'Yard Work'

This past weekend, KJ and I headed down to his family beach house for a weekend of slave labour (You may know it by its other name – ‘Yard Work’). KJ had managed to borrow a hydraulic wood splitter, so the whole family headed down to try to split about 5 tonnes of wood that has been lying around in the shed forever - because when you're on holiday, you can't be bothered getting out an axe to chop wood.


The wood splitter was borrowed from a guy we work with who happens to live on a large farm property, and it was built as a trailer so that it could be towed wherever it needed to go. And this particular weekend, it needed to go behind the ute so we could tow it to the beach house.


The trailer was this rickety old thing, more rust than paint and with tyres so old that the trailer felt like it was rolling along on two concrete pipes. The tail-lights were mounted on an old wooden plank that was held on to the trailer with a couple of heavy duty cable ties. So as you can imagine, it was a real sturdy vehicle.


When we set off with the wood splitter in tow, i cringed at every bump, every rattle. But after about an hour or so, I began to think that the trailer was actually up to the trip, and began to relax.

Clearly, I relaxed too soon.

Somewhere on a long, empty stretch of highway, I heard a loud metallic clanging. The removable tyre guard had bounced its way off the trailer and disappeared somewhere into the darkness.
This marked the first of several stops we made along the way to traipse through the darkness by the side of the freeway to retrieve errant wheel guards. The last of these stops was about 15 minutes from our final destination. A distant clattering and a quick look in the rear view mirror told us that the guard had once again vacated the trailer. We pulled to the side of the road and onto the grass, and immediately felt the car sink into the mud. The futile spinning of tyres confirmed it - we were bogged.


Stranded by the side of the road, in the pitch black on a quiet highway in the middle of nowhere, without a single bar of phone reception, we could do nothing but wait for someone to stop and offer to pull us out. With no street lights around, we wandered up the road by phone light to find the wheel guard, trying to stay out of the mud.


Thankfully, it wasn’t long before a bloke in a 4WD pulled over and offered to rescue us.
He didn't introduce himself, he just got right into the process of pulling us out of the smelly, muddy ground. He will forever be known to me as 'The Mysterious Stranger’. He knelt on the wet, muddy ground to tie the rope he used to pull us out, as thought this were an every day occurrence for him. In no time at all we were free, and our mysterious stranger disappeared into the night once more.

It made me feel quite good about the state of the world. That there are still people who will stop and help a stranger who is broken down (or bogged) by the side of the road - i honestly felt up until last weekend that this sort of basic decency was gone from the world.
We need more mysterious strangers in the world, but i'm glad to know that there are still at least one or two out there.



When we finally arrived at the beach house and got down to the process of splitting the wood, there was a kind of evil serial killer-ness about it all. As we split some of the freshly cut wood, it began to leak sap - sap that was so intensely, vividly red that it looked exactly like blood. As the splitter pushed in to the soft flesh of the logs, the sap would begin to ooze, and then suddenly squirt out and all over everyone, like some kind of body-chopping scene from Dexter.

And as if being bogged, forced to do slave labour and murdering trees wasn't enough to kill any tiny shred of joy the weekend may have held - someone dropped a huge log on my foot, causing me to swear so loudly that it could be heard above the sound of both the chainsaw and the petrol motor of the wood splitter. I've been hobbling around all week with a giant black bruise on my foot.


I think we can safely surmise from this experience that Slave Labour (or Yard Work, if you prefer) is really an evil, injurious and murderous pursuit that should be avoided at all costs.

Drinks, Reindeer and Armpits with a Friend

On Saturday night I had dinner with my best friend who has been overseas for the last couple of months. Whenever she's been away, we have a huge catch up session over dinner and drinks, which usually results in us having to go out for another catch up because we can't really remember the first one.

We threw around a few ideas on where we could go for the night, and one suggestion was the local pub. I've lived in my house for over 4 years now, and in all if that time I've never managed to muster up the motivation to walk to my local, which is basically at the end of my street. This is mostly because my street is super steep, so it's an uphill walk and it's a well established fact that I'm too lazy for that sort of thing.

