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.

GRQ

K and I have been trying to put our collective thick skulls together to come up with a fast and easy way to make some money. We want a get rich quick scheme that doesn’t take pyramid selling, busting our a$$es, illegal activities, or flogging stuff to friends.

I came up with the idea that I could sell people’s unwanted items on ebay and take a percentage of it.

K’s idea was a bit different. He decided we can open up a TAB account – for those not in Australia, the Totalitizer Agency Board is our biggest betting agency. This way we can make HEAPS of money betting on sporting events, on Australian Idol, and horse racing.

There’s is only one flaw in his plan. And that is that neither of us really know how to bet. I mean, we can put a few bob on a nag on Melbourne Cup day or whatever.. but knowing what team to bet on, to win by how many goals, etc.. Not really something we know how to do.

Anyone got anything they need me to sell?

Oh the pain!

I can hardly walk today. Actually, I can hardly move. My legs are sore, my arms are killing me. My upper and lower back is in pain. And I’m sure you can all guess why.. the old phenomenon of an extremely unfit person at the start of the new exercise regime!

I have a very good friend who is not only good-looking, smart, funny, you know, all the usual stuff that make men LURVE her.. but she is also extremely fit. I think fitness is her passion.. she goes to the gym 6-7 times a week. And she loves it. In the same way that I love wine, or cheese, or anything else that does the opposite to me of what her passion does to her. And I admire her. Because she doesn’t brag, or boast about how fit she is or what good shape her body is in. But she always looks good.

But back to me. So this friend agreed to do some training with me. I have been walking every day for a few months now and have dropped a bit of weight already, but wouldn’t mind reducing either the beer gut or the batwings, or preferrably both, so am going to put my love of comfort aside and allow someone to hurt me.

And hurt me she did. We did sprints, boxing, push-ups, sit-ups, dips, more boxing, more running, and more for over 45 mins.. And today, two days later, thanks to DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness – a real anacronym used by real gym-peeps), I am in agony. It started in the middle of the night when I woke up needing to go to the toilet and realised I was too stiff and sore to move. That was true pain – the heart-breaking decision of whether to get up and ache in every part of my body (ok, not every part, admittedly my face doesn’t seem to hurt), or hold on tightly, while laying very still, and try to limit the pain to just my bladder. Alas, my bladder won out and I had to get up. The memory still makes me cry now.

And, unlike my friend who doesn’t talk about how training, I am going to let you all know that I have done it – because for a little porker like me, it is a MASSIVE achievement – and I’m not suffering alone!

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..

Reporting in!

OMG!!! It’s been eons and eons… Anyhoo, so I have SOOOO much to blog here. For those ardent followers that have been reading my blog for a while now, you have all read about my various trials (many) and tribulations (fewer) on planet love – where the terrain is rocky and the journey strewn with hazards along the way – especially when you are walking the path with the dude I won’t even name – he who was abusive, foul and generally a not-nice guy.

Somewhere along the way, I parted ways with afore-mentioned inglourius basterd (or however they are mis-spelling it in the movies these days) and did some solo travels. Life was good, the view was clear, I was, like the Primal Scream song, movin’ on up.

And then I met K. Ahh K. Lovely, lovely K. And not only did the view get a whole lot better, but the journey much more fun – having someone who is as loose as me along for the ker-razy ride.

Anyway – enough with the bad travel analogy already.. my news is this:

K and I are engaged!!

Yay!! And life is good. The turtle is happy, the plants are all flowering in celebration, our friends and families are gorgeous. It doesn’t get much better than this!

Big love to all. And more soon. x

Not much to report at this end

As the title of this post says, I really don’t have much to report at this end. Work is pretty cruisey which is nice after 2 years of hell(-stra!). The man is fab and we are pathetically in lurve! The turtle is back and asides from having to inject her every few days with antibiotics (I never, ever, in my wildest dreams, thought that I would end upplaying nursemaid to a turtle!), she is fine and dandy. All in all, life is good. We even got a new pet to add to the mix – Selwyn, the Siamese fighting fish. He lives in an expensive Kosta Boda bowl that I couldn’t think of a better use for, and chances are, he won’t see out the fortnight.. I don’t have a good track record when it comes to piscean creatures! Actually, I don’t have that great a track record when it comes to turtles, but oh well.

Anyway, so it’s better when there’s dramz in the life, for blog-posting anyway.. Because there ain’t much to report on when life is fine.. Here’s hoping all are well out there and life is good. Sending big love from down under to wherever you all are in the world!

