Life is good.

It's Monday. And you know what? I don't feel bad. Maybe it's the weather. Maybe I'm heading for a manic cycle. Or maybe I just had a good weekend.

The Teen and the Elder had their own agenda, so disappeared fairly early Saturday. With every intention of not reappearing until Sunday sometime. We were at a loose end, so to speak.

MOTH decided to do something on the spur of the moment. A HUGE accomplishment on its own. And we took a drive out to Cleveland. The sky was clear and blue. A full tank of fuel, airconditioning in the car was working a treat; traffic was moderate, the UBD on the floor at my feet, and a calm and relaxed midset with regard to the possibility of getting lost.

I can't describe how bouyed I felt. No rush, no need to be anywhere at any particular time. Just a day to do what we wanted. Of course, the lure of a shopping centre we hadn't been to before was too hard to ignore. We stopped at Capalaba Park or some such. It was quite larger than we expected, but had a Zarraffas, so we were set. MOTH had never had coffee from there before, but had to agree that yes, it was better than Gloria Jeans.

The shopping centre had a wildlife display going on. Perhaps it had just finished - a family were having their photo taken while nursing a freshwater croc across their knees. We wandered around and looked in the windows of the set up at some of the reptiles. One display held gouldian finches, the bright purple and green ones. I tried to take some shots with the phone, but heck, they move waaaay to fast for that. Once I snapped the camera on one of the birds on a branch, but when the photo displayed on the screen, there wasn't a bird in sight. Perhaps I might even put that Missing: Fast Bird poster here. When I get around to pulling the pics off the phone.

So we ended up somewhere out at Cleveland. Not Wellington Point way, but the other direction. And decided to stop somewhere for lunch. The name of the place escapes me now, but the food was good. MOTH ordered bangers and mash, while I had tagiatelle with bug. Delicious. The garden out the back had Emu in the name. We sat in the shady pergoda, against the railing while the sea breeze stirred the fronds of the palm tree where the rainbow lorikeets played and the cockatoos rested in the trees around the park.

Oh, and one old one with her mate and her brood of two obnoxious children sat at the table directly below us. She forghorned, and every time she told those kids to do something, they did what they pleased anyway. I spent a fair bit of my time mumbling under my breath, planning ways to destroy them. On one occasion, I wondered if there were some way I could coax the cockatoos over and have them beat the kids to death. MOTH sat grinning like a loon, commenting later that he didn't think that strip of I-don't-like-kids ran quite that wide. Bloody bogans annoying the croutons out of the general public.

But in spite of that, it was a brilliant day. Or maybe because of it. I know I had a lot of fun planning their destruction.