Appealing to Interest Groups

I was sitting in the bus stop today, and this guy on a scooter with super super long blonde dreads just about drove into a parked car, he was checking me out so intently.

And then he beeped at me. What exactly does that MEAN? "beep beep how 'bout a date"? "beep beep look out behind you there's a zombie"? "beep beep I didn't quite scrape in on the non-retarded test, and this is my only means of communication"?

Who knows.

Anyway, in other news, I fell on my ass. Quite spectacularly, actually. It was on a steep sloping footpath, it was raining, and I had my new black sneakers on with the day-glo purple laces. Plus, lots of people saw. I sat there until some guys came to see if I was ok, and accepted the hand up offered by the cutest one... :)

And now I'm on the couch, drugged up on happy triangles.

Shake Your Money Maker...

Or if you can't be assed, Christchurch will shake it for you.

Biggest face-palm moment of Saturday morning: Stuart Keith on National Radio, doing the live announcement that Christchurch had just been hit by a massive earthquake, and then playing "Good Vibrations" in the break...

It's All In HOW You Say It

We went out for lunch this afternoon, and Sweet Mother's Kitchen has a brand new cabinet in which they are keeping their pies and other sweet goodies. Which would have been a better way to put it, upon reflection.

Not, as I exclaimed to the server "You've got a hygienic box!".

Things I Have Learnt Lately

• You should never assume that your arm is not for other people to elbow on the bus.
• There can be too much chilli in Macaroni and Cheese.
• The ports on the side of a laptop are the same size as baby fingers for a reason.
• I'm definitely too old to go out more than one night a week.

Sigh.

But hey! The couch arrived! It's so freaking awesome it was worth the wait. You should see this thing. So smooth... So squishy... So butt-embracing...

Couch? Are You There, Couch? It's Me, Jody...

We're entering week 18 of "waiting for the damn couch to arrive". And they said it would take 14 weeks max. Honestly - I could have paddled to China in a waka, learned Mandarin, negotiated with the locals over tea, and hitched a ride back to NZ with my new couch, on a frigate, and still been quicker than 18 bloody weeks.

Note to Self...

Dear Jody

Not everyone is privy to your many and varied in-jokes with Tracy. Therefore, when you decide to strike up a conversation with a stranger at a party, you shouldn't start with "Did you ever think that cheese might be the white man's watermelon?".

That is all.

Love from Jody

KILL THE BUG...

So, I was in my room the other day and I saw a HUGE bloody cockroach on my ceiling! A big fat one, just sitting up there, looking all smug and stuff. It had a long antenna sticking out (just one, mind) and I thought to myself:

"Bug's gonna die. Oh yeah. Stupid one-pronged cockroach on MY ceiling. Ima gettin' me a pokin' stick".

And that's when I realised that it was actually a thumb-tack with a bit of string hanging off it.

Does Anyone Smell Patchouli?

Is there anything more annoying than the newly-enlightened pseudo-hippy who has somehow achieved an apparent inner peace, but hasn't quite mastered the art of accepting other people's choices for their own lives?

Maybe born-again Christians. But that's it.

Adventures on the Loser Cruiser

Had to take the bus this morning on account of the rain. I don't know if it really is a West Karori thing, or if I'm just looking for the difference because I liked City End Karori very much, but there is a hell of a lot of nose pickers and mouth breathers on the West Karori peak hours express bus. I'm just saying.

There was this chick the other day who sat opposite me (in the backwards seat) who was soooo fascinating. First and foremost, she was wearing one of those ex-army surplus khaki jackets with epaulets on the shoulders. She also had a matching khaki satchel thingee, probably for carrying around her collection of World of Warcraft figurines or something. But THEN, she sat down, whipped out a very dog-eared library book (something about dragons) and a huge chocolate éclair. She proceeded to read her obviously engrossing book with goggle eyes, while she stuffed the éclair in her mouth, eating it in 3 extremely enthusiastic bites. The cream was squishing out the sides of her mouth, and when she was finished she very carefully sucked every single finger. While not taking her eyes off that book. It was mesmerising.

