serious milestone

Adelaide Metro has this thing called Roam Zone.  After scheduled bus service ends (which, in our suburb, is seven-freaking-thirty p.m.) the RZ buses go off-route and will take you to any marked stop in your district -- and possibly some unmarked ones, too, if you ask nicely.

Tonight our RZ driver misunderstood YK's directions (twice) so we got to ride all alone in a city bus while he did a zippy 360 on a roundabout and then flipped a U-turn on a city street.

Good times.

Aside:  earlier in the day, I'd had to purchase a stupid-expensive single ticket, and I announced that I felt like I should joyride just to take full advantage of the fare.  Apparently I get what I want.  Anybody have any requests?

milestone

I just bought darker face powder, and a string bikini.

what you need

With a show as physical as this one, in a climate this hot, YK and I have taken to measuring the length of trips not in [days] but in [units of dry underpants].

Locomoting

I pow!'ed too soon.  

YK and I have managed to get home to our appointed stop on our appointed bus route exactly once in three weeks -- although we have figured out how to walk home from the interchange, how to hail a special secret bus (and that they won't stop at your stop unless you yell over their shoulder, no matter how many times you say "#44" as you're boarding), and that you can walk through a bottle-o (drive-through liquor stores) at 10:30 p.m.  We've also made a few buddies, including the bottle-o guy and a dude from Queensland who moved to Adelaide for a girl before "things went ass up."

Pretty glad about that secret bus, though.  On one of our late-night slogs home, some yabbo in a ute honked at us and YK snarled, "You could offer us a ride, douchebag."

I love a parade

Welcome to the Fringe!  Roller Derby Girls, parade staging, headless moppets, vain lilies, giant astronauts, new tattoos.  Play hard and go home tired!

in heaven there is no beer

Man, the Aussies sure like their jugs of Cooper's.

Pow!

I got you, Adelaide Metro!

I made it into the city by myself, and am I ever chuffed about it! The driver was a bit surly when I handed him a $20 bill, but he sighed and fished a wad of bills out of his pocket (!) to make change. I took the O-Bahn. I got off at the wrong stop (Adelaide Metro's trip planner is worse than useless). I made it to the Gardens on time.

To all of the relatives I've forced onto transit in the past few years: I'm so, so sorry. I forget how totally non-intuitive and scary buses are in an unfamiliar city. You all survived, but: yeah. This is confusing stuff.

reach for the sun

YK took me out for a jog today.  It was a quiet early weekday morning, sunny and just slightly brisk, and we jogged through the park and along the creek.  As we were walking briskly away from our billet the first song up on my iPod was Polyphonic Spree's Light and Day and I have to say:  breaking into a run during those opening swells of music -- in Australia! -- is now pretty high up there on my personal list of Great Moments In My Life.

(Cockatiels! We saw cockatiels!)

Barossa scouting, day #2

Scouting locations.

Trooping up to Richmond Grove.

Pavilion at Langmeil.

Langmeil shiraz.

knitting circle

me: I just bought my dream yarn!

Mr. Banjo: I know what all of those words mean individually...

me: Look! It's dyed in these long color runs, so the color changes as you knit--

Mr. Banjo: Is it supposed to look like lady parts?

me: ...

me: Well, no, this is just one colorway--

Mr. Banjo: 'cause it does.

me: ... Uh, well, yes. It certainly does.


And p.s. the pattern for which I bought the yarn has a French name that I always get confused with the word for a rustic French cherry tart. Zesty!

how about now?

The worst thing -- well, not the worst, but probably the most annoying -- about losing something important (say, hypothetically, an annual transit card with five months remaining in the annum) is that my Golden Retriever brain will not stop looking for it in any place I have ever seen it.

Is it in my coat pocket? No? How about now?

I had it on a bus yesterday! Say, maybe it's wedged into the seat of this completely different bus on a completely different route. No? Shucks.

I usually keep it in the outside pocket of my bag. Is it there? No? It wasn't there the last four times I checked, but maybe I just overlooked it -- I should check again! Maybe it's behind that pen? No? Well, maybe it will show up this time I rummage through the 4x5x2 pocket...

what neglect!

Oh, hello. Mite dusty around here, isn't it?

