So much excitement!

So much stuff to look forward to! I love this time of year - it's Moomba in a couple of weeks, which brings big crowds, ski jumping competitions, colourful carnival rides and fireworks to town. It can be a bit lame but sometimes they have good bands playing for free and I like the atmosphere. It's great for taking photos too.

Then not long after Moomba the Melbourne International Comedy Festival hits town, which also brings a nice buzzy atmosphere to the CBD. I love the Comedy Festival - who doesn't like to laugh? -  although flicking through the festival guide makes me a bit anxious because there's so much to see, but only so much time and money...Decisions, decisions.

In the more immediate future though....I only found out today that The White Stripes' documentary Under Great White Northern Lights is showing in Melbourne for three days only, starting tonight! How did I not know this? I found out from a friend who doesn't even like The White Stripes.  They're one of my favourite bands and Jack White is one of my celebrity crushes. (Yup, I likes the pasty, dark-haired, kooky ones...) I'm going to see the doco after work tomorrow night. Can't wait.

AND! AND! I also have a date on Sunday. Ooooh. It's just a casual drinks thing with a boy from Twitter. Twitter is ace! 

Saving the best for last...

The most exciting thing is that I'M GOING TO NEW YORK CITY IN MAY! Aiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! OK, I haven't booked anything, but I'm on the brink of shelling out the money and I've ramped up my savings.   

It's super exciting, but also a little scary because I'm not well travelled and I'm going all on my lonesome. I can't wait around for a travelling companion to come along...

I'll be going for two weeks. Please feel free to offer me any advice on what I should see and do.

Freaky coincidence number....what am I up to now?

OK, seriously there is some funny business going on. I encountered yet another freaky coincidence last night. Yes! Another one!

I was walking home from a very enjoyable evening of drinks, conversation and late night kebabbery when I passed a guy walking in the opposite direction. A few paces later he called out my name. I turned around and there was the guy with the big red flag over his head from Thursday night! He'd just left a bar nearby.

I ended up having a drink with him, which was fun - certainly more enjoyable than dinner a few nights ago. I was glad to see him again. He's an entertaining guy and we have a few things in common, but he's not a sound emotional investment. I don't want to take any more foolish risks with my heart, at least not just yet.

50 x 2

And then when I was walking home I found another $50 on the ground! You may recall I found a $50 note on the footpath near my house the first week of this blog. Twice in six weeks! Weirdly this time I don't feel bad about profiting from someone's loss, possibly because I'm hanging out for pay day more than usual or maybe because I'm choosing to assume it was dropped by a punter who came home from the Caulfield Cup with a pocket stuffed full of cash. (The Caulfield Cup is the first big race day of Melbourne's Spring Racing Carnival, an annual collision of horseracing, frockery, gambling and falling down drunk in your fanciest get-up.)

How's your weekend been? Anything gleeful?

The dinner and an encounter with a gypsy man

Well, last night's dinner wasn't particularly gleeful, but I suppose I'm bound to blog about it, aren't I?

It was weird and slightly awkward at times and it turned out the zing we had the first time around was mostly absent, plus there was a large red flag waving over his head the whole time telling me to back away from the man and run.

But, that's not to say there was nothing positive about it - any "what ifs" sputtering in dark corners of my brain have now been snuffed out, and that's good. Maybe we'll stay friends, but no more.

Eels and little fish and the gypsy man

I spent the whole afternoon in the gardens today, reading the newspaper in the sun and listening to the bipping of the bellbirds in the trees overhead.

I saw eels swimming in the shallow murky water at the lake's edge (below). They are repulsive creatures but I was pleased to see them as I have a childish fascination with creatures in water (which is why I can't help myself looking for fish in the river when I cross the bridge near my house. Once I saw a whole school!). I also saw a school of teeny, tiny fish in the lake today.

Lots of people were out enjoying the sun - parents with small children, tourists with cameras in hand, other solo readers, young shirtless guys and their girlfriends with midriffs exposed to catch the rays, a group of gambolling primary school kids....and a Spanish cello player with a "gypsy heart".

