The Perfect Pets

A little while back there was a cat kind of stalking my house. The previous owners of the house had warned us that there were two cats that always strolled around as though they owned the place. I thought that was unlikely, as I'm pretty sure strolling can only be done on two legs, not four - but it turns out that they were right - we do have two strolling cats. It's a bit like having a pet, only way less work because I don't have to feed them or clean up after them. Also, I don't have to worry about where they are at night or get cat hair on everything, which makes them the perfect pets for me. I have even given them names. 'Fatty' for the fat Calico one, and 'creepy' for the creepy sort-of-black one that always stares at me with crazy eyes. I did briefly think about calling him Crazy, but Creepy seemed a little nicer.

About a week ago I was looking out my front window trying to out-stare Creepy when I noticed that there was something else running through our garden. It took me a second to spot him because he was ducking in and out of the trees. It was a boy of about 6 or 7 years of age. He was running around, playing some sort of imaginary game that involved ducking and weaving and I think possibly shooting things. He was there for about a minute or so and then he ran off back to the neighbours yard.

I've seen him about 3 more times since then, playing his strange imaginary game in our front yard and I've decided that 3 visits is enough for me to add him to the pet roster along with Creepy and Fatty. He needs a name to join the roster, and I've thought of a few, but nothing that seems right so far.

Initially I though I could call him Ducky, because of all the ducking and weaving he does around the trees - but that reminded me of the guy from that TV show 'NCIS' and he's a bit too chatty for a boy that runs silently around the front yard.

I thought of Johnny, because generic little boys in books are always named Johnny - but that seemed a bit too generic for a pet name. That is also why I discounted 'boy' - because there are too many dogs called 'dog' and cats called 'cat'.

I'm at a bit of a loss for a new name, so until I can think of something more appropriate, I'm going to call him Dough, because it's a bit like calling him John Doe, but marginally more interesting.

All suggestions are welcome.

Freaky Baby Danger

I have this theory that because of all the preservatives and chemicals and what-not in our food nowadays, it's having a weird effect on humans in the long term. A bit like evolution, but not in a good way. I figure that this is what is causing things such as women having babies that are too big to actually come out of their bodies without being cut out.

Ok, so my sister-in-law's baby fit out of her body, but surely a very small woman giving birth to a 10 pound, 6 ounce baby is not something that should happen in the normal order of things. I also think it's not normal to squeeze out a baby that big without the aid of drugs to kill the pain, but I don't think I can blame that on the additives in food so much as my sister-in-law being crazy. Although the craziness may be a result of the food.

So I'm an Aunty again - and today I actually held a new born baby for more than 20 seconds. Freaky. It's not that I'm not one of those people who are scared they're going to break the kid because they're so small - that's not something that has ever even really crossed my mind. It's more the fact that they freak me out, because they make all sorts of weird noises and they cry for things, but they can't tell you what it is that's wrong with them. It's just not normal. And the noises they make aren't reassuring noises. They're weird gurgling, wheezing, clicky noises that are the kind of sounds that can convince you that something is seriously wrong. Even if it's not.

When I left the hospital today, they hadn't filled out the name on the birth certificate, so I might still be in with a chance to give him Danger as a middle name. My Sister-in-law isn't so keen on it, but my brother thinks it's great, so it could still happen. He suggested tat they could give the baby 2 middle names -A normal name, like John, plus Danger. Then they could just not tell him that Danger is his middle name, so he wouldn't know until he went to get a passport or something - and surely that would be the best way to find out that Danger is your middle name.

Danger is (or will be) his middle name

My Sister-in-Law was supposed to make a baby on Wednesday, but sadly, she is still pregnant. I say sadly, because tomorrow is my birthday and as I love birthdays so much, it won't do to share my birthday with the new baby - We will be ripped off out of one party per year if that happens. Our birthday celebrations will forever be combined, when we could easily be having two separate parties and double the birthday fun.

I've asked her to try to hold the baby in for a bit longer so that it won't happen, but apparently things don't work that way. I have a feeling she's going to go into labour tomorrow. I told her that for my birthday present, I wanted to pick the baby's middle name. I've picked 'Danger'. That way, when he gets older he can tell everyone 'Danger is my middle name.' She wasn't very impressed. My brother thought it was great - and it's definitely way better than splodgy, so I guess we'll just have to wait and see how it goes.

Mini Me

On Saturday just gone, I went to our local BMW dealership to look at new cars. I got it into my head that I wanted a new car, and although I’m not really a BMW driving kind of girl (ok, I’m not even remotely close) the only car with any real personality that is under stupid-thousand dollars is the BMW Mini. The plan was that I would go there, sit in the car, hate it and then leave without ever looking back. Sadly, this is not the way things panned out.

The car fit me. That was very unexpected.

For this to make sense, you have to understand how I feel about my current car. I love it the way that people love their kids. It is like a part of my family. When my car turned 30, we had a 30^th birthday party for it (ok, that was more of an excuse to get drunk than anything else). I have always been convinced that no other car could ever come close to being as great or suiting me so well. So I wasn’t expecting to want to own this new car quite so much.

The worst part about this whole experience is that now I have that feeling where you decide you really, really, really want something, but you know that it’s not really possible - because it turns out that the Mini isn’t quite as affordable as I’d hoped. I could stretch my budget and afford it, but sadly I’m supposed to be saving to pay for a wedding, which means that I can’t have the car that I want. Now I’m sad. And I feel like I’m cheating on my car, but without really getting anything out of it. I’ve spent the last few days trying to think of a way that I can stretch my budget in a creative way so that I can afford a wedding and a car. I figure if I just stop eating lunch and cut off my phone and possibly the electricity in my house, then I might be able to afford it.

That sounds like a silly thing to say, but the salesman who was trying very hard to sell me the car said at one point

‘If you really like the sunroof, then it’s worth spending the money – after all, it’s only the difference of one decent meal a fortnight’

Can you believe that?! I guess at a BMW dealership they’re used to selling cars worth hundreds of thousands of dollars – so I guess they’re a little blasé about the money it costs to buy one of their cheap cars and how important regular meals are.

I actually laughed out loud when he was telling me about some of the features that come with the car. It has interior lights that can change to a whole range of different colours to ‘set the mood’. I had no idea mood lighting was so important in a car – especially a car that is too small for anyone to get up to no good in.

I guess the only bonus of me being so amused by all the silly options you can get is that the fewer options you want, the cheaper the car gets. Maybe one day I’ll be able to scrounge up the money to buy one. Until then I guess it’s just me and my 30 year old kid.

Splodgy

A very very sad thing is happening this Thursday. My long time lunch buddy (the company receptionist) is going on an extended holiday. This means that for 5 long weeks, I will have no-one to eat lunch with. I will be spending my lunch break hanging out in a big group of one.

Ok, that's a half truth. I do have some options, although at this stage, I'm not prepared to consider them. Give me a week or two and I might be so desperate for a lunchtime venting session that i might have to brave it and spend an hour hearing about chatty-lady's daughter's boyfriend's Aunt's Cat's bung leg. I'm just not ready for that quite yet.

In other news, I am about to become an Aunty for the second time. My sister-in-law is due in about a week, and she has spent the last few months trying to think up a suitable middle name for the baby (a boy). They decided that they wanted to let their daughter come up with the name, but it has all ended quite badly because she was genuinely devastated to find that they were unwilling to name their son 'Splodgy'. I tried to tell her that Splodgy is a girl's name and that she needed to pick a good, strong boy's name like Splatty - but it wasn't much help. She knows what she wants and is very vocal about it. I suspect the baby may be call Splodgy, even if his birth certificate says otherwise.