a better class of drug dealer

 

Recently, my neighbour passed away suddenly at home, it was a real shock and so very sad. He was my closest neighbour, in fact I've mentioned him here before - he was the man who laughed his ass off when I yelled at my family to bring me some toilet paper. I actually used to make him laugh a lot. One time I farted prodigiously under my patio when I thought I was alone only to hear him tittering away laughing on his side of the fence. I then grumbled "bloody suburbs the houses are too close together" only to have him completely piss himself laughing. That was him.

We used to pass each other walking our dogs a lot and stop and chat and swap gossip and make a fuss of each other's dogs and I will miss him and his dog very much. 

I will also miss the security of him living next to me, as his house faced the notorious drug house and he could see what was going on over there, our house faces the other direction and we couldn't really keep an eye on what the heck was happening when there were "indicidents" going on (the definition of "incidents" ranges from fiery domestics, to full on bogan battle brawls, to police raids, to their clientele smashing their car into our house) so having a trusty neighbour with CCTV cameras and a terrific watchdog gave me so much peace of mind.

With all the trouble we've had over the years with neighbours, I can't help being very nervous about who my new neighbour will turn out to be. We also have 3 other houses close to us for sale right now, and one of them is immediately next door to the 'drug house' so I'm not wildly optimistic about who will be inclined to buy it. 

I think you should "meet" the chief occupant of the drug house.... this is his photo fit....

I swear to God this is what he looks like: same bleached hair, tanned, leathery skin, and I know he has saggy tits because he is always gardening with no shirt on. And that's on a good day.

On a bad day a car pulls up on the verge, out pours a bunch of bogans with metal pipes, bars, and bats ready to swarm the premises as they reassure passers by that "its okay, they flogged our daughter so we're just here to settle the score" and everyone feels just peachy and super safe and... who am I kidding?

On a bad night I hear car alarms screaming, followed by the sound of broken glass being swept up and awake in the morning to see someone had come and smashed every windscreen and window of their infamous ute. Or I wonder if there will be a murder. Maybe one day something will blow up. Or the house will burn down. 

Once they were in the front yard washing their car in the dark at 10.30 at night - you know who washes their car in the dark? Hit and run drivers, that's who.

Then you find the reject van from Breaking Bad on the lawn while they DIY it at high volume during the nights. And you think... that's it.... I actually miss the drug dealer we had next door in the 90's. I actually feel sentimental about the time we had a better class of drug dealer living beside us, he seems so cute and innocent now. Let's talk about him for a moment:

When I was away at university my parents got a new couple next door on our other side, they didn't know it but the pair were doing an incessant cannabis trade, if you picture the man of the house like this, you'd be pretty accurate:

 Dude was clueless... I remember once housesitting for my parents and when they came back and were working damn hard to back the caravan in around the side of the house and getting super stressed about it, he was standing there gabbing away about absolute shite oblivious to the fact no one was listening to him. These were adorable druggies in the grand scheme of things because they were quiet except that their house was constantly being burglarised. Once when they wanted to go away for a quick vacation they gave my Dad the keys to their house (for when the alarm was ear raping them at all hours) the keys had a troll doll on the keyring, and my Dad thought it was annoying so he savagely hacked the hair off a drug dealer's troll doll with no remorse. I told him the hair was the whole point of the thing and he said "its my keys so I can do what I like" leading to a much bigger conversation about it not being his keys at all and that on Monday you give the keys back. 

Wonderfully in the late 90's our other immediate next door neighbours bought that house, and after airing it out for long enough thought it would be excellent to raise their children there, who are now grown and we still are blessed with this lovely couple and their extended family and who intend to remain there for the rest of their days. 

And so as I reflect on the loss of my neighbour and wait to see what happens with his house and others around me, I feel such mixed feelings. We loved having our neighbour J*** next door to us, it was a real camaraderie and we did all the neighbourly things like swap produce, take care of each other - I once rescued him and his dog from a dog fight, and I know he was always having an ear out for us if we were in distress. Even if that distress was gastrointestinal lol. A friend next door is such a comfort. I can only hope we can be blessed again.

a real day in the life of dementia care

When I started this blog in 2015, one of the first posts I ever wrote was this: A Typical Day in the Nest  and I had no idea how very different my life would be in just a few years, or how difficult it would be to share with people in my life how terrible things are here at home now, in 2021. Standing on the spot trying to tell people, in person, how incredibly relentless and draining it is to care for Dad at home is just not working - they don't really get it, or they don't want to. It is all just met with "oh it must be so hard for him". 

I feel I have no choice but to do this. This is the current "typical" day in the nest. I'm documenting a full day of living in this house so that you can understand when I'm angry, upset, or stressed, and why the number one goal in my life is to get my Dad into full time dementia care. And you need to know what it is like to do this 24 hours a day yourself so that you don't end up trying to do this 24 hours a day yourself. Because you absolutely should not do this. No one should live like this:

04.00am I am woken up suddenly, by loud shouting. Mum gets up everyday to take her thyroid medication so that she can have cereal with milk when she gets up later for breakfast. Dad has turned the light off leaving her stranded in the house in the dark, nowhere near a light switch. My heart is pounding and I'm stressed already. 

04.30am There is a lot of sounds of doors and drawers slamming. Dad wants to get up for the day and Mum is trying to tell him to go back to bed. This is necessary because Mum needs more rest, and Dad cannot get up unsupervised anymore. Without someone getting up first and lighting the fire, he will try and do that himself and that's just too dangerous (we actually have to hide the matches) he can also decide to feed chocolate to the dog (more on that later) and make a complete mess of the house (imagine the police ransacked your house while executing a warrant and you'll be in the vicinity of the tornado that is my father)

06.30am I have not been able to get more sleep and its time to get up and walk my dog. 

