Monkey on my back -Take 2

I posted this blog a couple of weeks ago, but have since discovered footage of the very monkey in question, so am re-posting it with the clip.

Isn't he beautiful?

Special thanks to Woody Guthrie for writing the perfect song for my monkey some 50 years ago.

__________________________________________________________


I'm currently taking Ginkgo. And lots of it.

A common use for Ginkgo is as a memory tonic - I'm taking it for other reasons, so the memory thing is more like a side effect for me.

Oh the things that I'm remembering and the connections I am making!

Jesus wept, it's too much.

But one thing I remembered today while busily preparing a nasty tasting herb mix for someone was a moment of time from last December while we were in dear old Wien.

HellBoy had been outrageously sick - to the point where we had to phone a doctor on Xmas day to do a home visit to our hotel.
The doctor was somewhat of an alarmist and suggested that he needed a spinal tap to rule out viral meningitis.
In return, Jeff suggested that he should GGF.

We were refunded for all those un-Godly expenses just this week, which is probably what has put this period of time into my head.

So, after cancelling the Polish leg of the tour due to whatever it was that wasn't viral meningitis, we holed up in Vienna for 4 extra days - hardly any punishment, I can assure you.

On the third day, he rose again, and we took him only as far as the Museum of Torture, and then, because it was down hill from there, into a 5 story Austrian Aquarium of sorts.

One section of this place is a tropical enclosure (indoors) - anything tropical is a big deal over there.
There was a wooden walkway surrounded by tropical trees and bushes, strange birds flying free, turtles, fish, frogs, lizards and so forth.

But also there were monkeys.
Lots of little fuzzy monkeys.

Having been away from home for 2 weeks by this stage, I was seriously cat deprived and in need of some lovin'.
I was shamelessly gazing at these little critters and imagining how similar they might feel to a kitty cat.
How heavy, how warm, how cuddly.
I think my eyes welled up with tears and rolled back in my head a little bit.
But that's OK, the monkey who was looking back intently at me was down with that.

HellBoy was still in the octopus section down the hall and YogaBoy and I were leaning over the wooden railing, watching 2 monkeys groom each other.
Yoga Boy was comparing them to Indian monkeys that lived outside his ashram in Rishikesh.

As he did so, I felt a little kerrrrplop on my back.

I knew instantly what it was -it felt just like my cat Cec used to feel when she would jump onto my shoulders uninvited.

But Cec never picked through my hair looking for fleas...while I was awake anyway.
God knows what goes on when I'm asleep. TWSS
I rarely have fleas - maybe that's why.

As it was winter in Vienna, and owing to the fact that they exasperatingly had no coat room facilities, I was wearing my bulky, hooded, fur lined jacket- thus shielding my delightful parasitic friend from my brother.

I straightened up a little, looked YogaBoy appealingly in the eyes and said,

"Adrian, if I asked you to, would you help me get a monkey off my back?"

He looked at me intently, a flicker of concern passing across his otherwise happy brow.

"Yes, of course."

His response didn't surprise me at all.
Adrian's good like that. Whatever he has, even if it's only honesty, he'll give it to you.

So, I turned 45 degrees to my right, thus revealing my adorable yet preoccupied passenger who was still assisting me by picking through my hair lovingly.

He stayed still for the exclamations, but disembarked once the laughter began in earnest.

Even though I'd so completely enjoyed the encounter and the warm tactile moment we'd shared, my arms ached to hold him and cuddle him like I do Alice or Poppy when I change the linen each week.

I think back to that and genuinely believe that he felt my longing for a cat-like cuddle and extended to me what he thought was a viable option.

A split second after he'd left, HellBoy arrived, and quickly became devastated to discover that he'd missed the whole thing.
And that's a pity, because Jeff's a big fan of the monkey in general.

Never mind.

Anyway, hooray for Viennese monkeys and hooray for Ginkgo.