Mamalade

I’m running late this week. I’d been struggling to write a speech for our last Toastmasters meeting. Just couldn’t come with any ideas this time, then the other night I was wakened by the smoke alarm…

You can read about it in “An Alarming Experience.”

Miles is Three

Miles had his third birthday last Friday. He wasn’t well last week, with an ear infection and asthma, but by Friday he had recovered enough to enjoy a little party in the park with his playgroup friends. They had a wonderful time. Frances took a big bubble wand and the delighted kids chased bubbles across the playground.

Frances was apologetic when she produced the birthday cake. “I burnt it a bit,” she said.

“Never mind,” said one of her friends. “Remember the cake I made for Timmy’s birthday and forgot to bring a knife? We had to fold a paper plate to cut it with!”

A strange expression passed across Frances face. “Did we put the knife in the basket?” she asked me.

Luckily it wasn’t too far for me to rush home and get a knife.

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Right now, Ben and Agnieszka are somewhere up in the air, on their way to California. They’ll arrive tonight (our time) but today will be just starting over there. At least they’ll have some daylight hours to find some accomodation.

Joel is going to make some changes to my computer, so I might be running late again next week.

Remember the Fifties? Holden cars, rope petticoats, and Rock and Roll? We were transported back in time last week, when we had lunch at a new restaurant that has the Fifties as its theme.

We sat on brightly coloured vinyl chairs at a laminex topped table, surrounded by all kinds of kitch from the fifties. Bakelite radio, (we called it a wireless) Electrolux vacuum cleaner, mixmaster, crockery, (Grandma had a bowl like that! Ooh look…there’s your pineapple jug!)

While we were waiting for our food, I started reading to Miles from the cute little book of “Nursery Rhymes for Cats” that I had just received for my birthday. The first page had a picture of an indignant looking cat in a carry cage on the back seat of a car. I read aloud,

“Car car back seat
I am such a fool
Bribed with biscuits
Veterinary bull.

Once for deworming
And once for the shots
Once for a-hurling
And once for the trots.

Car car back seat
Waiting with the mutts
Close your eyes and
Hang on to your …..

Oops! I don’t think this is a children’s book!”

The food helpings were generous. Frances asked for a container so she could take home her left over meal for Joel. “It will save me cooking tonight,” she said, when we got back to my place.

“Well, put it in the fridge and don’t forget to take it when you go,” I said.

“I want to play Teletubbies on your ‘puter!” said Miles.

We left him happily playing on the computer while we had a cup of tea. Then we heard the toilet door slam.

“He’s getting good at putting himself on the toilet,” said Frances, going to see if he needed assistance.

“Oh, no! He’s locked the door! Can you open the door, Miles?”

“No…”

I didn’t even know the door had a lock! I tried the door knob. The door wouldn’t open. All kinds of dire thoughts rushed through my mind.

How would we get it open? Who could we call? Would we have to climb up and break in the window – the key to the window was hanging on the wall of the toilet, out of Miles’ reach! How could we keep Miles from panicking until help arrived?

Thank heavens Frances is level headed! “Where’s your screw driver set?” she asked calmly. She selected a screw driver and had the door open in a moment. Miles was still sitting on the toilet, humming contentedly to himself.

I examined the doorknob. It has a button in the centre that locks when you push it in, but it can easily be unlocked from the inside, by just turning the knob. The reason Miles said he couldn’t open it was he still hadn’t got off the toilet!

But our problems were still not over.

“Time to go, Miles,” said Frances. “We have to go and pick up Daddy from the station.” She rummaged in her handbag. “I can’t find my keys!”

She emptied her bag and searched through the contents. She looked in the car while I searched the house. It was getting late.

“You could take my car to get Joel,” I suggested, “and pick up your spare keys from home on the way back.”

“There’s just one problem,” said Frances. “My car is behind yours in the driveway.”

“Maybe we could push it back…”

Luckily one of the neighbours saw us trying to push the car. He came to the rescue and helped to push it out of the way. Miles stayed with me while Frances drove my car to the station and came back with Joel.

“Okay,” said Joel. “Where’s this food you saved for me?”

“In the fridge,” said Frances. “Oh…..”

She sheepishly took the container out of the fridge. Sitting on top of it, was her bunch of keys that she had placed there so that she wouldn’t go home without Joel’s meal!

Joel phoned me before he went to work. “Come and say Happy Birthday to Meemar,” he called to little Miles. (Miles calls me Meemar.)

Miles usually clamours for the phone, but this time he suddenly went shy. “No, I don’t want to.”

No amount of coaxing on Joel’s part could make Miles come to the phone. Frances told me later, he went in to her in the bedroom looking very dejected and said, “I couldn’t say…Happy Birthday…to Meemar!”

It sounded funny, but I can understand how he felt. I think most of us have been in a situation where we want to say something special to someone, but at the critical moment we feel self conscious and the words won’t come.

When Frances brought Miles to see me later, I told him I’d rather just have a hug. Miles looked relieved and threw himself joyfully into my arms.