07.30am I feed the dog, and get my breakfast Dad is not dressed yet and I can hear him arguing with Mum because he wants her to fasten his shirt buttons at the wrist, which is impossible because his shirts are for tiny men (he is a tiny man) but on each wrist he (and we do not understand why) has taken to wearing two sweatbands on top of each other, and a watch fastened around that.... so he would need a shirt made for a much larger man if he wants the buttons fastened. We actually argue about this 2-3 times a day. Trying to dress dad is like trying to wrestle a piranha into tuxedo. If a piranha had Tourettes.

07.45am I enter the only bathroom in this house, to brush my teeth and wash my face. I am lucky if I get ten minutes in the bathroom in the entire day - and the ten minutes is rarely when I need them. Dad can see me in the bathroom but decides to push his way in, one shuffling step at a time, with his walker, and basically tries to force me to move away from the sink even though I'm in the middle of my self care. I stand my ground because if I move from the sink he will start to comb his hair, which involves him standing at the sink for five minutes with the tap running the whole time and I'm in the middle of cleaning my teeth. Dad starts to use my facial cleanser as aftershave right in front of me, even though he hasn't had a shave and I tell him its mine, he tells me straight to my face "no its not" and keeps rifling through my things using them all. There goes my tiny bottles of Sukin. This is a big issue for me because Dad's misuse of products is a huge drain on finances. He can use a tube of Savlon in a week. I have no idea what he does with toothpaste. He wants to eat 20 Strepsils a day and will have a melt down if you say no have a lolly instead. I reckon he'd shove a tampon up his ass if he thought it would help his haemorrhoids.

07.56am Code Brown. Dad has come out into the hallway looking for Mum because she didn't hear him call her the first time. First thing Mum says is "come into the bathroom" (which is right there) and he snarls "no, go away, I'll do it myself!" because his brain has interpreted Mum asking him to come into the one room actually equipped to help in this situation as an insult and is raging about it.

08.45am Dad is about to go for his morning walk, Mum checks what he has in his pockets and in the basket of his walker to prevent him taking anything he doesn't need as he tends to lose everything. He had his wallet, which Mum asks him to put back in his bedside drawer. A battle ensues because Dad is absolutely adamant he will take his wallet and Mum repeatedly reminds him that there is nowhere to spend any money and he doesn't need to take his wallet. I can hear him repeatedly screaming at her "give me my fucken cash!" Which is what you should imagine every time I tell you there is an argument in the house. On top of this, Mum is trying to get Dad to put his coins in the zippered coin compartment of his wallet instead of loose where it falls out everywhere and this too is earning her considerable resistance. He has lost the ten dollar note Mum left in his wallet when she cleaned it out of things he should not lose (like his credit card, pension card, and everything important or identifying)

During the time that Dad goes for his walk, we have some peace and quiet, though no one actually ever has enough time to unwind from the chronic hostility in which we live.

10.30am Dad has lost the fabric cover he stores his sunglasses in. Its not valuable in the grand scheme of things but he obsesses over it the way he does anything that he loses. During the search we discover he has also lost a pair of eyeglasses and that is more concerning. Dad is demanding we look in the car. He hasn't been in the car since last Thursday when he was taken to dementia day care. The glasses have only been missing since breakfast so Mum doesn't want to waste time looking where they can't be. Dad is not capable of having this explained to him. Lots of shouting and dummy spits about this. 

11.25am Dad has found the fabric sunglasses cover and throws it into the face of my Mum who is sitting having a cup of coffee at the dining table. I told him not to throw it at her, she didn't lose it, and asked him if he intends to use it or not. He puts his sunglasses in it. I try to have a word to Dad about how, considering how stressed he gets when he can't find something, he should appreciate Mum more when she tries to remind him how to prevent losing things instead of abusing her. He tells me to fucking shut up.

11.58am Mum found Dad's missing eyeglasses in their wardrobe. He tells her she lost them and snarls "give them to me" 

12.00 Lunch time. Dad wants takeaway. That's not going to happen. During a sour, terse lunch time Dad repeatedly harasses Mum for information as to "what time are we leaving?" even though no one is going anywhere today. He insists that they are going out. After every time Mum explains that we are staying home and doing housework today he asks again "when are you going to be ready to go?" He also insists Mum take him to our old house, that they sold over 30 years ago because he thinks he still owns it, or that Mum sold it out from under him and he has to go and speak to the people who live there to "ask them some questions" Terrific!

13.30ish Mum is making some loud noises around the fireplace as she moves things to sweep and I am vacuuming. Dad snarls "what the bloody hell are you doing now?" because he appears to be angry that we are mucking around instead of taking him out. This evolves into Dad thinking he should be attending his dementia day care today (he doesn't call it that, as he doesn't really know that he has dementia) he just calls it Ella's House or "the place I go to.... with the other people" We explain that the group only runs on Thursday and today is not Thursday. He screams at Mum that she has to take him there so he can put in his apologies (for not being there) and we try to calmly explain that he has nothing to apologise for and that no one is expecting him there today. Dad screams "that's what you reckon" and a few other things about us being bullshit.

14.05pm Mum has entered her bedroom to find paperwork scattered all over the bed. Dad has been searching for proof that he stills owns the old house. Which is impossible to find since it does not exist. This is upsetting for Mum because she has to take it all off the bed and try to put it into order and pray nothing has been lost or thrown out by Dad. 

This seems like the point in which I need to tell you that it simply is not possible for us to hide everything we can't let Dad use or lose, there is nowhere left to hide anything. I have his car key in my box of medications in my bedroom. He lost his house keys. Mum and I hide our house keys. We hide the matches. We hide the paperwork from My Aged Care and the applications for nursing homes. We hide Dad's hearing aid batteries because if he knew where they are he would change the batteries five times in one afternoon. But that's it we simply cannot hide everything. 

