04.39 pm

Sorry I went AWOL again, but you wouldn’t believe how hectic things have been around here since Sunday night! Anyway, at least I warned you all that there might not be a blog on Sunday night – depending on what time we finished playing WoW – and surely everyone knows by now, and takes it for granted, that I usually don’t get a chance to write on Monday nights, either! After Sean has left, there are ravening kittens to be fed, as well as two rapidly growing goldfish, circling around the top right-hand corner of their Fish House like sharks, waiting for their algae pellets to arrive. The table needs to be set, dinner wants to be eaten, and our nightly date with the television must be kept! Yessirree, there’s never a dull moment in this household! 😉

On Tuesday we left here around noon, and were out nearly all day – and we didn’t get home until after ten thirty, either, absolutely bushed! It was my very favourite eldest daughter’s Graduation day, and because she needed to be down at Deakin University Geelong Campus by three o’clock to pick up her robe and trencher, and because there was no way known that we were going to miss her Graduation, we picked her up shortly after twelve and drove down to Geelong. I might say at this point that her husband actually works down at the Deakin Geelong Campus, and she could have gone down with him when he went to work that morning, but it would have meant an extra long, boring day for her with nothing to do until 3 pm – and seeing that we were going to be there anyway, she hitched a ride with us. We were expecting a few holdups on the way down, after the shocking air plane crash that morning, but despite the doom and gloom predictions of lots of slow, 40 kpm areas on the freeway – sorry, tollway – by “Brunhilda” (the name we’ve given to our Sat Nav’s female voice!) we pretty much had a hassle-free trip down, giving us enough time to go and have a very nice lunch at a restaurant right on the waterfront! I’d given Auric and Dapple a larger than usual breakfast that morning, and as goldfish can go for a couple of weeks without their usual food, I was only a little bit worried that they might get hungry enough to start nibbling on eachother before we got home, but we weren’t at all happy about leaving our little furry babies on their own for such a long time! We gave them an early lunch before we left, and put out extra bowls of (dry) food here and there around the house that they could find if they got really hungry – they also had four bowls of water, and we left the radio on for them – but it was with many misgivings that we left them on their own, poor little bubsies…

We’ve been to a couple of other Graduations before (this isn’t the first uni course that my very favourite eldest daughter has completed) but this one, despite being such a hell of a long way away, was by far the best organised and presented! It seems that the organisers have taken a page out of American’s book when it comes to organising and seating the disabled! Lee went off to get her cap and gown, and while we were waiting for her, we were approached by a nice young lass who’d noticed that I had a walking stick – she told us to remain where we were because after the Graduates had been organised into their ranks in the hall, those with physical infirmities would be seated before the rest of the visitors (we came across this all over the place when we went to the States many years ago, especially if there were likely to be long queues for anything – those with walking sticks were quickly ushered up to the front of the line!) Although as I said before, we’d been to several other Graduations, I’d forgotten just how “formal” and archaic the entire procedure is! Once the Graduates and the visitors are all seated (except for latecomers – who seemed to arrive throughout the entire evening, and who quickly became thoroughly annoying, shuffling their bottoms in front of our noses as they proceeded to inch their way down the row of seats, occasionally preventing us from seeing what was happening!) First, the Academics in their full regalia, file slowly in to take their seats on the stage – they’re followed by the Mace Bearer, solemnly carrying the Official Deakin Mace. After everyone’s in place on the stage, there are a couple of speeches, and a short address by a “distinguished guest” – this time it was the High Commissioner for Papua New Guinea, His Excellency Mr Charles Lepani CBE (who was also awarded a Deakin Honorary Doctorate later in the evening) Clever Deakin had staggered their Graduations – Tuesday was the Graduation Day for the Faculty of Arts and Education, which had been broken up into two parts – the first taking place at noon, the other, the one we went to, starting at 6.00 pm. And so the evening wore on – and my very favourite eldest daughter received her Bachelor of Arts (Professional and Creative Writing) With Distinction – BA(Prof&CreatWrit)!!

