Lions, Tigers and Bears - in Melbourne!

Hi!

Well. Sunday evening. It's been absolutely perfect weather lately. The sun was bright and shining all day, the birds were happy and chatty, in fact the weather was so nice that the lorikeets came back and had a good catch-up with each other. They crack me up how excited they get about, well, whatever lorikeets get excited about. Now the sun has set, the groovy jazz tunes radio show is going, got the cool glass of standby white wine...life is good! Missed last week because I was visiting "family" in Melbourne, so photos to come......! Onwards!

So work. Yep. Is good. I actually had one little important thing to edit (only worth $1.5 million, so small change according to the guys in the know). That was pretty exciting to have something real to do that took up a good part of the day. Man I miss having editing to do, like what I did at Qld Health, man I was always busy there...... I caught up informally with my Boss the other day and he knows I don't have much on and that it's ok, it's just the way it is and if I can think of stuff to do by all means do it - stuff like updating style guides...... Hmmmmmm. So at least I'm not in trouble or that they're going to let me go - he said they need an editor and just because there's not a lot happening right now doesn't mean they can let me go. So that's good! I hope!

And then there was the weekend. Last weekend that is. So headed to Melbourne very first thing Friday morning. Went down to visit Jeff and Emily and his new wife Tami. It was a fantastic visit, as always. Let's see, Friday what did we do.... I helped Jeff fill out some of his tax I.D. paperwork (because he works at Monash University now) and then he and Tami went off to the University to hand it all in while Emily and I walked around town. We managed to stumble across Hoosier Lane - a famous lane-way (alleyway) because of all the really good/artistic graffiti - it's been written up in travel guides and magazines. It's really pretty cool and there's so much of it that you really do have to stand in one spot and just look. In fact, when we showed up there was a big group of Japanese tourists being led around. Cute. So while I got tons of photos it's hard to show what it's really like. It's pretty impressive. And then that evening we went to dinner at Scusami, the same place we'd had dinner one evening last visit. It was really good then, this time it was good, but eh, ok. Not sure if we'll hit that one again because really, it's Melbourne and there're sooooo many good places to eat that to eat at the same one almost seems like a crime!

Saturday we all headed out to the hip and way groovy suburb of Fitzroy where they have a really cool artists market called Rose Street Artists Markets, it was reeeeeeallly cool! Very hip n' groovy. I kept a few artists in top ramen for a couple of days that's for sure. And then Jeff and Tami went off to explore suburbs worth buying a house in while Emily and I wandered aimlessly around Fitzroy and then headed into the city (we're getting pretty good at the public transport system now!). But I have to say that is one hip suburb. It's dirty and run down, but a way cool place to visit and shop for cool, funky stuff. I'll definitely head back. And then that evening we went to see the Tutankhamun exhibit at the Melbourne Museum, which was really big and seemed really interesting but we had booked tickets for a specific time and could only do that. So next time am down there will check out the rest of the museum like a normal person. The King Tut exhibit, while totally awesome, was really regimented and organized, they lined us up like cattle and left us standing for ages before we were allowed in in groups (crowd control I guess). And under no circumstance were you allowed to take pictures - you shoulda seen the size of some of those roving security dudes! Far be it for me to toe rules when they had multiple Hulks guarding their goods. So I had to settle for the book (sponsored by National Geographic, so of course it's good), the CD of the music they played while you looked at everything and an alabaster cat statue. I guess I went a little crazy but now I can die without ever having to buy another King Tut thing ever again.

