NEWLOVE

I think I need to start naming the bugs with which I come into contact the way meteorologists name hurricanes and tropical storms. I have a feeling that my battle of bugs is going to be an ongoing saga during this trip. This morning, while washing dishes, an inch-long kamakazi moth dove into my wet frying pan with reckless abandon. Scared me half to death. Now, to start with, I do not like bugs. Not one bit. Add to that the fact that practically every insect and arachnid in Australia is lethal and you’ve got an almost instant heart-attack. Adam, the moth, was successfully and intentionally drowned in a maniacal homicidal fashion.
Ten minutes later, as I was walking barefoot back to my room to make the bed, I almost had a stroke. Standing in the middle of the doorway in a very threatening stance was a large reddish brown insect staring me down and mouthing the words, “Go ahead …make my day!”
I wrote a clear account of its description and placement in my journal before bequeathing my most important possessions to my loved ones and photographing the possible cause of my death for the coroners to examine. I ran to the front door to put on shoes before running over to the office where the vacuum cleaner was hiding behind the door. I carefully plugged it in and prayed that this bug was not of the jumping variety. I didn’t know what I’d do with a projectile bug in the face. Billy, the big reddish brown bug, was sucked into oblivion and the vacuum now sits behind the closed door of the office. I really hope I don’t have to go in there again …just in case Billy finds his way out of that machine. Brrrr… (goosebumps.) Note to self: wear shoes at all times.

I decided to leave as soon as possible so as to avoid listening to Billy’s angry and threatening screams from behind the shut door. I hopped on the 389 bus to Circular Quay and walked down to the Opera House and photographed it (accompanied by the ever present Aussie flies which are too great in number to get alphabetical tropical storm names) as well as the Harbor Bridge, Luna Park (from a distance,) the harbor, botanical gardens and a Government House.

On the lawn outside the government house, I photographed a most majestic tree. On the ground below the tree lay a man in the grass – not on a blanket, but on the grass itself. He must either be suicidal or hasn’t got a clue about the crazy lethal Aussie bugs. Good on you, mate. Best of luck to you.

At lunch in the CBD (Central Business District,) I lucked out and got a seat in a “NO FLY ZONE!!” Amazing! Yet, just a table away sat 2 businessmen absolutely covered in fies.

This afternoon as I was patiently enduring rush hour traffic on a bus bound for St. James train station, I passed the scene of an accident. Right in the middle of Elizabeth Street was a couple of ambulances, a half a dozen medical workers and the victim of man vs. car on a stretcher in the middle of the road. It could’ve been me I tell you. People here DRIVE ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE ROAD!! Do you know how hard it is to cross the street when traffic is coming from every which way?!
I kept wondering how it could be that all the motorists are in on this same rebellion of driving on the wrong side of the road and how they aren’t penalized by the police until I saw the police were in on it too! They also drive on the wrong side of the road. It’s incredible!
It’s been a few years since I was last in England, India, Hong Kong and other British “colonies/ex-colonies.” I find it interesting that all of them (except for Great Britain) can have their own currency, use the metric system and speak their own languages but that they still drive on the wrong side of the road. In CBD Sydney, the authorities have been kind enough to paint on the road at each cross walk “LOOK RIGHT” to remind those of us for whom traffic normally comes from the left (practically every first world nation and even Russia!!) that we are risking our lives every time our feet leave the sidewalk.

(click photos to enlarge)

I spent the morning talking to my sister in Melbourne. Vodaphone has finally resolved their issues – YAY!! I then got on a bus to North Bondi to meet Timmy, an Aussie friend of sister’s Aussie boyfriend. Timmy went to Berlin with us for New Years’ last year. We walked down to the beach and then headed into Coogee where he and his Swedish girlfriend have just rented their first apartment together and boy are they excited. We spent the day on the beach and then at a restaurant enjoying VB and Carlton Draught at Fiveo’s.

