Fill in the blank: This _______________ !

BLOWS, of course! (for no particular reason)
The monsoons are crazy today.  I just caught myself staring out the window watching the rain... for 15 minutes! I had to go out and rescue my plants because I was afraid they might drown.  My mini garden is doing pretty well, at least plants seem to like Darwin, lol.  Shit grows really fast here!  Except my parsley seeds, they aren't doing anything.  But tomatoes, peppers, and basil are coming along nicely.  BTW, they call bell peppers capsicum here.  Isn't that fucking annoying?

Things have been really low key lately, so I don't have too many strange Darwin stories, unfortunately.  I have been doing a ton of cooking, mostly of the Asian variety.  Perhaps I was inspired by the year of the dragon.  Last week alone, I made shabu shabu with my own hot pot and all, dim sims, thai spring rolls (fried), vietnamese sping rolls (fresh), samosas, and naan.  Everything came out quite nice except the dim sims, I think I might have to acquire a bamboo steamer to get that just right.  But even the cooking fun has to stop because lil chunkaaa is on a lil diet!

With my samosas, so proud!

Throw another naan on the barbie!

I want to post some pics from the trip, but I am so over facebook lately and there are way too many to post on here.  Maybe I am a hater, but I am so sick of status updates no one cares about!  I want to go back to myspace where if I want to know what you're up to, I will click on your page.  The worst is people who put up pics of just themselves with captions that say stupid shit like "new eyeshadow" and then 10 people comment "you are so pretty." STFU!  HATER IN DA HOUSE!  hahaha, I need a life.  

Anyway here are a few pics

Obvs that is me on the ferry in Sydney Harbor, New Years Day.

Very happy with my purchase at a vineyard in Hunter Valley, Fiesta is also featured. 

Just kayaked a long ass way to some island.  Dancing to show my joy that there are Coronas in that cooler.

This is Whitehaven beach, one of the top 5 most beautiful beaches in the world.  

No, I am not wearing a wet suit but a "stinger suit!"  Hahaha, there are so many jelly fish in the waters around the Great Barrier Reef you have to wear this dumb ass thing to swim.  Obvs I make it look good!

Every 500 miles or so, we would stumble upon some weird town when driving across the outback.  Apparently dinosaur bones have been found near this town!

K-Fed has a job

Seriously, I want to get fat and then have people pay me to lose weight.  This is the dream job!  You get to mow down and then you get paid to do flashy workouts on tv, like pull a plane.  Anyway, that seems to be K-Fed's career.  This is a smart man!  After apparently exhausting all the VH-1 shows, he has a new show coming out here called Excess Baggage.  I don't really think I need to explain too much -- normal people losing weight with a fat celebrity partner.  I think he is the only one who is not an Aussie celeb.  The show hasn't started yet, but there were a ton of news reports last week that he had to be rushed to the hospital during filming.  He was showing signs of cardiac arrest while doing an "intense workout in the outback."  Ughhh.  Why can't this be me?  Kidding of course, but seriously...  why does he have a job?

la cucaracha

That means "the cockroach" in Spanish :-P

As requested, here is the giant cockroach pic.  Unfortunately, I wasnt about to place a familiar object next to it to show its size to scale.  But look at those antennas!  Fuckin thing is enormous!

Ants update:  Ants are back, but they are weird.  They are not really in the kitchen, although if you leave something out, they come around almost immediately.  Have I finally ant-proofed the kitchen?  Doubtful.

Douche Pool

The apartment complex I live in is called Michie Court.  Things are very bad in the Michie Court in 2012.  It's a pretty big group of apartments, there are 5 buildings with 16  3-bedroom apartments in them each, so that's however many -  a lot, I am not going to do the math.  Anyway, for that many apartments, I was always pretty surprised at how quiet the complex was.  There are 3 pools in the complex, one right outside my patio, and they were always empty -- leading me to consider the close pool my own, even had my pool toys out there.  Also very enjoyable was the lack of children in the complex, there were no kids!

Well, we come back 2 weeks ago and things have changed -- drastically.  There were quite a few empty units before Christmas, and it seems ALL of them are now occupied.  The first week, I noticed the influx of kids.  Kids in the pools, all the time!  And you know what kids do in a pool, they pee in it.  Plus you can't exactly bring your icy cold beverage into the pool with you when there are 20 kids splashing around -- not very relaxing.  Of course I'm pissed at this point.  I had no idea what the next week would bring...

