My Year of Meaningful (2011)

And I still haven't finished Episode 4!!

Well, in a short, brief synopsis (and I realize that this is the reason I've been slack on the blog last week - not that it matters to anyone but myself - but that trip recaps always bring me down a little because it's all about reflecting on all the fantastic fun things that are over now)...

we spent the last few days of Aus with our other besties the Family H., which was sublime and relaxing and just the best way to finish off an already fantastic 2 weeks. We did lots of parent-with-kid stuff like go for a walk in Warrandyte (one of my old favourite outer-city suburbs in the hills.... Bella will remember this from when she came to visit and we went on the Harley ride out to the hills to this quaint old pub with Struts and Glenn); hit the tea houses and cozy pubs of the Dandenong mountains; bounced on the trampoline; caught up; ate a bunch (too much) of delicious food both in and out (Chinese once and Malaysian - finally!); drank champagne, and talked our heads off.

I think LJJ had a great time with the 2 H. kids (they're big kids in her eyes) and I can say she was well and truly exhausted by the time we left because she did nothing but sleep for about, oh the next WEEK! Seriously, nearly the whole way back to Africa on the plane, as well as then the next few days once we arrived. We were waking her up continually for at least 5 days after 13, 14 hours of sleep every morning.... so anyone who wants to know what international travel does to a 1 year old.... it wears them the HELL out! I guess that's what baby jetlag looks like.

OK so now we're back to reality and the post-holiday duldrums kinda hit me big time for the whole first week we were back. I really need an injection of positivity. But I also need to pull my own socks up in that department rather than wait for somebody else to give it to me (although some humour therapy would be nice) because I can see I'm going to have to work overtime for everyone else too. All these happy-go-lucky chaps that were bouncing off the ceiling with good vibes and great intentions in January are nowhere to be found. Who's with me, dammit!?

So to start with, here are some things that are AWESOME, and DONT SUCK. (watch how I switch up this gloomy Ireland-like winter weather into solid gold)

1. My tutor says he can live with my latest version of my thesis proposal.
2. I'm not TOO busy at work
3. Cold weather = wooly sweaters, soup, red wine, and fires.
4. I'm annihilating 40 pushups every morning - SOLID.
5. We are *this close* to getting those bloody USA July tickets sorted out, finally
6. I am sleeping like a champion these days
7. Winter = camping season
8. New, reliable tennants in both houses
9. Levon Helm in KC July 5th
10 Tom Petty in KC July 13th

Some follow-up for a few of those things: Like the pushups - I can't believe I've done it, but with the exception of less than 5 days (due only to either air travel or injury) I have literally followed through on this add-10-per-month pushup regime since January 1. And it's worked, and I'm a machine! I get scared at the beginning of each month because for the first couple weeks it always seems like it's just too much to bear, those extra 10, but then around about the 15th, my arms just adapt and I'm off and running to the point where by the last week I can comfortably add an extra 5, just to get ready for the next month. I see the pattern and I know how it's going to feel and it still doesn't take more than a couple minutes every morning, so I can still keep sustaining. I'll admit the crunches are going to have to take a new form because at present I'm on 50x per day, which is just taking way too long to be reliable every single day - so I'm thinking maybe I have to just do 50 every other day, or maybe 30x per day but just a more difficult variety of crunch?

Cold weather + sleeping = awesome. I have to admit I had a HORRIBLE summer in terms of sleeping. I can't even remember when there was 1 night of straight-through, uninterrupted, hard-as-a-rock SLEEP in my life. Actually it could have been pre-LJJ? And nothing to do with her, just what, me getting old? The heat? I dont know but it was ROTTEN. And I'm usually a semi-professional sleeper. All I know now is that since we got back from Aus, the weather has been cold and autumn-y, and I have been tired at 10pm, fallen asleep at 11, and not woken up for even a SECOND until rattled out of the bed by the Mr. in the morning. Bliss! I am pretty much 99.9% sure it's the weather. Oh, and flannel sheets are to die for. Word.

