Beware - nature on the loose is an awe-inspiring sight.
Imagine this tornado of emotions and tsunami of flesh let loose tonight on my first bellydancing class.
No...wait a minute...don't imagine it. You'll go blind.
I'll tell you all about it tomorrow.
LOL
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Monday, February 20, 2006
And that's that...
You know what, I still love The Man.
And that's ok.
(Dr Stuart Mills agrees with me...look, another NEW man in my life! LOL)
My feelings are my feelings and I have lots of great memories and shared moments to base that on.
And I don't want to be angry.
I don't want to keep making new things to hate each other over.
He's not Satan, the bad things he did were bad enough, I don't need any other reasons to dislike him.
I don't have that much hate in me - and that's a good thing about ME!
That's something I should be proud of, in ME!
So, maybe I can't forgive and forget, and he can't either, and maybe he'll never be my friend again because we hurt each other.
I'll live with that - I've lived through much worse.
But I don' t have to be ashamed of still loving him.
And that realisation makes me breathe better and I don't shake as much when I think about teh future.
I am going to enjoy my peace, consolidate my strength, learn about myself and all the new skills I need and have neglected...and I am going to love instead of hate.
Forgiveness? Maybe not as easy, but love I'm ok with.
That I'm good at. And I'll get better.
And that's ok.
(Dr Stuart Mills agrees with me...look, another NEW man in my life! LOL)
My feelings are my feelings and I have lots of great memories and shared moments to base that on.
And I don't want to be angry.
I don't want to keep making new things to hate each other over.
He's not Satan, the bad things he did were bad enough, I don't need any other reasons to dislike him.
I don't have that much hate in me - and that's a good thing about ME!
That's something I should be proud of, in ME!
So, maybe I can't forgive and forget, and he can't either, and maybe he'll never be my friend again because we hurt each other.
I'll live with that - I've lived through much worse.
But I don' t have to be ashamed of still loving him.
And that realisation makes me breathe better and I don't shake as much when I think about teh future.
I am going to enjoy my peace, consolidate my strength, learn about myself and all the new skills I need and have neglected...and I am going to love instead of hate.
Forgiveness? Maybe not as easy, but love I'm ok with.
That I'm good at. And I'll get better.
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Hard to be Hated
It is so hard to be hated by someone you thought once loved you so much.
We're all so trained to want people to like us.
I still find myself wanting to make this all ok...but it's just never going to be.
We're all so trained to want people to like us.
I still find myself wanting to make this all ok...but it's just never going to be.
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Pitter Patter of Little Feet
A little while ago I blogged about whether I’d be happy about the prospect of hearing the pitter patter of little feet again in my home.
Little did I realize that the little feet would belong to a bloody great big possum.
The first time I woke up in the night to the sound of running feet I thought the kids were up in the night.
The next time I thought maybe someone was in the house – or there was a bloody ghost.
Which might have been preferable – poltergeists are easier to get rid of than possums.
And where do you think the little buggers get their hobnailed boots from?
Little did I realize that the little feet would belong to a bloody great big possum.
The first time I woke up in the night to the sound of running feet I thought the kids were up in the night.
The next time I thought maybe someone was in the house – or there was a bloody ghost.
Which might have been preferable – poltergeists are easier to get rid of than possums.
And where do you think the little buggers get their hobnailed boots from?
Observations
I laughed at something my daughter said to me the other day and she looked me in the eye and said “you don’t laugh much any more Mum – neither does Dad”.
How sad – this from the same child who, two years ago, told my mother “at least Mummy doesn’t cry so much anymore”.
How much damage we do to our kids, trying not to do them any damage at all.
How sad – this from the same child who, two years ago, told my mother “at least Mummy doesn’t cry so much anymore”.
How much damage we do to our kids, trying not to do them any damage at all.
Good News. Bad News.
Good News – I’m working this week. Bad News – it’s only two to four weeks worth of work.
Good News – I don’t need to pay someone to smash up my old septic system because it’s not a tank, it’s just a great big hole in the ground. Bad News – I found out because the health inspector paid a visit to the property and can’t believe the previous owner got away with this kind of crap (no pun intended) for more than 30 years.
Good News – the health inspector paid a visit to the property to sort out disposal of the asbestos in the cottage on the second block. Bad News – while he was here he discovered that someone’s been using the empty block to grow a sizeable crop of marijuana.
Good News – I found a use for all the canned Tuna from my food parcel…here pussy, pussy, pussy. Bad News – everything in the fridge, including the orange cake I am now eating, smells like Tuna. Bleurgh!
Good News – none of the Bad News matters. I’m really doing great and feeling good. Even got dishes done and some more boxes unpacked. The back yard is almost level and things are happening.
This is a funny town though.
