Category: Ramble Page 35 of 57

It’s Monday. Also known as the Day Of Sorting Out The Court Papers Kerfuffle. Also known as the Day That Probably Needs a Catchier Title.

I start the day well, however, by getting up and starting a new story; one inspired by 30 Days Of Night and also, indirectly, by the terrific short film Zygote. After that I drop the kids at school, at a slightly leisurely pace given that I don’t need to go to to work today.

So here’s the plan: because there was one detail missing on one of my court papers, I need to provide a revised version of that particular document. I need to print it first, which I can’t do because I don’t have a printer. I then need to get it signed and witnessed, for which reason I am dragging Rachel along for this adventure since she needs to also sign it. I need to go to Garden City, where they have a Justice Of The Peace, for this to happen. Once it’s signed and witnessed, I then need to make seven (!) copies to file at the Family Court. Which is up in the city, as you may remember from such exciting diary posts as June 29. I may not need all seven copies, but then again I might, and I don’t want to get turned away at the last hurdle just for being short of a copy or two.

We make good progress. First stop: Officeworks, where it costs me 95c for printing. Next, we drive to Garden City to see the JP, who is obligingly open early just before 10am. Luckily the library next door has a photocopier, so we walk there for step three, forking out $5 for about 28 copies (seven of which have to be in colour).

After that it’s barely even 10:30am and we stop for breakfast. I anticipate a long wait at the Family Court, and do not want to be sitting there dying of starvation. We drive up to the city, taking a beating from the rain on the way, and take our place in the queue (by which I mean we take a ticket and sit down to wait until our number gets called). A little more than an hour later we get called up. I hand over my document, plus three of the copies, and we’re done. Now I get to wait several more days while the judge reviews the file and decides whether this amended document has done the trick or not. We grab some coffee and donuts and then head back to collect the Kinderbesten from school.

I need to make some banana bread to take into work tomorrow, which seems almost a waste of good banana bread. Luckily I have enough ingredients for two loaves. While I make dinner, I persuade the Elderbeast to make the packed lunches for tomorrow, which goes better than expected. We enjoy a second round of meatballs for dinner (which continues to prove popular) then have enough time left over for some board games. I choose Machi Koro, which we’ve not played nearly enough of. I’m delighted to find that the Kinderbeast gets the hang of it right away Looks like this could be another family favourite, along with Exploding Kittens.

Later, the Elderbeast wants to watch the Masterchef finale, which I decide to allow, but I’ve claimed the front room TV for Game of Thrones. He eventually settles for watching his show on his iPad. It’s still going long after Game of Thrones has finished. I leave him to it so I can go to bed and finish volume one of Locke & Key.

It’s a glorious childfree Sunday. I get up and manage an epic morning shift, finishing a full second draft of my ‘doorbell’ story (entitled: The Doorman). I don’t need to prepare any dinner as I made meatballs last night with the, in retrospect, ridiculous amount of meat I bought. I enjoy a bacon and egg sandwich, and more coffee.

Then the angst about the court papers sets in again. I put it aside and head off to my monthly Pathfinder session. I find myself properly getting into the game, which only heightens the irony of my character getting killed by a dragon at the end of the day. And not even a living dragon. A dead dragon. That falls out of the sky and lands on me. Oh well, I guess there are worse ways to go …

The kids come home from their weekend with Rachel, as always seeming to have a good time. I knock together a sauce for the meatballs (it’s awesome, so just remember this: a tin of chopped tomatoes, a small jar of tomato puree, a dose of maple syrup, and an equivalent dose of balsamic vinegar). The kinderbesten enjoy it which naturally means its the best recipe ever invented. I get them to bed nice and early, and then get myself to bed nice and early.

I’ve decided to start reading Locke & Key again. It’s a superb series, but only the first five volumes were available when I first started reading it. I’ve since acquired all six volumes (both in glorious hardback and user-friendly digital–thanks, Humble Bundle!) and have decided it’s time to give the entire run a fresh read. This time I plan to make it to the end. I get through the first three issues, or half of the first volume if you will. More tomorrow …

I manage to sleep in until 10am. Actually sleep. Which is almost unheard of. While I’m glad for the extra sleep, I’m also aware that I’ve lost about two hours of my day. I get to Coles for 10:30am for the weekly shop, and find that it’s still pleasingly quiet. After that I drive up to the shopping centre.

