long-toothed hinterland dweller

Here we go again

My long-time friend-with-the-sick-cat has kept me informed about her pet's condition.  I did not envy her the 2 hour wait at the vet's, the expensive treatment, the trip to the supermarket for choice cuts of chicken, nor the cleaning up of the cat's vomit.  We had far more fun at our reunion.

Now she has sent me this to read.  I can't understand why - I know she reads my blog and it seems to me that she is deliberately slipping information to the enemy.

Dear Dog and/or Cat

When I say to move, it means go somewhere else, not switch positions with each other so that there are still two of you in the way.

The dishes with the paw prints are your and contain your food.  The other dishes are mine and contain my food.  (Please note, placing a paw print in the middle of my plateof food does not stake a claim for it becoming your food dish, not do I find that aesthetically pleasing in the slightest.

The stairway was not designed by NASCAR and is not a racetrack.  Beating me to the bottom is not the object.  Tripping me does not help because I fall faster than you can run.

I cannot buy anything bigger than a king size bed.  I am very sorry about this.  Do not continue to think I will sleep on the couch to ensure your comfort.  Look at videos of dogs and cats sleeping.  They can actually curl up in a ball.  It is not necessary to sleep perpendicular to each other stretched out to the fullest extent possible.  (I also know that sticking tails straight out and having tongues hanging out the other end to maximize space used is nothing but sarcasm.)

For the last time, there is not a secret exit from the bathroom.  If by some miracle I beat you there and manage to get the door shut, it is not necessary to claw, whine meow, try to turn the knob, or get your paw under the edge and try to pull the door open.  I must exit through the same door I entered.  (In addition, I have been using the bathroom for years...canine or feline attendance is not mandatory.)

The proper order is kiss me, then go smell the other dogs or cats.  I cannot stress this enough.  It would be such a simple change for you....

Finally, there was this bit at the end:

Rules for Non-Pet Owners who visit and like to complain about our pets:

1. They live here; you don't.
2. If you don't want their hair on your clothes, stay off the furniture.
3. I like my pet better than I like most people.
4. To you it's an animal.  To me he and/or she is an adopted son
   and/or daughter who is short, hairy, walks on all fours and is speech
   challenged.
5. Dogs and cats are better than kids.  They eat less, don't ask for money all
   the time, are easier to train, usually come when called, never drive your
   car, don't hang out with drug using friends, don't drink or smoke, don't
   worry about buying the latest fashions, don't wear your clothes, don't need
   a gazillion dollars for college, and when they have young, you can sell the
   results.

Somehow I don't think this topic is yet over.  Perhaps it behoves me to continue telling The Truth About Cats and Dogs.

Weather for soup

The best thing about winter is being able to enjoy some decent soups.  The current grey drizzly weather is making it all the more desirable.  At the weekend it was a big pot of bean and vegetable soup - using soup bones and home-grown vegetables.  Before that it was the won ton soup and my new favourite - sorrel soup.

Sorrel is a herb I was quite unfamiliar with until I planted a small punnet two years ago.  It thrived and proved quite hardy - little did I know about its classification as a weed in some parts.  Keen to put it to some use, I found a soup recipe based on chicken stock and using potato and a touch of cream.   An instant winner - so sour, but delightfully piquant.  I now check my clump of sorrel regularly and feed it extra worm castings to keep up leaf production.

I don't care much for winter, but so long as the cooler weather prevails I will be opting for soup.  Next up - minestrone, creamy pumpkin and thick salty chowder with smoked fish and bacon.

Dogged by cats

One night last week I was watching prime time television and a program about cat shows.  I sat transfixed at the antics - not of the contestants, but of their owners.  There was the reed thin owner of an Abyssinian-type cat who wore her grey hair shaved short so that she closely resembled her pat.  Then there was the biggish woman with the bouffant hairstyle and an enormous Persian that she admitted she combed and groomed to look just like herself.  Naturally they were far more obsessed than the average cat owner, but a really weird bunch of people I had to conclude.

The next day I was visiting the home of prospective child carers when the inevitable moggie leapt up onto the food preparation bench before my eyes.  Mmmm - I guess it would be churlish of me not to give them a tick in the 'household hygiene' box.

Meanwhile I have been giving some thought to putting together a blogroll - it's been a too-hard- basket task for quite a while.  For a start I wonder how erratic I will look if I admit to all the weird sites I habitually visit.  But worse is the realisation that many of my very favourite bloggers are also besotted cat owners who have the tendencey to slip in a photo to remind me, just when I log in full of cheer hoping for a good read.

