Discussion Thread 🐬 Thursday 5 June 2025

Guys, my newly adult daughter is on an overnight bus with her friend on the way to Adelaide for a few days. I am sad but I'll be ok.

That's awesome that she's having adventures!! What's planned for ADL?? How has your night been?
- They'll be doing touristy things. Staying in a backpackers hostel. My night's been good, lots of laughs and now a little bit sad. I am happy for her but a little anxious because this is her first trip without a proper adult. Thanks for asking.
she'll be fine, you have raised her well 👍😊
- Thank you.

I have a very dear older family friend that is in early stage Alzheimer's. We travelled together about 18 months ago but she is really past it now and we kinda knew that would happen (it was a bit of a last harrah family visit). there's a family event coming up and she would love to go. I have told her that I can't manage to find accommodation that will suit us (true) and I also think she is a bit past it (true and said and received with love). But she wants to and is a little bit past reason (keeps saying 'I will let you know if I can come') and it breaks my heart. I am gonna zoom her into it (someone in her home can help).

But fuck this getting old business. She was the strongest most capable woman I knew growing up. Always a real rock for me. Aaargghh.

I'm sorry for what's happening. Dementia related ageing just sucks. 🫂
I'm so sorry. hugs

What are you peasants eating?

Ayyyyyyyye!!!!!! 🎂🎂🎂
Suddenly I don't want my planned dinner, I want that spread.
I'm also having a seafood feast for dinner
(It's sardines on toast)
- A bit of crab meat rolled down my leg so the dog got some too.
... I had tinned spaghetti on toast. It was delicious OKAY.
Glad you've celebrated hard though, this looks amazing and you deserve all of it!!
- Thanks
Hot bowl of noodles tonight..
It’s too cold!
Tacos!

Welp, I may feel like my thesis is complete shite and that doing a research project was the worst decision ever that's dredged up an unrelenting blast of old trauma, but because nobody fucking applies for scholarships in my school, I did... and guess who just got $3000 for filling out some forms - when I'm weeks away from graduating 😂

Sadly, it is taxable as I'm a part-time student, but hell, at least it'll be in this FY where my taxable income isn't as high due to having worked part time

Nice. And trust me everyone feels like that weeks away from graduating - you are doing just fine.

Well it's official.

Hambam is now confidently an off leash walker.

I have waited for this moment for a long time.

Trick was to take him to the same park several times a day so he got over being hyper stimulated / fixated. It worked. Now he doesn't give two shits about anything.. other dogs / kids. So I have upgraded his braincell count to 3, from 2.

Nice. My tip, still keep eyes open for skateboards and electric scooters....took my doggo an extra year after graduating to off lead status before he could see those and not be bothered...

yay, I went to the beach with my new gum boots. The tide was out and I was adventurous and walked right out across the sand flats to the far rocks that are usually well underwater.

here's a pic looking back at the shore 😊

That's a beautiful photo.
- Thank you. 🙂 It's a very photogenic place.
That's so lovely. The sun reflection is beautiful!
- I had no idea it was going photograph like that, with reflections, if I knew I would have centred the picture a bit better
Gorgeous photo. Spin is right, the reflection fits perfectly into the right third of the picture

It's my birthday so that means seafood and cheese platter day.