Oh yes, another item on the list of Things That Did Not Happen for this week is the Elderbeast’s Mindfulness class; due to start next Thursday, until it got cancelled due to people bailing at the last minute. I am, however, hopeful that I might be able to arrange some individual sessions, for which he will still need a yoga mat, which is why we end up at the shopping centre. I buy the mat, and some books for the Kinderbesten, but manage to avoid spending any more money and head home with that curious sense of satisfied dejection which comes from having preserved your bank balance, but not having any new toys to play with.

I do the sensible thing and prepare food as soon as I get back: burgers for dinner tonight, and a slow-cooked beef stew for the freezer. As I cook, I get consumed with a general sense of irritation over my court papers and the general air of Not Happening that has pervaded the week. I take a few hours determining how to resolve the court papers issue, with some very welcome advice from a lawyer friend. However, all the preparation in the world doesn’t avoid the fact that I can’t do anything practical about it until Monday, and then there’s no guarantee that the application won’t get returned again. Meanwhile, I have an unconditionally approved mortgage application that expires in another 30 days. If things go ok, I’ve got plenty of time. If there are further hiccups, I start sweating.

My planned project for the day was to design a t-shirt–I’ve had an idea in my head for a t-shirt design for a loooong time but haven’t done anything with it. Today was meant to be all about making it happen. I don’t quite get the job done, but I manage a healthy start. Maybe you’ll see it on redbubble one day …

I have an old friend coming round for dinner, and I’m looking forward to catching up. We eat burgers (which turn out to be intimidatingly massive, but delicious) and have a good chat. After that we can’t decide whether to play some PS4 or watch a movie. We jokingly suggest watching Superman III (it’s a long-standing joke between us how terrible that film is) and it quickly becomes the only sensible choice for the evening. It’s as terrible as I remember it, but also strangely enjoyable. And the Clark vs Evil Superman scene is as good as anything in moment in the previous Superman movies. It’s strange to think of an era where a production company would let a blockbuster franchise sink into the toilet as quickly as Superman did. These days we’re used to sequels being bigger and better; the law of diminishing returns seems to have been forgotten as we continue to favour past successes instead of championing fresh material

I start my Friday by finishing the first draft of a new story I started three days. It’s come in at just under 2,000, which is nice and short, and was inspired by a doorbell. It’s possible that only introverts like myself will find it scary. But I hope not.

I head home from work looking forward to my childfree weekend, but then find out that my application for consent orders has been queried by the court. It turns out there’s a particular detail missing on one of the documents that my lawyer prepared. Given that the sole reason I hired a lawyer was to ensure that my application didn’t get returned by the court because I’d missed something, this turn of events leaves me considerably displeased.

In what seems to signal a theme of the week (that theme being ‘things that do not happen’) I also learn that a friend’s party has been cancelled. I wasn’t planning to go, but I was scheduled to babysit for the Kinderbeast for Saturday evening so that the Rachel and the Elderbeast could go. (I’d even bailed out of another social event because I’m sucky at scheduling and had double booked myself). However, I’m far less irritated at the late cancellation than I am by the fact that the party has been cancelled because most of the host’s guests had bailed at short notice – which is Ultimate Suck.

I take Beryl home and decide to leave the weekly shopping for the morning. Friday is fast becoming Improvised Dinner Day, which I’m kind of cool with. I have two lentil burgers left in the freezer; I cook them up with some melted cheese on top. On the side I stir fry some veg in maple syrup and soy sauce, which proves remarkably delicious. I open a bottle of Forester Estate (birthday present from my Dad) and enjoy a glass of that on the side.

For my Fridate Horror Movie viewing with Seb we watch a 2006 chiller called The Last Winter (SEE WHAT I DID THERE??!) which came from a list of cold-themed horror movies (NO, SERIOUSLY, DO YOU SEE WHAT I DID THERE???). It’s interesting, and tries to do something different but has a very mild fail to it–perhaps because the reveal relies on CGI monsters, something which can bring down far mightier movies than this.

However, we then watch the short Oats Studios film Zygote – which is terrific, and ends the evening on a considerably higher note.

Thursday. The start of a busy day. As with every day recently, I manage to drag myself out of bed just before 7am for a slightly abbreviated morning shift. I’m hoping to wrap up my ‘doorbell’ story, but I already know it’s unlikely to happen. (Spoiler: it didn’t happen).

