Because we don’t own it, we tell the owners that the rabbit is an “outdoor rabbit”. Whenever the owners cross our threshold in order to wander about our home, inspect the condition of our belongings and draw a conclusion from such how we might be caring for theirs, whenever this occurs the rabbit is exiled to the far back corner of the “yard” [1]. It would undermine this carefully and (probably mutually) acknowledged lie if we were to then turn around and make allowances for the rabbit in the construction of the building. That is to say, why would we want a pet door installed somewhere if the rabbit doesn’t come in the house?

And we would like a pet door. Like other pets, the rabbit likes variety in her lazing. She wants to spend part of her day sleeping underneath the kitchen table – or next to the toilet – and part of her day sleeping outside in an arse groove she has invested no small effort in constructing. Being a silent animal she is not in a position where she can let us know when she wishes to pass between her duo-verses unless we are there in the room and paying a modicum of attention so we can see, for example, her hopping over to the screen door and sitting with her back to us, gazing outside at the grass like a cat spying a likely bird; an act that in the universal language of inter-species communication between slave and cat/dog/rabbit clearly indicates the desire to egress. It is more convenient to allow the rabbit to go in and out as she pleases. A pet door would allow that but since we can’t have a pet door, we tend to leave the screen door open with enough gap for the rabbit to squeeze through, a distance that is trending towards “wide open”.

This presents certain issues. This being Australia and especially this being a household that maintains a tray full of cat litter and hay for the rabbit to use as a combined toilet/kitchen – thus proving that rabbit technology is far ahead of ours – the open screen door also allows flies to come and go as they wish. With a definite and noticable preference displayed by these bugs for the ‘come’ part of the phrase and thus defeating the entire purpose of having a fly screen door. Eh, I can deal because I have chemical death for them. However, we also get larger avian pests tempted by the leavings of the rabbit. Minah birds. They just strut on in, even in the face of someone yelling at them with indignation, and pick over any food pellets the rabbit might have missed because sometimes she can’t see past her dewlap. It’s a less common occurence than it once once because we have altered the rabbit’s diet, giving her less food in the morning and making her pick over the grass in the yard. Last year it wouldn’t be unusual to have to shut the rabbit in- or outside because the Minah birds were flocking and encroaching with impunity, two or three in the yard taking turns to steal inside and forage for a quick meal. If you didn’t pay attention or didn’t hear the claws they might also go for a wander. I remember walking out to the kitchen one day a couple of years ago to find a bird on the sink top. I hadn’t heard it come in over the din of music playing but it certainly heard me and panicked, tried to go out through the window and then had to be herded towards the open door.

Yesterday D found one in the house for the first time in months and chased it out. And then discovered that the bird had gone exploring. All good explorers – those worthy of the name rather than just itinerants, wanderes and vagabonds – must be sure to ensure that their public know that they have been there. The best class of explorer does this via cartography and enumeration and naming of the landmarks and occasionally flora and fauna. The lower class of this explorer is in some ways difficult to distinguish from the aforementioned unworthies; this is the typo that vandalises the area to let those who follow know that Killroy woz there. The Minah bird, not having the digital articulation required for the kind of tools that cartography uses, and largely being limited to naming and enumerating it’s own tree must, by necessity thus fall into that latter category of explorer. The vandal.

From henceforth whenever I watch the 9/11 conspiracy episode of South Park I will know exactly how to answer Mr Mackay during his extended rhetorical questioning regarding the emotional reaction to finding, in any of one’s refuges, a dirty mud monkey. I would be angry. And annoyed. And I would google where I could purchase a pellet gun. Little bastards

¹ I feel compelled to use scare quotes because I just don’t feel right referring to 16 square metres as a yard. It takes me five minutes to mow that thing, and three of those are starting the mower.

Disappointed with the last Test in India. I can’t stand Peter Roebuck, but I begrudgingly agree with him; Ponting blinked and didn’t push the advantage Krezya had somehow managed to engineer for him. Was he mindful of a personal suspension because of the slow over rates? Ehhh; I don’t know. I am mystified by the last session of India’s second innings though.

On the other hand, Australia vs New Zealand. The first Australia vs New Zealand, in Hong Kong, made me query the multiverse in general and William in particular why Australia was even allowed to play rugby. Watching the All Blacks wink and reveal that they’ve been in third gear all along is starting to get really really depressing. I didn’t get to see the test in Twickenham – and yes, I do just like to see them lose – which I regret beyond the telling given that by all reports we beat them by beating their scrum. And by kicking a lot of penalties. So we showed them how to play like an English team. Hah!

