Amelia in America
An Aussie trying to make sense of the USA
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Tree outside my window bloomed! #Springsprung (Taken with instagram)
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This place is so old school it doesn’t need an instagram filter. Bad 3G though #legit (Taken with instagram)
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The liftie was saying something to me but my music was up loud so I just said,”Have a good day!” and rode off…a moment later the ski run turned to mud!
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One of the curious things about having a foreign spouse is that they don’t understand the little in-jokes you have with people from home. All the catchphrases and jingles from old tv shows and ads or colloquial expressions just don’t have any meaning to them.
Years ago when backpacking through Costa Rica, my poor American was suffering from sunburn, an ear infection and enough mozzie bites to form a connect-the-dots puzzle. I told him he was “in the wars”. He told me it didn’t make sense to refer to the wars from decades ago while discussing his current ailments.
Later we ran into an Australian backpacker and after JP regaled him with the stories of his injuries the kid sympathetically replied with,” You’re in the wars”. I won that battle, didn’t I?!
Recently I was complaining that someone had a voice like Magpie, the old school marm from kids show Blinky Bill. Since JP is an Aussie-in-training, to get him up to speed on dear Blinky, we had to watch a bunch of Youtube vids while he practised saying ‘nostalgia’ with an Australian squawk.
This video was definitely the favourite - Blinky and the lizard scare the park ranger, making him spill his beer on himself…I can’t see the can close enough though. Is it definitely beer or just soft drink [soda]? And why is it so believable that beer could feature on an Aussie kids show?
If it is beer, plus the show’s conservation message, I wonder what chance the lovable, innocent Blinky Bill would ever have of being allowed near Utahn kids?
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I’m fairly convinced that St Patrick’s Day starts the day after Valentine’s Day in the US.
In related news, I had my first Cadbury Creme Egg of 2012 two months ago…
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Photo reblogged from BEST MADE PROJECTS
“I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.”
— Martin Luther King Jr.
Photo: Marion S. Trikosko, 1964.
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I only just found this! For me, the smell of jasmine flowers makes me think of a Queensland Christmas. We had a long hedge of jasmine behind my childhood home and as every summer day heated up, my bedroom filled with the flowers’ scent.
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Every town has its crazies, here are ours as logged by the local cops:
Moron of the week
A Basin resident who deputies described as “irate” demanded that a deputy go to her house and let her son in because he was locked out and she was currently being issued a speeding ticket.
Fashion criminals
A Basin resident reported a male was illegally selling puppies near the Smith’s Food and Drug. When the deputy asked why the caller thought it was illegal, the caller responded that it was because “He is a country-looking guy wearing flannel.”
At 12:48 a.m., the police received a complaint that a man was taunting a security guard on Main Street. The man was wearing a hat backward, the police were told.
Boss from hell?
A Basin resident reported being threatened by his ex-employer. The man told deputies his old employer keeps saying he will annihilate him.
Thankfully, the weekly Park City police blotter and Summit County sheriff’s report are mostly small town cat-up-a-tree kind of problems. You can read the full reports at the Park Record.
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When I first received an email about our White Elephant gift exchange from the office manager I had to do some hasty Googling and a bit of interrogation of colleagues.
In a nutshell, what this tradition involves is Americans giving people gifts they don’t want.
In the crazy ad agency I work for, previous white elephants have included Kegels kits and framed glamour portraits of 80s-era cougars, still proudly hanging in the office.
So even though I pride myself on being pretty good at gift selection, now I’ve got to come up with a hideous gift that’s somehow really wacky?
On the drive home from work the night before the annual White Elephant, I wrack my brains to think of something, anything that I could do.
The only odd, useless thing springing to mind is the kids snorkelling kit at home that we somehow acquired.
How about…since it has no use in Utah, I give it a use in Utah!
I decide to decorate a bucket with some sea life so the recipient can pretend they’re on a nice seaside diving holiday when really they’re in inversion-ridden Salt Lake City.
How I made a Home Snorkelling Kit, roolly fast:
8pm: Come home with bucket, tip undersea creature toys into it. Wander off and start thinking about other things.
8.05pm: Cat discovers bucket, jumps in, discovers toys.
8.20pm: Discover a starfish in the hallway, return to bucket. Resume procrastinating.
9.30pm: Decide I need to get cracking on this creation. Notice the cat has taken the red fish, look around house for it.
9.35pm: Give up and start gluing the remaining toys to the bottom of the bucket.
9.45pm: A blue fish is superglued to my left index finger: OUCH.
9.55pm: Liberal dousing of nailpolish remover has gotten rid of the blue fish. Stinging ensues. Blue gluey patch remains on finger. Enthusiasm for this project takes a dive.
10pm: Remaining toys glued, but do we need some sand for this fictional ocean bottom? Yank husband is dispatched with an empty salsa container to raid the sandpit at City Park.
10.10pm: Husband returns with tub of frozen sand. I decide the sand is too dirty-looking to look realistic. Husband huffs that I’m “spoilt”. Apparently the Sunshine Coast’s glorious white sand beaches are not realistically what sand is like? Whatever, I’m tired and have canned my grand plans for a sparkly, amazing undersea wonderland-in-a-bucket. Compromise by mixing sand with white glitter and microwaving until it unfreezes.
Day of: The last step is to type up a hasty set of instructions.