I have also nailed a couple of really amazing soups since this cold snap has hit us - both vegetable, both fully compliant with the road to fitness (now that's one area that for some reason I still need improvement on.... holiday food addiction still riding my ass & being a royal pain in it). It doesnt help that we've had a bunch of social engagements since we got back - this past weekend there was a braai after the hash, plus a lovely dinner out with The Mr., on friday night at a superfreakindelicious Indian restaurant less than 15minutes drive from our house. The weekend before, our cool Belgian neighbours had a braai that lasted like a whole DAY where we stuffed ourselves silly and drank ourselves even sillier (well I at least kept my head on, unlike the Mr. who got Teee-raaaashhhed).... that's what happens when no one has to drive, I suppose!
I just love the Belgians, they are so much fun. Please, God, don't let them bail on us like everyone else in this town!!

The most bizarre thing about the weather is that it started raining on Friday, and has not stopped since. Literally, not even for a minute. This is very unusual for our climate and especially for this time of year. The dry season was supposed to start about a month ago, and we're not supposed to even see another drip for well over 7 months now. Crazy. All floods and mayhem. I'm not criticizing it though because A) I like the sleeping disease, and B) it's something different.

OK well I guess I'm back on track now. I really need to put some elbow grease into doing my research and making some progress on The Thesis. I have a feeling if I could just get out and do some of the interviews I want to do, then that would help me feel like I'm actually on the right path, moving forward, instead of just treading water. So I'll make that one of my immediate goals and see how I go from there.

Labels: holiday recap

Before I really begin Episode 3, I should add a suffix to Episode 2, which was OH YES, The Kid turned 1 while we were in Darwin and as I'm told by a fellow "early april" birthdayer, this means that since it fell on Easter weekend this year, that now every few years she'll get an easter weekend bday, which will be great for her. Lucky kid!

For her birthday we just entertained ourselves and focussed on the adults as I had fully intended to do. Remember, I'm still Mommy-No-Fun until further notice (likely when she is at least old enough to comprehend the word "birthday"). Everyone thinks I'm cruel (nothing new there, says I) but frankly there's no reason to get her a bunch of crap and have to drag it around for the rest of holidays etc etc, particularly when she doesn't even know what's going on. SO, I let T. buy her a cute little tie-dye tank top at the market, and A. insisted we give her vanilla slice for her "special thing" with 1 candle on it, so that's what we had after dinner. And she got a boat ride in the deal too. Which, as I mentioned before, she pretty much slept through.

Also, what I wanted to say about D-town and didnt (BTW if my last recap read like a very annoying stream-of-consciousness Hunter S. Thompson novel or some such, it's because I was giving my dictation app a workout on my iPhone, to avoid having to type everything. It works great, except for punctuation) was that I could seriously consider living there, believe it or not. OK it wouldn't be my first choice, but what it did was rectify a lot of the grievences that I left Aus with when we moved away. What I learned this trip was that most of those bones that I had to pick with the country involved the city and snobby pretentious city folk that I had to deal with while living in Melbourne. Seeing that a society could exist back there which is still operating outside the boundaries of society (so to speak - they call it "Territorial Freedoms" - even though a lot of those are starting to disappear/be taken away by Big Brother) and still be in Aus was really uplifting for my spirits. Also, because of the freakish weather and climate conditions there, people just act different in general. A little bit more Libertarian I guess. I appreciated it.

I dont REALLY think I would try and live there though - because it's so damn far from everything, even for international travel it's a ridiculously far way away... but I just thought about it for awhile while we were there because apparently they're DESPERATE for every technical profession up there because none of the snobs from Melb & Syd will lower themselves to moving up there with all the crocs & weirdos. So T. was begging me to try and think about it because they've got jobs going up there in our field all the time. Funny. Who'da thought I'd ever make peace with the idea of living down under again? Well not that I HAVE or WILL, but my point is that I think I COULD, if it was there.

