He's just a devil kitty/with evil on his mind

Currently, I'm doing some dogsitting for some people I know. They've got a little, white, fluffy dog who is rather quiet. Apart from when she sees any other dog, in which case she goes nuts and tries to fling herself at them like she wants to eat them (even when the other dogs are approximately 17 times her size, like this morning when we were out for a walk and she tried to leap into a car with three very large dogs in the back and was deeply disappointed when her harness and leash foiled that plan).

When it comes to cats, she seems to not be quite so sure of herself.

And that's particularly relevant to Devil Kitty, who spent most of the afternoon looking like he was planning very intently to murder her and dispose of the body in the river. He spent about two hours sitting on the table, glaring down at the dog, never taking his eyes from her and growling like a cut-price panther whenever she got too close.

The little, white, fluffy dog was rather intimidated by this, although she really did want to make an effort to be friendly. The cat was unmoved. Apart from when he switched positions to lurk on the chairs for more up-close-and-personal growling.

He does seem to be a little calmer about now, and not just because he's asleep. It only took about six hours for him to get vaguely used to the dog. He's curled up asleep on the couch about a metre away from the dog, who's curled up, sleeping in her doggybed.

So far, no murder. It's a good start.

The cat's just been very obvious about his, "MY house, MY human, MINE! You, doggy, are unwelcome and not mine!" approach to the dog about me and the house, though, which isn't all that friendly of him.

^ Some pretty things I saw at lunchtime.

Also sat in the sunshine, looking at the river and eating a cheese and salad sandwich. May have also spent time swinging my legs merrily as I sat on the bench eating the sandwich. It was so nice to just relax and as I sat there, I got the impression that somehow, everything will just be alright in the end.

Nature - I like it.

Now to figure out just how to make everything alright in the end. Well, maybe once I've got the house organised. Then I'll take DW's advice about making lists of options with pros, cons, costs and so on on them. At least there's time to do it in. As long as I don't waste the time perfecting the art of procrastination.

^ Spent close to nine hours painting the laundry and hallway today. Totally exhausted. But at least it's done and all that's left to paint is the spare room. The laundry looks really good, although very different. It used to be a dark-ish green, which sucked the light in. Now that it's white, it's very clinical and looks like I could perform surgery in it.

Miscellaneous Melbourne

^ Just some random photos from last weekend.

We found a new Twilight character, too (third pic from bottom). Obviously it's Edward's uncle Hitler.

Twiggy

^ River photo from the other day.

Tonight's clouds

^ Not the best photo, but the final moments of sun on the clouds tonight were really pretty. This area's just so gorgeous at this time of year. The wattles are starting to come into bloom and there's a hint of Spring almost in the air. Oh, and it's vaguely light after 6pm now! Which is nice.

Nyaaarrghh

Today was entirely consumed by painting.

And not fun painting, but painting the bedroom to finish off the work I'd started ages ago with it. Ended up having to triple-coat the walls just to get them looking white enough (thanks to that purple it used to be - really that kid who came around collecting for charity and said his mum and dad had "done the place up" was lucky I didn't slam the door in his face).

And there's still the laundry and spare room to paint, as well as the hallway to finish off. But at least then the house will be closer to being ready for sale. Not all that impressed about having to sell the house, but at least it will look nice once I've finished getting it ready. Trying to not be at all bitter about that.

Not totally working, though.

But at least the bedroom's done. The whole painting for six hours or more after moving furniture around is really exhausting. It's surprising how tired and sore just rolling the paint roller around the walls is when you're not used to it. Times that by three because I had to triple coat the walls... And all that climbing up the ladder with my sore ankle stuff.

Bedroom looks fantastic, though!

Even though I spent the day wearing The Painting Caftan, which is the most hideous caftan this side of the 1970s (as well as the other side of the 1970s).

Update: A photo of the new, improved, less Soviet paintjob!

Now is the winter of our discontent

^ My favourite Melbourne photo of the ones I took.

