life

Entries Tagged as 'life'

Housesitting in the suburbsJuly 5th, 2009, No Comments

I’m housesitting in the suburbs of Wellington. I have to feed a cat each morning at 7:00 AM.

Cat

She’s 18 years old, irritable and set in her ways. She has a routine and I must follow it, or she roams the hallway crying like a banshee. It’s pretty cute.

The tips of her ears were cut off because of skin cancer. She doesn’t shed hair, she molts. And sometimes she smells like urine.

I’ve been tweeting about my days with the cat for the last three weeks.

As her days are limited I try to make her happy. I hope she lasts until this Thursday, which is my last day housesitting.

Sheepishly docking & coveringJune 6th, 2009, No Comments

The setting: At a party.

“And that’s when I learnt about castrating and docking sheep¹,” I said. “The poor little guys. It looks painful.”

“I know the feeling. You know between the two of us there’s a total of three testicles,” he said.

“…”

“Are you suggesting that I only have one testicle?”

“No, I’m assuming you’re a healthy male,” he said.

“What happened? Did you leave a sharpened pencil in your pocket?”

“No, I had cancer.”

“…”

“Well at least you can sympathize with being castrated, I guess.”

“True. It’s painful. Maybe next time I’ll say I left a sharpened pencil in my pocket. That’s funnier.”

_{1. To dock a sheep is to cut off its tail.}

Violation stationJune 2nd, 2009, No Comments

The setting: My desk.

The time: Sometime after coffee but before lunch.

The chief offender: Rod Drury.

My phone receives a text message:

“We will probably go to drink around 4. Do you have a lot of work today?”

I look at my phone. It’s sitting on my desk. As my hand moves from the keyboard to the phone, time slows. From out of nowhere, Rod swoops down like an eagle, and within a jiff his talons dig into the guts of my phone, lifting it off my desk.

I see his index finger slide across the surface. He has successfully unlocked my iPhone.

His fingers work it over. He responds:

“It’s Jeff’s boss¹ here. He works until 5.”

Slave driver. The nerve! To think I have to work all day.

At least the message was innocent. I thought an iPhone was a full-proof mechanism against Rod. I guess not. The rumors are true — His fingers are in all the pies.

Now if I leave early he’s going to notice!

_{1. Not only is he the boss, he is the CEO of Xero}