Is It a BIG limo or a 'lil Ute?

In Australia your standard "aussie bloke" has a ute.  Its short for utility truck, in many ways it's like a smaller version of a pickup truck.  It still has the ability to carry passengers comfortably, but has the ability to move a whole household of furniture if a mate were in need.   

So when I saw this parked outside the Parcel 104 restaurant at the Marriott Santa Clara - I was a little unsure if it was a big limo or a small ute.  

The concierge told me it has gull wing doors which made my head spin even more because then potentially it could also be a small plane given the right set of circumstances.

I never approached the driver to find out if the "ute" part was a jaccuzzi - that would just totally do my head in!

Part Time Pet Hall of Fame

Over time I've had the pleasure to make the acquaintance of some wonderful part time pets - they all end up with a special nickname from me - you can meet some of them here:

The Ozzies

Katie and Sophie - Daylesford

  

This is "Katie the Matie" and "Sophie the Lophie" collectively
known as "The Tailwaggers".  Katie has a heart the size of
Texas and well Sophie would just loaf off as soon as your
back was turned and go find dead kangaroos bones to bring home

 

One needs one's futon for lying in the sunshine

 

They would beg their way in promising to keep me company, 

then all I would hear is snoring by the fire

 -oOo-

Jelly Bean - Hepburn Springs

 

This is "The Bean" - she is a hugger girl that likes to help with the computer

 

Every princess needs her beauty sleep

Funny thing was, this sofa was empty the day she arrived,

by the time she left she had more blankets and pillows than I did! 

 -oOo-

Ellie - Bermagui

-oOo-

Thunder and Jadore - Gold Coast

Their folks had gone off to Bali to get married so we 

decided we'd get our fascinators on and have a special 

wedding dinner and send them a wedding message with photos

 Thunder the Wonder took to the whole
fascinator thing well and posed beautifully and 

seemed a little disappointed when he had take his off

Jadore the Princess seemed a little less impressed with

hers and it disappeared as fast as her dinner

There was also Freddie the exotic blue fish but he

refused to have anything to do with fascinators and was

content to just go round and round and round his bowl

-oOo-

Dunolly, VIC, Australia

Madge and Max were my only buddies 

in Country Victoria - they didn't say much 

but hopped in morning and night
and did a good job of keeping 

the lawns mowed.

-oOo-

Izzy and Blackie - Adelaide

 

I called her "Izzy Whizzy Lets Gets Busy" - but her favourite thing (well apart from walks) was sneaking onto MY blanket and leaving HER Snoopy blanket for me!

Her third most favourite thing was tummy rubs!

Blackie liked to lie in the sun and was happiest when left alone.
Funny thing was Blackie wasn't black.

The Americans

Sylvie - San Jose

 

"Sylvie McGilvy" - the "let me find the best and sunniest 

spot in the house and lie in it" gal

 

She was such a loving gal - she had to be in on everything.

She made a great iPad stand - she would sit a top my knees

and help write newsletters (yeah right - sleep more like!)

 

I had trouble convincing her she wasn't leaving with me!

~oOo~

Sophie and Marcel
San Francisco

 

Marcel the Par-cel - such a gift

He'd had surgery but outsmarted his

first smaller cone and ripped open the stitches,

which meant he was cone-head for the whole time

with me - don't you just love his ballet feet.

 

Sophie the Yoda Master

Straight out of Glamour Salon

 

Office Pals .... eventually

Read their story here

 Here's Marcel helping me set up the video for recording

~oOo~
 
Duke & Daisy
Washington DC

Daisy Di - very regal!

Dookie Doodle - the "Ma Num a Nah" cat

The Canadians

Donus - Sechelt BC

 

"Donus the Bonus" - that ear was always lop sided - so cute!

 

I even had to mind a Hamster called Hammy 

he loved his hamster ball I got him

-oOo-

Batman- Vancouver BC

 

This is "Batman the Catman" - he lives in Vancouver 

but he's from France originally, so he only speaks French

 I used to call him "Oui Oui" and "Bon Oui" when he was 

especially good because that's the only French I know!

He is the master at hide and seek

Pomegranate Power

House sitting carries the most delightful surprises.

At my sit in San Jose, the owners emails kept telling me to "enjoy the pomegranates".

I'd never tried them, although I had heard they were delicious.  Pomegranates are not widely available in Australia, well Melbourne anyway.

Sure enough on investigating the backyard the pomegranate tree was loaded.

As instructed I managed to pull a perfectly formed, big round red one off the tree and headed inside to try this treat I had seen selling for a dollar a pop at the supermarket.