^ Random Melbourne night photos.

On Thursday, I got back in to Melbourne rather late. And it was really nice to be back! Although it was freezing. When I disembarked via the rear stairs after a flight that seemed far longer than it actually was (thanks to shouty/whiny/screamy child behind me whose parents just needed to provide it with a little discipline so that the rest of the passengers didn't feel the overwhelming urge to turn on them with inflight magazines), it was like stepping into a freezer.

But I like that. It's nice when things feel really winter-like.

Yet it didn't snow! We'd been hoping it would snow at some point, but the weather persisted fine and pleasant. Not the kind of weather one should turn on for visitors in winter when they want copious amounts of snow... Although I did make skull and cross-bone ice cubes.

^ Had friends down on the weekend and we did a bit of touristy stuff in Melbourne - mainly looking around the streets, viewing graffiti, crowds of generally polite people (I think the stabby ones come out after dark...), enjoying the unseasonably warm weather and looking at a Falun Gong protest that involved a gallows and hung dummy.

On reflection, I should have taken photos of that.

Amen.

^ Tights are not pants.

Evening and morning Melbourne

In Sydney for 24 hours for work.

As much as I'm not a fan of Sydney, it is very pretty by night when you're flying over it - the lights kind of inspired me and I might try to work out some art things from the photos I took.

Flying over Albury Wodonga was really pretty, too.

Really should get to bed. Barry White songs have just turned up on iTunes and that's probably a frightening thing to experience before bed, about on par with someone leaping out from the wardrobe with a Jason Voorhees mask on.

Vegemitebeabadidea

I saw big display for the new Vegemite in Safeway the other day.

That's definitely never, ever going to enter my trolley, let alone my house or my mouth, based purely on the way it looks. And that's before I even start thinking about Vegemite mixed with cream cheese, which sounds vile.

As my oldest, favourite-est friend Amy says, if they remove normal Vegemite from sale, they can go fornicate themselves with an iron stick.

I rather love normal Vegemite. Not only is it tasty, it amuses me.

When a friend from Germany was visiting years ago, he wanted to try it, as he'd heard about it. We bought a small bottle of it and, in spite of all my warnings and attempting to physically stop him, he smeared an entire teaspoon full of Vegetmite on a slice of bread. The expressions that crossed his face after he took a big bite of it made me wish I had a camera at that time.

Clare and I had a White Trash Day on Sunday, which involved dressing up in trashy clothing, visiting Supre (amongst other stores) and going to Hungry Jacks. It's all part of a tradition that stems from uni and White Trash Days there, which also involved Supre. And cowboy hats. Although this time, I wore cowboy boots.

Anyway.

We started the day at Hungry Jacks at around 10.30. There, we saw teen guys in trackpants that were slung waaaaaay too low, revealing crack. That was something that put me off my meal. And then on the way out, two other teen guys said, "Hello ladies!" at us, with suggestive eyebrow waggling. Which reduced us to fits of laughter, particularly when we got honked at by a car driven by two guys with a backseat full of children.

From there, it was shopping, which was more frightening than trashy, mainly due to the way in which Supre seems to have far less leopard print and sequins than they did a few years ago when I was in uni, and way more leggings and snap-crotch leotards. I may or may not have screamed when I saw the snap-crotch leotards and leapt backwards, nearly bumping into a shop assistant.

And then, we saw this car.

The driver of it was sitting in the car, pushing the button on the traffic lights. A little odd...

But a fun day, on the whole.

Painting process

Just a boring ol' post about the process for the painting I did last weekend as K and S's somewhat belated wedding present.

I was going to do something like this (except with Adelaide as the subject, rather than Melbourne):


But changed my mind, and did this instead:








(Photos all taken with my mobile, so excuse the quality.)

Additional thought for the day: Don't worry, be happy, things could be worse, you could be Salman Rushdie. An oldie, but a goodie.