Turbo

Some days are just a bit too Alice in Wonderland for my liking...

Husband took himself off to get a paper yesterday morning and lo and behold! There be a little brown rabbit nibbling the grass next to the road. So says Husband, let's catch the furry midget! Famous freaking last words.

I managed to trap Rabbit in the front of our yard, happily surrounded by an (off)white picket fence, and Husband doggedly continued to entice Rabbit into a box, with some carrot on a string. One hour and dozens of near misses later, Rabbit was still eluding us. Toying with us. All the while I'm looking for the bastard who put the funny white stuff into our coffee.

Wascally Wabbit!

I headed off to door-knock our neighbours (note: unhinged Rabbit = good excuse to meet neighbours) and finally located the owners. But by the time I got back, Rabbit had escaped Husband's clutches and had squeezed under one of the fences, disappearing into thin air.

Turbo. Turns out the owners have a little hutch for Turbo but feel sorry for it, so let him out to graze the backyard. Also turns out Turbo has escaped many a time since Christmas, so maybe owners are none too bright.

Finally we found him under a car parked on the road, perilously close to oncoming traffic. 6 of us staked out the car, coaxing him back into our front yard. Bait took. My Father comes out to see what all the fuss is about, and manages to catch him.

Typical. Father surfaces in the last 5 minutes and saves the day.

**********
...we return to our regular reading...

Mother & Father are visiting from Qld for a week, so we took them down to Mornington Peninsula yesterday.

Had fish & chips on Balnarring beach on the coast-side of the peninsula and took them to 3 wineries for some tasting - Stonier, Montalto and Red Hill Estate. Marvelous just how tipsy you can get on (semi) free-tastings. We picked up a few bottles - a Riesling, a Pinot Noir, a Pinot Grigio and the perennial fave - a botrytis riesling. All drink-nows and v. reasonable.

It's obscene that we've never trawled the wineries on the peninsula - we usually just go up to the Yarra Valley which is closer, but the views are nothing compared to the vistas of the ocean, rolling olive groves and vines that you get at Mornington. And the wines are just as good, if not as well known. We were v. impressed. Will return...

Photo Friday "Youth"

Youth
Click for large(r)

Fitzroy Morning

While in Tokyo, we met this Japanese guy on the street (a stranger) who showed us to the nearest doctor (don't start me on how impossible such a simple task could be in Japan) and sat with us to translate. We didn't expect him to stay, he just considered it his community duty and he happened to be a nice guy. To everything we said, in Japanese or English, he'd whip out an "Oh, my gaaaaaaaaaad" in this weird exaggerated American accent.

Yesterday, as I was cruising Brunswick Street with my camera, I walked down towards Gertrude Street (the dodgy end, opposite the commission housing) and happened across "Korea KimChi", a Korean grocer/supermarket. My first thought was "KIM CHIIIIIIII!!!!!!" As I walked in, my response was "Oh my gaaaaaaaaaad". Not only was there normal kim chi, but every kind of kim chi imaginable and about 40% of the store was full of Japanese goods. They even had that Morinaga hotcakes mix we used to get from Tanekin.

Jeeezuz - I picked up some Japanese soy, tonkatsu sauce, chilli oil, japanese curry mix and god help me, japanese gyoza, all stuff I'd been madly craving. They had korean gyoza too which I'm gonna go back and buy today. Talk about a trip down natsukashii lane.

The gyoza and rice last night wreaked havoc on my constitution (having been on a "detox diet" this past week (pah!)), but not as much as contemplating the image of this fellow...

Photo Friday "Crowded"

Shinjuku Station Chaos
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Would you trust this girl to do you a good deed?

Photo Friday "Signs"

some mornings I just feel like fart-arsing around on photoshop (and doing a reasonably crap job of it...).

St. Kilda Stroll

Sexy Singles vs. Smug Marrieds

Never underestimate the power of a good girls night out.

My message to the Sexy Singles out there - if you go for a girls night out, for the love of god, invite your Smug Married chick friends. They may actually enjoy time away from their husbands (noooooooooo!!!).

I love being married, but every chick needs time away from the love of her life to stay sane.

So when my old (by tenure, not age) friend from Bris Vegas, Jacqui, was down in Melbourne last week, we caught up for drinks at Polly in Fitzroy.

One thing about Jacqui, she has this amazing ability to make me yearn for the natsukashii. We've had our ups and downs, and haven't really been in contact in the last 4 or so years. No falling out, just a bit of out of sight, out of mind and a healthy dose of being sucked into the vortex that is Japan.

