Sunday, July 16, 2006

WHAT'S SLEEP?



This is the sweet little cat. He's sleeping on a feather cushion. He's shedding fur on an expensive mohair rug. He's letting you see two of the eleven tennis balls he has hidden behind his bed. What I can't show you or let you hear is the sight and sound of this mongrel moggie projectile vomiting cat bikkies and fur balls at 4 o'clock this morning.

I didn't get to sleep until after 3. One of those nights where nothing was comfortable and I tossed and turned but finally drifted off until that sound. I flew out of bed and opened the back door, hoping against hope that he'd make it. He was in the kitchen by now, hacking up the last fur piece so a quick look at the carpet in the lounge, all clear. Great, just the kitchen so I'll clean it up in the morning.

I go back to bed, drift off again but I need a pee. Stagger out of bed again. I never put a light on, it wakes me up too much. Bad luck this time as I put my foot squarely in the pile of regurgitated whiskettes just outside the toilet door. I can't tell you how happy I was to see it was only this when I did turn the light on, I mean it could have been a lot worse but not much. The creature has been down behind the couch all day where I can't reach him except with a 12 bore.

It's turned me off cooking for the day. I was going to make scones because I have a bottle of black cherry jam or fruit spread because it has no sugar in it. The brand is French, Charles Jacquin and I usually buy the rasberry but Safeway looks as though it's selling out the brand. I found the black cherry by chance when a little old lady (I'm a magnet for them) asked me to go to the bottom shelf for some Homebrand rubbish and there was a cache of Jacquin. These little old ladies will drive me to drink, if it's not something on the tenth shelf below the ceiling, it's something they want from the floor area. Usually I try to buy Australian but in this case Jacquin's is the best of the best. While I was on the floor Ron, I did make a quick check of the Rose's marmalade, no luck for you. Now I'm not making scones.

Tomorrow I am going to see Pirates courtesy of pissed sister who put the wrong number on the Tote ticket and got the daily double, again. She sees it as divine intervention and sends me off to loll around enjoying myself in Goldclass. So next payday I won't have to make one of those difficult decisions, food or frivolity.

I haven't forgotten the seriousness of the world either. A very big "Up Yours" to world renowned obstetrician Michel Odent who told a British conference that a caesarean section birth interferes with the natural production and release of the hormone oxytocin which helps a woman "fall in love" with her child. This jeopardises their chances of bonding with their babies.

Thank you for the guilt trip, you twerp. Not all of us elect to have caesarean births, sometimes it's an emergency and we get enough crap from midwives and other mothers without some bloke handing out another reason to cringe. I don't like babies, they might as well be alien creatures to me. I hate people who hand me one because they cry when they see me. My own bawled every time I looked at him. You couldn't have bonded us with superglue. I get along fine with teenagers. I even manage them as kids as soon as they can talk and use a knife and fork, up until then, forget the bonding. It had nothing to do with the Caesar, it would have been the same if I had spent the time pushing him out, some of us just don't bond with the little squawkers, so there Mr. Obstetrician.

I must be one of the weird mothers though, every year older he got, I loved him more. A kind of reverse bonding. What do men know!

13 comments:

Unknown said...

I don't mean to be cruel but I burst out laughing when I got to the part about your 'footsteps in the night'. Sorry ... but the movie in mind is hilarious ... I'm still laughing.

That Charles Jacquin line is the most prominent in my local Coles (eyeball height if you're 5'8" - I have NO idea what that is decimalised). The varieties are wonderful and cherry jam is my favourite. I bought several jars of cherry and one or two of the others (they were on special that particular day). But I gotta tell you this: they made me terribly and painfully constipated (yeah ... I know, too much info). I tested this by avoiding (no weak pun intended) the jam (sorry ... spread) then having some more when everything improved and always got the same screaming, eye-watering result.

Aren't you just glad now that you read my comment?

JahTeh said...

Would it be the bread now, me dear man. The fresh bread you're always buying at the bakery and spreading with the jam and stuffing yourself til you can't move. Safeway have relegated it to the bottom shelf and another French brand is at the top which is one I don't like.
The cherry jam is great poured into those ready to bake tart cases and topped with meringue and baked. Thank you Ron, I have just gained 3kgs reading this comment.

Unknown said...

Not my fault if there are two Baker's Delight stores equidistant both west and east from me!!

Anonymous said...

It is interesting how we are supposed to natually like babies. I find them quite boring and usually ugly. They start to become a bit interesting at three I think. That is once they are house trained and speak a bit.

Link said...

Beg to differ on babies. I like babies up until they're about 18 months and then they become absolutely monstrous and I begin to wonder how rational it is for me an adult, to abhor a two year old?

I think JahTeh might be right about the vehicle being used to administer the jam as being the cause of the blockage Ron.

My cat threw up today too.

Daniel said...

Interesting comments about reverse bonding. I was very close to my kids when they were small, then after a messy divorce and years of unrelenting pressure from their mother, they slowly but surely drifted away. I gave so much and got so little.

I haven't heard from them for years. And if I did, I'd be confronted with clones of their mother. That's life!

Link said...

That's sad Daniel. Are you a clone of your father?

Link said...

Apologies if that seems plonking Daniel. I would never want to be considered a clone of my mother's as nothing could be farther than the truth. Fortunately our parents don't generally produce clones, and I imagine that in reality you are not terribly much like your father, but now I am wildly speculating. So I'll stop.

Link said...

That's farther 'from'. Somedays the words do not spill out in the right order or in a timely fashion, or at all, or correctly and I have to think and that's always fraught.

having to type 'yopkmod' doesn't help.

Daniel said...

Actually, I have always tried to be the opposite of my father but there must be some similarities I guess.

We all carry around our parents on our backs via the bonding. Some are luckier than others.

JahTeh said...

You're not the only father to tell me this Daniel. I must admit I've tried hard not to say anything about the ex to his granddaughters. We did the same when my sister divorced, we let her son find out what his father was like for himself.

Ron if I live that close to two Baker's Delights I would be the size of two houses. We shouldn't mention that to Link as she's deprived of their pumpkin, spinach & feta, apple & walnut, date and fruit scones or their pane di casa bread, cape seed loaves and other goodies. Hungry Link?

A three year old can be a monster but I like a four year old when they really start to learn and ask questions. When you see in their face how they put things together and it's light bulb time.

lucy tartan said...

Cats never make it to the door when they're throwing up, do they? They don't seem to have the same insense sense of shame about vomit as they do about the stuff that comes out the other end.

JahTeh said...

He probably blames me for shutting the door to keep the possums out.