But backing up as usual.
I'll be honest, I really have no actual memory of last Sunday beyond making chicken and chorizo soup which turned out to be really, really, really good.
Also, I finally got around to doing my tax, only to discover that I owe the ATO $60... in a word, rude! I mean I don't expect much of a rebate while I'm working, but owing them money is pretty much a kick in the balls. And proof that (older) single folk are generally the ones who get fucked over when it comes to tax. I mean my tax return is never complicated or whatever, but do I get any breaks, no I do not.
Anyway, it is what it is.
Wednesday they'd forecast all kinds of wild weather, and while parts of the state were getting hit pretty hard, here in the city we had some rain, but mostly it seemed to be the proverbial storm in a teacup.
That was until 3:48pm... I was planning to hang around a little later at work to try and avoid the next wave of rain, when all of a sudden the power flickered and then everything went dead. We weren't plunged into total darkness, there were a few lights still on as emergency lighting, but all the computers and most of the lights went dead.
We didn't realise it at the time, but almost the whole of South Australia had lost power... Ma called me pretty much straight away and given that her office as well as their other offices had all lost power pretty much told us that the whole state was down.
So, what is there to do when there's no electricity to do your job... you go to the pub, that's what. Not everyone, just five of us, but it seemed like a better idea than either walking home in the rain or trying to find a cab when the entire CBD was trying to leave while none of the traffic lights were working.
We only managed one drink before the bar wasn't serving any more because the taps were starting to warm up, but it was long enough for the next wave of rain to pass.
Walking home was just plain weird. Partly because there were far more people out on the streets than usual, but likewise the traffic was much heavier. And then a number of the intersections had police officers directing traffic.
When I got home it was very, very weird... no power, no hot water (it's a gas system but with an electric starter), I only own one candle (the one that La Cousina bought me last Christmas) so I lit that up, and found my torch. Because the candle has a weird wooden wick, it was more than a bit fluttery... so the light wasn't really conducive to doing much of anything. I ended up having cold cereal (I could have cooked, but couldn't be bothered expending the energy), doing some dishes which I'd left soaking in hot water that morning... and then going to bed.
I wasn't really all that tired, so I just lay there and tossed and turned for a while, answered text messages as I got them and generally aiming for the general direction of sleep. I didn't get power back until 11:30, which was better than I was expecting... and when I did I ended up playing around on my phone until I got sleepy.
When I got to work on Thursday morning power was still out to half the building. I think it was just that the breakers got tripped, because it was back up within a couple of minutes of me arriving.
Thursday was a much more wild and storm day... walking home was definitely less fun than the night before... but at least I could cook up a hot dinner once I got home.
I did discover part way through the night though that there was water dripping down the wall by the front window. So that's two apartments with dripping water within two years. I put towels in place and crossed my fingers essentially... moved all the electric cords and whatnot off the floor, turned off the power in that corner and hoped that it didn't get worse during the night.
It appeared to have stopped the following morning, and even though it rained on and off for most of Friday, it didn't appear to have started again when I got home. I'm hoping it was the fact that the wind was blowing the proverbial gale and it may have been blowing the rain into places it didn't normally go.
However I did report it to my land agent on Friday... and marked it as urgent. And nothing... not a phone call, not a return email, nothing. Seriously, you have one job, maybe try doing it properly once in a while.
Anyway...
Today was somewhat standard... we started with the supermarket... I'm going to do another pea and ham style soup this week... but I'm going to try to end up with actual pieces of meat in it this time (I may need to remember to get some chunks of ham tomorrow though... I got some chorizo, but that may not be enough).
And because it's both the long weekend and today is the sportsball grand final, there just seemed to more people than usual in the supermarket.
Afterwards we decided to head down to Target, which is not a major event rather than just something we do for ten minutes after we leave the supermarket.
But in any event, we wandered around for a good long while, I picked up a number of the discounted Disney Infinity figures... it's really a shame that the game was cancelled, because they really are the best made character figures/statuettes, especially for the cost. And I do love their visual style. I ended up getting Spot from The Good Dinosaur, Nemo, Yoda and Obi Wan. I mean it would make more sense if I actually owned the game, given that I now have ten of them.
Then we dropped into Big W on the way back and I picked up Carrie Hope Fletcher's new book... well, two of them, one for me and one to give to Miss Oh for Christmas. Whether she'll love it or not I don't know... I don't even know if I'll love it, but I do like to support the people when I appreciate and enjoy their free content.
I do need to do some sorting out of my bookshelves though... between all the new books and all the graphic novels I've been buying, I really need to do some rearranging... maybe sort some things to get rid of too. But that's a problem for another day.
And that's about it really.
What I'm hoping for next week is a really, really dull week with no major surprises.
Current Mood:
No comments:
Post a Comment