Another Freakin Cat Post.....

About five weeks ago, it was brought to my attention that our sweet kitten - Bella - had been visiting one of our neighbours and using their ridiculously huge sandpit as a litter box.  Said neighbour came a door knocking to ask if I had a little black cat with a blue tag (council tag)?  Ummm, yes, I said.  He proceeded to tell me that he had trapped her in his back yard and I should come and get her.

WTF?

I walked with this imbecile to his home, about five houses away, all the time asking him incredulously that when he said "trapped her" did he actually trap her?  Yep.  I was greeted at his home by his ever so delightful cranky and mouthy wife, telling me how disgusting it was that my cat was shitting in her kid's sandpit.  I agreed, with a pleasant but confused smile on my face.  As I rounded the corner in to their back yard I was horrified to see our little Bella in a metal trap, freakin out.  My Chelsea (Bella's human mummy) was equally if not more horrified and quickly ran to get her out.  It was a very warm day - we're talking 27 degrees - and Bella had been in this trap for who knows how long, without any water or food.  Cranky pants wifey was talking and I wasn't really listening, as I watched Chelsea take Bella home.  I kept asking cranky and her dickhead husband what exactly it was that they expected me to do?  She's a cat.......

They suggested I needed to keep Bella from entering their property.  Ahuh....right.  I repeated that she was a cat, and perhaps they could look at getting a cover for their sandpit - LIKE MOST PEOPLE WITH COMMON SENSE WOULD DO.  Nope.  Nope, not something they would consider.  So after a few more minutes of banter, and me telling them I would do my best, and perhaps they could think of some natural deterrents to keep cat/s away from their sandpit, I wandered off - bewildered.

I mean, is it me, or is going to the trouble of hiring a trap from the council to willingly trap a beautiful little kitten - who just happens to be registered with the council and is not some random stray - just bizarre?

For the following week, I kept Bella inside the house because I was basically too scared to let her out, for fear they would either trap her again, or do something worse.....

Fast forward to last week.  I was sitting upstairs and saw a council van pull in to the driveway.  Didn't take me long to figure out why they were here.......  Ever so lovely ranger tells me that he has my cat in his van.  It had been trapped by someone in the neighbourhood.  I asked him by who, and when he said he couldn't tell me - I told him.  With some very choice words.  I was not a lady.....

I asked HIM what the f*ck I was expected to do?  Well, his suggestions were nothing short of amusing.  Apparently "people" cut slits in pvc pipes, and put them over their fences so cats can't jump over them. Mmmmmmm, that's fabulous!  Cos I want my home to look like some kind of DYI disaster?  I'm thinking razor wire would be equally as effective?  Give it that "detention centre" shine?

Orrrr, we could build/buy a cat run?  Oh yeh, cos that's why you have a pet cat.  So it can be trapped in a f*cking wire enclosed building.  Sure.

Orrrrrr, we could just keep the cat inside - like - forever.

I very politely sarcastically, with a touch of f*ck you, told the ranger that the use of common sense was lacking in some people's brains, and that the council's  willingness to go along with those lacking common sense made me very cranky.  Collected Bella from the TRAP in his van and gave him a generous wave and smile and sent him on his way.

A few days later, he returned with the official letter of complaint and warning, that if Bella steps paw on their property again, we will incur a fine and Bella would be impounded.  Nice.

Now - the husband and I have had a few interesting conversations about the predicament we have found ourselves in.  He suggested we could go and shovel some of our dog shit on to their front yard, but hey, that wouldn't be very neighbourly would it?  I had a friend on Facebook offer us some chicken shit to share with them, but I thought that was too kind, because at least you can use chicken poop to fertilise your garden?  All I've managed to do is give the a*sehole a good case of staring as I drove past their home this afternoon.  Time will tell.......

In the meantime, I am trying not to lose my proverbial mind over the fact that I now have a kitty-cat trying not to lose HER mind at the fact that she can no longer go out and enjoy the great outdoors.  Long gone are her days of climbing the trees in our front yard, or wrestling with our two puppy dogs in the backyard.  Now her days are spent staring longingly out the windows, meowing incessantly and clawing any or all the furniture she can possibly manage without copping an earful from me.

Not to mention the fact that every time I hear the front or back door open everyone yells "DON'T LET BELLA OUT'!!!!!!!  Followed by the sound of running as the closest person to the door chases after her if she's managed to escape.