After the ceremony was finished, everyone trooped out to the courtyard where a marquee offering refreshments had been set up. I’d love to put up some of the photos that we took, but for some [heavily censored] reason, Flickr won’t let me edit them. This one was edited on my phone, and re-synced with Flickr – but I just don’t have time to do the others I want to put up. Maybe tomorrow…

Well, my very favourite eldest daughter’s been dragging her feet a little, but the day before Graduation (I think it was the day before?!) she finally managed to get her application in to do Honours this year… and this morning she got an email saying that they’ve accepted her, so she’ll be going back to uni in a few weeks to do her Bachelor of Arts (Professional and Creative Writing) Honours course! Then… then, she’s going after her Doctorate, and we’ll have two “Doctors” in the family! Melissa, Julian’s sister, who’s a Doctor of Law, and my very favourite eldest daughter, who will hopefully become a Doctor of Professional and Creative Writing! 🙂

And now it’s time to go and feed the poor, hungry starving little waifers, who are soooo hungry that they’re cuddled up together, sound asleep in their Penthouse! (and we gotta feed the little fishies, too! 😉 )

Today we went shoe-shopping for me As you know, I absolutely hate, loathe, and detest shoes… if it sits on my feet, I hates it! Anyway, my poor old shoes are really starting to fall to pieces, and my Podiatrist was telling me that she has another client who suffers from badly swollen feet too, and that she gets sandals from Gilmour’s – they have a shop in Mitcham, so we went there, and I got two pairs of “footwear” – one pair of black, somewhat fancy-schmantzy “lace-up” shoes for “best”, and a pair of scuffs (sort of) for going out into the garden and so forth…

Gosh-darn-it, dinner’s ready! I’ll be back a bit later to finish off – stay tuned!

10.02 pm

Back – somewhat later than usual, and after only seeing one TV show instead of our usual two – coz Pete, an old friend of ours from the good ol’ BBS days rang up. We last caught up with him five years ago in 2012 (?) at a “Tron Legacy” movie night, with a personal appearance by Bruce Boxleitner (who also starred in one of my very, very most favourite TV shows Of All Time, “Babylon 5“) The time before that was… fourteen years ago! He mentioned tonight that his eldest daughter is now 14, and I remember my complete astonishment when he turned up – right out of the blue – at our place, with his two week old daughter in tow! Wow! Talk about time flying! 🙂 We do exchange Christmas Cards every year, but it’ll be good to catch up in person with him and his wife Mara! It’s very strange, you know – all of the friends I made in 1985, when I was a naive and computer illiterate newbie logging on to my very first Bulletin Board (BBS) called “Melbourne P.I.E.”¹ are still good friends – and even if fourteen or more years go by, we all just seem to pick up where we left off the last time we met! Anyway, I digress… where was I? Oh yes, getting back here later than usual this evening!

So there ya go – Sunday we played WoW until late – we’re well and truly out of Hell Fire Peninsula, thank goodness, and we’re starting to make our way through wet, marshy, muddy, and mushroom-friendly Zangarmarsh! We didn’t die, either, in fact we’re finding it rather easy (so far, anyway! 😉 ) On Monday, we had shopping and banking to do, and then Sean came over in the afternoon/evening, Tuesday we were down in Geelong most of the day for Lee’s Graduation. Yesterday, Wednesday I had a medical appointment in the morning and then had a terrible fit of the “Can’t Be Bothered’s”, so I didn’t (bother doing anything) and today we went shoe-shopping and shopping-shopping, and didn’t get back until early afternoon… Tomorrow my very favourite eldest daughter is coming over, so we’ll spend the majority of the day catching up on episodes of “Legends of Tomorrow”, “Supergirl”, “The Flash”, and “Arrow”!

Now, if none of you mind, I’m going to leave out any and all of the “food stuffz” bits, as it’s late and I’m already up to 1640 words – so I’ll just skip right on ahead to the weigh-in bits, OK? 🙂

Weigh-in Sunday, February 19th:          73.3 kg
Weigh-in Monday, February 20th:        73.4 kg
Weigh-in Tuesday, February 21st:         73.4 kg
Weigh-in Wednesday, February 22nd: 73.5 kg
Weigh-in Thursday, February 23rd:     73.8 kg

Will I be up, or down tomorrow? Prolly up – stands to reason! My stupid body is going to want to make me as fat as possible for when I go to see Dr. Y. next week! Well, ’tis almost March, and Easter is galloping up at a rate of knots, after which I’ll be back onto the Optifast for a while – so there, body! You’re not going to beat me, after all! 😛

And there you go – now all of you know as much as I do about the comings and goings over on this side of the black stump! Do call in again tomorrow night to find out what my weight did (or didn’t!) do to me, whether or not I managed to edit the pictures of the Graduation that I wanted to put up, and whether there are any new photos of Sal and Satai, or Auric and Dapple. Until then though, do try to bee good, don’t forget that nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood, and remember to look after yourselves, to always drive carefully, and to keep warm – or cool – depending on where you are and what you’re doing… but most importantly, please remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂

 ¹Melbourne P.I.E. – the P.I.E. stood for “Public Information Exchange” – the first Bulletin Board I ever called… ahhh… nostalgia!