15.00pm Afternoon tea time, Dad likes biscuits or chocolate. Unfortunately he has to be watched like a hawk as he does get caught feeding the dog. He is caught trying to slip chocolate to the dog, when Mum asks him "are you trying to kill the dog?" he snarls "I will kill the dog if you don't sit down" (since she is sitting I think he means shut the fuck up, which is his typical response)

I take the dog for a walk at this point.

16.15pm Dad has had a shower and now he wants his shirt wrist button fastened for him. I try but let him know that I can't do it and that I will only do it if he removes his sweat bands. Mum comes over because she says she can do it. I stand back and wait for her to realise that she can't do it because this time he has 3 sweat bands on one wrist, plus the watch. I have no idea where this madness came from, in my entire life he never even owned a sweatband but now he is totally obsessed with them. During this effort Mum realises Dad can't hear, and we think Dad has worn his hearing aids in the shower again, so he won't be able to communicate with us until they are fully dry (that might be tomorrow morning) Dad insists that he needs new batteries in the hearing aids but that won't do a damn thing for a wet hearing aid. Lots of screaming is going on right now.

Another code brown, right when Mum is busy cooking dinner and I can't help Dad with this matter. I think the sad thing is that Dad calls Mum because he needs her, and she comes because she wants to help him, but the whole time he fights her and is hostile. Mum used to have a partner but now she just has the world's nastiest toddler. That must be terribly lonely for her. 

17.30pm While Mum and I are busy cleaning the kitchen and washing dishes Dad has gone to change into his pjs. Unfortunately Mum will discover that he has changed out of his adult diaper and put his underwear inside the new diaper instead of on the outside of it. There are also clean clothes everywhere that Mum has to put back where they came from before she can even sit on the bed or get changed herself. 

Dad sits in the front lounge room to read, and then asks Mum why she isn't sitting next to him. She is sitting in the family room where my parents have sat side by side for over 30 years, he has taken to sitting somewhere else and then wonders why he is alone. As an interesting side note, Dad is reading a massive book by Ken Follett, for the third consecutive time. He doesn't know. This might be the most cost effective part of caring for Dad.

18.00 We are entering the sundowning stage of the day now, where once we all began to unwind and relax for a few hours prior to going to bed this is now the worst time of day because the screaming and stress that goes on now makes it harder and harder to be physically and mentally relaxed enough to sleep even though we are exhausted from pretty much non stop fighting all day.

I spend my evenings in my own room, watching Netflix, or reading, and typically just when I think, all is quiet, it erupts into complete madness. I'll hear screaming, banging, often I'll hear the front door being unlocked and Mum going out to the garage all because Dad has realised he has lost something and has to have it right that moment. It is never anything he has to have right at that moment. It is not something that anyone needs in order to have a good night's sleep, it's nothing that will be needed first thing in the morning. It is nothing that is worth upsetting and reversing what little relaxation we had managed to begin to achieve but it is fireworks and anger until the whole premises has been tipped upside down for in a futile effort to find a trivial thing and everyone is pissed off with each other and I sit in my room comforting my dog who is also stressed by the yelling, and I begin to understand why elderly couples commit murder suicide. I don't think that will happen here, but I begin to see how it happens.

20.15pm I can hear screaming about toothpicks. We have this argument a lot. It goes nuclear every time. Dad wants toothpicks for his teeth. We had to ban toothpicks in this house because he drops them all the time without even knowing it and the dog got 6 in one month. Fortunately not in his intestines. But I would find them chewed up on the dog bed, or on the floor of my bedroom, or in my office and there is only one person who uses toothpicks. They have all come from Dad. When we first stopped buying toothpicks Dad went through a terrible stage of sneaking out to the garage to use sandpaper on his teeth (including his expensive false teeth) so that every time he said he wanted to go out to the garage we had to ask him why, and he got very angry because he knew we were trying to prevent him from sandpapering his teeth. Aren't we horrible? Mum tried to supervise him using a toothpick, but he kept on hiding the used one in his glasses case instead of giving it back to her to dispose of. Then it turns out Mum can't even buy the type of toothpicks he likes now and we have tried to explain that for environmental reasons a lot of products just aren't profitable for companies anymore and that's why we can't find them and buy them for him. He does not believe this, and keeps on insisting he walk to the shops to buy some (he is not capable of walking that far and we'd never let him) but Mum did take him with her to the shop one day and asked for the toothpicks and he was standing right there when they told him they don't sell them anymore. Same with most shops. Dad now is fixated on whittling a match into a toothpick and is very angry about the fact that he cannot find the matches, which of course are hidden for safety reasons. But this is a fight nearly every day.

I wait it out in my room. Until eventually I think, now I can pop my night medication and begin the final stages of getting ready for bed. I've waited an hour for my Dad to finish in the bathroom so I can brush my teeth and I go in there and my brand new toothbrush is gone. I keep my toothbrush in a cup under the sink in the cupboard because I kept catching dad using my toothbrush and my nice new toothbrush is gone. Then I see its been jammed into one of the holes in my parent's toothbrush holder jammed in with another toothbrush and cannot be removed, we are probably going to break this thing trying to get the brushes out, not that I want to ever use my toothbrush again now. I sigh and take out another new toothbrush out of the packet I only just bought. After I finish cleaning my teeth I go to wash my face and find my Sukin sensitive cleansing lotion is empty and I can't even take care of my skin at the end of a horrible day. I sigh and pack up all my things from the counter top of the bathroom and take them into my room. I dump them into a toiletries bag knowing from now on I'll be carrying a travel bag into my own bathroom like a tourist in my own home because of a man who has hurt me more than any person in my entire life who thanks me for caring about him and preventing him from coming to harm by screaming abuse at me every day of my life.

