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Ruminations of an evening walk
I thought we were getting easterly winds when I opened the door to leave and was greeted by a warm breeze. It wasn’t that bad, though, because it was only a little warm and it was rather pleasant throughout the walk. I noted pockets of cool air occasionally while walking. Normally I only notice this when it’s particularly hot, which it wasn’t. I think I’ll be hoping for the cool pockets over the course of this week as it heats up again.
Instead of walking on the footpath on the side of one road, I went through the grass. I simply couldn’t be bothered crossing the road near the roundabout. This was rather fortuitous because I happened to notice a number of interesting plants growing over back fences of houses on that side. Of particular interest was a Chinese apple tree. I’d never seen these until about two weeks ago when one was offered to us to try at a local shop. The Scientist had one then bought a few. There were two trees with foliage hanging over the fences of two different gardens. Dozens of the fruit lay on the ground below. If I’d had a bag, I might have picked up a few to take home before they rotted. I also noted an unusual cactus with fruit and a banana tree with green fruit.
I love seeing the evening sky change colors as night closes in. It was very much daylight when I started out but was nearly dark when I returned home. The rising of the nearly full moon was a nice addition.
I took my pda with me and listened to music while I walked. I really need to get a smaller mp3 player that I can transport more easily. I have been in the habit of listening to albums from start to finish in recent years, but I purposely have used the shuffle function to mix it up. Mostly this was a satisfying experience. Tonight seemed to be all about Augie March since I randomly heard four or five of their songs in just over an hour of listening.
I realized that it was almost ideal weather for walking tonight, with just a hint of a warm breeze that was very unlike the recent gusty and sometimes quite chilly winds. For a time while I was traveling down an old road, I experienced a strong feeling of solitude despite passing cyclists and seeing other pedestrians in the distance ahead of me. Earlier my mind had been filled with images of the horror bush fires in Victoria and the floods in Queensland. But with my music playing and being alone at dusk, it was really peaceful and serene for a while. Kind of ironic considering the old road is at the edge of a commercial/industrial area in the neighboring suburb.
Sunday nights aren’t exactly ideal for walking at nightfall due to the stench from the bins put out along the streets for a Monday garbage pick up. It was the only really unpleasant part of the walk. I am thankful that it wasn’t any warmer or it would have been far worse. I might try to stick to my bicycle on future Sunday evenings to avoid this.
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Brain scattered far and wide
I decided to cycle up to the video shop to return some dvds this evening. I arrived there, five kilometres later and was locking up my bike when I realised I hadn’t worn my helmet. This is the second time this has happened but the previous time I hadn’t gotten nearly so far away before I realised my mistake. I also discovered upon entering the shop that I had left the second disk in one dvd set in our player, thinking I would watch a short film that was included. To fix this I was planned on telephoning the Scientist, however my phone was lacking any battery power. I am really not so great at keeping that thing charged. I went to the closest pay phone and popped my fifty cents into the machine, then dialled. When the Scientist answered, he couldn’t hear me and he eventually hung up. A second fifty cent piece was used with the same result. I ended up going across to the markets where another phone existed and had the same thing happen the first time. I was feeling a bit paranoid by this time because I think I do know how to use a pay phone. Fortunately my fourth try succeeded and the Scientist was dragged away from the depressing cricket match to return the second disk and my helmet. So much for saving fuel but the return trip was uneventful.
I think my brain became rather muddled earlier in the day when I took Game Fanatic to the gp in order to get referrals to a doctor and a psychologist for this year. Normally the referrals are done just for him but the new doctor he’s been referred to requires that I also be on the referral for reasons unknown to me. I also had to get a referral to the psychologist in order to get support for working with both the boys. It all has to do with getting partial funding from the government health care program. For one of these, it was necessary to to do a mental health plan for me. This is where things got murky because I was being asked many questions about my mental health. I wasn’t feeling particularly anxious going in, having experienced a number of similar appointments for my kids before. But I must admit to feeling highly anxious by the time we left. Because of the way everything has to be done, it felt like my mental health was being questioned and while it’s probably not optimal, I think I am doing pretty well overall. The really weird part, though, was when the gp started talking to me about my general medical history and that felt uncomfortable for me. I see another doctor in the practice for my own medical issues and it kind of felt like he was invading that territory. Eventually it was worked out to leave the medical part to my regular doctor when I am due to see her in a few weeks for a regular visit. My brain was feeling overwhelmed by this time and it was a great relief to be finished with the appointment.