Mate/Poppy/Turtle update

What a crazy week last week was! The most popular character on this blog – Mate, the turtle – decided it was all too much.. actually, no, I’ll go back to the beginning..

A few posts back, I mentioned that K, the love, and I, had moved into a new apartment. And one of my concerns was that we have a balcony with gaps in the balcony that a silly little turtle could fall through.. So, I blocked up all of the gaps in one very busy afternoon – all the gaps around the bottom of the balcony.. (you can all guess where this is going). This was the only gap left:

The last remaining bastion of hope for my escapee turtle

Saturday, I went to meet a girlfriend for coffee and got a frantic phone call from K, saying, “the turtle is gone.” I thought he was joking but made my way home incase he wasn’t.. and he wasn’t. At all.

There was no other way for the turtle to escape than through the very narrow gap (we are talking – that turtle must have breathed in tighter than me on a Saturday night in leggings). The only problem being that after the gap – there is nothing but a 5 metre drop.. Straight down to the concrete below..

But there was absolutely no sign of him. Mate was gone. And no matter how much I prodded the grass around the pond near our building, I knew it was futile. There were tears. And lots and lots of guilt. But mainly, there was complete bewilderment: 1. How the hell did the turtle manage to get itself through the gap. 2. How did it survive the fall (as in – why wasn’t it a bloody mess at the bottom). And 3. Where did the little bugger go?

By about Wednesday, K had convinved me to put up some signs saying that we had lost our pet.. I was reluctant as was already feeling guilty enough – I didn’t want to put up a sign, only to get no response.. but I did. And sure enough, two days later – at 7.30 on Friday morning, someone rang.. they had found the turtle and taken it to the local vets.

So, long story short, a multitude of phonecalls later, we located the turtle – curiously, at a vet on the other side of the bridge, which happened to be about 5 minutes away from my work.. We went for a visit on Friday night, before being able to pick her up on Monday. You’ll notice, I said “her”… The vet let us in on a very interesting piece of information – and that was that Mate, our favourite “him” or “it”, was in fact “Materella” – ie. Mate was a girl-turtle.

(* I just want to say that I blardy always knew that – that turtle always had WAY too much attitude to be a boy turtle.. and the fact that it has incessantly been trying to escape – she was singing “I am woman, hear me roar!” as she was bungee-ing (sans rope) off the balcony!)

Anyway, the turtle is back – albeit a wee bit of it shell is not. Picture attached. And we have named her “Poppy” – because we got her back on Anzac Day weekend.. the Aussie-Kiwi Connection as well – for those in the know!

Here are the damages – thank the flying spaghetti monster that they aren’t worse!

Fun times at Sydney airport..

So I’m back in wet, rainy, miserable Melbourne – only kidding!! I wrote that to get a rise out of all you Victorians. Let’s start again.

So I’m back in fabulous Melbourne and it’s great to see Miss Loulou (who is a Sydney friend who happens to be here) and of course, flatmate-that-I-love (who is now ex-flatmate-that-I-love). V festival is going to be great tomorrow with a bunch of crazy chicks..

Anyway. My blog isn’t about Melbourne. It’s about Sydney. Sydney airport to be exact. And how I got there at 4ish yesterday afternoon for my 5pm flight.. At 5pm I was told to come back at 6.30 for an update on where our plane was.. At 6.30 I was told we would be leaving in an hour. At 7.30, same story.. The plane finally took off at 9.15. NINE FRICKIN FIFTEEN! I wouldn’t have minded if they had told me at 4 or 5 that it was leaving at 9.15. I could have headed home, plonked in front of the TV (probably with some plonk!) or I could have read a book on my couch, or I could have called a friend and hung out for a few hours, hell, I could have gone home for some self-lovin’!! I could have done ANYTHING with my 5 hours.. but no. Instead, I lugged around a laptop bag as I went between the bar and the departure gate waiting for updates.. which of course was as far away from the bar as it was possible to be!

By the time we got to Melbourne, it was late and all my friends (who I had planned to have dinner with) were asleep. AND because I’d been bored and chatting to every man and his dog during my 5 hour wait, the battery on my phone was dead. And the $60 cab fare back to the city is always a winner to top it all off. Oh hang on, to top it off PROPERLY, is the torrential rain that has poured all day today. Awesome. Love it.

A long overdue update..

Forgive me brothers and sisters for I have sinned – it has been AGES since I my last confession.

