Why I Finally Read “The Hitchhiker’s Guide…”

She taught me to eat not just with my fingers, but one-handed as well!  Shortly after my arrival in the “big smoke,” I became a guest of two wedding-planning families at Perth’s Bollywood restaurant. I met Pooja and her groom-to-be via an online travel website. I instantly adorded her amazing sister, Aditi – my aforementioned dining coach — and the rest of the family members as well.

Serendipitously, my Perth job-hunt timing lined up perfectly with Pooja and Ro’s need for help getting their house ready to rent (whilst planning two engagement parties, two other engagemnet events, an overseas wedding, a round-the-world trip, putting professional careers on hold, and sorting out their lives to be gone for a year)!

They are a rad couple — smart, funny, interested, curious… and totally flat out (busy).    I loved being a part of their banter and crazy lives. Ro’s fantastic accent — almost more British than Australian — combined with his inflection and free-wheeling focus making him a hilarious and entertaining companion. Pooja is an enigma — scientist, socialite, gourmet-fiend… the woman is a machine of epic-amazingness blessed with Indian-princess looks. What I wouldn’t give to have heart-shaped lips and purple-brown eyes! Oh, and she’s obsessed with not coming into contact with another human’s saliva (partner excepted). I love it!

Of course she is an avid reader and momentarily lost her mind when she discovered I’ve somehow failed to read an iconic tome: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Thanks to her, pop culture references like “So long, and thanks for all the fish” will no longer fly over my head. I even squeezed in The Hitchhiker’s follow up: The Restaurant at the End of the Universe!

When I wasn’t busy reading, I helped Ro and Pooja knock out tons of home improvement tasks, met heaps of their fantastic friends, basked in the glow of Ro’s mad mixology skills, squeezed in daily workouts at the nearby park, caught up with my some of my nearest and dearest, and consumed enough media to save me from being the blank stare at a dinner party. My favorite introduction?  Elementary – a modern twist on the Sherlock Holmes/Dr. Watson theme.

Thanks to my minutiae aversion, I had plans to leave Pooja and Ro’s just as the fun was getting started. Luckily, it worked out to return a week later after spending time with an eclectic East Perth family in their awesome, arty home. Only someone with a truly terrific sense of style could pull off painting nearly every wall of a home a different, wild color and have it look marvellous. Linda and Ian’s stunning light fixtures, bold shapes, quirky furnishings, and backyard jungle paradise provided constant eye-candy.

I helped them rescue their wildly overgrown garden plot, reinvigorate the soil, establish a new layout, plant winter seedlings, build a new compost bin, and retouch paint in their Air B&B guest quarters. I also got to enjoy the riverscape just a few hundred steps from their door, tour the CBD (downtown/commercial business district) via CAT bus, and got fully introduced to “Perth City Farm” – an awesome urban agricultural organization they’ve been a part of for years.  Oh, and Linda taught me about dowsing, and introduced me to “The Dish” – a classic Australian movie about the role played by the nation during the 1969 lunar landing.

The family’s extra space booked out the same weekend Pooja and Ro scheduled a massive family workday to get their yard up to snuff. My favorite young Perth couple fetched me from my arty escape, and I laughed with them all the way to a dinner party and games night at their friend’s house. The next day, we knocked out a shocking amount of landscaping, including removal of several cubic meters of overgrown madness and spreading literal tons of mulch. P’s dad made the best pot roast (lamb) I have ever tasted, and I’m pretty sure none of us contracted Legionnaire’s disease.

We worked hard enough to set aside the following (three-day!) weekend for play. Pooja had to go back to work (she works in the mines up north and flies in for several days at a time). Her awesome sister was available for karaoke, though! I swung by a networking meet-up before hand, and then headed off to sing my heart out. At the previous weekend’s dinner party, I had geeked out on fitness stuff with one of the hosts. He braved the karaoke session, too, in spite of having a group training/workout session the following morning. Then he organized a games and cocktail night for the coming evening and offered to spend Sunday introducing me to all of Perth’s beaches and a cute little evening spot — the Wild Fig. I think that was the most flat-out weekend I’ve had in Australia!

Come Monday, Ro and I managed a monster bout of packing. Somewhere in the middle of it all, I made it out foraging with my friend Jenny’s son and accepted a house sitting job on the north side of the city. I now know where to find purslane – one of the world’s healthiest weeds – and can identify one of the yummiest fish garnishes I’ve ever tasted — sea blight.

I’m off to love and care for an Irish Wolfhound cross for three weeks while his owners are in Europe. Maybe I’ll finally get some permanency organized in my Australian life while I’m there?  ♣

Check out my proud before-and-after photos of the painting, landscaping, home improvements, and gardening.