Quite to my taste was Dooce today, who assures us, out of left field, that God hates kittens.  She also tells us that she hates motherhood - and having been where she is, I could handle reading that too!

A man in the kitchen

Things have been quiet here for a few days; the result of my exasperation when, half-way through typing a chatty post on Tuesday night, there was a power cut and 'poof' it was all gone.  I had been paying tribute to my husband's cooking skills - something I have tended to take for granted over the years.

It was one of the rare evenings when I had decided to join him for dinner. This is not a common event in our household – even though there are just the two of us and it is seldom that either of us is elsewhere at that time of day.  It’s just that we have quite dissimilar food preferences and a totally different approach to food.  He’s very much a carnivore, but also a gourmet and an accomplished cook who finds pleasure and relaxation in the slow and deliberate preparation of food - then afterwards, sublime satisfaction in eating it.

Me?  I’m a basically vego grazer, who doesn’t mind cooking so long as it can all go in the one pot – and is especially happy if what comes out can stretch to three meals, or at the very least two.  To save time, I also like to combine eating with another activity – maybe reading or watching TV or even talking on the phone if it can be managed.

Back in the eighties, when I was employed full time and my husband was at home working on our farm, he was the one who had the evening meal prepared on time for our three kids.  And at times my dished up serving had to be saved if I was working late. 

Out of necessity he was largely a self taught cook. Growing up in the forties and fifties in a traditional household where the girls helped Mum in the kitchen and the boys chopped the wood and dug the spuds, he learnt nothing about the mysteries of the kitchen.  When as a young man he went to work in Papua New Guinea there was always an employed cook – known as the manki masta – to ‘do’ for him.  Eventually he found himself back in Australia with a new wife and, before long, three children.   Unimpressed by his wife’s culinary skills and general lack of interest as she got back to pursuing her career, and mindful of the need to feed the kids properly, he set about creating the kind of meals his mother used to make. 

His mother had died years before and as it happened, he, of the 5 siblings, had inherited her two old and dog-eared cook books.  These consisted of her personal handwritten notebook of favourite recipes plus an undated copy of Miss Drake’s HOME COOKERY - Students’ Text Book – seventh edition, from the Swinburne Technical College, priced at 2/6.  His parents had married in the year 1924 and so it could be fairly presumed that the text had been printed prior to that.  (I have since wondered whether these were really the only cook books she had access to - given that my tally, as a some-time cook, at last count was 111.)

Anyway, with these and other cook books, and with care and determination, his culinary skills went from strength to strength.  Some time in the 1980s he took time to attend a day-time course on Chinese cookery – finding himself the only male in the class – and from then on Chinese dishes became a regular on the menu.  He also developed his own form of a nasi goreng which remains to this day a family favourite.  The Asian meals are the ones I mostly partake of; the dishes I bypass are the meat based ones, particularly when it involves some fine-boned animal such as a rabbit or a quail - or some of his beloved offal such as kidney, liver or tripe.

The fare on Tuesday night was his version of a simple short soup, complete with seafood, won tons, home-made chicken stock and home grown vegetables.  Exactly what I felt like after a quiet, unenergetic day.

Sunday in Byron Bay

Spent a pleasant day at the fabulous Byron Bay this weekend - a long weekend here in honour of the Queen's Birthday.   I drove down to B. Bay mainly for the open weekend being held at an organic garden which is the headquarters of the Seed Savers Network.  Picked up a copy of the useful 'Seed Savers' Handbook' by resident gurus Michel and Jude Fanton, plus some unusual bean seeds and lots of ideas about plants and planting to put into practice at home.  It was interesting to get an idea of how large some of our trees will become in the next few years, and gratifying to see that many of our exotics are doing just as well as theirs.

In the hills just out of the town I discovered another dilapidated dairy building - this one easily accessed from the road.  As I walked cautiously past the farm-house and stood hesitantly in the driveway with my camera, someone arrived in a ute.  That enabled me to ask permission to photograph.  I was not surprised to learn that he was not the owner, but a local farmer who had cattle agisted on the land.  The house was clearly occupied by some renters.

With the farmer's permission I was able to wander freely and take photos inside the building as well.  As usual, there was little sign of recent usage - just storage for some empty chemical drums and rolls of fencing wire - but photo opportunities in a totally rusted screen door and a dust covered wash-up sink.

In town I parked in the main street where I spied another example of a misplaced apostrophe in the sign at the Barrel of Monkey's Bar - where the illustration made it clear that they were talking about more than one monkey.

The remainder of my day was spent dropping by to visit my daughter and family camped nearby at popular Broken Head, and visiting an old friend in her retirement home handy to the picturesque Byron Bay lighthouse.

