Mardi Gras

Only five and half hours before the 2010 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. I think I should start getting ready. It take a little time to squeeze myself into the outfit.

Travel Blog

In the coming months I may be doing quite a bit of travel, some outside of Australia. So, I decided to start a journal on a site that is primarily set up for travel blogging.

I selected TravelPod after a girlfriend of mine started using it for her motorbike trip around Australia.

It has many funky features including easy photo upload, tracking maps, link ability with Facebook (still working on that) and a spell checker.

I’ll still be here for my questions, rants and general shooting of the breeze, but the bulk of the travel stuff will be done over at Jodie Sorrell TravelPod.

Promises, Promises

A few months back I passed my motorcycle test. This means I get to ride around the streets of Sydney on two wheels with a motor and sometime over-whelming amount of sweat between my skin and my armoured jacket.

As you can imagine it can get pretty hot when sat in traffic on a 38 degree day wearing full safety gear (helmet, gloves, jacket, Kevlar jeans and boots). You’re not moving it can be bad enough, but sat still, sometimes behind a bus that kicks out an extra few degrees, most motorcyclists nip between the rows of cars in a thing called, lane-splitting.

Europe has some of the most extreme lane-splitting

If you’ve been in a car, you’ve seen it. You’re sat in traffic that is barely moving and some bast*rd on a bike whooshes past you, either on the hard shoulder or between the two lanes of cars heading in the same direction. You swear at the offending so’n’so and wish that was you.

Shortly after started on my ‘L’ plates I did a mini lane split. I hopped around a few cars by going on the hard shoulder. My heart was pumping hard and it caused a slight hyper ventilation. I was so nervous about doing it. You see it requires good control of the bike and at that point I still wasn’t 100% confident with that control. I’m still not, but I’m a lot better than then.

I proudly mentioned my first lane split achievement to a friend at the time. Being a police officer she reminded me it was illegal. Yes, knew that. In fact it was illegal because it’s so dangerous. She then proceeded to tell me horror stories about cars suddenly changing lanes, trucks swerving and all manner of nastiness that car result of a bike hitting an immoveable object, such as a car, truck or ute. Then she hit me with:

‘Promise me you won’t lane split.’

I sat there, a rabbit caught in headlights, thinking. Is it a promise I can keep?

At the time, just under six months ago I could keep it. I was only about 30% confident around traffic. Everything happened really fast, so being stopped in traffic was OK. It gave me time to practice my slow manoeuvring skills, it gave me time to familiarise myself with my bike, Cap’n Hank. Genrally I had no issue with sitting in traffic.

Today I saw the folly in the promise.

What would have been at most a 50 minute commute to work this morning took one hour and forty five minutes. I’ll confess to cheating slightly even so. If I hadn’t I reckon it would have been a two hour plus trip.

How do you retract a promise?

Puss relaxes on the cool concrete in the shadows after Cap'n Hank's shower

What comes next?

Why is it that a really supremely crap Monday always follows a nice weekend?

My weekend consisted of a relaxing ride out to the Blue Mountains and Mount Tomah Gardens, a BBQ at a friend’s place with extremely pleasant company, a short stint laying on the grass in my back garden surrounded by my family (read Puss, O-Ren and Max) and a little bit of tidying. It was all rather nice and relaxing.

When the alarm went off this morning I was a little high on expectation.

It all went tits up when I got to the station, a mere 35 minutes after rising. I washed my fortnightly ticket in the back pocket of my jeans, by accident you understand. I only brought it on Wednesday last week so it still had nine day left. It had cost me $80. I was told by the station staff after my production of the receipt that a rail ticket is the same as cash, if you lose it you have to buy a new one and washing it is the same as losing it. ‘After all, if you washed cash or if you lost you purse, it would be gone’, I was told. It didn’t go down well when I told him that Australian cash is plastic and survives the washing machine quite well.

- I had to buy another ticket.
- I had to stand on the train.

A girlfriend suggested that I should have said 'Like cash ehh, I'd like to see you try and buy lunch with a train ticket.' Very valid I think. Thanks Nicole.

I got to work and took to my seat to play course administrator all day and deal with people complaining about the lack of spaces left even though they’d known about the course for weeks.
- I had to collate 160 six page documents manually.
- The meeting I prepared for was cancelled.
- And other general, I’m too important to talk to you moments.

