Katy Klein Has a Chat

So tonight we are flying to Darwin on the red-eye special. I so desperately need a break from unemployment! Anyway we’d been thinking about Darwin for a while to see Kakadu and Litchfield National Park but the clincher was watching one of those travel shows and seeing a segment on Crocosaurus.

Thus arose life-long dream #2784 (actual number assigned completely arbitrarily). My last life-long dream was seeing Tarsiers in the Philippines which are just about the cutest things in the world and they can reallyjump.  Then there was zorbing in Brisbane which was my birthday treat. The best one ever was cage diving with Great White sharks off South Africa, one of the most amazing experiences of my life.

So when I found out you could be submerged in a plexi-glass tube in a pool with a great big crocodile in it, there was never a doubt in my mind.  I even wanted to get married in the tube but the boy was a bit of a stick in a mud about that.  Even after I said I could wear a white bikini and everything.  The photos would have been awesome although I’m not sure any bridesmaids or best men could have also fitted in the tube. You could possibly get a tux onto a croc though but getting him to cough up a ring might be tough.

Croc-diving also completes my diving-with-huge-things-underwater travel monopoly set.  The trifecta being diving with the Great White’s, diving in a net full of tuna off Port Lincoln and now crocs. I can’t wait!

So we’ve hit a bit of a snag in our Semi-Dry-July quest.  In fact the boy is already out of the running with a total of 3 drinking nights but a staggering 10 drinks, breaking the 8-drink maximum.  Seven of these drinks were in one night as ‘No more for me thanks’ is obviously not part of his vocabulary. Considering he bought the dryness into our house I can’t helped but feel a tad miffed.

Unfortunately I don’t have much to crow about as although I am still in the running, I am rather concerned that all I wanted last night was a juicy glass of red wine.  I also cheated and rounded down 1.4 standard drinks to one drink.

But I did manage to attend book club and not partake of the champers (although not without complaining).  We had read Barack Obama’s first book  but we didn’t get around to discussing it until we had first checked on our first intra-book club romance and then heard details of two of the attendees romances: secret-sex-man and not-quite-sure-if-I-am-in-or-out-man. For those of you who have spent some time dating you’ll know who I am talking about, we’ve all met them.  I’m sure there are some female equivalents and I would love to know what they are. 

So I came out of the closet and told the girls that I was unemployed and they were just lovely and supportive.  I told them part of the Snake Woman story.  I’ve stopped talking about it as I found that most people don’t seem to believe me. The worrying thing is is that more often than not people will say that they were bullied too or know someone who was.  It seems to come in a lot of forms and be rather common. But no one talks about it much. Anyway I am finally working through it and are still constantly grateful that I don’t have to work with the Snake Woman anymore. And now I only occasionally think of revenge scenarios like signing her up for a mental health newsletter! Unfortunately you just have to rely on karma for such people.

So my favourite radio station, Joy FM, have been running ads for Misty’s Diner. Being easily influenced I checked out the website and knew instantly that I had to go once I saw the brownie dessert.  

I get very excited whenever I find unknown food items or combinations and I love comfort food. American food is big on the comfort.  With the emphasis on ‘big’. Like most Australians I was constantly enthralled with just how large the meals were when I was in LA.  Two of us managed to split one enormous piece of pizza and still feel entirely satisfied.

Misty’s had menu items such as Carb Coma Platter and Philly Cheese Steak which are possibly not ’slimming’ but gee they sounded good. The Chilli Cheesy Fries sounded like the world’s ultimate hangover cure. You can also get all sorts of American food items such as a bowl of Capt’n Crunch, Cherry Coke and even a deep fried Twinkie.

The Mocha Brownie thick shake was sensational.  I’m not a dunker of cookies into tea (very much against mushy bits in liquids) but having pieces of brownies in my milkshake was awesome. We split the ‘I want what Misty’s Having’ which came out on an authentically American tray.  There were two mini-burgers which you could possibly stick whole into your mouth.  It would be a great challenge but then you might not appreciate just how good they were.

It took us a while to get there but I will definantly be going back. Especially next time I hankering for some dessert.