Booked up for the forseeable future

I'm posting this picture of my white zygocactus only because I caught it at its peak and it looked so spectacular.  I have pink, red and tangerine ones that will be flowering soon, but this one is always the best.  It was given to me on Mothers Day maybe 8 years ago, and has only been repotted once.  That's what I call a hardy potplant.

On another topic - I took a stack of books and CDs back to the library this morning, in an effort to clear some space beside the bed and to rationalise my 'currently reading' pile.  I still have at least 4 books seriously on the go - Paul Sinclair's book on the River Murray, Tim Flannery's 'The Future Eaters' and books on web searching and genealogy.  I'm also soaking up some music tapes I borrowed, the favourite being countertenor, Graham Pushee, singing Vivaldi, and currently being aired at least 3 times daily.

Although I dashed into the library determined not to, I did it again - had a quick browse on the shelves while I was there.  Exercising considerable restraint, I came home with only 5 new books.  Despite the fact that I already have reserves on 6 volumes - the maximum allowed.

Is there such a word as 'biblioholic'?   I wondered about this as I stashed my latest in the bedside pile.  'Bibliophile' seemed too mild a word for someone like me.  Out of interest I checked the dictionary - no such word there - only 'bibliomaniac', which was certainly more apt than the 'phile' word. 

Google, however, came up with 5,650 hits for 'biblioholic', even telling me that Tom Raabe has written a book, Biblioholism.  Other interesting titles I discovered:-

• A Gentle Madness : Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books by Nicholas A. Basbanes 
• So Many Books, So Little Time: A Year of Passionate Reading by Sara Nelson
• Ex Libris : Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman

There was also a link to the blog of a self-confessed bibliophile, 52 Books, with this post in July 2004 -

5 sure signs you're a biblioholic

1. You look at the 200+ books in your To Be Read pile and think: "I have nothing to read!"
2. At 2 a.m. you think "just one more chapter" and again at 3 a.m., even though you have to get up at 7 a.m. to go to work.
3. You read while you’re brushing your teeth
4. You have mastered the art of reading and walking at the same time
5. You’d rather read than eat during your lunch break

It would be easy to go off on a tangent now and begin reading books about people who can't stop reading books.  But I'll try to resist.

Deciding when to die

This has been mulling around in my mind for a few days now.

Last Sunday night, ABC Television, in its regular Sunday evening religious proramme, 'Compass', showed the most thought provoking documentary film on the topic of voluntary euthanasia.  Only in this instance, the life being taken was not that of someone terminally ill or suffering unbearably, but that of a perfectly healthy 79 year old woman - a woman who had merely decided that she would prefer to die before her quality of life did deteriorate.  So although she availed herself of advice and information from the pro-euthanasia organisation, Exit International, her death was clearly and simply, a suicide.

The award winning film showed interviews with this woman in the weeks prior to her death, which took place in Perth in the year 2002.  French born Lisette Nigot presented as a captivating woman - vibrant, articulate and attractive - someone whom you would expect to be enjoying life to the full, with perhaps another 10 or 15 satisfying years ahead of her.  Although she professed to be in good health, suffering no pain and experiencing no depression, her argument was that she did not enjoy being in a body that was declining physically, and that things could only become worse in the years ahead.   

Because of her fear that she might one day reach a stage when her life was such a burden to her that she desperately wished to die, but would have neither the legal option nor the means of carrying it out, she decided to take things into her own hands while she could - to 'get out while the going was good', so to speak. 

Prominent throughout the film was high profile euthanasia advocate, Dr Phillip Nitschke, who remains active in providing information and advice for the terminally ill who are needing a means to escape a life no they longer wish to hold onto.  He too, was charmed by the cheerfully determined Miss Nigot, and admitted his sadness about the choice she had made.

The film, called Mademoiselle and the Doctor, showed a number of people attending meetings arranged by Dr Nitschke on behalf of the Exit organisation, where the practicalities of setting up the perfect suicide were outlined. 

Exit International's website provides some interesting background regarding the ABC's last minute censoring of the programme, due, it says, to objections by its staunchly Catholic presenter, Geraldine Doogue, and from the anti-depression and suicide prevention organisation, Beyond Blue.  Their salvaged clip of the charming Lisette demonstrating the use of a plastic bag over the head - a method she had considered but discarded - is worth viewing.  One can only puzzle what combination of factors resulted in her taking the ultimate step.  For me, a confronting programme indeed.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

Old milking sheds

It was unplanned, but a trip to buy a few more fruit trees for the orchard yesterday ended up becoming a nostalgic country drive, visiting some of our old haunts where we once lived over the border in northern NSW.  As it turned out, our destination, Daley’s highly regarded tree nursery at Kyogle, had closed by the time we reached it, but we were glad to pick up some pecan nuts and avocados at farmers’ stalls near by.  And as the light was good, it was an opportunity to photograph a few of the several old dairy buildings we passed along the way.

