Being a freelancer comes with perks, not the least of which is hanging out in bed with my laptop in my lap (the way the inventors of its name always intended).
Still, there are a few things which are less-than-glamorous, including my wardrobe choices. I am a little ashamed to say that on some days I take a shower and then get right back into my pyjamas to save on doing laundry.
I hate laundry.
This makes no sense because I'm into clean clothes, I love the smell of laundry, and I even like the sound of the washing machine (it makes me feel productive), but there you have it.
At Block 130 I blamed my lack of enthusiasm on the fact that our washing machine was in the basement. Can you imagine? I spent several months wearing nothing but pyjamas.
Our current place has a washing machine in the bathroom and a dryer in the kitchen, which is the height of luxury. When we first moved in I patted them both fondly and heralded my plans of wearing outfits not based around trackie-dacks for the following six weeks.
“I’m going to be a changed woman,” I cackled to myself in that half-maddened way that makes Simon and Dumpling very nervous. (Mark doesn’t get nervous, he only has two gears: “comfortable” and “uncomfortable,” and since my cackling doesn’t fall into either category it doesn't exist as far as he’s concerned.)
And yet here we are three (or is it four?) weeks later and I can assure you that my current look wouldn’t win me any graces with Rachel Zoe. Although I have a sneaking suspicion that Bjork, and possibly Peter Alexander, might be into it.
Another thing that keeps me from looking my best (ha!) is that most of my clients are in Australia, so I’m often up till the crack of dawn. This doesn’t bode well for the area directly beneath my eyes or for Dumpling, who spends whole paranoid hours pondering why I’m awake – and if it’s to catch him by surprise and turn him into a dress…or a hat.
But there is a silver lining: on those days I get to see the sun rise over Munich, and right now as the trees are recovering from a puzzling winter and heading into a (hopefully) glorious spring, I’m rather glad I’m awake. I also like hearing Dumpling discontentedly chirping to himself. He’s going to make a fabulous throw pillow.
You guys! Simon is not FAT anymore! Wait. Is 3,000,000 kilos considered fat? Okay. I’m going to have to retract my former statement; he’s totally FAT.
Also this might be a little too much information, but I imagine sex between Tyra Banks and her reflection to be a mix of this:
And this
The woman is bat shit crazy. And not sure if you knew, but she wrote a fantasy novel, “Modelland.” I say wrote but, judging from the first chapter, she just released her psycho ANTM moments on her unsuspecting computer. Here’s a few lines of her gorgeous prose:
“Go, Myrracle, go!” Mrs. De La Crème shouted. Myrracle had staggered a few feet away from the fallen tent and was standing there staring at the melee, eyes bugged, frozen in place. “Don’t freeze up! Wake up, baby. You have to do this!”
Now excuse me while I vomit.
Also, Yuri is just fine, thank you very much. He just wanted everybody to know that he’s as happy and smiley as ever, enjoys margaritas, pronounces the “rs” in “burrito” at least some of the time, and has recently acquired a BEEE-UUUU-TIFUL urn/vase.
And just in case you’re wondering about Mark; he has found a friend in jeans that fit him, though prefers his sandware for home use, is thrilled with all of the functionality and practicality of aluminium foil, and is feeling triumphant about having found an Indian restaurant which offers Vindaloo chicken.
Well actually, I’m a little confused about the one-year thing because Simon, Mark and Dumpling are denying me my right to celebrate. The reason is because I went back to Australia for a month and our one-year-in-Munich anniversary fell smack-bang in the middle of that trip.
So, technically, I’m coming up a little short.
Except, if we’re going to count that holiday, then we have to count all of the time we’ve spent away from Munich, right? And that’s when things get complicated because we actually don’t remember anything that we’ve done before…ohhh…yesterday.
But I want to get to the bottom of this, so here is my non-chronological attempt of getting to the bottom of what we've done with our past year, travel-wise:
1) Trip to Copenhagen (Denmark) When: February-ish 2011 Who: All of the Hausfraus (minus Dumpling; he was probably slaughtering his former owners at the time)
I know it happened because: I have this picture (and yes, why thank you, my nostrils do look very bright).
Other things I can recall:
a) Going to the Dansk Melodi Grand Prix and finding it oddly German-sounding
b) Being bitterly disappointed that some poor pastiche of a 90s boy band won. Boo! (The anger rages on).
c) Having dinner with Princess Mary. By which I mean, being served by a chef who had also served T-Mizzy on a separate occasion. (Side note: need to write to T-Mizzy about her new nickname).
2) Trip to Berlin (Germany) When: November-ish 2010 Who: All of the Hausfraus (except Dumpling, so we rub it in his face like “nah nah you’re stuck in your tiny cage and you'll never see Berlin. We've seen Berlin. It's cool!” and he rocks on his swing, silently plotting our doom).
I know it happened because: I recall a man spitting a tooth at Simon (then picking it up and somewhat aggressively throwing it back into his own mouth, like “it’ll find its way back from here”). This, apparently, is the sort of thing you should come to expect from the S-bahn in Berlin.
Other things I can recall:
a) Simon suffering hypothermia on a walking tour and being all annoying with his shivering and his losing of the limbs to the cold. Who knew someone so fat could even feel the cold? I mean, right?
b) Best tapas ever. Tapas that should have been photographed, and it’s a great crime that they weren’t. And someone will pay for that crime. Most likely Mark (or maybe Dumpling).
c) A man spitting a TOOTH at Simon.
d) Questioning the intelligence of these:
e) But being charmed by this:
3) Trip to Amsterdam (The Netherlands) When: June-ish 2010 Who: Mark and I
I know it happened because: We got salt and vinegar chips and well, that was it, wasn’t it? There was no getting us off that high.
