One of the finest

I am particularly bad at blogging at the moment as the dogs are keeping me fully occupied and are driving me crazy. I get very little time to myself. 

I am not really commenting on American politics. But I am watching in amazement as this grotesquery happens in front of me. I am pleased to say that things are going according to plan (as far as I am concerned). I am looking forward to a series of catastrophes which will probably culminate in the destruction of the planet via an environmental or a nuclear disaster of biblical proportions. 

It is with as sense of wonder that I watch as the President-elect tweets a never ending stream of lies and rubbish. 

Not that I believe anything that is in the bible - but you know what I mean. 

When I was in Vienna some people selling religion got into our building. It was supposed to be a secure building but there was a massage parlor called ‘Japan Studio’ on the first floor so there was more traffic through our building than there is in Times Square on New Year’s Eve. 

The girls incidentally were not Japanese - they were Chinese and were led by the redoubtable Ms Elizabeth to who I spoke quite often in a mixture of German and English.

Anyway the religious people made it to level 5 and knocked on our door and I foolishly opened it. They were very tenacious and talked about God quite a bit. Whenever I tried to baffle them with logic they told me what it said in the bible. 

I did not tell them what I thought of the bible but finally - stumped for a way to have them go away without being too rude - I said that if they had been born in Iran they would now be trying to convert me to Islam.

This finally silenced them and they looked at me sadly and moved on to greener pastures. Not that I think there were too many of these in Vienna. The Europeans are fairly practical when it comes to fantasy. 

But because of politics we no longer watch TV and confine our viewing to Netflix or Amazon video. There are limits to what we can endure. It is amazing how long you can spend browsing Netflix before you decide that there is nothing you want to watch. If there was a competition for this we would be certain medalists. 

So we went to Washington for Thanksgiving and communed with our relatives - Australian and Mongolian. I was not put in charge of anything so just mooched around and ate turkey and drank wine. It was quite a satisfying evening. 

We are going to Mongolia next July because Mason (what a fine Mongolian name) is having a a hair cutting ceremony after which we will all exclaim ‘Tom xun bolooroi!’ 

On Friday night we went to the theater and saw a very good play that had a very unhappy ending. The play is called ‘Straight White Men’ and if you are looking for a good time you should see something else. Also do not sit in the front row unless you wish to be covered with crisps. 

On Saturday we went to stay with some friends in Washington. These were people with whom I worked 30 years ago and they are living there temporarily in a quite wonderful apartment in Arlington. They took us to the Stone Tower vineyard in Virginia and we ate cheese and drank wine. 

The girls did a wine tasting and the sommelier asked them how they liked the wine. ‘Not bad’ they said in Australian - which means of course that it is pretty damn good. He was a bit horrified and said ‘I am so glad to hear that’. 

I had seen Wayne a year or so ago and he visited us in Indy and stayed for a couple of nights. We discussed old times and life in general until 5 AM and the next day neither of us could remember anything we said. 

So we were able to do it all again on this trip. We are simply preparing for Alzheimers. As Bill Bryson said ‘I am now too old for early onset Alzheimers - when it arrives it will be right on time.’

The damn tree is finally dropping the remainder of its leaves so tomorrow is mulching day. Some people are also coming to clean the gutters. I cannot do this because some of the gutters are three stories high and would involve the climbing of a very long ladder. 

Cate rightfully will not allow me to climb any ladder let along a high one as she seen me at my clumsiest - which is now becoming my norm - and I really cannot be trusted at any height all. 

If you have a dog and are thinking about getting another one - think very carefully and  contact me for advice. You may not change your mind but I will be able to give you some very valuable tips. 

Indy is smarter than Georgia. This - admittedly - is a not a great leap - but she is a puppy and has had no training at all. So she pretty well does as she pleases. This is not always the results for which we aspire and my constant companions are paper towels and mops.

In fact I have purchased a carpet shampooer - and use it a lot. 

But Grizelda the dog trainer comes on Sunday for the dog’s first lessons. She came a few weeks ago and observed the dogs and her view was that they are redeemable. She has the demeanor of a gulag guard but swears that she will not harm the dogs in any way and does not use methods which involve the use of blow torches for baseball bats.

Anyway we gave her a vast amount of money and she will appear on Sunday to get the dogs into shape.

Bits are falling off our house so John and Mike and Antonio have been back to effect repairs. While looking up at some guttering that was falling to bits John said that I had a real money pit on my hands.

I reminded him that it was he who sold us the house three years ago. He laughed. But he is a gay Democrat - one of the finest people on earth.