My truly great driver’s licence photo is on file with Vicroads!
So I don’t have to risk a new one (but paid $17.30 for the privilege on my brand spanking new, increased limit, credit card.)
I do have to have a new photo done for my Uni card however – but, trust me, the only way is up in regard to my old one! (As someone once kindly put it, the photo didn’t have much ‘spark’.)
Quite frankly, on the scale of ugly to fugly, it was definitely a fugly.

Or what comes out of idle office chatter over a cup of tea and the newspaper …

If there was ever a man who could use an hour or so with Carson, Kyan and Thom et. al. of “Queer Eye …” fame it’s Saddam Hussein.
He’s looking pretty rough in all the pictures which have been featured in the media recently.
And apparently his accomodation isn’t anything to write home about either. (You could never bring a girl back there.)
But where would they go shopping?

Yes, that’s me.
But it’s only because I’ve been working (really hard) – so no time for idle blogging in the workplace.
And, with the recent changes to my blog set up, I’ve found it hard to remember where it is that I actually post new entries.
Not that I’m ditzy or anything.
Or maybe I am – as Friday evening’ s lost handbag crisis would attest.
It’s still lost. (Last seen in a maxicab in the city.)
Distressingly, it’s not just a lost handbag. It’s also a lost purse containing $20, my one winning birthday scratchie ($2), all my various bank and credit cards, my drivers licence (with the good picture), Uni cards, library cards, medicare card, ambulance card, my hospital card (telling the world I have no spleen and therefore reduced imunity), and various receipts and other ephemera too numerous to name or remember).
And a lost novel (Jonathan Franzen’s – Strong Motion – will I ever find out how it ends?) including a yearly public transport ticket as a book mark.
And a lost diary – it’s like I’ve lost the past six months – bills, all the renovation expenses, notes, reminders, business cards, arggh!!
And a lost Lonely Planet Guide to Vienna (my geography’s so bad I’ll probably lose myself without this vital guide).
Lost house keys, car keys, work keys.
Lost reading glasses.
Lost umbrella.
Lost gloves (my favourite pair).
Lost lavender hair styling stuff.
Lost lip gloss and lipstick.
Lost tweezers.
Lost emery boards.
Lost feminine hygiene products.
Lost pens (x 4).
Lost handkerchief.
Lost 1/2 pkt tic taks.
Sigh.
I must admit to being more frustrated by my own carelessness than anything else initially. I really, really thought someone would find my bag and hand it in. That’s what I’d do.
But it would appear not, in this case.
I wonder if whoever found it thought anything at all about me when he/she found it. What conclusions would they draw from all my stuff?
I know everything’s replaceable (except maybe my truly great licence photo!) but it still makes me sad that it looks like some of my favourite things are never coming back.

Today Justine and I (and Maisie) trained by ourselves at the park based upon a series of instructions SMSed to us from Adam.
Seemed to go OK.
And, post-solstice, the morning did seem brighter. Although that may have been my imagination.
Hmmm, he had better not be charging us for the session.

I have oft complained about the tragicness of my family’s response to the birthday scenario. So much so, indeed, that people actively inquire as to when the standard dud Tattslotto ticket is expected to arrive.
Upon reaching my mailbox yesterday evening I fully expected to be in receipt of the said ticket. But there was nothing. (Ok, not nothing – there was one very damp birthday card from an old school friend and a ‘slimmers’ magazine addressed personally to me. Humphhff – how did I get onto THAT mailing list? And what spectacularly insensitive timing. But … I digress.)
‘Oh well, maybe they’ll ring,’ I thought. But no – no phone call, no message, no card, no Tattslotto ticket.
This is why I depend upon the kindnesses of my friends at this time – and they have done well.
So thank you.

Now that it looks so good, I’ll have to think up a betterer name!
Thank you so much to Daniel – it really was a surprise.
And thank you to Tony too.
Happy birthday to me!!!

Happy birthday Marita

Love xxx
Daniel

How I choose to celebrate my birthday: go and see a performance by the Bangarra Dance Company.
How Daniel chooses to celebrate my birthday: hang around on a train station for an hour before giving a urine sample in the furtherance of scientific knowledge.
I know what I’d prefer!!

Daniel drives Marita to Kew and fossicks about in the cobwebs under a house.
Daniel drives Marita to Bendigo (and back) on a cold, rainy, windy day.
Daniel lends Marita a not insubstantial sum of money to accomplish the object of the visit to Bendigo.
On the drive home from Bendigo Daniel decides to purchase a snack at a convenient servo.
Marita – unable to watch him snack alone – decides to follow suit.
Daniel makes his purchase. (A chocolate paddle-pop.)
Servo guy to Marita (who is next in the queue): “Aren’t you with him?” (ie. Daniel)
Marita (struggling to find change in purse for her purchase): “Yes.”
Servo guy: “What’s wrong with him? A bit of a tightarse, is he?”
Daniel looks incredibly aggrieved.
Marita just about wets her pants laughing.
Servo guy will, no doubt, go home and tell his partner just how unaccountably witty he is!

My long weekend will be devoted to attempting to furnish my bedroom.
Part (A) involves scrabbling about under someone’s house to see if an old fireplace they have is the right size and shape to slot into the space under the mantel in my room where – at present – there is nothing but a large, boarded over hole.
Part (B) involves a drive to Bendigo to look at a wardrobe which just might fit the unusual space I’ve set aside to house the wardrobe in my ideally laid-out room.
What’s the bet, after all the effort, neither will be quite right?
Alternatively, I could be a very happy (tho’ much poorer) person, with a much better decorated bedroom.