Blood to caffeine ratio

Today I have had two cups of Earl Grey tea and one large Latte. And I’m a little concerned.

I never used to drink drinks with caffeine in them. I was a herbal tea drinker, you know, a strawberry infusion or peach melba fuzzy. Rarely, if ever caffeine, mainly because I didn’t like the taste.

Now I love Earl Grey, his wife ain’t bad either.
I’ve upgraded from the occasional cappuccino that would make me so wired I’d be running around the office like a nut bag to a Latte that barely registers

What’s changed?

Am I older so my taste buds have mutated to except the bitter liquid? They did with olives, so maybe that’s it.
Am I sleeping less so need more caffeine to stimulate me during my waking hours? Unlikely because I pretty much get eight to nine hours a night.
Is it like the G&T thing where from the moment my mother died I got cravings for it? Spooky, but maybe.

I really don’t know, but just like with many things in my life at the moment, I’m just going with the flow and not standing up and waving too much.



- My mug at work. 475ml of Earl Gray goodness

Why so hard?

We all have electronic items that require batteries. Some are completely innocent, others not so. Last night I had to replace the batteries in my heater/aircon unit remote and having purchased some during the day I went to work. As usual through, this seemingly simple task, turns into mission impossible as you try to free the little metal cylinders from their plastic and cardboard prison.

I know the manufacturers and shop keepers don’t want these items being stolen, but is it really necessary to make it harder to open this packet than a bottle of childproofed painkillers?

It seems that no matter how many perforations they put in the cardboard, they only go half way through which means you end up with a tiny pile of hairy cardboard before you break a nail, and then, finally, the batteries fly across the room, because you are pushing and pulling so hard you loss all control.

Pimped Up

Last night I popped to my local Nandos for chicken and chips with a mate. While he was ordering, four dark skinned fellas came in. Their pumped up torsos clad in GStar Raw T-shirts, tight arses in shorts trainers and socks that were pulled up. They also had at least a days worth of beard growth, short cropped black hair with that funky little pubic bit on the back of the head tufting out on the neck.

I pulled a couple of faces at my companion and when he sat down, he asked what I was pulling faces at.

‘They think they are so great, but it’s just nasty. I don’t find it at all attractive.’

‘Don’t worry,’ he said, ‘they’re probably drug dealers anyway.’

A few moments later their take away was ready and they left the store. Then they climbed into a brand new silver Range Rover.

We had an extra giggle when we heard the broken neon signage of this shop crackling in the rain about an hour later.

Observation and Writing

On Thursday I had to stand for part of my train trip. I picked an interesting spot to stand, purely by accident and the people I saw inspired me to get out my notebook and write. It’s been a while since I wrote anything apart from blog entries and change management plans.

I had my iPod plugged with Rufus Wainwright mumbling his lyrics to his beautiful music when I noticed the man sitting the middle of the three person seat directly in front of me.

He had grey hair and black wire rimmed glasses resting on his nose. In his late 50s he was wearing a white shirt with the long sleeves, rolled/folded up his arms. His nylon tie blared its pattern to the whole train with it yellow background and William Morris dove pattern. The breast pocket held a black pen, a red pen and a frayed edge blue and white hankie. Across his knees he rested his brown briefcase with the scuffed edges hard against the seat back in front of him. Resting on top of the briefcase was a large book, white pages and small text in two columns. The writing on the pages was highlighted in yellow, pink and green. It was notated in the margins inn black, blue and green and he was making more notes with a second red pen he held in his right liver spotted hand. I looked at the header on the top of the page closest to me.

Jeremiah 9.11

How many times had he read this bible? Did he find something new in each reading? Did he have to read it? Was he studying theology? Was he a priest in plain clothes?

Then I noticed the brown marbled rubber band on his wrist. In green it was embossed with 1 Rifle Afghanistan.

It was out of context for me. It raised more questions.

I got out my notebook.

Morning Giggle

I seem to spend a lot of time on trains. Last night, on my way home a derailment caused my 45 minutes trip to be 70mins of unair-conditioned boredom (I forgot my book and my iPod) in 40 degree heat. I was glad to be home at twenty past seven so I could remove my sweat soaked trousers and jump a cool shower.

This morning, random stops outside Lidcombe and Newtown meant I had an extra ten minutes on the train, but a dramatic over night drop in temperature meant I got to work with a dry seat.

