The Medium Life

Finally, there are names for the new cats. It has not been without some pressure, given our previous cats were called Boy Kitty and Girl Kitty, and that our next cat was called New Kitty. It was thus, as you can imagine, with great trepidation that we adopted the two new cats.  Not for us the worries about cat flu and whether they'd bring half-dead birds or, heaven forbid, a weta into the house, (see here for a picture of the Weta, at your peril), no, not at all. The pressure was - what are they going to be named? What if we can't even think of a name? Are they doomed to be Newer Kitty and Newist Kitty? Billie or Bobbie The horrendous stress, my friends, cannot be underestimated. At work a colleague asked 'Have you named them, yet?'  It had only been a week. Try asking me that in a year. One of the boys said if he had cats, they'd be called Tim Whatley and Bob Sacamano, characters in Seinfeld. I was telling a friend this and she said, 'You cou...

It was recently the birthday and I was so lucky to have my carnivore sister and vegan daughter here for a few days. Normally it passes in a bit of a "just another day" but this was quite neat. Not even a significant birthday either. We went out for dinner to a yummy South American place, and the next day after we dropped the sister off at the airport, the daughter and I went to a plant-based restaurant close to town and it was quite yummy as well. Massively yummy. On the way back, we dropped in at a plant based bakery and bought donuts and they, too, were extremely yummy. Kilos were gained, my friends. Kilos. Then the next day we went and adopted cats. Two tabby girls, around five years old, from the SPCA. Our darling New Kitty, a demented calico cat, who once spent a week living on the garage roof under the peach tree, had died earlier this year and I had thought, as you do, that I would never get another feline, not for a long time. But over the past few weeks I...

I've been thinking of late about the value of keeping a diary. Not a "woe is me" diary of embarrassing angst (that you will watch burn into ashes one day when the angst is just a humiliating event of your past and no one must ever know a la the teen years) but a diary of day-to-day events. My father used to keep one. It was just a hardcover exercise book, and every day he'd write down interesting things related to life, like calling the vet out to the farm, going to the sale yards to buy heifers, a mate popping around, Jo arriving with the kids to stay a week for the holidays....! At times, I've done this, though not religiously. I have one entry in a book (90% empty, fyi) where it says I'm in bed writing, and the three cats, Boy Kitty, Girl Kitty and Mirrie are there.  Mirrie was a stray, considered an imposter by the "Kitties" I'm sure. They never got on, so this image is clearly a (rare) blissful moment.  When I first found the diary year...

I was down at the farm last weekend when I took this photo. I was about to make the 45 minute walk from the farm to the airport. The farm is only minutes out of the town and on the airport side, so quite lucky, really.   I could of course have taken a taxi, which I used to do, but what a waste of money when I have legs that are working. Plus I fly carry-on most of the time, so its not like I'm trudging along country roads with a wretched suitcase in tow. That would be a drama in itself plus its a reasonably busy road where you're constantly having to walk through grass so you don't get run over. The times I've flown down there at night, I've had to navigate the roads in the dark and that is pretty dodgy, I can tell you. Plus you wouldn't believe the rubbish that ends up on country roads, quite disgusting. Last time I did have a suitcase so I went to the airport as soon as check-in opened to check it in, then drove back to the farm, and walked back to the airp...

Currently reading : Quite a few writerly type books, dipping in and out of them, and also a book on the 1918 influenza pandemic and how it affected New Zealand ~ research for a work project. On the fiction front, the latest David Baldacci. Always a good, pacy read. Sheep pens on the farm. I reckon I'll go on a romance blitz after this, and get some e-books from writer friends and see what they're up to. Some nice home-and hearth, or rom com sounds good. Something that makes you feel optimistic, that maybe the world isn't going to hell in a handbasket. (Must look up origin of that saying one day.) Other stuff: On the house front, there are some projects needing attention. I had some windows replaced in a room. I had gone in there to touch them up, once one of the boys moved out. You know, a bit of paint here and there. Wasn't looking forward to it (physical labour, you know), and thus put it off, and when I finally took a deep breath and went in, I realised the wi...

It's winter down-under which is possibly my favourite time of year. I always think I'm the only one who loves winter, that everyone else is just hanging out for summer and the beach and the barbeques, but some work colleagues and I were discussing this the other day and how much we love winter. The season of scarves and coats, hot water bottles and reading in bed, a hot drink on a cold day, hibernating. And of course, soup!  Fortunately its not like we get snow here and have to deal with all that drama in the freezing cold. The best of both worlds. I was on the farm last weekend, which is pretty cold, and was even better because of the fire going! My brother had bought wood to last the winter back in January and good on him, he quite likes chopping it and stacking it. I can remember having to stack loads of firewood as a kid which was kind of okay (actually it totally sucked, I can't say this supposed 'work ethic' theory people go on about has rubbed off on me m...

I missed my bus home from work last night. One of those situations where you're waiting at the lights, you see your bus, and just before the pedestrian walk light goes green to cross, the bus pulls away. Because it was long past rush hour, it was half an hour for another bus, so what do you do? You cheer yourself up by taking a bit of a detour, knowing there's a good book in your bag to read (an excellent book on writing by Christopher Vogler and David McKenna called "Memo From the Story Department.") The detour is McDonalds for an ice-cream. While I was waiting I spotted Richard. He's an eccentric character, one of the streeties you see when you work in the city. I've chatted to him a lot before, about books and sports and anything really. He used to wear a jacket supporting the same rugby league team one of my kids supported. A team that at the time happened to be the bottom-of-the-table team, and had been for many years. The book could wait. So I t...