The Drummer's Still Around

Dinidu put out an APB and I'm touched by his concern and care. I'm still here and have been quite busy doing bits and pieces. I'll tell you all, well some of all, not that 5% that I reserve for special people. And by "special" I don't mean the ones who had one of those buses with a ramp that used to take them to school.

I've been looking after an African Land Snail and a cat. The contrast has been great and fortunately they're in different places. The cat is because the girls have gone away with their mother to the Isle of Man so they asked me to feed the remaining living cat, since the other one died. I suppose it's kind of my ex cat, since the divorce. I like to think that the fellow still recognises me when i turn up, maybe my smell or general demeanour, maybe just because he knows I'm the provider of all things that look like cat food.

The African Land Snail is courtesy of one of my business partners, Gaz. He went on holiday a couple of weeks ago and, the day before, turned up at the office with a cage like thing. To make things simpler I'll refer to it as a cage from now on, though it really is a tank, but not the type that they use in the army, unless there are people in the army who keep snails, then they might use one of these things. Of course this could cause problems for the army chap who's sent off to clean the tank, but that's for another story.

Anyway, inside this tank was the mother of all snails. A huge big fuck off type of thing that is apparently an African Land Snail, owned by my partner's son. He casually mentions that "we" are going to be looking after this thing while he's away, we being the people in the office. You know those great big smails that you get in Africa, well this is a baby one of them. "Only" about six inches in diameter around the middle bit and with all the speed of a waiter at the Galle Face Hotel.

The looking after invovles spraying the fellow's shell with water once a day and bunging some vegetable of sorts into the cage every couple of days. I asked whether the thing has to be taken for walks or anything and was mightily pleased to get a negative response to my question. At first I was reasonably excited by the prospect of snail sitting. The girls in the office were all decidedly disinterested so I stepped up and assumed the responsibility. I contemplated taking Bully, for that is his name, home to show the girls.

After a couple of days I got bored. Bully doesn't do much, he's slimy and smells and his tank is a bit fly infested. Yes, he's low maintenance and in that context makes for a good pet, but all in all I think I'm happy to remain petless. As of Friday he was still alive and hadn't escaped, not that he could have got far if he had. I've rehearsed my speech to Gaz just in case he does escape. I figure it will be something along the lines of

"I'm so sorry Gaz, I didn't see how he did it, it all happened so fast"

What else?

Well I've been getting slowly packed. I'll be moving out of this house in a few weeks' time, back to my parents' place for a bit. A move of mixed blessings. On the good side I'll be fed with great food, have my washing done and get all that parental love that Sri Lankan parents smother their kids with, no matter how old they are. On the negative side, well, see my previous line.

So I've been making boxes, thinking about what I'm going to pack where and generally feeling half totally pissed off and half excited at the prospect. My life is an ongoing journey and this house was merely a stop.

And I've been falling for Ashok Ferrey. Not in that way. In fact he seems to have a liking for tight fitting shirts. Everywhere I go there's a picture of him wearing a shirt that's a couple of sizes too small. If I was his stylist wife I'd have a quiet word. Something along the lines of "I think you should buy your shirts a bit bigger these days, even though you have those pecs."

But, I've been falling for his writing. His wit and style of observational narrative is right up my street. I was going to say alley there but all the talk about his pecs and shirts might give you the wrong idea.

I suppose the other thing I've been doing rather a lot of is investigating Facebook. It's quite rewarding and fascinating. I've got about thirty friends on FB, which is about twenty eight more than I have in real life. This is cool. I can read the walls of people I hardly know and find out what they had for breakfast and what they think is a highly humorous way of telling me about it. People who are quite boring in real life are the life and soul of their wall on Facebook.

The best thing about Facebook is that it's the perfect thing for Sri Lankans isn't it? Instead of that dreadfully old fashioned thing of meeting someone and asking who they know, who they're related to and then finding out that you're brothers or sisters, I can now look at their friends on Facebook and know exactly how we're related and who we know. In true Sri Lankan style there's about one, perhaps two degrees of separation between me and just about every other Sri Lankan on Facebook as well.

That's about it for now. Thanks to Dinidu for his concern, I'll alive and well.

Happy Monday all.