Beautiful McMansions

I knew there was something about this guy that liked.

Why did I not know about this in 2005? Probably because I did not know about Little Britain?

Absolutely amazing. Two of my faves in one.

No more cancer sticks means I can wash my Sportsgirl skinny jeans less!

Is it so wrong that today, on my tram ride home, I smirked to myself when I saw people standing outside Long Room and Bar Open and the Cape in the freezing rain lighting up? That I chuckled silently and relished in their shivers? That I enjoyed the payback for all those summer nights with a smoky pillow and smoky hair? For all the laundry detergent I used washing things that weren't dirty? For all the (expensive) Febreeze I sprayed on my pashminas? For all the gross cigarette remnants left on bathroom floors that made me throw up in my mouth? For all the sneezes?

No, it's not wrong. Not wrong at all.

Melbs, it's about time.

Hooray!

Care Packages

I mentioned to my mother how I'd like to have another July 4th gathering like I did last year, and 'oh would you mind terribly sending me the recipe for the baked beans and potato salad? cheers!' This is what I receive, out of the blue, approx a week before 4 July 2k7:

Thanks, Martha. Stewart. Or Washington. Either one works in this situation. But not Martha Reeves. If we were at Cherry Bar then maybe.

Ahh yes this is how my family (extended and immediate -- and by immediate I mean Mama K as I am sans siblings for life) operates. Do up the social events big, y'all. Look out for forthcoming post on how party decor turned out at our party to celebrate the war of American aggression.

Also in this package were many other amazing things, including a mix CD from Mama K. And in case you were wondering what the instructions are for How to Make Lindsay Cry 101, all you need to do is put Lucinda William's 'Are You Alright?' as track 1 and you're dunzo.

[SIDENOTE: Lucinda REALLY looks like that loud haggish woman from Big Brother. Even more so cos they both like to wear tweed newsboy caps. Sadly I was not able to procure any photos of BB evictee wearing one:





















Anyway, strategically-chosen songs about daughters and life and Philadelphia completed the awesomeness, and extra points for a song by Charlotte Gainsbourg who recently starred in The Science of Sleep with mi amor, Gael.

Also in the package:


Yes, 'Blog fodder' that says. Particularly the school board case. Manheim Township, what gives? You produce this douche and then you go and ban Maya FREAKING Angelou????? There were other positive articles from my hometown; they are not all narrow-minded conservative folk, but man oh man this kind of stuff pisses me off.

I fear that since my life just got sufficiently crazier, and I have International Visitor #7 coming in approx 1 week, my posts will be less frequent. And for that, I am sorry. I will have plenty more verve coming at you as we turn the corner into spring. THAW, AUSTRALIA. THAW. YOU CAN DO IT. Until then, enjoy the summer weather, Northerners!

And you WONDER why I want to stay?

'The leaning tower of Pizza'



'9.11.01= September 16th?'

"We're going to sleep on the St Kilda sands"

presh

It's weekends like this that make me never want to leave Melbourne. Saturday I went to Chadstone with Davis Street Massive + 'Berra guest (post to follow) and, after many other fun things which I will not explore in this space (begging a jazz band to play anything by George Clinton, a mojito, an entertaining tram ride, etc), we ended the night with mixed dips at Stalactites at 2 am:

awwwwwww yeaaaahhhh

It is not the consumerism and drunken munchies that makes me appreciate Melbs so much, however. It's mostly the afternoons and evenings on Saturdays an Sundays that make me realise how easy it would be to carve out a life here. To explain, on Sunday, we (Chadstone crowd plus The [non-British Columbian] Canadian) started off the day at another brunch establishment I've been meaning to try, all thanks to The Breakfast Blog (all thanks to my morning breakfast --literally-- Go Fug Yourself via the Bloggies Awards). Anywho, we finally went to Replete Providore (!!!), where we tried to go on Easter, and it was AMAZING. A bit of a trek out to Hawthorn, but the corn fritters and pancakes with berries were worth the sojourn. I even had a flat white to get into the Melburnian lazy Sunday spirit. Have I told my American readers about the institution that is a flat white? They don't have drip brewing coffee here; those lines of kettles all lined up in WaWa are but a distant memory to me, *sigh*. They only do it fancy style from an espresso machine (even in Starbucks, ask Housie), and a flat white is the default drink you receive if you simply say 'I'd like a coffee.' According to Mama K and Papa T, flat whites are mighty milky, as coffees go. Who knows? But it can be delicious when you're feeling slightly Parisian and not normally a caffeine-hound:

