Unethical investments

I try to be a good citizen. I have sponsor kids in far flung, poor nations. I seperate my recyclables from my non-recyclables (even when I know they all end up in the same place). I never litter, and I try to ensure that we always take our green bags to the shops so we don’t use plastics.

But when it comes to my afore-mentioned “acceptable gambling” (shares), I’m not very good. I have invested in Uranium mining companies. And not just one. More than one. I’ve tried to balance this out with my investments in a bio-diesel company, a wind energy company and even a wave energy company.. but to be honest… the uranium ones are the ones bringing in the bucks. Does this make me a bad person? I’m just glad I don’t have investments in brown coal facilities or something.. that would really keep my awake at night.

Turtle paradise

With winter being over, there is one member of our family who gets more excited than anyone else. More excited, and much more active.. Mate, the turtle has been making his presence felt – she is up every morning to greet K and I as we sluggishly make out way to the coffee, she is awake at night to come and sniff our feet (that cold little nose can give you the shock of your life when you’re not expecting it!) and she is hungry, hungry, hungry. Like ALL the time.

This morning, we were woken by a loud banging sound, and K, bless him, jumped out of bed, knowing exactly what the problem was. He had seen it/heard it before – Mate was trying to get out from under the TV cabinet and had got a cord caught on her shell. Unable to move forward, she was banging on the bottom of the cabinet until K went to the rescue!

After being pulled to safety, Mate strolled up the passageway (probably to catch a glimpse of my lover in the shower – it is a girl turtle after all – who can blame her!) and wandered around our bedroom. I came out to the loungeroom to start working, and when I went up to see what she was up to, I found her in the shower… And then the idea for turtle paradise struck.

I filled our big bath with lots of lots of water… making it twice as deep as Mate’s tank.. And in she went.. Turtle heaven. Mate could hardly contain her enthusiasm as she did some deep dives, swam a few laps underwater, blew some bubbles up (a sure sign of turtle happiness), and finally came up for air. It made my cold heart sing with joy to see her so happy!

My friend came over to visit and I wanted to show my newly emerged from hibernation, happy turtle off. Azza took one look at the bath and said to me, in a very disgusted tone, “No matter how much disinfectant or cleaner you use, I would never bath in that bath again.”

But what about the happy turtle? “Who cares?” said Azza, “it’s gross.”

Note to self: some people love the turtle. Other’s, not so much.

Incu = in queue

K emailed me some details about a sale for one of the shops he likes – Incu. A three-day, warehouse sale that started on Friday morning at 9am and went through to Sunday at 6pm.Would I go with him on Friday morning, his email said, “and buy him lots of stuff?” Hmmm.

It wasn’t so much the buying-him-stuff that I was worried about, more the getting-up-early, trawling-through-tables-of-discarded-clothes-in-desperate-search-of-a-bargain and dealing-with-hungry-wannabe-fashionistas-stuff that I wasn’t neccessarily keen on. I’m not, nor ever have been, a fashionista in even the most broadest sense of the word, and quite frankly, hanging out with people with bad haircuts, skinny jeans, black bras under white or grey tops, and lots of bangles (and of course the dubious accents they all seem to put on) starts to wear me down.

But I am in love. So I went. And I stood by the side of the road at 9 in the morning with all the other desperados trying to snag themselves a bargain. I knew I had a work call at 11 so there was no way I was going to be able to stay past 10.35 (unless I wanted to be late for the call I was running). We shuffled up the footpath, inch by inch as the minutes passed. Until finally we were third in line. It was 10.40. I got a glimpse of the inside of the warehouse, with the racks of clothes thrown together as throngs of people waded through them, before I had to go.

One hour and forty minutes of my life that I am never, ever going to get back. Longer than most of my conference calls that I am at least getting paid for. Standing on the street corner, feeling like a tight ar$e because I want to rifle through piles of clothes to get a bargain rather than pay full price. And I didn’t even buy anything.

That was my first and last warehouse sale. Unless it’s Liquor Land.

