Two cats, a dog and a couple of municipal wins… its another “Seven Days” with IAN MEIKLE.

WE watch. It’s hard to be out there in this voyeuristic world of compliant souls stuck in iso-home-lation, toes gently curled by the daily news of the ebbing coronavirus scourge and bored witless by frigging jigsaws.

I know, I know… we mustn’t get complacent, we must still keep our distance, wash our hands, not drink disinfectant and maybe, possibly, oughta download the federal government’s COVID-19 tracking app. 

With no obvious infection in the ACT, is it uncharitable to feel it’s all a little late? That’s what my doctor said and I think she has a point. 

But there’s always the dreaded second wave, look at Singapore, so maybe there’s never a bad time to do this. Then again…

BACK to voyeurism, where journalistically life is lived on the phone and asking people to send pictures of themselves. Tellingly, no one refuses. 

If it’s not them, it’s their pets. Has “Seven Days” unscientifically discovered some link between terracotta pots and cats’ bottoms? Gardening writer Cedric Bryant started it with a photo in his column mid-last month of his daughter’s moggy Zeus in situ with the (dad joke alert) advice: do not over-water.

This flushed out a photo of Lotto, former cat of reader Jenny Hunter, of Cook, also pictured in happier times on a terracotta pot. In a touching burst of catharsis, Jenny writes: “He was a stray who adopted us and we reckoned he won the cat equivalent of lotto by picking our house number – hence his name. He was much loved and spoiled.”

EQUALLY loved and spoiled is wunderdog Jamie. Clearly constrained from marching this year, Jamie saluted the Anzacs from home in this photo from owner Kay Malone. Jamie is a dog well used to taking orders – holding the title of Australian Rally Obedience Champion.

Let’s get away from pets because this morning I saw a neighbour talking to her cat. It was obvious she thought her cat understood her. I came into the house, told my dog… we laughed a lot.

“SEVEN Days” has had a couple of small municipal wins, despite the all-pervading priorities of the virus. 

In February, I bemoaned the presence of an odd pole belonging to Evo Energy standing perpendicular to the pavement on the Lysaght Street boulevard in weed-riddled Mitchell (Floriade reimagined?). To their credit, it’s been relocated safely to the side of the broad-walk. Tick. 

And in March in an expose of government neglect of Deakin’s La Trobe Park, my colleague Danielle Nohra reported Deakin Residents Association committee member Peter Boege warning of the danger of a raised concrete footpath on the border of the park, saying: “It’s a concern that something like that can go unremedied for so long. Someone walking at night, or jogging, could kill themselves.” 

Not any more, the nocturnally active ratepayers of Deakin are saved. The raised cement slabs have been flattened. Well done, City Services. Tick.

And “fixing things” allows a segue to breathless news (and a silly waste of money on market research by Kennards Hire) that reveals 64 per cent of Australian women care more about their partners’ prowess in the toolshed than in the bedroom. Plane to see, really!

I’D be more afraid of attracting the attention of the fire brigade than the police from this crime-scene snap of the astonishing plugs and wires powering a grow house the cops raided in Kaleen recently. Tipped off by a member of the public and not the power supplier, the police provided photos of hundreds of lush, almost mature cannabis plants growing cosily in heated and insulated rooms in a suburban home, but it was the plugs that tripped me out. 

AND didn’t the Canberra Theatre Centre unwittingly get this year right in the graphic design for its now (surely) abandoned subscription series? It’s still mournfully there on the side of the theatre, looking more like a public health warning than an advertisement these days.

Hmmms…

A friend sent me these, I share them just in case they missed your smartphone: 

* Half of us will come out of this quarantine as amazing cooks. The other half will have a drinking problem. 

* I need to practice social distancing from… the refrigerator.

* Homeschooling is going well… two students suspended for fighting and one “teacher” fired for drinking on the job!

 * My body has absorbed so much soap and disinfectant lately that when I pee it cleans the toilet.

* I’m so excited… it’s time to take out the garbage. What to wear, what to wear?

* I hope the weather is good tomorrow for my trip to Puerto Backyardia. I’m getting tired of Los Livingroomia.

* Classified Ad: Single man with toilet paper seeks woman with hand sanitiser for good clean fun.

* Day 6 of homeschooling: My child just said: “I hope I don’t have the same teacher next year.”