Sleepless Nights

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  • My Bathroom Really Needs a Lock

    I was half way through my shower today, when I spotted my razor on the wall.

    Hmmmm. I thought. I haven’t done any maintenance in a while. Maybe I ought to look into that.

    Sure, my razor was a little blunt and I probably ought to buy a new head for it, but what the hell I figured, I’ll work carefully.

    Just as I started, the bathroom door flew open and in crawled Isaac at the speed of light.

    ‘Hey-yo!’

    Hmmmph. ‘Hello kid.’

    ‘Here-ya!’ He demanded, passing me a face washer from the floor.

    ‘Thankyou.’

    Nathan followed him in shortly, smirking, and I glared at the both of them until they left.

    Back to what I was doing, I was contorted in an awkward position when Amy raced in. I quickly changed to shaving my legs and she didn’t notice.

    ‘Hi kid. What do you want?’

    ‘I needa use the potty.’

    ‘Oh. Okay. Quickly then.’

    She left and I went back to what I was doing.

    Now, the upside of being bendy is that I can see bits of myself that you probably can’t, meaning that shaving is more sight-work and less guess-work.

    The downside of being bendy is that my skin is so fragile, I have to be incredibly careful not to tear great chunks of skin out. Which, incidentally, I have done before, leaving a 4 inch long and inch wide gash down my shin. My shower looked like a scene from Psycho that day.

    So, I’m contorted into an awkward position, again, half upside down and moving carefully. I wasn’t really prepared to see a mouse run under the washing machine. Luckily I didn’t start jumping up and down trying to schwack it while I was still contorted.

    Heh.

    As a side note, we bought new shampoo and conditioner yesterday. Apparently it has a ‘cooling’ action or something, anyway, I didn’t pick it out.

    You can see where this is going.

    No matter how careful I am, the fragility of my skin means I cut myself numerous times shaving anyway.

    And we’ll add that to some distractions.

    And ‘cooling action’ conditioner, still in my hair while I was shaving.

    Yes.

    Maybe it would have been pleasant for a hard core masochist. Me, not so much.

    Laugh all you want, it will be your turn next time.

    So for this Easter, I wish you undistracted showers, sharp razors and conditioner that doesn’t make your girly bits feel like you dunked them in mouthwash.

    A basket full of eggs and a pleasant weekend would also be nice for everyone.

  • Sleepless Nights has a new sponsor – Ferrero Rocher

    Last week I was approached by the exectives at Ferrero Rocher chocolate and they asked if I’d be interested in a sponsorship deal.

    Of course I am I said! Do I look insane?

    In return for a specified amount of Ferrero Rocher chocolates and decent amount of money PER POST, I agreed to let all my readers know about the new sponsorship, and to mention Ferrero Rocher in every post of mine from here on in.

    Yes, I know they’re a US company and I KNOW that they are in no way gluten free, but I’m prepared to overlook those facts, in light of the free chocolate and money thing.

    So that’s that.

    Watch the sidebar, the new ads should show up sometime after lunch time today.

    And uh, chocolate on!

  • Seven is a bully – a fat bully.

    This post is sponsored by Nuffnang.

    Seven was our first dog, a Dogs Home rescue over 2 years ago. Being at the dogs home and previous, god knows where, well, it’s given her Issues. With a capital I.

    Seven is a bat

    You can’t pat her without her cringing. She is bossy. And dominating.

    I mean, she is a terrier x daschund x whatever – she is short and fat and has tiny little stubby legs so she doesn’t run very fast.

    Seven 004

    And being a small dog, she gets very fat, very quickly.

    When I see her getting fat, I put her on a diet – which works …. for a while. Boiled rice, vegetables, raw bones, and a little bit of dog food is my normal plan (not all at once of course).

    However, you’ve got to factor in the fact that Seven is a bully and she’s not averse to stealing everyone else’s food while she is dieting.

    In fact, I think she has the cats so scared of her that they purposely throw her their food, just to keep her happy. Think schoolyard bully, shaking the weedy nerds upside down for their lunch money.

    Yeah, that’s what Seven does.

