A Slice of Life

Last night, Tanja and I were watching our Comedy Comfort Food (alternating episodes of Seinfeld and Frasier) when we come upon the episode “The Note” where Kramer sees Joe DiMaggio at Dinky’s Donuts and confides in the gang that he’s “a dunker” and an incredibly focused one at that. I resolved then and there that I wanted to dunk a doughnut, having never been a dunker myself, as when I was in Canada, the Mecca of doughnuts, I never drank coffee and most of the doughnuts I got were sweet or iced, not the dunking kind (go run-on-sentence!).

 

So this morning, I get up, I do my morning putterings, I’m ready to go at 8, I start work at 9. Usually, if I’m leaving at 8, I walk, and arrive right on time. Today, I auto-piloted to the train station and arrived at work 30 minutes early (again!). So I decided I had time to act on the doughnut dunkings.

 

Unfortunately, it being the dead week between Christmas and New Years, I had to walk six blocks over to find an open coffee shop that wasn’t a Subway. Standing in line, horrible soft rock ballad on the radio. The middle-aged woman ahead of me was singing along and confided in me that she “used to listen to this in High School and had it on vinyl.”  I was all mentally sneery and above-it-all, until No Doubt’s Don’t Speak came on. Which is a song I listened to in High School. I had the CD thanks to my mother being the only person in the world to be a long-term subscriber to Columbia House CD Mail-Order program. You know, the 9 CDs for a Penny thing that everyone did, and then never bothered to do again? She did it for years and years.

 

Also, while waiting, I finished watching Burn After Reading on my iPod. Really didn’t like it. Haven’t disliked a Coen Brothers movie this much since my first viewing of Raising Arizona (I don’t count Intolerable Cruelty or the Ladykillers, both of which I saw but had no strong feelings about).

 

Got my coffee, walked to work, picking up 6 hot cinnamon doughnuts on the way. Got to work. I dunked one in my flat white. Heavenly. It’s like French toast tasted when you were little. Or Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal (part of a balanced breakfast).

 

I shared the joy of hot cinnamon doughnuts and dunking with various people around the centre.

 

Happy New Year.

 

Lucas Brown | Team  Leader - 42

Bliss.

Freedom from pain! Yes, friends, after 35 days straight of headaches, I am free from pain. It came to a head Friday when I woke up with a absolute humdinger. The entire left side of my head felt like it was going to fall off (and judging by how much I was hurting, I wouldn't have minded if it did).

So I went to the Doctor in the morning, making a 9:30 appointment. Got there at 9:25, but I didn't actually get to see the doctor until after 10. Why do I bother making appointments? So the doc sees me, and says I should get some physio. Okay, fine.

I call the University Sports physio that fixed my whiplash. They're closed until January for Christmas. Same situation with a few other places I call, some until February, even. February! That's a nice long Christmas break! So I get a recommendation from a workmate of Tanja's for a place on Erskineville road. I go there, but they’re all booked. I sign up for the cancellation list and just make it home when I get a call that there’s an opening.

So here’s what the physio guy said was wrong with me: all the little muscles that connect my neck to the base of my skull are all knotted up and scrunched together. These snarls put pressure on the bones of my skull, keeping them from their natural movement and locking them together. The lack of natural movement causes a build-up of pressure, which causes pain and headaches. Think tectonic plates locking together and causing LA-rattling earthquakes.

So he, using some high-pressure massage, pushed back the snarled neck muscles one at a time, letting them fall back into place where they usually sit. I was sore the rest of the day from the manipulations, but as of Saturday, fine! It may not be permanent, and I may need some remedial physio, but I am one relieved guy.

I am also a relieved guy with a new 32 gig iPod touch! Tanja got it for me for Christmas. It’s got Wifi, web browser, pop-up keyboard, it takes applications from the App store, and has a huge widescreen video screen. I like it a lot. I’m now in the process of streamlining my 13000 song play list to fit on the new iPod and phew! I have a lot of stuff I’ve never listened to.

Suck It, monkeys! I've gone corporate! (reposted from the Lucas Letters)

"So yeah. We've been back, and as the title suggests, I am no longer a spanner in the works. I am now a cog in the machine. In English? I am now the team leader of the mighty juggernaut that is 42. It's the team I came from and it's the team I know best. I also know it's thanks to their glowing feedback and stunning performance when I was ATLing that I got the job. I find that now that I'm an official team leader and not just a long term ATL or a fill-in, my view of the centre where I work has changed. People that were the bane of my existence are now either on the same level or a step below, and so I no longer have to take their crap or leave them unchallenged. Not that I'm in it only for the revenge, of course. There's also a slightly better chair.