It would seem that the anxiety and brain fog that struck me during the appointment stayed with me through the afternoon and into the evening. I must have been very distracted to be so scatterbrained when I went out. Hopefully a good night’s sleep will put me back in good form and spare me any more errors in my thinking processes.
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Growing things
I haven’t written about my latest gardening feats or should I say lack thereof. It’s not all doom and gloom but the cucumbers that were looking so well aren’t so well. The plants are still alive but any fruit seems to be eaten by creatures of the earth. At least something is gaining from the growth. I did harvest an odd looking fruit once about a week ago because it wasn’t really growing any longer and I decided I didn’t want it to rot. I took a bite and it was quite bitter.
I had two large pots with tomatoes growing. One of the pots has heaps of fruit and they all have tough skins. I guess we don’t water it enough. Maybe they need watering morning and night but we are just scraping along once a day. The fruit is reasonably flavorful so that’s something to appreciate. I’ve managed to get two fruit from the other plant and they were incredibly flavorful. Unfortunately other creatures agree with me because they seem to attack the bottom side of the fruit and it’s rendered inedible by the time they are mature. I’d really like to grow another one of these but I suspect it’s a bit late in the season now. I wonder how well they would last into the winter months if they were sheltered a bit. With a bit of research I should be able to figure out ways to repel some of the creatures without poisoning the earth any more. I’ll add it to my list.
I’ve had more success with the cherry tomatoes. I never managed to get the overgrown ones out of the pots and into the ground but they are still doing reasonably well. Some of the fruit went bad due to excessive explosure to the excessive heat but much of it has been quite good and it’s made for some good snacking over the last few weeks. The three plants along the back wall have done extremely well and are sprawling all over the place. Two have a treillis of sorts for support and that’s made a huge difference there. I might try to move others to the back wall too but probably won’t ever get a round tuit. :)
My coriander has all gone to seed but the leaves were wonderful. I’m going to attempt to reseed into the ground after I get hold of some soil improver. The sandy soil is annoying. Im also going to try growing some mint and plant a new crop of basil. The last time I planted basil, we had a jungle of it in the backyard. I think mint will do equally well. My intention is to have heaps of mint so that I can make fattoush more regularly. I might even try for some Italian parsley.
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Adventures with laundry
Over two weeks ago, our washing machine started sounding a bit off and not quite itself. It was loud and grumbly, I guess you could say. I called our warranty center to see about getting it repaired. We eventually had a return call to say they would be coming out on the 20th. We waited patiently for ten more days for the repairer to come out. During that time we did some washing at my MIL’s house once and since then I was washing by hand. I was holding out for Tuesday when I could finally wash all the towels and dishclothes, etc. The repairer showed up quite promptly, looked at the machine for less than five minute and he was gone. The drum has been seared away from the machine and we aren’t to use it any more…Sure, we would to use it now! They have to get authorisation from the warranty center to do the repair and then come back out to take the machine away. A further down side is that the warranty center takes its time providing the authorisation and it’s likely to be a week or so before they can pick up the machine. This is considerably longer than other warranty provider, according to the repairer. Once it is taken away, we have no idea how long it will be before it is returned. I’m guessing we will have been without a machine for over a month by then. Not particularly nice in hot, summer weather.
It was inevitable that I would need to venture off to the laundromat and I could put it off no longer. Our closest laundromat is over 10-15 minutes away in a busy shopping centre. Parking reasonably close to the laundromat is almost impossible during normal business hours. I decided to go to another laundromat in a smaller shopping centre. Travel time is longer but it was much more accessible. The cost of a load of washing has increased since my last venture into the commercial laundry centre to $3 a load and, of course, I didn’t have the appropriate coins accepted by the machines. Once I exchanged cash for coins at another shop I headed inside. Nobody was there and it was reasonably clean so that was a plus. I managed to get away with two loads of clothes this time. I added the detergent to the first machine and it started running once the last coin had been accepted. I did the same for the second machine and went out to the car to hang out until they finished. Just before the expected finish time I returned and noted immediately that the second machine wasn’t running and had never started. It seems to have spat out the last coin, without my notice and was still waiting for the last dollar. That added an extra half hour to the laundry run that I could have done without.
