Send My Conscience Home in a Taxi

This Sunday I ended up at a kids birthday party. Some friends of Deb's have twin boys who were turning three.

Kids are hilarious. The two boys involved are into trucks, Bob the Builder, and umbrellas and all things pink! They even insisted they get their toenails painted the same color as their mother. So there were pink birthday cakes, pink bunting and pink hair spray. So for a few hours my hair was pink. And... I've just noticed... so is a patch of the sofa where I was sitting last night.

There were also loads of kids at this party - no surprise really. In fact, apart from the grandparents, Deb and I were the only one's who didn't have kids in tow.

I had a hilarious conversation with a six year old girl. It went something like this:
Little girl: So do you have kids who go to school?
Me: I don't have any kids at all!
Little girl: [incredulous look] ...well, do you at least have a wife?
Me: No... but I have a girlfriend [pointed at Deb who was barbecuing]
Little girl: So why aren't you married?
Me: Um, well, we've been going out for two years, does that count?
Little girl: No, you should be married!
Me: I think I'll let Deb field this question...

I'm guessing she just assumes all adults have children, and a married. Not sure where that second part comes from!

Later I ended up being handed a baby. The lady who handed it to me didn't know who it belonged to or it's name or even it's gender! I wandered around and asked if anyone could identify it... Turned out to be a boy who belonged to a couple who were going on tour of the newly renovated house. So I had to give it back :-)

And thankfully the pink hair dye washed out...

Lets see. Saturday I... OK, the early onset Alzheimer's is kicking in here... What the fuck did I do on Saturday? *gets out nerdphone/diary*

OK! In the morning we quickly looked at a house in Brunswick, although it was so far north it was about 20 metres from Coburg. Nice place, big bedrooms, new appliances. But only one bathroom, and the more I thought about the commute from there to my new office on St. Kilda Road, the less I liked the idea. It looked good mostly because it was available and they liked us... I'm prepared to be a bit fussy.

(Rent's have got "interesting" of late. When I shared in Northcote in 2000-2004, my rent was a bit over $400 a month. Then I moved into a two bedroom place with the then Fiance, and my rent was about $600 a month. When I moved from there to my current place, my rent was about $800 (it's gone up a bit since.) Now we're looking at three bedroom places to share, my rent is likely to be in the $680-700 region... Which is an increase of, what, about 75% per room over about four years... Something is well wrong here, maybe I should just buy a place! Or be a bit less fussy, but then, I don't want to move into somewhere which is worse than my flat...)

Saturday arvo I took my mother out to visit my grandmother (my father's mother, not hers) out in Doncaster. My grandmother is a bit deaf and a bit vague, but heck she's 96 so we can't complain!

Lets see, what else did I do? Ah, that's right, Deb and I went to a great housewarming in Ascot Vale. The house itself was cool - it was on an oddly shaped block, so some of the rooms were triangular! Like the little study, and the laundry and the bathroom. There was also a vaguely trapezoid pantry/room which was almost as big at the kitchen. Deb and I decided it was the coolest room in the house, so we decided to hang out in it.

The best part of the party - they fed us! I had ace soup and various other tasty treats. Which was nice since I hadn't had dinner.

Then we played table tennis on a hopelessly warped table tennis table, and discovered that we're both really really shit at table tennis! I also got to see some amusing family bickering between one of the housemates, her sister and her brother. I teased them all about that.

Deb was a bit grumpy, which is a change from her usual constantly chirpy mood. I thought it was actually good to see her in a different mood. And when I say grumpy, it was like seeing a hungry kitten! Kinda cute grumpy!

I think that was all I did on Saturday. Too damn busy!!!

Came across a group called Improv Everywhere a few years back, can't remember the context - although it's possible their Starbucks "Action" may have been involved.

Anyway, they put on one of the coolest performaces ever: The MP3 Experiment, since repeated a couple of times. I was reminded of it because of an item in yesterday's age about Silent Parties, which actually sound like a halfway interesting idea...

Probably time I jotted down the stuff I got up to on New Years Eve.

First off, I had lunch with Pauline, the Pregnant Friend from Sydney. Who I ironically saw not three weeks ago when I was up in Sydney. We met at a cafe on the Maribyrnong, which wasn't as cool as you might expect. It was 42 that day, remember? The loo was out the back of the building - so my hands dried without using the hand drier!

Friended a lady called Faye on Facebook on my Phone. Say that three times fast! Lots of F's! And of course, in another Six Degree's thing, it turns out she knows Leeyong, Luna's older sister!!! Small world.

Popped over to my dad's place on the way back, to borrow his new bike. Which turned out to be a girls bike! What! So I grabbed my brother's bike instead.

