Maybe I should buy myself a lavish birthday present. Because lord knows, I deprive myself of so many shiny things all the year long... and wouldn't it go nicely with my new red shiny telly cabinet thing? And all the other orange shiny things I seem to have acquired, almost by accident, recently?

Actually I should be thinking about a more practical splash-out (ha) on a water tank. It's been on the cards since I moved into the house almost exactly a year ago. I want to water my vegies without guilt - we're on serious water restrictions now due to the drought, and while I don't give a shit about having brown and crispy grass (Squid loves it because it's good and scratchy for rolling on), I need to keep the drink up on the young fruit trees and the other garden edibles. I got some very lovely contributions to the tank fund for my birthday.   

Recent adventure of note: birthday visit to the Australian Garden at the Royal Botanic Gardens Cranbourne. It's unlike any botanic garden I've ever seen. Very sculptural, and with astonishing bursts of colour. It reminded me of the visual boredom I felt about the European landscapes with unending emerald greens, and how I longed for the complexity of my native country. It's harsh and spiky and by no means lush, and I love it. The 400-year-old Xanthorrhoea grass trees are enormous and venerable. In the centre is a huge splash of red soil from the Top End... it's soo.. RED!

Did I mention it was my birthday?

This is Thingummy bob with his caretaker, Miles...

And yes, Miles is appropriately horrified at the crude and unsophisticated nature of his toy. Fortunately, Intelligent Design (me) is here to steer the evolution of the genus Thingummy, and his new cousin will be receiving the finely-honed 2.0 version below.... if I can bear to give Thingummy jig up.

(The nerd in me just couldn't resist the biology injokes... sorry.)

 

I heard that Neil Curtis, writer and illustrator of The Memory Book and Cat and Fish among others, died yesterday. He was a guest teacher when I was at TAFE and he was unique and wonderful and obtuse and difficult. So sorry to hear that the cancer won - my money was on Neil kicking cancer butt just to be contrary.

Excuse the magical thinking, but the cool change yesterday and this morning felt like we had been almost forgiven, somehow. The weekend was blisteringly hot. Bushfires are out of control in the north-east of the state and we folks in the city know it by the smoky haze in the air, the sun that shines bright orange, and the nightmares in the newspaper each morning. I can't help but think that we ephemeral humans really pissed off the planet and now we're subject to its rage. This sort of extreme weather is not part of the natural cycle, no matter how much Prime Miniscule Johnny denies it. Melbourne, the four-seasons-in-one-day city, is now stuck with erratic meteorological variability on a scale that has never been seen before.

 

I'll back down from the apocalyptic thinking now and head into my own cosy little life. Despite the oppressive heat, I went pup-shopping with Brudda and sister-in-law yesterday and came away with a winner. She's a sweet little spotty black-and-white thing called Clover. Here she is curled up against their other dog, Rusty.

 

 

 

There was a little piece in The Age's Sunday magazine by Sonya Hartnett, describing her relationship with her dog. Apparently I'm not the only one who's batty about their pup. "Every dog should be thought of as ace," she writes. "An animal lives a bright, honourable, rugged life. It lives the best life it can, and then meets death bravely. To know a fine and clever animal well - to touch its coat, to follow its thoughts, to see the world, even for a moment, through its eyes - is a privilege." It made me think of my grandfather and his dog Topper who had to be put down when the family emigrated because the military-trained dog couldn't be re-housed. Papa swore off ever owning another dog because the sorrow of losing them was too great. We've had many dogs in our family and when they die, it's unspeakably awful. But Harnett is right. The best thing to do, when you can, is go to the pound and find another.

 

I am looking forward to the Boxing Day family gathering that will now have as many dogs as family members - five. Bring on the bedlam! On Christmas Day itself, wholeheartedly reviled by this ex-retail and atheist grinch, I will have to pretend I don't hate it as much as I do because the Curmudgeon's large and child-laden family are schlepping down from up North for the festering season. My own family is small and always has been and I find large family gatherings very overwhelming. I might be doing a lot of hiding in my room with the dog while the Curmudgeon holds court.

 

Finally, I was commissioned to make another monster by the recipients of the first and I've been very slack because the baby for whom it was to be made is now weeks old. Whoops. Anyway, I closed the house up early on Saturday and it stayed quite cool inside, giving me no excuse but to knuckle down and make a monster. The recipients of the first one christened him Bob, short for Thingummybob... naturally this one is Jig, or Thingummyjig. And once again I'm reluctant to part with it. I think I'll let it hang around for a few days before sending it off... photo to come.

My new telly cabinet from the Swedish Beast. For my telly, on which to sit. I have to keep looking at it because my eyes love, love, love its redness. And shinyness. It's just so.... red!

I got heckled by some old guys on a park bench today. They called me something in another language which sounded, to my ears, like a feminised version of 'prosciutto'. Could be entirely innocent, but I can't help but suspect that I have been likened to purchasable meat of some variety or another. Mmmm, dry and salty. 

String of brash expletives. Apparently I am plagued by gremlins at present. My wallet went walkies yesterday (my head aches at just the thought of all the running around and card replacing and money-borrowing) and today I've lost my work pass. Now I can't get into or around the building. The second one I've lost in a year. Idiot.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Knew I shouldn't have got out of bed today. Or yesterday, it seems.