Luckily I started to chop it open in the sink because first cut with the knife and bright crimson juice sprayed everywhere!

This was obviously not a first date food.

By the end of getting all those seeds out of the pod and all the white and reportedly sour white pith off, the sink looked like a massacre zone.

It also took a very LONG time to eat all those seeds one by one, and if you ate them with a spoon, little spurts of juice went everywhere.  Quite frankly it seemed a lot of work and mess for something that was nice but EXHAUSTING.

I had earlier observed there were many empty pods under the tree, which I guessed were consumed by the delightful little squirrels who raced up and down the fence.

So I figured nature makes it easy for them, maybe I should pick the already split ones. Sure did, but still the massacre in the sink to clean up. I'd keep finding spots of pomegranate juice all over the kitchen and me!

When in doubt ..... Google

But I persevered and I googled for tips and tricks on peeling them. So many tips!

The most common solution seemed to be to peel them under water, but this seemed an even messier option to me. I also didn't like the concept of losing the juice into the water.

Finally it dawned on me to peel them inside a clean plastic bag and just keep washing it out.

Worked a treat if I quartered them first - tapped out as many of the luscious seeds as would fall out naturally and then just scrap out the remainder.

The bag collected all the seeds and juice, so nothing got wasted and the pith floated on the juice.

My cunning plan to become a domestic goddess was not dead yet!

Then I got the bright idea to tip the contents of the plastic bag into my morning smoothies - YUMMO!  Taste Explosion!

I'd been switched onto Vega Powder in Canada and combined with their berry shake powder, a few spinach and kale leaves plus chia and hemp seeds........ I was rockin'

Give the Goddess of Domestication's Pommegranate Vega shakes a go!

Earning Carrot Dollars Couldn't Be Easier

Sometimes people just get stuff right.

I was delighted when Karen, my back up if something went wrong at my San Jose sit, swung in to take me to the San Jose Downtown Farmers’ Market in San Pedro Square the first week I arrived. People you meet while sitting can be so very kind and I was most grateful for this introduction to a local ritual.

The market was lovely and I decided to take myself off there on my own steam the following week. That included walking and the bus. I was very excited because I had read on the Farmers Market website that you get "carrot dollars" if you take public transport, if you walk or bike in. Well I had two ticks to my name.

But to be honest getting buses does my head in and I was so busy trying to explain where I needed to get off and discern if I was actually on the right bus to do that, I completely forgot to ask for a receipt. On the San Jose buses you generally just throw our money in the slot, keep your head down and keep walking.

Despite proof of purchase, I decided to have a chat to the lady at the "carrot money" stand anyway and I let her know I'd bused in but didn't have any proof. She heard my accent and instantly believed me and handed over my well earned "carrot money".

I love when people don't nit pick and make it hard for you to get the advertised rewards. This is an amazing initiative to get people out of their cars and coming to the market using less carbon emissions. To know they are so generous in their thinking really does make a big difference to why I would want to keep returning.

I went in the morning because the market is slap in the middle of the San Jose CBD so I guessed it would get quite busy as the office workers come out at lunchtime to gather their weekend food supplies.

But before noon, the market is laid back and has a really great vibe, along with a really good busker and a mixed variety of stalls.

I had no trouble spending my "carrot dollars" on homemade hommus.

Image that, you don't even have to buy carrots! I reckon I may have tried just about all the 22 flavours of hommus on sale, settling on the hot chilli version. Hot was the operative word, but it made the tub last longer!

There is also an excellent Sunday farmers market at Japantown and although it doesn't carry the vibrant vibe of the Friday market, the smallholders are authentic and the food is fresh and yummy ..... No carrot dollars on Sunday either :-(

I really loved the cities attitude to fresh organic food. I could easily live in a place that cared as much.

Photograph Your Bags

House sitters frequently rack up a lot of travel and spend way too much time on trains, boats and planes. 

 Fingers crossed it all goes well. But even the most hardened travelers have something go wrong from time to time.

I had an incident with my bag coming off a flight out of San Fran into Vancouver.

My bag is quite distinct and has all the required bows and big identifying labels showing it is my bag. But still I found myself at Vancouver airport, in a hurry to catch a connecting ferry, in the unenviable position of watching a bag identical to mine go around and around the luggage carousel.

I have never seen anyone with a bag like mine. I got it in Sydney years ago and I bought it because it was different.

Even though identical in every way, I knew this interloper doing the airport equivalent of a session on a hamster wheel wasn't mine because I had checked the bag tag. Yep it was an Australian address, probably purchased in the same shop as mine. This wasn't a good sign.