It’s 10pm at night and someone on my street is playing the bagpipes.
Someone will grow a crop of pot in my backyard, but no one will steal from a people-less, appliance-full home for a year.
A pension-collecting handyman will brave snakes, spiders and electrocution to clear up my 2.5 acres of land of 60 dog kennels, three sheds, fill in a dozen dodgy waste holes, build me a chook shed for just the price of salvage, drop off firewood to little old ladies up and down my street for nothing – but the local IGA will wait for you to go home and bring back the 30c you don’t quite have for your weekly groceries.
It’s so different here – I’ve been living in the world of the young and obsessive for so long, I forgot there were farmers’ wives and senior citizens and dole-bludgers and people who fart in front of you in a queue and then look you in the eye and smile afterwards.
My 60-year-old handyman is on a disability pension, has almost single-handedly cleared my block over two months and refuses to discuss prices with me.
He is my liaison with council, health inspectors and sewerage pumpers.
He has been electrocuted removing a nail from dodgy wiring, menaced by six-foot snakes, bitten by redbacks and almost died of heatstroke in the couple of 45+ days we had here – but still he shows up every morning, calls me ‘love’ and is slowly making my world a better place to live in.
He is the Ghandi of garbage disposal and he is the new love of my life.
I think I have developed a ‘damsel in distress’ complex.
I’m just looking for a man to save me.
But whoever thought it would be a 60-year-old man with 14 children and testicular cancer?
My next project is to get my chook shed finished – I’m handy at pulling down wire (the kids conscientiously picking up the flung, rusty nails behind me) but I just don’t cut it when it comes to knocking down walls – another job for The Handyman tomorrow!
I’m turning the old stables-cum-dog hospital into a chook run, complete with little beds full of straw for laying boxes and an old sink for a water trough.
I can’t stand the idea of all the food we throw away – not only am I battling bloody ants all over the garbage bin every night, but it’s such a waste.
We really don’t need the eggs, but I can’t stand throwing away celery ends and half-eaten Weetbix when I could have some lovely Faverolles and Australorps to gobble them down.
And without the Dog here, I can truly have free range chooks (that’ll teach you bastard spiders and earwigs).
After that is cleaning out the shed, setting up the kids’ playroom in the front lean-to, painting up some furniture and the back room, and then…my most treasured plan of all…the new gardens.
Those things I can probably afford a little bit by bit.
In between, I have to get professionals to hook up my greywater system and unhook the powerlines to the second block.
Dad and his mate are going to, slowly, concrete under the old floors and set down new supports and later floorboards, as well as update my outside plumbing.
I need my trees chopped back and my septic pit filled – preferably with the 12 foot high pile of rocks in my driveway that were cleared out of the new septic hole. Thankfully, there will be some huge Stonehenge-sized sandstone boulders for me to use in a garden as a result – and I’m going to grow some you-beaut fruit trees over that shit pit.
Later on, after the floorboards, there’s the plastering of walls and updating of electrics, not to mention a general rebuild of all wet areas.
Outside I need to flatten and topdress the whole 1.8 acres on this block for lawns and gardens, as well as marking out garden beds and poisoning and laying out crusher dust anywhere I’m going to eventually put paving.
It’s HUGE!
But, as impossible as it seems, I can see little improvements every day and it’s lightening the weight on my chest bit by bit.
The world is just so different without the stress of a failing marriage and a booming business – it’s surreal.
I spent five hours in an office today where they had morning tea, a lunch break and a coffee break. I answered three phone calls, talked to three people at reception, had to read four newspapers and basically write a big list of stories that someone else would write…and they shooed me out the door at EXACTLY the time I said I had to leave with the parting words “such a busy day today”.
ARE YOU KIDDING?
The kids are being heralded as geniuses at school and the kittens are a regular furred-ring circus keeping the kids amused every hour they’re home and not sleeping.
And suddenly, they go to bed straight away.
They’ve got swimming lessons in the mornings and friends begging to come play, and they’re SO HAPPY!
Would I have had this if I’d come here with The Man the first time around?
Is this why he’s so angry, because I’m finally living the life he wanted me to choose and he’s not here?
Well, as I keep saying…just because I don’t have a husband, doesn’t mean I have to ignore all the lessons this last couple of years has been trying to teach me.
Surely, the only reason to go through that kind of emotional roller coaster ride is to come out in a better place, eventually, at the end.
The greatest tragedy would be if I didn’t learn from our mistakes, and grab hold NOW of the life I want for me and these gorgeous kids that I love…and that I now have the time to know better.
Good News – I don’t need to pay someone to smash up my old septic system because it’s not a tank, it’s just a great big hole in the ground. Bad News – I found out because the health inspector paid a visit to the property and can’t believe the previous owner got away with this kind of crap (no pun intended) for more than 30 years.
