Wednesday, October 17, 2012

I cover the waterfront




Felt curiously disengaged wandering around Salamanca Place after my 12:15 appointment with my GP. I stopped for coffee and a sandwich at Drifter’s, but felt somehow unconnected from my surroundings.

This was my home town, I’ve lived here all my life, but today it could have been a visit to some other city for all the emotional impact it had on me.

Maybe my age is catching up with me. For many years, I always said that I didn’t feel any older on the inside. Like Jack Benny, I reached the age of 39 and stopped. But this year I’m starting to feel as though I have actually been through the 62 years that the calendar tells me I’ve lived.

The diabetes medication probably doesn’t help. Nor would my daily schedule. When you have trouble eating, drinking and sleeping it tends to throttle back the pleasures of everyday life.



But there’s always the radio. This week on A Prairie Home Companion, it's a live broadcast performance from The Fitzgerald Theater in Saint Paul, Minnesota. With special guests, French-pop girl group Chic Gamine, blues songstress Hilary Thavis, and vocalist Holly Jones. Plus, the Royal Academy of Radio Actors; Tim Russell, Sue Scott, and sound effects man Steve Kramer, Dean Magraw sits in with The Guy's All-Star Shoe Band, and of course (yay!) the latest News from Lake Wobegon. http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/



Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Lassie Go Home

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Haven't posted much lately, but I guess this is because each day seems so busy.  Take yesterday for example. 

I was up early because it was the day that our local fruit-and-vegetable man drops by with a van loaded with fresh fruit and veggies.   After he left, I felt so tired I thought about going back to bed... but I didn't because I knew we would never get through the day if I did.  

After feeding the poultry, my sister and I drove down to South Hobart.  Julie had spotted some luscious looking boots in the Jesse Shop op-shop when we were at a wedding at All Saints Church, but thrift shops don't take plastic cards.    We raced down and bought the boots, then had a quick fossick around the shop.  

The Jesse Shop is one of those great old stores, full of nooks and crannies filled with all sorts of bric-a-brac, memorabilia and just plain stuff.   We must go back again when we have time to take a leisurely look around.  

Then back to the croquet club for the Fun Day BBQ.  Ian and Henry had done a great job on laying out some games that we could play on the croquet lawns.   It all looked a bit odd at first but turned out to be a lot of fun.  Following that we fired up the barbecue and threw on some snags and burgers.  

To my surprise June appeared with a handful of  toy Olympic Medals and handed them out to all the competitors.   We even lined up and had our photograph taken (no we didn't have a podium, since we were all winners!).

Where does the title come in?  We had taken to the barbecue a brown dog -- not our dog, just a stray we had picked up the night before when I was driving over to Julie's place.   She thought it was too late to let it roam the streets;  it might have been run over. 

So we went back to the intersection where I thought we'd found the dog.    I walked up to the house on one corner, rang the doorbell and asked "Do you know a family that has a small white and brown dog?"

"Yes!" they cried.  "We do!"

Well, I thought to myself, that was easy enough !