I have a little theory about why folks often screw up their faces in disgust when they see a picture of themselves. The funny thing is that often their friends will love the picture, but the subject just hates it. "But I don't look like that!" they protest.

All of us have facial asymmetries of one kind of another. I have various spots and moles and so on, but I know that my left eyelid is lower than the right, especially when I'm tired, so it look a little droopy. According to Just-So-Story-telling evolutionary psychologists, asymmetry is ugly because it is an indirect marker of low fitness. (Evolutionary fitness, not jump-around-in-aerobics-fitness.) Personally I've always liked kinda wonky faces and I find them appealing and interesting... but I've never claimed to be anything but an evolutionary dead end.

Anyway. Asymmetry. So when we look at ourselves in the mirror, we become accustomed to our uneven features and they are no longer prominent or oft-noticed. However a photograph shows our faces as they appear to others, not a reversed mirror image, so we see our asymmetries not only swapped to the other side, but effectively exaggerated due to the cognitive adjustments we've already made that permit us to ignore them in the first place. This image we see resembles us closely but is just different enough to our mental image of ourselves, facilitated by the confounding mirror, to freak us out. Whereas this image is exactly what our friends see and to them it's a good reproduction of a face they know and like.

I reckon psychologists could, if they haven't already, play around with photoshop and adjust portraits a few different ways. When asked, the portrait subject would claim that their mirror reflection is their true selves and protest that something's wrong with the untouched portrait.

Amateur psychology over and out.

 

Oh yes, a rare and lovely jaunt out of the city on the weekend. Me an' three chums hopped on a train with our treadlies to Geelong, then rode to Queenscliff along the rather good rail trail there. It's great to get out of town on my own steam rather than latch onto someone else's road train. I must do this more often, if for no reason than to sample baked goods from faraway places. And I'm loving the distance cycling. Why have I never done it before?

Ma came to town on Friday, bringing her two dogs. I very much enjoyed having three hounds strewn about my house like the chickens of Gary Larson's "Boneless Chicken Farm" cartoon. We also went on a garden shopping spree and I got a mandarin tree and a replacement wisteria for the one I accidentally murdered. One day my ugly front fence will be cloaked in purple fabulousness. One day.

This morning, Squid disappeared into the bushes with her friend Harvey (who is, incidentally, the only slender golden retriever I have ever met). Several minutes of rustling and rootle-tootling later, she emerged. If a dog could say "TA-DAH!!!" and make an entrance accompanied by bugles and showers of glittery confetti, should would have... because she trotted up with three quarters of a full-size baguette in her mouth. It was longer than she was. She was so very pleased with herself. I congratulated her on her derring-do and swapped it for a standard-sized dog snack. As I was dumping it in the bin, we ran into two tiny white yappy things (ugh. Are these even considered dogs?) and as Squid prepared to rumble them, their owner tried to call them away. "Dallas, Dior, come here!" she tinkled. DALLAS. DIOR.

Harvey's owners and I thought up some similar pairs of names.

Calvin and Chanel. Gucci and Prada. Dolce and Gabbana. Louis and Vuitton.

Just the other day, the Curmudgeon and I were discussing a hypothetical second puppy (don't fret, it's not happening... truly) and what it would be called. Squid Too was ruled out. But would a second one have a similarly salty name? Barnacle? Cuttlefish? Lamprey? Groper?

Incidentally, I reached 7000 hits overnight. My wee little stats machine lists a whole bunch of visitors who are complete strangers to me. Who ARE you people? Really, this blog is quite dull and limited, given that I don't mention anything about my work, and I (generally) keep details that aren't mine to discuss under wraps... I just bang on about my dog, mostly. What's the appeal? C'arn, show yourselves.

"Why don't you ever say anything nice about me?" asked Ma after yesterday's post. She seems to have missed the point - that my memories of her cracking us kids up are happy ones that speak volumes about her fabulously silly sense of humour, one that seems directly inheirited from her father. But here are some nice things about my Ma.

• She's unquestionably the most supportive person in my life.
• She taught me lots of terrifically useful life skills - how to take cuttings of plants, how to make roux, how to ease a seam, and countless other things.
• She is one strong and feisty lady who knows how to work a crowbar and whose garden is magnificent.
• She makes a mean sponge cake.

Will that do, Ma? I have more but it might seem like fawning... which brings me to:

Squid's Techniques For Making Friends.

1. When you enter the park, briefly say hi to the dogs you know and like.

2. Then ignore them. Forsake them for others - preferably those whom you have met before, and know to be hostile and intolerant of your foolish antics.

3. Use your full repertoire of ingratiating, obseqious charms to try to win them over. Simpering, tail-wagging, puppy eyes, the works.

4. Persist, even when they have their teeth in your neck and make you yelp.

5. Go back for more.

6. Repeat daily. They will come around, eventually.

I don't know why she does this. When I identify someone who hates my guts, I generally steer clear and allow them to do so from a distance. My pup's optimism is endearing, though - she's so convinced that one day they will see the light and play with her. She's a Missionary for the Church of Squid. She doesn't bother preaching to the converted, only them heathens.