Today’s weather forecast (Melbourne CBD, 3000): min - 15°C, max - 29°C. 100% chance of no rain
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Melbourne thoughts.
I went to the Carlton Gardens yesterday evening to see if I could see the comet. There was a homeless person sleeping on a stone bench, they had a pillow and blankets, their belongings in a supermarket trolley. I wondered if I would be able to do anything if I were a member of local government.
This morning I give money to a crying beggar on Bourke st mall, He seemed ashamed and kept on apologising.
Walking through the gardens again on my way home from the cbd I see more homeless, this time sleeping under trees.
What could I do? As much as I would wish it if i had the power I wouldn’t be able to help instantaneously.
I reckon so many people in gov really do want to help, they have ideas but those ideas would get shot down.
My idea. As a temp stop gap until systems are in place use old warehouses as dorms , have them fitted out as well as possible, have many social services available.
But I can hear it now. There would be people who would object. They let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
old warehouses as dorms
This is why I think covid was a wasted opportunity. Building / converting quarantine quarters near support services and re-purpose them for homeless and disaster (flood / fire) victims. Wouldn’t win too many votes though.
That is a good idea.
but can you imagine the outrage at dorm quarantine conditions?
All it takes is one nutter going on a rampage, and the other inhabitants of a dorm would be adversely impacted. Also, keeping people in dorm conditions encourages theft and abuse - source : boarding school with upper middle/upper class kids (guess who the worst thieves were).
Yeah.
Given the instability of a lot of the homeless community - through mental health issues, substance issues, interpersonal stuff which gets so much worse when you have nothing except what you can keep safely with you - having a shared dorm setting has the potential to get really sketch really fast.
I live pretty much next door to a homeless hub in the CBD. The community garden which we so carefully planted and cared for turned into a homeless encampment because of overflow from the outreach centre…and while some of the regulars were okay if you were courteous with them, some were really, REALLY not. They trashed the place. Needles, broken glass, human waste, the lot. We had a couple of deaths in our garden, and more close calls on top of that.
None of us who had built the garden felt safe using it, and it’s only recently - having had the area cleared, fenced off so we could fix it without more rough sleepers immediately moving in, and a regular rotation of working bees now that the fence has come down - that we do.
I don’t know what the answer is, sadly.
Homelessness causes mental illness too. So having emergency dorms would save many people from that
Please, add in the Tragedy of the Commons. It’s relevant.
I think there’s a huge difference between people who are homeless due to things like bad luck, domestic violence and economic circumstances; and people who have severe mental health issues, violent antisocial behaviours, debilitating drug dependence. If there was a way of separating them, then temporary basic accomodation might work for the nonviolent group? With fast track supports to get them back into housing and independence. And the remainder need to go to more specialised facilities for long term care, because it might be that they will never be well enough to live independently. But I’m sure that would be very controversial. I wish we could actually try solutions based on objective outcomes rather than political vote getter policies.
Good point.
There should be medical care for the mentally ill.
Using old warehouses as dorms - you’ve just re-invented the flop-house of Victorian times! Or possibly the penny hangs. There’s damn good reason why this solution is just plain not good enough.
With services. More like military barracks than a flop house.
and AS A STOP GAP until we have something better in place.
because a dorm is better than stone bench or under a tree
ffs, how does Scandinavia do it? Let’s do that.
This is a great idea however I would be too scared to stay there for all the reasons outlined.
I believe in the housing first model however at the same time there has to be really robust supports and plans in place around mental health and antisocial behaviour. And probably supervision.
Some people have challenges in keeping accommodation or aggressive behaviours and sadly just having services available isn’t enough.
A lot of the time what happens is either the aggressive people get kicked out (sometimes continuing to hang around and cause further problems) or more vulnerable people sleep rough to avoid the abusive ones. Or both. Which equals a high rate of returning to rough sleeping.
Australia seriously needs to fix the mental health system and housing
Good night everyone. sweet dreams 😘
Night goon hoon
Kinda crazy it’s almost month 2 of the year. I, for one, hope we maintain this velocity
time flies
Depends on the scale. When I had nothing to do, individual days seemed to go for weeks, while weeks went by like seconds. Now the days usually go by at a decent rate, but the weeks feel long, while dates are flying by about as quickly as somebody whose new year resolution was to run a marathon. I just get by by jumping from event to event though. Everything is just a lead up into the next thing that happens, good or bad
A much needed and very lazy morning. Not even out of my PJs yet, but shopping to do and boyo’s family to visit soon. Meant to be having dinner with a friend tonight but struggling to bring myself to confirm it with them.
