Things my parents left for me to do - the lawn mower

My parents left in September. They're coming back in January. In between this time, surely I would be required to mow the lawn? At least once? So before they left, dad taught me how to mow. There's a switch you push down, and then a cord you pull. Then you push. As I was pushing in the front yard, it stopped. The lawnmower just stopped. It had petrol in it. It was supposed to be all good. And it was until it wasn't. Unfortunately it was the weekend before they left so something else that I had to do while they were gone was fix the lawn mower. Even more unfortunate was the repair place through the warranty was in Campbellfield. Omg Campbellfield, it's like 20km out of the city. Painful. And I had to drive there twice.

But at least they could fix it. My cousin helped me lift the mower into the back of the 4wd and off I went. Thank goodness for satellite navigation. The lady at the store had to help me get out of the car. She called a couple of days later to say the spark plug was the problem and something about the clutch. Is there a clutch? I'm not sure about the clutch part. I was going to pick it up the following Saturday but apparently they are all on holiday for the Saturdays of October, something about Christmas parties and vacation and stuff. Oh well. But having experienced actual rain in Melbourne, the lawn was getting insane so I took a morning off uni and drove out there on a week day. My poor research, suffering because I'm not good at coordinating house chores (and I would rather do anything than research on some days...).

The following weekend I mowed the lawn. Half way through the front, the mower stopped again. I totally freaked out. I don't want to drive to Campbellfield again! The neighbour saw me and asked about petrol O_O. Turns out I was out of petrol. I made a few phone calls to China and found a petrol canister with petrol in it out the back. w00t. And the mowing continues. Turns out the nature strip out front is thicker and healthier than the our grass in the front yard and back. So thick that there was a beer bottle completely hidden. I didn't even realise it was there until I went over it with the lawn mower and the bottle exploded and the mower stopped :[. At first I thought the mower had really broken this time. Later I thought ffar out I should have been wearing longer pants and more protective work gear. That beer bottle could have gotten me! It's from the bogans who live on the other side of me, the family with like 4 sons in a wooden shack. The eldest one is living in a caravan out back and has loud drinking parties all time time. I guess it's only natural for them to move the party to the front yard and leave their empties in my nature strip. Hmph. I found a bourbon can too, but because that was light, it didn't sink into the grass.

The mower just wasn't quite the same after the beer bottle. It just chugged along, and if it struggled too much, it would stop all together. But at least I could always start it back up again. My neighbour told me to just leave it on no grass, or in mid air so it could pick up speed again. That seemed to help a little but after 3/4 of the backyard, it passed out and couldn't be re-started. Several hours later, I tried to start it up just to make sure it wasn't actually broken, and hooray, it could.

My non-bogan neighbours did some of the edges for me on the nature strip; very nice of him. He was very helpful that day. The weekend after I baked some cupcakes for him and his family.

That was a few weekends ago and now the grass is growing back up again! I was thinking about mowing again this weekend but the heat wave says I should wait. With any luck, the grass will just die. But just in case, I'll get some petrol in a canister next time I'm at the servo.

Things my parents left for me to do - the car

On the afternoon before my parents left for China, mum hit another car with her car. She sort of made a claim, didn't add me to the official list of people who are authorised on her insurance policy and asked me to take care of it before she came back. This is how it began. On the day, she accidentally pocketed the other guy's driver's licence and forgot to record the details of his car. She had a mailing address for the guy so sent the guy a letter with my details. From then, we had contact with each other. Turns out his car was a company vehicle and other than giving me his details, he didn't have much to do anymore. His company took care of the rest - sent me/mum a letter of demand. At first, I was just feeding information to the car insurance because I wasn't officially authorised. They couldn't tell me any information about the policy but would accept my information; sort of like a bad one way conversation. After I collected all the bits and pieces like where the accident happened, confirmed my mum wasn't drinking, they sent me a letter to let me know what was next. At this time, I cracked it and made mum call the car insurance place to add me to the policy. I also made her call Vicroads to get a driving history sent home. That was one of the things the insurance company needed. This is Budget Direct btw. They were fairly helpful up to that point.

After that, things got frustrating and annoying. Letters came in the mail requesting various documents like quotes and money. At first they were nice letters. I sent some of the documents off. Then the letters got quite demanding. I called them to ask and they said all I needed to do was get a quote with pictures from any car repairer and I'm all good. So I took it to a place near by to get a quote for the damage. But I then had to take it to Port Melbourne to have it assessed. They didn't tell me about this. :S. At this stage I also started getting letters to say if I don't do stuff in 14 days, they're going to close the claim. 4 days before they were still saying do stuff at your leisure.

Anyway, I went yesterday to get the car assessed at a Budget Direct assessment place and apparently the headlight protectors weren't listed as an accessory so they're not covered. The assessor was very nice about it and I said fine, I don't want them anyway. Mum's just going to sell the car next year anyway, with or without protectors are fine. We can just remove them. The insurance company sent me a text after the assessment saying that I needed to call them. So I did and they said I could insure the protectors for an additional $25. I said no. But then this morning, the repairer near my home called to say everything had been approved, bring the car in on Monday. I thought this was strange so I called the car insurance place just to check I didn't say "Yes! Charge me $25". Jane, the lady who served me was particularly kurt and unhelpful and started talking about a previous claim with AAMI and that nothing had been approved. There was a hold in the claim because they found that my mum had made a claim with another vehicle in May that wasn't listed in there database. This was dad's car, insured under mum's name when someone had hit rear ended him. Why hadn't they called me to tell me this? They only told me because I called them! Apparently they were supposed to call me today but it was 4pm when I called them so if they were going to call me, it was very late. So far I've been pretty messed around with the whole system. I was confused by Jane that I had to call back again to speak to someone else to understand what was going on.