And Sunday we just ran a lot of errands around town. So now we're pretty savvy with the main part of the downtown area. I dropped my ailing ear-bud headphones into the Bose shop for repair (turns out they don't bother repairing them, they just charge you $78.50 for a brand-new pair - which is sweeeeeeeeeet because they retail around $150!). Oh yeah, and we hit the Queen Victoria Market. It's HUGE. In a HUGE set of warehouses with some of it spilling to stalls outside. It was a little like an indoor swap meet, only this was filled with basically cheap crap from China. The same sort of market stuff you'd find in any city on the planet. Well, most cities. At least in Western cities...... Ehhhh, while it had a really good fruit and veggie market (almost 50% of the whole of the market, according to the website), the rest of it I could probably live without seeing again. Y'know, it's good for stuff like cheap cheese graters, wooden lighthouses, cheap leather jackets, hats, scarves, toys, that kinda thing. Ehhhh. We liked the Rose St. Market much better. Now, if we were in the need for fresh produce, definitely hit the Queen Vic Market. Otherwise....... And then that evening we ate a fanceeee pants steakhouse called Rockpool (inside the Crown Casino on the fancy pants end, with all the fancy pants shops and restaurants. Far from the gambling peasants). It was niiiice. But the food took ages and ages to come. But when it finally came, oh la la, the steaks were SO good. And we wanted to order a bottle of wine to go with dinner but there was absolutely nothing on the wine list under $100. They were charging $250 for a bottle of wine that we knew for a fact sold for $30 in the real world. I don't know who designed and priced their wine list, but it was clearly someone with no concept of reality. Aliens maybe. Aliens that like steak. And wine. And big framed pictures of cows. Everywhere. Lucky the steaks were so good........

And then Monday we went to Melbourne Zoo! It was really good! It's never fair for us to compare any zoo to the San Diego Zoo, so you have to remember to take it on its own. And it was pretty good. Big, with not as much as the size warrants, but what they had was fine. Lions and tigers and even a bear! They even had a really neat butterfly house (nice and warm). Even got to see the lions being fed (bits of meat, can't say if it was bits of Christians - harhrhar), which while neat, was a little unnerving to hear the crunchcrunchcrunch of bones. So it was a pretty full 3 or so hours. And then it was off to the airport to get me on a plane back to Brissy!

Whew! It was a fun and busy trip. And always sooooo happy to catch up with Emily and Jeff and now Tami. We always cram a lot into a few days even if we have no real plan to begin with. We just have such a good time and a good laugh. I'll be happy when they're here for longer stretches at a time. Be nice to have "family" so close!

And that brings us to this weekend. Quiet. Dull. Chores. Went out to dinner with Kim at Kookaburra Cafe (I can't tell you how much I love that place), dinner of which was awesome, as always. Otherwise it was the usual quiet weekend as I lay low to let the bank account recover until the next Adventure. And the next one is the plane ride out to Lake Eyre and back on the 10th of July. That'll be so cooooool. I need to read up on it a bit more before we go, just so I know what all I'm looking at!

And so there you have it! All's well down here. Happy that we've passed the winter solstice mark and that the days will start getting longer again. Am sick of waking up in the dark and only being home from work for about half an hour before it's dark. But hey, I know, it could well be worse - it could be NYC in the wintertime! Gahhhh! Otherwise, all's well here, the weather seems to have stabilized so it's a perfect time to come for a visit...... hinthinthint......... Qantas has tickets to Brisbane on sale.... am just sayin'...... So I hope you're all well up there! Drop a line and tell me what's happening all the way up there!

BYE!
J!

Fighting Land Sharks with Chores

Hi!

Well. Here we are at last. Am late, yes, and even later because it's Monday evening here, so yeah, like, late. But am here now. The afternoon/early evening is beautiful after a cold and damp and dreary weekend. Magically the weather cleared and warmed up to be a perfect day - typical for a Monday - the weather is crap all weekend and then turning warm and perfect first thing Monday. Well, what the weather wasn't told about today was that it wasn't a work day, it was a holiday here in Queensland, if not all of Australia - Hooray for the Queen having a Birthday! Hooray for Commonwealth countries for celebrating it, thus giving us commoners a day off from work - wooooot! So yes, the day has been perfect, the birds are out there minus the thousands of lorikeets (I only hear a few), there're lots of crows squawking away... Got no cool jazz tunes but do have hip n' groovy tunes from the community radio station 4ZZZ, got the cool glass of standby white wine, so yes, life is definitely good!

