To our postman – on rainy days, instead of leaving the mail half sticking out of our mailbox, how about taking that extra half a second to push it all the way in, thus ensuring that our mail isn’t completely soaked by the time we return home from work?
To the people who restock the paper towels in the bathrooms at work – how about NOT refilling the paper towel dispenser to bursting point, so that people don’t have to rip the paper out bit by bit, and can actually dry their hands without wasting a million sheets in the process?
Thanks. I’m obviously still jetlagged. I think. Or else I’m just grumpy. Hmph.
The title of this post is a quote from the Singapore Merlion. We can’t actually see the merlion from where we are (at Changi airport) but, you know, that’s exactly what it would say.
Noelle and I are currently on a stopover in Singapore, waiting for our flight to Barcelona. Apparently we have a quick stop in Milan before heading on to Barcelona. Another international airport to add to my “airports I have visited” list. I haven’t made that list yet, but you can bet when I do that I’ll be putting Milan on it.
We haven’t done the whole “official announcement” thing, if there is such a one, but I’m just putting it out there right now.
I haven’t written a blog entry for a while because I’ve been a bit despondent about things – namely, Anthony’s death, but the more recent issue that has me down is the fact that Tim is so far away and won’t be back until the 22nd June. I feel ill-equipped to cope with things on my own, but I have been speaking to Tim every day, and he just bought a webcam today from Singapore airport and so we’ll be able to have video calls now also. We chatted for a while tonight when he was in the Qantas/British Airways lounge waiting for his flight to London, and it was really good to actually be able to see him. It made me feel less alone.
Also, Noelle has been staying over quite a bit, and she bought Dexter a couple of days ago for us to watch because the movie we planned on seeing wasn’t even out yet, so we went home and watched the pilot for Dexter, and I have spent the rest of the weekend watching the entire season. I just finished the finale this evening. I will have to check and see when it’s on paytv.
Also, Lauren, Nathan, Rosie and I went to Yum Cha this morning. I had a good time, I felt happy and positive for a little while. Everyone laughed at me for not knowing that “ranga” and “ginga” meant the same thing, and not knowing that “ranga” was short for “orangutan”. It made me laugh, the fact that they’re now being connected to orangutans, but I guess it’s logical. Sort of. I can’t wait until Nathan sorts out his photoshop issues and makes the fullmetal jacket parody.
I am sooo tired. I will go to bed in a minute.
I didn’t go to any other things this weekend. I don’t really feel up to social interaction. That’s a stupid place to be, I know, but right now I’m working on doing things that make me feel okay, and that’s all I can do for now. Sorry to Noelle, for not going to your Cardboard party, and sorry to Chris & Doon, for not going to your drinkies tonight. You know I’d totally be there if I was feeling like myself.
Happiness is a bell ringing
At the back of your throat
And when you open your mouth
Shiny sounds tumble out!
Those who told you
“Life is lived through sunshine alone!”
Will stay silent when night falls
And they don’t know how to live!
I watched them all gather in a corner
Pronouncing us a lost cause
And, with a sigh, moving on.
Next order of business! …
Killing time!
Minute taker, take an hour
I’ve got no use for all this time
The day’s stretched out before me
Like a blank page
And me without a pen!
I followed the path but it
turned out to be a furrow in
a field of angry red flowers,
where I am standing, dismayed
and disenchanted.
I followed a path of angry followers on
an angry mission to rid the world
of amibvalence
Anything to feel something!
There was smoke curling in tendrils
From the corners of your mouth
You were on fire and I was
on the edge of my seat
But you are all burnt out and black inside.
That’s how I began.
Wait for the green to start over again, and
it will grow. It won’t become what you want it to be,
but I was much more impresed by the ending anyway.
Tell me again.
Last night while I was trying to get to sleep, I kept wondering if my subconscious would respond with a dream where I could say goodbye, where I could say all the things I never said when I had the chance. What a good friend he was to me. How much he meant to me. How much he brightened my days.
I didn’t have that dream. I dreamt I saw Anthony underwater, as a calm, graceful being undulating gently in the currents of dark, silent seas. I dreamt a wizened, withered old man sitting high above in a golden cloud pointed an ancient, knotted wooden staff at a group of group of indistinct figures standing far below in hazy, grey surrounds.
What is your favourite shape? Tim: Dodecahedron. It’s not but I just said that. I saw that you basically copied my responses word for word the other night.
Me: Why is dodecahedron your favourite shape?
Tim: It’s not, I just said it. It’s weird.
Me: Can’t you tell me your favourite shape?
Tim: Probably a rhombus.
Me: Can you tell me why?
Tim: Cause it’s like a square that someone’s gone “poke” at and put it off centre.
