Transcript of AE 976 - WWP: I Feel Like I've Been Hit By A Train

Oh, guys, what is going on? Welcome to this episode of Walking with Pete, although I am indoors currently because it's very cold outside, we're in lockdown, I thought I would come into my office here. It's been a few days since I've actually entered the office and do a little update episode with you guys and tell you a little bit about my or our, my family and I, our recent news, because we've had a few things happening here.

So, you guys would probably know we've been in lockdown for, I think it's been a week now. What is it today? Today is Thursday. So, it's been about a week. Again. So, this is lockdown number 5. It hasn't been too bad, but it is funny. I was saying to Kel this morning, I'm like, it's so funny. If we weren't in lockdown, we probably wouldn't be worried about leaving the house. We would just be working and doing our normal thing.

But the moment you know that you can't do something, like leave the house, your kind of like, all I want to do is leave the house and, you know, visit people, go to restaurants, all that sort of stuff. But, yeah, can't travel more than five Km's at the moment, and all the restaurants and everything are closed, there's only take away. So, what's been happening, recently? Yeah. Noah's at day-care today, fortunately.

And he's been bringing home so many diseases, guys, I tell you what, like it happened again. So, I think it would have been- It would have been on the weekend that I started feeling sick. And it's so funny how it just hits you. It hits you like a train. So, I was playing with Noah, I felt normal. It was about seven o'clock at night. Kel put him to bed at about 7:30 and then within like another half an hour, I felt like I was going to die.

Like, I think it must be influenza. It must be influenza, and I haven't gone out to get a test yet because I haven't felt sort of safe to drive because I've just been so out of it. But that- Yeah, this is like the fifth time I've been sick in the last 6 months after Noah started going to day-care, whereas I think I've told you guys before, previously I hadn't been sick in like 5 years. So, I guess the universe is making up for it.

I guess it's balancing itself out. So, I'm catching up at the moment on all the illnesses that I missed when it was just Kel and I working from home and living in Canberra as well. So, yeah. So, that's been fun. Both Kel and I have been sick as a dog. Sick as a dog, sick as dogs. I feel like I've been hit by a train. I still feel like it. It was crazy.

It was like, you know, one minute you would have a crazy fever, you would be freezing cold or at least feel freezing cold, but you would be, you know, to the touch really, really hot. And you'd wrap yourself up in all these blankets. I think at one-point Kel's like you've got the thermostat in the house set to about 25 degrees, Pete and you're wrapped up in like 4 blankets. And I was like, I'm freezing my arse off.

I'm shivering like, I don't understand. It's crazy. So- And then within like probably 30 minutes, your- You feel boiling hot and so you have to get everything off you and have like a cold shower, you know, and then you'd go to bed, and I was having hot sweats. So, it was just rotating through these things. It was just so crazy. The first night when I got sick, I didn't sleep.

So, it was like the night where I had gastro and Kel was giving birth to Joanna, where I was just lying in bed the whole time, feeling like crap, looking at the roof, just being like, good God, with the sunrise. Can this just be over already? So, yeah, it's just been brutal. Absolutely brutal. Coughing Like crazy, really sore throat. Same with Kel. And the craziest thing, the most annoying thing, guys.

And I'm sure that all of you who are listening, who are parents will know this. Your kids get sick for like a day, if that. Noah, when I picked him up from day-care last week, they said he had a temperature, so we had to come and pick him up. He had a temperature for an hour, and then after that, he was fine. And so, we were like, what the hell? Like, how does he just get a temperature for an hour of 38 or something? You know, pretty high.

And then he just- He seems normal and he's like, yeah, all good now and then Kel and I probably get the virus from him and we're sick for 5 days, you know, barely able to get out of bed. Go figure. Go figure. But yeah, it seems like these kids' immune systems are just on steroids. Absolutely nuts. I mean, and Joanna, she's been, you know, sleeping with Kel recently because she's just, she's so difficult at the moment. I'll tell you what.

