Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Time flies like a banana.

I can't believe it's the end of June already and this month I've done a grand total of two posts.

Two?

Nothing wrong with two. As an amount, it is often perfectly adequate. Two scoops of ice cream, great. Two athletic lingerie models in bed, no argument from me there. As a euphemism, a number two is very hand for talking to old people about bowel movements. As a number, it's quite useful as a segregation between one and three, who have to be kept separate as they are a bit odd.

As a quantity of blog posts over a month though - unacceptable. Before the Department of Blogging demands I commit seppuku, I really should get another one in.

So, what else have I been doing to make bloggaging such a rare event? Something exciting, and awesome, maybe involving ninjas and pirates and bears and T. rexes with laser beams coming out of their freaking eyes, possibly?

Well, there's . . . er . . . work, obviously, and overtime, which is also work, and there's chores, and parenting duties such as playschool and swimming for my son, and letting the baby Bonobo gnaw on my finger with her gums, whilst she presumably tries to cover her entire body in some sort of spit cocoon to protect herself against predators and I wonder if my finger will ever revert back to an unwrinkled state.

Other than that . . ?

Well, that appears to be everything.

Looks like I can safely hang up my Cloak of Fun and the Spangly Top Hat of Adult Orientated Entertainment, because I'm now sporting the Beige Slacks of Parental Encumbrance and the Sensible Cardigan of Steadfast Culpability.

I expect one day, when I've done my ninth Sudoku in a row and am just about to spend some hours deciding whether to have semolina or rice pudding for dessert before Nurse notices I'm out of bed again, I'll look back on this hectic period as the halcyon days, as my prime, maybe as some of the happiest times of my life.

At the moment though, I just feel knackered.

Still, famous for my rock-like stoicism, I understand that harping on about not having enough hours in the day is ungrateful, so I will never mention it or complain about it, and I definitely won't do something as needy and self-serving as moan about it in a blog or something.

But that's only because I don't have time to write the damn thing.

Moving on.

I walked into town a few days ago to visit the supermarket (yawn), the post office (double yawn) and the bank (gaping, Herculean yawn seen just prior to descent into vegetative state from sheer lack of interest in the subject at hand), and remembered that, once, I took pleasure from taking random photos in order to post them on The Gravel Farm.

It occurred to me that I hadn't done that for a while, and now I am more likely to simply power walk my way to a destination, head down to avoid distraction so I can calculate the most efficient route from start to finish that will enable me to complete the journey ahead as effectively as possible, much like a German tourist in a particularly beautiful location.

Well, not today, I thought, rebelling. Just like when I was a teenager and rebelled against my strict hierarchical upbringing by trying a lager rather than a bitter, and not caring if my Dad found out and threatened to disown me.

Turns out he's tried lager too, although it was when he was young and impressionable.

On this walk, I would revert to earlier days, when I was blogging more frequently and could go out with the sole purpose of looking around for pictographic opportunities.

So, head up, phone out, camera on!

Ooh, a kitty!

Cats are usually good for a laugh, gambolling playfully on the pavement and often rolling over to show you their fluffy tummies, ready for some hard core petting action. What with the popularity of lolcats and their ilk, a cute pussy pic would be just the tonic for this blog.

I drew closer, and photographed my very own lolcat:

Ew . . .

Trust me to find possibly the most depressed looking feline this side of Korea.

It blinked at me, first the left eye then, a couple of seconds later, the right eye, and through pitiful cat tears it tried bravely to meow, but all that came out was "heehurgh." Like a tiny, overworked donkey.

Not wanting to lower my mood, I hastily left Waitingtodiecat on it's driveway, dreaming of past glories and a healthy if long gone youth, back in the day before it began to look like one of it's own fur balls, and I made my way to town with a forced cheery grin.

My town (which is essentially a large village) is famous round these parts for having a sizable population of people whose primary choice of locomotion is the mobility scooter. There is even a mobility scooter parade at christmas.

Seriously.

Scooters get dressed up in tinsel and reindeer antlers and are allowed to weave their unsteady way up the high street, occasionally having to be unstuck from drain covers by bemused onlookers, the usual questionable quality of driving being exacerbated by seasonal advocaat and sherry consumption.

Anyway, today, it was sunny and, parade or not, there were still a lot of them about. Usually piloted by elderly folk enjoying the sunshine by wearing their flimsiest raincoats and least padded woolly hats, their only concession to the heat of June being gigantic plastic sunglasses that are designed to go over their usual spectacles and hinder their view even further as they trace a sinuous track on road and path.

