Kangaroo Crossing

I have endless stories to post about my visit to site earlier in the week once I recover from my 4:00AM departure to the airport.  In the meantime, I'll leave you with this snippet from the trip:

Manager (M) driving the totally pimped out rental SUV (flashing light, flag, and snorkel) down the absolutely empty, 100% straight road through the outback:  Have you seen any kangaroos yet?

Me:  Only in the zoo; I'm waiting to see one in the wild.  Although C (my colleague who was sleeping sitting in the backseat) told me that he ran over a huge kangaroo last weekend.  Or rather, that he ran over a huge kangaroo that the car in front of him had hit and then run over.

M: Yeah, 'roos are pretty stupid.  They'll hop into your parked car.  There are a ton around here though.  When I was living out here I hit three in one night.

Me:  Three?  I would have abandoned my car and walked after hitting the second one.  Wait a second, why are you the one who is driving with that kind of a track record?

My company is so obsessed with safety that I can't drive a rental car on site visits until I complete a safe driving course and learn to drive a manual, but M is deemed fit to drive with a track record of hitting three kangaroos in a single night.  And did I mention that he didn't realize the car had a sixth gear until he tried to reverse it about three hours after starting our drive?  Good thing I was decked out in head to toe PPE.  And I have to laugh because Western Australia might not have any semblance of style or designer brands but I was given Bollé safety glasses for my trip.  H might have been slightly jealous when he saw them.  I know what someone is getting for his birthday...

Bali Dreams

On Monday I will be putting my new PPE to use with a visit to a few of my company's sites.  I asked H if he wants a picture of me in my flame retardant work pants, high visibility personalized shirt, steel toe boots, hard hat, and safety glasses.  H's response?  Not only does he want a picture of me in my extraordinarily awesome PPE, but he wants a picture of me in my extraordinarily awesome PPE on site.  Because as he put it, how else can he determine whether or not I swapped my flight to the field for a flight to Bali?

Umm, H, what would you do?

Gross Me Out

Last night, I was putting my dishes from dinner in the dishwasher when a flat brown inch-long bug came crawling over the edge of it.  I screamed and grabbed the closest shoe I could find (H’s flipflop, sorry H) and while continuing to scream, began swatting at it trying to crush it to death.  It quickly scuttled up the side of the dishwasher and took refuge in a crack between the top of the dishwasher and bottom of the kitchen counter.  I continued to try to stab at it but the flipflop just wasn’t small enough to get into the crack to do any real damage.  At that point my phone rang,

H: “Hi AE, how are you? (insert my scream)  Are you ok?  What’s wrong????”

Me: “H, there is a HUGE bug hiding above our dishwasher and I can’t get it out to kill it and it’s HUGE!  I can’t use bug spray on it because it’s our kitchen counter and I don’t want to poison us but, wait, I know, I’ll spray it with disinfectant.”

H (laughing): “AE, you can’t kill a bug with disinfectant.”

Me: “But I can try!!!”  

At which point I began squirting away at the crack, hoping to drown/poison the bug.  And let me just say, this morning when I went to check on the crevice, I saw the bug’s little antennae poking out of the crack and smashed just how I left them.  Hopefully it’s dead!

I am totally grossed out.  I got to work today and told one of my co-workers about my night and she kindly explained to me that the bug I saw last night was a cockroach.  She confirmed this by showing me a rather graphic Google image, DISGUSTING!  I e-mailed the realtor to get an exterminator in ASAP and she said what everybody at work has said: that they’re really common here, especially this time of year (flashback to our ant infested hotel room when we arrived in March?!).  And the realtor said it’s not the owner’s responsibility and that I should go buy some traps which I left work to purchase immediately.  

Of course the first kind of exterminating traps/spray I found in the grocery store was a rack full of rodent poison with quite realistic images on the boxes.  Being petrified of rodents, I stood there shuddering attempting to look through the boxes for bug poison.  Finally I located a rack of bug sprays, traps, gels, etc. and let’s just say if the quantity and depth of selection is any indicator, bug invasions are truly a problem in Western Australia.  As I examined the products to see which I wanted, I may have started to feel bugs crawling over me.  I am not cut out for do-it-yourself-exterminating!  

This evening, when I left work, I told my intern that if I don’t show up at work tomorrow, it’s because I accidentally poisoned myself with my DIY exterminating and that she should come to my apartment to find me.  We both had a good laugh about that but not good enough for her to volunteer her assistance, despite her skills from exterminating her own bug problems at home.

Let’s just say my apartment is now trapped and sprayed and I’m on high alert for any insect movement.  And now I have something to add to my very short list of things I miss about life in the Middle East: the wonderful compound maintenance men who sprayed the perimeter of my house multiple times a week (without being asked) resulting in ZERO unwanted insect/rodent/other animal life guests.  For you, I am forever grateful and wishing you were here to do the same!

We're Happy Little Vegemites

Dear H,

I know that you must be enjoying eating kangaroo, crocodile, and oysters on the rig, but I think that you might really want to come home soon before we run out of what may be the best snack invention ever:

I am really tempted to buy a few boxes of these and leave them out on the table at work where morning tea meat pies are served to see how quickly they disappear.

