Oh dear… I just have so much updating to do it’s not funny. I might also add that I am mildly miffed that I am getting such few comments considering the hue and cry about the fact that I disabled it in the first place :-p Lurkers, show yourselves now!!
November has been a bad month for me, health and well being wise… when I’m not falling sick, I’m merely falling. I’m so over it. My goal until the end of 2007 is to not get hurt… it’s a very ambitious goal but I’m keeping my fingers crossed. Speaking of the end of 2007, I can’t believe it’s so near… where the hell has the year gone?! I have barely 2 weeks left at work before I disappear for my much deserved 4 week break to India and I can’t wait.
I can’t even remember where I left off… September, October, November?! All I know is I (we) have been traveling at such breakneck speed, the crash was only inevitable… alas, it appears I am not invincible after all, but I am used to simply picking myself up and shaking off the debris and getting right back on the wild horse again. There has been so much going on… there’s been much of the usual… birthday parties, nights out on the town, concerts and shows (Phantom of the Opera – spectacular, I didn’t want it to end, Linkin Park – craziness all around AND we watched it from a corporate box which made for a nice change, The Killers – soooooo great and I think I have a teeny weeny little crush on Brendon Flowers)… there’s been much of the unusual… this crazy long drive to a rave which turned out to be 200km from Melbourne and in the middle of some windy hills and the text message said follow the signs and follow the fabric and my drunkenness was well tested as I looked out for tiny scraps of cloth, it started out as big floroscent t-shirts and then it became boxer shorts, until it finally dwindled away into tiny nothing scraps of fabric… and what was intriguing was just whenever we thought, enough, let’s just turn around and go back, we’d see another little piece of fabric… all of that to get to this crazy rave in the middle of nowhere with a huge bonfire blazing merrily and sound and lights and even fighting dogs… and there were stark Christmas trees that shone white in the headlights and when daylight was breaking on the drive back, there was a most surreal scene where it seemed like the valley beside the road was filled with soft fluffy clouds… but I didn’t think there were any valleys that deep on our route… was it really clouds… or fog… or a figment of my tired imagination? I only know that I had an insane urge for 1 tiny second to jump out of the car and float down into that soft inviting bed of white… then there was that trip to Byron… so much fun as expected… pictures, but not today… then there’s been food, so much food, quite unusual for us… and Diwali celebrated after almost 10 years for me… and so many friends visiting from overseas and interstate and other friends moving here to live… and who can forget the devilish hen’s night and the rambunctious bucks night (hearsay of course) and the Survivorish merge which is actually usual.
So again, I realized that my November number was almost up so quickly wrote this up to have this month on record too. I really don’t know what I’m aiming towards in terms of future blogging but at least I will try to make until the end of 2007. So tomorrow is the first day of summer and 25 days to Christmas and so much more hoo haa, it’s going to be unbelievably ridiculous. Sometimes I get very very tired.
I've got this sentimental heart that beats but I don't really mind (and) it's starting to get to me
Now.."Why do you waste my time?" is the answer to the question on your mind
And I'm sick of all my judges so scared of what they'll find
But I know that I can make it as long as somebody takes me home,every now and then...
Friday, November 30, 2007
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
'Cause I'm just a girl, little ol' me, Don't let me out of your sight...I'm just a girl, all pretty and petite, So don't let me have any rights...
I sometimes feel that for someone who doesn’t know me except through my blog, they probably wonder a little at my seemingly endless alcohol capacity and they probably even think I’m somewhat of a ditzy blonde type character what with only writing about partying on my blog. So I am now going to try and dispel all these notions by telling you more about myself and the things I love slightly more than Bacardi Rum… only slightly, mind ;-)
I love my significant other, mind, body and soul. You would think we’d be mildly bored after 7.5 years (getting quite close to 8) but honestly, without wanting to get all sentimental and mushy, it’s even better than when we first started out because now we know who we really are and how we fit together whereas then we were such clueless kids stumbling our way through the sweltering Madras social scene and those first couple of cold, lonely Melbourne years. Now, the 7 year itch has well and truly passed and each day is better than the next!!
I love my baby sister and she is the only person so far I would willingly take a bullet for!
I love my parents and all of my immediate family in spite (or maybe because) of their exasperating ways
I heart Labradors (and ok, most dogs)… again this is mind, body and soul. One despondent look (particularly from Labs) and I am a slushy pile of putty for them to do with me what they will. I love and miss Holly and Chocolate and Fudge and Biscuit and Ginger and Teddy and Rusty and Tipsy and Frosty. Now is probably a good time for me to introduce the latest additions to my family in Madras… presenting Tipsy the Holly look alike and Frosty the little mongrel rescued from the Blue Cross (yet another birthday present)!
I love my friends and I have some pretty darn great ones… I believe you can tell a lot about a person from their friends so obviously I am pretty freaking AWESOME since my friends are pretty freaking cool too!
I wouldn’t go so far as to say I love my job but I do feel gratified when I have a clear deliverable to work towards and there’s a total adrenalin rush until I hand it in… then I get a bit bored because the fun part is over and I hate going back into the document to simply change things based on feedback… it’s just too boring. But I do love a glowing commendation on a job well done. I guess it’s hard to really love a job when it’s a job, rather than a profession. I never really leaned towards a doctor/lawyer type of thing… I think the closest I got was wanting to be a chartered accountant. Not sure what happened there… I think computers came along and that was the end of that. So 8 years later, I’m still in IT and I can’t complain… I think mostly I do like systems and processes better than I like numbers. But on some days, I’m not so sure…
There are plenty of other things I love in my life but they might be on par with a party night out or just under… I love reading… I’ll read absolutely anything although I do prefer fiction. Reading and my alcohol intake do not go so well together because no matter what the time and irrespective of how blind I am, I will pick up the book on the bedside table without fail and attempt to read… sometimes I’ve managed to get through whole chapters but the next day it’s all such a blur, I have to go back and start over. And this has happened time and time again… nonetheless I persevere…
I love eating chocolate and going out for Italian and Indian food. I love drinking my hot chocolate in the mornings, even in summer… although I’ve cut them down to about 2 a week. I love flowers… white roses and colourful tulips… I like going to the movies or curling up on the couch with a DVD… I am also a total couch potato Monday to Thursday and have numerous favourite must see TV shows per day. I love eating potato chips and ketchup… I’m not sure why I’m bringing this up but I suddenly thought of them and can’t help drooling… I completely drench the chips in ketchup and then mix them up with my hands and eat them like rice and yogurt… it is to freaking die for! I also love eating ice cream but that’s the last thing I’m going to say about eating since this is not a food post! I love listening to music on my way to and from work and I love singing along to live guitar playing. I like reading other peoples blogs (when they update them… hmph!) and my newest online obsession is Facebooking! I also like catching up with friends on MSN, the phone or email but there’s never quite enough of it, one feels. Oh my god, how could I forget… I love owning new stuff (and hence, have to carry out the necessary evil of shopping to get there)… I love driving with the sun roof open on a warm sunny day and I love crossing the river when walking back home (because as you may or may not know, I heart bodies of water)… I love sleeping… if there is no alcohol in my system, I can sleep and sleep for even 12 hours each night. But alas, alcohol does not mix well with my sleep patterns and I jump right up with the slightest noise and the smallest toss or turn from the person lying next to me. It’s just punishment for how well I sleep during the week I feel. This is why my Saturday/Sunday mornings are always crap! That’s enough for now about things I like to do.
Concerning my personality in general, clearly I am not blonde and I am certainly not ditzy… I’m quite the opposite of ditzy really… I’m a control freak so I know exactly what’s happening when… that doesn’t mean I don’t go with the flow and don’t do stuff unless its been planned and I’ve been told well in advance… if such a spontaneous plan comes up though, I mentally have to readjust stuff in my head to get my life back into sync i.e. laundry postponed until tomorrow, grocery shopping absolutely has to be done today so whatever happens getting to Safeway by 6:00 pm, after two beers won’t have mood to cook dinner so any leftovers available… nope… dinner out then, etc. etc. I also feel I have borderline OCD but let’s dwell on that another time. I guess another thing about me is that I am rather a lazy person but once I get started on something, there’s no turning back. So this is where my mental to do list helps me move my ass because when it gets over 5 items, I’m in serious trouble and that motivates me enough to cross off at least 3 items in the one go. So yes, I am also a bit of a procrastinator. This also explains my couch potato habit for most of the working week… that’s why, when the weekend rolls around, the promise of alcohol and fun times with good friends is what perks me up and gets me off the couch. And once I’m off it, I am never very keen to get back to it (metaphorically speaking) and insist on partying till the cows come home.
This leads in nicely to the next topic – the one regarding my bottomless pit of desire for Bacardi Rum… it is not true at all that I have a bottomless pit… quite the contrary… sometimes I am terribly hungover and no amount of coaxing will convince my stomach that drinking again is just the ticket to recover… at other times, my stomach gets full really quickly and again no amount of coaxing will convince my stomach that 2 drinks is not an acceptable limit at which to stop drinking. Then there are other times where I stupidly start off with beer or wine and then try and switch and oh boy does that fail miserably most times. If I’m lucky I just get really tired and want to pass out. If I’m unlucky, I feel like I’m seasick and almost always have to throw up to recover. So as per that other control freak aspect of my personality, since I know what I’m doing most weekends i.e. birthday parties, etc., I am mentally prepared to have a great time so somehow that helps me drink heaps and since I am also off the couch, I really just love to stay out and party on! Sadly, not everyone is off the same temperament and on most occasions I am forced home when people around me are passing out or the party is packing up! But look me up on the Sunday and chances are I am back to my couch potato mode and it will take rather a lot to induce me to drink and even then I will stop at like 2 or 3. Luckily, whether I have plans on Friday or not, I am totally up for anything because it’s just terribly depressing to hang out at home on the couch on a Friday evening and I am only tempted to do it if I have a very very big Saturday planned.
That about wraps it up for now. My next post will go back to it’s partying ways and be all about the last one month and it’s 101 birthday parties, concerts and other events. Things are also brightening up considerably... glorious daylight savings time is back again and we've had a couple of wonderfully warm summer days... This weekend I am off to the eastern most tip of mainland Australia – a delightful little coastal town called Byron Bay. Going with 6 others so should be heaps of fun. And in the meantime, be safe and drink responsibly :-p
I love my significant other, mind, body and soul. You would think we’d be mildly bored after 7.5 years (getting quite close to 8) but honestly, without wanting to get all sentimental and mushy, it’s even better than when we first started out because now we know who we really are and how we fit together whereas then we were such clueless kids stumbling our way through the sweltering Madras social scene and those first couple of cold, lonely Melbourne years. Now, the 7 year itch has well and truly passed and each day is better than the next!!
I love my baby sister and she is the only person so far I would willingly take a bullet for!
I love my parents and all of my immediate family in spite (or maybe because) of their exasperating ways
I heart Labradors (and ok, most dogs)… again this is mind, body and soul. One despondent look (particularly from Labs) and I am a slushy pile of putty for them to do with me what they will. I love and miss Holly and Chocolate and Fudge and Biscuit and Ginger and Teddy and Rusty and Tipsy and Frosty. Now is probably a good time for me to introduce the latest additions to my family in Madras… presenting Tipsy the Holly look alike and Frosty the little mongrel rescued from the Blue Cross (yet another birthday present)!
I love my friends and I have some pretty darn great ones… I believe you can tell a lot about a person from their friends so obviously I am pretty freaking AWESOME since my friends are pretty freaking cool too!
I wouldn’t go so far as to say I love my job but I do feel gratified when I have a clear deliverable to work towards and there’s a total adrenalin rush until I hand it in… then I get a bit bored because the fun part is over and I hate going back into the document to simply change things based on feedback… it’s just too boring. But I do love a glowing commendation on a job well done. I guess it’s hard to really love a job when it’s a job, rather than a profession. I never really leaned towards a doctor/lawyer type of thing… I think the closest I got was wanting to be a chartered accountant. Not sure what happened there… I think computers came along and that was the end of that. So 8 years later, I’m still in IT and I can’t complain… I think mostly I do like systems and processes better than I like numbers. But on some days, I’m not so sure…
There are plenty of other things I love in my life but they might be on par with a party night out or just under… I love reading… I’ll read absolutely anything although I do prefer fiction. Reading and my alcohol intake do not go so well together because no matter what the time and irrespective of how blind I am, I will pick up the book on the bedside table without fail and attempt to read… sometimes I’ve managed to get through whole chapters but the next day it’s all such a blur, I have to go back and start over. And this has happened time and time again… nonetheless I persevere…
I love eating chocolate and going out for Italian and Indian food. I love drinking my hot chocolate in the mornings, even in summer… although I’ve cut them down to about 2 a week. I love flowers… white roses and colourful tulips… I like going to the movies or curling up on the couch with a DVD… I am also a total couch potato Monday to Thursday and have numerous favourite must see TV shows per day. I love eating potato chips and ketchup… I’m not sure why I’m bringing this up but I suddenly thought of them and can’t help drooling… I completely drench the chips in ketchup and then mix them up with my hands and eat them like rice and yogurt… it is to freaking die for! I also love eating ice cream but that’s the last thing I’m going to say about eating since this is not a food post! I love listening to music on my way to and from work and I love singing along to live guitar playing. I like reading other peoples blogs (when they update them… hmph!) and my newest online obsession is Facebooking! I also like catching up with friends on MSN, the phone or email but there’s never quite enough of it, one feels. Oh my god, how could I forget… I love owning new stuff (and hence, have to carry out the necessary evil of shopping to get there)… I love driving with the sun roof open on a warm sunny day and I love crossing the river when walking back home (because as you may or may not know, I heart bodies of water)… I love sleeping… if there is no alcohol in my system, I can sleep and sleep for even 12 hours each night. But alas, alcohol does not mix well with my sleep patterns and I jump right up with the slightest noise and the smallest toss or turn from the person lying next to me. It’s just punishment for how well I sleep during the week I feel. This is why my Saturday/Sunday mornings are always crap! That’s enough for now about things I like to do.
Concerning my personality in general, clearly I am not blonde and I am certainly not ditzy… I’m quite the opposite of ditzy really… I’m a control freak so I know exactly what’s happening when… that doesn’t mean I don’t go with the flow and don’t do stuff unless its been planned and I’ve been told well in advance… if such a spontaneous plan comes up though, I mentally have to readjust stuff in my head to get my life back into sync i.e. laundry postponed until tomorrow, grocery shopping absolutely has to be done today so whatever happens getting to Safeway by 6:00 pm, after two beers won’t have mood to cook dinner so any leftovers available… nope… dinner out then, etc. etc. I also feel I have borderline OCD but let’s dwell on that another time. I guess another thing about me is that I am rather a lazy person but once I get started on something, there’s no turning back. So this is where my mental to do list helps me move my ass because when it gets over 5 items, I’m in serious trouble and that motivates me enough to cross off at least 3 items in the one go. So yes, I am also a bit of a procrastinator. This also explains my couch potato habit for most of the working week… that’s why, when the weekend rolls around, the promise of alcohol and fun times with good friends is what perks me up and gets me off the couch. And once I’m off it, I am never very keen to get back to it (metaphorically speaking) and insist on partying till the cows come home.