You take your life in your hands wandering along the High Street when such scooter gangs are on the prowl.

Like Hell's Angels, they also individualise their mounts. A sticker here, a novelty toy there, maybe a silver skull with red LEDs in the eye sockets, that sort of thing.

One in particular caught my eye, as it denoted not only a modification that made it instantly recognisable to its owner, but it was a cheap, practical application as well:

That, friends, is a wooden bread bin nailed on the front.

I have to tell you that it took all of my resolve not to open it and see what he kept in there. I was presuming bread, for duck-feeding purposes, but I wouldn't have been as surprised as perhaps I should have been had it contained a human head. I resisted, on grounds of not wanting to be seen by one of the owner's homies and made a target for scooter revenge. A man can die from repeated shin-knocks you know. My Nan told me.

Ancient cats and mobility scooters brought the ephemerality of life starkly into focus, and I mused on the fact that, that if we're very lucky, we have a few years of vigour and youth, before all too soon the ravages of time take away everything that is good and everything that is bad.

*Heavy sigh*

Still, not to worry. As the old and undoubtedly wise proverb goes, this too shall pass.

Useful for helping one keep perspective is that. Suffering mightily? It'll pass. Overly elated? This too shall pass.

From such, one can draw the deepest, most philosophical and meaningful of conclusions about existence, and life in general.

"This too shall pass."

Life is like . . . a colon?

That'll do.



27 comments:

  1. Bananas, bonobos...anyone would think you had an ape fixation. I reckon the bread bin was a portable loo.

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  2. Yes, two is always a good thing...but what to do about the third testicle, it's much larger than the other two-they don't like it..makes em feel bad.

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  3. I'm madly jealous of your colorful scooter gangs, with or without breadboxes affixed. All we have here are at-home tattoo artists and lawn statuary.

    I am at this moment wearing the Baggy Jeans of Housekeeping Sloth. They work for me.

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  4. I think the mobile bread box belongs to the owner of Waitingtodiecat, and is actually the soon-to-be coffin/display case of said cat. Old people are odd like that, they don't like to be parted from their pets. I saw an episode of Come Dine With Me once, where an elderly contestant shocked and horrified her guests by proudly displaying the stuffed corpse of the mouse she'd kept as a pet when she was a child ... right at the dinner table as they were tucking into dessert.

    It was a truly classic piece of television.

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  5. That cat appears to have the same demeanour as a certain neurotic robot named Marvin... Perhaps it was thinking "Is this all there is to life?" That's depressing. Two posts this month, and I featured in 50% of them, I'll go along with that.

    AV

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  6. I am willing to pay top dollar for a video of your scooter parade my good man!

    Nah, not so much, but I bet it is great fun, except for those who only come to wager who will crash first.

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  7. THe word play! You delightful freak!

    :-)

    Life as represented by the colon?

    "Two" being shoved into the numerical line-up between "one" and "three" "as they are a bit odd"?

    You slay me.

    Pearl

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  8. I laughed, I sighed. It was worth the wait.

    That's a very tastefully modified scooter. In the States they tend to have a lot of flags, stuffed animals, and signs warning of the coming apocalypse.

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  9. You know I don't expect you to agree here Mr. The Jules, however that cat you photographed? Doppelganger for Daniel Craig.

    There's a James Bond/Pussy joke in there somewhere but alas, it's late and I'm too tired to find it.

    Is baby Bonobo named after the great God of talking nonsense, Bono?

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  10. Could be second child syndrome.

    With one ankle biter there is the hope that life can carry on more-or-less as normal except that you have to bear at all times a carrier bag with nappies, wipes, milk, two changes of clothes (one for them, one for you) and iron rations.

    Piece of cake.

    With two (note that significant word again) the realistion dawns that for you the party is over and all you have to look forward to is a live of unremitting poverty, drudge and the inevitable decline into infirmity.

    That's what happened to me anyway.

    Then we had a third, just to ice the cake.

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  11. Youve entered into parenthood... poor bastard. (bastard can be a complement in OZ IF preceded by 'poor','ugly' or 'miserable')Two of which seem to apply to you just now. Dont worry though, they grow up, call you a 'bastard' (not complementary) then leave home...at which point you get your life back... in ..say..18 years.

    Had you looked the other way when you were out taking pics you might well have seen a leaf floating in mid air...or perhaps a yellow frog. Lifes like that, it's not just a matter of where you are...but which direction you look.
    So make sure you look out for those nutters on Gophurs. ('go for'..go for milk, go for bread etc)

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  12. Comments! I thought I'd have been abandoned to drift, friendless and alone, in the bethic depths of the interweb. Thank you!