Anyhoo - on to Melbytown.
So we had to take the redeye (every flight to & from D-town is a redeye) leaving at 2am, landing in M. at 7am. Fay came to pick us up at the airport and it was sooooo good to see her again!! She's her same ol' same ol' generous and sweet and helpful and over-the-top mommy mode which I dearly love because, well let's face it, where else am I gonna get a fix of THAT! We spent the morning drinking coffee at her place, going grocery shopping, and making a plan for the week and playing catch-up. That day was a public holiday so lots of places were closed but we eventually made a plan with Bron and Magda to meet them at a pub along Bridge Rd. (where we used to hang out a lot). When we arrived at said pub, all the typical Melbourne CRAP came back to me.... not that I dont love Melbytown.... I do.... but it is really up itself in a lot of ways. Which have only increased and intensified in the 8 years I've been gone apparently!! We had this horrible cow of a waitress who absolutely scowled down her nose at us because no one wanted to order any of the $40 lunch specials (!!! ITS A PUB!!) and was generally rude and unhelpful, her in her freakin trendy retro buddy holly glasses and meticulously coiffed trendy hairstyle. When we ordered a bowl of fries to go with our horribly overpriced bottle of chardonnay it was all eye-rolls and heaving sighs, and we all just got annoyed and decided to bail after we'd had our drinks. Of course she never came back to our table to ask if we needed anything (like the bill) so we just estimated the price of the bill and left it on the table which drove her BATTY!! Especially when the tip was a big fat $0.00. Cow. This was only just the beginning of the many disappointments related to snobbery and pretentiousness that I experienced during the week.

The most substantial one being that NONE of our dodgey old pubs were alive and kicking anymore. It is a horrible state of affairs, I tell you!!! Everything is all gentrified and white-table-clothed and snobby. OK Melbourne has always been snobby, but not OUR Melbourne! Not Regular-Old-Joe Melbourne! Here was the score by the end of the week, in terms of our old stomping grounds:
1. The White Horse (neighbourhood pub): Torn down, replaced by chic newagey apartments
2. The Beehive (neighbourhood pub): Refurbished into a restaurant with posh polished floorboards, tablecloths, and a chef wearing a big puffy hat and designer chef uniform. With wine store attached.
3. The Skinny Dog (neighbourhood pub): In the midst of a similar upgrade while we were there, so closed to the public but a sneaky peek inside yeilded distressing images of dining rooms and fancy-pants artwork hanging on the crisp, whitewashed walls. Trendy stainless steel lighting fixtures being installed.
4. The 1000 cheap vietnamese restaurants of Vic. Road. Used to be tiny and spartan and communal... now, every other one has opened up into some giant Wagamama-style eatery with huge glass windows and expensive furniture and so on. booo hoooo!
5. McNick's late night souvlaki experience: Gone! Replaced by fancy eco-friendly hippie food bar. ugh.

I could go on and on, don't even get me started on the St. Kilda area in general. I still love it, but a lot of it was just unrecognizable, unaffordable, and unfriendly. And the house prices!! OMG!! no wonder all the normal people live 45 minutes away. And that's not even the bogans!

We ended up that first day getting a bunch of way-more-delicious food than that stupid pretentious hell-hole pub could've offered us, at the grocery store (all my old favourite typical Aussie foodstuffs: turkish bread, tzaziki, olives, cheeses, lebanese cucumbers, chardonnay, etc) and going back to F.'s place to continue our long overdue catch-up with the girls for the duration of the afternoon. It was a nice late summer day so we sat outside and it was just what the Dr. ordered. Then late late that night we all went (with B's new boyfriend who is a lovely artist) down to Vic Rd. and gorged ourselves on vietnamese food & behaved silly & enjoyed every moment. The LJJ was home with Fay's daughter which was again another perk! I believe she slept about 15 hours that night, what with having had the whole redeye flight from Darwin in her system and all. She was feeling a little under the weather by this time too, so even better reason to just let her sleep it off.