This leads in nicely to the next topic – the one regarding my bottomless pit of desire for Bacardi Rum… it is not true at all that I have a bottomless pit… quite the contrary… sometimes I am terribly hungover and no amount of coaxing will convince my stomach that drinking again is just the ticket to recover… at other times, my stomach gets full really quickly and again no amount of coaxing will convince my stomach that 2 drinks is not an acceptable limit at which to stop drinking. Then there are other times where I stupidly start off with beer or wine and then try and switch and oh boy does that fail miserably most times. If I’m lucky I just get really tired and want to pass out. If I’m unlucky, I feel like I’m seasick and almost always have to throw up to recover. So as per that other control freak aspect of my personality, since I know what I’m doing most weekends i.e. birthday parties, etc., I am mentally prepared to have a great time so somehow that helps me drink heaps and since I am also off the couch, I really just love to stay out and party on! Sadly, not everyone is off the same temperament and on most occasions I am forced home when people around me are passing out or the party is packing up! But look me up on the Sunday and chances are I am back to my couch potato mode and it will take rather a lot to induce me to drink and even then I will stop at like 2 or 3. Luckily, whether I have plans on Friday or not, I am totally up for anything because it’s just terribly depressing to hang out at home on the couch on a Friday evening and I am only tempted to do it if I have a very very big Saturday planned.
That about wraps it up for now. My next post will go back to it’s partying ways and be all about the last one month and it’s 101 birthday parties, concerts and other events. Things are also brightening up considerably... glorious daylight savings time is back again and we've had a couple of wonderfully warm summer days... This weekend I am off to the eastern most tip of mainland Australia – a delightful little coastal town called Byron Bay. Going with 6 others so should be heaps of fun. And in the meantime, be safe and drink responsibly :-p
Sunday, September 30, 2007
It's so hard to get old without a cause, I don't want to perish like a fleeing horse,Youth's like diamonds in the sun, and diamonds are forever
So I've got to be as quick as I can... the laptop battery is so going to die in all of 15 mins and I'm so not braving the cold in the lounge just to freaking blog... I mean, this is spring and all but it's like mid-winter really... it's not fair, really, but there ain't much we can do. Anyway, enough about the stupid weather... I hope and I pray for warmer weather soonish!!
So the strange thing is, how that song from the last time still has a total hold on me... I mean, honestly, that's the only reason I'm even blogging tonight... if I hadn't had to listen to that song, I wouldn't even be awake right now. And I don't even freaking like Coldplay... as a matter of fact, I'll go as far to say I hate Coldplay...
That'll probably ruffle a few freaking feathers... but what can I say or do...
So anyway, I had the awesomest birthday... I think it always helps when your birthday is on the weekend... that means the whole world can party with you without missing work and feeling guilty for whatever reason. So my birthday began on Thursday evening when we prepared to go to the Steely Dan concert... it was full on... we had many drinks and tapas and then headed to Rod Laver and once the concert started, fully sipped on the hip flask and before I knew it, the concert was finished. I mean, I like Steely Dan and all but I'm not their biggest fan. I really love Dirty Work but they had some total Mary J. Blige type character sing it which just totally pissed me off and ruined it for me!!! Anyway, we all had a blast though and had many more drinks after the concert also. Friday was a total mess... recovering from Thurs night and attempting to clean the house in preparation for Sat night but not really making any progress. Anyway, Fri evening arrives and my lover and me go to dinner and have a couple of drinks and then he pretends like I absolutely have to go to this friends house to say Hi and way before I get there, I totally know all my friends are going to be there drinking away. So that's exactly what happens... and I have many drinks on my birthday eve with my best friends and we smoke cigars and all, just for a change. And at midnight, a home made cake comes out and champagne and all... and many overseas calls also arrive and it was just freaking awesome!!!
At about 5 am, we stagger back home and I open all my presents from my lover and try a few things on as well and somehow get to bed by about 5:30 am... alas, I am forced awake by 10 am thanks to many more overseas phonecalls... seriously, it is the only day in the year, I actually give a crap about my mobile and keep it beside me at all costs!! Anyway, there is no hope left after that and I still don't even have the energy left to clean and all... at about 6 pm, things are exactly the same and I am just many more phonecalls down. Finally, I force myself to get my act together and sleepwalk my way through cleaning the house and get ready and stuff and before I know it, it's 9 pm and my guests are arriving. And from then until 7:30 am, Sunday morning, who even freaking knows what happens. It was just madness all around. It was really awesome. And I got soooooooooo many presents, it was crazy. So much fun. And I think everyone really had a blast, that was really the best part. And the biriyani that I ordered totally got cleaned out in all of 2 hours... it was crazy... not even one grain of rice was left over. :-)
Absolutely nothing exciting has happened since then... I mean, obviously the week was completely crap and this weekend was supposed to be easy but with someone's birthday drinks last night and someone else's birthday drinks tonight, it's hard to slow down!!! So it's not strictly true that nothing exciting has happened, but for me, my birthday and all it's associated shenanigans are the eptiome of party time for the year.
The strangest thing... for a few years in between, life was strange... it wasn't as happening and I honestly wondered how smart I'd been with some of the choices in my life!!! But now, I can honestly say that I love my life more than ever and it doesn't really matter that I'm 26... I still feel 18 and my life is still as exciting as if I was indeed 18 :-) I mean, honestly, 18 till I die baby!!
Speaking of babies, my best friend's baby is almost 2 years old and obviously I still haven't met him yet but amazingly he's learnt my name... it's sooooo adorable... I spoke to him the other day and he's totally like Hi, Bye, Ithi.. awwwww.. sooo cute!!
But speaking of other babies, my baby sister is now 18... she still totally breaks my heart though!! I can't wait to hang with her in December and hopefully I can show her the way. Oh my god, did I mention the fact that she got a freaking Labrador puppy for her birthday... I'm so happy cos I get to hang with this puppy in a couple of months but I feel so sad that I can't get a dog of my own :-( And apparently, she looks like just like my beloved Holly... that figures... Christmas and New Years is going to be soooo weird this year. I'm not exactly sure why...
So I've decided to open up commenting again... haha... I'm really not sure why I stopped... but, whatever...
Sometimes when you take a step back and think about life in general, it's a bit frightening... because life is incredibly strange and it really takes you full circle... with the things you do and the people you meet and the way you change...
Also, this Forever Young song... I used to love the original by Alphaville until I actually listened to Youth Group and then it was totally like, oh my god, what were Alphaville thinking?! That just goes to show... old is not always necessarily best... this song I only like the remixed Youth Group version now... Alphaville is just yawn... but there are obviously other songs where this doesn't apply at all and old still rules!!!
It's going to be another freaking awesome year... what else is new ;-)
Forever young, I want to be forever young
So the strange thing is, how that song from the last time still has a total hold on me... I mean, honestly, that's the only reason I'm even blogging tonight... if I hadn't had to listen to that song, I wouldn't even be awake right now. And I don't even freaking like Coldplay... as a matter of fact, I'll go as far to say I hate Coldplay...
That'll probably ruffle a few freaking feathers... but what can I say or do...
So anyway, I had the awesomest birthday... I think it always helps when your birthday is on the weekend... that means the whole world can party with you without missing work and feeling guilty for whatever reason. So my birthday began on Thursday evening when we prepared to go to the Steely Dan concert... it was full on... we had many drinks and tapas and then headed to Rod Laver and once the concert started, fully sipped on the hip flask and before I knew it, the concert was finished. I mean, I like Steely Dan and all but I'm not their biggest fan. I really love Dirty Work but they had some total Mary J. Blige type character sing it which just totally pissed me off and ruined it for me!!! Anyway, we all had a blast though and had many more drinks after the concert also. Friday was a total mess... recovering from Thurs night and attempting to clean the house in preparation for Sat night but not really making any progress. Anyway, Fri evening arrives and my lover and me go to dinner and have a couple of drinks and then he pretends like I absolutely have to go to this friends house to say Hi and way before I get there, I totally know all my friends are going to be there drinking away. So that's exactly what happens... and I have many drinks on my birthday eve with my best friends and we smoke cigars and all, just for a change. And at midnight, a home made cake comes out and champagne and all... and many overseas calls also arrive and it was just freaking awesome!!!
At about 5 am, we stagger back home and I open all my presents from my lover and try a few things on as well and somehow get to bed by about 5:30 am... alas, I am forced awake by 10 am thanks to many more overseas phonecalls... seriously, it is the only day in the year, I actually give a crap about my mobile and keep it beside me at all costs!! Anyway, there is no hope left after that and I still don't even have the energy left to clean and all... at about 6 pm, things are exactly the same and I am just many more phonecalls down. Finally, I force myself to get my act together and sleepwalk my way through cleaning the house and get ready and stuff and before I know it, it's 9 pm and my guests are arriving. And from then until 7:30 am, Sunday morning, who even freaking knows what happens. It was just madness all around. It was really awesome. And I got soooooooooo many presents, it was crazy. So much fun. And I think everyone really had a blast, that was really the best part. And the biriyani that I ordered totally got cleaned out in all of 2 hours... it was crazy... not even one grain of rice was left over. :-)
Absolutely nothing exciting has happened since then... I mean, obviously the week was completely crap and this weekend was supposed to be easy but with someone's birthday drinks last night and someone else's birthday drinks tonight, it's hard to slow down!!! So it's not strictly true that nothing exciting has happened, but for me, my birthday and all it's associated shenanigans are the eptiome of party time for the year.
The strangest thing... for a few years in between, life was strange... it wasn't as happening and I honestly wondered how smart I'd been with some of the choices in my life!!! But now, I can honestly say that I love my life more than ever and it doesn't really matter that I'm 26... I still feel 18 and my life is still as exciting as if I was indeed 18 :-) I mean, honestly, 18 till I die baby!!
Speaking of babies, my best friend's baby is almost 2 years old and obviously I still haven't met him yet but amazingly he's learnt my name... it's sooooo adorable... I spoke to him the other day and he's totally like Hi, Bye, Ithi.. awwwww.. sooo cute!!
But speaking of other babies, my baby sister is now 18... she still totally breaks my heart though!! I can't wait to hang with her in December and hopefully I can show her the way. Oh my god, did I mention the fact that she got a freaking Labrador puppy for her birthday... I'm so happy cos I get to hang with this puppy in a couple of months but I feel so sad that I can't get a dog of my own :-( And apparently, she looks like just like my beloved Holly... that figures... Christmas and New Years is going to be soooo weird this year. I'm not exactly sure why...
So I've decided to open up commenting again... haha... I'm really not sure why I stopped... but, whatever...
Sometimes when you take a step back and think about life in general, it's a bit frightening... because life is incredibly strange and it really takes you full circle... with the things you do and the people you meet and the way you change...
Also, this Forever Young song... I used to love the original by Alphaville until I actually listened to Youth Group and then it was totally like, oh my god, what were Alphaville thinking?! That just goes to show... old is not always necessarily best... this song I only like the remixed Youth Group version now... Alphaville is just yawn... but there are obviously other songs where this doesn't apply at all and old still rules!!!
It's going to be another freaking awesome year... what else is new ;-)
Forever young, I want to be forever young
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
And the hardest part was letting go, not taking part… you really broke my heart…
Wow… can’t lay claim to the mid-20’s for much longer… how the world turns and how the time flies… It’s like I blinked my eye and there went my childhood and my adolescence… happy days, all.
And now here I stand, a young adult… I guess this is kind of the end of another era… my last unmarried birthday… by next year this time, I’ll be someone’s wife… woah… that just feels slightly older than young adult.
Anyhoo (sorry Guitarman :-))… as per my new life outlook, no melancholy about getting older. Instead, I will embrace the fact that I am technically another year wiser… (really, I am)!
So since we last chatted, that weekend didn’t turn out to be quiet as originally thought after all… Fri night was a drinks on the town session, Sat was an all day bbq and beer session (not that I drank) and Sun was quiet recovery. Then the weekend after, again, the Fri night was a drinks on the town session and this one went kinda outta control again what with agua shots and jagerbombs yet again… we need to sooooo stop visiting that bar… the bartender is our new friend and he fully encourages us. I vaguely remember everyone coming back to our place and playing Pink Floyd and Toto and singing at the top of our lungs at 4 in the morning… poor neighbours. That Sat was another wedding dress expedition… I am soooooo over it. Then we hung out in a music store for about 2 hours while the Guitarman purchased a brand new electric guitar and I mused the sad fact that that guitar of mine has just been sitting in it’s stand untouched for almost a year… I really must learn a song or two… let that by my resolution in this new year of my life. Then we went to the bar beside the river of yours truly fame for a couple of beers with a couple of friends. And then we welcomed back Sam newly returned from a trip home and I finished a whole packet of murukus by myself… it was unreal heaven, and the best part was I got to take a packet home with me (not that it lasted long)!!
Finally, last weekend was a trip to some friends’ parents’ house out in country NSW called Grifith. It’s about 5 hours drive and we rented a people mover to take all 7 of us… the car was great… it was roomy and comfy and had 8 cup holders which were incredibly convenient because even the esky so sweetly fit between the front 2 sweets so it was almost tooooo easy to fix drinks the whole way up. And that’s just what we did… it was awesome… we also had great music so we sang a lot and after the stars came out it was just totally surreal to look at the sky, sip my drink and sing along to the songs of my youth and occasionally laugh at something someone else says or something I say myself. I also remember stumbling in to meet the parents and eating the most amazing biriyani we’ve eaten in a while since it was all so wonderfully home cooked. Oh, and who can forget the cutlets… my all-time favourite item.
The Saturday we woke up after very few hours of sleep and after a healthy brunch of idli, dosa, departed on a winery tour since the Region is big on wine and wine making. Tasted about 3 wines and the buzz from the previous night just came rushing back. Met a few cute dogs, took pictures beside a body of water called Lake Wyungan, and then paid a visit to a farm. It was a total Ol’ McDonalds farm with sheep and horses and chickens and dogs and a special little treat… we see kangaroos hanging out in the wild. It was a great experience… we got a crash course in sheep shearing and crop planting and land leveling and we saw first hand the impacts of the drought and water restrictions… so terrible… it really breaks my heart.