Soooooo, friends.  I ask you this - what would you do?  I understand, I really do, that there are cat haters out there.  In fact, I used to be one myself.  Before I was a cat owner, I had to go and buy sandpit covers begrudgingly to keep the neighbourhood cats from deficating in said sandpit.  It's common sense yes?  And even now, as a cat lover liker I have had to throw things at random cats who've come a knocking at our door to pester our own cats.  Once again, common sense?

I'm seriously at a loss.  Help.

***  Cat haters and non-constructive comments will not be appreciated.  Although if they're highly amusing comments I may laugh.

****  We are responsible cat owners who bring their cat inside at night and register her too.

W.I.P. of a Different Kind

I don't know if you have noticed (If you're on FB) that Mr FB now asks "What's happening ................?" in the blank status space.  I've been giggling on and off about this for a couple of days now, because I'd really love to just blurt out what's happening here every time I see it, but know that the couple of hundred friends I have really do not want to know that Chloe just asked me to wipe her bum, or Cadyn is commentating his Playstation game.  They don't want to know that I'm stuffing my face with chocolate and sloshing down a Pepsi Max chaser.  And I certainly don't think I should bother sharing that I have just cleaned the shower or read more articles on Mamamia??

Well, tonight, in fact only minutes ago, I looked at it again and was about to give a spiel about what was happening here at home.  And I thought, No, I'll share it on the blog.  So here I am - raspberries to you FB!

So what IS happening??  A very strange thing is happening........my husband - he of the "not a home maintenance kind of man breed"- has all of a sudden become Mr Handy Man.  Before we went on holidays, I went to Bunnings and spent a small fortune on all matter of crappola in an effort to create motivation for finishing off a few things around the house.  One very hot day whilst at work, I called to see how his Sunday was going, and he was huffing and puffing.  "What are you doing?" I ask.  "I'm in the garden".........

*****Crickets*****

It turned out that he was in the garden for quite a few hours and also managed to oil the gate between the garage and house and also used the high pressure water machine I bought, to clean the front concrete path.  I was astounded, and very pleased.

When we returned from holidays on Saturday, as we were coming around the corner to home, he says "It's nice to come home to your own home".   O.K. then.  

Last night I informed him that we would be having a BBQ here in a couple of weeks, when my London bestie arrives in Melbourne.  She's moving back here after 15 years abroad, but will only be here for one night before going on holidays.  So a bunch of friends will be coming over.  A look of befuddlement greeted me, and he says "We'll have to buy a BBQ".  Yes, yes, we will have to buy a BBQ - because the husband I used to have left our BBQ out in the elements and is now rusty and dodgy.

Today, he calls me during his lunch break to say he's found a BBQ, and it's half price!  I've taught him everything he knows.  So proud.  He brought it home with him tonight and I helped him lug all of its 45 kilos in to the garage.  He then proceeded to tell me that before dinner he was going to clean to deck off, and then after dinner would be making another trip to Bunnings (this post is NOT sponsored by Bunnings) to get a couple more supplies, and would be punching the nails in that the builder never came back to fix, and would put a coat of oil on before bed.  O.K. then.

This is NOT the man I know!  But I LIKE him!

The "before" shot....

It really is so very, very lovely to see him so house proud, and actually getting amongst it..... Our home is one big work in progress!

Oh, and whilst I have your attention - Is there an easier way of getting those bloody dandelions out of the lawn other than digging them out one. by. one.????

The bane of my gardening existence!

Cat. Again.

I sent Bella the cat off to the vet last Monday to have her tubes tied, or whatever the hell it is they do to cats to ensure they cannot reproduce.  My main reason for doing this?  So she can get out of my f*cking house!!!  I've tried.  Believe You Me - I've tried!  But she is literally doing my head in.  First of all, there's all the furniture she is slowly but surely annihilating.  Secondly, the solitary indoor plant we own is apparently her favourite "toy".  If said plant did not have a great deal of meaning to me (I gave it to Andrew's Nanna a few months before she passed away) I quite possibly would not give a rat's and it would have landed in the rubbish - but it does have meaning, and every time that little s*it goes near it - I yell!  And thirdly - well, the same reason our older cat became an outdoor cat many many years ago - the litter tray.  That dirty, stinkin, blue box of crap.  I. Cannot. Stand. It.

