Trip to the USA

So, I've been happily neglecting the blog for the past week since we've been visiting the States. But, I have a free moment, so I can write a quick summary of the trip so far:

1. Left Melbourne at 11:30am Friday, arrive SFO 10:30am Friday. Time zones make life interesting.
2. Laser tag with family = me pwning them and many children. Excellent.
3. Family party to see the relations. See pictures here.
   
4. Trip to SLO: see Eric and Kitty, hang with Thom, Don, Toni, reunite with the Woods crew and pet the new stock of kitties, watch Tropic Thunder again with Eric and friends.
5. Swing by Turlock to see Kane's dad and dad's family.
6. Kane flies up to Oregon to see mom; I hang back in the Bay.
7. Comedy show to see Bill Bellamy with Dad.
8. Cal vs. Stanford game with Mom and David followed by awesome vegetarian Chinese food dinner and Twilight the movie.
9. Breakfast with Grandpa.
10. 10 year Planet Lazer reunion at Laser Quest (yes, I still got first place, booya).

And that's the story up to this point. We leave this coming Saturday and are pretty busy until then. Two weeks seems like a lot, but turns out to be a pretty cramped schedule when your family and friends are all centrally located. It's been good to see everyone who we could see; everyone else will have to wait until next year =(.

Toby the Dog

Last week, mom finally decided it was Toby's time, and put her to sleep. Toby was our cute little lab mix, a pound puppy that we adopted in 1996. She was approximately 14 years old and had been blind and almost completely deaf for a few years. You may remember her bonking into the stair railing or knocking into random fixtures as she would awkwardly make her way around the house, her glossy eyes shining in the lamplight. It was sad to watch, but my mom did her best to "escort" Toby around using a secret language comprised mostly of embarrasingly loud verbal commands and a large amount of stomping (figuring she could feel the vibration of the floor better than she could hear). Her final ailment was a series of lumps on her underside that had started oozing and were clearly painful. And while a life cut off to the outside world by her senses was difficult, a life of pain was unkind and unnecessary. She was old, and she lived a happy life; it was time. But, as any person would want, let's not remember Toby in her fragile final days, but rather reminisce on the dog we all loved while she was in her prime.

Toby was a cute dog, even up until the end. She had all the physical features of a black lab but was smaller than an average labrador retriever, only reaching a "healthy" weight of about 40 pounds as an adult. I say healthy because I know we fattened her up past that. She was easy going, eager to please, and a generally happy little dog. Often overshadowed by her much fussier, much larger older sister, Coco, Toby was not always the center of attention. But the nice thing about Toby was that she didn't mind. All she really ever wanted was to sit near someone with their hand resting on her back, knowing she was loved. And loved she was. Little Toby, we were happy to have shared your life with you, and we will always remember your cute little face and happy waggy tail.

On a related topic, I recently read a book by John Grogan called Marley and Me. It's a story of a man and his girlfriend-turned-wife who fall in love with a cute, frisky, yellow lab pup. Reminiscent of their saintly childhood dogs, they raise Marley to find that he's quite different from the dogs they knew as children. It is a great story about their family and the endless antics of ever-present Marley. The book documents the major events in the Grogan family that ensue throughout Marley's slobbery life and is a great story to read. Marley's end comes at the end of the book and is so intimately described that I was sobbing all over my couch. I think it's the only book I've ever read where I actually missed the character after I finished reading the book. The following week I would often say to Kane, "I miss Marley". Anyway, the point is, I recommend it to anyone who likes a good lighthearded animal-centric story and that little Toby reminded me, if not of Marley himself, but of his tale and the love his family had for him. We love you Toby-Tob!

Halloween!

Happy belated Halloween, everyone. This year Kane and I dressed up with a Shaun of the Dead theme - perhaps our collective favorite movie ever - whereby Kane wielded a blood caked cricket bat (wickets included for only $15 - thank you Big W!) and I was a zombie. I was going to be Liz, but I don't have the hair, and I would have just looked like a normal person. So, zombie it was.

I turned out to be a good zombie; my pale skin, unruly hair, and vacant looks (unrelated to the hair) turned out to be good for something. I spent a while getting the makeup just right, I think it turned out rather nicely. That is to say, a drunk girl came up to me at the party we attended and said, "you look really...bad...like, dead!", which I took as a compliment. Though it's hard to respond to that, "yeah, you look...bad...too, but bad like good, uh, like bad-ass...or something". Cue awkward sips of our respective drinks and then feigning interest in adjacent conversations. See? Social excellence even as a zombie.

Just to be clear, they do not have Halloween, per se, in this country. That is to say that everyone is completely aware of just about everything about it, like they are about most American traditions, but no one dresses up, has parties, or trick or treats. And they're lucky that the kids don't know what they're missing, or they'd have quite a situation on their hands. Life without Halloween, what a sad fate. However, we American Expats refuse to be silenced and are compelled by a patriotic duty to express the traditions of our homeland while abroad. Hence the Halloween party for American rejects.

It was a good party: well decorated - if not quite as well attended - with appropriate Halloween party food featuring chips, cookies, candy, pumpkin-pie flavored jello shots (no idea how she did that), well-spiked punch, and a variety of BYO beverages. The company was good and it adequately fulfilled our Halloween hankerings. And the hosts had three dogs and four cats for me to ogle over, what more could I ask?

One of the funnier things about Halloween in Melbourne is that it falls on the weekend before the Melbourne Cup: a huge horse race that has somehow managed to achieve a paid holiday for every working class person in this entire city. And pretty much only this city - it's not a holiday anywhere else in the country. So, while there are a small amount of vampires, flappers, and hill-billies roaming the streets on Halloween, they are oddly juxtaposed with groups of folks dressed in their finest attire. It's hard to tell who's in a costume and who's not sometimes. Except the zombies, they're pretty obvious. My boss actually said that traffic was stopped on the bridge on his way to work on Friday due to an unruly vampire that decided to walk down the middle of the road. I thought that was especially funny since they don't celebrate Halloween; apparently one ballsy guy was doing the celebrating for all of them.

So that's Halloween in Melbourne. See more of our pictures on my Picasa site: Alana was Punky Brewster and Marc was (pretty obviously) someone from Alien. Enjoy.