What’s been the best day of your life so far?
Tim: Um… best day of my life… was meeting you. Haha is that corny enough?
Me: Can you say that without making it into a joke?
Tim: No, it was. Meeting you.
What is your most treasured posession? Tim: you. A Cass.
Me: What if I said it had to be an actual posession?
Tim: If it had to be an actual posession… My PS3. No… probably… my iPod Touch. No… yeah. My iPod touch.
What are you afraid of?
Tim: Heights.
Me: Why?
Tim: I don’t know… because I don’t like it (said in a defensive tone).
Have you ever been scared in a movie? If yes, which one/s? Tim: Um.. yessss… Event Horizon um… and when I was younger any movie where people used to get cut… Oh actually when I was really young, in Robin Hood at the beginning where that guy got his hand cut off for stealing, I always had to fast-forward that part.
What’s your favourite ad?
Tim: There ain’t no bugs on me, there ain’t no bugs on me…
Me: Is it really?
Tim: There may be bugs on some o’ you mugs… My favourite ad of all time though is “It’s a big ad, for Carlton Draught…”
What’s your funniest memory? Something that can make you laugh when you think of it?
Tim: When I almost ran a quad bike into a lake, cause I was trying to pull the accelerator, but at the same time I was pulling the handlebars and it went around off the track and towards the lake. It’s funny now.
Me: why didn’t you say that… what was that you used to call… Matt and your cat?
Tim: Oh… colostomy swiss and swiss Junior. Poor rambo, he couldn’t help that his teeth were holey. Holier than swiss cheese. Hence the name Swiss Junior. Thanks for making me laugh.
Me: Can you explain the names?
Tim: Colostomy Swiss was Matt cause he didn’t clean his teeth, so “Swiss”, and the colostomy was just a payout. It was just a dirty name that we came up with. Swiss Junior was Rambo, our cat, because he had holes in his teeth.
What are some nicknames you’ve had?
Tim: Rochey, Scholar, Brain.
Me: Why?
Tim: Because I was intelligent at high school. I was smart. I did well at high school. That sounds better, then I’m not blowing my trumpet as much.
Me: What’s the worst grade you’ve ever gotten?
Tim: Um… probably a… I got a 4 on an assignment at University.
Me: That’s not a fail though is it?
Tim: No, it’s not a fail. It’s just a pass.
Me: What about in high school?
Tim: B+ I think.
Me: Were you ever in trouble at school?
Tim: In primary school I got in trouble cause I gave someone the finger in class and … that’s about it. Oh no, I got in trouble in grade three because we were talking about time, and the teacher said the abbreviation for seconds was “secs”, and I laughed.
If you won the lottery, what would you do with the money? Tim: I would invest it. I would … well it depends on how much money we won. But 1) I would probably give some away to family, 2) I would pay off the mortgage and if there was enough, buy a proper house to live in, keeping this one to rent, and 3) if there was a super amount of money, I would quit my job, and tell Cass to quit her job, and she could do some studies, and I could do some studies and we could live off the income from our investments.
What’s a funny looking animal?
Tim: That one that we saw at the zoo, what was it… it’s sort of got a half-elephant-snout on it… was it “tapir”?
Me: Yeah it was a tapir.
Tim: yeah.
What’s your favourite country? Why?
Tim: Australia. Cause it’s home.
Me: Other than Australia?
Tim: It’s probably a tie between New Zealand and the UK. I just like the climate and the people, and they’re both very beautiful.
Who’s your favourite female celebrity?
Tim: Jessica Alba.
What is your favourite purchase from the US? Either my Adidas shoes, or my domo-kun.
I found a Domo-kun that you can make yourself by printing this picture out and following the folding lines (it also makes his TV set):
Some basic info about Domo-kun (credit to Wikipedia):
Domo-kun is described as “a strange creature that hatched from an egg.” Domo’s favorite food is Japanese-style meat and potato stew, and he has a strong dislike for apples, due to an unexplained mystery in his DNA. Domo-kun is known to pass gas repeatedly when nervous or upset.
What’s your favourite souvenir from the holiday?
Either my Alcatraz/San Fran tee, or the grizzly bear I got from the San Fran zoo. (He is called Monarch, because the very first bear at the San Francisco zoo was called Monarch, and that’s who he’s supposed to be.)
What’s the thing you missed most while you were away?
Firstly, Po. I also missed peeps, my bed, the rest of my clothes, creature comforts…
What’s the thing that you missed the most about Australia? A fundamental feeling of belonging, of knowing where I stand. Also, clothing variety. Australia seems to have a lot more range when it comes to clothes.
