I probably won't be writing anything until I get back. Until then I thought I could give you a few songs to get stuck in your head.
1. Bag of money - Barnaby Weir (stuck in my head now for 2 days)
2. Fame! I wanna live forever, I wanna learn how to fly - high!
3. Jingle bell jingle bell jingle bell rock
4. Day-o, the Banana Boat song
5. There's a fraction too much friction.
They should keep you going for a few days. Feel free to add more. It is good to be mean.
Having a very pleasant time still. We're in Christchurch, and we're driving to Geraldine tomorrow for a night, then Moeraki for a night (and a meal at Fleur's) and then down to the Catlins for 2 nights. We're not sure how to proceed after that, but basically we need to catch the ferry home on the 3rd.
Today I had a retail bonanza. Like everyone else, I'm all scathing of the whole Boxing Day frenzy, but seemingly, like everyone else, I'm deadly curious about all the bargains and so ventured into town. Man I hit the jackpot. Cheapskates had 50% off the sale price of everything, and when I got up to the counter with my booty, the woman said "yesterday this would have cost $100, how much would you like to pay today?". I was confused. I thought I was going to pay $100. So I said "$50?", and she replied "How about $60". Man. Do you know what I got for that?
1 pair Huffer jeans
1 pair Urchin shorts
1 black huffer top
1 long sleeved black Hurley top
We went back a bit later for some more stuff, but by then they had clicked that by the time people were at the counter, they didn't need to offer ridiculous discounts. 50% off the sale price was fine.
What a boring story. Unless you're in Christchurch in which case you should go and buy some stuff.
To ensure our brains didn't liquify with all the vaccuous shopping activity we went to the Christchurch Art Gallery in the afternoon. There was an amazing exhibition of Korean found art. It was varied and excellent. Some fricking dickhead told my cousin off for accidentally bumping a picture. Some people need to get a life. I evilled him a great deal, and I hope his karma is SHOT for being mean to a lovely young man.
Merry Christmas all.
We are in Christchurch in the bosom (he he bosom) of the whanau. It is lovely. There are children and presents and we are full of chocolate and liquorice.
We arrived yesterday from Hanmer. Hanmer was gorgeous. We went to the hot pools and it rained on us, which is the very best way to enjoy hot pools. Malo sprung a bloody leak on his face in the evening, so there was a bit of late night doctor action. He has a wee strawberry mark thing he knocked off, so not a big deal, but it wasn't going to stop gushing.
Finn is 3, and quite surprisingly in the midst of a very teen obsession with my lovely cousin Annabel. He woefully asked Glen if he was a small boy, and is Annabel a big girl. He seems to have calmed down a smidge. The arrival of my dashing cousing Jesse certainly caused some jealousy. I guess from here on in I kind of understand what it is like to be a mother-in-law.
May you all drink too much and eat too much and write about it in the morning.
Mwah mwah.
We're in Nelson. It is warm and pleasant, and I'm full of raspberries and icecream.
The ferry was warm and busy, but not altogether an unpleasant experience (which is saying something - I'm very prone to seasickness).
I managed to pick Alan out from all the other dads, and met his lovely family. They even shouted Glen a tea. He wasn't geeky, so for a while I'd been eyeing up people who didn't match his description at all.
Not much else to report. The drive through the Sounds was spectacular. We schemed about a move down there. We had some yummy steamed mussels at Mussel Boys in Havelock. They were delicious. Very odd to go to a cafe that doesn't have an espresso machine. Places that aren't Wellington can be a bit different.
Photo evidence of Martha and Alex's big nite out.
This is a pretty blurry photo. I look okay, but Alex is much handsomer in real life.
I should skite about how the waiting-to-be-wedded were in fact set up by me in a stroke of brilliant match making genius.
And here are Mitch and Cam. I hope they don't mind being in my blog. They're ace though, and goodlooking, so we all end up looking good. I told Mitch the same stories about 30 times on Saturday, but Mitch and I have been friends a long time, and I'm pretty sure she is used to it.
We're off on Wednesday. We're catching the ferry and then driving to Nelson for a couple of nights. We then drive to Hanmer Springs for a night and a dip. We'll spend Christmas in Christchurch, and our only other concrete booking are two nights in the Catlins on the 30th and 31st.
It seems so wide open and luxurious to have all this meandering time. Glen is off this very minute trying to find a cable to hook the iriver to the car stereo. Santa has already popped in early and dropped of Finn's bike. Bloody Santa got the bloody colour of it wrong too.
I'm recovering. It is fair to say that I'm not planning on ever touching another drop of alcohol as long as I live.
Well, maybe just one drink.
I may just be ready to talk more specifically about my day yesterday.