Airconditioning

As I’m sitting here writing, I have two men behind me arguing over my heating/cooling system. This is, hopefully, the last in a series of events that have dragged on and on for months. It all started… when we moved into our apartment. And the heating didn’t work. Not a big deal really, in March, when the weather is mild. But as the weather grew colder, we wanted some warmth.

I called my property agent, and he said he would sort it. Now, no offence to any property agents out there, but let’s be honest – when you’re dealing with rental properties that your company earns about $10 a week on, let’s be brutal, you don’t really give a large rodent’s behind.

I called my property agent about 10 times before he got someone out to look at the heating/cooling unit. The dude came and had a look and told me he would call me when the part he needed came in. 6 weeks and 10 more phonecalls. He came back. And got the thing working. For a week. Then it broke again..

After about call number 10 this time round, I was getting, let’s say, a wee bit frustrated. I rang at 8.45 in the morning and explained to my property agent, as calmly as I could that 1. it was cold in our flat. 2. he advertised heating when the apartment was advertised. 3. we don’t have heating. 4. he has promised us heating. 5. i was getting sick of calling him. and 6. that he was slack and i was getting frustrated.

And my wonderful property agent’s response? He replied with, “You know what? You are very mean? You even are calling me so early in the morning!” (my property agent isn’t a native English speaker – not sure if I did his heavily accented, extremely frustrated tones justice.) This was at about 9am by the way. 9am. I was at work. My colleagues were all at work. AND he called me nasty! I hadn’t even started!!

Anyway to keep to the programme.. I have two men in my apartment now, arguing over how to get the darn thing fixed. I don’t really care how they do it. It would just be nice to have some heat when it’s cold and some cold air when it’s hot. That’s not too much to ask is it? I don’t want to have to call my property agent again and get nasty..

** Just as an aside to this (not-very-interesting-venting-of-the-spleen) – the two men were hunched over the airconditioning unit, when Mate decided to come out and say hello. I have never seen to grown men (with a combined age of at least 100) jump so high in their lives! Farken hilarious!! x

Sobriety on a pub crawl

Oh what fun, I can hear you all think as you read today’s entry title. And let me tell you, it was LOADS of fun. For the first two pubs. After that, it was already getting a wee bit tedious.

It was my best mate’s b’day last week and he decided to have a pub crawl in his own honour on Saturday. K and I warned him that we wouldn’t be drinking (see a previous entry on our tee-totalling adventures), and we felt bad to be letting him down – he was, afterall, expecting us to be, true to form, the life of the party (a.k.a. “the two loosest (or drunkest) people there”). But no, we were the models of sobreity and calm as we supped on soda waters and ocassionally went a little crazy with some fresh squeezed limes.

At about pub three was when things started to slide. That was when my mate started slurring his words, his female friends started getting a bit more touchy-feely than they had been at the previous pub, and K and I could see chaos peeking through the door, wondering if it was time for it’s grand entrance. We stayed for two more pubs.

When we left, we were hugged emphatically and held close, as fond farewells were whispered in voices loud enough to be heard across the room. “I love you guys,” said our mate, as he tried to plant a kiss on K’s cheek, “thanks for staying out even though you’re not drinking. You’re the best. I love you guys.” Drunkenness had well and truly set in. It was there to stay.

And we left. We were home by 8pm. In bed by 10. And woke up the next morning at a crack of dawn, grateful that the month was almost over. Sobreity is boring. I intend to be drunk (and absoluely frickin’ hilarious) next weekend!

Happy birthday to the bestie – hope it was a cracker! x x

Carparking schemer

A few weeks ago, I put up a sign in the lift in my building asking if anyone had a carpark available that I could use. I was prepared to pay $20 a week in whatever form they wanted (EFTPOS, cash, whatevs) and was ready to rock and roll whenever they were.

A few hours after I put the sign up, I got a phone call from some dude telling me that I could park in his park for $25 a week. But my sign said $20? “Yeah, I know,” he said, “but I want $25″. Right. So, you think you deserve $25 for a car park you are currently getting nothing for, because I went to the trouble of putting up a sign. Hells still looking warm mate. No chance.

