Rainbows and Running

• So I'm not gonna lie, it's been raining a lot here lately. Like buckets. London-style. This goes against everything I was told about Perth winters/general weather and sometimes I feel I have been the victim of a grave injustice. But then rainbows like this appear and Perth starts to redeem herself. But the rainbow doesn't last forever so I better be seeing some sunshine soon!

• In addition to rainbows, another thing that brings me great joy during bouts of biblical rain quantities is food. Especially food that I have had a roll in preparing. This might be ridiculous but seeing your food from start to finish feels oddly fresh and dare I say healthy(-er)? Oh except when there's a copious amount of creme freche as in the case of my recent work "team-building" day to an executive cooking class. We made gnocchi, saffron chicken sauce, jamon serrano salad & a pear tart. From scratch. And then we ate it. Love. My. Job.

• Unlike food, running pains me. You know those people who say "Oh running clears my head." "It's like my personal meditation time." I hate those people. Running for me is like forcing a turtle to walk over hot coals: it doesn't want to do it. It can't really do it. But it must. So when given the option of running a marathon, a half-marathon, a 12K or a 4K, I naturally chose the 4K. I am, after all, an athlete. Thankfully, Bob and I share this begrudging attitude toward running so he joined me. Hearts of champions. Speed of turtles.

Freebies

• I love them. I have been known to put my email address on questionable lists just to get a free tote or water bottle. I'm still getting creepy Tea Party emails because of this. (Damn you CPAC) But one major plus of living in both London & now Perth is the presence of magazine freebies. In the US you have to mail away or enter online giveaways for the free stuff.  Oh no. Not in Pahth (Perth said with an Aussie accent...) Here you can purchase an In Style for $5 (albeit with a random Australian 'celebrity' on the cover) and walk away with a collection of John Frieda travel-size goodies. For free. Hog. Freaking. Heaven.

• So I've mentioned how people are exceedingly nice down undah. As some might have guessed, observations on this blog are not always truthtruth, mainly just Katietruth. But I can assure you that one real truthtruth is that people are freaking friendly. Just happy folk in general. One such example is on the bus: when people get off they say "thank you" to the bus driver. I mean everyone does this without fail. Even when it's raining and he's just dropped you in the middle of a gutter puddle, you say "Thank you!" or "Cheers!" Don't get me wrong, people in DC occasionally do this too (mainly my wee Tiffany Ann) but here it's everywhere. Happiness can exist on public transportation, who'da thought?

• Anyone who liked the US version of "The Killing" I highly recommend you watch the original Danish version. It has a funky Danish name but the translation is still called "The Killing" (shocker). I can proudly say I (mostly) stayed awake during evening viewings of the first season. Anyone who has experienced me at night knows that fact alone is a huge endorsement of the series. Also I can confidently say the series would have been a Scott Tillson favorite. He probably would have learned Danish by reading the subtitles and then attempted to correct native Danes on their pronunciation. This would have surprised no one.

• One element of our movie/tv evenings last week was a surprise bottle of bubbly courtesy of Bob's dad, Dietmar. Between Dietmar's midweek champagne and Ingrid's dinners/breakfasts/freshjuices, our resolve to buy our own place is slowly dwindling. 

• But, not to worry, we have more inspections (aka Aussie open houses) this weekend! In fact, I think I'm a little bit addicted to searching on real estate websites. I even have an app on my phone. Emily "FranFran" Hueber warned me about this addiction because she just casually bought a house herself (yes my friends are way more financially responsible than moi). As per FranFran's suggestion I have promised not to get overly excited about any one property until the keys are in our grubby little hands. Easier said than done, FranFran, but I will keep all readers (aka Pat Tillson) posted on our progress. Here's to years of yard work and paying for our own house repairs!

Carcs are a Thing

• You read that right: Australians love their car-trucks. They even have their own name for them: the ute, pronounced 'yoot'. Hideous name for a hideous vehicle, I know. At first I thought it was like a joke thing, like our version of the carc and only seen in older models, like the El Camino. But no, not in Oz. Here people pay >$30K for them and supe them up and drive them--with pride! Add it to the list of 'Things I Will Never Support'

• One thing I do support, however, is left hand driving. This mainly because I am amazing at it. Bob actually lets me drive him around now. He says it's emasculating but I say I make him look good. He also secretly knows I'm the better driver now. I handle those round-abouts like a pro.

• Also his dog loves me more now. The Beast (formerly known as Texas) has a clear preference for me and follows me on walks instead of Bob. This is probably a little heartbreaking for Bob so I try not to brag about it. Except publicly on my blog.

• This past week, my work had an all-day strategy/training session at an office in the CBD (Central Business District--'downtown' is not used--weird, I know). The office space was donated by one of our corporate partners and we were really grateful to get out of our nice-but-obvious-you-work-for-a-charity space. And boy, do those large banks/financial institutions/oil and gas companies know how to do it. No one has a permanent desk, you can bring your computer anywhere on the floor and reserve a little pod for working/meetings/napping. They have free coffee and snacks throughout and an abundance of well-manicured outdoor space, including giant potted plants. While it was nice to go back to my personalized desk pictures and notebooks the next day, sure did miss the free coffee and views of the CBD.

(Yes, this picture is horrible. iPhone wins some, iPhone loses some.)