November...
Nov. 30th, 2018 08:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
waitingmanI feel like I've been holding off doing a Journal entry, because I've been waiting for enough things to happen to make it worthwhile...
Then it gets to the point, on a quiet Friday night, when I realise that quite a bit has actually happened & I'd better write it down while I remember it
So let's go back a couple of weeks to the night of the Taylor Swift concert in Sydney... in the rain... A pretty spectacular thunderbolt & lightning storm delayed the start of her show by nearly an hour, meaning a lot of the pre-pubescents & under-10s were getting restless, fractious, whiny & sleepy, depending on how pre-pubescent they were - & there was quite a spectrum of them. I wasn't the oldest person in the arena, but it was probably a close race. The 2 support acts, good & great as they were, were largely forgotten by the time the lightning let up enough to get Taylor on stage. Just the lightning though - the rain kept up... or rather, coming down. Great show... & mercifully the PA was loud enough to drown out the Department of Youth's screams, shrieks & singing, for the most part. Unlike the Justin Timberlake & John Mayer shows I've endured. There's a whole other story there, or maybe two
After the added adventure of leaving the multi-storey carpark after the show (another story) & the rainy drive home, the real adventure of the night began...
We'd expected to be greeted by two hungry & disgruntled cats, who hadn't seen us since 7am (it was now 1.30am) & to be subtly herded towards the kitchen, so the obviously empty dinner bowls could be filled. Both Bella & Gigi were indeed doing their best "What time do you call this!!??" acts, but Bella was strangely subdued - not as vocal or insistent as usual, certainly. Then, whendinner late supper was served, she barely glanced at it & retreated under the dining table. That's when we heard the wheezing breath... & were even more concerned when she allowed L-SP to pick her up without a fight. That does it!! Where's the nearest 24 hour Vet!!!???
So 2am found us a few suburbs away, with Bella having half-heartedly soundtracked the drive with some feeble "mews", at the Emergency Vet, prepared for History to repeat itself & to reconcile ourselves to being a one-cat household. Long story short, she'd picked up 2 paralysis ticks, which, somehow, I'd missed whenever she demanded pats & fur-stroking from me. Unusually, their venom had affected her lungs first - it's normally the legs which go first. We'd got her to the Vet in time though &, other than a course of anti-venom & a full-body shave to ensure no other passengers, she'd be fine... Oh & there was a wound on her back leg. How did that happen? Simply put, she's a fierce protector of her territory & will fight any other cat, no matter its size. I'm surprised she still has both ears... A 2 week course of antibiotics would help that heal... never mind about my fingers trying to get 2 tablets a day down her throat (another story)
We picked her up the following day &, other than the Vets having lost our 2-cat carrier cage & Gigi not liking the look & smell of her newly-shaven sister, considered our little family lucky to be intact. Gigi did give Bella a pretty hard time for a couple of days, though I think most of it was motivated by payback... Like I said, Bella's a brawler & has attacked her own sister when there's no other target...
Next, I was contacted by the Production Team of a quiz show that screens on the ABC - Hard Quiz... I'd applied a while ago, when L-SP had sent me the web link as a kind of dare - the Host is notoriously... & hilariously, disrespectful of his contestants. I was invited to a cattle-call audition in town, where I had to get through a written quiz, then a trial quiz with 3 other people, then a 1-on-1 interview. After being told to stop answering questions so quickly, to give the others a go, I had a good feeling... I was told I was definitely through & would get a call in January, to see when I'd have to travel to Melbourne for filming. Watch this space??!!??!!!!!!!!
Other than that, it's been... life, really. Work has hit the downhill slope to year's end, though not as rapidly as some other years. Plenty to keep me busy though - I've become (again) the go-to legal document writer, or the guy who writes professional-sounding text when it's required... Which seems to be often. Not sure how worried I should be about that...
