The thoughts and words that I want to share
This week I experienced something I never thought would happen to me. On Tuesday morning I went for a walk and was accosted by two men who demanded my wallet.
I saw 2020 in from Brisbane this week. I flew in on Monday and flew out on Friday. It was a nice break from existing in Canberra.
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Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you will have seen that Australia is experiencing severe bushfires across most states of the mainland and that the Australian Capital Territory (Canberra) had the distinction during the week of having the poorest air quality of any city in our world when compared with other well known polluted cities like New Delhi in India.
It took until this weekend to learn about conditional formatting in Microsoft Excel.
This year I’ve been weighing my body mass most days and lately I have been manually shading the cells red when the weight is greater than 77.9 kilograms. For the last week I’ve been trying to work out the “IF” formula to turn the shading red if the weight was greater than or equal to 78 kilograms. It all looked so complicated. Then on Saturday morning I was looking at the menu ribbon and saw conditional formatting and wondered what that was. Conditional formatting allows me to shade a cell red if the entry is >77.9 kilograms. That will motivate me more to achieve my target which I missed this year. I really want to get to less than 77 kilograms and in 2020, I want to see if I can sustain a body weight between 75 and 76 kilograms.
I spent the last week working on Norfolk Island. I flew there on Monday via Sydney and returned to Canberra on Friday, again via Sydney.
A month or so ago I had some confidence that I’d breach the 77 kg barrier.
Yes, I’ve become philosophical this week. I spent my spare time this week listening to the audiobook version of Man’s 4th Best Hospital by Samuel Shem who authored the classic hit, viz., The House of God. I mentioned these books in last week’s post.
The we and not the I is something I struggle with. Living alone and basically having anti-social tendencies means I tend to think of the I rather than the we more often than not. I feel awkward in we situations and because of my deafness and tinnitus I’m forever asking people to repeat what they say. I also feel awkward because I’m at a loss when it comes to making small talk. Furthermore, I’m also not familiar with a lot of contemporary language and culture. People today seem to speak in a different language. Mumbling also seems to be the norm amongst many people.
I’ve found out the hard way in some situations that my dark cynical view of life is not welcome. My open blunt and direct sense of humour often smattered with words associated with bodily functions and colourfully accurate descriptions seems to make people shy away.
Continue reading “Focus on the we and not the I”
While I was in Brisbane last weekend getting warm and moist, Mum shared with me a recipe for a dish I was never really fond of.
I spent the weekend in Brisbane to visit my family. It was lovely to be somewhere where the weather was warm and moist. This week, on Thursday, Canberra experienced a maximum daytime temperature of 38 °C (100.4 °F). I don’t like hot weather. I like warm weather. It was also dry. I don’t like dry weather, I like moist, humid, sultry, muggy weather. I like to sweat while not doing anything. I like sitting down and have beads of sweat form on my forehead and other parts of my body and move with gravity to a pool of sweat somewhere on the floor. When I got home after work, I closed all the windows and doors and turned on a humidifier.
My flight from Canberra (CBR) to Brisbane (BNE) was delayed at both ends. With all the bush fires, the east coast had been affected by thick smoke haze and Sydney was also being affected by storms. That meant Sydney airport (SYD) was closed for parts of Friday so flights had been diverted to CBR and BNE. The departure from CBR was only slightly delayed; about 20 minutes. The arrival into BNE was okay but because of all the diversions, no aerobridges were available for docking so the aircraft I was in sat on the tarmac in BNE for close to half an hour.
After arriving in Brisbane on Friday evening, I went out and enjoyed a light meal at Cafe 63 at Westfield Chermside. I had a plate of pulled lamb shank meat with some sweet potato chips, mushrooms, and gravy. It was a pretty good meal.
It was good to catch up with Mum and Dad and my daughters this weekend. It’s always good to see them and hear what is happening in their lives in a bit more depth. I mean, we tend to send each other text messages each day, we chat on the telephone each week, and I can video call my daughters too. It’s not as good as being in person and hearing what has been happening.
On Saturday morning I ate breakfast at Ivy & Lark in Westfield Chermside. I had the “Ivy & Lark Breakfast Bowl” which was a whole heap of spinach leaves with lean thick cut bacon, two poached eggs, about a tablespoon of smashed avocado, and lots of halved cherry tomatoes. It also came with a couple of slices of sourdough bread which had been toasted. Everything tasted great but it was awkward cutting bacon in a bowl. The toasted sourdough bread was also tough. I really needed a serrated steak knife for the bread.
After breakfast, I sat down with Dad and watched some of the test match (cricket for those not familiar with sport of the former British Empire) between Australia and Pakistan which was being played at The Gabba. I’ve lost interest in watching cricket, the players no longer hold any fascination for me. When Michael Clarke became captain and cricket became more about the dramas of his personal life rather than the sport I lost interest. I mean, Ricky Ponting was also a bit dramatic off field too but not as much as Clarke. The players of that era to the present day have been more about drama and less about cricket so my reason for sitting down with Dad was enjoying his enjoyment of watching cricket on TV.
Lunch was at the Sandgate Fishmonger and there were six of us so we got the family pack (four pieces of fish, four potato scallops, a serve of crumbed calamari, and a serve of chips) plus some extra battered fish, more potato scallops, and I got myself a pineapple fritter. The fish wasn’t as good as it usually is, and the chips could have been cooked a bit longer. That said, the potato scallops were nice and the pineapple fritter was delicious.