I got on the train at the end of the day and it was 36degrees inside the metal tube. By the time I got off the train at my destination, after nearly an hour of rivulets of sweat running down my back, my trousers when soaking wet. For that pleasure, I'd paid twice.

I arrived home in what can be only described as a less than jovial mood. I needed something to take me out of that headspace.

Don’t judge me for getting some semblance of enjoyment from harvesting virtual sunflowers and milking cartoon cows that give strawberry milk.

Blogging Mobile

Is it possible to blog from bed using a mobile phone that's connectedto the Internet?

It would appear, that, yes it is.

How did the human race survive before Mr. Steve Jobs and his handy nerds invented the iPhone?

A Ride to the Mountains

I took Cap'n Hank for a ride to the Blue Mountains today. Along Bells End Line of Road and ending up at Mount Tomah Botanical Gardens. Here a few of the pictures I took.


A honey bee collects for the hive


Self Portrait


An Eastern Water Dragon


The View of the Blue Mountains National Park from teh top of the Rock Garden

Fast One?

At 2.20pm yesterday afternoon I received a phone call while I was at work. On the other end of the phone was an Asian sounding lady saying she was from my Real Estate agents and that I was required to be home at 12noon today for an assessment. As I live in a rental property and this is the time of year that my annual inspection happens, I was a bit miffed at the short notice, but could cope. I tried to explain that I work during the week and that would be difficult could it happen on the weekend. I was told, ‘Thursday is the day for your suburb’.

So I arranged to work from home today.

This morning I got up, flicked the hoover around the house, put away a few things and got to work.

At 11.58 my mobile rang, it was a man called Mohammed (I think) he told me he was outside and wanted to come in. I walked out to the front porch to see a pale blue car parked on the road and out climbed a man of Middle Eastern origin dressed in jeans, a blue and white striped casual shirt and dark trainers. He was clean shaven and carrying a roll of white paper.
I waited on the porch for him to get closer; I greeted him with an outstretched hand. Before he could say anything I asked if he was here for the annual inspection. I had made this assumption yesterday during the conversation with the girl on the phone due to her insistence I be home and her repeating of the word assessment. Actually I only really caught one in every five of her words due to her heavy accent.

He told me ‘No, I’m here to do a Green Loan Assessment.’

‘What’s that then?’

He explained that he would come into my house and look at all my appliances, find out when I use the lights and whether I have energy bulbs (I do and can’t use my dimmers because of them) and generally check the house out. I asked if this was a compulsory check and who was asking for it.

‘It’s a Government form, I send it in when it’s completed and you get a letter telling you if you need to replace any appliances, and they’ll loan you the money if you need it’.

I asked if he had any ID.

He told me that he had the form that he had to fill in. He had no clipboard to lean on, so the form was all flippy floppy. I said, ‘if you’ll excuse me for second, I just want to call my Real Estate Agent.’

I popped inside and called my Landlord. I rarely go through the agent for anything except the annual inspection and rent payments. The Landlord, was furious and told me he’d get straight onto the Agents to find out what was going on.

I went back outside and the guy was still there, holding his rolled up Government form. I asked him for his ID again. When he failed to produce it, but say he had an assessor number, I let him have it.

‘You turn up here after giving me less than 24hours notice and expect me to let you into my house when you can’t produce any form of ID. You ain’t coming into my house, Mate!

And, you might want to reconsider turning up at the rest of the houses on the hand written list you’re holding with a rolled up form you could having printed off a website and without any ID. Bye’.

Well, there may have been a little more detail, but you get the gist.

This encounter played on my mind for much of the day. Especially after the Real Estate Agent rang me and told me that that had not arranged any such appointment.

About six in the evening I called the Police. They sent a couple of uniforms around for to give a statement. They thought it sound a tad odd too.

I still have his number saved in my mobile, under Dodgy Green Loan Guy.


PS. Green Loans are a real thing, but his lack of ID gave me pause. Having now looked at the website for the scheme I'm really glad I didn't let him in my house.

A Gift

Is it strange that I would prefer a dead rat to a living cockroach?

Monopoly

There are a few things that raise my blood pressure (beyond the medical condition that causes that), cruelty to animals, selfishness and having to use services that are terrible.

If you don’t like Microsoft, you can use Apple or even open source. If a plumber does a bad job you can use another one next time, if your carpenter turns up without a hammer...well you get the gist.

This is not the case with the Post Office. You have no choice. So they can get away with pretty much anything. Frequently they do.