Sorry for turning this episode into a bitch fest, an episode where I'm just complaining. But this is sort of, I guess I need to get this off my chest. Right. I need to sort of vent and yeah, it's kind of cathartic doing it with you guys, so you can hear my problems. So, Joanna has been really difficult with getting to sleep on her own. So, we try and put her in her cot and, you know, do everything right.

Sometimes she sleeps and then for whatever reason, other times she just 100% refuses to. We'll give her dummies because, you know, that would be the only thing that would calm her. And if it falls out of her mouth, even while she's asleep, she'll wake up and just lose it. Absolutely lose it. And so, sometimes the only thing that's left to do is to pick her up and let her sleep in your arms. So, she'd been doing that with Kel recently.

So, I guess the point that I'm trying to make is she's been in, like, close contact with Kel whilst Kel's been really, really sick and, you know, hasn't even caught it, doesn't seem to have had the virus at all. She seems to be fine. She's just normal. Just smiling all the time when she's not crying and not sleeping. So, that's the current situation at the moment with the kids. It's definitely been brutal.

Noah's now 2 years old, and what are we at? A month and a bit. And he is going through the terrible twos, the period where everything is just a massive mission to accomplish. Right. Everything is really difficult to get done. He just complains, he has a tantrum about everything and you're just like God, mate.

Can we just eat the food for dinner without, you know, one night without you losing it, throwing the food on the ground, crying, asking to get down, wanting to watch George- Curious George? So, that's a battle as well. Yeah, so that's where we're currently at. Haven't been able to work out for probably a month and a half now just because I get, you know, sick randomly for a week and then after that, the kids are really difficult.

And then after that, I have to do a lot of work for Aussie English, for you guys, and so it's just been a massive juggling act. It's been crazy. Absolutely crazy. Oh, good news for you guys, though. So, funnily enough, I've been wanting a cat for ages. Right. I've always loved cats, you know. I mean, I love dogs and cats, but, you know, we'll probably get a dog in the future when we can focus more on training it up.

But having a puppy right now would be just so difficult. Jesus. Talk about making your life harder than it needs to be. So, anyway, I've always wanted a cat because they tend to be a little low maintenance in comparison to dogs. And- But hadn't really said anything about it, you know, recently I was just like, yeah, it'll happen when it happens in the future when, you know, Kel's happy to have a cat. Anyway.

So, randomly, the other day she- Kel, my wife is like, oh, we should get a cat. It'll be great for Noah. And I was like, so now you want a cat, now you want a cat. And if- For those of you who don't know, in Australia, it's very common for you to adopt animals from places like the RSPCA or other animal shelters, right.

They'll often have kittens, puppies, rabbits, all sorts of animals that you can adopt that other people have, you know, surrendered or dumped somewhere or they've been found, you know, whatever the reason is. So, I was searching everywhere, and it seemed like there are just no kittens anywhere to be found. Right. It seemed- I wonder if loads of people, because of COVID, because of lockdowns this year, have just snapped up.

They've bought, they've adopted all of the different kittens and puppies that were available everywhere because I could literally find none at any of the 4 or 5 different adoption places around Geelong, which, you know, seems unheard of, seems very unique, very strange. So, I, you know, I was thinking, oh, I used to have a Burmese cat when I was younger, right, his name was Merlin.

And he was a great cat because Burmese cats are kind of like dogs. They've been bred to kind of have a dog personality. And so, I always loved playing with Merlin, you know, he was always really social, wanted to play. He was sort of just, yeah, out and about, whereas the average cat is a little more stick to itself, I think. Right.

Like the average wild type breed of cat just hangs out by itself, sits on the couch, wants to be left alone, might come over for pats occasionally, but generally speaking, they're kind of pretty independent. So, any of those Asian breeds, right, like Siamese cats, Burmese cats, Bengals, they're all really good in terms of, you know, being sort of like dogs.

So, anyway, I had been searching around and looking at Bengal cats and Burmese cats a while back and they're about, you know, $2,000 a cat for a kitten. So, I was like, yeah, that's not going to happen. But the other day I drove down to Clifton Springs, and I park in the car park on the cliff right near the jetty in Clifton Springs. It sort of overlooks the jetty.