And in my ever so delicate manner, I said this, “I don’t think so mate, I’ll see if someone has one for $20 and if they don’t, I’ll get back to you, alright?”

And then my sign was pulled down. Funny, I didn’t take it down. And I know building management didn’t take it down. So I put up another one. Which was taken down soon after. My car park schemer was determined that I wasn’t going to get my $20 a week carpark. I put up 6 signs in total and I can only guess that he took down 6 signs. Muthafarker!

So I went to a different lift (our bulding is big and spreads out – there are four different lift shafts) and I put up a sign, and the very next day I got a car park. Sucked in carpark schemer. I’m only paying $20.

Taking the plunge..

K and his brother-in-law did a sky dive over the weekend. (And as an aside, what a glorious weekend it was here in Sydney town – 27 degrees, perfect weather – and we are still in winter!) I have to admit to being a little bit anxious. Ok, I was fretting. After all, my dearest loved one was taking it upon himself to step out of a plane at 15,000 feet connected by two little straps to some crazy nutbag who chooses to do it for a living – death is only a strong wind and a tail spin away.

You’ve probably realised by the tone of this blog entry that K didn’t actually die on Saturday afternoon as he fell from the sky, but I was pretty nervous about it. My main reason being that things have been going so well for us and you always read about couples who are just so in love, and so ridiculously happy, and so about to start the glorious rest of their lives together, that these tragic accidents happen to.. you know?

I made sure my hair and make-up were looking ok before we drove down to the ‘gong for K’s jump – after all, if K was going to die suddenly, I figured that I had better capitalise on it by launching my international journalism career by appearing on National 9 news speaking eloquently and articulately about the tragic event. He would want that.

K’s sister and I were both worried about our men taking the plunge (me more so than she, I think) so we anxiously watched them get into their jump suits and receive some brief instruction. We waited with them in the waiting room until the person in charge asked them to move outside. We both stood, expecting a reassuring hug, a tender kiss, or maybe a (tentatively last ever) “I love you” from the loves of our lives before they jumped out of a moving plane. But what did we get? That’s right. A big fat nada. K and his bro-in-law turned on their heels and walked away without even a cursory glance in our direction. Cheers dudes.

So K’s sister (who in future entries, I’ll refer to as SIL – for she’ll be my sister-in-law one day) and I took our place on a blanket in the sun and waited for the parachutes to open in the sky above. We gorged on cheese, and would have guzzled wine had I been drinking, until our men landed about 10 metres away from us. Safely, soundly. Thankfully.

My hair and make-up had all been for nothing.

Non-drinking dilemmas

Every regular reader of this blog would be aware that I am never afraid of an after work beverage, a cheeky wine in the afternoon on the weekends, a night on the turps in a seedy establishment or even a hangover that lasts for days. I love a drink, I love the social activity of drinking, and I even love being a bit tipsy (*note, I’m not saying drunk – this is a family-friendly, responsible site – kidding, I don’t give a shit about the kiddies, I just don’t like being super drunk – super-tiddly to the point of verging on super drunk maybe… but you get the idea).

So it really as a match made in heaven when I met K, surprisingly at some ungodly hour of the morning, in one of Sydney’s more notorious dens of iniquity. Let’s just say he doesn’t oft say no to an alcoholic beverage either. I will say in both of our defences that neither of us are alcoholic, or even what I would call binge drinkers.. we just both like a good time and have a hard time turning one down.

And so we come to August.. after months and months of fun-filled weekends, caused by celebrations (my moving ot Sydney, our moving in together, engagements, birthdays, weddings, the fact that we cleaned the house, you name it, we’ve celebrated it) too great to name, we have decided to take a month off. A month of no wines of an evening with dinner, no boozing in the local pub on Saturday nights, and no catching up for a beer with friends.. ever. It has been.. interesting. I don’t think either of us have found it hard. Not in the slightest actually. And we have acheived a lot. The spare room has been cleaned out, we have been walking ever day, we have studied, worked, done all sorts of things where we otherwise might have been relaxing/sleeping/snoring as a result of wee hangovers.

