So Wednesday afternoon my bowels were feeling a little off.  Nothing unusual, can get that sometimes (all too often) if I eat too much bad food.  Or even regular food.  After dinner I was pretty gassy and burpy, moreso than usual.  

But throughout the night it got worse rather than better.  Woke up at 4:00 in some discomfort.

No nausea, so unlikely to be food poisoning.  

Oh wait, wave of nausea Thursday morning but overcame it and went to work.

Another one hit me at work but overcame that as well.

By the third wave I thought I'd let it have its way.  Maybe I'd feel better.

But I didn't.

So after feeling like crap I decided to go home at 10:00.

Lay down but couldn't rest - too uncomfortable.  I had a tiny piece of cheese and a little water but not really very much.  

Late morning and I'm doing the doctor google thing.  Symptoms were edging towards appendicitis.  Even though I wasn't in any real pain, just strong discomfort.  But it did hurt when I poked around my appendix.  Decided not to eat or drink anything more "just in case".

So drove myself to the walkin clinic.  Stu had already paid for parking for the day right there anyway, so no problem leaving the car there.  It was probably about 12:45 when I got there.  Had to wait ages, and was feeling very uncomfortable.  Eventually they took pity on me and I think I might have got bumped up a position.  The nurse had a bit of a poke and thought that yes I should probably go to the hospital.  Called the sweetie and he drove me over to the hospital.

Had to wait quite a long time there as well, so it's well and truly mid afternoon by now.  Had explained my symptoms to the triage nurse on the desk, and eventually got seen by a doctor.  He did a bit of a history and poked me a bit, and then stuck in a cannula (in my very dehydrated veins, first go, to his credit) and took some blood.  Asked me for a urine sample (did I mention I was dehydrated?  and I'd peed when I arrived at the hospital, so that was a bit of a challenge).  He asked for mid stream but got end stream, there was so little.

So he comes back shortly after and says he's admitting me - yep, likely appendicitis.  18000 white blood count, elevated temperature and some of the classic symptoms.  Fun.

So I'm in a bed in emergency.  Eventually a surgeon comes by and gets all the details all over again (I've told the story four or five times today already).  They were considering a CT but decided not to (for unrelated reasons), and at 16:45 decided to load me up with fluids and do an ultrasound at 17:45.  By 17:35 my bladder hurt like hell.  How was I going to hold it in for another half hour (at least) ??  Then around 17:45 they were like, meh, not going to bother with the ultrasound, just going to do the surgery.  So I peed! Yayyyyy!!   (dude for ultrasound eventually turned up - at 17:55 - I really don't think I would have lasted that long).  I did get sick again though because I was so hungry (it's a thing I do, don't ask).  Nothing there though except bile.  Hurrah.

The sweetie had gone back to work in the afternoon, and went home to get changed.  I let him know where I was up to, that they were going to do surgery, so he thought he'd grab some dinner on the way in and then come see me before I went off to surgery.  Except maybe around 18:30 off I went, and never got to see him :(:(

Got wheeled through the hospital upside down and backwards, which is somewhat disorienting.  Went to the OR prep.  More doctors and nurses and anesthesiologists and told my story yet again.  They asked me to say in my own words why I was there, and I said "for an appendectomy" and the admitting nurse scolded me for my American usage - "it's appendicectomy didn't you know??"

Then in to the OR.  Everyone was gloved, but still *touching things*.  I'm sure that pen and paper isn't sterile... hrmmm.  

Scooted over onto the operating bed and got poked and prodded some more.  Pain killers (they weren't wrong about making me light headed) and the next thing I knew was calls of Karen Karen Karen and it was all over.  A couple of hours later.  Couldn't feel any pain (figured that would change) and felt quite tired.

After about twenty minutes waiting for my heart rate to lower I got wheeled to my room for the night, and I'm like, where's the sweetie?  He was just outside! Yayy!  He'd called my mum and some family/friends to let everyone know what was happening, bestest sweetie ever.

So there's still more poking and prodding and checking obs, when I all I wanted was some food and to brush my teeth and go to the toilet and go to bed.  But everything operates on hospital time.  They'd wander off and it'd be ten or fifteen minutes before they came back.  So it was after midnight by the time I got to turn lights out.

Not that I slept very well.  I don't really like sleeping on my back but on my sides was too painful.  A teenager came in across the way in a lot of pain.  The lady next to me had all sorts of complications and also in a lot of pain.  Had my pulse and blood pressure read a couple of times.  At 4:00 when they came in for something I said I may as well go pee again.  Dozed but didn't really get any sleep.

The morning dragged on as well.  They said I could go home that day, but I got a steady stream of various people come by.  Breakfast (I was starving) wasn't til 8:45.  

The sweetie came by at some point too.  But nothing much happened.  A bit before midday my temp was up a little and I was in a bit more pain, so I was worried I was getting an infection.  But likely it was just the panadol wearing off that I'd had at 5:30.  Time kept dragging.  Had a late lunch (probably too much food) but still waiting around to go home.  

