One Angry Monkey

Two posts in one day! Lucky Internet! Don’t get too used to it, I figure this means I can go a couple of weeks without updating now.

When I walked in the front door after picking up my new glasses I realised something. My house is a bomb site! So I barricaded myself in my computer room, where it’s much neater, so I wouldn’t have to look at it. Eventually my neuroses got the better of me though so I emerged and started straightening things up.

I picked up a pile of papers from the floor in front of the sofa and very nearly shrieked at the brown thing on the rug underneath them. Fortunately for me (and it) I retained some sense of decorum and the only sound was a muffled “mmmph”, which is the noise I make when really I want to shriek but for whatever reason my pride gets the better of me. I thought it was that spider the Man of the House vanquished a couple of weeks back returned to extract its freakishly oversized vengeance on me and my house.

A closer look and I wasn’t wanting to scream any more. I was saying “awwwwwwwwwww”. With exactly that number of “w”s I might add. It was a tiny gecko, no larger than my little finger which, I might also add, would be terrifyingly large if it had been a spider. He was in a dangerous spot there, my little lizard friend. If I let him stay there it would only be a matter of time before either I or the Man of the House stomped on him on our way to the sofa. But he was so little. I didn’t want to pick him up because I was afraid I’d hurt him.

Internet, you proved to be no help. One suggestion was to feed him iron filings and use a magnet. That might work, I’ll grant you, but how was I supposed to let him go again, hmm? Another was a tale of grass lassos. Also probably effective but there’s not all that much grass in my front yard and I didn’t feel like traipsing around the neighbourhood looking for some. That left only the good, old-fashioned upturned glass.

When I saw him up close against the stark background of white from the paper I used to cover the glass I wanted to keep him. Have you ever seen a tiny gecko up close, Internet? I have now. They’re just so precious. Unfortunately the aquarium has fish in it. Short of flushing them and earning the wrath of the Man of the House I had nowhere to keep my little friend. I took him outside and put him in the leaf litter under the tree in our front yard.

My little dragon now guards my front door.

People today. They’re obsessed with “the secret”. Wow! You look ten years younger! What’s the secret?

For the record, I don’t look ten years younger. If I looked ten years younger I’d look eighteen. I don’t.

No, my secret revolves around weight loss. When I was having my crohn’s flare I lost something in the region of thirty kilograms. I don’t know how much that is in pounds. Google it if you care. (The real achievement? I kept all but twenty-five of it off! Yay me!) As I lost the weight all of my friends kept asking me, “What’s your secret?” I told them. I have a chronic illness. I can’t keep much food down. What food I can keep down just fires out the other end a couple of hours later, undigested. In essence my body has issued me with an eating disorder I don’t need to maintain myself. My stomach does that for me.

Wrong answer. Read the rest of this entry »

I’d never realised how socially awkward I am until today. I mean, I knew I was socially awkward but the full extent of it escaped me. I got a phone call from the Matriarch to inform me of the sad passing of Young Boobs’ beloved puppy. She suggested I should email Young Boobs to pass on my sympathies. When the Matriarch says “jump” you’d better not waste time asking “how high?” so as soon as I got off the phone I cranked up the old email (that fat hamster got a workout and all, my email doesn’t see much use).

I stared at the screen. “Hey sis,” I typed. No, too casual. “Hi.” Too terse. “Greetings?” I’m not a f$#king Vulcan. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m the first to admit I have a hoarding problem. I’ve gotten better. Circulars are now thrown out as they arrive, instead of being kept in case I need to clean the oven and don’t have any newspaper. Every little bit counts, right?

During my hospital stay last year the Matriarch came over to help out and take care of me. Part of the duties she took upon herself (with absolutely no guidance from me, of course) was clearing out some of the junk I’d managed to accumulate. One of the first things she inquired about was the rather large collection of coffee jars I had in my pantry. “No, keep those,” I said. “I’ll need them if I decide to make jam one day.” Read the rest of this entry »

At what point does a perfectly normal person become a cynical pessimist? I don’t recall being such a glass-half-empty sort of girl growing up. Mind you, if I felt the tide was running out I’d just go for a top-up but anyway. I could swear I’d once followed the Monty Python philosophy - always look on the bright side of life.

Why, then, have I turned into such a bitter old tart, always expecting the worst? I see Patti and Selma on the Simpsons and think, there but for the grace of the Man of the House go I. What brought this on? Read the rest of this entry »

I must confess, I find myself atypically concerned about the wellbeing of my sister and mother. You see, they’re currently traveling around New Zealand’s South Island (I just then realised that New Zealanders are no more creative than Australians when it comes to naming geographical locations) in a Maui camper, or for those poor unfortunates who have never experienced a journey over narrow, winding, hilly roads behind one of those monstrosities, an RV. That would normally not be a problem, if they had another member of our dysfunctional family along for the ride but they have my sister’s mother-in-law. I’ve never met the woman. I hear she’s very nice, though. That’s the problem. Read the rest of this entry »