Happy birthday! This platter sounds nice, which cheeses will feature?
- Thanks.
  3× Mersey Valleys and a wedge of South Cape brie.
Happy Birthday to my favourite CEO 😘 🐟🦈🎣🍥🦐🧀💐🍾
- Thank you. You're my favourite Seagoon ❤️
Happy birthday!!!!!!!
- Thanks
Happy birthday CEO. Have a wonderful day!
- Thanks.
Enjoy your special day, or 5.
All the best.
- Thanks
Happy Birthday! May it be a cracker!
- Thanks. It'll be a 5 day extravaganza.
Hoppy birthday! All the beers you could want are coming your way.
- Thanks. Beers tomorrow. G&T tonight
Happy Berfday Chief 🥂
- Thanks.
Happy Birthday!🧀🍤🦪
- Thanks.
Happy b'day!
- Thanks
🎉🎉 happy birthday!! Enjoy the festival of CEO 🍻
- Thanks
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DEAR CEO!!! I hope you an excellent day and enjoy alllll of the treats!!
- Thanks
Happy birthday, here is a frozen sardine for your platter: 🧊🐟
- Thanks. Just throw it at me, I'll catch it like a pelican.
and 🎂
- Thanks
Happy birthday! 🎂
- Thank you.
🎂
- Thanks
Happy birthday! 🎂🧀🍤🦪
- Thanks
Happy birthday CEO! I hope you've had a lovely day for it. Can't go wrong with the oysters etc you had.
- Thanks
Happy birthday and birth week, CEO!!
- Thanks
Happy birthday CEO! Hope you’re having a fabulous day and getting spoilt! 🎂
- Thanks. I am.
Happy birthday :)
- Thanks

Has CEO invited you all to their party tonight or just me?

I’m allergic to karaoke
- Booooooo
There will be street artists, unicorns and fairy bread.
- Do we get to smash a piano with sledgehammers?
yep and apparently it's not BYO which is very generous of her.
Bribed her with offers of soju and oysters.
- That would do it.
I'm not cool enough for parties sadly
- Did you try giving her a frozen sardine?
Do we get a share of the caviar?

I survived work. Must make tea

I wish I'd taken annual leave tomorrow so I could have a 4 day weekend. Ah well.

Step 1 in life admin day complete:

It is much more solid than I expected for the price, and a touch bigger than I was envisaging. It mostly went together easily too, with only a few bolts at the end which were tricky to position and in a place that didn't allow you to turn the allen key fully. I think I've only got three more bits of furniture to assemble now, the two bedside tables and a small shelf.

Edit: and I now have a working computer too! The important peripherals have all been installed: mouse, keyboard, speakers, and cat sleeping mat.

Oooh, that actually might work at my place... Where'd you find it? Allen key = IKEA?
- A place called Living Styles, but it was a clearance item which has now been discontinued. I got quite a bit of furniture and decor items from them which have all been really good, so worth a look at any way.

I made hash browns. It just ain’t the same. Maybe brushed potatoes aren’t the best for it.

They should be ideal. What recipie did you use?
- I followed this one to the letter and it really doesn’t work well. It’s also pretty time consuming
  Hash Brown
What was up with them?
I had a look and apparently brushed potatoes are often Sebago which are floury. They would get crispier than a waxy potato but maybe not hold together as well.
There’s also other stuff people do like rinsing the starch off the shreds, squeezing them bone dry with a tea towel or a ricer, and pre-heating the oil before frying.
Using enough oil also makes potatoes crunchier, as well as using a type of fat that can be heated higher. (Not butter, more something like tallow or ghee. Edit: Canola or coconut would also work.)
I’m not an expert and haven’t really made hash browns so there’s no criticism here. Just curious about the science of the process and see people talking about different methods.
- Yeah did all that, I used butter and a medium heat setting on cast iron. They really didn’t turn out like I expected. My imagination has got the best of me haha.

Cuddling with my warm fuzzy baby. Her bunny soft fur, her warm comforting bulk, her sweet good natured face. I love my cat so much and kiss her little head.

Aaaaaaaaaaaargh

what happened?
- Nothing, today's just an incoherent scream day

That's a pretty brutal back yard. Lumpy lawn and colorbond.
- I like to think of it as a blank canvas. Having seen some of the thistles and spikey things that grow as weeds around here I'd also consider lumpy lawn to be a big improvement.
- It's a privacy screen; under all those leaves, those trees are naked 👀
- I like the foggy view of the trees.
Around 4° here, feels like 0. It's gloriously crisp.
- We've almost reached 0 now (still feels -3.7^o). Its now beautifully sunny with bright blue skies, so we're heading off on the morning walk.

Hullo

Heyyyo

Am meant to transfer to a new department at work next week, but the new team didn’t initiate the transfer correctly - so my old role couldn’t be backfilled..