The rest of Saturday was a blur with plenty and plenty of alcohol and more cutlets and some mouth watering pork curry, potato and paneer mutter. It was unreal… for real. One by one people dropped like flies until there were only 3 of us left (me, as usual… I can party till the cows come home, man)…
The Sun was truly terrible… the channa bhutoora and chicken chettinad helped ever so slightly. And then it was time to depart back to Melbourne… it was actually a fun drive back considering we were all so f***ed up… we smoked a couple, laughed about the events of the weekend, watched the fingers of God reach out through the sky, I tripped out watching the trees this time, sang even more songs, witnessed a truly insane wind and dust storm, stopped at a 24/7 diner for coffee and a snack only to have the power go out and them telling us to get out… it was spooky… very Texas Chainsaw Massacre like… the wilderness, the storm, the power cut and everything… But we reached Melbourne safely after all. What an awesome trip!!!
It didn’t end there… Mon night, we caught up to eat the leftover food the parents sweetly sent back with us… was even better because we were actually able to remember what we were tasting this time. Also, considering the excesses of the weekend, it was mind boggling that we all had a few drinks that night. I decided to put it in my birthday week quota ;-)
And now we are here in the middle of my birthday week… it’s only getting better… I have the Steely Dan concert tomorrow, not sure what I’ll get up to on the Friday but I have my presents to look forward to at midnight, and then the birthday on Sat with all the exciting overseas phonecalls and finally, the mandatory partaaaaay on Sat night!!! It’s going to be great. I really miss my sister though and wish we could celebrate our birthdays together… it’s hard letting go… it really breaks my heart. Happy birthday baby sister…
And now here I stand, a young adult… I guess this is kind of the end of another era… my last unmarried birthday… by next year this time, I’ll be someone’s wife… woah… that just feels slightly older than young adult.
Anyhoo (sorry Guitarman :-))… as per my new life outlook, no melancholy about getting older. Instead, I will embrace the fact that I am technically another year wiser… (really, I am)!
So since we last chatted, that weekend didn’t turn out to be quiet as originally thought after all… Fri night was a drinks on the town session, Sat was an all day bbq and beer session (not that I drank) and Sun was quiet recovery. Then the weekend after, again, the Fri night was a drinks on the town session and this one went kinda outta control again what with agua shots and jagerbombs yet again… we need to sooooo stop visiting that bar… the bartender is our new friend and he fully encourages us. I vaguely remember everyone coming back to our place and playing Pink Floyd and Toto and singing at the top of our lungs at 4 in the morning… poor neighbours. That Sat was another wedding dress expedition… I am soooooo over it. Then we hung out in a music store for about 2 hours while the Guitarman purchased a brand new electric guitar and I mused the sad fact that that guitar of mine has just been sitting in it’s stand untouched for almost a year… I really must learn a song or two… let that by my resolution in this new year of my life. Then we went to the bar beside the river of yours truly fame for a couple of beers with a couple of friends. And then we welcomed back Sam newly returned from a trip home and I finished a whole packet of murukus by myself… it was unreal heaven, and the best part was I got to take a packet home with me (not that it lasted long)!!
Finally, last weekend was a trip to some friends’ parents’ house out in country NSW called Grifith. It’s about 5 hours drive and we rented a people mover to take all 7 of us… the car was great… it was roomy and comfy and had 8 cup holders which were incredibly convenient because even the esky so sweetly fit between the front 2 sweets so it was almost tooooo easy to fix drinks the whole way up. And that’s just what we did… it was awesome… we also had great music so we sang a lot and after the stars came out it was just totally surreal to look at the sky, sip my drink and sing along to the songs of my youth and occasionally laugh at something someone else says or something I say myself. I also remember stumbling in to meet the parents and eating the most amazing biriyani we’ve eaten in a while since it was all so wonderfully home cooked. Oh, and who can forget the cutlets… my all-time favourite item.
The Saturday we woke up after very few hours of sleep and after a healthy brunch of idli, dosa, departed on a winery tour since the Region is big on wine and wine making. Tasted about 3 wines and the buzz from the previous night just came rushing back. Met a few cute dogs, took pictures beside a body of water called Lake Wyungan, and then paid a visit to a farm. It was a total Ol’ McDonalds farm with sheep and horses and chickens and dogs and a special little treat… we see kangaroos hanging out in the wild. It was a great experience… we got a crash course in sheep shearing and crop planting and land leveling and we saw first hand the impacts of the drought and water restrictions… so terrible… it really breaks my heart.
The rest of Saturday was a blur with plenty and plenty of alcohol and more cutlets and some mouth watering pork curry, potato and paneer mutter. It was unreal… for real. One by one people dropped like flies until there were only 3 of us left (me, as usual… I can party till the cows come home, man)…
The Sun was truly terrible… the channa bhutoora and chicken chettinad helped ever so slightly. And then it was time to depart back to Melbourne… it was actually a fun drive back considering we were all so f***ed up… we smoked a couple, laughed about the events of the weekend, watched the fingers of God reach out through the sky, I tripped out watching the trees this time, sang even more songs, witnessed a truly insane wind and dust storm, stopped at a 24/7 diner for coffee and a snack only to have the power go out and them telling us to get out… it was spooky… very Texas Chainsaw Massacre like… the wilderness, the storm, the power cut and everything… But we reached Melbourne safely after all. What an awesome trip!!!
It didn’t end there… Mon night, we caught up to eat the leftover food the parents sweetly sent back with us… was even better because we were actually able to remember what we were tasting this time. Also, considering the excesses of the weekend, it was mind boggling that we all had a few drinks that night. I decided to put it in my birthday week quota ;-)
And now we are here in the middle of my birthday week… it’s only getting better… I have the Steely Dan concert tomorrow, not sure what I’ll get up to on the Friday but I have my presents to look forward to at midnight, and then the birthday on Sat with all the exciting overseas phonecalls and finally, the mandatory partaaaaay on Sat night!!! It’s going to be great. I really miss my sister though and wish we could celebrate our birthdays together… it’s hard letting go… it really breaks my heart. Happy birthday baby sister…
Friday, August 31, 2007
How does it feel? To be without a home... To be a complete unknown... Like a rolling stone...
So I suddenly realised we were almost at the end of August and I didn't have a post on record. I could blame my online presence on Facebook but that would be a lie cos I've only been on Facebook for about 2 weeks. And what a 2 weeks it's been on Facebook... in about 3 days, I had amassed some 100 friends and 50 wall posts and the number is still growing although obviously the number of Facebook notifications I get per day has depreciated slightly. Man, this Facebook... it's freaking mad. But anyway...
So what else has kept me busy since the last post... a lot, actually. I posted how I was dying the last time and then I went to my cocktail thing on Fri night and thought, let me stay away from the ice so I'll drink wine but it was free flowing spirits so I couldn't resist swapping to Bacardi and ice. Many drinks later, we stumbled home after dancing away and went to bed very smashed. I woke up the next day feeling not bad at all and so went and partied away that night too at the housewarmings and everything was all fine and wine. And then horror of horrors, I wake up on Sunday afternoon with the most god awful splotchy red rash all over my body. It itched and it itched and I thought I was going to die and obviously there are no doctors who work on the weekend and apparently I would've been laughed at if I'd gone to the emergency room with a "rash" and then called this doctor friend for advice and she's like oh well, if she doesn't have a stiff neck, it's probably not meningitis! So that of course made me start imaging a stiff neck and having just watched an episode of House the previous week where the patient develops splotches and they suspect meningitis, I was so sure I'd be dead within the week. Anyway, I went to the doctor the next day and she gave me an anti-allergy shot and all was well and I am obviously still alive but that was quite a scare. So I attempted to take it easy the next weekend by staying away from alcohol and I did but that was totally the last "easy" weekend...
4 weekends ago, headed out on a Fri night and had a few drinks and I'm not sure at what point things started getting out of control but pretty soon everyone was hammered and went to a couple of other places quite unnecessarily and the next day, absolutely no one could remember anything from after about 11 pm! The Sat was dreadful... I think we were still drunk in the morning when we made pancakes and called my aunt and uncle. Then, went wedding dress shopping and didn't find a thing but bought many other things instead. Then went to favourite Mexican restaurant for friend's visiting mom's birthday dinner. Drank a few margaritas to stay awake but didn't help much. Then played squash on Sun morning and went to Queen Vic market to buy meat and vegies and then fought time to get ready to go to friend's afternoon engagement party. Then ate takeaway pizza dinner, watched tv and went to bed. Then almost died of muscle ache on Mon morning since exercise was after about 5 months!
3 weekends ago, headed out for another Fri night on the town. All this Fri night business was to farewell friends going to UK and Darwin. Pub crawled a bit and got mildly buzzed but didn't go as mad as previous Friday. Saturday was still crap. Sat night was friend's birthday party so went to house with favourite labrador retriever in Australia and chased dog around all night but as usual was ignored in favour of food items. Again, drank Bacardi to stay awake but didn't help much and added complication of beginning to feel sniffly at about 1 am. By 3 am, feel like total crap and head home to pass out and pray I have somehow escaped throat infection! Sunday is easy but very painful because head cold I thought I had avoided from 2 weeks previously finally arrives in full form!!
Super crappy week ensues with not being able to take time off from work. It's always like that isn't it? That's why I use up my sickies when I just want to have a lie in... chances are I won't be able to take time off when sick anyway. Mid week farewell bbq helps to chase sickness depression away ever so slightly.
2 weekends ago, started tanking up on Fri evening in preparation of Bob Dylan concert! By the time we begin walking to concert, opening act is surely over but we walk faster and slam ready-mix in hope Bob hasn't started yet! But he has and for 1 hour we listen to songs we have never heard in our lives. Slam from hip flask in hope concert will start making sense but to no avail... finally, first song in encore is Like A Rolling Stone and heave sign of relief that I know at least one song from total concert! So night continues with more walking and more pit stops before arriving at official farewell party destination, The Order of Melbourne. Many more drinks consumed and one more bar and house visited before finally stumbling back home again. Sat is crap yet again! Sat night, dress up and head out to yet another engagement party... what a year for couples around me and me getting engaged it has been! Drink wine based punch and hang out for a few years but of course body can't handle yet another alcohol bout so take it relatively easy. Sunday is not so bad after a few weeks.
1 weekend ago, plan a quiet Fri night with a few people and a couple of drinks at home and maybe a round of poker but things don't go according to plan and quiet night becomes rowdy poker session and at 1 am people insist we go out! So out we go... back to the scene of the 4 weekends ago crime and who even knows what happens for about 2 hours. Vague memories of agua shots and jagerbombs! Stumble out of the bar at 4 am and have crazy adventures on the streets because the boys are outta control... somehow bundle everyone and souvenirs from the street into a maxi cab and drag everyone home for more drunken hi jinks before thankfully everyone finally goes to sleep. This Sat is the crappest yet and everyone is definitely still wasted at 11:30 in the morning. Head to breakfast and eggs benedict are not helping the cause at all... Great news, Sat is free for the first time in months and can finally sit at home and do nothing for a night. Sunday is also relatively peaceful after a great night's sleep and amazing 22 degree weather and bright sunshine and sipping Coronas in friend's backyard.
Happy weather days are here again... however, slightly deceptive it's been since last weekend... blue skies, low twenties temperatures, light winds... and then today, we were blasted with total winter weather again, just a reminder from Mother Nature that today is still the last day of winter and spring is absolutely no guarantee of sunny skies!!!
Two farewells were also said :-( Sad, but such is life...
This weekend... absolutely no plans... but you know what they say about the best (non) laid plans...
So what else has kept me busy since the last post... a lot, actually. I posted how I was dying the last time and then I went to my cocktail thing on Fri night and thought, let me stay away from the ice so I'll drink wine but it was free flowing spirits so I couldn't resist swapping to Bacardi and ice. Many drinks later, we stumbled home after dancing away and went to bed very smashed. I woke up the next day feeling not bad at all and so went and partied away that night too at the housewarmings and everything was all fine and wine. And then horror of horrors, I wake up on Sunday afternoon with the most god awful splotchy red rash all over my body. It itched and it itched and I thought I was going to die and obviously there are no doctors who work on the weekend and apparently I would've been laughed at if I'd gone to the emergency room with a "rash" and then called this doctor friend for advice and she's like oh well, if she doesn't have a stiff neck, it's probably not meningitis! So that of course made me start imaging a stiff neck and having just watched an episode of House the previous week where the patient develops splotches and they suspect meningitis, I was so sure I'd be dead within the week. Anyway, I went to the doctor the next day and she gave me an anti-allergy shot and all was well and I am obviously still alive but that was quite a scare. So I attempted to take it easy the next weekend by staying away from alcohol and I did but that was totally the last "easy" weekend...
4 weekends ago, headed out on a Fri night and had a few drinks and I'm not sure at what point things started getting out of control but pretty soon everyone was hammered and went to a couple of other places quite unnecessarily and the next day, absolutely no one could remember anything from after about 11 pm! The Sat was dreadful... I think we were still drunk in the morning when we made pancakes and called my aunt and uncle. Then, went wedding dress shopping and didn't find a thing but bought many other things instead. Then went to favourite Mexican restaurant for friend's visiting mom's birthday dinner. Drank a few margaritas to stay awake but didn't help much. Then played squash on Sun morning and went to Queen Vic market to buy meat and vegies and then fought time to get ready to go to friend's afternoon engagement party. Then ate takeaway pizza dinner, watched tv and went to bed. Then almost died of muscle ache on Mon morning since exercise was after about 5 months!
3 weekends ago, headed out for another Fri night on the town. All this Fri night business was to farewell friends going to UK and Darwin. Pub crawled a bit and got mildly buzzed but didn't go as mad as previous Friday. Saturday was still crap. Sat night was friend's birthday party so went to house with favourite labrador retriever in Australia and chased dog around all night but as usual was ignored in favour of food items. Again, drank Bacardi to stay awake but didn't help much and added complication of beginning to feel sniffly at about 1 am. By 3 am, feel like total crap and head home to pass out and pray I have somehow escaped throat infection! Sunday is easy but very painful because head cold I thought I had avoided from 2 weeks previously finally arrives in full form!!
Super crappy week ensues with not being able to take time off from work. It's always like that isn't it? That's why I use up my sickies when I just want to have a lie in... chances are I won't be able to take time off when sick anyway. Mid week farewell bbq helps to chase sickness depression away ever so slightly.
