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This time of year I've had enough baking and am ready for things to cool off - only that won't happen for another two months.
Today went with Lena to Midland Gate shopping centre, which has an Italian food stall to which we're both addicted and also air-conditioning. There were a large number of people wearing Australian flag T-shirts, caps, capes and flags. Very American; I'm sure there wasn't this sort of over-the-top response to Australia Day a few years ago. For non-Aussies on my flist; this date commemorates white settlement in Sydney in 1788, which doesn't actually have much to do with Western Australia. A settlement was only established here in 1829 to stop the French moving in! So-called Australia Day isn't even the date when the First Fleet arrived in Botany Bay - that was 18 January - it's only the day they got themselves together enough to raise the British flag in the new colony.
Lena was going to some do at her work that's close enough to town to watch the riverside fireworks. They're impressive, all right but I saw enough of them when I lived next to Kings Park and could ride through there to watch from the top of the scarp - after dark - then get home when I wanted in ten minutes. Lena wanted to get a flag for her car - not one of the huge ones which some cars and trucks we saw had displayed, very chariot-like - and a cap, so I made her wear the flag in the cap for a bit.
Lena is also a fellow rodent fancier and brought over a young rat for me who may be company for Zach. I say may be - this young black hooded is about Zach's age which means effectively late rodent teens and both of them are posturing excessively at one another through the bars of their cages. This fellow, like Zach, was dumped on Don and Lena a couple of months ago and has no cagemate. Introductions at this age are very difficult, even more than it was with Joshua and Zach when Zach was four months old instead of seven. They take weeks if they can be done at all but it's worth a try. It's giving Zach something to think about instead of sitting neurotically in his cage and jumping at any creak or rustle. But I won't name this rat until I have a better idea of whether Zach will accept him.
Apart from that, not much happening except that work woke up this week and there's pay in my future. I think I'll be hiding out at home for the rest of this long weekend, reading the books I couldn't stop myself buying on Friday and watching the chest-beating between the rats!
Today went with Lena to Midland Gate shopping centre, which has an Italian food stall to which we're both addicted and also air-conditioning. There were a large number of people wearing Australian flag T-shirts, caps, capes and flags. Very American; I'm sure there wasn't this sort of over-the-top response to Australia Day a few years ago. For non-Aussies on my flist; this date commemorates white settlement in Sydney in 1788, which doesn't actually have much to do with Western Australia. A settlement was only established here in 1829 to stop the French moving in! So-called Australia Day isn't even the date when the First Fleet arrived in Botany Bay - that was 18 January - it's only the day they got themselves together enough to raise the British flag in the new colony.
Lena was going to some do at her work that's close enough to town to watch the riverside fireworks. They're impressive, all right but I saw enough of them when I lived next to Kings Park and could ride through there to watch from the top of the scarp - after dark - then get home when I wanted in ten minutes. Lena wanted to get a flag for her car - not one of the huge ones which some cars and trucks we saw had displayed, very chariot-like - and a cap, so I made her wear the flag in the cap for a bit.
Lena is also a fellow rodent fancier and brought over a young rat for me who may be company for Zach. I say may be - this young black hooded is about Zach's age which means effectively late rodent teens and both of them are posturing excessively at one another through the bars of their cages. This fellow, like Zach, was dumped on Don and Lena a couple of months ago and has no cagemate. Introductions at this age are very difficult, even more than it was with Joshua and Zach when Zach was four months old instead of seven. They take weeks if they can be done at all but it's worth a try. It's giving Zach something to think about instead of sitting neurotically in his cage and jumping at any creak or rustle. But I won't name this rat until I have a better idea of whether Zach will accept him.
Apart from that, not much happening except that work woke up this week and there's pay in my future. I think I'll be hiding out at home for the rest of this long weekend, reading the books I couldn't stop myself buying on Friday and watching the chest-beating between the rats!