I hate that noise they make. You know the one: like someone quietly saying 'Ork! Ork! Ork' into a paper bag. You hear it from a room or two away, you know it's already too late. But you're gonna try. You've got to try. You dash in, jump over a piece of furniture, and there's the fucking cat. Hunched. Head down. Tail flat. And that goddam 'Ork! Ork! Ork!' shit keeps going on, and every time the cat says 'Ork' it's whole body jerks.
So you grab the cat around the middle, heave it up and sprint for the Great Outdoors, just in time for the Arrival Of The Grotesque. Cat gives a squirm, says 'Ork' a little louder, and suddenly you're holding not a cat, but a vaguely warm and furry sort of gun designed to project hideous and disgusting blobs of... stuff... at random around the room. Brown stuff. Cat-food scented stuff. Wet, sticky, fucking horrible stuff.
So you put the cat down somewhere relatively harmless, and you fetch the paper towels and the cleaning solution and the eucalyptus oil to kill the stink. You work at it for a minute or two, gathering all the gloppy lumps into a paper bundle that you can stuff into the garbage. Then you clean up the residue, and de-stench the place.
And when you look around, where's the cat? Oh, he's back at the food bowl, stuffing yet more pre-vomit mix into his furry fucking face. Mmmmm-yeah, love that crunchy kitty treat! Gotta get it in me, else what can I vomit all over the rug?
Crapulent animal.
Sunny winter's day today. Nat took the kids for a bike ride. More accurately, she rode to the neighbour's place, recruited STILL MORE kids, and went riding farther. I wanted to work in peace, but the moment Natalie and the kids looked like leaving, a couple visitors arrived. Oh, and the goddam dog broke his chain, and went chasing after Nat and the kids. I had to call him back, fix his chain, and tie him up. No way he can be allowed to go with them: he's completely bloody unreliable in the company of bicycles. They act on his tiny, doggy brain much as trampolines do: a total, intelligence-annihilating provocation of chaos. He simply cannot see a bicycle with a kid on it without trying to chew on the front tyre. Which is hard on the kid, hard on the bike, and even hard on the stupid dog (I've seen Elder Son run over the dog's face at least once), but it doesn't stop him. Dumbass dog.
Anyway, I wished the visitors good day, and zipped down the hill to Scottsdale. Got a new, stronger chain from the hardware store. Picked up dinner supplies in Woolworths. (We're having curried lamb and sweet potato tonight, with home-made pita bread and salad. The boys will love it. The daughter will spit chips, and be sent to bed early because her mother is not here.)
Halfway through the shopping, I got a phone call from Nat. She and the kids, having ridden a long way downhill, didn't want to make the ride back uphill -- and could I collect them on the way home?
Well, yeah. Naturally.
So I collected Nat, and my three, and two of the neighbours kids. Dropped off kids with neighbours. Headed home, ran the pump, did some gardening, set up the curry. Wrote for a bit. Washed laundry. Washed dishes. Put the trailer away properly once Natalie got back. (Yeah, I refused to go back down the hill and fetch the bikes from where they were left. Figured I didn't have to own that job.)
Now Natalie is off to the Launceston General. Or more accurately, she's off to Sunday Night music at the Royal Oak, but later she's going to do an all-nighter at the LGH, keeping up her skills in Obs/Gyn. So it's just me and the kids for the evening. Curry and Dr Who, and then when they finally go to bed, I get another couple thousand words in.
I hope.
