Always wear your bike helmet when cycling. This hole and crack would be in my skull if this protective polystyrene hadn't intercepted.
Lesson Two:
When you leave a visiting Californian hippy farmer to make a salad, it's more than likely he will create a peace sign from vegies harvested entirely from your garden.
Tree left yesterday. I think a jolly nice time was had by all during his visit. It's fun playing tour guide in a city you think is splendid.
Four years ago I was hanging out in Rio with Tree. Now he's sitting on an armchair in my living room. International visitor! Hurrah! Although as he pointed out, "I'm sitting watching the Simpsons and reading magazines. It's like I'm still in Davis, CA."
He says that Australian liquorice is the trendy confectionary of choice in the States. Odd.
Bike accident injuries recovering nicely. They are not painful but still impressive enough to engender sympathy and/or mild horror from colleagues.
Hey, Ma! Don't read this post! Go over there at the shiny, brightly coloured moving thing! Ooooh, see how it attracts and entrances, drawing you away from the post that will make you call me and demand I never cycle again!
I just got hit by a car. On Canning Street. CANNING STREET. Also known as the Bicycle Superhighway of Melbourne, where pushies rule and cars cower in fear at our spokey, sleek splendour.
Car turned into Canning Street without looking. I was in front of car at the time. There were two witnesses and two people who live nearby who heard, in this order, in quick succession:
a) me yell "F#@$@#$@#@#$@#$CKKKK!" b) screeching brakes c) a thud d) me yell more of the above
I saw white car bonnet, then I saw road, then I saw sky. My right elbow hit tarmac and came away skin-free. I would like to thank my helmet from the bottom of my heart because as the back of my head met the ground, it shattered. My skull didn't. A state funeral for that helmet that gave its life in the line of duty.
One of the witnesses asked "are you OK?" and I yelled "NO! I'm REALLY ANGRY!" before getting up and off the road. I'm fine, really. My arm will bruise up and I'll learn how much it all hurts when the shock wears off. The ambos were gentle and lovely, people brought me water and disinfectant, the witnesses all comiserated and tried to fix my bike, the cop was kind and took me home. The driver said he was sorry but the cop told me that in his statement, he claimed I sped up out of nowhere and it wasn't his fault.
My poor old bike.
And all this because I worked so many extra hours this week that I left work early for a little op-shopping reward. Booo.
Friday night at Birrarung Marr watching Strange Fruit play the Federation Bells:
They're on again Sunday and Monday night, 7.30pm. Lovely. Do go. I liked the conductor dressed like Inspector Gadget.
The Curmudgeon ran the half-marathon today in waaaaay less than 2 hours. He is truly extraordinary, rock and roll, and fleet of feet. See if you can spot him among the 8,500 people in the event:
Where's Wally?
Me no run this year. My back troubles continue and I will probably resort to some kind of quackery to get some relief. I used to go to an osteopath but fired them once they expanded the business to include truly ludicrous 'health' treatments (Iridology! Homeopathy! Crystal-reiki-halo-aura-massage-doctors-are-bad stupidity!) and became the sorts of people I wanted nothing to do with. But can you march into a quack's office and interrogate them on their degree of quackery? I suppose so. It is my money. Customer always right and all that.
Finally, in continuing crochetmania, I scored a big bag of emboidery wool at the op shop and set about to make myself a hat from about 24,153 different colours. Modelled here by Family Heirloom David, who is also enjoying custodianship of the Curmudgeon's 10km medal from last year and 21.1km medal from this year.
Remember the experiment I proposed back in August? It's taken a while to get off the ground but lo, it's underway, and preliminary results are in.
The top packet is from Canberra courtesy of dedicated biscuit researcher Moggy. The bottom packet was posted from Queensland by Curmudgeon Snr.
While the QLD packet is longer and wider than the NSW/ACT version, they are the same weight. That, my science-loving friends, points to a southern propensity for greater density. There's so much more to discuss here. We haven't even considered the other two states' version, let alone opened any packets. Thrilling.
I bought Here Comes Science yesterday. Yes, They Might Be Giants, Science is Real. The Great Gingernut Experiment is just the beginning...
1. I'm learning to drive manual / stick shift. It's going pretty well. Except for a few hairy moments. Like being on a 100km country road without due preparation. "THERE'S A FIFTH GEAR??!!!"
2. I watered the garden last night. I opened up the tap on Hank the Tank, set the hose on the broad beans and wandered inside to cook dinner. At 11pm, I remembered. Result: I sodden beans, flooded concrete and an empty tank.
3. I watched Knocked Up on the telly last night. What a truly execrable film.
Well, someone pushed my RUN STOP button. My foolish plans to run have tripped over and fallen down a ravine. Watch me backpedal publicly. There's a legit excuse - for more than a week, my stoopid spine has been giving me hell. Jogging causes shooting pain. Shooting pain prompts me to RUN STOP.
Poop. Can't help but feel like a shabby piker.
The Curmudgeon is still doing a half-marathon, though. His training is progressing nicely. So all the buckets of sponsorship money you could have thrown at me can go to him - drop me a line if you're feeling benevolent. This event was the major fundraiser for the ASRC last year - $57,000 was raised, and between us he and I wheedled about one-fitfty-seventh of that out of our friends and loved ones. Let's do it again!
The Curmudgeon anticipates there will be many "resurgence of the GFC" puns in the near future after the eggball result yesterday.
I prefer the joke he made while we watched a ludicrous show about what the world would be like if dinosaurs still roamed around. There was a scenario where hunters were stalking a duck-billed dinosaur, and the narrator told us they ate conifers. "Basically," he said, "they live on Christmas trees."