Timmy broke his leg in July at Roskilde Music Festival in Denmark. It was raining and muddy and he was wearing waders. He was quite inebriated when it happened so the details are a little fuzzy but apparently he stepped into a hole and his foot got stuck in the mud and he fell. He went to the medics who looked at his foot and immediately ordered surgery and a hospital stay. Timmy had been working in Copenhagen for months saving up for a summer of traveling around Europe with his mate Johnny and after he had an hour of waiting for the ambulance transport and thinking about his now ruined summer, he decided he didn’t feel too bad and he’d be damned if these stupid Danish overly cautious medics were going to foil his vacation plans. So he headed off back to his campsite and made it a couple of kilometers to the car where he passed out cold. When he woke up, his leg was killing him and was swollen to 3 times its size. They waders were too constricting so he had Johnny pull them off with all his might. (Waders are typical fishing wear – rubber boots that seamlessly turn into rubber overalls complete with suspenders and a very goofy style.) Johnny should have cut the waders off but they weren’t thinking very clearly. Of course, pulling his leg which was practically stuck in the waders was a monumentally bad idea. When he was free of his waders and had increased his pain level by tenfold, he went back to the medic. He by then had broken his leg in 10 places and spent the beginning of the summer at the hospital. After a few surgeries he, Johnny and his wheelchair toured Europe as planned. Don’t get in the way of an Aussie and his fun (or his beer.)

So Timmy and I got to be gimps together. Although, he has a super nasty scar to remind him of the accident and I am much more fortunate.
I haven’t yet told you of the phenomenon of the Australian flies. Holy crap. At first, I thought I was the only person afflicted by this amazingly persistent beast. I walked through the streets of Sydney swatting at myself like a mad woman. Then I noticed other people in the same state of frustration so I worried a little less about seeming crazy to onlookers. I think Bill Bryson put it best in his travel novel which I am currently reading, “In a Sunburned Country.”
Here is an excerpt…
“I had gone no more than a dozen feet when I was joined by a fly – smaller and blacker than a housefly. It buzzed around in front of my face and tried to settle on my upper lip. I swatted it away, but it returned at once, always to the same spot. A moment later it was joined by another that wished to go up my nose. It also would not go away. Within a minute or so I had perhaps twenty of these active spots all around my head and I was swiftly sinking into the state of abject wretchedness that comes with a prolonged encounter with the Australian fly.
“Flies are of course always irksome, but the Australian variety distinguishes itself with its very particular persistence. If an Australian fly wants to be up your nose or in your ear, there is no discouraging him. Flick at him as you will and each time he will jump out of range and come straight back. It is simply not possible to deter him. Somewhere on an exposed portion of your body is a spot, about the size of a shirt button, that the fly wants to lick and tickle and turn delirious circles upon. It isn’t simply their persistence, but the things they go for. An Australian fly will try to suck the moisture off your eyeball. He will, if not constantly turned back, go into parts of your ears that a Q-tip can only dream about. He will happily die for the glory of taking a tiny dump on your tongue. Get thirty or forty of them dancing around you in the same way and madness will shortly follow.
“And so I proceeded into the park, lost inside my own little buzzing cloud of woe, waving at my head in an increasingly hopeless and desultory manner – it is called the bush salute – blowing constantly out of my mouth and nose, shaking my head in a kind of furious dementia, occasionally slapping myself with startling violence on the cheek or forehead. Eventually, as the flies knew all along, I gave up and they fell upon me as on a corpse.”

