Surry Hills Festival

I met another one of my neighbors this morning. She was exiting the building on her Rascal scooter with her dog (also riding on the scooter) who was wearing a KISS vest. I'm guessing she is in her late 40's or early 50's? She was very grateful that I offered to put the portable ramp away, so much so that she offered to pick up items from the store for me, which I politely declined. She also was happy to show me recent photos on her phone of her and her friend dressed up in KISS makeup before the concert where said dog vest had been purchased. I never know who I am going to talk to in the lobby of our building. 

Today I rode my bike over to the Surry Hills Festival, which was not unlike all the other community street festivals I've ever been to. There were kids and dogs running around, pseudo-healthy food trucks, live music, people handing out random free stuff, local crafts and art, etc. I was happy to pick up a free children's book for my classroom; the local libraries had set up a shelf full of free books for people to take. 

Below is a knitting display by a local group. 

There was also a display with some bikes that generate electricity, which was cool. It wasn't fully set up and there weren't a lot of people there, so taking a picture wouldn't have done the concept justice. In any case, I learned that an electric kettle uses more electricity than just about any other appliance. As an avid tea drinker, I feel a little bit guilty about this. However, I walk, bike, and take public transportation almost everywhere I go, and I don't own a clothes dryer or blow-dry my hair, so I don't feel that bad. I guess the take-away there is that insulated drink containers are worth investing in so you don't need to keep reheating water.

I couldn't hangout in Surry Hills without patronizing my favorite local business (Gelato Messina). The specials I tried this time were strawberry balsamic (self-explanatory- yum!) and crowd saucin' (cinnamon doughnut gelato smashed with doughnuts, pretzel clusters, and peanut sauce). 

Michael is currently enjoying the wedding festivities of our friends Evan and Kristyn back in Virginia, and his trip back to the states ends in the next few days. I'm obviously looking forward to his return because he'll back, but also because he's bringing back lots of goodies. By goodies, I mean new hiking backpacks and other outdoor gear from REI, Builders Bars, and random things I ordered online weeks ago and had shipped to my parents' house.

The weather is warming up again, but still mild (highs in the high 60's and low 70's most days) - it's definitely spring in Sydney. 

Weekend Warrior

Saturday a group of frisbee friends and I started our ride heading west around 10AM. We started with four people, but met up with more as we went along until we had about nine. One place that we kind of went by/through was Flemington Market, which is really a collection of large markets. It was chaos. When you go there, you don't really feel like you're in Australia anymore, you feel like you're somewhere in Asia. I'd like to go back another time when I have more time to wander. Another stop I enjoyed was the Concordia Club. The Concordia club has croquet courts, and even though the kitchen was closed they had still had cakes/pastries and good pretzels. I left the group around 4:30PM after biking about 33km, since we were close to Tempe, the last stop we would be near that is on my train line. 

Saturday night I finally checked out Chauvel Cinemas on Oxford St. and saw Predestination.  It was good enough since I was in the mood for a Sci Fi movie, but I could have just as easily re-watched 12 Monkeys. The theater was okay, but didn't meet the high expectations the internet reviews gave me. I'll probably go back at some point to see some foreign or independent films, since it's about a 15 minute walk from home. They did have good popcorn that they cook with olive oil. They also have fancy cheese plates and things like that to eat before or during your movie. 

Speaking of eating, our cats are really cute when they aren't digging in the garbage or trying to break into the pantry.

Unfortunately, this morning they were not cute. I woke up to find out that the cats, primarily Ninja, had broken into the pantry and ransacked the Weet-Bix and oatmeal, of all things. 

They were punished and not given breakfast. Ordinarily they beg for food, but right away they knew they weren't getting any. Ninja had a tummy ache for a little while anyway, so I hope he learned his lesson. 

The last few weeks we have had frisbee practice in picturesque parks along the water, just by luck of what fields were available. Last week we were at Rushcutters Bay Park and today we were at Lyne Park at Rose Bay. It's nice to be somewhere with nice views for a change, but it does mean the parks are more crowded and random people and dogs just walk onto the field all the time without paying attention. Today the highlight was one of our teammates stopping these kids from bullying another kid  (they were pushing him down and kicking him - who does that?!) just a few feet from where we were circled up discussing things. 

While I have been doing all this stuff, Michael has been back in the states working, driving my car, climbing at the gym, having boardgame nights with our friends, talking like a pirate, and spending quality time with the family. His brother and family came down to Maryland from New York to hangout with him for the weekend. Even though our nephew is 2 1/2 and we thought he might forget us, being gone so long, Max seemed pretty happy to see him. I wish it was easier for us to see our family, but living so far away just means we have to make the most of the times we do get to see them. 

This post is long enough. 

The Champeenship

My team in the fun Wednesday night frisbee league won the finals! We were completely unspectacular all season but then won the semi-finals because the really good team (that probably deserved to win the finals) had to play down a player. That being said, we legitimately won the last game by playing hard and working well together. It has been fun playing in a different league, and I've gotten more experience playing different positions on the field. At the league party/awards ceremony I was also awarded the team disc for being "the most consistent player". I don't know if that means I played consistently, or just that I had good attendance, but either way I'm happy to be recognized and get a free disc.

Michael is in the states right now getting to celebrate International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Every year we have a group of friends that host a party and everyone gets dressed up. The extent of my celebration this year was getting to say, "ARRR!!" a few times to a cute little two-year-old who brought a pirate hat to the center where I work. 

Today I'm going on a bike ride with a group of friends, which should be fun. Happy weekend everyone!

