Man about town - who's his haberdasher?

In the bookstore, downstairs off Collins Street, I was in the science fiction area, looking for a book recommended by my friend J. We'd had lunch and wandered around a little section of Fitzroy, enjoying conversation and the glorious autumn weather. A vision in hot pink spandex and matching sneakers excused himself. I looked up. The sound of the voice did not fit the expectations set by my peripheral vision. I was expecting a woman and saw a man. He was resplendent, with plumage in his hair to rival any bird during the mating season. His eyebrows were strong black diagonal lines. I figured he had been at the Supanova Pop Culture Expo which had been on at the Melbourne showgrounds until I saw him on the train this evening.

Tonight he was wearing a tight red mini dress with a purple faux fur jacket. Again, he was topped with spectacular plumage - red and purple feathers, sprinkled with jewels, covered his entire head. I noticed the eyebrows again.

As I made my way to the exit, he looked directly at me. We nodded at each other. Weirdly, it felt like we were recognising something kindred.

I took the plunge. "You look amazing," I said.

His face lit up. "So do you!"

This felt like high praise from someone who clearly spends A LOT of time on his appearance. I also work hard to maintain my artist's identity when I'm working in that capacity with corporate clients. I must have succeeded today.

"Same hair!" I laughed, referring to our matching red.

"Twins!" he responded with the appropriate amount of irony.

He held the door open for me and we both went out in the night. I found myself wondering where he'd spent his days and then decided he'd probably been earning a living, just like most of us travelling home at 6pm.

Lolling about with a novel - holiday bliss.

Yesterday I did something I haven't done in a while. I spent the whole day reading a novel. The novel in question was "The Goldfinch" by Donna Tartt, winner of this year's Pulitzer Prize for literature. The last thing I did before sleep the night before was read more pages. I reluctantly stopped for sleep.  The first thing I did upon waking was reach for the book. I stopped for breakfast and then placed a chair on the verandah to take advantage of the autumn sunshine and took my spot. I stopped for lunch and then finished at about 4pm. I raced towards the end because I was so engrossed in the story. Upon finishing I felt simultaneously satisfied - as if I had just finished a delicious meal - and bereft, because the story was gone. 

I think "The Goldfinch" is my new favourite book of all time. 

It's a long time since I've been free to completely absorb myself with a novel in this way. It's also been a while since I have loved a novel so much that I feel part of the story. It reminds me of Easter holidays long gone. 

Returning home from boarding school or university, it was nothing for me to stay in bed with a big novel. I read Peter Carey's "Oscar and Lucinda" and "Illywhacker" in single, day-long sessions, emerging bleary-eyed and jet-lagged from my trip into other places through the pages of a book. 

Taking literature subjects at university, with their demanding reading lists, meant homework was a pleasure, even if the choice of what to read next was dictated by upcoming assessments. 

I find the choice of "what's next" after such a big, satisfying book as "The Goldfinch" difficult. After such absorption and connection with one writer I find the switch to another author can be jarring. My choice this time is a slimmer book: "The Italian Girl" by Iris Murdoch - my book group's next choice. The gears changed as I opened to the first page and began the task of reorientation. They are still grinding a little, but I'm sure we'll settle in together. 

Having finished the novel, I now understand a conversation I had with my local Yarraville bookseller about the Booker Prize winning "The Luminaries" by Eleanor Catton - another big, fat book which I enjoyed immensely. The bookseller hadn't enjoyed "The Luminaries" because she was part way through "The Goldfinch" when she grabbed it to take on her Christmas holidays. She was dismayed to discover she had the wrong book and was forced to commence "The Luminaries" while she was stranded, remote from her copy of "The Goldfinch". Devastation! Disappointment! Frustration! Restlessness! All would have ensued. 

I'm amazed that in such a busy year I've managed to finish two huge novels - along with six others!

How do you like to read? What are you reading now? What's your favourite book?

My view from the verandah. The aeroplanes were very busy. 

Copyright 2014 divacultura

Is it over already? Reflections on 2013.

Happy New Year!

As is customary, I've been doing a stock take of my activities and projects during 2013. It's interesting to think about individual projects as a body of work as the big picture can be quite impressive.