What did you like most about the US? The automation of the toilets in rest-stops. Where we would probably have a pit toilet (even one of those modern ones that don’t smell all that much), they have self-flushing toilets and taps that automatically turn on when you put your hands under them. Keep in mind that these are random rest-stops along the highway – not in towns, or shopping centres, or anything.
What did you like least about the US? Well, the bad thing about the automation of the rest-stop facilities is the self-flushing toilet. It would be good if it only worked when it needed to, but 99% of the time the flushing mechanism was over zealous, and not only did it waste a lot of water, it wasn’t an enjoyable experience.
I also found some Americans ambivalent and/or brusque, especially sales staff.
I feel I should counter this, though, by saying that there were also a lot of friendly, helpful, lovely people in America. One example was a lady working at a gas station near the Canadian border. She told us a lot about what to expect on the border crossing, and also about weird things to do with gas stations and the hoses and stuff.
What was the best food you tasted in America? The organic strawberries that we got at either Safeway or Bristol Farms. They were delicious. Oooh and also this banana pudding thing that was made from tapioca and other stuff. It was so awesome. And Americans really know how to make burgers. I only had chicken burgers, but they were all good.
What was the worst food you tasted in America? Maybe some chicken thing from McDonalds. Or the frozen yoghurt, but only because my mouth was expecting frozen yoghurt and it got vanilla soft-serve, and it’s like when you take a big gulp of what you think is apple juice and it’s actually vegetable oil.
What are you going to miss about the US?
Seeing things different to here, just ordinary things like walking down the street and seeing different stores, or being in a grocery store and seeing different products, or seeing different advertisements on TV (I got sick of the adverts quickly though, except one).
What was the funniest thing that happened on the holiday? One thing that was funny was when we stopped at a KFC for lunch on one of the legs of our drive, and a kid tried to explain to me how biscuits were “sooooo good!”. Or maybe the multiple times Tim and I were asked if we were Canadian. Do Americans really think Canadians sound so different?
Tim and I arrived at our hotel in Newport, Oregon, this afternoon sometime. I’m not entirely sure of when – time seems to lose some of it’s significance when most of the day is spent driving through unfamiliar landscapes, and the sun doesn’t set for ages, even though it’s only just spring.
Before leaving Eureka this morning, Tim and I visited the Target down the road from our hotel. It’s very similar to Australian Target, except that the clothes are cheaper and more generic (sort of like Australian Target before it got tickets on itself). They have some ranges of clothes that are referred to as “designer”, but they’re still pretty cheap. I bought a pair of Mossimo jeans for 27.99, mostly because I needed another option to keep my legs warm (apart from the one pair of jeans I brought with me).
We then bought breakfast from the Target food thingamie. It seems like all the food here is super sugary. They use a different source of crop for sugar than we do (sugar beets rather than sugar cane), but the end result is the same. I had a yoghurt (you can see in the pictures that the yoghurts here are upside-down) and it tasted sort of like melted ice-cream. Tim had a “fruit smoothie”, which tasted a bit like a saturated, saccharine solution. With berries.
We found a safeway a while later, just off the highway, and were finally able to get some relatively unprocessed food. We had a picnic lunch in a park/camping ground in a copse of redwoods (also just off the highway). It was beautiful, sitting in the dappled sunshine, protected from the freezing wind by the towering trees. It was quiet and calm, and refreshing after so long in the car.
The view from the car was also extra beautiful today. We passed three elk in the lowlands near the California/Oregon border, and experienced the coldest temperature so far (10 degrees celcius). Part of the drive was similar to the Great Ocean Road in Victoria (you should be able to see in the pictures in the link below), and Tim said it was also similar to New Zealand with the sharply rising hills crested in fog, and clear, shallow rivers cutting deep ravines between the hills. I didn’t get any really good pictures of this, due to the fact that it’s difficult to take decent photos from behind the window of a moving car, and also there weren’t many places to stop.
Tomorrow we head to Olympia, crossing another state line into Washington.
On a side note, I really haven’t seen any cats yet, but I can verify that the streets are NOT paved with cheese. At least one of the claims made in An American Tail is false, but I guess that was evident from when those meece arrived in America and were terrorised by cats, and were poor and starving just like most immigrants.
Another thing that the North West Coast of America seems to be lacking are bugs of any description. And spiders. And snakes. The only creatures I’ve seen a huge amount of are seagulls, and in the past couple of days, some black birds with red beaks. And pigeons. Not that I mind, at all… It’s nice to get away from deadly insects and arachnids and reptiles.
Love Cass
xoxo
The emo “No Skateboarding” sign along The Embarcadero in San Francisco. Emos love to skateboard everywhere.
Me myspacing it up in the car
Yoplait is upside down.