We have gone an entire day under great duress without any thank you's, or I love you's, or apologies, or any kind words. And we'll do the same tomorrow. 

there is no escape

 

In a previous post, "Invisible Friends, Imaginary Enemies" I wrote about what it is like to care for a relative (in this case, my father) who has both narcissism and dementia, a situation in which not only is the carer never truly seen by the outside world, but the person they are caring for can't see them as a friend only as an enemy. It is devastating and being any kind of carer for anyone is already incredibly fatiguing, challenging beyond belief, and difficult to get any kind of respite, and news flash: most carers are dying for some kind of relief... but lately I have felt, more than ever, that there is no escape.

I feel like I'm in a labyrinth with the exits sealed off, one by dementia, and one by narcissism and I'm never getting out of here. 

Every single person feeds the narcissist and not one person ever feeds the carer. Not only are we starving, but when people pander to a narcissist they ultimately make the narcissist's personality and the conditions surrounding them so much worse, for everyone. Because it has to be said:

You cannot feed a narcissist, because you cannot fill a narcissist. They are a bottomless pit. A sink hole of humanity. A parasite. Engorged by glory, they expect more glory. More of everything they want. Without consideration for anyone else. Without appreciation for anyone else. Without reciprocation. Without pause.

Even aged care, dementia, and medical professionals pander to this man. No one has formally explained to my father that he has dementia. Let's think about that one for a moment.... most people with dementia, are given their diagnosis, yes it is distressing, (and sometimes they might even forget it temporarily) but over all, what happens is - they are given time to prepare. They lean on their family, they allow a spouse or family member to cover for them when they forget what day it is, or an important birthday, or can't remember where the car is parked. They trust their family to help them when they are confused or frightened - yes eventually the cruelty of this disease (or condition) is that they will eventually find little comfort even in their family, their panic and confusion escalates, but at least in the beginning, they were aware that something was happening, and that they could harness their family and friends to face this responsibly.

Even when my father is assessed for dementia, and the progression of his dementia, he is told "you did so well!" he emerges dripping with praise - now its well meaning, I grant you, it is said to make the person feel better after being probed, quizzed, and asked to jump through mental hoops, I get that - but all he remembers is that he did well.... he uses it as proof there is nothing wrong with him. 

NO ONE HAS TOLD HIM and we, his family are copping the brunt of it all. I am the only person who attempts to explain to him, and my mother rushes in, tells me to be quiet and then gives Dad whatever the hell he wants. And he's not so far gone that he hasn't learned that temper tantrums get rewarded because he at least has the savvy of a two year old.

He does not understand why he cannot have the house keys anymore. He doesn't understand why he is not legally allowed to drive. He doesn't know he doesn't still own a house he sold over 30 years ago and accuses my mother of selling it out from under him and taking all the money. He doesn't remember his sons, even in photographs from the past, because his particular brand of dementia is not making him an expert on every tiny detail of the past, it is destroying his brain and his entire mental capacity across time - his memories of the past are not even correct. He tells me he likes my sister better than me and I don't even have a fucking sister (its not however news to me that he doesn't like me)

And yippee, in the middle of this we get approved for an entire day of dementia day care for Dad once a week. Please make sure you read yippee in my most drippingly sarcastic voice because this is what we needed for Dad two years ago, and now my greatest fear is that this one day of "relief" a week will simply allow my mother to keep us all living in this untenable situation for even longer. Because the one day a week does nothing to improve our daily home life - it does not give us superhuman strength to fully supervise my father like a toddler holding a button battery needs to be supervised. It does not keep any of us safe, de-stressed, or lessen in any way the relentless screaming and fighting in this household. It does, however, increase it. So thanks for that people. That's fucking awesome.

In order to get our day of "relief" we have to fight with Dad every day for a week because he does not remember the days of the week anymore and cannot believe us that it is not Thursday yet. In fact Dad has some theories about the calendar being changed and that weekends never come anymore, and that he liked the way the calendar used to be. And because he is a narcissist, the thing is, if he doesn't know what day of the week it is, we sure as shit don't know either. Because we are lesser. 

Then on Thursday mornings we have to search dad for "show off materials" because the only way he knows how to socialise is to show off all his accomplishments (as an artist and before that as a competitive cyclist) with photo albums, books, scrapbooks, certificates and all kinds of vintage papers that we have been asked not to allow him to bring because this is just a day where people socialise as naturally as possible. Which is completely unnatural to a narcissist. And we have nuclear tantrums over this every week. 

At the end of a very long day, really too long for my father, we bring home an over tired, cranky old man and have trouble getting through the necessary end of day activities made even harder by the fact that any time my father leaves this house, upon return we can have 2-3 hours of screaming about things he has lost and that are in the car. That are not in the car. Because they are on the table right in front of all of our very eyes. Usually it is his eye glasses. He has one pair of sunglasses, two current prescription sets of glasses, and one old prescription set of glasses. And you can lay all the glasses cases out in front of him, with a pair of glasses in each and he swears black and blue they are not there they are in the car and we have to let him search the car for things that cannot possibly be there... because they are here but he cannot believe us and he cannot let go of the idea that he has to search the car. Even if we let him futilely search the car multiple times. And then it arcs up again right before bed when we all should be relaxing and getting ready for some sleep.

And that brings me to my next point... I don't even have the escape of sleep anymore. It takes hours to get to sleep. It takes Dad about 2 hours from when he says goodnight to when he stops yelling and fighting and faffing about. I need a couple of hours to unwind. Then if I do achieve sleep, Dad comes into my room in the middle of the night saying things like "there is someone at the front door" followed by "I guess she is staying out all night" (meaning my sister, who doesn't exist... but might possibly be a memory of me... because I have a theory that he thinks bout the relationship he used to have with me before he was my childhood abuser and our relationship was altered forever) but he worries incessantly about someone not being here who should be here, and opens all the doors and turns on all the lights and I just need some fucking sleep.

