(*) A flying moment in time

Speaking with the boys on the phone this week, both Josh and the boys' mum have come down with the lurgi... coughs, vomiting, sniffles... eewww. The younger two seemed immune to it all (thankfully), and they chatted happily enough to me over the phone. They sound so grown up now - 5 and 7 going on 6 and 8 next month... They were telling me what they were eating for dinner one night - broccoli and peas with bread... hmmm... they still have an eclectic diet... hahahaa! Aint they precious?

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George Johnston... oh gawd, Mal, don't you ever give up with these?!? hahahahaa. Well, you guessed it - I managed to find and purchase a really excellent 2nd-hand copy of a very rare out-of-print book by my favourite author, George Johnston (he wrote 'My Brother Jack'.) He was a war correspondent in 1944 when he wrote this particular book, "Skyscrapers in the Mist" (Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1946). I'm amazed at the excellent condition of this book, considering it's like 58 years' old - and it only cost me $8. Whoo hoo! What a thrifty shopper!

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The rain here has managed to abate long enough for me to inspect the garden, quickly pull a few small nasstie weeds that've popped up uninvited, and open all the windows to let some non-damp air thru the place - at last! The rain has been wonderful, but we need lots and lots more of rain like this out here - steady showers for a few days at a time, on a consistent basis. The water supply for this town is pretty good (we haven't got water restrictions here, unlike the poor buggers on the coast), but it's still far from full. And yes - the whole town has gone bezerk in a maze of spectacular colour, with shrubs, trees and plants everywhere blooming their hearts' out. I'll have to go exploring with my new camera...

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Random thought... (those of you who know me will appreciate that I often operate on a series of 'stream of consciousness' thoughts from one moment to the next, often totally unrelated, but still keeps my mind working overtime... I suppose there's some psychological term for it! hahahaa!) Anyway... when I used to chat heaps on MSN a few years' ago, I 'created' an 'alter ego' called 'Moofie' - he was like a naughty, cheeky 12-yo boy! It was always done in good clean fun, and everyone in the room knew who it was and enjoyed playing along with it. Anyway, I digress... after having met quite a few of those people face-to-face whom I'd met online, I had to laugh that they pronounced this character as "Moo-fee". fair enough - it's not like they'd ever heard me say it, only type it a zillion times! BUT - in my mind it's pronounced "Mo-fee" - ie. short 'mo', not long 'moo' as like the sound a cow makes! "Mo' as in "Mormon" (gees, I couldn't think of something else that sounded right off the top of my head...). It's just a silly random thought thing, of no real consequence - I just thought it was funny hearing people talk about Mooofie, and I didn't know at first what they were talking about! hahahaa!

An interesting side (yes, yet another random thought... the only problem is that my mind works a zillion % faster than my typing ever could... d'oh!) When I was first discovering the world of chatting, people were talking about getting 'Moofied'... in my ignorance as a newbie, I had to ask... I was told that it was chat slang for getting your computer disconnected from your server, or 'falling out' of the chatroom unexpectedly. I always thought the whole name, Moofie, was so bizarre (which, of course, appealed to me immediately), that it soon became personalized (as such!)  When I was teaching kids, I used to have a big puppet called "MC", and eventually that thing evolved into the character of 'Moofie Monster'... it's a long story, involves lots of lint, is very silly, and good for a laugh. Check out a little slice of cyberspace Moofie has slimed for himself... http://au.geocities.com/maljam2002/lint.html

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My brother is coming up on Sunday. It's been a few weeks since I've seen him, so it'll be good to briefly hang out together again. He's 10-years' older than me, and in many ways we are like 'chalk and cheese'. But over the past few years we've come to realise we are a lot closer than we realised, and it's been just so refreshing coming to know my only brother in a whole new way for the very first time.

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Fingers' crossed - possibly by this time next week, I may have possession of some cheap little car to get about town with! At last - I can get all those little jobs done where you need to have your own car! Brilliant for work searching too...

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On This Day...
Born: Timothy Leary (LSD, 1920); Franz Liszt (composer, 1811); Sarah Bernhardt (actress, 1844); Geoff Goldblum (actor, 1952).
Events: Jefferson Airplane's first ever gig, California, 1966.
Useless Trivia:  111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321
My Soundtrack: "Harvest", Neil Young (boring - I know!)
Weather: 7/10ths overcast, mild/warm, winds light to variable (thanx Eccles!)

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Cyalayta
Mal (ie. Mallard the Quackers)   :o)

"If we see light at the end of the tunnel, it's the light of the oncoming train." (Robert Lowell)
"Nuts"  (US General, Battle of the Bulge 1944, in reply to German surrender demand)
"The Lord survives the rainbow of His will." (Robert Lowell)