I was home sick today, so I was home. You can imagine my surprise when I walked through the hall and noticed a shadow on the door. It was a delivery card stuffed into the screen door. I’d been in all day, so how come there was a card? I have a perfectly functioning door bell.

I decided to call to find out if the parcel was back at my local PO before walking down there. I rang the 131318 number on the card. Dial one for this, dial two for that and three for all other enquiries. Two.

Then. Dial one for this, dial two for that and three for something else and four for other things. If you wish to speak with an operator press zero. Zero.

A little bit of hold music followed by, ‘All of our operators are busy at the moment. If you would like to receive a call back from one of our expert customer service team, hold on the line for the next available call back time. The next available call back is at 1.30pm tomorrow. Press one to receive the call back.’

If you don’t press one you hear, ‘thank you, please call back later in the day’. Then the line drops. No option to hold. Just go through the automated phone system over and over again until you truly understand the meaning of the term ‘going postal’.

I went through this process five times before I decided to take a walk to the local Post Office.

It was two thirty. I stood in a queue of poorly dressed locals and undisciplined children for 25 minutes. While I stood there like a lemon and marvelled at the rubbish they sell from the buckets and shelves that line the wait area, plastic torches, car seat organisers and large format versions of Mr Angry (I love it when irony is unintentional). Upon getting to the counter I was told that the truck hadn’t returned yet and I had to come back later.

I wanted my parcel, so I had no choice. I went back later as instructed and queued again for another 30 minutes.

I got my parcel after nearly an hour and half of my day devoted to it, when I was in at the original attempted delivery time. I’ve never liked the Post Office. I’m one of those people that bulks buys stamps to minimise my exposure to the place. If I could use another company for my daily mail needs, I would. Only I don’t have a choice and neither does anyone else, so they can treat you as poorly as can be with little care and they get away with it. Everytime!

Plus, they’re closed on Saturdays, what’s that all about?

Boobs In the News

If I had more than two cats, I’d be called the mad cat lady.

If I whipped out my breast to feed a fellow human in the middle of a shopping centre, I’d more than likely be arrested for indecent exposure.

So why then are a couple in Arkansas finding fame for breeding to the tune of 19, yes 19 children. The latest was born at just 25 weeks and is currently in intensive care, and they are talking of having more. They don’t use contraception the news story states because they believe each child is a blessing from God. Who’s paying for these children? You can bet your butt that it isn’t only the parents. Why are these people considered healthy and well adjusted?

I read the other day that the Queensland Government are going to set up a day to encourage Gen Y mothers to breastfeed in public spaces because a survey has revealed that this generation is embarrassed at the idea. Too right they are. Why is acceptable to sit in public with lips wrapped round a nipple just because it’s a baby? Gen Y saw sense when they grew up seeing saggy, big nippled tits in shopping centre and realised it’s enough to put anyone off the ice-cream they just brought from the food court.

Stepping off my Soapbox now.

A Mothers Worry

I’m not a mother in the classical sense of the word. I have not have life burst forth for my loins and I hope that I never do. Mainly because it would likely kill me, but more so because I not really a big fan of the little ones that run around on two feet screaming. I can take them in small doses, but I really like giving them back to the parents.

I do however love the four legged variety of small creatures. Cats, dogs, birds, lizards, pretty much everything except for earwigs, they just give me the wiggings.

I have two cats of my own. Puss and O-Ren. I love them to bits and if anything happens to them I get extremely upset, I fret and I want to do bodily harm to the perpetrator of any wrong doing to them. Going by what friends have said about how they feel about their kids, I would say then that Puss and O-Ren are my children because I feel the same.

This said why is it I don’t get the same consideration from work that the ‘real’ mothers get? I digress, back to my point.

Last night I planned an early night. I didn’t feel like starting the week tired and washed out. I was already feeling a bit rough because of the rainy humid weather, so it was early to bed for me. At nine thirty I whistled at the back door to get the cats in.

Puss appeared not to have left the veranda all night and looked up at me from the deck chair by the back door.

Max (the neighbour’s cat who wants to move in, but due to his spraying can’t) came for his dinner of biscuits and brushing before disappearing back over the fence for the night.

O-Ren was nowhere to be seen.

I went back inside to watch House (season five, very good :-)

At ten forty I went out again and whistled. Puss looked up at me from the deck chair. No sign, so I went in and had a shower.

My early night was slipping away from me.

