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alias_sqbrOur heroine: a plucky young short disabled girl braving the ice and snow heat to buy a gift for her sick grandfather.
Note: I have vastly paraphrased the dialogue because real life dialogue is long-winded and dull.
Mum told me grandad needed a kneerug. Looking online I found them for SEVENTY DOLLARS but the helpful and friendly people at Baines got me one for $12.50. Saving money always puts me in a good mood, and since I'm not having a super-good health day today I decided to be good and not wander around the shopping centre, instead only popping into the second hand bookstore on the way out. They had two of the romance novels on my recs list(*) which made me even more cheerful.
I wandered to the busstop and there was a seat, huzzah! I sat down feeling tired but happy. I noticed an old man standing up but decided that if he wanted the seat he would have taken it. I started reading my book (Bound by your touch, so far as good as that review makes it sound. I love that "Sensible bluestocking who doesn't put up with anyone's crap" is a whole subgenre of regency romances)
"I saved the chair for you" says the old man to me with a twinkle in his eye.
"Why thankyou, how forward thinking of you" says I.
"I'm twenty you know. You see two plus four is 88! And I feel twenty." (I may have misheard his exact equation)
"Makes sense to me. I certainly sometimes feel like I'm 80."
He was remarkably cheerful and spry, even his shirt was loud and cheerful. He had a thick eastern european/yiddish accent (I'm not good with accents) and what I'm pretty sure was a concentration camp tattoo.
"When I was in the old country they said 'Nick! You are such a joker, you should go to Hollywood!' But I was sitting at the airport and this Australian man says to me "You are going to Hollywood right? Don't bother! Go to Melbourne, it's just as good!'"
He was cool to talk to but I really wasn't feeling up to conversation and when the bus arrived I sat down looking forward to getting back to my book. But as I looked up I realised this was no ordinary bus, I was in a MAGICAL WINTER WONDERLAND. Playing terrible tacky Christmas carols, with a tree and a santa and graffiti scrawled into the fake snow sprayed on the windows.
I got out my phone and took a picture of this marvel.
(I've missed the baubles stuck into the vents all along the roof, and the giant plastic decals on the windows)
"What a great idea!" said the woman behind me "It's it WONDERFUL? And the music is so great too!"
"It's certainly cheerful."
"You can't help but know it's Christmas!"
"No, I can't see anyone getting onto this bus and thinking it's Easter. I hope the bus driver likes Christmas carols."
(One wonders how jewish and other non-christian people feel about it too. But Australians tend not to worry about that very much)
And then I went home, ate some sorbet, spent a while trying to remember how to download images off my phone, and wrote this post. The end.
(*)I realised later that I should probably make a new list of books not in the library system, rather than re-using the one I use to reserve stuff.
Note: I have vastly paraphrased the dialogue because real life dialogue is long-winded and dull.
Mum told me grandad needed a kneerug. Looking online I found them for SEVENTY DOLLARS but the helpful and friendly people at Baines got me one for $12.50. Saving money always puts me in a good mood, and since I'm not having a super-good health day today I decided to be good and not wander around the shopping centre, instead only popping into the second hand bookstore on the way out. They had two of the romance novels on my recs list(*) which made me even more cheerful.
I wandered to the busstop and there was a seat, huzzah! I sat down feeling tired but happy. I noticed an old man standing up but decided that if he wanted the seat he would have taken it. I started reading my book (Bound by your touch, so far as good as that review makes it sound. I love that "Sensible bluestocking who doesn't put up with anyone's crap" is a whole subgenre of regency romances)
"I saved the chair for you" says the old man to me with a twinkle in his eye.
"Why thankyou, how forward thinking of you" says I.
"I'm twenty you know. You see two plus four is 88! And I feel twenty." (I may have misheard his exact equation)
"Makes sense to me. I certainly sometimes feel like I'm 80."
He was remarkably cheerful and spry, even his shirt was loud and cheerful. He had a thick eastern european/yiddish accent (I'm not good with accents) and what I'm pretty sure was a concentration camp tattoo.
"When I was in the old country they said 'Nick! You are such a joker, you should go to Hollywood!' But I was sitting at the airport and this Australian man says to me "You are going to Hollywood right? Don't bother! Go to Melbourne, it's just as good!'"
He was cool to talk to but I really wasn't feeling up to conversation and when the bus arrived I sat down looking forward to getting back to my book. But as I looked up I realised this was no ordinary bus, I was in a MAGICAL WINTER WONDERLAND. Playing terrible tacky Christmas carols, with a tree and a santa and graffiti scrawled into the fake snow sprayed on the windows.
I got out my phone and took a picture of this marvel.
(I've missed the baubles stuck into the vents all along the roof, and the giant plastic decals on the windows)
"What a great idea!" said the woman behind me "It's it WONDERFUL? And the music is so great too!"
"It's certainly cheerful."
"You can't help but know it's Christmas!"
"No, I can't see anyone getting onto this bus and thinking it's Easter. I hope the bus driver likes Christmas carols."
(One wonders how jewish and other non-christian people feel about it too. But Australians tend not to worry about that very much)
And then I went home, ate some sorbet, spent a while trying to remember how to download images off my phone, and wrote this post. The end.
(*)I realised later that I should probably make a new list of books not in the library system, rather than re-using the one I use to reserve stuff.
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no subject
Date: 2009-12-22 05:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-23 05:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-22 07:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-22 10:24 am (UTC)(I agree)
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Date: 2009-12-22 09:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-22 10:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-22 11:46 am (UTC)And here I choked on a Minstrel.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-23 05:56 am (UTC)I must admit I didn't put it quite so pithily at the time.
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Date: 2009-12-22 12:20 pm (UTC)I think the winter imagery is a bit silly though.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-23 06:01 am (UTC)Thanks.
Winter imagery is at least a change from the dry and hot reality, I wonder how affectionate people feel about it all when they're in a blizzard :)
no subject
Date: 2009-12-22 03:41 pm (UTC)This is the best thing.
Well, other than him saving the spot for you. :3
no subject
Date: 2009-12-23 06:01 am (UTC)