The problem is drawing near though. Our mate is having birthday drinks on the second-to-last day of the month.. and it’s a pub crawl (more on that later). And there is only one thing worse than not drinking on a pub crawl, and that is putting up with all the drunken fools that are on that same pub crawl. What are we to do? Stay tuned..

Facebook Farmtown

One of my lovely colleagues, S, has introduced me to, what she admitted was “the stupidest thing she has ever been addicted to”. Now, admittedly she is a wholesome lass who probably has never been addicted to heroin or ice or some other “stupid” thing.. but this thing is pretty stupid. It’s a hokey little Facebook application called “Farmtown” where you plow fields, plant seedlings, harvest the crops and sell them at the marketplace. Sounds almost as exciting as it actually is.

So, on S’s advice, I got onboard. I signed upfor my little patch of unplowed field and planted my first batch of potatoes. And I sold them. And I planted some strawberries. And I sold them. So I planted some tomatoes. And I sold them. Are you getting the idea? You use your “coin” to buy seeds in the store, but the crazy thing is that you can use REAL money to buy coin if you want to. So someone, somewhere, probably sitting in a dark corner of a poorly decorated office, is making money from this very boring, very poorly decorated application.

Anyhoo, I’m getting of the farm track. So, this terrible application. You don’t compete with anyone, you don’t really acheive anything except different levels at which you can buy new, exciting types of seeds (or trees, or even animals), actually, there is not really any reward in the game at all. It is a sign of our times – an absolute timewaster of the highest order. And someone is making (lots) money from it! And that someone isn’t me.

But enough moaning. My grape crops are ready for harvest.

Reactivating my genes?

I accompanied K to his favourite chemist over the weekend. I say it’s his favourite chemist, but in reality, I think he loves that he is their favourite customer… the women there fawn all over him – probably because he spends an exorbinant amount of money on their tier 1 product lines for men. But, hey, I’m not complaining. If my man needs product to maintain his youthful good looks and creaseless brow, so be it. It just that I am a bit of a cynic when it comes to $300 face creams. Don’t get my wrong, I’m not using the cheapest products on the market, and I definitely think moisturisers are important for everyone – especially those of us down under who spend a lot of time in the sun.. but, I’m not prepared to give more to a cosmetic company that I give to World Vision each month for my sponsor kids survival.

And those chemist girls see me coming a mile off… On Saturday, I got the standard discouraging look with a slight grimace, as the lady asked me what I was presently using on my skin. I laughed nervously, as K handed his $300 across the counter, and said, “oh, I don’t spend that much on my skin products.”

“I can tell,” came the terse response.

Right. So, I let her do a quick skin assessment (I didn’t really have a choice) and watched as she rifled around in a cupboard for hoardes and hoardes of samples. No problemo, I thought to myself as she squeezed 6 little boxes into my palm. It was when she pulled out the first sample and tried to tell me that by using it, I was going to “reactivate my genes”, that my disbelief crept in. Reactivate my genes? Can I reactivate them so that they I am now blue-eyed, instead of brown? Or maybe waif-like, rather than the German stocky genes I’ve been blessed with.

I questioned her on it (“sorry?”) and she told me ephatically again, that this moisturiser was going to re-activate my genes to make me look younger. If she had said that the moisturiser was going to plump the cells under my eyes with calf fat, I would have believed her more. But reactivating the genes, or the double helix they sit on, or even the chromosomes doesn’t sit well with me. I think the lady in the chemist, even if she was 38 with the skin of a 16 year old, was telling me porkie pies!

Banging them out (blog posts, that is.. or is it?)

“Wow!” I can hear you all saying, “she’s blogged again so soon!” I know, I know.. I’ve gotta keep you all on your toes…

My blog topic today: BABIES. So many of my friends are either in the process of churning them out, or have already popped one out recently. I saw a friend today for lunch who is onto baby number 2 and man, she was preggers! And she still has 10 weeks to go!