When all was done, I started the drive home to hear that there had been a bushfire in our suburb. Roads were blocked off in one area and caution was advised in another due to smoke. The odd part is that the problem areas aren’t really anywhere near each other and nothing was mentioned about those living in-between. I had nothing to worry about because I saw no smoke at any point during the drive home. I did see one fire vehicle attending from another area and at home there had been fire helicopters passing over the area for a few hours. I think they must have contained the fire pretty quickly and are now looking for the culprits that started it. The irony is that we often have smoke problems from fires quite far away and tonight the air is still clear from what I can tell. I guess the winds blew it away from us.
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Bits and pieces
Just some bits and pieces :
- New Year’s Eve was relatively quiet at our house. We were invited to a party this year but didnt go. The boys wouldn’t have coped, which would have made it rather difficult for the Scientist or I to enjoy ourselves. Earlier in the evening we took the telescope out and looked at the moon and Venus. It made for some interesting viewing and Lego Lover had a ball with it. Later we spent a lot of time playing video games. Just before midnight we switched to the television to see the fireworks in Sydney and we drank sparkling grape juice at midnight.
- Last Tuesday we were startled in the middle of the day by a loud noise that sounded to me a bit like the car hitting the fence across the street a few years ago. About thirty seconds later we heard a car screeching away. I had a quick look out our side door and noted nothing out of the ordinary but later on I discovered what had happened. We have a roundabout (traffic circle)Â near us and a car must have been going around it too quickly. Presumably the driver lost control and went right through the fence of our back neighbours and hit their clothes hoist, which went through the back fence through to our yard. It’s a small hole, in one of the panels that was replaced after a storm damage last year. We don’t know whether it can be repaired or will have to be replaced as yet. This damage is quite unlucky for our neighbours who now have a rather huge area of fence that is broken. But they were lucky that the vehicle hit the fence where it did because the fence runs just along the side of the house and it easily could have been the building that was hit.
- The Scientist and I are again thinking about taking a cruise, either at the end of this year or early next year. There’s one on offer right now for a reasonable price that goes from either Fremantle to Adelaide or vice versa. The only hitch is we’d have to fly one way and Lego Lover is terrified of that possibility. We do have the alternative of taking the Indian Pacific one way but I’m not sure if it will be as cost-effective as flying.
- Lego Lover got a new mattress at the beginning of the month. He’s been using the same one for many years now and it’s not terribly supportive for a bigger kids so we got a new one that hopefully will last well into his teen years.
- We have several upcoming appointments in the near future with two this week, one for each of the boys. Otherwise our schedule is pretty empty. I’m hoping to get together with my friend K and her kids some time soon but these days we find it harder to coordinate our schedules than we did when the kids were younger.
- I’ve seen some really interesting programs on television lately, mostly screening on ABC1 or ABC2, as I recall. It’s nice to have such wonderful programming in the midst of our generally listless summer programming on the commercial channels. New Year’s night was especially memorable with:Â The Story of 1, presented by Terry Jones and tracing the history of numbers; Destiny in Alice, about the large lesbian community in Alice Springs and presented by mock anthropologist, “Destiny Attenborough”; and Happy News Year which presented a less conventional look at news events of 2008, presented by The Chasers’ Chris Taylor. All were entertaining, yet informative programs.
- Our washing machine requires a repair. We have an LG front loader and it started making thunderous noise while spinning the other day along with shreds of rubber showing up in the finished laundry. Repairers won’t be here until the 20th. We used my MIL’s machine on Saturday while there for a family lunch but she lives too far to make it time, cost or fuel efficient to use that machine. I suppose a laundromat visit will feature into this week along with some handwashing.
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A Lego Lover's Tenth Birthday
The birthday boy had what he called an awesome birthday. He didn’t wake up first like he intended but he had a really great day. I had to go out to buy balloons and a couple other bits and pieces early on so that I wasn’t at home when he woke up. I’d already wished him a happy birthday when he was still struggling to sleep in the wee hours of the morning so he was mostly anxious of my return so that he could open his gifts. His big gift from us was a Lego City Harbor set, one of the most coveted on his list. He also got copies of both season one and four of Spongebob Squarepants from my parents. While Lego Lover started building, I baked his cake. Since I have the strongest lungs, I then had the privilege of blowing up the twenty-five balloons. Game Fanatic, who is balloon-phobic stayed mostly out of the way during this process. Lego Lover had intentions of keeping them all in one area of the house but they ended up drifting around after awhile.
