illness, death and destruction

it's been a week of mini catastrophes. My little one's just recovered from viral bronchitis and the wind's been a howling gale setting my nerves all a jitter.

A few streets from us lives an old italian couple who, over the last 45 years, have cultivated one of those typical old italian couple gardens. Full of amazing and unusual succulents that grow to triffid sized proportions. I walk past it every day and always stop to marvel. There's the Tractor Seat Plant whose leaves are the size and shape of - yep - a tractor seat and the Kalanchoe Felt Bush with giant stiff velvety leaves. There's a cactus that stands twice as high as the house with a trunk two foot in diameter and branches that weave and curve in all sorts of crazy directions in the sky and directly underneath that is a perfect Dracaena Draco which is one of my all time favourite trees. You can probably see where this is going, especially when i say there were all these wonderful things - on Sunday night the mighty wind ripped the cactus out of the ground and it crashed down crushing everything under it. The beautiful Dragon Tree is decimated and the old man was telling me that last year someone knocked on their door and offered them $10 000 (i'll put that in words - ten thousand dollars!) for it but they weren't interested in selling it.

Anyway, they kindly let me take what i could of the draco because they'd called rubbish removalists and it was all just going to be cleared away. Most of it was underneath the cactus and impossible to get to but i did manage to salvage a few stem cuttings which are about as big as me. I've got no idea if i'll be able to get them to strike, i don't think it's easy - they're prone to rotting. If anyone's got any tips let me know.



And finally this week, we woke up this morning to find our guinea pigs dead and gone. One's dead, the other's gone presumed dead and the big heavy cage had been knocked around and the wire rolled up. The incriminating evidence at the scene suggests a black and white cat (which is often in our garden) but how the fuck a cat can roll up chicken wire and have the strength to move a box that big and heavy i guess we'll never know.

Maisy and Popcorn we'll miss you.

OH GREAT!

MANY MONTHS AGO I SPILT A SPLOSH OF COFFEE ONTO MY KEYBOARD AND KILLED SOME KEYS. SINCE THEN I'VE HAD NO SHIFT OR CONTROL ON THE LEFT HAND SIDE WHICH MADE TYPING FIDDLEY BUT MANAGEABLE BECAUSE THE SAME KEYS EXIST ON THE RIGHT SIDE. I ALSO HAD NO CAPS LOCK WHICH ISN'T ALSO ON THE LEFT BUT WASN'T A BIG DEAL.

BUT... I JUST PRESSED CAPS LOCK FOR SOMETHING - FORGETTING THAT IT DOESN'T WORK AND... IT WORKED! AND NOW I CAN'T GET THE STINKIN' THING TO GO OFF.

LOOKS LIKE I'M GOING TO BE PERMANENTLY SHOUTING OR I'M UP FOR A NEW KEYBOARD.

happy feaster

I've been spending a lot of time awake lately in the small hours stressing and fretting about my shortcomings. I know i'm not the most useless person to walk the planet, i have some minor talents and a few learned skills but i can't help feeling there's so much more i should be doing. I'm struggling a bit under a weight of guilt and underachievement.

I know i should organise lot more physical activities with my girls, bike riding, rollerskating, swimming, scootering, and then there's educational games - board games, cards, maths websites instead of barbie websites - should i be a lot more active in that too?

There are things i would like to be doing for myself too - mastering guitar, drawing more, learning to surf, playing chess, using my languages, finding more work - and although i've never subscribed to the 'you can be whatever you want to be' school of thought (the human psyche is complex and less under our control than we realise) - i would at least like to do the things i like to do.

Yesterday, i found an old horoscope i'd torn out of the West Australian a few months ago because it obviously resonated with me. It still does and it's strangely cheering:

"There is a chasm between what you desire and whether you can achieve it. In principle you have some good ideas but in practice they might be rather wishy-washy. Be creative but not overly ambitious."

I find it rather comforting to be told to accept lack of achievement - it's almost buddhist, i think this might become my mantra.
Happy Choc Fest all!

un ojo

When i met my aunty Mary twenty years ago she told me about a dream she'd had that an old boyfriend had given her a kitten as a present which had three eyes. She said for her it was a very special present and that it was typical of that particular person to give her something so exotic and unusual. I thought at the time that if it had been my dream, a kitten with three eyes would have horrified me and not been the least bit enchanting. Almost ten years later i had my own version of the dream but the kittens had eyes all over their bodies. One had two rows down its belly like teats and there were spare eyes scattered all over the floor. In the chaotic frustration of my dream i even managed to tread on a couple on the kitchen floor. A few years later i was walking throught a food market in Madrid and i felt something dollop up against the side of my boot. I looked down and saw an enormous eyeball skittering across the floor. The look on my face sure gave the butcher a good laugh.

dream archive #1

I recently found this dream that i'd written down years ago -

Mum had opened a really expensive and exclusive restaurant and i went along one night to check it out. She was flitting around and talking to customers and i watch one guy order and entre that costs $800. When it arrives it's four boiled chicken drumsticks standing upright in a white cup. He starts eating and when he's not looking i pinch one to see if it's worth the money. It's stuffed with little bits of broccoli but just tastes like boiled chicken. When he's finished he complains about the size of the serving for the price. My (then) two year old is with me and she falls asleep on a bed that's there. I decide to leave her and go and see mum who's gone home to fix up a piece of furniture she wants to sell. She lives just down the street so i walk. She's stripping an old art deco cupboard so i leave her and go back to the restaurant. When i get back they're clearing up and talking about going for a drink and a smoke. I'm invited but my nephews have turned and i need to do something with them so i ask the staff if they have my sister's number and a girl says here i'll phone Wendy (not my sister) so i say what's the use of that, where's mum's or sister's numbers? I can't find them on a list by the phone, then Wendy answers but she cant hear me. They tell me i need a token but by the time i get one she's hung up. I'm starting to become furious and really start abusing them for being so disorganised. I take my daughter and the boys out into the street still yelling at the restaurant staff (gawd). We head over to my car but when i get there i notice my doors are open, the radio's gone, the battery's gone and there's an electrical cord running from the ignition into the house in front. Through the window i can see some girls and i pull out the cord. There's yelling from inside the house and someone comes to the door and starts threatening me. I run telling the kids to follow me but when i look back my baby's run the other way and gone inside the house. I turn back and run into the house to get her. As i pick her up a short guy with huge arms starts making gestures to hit me and is chasing me around the kitchen. The others in the house are laughing at me and how terrified i am and i wake up. It's a normal day