Thursday, June 30, 2005
Children and animals
Our area is getting more dangerous before dark and the assailants are getting younger. Remember our mugging incident where some of the local kids stole 3 cans of drink? Well now I am reporting on 2 separate incidents of indecent assault.
The first was on Jono. A very tiny nude child - maybe 2 years old - came up to Jono holding his hand out like he was asking for money, then quickly changed his hand position, reached out, grabbed Jono's balls then ran off laughing. A bit of a shock but kind of funny and no harm done. The second was on me. Jono and I were walking to yoga one afternoon and some of the kids were running after us and laughing and jumping and holding our hands wanting to be swung between us, like kids do... so it was all fun and games then one of the little kids - I'm not sure if it was a boy or a girl actually, jumped up and hit me on the breast. Also no harm done - except the tiny grubby black hand print it left on my t-shirt!
My contact with animals has been less violent but no more welcome. I have been reluctant to write about this because my mother will probably order me to come home (to Australia, land of funnel web spiders, dangerous snakes etc etc...) but we have had about 5 scorpions in our house. they are big and black and look like scary creatures from outer space. The pattern has developed where if a scorpion is sighted, we scream, to alert the others of course, then have someone stand guard to watch where it goes while someone else runs to get Narith, our guard/scorpion killer, who comes in smiling and laughing at us with these huge tongs which he then uses to effortlessly pick up the scorpion by one leg and carry it outside. I don't know what happens after that.
The other recent visitor we have had in our house is a tiny (quite cute really) mouse. I have no idea how to catch a mouse. We have dealt with this by just making sure all the food cupboards stay closed and hoping all the cats from next door eventually do their job. They seem to cut cats tails here so they are all short and curly. It's awful.
We also have a part time dog. Our next door neighbours have a dog and we have a lawn. Somehow, this dog mananges to open the gate (suspicious...) whenever it is feeling sick. It then proceeds to eat grass (which I understand is what dogs do when they feel sick) and vomit on our driveway. This has happened twice. We don't like it! But it is a very obedient dog and we have started showing him the door back to his place whenever he's in our yard and he happily trots home.
That's all the children and animal stories for the moment!
The first was on Jono. A very tiny nude child - maybe 2 years old - came up to Jono holding his hand out like he was asking for money, then quickly changed his hand position, reached out, grabbed Jono's balls then ran off laughing. A bit of a shock but kind of funny and no harm done. The second was on me. Jono and I were walking to yoga one afternoon and some of the kids were running after us and laughing and jumping and holding our hands wanting to be swung between us, like kids do... so it was all fun and games then one of the little kids - I'm not sure if it was a boy or a girl actually, jumped up and hit me on the breast. Also no harm done - except the tiny grubby black hand print it left on my t-shirt!
My contact with animals has been less violent but no more welcome. I have been reluctant to write about this because my mother will probably order me to come home (to Australia, land of funnel web spiders, dangerous snakes etc etc...) but we have had about 5 scorpions in our house. they are big and black and look like scary creatures from outer space. The pattern has developed where if a scorpion is sighted, we scream, to alert the others of course, then have someone stand guard to watch where it goes while someone else runs to get Narith, our guard/scorpion killer, who comes in smiling and laughing at us with these huge tongs which he then uses to effortlessly pick up the scorpion by one leg and carry it outside. I don't know what happens after that.
The other recent visitor we have had in our house is a tiny (quite cute really) mouse. I have no idea how to catch a mouse. We have dealt with this by just making sure all the food cupboards stay closed and hoping all the cats from next door eventually do their job. They seem to cut cats tails here so they are all short and curly. It's awful.
We also have a part time dog. Our next door neighbours have a dog and we have a lawn. Somehow, this dog mananges to open the gate (suspicious...) whenever it is feeling sick. It then proceeds to eat grass (which I understand is what dogs do when they feel sick) and vomit on our driveway. This has happened twice. We don't like it! But it is a very obedient dog and we have started showing him the door back to his place whenever he's in our yard and he happily trots home.
That's all the children and animal stories for the moment!