Other things I can recall:
a) My club sandwich with chips (important) ceremoniously arriving at my table as a club sandwich with a side of actual potato chips. Like, Kettles. Like, are you kidding me Amsterdam?! Here’s proof:
b) Staying in a houseboat and not being allowed to flush paper down the toilet – pipe troubles. I mean, was anybody going to do anything in that toilet? I dare say NOT!
c) The butt-germ bath.
4) Trip to Krakow and Warsaw (Poland) When: November-ish 2010 Who: Mark and I
I know it happened because: It snowed and we drank grzaniec (mulled wine) and hung out with my family and it was all very nice and jolly and oh yeah, FUCKING FREEZING.
Other things I can recall:
a) Mark’s best bud James wearing Converse sneakers in -18° weather because he hadn’t packed – nor did he own – winter shoes.
b) Inappropriate humour about adopting my cousin. Not sure how it started. I watched from afar; part disturbed, part drunk.
c) Mark falling in love with oscypki (handmade Polish smoked goat’s/sheep’s milk cheeses). I can tell you this much; Mark is awesome at being obsessed with food. Very, very good. Delivers a spinechilling performance every time.
Other things I recall:
a) Mark trying to kill me – several times
b) Learning why my knee surgeon insisted that I “DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES SKI AT LEAST (!!!) A YEAR AFTER YOUR OPERATION”. Turns out he was right.
c) Being informed by Mark’s dad that there was a delicious egg-based Austrian specialty that I simply had to try for lunch, then blindly sending Mark to buy it for me. So you know what happened right? Mark decided to get the Largest Portion Known to Man Doubled Or Possibly Tripled Please, and returned with a huge plate of Keiserschmarrn, which - incidentally - is not a savory omelette as I had been led to believe. Here's proof:
This is not an omelette; do not order for lunch.
6) Trip to Paris (France) When: June-ish 2011 Who: Simon
I know it happened because: I got several text messages updating me about how Simon and his boyfriend were on a bus with drinking…drunk…spewing Russians.
7) Trip to Amsterdam (The Netherlands) When: No idea 2011 Who: Simon
I know it happened because: I got text messages with Kath and Kim quotes. Apparently that’s how Simon rolls in Amsterdam.
8) Trip to Aachen (Germany) When: August 2011 Who: Me
I know it happened because: I was sober and it was lovely.
Other things I recall:
a) My cousin’s son being outrageously adorable.
b) Australian ice-cream being quite the hit in Maastricht
c) Going to Maastricht.
9) Trip to Regensburg (Germany) When: July 2011 Who: Me
I know it happened because: I have a ton of photos of my eye/nostril/chin/indistinguishable-part-of-fleshy-self, due to failed selfies.
Other things I can recall:
a) I scared a lady by taking photos of her child interacting with a crazy little dog. In my defence the dog was really crazy and the child was adorably fearless.
b) I made inappropriate eating noises while dining alone in a posh restaurant.
c) I ordered and ate a serving of ice-cream that was bigger than my head. And, well, anybody who has ever met me is now feeling both horrified and impressed. It was deeeelicious:
10) Trip to Erlang (Germany) When: June 2011 Who: Mark and I
I know it happened because: a lot of photos, which I can never take back, happened.
Other things I recall:
a) Desperately wanting to steal/ not give back a festival stein…but returning it for reasons of morality, ethics and drunk generosity.
b) Mark constantly running off to get food. Every time I’d turn around he'd either be missing or chewing on a pizza/sausage/pretzel/another pizza…
c) Sleeping at the train station because we had no Plan B and Plan A had left the platform at least seven hours earlier.
11) Trip to Switzerland (Zurich and Luzern) When: Swissmass 2010 Who: Simon, Mark and I
I know it happened because:
a) My cousin took us out to a brothel, then a seedy dive bar. I showed my outrage/ lack of coordination by smashing a glass of beer all over the bar. We left soon after.
b) We were abused with heating on the way in, and when we endeavoured to quench our thirst with three large cokes from Burger King the privilege cost us $21!
c) $21 for three Burger King cokes. You are one crazy MoFo, Zurich.
d) There was fondue and then I cried (tears of happiness for I had found my true love).
I shall never forget you, my love. Side note: Mark's arm looks like it swallowed an apple.
And that covers it…I think. Of course we don’t remember how long we spent in those places. We do recall that various lovely people joined us for our adventures – you know who you are, there’ll be no naming and shaming here.
But this whole post was supposed to be about our one-year anniversary…and I’m no closer to working out when that technically is – thanks for making it super complicated Simon and Mark. I’m going to shit in both your teas.
So this is what we’ll do; we’ll all agree that any trips away get completely nullified by our attendance at Oktoberfest (or Wiesn as it’s known to the people in the know. That’s us, by the way.). And you’d better believe that we were there. It went a little like this (give it a little time to load; it's totally worth it):
Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!
As anybody who has ever spent a night in the same house with me would know, I’m rather prone to sleep talking. And, recently, Sleep Screaming Until I Scare the Living Bejesus Out of All Inhabitants and Those of Neighbouring Towns and Countries.