..now there’s a fight brewing over when I should actually transition. It’s good to be wanted, but I feel like a kid who’s divorcing parents are fighting for custody!

Managerial incompetence, don't you love it?
- Oh, totally! 🙄
  I have a feeling I’m going to have a LOT of (unpaid, as I’m on salary) overtime in the next three weeks as a result!

Blended the 1st chilli ferment last night. 13 day ferment. The one w/ homegrown apricots, raspberries. Surprisingly it's actually very good. Can taste them through the heat. Never had a hawt sauce like that. Raspberries made it a nice deep red. Was going to turn the last of chillies into powder but instead going to start anothery of that today.

I think taking the chilli seeds out before the ferment (usually don't bother) really made a difference and let the sweetness cut through. Bit time consuming but worth it.

I was hoping to get a little bush hike in this long weekend but the forecast is not awesome. What can I do instead that's warm?

We might be hitting up Mt Macedon on Sat morning. Even with a bit of rain it's pretty good.
Scienceworks, NGV, acme, the museum, the immigration museum (I need to go, apparently my Opa is named in the immi museum), the zoo.
The 1000 steps is still nice even if it's raining, smells great and there's tons of wildlife if you're quiet. I saw a wallaby there once and plenty of fairy wrens!
- In a different life I worked at scienceworks and I have no desire to go back there on a raining winter weekend! But I have been wanting to see the Werribee zoo and maybe fanging over to the 1000 steps would be good. Thanks!

Nocturnal friend wants to become a 'NEET' which I have learnt stands for Not in Employment, Education or Training. She said she just wants to win the lottery. A girl can dream.

What would you do if you won the lottery?

I just want a home of my own
- I think that is definitely a possibility. But in the mean time, I hope where you're living feels like home. And home isn't just a place. I also hope you can find home in yourself 💕
Travel and when I'm not, I'll be in a nice cabin somewhere and read books all day.
- that too sounds like heaven 🙂
My really boring answer to this is go see my financial advisor and get things set up so I can live like I do now but without the work
This used to be called a LOL - Lady of Leisure. Estimated income level = $200,000 pa MINIMUM. Without working, that's a shittonne of capital at 2% pa averaged. She can dream, but those dreams are not realistic. I doubt even the lottery would finance that sort of lifestyle.
- You mean like a socialite?
  Not sure that Low's friend said what she wants to do, only what she doesn't want.
buy a nice small house by a beach, set up a nice art work studio, do education and training, work at my art and do part time employment
doing nothing would drive me crazy
- That sounds wonderful, and I feel you about the doing nothing thing.
My dream is to have an abode in Melbourne, and also a second abode in a regional place I like that serves as a weekender but I will eventually retire there. I'd love to retire early; I don't think my body can handle hard physical labour for another 15 years even though I love it. That's probably it lol. It's only the lottery: when I was a kid a lottery win would set you up for life. Now I feel like it'll pay off your house and your kids education and not much more.
Edit: that's assuming I win something smallish. If I won like 15 million dollars or something that'd be very different.
I just want somewhere safe and stable to live.
- That's a basic human right! It might be a bit naïve of me, but surely there's a way to achieve this in the not so distant future?

Man, I just put all my estimated earnings and tax paid etc into a calculator and I'm depressed once again at the removal of the LMITO. I hate that I'm probably going to have such a 2.5-3k tax bill at the end despite working part time :( I'm so used to having tax returned and July being a bit of a splurge month.

Why the hell is my employer withholding so little tax?! Ugh. I know it's better to have the money up front and earn interest (which also gets taxed...) but psychologically it effing sucks.

Next time I might start having a separate "tax" account to save the money into, like it's an annual bill. E: or just dump it into super since mine's rather low for my age... Could use it for FHSSS or one of those grown-up things

Ah yes, a Victoria St tram that smells of cigarettes. Smells nostalgic in an old pub kind of way.

I remember the smoking ban coming into effect and all you could smell in pubs and bars was stale beer and BO.
It's better now, but the first few months before shit aired out were gnarly.
- I had to leave the Tote one night as the pub smells were getting to me.