I also used to escape by taking my dog for a walk, but even that escape has been taken from me.... and this is how narcissism is a tricky devil. My Dad, who still goes for walks in the neighbourhood on his own (I personally don't approve of this at all, but Mum lets him) anyway.... he tells everyone he meets about me and my dog, Captain, so now all the people in the neighbourhood who used to be my friends, and part of my escape.... first thing they ever do now is ask me "how's your Dad?" I JUST WANT TO GET AWAY FROM HIM AND ALL THOUGHTS OF HIM is that too much to ask? But all the people have to tell me in great detail how concerned they are about him when they see him walking, because he struggles so hard with his mobility, he is so slow, he is oblivious, he can't hear traffic or people calling out to him, he walks in the rain, he walks in the cold, he walks in the heat wave of summer, he walks on the road if there is no foot path and sometimes, worst of all, he walks without his walker and then tells concerned people that his wife has the walker (a. she doesn't need a walker b. he has two walkers) and then he wonders how I could possibly know any of this about him... because he doesn't realise telling every single person in the entire neighbourhood identifiable things about myself and my dog is the reason everyone knows exactly who to come to with their worries about him. And when is the last time he ever thanked me for being concerned bout him? Twelfth of Never. That's when. 

And I forgot to mention that the day of "respite" actually cost us another essential service we use - transport. Because Dad got assessed at a higher level, my parents now have lost their transport service because that provider can only cater to entry level care and so even though mum is entry level, dad is now higher and they can't have access to subsidised transport with their original provider AND NO REPLACEMENT has been offered. And we can't cancel the daycare because its under contract and although my parents do not pay a cent for the daycare, they would have to pay to cancel the contract. And the only way we are getting out of this is to put Dad in a home, which is what I want, and what we all need, and is probably never going to happen. 

And that is how you get a pressure cooker of a care situation. And since I'm venting, please, don't expect me to magically resolve this for everyone right here and now. I feel like am trapped and have no escape and I am not ending this post on a positive note. I just am not. I'm too lost and broken to do anything but lay it out for you. Caring for someone with dementia is hard. Caring for someone with dementia and narcissism is full nuclear and should not be attempted in your own home. And people in the dementia and aged care fields need special training to identify dementia patients who have narcissism so that they can respond appropriately to the patient and their family. That's it. That's the post.

If I'm still here next week instead of rotting in an insane asylum I will try and write a new post. With humour. 

the lunatic waving a bag of poo

 I think I need to talk about the day that I had yesterday. It was a day of frustrations, disappointments, extreme stress, a fleeting moment of extraordinary good cheer, and then earth shattering awkwardness. Are you ready?... let's delve.

I woke up much earlier than I was ready for, in the dark, and the chilly winter morn, to walk my dog. When I got home I had to bring in the day's firewood, which I dropped on my bare foot. Don't worry it only tickled. Of course it didn't, it hurt like blazes. For goodness sake!

It was Wednesday so that meant it was grocery day, and it was very people-y out there and I Eleven-Out-of-Ten do not recommend. After completing my shop with the speed and efficiency of a well oiled machine, I sat in the car for over an hour waiting for my mother to finish her shop. Then we staggered home to COVID clean our groceries and fall on some muffins to save our lives. The muffins were okay-ish.

Now get ready, if you are one of my overseas readers, I am about to shatter some of the illusions you have about living in Australia. 

What people imagine my life in Australia is like:

I live on a massive property, the kind it takes a day to drive across, and there are kangaroos hopping around everywhere, and I have Koala Butlers, and we eat wattle seed ice cream melting over lamingtons and shout out Coo-eee! to help lost people find their way to safety. Then we all go swimming at Bondi Beach and play cricket and call in sick from work the next day even though we're just hung over. And when we prank call people we say "G-day mate!"

What my life in Australia is actually like:

Sometimes a kangaroo swims across the river and gets lost in my suburb and panic hops at high speeds into culdesacs and frightens the living shit out of my dog who tears my arm out of the socket as we run away. A patron of the drug dealer across the road drove their car into my house, I was inhospitable (I didn't crack open a cold one and wait for the police, I screamed "I am going to fucking kill you!") I hate cricket. And football. And my house is so close to my neighbour's patio that when I'm in my toilet yelling at my family to bring me some toilet paper, I can hear him laughing.

Which is to say, yesterday I had to repeatedly yell out for someone to please, for the love of God, bring me some fucking toilet paper. I really fantasised hard about having a butler koala at that time.

But to shatter another of your Aussie illusions... koalas are fucking lazy bastards. They sleep nearly all the time because they have barely adequate nutrition from eating only eucalyptus leaves and when they are awake they are mostly disagreeable, grumpy bastards. But we deserve it because we are destroying their habitat. Sorry about that. You have to know actual Australian people care very deeply about this, we just have really shitty government.

But still, I couldn't let go of the idea of a Butler Koala. 

Until my Dad wore his $8000 hearing aids in the shower. That was the cause of the extreme stress mentioned in the intro of this post. I can't even talk about this - which is really telling because I never shut up about anything. This was really unbelievably bad.

Then I took my dog for his afternoon walk, and was absolutely cheered to see my niece's husband driving the van used to drop off elderly clients after a social day, he was waving, and I had one hand bound in several loops of dog lead, and the other hand was carrying something. Okay it was dog poo. I waved a bag of dog poo with a massive smile on my face.

After dinner I messaged my niece's husband and said "you're not really my friend until I've waved a bag of dog poo at you" 

A couple of hours later I was messaged by my niece (not his wife, my other niece, who works with him) and she said "I waved at you today, but I don't think you knew who it was, based on the way you were waving"

WHAT THE FUCK!!! 

