The Office, Australia, with Dragon

Set up my computer on a picnic bench next to the bike path on Pittwater Road, the main road nearest the beach that runs the length of the Northern Beaches, in Narrabeen, across from the Thai Lanna Restaurant. Three sulphur crested cockatoos are digging in the grass about thirty yards away. Numerous noisy miners fluttering around. It's about 65 degrees, breezy. Feels like it could rain. I have a latte and a pack of Camel straights, third from a carton I got in duty free. When they run out, will I put up $17-20 a pack that smokes cost in Australia? Of course I will. Or maybe I’ll go back to Drum rollies. (Nigel says, “Maybe you should just quit smoking. Or are you gonna need those teats for the rest of your life?” Nigel is such as asshole.)

I took this photo yesterday, next to a creek across the street from Tin's sister's house:

It's an Easter Water Dragon, about two feet long, with tail.

An Aussie bloke with a big white beard walked by and said, “Nice office.” It is, isn’t it? And it is my office now, anywhere I set my laptop. Weird.

As Tin noted: We haven’t seen a cat since we’ve been here. Not a single one. (I've seen plenty of dogs, including two Huskies running along with a jogger - in Sydney! Ow!) Strict restrictions on cats: people have them, but they do such damage to the small fauna, birds and small marsupials, that went millennia without such predators, that it's rare to see cats outdoors. (We’ll talk about marsupial predators, including large cats – now extinct - later.)

A cockatoo on the ground twenty-five feet away is delicately biting the tiny yellow flowers from the tops of weeds and munching them down.

I’ve finished my latte, and three cigarettes – about $2.70 worth in Australia. Time to move on.