On the knitting front I completed:

20.5 pairs of socks. (The second part of the 21st pair will come off the needles in the next couple of days.)
6 scarves - three were commissions from friends
4 hats - including a fireman's hat for my five year old nephew
1 jingle ball - for my three year old niece
1 teddy bear - also for my three year old niece.

Apart from the completed items,  I also have a semi-circular shawl on the needles and a short-sleeved winter cardigan partially completed. It stalled because I don't understand what to do next. I must find out.

My crocheting yielded a chunky bathmat made from recycled tee-shirts and LOTS of granny squares. It's hard to know how many I made in 2013, but I know that I started on 16 July 2012 and finished my 146th (and last) square on 4 August 2013. I plan to stitch these together to make a 12 x 12 big blanket.

In between all that handwork, I also reached my reading goal of 25 books. It was touch and go for a while as I wrestled with a couple of long and difficult books (The Accursed by Joyce Carol Oates in particular), but I got my mojo back, stopped being distracted by games on my iphone and just scraped in. (Pictures are from my Goodreads.com page - sorry about the weird formatting...)

I was interested to notice that there are six non-fiction titles amongst all those novels. I also see I started and finished the year with the same author - Janet Evanovich - for some very light reading. The book group I started just after I moved to Melbourne in 2001 is still going strong. Books we read this year were:

Bring up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel - Winner of the Man-Booker Prize for 2012. We read the winner every year. I've just started last year's winner, The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton.

Madness: a memoir by Kate Richards was one of my suggestions for the group and I was pleased with the result. The book is incredible and the discussion that resulted was stimulating and satisfying. I've lent the book to several other friends since.

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion is a commercial success, but was less than loved by our group.

The Dressmaker by Rosalie Ham was funny, gothic and poignant all at once. Very enjoyable.

Mateship with Birds by Carrie Tiffany was well-received, but covered similar ground to The Dressmaker. I loved the author's first book, Everyman's Rules for Scientific Living.

A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick was a surprise package in its intrigue.

Letters to the End of Love by Yvette Walker left little impression and I finished it out of duty.

Ten Days in the Hills by Jane Smiley was one of my recommendations when I discovered that one of my favourite authors was not well-known in the group. It's not one of my favourites, but I did enjoy it. There's a marvellous passage late in the book in which Smiley describes the relief of tension amongst a group at the end of a high stakes conversation. It's genius and worth the slog for writing like this.

I'm setting my target again at 25 books for 2014. I'd rather reach the target and feel satisfied, than feel pressure because I didn't make it. And despite all this reading, the collection on my e-reader continues to grow!

I also sang in two jazz gigs at the Paris Cat jazz club, participated in the myki customer experience panel, survived surgery, consolidated my business and co-authored a chapter in a book which is to be published. And of course, consolidated divacultura as a happy part of my life (I hope it's a happy part of yours too!)

Sorting out my spare room remains on the list of things to sort out in 2014, but first I need to finish that pair of socks. My commitments for 2014 are still under construction.

Happy New Year! How was your 2013? How's 2014 shaping up?

What raised my eyebrows today

Whenever anything happens in the British royal family, I expect there will be a wave of fervour that will cause most unexpected results.

I noticed a pattern on Ravelry offering instructions for me to knit my own Prince George, complete with Kate and Will. On further investigation I notice that I am behind as I missed the earlier offering enabling me to knit my own royal wedding!

One thing led to another and suddenly I'm on the Book Depository website discovering books with titles such as "Knit your own dog", Knit your own cat", "Knit and Purl pets", "Knit your own zombie", "Knit your own moustache".

There are lots of references to "knitting bibles".  I had always assumed that the term "bible" used in this context meant a comprehensive guide to knitting.  Now I'm not so sure.  Perhaps it contains instructions to knit my own bible.  This could either be an actual book or the characters in the bible.

How about this fanciful title:  "Knit in a day for baby".  This is clearly written by someone who doesn't actually have a baby.  I don't have one, but I know enough to know that if I had one, I wouldn't have time to do anything in a day, let alone knit something.  I think I would start the planning for the 21st birthday present early.

