Fussball ueber alles

So I fell asleep at half time in Japan/Croatia and can't even remember whether anyone had scored. Late-night football sucks. I fixed up the video (I'm embarrassed to report that it was a matter of one lead, although the picture is not all that, so maybe something else needed to be fixed up too) but Naughtyman is going through a plug/unplug phase and that meant it was unplugged last night and I was too wasted to work out what needed replugging.

I watch the games intermittently, sometimes awake, sometimes sleeping, which gives me a fractured impression of them, and watch the replay in the afternoon if it isn't the 11pm game. Or try to. For some reason, "fuck off, I'm watching the football" isn't part of my children's vocabulary, although about fifty words for sweet things are.

I also fixed the laptop. It was a mouse problem. Not the pointing device; the squeaking thing. A mouse had eaten the wire, exposing the copper threads. I have to deal with the mice, but none of the alternative means much appeals.

I cannot kill them. Mrs Z's cousin, babysitting for us the other night, told with relish how cheap plastic mousetraps she had bought more effectively finished off mice than either the more expensive wood and metal-spring ones or bait, which the mice had refused with thanks, preferring the other things to eat in her cupboard. We have a humane trap, but you need half a dozen at least, and one was all that Bunnings had in stock. In any case, when you hear a trapped mouse at midnight, you have a dilemma. Walk it down to the woods or leave it in there all night, scared, scrabbling at the plastic trying to get out.

Okay, there is a third way. Let it out and pretend you never caught it.

Luckily, the cousin already thinks I'm a bit odd. She was babysitting because we went out to dinner, to Ahmet's in Bulimba, a Turkish place. The food was actually a lot better than any I actually ate in Turkey, mostly because "vegetarian" doesn't mean anything to a Turk, so a veggie guvec in Turkey means a lamb guvec with the lamb fished out.

We ordered a (heavily marked up) bottle of Cab Sav that magically transformed into Shiraz on its way to the table. I didn't complain or send it back. I am English. We can't do that. We just drink it and whine about it on our blogs or to anyone who will listen. Anyway, it wasn't bad. The food was okay, although it was a lot blander than I would have liked. Australians are afraid of spice. Even Thai food -- reliably fiery back home -- is mild here. Still, I prefer spice to fire.

I tentatively introduced the question of going back to England. Usually, when I mention it, I say something like "there is nothing in this world I want more than to go back home" or "if I contemplate living here for the rest of my days, I feel like slitting my throat", but I went for subtle.

Didn't work. Mrs Zen insists she wants to go back to England at some point but doesn't want to think about it now. You have to think about these things, I say, they don't just happen. We'd need at least twenty grand to do it.

Thirty grand, she said. Well no, I said, because I'm working on making my work portable to there, and you can get a job. Yes, I'll be working by then, she said. She didn't sound convinced.

And the subject lay there, dead as a mouse in a trap. I am sure there would be a way for us to make a life together but I am not sure how it will be possible to get there. I do not feel gloomy about it today. That comes and goes. Today I just feel numb, empty. It's a terrible thing, if you stop to think about it, to feel that that is the best you can have. But I don't stop to think. I just switch on the football, light up a joint and sink into the haze.

posted by Dr Zen @ 3:16 pm