Her memory is amazing. I thought mine was good, but by god, she remembered that 10 years ago, 3 guys I met in quick succession in Canada were born on the same day - August 8. That is serious. And it is an unfortunate coincidence that for a long time there, all my boyfriends/flings I met through her, so she has some awesome material for a rampant reminiscing session. Which is my guiltiest of pleasures.

Most of our friends are swimming in the heady pool of happy coupledom and it seems like all my single girlie friends have simply dropped off the face of the earth. So 4 hours over cocktails with Jacqui and her friend Tracey, was salve for the soul. Time for conversations that husband/boyfriends should not be privy to or would have no interest in.

It's a pity that sometimes there's a mentality of if you're in a couple, you hang out in the Couples Only club and if you're single you have a posse of single girls or guys that get together. I've been guilty of running through a mental list of couples when arranging a dinner party and forgetting about my single friends (which, unfortunately, are now few and far between) or learning that my single friends are not all that interested in hanging out with a bunch of couples.

It reminds me of that Joe Jackson song:

"Happy loving couples make it look so easy
Happy loving couples always talk so kind
Until the time that I can do my dancing with a partner
Those happy couples ain't no friends of mine..."

Worship at the big Gay Confessional

Before last Saturday night, I'd never been to a Coming Out Party.

I didn't know what to expect. Harder-san, our gorgeous friend, fresh from the closet, has never had the fashion-sense of a Queer-Eye fashionista. In fact, I didn't believe Husband when he told me The Secret. All I could think was, "But his fashion sense is so bad...." Perhaps he had a pair of leather pants with him in the closet. I started to get all a bit excited about what flamboyant treasures Harder-san could have had in store for us. After all we hadn't seen him for 3 years, since he nearly died on our tatami mat in Tokyo.

No. We. just. got. Harder-san. Big Bad Gay Harder-san. And we couldn't have been happier. Sinking some beers at the Terminus (local Richmond haunt), telling some (bad) jokes. Being the usual sardonic Harder-san we know and love. It was a fantastically brave thing for the Big Boy to do, and confessions such as this always go down better after a 6 pack of Pale Ale.

After nearly 30 years in the closet, he emerged a more peaceful, happier soul, albeit with bad hair. Sorry, Harder-san, it's true. You have bad hair. No-one would believe you were gay with that hair. Do you even want a boyfriend? Seriously. The hair has to go (although I rather did like your shirt).

My Gaydar has reception problems. I never have any idea if someone is gay, not that I care or that it's any of my business. Although looking at this photo, I doubt anyone would be able to pick the gay one...

After the stunning confession that he owned not one, not two, but zero Kylie Minogue CDs, he revealed a dark secret. That he knew all 4, that's right, all 4 of Martika's hits during the 80's.

Are you sure you're not in it for the jokes?

Konnichi-wa! Kitty desu!

My vote for best Japanese blog of 2004 - Kittie-san no burogu!

Photo Friday "Best of 2004"

I chose this photo, not because it's the greatest one I took last year (oh... and there were many..) but because I love what the subjects are expressing - genuine camaraderie, which overwhelmed my 2004. I felt that a lot in China, where this photo was taken.

And to kickstart my NYR - "Thou Shalt Look at the Positive, even in the valley of the shadow of Blatant Negativity, Thou Shalt Look at the Positive and will. not. fear", let me bestow upon you a righteous Top 10 (except there are 11) BRILL experiences I had in 2004:

11. Our mini-break in Miyajima. Sugoi special place. Ne?

10. Winning $150 at Derby Day. Fiscal windfalls are pretty good, actually.

9. Our Victorian camping trips - to the Upper Yarra and Cathedral Ranges. 'Cos you can't get camping like Aussies get camping.

8. Hanami Party in Inokashira Park, Tokyo. We miss youse guys (you know who the damn hell you are)!

7. Meeting all the newborns: Tessa, Will, Georgia, Blake and soon to be-released-Baby-Davies. All great vintages. Will mature in cool and dry place.

6. Passing my Yon-kyu exam. I was proud. I was cocky. And everything I learnt went straight out the window.

5. Our NiJiKai in Melbourne. All 400 profiteroles of it.

4. Exploring Beijing. Nikon 5700 felt. the. love.

3. Reunions with family and friends in Palm Cove and Melbourne.

2. Traipsing the Great Wall here and here. Just because I've always wanted to do it.

1. The Marriage. Because being Mrs. McG is fucking A1.

And in keeping with NYR, shalt not burden you with a Bottom 10 Miserable Epithets. Happy now?

