As previously stated in my reports to the Pentagon and Chief Obama, this will be my last blog of playing catch-up and trying to remember stuff as it happened in the somewhat distant past. So without further mumblings, here in no particular order are a bunch of words that shall have no effect on human-kind as anyone knows it.
First and foremost, I have to give my shout-outs to all of the Canadian athletes who competed at this year’s Olympics. It was truly a great thing to watch, and our country, athletes, and hospitality were widely praised by all involved in the Australian Olympic coverage. My only gripe was the rather bizarre incident this morning involving the gold medal hockey match between the States and Canada. Instead of airing the game live at 7am local time Monday morning, they started the telecast at 9am with ten minutes left in the third period. And then after the game, they decided to show the whole game in its entirety starting from the beginning with everyone already knowing the outcome. Rather shitty, but other than that the coverage was good and a pleasant surprise to my usual viewing of Crocodile Hunter and music videos from INXS and Kylie Minogue.
Now a complete 180° turn. Since moving into our digs at 146/546 Flinders Street, the Boss and I have seen many holidays come and go, none of which I have reported on for the sad reason of most of them being fairly uneventful. Christmas was spent with us making chicken and instant mashed potatoes as we do not have an oven to cook a turkey. Pretty sure it concluded with us watching the Tim Allen Santa Clause movies on the tele. New Year’s was even less climatic, as I had to work all night at the restaurant in order to put food on the plates of my wife and three kids back home in El Salvador. Sorry, I forgot I wasn’t supposed to mention my illegitimate love children and their whore-of-a-mother in this blog (No disrespect to my non-existent Hispanic fan base). Valentine’s Day was also fairly uneventful, as just like New Year’s it’s a big one on the restaurant slave calendar and involved a whole lot of serving up third-rate pasta dishes. Leeanna had to settle for an early morning V-Day breakfast at the Pancake Parlour (I’m classy like that). One holiday (at least she’ll have you believe it should be recognized as one) that I was forced to take off work was Leeanna’s birthday. We started by going out for a nice dinner up on Lygon Street in the suburb of Carlton, which is famous for all of its restaurants. After downing some tasty steak and two litres of wine we made our way over to the bar Young and Jackson downtown for some awesome cover music and a whole lot more boozing. Let’s just say $200 dollars later I was doing somersaults in the apartment, while leaving our passports in the hallway of the building for no good reason. I also thought I had lost the keys to the apartment and Leeanna made me believe she found them out in the middle of the street a few blocks from our apartment. I believed her, and the truth didn’t come out for a few days, that I in fact had given the keys to her earlier in our very hazy evening. Wine + Jager + Beer + Midori + Vodka = Fine Form. My parents must be proud. Lindsey Lohan ain’t got shit on me!!!
I would also like to state that I survived the hottest night ever in Melbourne (okay, in 100 years) with no air conditioning in my apartment. The temperatures in Melbourne vary greatly in the summer months, with some days in the teens and windy (today) and some reaching up into the forties. Back in the summer of 2009, they had a stretch of close to a full week where the daytime temperatures were pushing close to 50°C every day and led to forest fires across the country and hundreds of deaths if I’m not mistaken. Luckily, this year we have only had one such day so far, where it reached a daytime temperature of around 45°C. Needless to say, I thought I was going to die, and it only got worse at night, as the temperature only dropped slightly below forty, thus making it the hottest night in over 100 years in Melbourne. What can I say; I was a part of modern history, right up there with Martin Luther King Jr. Seriously though, if you want to test your survival and relationship skills try sleeping on the fifteenth floor of an apartment building with no air conditioning, a shitty $10 fan, and no air circulation. Never have I enjoyed multiple cold showers and shrinkage quite so much in my life.
