THE RIOT DIARIES ...July 2009

July 30th

I have some great new decorating tips after visiting Myrtle and Fred’s famous ‘Paua Shell House’ yesterday, and here they are.

• Instead of fancy expensive textured wall paper, why not line your walls with polished paua shells – that way you get truck loads of colour along with texture to die for.
• If you replace the actual paua with wool inside the shell and then stick them to your walls, you could double the insulation effect for your home and combat global warming.
• Millions of tiny baby shells glued onto the dress of a toilet roll holder doll gives people something to think about while they sit on the loo – AND it’s easy to think of a name for the doll – Shelly sprang to mind instantly.
• A conch shell is a useful accessory to blow on when you don’t have a telephone, that way the neighbours all gather at your place to hear what you have to say and make you feel important.
• If your husband complains of being bored, send him out to his shed to polish some more paua shells.
• If you glue enough shells together you can make all sorts of useful and decorative accessories – I made my brother Nigel, a set of ear protection for work, once, when he worked at Shell BP,I think I might make some for Brent

I think Brent is just going to have to shell out.

July 29th

The Phantom has been spending far too much time hanging around being handsome.
“What I need,” he explained to me as we went out for a ride, “are some business cards – something that explains who I am – what I do, that sort of thing”.
“What, like, Cardigan Bay – Race Horse?” I said.
“Exactly”.
“Phantom, you’re not actually a race horse”.
“No, but I am a handsome horse”.
I can’t argue with that, I’ll get some printed for him tomorrow.

July 28th

Flossom woke up with Bed Hair – a fact kindly pointed out to us by the Phantom who happened to be peering in the window at us.
“They’re still in bed – with a large mop” he yelled to the other horses.

July 27th

Partly Bluett visited the neighbours chickens again this morning and got a richly deserved bollocking.
“What were you thinking?” I shrieked at him.
Partly looked at Bludger who mouthed “Chook Club meeting”.
“Oh yes, I said, “and what exactly does one do at a Chook Club Meeting?”
Partly glanced over at Bludger who was staring morosely at her paw; “Um’, he said, “we, er, discuss Chooks and things”.
“Oh yes” said Bludger, brightening up, “and books - like The Joy Cluck Club and, um, Cluck is On My Side”.
“Absolutely!” barked Partly, getting the hang of it, “and that one – what was it….Out of Cluck in Harlem”.
Zeuss, who was watching from the deck, suddenly chimed in – “I don’t suppose you discussed ‘That Pullets got your Name on it”.
Both dogs are on permanent home detention.

July 26th

My Aunt rang.
“Where have you been?’ she demanded.
I’ve been away with my friends Caroline and Marsley, horse spotting and drinking far too much.

“I thought you’d gone away to find another Aunt”, said my Aunt.
I told her we had been to ‘Auntz R Us’ but that the quality was pretty poor so I’d decided to stick with her.

She then told me she’d written me an exceptionally clever and witty 50 page email only it had somehow disappeared into cyber space before she had a chance to send it to me. As they do.

That’s it; I’m going back to ‘Auntz R Us’ to place an order for a wealthy computer-savvy version with no children.
I’ll just give Caroline and Marsley a ring – they may want to come.

July 22nd

Brent is cooking dinner and Flossom is helping.

Brent has a rather eclectic style of cooking – he gathers everything he can possibly find together and fries it. Last time we had a mixture of peas, spinach, silver beet, jellymeat and the remains of a salad which I had put out for compost.

“What this needs,” he said, “is a sauce”.  One up from penicillin which is what I rather felt it did need.
“It’s sauce that makes the meal”, he says every time he cooks something.

*Brent swore there was no jellymeat in the dish but Flossom and I agreed, it definitely tasted like jellymeat.

July 21st

The wind got up and blew a gale all day. Flossom sauntered in through the cat flap looking for a snack, wearing a rather fetching new hairstyle.

I was to meet My Aunt on her way back from My Mother’s at the airport for a brief catchup before she flew on home to G’ore.

Unfortunately someone – and I’m not naming any names, had decided to cloak the airport in a large grey blanket of fog so the planes couldn’t land because the pilots had no idea where the airport was.

Brent, who was working in the new airport tower, took me up for a look. “It’s an awesome view up there”, he said.

You couldn’t see a thing. I really must have a talk to him about the difference between a mans’ idea of a view and a girls’ idea of a view.

After a wait of about 60 hours the plane, according to the airport monitors finally landed – but here’s the thing – nobody got off it.

Somewhere between the plane and the airport terminal; people – including My Aunt, disappeared.

I waited for about another 40 hours and then I went to the airport ‘HELP’ desk.

They sent me to the other airport ‘HELP’ desk who were about as helpful as a paper bag in a shipwreck.

