Author: awmalloyadmin

Mum just won the 4 ball summer tournament. I’m not quite sure what this means but I know it’s a wonderful achievement when it comes to her golf.

Well done mum, I’m proud of you.

During a particularly listless Law & Order last night I counted the number of buttons I have to select from on my remote controls.

Between the cable, vcr/tv and DVD player I have 142 buttons and one jog dial at my disposal.

Okay, so my honey is doing the lovely thing and ironing my shirts for the week while I fold the washing.

The topic of birthday presents raises itself :

If you haven’t bought me anything already you can get me some photo albums. On second thoughts I’ll get them so I’ll get ones that I like.

I bit the bullet. I’ve purchased some new boxers (well, Rae got them for me) and new socks.

I would go for the new shoes but this week is a double whammy – Rae’s birthday and then three days later Valentines Day. I’m not impressed with her parents timing here and next time I see Zita there will be words.

On the positive side of the ledger I did get the contract for the Mercure Melbourne web site. This was once the Sheraton Hotel and it was here we would stop for lunch on the way to our holidays in Edithvale. One time we stayed there a night and went to the football the next day – complete with a box of chicken sandwiches from the kitchen. Man those sandwiches must’ve been good if I can remember them over twenty years later. I think the game was Richmond v Carlton.

I typed the 10 commandments into Google just now (you’ll see why some time later). It’s quite funny – the first link that takes you to the actual biblical ten commandments comes in at number 7.

The Canucks let a 4-1 lead over the Bluejackets slip away in the final period. It’s a game we should’ve won – even extended the lead.

I think it’s best summed up by this paragraph on the Canucks site today :

The only thing uglier than the last 22 minutes of tonight’s game at Nationwide Arena, might be Bea Arthur in a tight mustard body stocking. And even then, it’s still just a maybe.

There are two things I don’t cope well with – confrontation and embarrassment. Confrontation makes me blush, become wildly inarticulate and I spend hours running back over it in my head. Embarrassment just makes me blush – I’ll turn bright red at the drop of a hat for the slightest of imagined misdoings.

Today though two things happened. I met the ex-flatmate-form-hell (Hi Veronica, no – of course it’s not you – you’re the ex-flatmate-from-heaven) in the street, had a chat and walked off, didn’t think any more of it until later. Later was when I tripped down the stairs in front of a nurse ’cause I was reading an email I’d printed. She asked if I was okay, I told her I was an idiot and kept on moving. No blushing.

How bizarre. What’s happening to me? Surely I can’t be ‘maturing’. Oh dear god, it’s Hush Puppies and pastel track suits for me now.

We drove home from Wagga Wagga yesterday, a five hour trip that took us around the edge of the bushfires that have covered a good deal of central Victoria.

The photo at left was taken in Oxley at 3.00 pm, the middle of a stinking hot summer afternoon. We’d stopped for lunch at The King River Caf? (menu is out of date) and to stretch our legs. The Caf? is great, good food, wickedly rich espresso brulee (although the sugar was not quite caramelised) and an exception to my rule about not finding good coffee outside of Melbourne.

The smoke was this thick for most of the drive from the Victoria/NSW border until over the great divide. At one stage visibility was down to 200 metres and the reflection of the sun in oncoming windows looked like a burning orange spotlight. Everything was shaded orange – as if the world had been covered in cheap no-sun tanning lotion.

The smoke followed us home – this morning as I drove in the city was covered in smoke haze. Apparently it is covering most of the state now and heading out in to Bass Strait. And the fires still burn.

Always check the playground for dead kittens before you let your 6 year old play on it.
It’s never too early for a child to develop an irrational fear about missing a train.
Bring a discman – 6 year olds can ask a lot of questions on a four hour train trip.
Don’t drink the coffee on the XPT.
The further away from civilisation you get, the hotter it gets. Hell, therefore, must be just below Alice Springs. Or it could be Alice Springs.
You can make a country town look big by stretching the main street to run forever.
6 year olds don’t like to sit in caf?s and read the paper.
No one is yet to make an avocado paste that tastes anything like an avocado.
Montezuma’s Mexican Restaurants are no closer to achieving the paste/taste solution than anyone else.
As long expected you can’t get good coffee outside of Melbourne.
NSW roads are terrible.
It’s not good for me to be away from a computer for so long. I get anxious (and a lot of spam).
Walla Walla is the Rome of Australia. For 100 k’s we saw signs pointing to Walla Walla – it seems all roads lead there. One day I will hopefully see both.
Nothing is better than the smile of someone you love.
No bed beats your own bed.

I always seem to be away when space shuttles explode.

When Challenger disintegrated on launch we were in Melbourne. I was 16 and we were on our annual holiday ‘down the beach’. Back in those days there was no internet in homes, no cable tv – we didn’t even have a functional television in our rented sea side flat. I had to pick up the news from the radio, or I read about it in the Herald that evening as we caught the train back to Edithvale after seeing Oklahoma at the Arts Centre. I probably lay awake that night listening to talk-back on the radio I had stuffed under my pillow.

16 years later I was in Wagga Wagga and the situation was eerily similar. Away from home, no cable television, no internet – at least this time there was a tiny tv and Phee was complaining that there was nothing to watch on it. Rae got up to check what was going on and said “the space shuttle has exploded”. I was so sleepy I thought she must’ve been watching a commemoration of the Challenger. “But it says ‘live report'”. So for the second time in my life I got out of a strange bed and listened to sad families, distraught friends and uncomprehending bystanders talk about debris falling from a clear sky, smoke trails and tragic loss of life.

I wonder what will happen in the last week of January when I’m 48?