Now it’s time for a totally random story to be inserted in my tales, which I thought I should include because I can. Keep in mind that this all happened in under ten minutes. To begin, Leeanna and I had been enjoying a couple of beverages at the Crown Casino and were also stalking this trans-gender man-woman-transsexual-ladyboy for our amusement. After watching her/him for sometime try and pick up some unsuspecting dudes in the sports bar (not the best hunting grounds for these types I hear) we set about on our three minute walk home. Upon exiting the casino, we witnessed a total “Cops” moment as there was puke all over the sidewalk and about ten coppers arresting and attempting to subdue this crazy white trash woman. She was flailing around and giving it to them while her boyfriend or husband looked on in his clearly drink and drug induced fog. As we set on towards the apartment, we somehow befriended this really drunk guy from Tasmania and started chatting him up. As we crossed a really busy intersection, Mr. Too-Drunk-To-See-Straight just walked right out into oncoming traffic totally ignoring us at this point and came within a hair of getting engraved in the asphalt right before my eyes. A group of police officers on the other side of the road patrolling the area started giving the guy shit and tried to ask him what the fuck he was doing. At the same time the officers were attempting to corral the drunko, someone in the hostel window above where the cops were standing on the sidewalk decided to dump a pail of some liquid (think/hope it was water for their sake) out their window and directly onto the pre-occupied officers below. I am not sure if it was intentional or not, but Leeanna and I found this quite amusing and the cops were pissed. All-in-all it was an entertaining ten minutes that I am thinking of turning into a short musical, entitled, “Ladyboy, White Trash, and The Patrolling Pigs” (just a working title).
Lastly, I must briefly touch on my short-lived construction career in Australia. Serving in a restaurant in one of the more touristy areas of Melbourne has allowed me to meet people from all over Australia and the world. I do get some Canadians and Americans, and naturally our accents draw each other to inquire about one another’s circumstances, not unlike a mighty humpback whale’s mating call. Not sure if that analogy made any sense at all, but whatever I’m all jacked up on Monster Energy drinks as I write this. Regardless, one such customer from Cambridge, Ontario told me that he was in Melbourne on business, providing his expertise in building ice hockey rinks. Turns out, they were building the future home of the Australian Winter Olympic Training Facilities not far from where I was working. The gentleman came into the restaurant a few times (at this point aware of my carpentry background back home) and kept urging me to get in touch with the carpenters on site. I proved to be a little skeptical, as I did not really want to work construction in Australia, as I am lazy and did not want to go through the grind of having a “regular” job. With a couple of days off at my other job and some nudging, I finally went into the arena and was introduced to the Irish man who would be my boss for the next four days. I told him I did not have any tools yet, as I had not been working as a carpenter in Australia. He said it was okay and that I could just buy some in due time. I was able to score a free pair of work boots off of the Canadian supervisor as he was going home the day I started and recognized that I was probably living in poverty from my job at the restaurant. A very kind gesture nonetheless. Anyways, I was put right to work and ended up working eighteen hours my first day! Over the next four days I worked a total of close to fifty hours in addition to working at the restaurant two of the nights. The whole experience was really fucking weird to put it bluntly. I mean, here I am, this Canadian guy, working with a crew made up of all Irish guys who are here on work visas (Ireland’s economy has shit the bag and there’s no work for tradesmen there), building this world-class hockey rink and training facility in Australia. In the end, I was so burnt out by Friday night and never called my boss Flann over the weekend. He never called me either, and I decided right then and there that I was done with construction for the time being. I sure as hell didn’t come to Australia to work myself into an early grave. I got the rest of my life back home to do that! In the end, the people in the office paid me ($28 an hour, which was a pleasant surprise!) no questions asked and I haven’t heard from anyone in the company since. In conclusion, the extra money from those four days has come in quite handy and if I feel myself slipping too far into the lower reaches of society on my pittance of a restaurant wage I can always attempt to find a construction job. Oh, and I can add, “Australian Winter Olympic Training Facility Builder” to my resume. No big deal.
On that note, I am off for another shift at the oh-so stimulating restaurant this evening, before we have to get up bright and early at 3:30am to catch our 6am flight to Hobart, Tasmania in the morning for a short vacation.
Also, with God as my witness, I herby solemnly swear to never make fun of Sidney Crosby’s moustache or facial hair growth again! Put the kid on a stamp, and let’s declare February 28 as a national holiday.
Much love everyone, ~Brent~
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