Fiascoes and Feeling Like Headless Chook
Yesterday was in my mind, meant to be a nice relaxing Friday day off. But I should have known better. The last time I had my car serviced, I was told that there were about three things wrong with my car that needed urgent attention, but because he didn’t have the parts needed, I would have to bring it back again and get it fixed. He was also going to need to take a big chunk of the engine apart, in order to find out exactly what was wrong (what was causing excessive noise in that part of the engine) in order to be able to fix it the next time. Well, that next time was yesterday, and I was expecting not to have a car to use for the whole weekend, and possibly not even Monday or Tuesday, and that it would cost me a mint.
Getting the car there was the annoying bit. That’s why I always procrastinate booking my car in. It involves waiting until my mother also has a day off, so that she can come with me, and then it involves driving towards the city in horrible early morning peak hour traffic. Yuck. However, when I drove the car into the garage, I was given my first bit of good news for the day. The engine wasn’t as noisy as it was when I left the last time, so maybe he had fixed the problem the last time after all, and the problem had already been flushed out, which meant maybe I would be able to get my car back in the afternoon after all. What a sigh of relief…my day could start on a positive note.
I ended up having a pleasantly long lunch with two of my friends from church in the city, (lamb cutlets – YUM!! =P) even though it was something like 37ºC outside, and the train I was on had very small windows that hardly opened, and had no air conditioning! Inside the train was twice as hot as the outside temperature! The intention was then to go shopping for new swimmers and a wedding present, but then the mechanic rang to tell me the car was ready. Then, there was…
The Last Concert of the Year
The plan for the evening was that Sue and Rick were going to pick me up from home so that we could then drive back out to the Opera House for the last concert of the Metro Series for the year. But then I got a voice message saying that neither of them were feeling well and that they weren’t going to go to the concert after all. So whilst still on the train I frantically began ringing people to see if anyone was free to come to a concert for nothing. It’s so hard to find somebody when everyone you know either has Bible Study on Friday nights or aren’t contactable, or wouldn’t be interested in that sort of concert anyway… I was still ringing people when Mum had picked me up from the station and we were on our way to pick up my car (¾ the way back to the city!).
I finally managed to reach Marjory at work, who agreed to go to the concert with me. I was going to go home first, ‘cos my ticket was at home and I so needed a shower! but there wasn’t time if I was going to meet Marjory for dinner as well. I hate driving to the city, and with good reason too – the traffic heading back into the city on a Friday is shocking, and finding parking always costs a heap. Anyway, after slowly crawling down George St for what felt like a decade, I finally gave up and paid $15 to park at the Sir Stamford on Macquarie St.
Being the last concert of the year, I had suggested to Sue after the last concert that we should go somewhere from the Entertainment Book for dinner, but then since Cynthia ended up in China, and then we weren’t going to have dinner before the concert after all, that plan had gone down the gurgler, until of course, all of a sudden, I was meeting someone before the concert after all. Better still, we ended up using the Entertainment Gold card. We ended up eating at Aqua Luna, on the promenade. Very yum were the risotto and tuna Marjory and I ordered! And, what a bargain – we ended up only paying for one of the meals!
Then there was the concert itself. It started off like it was going to be a great concert – Beethoven’s Triple Concerto and Rachmaninov’s Symphony No. 2. What more could you ask for for a last concert? Too bad the rest of the audience completely ruined it. First, they typically showed how uncultured Sydneysiders show themselves to be when they clap after each movement (when they’re not supposed to). Then, there was the typical coughing and spluttering Sydneysiders are famous for at these concerts (They’ve been commented to be the worst in the world), and then, there were the two people who in idiotic fashion didn’t turn their phone off. One of them rang for about 5 seconds or so, was then stopped (I guess they turned it off?) but then about 10 minutes later, another one started, and it rang, and rang, and rang!! In completely moronic fashion, they took it out of their bag, then waved it about, and didn’t know what to do with it. They tried muffling the sound, but that didn’t work either! DUH! It was so darn distracting that even the conductor turned around and gave a filthy look in the direction the noise was coming from. Bravo to whoever that idiot was, they singlehandedly ruined the whole concert to a practically full house during the Adagio from Rachmaninov’s second symphony. You wouldn’t think it would still be necessary for the conductor to remind everyone to turn their pagers and mobiles off during a concert. You’d think it would be common sense. Obviously not.