Finally FINALLY I could go at about 14:30.  

Rested with the sweetie for a while, but didn't really sleep.  Then he went off to pick up Fiona from Jolimont, and they went and had beer and meat on a stick.  Well not quite.  They did to go to Bentspoke for beer, and to the multicultural festival for potato on a stick (and a couple of other things).  Because I'd had such a big late lunch I had popcorn for dinner.  Because, fibre!  Watched some old episodes of Naked Chef (man he was so *young* when he started, and Jules was just his girlfriend hehe).  Started watching Muriel's Wedding on Netflix, even though I have it on DVD.  Silly really.  Then Stu and Fiona came home.  They brought frozen chips so we heated some of those up.  But it did mean I went to bed a lot later than I wanted to.

Had some panadeine (from my stash before they stopped selling the stuff over the counter) and actually slept quite well.  Was able to sleep on my sides for some of the night, and slept in til about 7:30.  

Today Stu and Fiona went off to do some food shopping and I watched the rest of Muriel's Wedding and Netflix and tried to select photos for the holiday slideshow.  I've been mostly just sitting up.  I was never a fan of lying on the couch anyway (hurts my back unless I get things just right), and it's a lot harder to get up from the couch.  This afternoon has mostly just been chilling.  Nice and quiet like.  I also found the web archive of Julie Powell's blog, so have been reading that from the beginning.  Not really sure why some people hated it so much.  It reads like someone just doing it for themselves, not out to make a name for themselves.  She does sound like she was burning the candle at both ends though!

My butt does hurt from sitting so much though...  normally I'm bouncing up and down a *lot* more!

So an eventful couple of days.  But of everything, from appendicitis, to surgery, to recovery, the single most painful thing of the whole experience was them taking off the sticky tape holding in my cannula!   (followed by holding my pee for the ultrasound that never happened :) )

22.1.19

A bunch of us went and did the Nightmare room at the Riddle Room at Mitchell.  It was great fun, the only problem being that one of the girls had done the room before, and kind of took over a bit, which I found somewhat frustrating.  I'd love to do more escape rooms, it was very cool.

In the evening there was a dinner at the War Memorial which was very cool.  There were various films, and a talk by one of the volunteers (which was perhaps a *tad* too long but quite interesting).

The entree was nice, but the mains weren't anything special (a bit dry).  There was a pork dish and a beef dish handed out alternately, and Neil and I did a swapsies of a bit of ours so I got to try both.  Dessert was quite nice, but it was a bit squishy and they didn't give us forks so I asked for one hehe.

24.1.19

They asked me last year to run a trivia night.  Because I thought it was going to be mostly a different audience I decided to reuse my oldest one.  I didn't do any prep on it at the end of last year because I was too busy with holiday planning.  So come this year and I had like one weekend to prepare it.  And I found I couldn't use a lot of my questions because they weren't relevant to the date/audience.  So ended up having to spend a lot of time on it.  But the night went well and people seemed to have a good time.

25.1.19

Another bunch of us booked out Laser Zone and we had a blast.  There were a couple of team games, a couple of team competition games, a couple of individual games and a game called "Infection" where one person is "it" and has to get as many people as possible (and the people they get can then get other people).  So you just hide and hope they don't find you.  Interesting but not as much fun.  I did surprisingly well overall.  It helped that I made a good effort to get all the "bases", and that half the people playing were kids heh.  I won or came second a few times.  This was me winning on a team game.

All in all a pretty fun week.

So the beginning of the year. We began the new year at Kit's with Ben and Sarah for a nice start to the year.

We took the first two weeks of January off, so three weeks all up, but during the first two weeks our house was a revolving door of people wanting to use the pool. I do enjoy having people over, but we needed a break!! I think in that two weeks we socialised every single day which was completely exhausting. Later I was able to do a deep clean of most of the kitchen, and organised the garage.

Somehow we managed to go overseas twice this year. In April we made an impromptu trip to Wellington, New Zealand for a lonnng weekend for our tenth wedding anniversary. We only arranged it a few weeks in advance (taking Wello's lead of going to New Zealand just because (actually he did it for status points haha)), and got one of the very last direct Canberra to Wellington flights on Singapore Airlines. In December we avoided the family Christmas obligations and headed to the northern hemisphere. We had a couple of days in Japan before heading to Southampton to board the Queen Mary 2 for a transatlantic crossing and Caribbean cruise. Christmas and New Year were on board the ship in the North Atlantic. I went up to Sydney in January for the mum/uncles post-Christmas chatchup, where we went to Pandora's in Rouse Hill for lunch and sat in Ken and Jeanine's spa all afternoon; and again in June for Mum and Uncle Ken's birthdays, and we went and saw Vivid Sydney which was pretty cool. I went to Junee in May and we went and saw the Bricktastic Lego exhibition, which was awesome because no crowds, and we went to the circus as well. I went to Melbourne in June for work, and again with the sweetie in August for Kit's graduation.

