Adios hermana

I may need to be corrected, perhaps little sister is something different? Maybe Kel will check this sometime and tell me.
I MISS HER! And I keep seeing her little face all crumpled up and petrified walking through the departure gate except I visualise myself snatching her back. God that was a long day. I am excited for her, I have butterflies thinking about it. And I have the utmost faith in her, I know she'll make friends with the drop of a hat and that her family won't want to give her back. But she still seems so little to me. So little and so big. I wish I had hugged her more in that last week instead of getting frustrated with her. I hate regrets. It's in complete disregard of the frailties of human nature.
I want to say something all upbeat and cutesy. But it just isn't working at the moment. I actually think I have a case of Catcher in the Rye. I keep hearing the word phoney run through my head, mostly self-directed. I'm not even sure why.
And this new character thing isn't working. It's just not coming naturally and if it turns out to be less than fun I'm just going to chuck it in. I should probably start thinking about doing something a bit more valuable with my spare time.

Oh and if my new friend, the nice stranger at the end of that wrong number decides to drop me a visit, welcome. And sorry for pushing the identity thing. I need to work on letting things develop (or not develop) more naturally.

Who needs holidays

Good god. Is everyone else's family age them twenty years everytime they are around them? Middle sister stormed off mid dinner after being placed near lil sister after a re-creation of the mad hatters tea party. apparently kelly has a lot of friends. A lot of cool friends. Anyway words were exchanged and I uncharacteristically stayed out of it remaining passively aggressively quiet. I hate it when other people pull that shit. But I was feeling a bit emotional, our family is just tenuous and fragmented enough as it is. Oh boo hoo, poor me again. Why does Tauranga bring this side of me out of the shadows. Or am I always like this and you Wellington people are a lot more indulgent? Stop it if you are.
I spent today racing around like a madwoman, not catching up with everyone I should, not getting to the ocean to swim like I wanted, but buying lots of things for the trip like conditioner, eye drops, nasal spray, picking up her ring, getting her photos, and trying to be helpful while staying out of her hair. I lost it once this afternoon when she dumped a whole lot of my books out in the carport so she could use the box and even then i felt guilty for sulking.
I'm trying not to feel hurt that we didn't have a nice family meal as our last supper, that she has spent most of the time I have been here celebrating with friends, and is travelling up tomorrow with the NEW boyfriend. I know she is just little, and god I can feel myself developing the potential to become one of those guilt tripper mothers. and I'm not her mum, however much I would like to be able to fill that void sometimes.
shit. I can't do tomorrow.

Big sisterly advice

Kelly is one big sticky oozy ball of stress that is beyond rationale assistance and I am tempted to slap her. It's actually not that bad. But it's not particularly nice either. I do have some smidgeon of an understanding of what she must be going through. I am going to help make her a scrapbook of NZ and her life which she has to take with her. Hopefully that will help.
20kg is not much to take on a year long trip. We are going to the airport on thursday. Hopefully by then she will see the futility of turning herself inside out. I told her to smoke pot for the next couple of days. This is the kind of helpful thing I say when I don't feel particularly helpful.
I am enjoying being around Jacob though, he is a breath of fresh air. We were out late last night at a bbq and I knew he would be tired this morning. I am taking him to school and picking him up this week, and about seven this morning Kelly was still asleep, Frank had gone to work, and from my bed I could hear his sleepy little footsteps trudging around probably wondering where everyone was. I called out to him and next minute he was snuggled up in bed with me. He's been very cuddly the last couple of days. Anyway, I think he's swell.
OK, i'm going to make a scrapbook now.

My, how you've grown

Well I had a relatively good night last night. We were at Renee's till quite late and I watched the tail end of the cricket (which apparently i'm not supposed to feel bad about because of my birth place) and drank a bottle of wine with very little effect, and then the boys from school turned up minus a couple that had been expected because they were mourning the cricket and we went to town.