The kinderbesten are, once again, pretty good at getting ready for school and we’re out of the house in good time. Naturally, it starts bucketing down literally as soon as the garage door closes and we end up camping outside the school, inside the car, for a few minutes while the weather dies down. I drop the Kinderbeast at school, take the Elderbeast to his PEAC class, then get to work only a few minutes late.

I then have a couple of hours to get work done before I have to go and collect the Elderbeast fom PEAC and drop him back at school (you all remember this routine, right?). It’s raining again so I drop him at the school gates while I stay warm and dry in the car, because this is my right as both parent and driver. And I will fight to defend that right. Or at least argue vigorously in the comments section. Or maybe just go off to make tea and sulk…

After this I have to go and deliver one of my productivity presentations. As ever I have mixed feelings about this. I love that I have the opportunity to do this sort of thing in my job, that I can continue to get presenting experience and share some of my knowledge. I even enjoy presenting. However, I also have to deal with the anxiety leading up to the presentation, which typically gets to the point where I avoid even thinking about the presentation. Obviously there’s a real tension between these two attitudes which can be quite hard to navigate. It’s not unlike having to go out and do social things.

In the end the presentation goes ok. I have an audience of 12, they’re engaged. I know my stuff well enough to not fumble too much, but I’m not as well prepared as I should be. When it’s over I’m glad it’s over. It’s been a downbeat kind of week, and the presentation has been an additional, unwelcome shadow.

The first thing I need to do when I get back to the office is buy Dan TDM tickets for the Elderbeast. Dan TDM is one of his favourite YouTubers (naturally) and he’s coming Perth to … probably do the same thing he does on YouTube that you can watch anytime for free, but who am I to question these matters? I just provide the bucks. It’s pure luck that I finished my preso early and am back in good time for when the tickets go on sale (2pm). I log in on the dot of 2pm, mainly so I don’t forget to do it later, and start picking my tickets. I decide that the cheaper tickets are too far back, and opt for the pricier ones. I don’t like the first seats the site picks for me, so I select some other seats that are still empty – except in the second it take me to click on them, they’ve already gone! This is clearly no time to be fussy. I hurry through the rest of the transaction, sweating at the idea of having to confess to the Edlderbeast that I was too slow. But I get the tickets: it’s safe for me to go home tonight. On a whim I then start enough purchase, just to see what’s left. I count less than 20 seats left, almost all singles scattered around the venue. I’m just glad I don’t like going out and doing things, otherwise this sort of tension would finish me off!

I make chips, eggs and beans for dinner–which I think I enjoy more than anyone else this time, judging by how quickly I clean my plate. The Elderbeast is in remarkably good form, possibly because of getting his Dan TDM tickets and the evening mostly passes in a relaxed haze.

I forget, sort of, that it’s late start at school and arrive twenty minutes before the doors open. This is less than ideal. I have another day of no meetings at work, but still end the day inexplicably tired. I do, however, make the soup that I had hope to make the night before. I have a LOT of chicken left over from the weekend, so I sticj it all in the soup. It ends up being way too meaty and curiously unsatisfying because of it. Go figure.

Perhaps given the soup failure, I find myself really not wanting to make lunches for the following day. I then realise I can’t because there’s no fresh bread, which means I need to get a loaf out of the freezer and leave it to defrost overnight. It’s a sort of Schrodinger’s victory: it’s half win / half fail, depending on which way you look at it.

It’s the Kinderbesten’s first day of school. Which means back to stressful mornings, and back to getting to work latish. That said, both beasts are excellent and the morning goes exactly to schedule. I’m further rewarded with a relatively quiet day at work, which allows me to start catching up on things. I do, however, find myself very tired by the end of the day and a late meeting means I get home too late to make the soup I was planning to make, so it ends up being a freezer dinner evening.

I have a presentation to deliver on Thursday (the same productivity workshop I’ve run at least once already this year). As always I’m in a slight case of denial about having to stand up in front of a roomful of people (15 in this case) and talk for over an hour, so I’ve left everything to the last minute. Feedback from the last session has prompted me to reorganise the whole presentation. This takes up most of the evening but I’m feeling good about the result. It’s a far more focused presentation now, and with a much more logical structure.

We’ll see how it goes down on Thursday.

It’s Fucken Monday, and it brings with the excitement of the new Doctor Who being announced. I’d already decided I wasn’t likely to be awake for the announcement itself, so I ask my friend to text me when he finds out so I can find out first thing. I go to sleep desperately hoping we’re about to get our first female Doctor, and wake up ecstatic that they’ve finally done it. I show the Elderbeast the announcement trailer, without telling him anything about who they’ve cast, and experience a Proud Parent moment when I hear him whisper to himself: “Yes! It’s a woman!”

