Last week of the school holidays, but no let up on the kid wrangling front. We had one of Anna’s friends under our wing today, so I decided to drive out to Ipswich to visit the art gallery, where they had a whole puppy themed bit of arty business programmed for the kiddies. A disco with giant screens showing dogs which somehow reacted to dance moves of the kids, a craft cage, and an exhibition on ‘working animals’.
That amused them for a while, then we attempted to find lunch, but being Ipwich there wasn’t much beyond Maccas, and my kids have been trained to think of the Golden Arches as the doorway to Hell.
Finally went to some chain place across the river, a Billy Baxters, where I managed to score a quite decent salmon salad (still taking it easy on the diet front after getting sick). The leaves were amazingly fresh. Perhaps I was the only person who ordered it that day.
Then home for a swim, and down to the dog park, and back to make their own pizzas for dinner.
You’ll notice that no writing got done anywhere in there.
No work, hardly a care in the world and a day with an offspring.
Everybody deserves a day like that once in a while.
No work may have happened. Small price to pay. It wouldn’t have matched the fun the kids had and the memories they will take from today. One Cool Dad Award is on back order for you sir.
Well after the Obama fest yesterday – you needed to get regrounded. Kids tend to do that for you.
When we took my grandfather to get his cataracts done, we found a decent bakery/greasy spoon/cafe thingy I think on Brisbane St, just about the bottom of the hill. Would be a couple of blocks from the gallery (if that is where I think it is… never actually been there).
Salmon salad sounds better of course.
Ah, so when can we expect our next dose of explodey goodness? I want my writer rested and refreshed yes, but the beast must be fed.
“and my kids have been trained to think of the Golden Arches as the doorway to Hell.”
Please tell me your secret.
The massive purgatives I secreted in the shakes had no effect against Ronalds’s irrestable marketing jugernaut. I’m afaraid the Bobette was lost for years.
Recently she has taken to the “Being seen” thing in our local cofee shop – an improvement.
Hell of an adventure for the small fry – taking the Hovercraft up the Bremmer River.
‘and my kids have been trained to think of the Golden Arches as the doorway to Hell’
Yes, O wise one, learn us of your smartdom. How did you manage to pull that one off?
Mind you, a bit surprised you went for salmon (ella) on a green (hepatitis) salad in a town that probably doesn’t go the non-quadriped-derived meal option much. Reckon that might have had the potential to create more problems than it solved vis a vis your internals. Whereas nobody ever gets food poisoning from McDs, as technically it isn’t food.
A mate of mines first kid had a real sugar problem, so no lollies sweets ect, and all the kids that followed got the same diet. Watching kids beg for a banana is rather weird, but nice.
Dr Yob: brainwashing is very handy. My kids see the KFC ads during cricket telecasts, and get shouting mad. I love it.
It helps that the only time I ever gave them KFC chips, the KFC folks obligingly supplied shitty stale ones. Down here in tater-growing Taz, most chippies take considerable pride in their hot chips, so the boys were comfuckingpletely scandalized to be served up a mess of unpalatable potato and grease.
That and the fact that the home cooking is good too. Tonight my two tucked into home-made chicken caesar salad, followed by a motherlode of fresh cherries.
Easy.
Yeah the endemic KFC ads on the cricket used to do for us regularly at Chateau Dodgy, our old St Lucia sharehouse. We were rational, intelligent males with scientific minds, so we had no excuse, Honest, it was the only time we ever craved it (other than when woefully hungover of course but we’re not counting that). Some kind of weird Channel Nine mind control exercise. I’m sure Indro KFC did more business in the innings breaks of one-dayers than at any stage across the working day. Eventually, disgusted with myself, I foreswore the Evil Colonel’s mind-control gambits and sought a better place. Red Rooster.
Anyone know if the Evil Colonel still stalks the highways of the land by night? KFC used to put weird silver and blue reflective shit on their highway billboards – in the dead of night, barrelling down a lonesome road in a old, dubiously reliable Skyline with only a pair of dim headlights splitting the nothingness, a sudden glimpse of the Evil Colonel’s hideous ghoulish visage leering at you could be genuinely shit-frightening.
The centre of the city is now dead JB. As you found you have to venture across the river to Riverlink to find any life. We often frequent the Santennos pasta place or Nando’s there
Hrm, we occasionally resort to Red Rooter, but always shun Ken – fuck, he tried. Very rarely, always when Mrs Damian is absent, I’ll get McD for the sheer belly-filling convenience, but know I have to make up the actual food value elsewhere.
well, i am a very bad man, i stop most mornings on the way into work for a LARGE cino at goldens M’s. Other than that I avoid the god dam mongrel place like the black death.
not a bad day JB, better than mine. I got to tell a young just married girl that she is redundant at the end of FEB, What a mess, I sent her straight home. Just one of the the many I suspect that shall follow. NOT GOOD. Soak it up whilst it lasts and ya have the time.
Isn’t that one of the joys of the road trip. The unlooked for but discovered gem like a “quite decent salmon salad” when you had no expectations.
Good to hear the recovery is proceeding.
Sure, let’s bash the golden arches. Totally with your there folks.
But KFC???? That’s going too far. The Colonel is my favourite celebrity chef!!!
Well done on finding something edible out here!.
Weirdly the only one of the big fast food chains I actually crave these days is the Mad Rooter – only because the Rooter doesn’t reprazent in NZ and I only get to indulge in pre-stressed chicken lovin’ when I’m over in Oz once or twice a year. We have all the Maccas, Subway and Evil Colonel/Ken Fuck He Tried/Dirty Bird/Kan’t Fuckin Cook/Kan’t be Fucked Cooking/Kentucky Fried Campylobacter (I think that covers them all) you could ever want, i.e. not much, but no Rooter. Should be thankful for small mercies but them strip subs be tasty.
JB but think of all the writing you’ll get done one the plane during your jetsetting around seppo land.
Being a fan of juicy burgers don’t tend to visit the golden arches or hypoglycemic jacks much. But KFC is a secret desire of mine the chips in oz are shite. But for sheer bad, trans fatty acid, finger licing goodness you can’t beat cold KFC.
Turning the kids against Macas was easy. We just ran the arches down relentlessy for years. Took them out the eat on good restaurants and cafes and then, finally, one day at the end of a long, hot, trying road trip, we pulled into the worst maccas in Canberra and let them have a nasty, dry, tasteless cheeseburger.
Anna gagged. Thomas refused to eat his.
Billy Baxter? Did he sing any songs?
Yes, yes, yes… fast is bad, yadda yadda yadda. But sometimes, man, you just need a hit. And when you discover a new greasy love, there’s nothing which is gunna stop that saliva pooling at the base of your jaw just at the simply thought of it’s lovely wrappered goodness.
Right now, it’s Oporto which is giving me a fast food stiffy. Chilli sauce? Check. Herb salted chips? Checkity-check. Upsize options? Double check.
Fuck… now i need to get to an Oporto for lunch. But just excuse me while I wipe the overflowing drool from chin first.
Hot n Spicy from the Colonel is definitely a treat, and the wicked wings ain’t bad either. It’s sometimes food though.