You might want to go to the toilet or get a cuppa before you start reading…

Tonight M and I went to a council meeting. This wouldn’t have been necessary if the person living next door to the land that M wants to sell didn’t raise a whole bunch of petty objections to the plans that we submitted to the council for approval. Stupid guy. And the stuff he raised was already clearly covered in the plans anyway, so there was really no reason for him to bring any of it up, other than that he’s an annoying busybody who feels he has to make his presence known. Geez, there’s one in every neighbourhood, isn’t there.

I’d never been to a council meeting before, so I had no idea how they worked or what to expect. We got to the meeting and went into the public gallery, which was just a collection of chairs behind the main Very Important Meeting Table, with a copy of the agenda, which was seriously half an inch thick. We looked at the items for discussion, and fortunately our item was number 3 of 11. We looked up our part of the agenda, and read through the neighbour’s objections, and the builder’s rebuttals. It said at the end that the conclusion was that our proposal be granted subject to some stuff, blah blah (didn’t really read that bit ;) ), so we were hoping for the best.

In case you don’t know how the meetings work, the person/people putting in the objections (if they go to the meeting - they don’t have to go) have a chance to go before the panel and present their case, after which the councillors can ask them questions. After all the party poopers objectors have finished, the applicant (if they go) can then go up and argue their case, followed by more questions, and then the one of the councillors starts off by saying whether he/she thinks the application should be granted or not, someone seconds it, and the other councillors vote.

The first item started, and went for ages because 2 or 3 objectors turned up, and of course all wanted to have their turn in the limelight. One of the objectors was actually a guy I studied Auslan with last year, so I now have his home address and several photos of his (rather barn-like looking) house. There were lengthy questions, and then the applicant got his turn. There were a few questions, then I think the plans were rejected, but I’m not sure since I’m not up with all the council lingo, yo.

The next application was from a hotel owner who wanted to extend the hours of his gaming lounge. Well, the hours were already in place and had been trialled for the last couple of years, and he wanted to make them permanent. There was an objector who lived right next door to the hotel car park, complaining that hotel patrons loiter in the car park after the hotel has closed, and the noise they make affects the ‘amenity’ of their house. They sounded pretty trashy, and we figured that the only reason they could afford to live there was because it was right next to a hotel. Yeah, it’s bitchy but give me a break - you have to find some way to entertain yourself in long, drawn out meetings.

Anyway, if you move in next door to a hotel, don’t you have to expect that you’re going to get noise? I thought that was part of the deal. I didn’t think they were really going to have much ground to stand on, particularly as the people who lived right behind the hotel didn’t see fit to raise any objections or show up to the meeting, and the people who did object lived next door to these people. The councillor starting off the summary took about 5 full minutes to say what any normal person could say in one sentence, but once he finally stopped listening to his own voice the councillors agreed with my wise opinions, and a big Quit Whining in the form of ‘application granted’ was handed down to the objectors.

At this point I was thinking that this was all rather Judge Judy-esque, with each side getting up to tell their story, being asked questions, then being told whether they won or lost and having to walk out with their tails between their legs. Quite funny.

So, we were next - about time! We’d been nervously scanning the gallery to see if the guy who objected to our plans turned up, but he didn’t. Ha - you care enough about your precious neighbourhood to make everyone’s life difficult by putting in petty objections, but NOT enough to actually turn up to the meeting to back them up, do you? Huh? HUH? Again I say - stupid guy.

The builder who submitted our plans was there, and went up to answer any questions that the councillors may have. It was at this stage that I actually wished that the objector had turned up, because when one of the councillors mistakenly took our guy for the objector, and asked him ‘What is your principal objection to this application?’ it was clear that they all thought the objector was a tosser who was just being difficult and had no reasonable claim. After our guy said ‘No objection at all’, he sat back down in the gallery with us, the councillors said that they had no objections to the plans, and that the application was granted subject to something or other. Yeah! So that means that the plans are approved, and after we get that in writing we can advertise the land and hopefully sell it soonish.

It’s taken a year to get to this point, so we’re hoping it won’t take too much longer to find someone interested in buying it. Thank goodness we were number 3 on the list, because I don’t think I could have sat there through the whole thing. What a waste of a Monday night.

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After the meeting we called in to see my parents and tell them the good news, and stayed long enough to watch the second Australian new million dollar winner of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. It took him 45 minutes to answer the last 2 questions, but I guess when $1m is at stake you don’t want to stuff up. This guy had been studying trivia for the last 5 YEARS in order to prepare himself for getting on the show… just as well he got on, otherwise there’s 5 years of his sons growing up that he missed for nothing.

What I thought was pretty dodgy was what he said after he won. His million-dollar question was, “Which of these men has never been ‘Time’ magazine’s ‘Man of the Year’?”, and the options were Hitler, Stalin, Ayatollah Khomeini and Mao Zedong. He used his last lifeline, and took out two wrong options. He ummed and ahhhed and finally locked in his answer.

Anyway, after he’d won he said that he’d been looking up the Time magazine’s Men of the Year just a few days ago, and so getting that question right was just a matter of remembering what he’d read. Now, I think it’s pretty coincidental that of ALL the trivia he’d been looking up over the last 5 years of his life, he just ‘happened’ to be reading up on that subject just a few days earlier. Hmmm. Ah well, good on him for winning.

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Finally, Steph tagged me to come up with 5 things about myself. I could refer you to the list of 100 things in my sidebar, but I guess that’s a bit of a copout. So now I have to try to find 5 things that aren’t there. Ah bugger it, it’s not like you’re all going to check, right? Hehe.

1. As I’ve become older, I’ve developed a very mild fear of heights. I mean, I don’t have any problem going up the Eiffel Tower, or actually being up high, it’s just when I look over the edge of a really tall building and imagine plummeting to my death, I get a bit of a fluttery feeling. I like to consider that healthy though.

2. I’ve been thinking for a long time about opening a coffee shop. It won’t ever happen, but I thought it might be nice.

3. I had a dream last night that I was walking through a national park, and that a koala was my tour guide, walking a few steps in front of me and showing me through. I kept calling it, trying to get it to turn around so that I could take a photo.

4. I haven’t gone to the last two Auslan Only camps (weekends run by the Deaf Society where you spend the whole time using Auslan only - no voices allowed) because I don’t like being away from home. Yeah, I’m a big wuss. I’ll try to go next year though - maybe.

5. I have to have a cup of coffee first thing every morning, otherwise I get a headache.

I’m meant to tag 5 more people, but I’ve never been good at tagging (I was always the one who broke chain letters), so if you do it, let me know.

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So ends this enormous post!