We were minding our own business, as Marita and I walked across Flinders Street from the station on Friday night, to go shopping for a present for my nephew Leo’s first birthday. As we passed Young & Jackson’s on the corner, suddenly there was a man in a bright orange shirt pulling on my arm. I didn’t recognise him. Some stranger. I couldn’t get a good look at him, but he looked slightly crazed. Must be some madman, I thought. Probably harmless, but just a bit excited for one reason or another.

I shouted at him: “No! No! No thanks mate, not today!” and tried to loosen his grip on my arm, as he pulled me across.

Then I realised it was Josh, and he was, in his own unique way, pulling me into the pub for a drink.

A pot and a chat later and we were better prepared to hit the shops.

There was a teenager on the train, last Thursday night, sitting somewhere behind me. He was asking someone — probably his mother, which stop they were going to… was it the end of the line… where did the train go to after that?

These questions answered, he kept talking, to the strangers around him on the train. About how he was down from the country. About how he’d been visiting the Royal Melbourne Hospital. Royal Children’s, his mother corrected him.

About who he’d been visiting.

He’d been visiting one of the lucky ones. His friend or relation was one of the survivors of the Mildura car crash that killed six teenagers.

His voice quivered just slightly as he briefly told the strangers sitting around him about it. They offered him words of comfort in return.

I got off at my stop. The train, the boy, his mother and the strangers continued off into the night.

I didn’t hear this radio programme, but apparently there are a lot of cockroaches in Melbourne at the moment. Danny Katz had a funny piece on them in yesterday’s Age.

I’m glad its not just my house that has them. In fact I almost used yesterday’s Age to squash one I found in a glass on the kitchen table. Eeeuuugggghhh.

The morning before that, there was one creepily-crawling around the picture rail in the kids’ bedroom, which certainly got them up and out of bed with more than their usual speed.

Thankfully apart from those two, I haven’t seen any others in the past few weeks. Hopefully they’re finding somewhere else to sup.

Where precisely does one buy boracic/boric acid, anyway?

PS. Maybe the next one I catch I’ll call Ted.

Two interesting dreams in the last few days. Not that I expect anybody to care except me, but I’m finding it useful to log them somewhere.

Dad and the tram

In the first one, I was on a tram on a route where they’d been moving the stops (such as Collins St) and we stopped at a new stop which was partially elevated, then continued past an intersection. A handful of people were incorrectly waiting at the intersection, and as the tram sailed past, I saw my Dad among them.

I watched out of the back of the tram as he ran after it, and caught it up at the following stop. It was like him at his current age, but more nimble.

He climbed onto the tram and I said to him “you know they’ve moved the stop, it’s back there now” and I pointed back to it. He said “I know, but I can’t use it; I can’t get my golf clubs up the steps”. (I’m pretty confident in saying he’s never played golf in his life.) I replied there was a ramp, but didn’t get into a discussion with him about it, as I was then getting off the tram.

Recursive dreaming

And the other… I had a dream that I had a dream that I had woken up on Christmas day and found the upper half of my head burnt and charred. In the dream within the dream it didn’t hurt, and didn’t seem to cause any medical problems. In the dream, I was asking Marita and Justine what they thought about the dream I’d had. Weird.

I think I’ll get an extra smoke alarm for my house.

The kids are getting to an age where things like pocket money and household chores should be part of life. In most cases they seem willing already to help with things — there’s always enthusiasm to use the garden shears to trim the bushes, or flatten boxes for the recycling, for instance. As for watering the garden, they’re so keen they have to take turns with the trigger nozzle and hose.

In these enlightened times, perhaps competitive tendering could be the way to go. Rather than arbitrarily give jobs and pocket money to a particular kid, but let them put in bids for it. As in government and industry, it wouldn’t necessarily be the lowest bid that wins, but also other factors such as the ability to do the job, past performance, guarantees.

I wonder if I could set up a Public/Private Partnership-type arrangement for management of their bedroom for the next decade or so, with responsibility falling to me once they grow up and move out?

There could even be a case for off-shoring. If one of the kids from across the street offers to take my bins out every week for less money, should I allow that job to go outside my own house?

REQUEST FOR TENDER

Tender title: Washing of Dad’s car

Description: Dad’s car is a significant mode of transportation for members of the household, and is normally located on the front driveway. Tenders are called for the regular washing of the car, in accordance with current Victorian state water restrictions.

Reference: Car/001

I woke up the other day to an email from a woman I’d never heard of before. The subject line said “Is it really you?” and I came pretty close to throwing it straight into the spam bucket.

She said she was my godmother, that she’d lost touch with my mother after they’d moved to Australia, and gave details of being at my parents’ wedding. Thirty-five years later, she’d decided to do a web search for my original surname (Quinlem) and found me.

It’s all true. Wow.

I mean, seriously, like WOW.

About a month ago I rang up the gas company to get my name corrected on the bill again, attempting to finally (after six years) ensure my ex-wife’s name was removed from both the mailing address and the account name.

So the other day, a gas bill arrived.

I mean seriously… that takes a special effort of cunning to do that. You don’t make that kind of “mistake” accidentally.

Maybe that picture of the lady in the corner of the page is some gas company lady having a smirk.

I’m finally getting caught up in the spirit. Despite a general attitude of Bah! Humbug! towards organised sport (with the exception of footy tipping, kick-to-kick, watching the cricket and street cricket), I decided to get some Commonwealth Games tickets. I was spurred on by the kids getting bombarded with Commonwealth Games propaganda and it being used for their assignment topics, and thought it would be good to get them along to an event or two. Plus I recall quite enjoying the Olympic soccer in 2000.

Moseying around the Games web site, to my surprise I found I could get fairly decent tickets at the MCG (eg not high up in the rafters, where you need an oxygen mask to breathe properly, and a telescope to see anything) for the only slightly-exhorbitant price of $30 each. Not exactly a bargain, but given it’s for a full 9 hour session (or however long you have the stamina for), hopefully it’ll be a good day out.

Obviously if you want to book for a session when any Aussie has even a snowball’s chance in hell of getting a medal, there are no seats left. As it is, the day we’ve chosen will include the marathon (two actually, for men and for women), the women’s javelin final, as well as heats/qualification for the 100 metres, hammer, shotput and steeplechase.

So, a nice mix of events, all the atmos of the ‘G, and we should get to hear a few countries’ national anthems too.