Work was pretty stressful this year. The work itself was fine (I completed a massive cleanup project in around a year, much less than my estimate of two years) and my supervisor is great, but we switched to hot-desking which is all kinds of stressful for me. Not to mention that "activity based working" means we should be sitting with the people we work with, but because there's not enough seats that's often not the case. I get in relatively early (thanks sweetie!) so at least I get *some* consistency. We had a Ball in March which was very .. blue! and a lot of fun. Our work bar closed in June and we had an amazing final night. We got a new one, but it's half the size and not as practical. One of the first nights in the new bar was a whiskey night which was good. I organised a trivia night for March, but it was cancelled at the last minute due to lack of interest. Tried again in May and this time it was a packed house, and the last one in the old bar. We won the first one in the new bar in October, but the organisers said as incentive to win, the second place winners should run it. Let's hope they do or I'll be running another one!

Healthwise I've been pretty good. Just had a cold in May and another in July. Other than that it was just a lot of insomnia. A lot a LOT of insomnia. Omigosh sometimes I was convinced it was going to kill me.

Once again we had a *very* social year. As I mentioned earlier we had a lot of visitors in the first week of January. David came to stay a few times. He came in January and fixed some taps in the bathroom, and later in January to see about the Railway Historical Society and whether or not they'd try and reopen. He came with Leanne in February, to stay after the Airport Open Day (that I never managed to get tickets for), again in April, September and October with Kat. Always great having him here. Chrissie got bigger and bigger with Beavis and I got to see a couple of ultrasounds. She had a quite small but quite cute Nathan at the end of February. Visited them a little but not nearly often enough. Didn't help that Chris was completely exhausted from lack of sleep. Aunty Di and Uncle Graham came down a couple of times and we did fondue with them at Chrissie's in April and October. Had lunch a few times with her as well which was nice. Chris also gave me a kick up the butt in July and helped me grout half the shower. We caught up quite a few times with the extended N-Gang, going to either EffanC's, R&F's, Scotts for pizza, and beef cheecks at our place in July. We saw quite a lot of Kit and Pete during the year. It was sooooo nice having cool neighbours you could pop down to for a quiet drink. Pete is into games, so played a few with him (Kit played begrudgingly) - including Travel Trivial Pursuit, Cards Against Humanity, and Kismet. We went out to the George for Kit's birthday in May, had Ben over for roast in March, and had BBQ at Serena's for her birthday in October. Kit and Pete had a farewell party at the beginning of November (much drama ensued) but we still got to see them every weekend until they left. Helped pack their truck at the beginning of December, and they moved down the coast the same weekend we went overseas. We met up with Damien and Amanda at the Dickson Dumpling House in April, and Stu had a wargame with Damien in July, followed by dinner at Laziza House. Jenn came over in February with various Tequilas she'd bought on her trip to Mexico. Hao came up for work in May, so caught up with him at Alice's. Had our annual Hanami lunch with Nat and Andrew in late September. Stu's dad came over for dinner sans Ruth in January. Scott and Kerry came down at the end of June on the way to the snow and we had the whole family over for dinner. Had Wello's 40th at Casey Jones in October, and went over to @CLBradley's in November for BBQ for his birthday.

We didn't do as much club stuff this year. The event dinners are getting out of control with so many people going, and Stu has to go out once a month for committee meetings, which leaves us with no enthusiasm to go out at other times. We did go a couple of times, including a nice night in November with only six of us out there. We did an epic Burns Night in January, with two huge pork roasts, a huge haggis, tatties, neeps, peas, carrots and cranachan, for about forty five people. We did another round of two huge roast pork roasts and veggies for Christmas in July, and something like fifty people came. We were going to help with the Christmas party, but Stu got a migraine just before we were going to head out. During the committee meeting in August I regrouted the shed's kitchen splashback, because I could scrape out the old stuff with a fingernail, and I had the last of the grout from our bathroom that I thought I could use up. Only went to a couple of swim nights.

Pets. For years we've only ever had fish in this house. In February Chrissie was heavily pregnant and overstressed and the stress of Stumpy not eating was too much for her (Stumpy being a lovely blue tongue lizard). Kit had had Stumpy since he was born in her last place (I remember when they first moved in seeing the tank in the spare room, thinking at the time it was fish). Stumpy spent many years living in Kit's garage generally being neglected. So a couple of years ago Kit gave him to Chris and Zac. He fattened up nicely. But as I said, Chrissie couldn't deal, and asked if I'd take him. Well our front entrance way was still full of clutter that had been there for like five years that I'd been wanting to get rid of. So she took the majority of the stuff to sell on Gumtree one day, and we got Stumpy. He didn't eat at all for the first six months we had him. Didn't help that I didn't have lights through the early part, and then it was winter. So he sat doing not much for the whole time. Then later in the year (I'd been increasing the amount of heat/light to match the seasons) he suddenly started eating. It's been lovely having him. Stu really likes him and gives him lots of cuddles.