I had my iPod this morning (not making that mistake again) and I was happily listening to Cat Stevens and looking outside the window, watching the world whoosh by at 30kph. Our trains don’t move very fast.

I had noticed earlier in the ride that the Christmas reprieve was coming to an end and few people were having to stand. The people that did have seats had their noses buried in books, school work and newspapers, or just like me, had music soothing them towards another day at the office.

The three men sitting in the seat in front of me were a combination of newspaper, school-work and book. None of them had music. The guy next to me though, he pulled out an old Sony Discman that I remember having when I was 16, but I digress…

Back to the guys in front. The school-work guy was sat in the middle. Wedged in between the two larger guys like a party popper about to be pulled, he was looking at accountancy sheets. The print was large and bold, and very easy to read from my position. He was flipping the pages, reading about credit and debits and P&L before moving onto end of year. It was all so riveting just outside Stanmore he started to get the head bob.

You know the one, the I’m falling asleep and I have no control, one. I want to stay awake, but, I. Just. Can’t.

His black haired head was slowly swinging to the left, then jerking upward. Then back down again until his chin hit his chest, then back up again with a start. This went on for a few minutes and then his head came to a stop. Nestled against the shoulder of the man to his left.

I watched as Cat sang ‘The Boy with the Moons and Stars’ as the man slowly put his newspaper on his lap and with his index finger pushed the sleeping mans head into the upright position. The continued support meant he didn’t wake up. The finger was bent rapidly, taking it away from the man head, then the whole hand was slowly moved across its owners chest so as not to wake the sleeping neighbour. The sleeping man stayed like that for a moment, then despite his head already being upright, his head snapped back with such force his whole body spasmed, he stood up then sat back down again.

After resuming his set he looked around to make sure no one had seem him, then continued to read his school-work.

Hmmm...I wonder?

I was in a lift yesterday travelling to the 27th floor of a building in the heart of Sydney. Is it just me that thinks the when OTIS, the manufactures of the lift I was travelling in (and I'm sure hundreds of thousands around the world) should have given a little more thought to the locality of their Sydney operations?

Ricketty Street

Five Observations

They are a few people on the bus that don’t give a damn about old people having to stand while the fresh young thing sits in his seat with the ‘doff doff’ of his iPod annoying everyone.

There are some really wide girls out there who make some really bad fashion decisions.

The South African guy who works in my office is an aggressive arsehole who steals the work supplied newspapers everyday.

There was policeman at the bottom Forvaux Street at lunchtime with a speed camera hiding behind an unmarked car. For those that don’t know, Forvaux is the steepest hills around that even the fittest person avoids having to walk up and cars can’t helping speeding just a little on the way down. Hands Up anyone who thinks City of Sydnay is down in revenue this month.

This has been really long week and I’m glad hump day is more than half way over.

Bathroom Habits

So this afternoon I had popped to the Ladies, as you do, and while there someone else came in. She went into the cubicle next to me a proceeded to do a poo (I know this ‘cause I heard the plop of it hitting the water).

What made me stop doing up my fly in astonishment was when she said ‘see I knew you could do it, that wasn’t so hard was it?’

It made me question my sanity for a second, but she continued encouraging herself while I washed my hands and as I walked out into the corridor thinking to myself, I hope I don’t do that.

The Park

I had the pleasure of walking through Hyde Park at 1pm today. I also had the pleasure of walking through Hyde Park on Saturday at about the same time. I'm writing about this mostly uniteresting fact 'cause I was amazed how different the energy was today compared to Saturday.

On Saturday, the park was filled from Liverpool Street to the Archibald Fountain with picnicing couples, practising buskers, hungover buddies and people casually reading or chatting. The sun was shining like today so there was even girls sunbaking in the last of the sunshine the season has to offer.

Today it was lunch time on a work day. At the Liverpool Street end the park was the host to bitching birds, lunching loners, runners, sitter upers, bragging blokes and people just passing through in a hurry. By the time I had crossed Park Street and walked to the Fountain the workies had thinned out a bit and there was a bit more weekend action with all the tourists. I even noticed most of the pigeons and ibises had gravitated to this end of the park, I suppose the tourists are a softer touch.

They are certainly softer on the ears and easier on the sress levels.

PS. It's 36 hours til my plane leaves to take me to India...woo hoo