And there's a house on the right-hand side of the car park, this sort of small gravel car park there on the top of the cliff. And so, I sit there quite often and just watch, you know, the world go by, do a bit of work, listen to some podcasts, watch the news, have my coffee in the mornings. Anyway, the other day I noticed this Burmese cat that looked exactly like Merlin was outside the car on the fence.

And so, I thought, oh, I'll open the door and see if I can go and pat the cat because it reminds me of my old cat, you know, literally the same colour, a lilac Burmese cat, probably a little bit bigger than Merlin, but literally looked exactly the same. I couldn't believe it. I was like, I'm seeing Merlin sitting on the fence right here.

So, anyway, I opened the door of the car, and I was like instead of just jumping out and scaring him, I might make some noise, you know, to sort of get his attention so that he knows there's a person here. So, I think I just went like "pspsps", and he noticed me and just ran straight over to the car and jumped into the car.

And, you know, I'd never seen this cat before. I'd never pat this cat before. I had never done anything with this cat before. And it was treating me like it was its best friend. I couldn't believe it. I was shocked. It just jumped in the car and was hanging out with me for about half an hour. So, that ended up selling me on getting a Burmese.

I was like, I think if you can be almost certain that the cat you're going to get is going to have this kind of personality because it's been bred to be like this, it's worth the money. You know, if it's $2,000 for, I mean, that's a lot of money. But if it's $2,000 for the cat and the cat lives for, what, 15, maybe 20 years max, that's about 100 bucks a year, which is 30 cents a day.

So, I'd pay 30 cents a day to have a cat that was a little more like a dog. So, yeah, long story short, I ended up looking at some breeders in Geelong, looking at the reviews and trying to find the best breeder possible to contact to ask about getting on their waiting list.

Because this is the other crazy thing, at the moment if you contact any breeder of cats, you're pretty much certain to have to wait on a list and they will just contact you in the future when there's, you know, when your time comes to adopt or buy one of their cats.

And so, that happened with the breeder that I ended up contacting. I was like, oh, what's the wait time? You know, I'd love to get one of your kittens sometime soon. And she's like, 12 to 18 months. And I couldn't believe it, I was like, Jesus Christ. 12 to 18 months a year to a year and a half wait, that's how many people she has on the list. Insane.

So, anyway, initially, I was a bit like, do you know of anyone else that's going to have a shorter waiting list? And she's like, nope. So, I had a look around and ended up just deciding, you know what, I'll just give her the deposit. I'll pay the deposit. I think it was like 250 bucks and I'll just get on the waiting list. And in a year and a year and a half, hopefully we get an email and it's like, your cat has been born. Here you go.

You can have- Do you want this one? So, that's happened. We are currently on the waiting list for a girl Burmese cat. And we decided to try and get a girl because although Merlin was an amazing cat, he use to spray everywhere. And that means, you know, he would urinate, he would mark his territory in the house. And so, you would be constantly smelling cat piss and having to clean up after him.

And it was weird. Not all male cats do that, but Merlin did. And so, I was sort of like, I think we'll go a girl this time because I don't think they- I've never encountered a female cat that does that. So, yeah, that's where things currently are. That's sort of the news, I guess, guys. So, anyway, I hope that finishes the podcast up on a sort of positive note.

Sorry for whinging, sorry for having a whinge at the start there about my life with Noah and Joanna. I mean, it's so crazy. You love your kids to bits, but I tell you what, they just stretch you to the limits. They really do. And it's just so tiring. It's just brutal. It's just brutal. Anyway, guys, thank you for joining me. I'll try and do these episodes more frequently in the future.

I'll try and keep giving you sort of updates on this sort of stuff. I want to do a podcast with Kel at some point and sort of talk about Noah and his acquisition of both English and Portuguese, because he's using both now every day. So, it's been really interesting watching him acquire both languages, mix them together, use them in different ways with different people. So, I definitely want to do an episode on that. So, stay tuned.

Anyway, thank you for joining me, and I'll see you next time. Peace.