MELLIPOP DE CASTELLA

Ok, so indulge me in a rare moment of micro-braggadocio.

I've been running for a few years now. When I started running, I actually couldn't run at all. I could manage a semi-decent power-walk, but my aerobic capacity was such that I could barely run a single lap of the oval down at Camperdown without collapsing with a near-fatal stitch. The legs were willing but the lungs weren't able. This was circa whenever-I-lived-with-Nick. I think it might have been around 2002??? Not too sure, as that was also the height of my inner-west pub-hopping glory (heh heh heh) days.

Since then, despite having moved five times across various states and suburbs, I've kept up with the running. My knees were fucked up for a while. Until I realised it was all in the shoes. Despite my scepticism, I did the Athlete's Foot "foot test" thing and was duly paired up with a hideously expensive pair of runners by the 17 year old staff member, who also tried to upsell me on the $50 insoles to boot. And fuck me, if my knees haven't been perfect since. I am now officially a running powerhouse.

Running became an addiction for me while I was living in North Fremantle. Considering the warm weather, the long days, the beautiful beach I used to run as part of my route and the fact that I was home from work at 4pm every day, running was easy.

I was worried that moving to Quakers Hill would put an end to my love for running, but the reverse is true. I am even more addicted than I was in Freo. Despite the darkness, the cold, the lack of scenery and the rare occasion of rain, without any difficulty at all, I leap straight out of bed at 5:30am every morning and run for forty minutes before getting ready for work. And it is an addiction. There have been mornings when I have woken up and made a conscious decision to stay snuggled up in the doona for that extra hour's sleep. Within five or ten minutes of having made that decision, my body throws itself out of bed and into my beloved runners, saying "fuck you" to sleep and warmth and repose.

So I run. Then I do twenty tricep dips, twenty "boy" push-ups and a further fifty "girl" push-ups before hitting the showers in the morning. The push ups are a hangover from my pilates days, and were drilled into me as homework by my brilliant instructor Freya, whom I miss dearly. I think she'd be pleased to know that I still do those goddamn push-ups of hers.

Anyway, last night - on the way home from buying grog and fags, ironically - Anton and I measured the length of my current running route. I was rather pleased to discover that my running track is just short of 8 kilometres. Which is not bad in forty minutes, especially because I do it easily, and without exertion. Plus, I've started running in the evenings as well, a few times a week. For a girl who never had any stamina or athletic fitness - even back in my school days - I am rather proud about that.

So fuck all of you who dis us smokers for being unhealthy and unfit. I'd run rings around you pristine-lunged fuckers any day.

MELLIPOP AND THE GUARD DOGS

Ok, so let it just be firmly established that my two Staffies make for utterly useless guard dogs.

Two men have just taken down our entire side fence without any hassles from the demon dogs, who were upstairs with me at the computer, completely oblivious to what was happening in their own backyard. Umm.... to be fair, I was too. I mean, it's not like I was listening to really loud riff-rock music or anything. It was Peter, Paul and fucking Mary. Pussy folk singers from the sixties.

Let me just say that this all comes as a great shock to me because I WAS NOT INFORMED THAT ANYONE WAS GOING TO COMPLETELY DISMANTLE OUR SIDE FENCE TODAY.

I only just discovered that our entire fence had been taken down because Tonka - to his credit - started barking and going crazy. So I went to check and see what the little blighter was barking at, with no real concern. Tonka barks and growls at the strangest and most random things. Feathers. Plastic bags. The clothesline. I just assumed that Tonka was barking at a pink plastic dishwashing glove I had propped up on a Maglite torch in the kitchen, to dry it out. Bloody inside was wet, so I had to wash the dishes this morning with one glove on. Why bother with one? Dunno. Why did Michael Jackson do it?

Anyway, so Tonka was going rather schizoid, and I followed him downstairs to see that OUR WHOLE FUCKING SIDE FENCE WAS GONE. At least the Tonkmeister barked to alert me that something was happening downstairs - if a little belatedly. Comanche didn't do a goddamn thing. It's like strangers come and remove parts of our house every day. Alright, whatever. Nothing odd about that. Just keep the noise down can you, I'm trying to sleep here.

We are the end unit in a row of townhouses, and our place backs onto a housing development currently in construction. So it is not unusual to hear a lot of noise during the day. For the last two days I have been cursing their constant use of chainsaws.

