The best I can do

Two days ago I developed a cold. It seemed to be a 24 hour variety cold, but it wasn't and this Saturday evening I feel like shit quite unwell, poorly if you like. I think medicinal brandy will help.

I can't concentrate enough to deal with photos, but I can still type.

Sister arrived and parked behind my car, so I had to move her car to get mine out. I pressed the start button and the instruments lit up but the engine didn't start. I looked around for something else to press, but there was nothing, whereas my car would display 'Press the brake and press start'. I turned it off and on again, no change. I pressed and held the button down, nothing. Hang on, this is a hybrid electric car. I'll just put it into reverse and see if it moves, and it did, silently.

Kosov resumed his driving lessons today after a break following his scrape of the car. I have had one quote for the repair of my car, which seemed outrageous, and I am awaiting another. I will see what this one comes in at and decide whether to buy a new car or not. Both he and Phyllis started from a very low base, but Kosov seems slower to pick up skills. We'll get there.

From a our sedate drive around Albert Park Lake, and a few parking manoeuvres, Phyllis took over and drove us to Port Melbourne where we three bought bahn mi. While I was hungry, I could only eat half and took the remainder home for later. I bought coffee while the pair shopped at the Reject shop and the supermarket.

As the afternoon progressed, everything and everyone started to annoy me. Jass is an ungrateful cow. Sister returned and put the kettle on. Please, don't stay longer than necessary. She didn't, and made tea to take home with her. Phyllis and Kosov, stop annoying me. 

Phyllis had cooked lasagne and served mine up on a plate as he was going to travel with Kosov to work where they would separate and Phyllis go to a party with Kosov's workmates while Kosov worked. I could not eat a proper meal, as I am so unwell. So I had a couple of slices of ham, a tomato and half a leftover curried egg sandwich. 

Phyllis called in sick for the party, as there were two people there he did not like. He said he would have gone if Kosov was with him. But then oddly he got out some wet food to feed to Jass and asked if I could feed her. Why? You will be here. 

No, he went out soon after Kosov left. I know what gay men are like. I once was one, and I am very suspicious. I hope my suspicions are misplaced. 

It is not my business and as much as I love them both, as soon as I met Phyllis I knew he was a person of the world and could look after himself. Not so much Kosov, and as I said to him in the past when Phyllis was back in India, I will always be there for you Kosov. Well, until I die, then he'll be on his own, in Australia at least. But his family are good and care about him.

If I don't post a Monday Mural, I am probably deaded by manflu. 

Kindness failure

The post I wrote for today bored me, and it would bore you too. Instead, this Friday evening. 

One of our residents bumped into our carpark gate, in fact hit it so hard it will be out of service for a week. The last time our carpark gate stayed open, thieves entered the carpark and broke into some cars and stole a bicycle worth $4000. We now have a permanent guard stationed at the car park entrance until the gate is fixed.

Sister will park here today in my car parking space and beforehand I will give the guard a note with her car identification and registration plate.

The poor guards, with sitting for hours without anything to do but scroll on their phones. I guessed the guard this evening would be Indian, and I was correct. Hindu, Moslem or Christian, they can all eat chicken, so I heated a leftover cut of spicy chicken, with some spicy green beans and kale, not heating the latter, to give to the guard, with a serviette of course. 

Thank you so much, he proclaimed, but I am vegetarian. Sometimes I think I get nothing right in life. I give up on kindness to strangers.

Later today I look forward to eating some spicy chicken, cooked, chilled, reheated, chilled and reheated. 

Wednesday on Friday

Phyllis and Kosov were supposed to take Jass for a fur trim. Phyllis had to work so it was me and Kosov who took Jass into town for her clip. Kosov, you are correct by calling her coat fur, but not correct to call the excess on her feet, hair.

Kosov tried to coax Jass into the box but she wasn't having a bar of that. I would have just picked her up and forced her into the box, but instead Kosov traumatised her by chasing her around and trying to pull her out from under beds.   

The strong cardboard box that Jass was originally used to bring the stranger Jass to her new home, and then used for two subsequent visits seemed less strong, and in spite of my complaint that a proper cat cage would take up too much space to store, perhaps we will have to buy a proper cat cage. I could see the box was not looking as secure as it once did. The repercussions of Jass escaping on a tram or on the street aren't imaginable. 

Jass took her first tram trip. Kosov was paranoid that people were looking at him while carrying the box. He was correct, they were, as they guessed a pet was inside the box.