It’s a little joke we play, my brain and I.
Actually I’m not in on it; my brain just likes the way I fling myself into sharp corners, hard walls and other potentially-dangerous obstacles when I’m trying to flee whatever is trying to kill me in my sleep. One time it was an ace of hearts. Another time it was a net. Most recently – like two nights ago – it was my sister.
The interesting/terrifying thing is that in the past 48 hours she did try to bring my death about...twice.
But first let me tell you about my sis: she doesn’t look like somebody who would leave her sister innocently sleeping in an 18th-storey apartment during a fire evacuation. But she did. Oh yes she did.
To her credit it was 4:30am when the alarm went off and I didn’t respond when she gently whispered “this place is burning to the ground,” in my ear. So she decided to let me sleep and trudged down the emergency stairway. That was peachy except about half-way down she suddenly realised that – holy shit – maybe this wasn’t a drill and I might actually sleep through a fire. So, in a bit of a panic (the type one might feel if one has left one’s slumbering sister for dead) she proceeded to scramble up the stairs. I like to think it played out like that scene in "Titanic"; everybody running the other way as she elbowed little old ladies and stole a child. Or am I confusing movies again?
Anyway, here’s something to remember if you ever leave your sister for dead in your top-storey apartment: you can’t open fire doors from the inside; the only way out is through the ground floor. When Kate realised this unfortunate fact – while imagining me crisping up like a fatty bit of bacon – she flew back down the stairs (probably lapping the ladies she had elbowed mere moments before), 17th floor, 16th, 15th, 14th, 13th, 12th…
At about this point the alarm stopped Everybody breathed a big sigh of relief and dedicated some involuntary facial expressions to the sweet girl who had been flinging herself up and down the stairs with a look of abject terror for most of the previous fifteen minutes. Mind you, I was still asleep and completely oblivious to the drama that had unfolded in the fire escape that morning, but my brain knew.
Last night I had a dream that Kate and Tim had left a human-sized chicken and pig costume next to my bed to serve as warning. The message: they would slaughter me.
Hours after I woke up Kate pulled me into the way of oncoming traffic. She has this in common with Mark. He also repeatedly tries to kill me in my dreams. My brain is onto something.
Did you ever pause to consider why Dumpling is called “Dumpling”? (Well obviously, what kind of ridiculous name is that?!).
It isn’t because he looks like a fat, juicy dumpling ready for the eating. And it isn’t because we haven’t been able to find decent Chinese in Munich and we thought we’d make up for the lack. Although that is why we’ve decided to rename Mark “Steamed Pork Bun”.
The reason Dumpling got his name was because Simon’s boyfriend (who speaks English as a second language with such startling proficiency that when he doesn’t know a word it somehow seems oddly comical), mistook the true meaning of the word.
Basically, through a random conversation which nobody can quite recall, it was brought to our attention that he thought a dumpling was the diminutive for a baby which had been dumped by its mother. Like “Hey Harold I found a dumpling on my doorstep, let’s name him Szechuan beef.”
All together now AWWWWWW…
I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to write to whoever is in charge of the English language to get it immediately amended.
Anyway, when Dumpling landed in our lives (or not so much landed as was hustled in), there was really nothing else we could have named him. Also he looks a bit like a dumpling.
So the big question on everybody’s lips is “who is Dumpling?” Unfortunately I can’t tell you. He appeared pretty much out of nowhere and no matter how much we interrogate him and threaten to take his swing away, he refuses to tell us anything about himself.
What I can tell you is that he doesn’t speak English, he might be a scholar and he's definitely homicidal.
Here’s his story:
About three weeks ago, just moments after Mark and I had left Block 130 to spend a few beautiful hours skipping through the streets of Munich, I spotted a tiny white hopping dot on the pavement.
The dot was irritably chirping to itself while pecking at the concrete in search of birdseed. When I crouched down next to it, it looked at me, let out a weary chirp of surprise and then hopped over to my sandal to check whether I wasn’t storing delicious seeds somewhere inside it.
Mark and I exchanged looks of AWWWW BIRDIE and stretched out our fingers to triumphantly save the bird from its concrete distress. But rather than come along nicely like a good little bird should, he got all HOLY SHIT GIANTS! GIANTS ARE AFTER ME! and launched into a panicked flutter.
I don’t know what sane, balanced individuals do in these situations, but I’ll tell you what we did: we got on all fours, fixed our eyesight on the pavement (so as not to appear threatening) and slowly crawled forwards, cooing about birdseed and grapes. In hindsight, this would have been terrifying.
This is precisely how Simon found us when he came jaunting up our street. However since he knows us quite well, and is quite insane himself, he didn’t act surprised. In fact he obediently froze in his spot when we whispered something along the lines of SMALL BIRD. TAME. CATCH. GRAPE. DON’T MOVE!
We clearly had things under control. But the happy ending wherein the bird finally gave in to our theatrical charms and we all lived happily ever after in a castle made of grapes and birdseed, didn’t happen.
Why, you ask?
Because one of our crazy toothless neighbours (and I say “one of” because we live next door to a housing project that is brimming with shady, unsavoury characters with mental problems and questionable dental habits) decided to interject. Apparently we looked so incompetent that this particular 60-year-old trackie-dack-wearing individual took it upon himself to come to our aid…with a garbage bag.