2 weekends ago, started tanking up on Fri evening in preparation of Bob Dylan concert! By the time we begin walking to concert, opening act is surely over but we walk faster and slam ready-mix in hope Bob hasn't started yet! But he has and for 1 hour we listen to songs we have never heard in our lives. Slam from hip flask in hope concert will start making sense but to no avail... finally, first song in encore is Like A Rolling Stone and heave sign of relief that I know at least one song from total concert! So night continues with more walking and more pit stops before arriving at official farewell party destination, The Order of Melbourne. Many more drinks consumed and one more bar and house visited before finally stumbling back home again. Sat is crap yet again! Sat night, dress up and head out to yet another engagement party... what a year for couples around me and me getting engaged it has been! Drink wine based punch and hang out for a few years but of course body can't handle yet another alcohol bout so take it relatively easy. Sunday is not so bad after a few weeks.
1 weekend ago, plan a quiet Fri night with a few people and a couple of drinks at home and maybe a round of poker but things don't go according to plan and quiet night becomes rowdy poker session and at 1 am people insist we go out! So out we go... back to the scene of the 4 weekends ago crime and who even knows what happens for about 2 hours. Vague memories of agua shots and jagerbombs! Stumble out of the bar at 4 am and have crazy adventures on the streets because the boys are outta control... somehow bundle everyone and souvenirs from the street into a maxi cab and drag everyone home for more drunken hi jinks before thankfully everyone finally goes to sleep. This Sat is the crappest yet and everyone is definitely still wasted at 11:30 in the morning. Head to breakfast and eggs benedict are not helping the cause at all... Great news, Sat is free for the first time in months and can finally sit at home and do nothing for a night. Sunday is also relatively peaceful after a great night's sleep and amazing 22 degree weather and bright sunshine and sipping Coronas in friend's backyard.
Happy weather days are here again... however, slightly deceptive it's been since last weekend... blue skies, low twenties temperatures, light winds... and then today, we were blasted with total winter weather again, just a reminder from Mother Nature that today is still the last day of winter and spring is absolutely no guarantee of sunny skies!!!
Two farewells were also said :-( Sad, but such is life...
This weekend... absolutely no plans... but you know what they say about the best (non) laid plans...
Friday, July 20, 2007
Cold rain down on my face, buses hurry on... Work's out, here comes the race... People heading home...
So we are now officially past the halfway mark of winter but this is absolutely no guarantee of warmer happier weather in approximately 45 days.
I miss the warm sun... it feels like forever since she went away...
I even miss the 16 degree days and the 12 degree evenings... we are barely making it to double digits these days
This week we celebrated (or rather, commiserated) the coldest week in years... it rained and it hailed and it snowed (nearby) and the wind, oh dear god, the wind... such a cruel, bone numbing, brain freezing wind.
Waaaaaaaaaaaah... I feel awful... after weeks of subjecting my poor body to its usual rituals of cold drinks and harsh smokes, the added inevitable exposure to the elements courtesy mother nature in all her winter glory, has made my body screech to a grinding halt and scream enough is enough... you are now going to pay in slow, excruciating pain for what you put me through on a weekly basis and which I normally take with nary a complaint!!
The worst part is, this is like the calm before the storm... so I'm rather concerned about what's going to happen after this weekend... since Sunday night, I've had this severe pain in my sinus area and some desultory sniffling from the nose but no disgusting yellow phlegm or horrible pain in the throat which is always the harbinger of that most dreaded of winter afflictions, the mighty throat infection and flu requiring trips to the bathroom every 2 minutes to spit out all the phlegmy mucous and self-prescribed antibiotic tablets all the way from India every 6 hours. But anyway, all that I can deal with... it's awful and it sucks for about 4 days but then I'm always well on the road to recovery. This time, I feel like crap, I'm nowhere near 100% and yet, I have none of the usual cold, flu symptoms except for the heavy head and occasional drippy nose. But if I like do something, like walk from the couch to the kitchen or from work to home, it totally exhausts me which is why I know I am not 100%. So anyway, I am not medicating myself and have been waiting for improvements hopefully the whole week but absolutely nothing has changed since Sunday night and I am almost looking forward to the excesses of the weekend to act as the catalyst to bring on the storm... this false lull I just cannot handle anymore!
What a full weekend I have in store for me also... I have a work cocktail thing tonight and it's very unnecessarily black tie so I have to wear one skimpy cocktail dress now in the middle of winter... if I am not drowning in my own phlegm by Monday, but still feeling sick, I will be very very concerned. Tomorrow night, two housewarming parties to hop between and both are at some opposite corners of the world but such logistical issues will never deter such a hard core part"ier" as me... in the middle of all this recovering from tonight's hangover, getting wasted and party hopping, I must absolutely make it to Borders sometime tomorrow to pick up my new Harry Potter book. I pre-ordered of course but I fear if I go too late, I will miss out on the complimentary stuffed owl Hedwig... hehe! And also, I must make some time to read the damn book this weekend although I will fully savour the book and not read as fast as I can just to get to the end so by Monday, I will probably be the only one who has no idea who is going to die and will have to avoid all media like the plague because already the spoilers are spilling out in the thousands! I do not expect a non-Harry Potter person to get why this is a big deal at all. As much as I will miss the magical Harry Potter world, I read a rumour that next she is going to start writing mystery novels... sniff... my favouritest genre ever... good god, she will kick ass! And to round off this Harry Potter week of mine, I went to the movie last weekend at IMAX because the last 20 minutes had some 3D action... the movie was ok, couldn't come close to the book, but who really cares, Harry Potter is Harry Potter. The 3D was pretty lame.
Then, I'm trying to think if anything of great import happened to me since the last time I posted... I don't really think so... just the usual weekend shenanigans... ooh, one Sat night, we played poker and I kicked ass... we played with money for a change and I doubled my initial $10 kitty. Then, last Sat night, we went clubbing... just the weekend before I had noted that it had been a while since I had gotten to one of my total wasted stages where I am heaps of fun to be around but chances are I will not remember a thing the next day. So that was last Sat night... it could account for my feeling ill this week too!
Add to that, the weather is totally getting me down and there ain't no silver lining in sight... severe case of the winter blues... the fun weekend will hopefully drive them away temporarily!
Cold rain out on the street, I am all alone
With cold rain down on my face
I am heading home
I miss the warm sun... it feels like forever since she went away...
I even miss the 16 degree days and the 12 degree evenings... we are barely making it to double digits these days
This week we celebrated (or rather, commiserated) the coldest week in years... it rained and it hailed and it snowed (nearby) and the wind, oh dear god, the wind... such a cruel, bone numbing, brain freezing wind.
Waaaaaaaaaaaah... I feel awful... after weeks of subjecting my poor body to its usual rituals of cold drinks and harsh smokes, the added inevitable exposure to the elements courtesy mother nature in all her winter glory, has made my body screech to a grinding halt and scream enough is enough... you are now going to pay in slow, excruciating pain for what you put me through on a weekly basis and which I normally take with nary a complaint!!
The worst part is, this is like the calm before the storm... so I'm rather concerned about what's going to happen after this weekend... since Sunday night, I've had this severe pain in my sinus area and some desultory sniffling from the nose but no disgusting yellow phlegm or horrible pain in the throat which is always the harbinger of that most dreaded of winter afflictions, the mighty throat infection and flu requiring trips to the bathroom every 2 minutes to spit out all the phlegmy mucous and self-prescribed antibiotic tablets all the way from India every 6 hours. But anyway, all that I can deal with... it's awful and it sucks for about 4 days but then I'm always well on the road to recovery. This time, I feel like crap, I'm nowhere near 100% and yet, I have none of the usual cold, flu symptoms except for the heavy head and occasional drippy nose. But if I like do something, like walk from the couch to the kitchen or from work to home, it totally exhausts me which is why I know I am not 100%. So anyway, I am not medicating myself and have been waiting for improvements hopefully the whole week but absolutely nothing has changed since Sunday night and I am almost looking forward to the excesses of the weekend to act as the catalyst to bring on the storm... this false lull I just cannot handle anymore!
What a full weekend I have in store for me also... I have a work cocktail thing tonight and it's very unnecessarily black tie so I have to wear one skimpy cocktail dress now in the middle of winter... if I am not drowning in my own phlegm by Monday, but still feeling sick, I will be very very concerned. Tomorrow night, two housewarming parties to hop between and both are at some opposite corners of the world but such logistical issues will never deter such a hard core part"ier" as me... in the middle of all this recovering from tonight's hangover, getting wasted and party hopping, I must absolutely make it to Borders sometime tomorrow to pick up my new Harry Potter book. I pre-ordered of course but I fear if I go too late, I will miss out on the complimentary stuffed owl Hedwig... hehe! And also, I must make some time to read the damn book this weekend although I will fully savour the book and not read as fast as I can just to get to the end so by Monday, I will probably be the only one who has no idea who is going to die and will have to avoid all media like the plague because already the spoilers are spilling out in the thousands! I do not expect a non-Harry Potter person to get why this is a big deal at all. As much as I will miss the magical Harry Potter world, I read a rumour that next she is going to start writing mystery novels... sniff... my favouritest genre ever... good god, she will kick ass! And to round off this Harry Potter week of mine, I went to the movie last weekend at IMAX because the last 20 minutes had some 3D action... the movie was ok, couldn't come close to the book, but who really cares, Harry Potter is Harry Potter. The 3D was pretty lame.
Then, I'm trying to think if anything of great import happened to me since the last time I posted... I don't really think so... just the usual weekend shenanigans... ooh, one Sat night, we played poker and I kicked ass... we played with money for a change and I doubled my initial $10 kitty. Then, last Sat night, we went clubbing... just the weekend before I had noted that it had been a while since I had gotten to one of my total wasted stages where I am heaps of fun to be around but chances are I will not remember a thing the next day. So that was last Sat night... it could account for my feeling ill this week too!
Add to that, the weather is totally getting me down and there ain't no silver lining in sight... severe case of the winter blues... the fun weekend will hopefully drive them away temporarily!
Cold rain out on the street, I am all alone
With cold rain down on my face
I am heading home
Friday, June 29, 2007
Happy Anniversary to Me... Happy Anniversary dear So Called Life... Happy Anniversary to Me
I would now like to congratulate myself on one continous year of blogging... even if I have been averaging only about 2 posts per month, at least I have every single month since June last year on record. I look at my 2005 archive and it shows 65 posts... how on earth?! I must've been super freakin' jobless... especially considering the average length of my posts and it was only over a period of 6-7 months. This last year, I haven't even reached half that. Anyway, we have reached the end of one month of winter and it has been horrific... I am ready to kill myself... really... it hasn't been this cold in June the last few years... too depressing!
On the work front, I moved to a different client and project 2.5 weeks ago and that has accounted to my slackness in updating but it has been great working here compared to my old project. Probably another 2.5 weeks here before I move on to the next client.
On the personal front, last time I touched briefly on the citizenship thing so to elaborate, yeah, after two years and some of being permanent residents we were eligible to take up citizenship so we did! I still have to apply for my Australian passport and then I have to get one of them Overseas Citizens of India cards and I believe I have basically lost my right to vote in India which I never gave a shit about anyway but now have to vote here or you get fined and stuff so that'll be rather annoying although I think they have online ballots and all which should be convenient. The ceremony was ok... we took a pledge of committment and then our names were individually called out to receive our certificates and I was on the edge of my seat waiting for my name and of course when it was called, I almost tripped and fell because my heel had gotten tangled in my handbag strap but made it to the stage and off without incident. Then we all sang the National Anthem which is not that hot an anthem and we were given native plants which I have promptly killed with neglect as always. The citizenship interview that we went for before all this ceremony jazz was actually funnier because they just look over your application and you have to mug up these rights and duties of being an Australian citizen and we mugged and mugged on our way there and since we both went in together, we were competing with each other to give the right answers when the officer asked us for them. Anyway, I really don't like at it as a betrayal of the motherland because the motherland will always be home but at the same time, this country in all it's 'bogan'ness (Australian slang for red neck type people) and 1980's atmosphere has taken me into it's warm embrace and for that I will always love it.
Then what else has happened... a good friend has left to work in the UK and travel around Europe for 2 years so that was a bit of a bummer... he's been our friend since our first day in Australia and we've had some fun times. It's not fair that I should bid goodbye to people and move to another country and start from scratch to build something similar to what exists at home and then people should go and ruin it by bidding goodbye themselves. Ah well... we now have accomodation in the UK!
So there were a couple of smashed as farewell parties... at one of them, we booked a karaoke room for 2 hours and they said we could hang out longer since no one else had booked it so we hung out for 4.5 hours in total and sang for all that time. It was really insane... I've never karaoked like that in my life. At the end, the departing couple (she's actually still here for another couple of months) gave prizes to best female and male singers. I won female which if I hadn't, deep down I would've been most upset... haha... but the prizes were these awful naked men and women playing cards. The naked men are sitting on my coffee table... they look super freakin' fake though!
Then, I've been for a couple of shows in the last week... last Sat night, we went to Cirque du Soleil - Varekai... it was unbelievable. Cirque du Soleil is this global company of human circus performing artists and they perform crazy as acrobatic stunts on ground and in the air and tell a story at the same time... some great music too. It was very unique and breathtaking. Then on Tue night, I went to watch a production of the musical Miss Saigon. It's about an American GI who falls in love with a Vietnamese 'woman of the night' just before the fall of Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War. It was tragically beautiful... some great songs!!
My gig calendar for 2007 has been pretty good so far and I've still got a few shows to go. At the beginning of the year, watched Roger Waters live in concert and Snoop Dogg, Beastie Boys and various other artists and DJs at a music festival. This month was these two shows. In August, I've got Bob Dylan... I hope he plays the songs I know and love. And in September I've got Steely Dan whose music I've got to get more familiar with and a production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera which is my favouritest Andrew Lloyd Webber musical.
So that's been it pretty much... weekend ahead to look forward to. Oh, also went wedding dress shopping and that was pretty overwhelming. Most are Cinderella type with these fairytale stiff skirts with hundreds of layers and we were joking how my fiance could hide under there at the wedding and light up a spliff and hotbox it... it would also create this fantastic smoke effect of me walking down the aisle! Anyway, I don't think I'm going down that path so will have to keep looking.
Until next time and the next year of blogging, adios!
On the work front, I moved to a different client and project 2.5 weeks ago and that has accounted to my slackness in updating but it has been great working here compared to my old project. Probably another 2.5 weeks here before I move on to the next client.
