Normality is resumed, whatever that is

The view out of my window is spectacularly wet, which is very cheering. I didn't think we'd be getting cool weather on the first day of summer, so HOORAY!

I didn't blog my drawmo on thursday or friday because they were Shitty Days.

I usually ride my bike to & from the bookbinding class I attend on Thursdays, but I drove the car because it was my turn to provide supper (a couple of cheeses, biscuits, some rockmelon slices and a huge slab of chocolate beetroot cake).

I got as far as a kilometre from home when the poxy car broke down. Luckily the road had just split into two lanes, so people could get around me, but the waves of hate and inconvenience flowing towards me were tangible, even with my hazard lights flashing. I rang Best Beloved and he and Bumblebee got a lift from Owen so that they could help me move the car off the road. By some sort of modern miracle (I think it's because I told the phone operator that I was blocking traffic), the NERMA (sic) man came within ten minutes and had delivered the bad news that we needed a tow-truck. I was torn between staying with the car and helping myself to the goodies and sending the boys home, or leaving them with the car and going to my class to feed the hungry masses. Since the class wasn't contactable by phone, we decided on the latter.

Poor boys! The tow-truck took one and a half hours to arrive, by which time I'd got to class by taxi and fed everyone. I was stressed and cranky and didn't have a good time at the class. I got a lift home with a class member, and when it was time to jump out of her very old car (one of those 'second' family cars that usually get driven by wives), I pulled at the door handle and broke it! She'd forgotten that the child-lock was on. I felt awful! I got inside the house and of course Bumblebee had only just gone to bed because they'd had to go with the tow-truck and lock the car up at the mechanic's yard. Bumblebee thought it was a GREAT night, full of taxis and trucks, but we were less impressed.

Next day I went to see the AP as usual for a Friday, and had to do it via Canberra's great public transport system (read that with lashings of irony). She was in a really awful mood, and the morning was horrible.

To cheer ourselves up (Bumblebee is with his dad this weekend), we went to Elizabeth: The Golden Age, which, I'm sorry to say, disappointed me dreadfully. Oh, Cate was fabulous, and the costumes were fabulous, but the whole thing was like one long fashion parade with a few plot-lines thrown in for good value. It was such an amazing, lush, conspiratorial era, and the writers really dumbed it down and left out all the really good stuff. It was a bit like hearing in the news that Kevin Rudd has decided to pick his cabinet without kow-towing to the factions and not knowing how the hell he did that without being garotted. I hope they do better with the third Elizabeth movie, but seeing how this was the really riveting part of her life, I doubt it.

The car is all better, BTW. For now. Sigh.

It's December 1 (surprise!). World AIDS day, the first day I'm able to tolerate any Christmas twaddle, and my brother's birthday, which is never a sad occasion, more of an 'OMG he would have been [fill in the age]' moment on the phone with my parents (38, this year!) and then get on with the day.

Recently I looked up an old photo album because I suspect that one of my dear friends used to go to school with the bro, and found this hilarious photo. It cheers me up immensely.



Happy birthday, Tiger.