Anyway - back to the operation.  I popped Bella in the cardboard travel box we owned, and then popped it on the front seat.  The vet is only a ten minute drive away, and in those fleeting minutes, Bella managed to claw and bite her way out of the box.  So I spent half the trip worried she would land under the accelerator pedal.  Got there, got her admitted, and skipped to the car.  Andrew picked her up that evening, and my expectation of a drowsy, quiet cat was dashed immediately.  No, no, not our Bella.  She jumped straight out of that (new) box and was flying around the house like nobody's business.  You would never know she had had major surgery.......

Crappy photo - but it is incredibly difficult to take a decent one of a pitch black cat!

Last night, on the eve of her having her stitches removed, and the excitement of being able to let her roam free, Bella mysteriously disappeared.  No bell to be heard.  No meow to be meowed.  I ended up going to bed thinking she had whipped out the back door when nobody was looking.  Upon waking this morning, I broke the news to the kids, and Cadyn took it upon himself to search the house.  The same house I searched high and low 12 hours beforehand.  He heard a meow.  We followed it.  And found her.  

Here.

She had spent the whole night in a storage cupboard.  And took her cardboard fetish to a new level.  Thankfully, she quick-footed it straight to that stinkin litter box and did her business.....

Cat anyone??

Gonna Make You Sweat!

I had no intention on writing a blog post tonight.  I have worked all day, then gone straight to the Season Opener for Junior Cricket......................................   Sorry, that is a big long line of dots because the excitement that cricket brings to my life is just that, like a long line of dots.    And now that I'm home and have make a hot chocolate, put on my pj pants and started popping the immune system boosting tablets I bought from the chemist on the way home, I decided it was a good time to catch up on all the blogs I read.

UNTIL

I logged in and found that Blogger wanted to tell me:

"You are currently not following any blogs"

WTF?!?!?!?  Not normally one to panic, I felt my heart pick up pace and my finger clicking the mouse, trying to figure out what kind of cruel game Blogger was playing with me??  I diverted the mouse back to FB, to my handy-dandy-blogging-library-friends, where I put out my anxiety ridden call to help.  And thankfully, a lovely level headed blogger calmed me by saying it had happened to her and to refresh or go out and back in to Blogger.    PHEW.  (Thanks Carmel).

So in a bizarre roundabout way, it made me think of some of the things that make me sweat.  The things that raise my blood pressure or peels anxiety out of its hiding place.  So here are a few.....

*  Meeting new people - namely Mothers whom I've never met before.  This should not worry me, but it does.  I can't help wondering what they think of me?  Don't talk too much.  Don't not talk enough.  Don't get too friendly.  Sad I know.

*  Watching my kids hurt.  Like, really hurt.  The hurt that produces tears.  Each of my four kids have done damage enough to themselves to reduce me to a mess.  And I'm pretty sure there will be more.

*  Expecting visitors and looking around to see my house resembles a literal bomb site.  Happens all too often.  Although I go into a tizz over it - it's also the best remedy to a messy house.  Never do I clean as well as when I am expecting people!

*  Big sporting events.  Strange.  11 years ago, before I met Andrew, I had never really watched sport.  Never participated in sport (well, apart from my famous season of soccer when I got the trophy for most improved).  Never had family members participating in sport.  Now I find myself at Cricket finals.  Basketball finals (remember THIS final?).  And bloody AFL Grand Finals!  It's all too much....

Ok.  I could go on and on.  But it's now 10.30pm and I need to walk back down the freaking stairs (I now FULLY understand why my pleas for a house with stairs when I was younger fell on my parents' deaf ears) and get another fancy Immune-boosting tablet, before traipsing back up here to curl up in bed and hopefully be cured of this lurgy by morn.

Tell me - what makes you sweat?  Well, apart from the obvious??

Night night!

The new neighbourhood

My love of people-watching has been spoilt this past week or so.  I'm living in a new neighbourhood, with new people.  And given that I know NOBODY, the voyeur in me is out in force.  Eight years in our last suburb meant that we were used to everything.  Every sound, every sight, every person.  No surprises.  If the dogs barked like banshees, we just expected the psycho neighbour would be up in arms.  If we heard what sounded like a chassis being left behind on the speed hump outside our bedroom window, we knew it wouldn't be, because we had checked millions of times over the years.

So far, I have made a few observations:

Apparently, Motorsport attire is acceptable to wear to school pick up.  Paired with polar fleece, jeans and running shoes - it seems to be a uniform for a number of school Mums.

