Duchess of Dull

Hello!

Well, I am very sorry to report that I have no news. Nothing. Nada. I'm sorry, I tried, but no luck. I mean, yeah, today I went to the store, met Mave and Roger at the banana stand, but then I came right home. All week, all weekend, no news. No adventures.

Okay, Friday night was slightly interesting in that a few of us went out after work to celebrate a guy's birthday that's tomorrow (Monday). It was slightly exciting in that we went to a new pub called the Ship Inn, just at the end of the Goodwill Bridge, Southbank side, but other side of the river from the University of Queensland. It's a nice bridge, as far as bridges go. Spacious. Modern. Safe. Spots to hide when there's a sudden downpour (unfortunately, I have no photos of it, yet). The pub was nicer than the one we usually drink in (the Plough Inn) for these events (why they all have to be the Something Inn, I dunno). But that was that. We sat around and gossiped about work (yawn) and drank beer (mmmm), had dinner (eh, very average) and went home. And that, my friends, was the height of the weekend's excitement. Pretty damn dull. I'll try harder this week and into the weekend.

Work? Eh. Yep, still employed. Am keeping my eyes open for options. In fact, that's what I've been spending my precious weekend doing - trawling the 'net looking for "options". Found a few, have thrown my hat in, fingers crossed. A girl never knows. People are leaving my work at the amazing rate of one a week. I've only been there 6 months and at this rate, I'll be an "old timer", training the newbies. Oh dear. So yeah, am trying to watch my back. Which is where the adventures suffer. It's a bummer, I know, I'd rather write about exciting adventures, even if they're only discovering new neighborhoods, but until this job thing settles itself down a bit, them's the brakes. So for all our sakes - I hope I find something new asap!!!!!!!!

Oh, ok, I guess this is where I can talk about the weather... It's nice. Well, getting warmer. I heard people swimming in the pool the other day. All I know is I stuck my foot in it about a week ago and it turned blue instantly. These Aussies must be built of stronger stuff than me. But, the temps have been steadily crawling up there, mid teens at night (sounds scary, doesn't it? In farenheight it's around 60) and during the day it's been getting up near 30 (mid-upper 80's). So far the humidity has hovered around 53% or so. Very tolerable. But you should see the look on people's faces as they describe the worst (hottest, most disgustingly humid) months - Jan until about March, April. That alone could be enough to inspire me to move to Sydney. Then again, bear in mind, Sydney had the worst heatwave ever last year on Christmas Day of something like 45 (near 115). So then again, maybe not. Maybe Tassie (Tasmania), that's the next best place to being in NZ. Yeah, they have airconditioning here, sure. But when you've got only feet and public transport to get you from A-B, well, ugh. But hey, for now, it's absolutely lovely. Sunny, breezy, warm. Perfect. Now if only that pool would warm up just a little......

So there you go. Apologies for the dullness. Will try harder next week. Promise. And will take more photos. Maybe I'll walk over that Goodwill bridge........

J!

P.S. I tweaked the settings here and I think you can go in and leave a comment without having to surrender hours going through whatever it was they'd make you go through just to leave a dumb comment. The filter is on to stop internet spammers and wierdos from leaving messages. So if I get any said undesirables, I'll have to turn the filter back on. But really, how popular am I. I don't forsee there being any problems. So give it a go!

Mayonnaise in th' 'Hood

Hello again!

Well that's another week down the gurgler (yet another gem from the locals) and staring down the barrel of another one. Ahhh it seems like "Groundhog Day" lately. But nonetheless, am happy to be employed. Ahh, enough about work.

