The Fringe Festival

Melbourne is a city of festivals. There is seemingly always some festival occurring in this fine city, and I don't mean the kind with booths and barbecues and face painting (although I'm sure they have their fair share of those too), I mean the kind with events scattered over a few weeks at a smattering of local venues. We just finished the Writer's Fesitval, next is the Arts Festival, and we are currently engulfed in the Fringe Festival.

What is a Fringe Festival? I feel that in some ways the name itself deterred my interest initially just because the word "fringe" doesn't necessarily invoke me to think, "stuff I'm interested in". Alana, however, was fortunately feeling pro-active this weekend and chose a little show for us to go to, which ended up being very fun and cool. I guess the festival is just a bunch of shows playing all around town - comedy shows, little plays and stuff like that - that are short and are relatively cheap to attend. Pictured above are the three of us being not nearly "fringe" enough to attend the festival, but going anyway. Notice that Alana is the same height as Kane from the knee up...so cute.

We saw a little comedy play called "The Last Bucket of Water" which was about the end of the world and guarding the last existing bucket of water, which, as luck would have it, turned out to be possessed. It had only 3 people in it (the play, not the bucket), and the audience was about 25 people. I've seen Patrick in a play like that once, and found it weird that he could see me just as easily as I could see him. I could have high fived him if I had wanted to. I digress; this play was very good and funny (Patrick's was good too, just for the record).

So that was the weekend, aside from watching the debates (which we were fortunate not only to have shown here, but also that they were at a reasonable time - live at 11am Saturday) and avoiding the madness of the Footy Grand Final, which is equivalent to the Super Bowl. The Hawks won, just in case you were wondering. It was probably epic, but, like football, I don't know the rules, don't really care anyway, and only like teams based on their team colors. The Hawks are brown and yellow - totally gross, I would have never been rooting for them.

I worked today because our office is still swamped; we will now take our trip to the States sans vacation debt. We also downloaded an album by The Darkness, which appears to rock. Hope you have a good week! (yes, you!)

Excellent Weekend

It was just as excellent as it was long-awaited. Kane pointed out that I had worked 19 days in a row, which was not a fun thing to hear. Granted, seven year olds in China do that for years on end earning, like, a rice ball or something for it, but still. Not to mention that my bosses certainly don't sympathize; when I started working there in April, my boss David said that he'd taken eight days off this year already. I thought, wow, that's nice, he takes a couple days off a month to relax, hang with his family, etc. Then he mentioned that the number eight included Saturdays and Sundays...yikes. I should have been smart enough to get out then! Just kidding. It's been a busy year for my (our) company. BUT (and it's a big but, and please, no posterior puns from that one), each day of weekend I (we) work, we get an extra day of vacation to fuel our Vacation Machine, which I do believe needs capitalization.

This weekend we got to relax and it was epic. The weather was mediocre, but we mainly watched movies, cleaned the house and took care of computer stuff (me catching up on emails and spreadsheets, Kane playing video games). We got to sleep in, take naps, have dinner with Alana, go shopping for groceries and much needed socks and generally lounge around. Another plus to actually getting a weekend is that I can start to plan some of the vacations that we worked so hard for.

In a couple weeks, we plan to take a Monday off and drive down to The Twelve Apostles for a B&B style weekend exploring the Victorian coast. Then, as you probably know, in November we haul our butts back to CA for a "hang with the family" two and a half week vacation. Then for Christmas, we want to get down to Tasmania for a week, hopefully with Marc and Alana. Sometime in February or March we want to head out to Kangaroo Island, the third biggest island off Australia, and in April or May we want to take a 4 day weekend to Alice Springs and Uluru!

And that's all before leaving in (probably) June to do our Totally Excellent World Tour on our way back to the States. Whew. I swear sometimes I think I like planning it more than actually going. It's sad, I know. Anyhow, so, still really busy at work, but hopefully I can lay off the weekends for a while, though it is nice to have that extra vacation time under my belt!

Warmth

What is this? This yellow light on my face? This feeling of being happy, like I'm all tucked into bed at night? This sudden desire to take off 2 of my 3 jackets?

Spring has apparently, as they say, sprung. Thank the good lord. Yesterday and today it was warm. And not just central-coast-in-the-winter, decently-warm-in-the-middle-of-the-day-but-still-frosty-as-crap-at-night warm, but warm even at night. This is a coveted rarity in my life. We left work yesterday and it wasn't freezing. I was not unhappy waiting for the tram to come, at least not from the temperature. Today walking to the tram I actually took off my jacket and let the sun touch my arms. My arms! Out in the world! People could see them!

Same thing tonight - we went to dinner and I only wore one jacket. This is an obligatory jacket for me; normal people were in mini skirts and t-shirts. A one-jacket night is pretty much the best I ever get, and I was thankful. We even actually took a stroll down the dock at night, hand in hand. And I was not shivering. It was amazing, I wish it were always like this.

It was really probably only 70 or 75 degrees or so, but it felt heavenly. Liberating; a weight lifted. Release from months of oppression. Long awaited discharge from an undeserved prison sentence. The winter was colder than we had expected. I hope that it is over now.

And speaking of weather, shout out to my Texas family - stay safe over there, show old Ike that Texans won't take no guff...

