THE RIOT DIARIES ...May
FBI Agent Booster wandered in sporting his new winter coat.
Zeuss, God of Alpacas (and of the House) set off to pay (the Alpacas) a visit. It was about time.
In his new winter coat, he looked, as Flossom caustically remarked, “Like a small furry pimp doing the rounds”. Not exactly God-like.
Zeuss didn’t care; he had his speech memorized and was off to make a lasting impression.
He leapt on top of a carefully chosen fence post and cleared his throat majestically.
“TIS I”, he boomed, his baritone Siamese voice rolling across the paddock.
The Alpacas, startled, “Who said that?” a large woolly female exclaimed.
“Me, er, GOD”, said the voice.
“It’s Him” the alpaca said, rolling her eyes up to the heavens and dropping to her knees.
The Alpaca herd kneeled down reverently, chewing their cud, waiting to hear more.
Unfortunately the wind chose that moment to pick up and produce a gust so ferocious it blew Zeuss clean off the top of the fence, up into the air above the alpacas, depositing him in a heap, neatly in front of them.
“Bugger” said the voice of God, as he got to his feet dusting his coat off.
“What’s that?” said an elderly Alpaca. “I think it’s God”, whispered the female. “What did he say?”
“I think he said; ‘Bugger’”.
The God of Alpacas, looked them up and down imperiously, “I’ll be back” he said, promptly turning and heading for home.
May 6th
 It’s pouring down outside, the paddocks have become quagmires and Flossom and the Abbysinnians were sitting on the plush pillow staring out at the riverlets of water cascading down the window, when the House God wandered in.
“Oh look”, said Flossom, “it’s Jacques Catsteau”.
As a God must go out in all weather, Zeuss had insisted I make him a wetsuit, and since his ego was so badly damaged in the Llama-gate affair, I find it hard to refuse him anything.
Marching through May
Persil now has his own pair of boots.
They’re very smart and quite sporty looking.
He showed them to The Phantom and they compared their boots. They’d both had a hoof trim from Thorsten and had listened to everything that was said.
“Apparently”, whispered Persil, “I’ve got half a frog in one of my back hooves”.
“Really?” said The Phantom, “That’s amazing because I’ve got frogs in all my hooves”.
“Good God”, said Nibbler, who had been listening in with a tinge of jealousy, and was busy inspecting each of his own hooves in turn, “They’re in my hooves too”.
There was silence as each of the horses thought about it. Finally Persil looked up, “Do you remember galloping through a herd of frogs?” he said.
May again
Flossom is nesting.
We were woken at about 3am by the sound of some serious renovation work coming from the wardrobe.
On inspection I discovered she’d built herself a nest out of various clothes and shoes and a sock. She was deciding where to put the sock as I opened the cupboard door.
“Of course”, she said, “the placement of the sock is very important for the right Feng Shui”.
I looked at her; “Yeah, but a sock?”
“Zeuss said to put a sock in it, he’s Siamese you know, he said it’d give the right Feng Shui which would bring great health and wealth to the dweller”.
I shook my head and decided to question Zeuss about it in the morning.
“She was going on and on about something,” said Zeuss, “so I told her to put a sock in it”.
The Abyssinians sniggered into their paws.
I raised an eyebrow and looked at him. “She wanted an explanation and I had to come up with something,” he said, “before she sat on me”.
Still in May
It has been so wet and cold, we decided to buy the shivering Bludger Magoo a jacket. Just like the horses.
The horses were gobsmacked, “Dogs don’t wear jackets”, grumbled the Phantom.
Nibbler snorted and followed Bludger around to make sure she was actually a dog. “I can’t believe it’s not a horse”, he said.
“You mean one of those ones that have been through a hot wash” said Persil.
“I can’t believe it’s not a frog”, said the Phantom, snuffling into his hay.
May 12th and not a moment later
I received an email from my beloved Aunt Jen (My Mother’s sister) trying to organize something for Christmas regarding family get togethers.
It was a detailed email with a few suggestions all worthy of merit and sent to me as she is in Australia visiting family and does not have my Mother’s email.
“Forward it to your Mother”, she said, “and see what she thinks”.
I rang my Mother and read it out to her.
"Oh" she (My Mother) said, "Oh, you know,.... that's very well written". 
"Yes" I said, "but what do you think?"
"About what?"
"About what Jen proposed?"
"What did she propose?"
And that led to a lengthy discussion about Brent's Brother and sister in law and their new baby whom they have called Moses Eliyah, and about how I would have called him 'Jingle' (Last name is Dingle) and that went on to those Mothers that went up in a DC10 for a joy ride on Mother’s day and about how Brent took me into a book shop for Mother’s Day and ended up buying me two books (!!!)and the upshot was that we forgot about discussing Christmas and after about an hour's chat we hung up.