Alex and I met at 11.45 at the Matterhorn for a bit of lunch. I had two very delicious fruity cocktails, and Alex had a bottle of rose. I helped Alex finish the rose and he suggested another bottle. So we got a nice Alpha Domus Semillon. Then we thought it would be a much better idea to drink beer (are you begining to understand why I have the worst hangover of my life?), so we got stuck into some Coopers Sparkling Ale, which I think is about the nicest beer ever. Details are a little sketchy from here on. We went and had a look at the Workingmens Club. Yuck. So we didn't stop. We popped into Fidals and consumed something, and then went on to Havana bar and had a couple of mojitos, and ran into some friends. Then we went to Midnight for some nachos. Then we went to Good Luck and I had a cheeky darky - chocolate martini. Then we went to Bodega and there was an african dance party downstairs with free beers. And upstairs Cassette played and some other bands and they were great. And then we went back to Matterhorn and had some more Coopers Sparkling Ales.
Throughout the evening there were a smattering of people we knew and lots of musical people.
And now I feel sick again.
Goodbye.
i am so hungover.
can't really type lying down.
epic night. well, day/night 14 hour drinking session. 'kinoath.
saw lots of celebrities. ended up sitting with anika moa, who is about the most beautiful woman i have ever laid eyes on.
going to die now.
bye bye
I'm a best man. Not so much a man, and certainly not the best at much, but in less than a month I'm my dear friend Alex's best man.
Tomorrow is the stag do. I volunteered a trip to Mermaids, but it wasn't taken up with quite the enthusiasm I'd expected (although in hindsight THANK GOD).
We're going to start of nice and slow, with lunch at the Matterhorn, and who knows what manly hi-jinks will follow. I've readied myself with an amusing ball and chain, some shaving cream and a hooker. I can't wait.
Good gracious. What a swell day. Although there is a heinous traffic jam which prevented people from travelling to the Hutt to see me.
We've had a very nice picnic and the lovely Percy's Reserve. And when I got home my new toy had arrived! If you look closely you'll notice it is playing nice bogan music befitting someone who lives in the Hutt. Actually, because I have some credit still left with Coketunes, I have downloaded some fairly *erm* mainstream music.
I love the iRiver. I feel like it is the first time I've heard good sounds for eons. Our good stereo is in the sleepout, so it is fair to say that we have suffered poor audio for quite a while.
And Emily, the t shirt is from Ripe in Moera. I'm not sure if you can get them anywhere else. It is LOVELY.
I'm old!
And I got surprises! It is fair to say that I am not very good at present time, as I'm a sneaky kid like on Scooby doo.
But Glen pulled one out of the bag this year. First up I got a very cool "Petone T Shirt". Then the piece de resistance - the above Louis Ghost Chair.
I can't take any photos as the camera has chosen today to die.
(James Earl Jones Voice) An important day, a day that will live long in history.
You are all stellar examples of commenters. In you we see the future, and it is good.
(Yoda voice) Good you are. Happy I am. Prizes there are.
50th post award - Hers! Well done.
100th post award - Pamela's workmate! Well done, quite an achievement, now go forth and blog.
Pathos - Emily - well done! You used the word travails, which is good. I want to seem a bit more intellectual, and you raised the bar.
Humour - you're all so damn funny. Alan gets a point FOR THE CHILDREN, but I don't want to appear to be stalking him. David wins as well, but then loses for not being counted.
Oh team, you're all such champions. Please email me your addresses (my email is on my profile) and leftover chocolates, stickers, condoms etc will all be winging your way when I remember to do it.
Now there is commitment.
Whaddaya mean you're still using the Yoda voice?
I'm not posting this, as the 100 comments haven't yet been reached. If they're not reached soon there will be no chocolate left.
That is all I'm saying.
Apart from about birthday pressies. I've got some! Today in the mail I got a nice Dish magazine, I'm sure the promotions people sent it out because they knew it was almost my special day, and the little brochure about buying a subscription was surely a joke.
And I got a singlet from Glen's mum, very nice.
And my sister sent me some lovely goodies from Japan.
And I have a small music player arriving tomorrow - wahoooo. It is an iRiver, but not the U10, this one has more memory (still only 5GBs) which will be PLENTY. And it has a radio. It is called the H10 if you're curious. I'll photograph the lovely beastie when it gets here.
But I'm not posting any of this until you all comment some more.
Oops.
Why don't we all try and get me 100 comments?
To make it more exciting there will be a prize. In fact several prizes. There will be spot prizes for humour and pathos. There will be a prize for comment 50 and comment 100. These exciting prizes will consist of exciting found objets from around our exquisite mansion. There may be some stickers, a couple of choccies from my birthday box (although I haven't got it yet, I know where they are), an condom or two (new!), some teeth whitening strips. These prizes will be heirloom pieces of 21st Century New Art. Just wait til I'm famous to recoup your efforts.
