Sunday's diary

There are rocks in this world.  One of them is Sunday afternoon.  Once upon a time it was an afternoon for drinking heavily with the Ex and a mutual friend and watching college football (Geaux Tigers!).  It wasn't a rock then.  At worst it was a moment tinted with sadness after spending two days with my best friend.  But that was a long time ago and a very different edition of me.   But now when the afternoon is cloudy and you’ve already had too much to drink and the pub feels kind of empty?  That’s when the ship of the weekend hits the sandbar and you start wondering what happened.

It’s been an anticlimactic Sunday. I was up at 9:30am (the shame of it all!). Breakfast was coffee and a cheese-and-vegemite  scroll from 7-Eleven.  Sadly, there was no FaceTime with the girls today (Ex had gone out for her birthday and the girls were with their uncle Philip).  I put the time to use clearing my email backlog and writing a lawblog post and doing some SES paperwork.  I wasn't hungry and gave lunch a miss.  Dealing with correspondence and paperwork took until about 2pm.  There was a big rain shower coming by then and so I set to meditating for about 40 minutes while I waited it to clear.

By a little after 3pm the showers had cleared.  I put a podcast from BBC World Service's Forum on and walked to the Pinnacle Hotel in Fitzroy for a glass of wine and a bowl of chips and a spell of reading The Benedict Option.

I read until the chips were finished and then felt like doing a little people-watching.  I had a second glass of wine and walked back into the packed bar.  There were lots of groups of people, mainly young people in threes and fours, and an old couple who were tapping their feet to the (genuinely good) rockabilly band that was playing. 

I felt a bit flat and decided to walk down Scotchmer Street to the Great Northern Hotel for a beer.  The GNH has a small lounge with a couple of booths and some sofas and I settled into one of the latter with a pint of IPA and my book.  The pint finished ,I called it an afternoon and walked home, which brings me to now: typing a blogpost and listening to Safe Trip Home.

The rest of the evening?  I'll write a letter to the girls and have dinner and maybe get an early night.  Roll on summer, when I can return electrically to life.

A Saturday snapshot

I started this post at the Standard Hotel in Fitzroy.  The bar was packed and I was drinking a Fixations IPA (sharp, hoppy and very good).  I wasn't sure whether to go and have a wine at the Brandon Hotel next or walk home and do the ironing.  Tough call: it’s a chilly night.

 

It’s been an oddly full day.  I was up at 9am (I know, I’m ashamed too).  The morning meant laundry, groceries, coffee and ironing, as it usually does.  Midday came, and I went in SES uniform to the Ganesh Chaturthi event at Bundoora.  This is an event set up by the Hindu community, in which an image of the god Ganesh is dissolved in a body of water.  They asked for some SES members to be present as a safety measure, so five of us headed over.  I know very little about Hinduism, but the statue was a very striking one and those present were clearly passionate about it, so good for them!

Ganesh, Bundoora Park Lake, Australia

After the ceremonies, I came back to my digs and ironed a few more shirts until it was time to head off to Mass, a good straightforward service.  I'd promised myself a beer, so I caught a tram down to the Standard Hotel in Fitzroy, which is where I started this post.

As it turned out, I decided that I'd make it a crazy Saturday night and go to a second bar (yep: the Brandon).  I think I said the other day that the Brandon has the appealing quality of trying to be a home away from home.  So, there's no deafening pub band or TV showing horse races: just civilised pub hubbub and families having dinner.  I like that sort of thing.  I got myself a glass of wine and a deck of cards and played a satisfying game of Rouge-et-Noir.

Rouge et Noir and a glass of wine

I walked home from there listening to a remarkably grisly podcast about Dennis Nilsen.  All of which brings me to now: listening to Dido, writing this post and thinking that it's time for dinner.

How's your Saturday going?

A few Friday thoughts

It's a bit after midnight on Friday night, and I'm having a ham toastie and a glass of wine and winding down.  Yesterday was a big day at work and today was as busy, with the added bonus of a directions hearing in a matter where my case strategy has basically become "war to the knife".  It started early with Mass at St Francis' followed by breakfast with a few members of the Catholic Lawyers' Association.  That, in particular, I'd been looking forward to.  In the wake of the Pell decision it felt good to be among fellow believers.