On the fish front. I got five new black neon tetras in January for the two foot, and some harlequin rasboras in May. I got a little sucking catfish to keep the algae at bay in Chrissie's little tank. We went to Serkan's for killifish study group meetings in March and August. Stu has been trying to breed killifish, with mixed success. He gets all enthusiastic for spurts, then they get neglected for weeks at a time. The other drama was the epic stress caused by dodgy Aqua One LED fish tank lights. All three, plus one I'd already had replaced died in the space of a couple of months. In the end got all my money back and went back to fluoros. Confirming my hatred for all things Aqua One.

Lego, jigsaws, and other hobbies. In January, Vic came down from Sydney with an entire bootfull of his kids' Lego he wanted to sell. It wasn't sorted so I spent months sorting it and checking each and every damned piece for FAKE Lego. Had to stop working downstairs in April when it got too cold, but didn't really do too much at the end of the year - I was too busy getting ready for our holiday. I'd bought some nice Willow storage tubs to replace all the cardboard boxes I have for storage, and they got pressed into service holding sorted Lego. I really want to get rid of it all to get the space back (and my storage tubs back!), but need to do something about the computer I'm using down there - it doesn't have enough grunt to keep five word docs open at a time containing the parts lists for the sets. I did a LOT of jigsaws this year, including several sections of the Disney behemoth. Another reason I want the space back downstairs...! Didn't do much else hobbywise. Spent a lot of time fighting with Apple. I downloaded Image::ExifTool and used a perl script to rename the files based on Date taken instead of Date modified which I've been doing all these years with all my other photos. I processed, labelled and blogged all the photos from our New Zealand holiday within two months, then I went back and labelled all the photos from our East Asia holiday and got that blogged by the end of the year.

For some reason I always mention the weather. We had the extremes this year. We had a dust storm in March. In fact all through March the max temperature was around 30C almost every day. It was freaky hot. Then throughout July it was crazy cold. We got so much ice on the pool it was ridiculous. One time it was 14mm thick in places! Maybe the super thick ice was the beginning of the end for the pool - I did consider that all that ice can't be good for all the joints.

New toys! My iPhone 5 got more and more annoying. For some months the lock button was really sticky. It either wouldn't work at all, or would spend the whole time in the lock position, so the phone would think you were trying to turn it off. I waited til the Apple announcements in September to see if they'd release a small form factor phone, but alas none came. So I bit the bullet and got a HUGE XS. The new phone and iOS STILL screws around with the date modified on my files. Pissed off at that. But the camera is very nice. Especially the HDR capabilities. My old phone feels like such a sweet little phone when I pick it up (I've kept it around because it has a bunch of apps that won't run on the new one). Also before our holiday I decide to replace the seven year old Asus Eee PC. It was always under-powered (what is it with Asus and not enough memory?) and spent most of its life swapping to disk and not actually doing anything. It was pretty much unusable and frustrating, so got a little Lenovo net book which was just great to travel with.

A few house sagas this year. The first being the leaky shower. It took me forever to finish scraping off the old sealant and scraping back the old grout. And then it sat there for months doing nothing. Eventually Chrissie gave me a kick up the bum and helped me grout half the shower, and I finished it a week or two later in July, followed by the sealant in August. Took a little over a year to get that shower back into use, but it doesn't seem to leak anymore. I also attacked the cloudiness on the shower glass but NOTHING worked - not bathroom cleaner, not vinegar, not diluted CLR, not straight CLR, not straight CLR left there on the glass for weeks on end. I gave up the idea of ever having that glass clear again. We came home from New Zealand to find the power had gone off in the house and had been off for four days. We lost some fish in the cold (the rummy nose tetras), and I chucked out a bag of stuff from the fridge just in case, but the freezer didn't defrost completely (still had a couple of whiskey balls in tact) so didn't chuck anything out from there. Then there was the epic stress over the blown hot water release valve. It had died *just before* it was one year old, but I didn't call them for ages because I'm allergic to the phone. When I did call them it sounded like they were going to charge me, but when the dude turned up he was all "is that all?" and replaced it for me on the spot (and left me a spare to boot). Fortunately Rheem didn't charge me for their second defect in its first year. Then there was the circuit breaker that caught fire, taking out all our power points. Fortunately we got it fixed the same day, and used the lack of computer to do a lot of cleaning and organising. And finally the pool. Maybe all the ice over winter stretched all the seals to breaking point. But we had a leak that I don't know how old it was and we couldn't see how much damage had been done to the structural wall. The pool turned out to be around thirty years old! So even though it broke my heart we (I) decided to drain it and say goodbye. We did have a win - Pete replaced the laserlite sheeting on our back pergola, as well as the front piece of wood that had been positioned right under the old sheeting and had gotten rotten.

