An evening out

It seemed curious to have a dinner party on a Monday night. I say dinner party, but it was five of us who were invited, and I was the only guy. The invitation came from our Tasmanian friend's ex partner, our friend who is here for her annual check on her heart transplant, now 20 years ago. How traumatic the time was, but she had the best care possible at St Vincent's public hospital in Sydney where the transplant was performed. The heart of a young man killed in a car accident saved our friend's life.

My Hairdresser Friend came too. I was going to catch a tram and then walk, and she had made a desert, so thought about driving herself. I asked Phyllis if he would be free between 6 and 7 to drive us and he was, so that worked out well.

The mother of the ex of our friend lived in what was then the tallest building in Australia, I think called Q1 on Queensland's Gold Coast. When her husband died, she moved back to Melbourne into her daughter's home, our friend's ex. The mother was becoming very old and began to behave strangely. She saw a gerontologist, who discovered the huge number of pain killers for arthritis she had been prescribed were affecting her brain. She improved after the pain killers were reduced, without a noticeable increase in levels of pain. But eventually her care became too much for her daughter and she went to live in a care home almost across the road.

The home of the ex is a thirty year old three bedroom unit, and very nice it is too. She has such good taste and has renovated what she didn't like, and had a pergola built at the space at the side. The slat angles and lighting are all controlled by remote.

 

Before a traditional home is built, women should have the say about where power points are located and how many there are. Maybe some men could plan well enough.

In the side garden and the front garden were heaps of clivia in full bloom. 

We had nibbles and drinks and chatted away. The dinner was snapper fish fillets, doused in an overpowering tamarind sauce that killed any taste of the fish, with rice and a dressed tossed salad. 

Over the dining table hung a single pendant light bulb in some kind of rattan cage. It looked nice enough, until I noticed the actual light bulb was filthy. My eyes kept going back to the filthy light bulb. Maybe you know the feeling of when you want to straighten someone's wall picture frames. I wanted to get some chemical or hot soapy water onto the light bulb and make it crystal clear. 

The ex made a cheesecake from scratch, nice enough, and my Hairdresser Friend made a rather curious dessert from scratch that was quite stodgy. We did have a nice night, in spite of talking about periods and 'putting in the rags'. I was very complimentary to the ex for her nice home, for dinner and her very cute dog. If only that light bulb could be cleaned... 

Phyllis had messaged me to ask how we getting home. I replied, 'By cab or Uber, unless you are free to pick us up'. He did come and take us home.

I knew I was not in a good state once home. I felt very hot before I got into bed, and sure enough, something I had eaten had not agreed with me. I slept for ten minutes and woke up, boiling hot. Repeat the same until about 5.00am and I then fell into a proper sleep. I experienced the same years ago when we used to dine at cheap Chinse restaurants. I have no idea what triggers what is clearly food related.