So we currently have no fence. Lucky that neither one of the two dogs actually escaped from the yard - this is because they are so fucking clingy that they sit at my feet or follow me around all fucking day. Pathological co-dependence has it's benefits, few as they are. I'd hate to think what the fuck would have happened if I had been out for the day. WHAT WERE THEY INTENDING TO DO WITH MY FUCKING DOGS??? Let them run the fuck away?

Anyway, I went outside to suss out what the fuck was going on with the fence. Apparently they had tried knocking on the door earlier, and presumed that I had gone out or something because I didn't answer. Which is odd, because even if I don't hear anyone at the door, the dogs generally always do. They didn't today. Great guard dogs.

Ok, so they firstly didn't hear anyone knocking at the front door and secondly didn't hear anyone knocking down our rather sizeable side fence. What was their subsequent reaction when faced with some random stranger standing in our back yard?

Did they:

a) bark and growl at the random stranger in a threatening manner
b) form a defensive line in front of me with hackles raised to protect me from the random stranger
c) stand alertly by my side, scrutinising the random stranger with fierce stares of suspicion, poised to strike at the first sign of any threat to my person
d) run instantly with wagging tails up to the random stranger to say "hello"

The answer, sadly, is d).

Faced with two random stangers in their own backyard who have gained access by dismantling our perimeter fencing, and despite their female master being at home on her own, the sole response of my two nuggety Staffordshire Bull Terriers is to run enthusiastically and without suspicion up to the random strangers for a pat.

This is why Staffordshire owners get pissed off whenever people stigmatise them for being aggressive and dangerous dogs. I'd get better protection from a couple of Maltese Terriers.

MELLIPOP AND THE JOB AD

Ok, so even Seek.com.au has given up on the hopes of me finding work in Sydney. Either that, or the prick of a thing has a very nasty sense of humour.

Having done the online search for work again today and finding nothing worth applying for, I thought I’d have a little bit of lighthearted fun on Seek. As much as you can ever have fun on Seek.com.au, if you’re a sad, unemployable bastard like me.

So anyway, I’m on the home page, the point at which I enter my search criteria.

So I choose Sydney as a location, and opt for “any area”, “any classification” and “any sub-classification”. Though the pedant in me did ponder briefly the absurdity of still having the option of a “sub-classification” if you don’t actually specify a “classification” to begin with.

N’ermind.

So basically, I’m open to all comers, as long as they are based in Sydney. To prove to Seek.com.au my willingness to do absolutely anything - no matter how abysmal - I type one small yet meaningful phrase into the “keywords” field.

WORST JOB EVER.

Game on. I was challenging the fucker to hit me with it’s worst job. Ever. In Sydney.

I got one hit.

“Foremen - Here is your chance to get somewhere warm for winter!”
Its getting cold down south so why not look at moving to Brisbane and make the most of our beutiful one day perfect the next weather!!!???!!!

You know what really shits me about all this. Not just that Seek.com.au is brazenly telling me to give up and get the fuck out of Dodge, but that the gainfully employed person (or persons) who :

a) wrote the job advert
b) proofread the job advert
c) approved the job advert
d) posted the job advert

….did not even notice that the word “beautiful” was spelt incorrectly. So not only did I suffer the indignity of it being suggested to me that I actually leave the state in search of gainful employment - after specifying that said employment must be in Sydney as the ONLY criteria I required - but that the persons advising me to do so can not even spell at a third grade level. Nor do they have even a tenuous grasp on basic grammar. Sure the weather is great up in Brisbane, but to have no rain and NO COMMAs. Sorry guys, I need fucking commas.

Oh, it gets better. Grammatical atrocities aside, the bright-eyed young recruitment copywriter has really plumbed the depths of his or her creative core to deliver an engaging yet authentic account of life on-site. I mean, I've never worked in construction, but it made me really want to. Surely there must be a frustrated artist lurking in the soul of every recruitment officer.

We all know that the worst thing about being on site in winter is that first drop of cold water that runs down the back of your shirt! Or how about waking up in the dark and dragging yourself off to site only to get there and bang your frozen hands!

Yeah....that fucking sucks, man. There’s nothing worse than banging your frozen hands after waking up in the dark. Brisbane sounds better already.

