'Diary' entry

Mood: grumpy

It's a long weekend in Queensland, and I've hobbled back from football to sit with my leg in a bucket of icy water thanks to a hefty kick in the back of my calf.

Gam and I originally had plans to go and see Mike play in his band somewhere in Fortitude Valley on Friday night, but my parents decided to do some travelling (taking advantage of Grandma having gone to stay with Mum's sister and her family), and they stopped in to see us on their way north... they're hoping to go as far as Cooktown, unless they get sick of travelling. Dad bought a new laptop and one of those Telstra wireless broadband things so he can have internet access while they're away. The laptop is a Sony Vaio, amazingly light (made me jealous- it's lighter than most of the library books I've been lugging around lately), but the software that came with Telstra's wireless modem wasn't compatible with Windows Vista, meaning Dad had to use our computer to download whatever he required to start it up. Then came the activation process, which entailed lots of phonecalls (we all know the kind: "We are experiencing a higher than usual volume of calls..." at 9pm on a Sunday night) and swearing emanating from the living room.

Last week, after Grandma was a safe distance away in Walcha with my Aunt, Mum told Grandma over the phone that Gam and I are engaged. The positive spin she put on it was that Grandma has now stopped harassing them about leaving Richard and Priscilla 'unchaperoned' in Kempsey while they go travelling! Obviously the far more pressing concern is that I'm marrying a black guy. Whoopee. I think Grandma thinks that Mum and Dad are travelling to Queensland to talk me out of it!

Mum and Dad came bearing gifts- they have a lovely habit of bringing us bottles of nice red that they've been storing since before it was legal for me to consume alcohol. Gam and I can't really afford to shop around for wine on a hit-and-miss basis, so it is very nice of them to bring it up. They also popped into First Choice liquor in Toowong before they arrived, and picked up a bottle of 1999 Veuve Cliquot to celebrate our engagement with us. Mum warned me I was not to make a habit of getting engaged, as she doesn't intend to spoil me like this again!

I always thought I wasn't such a big fan of champagne; now it turns out my problem was that I just have expensive taste. Too bad.

Dad fixing the Fei Tower

The new improved Fei Tower has a steel core!

Mum and Dad also took us to Bunnings and bought some stuff to fix our screen door and Feifei's 'Fei Tower'. The Fei Tower is an important fixture in Feifei's life- it's a multilevel scratching post that he likes to sit on and lord it over people (Gam and I at home, and plebs walking in the street), and whenever it is taken away he wails and whinges and paces restlessly. Problem is, its original construction was rather crappy, and despite Gam's best efforts it had developed a lean and severe wobbling, to the point where it was clear that the Fei Tower was nearing the end of its lifespan. It's all fixed now though, although we still need to replace the shaggy fabric on the top level that Feifei has chewed numerous holes in...

Feifei asleep on his Tower

Mum and Dad left today, and we trundled off to football this afternoon. We started off with only 6 people, as Victor and Amelia were at an indoor football game. When they arrived with a couple of their teammates to help us out, we were a goal down.

We'd played today's opponents only a couple of weeks ago, and there are a couple of real wankers on the team. That's not to say they don't have talent, but let's just say when I accidentally took out one of the nice guys on the team last time we played them I was very sorry it was him and not one of the dickheads. Poor guy still had scars from all the gravel rash. Anyway, at today's game one boofhead on the team booted the ball straight at my chest at close range; my girl-reflexes kicked in and I closed my elbows across my chest. The ball was deflected, but the kick was hard enough that my boobs got somewhat bruised anyway! That wasn't the worst of it- my elbows across my chest apparently counted as a 'hand ball', so the guy was incredibly pleased with himself, standing in front of the goal laughing "heh heh heh". The girls on the team seemed pretty apologetic at how much of a dickhead the guy was. I wasn't particularly injured, but I do use stuff like that as motivation, so I was aiming to take the guy down at some point... I wouldn't laugh if I kicked the ball and it hit someone- I thought no-one did that! I'm no Roy Keane, but guys tend to expect girls to get out of their way when they're running at full pelt, don't expect a proper tackle, things like that, so if they run into me they tend to bounce off and come off the worse for wear... I'm not exactly butch, so it is rather satisfying, especially since I'm not a particularly skillful player. Makes me feel useful as a defender.

Not our team, but you get an idea of what a dustbowl the place is!

Today I didn't get my chance, as I took a really nasty kick in the back of the leg in the second half. Practically paralysed me for a couple of minutes. All I remember thinking, as the guy who kicked me ran off, was that I'd failed and been injured for nothing- he booted the ball at the goal . It bounced off the post, thank god. I have a pretty high pain threshold but this was painful enough to make me worry. Didn't feel like a break, but I did think I'd have to crawl off the field.

The pain reduced significantly over the next 10 minutes or so (reinforcements had arrived before 2nd half, so we were fine), and then Erica (an excellent player) skillfully tackled the boofhead who'd kicked the ball at my chest and ran off with the ball. He then tripped over (the pitch at Indooroopilly State High is full of potholes filled with gravel and sand), at which point I kind of went "Ha!" and expressed the opinion that it couldn't have happened to a better person. I was still off the pitch at this point, so I'm not sure if anyone heard me, but the guy lay there on the ground clutching his face, leading me to think that maybe he'd smacked into the ground face first. Turned out he'd just possibly torn a muscle in his thigh or something, but he made much more of a show of it than I did. I can't understand why he was clutching his face and not his leg, but it certainly looked dramatic. I did feel bad for laughing at him when it turned out he was actually hurt and not just falling over... not that I don't still feel a little schadenfreude that it happened to him in particular, but I think quiet satisfaction is a much more appropriate response (even if morally it's pretty much the same thing). Hmmm...

As for the guy who'd actually injured me, I bore no hard feelings at all. I knew he was a dickhead who liked to push people around and then whinge to the ref when they did it back to him, but I was pretty certain the kick wasn't deliberate. That was until after the game, when we shake hands with everyone, and he shook my hand and said he was sorry 'if' he'd done it- at which point I reassured him there were no hard feelings, and then he came out with "But I'm still not convinced I actually did anything". Jesus christ. My jaw actually dropped as he walked off... I'd already spent ages after it happened trying to reassure Gam that I wasn't badly injured and I was sure it was an accident and he shouldn't go 'avenging' me (pointing out that if I think it needs doing I can do it myself!)... well, he wasn't very pleased at what the guy had said. Neither was I, seeing as he and I were at least a couple of metres from anyone else when it happened, and I certainly didn't give myself a corked leg. Let's just say there are hard feelings now when there were none prior to that exchange. What a dickhead.

And what a bitchfest I'm having! Sorry for the rant, anyone who's suffered through reading this. Ending on a happy note, after years of fruitless whining, wholemeal crumpets have come to Queensland! I meant to ask Mum and Dad to bring some up, but I forgot. Luckily for me, I spotted them at Indooroopilly Woolworths yesterday and I've polished off at least 4 today... mmm... crumpets :)

UPDATE: bearing in mind my recent labelling lectures (yes, even when the nice lady who gave the lectures thought I was asleep I really was listening!), I thought I should add that the 'wholemeal crumpets' are actually labelled as crumpets 'with wholemeal', as they contain only 25% wholemeal flour. But they still taste better than regular crumpets!