The van has tinted windows, and I had dark sunglasses on, and I have shitty vision, and I thought I was waving at Stuart and I was actually waving at Amber, and to make things worse, although they work together, Stuart was not even in the van.

So... the first private message I sent Stuart in two years, (the last one was welcoming him into the family the night before his wedding) and that came in after... well... my niece and he might be (but probably are) separating was to say "you're not really my friend until I've waved a bag of dog poo at you" AND I HADN'T WAVED A BAG OF DOG POO AT HIM sounds like goodbye, you weren't even thought highly enough to have me wave a bag of excrement at you. Which is not the truth Stuart. I promise.

The one thing that cheered me up about this whole craptastrophe (crap catastrophe) is thinking Amber would have seen me when she was driving the van and said, "Hey, there's my Aun- [sees me waving a bag of poo] never mind, I don't know that person"

Amber tells me she totally would have still claimed me as her own, even waving a bag of dog poo at a van of senior citizens, and I believe her.

Because we are truly kindreds.

And Stuart is a mighty calm man, because when I did send him that, unfortunate message, his reply was not "what the heck are you talking about?" it was "I didn't notice" like he totally had seen me, just hadn't seen the poo. What a champ. 

And I am sitting here feeling a lot of love right now, for everyone in this story (except the druggie who drove into my house) and that is why talking about this stuff helps. Thanks for listening. Or reading. You know what I mean. 

So how was your day?

Along came a spider

 

On a hot summer afternoon, New Year's Eve 2020 to be precise, I discovered a spider in the middle of one of my lavender bushes, which was a trifle alarming as I was sticking my hand in to remove fallen, dead branch from the tree overhead. At that point in time I had little interest in spiders but thinking I might never see this one again (I've never seen one like it in my garden before) I ran inside for my phone and snapped a photo of it before it disappeared. This blog post is the journey of how "it" became "her" and then an absolutely revered poster child and the highlight of my day, every day. Its inconceivable how much this spider came to mean to me but with life caring for my dementia suffering father at home being so stressful, both my mother and I became obsessed with our little garden pet who was there, faithfully, unfailingly in any weather, day or night. She gave us a very great gift, an escape, and it became impossible for us to walk past without checking what she was doing, in short she was like having a television in the back yard - we watched every episode of her show, and here are the highlights, just for you...

It was exciting to me that every time I looked, right there, in the same place in the web, my spider was there, after two weeks I felt safe to give it a name, as an orb spider I decided to name it Roy Orbison, I did this before I even knew that Roy was a female, but the name stuck. So love it or hate it, my spider is Roy Orbison The Spider. Basically as soon as I posted the name announcement I decided to try and find out if Roy was male or female, so I googled, as you do, and stumbled into some fascinating but also horrifying information that I jokingly refer to as Violent Spider Erotica, which I will briefly recap, but you can read the highly entertaining account from Southern Forest Life here. I felt like I needed a stiff drink after I read it. 

Basically I became certain that Roy was female and I was prepared to look for smaller spiders around the edge of the web that may be males, and I learned that should they attempt to mate they were certainly taking their life in their hands, and if they survived it might be at the cost of some of their eight limbs. In fact those poor little virgin spiders are probably the only boys to have all their legs. The detailed description of the spider copulation had me amused and horrified but I tell you, as someone who has no interest in being courted, Roy became my poster girl. LOVE YOU ROY!

I also learned that Roy was not a Golden Orb Spider but a Banded Orb Spider - which to my eye, have the more interesting markings. Both the photos I've shown so far are of her underside - the most photographed side because the markings are so very interesting, and I could get closer and clearer images than from the other side. The image below shows her top side, and Roy was consuming a tasty snack of cricket, which was a very exciting day for us, it prompted another google search and I learned that she has no teeth but will suck the moisture out of her prey and then discard the shell - this took her about 20 hours and as a proud mama I took lots of photo, and some video.

However, I've gotten ahead of myself sharing that image - that happened after what we call The Regrettable Incident. You see, as much as we loved looking at Roy, for a long time she really didn't appear to do anything. There were never any males hanging around the outside of the web, there was never sign of prey in the web, the web and her position in the web remained so very "same". Even the position of her legs was perfectly the same. She faced the same way every day. Still it wasn't until we had several days of extreme stormy weather, bucketing rain, thunder, lightning, severe winds and she just sat there in the open the whole time. Before the storm I had mentioned to mum a few times that I thought she might be dead. That she never took shelter in the storm made us sure she was dead. Still we just kept on saying "Good morning Roy" cheerfully every day, ignoring our growing sinking feeling that she was certainly no longer one of the living. 

One day I decided to lightly toss a little Chinese Tallow tree seed pod into the web to see if she would move. Nothing. I tossed another and accidentally hit her. Nothing. I thought she was dead. Another day I got a stick and poked it towards her in the web. Nothing. No reaction. I then video taped putting a twig near her front leg. Nothing. I posted the video on Facebook and can famously be heard saying "damn, Roy, you're dead"

Mum and I were very disappointed about it, but that sinking feeling had been with us for many days, I felt it was time to face reality. That's why the Regrettable Incident occurred. I got the pooper scooper and put it into her web to retrieve her body, I thought I could take a few close up photos and then maybe dispose of her. Well fuck me! She bloody fell into the bush, where I couldn't see her. I wasn't sure but I thought maybe her leg had moved as the blue plastic shovel touched her for the first time, but it was possible that moving the web made her appear to move, I mean the shovel was fairly trashing the web. But I went inside and told mum that I lost Roy in the bush and we moped a little bit.

In just three hours, I walked past that bush to find Roy building her web again. I ran to the dining room window and shouted "Roy Orbison is alive!" (which might be disturbing to my neighbours, but they probably already think I'm crazy anyway) and Mum jumped up and came straight away to watch as Roy Orbison The Spider spun her web again from scratch, in exactly the same place. We were overjoyed. Really, almost to tears of joy. So relieved. Then I realised that I owed Roy a massive apology. I am shit. And to be honest, what I would have looked like the time I gently poked her with the twig, is like the episode of Friends when they thought ugly naked guy was dead....