From the tram stop, Kosov carried her to the grooming shop. Kosov said something mentioning the letter z, pronouncing it as zee. 

'Kosov, your former colonial masters would be appalled at you using the zee pronunciation.'

'Which is correct, Onndrew?' 

'Both, but in Britain and Australia it is zed. In the US it is zee. You are showing disrespect to your former colonial masters by pronouncing it zee.' 

The grooming was interesting. Our plan was to leave Jass there and find somewhere to eat. No, the groomer said in fractured English after she eventually understood what I was asking. One or you must stay. I went off and I was dying for something to eat and I had half an hour. I confess to visiting Hungry Jacks, Burger King elsewhere. I ordered a cheeseburger and I knew staff misheard me and repeated back to me a double cheeseburger. I did not correct her. Bad things happen.

Kosov had asked me to get some treats to reward Jass, so I found a supermarket and Kosov called me to tell me Jass was done.

While he waited for me to return, he had been looking at cat cages but the white one he found was marked but staff would not discount the price, so we left with Jass in her cardboard box. 

Kosov, are you sure you don't want the proper box, paint damaged or not? Ondreeww, this cardboard is sagging badly underneath. There was a grey one in perfect condition. Ondreew did roll his eyes at this point. We returned. I saw a cat cage for $110, and it had battery powered air conditioning, perfect for a hot pussy. But we bought the $42 model that is a a backpack that sits in front of your body, so I suppose you call it a front pack. Staff suggested we collapse the cardboard box and leave it next to a bin on the street, and someone would take it, so we did.

Onndreew, even more people are looking at me now. No Kosov, they are looking at Jass in the backpack through the diver glass porthole. 

I had intended taking the car out for weekly shopping but I was exhausted by the time we reached home. Jass doesn't seem too upset by her outing. 

It was not my idea to have her clipped and Jass looks awful. Ray and I never clipped a cat in the past. Ah well, they paid, the cat care and cage costing them $125.

I rallied and caught a tram to Malvern Vale Hotel for dinner with my long time Indian friend and his Asian partner of about three years. They seem to get along so well. The craic was good, although those thieving gambling machines took $20 from me and $50 from my friend.

Jass doesn't look so bad in this photo, but it is a very rough cut. We could have done the same at home with body hair clippers.

  

Defragging

Ah the memories, often associated in my mind with dial up internet.

I cannot remember Windows 3.1 but I certainly can remember Windows 95, which had a semi manual system for defragging your computer. I suppose I used to do it every few months, and with another system check, which I no longer remember. What is defragging? The proper word would be defragmentation, so it is correcting when everything is fragmented. It pulls together bits and pieces on your hard drive into a more orderly manner, hopefully to improve your computer's performance. 

I think we moved on to Windows 98 but certainly not Windows ME, which was and is known to be less stable than previous versions of Windows. The next was Windows XP and then Windows 10, which is what I am now using and have for a very long time.

I am being nagged by Microsoft to upgrade to Windows 11, and I guess I will have to bite the bullet at some point and change over. 

Now defragging happens automatically and you don't know what your computer is doing in the background, as it looks after itself.

Here is a nice clip of what you saw when you were defragging back in the 90s. I used to find it quite mesmerising and strangely relaxing. 

Beautiful sunny Australia

Emigrate to Australia where it's always warm and sunny! Miles miles of beautiful sandy beaches to take in the sun with lots of space to be alone. Err...

It is very interesting when a rain front comes in across the bay. I was dry, but not for long. The south west is where our prevailing weather and wind originates.

Another interesting photo with the heavier cloud sitting atop the rainbow. I did not notice this until I began making this post. It is quite a phenomenon. 

While looking east, I think this rain missed me. I can't remember rain ever arriving from that direction, and it is rare for rain to blow in from that direction. Seagulls seem alarmed.

For the third time we had to cancel a motorcar trip to Powelltown in  the hills because of the weather. We would have been driving into this. 

Monday Mural

Along with Sami, here is my Monday Mural post.

It is the oldest mural photo I have, taken in 2022. It was good to see a mural on a utility box, as there weren't many around four years ago

I suppose it is a representation of part of our Flinders Street Station Pran Central and while it is simple, there is detail within the mural. 

Just once...

Will there be a future when I won't wake up to listen to the ABC ten minute 7.00am radio news bulletin without it beginning with "US President Donald Trump...".