We ate out a little this year but not too much. Went to Iori with EffanC, Yat Bun Tong a few times (Stu likes the dumplings), with Damien and Amanda we went to Dickson Dumpling House and Laziza House, went with EffanC and Scott to Pialligo Estate for a "Meet the Maker" dinner with wines by Shaw and Smith in April which was delicious, Happys with the sweetie, Malaysian Chapter a couple of times with the N-Gang, The George for Kit's and my birthdays, Lake George Hotel in Bungendore with EffanC - disappointed with the pork belly, Tipsy Bull in Braddon for Stu's birthday which was great, and Sushi Bay sushi train with the sweetie. Went to Chong Co a couple of times. Probably others I didn't mention.

Didn't have too much blog-worthy food. A guilty pleasure was nachos - simply corn chips topped with cheese and baked for five or so minutes. Did Lorraine Elliot's Asian Style Beef Cheeks a couple of times (is it possible for something to have *too much* flavour?), and had a go at Sizzler cheese toast!! OMFG!!! SO GOOD!!! I'd make it all the time if given half a chance...

Theatre/Shows/exhibitions
* Bricktastic in Junee which was great and no crowds of kids
* Circus in Junee which had exotic animals to my surprise, but convinced their no photography rule is simply to not have anyone get it on video if they fall off stuff or get eaten by lions
* Ben Law and Jenny Phang at Library Up Late which was interesting
* *Didn't* see Cartier, but did wander around a bit of the National Gallery with Cath
* Brickman Lego exhibition by Ryan McNaught with Neil which was also awesome and also no crowds of kids (sensing a theme here?)

Movies
* The Last Jedi
* Bohemian Rhapsody

Movies on TV
* Well lots but I'm not going to list them all
* Lord of the Rings series (in advance of going there)
* Kevin Smith movies
* Harry Potter series
* Star Trek series
* Pixar series. Saw what we could of these on DVD and Netflix, then saw most of the rest on various plane trips at the end of the year. The only one I didn't see (and have never seen) is Coco.

TV
* Star Trek Discovery (season 1)
* The Good Place (season 2)
* Pride and Prejudice (BBC series borrowed off @CLBradley)
* A lot of Dad's war documentaries up until April, and then again from October
* One episode of Altered Carbon
* Homeland (season 6)
* Star Trek Enterprise
* Addams Family (maybe season 2, would need to check)
* Anthony Bourdain's The Layover
* Back in Time for Dinner
* David Attenborough's Natural Curiosities
* Anthony Bourdain's Parts Unknown
* Rake (season 5, not as good as previous seasons, too over the top)
* The Good Place (season 3)
* Death in Paradise (seasons 1 and 2)

Books
* Prey, by Michael Crichton
* The Giant Book of Science Fiction Stories
* Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
* The Last Seven Months of Anne Frank by Willy Lindwer

Other stuff

* Got NBN!!!!!!! In January - haven't complained about our internet since. 12x faster than before!
* Stopped by Cataract Dam on the way home from Sydney in January
* Took my car to the wreckers. Realised six months later I'd left my RTA etag in it, so called the wreckers but my car was crushed. There goes $40. Also realised, when I went to charge Kit's car in December, that I'd forgotten the battery trickle charger attachment that had been mounted in the engine bay.
* Climbed Black Mountain from Bindoubi Street with Cath, Fiona and their friend Heather
* Saw the Canberra Balloon Fiesta
* Filled with rage at the tax office that refuse to send paper bills, so how the hell am I meant to know how much I owe them??
* Was super happy with the awesome customer service from Willow when I found one of the lids I'd bought was cracked. Saddedened at the appalling experience from ebay
* reCAPTCHA died, but have been puttering along without it since May, and doesn't seem to be getting comment spam these days anyway
* Watched Flying High twice this year
* Tried taking recycling bottles to Return-It, but (after they forced me to register all my personal details) they RIPPED ME OFF and never put any money in my account. Return-It is a SCAM!!  I've been collecting the bottles but I've never been back - I give them to David whenever he comes to stay and he takes them to NSW where they have a PROPER system, or take them out to the club where someone else takes them to NSW or I think the new one in ACT where you get a receipt on the spot.
* Went to Frank Bradley's funeral, on my birthday. Tried to go to Stanley's in Bruce for dinner but it's closed Tuesdays so ended up at The George.
* Got a green bin!!
* Ate some of Kit's chickens
* Stu chopped a foot of hair off just before we went away at the end of the year

We finished the year at nine o'clock in the morning, North Atlantic time.  Stu was in bed and I was eating breakfast.  And yet, even in the middle of the North Atlantic, I could still watch the Sydney fireworks live :)

I first heard Bohemian Rhapsody in 1986 in year 7 music at high school.  It was one of my favourite songs for years.

In 1991 I met my first boyfriend who was a *huge* Freddie fan, and I got into Queen as well.  He was not impressed.

Shrug.

On 25 November 25 1998, I heard that Brian May was performing in Sydney *that night*, so I rang up and got a ticket.  I was so sick with a heavy cold or a flu but I went anyway (just couldn't sing as well haha).  