Crafty Sisters - in the doing things sense, not the sneaky sense

It took us 2 weeks to get a freeview box for the telly, and now that we've sorted that out, we've realised that there really is nothing that good on! So we've been rediscovering our inner-craftiness. Tonight we did some awesome experiments with icing and piping bags, with the following FABULOUS results. Fabulous.



See how cool and squiggly? Definitely has potential. Sam, your birthday cakes are going to kick ass.



This is my best rosette/blob.



This one was ok, but then Ned licked it.



Tomorrow: coloured icing. STAY TUNED!

Some pics of our new pad

Things are coming together nicely at our new and improved abode. Even Ned thinks so! This is the front...



Front with Tracy and Sam, obviously.



Go round the side, and this is the patio entrance to the kitchen. Not to mention the BBQ and most of the pot-plants. Hooray for chillies!



The kitchen looking out the patio doors - man, it's hard to get good photos of inside a house. I took more than this, but they all sucked.



The living room. It's a work in progress.



Our loudest resident.



So there you go. Come visit.

New Digs

The new house is looking pretty good. There's stuff in it, it's ours, and it's generally where we want it. We're having fun thinking up creative solutions to our various placement challenges...

Ned slunk around the house with his belly to the floor for a day, hid under Tracy's bed for a couple of hours, peed on all the shopping bags and then meowed piteously until we got totally sick of him and let him outside. Phew.

I'm still walking to work, but it's taking me an hour! Good for my fitness, I'm sure. And now I have a whole new 20 minute stretch of suburbia to trawl for kitty friends, interesting bird-life (I saw a seagull scrap today), questionable garden ornaments (heraldic ducks with jaunty neck ribbons, anyone?) and near death experiences with the dozy and blind drivers of Karori.

Last...

Days in the house. :(

I'm packing packing packing but my back is bad this week and it's hard going. I've done most of the kitchen though, and Tracy is BANNED from buying any more baking powder!

It's not entirely successful of course. I just stopped for lunch and realised that I've packed all the bread boards. Whooops...

Household Tip #2

What may be a mere letterbox to you, could be a palatial home to a large skittery spider. So don't just put your hand in there without checking first.

Household Tip #1

When investigating the blockage in the end of your oven cleaner spray can, aim it away from your face when you stick the pin in the hole. Otherwise you will be spending 10 minutes flushing your eye with water.

The Lacuna

It's a really good book. I'm reading it. You should too. Barbara Kingsolver.

We're moving! Found a house that seems to be rather miraculously made just for our unique family situation. I'm sure it will be a big old pain in my butt to move, but let's face it. I've already done it more than 30 times so it is bound to be just one more schlepp.

Things I am not allowed to have (BOOOOO) at the new house:

• A puppy
• Chickens
• More cats

Things I am allowed to have (YAAAAAAAY) at the new house:

• Worms. The garden kind, not the bum kind.

Hmm. Why is my sister so goddamn bossy?

The Inner Circus

So, I don't travel much anymore and I feel like there isn't much to say about my adventures since I generally don't have any. BUT... What about my inner adventures? You guys have no idea how much ridiculous crap I think about on an average day!

Here's one.

My pleasant bus face. Now, I like to sit backwards on the bus. You generally get to sit alone since most people can't deal with travelling backwards, and there are so many more people to stare at! However, I can't help but notice that most people sit there with stony blank expressions on their faces, looking vaguely tortured and miserable.

So I like to try and spread a little joy. However, you really can't sit there grinning like a Cheshire cat, because it freaks people out. So, I have invented the Pleasant Bus Face. It's a very subtle agreeable half-smile that I fully believe cheers up my bus companions.

Unfortunately, Tracy disagrees with me and thinks my Pleasant Bus Face is vaguely retarded and definitely disturbing and feels sorry for the people who have to see it!

Harumph.

Goddamn Birds!

These are the types of birds that have menaced me this week.

1. Seagulls.

• Intent: stealing my sandwich.
• Impediment: the closed car window.
• Infraction: hovering right outside the window and eyeballing me in a menacing manner.

2. Sparrows.

• Intent: getting more pie crumbs.
• Impediment: I was still eating the pie.
• Infraction: flying up and attempting to steal the pie crust right out of my mouth.

3. Ducks.

• Intent: eating my potato chunk.
• Impediment: it was at a restaurant (albeit on the balcony).
• Infraction: outrageous cheek and swiping my damn potato anyway!

