Still Tasty

It's been about six months since I first touched down in Sydney. Rest assured though, the fauna of Sydney still finds me quite appetizing. Someone at a party last weekend was telling me that it has something to do with blood type, i.e., people with certain blood types get bitten more. I haven't researched this, but I also don't know my blood type. I don't get bitten the worst generally, so maybe I'm only somewhat appetizing.

I'd been pretty good since my first round of insane bites. Lately though it's been very hot and unusually rainy. I think these factors have combined to encourage a large bug population. That's my hypothesis at least. What I do know is that I'm once again covered in bug bites. I went around barefoot one day and it was not a good choice. Now I have a lot of bug bites on my feet, which are itched when I walk around on shoes. Especially my clogs that are designed to slide on your feet. I seem to be having a bit of an allergic reaction to the bites, at least they seem bigger and redder than normal. Though I also scratched at some of them for a while before realizing they were bites.

It's getting better. They still look a little nasty, but they don't itch as much as they did a day or two ago. I'm getting a lot better at ignoring bug bites and not scratching them (at least intentionally, I do sometime end up with bites in areas that are scratched by normal movement).  Maybe someday I'll figure out what the Australian equivalent of hydrocortisone cream is and use that. Being self restrained is the cheaper alternative for now.

I'm amazed at the amount of bites I can get and not realize it's happening. You'd think I'd see and kill a few of them, but that's not common. Perhaps we're not as high on the food chain as we think.

I need a new watch

I got a Skagen watch for Christmas from my sister a few years ago. I really like the design. It's simple, light weight, and overall a nice looking watch. Sadly, my experiences with the watch have not been good ones. Despite the fact that I love the Skagen designs I don't want another Skagen watch after this one. The woven metal band had wires split and poke out of it injuring me and those around me when giving hugs, etc. The black color from the band wore off over time. The clasp started to not close particularly well and come loose fairly frequently. I was managing quite fine with all of these issue and not actively looking for a new watch when the glass started to crack. I assume I hit it at some point against something, but I have no idea what. The crack was at the top of the glass face, going through the date area. 

Interestingly, over the next few days the crack got larger and larger, expanding on its own and working it's way down the watch. All this time it continued to tell time at least. Then one night I was at Pancakes at the Rocks with Ginny, Christie, and Brendan. We were talking about Ginny coming back sometime in 2010 and I made a joke that Ginny would move to Sydney when my watch was completely dead.

So, what happens next? Well, Brendan picks up his knife and stabs my watch. It was hilariously awesome. Since then I'm pretty confident my friends liked Ginny and would be ok with her coming to Sydney for an extended period of time. So my little crack turns into a giant gaping hole and a large piece of glass for my watch goes flying away. Remarkably the watch keeps ticking. It actually still works, though somewhere over the next few days it lost its second hand. My watch now looks like this:

I haven't for a second been mad with Brendan. The watch sucked, the act was great, and it was good times all around. However, now I don't really feel comfortable wearing the watch around. It does have open glass edges, and I think if it gets wet at all in this state it will probably die forever. So, I've gone the last month or so without a watch at all. It's hard! I like knowing what time it is, and being on time. I have to get my cell phone out to see what time it is and that's too much work for my taste. So I need a new watch. But, I'm pretty picky about what I like. Keeping an eye out, but I haven't found anything I like yet.