Of Rats and Girls

Rats they say, Rats?!!      

They may be pointy nosed, long tailed and sharp toothed – but they sure make for fun times in your jumper!

My Rats have always loved nothing more than beetling around inside my clothes, smelling the smells of a day just spent or fossicking pockets and hoods for crumbs left on the last visit. I have made pinatas for them, an old sock stuffed with newspaper and scatterings of yoghurt raisins, carrot and nuts hung with string in the middle of their cage, this has kept them busy chewing through to deliciousness for hours.

I have thrown a tray of dirt and newly grown grass into the bottom of their cage and then watched them dig and biff the dirt all over in glee. My first Rat friend Nazair loved it when I hung an extra dish of water for him and his mate Rizzo, they spent many hours dipping, cleaning and swimming in it happily. Once I made them a slide from an old jeans leg, tying it to the top of the cage and running it to the bottom. Even shy, bumbling Rizzo clambered joyfully up and down and slithered bravely all over it.  A fun park in the middle of the city has not such excited visitors as these two Ratties on these easy-to-make playthings!

They shared many a beloved treat with me, carefully carrying in their mouths and placing it delicately into my lap with their dexterous, tiny hands. There is nothing more adorable about owning a rat than watching them clean their faces carefully and precisely after eating a juicy mandarin segment. I have made frozen treats to cool their smooth tongues -putting carrots, corn and peas into iceblock holders, freezing them and popping them into a dish in their cage in hot weather.

I have laughed until my eyes cried, watching my adventurous Nazair Rat chase my cats around the house in a lime green rolling Rat Ball – he went so fast that I almost missed the shocked expressions on the cats faces as they jumped on the couch to safety!

Often too lazy to leave their hammock bed to eat breakfast and sometimes negligent about where they leave their poo, my Rats were still one of the most loyal and consistently enthusiastic pets I have had the pleasure of owning. No matter what time of day or night I arrived home -even though they preferred the nocturnal hours – they would be grasping the cage bars like little, whiskery convicts pleading with me to let them come out and play.

They are so simple to own, clean, loyal and loving – the only thing negative I have to say is that sadly, their lives are short in relation to ours. A mere two to three years is all you will have with your rodent friends but those years will be filled with laughter and rat flavoured licks of love…

Pinny Gig Loving

It started when I was six, she cost 50c, was heavily pregnant and we called her Hope.

Fond childhood memories are of Guinea Pigs growing fat and sleek on bountiful grass, carrots and straw while fluffy white felines poked endlessly at them through the wire of the home-made hutch.

More recently my sister had three Guinea Pig boys, Mort, Oberone and Puck. A gang of squeaking, trilling lads tootling quickly along, single file in a direct line behind each other, happily fossicking in our lounge to an enraptured audience. We were originally most alarmed to hear the shrill squeaking a Cavy makes when excited – we thought one making such a sound was surely squashed beneath a chair, being disemboweled by a cat or in his very death throes??!!   Ah no! The three had simply heard the fridge door open and were delightedly shouting requests for “Leafy Greens, a slice of Carrot or if you don’t mind terribly, a dash of Broccoli please?”

Mort was a black Abyssinian Pig who helped me reach the conclusion that a name is very important to a life. Mort being a name best read about in books.

Fast forward to Gorgeous George, a Guinea Pig of true style and flair. This ginger and white chap with the beady red eyes was slim, sporty and sharp as a tack. He loved to stand on his igloo in his indoor cage and peer at us chatting in the lounge, was responsible for a cacophony of squeaks, screams and squeals if he sensed parsley heading in his direction and was a firm friend of my Persian cat Grizmelda.

LeeLou was a Buff coloured Pig who was intended as a girlfriend for George. We soon discovered he had the sly ability to tuck in his penis and flutter his eyelashes like a girl at her school formal.  LeeLou had a frivolous view of life – his own that is. My sister caught the neighbours Burmese cat in the act of jumping over the fence with LeeLou in her mouth…was he squealing, calling out for help and saviour?? No, he was merely resting in the very maw of untimely death and peeking mischievously out as if it was all a fun joke.

