Fri 6/12/13- Revisiting The Boss, Painted Garage Doors, Bond Exhibitions & This Week's Watches.

Friday 10:24pm (AEST)

Last Friday

I watched a 2009 Bruce Springsteen (and The E Street Band) concert on DVD a week ago and (by chance) caught a screening of a documentary called "Springsteen And I" on TV a couple of nights later. This documentary was a compilation of videos made by fans of The Boss. It was a pretty cool film. Afterwards, I began thinking about the Springsteen concert that I went along to back in 1985. I was originally going to start this week's watch wrap-up with more about the concert DVD and TV documentary that I saw, and how it tied in with my recollection of the concert I went to, but this became a long post. The more I wrote, the more I remembered.

And I hadn't even gotten around to talking about watches.

I continued writing that post and filed it away to post it up sometime in the next week or so.

So, my apologies for the misleading title of this post.

For now, it's back to the watches.

Saturday

Well, the garage door wasn't gonna paint itself. I had already given it one undercoat, but wasn't happy with the result, so off came the Railmaster and on went the Seiko SKX031 on the black ZULU strap. An hour or so later, I was done;

Dang, I don't know how to rotate this picture, but you get the drift.

Sunday

Thought I'd finish writing the letter to Keith Sharon in Santa Ana. Decided to take the Smith-Corona Galaxie II to some nearby factories and write while the kids hit some tennis balls around;



Good idea in theory, but the slope of my car's bonnet and the strong winds made it a futile endeavour.
Finished writing it at home later that evening. The Omega Railmaster was back on my wrist;

Monday
There were a tonne of dishes to be done from the night before and that morning's breakfast. Beyond that, I don't remember much else. Oh yeah, I switched over to the Omega Planet Ocean;

Tuesday



Got my results back for the final Cataloguing assignment that I handed in last week. I wasn't overly impressed with my work on it because I kept thinking I hadn't answered the questions adequately. My lecturer thought otherwise. I got 25/25. There were some minor errors, but the written responses were what got me over the line. I can live with that.

Wednesday
Worked. Switched over to the hand-wound Camy Club Star on a preppy NATO strap in the morning;

Thursday

Worked. Same watch, different tie., Yes, it's wider than current fashions dictate, but I don't give a rat's.

While on my lunch break, I saw two nuns seated at a table just inside the entrance to an arcade. They were collecting donations for The Little Sisters of The Poor. This was the nursing home where my Dad spent his final years. I had to say hello and thank-you to these nuns. One of them looked about thirty-five and the other was in her seventies. I explained that my Father had been a resident at Little Sisters and the older nun asked me his name. I told her.

"Oh, I remember him! He was a lovely man."

Was she feeding me a line, like fortune tellers who tell you what you want to hear? Was this something that she says to everyone with a similar story to mine? "Good God, Teeritz, cancha' even trust a nun!!??"

And then she continued; "I remember your Mother used to bring him these wonderful tiramisu desserts every week."

And my eyes got a little moist right about then.

As we chatted about my parents, I slotted all of my loose change into the donation tin.

We spoke a little more, but I was aware that I had to get back to work. The nun told me she'd be back there next week. Good, because I'll bring notes next week for the donation tin.

When I got home, I got out my fountain pens and cleaned the nibs. I had five pens on the go and thought this was a little excessive, so I emptied two of them and just kept three in rotation- The Visconti Wall Street (medium nib), the circa 1946 Parker Vacumatic (fine nib, I think), and the Pelikan M450 Vermiel (medium nib);

Meanwhile, Madame stared at the flames;

'Scuse the mess. Sewing basket gets out of hand.

Today

Busy day. My daughter would be starring in a promotional video for my wife's place of employment. We had to be there by ten a.m. T'was a cold morning and I rugged up with a hat and scarf. Filming didn't take too long. I had on the Omega AquaTerra while we waited;

The video filming wrapped up sooner than we thought. We were scheduled to go visit my old next-door neighbour at 1:00pm, so we had some time up our sleeves. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago about how they wanted us to bring the kids 'round because they hadn't seen them since my Mother's funeral early last year.

However, it was only eleven-thirty or so. My wife and I decided to kill some time by heading over to The Old Colonist's Home in Clifton Hill, not far from my Mother's old house. And who cared what the kids thought of that idea.

The Old Colonist's Home is a retirement village. It was a goodwill project from a time when society was a little more philanthropic and community-minded, first built in the mid 1800s and mapped out with streets in an effort to provide a home for the original settlers in Victoria in their twilight years. Here's what the homes in this village look like;

The sun had come out and the morning was warming up. We walked around the place for about 30 minutes before we saw one of the residents. She greeted us by saying; "Are you here visiting or are you sussing us out?" Funny, but "sussing out" doesn't sound like a phrase that I would expect from a lady of her generation.

We chatted to her for about twenty minutes. I've always liked talking to the elderly. For the most part, they have beautiful manners.

How or (you're wondering) WHY(!) did we go there to begin with? My Mother-in-law's great aunt was a resident there in the early Nineties. One day, my wife (girlfriend back then) came over to pick me up to go visit her. Her name was Amy*. She was bed-ridden and totally sight-impaired.

She was 104 years old.

She spoke slowly, but she was still pretty sharp.

It wasn't a long visit, but I was honoured and humbled to have met someone who was born in 1891. Life is good. Simple as that. Sometimes, though, life can be a drag, so I have to commend anybody that lives to a ripe old age. And that's why I got a lot of time for the elderly if they want to have a chat.

Amy lived to 106. Wow! The things she must have seen and done in her lifetime.

We walked around the village for a few more minutes and I began to wonder if any of the residents here owned any typewriters. I listened out for the clackety, clack sound, but heard nothing.

I looked at my watch. It was time to go. About ten minutes later, we arrived at my old neighbour's house and sat outside in the shade drinking Greek coffee (never had it!) and eating Greek biscuits, the name of which escapes me right now. It was good to catch up with them and they were very happy to see the kids; "He look like you!"

We were there for just over an hour before wishing them a Merry Christmas and bidding farewell. Back in the car, I checked the time and then suggested a detour to my wife. I had pencilled this in for today, but it would depend on the time. It was now around 2:30pm.
'We can do this', I thought to myself.
And so, we headed for the Museum of Victoria. I wanted to go before the kids finished the school year. It would be pretty crowded at the Museum once schoolkids were on holiday.

Yes, I had been waiting for this exhibition since it was announced back in March. Once inside, I made a bee-line for the DB5, which was displayed in the foyer;

Obviously, you're not permitted to take photos once you get inside the exhibit area. So I stood in the doorway because I just had to get this shot.

Technically, I wasn't inside the exhibit area. But hell, after all I've done for (and spent on) Mr. Bond, I figured I was allowed this little liberty.

Besides, I'll be going back next week to spend some cash in the gift shop.

It was a great exhibition. Long-time Bond Production Designer Ken Adam's drawings were sublime. They had the scale models of the Aston Martin DB5 from "Skyfall", Ursula Andress's bikini from "Dr. No", Scaramanga's pistol from "The Man With The Golden Gun", Oddjob's deadly hat from "Goldfinger",  the list of stuff went on and on. A lot of costumes too. It was great. No doubt I'll go back to see it all again once more before it ends.

We got home around 4:45pm. I had the beginnings of a headache due to overdressing for the day's weather, lack of sunglasses once it got bright and sunny outside, and I did all the driving. Not complaining about the last part because I like driving. Just wish I'd brought sunglasses along.

Anyway, it's now almost 10:30pm. I started writing this post at six.

Time for a cup of Earl Grey before I hit the sack. Actually, I think I'll have peppermint instead.

If you made it to this line, then thanks for reading and have a great weekend!




EDIT- R.I.P, Mr. Mandela. Thanks for reminding us that decency works.

*Amy was not her real name.