As soon as it became obvious no new bags were entering the system I headed over to the the very friendly and super helpful man at the lost baggage counter. He swung into action as he stated his annoyance with people who couldn't or wouldn't obey the airport's constant pleas to check they had the right bag before leaving the concourse.

He rightly pointed out that people think they are too busy and important to take a few seconds to check.

Your Bag Carries Important Things Like Clean Underwear
- its not good when it goes missing

He tried all the obvious things like phoning the number on the imposter bag, putting a message over the airport intercom system. As time ticked away it was becoming increasingly obvious I wasn't going to get that ferry.

Then the paper work started and the questions.

So many questions related to one little common blue bag.

This is why I recommend you take photos of all your luggage so you can show the person at lost and found exactly what it looks like. Despite the amount of time spent lugging that bag through airports and hotel lobbies, you would be surprised how hard it is to remember the more intricate details.

As I reached for my phone to start showing the guy my photos, we noticed two women, red faced and puffing running toward us .... with my blue bag in tow. I've never been so pleased to see that bag.

However the woman who had lifted my bag was more concerned how this had held HER up and how could we hurry this up because they had tight connections that were being messed with.

Then, as a dispossessed afterthought, she added "oh well ......... these things happen".

Until now I was happy to just glare and get on with my day but the last comment raised my heckles. and my brain disengaged as my mouth flew open.  I pointed out that "perhaps if she had checked she had the right bag then maybe she wouldn't be in this position".

Now I was fuming mad and off I went into a rant ....... "and ignorant, unthinking people like her who couldn't spend five seconds to check the label on the bag were the reason this sort of thing happened. It had nothing to do with fate or some off-chance divine intervention".

Then she poured salt into the wound and offered in a very off hand way to give me money for my loss.

How do you recompense the fact that the sit I was going to included an 86 year old woman who was petrified of the dark? The ferry at 5pm would have got me in before dark, the later ferry wouldn't.

Unthinking Actions Often Hurt the Innocent  

So here we have a situation where someone elderly and afraid is sitting alone in a big house, the sun is going down and she is wondering if this total stranger all the way from Australia is even going to show up. How do you recompense that?

 

Luckily the customs lady who had to bring the bag napper back into the secure area, read my body language, stepped in and suggested we just agree to differ and get on our way.

I did miss the ferry but luckily BC Ferries provide free Internet for their passengers so I was able to log into Skype and phone ahead to let my elderly charge know what had happened.  I was able to assure her that although I wouldn't be there before dark, I would be there.

If I'd known it was going to cost me $80 to get a cab from the ferry to the house instead of taking the bus for $2.50 I might have considered taking that horrible woman's guilt money. But in hindsight I wouldn't have wanted the energy of that women's money anywhere near me, even for a short period of time.

As the very wise and observant man at the lost baggage pointed out, as I was thanking him for his outstanding service, "people like her would never understand that their actions caused so much distress for others and what's more she wasn't the type of person who was ever likely to change her behavior because people like her could never own her part in what went wrong".

Crikey, you find the most extraordinary everyday sages in the most unlikely places when you travel!

My day was much enriched by meeting the wise airport workers at YVR.

What Do I Miss?

A question I get asked quite a lot ……. What do I miss most as I live the reality of a portable lifestyle?

Well apart from the obvious friends and family …… I'm slightly embarrassed to admit ……. the thing I really miss the most is my 27" Big iMac.

Here's my lil mac taking the download from the big mac on my last full day in Daylesford.

Even though I've come away with the latest Mac Book Pro with retina screen in my KnoMo Stella backpack - the Pro, well its faster and smarter on many levels, but I really miss being able to see everything all at once.

Its never easy to step down and going from 27 to 15 inches …. well just proves the age old adage that size really does matter.

Sigh and then there's the magic of building sequences in the new Infusionsoft campaign builder - no longer can I see the whole campaign all at once.  I know people in the world are starving, but these are the things you miss on the road, particularly when your whole business lives in your computer.

Then the next thing I miss is my Herman Miller Mirra office chair with the amazing built in lumber support.

My back reminds me every day how amazing that chair really was.

I could sit there all day and not feel any worse for the wear and tear.

But I get to experience new cities and do nutty things like wake up in the morning and just decide to go to lunch in a city most only ever dream of visiting.

I really am very blessed, but Apple …. if you can figure out how to make a fold up 27" screen, that is lighter than an Air and packs down to my backpack - I'll love ya forever!!

And Herman if you can put a button on that chair that shrinks it so it fits in the backpack too - oh my, my back will love you forever!