No News is Good News

Just a little mid-week report to say there's not much to report. I'm chillin' with the cats and Michael's back in the states doing his thing. Our trivia showing this week was NOT our strongest to date. Tomorrow my frisbee team (in the fun Wednesday night league - not the serious one) is playing in the finals thanks to an upset. And.... that's it. 

Jenolan Caves, etc.

We drove to Jenolan Caves Thursday night. We saw several and almost hit three wallabies/kangaroos with the car. We didn't really almost hit them, but they definitely hopped in front of the car, some closer than others, in time for us to brake. Back in the states, you know to kind of be careful for deer near wooded or open grassy areas. The weird thing here is even if you're driving along basically a rock face on one side of the car, a rock-wallaby can still come bounding out of nowhere. We didn't see any live wombats, but saw a few as road kill, sadly. 

We stayed at the Jenolan Caves House, which we probably wouldn't have stayed at without the Groupon deal, and it was lovely. The ambiance reminded us of Mohonk Mountain House, but on a smaller scale. The Caves House has no heat, but, it does have heated beds, which are amazing. Each side of the bed had different controls so I could turn mine way up and Michael could turn his down. There were few guests staying at the hotel on a Thursday night; just a few deal-seekers like ourselves, so it was very quiet. 

In the morning we walked around on some of the trails near the lake, The Grand Arch, Devil's Coach House, the Carlotta Arch, and the Nettles Cave. We didn't spot any of the platypuses that supposedly live in the lake, but we saw an eastern water dragon, lyrebird, wallaby, and a few crimson rosellas.  

Eastern Water Dragon

 Michael at Carlotta Arch

Elusive Lyrebird

After hiking around and eating a mediocre lunch, it was time to do some spelunking. We did the "Plughole Adventure" which involves abseiling into the Elder Cave and crawling down and through many obstacles and ending in the Imperial Cave. The whole thing took about two hours and was pretty fun and easy.

One thing the guide told us about was the cave's unique social spiders (we did not get to see any). Apparently the caves are the only place in the world where badumna socialis is known to live - in colonies.  I tried to look them up on the interwebs and found surprisingly little info about them. The thought of a bunch of spiders working together is kind of terrifying and cool at the same time. 

We had a good dose of Australian nature in a short amount of time at Jenolan Caves. I would definitely go back another time to get a break from the city. 

This morning Michael and I had a hearty breakfast at Flat White Cafe... 

We split the crunchy peanut butter french toast with berries and the baked eggs with chorizo, salsa verde, and some other tasty ingredients I can't remember. Then I kissed Michael goodbye so he could make the long journey back to the states while I hold down the fort here.

After perusing Paddington Market, I got to go on a little tea shopping spree at T2 (kind of the equivalent of Teavana) courtesy of my thoughtful coworkers who gave me a gift certificate. Here's the swag:

I also saw What We Do in the Shadows, which was hilarious. I'm not sure if it is or will play in the states, but I recommend it if you like Flight of the Conchords humor. 

And that about sums up the last 48 hours. 

The September Scoop

This past weekend we went to Regionals with our frisbee team. It was a lot of fun playing with them despite the cold rain that graced us during yet another tournament. We won some, we lost some. Michael's brand new jersey is already permanently mud-stained. The tournament directors made a silly error in scheduling and communication, so they bought our whole team Pat and Stick's ice cream sandwiches. They were delicious. Apparently the company is owned by ultimate players.

Michael is again back in Adelaide working. I went to trivia solo again this week and teamed up with an older dude who was sitting at the bar. We did slightly better than I did the last time I was by myself, and I won a special round and earned three free drink vouchers. So far, going without anybody from my team, I have a 100% success rate at winning at least something. 

At the end of the week Michael and I are going to checkout Jenolan Caves. We aren't going to just be walking through with an audiotour like you do at Luray, we're getting geared out and doing the Plughole Adventure. Who doesn't love enclosed spaces?! It's probably going to be terrifying. We've only had one other spelunking adventure in Costa Rica and were given barely any gear and a guide that spoke barely any English. I'm hoping and expecting this to be better. 

[Sentence that sums everything up and ends the post poignantly]

Customer Disservice 2

I have anger issues when I am put on hold for long periods of time by automated phone services, bounced around to several different customer service representatives, given incorrect information, etc. Perhaps these are not anger issues but a perfectly reasonable response to the insanity and inanity that is "customer service". I know I've addressed this topic before, and this will probably not be the last time, but you'd think there could be just one company in each industry that could do it right and just blow the competition out of the water. Hire and schedule enough human beings to answer phones in a reasonable amount of time and give them accurate resources. It's a radical revolutionary idea, I know. I'm just glad that's it's over with even though I won't get those two hours of my life back. 

Michael comes back from Adelaide tomorrow and we go to Regionals this weekend. We already know our team is going to Mixed Nationals, so Regionals seems kind of irrelevant in a way. It will be fun to get up at the crack of dawn and go play our best with our team and all that, but the stakes are low. Looking forward to another weekend of frisbee and friends!

[Taps]

We received the news that Clio, my cat at my parents' house, passed away. We had her since she was a kitten. She had a good, long life and went very peacefully one night in her sleep. 

She had her own way of dealing with minor problems. If she accidentally got locked in a closet, she didn't make a lot of noise to get attention. She found a comfortable spot and chilled out until someone came looking for her. This isn't the way to deal with all problems, not to mention the fact that these would be situations she would get herself into, but I'm sure there is a little life lesson in there somewhere. She always trusted we would come for her, and made the most of being stuck somewhere.

When she was out roaming unconfined, she could be a little chatterbox. She was sweet as could be, and will be missed.

RIP