Holidays, Food and Naps!

Hi!

Well. Am late, like late, again. I swear, these last few weeks have been stupid crazy busy. Still, that's no excuse (but it kinda is when the holidays have been on the weekends....). Anyways, here we are on a bright, warm and happy Monday morning (we get Monday off because New Years was over the weekend. I don't get it either but who am I to question local customs?), the birds were up and at it early this morning but I chose to sleep in - get it while I can. Way too early for the cool white wine, but since am on vacation, and it's a Monday when I'd normally be at work, it's almost sort of tempting...... But no, I've got a nice cup of coffee, some groovy French jazz tunes that I forgot I owned - life is good!

So work. Well......... it's been good. Busy in an I-can-handle-it kinda way. Helping to re-draw (electronically) aircraft technical diagrams, it's half interesting, but much better than doing nothing. Although the whole work thing took a slight turn just before we went on our break. The Boss rather bluntly told me, after asking me to come on in shut the door and have a seat (always a harbinger of doom), that they weren't going to make me permanent, that they weren't going to support my permanent residency application and if I didn't like it I was happy to look for work elsewhere. After an entire year of telling me that they would do both. In fact, in the week or so before this little dive bomb, we'd talked about the permanent contract and how HR was nearly finished with it and how the Director of Finance had given the go-ahead to fund it all. Not to mention that up to now I've spent over a grand getting my PR paperwork together. The paperwork they told me to go out and organize. Then boom, he pulls this Crazy Ivan and tells me to "have a good Xmas and a Happy new Year, OK?". I was as stunned as a baby seal on an ice float. So, I had a quick chat with my foster department and they say they'll see what they can do, which is also an interesting change in direction as a month ago they were willing to "do whatever it takes" to get me from my original department permanently into theirs. Hmm. All I know is my contract ends at the beginning of April and I have no idea what's going to happen then. Do I fire up the job hunting machine? Do I sit tight? What a pain. I hope Santa left him a lump of coal...... (is the kindest thing she could say in an open forum like a little Blog..........). So yes, watch this space.

But then there were the weekends, riddled with holidays, food and naps! To kick-start the break, that Friday, the 23rd, we had a half-day at work, which was good so I could get ready to go out later that evening to see The Church here in town at the Powerhouse (P.S. Not my photo on the left there. I took a couple and they were crap. Thank you Church website). It was one of their best shows I've seen yet. The audience was well-behaved compared to some shows of theirs I've seen where half the audience (usually the folks up front) spend the evening talking on their cell phones, only to have the front-man stop the show to yell at them. Thankfully, there was none of that. Either folks have learned that the lead singer is a grumpy dude who doesn't put up with their rudeness, or they all just really wanted to be there. Ohhhh it was a good night. The Church have been around for 30 years (gasp!), hence it was their 30th Anniversary Tour, so they did one album from each decade - the latest one "Untitled #23", "Priest = Aura" and "Starfish", with no opening band and two intermissions. It was a fantastic night. If you even remotely like them I can highly recommend going to see them. And tickets weren't as stupid expensive as I expected. And, knowing how notoriously expensive the Powerhouse is for food and drinks, I smuggled my own wine in, thus saving the $22 for the cab ride home - awesome! What a good way to kick off the holiday break!

And then there were the holidays. Xmas was lovely, as it usually is. I spent it with my foster family (former boss from my job with Fire), Paul and his wife Margaret, his son Russell and his wife Kim. We ate, talked, ate, talked, watched the latest Pirates of the Caribbean and Planet of the Apes movies (Pirates good, Apes bad), ate, talked and finally home around 9.30pm. A lovely day with awesome food (I even had seconds, which is rare)!

And then somewhere in the break my friend Linus and his girlfriend had a BBQ, which turned into a really really good evening meeting new folks who all used to work at Southbank at one time or another (quite a few jobs ago now, thankfully). It was a great afternoon/evening. And for once I was in the country! Usually whenever he's had a BBQ I've been out of the country. And you know how rare that is. Such timing!

And then it was New Years. Spent it with the usual pizza and games suspects. Again, another lovely and fairly quiet evening. Heh, we almost didn't notice it was New Years until we heard the fireworks. We looked at each other, said Happy New Year and continued with our game and more wine. I love that it's such a non-event with us. It's most excellent.

And that was the holidays for another year! Hooray! I'm splurging and taking my monthly one free day off and taking Tuesday off, going back to work this Wednesday. Thankfully we have another break at the end of the month for Australia Day, which happens to fall on a Thursday, so am taking that Friday off too (as are most folks I imagine). Because right now, with work giving me the run-around, it's just nice to have the [paid] time away.

So yes, apologies for not checking in yesterday like I should have, like I intended to. I even fired up mah little computer but my sinuses decided otherwise. Ooooooohweeeee, I swear, one new bush or tree blooms somewhere in the neighborhood and my sinuses overreact with glee. Going all out (literally) for the entire day. I didn't feel better until 9.30pm last night. And I had such grand plans for yesterday.......... Thankfully I have tomorrow off, which kind of makes up for it. But am checking in now and hopefully will keep it up, do my best to check in on the weekends. Again, it's tough sometimes when I don't get up to much. I'm convinced that doing chores and napping just can't make for even remotely interesting reading......... But I will try! And so far there is not a single Adventure on the calendar! Gasp! Then again, with the job up in the air, best to just batten down the hatches and see what shakes down. Hopefully I'll know which way the wind is blowing in the next month or two. Sigh. Either way, all is well down here, with summer trying to get going. Thankfully we haven't had the blistering heat and humidity that we usually do, that tried to move in in early November. Nor have we had a third of the storms we usually have. Huh. Wierd weather. But, am not complaining! Every day that the temperature is even two degrees "below normal" is perfectly fine by me!

So there. I hope you're all well up there, that you had good holidays and have grand plans for the new year.... like coming down here for a visit (or else the 'roo with the laser eyes will hunt you down)! Hooray!

BYE!
J!