So as part of my unemployment homework I attended the Re-invent Your Career Expo.  When I first saw an advertisement for it I was pretty excited. I was also at that initial stage of unemployment where all you can see are opportunities.  I was strongly considering driving a bus for a while but was fairly concerned I would crash within about oneweek.  I had toyed with being a bank teller.  And I am still in the process of joining the army reserves (tax free cashola for running around obstacle courses – awesome!).  Of course now, having received numerous rejections, I am back to applying for anything remotely in my field.  I don’t actually want to stay in my field but it seems most employers think I should. Every time I have tried to cross over it hasn’t been terribly successful and that whole malarky about transferable skills? Psslllt! 

Anyway, we shelled out $10 for the Expo which was basically to see a whole heap of stands from educational institutions and  a few trying to lure people to work in the country thrown in (work-life balance in Wangarratta anyone?).  I’ve already worked in the country and I ended up quitting on a post-it note so that was out. I also can’t afford to study which meant there was absolutely nothing of any relevance to me.  At least getting a copy of The Age for free ameliorated the cost of entry. My partner was also pretty impressed with his key-chain spirit level and measuring tape – that is still keeping him occupied.

When I first starting looking for work I had considered a career planning service whose prices vary considerably.  According to one burnt out marketing executive I have spoken to, it cost her about $1600.  From what she told me, the testing sounded remarkably similar to what I had done using a library book (total cost $0).  Now if I paid money for such a service I would expect them to tell me my one perfect job.  The job that makes me feel like I’m not going to ‘work’ each day. You know those people who say that they would do their job for free they love it so much? I can only think that it takes newspaper reporters quite a bit of time to find them. A quick survey of my friends will find a grand total of 0% who would go to work for free.  Anyway, I thought I was the only one who wanted an easy answer until I noticed something interesting at the Expo.  Do you want to know what the only stand with a queue at the Expo was offering? A free 10 minute psychic career reading. Maybe I can check what jobs I have done in previous lives. They might have that at the next psychic and natural healing expo.

I signed up for mystery shopping a while ago but eventually turned off my account after being besieged by mystery shopping opportunities by email.

Thanks to unemployment I have reactivated my account.  It’s quite silly because I could be earning enough money to buy lunch by going to a job each day.  Instead I am getting real joy out of a free lunch with a tidy $7 profit. I also get to try new things.  Although in the case of fast-food-mystery-shopping on Monday it wasn’t as exciting as I had hoped.  But I am repeating the experience today (with a different meal combination).

I was quite excited about my first mystery shopping experience which involved going into a store and trying on a clothing item.  I carefully rated the customer service I received. An unfortunate side effect of this though, was that I found that for the next week I was rating the service I got in every shop.  I even found myself thinking that I wished I had a rating form for one shop – so very rude! 

But it’s very easy to be critical.  On my last assignment I was a little more considerate towards those working in the store.  I remember my days of working to put myself through Uni and sometimes serving customers all day does your head in.  I found that whilst most people are polite and some even friendly, there is that constant percentage of people that range from rude to downright obnoxious.  Unfortunately they are the ones that drag behind you as you go home for the day. So I still give good feedback now but I make sure I am also a lot more understanding.

So me and the boy are attempting Semi-Dry-July.  It’s the watered down version of Dry-July which was never going to happen.  Not because I am a raving alcoholic but I just really enjoy a nice glass of wine.

Dry-July is a challenge where you stop drinking for a month and are sponsored for your efforts with the money going to charity. Our version includes five nights where we can have a drink and a total of eight drinks for the month. Obviously no one will sponsor us for this and the money we save goes to our favourite charity – the mortgage. It got off to a shaky start as by the 5th we had both racked up two nights of drinking (largely due to the opened bottle of wine which we didn’t want to go off!).

So last night we went to see ‘MyLife in Ruins’ at The Como.  Nia Vardalos (last seen in My Big Fat Greek Wedding) was there to introduce the movie and she looked stunning.  She had all the charisma that she has on the screen. Waiting for the movie to start I normally would have had a glass of wine with the girls but thanks to Semi-Dry July I couldn’t, and I missed the social element of it. Walking past the bottle-O later I found myself looking longingly at a bottle of cheap plonk.