On 15 May 2012, I was in London and went to Garden Lodge - Freddie Mercury's old home (and current home of Mary Austin) in Kensington. 

I was kind of expecting the movie to be somewhat "familiar", having seen quite a few documentaries over the years.

And it was, but also plenty of "fresh" stuff.

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed it.  Funniest bit was Mike Myers as an EMI exec saying "We need a song teenagers can bang their heads to in a car. Bohemian Rhapsody is not that song."   bwahahaha.

Obviously they had to change things around a bit for dramatic effect (Freddie wasn't diagnosed with AIDS til well after Live Aid, and they hadn't broken up before Live Aid either - that sort of thing).  But they finished on the high that was the Live Aid performance, which by many accounts was the best act of the day.

The casting was great.  I reckon Gwilym Lee totally nailed Brian May.  

Worth seeing.

Thursday night was BBQ at @CLBradley's which was nice.  Haven't seen them in ages (other than at Frank's funeral).  Chris and Glenda (and Junior) came too which was good but Neil and Doc couldn't make it.  Next time!

Friday night was BBQ at Kit's for a farewell party.  It was nice too, and chatted about nothing to Tarun for a while too which was good.  The only problem was the drama.  The Kit-Serena drama, the Sarah-Serena drama, the Kit-Pete drama.  Sheesh.  I don't like drama.  

Saturday was just doing All The Things.  Didn't even leave the property all day.  Had a pretty quiet evening, watched Up.

Sunday was just doing All The Things.  Didn't even leave the extended property all day.  Had a pretty quiet evening, watched Toy Story 3.

So a nice quiet weekend.  Got a fair bit done, although not as much as I would have liked.  

On Sunday morning we went down to say goodbye to Kit.  She went down the coast after that to start a new job.  We'll see her a couple more times before they're down there for good.  Gonna miss those guys.  Gonna miss George.  Gonna miss feeding all our kitchen scraps to the chickens.  David will not miss Fonzie!

Had the best weekend on account of it being a quiet weekend.

Friday night we watched Insurrection, which was a bit of fun but really just a long episode of Next Generation. Last night we watched Nemesis.  I guess we'd watched it at some point because I thought we'd watched throught movies I-X at some point, but I couldn't remember anything about it other than Data dying (although not remembering how).  Apparently I saw it at the movies fifteen years ago with Campbell and Striker etc.  Really need to be more diligent about logging random crap like that.

Yesterday we just did some food shopping then house stuff.  Today was just house stuff.  There might have been jigsaw time in amongst that.  Oops.

Yesterday I watched Oversimplified's take on the American Revolution, so tonight we watched The Patriot, like one of my favourite Jason Isaacs movies ever.  Except.  The music is by John Williams.  I've seen this movie like ten times.  How the F*&$ did I not know this already?????  Of course then I could hear it all the way through.  Mostly Harry Potter.  Basically, yes, I'm RETARDED.

So where were we?  Oh yes, yet another week has passed..

Wednesday morning we hopped a flight to Melbourne for Kit's graduation.  

!!!

Her parents were overseas so couldn't make it, so we filled in.  

Wait, let me backtrack a minute.  On Tuesday morning the sweetie messaged me to say his ballot for a points upgrade to business class had gone through.  So I'm like.. friggen great.. now I could lose my left-side-of-the-plane window seat.  So I tried to check in online.  I was able to choose seats on the left side of the plane (yayy!!) but the screen hung after the declaration of dangerous goods.  I tried to reload the page but it just said I couldn't check in online.  Thinking it was me stuffing up the webpage loading I tried to call Qantas to reset the error.  None of the options on the phone menu matched anything I wanted so I just ###### in an attempt to talk to a human.  Well it did put me in a queue.  For the next forty five minutes.  In the end I tried the online webchat, and got through to a human pretty quickly.  They said because of our upgrade we couldn't check in online.  Well why didn't you fricken say that on the error on the webpage you buttplugs!!!!  Why make me waste fifty minutes on hold (before I evenutally hung up after talking to webchat person)?!?

Anyway.

So we got to the airport somewhat early, and sure enough did get the seats I requested which was a relief.  Had breakfast in the business lounge which is somewhat nicer than regular Qantas club, and I had bacon, eggs and mushrooms for breakfast and a croissant.

Ok so business class.  Never flown it before.  Ok the service was bit nicer/quicker.  They offered us still or sparkling water before take off.  And we got actual metal cutlery and didn't have to peel a cover off our quiche.  But the seats, while wider and more legroom, were more reclined than usual, and I couldn't actually reach the floor, even with my slight heels.  So somewhat uncomfortable.  I'd much rather business class on a long haul flight so I can lay down flat(ish).  It is somewhat more quieter in front of the engines though.

So on a Canberra to Melbourne flight you really want the left side of the plane.  You typically take off to the north from Canberra airport, then curl around to the west then south west over north Canberra.  Which means.. I can see my house from here!  Had a great view of Canberra, everything I hoped for.  At least that part of the flight was pretty awesome.