So picture this: Mark and I both low to the ground, still talking softly to the pavement. Simon frozen in his spot, watching us and offering useful bird-catching tips, and a crazy toothless man skipping around us all, waving a garbage bag around like a butterfly net.
This was too much for the bird.
Too much.
He gathered up all of the energy he could muster and flung himself into the path of an oncoming car out of sheer embarrassment.
Don’t worry this story doesn’t end badly.
Mark, Simon, Crazy Random and I all watched in horror as the car approached, but then the bird decided that getting smooshed into a bird paste was just the slightest bit worse than witnessing our four-man show, so he came back.
We got right back to it and after a few more minutes he gave up on life entirely and allowed me to catch him and carry him up to our apartment.
This is where we encountered problem number two: what the expletive do you do with a small frightened bird in an apartment without a cage? (Answer: let it out and spend the next two days frantically cleaning up after it, thereby convincing it that you are indeed insane and also possibly have some sort of disturbing stalker poo fetish).
So there we were - no birdseed, no cage and one tired, pissed-off bird flapping about threatening to cut us in our sleep.
We looked up some information about his kind (a Zebra Finch, native to Australia), slapped together a poster announcing we had saved him, found a box and even managed to buy some birdseed at a local supermarket.
Of course the small bird didn’t want any part of it. The small bird was all “I am not eating anything these freaks give me” and instead drank some water, screamed at us, wedged himself between the VCR and our DVD collection and went to sleep.
His owners never rang – probably because he had pecked them to death, so we eventually bought a cage with a swing and named him “Dumpling”.
So you see, we don’t really know much about him at all. Except that he’s plotting our imminent demise. He lets us know by sharpening his beak in a menacing, deliberate manner.
I’ve been a little busy lately. And when I get busy I make like a bat and forsake normal sleeping hours. I also hang upside down and lick nectar from flowers and fruit.
Like this:
The down side is that I miss a lot of daytime (and particularly breakfast) action. However since I’ve always worked better at night, most of the time I’m pretty thrilled with my regimen.
And recently I found another perk – listening to Mark sleep.
That sounds a lot creepier than it is. I don’t stand over his listless, vulnerable body holding a giant horn-like device or anything. And I’ve only toyed with the idea of taping him a couple of times; in my defence a) I was desperate to procrastinate and b) it’s because he’s a total freak.
Every night – and I mean EVERY NIGHT – at some indiscriminate time, Mark breaks his soft, regular snoozing and spends a good minute heartily chuckling to himself.
Then he falls quiet and continues to sleep.
Every. Night.
I’ve often wondered what these nightly outbursts were about, but by the time he wakes up he doesn’t remember anything.
Today I finally found out.
Once again I was happily typing away at my keyboard with the faint staccato of his breathing for company, when suddenly at 2:00am he stopped, raised his head a fraction, laughed from the very centre of his being and happily proclaimed – as if sharing some great joke – “Family To Family”.
I asked for clarification, “Family to family?”
Apparently this was the funniest thing I had ever said.
“Family To FAMILY,” he repeated, finding endless joy in the wit contained therein.
But, alas, he laughed just a little too hard and woke himself up, then just got kind of awkward – like a person caught skinny-dipping by a nun – mumbled something and promptly returned to his dreams. Silently.
Oh wow, so yeah it has been quite a while since I’ve been here. Terribly sorry about that…something about being awfully busy with work and the occasional social engagement.
I’m going to be better from now on. Although, I have to tell you, August is a big month. Big things are happening in August. For one, The Hausfraus (that is Simon, Mark and I) are moving out of Palace de Geyerstraße and into a bigger, brighter apartment. We are so devastated that at any moment any one of us could kamikaze into oncoming traffic or lick a power point. I am not even kidding.
In case you’re interested, I’ve dubbed our new stomping ground “Block 130” (I’m going for a feeling of darkness and foreboding. Work with me please). Although the apartment is quite large and sunny, it’s located on the rough side of town. In Munich terms, this means that when someone accidentally bumps into you, they might not apologise. I’m buying a switch blade and pepper spray for just such an occasion.
It’s also a good five-minute U-Bahn ride from the centre of town – rather than the ten-minute walk we’re accustomed to. So, in other words, in my mind it’s akin to a dirty hovel, if a dirty hovel were a jail cell, if that jail cell was onboard a ship, if that ship was headed for the edge of the earth and if the crew was made up of homeless men with explosive diarrhoea – like the one who squatted behind a bench, which was being occupied by an unsuspecting friend of mine, and let it rip.
I’m expecting a similar scene to play out in our new living room.
We’re also preparing ourselves for the loss of Mussa. We’ve decided that it would be entirely unethical to smuggle him away with us, no matter how much we know he wants us to. And he does. So for the moment he’s blissfully unaware of our pending desertion and has ramped up his visits to include times when we’re not even at home – we walk through the door and just find him contentedly curled up on the bed with a look of entitlement like, “I’m here, I’m dear, get used to it!”.
But it’s not all bad. For one, we are very excited to have found an apartment because we had feared that we might have to adopt Mussa’s technique of climbing through random windows in search of comfort in the arms of strangers. Secondly, the people we’re subletting from are pretty awesome and have made the whole process really easy. Thirdly – and this is a biggie – we’ll have a living room and a window in the bathroom. You have no idea how giddy this makes us – a toilet-window of our very own!
