Melbourne

day 1 of IVF. wish us luck on making a science narwhal

Someone needs to open a business called The LaundroCat which combines a laundry and cat cafe. Have a coffee and cuddle a cat while you wait for your laundry to be done. There is a lot of potential for extra sales in the cafe as no one would be able to leave because the cats would immediately sit on the freshly washed clothes.

I’ve reached a stage in my life where new kitchen gadgets are a source of excitement. Bought a blender yesterday that also heats/cooks the food as it is being blended. Think of all the possibilities…

Hu-fucking-zzah! For anyone following my utterly tedious work sitcho, it is finally SIGNIFICANTLY better after some feet were solidly put down at today's meeting. I have time frames! And $ figures! And direction! And managed to tell our overbearing yet thoroughly incompetent admin/"HR" to (a) stop patronising me (not in those words) and (b) that her particular processes might be protecting the business, but if she was so genuinely concerned about my well being then her officious way of doing things and dragging them out 1000% didn't help (almost in those words).

Definitely much better work life balance coming up, I CAN LET GO OF MY OLD PROJECTS FUCK YES, and I can genuinely taste the freedom to finally start moving on, whether it be here or elsewhere. Now, if only my rent wasn't so high - but at least it won't change until next April. Feeling p good right now. I'm much happier with the uncertainty (atm) of the next chapter vs the dread of staying on.

Until then... Hectic couple of weeks before the role change!

E: soxcat tax as it's her last night here. She's been an exceptional kitty the last few days. Love this little bunch of fur and cuddles.

prrrr

bought a little 12" ooni fyra the other day and gave it a kick in the guts last night. pumped out a margherita and a pepperoni pie. each pie took a little over a minute to cook.

i think i focused a little too much on getting a high temp, something difficult to do with my other pizza cooking options. first one came out with a bottom that was burnt evenly across the whole bottom (though the carbon layer was very thin), the second one i dropped the temp of the stone about 50c and it came out much better, but i probably need to drop it a little more, and let the pies cook for a little longer. the dough was fully cooked, but some of the toppings (like buffalo mozzarella chunks) didn't have time to melt fully. the pepperoni did cup though.

i think i also need to blend my pizza sauce (usually i like it chunky) but on a small 12" pie cooked super fast it can lead to a bit of unevenness, and makes it harder to get the sauce much closer to the edges which i also need to do (with the cheese too), as large rising edge crust caused the ingredients to shift towards the middle.

after 2 pies we were full (puppers also got a slice each, and the cats got some pepperoni), but i reckon next weekend i will do much better. still, they were fucking delicious and pretty damned good for a first poke. apologies for unappealing torch-lit pizza pic, gets dark early these atm.

the machine itself is pretty easy to operate, just runs on hardwood pellets, though it can only store about 15 mins of pellets at a time, so you need to keep topping it up. getting pizzas into and out of the small aperture is pretty easy too. seems like a pretty good contraption, and i reckon it wont be long before i have a technique down to pump out ripper pizzas.

ouch big fight with fam.

butters puts up a better fight we've been here before.

Got dinner from a pizza place called The Gusher.

There's only one choice of drink for the occasion..

The dude who runs the dodgy laundromat I'm in paid for my machine because I'm wearing a Raiders cap and he is too. He doesn't know I just wear the hats because I like them, I don't follow NFL at all.

Finally after 26hrs I can now take myself to bed and sleep, I think I can taste sounds at the moment.

Being growled at by a pre-teen certainly feels great first thing on a Monday.

Really hoping the local woolies has sweet potat noodles (the glassy type).

I had a dream about japchae last night. Specifically it was an intimate macro close up sesame seeds.

I know I'm going to be disappointed. One didn't just dream, I really did so plz universe I need that japachae.

Ha. Posted that "Awful Aspects of Spring" Leunig cartoon to the Book of Faces because I found a copy of it during Operation Sort Shit and it seems to have gone down like a lead balloon.
Dear me.

Thank you dear friend (you know who you are 💜), for our dinner tonight. It's absolutely delicious. Truly appreciated.

I was going to offer you all chips but I ate them :( sorry everybodu.

Phones were dying so I decided to nip home from the hospital, only once I get back the nurse tells me I'm not allowed back in until 7am even though I literally left for 15 minutes... The poor housemates alone in hospital now and I feel like the biggest tit for leaving them there. Last time I went, I swear they let people in and out pretty frequently for the short stay ward because it's one of the weird in between places of the hospital.

I don't know what it is, but like man I hate going to work. I would rather be home.

But once I get to work I get into the grove of things and enjoy my time. Of course once it's 5pm I am off the clock, but it's just kind of weird.

