Victoria trip Thursday 17/1/08
Thursday, 31 January, 2008
This is our second Melbourne day.
We're up reasonably early and ready to shop. Anita says not to wait for her with regard to breakfast, so Liwen and I make our own and scoff it down while she takes her turn in the shower. We're ready in, like, record speed. And we hop in Jasmine the car and drive to Melbourne for some serious DFO (Direct Factory Outlets) shopping. “How much shopping can you handle?” asks the brochure. We're about to find out.
I've never been to a DFO before but Anita says that the one in Sydney is crap; Essendon, Melbourne, is definitely better. We're there by about 11:30 and we park in the massive carpark surrounded by giant brand warehouses like JB Hifi and some homewares store that proclaims itself to be “The best homewares store in the world*”—with the asterisk signalling a footnote: “According to our internal staff pole”. Obviously a very intelligent piece of office architecture in dreadful need of a subeditor ...
DFO itself was a giant warehouse broken up into shops so it made you feel like you in a mall without all the crazy lights and fake plants. (Well, maybe there were some fake plants but I don't remember them!) First stop was Jacqui E which was a favourite for both Liwen and Anita.
Clothes shopping is a funny thing. There's not many people you can do it with (well, I can't, anyway), and if you're with people who are really into it and whose opinion you trust, you find yourself trying on things you wouldn't normally pick for yourself. And not necessarily because they pick them out for you (though, after a while, you get a taste of the sorts of things that they like, and you start picking out stuff for them. And then feel a bit of satisfaction if you happen to get it right! Like I picked out this skirt at Colorado for Anita and it turns out she already owns it! [Okay, maybe she wore it on an earlier day and I had only noticed it subconsciously ...]).
The other funny thing about clothes shopping is that it brings out all the insecurities you have about your body. So hugely unhelpful. It's like clothes are only made for one type of body shape, and if you don't fit into that mould, you start feeling like something's wrong with you. For example, your height may be right and you may be skinny enough, but then your breasts may be too small. Or your shoulders too broad. Or something. At that point, haute couture starts looking like a viable option. (Too expensive; maybe I should get sewing lessons ...)
The other funny thing about clothes shopping is what's in fashion. I have to say that baby doll dresses, scoop necklines, small puffy sleeves, psychedelic patterns and clashing colours (e.g. green and purple and orange) really aren't my cup of tea, and I wondered whether they were, in fact, anyone's cup of tea as there were so many of them there (for, presumably, it's the stuff that doesn't sell that gets brought to DFO to see if they can sell it for cheaper). You start to wonder who were the brainiacs who came up with the stuff. Surely they weren't the Miranda Priestly types in The Devil Wears Prada!
We didn't progress too far in the first couple of hours. After Jacqui E came Portmans, Just Jeans, Giordano and Colorado, and then we were hungry so went to the food court for lunch. (I was so pleased to find they had sushi!)
Afterwards, the shopping continued, with Ginger Tree, Garfunkle, Table Eight and many many shoe stores (me following Liwen and Anita around, trying to understand the appeal of shoes. Some of them are pretty but hugely impractical—at least for me. I'm very uncoordinated; if I wore heels, I'd be likely to fall off them and break my neck.) Oh, and there was a discount bookstore where I got three hardbacks for $30 (yes, trust me to get more excited about the books than the clothes!): a Russell Hoban novel (Come Dance with Me) and two Jasper Fforde books in the Thursday Next series (Lost in a Good Book and The Well of Lost Plots). I've never read any Jasper Fforde but people keep telling me I should, so I mooched the first one and I figured that if I really didn't like them, someone could mooch them off me. As for Russell Hoban, the first book of his that I ever read was The Mouse and His Child which is one of the most delightful children's books I've ever read. It's about this pair of clockwork mice who dance together when they've been wound up. They get sold from a toy store but then they get broken and separated, and the story is about how they are reunited. There are all sorts of lovely little bits in it—like the crows flying overhead shouting out newspaper headlines ... I should read it again sometime as I've only read it once for Uni. The other Hoban book I really enjoyed was The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz which has this splendid passage in it in the opening pages:
Jachin-Boaz traded in maps. He bought and sold maps, and some, of certain kinds for special uses, he made or had others make for him. That had been his father's trade, and the walls of the shop that had been his father's were hung with glazed blue oceans, green swamps and grasslands, brown and orange mountains delicately shaded. Maps of towns and plains he sold, and other maps made to order. He would sell a young man a map that showed where a particular girl might be found at different hours of the day. He sold husband maps and wife maps. He sold maps to poets that showed where thoughts of power and clarity had come to other poets. He sold well-digging maps. He sold vision-and-miracle maps to holy men, sickness-and-accident maps to physicians, money-and-jewel maps to thieves, and thief maps to the police.
(Russell Hoban, The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz, p. 10.)
Since then, I've started collecting Russell Hoban novels which is kind of silly because I haven't read any further. But I own Kleinzit, Turtle Diary, Ridley Walker (which Karen A says is absolutely brilliant but almost completely unreadable), Pilgermann and The Medusa Frequency. Oh, and I also own and have read The Trokeville Way but I barely remember a thing about it.
Back to clothes shopping.
By the end of the day, I somehow ended up with the three books mentioned above, three black tops (umm, yes ... but they were all different! One was cotton, one was linen and one was silk. Umm, yes ...), a shirt for my brother and two bras. And I had also failed to find the perfect summer dress.
The perfect summer dress warrants a paragraph of its own. Girls seem to understand when I talk about the perfect summer dress. It seems to be that elusive thing that one searches for ever summer but rarely has a hope of finding. For me, the perfect summer dress is 100% cotton, dark blue, not too low-cut at the front (mainly because it's rather disconcerting having males other than your husband staring at your breasts, and unfortunately certain types of males do tend to stare) and reasonably priced, if not cheap. (Cheap is an added bonus!) To me, the perfect summer dress should not cost more than $60 and would be a steal at $30.
But alas, in the whole of DFO, there was no such thing!
Anyway, by 6 pm we were all shopped out and everywhere was closing. Plus, we were due to meet some of Anita's friends for dinner. So we hopped back in the car and drove to Brunswick St which is, if you Victorians will pardon my comparison, a lot like Newtown—full of funky shops, cool restaurants and cafés and seemingly arty people.
Anita had booked a restaurant called the Afghan Gallery. We ate in the upper room which was decorated with rugs and lanterns.
We sat on cushioned seats around a low table, and we were joined by Natalie and Sandra J (who I had met before at National Training Event. [Hi Sandra!] Anita was a bit miffed that Sandra and I had met face-to-face earlier as she had been looking forward to the pleasure of introducing us. Sandra's been reading this blog for a while, and had worked out from this entry when Ben and I went to eat dinner with Anita in 2005 that we had a common friend.)
It was a lovely evening with great food—
—(I dare say Anita's friends thought I was a bit mad, photographing my food all the time)—and interesting conversation about books, writing, religion and so on.
(This was a dessert called “sheepera” made of milk, rosewater, cardamon and pistachio. It was very sweet!)
Afterwards, Natalie had to say goodbye but Sandra went with us down the street to go to San Churro for chili hot chocolate. I got waylaid by a bookstore, so they left me in it and brought me back some. (It was delicious!)
Then we said goodbye to Sandra, got in the car again and drove to Crown Casino. (Parking is a flat rate of $10 for the entire day which was a bit annoying because we were only there for half an hour to an hour, tops.) We walked around a bit—showed Liwen the lobby with the light show and the fountain (which wasn't being very spectacular)—used the toilets upstairs (which were very fancy but the view was nothing on the Sofitel) ... Liwen admired the lattice work and the lights through the lattice—
—which was quite pretty—and we walked along the Yarra, but the area seemed very dead and lifeless, compared to Brunswick Street which was still buzzing when we had left it. So we drove home, arriving back in Warragul at around 1 am.
Current:
seen: Moon 15/10/2009
read: The Incredibles 11/10/2009
seen: She's the Man 05/10/2009
read: I Kill Giants (Joe Kelly and J. M. Ken Niimura) 04/10/2009
read: Astro City The Dark Ages Book 1: Brothers and Other Strangers (Kurt Busiek, Brent Anderson and Alex Ross) 04/10/2009
seen: Children of Men 02/10/2009
seen: Metric (The Metro) 30/09/2009
seen: 500 Days of Summer 25/09/2009
seen: The September Issue 18/09/2009
seen: Gilmore Girls: Season 1 17/09/2009
read: Flight (Volume 1) (edited by Kazu Kibuishi) 16/09/2009
seen: Ponyo 11/09/2009
read: Batman: Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? (Neil Gaiman and Andy Kubert) 05/09/2009
heard: Aimee Mann (Enmore Theatre) 04/09/2009
heard: Ben Folds Solo (Opera House) 31/08/2009
read: Phonogram: Rue Britannia (Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie) 26/08/2009
seen: Northanger Abbey 20/08/2009
read: The Princess Diaries (Meg Cabot) 18/08/2009
seen: The Phantom of the Opera 17/08/2009
seen: Who Framed Roger Rabbit? 10/08/2009
seen: District 9 10/08/2009
read: Shortcomings (Adrian Tomine) 02/08/2009
read: AIR Volume 1: Letters from Lost Countries (Willow Wilson and M.K. Perker) 28/07/2009
seen: Persepolis 25/07/2009
seen: Ghost Town 25/07/2009
heard: Gutter Twins (Seymour Centre) 23/07/2009
seen: Coco Avant Chanel 20/07/2009
seen: Gutenberg! The Musical (Seymour Centre) 16/07/2009
seen: So You Think You Can Dance? Australia Live Tour (Sydney Entertainment Centre) 11/07/2009
seen: Every Little Step 07/07/2009
seen: Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen 03/07/2009
seen: Synecdoche, New York 30/06/2009
seen: Charlie's Angels 27/06/2009
seen: Penelope 26/06/2009
seen: Coraline 10/06/2009
seen: The Sky Crawlers 08/06/2009
seen: The Bourne Ultimatum 07/06/2009
seen: The Bourne Supremacy 07/06/2009
seen: The Bourne Identity 06/06/2009
seen: Stick it 05/06/2009
Comment:
@Sarah: Thanks for the tip RE Australian Breastfeeding Association! I never would have thought to look there. Ditto KMart: I was wondering if they did since Target don’t.
@Rae: Thanks for the tip! I’ll check it out.
@Little Rachel: Oh, I’ll definitely be up for visitors! I may not be very good company (brain-dead, etc.) but I’ll certainly appreciate visits!
@Rachel C: CONGRATS!!! So excited for you 
Yours sounds like a good philosophy. One day I shall have to blog about Outliers!
@CafeDave: Thanks for the tip!
@Elissa: Thanks for your kind words! It makes me happy that you and Dave were excited we were getting married! Thanks also for the prayers!
@Elsie: There are lots of other lovely things I could have said about you, but let’s not overload my readers, shall we? ;P
Aww...thanks for the lovely things you said about me! I enjoyed reading this post (as I do with all yours). xo
Congratulations to you both. I know you will be such wonderful parents. You sound WAY too sensible! 
(Sorry to read that there were some unusual comments made about your marriage! We thought it was exciting. We still have a lovely photo of you & Ben in our lovely box of special memories. (I was only 22 when married & I was 30 when we had Bonnie...)
Everyone is different! I nodded through your post. SO many people feel the curious need to share their “horror stories” which is just dreadful. I remember complaining to David who said - go find people who are positive & listen to them. Great advice, which I did. Those people still have a big place in my heart because their advice was honest & gentle.
Bless you & Ben & the little Peanut. We pray all goes smoothly over the coming weeks/months ahead. We sometimes forget what a precious little miracle life really is…
Another book from the dad’s perspective I found helpful was From here to paternity - it’s an Australian book, and was followed up with a blog.
Hi!
I’m so excited for you reading your blog about being pregnant I am 13 weeks pregnant with #2.
You’re so right about all the pessimism “advice” that you get. I got so mad about it but never found a good response. I’ve had such joy right from day one with E that I just don’t want to buy into the negativity (I’m sure kids pick up on it too!).
My philosophy was/is to be a relaxed mum and from that figure out what was best for my baby/child. Get advice when you’re not sure on things or want to know how other people approached things, read books (loved Outliers!) that aren’t all about parenting… but just enjoy.
In a sample size of one to date, I’ve had such a happy, chilled out son right from day one. People say all the craziest advice… glad you don’t do guilt
With love,
R
Thanks so much for writing more! I love hearing how you’re going and all your thoughts.
After watching my sister I agree with you that it seems the first six months are perhaps the hardest. She got quite lonely at home all day; weekends were all right because then her husband was around but it’s just as you say… one feed ends then the next begins! If you are accepting visitors during this period then I hope to use some RDOs to come have grown-up conversations!
The book review of The Second Nine Months makes me want to read it now!
Names: We have one girl name that we both like and no boy names that we agree on. But they are also top-secret… so if anyone else uses them we can’t accuse them of theft! 
Yay Peanut, keep on growing, can’t wait to meet you!
Hello! Thanks for sharing
I loved reading your pregnancy update! I am glad to hear that things are all going pretty well, and I hope the rest of your 2nd trimester is as good.
I just wanted to add, that some other blokes decided that there was not much for the fathers-t0-be, and made a couple of DVD’s just for expectant dads. They are called ‘Being Dad’and i think they are available at big W. I have both though, if you would like me to send them!
Just wanted to wish you all the best!
Love
Rae
re: gluten: no idea!! I didn’t have to go on that diet - it was probably related to the test I didn’t do.
At the risk of adding to your list of advice:
Re: maternity bras - because I’m big I had to look hard for something nice in my size and discovered the Australian Breastfeeding Association. They have a massive range online and most are (dare I say it) sexy.
Re: maternity clothes - Kmart have a nice range of basic stuff.. I only found out towards the end of pregnancy and I would have liked to know earlier!
Re: Parenting classes - if you’re at RPA you can just ring the midwives section (they’ll put you through) and ask directly.
Congratulations again
Don’t laminate your ultrasound picture That is my advice.
Congratulations! This is so fantastic!
Thanks so much for sharing all of this… people swap engagement stories but rarely pregnancy stories! And it’s kind of similar don’t you think, all this excitement leading up to a big day!
So happy for you guys! Actually never been more excited for anyone except my sister! I think it’s because I think that you will both be amazing parents and love the idea that someone could grow up in your family.
Looking forward to many more posts on the topic.
Lovely news, Karen.
Thanks everyone! I will be sure to ask for help when I need it!
Great pic!! Peanut is cute! :D
Praying for you all!
xx
:D
I had a similar sort of morning sickness.. except I threw up! I’m suitably impressed that you coped OS.. that must have been tough.
It sounds like you’re doing marvelously otherwise!
Book recommendation on something a bit less technical and a bit more human: ‘Birth’ http://www.birthnet.com.au/
Praise be to God indeed! Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.
Congratulations, Beilharzen! Welcome to the slightly-bewildering world of pregnancy (and birth...and children...). God has blessed you greatly with this new life. We’ll be praying for Peanut’s growth and development, and for you guys as you prepare.
I’m sure you’re surrounded by baby veterans, but always happy to help with books/advice/recommendations/listening.
B&L;
Excellent job Karen! You SHOULD be pleased with yourself!
Have you discovered http://www.ravelry.com ? It is an excellent site with thousands of free patterns in its database, lots of support, tips, forums etc and of course - friends like me? Look me up when you get there - fionag77
PS Are you just wearing a bulky dress or are you sporting a bump under that dress?
oooh.... It’s done and it looks great on you! xxx
Well done on all that hard work! It looks great and will be very snuggly come winter!
Thanks for letting me know, Timo!
Hi there,
Thanks for pointing out the shortcoming on our website. I’ll pass it on to my colleagues and hopefully it will be rectified soon.
The documentary at Fashioning Now was by Holly Kaye-Smith; I’d be more than happy to put you in touch with her if you’d like.
Again, thanks for the comment, much appreciate it!
Kind regards,
Timo Rissanen
Thanks Mark! Much appreciated!
Rich survey, Karen. Particularly I was struck by the notion of Jesus being clothed with our sins. I heard recently somebody suggest the crown of thorns was a kings crown but it was made of the symbol of the curse in the Garden - thorns. I would like to read your thoughts about Joseph’s coat of many colours.
Looking forward to the next installment. Regards,Mark
It is lovely - and looks great on you.
You’ve made me want to read it - though I may need an interpreter at times!
Well done with the sewing!
I think it looks good - very relaxed and spring-y.
Hey Sandra! Thanks for the tip! I read it yesterday, but I struggled a bit because Lewis doesn’t start from the Bible. I wasn’t convinced by his argument. What did you think?
Interesting post Karen - Thanks
I like the ending too! :D
xxx
Fantastic post, Karen. Just great. Thanks!
Thanks Bec! Eternal life just keeps getting better and better ...
I do like the way you ended this post - excellent thought.
Personally I don’t feel that way. Maybe that’s something you should blog about?
Wow. Lots of things to pick up on there. It’s been interesting to see the changes to your blog these last 6-12 months: Twitter is certainly more immediate, but are there (gasp) downsides to having its constant buzz in the ear?
Is our (already fractured) ability to concentrate on a single relationship at a time further jeapordised by the regular buzz of tweetdeck (and worse yet, by the imagined sense of loss that goes with being off the grid)?
Or am I just projecting my own fears?
Hi Karen!
If you’re still thinking about this… I just read CS Lewis’s essay “Learning in War-time” which exactly addresses this issue (ie. how can we justify cultural & aesthetic pursuits when people are going to hell around us?). Have you read it? i’d be interested to hear what you think..
(i have it in his little volume “Transposition and other Addresses”, but it’s easily findable online)
I’m doing my own series on the trials and tribulations of writing on my own blog here http://sedshed.blogspot.com/search/label/From%20Head%20to%20Hand
It’s coming along slowly
Coincidentily, I stumbled upon the above Phonogram vs. the Fans cover when digging around for ID concepts for Salt. A disturbingly brilliant image.
Thanks Karen. At the very least, this post gives some context to your myriad of phonogram tweets. At best, it has reinvigorated my stagnated appreciation of comics.
Seriously, though 4,549 words. Is that the best you can do? I say, longer!
Blinks:
Maybe discomfort is better for writing.
Showing her daughter that women are great by doing tours and walking in the footsteps of famous women. I like that this article is about engagement.
Jordan White, editor for Marvel, answers questions.
Jamie McKelvie answers questions.
Vision therapy as a treatment for ADHD, learning disabilities and even autism. The scientific community's opinion. The results of concentrated therapy.
Kieron Gillen on Phonogram, Siege, Ares, Loki and his collaborative relationship with Jamie McKelvie.
Superheroes and how they have changed the way we see urban landscape. Their attraction to New York.
Kieron Gillen talking about Phonogram's run and the effect it had on its audience.
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Comments
I would recommend learning to sew. Sometimes it means you can make the perfect summer dress. Sometimes it just means you’ll learn why no-one else was able to either
I love Jasper Fforde. Maybe the Eyre Affair is the slowest. I love him so much that I went to see him read at Waterstones on Charing Cross Road when the latest Thursday Next book was released and then I ALSO went and saw him do almost the same talk with my friend Jennie because we were in Edinburgh on holiday the next week and she couldn’t make the London event. He’s a lovely man (mad, very mad!) and always makes me laugh. There is a great chapter in Lost in a Good Book where Thursday goes and changes the ending to an Enid Blyton novel.
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