Refined

I'm always curious how people stumble across this blog - I don't do much to get it out there (sheer laziness, mostly) but I do like to check. Last night someone from the UK got on because they'd done a google search for "very refined place to live". There's something exquisitely and depressingly English about that.

I'm still getting quite a few hits from Brazil, which I attribute to the Brazilian porn site that had me as a link. I may be wrong - that was a while ago.

Bulgogi

I took my 5yo twin daughters (yes, I have many children) out for dinner tonight, to a korean place we know in Carnegie. "Korean, for 5 year-olds?", I hear you ask. It's not that mysterious. They spent the first few years of their charmed little lives in London and that can be a tough city to eat in. If you have a really huge amount of money you can eat well, but there aren't a lot decent places for normal people to go.

We lived in southwest London, and not too far from us was a large Korean neighborhood. There was one restaurant, Ga-Chi, which was especially good. We used to take the kids there all the time, so the girls have been eating korean food since they were not much more than babies. It's run by a family, and the grandmother, a very dignified korean woman who didn't really speak english used to come out and make a big fuss over the girls. We keep the tradition going, and it is a source of great pride to me that the two of them (and the others too) are very au fait with korean food. A major hightlight was last year, we were in a very unremarkable pub in queensland, about to order food and number 1 daughter (aged 4) asked "Daddy, do they have bulgogi here?".

I realise I've just done a "kids say the darndest things" post. Aaaargh. I was going to take a picture of the titanium screw in my jaw and post it but it just looked too weird.

Picture

I did get my picture in the newspaper over the weekend, but it was a pretty dreadful picure and I'm not going to tell you where it was. So there!

And again!

I got a very apologetic text overnight from my mate who stood me up. Apparently he laid down for a wee nap at about 2 in the afternoon and then didn't wake up till 11pm. Then spent the rest of the night awake, so I guess he's been punished enough. I did make him buy me lunch today though.

And my breakfast date for today, H, sent me a frantic text just before we were supposed to met saying her mother's been taken to hospital. I do believe her, of course, but I'm starting to think it's me... isn't it?

Sydney airport's almost congenial on a sunday afternoon - next stop, dinner in Melbourne with my agricultural chum A.

Stood up!

Got a message from a friend yesterday morning "I'm free this evening if you want to do dinner or movies". I did have a couple of things on, but nothing that was 100% (I sometimes like to keep a bit of optionality), and this was a mate I hadn't seen for ages, so I said yes. Great. He was gonna call me later in the afternoon. I was busy, playing piano (which I'd neglected all week), doing laundry, tidying up, but by about 7pm I started to wonder what was going on. I messaged, called..nothing. By this stage, I'd already excused myself from the 2 other potential engagements I had, and was starting to feel annoyed - I'd been invited to my friend I's place for dinner and it would have been fun.

By about 9pm I was livid. By about 10 I'd cleaned my bathroom in a frenzy of anger-induced activity. I turned my phone off and went to bed. When I turned it on again this morning (I love turning my phone off at night, apparently teenagers don't do this) there was a very baleful message from him. He'd fallen asleep and had woken up at about 11pm. He did sound very sorry (and also, convincingly just-woken-up).

Bastard! But I believe him. And I did get an early night, which isn't a bad thing.

Seatbelts

Conspiracy theorists always like to to refer to the thing where Diana Spencer is alleged to have told one of her friends, not too long before her unfortunate death, that she was worried that someone would tamper with the brakes of her car.

So why not, on the high-speed chase through Paris, do what I tell my kids to do. Pop on the seatbelt? It worked for the bodyguard.

Also on seatbelts, I read recently that when they ask drivers in the US why they don't wear seatbelts, the most common reason (beating even that it's a communist conspiracy or something) is that they don't want to be trapped in the car when it explodes after an accident, they think it's far safer to be thrown clear of the wreckage. In movies, when cars crash they explode. But that's just in the movies - it's a much better shot than the car just sitting there doing nothing.

Furniture

I had a friend up to visit a while ago and she said I lived like a student. I like the place I live in because it's quite sunny and airy, and there's noone above me, but I guess it is ever so slightly delapidated, and it's certainly true that I don't have much stuff.

This time last year, all I had was a tennis racquet, a guitar and a computer and some clothes and books. I've added a bit since then: a bed, then about 6 months later a couch. A piano, a couple of chairs (one of which was used to sit the tv on, and the tv is pretty forlorn, cost me $20 and the color balance is all shot. My younger son it's the worst tv he's ever seen). I found a coffee table in the lobby of my building that appeared to be being thrown out, so I souvenired it.

Next year when my financial situation gets a bit clearer I'll buy some real stuff but for the time being this will do. For the first couple of months it was fun living like this ('keeping it real' and all that stuff) but the novelty's worn off a bit now. I used to kid myself that it looked all noble and ascetic, but it's just sheer laziness.