Well, it isn't.

Unfortunately that has been it's primary use for the past few weeks, as I've just had very few words that felt the need to stick themselves to the page. Well, no, that isn't exactly true. I've had plenty of words that want to be put here but most, if not all, have been rather feral and the order in which they presented themselves was even more random* and incoherent than my regular babblings. Sometimes things just refuse to form themselves into neat little sentences and, try as I might, the best I can hope for as a pile of word vomit.

It is... undesirable.

So, in a nutshell, the following are the thoughts and happenings that refused to play nicely.

• I am not happy. That is not to say that I am miserable or sad, more that my current situation could do with life's equivalent to lace curtains and a few scatter cushions, and possibly a kitchen renovation. I think that spending my days speaking to the feline inhabitants has taken it's toll on my sanity. No real resolution to this, just letting you know in case a small house sparrow sproings out of my ear and starts making comedic bird sounds.
• As of last month, I am a true blue dinky di Aussie. What is that I hear you say? But I was born here? Well yes, but I never owned a barbeque. An old-but-working 4 burner gas wonder is currently sitting in my backyard, waiting for a sunny day. Now I can char the onions and flip steaks over and over and over just like a real Aussie. Yup, I'm officially fair dinkum.
• I am stepping back from my volunteer position, or possibly sideways. Actually, I think I might have bought it a cushy little unit on the north shore and be making excuses to PSWC as to why I'm not home for dinner. *sigh* I am no longer going to have a title, yet somehow I think I've more or less ended up with the same workload. Still, no harm there because I do enjoy it. Why, only today it taught me that addition is a wonderful thing. Thanks to this "+" little symbol, my sidebar menus now work perfectly!
• I have gritted my teeth, girded my loins, and filled in the necessary paperwork in order to see if I can secure myself a place at TAFE next year to complete my veterinary nursing certificate. I am, to put it very mildly, utterly terrified. Not only will I be forced to cope with the irksome time-wasting puppy-and-kitten-petters that flow through these courses for the first 8 weeks or so, but I have become acutely aware that I have forgotten everything. Actually, I lie. I remember the following; ET tube, mayo scissors, GDV, sevoflurane, phenols + cats = bad. Sadly, given that I recall very little of the information corresponding to these isolated words, this is completely unhelpful in all ways excepting that it reminds me that I've got a memory like a wide bore funnel. This fact is also, in a very obvious way, completely unhelpful. So yes, terrified, but doing it anyway. Talking about cats is far more stimulating than talking to cats.
• The above point means that, if accepted, I am required to get myself a job in a clinic somewhere. In kitten season. Right before parvo season. I'm trying to be excited but between paralysing fear and the knowledge that low-ranking nurses are, in reality, glorified cleaners, I'm having a wee bit of difficulty.
• I have set up a nice little crafty place for me to yammer on about beads and thread and how the E6000 is not satisfactory for attaching a Sculpey cabochon to some LSS. Yeah, see? You don't what this creative rabble here. This place is for sex, drugs, and rock and roll. This place is for beads, cross stitch and wittle knitted mittens. It is nice to have the ability to split your personality, don't you think?
• The guppies have taken over. I thought that asexual reproduction was limited to the bettas (you know, the way PSWC goes out and upon his return there are three more fish than when he left, and since I was told in no uncertain terms "no more fish, we don't have space!", that little blue chap swimming about in the coffee plunger must be the son of the red guy, honest!) but apparently this trait is common in guppies too! So far, I have 3 groups. I'm fairly certain that these blue ones have always been here, and the white tailed ones will have always been here too...when they arrive.
• I misplaced my bookmarks (that'd be "favorites" to all of the MS sheep out there ;)), with the exception of a small, rarely used subfolder labelled Games. 8 whole years of bookmarks just totterer off into the ether without so much as an error message. PSWC did manage to recover some, but you know when you freeze a bee til it is very very dead, and then you try to reanimate the bee, and even though you still have a bee, it isn't really quite as bee-like as when you put it in? It is like that.

And all of that is part of why I've been such a slackity slack slack blogger of late. And why I've been coming here and using the sidebar to find my way around the local blogosphere.

But no more!

I'm back, baby! Yeah!

I honestly thought they were extinct. I figured they'd gone the way of the manual garbage truck and the paperboy's whistle.

Turns out I was very wrong.

*ding dong*

Now, I'll let you in on a little secret. Housewives LOVE doorbells. It is the sweet little sound that indicates that, even for the briefest of times, you get to converse with a living breathing human being, and not just ineffectually chatter at the resident cats.

I opened the door to find a slim, blonde man wearing a blue polo shirt that had the word MILKMAN emblazened on the back. I closed my eyes, opened them, and looked again.

"Hallo," he said, smiling, "I'm your local milkman!"

I looked at him, allowing myself time to process the picture.

There was a smiling milkman at my door. He was clearly labelled "MILKMAN". He was carrying a blue insulated shopping bag that he'd carefully placed near his feet. He was still smiling at me.