Good News – the health inspector paid a visit to the property to sort out disposal of the asbestos in the cottage on the second block. Bad News – while he was here he discovered that someone’s been using the empty block to grow a sizeable crop of marijuana.
Good News – I found a use for all the canned Tuna from my food parcel…here pussy, pussy, pussy. Bad News – everything in the fridge, including the orange cake I am now eating, smells like Tuna. Bleurgh!
Good News – none of the Bad News matters. I’m really doing great and feeling good. Even got dishes done and some more boxes unpacked. The back yard is almost level and things are happening.
This is a funny town though.
It’s 10pm at night and someone on my street is playing the bagpipes.
Someone will grow a crop of pot in my backyard, but no one will steal from a people-less, appliance-full home for a year.
A pension-collecting handyman will brave snakes, spiders and electrocution to clear up my 2.5 acres of land of 60 dog kennels, three sheds, fill in a dozen dodgy waste holes, build me a chook shed for just the price of salvage, drop off firewood to little old ladies up and down my street for nothing – but the local IGA will wait for you to go home and bring back the 30c you don’t quite have for your weekly groceries.
It’s so different here – I’ve been living in the world of the young and obsessive for so long, I forgot there were farmers’ wives and senior citizens and dole-bludgers and people who fart in front of you in a queue and then look you in the eye and smile afterwards.
My 60-year-old handyman is on a disability pension, has almost single-handedly cleared my block over two months and refuses to discuss prices with me.
He is my liaison with council, health inspectors and sewerage pumpers.
He has been electrocuted removing a nail from dodgy wiring, menaced by six-foot snakes, bitten by redbacks and almost died of heatstroke in the couple of 45+ days we had here – but still he shows up every morning, calls me ‘love’ and is slowly making my world a better place to live in.
He is the Ghandi of garbage disposal and he is the new love of my life.
I think I have developed a ‘damsel in distress’ complex.
I’m just looking for a man to save me.
But whoever thought it would be a 60-year-old man with 14 children and testicular cancer?
My next project is to get my chook shed finished – I’m handy at pulling down wire (the kids conscientiously picking up the flung, rusty nails behind me) but I just don’t cut it when it comes to knocking down walls – another job for The Handyman tomorrow!
I’m turning the old stables-cum-dog hospital into a chook run, complete with little beds full of straw for laying boxes and an old sink for a water trough.
I can’t stand the idea of all the food we throw away – not only am I battling bloody ants all over the garbage bin every night, but it’s such a waste.
We really don’t need the eggs, but I can’t stand throwing away celery ends and half-eaten Weetbix when I could have some lovely Faverolles and Australorps to gobble them down.
And without the Dog here, I can truly have free range chooks (that’ll teach you bastard spiders and earwigs).
After that is cleaning out the shed, setting up the kids’ playroom in the front lean-to, painting up some furniture and the back room, and then…my most treasured plan of all…the new gardens.
Those things I can probably afford a little bit by bit.
In between, I have to get professionals to hook up my greywater system and unhook the powerlines to the second block.
Dad and his mate are going to, slowly, concrete under the old floors and set down new supports and later floorboards, as well as update my outside plumbing.
I need my trees chopped back and my septic pit filled – preferably with the 12 foot high pile of rocks in my driveway that were cleared out of the new septic hole. Thankfully, there will be some huge Stonehenge-sized sandstone boulders for me to use in a garden as a result – and I’m going to grow some you-beaut fruit trees over that shit pit.
Later on, after the floorboards, there’s the plastering of walls and updating of electrics, not to mention a general rebuild of all wet areas.
Outside I need to flatten and topdress the whole 1.8 acres on this block for lawns and gardens, as well as marking out garden beds and poisoning and laying out crusher dust anywhere I’m going to eventually put paving.
It’s HUGE!
But, as impossible as it seems, I can see little improvements every day and it’s lightening the weight on my chest bit by bit.
The world is just so different without the stress of a failing marriage and a booming business – it’s surreal.
I spent five hours in an office today where they had morning tea, a lunch break and a coffee break. I answered three phone calls, talked to three people at reception, had to read four newspapers and basically write a big list of stories that someone else would write…and they shooed me out the door at EXACTLY the time I said I had to leave with the parting words “such a busy day today”.
ARE YOU KIDDING?
The kids are being heralded as geniuses at school and the kittens are a regular furred-ring circus keeping the kids amused every hour they’re home and not sleeping.
And suddenly, they go to bed straight away.
They’ve got swimming lessons in the mornings and friends begging to come play, and they’re SO HAPPY!
Would I have had this if I’d come here with The Man the first time around?
Is this why he’s so angry, because I’m finally living the life he wanted me to choose and he’s not here?