The Dread: A Short Story

This is what happens. You get off work at 5:30 and need to be in the CBD by 6. You left slightly too late to be on time to your appointment and you know it. So, you walk at a pace that looks like, with each step, you are poised at an angle that will most certainly propel you swiftly and face first into the ground, managing each time to project your leg out in front of yourself to prevent falling at the last moment. Each step continues like this in a hurried, frantic manor. You are passing joggers and your calves are burning.

You know the train is faster to get into town, but the tram is usually more frequent. This is a typical debate in your mind: trying to decide which mode of transport Fate will assign you to. It's like picking which line to stand in in the grocery store; and you undoubtedly always pick the wrong one. But alas, as you approach the overpass, you see that the train you want is currently slowing to a stop at the station that is but 200 feet down the ramp across the street. If you run you can make it. You dodge traffic crossing the street and run full-bore down the ramp with your coat blowing in the wind and your gym bag bouncing on your back.

This is one of the smaller train stations that, rather than having a turnstile that only allows you through if you validate your ticket, has a stand whereby you "voluntarily" validate your ticket on an "on your honor" basis. Normally, you are always on your honor (not only because it's the right thing to do, but also because there are frequently city employees pacing the trains and trams issuing fines to those without validated tickets). As you are speeding down the ramp toward the open doors of the train, you know that validating your ticket will undoubtedly make you miss the train. You fumble through your handbag anyway as you bounce down the ramp, trying to find your wallet with the precious tram/train ticket inside that you last validated this morning. You can't find it and it doesn't matter anyway; the train doors are open and waiting...and about to close. So you bypass the ticket stand and jump through the open doors just in time.

Now comes The Dread. You're on the train without a stamped ticket. You're in way over your head here. It's ok, you think, the very worst that can happen is that a tram officer approaches me and gives me a citation. But no, that's not the worst part. The worst part is the humiliation of standing in front of perhaps two dozen fellow train patrons being flogged for not having a ticket. You know they're thinking, "why didn't she just validate her ticket?", or "that was a really stupid excuse, why didn't she just say that she tried but the machine was broken?". You know because you've been the eavesdropping onlooker many times. It's always so pathetic.

So you sit on the train. You glance nervously back and forth down the train car, scanning for possible city officers in disguise (because, yes, they actually do disguise themselves in "normal" clothing in order to catch people). You are practically sweating. And during the two-stop ride, perhaps seven minutes long, you spend the entire time not reading as you normally would, but rather coming up with an excuse that you will use when you get caught. Because obviously you're going to get caught. You may as well have a giant sign over your head flashing "CHEATER" or "CURRENTLY STEALING FROM THE CITY" or similar. Certainly someone will see it; it's impossible not to.

Unfortunately, you were not blessed with the ability to lie convincingly. This is worrying you now. Like a myriad of other sports and activities, you long ago realized that you are not naturally good at lying. It makes you uncomfortable to tell even the smallest lies. Just the other day you accidentally broke a binder at work and the kindly secretary advised you to simply tell the boss that she decided to replace the binder because the original one was getting old. When casually questioned by the boss, you immediately and involuntarily blurted out how you broke the binder. You even provided details about the actual way that you broke it. You could not manage even a simple mistruth to make yourself look slightly less stupid about something that no one even cared about.

Also, you have found, many people expect you to lie in some cases. When you are pulled over in your car, no officer expects or wants you to say "Oh, sorry sir, I just like travelling this fast", or "I didn't see you there or I would have slowed down", or "Yes, I did know I was travelling this fast...sorry". They think your a bit off. And they give you a ticket anyway. You know this because you have done it. Four times.

Somehow you make it to your train stop unscathed. In those long seven minutes all you've come up with as your excuse is maybe to say that you forgot, or that you thought you did validate but must have not done it. You could tell the truth and say that if you had validated that you would have missed the train and that you're in an awful rush. To get to your book club meeting. Not exactly life or death; you doubt they will have pity.

But you're not out yet. You are now at the main train station, the giant, inner-city hub of all the trains. This station most certainly has turnstiles and it also has a thousand people shoving their way through them continuously. You're not sure what happens if you try to pass through the turnstile to get out with a ticket that was never stamped to get in. It's like standing on the edge of a waterfall about to jump in. What will happen? Will you make it through? Or will you tumble onto the jagged rocks hidden by the current and die?

Getting to the turnstile is like playing double dutch. You have to time it right and jump in full force, with confidence. You are reluctant because of your guilty conscience. So you keep getting cut by other rushed commuters. Finally, you just grit your teeth walk up to the stainless steel box that will determine the fate of your evening and insert your unvalidated, lying, cheating, stealing train ticket from this morning. The machine ponders your card for a split second and instead of spitting out your liar ticket, repulsed, and setting off alarms while tethering you to the floor so that you may not escape your flogging, it pops out like normal and the yellow, plastic, triangular "doors" open briefly to let you through. The ticket machine said your ticket was good through 10pm! It was wrong! Blissfully wrong in your favor!

Now the nerves transform into a tiny prickly sensation of joy. You won. You beat the system. You tricked them out of $2.80. You stole from The Man and he didn't even know. You are clearly far more clever than you had previously thought. And as you hop the tram just outside the train station that will take you the additional 4 blocks to your specific destination, you waltz casually over to the ticket machine because even through your magnificent victory, you know that you cannot stand even one more ride with The Dread.