I carefully closed my mouth and quickly calculated the size that a boom box would have to be to fit inside a cooler bag.

"Ahh, really? I didn't think milkmen still existed" I said, poking my head out of the door and looking around for carefully hidden cameras or a group of my girlfriends tittering and pointing. Nothing.

"It is a new service for your local area, we will be delivering the goods twice a week" he smiled.

I snapped my head around and looked accusingly at the insulated bag, as if daring it to start playing something by Right Said Fred.

"Do you drink milk ma'am?" he said, producing some laminated sheets with a variety of groceries and dairy good pictured on one side, and price lists on the other "and what about cheeses? bread?"

Ever so slowly it was starting to sink in. no quick rip pants, no BYO music, and definitely not my birthday. Perhaps he was just a regular milkman after all.

So I filled in his little milkman forms, and made some smalltalk about his stay in the country and how warm it was out here compared to Sweden and so on, and just as I was about to send him on his way he turned and flashed me that milkman's smile once again as he rummaged in his little milkman's satchel.

"Um, before I go, I have something to ask you..."

Inhale, exhale, OK here it comes, check for giggling friends again, reinspect bag for cliched boppy music or portable disco lighting...

"Can you fill my water bottles please? It is just so hot here!"

And so, while standing in my kitchen re-filling the water bottles of the wilting Scandinavian on my doorstep, I grudgingly decided that he was most probably just your run-of-the-mill garden variety milkman.

*sigh*

Bugger this lactose intolerance!

"No, you are doing it wrong. Look, give it here. You are obviously too stupid to have that. You'll just ruin it."

I am sick to death of it.

Where did all these infallible demigods spring from all of a sudden? Why wasn't I informed that I'd be expected to lick the boots of the chosen few and take whatever arrogant, self-righteous crap they felt inclined to dish out? Where was the memo, huh?

I am not stupid.

I just felt the need to point that little fact out as there are several people that seem to believe otherwise. I am, in fact, pretty bloody smart. OK, so I haven't been to university, was never taught grammar, have an irrational fear of arithmetic and, when nervous, have the verbal skills of a freaked-out guinea pig BUT that does not mean that I am unintelligent.

And even if I was dumb as a pile of rocks, that doesn't give anyone the right to puff up their feathers and strut.

The arrogance I've seen these past few weeks is driving me to dispair. What happened to a bit of common decency, and the understanding that regurgitating booksmarts and the ability to articulate concepts with copious quantities of unimaginably long and cumbersome words arent the be all and end all of what it takes to be deserving of a little respect.

What about showing a bit of simple kindness? Maybe giving the benefit of the doubt?

Maybe I'm too soft.

I can hear the wind whipping about the trees and the thundering rain drumming its way over the mountains. It is a constant din, so loud and so unchanging that it slips into ambiance, throwing every tiny imperfection in the soundtrack to the fore.

I look up. I can't see the mountains anymore. Where they once stood tall against the sky is now just a wall of grey. Violent gusts of fine spray fly past in front of me and partake in damp duels just outside of my field of vision.

And throughout it all I am completely dry. I walk as though in a dream, without feeling the terrain underfoot and without the pretense of progress. My hands, fingers outstretched, leave delicate vapour trails in the air. I drag them back and forth in front of me, smiling at the simplicity. Slowly, I let myself melt into the soft comfort that is the raging storm.

And then it comes, right on the edge of hearing. It jars my ears and crackles through my brain. I try to spin around and suddenly the gentle caress of my surroundings becomes a struggle for freedom. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a purple shadow. My head snaps around and I lunge towards it, trying to wrench free from the quicksand grip...

"So? What do you think?"

"Huh?"

The dull roaring background noise has become a boom crash cacophany. It prickles thickly around me as I make a last desperate lunge at the shadow of the retreating object. My closed fist returns filled with dense purple, and I watch as it drifts through my fingers.

"The book! What did you think of the book? Did you pick up on that ever-so-subtle subtext? Come on, I know you must have some thoughts on the matter!

"Um, yeah. I quite liked the Daisy character"

"Oh. OK then."

I look down at the last few whisps of semi-tangible mist in my palm, and frown. Somewhere, in the back of my mind, I realise that the quiet din has resumed and that I can once again move around. I slowly close my eyes, take a deep breath and turn my hand upside down, letting the thought drain through my fingers.

This time, I was so close.

 I am so cold.

This weekend has been incredibly hectic. I am achey and sore and my shoulders are screaming bloody murder at me, yet I am sitting here with a big stupid grin on my face and finding great fascination in how my fingers are moving over the keyboard. Why? Well,  the same reason I'm very very cold!

Oil paint.

PSWC has been working like a trojan to get the door frames and windowsills painted. This would probably only make sense to those of you who have seen our glorious architraving. It is um, it's folk art gold. Worse, it is mission brown with a folk art gold wash! *blerch* I admit that of an evening it is quite dazzling against the textured blue feature wall in the lounge, but at most other times of day it simply looks like patchy stained wood. And lets be honest, the last thing you want to do is dazzle someone with your door frame.