Well, as I keep saying…just because I don’t have a husband, doesn’t mean I have to ignore all the lessons this last couple of years has been trying to teach me.
Surely, the only reason to go through that kind of emotional roller coaster ride is to come out in a better place, eventually, at the end.
The greatest tragedy would be if I didn’t learn from our mistakes, and grab hold NOW of the life I want for me and these gorgeous kids that I love…and that I now have the time to know better.
Hi Ho, Hi Ho! Work’s where I need to go!
I need a job!
Apparently I’m overqualified to be a school office lady (a woman who couldn’t use Windows got that job), a bartender (why would you want a job here?) or a checkout chick (we need people who aren’t going to leave when they get a GOOD job).
Despite starting my Child Care course this month, I need to do 40 volunteer hours to even be eligible for an SSO number.
I don’t want to be running my own business again – and right now I can’t as I can’t afford internet or a home phone, and I’d need a digital SLR to get back into portraiture or weddings.
For the next two to four weeks I’ve poached one of my old clients from The Monitor, and I’ll be working in an electorate office doing newsletters at government rates – which will be a lifesaver, but it’s not enough if I don’t start getting some interviews soon.
I’m even dropping off a CV to my old nemesis – the Competition and my Former Employers at the local newspaper – in the hopes that they’re so desperate they’ll offer me part-time journo work in school hours.
Doubtful though, I think, those guys hold as many grudges as I do.
I need a job!
Just a little reminder if there is any agency of Fate out there listening.
Apparently I’m overqualified to be a school office lady (a woman who couldn’t use Windows got that job), a bartender (why would you want a job here?) or a checkout chick (we need people who aren’t going to leave when they get a GOOD job).
Despite starting my Child Care course this month, I need to do 40 volunteer hours to even be eligible for an SSO number.
I don’t want to be running my own business again – and right now I can’t as I can’t afford internet or a home phone, and I’d need a digital SLR to get back into portraiture or weddings.
For the next two to four weeks I’ve poached one of my old clients from The Monitor, and I’ll be working in an electorate office doing newsletters at government rates – which will be a lifesaver, but it’s not enough if I don’t start getting some interviews soon.
I’m even dropping off a CV to my old nemesis – the Competition and my Former Employers at the local newspaper – in the hopes that they’re so desperate they’ll offer me part-time journo work in school hours.
Doubtful though, I think, those guys hold as many grudges as I do.
I need a job!
Just a little reminder if there is any agency of Fate out there listening.
You Call this Food?
I have sunk as low as I can get.
Well, as low as I intend to get. Famous last words eh?
I have drained my parents of money and time and physical effort – just to make my house liveable.
I have spent every cent I made in the last 11 weeks of work on any bill that had mine and The Man’s name.
I begged, borrowed and camped on a friend’s lounge room floor in order to get my son to hospital in Adelaide for his tonsillectomy, and then overdrew my bank account to get us both home.
I have frozen my mortgage payments, my rates and am ignoring my final power bill from my previous home.
The employment agency I have been going to, every day since I got here, doesn’t feel that I qualify for assistance for at least 13 weeks – because by then, we actually will be starving and considering bankruptcy.
I have cried at CentreLink more often, now, than I ever have at weddings. (Although, looking back, I should have shed a few more tears at my own.)
In fact, apparently I was too convincing when I first showed up at CentreLink and they didn’t put me down as eligible for any of their programs as I appear to be a very capable young woman who doesn’t need too much help.
Apparently they can get the employment agency moving to help me find work, they can get my TafeSA fees supplemented and my medical bills reimbursed, they can get me counseling for me and the kids and free fucking petrol back and forwards from any work I do get!
Why is it, that you have to be loser to get help?
But, despite that little insight into the potential help I’m entitled to – it wasn’t cash.
As my overdraw fees had cancelled out my parenting payments, I found myself with $25 to my name this week – just enough for petrol to get me to the closest bank (38km away) to find out I had nothing left - so I went to Uniting Care and asked for a food parcel.
Firstly, I asked them for a job (they’ve got a couple going which I am applying for), and then I asked for a food parcel.
Do you know what a food parcel consists of?
Weetbix, frozen bread loaves, spaghetti sauce, powdered milk, Tom Yum soup, baked beans and two-minute noodles.
No fresh meat, no apples for my kids’ lunches, nothing greener than the shopping bags it all came in.
The only protein in the two shopping bags-full was a dozen farm eggs, obviously donated by local producers (thankyou, thankyou).
There are people who LIVE on these parcels, three times a month!
It’s a wonder they don’t all have scurvy!
If I get this bloody ‘food development’ job I want, I’m going to set up a network with the local primary producers (and this is SA’s centre for stone-fruits, apples, seafood, grain, cucumbers, capsicums and zucchinis) to supplement that program.