5 minutes later the phone rang again.
"It's your Mother" said My Mother, "I rang because I forgot to tell you something".
"OH?"
"Well, you see, only now, I've forgotten what it was".
"ahhh."
"um".
"hmmm".
"Oh I know!"
"Great, what is it?"
"Tell Jen, we'll work it out when we get together".
"What will we work out?"
"Oh I don't know; whatever it was we were supposed to work out"…
May 13th
I had to go to the doctor for some stuff for asthma and hay fever.
It’s rampant down here. Christchurch, it seems, is the allergy capitol of New Zealand, which explains a lot.
“Hello”, I said cheerfully as I swept through, “Look, I’m not injured!” 
She looked at me quizzically.
“No, really, I’m not”, I said.
I’d forgotten that my last set of injuries (Broken ribs and concussion) had taken me straight to hospital, bypassing my doctor.
I’d also forgotten that most of my previous injuries, had occurred up north and it was my previous doctor who would roar with laughter every time I hobbled in and inquire which horse had left me at what jump.
I’d only ever been to this doctor with one actual injury,
“That’s great”, she said, and raised an eyebrow.
The realization that she had no idea what I was joking about suddenly struck me.
“Um”, I said, and I completely forgot what it was I’d come in for.
I really am my Mother’s daughter.
The House God was lolling around in a most Ungodly fashion on the couch. He lay gently snoring contentedly, upside down in the sun with his paws stretched up over his head.
Flossom wandered in and glared at him.
“Looks like God needs some new batteries” she said.
May 15th
Teenaged gelding Bounce Forbes is the unlikely sleuth behind the mystery of the Meaning of Life.
Bounce said he worked it out between a breakfast; grass and thistle heads and lunch - consisting of a slice of hay.
"It just came to me", said Bounce, who, according to his proud mother,well known socialite Caroline Forbes, is a shy, gifted young horse of athletic proportions.
"I'd been thinking about stuff, and then I had this idea so I chewed it over but unfortunatley I swallowed it".
Bounce's Mother said it was all rather overwhelming and that they were expecting a card from the Queen and a visit from Prime Minister John Banks. Then she stopped and looked at Bounce "You did WHAT???", she shrieked, "You bastard!"
Our interview was cut short as Caroline flailed Bounce, Now apparently, a great gormless hairy lout of a son.
Bounce may well be spending the next 24 hours digesting the meaning of life in solitary confinement.
May 17th
 My Bowen therapist; a wonderful lady who manages my pain for me, put me onto an ancient yogic technique for preventing hay fever which has been torturing my nasal flora & fauna for most of my life.
It involves tipping a saline solution into one nostril, letting it swill around the sinus before pouring out the other nostril. Don’t try this at a dinner party.
“You’ll be amazed at what comes out” she said gleefully as she handed me the special ‘Neti Pot’ that you have to use to do this.
And she was right.
I found all sorts of stuff I’d forgotten about – a pencil, dating back to the early 1970’s, a seashell that mysteriously disappeared 15 years ago as I attempted to draw it, and a 5 ounce block of a suspicious looking white powder which turned out to be washing powder (Persil).
After all that clearance, my hay fever has gone! Really it has!
*I may have exaggerated about the exact date of the pencil.
May 18th
As I was looking for a parking space in town, marveling at the clarity of my nostrils, I found one right outside a car sales yard, next to two guys having a conversation.
It was a small space into which I had to parallel park. My father taught me to do this and I’m quite good at it, so I managed it in one swoop.
As I got out of the car I noticed the guys were staring at me so I bowed slightly and said, “I bet you didn’t think a woman could do that”.
“No,” they said in unison, “Very very impressive”.
Then one of them said, “We were a little concerned as you pulled up as the car behind you is his” and he pointed to his companion. “Damn” I said, “If I’d known that I would have done it faster”.
May 19th
My Mother is due tomorrow.
She’ll be arriving in a plane.
The forecast sounds like a bunch of crapola so I’ll need to be standing by with the brandy. I might let her have some too.
I’ve spent the day cleaning and tidying and setting up activity centers for My Mother.
She’s positively dangerous unless she’s kept busy. I figured I’d only need to set up about 3 activities because she’d have forgotten the first one by the time she’d got back to it only I forgot where I’d set it up by the time I’d finished the second one, and ended up almost putting the third activity center on top of the first.
She rang me this morning, “Only 23 ½ more hours” she said gleefully. She’d started the countdown about 3 months ago.