At our Bible Study group yesterday, the leader asked if we would each like to say a prayer. There was so much I could have said in response to what we had been studying, but the words wouldn’t come.

Sometimes I think God would prefer us to just throw ourselves into His arms.

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Ben and Agnieszka phoned from Melbourne. They got their visa at last and will be leaving for California at the end of the month.

All day, we could feel the sky sucking up every bit of moisture from the earth, and draining the energy from our bodies. The air was heavy with suspense as the storm clouds loomed.

Our World Vision Club had a Trivia Morning on Friday. We had a lot of fun in spite of the heat. I fanned myself with the exercise book I had written my questions in and muttered “It’s hot as Billyo!” (Has anyone actually been to Billyo?)

There were some lighthearted arguments about how many sides to a snowflake (the answer was six) and how many rows of whiskers does a cat have. I’ve lived with cats most of my life but I didn’t know they had four rows of whiskers.

I was too hot and tired to do anything after I came home.

It was a relief when the rain came. The cats came scampering in – with their four rows of whiskers – as the storm broke.

It was as though a giant bucket of water had been poured over us. There was some thunder and lightening, but mostly heavy rain sloshing down.

You can enjoy a night like that when you don’t have to go out in it. I seized the opportunity and played the piano for a while, belting out some of the old tunes I haven’t played for ages, knowing that no one could hear my mistakes above the deafening rain.

Then I curled up on the lounge with Buddy purring in my arms and thought happily of the soaking my garden was receiving.

“It was a good storm,” said my neighbour next morning. “No damage.”

We still hadn’t heard the news. Ten inches, we’d had. A lot of people had been flooded out and while I was enjoying myself, a twelve-year-old boy had been swept away and drowned in a flash flood.

Later, when I phoned Mum, she said “I can’t talk now, the carpet man is here.”

Oh, no, I should have realised! “Did the water come in downstairs?” I asked.

It’s happened before. The water runs down the hill into Mum and Dad’s yard. It can’t get through on the bottom side because the neighbour’s drains are all choked up with weeds and gunk, so of course it backs up and floods downstairs.

While I was relaxing with Buddy, Mum had been out in the driveway with a broom, trying to keep out the water. I wish she had phoned me. I could have helped – or at least tried to.

Sometimes, when I am in my comfortable bed, I remember that some people have no shelter. Sometimes when I enjoy a good meal, I remember that some people are starving. When I drink in the peaceful scenery, sometimes I think of people caught up in conflict and wars.

But when I was feeling relaxed and protected from the elements on Friday night, I just didn’t think.

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Mum’s carpets were still soggy today. We rolled them back as much as we could so that the electric fan could dry them. Luckily there was no other damage. The newspaper was full of stories and pictures of people who had lost everything and another man had been swept out of a car and drowned. A once-in-100 years flood, they called it.

“Wasn’t it lucky this didn’t happen the night before our Anniversary party!” said Mum.

“Relle would have had a fit!” I said. “I don’t know what we would have done.”

“We would have had to cancel it!”

“Just as well you didn’t get married two weeks later, 60 years ago!”

“We didn’t know then that we’d have kids who would give us a 60th Anniversary party!”

“This rubber backing is never going to dry out,” I wiped my nose, which has been dripping in sympathy with the weather. “What if we peel it off?”

“What a good idea! I hadn’t thought of that!”

“Aren’t you glad you had me?”

We spent the rest of the morning scraping the rubber off the back of the carpet, stopping occasionally to stretch our aching backs, or in my case, to get more tissues for my nose.

“Just throw the carpet out!” said Dad, when we told him at lunchtime what we had been doing.

Mum bristled. “I’m not going to throw it out now that it’s nearly dry!”

“It’s just a nuisance when the water comes in.”

“I’ll get rid of it if it happens again.”

I grinned. “That’s what you said last time.”

“Well, we couldn’t throw it out while its wet. It’s too heavy to lift.”

“So we’ll have to dry it out next time too!”

I hope there won’t be a next time.

“There’s a black and orange and white cat on my back fence,” said my neighbour. “Is it one of Ben’s?”

My neighbour has been away and hadn’t met Olive and Oscar.

“That will be Olive,” I said. “I’ve been wondering where she goes all day!”

I went next door. There she was, washing herself on the back fence. The yard behind my neighbour’s is a kind of no-man’s land. There’s a big mango tree, and all kind of overgrown shrubs. A cat’s paradise!

“I picked her up and she bit me,” said my neighbour.”That’d be right,” I said. “She’s a feisty little feline!”

“What does that mean?”

“It means she bites!”

She’s really very sweet and friendly – but on her own terms.

Olive spat rudely and chased Squeaky, my neighbour’s cat across the yard. “They’ll probably become friends and play together,” I said. “They’re both young…”

Then I noticed, high on the fence, hanging from a loose piece of wire – was Olive’s collar. So that’s where it had got to! What if it hadn’t been an elasticised collar she could slip out of? She would have hung herself!

I shuddered.

