Took the kids up to the snow yesterday. As per usual it was a long hard drive, but well worth it for a couple of hours’ frolicking in the snow. My back was killing me when I got home, so I’m glad it’s only an annual excursion.

We stopped off in Warburton on the way there and back. Tell you what, the public toilets in Warburton aren’t up to much. Maybe the locals aren’t fussy about not having toilet seats, hot water, soap or a drier. Who knows.

On Tuesday I turn 32. Some people seem to get all worried when another year passes - myself included, sometimes. But this time, I feel okay about it. Despite my occasional bitching and ranting, life is, by and large, good. Even my finger has just about recovered.

My stupid thing per day count on Wednesday got up to 2. Or another way you could look at it was that I tested the effectiveness of a peeler and my front door lock, and found them both to be excellent in what they do.

Firstly I was peeling potatoes. I’d just finished the last one, when the peeler somehow went out of control and cut a chunk out of my finger. That’s one sharp peeler. Blood started pouring out of it. I got through about half a dozen bandaids, a few bits of cotton wool and some Dettol before it entirely settled down.

My second stupid thing was that when I got home for the evening, I left my keys in the front door. This wouldn’t be a problem but for the fact that my front door is a deadlock. A deadlock that I generally keep locked when I go out - after all, not much point in having a deadlock otherwise, is there?

So, ten minutes later when I wanted to take some recycling out, I realised I couldn’t. Oops. Front door locked. Locked in the house. Could I figure out how to get out, and to the front door where the keys were? Well there’s always the balcony. Hmm. The drop from the 1st floor looked a little too risky. Last thing I’d need along with a spurting finger would be a twisted ankle.

No neighbours seemed to be about to get the key for me. In the end I rang my mum, then cooked dinner while I waited for her to come to the rescue.

I had one of those "D’oh!" moments last Tuesday. I had a spare half hour, and went down to Ikea to get a rug. Well, okay, I actually wanted to look at a table, but it didn’t look all that great, so I ended up looking at rugs. Something to at least partially disguise the yeucky carpet in my livingroom, and to be aligned with the TV and couch, which to my mind look a bit odd placed diagonally to everything else in the room.

I found an okay rug, and as I was walking to the checkout, I heard the roof erupt with the sound of rain hitting tin. (Ikea in Melbourne is, essentially, just a well-disguised big shed with lots of air-conditioning). By the time I’d paid and walked out, it was absolutely pissing down. I ran to the car and threw the rug into the boot. Then I ummed and ahhed about what to do next.

You see, the area around Ikea has become something of a home wares paradise… well, at least if indeed home wares is your idea of paradise. First a Freedom Furniture popped up on one side. In the last few months, they’ve knocked down the car dealer on the other side, and built a Dare
and Adairs (which given the names, go quite well together). I decided since I was there, to go into Adairs and invest in some new towels. So, should I walk the three-or-so hundred metres, and possibly get soaked in the process? I had an umbrella with me, but it was a titchy one that had been bought for the kids to use. Or should I be a complete slob and drive, despite my green anti-car
leanings, just so I could stay dry?

I’m telling you, it was pissing down. Bucketing. Cats and dogs. So no matter how much I contributed to global warming that day, I decided to drive. Terrible, aren’t I?

I pulled out of the car park onto the service road. Ah, there’s a good spot, right in front of Adairs. A little small? Nah, it’ll be okay. Pull up along side the car in front, put the left indicator on, and prepare to do one of my devastatingly graceful reverse parks into the gap. Reverse, turn in, look in the rear mirror… how close am I? Back a little… slowly… that’s it… slowly… bump. Shit.

Ease forward a little. I’ve definitely bumped the car behind. There’s a guy walking past, watching. I’d better get out and look concerned. I do so. Thoroughly look at my car and the other one. No damage on either. The guy looks too. "No damage, I wouldn’t worry about it." I kind of nod, ‘cos he’s just someone walking past showing an interest, right?

Back into the car. I decide to go park elsewhere. The guy walks around the car behind, and starts putting something into the boot. Oh man, dammit. I didn’t realise it was his car, or I would have said sorry. He probably thinks I’m a complete arsehole. I make a run for it.

Oh well, better that kind of accident than the kind that involves screeching tyres, crumpled cars, ambulances and huge insurance claims.

On Friday night saw "Y Tu Mama Tambien" ("And your mother too"). Great stuff, highly recommended. A nice mix of humour, drama, sex, social commentary and gross jokes. (Glass of milk, anyone?)

On Saturday the phone rang. The caller ID said it was Josh & Cathy’s number. I presumed it would be Josh… loud, brash Josh…

I have this thing whereby I tend to talk in a similar fashion to the people I’m talking to. Especially when it’s one of my friends. Josh rings me up from time to time, generally opening with an extremely ocker-sounding "Yeah, g’day." So, how should I greet Josh?

So I pick up the phone. "Yo!!!"

"Uhh hi…. it’s" (shy, quiet) "Cathy here".

Oops!

Cathy was ringing to check who was coming to her birthday dinner. When we got there, to be honest I thought I was going to burst out laughing when we were introduced to Karen and Darren from Bacchus Marsh… they were very nice, of course… but I’m not sure I would be brave enough to ever get hooked up with someone who had a name that was so similar to mine.

On Friday I had lunch at a Chinese restaurant down the street, as I often do when working in the city. I seriously need to improve my chopstick technique. Some of my Asian friends can pick up a pair of chopsticks and use them so easily to pick up even the smallest and most awkwardly shaped bits of food, with an accuracy of 1 millimetre or less.

I, meanwhile, fumble and silently curse the fact that if I give up and ask for a knife and fork, all my credibility as a hip urban groover appreciative of different cultures goes out the window. I figure if you ask for a knife and fork, you might as well pin on a Pauline Hanson badge. Normally I’m okay (just okay) with chopsticks, but Friday’s meal was particularly challenging, as the noodles stuck together like someone had dumped a load of superglue into the pot.

A couple of months ago we went to a Chinese restaurant in the suburbs. I suspect that unlike in the hip cosmopolitan city centre, they weren’t so used to western-looking people going in there, especially when they gave us knives and forks instead of chopsticks. The credibility points started racking up:

• for going in there in the first place
• for not ordering food for takeaway, so you could run away and eat it at home and chuck anything you didn’t like the look of into the bin without anybody seeing
• for asking for chopsticks
• for not using the chopsticks to distribute the food all over the table, but in fact getting a fair percentage into your mouth
• for eating the entirety of the meal

On the subject of food, I have to mention that for dessert last night I had some awesome figs in liquer, with King Island Dairy ricotta cheese and strawberries. Seriously, it was like a taste bud orgasm.

It’s Jeans For Genes Day today, which I’m guessing in some ways is a huge success, and in other ways, not.

It’s a success in that a lot of people seem to know about it, and have worn jeans into work today. That’s great. It’s obviously a high profile event.

But I reckon it’s not a success in that the money raised for it by city workers like me is probably minimal, because there’s nowhere to donate money! The usual haunts, the railway stations and the building foyer, were devoid of charity collectors. And I haven’t spotted anywhere to buy the badges. What’s going on? How can such a high profile event be so badly organised?