Flossom has promised to be on her best behavior.
May 20th
My Mother arrived today looking bright eyed and bushy tailed.
That in itself is a worry.
“That pilot was terrific” she said, she has a thing about pilots, “the landing was as smooth as can be,” she said and then abruptly changed the subject, fixing Bren t with a beady eye; “Did you know I had a CT scan?”
Brent looked confused and asked if she’d taken a tumble off a horse.
“For my memory”, said my Mother “And, I got the results”.
I raised a questioning eyebrow.
“I’m completely normal for my age”, she said with a sigh of satisfaction, “All brain cells present and correct”.
“That’s great, “I said, making a mental note to ring the NP Hospital and check they’d given her the correct scan.
“I saw not one, but TWO psychiatrists on TWO separate occasions who questioned me for hours and gave me some special tests”.
I nodded, vaguely wondering what the tests were.
“They said, I have an extensive vocabulary, am very articulate and VERY precise in the use of it”, she said, beaming at us both.
I can just imagine exactly how articulately and precisely she told those psychiatrists what they could do with their questionnaire.
My Mother and I have a lot of catching up to do.
We spent the morning marveling over my clear nasal passages before going out to lunch.
Then I had a pile of organising to do re my drawing workshops (Drawing for the Pencil Challenged)
I organized 2 newspaper interviews – somehow managing to convince the reporters that I am in fact a fascinating person worthy of writing an article about!
“How an earth did you do that?” My Mother said, “You must have used a pile of charm – I don’t know where you got that from”.
Meaning she knows exactly where I inherited that from.
After that it was time for a brandy.
 I swear the cats have been getting stuck into the brandy.
My Mother and I couldn’t possibly have gone through half a bottle of brandy in two days.
Come to think of it, Grommart was weaving her way precariously through the kitchen chairs, The House God tried to leap up onto the bench and missed, Flossom lay upside down on her bean bag unconscious all day and Sticky disappeared.
I took My Mother to an Art Exhibition.
She examined every piece for about 20 minutes standing with her nose about 2 cm from each painting. There were about 200 paintings to examine. I wished I’d brought the Brandy. I could have lured her out in half the time.
May 22nd
I was able to hand my Mother over to her sister who arrived back from her visit to Perth today.
We met her at the airport.
Of course, because My Mother has a pathological fear of being late to either meet someone off a plane or to catch one, we arrived about 3 hours before the plane was due.
“Is that her plane?” said my Mother every time a plane rolled in.
We had lunch and a civilized glass of wine in the airport café. “Are you sure THAT’S not her plane?” said my Mother, looking at a small postal plane taxiing down the runway.
“The weather is clearing up you know”, she said, mistaking a large landscape photograph of the mountains surrounded by clear blue sky for the view out of the window.
We met up with my cousin Phillip who sensibly arrived about 5 minutes before we were due to welcome my Aunt.
At last she arrived, looking tanned and healthy and rather summery. Far too summery in fact; “Er, you do know what the temperature is here?” I asked, pointing to the black blustery sky outside.
“Oh yes”, said my Aunt, “But I’m not going to let a thing like that get in the way of a summer frock”.
I gave her my coat.
Later, after we’d all had a snack and a coffee and another civilized glass of wine, I watched my Aunt walk out the door of the café.
“That’s odd” I thought, “I’ve got a coat just like that one.
May 24th
 My Mother, my Aunt, my Cousin, my Husband and me all went out for lunch.
During lunch there was a potential Bomb threat alert; that is, some guy left a bag in a phone booth beside where we were sitting and, according to the papers these days; this is a major terrorist activity. (That, and making videos and telling jokes)
When I suggested we should perhaps get away in case it exploded, My Mother, ever the voice of reason, interjected sharply; “I’m not leaving a perfectly good Sauvignon blanc” she said, “besides, I haven’t even finished my Panini”.
May 25th
I had a friend around for coffee.
We were sitting in the lounge chatting and staring out at the horses who were lounging around in the ‘Fatty Boombah’ paddock, waiting for me to give them some hay.
I noticed the Phantom testing the fence for electricity which, as he quickly discerned, was switched off. Suddenly, he lifted the whole fence up with his nose and slipped out under it in one smooth, practiced move.
Nibbler , having observed this, then decided he could do the same, only he hadn’t quite observed the correct technique. Nibbler grabbed the fence in his teeth and lifted it high in the air, higher and higher as he tried to figure out what to do next.
Meanwhile, Persil, never one to miss an opportunity, thanked Nibbler for his kindness and ducked out under the lifted fence. Nibbler was stuck with the fence in his mouth, unable to move forward. He finally let it go to discover he was still in Fatty Boombahs.