Not to mention providing people with some kind of ‘staying healthy on a budget’ cookbook.
Ironically, within half an hour of taking receipt of my high-carb low-protein rickets-inducing food parcel I was offered a couple of weeks work and my Mum rang me to say she’d just won $400 at the pokies – which, she insists, she never really plays.
I don’t believe in God, but I think I definitely have to believe in kharma this year.
For every lesson I learn in this whole nasty mess, there’s a little reward to keep me positive as well.
Now, please, what every great wheel of fate is turning over the top of me, right at this minute, I just want you to know that I have learned my lesson.
I see my faults, I swear I’m not going to make the same mistakes again, so please – can you swing me back around to the top now so I can get a little sunshine back, instead of having my nose rubbed in the mud again.
Well, as low as I intend to get. Famous last words eh?
I have drained my parents of money and time and physical effort – just to make my house liveable.
I have spent every cent I made in the last 11 weeks of work on any bill that had mine and The Man’s name.
I begged, borrowed and camped on a friend’s lounge room floor in order to get my son to hospital in Adelaide for his tonsillectomy, and then overdrew my bank account to get us both home.
I have frozen my mortgage payments, my rates and am ignoring my final power bill from my previous home.
The employment agency I have been going to, every day since I got here, doesn’t feel that I qualify for assistance for at least 13 weeks – because by then, we actually will be starving and considering bankruptcy.
I have cried at CentreLink more often, now, than I ever have at weddings. (Although, looking back, I should have shed a few more tears at my own.)
In fact, apparently I was too convincing when I first showed up at CentreLink and they didn’t put me down as eligible for any of their programs as I appear to be a very capable young woman who doesn’t need too much help.
Apparently they can get the employment agency moving to help me find work, they can get my TafeSA fees supplemented and my medical bills reimbursed, they can get me counseling for me and the kids and free fucking petrol back and forwards from any work I do get!
Why is it, that you have to be loser to get help?
But, despite that little insight into the potential help I’m entitled to – it wasn’t cash.
As my overdraw fees had cancelled out my parenting payments, I found myself with $25 to my name this week – just enough for petrol to get me to the closest bank (38km away) to find out I had nothing left - so I went to Uniting Care and asked for a food parcel.
Firstly, I asked them for a job (they’ve got a couple going which I am applying for), and then I asked for a food parcel.
Do you know what a food parcel consists of?
Weetbix, frozen bread loaves, spaghetti sauce, powdered milk, Tom Yum soup, baked beans and two-minute noodles.
No fresh meat, no apples for my kids’ lunches, nothing greener than the shopping bags it all came in.
The only protein in the two shopping bags-full was a dozen farm eggs, obviously donated by local producers (thankyou, thankyou).
There are people who LIVE on these parcels, three times a month!
It’s a wonder they don’t all have scurvy!
If I get this bloody ‘food development’ job I want, I’m going to set up a network with the local primary producers (and this is SA’s centre for stone-fruits, apples, seafood, grain, cucumbers, capsicums and zucchinis) to supplement that program.
Not to mention providing people with some kind of ‘staying healthy on a budget’ cookbook.
Ironically, within half an hour of taking receipt of my high-carb low-protein rickets-inducing food parcel I was offered a couple of weeks work and my Mum rang me to say she’d just won $400 at the pokies – which, she insists, she never really plays.
I don’t believe in God, but I think I definitely have to believe in kharma this year.
For every lesson I learn in this whole nasty mess, there’s a little reward to keep me positive as well.
Now, please, what every great wheel of fate is turning over the top of me, right at this minute, I just want you to know that I have learned my lesson.
I see my faults, I swear I’m not going to make the same mistakes again, so please – can you swing me back around to the top now so I can get a little sunshine back, instead of having my nose rubbed in the mud again.
Furred Saviours
I think these little Slinky Malinky look-alikes have saved my children’s souls.
No more tears after teatime, no more wailing for Daddy when they curl in against me at night – no more demanding I come to bed with them at bedtime.
I still have pictures of ‘Dad’ bluetacked all through my house and the occasional ‘when’s Dad going to call – I miss him’, but, for the most times, between school and their furry little charges, they’re happily distracted.
Finding these little buggers wasn’t easy.
Which is ironic when there’s obviously hundreds of people not neutering their cats – but I refused to have a Tabby.
To me, a Tabby spells ‘feral’ – I just can’t escape that old prejudice.
After a tearful phone call with The Girl, my mother spent a whole day ringing every petshop and RSPCA between the Eyre Peninsula and the Flinders Ranges.
The RSPCA provided animals with all the appropriate shots and neutering, but their cats were mostly three-month-olds, and my babies needed babies of their own.
