'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.

The Possums

On Saturday night, Kate and I walked through Flagstaff Gardens on our way to a bar. It was about 1am. As we passed the big old trees that line the pathway, she pointed out a pair of possums sitting at the base of one of the tree trunks. Then she pointed at another beneath the next tree. And another. And another. And another.

Everywhere I turned possums were climbing trees, sitting in branches or by the path. As we walked by they just watched us, no fear; not scurrying away like possums usually do.

Their beady little eyes glittered in the street light in an eerie kind of way and as a group of them approached the path, I was suddenly struck by a horrible feeling that maybe I was stuck in some horrifying Australiana version of Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘The Birds’ – only with possums instead of birds.

I think it was the way they were staring at me. We get a lot of possums around our place, but they’re proper feral possums that make that horrible hacking, hissing noise – and they never look at you, they just run away. These ones were so fearless that even one of the possums which had a baby wasn’t afraid as we walked within a metre or so of it.

I wanted to get my phone out and try to take a photo of them, but I was a bit worried that if I did it might anger them, and then the crazy Hitchcock style attack would begin. So instead I just walked a little faster, trying to keep an eye out on all sides.

I always thought the creepiest thing in a city park at 1am was the perverts. Silly me.

Saturday with The New Pornographers

I had the most amazing weekend. Saturday night’s gig was truly awesome – one of the best nights I’ve had in a really long time.


It started at my best friend’s place, where, after the obligatory hour or so of changing into different outfits and finally ending up back in the first thing I put on, we headed outside only to find that it was pouring with rain. We sprinted to the street, trying futilely to cover our hair to prevent the sudden and unwelcome sprouting of a moisture-induced afro. My friend (who we’ll call Kate for the purposes of this story) waved her arm into the road like a crazy woman, and although the rain was much too heavy to see anything, somehow, only seconds later we were seated in the warmth of a taxi, wiping frantically at our hair to stop the explosion of frizz.


The taxi ride was short, but as we neared the venue my excitement grew to a point where I was literally bouncing up and down in the seat like a little kid who knows her birthday presents are about to be handed to her. I guess I’m dorky like that.

As the taxi pulled up outside I was ready to bounce right out of the door, and my insane excitement levels had me tipping the driver way more than a 5 minute car ride deserves – although to be fair it was partially so that I wouldn’t have to carry a bunch of stupid coins around in my jeans pocket.


We headed for the door, but found two burly bouncers blocking the way.

‘Can we see some ID please girls?’ The one that looked a little like Tony Danza on steroids asked.

Slow smiles crept across both our faces. This was a very pleasant start to the night. I can’t even remember the last time someone checked my ID! It was probably about 9 years ago.

‘Thanks’ said buff Tony Danza as he handed me back my license. He gave me what I can only assume he thought was a winning smile.

‘No,’ I told him. ‘Thank you!’


We wandered downstairs, grabbed a couple of beers at the bar and headed towards the stage. Two steps led down into a lowered section right in front of the stage, which was about 5 ½ feet above the floor level. We took up our place on the very top step so that Kate would be able to see over everyone. She’s pretty short and usually finds herself spending an entire gig staring at the back of someone’s head – or in this case it would have been the wall in front of the stage.

It was a fantastic spot, only about 6 metres or so from the stage with a completely unobstructed view. I would have like to be a bit closer, but I can’t complain since Kate agreed to come along not knowing any of the band’s songs.


It was about 9pm, and we had arrived just in time to see the support band, Little Scout. They played for about 45 mins, but although they were really good and the lead singer was adorable, I was eager for them to finish so that The New Pornographers would come on. After Little Scout finished we had to wait an excruciating 30 minutes before they took the stage.

As they all wandered on you could feel the excitement levels of the crowd rising. Everyone pushed forward and I found myself looking down into the massive, crazy hair of what I thought was a guy – until the man next to him grabbed him on the bum and I realised that the he was actually a very strange looking she.

Neko Case took her place on stage looking like she had just gotten out of bed; hair tousled and fluffy, wearing jeans and a hoodie. It made me love her just a little bit. She’s so normal, and her wild hair made me feel a lot better about my own crazy rain-ruined locks. Aussies generally make fun of rangas, but Neko would be the exception to that rule.

And Carl Newman was a lot bigger than I thought he would be. I don’t mean that he was fat; far from it. He was just taller and less weedy than I had imagined him.


They jumped straight into it, and the next 2 hours were filled with the most amazing live music I think I’ve ever heard. Maybe it was just that I like their stuff so much, or maybe it was all the wine and beer I had drunk, but it was just phenomenal. They mostly played their newer songs, but included the more well known tracks off their older albums too. There wasn’t a single song that didn’t have my foot tapping or my body moving.


Part way through the show, an audience member yelled out for them to play ‘Myriad Harbour’. They said they couldn’t, because they didn’t have Dan Bejar there to sing it. Later, when they came out for their first encore, they offered to play it if someone from the crowd would get up on stage and sing it with them. After a couple of moments of waiting, and it looking like no one would do it, a voice yelled out from somewhere behind me

‘Ah fuck it, I’ll do it!’

A cheer went up in the vicinity of the anonymous voice and spread slowly around the room. A guy pushed through the crowd, too short to be seen until he jumped up on stage. After a quick request that someone film it, he sang the entire song with the band – and pretty well, too. The crowd went wild, and cheered so loud and so long that the band came back out and played a second encore.

