Where the Grass is Greener

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    28 September 2006

    Photo Shoots and Taxi Drivers

    Yesterday held a few interesting adventures. Rather than trek all the way to Spotswood, I went to St Kilda. Much nicer. No industrial or sewerage smells for starters. Not actually being at work for seconds!

    My day was spent in a photography studio helping run activities and demos for kids who were having their piccies taken for marketing stuff. There was slime involved. There was a lot of "Please don't play with that", "No shooting rockets at people", "Don't touch the person on the Van de Graaff or you'll both get an electric shock" and "No, sorry, don't touch the person on the Van de Graaff".

    The day was a little wearing, but the real adventures were had on my taxi rides to and from the studio. An hour each way in peak hour traffic.

    The trip "to" was with an Indian cabbie who played me some Indian prayer music, which he translated for me as we went. We discussed the trouble with young people today. Because I told him I was new to Melbourne he also gave me a running commentary of where we were, what roads we were on, etc. and how you shouldn't travel during peak hour, particularly towards the city. Well duh. The joys of having old ladies as passengers who don't know which bus station they need to go to - $76 later he took her home.

    He was very nice, although I didn't like the way he drove and looked at the street directory at the same time. I just don't enjoy the mild adrenalin rush associated with thinking we might run up the car in front of us. I made it there in one piece though.

    The trip "from" was certainly an interesting experience. I would also say historically educational. My Greek grandpa-like driver began the trip telling me how he had enjoyed his day as he had all 'lady' passengers (I don't know if I count as a lady or not). He likes that because they talk to him. He then told me he would put on some romantic music for me - thankfully it was Nat King Cole, so I could actually enjoy it. I then suggested that he was a bit cheeky and I might have to tell my husband on him. He lamented that I had a husband and said he would hold my hand, which he did. Sounds a little weird but it was very funny. It was actually quite entertaining. He has a wife, but she lives in Greece, but that's OK because he has girlfriends here to keep him company. Also, it is important to share love and respect women by giving them presents. He complained that his daughters spend al his money, but I explained that that was the right thing for them to be doing.

    The whole trip home he told me all about the history of Melbourne. I panicked for a second and thought that perhaps my Pop had somehow transformed into a little Greek man, but when he didn't mention the good old days when the pubs shut at 6pm and men were home with their families, I was reassured. I did however learn all about the first, second and third temples in Melbourne and where they were. I also heard the list of all of the parks in Melbourne, and what streets surround them. He then tested my listening skills by asking me who had designed the Royal Botanic Gardens. Thankfully I remembered the name 'Miller' so it looked like I had been paying attention after all.

    When I got out he asked to shake my hand and said I was very lovely and wished me a good evening. I giggled all the way to the front door. A very strange little man.

    Suffice to say, I'm glad that I don't catch taxis every day.

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      19 September 2006

      School Uniforms

      Today was a pretty windy day. Thankfully my hair is so short these days as to not be ruined by wind, but grit in the eyes is never a welcome pleasure. My car felt it might blow off the road when crossing bridges.

      It put me in mind of my school days - more particularly, my school uniform.

      Going to an all girls Catholic school, the uniform was designed (I suppose) to be modest and generally unattractive to boys.

      Our uniform went see-through when wet, showed every single developing bump and blew up around your ears in the wind. Because of this there was a trend to wear boxers or bike shorts under your uniform to prevent underwear spotters from, well, spotting your undies.

      Many were the afternoons I would be wandering home from school to be suddenly enveloped in a world of blue material, and just knowing that the cars driving by were enjoying the view of my Tweety Bird boxers. It was not the stylish Marilyn experience every girl dreams of, more the embarrassing teen struggle against the billowing dress.

      There were also the girls who thought that the world should always be looking at their boxers, whose skirts had been pruned to within an inch of their lives (sometimes at school with a pair of scissors and a stapler to do the hem). I couldn't really understand who they were trying to impress with the shortness of their dresses - the Maths teachers? Ew. Perhaps the stinky Daramalan boys on the bus?* Or maybe the perverts in the park who would occasionally turn into flashers?**

      So much of school remains a mystery - especially who is the bastard that designs uniforms? Mum, I'm assuming there is a chapter in your thesis on this, so will wait for the answer to that question.


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      * heh heh, my little joke, as if anyone would like a boy from Daramalan!
      **I remember being told that if I ever saw a flasher I should laugh, point, and say "That looks just like a penis only smaller!"