Friday evenings are usually a low key affair for me when I'm in Melbourne for the weekend.  In a blur of enthusiasm I usually play the monologue from Human Traffic before I leave the office.  However, then I remember that I don't do well with other people, and Friday night becomes more like this -

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Me: (plays the “Weekend has Landed”) monologue on leaving the office) Also me: ‘Huge Friday Night’ is a pint of beer and a chapter from Halsbury’s Laws of Australia. #boring #lifeofalawyer #beeroclock #law #halsbury

A post shared by Stephen Tuck (@sdtuc2) on Aug 16, 2019 at 6:06am PDT

This evening was no exception.  I was at the office until 10pm wading through a pile of correspondence, and then walked home via the Tramway Hotel.  This bar was just what I needed: a number of empty tables and a reassuring number of other schlubs drinking alone.

Tramway Hotel, North Fitzroy

I took the time to plan out my weekend to the last half hour.  I can recommend the Urban Alley "District IPA" while doing this, by the way.  I walked the rest of the way to my digs.

And here I am, blogging with a glass of plonk at my elbow as my phone occasionally beeps at me.

I'm good with all this.  Life is how it's meant to be.

Monday ended with Police

It's been another full day here.  The morning at work was taken up largely in wading through a large bundle of subpoenaed medical records and wondering if I can force summary judgment against my opponent (I suspect not).  Lunch was salad, and I had a client to see in the afternoon.

The news on the Court front today was the sentencing of the murderer of Eurydice Dixon.  As usual, public reaction was a reminder of how catastrophically lacking civics education is in Australia.  After a certain point you have to wonder whether the public really should be allowed to sit on juries.



The only other event of note was that I left the office a bit earlier than usual tonight (viz, about 6pm) to get to SES training.  There was a police car outside my digs.  It turned out one of the housemates had had a mental episode of some kind and was going to be having a spell in hospital.  Hope he does OK.

Police divvy van, Melbourne, Australia

SES was fairly straightforward - mainly preparation for next week's landsearch exercise.  I was home by 10:30pm.  Tomorrow should be productive with an ounce of luck.

That Sunday life

And so Sunday draws to a close.  It's been another blur of activity, notwithstanding a late (9:15am) start.

The day kicked off with coffee and a cheese-and-vegemite scroll from the 7-Eleven at the end of the street, and I set to trying to clear out my SES and Gmail inboxes, Which ran to something like 765 unread emails.  After mass deletions, the number of unread emails was a bit over 60.  How many hours of human activity, I wonder, go into producing emails that are never actually read by anyone?



Unfortunately, I couldn't facetime with the girls as they and The Ex were at a friends place watching the game.  Time would have been a little truncated anyway as I'd committed to representing my SES Unit at the City of Darebin's Ngulu Nganjin event, celebrating indigenous people.  The event was very good, even if that sort of thing's not really my cup of tea.  Regardless, there's no part of the community we shouldn't try to be on good terms with.  Representing the Unit, though, meant that I needed to wear my dress uniform.  SES dress uniforms aren't especially dressy: essentially a blue shirt and pullover with a badge on the sleeve.  It struck me that, to the casual observer, I probably looked kind of like a car park attendant.  And then I thought "oh Lord … like the attendant out of Human Centipede 2" >shudder<.  What do you think?

 

 Disturbing or what?!?

After the event I came back here and had a meditation session and ploughed through some more emails until a heavy shower of rain had cleared though.  By a bit after 4pm it was gone and I decided to try a pub I'd walked past many times on my way home but never gone into: the Brandon Hotel.  I can recommend this one especially if you want somewhere to pass time with friends.  The front bar has a set of board games and every table has a deck of playing cards.  The bistro has a couches, a chessboard on most tables and a couple of shelves of books (mainly travel, wine and movies).  Me being me, I was content with a pint of Urban Ale and a copy of Catholic Weekly.  The food smelled good although I wasn't much hungry, so I'll try that some other day.

Beer and reading at the Brandon Hotel, Carlton, Australia

As the weather was holding up I decided to walk home rather than get the tram.  The road had heavy traffic and there was a kind of sad Sunday evening feeling in the air.  I got home and wrote a quick letter to the girls and made tomorrow's lunch and tonight's dinner.

Nicholson Street, Fitzroy, Sunday evening.

And now, here I am blogging the day and thinking I need to have a cleanup and get to bed.  There's lots of exciting stuff coming up at work so I'm looking forward to the week.

How's your weekend been?

