Don’t look away

Words that I should never type when drafting blog posts: “It has been a relatively quiet long weekend in HouseGoesHome world, which is highly unusual, as I am normally a drama magnet.”

Alana, Alana, Alana … will you never learn.

The weekend started calmly enough. I spent Saturday and Sunday going for walks with friends and pottering around the apartment.

I was also a bit weary because Charlie the Moodle has been an absolute nightmare. He has been barking at 3am and 5am every morning to be let out of the laundry and I was approaching breaking point over it.

SHUT THE FARK UP!!!!

I was doing a lot of yelling about it, which I hope hasn’t been freaking the neighbours out and making them think I’m an animal abuser.

I was worried that he has dementia. Dr Google reckons restless nights with barking/whining can be one of the signs. And irritability. He has plenty of that too, poor Bilbo cops it a lot.

But on Sunday he squealed when I bumped his ear while I was putting on his harness. I checked his ear and discovered an infection. Sigh.

I booked an appointment at the vet for 10.30am on Monday, then belatedly realised that I had made it for January 29, not January 26. Argh, the vet was totally booked out until Thursday.

I wasn’t sure I could handle three more nights of barking, so I decided to book an appointment at my Northern Beaches vet (it’s quite something that my dogs have two clinics because they’re so high maintenance, meanwhile I can’t remember the last time I went to a doctor).

I drove 40 minutes there and 40 minutes back on Monday morning.

It was only when I went to pay the bill that I discovered there was a 30% surcharge for public holiday appointments. So the appointment cost $330.

The vet said if the ear drops don’t stop the early hours barking, it’s probably being caused by dementia and Charlie will need to go onto anti-anxiety meds. Sigh.

I was also on Australia Day corporate communications duty yesterday from 2.30pm to 11pm (very past my bedtime and why I was getting a HouseGoesHome blog post ready in advance).

Fortunately things ran smoothly, although I am a bit wiped out by the late night.

On the plus side, no barking from Charlie!!! Yaaaaay!

I also spent the long weekend transfixed by the news cycle and the terrible events unfolding in Minnesota.

And I find myself drawn to a speech that Winston Churchill made in the House of Commons in January 1940.

“Each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last,” he said.

“All of them hope that the storm will pass before their turn comes to be devoured. But I fear – I fear greatly – the storm will not pass. It will rage and it will roar, ever more loudly, ever more widely. It will spread to the South; it will spread to the North. There is no chance of a speedy end except through united action.”

It is important that we do not look away and hope the storm will pass. History is pretty clear on what happens when we look away.

I am heartened by the many strong, brave voices filling my Facebook feed.

Among them is Michael Jochum, who said:

“They want you quiet.

They want you tired.

They want you overwhelmed.

They want you confused.

They want you numb.

They want you arguing with each other instead of looking up.

They want you fighting culture wars while they build enforcement states.

They want you distracted while they normalize killing.

They want you docile while they militarize streets.

They want you polite while they train guns on civilians.

Because polite people are easy to manage.

Because tired people don’t organize.

Because scared people obey.

Because divided people don’t resist.

Because numb people don’t remember.

Read his full post here.

Its important that we pay attention to what is happening overseas and also to the rising popularity of our own tangerine would-be tyrant here in Australia.

As Matt Mikalatos said: “Eventually, there are going to be a lot of Americans looking at the egregious human rights violations being perpetrated right now by the American government and they’re going to say ‘I had no idea that was going on!’ or ‘We were just trying to get all the criminals, I didn’t know about the rest of it!’

“Which is clearly a lie.

“This is the United States of America, where we violate due process, illegally arrest legal immigrants and US citizens, racially profile people including cops, detain children in hospital parking lots and murder detainees in for-profit prison cells.

“Don’t close your eyes, and don’t say ‘we didn’t know’.”

Read his full post here.

And if you’re not squeamish about the f word, then I recommend following “I f#@king love Australia” on Facebook here.

Its maxim is: “Facts lead to knowledge. Opinions lead to ignorance.”

And the author’s latest post is a confronting one. Here’s an excerpt: