Cactus Floats

Hi!

Well. Another week, another weekend. This time I knew I would be in no mood whatsoever to face work so early as Monday, so I took the day off ahead of time. Properly, like a normal person, instead of coming up with an illness. I marched into the boss' office first thing Friday morning, said 'I need to take Monday off, is that ok?' And it was! Cool. Trick is, the other boss, who wasn't in on Friday, the one who thinks I'm her slave "Jennifer, answer my phone! Jennifer, go get my printing from the printer! Jennifer, peel my grapes!" etcetcetc.... won't like it one bit. Who'll answer her phone?! Gasp! God forbid I take a day to myself! I need the day to re-write my resume for the 900th time and find a new job! Duh!!!! So yeah. That's my splurge day off. Get this, it'll be PAID! One benefit to having a "real" job. Whatever. It's not worth the poo I have to swim through just to get stuff done in that job. Jobs. I actually do 3 jobs, but who's counting. I'd like just one, thank you. Or, 3 that pay lots. Hmmm.

So anyways. Quiet weekend. Hot. Muggy. Hard to do much. It's their monsoon season down here, so the sky is full of puffy and sometimes scary clouds that don't do anything. Ahh, sometimes it'll sprinkle, but nothing much. Kinda like the monsoon season in Tucson, only minus the awesome storms and lightning and torrential rain for 1/2 an hour. I think it does that here in the spring actually...... Will pay attention when that season rolls around again. Either way, they reallyreally need the rain. They're in the middle of a very bad drought. Yet everyone wants lush, green lawns and gardens full of flowers.......... Cactus for everyone I say!

So yeah, quiet here, again. Hey, I read a few of those travel brochures I'd picked up last weekend at the Travel Expo..... Yeah. I've now learned that they don't put the prices in for a reason - because if they put the prices in, you would leave the brochure with the travel agent and your money safe in your wallet. I looked at one really cool 16 day trip to the Kimberly's (northern Western Australia) and including everything minus the flight from Brissy to Darwin (a few hundred on its own), the trip cost (have a seat) $4,500. Yeah. So Plan B for trip planning I believe! No wonder Australians all go overseas for a trip.

So the week went by fast, stressful and busy. Eeeeew, this work stuff........ And then the weekend was here and I didn't do half of what I'd hoped. I always have grand plans to do stuff, like rent a car and get outta town, write the screenplay I keep thinking about, write emails to everyone I've neglected, make jewellery, paint a painting to liven the place up a little, ride over to Chinatown and pick up more A&W Rootbeer....... Nah. Though I did manage to watch "The Poseidon Adventure". Excellent, excellent film.

And today I did the usual stuff, after having rested all day Saturday. What an old lady I am anymore. I blame the humidity. But anyways, today I met Natasha and her brother and his girlfriend at the pub, the Paddo (or, for the tourists, The Paddington Tavern) in, well, Paddington (cat food central). Today, being Sunday, they do a $4.95 Sunday Roast. It's a big British thing these Sunday Roasts. It's basically a slab of roast beef, potatoes, veggies and a roll. $4.95. And pubs, if they don't make money any other day of the week, they make it Sunday afternoons with this. I went once with Roger and Mave to a pub for their Sunday Roast and it cost $25 and it was one of those artsy kinda servings with not a lot of food. It was a joke and Roger was less than impressed. I must remember to tell him about the Paddo..... Anyways, it was pretty good! Course, you spend the money you save on booze, but that's beside the point! It's the meal that lasts all day! For me anyways. And then I had a ride around the neighborhood on the little scooter, then to the store, then home for a nap. Whew! What a day! What a grandma! Ahhhhhhh! It's too hot and humid to be able to do much!

And that's about it. Resume revamp tomorrow. I bet the high-maintenance boss will call me by.... 10am and maybe again in the day around........ 3........ Hopefully she won't, but I wouldn't put it past her. Did any of you see "The Devil Wears Prada"? Almost, but not quite. This is Australia after all, and a little trade college, not Vanity Fair. But the sentiment is the same. Yep. Only 2 people won the 1st division in the lottery this weekend. They got 2 mil each. Yeahyeahyeah, you can't win if you don't play........ Well, I think I'm gonna. Because this work stuff sucks!

Hope you're all well up there! And if anyone wants to come down for a visit, well, it's hot and humid. But if you do, bring Mexican food - 3 rolled tacos with guacamole and 3 hot sauces, a quesadilla with a side of guacamole and a medium coke from Nico's on Ft. Lowell and Campbell! Mmmmmmm!

BYE!
J!

Weekend of Yawns

Hi!

Well. That week went by fast. Which is good, but kinda bad in that it just makes the weekend go by fast too. Saturday I did nothing. I had absolutely no energy. If they were giving away bags of money and trips around the world, and all I'd had to do was walk down to the middle of Queen Street to collect my prize, I couldn't have done it. It was all I could do to move from the couch to the kitchen to get more water or tea. I don't know what it was, but all I had the energy to do was watch TV. And I never do that on the weekends, especially during the day. All day I watched movies or travel shows. Travel shows are very dangerous I've realised. They give me ideas I could never hope to afford.

Ironically, there was a Travel Expo on at the Convention Centre all this weekend. So I hauled myself down there today (having rested up all of yesterday!). Well. All that was was a bunch of airlines and travel agencies handing out glossy brochures. Which, incidentally, had no prices in them. I guess if you had to ask you couldn't afford it. But I did manage to walk out with some info about trips out to the Outback and some little reusable bags (like for groceries or whatever). Cool. Entered a contest for a trip to the Outback for a week. Cool. But when I went to turned in my little coupon, the box was stuffed full. Hmmmm. Oh well. You can't win if you don't play!

And that was it. Nada. Nothing. Had no energy. I think it was because it was a really stressful week at work (am doing the jobs of 3 people after all) and the A/C is out again at work, with no cross-breeze to speak of and a pregnant gal who needs the fan more than me. Maybe I'll take a day off this week......

So unfortunately, no adventures were had. I don't really count going to the Convention Centre to collect hundreds of travel brochures an adventure, even tho it had the potential for adventure. If I had bought a trip or a cruise, now, that would've been an adventure.

And the weather has been rainy, in that annoying off and on kinda way, so I haven't been out to ride the little scooter much. Which is a shame. But an even bigger shame would be me splattered along a rain-drenched road because I'm not that good at riding it yet. Hopefully this week the clouds will go back to New Zealand where they belong!

And that's that! Short and sweet and dull. Ahhhh well, I'll have a look through these Outback brochures and start coming up with some ideas......! Well, I hope you're all well up there!

BYE!
J!

Funeral For a Friend & a Pub

Hi!

Well. Am sorry for not writing last week. My little heart wasn't in it. Found out that Friday that a good friend of mine, JP, died suddenly in Tombstone of a heart attack (http://www.legacy.com/tucson/Obituaries.asp?Page=LifeStory&PersonID=86291021).

Top that off with the fact Patrick and Liz closed the Pub that Saturday and you have a recipe for, well, a few glasses of wine and sad parties! Well, sad parties anyways. Ok, maybe one or two memorial drinks. It's what JP would have wanted. So yeah. No heart or energy to write. But, JP's funeral has come and gone, the pub is locked up tight, the lights are off and the taps are dry, and here I am!
Will try to backtrack through any little semi-exciting things I might have gotten up to........

I know, one day lastlast week I played hooky from work; just couldn't haul my tired butt out of bed. It's been really warm and humid at night which makes it tough to sleep even with a fan on "hi" the whole night! So woke up that morning and just couldn't move. But, as how it usually happens, by 10am I had the energy of a thousand oxen (hmmm)! So I took myself out to run errands and buy things like bungee cords and a Brisbane map book. Now I can tie stuff to the little scooter and know where I'm going with it!

And then, after the bungee cord bonanza, on the spur of the moment, I took myself to the MacArthur Museum. It's this neat little museum here in the middle of town. When he was running the war in the South Pacific, he based himself out of the 8th floor of the AMP building (now I think it's called MacArthur Towers) for 2 years. It's full of stuff you'd expect - maps, steering columns from fallen Japanese planes, Naval stuff, gas masks, flags, matchbooks, and then there's all this neat stuff from Brisbane's perspective. Basically, when they noticed things were getting out of hand down here, they asked for a little help from the US, and did they arrive. Brisbane went from roughly 350,000 people to something like 450,000 - 500,000, and that was just in town! Ahhh, I could go on because it was so neat, but you can scope out their website.... http://www.macarthurmuseumbrisbane.org/

I really liked it, spent ages in there looking at everything. I was mainly interested in it all from the Aussies point of view and the fact that my Grandad came through here very briefly on his way to New Guinea. It was very informative and the staff were really nice and helpful.

So what else..... last weekend, on the 3rd, was one year to the day that I arrived here in Australia! So Mave and I went to lunch at the little restaurant where I took myself to lunch the day I arrived. Called the Plaza Bistro or something like that. Lovely spot right on the river. That was all I really felt like doing. I had big plans to do something very touristy like go on the bridge walk over the Story Bridge, or go rock climbing on the Kangaroo Point cliffs, or even just float up and down the river on the City Cat ferry, but no. No energy, too hot and too sad. And yeah, that night they had last drinks at the pub. I ended up leaving around 9pm I was so pooped. What a Grandma I am anymore. And then the next day, Sunday, Mave and Roger had a BBQ. That was nice, met some more new people. Mave is constantly finding new people to invite to her and Roger's for a BBQ. This time it was a gal she works with and her husband. They're from France and both named Fred. Very French. Really nice. They've been here about 6 years or so. Personally, I'd take Southwest France, but then again, I know how it is to want a change of scenery!

And then it was back to work for a fairly long and busy week. JP's funeral was that Monday, and I looked into flying over, but after the flight and a week off of work with no pay, well, it came to around $3,500. I think JP would've understood. So the week took a while to get through. I was just looking forward to this weekend where I had no BBQ's to go to and no pubs to spend money in. So this weekend I rented 4 whole movies, cleaned, went for a very lovely swim, and now am getting ready to make my mean spaghetti. It's been pretty hot and humid still (but not too hot for mean spaghetti!). But I think I'm acclimating better than when I first arrived! I honestly thought I'd die. But I'm learning if you need to do stuff like clean you gotta do it early. And then move as little as possible for the rest of the day. Needless to say, because of the heat and humidity, my adventure walks have vanished. When it cools off I'll take myself and my flabby legs back out there! Only now, with the little scooter (and the map book!), I can shake it up a little and check out new, far flung places! Must start a little list.....

And that's about it! So yeah, sorry for not writing last week. I started to a couple times but couldn't write more than "Well.". But anyways, here I am! All's well! Kona is fine, if not a little fatter because it's just too hot for him to chase ping pong balls off the edge of the balcony. And the scooter is going good, getting a little better every time I take it out. It's so cool. I love it.

So there! I hope you're all well up there! I ended up renewing my apartment lease for another 6 months, so come on down!!!!!!

BYE!

J!

P.S. It's done that weird thing with the date again. It's Sunday the 11th Feb, 'round 5:07pm. Sheesh.