The local petshop was happy to sell me sad, scrawny, much-too-young-to-be-weaned little felines for $15 – but the poor things looked so sad and neglected I couldn’t do it.
It can only be serendipity that one of the local farmer mums brought in a basketload of kittens for show and tell at The Kids’ school, the same day I was bewailing the state of the petshop kittens to the school secretary.
Turns out, she’d had the all-black mum Licorice show up on her doorstep one night, and soon after came a whole litter of All-Sorts.
She leapt at the chance of knowing where her new babies were going to end up, a chance to soothe her own kitten-obsessed children, and I leapt at the chance of free, healthy, seven-week old kittens.
With the chookshed not finished yet, no fence (or inclination) to keep a dog in, guinea pigs just too damned fragile and rabbits one step too far for my moral sense – kittens seemed the obvious sollution!
Of course, the kids and I had been talking about kittens and chooks for a while now.
I’d made the mistake, last week, of chivvying them home from school with the promise of a ‘surprise’.
“Is it Daddy? Is it our cats? Are our chooks here?”
The answer – iced donuts – just didn’t seem so special afterwards.
Two days later I was doing the same thing, rushing them home with talk of a ‘surprise’.
“Is it donuts? Is it in the kitchen?”
In the car I’d teased them that it was ‘stinkin’ Tuna’ – to help them grow big and strong.
The look on The Girl’s face when I opened the fridge and brought out…Tuna!
The pair continued to look at me with verging-on-tears disbelief as I shoveled out Tuna chunks into a bowl, telling them how good it was for brains and bones.
“But we don’t LIKE stinkin’ Tuna,” The Girl wailed through wavering lips.
“Well I’ll give it to someone who does…” I declared.
It was worth it, to see their faces when the smell of the Tuna coaxed the little fluffballs out from under the TV cabinet.
Now they have spent two days creating little cat runs and cat palaces and cat toy piles and cat toys out of lolly wrappers and feathers and wool, and they have gone to bed looking at pictures of cats in the ‘Big Book of Egypt’.
I can tell you, with a clear conscience, that the sense of peace these little animals have brought my family is worth every butchered gecko or mauled parrot I ever have to claim responsibility for.
No more tears after teatime, no more wailing for Daddy when they curl in against me at night – no more demanding I come to bed with them at bedtime.
I still have pictures of ‘Dad’ bluetacked all through my house and the occasional ‘when’s Dad going to call – I miss him’, but, for the most times, between school and their furry little charges, they’re happily distracted.
Finding these little buggers wasn’t easy.
Which is ironic when there’s obviously hundreds of people not neutering their cats – but I refused to have a Tabby.
To me, a Tabby spells ‘feral’ – I just can’t escape that old prejudice.
After a tearful phone call with The Girl, my mother spent a whole day ringing every petshop and RSPCA between the Eyre Peninsula and the Flinders Ranges.
The RSPCA provided animals with all the appropriate shots and neutering, but their cats were mostly three-month-olds, and my babies needed babies of their own.
The local petshop was happy to sell me sad, scrawny, much-too-young-to-be-weaned little felines for $15 – but the poor things looked so sad and neglected I couldn’t do it.
It can only be serendipity that one of the local farmer mums brought in a basketload of kittens for show and tell at The Kids’ school, the same day I was bewailing the state of the petshop kittens to the school secretary.
Turns out, she’d had the all-black mum Licorice show up on her doorstep one night, and soon after came a whole litter of All-Sorts.
She leapt at the chance of knowing where her new babies were going to end up, a chance to soothe her own kitten-obsessed children, and I leapt at the chance of free, healthy, seven-week old kittens.
With the chookshed not finished yet, no fence (or inclination) to keep a dog in, guinea pigs just too damned fragile and rabbits one step too far for my moral sense – kittens seemed the obvious sollution!
Of course, the kids and I had been talking about kittens and chooks for a while now.
I’d made the mistake, last week, of chivvying them home from school with the promise of a ‘surprise’.
“Is it Daddy? Is it our cats? Are our chooks here?”
The answer – iced donuts – just didn’t seem so special afterwards.
Two days later I was doing the same thing, rushing them home with talk of a ‘surprise’.
“Is it donuts? Is it in the kitchen?”
In the car I’d teased them that it was ‘stinkin’ Tuna’ – to help them grow big and strong.
The look on The Girl’s face when I opened the fridge and brought out…Tuna!
The pair continued to look at me with verging-on-tears disbelief as I shoveled out Tuna chunks into a bowl, telling them how good it was for brains and bones.
“But we don’t LIKE stinkin’ Tuna,” The Girl wailed through wavering lips.
“Well I’ll give it to someone who does…” I declared.
