Category Archives: domesticity

So spoketh The Squeeze. All that talk about being an AV queen and setting up the electrics… what rot. The upshot: basically, I got real bored and wandered off to chip the paint off the door latches so they’d close properly. Truly. Well, I only did two doors before The Squeeze said (rather pathetically) “that was the one job I really wanted to do.” I did text him today to see if it was ok for me to do the electrics and he was cool with that. But the door latch chipping? Not to be shared.
So the television, he has electrics. More importantly, the airtunes is now G-O. So I have Leadbelly on, starting with my favourite song, ‘4,5 and 9’. My version has Willie the Lion Smith. It reminds me of… oh, I don’t know, one of those modern 60s artists like… Bob Dylan. Anyways, it’s a great song. I like it.
For the past couple of nights I’ve been in bed by this time. Tonight I am on the couch, making sweet, sweet internet. The Squeeze is off in another part of the house doing something rattley. There’s a large, loud plane labouring overhead, on it’s way to Marrickville and then the airport. I have cleverly covered up the second loungeroom powerpoint with a full (and very large) bookcase, so I’m getting lappy power from a too-tight cord, stretched from behind the afore mentioned telly to the couch. The coffee table is just a bit too far away to comfortably rest my feet. I feel I might have grown new heel bones. If Mz Tartan has new bones disease, so do I. But obviously a more exotic, northern strain affecting the nether extremities. I wish I knew where the sitting room cushions were so I could ease my discomfort. Meanwhile I have to balance the lappy way down on my legs, so my arms are stretched waaaay out.
There are many, many cafes in Summer Hill. But no hardware store. This is a Wrong Thing, and perhaps a sad indication of Worse To Come. To whit*, I have seen only one fabric store in this big city, and that was in Marrickville. Apparently Marrickville is the place to be. Like Footscray, but with hills and no trams. There’s a dearth of trams in this town, and I feel the lack. The roads are disturbingly narrow and tend to twist and turn a bit too much. What have they got to hide? I like a long, straight road that tapers off in the distance.
We have not had telly since we moved in, and haven’t missed it. What with all that going to bed early. But now we do. The Squeeze is in another room and doesn’t seem to have missed it. I’d rathe listen to Leadbelly yelling incoherently about someone’s momma. The internet, though, she has destroyed our after dinner conversation deader than ever telly could. It requires greater attention.
Another important thing before I sign off: I own three dining tables. One is a large chunk of pale pine that I took from the Parents in Brisbane and had dropped off to me in Melbourne on their way through to Hobart. I sanded it back. It’s large, hard and heavy, and you can stick it full of pins when you’re sewing. Earlier this year The Squeeze inherited a couple of dining tables from his grandfather, as selected by me (tables, not grandfather – though I would have selected him. He was ace). One is silky oak. One is… well, I’m not sure, but I’m suspecting some other sort of oak. Both are covered in a nasty dark varnish – the sort I’ve sanded away from many other pieces of hidden, beautiful native woods. I haven’t managed to sand either of these tables, though. Not in six months. But when we moved into this house, the removalists and I had a little discussion about the three dining tables, and where I should put them. Or have them put (they were doing the putting – I had the greater responsibilities of Directing Putting and Crossing Off Items on the master list). I decided to put the larger grandfather table in the (lovely black and white tiled floor) kitchen. It looks sweeeeeet.
Anyways, the other two are now in our not-very-secure garage (along with the bikes – cross your fingers and knock on wood for their safety, friends), waiting for me to make a Decision about them. I am considering making over part of a bedroom for a sewing room. That will require a table. But I’m not sure it’s worth it, seeing as how you can only buy your clothes ready made in this town.
…another note: when I’m at my most active, lifestyle wise, I have no time to sew, but run out of clothes as I get skinnier. When I’m at my least active, I have plenty of time to sew, but bemoan the expanding girth requiring new widths and elasticated waist lines.
*This is the first time I’ve used this expression. I am pretending it’s proper talk.

