i stopped drinking straight milk years ago… right about the time they stopped selling it in glass bottles.

when i was very young i’d run down to nanna’s front gate, barefoot in the cool evening, with 2 or 3 bottles in the carrier, payment tokens rattling within. tied round the carrier handle was a used silver foil cap, to let the milkman know what type of milk we wanted. (silver-top was full cream, which we always got; blue top was homogenised and green-top was fat-free skim – yuck LOL).

then we’d listen for the milkman, who could be identified by the distant clinking of glass. the full pint bottles in the carrier were almost too heavy for me, but somehow i struggled them back up to the house, feeling the old plastic handle flex under my tiny fingers.

as i got older i remember walking up to the dairy by myself and buying a pint bottle for mum, and then on the way home i’d puncture the foil cap with my teeth and drink half of it (including all the cream off the top) before i got back! never could understand why this bothered mum so much lol.

but sadly those days are gone; and now the glass pint milk deliveries are a thing of the past. today’s alternatives offer only cardboard or plastic cartons… call me old-fashioned but i find them really off-putting.

the worst thing about plastic carton milk is the way it starts to smell when the bottle is getting empty; and if i can smell it, i can’t drink it. so today, i went looking for the good old days – and found these cool 1-litre glass bottles. now my fresh milk will actually taste that way again! can’t wait to go drink it!

today, one of my cats left me a present. now, this is not the first occasion that i have received this gift, but today’s example was particularly cleverly placed.

in the past they have left me much more gory offerings:

* a very much alive and noisy (huge) cicada in the middle of the night, which i had to chase around the lounge for a good 20 minutes while it flew madly about yelling its head off with the cat vainly attempting to recapture it – quite deafening at 3 in the morning

* injured birds/mice in varying stages of expiration… in fact one bird spent some time recovering in the hot water cupboard and when we checked to see if it was ok it rapidly exited the box and flew straight back into the same (surprised) cat’s mouth, so we had to rescue it all over again

* many dead birds/mice (and pieces of such) both outside and inside the house *blergh*

* the time i heard growling in the kitchen, so i got up thinking a strange cat was fighting with one of mine, and instead i see a semicircle of my own cats looking at the other one who was holding large newly dead rat, which he dropped when he saw me and meowed, very pleased with himself *double blergh*

* the most noisome had to be the actual POO, bang outside the bedroom door one Christmas morning.
worst… present… ever.
all you ungrateful ppl who complain because you didn’t get the wii-fit, shopping mall gift vouchers or titanium bbq tools you asked for, have got nothing on that one. you didn’t get poo, be happy.

this time, my gift merely hindered road visibility for the entire journey and annoyed me whenever the sun caught it. so i’m sharing it with you… i’m sure all you cat-owners (and those who live next door to them!) can identify:

i am generally an organised person: i can locate any file on my computers within seconds; i have an appointment calendar and alarm clock, a filing and shelving system; and tidy house (mostly)… but as i type there is a spot right here beside me that gives lie to all my self-congratulation.

now, my desk is HUGE. it is a solid wood former bank manager’s desk i snapped up about 10 years ago from a used furniture depot, for just over $100. it is 1.6m long and nearly 1m deep, with tons of huge drawers and lots of leg-room underneath… in other words, there is plenty of space for storage, equpiment and work area without being cramped. yet seemingly without any conscious effort, the area directly in front of the printer (about 1 foot square) is permanently obscured by random bits & pieces that were cast aside and left behind; just like on the beach after a storm – but less smelly!

right now there’s a roll of duct tape, sunscreen, a pile of dvds, an empty glass, more dvds, empty dvd cases, a reel of fishing line (wtf? where did that come from, i don’t fish!), glue, receipts, bits of plastic sheeting, a tin of thread & needles, my water bottle, one of my cameras, a nail file, and TONS of notes on scrap paper. i’m not posting a photo because it’s too embarassing. i cleared all the junk away only a couple of days ago, but it has all returned once more, or taken other forms. this pattern repeats itself continuously no matter how i resolve to end the cycle. it’s like the cobweb that grows on your side mirror each night which you notice and remove on your drive to work each morning.

nowhere else in here accumulates such mess, (except periodically my kitchen bench, but that is all food-related); yet to my everlasting annoyance every time i need to print something i first have to schedule 15 minutes of cleanup time to make a space for the paper to exit the printer. (sometimes, i don’t even try… i just balance a piece of card over the top of the junk and under the printer, to catch the printed sheet and allow it to ride up and over the pile!)

am i alone? does anyone else have a similar high-tide point in their home, marking the exact spot at which your subconscious says “i’ve carried that far enough, it looks good here”? but why THAT spot? you know, it actually DOESN’T look good there. is there some kind of localised gravitational anomaly which causes things to increase in weight or awkwardness at those coordinates? or is it some psychic phenomena that causes me to just forget what i am carrying as i pass by? (don’t smirk – have you ever searched high and low for something you are actually holding in your hand?)

i have no way to test either theory so it looks like i will have to resign myself to living with the inconvenience indefinitely. and since no one needs to actually SEE my junk pile, here’s something far more attractive from a recent evening outing…