew on it? Nothing could be more restful. And then, perhaps, one Thought Cat pauses for a moment to sharpen its Thought Cat claws upon your memory centre, when what should happen but the other Thought Cat leaps upon it and the pair of Thought Cats have an exceedingly calming tussle, right upon the top of your mind, before one bounds off over your cerebellum, while the other burrows in to the dark of your subconscious mind and spends quite a jolly time there leaping upon complexes of an Oedipal or Electran nature, presumably to present to you later in your Thought House. There can certainly be nothing more soothing, tranquil, restful, calming, and indeed full of the bliss of a spiritual state of Nirvanic existence than these Thought Cats.

The Baron and I contented ourselves by meditating upon these Thought Cats for the rest of the day. Upon arriving home, of course, we found that not only had we been thinking of the cats, but the cats had been thinking of us: Beatrice celebrated our arrival by taking a huge dump upon the laundry floor. How thoughtful! Ah, the bucolic charms of our domestic life in the outer suburbs never cease to delight me!

Harriet, busy casting herself into your thoughts and notions, ponderances, postulations, and mind.(Photo courtesy of Mann and Frau X of wordpressvilletononsea.)

Almost as good

Our television, which sits in a back room of our house, and is painted gold, with a Richmond Tigers gnome sitting to one side, and the statute of a dancing lady to the other side, is a wonder to behold. We watch it all the time. Some day we may even turn it on. (I think I've commented on this before).

But there are other things to enjoy watching other than the television, people. For instance, you could try Real Life! It's almost as good. Although you can't change channels. Or turn the sound up. Whatever, here are some shows on real life that I've been getting into lately.

Chooks Going To Bed TV: This television show, screening in our backyard from about 8.30 to 9.00, is particularly exciting, and features chooks going to bed. Some very exciting parts of the show include: 1) one chook going to bed 2) the other chook going to bed. And then there's also the bit where Daisy (our clucky third chook who is sitting on an egg) not going to bed because she's already up there. (This show not recommended for children under 10 years of age because I said so.)

Cat jumping over a fence TV: This rather exciting television show starts when a cat jumps over the fence, and then continues as the human looks at the fence and wonders when the cat is going to come back. Sometimes it goes on for the whole day!

Look at it this way people: reality is pretty much like reality television, when it comes down to it. Except, not.

Right message, wrong audience

Beatrice the Cat, come inside this instant. It's too hot to be out.

That time of year again

Well, it's that time of year again, just as it was last night around about now (or maybe then). And people may call me sentimental, but let me just say it anyway: happy new 10.53, everyone! I hope it's a good minute for you! And make you sure you do something good with it! It'll only come round another 4000 times or so before you die!