And then to Melbourne.

We got tickets for the Sky Bus, because it's like half to two thirds the price of taking taxis, and went pretty close to our hotel.  Funnily enough, we booked into Travelodge Docklands, where I've stayed twice in the past year for work.  When booking the hotel I asked for a room on the east end of the building, because it has a much nicer view.  But, like just about every other customer service experience I've had in the past couple of weeks, it was terrible, and they ignored my request, and we ended up on the west end of the building with a lovely view of the Channel 9 building.  Thanks Travelodge.  NOT!

We couldn't actually checkin when we arrived at 12pm, so dumped our stuff and headed over to the Convention Centre for the graduation.  We met up with Kit and Pete, and then we went to the pub across the way with Pete while Kit got a gown etc.  She met up with us just before it started and then left again.  We finished our drinks but even though we were only slightly later than the suggested time, the auditorium was almost completely full, and we had to sit way over on the side and couldn't sit with Pete, he was two rows in front.  The graduation ceremony was .. well it was a graduation ceremony.  Hadn't been to one since my own in 1996.  Was somewhat like I remembered.

Afterwards there was some pretty average "refreshments".  Kit got her degree framed and bought her stage photo, then we queued for the studio photos.  For like an hour.  We were getting pretty tired by then.  And they were all stoopidly fussy about anyone taking their own photos, which I thought was COMPLETELY ridiculous.  There was no way we were going to queue for an hour and then not buy any of their photos.  STUPIDITY, GFP!! I didn't even bother, but Pete got told off for trying to get a quick snap.  I hate that sort of attitude, GFP, JUST SAYIN!!

Afterwards we walked Kit and Pete back to their apartment and had a couple of quiet drinks (Kit's back was killing her and the sweetie was super exhausted so we didn't go out).  Then walked all the way back to our hotel, where we had thins and aero for dinner and watched the end of War Games.

In the morning...  well other than breakfast in the hotel which was ok .. but .. 

Second Qantas drama in a row.  I tried to check in to the flight but we had been "upgraded" to exit row seats.  Which are like THE WORST SEATS ON THE PLANE.  Right over the wing, you can't see a damned thing.  This is an epic DOWNGRADE for me.  And I couldn't change the seats online.  Once again, we had to go to the airport to deal with it.  I told the sweetie he could keep the seat if he wanted, but he said he'd sit with me.  So I explained my situation to the checkin dude who was all cool and gave us seats further back.  Although row 22 which is still a bit close to the wing.  Not like the seats I actually reserved when I booked.  Completely pissed off with Qantas over all the drama they caused me.  The flight wasn't even full, and we could have had seats further back.  At least the sweetie didn't have to sit in the middle.

So work, drinks, etc.

Friday morning was optometrist appointment.  Honestly Specsavers are *completely* unorganised.  I first went two years ago and got a full eye check and new glasses.  They said they'd like to get a baseline for potential glaucoma (family history and all), and scheduled me in for a checkup in a year's time.  So last year I got the reminder notice, and booked an appointment.  When I got there the staff were all like.. "why are you here?  You just had a checkup..? and I'm like .. um, because you told me to.  They eventually figured out I was just there for the glaucoma tests.  Again they said come back in a year.  So I got my reminder recently and booked in an appointment, making it quite clear that it was just for the glaucoma tests.  So I get one of the tests, but then the one of the optometrists comes out and he's like "why are you here?" and I then had to explain the situation AGAIN, IN FRONT OF EVERYONE IN THE STORE!!  Don't these guys understand *anything* about patient confidentiality???  I was actually pretty annoyed with the guy.  Specsavers please get your act together!

For lunch Neil and I were planning "grease" at KFC, but the queue was a bit long, so he suggested Grill'd, which usually involves sharing wine.  Then hot chocolate at Max Brennar.  Whoops ;)

Last Sunday night we watched Star Trek Beyond, which I could barely remember anything about it was that.. memorable..  So I decided we should watch all the Star Trek movies from the beginning.  So on Friday night we watched The Motionless, sorry, Motion Picture.  Honestly nothing happens.  They get called on to intercept a thing.  So they do.  And that's all they do for the next two and a quarter hours.  Although I can imagine that trekkies after a ten year break would have wet themselves over seeing the Enterprise on the big screen.

Saturday was out to the club for yet another whole day wasted, this time for the AGM.  

Oh I should mention, since we got back, after Pete's sister left on Friday, I was feeding Kit's animals.  On Saturday morning I went out and collected twenty one eggs!!!  So Saturday night we used nine of them to cook a frittata for dinner.  Fun times.

Then we watched Khaaaaaaan.  

Today was just a quiet day doing all the things, although not all the things, cause I don't have time for all the things.  Did do some food shopping and cooked a lamb roast for dinner. 

