Thursday Cat Blogging

All you cool cats are probably long onto this. Still, I am amused. Meow!

Update (suggested by &Duck):

 2007: Oh Hai!  My Cat Sez Funneh! LOL!

Affirmative

Memories

I spoke to my niece yesterday. She told me how her ‘heart just broke’ when a black bug that she had tried to revive had died. She thought that it might have died because of the ‘moisture’ she had sprinkled on the leaves in the cardboard box in which she had housed it. She explained that the bug’s legs had been broken when she’d found it. She had found another bug as well, this one was orange, and although it was already dead when she discovered it, she was looking after it too. I told her about the spider outside my back door. She expressed concern that my spider might eat her orange bug.

She told me that another child at Kid’s Church had called her ‘pathetic’. ‘Oh’, I said, ‘That’s not very nice’. I asked her what she’d said in response. She hadn’t said anything. Later, she’d asked her mother what it meant. Before her mother had told her the meaning of ‘pathetic’, she’d made sure that Hannah knew it wasn’t true. I agreed. ‘You’re lovely’, I said.

I know all about her best friend, E, who cried when Hannah was away from prep for two days because she was sick. On the third day, E ran up to Hannah in the schoolyard and gave her a big hug, with tears in her eyes. E has a twin, J. Hannah said that J had ‘forced’ her to be her friend. She said she had agreed because she didn’t want J to be angry with her any more. Several play dates have ensued.

I learnt about the Ponty Pines, who are creatures on a television show called The Night Garden. The Ponty Pines make a sound a bit like that made when blowing raspberries. She sang me a song about a coffee percolator. Then I heard all about a fictional character called Bill who says nothing but ‘Hello’ and ‘Goodbye’. And finally, she wanted to know what my favourite butterfly was from at least two years ago now, when butterflies had landed on us in the butterfly house at the Melbourne Zoo.

Book Club

Book club met today. We went to a cafe for breakfast and to discuss The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I was the only one who had read it, but that's okay, I didn't read the book for our last meeting, or the one before that, and maybe even the one before that.

We still managed to talk about the general themes. I might have dominated the conversation. Someone else had seen the Coen brothers' adaptation of No Country for Old Men, so we discussed that too.

I watched Oprah's interview with McCarthy on YouTube when I had not long finished reading The Road.



I was impressed by his quiet presence. I liked the way he held himself: laconic, refusing to be 'passionate', content to just like doing what he does.

There's not much that I can add to the plethora of reviews out there. Yes, it's harrowing.

Next, I planned to read something a bit less so. Shop Girl, maybe. I picked it up at a 2nd hand book store. And I watched the film on TV last night. But I've found myself picking up William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! I got that in the same haul at the 2nd hand bookshop.

I laughed when I read the first sentence. If McCarthy's prose is taciturn, then Faulkner's is not.

In the middle of reading The Road I stumbled into an arcade in the Valley and came across a photography exhibition by Simon Obarzanek, 80 Faces. I learned that he's a Melbourne-based photographer, but, still mired in the damaged vision of America, I imagined that these might be the faces that haunted McCarthy's wasted landscape.


The next book for this book club is Georges Perec's Life: A User's Manual. It's a book I've started before and not finished.

I'm meeting up with some other friends and we're going to have a Gothic-themed book club. The Monk by Mathew Lewis will be our first read. I've started that too.

80 Faces reminded me that I've wanted to write something about the art of portraiture for some time now. It was an impulse first prompted by seeing Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait.




And I was reminded of it when Brisbane was treated to the recent Andy Warhol exhibition.



But I'm yet to get over my own navel-gazing inertia.

How Was Your Day?

Why, thank you for asking.

I was walking home from the local shops aka the 'lifestyle precinct' in real-estate-speak and I was having a conversation with myself about various things in which, I'm sure, you're all terribly interested.

My thoughts were prompted by the amount I'd just spent up at the lifestyle precinct. It was just a small shop at the green grocers and bottle shop, but I was aware that only two days before I had spent a similar sum, a bit more, just at the supermarket and, all together, it seemed rather a lot for one person to be spending on sundries for the week.

I got to thinking about the situation in metaphorical terms. Once I was telling my sister about the experience of sitting next to this woman at the cinema who seemed, every now and then, to breathe rather heavily. I wondered if something was wrong with her, but my sister informed me that the woman's breathing pattern was quite standard: apparently every fourth or fifth breath we take is deeper and longer than the preceding three or four. My sister explained the reasons for this to me, but I admit I forget. Something to do with oxygen and carbon dioxide exchanges no doubt.

As I was walking along with my cold bag, filled with wine and fruit and vegetables, hitched over my shoulder, I likened this week's rather large shop to that fourth or fifth breath; it was bigger than the preceding three or four shops but it was part of a necessary pattern. This week, if I didn't buy coffee, I would run out mid-week, and that's not a situation in which I like to find myself when I wake up. So, I guess I'd run out of various other staples at the same time--yes, wine is a staple--and they needed to be replenished. This week was the fifth breath.

These thoughts led me to others about spending money. I don't mean to sound materialistic or mercenary but these things tend to preoccupy you when your income isn't regular. You're always trying to make sure you have a buffer for the lean times, which for me tend to be between semesters. You tend to feel somewhat anxious if you believe you're spending money out of turn. The money you intend to get you through those times when no income or a reduced income is coming in cannot be spent while you're still receiving a fortnightly pay statement.

I've had this feeling quite a bit lately. The money I've been saving for those figurative rainy days has been needed with nerve-wracking frequency. Brisbane may still be in the midst of a drought, but I've been bailing out the boat all year:

I've had to buy lounge chairs, two coffee tables that serve as a television and stereo unit, a fridge, a washing machine, and a laptop computer. Today I bought a printer. I also picked up my new spectacles. They were not cheap. Not because I got some fancy frames, but because my eyesight is so appalling the lenses alone cost $510.

Goodness, I'm practically hyperventilating. You see why I need wine.

Ah, well I could go on. There's lots more I could say, but enough about me. Would you like a glass of wine?

How was your day?