My bestie had a little one a few months ago. He is the cutest kid with big dimples and blonde hair and blue eyes.. who looks nothing like his Greek mother – I have no idea how she carried a kid with snow white hair in the womb when she has the biggest amount of dark brown Greek hair you have ever seen in your life. Think Effie from Acropylis Now but without the hairspray (and only without the hairpsray because it’s 2009 – in 1989, she did hairspray with aplomb).

And the mum-to-be I saw today had baby number one running around – again, a cute little girl with the most placid demeanour ever – but it doesn’t look like either parent. In fact, the mother told me, no-one is sure where she gets her brown eyes from, when no-one in the family, going back generations has brown eyes. The mother is blue-eyed.

Now, I did biology. I understand recessive and dominant genes. How does a mother with blue eyes and a father with green eyes have a baby with brown eyes? And a mother with dark brown hair, green eyes and a father with blonde hair and blue eyes – a baby with white blonde hair and hazel eyes? Hmmm. It confuses me.

Now, me and my man, are both brown eyed and brown haired – infact, K has a touch of Maori in him. So i can already imagine what our kids will look like (and no, this isn’t preparing you for any announcements!) – we will have one with blonde hair and blue eyes (because no-one in either family is blonde with blue eyes) and one will be a little Maori throw-back, replete with a chin tattoo and the tongue hanging out as though he were doing a haka at the rugby. And I will look like the hired help, nannying these two ankle-biters that look nothing like me.

Dis queue at Heathrow!

Arrived in London at the amazing Heathrow (sarcasm, people, sarcasm) and waited for them to process the 1000 people that were waiting in the queue before me. The most interesting thing about the wait was the larger lady from (I’m guessing) Africa, who decided she didn’t wanna wait no more. “Hurry up, I’m dying in dis line!” she called to the non-plussed customs officers.

No-one responded. So she tried again. “If you don’t hurry dis line up, I’ll be comin’ over dere!”

Again, she received barely a glance from the otherwise-engaged customs officers. So she hoiked up her dressed, and made to clamber over the chain to approach a desk. Nothing like encouraging a bit of action. About three security guards descended upon her, a few customs officials jumped out from behind their desks (and let me tell you, the 1000 people all still waiting and not clambering  started muttering almost as one “get back behind your desks and keep processing, ya bastards!”

Now, she had everyone’s attention. I started applying some make-up and brushing my hair incase the camera crew from Border Security were about to make an appearance. She started screaming about how she was getting hot and was going to faint. Let me tell you, that would have been an interesting sight to see, as she was not a petite little thing. After about thirty minutes of arguing and otherwise engaging at least three customs officials who could have been processing us other plebs, she got to make her appeal to be let into the country. And I think she lost it. Or it looked that way when I finally got through (I was at the counter for all of four minutes after queuing for an hour) and she as still sitting in the naughty chair, or whatever they call the seats poor sods have to sit in when their passport details don’t look right.. Good luck honey!!

Let’s start at the very beginning..

I’ve been home for two weeks now and have been so frickin’ busy with work it’s not funny. Holiday? What holiday? Something like that anyway. But have been tossing and turning at nights churning blog entries over in my brain and will start to get some of them down.. I want to bore you all with a few tales from my trip (and no, none of this “we went here, and saw this cathedral, then we went here, and saw this cathedral, then we went here and saw this cathedral”.. oh no, no, no.. except for my Westminster Abbey story.. coming soon!)

So will start with the beginning.. my flight over. I got to the airport (yes, I am going THAT far back) and unloaded myself from the car (thanks cuz and flatmate-that-I-love-even-though-you’re-not-my-flatmate-anymore) and proceeded to strut, like the world weary traveller I am to the check-in desk. I think it was a group of about 30, no, let’s say 40 people, that my cheap ass carry bag decided to break, spilling it’s contents across the space of about ten metres. I was on the phone at the time (big surprise there!) and bent (forgetting I had a 24 kg rucksack on my back) and tried to pick up my crap. Much to the humour of the onlookers. Who tittered and chuckled, giggled and POINTED… and didn’t help me.