I think I am too old, or too conservative, or too unpractised. No, it was kind of fun, and I liked that a couple of the guys got id-ed and i didn't, and I liked how I had drinks bought for me, and I did get to have a bit of a boogie, but in that claustrophobic involuntary exchange of body fluids kind of environment. But I just feel myself withdrawing and getting a bit scornful of others who are managing to cut loose. At about 3 o'clock the lights went on and we went to get a pie, which was luke warm and discarded after a couple of bites, but before i got a chance this young guy was standing in front of me eating his pie and looking like he wanted to chat. So I said,

"bloody horrible aren't they"? gesturing to our pies, and he said,

"no, it's fantastic" or something to that effect and then looked at me knowingly and said, "Sarah. You have no idea who i am do you?" And I looked at him a bit mischievously having established i had been mistaken for my younger sister who used to be a regular in town until she got herself an almost husband and said,

"No, but you have no idea who I am either apparently".

then after a bit of clarification and wit and flirting we established that our sisters were best friends when I was little little, and him even littler, and our parents used to hang out heaps before both sets split up. I remembered him maybe 7 or 8 and quite pudgy. And now he is doing alright for himself. It was quite a cute conversation really, and I didn't really want to end it, but I had to flutter off after the people I was with to find a taxi, which is a bloody debacle in Tauranga on a Saturday night. He was much too young for me anyway.

I got home about quarter to five, and then jacob woke me up before 10 this morning to ask if his girlfriend could come play. I'm knackered, and have done little more than take him swimming and sort out a couple more boxes of my crap for the sallies. We are going to the beach soon to have a picnic. It's so beautifully summer here.

"

Start listening to your breathing again

Oh crap i just wrote a big long post and then kelly kicked me off the internet and i lost it. Crap. Crap. Crap. Oh well guess that means i have to stick to the nuts and bolts.

Jacob had been standing here reading what i was writing out loud. He is a really good reader. And he just keeps sprouting, it's unnatural the way boys grow in great big spurts like that. We're going to have an awesome time if the weather keeps up, it is sunny and hot as hell in Tauranga, mind you I think it pretty much is everywhere. But I have bought my snorkel and flippers and i am on holiday! Whoop whoop.

Anyway as beautiful as my post was I have to go get ready because I am going out with renee and she has invited a whole lot of boys i went to high school with. Interesting. None of them have really left Tauranga and i plan on being as Wellington and wonderfully weird and confident as i possibly can, mostly cause i used to be quite quiet and aloof and obscure and on the fringe at highschool, which i was perfectly happy with. But i like people commenting on how much i've changed, though it is mostly people that never really knew you in the first place that say things like that. And it is natural to change somewhat, particularly when you have experienced pretty life changing stuff. Anyway i feel whole. No shadow of a shell.

I'm trying not to do the thing i do with good byes and let the clock start ticking until the countdown is the predominant force and the quality of your time left is soiled. With Kelly. I can feel it trying to creep in. I just have to remember i am on holiday for a week, i got through horrendous old yesterday although it showed with how much of a wound up crazy person i was. Even the beer and bbqueing which is usually enough to get me all zen again didn't help and i have a feeling i might have embarrassed myself in front of patrick a bit. everybody else i don't really mind because they already know i'm crazy.

Went to Hamilton zoo with the whanau today and it was surprisingly cool. I liked the enclosures and the emphasis on conservation and the breeding programmes. They are doing really well with their rhinos and plan to do the same with cheetah.

Right, better get ready.

Tell me what I want

I am a bit nervous that I have no idea. And all the bloody red and roses in the air doesn't help my sensibilities. I wonder how much weight you are meant to attribute to chance happenings, and how little weight I can attribute to my own sense of what is the true and proper course I should be steering.
I just had a couple of eerie encounters today that made me wonder whether I am really as in control as I tell myself, or I would like to be.
what i really like is the paella we made, and still being able to rustle up two good friends, both of whom are partnered up, to share Valentines with. A bit of Elton, a bit of wine, a bit of a soppy movie and I am on my way to believing that the old romantic in me is alive and well.
And I told my boss off today, which made me feel quite empowered.
And my hand physio wasn't crying this week, which was a huge relief.
And I got free health insurance through work, which is also a huge relief, although I don't want to say why, as I know it is probably childish. And I got to flirt a bit with the Southern Cross boy, not because I thought he was that cute, but just because I could, and it made his whole sales pitch a bit more interesting to sit through.
Okay, gotta vacate Lauren's room now.