Substituting a delicious glass of juice (200% RDI of Vitamin C) in place of wine for dinner hasn’t quite cut it but I am hopeful that I can make it through the month. Even if it means avoiding walking past pubs and bottle shops.  On the bright side it is a really good excuse should you become pregnant and don’t want to tell people for a while.  But they may catch on as Semi-Dry-July leads into Stone-Cold-Sober-August and then TeeTotal-September……….

So on Saturday night we had tickets for Roller Derby.  Basically when I found out such a thing existed I wanted to be part of it.  I can remember seeing American roller derby action on TV and it looked awesome.  Contestants would form chains so they could hunt down and knock over their opponents and it is a full contact sport. Not surprisingly it’s a female league, possibly because a lot of female sports involve contact (even when they shouldn’t) and it’s the sort of contact that the Refs don’t always see.

So we ventured out to Resevoir, which for a South-Eastern suburbs girl is the other side of beyond, and almost got bogged in the car park. The venue is an old-school style roller rink and the punters just cram in. It’s obviously a big night out and why not?  The drinks are cheap, the sausages tasty and the smell of fried food reassuringly oily (it even follows you home). You do need to get in early to get a seat, otherwise it’s bring your own cushion for a rink seat and if really brave (read just plain silly) you can sit right up front and hope that none of the contestants crash into you.

Roller derby chicks are the sort of female role model I’d like my daughter to see, athletic, competitive and a whole range of shapes and sizes. But most importantly with co-ordinated outfits. I was really impressed that this was one female competitive sport that seemed to have no problem in drawing a crowd.  Even better there were cheer squads and they were male. The boys had even dressed up in their team colours and frocks.  One group had not only bought a blow up sheep, but also a blow up lady called Phoebe Bee who bizarrely had blow up antenna and wings and featured a bee striped tube top.  One does wonder who a bee-like blow up doll might cater too (desperate apiarists?).

The roller derby crowd itself deserves a mention because of the sheer number of costumes on display.  And surprisingly a lot of them seemed to be worn by the guys.  Three piece suits with a stetson, an ankle length leather coat with extra folds that billowed nicely as the chappie strode along and one guy with a staff (how often do you really need a staff in life unless you’re Gandalf?).  I am guessing that these were some of the local Uni students and I was pretty happy to see that conformity hadn’t crept into Uni life, in fact it looked a lot like my campus at any one lunchtime all that time ago…….

The first derby was between the Victorian Roller Derby League (VIDRL) and Geelong. The contestants had obviously put a lot of thought into not only their ensembles but also their names (Skate Bush, Mandytory Punishment and Misty Meaner to name a few) and their numbers ($4.00, 80%). The Geelong girls had the best outfits but VIDRL took the round on points.  It did take us some time to figure out how each bout was scored.  Finally the program told us that after the ‘Jammer’ makes it through the pack (made up of a ‘Pivot’ and ‘Blockers’) the first time, they then get a point for every player they pass from the opposing team.

The next derby saw VIDRL take on the Sun State Roller Girls (that’s right it’s a national league – how have I not heard about it?) and the competition became a lot more fierce.  Apparently these two teams had a bit of history. More blocks, more spills, more players in the sin bin.

Anyway, if you are stuck for something to do on a Saturday night than I can recommend Roller Derby especially for the stories you can tell your work mates on Monday morning (’You went where?’, ‘You saw what?’). At $15 it’s well worth the trip to Resevoir, just be careful in the car park.

Lats night a good friend and I attended Melbourne Craft Cartels’ Dye Pretty at the Newton Workers’ Club.  I was kind of expecting a small group of ladies with a penchant for crochet huddled in a corner. Instead we walked into a pub absolutely packed full of hip young things all grabbing at craft materials and working wonders with glue stick. 

Turns out it pays to get in early (doors open at 5.30 pm) to get the best craft picks and a seat.  As I qualified as a ’starving artist’ (AKA unemployed) it was a great value $4 (otherwise $8 for ‘workers’). I was handed my Go-Go bag with the mission for the night being to create an anti-swine flu face mask. 

