Anthony Malloy

Our phone bill arrived in the mail today. One of these days I’m going to do a degree in Phonebillology so I can make sense of it. They did make one error though – it was very easy to see how much our long distance calls cost. That was a very big mistake to make because I have started experimenting with VOIP using Skype. (Mum, this means making phone calls using the computer over the internet instead of a phone over phone lines.) As long as you’re not using up your bandwidth with torrents or downloads the quality is fine.

On our current bill we made 67 minutes of ‘National Calls’. For this honour we were charged $13.50. Using Skype instead it would have cost us $2.10. Sorry Optus, that’s the last time you will be charging us for national calls, and when our contract expires we’ll probably drop our land line too.

 

When I have to go back to work there are some habits I’ve picked up that are going to be hard to break.

• Afternoon beer and chips at The Coat
• Strolls around Williamstown to brighten up a day
• Pepsi with ice whenever I want
• Wearing slippers if I can’t be bothered putting on shoes
• Having a nap in the afternoon

But the hardest will be not picking up my boy and giving him a hug whenever I want.

Phee had the day off school today, a ‘curriculum day’ for her teachers, and thanks to a particularly fine display of attitude last night wasn’t allowed to watch a DVD, or television, today. By 10:00 am she was moping on the couch, looking at the television that steadfastly refused to turn on no matter how hard she wished.

Seeing Miss Grump sitting there I scooped up Bert, piled them both in the car and headed off down to Williamstown to the library. Now I haven’t been a library member in a very, very long time. I generally buy books I want to read (ah, the carefree life of a childless single person) or having a lovely wife who previously worked in a library all I had to do was drop an email and the book, on a seemingly never ending loan, would magically appear on the dinner table that night. I took along the only bill I have with my address on it (bugger, it’s a week overdue) and after finding the book I was after (The Slot Car Bible) and joined up.

Oh me oh my. How things have changed. Way back when, about 20 years ago, I remember you were allowed 3 books at a time from the good old Shepparton library and now it’s 25 books, plus DVDs, plus CDs. And there’s tech – no more date stamps and flaps of paper inside the front cover; it’s all self serve barcodes, scanners and tiny thermal printers. As Rae reads this blog I’m not even going to mention that the age of librarians seems to have decreased and cuteness levels vastly increased. These days there seems to be a lot to be said for being well read.

It’s either a sign I’m getting old or that I need to head back to work.

Browsing a rewards catalogue today I got excited that we almost had enough points to get a bagless vacuum cleaner.

Tomorrow I’m going to go and blow my whole allowance on something I completely don’t need with shiny buttons to push just to make sure I’m still me.

It’s not often you’ll miss a rental agent, but we will this time. After our last horrid encounter with agents from Barlow McEwan and Tribe in Newport we thought all agents were to be despised and mistrusted. Not so with Century 21 Wilson Pride in Yarraville. They were great, Jody especially so. We’ll miss her helpful calls and always happy manner ’cause now we’ve got our full bond back the old place is finally history.

Okay, that was odd.

I was sitting in the arm chair with Ready, Steady, Cook on the telly. Janelle starts to whip up a batch of pikelets and just after she gives the recipe I nod off. 5 minutes late I wake up and decided I have to make pikelets. I remember her recipe so throw stuff in a bowl (no measuring cups, which is not how I normally cook), mix it up and now I have a pile of pikelets sitting on a plate and dishes to do.

I have no idea why I made them. At least I know now that Bert likes pikelets.

 

What a perfect morning. Glorious autumnal Melbourne day, sun shining, bay perfectly still, not a breath of wind. I packed up the boy and we headed down to Williamstown.
I was going to head to the beach but at the last minute decided to go touristy instead. We strolled along Nelson Place, looked in Seagulls book store, took a stroll out along the pier, sat in the park while he had his morning rusk, strolled back down the other side of Nelson place and wandered back to the car. The car was parked in front of a school playground and it was recess time. Hundreds of noisy, running, jumping, yelling kids pelting around in front of us. Bert was mesmerised – so many ‘Phoebes’ to play with – he just sat in my arms and grinned.

It’s times like this that make me really wish I didn’t have to work (and that I had brought my camera).

I was playing with a phone spammer this evening.

“I am calling from Melbourne.” she says, talking on a VOIP line that could only be coming from the deepest darkest depths of Bombay.

“Oh, a lovely town.” Say I.

“Yes, even Victoria is a lovely town.” she says.

Click.

Last night was the first two cat night for 2006. I’m not sure what the temperature dropped to but Bella finally made her way to the bed (Tom has been sleeping with us for a while now, poor old man). Of course, being a Daddy’s girl, Bella slept at my side and with Tom between us I had no room to move but there’s no complaints here; we both think having a cat sleep on your bird bed is one of the highest honours a cat can bestow.

It’s funny that Daniel should mention emergency wards in his post this morning, ’cause that’s exactly where I ended up last night. I mentioned in my previous post that I had been having troubles with my foot. Taking the day off on Sunday seemed to do it good and by Monday afternoon it was feeling positively fine so I decided to walk a whole block to send of an invoice. All was going well until I took one step too many and I felt something go pop-pop-pop under my heel. I hobbled home, a two minute stroll took about ten minutes and plonked myself down on the couch.

It ended up feeling so bad I headed off to emergency with Brother-In-Law-Of-The-Year nominee Rob. Two hours, a set of xrays and a pair of crutches (not to mention a swipe of the Mastercard) later I was home with strict instructions to stay off the foot for two days. Now that’s easier said than done when you are the stay at home parent of a bouncing 8 month old. A lot easier said. A whole military like operation has swung in to effect. Local Nana is taking  Bert today, Rae is going to be late for work, Rural Nana is being trained in to town to take over tomorrow and I’m stuck here on the couch; leg up, wireless network on and seven episodes of Battlestar Galactica, season 1, ready to go.