It was worth it, to see their faces when the smell of the Tuna coaxed the little fluffballs out from under the TV cabinet.
Now they have spent two days creating little cat runs and cat palaces and cat toy piles and cat toys out of lolly wrappers and feathers and wool, and they have gone to bed looking at pictures of cats in the ‘Big Book of Egypt’.
I can tell you, with a clear conscience, that the sense of peace these little animals have brought my family is worth every butchered gecko or mauled parrot I ever have to claim responsibility for.
Feline Fellows
We have welcomed two murderers into the family.
No, I won’t sugarcoat it – that’s what they are and that’s why they are here.
Two twinned black cats with dark eyes and white blazes on their chest – the kids have named them Pharoah and Mako.
Pharoah was, actually, The Girl’s idea after reading up on Egypt. Mako was my attempt at talking The Boy out of calling his cat Nemo or Bruce, both of Pixar fame.
And yes, I know they will eat my little kitchen skinks, and they will, eventually turn into marauding Toms who will butcher the galahs and rosellas in my almond trees if they get the chance.
And, I know, that after working with environmental scientists in one of Australia’s most ecologically-sensitive regions that I should be appalled at the idea of raising my own feline marauders.
But, you know what, if they keep the mice away and scare a few snakes while they’re at it – they can eat all the galahs and geckos they want.
I don’t know at what time I became phobic about mice.
I remember being pregnant in what was, once, my family home, and watching the same mouse, night after night, skitter across the lounge room floor and hide behind the TV cabinet with any morsels it had picked up on its way through the kitchen.
How many nights I sat there, listening to the skritch-skratch of it eating toast in the safety of MY night-time retreat – how many nights I narrowly missed it with thrown paperback – I don’t know.
But by the end of our time in that house I know I was HYSTERICAL at the idea of that mouse sharing residency.
Looking back, considering my growing distaste for the little buggers, it wasn’t smart to move into a falling-down house surrounded by old dog kennels and wheatfields – and then leave it full of cardboard boxes full of books and clothes.
When The Man and I were both here, I’d lie away at night listening to the traps snap and then beg him to reset them.
We had a deal – I’d kill the spiders, he’d dispose of the mice.
But he’s gone now and, ironically, like so many women of this day and age, now that my Man has let me down – I’ve turned to Pussy.
No, I won’t sugarcoat it – that’s what they are and that’s why they are here.
Two twinned black cats with dark eyes and white blazes on their chest – the kids have named them Pharoah and Mako.
Pharoah was, actually, The Girl’s idea after reading up on Egypt. Mako was my attempt at talking The Boy out of calling his cat Nemo or Bruce, both of Pixar fame.
And yes, I know they will eat my little kitchen skinks, and they will, eventually turn into marauding Toms who will butcher the galahs and rosellas in my almond trees if they get the chance.
And, I know, that after working with environmental scientists in one of Australia’s most ecologically-sensitive regions that I should be appalled at the idea of raising my own feline marauders.
But, you know what, if they keep the mice away and scare a few snakes while they’re at it – they can eat all the galahs and geckos they want.
I don’t know at what time I became phobic about mice.
I remember being pregnant in what was, once, my family home, and watching the same mouse, night after night, skitter across the lounge room floor and hide behind the TV cabinet with any morsels it had picked up on its way through the kitchen.
How many nights I sat there, listening to the skritch-skratch of it eating toast in the safety of MY night-time retreat – how many nights I narrowly missed it with thrown paperback – I don’t know.
But by the end of our time in that house I know I was HYSTERICAL at the idea of that mouse sharing residency.
Looking back, considering my growing distaste for the little buggers, it wasn’t smart to move into a falling-down house surrounded by old dog kennels and wheatfields – and then leave it full of cardboard boxes full of books and clothes.
When The Man and I were both here, I’d lie away at night listening to the traps snap and then beg him to reset them.
We had a deal – I’d kill the spiders, he’d dispose of the mice.
But he’s gone now and, ironically, like so many women of this day and age, now that my Man has let me down – I’ve turned to Pussy.
Eight-legged Wonders
I have always been fascinated by spiders.
When other girls wanted ponies, I wanted a tarantula.
Of course, I would have settled for a pony…don’t get me wrong. I am still a girl.
When we were children my brother and I were given a pet mouse each, in a little plastic tank.
My mother was assured by the pet owner that they were both male.
Let’s just say, she got a very quick lesson in ‘buyer beware’ and we were delighted to end up with a dozen little pink mouslings each.
I find that ironic today, when I live in a house populated by mouse-sized spiders and spider-quick mice.
I obviously got over my affection for mice (as did my mother, who, until I was in my 20s, insisted that our cat Fluffy had, one day, unlatched both mouse tanks without eating any of our little babies and they had all escaped into the back paddock – perhaps to join the Rats of NIMH).
