Meeemoreeeees ...

Houseminding at your mum and dad’s is fun. A small part of your brain is a kid again, absolutely connected to the paths that lead through the property. Different rooms, angles of light, smells of compost and bathroom soap.

    The peach tree is going through its fruit stage at the moment, which means that the ancient twig just outside the back door that for most of the year does its best to look like semi-erect firewood somehow manages to produce more than its own weight in massive, juicy peaches. Mum told me a story about those peaches. An old Italian lady used to live next door and her sons ran a fancy Italian restaurant in the city called Rigoni’s. During Mega Peach Season Mrs Caon would come over and pick all the peaches she could carry, barely making a dent in our peach stocks, and give them to her sons in their fancy restaurant who would turn them into expensive seasonal desserts to be marvelled at by their patron and envied by their competitors. Today I fell straight into my old home routine of picking a peach, eating all of the juiciest, most edible bits, fuzz stinging my lips, and tossing the remainder back into the garden. I feel like the child brought up in the cake shop who makes it a habit to eat all the glace cherries.

Another peach memory from living at home came rushing back when I walked out to hang up a blanket on the line. The feeling of a branch-ripened, sun-cooking, gravity-effected peach squishing up between my bare toes is one that I will always connect with home. And the accompanying Moonwalk/Twist dance across the lawn that I do to try to wipe the fruit from my feet.

I was going to write this on Group Hug, but in the end – I’m not ashamed:

When I walk the dog in the local park with many signs advertising fines etc for not picking up dog shit, I walk really fast so that I can 1) Avoid seeing Gazza bending a biscuit under the bushes (that’s if he can relax his separation-anxiety disordered sphincter for long enough to bake one) and 2) Kind of pretend he’s not my dog in case some other pious dog-owner comes scurrying over offering one of her own plastic bags to juggle fresh dogalogs with (this has actually happened to me on a couple of occasions, and yes, both times it was a woman).

So I’m a bad citizen, right? Most of the answer is … yes. I don’t clean up after myself. But I donate blood and let people ahead of me traffic specifically so I don’t have to get all turdy-gurdy. So far it hasn’t actually happened with the faithful and ever-lovin’ hound (as far as I know – refer to condition 1 above).

Until yesterday.

Right next to the local Dog Walker Meeting Spot too. All goopy tennis balls, high white shorts and unskilful flirting and suddenly Gazza goes to it. Dogs never think about it. Never think about anything much, which is why we humans love and trust them so much: they’re just instincts and devotion. Anyway so one minute he’s trotting along and I’m all proud of him for ignoring the radiation-treated rats that are passing for dogs down at the dog park these days (why do they need a whole trip to the park? Surely once around couch would be enough) and the next he’s practically leapt into that unique lifting-a-well-secured-ma nhole-cover stance that dogs have when they’re lightening the load.

‘Gazza!’ I grumbled, already aware that it was too late. He looked at me. ‘Sorry, old buddy,’ he seemed to say. ‘It’s gotta be here and now.’

I was trapped. He was obviously two things: my dog and dropping the kids off at the pool. Time to face the music. I didn’t even need to interrupt the sultry gazes everyone else was giving each over the communal water bucket, I just veered towards where I knew the council supplied The Bags. I gave myself a massive talking to about civilian responsibility and how the park would look like a freshly-cored lawn if my sort of attitude prevailed. I tore a bag from the dispenser – not unlike those ones you get at the fruit store, for the as yet uninitiated. Have a think about that next time you’re picking out some apples. I prepared myself on the return journey for picking up a big warm handful of ex-Pal.

I couldn’t find the turd. Not like it was under a bush or anything. Hell if there had been anyway for Gaz to hide it, I’m sure he would have. He pointed his tail just to one side of the thoroughfare. Right where I’m sure countless mutts have trampled through on their convoluted paths towards their owner’s felt car seats and flannelette bed sheets.

I looked and looked, inside out bag at the ready. I couldn’t see it. I didn’t ask any of the other dog-walkers for help. That would have been stretching the Good Citizen thing a tad too far. Plus I’m sure ‘Could you help me find my dog’s turd?’ is a pick-up line best left to the professionals.

Maybe he obeyed me.

Maybe that deef ol’ dawg knew what he had to do and locked it up until he got home.

Maybe I was looking for the wrong colour …