Now working in a pet store I have become surrounded by pinny gigs, young and older. I delight in the variations of personality and often pick out the extroverts to converse with and head stroke. The more time I spend in their company, the more it has dawned on me that they make seriously under-rated pet friends.

These little creatures are absolutely brilliant. Every Guinea Pig in every litter is wildly unique – Flatcoated, Crested, Bi-coloured, Tri-coloured, Mohican, Longhaired, Abysinnian, Self, Texel….the possibilities Nature comes up with is endless and fascinating.

I have met some wonderful characters, those I just know will go to a home where they will happily play a Guinea Pigs favourite game – ‘Freeze’. This game involves sneaking soundlessly up on an unsuspecting owner, freezing stock still when they glance in your direction, then scamper off as soon as they turn away, chuckling and purring busily under your breath.

I thoroughly recommend that you spend some time with a Guinea Pig Troop/Muddle/Mob; watch the interactions between many Pigs, rustling and crunching, joyfully chewing their way industriously through life. You may discover their (often secret) Guinea Pig ways, made up of bustling, bossy leaders and shy, gentle followers -the springing skip jump, the rattling growl warnings and the happy chin nuzzles.

These glorious few minutes you spend will put you in the company of Giants.

Cycling on a Flowery Demon

The cycle to work is a simple one. Twenty minutes and I am there.

I pedal past the barely moving line of traffic. All attempting to make it in to the City, for work, for money earning, for coffee with workmates, signing paperwork and having short lunch breaks spent ‘relaxing’ on small bits of scrubby grass…I smile.

So many cars with one person in it, so many cars, idling at intersections, idling down Mount Alexander Road. No-one really looks content with this interminable waiting they seem to do every day. I wonder as I pedal faster, harder, ever willing to break my record of 18 minutes in – why don’t these people cycle too?

Such benefits. The exercise achieved and the burning up of breakfast eaten. To enjoy the sound of Mynah Birds and Ravens squabbling over the best perches and bopping around in gutters. I love to glance, to see into a mostly empty car and I realise that cycling or walking is so much better for the soul. The environment and even the brain gain from this simple act.

My wobbly grey matter revels in the music I play to it as I cycle. Pedals clicking, spokes whirring and kilometres being eaten. My face breaks into a smile and when I get the lights, a grin. There is no better way to reach a day to day routine than under your own steam. Refreshing and powerful in your control over your own fitness, the knowledge that you are NOT contributing to pollution.

Just a simple thing really.

There are the lights that turn red and force me to wait. There are the people who open car doors and forget to look. There are even those motorists who cut me off and swing nonchalantly around a corner, making me brake hard and mutter bad words under my breath. All of these things can remove my smile, yes it’s true. However, realise this next time you are waiting in traffic, are bored, grumpy and tempted to text… the cyclist passing you on the other side of the road, puffing her way up a slight hill and grinning to herself. Has no envy of you at all.

I love my flower covered bicycle and I love to ride to work.

Going ……Homeland?

It was a fly-by visit. Seven wintery, storm drenched days back in Wellington. Six months away for me but in hours that time became irrelevant. Family were still bursting with love, laughter and easy company. Cat girls still crazy, furry and attentive . It was as if I had never left.

Un-knowingly I had chosen the coldest blustery week, possibly of the whole winter. I froze my nose and toes until it felt they belonged to someone else, yet I loved even that. Wellie in wrap-up-warm Winter is still gorgeous. Friendly stranger smiles from Cuba Street locals. Delicious People’s coffee in eccentric Newtown. The joy of knowing every little crevice, side street and interesting shop in a favourite city. All these things reminded me of why I love Wellington so. There is a certain feeling when I fossick round Cuba Street that I don’t think you could get anywhere else.

