We lost a little bird today.  Cornelius, the rescue budgerigar from the surgery, flew through the wide open space of a blown in screen and has been lost forever.  I am devastated.  Tomorrow would've marked his fourth anniversary with us.  He came int the surgery having been found on the side of the road with a broken wing.  He was a very young bird.  MCC taped the wing and I took him home.  The girl who brought him in wanted to adopt him but had sent her mother who obviously was not in favour of a new family member.  She had no cage, only a cardboard box, no food, no dishes, no nothing. I forgot what I told her but dissuaded her from taking him.   Oh, I remember now.  I didn't lie.  Cornelius had coccidiosis.  He was in shock and weak and ill.  If he'd gone home with them I very much doubt he would've survived.  And that's what I told them, albeit in a more diplomatic way.

But what difference does it make when a cyclone called Oswald lumbers down the east coast bringing tornadoes, wind gusts of well over 100kph and metres of rain.  One of those gusts broke the stays holding one of the screened panels on the verandah.  We were in the living room, heard this loud bang and crash and leapt up to investigate.  But it was far too late.  Cornelius had already gone. Happily Tachimedes, the cockatiel, and Tony, the other budgie were still there.  Dimitir, because she cannot fly was never in any danger of escaping.  But Corny wasn't so lucky.  I don't think it was a burst for freedom. I think it was flight borne of fear.  That gust was like a mini-tornado.  It beat against the house with huge amorphous grey fists.  We had no warning.  The wind had been gusting all day.  The rain had fallen all day.  How were we to know this gust had iron in it? 

I keep seeing Cornie's dark intelligent eye.  He wasn't hand tame.  He wasn't a cuddly bird.   But he knew who he was and where he was.  He knew me and he thought deep bird thoughts.  His little yellow head was not a container of 'birdbrains', easily discounted, easily forgotten.  He was a birdperson, small and, in the ways of the world, insignificant but I knew him and insignificant he was not. 

It has been an awful day.  We searched for him, this bright spot of yellow in a dark grey and green world, but he was not to be seen.  He is either already dead, which is what I wish for him after the fantasy daydream of him landing on my shoulder and staying there while I walked through the house to the verandah, or he is enduring wet, cold and hungry conditions with no hope of surcease.   I visualize rescue but hope for a quick and painless end.  Salud Cornelius. Your tiny yellow and green life was important and will be missed.

Despite best efforts, sometimes a drawing is a dud.  Had some hope that the pencil drawing I was working on would come out okay but finally admitted that there was no saving it.  Unfortunate and a bit sad but there you go.  I'm my own best fan too so it's saying something when I don't like something I make.  I try to create work that I like, that I like to look at, that I like to have around me.  Not this one. 
     The weather has been severe (climate change nay sayers take not!).  This summer has been the hottest on record.   Not a dry heat but a humid heat which is enervating in the extreme.   I have done one ink sketch and started  a pastel of aerial view of clouds over red sands which I'm excited about.

The above was written a few days ago.  Thought I'd download a couple of photos to show what I'd done, especially the pastel.  But I couldn't.  I've downloaded before, not without trepidation for the exact reason as what happened, or more precisely, what didn't happen. 
       Why, when I've transferred, rather imported, photos from the camera on to the computer wouldn't it do so then?  I searched everywhere, pounded every button.  I even downloaded Picasa again.  I could find photos, all the photos I have reluctantly taken over the years but I couldn't get the camera and the computer to talk to one another.  Finally, after madly pushing buttons like the thousand monkeys trying to rewrite Shakespeare through eternity, I hit the correct one.  The computer had decided it wouldn't talk to Picasa anymore and had somehow reverted to Windows - which hadn't lifted a kilobyte finger except to point the middle one at me.
       I loathe digital cameras.  I don't like looking at photos on a monitor.  I don't like the pain in the ass process of trying to organize them.  I don't like anything about the digital photograph.  My old 1978 Olympus OM 10 suits me just fine.  I'd rather hand a roll of film to some pimply faced clerk in the supermarket and get an envelope, fat with possibilities, returned a few days or a week later.  I like waiting to see the results.  I like finding a photo that exceeds expectations and I am content with the duds.
      Tried to explain this to a keen photographer friend.  She didn't understand.  At all.  Why walk when you can drive?  Why cling to the stone age when the digital age is so much better?
      Stress.


     

I complimented a friend of mine.  Hadn't seen in her for a few months but when I saw her she looked slim and glamorous.  She's the kind of woman who can make a hessian sheath dress look dazzling, a knack I am sadly without.  A few days later she wrote back and thanked me.  On the day I'd seen her, she said, she felt fat, frumpy and exhausted.

Why do we as women think so little of ourselves?  Why are we so quick to criticize?  Why, when someone does compliment us, do we try and deflect it?  Why are we never  physically good enough.  I would like to think I've given up chasing the brass ring of female perfection.  At 57 I will never look 27 again.  My skin will keep its wrinkles and splotches.  My hair will get greyer.  My figure will succumb to the dictates of gravity.  I know that.  Yet, despite logic and reason and cruel daylight observation confirming this, I do keep trying.  And do keep beating myself up for not attaining it. 

How others see me is a mystery.  This friend, bright, smart, energetic - I've envied her.  She's one day older than I but looks younger.  Around her I feel fat and frumpy.  She's tall and slim.  I am short and dumpy.  But what if I could get inside her head?  What if she saw me as curvaceous with good legs (got my mom's legs and they are good).  What if my light brown hair streaked with grey was a badge of honour, that I refused to get on that pitiable road of dyeing my hair.  How often do we see a woman of a certain advanced age with monochrome hair that sits on her head like an unhappy helmet?  What if she thought I had good bone structure or nice shoulders or great breasts?  What if she saw me as I was and didn't judge?  Like I see her.  I suppose envying her is judging.