On the personal front, last time I touched briefly on the citizenship thing so to elaborate, yeah, after two years and some of being permanent residents we were eligible to take up citizenship so we did! I still have to apply for my Australian passport and then I have to get one of them Overseas Citizens of India cards and I believe I have basically lost my right to vote in India which I never gave a shit about anyway but now have to vote here or you get fined and stuff so that'll be rather annoying although I think they have online ballots and all which should be convenient. The ceremony was ok... we took a pledge of committment and then our names were individually called out to receive our certificates and I was on the edge of my seat waiting for my name and of course when it was called, I almost tripped and fell because my heel had gotten tangled in my handbag strap but made it to the stage and off without incident. Then we all sang the National Anthem which is not that hot an anthem and we were given native plants which I have promptly killed with neglect as always. The citizenship interview that we went for before all this ceremony jazz was actually funnier because they just look over your application and you have to mug up these rights and duties of being an Australian citizen and we mugged and mugged on our way there and since we both went in together, we were competing with each other to give the right answers when the officer asked us for them. Anyway, I really don't like at it as a betrayal of the motherland because the motherland will always be home but at the same time, this country in all it's 'bogan'ness (Australian slang for red neck type people) and 1980's atmosphere has taken me into it's warm embrace and for that I will always love it.
Then what else has happened... a good friend has left to work in the UK and travel around Europe for 2 years so that was a bit of a bummer... he's been our friend since our first day in Australia and we've had some fun times. It's not fair that I should bid goodbye to people and move to another country and start from scratch to build something similar to what exists at home and then people should go and ruin it by bidding goodbye themselves. Ah well... we now have accomodation in the UK!
So there were a couple of smashed as farewell parties... at one of them, we booked a karaoke room for 2 hours and they said we could hang out longer since no one else had booked it so we hung out for 4.5 hours in total and sang for all that time. It was really insane... I've never karaoked like that in my life. At the end, the departing couple (she's actually still here for another couple of months) gave prizes to best female and male singers. I won female which if I hadn't, deep down I would've been most upset... haha... but the prizes were these awful naked men and women playing cards. The naked men are sitting on my coffee table... they look super freakin' fake though!
Then, I've been for a couple of shows in the last week... last Sat night, we went to Cirque du Soleil - Varekai... it was unbelievable. Cirque du Soleil is this global company of human circus performing artists and they perform crazy as acrobatic stunts on ground and in the air and tell a story at the same time... some great music too. It was very unique and breathtaking. Then on Tue night, I went to watch a production of the musical Miss Saigon. It's about an American GI who falls in love with a Vietnamese 'woman of the night' just before the fall of Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War. It was tragically beautiful... some great songs!!
My gig calendar for 2007 has been pretty good so far and I've still got a few shows to go. At the beginning of the year, watched Roger Waters live in concert and Snoop Dogg, Beastie Boys and various other artists and DJs at a music festival. This month was these two shows. In August, I've got Bob Dylan... I hope he plays the songs I know and love. And in September I've got Steely Dan whose music I've got to get more familiar with and a production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera which is my favouritest Andrew Lloyd Webber musical.
So that's been it pretty much... weekend ahead to look forward to. Oh, also went wedding dress shopping and that was pretty overwhelming. Most are Cinderella type with these fairytale stiff skirts with hundreds of layers and we were joking how my fiance could hide under there at the wedding and light up a spliff and hotbox it... it would also create this fantastic smoke effect of me walking down the aisle! Anyway, I don't think I'm going down that path so will have to keep looking.
Until next time and the next year of blogging, adios!
Friday, June 01, 2007
The days get shorter and the nights get cold, I like the autumn but this place is getting old
Dear me… this isn’t a very happy time of the year at all. Blustery winds, cloudy skies, shorter days but longer hours of darkness, average temperatures of 14 degrees, the cold, always the cold… one can never escape the cold… while walking to work, at work (that goddamn central air conditioner… temperature control, my ass… controlled for polar bears and Eskimos perhaps!), walking back home, the living room because the balcony doors are kept open when making dinner, the bedroom because of the low temperatures all around… some relief is achieved when finally one curls up under the quilt to go to sleep… but then of course, there are the extremities to warm up… there is something about hands and feet in cold weather – they refuse to get warm and even when they do, expose them for 2 seconds and they become ice cold to the touch again. Goddamn weather! And it is only today that we are officially in winter which means the past couple of weeks were just an affectionate prelude…
There’s another thing about these crossover months before and after winter… fucking what to wear… in the last two or three weeks I have delved deep into my closet and pulled out all the layers I own and have worn 4-5 layers at a minimum on workdays. I may seem a tad bundled up compared to other pedestrians on occasion, but tough… I value my comfort over feeling like a chronic pneumonia patient with all the layers. Anyway, they aren’t some big fluffy layers… I wear a regular cotton top (sometimes two), cover that up with a light cardigan or v-neck sweater, my suit jacket next and finally a winter coat. All this means that come this time of year, my laundry load triples and as I am such a huge fan of this delightful household chore to begin with, it adds to the overall cheer and wellbeing. On the rare occasion that the sun does shine however on my way to work, I get slightly bogged down by the layers and resort to carrying them by hand. BUT… they will definitely be required when I leave work after 5:00 pm and all is once again dark and chilly. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the gloves… I fished them out prematurely a few weeks ago also and did wear them on a couple of days when I walked home in a mild 12 degrees.
At least if it rained all the time… it would add some sparkle to the bleakness… but the drought continues and showers are few and far between… and boring at that… no thundery lightning filled storms bringing big fat drops of rain and hail, falling fast and furious. Perhaps I should move to England to gratify my desire for cold rain. Of course I can also just move back to India where the warm monsoon lashings would also make me so happy.
But going back to my clothing issues… soon I will have to start carrying the beanie in my handbag for days when the wind chill has the potential to cause you a brain freeze. My ears are normally covered by headphones and then there is one final item in the normal winter ensemble, namely, the trusty scarf… I am not, however, a big fan, because I find my hair and earrings always get in the way so I sometimes use one when my hair is tied up and so my neck is normally the only body part exposed to the cruel weather, and face of course. Oh yes, that other extremity… the nose… it sometimes feels like an icicle extension of human flesh and the only solution to combat face exposure is a ski mask or balaclava but even I am not that vulnerable to the cold to resort to such measures.
For the lower body, one wears stockings and closed shoes and if wearing a skirt (although I wear skirts less and less in winter and tend to bring them back into my daily wardrobe only in far off September), knee length boots help ever so slightly. Having said that I was wearing a skirt on Tuesday with stockings and shoes and nearly got knocked over on my way to work with gale force winds of 70km per hour… so very droll! I was dreading my lunchtime venturing out but I had no choice because Tuesday was the day I gave up my Indian citizenship and took up my Australian one… sob sob… my body, mind and soul will of course always belong to the Indian motherland but my passport will now declare I belong to Australia and help me to cross most geographical borders with ease and zero visa costs. But more on this later…
Then there is the issue when stopping off for a spot of shopping on the way home. Freaking layers… if you’re lucky you get two hooks in a change room and its impossible to hook all your layers and the clothes you want to try on all on the two hooks not to mention the added time it takes to take everything off and put it back on again so you take in as many items as you possibly can the one time because there’s no way you’re going through the process of undressing and dressing more than once and this of course makes that tiny little cubicle look more like a disaster zone than a change room.
And then, how about the total lack of leaves this “fall”… remember how I wrote about the wonderful falling brown leaves and me delightfully skipping through piles of them… obviously the city and Southbank are not all that tree lined or maybe it’s more they have a higher percentage of city workers collecting and getting rid of the leaves because not ONCE have I spotted a single healthy pile of leaves… a stray leaf here and there on the sidewalk because it’s probably just dropped off the tree but nothing more. So much for that little autumnal joy of mine!
At least we still go out at night and people are still entertaining with house parties now and then… this of course opens up a whole other can of worms when it comes to what to wear! You want to look hot and sexy and some 5 layers are not very conducive to this but you also want to feel warm and toasty without having to compromise on how you look. It’s really hard I tell you… I’m taking it one weekend at a time. I guess it also depends on where you’re going. If it’s a house party, we take a cab there and back so skimpy clothing is tolerable except for stepping outdoors to smoke but as I only ever need to smoke some 5 cigarettes in a row when I’m down some 6 drinks, the odds are the rum has gotten me quite warm and toasty by that stage anyway. If it’s going out for drinks in the city and general pub hopping, you want to be sure to have a jacket at the very least over the skimpy top because there tends to be walking to the bar, walking between bars, maybe having to stand in line at a bar, and finally walking back home but again by this time I’m probably too warmed up by drink to care. But all this means of course that your jacket ends up smelling like an ashtray and as if laundry wasn’t enough, there’s extra dry cleaning in winter too. Having said that, all licensed premises go completely smoke free come July 1 so no more hair and clothes smelling like an ashtray. This means of course that I will probably cut down drastically on my smoking while drinking habit but since I am not some chain smoker to begin with, I wonder if it will have any effect on the totally addicted ones. But finally, sweater dresses have made a huge comeback this season and I have stocked up on a few and I have to say they help one look hot and keep warm all at the same time so there is hope yet for this winter. But since I can’t wear them every single weekend, I will have to endure some level of discomfort at some time or another.
But enough of cold weather and fashion… recapping the events of the last two months… various birthday parties and housewarming parties and farewells and general drinking events… some good ol’ sake to warm the bones and the faithful Bacardi standby. One Saturday, we also hosted a small engagement party at home for all our friends here and was heaps of fun. I decided we must have at the very least, a colour theme, so since I had this black & silver sequined skirt I’d been meaning to wear for months but never got around to, I made the theme black & silver and I have to say was rather impressed with the turnout. Of course there was more black than anything else but it was still quite amusing. As someone put it, it looked like we were all hanging out at the funeral of someone we were really happy had died… hehe. Here’s a picture of the invite designed by sister Rat… I composed the poem.
There’s another thing about these crossover months before and after winter… fucking what to wear… in the last two or three weeks I have delved deep into my closet and pulled out all the layers I own and have worn 4-5 layers at a minimum on workdays. I may seem a tad bundled up compared to other pedestrians on occasion, but tough… I value my comfort over feeling like a chronic pneumonia patient with all the layers. Anyway, they aren’t some big fluffy layers… I wear a regular cotton top (sometimes two), cover that up with a light cardigan or v-neck sweater, my suit jacket next and finally a winter coat. All this means that come this time of year, my laundry load triples and as I am such a huge fan of this delightful household chore to begin with, it adds to the overall cheer and wellbeing. On the rare occasion that the sun does shine however on my way to work, I get slightly bogged down by the layers and resort to carrying them by hand. BUT… they will definitely be required when I leave work after 5:00 pm and all is once again dark and chilly. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the gloves… I fished them out prematurely a few weeks ago also and did wear them on a couple of days when I walked home in a mild 12 degrees.
At least if it rained all the time… it would add some sparkle to the bleakness… but the drought continues and showers are few and far between… and boring at that… no thundery lightning filled storms bringing big fat drops of rain and hail, falling fast and furious. Perhaps I should move to England to gratify my desire for cold rain. Of course I can also just move back to India where the warm monsoon lashings would also make me so happy.
But going back to my clothing issues… soon I will have to start carrying the beanie in my handbag for days when the wind chill has the potential to cause you a brain freeze. My ears are normally covered by headphones and then there is one final item in the normal winter ensemble, namely, the trusty scarf… I am not, however, a big fan, because I find my hair and earrings always get in the way so I sometimes use one when my hair is tied up and so my neck is normally the only body part exposed to the cruel weather, and face of course. Oh yes, that other extremity… the nose… it sometimes feels like an icicle extension of human flesh and the only solution to combat face exposure is a ski mask or balaclava but even I am not that vulnerable to the cold to resort to such measures.
For the lower body, one wears stockings and closed shoes and if wearing a skirt (although I wear skirts less and less in winter and tend to bring them back into my daily wardrobe only in far off September), knee length boots help ever so slightly. Having said that I was wearing a skirt on Tuesday with stockings and shoes and nearly got knocked over on my way to work with gale force winds of 70km per hour… so very droll! I was dreading my lunchtime venturing out but I had no choice because Tuesday was the day I gave up my Indian citizenship and took up my Australian one… sob sob… my body, mind and soul will of course always belong to the Indian motherland but my passport will now declare I belong to Australia and help me to cross most geographical borders with ease and zero visa costs. But more on this later…
Then there is the issue when stopping off for a spot of shopping on the way home. Freaking layers… if you’re lucky you get two hooks in a change room and its impossible to hook all your layers and the clothes you want to try on all on the two hooks not to mention the added time it takes to take everything off and put it back on again so you take in as many items as you possibly can the one time because there’s no way you’re going through the process of undressing and dressing more than once and this of course makes that tiny little cubicle look more like a disaster zone than a change room.
And then, how about the total lack of leaves this “fall”… remember how I wrote about the wonderful falling brown leaves and me delightfully skipping through piles of them… obviously the city and Southbank are not all that tree lined or maybe it’s more they have a higher percentage of city workers collecting and getting rid of the leaves because not ONCE have I spotted a single healthy pile of leaves… a stray leaf here and there on the sidewalk because it’s probably just dropped off the tree but nothing more. So much for that little autumnal joy of mine!
At least we still go out at night and people are still entertaining with house parties now and then… this of course opens up a whole other can of worms when it comes to what to wear! You want to look hot and sexy and some 5 layers are not very conducive to this but you also want to feel warm and toasty without having to compromise on how you look. It’s really hard I tell you… I’m taking it one weekend at a time. I guess it also depends on where you’re going. If it’s a house party, we take a cab there and back so skimpy clothing is tolerable except for stepping outdoors to smoke but as I only ever need to smoke some 5 cigarettes in a row when I’m down some 6 drinks, the odds are the rum has gotten me quite warm and toasty by that stage anyway. If it’s going out for drinks in the city and general pub hopping, you want to be sure to have a jacket at the very least over the skimpy top because there tends to be walking to the bar, walking between bars, maybe having to stand in line at a bar, and finally walking back home but again by this time I’m probably too warmed up by drink to care. But all this means of course that your jacket ends up smelling like an ashtray and as if laundry wasn’t enough, there’s extra dry cleaning in winter too. Having said that, all licensed premises go completely smoke free come July 1 so no more hair and clothes smelling like an ashtray. This means of course that I will probably cut down drastically on my smoking while drinking habit but since I am not some chain smoker to begin with, I wonder if it will have any effect on the totally addicted ones. But finally, sweater dresses have made a huge comeback this season and I have stocked up on a few and I have to say they help one look hot and keep warm all at the same time so there is hope yet for this winter. But since I can’t wear them every single weekend, I will have to endure some level of discomfort at some time or another.
But enough of cold weather and fashion… recapping the events of the last two months… various birthday parties and housewarming parties and farewells and general drinking events… some good ol’ sake to warm the bones and the faithful Bacardi standby. One Saturday, we also hosted a small engagement party at home for all our friends here and was heaps of fun. I decided we must have at the very least, a colour theme, so since I had this black & silver sequined skirt I’d been meaning to wear for months but never got around to, I made the theme black & silver and I have to say was rather impressed with the turnout. Of course there was more black than anything else but it was still quite amusing. As someone put it, it looked like we were all hanging out at the funeral of someone we were really happy had died… hehe. Here’s a picture of the invite designed by sister Rat… I composed the poem.