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        18 September 2006

        Mild Monday Panic

        I'm about to perform my first lightning room show and am having mild attack of nerves. eeeekkk! Haven't rehearsed since last Wednesday when I did my mock show, as on Thursday I had a migraine, Friday was busy with holiday set up and weekend has been spent entertaining the parentals.

        The worry is that people are paying to see it - PAYING!

        At least if I fuck it up at 10am I'll have a chance to redeem myself at 12pm.

        Oh bother.

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          14 September 2006

          Can't get away from the stink

          ***WARNING*** Don't eat while you read this. ;o)

          Ahh, the simple joys of working in an industrial zone...

          In the industrial areas of Canberra one expects furniture stores, matress warehouses, car yards and lots of sex shops.

          Here in Melbourne, I work nextdoor to a glass factory. I usually arrive at work to the sweet smell of burning rubber.

          Because all of the sewage from the northern suburbs is piped directly under our site, on particularly warm days we get a nice smell from the pumping station. One can also seek out this smell on purpose by visiting the old straining well (where they had massive strainers in the 1950s to get out rags, garbage, dead animals and apparently a lot of false teeth before the sewage went through the pumps) where you can look down into a live sewage pipe - it is glassed over, but the smell manages to make it through.

          This isn't the worst part of my working day.

          On my way to work, just as I turn off the ring road onto the West Gate Freeway, I pass an organic recycling plant. I wish they would be more honest. Call it a 'poo farm' and be done with it! The first few times I drove to work I kept thinking I'd stepped in dog poo and only realised now (after 40mins of being in the car). Eventually I realised I had this same thought at the same place every day, and finally saw the big 'Organic Recycling' sign.

          Usually I'm able to wizz past at 100km/hr, but the nasty smell gets me anyway, and I hold my breath for a kilometre or so. Eww eww ewww.

          I thought this daily snatch of stink couldn't possibly get worse. How wrong I was.

          Yesterday the traffic was bumper to bumper along the freeway and it took me 15mins to travel 5km, where the speed limit is 100km/hr. Guess what I stopped next to! Yes, the poo farm! There was nothing I could do to get away, it was really, really disgusting.

          When I finally reached work I shared my stinky experience and was told that this particular poo farm had been fined recently for too much smell - it could be smelt 3 suburbs away. It turns out they were taking on more organic waste (again, why don't people just say poo?) than they could process, so instead of composting it was rotting. Hurrah! I drove past rotting poo! I feel dirty just thinking about it.

          I think I'll need to purchase a car deoderiser thingy, or a gas mask maybe?

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            13 September 2006

            Where are the windscreen washers?

            I haven't come across any windscreen washers in Melbourne yet, but I think I know why.

            In my drive up Bell St (so many traffic lights!) I've noticed a guy who 'works' the stopped traffic for money. However, he provides a much more pleasant experience than the windscreen washers I'm used to in Canberra. This guy is a juggler.

            When the lights change he runs in front of the stopped traffic and does a quick perofrmance, thens collects money. Sort of a morotorists' busker. But unlike busking, he has a captive audience.

            Unfortunately he is never at my lights, so I've only seen him in passing, but what a fun idea! I'm not sure if he makes as much as the window washers - they can guilt you by washing your window even when you've said no.

            I wonder if this idea would work in Canberra? Actually, you'd probably be beaten up by the people who 'own' the various corners. But if you could find somewhere new, would Canberrans buy it?

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              08 September 2006

              Rain, Rain, Bloody Rain

              I thought it was genuinely accepted everywhere in Australia that Melbourne is the Rainy City - isn't it? It seems that Melbournians don't agree.

              It rains here All The Time - this is why my blog is called 'Where the Grass is Greener' because it rains here so much that the grass is really, really green. Duh.

              At work I expressed my dismay that it was raining again and lamenting at how much it rains because I have to drive 40km to work in it on big freeways with big scary trucks to accompany me. I think perhaps I may have hit a nerve. There were a few exclamations of "It hasn't rained in ages!" "We really need it though!" "It doesn't rain that often!"

              Pah! I've only had my job for three weeks now, and it has rained at least twice every week, often more. I notice this because I have to drive in it in my overly panicked state.

              And yes, we are in a drought - I'm pretty sure water restrictions aren't as tight here as they were in Canberra, and nowhere near what they are in Goulburn. I haven't had to water my garden, and I don't know who would.

