Jimbozelbub has left and gone away.
Hey, hey, hey.
Last Saturday evening Dave, Fiona and Meagan cooked dinner and invited Jimbo, Linda, Simon and I for a party to farewell Jimbo who left for Queensland on Tuesday. A galaxy of taste sensations and various apparently excellent wines later everybody was feeling jolly satisfied. For our part the conversation was brisk and entertaining and never waned. The wittiest jape of the evening went to the Man of Honour for "In what?" (you had to be there) and at one point the
double entendres were so thick all Simon had to say was "I [verb]..." to elicit howls of derisive laughter from the oaf sitting next to him. On Sunday morning I drove many people home, eventually.
On Sunday evening I picked up my mother from the airport and we went out for dinner at Verve in Manuka. While waiting for our table we discovered the Paperchain Bookstore in Manuka has moved to larger premises and is open on Sunday evening. The restaurant was so busy we had two waiters and got to hear the lady sitting at the next table interrogating her Thai language tutor over dinner.
At cricket on Monday I made twenty-one runs with the bat. Then I had twenty-two runs hit off my first over. My second over was significantly better with a wicket and five runs for a net result of no change to their total. We were a player down and our oppositon chose me to bowl the last over. They needed twenty runs and, as had been demonstrated earlier, it was entirely possible to score that many off my bowling. Instead I took four wickets and we won.
Then I went to P.J. O'Reilly's for another round of "Bye Bye Jimbo" and arrived in time to meet everybody on their way round the corner to the best Japanese restaurant in Canberra (2002 & 2003) for his last supper. Then it was saying goodnight, driving people home, hugs (in a manly way), salutations, well wishing,
au revoir, driving home quietly, sleeping and now he's gone.
Epilogue.
Simon is swapping residences with other tenants of his landlord. He has put everything in the garage so the new tenants can move in today and then he can move into their old place tomorrow.
Theory
Tuesday: pack it all up
Wednesday: after work move the furniture into the garage
Thursday: get the place cleaned
Friday: the other tenant moves
Saturday: move it all from the garage to the new place.
Practice
Tuesday: pack it all up.
Wednesday: take a day off work to finish packing it all up, after midnight move the furniture into the garage; (Is it called twilight in the morning?)
Thursday: pack up the kitchen and get the place cleaned;
Friday: catch up two days of work and eight hours of sleep.
Like a blog when your internet connection is run by a telecommunications monopoly and you're so busy at work the server crashes.
It has taken me two weeks to find an opportunity to update my blog. And when I say "find an opportunity" this is your tax dollars at work.
Meanwhile the opening game of the Rugby World Cup was fun. I went with Andy, Mikey and Rod. We got to join in with 80,000 Australians booing the Prime Minister (until the recorded cheering over the public address system drowned us out, a lesson learned form the Rugby League Grand Final). Then we got to join in singing
Advance Australia Fair (poorly and at odds with the band and the soprano). Then we got to join in singing
Waltzing Matilda whenever Argentina looked like scoring, and chant "Wendell" when the first try of the competition was scored, and cry out in vicarious pain each time the big screen replayed David Giffin landed on his head. You don't have to join in to watch rugby, but it helps.
Then on Saturday Andy, Jo, Mikey and I went to the Livid music festival. I listened to Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Boysetsfire, Frenzal Rhomb, Har Mar Superstar, Jurassic 5, Lamb, Liars, Peabody, Pacifier, and The White Stripes. (There were others but I can't remember their names, or find an event schedule on the internet.) Some bands I listened to less than others, they did not hold my interest. Others I found entertaining. The White Stripes was my favourite, and Lamb was my favourite too (until I saw The White Stripes at the end of the evening). I listened to those two bands the most. Also, there were lots of people at Livid. Many people were sending messages on their mobile phones to try to find where their friends were. Some people where not as smart as others; they were shouting "Where are you?" at their mobile phones within ten metres of a Black Rebel Motorcycle Club performance.
On Sunday, after a big cooked breakfast at 11:00 with Frank, Jo, Mikey and Rod; and watching
American Splendour with Jo and Mikey; I went to see Weird Al Yankovic in concert with Amanda, Andrew, Chris, Dave, Evan, Simon (but not Anna, Fiona, Nola or Ted who were at the Duke of Edinburgh before and/or after the show). Al funny.
And then on Monday: won indoor cricket by forfeit. And then on Tuesday: played Jimbo's last regular tabletop session of Jonathan's
Golden game at Charmed Pages with Greg, Jimbo, Jonathan, Luke and Simon. And then on Wednesday: drove Simon around to sign his lease and collect packing boxes for moving house. And then on Thursday: saw
Kill Bill: Volume 1 with Dave, Fiona, Jimbo, Linda, Meagan and Simon. Cartoon violence from beginning to end, and only some of it was animation.
Finally, my testing manager position needs to be filled while I'm away next year. Beaker has requested expressions of interest and attached a list of requirements. It seems that I will not be being replaced by a chicken, or even a rat; which is nice.
Happy Birthday, Mummy
This time last week Alix and Dave M came to stay at our house so they could go to her brother's wedding but not have to stay with her family. In five days they got away with a family lunch, a family dinner and the wedding. Meanwhile various combinations of Alix, Dave M, Dave V, Fiona, Jimbo, Linda, Simon and I went to the pub, an Indian restaurant, Floriade, bookshops, game shops, played
Taboo, the Australian Pizza Kitchen restaurant, and saw
Tomb Raider 2: Lara Croft and the Cradle of Life (which is not a good movie, so we pretended we had seen
The Pirates of the Caribbean again).
No cricket or
Golden this week and I must weed the garden. But first:
Maybe we should just pluck a few asylum seekers off Nauru and put them on the boat to sew the sheep's mouths up and chuck them overboard. There is an election coming up, after all.