Bought a new pillow day before last. It's due to my 20-days-of-headache that I had throughout the honeymoon, and the fewer, but still noticeable times I've had since I came back. Tanja and I each have a moulded neck-support pillow that, while looking like a university-lounge couch cushion, provides the support so our spines aren't ripping themselves to bits while we sleep. However, it does take some getting used to. Night before last when I tried it for the first time was awful. Waking up every hour or so and then a giant massive migraine in the morning. Last night was way easier, so I think it's just my body reacting.

Speaking of my body reacting, the first two times you go to the gym after a near 3-week absence? Expect to hurt the next day. Yeah.

Tanja's been hopping back and forth to the mountains lately, to help out with her mum. I've been going up too, but I always feel like the proverbial fifth wheel, just sitting there until someone asks me to do something. I'm giving support, though, so that's the important part. Overseas Christmas presents have been sent, and most of the local ones have been picked up. Even though it's 2 weeks to Xmas, I don't feel particularly holiday-like.

-Lucas"

Brian Brushwood from Scam School has a "Whoops!" moment.

Melbourne Day 11: Phone keeps on ringin’

I swear, in the 11 days since we started our honeymoon, my phone has never been this busy. It’s ridiculous. I’ve even gotten sick of the Bowser theme ringtone that Ted gave me, as cool as it is. I swear, you’re never as popular as you are when you attempt to go away.

Tanja and I had a late start due to one of us having a big ole sleep-in, but then we went to Koko Black chocolate café and started the day with a Belgian hot chocolate. Then it was off to Federation Square to see the Rennie Ellis exhibit. For those of you not in the know (and too lazy to Google search) Rennie Ellis is a former journalist who had been candidly photographing Australians on the streets, on the beaches, in pubs, at sporting functions, and even in Kings Cross for roughly 40 years. His shots are sincere, often funny, but all very interesting. We bought the book for the exhibit “No Standing, Only Dancing”. Check him out if you get a chance.

After that, I was starving, so we stopped at a middle-of-an-alley café for proscuitto-capsicum-and-olive pizza for Tanja and a steak-bacon-and-onion sandwich for me. It was strange. The cafes (all 8 of them) are all along the edge of the alley, and the tables are in a shared clump in the middle, with a space between the tables and the cafés for pedestrians, so the waiters are ducking people to get to you. Loud, and the woman next to us liked her cigarettes, but fun and good food. Then shopping and browsing. I got two CDs (after MUCH deliberation, putting back about 10), Dignity and Shame by Crooked Fingers and Electric Version by the New Pornographers (a Canadian band Neko Case sings with). I also saw a book called “I’m a Lebowski, you’re a Lebowski” which examined the cult following of the film The Big Lebowski. Looked cool, but too expensive. We then found a comics/sci fi/nerd store called Minotaur (like galaxy, but with 20% more nerd) and I geeked out for a bit. I got the 3rd Buffy Season 8 comic, and the first two Ex Machina trade paperbacks. Tanja also found the original book of The Prestige, by Christopher Priest. Again, I put a whole heapin’ helpin’ of stuff back. Self control, thy name is Lucas.

Dinner was at the laksa place at the base of the apartment building. I had a mixed laksa, and Tanja had a duck broth with noodles and pork wontons. Very good. We then picked up some yogurt for the strawberries we had at the apartment and headed back.

I’ve got a theory about pedestrians in Australian cities. Now, in Sydney, people tend to put they heads down and bull through, often knocking into you, your arm, or your bags. It’s a trait I dislike. I recall last time I came to Melbourne, I remarked that people seemed to respect personal space more and no one hits you. I’d like to revise that slightly. No one hits you, that’s right, but they constantly SEEM as though they’re about to. If you’re walking along at a good clip and stop to tie your shoe and look back, you’ll see a whole throng of people nearly run into you, then leap around you without actually touching. Similarly, we were leaning against a wall downtown, sorting out our shopping and I saw a man and his companion walking towards us on a collision course. We were there before he appeared. He saw us. He made eye contact. They continued walking closer, and closer, and then stopped dead a few inches from me, with a confused look. I returned a look that said “Well?” and he stepped to the side and kept going. So Melbourne pedestrians ignore others just like Sydneysiders, but they just handle near-collisions better. So basically, if you’re in Melbourne, and someone cuts you off walking and looks like they’re going to hit you, don’t worry, they’ll pull some gyration and miss you. Unless you gyrate to avoid them. Then you throw off the whole dynamic. It’s like dividing by zero. The universe implodes.

