Leonard wanted to try baseball, I understand, so Dorian organised for him to get involved with a local group. (Whenever something like this comes up I remember this post , this hubristic, forgivable post, censoriously laying down my principles for parenting, one of which was that extracurricular organised team sport and music lessons are not forbidden but not encouraged either. That's still how I feel, but we now have both and I'm ok with it.
But yesterday was the first time I had escorted him to baseball and, as he did warn me in advance would happen, parents were made to join in. That wasn't too bad - I am quite fit, reasonably coordinated with ball sports especially after the horrific months of playing daily ball games in the park in lockdown, and I've been around long enough to know that little children are generally worse at most things than most adults. What I wasn't prepared for was the coach being the walking embodiment of all the reasons I would move out of the Brunswick area if it was a realistic option. Well, stuff is devised to be put up with and I put up with it. At the end of the session we were sent to the clubhouse to speak to someone there about paying fees and getting a t-shirt. So we did that. I was really pissed off that the people in there were not wearing masks and that while we were in there, heaps more people came in, like stupid, complacent, pre-pandemic sheep. The person who told Lenny he's now a member of the Fitzroy Baseball Club had siad that and issued other instructions in a very bossy loud voice and I caught her tone when we turned to leave and I said to everyone and noone in particular, Go outside and line up, do you think covid is over? because it isn't.
Then I had to go buy cat litter and sticky hooks, up at Barkly Square, but we also went to two op shops, the bike shop, a bookshop and we bought buns and coffee and ate them in the outside part of the shopping centre. Kmart didn't have any sticky hooks but the pet supplies shop did have the type of cat litter I normally get, which was a relief, because this week I've had a much inferior type in the litter tray and the cats have tracked it all through all the rooms. I have started feeding them Hairball Control instead of Indoors and they don't throw up any more, so that's a definite win, although I know they will think of something else to do.
Leonard was very pleased with a book he found in Vinnies and walked along the road showing me the map drawn in the front. This reminded him of the fantasy series kids at school are into at the moment so we walked down several blocks to the bookshop and I bought him the first three instalments. It's called Warriors and is about the adventures of several groups of feral cats. There are six series with five books in each series. When I hear about things like this I know why I am not rich. But he was immensely delighted to have these books and thanked me so happily three or four times as we headed back towards the pet shop.
Along Sydney Road yesterday artists were painting Christmas murals onto shop windows. A young and very pretty woman was painting on the window of a bar near Edward St, with two old drunk stale-smoke-smelling nuisance type men standing on either side of her as she knelt down to paint a bit near the bottom. As we passed one of them turned to Lenny and began haranguing him about the books in his arms. I didn't intervene, out of a sense that everyone should have the chance to fight their own battles, and Len got away from him soon enough. A little further on a woman stopped us in the street and offered us a Sydney Road shopping bag, which I accepted. Choose carefully, she said holding up a bundle, Because one has a gift voucher inside. Lenny picked the right one and so it is that we have a $100 gift voucher for a kebab shop that is ranked on Trip Advisor as #161 of 173 cafes and restaurants in Brunswick. In February I had invited my whole work area to my house for dinner as a fundraiser for the ASRC, but of course that was postponed. I'm wondering if it would be bad, or rather, if it would be unacceptably bad, to invite them round again and use this voucher to provide part of the meal. What else can I possibly do with it?
A highlight, or at lest a feature, of the afternoon was getting further than we ever have before on a torturous online game Lenny is becoming obsessed with because it is so fiendishly difficult and we never manage to complete it. In the game you are in charge of a convict ship and the aim is to reach Van Diemen's Land without everyone dying. So it's a real barrel of laughs and ethical minefield to boot. It's here https://www.sea.museum/discover/apps-and-games/voyage-game . We ran out of water about three quarters of the way across the Indian Ocean. Bummer.
Today I finished reading Don Delillo's new novel that I bought on impulse yesterday, a bit like settling into an old comfortable well worn pair of slippers, if wearing slippers always gave you a sense of looking squarely at the fatigue and confusion and paranoid uneasiness that floats through postmodernity - I didn't expect anything new and didn't get it but the first line of the dust jacket flap made me want to spend $30; it said (basically) that the book (which is a disaster novel) had been completed just before the pandemic began and therefore deals with a different kind of critical irruption. I enjoyed the book, which is called The Silence, sorry I should have said that, and will read it again. Lenny has been listening to some classic Goon Show episodes so it's been a kind of Style Wars experience to the morning, or maybe a The Two Cultures experience. He enthusiastically ate the lunch I made him (wraps) which was a relief because he'd only nibbled at the breakfast (pancakes) and at last night's dinner (ramen). I'd have just had eggs and kale for every meal if I was by myself, and that's exactly what I'll do next week because he's going this afternoon. I really miss him when he isn't here although I do have a lot of enjoyment and get absorbed deeply in things, it's not a pining away sort of missing. But it's strong.
The rest of the afternoon I'm going to cut out yet another linen Style 3371. I'm actually wearing the black one I was making in that post. It is really faded and the linen has washed and worn thin and it's only a matter of time before it tears. The wax print cotton one I made has already torn at the inside corner of the square neckline, not surprising since there is no structural reinforcement in the garment construction. The dress I'll cut out today is in a rich deep cyclamen pink linen which I is a bit of a gamble - I'm not sure the shade really does much for me and even if it does I expect will lose a lot of colour in the wash, because all of the other linen I bought at the place this came from has been crappily dyed, unfortunately, because it's a gorgeous smooth rolling pliable weight just perfect for hot summertime. I'm also cutting out some slips from another pattern I've been making and remaking since at least the early 2000s. Sometimes I think I really shouldn't keep making the same garments over and over again, but then I think who gives an absolute stuff, I can do whatever I want. I really need some glove puppets to dramatise these internal conversations.
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