******

I walked past a promotional poster for a show at the Arts Centre and was surprised that a piece of advertising would have such a lukewarm tag line.  I read: "This show is mildly entertaining!" Wow. Can't wait to see that one.

The exclamation mark seemed remarkably out of place!

I looked again.

It actually said that the show is "wildly entertaining!"

The punctuation now made sense.

*****
Another season of "Big Brother" is broadcasting on television right now.  I feel the passage of time as I notice my lack of desire to have a look.

*****

An email from a friend who is currently in Edinburgh advised me that Melbourne's temperature today was actually 3 degrees warmer than the temperature over there.  So much for summer.  I gain a new understanding of why the Scottish woman at music camp that time had no idea what to do with a sarong.

I hope your week started well.

What raised your eyebrows today?

My favourite things - this week

It's the day after yesterday and woke up again to more sexism.  This time West Australian radio announcer Howard Sattler thought he'd use the privilege of access to Prime Minister Julia Gillard to repeatedly ask whether her partner Tim Mathison is gay.  That he thought it was okay to ask is bad.  That he harangued and repeatedly asked as he said "I'm not saying this, but people are" is terrible.  That he is "flabbergasted" at his sacking really says something about the man.

Why is this included in a post of my favourite things?  Because the radio station acted swiftly and sacked him.  No namby-pamby suspension and then quiet reinstatement later when everyone has forgotten - gone.  Congratulations 6PR.

Baz Lurhman's film, "The Great Gatsby" took up most of the holiday for the Queen's Birthday on Monday.  I loved the film.  I loved Leonardo Di Caprio's performance and Joel Edgerton and Carey Mulligan.  And the music and the swoon- worthy fashions.  My favourite moment though was the footage of a young Queen Elizabeth II with the message "Happy Birthday Liz" played before the film at Yarraville's Sun Theatre.  "Oh yeah," I thought, "that's right...that's why it's a public holiday today."

Loved this piece on the 10 books people will judge you for reading.  I've read 4 of them and have no intention of reading the remaining 6.  E readers are a god send.  That's all I'm saying.  (I will make no mention of being ensconced in "World War Z - an oral history of the zombie war" at the moment.

It's well and truly winter in Melbourne and I for one am enjoying the chill.  It gives me plenty of opportunity to show off my selection of handknitted scarves and fabulous hosiery and boots.  The rain is a bit annoying, but it hasn't stopped me achieving my daily target of 10,000 steps in the Global Corporate Challenge.

Monday nights and The Voice are still a great moment in a week's television viewing.  The final is on this week and I reckon Harrison will win.  I was sad to see Miss Murphy go - it ruined my perfect record of predicting who would go through.  I will look forward to Danny Ross' album.

Lastly, I need to finish now so I can make some more sourdough toast with a smear of Maggie Beer's pate to accompany a glass of peppery shiraz. Mmmm.

My favourite things this week

Today I played the role of a woman whose partner has some kind of cardiac event before her very eyes, about four weeks after open heart surgery.  Luckily, I had the pleasure of working opposite a man with whom I work regularly and is a good friend.  We drove in together and started to play our characters from the moment we greeted each other.  We were asked several times during the course of the day whether we are partners in real life.  Other people who knew we weren't continually stated that we looked like a couple.  I'm constantly amazed by the power of acting and it's always fun to play scenes like this with a person you know.

Working out how to delete books from my Sony e-reader is a major achievement.  There are forums all over the internet and none of it made much sense.  I just started pressing buttons on the reader and it worked!  This is my standard approach to technology and it generally works.  A known issue with the reader is that it will sync multiple copies of each book from the software on the computer to the reader.    Apart from being annoying, it meant I actually ran out of space on the reader.

Related to that, I thought I had an SD card in my reader, but discovered that I only have a piece of grey plastic, shaped like an SD card.  One of my favourite moments!

The change of season from summer to autumn is finally happening.  We had rain, wind and cooler nights.  I even turned on my electric blanket last night before I went to bed - just to take the chill off the bed.  It's always fun to rediscover the rest of the wardrobe - all those gorgeous scarves I've knitted.  It also means I don't resent the days I have to wear a suit for work.

