Reactions, smactions…

See you soon Paris!

In just over 2 weeks we will be leaving the country for nearly 8 weeks. 8 weeks of travelling around France, Italy, Greece and a Dubai stop-over to see some gorgeous friends. (Friends that actually set-up Hubby and I!) It also means 8 weeks of no Jack, our beloved puppy. But I won’t get into that now, that’s a whole other Puff Piece!

If you haven’t been by Puff lately, you’re new or you’ve been living under a rock I’m 13 weeks pregnant. Yep that’s right I’m up the duff and about the embark on a whirlwind overseas holiday before baby comes along in October and makes 4. (Me, hubby, dog and baby).

Our preggers news has been met with hugs, kisses, screams of delight, happy dances, you name it! And it’s been really lovely. Combine that with news of our trip though and the responses have been a little mixed.

“Fantastic idea, get the trip in before bubs comes along.”

“Have a great time, and you’ll be fine travelling while pregnant, especially since you’ll be into your 2nd trimester, when you’re meant to have all your energy back!”

“Oh, does that mean the baby wasn’t planned?”

“Oh you won’t be able to drink wine over there.”

For those that know me they’d know that the whole wine thing is neither here nor there for me. The thought of not being able to drink is kinda like meh for me. But yes I will miss the soft cheeses. I am slightly in love with soft cheeses, originally started by my Great Grandmother feeding me lots of camembert as a kid, but at the end of the day I wanted a baby more than I wanted soft cheese. If however you’d like to give me an extra special, somewhat unconventional ‘you just pushed a baby out your vagina’ present, feel free to give a seafood platter with a side of soft cheeses and prosciutto.

So where was I? Oh yes, different people’s reactions. I found the question of ‘was it planned’ to be a relatively weird one. I kind of understood why they were asking, but in all honesty I don’t think I’d ever ask someone that unless they offered that type of information.

Some people might think I’m crazy travelling while pregnant, but we’re not backpacking or going to Iraq. Where going to Europe where we’re going to stay in nice places, well as nice as my Husband would let us book without breaking the budget, and I don’t plan on doing anything outrageous, except sightseeing and shopping.

What do you think about how different people react to different things? (And it doesn’t just have to relate to my story!)

Would you like cold fries with that?

Yesterday while out shopping for pink things for our new baby niece, Hubby and I decided to grab a quick bite to eat. We were in town so headed into the mall and sat down at the first little cafe we found.

Quick easy order, 2 chicken tandoori burgers. Our drinks arrived quickly, but then time started passing by when it came to the food.

A young waitress came out and said are you waiting on two chicken burgers. Yes, we replied. More time passed and one burger arrived with the promise the other wasn’t too far away. My chips were cold and the burger was cold. But hungry and in a hurry I ate the burger anyway, but not the cold chips. I had just about finished when Hubby’s finally arrived. Hot chips, hot burger, clearly they had only made one and then realised there was 2 for the order.

So where is my lunchtime story going? Well I’m glad you asked. We didn’t whinge, complain, nothing? But afterwards we thought maybe we should have said we weren’t happy to the man behind the counter when he asked, How was everything today?

It takes something pretty appalling for me to actually complain in a restaurant or cafe, but then Hubby bought up a point yesterday, that if you owned a cafe would you want to know about unhappy customers?

What do you think? Should we have said something? Do you mention your unhappiness if you’re not happy when eating out?

Let me tell you a story about being the ‘little guy’.

So we’re part way through extending our house. We’re adding on an extra bedroom and bathroom. Sounds pretty simple right? Wrong! Let me start from the beginning. Don’t worry I’ll be quick.

We live in a warehouse that my other half converted about 6 years ago – the joys of living with an architect! Due to where we live our section of the street is zoned both Residential and Commercial, which gives us the ability to build to zero lot alignment, basically right to our boundary. So my very talent architect future husband designed a master bedroom/ensuite that popped out over the front courtyard. Yay for us!! The design was fantastic so we started to roll through the approval process.

We then discovered that Energy Australia’s power lines went diagonally across OUR property. And so it begins! Thankfully John’s brother is a lawyer so we had everything checked out legally and guess what? Yep, Energy Australia can do whatever they bloody want and they’ve got the law to prove it. We could have had the powerlines moved, for a small fee of $30,000 and then some. Remember their powerlines are on OUR PROPERTY!

So, plan B, the extension was re-designed, we get through Council in record time and the builders get underway. Inside framing up, outside framing up, then it was time for the roof to come off.

Smooth sailing? Yeah, no, not quite. Energy Australia then decided that our powerlines needed to be ‘tigertailed’, basically wrapped in yellow and black stuff because our scaffolding came within a certain height restriction. So for less than 2 days work we now have to pay them $8,500 for their troubles. And not only that, they’re taking their sweet-arse time to come and do it, so we have had NO BUILDERS for the last 2 weeks. Think I’m stressing much?! Only 82 days till the wedding!!

Anyway so after that long winded short version of the story, I do have a point! WHY do the big people, in this case Energy Australia have ALL the power (pardon the pun!)?! They’ve been out and seen that we have started our extension so know that we’ll just pay the bloody money so we can get on with it.

Julia Roberts as Erin Brockovich

It would probably cost more time and money to fight them and they know this so they just get away with it. If you walked to the next block from our house you’d notice that the power pole is closer to the corner and no where near the person’s house. So while I’m having a little bit of a ‘poor me’ moment, it honestly annoys the crap out of me being the ‘little guy’.

What should the big corporations have all the power? I did have an Erin Brockovich moment and want to take them on, thankfully it only lasted about 5 minutes of ranting to my poor future husband before I realised it just wasn’t worth it.

So have you ever taken on a big corporation and won? Do you agree that it can be very frustrating and totally unfair, but at the end of the day really what are we going to do?

Such a shame – Erin Brockovich would have been so proud!