Next day we hung out some more, did a lot of driving around the old 'hood, taking photos, doing some memory lane nonsense, and again eating delicious food. That night we again left LJJ with Jamie and went out in St. Kilda with Bron & Paul and Fay to The Doulton, which is like, the LAST STANDING institution from my whole life there which still stood up to my satisfaction of being non-annoying in terms of pretentious snobbiness. Hooray! My faith is restored!! We also ate souvlaki (one for the list that we still had yet to check off since being back in Aus) at Stalactites in the Greek Precinct (which is pretty laughable nowadays because of course there's only like 3 greek restaurants there anymore!!!).

Then the next day we started the day with coffee at our old coffee house (which of course has ALSO been incredibly snobified and sterilized with the obligatory trendy wine bar style overhaul which appears to be the THING now)... this place used to be dark & cozy and creaky and mismatched with a real bohemian feel to it. Where you could go and sip coffee and read the paper and listen to Dylan on the stereo. Now you get hustled by slick waiters for $10 coffees and $32 breakfasts that involve hollandaise sauce and herb-encrusted new potatoes, etc etc. And of course the interior design is trés 1000-threadcount tablecloth style behind ceiling-to-floor windows and stainless fittings. Ahhhh another one bites the dust.

Also during the time we were there (I'm losing track of days now) we went down to Pt. Melb where 9 years ago to the EXACT DATE, we announced our engagement to all these same people, at The London (pub). It was cool to be there on the exact same day, and see the same ship in the bay that then took us off to Tasmania for our engagement trip away. ahhhh memories! At least The London still looked relatively the same. Crazy expensive menu now though. What is a bummer about that place is that it also is the site of B.'s wedding to M.... which just broke up last year so she wasn't exactly over the moon about joining us, which is understandable, so we just went with F. and LJJ. It was April 7....

After 2 nights with F. & Jamie, we were due to move on to Sandra and Aeron & their 2 kids' place in the suburbs. It was amazing the logistics that had to go into shifting us just a few miles down the road, because of The Kid. We are just grateful that one person had a camping cot, and another one had a car seat, and someone else had a chair and blah blah blah. Couldn't have done it without relying on people to borrow from! But everyone was so generous and understanding and we made it all work. So F. dropped us at their place, and that's where I'll start Episode 4.

Right so we got to Darwin and it was really hot and really humid and T. picked us up at the airport and took us back to pimp town and we had a few drinks and went to bed because it was like two in the morning then next day the boys ran around trying to find hot cross buns because apparently that's a thing and don't ask, I'm not Catholic. Sooo we lazed around and drank cappuccino made by A.'s fancy pants cappuccino/espresso maker thingy and slowly came to life and did some walking around in the bay area and then ended up at a great taverna.

So anyway after dining on delicious snacks and enjoying a few wines at the Taverna overlooking the marina, we went back to their place left LJJ with T's dad who was on babysitting duty for our entire stay and took a drive around to see Darwin. See, me & the Mr. know nothing about Darwin and a driving tour was the only thing I really wanted to do other than relax and look at the beach and drink espresso and eat delicious seafood. And A was a great tour guide! so we drove around saw the city which was really nice, really beautiful architecture - it's been bombed in a war and hurricaned & cycloned and everything, so it's really new.

The main thing that's weird about Darwin is that it's basically a glorified country town with lots of rednecks and tattooed biker types, but the realestate is so expensive that even T and A (who are total yuppies and well paid) can't afford to buy anything (up to their liking anyway) and are renting... not that I would complain about the place they're renting like I said it was like being on vacation in the tropics at their location. Anyway we went back to their place and that night we had a barbecue or was that the mudcrab pasta night? I dont remember but two out of the three nights we were there A. cooked us glorious dinners - once a bbq of fresh local fish (jewfish), and once a decadent white pasta made w/ local mudcrab... mmmm.

This third dinner we had was a thai dinner at the Thai restaurant across the street from their place on the marina. It was sentimental actually because that's where they had their wedding reception in October which just happens to be the wedding that we missed because of passport dramas!!! so it was good to at least go there with them and have a meal... it was probably the best Thai food I've ever had all it was so delicious!!!