I know most of you think it’s impossible to have your luggage disappear after a non-stop flight but I am the exception and it has happened to me before …on more than one occasion. I have the worst luggage karma ever although I have to admit it hasn’t been so bad in the last 3 months. When my bags arrived in Sydney at the same time I did, I was ecstatic. My friend, Anthony, picked me up at the airport so I wouldn’t have to get a taxi. Customs and immigration let me into the country without hassle. They even let me bring in granola bars and chocolate! (They’re notorious for not even letting you bring pocket lint into the country.) This was going to be a great day.
I walked out into the scorching sunshine and 30º C heat. Anthony was just telling me how he had had a bad morning. That he’d gotten up at 5am to fetch me at 7am and when he paid his $3 AUD to cross the bridge from North Sydney that the machine said he still owed 20¢ and a long line of cars was piling up behind him getting more and more aggravated with their lack of progress. He was trying to get the toll booth attendant’s help who just kept yelling “pay the money” which Anthony had already done. Turns out the machine doesn’t take 5¢ coins. But the toll booth attendant wouldn’t pay him any mind until he practically went schitzo on him screaming like a completely mad person and feeling pretty embarrassed by it after the fact. Since he had no more coins and they don’t take notes, he had to pay over the phone with his credit card and pay the $3 again as well as a $5 fine. That bridge crossing cost him $11 total. Then he was nervous that he would be late to get me only to discover as he ran full speed from the parking lot into the arrivals’ terminal that I was 2 and a half hours late. I feel pretty bad about that. He says it just isn’t his day.
Once we finished our joyful reunion and I got raped by the airport money changers (I gave them $1300 USD and received $1345 AUD WHAT THE FUCK?!) we went to the parking pay machines. He paid and we started a long scenic tour of the airport construction before I realized it was because he couldn’t find the lot in which he parked. Then once he found it, he couldn’t find his car. Once he finally found his car, he couldn’t find the lot exit and we drove round and round accidentally landing in valet and having to drive the wrong way down one-way passages. It was quite eventful. We escaped with our lives (barely) and headed into Sydney where we dropped my stuff off in Paddington and went up to North Sydney as he was now a few hours late for work. Oops!
Then it was my turn to have “one of those days.”
I sat down at the first café I found and before the pain wore off from paying $7 for a tiny so-called “large” coffee and a piece of banana bread, I lifted my overpriced coffee to my lips only to discover that the lid didn’t fit the cup and I now had $4 of hot coffee all over my lap. “This isn’t so bad,” I thought optimistically. “I only brought 3 pairs of pants total for 3 weeks and now a pair is dirty but at least I can wash them back at the apartment I’m renting. …Oh wait… the washing machine is freaking broken and not to be repaired for a few days. Great.”
Anthony and I met for lunch before I hopped on a train and bus back to Paddington with my painfully swollen injured leg. As I waited for the train, I noticed half the curry from my lunch was on my shirt. No wonder the chicken seemed dry.
When I got to the apartment, I was excited to sit and catch up on email and contact friends in Sydney to make dinner plans since the Aussie Vodaphone SIM card couldn’t yet be registered and I couldn’t make any calls. I’d been trying since 11:45am and it was already 3pm. When I tried to get online I wasn’t getting a signal. I searched high and low for a wireless box or a LAN line. No such luck. I called the landlady wondering why the advert said internet access available when that in fact is just not true. She explained that they have a phone line and if I have a dial-up service to which I could connect that I’d be in business. Too bad Mac’s stopped putting phone modem ports in their laptops! There is a USB version but the Mac Store at the Glendale Galleria was sold out of them when I was there in the madness of Friday’s new operating system release. GREAT.
I had no phone, no internet and was quickly running out of clean clothes. I changed out of my curry shirt and coffee pants and headed down the street to Paddington’s “Five Ways” where I was told there is a grocer. I walked in and was instantly bombarded by very loud Kylie Minogue blasting from the PA system.
Usually, my first trip to the supermarket in a new country is fun and exciting. I walk around and giggle at some of the weird things they sell as well as stand in confusion trying to decipher what some of the products are. But as this was an English speaking country, the supermarket experience wasn’t as fun as usual since it was not quite as mysterious as say a Russian supermarket.
As if I wasn’t bummed enough at the lack of excitement, I then noticed THEY DO NOT SELL BEER IN THE GROCERY STORE!!! For as much as Aussies drink, I found this to be absolutely astonishing. When I got to the check-out, I was increasingly irritated. I wasn’t excited about anything in my basket and when the total was $50 for a coke, a yogurt, an apple, a bag of ravioli, butter and a can of sauce, I was even less than excited. Now everything was just plain pissing me off. The music had switched to bad techno. At least when it was Kylie Minogue I could understand as she is probably the most famous Australian artist these days. And no alcohol at the supermarket?! That’s just inhumane. And we all know I’ve never met an Aussie I didn’t like. I love their funny little accents and their strange words and lilting way of speaking. At this point every single words from any fellow shopper’s mouth caused involuntary cringing to ripple through my tired and swollen body. I just wanted to scream.
The clerk at the register must have thought I was nuts. First, he saw me glaring at the couple in line in front of me. The man was holding their place and the woman was running in and out of the 4 aisles of the store coming back with armfuls of stuff as if they were in some sort of supermarket challenge game show.
Second, he saw me sweating while I was waiting for my credit card to be approved. (It’s always a crap shoot when you’re in a new country – even when you call ahead and warn the bank.)
Thirdly, I asked for $5 in change. Then I asked for a payphone and directions to said payphone. NOTE TO SELF, NEVER ASK AN AUSSIE FOR DIRECTIONS. They always seem to say it’s next door/round the corner/just up the bend when it’s really 4 blocks up the road/in the next neighborhood/at the top of a steep mountain. Not only that, BUT THEY MUMBLE. You can barely understand a word they say and then they think you’re just plain deaf and start screaming at you. It doesn’t matter how loud they’re screaming, they still mumble. Eastern sounds exactly like Easton so good luck. You just have to resign your self to walking vaguely in the same direction as the first point of their finger and then follow your instincts and hope for the best.
Lastly, without a tone of desperation in my voice or anything, I asked where I could buy some freaking booze. He blinked and told me I could find a bottle shop next door. I assumed a bottle shop was a place to find liquor and went on my way. Next door was a lotto shop, then a baker, then a food joint, so on and so on. I finally found a “Cellar Stop” and the next intersection and decided it was worth a try. Success!! (I guess.) Cheapest bottle of wine was $15 and a cheap bottle of rum cost $37.
I also found a payphone up by the chemist’s shop but the phone didn’t work. So I headed home with my wine and rum and dinner and accepted I’d be spending the night alone.

click to enlarge

Once we boarded the plane and taxied out to the runway, I heard the engines turn on for a minute or so before turning back off. Hmmm…
Five minutes later someone from the cockpit came over the load-speaker with an announcement. “Ladies and Gentlemen, you may have noticed that we turned on and shut off the engines. This is due to a mechanical malfunction. We have 4 engines and each of them has a valve that let air flow through. One of those valves is not opening so we’re going to go back to the gate and let the mechanics take care of this. They estimate it will take 45 minutes to repair but as we all know, time is relative, so I’m not going to make any promises. Once the issues are resolved, we’ll get you up into the air as soon as possible and we’ll try to make up as much lost time as we can.”
I was somewhat surprised by the frankness of the message. I wonder what more nervous flyers were thinking. OH MY GOD WE’RE GOING TO DIE GET ME OFF THIS PLANE!! Who knows.
When we were finally airborne just after 12:20 this morning, we didn’t begin the typical steep grade ascent into the sky over the Pacific. Instead, we very gradually climbed in altitude up the coast of Southern California affording us all a bird’s eye view of the forest fires still burning. It was then that I began to get slightly nervous. Not because I thought we were going to crash and freeze to death in the Pacific Ocean but because they were obviously exercising caution which led me to believe they weren’t exactly confident in the mechanics’ expertise in engine valve repair. But mostly, I was nervous that they would decide the repair job was not up to snuff and that they’d send us back to LAX and tell us to come back tomorrow and try again. I didn’t want to lose a day of my trip!
But here we are in recycled-air bliss at 35,000 feet or what have you and I have the most annoying Indian (not Native American) man behind me who obviously thinks everyone else in this world was put on this planet to serve him. He’s constantly ringing his flight attendant button with complaints and requests. I don’t know how the flight crew doesn’t eject him right here and now.
First, he was demanding to know whether or not his vegetarian dinner was in fact vegetarian. The baffled flight attendant had to use obvious restraint in her reply. “Sir, I’m sure since you ordered a vegetarian meal and you were served what in fact is labeled as a vegetarian meal, that it’s safe to assume it’s a vegetarian meal.”
“Yes, but are you sure there isn’t any meat or meat products in it?”
“Sir, I cannot swear in a court of law that there aren’t any meat products in it as I did not prepare this meal but I can only assume that it is a vegetarian meal as labeled and that no one in the kitchen is deliberately trying to fool you and ruin your diet by slipping anything into your meal that you have requested not to eat.”
Are you kidding me?
At another meal, he noticed that his last name was not printed on the lid of his special meal. He quickly rang his call button and complained. The flight attendant told him to look at the little slip of paper that comes with the meal. As long as the slip of paper had his name on it he should be fine. His name was on this slip of paper but he was still not satisfied. “Sir, consider for a moment that it may be possible that you are not the only person on this flight who ordered a vegetarian meal. When the dishes were placed on the trays, it’s possible that you ended up with someone else’s meal but as all the vegetarian meals are exactly the same, you are not losing anything by eating one that has the wrong name on it. If you’d like, I can spend the next 20 minutes searching through this plane for the person who has the dish with your name on it and I can bring it to you half-eaten.”
Later he ordered some tea with milk in it. Then he flagged down a flight attendant to complain that his tea was cold. Keep in mind that tea cups on airplanes hold about as much liquid as shot glasses. The flight attendant succeeded in replying much more calmly than I could have, “Sir, you ordered your tea with milk. Seeing as how the milk is refrigerated, it is in result quite cold. When you add the cold milk to the hot tea, it tends to cool it down a bit. If you don’t wish to drink your tea cold, I’d be happy to get you something else.”
The man then asked for coffee WITH MILK and asked if the coffee was hot.
“Sir, let me advise you that the coffee is very hot but once you add cold milk, you will face the same predicament as with the tea. If you want hot tea or coffee, you will need to not add milk. If you require milk to drink tea or coffee, you will need to accept that it will be somewhat cold. Otherwise I can serve you cold juice or soft drinks.”
This went on for some time. I am really REALLY ready to get off this plane, or at least switch seats.