The best part of moving in is unpacking the backpack you’ve been living out of for a month. Opening drawers is a far better way of accessing your clothes than unzipping pockets.
The next best thing about moving in is finally being able to do a few loads of laundry and then letting it sit out on the line in the sun all day.
Another very nice thing about moving in is reminding yourself that you can a) reassemble Ikea furniture, and b) assemble complicated home audio-video set ups all on your own. With judicious use of Tshirts for moving large, heavy thing and walks to the cafe for recuperative afternoon teas.
I have also been struck by the kindness of people. Not just strangers, but all sorts of people. Before we left Melbourne (which, I should note, we did only last week, only three weeks after our decision to follow The Squeeze’s job offer north to the land of winter-days-that-feel-like-Melbourne-spring) I had a series of emails from friends (and strangers) offering to do me favours – hook me up with work, hook me up with DJing gigs, help me find a place to live, host us while we looked for a house of our own, etc etc etc. These people have all been so wonderful – there’ve literally been dozens coming out of the woodwork, offering advice on transitional accommodation, teaching gigs, new town tidbits (where to live? Where to dance? Where to shop?) and even just dropping a line or calling or emailing or just stopping by to say ‘welcome!’
At this rate Sydney is going to win friendliest city. I’d remembered it being a bit faster and ruder than Brisbane or Melbourne, but it’s actually still Australian-type friendly – just faster. The real estate agents have been polite and helpful (!!! no wai! WAI!!1!1!), there are Brunswick type people (Malta, Greece and Italy were all well represented this week – Charlie, Nick and Maria, respectively), though there wasn’t quite enough interest from passers by in the removals truck on Tuesday. If this was Brunswick at least half a dozen little men would have wandered out to have a stare and to offer advice. I guess it was the rain kept them away.
I have spent the last three days unpacking like mad – kitchen first, followed by books. Mostly to clear away the book box ramparts keeping us from the couch, our beds and making dinner. Today I have reassembled a desk, a bed and a stereo cabinet. Yesterday I built five book cases. On the first day I was so tired when The Squeeze came home from work (he had to start straight away, or he’d be here carrying heavy things) I could only lie pathetically on the couch while he made dinner in our lovely new kitchen. Then I went to ‘just have a lie down’ at about 7.30, before ending up passing out – dead to the world – about an hour later. But last night I was able to stay up til at least 9.30! Partly because the internet was finally unpacked and reassembled. I think it’s an Ikea product – took an inordinate amount of screwing about.
Speaking of which, because we found a house on the first day looking (true! direct from the airport and everything!), we were able to use our hire car to do some Large Object Shopping. We’d been staying with a variety of friends and family of friends during that week (a big shout out to the Frase’s Ps and to my Ps’ buddies), so had visited no fewer than four different shopping centers. In part because the outer suburbs don’t seem to have strip shopping here (just malls). But also because we ended up going to a (blurgh) Ikea to buy a new cupboard. It was crowded and just as horrible as usual – we didn’t enjoy it one bit. Though I did see a rug I quite fancy (could be Strib, though it wasn’t as brightly coloured as that one in the picture… could be Gedser), we didn’t find a cupboard (though I guess wardrobe is a more accurate term) and we didn’t buy one single thing. Luckily we’d been to a Big W just the day before (at the far superior… Burwood? shopping centre – we recommend that centre. It had a wall of windows to the outside world in the food court, and you could see a pretty sandstone shrine while you ate your fairly decent salad), so we didn’t end up buying a rubbish bin or a broom or a stupid animal-shaped dustpan and brush from Ikea. Instead we bought ordinary, dull as dishwater ones from Big W. But it was useful having a car for a week while we looked at houses. It was easier to get around (especially when it rained), we could buy those Large Objects – jumbo sized laundry detergent and bottles of juice, brooms, etc and it gave us a quicker way to explore a large city.
Overall, we Approve of Sydney. It is, unfortunately, a bit hilly and the streets are a bit narrow for bikes. They have hardly any bike lanes, and the few bike riders we have seen seem a bit dumb – they don’t drive too safe. The car drivers are utterly clueless when it comes to driving safely with bikes, and we suspect there’ll be less biking in our future… though I hope not. The Squeeze likes to commute by bike and I like the independence and freeness of it.
Remind me to post photos – our house is sweet. I am especially in love with our kitchen and bathroom – new! Cleanable! Sweet!

