The face of a dog haunted my thoughts today. I dreamed of him last night. It was Fluffy, a dog that once lived, almost a decade ago now, at my in-laws, a shih-tzu cross that was found wandering around their post office. They brought him home, called him Benji. To me he was Fluffy, with his thick white coat. 

Fluffy was a good natured dog, but he had a couple of problems. He couldn't control his bowels when he got excited. In the car, in the bath he'd pop out some brown stuff. It stuck to his coat and we would have to cut the smelly matted hair off. He also developed a skin problem, probably an allergy to something in the yard, which lead to his skin turning red and much of his hair falling out. The vet's cortisone injections helped, but he needed better care. 

One day, while B and I were away on holidays, he escaped from the yard (not for the first time) and was taken to the pound. The family decided that they couldn't look after him any longer. I hope he found a good home and someone to love him, but I fear that, with his poor condition. he may have been put to sleep. I only hope that the pound was true to it's "no killing" policy.

Last night in my dream I was playing with our dog Kita. There was a line of soft toys in the room with a dog sitting there staring at me. I looked again and it was Fluffy. As I saw him I realised that he had been there for at least three days straight and I had just ignored him, spending all my time with Kita. I hadn't fed or played with Fluffy in all that time. He didn't bark, didn't cry, just stared with at me wanting love. I felt so horribly guilty. Then the alarm woke me up. but I couldn't get his face out of my mind.

It's difficult to believe that five years ago I was sitting in a Qantas 747 approaching Bangkok airport on my way to Paris, my just-married wife right besides me. That was a perfect honeymoon after a perfect wedding. Last night we celebrated with a meal at Restaurant Larousse at Brighton Le Sands. Excellent meal and the decor brought back memories of France, while the location was so close to our wedding night hotel.

I still love B as much, if not even more, as on our wedding day!

Last week Bangkok's Don Muang airport closed for passenger traffic, replaced by the new Suvarnabhumi airport. I only visited Don Muang twice, in transit on our honeymoon flight to Paris via London and on return in November of 2001. We arrived there at about 11pm local time, flying over a Bangkok still alive with neon lights, traffic and people. The airport was clean, but I recall the brown, cream and yellow decor made it look dated in contrast to the recently renovated Sydney airport.

The other colour that stood out in Don Muang was gold. The souvenier shops were full of bright gold figurines, model elephants and jewellry. Gold, lots of dyed silk and carved wood. The souvenier, electronics and other duty free stores were busy, despite the late hour. The tiny local food stall looked inviting, but too, but we had no baht and no real urge to change currency.

I'm listening to Jerry Goldsmith's soundtrack to Rambo III (Intrada edition), which I picked up during last year's stay in Paris. It's one of my favourites, Goldsmith is brilliant at combining ethnic sounding sythesised music with a symphonic orchestra. I had never owned a copy of the soundtrack before, although I had taped highlights (complete with dialogue and explosions) from a video of the movie. I had not listened to that tape for over a decade and the CD contains much music not in the movie. Yet as soon as I listened to the CD the music felt as if I had listened to it all my life, instantly familiar yet completely fresh.

The music, especially the "Afghanistan" theme triggers feelings, echos of sometime in my past. I cannot recall the situation that those feelings relate to. Questing, a tinge of meloncholy. Perhaps dreams of unfulfilled love, hope for thought in a hostile land. Not related to the awful movie, but perhaps of life when I saw it.

Tonight I'm taking advantage of the fact I'm paying too much for broadband access by playing around with some of Telstra Bigpond's features. In the background is the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games streamed coverage. I also setup a Telstra BigBlog, available here. There isn't point in me having yet another blog, except that I can post to it from my mobile. Maybe it will come in useful.

We attended my youngest brother's engagement party last night. I was surprised that our trip time from home to the party at North Avalon only took 1 hour and 10 minutes, very close to the directions given on Whereis. Lovely location, the fiance's grandparent's house overlooking the ocean. Saw my mum and Sydney uncle and aunt and we had an interesting conversation with a young lady working for TEAR (an overseas aid charity - annoyingly Christian from their website) but we had to leave early due to the length of the drive home.

It's been a very pleasant long weekend. Saturday saw us shopping in Miranda, then spending the late afternoon and evening at Dolls Point and Brighton le Sands. We sat by the beach watching the kitesurfers glide atop the waves, then took a leisurely stroll along the sand. Dinner was a seafood basket a Brighton, watching the planes take-off from the Kingsford-Smith Airport, followed by a pear and pistachio gelato as good as any we tasted in Italy.

Walking into the Novotel and watching the planes fly past naturally recalled our wedding. I was in that kind of mood anyway. So on Sunday, the excuse of travelling in to the city to see the world's largest flower, the Titan Arum, at the Botanic Gardens was reason enough to also travel down memory lane in the Rocks.