Naked cats

For the first time in my cat-loving life I splashed out and bought a little tag with her name and phone number.  I got it two days ago. Last night as I was giving her a little tickle I noticed that she had stripped at some stage during the day - no collar, no little bell and no tag.

I sent the monsters out searching the garden before school but to no avail.  It has scarpered.  (Not that they concentrated on the task at hand.  I imagine it is tricky to look while bellowing at each other and stripping the wattles.)

It is right up there with the theory about how long sunglasses last before being lost being inversely proportional to how much you pay.  Cheap crap lasts forever, a living testament to a desperate moment in a servo, while any slight amount of style or quality is doomed to be lost in sand or broken in a tripped over handbag in a millisecond.

I could at this point say something dry and ironic but frankly, I can't be fagged.  Flat acceptance is all I can manage.

The new collar has two bells.

Hazard ahead - unlike a tiger, at least you don't lose a leg

A causal relationship between the rise of effective psychotropics and the end of quality literature - discuss

Today I lend my mind to literary theory, a topic I am completely unqualified to tackle.  As my research of other theorists is zilch, I shall dispense with that tiresome bibiliography lurk.  (It also means that my thesis is happily in ignorance of the thoughts of every other literary theorist (and in fact any actual facts), but you are reading a blog so you are dreaming if you expect anything other than mildly considered vomit.)

My thesis is that, with the rise of effective psychotropics in the last 40 years, there has been a diminishment and flattening of literature as a number of your greats were in fact, mad as headless chooks.

Case Study 1 - The probable effect of anti-depressives on Graham Greene.  Had they been available and effective, I contend there would be a notable absence of disappointed colonial administrators, hopeless and dispirited armaments purchasers, angry rejected lovers, and disheartened tropical hoteliers and vacuum cleaner salesmen in Mr Greene's works.

Case Study 2 - The lessening output of Thomas Pynchon and the increasing effectiveness of anti-psychotics.  Between 1960 and 1973 Mr Pynchon produced three novels - V, The Crying of Lot 49 and Gravity's Rainbow,  works chocablock with frantic zigzagging prose, flaky intertwining paranoias and literally hundreds of confused and alienated characters incapable of forming normal relationships.  Since that time there has been a novel a decade, none with the same density of madness.  It certainly smells suspiciously like effective medication.*

Mike Fallopian - a quiet Saturday night at home

Case Study 3 - Emily Bronte - Bipolar - type II, enough said.

I think that is a QED, folks.  Thank you and goodnight.


 *Mr Pynchon, if you are in fact sane as a sheep, I apologise for the suggestion.  I will still love your works but have no idea whatever how they eeeped out of you.

Missing  - three years - description unknown

Some time in late 2005 I seem to have lost my memory.  I remember very little before early 2008.  I even forget I have forgotten that period.

The husband and I (and at this point I should point out he has quite a bad memory compared with my excellent one) were talking about one of his siblings.  We were discussing an overseas trip and he used such phrases as "that was when they spent 6 months living overseas before they bought the house."  Nope, nothing in there about that.  I did some maths to see if it had happened before I had met the husband.  No luck.

Basically, I realised that he was talking about the dead zone.  Over three years lost.  It turns out when you are completely zonked with pregnancy, babies, toddlers during further pregnancies, then babies and toddlers in tandem, you do not lay down memories.

The only things I clearly remember is the children themselves - the lovely feeling of kissing little heads covered in fluff, delightful facial contortions upon sampling their first teaspoon of mashed swede, and hurling weeds around the garden to get away from the crying.

Things that I scarcely recall but theoretically happened during that period include: renovating the kitchen and negotiating with the state and territory governments to get them all to agree about something - a task akin to juggling jelly.  I hope they went well.

I suspect my working memory at the time was even worst.  Someone I worked for told me about a conversation we had during that period.  She said, "Can you dig out that paper you wrote on xxx because we can reuse it for yyy?"  "What paper?", I said ... further ridiculous conversation ... so the boss trotted off frustrated at her idiot savant employee and I looked in the drive.  I found it in quite a logical place and it was a doozy.  It had 15 pages of legislative analysis, options for solutions to problems that were likely to emerge, notes of conversations with General Counsel, etc.  Terrific stuff and very handy.  Clearly I wrote it but even a month later it was like reading it anew.

Sadly, I really don't remember what happened to anyone else so if you are one of those people who got a short shrift, I apologise.  This includes my parents, who got rare 5 minute garbled conversations, friends cut adrift, and the poor old cat, who just wanted me to sit down for 5 minutes so she could get a cuddle.

Ah, yes, I do remember giving birth.

I was inside asleep. The husband was playing with the crowbar and looking after the baby - naturally cognating activities.

The sun is shiny ...

... the wattles are golden, and it is time to talk about unquenched lust.

I think that is the thing that annoys me about my life most of all.  Here I am living with  a lovely chap who  also likes a spot of nooky and it is damn difficult to find a time to get to it.

It is not even as though I fancy someone else.  Ever, in fact.  If the husbandal unit were to be run over by a bus I can't see myself bothering with a new model.  It is partly a lingering sentimental attachment to the one I have (or had, in the bus-squishing scenario).

Possibly it is because I am aware of the quality of the current model, or, having gone to the trouble of getting used to living with him, I can't see myself enjoying discovering the range of disgusting habits you get in a new partner.  (My idea of hell includes having the TV on all weekend watching sport, or someone who widdles on the floor of the toilet then ignores it. YOU BASTARDS!!) (Sorry about that - cool, soothing breath!)

Also, it would be very tricky making a new family with extant monsters - I think people who try it are extraordinarily brave.

The current husbandal unit has seen me naked and knows about my slightly odd laughy habits.  I can't imagine the horror of going through that with someone else.  And what if you did and found you had the compatibility of sardines and caramel sauce?  I have not had a big enough range of partners to know where my husb. falls on the scale of likely successful completions but there are probably a lot of people with whom the end result would not be two smiley people.

No, all I really wish for is more opportunity to get to it when we are not sick, tired or looking after monsters.

 It is probably just the saps starting to flow.  Bloody spring.

Vanquishing monsters

It is probably impolite to celebrate but the monsters are off for the weekend.  My marvelous brother and sister-in-law are once again taking care of the dear little mites.  What is more, they have been asked to bring bathers so that is a happy pair of monsters.

Much as I love the girls, being a full-time parent has its periods where you would like to gaffer-tape them to the inside of the garage to get some peace.  Eventually everything annoys you: hearing about dreams at top volume while you are slurping your first coffee; middens of hair elastics and library books; the astonishing capacity of children to destroy things (dishwasher doors turn out not to like being sat on, for example); the awful relationship between veggie intake and fartiness; and last but not least, the noisy, pointless fighting.

Sometimes I think it is time to give the game away - find some childcare and reinvigorate my brain and refresh my ego with a return to paid work.  (Because at $20/week cash in hand, this job definitely counts as volunteer work.)

But you have to remember why you do it:

1 Because life is crap for everyone when we are both working full-time.  There is exhaustion, pressure on careers as carer's leave is stretched to the outer limits, an even higher bug level as immune systems collapse, and a feeling that you are doing both paid work and parenting extremely badly.

2 Because when you do return to work, the monsters will always remember the time you set aside to do crafting, make cakes, read books, and wander the neighbourhood looking for trees to help them learn to climb.

Monsters dissecting dead IT

Frankly, I am damned lucky we have the choice so I will stop complaining and go and pick up the school monsters.  Byeeeee!