Posie’s 1st Birthday

On Sunday, my little puppy turned 1. Naturally, we had to have a birthday party for her – her uncles Gizmo and Bobby came over to say hello, as well as my family, Nath’s family and some friends. We sat around eating cheese and cake all afternoon, while Posie pranced around the house in her new pink sweater playing with her new toys. She got so many presents.. she is definitely spoiled!

I feel so grateful that my little munchkin spent this year with Nath and I. Pity she wouldn’t let me give her a bath or even clean her face up for some photos!

I love this dog so much. She barks incessantly, skitters across the floorboards at the slightest provocation and enjoys biting people. When I am sick, she collects dirty tissues from around the house to ‘feed’ to me. When I am not sick, she gathers woodchips, grass and insects as presents to put in my bed. She will run outside in the middle of the night to dance around in the mud, scamper back inside and decorate my bedsheets with black paw prints.

She is also extremely vocal. She talks constantly; always keen to express her well-developed sense of injustice, on issues such as “puppies deserve ice cream too” and “being asleep does not absolve you from playing with me”.

Last summer, teasing me with her toy

Posie started out small enough to fit in your pocket. Literally. She weighed 900g – you can order steaks that are bigger than she was. She left her mother, brother and sister all in the same day. No wonder she seemed so angry when she first saw us. She squeaked and then goose-stepped towards us menacingly, and we knew we wanted “that one”. We took her home with a tiny little red bow in her hair and debated names – I threw out suggestions like Sugarplum, Puppykins and Lady Lovelylocks, but Nathan wasn’t impressed. We called her Miso for about half an hour before we realized that it didn’t suit her at all, but suddenly she was Posie.. and it was just right.

First night we had her.

She spent the first few weeks of her new life shivering in this freezing, draughty house. She was afraid of walking on the wooden floorboards and was so tiny that she would only eat from a teaspoon and needed constantly supervision. Eventually she became bolder and would run around the house, hiding behind the piano and skittering under the couches without having to duck at all.

Our darling Posiepuff the Spacepup is the most annoying dog that ever existed, but also one of the cutest, loveliest, thoughtful puppies that I have ever met. So, happy birthday Posie! Thank you for being such a lovely part of our little family; this home would not be complete without you making us smile every single day.

xx Bunny

Dear Mummy

It’s strange looking at old photos of my Mum and her sisters, because she looks just like me when I was little (she’s far left, then far right in these photos). Same haircut too!

Thank you Mummy for not pulling over and dumping us on the side of the road when we would scream and kick each other in the car. Thank you for all the elaborate last-minute costumes you would stay up all night making for us. Thank you for making us just as appreciative of everything from Mozart to Pink Floyd to Lene Lovich. Thank you for taking us to our endless afterschool tennis, swimming, gymnastics, dance and piano classes. Thank you for your endless persistence in trying to get us to eat things like pesto or curry. Thank you for being an incurable book-hoarder. Thank you for being our Mum!

Sorry Jennifer, you didn't exist yet in this shot, but we can imagine you're there!

xx

Catastrophe Magnet

What a trash
To annihilate each decade

–  from ‘Lady Lazarus’ by Sylvia Plath

At midnight, in the park near Croxton station, while it was raining and huge bats were gliding above our heads and screeching in the trees, Audrey and I hung out and talked for hours the way silly teenage girls do – mixing up everything into a sort of mutual confessional with a hope for some sort of validation or understanding. Boys, travels, school, friendships, regrets, love, hate, family, skeletons in the proverbial closet, people who untag themselves from photos on facebook out of spite, how not being racist in conversation can make you appear even more racially preoccupied than someone who is overtly racist, grandmas, mean teachers, people with no personality, and the fact that in Buenos Aires, you can have ice cream delivered.

It was nice. I think we both needed it tonight.

But after everything, I was left with a question that totally destroyed any attempt at sleep. The concept of ‘sorting things out’… what if there are some people who never get things sorted out? As much as they long for a calm, comfortable, contented feeling of “everything is okay”, will some people just never get it?

A lot of not so great things have happened recently. A lot of them are still happening. However, things were looking up. Dad called from London and said he and Linda would be back in Melbourne on Saturday afternoon. Which means that Nath can come get me and all my stuff, and I can move back home. Which means things even basic sources of happiness like being able to sleep at night (Stuart and his quasi-girlfriend are practically nocturnal and have no understanding of ‘inside voices’ or the idea of not yelling at each other right outside someone’s bedroom door at 4am), eat properly (rather than living on iced tea, Le Snaks and nutella) and actually have a desk to study on. Getting to see my boyfriend and my puppy are perks too, definitely!

So, in that regard, two big things that have made me a bit miserable are finally being alleviated. I’m not quite sure then why the universe has decided to get me back for daring to feel optimistic about things.

1. Nathan has been enlisted to stage manage an amateur musical, which is a relatively huge commitment. Which means that all this finally-actually-getting-to-see-each-other time I had been looking forward to is suddenly pushed forward a few weeks. He’s already a major grouch at the best of times (unless he’s on holidays), but the sudden extra lack of Nath-time and sleep is likely to make him pretty unpleasant for the hour or so I might get to see him on any given day. Minor annoyance/frustration/disappointment in the scheme of things, but it just stings a bit after being apart for long to realize that what we have looked forward to is still weeks away.
2. But this one is the worst, and it’s not even happening to me. Something is majorly wrong with my Mum’s back. I have no idea what it is; neither does she yet, but it’s bad. The plan (my plan, rather) so far involves me going to her house, looking after her and my little brother and sister (who are actually not so little, but neither can cook, therefore are nutritionally helpless) so she can stop with the martyrdom, accept help and admit that she needs to rest and heal.

Once again it is proved – I am the catastrophe magnet. It’s probably not particularly rational to hold a hope that things will get ‘sorted’ or everything will one day feel alright; maybe my tolerance for disaster will just rise. Maybe. Right now, I just hope that all goes to plan for Dad and Linda and they arrive home on Saturday. I hope that production week runs smoothly enough so that Nathan gets out theatre at a halfway decent time. And I really, really hope that my Mum will be okay..

xx Bunny

PS: I spotted a pair of rainbow lorikeets eating fruit from a tree down the street today – lovely, unexpected and an incredibly welcome sight amongst all the doom and gloom going on.

PPS: Yes, it is 7am. Yes, I did stay up all night fretting and feeling miserable and powerless. Blergh. But I promise, next post, I will snap out of this malaise. Even though there are frustratingly time-consuming commitments and horribly painful back injuries, there are also rainbow lorikeets and fairy bread in the world..