By the time I got to the checkin desk the dude behind it, who was witness to the whole spectacle and was trying hard to contain his laughter. I managed to smile (through gritted teeth) and luckily he took pity on me and gave me rows to myself all the way to London. Snooze-fest guaranteed. So, the lesson for the day is… to get a good seat on a plane, make a right dick of yourself where the dude checking you in can see. Yes, something to remember for all of us, I think.

Prahahahahahahaha

*So, my keyboard does weird things when I attempt grammar – apologies..

I havent written for a while, and this time its not because Ive been working like a mother trucker. Rather, Ive been gallivanting.. as I write Im sitting in Prague with my lovely ex-flatmate from when I lived in ma wee Edinburgh.. and what a fab time weve been having.. well, actually, not that great a time in Prague.. but a farken AWESOME time in Split. We are both brown as berries thanks to days and days spent by the beach on the Dalmatian Coast in Croatia. Was AH-MAY-ZING!! But Prague.. hmm..

So, we stayed here a week ago.. the room was charged to our other friends card. We then get an email from the hotel saying that because the toilet had broken and flooded and they had found a condom in the pipes – and a peach stone, but thats not quite as interesting.. or is it -so they had charged her card a second time.. for 7000 Czech Crowns, or about 500 Aussie dollars. For a condom.. Hmm.. For three girls, who had arrived after midnight, crashed out almost immediately and checked out again before 10 am, we were a little suprised to say the least. Two of us had gone for a walk in the morning and I really take my hat off to our girlfriend if she had managed to find a boy to use a condom – and maybe a peach – in the very short space of time we were away.. Although, in hindsight, she DOES have a cute Scottish accent.. Hmm..

Anyway, so we explained our case with the receptionist, the other receptionist, the two managers, the police, the tourist police, and have been given instructions to take it up with either a Czech magistrate !! or the Prague Business Inspector.. but anyhoo.. I digress.

The trip is fab. Life is good. Prague rocks, but Croatia – man, it was AMAZING! And avoid the BlackStar or Clementin hotel in Praha at all costs.. they have condoms in their toilets. And peach stones.

Facebook follies

My oft-mentioned friend asked me to check her facebook profile the other day, so I did. And noticed her status said “D* is thanking her lucky stars she has such an awsome boyfriend! If he was half as good as he is she would still be getting spoilt!” (* Not her real name!). Two things struck me. Firstly, that it looked like something her boyfriend would write, and secondly, that if it was, he can’t spell awEsome. But I digress.

D and I had a giggle and then she asked me to check it again.. which I did. And this time it read “D suggests her boyfriend consider investigating precisely what an ‘awsome boyfriend’ may constitute, prior to next updating her profile status for her!!!!” Which I thought was humourous, succinct and to the point.

Later, she made a further update: “D thinks her boyfriend’s definitions may well be turbid – there’s nothing in the dictionary under awesome relating to he, and she knows not of being spoilt!”. Again, I was laughing.. until she removed it completely. When I questioned her on it, she said, she had had a few messages asking somethig along the lines of “trouble in paradise?”

So people were checking her profile, or seeing her status updates, and thinking the worst? That was even funnier. It was tongue-in-cheek people! I found it all mildly amusing. But mainly because of my own experiences on facebook (mentioned in previous emails – when my loser ex decided to tell all of our mutual friends (and in doing so, me at the same time) that he was now single – when he begged me back as his friend, I politely declined).

I think there is a lesson in this for all of us, don’t you? Facebook is like a washing line, where all of your neighbours, and the world, can see.  Dirty laundry, humourous or not, get seen by all!

It’s all happening at the zoo..

… I do believe it. I do believe it’s true. (It’s a  Simon and Garfunkel song people! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGykXOamGqE& - Azza G – check it out!). So spent a Saturday night in Sydders with the fabuloose Azza – a very good friend who never fails to amaze me with his acts of randomness.. and this weekend was no exception – but was it the fact that he was watching some farked up movie about incest, murder and other wierdness, or was it that he announced that he had purchased a year long pass to the Taronga Zoo. Only you darls. Only you.