Old cow bails hold a real fascination for me.  Some of the most poignant sights in the Australian countryside are the disused and decaying dairy buildings, of which there are thousands, dotted throughout the fertile pockets along the east coast and on the river flats in the southern states of NSW, Victoria, S.A. and W.A.  The majority have remained virtually untouched since they were closed down back in the 1960’s, 70’s and 80’s.

Spotting them on country trips has become my hobby.  I find them irresistible, and have a strong urge to acknowledge these once valued and essential structures and record their distinctive beauty before they completely disappear.  Some will eventually tumble down, others are being demolished to make way for new developments, but many just become hidden from view by the bush or newer buildings.

These are just two I stopped to photograph on Saturday. 

When the mind begins to run out

It has been a long day - one of my 'working' days and leaving me with the usual aftermath - a mix of feelings, both apprehensive and awe inspiring - dealing as I do, with people who devote a large chunk of their lives to looking after the kids whose families can't. 

Then my sister phoned from interstate and the conversation turned for a while to our mother, aged 85 and a sufferer of dementia, and currently resident in my sister's household.  Most days there are more lows than highs, and the level of frustration is constant, but I marvel that my sister carries on with her various other interests and commitments and rarely loses her dry sense of humour.

Still pondering our discussion I turned on my computer and, with little motivation to post anything here, decided to read a little instead.   With exquisite timing, stories of other people's mothers came out to greet me.  First  Richard Cohen's painful post about the sad situation and state of mind of his mother.  Then a new post from Pat at Other Plans, who makes regular reference to the elderly mother who shares her home.  This time it was about her mother's sheer frustration and anger from knowing about the loss of her memory.

Elaine at Kalilily Time writes regularly about aspects of her life as she shares a home with a mother on the brink of senility.  All these people write with enormous insight, spelling out the sense of frustration and helplessness but still somehow maintaining a kindness and a sensitivity.  I thank them for sharing personal experiences which on the whole are both difficult and depressing. 

None of these mothers, including mine, can ever be part of these discussions, but I imagine that each one of them would be glad that their stories are being told - maybe to offer solace, understanding and empathy wherever in the world it might currently be needed.

On a brighter note, I moved on to read at Time Goes By about Ronni's participation as one of the 'naked lady' panelists in the California BlogHers Conference in July.  I am sure all the highly inspired female bloggers in attendance will have a ball.  I hope that the outcome will be lots of fascinating posts to share some of the fun with us all.

Cat business

For all the cat owning bloggers I know to be out there, here is a genuine STOP PRESS! 

My personal sentiments regarding cats have been made known.  I have an aversion to cats sharing homes, which in recent years has been fuelled by observations made through my involvement in the child welfare system - in particular to do with maintaining standards in households where small children are being cared for in a professional capacity. 

When visiting private homes where a cat (or even two or three) is in residence, I  am constantly astounded when I see Tom or Thomasina leaping up to prowl across a dining table or kitchen bench top - often to sample or sniff at any food it may find.  I also tend to notice things like litter trays that are readily accessible to toddlers.

I've never owned a cat or had to deal with their 'business', but a television program tonight offered cat owners what appeared to be a better option to the messy, smelly litter tray.  On the ABC's 'New Inventors' program, an Australian mother and inventor, Jo Lapidge, demonstrated her toilet training device for cats, which she calls the Litter Kwitter.

Inspired by the movie, 'Meet The Parents', and the scene where a cat was seen to be using the family toilet, she worked out a system for training her own cat to use a toilet.  Using her device, a set of three different sized rings that fit over the toilet seat, she claims that any cat, young or old, can be toilet trained in a matter of weeks.

Full details of the invention can be seen at the ABC website for the New Inventors.

Meanwhile, out of interest, I'd be keen to learn whether any of the cat experts out there see this invention as exciting, innovative and practical as the television panel seemed to think it was.  Perhaps Elsewhere was watching the program this evening and already has Leonard and Jessie lined up for their intense training course.  After all, getting two cats trained for the price of the $80 plus 'Litter Kwitter' would be good economics.

Perhaps this might herald a new era for the management of household cats.  I have a vested interest in seeing cats clean up their act.

Note:  This illustration is for the purpose of clarifying the text and does not constitute a 'cat photo' as such.