The Cats of Australia

 

 

An old friend - in every sense of the word - sent me this email: "My day was interrupted on Tuesday when I had a bad fall. I dislocated my shoulder and cracked two ribs. Currently in hospital", to which I replied, "So, tell me, what happened?" His answer wasn't long in coming:

"Went running down the hallway to break up Zoe attacking Maisie. My foot got caught up in the runner in the hallway. I lost my balance and fell over. The result was a dislocated left shoulder and two cracked ribs, also on the side of the left shoulder. I called the ambulance and I am now in hospital, pumped full of painkillers and antobiotics, so very quiet for now. I am not sure how long I will be here."

I didn't know he'd shacked up with two females who had been fighting over him! However, it turned out that Zoe and Maisie were his two cats. Cats have nine lives, but he at his age to crack two ribs is bad news.

Almost a week later, he's still in hospital because, as he writes, "I have no idea how long I'll be here. They keep pumping drugs into me but the pain is still pretty constant when I move." Still, to judge by the video below, he seems to be enjoying his time with all those nurses.

 

 

If he stays there much longer, I may have to send him something. Should I send him a walking stick or a book? Let's start with something he can read while he's still flat on his back. "The Cats of Australia" should do.

I've already inscribed it with the words, "Dedicated to Zoe and Maisie!"

 

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P.S. Is this postscript an erratum or an errata? It's definitely an erratum because I made ONE mistake; it may be an errata because it involves TWO animals: the owner confirms that he does own two cats, but this little incident - little for them, big for their owner - involved Maisie, one of the two cats, and Zoe, a pedigree German shepherd. So why am I not surprised? As always, they blame it on a German - but, at least, the Germans made the trains run on time (to say nothing of the autobahns!)

Maisie, the cat, down to eight lives.

Zoe, the (always) guilty German. (I can almost read it in her eyes: "They might as well also have given me a decent German name to go with it, like Brunhilde.")

 

There's no need to bring any books!

 

 

I've spent a long and peaceful day inside my library - well, ONE of my libraries - to get the recently accumulated books into some sort of order: fiction, non-fiction, economics, linguistics, philosophy, travel; and within each group, by author's name. It's all pretty shipshape now, or more precisely, Dewey-shaped.

 

 

In the end, I was left with several piles on the sofa and beside the sofa, but not by accident. You see, I have a friend who owns the Robyn's Nest Lakeside Resort at Merimbula. When I first visited him, I was impressed with the resort's facilities but felt there was still something missing.

 

The Guests Lounge at Robyn's Nest Lakeside Resort

 

As we sat by the fire with a glass of chardie, it came to me: "What this place needs is some books!" I told him. Since his ancestors invented paper and block print, it didn't take me long at all to convince him.

Ever since that time I have been accumulating an eclectic pile of books to please even the most jaded traveller. They are now sitting on and beside the sofa, still to be added to, if I find something suitable, until I hear from my friend that he's had the shelves built to house them all.

If you want to know my taste in books, why don't you stay for a few days at the Robyn's Nest Lakeside Resort? There's no need to bring any books!

 

Dear Guest, We hope you will find in this small selection a book that interests you. Feel free to take it with you to the pool, or down to the lake, or to your cottage. Keep it for the duration of your stay. Should you not have finished reading it by the time you leave, feel free to take it with you. Simply let the staff know when you check out, so that we can restock our little library for the benefit of all our future guests. If you have suggestions on what books to add, please tell us. Enjoy your stay with us and Happy Reading! Your team at Robyn's Nest Lakeside Resort 110 Lakewood Drive, Merimbula NSW 2548 enquiries@robynsnest.com.au www.robynsnest.com.au

 

 

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Die gibt's immer noch!

 

 

Vieles hat sich in Deutschland seit meiner Abreise in 1965 sehr verändert - oder besser gesagt, sehr verschlechtert - aber anscheinend gibt es diese alten Litfaßsäulen immer noch.

Vor unserer Etagenwohnung in Braunschweig am Cyriaksring 47 stand damals solch eine Säule und als Kinder warteten wir immer gespannt auf den Mann der jede zweite oder dritte Woche mit seinem Fahrrad kam dass hoch belastet war mit Plakaten, einem großen Eimer voll mit Kleister, und einem langen Besen mit dem er dann den Kleister auf die Säule schmierte und danach die neuen Plakate anklebte und abglättete. (Und da dies ein 'blog' über Deutschland und in deutscher Sprache ist, verwende ich auch typische seitenlange deutsche Schachtelsätze.)