So work. Yep. Is good. Is so quiet. I've now been with them 7 months and I have yet to be really busy like I was at Fire or at Health... I know a gal needs to be careful about what she wishes for tho...... Otherwise it's good. Am always and forever eternally grateful to have work, I just wish I had more of it! And before you suggest I hit up other people and departments for extra work, yep, have done that. And the 2 or 3 Editors before me were quite good at creating busy-work for themselves, yet none of it ever resulted in anything constructive, it was all stuff to fill a day. And if that's what I'm up against, I'd rather not re-invent the wheel, I'll just be content with the crumbs I get, surf the 'net and wait for real work to fill my day. Hmm....

And then there were the weekends. Last Saturday was good, if not challenging. I went looking at dealerships to buy a used car. I have my eye on a Rav4 so I got a loan from the bank and pounded the pavement looking for one. Well. After the third dealer it was late afternoon and I'd had enough. But seeing as I'd ended up in the 'hood where my Xmas foster family live, Paul and Margaret, I thought I'd call in. Well, we had lunch and a good long walk, taking in Newstead and Teneriffe where we stopped for tapas and interesting beers at a cool little restaurant along the main drag there in Teneriffe (unfortunately I've since forgotten the name, but it was nice and we only picked that particular place because the manager said hello to us in the most friendly way while we gazed at their sidewalk menu. Then, happily lightly fed and watered, we headed back to their place where they most kindly gave me a ride home. So what went from a challenging day of fighting with land sharks, ended just perfectly. And then Sunday, seeing as the weather was lovely and warm, I threw the chores to the wind and headed up to Kim's where we had a wander around Margate and the surrounding beach, and stopped for lunch (which was quite good as we tried a new place, who's name I've since forgotten, but we'll certainly go there again). And by the time I got home from hers, it was way late - due to train faults, delays, changing trains, waiting for buses, etc etc etc. Hence my desire for my own four wheels so I can be the master of my weekends! Again!

And then there was this nice, long weekend. Well, I didn't get up to much. Stretched the chores out over the 3 days. It sounds dull and kind of torturous, but it was actually good and productive. And today the weather was just glorious and I managed to finish off the laundry and the rest of the chores. And besides, am off to Melbourne to meet Jeff and Emily (and Jeff's new wife Tami) this coming Friday for four days so I thought it best if I didn't leave the house for fear of spending money I shouldn't. But speaking of spending money and Adventures, I've booked a day-trip from Brisbane to go with Kim to fly out to Lake Eyre. I'd explain it in much better detail but seeing as I've never been there, it's best if you have a look at the link.... All I do know is it's far away, down towards Adelaide (I think) and to drive yourself it would take days and a real 4-wheel drive, with tools. Lake Eyre is pretty neat in that usually it's a dry lake bed most of the time and only floods every 50 or so years, and the amount of water in it at the moment happens only every hundred years or so. And the benefit of that is it attracts all kinds of critters from all over. So there is a little tour company that Kim heard about that takes folks from Brisbane out there for the day to have a look, so off we go! That's booked for the 10th of July. So will keep you posted with facts as I read up on them!

And there it is. Sorry for the lags in checking in sometimes. I get to thinking that the stuff I get up to sometimes really isn't worth boring you with (seeing as I don't hear from the peanut gallery one way or another). But I will try to be better at it. Somehow.....?! Otherwise, I hope you're all well up there. I wish some of you would come down here for a visit.......! I mentioned a few check-ins ago that I won't be up there for a visit for a while as I have no vacation time this year and next year am off to England with Mommy! So that makes it the year after.... so that puts it at....... 2013 (whew, math), which is kind of good in a way (???) in that that year is our -gulp- 25 year high school reunion and Katie and I have decided we'd finally go. I think. At least I'm pretty sure..... Either way I hope to be up there for a visit around then! Fingers crossed!

Oh, and real quick before I sign off, I just want to give my friend Gloria a standing ovation as she's recently thrown in her well-paid, 9-5 job with its visions of cubicle farms filled with accountants, bought a Winnebago, set up a PO box in Tempe and is currently touring the country with her pup Bentley looking for..... well, what we all think about going to look for at one time or another..... I think that's awesome and takes real guts (although I can't help but think of the film "Lost in America" with Albert Brooks........). So hats off to you Gloria! Good luck, stay safe and hope you have many fantastic and interesting Adventures!!!!!

BYE!
J!