Tag: family

Dead Hockey, Live Bugs, and the Truth About Pusheens

Hockey is dead to me.

I want to be clear about this. Not resting. Not on hiatus. Dead. Stone cold, no pulse, do not attempt resuscitation. My choices for this year’s Stanley Cup are, and I say this with the full weight of my feelings on the matter, assholes or cheating assholes. Neither of them is worthy of Lord Stanley’s Cup. Neither of them deserves to so much as be in the same room as it. I knew you’d agree with me. You’re very sensible.

I’m not talking about it anymore. It’s dead. Moving on.

We started a rewatch of Supernatural tonight.

We are up to episode eight. Bugs. For those of you who have seen it, you already know. For those of you who haven’t — imagine every creeping, crawling, flying, scuttling nightmare creature that has ever made you reconsider your relationship with the outdoors, and then put all of them in one episode, and then make them angry.

Tarantulas. Cockroaches. Ants. Bees. A comprehensive survey of the reasons I am sometimes very glad to be indoors, delivered in one convenient forty-five minute package. I did not enjoy that episode. I watched it through my fingers for portions of it and I am not ashamed to admit that.

What I will admit, without a single shred of shame, is that Jensen Ackles was an absolutely ridiculous young man. Pretty in a way that was frankly inconsiderate. Crackers in bed would not have been an issue. That’s all I’m going to say about that and I stand by every word of it.

And finally — the Pusheen situation has resolved itself in the most unexpectedly wholesome way possible.

It was never about the bed.

Miss Pretty does not want the Pusheen. Miss Pretty wants Miss Hopalong. The bed is simply where Hopalong is, which makes it the correct and only location as far as Pretty is concerned. She is not defending territory. She is not being difficult. She is grieving her wingwoman and she has selected her replacement and she is simply committed to the arrangement whether Hopalong has fully signed off on it yet or not.

Honestly? I understand her completely.

More tomorrow. There is apparently always more tomorrow.

🖤 🏒

The Day the Wheels Fell Off (And Hopalong Asked Nicely)

I had a plan for today. A proper, colour-coded, very-adult plan. Blog content, scheduled posts, maybe even a newsletter draft if I was feeling ambitious.

Reader, none of that happened.

Instead, I am writing to you from the middle of what I can only describe as domestic chaos theatre, surrounded by furniture that has migrated to the centre of every room like some kind of indoor Stonehenge, waiting for an electrician who — bless him, he’s busy, it’s not his fault — won’t be able to get back to us until next week. So here we all are. Me, the cats, the cousin, Jo, and approximately four hundred kilograms of displaced furniture, just… existing together in the middle of the floor.

Jo, for her part, would like to burn it all down and start again. This is not an exaggeration. Jo has a very particular relationship with order and tidiness, and what is currently happening to her living environment is the stuff of her personal nightmares. She is coping. Barely. With the energy of someone who is very pointedly not looking at the corner where three chairs and a bookshelf are having an impromptu meeting.

The internet has been up and down for two days. Seriously, more up and down action than a cheap hookers knickers at happy hour. Two days! I will not tell you what I have been calling my hardware situation in the privacy of my own head, but let’s just say it rhymes with “Turdy McTurd Pants” and leave it at that. The connection has been spottier than a chocoholic teenager’s face, which has been a particular adventure given that we have a houseguest electrician. I’ll be honest — I was bracing for the cousin to struggle with it. She has not. She is, in fact, handling the Great Internet Outage of this week with a cheerful resilience that I did not see coming and which I find both impressive and slightly annoying, given that I am over here refreshing my connection every four minutes like it owes me money.

So. Nothing scheduled is getting done today. And I’ve decided that’s fine. Sometimes the universe puts its foot down — or in this case, pulls all your furniture into the centre of the room — and you just have to work around it.

Which brings me to the actual highlight of this entire chaotic day, because every terrible day needs one.

Yesterday, I lit the fire, and Hopalong — my little spina bifida girl — claimed her spot in front of it in her pink fluffy bed and basked. That’s the only word for it. She basked in the warm orange glow like she was on a very small, very cosy holiday, and it was the best thing I saw all day.

This morning we woke late, which meant the whole household launched immediately into that particular brand of morning chaos — feeding everyone, sorting the animals, trying to impose some kind of order on a house that is currently doing its best impression of a furniture warehouse. I was moving through it all on autopilot when I walked past the fireplace and stopped.

Hopalong was there. Quietly, politely, pawing at the glass door.

Just asking. Just wondering if perhaps today she might have her warm orange sunshine back again.

I lit the fire.

Obviously I lit the fire.

Jo could not even be annoyed about the delay to the morning schedule. Some things transcend OCD.

So that’s where I am today. Off-schedule, slightly frantic, very much typing this to clear my head rather than hit any kind of content goal. Some days are just like this — the house has its own agenda and your job is mostly to get out of the way and try not to make eye contact with Jo while she contemplates arson.

