Greetings from an Old Spinster
This past weekend my parents were asking about my former roommates from Boston University. I've been in touch with Rachel and Gaelle, but I hadn't heard from Emily in about 2 years or so, so I said I wasn't sure what was going on in her life. Well, don't you know it, I get an e-mail from Emily today. How funny! She rang my mum in Springfield to get my e-mail addy. Anyhoo, the big news is that Emily is engaged! And to the boyfriend she had while at BU. So it's official. I am an old spinster. Rachel married Anthony two years ago (happy anniversary, guys!) and Gaelle married Alfredo at the end of last year in a civil service but they're having their wedding in France this July. I'm supposed to be a flower girl. ;-) Yes, the world's oldest flower girl! And now Em's engaged to Todd. It is a bit odd looking like I'm 14 and actually being a 25 year-old spinster! ;-) And I can't forget my Sydney pals - the superb Shay and Sal are getting hitched. Everyone's doing it! Everyone's turning into a grown-up! Well, everyone except me - I'm still a baby! ;-)

Music Envy
I don't have penis envy. I have music envy. My friend Skot has 64 gigs of music on his computer. *Sob* SO jealous! Skot was kind enough to invite me over to his pad last night so I could drool over his music collection. And drool I did. Lots of great stuff, including the envy-worthy Mr. Bungle, solo Patton, Fantomas etc. stuff! So much music! I don't know how he ever manages to leave the house. I mean, really!

R.I.P., Mr. Rogers
Awwww, Mr. Rogers died. :( Okay, so I may have thought the sweater and shoes things were a bit odd, but I did enjoy Mister Rogers Neighbourhood when I was a kid. I liked his simply way of explaining important 'life lessons' to children. I like adults who realise that kids aren't dumb and don't try to talk down to them. And I dug the make-believe world. Of course, I never thought I'd one day grow up to have a female boss who was the spitting image of the hideous Lady Elaine Fairchild puppet, but life is crazy and unpredictable like that! ;-) "Oh, would you be mine? Could you be mine? Won't you be, my neighbour?" Farewell, Mr. Rogers - hope you have fun in that great big sandbox on the sky ;-)

'Flown the Coop,' 'Huh', and 'Stupid White Men'

Flown the Coop
Well, the parental units are heading back towards the U.S. as I type this. Can't believe their time here is already over. We survived and we're all speaking to each other, though my father has downgraded my apartment from 1 star to negative 8 stars. Though I don't feel that it's entirely fair as the ratings often had to do with my behaviour and appliances rather than the apartment itself. Like, when I failed to put mints on their pillows, I lost a star. And when the small fan my father bought for my bathroom three years ago wasn't still there, I think I lost two more stars. (How dare I bring it to work 3 years later! Bad Lori! ;-) My parents are both scared about what I blogged about them while they were here - I wouldn't let them read it - hahahhaha ;-)

Huh?
So I had a ton of errands to run today and chores around the -8 star motel to complete after my parents left. One of them was to go to the bank to drop off my bags o' change. My parents helped me put all my loose change that I've been collecting for ages into the bank bags. These bags are a lot less annoying than the coin rolls in the U.S. You just count the change and pile them in. It took quite a while and I had about $85 - woo-hoo! So I carried the bags in my purse and it was damn heavy, but I was pleased to be depositing some cash into my bank account. Well, guess what? Westpac isn't into 'high-tech' tools for banking. The teller told me that their scales couldn't measure the bags of 5 and 10 cent pieces properly. Huh? It always measured them less than the correct amounts. Um, sorry? She told me to go home and only put $2 (instead of $5) of 5 cent pieces in each bag and only $4 (instead of $10) of 10 cent pieces into each bag OR she could count it out for me there and charge me $1 per minute of counting even though I'd bagged the coins just like I was supposed to. Um, WHAT? How freaking stupid is that? I wanted to be like, why don't you go to Star City and purchase one of their scales/coin counting machines? Casinos are 1000x better equipped! It's a bank for pete's sake, and they aren't prepared to count money properly? I wasn't mad, just amazed at how dumb the whole thing was. I mean, all their change bags tell people to do something they're not prepared for. How hilarious is that? Mind you, thanks to my parents, the gambling addicts, I have spent a lot of time in casinos lately, in Sydney and Cairns, and so that's why I thought about them and how they're quite competent in the $ counting area. Maybe Star City can sponsor Westpac or something ;-) In any case, I had to bring half my money bags home. Oh well. I'll re-bag 'em eventually!

Stupid White Men
Okay, I wish I was getting commission for promoting Michael Moore's awesome Stupid White Men - I've been telling everyone I know (And even people I don't know) about it for the last couple months - raving on and on about how smart and hilarious and gripping it is. I don't normally try to force books onto people, but I cannot help myself when it comes to SWM. In any case, speaking of Stupid White Men, I'm watching the Grammy's and Fred Durst just pulled a Dubya. I'm not exactly sure what he said, I mean, I could have been distracted by his stupidity and vacant look and just misheard him, but it sounded like he said something like, "I think we're all in 'agreeance' that this war needs to be over as soon as possible." Dumbass. Yeah, well, I think we're all in 'agreeance' that Fred is an idiot. That statement is so dumb on so many levels, I just don't have the energy to get into it. ;-)

Back to work tomorrow....sigh....I feel so disoriented! My body can't tell what day of the week it feels like, and I'll probably wake up tomorrow and poke my head out the door and ask my empty living room if everyone's taken their shower yet. ;-)

The 'Cairns Adventure' Pics

Yeah, yeah, yeah, so I'm behind in blogging for the umpteenth time as usual. I suck, I know. But in the meantime, here are way too many pics from our Cairns Photogallery. ;-) Highlights (for me, anyway) include some (what else?) butterfly pics from Oz Butterfly Sanctuary, some views from the Kuranda sky-rail, pics of my dad's muddy socks/shoes from our rainforest adventure, me looking like a smurf or a Blue Man Group wannabe in my blue wetsuit, some coral/fish shots of Aguincourt Reef, me in the bikini I thought would give my dad a stroke, and my dad and I pretending to work out at the gym in our resort. :-)

Just a quick note to say I really got a good laugh from my Auntie Kate's email saying that if she ever comes to visit me in Oz, that I can leave 'all that nature stuff' out - she just wants to be pointed to the gift shops and the beaches, she says ;-)

p.s. I spoke to Miss Kristikeet last night and she was very pleased to know that my mother has taken a liking to her use of "meatloaf" to replace her sailor language. My mum has been trying to use it and I throw a meatloaf in my conversation every now and then, just to spice things up!