I’ve always been wary of collars on cats, since the time a stray cat arrived at my place in a dreadful state. He was wearing a collar that had probably been fastened when he was younger and smaller, but now the collar had grown too tight and eaten into his flesh, right to the bone. There was nothing I could do but phone the RSPCA to come and put him out of his misery.

So Olive and Oscar have been wearing loose elastic collars that they can slip out of if they are caught somewhere. I wouldn’t bother with collars, only I like them to wear their identification tags when they are exploring their big new world.

I’d hate to lose the cats before Ben and Agnieszka have even left the country! (They are still in Melbourne, waiting for their visa.)

Oscar was very nervy when he first came, but now he is quite relaxed with me and with my own cats, Buddy and Ingrid. He’ll even brush against Buddy or sit companionably with Ingrid on the back path.

But if a visitor comes to the house, Oscar rushes to the back door and cries “Wooooo!” till I let him out.

He didn’t panic when Relle called the other day, because she came in quietly and pretended to ignore him. Then when she could no longer resist making an overture, and reached out to him, Oscar sat up stiffly, and rolled his eyes tragically. He looked so funny.

“He looks like one of those pictures of a martyred saint!” laughed Relle.

Saved by the bell

I dreamt that I was cleaning out an old lady’s shed.

There was a mound of dirt in the corner – and rats were coming out of it.

“The council will pay $100 for every rat you catch,” the old lady told me.

“Well, there’s $700!” I said.

The smallest rat was dressed in a Santa Claus suit and he was nodding over a glass of champagne.

“Catch that one first,” said the old lady. “He’s drunk!”

I put him on a leash and led him over to the cat carry-cage. He was rather cute. It seemed a shame to turn him in.

He was saved by the bell. The alarm went off and I looked blearily at my clock. Seven a.m.! I was supposed to get up at Six! It was the first day of the big two-day jumble sale our World Vision club was running to raise funds for the Indian Earthquake victims.

I fell out of bed, scrambled into my clothes, grabbed some breakfast and shoved four astonished and indignant cats outside with their food. Luckily I’d packed the car the day before with items to sell. It was no later than my usual departure time as I drove down to pick up Mum.

Mum and Dad’s sliding door at the front had been sticking lately, so I placed my bag on the ground, grasped the door with both hands and gave it a mighty shove.

I nearly fell over sideways when the door slid swiftly open. I didn’t realise it had been fixed the day before!

Mum was preparing breakfast. She was surprised to see me. “What are you doing here so early?” she asked. “It’s only 6.30!”

Sometimes my digital clock jumps ahead an hour when I’m setting the alarm.

Having the sale on two consecutive days meant we could leave everything set up for the second day – which was just as well. I really slept in the second day. I had set the alarm for 6 p.m. instead of a.m.

I just can’t seem to get things right.

Do Ghost Trains stop at Manifestations?

“Don’t you mind sitting backwards?” asked my friend. We were on our way into the city, where she had to see an eye specialist.

“I always sit backwards in a train,” I told her. “You can see more.”

I discovered this years ago. When you are travelling forward, your eyes are still trying to focus on the scenery as it rushes past. But if you look back on it, you can see it all clearly.

As Kirkgaard once said, “Life must be lived forwards – but it can only be understood backwards.”

It’s years since I’ve caught a train to the City. We found our way up to Wickham Terrace using the shortcut up the stairs behind the station. I’ll take the lift next time – my back was aching when we arrived at the building where the specialist was.

Going up in the lift in the building, I was happily telling my friend about the book I’d been reading, “Angela’s Ashes.”

“I didn’t watch the movie,” said my friend. “It’s all about people dying, isn’t it?”

“Oh no, its not like that, ” I told her. “some people in it died – but they died quick!”

My friend hooted with laughter as I tried to explain I meant the book didn’t dwell on death.

Suddenly I suddenly glanced up, and froze in horror. There was a woman in the well shaft above us. She was hanging upside down!

Then I instantly realised it was my friend’s reflection in the mirrored ceiling of the lift. Phew! What a stupid place to put a mirror.

I completed two crossword puzzles while my friend saw the doctor, then we hurried back down to the station. I heard our train pull out while my friend was searching for her ticket in her capacious handbag that probably hasn’t been cleaned out in the last ten years.

“Got it!” she said at last. “Come on, it will be platform four.”

It was very hot on platform four. We waited . And waited. We watched as the destination board changed each time a train pulled out.

“Hey, that was our train at the top of the list! Now it’s gone off the board!”

” I didn’t see any train come in. We’ll have to wait for the next one.”

Just as it got to the top of the board again, I looked closer.

“It says platform six! Come on!”

The train went through as we came down the escalator. We waited on platform six for the next train. And waited. I looked at the board again.

“Now it says platform four! We must have missed it again!”

In future, I’ll take the first train that comes along and change over at the next station where there is only one platform.

We finally arrived home. I had twenty minutes to feed the cats, grab something to eat, get dressed and drive to the Toasmasters meeting. I really didn’t perform at my best that night.

My friend is reading “Angela’s Ashes.”