    GB - As both a banana fan and an ape, I am prone to mention both. And I'm even more glaad I didn't look in the bread bin now.

    Mr.Mischief - The bigger they are, the harder they drop though.

    Vic - I aspire to those jeans!

    Girl I - It would bring about a satisfying sort of circle of completeness were it true, and I did find the scooter outside a pub, possibly drowning his sorrows on the state of his cat. And Come Dine With Me - great just for the narrator.

    AV - Shall I put my head in a bucket of water? Would you like that? I'll just go and get a bucket of water. Sigh . . . And also, don't you actually write 50% of the blogs on the internet anyway?

    SkylerDad - Carnage, that'd be. Absolute carnage. Fingers crossed then . . .

    mrs. miss alaineus - It's probably writing bad poetry and using an ornate faux-silver letter opener to make minor scratches on whatever it has instead of wrsits as we speak. And wishing it was black.

    Pearl - "Delightful freak" is one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me!

    Beta Dad - It was quite understated, I suppose. I was hoping for at least a fox-tail on a long aerial.

    Veggie Ass - Daniel Craig . . . maybe . . . if I squint and look sideways . . . sort of . . ? It's even paler than him. And there's always time for a pussy joke.

    Jon - lol; So much truth in that comment!

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  13. Tempo - Ooh, a fly by near miss! All very true, and by the time I get my life back I might be too decrepit to enjoy it!

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  14. I was glad to see a post from you. :)

    I want a mobility scooter when I'm old. No, screw that. I want one now. I'll dress like I'm old, run over people that irritate me, and get away with it! And I'll have one of those ridiculously tall flags on the back. A Pirate one that says "Surrender the booty".

    That bread box is awesome. That cat however...

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  15. i'm on lockdown here, too. *sigh* but she's 88yrs old and has now decided she hates ME! but i digress, the earlier commenter is right, take a video at the scooter parade. (i have to admit, when i read scooter gang, i was thinking more vespa like scooters...)
    xoxoxo

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  16. If Nick Nolte after a hard night of drinking and partying was a cat, he would be this one.

    Good to see you are still around.

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  17. That cat was pathetic and I'm a cat lover. Try to enjoy the spit and slobber and all the stuff inbetween because it will pass quickly.

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  18. Man that cat was depressing.

    I think you should have taken one for the team and opened the bread-bin. Tsk tsk.

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  19. otherworldlyone - A pirate motif? KLike it. If I mention it in town, I reckon a couple of the oldies will go for it. Especially the old 'un with the the wooden leg, eye patch, missing hand and bushy beard. Maybe her husband will as well.

    Savvy - No one hates you and you know it. I know we're supposed to go through a second childhood when we get older, but I forgot that means someone else has to go through a second parenthood. Oh bum.

    Eric - Thanks. And my lolcat is a Nolcat?

    Mama Wheaton - The cat's spit and slobber? There was a lot of that.

    Soda and Candy - It was being teased by mice as well. And if I'd opened that bread bin and discovered a head, would you being paying for my therapy? No, you wouldn't would you?

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  20. I wasn't going to comment but after spending the last twenty minutes reading this post...I am a slow reader who gets easily distracted and wanders off... um, where was I? Oh yeah... I was probably thinking about those lingerie models who likely would have been happier if I didn't join them.

    I like cats. They make great tacos.

    It always ask me to choose an identity before publishing my comment... Do I have more than one?

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  21. Douglas - Don't fret. In my head, those lingerie models have very low standards. You could woo them with cat tacos.

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  22. Bread bin on scooter thingy is ingenius. "I can 'ave me bit o messages bought and not get 'em wet on't way home".

    Apologies for disasterous accent attempt.

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  23. Judearoo - Nice! ALthough down here, it's more "Ar, Oi be avin' a dry spot fer moi saaaaaaaanwiches Oi do."

    Far more sophis.

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  24. Your life sounds way more exciting when you write about it. I appear to have to work for a living this month and rather object to it. But it doesn't make for interesting blog posts. Maybe I should look for scooters around Whitehall.

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  25. Mdme DeF - Work does seem to intrude onto the important bits of life, deosn't it?

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  26. If that scooter was for sale in my corner of the U.S., a fist fight would break out over who gets it...seriously.

    I just couldn't help but laugh at Waitingtodie cat...OMG...so tragically funny. I have one at my house too, but compared to yours...mine is looking pretty damn good.

    Funny. Totally Funny.

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