Belarus did not do very well in Eurovision this year, but, the other day I was walking home in the middle of a thunderstorm, and there’s something really incredible about a song hitting this point of emotion and violins and “THUNDER!”
Only for lightning to strike.
I was walking home from work the other day, when I found this:
…It may or may not have taken an inexcusable amount of will power to not do this:
(We’re going to ignore any physical impossibilities/ issues with reality that would prevent me from pursuing my desired course of action.)
…DON’T DO IT!! RESIST.
RESIST.
I was walking and I came upon the best temporary, store-out-of-the-back-of-a-truck *EVER*.
Because where I definitely expect to get the best miniature trees is out of the back of a truck in a parking lot?
Totally legit, my friends.
I was thinking about picking one up for the Vivarium, but by the time I walked by on my way back, the truck was gone.
Mysterious, disappearing BONSAI truck.
I am going bushwalking today.
I have no idea what I’m getting into, but I’ve been told to wear jeans and ankle-high boots, in case of snakes.
I am really, *really* excited about this.
(Not least because…I really do *like* walking, and I’ve been quite hesitant to just…go for a walk, here because. Seriously. Stuff will kill you. So, I’m really stoked to learn a bit more about how to safely go walk in the bush, because that’s all that I’m really missing. Plenty of people know how to safely walk through the bush here. I’m just not one of them. I look forward to fixing that situation.
I’ve mostly been limiting my walks to paved roadways, but there’s not really much in the way of options, when it comes to which road to take.
I am *SO EXCITED* to add more variables to my walking options.
I went on a walk to the arboretum with my family. A lot of people made it to town for the wedding and most of them are leaving either tonight or tomorrow morning.
It was a really wonderful chance to climb trees with my cousins.
We took a lot of pictures where people are chewing on wheat stalks.
There was a giant hedge of this beautiful flower:
Which, near as I can tell is some kind of bee balm, and there was huge group of hummingbirds, which is apparently called a “charm”, a “glittering”, a “shimmer”, a “tune”, or a “bouquet”. (Names for collections or birds are *awesome*.)
(If any of you know for sure what that flower is, I’d love to know. It was chock full of honeybees and hummingbirds, and I want to ring my hypothetical yard with it.)
Today I met up with a couchsurfer originally from Denmark.
I haven’t had a chance to hang out with a couchsurfer in a while. I’d sort of forgotten how much fun it is. (I find that happens, with things that are fun things that don’t happen regularly in my life. I get kind of a fuzzy-vague association of “yeah, that’s good” but I forget how much by “good” I really mean “TOTALLY AWESOME!”. It’s sort of the thing I do with comedy. I forget how awesome it is to go out for a night with the intention of laughing.)
We met for dinner, and I realized that I’ve spent enough time walking around Melbourne, that I actually know where stuff is. We checked out a couple of music venues and ended up at a really cool pub that had a table that was also an game console for arcade classics. We ended up playing a couple rounds of Ms. Pacman and the original Donkey Kong. We sucked pretty hard core, but it was stupidly fun.
We walked to central Melbourne, and I showed off my ghost-tour knowledge.
Then we proceeded to get extremely lost searching for a karaoke bar.
We never did find the one we were looking for. It didn’t really matter though. It’s really nice to hang out with someone who has a good time just going on walks.
Nothing in Melbourne is open late. Grocery stores close at 5:00 P.M. on a Saturday. Bars close and trains stop at 1:00 A.M. Trams stop at midnight.
IT IS SO OBNOXIOUS.
Are you out of milk?
Well, you won’t have any for your morning coffee because EVERYTHING IS CLOSED.
There is one exception, though.
That’s right! It’s a 24/7 drive in flower shop! It delivers to any suburb!
Because *that’s* what people need at 3 in the morning.
Flowers.
Melbourne is weird. I like that.
foxfinding 