It's You Or Me, Mr Cane Toad
Without Prejudice
It's a balmy night in Brisbane. I sit outside on the back verandah looking at the stars. My brother is inside watching Working Girl with Harrison Ford and Melanie Griffith. The block of land next door to the left of me is his too,as he doesn't want neighbours. There are neighbours on the right hand side of me, however, surely he can't buy the whole block.
The neighbours are both elderly and stay outside until the early hours, they even eat out there. I figure they have to be Victorians like me. Any Brisbanite is inside with a jumper on, just like my older brother, the sooky la la. I alone am out looking at the stars tonight.
The oldies must be out. Mr Cane Toad is here with me and lopes into view and instead of shrieking and running like I would normally do. Bolting and locking the door behind me, I lift my feet and let him idle for a while. He lopes like a frog and frogs can be cute, right ?
I won't sweep the broom at him tonight or chase him away, he seems to be enjoying the stars too. I wonder if he is the same one I saw the other night and examine him just a little. Out of the corner of one eye I look at him and he blinks at me twice. Hooded reptilian eyes that bulge out like he has thyroid problems. Surely he's grown from the other night', this is no longer the baby one I saw, I am sure.
This is maybe the Daddy or more worryingly the Mummy. I move backwards and the chair scrapes and the toad hops away and I run inside quickly in my bare feet. Something touches my foot and I scream aloud, so much for bravery. It's the mop only but I make it back up the stairs, 14 of them, (I'm anal so I've counted them,) in three bounds, like the hound of the Baskervilles were snapping at my heels instead of some lowly ugly amphibian that supposedly spits in dogs water bowls and if they drink it, die.
No, I'm not joking. I've been told that anyway, and I'm not about to disprove any theories. We watch the rest of the movie and play spot the stars of the movie kind. A young Alec Baldwin, a young David Duchovny, Olympia Dukakis, Sigourney Weaver. Ricky lake in a small bit part. It's so eighties, the hair that looks as though it has exploded, but the fashion is good. Much better than trying to converse with a toad of the maybe killer kind but then in regard to Alec Baldwin, maybe not ....lol
My brother spots David Duchovny as a man at a party, just a glimpse of him, a small second of film, but he spots it and I don't believe him. So he rewinds and I tell him he's a genuine genius. It is him, but he's wrong when he spots who he thinks is Tom Hanks and Billy Bob Thornton. I tell him Tom Hanks was already a star in the 80's as I remember taking the girls to see Bachelor Party in the city. all those years ago. And Billy Bob ? way before his time and I check it all on Google and now I am right.
We do this all the time my family and I. It's probably so tedious and boring to others but we do it just to show off our knowledge. I also look up James Liptom from Actors Studio as I am curious about him and am stunned to find out he's 85. I write a story, this one, while we watch the movie. We are either, the pair of us, idiot savants, or as I said just really boring about trivia like this.
I suggest to my Brother, maybe we are OCD people, as my younger sister, the nurse, says our whole family is. he laughs and states he's not. I reply what about the smelling of food he does before he eats it and if one bug is in the house he freaks. He says, no, he's just fussy. I read out some of the signs of OCD, like my counting of the stairs and he has no idea of how many stairs there are.
I do, however, and I remember counting like that when I was a child and could compose sentences and words backwards in my head. He says of course he can do that and can also read upside down and does when he needs to. I tell him OCD is related to anxiety and I state with a Mum and Dad like ours how could we not be anxious. He shakes his head and meanders off to bed and I finish and edit my story and tape The Women, not the new version but the old one. Black and white and made a hundred years ago at least.
I venture outside again to see if the toad has gone and he has and I go back to my star staring and the warm evening in Redcliffe, north of Brisbane, my sleepy hollow of Winter Bliss.
Love Janette x
It's a balmy night in Brisbane. I sit outside on the back verandah looking at the stars. My brother is inside watching Working Girl with Harrison Ford and Melanie Griffith. The block of land next door to the left of me is his too,as he doesn't want neighbours. There are neighbours on the right hand side of me, however, surely he can't buy the whole block.
The neighbours are both elderly and stay outside until the early hours, they even eat out there. I figure they have to be Victorians like me. Any Brisbanite is inside with a jumper on, just like my older brother, the sooky la la. I alone am out looking at the stars tonight.
The oldies must be out. Mr Cane Toad is here with me and lopes into view and instead of shrieking and running like I would normally do. Bolting and locking the door behind me, I lift my feet and let him idle for a while. He lopes like a frog and frogs can be cute, right ?
I won't sweep the broom at him tonight or chase him away, he seems to be enjoying the stars too. I wonder if he is the same one I saw the other night and examine him just a little. Out of the corner of one eye I look at him and he blinks at me twice. Hooded reptilian eyes that bulge out like he has thyroid problems. Surely he's grown from the other night', this is no longer the baby one I saw, I am sure.
This is maybe the Daddy or more worryingly the Mummy. I move backwards and the chair scrapes and the toad hops away and I run inside quickly in my bare feet. Something touches my foot and I scream aloud, so much for bravery. It's the mop only but I make it back up the stairs, 14 of them, (I'm anal so I've counted them,) in three bounds, like the hound of the Baskervilles were snapping at my heels instead of some lowly ugly amphibian that supposedly spits in dogs water bowls and if they drink it, die.
No, I'm not joking. I've been told that anyway, and I'm not about to disprove any theories. We watch the rest of the movie and play spot the stars of the movie kind. A young Alec Baldwin, a young David Duchovny, Olympia Dukakis, Sigourney Weaver. Ricky lake in a small bit part. It's so eighties, the hair that looks as though it has exploded, but the fashion is good. Much better than trying to converse with a toad of the maybe killer kind but then in regard to Alec Baldwin, maybe not ....lol
My brother spots David Duchovny as a man at a party, just a glimpse of him, a small second of film, but he spots it and I don't believe him. So he rewinds and I tell him he's a genuine genius. It is him, but he's wrong when he spots who he thinks is Tom Hanks and Billy Bob Thornton. I tell him Tom Hanks was already a star in the 80's as I remember taking the girls to see Bachelor Party in the city. all those years ago. And Billy Bob ? way before his time and I check it all on Google and now I am right.
We do this all the time my family and I. It's probably so tedious and boring to others but we do it just to show off our knowledge. I also look up James Liptom from Actors Studio as I am curious about him and am stunned to find out he's 85. I write a story, this one, while we watch the movie. We are either, the pair of us, idiot savants, or as I said just really boring about trivia like this.
I suggest to my Brother, maybe we are OCD people, as my younger sister, the nurse, says our whole family is. he laughs and states he's not. I reply what about the smelling of food he does before he eats it and if one bug is in the house he freaks. He says, no, he's just fussy. I read out some of the signs of OCD, like my counting of the stairs and he has no idea of how many stairs there are.
I do, however, and I remember counting like that when I was a child and could compose sentences and words backwards in my head. He says of course he can do that and can also read upside down and does when he needs to. I tell him OCD is related to anxiety and I state with a Mum and Dad like ours how could we not be anxious. He shakes his head and meanders off to bed and I finish and edit my story and tape The Women, not the new version but the old one. Black and white and made a hundred years ago at least.
I venture outside again to see if the toad has gone and he has and I go back to my star staring and the warm evening in Redcliffe, north of Brisbane, my sleepy hollow of Winter Bliss.
Love Janette x