I swear I looked like this....

I can still feel what I felt that day, I was elated, just so, so happy to have more time with Roy. I also felt quite terrible about smashing up her web and probably stressing her out. With friends like me, who needs enemies! I was saying sorry to her all the time, and that triggered my next google search to know whether spiders can hear or not. I was glad to know that although they don't have ears, they seem to respond to sound, probably from vibrations. So I continued to apologise and say good morning every day. 

I tell you this though, life with Roy became a heck of a lot more interesting after the regrettable incident - she gave me daily Proof of Life, which was smart on her part because she knew what was coming for her when she died - a blue plastic children's sandpit shovel that serves as our pooper scooper. Who wants that when they die?

After that, it seems like so many more fascinating things happened with Roy, which I also took as more than just her waving hello with one leg, and giving me the assurance I needed that she was still with me, but I felt that with her beginning to devour quite large snacks for days on end that she might be preparing for sex, babies, and maybe even actual death. Most female orb spiders will die in late Autumn after having babies and we were in summer. I documented everything she did because I knew time was ticking by. Roy was here for a good time, not a long time.

Roy caught and consumed this cricket one Saturday morning as I cheered her on. And every time she did something I learned more and more. I was delighted to be able to see her pedipalps in this image (after checking what the heck they are called) more googling, lol. Actually when I googled "how to spiders eat" the first result google gave me was how to eat Roy because apparently she tastes like patè and I was horrified. That's not what I meant Google! 

Another snack, I was certain Roy was beginning to consume food almost like a bear preparing for hibernation - she needed energy for the big adventures before her - babies and death. I was excited but also aware that Roy wasn't going to be with us forever... so that's when I did a completely ridiculous and unnecessary thing... I designed a t-shirt with her on it.

I considered making a shirt that said "security by Roy Orbison the Spider" but we were having a state election and I couldn't resist the thought of wearing this shirt to the polling booth. I also had some stickers made with a white background. Vote for Roy Orbison The Spider!

When I took the very first photograph of Roy, I didn't know it would be the first of many and when I took the photograph above, I didn't know it would be the last photograph I ever took of her... but turns out... it was.

One morning I went outside and Roy was not there. The only time she was ever not in that web was the time I knocked her into the bush in an ill fated attempt to retrieve her body with a used pooper scooper. My heart sank. I examined the bush for any sign of her and here is what I found....

something I thought, (to be honest) at least fifty percent resembled a bird shit, and the other fifty percent like a tiny green turtle. Another sprint to google confirmed that this indeed resembled known egg sacs of spiders of this kind, and we never saw Roy again. 

Genius that Roy is, she knew better than to leave me completely bereft by her sudden departure she left me her babies... which is not unusual her kind often fail to protect their egg sac and abscond or die after creating their first haven. I do think Roy probably died before I even found the egg sac, but certainly she will die this season if she has not already, and this is her eulogy.

A eulogy for a spider, because she came into my life, took my mind of the absolute insanity of caring for a dementia patient in my home, and gave me a reason to learn about as well as document nature, and she made me feel totally okay about my anti-romance stance. For the rest of my life I may never have the relationship with a spider that I've enjoyed with Roy - they come and they go, you see them once and never see them again, or you do but you have no way of knowing its the same one. Some of them are dangerous, but I've learned that I can be this involved, this absorbed with a spider and not have nightmares... not once. 

And here are Roy's babies, life goes on, she has left me a legion of babies... some will perish, some may eat the others, some will float in the wind off to new homes, and maybe, just maybe one will make a home in the lavender bush, and the story will resume. Only time will tell. 

Yesterday morning I found what looked like a blackberry in the web, but it is a teeming mass of baby orb spiders, if you look carefully you can see individual spiders with all their legs and stripes like their Mama. Today the blackberry is breaking up, the spiders disperse and begin to explore the world and its so exciting. I will have to be patient as once they disperse they are so tiny I'll never find them, but if, in time I find one or two have stayed in my garden, I will let you know. 

countdown of moments I really lost my shit in 2020

 

Ten years ago, I designed and printed for myself a t-shirt that was supposed to be highly motivational (to me) it read: Success or Institutionalisation by 2020" and here we are, coming out of a year in which many of us were in some way, for some time, driven absolutely bonkers and taken out of circulation under some kind of lockdown. And if I were to be dropped off, or picked up, to go into a mental institution, here are the 10 moments of 2020 that would be responsible for said occasion:

1. When people physically brawled with each other to grab toilet paper.  

2. When I stumbled into some kind of juvenile grudge match with a feral couple and their two virtually rabid dogs while walking my dog. Said feral couple were walking towards my dog and I, and because they haven't trained their dogs (they've settled for simply holding onto the lead while they go absolutely insane with aggression) the man crossed the road with the two dogs and the woman walked passed me on my side of the road to wait at their car. Considering the absolute spectacle these two dogs were making, my dog was doing a beautiful job calmly walking on our side of the road, until we drew level with the rabid little bastards - he stopped. He stopped because if we kept going the dogs would be out of his sightline, behind him, and before he turned his back on two practically rabid dogs he wants to assess whether to do so is safe for him, and for me. I have a great partnership with my dog, so I allowed him this moment to stop. Feral Woman yelled out "KEEP WALKING!" to which I turned in amazement to say "what the fuck?" Lady I would like to keep walking, but your feral dogs are disrupting my nice, peaceful walk with my fully and beautifully trained dog, and you have no idea about pack behaviour - you out number us in dogs, in people, and with a large vehicle behind us, you represent an encircling threat and are the reason there is a problem. After a moment my dog is ready to go onwards, because he trusts me, and is a good boy. After walking on our way the couple drove past us, screamed out the window "learn some manners" and I yelled back "fuck you!" because I save my manners for people who aren't rude and ignorant in the first place. So they flipped me off out their car windows and I flipped them back. I mean, sheesh! Talk about clueless. I was livid. They've been rude to many other dog walkers in the neighbourhood and have a poor relationship with the general community of regulars, but have no idea the problem their dog handling skills pose.