              However, being from Canberra I can understand the want or need to defend one's home town when someone - a stranger - makes a comment about your city which you feel they are unqualified to make. People bag Canberra all the time, and I feel this need to defend it, even if the only thing I can say, pathetically, is that it is really nice to live in a small city, has beautiful clear and sunny skies (i.e. no smog), is rally easy to get around*, has lots of parks and would be a nice place to raise a family.

              I'm still undecided as to how long I think we will stay settled here, whether we buy a house, start a family etc. For now Canberra is still 'home'.

              That said, however, Canberra is very bloody dry, freezing in winter and hot in summer. So although I complain about having to drive in the rain, it is lovely to live somewhere nice and wet and not have to watch my garden die because I don't think I should waste water on it.


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              * If you miss your turn at least you just drive to the next round-about to turn around. Oh so many round-abouts!

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                07 September 2006

                Regina Spektor

                Last week on my way to work Triple J played a song by New Yorker Regina Spektor called 'Fidelity' which I immediately fell in love with. Since then I've heard it a couple of times and decided I had to check her stuff out.

                Apparently you can't buy her stuff in Australia yet, but from her site you can listen to the albums and purchse them.

                The song 'Fidelity' is from the album Begin to Hope. A 'must listen' song!!!

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                  06 September 2006

                  Well Earned Weekend

                  After my seven days straight at work, Monday and Tuesday were warmly welcomed as the new version of a weekend. With 12hours of sleep to fuel my day I was feeling fine!

                  It was a little strange though - because husband wasn't home and it was a weekday I felt like I was back in hte good ol' days of unemployment (which actually I really enjoyed, except for the no money part and the not meeting new people thing) that was three weeks ago.

                  I had one of those moments where I forget major things and then have an 'oh yeah...' moment as I remember it. For example - Sometimes I forget I'm living in Melbourne and wake up at night sometimes thinking that I'm in Canberra. Very disorienting feeling.

                  On Monday I forgot that I actually have a job now and that my relaxed state was only going to last for two days. The sucky part of this 'oh yeah' moment was that I relaised I would have to do loads of laundry so that I would have clothes, and more importantly underwear, to wear to work.

                  Also the house was filthy because husband and I had both been working over the weekend - the dust bunnies were reaching maturity and having litters of their own. So out came the vacuum. Which is a little bit broke, so making the less-than-joyous task, a less-than-less-than-joyous task.

                  I trudged through, and thought about how un-exciting house work is (not that I was likely to forget this) but knew I would be rewarded with an afternoon of tea drinking, trashy TV and knitting.

                  So now I'm back at work, vaguely wishing I was at home, even though I know home actually contains dishes to wash and still more laundry. The good thing about the seven day week I've just had is that it is followed by a two day week - so I have two days off from tomorrow.

                  This will be devoted to reading the latest Phryne Fisher novel, which will no doubt influence a trip to St Kilda on Saturday (which is where the books are set) the drinking of several cocktails, walking around the house in an exotic dressing gown (probably not my red polar fleece one) and going to gorgeous restaurants to eat lovely food.

                  It may also induce me to take a Chinese lover, but somehow I don't think husband would be encouraging of this.

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                    02 September 2006

                    Tartan Woman is now Toilet Woman

                    I realise that working in a science centre means that I'm going to be working with interesting people, with interesting degrees who have published interesting papers.

                    I also realise that being on the same site as the old sewearge pumping station is going to lead to me learning some interesting facts, mostly related to poo.

                    I also know that I am sometimes too convincing with my looks of interest when someone is talking about something that I'm not particularly interested in (either I'm too nice or I'm a good liar - I have a feeling I know which).

                    Tartan Woman (who is fascinatingly crazy) cornered me yesterday to tell me about her publication where she had researched the different 'male' and 'female' signs used on toilet doors, and then produced a poster about it for the celebration here for 'A hundred Years of Flushing' (yes, that is the sort of thing we celebrate here).

                    There are three different types of signs: object symbols, such as cigars vs. powder compacts; clothing symbols, which comes down to skirts for girls, pants for men; and genital symbols. Once she said the magic 'g' word I become more intersted and was willingly led to see the poster (which they sell in the shop here).

                    It was kind of cool, although I'm a little bit scared that I've shown too much interrest on two different occasions and that she's going to make me her research assistant for the next wacky project.

                    I do find find it interesting when you visit a restaurant or club and they have witty signs for the toilets, but am confused when it is something like sharks versus tigers - which am I?

                    Has anyone else noticed random toilet door signs??