Just in case you hadn’t already rushed off to pack your suitcases, the bright-eyed recruitment copywriter brings out his or her biggest literary guns yet:

The jobs are big and the jobs are interesting.

I also like the way they bold the word “jobs” twice in the one sentence. Just in case you’d forgotten why you were on Seek.com.au to start with. Well, with writing like this, you could be forgiven for thinking you had stumbled across some hidden treasure trove of previously unpublished late 19th century literature. It’s almost Dickensian, really.

Morons.

MELLIPOP AND THE WAR ON TERRIERS

OK, so Mellipop regulars on-line and in-life know that not a week goes by when I don’t have yet another new exasperated anecdote to share about my two Staffordshire Bull Terriers (aka The Demon Dogs), and the havoc they wreak on my home, my possessions and my dignity.

To be fair, they’ve been rather well-behaved since the unfortunate incident with the next door neighbour’s bunny rabbit at Easter. Just the ubiquitous series of petty pilferings and destruction. Recent playthings include underpants (mine, always bloody mine), wine glasses, the new trees we planted in the backyard and a bit of tupperware, none of which survived the frivolity.

So I thought I’d play a bit of catch-up, to fill in some of the newsworthy blanks left by my self-imposed blogging absence of the past few months.

Long-time friends of Mellipop may remember the troubles we had constructing an appropriate Staffy-proof barricade in our rental property over in North Fremantle. It would be an understatement to say that we have had the same trouble here, in our own house at Quakers Hill.

It’s a story of courage, determination and success against all the odds. (Them)

It is also a story of chaos, destruction and a series of monumental failures. (Us)

In this titanic struggle between man and beast, there has been only one winner:

Bunnings Warehouse.


THE STORY OF THE BARRICADE: PART TWO

So here we have Quakers Hill Version 2.1 of the barricade. It took very little time for the demon dogs to eat or smash through this on their way to freedom. I almost imagine they were laughing at us from the very moment they saw Anton proudly putting the finishing touches to it. Timber is no obstacle to any self-respecting Staffordshire Bull Terrier.

There were actually several "improvements" made on this version of the barricade, with cross supports being added and whatnot - none of which stayed intact long enough for me to photograph them.

Quakers Hill Version 2.2 offered it’s own unique challenges. Having determined that they could neither eat nor headbutt their way through the solid sheet of MDF, the demon dogs instead turned their attention to going over the darn thing, rather than going through it (always a steamrolling Staffie’s first instinct). Despite being incredibly dopey dogs, their unique combination of stubbornness and cunning is an effective one.

So we had peace in the house for a couple of weeks. To be honest, Anton and I were a little cocky. We thought we had finally beaten the little fuckers. But who were we to think that an almost six foot tall, solid wood barricade could possibly stop two obstinate Staffies from getting to the other side?

Naïve, indeed.

Pay careful attention to the height of the barricade, and the height of our fridge. It is about the height of my head (I’m somewhere between 165 and 170 cm tall). My two dogs are about the height of my knees.

So we came home one day, and Comanche was on the wrong side of the barricade. Thinking that I must have locked her in the house before I left, I opened the barricade and went into the kitchen, reuniting her with her younger brother on the other side.

It was then that I noticed the little muddy footprints all over the kitchen counters and walls. The fridge had been moved from the wall, and our large archaic microwave oven (late 1980’s vintage, so roughly the size of a compact car) had been dislodged from the top of the fridge, and was balanced precariously on the edge.

If my powers of deduction had not yet fully confirmed the sequence of events, the footprints behind the microwave were the clincher.

The little fucker had jumped up onto the kitchen counter, then managed to jump on top of the fridge – pushing the microwave forward so as to manouvre behind it - and then jumped right over the barricade, landing on the floor on the other side.

A monumental feat of athleticism, fearlessness and stupidity.

We’d been beaten again.

In Quakers Hill Version 2.3 Anton extended the barricade right up to the ceiling (not pictured...why freakin' bother...they become obsolete faster than new versions of the iPod). We then moved the fridge to another location in the kitchen, where it was duly padlocked to the wall on both sides. Yes, padlocked. It's like living with two insanely powerful mental patients. In a maximum security prison.

The War on Terriers was not yet won, we had already suffered mass casualties and we were fast running out of tactics.

Moving the fridge from near the barricade left the wall completely exposed. The dogs could not get over or through the barricade, which left one final stategy for them to explore.