I recently discovered the band, Grace Potter and the Nocturnals.  I've been listening to the album all week on LOUD.  They're great!

This morning I didn't have to start work until 10:30am so I was able to sleep until after 8am!  Bliss after a series of 5:30am wake ups.

How was your week?

A literary perspective on tanking in sport.

Currently I'm reading a novel called HHhH.  It's about Reinhard Heydrich who was chief of the Nazi secret services.

Chapter 112 put the current "tanking" scandal in the AFL into some perspective.

Before I set out and write a post about sport, I should point out that I'm hardly qualified.  I don't know a lot about sport and I don't watch or read much about it.  I take a passing interest.  When I'm visiting my family over summer, I become immersed in the cricket because there is no escape.  And then I start to like it in spite of myself.

Perhaps it is this lack of expertise that initially had me shrugging my shoulders over recent allegations of drugs in Australia's football codes and not sure what to think about tanking.  Somewhere deep down, I had a feeling that tanking was unethical - that there is bad sportsmanship at work when a player or team sets out to do anything other than win.  That's why people watch isn't it?  Because they're invested in the outcome, loyally follow their team or country or favourite player and want them to win!

I have been thinking about the disrespect inherent in doing anything other than playing to win and the leadership failure that allows a culture of tanking to grow.

And then I read chapter 112 in HHhH.  It recounts a story (apocryphal?) of Kiev Dynamo, a football (soccer) team ordered to play a match against a team of German soldiers.  They were playing very well in the first half and were ordered by the Germans to lose the match or pay with their lives. They played their best and won anyway. Depending on which version you read this happened repeatedly and resulted in the players being eventually executed.

This story resonated and I thought about these courageous and honorable sportsmen who were ordered to "tank" and lose the match, but decided their commitment as sportspeople and representatives of their country was more important. They would play their best game and win, regardless of the cost.

I believe this to be a broadly true story; perhaps the details are not precise.  It puts today's allegations of tanking in the AFL into a harsh light.  Imagine not playing your best game because you want to come last and have the benefit of an advantageous draft pick at the end of the season!  Petty when compared to Kiev Dynamo who would have apparently been allowed their lives if they had followed orders and tanked.

Hmmmm.

My favourite things - this week

1.  My score on the happiness test!  84 out of 100 where 70 is the benchmark for happiness.  I have to say, I'm pretty happy about that!  It made me think about the fact that my life is not perfect - it never will be - yet I am content and making progress.  Why not try yourself?

2.  My first book group meeting of the year.  At the start of our thirteenth year, we met to discuss Hilary Mantel's Booker Prize winning "Bring up the Bodies".    It was generally favourably received.  I personally liked it much more than the first book, "Wolf Hall" and confessed to weeping during Anne Boleyn's execution, it was so beautifully and delicately written.

3.  Impro Melbourne's season opener of the Maestro format.  I went to the opening night last Sunday night and was so thoroughly entertained I nearly forgot how hot it was and that I was stuck to a vinyl seat.  The most thrilling part of improvisation in any art form is that the creation exists only in that moment, is never to be repeated and you have to be there to witness it.  Sunday nights at 7:30pm at The Space, Chapel Street, Prahran.

4. My wish came true on Wednesday afternoon.  A tiny glimmer of hope.  I don't expect this experience to be regularly repeated, but I wish it would be.

5. This photo.  I took it when walking across the pedestrian bridge over the Yarra River from Southgate to Flinders Street station.  It was about 7:30pm.

Sunset on the Yarra
©divacultura 2013

My reading list

The pile never seems to get smaller!  I'm actually quite content with that - I know I will never run out.

My book group met yesterday to discuss "The Secret Scripture" by Sebastian Barry.  It was given to me as a birthday gift last year by a friend who adored it.  She and I generally like each others' choices, so I knew it would be a winner when I recommended it to my book group.

If you haven't read this book, put it on your "must read" list.  Roseanne Clear is one hundred years old and living in an asylum in Ireland when she starts to write down her life story.  Dr Grene is the resident psychiatrist faced with the demolition of the asylum and the need to decide where the patients should go.  He is trying to discover Roseanne's story, in particular, the circumstances of her committal.  Through these two characters we are exposed to the twists and complications of twentieth century Irish history.  Again, I am left wondering about the role of love in the Catholic church.

