A day without baseball (Day 11)

A day without baseball is like a day at home in the winter.

So today felt like home.

Not only was I not at the ballpark at all, the Bandits game in Melbourne was rained out so there wasn't even a Gamecast to watch or Australian commentators to listen to. Not that I was looking forward to the latter. Honestly, it can be quite frustrating. But I'm sure they're doing the best they can.

I started the day with some lying around by the pool. Rough times for me. I worked on my tan while occasionally taking a dip in the really cold water at the pool in Erin's apartment complex.

Side note: The one productive thing I did at yesterday's "staff meeting" at Whitey's place was name his pool. The structure is very uniquely shaped, with one very long portion, suitable for swimming laps with probably two lanes, and then off to the side at the end is just a round, circular part (yes I know those two words have the same implications). I'll take a picture next time I have a chance. So picture it in your mind.

I named it Lance Armstrong.

And now all other pools can be compared to Lance.

Erin's pool is hard to describe, though I thought I had it down pat until Carl told me I was talking crazy talk. It's half outside and half inside, and to get to it, you have to go through the parking garage. I didn't think that was very confusing, but I'll have to snap a picture of it too. It's covered on one side and the other side lets the sun in. And I believe its basis is indeed in the parking garage.

While I was lounging around the pool Carl called to let me know he could take me around to a Target or something so I could get some of the stuff I've been wingeing about not having for the last week-and-a-half. That's right, I just used the word 'wingeing'. That's an Australian lesson for you. If you've forgotten since I last used the word, it means something like whining or complaining.

And a little while later, Carl and I were off to find a Target. We did, and I got most of what I needed, including a hairdryer, laundry detergent, floss and other things I didn't know where to go for, but I was a little disappointed. The reason for that being, I kind of love Target. We don't have it in Canada yet, but we're supposed to be getting it in the next few years. And my hope is that when it does finally travel up north that it might be somewhat comparable to the awesomeness that it is in the States. But now that I've seen an international counterpart I have less faith than ever. It was still fine, but not the same. Sorry mom.

After Target we decided to walk around the area for a little while because we were in a part of Brisbane Carl had never been to before. And obviously since I have been attached to him at the hip, I'd never been there either. We ended up at Wow, an electronics store. Not that either one of us was ready to purchase a brand new flat-screen or anything, but it did have a wow factor. I can see where the name came from. They had tons of stuff and the prices weren't as bad as the prices of everything else here. We sat for awhile watching the 3D screens and then I found a couch surrounded by TVs playing the end of Toy Story 3, so I was set.

When we made our way back to the apartment, Carl said he was going to come over for a swim, probably just to see this mythical body of water that I have been telling him about. But by swim, I mean I went in the water and he sat on a chair trying to get me to play fetch with my Bandits stress ball. Either Carl misses his dog, Little Bruce (named after Bruce Springsteen, Carl's favourite human being), or I haven't been quite entertaining enough as Man's Best Friend. But that didn't last long since I would not, much to his dismay, fetch the ball.

When he left I decided I would try to have a nap. If I can't sleep at night then surely I should be able to sleep during the day, right? Actually, it worked pretty well for awhile. I snoozed for almost a couple hours, so I would consider that a huge success.

I didn't really know what to do with myself when I woke up, with no baseball game on and no one around to bother with my endless string of questioning. So I decided to head out for a walk. I thought I would try to walk back to South Bank, knowing the likelihood of getting lost was strong. But I had time to kill and my walking shoes on so I saw no problem.

I actually surprised myself and made it there without any indication that I was lost at any point. I traveled through Chinatown, down some big street all the way to Queen Street, which took me right where I wanted to go. First, I went through the Queen Street Mall, which was kind of cool. They only call them malls here if they're outdoors, so as you can imagine, this one was. The other kinds of facilities that I might consider to be a mall would be called shopping centres here. Lesson 2.

When I made it to South Bank, my primary goals were to find the things that I had been shown before. Really, I just wanted to find the movie theatre because I believe that would come in handy in the future, and I wanted to find back this really awesome tree that Carl and I had come across before. With my camera in hand I was ready.

So after I had walked around for probably a little more than an hour and had found neither such thing, I was ready to throw in the towel. But I stopped at the Suncorps Piazza because it looked like something was going on there. The piazza is kind of like a small little stadium. I think they would have like small concerts and shows there. Maybe.

In the same regard that I do not know what the place is used for, I also could not begin to tell you what was happening when I stopped. Well, I will begin to tell you, but I have no explanation for what I saw. There was a large group of people, men or women I couldn't really tell (which kind of makes the whole thing even better), dancing around. Now, I am using the term 'dancing' quite loosely. I wouldn't put too much emphasis on that. When I first stopped it seemed as if they were flailing their arms around and stomping their feet while running in all directions.

It was kind of mesmerizing. They honestly looked like a group of really coordinated, or not, depending on your opinion of what might have been happening, crazy people. And their leader was singing them a song to dance to. That's kind of the best part. They did not have music playing or anything, just some guy singing the tune of a song. And that's what they were 'dancing' to. And their 'dances' seemed to go on forever.

I don't know how long I was there watching them but I can tell you two things. One, it was too long. And two, I will forever regret not having a video camera in that moment.

On my way back home I had another encounter with strangeness. While I was walking through the Queen Street Mall, I was almost completely run over by a man on what I will call 'uniblades'. He was rolling around like he was rollerblading but I am almost positive that each foot only had one wheel underneath it. Now, maybe this is a thing, but if so, it's not a thing I've ever seen before. So I was kind of amazed at the idea of these uniblades. I wanna get me a pair.

I realized before I got home how hungry I was. It might have had something to do with the fact that the only thing I'd eaten all day was some corn flakes. So I decided to stop at Subway, where I was sorely disappointed. I definitely had the worst Subway experience ever.

For those of you who don't know how plain I enjoy my food, I ordered a chicken sub and just got cheese on it. And that was good enough for me. Carbs, protein, dairy...seemed like a fine meal to go with the fruit smoothie I was about to order (they have smoothies at Subway here in case you missed that). So when the guy working at the counter pulled my sub out of the oven and asked me what else I wanted I said, "Actually that's good. I don't need anything else."

And I must have turned my head for a half a second to find my money or something, but when I looked back up he was pouring mayonnaise all over my sandwich. I hate mayonnaise. I don't know where our lines of communication got crossed, but I thought maybe I had been speaking Canadian so I just asked for some extra napkins. I would try and wipe it off later. But really? Since when is “that’s good” code for “a bunch of mayo, please”?

I had to order myself a smoothie after seeing Gareth with one the other day at the office. His had looked perfectly fantastic and so I felt that I should explore this option. His though, had been super thick and surely very thirst-quenching. Mine was like juice. So that just topped off my delicious dinner perfectly. What a disappointment.

When I got home I chatted with Erin for a bit but was so tired I just had to head to bed. I thought that being so tired might help me sleep through the night though.

Wishful thinking.