I checked out the distance from my house to the pub on google maps, and I realised that it's actually less than 500m. That means that I live closer to a bar than my best friend, who lives smack bang in the middle of Melbourne city centre. Provided you don't count strip clubs as bars, that is.

Given the proximity, we decided that it was our best option for a big catch up night. I searched deep down inside of me and mustered up some tiny dredges of motivation and we set off. I think knowing that my reward for the walk would be an ice cold beer probably helped.

It turns out that the pub is kind of a cool place. It's an old building built some time in the late 1800's, and the walls are covered in memorabilia and random junk, with things like old gas masks, statues and even an old prosthetic limb suspended from the ceiling. In the bar area, there is a big flat screen TV (showing the footy, of course), and right next to it was a mounted reindeer head which later in the night I became convinced was staring at me. In the bistro area a band was playing old rock songs, and just as I'd hoped the beer really was ice cold. So we found a seat, got settled in and started to catch up on eight weeks worth of gossip.


Several beers into the night, we found ourselves discussing realtionships, and in particular the huge amount of effort that goes into keeping a woman looking attractive.
I pointed out that once a woman is in a relationship, there comes a certain point where the regular routine maintenance starts to slide, and she can find herself letting things like shaving her legs go a lot longer than she would ever have when she was single. This, we decided, was probably at about the same time as you're able to safely change your facebook status to show that you're 'in a relationship' with someone without looking too over eager (or nerdy).

We decided that maybe the 'is in a relationship' status would be more appropriate if they changed it to 'has stopped shaving her armpits.'  We thought this was such a good idea that we declared that we would draft an email to the Facebook site designer first thing Sunday morning and demand that they change it immediately.

Needless to say, that email remains (thankfully) unwritten.

Noodles for One

You know what? Cooking for one sucks. Honestly, if I had to cook just for myself every night, I would probably starve to death. It’s hard to get motivated to prepare a healthy, nutritious meal when it’s just for yourself.

Don’t get me wrong – I love to eat, and I enjoy cooking; it’s just that when you have to put all that effort into making dinner just because you're supposed to have an evening meal, it’s hard to get motivated.

KJ is away again, and right now I should be preparing myself dinner, but in all honesty I can’t be bothered. Do two-minute noodles and a cup of coffee count as a healthy dinner choice?

Probably not.

A Lazy Friday

It’s raining sideways. Ordinarily, the large glass window that is next to my desk gives a perfect view of the miserable weather, but today it’s like a water feature with a constant flow of rain water cascading down it. Considering that the usual view from my office is over an industrial estate, I would have to say that the water feature is somewhat of an improvement.

It’s Friday and I’m feeling a little sleepy and ever so slightly lazy. The cold weather means the heating is turned right up to the ‘super-cozy-comfy’ setting and it’s making me spend a lot of time stretching and yawning and checking the clock to see if it’s time to go home yet. Even my computer seems to be having a lazy day today. Regular tasks seem to be running slower, as if the computer knows that it’s the kind of day where slow and steady is the only pace available.

Since I already have the comfort food (down to 4Kg now), all I need now is a pair of slippers and some trashy daytime TV and I could almost pretend I wasn’t at work!

I wonder if anyone would notice if I took a nanna nap at my desk...

Not much going on...

Next weekend, if all goes to plan, I’ll be going with a friend to see the The Whitlams play at the Corner Hotel in Richmond. It’s been forever since I went to see a band play, and I’m a bit excited about seeing The Whitlams because Eternal Nightcap is one of those albums that just sort of lives in my CD stacker because it’s perfect for when you can’t decide what you’re in the mood to listen to.

Life is being suitably boring at the moment otherwise. My entire family has run off to various countries around the world for a holiday while I’m left here to keep on working through. My parents have headed to Malaysia, my Brother & his family are in England, my Cousins are in Europe, Aunties and Uncles in the Greek Islands. Even my grandmother has headed off for a holiday to Merimbula! And while Merimbula isn’t exactly an international destination, it’s still one more person who is on a holiday while I’m at home watching re-runs of MASH and trying to live off 2 minute noodles because I’m too lazy to cook a real meal.