Thursday was Australia Day.  I am not exactly sure what Australia Day is, but I am assuming it's the same as the 4th of July-- you celebrate with a BBQ and lots of drinking.  This is when we noticed how many douches had moved into the Michie Court.  The night before, they were terrorizing the 3rd pool til all hours of the night.  Jason and I spent a lot of the night being thankful they weren't in our pool and saying things to make each other feel better.  "They all live in the other buildings, they will only use the 3rd pool."  "There's no way they all live here, they are probably just having people over for Australia Day." "I'm sure it's just because they just moved in..."  Australia Day was pretty low key for us, we just planned hanging around the pool and cooking on "the barbie."  We went swimming in the afternoon and douches were back in 3rd pool.  Again, I was in denial.  "Oh look, maybe they will only go in that pool.  Maybe our's is like the kids pool now and they will stay over there."  Jason agreed,  "I would rather have kids pool than douche pool."  It's amazing how last week I was so pissed about the kids and now I am wanting them back!

Like I said, the balcony of our first floor apartment is VERY close to the 2nd pool.  I would say, it's about 4 feet from the edge of our balcony to the edge of the pool.  The terrorizing started the evening of Australia Day. Food is fresh off the barbie, ready to eat and really hungry.  I take my first bite and then say oh shit.  Incoming to the pool, douches with beers.  There were only a few so I didn't care too much, until they started talking to us!  Why don't you guys come swimming, come on, come in the pool, blah blah on and on...hammered.  I'm thinking fuck off, I just want to eat!  Now I am feeling less confident, maybe they DO like this pool... Well nothing prepared me for Saturday!

Saturday, there was a full blown pool party -- in 2nd pool, right outside my door!  It was like a frat party, but with army guys...and it started at noon!  At first there were about 7 dudes and one girl.  I am thinking this is a bad sign, 7 dudes, 3 coolers or beer.  The one girl must have called her bitches, because next thing a bunch of chicks roll in.  Then some more dudes, more coolers, bottles of wine, oh and big ass speakers blasting NICKELBACK and DISTURBED!  Seriously, I am not making this up!  They got pizza delivery to the pool, about 15 pizzas!  Now I would like to add, there is no furniture at the pool, not one lounge chair, so everyone is sitting on the floor -- 25 people!  Well, it's Darwin, so it has to eventually rain.  About 5 hours into the party, 5 hours of Nickelback jams, it pours down.  They don't care!  Some are hiding in the bathroom, but most are just still out there!  And the Disturbed is still pumping!  OMFG!  FINALLY, someone called the police, but they told them first (rude!) so they had dispersed before the cops got here.

So, this blows.  The peace and quiet of Michie Court is long gone.  I wouldn't mind so much, if our place wasn't directly next to the pool -- we can't even have the blinds open because you can see in!  You might be thinking, well you're the dumbass that picked that place, but really we didn't get to pick what unit we got.  We knew the building, but didn't get to know what unit we were getting until move in day.  Jason is plotting how to keep the pool douche free, driving me crazy.  His "douche repellent" involves blasting Lovin' You by Minnie Riperton on repeat from our balcony.  For some reason, he insists on testing the annoyance factor of the song by playing it on repeat in the house.  "It's so annoying, right?  They will hate this!" YES, IT'S ANNOYING, NOW STOP!!  Now he has starting mixing in that scene from Dumb and Dumber when Llloyd makes the most annoying sound in the world. "Listen, I made it even worse!"  AHHHHHH!

 Jason is like paparazzi.  This photo was taken from inside our living room, that's how close we are! 

 That railing is our balcony :(

Our view...like I said, no furniture!  Unfortunately, it wasn't possible to get the area to the right, where most people were congregating.  

Just in case you don't recognize the song and how annoying it is, here's the video.  

Still better than Nickelback!

Cinnamon the slut

When I was planning the trip to Sydney, I knew I really, really wanted to go to the Taronga Zoo.  The zoo is close to the Circular Quay and over looks the Opera House, Harbor Bridge, etc.  You get there by ferry and the view is supposed to be amazing.  A few days before going, I checked out the website to plan my route -- we only had a half day to spend at the zoo and I wanted to make sure I saw everything.  Moreover, I wanted to ensure that I got to take a pic with a koala bear.  Well first off, I was disappointed they don't have panda or polar bears.  They do have "red pandas," which look more like a raccoon.  I guess it's understandable, I read on national geographic that hosting a panda costs zoos over $2.6 million a year, yikes!  Seriously, wtf are they doing to these pandas??  And I already saw pandas at San Diego Zoo, but still I was bummed.