Yesterday was in my mind, meant to be a nice relaxing Friday day off. But I should have known better. The last time I had my car serviced, I was told that there were about three things wrong with my car that needed urgent attention, but because he didn’t have the parts needed, I would have to bring it back again and get it fixed. He was also going to need to take a big chunk of the engine apart, in order to find out exactly what was wrong (what was causing excessive noise in that part of the engine) in order to be able to fix it the next time. Well, that next time was yesterday, and I was expecting not to have a car to use for the whole weekend, and possibly not even Monday or Tuesday, and that it would cost me a mint.
Getting the car there was the annoying bit. That’s why I always procrastinate booking my car in. It involves waiting until my mother also has a day off, so that she can come with me, and then it involves driving towards the city in horrible early morning peak hour traffic. Yuck. However, when I drove the car into the garage, I was given my first bit of good news for the day. The engine wasn’t as noisy as it was when I left the last time, so maybe he had fixed the problem the last time after all, and the problem had already been flushed out, which meant maybe I would be able to get my car back in the afternoon after all. What a sigh of relief…my day could start on a positive note.
I ended up having a pleasantly long lunch with two of my friends from church in the city, (lamb cutlets – YUM!! =P) even though it was something like 37ºC outside, and the train I was on had very small windows that hardly opened, and had no air conditioning! Inside the train was twice as hot as the outside temperature! The intention was then to go shopping for new swimmers and a wedding present, but then the mechanic rang to tell me the car was ready. Then, there was…
The Last Concert of the Year
The plan for the evening was that Sue and Rick were going to pick me up from home so that we could then drive back out to the Opera House for the last concert of the Metro Series for the year. But then I got a voice message saying that neither of them were feeling well and that they weren’t going to go to the concert after all. So whilst still on the train I frantically began ringing people to see if anyone was free to come to a concert for nothing. It’s so hard to find somebody when everyone you know either has Bible Study on Friday nights or aren’t contactable, or wouldn’t be interested in that sort of concert anyway… I was still ringing people when Mum had picked me up from the station and we were on our way to pick up my car (¾ the way back to the city!).
I finally managed to reach Marjory at work, who agreed to go to the concert with me. I was going to go home first, ‘cos my ticket was at home and I so needed a shower! but there wasn’t time if I was going to meet Marjory for dinner as well. I hate driving to the city, and with good reason too – the traffic heading back into the city on a Friday is shocking, and finding parking always costs a heap. Anyway, after slowly crawling down George St for what felt like a decade, I finally gave up and paid $15 to park at the Sir Stamford on Macquarie St.
Being the last concert of the year, I had suggested to Sue after the last concert that we should go somewhere from the Entertainment Book for dinner, but then since Cynthia ended up in China, and then we weren’t going to have dinner before the concert after all, that plan had gone down the gurgler, until of course, all of a sudden, I was meeting someone before the concert after all. Better still, we ended up using the Entertainment Gold card. We ended up eating at Aqua Luna, on the promenade. Very yum were the risotto and tuna Marjory and I ordered! And, what a bargain – we ended up only paying for one of the meals!
Then there was the concert itself. It started off like it was going to be a great concert – Beethoven’s Triple Concerto and Rachmaninov’s Symphony No. 2. What more could you ask for for a last concert? Too bad the rest of the audience completely ruined it. First, they typically showed how uncultured Sydneysiders show themselves to be when they clap after each movement (when they’re not supposed to). Then, there was the typical coughing and spluttering Sydneysiders are famous for at these concerts (They’ve been commented to be the worst in the world), and then, there were the two people who in idiotic fashion didn’t turn their phone off. One of them rang for about 5 seconds or so, was then stopped (I guess they turned it off?) but then about 10 minutes later, another one started, and it rang, and rang, and rang!! In completely moronic fashion, they took it out of their bag, then waved it about, and didn’t know what to do with it. They tried muffling the sound, but that didn’t work either! DUH! It was so darn distracting that even the conductor turned around and gave a filthy look in the direction the noise was coming from. Bravo to whoever that idiot was, they singlehandedly ruined the whole concert to a practically full house during the Adagio from Rachmaninov’s second symphony. You wouldn’t think it would still be necessary for the conductor to remind everyone to turn their pagers and mobiles off during a concert. You’d think it would be common sense. Obviously not.