Oh... we DID get to do a mini-road trip to New South Wales central west area where, amongst other things (vineyards, radio telescopes, car-racetracks, gold-rush towns etc...), there's the world-class Western Plains Zoo. Our annual Zoo membership passes get us in for free, so it would be churlish to complain about the 4 hour direct drive (took us a bit longer - we NEVER take the direct route!!!), or that its hometown of Dubbo has little else to recommend it - apart from maybe the Hogsbreath Steakhouse. So here... have some photos
Then it gets to the point, on a quiet Friday night, when I realise that quite a bit has actually happened & I'd better write it down while I remember it
So let's go back a couple of weeks to the night of the Taylor Swift concert in Sydney... in the rain... A pretty spectacular thunderbolt & lightning storm delayed the start of her show by nearly an hour, meaning a lot of the pre-pubescents & under-10s were getting restless, fractious, whiny & sleepy, depending on how pre-pubescent they were - & there was quite a spectrum of them. I wasn't the oldest person in the arena, but it was probably a close race. The 2 support acts, good & great as they were, were largely forgotten by the time the lightning let up enough to get Taylor on stage. Just the lightning though - the rain kept up... or rather, coming down. Great show... & mercifully the PA was loud enough to drown out the Department of Youth's screams, shrieks & singing, for the most part. Unlike the Justin Timberlake & John Mayer shows I've endured. There's a whole other story there, or maybe two
After the added adventure of leaving the multi-storey carpark after the show (another story) & the rainy drive home, the real adventure of the night began...
We'd expected to be greeted by two hungry & disgruntled cats, who hadn't seen us since 7am (it was now 1.30am) & to be subtly herded towards the kitchen, so the obviously empty dinner bowls could be filled. Both Bella & Gigi were indeed doing their best "What time do you call this!!??" acts, but Bella was strangely subdued - not as vocal or insistent as usual, certainly. Then, when
So 2am found us a few suburbs away, with Bella having half-heartedly soundtracked the drive with some feeble "mews", at the Emergency Vet, prepared for History to repeat itself & to reconcile ourselves to being a one-cat household. Long story short, she'd picked up 2 paralysis ticks, which, somehow, I'd missed whenever she demanded pats & fur-stroking from me. Unusually, their venom had affected her lungs first - it's normally the legs which go first. We'd got her to the Vet in time though &, other than a course of anti-venom & a full-body shave to ensure no other passengers, she'd be fine... Oh & there was a wound on her back leg. How did that happen? Simply put, she's a fierce protector of her territory & will fight any other cat, no matter its size. I'm surprised she still has both ears... A 2 week course of antibiotics would help that heal... never mind about my fingers trying to get 2 tablets a day down her throat (another story)
We picked her up the following day &, other than the Vets having lost our 2-cat carrier cage & Gigi not liking the look & smell of her newly-shaven sister, considered our little family lucky to be intact. Gigi did give Bella a pretty hard time for a couple of days, though I think most of it was motivated by payback... Like I said, Bella's a brawler & has attacked her own sister when there's no other target...
Next, I was contacted by the Production Team of a quiz show that screens on the ABC - Hard Quiz... I'd applied a while ago, when L-SP had sent me the web link as a kind of dare - the Host is notoriously... & hilariously, disrespectful of his contestants. I was invited to a cattle-call audition in town, where I had to get through a written quiz, then a trial quiz with 3 other people, then a 1-on-1 interview. After being told to stop answering questions so quickly, to give the others a go, I had a good feeling... I was told I was definitely through & would get a call in January, to see when I'd have to travel to Melbourne for filming. Watch this space??!!??!!!!!!!!
Other than that, it's been... life, really. Work has hit the downhill slope to year's end, though not as rapidly as some other years. Plenty to keep me busy though - I've become (again) the go-to legal document writer, or the guy who writes professional-sounding text when it's required... Which seems to be often. Not sure how worried I should be about that...
Oh... we DID get to do a mini-road trip to New South Wales central west area where, amongst other things (vineyards, radio telescopes, car-racetracks, gold-rush towns etc...), there's the world-class Western Plains Zoo. Our annual Zoo membership passes get us in for free, so it would be churlish to complain about the 4 hour direct drive (took us a bit longer - we NEVER take the direct route!!!), or that its hometown of Dubbo has little else to recommend it - apart from maybe the Hogsbreath Steakhouse. So here... have some photos
(no subject)
Date: 2018-11-30 11:33 am (UTC)And I pity those poor souls who only drive directly from point A to point B, as rapidly as possible.