I normally depart on flights that are scheduled at some un-Godly hour in the morning. Having to leave my house for the airport at 5am in the morning usually causes me to pull an all-nighter in order to finish packing, send off last minute emails and pay those bills I’ve been putting off. Sometimes, even, I’ll be at the laundromat in that witching hour when crackheads and homeless people wander in and out to make my life just that more exciting. “Will I die tonight or just get mugged and severely maimed?”
My non-stop flight from LAX to SYD was not departing until 10:39pm so I had all day to pack. I even had time to go to physical therapy, the bank, shopping, and brunch with friends. This is definitely a much better traveling schedule.
Normally when Brad drives me to the airport, he is in a sweaty, breathless panic since we always leave about a half an hour (minimum) after when I say I want to leave. (The trick is telling myself, and him, that we are leaving a half an hour before the last possible comfortable time to leave. Since I don’t tend to “get ready” to leave until that magic time I say I’m walking out the door, you can pretty much set your watch to about a half hour later.)
Today, I wanted to leave the house at 7:30pm for my flight. At 7:25 I was ready and Brad almost had a stroke. He’s so used to the “7:30 means 8pm” routine that he was watching the World Series with reckless abandon. Brad can’t just pick up his keys and walk out the door. He first has to contemplate his process and all the bigger questions of life like “Why are we here?” and the like. Then he has to think out loud and walk through the schedule of events… “I’m driving you to the airport. Traffic shouldn’t be too bad. Should we take the 101 to the 110? Probably. Or maybe surface streets? What do you think? What do you reckon is the fastest route from LAX to Venice – 5^th and Rose? How long do you think it’ll take to get there? I’ve got to call Flemming and tell him when I’ll be there. Baby, my car’s parked up on Franklin. It should take about 5 to 10 minutes to get up there and back.” And so forth.
I decided to take a shower and give Brad another 20 minutes to think out loud and 10 minutes to go get his car. It worked out perfectly and we arrived at LAX at 8:45pm. United Airlines flight 839 was due to board at 9:45pm. Perfect.
At 9:45 they announced that the aircraft was delayed from Chicago and we would not start boarding until about 30 minutes after the originally scheduled boarding time.
SEE?!?! I’m not the only “fake them out with the 30 minutes earlier than the actual time” schemer. I’m glad to see the world is catching on to my much superior ways!

brad and i went to the arclight this morning. after a brief evacuation due to a fire alarm, we saw michael clayton. good film. not a typical hollywood movie and a bit slow but definitely makes you think when you leave the theater.

i found an awesome site… FRIDGE WATCHER

i decided i needed to submit photos of my fridge …because i have nothing better to do with my time than take pictures of the contents of my fridge, photoshop them and send them to complete strangers to post on a website for all the world to see.

maybe i should’ve let the doctor ask for a psych consult last week.