What's up, Avian-New Zealanders? Did I kick a nest or something?

Possibly I Am Dying

I have had some weird virus all week, which is total pants. 3 days of pretty much 24 hour naps, followed by grinding intense stomach cramps all day today. SUCKFEST 2010.

Tomorrow I'm off to be a tourist in my own country - hooray for the deep South! For you American readers, there are probably just as many rednecks as your own deep South, but the beer is better and nobody duels with banjos.

Today I have the word 'homunculus' stuck in my head. Sigh.

Where the Hell are We?

Managed to squeeze a good deed in today. Helped some lost tourists. They really reminded me of all the times I have been lost in foreign countries, clutching my sub-par map with inexplicable sections of the roads missing, scale all out of whack, clearly intended to make me lost forever in the wilds of [fill in foreign city here]. I hope you have a good time, fey looking Japanese girls!

7s of Doom But I Guess it Was Fun For the Kids

Tried to go into town last night and just couldn't handle the jandal I'm afraid. Carnage! And since when was a rugby thing an excuse for women to dress up like whores and men to dress up like drag queens? There were some SIGHTS, let me tell ya...

I guess it's a testament to my advancing years that when I saw the 2 drunk chicks lolling around in some shrubbery, I thought "Hmph. My taxes paid for those bushes!"

I was also quite concerned for the man who had bent down to pick up his dropped cigarettes, and seemed to be incapable of straightening up again. Plus he had no friends with him. Bad. Don't ditch your mates!

Anyway, I had to flee the scene so I elbowed a couple of teenagers out of the way of a taxi, and leapt in. It barely had time to roll to a stop before we were off to the relative safety of Karori. Bet there are some sore heads in Wellington this morning.

Tuesday Tootles

I rescued a bumblebee today. It was clinging to the jersey of a girl from work, and I had to take it all the way down 9 floors to release it outside because none of the windows in the building open...

Did you know that buses will spontaneously combust if the drivers use their brakes while approaching a corner? Yup. Every driver in Wellington can't be wrong.

Relocation?

I'm so fucking sick of the fucking weather.

It's rained 3 weekends in a row and it's supposed to be summer. Anyone up for a mass exodus to Melbourne? If there was enough of a critical mass of Kiwis, it might drown out the general ickiness of the Australians.

Things I have achieved this week:

• Had my performance review at work and it went well (yay me).
• Picked up a V can that everyone was just dodging around on the footpath. Not hard to put these things in the rubbish bin!
• Ate gnocchi.

Things I did not achieve this week:

• Inner peace.
• World peace.
• The filing I was supposed to do.

All in all, I think I have struck an acceptable balance!

Summer in Wellington

Yeah, generally it's shit. We had a storm all weekend and tempers were fraying all over the city by Sunday evening. But Monday came through in the end, and everyone rushed desperately for the waterfront in a vain attempt to take advantage of their lunch breaks in order to suck up some vitamin D. Or whatever it is that you're supposed to suck up out of sunshine.

I scoffed sandwiches with unseemly haste in Frank Kitt's Park with Sarah, and then frog-marched her as far as the Overseas Terminal while waving my arms for emphasis while I told her stories.

I also yelled at some shitty little brats who threw a coke bottle at a duck. Just for the record - DON'T bloody well stand there and think it's none of your business so you shouldn't get involved. It IS your business. Also, I have only just figured out that to other people, I actually look like an adult. So when I tell kids off for being (let's face it) horrible little psychopaths, they actually do have to listen! Score.

This evening I went to one of the free summer concerts in the Botanical Gardens, and it rocked. Picnic in the afternoon sun, couple of beers (all bottles safely recycled, all ducks unmolested), free tunes, new people to meet. Magic!

Just to top it off, I walked home with Charlotte and we saw the glow worms at the top of the gardens by her house. Extra magic!

Number of Car Parks Sam Has Been in, Naked

2.

2010

Resolutions I always make:

• Drink less
• Eat less
• Swear less
• Be nicer to my mother

Resolutions just for 2010:

• Get more exercise
• Make more quilts
• Be better about keeping in touch with important friends

Resolutions I might actually keep:

• The quilting one.