They started chewing the corner of the kitchen wall.

Our counter-attack was to bolt a sheet of aluminium to the wall, to stop them from chewing the plasterboard. The thin sheet of metal was bolted to the wall in twelve places.

We got home one day and they had somehow managed to rip the sheet of aluminium right off the wall, at which point they then proceeded to rip the metal to shreds.

Just to say ”fuck you”.

Anton and I just stared at each other in shock and bewilderment. The metal looked as though it had been mauled by a shark. There were several shredded pieces of it all over the kitchen, with puncture marks right through the metal from their teeth. They were covered in dry blood.

HOW STUPID ARE THESE DOGS, WHO WILL EAT METAL UNTIL THEIR MOUTHS BLEED?

What fucking chance in hell did we have of putting an end to this escalating madness? What is the Staffordshire Bull Terrier equivalent of kryptonite?

We didn’t know. And still don’t. So we left the sheet of metal off the wall and tried daubing a combination of citronella, curry powder and fresh chilli on the walls. The sheer desperation. The vain hope. The tired resignation.

So what happened next?

THE MOTHERFUCKERS ATE A HOBBIT-SIZED HOLE IN OUR KITCHEN WALL.

Just to say “fuck you”.

I guess when eating through metal until your mouth bleeds is no obstacle, a smattering of spices on the wall is a pathetically lousy deterrent.

And Anton’s counter-offensive? Get thicker steel….

He’s very lucky that I am a patient and forgiving woman, otherwise I would have had the whole lot of them down at the goddamn pound a long time ago.

Seriously. Who’d have a fucking Staffy?

I do love them, though… Little fuckers.

MELLIPOP AND THE TESTAMUR

OK, so through six prolonged years of sheer bloody-minded apathy I’ve managed to destroy the most expensive piece of paper – nay – the most expensive single material item I own.

And I can’t even blame the demon dogs for this one.

So I pulled my university degree out today. I was actually looking for my complete academic transcript, which was stored with the illustrious piece of shoddy laser-printed paper that passes for a degree these days. If I’d known before I’d enrolled just how shoddy a document it was going to be, I would have forgone the five years and countless thousands of dollars and hours it cost to achieve, and would have just whipped something up in Photoshop instead.

Anyway, so my degree and transcripts were still stored in the original plastic folder they were handed to me in. Also contained in the plastic folder with my expensive pieces of paper was another, less expensive yellow slip of paper (photocopied, ironically), still there after six years.

A short extract from the yellow piece of paper reads:

STORAGE OF DEGREE/DIPLOMAS

“The enclosed degree/diploma testamur is produced on a laser printer. Do not store your testamur on a long term basis in this plastic folder as damage may occur….It is recommended that your testamur be framed and hung in a dry environment”

Besides wondering what the fuck a “testamur” is when it’s at home, I also wondered who the fuck takes notice of warnings like that anyway. “Dry clean only”, “Hand wash in warm water”, “This medication may cause drowsiness - do not operate heavy machinery”, “Smoking will kill you”.

P’fff…. whatever....

I mean, to reiterate, what the fuck is a “testamur”? I looked it up in the Macquarie Dictionary and the goddamn word isn’t even in there! It goes straight from “testament” to “testes” with nary a “testamur” in sight. Testify!

But get this, right....

MY DEGREE COMES FROM MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY.

THE SAME UNIVERSITY THAT PRODUCES THE MACQUARIE DICTIONARY.

THE SAME UNIVERSITY THAT ISSUES ME WITH A WARNING TO TAKE GOOD CARE OF MY “TESTAMUR”.

THE SAME UNIVERSITY THAT DOESN'T EVEN SEE FIT TO INCLUDE THE WORD "TESTAMUR" IN IT'S OWN FUCKING DICTIONARY!

So how am I expected to take a warning that contains a word that DOESN’T EVEN EXIST seriously? How was I to know that the “testamur” I wasn’t supposed to store in the plastic folder was actually my fucking shoddy laser printed degree.

Ok, so I kind of guessed it wasn’t a good idea to keep my degree in the plastic wallet. The text has now come off onto the back of my academic transcripts, which were stored in front of it, resulting in a very tragic “double vision” type effect.

Yeah, so my degree is totally fucked now. But that yellow slip of photocopied paper is in as pristine a condition as the day I got it. Hell, I might just frame it.