six impossible things

OK, so we’ve established that the audience here is 80% more likely than the general population to be unlacing themselves as they head to the toilet. MY PEOPLE. I am, you are, we are Australian. Or perhaps not, but I am at least using their toilets.

You’ll be pleased to know that I charged my camera battery. The charger was in the metal bin which all the chargers are kept in, the same bin I had looked in four times, the same bin that Mr. T looked in ONCE and in which he found the charger almost immediately. I am finding it hard to live that one down. I mean, I grabbed it off him and told him to shut it and whipped him with the power cord; but it didn’t make me feel any better because I AM THE FINDER and HE IS THE BAD LOOKER WHO CAN’T FIND and the natural order of things has been reversed. I’m sure it will all go back to normal next time he wants, like, the sellotape (in the hall cupboard) or his passport (in the safe) or a piece of licorice (down the side of the couch). I just have to bide my time.

OK where was I? Photos! The weather has been nice here lately (although not this week; daylight savings has finished and it’s been raining. OH HAI AUTUMN.)

OK, this is the most common form of jellyfish on my beach. It’s like a transparent cylinder, and often curls into a comma-type shape, although it’s often stick straight as well. It’s about the same size and shape as one of those joke water-balloon things that slip through your hands in an endless loop (what are those things called?) I have only ever seen these washed up on the sand, not in the water.

This is the second most common jellyfish. Or, I guess, the rarest, since I’ve only ever seen two types of jellyfish here. Much bigger and much prettier. I always regret not bringing a stick with me so I can poke these ones back into the water. Their heads (bodies? ectoplasm?) reminds me of a hot cross bun, with the pale cross inside. BRAINS! JELLYFISH BRAINS!

I work in a really small office, and most of the others are guys. This means I mostly have the women’s bathroom to myself. It’s a nice bathroom too, with marble walls and floors and those fancy sinks that sit above the bench. Anyway, I realised today I might be a LITTLE too comfy with my private bathroom. Inasmuch as I’m pretty much treating it as I do my bathroom at home. Today I didn’t even bother shutting the cubicle door. Likelihood of someone walking in? Close to zero. Although we have a new receptionist starting this week, and she’s a girl, so I may have to stop unbuttoning my pants as I walk towards the facilities. Spoilsport.

Luckily for you there are no photos of the bathroom, but only because I can’t find my camera battery charger. Annoying. I couldn’t even take a photo of the cling-film wrapped cars outside my work on April Fools’ Day. And in fact they were still there today, leading me to believe that under the cling-wrap may be a copious collection of parking tickets. The parking inspectors are like raptors where I work – constantly circling then swooping in to pounce on anyone who has been there for exactly 7 seconds past the allotted hour. The pickings are rich, too; office buildings plus shopping strip plus residential houses with no off-street parking equals DELICIOUS PARKING CARRION. I feel like I should work roadkill in here somewhere too, but I can’t think how. It will come to me.

Oh hai! How was your weekend? Mine was good. I discovered this place where they will let you take books out and you can read them. For free. Yes, I am quite disturbed to say I have never joined my local library the entire time I’ve been in Australia. I know, poor form. So I wandered down to join my suburban book depository, and there I found the Tiniest Library Ever. Seriously, it was like someone’s back room with some books in it. And way more DVDs and magazines than books, even. Oh, and children’s books, but I’ve no problems with that. Why so few books? And, once I started browsing, why ALL THE SAME books over and over again? How many copies of Diana Gabaldon do you need? (and I hasten to add, I love a red-heided Scotsman as much as the next girl, but a whole shelf? Really? When there’s only like 200 shelves in total?) Although I have to say that when I last went to the library, they didn’t email you to tell you when your books were due. I heartily endorse this use of technology, especially the part which tells you the names of the books you’ve taken out. For those of us who might, um, forget.

Speaking of books, I got my hair cut on Friday and I remembered to take a book so that I didn’t have to read painfully stylish fashion magazines (say what you will, there’s not a lot of actual reading to be had out of Vogue). I took “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, which I just bought in its reincarnation as an orange Penguin, for just this sort of occasion. However, apparently bringing a BOOK, with WORDS, was the most fascinating thing to have happened in that place for weeks. Other customers were staring at me with outright fascination. Every stylist that touched my head just HAD to ask me about it. Sadly, very few knew the book; a select few knew the movie, but most just looked interested. Or pretended to, at any rate. Then again, the average age of the stylists would have been 22, and I don’t know how much “history” these young people learn. Whereas I, 10 miles, in the snow, both ways, don’t know the meaning of hard work, etc. I don’t know if I’ve written this here, but a previous time I went here for a cut I asked for about 2 inches off the bottom. The young stylist looked at me wraptly, like I was speaking a foreign language. “Well, how much do you think I should cut off?” I asked worriedly. She brightened, and said, “Um, about five centimetres?” Bless.

It’s hot. It’s been really hot. And it’s going to get hot again. Oh hai! Welcome to summer in Melbourne! And/or Adelaide, which has also had it’s own 1-in-100-year heatwave. Or so they say. I think they’re just jealous. Anyway, I think I have mentioned on here before that I don’t do well over 30 degrees, and I shut down over 35. Imagine the joyous bundle of fun I was when the temperature went over 40 for a week, and the copious amounts of patience I displayed on the 44 degree days. Yes, days. Plural. (44C = 111F, FEEL MY PAIN IN BOTH HEMISPHERES.) (That’s what SHE said.) There’s another 44 degree day coming on Saturday, apparently. Suck. I mean, oh yay! Hey, you know when you open a fan-forced oven, and a massive gust of hot air hits you in the face and body and engulfs you relentlessly in a steady stream of dry heat? That is what awaits me on Saturday. The wind! The hot wind! The beating of his hideous heart! Wait, where was I? Oh yes, being driven insane by weather. Carry on.

Having said that, it hasn’t been THAT bad – my sister has been visiting, and although she was stuck in Melbourne’s hottest week in 100 years, she did fine. They were over to watch the tennis at the Australian Open, and to buy everything in the state. Status: success! We also did a lot of swimming at the beach (not sitting on the beach, which is for mad dogs and Englishmen). Our method is to walk down, loll in the water for an hour, including the dog, then head straight back to the aircon. That pretty much kept us sane… look how normal and rational we look!