there's been a lot of rain lately...

My Dad cracks me up.

We've been organizing flights for me to go up and visit him in Townsville over winter (so, June). We booked them the other day, knowing Nic wouldn't be able to get that much time off work to come up with me, I was just going to leave him with Mia and Mallei and have a holiday up there all by my lonesome.

Last night (a couple of nights after we'd booked the tickets), my phone rings- it's Dad.  Now, you have to kind of imagine a typically jovial, dorky Dad, who's funny without meaning to be, because he's a dork, but Aussie, ok?

Here is me and Dad, back in the day, with a koala. I don't think they let you hold them like this anymore. Liability and all. He no longer has the beard. I have more hair. T'aw.

"Hey Dad!"
"Oh! G'day Em!"
"...How're you?" (I'm puzzled as to why he's calling, since I spoke with him only a couple of days ago and we tend to have once-a-fortnight catchups. It works for us. I thought he might be calling because I'd sent an email asking whether he knew any good places for a couple-nights hike over Easter, since he's done a lot more hiking than we have, and knows the trails better.).
"Good, good thanks. It's been raining a lot here! Good thing you're not coming up now! We've had 600mm of rain!"
I'm thinking: He's calling me to tell that a tropical part of this country is raining? During the wet season? Really?
"Oh... Well, good thing!"
"Yeah.... I haven't been able to play the back 9 holes of our golf course if 5 months! It's been flooded!"
(As a side note, apparently there's a crocodile that lives in a pond on their golf-course. I'm kind of glad they haven't been allowed down there) At this point, I think Nic said my face was like: You're calling to tell about the weather, wtf?
"Oh no!"
"Yep. And the club's really struggling for money now because nobody can play the holes that they're thinking of having a trivia competition!" Said like it was a terrible offense to mankind.
"Well... that'll be fun?"
"They were trying to think of ways to raise money, so someone suggested this trivia night, and I said 'Why don't we have a hole-in-one competition on my hole?' which is the one I look after (he does the gardening on it) and the best hole in the golf course, but nobody's been able to get there for 5 months because it's all muddy and swamp! Haha!!"
"...Oh!"
"Yeah! The other day, I tried to go to the post-office, and I had to wade through 2 feet of water to get there!!!"
"Ha! How about that!? You're not getting floods or anything are you?"
There's a momentary silence, like I'm an idiot.
"No, no, you know, it just rains here!" (You'll notice I finish every one of his sentences with an exclamation mark. It's like that, really).
"Oh. Well, yeah, it's the rainy season, I guess. You're used to it..." Still waiting to get to the point.
"So, uh, I just logged on to my email, and I saw about the easter trip, so I'll email you about that later...But, do you think Nic might like to come up for the long weekend?!" (I'm going up over a long weekend, and then some)
"Well, yeah, of course he would, but that's only 3 days! He could easily get at least 2 days off work..!" So here is my Dad, offering to buy my fiance tickets for a 5 hour flight to come visit him for 3 days.
"Well, it'd be nice to see Nic! So if he came up on Saturday and left on Monday, that'd be pretty good!"
Sometimes he doesn't hear what I say, my father.
"He could come up a couple more days, Dad, that won't be a problem. Maybe he could fly up with me, and just go home a bit earlier!"
So he goes and looks online and tells me he'll book them, to which I have to slow him down, make sure Nic can get the time off work before the non-refundable tickets are booked.
At the end of the conversation, everything comes in a rush:
"Ok, well call me tomorrowoktalktoyousoonloveyoubye!!!"
And I think, again, yep. My Dad rocks. He's bough/buyingt tickets for both of us... and this 'love you' at the end of each phone call? I think that started creeping in there around about the time of Cyclone Yasi.
On that though, my brother didn't call.
He didn't call before the cyclone, and I don't think he called immediately after the cyclone.
But anyhoo. That's the story of how Nic is coming up to Queensland with me, assuming he can get the time off, which shouldn't be an issue.

Me, in a box. I don't know why. For a guy who didn't want to be a Dad up until the point where I was actually born, I think he did ok.  

I was going to write a nice deep post about how we talked a little about cheating and the 'd-word' (Nic said: "Dumped?!?!?!" and I said: "Uh... the married version of that, yes" .. "Ooohhh. Divorce.") last night, and what came of that, but, well, this was more fun. Maybe I'll do that tomorrow. No Post-school day post today because I didn't go yesterday. I was tired and didn't feel up to it and had a headache most of the morning so it's probably a good thing. Next week though, there will be more School antics. Also another Tasty Tuesday (maybe our gnocchi recipe that we'll be doing tonight) and I'm making a bit of a kitten-growing-up-and-antics video as well, but I'm missing some bits, so I'll do that eventually.
Happy Friday (well, for some of us) y'all.