There is a Charles Manson look-alike picking up his child from school on a motorised scooter (not the type you hire from the shops for the elderly, the type you see at the skate park - minus the motor).  It's rather unnerving.  I would be lying to say I'm hoping our kids aren't friends with theirs!

The next door neighbour is a yeller.  Being the reformed yeller (well, I've had a slight relapse this week - more about that another time) that I am, realising the noise at 10pm, that makes you and your husband jump from your chair wondering who is being killed, is actually the neighbour losing her shit at her child, sort of makes you cringe..... and try harder not to relapse.

You can hear the trains.  I had never noticed this in all the years I have been a visitor to this house (if you're behind the 8-ball, read this).  Late at night when lying in bed, waiting for slumber to arrive, the toot of the train can be heard in the distance!

Discovering new shops in the local area, makes you realise how accustomed you become to knowing who is wrapping up your strass or baking your rolls.  It's unchartered territory.  But realising at the same time, that the likelihood of running into someone you would have to pretend not to see are minimal, makes up for the anonymous strass handler!

There's a lot of grass cutting happening.  Every day - I hear the whirr of a lawn mower.  Makes sense when you live in such a green enclave...

Walking to school pick up for the first time, you get to pass this: 

And dream of the months ahead when the weather will be kinder. See what I meant by green?

Looking out your study windows to see your kids playing in a safe court - bliss.

I am quite impressed that I don't really have any expectations of this neighbourhood.  I can walk in to the school assembly, blissfully unaware of any unsavoury undertones (Holden V Ford?) running through the groups of Mums there.  I can go in to the local milk bar, and not be surprised that they have no bread first thing in the morning.  And I can go to sleep at night knowing that we have moved to a lovely little part of the world, that will hopefully provide a great childhood for our kids, and a sanctuary for our whole family.

Do you people watch?  Did you have expectations of your neighbourhood?

Lessons Learnt

A conversation last night, albeit via Skype,  led me to lots of thinking.  This is not new - my brain is generally on over-drive most days.  But it made me think about all of the lessons I have learnt over time, and made me question what makes some people tick?  Why do some of us take lessons in, suck the information in and take it as it is?  Why do others buck the trend, pushing boundaries and rules, only then to learn the lesson - sometimes too late?

Of all the lessons I have been taught, these are some that have stuck with me....

"Drugs will kill you" - I clearly remember this lesson, and took it on board!  From that day forward I believed that if I were ever tempted to try hard drugs, I would die.  It would be just my luck.  So I never did them.  Don't get me wrong - I'm no angel.  I gave Pot a go, but still have no idea all these years later what the appeal is?  I have also learnt, way too close to home, that this apparent "soft drug" can be much more harmful than it has ever been given credit for......

The Grim Reaper - remember him?  Those ads in the 80's of him standing in the bowling alley, knocking over people who had contracted AIDS, had me shaking in my boots.  It's a shame that we don't have such hard hitting ads aimed at teenagers these days.....

Special occasion hair and make up - DO NOT allow anyone in Myer in the 90's to do your make up an hour before your engagement party!  Lesson well and truly learnt there!

"Friendships Evolve" - A dear friend of mine shared this pearl of wisdom many years ago.  When we met, we were new Mums trying to make sense of the little human beings we had been entrusted with.  I was 11 years her junior, and took her wisdom for granted.  She was right on the money.

"Smoking Kills" - And people still smoke.  Young people still take it up.  Just.  Don't.  Get.  It.

I wonder if the designers at this "up-market" label were on some sort of drugs when they decided to release this beauty?

90's fashion.  Wrong then.  Still wrong now.

First impressions are usually lasting - I don't know how many times it will take me to get this!  I can usually pick someone's personality the first time I meet them.  You know, whether they're my "kind of person"?  Sometimes, just sometimes, I get it wrong!  But most of the time - I get it right.

"Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could have been different" - Oprah.  I've shared this one before, and will probably share it again.  It's worth sharing.  I miss Oprah.....

And last but not least?

Treat others as you would like to be treated.  I try my hardest to do this on a daily basis.  I am only human, so if I am pushed - I will push back.  But generally speaking, I can stick to my guns.  I definitely think my work helps.  Through working with people with disabilities, and also when I did some aged care, I have learnt how NOT to treat others.  Respect, dignity and a whole lot of patience can go a very long way.  Given - it is a whole lot harder to apply these to the general public at times!

So tell me - what are the greatest lessons you have learnt?  And are you passing them on?