Normal transmission will resume. Probably once the electrician comes and the furniture goes back where it belongs and the internet stops performing its impression of a very indecisive yo-yo.

Until then, I have a fire, I have a cat who knows exactly what she wants and asks for it with the quiet dignity of someone who has earned it, and honestly? That’s enough.

In Which The House Continues Its Campaign Of Attrition And I End Up Behind Bars

Luke was here today. Luke is our favourite electrician — loyal, patient, competent, and possessed of the specific spiritual fortitude required to work in this house — and he spent the day installing power points. Twelve in the living room. Eight in the library. And then he got to my bedroom and asked how many I wanted in there.

I said: all of the power points.

I am getting eight. Which is, in fairness, a lot of power points. But I want it noted that my ambitions were significantly larger, and I stand by the impulse, because I am extremely tired of daisy chaining power boards across the room to access basic electrical services. Particularly since my bedroom also hosts the modem and the network hub, which means it is functioning simultaneously as a bedroom and a server room and the power situation has always reflected this in the most chaotic possible way.

The house was, as is its custom, an absolute arsehole about the whole project.

The walls are lathe and plaster. Old school to the point of being genuinely historical, and plastered over so many times that what we have now is not technically plaster — it is powder, held together by an outer skin of paint and apparently spite. We have tried to hang things on these walls. What happens is: you put the screw in, the wall considers this briefly, and then opens into a gaping maw you could put your head into. Luke dealt with this with patience and muttered commentary I have learned not to fully register. He left at 4.30, which is early for him, which tells you everything about the nature of the day. The walls foiled enough of his plans that we currently have no power to the entertainment centre area, which means no Jeeves and Wooster tonight, which I am taking personally.

Now. The boudoir.

The reason my room has been resembling the city tip is simple: I open the door, shove my personal belongings approximately in the direction of the room, and close the door. I create stacks on surfaces. Towers of intention. And Chooky, who conducts regular patrols with the thoroughness of a quality inspector and considerably less care, knocks the stacks over. Pushes things off counters. Redistributes my belongings according to her own inscrutable logic. I used to pick everything up daily. At some point I reached the threshold and said, not quite out loud but absolutely spiritually: fuck this, gravity wins. Everything stayed in its landing spot for longer than I will specify.

Today everything was stacked. Not sorted — stacked. Luke needs access to finish the installation. This is apparently the motivator that years of personal resolve could not provide.

On the subject of Chooky: I also bought cat gates yesterday. Until now my system for giving her a safe space was a gate hook that pulled my bedroom door to — open enough for air and dignity, closed enough to keep the other twelve from deciding that wherever Chooky was constituted an excellent place to be. It worked, technically. The limitation was that Chooky had to remain at hook-height or above, which meant floor time was largely theoretical. The gates solve this. What they look like is my doorway is now the entrance to a medium security facility. I am on the inside. I feel like I’m in Alcatraz.

Chooky is lying flat on the floor. Whiskers forward. Entirely at ease. She is, by every available measure, significantly more content than she has been in some time. She has the room. She has the floor. She has a view of the hallway through what I must now accept is her personal portcullis and she finds this arrangement extremely satisfactory.

She does not care about my feelings on the matter even slightly.

In much better news: my best friend, who lives in the Pacific Northwest of the United States, has been having a fortnight. She was given notice to leave her rental by August and has been sad and cranky and frantic accordingly. I have coped with this by trawling Zillow at all hours and sending frantic links — how about this one, what’s the neighbourhood like, have we seen that house on COPS — which I’m certain has been enormously helpful.

Last Friday, she and her wife put in an offer on a house.

Today, they heard they got it.

I am so excited I am practically a liability. Entirely disproportionate response to something happening to someone else. I cannot be regulated. She deserves it completely.

Now if the orange turnip would vacate the premises, I could actually get there and celebrate in person. I miss the Pacific Northwest. I miss my Hawaii. I miss my friend.

One of these days. 🖤

In Which The Cat Holds Nocturnal Bootcamp And Sunday Does Its Worst

Arse crack o’thirty this morning, my cat, Chooky, my bedroom cat, began doing laps.

Not quiet, contemplative laps. Urgent, something-has-breached-the-perimeter laps. Frantic circuits of her sky-level sanctuary with the energy of a small furry soldier who has detected an incursion and is not prepared to let anyone sleep through it. I became aware of the situation in the most direct way possible — specifically, she ran across my head, and then, in what I can only describe as an inspired tactical decision, straight down one bare leg and onto the sky bridge to continue her patrol. Repeatedly. At Pace.

