It's a dog lady's life.
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This afternoon we went down to Bennion Beach in Trigg for a picnic at the dog beach. Gary came along, of course, and spent most of the time fetching his ball, alternating with barking until we threw it. That’s all in a day’s work for a terrier!
Here are some photos from our day. Some taken by me, others taken by Tony.
Just some photos of my little dude from our walk today. I wish the high-five one was in focus. It’s meant to be a Sit Pretty but he was being lazy.
This weekend I took a trip to the southwest of WA with my family and friends. We travel to Albany each year for the Great Southern Weekender, an event for classic and vintage cars involving two hill climbs and an Around the Houses event which draws tens of thousands of people to the town.
On Saturday afternoon, Shaun, Paul, Tony and I drove to the Walpole Wilderness National Park where we visited the Valley of the Giants, a forest filled with ancient Tingle trees.
At the park, there is a walkway that travels up some 80 metres, leading you on a walk through the treetops. There is also a walk through the forest floor, gently curving around and sometimes through the immense trees. The treetop walk was amazing and scary. Next time, I should know better than to walk on flimsy walkways with a fear of heights and a group of teasing guys. Those walkways shook!
Shaun and Paul enjoyed practising their ‘hipster gazing’, and I revelled in the cool climate of the forest floor.
On our way back, we visited Greens Pool. This is a secluded area of shallow ocean, bordered by the characteristic large boulders of this area of the southwest. The water in the pool remains relatively warm and still year-round, but we definitely weren’t game for a swim. The moon was up behind us and the sun was close to setting as we gazed out over the Indian Ocean.
Recently, I’ve noticed a concerning number of my friends in rescue becoming tired, disillusioned and generally frustrated with all that it involves. While they are certainly not at fault for this, there are a few strategies that we can take to try to reduce this, to save our sanity and that of our loved ones. Read the rest of this entry »
I went to the beach with Gary yesterday. It was nice, fairly quiet. I haven’t been to Bennion Beach before. It’s in Trigg, down a big flight of stairs and with lots of rocks and seaweed. You couldn’t hear the road at all even though it was only 10 metres away.
At work today I was having a conversation with one of my team leaders. We get along pretty well, she’s young and funny and we like to chat.
We were chatting about the weekend and she grabbed her phone, showing me a photo of her friend eating a large stack of pancakes, and saying, “He eats so much, I can’t believe he’s not morbidly obese!”
Cue awkward silence as I sit there, trying to figure out how to respond. Do I agree? If I disagree, how do I do that tactfully?
Because the thing is, this guy is nowhere near morbidly obese. And when she jokes about morbidly obese people, she’s joking about people like me.
It’s a medical term. A term that, by definition, is describing a person who is so fat that they could die at any time as a result of their weight. To speak about someone that way is offensive by default.
I find it distasteful to joke around about weight, especially in front of someone struggling with self-esteem. To expect them to laugh about it? Clueless.
But more than that, this type of comment reinforces the pervasive attitude that fat people ‘deserve it’, by being gluttonous, sedentary or lacking in self control. The fact is, an outsider has no right to assume the reason behind a physical feature. Weight may be due to a medical problem; a psychological problem; an eating disorder, (comment on that and you’ll no doubt trigger something!); or simply a person’s build.
The fact is, I’m fat. I’ve always been fat. Even when I was playing netball or swimming 50 laps, I was fat. My grandmothers were fat, my uncles are fat, my dad is fat. It doesn’t mean that I’m lazy or overeat. But even if I am, it doesn’t mean that I’m less worthy of respect than anyone else.
To joke around that someone should look like me because they ate a few pancakes is offensive, not to mention tactless.
We’ve had some unseasonably heavy rain and storms in the last few days. I walked through the park at the end of our road yesterday afternoon and found this interesting and pretty scene. The leaves show how high the water rose in this small area of wetlands. Read the rest of this entry »
Casual Friday.
As a kid I never really dressed up for Halloween. As I live in Australia, it isn’t something that’s part of our cultural heritage. At tae kwon do camp, we had a Halloween night where we went around to all the other rooms in costume, but it was at the beginning of October so it was more of a ‘dress up night’. I actually won this one year by dressing up as a ‘witchdoctor’ when I was about 12 – culturally sensitive much? Other costumes included witch and vampire, so it wasn’t all bad. Read the rest of this entry »