The new colour is a high gloss sand, and it comes complete with a rather impressive odour. The effect of this only becomes more impressive when you realise that wood putty takes way too long to cure and the only thing that will dry fast enough to enable painting within the day would be a 2 part epoxy filler. Enter Plastibond, maker of all-round highness and general chemical-induced frivolity.

I was

Off

My

Chops.

I'm not sure if it is an intentional product sale technique, but having no idea where my hand was in relation to the window made it quite difficult to get the goo into the holes before it's 8 minute hardening time, thus forcing me to totter out to the bench and whip up a new batch. Clever sods, that is one sneaky marketing strategy!

So our doors are all stacked neatly in the soon-to-be study, and the hallways is a gauntlet of tacky uprights and loose wiring. That in itself would be an achievement, but seeing as I have really contributed diddly squat to the effort aside from attempting to purify the air with my own two nostrils, I should also add that I have set up 2 fishtanks, changed the water in my saltwater setup, changed the kitty litter, reorganised the linen press (to the diningroom table to avoid fumes), constructed a portable wardrobe, done some grocery shopping, mended a bag, sewn two reflective dog coats, washed a bunch of brushes and float boots, sterilised some aquarium gear, bundled piles of rubbish into the bin and tidied and swept the entire garage.

I am now utterly knackered.

And rather spaced out.

Why didn't we use these paints for ALL the walls?? :D

It was only brief.

I just missed the green arrow at traffic lights. I was running very late, and here I was waiting for some smoke-spluttering Korean van to putt-putt its way across the intersection.

So I took a deep breath and looked up.

And there it was.

A few years back I used to work in a vet clinic in a daggy rural town. It used to be the old meatworks building, and so was on the opposite side of the tracks to the main drag. Every lunchtime (and I use the term very loosely, it was usually 10 minutes snuck in between surgeries) when it was my turn to buy food, I'd pop out of the front door and go through the level crossing to the hamburger shop to get however many chicken caesar salads as there were nurses rostered on. On the way to the shop, just before you had to cross the main street, there was a run-down cottage. It had a white picket fence with the odd picket broken in half and paint peeling off the edges of most others, and a lawn of dry spindly grass like you would find on the back oval of a school. Up against the fence there were 5 rather straggly looking rose bushes that looked in desperate need of a good hair cut and something to drink.

I never stopped there.

I never even looked.

This one day though, I came out of the front door of the clinic after a particularly bad morning, and there was a little butterfly madly flitting about in front of me, all the way from the tree that hung over the side fence of the clinic and as I went through the level crossing gates. It was so irratic that I started grinning and asking it questions and following it's path with a little jump in my step. It landed on a rose in the front of the beat-up old cottage. It wasn't much of a rose mind you, it looked little more than a scarlet dishmop on a very underproportioned handle, but there it was, poking itself through the pickets and resting on the rail.

I smelled the rose.

Cliched I know, but it just seemed fitting. As a rule, I find roses fairly ordinary, and a much to ugly and prickly way to produce a pretty flower, but if this one didn't just fill my head with the most gorgeous mellow honey scent. One flower, that was all it managed that year, but geez what a stunner it was. The stalk was weak, and the bush itself scarcely had a bit of green on it, but that flower, it had every right to be proud as punch.

I looked around for he butterfly, but it had danced on it's merry way. I don't know what made me do it, and I'm not sure what it making me admit it now, but I looked at that rose bush and said thanks. It probably made little difference to the rose bush, but it just seemed right. A very cliched end to the utterly storybook scenario.

I sometimes forget about that rose, and the days that month where I would stop on my way to buy lunch and compliment it on its petals, or pour a cup of water on it's dry roots. It would always make me smile. Even when the petals fell to the ground and all that was left was a crumbly little nub, I still smiled and said hello.

Today, while I was sitting at the traffic lights willing them to turn green, it all came flooding back to me. It had been a lousy morning and I was not expecting much better from the rest of the day, but then something caught my eye. I thought it was one of those pressed polystyrene glider planes that a child had thrown out of a nearby townhouse window, but on it's second pass I recognised it to be a little honey-eater. Sitting right across from a filthy dirty intersection, and stuck between soundproof barriers and tall boring townhouses, it was frolicking. It did two passes, a double somersault, swooped down and shook the tips of the bush, and swung back around to hang under a large yellow grevillea bloom that was easily twice it's size.

It was ever so brief, but my heart just sang. A moment or two, and memories of that one single rose just rushed back. I could almost smell it. How long had it been since I'd stopped to smell a rose? When was the last time I danced barefoot in the rain with the grass squelshing between my toes? Had it really been that long since I'd sat in the back garden at school lunchtime and listened to them play?
When did I stop looking for the small joys in life that used to make me so happy?

I don't really know, but it ends now. One small joy a day cannot be that hard to find.

Today, it was a happy bird hanging upside down on a flower.