Aside from eating all this deliciousness I also found my favorite drink in the whole world at their place - that whole weekend we were drinking Frangelico with fresh squeezed lime juice - on ice. Ohhhhhhh definitely the best drink ever!! If Im lyin Im dyin.

The main thing about this leg of our journey was that it made us realize how much we really miss these guys. I know theyre some of our best friends in the whole world but after several years of having not seen them it's easy to forget how cool it is when you all get along so well. And they really dug LJ J and she was really well behaved and had a lot of fun. It was especially great that T.'s dad was in town at the same time and could babysit. So we didn't have to sacrifice any of our gallivanting and fun-having on account of her.

Oh yes and before I forget we also had a really great day out on the water in A's boat. LJJ fell dead asleep upon getting into the boat and never woke up even through the biggest waves on the Sea! It was really funny. guess she's not much in the way of a Seafarer.

okay I'm out of here - episode three to follow but now I'm off to my very last ever ever ever ever animal peeps meeting. Thank God!! oh and I stole my neighbors maid until ours comes back- whew!!

Labels: holiday recap

I don't even know the answer to that so I'm just gonna start by saying I just heard a major "THUD" coming from the living room floor over by the fireplace and that's normally the sound of a big lizard dropping from the ceiling (maybe or maybe not always resulting in death or concussion before being pounced on by a dog) so I went over to investigate and yes it was. So I tried to save him by catching him and throwing him out before the dog-treatment, and he wiggled so much that I accidentally yanked his tail off. Which then proceeded to flop around sans-lizard for at least 5 minutes after I tossed it out the door. The lizard got out too, by the by.

Yeah so we're back from down under and there is SO MUCH TO REPORT but I'm in a bit of a slump because there's no-fun stuff to attend to (miles of emails & work backlog not to mention thesis-related hoo-ha) plus a house with no groceries, no maid (E's husband is back in Zim for health reasons and has taken a turn for the worst so she's left to go to him) and about 2 kg to work off of the waistline. For some reason that always gets me down, even though now I know how to do it successfully - but still, it affects my positive outlook because eating is just so.... HEAVENLY AND AWESOME (you can tell I've been doing a LOT of it these past 2 weeks, and not just because of what my scale tells me - it's all I can think about!! CURSES!!!)

Actually, yes, I could write this whole Episode just about the food we ate. ugh...... frustrating!! And now my stomach is so stretched out from having thrown caution and portion sizes to the wind, I'm just hungry every time I THINK about it!!! I need a good fat injection of positivity because everything just seems so "uphill" from here.

But pushing on...
So we arrived in Sydney after a big fat 14-hr flight or some such, and were promptly reminded of what a backass cow town we live in here! You just stroll out of the airport and are met by an orderly queue for a taxi... complete with orderly barriers and orderly information signs hung in an orderly manner along the well-signposted walkways. Some kinda freaky "taxi-butler" waved us into a "standing bay" or whatever, based on the fact we had an infant with us, and lo and behold a "special needs taxi" materialized out of nowhere within 2 seconds, complete with baby seat and credit card capabilities. Actually, you can pay by credit card in any taxi in Aus - this was just something that I had forgotten from 8 years ago and was reminded of and dually impressed by.

Fast forwarding on....

We got to our hotel in S-city and made contact with the Ubster (who I had missed dearly for the whole last year since she left us) and strolled around the waterfront to show The Mr. what he'd missed having never been there before. Ubs showed up later that night (The Mr. & I didn't sleep for shyte on the airplane so we were all pretty jetlagged and running on 1 hr sleep but threw the baby into the babybed and covered it up with towels and she was out like a light) and we got pizza and just played catch-up in the hotel room til midnight or so. Then U. shoved off and we crashed BIG TIME, and woke up to receive our buddy El Stevo (of S&M fame) the next morning.