Saturday in real life

It's been rather a full Saturday here: yet another where (as with most weekends I'm on my own) I've had the day planned out to the half hour.

I wasn't in a hurry to be out of bed (about 9am) and headed straight up to the laundromat to knock over the week's laundry while I could still get a parking space.  While the clothes were washing I went and got groceries at the nearest supermarket in walking distance.  Morning coffee was from the delightfully named Small Axe Kitchen.



I was back at my digs by about 11:30 am and since I was a bit ahead of schedule, did the ironing while listening to a podcast.   It was a beautiful sunny day and so I went round to the park to meditate using the "Calm" app.  The wind had dropped by then and so I headed out for a run, which was positively heavenly, save for my shoes being utterly clapped out (seriously: I can put my finger through the heel on one).  My time was a little less than I'd like but still rewarding after the winter slowdown.

By about 4pm it was time for a beer and I went for a pale ale at the Railway Hotel with this week's issue of CW.  Some peace and quiet in the beer garden was good if a little chilly.

From the pub, I went up to Our Lady's for confession and Mass.  There's a young priest there which is a bit of a novelty: a fellow in his late 30s.  Certainly it seems different from the greyheads who are so many of the priesthood!

And now, back at the sigs.  I've done the preparation for this week's SES training and had dinner, so it's surely bedtime.  Bed feels good already!

Chasing Passion

I'm typing this in a pub in North Carlton on my way home on Friday night.  I'm very much of a mood to count my blessings.  I'm struck by how many good things there are in my life.  Surprisingly, for a Billy No Mates like me, one of the best things is the people.

I love knowing people who have a passion. Right now I have them in spades.

Image from here

There’s Gen, who used to be a legal secretary at work and who loves cheerleading.  She blogs about it here.  Her instafeed is a blaze of cheer images.  I know next to nothing about cheerleading, but her passion for her sport was and is infectious.

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As amazing as travelling and being on holiday is, I really can’t wait to come home and see my girls this weekend 😍❤️💚 . . . . . . . #ladyreign #family #allgirl #io5 #sxmh #scc #southerncrosscheer #cheerleader #cheerleading #love #pyramidgoals #worlds #worldswednesday #suspicious

A post shared by Gen Clark (@gen_clark) on May 21, 2019 at 1:18pm PDT

Then there’s Sarah.  Sarah’s a remarkably talented lawyer, but she lives for the stage.  When you talk to her about acting, you can sense the passion for her craft. You can hear the enthusiasm for getting the most out of every role she takes on.

There’s another person I know only as Miss Cosmopolita. She’s launched a line of swimwear that she now trying to get off the ground as a business.  There’s not much point me taking a prurient interest in her work and so I don’t.  I love the passion she has for creating beautiful things.

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Part 1. What is the story behind my @misscosmopolita_swim brand? How did I come up with the idea of bikini-transformer? . Originally there was a spark. Something I ciuldn't really comprehend. It was during our travels in Barcelona. @ivan_aus and I were walking and thinking about what to do with our lives. . . I had to describe to him the idea, but it was so vague. I couldn't figure it out. . Then, it came back to me again during my dream. I couldn't sleep that night. I was thinking about designs, colours, shapes, the messages, slogans. . . I couldn't wait for Ivan to wake up! I soo wanted to tell him what I came up with!! I had a vivid plan!! . to be continued...

A post shared by INNA. BIKINI-TRANSFORMER (@misscosmopolita) on Aug 19, 2019 at 9:48pm PDT

There’s Nat.  Nat was a personal injuries lawyer.  She threw it in to move to London and become a flight attendant (her picture settings don't let me share any here, which is a shame).  You can’t help but love her rebellion against the ordinary life, and it challenges the rest of us to ask: are we living our own best life?

Then there’s Nikki.  Nikki is a devout Christian who lives her faith with a passion and generosity that couldn’t help but draw people.    I can’t think of a better way of evangelising.  What was it St Francis supposedly said? “Preach all the time; if necessary”, use words” (again, no images I'm afraid).

Me? Long time readers will know that I’m pretty sure what I’m doing now is my vocation.  I don’t think I could be anything but an injury lawyer: this is what I was called to be, at least in this season of my life.  Being anything else would be a lie and a cheat.  I hope - very much - that I can emulate the drive that my friends have.

Are you living with passion?  Are you doing what you were called to do? 

Turn your mind to it. Life shouldn’t be lived in third-gear.