What if we stopped placing so much importance on appearance?  Men are far more mature about this.  They accept the inevitable changes age brings without agonizing over what others think.  Sometimes I wish they would care a wee bit more, especially when I see a stomach proceeding the life support system which sustains it by a week.  Still, they have a much healthier attitude to self-image than women. 

The energy and thought time devoted to how we look, how we would like to look, how others think we look and what could be done to improve our looks is nothing compared to the inner critic which ensures we will never be good enough.  That critic is the dominant force.  Whose voice is it?  I didn't come from a family that verbally beat me up.  My parents, while not praising every tlittle thing, believed in my abilities to do well at whatever I turned my mind to.  Is it media or is it more subtle than that?  That women aren't as good as men, that women must use their looks (sexuality) to compete and therefore are judged on that.  I don't know.  But when I see the fragility of a handsome chic woman of a certain age, I know it's something all women need to change. 

Snake Story

A cranky carpet snake bit my hand this morning.  Not that I blame him.  I had his tail in one hand while the other was making a grab for his head.   He was on top of the galah aviary and I wasn't tall enough to reach.  He moved, I grabbed further down his neck rather than just behind his head and he quite justifiably turned around and fastened his mouth on my hand.   I've got the prints to prove it; a semi-circle of punctures on the fleshy mound beneath my forefinger and a matching set on top.  Bled like a stinker too which is probably good. I've been bitten before while unwrapping a magpie caught in the coils of a somewhat larger python.  He showed his displeasure by puncturing the back of my hand.  That time, after the excitement was over and the magpie had flown, seemingly none the worse for his expeience, I had to put my head between my knees, a primal reaction to being bitten by a serpent I suspect.  The bite didn't hurt that much.  Today I didn't get dizzy.   And he was a smaller snake, only about 3 feet.  We popped him in a feed bag and let him go in the bush far away from our birds.

The birds behaviour this morning was the reason we started looking for a snake.  This fellow had been in the bauhinia tree next to the shed yesterday morning.  The wild birds made such a fuss I had to investigate, plus I know the snake alarm call for magpies and there was a magpie doing just that.  They have a distinctive grinding gurgle, for want of a better description, when they sight a snake.  The other clue is many different species of birds will come together, chief among them mickey birds but also blue faced honeyeaters, grey crowned babblers, willie wagtails, magpies, pee wees and yesterday, even a kookaburra.   So I knew there was a snake in the area.  This morning when I took the rainbow lorikeets their breakfast they were nervous.  Two months ago a carpet snake had got between the wire and the colourbond.  Richard had to unscrew the colourbond walls and roof before I could catch the snake.  The rainbows are snake savvy.  When I opened the door to let the galahs out for their morning graze Obama came out screeching and flapping.  I didn't pay too much attention.  I thought he was spooking at the watering can I was carrying.  He's the most nervy bird I've ever met, panicking at the slightest provocation.  But it was Marvin who carried the biggest sign.  He tiptoed over the threshold literally looking over his shoulder.  Marvin is big bold brave and cocky.  Timid is not in his nature.  But me being me, I sat down and drank my coffee and didn't think anything more about it until noticing a curvy looking branch on top of the aviary.  Too curvy, too sinuous, too, on inspection, snaky.

The Domestic Goddess Comes Out

It's so hot in here I have to step outside to cool off.  Not that I should complain, heard on the news it's possible parts of South Australia will make 50 Celcius this week.  That's 122 Fahreinheit.  That means dead birds falling from the skies, dead pets, wildlife and livestock, possibly dead people if they don't heed the warnings and find someplace cool. 

Yet the governments still play fast and loose with climate change.  But I won't go there.  Perhaps this is the place, but it isn't the time to have a rant.

I spend more time cruising cooking sites than I do anything else.  My current favourite is 101 Cookbooks (http://www.101cookbooks.com).  It's vegetarian but not vegan.  I find if I scroll through the comments following a particular recipe using a non vegan ingredient someone will usually ask what could be substituted.    Either that or they will suggest one.  The one I just copied is for a tempeh curry recipe.  She uses cream but I'm going to use coconut milk (as suggested by one of her followers). 

I wasn't going to use tempeh again.  I made the tempeh and orange juice recipe which was fine but it was the messiest dish.  The tempeh threw oil everywhere and I had to mop the floor of oily spatters before I could continue.  Richard, forgetting my anti-tempeh pronouncement, bought it again hence my cruising the cooking sites. 

Still have trouble recognizing myself.  I spent fifty years staunchly refusing to cook anything other than the half dozen recipes I could make without much trouble and with little thought.  Remember timing how long it took to make a salad (10 minutes) because I didn't want to spend any more time than I had to in the kitchen.  Now I daydream recipes.  I start planning what I'll make for dinner about lunch time and rehearse it while walking the 6km with the whippets.  Richard wonders who took his wife and substituted me.  Wonders but doesn't grieve.  He likes the new Domestic Goddess version better.  

As do I.  I understand the lure of cooking now.  It's the creativity.  Even though I'm following recipes there's still room to improvise.  I rarely have every ingredient and even if I do, I'm still anxious to try the dish at the end to see how it turned out.  No wonder cooking is the most popular category on Pinterest.  I've got a binder full of recipes I've copied.  Haven't tried them all but I will.  I've copied three recipes today.  The last one is the tempeh curry.  We'll see how it goes.  One nice side effect of me doing almost all the cooking is Richard doing the dishes.