So we traipsed to the zoo on the Sunday. The weather was amazing and Sydney turned it on! We were walking around, taking in the sights (the animals AND the harbour) and enjoying the sunshine. It was gorgeous! We also (Az made us) watched the bird show, we tried to get to the seal show (a few times – who knew it was so popular), and we rode the cable car. Was hilarious.

But most hilarious of all was the two of us, well-rested and unburdened, watching the streams of parents carrying screaming toddlers, wiping snotty-nosed children, begging their darlings to please eat what they were given instead of what they had decided they wanted and arguing with each other over who was pushing the pram/carrying the bags of necessary child-paraphenalia/buying the drinks/carrying the baby. It was kinda fun. Rock on school holidays!

Work drinks with the boys!!

Have got so many tales of adventure and mischief that I don’t even know when to start.. Here is a good place though.. After two weeks of almost solid conference calls (why do people like them so much? Personally, I just don’t get the attraction), the boys (or boizzzz) decided that we all needed a good ole’ heels up. Actually, a couple of the boys were leaving our little gang for greener pastures so they were having one of their “boys nights”. I actually don’t ever get invited to boys night. The boys are generally not from Melbourne so their wives and girlfriends are usually interstate or overseas – you can probably guess the sort of places they go to and can probably also guess why I only find out about the nights out after the fact. Anyway. A few demands to be invited out.. et voila! I got a guernsey to the night.

And we started the evening in a salubrious establishment, which let’s face it was just a restaurant and nowhere near as exciting as the place we went to next.. Kittens. And no, it wasn’t a pet store specialising in bundles of fluffy goodness. It was a strip club. And not a very nice one at that. But the boys liked it. Because apparently, in Kittens, you can actually touch. (In my opinion, in Kittens, I don’t know why you would want to.) At first, I was worried that I may have been holding the boys back, but a few beers into the night, and slowly, one by one, my beloved work colleagues, made their way into “the back room”. A dark, and dingy looking place, with bouncers minding the door, so nosey people (or me in this case) couldn’t even peek in.

One of the highlights (if we use that word loosely), was the oldest, chubbiest stripper i have ever seen, or imagined, doing a kind of gyration as she was perched on the edge of the stage. Behind her was the most athletic, acrobatic, amazingly-figured woman (whom the men deemed “too masculine”) doing splits on the roof, spinning around the pole like there was no tomorrow and other earth-defying feats. And you know who got a dance with one of my lovely boys – yup, you guessed it – the old,chubber. Well done Tom! She wasn’t even wearing a nice bikini!

But I digress. So the talk of the next day was the champagne show – wow! And a good night had by all.  Lots of fun with my boys. Big love to them all and thanks for taking this little worker bee out!

Back to it

Has been a while, and for those of you who read this and/or know me, and know that I am a big drinker, let me just say – this one was mammoth. Previous hangovers have all paled in comparison to the mega-uber-super hangover I sustained after my best friends wedding. Obviously I wasn’t a bridesmaids – bridesmaids are demure and lovely and don’t get drunked, while guests (such as my good self) obliterate themselves and their livers in the quest for total annihilition/inebriation. This one took the cake. It was so bad that I think it was only by day 4 that I was finally, thankfully, eventually coming good.

And then I called glittergirl.. And on the weekend, while I was skulling champers and ouzo (my bestie is Greek, her dad loves the ouzo!), and kicking my heels up with a fab “oopa!” as I danced like Zorba himself, she was running some 150-km-31-hour-through-the-bush-at-midnight-kayaking-through-mangroves-with-leeches-thing called a geochallenge. And surprise, surprise, it took her about 4 days to recover as well. So which one had more fun, I guess is the question.. as in, which one was worth spending 4 days in a dazed and confused state, not wanting to get out of bed, but having too much of the horrors to be able to sleep? Hmmm, it’s certainly a tough one.

I was just glad when the now ex-flatmate-that-I-love came over this evening on her way to IKEA for home furnishings and brought with her a cask of Yalumba’s finest. It meant she was on the mend as well. And a few glasses have made me feel better – maybe that was what my body was crying out for these last few days..

