TheBanyanTree: Home alone 2

[PJMoney]

Tonight, if I can be bothered getting dressed in something that doesn't have
a split in the pocket that leaves my underwear on display to the whole
world, I'm having a trash can pizza from the Ming Court Chinese restaurant
across the road.  Don't laugh.  The trash can pizza is a gastronomic
delight.  If I decide I can't be bothered it will be noodles and dried
mushrooms again.  Who cares?  I only have to stay alive.  Food of some sort
is all that's necessary.

Taffy, the neutered male corgi, is behaving very oddly indeed.  I think he's
depressed.  He has to be coaxed and coaxed out of James' room to go outside
and do his business.  Of course he does have a bone in there.  Maybe that's
what's motivating him to stay in his room.  Then again, his air really is
totally hang-dog.  Poor little guy.

Tilly, the neutered female corgi, is behaving pretty much as normal.  But
then she does still have a person sleeping in the bed she sleeps below.

I have been getting phone calls from all my sons.  The eldest (in Alice
Springs) has rung me almost every day.  The middle one (on board a Royal
Australian Navy ship) has rung every day when he's been in port.  The
youngest, being on the road with his father, has spoken to me from every
hotel/motel they've been staying at.  I feel like I've done something right.
Accepting the duties and responsibilities of motherhood was a good choice.

They keep hitting birds on the road.  Locusts, too, but they were only in
the NT.  Bird kills, however, have been a daily or twice daily occurrence.
One, a hawk, apparently flew away and then flew straight back into the car,
cracking a headlight.  Its wing remained with the car all the way to
Longreach.  Thankfully, they haven't hit any kangaroos, probably because
they arranged things so they wouldn't be driving at dusk or dawn.  Those
creatures do serious damage to cars as well as to themselves when they hop
the wrong way.

Today the travellers had lunch at Bourke, as in "back of Bourke".  Beyond
Bourke, towards the red centre, there is generally accepted to be nothing
worth knowing about.  James stepped outside the restaurant for some air (it
was 48C in the shade) and was accosted by some indigenous fellows who took
it upon themselves to accuse him of being queer.

Now James is a fresh-faced 19 year old whose biology and physiology seem to
be stuck on making him look younger than he is.  I have often told him that
he'll be glad of it in 10 or 20 years time but for the present it's a trial.
Today he had to cope with being told by people who have never met him before
and who know nothing about him that he must be something they despise.
Those guys, despite what the do-gooders might want you to believe, sometimes
carry offensive weapons and are prepared to use them.  Stuff the dogs.  I'm
worried about my boy and am just glad that he made it to Nyngan without
injury.

Tomorrow the travellers will, God willing, reach Bathurst and, I hope, a
degree of civilisation and civility to which they are accustomed.  The day
after that they'll be at Wollongong, on the coast, and their journey will be
over.  Then, next Thursday night, my Paulo will come home and I'll learn
what it will be like to live with just him and the dogs.  I'm sure it will
be better than life with just the dogs.  The dogs will probably like it
better too.