Which was fantabulous because he is a local boy so to speak and gave us the grande tour of his stomping ground which included all the good old standards like the opera house and bridge and neat and orderly mechanisms that make this giant city groove like a well-oiled cog.... or however you might wanna put it. Lots of very, very white, very orderly people. Now see, I forget these things!! So we wandered a bit, then picked up our rental car, then stopped at our first shining example of outstandingly amazing food, for good value.... "Thai Restaurant" (not its real name) on the way out of town, where we all ordered from the $9.00 menu (that's AUD $) and were blown away, of course. mmmmmmmmm

Drove up to Newcastle where El Stevo and Madge live, with their darling little pollywog, Mr. B, and terribly adorable pupster, Sir Bucklington, Buckles, Bucky boy, Schmoopyfacebuckleton (the dog's name is Buckley, but I'm a little bit way-too-far-into this whole pseudonym mode here). Spent 3 nights there which was really good because not only did it hit the spot for a much-needed intensive catch-up with them, but they are also in a really easygoing location which meant we didn't have to play overtime-tourist, but at the same time could make it up to the Hunter Valley (famous wine region - not to mention famous for my favorite white and favorite red varieties.... Semillon and Shiraz, respectively) for a day trip without too much drama, so didn't feel the guilt of being TOO lazy!! Went on a couple runs (to combat all the naughty deliciousness that had already been consumed by the 4th day of vacation) and were just blown away by how lovely all these damned neat and orderly bike paths and running trails were. Really something I totally took for granted all my years in good old Aussie. Anyway those few days were really great for settling back in, offloading the jetlag, and just hanging out and feeling out the part of New South Wales that I always kinda ignored while living there.

Then it was a sad goodbye and back down to Sydney to fly up to Darwin. I was skeptical about this flight b/c it wasn't a jumbo jet like we'd had on the way over, so LJJ was gonna be confined to one of our laps for the 4-hr redeye flight (ok not real redeye but 8pm to midnight - sure as hell felt like a redeye). But she was tired enough (her bedtime is 8 anyway) that she fell asleep for nearly the whole thing, on our laps so that was successful. De-planing in Darwin was a blast from the past from the time we flew from Melb-LAX and stopped in Fiji during the middle of the night.... you walk out and BAM! Get slapped in the face by this dramatic wall of heat & humidity (which I don't really mind having grown up in Ozarkian heat and humidity!) so much so that it nearly gags you.... but it was great! I miss that kind of wet air.

T. (of T&A fame.... yes, so far, it's all "S&M" and "T&A".... 'cuz that's how we roll. All sexual-innuendo-like and such.) picked us up and we went back to their pad.... WHICH IS SO PIMP!!

hang on..... can someone just tell me WTF am I supposed to do without a maid for the next "undetermined" expanse of time??? I am sitting here and I see laundry hanging out on the line, that she hung out before leaving today.... am I supposed to DO something with that?!?!? Bloody hell!!

anyhoo.... yes, T&A live in pimpville - this swanky 2-storey apartment/condo thingy overlooking the beach with palm trees swaying outside their GROUND FLOOR veranda, which sits underneath their UPSTAIRS master bedroom veranda... It's 3 bedrooms which is good b/c T's dad just happened to be there the same weekend (it was Easter) but that was fine because that meant babysitting was on the menu. Mmmmm..... mennnuuuu.....

ugh. So YES Darwin was hot, and YES it rains all the time, but hell if you live like that - oh wait, I didn't even explain that the boardwalk, which is chock full of restaurants and greek tavernas and fish restaurants and shops and anything you could ever want, is just RIGHT across the street from them. We just hopped on down there in the morning (after A. made us dreamy espresso coffees in his swank-ass espresso gadget) and picked up stuff like fish, oysters, pastries, you name it - you can walk to it in Darwin (well, their part of town anyway).

OMG I'm so tired of typing I just can't do it anymore..... will attempt Episode 1: Continued, tomorrow. I gotta figure out what to do about that laundry....

Labels: holiday recap