A walk up and over the Island Bay hills reminded Jase and I of the unique NZ smells we loved. Wet pine needles, abundant fern greenery sprinkled with dew. Lovely loamy earth smells that fill your nostrils. Only beaten in strength by the sound of the native birdlife. Tuis, Waxeyes, flirty Fantails and the melodious Bellbirds. We were spoilt for wonderful bird song.

Nights filled with games, the winning, the losing. Belly filling delectable treats prepared from scratch by my inventive chef sister devoured and washed down with great coffee. Warmed by the fire until our toes became our own again. Laughing, talking, planning and just being there surrounded by loved ones…this was a journey I was so glad I made.

As we boarded our plane at Wellington Airport I sadly pondered. Instead of leaving behind a big piece of my hearts soul when I leave this wonderful eccentric city, if only I could take all these beloved things with me?

Store them in words such as these. Keep them close, in the front of my head. Just behind my eyes when they close…

A Birds-eye View

My new city of Melbourne is a city of birds.

From the dawn-song of the brightly coloured, scatter-flying of the Rainbow Lorikeets to the swirling flocks of the Common Myna going to roost in the sepia evening trees, I am treated to wonderful bird viewing every day.

This country has so many wonderful native birds. Flashy and with loud raucous voices (some would comment they sound like the nasal, twanging Australian people, but no not I,  someone else foolish of course) these crazy madcap fellows are to be seen in all parts of the city.

Brilliantly Green, the colour of Granny Smith apples, Grass Parrots poking around in tussocks and on freshly renewed lawns.

Harshly cawing, impressive sized Ravens perched on rooftops and telephone wires, passing sarcastic remarks to all who pass under.

The strange sound of the Miner Birds in many treetops – triggering feelings of walking through busy supermarket checkouts.

My mind delights and my eyes adore, the straight-edged flight of the yokel Cockatoos, the bobbing and huddling of the eighties coloured Galahs like so many gossiping ladies around a cafe table

and the always wonderful silhouettes of the darling Magpies strutting their stuff through…

…well anywhere they like!

I am hard pressed to decide on any one bird as my favourite but instead choose a favourite time.

Sunset and the madcap, disorganisation of the Lori’s….a crowd of colour, not flying with grace but flying with attitude, back to the chosen resting spots for the oncoming dusk.

Who cannot enjoy and often laugh at these cheerfully, busy chaps as they almost take out the side of buildings in their energetic drop, swoop, slide, glide hubbub?

Slinky Black Cat

A wildling black kitten cat, fur so worn by the daylight hours it is mostly brown, walks with intent down the inner city street. She lurks close to the edge near the walls and keeps to the shadows, the glooming shadows that roll out and blend her into non-existence. She skulks and hesitates near an overfull rubbish bin, raising her head higher she scents with her delicate nose, questioning, deciding on contents and disregarding. This is yuppie rubbish and full of plastic, paper and inedible man made sauces.

At the wailing of a siren and the screeching of tyres, her ears flick annoyed in that direction and her delicate padded paws lead her in the opposite. Hurrying onwards she stops to read a urine message on a clump of threadbare, rough grass…her lips crinkle and she grimaces – this belongs to a tom she hopes not to encounter.  Decisively she leaps, floating almost for a second and then, catches, pulling her weight up and over a tin topped fence and into a grassy open area. She skirts around the outside, racing her spiky shadow across the dark grass and up over another fence.

Then a last road to cross – one busy, car ridden minefield.

She detests cars, they scream noisily at her from their prison of gray cold tar seal and emit gag-making black smoke which catches in her coat. But cross it she must.

She takes a breath, slows her heart and opens her surround. Her whiskers seem to stretch and stand as far open as possible and her ears reach anxiously straight up, pricked and moving ceaselessly to warn her of oncoming traffic. Breath, listen, glance, go.
Flat out run, one single look over her shoulder as her paws leave the footpath and she bounds, almost leaps across the road.

