Open Thread for Personal Stuff: November Rain Edition

Eugh!! I got impatient with my chicken once and decided to try and defrost it in the microwave fast. I still shudder when I think about that nasty, white mess (reverse racism!!!!!!!1111).

Also, also, after so many years of false starts, my Australasian trip is finally a reality!!! Although it’s more Australian than anything else. I’m gonna be in Auckland, Sydney, Gold Coast, Melbourne and Perth so any recommendations for restaurants, lounges and places to see are more than welcome.

my Australasian trip is finally a reality!!!

I’m so JELLY!!! When my friends were going to Sydney last year around this time, here are the recommendations I got from some of the Australian manboobzers:

The Museum of Contemporary Art’s always good fun! Blanking out on many other cool Sydney-specific things, but Symbio Wildlife Park in Helensburgh, about an hour south of Sydney and easily accessible by train, is great if you want to see Australian wildlife you can interact with a bit more closely than in a more traditional zoo and without the sad-looking-greatest-hits-of-the-animal-kingdom-in-small-enclosures format of Taronga Zoo. The emu chicks there right now are beautiful and you can walk right into the aviary and pet them and feed them and everything (they may have grown up a bit much for that : ) and the albino echidnas are beautiful and there’s joeys this time of year and it’s just a generally nice place to be.
RE: spiders, the big hairy ones can’t hurt you, and actually get kind of cute once you’re used to them. Do check under toilet seats and on chairs if outside in a rural area, but Sydney’s nowhere near rural.
ALSO: Gould’s Books in Newtown is a glorious ramshackle wall-to-wall repository of old books in no particular order and often very appealingly-priced, with a shop cat and friendly staff and all sort of good things like that.
Fashion-y people might want to visit Surrey Hills for some very impressive second-hand shops and boutiques.
Nightlife-wise I’m mostly aware that The Different Drummer in Glebe is a kind-of alright cocktail bar (Glebe is chock full of interesting-looking restaurants and cafes and stuff, often studenty and more reasonably-priced) and of a few places that serve cheap beer near my uni, but I have friends who could tell me more.
Any visitors to Sydney will eventually end up in Darling Harbour anyway, so don’t forget to check out the Botanic Gardens (right next to the Opera House, pretty much). They’re pretty, full of Australian plants, have adorable signage, and I’m pretty sure you could see enormous flying foxes this time of year.
There’s probably a billion things more worth mentioning that I just can’t think of right now.

Whoo, Shadow, I’m in Melbourne! When you going to be here?

::scratches head:: I’m not a lot of help with eating out, given my extremely narrow tastes.

But places to go, off the top of my head:

Historic homes – Ripponlea and Como House, both in the inner suburbs and easy to reach by tram from the city.

Art – the National Gallery of Victoria has two sites, the big fortress-like one in St Kilda Road, which has international art (including a Rubens portrait of Mr Kitteh as a very young man, yay) and five minutes’ walk away the Ian Potter Centre in Federation Square, which has the Australian art collection.

Museum Victoria is up the top end of town, in the Carlton Gardens (also a short tram trip). I’m iffy about it ‘cos I used to work there and don’t like its current form, but it does have a big diverse collection.

If you like bike rides, there are plenty of scenic river routes around – the Yarra, the Maribyrnong and the Merri Creek ones, for starters.

There are ferry rides on the Yarra and the bay, but Port Phillip is nowhere near as beautiful as Sydney Harbour.

Also we don’t run to as many seriously nasty spiders as that lot up in Sydney. Redback spiders (same type as black widows, I think, with a red spot) are dangerous, but tend to hide away, so you’re not that likely to encounter them. White-tail spiders (narrow black body with a white tip) give a painful but not really dangerous bite. Huntsmen frighten you to death ‘cos they’re so big, but their bites aren’t serious. Do wear insect repellant, though, because the flies are really annoying, and there are more cases of mosquitoes carrying serious diseases like dengue and Ross River fever in the south, these days.

Ally – does your father get it that if you pay a credit card in full every time it’s due, you don’t pay interest?

True. He’s several steps beyond ManLogic™ in his thinking.

::laughs evilly::

Ally: I hope you won’t avoid things like credit cards because of your opinions about interest. Experian may be the evilest thing that ever existed (my friends recently decided that when the revolution came, the two groups they’d put up against the wall were credit companies and Collegeboard), but having a good credit score influences everything from renting an apartment to getting a job. And, of course, getting interest from a savings account (if it doesn’t have fees) is just good sense.

Not carrying a balance is REALLY IMPORTANT. Especially when you’re financially hurting, it’s so easy to leave just a little balance, and prioritize other bills, and just pay the minimum payment. It’s insidious. Especially when you’re also going to school.

The best advice I ever got: get a little book and write down your every purchase. Keep a running balance so you know when you’ve reached your limit and have to stop buying. It continually astonishes me how quickly $20 here and $30 there can add up to a freaking $5000 bill.

@cloudiah & kitteh’s

Gracias!!!!

@kitteh’s

I’ll be in Melbourne form the 9th to the 12th. This trip is a little more rushed than I’d like but my friend’s getting married in Auckland and it’s way too expensive a trip for me to plan a second one for a loooooongggg while 😛 I’m not sure how feasible it will be because of the time constraints, and because I convinced my mum to come on the trip with me, but if possible I’d love to meet up for a coffee or something.

Ditto for any manboobzers in Sydney or Perth.

BTW, I was planning on going to Tin Can Bay, but I’m driving out of Gold Coast and don’t really relish leaving at 4 a.m. to get there in time for the feeding. Have you been? Do you know if it’s worth going there in the afternoon?

TW: Loss of a pet

I’m feeling a bit crappy. Took my little Miss Lily-cat to the vet, yesterday, and the vet found the reason behind Lily-lou-lou’s weight loss – she had a fast-growing tumour in her abdomen which had been too small to find, only last month. So I had to amke the impossibly hard decision whether to end things then and there or keep her for a last few days/weeks. Decided on the former since didn’t think either of us could face the latter.

a good friend & neighbour came round & helped me bury her. And we warmed ourselves up with a large irish coffee each.

But I just want Lily back. Lily from last year, all bouncy and wilful and purring like a tractor. /wail

Thank ceiling cat I have the witchy kitties.

I’m so sorry, titianblue. :< Hugs if you want them.

Thanks, folks, I appreciate the sympathy and hugs. This has been the third cat I’ve lost this year but Lils was the youngest (only about 12) and, having not lost a cat for 7 years before this, it’s all a bit hard to bear, losing all three of the oldies, one after another.

To keep me from brooding at the weekend, I’m off to the rescue place I got Lily-lou from to look at a possible pair of sooty-faced girl cats to keep the witchy kitties in order. Or alternatively a friend’s father has some half-grown former feral kittens. I’ll post photos of any newbies.

titianblue: I’m so sorry for your loss. Me and all my kitties send hugs.