Anyway – congrats to M and C – big love to both of you – A stunning bride and a gorgeous groom. My camera was a casualty on the night, but I still have a few amazing pics. Thanks for a great day. It was well and truly worth 4 days of my life. x x

Back door bandits

No, not half as bad as the title suggests..

A couple of entries ago I wrote of my flatmate and i being a bit fabu-loose and heading to Revolver for some shenanigans. Well, we went there again on Saturday night and having discovered the secret back entrance on our previous venture here, we decided to forego the cover charge on the front door, in favour of mischeif – and being the very mature 31 and 33 year olds we are, we snuck in the back way. I don’t know how we got in, as the place was crawling with bouncers, but we did, and as they say, that is all that counts.

Our day actually started much more respectfully.. and that was at 1pm that afternoon when we went to a very nice restaurant (called Orange on Chapel Street) and drank red wine in front of a blazing fire. It was warm, cosy and delightful. I then had to attend a 2 hour engagement party in the early evening and when everyone left the venue, I called up the flatmate to get her to come to help my polish off the remaining bottles of champers – and let me tell you, there was a few.

There was another establishment between said-engagement party venue and Revolting but I won’t go into details.. except to say thank god for my camera – we needed a refresher the next morning on what had gone on.. and this was the most enlightening photo:

Yes, my friends, that is the flatmate-that-I-love, with a horses head on, kissing a boy with..um, the rest of the horses outfit. What a classy lady! But nowhere near as classy as the gorilla or the tiger in the background!

Fabu-loose

So, it started with a few quiet after work drinks, as they often do. My flatmate and I headed to a rather classy, sedate establishment in the city, at the Paris end of Collins Street and we supped on French champagne and chatted about love, life and laughable lads.

We then walked to another less fabulous establishment (her choice, not mine) and finally made it to one of my favourite bars in Melbourne - Cookie. It was all going very nicely until someone mentioned a new roof-top bar that had opened.. and suggested we go and have a look. So we did. And it was a wful. So we decided to knock our drinks back and get out of there.. And in hindsight that was probably the beginning of the end.

We ditched the city and headed back to the heartland – South Yarra and our beloved Chapel Street.  And for those who think that flatmate-that-I-love and I go here to be scene queens – in fact it is quite the opposite – we go here because it is within staggering distance to home.. So, we headed to another favourite, Electric Lady Lounge or Lady Bird or whatever it’s called.. This is a nice bar and reminds me of home (Sydders) – it’s a bit pretentious, but jam packed of the beautiful people out to see and be seen. I love it.

We stumbled to a couple more bars and were then going to hit the old “guarantee” bar (mentioned previously in this blog – name omitted – we don’t want you all rushing there – our 100% success rate might drop!) when my flatmate suggested Revolver. Shudder. I have succesfully avoided Revolter since I moved here (have been there many times previously when on holiday to Melbourne) and was proud of never having graced it’s seedy, steamy innards while living about a kilometre up the road. But it was late.. and I was drunk. So I said “sure!!”.

That was the mistake right there. We walked in, my hot, blonde flatmate and I, and boys were on us like flies to honey. And did we care? Not at all! We chatted to them all, flirting up a storm, having drinks bought.. getting drunker and drunker, and of course more glamourous by the second. It was when a few cornered me demanding to know why I was paying others attention also, that i realised it was time to leave.. so we did what any two respectable girls would do – said we were going to the toilet and did a runner out the back door so as not to have to face these less than salubrious types again.

We found ourselves in a dark alley (god only knows where, I certainly wouldn’t be able to find it again) and headed towards the light.. At the light, we stumbled across (shock, horror) MORE boys who asked, “do you girls wanna come to Revolver?” They jumped back when we both yelled emphatically “NO!”

They settled for a gay bar nearby and we sat and drank.. um.. I don’t remember, until the wee hours of the morning. And as harsh daylight began to appear we realised it was time to go. If I had met the orthopaedic surgeon at any other time, it might have been something special. But alas. I was being fabu-loose and it was more certainly not to be. Har, har, har, har.