Safe.

She stops just out of the streetlight and under the edge of a shrub she carefully licks her paws, one two three and finally four. Not to be fastidious but to instead rid her sensitive feet of the dangerous oil collected from the road just crossed.

Another empty area, this one full of rubbish and leaves. A kittening cat she cannot help scuttering after one big leaf for a time. It dances back with her briefly and skips away under some metal. She pats beside it once then shrugs, shakes her whiskers straight and continues on.

A doorway, smells familiar and memories of warmth. A mew, barely audible but within seconds the door opens a crack.

Wider, light spills out and the cat has a nimbus of brown gold around her black, her eyes glowing like lights from her face.  Mew. Arms reach down and she is up. Up and enveloped in love and the smell of a person she loves. She headbutts and nuzzles this neck as the door closes, with one last searching look through the diminishing opening she ensures her home is safe from stalkers, followers, tomcats.

Gazing Upon a City

As I sat today at the Mount Victoria lookout, perched on a flat, smooth rock, I gazed out over Wellington and drew in the view with my eyes. The sun warmed my bare arms and danced around my body like an exuberant puppy wanting a walk. I smelt the freshness of the long grass whipped into a frenzy by a warm Spring wind and was battered about the head by my slowly drying, evilly tough hair.

The skyline was a pale blue broken by high set, stretched apart white clouds, a reminder always of why this country is called The Land of the Long White Cloud.
In my city, this crazy, muddled, jumbled, busy, wonderful place the clouds are forever drawn across the sky in a fast journey to wherever it is they go to rest. I love this about Wellington, it keeps the air we breathe so fresh and makes us skittery yet complacent with its mad, windy ways.

I spied houses that were bunched together on all of the hilltops. They looked to me like a crowd of colourfully dressed sightseers, eager to see the view of the harbour. Not for Wellington, houses that match or houses that have sensible shoes…no here we have comfortable, ramshackle, gypsy shoes that are well worn and designed by people who love colour and turrets and little wooden fences with odd creatures made from tin perched on their edges.

I spun around in a circle, my hair flinging madly about and jingling like a wardens keys at Last Check. My feet encased in sneakers that were not designed for walking, skidded on the long grass and I slid half a metre like a car aquaplaning on treacherous water covered road.
Perhaps it was my belly laugh and exaggerated surprise noises that saved me from falling completely on my arse – perhaps it was the uncanny balance of the Strange Bunny Lady styles….either way, I remained on two feet.
I laughed loudly to no-one, to myself and skip walked down to the road, the grey hilltop meander back down to Newtown, treelined road with many curves and bumps.

The pine trees howled and whooped as I went past them like they always did when I was small, riding past a cluster on my way home it always made me pedal faster, faster. Today as an adult, I still found that I stepped more quickly, sometimes we may grow older but with ominous nightmare sounding noises I have found my heart is still that of an eight year old girl.

Back to the bottom, to the traffic and the odd Newtown people who wander its streets. My walking steps became less lean back and swinging rhythm and more of a bouncy lope that befits a wander through a favourite suburb. Through the gate, push, creak, lock and up to the door. Home.

Many a Sunday

The sun is shining bright and the FanGed Rabbity decides to go and walk in it.

She sees people smiling, people covered in swathes of sunscreen, trailing children with sticky faces along her street. Litter from the Saturday night blows, flurries and scatters down the footpath. She collects much of it and posts it carefully in bins. She wanders through the Basin Reserve and looks at green short grass with bugs fossicking their insect lives away in such a bountiful paradise.

The middle of the mall, the smell of beer and cigarettes, the hints and notes and shards of conversations passed. The high laugh of a girl impressing a man sitting on a stool outside Murphys, the toss of her hair and chink of her fingernails on her glass of oh so expensive Chardonnay.