It is raining in Brisbane. Hope it stops tomorrow because the First Test against New Zealand starts at the Gabba on Thursday. We’ve already played one game la mode Anglais and that had the charm of laughing at them while doing it. What, we’re going to laugh at the English while we play The Shire? Doesn’t seem much point, really.

Um…yeah, that about wraps up the games between Australia and New Zealand. I mean, assuming there’s no netball games on at the moment.

Well, it has a throne at any rate.

She made all efforts possible to register her complaint and displeasure at the onerous burden I had placed upon her whinging shoulders, but in the face of my implacability, evil smirk and suggestion that if she didn’t take them that I would henceforth delete the illicitly acquired episodes of 90210 that she has yet to be supplied with, she reluctantly trudged off. With my keys. Within the minute she was back to inform me that she could not possibly achieve the quest given her as there was “stuff” in the way. Such stuff consisting of two wheeled devices – an unused dress rack and an empty garden waste bin – that could probably be moved aside using only the power of breathing hard upon them. I informed her of such because…well, because to see her suffer brings me joy.

She departed once again on her legendary journey with my wife’s keys. Five minutes later I wondered what was going on; I could still hear her, vocalising the depths to which her discomfort ran at this nadir we have come to in her enslavement to an uncaring parent; still hear things moving. So I put up the kitchen knife – with only the briefest of hesitations, I assure you – and ventured forth to ascertain what might be holding up what would otherwise seem a profoundly simple task. Lo! Not only have the two wheeled devices been moved but also several heavier items that to the untrained eye – that is, the eye untrained in the theatrics of complaint via the medium of props – would seem to have been far indeed from the path that needed to be cleared in order for the bins to be transferred from the back of the house to the driveway. Also, she had prepared to take the recycling bin; it wasn’t recycling night, a fact I had not conveyed to her because…well, because to see her suffer makes my heart sing.

I informed her that she could go, go with the garbage bin to the street and I would restore the gentle tranquility of the garage’s prior arrangements. I then locked the back door of the garage, shut the fron t door, went back into the house. Some hours later I once again repaired to the garage to put the car away for the night and lock the doors.

This morning, my wife calls me as I arrive in the office to ask me if I had seen her keys. No, I replied. But they must be somewhere because you went out yesterday but still managed to get back into the house, so clearly you unlocked the front door at some stage. Wherever could they be? Where, oh where? Where indeed, says tWM with affected innocence.

Where are they, we inquired of her because we know through bitter won experience that when tWM appears innocent, it actually means she is guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors.

Well, she replies, when His Heartlessness forced me to take the bins out, he forced me to take the keys and forced me to put them down while I moved things, he must have locked them in the garage. It is his fault. He might as well have held a gun to my head and forced me to throw them into the Pit of Doom in Mordor.

Lo! And I repented of my sins. Or at least I will. After I murder her. Or would it be self-defense, the defense of my sanity?

Anyway; DISASTER!!

CALAMITY!!

HAIR FRIZZ!!

There was earlier this year some concern that the Big Dance Concert that tWM will no doubt be a lead performer in would clash with that other highlight of the social calendar, the Year Ten Formal. And before I go on, allow me to metaphorically chase young’uns off my lawn by pointing out that in my day, we didn’t have formals for Year Ten. And in my day there was a much larger percentage of the year actually leaving school that year for apprenticships, jobs and assorted dole-bludgery; thus a Year Ten Formal would have made more sense than it does these days when practically no-one leaves in Year Ten; therefore making the Year Ten Formal just another milestone in the ongoing seppoification of Australia.

Aaaaaanyway, reassurances were sought from the Dance Teacher that the concert was not going to be on the same day as the formal. Relief!

Until now. The school was moved the date of the formal. No, nothing as obvious and sympathy-generating as moving the formal to the date of the concert. No. It has been moved to a friday night, the night of the last class at the dance school before the concert. Upon hearing this, tWM proceeded to run down her phone credit with SMSs to D so angst ridden that Optus called us to complain that there was a sympo-morphic resonance occuring in their systems causing the SMS network to start dressing in black and theatrically running a straight razor across it’s flesh-belly-white wrists.

What a predicament. The school has cruely forced her to decide between the formal and the last dance class. Sure, it’ll be the first class she misses in twelve years of attendance at the dance school, but you’d think this would be a no-brainer, neh? Teenagers, eh!

Oh, and the Friday the formal is moved to? Dec 5th. Same day as the office Christmas party. This may be a good thing; saves me having to explain to all and sundry on the night that there never was any chance of me coming dressed as a Flintstones character.

UPDATE: And because the date moved, the appointment made with the hair dresser a couple of months ago obviously needs to be moved. Can’t be moved. The hair dresser is a family friend who called all of her bookings on the Friday to try and open up a slot, to no avail. And I quote: “I can’t even have one good night!”