Today, Sunday, I did the usual store run with the added assistance of Roger and Mave's rental car! So to shake things up a little we went to Kelvin Grove, a far-flung suburb (far-flung for us foot-folk) only to discover that A)it wasn't that far away, really and B)the prices weren't any cheaper (jar of Best Foods mayonnaise 430g, who knows what that is in ounces, not me, math-challenged, thank you Mr. Foight, is still $4.91 either down the road or in this random, far away suburb). But it was neat to see how the commuting folk live. Eh. I like my 'hood. I don't care how expensive it is, I don't have to commute. Then I trekked out to hunt down the cat's food in Paddington. Then home to be picked up by Patrick (owner of pub next door. Keep up.) for a trip to another far-flung 'burb of Chermside (sounds like some sort of chemical-treatment facility. It's not tho. Looked a lot like St. Lukes in Auckland. Which isn't saying a heck of a lot, but safe to say it's not a chemical treatment plant). Their big thing is, literally, a mall. Sigh. He was in the mood to shop and I'm always up for a car ride to a new suburb. So winners all around. I'd forgotten my camera (gasp!) otherwise I'd've taken photos of, well, the mall. But, honestly, aside from different shop names, one mall here is like one in Germany, is like one in NZ, is like one in England, is just like one in the States. Still tho, always neat to see how they do things in another part of the world, even if it looks like where you came from. So on the way back to our 'burb, we went on a little sight-seeing tour of the 'hoods and discovered a lovely little place called Rosalie, not far from Paddington (where cat food comes from), which is not far from the City,
which isn't far from Spring Hill (me). If anyone gets ambitious you can look it up on a map. Rosalie. Really quaint, clean, not-too-snobby, no hippies (bonus!), the only downside was all the strollers stuffed with babies. I'd never fit in (the neighborhood, not a stroller. But with some of these newfangled modern 4x4 off-road stroller things, I probably could). Nice little neighborhood if I do say. I'd need that groovy Vespa though, far too many hills for these little feet.







Oh yeah, and Friday night, Roger got tickets through his work to go see a soccer/football match between the Brisbane Roar (yeah, I giggled a little too) and the New Zealand Knights (at least they didn't add 'black', 'silver' or 'white' to their title as they are wont to do with all of their other sport teams, Black Caps, All Blacks, Tall Blacks, Silver Ferns, etc etc). As the photos show, NZ got their butts kicked.







Still, it was a fun game. Went to see it at Suncorp Stadium (which, incidentaly, Steve Irwin's memorial is not going to be held, that'll be at his zoo, nicer place for it really). The audience at the game totaled 15,596 (something like that anyways). I looked around the stadium and it didn't look anything like 15,500plus. Big damn stadium. The neat thing about the game/night was, well, besides being free, was the city provided free shuttle buses to and from the stadium. Lots of buses. So it was dead easy, speedy and hassle-free to get there and back. Was quite a good night. And the game was only 90 minutes, so not so long you got bored stupid. Was pretty fun actually.

So there you are. Another mind-numbing work week, topped off with a neat, semi-adventurous weekend. Kinda sad I suppose when I consider a neat weekend is discovering new neighborhoods. Hey, I'm happy and that's what counts, dammit.




J!

Quiet, Rainy Sunday

Hi!

Well, it was a busy and fast week. After the previous week of not doing much at all (well, workwise, anyways, mewise it was busy), it's always a harsh reality to have to work a full week. But I must say it flew by, thankfully. Though here I am on a rainy Sunday afternoon thinking about the week ahead. Sigh. If there are any rich relatives in the family having a read of this, do contact me.

So the week had a few ups and downs. I'm sure you've all heard the news about ol' Steve Irwin going to the big zoo in the sky. Crikey! was right. What a surprise that was. I mean, we knew it was bound to happen, but sad nonetheless. They're planning to have a big public memorial for him here in town at Suncorp Stadium, the big rugby stadium. Australians are feeling kinda bad that he was so popular in the States compared to here, so I guess the offer of a State funeral was their apologetic attempt. He certainly did more for Australia and wildlife conservation than people think. His little girl certainly has her work cut out for her!

Work was fine enough. The bank is happy (made even happier that my tax refund came in! Whooooohoooo! Which, in turn, will make that credit card happy. Ahhh, it's a vicious cycle!) But have made big note to self to explore other possibilities in the employment sector........ Always good to keep an open mind to options. And that's all I'll say on that subject.

So, sadly, this was a bit of a quiet week (adventure-wise), thus making for a short little entry. I mean, honestly, do you really want to hear how I went to the pub for dinner one night (Liz is, at this very moment, jetting her way back to Brazil for an overdue family visit), went to the store and bought groceries, rented a couple of movies, went to Mave and Roger's for pizza and movie night, and how Kona's new favorite thing is to wake me up at least 5 times a night to punch me in the face and bite my nose? I didn't think so. So this time maybe I'll just get nutty with the photos.

So here's to a good week for one and all!!!!!!!

J

Fireworks & Bananas

Hi!

Well, that was a quick and easy week. Started off with two days off – excellent! Time spent getting a haircut, taking myself on a massive walk to the Vespa showroom, through neighborhoods I’d never given a second thought to (and for good reason – no, not bad or scary, but when you don’t need anything from random neighborhoods, who cares?) all just to drool over the little Vespa ET4 150cc scooter I would some day like to park as mine but at $7,800 new ($5,500 used. Sigh.) it looks like drool is all I’ll be doing; Going to the grocery store; Getting my hearing and my eyes checked for free (better hearing than most people and perfect eyes, well, for another few years yet) and generally lazing around. Then, come work time, I was told to ‘use it or lose it’ about my remaining vacation that they don’t pay out. So I basically worked one whole day last week, the others were either non-existent or really short. Was pretty nice. Gotta love paid days off! But that’s it now, no more. So in place of no more paid days off, bring on the higher hourly wage!



This weekend has been pretty nice in that the rain stopped (it rained for about a week), thus leaving the skies nice and clear for a huge fireworks show that they had last night to celebrate the wonders and the glory of the murky Brisbane River. It turns out they’ve recently discovered how cool it is having a city built around a river (they had to know something was up with all the towering high-rise apartment buildings that keep going up near it. Hmmm). So they threw a big festival centered around the River and water in general. I can’t keep up with every festival that they have (at least one a month) so I just opted to go with Mave and Roger to watch the fireworks near the Story Bridge. It was a pretty neat little fireworks show all in all (but honestly, after growing up with those fireworks shows at Disneyland and the ‘99/’00 New Years fireworks in NYC, everything else looks like beginners’ attempts. Awww). It started off with a fly-over of an F-14 (or some other speedy little fighter jet) doing a dump (oh dear, that sounds baaaad, but it was really cool and not a little scary. Especially for those people living in that apartment building it flew near). All I have to say about taking pictures at night, with a sensitive digital camera, is tripod tripod tripod. Just look at them and appreciate them for their "artistic" effect.





This morning was ‘Market Day’. The day, if I can haul myself out of bed in time, Mave and Roger and I go to the Eagle Street Pier Sunday Markets (my favorite). Those 2 go for the cheap bananas (and assorted fresh produce) and I go for cheap bananas too (I’ll admit it. I’m not ashamed), but really to look at jewelry for design ideas. You have to get there early as it’s only on for one day a week (Sunday) and the bananas sell out before 10am. Here’s the story – they had a cyclone blow through Northern Queensland a few months ago that pretty much wiped out the banana plantations (this seasons crops anyways). So in response to the "shortage", the grocery stores jacked up the price from like $4 a pound to $20, overnight. Yeah. In retaliation, the local farmers (or ‘dealers’ as I like to think of them) have set up shop in the little weekend markets undercutting the stores by 75%, thus making bananas affordable. To me, it’s all kind of funny. It’s psychology, isn’t it? Tell ‘em they can’t have their banana fix and they behave like heroin addicts lining up for methadone. I quite like these markets. This week was even livelier than previous weeks. There were stalls selling everything from opal jewelry, exotic breads, cedar socks (who knew?), to kangaroo skin wallets. There’s usually a little jazz band that plays once the place starts to pack out and the stalls get horrifically crowded. Early morning, tough as it is, is best.




So that’s the wrap up for the week. I gotta say, I love this little camera and I hope it helps give you guys an idea of what the place looks like. Any questions or comments, just ask!!!!!


J!

P.S. Still working out the photo bugs. If anyone knows an easy way, or, hell, ANY way to upload photos so they look normal and don't take all day to upload, do let me know.