The move is just about the biggest thing in our lives at the moment – especially since we’re in the process of packing and shifting. But just in case you’re bubbling over with curiosity about what else we’ve been up to, here are some recent events in non-chronological order:
1) We suffered aggression at the hands of a waitress we dubbed McBoobie. She had enormous knockers which threatened to spill out of her inappropriately-sized dirndl during every wrathful move and glare. Her nipples wanted freedom, but all she wanted was our immediate and ultimate end.
2) We dressed up in costume for two separate gay pride days and I was only taken for a trannie a handful of times, which is flattering by any measure.
3) I took a solo trip to Regensburg for a weekend to dedicate time to my multiple personalities: Agnes The Shy (who refused to take selfies in major tourist spots), Agnes The Inappropriately Vocal (who made appreciative noises while dining on delicious food) and Agnes The Creative (who made up for Agnes The Shy’s inability to self-photograph by documenting her presence in Regensburg with obscure photos). Should you ever find yourself in this part of the world, I heartily encourage you to visit R-burg. It is gorgeous, charming and everything nice.
4) I had a confronting, near-naked experience with a doctor while wearing improper undergarments.
5) We met a strange artistic type on an evening outing to Gärtnerplatz who completely backed our Hausfraus idea. He was an artist who suspected he was bisexual because he had slept with a man and liked it, but was in a committed relationship (of ten years) with a woman. He drank wine out of a crystal glass.
6) While smashing sausages on a solo lunch outing, I met “Harry from China” and his father. They were delightful and showered me with complements and gifts. Or just one gift, to be precise, but I was blown away.
7) One evening Simon went out without keys while the rest of us – that is Mark, two gorgeous ladies who were visiting from Australia and I – went home. The following morning we found him peacefully, albeit mysteriously, asleep in his bed. Nobody had let him in and he couldn’t remember how he ended up indoors. Based on havng spotted him leering near the window at odd hours of the morning, we formed a hypothesis that he had applied the Mussa technique and, unable to open the front door, had scrambled in through the only other available opening. It turned out that Mark had let him in. Disappointing.
8) Cloacas!
And more stuff, but I think eight is a good number, so I’ll leave it there.
Behold, this will be one of the many posts about Palace de Geyerstraße which I’ll write with just a tad too much attachment and then sob over when we’re living in a barn somewhere in the German countryside.
This is a story of The Mussa and his ultimate betrayal.
We first met The Mussa on our third day in Palace de Geyerstraße. We had ventured outdoors to admire our new home and were just in the middle of high-fiving, slapping each other’s backs and making wildly exaggerated hand signals because IT IS SO AWESOME when, out of nowhere, a little blur of white and orange dashed past us.
This blur turned out to be a rather cute ginger kitten, who proceeded to sit a few metres away and stare at us shyly from behind a twig, all giant paws here and large innocent eyes there. And we were all OMG SO CUTE! and immediately got on all fours and patted the ground.
Little known fact: this attracts kittens.
A dog or human or any other animal would consider this behaviour threatening and get the hell out of there. But cats are all WHAT IS THAT? WHY ARE THEY DOING THAT? WHERE IS THAT CLICKING SOUND COMING FROM? Until it becomes irresistible and their buts begin to wiggle and the next thing you know, they’re in the centre swatting at anything that moves.
And that’s what happened with The Mussa. Within seconds he was purring and swatting and cuddling and we were THIS close to just hiding him under our jackets and taking him home. But we’re not that insane, and also we suspected that his owners would eventually come looking for him, and it would be awkward to explain why he was chained to my bed.
Instead we set up a regular routine whereby whenever we ventured outdoors, we’d scream “MUSSA” in a voice loud enough for The Mussa to hear, but not so loud as to let our neighbours know what was happening (moderately confident that we failed at that). And The Mussa would come screaming around the corner and greet us with his bunny face, and giant paws and pink nose and Awwwwww....
Things could have gone on like that forever, in those innocent pre-catnapping days, but they didn’t. One day in early March, after another successful interaction, The Mussa started trailing us. Every time we’d turn around, there he’d be half-heartedly hiding behind a wall or a car or a bike with a look of Take Me Home With You I Have Giant Bunny Paws. Just the kind of look that makes normal people want to cuddle him, but makes Simon and I want to put his head in our mouth.
The natural next step was to catnap him.(obviously).
Actually, if truth be told, we weren’t really planning to steal him. I mean, we had talked about it because OMG purring Mussa on the bed (!!!), but on the day it happened we were just being good Samaritans.We had returned from school to find The Mussa sitting in front of our door with pleading saucer-like eyes like My Adorable Bunny Paws Can’t Reach The Door Knob, Could You Help A Mussa Out? And we totally helped a Mussa out. What kind of sick, evil person wouldn’t help a Mussa out?
But of course we shouldn’t have helped a Mussa out because The Mussa didn’t live in our apartment building and was in fact just being a naughty, curious kitten. So when we opened the door he bolted inside and immediately made for the stairs.
What is it with cats and stairs?
He ran up six stairs, and then down two stairs, and then stuck his little bunny face out between the posts of the balustrade. And we were like “Ummm I don’t think The Mussa lives here. We should go grab him”. But there was no grabbing The Mussa because he had gotten to the stairs and the stairs are the Best Game in the History of Cat Games. One that goes like this: well-meaning human approaches; run up three stairs. Well meaning-human stops, come towards well-meaning human. When well-meaning human’s hopes are up, run up a few more stairs. Make sure to do this in a loud wooden, public stairway of well-meaning human’s new apartment block so that if the neighbours of well-meaning human come out to see what’s causing all the racket, they’ll be greeted by the sight of well-meaning human’s large arse chasing after a small ginger kitten.
