Here in Australia, pedestrians have the right of way only in a designated crosswalk, if there are no lines, the car has the right of way and you should seriously look both ways before crossing. Most streets are two-way, so whether crossing at a crosswalk or jaywalking, look right, then left then proceed. I cannot tell you how many times I've seen people just walk across the street, staring straight ahead, as if there are no cars approaching them, when in fact I'm bearing down on you at 60kph (38mph) and you better walk faster, but nooo they proceed to stroll as they are entitled to cross and the cars should stop. Um, no, the only way a driver is required to stop is if you're in a lined crosswalk, but nowadays so many people have this air of entitlement, it's disgusting. What happened to obeying the rules? When it comes to the speed and force of a car against an average sized person, guess what, the car's going to win, you'll either have broken bones or be dead, just cause you thought, I'll take my time crossing the street with cars approaching at full speed. Yeah, you're smart.
At the moment we live across the street from a school therefore there is a crosswalk right in front of our building and in the morning and between 2-4 there is a crossing guard that makes sure the cars stop for children and people crossing. The thing is because it's a crosswalk, means that any time of the day or night cars need to stop if there is a person crossing, if they don't and a cop happens to be there, they can get a fine. What annoys the crap out of me is how many times I've seen people just drive right by, they just look straight ahead or they're busy on their phones or they just don't care. I think there should be more police presence near school crosswalks, if more people get ticketed, maybe more people will then stop when pedestrians are trying to cross the street. There was one time my husband and I were crossing the street in the crosswalk and this wanker in an SUV was trying to give us the hurry up and it looked like he wanted to drive right through my husband, my husband is no puny string bean, so if you hit him a few things are going to happen, one, you'll fuck up your car as he's a big guy, second, you'll go to jail and you'll get fined for going through a crosswalk, because I will remember the make and model of your car whether it's a ute a car or whatever it is you're driving. I'm very into cars and will know the difference between a Falcon and a Commodore. Ok, venting over.
.jpg)
Lent is here, and of all things to be at the start of Lent, my husbands 40th birthday. Wound up eating at Groove Train, my husband had fish n' chips and I had salt & pepper calamari. When looking at a supermarket catalogue (circular), Coles has a two page display that says fish for Lent, something I don't remember seeing in NY. There is a company here called John West, and they are the Chicken of the Sea, BumbleBee or Starkist of Australia. John West does canned, and frozen seafood. I remember buying BumbleBee flavoured tuna. I had two favourites, lemon pepper & spicy chilli, I remember one time Dukie wanted some spicy tuna and I had to give him milk to tamp down the spiciness in his mouth. So all in all, I had only seen 3 different flavours of tuna, until I got here. I have seen some interesting combinations in 95g cans. There are quite a few selections of the canned variety I thought I'd share the interesting options one has for tuna here in Australia. Chunk style tuna in olive oil blend, chunk style tuna in spring water, light tuna in spring water, light tuna lemon & cracked pepper, light tuna onion & tomato and light tuna sweet chilli. The following are the non-light versions: chilli, lemon & cracked pepper, mango chilli, mild Indian curry, naturally smoked, onion & tomato savoury sauce, oven dried capsicum & chilli, dried tomato & basil, sweet chilli, sweet seeded mustard, sweetcorn & mayonnaise, tomato salsa and zesty vinaigrette. Sea Salt & Cracked Pepper in Oil, Tuna Chunks Chilli, Lime & Ginger in Oil and Tuna Chunks Garlic & Soy in Oil. They even have this lunch thing, tuna & beans and tuna & rice. They have salmon in the frozen food section and tinned sardines, salmon and anchovies.
.