After a lemon slice to go (shortbread bottom, SHYEAAAHH!!), I bid my brunch companions adieu to board the 16 to St Kilda to meet former Housie, Liv. It takes about 45 minutes to go half way down this tram's route, so it's obviously a winding and long journey. I went through Toorak (cue obnoxious high school girls with side ponytails, Bettina Liano jeans, and conversations about having a party and being 'found out' by mom who installed cameras in the basement [as one does when one is a mother in Toorak]), Caulfield, Balaclava, and other suburbs until somehow, I ended up on Acland St, St Kilda.

I believe I was going past Caulfield Park when a rush of 'I Love Melbourne' came over me. A man was selling flowers out of an old-fashioned I love Lucy silver campervan; bunches of colour sat in pots in front of his truck, and he read The Age while he waited for customers. A hundred metres down, a father and son played footy while their dog was tied up to a flagpole looking like he wanted in on the action. A group of teenagers waited on a bench to board the tram. I half expected Paul Kelly to burst into song to complete my perfect Melbourne moment.

So I end up in Acland Street to wait for Liv to arrive and decide to sit on the bench beside Luna Park:

We then went up to the arts market (oh man when I get my paycheck I'm so buying that giant earring/necklace holder) and then went down to the water:

Livvy Livvy Livvy Livvy rockin everywhere

Whilst on our little walk along the water, we witnessed, quite possibly, no, definitely, one of the top 5 most adorable things I've ever seen in my life (perhaps behind puppies tilting their heads when you scold them and babies sneezing). If you can't see from the first photo in this post, a 20-something dude was strolling, arm-in-arm, with his 80-something grandmother. Here's a close-up:

good on ya, mate.

And as Liv pointed out, he wasn't 'doin it for the glory,' for some random American girl to snap a photo and post it on the internet. He just seemed to walk along, not noticing anyone else, helping his Nan. Beautiful.

We then made our way to the Vineyard, a staple pub in Melbourne because of its location. The Community Cup had just finished, so it was, as they say, 'going off!' I went to the Cup last year, but this year it kind of snuck up on me and I didn't make it. We shared 3 Coopers Pale longnecks and shot the proverbial breeze for 3 hours. Thank God for heat lamps. Glooooorious.

We then made our way up Inkerman St to Harro's (across from the infamous establishment at which we spent Halloween) to indulge in what we were told is 'the best pizza in Melbourne.' I might have to agree. A red wine, chock-a-block pizza, and Liv's company? Alriiiiight on a Sunday night... I love Melbourne : )

The freaks come out at night

the birthday gang

My public transport experiences are as varied as the twists and turns Yarra Trams takes around all the nooks and crannies (Gram-a! Gram-a! Look!) of this fair city. Through my many journeys on Metlink's fleet of buses, trains, and trams, I've witnessed arguments, fights over the telephone, intolerable body odour, obnoxious grandmothers, obnoxious school children, charming elderly people, creepy starers, coughing fits bordering on TB-proportions, men and women on ice (the drug, not next to a Zamboni), Aboriginal people yelling over land rights, drunk old men singing, drunk women singing, drunk teenagers giggling, drunk 20-somethings sleeping, drunk 30-somethings pretending they're not drunk. You get the picture. When you're inebriated, you tend to take public transport, which, I have to admit-- it's a good thing. At least it means you're not cruising down the Monash Freeway at 100 Ks/hr.

I also believe that the winter months brings out the---the how you say... The Crazies. I guess it's the weather, the difficulty to 'find a park,' as they say, in the CBD. Whatever it is, in between all the wintry sniffles and sneezes, I am noticing the clientele of Yarra Trams gets weirder.