After the gig, we went to a bar where Kate’s roommate works and had a couple of drinks. Some random Canadian guy bought me a drink because I managed to guess where he was from and because I’d just come from seeing a Canadian band. A drunken Mexican hugged me repeatedly, and a guy who has been trying to hook up with Kate tried continually (and very obviously) to make a good impression on me. Which was wise, after all - because if the best friend likes you, it goes a very, very long way. Especially when it comes to Kate.


At about 2am the bar closed, and I was absolutely exhausted (you know, like I’ve said before - because I’m old and boring). Kate, on the other hand, pretty much never sleeps (because it gets in the way of all the drinking), so she stayed out while I staggered off home, to fall asleep and relive my awesome night over again in my head.

Saturday

On Saturday I’m going to a gig at the Hi-Fi and I’m pretty damn excited about it! I don’t go to a lot of shows – mostly because I’m trying to save my money to get rid of the hideous 70’s brown shag carpet in my house, but also, you know, coz I’m old and boring.

I’m going to see The New Pornographers, a band that I discovered while reading The Neon Lounge.

Despite the fact that I couldn’t find anyone who knew any of their songs all that well, my best friend agreed to come with me, because she’s almost as desperate as I am for something interesting to do.

The beauty of convincing her to come with me is the wonderful convenience of her apartment being within staggering distance of the venue. So it promises to be a good weekend. If only I didn’t have to spend Saturday cleaning out the garage, it would be perfect!


This is one of my favourites off The New Pornographers’ latest album ‘Together’.

The Phantom of the Couch

This past four day weekend should have been a great opportunity to get out and do a few things that I’ve been meaning to for a while; a chance to have a few drinks with friends and maybe have one of the first barbeques of the year. Instead it turned into what I’m now calling my ‘Phantom of the Opera’ weekend.
It’s less of a musical weekend and more of a ‘being too hideously deformed to go out in public’ kind of thing.

I had a bad reaction to some medication, and ended up swollen and rashy (lovely, I know). Of course as luck would have it, the reaction was limited to my face and neck. So not only did I have to live with the irritation of side-effects, but they left me looking like an obese, pimply 16 year old.

I sulked at home on the couch all weekend, refusing to leave the house and making KJ go out without me whenever we needed something. I have watched so much television that I’m finding real life kind of strange – I can’t understand why there isn’t canned laughter whenever I make a joke, or why bizarre and amusing things aren’t happening to me in mundane situations.

Now the weekend is over and instead of sulking on the couch at home, I’m sulking in my office, trying to avoid talking to anyone or drawing attention to myself until I’m totally back to normal.

At least I have virtual me – my online presence that is much more well spoken, swears less, is about 3 inches shorter and most importantly, looks less like the Phantom and more like the chick that the Phantom fancies.

Inked Up

On Saturday night a group of us headed out to the Corner Hotel in Richmond to see The Whitlams play. I went and saw them a little while back and they were incredible; such a fantastic band to see live. So when the opportunity arose to see them play one more time before they go on an extended break, I jumped at the chance. It also doesn’t hurt that Tim Freedman is pretty hot.


When we entered the venue, they stamped our wrists with a purple ink stamp of some cute little Snork-like creatures. Nothing unusual about that in itself. What is unusual is that it took me until this morning’s shower to get the damn thing off. I’ve been walking around for 3 days with a smudgy purple Snork couple tattooed across my wrist. I’m not a tattoo kinda girl, but if I was to get one it definitely wouldn’t be a couple of excessively cute cartoon creatures smeared across my wrist. It would probably be something useful, like a couple of lines for a to-do list, or maybe a small map of the city. Possibly some emergency phone numbers, but definitely not a dolphin, rose or random Chinese symbol.

Basically it looked like I’d been to a club and not showered for 3 days.

I’m not entirely sure why my stamp wouldn’t come off, because the two friends who crashed at my place that night woke up next morning with little purple Snorks all over their bodies from where their wrists had touched against them in their sleep. My skin must have some kind of magical ink-retaining properties that other people lack.

Combine this smudgy night-out remnant with the bruises and pin prick marks all over my arms from the hack job of a blood test I had on Saturday morning, and I looked like I spent the weekend at a rave rather than a Whitlams concert. Which is obviously not the case, because I can actually remember my weekend and it was totally drug and techno free - but still lots of fun.

Lessons Learnt

I had a weekend filled with lots of random although largely uninteresting events. While none of them really rate an entire blog post, I found that I did learn a few things over the course of the weekend that might be worth noting:

• Don’t have a bunch of beers and then attempt to play Scrabble. It’s hard.
  
  
• Real life pirates don’t wear eye patches, have wooden legs, make people walk the plank, or have talking parrots sitting on their shoulders. Very disappointing.
  
  
• Seeing a friend heading off to a war zone is both sad and worrying, even if you know that they’re pretty much guaranteed to be ok.
  
  
• I still hate doing housework.
  
  
• I’ve missed my best friend more than I realised. She’s been travelling overseas for 2 months and just got back this week. It was very good to see her again.
  
  
• The amount of products that a person can buy when having a baby is both staggering and completely unnecessary. Some of the things that you can buy are just crazy. Also baby stuff still freaks me out.
  
  
• Caffeine is my friend.
  
  
• It's almost but not quite possible to submerge an entire car in a large puddle.

But aside from learning those few things, it was an otherwise dull weekend.