Inspiration for this challenge comes from bloody bastards who get hundreds of comments without trying, and Alan who got 100 some time ago (but I couldn't find the link).
And to get things started I'll tell you a secret. Macleans Whitening Strips. They're fantastic, and only $14 at Woolies this week. Try them, you'll be impressed and not need to go to the dentist for 10 years.
How exciting. I'm a student again! I'm thinking orientation gigs, the student bar, classic hi-jinks, stealing the other school's mascot, initiation... what the?
I am looking forward to it. I'm doing Advanced Public Relations and Political Communication (2 papers, not one with a really long name). The lectures are 4 hours long. We probably should have kept the coffee cart so I could take it to classes. I'll just have to make do with a thermos.
Now I just need a backpack and a new pencil case and I'll be sorted.
This is the last Monday I will be 32. Soon my profile will read 33. I will be mid 30s soon. Does that make me middle-aged? Do people realise that I am still younger than Kylie and Jennifer and Sarah Jessica? Does that make me a MILF? I want to be a MILF. But I wear glasses, and you know what they say.
Life is getting very very deep these days. Watch out. I'll start blogging about ISSUES soon. Heaven forbid.
Hell, lets admit it. I like stuff. Especially gorgeous stuff, and today I am drooling over this
I've decided that it will require a trademe mission - ie. I'll have to sell crap up the value of gorgeous clock radio.
On a less restrained note, I have just bought this
It is actually a necessity, almost like buying groceries or paying a gas bill. Well, a little more like buying chocolate and cake, but still necessary.
Yippee, no-one can accuse me of dwelling on things.
I'm happy the cart has a new home, and I'm happy for the room it has left in our back yard, and the space that has been filled in our bank account, and I'm happy that the new owners love coffee and will use it as it was intended. And I'm happy that I can maybe buy a mini Mazzer now... and just maybe a Rocket... ooohhhh
And I'm happy that this morning rather than feeling like we had to stay home for coffee, we were able to walk down to Go Bang and have a delicious cup made by someone else.
And I'm happy that Fly My Pretties was so brilliant. I'm amazed by the talent in this town. Bloody clever young people. Perhaps I should have kept up the violin, piano, clarinet etc. Except that I truly believe that you can tell at a young age if you have any talent or commitment, and I didn't have either.
It was a fantastic show. It was like a modern take on a variety show I reckon. I'm not very good at naming music genres, but I'm pretty sure they covered most of them last night. That Hollie Smith. Man, what a voice. Sam Scott, brilliant (and Emily got a shout out. Last time I got a shout out, I got was at a Toy Love concert when I was about 8). And Barnaby Weir was brilliant. And Age Prior. And big shout out from me to Brendan Moran. He was so so good. He played one of my favourite shows ever in Hasselhoff in someones flat in Willis St, and the guy is brilliant still.
I'm like Mr Potatohead in the ad crying at the window.
And I'm italics, and they won't go away. Today sucks.
Devastated, gutted, traumatised...
Bambino is gone. Well, strictly speaking Bambino is outside our house, and my pocket is full of dollars, but soon he will be gone.
The days of having a very expensive toy in our backyard are over.
I'm sad. I don't normally care about things like this. I laughed all the way to the bank when we sold our bach, chortled when I sold my shop, was jubilant when we sold the apartment.
But I'm not coping with this. I may have to go and spend some of the monies on a nice new grinder.
I'v been tossing up for weeks now about which portable music player to go for. Each has its own individual charm - the ipod is goodlooking, has huge storage and plays video. I just don't feel like it is right though. There is a cool Toshiba Gigabeat, which is ace of base, bit cheaper and has 40gb, but it is a wee bit chunky.
Today I was geeking my way around the new Noel Leeming Connect, and the salesman gave me a total jewel to hold. The iRiver U10. It is so new that it isn't on Noel Leemings website, but you can check it out on the iRiver website.
It is teeny, and spunky, and an alarm clock, and gorgeous. It is also only 1gb. It plays radio! Oh I'm so torn.
It seems my Steiner education has come back to bite me on the bum. It has turned me into a bit of a hippy.
We had the kindy Christmas party last night, and I was frankly SHOCKED at the food and beverage on offer. They had those cheap fizzy drinks for the kids (not that I think expensive ones would have been better), chippies, chocolate, iceblocks and sausage sizzle. I got a firm "it is Christmas" when I queried the fizz. They're bloody 3 and 4 year olds! They think watered down juice is yummy!
Of course it was a total sugar fuelled frenzy.
Apart from my problems with the food it was really good. Zappo performed. I think that guy must do very well. One of the teachers was certainly swooning (although I'm pretty sure he is playing for the other team).
I was in charge of grog - yay! Sold masses too. Tip for drunk dads: the volunteer/s manning the grog don't think you're funny and don't give a rats arse whether you like your beer colder.
Please vote for Llew. He has promised some chocolate and lots of kegs to anyone who does, and is going to have a massive party with exotic dancers, Paris Hilton's pointy nipples, The Wiggles, Mosaic Tiling, Jessica Simpson NAKED, some sexy feets, a bbq with grillslinger, and all manner of other Google seeking goodies.
http://weblogawards.org/2005/12/best_australia_or_new_zealand.php
For some reason there is no linkage option at the moment.
Find Llew at www.sunnyo.blogspot.com
I'll make it linky web savvy as soon as normality returns to blogger.
Go Llew!
As promised some words about recipes.
I made these cookies using a very nice Nigella recipe. However, I needed to use a little initiative as we only had half as much flour as the recipe called for. I had a box of Dutch Apple Cake mix from the Dutch shop, which I substituted for half the flour. I have a tendency to buy exotic treats from the Dutch Shop, but then don't really know what they are or how to use them.
May I just take a moment to recommend the Dutch Shop in Petone? It is chocka full of goodies. The dutch like everything tasty and not much healthy, so it is a haven for chocolate, liquorice, bickies, croquettes and most notably massive rounds of gouda. The gouda is cheap as chips andn DELICIOUS. Try the cumin one. Mmm.
Back to baking. My cookies are yummy. I will never be able to replicate the recipe due to the unconventional ingredients, so perhaps I should send a couple to Te Papa to keep as unigue pieces of Dutch/Kiwiana.
Yippee. In an early Christmas present to myself I got some tickets to Fly My Pretties. Anyone going? They're playing at the Opera House, so it will be nice and grown up and lazy sitting downish. Hopefully I won't have the woman next to me who just wants to dance. At Phoenix Foundation I saw a lot of armpit action from said woman.
have you noticed a certain amount of sobriety around these parts lately? My system is unhappy, and I'm giving it a few weeks rest from the vino, although a friend tells me that wine is bad, and white spirits are a much better drink for your tummy.
The unfortunate side effect of drying out is that my creativity seems to dry up a little too. I tend to make fewer sweeping statements and rant less about telly. Actually there hasn't been any telly since Buffy. Tonight is Project Runway night though, and it is my TOTAL FAVOURITE.
Anyway. It is my birthday next Friday, and I am going to resume normal service at that point. Until then I will blog about kindy committees, knitting and recipes.
Cheers.
Well, not the matrix. The kindy committee has me fully involved. I'm now (joint) Grants and Fundraising Officer. This kindy doesn't know what it is in for. I'm thinking wine tastings, food tastings, lolly tastings, charity auctions with tastings, tastings with chocolate, tastings with massage, tastings with Buffy watching, tastings with coffee and massage, massage with Angel, chocolate with Angel...
What was I talking about?
Oh the pressure. My sister is in Japan for 5 weeks, and has commented on the lack of bloggage, so this will be one of those posts that isn't clever or funny (perhaps the first hahahahahahahahahha).
Weekend that was:
Did a bit of housey stuff. Glen started stopping the holes in the back wall in anticipation of a big painting effort from Pamela (yay!). Moved the modem back to the bedroom. Loaded some software onto the laptop. I'm loving the Google desktop sidebar. Went for a walk. Went to the moustache party. Got asked three times if I was pregnant (which I'm not - sometimes I just don't drink - okay, that one day I didn't drink and when I was pregnant - so fair enough question).
Sunday had a headache all morning that didn't go away until I had a coffee in the afternoon. Foul addiction. We went to a birthday party with the most phenomenal inflatable waterslide you have ever seen. Ate lots. It was lovely.
And watched some Buffy. It is quite creepy at the moment (end of Season 2). Angel is better bad, but I still kind of want him good again.
And I've just received an email from Joanna in Afghanistan saying she is coming back for Christmas. Yay Jo!
Splendiferous party. Lots of delicious food and delicious people. Lots of very dodgy moustaches, and some fairly priceless outfits to match.
Here are a few of the chaps. I should have rounded them all up really. Oh well, they can do it again next year...
‘kinoath. It seems that four episodes in a row of Buffy is just the right amount to make you go mental. I lay awake in bed last night marvelling at how much I'm like Buffy, and then had dreams involving my son scuttling around like a rodent vampire.
The first thing Glen said this morning was “that was one too many episodes of Buffy last night”.
She has taken over our life. And all I can think about now is how much I’d like to watch another episode, and could I sneak into the bedroom with the laptop unnoticed for the afternoon.
Which I won’t do, we have the Moustache Reveal Party to attend.
Perhaps a social life will help keep me sane. And the prospect of numerous lawyers, policy analysts, contracts managers and policemen all with Tom Selleck face is something I’m quite looking forward to.
The second of a series of polls to find out who you’d do.