We did not think much of this game, so we decided that maybe, yes, the kitten did live in the building and was totally screwing with us. Besides we didn’t want to get into a situation where we’d have to explain what we were doing via interpretive dance, (because remember this was in March and “accidentally let kitten into apartment block in failed display of charity” was not in our vocabulary just yet).
So, somewhat dejected, we opened the door to our apartment. And that’s when the cat expelled all of the energy it had in its body to shoot itself into our hallway and launch The Immediate Exploration of New Stomping Ground.
At first this was ADORABLE, so we cooed and took pictures like this one:
and this one.
But then, increasingly, we began to worry that a) The Mussa’s owner would somehow telepathically know that we had his cat and would do bad things to us and b) that in all of the excitement The Mussa would pee on something that didn’t belong to us. So we wrangled him up – chunky bunny feet and all – and gently placed him on the outside windowsill, thereby teaching him a valuable lesson: New Stomping Ground Has Convenient Access Point.
A few days later we were just sitting around and minding our own business when suddenly The Mussa appeared on Simon’s desk. Like Hello! He had climbed into the apartment through the window. Which, seeing as we live on the ground floor, might not seem like a big deal. But let me tell you, it’s a big deal.
In a feat of design ingenuity which has yet to reach Australia, European windows open in two ways: when the handle is horizontal they open like any other window, but when the handle is vertical and pointing upwards they only partially open from the top.
Here’s a diagram:
The Mussa managed to use his giant bunny feet to climb all the way up a partially-opened window (as per diagram 3) and into Simon’s room. Then, thoroughly impressed with himself, sat in the middle of the desk purring his approval.
And so it went; whenever The Mussa wanted to say hello, he’d stand at the window and if nobody let him in, he’d do it himself. When he wanted to leave, he’d sit on the inside windowsill with an expression of “I want to go outside and play with butterflies” and we’d fall all over ourselves to meet his requests.
Before long, he discovered that our bed was not a bad place to sleep, actually. And he wasn’t even creeped out by the way we’d all hold our breath, and stare and coo because OMG purring Mussa on the bed (!!!). And he’d get patted and loved and when he’d had enough he’d only have to twitch to make every human in the room flatten themselves against a wall and cease breathing because, OMG the Mussa might leave. And we were happy. Oh so happy.
Did we think about his owners? Sure, we wanted to know who they were, why they let their super cute Mussa run around at all times of the day and night, and what they would think if they knew (really knew) just how much he wanted to be our cat instead of theirs. Did they even know HOW ADORABLE he was being?
But you just have to know that all good things come to an end.
One day all three of us were heading out to do something. Possibly in the morning. Possibly something to do with learning German and going to work. But I can’t back that up.
As we turned the corner we saw the most horrendous sight. There was a giant, beach-ball-esque man in a loud Hawaiian shirt holding OUR MUSSA on his shoulder and spiriting him into the apartment next door.
When he heard us coming he tried to do a quick, desperate scramble to get indoors before we saw his thieving ways, but he wasn’t fast enough, so he just gave us a guilt-ridden look, the kind he would have perfected as an enormous Hawaiian-shirt-wearing child when busted with his hand in the cookie jar (I’m not being mean, he’s a Mussa-napping criminal!).
We wanted to snatch The Mussa away, and explain to the large man that we were the catnappers on this block, thank you very much. But then something stopped us. The Mussa looked happy. Happy! Like, “yeah I’m going to play The Stair Game with this fool and see what happens”. I don’t want to exaggerate but I imagine this is what dying feels like.
I don’t know if you know this, but there’s a crisis at Geyerstraße. I don’t think that it will cause the world to end, but then again it might.
Here’s the thing, in just over a month Simon, Mark and I have to move out. On the 15th of August we have to pack all of our worldly belongings, which have somehow increased exponentially, and relocate. If you’re not screaming in outrage and clawing at your hair, you have an evil soul and the devil can’t wait to play chess with you.
For the rest of you, now-balding empathisers, I appreciate your understanding and your baldness. I think it’s quite becoming, actually. But maybe get a hat or a wig.
If you’re wondering where we’re going, you’re clearly stopping for breaks you lazy heartless beast! Tear harder! Didn’t you just hear me say we have to abandon our home?!
But, if you must know, we haven’t found a place to move to yet. We would have, only we were so busy being The World’s Worst Self-Sabotagers that we just didn’t get around to it.
Then yesterday, suddenly, we were like OMG WE HAVE TO MOVE OUT OF GEYERSTRAßE! WE HAVE TO PACK OUR STUFF! WE HAVE TO LEAVE THE GLOCH!...
But then we were like WE HAVE TO ORGANISE OUR RECYCLING IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER! I THINK WE SHOULD WEAVE A THROW OUT OF OUR BELLYBUTTON LINT*. GOOD THINKING, I’LL START COLLECTING! MAYBE NOW IS THE TIME TO START NAMING OUR FURNITURE? HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT “FLOUNCE THE FRIDGE”?!
And then we were like WHY ARE WE SHOUTING? Ummm... no idea...there was a reason...
OMG WE HAVE TO MOVE OUT OF GEYERSTRAßE!