So here goes. I met the boy, we lurve each other, we did the back and forth, back and forth, and I mean in the interstate-romance-kinda-way for those of you with your mind in the gutters. I moved to Sydney, the job is going well, my car made the journey and is fabulously enjoying being driven around Sydney-town, the friends are all glad to have me back, Ma and Pa are fine, my bro gets more in love with god and the baby jesus every day, my Grandpa is still alive, the crew are all rocking along, Azza G had a nose job (and it is as FABULOOSE as he is, btw), Ellareah (flatmate-that-I-love) is missing me in Melbourne, but I’m heading down this weekend for a music festival and some QT with her, my ex-flatmate Philomena has moved back to these fair shores and my two gorgeous Irish princes are staying with me at present.

So, in a nutshell, life is good. Headline of the weak is that the turtle is trying his hardest to commit suicide off my new balcony. Everyone keeps trying to convince me that he won’t.. but I know one thing that they don’t. And that is – that the turtle is really not that smart. Actually, his brain is about the size of half a cheezel, and he doesn’t get the concept that the four metre plunge will result in his untimely death.. all he sees when he pokes his little head over the balcony edge is adventure, ADVENTURE, ADVENTURE!! Not the smartest creature on god’s earth, that is fer sure! (I used the G-word for you brother!)

Anyway, I’ve been inspired by my friends new blog – well done Pandora – keep up the good work. I’ve added a link to her page so please check back to see what we’ve both been writing. Big love to all. x

End of the holiday blog, and back to normal rambling..

I didn’t get too far with writing about my holiday, did I?

Oh well. A few concerned onlookers have asked why I haven’t been writing.. and the truth is – life has been getting in the way. Things have been busy, busy, busy since getting back from my holidays (which was about 3 months ago). I have loads to write but will keep it concise for you now.. with hopefully (?) some elaboration in later posts..

The man. Yes. Cinderfarkenrella has a new love. And no, it’s not the pot-smoking bogan.. It’s a lovely boy I met at a bar at stupid o’clock in the morning after a good few hours of bevaraging imbibing. He thought i was hilarious when in actual fact I was drunk, and we have gone from strength to strength ever since. Life is good.

The job. Still doing nutso hours and pretty over it. The less said, the better, but let’s blame a certain large Aussie Telco for this blog not getting updated regularly. They kill me.

The flatmate-that-I-love. I still love her, even though she is not longer my flatmate. My boy (let’s call him “K”) thinks we might be lesbians, only because we hang out so much. And we might be. Who’s telling? Heh, heh. JOKES!

Mate the turtle – is still being the best thing ever. He rocks. Everyone needs a turtle as a pet.

Cars – well, here is an update.. I got rid of the car I had with the stupid ex – that was after the blardy thing decided to blow a tyre about 150KMs out of Melbournio on the Hume Highway at 10.30 at night. Of course, I had been on the phone so had no battery with which to call the RACV to come and rescue me. After a bit of a “toughen up sunshine” inwardly-directed pep talk, I got down to changing the fricken tyre (in the dark, on the side of the highway, on my own – the shizzle B-grade horror movies are made of!), but I tell you, that was the last straw.. I was determined to get rid of that car the next day, even if it meant throwing it into the cap of some beggar on the street. It’s day was numbered. And, as the universe always comes through for me, the next day, when I took my car to get the tyre changed, someone, I kid you not, offered to buy the car off me. I was like – what?!?!? So, yup – sold the car to some vehicle broker who happened to be at Beurepaires Tyres. And that night – the Chiko roll mobile went to a lovely couple who came to inspect/buy it.. So the next day. I bought myself the convertible I have wanted for a while. I just like being able to say I’ve been driving around topless!

Anyway, I think that that is enough of an update for today. Big love to all and thanks for always checking back. Will write again real soon! x x

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.

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!

Whatevs slocos.

My lovely friend D, who I travel with quite often, and lurve most of the time (*this story pretty much makes up the rest of the time when I don’t lurve her so much) rang me the other day to tell me that she was coming to visit me down here in Mexico Melbourne. I was very, very excited until she told me she was coming on the weekend of October 11-12. I had already discussed that weekend this week – with my Dad, who had wanted to come down and walk the 5km walk as part of the Melbourne marathon.  I mentioned to her that he would be down, and why. She giggled.

“Well,” she said, “you’ll be impressed, I’m bringing N and glittergirl with me.” And as soon as she said glitter girl, I knew.

“I’M NOT RUNNING!” I said -  getting it in quick before she could even think about broaching the subject.

“Come on,” my friend coaxed. “It will be fun.”

