Well, we’re off in an hour. Back to steaming Brisbane. We are bringing with us the most stunningly *ridiculous* amount of stuff – 3 giant suitcases stuffed to the gills with American snacks and other requested items, all at the limit of 70 lbs each; a bag stuffed to the gills at 40 lbs; 1 backpack full of my computer and snacks and very delicate christmas ornaments, 1 saxaphone with an enormous poster tube bound to it (to make it one carryon item, tee hee), a boogieboard (this is the item I’m most worried will be nixed as carryon), and a giant granny-plaid shopping bag full of German gingerbread and a huge wooden (eek! wood) advent calendar and books and my much abused travel pillow.

If they let us on the plane, I’ll be astounded. If they let us on with as much carryon stuff as we have with us, I’ll be rolling in disbelief.

The sniffer dogs are without question going to do backflips over our goodies in  Brisbane airport. Getting through customs with this amount of (some of it somewhat dubious) stuff is going to be an adventure indeed. I hid the more dubious items in some very smelly socks in the dirty laundry…

Zaubi’s friend is going to get our car and pick us up at the airport – I’m delirious with joy over this! Dragging 4 giant suitcases, huge shopping bag, saxophone, poster tube, fragile backpack and boogie board around the city would have been utterly ludicrous.

Brisbane, here we come!

I’m tired. It’s actually been a pretty tiring week, this week in LA.

But… tomorrow it’s to Boston! I can’t wait! Friends and family and (well, in NYC anyway) Sahadi’s almonds and ginger chews and all that stuff I forgot at home when I moved to Australia and THANKSGIVING DINNER

(Did I mention Australia suffers from almost a complete lack of turkey? Odd given how many gillions of scrub turkeys are running around wild on all the Brisbane neighborhood streets)

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Today we drove to Palmdale, to the desert, and climbed up on an enormous rock/cliff thing near Devil’s Punchbowl. It was great. beautiful weather, fun climb, such a great warm piney scent in the air. On our way back, we stopped on one of those sandy deserted desert roads in the middle of nowhere and played saxophone for a while. It would have been quite romantic if I could play better.

After about 40 minutes, we were set to head back for real, and Zaubi discovered that he had lost the car key! What a disaster. We were in the middle of nowhere (actually, according to Zaubi, we were at an intersection where one of the scenes from Texas Chainsaw Massacre was filmed) had no drinks or snacks, the car windows were all open, and the sun was soon heading down. We looked EVERYWHERE for the dratted key, sifting through the sand, etc. etc., for almost an hour. I found the whole thing hilarious but Zaubi was exceedingly frustrated. He finally called his father (who had an extra key, albeit a good hour and a half away in LA) but thankfully, before his father had started the long haul to get us (how embarassing!) I found the key, carefully jammed in between the crack in the steering wheel till only a bit of black rubber was sticking out! I had actually been staring at it for a couple of minutes before it slowly dawned on me that the steering wheel wasn’t designed to look so irregular…

Zaubi of course had absolutely no idea how it got there. Men!

SO!

I am now the joyous owner of a lovely vintage Conn 1942 10M “Naked Lady” tenor saxophone!

Since arriving in LA we’ve been sax hunting like mad (see, saxes cost over 2x in Oz than they do here). The other day I wandered into a store which had hanging on the wall the exact sax that I had my mind on ever since I decided it might be a good idea to get a vintage rather than modern sax (better tone, easier on the wallet… *if* you can find the right thing!) — only problem was, there was a weird buzzing sound when I tested it out. And they didn’t want to go down on the price – I considered $1495 too much for a sax that looked like it had been relaquered (a big value dropper) and that had a weird buzz that would require fixing.

So we went to a lot of other stores, and then back to that one today since we knew the sax repair guy would be in. He was very nice and helpful: we showed him the problem and he fixed it on the spot, AND recorked it, AND fixed the sticking G# key, AND redid some felt/corking that had come off and that was causing a vibration! So, it basically got a free tuneup on the spot. What’s more, the store people offered to throw in a free hard case (the sax, which was owned by some guy who recently died, came with just a 1960s soft leather gig bag) and they offered to not make us pay sales tax (which here in CA is a steep 8.5%).

SO we bought it! And better yet, Zaubi’s mother kindly funded about 95% of it so it doesn’t even damage our house down payment savings!

I am one happy grateful girl. This sax has a lovely tone, full but without one whit of harshness. It isn’t quite as sweet as the Selmers (but costs less than half has much) but has more power: isn’t as crazy powerful as the Yamahas (or as heavy! they’re tankers) but lacks their excessive brightness/harshness thank goodness! It sounds MUCH better than the pro Yamaha I’m currently renting – the tone is *exactly* what I wanted!

All that and with the personality of a 64 year old much-used instrument as well. It was one of the fairly few made during WWII (what, I wonder, did they make it out of?) It’s in great shape: very few dings, just some scratches. What’s more, it actually HASN’T been relaquered (I was wrong) – only at the very top, where it appears a new neck was put in a long time ago. And, it has the famous “naked lady” engraved onto the bell, tee hee!

I think this is really horrifying.

Not least because of the complacent confidence of the people who are fighting for it. Their statements just smack of self-delusion.

You can’t put your faith in human discernment or goodness. A few years pass and things become okay that were previously claimed as “never will be acceptable”.

Where do you draw the line?

Just got back from Sydney last night. I went there for 2.5 days with Zaubi who was on a business trip with his entire group. He was stuck in the conference the whole time, but I wandered around — took the ferry to Manly and went to the beach (got a good burn, too, only the second or so burn I’ve gotten since getting here), went to the Powerhouse Museum which was very boring so I left, went to a 3D IMAX show which was very interesting but which made me carsick. The conference was, amusingly enough, held inside Luna Park but Luna Park was closed Tue and Wed so alas no rides! Sydney’s a nice city. It’s a real city, a proper metropolis, unlike Brisbane. But I think I got my city living out of my system those 7 months I lived in NYC. I wouldn’t want to live in Sydney.

In two days mrtee is turning 32. I can’t believe it. I’ve known him since I was 16 and he was 19. Can we really have gotten so old?

Tomorrow is the last day of my contract. How sad. As I said, I will miss being here in the CBD — still, who knows what I may find when I start up my new job hunt after I return from the States. Someone here has kindly put me into contact with a woman at an agency that had helped him out a good deal — I’m meeting with her tomorrow, so I’d better fix up my resume!

I think I’ve decided not to go to NZ right after we get back from the States — Zaubi has another conference there, but I feel perhaps I should save the money it would cost to get me a plane ticket over there instead. Besides, it’s always trouble to find places for all the pets.

While we were in Sydney, the husband of a co-worker of Zaubi’s looked after the dogs for us. We had dog-proofed their yard a few days previously, but of course, the day we were to leave, we get a call from someone who had found Kettricken sitting smugly on her front doorstep! So we rushed over to the place, got Kettricken back, and re-dog proofed it — Kettricken’s a skinny, sneaky little thing. We must have done it properly this time because she didn’t find her way out again. Zaubi’s co-worker and husband have also kindly offered to look after them for the duration of our trip to the States, which is a HUGE relief. The lady next door also has offered to look after Elma.

Bored. Stiff.

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