Are we there yet?

My brewery co-workers love the local produce as much as I do and threw one of the cooks a birthday party with a few kegs of Matso's finest on tap. With ANZAC day putting in a guest appearance the next day, and an appointment with a pile of dishes slated to start at 630am, I wasn't in a great position to show the kegs the sort of love they deserve. With a birthday cigar helping encourage fond emotions for ambers fluids, I eventually managed to prove a healthy disregard for my own welfare. Three hours of uncomfortable couch sleep and I was off to join about 500 others at the dawn service. Birthday boy was supposed to be my alarm clock but he must have determined his bed to be a better alternative, not having to start work as early as me. So all I was able to see was numerous social groups lay wreaths upon the shrine as I tried to stay upright enough to feel appropriately respectful of our brave and never forgotten soldiers.

I survived work thanks to a large injection of caffeine and was able to bluff my way through by appearing to be busier than I actually was. The new dish washing machine is actually only a steriliser so my work load hasn't decreased any. Now I just burn myself all the time as I try to stack hot steel objects after an 83 degree rapid roasting. My duties as an underwater porcelain technician have slowly began incorporating more challenging tasks like chopping food like a pro chef without including parts of my finger in the mix.

My acclimatisation is virtually complete thanks to the arbitrary tilt of planet Earth satisfying our need for variety. There's no chance of rain, as this time of year is called the 'dry' for a reason that is too complicated to explain to people who can't grasp the concept straight away. I've stopped producing sweat like it was my body's sole purpose in life, but its still not wise to venture out too far without some form of hydrating refreshment or dehydrating intoxicant.

With my Bowen diamond Laura joining the party here, talk has turned to finding our own house. I could rent Buckingham Palace for roughly the same price as a 2 bedroom fibro shack in Broome so finding something cheap and not quarantined may be a tricky task. Plenty of the cool hostel folk want us start up a frat house so acting like a 33 year old might have to wait until I am 43. This discrepancy between age and behaviour seems of little concern to one adorable little English girl who wants me to be her nightly teddy bear replacement. That was something I was actively avoiding, which is always the right way to go about ensuring it actually comes to pass. With such a fun loving person to cuddle up to it's almost as if I am writing the script myself.

That was until our first attempt at getting a house ended in a mix of relief and disappointment. We had to wait a week to find out if our application had been unsuccessful and the disappointment was fueled by realising we would have to do more work to find a place to live. Not getting the place came as somewhat of a relief though in that it was slated for demolition and therefore expensive at any price. It was next door to a prison, a place least likely to have hobo's hanging out the front just for the sake of it, but most likely to have kamikaze's jumping the fence looking for human collateral to bargain their way to a tropical, non-extraditing island. It obviously wasn't meant to be, but with the minimal effort I had put into organising other aspects of my life, I had expected people to be calling me with accommodation offers. Oh well, referring to myself as a spread was not scoring me as many laughs as what I thought it should anyway.