Yeah, I woke up and then decided to go take a nap basically immediately lol
Beep Beep 🚚
🍏🍎🍐🍊🍋🍈🫐🍓🍇🍉🍌🍒🍑🥭🍍🥥🥦🥑🫛🍆🍅🥝🥬🥒🌽🥕🥐🍠🫚🥔🧅🥯🍞🥖🥨🧀🧇🥞🧈🍳🥚🥓🥩🍗🍖🫓🍕🍟🍔🌭🥙🧆🌮🌯🥗🍲🍜🍝🥘🍛🍣🍱🥟🦪🍥🍘🍚🍙🐠🍤🪼🦀🐙 🍗🥮🍢🍡🍧🍰🧁🥧🍦🍨🎂🍮🍭🍬🍫🥜🌰🍪🍿🍯🥛☕️🍵🍺🍶🥤🧋🧃🥂🍷🥃🍸🍹🧉🔋I’d like some French onion soup please, even more oniony than normal
🧅🧅🧅🧅🧅🧅🧅🧅🧅🧅🧅
It’s warm out there.
Motorcycle man strikes again. That’s two 5am wakeups in a row from the starting & revving. It sounds like a chainsaw is going off.
Feeling like crap from lack of sleep but trying to enjoy the day. About to go for banh mi / viet iced coffee and then a swim afterwards.
I also have a motorcycle man… Lives in my building and, from the timing of the noise, must work nightshift.
He’s lucky I don’t know which apartment he lives in 😂
A Vietnamese Iced Coffee is definitely classified as self-care after your morning! May it be delicious and everlasting!
I woke up feeling really sad and bad today. I don’t know where it came from, I was okayish last night
Hugs.
so many hugs
you’re still recovering from a pretty rough time in your last place, some ups and downs are normal
your brain is processing all the bad shit now you’re somewhere safe. It happens. Let yourself be sad a bit and then go get yourself a treat
This is such a first world minor problem, but any advice on dealing with next door’s tree? Its shed so many leaves and bark in the past 6 weeks that it would easily take 2 full green bins to get rid of and not only can I not be arsed doing the clean up it just feels a tad unfair. The owner of the tree is a nice old guy so I don’t want to put him out with this issue, but we’re at the point of needing to either pay someone or sweep it all ourselves on to a public road which feels wrong. Ideas other than what I already have?
At least discuss it with him. Could you get it cut back to the fence line?
Definitely couldn’t get it cut back behind the fence line and it’s rough 15-20 meters tall so it wouldn’t help as the bark and leaves are primarily coming from their side as it’s shedding + wind. It’s a lovely tree too filled with birds so it’s not something I’d even want cutting back. I probably should discuss it with him and maybe I could fit some tall netting. I know my rental providers would be fine with it and he would be, but there’s gotta be a better way of dealing with this. Spitballing: even a leaf blower would just push the problem on to someone else which isn’t fair. Gahhh, my poor chillis covered in bark.
Would you guys be able to go halvies on a garden maintenance service/leaf removal whenever it gets bad?
I know some councils have garden waste collections but I get not wanting to deal with it
It’s a good suggestion and probably viable, I might give it a go. But at the point I’d probably just pay for it all to save the discussion. I’m just frustrated that it’s a rental and already too expensive so spending more money on something that isn’t mine to solve a problem that isn’t of my own creation just feels wrong.
I think best first step is have a chat with him. If he is elderly maybe he has someone already helping him with gardening, maybe ask the leaves be swept from your side too? But you would need to give them access. But genuinely, why not just sweep and put it in the green bin? Why would you blow it into the street? I live in a leafy area. Sometimes neighbours trees leaves fall in my yard. Sometimes mine fall in theirs. Sometimes street tree leaves blow in everyone’s yards. Put it in the bin and enjoy having a nice tree around.
I know that him and my rental provider do not get along so although he’d possibly do it for me, him doing it for this place might not go so well as a conversation topic. Probably worth trying but am a pom and so that kinda conversation never happens.
Green bin isn’t viable as in my council that’s the food bin, and lots of the bark is as big as or even longer than my arm. So that would be no food waste bin space for 4 weeks with then having a 2 week wait after that collection to get rid of things like uneaten bread. And I don’t have the ability to compost myself (also again, rental).
This is like 2 days work that’s only getting worse and I so can’t be arsed. So the chat is probably necessary, but please send help!
Cheers 🍻
Cheeeeeeers!!!