It’s the last day of the school holidays and Rachel messages to tell me she’s got a migraine, which means I also get a bonus day off to look after the kids. I somehow manage to get some laundry done, banana bread baked, and the Elderbeast showered all by 10:30am. I then start off a reset of the Elderbeast’s PC, which inspires a trip to get a new mouse and mousemat.

Rachel is well enough by the afternoon to collect the Kinderbeast and take him for his latest round of vaccinations, which gives the Elderbeast and I time to go shopping and fill up the car. The Kinderbeast returns with tales of bravery, and is rewarded with a new LEGO Creator set which he starts building immediately. At the Elderbeast’s request I make tuna mornay for dinner, then it’s back to the normal school-week routine of getting lunches ready, sorting out uniforms, etc, etc, etc

Once the kinderbesten have been banished to sleep I briefly debate what to watch. I’m keen to continue with The Night Manager BUT … Game Of Thrones is back, and the episodes will be out on Mondays, and Monday is my TV night. I, quite sensibly, decide that Monday will be Game Of Thrones Night (at least for the next seven weeks).

I briefly note to myself that this will be the first season of Game Of Thrones I’ll be watching on my own, but it doesn’t matter: the show feels like an old friend.

In a switch from yesterday, Sunday sees the Kinderbeast being dropped off with the family while the Elderbeast and I head out to see Spider-Man: Homecoming. I mess up the timing somewhat and we get to the shopping centre way earlier than we need to be. It’s so early that part of the centre is closed off. Unfortunately, it’s the part of the centre that contains the cinema. With the help of a nearby sushi chef we realise that the impressive-looking black metal fence is actually unlocked. We push it aside and continue on our way. To kill the remaining time I grab a coffee, and we end up getting to our seats after the lights have gone down–which is only a problem because it causes us to miss half of the new Thor trailer.

Spider-Man ends up being as good as everyone says it is, but I still end up enjoying it more than I expected to. I appreciate that it’s a film about Peter Parker, rather than Spider-Man, which gives it a pleasingly different feel to the other Marvel movies.

Back home we fill the void that is Sunday Without Doctor Who by watching the previous year’s Christmas special, which is a very lovely little tale but nothing anyone would call Doctor Who at its best. After that we all watch Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them (one of my acquisitions from yesterday) which ends up being the second film of the day that I enjoy far more than I expected to.

Saturday. I wake up with a headache. I suspect I must have drunk too much wine last night …

I get up as late as I can get away with it. I’d stay in bed longer, except I have the kids and a birthday party to get to. I medicate myself with two coffees, two nurofen, a bacon sandwich and two panadol (for luck) before heading out. The Elderbeast decides to join his friend for a family day-trip, leaving myself and the Kinderbeast to our 11am birthday party.

It takes place at a local leisure centre, which feels like it must be a leisure centre in the Twilight Zone. Sandwiched between the indoor play area –where the first half of the party is taking place–and the room where the party tables are set up, is a conference room. Inside I spy a bizarre Saturday morning motivational business meeting taking place. It is packed. Every so often attendees emerge in search of the toilets. They all looked like they’ve ransacked the nearest op shop for whatever business wear they can find, no matter whether it all goes together. I never realised shirts, ties and jackets came in so many colours. Further down the hallway is an indoor gym, populated entirely by geriatrics all exercising very, very slowly. At the other end of the corridor, in a closed down canteen area, I encounter a another birthday party. The attendees have positioned a stroller across the entrance to deter potential gatecrashers. The ultimate in security measures, clearly.

The party proves remarkably unstressful and my headache slowly fades. Afterwards I feel well enough to drive down to the local JB Hifi in search of some CDs. I don’t find the CDs I’m looking for, but still walk out with $80 of swag, including a Neomorph Pop Vinyl (from Alien Covenant) that was definitely too disgusting to be left on the shelf.

We get back and watch Jurassic Park III. I make a big vat of lentil dahl for dinner, and for lunches, and probably for several other dinners as well. The Elderbeast eventually returns home just in time for dinner.

For Awesome Movie Night we choose The Martian, which I’ve only seen once. When taken on its own merits it’s very, very good. However, there’s no denying that it loses much of the humour and spirit that made the book such a delight to read. Either way, I enjoy it.