Because my plans for the night included a bike ride. Yep, hottest day of the year, what did I decide to do? Ride.

Made my way down to Geoff's place on the Bike, without getting lost. Riding is weird - the routes you take are completely different from being on a bike. Tim's bike had been sitting outside and squeaked heaps. So when I got to Geoff's place, I got him to oil it for me. Damn it needed it. And the back wheel was a bit bent. And it had no lights... Clearly I'm not from a family of hardcore cyclists. We headed over to the meeting place, in front of the Imax. A small group of cyclists gathered, which on the lawn next to us a bunch of people watched Spiderman Three. Why why why???

The first stop on the ride was somewhere in the city. I'm glad we were riding as a group, I really don't feel safe on a bike... We ended up on the Collin's Street Extension next to Southern Cross station. Where Geoff got a flat tire!

I thought we were heading over to the Docklands, but it turned out we were visiting a guy on Little Bourke Street. One of the problems with a bunch of cyclists: a tendency to meander like a lost bunch of sheep :-)

Nick, the bloke having the party, had the most awesome flat. It was on the sixth floor of a narrow little building, his not huge apartment took up the whole floor. We pottered around for a bit, then headed up to the roof. Which had a view over of the roof of the Forum and across to Fed Square! Brilliant spot! So we all gathered there to watch the first round of fire works, the one's at 9.15PM, for all the kiddies who need to get to bed early :-)

We chatted for a bit, and I did some silly dancing with a woman I'd met. You know, making up dance moves like "climbing a ladder" and "The Sprinkler".

Then it was time to move on. We hopped on our bikes again, this time I had a better idea of our destination - Fairfield, near the Boathouse. So I was a little confused when we started riding down and around the MCG... Turns out there's a bike path that meanders along with the Yarra up into Fairfield and places beyond - we were heading for that...

We were on the track which floats on the Yarra when the noise that the left pedal on Tim's bike revealed where it was coming from. The whole crank fell off, pedal and all! I yelled "I lost a pedal!" One good thing about riding with a bunch of cyclists: they always have tools :-)

A nice man called Val re-assembled my bike, and also tightened the seat. It'd been readjusting its angle every time I went over a bump and almost castrating me!

All was well for a few hundred metres, until the left pedal o' the bike started wobbling again. And proceeded to pop off, this time witnessed by several riding buddies, to much amusement. Basically, the bike was fucked and my riding was over for the day.

Did I mention that it was blindingly hot? It actually wasn't too bad so long as one kept moving.

Geoff kindly volunteered to join me on a train trip. There was a convenient stairway up to Chapel Street nearby, it even had a path you could push your bike up. We took turns "riding" the half-a-bike up the street - Geoff found the easiest thing to do was ride it the gutter and push off with his foot.

We ended up at East Richmond station. It was getting close to 11PM, which meant we didn't have a whole lot of time to get to the next party. Finally a train showed, so we decamped to a really busy Flinders Street station, and waited for the Epping train. Geoff was going to catch a train to Fairfield, and ride to the party, but the next train was to Epping, and by the time it arrived it was getting perilously close to midnight. So I invited him to watch the fireworks from my landing. We just made it on time, getting off the train near my place at 11.50PM.

Turned out to be a great spot, there were firworks all down the Yarra and in Docklands. I'm kinda over them - not much more than brightly colored explosions after all - but they did set off some amazing ones at the docklands, circular explosions with rings of other colors inside them! Never seen anything like that before.

Then we hopped in my car and FINALLLY made it to the party in Fairfield. Sat around and yacked and ate food, for some reason talking about Wrestling and Scientology a lot. The share house was something else, on a really steep block leading down to the Yarra, the bit above the Fairfield boat house. Part of the house was on three levels, including a basement of sort suitable for a Gimp, and must have had quite a view in daylight.

Around 2AM we all traipsed down to the bottom of the property - which was a surprisingly long hike - to a platform in the Yarra itself. Recently flooded, it was covered in a fine layer of dried mud. Six of the party goers swam by torch light (I know it was six because I half jokingly counted them in and out!) If I'd known there was water I woulda brought my bathers, and swum for the first time in two years.

A couple of the locals did silly impressions while swimming, including attempting to look like a platypus. Cute!

We traipsed back to the house and some hours later (and still three more friends on Facebook) I headed home. I have an open invite to swim there next time it gets too damn hot - which is later this week.

This was well above average for a NYE. I'm kinda over them, and the last couple have been a bit lame. At the end of 06 I was at a Goth nightclub with Goths too cool to actually acknowledge the end of the year *slaps head*

Strewth, long entry. Enjoy.

Here's another fun picture I just found lying about:

That was an odd little Halloween party. Took me days to wash this off, and years to get it off vedmajulia's fridge door :-)