Around The World In Six Hours

21 and 22 September – Had committed being back to Australia by this day and I made it with weeks to spare.  Some people are easy to please (albeit expensive but easy).  An international evening - Japanese food, French champagne, German chocolate and Slovakian sweetmeats – how can you go wrong?  Well, you can get it wrong in one way but am sure that will not cause too much issue.
Once again, far too soon after the last one, I found myself again playing real world Tetris on Moving Day – a lack of liquidity in the moving karma pool meant it was just me and AJ for the lion’s share of the move – crack of dawn pickup and out to Annandale for a Balmain truck then Gordon where I liberated some but not all possessions, Meadowbank where I had to repossess refrigerator and couches (felt a small pang of guilt at forcing Toby and Madoka to consume their reserves of frozen party pies, ice cream and yoghurt) then to Redfern to cut remaining ties with one particular individual (hoo-f**king-rah) where we were intercepted by Ade who was very disappointed at our spatial awareness and he let us know by moving one of my bookshelves into the fourth dimension in order to allow it to fit into the truck.  Back to Woollahra where we unloaded then returned truck, returned me, returned AJ to family life so he could go deliver his second born child.  Great thing about Moving Day is that unpacking boxes can reveal lots of things that were once lost – pictures of my lost friend Dave brought a tear to my eye, pictures of me brought a cringe to my heart and dad’s old Porsche sunglasses made me regret I was no longer a messenger.  Took delivery of the bed in latter half of the afternoon – did not envy those delivery guys but at least they didn’t have to take it to any of the previous places I’ve had to live in (ground floor living does have its advantages) and then set myself up for hours of grown up Meccano play.  The wonders of Ikea design are not in the appearance of their products (which can actually be very nice – at least for the first few years of the items life) but the intricacies of how they can convert a real world item to a bunch of disparate flat pack components – the infamous construction instructions and lack of a proper screwdriver meant assembly wasn’t as rapid as I’d hoped but did the majority of it without too much frustration.  Eventually decided that enough was enough and made my way out Surry Hills way for a surprise party for someone I barely know – a rather lunch social group of predominantly mono-ethnic demographic I’ve had some involvement with in the past – I’m not sure but I think most of their parties (of which there are plenty I’m presuming) are all pretty much the same thing – same people, same music, same vibe just with different venues.  Still, had a time although I drank too much.  I drank way too much.