merry Christmas to me: best present so far: tix to Antony and the Johnsons, whose CD is my favourite evening-on-the-highway driving music and whose tour had somehow slipped my notice, so the tix were a total surprise. we're sitting right up the back in the last row, but I don't care. it's going to be fabulous. (Did I ever mention how much I used to like Boy George).

early stuff is cheaper

and an auction house that had a few a while back

early stuff is cheaper

more emily

gloria p

and here. thank God for blogs, as Microsoft's fine product keeps crashing. I only have 23 windows open!

a nice Emily

and another

some things I'd like to buy can be found here and here and here. I am still kicking myself I didn't get a leaf form by Holly Grace when I could; now it seems she's moved on to different colours etc. and I wanted these ones. sob.

oh lord. will the nabobs at the City of Yarra never get their act together?

In July, I made a booking for a room for a family Christmas do. there will be maybe 40 adults and 25 kids at this thing. last night I got an email requesting final payment, which I'd forgotten (the letter I received said it was "confirmed", so I actually thought I'd paid). no problem, I thought, I'll pay by credit card over the phone. this is, after all, a huge, multimillion dollar government in its own right.

no. no, I must go to a town hall, in heavy traffic a few days before Christmas, and pay IN PERSON. no phone payments are possible for "casual bookings". after long discussion with the man in charge about how STUPID this is, he's faxing me a form which I can drop off at a slightly less inconvenient location. but it's still a pain. I have no choice; they have my bond and I have aunties and cousins descending on said location in a week. I guess I should be grateful it's not earlier this year, when they still required payments in cold, hard, cash. what is it, a council or a drug dealer?

questions for today:

if a Christmas card addressed to Elizabeth, David, Lola and Boo, with no return address but warm gushing feelings from Marie on the inside, lands in your letterbox by mistake, (addressed to your street number, in a street with an unusual name, so you're sure it's just the number that's wrong) and there are maybe 80 house in your street; are you obliged to print up a little notice and drop it off to everyone in the street in an effort to find the intended recipients?


if you're trying to keep your two-year-old off lollies for his own good, and he receives a huge jelly snake from Santa at the childcare xmas party, and you give him a tiny bit and save the rest for "later", is it OK to eat said snake yourself, knowing he's only two and won't remember you have it?


and finally, are redundancy payouts like semi-boiled pots? if I stop checking my bank account, will that make the money land in the same way going to the bathroom makes call centres finally pick up my call after a 20-minute wait on hold?

my last day "at the office" is going something like this: feed baby. pay bills. write something. deal with messed up Coles Online delivery (15+minutes on the phone!). write some more. redirect to husband enquiry from tradesman who assumes that I, being female, am in charge of cleaning products (said tradesman was installing speakers for husband). write some more. check bank account for big payout, be disappointed. file something. talk to "outplacement" service and wonder if it will a) create a breakthrough in my career or b) be a big fat waste of time I don't have. ah well. at least I'll get to do a massive online personality/aptitude test with a proper assessment at the end of it. and I love doing tests.

wtf? I mean really, wtf? I don't know these people, these blond-haired shirtless men and snarling women. I also don't really know the Lebanese men, but I guess I don't expect to. Come to think of it, even though I'm a fourth generation-plus Australian-born citizen, I never did know those people; but last time I saw them they were just picking on the weak and the different amongst themselves, when I was a teenager. Now they're organised. few of the reports have focussed on the way they swarmed via text message. I find it frightening.

wearing: My "I (heart) NY" T-shirt. Because it's the 25th anniversary.
feeling: redundant. after 8 years I will shortly no longer be an employee of the mighty Age. what's next?