Fangy smirks and knows and carries on her wandering way, the sound of small bells following her steps, her hair heated in the strong hot sun reminds her this was meant to be shower day. Another time.

Children shrieking on the lizard in the playground. Some have parents watching them closely, interacting and playing, others have those more intent on their own conversation, catching up with the la-dee dee of who with who and why she left and the all important paint colour of walls in living rooms. She breezes past the scene and smiles at a small girl who looks in awe at the older person who acts like a child and dresses like a cartoon. She waves her pink clad arm at Fangy, shy at first then beaming child smiles when her joy is returned.

Fangy looks in windows filled with things that are important to people or that simply give them pleasure. She sees a plastic baby doll made into a necklace, a lime green tiki, ashtrays made with photos of Jesus in them. She skirts across cobbled bits and kicks pebbles when they come across her boots. Avoiding near misses with a skateboarder followed by a gangle of boys on bikes she grins, they have no helmets and her pebble could have taught them a lesson. She wanders into Cosmic and purchases her favourite incense and holds it under her nose for a time, smelling its sweet musky aroma with the heat of the day and the sun beating on her arms are things she likes.

The sound of loud pop music blares at her from a record store. She grimaces but then smiles at Tarzan the Blanket Man, sitting on the ground with his loincloth, with his nodding grinning features he is hard to ignore and a piece of her city. The Wellington breeze builds as she comes closer to the waterfront and so do the people on bikes, blades and with pushchairs designed to run along with. The people here are less friendly, they seem as content yet too scared to share in smiles and appreciation of the day. Perhaps for fear that Fangy will leap across and steal their bags or ask something of them they are not prepared to give? She does not care, this is their worry, their stomach ulcer. She carries on smiling her secret smile, walking, wandering and looking at things. The sea is mostly blue but there are always white tops to the waves. She looks in the Lagoon, will there be the dark shape of a stingray or the pink glob of a jellyfish? Not today, there are only leaves, some plastic and the lapping of waves on its edge. The harbour is gorgeously full of boats, waterskis, ferries and kayaks. People, water, warm and swimming. The smell of lotion applied liberally every two hours, the sound of chattery cold children whose parents wrap them quickly in towels so they can roll in the sand and bring most of it home.

She looks at the sky and sees a trail of engine smoke forgotten by a small plane. It looks like a sign, a meaningful connection with another world but she doesn’t know the language. So she sits on a bench, admires the trail, the way it connects and intertwines with the clouds until it is gone and only the raging sunspot in her eye from looking up so long remains.

She berates herself her lack of sunglasses. They sit at home, in a drawer, forgotten and un-used as they usually are most Summer. She grins, this draws an elderly man to feel safe to sit near her on the bench. They greet and chat about the sun, the city and the ways that things change. She leaves him with a goodbye, a take care and turns her feet towards home. The thought of food and cats and writing this down. The travel home is as pleasurable as the way she arrived, people she sees look more tired and sticky. Some are new and fresh and ready to out but most are thinking of dinner, baths and tv. She fossicks, explores and goes the long way round the Basin. Seeing the shops that are closed and the hopeless grafitti scribbled on property. The grass here is scrubby, the footpath covered in gum but still she is happy. The ugliness here makes the beauty elsewhere sharper, more vivid and she wants to take photos. If only she had a camera.

She gets to her gate, stops to check her mailbox. A silly thing to do on Sunday but there you have her in a nutshell. A creature made of odd habits, not much sensible involved. Of these things she is proud, it is her own things to call her own. She opens her door, the cats greet her enthusiastically. Meows, head rubs and pushes past to the still shining sun outside yard bit. She yields to their wishes and sits on the concrete a while. Watching them forage in grasses for bugs, looking at random things on the ground. Sunning their bellies in rays of dappled sun that streaks through the clothesline. She sighs, she is happy. This was a day of nothing achieved, a day that she likes every now and then to do. To share with the city…an appreciation of its things, moods and its people. Such things to do are wonderful things.

