Surprise Date

For my birthday Gavin gave me the Bob Evans CD Suburban Songbook. He had heard one of the songs on the radio and thought I would like it. He knows me too well. I love the CD. Last night as a surprise he took me to see Bob Evans at the Metro Theatre. The opening acts were Faryll Perkiss and Machine Translations. They were quite enjoyable. Bob Evans put on a great show. He sounded great and was very entertaining. Even Gavin thought it was a good show and when it comes to music we don't usually agree. I think I got myself a pretty great guy.

Mystery Box

Aus Museum-FunnelWeb
Originally uploaded by ami_arsenault

What is only 2" long and is so dangerous it has to be kept locked in a box within a box with a large red "Danger" sign? ...the funnel-web spider, of course. The one in this box makes his home at the Australia Museum. These are considered one of the most dangerous spiders in the world and they live in my backyard. I haven't had the "pleasure" of meeting one yet and I am hoping I never do.

Ami's Big Day in the City.

HydePark-Turtle2
Originally uploaded by ami_arsenault

Earlier this week I headed into Sydney to have a look around. I headed first to Hyde Park to have a look around and wait for the museums to open. Hyde park is a lovely place for a walk and a great place for people watching.

At 10am I headed to the Australia Museum. It is basically a natural history museum. Admission is $10. The exhibits are old school (lots of things piled in display cases) and not particularly exciting or informative. Though I did learn that more than 80% of Australia's plants and amimals are unique to Australia. With a statistic like that this museum should be much more interesting.

After lunch I walked to the Art Gallery of New South Wales. It has free admission. I had museum fatigue by the time I got there and so did not really take much in. It is free so I can go back.

By the time I left the gallery it was time to try to find my way across the harbour to Milson's point to meet Gavin. This took me through the Royal Botanic Gardens. Very beautiful (and also free). Upon exiting the gardens the easiest thing would have been to take a train across the Harbour Bridge. I thought it might be nice to walk across the bridge. It was about 4pm when I started looking for the way to walk across (I had been on my feet since 8am). After taking several wrong paths I was on my way at 4:45. It is a lovely view from the bridge and a nice walk.

All in all in was a nice day in the city. After all that walking I went home and slept like a baby.

Moth Writings

Scribbly Gum Bark3
Originally uploaded by ami_arsenault.

I have always liked to draw. Perhaps that is why I love the Scribbly Gum so much. It has all these "scribbles" over the bark. They are not just the natural pattern of the bark but the tunnels of the Scribbly Gum moth. It really does look like someone has been scribbling on the tree.

Cockroach Hotel: The Continuing Story

We still have very big cockroaches at our house. We don't see as many as we used to, only about 4 or 5 a week now. I no longer scream for Gavin to kill them. I do that myself. All in all, I feel that for the most part I handle the situation quite well. There is only one thing that still disturbs me about them, when I wake up in the morning to find half of a cockroach (usually the tail end though not always) where there was no cockroach when I went to bed. What the heck happens to the other half?