Sounds heard from my balcony this week:

• tram dings and trams accelerating
• train horns
• a man playing saxophone from a nearby balcony (I call him ‘The Sax Man’)
• distant general construction
• The Office (US) theme song from a neighbouring apartment every half hour or so
• hooting and screaming from the social housing next door
• helicopters
• neighbour’s dog barking
• birds tweeting, mostly lorikeets and pigeons
• nearby general construction
• skateboarders laughing and skating below in the alley
• ambulance sirens
• two tradies arguing over something to do with their EWP
• sounds of glass smashing and people laughing at a nearby venue
• a group singing Happy Birthday and cheering
• cars on the road
• drunk people laughing in the alley, on a pub crawl
• general construction on my building
• neighbour’s cat meowing
• planes flying above
• police sirens
• the garbage truck
• the motorcycle my neighbour drives and revvs in the alley like a hooligan (she is so lovely though 🤔)
• the downstairs restaurant changing their kegs over
• trash being put in the dumpsters
• the downstairs door beeping, opening, and closing.
• real estate agents in the alley having dumb conversations during the workday

Wooo road trip to moe. With a fellow ASD of a fellow age with a wonderful alignment of music and conversation lengths and topics. Quite looking forward to it.

Found a lovely seat in the shade to enjoy my fancy pie. I should be so lucky.

Took the bottles and cans to the nearest deposit place only to discover it’s got an electrical problem and isn’t operating. Piled them all back in the car and Mr P scraped the front of the car on those yellow bollards on the way out 🤦🏻‍♀️ So we went up to the depot in North Coburg & got $24 from it. The outing cost $34 in snacks and Slurpees. Luckily the kids chipped in with their pocket money (I’ve told them that I’m happy to supply essentials and some treats when on special, but if they want junk food etc from a 7-11 or similar, they’ve got to pool their resources and pay for it themselves).

3 loads of washing and a batch of bolognaise sauce bubbling away on the stove, and we had an “inside BBQ” (where I cook sausages on my cast iron grill pan inside instead of sweltering outdoors). I’ve got tidying and junk on the table to sort through but I’m feeling 🦥ful.

Furniture has arrived. I’ve assembled two trolleys so far. One of the trolleys I have three already that are nearly identical that I’ve collected from various hard rubbish piles.

Update: Shelves now assembled as well. Three drawer units to go, then I can start on the hard bit - sorting and putting away all the stuff to go in them.

Got my beard trimmed today. The barber complemented me in a very heavy arabic accent as follows ‘My friend, you have very nice and soft skin’

Thanks?

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I wanted to leave a second google review for this place I love it so much, but apparently that’s not possible so I’ll hype it up here. “Pasta Khan Dolan Uyghur” not far from Melbourne Central. I first went about 4 weeks ago, since then I’ve been about 10 times, including 3 this week. Extremely good, authentic Uyghur food (excuse the clumsy rebranding to ‘Pasta’). Every dish I’ve tried has been amazing. It’s hard to choose a favourite. Pics below are Big Plate Chicken (for two), ‘Chefs Special Spaghetti - with lamb’ - please note is not spaghetti but hand pulled Chinese noodles. Lamb neck with flat noodles in spicy sauce with Szechuan peppercorn And a very spicy one with Chinese celery, capsicum, onions etc.

If you’re near Melbourne central and don’t know where to eat, give this place a try, you won’t regret.

Jeez the sound of the surf this morning sounds rough.

I was cleaned up fairly hilariously yesterday by a triple wave (where 3 waves sort of turn into one). Seen 2 waves do that before many times but not 3… I was not ready for that ~3m wall of water.

I think that was my first real encounter with a rogue wave. Usually diving under waves is no biggie but it certainly did not work with that one.

Good reminder that the sea can f you up even at ‘safe’ beaches

edit: and hrmm, another drowning this morning just down the road at Barwon Heads apparently a boat overturned :( It’s rough out there today so if you’re planning on swimming on the surf coast over the w/e take care.

So this is like the world’s biggest first world problem, but it is a pet peeve of mine that Grammarly can be so impressive and yet it fails to register a quote in my work, even when using quotation marks. It constantly annoys me that it keeps trying to correct grammar errors in quotes. Is slowly driving me insane the more I write.

What a lovely drive. Ended up fanging a left at Harcourt instead of going all the way to Bendigo, cruised the A300 through to Daylesford. Chucked another lefto and headed for Ballan to get on the Western. Stopped in Bacchus Marsh for cheaper fuel and wash the front of my car (I have dubbed my windscreen Mothsbane, Scourge of the Skies. The Cabbage Splat Kid. Breaker of Wings.) and then ended up in Melton where I bought supplies for some snags in bread and a 10 pack of Beam Blacks.

My parents have taken off with their caravan up to the border for a couple of weeks so I’m going to take advantage of their split system, comfy couch and spare bed for the evening.

To your health, Prost!

Two totally different front yards side by side. I know which one would be mine.

In other news, it hot 🥵 Definitely not going anywhere tomorrow. Cocobella coconut water is half price at woolies, imma stock up on like 8 cartons the way back so I don’t need to lug it around in the heat. Thank goodness it doesn’t look like a humid night

Kitty still has the uti. Debating whether to give the first dose now or wait til supper

Edit: Ok, I’ve had the 5 minute rest. I’m giving it to her now. It’s close enough to her dinner time that I should be able to give the next dose in the morning. It’s with food though so I hope she still eats her medicated dins Edit 2: It’s once daily so that is totally fine.

Another very weird dream overnight but involving a lot of childhood friends and a weird alternative version of the country I grew up in. No details today because it was very personal and at one point weirdly sexual and I’m still feeling pretty weird about that…

I think my brain is still processing the fact that I’m really here for good now after over a decade of uncertainty. There was a sense that I was very much a visitor over there and I liked that I had somewhere else to return to.

Toni Childs!