At least I have the Whitlams to look forward to, although I shouldn’t get too excited yet because I don’t quite have my tickets yet and knowing my luck lately, they’ll be sold out already!

A Rant and a Bludge

Warning: Minor ranting ahead.

Some daft twit has organised our 10 year reunion and has made it $20 per head. Why the hell would I want to pay $20 for something we could do just as easily for FREE?! Ok, now i realise this might sound like a crazy tight-arse rant, but I should clarify - we’re having it at a pub. It’s not like they’ve booked some fancy function room somewhere. Last time I checked, my local pub didn’t have a $20 cover charge, especially if you were going to show up with about 100 people to drink their booze (at regular bar prices.) And it’s not just $20 for KJ and I to go along. It’s $20 EACH. That means if we want to catch up with old friends, we have to pay $40 for the privilege.

Okay, end rant. I’m done with complaining now.

I’m really just killing time before 5pm when I can head home for the day. I’m absolutely swamped at work at the moment, but I’ve hit a wall for the day and instead I’m counting the minutes until I can go home. This is what I get for working through lunch. I need a 25 minute distraction. These kinds of distractions are a lot easier to come by now that I sit with my back to a wall instead of a door - It’s amazing what wonderful distractions the internet can provide when you don’t have to be sneaky about finding them!

Actually I might be able to combine work and internet. I need to find a 10kg block of chocolate for a work promo. Browsing for that should kill a good 20 minutes or so wouldn’t you say?

Good Intentions & Laziness

Saturdays are all about good intentions and laziness.
This Saturday we had the good intention to spend the day catching up on all the random stuff that we've been putting off because we're too lazy. Instead I'm sitting here catching up on 2 weeks worth of blog reading and KJ is still in bed watching an Elton John/Billy Joel concert on TV. This is pretty much how our Saturdays always go. We make a full day's worth of plans and then sleep til midday, stuff around for an hour or two and end up doing just one of the twenty things we had planned.

For the past 2 years i have wanted to go to the local Saturday morning market. Sadly, the market starts at 8 and closes at 12 - so by the time we expend our Saturday morning laziness, it's too late. I'm usually up in time to go - I get up at around 8 every Saturday, but KJ stays in bed and i get online and the morning disappears. Every so often i get motivated and say that we will start spending our weekends in a productive way. This is usually on a Monday, so by the time Saturday rolls around, the motivation is gone and it goes like any other Saturday.

I think I need new motivation. What I need to do is quit my 9-5 job, get a night job and then maybe i might be able to get stuff done on a Saturday. Or even better, I might move to another country, which will hopefully screw up my internal clock and will mean that I will get stuff done without realising it's Saturday morning. Although that might make it hard to go to the local Melbourne market. Even better, I might go back to bed and sleep all morning until I've forgotten all the things we have planned. That sounds like a plan.

Chief Suspect: Laziness

Laziness broke my coffee table. I was trying to collect all of the junk (mostly coffee cups) from it without having to make two trips to the kitchen, and I dropped a mug on it, which bounced and shattered the glass tabletop. So really laziness and a mug broke my coffee table. I, on the other hand, am totally innocent.

I've been trying to buy some stuff from America and the annoying lady who runs the store told me that I wasn't ordering enough for it to be profitable for her to put the work into mailing it internationally. Since when is $700 cheap, and since when is it hard to stick some stuff in a box and take it to the post office? It's not like I was asking her to pay the postage - I have to pay nearly $100 for that too, so I don't really get how much work is involved in taking a box to a post office and handing over someone else's $100 to send it off.