**UPDATE - I WAS SELECTED FOR POSTING ON FRIDGE WATCHER. WOW. I’M FAMOUS! HAHA. http://www.fridgewatcher.com/?p=157

when i walked into my doctor’s office one day last week at 9am, there were already 4 other women waiting - great, always a good sign that i’d be lucky to leave before lunch. surprisingly, i was pretty calm in the waiting room where i read a magazine outlining all the dresses on the red carpet at the emmy’s this year which was good since i was working and not paying attention. vanessa williams… um hello?!?! what was she thinking?

when they called my name and took me to the back the nurse weighed me - always a horrifying procedure on an ancient scale. maybe she was trying to spare my feelings or wanted me to think i appeared thinner than i am because she started the weights on the scale measure at 100lbs. this meant that the whole weigh-in procedure took an eternity instead of just a few seconds. she patiently pushed the weights ever so slowly through each notch measuring just fractions of a pound until i couldn’t take it anymore. i intervened and pushed the heavy 25lb marker further to the right in the hope of ending my slow torture. i mean, i was in a hurry. i had a cup of coffee that morning and orange juice in preparation for my favorite part of these visits - the pee in the cup humiliation that i so look forward to. much to my surprise i was not asked to give a urine sample. (see my last embarrassing trip to the doctor for a full account.)
they took my blood pressure and left me alone in an exam room where i waited for the doctor. i could hear him go from room to room and the murmur of his voice in the halls between each exam. each time it sounded like he was back in the hall, i’d sit up a little straighter thinking i was next. i sat there trying not to look at all the diagrams and other medical posters on the walls in order to keep my panic level as low as possible. can i just tell you how hard that is when you’re sitting in an 8′ x 10′ room for 20 minutes?!

and because of my diligent preparation for my urine sample, i realized i had to pee as i sat there waiting.  should i run through the halls with no pants on and hope no one witnessed my mad dash to the ladies’ room?  should i get up and get dressed before going?  what if the doctor walked in during that process?  i mean, a state of half-dressed is much worse than him seeing me up close and personal during my exam!  (clearly, i have mental problems.)

then i started thinking about writing this post and how i should whip out my camera and photograph the room to give all of you a better visual. every 5 minutes when i’d just about gotten up the nerve to jump off the bed to grab my camera out of my purse over by the door, i’d hear the doctor in the hall again and i’d jump back into my original position on the bed. and of course my nervousness at being caught bare-assed photographing the exam room is well warranted since i’m sure there are multiple laws against documenting one’s visit to one’s doctor.

when the doctor finally came to examine me, he found me sitting on the paper covered bed with the sweatiest palms in history. my exam hadn’t even started yet and already the protective paper was annihilated as if 2 tiger cubs had torn through the room during a playful romp. i sitting there trying to think of an excuse as to why i was sitting in the middle of a mess of paper - an excuse that drew all attention away from my sweaty palms which completely disintegrated all paper within a five mile radius. how could i convince him that i wasn’t the culprit, that i hadn’t accidentally shredded my surroundings, that he shouldn’t call for a psych consult?

but i didn’t even have time to open my mouth with a lame attempt at an excuse because he got right to work and before i knew it, he was smiling! this is the first time i’ve seen him smile all year. whew! that definitely put me at ease. finally! my stupid body is back to normal. sweet jesus!!

when my examination and blood tests were done, he left the room and in my calm state of almost perfect health, i gained the confidence to photograph my prison cell exam room to serve as a visual aid (after i cleaned up some of the debris.)

doesn’t he look like the sillouette from the crime watch sign?

saw this movie tonight with tina and brad. it was alright.