And then we watched The Search for Spock.  There's a bunch of funny quotes, but the one that transported me back at least twenty five to thirty years was "Up your shaft" which Scotty mutters to the turbolift.  I first saw this movie in probably about 1990 with Chrissie.  I can't remember anymore if we hired it or if it was on tv, or if we watched it at her place (I think we did) or mine.  But I do remember we both absolutely cacked ourselves over that line.

And so ends another week.

When I went out to the kitchen yesterday morning this is what I saw:

Snow!  I didn't think it was cold enough for snow, but there was a big dumping on the hills above Googong.

The morning was spent cleaning, tidying, organising.

Then went on several missions:

• dump three boxes of books at Lifeline: success
• dump a bag of junk at the Green Shed: success
• exchange or get a refund on the DODGY Aqua One LED lights: fail*
• get 10c refund on some drinks bottles: success, maybe**
• food shopping: success***

* Remember I had to replace a dodgy Aqua One LED back in January?  Well that light we bought last October died a month or so ago.  And then another light we bought in March died a couple of weeks ago.  So that's ALL THREE DODGY lights from Aqua One have failed - one after just four months!!  In January Jem Aquatics replaced the light on the spot without any drama.  But this time they weren't playing ball.  They took the two lights and the receipts and said they'd talk to the Aqua One rep and get back to me.  Well they haven't yet.  Not only that, but that light that was replaced in January?  IT WAS DEAD THIS MORNING!!  THAT'S ALL FOUR DODGY AQUA ONE LIGHTS HAVE FAILED!!!!!  I am completely pissed.  If I pay twice as much for a light, I want it to last twice as long, not HALF as long!!  I really want to get my money back on them and go back to flouros.  And NOT Aqua One.  They completely suck.  Dodgy cheap made in China crap.  I've always hated Aqua One.  The whole episode left me feeling a bit stabby.

** So the ACT has started doing 10c refunds on bottles.  There's a collection point at Vinnies in Belco, so we took a box of bottles there.  I was expecting a machine that would scan the barcodes of the bottles and provide cash on the spot.  You know, like EVERYWHERE ELSE.  But no, there's a computer screen and a human.  You have to REGISTER to return your f@%$ing bottles!!  How f$@*ed is that??  They want name, address, phone number and even a freakin security question such as mother's maiden name.  Are you freaking kidding me???  All for a dollar or two at a time's worth of bottles.  And I didn't even get any money back - they just bag everything up and tell you "you'll get your money some time".  Yeah right.  As we were leaving they were packing up, so you can't even go at a convenient time.  Return-IT you SUCK!  I really should have just told them to screw themselves and just dump everything in our recycling bin.

*** I was pretty upset from the lack of outcome with Jem Aquatics and terrible experience from Return-It, so food shopping wasn't much fun.  We got a turkey roast and other stuff.  Got home and was on my feet for the next couple of hours preparing dinner and making a caramel slice.  Collapsed in front of an Anthony Bourdain and Frozen.

Another show I had to squeeze in when I had free time was ABC's Back in Time for Dinner (which I mentioned earlier: I especially liked the 80s and 90s episodes for the fun memories but was also pretty cool to see all the stuff they dug up for furnishing and decorating their house for the earlier decades).  But because I'm obsessive that way, I tried to find their house on Google maps.  I had a pretty good idea it was in the St George area, based on their visits to Carss Park, Brighton Le Sands/La Perouse and various places in Mortdale. 

This is all I really had to go on to find their house:

And I could make some guesses as to which way their house was pointed based on sun direction.  Took me most of an episode to find it.  What was funny is that when you look at it on street view there's a crowd of people outside it!

Other fun things in the show - Tupperware!  We had sooo much of this Tupperware.  In fact I still have most of it.  I was thinking there might be a market for it, so it's boxed up with thoughts of selling it on ebay...

And the Pigs and Chickens tiles featured!

Quite enjoyed the show.

Took Tuesday off because, sick.  Watched Netflix all day.  Started with the 1994 Black Beauty which was a beautiful, if sentimental, movie.  Then a documentary on the Lego House in Billund.  After lunch watched Uptown Girls because, Brittany Murphy and Dakota Fanning; and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days.  Both were a bit silly but a bit of fun.

Wednesday/Thursday was still sick but worked from home.

Friday I went in although probably should have stayed home.

Still coughing.

Yesterday was totally a catchup day.  Spent all day scanning seventy six USA 2004 photos, and housework.  Cleaned the kitchen (twice), washed the bed sheets, put clothes, towels and other things away, replaced a light bulb, dusted and vacuumed the whole house, cleaned stuff, and booked our flights and hotel for Melbourne for Kit's graduation.  Felt like I was on my feet most of the day but still only managed 3660 steps.

We must have watched Order of the Phoenix last Sunday night.  We watched The Half Blood Prince on Friday night and Deathly Hallows Part I last night.  Also watched Peter Pan on Friday night because, Jason Isaacs.

Something learnt:  "muscle memory" is a thing!  Different to conscious memory.  Brains are cool.  (From Henry Molaison's story on Ted)