Vet = 2, Lola = 7, Pigeon = 0, The Moose Drool Wins!

Hi!

Well. Here we are on another gorgeous Sunday afternoon. The weather has finally cooled off (wooooo, down to 70 right now and mid-40s at night!) and now I can concentrate for longer than ten minutes - yay! It's been a nice, quiet weekend, although come home Friday afternoon after a very long work-week I got a bit of a surprise, but more on that later. So, here we are now - the chores are mostly done, laundry's put away even, ironing is all done, bed is made, I've been on fire for gettin' stuff done. Kittehs are guarding the balcony, got the hip n' groovy, tho mellow today, jazz tunes, and I got a nice, cool glass of the standby red (yes, crime of all crimes, I keep it in the fridge because it's Queensland and you just have to.... Even tho the weather's finally cooled off, I kinda like it.... Don't judge me), yes, life is good!

So work. Yep. It was a bit of a week, not busy or anything, just.... people. And that's all I'm sayin' about that. Otherwise, it's good and am always and forever happy to have a decent place to come to and earn a paycheck!

And then there were a few weekends in there....... But they were all kinda like this one, which is why I haven't bothered to check in. Because really, what can compare with getting Australian citizenship?! No, the weekends have been good, quiet, literally nothing to write home about (which was why I started this little blog in the first place nearly ten years ago now)! Although last weekend was a bit of a weekend - it seemed Lola was missing the Vet and so decided not to eat since Thursday evening. We were in the Vet's office Saturday, Sunday and Monday trying to get her better. Long story short, and over $700 towards the cause, it was a fur-ball lodged in her intestines. A few doses of paraffin oil, Actilax and Cat-Lax, including an enema (for Lola, not me, thank heavens), and by Tuesday, stuff finally started to move right along. So, that's life #2 for little Lola! Of course, this was also the same week my car registration came due, at just under what it cost to fix up Lola......... Sigh. She's only two years old - brand-new, and I've never had these issues with pets ever! Ahhhhh well, hopefully she straightens up and flies right from now on, otherwise I'll have to go out and get a second job to keep up with her bills!!!!

So that was last weekend and Monday. Then, come this past Friday, I get home at 5pm from a very long week at work, although not before a small detour to a little cafe, Remy's, that opened up about a year ago just up the hill from my house, where I had a quick snack of breads and dips (very good, had a bit of bite to them which I quite liked, although I see from their website/FB page, they're in it for their burgers - will have to try one next time (they do take out, even better!)) and two beers from Montana, as you do when in Brisbane, Moose Drool Brown Ale and Scape Goat Pale Ale - both very good but I was partial to the Moose Drool, so I had two. Hey, it was Friday and work was a pain this week. Anyways, I didn't hang around long because I felt like the oldest person there, hell, I was for about half an hour until other "old" folks like me started arriving for Happy Hour. It's a fun, buzzy, young, hipster kinda place (yes, all the young men sported fluffy beards), but the staff were all very nice, professional and genuinely seemed to like their jobs and their coworkers (maybe I should get that part-time job there.......?). I'm glad I stopped, I'd been wanting to for ages but it's always totally packed-out. So, off I trot down the hill to home, belly full of beer from "home" and snappy dips, only to open the front door to crime scene carnage. Lola, feeling fulla beans again after being revived from death's door, again, somehow manged to catch a pigeon/dove, got it inside the apartment where an epic battle to the death ensued. Feathers everywhere, from one end of the apartment to the other, even in the kitchen. I open the door to this and see Lola bent over the headless corpse (?!), both wings separated from their owner, eating like it was manna from heaven, which I suppose it kinda was. She was very, very proud, and I was too after I got over the shock of the scene. It's impressive not only because of her speedy recovery, but for the fact she somehow caught a bird, killed it and ate every last bit of it (except the feathers), when all she'd ever caught before in her two short years were moths. Sure, she's speedy, but a bird? In a second-story apartment? I can't even imagine how she managed it without sailing over the balcony. All I can think is it may have flown into the sliding glass door or window, laid there stunned for a second and that's when Lola saw an opportunity too good to pass. That's how I hope it happened, because if she perched on the balcony railing, ay yi yi, that will be one expensive vet bill indeed. That's if she survives the drop. If she does and runs away, well, she's never been outside so she's bound to get lost and hit by a car. Geez, who ever said pet ownership can be dull sometimes never owned a kitteh like this!

And that was my weekend! Gosh, now I want one of those burgers and more Moose Drool........ No, saving money for the Big Nordic Adventure. And my car registration. So, there you have it! All's well here, fingers crossed! Hope you're all well up there! So, since the weather's gotten nicer, you're more than welcome to c'mon down and enjoy this window of opportunity - you only have until November, so get planning! And hey, that reminds me, I will be need a house/pet sitter come December...... The job is yours! 

BYE!
J!

Spider Evictions by New Aussie Citizens......!

Hi!

Well. Here we are, although it's not a Sunday afternoon, it's Monday - we have the day off for Labor Day (thank you Unions for always being upset about something and giving us a day off to be upset about it!) - and amazingly, a whole month hasn't gone by! It's been a nice, quiet weekend, for the most part. Ran some errands, got some of the chores done, lots of laundry, tidying, fluffing around, vacuuming up all the spiders that had moved in...... Normally I'm totally fine with spiders, they do good things in the world - but when you have whole neighborhoods setting up house inside my house, well, it gets to be a bit much. And speaking of bit, they bite me after they've been living here awhile, the nerve of the freeloaders, so they were evicted the hard way. Sorry folks. I'm sure we'll catch up in the afterlife (if there is one) and you can tell me all about being suddenly sucked into a big, loud, scary vacuum cleaner. And I'll still feel bad. Anyways, we're here now with the rugs flapping in what there is of a sorry, muggy breeze, the thunder clouds are trying to build up to something big but so far they're doing nothing more than making it, well, cloudy and super muggy. I swear, this really is the endless summer. But still, we have the cool, hip n' groovy jazz tunes - I love this new station so much more than RadioTunes, and they never hit me up for money or pester me with employment offers - bonus! Tho it's a bit early for the standby sparkling, I like to wait until I'm finished writing to break out the bubbles - like a nice reward!

