Totally wasted the day today… I did start out with the best of intentions, but ended up doing very little. Still, I suppose we all need days where nothing much happens…

But then I started thinking about it and decided quite a bit happened.

Firstly, Thirdborn rang from Melbourne to tell me he has a new job. He is 24 years old and has a perfect record — he’s got every job he's ever had an interview for. Smug little bugger.

This was followed by a call from my travel buddy who lives in Bendigo. We’ve been tossing up where to go or what to do for our next holiday for about 2 years now. Suggestions have ranged from next year’s Worldcon in Tokyo to an Antarctic cruise.

Finally, we decided today that we’re going to drive across the Nullabor Plain from Port Augusta to Perth (2000 klms of nothing) in November — just because we can — shop till we drop in Perth, and then come home in style on the Indian Pacific train in a first-class sleeper. The Trans-Australian railway line holds the record for the longest straight section of railway in the world (478 km), and the road contains the longest straight surfaced road in Australia, too (146.6 km).Think of the idiotic stats I’ll be able to accumulate for that trip! I’ll actually get two of the world's great train journeys out of it, because I’m going to tick another journey off my list, while I’m at it, and take the Ghan from Alice to Adelaide to meet up with my friend there.

So… having decided I wasn't getting much else done, after The Indulged One went home (yes, Dace actually went home) I went to the movies and saw both X-men III and Capote. A super-hero and a culture fix in one night! I’ll write the reviews up in the next day or so. They were both good movies, although for entirely different reasons.

And then finally, the big event of the day…

Stevie the Cat figured out (after almost a year) how to wash her back paws without rolling onto her back and trying to catch her leg as it flaps around.

This was a watershed moment for Stevie. It all came about because I was scratching her behind the ear and I stopped, and she was obviously still itchy so she had to scratch it herself with her back paw and then she halted — mid-scratch — stared at her paw with the dawning light of realisation, and suddenly began licking it. I swear, you could see her mind going “oh, my god… I can reach it from here!”!

I’m a bit sorry Stevie has had this epiphany. It was and endless source of entertainment, watching her try to clean those back paws. But all is not lost. She still runs to the loo every time it’s flushed and stands on her hind legs with her front paws on the seat so she can watch the water going down the drain.

Who needs television when you've got a cat like Stevie?