What i have learned from Dogs

Wishy is only tiny, being a mini fox terrier or at least partly so. The attitude is incredible though, he will stop at nothing to get his teeth into the toe of a dog twenty times his size.

From cats i learned the benefits to health of intense stretching and dedicated relaxation. From dogs i learned how to ignore pain in the pursuit of interesting smells, and how to get comfortable on a cold floor.

The problem with humans is that we have the unreasonable expectation of being allowed to continue with habitual behavior after it has become dysfunctional. We have a sentimental attachment to routine which is almost disgusting. The way we build and drive cars, for example, has left us with a regular incidence of trauma which is so utterly grotesque in its frequency that it defies the logic available to us.

Of course i am far from innocent of these mistakes myself but somehow i made it to middle age and can now enjoy trying to survive for a change.

Here is hoping that your day is fine and accident free, that your pets get some of your time to indulge wordless interaction and that your descendants get what they deserve, in the best possible way…

Springtime in Adelaide

After the downside of the last two posts, both of which were written in the eighties when i needed to understand the negativity around me, i thought i should raise the tone a bit with some discussion on the glory of spring time in Adelaide.

Adelaide, known to some as the Athens of the South, is a well placed and well planned city of a million souls which resides between the sheltered Gulfof St. Vincent and the low hills where i live. The climate is Mediterranean the people are cosmopolitan and the dessert which surrounds us is so laden with mineral resources that it is unlikely that we will ever suffer the deprivations that most cities suffer at some stage in their histories.

In the spring the suburban streets are coloured and perfumed by fruit trees in blossom until early summer when the Jacaranda flowers take over. In the hills it all starts with an abundance of Wattle blossom which cover windows cars and puddles with a thick yellow dusting of pollen.

Spring has not officially begun but here it is. Though i am sure that you the reader will enjoy your spring where ever you are, the Adelaide spring always brings a quiet sense of luxuriously good luck to my stiff old bones. The mild winter has been survived and a scorching summer of brilliant beach and melting traffic awaits.

There is a marvelous old expression which can sometimes be heard about these parts, it goes something like this, “wouldn’t be dead for quids, eh!”

And while we’re on the subject, another oldie (1986)

Drip

Needle a little extra credibility

Suffer in glourious bullshit

Sleeve buttons at cuff

To put hell on the loose

And its better than T.V.

Or food

One day you might wake up

Or you might stay asleep

Too bad if the dreaming is over

Wasted…

To a client, fortunately not one of my shifts

Rush hour traffic

Grinding my heart into

Grey road dust

Nothing can stop me now

My body is over

I’ve chosen the only way out

Suicides glorious

Midnight express

Freedom

We all pay some sort of price for the freedom we have and for most of us the rewards are worth it. For those stalwart characters who have supplied me with the first 95 hits to this blog i must explain that i have deleted the early entries in order to protect my position as a volunteer with the local ambulance corp.

I will not be posting any more posts relating to that corp or its work until the legitimacy of doing so is completely clear. In the meantime i am of course free to continue posting posts relating to other matters and i hope to keep you occasionally entertained or otherwise educated by making them as diverse as they were to start with.

As the phoenix piece i would like to include the words my love found on a scrap of paper amongst the belongings of ancient but still wise Rev. C.L.Penn;

–

       Petrol

            oil} tanks full

       air

       oxygen. S.Union

       everything tightened up

       brakes all right

       Petrol on, throttle closed

       ignition on. Press starter

       swing engine over, rev up

       brakes off, chocks

       away, taxi along into

       wind, rev up fuller &

       fuller, take off. Draw

       up undercarriage.

       Climb into wind. Away

       over land and Sea.

       Singapore music swells

       heat, ice drinks, Chinese.

– 

This is how she found it and we both got a good giggle out of it, hope you do too. Somewhere i have a similar piece that my grandma Nina, his wife Ruth (Penn, Newell, Robilliard) did about the first moon landing.

I am convinced that Rev.Clive and Ma Ruth loved each-other so because they viewed the world in the same way.