It is definitely not hard to find non meat dishes in a sub-tropical area like Brisbane, there's at least one fish n' chips shop in every suburb. I love calamari and the fact that they are not the teeny little rings I'm used to is even better. You can buy calamari and chips but with my diabetes I prefer to eat 6 calamari rings and share my husbands chips. The price for calamari in a shop can be anywhere from 70 - 90 cents a ring, which isn't bad considering they're preparing it for you and the tax is already included. Oh and the tentacles are special order, so you never have to worry if you're going to get alien heads with your rings. My husband prefers snapper when we go to these shops. A proper fish shop will not just give you any fish, you get to ask for what type of fish you want crumbed (breaded), I've seen dory, whiting, and some others I can't remember as I always get calamari, though I have had some stringy calamari at a few places and we are never, ever going back to those locations. I cannot wait for my friends to visit so they can see first-hand the size and taste of these calamaris.
Yesterday was Sunday and it started off on a scary note. My husband usually gets up before me and he did so yesterday and noticed T wasn't around, usually he's like, oh hey you're up, feed me. He went into the kitchen to get a glass of juice and thought that's quite a bit of light coming in from the dining area window, then realizing that the fly-screen was not where it should be, so he gingerly looked out the window, praying he wouldn't see out poor little T on the ground, so he peeked and all he saw was the screen on the floor. Now, to wake up the wife and not scare her that the cat was gone. He woke me up saying he couldn't find T and I put on some clothes and we went out to look, I grabbed the bag of dry food and two cans to tap together, we looked in the back of the complex and the only cat that showed up was the downstairs neighbors cat. We started walking towards the street when my husband noticed T in the bushes by the fence, I called to him and he gave me a distressed mew, I picked him up and he kinda growled. We called out vet and they said, yes bring him right in. I took my insulin shot and put T in his carrier and off we went, as we're approaching the vets office the poor kitty made a poopy in his carrier and man o man it stunk up the car,we had to open the back windows and I had to stick my head out the window (I was in the back with him). When we got to the vets office it was closed, the lady that answered the phone never told us where they were located and now we had to go to another location, it was after 9am and my husband had to be at work at 10am, so we got to the vets, filled out the paperwork and we were trying to figure out how was my hubby going to get to work, I told him why don't you just grab a taxi, this way I'll have my car and then I can take T home in a familiar setting. We get called in and the vets assistant took care of the little oopsy, he weighs 6.55kgs (14lbs) but he is long so it's okay for him. The vet said his heart-rate was a bit high, but considering he fell, was outside, took a ride in the car and he was at the vets it wasn't something to be overly worried about. They gave me 2 options, let them keep him overnight and they'd heavily sedate him and take an x-ray and I could pick him up Monday, or they could do an ultrasound of his stomach area to make sure everything was intact and then he would get a pain killer shot and I would have to medicate him for 3 days after. I took the second option as I didn't want to scare him even more with leaving him in a strange place. The ultrasound came back ok, he got his shot and he went willingly into his carrier. The whole time I'm thinking, shit how much is this going to cost me, single income no spare cash. When I was waiting to pay the bill, a woman asked is there a kitty in there and I said yes, I have one of those mesh carriers so I can belt the cat in the car, I've never liked the plastic containers. They were loving it. So I get the bill and it's only $169 and I was like whew, this I can handle.
I strapped T in the front seat so I can keep an eye on him, and he was pretty quiet on the way home (very unusual for him). When we got home, the neighbors cat comes running to rub against me and I just wanted to get my T upstairs. When I put the carrier down and unzipped it, he came out, and this time walking tall with his tail up. Great sign as he was crouch walking at the vets. He eventually drank some water, actually a lot of water. He didn't get his appetite back until later in the evening. My in-laws brought over a bag of Temptations and he had one or two. While I was sleeping T came to visit me, he came up to me and started kneading my arm. When I woke up this morning he was doing his usual stretchies. He even played with his string a little. He's still a little tired, and I'm keeping an eye on him and all windows are closed while we're sleeping or out. His actual vet called before to see how he was doing, and the fact that he's eating and playing is a great sign. Thank God my baby's okay, he lost one of his nine lives.