Here are the ladies in a group picture… what a svelte bunch we look like
Here are the men in a group picture… what a posh lot they look like
Then, last weekend my fiancé organised a go-karting event and about 13 of us raced. It was mad. There was only me and another girl and the rest were boys but I only came third last as I managed to beat one boy too. Unfortunately he was a friend of a friend so I couldn’t laugh at him and taunt him appropriately about being beat by a girl!! Just my luck! All this racing was done in some 12 degree temperature and the track was super slippery cos it was so cold and it was at night. When we finished, I thought my fingers would fall off in numbness… if I briefly took my hands off the steering wheel, it was hard to position them again because they were so freaking frozen. So we had about 10 minutes of qualifying and 15 minutes of racing and it quite crazy. By the last few laps, I was craning my neck most eagerly around the last turn in the hope of seeing the chequered flag. After, we went to the city for many drinks and dinner.
So that has been my so-called life for the past two months. Also, any teeny weeny itty bit of motivation I might have ever had to visit the gym in summer has vanished without a trace what with the cold weather and getting home in such complete darkness. Days until daylight savings time begins: 149… sigh!
So that has been my so-called life for the past two months. Also, any teeny weeny itty bit of motivation I might have ever had to visit the gym in summer has vanished without a trace what with the cold weather and getting home in such complete darkness. Days until daylight savings time begins: 149… sigh!
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Wouldn't it be nice to live together in the kind of world where we belong
You know it seems the more we talk about it
It only makes it worse to live without it
But let's talk about it
Wouldn't it be nice
Dear Penny Lane
So, the other night, us Fort Knox alumni got together for our monthly poker night. The usual bottle of Jack was cracked open and beef tasting nibbles were passed around and good ol’ Fudge, he had a great treat for us… special brownies… yeah, that’s right, don’t look so surprised… talk about being baaad assss!!! Gosh, I remember how you used to smoke it in your bathroom. I’d be all fast asleep in the comfort of your bed and you’d go do your thang and then come back to bed and annoy the crap out of me. I mean, what’d a dog have to do to get some sleep around that joint? So anyway, Chocolate, Fudge and me, we were just shooting the breeze and to be completely honest, we had gotten rather giggly thanks to the brownies, when who should show up but young Ginger. I tell you, I was pretty darn shocked she had the nerve to show up after all the nasty rumours she’d been spreading about Fudge and Teddy all over Dogtown. But we didn’t turn her out because well, you know, she’s a young un’… never had anyone to show her the way really what with her arriving here so young and all and she always had a bit of a tail on her, that she did! So then she broke down with everyone glaring at her and apologised for making up all those lies and it was hard not to melt, that look in her eyes. Next thing we know, we’re all high pawing each other and look up to see Teddy shuffling in in his trademark purple coat, sunglasses and carrying his walking stick. There was a bit of an awkward moment while he took in the scene in front of him but he caught on in no time and enveloped Ginger in a warm hug. Good ol’ Teddy… you don’t live to 90 and become elected the Head of the Underground Society of Dogs Against The Adoption of Cats as Household Pets and not get wise to a few things. We don’t keep these catch ups exclusive to Fort Knox you know… we like to keep in touch with the family dogs too. So sure enough, Max and Dinky joined us and Dinky brought along that grumpy smelly sourpuss Gizmo. I know he’s family and all and that’s why we tolerate him, but really that doesn’t mean I have to like him.
By now, we’d started playing and we were well into the brownies… I’m telling you girl, it was insaaane in the membrane! I should’ve joined you when I had the chance… can you imagine me and you rolling around the bathroom floor in giggle fits!! It would’ve been da bomb. By the way, I don’t know if you’ve noticed but my vocab has gotten way better since I moved here… I know I could just about manage Woowoowoo when I was with you but these dawgs sure know how to teach a beyatch a word or two. My main man is this cat named Snoop Dogg and he has us chanting all sorts of fun stuff like bow wow wow yippee yo yippee yay…
But anyway, back to our poker night. We were playing Texas Hold ‘Em and I was doing alright… even stevens really… so were Max, Dinky and Gizmo. Ginger was down pretty bad, so were Fudge and Chocolate… Teddy was just raking it in as usual. It was a stormy night and it was coming down something fierce when suddenly the door flies open and who should run in soaking wet but Biscuit. Ginger nearly fell off her chair because he cut a most dashing figure with his dark eyes and chocolate fur, engaged in the act of shaking the water off himself. They’ve never met of course… he having lived with you in the early 90s and Ginger only in 2004. It was puppy love at first sight… I felt so very wistful watching them… god knows how different things might’ve been if Scooby from down the road hadn’t been so goddamn obnoxious… I mean, that is what attracted me to him in the beginning but towards the end it just got so tiresome our whole barking-madly-at-each-other-through-the-gate routine. I’ve heard on the grapevine that he’s taken up with a black Lab from down near the supermarket. All I can say is good luck to her.
So that’s really all the news from our end. Things might’ve gotten slightly nasty that poker night when Gizmo and Teddy faced off for all or nothing but luckily Dinky was way past his alcohol tolerance level and chose that moment to return from relieving himself, completely miscalculated where his chair was, and fell flat on his tiny bottom! We were all on the floor laughing after that. Chocolate sends her love as always. How are things going with you? How’s baby sister? How’re mama and papa Lane? Is mama Lane still sadly under the delusion she has any kind of control over the canines she lives with? Ah well, we must leave her with some hope to hold on to, harmless thing that she is. I routinely call Rusty on his mobile to tell him to give ‘er hell and sometimes text him fun ways to make mischief! And what about you then? Still missing me? I know you are. I looked at all those photos of all of us with you the other day. I don’t know if you felt my paw on your shoulder but I was there.
Oh I almost forgot to tell you… I ran into my old man Crispy on the street the other day. He is one good looking mo fo… now I know where I get my drop dead gorgeous looks from. He’s doing alright and invited me to a meal next week. I can’t wait to look at more baby pictures of myself.
And oh, oh, met up with Appachen when he visited Dogtown on a daytrip. I told him I'd be writing to you so he said a big Hi.
That’s it I guess. Write soon and I’m attaching a pic of us from the other night.
Miss you and love you as much as the day I left you.
Holly xoxoxo
Wouldn’t it be nice if they were all living it up like so? Wouldn’t it be nicer if they still remembered us? Wouldn’t it be nicest if they hadn’t had to leave us at all?
It only makes it worse to live without it
But let's talk about it
Wouldn't it be nice
Dear Penny Lane
So, the other night, us Fort Knox alumni got together for our monthly poker night. The usual bottle of Jack was cracked open and beef tasting nibbles were passed around and good ol’ Fudge, he had a great treat for us… special brownies… yeah, that’s right, don’t look so surprised… talk about being baaad assss!!! Gosh, I remember how you used to smoke it in your bathroom. I’d be all fast asleep in the comfort of your bed and you’d go do your thang and then come back to bed and annoy the crap out of me. I mean, what’d a dog have to do to get some sleep around that joint? So anyway, Chocolate, Fudge and me, we were just shooting the breeze and to be completely honest, we had gotten rather giggly thanks to the brownies, when who should show up but young Ginger. I tell you, I was pretty darn shocked she had the nerve to show up after all the nasty rumours she’d been spreading about Fudge and Teddy all over Dogtown. But we didn’t turn her out because well, you know, she’s a young un’… never had anyone to show her the way really what with her arriving here so young and all and she always had a bit of a tail on her, that she did! So then she broke down with everyone glaring at her and apologised for making up all those lies and it was hard not to melt, that look in her eyes. Next thing we know, we’re all high pawing each other and look up to see Teddy shuffling in in his trademark purple coat, sunglasses and carrying his walking stick. There was a bit of an awkward moment while he took in the scene in front of him but he caught on in no time and enveloped Ginger in a warm hug. Good ol’ Teddy… you don’t live to 90 and become elected the Head of the Underground Society of Dogs Against The Adoption of Cats as Household Pets and not get wise to a few things. We don’t keep these catch ups exclusive to Fort Knox you know… we like to keep in touch with the family dogs too. So sure enough, Max and Dinky joined us and Dinky brought along that grumpy smelly sourpuss Gizmo. I know he’s family and all and that’s why we tolerate him, but really that doesn’t mean I have to like him.
By now, we’d started playing and we were well into the brownies… I’m telling you girl, it was insaaane in the membrane! I should’ve joined you when I had the chance… can you imagine me and you rolling around the bathroom floor in giggle fits!! It would’ve been da bomb. By the way, I don’t know if you’ve noticed but my vocab has gotten way better since I moved here… I know I could just about manage Woowoowoo when I was with you but these dawgs sure know how to teach a beyatch a word or two. My main man is this cat named Snoop Dogg and he has us chanting all sorts of fun stuff like bow wow wow yippee yo yippee yay…
But anyway, back to our poker night. We were playing Texas Hold ‘Em and I was doing alright… even stevens really… so were Max, Dinky and Gizmo. Ginger was down pretty bad, so were Fudge and Chocolate… Teddy was just raking it in as usual. It was a stormy night and it was coming down something fierce when suddenly the door flies open and who should run in soaking wet but Biscuit. Ginger nearly fell off her chair because he cut a most dashing figure with his dark eyes and chocolate fur, engaged in the act of shaking the water off himself. They’ve never met of course… he having lived with you in the early 90s and Ginger only in 2004. It was puppy love at first sight… I felt so very wistful watching them… god knows how different things might’ve been if Scooby from down the road hadn’t been so goddamn obnoxious… I mean, that is what attracted me to him in the beginning but towards the end it just got so tiresome our whole barking-madly-at-each-other-through-the-gate routine. I’ve heard on the grapevine that he’s taken up with a black Lab from down near the supermarket. All I can say is good luck to her.
So that’s really all the news from our end. Things might’ve gotten slightly nasty that poker night when Gizmo and Teddy faced off for all or nothing but luckily Dinky was way past his alcohol tolerance level and chose that moment to return from relieving himself, completely miscalculated where his chair was, and fell flat on his tiny bottom! We were all on the floor laughing after that. Chocolate sends her love as always. How are things going with you? How’s baby sister? How’re mama and papa Lane? Is mama Lane still sadly under the delusion she has any kind of control over the canines she lives with? Ah well, we must leave her with some hope to hold on to, harmless thing that she is. I routinely call Rusty on his mobile to tell him to give ‘er hell and sometimes text him fun ways to make mischief! And what about you then? Still missing me? I know you are. I looked at all those photos of all of us with you the other day. I don’t know if you felt my paw on your shoulder but I was there.
Oh I almost forgot to tell you… I ran into my old man Crispy on the street the other day. He is one good looking mo fo… now I know where I get my drop dead gorgeous looks from. He’s doing alright and invited me to a meal next week. I can’t wait to look at more baby pictures of myself.
And oh, oh, met up with Appachen when he visited Dogtown on a daytrip. I told him I'd be writing to you so he said a big Hi.
That’s it I guess. Write soon and I’m attaching a pic of us from the other night.
Miss you and love you as much as the day I left you.
Holly xoxoxo
Wouldn’t it be nice if they were all living it up like so? Wouldn’t it be nicer if they still remembered us? Wouldn’t it be nicest if they hadn’t had to leave us at all?
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Down the way where the nights are gay and the sun shines daily on the mountain top...