I'm revisiting the beginnings of New Journalism with a collection of essays from Gay Talese.  His book, "Thy Neighbour's Wife" was on the reading list for the New Journalism subject I took at university.  I read all the others, but somehow missed this one.  One of his most famous essays gives the title to the collection I've borrowed from the library, "Frank Sinatra has a cold".  It's marvellous.  The first essay in the collection is called Vogueland and was written in 1961 about Vogue magazine.  He is a wonderful writer and I'm enjoying these shorter pieces.

The next selection for the book group was featured recently on the Tuesday Night Book Club on ABC television.  I didn't see the program, but the woman who served me at the bookstore told me they have sold three hundred copies since the show aired.  The book is "Crossing to Safety" by Wallace Stegner, with an introduction by Jane Smiley (one of my favourite authors).  Apparently he's one of the most important American authors of the late twentieth century.  It's incredible that I've never heard of Wallace Stegner as the last fifty years of the twentieth century American literature is where I focus a lot of my reading, starting with subjects at university.  Very happy to discover him now.  The book looks terrific.

Hilary Mantel's second Man Booker Prize winner is "Bring up the Bodies" which my book group will read over the summer break, as is our custom with the Booker Prize winner.  It's (mostly) an enjoyable tradition.  Some of us are feeling less than happy at the prospect of this one.

On the non-fiction pile are:

"How Music Works" by David Byrne (of Talking Heads fame)
"Flourish" by Martin Seligman
"Eating Animals" by Jonathan Safran Foer
"I'm Ok - you're Ok" by Thomas A Harris
"As One - individual action, collective power" by Mehrdad Baghai and James Quigley


Lastly is "The Sweet Poison Quit Plan" by David Gillespie.  It's become my go to guide, rather than a book I'm reading from beginning to end.

That should keep me occupied for a while.  What are you reading?

My favourite things - this week ( in pictures)

Lygon Street Carlton
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You never know what you'll see.  I was on Lygon Street in Carlton on Monday afternoon when I saw a man dressed as a cowboy riding his horse down the street!

Spencer Street
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 The city was shining in the weak morning sunshine, helped along by the rain that had fallen.  The view from the top of the escalators at Southern Cross Station was beautiful.  The streets look silver.

Wood 'book' panelling
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I visited the city library today to collect my reserved copy of "Savages" by Don Winslow.  (Need to read it before I see the movie.)  They've had a makeover.  There's sculptural wood panelling that's in the process of being installed.  It looks a bit like books.  The timber is from trees that had died within the City of Melbourne.  A great way to give them a second life.

Shoe parade
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Waiting to cross Collins Street at Elizabeth Street today, I noticed the bright yellow snakeskin shoes worn by a man wearing orange trousers and a navy blazer.  If he had turned around and was wearing a cravat I wouldn't have been surprised.  At the same lights was a woman wearing an incredible pair of shoes with rectangular, diagonal heels.

Spring glimpse
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On a very cold day, at the end of a very cold week, I was happy to see this little green sprout, evidence that spring is here.  Really.

My favourite things - the lemonade stand

1. The "pop up shop" at Seddon train station.  It popped up this morning and was still there four hours later when I returned from the city. The proprietors are two bold, blond-headed eight-year-old boys and they have a cunning entrepreneurial spirit.  This morning as I walked to the station, the one with the curls approached me and offered to sell me some flowers.  They had a tartan rug and all the flowers were beautifully laid out.  I explained about my hayfever and said that I couldn't buy flowers because of it, but I wished them well.  I asked him how it was going and he said "okay" and that they'd had donations from a couple of people.  He looked at me meaningfully with a maturely cocked eyebrow. I decided not to make a donation; these boys looked like they were serious about business.

When I returned in the afternoon, they had diversified.  They were now offering home made lemonade for $1 a cup.  I asked who made it.  Ethan had.  I asked if it was good.

