Monday, August 26, 2013

Doing Stuff

There seems to be more warmth in the air. The days seem to be warmer and more summery, less wintery. It seems like the cold is drawing to an end. It is nice, an invigorating feeling. The world is expanding again, becoming bigger and more open and more vibrant.

Colour is slowly seeping back into our lives with every day that we edge towards the new season. Soon the buds will be on the branches and the sun will be high in the sky, lighting us well.

Sam swears it is because of the clean windows.


I bought in Sultanas to munch on as snacks for work. My snack of choice around 11am has been Twisties. I was surprised when I checked out the fat content, the other day, and I was taken aback when the fat content was high. Trans fat was listed in the ingredients. WTF? Sultanas are not nearly as satisfying as Twisties, or the odd chocolate bar, um… or the occasional cookie. Sad face. They are not the substitute I had hoped for them to be.

My appetite is still reeling from stopping the smokes a week ago. Nicotine takes away you appetite. When you stop, when I stop my appetite comes back with a vengeance for a short period of time, which is the last thing you want when you have quit.


Ah Monday, four days to go.

I called my sister Roz, as I haven’t heard from her since before I went away to Vietnam. I keep thinking she’d text me to go and see our mum, but she hasn’t. I thought she’d call to comment on the three postcards that I sent her while I was away, but she didn’t. She answered the phone with her customary greeting, “If you are calling me, I had better sit down.”

Really? I don’t think that is quite so true anymore. “I haven’t heard from you.”

The call broke up, I got every second word, every third word. She was in a Telstra shop and had to call me back. I was heating up my lunch in the kitchen, which is, actually, under three stories of building. I headed out the back into the sunshine and spoke to her as the sun gently warmed my face.

She said she has been working very hard and that the lambs are being born and she is up to her neck in them. (Up to my neck in Lambs, I reckon that could be a good title for a kids book)

It was nice outside, the sun was warm like a puppy. I could have stood out there for the next four days.


It is good leaving work at 5pm, out the door on the dot, everybody here agrees. They all leave on time. It is good. Too many Australian’s give their work free hours every day. Funny, that companies don’t work for their clients for free. However...

I went to Victoria Street, on the way home, and bought an OzLotto tats ticket for the $15 million draw tomorrow night. I parked in one of the blocked off side streets, the one that runs parallel to Nicholson Street, one street to the east. I always think of this area as the area Rachel lived in when she first moved to Melbourne, although that is a couple more streets to the east again. In the street I parked in, there were a few houses being renovated and there was a really awful circa 1960’s one for sale. If I win the fifteen million I’m coming back to buy it. It wouldn’t matter what you did to it, it could only improve it. It had quite a large front yard with quite a deep offset, you could build a big room at the front a la warehouse style and hide the original building altogether. My mind bristled with the possibilities.

There was a gentle ease and a slow swagger to Victoria Street at 5.30 on a Monday afternoon. Half pace, slowing down.


Sam was already at home when I got home. He was already in his pale grey track suit. He said his manager left early, and so he did too. He opened the back door and smiled at me as I got out of the car.


We stacked the wood, it still lay in a pile in the car park out the back. Sam insisted when I said we could leave it until the weekend, and good on him for that stance. Buddy was determined to play and get in the way, until he found his bone and then he lost interest in us altogether. There is already a longer amount of daylight at the end of the day… and now the wood is stacked. The evenings are becoming longer and warmer and bigger.


I cooked. I made lasagne. It turned out okay. We warmed the meat sauce just so the fat melted and it became more viscous? (Is that the word?) I made cheese sauce. The first batch wasn’t enough, as we had increased the size of the finished meal, so I made a second batch of cheese sauce. I thought it would look too small in the big glass pan? I always seem to have dishes that are too big. But then when we’d assembled it and it was threatening to over flow the edges of the pan, I thought, ha ha ha, will it actually fit? It was very full. It over flowed a little in the oven, just some drips and we had pans underneath to catch the drips.


The new dishwasher is coming tomorrow, which is a great reason just to worry generally. Will it fit under the benches? Will the cupboard doors covering it still function? Will the old one come out easily? Will the power point and the taps all work properly? Will the deliveryman arrive early, and work quickly and be finished in no time, so I can get to work?

So many factors to worry about. Stupid, really. I never used to worry about such things.

No comments: