A Pram, a Taxi and Ralf’s Chatter – Mad Chaos: March 5, 1999

Warm Autumn Summer Confusion

Another warm summer day in the start of autumn has dawned on us. It makes you think why February was more of an Autumn month and now March is being deemed a Summer period, weird. Today once again came with an ecliptic surprise that was deemed mostly in February. The ecliptic February can also relate to the changing around of this month’s autumn to last month’s summer, once again, weird. The almost disastrous thing that I noticed today was when I was heading up the busy road where the Library is on the street that follows the train line to Campbelltown and Macarthur Square.

A Pram on the Road

There was a lady in the median strip pushing a pram with her baby in it. She looked like a well deserved woman who took care of her baby and I didn’t take much notice of her.

Hearing a beep coming from her area I quickly turned my head towards her direction and noticed both her hands in the air foolishly waving to someone parked in the Library car-park. The pram itself had rolled down a little gutter slope that led off the median strip and as I turned to look the pram was already in the middle of the first lane. The beeping I heard was from a taxi narrowly missing the pram which had to veer out of its way and slow down.

Seeing that there were cars within ten meters and slowing down rapidly the lady noticed and in a split second she ran across to her pram and pulled it the rest of the way off the street. If the lady hadn’t ran to her babies rescue it surely would have been hit by a car and seeing her after the near disaster clutching her head with one hand as she pushed along the baby, you knew she was upset. Seeing her walk to the older lady in the car she initially waved to she jumped out of the car and comforted the lady who looked as if she would be in tears.

That little joking hand waving to make the other lady laugh could have been fatal and I reckon that she was probably aware that the pram might move a little but not onto the road. Life is so precious and to have seen this life end, it would have been tragic.

Torn Between Meridian and Keith

Now the perils of today couldn’t have come at a more poorer timing. Ralf and I want to head out to Meridian nightclub tonight as it will be free before 9:00 p.m. but I just received a call from Shawn inviting me out to Keith’s birthday at the Catholic Club.

Not advising Shawn that I was headed to the Meridian he told me how Keith was having a couple of people together for his birthday but considering I’ve been dogged many times before by him (Especially on one of my birthdays) and he also dogged Ralf on his last birthday, I think it’s now our turn. Besides this, Ralf and I made plans to head out to Meridian before I even heard of this which has just sprung to attention today. Therefore, I called Ralf a couple of minutes ago and he’s going to make it to my house at 6:30 p.m. where we will then head off to get our free entry.

Backtracking to Thursday

Getting now to chronology as I know I can finish it off now, let me begin with Thursday. Waking up at 3:00 p.m. because of a late night I bummed around until 5:00 p.m. and that’s when I left for the Gym.

Before leaving for the Gym however I gave Ralf a call to see if he would pick me up after the Gym so that we would head to Macarthur Square and the computer shop with the laptop for sale. We made a pact that when I came back from the Gym and a half an hour had passed he would be ready to come over to my house and that way we could make it to the shop before it closed. Here now is my Gym routine…

Back: Starting with my two minute warm-up I then done three sets warming up. Once they were complete I moved to Neutral Grip Pulldowns and with 160 pounds achieved 10 reps. Moving to Close Grip Pulldowns I performed another 10 reps with 160 pounds. Reverse Grip Pulldowns was my next set and with 170 pounds I pulled out 12 reps in two turns. Walking over to Straight Arm Pulldowns with 75 pounds I completed 12 reps.

Moving to Lat Pushdowns with 240 pounds I managed 15 reps before conking out. Starting the broadening exercises now with Seated Cable Rows and 160 pounds I completed 10 reps. Moving to Standing One Arm Cable Rows I completed 12 reps with 80 pounds. My last two sets were with One Arm Dumbbell Rows firstly completing 12 reps with 80 pounds and then 12 reps again with 70 pounds.

Triceps: Beginning with a warm-up I started on Triceps Pushdowns and with 85 pounds completed 10 reps. Moving to Lying Triceps Extensions with 70 pounds I managed 10 reps. Next was One Arm Cable Kickbacks and with 30 pounds I completed 12 reps. Lastly I jumped onto Overhead Dumbbell Extensions and getting a spot I completed 10 reps with 70 pounds.

Abdominals: Beginning and ending with Machine Ab Crunches I started with 50 pounds and completed 30 reps. Taking the weight up to 60 pounds I finished two sets of 30 reps with it.

Ralf Takes His Time

Getting back home just before 6:30 p.m. I gave Ralf a call and asked him if he would be long. Making an agreement that he would come over in half an hour as he was working on some chords for his guitar I agreed and started getting ready.

As usual, Ralf didn’t take his half an hour and as the time slowly crept up I started to get worried that we wouldn’t make it to the computer shop before 8:00 p.m. which was the time it closed. Creeping up to 7:30 p.m. I gave Ralf a call despite his suspiring and upon asking if he was ready yet, he still wasn’t.

Finally informing him that we only had half an hour to get there before it closed Ralf said “Why didn’t you tell me that in the first place” and then told me he would come over my house right away. That right away of Ralf’s took fifteen minutes and I was surprised at how long he took when being in a hurry. His excuse was that he had to pack away his guitar, clean his room up a little bit and do some things for his dad but if I was in a hurry, I think I would leave them for later.

Missing the Computer Shop

Finally coming over my house with ten minutes to spare before the shop closed to drove in a fair hurry, getting there in five minutes. Despite having these few minutes we couldn’t find the shop at all as everything inside was closing so we gathered that the shop was closed even though we couldn’t find it. From there we headed back to Ralf’s house where he got changed, his dad tried saying something about the Mardi Gras and saying the word ‘Fags’ again in a jovial way and then we headed to Macarthur Square.

Ralf Talks at Macarthur Square

While up at Macarthur Square we didn’t do much more than just look around at the pretty girls which there was an abundance of but we did check out Sanity and the other music store near the food court. When here Ralf bumped into this guy who used to be in my roll call and a girl that I also know who was in his year and as Ralf started to talk I thought to myself “Here we go, we’re going to be here forever”.

I think I could see the acts of desperation in their eyes as they wanted to end their conversation after twenty minutes of him blabbing on about school but I just laughed whilst looking around the store. They approached him and said hello and therefor, they have to pay the price of the babbling buffoon.

Checking out two CDs and listening to them Ralf finally stopped talking to the both of them as the shop was closing but to my humorous tact, he started to chat with them once again just outside. There’s no getting away from Ralf once you say hello to him because a conversation is like food to him, he just keeps gobbling it up. Ten minutes after we left the shop and the three of them were still talking they received enough of a break to say something and their telling words were “Well, we’d better get going before we get kicked out”.

Ralf and the Queensland Secret

From Macarthur Square we headed to the Road Pantry as I had to go to the toilet somewhere but despite Ralf wanting to head to ‘Subway’ I could sense a long babbling coming up so I wanted to head home. Once we were at the front of my house Ralf told me that he wanted to talk about the secret he had revealed to me, his heading up to Queensland to live.

At first I wanted to head home because I didn’t want to sit in the car for an hour and basically not get any point across in that whole time but I did and I put up with it. Ralf told me that I’m the only person out of everyone he knows that will sit there and hear out his problems and have something to say about it.

People like Shawn wouldn’t even listen and people like Keith will only hear him and not respond to him as they have learnt to shut his babbling off. Having already accounted for the rest of the conversation in my last diary entry let me note that it took an hour and at 10:30 p.m. I made my way out of the car.

Sweating Through the Sun

Last night I didn’t get to sleep until 6:30 a.m. because I had some computer work to do and then I started to get energetic at 5:00 a.m. with skipping. Today however I woke up at 2:00 p.m. and knowing that I wanted to head to Campbelltown to hand in my money I had a quick breakfast and was on my way.

The sun was scorching today like I noted before so I took my time in walking to Campbelltown and every so often I would scrape the sweat off my back with my hand. Seeing Lachlan on the way down he once again acted like a crazy idiot asking about my relationship with Lyssa and knowing I haven’t been with her for six months and inviting me over his house for coffee, what a lunatic. Once in Campbelltown I visited the bank, deposited $80 in there so I could slow down the interest charged and when all that was done I headed to the Mall to cool off.

A Sad Little Computer Shop

Taking the Mall as a detour I headed to the computer shop on the road to Macarthur Square and once there it didn’t appeal to me very much. I was expecting a decent sized room where you could walk around and there would be one or two notable employees but this was a shop Ralf wouldn’t be able to walk around in comfortably.

This looked more like a second hand store than the reality of a new store and seeing the $500 laptop computer I noticed it didn’t have a CD drive. Asking some more about it I found that it was only windows 3.1 and that to me was useless. The rest of the stuff in the shop was alright and it would be great to buy a computer from them because they are selling cheap because they basically don’t have much common sense or money in a business. He was some sort of Indian guy, that tells you the lot.

A Drink Too Sweet

Buying myself a drink from Franklins in the shopping complex I walked into the freezer section to cool right down. In there I found a small bottle of what appeared to be already made drink but when I took it outside I noticed it was rather sweet, rather harsh. Looking at the label I realized that it was straight cordial, it wasn’t mixed and I had to put up with this taste in my mouth for the remainder of the hot walk home. Just imagine that, having a drink in your hand in the very hot sun but not being able to drink it because it tasted too sweet and disagreeable.

Keith Celebrates Without Me

Now that I’m back home I’ve told my whole story but there is one bit of information I might not have added. Last night when I gave Keith a call just after calling Ralf he told me he was headed out to dinner after he finished work at 11:00 p.m. The reason he was heading off to dinner was so that he could celebrate his birthday but he was only doing it with Noah and Ace.

Noah is now back and Keith is going to be a loner again, clinging to Noah as if he was a buoy and the two of them were best friends. Despite his plans for last night they didn’t end up going but tonight they will be heading off to the Catholic Club in which I will not be there.