After my shower I dried and dressed and whistled again. Puss looked up at me from the deck chair, I asked him ‘Could you go and look for her please?’ He stretched then curled back into a ball. Max had reappeared at the sound I was making and smooched my legs in the vain hope of getting a little more food.

I went back inside and watched the end of ‘Swordfish’ while I waited. It finished at midnight. So much for my early night.

I went outside again and whistled again, there was silence. I went to the front of the house and whistled. Nothing, deathly silence, not even the roar of a nearby V8.

I decided to wait, in bed. I’d read I told myself. I lay in bed trying to read Lolita, but a read of Humbert Humbert’s adolescent crush over and over and over again. My mind kept flicking to the image of O-Ren after her last night out, twenty seven stitches, drains and a course of antibiotics, not to mention the $500 bill.

At 1245 I got up and put on my dressing and slippers. I grabbed the torch and wandered to the back fence. I whistled then listened. No faint mewing sounds. Was that good? Was that bad?

I walked to the side fence and whistled, then listened. No mewing or jingle of bell. There was no sound from the other side of the garden either.

I was starting to panic.

What if she was lying somewhere in the rain, unable to get home, badly mutilated but able to hear me calling her.

What if she fallen from a tree and impaled herself?

The darkest thoughts ran through my head as I stood in the middle of my garden at twenty passed one in the morning wishing my cat would come home.

I heard a faint jingle, then a white streak flew over the back fence and landed a few feet away from me before coming to a sudden stop.

She sat down and let out a small mew as she looked at me through her big green eyes, before lifting a paw and slowly, but deliberately wiped her ear. Then she stood and walked across the garden and through the back door.

Does my rage, but overwhelming relief sound familiar?

Retail Therapy

On Wednesday last week I took Bessie for a little jaunt down to Victoria. The intention was to see Little and maybe hire a motorbike and have a look at the Great Ocean Road. The motorbike didn’t happen and as it turned out I had a bit of a bug, so I wasn’t feeling on top form, so even if it hadn’t have fallen through I wouldn’t have been able to ride anyway.

I helped Wynnie out in her shop for three days.

Wynnie is also known as Sally, or Little Sally. She’s my sister or rather my step-sister. My Muv was also Sally, so when we moved in with the step family, Muv was Big Sally, Little was...well, little. She’s still petit, but not so little, being my big sister ;-)

She has a used furniture store in the Dandenong’s township of Emerald. Wynnies Used Furniture is housed in a old stable with a beautiful pressed tin ceiling. Everyday, except Monday, she opens up at 10am by placing piece on the grass outside under the awning. She dresses a mannequin up in clothing to suit the weather and places her in a position to watch over the roadside stock. At five PM she brings the goodies that haven’t sold back in and locks up. After the shop shuts, she does the odd house clearance or delivery, pretty much every night.

On a Saturday she rises before the sun and jumps in her beaten up white van with her three legged dog, Peg and drives for thirty minutes to a different town to go around the garage sales to see if anything worth having is on offer before getting back to Emerald to open the shop at 10am.

After doing all this, she also tarts up new stock items and deals with members of the general public.

And this is where I really take my hat off to her, not that I don’t admire everything else as well, but I’ve worked retail in my time and I’ll confess to hating it.

One customer, I’ll call her Fleur, because I can’t remember her real name. She’s been going into Wynnie’s for nearly three years and telling the same long winded sob stories about doing the lounge in blue and the bedroom in green.

I was sat behind the counter writing up the last sale, when Little handed me a note: Don’t get into a conversation with the woman in the front room, she’ll talk at you for hours.
Suddenly the woman was standing in front of the counter asking Little if she had something or other in green, because she was renovating the bedroom in bedroom. While she was banging on, Sally very discreetly picked up her mobile phone and flicked it open. Without taking her eyes off the customer and all the time nodding and making affirmative noises dialled a number with her thumb.

The shop phone rang.

I picked it up passed it to over. ‘Good Afternoon, Wynnie’s Used Furniture. Yes, we do do house clearances...’ The one sided conversation continued as a disappointed Fleur wandered towards the door.

Little raised her hand, waved and smiled. Fleur looked back just before stepping out into the sunshine.

I had trouble keeping a straight face as Little clicked the phone off and put it on the desk as she said, ‘she has never brought anything.’

It was all class, a fabulous way to get rid of the annoying customer that EVERY shopkeeper has encountered, and such a polite way to do it considering she must be exhausted.