Melbourne Day 10: The Wentworth Syndrome

Got on the plane this morning (after hearing some funny names over the airport intercom, Worsley Kingsford & Mrs. Chimay) armed with World War Z: The Oral History of the Zombie War and Tanja in tow. Arrived in a surprisingly sunny Melbourne (weather guy wrong YET again) and made our way to our new digs for the week. It’s on Liverpool street in between Bourke and Little Bourke streets. It’s not a hotel, but a fully-furnished apartment larger than the first flat Tanja and I shared. Big honking TV, DVD player, leather lounge, fancy carpet, futon, view over all of Melbourne. Very swish. Then we went out for a walk to get a view of the neighbourhood.

Whoa.

Within a one. Block. Radius. We have five wine bars, a laksa house, a Japanese tapas restaurant (figure that out), a microbrewery (eeee!) restaurant that specializes in 12 kinds of chicken parmigana, a Greek restaurant (whose menu advised you to ask for lotsa bread and feel free to make a mess), the James Squire Brewhouse, a proper English Pub called the Elephant and Wheelbarrow, two bookstores, a comic book shop (two doors down!), and Blessed Mary, mother’a Jesus, a Tiki Bar/Thai Restaurant called Mai Tai Hawaiian Bar.

And that’s just within a block and a bit of where we’re staying.

We nearly had a heart attack looking for a place to have lunch. Tanja had a dose of what I call the Wentworth Effect.

Allow me to explain.

In Terry Pratchett’s book The Wee Free Men, young Wentworth Aching, aged 3, is kidnapped by the Queen of the Fairies. Wentworth, a perpetually sticky child is perpetually wanting sweets. As the Queen is looking to please him, she puts him in an entire room full of sweets. However, he sits in the centre bawling his eyes out without touching any of them. The reason? Total sensory overload. By moving towards one part of the candy, he is automatically moving himself away from some of the other candy. Which is tantamount to blasphemy. So he sits in the middle crying.

Tanja, and I are feeling this because we have 5 days. That’s 10 meals (5 lunches and 5 dinners, unless we turn breakfast into a practice-lunch) with which to experience ALL OF THIS. Fair breaks your heart. But we’ll manage. J

**Later**

After a quick wander-around, we decided on Parma’s Restaurant & Microbrewery for dinner. We each decided to go with the specialty of chicken schnitzel parmigiana, Tanja getting hers Mexican-style with salsa, sour cream, jalapeños and guacamole, and me getting mine with Italian meatballs spiked with tarragon. What was delivered was a piece of chicken schnitzel the width and diameter of a football. Huge. Very tasty, though. Complete comfort food. It came with side orders of chips and salad which was completely unnecessary. On the beer side, I started with the “Hopinator” double India Pale Ale (7%, amber colour, very rich caramel flavours with warm malt and a surprising finish reminiscent of natural yogurt) and moved on to the 2 Brothers Growler (5%, American Brown ale, very dark, malty, followed by a left-turn in flavour, turning to milk chocolate with watermelon hints, which as I consumed became raspberry, strange and full of character). Tanja had a Victorian Riesling and a Mountain Goat pale ale. I also grabbed two bottles for the fridge back at the apartment: The Grand Ridge Brewery Black & Tan Ale & Stout (I’ve never seen a pre-mixed Black & Tan before. You get the hoppy, crisp up-front taste of the lager, followed by the rich chocolate taste of the stout. Highly satisfying) and a Holgate Brewhouse White Ale (which I have not had yet).

Tanja and I are both very full now. We’re going to watch some Star Trek and not think about food.

Sydney Day 9: And the Big News?

We watched the Good News Weeks Awards, but felt it was a touch too long.

Byron airport security found a pocketknife in my backpack that even I had forgotten about. The scary thing wasn’t that I forgot it was there; it’s that Sydney airport security missed it on the way TO Byron. Brrr.

The ride in the Byron-to-airport van left me so bounced around that I had headache, nausea, and a twitch in my upper lip for the rest of the day.

Got back to our lovely house to find the garden flourishing (except the jasmine), the bread mouldy, the champagne still in the fridge, and the chocolate still edible.

Tanja is helping me get rid of liquor bottles with a teensy bit left in them… by drinking what’s left. It’s effective.

Leaving for Melbourne tomorrow morno!