Cheers fluffy butt🍻
Hopefully it stays up there. Cheers 🍻
I’m feeling a zonk coming on real strong right now…
Just coming out of a zonkm highly recommend
Mid zonk. Feels good.
Did the usual laundry/dishes thing, then went out with the Minipeelers and got some essential supplies. Also got nonessential supplies such as cheesecake and brownies from a local cafe, because cheesecake and brownies. They had a pistachio cruffin left and gave me for free🤤 Got home and had a beef sausage in a fresh roll with German mustard (it comes in a mini stein. I love that kind of thing). Going to watch something with the kids and do more laundry. After I eat the cruffin!
nonessential supplies such as cheesecake and brownies
Joy is an essential supply
It totally is!
Picture of cruffin?! Sounds so delicious, even better when you get it for free!
😔 cannot supply picture because cruffin was eaten with embarrassing speed… it looked almost exactly like this one and had pistachio cream inside degenerates into Homer Simpson gluttony noises
I really need to try this…
Never seen one of those before. Are they fluffy like a croissant or more muffin like on the inside?
They’re sort of flaky and croissanty on the outside and muffiny on the inside.
Washing done, toasted cheese and ham linch done, aircon on! Stovetop coffee done!
I’m all ready for a Saturday!
Very much enjoying the Saturday vibes myself too. What are you thinking for dinner?
I’m probably going to make stir fry noodles tonight with the massive amount of eggs and ham I have left here with hokkien noodles that I bought from aldi as a test.
I haven’t done stir fry in ages apart from yesterday when I got inspired.
How are you spending this Saturday afternoon and evening and are you doing a stir fry as well?
I’ve got the tennis on as Alex de Minaur is playing at 2pm.
Oh nice. You’ve reminded me I do need to go to the regular shops for eggs and carrots and soy milk, maybe when it’s cooled down. I’m surprised you don’t do stir fry often, is it because you’ve had the good stuff and can’t be satisfied with what you make at home? I love a good stir fry though sadly my current place has just a wimpy electric stove that doesn’t quite do the trick. Might do a bit tonight with the veggies I bought from the market. Though it’s more of a saute I guess.
I’ve been catching up on messages for a few hours, teed up a catch up tomorrow with someone I haven’t seen in over half a year, very excited for that. Made an iced chocolate and gonna enjoy that with more Severence binge watching today. Cook dinner and that’s it.
Today is just 100% chillax/me-time. I realised I haven’t had a solo day with zero obligations or expectations for nearly a month, what with all the traveling and working in between. I’ll do my chores tomorrow afternoon.
I sort of go through phases with food at times. I’ve been big into chicken schnitzel and veggies and gravy the last few weeks.
I was looking up a sauce recipe for hokkien noodles yesterday and just thought thought why not? And tossed everything in adhoc.
If I had planned it better I would have had some onions added to it and green onions.
I’d definitely go today for your stuff, tomorrow is going to be a lot hotter forecasted to be 33.
Is there a trick with stir fry? I didn’t have the heat on very high or anything. Just enough to cook the eggs and warm everything up without searing it.
This is what it looked like yesterday
Noodle stir fry.
Oh that’s awesome that you’re ducking out tomorrow to spend some time with a friend. I’m sure you’re going to have a great time out.
I think you need more iced chocolate tomorrow, is Severence any good? I’ve been binging movies nonstop for the last week, almost thought about watching Silo but I think I’ll do Shogun.
A zero obligation day needs to happen more often! I think you need to pencil in a few more of those when you go out to the market and then duck into a cafe to relax for a little.
That noodle stir fry looks gooood, love hokkien noodles!! Honestly the best stir fries are the ones you can make with whatever you have on hand. I love their flexibility. My understanding of stir fries is if you can get the wok really hot that imparts a smoky flavour that makes it more authentic. You need a sufficiently strong gas burner though, I’ve never lived in a place that had one close to it.
Severance is amazing but not for everyone, it can feel claustrophobic and unsettling because of the premise and they do a really good job with the cinematography to convey that awkward, discomforting sterile office setting.
I’ve got to stock up on onions too! Better go now despite it being rather warm outside. Onions, carrots, eggs, milk. It’s only 3 minutes in the sun before I get into the shopping centre, I can do this…
I love this little community. 💜
My favourite corner of the internet!
This is pretty much one of 3 websites I look at. It’s incredibly sweet here.
Ditto!
That Vukic tennis match was absolutely crazy. My nerves are shot. Time for bed.
