Today’s Mellow Monday comes with the delightful Nightswimming by R.E.M. because who doesn’t love the gorgeousness of this track?
Automatic for the People is perhaps my favourite album of 1992 – it’s the soundtrack to my first year in Sheffield and it’s one of the only tracks I can listen to on endless repeat. (Another is Badly Drawn Boy’s Silent Sigh – I just love the pianos, obviously!) John Paul Jones did the orchestral arrangements I think – nothing he ever touches is bad. It’s a tough call for best albums of that year though, since I’m pretty sure I spent the year being angry with Rage Against The Machine and Angel Dust. That’s a great album as well. They all remind me of Monty’s – this tiny club we used to go to in Bury – I think we’d got past the shiny hair and make-up of Rockworld and sunk quite happily into the grunge era that Monty’s seems to encapsulate in my mind. Those joyful years of being sixteen and seventeen with Poison and Motley Crue were long gone and R.E.M. just caught me at a time when I needed it. I still can’t listen to Everybody Hurts. 1992 was the year one of my best friends committed suicide and I cry before four notes are out. Nightswimming was the soothing I needed after the frustrated sadness. It still brings me a kind of calm.
And true to the song, it really does feel like September’s coming soon. I’m doing all my September tasks – lots of leaves coming down already and it feels like September in a weird way. It’s been so hot and dry here that a lot of plants are packing up and going home early. It’s still super-hot – we had 39°C last week on a couple of days, and Saturday was stifling, waiting for a storm that never came. This week brings a new wave of heat as well. Lots of early morning walks and stealth gardening.
The kitties are now weaned – though there are only two now. The tiny little one didn’t make it – no miracle for her. I knew she wouldn’t and I tried so hard to keep her going. She was only taking food via a syringe and although she was having 8 feeds a day and pooping and weeing normally, she wasn’t gaining weight. The vet said it’s like that sometimes. I took her on Wednesday and the vet said she wasn’t likely to make it. It makes me so sad that so many animals are destined to a short little life of misery. Caring for an oldie is fine – it’s uplifting to know they have some moments of joy with you in the last days of their life. They’ve lived. They’ve had joy, even if they ended up at the refuge for weeks, if not months or even years. You give them what you can. But the babies who are three weeks old and know nothing but hunger and misery and pain – that’s just not right at all. I suspect she just gave up trying to live.
Amigo is very much enjoying the kittens, though I can’t tell if it’s in a ‘I’d like to eat them’ kind of way. He’s fascinated but there’s some alarming lip licking going on. Tobby kisses them all. He is such a kissy dog. He will happily lie next to Amigo of an evening and wash his head. Amigo’s not so keen, but Tobby seems happy. He’d like to wash Heston too but Heston’s not into boy-on-boy bonding. Not sure why, but Tobby is not interested in stinky Tilly at all. He’s definitely a man’s dog. He got all gooey when he met Jim last week. He even sat and gave him a paw. I don’t get that from him. Tilly and I just have nothing to offer the old bromance-seeker.
Last week was a sorting-out kind of a week and a catching-up kind of a week. This week I’ve got a few more lessons and work to do – but I’ve managed to squash in a cheeky Udemy course, since they were very kindly offering a $400 course for $10. Seemed rude not to. Never mind night swimming, I miss night school. This week will be a mostly cleaning kind of a week in between work, since I’ve not cleaned the house since before the marking started. In Bolton, that wouldn’t have mattered. Here, with four dogs and two kittens, it matters. Plus, I have about twenty favours people have asked me to do – hopefully will be able to sort those out and not feel so flipping guilty that I haven’t had time to do them. I’ve a stack of photos of dogs to process as well. Better get on with it!
Have a very mellow Monday
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