Byron Bay Day 8: One Day More

Well, it’s Sunday again, and it’s our last full day in Byron. Tanja and I were discussing the differences between our two trips to Byron. We decided the previous trip had been more back-to-nature, whereas this trip was far more practical. We (and by we I mean Tanja) slept late until 11:30 (I woke up around 8:30 an passed the time reading comics on my laptop). We headed into town for lunch, remarking upon the few schoolies we saw, most of whom were sleeping off the previous night. We had salt-and-pepper squid, and got some chocolate-covered goji berries from an organic store. Not sure what the big deal with those is, they tasted like raisins. We bought some pendants at a bead store: I got a little tiki guy, and Tanja got a polished wood piece. We walked up the beach to Belongil, where we stayed last trip and stared enviously at the houses there. We also saw a little kid of about 8 stomp out sulkily with his skateboard to tool around on the street clearly thinking his parents were mental for taking him out of his urban paradise to this wind-swept beach place. Walking back we were paced by a tiny Silky Terrier, who kept running up to sniff us, but wouldn’t hold still to be petted.

On the way back to the room, we saw a young guy sunbathing on the tiny roof next to the balcony of his third floor hotel room. I was nearly stopped in my tracks imagining all the things that could go wrong as he stood up.

We’ve settled in on the hotel balcony for the late afternoon, nibbling on pistachios and Lindt chocolate and working our way through the last of the beer in the fridge.

As for holiday books, I’m out. I’ve been prodigious in my reading. I‘ve read:
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
Nation by Terry Pratchett
Beer: A Gauge for Enthusiasts by Greg Duncan Powell
Cuisine De Moi by Ben Canaider (writing as Gavin Canardeaux, an imaginary celebrity chef)
Nearly all of the latest issue of The Word magazine.

This is not counting the comics I’ve read via the laptop, which include:
The last 9 issues of Invincible
The entire Iron Man Armour Wars epic
The entire Marvel Zombies catalogue
Half of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier (but to be fair, it’s 190-odd pages)

This evening we plan to give the Orient Express another shot. Then tomorrow morning back to Sydney via El-Jet-Plane-o.

**later**

Okay, Orient Express was amazing. We had prawn and pork wontons and sang choi bow. Mains were crispy duck in plum & mandarin sauce and a yellowfin tuna and Atlantic salmon sashimi plate. Everything was fragrant and lovely and the waiter was friendly and knowledgeable, plus we got a bit of a show when a yobbo and his blonde missus swanned up to the table next to us and, not liking the price point of the mains, ordered the entire left side of the menu. Then had to ask the waitress what a wonton was (she even used her hard-of-thinking voice, “woooon taaaaaaa-oon).

On the way back here, we got more glimpses of the Northern Reticulated Australian Schoolie. While both genders are vocal, it is the female of the species which is more distinct, often shouting the same name of someone either down the street or right next to them for hours on end. The male seems to only vocalise during courtship displays with other males, with such distinctive calls as “Give us a farkin hug, ya!” and “Dan’t touch moiy! Dan’t!” ringing about the forest. Even our local little country pub had been taken over. The locals themselves had fled, leaving only a seething mass of teenagers, and an 80-person line for the door. I think we’e timed our exodus from Byron perfectly.

Byron Bay Day 7: Twas The Night Before Schoolies

Finally got our breakfast-out, with a Spanish omelette with chorizo for me and one with smoked salmon and feta for Tanja. Great way to start the day, and it forced us to get our backsides out of bed to get there while they were still serving breakfast.

We did our poking about the shops again, with me finally getting that Tiki mug (not that I wasn’t half-smug about it), had some gelato, and bought presents. The weather was unusually hot, stingingly hot and ridiculously windy. Like hat-blowing-away, tearing-shirt-from-back windy. So much so that we weren’t walking along the beach for fear of being sandblasted.

Also, as it was Saturday, it was the unofficial first day of Schoolies Week. All of the matriculating youngsters drive up here in packs to surf and drink and generally make nuisances of themselves to the locals. The population on the streets seemed to have tripled and every shady spot was packed full. Possibly thanks to Schoolies, this seemed to be the day for noticing people. So here I shall chronicle our more noticeable noticeables:

A rather large couple making out horizontally on the edge on a park, not ten feet from the path we were walking on. We gave an eye roll and kept going. It was only when I glanced back, I got the view of the *ahem* full moon as his board shorts were nearly to his knees. And she was wearing a dress. Gee-yargh! Didn’t need to see that! Public forum
A kid who looked about 15, and fish belly pale with no shirt, sitting outside the store with 5 cartons of VB beer, two grocery bags full several loaves of no-name white bread, and another bag full of bags of chips. All he needed was a jar of vegemite and he’d have the breakfast of champions.
A couple of young guys, a younger girl, and an older woman walking down the beach, the two guys suddenly, and without warning start wrestling with one another. Throwing each other around, eventually one tossing the other violently onto the sand. “I hope they’re brothers,” I said to Tanja. “Otherwise there’s a whole homoerotic subtext they might not be ready to deal with.” “Why is it okay if they’re brothers?” asked Tanja. “Well,” said I. “Then they’re just being brothers.”
Later in the evening, while walking back to the room, we spotted on several street corners groups of 8-10 young men. They all had beers in their hands, were talking quietly, and all facing inwards with their heads down. It was like a very slow rugby scrum.

Speaking of that evening, we had a lovely dinner at the Pacific Dining Room. We started with cocktails (Coconut and Chilli Martini for me, a Falling Water for Tanja which had Campari, blood orange, watermelon, and mint), then moved on to small sharing plates. We got bread, warm olives, proscuitto with flatbread and onion jam, cured kingfish done in a pastrami style, carrots with air-dried beef and sheep-milk yogurt, and a tomato salad with ricotta and baby leeks. Then came the mains, also shared: reef fish (snapper) in red curry on a bed of rice, cucumber, and sliced wontons; and chicken something-or-other with carrots, baby leeks, and cooked in a bacon reduction sauce. The fish was excellent, but the chicken brought the house down. For dessert we each had a glass of Hungarian tokaji. Tanja had little mini ice-creams covered in Madagascar chocolate, and I had a pressed apple, which was comfit apple slices with little icicles of toffee. VERY nice. We tipped like drunken sailors and toddled home for the night, ignoring or avoiding the drunken adolescents.

Byron Bay Day 6: It Burns! The Goggles Do Nothing!

When we got up this morning, Tanja decided that we required exercise, so suggested a walk up to the lighthouse and down the promontory that the gods has sent us away from last time. We got dressed and headed out. Well, sort of. I, wearing my usual t-shirt and shorts combination, made it about 5 seconds into the full sunlight before making a sort of “arghargharghargh” sound and pulling a u-turn back into the apartment. Sunburn, you see. You know when you spray a cockroach with pesticide he runs away and then starts to run in a circle, slowly dying? Yeah. Like that. I then slathered on about an inch more sunblock and put on the only long-sleeved shirt I brought. That way, instead of feeling like I was walking under a blowtorch, it instead felt as if I had already been seared and was placed under the grill to cook further.

We walked up to the lighthouse and were lucky enough to spot a pod of dolphins off of one of the cliffs. And me without my camera. It was very cool. We went down to the promontory, and then when we went to go back up, arrived at an impasse: we had walked down approximately 5 hobillion stairs to get there and after the first 30 or so I was knackered. Maybe it was the sunburn messing with my stamina, but I couldn’t do it. Tanja found another path around with far fewer stairs, but I was worried there for a moment.

Once back in town, Tanja talked herself into letting herself go lingerie shopping. She got things. That’s all I’m saying. After the thing-getting, we got some giant sandwiches for lunch. I got a tshirt with an octopus eatinga guy on it (it’s cooler than it sounds!) and new CDs from Jackson Jackson and Gogol Bordello (whose gypsy-punk stylings Tanja liked, shocking me). Picked up groceries, and a mixed six-pack of beer (Grolsch, Byron Bay Premium Ale, Kokanee, Northern Rivers Stout, James Squire I.P.A., and Coopers Sparkling Ale, and a pint-bottle of Little Creatures Pale Ale because it came in a friggin‘ pint bottle). Came back, went swimming in the ocean, lazed around drinking beer (the Grolsch, which was excellent, and the Byron Bay Premium which was equally excellent) then headed out for dinner.

We went to the Byron Beach Café, which we found by the strangest way: we followed the big arrow on the sign reading ”Byron Beach Café”. I had tempura prawns, one hell of a steak, and a molten flourless chocolate cake with strawberries for dessert. Tanja had oysters with salmon roe and champagne, Atlantic salmon in a dill reduction sauce and a white chocolate and raspberry crème Brule for dessert. We shared a lovely bottle of Mornington Peninsula (NZ) Pinot Noir. The restaurant is right on the beach so we had the most incredible view at sunset. Then we came back, watched some Star Trek , and drank some Northern Rivers Stout (which tasted EXACTLY like chocolate-covered coffee beans).