3. When the power went out and my Dad kept badgering me to check our electrical switches, both Mum and I repeatedly explained to him that we were not going to do that because the power was out in the whole street. After 30 minutes of bitter arguing I got my phone out and googled power outage in our neighbourhood and learned that a transformer had blown and 20,000 households were without power. To which he replied in all seriousness that we don't live in our neighbourhood. And I drank all the vodka. 

4. When my Dad brought home a book he chose from the discount table outside the newsagent that was described as being about a hybrid-demon and a girl who is used to playing dirty and billed with the nausea inducing blurb "passion like this will scorch you to the very soul" And again two weeks later when he complained the book was rubbish. And again at least once a week for several months as he kept the book on our coffee table for reasons unknown.

5. When I woke up in the middle of the night with an insane deathbed regret: I never won pass the parcel at a birthday party when I was a kid. Seriously this random thought had my heart pounding and seemed so important that I couldn't function, while the tiny unaffected part of me screamed "shut up, it doesn't matter, go to fucking sleep!"

6. When I accidentally ingested very, very expired whipped cream from a can during lockdown. It tasted a little piney but I kept eating. Then I thought, maybe don't eat this... and yeah it was months out of date. MONTHS. It was a long night, but not the worst night I ever had (food wise)

7. Another crazy night time thought was when, out of the blue, in the middle of the night, I thought about how my sister in law doesn't like cucumbers. I've known this about her for years. But all of a sudden I sat bolt upright in bed saying "oh my God, does that mean she doesn't like pickles?" I mean I really, really love pickles and all of a sudden I was dying to know if she doesn't eat pickles. It was like an emergency, only about absolute shite. 

8. During this year I might also have developed the reputation as a bit of a sociopath in the consumer focus group I'm part of. When we were asked about how we prevent ourselves from getting stressed out from being busy I just flat out told them "I prevent becoming busy by telling people I'm busy, when I'm not, and then doing whatever the hell I want" I'm either a genius or a sociopath.

9. Recently we have had to ban my Dad from having toothpicks (because he loses them all the time, he doesn't even notice they are on the floor) my dog has been caught chewing them up several times and so no more toothpicks in this household! Then my Dad became obsessed with the idea of sneaking out to the garage to find some sandpaper to rub on his teeth. Which just about finished the hatchet job on the sanity of both Mum and myself.

10. The strange incident at the dog park, where my dog, and another dog poo'd in the same area about the same time and the other owner and I both had to walk all the way there to pick poo up. I was coming from closer, so I got there first. I was just tying a knot in the bag when this man said to me "that's my dog's poo" It honestly took me a few cold seconds to register that this had actually been said. I had no idea why it had been said or what he was expecting... so I just waited to see if he would say anything else. He did not. Eventually I asked him "do you.... erm.... want.... your dog's poo?" while waving the dog poo at him. He said nothing. He eventually snapped the dog lead onto his dog's collar, and walked off. And I stood there thinking "what the fuck just happened?" Really what was that? Who was that? 

And somehow I made it through the year... maybe my sanity is a little dinged up but... its 2021 here and I'm sure I'll continue losing my shit every now and then, and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in that. So anyway, I'm glad you made it through 2020 too, and I wish you the very best for 2021. 

a strange tale about dog poo

 

O Captain, My Captain

Tomorrow I celebrate an entire year with my totally adorable sidekick, Captain, a kelpie x black lab who is  so funny and so sweet that he is the one redeeming feature of this dung heap of a year. I was planning to write a little tribute to him - but basically who needs it - we all know that dogs are the best! and rescue is fabulous, and of course I reckon he is the best dog and a GOOD BOI. 

What I can write about that is possibly the most unique thing that has happened to me this year is what happened when I took Captain out for our morning walk today. Which is incredible. Even by Mandurah standards.

So here we go....

This morning, Captain was in the off leash, and so was another dog. Now I'm not sure who started it but somehow both dogs were pooping in the same area at pretty much the same time. Maybe they were racing? Competing for turf? Who knows... but they both pooped and I had to walk all the way over to pick up poo and so did this other guy. 

I was just tying a knot in the poop bag when this guy says to me "that is my dog's poo"

Alrighty then.

Taken aback, I waited to see if he had anything else to say.

Which he did not.

So eventually I said, "Do you.... erm.... want... your dog's poo?" and held the bag out towards him.

He eyed me.

We stood in complete silence.

Then he clipped his lead on his dog's collar and walked off without saying anything.

WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED?

I thought at first maybe he didn't want to pick up strange dog's poo (like germ wise?) and then I thought maybe he needed the poo for a sample for the vet? But he said nothing. The first and only thing he said to me is "that is my dog's poo"

How did he say it? Flat. Statement of Fact. Kind of soulless. A little bit like someone who has been brainwashed or hypnotised. Possibly stoned out of his gourd.

And there you go, it is Mandurah, after all.

And I stood there (possibly) holding someone else's dog's poo and wondering if I was supposed to pick up the second poo. And wondering if someone just totally played me to get out of picking up dog shit at 6.30 in the morning.

And I still really don't know.

But I've met a lot of people while walking my dog, and this one has just become a Hall of Famer. 

In an ideal world I have another 10-15 years with Captain and a lot of people to share wonderful and awkward moments with. So here is to my dog, Captain, long may he live.