So work. Yep. It's.... good. I've been in a training course all week (last day is tomorrow, whew) for this technical publications software called S1000D. Companies like mine think it's the end-all be-all in tech pubs software but I find it clunky and there are like three additional software applications you have to use to get them all to talk with each other, so it's a bit of pain actually. The tech pubs software we use for our Classic Hornets, XPP, may totally be from the 80s/90s, in fact, the version we use they don't even make or support anymore, haven't for years, but it works a treat without having all the messing around. Whatever. I always wanted to learn it tho, although I didn't put my hand up to do this course, a middle manager did because he thinks if I have this training he can poach me for his program (unless he doubles my pay, I don't see that happening)..... But boy, I'll be happy to be out of that tiny, windowless room squished in with all those people and that lonely lady who I don't think gets to work with actual people very often and won't shut the hell up....... Anyways, once this is over, we're supposed to finally get all that work our customer has been threatening to give us for years.... So we shall wait and see. Otherwise, all is well - always happy to have the paycheck, forced training or not!!!

And then there were a couple weekends in there..... Well, not a lot has been happening. This is the second of our two, three-day weekends, but I've mainly laid low trying to save money, in my dull kinda way. Tho probably the brightest spark in the calendar so far was this past Wednesday night when I had my Citizenship ceremony!!!!!!! It's all finished now - dealing with HR (thank you HR for being that incompetent and costing me $1,200 for the first failed attempt) and all the permanent residency paperwork, c'ship paperwork, all of it - finito! I'm legit! Now all that's left to do is get the passport and then I really am finished. WHEW! That only took two (technically three) failed attempts over five and a half years..... I'm so happy it's all over with I can't begin to say, tho I tried just then......

The ceremony was actually really, really good. At the main entrance they split us up  from our friends to send us through this reeeeeally long snake-line where at the end we had to show the "attend your ceremony on this date" letter Immigration sent us and our I.D. (driver's license) and they gave us our Certificate and Pledge Card (you could pick one of two pledges - one to god and one not to god. So, that was an easy choice) and next shuffled us on to the voter registration table where we, well, registered to vote - it's compulsory here, so, you get fined if you don't get out and vote, and having the newbies sign up on ceremony night is a fantastic idea. They should totally do it in the US. Then we filed to our seats where we had waiting for us a little gift bag with some handouts about Brisbane, voting, the words to the national anthem (whew!), an agenda for the evening, and the best little gift, aside from the actual certificate, was a seedling for a native plant - I got a Callistemon Wildfire (Bottlebrush)!!!! I like Bottlebrush trees, I had one just like it outside my bedroom window in San Diego.... Tho, as a renter I'm not totally sure what to do with it except for to plant it in a pot on my balcony and hope for the best...... And as we were walking in and stumbling around to get to our seats (we were jammed in like sardines) the Australian Army Band played and they were really, REALLY freakin' good! Played all these old swing songs that I like, they had a couple singers who could actually sing and horn players who wandered up and down the aisles in formation. Yeah, they were great. Then there came the Nunukul Yuggera Aboriginal Dance Troupe to welcome us and then the speeches and lectures about assimilating and how the police aren't out to get you so behave, etc. Then we had to make our pledges - godsy folks had to stand up and say theirs, then they sat down and we stood to say ours. Needless to say, there were a lot less of us heathens than there were of them....... The Australian Girls Choir sang a few really, really nice songs (well done girls!), then another speech and a lecture and then the national anthem (that there is the short version for sporting events but it's still good; here's the proper version) and that was that - we were newly minted Australian Citizens! All in all it took nearly two hours. I thought it was pretty good. Tho by the end of it I was ready to not be in that crowded room with all those people and their crying, fussing children another minute, I must say. And I even had a few friends come to watch - some had come all the way from Toowoomba and Redcliffe and Dayboro, and a few from here in town! But seeing as it was a school night and I really did have school the next day, it was a pretty short celebration, and that was fine. I was (am) pretty happy and I didn't need a big party to prove it! So there you go - Aussie Aussie Aussie, oi oi oi!

And then what else........ Not a lot, really. Again, trying to save money for my Nordic Adventure so am trying to keep the wallet safe here at home. I'm this close to paying the deposits and stuff, then once that happens, it's on!!!!! Tho Saturday I did stop into the mall to check that H&M weren't going out of business, so I made a small donation and they gave me clothes as a thank you! Geez, everything in there is like $19-39 bucks, so, a small and pretty cheap, yet styley wardrobe update. I guess I just had a serious dose of cabin-fever after a week of being trapped in that tiny training room.

And that there is really that! So, I hope you're all well up there. Say, even tho summer won't let go, it's not as gross as it was, so you have from now until November to come on down and check the place out! And say, when you're doing your research, let me know if you stumble across any useful websites that I can add to the little menu on the right there... I update that every so often, in fact I did a couple weeks back. So let me know if there's more you'd like to see? Then again, you can always do like I first did and just get on a plane and figure it all out when you arrive!!!! Just let me know when I need to pick you up from the airport!!!!!

BYE!

~ J