The Phantom looked at Nibbler and then at Persil, “What DO the mares see in him?” he asked.
May 26th
I went for a job interview and I did quite well despite having no idea what they were talking about.
They asked me what my ‘belief systems’ were.
Fortunately I had my corporate dictionary filed into the left side of my brain and was able to retrieve the necessary reply. I put my schmart glasses on, took a deep breath and said this…
“Having recently installed a new set of paradigms, I feel I can enable a modular approach beneficial to the overall infrastructure and implementation of the general phosfluorescence of the 2009 budget”.
There was an impressive silence.
We all looked at each other. “I see” said the head interviewer, “That’s great, erm, I understand that you have lately been involved in the marketing strategy of various projects, can you tell us about that?”
I looked at her, astonished. “Have I?”
“Well, yes, erm, Caroline from the adult education program says…”
So that’s what I have been doing; I really must remember to include Caroline on my list of beneficiaries for when I eventually win lotto.
Remarkably I’ve got the job!
I’m pretty sure I’m going to be responsible for the future proofing of lesser functioning low end networks, thereby optimizing their integral evisculative aggregates, which will help to ensure the facilitation of incentivisation devices in niche markets with ‘outside the box’ thinking patterns.
May 27th
My Mother has left with her sister off down to Gore when My Aunt Jen lives.
As My Aunt Jen will be teaching, My Mother will be left to her devices for a large part of the day.
This is a worry.
My Mother will head into town, orientating herself by the nearest Brandy supply outlet and head for the most interesting looking person she can find. Being Gore, this is likely to be the man with a stocking on his head standing idly outside the bank.
“Do you normally wear a stocking on your head?” My Mother will enquire politely, “Only, if you do, with your complexion, I would be looking at opaque rather than sheer”.
On receiving a monosyllabic grunt, which she will take as a gesture of friendship, she’ll steer him into the nearest café, order a couple of Sauv Blancs and demand to know what he does for a living.
She’ll probably get the chance to tell him all about her brain scans (normal) (apparently) when he questions her sanity.
Then after an hour or so, she will have made a new friend and prevented Gore’s first bank robbery.
I must find out where my Mother got her brain scans done. I think I need one.
This morning, I lost my wallet. I thought it had fallen out at a service station but when I enquired no one knew anything about it. I enquired at my second port of call, the natural gas outlet – same again. I drove back to the service station and told them it had to have fallen out there but still no one had seen it.
Seething, over the fact that there were so many dishonest crooks out there diving on dropped wallets, I drove to the police station and lodged a missing wallet complaint.
The desk sergeant was wonderful, even coming out to the car to help me go over it again – just in case… to no avail. 
I filed a report, then drove back to the service station to talk to the owner who showed me the cctv footage (which is frighteningly clear) of me getting out of the car, swearing at the fuel tank and getting back in again. No sign of any dropped wallet. The dear man, obviously feeling sorry for this distressed damsel (IE : Me) even loaned me $20 for petrol.
Doubting my sanity I went back to the Natural gas outlet to explain that I did intend to pay the bill, but that – obviously, I had no wallet so would be back another day. By this time a small audience of natural gas workers – mostly men had gathered and we gossiped about all sorts of things pertaining to the criminal bastards lurking around waiting to steal ones’ wallet when, as I turned to go, I was suddenly aware of a large and ungainly lump in my jacket sleeve.
Imagine my surprise to find my wallet, snoozing up my sleeve safely where it had been deposited as I put my jacket on to get out of the car to get my petrol about 2 hours ago.
Imagine the surprise of all the gas guys and the surprise of the Petrol station owner when I went back to pay him for the $20 he kindly loaned me, and just imagine the surprise of the desk sergeant at the police station.
That Weekend
Brent took himself off to one of those MEGA MAN stores – you know the type; Mitre 10 MEGA, Hammer Hardware etc. He loves them, to him, it’s a religious experience.
He checked out the latest in building tools, gently fondled the new extreme power digger with a glazed look in his eyes before gleefully pouncing on the ultimate handy man must-have – a power drill in a biscuit tin.
But wait, there’s more – this was no ordinary biscuit tin, not only did it contain a power drill capable of putting a hole in a wall but it was gloriously decorated with ‘man images’ – no fluffy kittens or pastoral scenes; this tin was painted British racing green, with images of men (and women) drilling things with their new power drill.
Imagine the envy of his workmates when he turns up at work with a MAN Tin filled with biscuits tainted with the slick scent of POWER drill.
It even has the sacred symbol for home handymen worldwide – BOSCH.
I shall fill it with Boschcits.
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