After a lovely Sunday arvo and evening spent with wonderful people, I wanted to get the crap home. I'm a working girl like woah this month, and I needed to plan for the week-- plan my lunches, plan my outfits, you know. The Fates were not hearing my pleas, unfortunately. I was privileged (sarcasm) to ride with one approx 62 year old drunken man on this particular Sunday night on the 55 tram back to my house. As soon as he gets on, we realise there's Trouble. At first I thought he was harmless, spent a few too many hours with VBs at the Pokies, and somehow has managed to get on the appropriate tram (good on him given his state of mind, hey?). When he started telling everyone to "f**k off" and "get f****d" and nearly started a fight with a middle-aged African man, tram-goers got a little 'meehhhhh' bordering on 'aaaaaaaahhhh.'

We then proceeded to stop at Lonsdale Street for approximately twenty minutes to wait for the police to arrive. Only, we didn't quite know what we were waiting for, as the driver couldn't make an announcement like 'The cops are coming to pick up this crazy man' or anything. A teeny Singaporian girl next to me went up to the front to ask the driver what was going on (after I asked the driver to shut the doors 5 mins earlier cos it's bloody freezing these days, mate), and as she made her way back, the man called her a"f*****g sl*t." Lovely. She then informed me what was going on [SIDENOTE: Victoria Police, what gives? What are you guys all doing on a Sunday night? Texas hold'em? Watching Rove? Trivial Pursuit? Why did it take you 20 minutes to get to Lonsdale St from Victoria Market? Pretty ridiculous, fuzz].

It was right about then (after some slurring about the Sherlock Holmes book his seat-partner was reading) that McCraze decided to bust out a little Yusaf Islam. Yes indeed, when you're drunk on a tram on a Sunday night, you CLEARLY start serenading your fellow passengers with Cat Steven's Father and Son. I believe he was trying to channel 'Just relax, take it eeeeeeeeeasy.'

On a Friday night coming back from Northcote, a 20-year-old-ish couple sat across from me (pseudo Goth/pseudo IT geeks with tragic clothing. Yes, I'm making sweeping generalisations). They talked-- for 20 minutes-- about Second Life and computer games. When we went past a Transformers poster, the girl told the dude she was the blue one, and he said she must be the other one, and they started talking PDA-style indiscernably into one another's faces.. It was at this moment when I really wished I had a tape recorder, but I guess some things just have to be experienced first hand. It also makes me think 'WELP there's someone out there for everyone.' And that is a comforting feeling for all the people out there who wore Airwalks and computer watches in high school. And all of us, let's be serious.

Back to more Crazies. On my way to the city the other day on the 19, a (Cambodian?) woman had a kitten in a zip bag that she called 'her baby' and said 'don't worry we'll be home soon' about 14 times in a 5 minute span. Whilst waiting to board the 112, a chain-smoker informed me he had a vision three years ago there would be a drought. And when he wrote the government to tell them, they never responded. Even more shocking is that they never called to thank him when the drought hit to say he was right. Can you believe it?! How dare they? He then said John Howard was racist, to which I happily agreed. That shut him up. I'm pretty sure he thought I was a Liberal (big L, not little), what with my leather gloves and point shoes and corporate wear. I'm simply a well-dressed Left Winger, thanksverymuch.

When my parents were here and we took the 109 coming back from IKEA (hollaatcha Princess and the Pea bed), a bearded white man paced up and down the aisle singing 'We're on a sloooowwww boat to Chiiiiiina.' I couldn't decide whether to laugh since, yes, it was mighty slow, or ignore him because he was ripping on all the Asians in Melbourne as we barrelled down to Little Saigon, Richmond. This is the problem with Crazy. How do you know when people are genuinely being funny and when to just back away slowly?

I can, however, tell you a time when people are being genuinely funny: when they've drank too much Fruity Lexia. Half of Davis St Massive was not convinced that is all they partook in that night (ahem), but it's just speculation. All I know is, I had to take a photo right then and there to document the funniest people I've ever met in my life on public transport. A whirlwind conversation of El Salvador, Oasis, and goon makes all the Crazies seem worth while.

"Wheredyou get dis from Lizzy? Meheeka?"

Max loves to wear my cowboy boots...

and eat chicken schnitzel on his Shrek plate.