Happy sights to see

An assortment of visual awesomeness of weeks recent:

Canine that knows how to work the dramatic lighting -

Spider that is doing an excellent impersonation of a nubbin on a twig. Only, perhaps, a poor choice of substrate -

Spotted by the Curmudgeon in a suburban shopping centre. A penguin that will test your skills indeed -

Finally, roots shooting (is that an oxymoron? Do shoots, in turn, root? I think not.) on my tomato cuttings, as per everydayinthegarden’s instructions -

So, what’s been delighting your eyeballs? Rewarding your retinas? Percolating pleasingly in your pupils?

Urban farming

Tis that time of year again, when the quantity of tasty things in my garden exceeds the capacity of my belly. Yum. However behold my first ripe tomato:

Boo to you, rot. Boo.

The peach tree is splendid, as always:

Last night while doing the rounds before bed – I like to go out with a torch and watch the spiders building webs – I saw a marbled gecko hanging out on a peach! Probably feasting on the many tiny beetles in the bird-pecked fruit, methinks. Forgive me for linking to the Hun, but apparently lots of folks are reporting geckoes this year.

There’s a word for everything

Don’t you love it when you discover that there is a term for an oft-noticed but otherwise enigmatic phenomenon? And not only that, but there are academics studying it?

When I lived in the US, I was much perplexed by the way those Californians talked. The people on the telly do the same thing… combined with the rapid-fire deadpan delivery that’s all the rage these days, they growl. They drop the tone of their voices way down into their throats, killing all the brightness and life in their speech. Part of the deadpan act, I guess.

Thanks to boingboing.net, I now know it’s called vocal fry. Completely fascinating.

Clouds in my coffee?

Me: There’s a uterus in my coffee.

He: That’s hysterical.

First course in humour

When I was a kid, the family bookshelf reflected the eclectic tastes and lives of my parents. In a low pine bookshelf and a tall Ikea bookshelf, standing side by side in the cork-floored sunroom (remember when houses had sunrooms?), I recall Ian Fleming novels, a copy of The Lord of the Rings that I tried to read several times before declaring it and its ilk annoying and ridiculous pap – an opinion I still hold. There was an illustrated hardback called The Bull Pen that Mum had bought for Dad, full of terrible puns, such as a foul-tempered drawing of a bull titled ‘IRASCIBULL’. I still chuckle when I see it in op shops. We had the full set of supermarket encyclopaedias, superficially handsome World Books in navy with gold lettering, that Dad thought we should read endlessly. We didn’t. He also went nuts at a kid’s book fair once and bought a whole library of children’s reference books which were awesome – drawings of people in their mediaeval lives, cross-section of cells, books on how the Earth formed. Mum’s 1970s social work texts peppered the shelves and revisited the title (but not the contents) of I’m OK, You’re OK many times, trying to work out what that meant. There was a slim tome with lots of diagrams of exercising moustached Canadian air force men claiming one could be top-fit with just a handful of vigorous exercises in your terry-toweling tracksuit.

I started early on the classics from this shelf – Jane Eyre, Tess of the D’Urbevilles, A Christmas Carol. I still have the mangy copy of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass with the name of Dad’s first love written in biro inside the cover. She died unexpectedly, very young, and I know nothing about her but her name. Dad’s other contributions were some racy novels that were very informative; I expect the rather surprising Erotic Art of Pompeii was his, too, and I pretended that I’d never noticed it.

There was one book on the shelf that had my brother and me in stitches. It was Dad’s Latin textbook from his brutal Christian Brothers school. Originally titled ‘LATIN FOR TODAY: First Course’, it was otherwise a very dull bunch of words in a dead language about Marculius and Jerrianus (or whatever) within a ratty avocado green cloth cover. The bit that tickled our juvenile fancies was the modification effected upon the cover by our young father. With a few pen strokes, and some dedicated replication of the title’s serifs, he’d turned it into ‘EATING FOR TODAY: First Course Eggs and Bacon’.

That is one of the formative jokes of my young life. It still tickles my fancy.

Last week I spotted a book in an op shop that, while without the highbrow sophistication of Dad’s joke, was surely forged in the same fire.

Dogs and names

The Curmudgeon, Squid and I went for a long walk on the weekend. So long, in fact, that we had to stop at the cafe/nursery in Yarra Bend Park for tea and mince pies to be sure we’d make it home alive.

As we sat, a woman walked past with a lanky black dog called Max. (We know he was called Max because she addressed him as thus.) We admired his gleaming coat and general handsomeness,  except Squid who was concerned he might get mince pie crumbs that should be hers alone and glared accordingly. His owner took him into the nursery and tied him up.

A minute or two later, an illegally liberated Max trotted out, lead a-trailing. He stomped over to the gate and looked around. Cars were driving in front of him and the possibility of a flat Max was very real. I leaped up and called, “Max! Maxie!”

He jerked his head towards me and pricked up his ears and tail. He ambled over with a look of cheerful bemusement. His demeanour seemed to say, ‘I don’t know who you are, lady, but you know my name so we must be friends.’ I told him he was most excellent and grabbed the end of his lead, delivering him back to his owner. “Excuse me, Max was looking for you over near the gate.” She was a bit concerned but ultimately delighted, as all us dog nuts are when our dogs are delivered safely from potential disaster.

I returned to our table and Max, securely held, kept staring at me for some minutes, amber eyes steadfast across the nursery. He peered around his owner’s legs. I could almost hear the cogs turning in his head. ‘Who the dickens is that? Where have we met before? Was it at the Henderson’s last summer?”

Dogs don’t call one another names, do they? How does Max know that he’s Max, and Squid know that she’s Squid? If a stranger says, “hey, dog,” to Squid, she generally ignores them. Whatevs. But if they say “hey, Squid,” she wriggles and writhes and grins even if she’s never met them before. Maybe, to a dog, their name means “I’m a friendly human who wants to pat you” and each time you use it you’re actually introducing yourself.

Whatever it means, ain’t dogs grand?

Official proclamation

Asparagus is the world’s cutest seedling. That is all.

Beestung

Beestung lips are so hot right now that I went back to the dermatologist today to get injected, sliced and stitched. Never let it be said that I don’t suffer for beauty.

Yup, the Thing grew back. I was decidedly unimpressed. The dermatologist felt a bit guilty, I think. She took extra special care this time. Bigger slice, neater stitches. Fingers crossed. I need my whistle back!

These lads were less keen for the beestung look:

We walked through Edinbugh Gardens on the weekend and spotted a bunch o’ boys who had stopped their soccer game to stare at bikes. Can you guess why, reader?

Because a swarm of bees had landed on one of them. See the handlebars thick and furry with beeeeeeees?!

On the plus side, that bike was in no risk of being stolen.

Me and he

Me: Are you enjoying the wisteria?

He: It blooms in wisterious ways.

Feel like dancing

I’m doing this. Are you doing this? You should be doing this. You don’t even have to be able to whistle.