But when the mice were gone, I remember trapping a huge huntsman – a regular visitor in our rainforest home – and insisting that he was a Tarantula and keeping him in the mouse tank.
This is what happens when you encourage your children to watch National Geographic specials instead of Saturday morning cartoons.
Apparently Fluffy set my Tarantula free as well…she must have been a wily old Puss, that’s all I have to say.
The week we were all here cleaning up I was bitten by a Redback – we saw several huge ones, as big as grapes.
Mum smashed half of my crockery because she pulled out a pile of dishes and a Huntsman catapaulted out of the cupboard at her.
Even the handyman commented on the size of the spiders – but then he was impressed by our six-foot-snake and the nest of UberRats it was lunching on underneath one of the old greyhound kennels.
Even after all the spider bombs, the kids found a really huge Huntsman in one of the toyboxes which even frosted with Mortein, refused to die. So, in true Steve Irwin fashion I took my longest barbecue tongs and lifted it out from its camouflage of Barbies and Batmans – the bastard thing was so strong I could feel it pushing the tongs apart.
Now, once again, I have a pet ‘Tarantula’.
With the Kids insisting on sleeping in my bed nowadays, I often sit up reading in the lounge until they’re settled.
After weeks of spider bombs, surface spray, DIY spider spray and plain old Pea-Beau spiders were obviously the last of my concerns.
So when I heard the pile of drawings the kids had left on the floor, next to my couch, rustle – I assumed it was a damn mouse (and oh how I wished Fluffy was still alive, right at that moment).
Imagine my shock when I flipped up the crayoned self-portraits to discover a matchbox-sized huntsman with huge spindly legs.
Leaping for the non-organic, highly-toxic and completely unethical anti-spider spraypack that now lives in my lounge room, I chased the monster under the couch which I picked up one-handed to spray underneath.
I missed.
In fact, four nights in a row – I’ve missed.
We might just have to name him and welcome him into the family.
Until then, at least he’s keeping the bastard earwigs out of the house.
When other girls wanted ponies, I wanted a tarantula.
Of course, I would have settled for a pony…don’t get me wrong. I am still a girl.
When we were children my brother and I were given a pet mouse each, in a little plastic tank.
My mother was assured by the pet owner that they were both male.
Let’s just say, she got a very quick lesson in ‘buyer beware’ and we were delighted to end up with a dozen little pink mouslings each.
I find that ironic today, when I live in a house populated by mouse-sized spiders and spider-quick mice.
I obviously got over my affection for mice (as did my mother, who, until I was in my 20s, insisted that our cat Fluffy had, one day, unlatched both mouse tanks without eating any of our little babies and they had all escaped into the back paddock – perhaps to join the Rats of NIMH).
But when the mice were gone, I remember trapping a huge huntsman – a regular visitor in our rainforest home – and insisting that he was a Tarantula and keeping him in the mouse tank.
This is what happens when you encourage your children to watch National Geographic specials instead of Saturday morning cartoons.
Apparently Fluffy set my Tarantula free as well…she must have been a wily old Puss, that’s all I have to say.
The week we were all here cleaning up I was bitten by a Redback – we saw several huge ones, as big as grapes.
Mum smashed half of my crockery because she pulled out a pile of dishes and a Huntsman catapaulted out of the cupboard at her.
Even the handyman commented on the size of the spiders – but then he was impressed by our six-foot-snake and the nest of UberRats it was lunching on underneath one of the old greyhound kennels.
Even after all the spider bombs, the kids found a really huge Huntsman in one of the toyboxes which even frosted with Mortein, refused to die. So, in true Steve Irwin fashion I took my longest barbecue tongs and lifted it out from its camouflage of Barbies and Batmans – the bastard thing was so strong I could feel it pushing the tongs apart.
Now, once again, I have a pet ‘Tarantula’.
With the Kids insisting on sleeping in my bed nowadays, I often sit up reading in the lounge until they’re settled.
After weeks of spider bombs, surface spray, DIY spider spray and plain old Pea-Beau spiders were obviously the last of my concerns.
So when I heard the pile of drawings the kids had left on the floor, next to my couch, rustle – I assumed it was a damn mouse (and oh how I wished Fluffy was still alive, right at that moment).
Imagine my shock when I flipped up the crayoned self-portraits to discover a matchbox-sized huntsman with huge spindly legs.
Leaping for the non-organic, highly-toxic and completely unethical anti-spider spraypack that now lives in my lounge room, I chased the monster under the couch which I picked up one-handed to spray underneath.
I missed.
In fact, four nights in a row – I’ve missed.
We might just have to name him and welcome him into the family.
Until then, at least he’s keeping the bastard earwigs out of the house.
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