There was nothing for it. I climbed down from the loft bed, conducted a full visual inspection of the room, confirmed that whatever had committed the incursion had either retreated or was very good at hiding, and returned to bed. Before doing so I secured the drawbridge under the watchful supervision of Colonel Chooky. The cat, satisfied that her human had attended to the situation with appropriate seriousness, eventually settled. Her visage deserves a second blog visit for her security determination.

I returned to the sleep of genuinely delightful dreams.

When I woke again it was 10.30, which I am choosing to frame as halfway between naughty-sleeping-Suzy and my 7.30 alarm, which seems entirely reasonable given that I had been conscripted into nocturnal bootcamp at arse crack o’thirty through no fault of my own. I stand by this. The maths works out.

The day, unfortunately, did not reward the effort of waking up for it. It was ugly when I opened the curtains and proceeded to get uglier as the hours went by, in that committed way that a Tasmanian winter day has when it has decided to make a point.

I spent it restructuring my filing system, finishing the graphics, and learning how to make TikTok slideshows.

Fun was had by all.

I have not yet located the sarcasm font and I hope, my faithful readers, that you understood that sentence in the spirit in which it was intended. Learning TikTok slideshows is exactly as delightful as it sounds and I say that with every ounce of sincerity I can muster, which is to say none.

Early to bed tonight. Early appointments in the morning. The day is done and I am releasing it without ceremony.

I hope your Sunday was everything a Sunday should be. 🖤

In Which Yesterday Was A Lot, And Mumma Knows What She’s About

Yesterday was one of those days that gets quietly written off. Medical things happened — nothing dramatic, just the kind of thing that is efficient and necessary and still somehow uses up every bit of available energy by the time it’s done, leaving you with approximately enough fuel to sit on the couch and watch the fire and call it a victory. Which I did.

Life on the farm, of course, does not pause for energy deficits.

The guinea fowl remain numpties. This is a constant. I have stopped expecting improvement and have found a kind of peace in it. The geese are currently performing their Evil Overlord routine, which involves a great deal of purposeful waddling and meaningful staring and an overall air of barely contained menace. They’re not fooling anyone but they’re very committed to the bit.

And then there are the chickens.

My next door neighbour’s chickens — eight of them — have decided, apparently without consulting anyone, that they live here now. They have moved in with my menagerie and they will not go home and they cannot be reasoned with. My neighbour has assessed the situation, recognised a lost cause, and formally ceded ownership.

I now have eight more chickens.

I am not counting them. I know the number will bother me and I have made the executive decision not to know it. They’re here. There are some of them. That’s as far as I’m going.

In more soothing news: Mumma has moved on from the Pusheen bed, but let no one think for a moment that Mumma has given up on warmth. Mumma has simply upgraded. She has installed herself in the fluffy donut bed, directly beside the wood fire, and she is glowing. Not metaphorically — the firelight is literally on her face and she looks like a Renaissance painting of a cat who has made every correct decision.

The Pusheen sits nearby, empty, watching.

Mumma does not care. Mumma has the fire. 🖤

Rainy Days and The Clan

You’ve heard about the cats. Fifteen of them, because apparently at some point in my life I made a decision and then kept making it. You’ve heard about the chickens too, though they had considerably less to say for themselves today given the state of the weather.

What I haven’t told you much about is the rest of the household. There are, in fact, humans here as well.

The first is my sister Jo. She’s six years younger than me, which she has never once let me forget, and we have been each other’s people for our entire lives. Every single person we know — and I mean every one, without exception — calls us co-dependent, and I’d love to tell you they’re wrong. I can’t quite manage it. What I can tell you is that it’s not the dramatic, dysfunctional kind. It’s more that we’ve spent so long operating as a unit, us against the world in the most cheerful possible way, that we’re genuinely just better together. We fall to pieces a little when we’re apart for too long. Not really fall to pieces. But a bit.

The second human is our cousin, whose house this actually is, and who is therefore tolerating the rest of us with what I can only describe as extraordinary grace.

Together, we are the clan. Cats, chickens, cousin, sister, me.

We live on the edge of the Western Tiers — and one day, I promise, I’ll take you exploring out there with me. They deserve their own post, their own proper introduction. For now, just know that we measure our weather by them. On the good days you can see crisp white snow sitting on the peaks, clean and sharp against whatever the sky is doing. On the medium days they’re still there, softer, grey-green and present. And then there are days like today, when they’ve simply gone. Vanished entirely. Today was a you-can-barely-see-four-houses-across-the-street day, the rain so heavy and so thoroughly annoyed about something that the mountains might as well not exist.

So, the clan was indoors. All of us. The garden will have to wait. The chickens managed, as chickens do, with great indignation and very little dignity.

One of these days I’ll tell you about what we’re actually building here — the plans, the ideas, the things that have us excited about what this place is going to become. Today is not that day. Today was a kettle-on, don’t-look-out-the-window kind of day, and I think that’s allowed sometimes.