Then we just kind of sat there wailing and talking about how we should have been looking for places and questioning why we’re so hopeless at life. Answer: those damn bottles all “Vio Wasser” next to “Coca Cola” like that...
Skip forward a few ingeniously-put-together German emails and a trip to the end of the earth (or 5kms from Munich city centre), and we’ve made our first steps into being responsible adults who don’t live on the street.
Of course there’s a chance that we’ll need to be severely medicated for depression when we leave our haven. There’s also a chance that we’ll bunker ourselves in and refuse to leave when the time comes. It's just this kind of unpredictability that will make the world end.
*It is my belief that women never acquire bellybutton lint. I’ve never had bellybutton lint. I also don't know how to knit...but a new throw would be nice.
Mark, Simon and I are scientific geniuses. I don’t think I take it too far by saying that the world suffers for every moment that we’re not in a laboratory wearing white coats, holding beacons and inventing stuff.
But since invention runs in our blood, sometimes we just can’t help ourselves.
Last night, about 32minutes after the peak of the lunar eclipse – Simon and Mark very nearly dressed in identical pyjamas – we walked down to the Isar to see if we could catch the eclipse. We could not. We were at least 32 minutes too late. Plus we hadn’t even brought a camera with us.
It was at this point that we decided that we are not functioning adults. Functioning adults would have planned the trip – looked up the optimal viewing place, charged the camera and gotten dressed in outside clothes.
So, after some thought, we invented Symbiotic Organism Duplicates; Officially Me and You. SODOMY...Oh wow! Hey! Is that a giant shitting bird flying overhead? Is that a giant shitting bird flying overhead?
Is that a giant shitting bird flying overhead?
Okay. Yes. The name needs a little revising.
The concept works like this:
Any time you need more of yourself than just one (like when you have ridiculous amounts of freelance work that you should be writing instead of a blog, per say), you just pull an extra you out from yourself. This SODOMY can do anything that you can, responds to questions and conversations in a manner that you would, but doesn’t suffer from crippling insecurities, sleep deprivation or McDonald’s cravings.
You can transfer your consciousness into whichever “you” that you want – so you don’t have to deal with things like long airfares, hangovers or awkward bedroom scenes. SODOMY is also dynamite in bed. And anything good that SODOMY does – like learn a language, work out, read – is immediately transferred onto you, so you can sleep or watch movies or hang out with friends while SODOMY works on your six-pack. If SODOMY does something bad, like catch a disease (bad SODOMY!), break a limb or procure a really bad memory, it has to deal with it alone. And you can destroy it for being such a dirty little slapper.
Tell me that wouldn’t solve like 90% of your problems. It would solve about 99% of my problems.
I’m not sure what that says about me.
The important thing is that you have to appeal to your government to let Simon, Mark and I loose in like a state-of-the-art lab. We’ll need ridiculous* salaries...and also human test subjects.
*Ridiculous in a good way, like “Agnes earns such a ridiculous salary, that sometimes she just buys a country”.
Actually I can’t believe I haven’t mentioned this earlier, because it has been one of the most traumatic events in my life; the day I had a shit shower.
How this shit shower came to be is a complete mystery. Mark, his brother Luke (who had come to Munich for a visit) and I were walking home from a successful afternoon of Squandering Our Money At Zara and H&M when, completely out of nowhere, all three of us – ALL THREE OF US AT THE SAME TIME (just take a moment to think about the logistics of that) – got completely and royally shat on.
And, can I tell you, the bird responsible had been into the Spanish cucumbers or sprouts or beans or beef or whatever it is that causes putrid, explosive diarrhoea.
The reason it’s such a mystery is because when we looked up to abuse the culprit with daggers, stones or, I don’t know, like a flesh-eating disease that would cause it some serious discomfort, we couldn’t find the bird. There was no bird. There was just blue sky, silence and a lot of shit.
And I mean for the volumes expelled, you would at least expect to see an elephant strapped to the outside of a plane or something.
For a few angry moments I thought that maybe it was a stupid prank played by someone in the neighbouring building, so I resolved to storm in and blast down the door of every apartment, smelling and shouting and gesturing wildly until I found the responsible party. Then I was going to throw them out of a window. Not the best plan, I admit, but as it turns out I turn quite irrational when I’m covered in shit. Guess I can knock that one off the list of “things I’d like to know about myself”.
Anyway, I wish there was a happy ending to this story, but seeing as there was no perpetrator, we just had to kind of slouch away and go home. We took the most deserted way there and couldn’t make eye contact with any of the people we passed along the way – I say “couldn’t” but I really mean “there was no fucking way we were going to make eye contact with anyone that wasn’t equally submerged in giant freak bird excrement.”
And that’s really all there is to say about that.
Oh, except: “if you’re out there freaky disappearing giant bird, you had better watch your back. I will get you and I WILL throw you out of a window!”
To say that I’m the most paranoid person in the world wouldn’t be fair to that guy who’s kept himself locked in his house with a cushion strapped to his head. You know him right? No? Well it’s probably because he’s kept himself locked in the house with a cushion strapped to his head.
In saying that, my levels of paranoia are probably only one Crime Library (or Wikipedia) entry away from forcing me to buy some serious padlocks and some serious knee and elbow pads...and possibly a Styrofoam helmet.
As far as I’m concerned, most things in this world are out to get me. Why else would an innocent stroll across a catamaran land me in hospital? Or why would the ground shift suddenly under my feet, landing me in the gap between the train and the platform?
