I don't know where the last month has gone, but I have been soaking up a lot of Aussie everyday words and phrases. While a number of people at work have been feeling crook (sick), I've just been tired. I also haven't wagged (skipped) work or church. Granted with Eric having been gone more than three weeks now I am dangerously close to cracking the sads (being unhappy or upset). So what have I done?
Sadly, the one thing I vividly remember is my cockie (cockroach) experience a couple weeks ago. What we have learned is this is an ideal climate for them and Aussies here will tell you they're just a fact of life - you know like killer spiders. On the surface I could understand this concept, but the reality was much different.
I turned on the light in the kitchen that night only to discover a monster cockie in a bowl on the counter. In that moment when my heart lurched I contemplated the possibility of peaceful coexistence with this behemoth (behecockie?), but in the next instant the vision of sharing my pantry with him made me realize it was so not possible. Thenceforth every thought left my mind except killing it. I found and brandished my weapon of choice (a shoe), and the chase was on. He retreated to the side of the counter by the dining table so I had to go around only to discover some other little bug on the floor. Since I was armed, the little one was dispatched post haste. Back to my first quarry. He was smart and was staying by the corners. I took a few unsuccessful whacks at him and he was off to the other side again. Back to the kitchen. He and I worked our way to the toaster oven with a few unsuccessful whacks. As I tried to move the toaster oven to get at him again, another monster roach came out of that! Oh the horror!!!
Now I’m chasing two and they’ve gone in different directions. I finally got the first one and based on his size, I'm sure you can imagine what a sickening display that was. Ugh!!! Since the job was not done I couldn’t allow myself to think about having to clean that mess up. The second monster was by the mixer and he was equally disgusting – bleah!!! After cleaning up the messes, it was awfully hard to contemplate sleep what with the memory of the carcasses, the knowledge that I was a triple murderer, and that there were probably gobs more of these monster roaches waiting in the wings to ruin my life.
It was definitely a troubled sleep that night and I have been checking the kitchen carefully ever since and haven't seen hide nor hair (and they were big enough to have that stuff if cockies could) of a single cockroach. Guess the other ones can just feel their imminent doom so they're laying low. Aussies would give this a shrug and a no worries, but personally, I'm thinking pest control is my next step. I just hope they don't laugh at me too hard - they probably only think pest control should be used for the poisonous things.
Our other creepy crawly story has to do with our mailbox. For some time we were noticing that our mail was rather chewed up and there were dregs in the bottom of the box. Hmmm. Eric finally discovered the culprit one day - a snail. Mystery solved and we've started calling him our poor man's paper shredder.
I never finished our vacation blogs - lucky you. I think part of it was I didn't want to admit that the highlight of day 5 was our visit to Costco in Melbourne. How pathetic is that? When the beautiful coastal scenery is overshadowed by seeing and buying real paper towels, you know you haven't really completed the adjustment to living in the land of Oz. Buy, hey, it was a real treat to buy something more towel-like as opposed to paper-like.
We also appreciated greatly that the inside of that store was so Costco you could almost imagine yourself back in the states. That is until we passed by the big jars of Vegemite and noticed the "import" tags on many of the products. We bought lots of stuff and were thrilled to find so many comforts of home to take with us.
Speaking of the states, Eric has been gone 3 1/2 weeks now. With a week and a half to go it feels like it will never end. I spent almost two of those weeks with a broken TV antenna. There is not much worth watching here, but a dozen channels are definitely better than none as sometimes it's nice to hear someone else talking (and no I haven't started talking to myself - I meant someone talking at all!). I have been very fortunate in that members of our church family here have invited me to dinner every week so I'm not too lonely.
Remember the budgie smugglers? I had an Aussie acquaintance who thought that the equivalent American slang was "banana hammock". I had to say I'd never heard of that one and truth be told, I thought it sounded more Aussie as they tend to be quite a bit more "visual" in their slang.
I don't think I can sink any lower so I'll stop now.
Miss you all.