Just as I was about to suggest the launch of the rescue helicopter, My Aunt suddenly and miraculously appeared. I had to grab hold of her to make sure it was her and not her spirit come back to talk about my new hairstyle. As her conversation was infinitely more interesting than the sort of conversations people seem to have with the spirit world, I realized, to my huge relief it was her, in the flesh, so I took her home with me.

• ·         I may have exaggerated the exact number of hours spent waiting – time does not fly when you are waiting for something to happen….

 

July 16th

Two new chickens are arriving today to replace the one that my pooches ‘took care of’.
The new chooks are being delivered in a truck!

As I purchased them over the internet and have not actually seen them, the fact that they are being delivered in a truck makes me wonder if I have in fact purchased the Mother’s of all Chickens.

I told Karen about it and she said she would get the cattle yards ready.
My guess is we’ll herd them off the truck and into the yards, where I will wrangle them to the ground, brand them and then manhandle them into the coup.

*Due to the size of the chickens, branding may not be compulsory

July 14th

Nurse Possovitz bustled in to see me.
“I’ve come to take your temperature”, she announced, sounding scarily officious.
“OK”, I said, “Want to take it anywhere in particular?”
She looked around her with a thoughtful expression and then – “Out to lunch”, she said finally.
I have a feeling Brent put her up to that one.

July 13th

I visited the doctor AGAIN today.
It’s a bit like visiting a friend – only the doctor gives me drugs instead of a drink and the drugs are rather boring.
Brent cheerfully predicted the visit this morning as I lay in bed trying to breathe.

He put his concerned look on and told me that I what I needed was an injection of penicillin. It’s his standard answer for everything… “What do you think of Robert Mugabe?” you can ask him and he’ll say something like, “not much, but I do know this – what that man needs is an injection of penicillin”.
“The youth of today”, he’ll say, “They’d be better off shooting up penicillin”, and so on.
However this time, for once, it turned out he was right.

An infection has been lodging in one of my lungs without paying rent. It will duly be evicted with the threat of – you guessed it – penicillin and Brent will stop giving me that concerned look – it’s getting spooky.
BOOYA!

 

 

July 12th

I made a positivity list about the benefits of having asthma - as you do.
And here it is…
5 Great things about having Asthma
 by Cathy Dee

1. I get to wear my nice new comfy fluffy pajamas a lot more than usual.
2. Strangers get out of my way  whenever I cough – (unlikely to be raped)
3. My breathing sounds like a creaking old ship at night which is great for pretending to be a pirate.
4. I have a great excuse for avoiding those early morning work outs – or any workouts at the moment actually.
5. I get to see Brent’s ‘concerned’ look, which is interesting.

July 10th
Men; they’re all the same.

I thought I’d give Brent a bit of a ‘romance test’.
“Darling”, I said, “name 5 things you love to look at the most”, and I stared at him and tried batting my eyelids engagingly at him.

“Oh”, he said, “that’s easy – I love good design such as in a well designed car - like this Ferrari for example” and he actually went and got a book on cars and showed me a picture of a red car. I looked at him with my mouth open, “well”, he said, getting slightly nervous, “you can’t say that’s not beautiful”.

“Carry on”, I muttered.

“Erm, well, I love watching planes come in to land, and great engineering structures such as bridges”. He stopped abruptly when he noticed I was glaring at him and slowed down and thought a bit about what he thought I thought I’d like to hear, “oh, and Flossom’s paws – they’re like big balls of cotton wool”.

I raised my eyebrows. “One more thing you love to look at” I growled.

“Rivers and mountains” he said, looking very relieved he’d made it to 5.

One of these days I’m going to force him to watch a soap opera so he can learn about what women really want to hear.

July 9th
Brent and I managed to have a night out.
We went to the emergency doctor’s clinic.
I was breathless but it wasn’t excitement. It was asthma.

Brent followed me into the clinic in an unbelievably chirpy mood. As it was me in the firing line for an injection, and not him, he was immensely cheerful.
He tried out the breath flow monitor, positively crowing as it climbed 400 points higher than my pathetic output. He eyed up the blood pressure cuff so I gave him THE LOOK but I was in no shape to keep him under control, besides I was hooked up to some sort of vapour pump.
When he started to unleash his medical knowledge on the doctor, I felt it was time to go into a coma.

I closed my eyes and took a weak breath.
Then I opened them; being in a coma is pretty boring really and as it was my big night out, I wanted to see what was happening.

Brent was still fascinating the doctor with his theory on my headache (limited blood flow to the brain apparently) and the doctor was being very polite, even managing to keep her eyebrows reasonably level.
I did some vigorous eye rolling exercises and then it was time to go home.

I don’t get out much.