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Thanksgiving
Another Thanksgiving Day has gone by and it’s been just like any other day. Of course, we don’t celebrate it here in Australia so it really is an ordinary day. We did buy a turkey this year but it still hasn’t thawed after several days so our big dinner has been postponed to the weekend. I’m not risking food poisoning to make it thaw faster. We don’t usually do a big dinner at home but decided to do something this year. Most years this day is marked by going out to eat. But it’s never a traditional meal.
While checking on some recipes I stumbled upon the American Women’s Club online and was aghast at the exorbitant charges for their dinner. The only event we’ve ever attended by them was an Independence Day do and it was pretty awful. Terrible food, high entry fee, poor entertainment and, most importantly, an unfriendly attitude towards outsiders put us off ever attending again. That was many years ago and was my first and only purposeful attempt to connect with Americans in the area.
That’s not to say I’ve not met other Americans going about my daily life. I have been friends with one for a few years. I met one this year in a professional capacity and another quite recently via an online group although we’ve haven’t made contact in person just yet. I’ve not met any of these people because they are Americans, though, and only discovered our similar backgrounds after becoming acquainted. Then there are numerous others I’ve encountered quite briefly going about my business, oftentimes not even realising I’ve met one until well after the fact. I just don’t happen to notice the American or even Canadian accent all that well, I guess, because it sounds normal to me.
Maybe one year, we will share Thanksgiving with some of my American friends. Meanwhile, the family and I have to finalise our menu for the weekend. I’m going to do a homemade pumpkin pie and we’ll have mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce and some sort of vegetables. We will also have cornbread as a special request of Game Fanatic. I’m looking forward to sharing this special meal with my family. Bring on the weekend!
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Warranty repairs
We purchased an electronic item earlier this year and it started overheating about five or six weeks ago. So we called up the company’s warranty service and were referred to a repair shop that’s in our area. It’s about forty minutes away by car, so not exactly local, but better than posting it off somewhere. We dropped it off and were told it should only be a couple days. A week passed and we heard nothing so the Scientist phoned. They were waiting on a part from the manufacturer. Another week or so passed and he called again. That part didn’t work and another part had been ordered. Waiting, waiting, and more waiting. The Scientist phoned again after having no communication. The second part didn’t fix the problem either so they were waiting on something else.
More time passed and nothing so the Scientist was growling this morning about taking further action if we heard nothing. This afternoon, we got a call, finally, saying that the item was fixed. Hallelujiah!
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Voting
I voted but I’m not so optimistic my ballot will be counted. I had a horrible time finding parking in the city so my brain was a bit jumbled…I also stupidly waited until I was parked to fill out the ballot. So I did the actual ballot just fine and put it into the envelope and sealed it…then signed it…before I realized I had put the ballot into the wrong envelope. There was another envelope that I was supposed to put the ballot in. That envelope was supposed to go into the one to mail it back…sigh…
Anyway, I got to the consulate and found they have added something new to the hoops to get to the thirteenth floor. For the first many years here, I just took the elevator to the floor and went through the security scanner before going into the office. Four years ago, I found out I needed my passport to get in and I also had to go through security on the fourth floor and leave all my belongings in a locker before being put on the elevator for the thirteenth floor. This time, I still had to go through the fourth floor but also had to take off my shoes and put them through the x-ray machine. I also managed to set off the alarm, apparently by accidentally touching the side…don’t remember that. Once I got the to thirteenth floor, I had to go through yet another metal detector and that security guard unlocked the door for me to go through.
I got to the counter for American Citizen Services and rang the bell as nobody was there. The consular officer opened the outside envelope and put everything where it was supposed to go. Then he applied the consular seal and consular tape…Hopefully that will be okay but I am not overly optimistic…Of course, I will never know, will I?
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Two sizes!
It became apparent quite recently that none of Lego Lover’s warm weather clothes fit him any long so we went off to find some new clothes for him this morning. A few months ago, he had size eight shorts falling off him because of his small waist. Today, we found that he can’t wear size ten at all and even some size twelves were too tight for him. The child has filled out quite a bit lately. I suspect this may be related to his medication since that’s a very common side effect. I just hope that he’s going to stay at the current size, which is still within the normal range. I can’t believe he skipped a size in such a short time.