Author: Rita de Heer

Writing is what I do. What I think about. What I meditate on. What I dream up. Listen to. Imagine. Sometimes I sleep. Sometimes I eat. And I walk. Pull out environmental weeds. There are a thousand more things I do, though writing comes into a fair few of those things too.

Cat Diary 21

The upshot of our battle is that we’re being stand offish to each other. The old woman does not try to touch me and I spend long hours under the bed where I can’t see what she gets up to.

But today she escaped the apartment altogether. The deepest scratch on her hand got infected—not my fault, she should’ve known better—and off to the doctor she went.

When she came back she had a big white bandage on her hand which did look, I confess, quite swollen. I understand she is to take medicines for ten days.

And she’s changed her attitude. She doesn’t give me any kibbles unless I do what she orders me to do. Such as for example she said ‘Up’ about fifteen minutes ago. I didn’t up and she gave me no encouragement awards.

So I jumped up on the couch just now and she said, good girl and gave me just two kibbles! And that was it. So I sat down. I’m feeling quite confused. I had the upper paw, and suddenly I’m back on square one?

One good thing she gave me a mystery to solve while she went out and I do quite like a mystery. This one is how to get the kibbles from under the plastic thing.

Cat Diary 20

We had a milestone of sorts today. I had to show the old woman I just do not like to be picked up. I clawed her good and proper.

It was her own fault really, I said for her to put me down, and she just wasn’t quick enough. I let her have both sets. Of my claws, that is. She’ll have four scars!

And you wouldn’t believe the blood! She stood for an age at the kitchen counter putting on that horrible stuff she calls tea tree antiseptic. I hate it! And then bandaids galore.

She was so silent, I got bored and thought I might as well catch up on washing myself. It’s never ending.

I wonder what she’s cooking up in that silence, something that will show me that she now knows her place, I hope.

Caterpillars

Six of these little critters are chomping down on my bolwarra bush. Not their usual food as far as I can make out.

Reading Helen Scwenke’s & Frank Jordan’s Create More Butterflies tells me that an Orchard Swallowtail will lay her eggs on any tree or bush in the citrus family.

Yet I thought I saw a large blackish butterfly in this bush. The caterpillars somewhat resemble the instars on p33 and there is a very small sandfly bush beside the bolwarra.

The caterpillars as you can see have a much closer resemblance to those of the Fuscous Swallowtail on p20. There’s only the lime berry mentioned for host plants for thst variety of swallowtail.

Here’s one doing its weird standing-up-in-the-sun move. Never seen that before.

The whole event is pretty exciting and was one of the reasons—the possibility that butterflies would visit my balcony garden—that I decided on a level two apartment rather than, say, a level seven place.

To top it all off, me getting an in house companion in the form of a cat is what made it possible for butterflies to visit. Before I got Moggy noisy miners, a pernicious sort of bird visited the balcony despite my efforts to keep them away, and clean out all insects good and bad. They even had a go at catching my fish. Moggy keeps them away and the caterpillars are safe.

The Same Old New Rules

Rather than becoming habits, after about two weeks of mindfully performing new rules and routines, I start to take my attention off them.

Fatal! Because I’ll start to forget them. And I bet nearly everyone one of you have the same issue.

So … a new rule I’ve been trying to make into a forever habit for over four months now, is getting mobile while using the mobile phone. IE walk around the house while talking with friends and family.

Yesterday did I do that? Hardly. Spent most of my time lounging on the couch despite hearing hints, along with the call, of busy diligence in the background.

Life admin calls need a different strategy. They usually need reference to paperwork and online forms. Although there are often lengthy waits involved, you can’t walk too far from your desk.

Such as when I called the RTA (Residential Tenants Authority) about the return of my rental bond pertaining to my unit in Coorparoo. Which I left back in March this year, about eight and a half months ago.

I was 23rd in line to a call center I was informed by a ‘kind’ call center robot. My heart sank. But I was updated every 60 seconds.

Surprisingly it only took about twenty minutes for that call center to work through that number of callers. The matter is not yet resolved, but since it was Friday afternoon, I arranged to call back next week.

My social caller a few weeks back … when I walked around the house and did almost 1000 steps toward my daily goal … and I discussed whether Brisbane will be ready for its go at hosting the Olympics eight years from now.

He doubts it. I wouldn’t know. He’s in building and has not seen any of the promised new venues even begun. Though eight years seems plenty of time, a really big venue will take that amount of time and all the available expertise all by itself.

We decided there should be a new rule. Any city taking this on–hosting the Games–should use what venues they have. Is it really necessary for the Games to grow bigger and bigger? A howl of protest would go up, I’m sure.

There. I’ve reminded myself to get back on the path to getting more active. Maybe this time I’ll remember to keep going!

Sunset at Coorparoo