The dogs are in BIG trouble.

It seems that this morning, between the hours of 7.30 am and 8.30 am, they visited the neighbour’s hen house.

I caught Partly (apparently) trying to resuscitate a very dead chicken on the lawn.

He stopped when he saw me and looked about him guiltily as I spat the dummy and demanded an explanation.

“Erm”, he said, “Henrietta, here,  wandered over to visit and was struck by um, er, a large lightning bolt on the way, so I’m just trying to revive her”. I looked at Bludger who nodded emphatically. “She was a good friend” said Bludger gravely.

“And the loss of feathers would be because?”

“Ah, yes, um, I’m glad you asked that, because; you see, I had to undress her so I could perform, er, heart massage”, he said, gazing at something just behind me, adding, “One Two Three”, and pumping on her chest with his large hairy paw”.

“And you, Bludger – what was your role, in this, emergency?”, I said turning quickly enough to catch her acting out the heart massage moves behind me.

She was about to say something when Zeuss,came flying out of the cat door,  and raced up and grabbed the chicken, running past me before I had time to react.

“Hey!” I yelled, “What the?”

“Organ Donor” shouted Zeuss, over his shoulder, “That chicken is an organ donor” and he disappeared under the house.

The dogs are grounded for a month.

 

 

 

 

 

 

July 5th

I wondered why Nibbler was behaving so nervously.
He has been tiptoeing around the paddock, checking over his shoulder ever few minutes and galloping behind trees at the slightest sound.
I mentioned it to the cats and the mystery was solved.
“Erm”, said Zeuss, carefully washing between his toes, “I may have mentioned something about Auckland’s Super Mare”.

 

 

July 4th
Partly Bluett; DOG, has been getting a lot of spam email lately.
It seems that he can get a brand new designer watch that he won’t be embarrassed to show his friends.
I asked him if he would like one and he looked at me as if I was completely mad.
He could also get his penis enlarged and get a degree. (He could get the degree without having his penis enlarged.)
He seemed to be quite keen on getting a degree.

“That way”, he pointed out, “when some farmer yells ‘get out of it ya stupid mongrel’, I shall be able to say, ‘you have obviously mistaken me for some other mongrel, I am an educated intellectual mongrel with a degree’, and then I can show him my designer watch; that I won’t be embarrassed to show my friends, and let him know that I don’t have time to listen to an idiot like him”.

Partly always did have a lot to say.

 

July 3rd

My Mother rang me.
You’ll never guess what I’ve just done “she said sounding somewhat triumphant.
Many things ran through my mind, most of them to do with organising and medicinal brandy.
“Nope”, I said, “I cannot guess…what have you done?”
“I changed a fuse”, she said then paused for dramatic effect. “Ian, my neighbor, showed me how the other day”.
“Huzzah!” I said, “So how come you had to change a fuse again?” (It was only done a couple of days ago).
“Well” she said, “The lamp blew up, so I couldn’t do the crossword, so I went out and changed the fuse all by myself”.
It had to be asked…”So, does the lamp go now?”
“Er, no”, she said, “Do you think I should get another one?”
My Mother has become what can only be described as somewhat enfuseiastic.

 

July 2nd

Brent went back to work.
It seems that Flossy and Brent have had a little disagreement over the term ‘Looking After’.

Flossom slipped into her ‘Possovitz Attorney at Paw’ mode as she explained later this morning.
“The patient”, she said, “formally known as ‘daddy’, seems to think that ‘LOOKING AFTER’ means that the Nurse – IE me, should be running around doing stuff”.

Here she paused, noting the rapt expression on both Sticky and Grommart’s faces as they listened attentively.
Zeuss was fast asleep.

“Section 58a of the Feline Nursing Act clearly states,” she wandered over and poked Zeuss with her paw to make sure he was listening, “That the term LOOKING AFTER shall mean, ‘Watching as one goes by’”.

Again she paused and glanced over at the Abbos. “And I think you’ll find that I did my job with UTMOST DILIGENCE”.
“Who is Utmost Diligence?” whispered Grommart.
Zeuss yawned loudly, “Flossom’s imaginary friend” he said.
The ensuing scrap got Flossom and Zeuss once again, dumped unceremoniously outside.

 

July 1st

Brent is still at home. Nurse Possovitz came out of the bedroom this morning looking worried.

According to Flossom, Brent is pretty sick and needs to stay in bed.
I spoke to one of the two Karen’s about this and told her of my suspicion of PTSS.
“Oh” she said, “he just needs more exposure”.
I think she’s right.
I’ll take him to a hypnotist first, for neural linguistic reprogramming and then I’m going to arrange a total immersion day at the mall.
I may have to wait till he gets through this attack first though, or a shopping trip could be fatal.