I really felt like I was back in my Grade 6 art class which was awesome.  Unfortunately it turns out that I haven’t really got any more creative in my old age. I stuck pieces of gold paper, tinsel and a ballon hopefully onto my face mask which produced something that resembled a bedazzled boob.

It is worth a mention that the lemon, lime and bitters at the Worker’s Club is stupendous, somehow managing to taste like a Cuban mojito.  For those of you attempting Semi-Dry-July, this is fairly significant.  The urge to get myself a glass of vino as I sprinkled glitter was almost overpowering.

The vino would have probably helped me to gather the courage to take my nipple decorated face mask up on the catwalk for judging.  Seeing it in the cold light of day today however, it’s quite possible that Semi-Dry-July saved me from a certain level of embarrassment considering that there was some amazing talent on display.  The judges awarded the winning prize to a mask complete with floppy eared pig with (S)wine glass hand decoration which was my personal favourite.

Next time I am definitely going to think about what I will create before I start sticking anything on.  Heck I may even bring my own sewing basket. After all Semi-Dry-July will be over by then and winning a slab of beer would ease me back into Piss-Up-August quite nicely.

Check out www.craftcartel.com, for the next craft night and I may see you there. My goal next month is to make it up the catwalk with a craft item that doesn’t look like a 5-year-old made it, but should you see one that does, I’d really appreciate a sympathetic round of applause!

There is a lot going on at the moment.  Turns out that unemployment has very little to do with sitting on the couch watching day time TV, and a lot to do with running around like a headless chook and then wondering where the day has gone.  If I am this busy now, how did I manage when I had a full time job as well? Why in this day of time savers are there so many things that need our time?

Anyway, unemployment would be a lot worse if I had a moment to ponder it.  At the start I had a bunch of grand plans about what I would do with my “extra” time, but five weeks later this is my first entrée into a creative life. When you’re working you always think that you might do something a bit creative but you have the excuse that you’ve run out of vim after a day at work. Now I have the time but have to grapple with the fact that I’m possibly not any great competition for Hemingway.

So I just gave the chickens a drumstick bone from lunch.  Clucksy immediately ran off with the bone hanging out of her beak with Parma in hot pursuit.  Chickens seem to be one of your more cannibalistic pets.  Clucksy and Parma  enjoy a whole range of meats and fish but are particular about their fruit and vegie selection (they don’t enjoy avocadeo for instance).  They are fairly spoilt though and prefer any food item that comes with sauce. They’ve taken to begging for treats outside our back door and are fairly insistent about it.  I left the door open one day and the next time I turned around I had two chickens in my kitchen.  Previously they wouldn’t come in since they have issues walking on tiles but lino seems to be just fine for them.

We got Clucksy a little unexpectedly and free-of-charge. One night I took my bins out at my block of units.  On the way back I see a chicken.  If you ever want to make a spectacle in front of your neighbours I highly recommend running around after a squarking chicken. So Clucksy got popped into the backyard en route to an animal shelter.  I came home from work the following day to find mygarden in tatters but with one egg shining in the middle of it all.  So Clucksy moved in and has been hell bent on destruction ever since.

The only problem was that chickens are quite sociable as a whole and Clucksy became a little dependent on human interaction.  The moment she heard my footsteps inside she would start cackling for some company and she wouldn’t stop until I hung out with her.  I figured out that the only way to stop her carrying on was to play music.  Either she really liked music or she didn’t quite understand that music meant I was at home.

Which is why we had to go and get Parma from the chicken shop. Parma was cage reared so was a little slow in her chicken skills.  The first time she saw rain she cackled furiously for two hours straight.  She tried to eat dirt, didn’t understand kitchen scraps were delicious and didn’t know how to roost.  But she can now scratch as well as any other chicken.  Her pecking skills are a lot less accurate and she has a tendency to take out your finger when you feed her.  But her personality has improved no end.

I have to say that chickens are one of your more useful pets, at least you get something in return for all the feed that goes into them. They keep themselves nice, always wiping their beak after a meal and never expect you to throw them a ball endlessly.  The only down side is that they are the natural enemy of your garden patch.