Could help that I can listen to podcasts and such. At the moment I'm trying to get up to date with Critical Role (and by up to date I mean, I have 48 episodes to go).

I have spent all day looking through housing design magazines and have come to a few conclusions.

1. There area a lot more people who can afford really big windows then there are truly interesting or innovative designs.
2. All houses look better if photographed with a dog or cat visible.
3. Some people have an unfathomably high tolerance for multiple clashing patterns and colours.
4. Some people have an unfathomably high tolerance for a complete absence of colour or pattern.
5. The design feature I like most is the ability to see outside to a garden. Big windows are good for this, but tall windows or multiple windows at different heights works well too.
6. After looking through too many designs they all start to blur together. It is apparently possible to overdose on housing magazines.

Very monotone dinner tonight.

baked fennel, cauliflower chips and pesto kiev balls

The person I was going to mentor today is away, so if it is not busy I have unexpected bonus time I will be able to study. Which right now means looking through lots of pictures of houses so is pretty fun. Monday's turning out to be not so bad after all.

Monday fuck yeah let’s do this.

Is Monday? :(

To the Melbourne tradies. If you don't want the work just say so. Don't give half assed quotes then not get back to customers when the quotes are outrageously incomplete.

Had a great meeting at work with my manager. He's down from WA so we don't get much face to face time. Feeling better about my job, a lot of stress just melted away. Sometimes confronting people about things is the best bet.

sky pretty

Exercises completed. Coles salmon sushi for breakfast. Bus is late.

No wonder the cats didn't join me last night - I forgot to turn the heater off. Oops.

Gotta love calling PTV, or the department of transport as they now call themselves.

Call

Go through the menus choosing the right option

"Sorry that's not actually my department, let me transfer you click"

Hold music that's meant to be relaxing but is actually really terrifying

Old dude who's definitely smoked a few too many ciggies answers and gives you oddly specific information with information you never provided (thanks Myki history)

Old dude spends half the call coughing

At the end of the call cue smoker voice "yeah thanks for calling. There's a survey now"

Click

"HOW LIKELY WOULD YOU BE TO RECOMMEND PUBLIC TRANSPORT VICTORIA TO A FRIEND OR COLLEAGUE?????????????????????"

"Thanks for calling click"

This is why I email

Trying to wind down for sleep. Brain: Country roads take me home

Not my usual genre. I’m not mad though. Somehow the song is really well crafted

Breakfast 🍏🍎🍐🍊🍋🍈🫐🍓🍇🍉🍌🍒🍑🥭🍍🥥🥦🥑🫛🍆🍅🥝🥬🥒🌽🥕🥐🍠🫚🥔🧅🥯🍞🥖🥨🧀🧇🥞🧈🍳🥚🥓🥩🍗🍖🥪🍕🍟🍔🌭🥙🧆🌮🌯🥗🍲🍜🍝🥫🥘🍛🍣🍱🥟🦪🍥🍘🍚🍙🐠🍤🪼🦀🐙🥠🥮🍢🍡🍧🍰🧁🥧🍦🍨🎂🍮🍭🍬🍫🥜🌰🍪🍿🍯🥛☕️🍵🍺🍶🥤🧋🧃🥂🍷🥃🍸🍹🧉🔋

My dinner

Image of a bowl of tubular spaghetti, yes you read correctly with the finest selection of mushrooms hand picked from my backyard. Topped with a sliver of finger skin (I swear it was only a little bit. Promise) with fresh garlic.

When one isa eating ze pasta one must speaka Italiano though ze entirety of ze meal no.

Had one of those I wasn't even supposed to be here today kind of mornings. I don't normally work Mondays. One colleague told me they were running late, but were actually at a different workplace. Poor other colleague was late because he got bailed up for money by some junkies in the city. I'm not sure if he was hurt as he has only been in Australia a couple of months so there's a language barrier, but he was shaken up pretty bad. I'll meet him at his city landing point next time we work together to see where he's walking, he may very easily be able to avoid the scummy parts of the city like I do. But yeah, standing around in one of our windy laneways for 45 minutes with an almost dead phone gave me a case of the Mondays.

Whoops, it's 12:42am and I have yet to shower.

I like late night showers. But I should stop going through my bookmarks and getting rid of things I've already bought or are sold out/not found. But I'm very tempted to spend $97.50 on a journal/diary, but I'm scared to spend that much money. But I miss having a physical journal, I used to bullet journal a lot but decided to go digital post-2020 and yeah I wasted money because I hardly used it. Might have to think about it whether I need a journal or an SSD card.

Edit: Ooo I could AfterPay it... it seems to be a very popular planner, so I don't want it sold out. Decisions decisions.