XOXO,
Anonymous Expat


Vegemite is a dark brown paste made from yeast extract that apparently has a salty, slightly bitter and malty taste.  It was introduced to Australia in 1919 and grew so popular by around the middle of the century that it was even included in army rations.  Vegemite is a rich source of many energy giving B vitamins leading Kraft to advocate its consumption by children, those with active lifestyles, and women who are 'thinking of falling pregnant.'  I've been told that vegemite is such an integral part of Australian life, that the Happy Little Vegemites jingle is like Australia's second national anthem.   Check out the original commercial here: Happy Little Vegemites

Australia is so obsessed that you can go to Kraft's website to take part in a vegemite census asking if you're a nudist, streaker, dunker, wormer, slapper, tiger toaster, vegecadoer, scrambler, edger, redback, or crumpeter in how and where you spread your vegemite.  You can even see the current results proclaiming Australia to be a nation of footy-loving streakers.  See what awesome and ridiculous activities you could have time for if you were to work 37.5 hours or less a week?  The possibilities are endless!

And if you're interested in making your own vegemite pizza, vegemite and beer marinated steaks, vegemite and scrambled egg sandwiches, or vegemite frijole dip (just some of Kraft's plentiful vegemite recipes), have no fear, it's Amazon to the rescue with an at home delivery of, drum roll please...

And if you do partake, please don't forget to share how you spread your vegemite.  The world is waiting with bated breath for your answer...

Flame Retardant Fashion

My Dad was extraordinarily entertained to hear that I purchased steel toe boots and asked if I got any diamonds to go with them.  Haha, very funny Dad.  Since you asked, I did buy something else to match my new footwear: PPE work pants, also known as drill trousers.  The first pair I was issued at work barely went past my knees and were so big in the waist, I would have needed suspenders to hold them up (which probably would have been the most fashionable part of the whole outfit).  The second non-refundable pair that was ordered for me buttoned about five inches above my belly button and umm, how to say this delicately, had such a small distance from the end of the inseam to the waistband that they went majorly up my ass.  Enough was enough, I determined that I would go to the store and novelly, try some pants on before buying them.


Given that I am notoriously hard to fit in normal clothes that have much more variety in terms of size, shape, and cut, I didn't have high expectations for my PPE pants.  All I wanted was a pair that was not comically short and that did not cause my butt serious grievances.  The saleswoman looked me up and down, grabbed a pair of pants from the rack and said, "here, try these, they're new, low rise."  Did I hear her correctly?  YES, low rise PPE pants.  Music to my ears!  Needless to say I got two pairs; they may be navy blue, flame retardant, and have a couple of inches missing from the length that are unnecessarily added to the waistband, but they're low rise and boot cut to accommodate my steel toe boots.  Man am I going to be the best dressed person on site or what?  Speaking of which, when did I even agree to trade in my stiletto heels and pencil skirts for high visibility workwear???

Western Australian Retail Therapy

Yesterday H graciously went shopping with me for some new shoes for work.  H had heard of a good shoe store from some colleagues so after breakfast we set off for some Western Australian retail therapy.  I had been asked by my boss to pick up some new shoes for work with the following restrictions: above the ankle, lace-up, and steel toed boots.  Not even having above the ankle socks, I put on a pair of H's and scanned the shelves looking for something mildly attractive.

"Anonymous Expat (AE)," H said to me, "you can't choose steel toed boots based on what they look like, they have to be comfortable."

"But H," I responded, "those Blundstones are actually nice and people wear them with normal clothes too."

"AE, you're not allowed to get those," H responded, "you need lace-up boots."

"But H, all the lace-up boots are ugly..."

By this point a very nice saleswoman had come over to ask if she could help.  I explained that I needed steel toed, above the ankle, lace-up boots.  She started to describe the merits of each different pair and seeing that I was still focused on the pull-on Blundstones, offered to bring out multiple kinds of lace-up boots for me to try on.  I accepted and sat down with five different kinds of boots in front of me.  At least I got to choose between ugly, uglier and ugliest in various shades of black, dark brown, and tan.

The first four boots were men's and way too wide on my feet, leaving the least umm... fashionable pair as my only option.  

"H, can you feel my toes to see if these boots are too big?"

"AE, they're steel toed, I won't be able to feel anything."

So out came the next smaller size so I could confirm that the boots that my feet were swimming in width wise, albeit less so than in the previous four pairs, were the correct length.  After determining that they were I tried to walk, only to have my heels pop out.  So H sat me down like a small child trying to put a pair of ski boots on (cough, me) and laced my boots up nice and tight.  After a short stroll around the store to determine if they were comfortable I asked H if he had seen a mirror so I could what the boots looked like.

"AE, I don't think there is a mirror in here, and that's on purpose."

So with that, I took my boots off and checked out.  And then the corporate card I had been given for this task was rejected!  When I called the credit card company to determine why, I was told that my card was blocked for use at apparel stores.

"Apparel stores," I laughed, "I'm buying steel toe boots."  So now do I not only have to wear my lovely new boots and break them in, but next I have to figure out how to claim them back on expenses to the company.  I know I was told not to buy Jimmy Choos on my corporate card, but come on...