tax time

Doing my tax always puts me in a weird place, partly I'm forced to remember things I have done over the previous 12 months which is hard but once I'm in that place I feel OK about it. Sometimes when I'm looking through my credit card transactions and see where we went for dinner to that African place in Victoria st and then went to that bar in Queensberry st afterwards, I am like, wow that happened and it's provable. But in the main it's just... fuck I can't believe how much I fucking spend on... whatever. There are actually some massive, like hundreds of dollars, supermarket transactions that actually make no sense at all. But you know, Woolworths wouldn't rip me off so... I don't know. 

The fact is I don't really understand tax returns anyway, or at least only in the most basic way. I am a rube. I feel like it's bad karma to think/worry about it too much. 

This cartoon dedicated to Pauline Hanson, who at time of writing is enjoying some prominence. 

port melbourne this morning

Perry and I went to the beach this morning just for something to do. He loves to dig in the sand, I hope he doesn't cause an environmental disaster. We went out on this pier which btw I had never noticed before...

And got the weirds, because there are all these memorial plaques on it. Did you know about this? 

Then we had a quick look at the vacant site over the road. I can't even remember what used to be there, only that I was somewhat disappointed it was pulled down. 

I took this photograph through the gate. Made me feel a bit like the Mars Rover

i'm coming out

This bizarre animal, having been a complete shut-in for five and a half years, rarely if ever venturing out of my bedroom and spending most of that time underneath my bed, has now decided for some reason to do the complete opposite, and to be perennially in public (well, at least, she has located permanently to the sitting room and as far as I know has not returned to the bedroom once). She sleeps in the sitting room, usually on the couch, sometimes with her face turned resolutely towards a bar heater that's here at the moment and turned on a lot of the time. 

It makes absolutely no sense to me - and I suppose both nothing and everything makes sense to her. 

I will say that Nancy is here too and does not venture into my bedroom anymore either.

Perry, who used to sleep in the sitting room, now sleeps in the spare room. 

 

park orchards

Yes we went to Park Orchards this afternoon primarily to see how the Chalet was faring. But we also went for a wander in the '100 Acres' which really makes me think about Pooh and Piglet but not for long. 

Here is as much history of Park Orchards as could be fitted on a plaque:

I think I propagated the name of 'Australis Sharp' and sometimes I worry that the one time I saw it, it was a typo, but I could never find evidence of either 'Australis' or 'Australia' Sharp, anywhere else.

Stop Press: Until now, because digitised newspapers, ha ha. This was in Construction for 16 August 1944, p. 12

 

So this is the Chalet, as it currently stands.

Elsewhere in Park Orchards, there are lots of things that need to be sniffed comprehensively:

And a lot of MAD houses. 

And the 100 Acres themselves, where we saw a wallaby (not pictured) and developed a special new bark for the event. 

begone demons

So all I do is go overseas for two weeks and when I return I have a week of craptastic jetlag (well, five days so far, because I was fine for two days and then it set in) and Helmi will not go back where she came from, but now spends every day on the couch, purring like a demon. WHAT IS THIS?! 

life of the party

Recently on a plane (more about that soon) I had the pleasure of watching the 2018 Melissa McCarthy/Ben Falcone film Life of the Party, a 'college comedy' in which McCarthy plays a mother, in the process of becoming divorced from the most unlikeable nonviolent husband ever (it is made clear that we are not to care about this at all, in the first few minutes) who decides to go back to college and finish her 'archeology degree'. 

I have zero beef with Melissa McCarthy, I think she can really make any tosh seem amusing if not hilarious (sometimes it can be hilarious if it's the right material). She's got that perfect mix of warmth and knowingness - knowing even if the character she's playing is a know-nothing - which suits light comedy pretty nicely. 

The film sidesteps a lot of the easy go-tos. For instance, that McCarthy's character Deanna's presence at university might cause friction with her daughter Maddie. Well, it sort of does very briefly, but then it works out pretty fast, and it's not a major element. That Deanna has a relationship with one of the teen-plus college boys happens, and I wouldn't say it is handled tastefully, but it doesn't go in the ways you'd imagine. That said, while the film does get into (light) drugs and sex, its heart and soul could have been a college comedy of the 1930s as much as the 20teens. It's interesting like that. 

Another way it's interesting is that it arguably wastes so many talented people along the way, probably because it's a Melissa McCarthy film and she's the one audiences are here to see. Presumably McCarthy and Falcone can reasonably surmise that they can afford to bring in the best of the best as supporting cast even if they're in rather dumpy roles, and it won't be to the detriment of the up-and-comers who are in there because apart from anything else they can very legitimately say they were in a huge box office hit and didn't embarrass themselves. So, actors like Heidi Gardner (Leonor), Maya Rudolph (Christine) and Gillian Jacobs (Helen) really don't get enough screen time but maybe it's good to leave everyone wanting more. Molly Gordon as Maddie doesn't really get to do anything funny, which is a shame. Amazing, as it always is when you have this in an American movie of the last 15 years, so see Jacki Weaver in a minor-ish (let's say: small but crucial) role as well. 

So you know I was on a plane and really grasping at what movie to watch and started a few and none of them really worked for me but this was the one I watched all the way through so kudos to all involved. 

Oh, one thing I have seen enough of: that trope of the packed, early C20 lecture theatre. No-one goes to lectures anymore and when they do, it's not in places like that. Oh well.