Another Getaway episode...

Tassie is fab. I can't believe I've never been there, considering we live a mere pissing-distance away from it.

The vacation started on v. auspicious and rock 'n' roll note, sharing our flight with John Butler (of J.B Trio) and Billy Bragg on their way to the Falls Festival in Hobart. Husband, bless him, who is major J.B fan was heard to remark that it "felt like we were on the road with the band"...

New Years Eve...

...was spent with our dear friends Tom and Diane. Stupid Kinki forgot, of course, that it was NYE and every restaurant in the greater Hobart area had been booked out for weeks, but we managed to get into our hotel's restaurant which was just dandy. I need to take Husband's advice that everything will turn out OK. Which it did.

We took a stroll down to the docks and after a ride on the carousel (which Tom and McG demurred at, fearing, I fear, that it was not the manly thing to be seen doing), reserved pole possie on the docks and waited for the stroke of midnight and the fireworks bonanza.

00.01 is always a bit of a let-down. There's such a build-up before midnight and then everything kind of... stops. People who should have fallen into gutters hours ago finally get their pass, there's a mass retreat into homes or pubs or cars and the streets are melancholy.

McG asked me if I had any resolutions. I have three. Will I keep them? Probably not, but here goes...

1. Stop biting my fingernails and surrounding areas. It really is disgusting.
2. Be more positive and less cynical. This one will be difficult and may require the assistance of mental-health professional. Thanks Australian Unity. Will put it on the tab.
3. Be kinder to husband. This will be easier and the rewards more instantaneous. I didn't buy massage oil for nothing, you know...

It looks likes a stringed instrument. It sounds like a stringed instrument. But what the hell is it?

Andrew and Kathleen's Wedding

Talking about being organised (well... I was a while ago), Kathleen, the better half of the soon to-be-marrieds had the entire reception place set-up the day before the wedding. Is this normal? It may be normal, but it made me laugh. Appears I'm not the only anal-retentive organiser amongst my friends.

The wedding was just beautiful. They must have wondered, though, how they'd managed to piss off Mother Nature so thoroughly, given that the weather had been picture-perfect before the wedding but chose, on cue, to piss down just as it began.

Everyone who tells you "...but it's lucky if it rains on your wedding day" is a big fat justifying liar. It sucks. You want it to be perfect and if it's not, it really really sucks. Luckily, they managed to change the venue at the last minute from the Japanese garden to the Conservatory at the Botanical Gardens.

Do grooms always look like they're about to shit themselves? Poor Andrew held it together very nicely, but he looked soooooo nervous. Although, Kathleen looked like such a knock-out, it was probably more of a stunned "I can't believe my frikkin' luck here" rather than an "Omigod please don't throw-up all over those hydrangeas"...

The Reception was also beautiful, particularly Andrew's speech which had the whole room in tears. Of both sadness and laughter. McG and I felt a bit embarassed that our speeches at our own wedding were such drunken ad-libbed shite. We really needed to do more research on that one.

The wine flowed, the music was boogie-able and the setting - in one of the reception rooms at Elizabeth Street Pier was second-to-none. OK, second maybe to our own, but hell, I'm biased.

That's what I'm talkin' aBOUT

The Aftermath...

Didn't pull up too badly the next day, but Husband and I had been spending way too much time together - 24/7 for nearly two weeks, so we were chotto narky at each other all the way out to Port Arthur (Kinki and McG, of course, forgot that it was New Years and all the rental cars had been booked solid until the 6th Jan, so we were lucky to get one for two days. Mental note.)

Port Arthur was more interesting than I thought it would be. I guess the 1996 massacre has somewhat overshadowed it's original drawcard of being one of the early convict penitentiaries. Historically, it's pretty awesome, and given that Australia is a pretty "new" country in terms of European settlement (only 220 years or so), it's among the best we've got.

We were really ready to come home, but I'm so not ready to go back to work tomorrow. I'm actually dreading it a bit. But in alignment with my NYRs, I'm going to look on the bright side of going back to work. Which is that the weekend is only two days away...

Life is just all one big merry-go-round innit?

Andrew and Kathleen's nuptial's gallery
Hobart and surrounds gallery