seasons

This is mainly what I have been doing with myself lately:

"Spring":

Acrylic on canvas

"Summer":

Acrylic on canvas 70cm x 120cm

Photos courtesy of Philippe Roy at Rimagine

You know you've been in Asia too long when....

...you go shopping, pull a bra out of the sales bin, shake a bloody great big cockroach off it, and go try it on anyway.

FYI

For future reference: saying "WOW I haven't had diarrhea for three whole days!" IS in fact tempting fate.

The Rabbits Lived!!

They are alive! They are home, tucked into their little beds (i.e. litter boxes) munching away on hay. They are admitedly a little druged up, but getting back to their antics slowly.
I had convinced myself that they would die on the operating table, as it is a very risky procedure here in China. I was so convinced they had died that by the time I rang the vet at 4pm yesterday afternoon (with fingernails bitten down to the quick) the conversation went like this:

Me: "Hi this is Louise, I'm calling to check on my two rabbits" (voice unnaturally high as if being strangled from the inside)
Receptionist: "OK wait a moment I check" (followed by rapid chinese conversation with someone at the other end of the line. I desperately rack my brains to remember the word 'dead' in chinese. I'm positive they are discussing how to break the news to me.)
---------------agonising wait--------------------
Receptionist: "Ok, the vet says you can pick them up by 6pm"
Me: "Huh?" (She wants me to come and collect their dead bodies??)
Receptionist: "You can take them home."
Me: "What? So they are ok?? They're alive??!!"
Receptionist: "Yes"
Me: "OHMYGODTHANKYOUI'LLBERIGHTTHERE!!!!!!!"
Receptionist: "er... ok...."

So against all odds the rabbits lived. All that worry and expense (and oh my god! the expense!), and the little buggers are fine.

Biting my nails

I just dropped of the Bunnies at the vet for their *snip snip* operation. My little boys are losing their manhood.
The last rabbit I took to the vet for this proceedure never came home.
I know it is important, as they have started fighting so much they are hurting each other.
But I still feel like the grim reaper.
Is 10am too early to start drinking?

Panic Stations

The definition of Post-Tramatic Stress Disorder:

A lapsed good Catholic girl waking up on Good Friday to the sound of nearby hammering and construction.... prompting flash-backs of Jesus being nailed to the cross during the yearly Stations of the Cross reinactment.



Even though I knew "Jesus" was just a scruffy-haired teenager (preferably with a beard) from the parish, shoved into a white terry-cloth bathrobe, and even though I knew he was holding the steel pegs ('nails') in his fist while some other kid used a mallet to "hammer" at them, it still gave me the willies every year.

Why do we complain about violent computer games? The bible stories are bad enough! And that's just the New Testament... the Old Testament is positively horrifying!!

Note: lets not even talk about the definition of cruelty- the fact that I am allergic to chocolate. Easter was never really much fun for me, now was it?

Serengeti

Another abstract painting I finished last week: I like to imagine the wild things hiding in the brush strokes (click on the painting to see a larger image)



"Serengeti", acrylic on canvas, 60cm x 150cm

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

— Wendell Berry 'The Peace of Wild Things'

Far too many people I know have died this year (at this point the tally is unbelievably up to 5 people as of the end of March).
At times I feel as though my heart has been ripped, still-beating, out of my chest. At times I am so filled with rage I could scream.
And at times I feel completely empty, dead inside.

This poem helps, in it's peace-filled beauty and simplicity.

A month ago Phil an I welcomed two gorgeous bunnies into our family:


Marcel


Francis

Marcel is about 1 week older than Francis, but as they had been together from such a young age we referred to them as brothers. Every night they would snuggle up together to sleep, and in typical brotherly fashion, Francis would follow his big brother around like a shaddow.

Yet I came across them last week, and realised that Marcel is having slightly more than "brotherly thoughts" towards Francis.

I know there are support groups out there for parents of gay children, but what does one do about gay pets??

Honestly, we knew this would probably happen, and knew that we would have to take them to the vet to be de-sexed eventually. If not, two adult male rabbits kept together tend to fight... perhaps fighting over the mirror or who gets to chew at the Barbara Streisand album first... But we thought they would have a month or so more of innocence before this happened.

I guess it's time to head off to the vet. My little boys have grown up.