Katy Klein Has a Chat

On Tuesday morning, two of my beautiful chickens were killed by a nasty tom cat. Clucksy survived, I would say by the grace of the gods, except it was more like the grace of sleeping in.

I didn’t even really understand what had happened as I stood in a garden covered with feathers. Tandi and Parma were gone. Parma was a big chicken and we’d never had any problems with cats before. Then I saw the big grey tom cat on the fence eyeing off Clucksy and flicking its tail. He jumped off the fence when I yelled and jumped straight back up again.

Clucksy is completely dejected, she hasn’t talked to us since, not even to demand treats. She doesn’t even run when she sees the compost bowl which was previously one of her favourite events of the day.

Clucks watched me bury her mates and has stood by their graves ever since.  It just breaks my heart. I know they’re just chickens but they kept us so happy with their little chicken antics and cluckings. 

So I wanted to say goodbye to Tandi, our lovely teenager. Such a little miss, the youngest and bravest of our chickens. Constantly leading the others to new and unexplored territories like down the driveway. For some reason her favourite spot was in the patio planter. The moment my back was turned, in she’d hop and up and down she’d strut.

And Parma, the most beautiful of our chickens. Not so bright, but still Clucky’s best friend. Parma was the most prolific of egg layers, every day without fail. Usually she’d announce the event by loud cackling as if each day surprised by what had popped out of her bottom.

May they both go to a happy place where there is plenty of scratchings and treats. They will be missed.

I really like operas. Each one is different. Some you see for the music, some have amazing singing, some have laughs and some are all about the action. Some operas even have nudity. All of them are about love. It turns out that I have racked up about eleven operas thus far and hope for far more. But the thing that has intrigued me since my very first opera, is why the heroine has to die.

In the operas I have seen, there have been two where no one dies. These are usually the comic operas like Die Fledermaus and the Barber of Seville. Don Giovanni is the only opera I’ve seen where it’s the guy who gets it (rather oddly by a concrete statue that has come to life).

But overwhelmingly, it’s the chick who has to die for love and the list of dying options is fairly varied. Here’s just a few:

Tosca – by throwing herself off the battlements.

Madame Butterfly – Stabs herself.

La Boheme – Consumption (Tuberculosis).

La Traviata – TB again.

AIDA – sealing herself in a vault so she can be buried alive with her fella. There’s devotion for you.

Lakme – Eating some poisonous Datura leaf.

Turandot – stabbing herself for love.

I haven’t seen Il Travatore and Rigoletto but the chicks in these operas sacrifice themselves to save their lovers. And if that wasn’t enough, one then takes poison from her ring and the other one is mortally wounded.

Maybe we just don’t believe in romance like the old days or maybe RSVP is just so handy we don’t need to go to these extremes to prove ourselves.  But if you really want to impress your fella next Valentines Day ladies you may want to re-think the chocolates and cards and say it with TB!

Weird people wantto talk to me. I’m not sure what it is but I’m like a beacon to them, especially on public transport. It could be because public transport seems to feature higher than normal levels of certain populations. These include the smelly’s, the terrible-music-played-at-full-volume’s, the-unable-to-move-over’s (who put the ‘it’s all about me’ back into PT), the inane-mobile-phone-conversations-at-full-voice’s and the NQRs. It could be that I am particularly lucky but nearly every day I will be sitting next to one of these people. And if the carriage is pretty much empty they will usually sit down right beside me, personal space is for suckers!

Now every time I have had the pleasure of catching a train at Coburg station I have some of the wierdest interactions I have ever had And this is compared with a life time of weird interactions.

The first time I was fortunate to listen to two men discuss the fact that their mate was unlikely to get away with not doing jail time this time around. I think that was for holding up a servo.

The next time I met the mad Need-A-Light lady who when I told her I didn’t smoke said the she hadn’t either until she was 34, it was the kids that made her start, they caused her so much stress!

But yesterday took the cake. Witch-Lady walked out on the platform and I knew my beacon was at full signal. She looked as close as possible to the wicked witches in fairy tales as someone wearing holey trackie dacks could. She was all curled over, with straggly black hair covering her face, hauling some bundles around and used her walking stick to poke the train information button. I was sitting on a 2 metre long bench and she sat down right next to me with not a centimetre to spare. The first thing she did was lift both feet off the ground as if to examine her sneakers, she remained like this for the 7 minutes it took for the train to come along. Upon spying me writing away (please don’t talk to me, please don’t talk to me) she said “I like to write. I like to write so I can look at the words I wrote, they look nice’. As a kid she learnt to write by copying out encyclopedias unless of course she went yabbying with her sister. She was 38 and looked about 60. The conversation pretty much went down hill from there as I tried to appear enthralled by the notes I was writing (’That must be interesting!”).

So if your keen on meeting some interesting people I highly recommend Coburg Station on the inbound platform side.

For ages I thought I was the world’s worst bride. I didn’t want to go frock shopping, I don’t care if serviettes match the flower arrangement and I am never going to spend time on Bonboniere. In fact I am perfectly happy to continue on living in sin. Given the chance I would get married on holiday with whomever we could muster up to be witnesses and then kick back with a cocktail (or two, okay maybe four). The thought of spending a year planning my fairytale wedding is just too gruesome to contemplate.  I would have thought that most guys would be super happy to have a low stress, relaxed big day. But I was wrong.

Bridezillas are a well known phenomenon and are mentioned through gritted teeth by anyone lucky enough to be chosen to be their bridesmaids. But it would appear that we have a new contender for the title. For those of you who thought it was meant to be all about the bride, turns out that may no longer be true. Enter the GROOMZILLA!

I think I mentioned that I really wanted to get married at Crocosaurus in the Cage of Death on a recent trip to Darwin. The wedding photographer would have cost $110, white bikinis and board shorts would have been around $150 and getting the croc to cough up the rings – priceless. But noooooooo, I wasn’t allowed to do that. That would have been too easy.

Turns out that my ‘non-traditional’ partner is in fact fairly traditional. It did take me a while to figure out we were at cross-purposes though. My version of ‘non-traditional’ involves no fancy dress, no make-up or hair do, no guest list and preferably getting married overseas.  Turns out that his version of ‘non-traditional’ is not having a wedding in a church.

I tried every option I could think of to find a happy compromise. Getting married on holiday and then having a big party when we got back to celebrate. NO. Having a small guest list and going to a really good restaurant (to escape the chicken or beef dilemma). Fine as long as we could invite a lot of people. Inviting everyone to a party and then getting married unexpectedly. NO. We were allowed to elope, as long as every came along with us (Def. ‘Elopement’: Run away to marry secretly). For me, the only person I want there is him. For him, the only people he wants there comes to an 80 person guest list. Which isn’t a problem unless you happen to be paying for the hole shindig yourselves.

So I’ve watched other brides rise to the challenge and get the happy day sorted. One particularly focused new fiancee I knew had the venue booked and the dress bought within two weeks of the question. Some of them even complain that their fellas aren’t at all keen on being involved (oh I wish). But I’ll get there eventually Groomzilla or no Groomzilla.