Fiji was freaking awesome. We did absolutely nothing and still every night I’d pass out like a ton of bricks and have a huge issue waking up the next morning which caused my lover no end of grief because breakfast was included in our resort package but well, I just couldn’t motivate myself even at the thought of having paid for it already but somehow forced myself to go at least three of the five mornings after constant wake up calls. Anyway, that was breakfast. We developed a nice routine for the rest of the days and nights too. After breakfast, we’d go back to our room and gather our belongings for the day which would be a book, a sarong, the room key, and the all important towel pass. The towel passes were awesome because whenever you felt like you could get fresh beach towels for the pool and beach so never had to deal with any of those tedious non-5-star-resort issues like sandy towels in the toilet at the end of the day and having to dry them for the next day, having to carry the same towel around with you the whole day, etc. etc. So some days we’d start by jumping in one of the pools or sometimes we’d head straight for the beach. There were three pools – the Coral Pool, Takali Pool and Main Pool. The main pool we stayed well clear of because it was always packed to the brim with easily excitable, screaming, swimming children. The Coral Pool was right below our room and had an awesome view of the coral lagoon just beyond and was quite far away from the main pool so was never very crowded and quite pleasant. Our favourite though was the Takali Pool because it had great sunset views and it was strictly adults only so was most peaceful. We ended most of our evenings here, sipping on drinks and watching the sun set. So in between breakfast and sunset, we’d alternate with swimming in pools, the beach, lying on deck chairs, reading in the hammock, nibbling on lunch, drinking (having our drinks brought wherever we wanted because of the great bar and food service), snorkelling, jet skiing, kayaking (uh yeah, this tired us out fairly quickly every time so we’d kayak for all of 10 minutes) and then our main activity for the day – sailing the catamaran. This became a great cause for excitement as we played sailors with tacking and tightening and what not. We became rather good (well, it certainly ain’t rocket science) but each day made our man more confident and took me closer and closer to that dreaded wave break, you know, where the real ocean starts after the lagoon… the sight of that always terrifies me. Maybe because it reminds me of the outer Great Barrier Reef when we were all playing around in 12 metres or so and a few metres away, the break ominously fell to something like 200 metres apparently. But anyway, we went closer and closer each time until this one time we had the perfect wind in our sails and it was really choppy suddenly in that area and we were coasting faster and faster and suddenly I notice that his side of the catamaran is completely out of the water and in the freaking air and my side is ready to be submerged any second and oh my god, I lost it. I haven’t been so terrified since I’m not sure when… probably since the snake. Anyway, somehow we slowed down and the catamaran returned to its upright position and I insisted we turn around and head back to sweet safe land which we did. Was great fun though, the catamaran… What else did we do… well, the swimming in the lagoon was an experience in itself… the water is incredibly clear and the fish swim all around you in incredibly shallow water, its crazy! The first afternoon we decided to be very adventurous and walk in the water from our side of the resort to the main lagoon beach… this involves crossing many rocks and such and sometimes there’s no beach to walk on so you have to walk in the water and that’s of course when I met the eel. I was extremely terrified to go any further because I really wouldn’t have been keen to meet its friend, the sea snake but somehow made it out of there. I took the inland route on all future occasions and I only had to contend with creepy garden lizards… oh god, and there were regular wall lizards as well... ugggg… creepy bastards! One day we were different and went on a tour to a completely different island… caught a boat down a river which took us to the Robinson Crusoe island, went on a jet boat ride, snorkelled, made some random tour friends, watched some traditional Fiji customs (in photos later) and drank the most potent rum I have ever drunk in my life. It’s called Bounty Rum and it beats even Jamaican Coruba Rum… I had to refill it with more soft drink and it was still incredibly foul and it got me incredibly buzzed. Now, everyone knows I am the last thing from a one-drink-buzz girl so you have to believe me when I tell you how strong it was. So our days were happily spent…
In the evenings, after our poolside drinks and sunset we’d head back to shower and we’d drink our duty free alcohol and listen to music and get quite buzzed, make a ready mix for the 5 minute walk to the restaurants and head for dinner. There were 3 main restaurants open for dinner and of course we tried them all. One of them was the Black Marlin Bar which also served as the resort’s nightclub. God, it was painfully hilarious. The DJ would play everything from Madonna to Harry Belafonte, from the 80s to the 00s, and people would dance. We did our usual jive thing for a couple of songs and beat a hasty retreat. We’d then wander the beach drinking from our ready mix until we were ready to hit the sack. The other two restaurants were Kalevu and Takali and we liked Takali so much we went back there for dinner on our last night. After dinner, we headed to the Black Marlin Bar in expectation of an 80s night, as promised by a poster, but there were all of 5 people and no one seemed particularly into the 80s, so the DJ didn’t even play the 80s and played some horrendous music some guests provided him. But anyway, it was our last night so we made friends with some of the staff and got suitably smashed before retiring. The next day we left the bright blue and green tropics to return to cold, dreary Melbourne. The nicest souvenir from the trip is my awesome golden brown tan that will keep me in the island spirit throughout the paling, non-sunny winter. That, in a nutshell, was our trip and here are some photos…
The ocean view from our room... you can see the "break"... it was low tide so all that brown stuff is coral
You can't really see, but look closely and you might see the faint glowing blue... at night, the coral was lit and we'd get ocean side dinner tables on the terrace and it was really most lovely
But I'm sad to say,
I'm on my way,
won't be back for many a day
In the evenings, after our poolside drinks and sunset we’d head back to shower and we’d drink our duty free alcohol and listen to music and get quite buzzed, make a ready mix for the 5 minute walk to the restaurants and head for dinner. There were 3 main restaurants open for dinner and of course we tried them all. One of them was the Black Marlin Bar which also served as the resort’s nightclub. God, it was painfully hilarious. The DJ would play everything from Madonna to Harry Belafonte, from the 80s to the 00s, and people would dance. We did our usual jive thing for a couple of songs and beat a hasty retreat. We’d then wander the beach drinking from our ready mix until we were ready to hit the sack. The other two restaurants were Kalevu and Takali and we liked Takali so much we went back there for dinner on our last night. After dinner, we headed to the Black Marlin Bar in expectation of an 80s night, as promised by a poster, but there were all of 5 people and no one seemed particularly into the 80s, so the DJ didn’t even play the 80s and played some horrendous music some guests provided him. But anyway, it was our last night so we made friends with some of the staff and got suitably smashed before retiring. The next day we left the bright blue and green tropics to return to cold, dreary Melbourne. The nicest souvenir from the trip is my awesome golden brown tan that will keep me in the island spirit throughout the paling, non-sunny winter. That, in a nutshell, was our trip and here are some photos…
The ocean view from our room... you can see the "break"... it was low tide so all that brown stuff is coral
The Coral Pool below our room
The beautiful lagoon and main beach... we met the eel somewhere down here when we were walking in the water
Oh god, the EEL in all its creepiness... that's water if you can believe it... it's so freaking clear
Bright blue starfish such as this one were scattered everywhere in the water... again, that's in water
Robinson Crusoe Island where we went daytripping
Traditional Fiji style of cooking on coals in pits... called 'lovo'
Firewalking
Firedancing
Every day they have crab races like this... number the shells of some poor crabs and assign numbers to guests and the first crab to cross the circle wins!
You can't really see, but look closely and you might see the faint glowing blue... at night, the coral was lit and we'd get ocean side dinner tables on the terrace and it was really most lovely
Sunset as viewed from the Takali Pool... it was a slightly cloudy evening though
But I'm sad to say,
I'm on my way,
won't be back for many a day
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
You’ll say we got nothing in common, no common ground to start from and we’re falling apart. Then I said what about Breakfast at Tiffanys...
Gee whiz… when things happen, they happen all at once. And sometimes nothing happens at all… like I think I was bemoaning nothing happening in like Feb and then suddenly life became hectic in March and we’re already at the end of April? Did time fly so when I was a child? I don’t think so really… what was life after all but a school timetable and weekends… so now its work and weekends but somehow it flies… I guess, cos there is no timetable. Well whatever, I have lots of updating to do on this blog. The real reason I continue to maintain this blog at all (with everyone on the blogroll being so slack at updating) is so I have a record of my life to look back on in one, two, five, ten, thirty years… it’s amazing the little things one forgets that one never expected to forget but forgot anyway, so the blog helps greatly. I wish I’d had a blog before I left India… I mean, I used to write stuff in a journal before I left India but it’s not the same as recording life events on a blog because a blog is public and a journal is private and I got over ‘Dear Diary, I did this and this and that between 3:00 and 5:00 pm today’ by age 12. So this blog is more like a dear diary in the sense of ‘Dear Diary, I went to x parties this weekend and got wasted at x of them…’ and then I can read these entries at some later point in my life when my life isn’t all that happening and then I can feel nostalgic for the good times and may want to kill myself at being reminded of a better time, but who knows… it may indeed only ever get better (but I doubt it).
So if you’re still reading, I left off at the long weekend holiday? The weekend that followed was meant to be really quiet because of the wild holiday weekend but it ended up that a friend and I met for a quiet drink or two at 5:30 pm on a Friday evening at this delightful bar along my one-and-only-close-to-my-heart Yarra river… by 8:00 pm, we had grown to 12 people and maybe 5 rounds down. And of course, that’s when we should’ve stopped and just GONE HOME. But of course we didn’t and of course we partied on and eventually I think we got home at 3:00 am. This is the trouble with Fridays – you always start off so early because it’s straight after work and sometimes it gets out of freaking control. It was an awesome night though – lots of laughs and tram and China Bar incidents! China Bar deserves a post of its own – it’s a mildly dodgy Chinese fast food place that doesn’t have a liquor licence but serves you Victoria Bitter beer anyway and I’m not a fan of Asian food but I don’t mind going to China Bar once in a while and eating the roti channai, which is like roti and chicken curry but I really couldn’t handle the place in my soberness and so most times we go there when we’re smashed and do crazy things like sing the Indian National Anthem. The rest of the weekend should’ve been quiet, but again, it wasn’t! I think I ate off our friend’s bbq for all meals beginning on Sat afternoon until Sun evening because Sat night he brought it over to our place and I actually spent a pleasant quiet evening by myself watching a Poirot whodunit on TV and then Sun afternoon, we had a tiny bbq partaay to watch the Australian Grand Prix on TV. The race was great, except for Ferrari winning of course. But how awesome is that young little Lewis Hamilton??!! So sweetly and talentedly he’s made it to the podium also every race since.
Then there was a week of work as usual but I do believe a few of us went out to dinner to a fancy schmancy Sri Lankan place that Thursday night and I finished almost an entire bottle of wine so was decidedly seedy the next morning at work. I was meant to go lawn bowling that evening with work but decided to give it a miss and went home to rest and I think slept for 12 hours+ that night. The next day I woke up well refreshed to find out India was pretty much out of the World Cup… Mr. Moonlight had stayed up most of the night to watch the match so was decidedly seedy that day and I convinced him to have an afternoon nap since we were going out that evening although at the time I was clueless about the things in store for me later that night. So then I did many household chores being in a domestic mood and expecting houseguests on the Monday and so forgot to wake him up and he was fully panicked about being late to this thing we were going to which was apparently some work friend of his party type thing. I of course never panic because I am never on time to anything ever! So I was done with my shower and hanging out in the bedroom and cutting my nails I think when I hear him on the phone outside trying to make a dinner reservation??!! So when he comes in I’m like, what’s the deal with the dinner reservation, I thought we were going to a party and he’s all, oh what are you talking about… very lame attempt at covering. But so anyway, I sorta fully guessed then that he was going to propose to me that night because well, I don’t know, I just knew. And then we sat in the car and he played a CD he’d burnt that day and the first song was Penny Lane and that was sooo funny and sweet and typical of him and just confirmed it. The rest of the songs were all the other songs we’ve considered our own over the years… there was Sweet Child of Mine, Can’t Help Falling in Love, She, Annie’s Song, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Strangers in the Night, and then he drove us to this stretch of road along the Williamstown beach where the waves dash against the embankment and there’s a lighthouse and everything and then on the way he pretended he was making up this poem and would give me two new lines every two minutes but really he’d composed it earlier and had to improvise anyway since he forgot half of it and it was just really funny and sweet because by now I was fully certain of what was coming. The reason for the beach was because we first met at the beach all those years ago (7 years and some months to be precise) at that wonderful rendezvous of our youth, EC-41… Then once we’d parked he proposed and got out of the car and got down on his knees and put the ring on my finger! Ah, the ring… the most fabulous exciting bit to any engagement and mine is absofuckinglutely stunning… I love it… it’s a half carat diamond in a platinum setting and it’s from Tiffanys cos Audrey Hepburn style, I’m just craaaazay about Tiffanaaays! Tiffanys has a special significance in our relationship because right from the beginning we never had anything in common except partying and drinking and smoking, and then we had a fight in the early days and I think this song just happened to play and it made us smile so since then he only has to play this song when we’re fighting and it makes us laugh. So when we discussed getting married and stuff in recent years, my only wish (well, by only wish, I don’t really mean only wish – I’m a woman, I’m allowed to have million wishes and dreams for my engagement and wedding) was that the ring be from Tiffanys! Here’s a picture for you but it really needs to be seen in the flesh.
So if you’re still reading, I left off at the long weekend holiday? The weekend that followed was meant to be really quiet because of the wild holiday weekend but it ended up that a friend and I met for a quiet drink or two at 5:30 pm on a Friday evening at this delightful bar along my one-and-only-close-to-my-heart Yarra river… by 8:00 pm, we had grown to 12 people and maybe 5 rounds down. And of course, that’s when we should’ve stopped and just GONE HOME. But of course we didn’t and of course we partied on and eventually I think we got home at 3:00 am. This is the trouble with Fridays – you always start off so early because it’s straight after work and sometimes it gets out of freaking control. It was an awesome night though – lots of laughs and tram and China Bar incidents! China Bar deserves a post of its own – it’s a mildly dodgy Chinese fast food place that doesn’t have a liquor licence but serves you Victoria Bitter beer anyway and I’m not a fan of Asian food but I don’t mind going to China Bar once in a while and eating the roti channai, which is like roti and chicken curry but I really couldn’t handle the place in my soberness and so most times we go there when we’re smashed and do crazy things like sing the Indian National Anthem. The rest of the weekend should’ve been quiet, but again, it wasn’t! I think I ate off our friend’s bbq for all meals beginning on Sat afternoon until Sun evening because Sat night he brought it over to our place and I actually spent a pleasant quiet evening by myself watching a Poirot whodunit on TV and then Sun afternoon, we had a tiny bbq partaay to watch the Australian Grand Prix on TV. The race was great, except for Ferrari winning of course. But how awesome is that young little Lewis Hamilton??!! So sweetly and talentedly he’s made it to the podium also every race since.
Then there was a week of work as usual but I do believe a few of us went out to dinner to a fancy schmancy Sri Lankan place that Thursday night and I finished almost an entire bottle of wine so was decidedly seedy the next morning at work. I was meant to go lawn bowling that evening with work but decided to give it a miss and went home to rest and I think slept for 12 hours+ that night. The next day I woke up well refreshed to find out India was pretty much out of the World Cup… Mr. Moonlight had stayed up most of the night to watch the match so was decidedly seedy that day and I convinced him to have an afternoon nap since we were going out that evening although at the time I was clueless about the things in store for me later that night. So then I did many household chores being in a domestic mood and expecting houseguests on the Monday and so forgot to wake him up and he was fully panicked about being late to this thing we were going to which was apparently some work friend of his party type thing. I of course never panic because I am never on time to anything ever! So I was done with my shower and hanging out in the bedroom and cutting my nails I think when I hear him on the phone outside trying to make a dinner reservation??!! So when he comes in I’m like, what’s the deal with the dinner reservation, I thought we were going to a party and he’s all, oh what are you talking about… very lame attempt at covering. But so anyway, I sorta fully guessed then that he was going to propose to me that night because well, I don’t know, I just knew. And then we sat in the car and he played a CD he’d burnt that day and the first song was Penny Lane and that was sooo funny and sweet and typical of him and just confirmed it. The rest of the songs were all the other songs we’ve considered our own over the years… there was Sweet Child of Mine, Can’t Help Falling in Love, She, Annie’s Song, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Strangers in the Night, and then he drove us to this stretch of road along the Williamstown beach where the waves dash against the embankment and there’s a lighthouse and everything and then on the way he pretended he was making up this poem and would give me two new lines every two minutes but really he’d composed it earlier and had to improvise anyway since he forgot half of it and it was just really funny and sweet because by now I was fully certain of what was coming. The reason for the beach was because we first met at the beach all those years ago (7 years and some months to be precise) at that wonderful rendezvous of our youth, EC-41… Then once we’d parked he proposed and got out of the car and got down on his knees and put the ring on my finger! Ah, the ring… the most fabulous exciting bit to any engagement and mine is absofuckinglutely stunning… I love it… it’s a half carat diamond in a platinum setting and it’s from Tiffanys cos Audrey Hepburn style, I’m just craaaazay about Tiffanaaays! Tiffanys has a special significance in our relationship because right from the beginning we never had anything in common except partying and drinking and smoking, and then we had a fight in the early days and I think this song just happened to play and it made us smile so since then he only has to play this song when we’re fighting and it makes us laugh. So when we discussed getting married and stuff in recent years, my only wish (well, by only wish, I don’t really mean only wish – I’m a woman, I’m allowed to have million wishes and dreams for my engagement and wedding) was that the ring be from Tiffanys! Here’s a picture for you but it really needs to be seen in the flesh.