    So Seven gets fat, I put her on a diet, she loses weight, she beats up all the other animals for their food, gains weight again, I notice and put her on a diet again.

    It’s like yoyo dieting for dogs.

    And now we’ve got Susie, I need to be extra careful that Susie is eating enough and that Seven isn’t stealing all of Susie’s food, as well as the cats food, as well as any mice the cat catch –

    As an aside here, this morning I went outside and narrowly missed stepping on a dead mouse. There was another one in the dogs bed, another near the water bowl and one in the hay. Seven was running around in circles, growling any time the cats tried to steal their (dead, cold) mice back. They eventually gave up. Like I said – bully.

    So yeah, Seven is a fat bully.

    Heh, Seven is eating from Susie's pile here. Like I said, bully.

    Nuffnang asked if I’d like to be part of a trial for some new dog food, Pedigree’s Light and Mature for Overweight or Old dogs and I wavered for a while. I mean, it’s dog food.

    But then I thought that it would give me an opportunity to talk about Seven and make Taz happy, so I agreed.

    I’m under no illusions, when Seven is looking fat, then she is unhealthy. It seems that nowadays, over 40% of Aussie dogs are fat. Heh, I can just imagine them trying to run around a dog park, puffing and clutching at their sides.

    This dog food from Pedigree, it’s formulated for less active and/or older dogs, with 30% less calories. I think Seven with her teensy little legs falls under the less active category. Poor Seven.

    She seemed to like it to be honest. Not that that is any great test, I’m fairly sure this dog of mine would eat anything if given half a chance. Susie practically inhaled hers as well, despite not really needing it.

  • Team Ivy

    Long time readers will remember Ivy from 18 months ago, when we petitioned for her IVIG to be approved and won.

    Now, Ivy’s mum, Tiff, is wanting to give back to the hospital and ward where she spends so much time with Ivy.

    Can you help?

  • Pillows

    You don’t know this, but I have a thing about pillows.

    I like them.

    A lot.

    So much in fact that when we were cleaning out Nan’s house, I ended up with all of the pillows. Seems Nan liked having lots of spare pillows about too.

    We used her spare pillows to pack the furniture as we moved it, shoving them into glass cabinets and between things to prevent breakages. They did their job and nothing broke.

    Today, I found 4 pillows on the floor of my bedroom, all sans pillow cases – it seems Amy likes naked pillows as much as she likes her naked self. I picked them up and went hunting for pillow cases.

    Thinking about it, I remembered that out in the shed, there were more pillows, packed still into the glass cabinet that’s in storage here. It’s coming up to winter now, the weather is cold and the cats have a plethora of mice that they can’t kill fast enough.

    Side note: It’s probably not going to be that long until you start seeing posts like this. and this. and this and this and this.Wow, seems I wrote a lot about mice last year.

    I went out into the shed and unpacked all of the pillows, not wanting the mice to start nesting in them.

    One, two, three, four, five, six pillows, packed into the cabinet.

    6 pillows.

    I rummaged around in the shed and brought inside anything else that I thought mice might find interesting, then I came inside to put pillow covers on all of the pillows.

    You know, almost 9 months on, those pillows, they still smell like my grandmother.

    And that kinda sucks.

    ***

    I have Nan’s overcoat sitting in the back of my closet. Despite hanging around with my clothes, it still smells like her perfume. Every now and again, I’ll lean in and breathe in her smell.

    Then, I’ll take a deep breath and walk away; back to my daily chores, back to the blogosphere; back to life.

    I’m not sure what I’ll do when it doesn’t smell like her anymore.

    ***

    A few months ago, maybe month 6, maybe month 7, I stopped talking about Nan. It hurt too much, there were too many tears unshed and so I just stopped.

    I dragged my brain away from thoughts of her and refused to think about it.

    At all.

    Mostly, this works for me.

    I don’t have to think about her, or speak about her, or cry anymore.

    But, it’s funny. Still, most days, fuck, every day – something will happen and it will run through my head like a litany.

    I miss my Nan. I miss my Nan. I miss my Nan.

    In time to my heartbeat; in time to my breathing.

    Because I do. I miss her so badly it hurts.

    I just don’t talk about it anymore.

    It’s been almost nine months.