The God of Small Things - and epic posts

Another weekend gone. They seem to evaporate at the moment. One moment, you're looking at a lovely deep pond of relaxing free time with the sun shining - as it most kindly was on the weekend - and the next, its all dried up and the only thing left is the hope that is rains during the week to fill it all up again. And somehow, you know its gone, but you can't for the life of you think how on earth it went so quickly. Because it does. It rockets by. Most of my Monday mornings alone seem to take five times as long as my entire weekend. I can only think that its becasue, instead of sitting wishing I was anywhere else like I do every Monday morning, I spend the weekend moving from small thing to small thing - or occasionally, running through something a touch larger.

Take this weekend just gone.

It started off well enough, in spite of yet another train missed by inches on my way home from the city and the mother of all traffic jams on the tram lines leading up St Kilda Road - what's the plural for trams? Flock of sheep, gaggle of geese, glut of trams? and why is there never one when I'm running late in the mornings? Questions for the ages - with a dinner at a great Indian restaurant. I admit, it didn't live up to the home cooking I've had at a friend's place, but nothing ever does compare with home cooked food.

Running around after that making movies of the places we used to hang out to send to a homesick friend in the States was one of the more fun things I've done in a while. It was worth freezing in the bitter wind to see the looks on the little 18 year olds who go to the places now as we walked around outside, too tight to fork out the cash to get inside the places. The fact that they were wearing those tiny shorts that all the little girlies seem to wear at the moment (hello to my mother's voice coming through there, too), with even tinier singlet tops, the boys ogling them had t-shirts and goose bumps, while we were rugged up with coats, boots and scarves might have been part of the look. In fact, the only people with more wintery clothes than us were the security guys, and they were looking at us like we were terrorists there to scope their manky little club. Yes, we've moved onwards and upwards - we headed to a much quieter manky little pub instead afterwards, with llive acoustic music, instead of plugged in and pumped up bass.

Saturday saw my hockey team return to form. The 4-0 thumping was bad enough; it sounds even worse to hear that the score was nil-all at half time. So I won't say it. Instead, I'll move on to th joy that was Saturday night. There's a bit of a tradition in my family over the past few years. I'f I'm not going out, I'll go and sit on the couch with my dad to watch the Bombers play when it's a night match. And play they did. I probably should put this in some context. During the 2000 season, my team had what was arguably the best season. Ever. They equalled winning records that stretched back to the season before. They only lost one match in the season. They were all conquering. This year, they've equalled their worst ever losing streak. 15 weeks without a win, and with only a draw against the much-hated rival for this year's wooden spoon, Carlton. Their other win was way back in round 1 on April Fools Day - against the defending premiers, no less. So there wasn't a lot of optimism in our house when Mum retreated from the tension of the game. (Or maybe it was more the yelling at the TV screen. It wasn't me. I promise. It was all Dad. There is no genetic tendency to yell during football matches that goes through at least 3 generations of my family. Honest.) So imagine our surprise when they won. And it wasn't just our own happiness - although we were pointing and laughing at various points whent here were skills on show we were certain had disappeared forever. It was a sheer joy on the faces of the players as well, as if they couldn't quite believe their luck either.

So, even though the next day was spent chasing around small details of invitations for a hen's night, or sourcing material for wraps t match the bridesmaid dresses, and my hockey team had slipped that little bit further out of touch with the finals this year, there was plenty of reason to smile. The bombers had put Brisbane out of football finals contention and Carlton was back in thier box on the bottom of the AFL ladder. All's well in the world.