I'm attempting to renew the blog habit before I leave the country in (gulp) five weeks. To that end, I'll try to clean up the numerous posts loitering in the draft file from last summer, and I'm posting a random daily life factoid:

My housemates are pitching a New Year's shindig, so I cleaned the bathroom last night. I spent over an hour scrubbing the floor and sink and tub (not mopping, scrubbing -- like, using a brush and bucket and rag) with cleanser and mildrew remover, and you can barely tell. Sheesh.

hello goodbye

I feel like I've finally gotten my sea legs, and the Fringe ends tomorrow. I found the Farmers Market (not that it was hard to find), the grocery store, the library, and the best internet cafes*. We made an outing to the Edmonton Mall and a random dance club, and I even picked up a schedule for the local Bikram studio (...but 8 a.m. yoga is like 4 a.m. in Fringe Time)

We've been flyering our little butts off, and (*fingers crossed*) should make our audience goal for the final show. Nobody likes handing out fliers, but I have to say that it's much easier while wearing a giant buttercup costume. (The Reindeer helmet + sporty shades works well, too.)

Postcards! I finally got 'em mailed! Love to y'all, and I'm looking forward to being home soon. xoxo.

*Canadians serve up some pretty decent espresso, but they make iced coffee by pouring hot brewed coffee over ice cubes. So wrong.

green onion pancakes

I just found them on the fairway.  If I have to be rolled home next week, that'd be why. 

Edmonton ho!

OK, I've got like 11 minutes of internet time, so here goes:

Hey, cats, I'm in Edmonton! The Fringe is a freaking ZOO, with literally thousands of people mobbing the street fair and thousands more queuing for tickets, fourteen hours a day. We're in a glorious 300 seat venue with a Korean children's troupe (omfg, you have never seen anything cuter than 8-years-olds in traditional dress flyering in broken English -- "We play today of 4pm you come?") and a zombie musical. We've been eating fairway samosas, farmers market plums, potluck sandwiches, and drinking a lot of Grasshopper ale after shows. I've seen some freaking amazing shows (how have I never seen Dawson Nichols before?!), our Seattle peeps rock, and YK plastered our shows' temporary tattoos on the forearms of a totally hot reviewer. (Heh.)

And, kittens, I'm in a four-star show: check it, yo.

Oh, and p.s. -- GlobalTV says FIVE STARS, baby. (Look for Fringe Reviews, 8/19.)

We like to move it move it

I'm moving! (which is great. more later.)

love, love, love / we've got it in slopbuckets

I just saw the all-out big-top Circus Contraption show for the first and last time. My brain is full and my heart hurts just a little. It's been good to know ya, kids.

lights still blazing post-show

dinner with friends

On Wednesday we had a light supper and put the baby to bed and then drank wine on the roof and talked until it was too dark to see each others' faces. This is the good stuff.

(And, hello, summer!)

you always remember your first time

I was searching for something else in my inbox and found this in a message I wrote to Ida four years ago:

Last night there was a terrible accident with buttercream.

Which also means I made some, for the first time ever, and it's wicked awesome. When I started beating in the butter it got grainy, and then smoothed out nicely... and then dissolved into this spongey mush of buttered sugar floating in slimy eggwhite: So. Totally. Gross. I vaguely remembered a recipe that said "Keep beating! It'll smooth out!" and of course I thought that I'd be the one exception and it would never ever work for me, but the clouds parted and all of a sudden it emulsified (emulsed?) into a perfectly smooth cream in this amazing moment of culinary drama. I recommend it.

I tried to figure out how many pounds of buttercream I've made since then but when it comes to butter I go all Watership Down and can't count past four (which happens to be the number of different flavors of leftover buttercream in my freezer right now).

yikes! April?

I'm swamped at work.

Still.

My office window faces west, and some afternoons I want to shove the poor plants onto the floor and take a nap on the sill.

My bangs are growing.

I read a lot. I finished Pride & Prejudice and Sense & Sensibility. Savage Inequalites got a little heavy so I picked up Emma; she's kind of a pain in the ass but I have to stick it out until she gets her comeuppance.

I just got the big green book and I read it more than I cook from it.

I got bonked on the head by a falling worklight last night but my pupils are still MER (thanks John Galt).

There are some blog posts buried in the draft folder and I swear I'll totally finish them like any day now.

Uh, that's about it.

Thanks for checking in.

xo.