Update on two mundane things that arose at the same time -> early May.
1. Driving a car. It’s been pretty okay. Still haven’t gone that far, the furtherest probably being down to Mum’s. It’s extremely convenient for things like that. Like all convenient things it’s easy to forget how inconvenient life was before it. I always drive at the speed limit or under it but I seem to be very much in the minority. Especially on the highway. It used to bother me a lot but less now. It’s interesting how various public campaigns like quit smoking, drink driving etc. seem to have gone fairly successfully (at least that’s how I see it) but speeding seems to be one of those things that many people do as much as they can get away with. Maybe it’s that most people think they can safely drive faster than what is prescribed, and maybe they can. It’s just one of those things (like telling half-truths) that makes life a heck of a lot simpler if I don’t do it.
I guess I don’t drive anywhere near enough to get really frustrated with other drivers. Last Monday we drove through Torquay and up through the middle of Geelong to N.Geel – through all the traffic and traffic lights – and for me that was draining. I can only imagine what it would be like driving in busier places.
It’s a bit disconcerting playing a couple of hours of GTA V then going straight out and jumping in the car IRL. I am concerned I’ll just slip into game mode an mount the kerb, run the red light and ram the guy in front. I still have moments of wishing I’d got a Cube instead of the Micra. It’s barely less bland than a korean car.
2. Cat. It’s been a whole lot of fun having a cat. Since May she’s been gradually getting used to being part of the family to the point where she’s now pretty cocky; meowing and head-butting me an hour before feedin’ time–literally putting her paw on top of my hand and saying ‘hey, … food’. Well not quite literally, but the hand part is true. Charu is obsessed with food.
I have now had to clear three (3) dead offerings out of the house. One, a pigeon in the weeks after Charu started living inside. The pigeon looked like a murder scene investigation set-up on the kitchen floor with drops of blood and small feathers around it. Charu witnessed my dismay when I found it and shovelled it out the door, and I fancy she had a facial expression of remorse, confusion or something like, ‘but I thought you’d be happy’. Then there was a small, drowned-looking mouse in winter. Then last night a full-sized rat. Both the last two placed in a central-axis of the house, near the heater and where I put my bag when I come in. Charu was lying next to this dead rat and rolling around looking all coy and happy. The rat looked very fresh and thankfully not bleeding. It’s hard to get used to this death aspect of cats.
In some ways it’s not a great co-incidence that these two things, getting a driver’s license and cat happened at the same time. We’d like to go away for longer than a night but always end up thinking about the cat going hungry. We’d like to take Charu with us but cats aren’t like dogs. It got me thinking about the history of cat domestication and I read a little about it last night. Indeed, while dogs have been around us for much longer, and are into the whole travelling nomad hunter tribe thing, cats on the other hand only started hanging out with humans once we started settling down into farming anchored down lifestyles.