Milling around the far out and far fetched

After the luxury of sleeping away some period pain, a refreshing shower, hair out, favorite clothes along with a relaxed smile, I took myself to town and the Mind Body Spirit expo in one of those big halls at Darling Harbour.
After the initial disorientation (didn’t bother with the guide as I didn’t want newsprint hands) I booked in my palm & tarot reading and began a methodical walk through the maze.
Lunch would have been nice – on offer from, I suspect, the contractors that come with the hall hire, were meat pies and turkey sandwiches along with oily looking banana bread slices and little tarts with enough sugar to sweeten my morning tea for a decade. I did spot a sour dough bread thing with asparagus & cottage cheese but considered where the asparagus came from – a can most likely and how soggy & metallic tasting it could be.
I came by a stall with chocolate bars and protein bars. Now, just because it’s a mind body etc fair, doesn’t mean that all consumables are free of uranium mine tailings disguised as flavour…. Well the after taste was pretty horrid. So I did the rounds of goji juice stalls, “No I’ve never tried it…” etc got me free tastings and lots of leaflets for the recycle bin. Vitality juice and a good dose of paracetamol and I spent the next hour docile and amused.
Got a $10 neck and shoulder massage that left me more sore than when I’d arrived but it was nice when the masseuse lifted my hair each side of my neck to get to the skin. Then it was out with the credit card for some wheat metabolism boosting stuff.
The Scientologists tried on their charm but I was so unstressed, I couldn’t see how their ‘stress test’ would do anything but be seen for what it probably is; a thinly disguised form of flattery to get me in. There were the ever flattering ‘face readers’ – there always has to be a good looking older Indian man somewhere smiling at a middle aged woman as he reads her face for more money than I get per hour at my day job. Lots of stall holders had seen the light in various forms and definitely had THE answer. There were lots of tables with pretty polished stones being sold by people in bushy clothes who looked like they didn’t like the commercial side but more the amateur geology side of digging up rock that has taken thousands or even millions of years to be compressed and altered into such pretty colours. I wonder if there is any Amethyst left to collect anymore.
Some of the more entertaining stalls – get this: Tarot-like cards taken from the Christian bible! A big quote from Matthew on the tarp behind the very pushy spruikers for religion with a twist – gosh what will these people think of next! Some of my imbedded dislike of the fundamentalism of Christianity jumped in on me and I couldn’t stand there for more than a second, muttered something about being an atheist and took off.
Still hungry, I finally found some crunchy yummy Omega-3-anti-oxidant-fiber-protein-rich-dehydrated-at-very-low-temperature-to-preserve-vital-Lifeforce crackers made from chia seeds. Best of all the pack I bought was ‘pizza’ flavoured! Oh, and the woman who served me was fun to charm.
I munched on my crackers until my palm moment with ‘Joyce’ (likely her REAL name) – who was pretty good, flattering in the right places yet oddly moralistic where I’ve been feeling a bit immoral lately. Being a bad cat is part of the fun and she quickly changed my immoral wishes to me being a “strongly independent person” blah blah. Eerie it was though – the same cards up as with the wonderful & wise Poppy (who lets me be immoral because she know what it’s really about).
On leaving, I bought some fancy Indian food at another stall to heat up with some basmati rice for our dinner and met one of the pleasant bank tellers from Rozelle (whom I bank with for the day job) at the bus stop and we talked the women’s soccer recently on the telly – Dwayne (that is his real name) said he’d lost interest after the Australians were knocked out of the tournament. It was the only subject I could think of that would last longer than 30 seconds before strained silence. He’s a nice fellow though – had just got his hair cut – number 1 all around except on the very top that makes his already round head take on a pumpkin like appearance.
Oh, and according to my palm, I’ll live to 90!