Friday, Friday, Friday
Friday night, Sarah, Christine, and I went out for Greek. Australia has an enormous Greek population. It has one of those statistics "the largest Greek population outside Greece" or something like that. We ended up at Pireaus Blues on Brunswick St in Fitzroy. (read: tragically cool, tragically busy - mixed with Boomers out for dinner in the city)Our "waiter" was quite the amusement. We're not convinced he was actually a waiter. Our guess is that he was an owner, otherwise, he woulda been so fired by now. There were member of the waitstaff perfectly available. I think this guy just like us... He'd ask us a question, then as we started to answer, he'd already be talking to someone else. Not even other patrons. Just passing employees. So, okay. Fine. They don't go by tips here, so no big deal. When taking our order, he told me it would be fine for me to eat the caviar dip on the platter we wanted because "it's not like meat" and it doesn't count if it's not like a cow or something. "Unless you're (something idiotic like) vegan, it's fine. You eat it." (His implied meaning in parentheses) "If you don't want it, I will charge you separately for everything on there." Okay, fine, buddy. Way to be a charmer. When he took the order he didn't write it down, but he didn't look that confident. As soon as Sarah finishes saying, "I wonder if he got all that," the guy comes back with a chicken-scratched piece of paper with our order and reads it to me, quickly. And in Greek. And then asks if that was everything. When I asked him to repeat it, he gave me a sigh. Life is so hard.
Anyway, the food was great. We drank 5 (wine) bottles of water, and capped the meal with finger-lickin baklava.
After wandering around the bookstore across the street for a while (totally my fault. I'm an addict), we started to walk home around 11-ish. In the park grounds we cut through, we saw these adorable little nocturnal creatures. Cat size, big eyes, tree climbers. Very cute and very curious - except for the little one who just wanted to stay by mom. When she went past us, the little one hung back, until it decided to make a dash for it and ran past us like we were chasing it with a net or something. For the record, we were not.
There were these other people who came up to where we were standing. Then they got closer. And followed the animals around the tree. The animals would move to get away, and they would follow. And these brilliant folks were also feeding it, buy offering a piece of something orange, and then not letting go right away when the animal went for it. I ask again, what's wrong with people? No, seriously. If you have any ideas, feel free to share with the group.
posted by Halley @ 1:08 AM
5 Comments:
They are sick. That's what they are. There are little children who hang out at the beaches near my house, and they lay out food for the birds and then throw stones at them when they fly down to pick it up.
We live in disgusting times.
People can be so mean, but those possums know how to get their revenge. They'll climb up onto your roof and tapdance their way over it in their hobnail boots, do the possum equivilent of rolling jaffas down the aisle ie tossing gumnuts along the gutters and then when you're just about to drop off to sleep, they'll emit that ghastly, otherwordly gurgling hiss that sounds like nothing else on this earth. But they are sooo cute!
Some behaviors are hardwired. Casual indifference to the suffering of animals lower in the food web (or outright enjoyment of throwing rocks at birds) is related to instinctual hunting behavior, a survival mechanism from our very recent genetic past that is hardwired into our primitive brain. Same reason that cats play with injured birds. Practice. We've got animal bodies, and animal brains. The caveman internal exists and is thriving just fine in the city. Whether or not we like it, it's not possible that 100% of the world can turn their back on 150,000 years of behavior.
yeah, but didn't your parents ever tell you not to touch the wild animals?
I'm not even talking about the hunting behaviors. I'm talking about you don't touch wild animals. unless you're a dumbass.
oh, and you don't want to scare them away, either.
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