/karen/

Ebullient

Wednesday, 16 April, 2008

This is the chocolate bunny I won on the Easter long weekend for being the only one in the church who answered all the questions correctly in a True or False? quiz on the resurrection (and, yes, the contestants included two ministers and three Moore College graduates). I think this is the first time I've ever won anything for knowing stuff.

Wednesday 2/4/08

Rose later than intended, then caught the bus and train into work because Ben was putting the car in for a service. I think I was listening to Saturnalia by The Gutter Twins. I got into work by 9:30, then worked for an hour on Faithful Writer stuff. I walked to New College at 10:45 and met with Mark Tredinnick and Trevor Cairney to talk about the conference. It was good to meet Mark—he's a very interesting person and has worn so many different hats throughout the course of his career, it has given him a varied perspective on life. He even signed my copy of The Little Red Writing Book for me.

After the meeting, I caught the bus to Taylor Square. I walked to 118 Campbell St (which was where the Hope Street Markets were held this year) because I wanted to see what it was normally. Turns out it's a restaurant but a very different sort of restaurant: Table for 20 is more like rocking up to have a meal with a bunch of people you've never met before—trying to build community in a postmodern world (the link explains it). I thought it was an interesting concept.

I walked up Oxford St and stopped in Berkelouw to have a look around. I considered having lunch there but I wanted to get up further so I kept walking. One shop had a bargain basket of books out the front and I found a Peter Dickinson novel for $2.

By now, I was pretty hungry. I decided to treat myself to lunch at Micky's (a place Emma R took me to once years and years ago ... she's the one who introduced me to fruit frappes there). I had a delicious chai tea and a haloumi salad—yum! It wasn't cheap but it was worth it because it was so nice and it was just what I felt like that day.

After lunch, I walked further up Oxford St to Palm Beach to look for sandals. Of all the different kinds of shopping that I am forced to do out of necessity, shoe shopping is by far the worst. I always know what I want but have no idea where to find it. (Maybe I haven't done it enough ... I really don't know anything about shoes.) I wanted a pair of sandals to replace my black Colorados which have served me faithfully over the past three years. I remember buying them from my brother-in-law when he used to work for Williams the Shoemen and he got them for me at a discounted price. Since then, I've managed to create the shoe equivalent of the Grand Canyon in the sole, the split running rather uncomfortably just below the ball of my foot. They're good shoes but they're pretty much unwearable now. I needed sandals like that—tough, durable things which are still relatively stylish—and preferably in black.

Unfortunately, Palm Beach, which is where my mum bought me my boots for my birthday last year, was filled with pretty frippy useless excuses for footwear. My refusal to wear heels ruled out two thirds of the merchandise in the shop, and the rest was ugly, impractical or both. There was a nice pair of black thongs (US readers: read “flip flops”) for $20 but I could not bring myself to pay $20 for thongs—especially as the pink thongs I wear around the house sometimes only cost me $10 and have lasted me almost three years (that's just under $3.50 a year—bargain! *Sigh* ... I'm so Asian ...) Speaking of those, they were starting to fall apart too ...

I gave up on Paddington (I knew the rest of the shoe shops there would stock more exorbitant useless stuff) and caught the bus into town. I looked in Centrepoint and then Myer (who, funny enough, were having a shoe sale so the place was swarming with women), the shoe emporium on Pitt St (three levels of shoes and all of them completely unsuitable!), and then Hype where I spotted some Birkenstocks. I remembered that Elsie, Marinka and Mary like Birkenstocks, so I thought I'd try them out. Hype didn't have any in black, but the girl behind the counter said there was a Birkenstock store just up the road. So I headed in that direction (stopping at Dirt Cheap CDs on the way where I got Tori Amos's American Doll Posse). The store was at the back of the little arcade where Rockbottom CDs used to be. The guy serving there was very nice and polite, and he patiently watched me walk around and around in them before I made my up my mind to buy them.

I caught the train home and spent the rest of the afternoon watching taped So You Think You Can Dance?. Ben went to pick up the car but he was told he had to bring it back the following day because they had broken the inside handle on the driver's side. We had leftovers for dinner and spent the evening watching TV, then I curled up in bed with Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor (D.A. Carson) and went to sleep.

Thursday 3/4/08

Because the car had to go back to the mechanic's, I caught the bus and train into work. Unfortunately one of the buttons came off my red velvet coat and lodged itself in the back door of the bus so I could not retrieve it. I should have said something ... oh well.

Work was filled with Briefing stuff and compiling The Daily Reading Bible (Volume 16) (DRB 16). Over lunch, I chatted with Alison (Tony's wife) and got a glimpse into what it's like to bring up teenagers. I was on phones during prayer meeting, then the afternon was filled with more DRB 16 compiling.

Ben came to pick me up but he wasn't feeling too well so I took the wheel. He went off to Julia's 40th while I cooked and spent the evening relaxing—well, blogging talking on the phone with Tim and Liz, cooking and watching two episodes of Buffy.

Friday 4/4/08

I got into work by 7:30 and ate my breakfast there. The day was filled with more Briefing stuff, making Faithful Writer images and finishing the compiling for DRB 16. I had an early lunch and didn't participate in Thai Day Friday because I had to leave early—at 1 pm. I drove to North Sydney and parked on Bridge St near the oval, and walked down to the Centre for Public Christianity to meet with Vaughan and Anne about the C.S. Lewis Today conference. It was good to get to know them in person as before I'd only ever corresponded with them via email.

That meeting didn't take as long as I thought it would, and I went downstairs and had a chai latte in the café. Ben joined me there; he had been in a tax seminar all morning but wasn't feeling well. We walked to the car and I drove us to North Ryde, listening to The Gutter Twins. We were an hour early so we sat in the car and I knitted.

Counselling was frustrating. I drove us home and did computer things for an hour before going to meet Little Rachel in Newtown in front of Moore Books. We had dinner at the Green Gourmet and talked for hours and hours. It was so good to catch up—to be listened to as well as to listen—just the thing you need when you've had such a trying week. We moved to the Ice & Slice for dessert, then Seamus came to pick Little up and I went home.

I tried to read Eddie Campbell's The Fate of the Artist (which Guan gave me for Christmas last year) but kept falling asleep so in the end I put it down and turned off the light.

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