"It's very good," he said solemnly.  There was pulp floating in it so it looked real.  I had a momentary worry about washing up and who else had used the cup, but decided I would be okay.

The boys engaged in entertaining banter while I sipped my lemonade.  An old  man made his way from across the street to enquire about the price of a cup of lemonade.  He decided $1 was a good price but shook his head when a cup was proffered at half mast.  "If I'm paying a dollar, I want a full cup," he said.  These boys showed excellent customer service instincts, apologising immediately and happily rectifying the error.

I noticed some small bunches of lavender were still available.

"How much is your lavender?"

"It's a dollar.  We've got the English or the French.  The French is a smaller bunch 'cos the flowers are bigger, but the English smells better, I reckon," one of them said earnestly.

He displayed the two options and asked me which I would like.

"I'll take one bunch of the English please."

"An excellent choice," he said as he took my dollar.

I asked how business was.  They said it was pretty good and that they had made $60 for the day.

"What are your expansion plans?" I asked.

"Well we're getting ready for peak hour."

"What do you think about your shop location for peak hour?"

"Yeah, we've been thinking about that.  What do you think?"

I made a couple of suggestions, including staying right where they were until they had seen the pattern of foot traffic coming off the first couple of peak hour services.  They thought this was a good idea and advised they would consider it.

I wished them all the best and thanked them for the lemonade and the lavender.

I was going to ask them if I could take a photo of them and their shop, but felt it freak them out.  Here's a picture of the lavender instead.

(c) divacultura 2012

2.  I discovered a precinct in Melbourne Central that I hadn't visited before.  It's a new food court and shopping area which is cleverly decorated and has better than the usual foodcourt suspects.  I enjoyed a Mexican quesadilla from one of the zillion Mexican joints springing up and also had a coffee and cake for afternoon tea after some wandering around with my camera.

Coffee and cake at Cupcake Central
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This place has a wonderfully coherent and pleasing design theme.  The pale green (shown in the saucer above) shows up in a few places.

The tiles
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I gazed at this still life arrangement as I enjoyed my afternoon tea.  You can see the same green in the handle of the egg beater.

Still life with cupcakes
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The chairs were funky too.

Geometrix
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3.  There's a little library in this part of the world!  A cool idea in the middle of a retail area frequented by students.  Its philosophy is written on the window and I'm inspired to drop of some books when I'm next in the neighbourhood.

Little Library rules
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4. The shot tower at Melbourne Central.  This has to be one of the cleverest renovations/preservations around.  Who ever is in charge of the centre deserves congratulating.  There are lots of delightful details.

Giant white chandeliers, reimagined
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Mezzanine chairs
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Shot tower shadows and living wall
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Shot tower I
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Shot tower II
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 5. The prose in Nick Cave's first novel, "And the Ass saw the Angel".  It's incredible: dense, rich and requiring gorging.  I'm very grateful for the built-in dictionary in my e-reader too.  Here are a couple of my favourite passages. Not for the fainthearted:

"Mummy was a swine - a scum-cunted, likkered-up, brain-sick swine.  She was lazy and slothful and dirty and belligerent and altogether evil.  Ma was a soak - a drunk - a piss-eyed hell-bag with a taste for the homebrew." (page 26).

"Finding Toad covered in pig-shit and sucking a trotter, they had chased him out of the Morton's valley to roam the gullies and gulches of the out-hills, a sore Goliath shunned by his own blood, without friend or companion save the league of demons that rubbed and itched amongst the crags and sunless cracks of his bad, mad and unholy brain." (page 34)

"His demented eyes egged in their orbits as if they were being laid." (page 56)

What are your favourite things this week? Have you ever run a lemonade stand?

My favourite things - this week

1. My diary for next week is my favourite thing this week.  There is NOTHING in it!

Empty
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 It's not often I feel happy about that, but with the recent frenetic pace, I'm quite happy to know that I can spend some time at home.  I know there's a lunch date sometime.  I have some accounts work to do.  I have some follow up from the empathy project.   These things can all be done at home.  That feels really good!