I posted photographs of what I ate on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter and got some great interaction from people mostly on Facebook and Twitter. There was lots of confirmation from Queenslanders on Twitter that the correct term is “potato scallop” and not “potato cake”. There were also questions about the pineapple fritter which is a pineapple ring covered in doughnut batter, deep fried, and covered in sugar. I mean, what could be better. It’s even vegetarian.
I spent Saturday afternoon chatting with Mum, Dad, and one of my daughters while we sat with the cricket on TV.
I also got to try some of Dad’s pickled daikon radish. There’s a story to this…
A few months ago, I’d mentioned to Mum and Dad I was enjoying daikon radish (Chinese white radish) in salads. Dad thought I might like pickled daikon so he made some for me. At about 9.30 am on Saturday without any warning he went to the refrigerator, pulled out a jar, went to the top drawer and got a fork and then headed them to me and said, “Here Gary, I made you some pickled daikon radish. Try it.”
I was taken aback. I’d just finished eating the Ivy & Lark Breakfast Bowl and I normally don’t eat pickles in the morning. I think I may have hurt Dad’s feelings. I made sure mid-afternoon I went to the refrigerator and got the jar of pickles and tried the pickled daikon. Dad could see what I was up to and before I opened the jar both he and Mum warned me that it has a pungent odour. Geez, they weren’t wrong. Not only did it smell like someone had farted in my mouth it was also really spicy. Dad had used a few Birdseye chillies to make the pickles. I also learnt on Sunday that Dad hadn’t pasteurised the bottle. If this is my last post, you’ll know why.
The pickled daikon did taste good. The after taste did linger though.
Mum gave me her recipe for pickling so I may give it a go over summer.
On Saturday evening we went to Little Singapore in Westfield Chermside. It’s a relatively new restaurant in the newish food precinct in Westfield Chermside. It’s popular. We had a reservation for 6 pm and there was a queue to get a table when we arrived. I was pretty relieved to have a reservation as we were shown to a nice booth which had one side opened to the outside so we could people-watch the queuing crowd trying to get a table.
For an entrée we had chicken satay sticks, some prawn wontons, and some pot sticker dumplings. For a main meal, I had Marmite Pork Ribs. I think it would have worked with Vegemite too.
After dinner, we had a gelato. I had a chocolate mint brownie gelato in a small cup.
Saturday evening was spent watching The Lion King on TV.
Sleeping in Brisbane is always a double edged sword. The weather was really pleasant. I could just sleep uncovered in the ambient temperature. However, the lack of a CPAP mask meant there was snoring. That meant waking up with a sore throat and a feeling that sleep could have been better.
Sunday morning was an early start at the Farm House, Kedron. I had a Farm House Breakfast which was sourdough toasted bread, some fatty bacon, poached eggs, Hollandaise sauce, and tomato relish.
The rest of the morning, consisted of chatting and watching more cricket and actually enjoying the notion that Pakistan may be defeated by Australia. Australia seems to fair badly to teams from the Indian, Pakistan, and Sri Lankan region. I miss the glory days of Jeff Thompson and Denis Lillie bowling, Marsh keeping wicket, and Doug Walters being the larrikin we could all admire.
The flight back to Canberra was uneventful. The flight was packed. I’m guessing parliament is sitting this week. It’s usually the reason why my BNE to CBR flight on a Sunday is packed like a can of sardines.
What else happened this week?
I went to Mezzalira Ristorante in Canberra on Wednesday night. A friend from Darwin was in town so we went to dinner. I had the suckling pork.
It was good to catch up with a friend from Darwin and get the latest news of what is happening. I really miss living in Darwin. There are lots of similarities between Darwin and Canberra. Both have really very friendly people. Both exist in territories and not states. Both are unicameral with only a single house of government and no house of review. Both are small with low population density. Both are reasonably cosmopolitan with a significantly diverse population. Both have a focus on Indigenous Australians. Both have no traffic. Both have a public hospital of the same Canadian design because the Whitlam government seemingly had no idea. The difference that makes all the difference to me is that Darwin is subequatorial and is positioned on the beach. The surf is only decent during a tropical cyclone, but at least it does have surf. Darwin’s position means it is humid even in the dry season. Whenever I visit Darwin, my heart is filled with joy. Darwin will always be special to me. Two of my daughters were born there. It really is heaven on earth. If I didn’t love my job, I’d happily move back.
Okay, so not the usual post this week. I’ll probably be back to normal programming next week.
On Monday I was in a meeting with members of the Australian Defence Force as well as officials from the Australian Government Department of Defence. At 11:00 AEDT, a Brigadier read from a prepared sheaf and read from a letter written by a corporal of the AIF 6th battalion. The corporal was describing how gas masks saved lives and yet cost lives. The technology of the day meant that gas masks were cumbersome and unwieldy. The glass fogged during an attack making vision difficult and therefore dangerous.
This week’s weather has been fascinating. Parts of Australia, especially parts of Queensland and New South Wales are on fire. Bush fires are ravaging large parts of the country. Earlier in the week there had been some drenching rain in areas which have been dry for far too long. Later in the week, sharp winds from Antarctica blew across southern parts of Australia which resulted in snow and icy conditions in Victoria and southern New South Wales including the Australian Capital Territory (also known as Canberra).