Anyway, while doing my koala photo research, I saw that in other states, like Queensland, you can actually "cuddle a koala," meaning you are holding the koala in the pic!  OMG!  However, they have outlawed it in New South Wales, so no cuddling at the Sydney Zoo.  Apparently all the "cuddling" can be stressful for the little guys.  I think having your picture taken with weirdos all day would be just as stressful.  In the end, we ended up skipping the zoo altogether.  It was New Years when we were in Sydney, the crowds were out of control, and there were signs on the highway that the zoo was a madhouse and you couldn't even park there.  I will def attempt the zoo again, when it's not school vacation.

I did get a chance to see koalas at Dreamworld on the Gold Coast though and I met Shelby and Cinnamon.  Poor little Shelby had to get touched by like 20 kids in the koala show.  After reading about the stressed out koalas, I was apprehensive about the cuddling.  I expressed my concerns to the caretakers, and they insisted the bears weren't stressed (of course they did...)  In the end I couldn't resist, I wanted to hold one so bad!  I paid $25 and got to hold one-year old Cinnamon.

Here we are with Cinnamon.  She is less happy than I am.  

And the pic is ghetto, I don't have a scanner, so it's a pic of a pic.  

Shelby at the koala show.

I still feel a little guilty about harassing poor little Cinnamon.  Poor girl is whoring herself out for $25 a cuddle. I mean her name is Cinnamon, could you get a sluttier name than that? They said it was because she was "so sweet."  I can't help but think of world famous\polar bear Knut of the Berlin Zoo circa 2006. I was obsessed with Knut - you might remember - and was so sad to hear all the personality disorders he developed.  Knut passed in 2011 after drowning from a seizure.  RIP Knut :(

Baby "Knut the Cute" being harassed by tourists.

In Darwin news, ants are not back, but there was a GIANT COCKROACH yesterday.  I almost had 5 heart attacks!  I took a pic, but have already been advised it's too gross to post.  Ughhhhh.

Good on ya!

So I am back in Darwin after being away almost exactly one month "on holiday."  I had a great time exploring Australia.  We spent Christmas with Jason's family in Canberra, New Year's in Sydney, and then drove up the coast in the Fiesta, spending the most time in wine country in New South Wales (obvs, it's me -- I love wine), Surfer's Paradise, and the Whitsunday Islands (Great Barrier Reef).  Then we booked it for 2 days driving nonstop across the Outback and arrived in Darwin exhausted and actually happy to stay put!  I never thought I would be so happy to see my Darwin apartment!  The trip was amazing, but details/photos will have to wait.  There are pressing Darwin issues to share.

First off and most importantly, the ANTS.   As I previously mentioned, I was so nervous to come home and see that ants had conquered the apartment while I was away.  Well, they have managed to baffle me yet again...  in the 24 hours I have been home, NOT ONE SINGLE ANT!  How could this be?  I found some dead ones in the shower and a few dead ones in the kitchen, but barely noticeable - I was moving things around looking for them.  My mind is blown.  The only thing I can fathom is that management did some type of extermination to the outside grounds (my extensive research has led me to believe the ants nest outside) and killed the ants!  It is such a relief, but I am still suspicious.  Is there something I don't know??  Where are the ants???

Secondly, it is still hot as hell in Darwin.  Being down south was such a nice break from the monotonous heat and humidity.  Well nothing packs on the lbs like a one-month Christmas road trip, so it was back to running for me this AM.  Despite trying to keep up my fitness while traveling, this morning's run kicked my fucking ass.  It was the worst ever.  I am heavier than when I was running before and I noticed it in every step.  I know it sounds ridiculous, and it is only a few pounds, but I felt like I was trying to move twice my body weight.  To sum it up, when I walked through the door, Jason asked me if I was crying -- and I was!  It was before 9am and it was fucking hot, humid, and the tv later in the day said the UV index was 15.  I felt like I was cooking!  Tomorrow I am going hat shopping, as if a hat is going to keep the sun off me.

Lastly, peeps here are freaking out because there's a drought!  It hasn't rained for 10 days -- that hasn't happened in January since 1942!  No rain is making it even hotter and more humid than normal.  I have lost one plant to the terrible drought - seeing that I don't know anyone, there was no one to look after my plants while I was gone.  I left them in the sun and assumed the rain would take care of the watering.  Well, one is fried.  Will post a pic soon, I cut it down and am trying to revive it.

Happy New Year everyone! :)  Will post soon with trip details.  Oh, and I have picked up a new saying.  Everyone here says "good on ya."  I think it means good for you or good job, but I don't really care what its meaning is, I use it for all situations.