Fangy Bunny – A fictional Tale

There once was a small Undead Rabbity called Fangy Bunny.

Fangy had furry, fuzzy ears that hung down past her chin, a raggedy grey-black pelt and a set of pointy canines which she kept sharpened on various twigs. Her lair was an excavation under a cluster of ferns, the rippled fronds giving her  shade and making the entrance almost impossible to see.

Rabbity Fangy was an odd creature, unlike other rabbits she adored springy dancing under the full moon, not in protective glades near a burrow, no-ho but in the open, near the woods and the city, where all who cared to look could see. Her silhouette was often placed just so, high on a hillock near the city’s edge, pirouetting and frisking.

Most rabbits are silent except for the death cry – not this Fangy Bunny, she loved to hear her own voice.  She revelled in singing the graces of the Storm and her favourite times were often on a lightning struck eve where she threatened and postured and dared the light to hit her.

One such stormy night as the Fangy Bunny frolicked, her pelt soaked to her skin and her shiny pointed teeth grinned, bared to the sky – a small child appeared in front of her in the midst of the downpour.

He stopped our Bunny with an upraised hand and warned her of treason.

“Treason” she cried, “I know not of treason for such things require rules and laws and people and I am an Undead Creature of the Glowy Night”

He nodded sadly and warned her again, a quiet voice and a shaking, pointing finger leading her eyes to the main part of the city. “Look to the dwellings of those that live there, oh Wild Fangy Bunny, these are the people who would have you more dead.”

The Rabbity shook her ears in furious rampaging anger and stomped her furry back feet.
“Why do these humans, these creatures of greed and need care about the Fangy Bunny” she cried.

The small boy replied “They want your spirit Fangy, they want your heart on a platter and they want to halt all Wild and Free creatures on this Earth”.

Fangy shrieked and wailed and stomped around her hilltop in a mindless fury. She threatened their lives, cursing in  anger in a deafening scream until she was almost hoarse. The small child merely stood and watched and said not a word.

When she had calmed, the Fangy Bunny turned to the boy and asked “Why have you come to warn me of such treason, are you not a human boy with much to gain by capturing me?” The boy looked sadly at the Fangy and shook his head slowly.
“I am a human but I am One Who Cares. I have followed and watched you for many nights and I cannot bear to think of your soul trapped and your body consumed by filthy greed.”

“I have an idea”.

He whispered softly into the Rabbitty Fangy’s ear and petted her neck fur gently as he spoke. When he had finished, the Fangy Bunny sat back on her haunches and gazed at him, considering.

“It may not be what you wanted from your Undead Life, but at least it means you shall never be stolen from your time and can live on forevermore” he said gravely.

“I see” said the Rabbitty and made to leave the hilltop without a single glance back.

But then she turned and lolloping lightly back to where he stood, pulled with a grimace a single fangy canine from her mouth and handed it to him gently.
“This is so that you will know I was not an imagined creature and as a token of my thanks for your warning, my only human Friend”.

With that she leapt once and flew in a bounding flight, up into the moonlight and the rain and the stormy black clouds, to ride the lightning into the heavens. The small boy who to her remained nameless, stood and watched until she was out of sight, clutching her Fangy canine with his tears scratching silent salt trails down his cheeks.

Now human child if you want to ever see the Fangy Bunny, you may sit on a hilltop at night and squint your eyes upwards to listen for her singing and wailing.  She can often be heard by the dedicated on the most foul of nights, faintly above the howling wind and rain.

Be warned though, you impetuous child – once you have called the Fangy Rabbity down from her cloudy misty lair, she may never leave. Your heart will be stolen, your soul longing to linger and wander and frollick the skies with hers forevermore……..ask the small boy who is now an old man that waits and watches for her on the top of a hill every Autumn, caressing a tooth between his fingers.