To my utter mortification Mark is the furthest thing from paranoid, meaning if given the chance he would happily jump out of a plane without a parachute because “what’s the worst that could happen”? He actually thinks it would be fun (FUN, can you imagine?!) to get lost in a mountain range and try to survive until you found your way back to society. And no matter how many times I tell him that getting mangled by a bear, drinking water distilled from faeces (yes I watched that episode of Man vs Wild) or slowly starving to death would be the furthest thing from fun, he just can’t accept it.
I’m not sure where this comes from because he was born and grew up in Australia. Which, as my father reminded me daily before (and forever after) moving to its lethal sandy shores, will try to kill you if you’re not careful...and aren’t wearing homemade gaiters, a rashie and some sort of hooded baseball cap (Is it still called a baseball cap if it’s hooded and looks nothing like a baseball cap?)
Let’s take a moment to talk about my dad:
Firstly I think it’s important you know that he is a genius. The man is a medical physicist who occasionally writes computer programs in his spare time. You know, just to relax. His scientific mind means that he needs facts and statistics to correctly process new information and formulate his responses. He does a lot of formulating, my dad does.
So when he made the move to Australia with his young family, he made sure to read up on all of the scariest, deadliest creatures in his new homeland and prepare his kids and wife for the eventuality of being attacked. Which, according to the statistics, was high enough to warrant concern.
My sister and I were the only kids in primary school to know exactly where to hit a Great White Shark if it ever attacked (the gills and the eyes) and who could identify the deadliest Australian snakes. Fun fact: Australia has six of the world’s ten deadliest snakes, including a sea snake.
We were also the only children – and members of the only group of people – to visit perfectly safe tourist sites wearing homemade gaiters.
Just to clarify, gaiters are kind of like thick rainproof legwarmers which are worn over shoes and pant legs to protect limbs from deadly attacks (the kind you should expect at all times in an exotic land like Australia).
Usually they look like this:
But since we were poor Eastern Europeans doing it tough in a city that didn’t care, and since my dad is a genius and all, there was no way we were going to pay that kind of money for professional gaiters. Not as long as there was cheap polyester and Styrofoam to be bought and no sense of fashion to offend! Instead my parents put their genius and sewing know-how and Polish aesthetic together and produced something that looked vaguely like this:
Except less like a container and more like really offensive knee-high gaiters. Maybe one day I’ll be organised enough to scan a photo of the real deal. If you’re really lucky I’ll make it an awkward family shot.
My dad’s paranoia wasn’t limited to amphibians, fish, mammals or insects...when I broke my wrist rollerblading, for example, he spent the drive to the hospital telling me that I was about to have the most painful experience of my life. Nothing I had ever experienced before (including breaking my wrist) or would ever experience again (like childbirth, Two and a Half Men or death itself) would ever compare to what I was about to go through.
He even told me about how he had broken his leg or knee or something playing basketball as a young man, and had to be held down by four people while it was set back into place.
I was terrified, but actually it wasn’t that bad.
So I guess what I’m trying to say is that when I become hysterical over heights/waves/feet/getting lost/my reflection/hypothetical diseases I might have contracted/anything else that suddenly comes my way, it’s my dad’s fault. Just you remember that...
Last Saturday, after accidentally getting tipsy on beer, Simon, Mark and I went on a food binge. Beer has that effect, and the meagre holdings of our fridge and pantry could not satisfy our carnal appetites. We. Wanted. NOODLES!
So we stormed to almost the closest Thai place (the closest one looks like a poor man’s casino and is the subject of a raging debate. Simon thinks that sweaty decor, pokie machines and a constant influx of clientele means the cuisine is amazing...Mark thinks that if we eat there we’ll surely perish – either by salmonella or lack of chicken).
The restaurant we went to instead is always rather empty and dimly lit which, for the purposes of staying inconspicuous while being drunk, suited us just fine.
I’m not going to take you through the story of how we started gnawing our waitress’s ankles out of hunger or how we shamelessly licked our plates clean when the food had arrived. Instead, I’ll involve you in the mystery of the English language.
While we were waiting for our meal to arrive – starving and eyeing Mark (he’d be the first to get eaten if our apartment ever crashed into a cold, uninhabited mountain peak) – Simon suddenly picked up his spoon and...well, we’re still not sure what the correct word for what he did is. It seems we’ve found a gap in the English language.
Effectively, he blew hot air onto the spoon making it steam up. Mark was convinced that this action is called “huffing”. Like “Simon, why are you huffing at that spoon?” But when I hear that sentence, I immediately imagine Simon in pseudo-cartoon form with the nose of a raging bull, blowing hot air through wide, angled nostrils.
After saying it a couple of times, Mark, changed his mind too.
“It’s called fogging up,” he said with renewed confidence, “Simon, why are you fogging up that spoon?”
My imagination was right there with him, setting a scene where Simon put his nose near the spoon and started blowing out smoke – as if from a smoke machine – shrouding the spoon and everything around him in fog.
But Mark was sure.
For lack of a better alternative – and to get the image out of my head – I suggested it was called “steaming up”. Like, “Simon, why are you steaming up the spoon?”
After a few repetitions of all three alternatives we became confused and disoriented, so we changed the topic...and it was never mentioned again. Anyone got any insight?
P.S.
Just in case you were wondering: Simon had steamed up/fogged up/huffed the spoon to stop the blinding reflection of candlelight. That stuff can be brutal!
