It's Bear's Birthday!

I like this cartoon

Cartoon by Dave Walker

Permanent Vacation

If you don't, if you don't have the time... to stay up at night, and not a Friday night but a Thursday night. And watch an early Jim Jarmusch film and enjoy it, can you really say you live?
If space and time become so tight, that there is only the workday and then the weekend for everything else, and no loose time to be loose in, when do you catch the stuff that floats by?
Is the organised plan time scheduled thing the adult thing to do or just a lie because it's all surreal anyway. Underneath. Everywhere. And all structure is fake and false and inaccurate and inadequate anyway.

Anyway! This Jim Jarmusch film is quite interesting. Do film afficionados refer to him as Jim Jarmusch, or just Jarmusch? SBS is like the sole deliverer of non-pop culture on the teevee, but man I hate those erection ads where the two bald men pretend to play the piano with their penises. GROSS.

Caffeinated ranunculus

So, it's midnight and I really should be in bed because it is a school night but I went out with some other postgrads, an Italian girl and an Austrian girl and a lovely newly wed couple, she was from Lebanon and he was from Jordan and they brought us to this totally kick ass Lebanese restaurant, where you had to book and order the food ahead of time and all the customers were gathered to break their fast and then we ate so much food on disproportionately small plates and then went to an Arabic cafe where the waiters wore red fezes and embroidered waistcoats and we drank dark Lebanese coffee spiced with cardamom and had argily! Apparently it is also called hubly bubly, which is a ridiculous name for it. Can you believe I've never tried it? Yes, I am about ten years behind. It's not for want of opportunity, I've just never really felt like it. It smelt nice, but did kind of burn my throat and really, asthma sucks enough without encouragement. Hmm. And then I kept feeling like I was breathing out smoke for a while after that. Wieeeeerd.

And then we went to a popular bakery and I bought 1 kilogram of baklava! Yah! Baklava for weeks!

I sometimes forget that coffee makes me stay awake. Perhaps I thought maybe it wouldn't, because it was Lebanese (I know, that makes no sense), but whatever. It's kinda like with the potato chips. After awhile I forget again that they taste really bad and make me feel ill.

I think sometimes maybe I am a bad wife. I don't iron his shirts, I don't particularly fuss over him, I mean I could, and I have in the past, but really he is a grown man and I can really do without becoming a nagging wife. Still, I decide on a whim to go out without him, without planning for his dinner... I let him go to bed alone while I stay up and mooch about online. I ask him to wake me up early, despite knowing that this is a most terrible and difficult undertaking, I... um. I suppose I'm not really even trying to be a good wife.

But then we make our own marriages don't we? It's not like there's some sort of predetermined duty list that has to be followed. Is there? Anymore? I think the beauty of our relationship/marriage thing is that we make it up as we go along. It's kind of like building a wall... no, a house, where every bit of the structure is newly, slowly placed, and it's all sort of good and strong, but is always, constantly, tested, pushed against, dinged, patched up, etc. Maybe the key thing is that we're doing it together. And we both want to do it, and we both want to live in it. It's like a shelter from the rest of the world.

I don't know. But he's crazy hot and I love him.

Squeaky Beanie

Beanie is the most vocal rat we've ever had.

He communicates to us in little squeaks, usually when he's protesting about something, and it's so funny! Monty was also occasionally vocal, mainly when you picked him up from doing something naughty (like trying to get into the fireplace) to which he would emit a plaintive "Squeeeeeeeeeeee!" like a little high pitched "Nooooooooooooo!".

Beanie is more of a squeaker and a scolder. There was the time he'd jumped up onto the coffee table (which was bad of him to do and he knew it) and delicately selected a chocolate biscuit from the packet that was open. Upon hearing the suspicious rustling, I turned around and saw him and probably said something like Oh! Biscuit thief! Thus alerted, he dashed off, escaping with his grand prize, except not quite going fast enough, probably because he was carrying this enormous chocolate biscuit and when I caught him, he let forth such a string of high pitched invectives in protest that I couldn't stop laughing and let him go. Bear then chased him around the room, with the same result every time he got close, and in the end, when we caught him, he would not, absolutely not, let go of his biscuit and we had to break it up and share it between him and Milo.

The second time he went for the biscuits was more recently, when I caught him readying to jump up onto the table and I said nuh-uh! And picked him up, to which he loudly went Squeak! in surprise and then when I plonked him down onto my lap, he Fooffed at me, which is exactly what it sounds like, just once, but loudly. It was extremely hilarious at the time and still makes me giggle to think about it. I mean, here is this furry little cream puff of a rattie with little pink ears, and he's giving me attitude.

:)

He's so great.

Ratties relaxing

(Please ignore the weird first few seconds, some youtube compressing issue maybe?)

Here's a relaxed Milo, perched on his lookout, bruxing away happily. Look for the end where he boggles! Whee!




And here's Beanie, enjoying some special time with Bear. Spot the yawn!

Bear and Milo

Sharing a moment.

Beanie

Goes fishing!

Milo

Wants to be your friend.