ms crankypants

I was going to write a serious piece about the sad necessity that zoos have increasingly greater responsibilities as cataloguers and maintainers of the world’s animal species, BUT I’M OBSESSED WITH THE BABY ELEPHANT AT MELBOURNE ZOO!

All photos sourced: Jason South, www.theage.com.au

I just want to scoop all 110+ kilograms of her up in my arms, steal her away into my (incredibly undersized for the task) car and then panic about what to feed my little wrinkly princess. Her mother, Dokkoon, would be upset at having her gorgeous cuddlemonster taken away, so I suppose I’d have to return with the family’s alpaca transporter and see if I can squeeze mamma elephant in the back and bring her home as well. The trees at my house wouldn’t keep them fed for long, but there’s a large horse paddock out the back that will serve for meals until I find elephant agistment. The peninsula stocks many kinds of exotic animals like camels, deer and the odd water buffalo or two so I’m sure there I’ll locate suitable facilities for elephants in this week’s local paper.

The water tanks are full and Dokkoon and Baby Dok will enjoy the elephant-sized pool and baby-safe play pool once I’ve, erm, had the paddock out the back excavated. I have a Swiss ball that’s collecting dust so the l’il one and I will play elephant soccer with it to her heart’s content.

I’m upset about the zoo’s competition to name Baby Dok after Thailand’s floral heritage. The options are Leelawadee (frangipani), Ma Li Wan (climbing jasmine), Su Ma Lee (osmanthus), Mali (jasmine) and Iyares (which apparently means both elephant and orchid). The buttheads at my work don’t agree with me calling her Baby Dok, and I say, “Come on, she’s a baby, her mother is Dokkoon, and it’s a rappin’ good elephant name.” I need another job where my co-workers are a little less critical and lot more enthusiastic about my excellent ideas. In the meantime, I’m plotting a day off work away from them and with my new saggy baggy elephant baby.

Crank-o-meter: come to your new mamma, Baby Dok

February 21st, 2010 | Tags: Add new tag, animals are fun | Category: animals are fun | Comments (11)

Now that even holding a mobile phone in your hand while driving is a sin, it’s become remarkably thrilling, especially when there’s such easy quarry to photograph while waiting at lights. This advertising sign was plastered on the van in front of me.

Crank-o-meter: your laying had better be good

February 13th, 2010 | Tags: crimes against language, general delusions | Category: crimes against language, general delusions | Comments (5)

Everyone outside Victoria picks on Melbourne’s weather with the same rabid assertiveness when debating other national obsessions like Tony Abbott’s choices of sports wear each week.

I love Melbourne’s weather. I love telling visitors to wear their bathers but bring an overcoat when they pack, I love not putting away the bulk of my winter clothes until late November (and never putting them all away just in case!) and I have an absurdly passionate relationship with the upside-down days when sweltering nights are hotter than the days that follow. All that wasted time trying to sleep in the heat when the cool change could have rolled in a few hours earlier – you bitchface, Mother Nature, but I still love you!

Sydney’s energy-sapping humidity sucks. I remember the week I moved there and was sporting perennially Shirley Temple-curled hair from the humidity, and the first rain I’d experienced dripped down the office windows. I yelled something along the lines of “EUREEEEEEKA, A COOL CHANGE!” and ran from my desk past surprised co-workers who were wondering why the new person had gone troppo. I shot down to ground level, burst out of the building and almost cried in public when I discovered the air-temperature rain just made the heat more wet and soul draining. I took my sopping self (now with new and improved double frizzy curls) back to the office and the sympathy of other homesick Melburnians who got the whole cool change thing. The locals thought I was a fucking idiot with impulse control issues.

Brisbane’s morning heat in summer is horrid. I’ve walked from hotels no more than 200 metres to offices and dripped sheets of sweat, which wasn’t a good look when trying to impress groups of impressionable young folk. The attempts I made to sound convincing as a trainer were belied by my crumpled clothes and sweaty pink face that made me look more like a late-night TV used car salesperson. The balmy climate was more pleasing though at night when I got lost going for walks and spent hours trying to work out how to get out of the big park I’d accidentally discovered. The park was probably a relaxing, pretty place during the day but I scanned the papers to make sure Brisbane wasn’t overrun by warm weather-loving, park-dwelling serial killers at night.

Perth is nicely hot and the Freo doctor is a marvel of refreshment but does it ever rain there? I receive e-mails from a friend high in Perth’s tallest building complaining when a cloud passes by but he has never mentioned the trauma of water falling from the sky.

I’ve never been to Darwin but the locals seem addicted to air conditioners and copious amounts of beer six months of the year so I already know it’s not the city for me. Now that I can knit above the level of piss-poor amateur, I think I’d like Hobart very much because I can wear my scarf and beanie experiments more often. I’ve never been to Adelaide but the summer seems similar to Melbourne’s except for the lack of psychotic cool changes so it might be a nice place to admire the weather, and Canberra, well, it seems too hot in summer and too frosty in winter but kind of unexciting the rest of the time. Landing at Canberra airport once on a frosty morning made me vow never to fly near the place between April and October.

But now I have to buckle and confess that Melbourne’s weather is well and truly bizarre. The days have been sweltering all week, and the nights not dipping below 22 degrees, but what the hell is this pea-souper fog? I turned on the headlights, fog lights and windscreen wipers yet had the windows open and took some clothes off because it was so bloody hot outside. Freaky weather town, I still love you but I don’t get it. I just don’t get it.

Crank-o-meter: dumb-arse weather

February 11th, 2010 | Tags: general delusions | Category: general delusions | Comments (8)