No, I couldn't tell that just by looking at him. He wandered over to where I was sitting on a seat near the lake and said it was his favourite spot too. We got talking and he sat down and told me a little about himself. Then he told me his "gypsy heart" sensed I was a very passionate person who "wants to eat up everything in life" and made like he was eating corn on the cob as he said it. I have "Pah!", he said, his hands making a 'bursting forth' gesture in front of his face.

He said he's a little psychic and while I was half-thinking, "Yeah right, I've heard that from guys on the take before" (especially when he asked to hold my hand), but then he proceeded to make a few observations about me that were actually pretty spot on.

He picked I was not long out of a difficult period emotionally, that I can be very extreme in my moods (well, I used to be) and that I live in my own little world. He also observed that I had recently changed my hair style...perhaps not earthshattering in his accuracy, but certainly closer to the truth than the psychic I paid $40 to see earlier this year who told me four weeks hence I was going to meet and fall in love with gynaecologist from Beaumaris who enjoys fencing (the en garde! type) in his spare time.

On target

And on top of all of this, I got the nine-letter word in The Age's Target puzzle as soon as I clapped eyes on it. Go, me!

I make myself read the paper before I do the Target puzzle, and sometimes I even forget that it's coming up, which means I get a little "Oooh! Target puzzle!" frisson when I turn the page and see it.

Tonight's the night!

I'm nervously looking forward to dinner with Guy from the Past tonight.

I met him about two and a half years ago and he made a big impression on me then, but he was a shooting star, disappearing into the night sky after three or four dates. So, I'm excited but cautious about seeing him again.

Despite not being entirely sure if it's a date, I bought a new top to wear. I walked up the street in the sunshine and it was nice shopping during the day on a week day. I had most of the shops to myself.

Up the garden path

After I posted the bit above I took myself over to the gardens near my house to distract myself from my nervous anticipation. Too early to get ready...what to do...what to do....

I love the Royal Botanic Gardens - the first glimpse of the ornamental lake sparkling in the sun, the bellbirds calling and the bluestone stairway that leads up to the Temple of the Winds, the highest point in the gardens.

No matter how many times I go there, I always find something new - a new plant or tree, or a little pathway somewhere. Today I saw a kookaburra.

The joy of to-do lists...and dinner is arranged

I am enjoying my home holiday so far. There's been sunshine and I have done a few things on my to-do list.

And yes, I actually have a to-do list. I love lists - or more accurately, I love to cross items off my lists. I like the feeling of accomplishment, of overcoming my tendency towards laziness and procrastination.

I don't usually write to-do lists during the week because, being a legal secretary, what I do and when I do it is mostly dictated by others. But I go into every weekend with a to-do list, and I put everything on it, even stuff that I do every single weekend and don't need to remind myself to do, like buying food. All for the buzz of crossing it off!

I know, it's a bit tragic. But! I don't usually allocate times or prioritise anything, so it's not totally anal and lacking spontaneity.

Decluttering pt 2

I have nearly completed the second phase of my big clean out. Last night I went through all my cupboards and ruthlessly culled everything I haven't worn or used in ages and am not likely to. I threw out two bags of rubbish, two bags of cardboard and paper went in the recycling and I have heaps of stuff to go to the op-shop. I just have to get it there now.

(On a side note, while going through my stuff, it occurred to me that one of the downsides of the proliferation of gadgetry these days is that you end up with a corresponding proliferation of assorted cords and adapters and chargers and plugs whose purpose often becomes a mystery...but you don't want to chuck them just in case! I put them all in a box in the bottom draw of my desk.)

The next and final phase of my clean out is to go through years of paperwork which has been shoved in shopping bags because I was too lazy to properly file it.

Dinner up-date

The dinner with the man from my past is on Thursday night. I'm excited but nervous.

Are you a writer of to-do lists (or any other kind of list)?