Another Nanna Post

You may have read this is some form, somewhere, somehow on some sort of technological gadget, but I only received this via email today.  So, sticking to my seemingly Nanna-like behaviour of late, I am going to share it with you.  It literally made me laugh out loud.  I am also going to copy and paste it on to the 13 year old's Facebook and may even "tag" all of his friends in it?  Or would that make me REALLY look like a Nanna?  Enjoy....

  

   
   "If you are 36, or older, you might think this is hilarious!

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were. When they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning.... Uphill... Barefoot... BOTH ways...yadda, yadda, yadda 

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on my kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!

But now that I'm over the ripe old age of forty (PLEASE NOTE - THIS IS THE ORIGINAL AUTHOR OF THIS - NOT MEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!), I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today.  You've got it so easy!  I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia!  And I hate to say it, but you kids today, you don't know how good you've got it! 

1) I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have the Internet.  If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalogue!! (how many of you know the Dewey Decimal System???

2) There was no email!!  We had to actually write somebody a letter - with a pen!  Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox, and it would take like a week to get there!  Stamps were 10 cents!

3) Child Protective Services didn't care if our parents beat us.  As a matter of fact, the parents of all my friends also had permission to kick our ass! Nowhere was safe!

4) There were no MP3's or Napsters or iTunes!  If you wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the record store and shoplift it yourself!

5) Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio, and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up!  There were no CD players!  We had tape decks in our car.  We'd play our favourite tape and "eject" it when finished, and then the tape would come undone rendering it useless.  Cause, hey, that's how we rolled, Baby!  Dig?

6) We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting!  If you were on the phone and somebody else called, they got a busy signal, that's it!

7) There weren't any freakin' cell phones either. If you left the house, you just didn't make a damn call or receive one. You actually had to be out of touch with your "friends". OH MY GOSH !!!  Think of the horror... not being in touch with someone 24/7!!!  And then there's TEXTING.  Yeah, right.  Please!  You kids have no idea how annoying you are.

8) And we didn't have fancy Caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was!  It could be your school, your parents, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, the collection agent... you just didn't know!!!  You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

9) We didn't have any fancy PlayStation or Xbox video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics!  We had the Atari 2600!  With games like 'Space Invaders' and 'Asteroids'.  Your screen guy was a little square!  You actually had to use your imagination!!!  And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen.. Forever!  And you could never win.  The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died!  Just like LIFE!

10) You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were screwed when it came to channel surfing!  You had to get off your ass and walk over to the TV to change the channel!!!  NO REMOTES!!!  Oh, no, what's the world coming to?!?!

11) There was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning.  Do you hear what I'm saying? We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little rat-bastards!

12) And we didn't have microwaves.  If we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove!  Imagine that!

13) And our parents told us to stay outside and play... all day long.  Oh, no, no electronics to soothe and comfort.  And if you came back inside... you were doing chores!

14) And car seats - oh, please!  Mom threw you in the back seat and you hung on.  If you were lucky, you got the "safety arm" across the chest at the last moment if she had to stop suddenly, and if your head hit the dashboard, well that was your fault for calling "shot gun" in the first place!

See!  That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled rotten!  You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in the 1970's   or any time before!

Regards,
The Over 40 Crowd"

Relate much?  Or are you a young whipper-snapper whom this makes absolutely no sense to?

WORDS - WORD

Eden has me thinking again - she wants WORDS.....

When I first read Eden's post this morning, the first word that came to me was CYNICAL.  Strange?  Well, back in 1990, my amazing English Literature teacher - Mrs Proctor - told me I was CYNICAL.  I was 15.  I can't even remember the context it was used in, but I do remember laughing it off....and then looking it up in the dictionary!

It also means one is sarcastic and mocking.  I'm guessing that was the point she was making? She was right.  But in saying that, she also helped to change me.  Because once I knew what CYNICAL meant, I made a conscious effort not to be so.  It's still one of my favourite words.  And I can pick a CYNIC a mile away.  It has paid off!  But I am still a work in progress.  I'm one of the most sarcastic biatches around!  But I'm also one of the most sentimental, soppy human beings you will meet.

So Eden - if it was open mic at a birthday party - I would more than likely get on stage and take the piss out of myself and anyone else I thought I could get away with, basically to mask the fact that I would be getting sentimental and trying not to cry (Yes, I know this, from first hand experience!).

And in my best CYNIC'S impersonation, I would think that all of the other speeches were bullshit!  Neigh.