So there we were, engaged after all this time and it was a wonderful exciting feeling. We went to dinner and called all our friends in Melbourne and met a few of them after dinner and I finished a whole bottle of wine in excitement/celebration. The next morning we called up our families and spoke to a few friends in India and basked in the glow of moving on to the next step, scary as it may be. We also had shitloads of cleaning to do that day because the next day a friend from Brisbane and a few members of his family arrived in Melbourne to stay with us and there was barely any time to think for all the people around us and overseas phone calls to make and receive! That week was a total blur with friend getting wasted every night and me having to work so only got wasted one night mid-week. Laughed a lot that week but I think one of my favourite nights that week was just a random week night… I wasn’t drinking, friend was already down something like 6 beers, haha, we went to dinner and it was pouring that night and freezing cold but still lovely because it was raining because as you may or may not know, I love a rainy night. Then we took a drive and picked up a couple of other friends and there were 5 of us in this car on this rainy night with nowhere to go but aimlessly drive and it was just a total Madras flashback! So we ended up in some random outer suburb and parked in some random shopping centre parking lot to have a smoke and a spliff in the freezing cold (cos we do not smoke in the car, some things have changed from when we were juvenile, mildly delinquent teenagers) and then drove back into the city :-) Was so simple and fun and non-alcoholic and reminiscent of MADras!
So that weekend was my “fiancé’s” pre-birthday bash… it was at the rooftop bar I mentioned a couple of posts ago and was another crazy, drunken night that ended at 4:00 in the morning. That Saturday night was someone else’s birthday party so couldn’t recover from hangover and went out that night too but didn’t drink on this occasion so got home fairly early. Sunday was a day of relative rest I think but don’t fully remember and then Monday night we had to stay up till midnight to bring in his birthday and give him presents although there was nothing major cos he only wanted cash and then the next day was a stressful day at work and that evening went to Guitarman’s house to celebrate Mr. Moonlight’s birthday and also Big City Dude’s birthday the day after so quiet bbq and drinks AND a boob cake :-) I will have to find and post the pictures of that cake… was unbelievably delicious even! The next day, had another stressful work day and hurriedly packed and flew to Fiji that night, but that’s a whole other tale!
So that weekend was my “fiancé’s” pre-birthday bash… it was at the rooftop bar I mentioned a couple of posts ago and was another crazy, drunken night that ended at 4:00 in the morning. That Saturday night was someone else’s birthday party so couldn’t recover from hangover and went out that night too but didn’t drink on this occasion so got home fairly early. Sunday was a day of relative rest I think but don’t fully remember and then Monday night we had to stay up till midnight to bring in his birthday and give him presents although there was nothing major cos he only wanted cash and then the next day was a stressful day at work and that evening went to Guitarman’s house to celebrate Mr. Moonlight’s birthday and also Big City Dude’s birthday the day after so quiet bbq and drinks AND a boob cake :-) I will have to find and post the pictures of that cake… was unbelievably delicious even! The next day, had another stressful work day and hurriedly packed and flew to Fiji that night, but that’s a whole other tale!
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Your love is better than ice cream, better than anything I’ve ever tried. And your love is better than ice cream…
I wanted to write this really long post about the love of my life who very recently (read, 2 days after my last post) asked me to marry him (we can now refer to each other with the “f”iance word) and I said Yes of course and it was completely insane for the next few days with calling and talking to people and then we had houseguests and then we had his birthday party on the weekend and did so many other things on the weekend and today is his birthday and today is also the day work decided to put me in a panic by having to get something done by 2:00 pm and tonight is another little do for his birthday and tomorrow night we leave for Fiji and that made me realise this morning I must absolutely do laundry TODAY if I am to have any underwear for the trip and so many little things to finish before we leave tomorrow night and so on and so forth… but the point is, I love you babe and let’s have a blast together this evening since the day turned out to be such a washout thanks to both our jobs. And the post on how we got engaged and pictures of the stunning ring on my finger will be published next week once I get back from Fiji. Until then, Happy Easter and Happy Birthday love!
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
So take the photographs and still frames in your mind, Hang it on a shelf in good health and good time
I just ate about 10 strawberries and was musing on the fact that as a child I was obsessed with strawberry ice cream. And then I remember the day the local ice cream parlour started selling fresh strawberry ice cream i.e. there were little bits of fresh strawberry (but now I wonder, were they really fresh? They must’ve been like dehydrated and frozen and then added to the ice cream like they do with fruit in cereals these days, but anyway) in the strawberry ice cream and my parents got more excited for me than me but it never tasted the same to me again. So now I eat vanilla… it might sound boring but I think vanilla is the most exciting flavour there is… it’s so creamy and milky and tasty… mmm… I also like chocolate and I looooove cookies and cream. I never ever eat strawberry ice cream anymore. But I have become so obsessed with ice cream in the last couple of months… that’s all I want for dessert, ever. Even chocolate doesn’t have the ability to melt my tastebuds anymore… I heart ice cream. I’m not a huge fan of bars and I hate those fruity ice concoctions… what I love is smooth creamy vanilla ice cream (and 97% fat free I might add, the one that I buy from the supermarket) I can scoop into a bowl and add chocolate sauce and rainbow sprinkles too… that’s what I’d do when I’d have the munchies at home and nothing to wake up for the next morning… I would snack and snack and sometimes it’d be savoury potato chips and ketchup or muruku, but a lot of the times it was sweet sweet vanilla ice cream, Hershey’s chocolate sauce and rainbow sprinkles… oh god, it was to die for. Australia, being somewhat anti-America does not sell Hershey’s… can you imagine (don’t really know if it’s related to anti-Americanism in any way but the point is they don’t)? At least they sell Heinz ketchup… I dislike Australia’s version of tomato sauce most definitely… so their version of chocolate sauce is also most disgusting so I just make do with the plain vanilla ice cream and occasionally add rainbow sprinkles… but believe you me, it is never plain vanilla ice cream to me. Sigh… I want to be home raiding my freezer right about now…
So a quick rundown on the crazy trip to Lorne two weekends ago… it was a great trip… I laughed non-stop and pretty much drank non-stop except for the 6 hours of sleep every night.
Word of the trip – Homo… (not in a prejudiced against gay people manner but simply an innocent Eric Cartman manner… oh darling Cartman, one day I will devote an entire post to the hilarity of you)
Drink of the trip – Mojito… (we’d make like 1 or 2 pitchers of cocktails and then get very tired of muddling the ingredients (I own a very awesome cocktail muddle now) so I’d switch back to Bacardi & Coke)
Joke of the trip – JosA and JosB
View of the trip - The view of the Indian/Southern Ocean in all her glory from the convenience of our terrace
Semi-scariest moment of the trip – Oh my god, what is that orange steadily rising up from the horizon??!! It’s an explosion, run for cover… haha (turned out to be a very orange moon… the amazing thing was we found a pair of binoculars in the house and you could actually see the craters on the top half of the moon… intense… imagine a telescope)
Outdoor moment of the trip – Boogie boarding at the beach
Chick flick moment of the trip – curling each other’s eyelashes (I had no clue about the aesthetic effects of eyelash curling – I need to buy myself an eyelash curler pronto), straightening each other’s hair and eye shadowing each other’s eyes… some of the boys were unwilling participants also
Bird of the trip - Kookaburra sitting on the old gum tree... bird with a very discerning palette... ignored all the bread and wasted no time attacking all the ham we gave him
Pictionary moment of the trip – writing down “air” and whispering “peacock”
Randomest moment of the trip – Having randoms buy us drinks at the “club” on Sat night (I use the word “club” very loosely… it was really just one hell of a dodgy as dive), having our Lorne neighbours recognise us and introduce themselves to us (naturally this “club”, the Lorne Hotel, was the only place any self respecting person in Lorne would go to, so everyone and his uncle who wanted to partaaay that Sat night in Lorne, was there… kinda like Madras in some respects, in the G2, EC-41 days), collectively picking up random Kiwi dude and taking him home with us to dice him up and bury him in the backyard (I jest of course… but we did take him home)
Charade of the trip –
Where are you all from?
Uruguay. Where are you from?
New Zealand
Rubbish, you sound Dutch and/or German and/or Norwegian. Tell us really, where are you from?
New Zealand
Fine, be that way. We are of course super hot chicas from Uruguay in South America. Say, let’s talk soccer, patriotic fans that we are…
So how come Uruguayans are not held in the highest regard by the rest of South America?
What? Nonsense… we are wonderful people. It’s the rest of South America that sucks ass
So you all live in Melbourne?
Yeah, you?
Yeah me too (very disappointedly)
Is there something wrong? Would you prefer it if we were all from Lorne?
Yes… haha… I want you to all have been born in Lorne (hahaha, it made me laugh so much at the time)
--half an hour later—
Ok, so we lied. We’re from India.
What? All of you?
Yeah, all of us (sheepish laughter)
Why would you lie?
Why would you lie about being from New Zealand? Come on now, tell us the truth, where are you really from?
New Zealand (in a “why the hell won’t you believe me” tone)
Still don’t believe him, but we’ll see what happens if we ever run into him again. Why Uruguay? Didn’t know, didn’t ask… I was drunk enough to simply go with the flow.
Exercise of the trip – 1km trek down to the lower Erskine Falls and back… God protected me from having to confront any snakes. Thank you God… let’s keep that trend going for all future bushwalking adventures
Picturesque moment of the trip – automatic timer group pictures… 3 in a row and all so it looks like moving pictures… technology, the wonders…
Fiiiiine dining moment of the trip – seafood restaurant on the pier for dinner after 5 straight meals of bread and meat (and eggs for breakfast) on the BBQ… not that I’m complaining mind… it was just a pleasant change.
Laugh out loud moment of the trip – folder or scruncher survey… ahhh, such burning as(s) issues (pun intended)!
Venue of the trip - 38 Great Ocean Road, Lorne... bye bye house
Hungoverest moment of the trip – Saturday morning, Sunday morning, Monday morning and even Tuesday morning ( I dragged myself to work at 11 am on Tuesday after being alcohol free for almost 36 hours)
I feel there are many moments I have missed out, like singing on the balcony and trying to dance backward up steps… and as always, the scintillatingly funny conversations… although scintillating is quite possible misleading… a lot of the most hilarious conversations always seem to begin and end in the gutter. Good times, good times… can’t wait for the next weekend (summer) holiday whenever it may be!
It's something unpredictable
But in the end it's right
I hope you had the time of your life.
So a quick rundown on the crazy trip to Lorne two weekends ago… it was a great trip… I laughed non-stop and pretty much drank non-stop except for the 6 hours of sleep every night.
Word of the trip – Homo… (not in a prejudiced against gay people manner but simply an innocent Eric Cartman manner… oh darling Cartman, one day I will devote an entire post to the hilarity of you)
Drink of the trip – Mojito… (we’d make like 1 or 2 pitchers of cocktails and then get very tired of muddling the ingredients (I own a very awesome cocktail muddle now) so I’d switch back to Bacardi & Coke)
Joke of the trip – JosA and JosB
View of the trip - The view of the Indian/Southern Ocean in all her glory from the convenience of our terrace
Semi-scariest moment of the trip – Oh my god, what is that orange steadily rising up from the horizon??!! It’s an explosion, run for cover… haha (turned out to be a very orange moon… the amazing thing was we found a pair of binoculars in the house and you could actually see the craters on the top half of the moon… intense… imagine a telescope)
Outdoor moment of the trip – Boogie boarding at the beach
Chick flick moment of the trip – curling each other’s eyelashes (I had no clue about the aesthetic effects of eyelash curling – I need to buy myself an eyelash curler pronto), straightening each other’s hair and eye shadowing each other’s eyes… some of the boys were unwilling participants also
Bird of the trip - Kookaburra sitting on the old gum tree... bird with a very discerning palette... ignored all the bread and wasted no time attacking all the ham we gave him
Pictionary moment of the trip – writing down “air” and whispering “peacock”
Randomest moment of the trip – Having randoms buy us drinks at the “club” on Sat night (I use the word “club” very loosely… it was really just one hell of a dodgy as dive), having our Lorne neighbours recognise us and introduce themselves to us (naturally this “club”, the Lorne Hotel, was the only place any self respecting person in Lorne would go to, so everyone and his uncle who wanted to partaaay that Sat night in Lorne, was there… kinda like Madras in some respects, in the G2, EC-41 days), collectively picking up random Kiwi dude and taking him home with us to dice him up and bury him in the backyard (I jest of course… but we did take him home)
Charade of the trip –
Where are you all from?
Uruguay. Where are you from?
New Zealand
Rubbish, you sound Dutch and/or German and/or Norwegian. Tell us really, where are you from?
New Zealand
Fine, be that way. We are of course super hot chicas from Uruguay in South America. Say, let’s talk soccer, patriotic fans that we are…
So how come Uruguayans are not held in the highest regard by the rest of South America?
What? Nonsense… we are wonderful people. It’s the rest of South America that sucks ass
So you all live in Melbourne?
Yeah, you?
Yeah me too (very disappointedly)
Is there something wrong? Would you prefer it if we were all from Lorne?
Yes… haha… I want you to all have been born in Lorne (hahaha, it made me laugh so much at the time)
--half an hour later—
Ok, so we lied. We’re from India.
What? All of you?
Yeah, all of us (sheepish laughter)
Why would you lie?
Why would you lie about being from New Zealand? Come on now, tell us the truth, where are you really from?
New Zealand (in a “why the hell won’t you believe me” tone)
Still don’t believe him, but we’ll see what happens if we ever run into him again. Why Uruguay? Didn’t know, didn’t ask… I was drunk enough to simply go with the flow.
Exercise of the trip – 1km trek down to the lower Erskine Falls and back… God protected me from having to confront any snakes. Thank you God… let’s keep that trend going for all future bushwalking adventures
Picturesque moment of the trip – automatic timer group pictures… 3 in a row and all so it looks like moving pictures… technology, the wonders…
Fiiiiine dining moment of the trip – seafood restaurant on the pier for dinner after 5 straight meals of bread and meat (and eggs for breakfast) on the BBQ… not that I’m complaining mind… it was just a pleasant change.
Laugh out loud moment of the trip – folder or scruncher survey… ahhh, such burning as(s) issues (pun intended)!
Venue of the trip - 38 Great Ocean Road, Lorne... bye bye house
Hungoverest moment of the trip – Saturday morning, Sunday morning, Monday morning and even Tuesday morning ( I dragged myself to work at 11 am on Tuesday after being alcohol free for almost 36 hours)
I feel there are many moments I have missed out, like singing on the balcony and trying to dance backward up steps… and as always, the scintillatingly funny conversations… although scintillating is quite possible misleading… a lot of the most hilarious conversations always seem to begin and end in the gutter. Good times, good times… can’t wait for the next weekend (summer) holiday whenever it may be!
It's something unpredictable
But in the end it's right
I hope you had the time of your life.
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