Three Things Scary

1. Bike Riding

Yesterday the weather broke.  For several days it's been horridly humid, very warm, and raining off and on.  The rain stopped mid-afternoon, the sun came out, and so did the bike. 

My reintroduction to bike riding has felt a little hairy.  Riding on changeable terrain - sand, and shifting gravel, pockmarked roads.  Yesterday was no different because of the rain.  The creek that ran through our riding trail was fit to burst.  The lake gave the illusion of bulging in the middle; it was filled to the scuppers.  Rain ran in rivulets down the paths where we rode.  

I keep feeling like I'm going to fall off.  Having taken 40 turns on the planet mean I'm a little wussier than I was in my twenties.  I'm gonna be wearing out the back tyre soon, what with all the braking I'm doing going down hills.  Anthony flies past me, more careful himself than in the days when he flew off his bike and into the pylon of the Whitten Bridge, dislodging bone.  Not inclined to ride roads anymore after the car plunged into him and tossed him into the air.  

Mountain bike riding is scary when you are 40 :)  It is also exhilarating.  Those two things sit very close together on the spectrum. 

2. Mr Naughty Gets Naughtier

Impertinence gets to come with age in the canine world, apparently.  Poor old Lester is due for a visit to the vet.  He is 11 now and covered in lumps and bumps of different descriptions.  Two of them are on the lid of his eye, and the uncomplaining nature of dogs means he just gets on with it, while the eye gets red and pussy from time to time.  It is time to get them removed.

Lester has pretty much gone stone deaf.  What seems to have come on very quickly has most likely been coming on for ages.  Now, even up close, he's not even responding to the good words, like ball, and walk, and car.  When I think about it, what I have taken for impertinence over the last year or so, when he would go trotting off down the street and ignore me was probably just an inability to hear so well.  

What is impertinent is the dog who stands in front of Anthony and me and our two empty dinner plates.  He has spent the meal looking at us, hoping for some of that amazingly smelled chicken wafting towards him (nothing wrong with his nose).  He got a few pieces, too, from the mushy-hearted lady.  But what all good doggies know is that you don't stare at the pets while they're eating.  And when the lady pet glares at you to stop, what you are supposed to do because of your place in the pack is to stop, and to go and do something else.  What you don't do is to glare back and bark.

Mr Naughty is getting naughtier.  And that's scary.

3. Red and Orange and Brown and White

In cockatoo language, these colours apparently say something I've missed.  Something outrageously rude, and scary enough so that when the lady opens the door first thing in the morning in her dress, you open up your wings to their widest span, open your big fat beak and jackhammer s-c-r-e-e-c-h. 

It was sort of insulting, a little.  I'm not always so great first thing in the morning.  Especially when I've been on a detoxing binge the last month or so and most mornings involve waking up with a headache and feeling toxic.    Now I know that the red/orange/brown/white dress causes such distress to this fella, I guess I'll reserve it for post-detoxing times :)