2. Getting dressed and ready for today's job.  I didn't even have to get dressed if I didn't want to.  I didn't have to shower.  Didn't do my hair and applied no makeup.  I picked up a pair of holey jeans  and a stinky t-shirt from the laundry pile.  Today I was playing a woman suffering from paranoid schizophrenia.  She is currently homeless.  It was a tough gig, but the wardrobe requirements were a dream.

3.  Flying on a plane with no audio visual distractions.  Usually I love the inflight entertainment, especially on longer flights.  Flying back from Brisbane last night there was not a screen anywhere to be seen.  I took the opportunity to put in some quality reading time.  I'm now 100 pages from the end of "Freedom" by Jonathan Franzen.  I'm loving it!  I did plug my ipod in and enjoyed the soundtrack to the Almodovar film "Hable Con Ella" (Talk to her).  It's gorgeous and perfect in the background.

4.  Surprising dining experiences in regional Australia.  I've been out to Traralgon a couple of times in the last couple of weeks, pulling into the Century Inn, right on the highway.  I sighed the first time I pulled, not expecting very much, but I was soon happily surprised.  The food in the restaurant is sensational!  I enjoyed a rib fillet steak with lyonnaise potatoes, baby leeks and red wine jus and a rocket, pear and parmesan salad on the side.  Beautifully cooked and bursting with flavour.

5.  Lipstick pink hire cars.  Everyone looked at the car as I zipped along the road.  It was fun, but I don't think I'd buy that colour.  Resale would be hard, but it would be visible in the parking lot.

Lipstick pink Yaris
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Sunday slide show

Now that I live in the west, I don't often go to St Kilda.  I used to hang out at the Espy quite a bit, soaking up the live music and the sunshine.  It's been a while.

I made the journey today to meet with my gal pals who make up my book group.  Today we were discussing a crime novel set in Melbourne in 1933, The Richmond Conspiracy by Andrew Grimes and we met at a cafe in Acland Street.  A birthday had been celebrated during the week, so we shared a bottle of bubbles as well.

When I left the house this afternoon, I had not finished reading the book.  I still had twenty pages to go!  The forty minutes of travelling on public transport to get there was very handy.  I finished the book in time to see the throngs of people at the markets along the Esplanade. (It took all my powers of concentration to read, as my fellow travellers were rowdy, on their way to the footy.)

I love that view out over Port Philip Bay, with the tall palm trees, and Luna Park and the Palais Theatre the monumental but shabby land marks.

Of course, I took some photos.

Luna Park entry.
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Striving dragon
(c) divacultura 2012

 While I was waiting at the tram stop to travel home, the dragon swing boat started up and I noticed the dragon's head popping above the fence.

Iconic intersection
(c) divacultura 2012

 It was a busy day in St Kilda, but this shot suggests the streets are virtually empty.  There's a sense of foreboding.  Something could be about to happen.

St Kilda palm trees in front of Luna Park, heading towards Acland Street.
(c) divacultura 2012

Random shot
(c) divacultura 2012

Another in my series of random photos of the ground.  I took this leaning against the rail at the tram stop.  I like the industrial feel of it and the reflections of the road's line markings on the metal pole.

As my tram arrived at Flinders Street I noticed a baby elephant standing over in Federation Square. Apparently there is a whole herd of them hanging out in the city.  They've all been painted in honour of the Melbourne Zoo's baby elephant Mali.  Mali even painted one of them herself.  If I find it, I'll share a photo with you.  Here's the one elephant from both sides.

(c) divacultura 2012

(c) divacultura 2012

On the way home I started reading Simon Baron-Cohen's book, Zero Degrees of Empathy.  Lots of neuroscience so far, but highly readable in spite of that.

IT'S MY BIRTHDAY & YOU GET THE GIFTS!  Only one more week to enter!
As I contemplate renewing my commitment to divacultura for another year, I feel excitement and affection.  Thank you for sharing some of your time with me. As a thank you gift - and so I can gain a better sense of who's out there - I'll be giving away a pair of my hand knitted socks to two very lucky readers, where ever you are in the world (ie two readers will receive a pair of socks each).  To be in the running, leave a comment on this post by Friday 17 August 2012, stating why you like reading divacultura. My favourite responses will receive the prize (my decision is final).  Why not take the opportunity to sign up and follow too!