I'm in modern-dad mode today.

Baked bread, and made sweetcorn and potato chowder ready for lunch all before breakfast then played with the kids in the (dewy) garden for a while. Got wet knees.

My daughter is currently obsessed with the massive garden spiders that keep popping-up unannounced. I'm not keen on spiders, but I don't want my daughter to be scared of them (as her mother is) and thus I have to constantly (and bravely I think) fake enthusiasm and spend (what feels like) vast quantities of time in close proximity to the terrifying bastards.

Here's one:

yikes. i remember using long out of order toilet in the rehersal room. well, next to rehersal room. pipes were ok, but the whole place wasn't used for years so after a few months of playing there drummer (owner of the place) decided we must no longer piss on the trees outside and put the water back on. when i entered this toilet there at least 40 spiders there. dead, alive, with webs all over the place. pissing and wondering whether the itching on my neck and head is only effect of my imagination or is caused by those fuckers walking on me was not pleasent at all.

Last night I watched Casablanca for the first time.

Today they parodied it on Mad About You.

I do not usually watch Mad About You. It was just a coincidence.

Gack!
This morning on my way to work I was face to face with a Corvette L-82, like this one except a black t-top:

It had a "tricked out" vanity plate on the front that said REDNECK WOMAN.

Driving the thing was a bleached blonde in pancake makeup, and a trashy old baby seat on the passenger side.

It was so Daytona Beach I could vomit.

Yesterday I killed a dove. I did not want to do it but felt I had to. You should know in advance that I try to avoid killing anything--ever--even bugs. I catch wasps in jars and let them go outside. Despite my redneck roots, I have been hunting a grand total of once in my life. I sat in the duck blind and did one-hits while my dad and Durwood Fogle sipped whiskey and cursed the rain.

Anyway, my year-old border collie was clearly tormenting something in the front yard. I figured she had another locust or giant grasshopper like the one she caught last week, at the very worst worst a mole. But no, she'd caught a gorgeous mourning dove, its left wing stetched out and totally mangled. It was just sitting there letting her nudge it with her nose and toss it into the air, not even attempting to fly or protect itself.

My immediate thought was to rescue it--to take it from her and drop it off somewhere on my way to school, but I knew it could not move and assumed it would be eaten alive or, at best, lie there waiting to die. I did not want this to happen.

So I got a shovel and crushed it. Then I picked it up by its broken wing and carried it behind my garage and buried it. Every dove I saw all day long seemed to be judging me by its very presence, but I still felt like I'd done the humane thing in putting it out of its misery.

Brett Eugene Ralph wrote:So I got a shovel and crushed it. Then I picked it up by its broken wing and carried it behind my garage and buried it. Every dove I saw all day long seemed to be judging me by its very presence, but I still felt like I'd done the humane thing in putting it out of its misery.

Holy shit!

No kidding.
Maybe they're not really judging you, but thanking you for ending the other dove's pain.

Last night, I was sitting on the front porch of my just moved into lower flat, enjoying the trees, critiquing my mow job on the lawn from earlier in the afternoon, drinking a Delirium and smoking. There's a motion/photosensitive light there that seems to go on and off very randomly. Then I realized for some reason that the light would go off whenever someone walked past on the sidewalk, hiding me. Odd, and probably creepy for the people walking by.

Robbie Williams is playing outdoor concerts in Roundhay Park, in Leeds, tonight and tomorrow. This wouldn't really be a detail from my day, particularly, if there wasn't a quite definite buzz in the city about it. All day at work it was the hot topic: who is going, who isn't, how they'll get there and when, who people saw play at Roundhay in the eighties (Michael Jackson and Madonna). The schools around there closed for the afternoon to avoid 'traffic chaos', and nothing quite says 'major event' to me like schoolkids getting the afternoon off (only some though; the kids in other parts of the city must be proper pissed off!). The local news tonight has had live reports from the build up. It's a beautiful September day, and although I've very little time for Williams and his career is definitely waning, I like this feeling of something really happening in the city that is going to affect loads of people.

It's no Touch and Go Festival, for sure, but it's a thing and it's happening here.

daniel robert chapman wrote:It's no Touch and Go Festival, for sure, but it's a thing and it's happening here.

Robbie Williams, WTF. You too need to be cheered up!
Cheers!

today i was totally soaked when i went out to run. rain was so rapid there was no point in running home so i simply continued to do rounds, having the whole stadium for myself (not that it was crowded when i entered it). the thing is, it was one of the most enjoyable runs i've ever had. water splashing underneath my feet with every step, wind blowing, tons of water falling directly on me (at least so it seemed) and it felt great.