Mamalade

Miles likes it loud

Miles has found the volume control on my computer.

“But I like it loud,” he said, when I turned Pajama Sam down to a bearable level.

Later, he twiddled the knobs on the television set. He must have turned everything as far as it would go to the right. Then he pushed the “On” switch.

The TV came on with a mighty blast! Miles screamed and tore into the bedroom.

I quickly adjusted the sound, but I couldn’t get a picture. I can never remember how it has to be tuned to come through the VCR.

“Did you turn these knobs Miles?” I called to him. “Come and show me which one.”

“No!” A terrified face peeped around the doorway. “Too scary!!”

Sorting Stuff

We were packing up after a World Vision Jumble Sale.

“I’m going to go through my wardrobe and bring a lot of stuff I don’t wear,” I announced.

One of my friends raised an eyebrow. “You mean you’re going to run them through here again?”

We giggled. Most of us buy a lot of our clothes from the Jumble Sales. And some of the items get recycled round and round our club.

A dress that I once bought at a Jumble Sale had already been worn by three of our club members. I wore it to Church the following Sunday, then decided it wasn’t really “me” so I returned it to the next Jumble Sale. My friend bought it and wore it to church the next Sunday. She even sat in the same seat I had sat in the week before.

Anyway, I’ve just been going through my winter clothes. Some of them didn’t even get worn last winter. Olive has had a lovely time. As soon as I open the wardrobe, she jumps in to explore the contents.

I weeded out a pile of jumpers and track pants and took them out to the shed where I keep all the things for our Jumble Sales. I also carried out the boxes of stuff that had accumulated in the back bedroom.

Olive followed me into the shed and investigated the contents of all the boxes. I had just stacked them all neatly when she jumped onto the top box and sent them all toppling down.

It took a while to get everything packed up again. I came back inside to admire my now tidied back bedroom, but first I had to answer a knock on the front door. Someone had brought a pile of stuff for our next Jumble sale.

I’ll take it out to the shed later. Just for now, it can stay in the back bedroom.

whereOlive

The cats clamour for their dinner as I bring in the shopping bags. I set down three bowls of cat food and put away the groceries.”Do you want to go out again Oscar? OK, but come in when I call you.” We don’t always see eye to eye about the curfew.

Olive pushes past him and runs out into the night. She’s no problem - she’ll soon meow to come in again. I put the car away and turn on the computer. I lose track of time.

It is getting late - and cold. It’s the coldest night we’ve had this winter. Did Olive come back inside? I look in each room. Ingrid is curled up on my bed, but Olive is nowhere to be seen.

I open the back door. Oscar rushes in. “Good boy,” I tell him. “But where’s Olive?” she’s usually in by now. I call her.

She must be out the front. I walk around the front garden, calling. Maybe she ran into the garage when I put the car away. I go and check.

No Olive.

I don’t remember her coming inside, but I recheck every room in the house. On each chair, bed, behind the lounge, under the table, the top of the piano, the bookcase, inside each cupboard and wardrobe. There’s no sign of Olive.

I go back outside and look up and down the street. Olive has never stayed out this late. Oscar, yes. Occasionally I can’t get him to come in and he has a night out. No big deal. Ingrid sometimes chooses to sleep outside. I know she’s safe in her chosen spot. But Olive always comes in.

I recheck the garage, the back yard, the front yard. I call softly over the neighbouring fences, trying not to wake the neighbours.

I finally lock up and go to bed - but not to sleep.

What has happened to Olive? “Please, please keep her safe,” I pray. She was sitting at the gate when I put the car away. What if someone catnapped her? Will they treat her well? What if they only wanted her for her beautiful fur? If anyone picked her up, she’d bite them. I comfort myself with the thought. No one holds Olive against her will.

But she’s such a little thing - just a bit of fluff!

I think of the anguish that parents of missing children must go through.

Cats often wander off for a few days, I remind myself. Ingrid went missing for a couple of days just after I got her. She came back. Squeaky next door went off somewhere for a week.

I’ll wait a while before I tell Ben and Agnieszka that I’ve lost their cat. She might come back in the meantime.

It’s such a cold night. I hope she is warm. She’s probably found a cosy spot under a neighbour’s house and doesn’t want to come back out in the cold.

I doze fitfully.

What was that? Is it Olive at the front door? I jump out of bed and run to the door. No sign of her. Back in bed, I realize its Ingrid making little muttering noises in her sleep. I cuddle her close to me. Where’s Olive?

I think of the Good Shepherd, searching for the one lost sheep.

I wake several times during the night. Each time I get up to look out the door and peer through the windows. Oscar is curled in a tight ball on the lounge with his tail coiled around his ears. He doesn’t stir.

The first rays of daylight finally slide through the slats in the venetian blinds. I am anxious to start searching, but I will myself to lie there a little longer. If Olive has spent the night somewhere in the neighbourhood, she won’t be up and about yet. She’s usually sleepy in the mornings.

I finally rise and groggily make my way into the kitchen.

Olive is sitting in the middle of the kitchen table, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. “Where’s my breakfast?” she purrs.

“You rotten little cow!” I tell her. “You don’t deserve any!”

I pick her up and cuddle her. She snuggles for a moment, then to starts to grumble about being held.

I put her down before she starts to bite me.

I still don’t know where she had hidden.

I’ve been feeling too lazy to update. I still can’t get over this blasted flu. I’ve had it for 5 weeks now. I badly need a haircut, but I’m too tired to bother. It’s got to the stage where the ends kink out in the wrong direction - so I’ve been putting a few hair rollers in it when I go to bed to keep it under control.

On Sunday after church, I changed into my comfortable tracksuit. As I pulled my jumper over my head, a hair roller dropped to the floor. Surely I didn’t wear it to church! If I did, no one told me!!

“Pick-a-Box”

Our “Back to the Fifties ” morning went well last week. We ran it like a “Pick-a-Box” quiz. (Bob Dyer’s “Pick-a-Box” was a popular Australian radio show in the fifties.) We had prepared lots of boxes containing small prizes. (It’s easy to find lots of little knick-knacks when you are continually sifting through stuff for jumble sales.)

The quiz questions were all based on the fifties. I had gleaned plenty of information from the the fifties web and The Menzies Era web sites, and lots of music from the fifties at Annie’s Place.

Everyone won at least one prize. Someone even won a car - but they’ll never fit into it!

We finished up singing some good old songs from the fifties and trying to spin a hula hoop.

Computer Geek

My 3-year-old grandson Miles is a real computer geek. He has become expert at playing the Freddie Fish game and is now mastering Pajama Sam. They are both great games. Even I enjoy them.

Last time he was here he wanted to play with my Catz programme.

“I’ll put it on for you,” I told him. I turned for a moment to say something to Joel.

“There it is!” exclaimed Miles.

I had only looked away for a moment, but in that time Miles had located the programme by clicking the “Start” button and navigating to “Programs,” then to “PE Magic,” then “Petz II” and then the game. I can to never remember its position on the menu and have to search through the list, but Miles must have watched closely the last time I did it and remembered exactly where to go!

Joel had changed the resolution on my computer so Pajama Sam would come on full screen. When he was leaving, I said, “How about changing it back again!”

“You can do it,” said Joel.

“I don’t know what you did, ” I said.

“But you saw me do it.”

There’s no way I can follow when Joel operates a computer. “Click, click, click” and the screen changes before I can take anything in.

But Miles probably could have done it!