Ich erinnerte mich später wieder an die Litfaßsäule als ich den Film 'Der Dritte Mann' sah, in dem Harry Lime seinen Verfolgern entkommt wenn er in eine Litfaßsäule verschwindet die in die Abwässerkanäle führt.

 

 

Heute erinnerte ich mich noch einmal daran als ich das unterige Foto auf der facebook-Seite meiner alten Heimatstadt Brauschweig sah, denn dort stand immer noch eine dieser Litfaßsäulen auf dem Fußweg vor den Mietkasernen. In einer solcher Mietkaserne war ich aufgewachsen und wäre vielleicht auch noch alt geworden, hätte ich nicht mein Glück gesucht (und auch gefunden) in Australien. Glück braucht der Mensch!

 

Zu meiner Zeit gab es noch nicht so viele Privatautos.
Man ging zu Fuß oder nahm den Bus oder die Straßenbahn.
Photo courtesy www.unsere-alten-zeiten.de

 

Aber ich bin dennoch froh dass es diese alten Litfaßsäulen noch gibt.

 

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Next time is next time; now is now.

 

 

A haiku is a traditional form of short Japanese poetry that captures a single fleeting moment in time, often focusing on nature and simplicity. You know, something like master poet Matsuo Bashō's "An old silent pond... A frog jumps into the pond, Splash! Silence again."

"Perfect Days" is a haiku on the rhythms of daily life and a life-affirming meditation on simplicity. It's a beautiful and moving description of how we can find clarity, acceptance, and joy by embracing the current moment and allowing our lives to unfold one day at a time.

Throughout the entire two hours of this movie, we stay together with our protagonist Hirayama, a toilet cleaner in Tokyo, as he lives his life of quiet, lovely solitude, one moment at a time. There are no flashbacks, no exposition dumps, no cutaways to another time or place.

We never leave Hirayama’s side, and Hirayama himself never strays from being truly present in every single moment. The following video may open a door to better understand this movie, although I suspect we will all see something different in this movie that speaks to us.

 

 

I lived most of my life for all those countless tomorrows. Now that there are not many tomorrows left, I regret not having lived my yesterdays more deliberately, not having watched the sunlight shining through the leaves of trees, not having given myself to the invisible, transcendent beauty of the moment that only exists in the here and now.

Next time is next time; now is now.

 

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Jeder stirbt für sich allein

 

 

Who in Moruya reads Hans Fallada? There it was, a dog-eared copy of "Alone in Berlin", which is the name of Hans Fallada's book "Jeder stirbt für sich allein" in its English edition (or "Every Man Dies Alone" in the USA).

Dog-eared or not, I picked it up to give it a new home at "Riverbend", alongside "Little Man, What Now?" and "Who Once Eats Out of the Tin Bowl". But back to "Alone in Berlin" which is based on the true story of working-class husband and wife Otto and Elise Hampel who, acting alone, became part of the German Resistance. It was one of the first anti-Nazi novels to be published by a German after World War II.

 

 

After I had picked up this dog-eared book, I saw my German GP, who removed the sutures from a biopsy he had done last week. "Better a biopsy than an autopsy", I'd said, and let him have his pond of flesh.

 

 

The results came back with a "nothing to see here", which made me feel relaxed enough to ask him if he had read Hans Fallada. Of course, he had, as he had grown up in Russian-occupied East Germany, the GDR.

 

 

The book was also made into a movie, an English version which I have on DVD and which is available on YouTube only as a trailer, and a much better German version which has been uploaded to YouTube in full.

 

Click here

 

Having limited my book purchases in Moruya to just four - Fallada's book "Alone in Berlin" plus Bernhard Schlink's "Homecoming", Tony Abbott's Australia - A History", and "The Fourth Revolution - The Global Race to Reinvent the State" - I thought I stop over at the Mogo Bookshop. The shop had been closed ever since its original owners, Helen and Patrick, had been forced into early retirement by the onset of dementia.

The new owner is from Cape Town in South Africa, and so we talked about Cape Town, which I loved and where I had almost taken a job after leaving South-West Africa, and about South African writers. Did she have any books by J.M. Cotzee? She did, and so I bought "Summertime".

What a small and wonderful world it is! The Mogo Bookshop is now on my list of places to visit whenever I tear myself away from "Riverbend".

 

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