I really miss AAMI. This is why I am still with AAMI and I will always be with AAMI. I've convinced mum to go back with AAMI after the insurance with Budget Direct ends. So I called AAMI today but because I'm not listed as an authorised person with mum's AAMI policy, they can't tell me squat either. So I said, how about you mail "my parents" the car accident details. They said they can't but if mum was to email asking them to send the details out, they would. So I sent an email to my parents, giving them the details. Hopefully the letter will come through and I can update my mum's insurance details with Budget Direct, then they'll unfreeze the claim and I can get the car fixed!

And here I thought I was finally going to be getting it fixed on Monday. Sigh. The drama continues.

Calida and Nathan

Calida, one of my netball friends had an engagement party on Saturday. So the story goes, Nate with the assistance of some liquid courage told Cal that he was sick not being able to propose because he couldn't afford a ring (Nate's a PhD student, we're all poor). He loves her and wants to spend the rest of his life with her... So that's how he proposed and now they're engaged! I teared up a little when Cal first told me; I'm emotional like that. They didn't tell other people at first but when they finally did, apparently some friends at work were really upset because because they didn't get told straight away!

Anyway, they had a party and all is well. The event was at the All Nations Hotel in Richmond and Karl and I were very impressed. Everything Calida does, Karl and I want to do. For example, her birthday was at a nice pub on Victoria Street. Karl said he wanted to have his birthday at a place just like it: good food, good beer, good music. Their engagement was in the courtyard of a pub that served delicious food on a Saturday afternoon. The food there was fantastic. Even the sausage rolls were gourmet. Not just your standard deep fried foods. And luckily for Calida, it was a beautiful day. If Karl and I were to get engaged, we think we would want to do the same. Because it's such a nice and casual atmosphere in the afternoon, everyone can be invited: friends, family, children, grandparents. However, Anna didn't get to see the cutting of the engagement cake because there was a little kid puking milk at the back that distracted her. So, maybe having too many children isn't the best idea?

I asked Cal how she found such a perfect place. Turns out she works there. I remember she took a year off either between her ugrad and honours or after her honours and before her current work (where she actually uses her Science Degree) and worked there for a year as a manager. Now that she's at Aesop (I know! Awesome, I wish I did a science degree and now made makeup), she only works a little bit there.

3 other netball girls including myself went. Most people there were friends and family. More netball girls were meant to go but they got the times mixed up. Rachel was getting ready on Sunday when she checked Facebook, just to confirm venue. She thought it was strange that people were uploading photos of the event already. Maybe it was using an iPhone? No, turns out she got the day mixed up. Arani didn't go because she thought it was this coming weekend. Katie, Anna and I made it :D. Although Katie thought it started later than it did. We're so awesome...

Calida looked lovely in her bright green dress. At netball training, she told us how worried about it she was. It's one of those baby doll dresses that started to flare out right under the bust. She put an extra belt on because she was worried that she looked pregnant. Looking pregnant at an engagement party is not want people want to do.

Before Saturday, I asked Karl what we should get them. Karl said you don't give presents at engagement parties, you only give presents at weddings. Why are boys so ridiculous sometimes? I thought it might be funny to buy them a toaster; it's a very generic gift that's a bit of laughs.

Forum game

So I visit this gaming forum and there's this game that we're playing. Long story short, I need to generate as many views of this video in the next couple of days. Here goes nothing:

I don't know why I picked this one. I guess it's something that I feel comfortable with advertising without feeling stupid. Other people on my team picked a farting one. It was funny, but it's boy humour that I'm not terribly into.

Karl just messaged me. He says, "I love your enthusiasm and getting people interested in the university but if a multi-million dollar advertising budget can't get over 1000 views I don't like your chances".

Culinary Wasteland

I recently bought The Age Good Food Guide 2010. It's really awesome for finding good places to eat. I picked my birthday restaurant from the 2009 one last year.

Looking through it this year, I found a couple of places near where I live. Hooray. One of them was Floyd, 111 Upper Heidelberg Road in Ivanhoe. The first sentence in the description reads: "Floyd joins a batch of welcome, well-priced places that have popped up recently in what was once a culinary wasteland and it performs to the standards promised by an impressive modern fitout that must have terrified the bank manager."

Ivanhoe was a culinary wasteland :[. The Age says so.

The places recommended in the good food guide are usually fairly pricey. I'm looking forward to the 2010 Cheap Eats that comes out at the start of next year.

On a semi related note, someone recently told me that our apartment in the city (when I move out of the has been wasteland) will be really close to William Anglish Institute of Tafe and they have cheap and fairly decent cafe/restaurants for the food produced by the students.