Miss Meow is finding her wooden climbing frame a touch high to jump on (and she shuns the little ladder designed to help). I've put a plastic container there to give her a step and she's happily using it now, which is good as that's the access to her food platform and the window hammock (which she is snoozing on in the morning sun right now). I've ordered a set of little steps as a more permanent solution.

Today's goals: life admin and getting the computer set up.

Edit: getting the computer set up has a bonus feature of letting me access the vacuum cleaner, which I put in a cupboard and then put the computer stuff in front of.

Mickey crawls into my oodie and has the audacity to grumble (literally, it's so cute!) when he dutch ovens himself (and me 💀). Of course I trapped him so he had to experience his stank - it's the least I could do to repay his fart to my face.

I think I'll get a big fast SSD for the computer to put Linux on. I might as well find things to claim in the EOFY sales because I've been getting tax bills the last couple of years. Might as well spend and claim

omg, I think I had a dream/nightmare about edna everage

I have so many questions, but am afraid to ask any
- all I remember is the glasses and I don't think there was more to it, just saw weird glasses on a table and thought edna everage

Good night everyone. Sweet dreams. 😘

Is anyone else still having to harvest their backyard / balcony chilli plants too frequently at this wrong time of year?

Not chillis but my little tomatoes are still going
- As are mine? Strawberries are making a comeback too.

I'm excited for 28 Years Later, arriving in two weeks!

Ahead of schedule then?
- Climate change n stuff has brought the zombie apocalypse forward at an unprecedented rate
I love when there's a movie you're actually anticipating coming out! It's still such a fun experience it really look forward to something!

Dream 1: Outfit competition with the band Oasis. Woke up before final verdict. Dream 2: was my birthday with people I didn't know (but knew in the dream). Had a good time.

That sounds so lit

https://youtu.be/5VIkdTnWzWY

Fkn love this song - big vibes

it is cool

Besides getting no sunlight, is it bad to be a nocturnal human? It's not conducive to working during business hours at least.

Studies have shown that night time shift workers ain't as healthy as day time workers. Don't ask me for proof.
- I'll take your word for it 🫡
In winter I think it's bad to be nocturnal, you need Vitamin D exposure. In other seasons, you'll get enough incidental Vitamin D exposure, so as long as being nocturnal doesn't reduce your mood.
I believe it is most productive to work to your body clock preferences, whether you are an early bird or night owl. Societal arrangements generally favour early birds, so some of us are just permanent double shot caffeine addicts in the A.M.

Beep Beep 🚚
🍏🍎🍐🍊🍋🍈🫐🍓🍇🍉🍌🍒🍑🥭🍍🥥🥦🥑🫛🍆🍅🥝🥬🥒🌽🥕🥐🍠🫚🥔🧅🥯🍞🥖🥨🧀🧇🥞🧈🍳🥚🥓🥩🍗🍖🫓🍕🍟🍔🌭🥙🧆🌮🌯🥗🍲🍜🍝🥘🍛🍣🍱🥟🦪🍥🍘🍚🍙🐠🍤🪼🦀🐙 🍗🥮🍢🍡🍧🍰🧁🥧🍦🍨🎂🍮🍭🍬🍫🥜🌰🍪🍿🍯🥛☕️🍵🍺🍶🥤🧋🧃🥂🍷🥃🍸🍹🧉🔋

A bowl of hot porridge with brown sugar and cream, please.
- 🔥🥣🌾🍬🥛
Seafood platter, please. Inspired by CEO!
- 🐟🦀🐙🦞🦐🦐🍤🦑🦪
Breakfast hotpot please
- 🥦🥬🌽🥕🥔🍠🥚🍲🔥

ok, lets get more stuff done 👍

fust, more pai*ning. I've nearly finished painting the bed , have to touch up the dressing table and then onto the bedside tables and the chair

I need to buy more paint too

done painting
now shops
then beach
then more painting
then some admin stuff
some study
it's all coming together 😊
- You've totally go this!