Honestly, how lazy can one person be? I think she's just slack because when she ships within the USA, the company that makes the product ships direct to her customers, so she doesn't have to actually move at all. It's possible that she hasn't left the house in years, and has forgotten where the post office is and how to use her legs to walk there. I bet she has one of those electronic wheelchair things and she scoots around the house in that so she doesn't have to even put any effort into the day to day menial tasks.
Actually, that's not a bad idea - i might have to invest in one of those. If I had one, I could have filled up the little wire basket at the front with my coffee mug, and it wouldn't have broken the coffee table. Although that doesn't discount laziness from the equation, and who knows what could have happened as a result of laziness that severe...

Lazy Town

There is a segment on the morning radio show that I listen to called ‘Lazy Town’. People call in and talk about the laziest thing they’ve ever done. Like the guy who drove around with his fuel light on all day, then drove into a service station that night, looked at the pump, thought to himself ‘I can’t be bothered’ and drove off, only to run out of petrol about 2km up the road.

A girl rang in to say that when she wants to use the phone at home but can’t be bothered getting up to get it, she rings her house, pretends to be someone else and asks to speak to herself so that someone will bring her the cordless phone.

This has got me thinking about the lazy things that I often do. I’m not sure that I can meet the super lazy standards of the petrol man, however I think I could probably come close.

Tonight I couldn’t be bothered stopping on the way home from work to get something for dinner. The cupboards are bare (yet again) and instead of popping down to the shops to get something nutritious and wholesome, I once again ate whatever the cupboard coughed up. Microwave meat pie, hot chocolate and original flavoured Doritos.

That is how lazy I am. 10 minutes of time in the car and at the supermarket and I could have had something great, but I was too lazy. It’s a sickness, really.

I’d like to hear other people’s lazy stories – hopefully there is someone out there lazier than I am!

Another weekend eaten away

Ah yes, another weekend draws to a close and yet again I’m sitting on my bum on the couch after having eaten (ok, and drunk) my way through the weekend. I feel that I can justify my total lack of….anything…by saying that it was KJ’s birthday and that means that the weekend should be all about him. This means there is no time for practical things like Christmas shopping, housework, exercise or moving my butt off the couch.

It was a good day today; things went pretty much as I had hoped they would with only a few minor glitches in the plan.

Instead of waking up around 8am, I woke up at around 6 after a long night of disturbed sleep filled with what I fear are the beginning of an endless stream of dreams about our wedding. I wasn’t so excited (and cruel) about his birthday that I was going to wake him at 6 to make him open his present, so I spent 2 hours on the couch trying to doze off again. At 8 I kicked into birthday mode and jumped around and made him open his present, which was this – A slot car set in the shape of the Bathurst track. Obviously this present meant that as predicted he got out of bed faster than he would normally, so we set the track up and had a quick go at it before we had to start getting things ready to have the family over.

The rest of the day was just the same old regular birthday business. Family over, presents exchanged, food consumed, endless slot car races and an afternoon nap on the couch. It was a good relaxing sort of day but now I’m so tired that as I’ve been typing this, I’ve been putting the words in the wrong order and I have hit the backspace key more than any other on the keyboard. I think this may be a sign that it’s time to drag myself off the couch into bed.

Crazy Lazy Déjà vu

I keep having these little déjà vu experiences this week, where I am in the middle of doing some intensely mundane task like punching holes in paper and I suddenly realize that I had a dream about this exact thing months and months ago – sometimes even years. It just pops into my head that I recognize this exact moment.

This has got me thinking about time. Time is a funny concept really and the more of these freaky little déjà vu things that I have, the more I’m beginning to believe that maybe everything has already happened and I’m just sort of remembering it a bit at a time. This would explain a lot of things – like why people inexplicably hate some things without any valid reason – maybe it’s from a future memory of something that put them off that item. It also explains why I’m so lazy. It’s because I’ve already done everything.

I think it might also vaguely explain psychics but I’m not 100% certain on that one because I haven’t quite worked out how they know stuff about other people rather than just themselves.

Quite disturbingly, Wikipedia tells me that apparently there is a link between déjà vu and schizophrenia and anxiety. I prefer the time theory, because it means I’m not crazy or stressed out – plus it explains my laziness a lot better than anything else I’ve ever thought up.
Is it crazy to be lazy because of déjà vu?