Now that most of our stuff is packed up there’s not much crafting to be done. No pop up tools. No sewing machines. No yarn. Just me, the telly, all the Buffy and Angel DVDs and the heater. I could say that I’m bored… but that would be… ungrateful? Anyhoo, I’m looking forward to dinner: ma por tofu. The Squeeze is the best ma por tofu maker ever. He’s always been a really big fan of that particular dish, and now I love it too. It’s comfort food. Yummy, delicious, glutinous comfort food.
In other news, it is pretty good to have the house stuff under control. Packing is right on track. The garden is still kind of trashed – it’s steadily being worked on, but the weather is a bit off-putting. The cleaning looms, of course – five years worth of occupancy is going to take a little more cleaning than I’m used to. But it’s a good thing we’re tough.
–Aside: Doesn’t Buffy whine and whinge and speech and bore and whine and annoy and whinge and … oh, man, will she ever shut up? Season 7 is just one long, boring, annoying bitch fest. Harden up, Buffy! Good thing Angel brings it a little more in the parallel season…–
Is The Squeeze ever coming home? All that ma por tofu talk is making me HUNGRY!
I don’t think I have anything more to say, really. So I might as well carry on with the annoying Buffy rubbish.

There is a large, mostly black tom cat who lives in our neighbourhood. He is coloured exactly the same way as Silvester. He’s large, he’s slinky and he’s kind of a doofus. Every day, from my desk, I see him making the rounds of the neighbourhood. I’m at my desk, not him. He’s slinking under cars, pouring himself over fences and swaggering up to passing nannas for a quick pat. He has white whiskers and is large.

This afternoon The Squeeze arrived home with his backpack chock-full of groceries. “There’re joobs in there”
“Cool!”
And then I scampered into the kitchen to find the joobs.
“There aren’t really joobs.”
“WHAT?!”
“I just said that to get you to unpack the groceries.”
Curses.

Argh. These allergies are killing me. Snot everywhere, sinuses aching, dizzy and confused, itching all over, shaky, sneezing, coughing… Is it the weather (I’ve been taking antihistamines every day for ages, so surely it’s not that?), or is it the semi-annual going-through of boxes of old crap that are drowning in dust? Argh. I’m not tough enough for this.

It’s 16 degrees and I know it’s winter because the papers are steaming as they come out of the printer.

I’ve just carried a very heavy, three-shelf shelf-thingy. Sort of 50s style, where each layer of shelves is a bit shorter than the one below.
It’s white, but solid wood underneath – I will liberate it.
I saw it on the side of the road, on Victoria Street as I was going down to the butcher. I had a good squizz, couldn’t see anyone, and legged it, giant, heavy (solid wood) shelf over my shoulder. In the butcher I asked if anyone knew who owned it (or the four nice red-seat, black-leg 50s chairs it was standing with). No one did. I decided it was ok to take it, if I was quick.
After buying some stuff, I nipped across the road to the bus stop and spent 5 sort of worried minutes waiting for a bus. Thank goddess it was the 508 – they lower themselves to let old people and people carrying shelves climb up.
Then I carried it home. A ten minute walk extended. It’s a good thing I’m very strong and with a low, wide centre of gravity. I’d like to think I’m terribly badass, but I’m not sure taking abandoned furniture qualifies me.

Right now it’s 2am and The Squeeze and I are sitting on the bed in the front room peeking through the blinds at about 3 thousands cops. Periodically a bloke on a megaphone asks ‘Paisley’ (Painsley? Ainsley?) and ‘Joseph’ at number 4 to come out the front door, down the path to the front gate with their hands up, where the police will give them more instructions. Apparently, this is the police, and they want to talk to them about a police matter. The house is surrounded. They will not be harmed.
Like I said, there are about 3 thousand police all over the intersection outside our house. But it’s quiet, except for every other dog in the neighbourhood barking and then not barking and then barking again. Every now and then the police give instructions and a car siren goes off. I hear a couple of bangs that I imagine are gun shots (as if I’d know what a gun shot sounded like), but are probably people throwing things around.
It’s a quiet Brunswick area, and while we have quite a few households of noisy teenagers in our street, there are far fewer problems in this area than others I’ve lived in. I’ve never had to call the police, not even for late night noise. My family used to live in a now-very-swish part of Brisvegas next to a boarding house with a few blokes who really scared me. We called the cops nearly every weekend because they were fighting and scary. I’ve lived in quiet suburban areas where I’ve called the cops while a frightened woman hid in our loungeroom from her abusive partner. When we lived in Fiji our house was broken into and we were scared quite a bit at night, until we left, and then there was a coup.
But this isn’t a noisy area. Which is kind of the point, I guess.
So there are all these cops on the street. The Squeeze went out a little while ago to have a sticky beak and was asked to return to the house. It’s kind of bizarre. We made jokes about the Victorian police and the promise that no one would be hurt. But they’re all out there now, very serious and square-shaped, and it doesn’t really seem all that funny any more. I have put on clothes, just in case. I’m not sure what the in case will be, but I want to be ready.