Fun? Running ’til I’m out of breath, my large mammary glands bouncing all over the place causing pain, my body aching during and for days after the event because of my complete lack of fitness and thin, lithe active people looking pitifully at me as I slouch along the road with the same landspeed as a three-toed sloth at the end of the run. Not my idea of fun. At all.

So, like the 5 year old I am, I rang glittergirl. To dob on D for trying to get me to do something that would only be negative to my life. And she assured me that she had tried to convince D that I wouldn’t be up for it – god bless her cotton socks.

Anyway. So in the end, i answered all of their emails with my short, succint message, that I thought captured the spirit of my enthusiasm. “Whatevs team. Whatevs.”

And so we got the name “Team Whatevs”

Until glittergirl told us that she was in a team (for another event) called “Frorets”. This, imaginatively, is short for “frolicking retards” – coined by her hubby – very farken funny indeed, more so if you actually knew glittergirl. And I like it so much that we are now called the “Whatevs slocos” – sloco being short for “slow coaches”.

So, if you happen to be at the Melbourne Marathon and you see an overweight girl clutching her chest as she has a heart attack, crawling towards the finish line (probably the 10km, but the result will be the same!), give her a shout and yell “Whatevs slocos!” – it will be me, and I will appreciate the support. I sure as hell don’t get it from my good friends.

Such is life

Had the worst day today. Woke up feeling rather out-of-sorts, due to a few too many Long Island Iced Teas last night – on a school night no less!! Got a call and wanted to get right onto the task assigned like the good little worker bee I am.. But computer said no. So went back to bed. Until about 20 minutes later when another call came in. OK. The sleeping gods were most definitely against me. So I got up. And my computer decided to reboot itself. And install some new-fangled software thang that my company was pushing out to all and sundry. Right. So I waited for that to be done. And received a few more phone calls.. And banged the ‘puter to try to abuse it into doing what I want.. But no. There was only one option. And that was to face the office. ARGH!

So, in I went, hangover hovering as a reminder of what good girls don’t do on a Thursday night, and faced my day, my colleagues and my sad, depressing worker-bee life. Only kidding. i went in, went for lunch, went for coffee, ran to the post office, grabbed another coffee, contemplated walking a lap of the park and chatted to everyone that I possibly could.. you get the idea. About 4pm, I sat down and faced the music. Or the workload. Groan. Ok, maybe it was 4.30. Whatevs.

At 5, my hangover cleared. What a wonderful, wonderful feeling that was. God it felt good. And at 5.10, I went out for an after work drink. Awesome.

Update on the family(s)

Work has calmed down again which means more time for Scrabulous (have had to re-activate stale games), MSN and of course, cinderfarkenrella.. I can probably even find a few inneresting things to write as well.. (here’s hoping anyway..)

So, firstly to my old man darling dad, because I know a few of you love hearing about the dude. He is settling into his new life in “the ‘go” – for those not in the know, “the ‘go” is Bendigo (www.bendigotourism.com) – a town a couple of hours away from Melbourne – which means it’s close enough to see him more frequently than I have done in past years, but not too close that he can choose to just “drop in”. Sweet. Anyway, he is studying which is great, except that his loving daughter is has to help him with his assignments.. Not so great. But anyway. Otherwise, the love it doing well and cruising along.

For those who didn’t realise, my parental unit split in half to become two units at the end of last year and in typical my-family-style kinda way, dad thought “farrrrk this” and moved interstate to get as far away from things as possible.. Some people call it escapism, we like to call it “next!!”

Mum is good too and chillaxing without the dad to look after. She is same old, same old – an earth mother that doesn’t get stressed about anything – the ultilmate cool cucumber. And bro is too. Not much to report for either of them. They just rock as normal.

Closer to home, with my Melbourne family. Flatmate-that-I-love is gearing up for her big move (out).. We are both excited and, as she is moving about 200 metres away, we are working out the roster for whose house we stay at each night.. it will probably be mine when I’m cooking and hers when we go out to eat.. (heh, heh!).

And the other beloved family member, Mate, the turtle is being a little bit loving towards flatmate-that-I-love and I at the moment.. He keeps wanting to sit on our feet. Not sure if it something to do with the warmth or whether he is just being odd, or perhaps whether he has deep-seeded emotional issues. We’re not complaining anyway, it makes a vast improvement from him sulking under the lounge and never coming out to play.

So all in all, life is good. Hello to everyone and thanks for checking back even though I was being completely negligent when it came to my blogoriffic activities. Love all your collective gutses. x x