No sand through the hour glass here please

Perhaps I am becoming more like my mother in my old age. Or perhaps I have experienced enough ebbs in my quarter century that I am a bit more resilient and less tolerant to melodrama now. But I am just not bothered with grown up paddys and i have been witness to a fair few recently. I'm getting fed up with the whole scene in Wellington to be completely blunt, and reassessing my long term plans. Actuallly, just trying to come up with some.

I'm on my own here tonight, and I am finding solitude less of a burden lately also. I walked out to Otari yesterday, I think I'm getting a bit big for the Botanical gardens as well. The round trip took a little under two hours, which I was quite impressed with, as this included walking one of the more sedate tracks that hugs the Kaiwharawhara stream for a while. Streams, trees and cicadas and shit don't have any problems, they were good company. It was so nice that I went back there again today with Lauren, who doesn't grizzle too much most of the time (just tricks) and we did one of the more robust walks. I think I will frequent there more often.

"Can't you just bottle it up, I'm sick of hearing it?" I really love that, that was good form Sarah.

I went for a swim at Balaena Bay yesterday afternoon (also on my own while less brave souls watched from the shore) and it was windy as hell but the water was toasty warm. I also want to do more of that.

Tomorrow is Valentines Day. I have never really bothered with that boy (with whom I have spent the better part of my adult years with thus far) since I came back to Wellington and realised I was much more fun without him, but I can't help but wonder if he is different with the new one and will do anything sweet. Valentines is a crock. I think there would be a certain amount of consensus about that, even amongst the most quixotic and naturally amorous of us. But hell, sigh. It's just having your nose rubbed in it a bit isn't it. I think I will buy myself something. Oh actually, wait. I do have a date. With my married friend. She has promised wine, candles and a sentimental movie, which i suppose is more than i ever got from aforementioned ex. Her husband is off being a fireman and we are going to make a paella. I do quite like my single life though. No, I like my single self. I prefer it at the moment...

An end and a beginning

I talked to my friend Renee from Tauranga last night. We have been friends since fourth form and sometimes we don't talk for months at a time. This time I haven't talked to her since August and she has never left Tauranga and is always full of gossip and scandal. I do quite like her though. She is one of those people who is incredibly loyal to her friends and horrid to her enemies.

Anyway our friend that we used to go and stay with on Great Barrier Island is three months preganant. She is another good friend who I don't talk to for months at a time. Actually they are pretty much my only friends left from school. Oh and Big D, who is now in my life more by association. Oh that's not quite true. But more frequently.

I'm not very eloquent tonight.

Tuki Tuki

I went to the Hawkes Bay for the first time in the weekend, and I'm a bit taken with the place. I could get used to a lifestyle that revolves very much around sun, food and wine. The Harvest festival was on, but Sally and I were content to go and sit at one of the wineries and eat nice food, drink moderately good wine (only cause we're cheap) and be serenaded by a couple of guys with an admirable amount of talent and versatility to their act. It was cool.

Joe was busy with his autism research but later we hooked up with him and this pommy boy that works on the family's 1800 acre farm and jumped off a 20ft waterfall. This is not a pixie tendency for embellishment of her own prowess in play. This was the boys assessment of the situation, and I suffered the wedgies to prove it. God it was beautiful though.

I have also discovered that my ambition to hook myself a rich farmer has one fatal flaw. I'm not tough enough. We were sitting down to Sally's mum's dinner of a life time (two legs of lamb, with garlic and rosemary) and the two inside dogs Dougal and maybe Tiki? went berserk at something outside, and when let outside raced to a tree in the garden. Further investigations led to a terrified cat, and once it was established it wasn't the neighbours the decision was made to shoot it. Ha ha, they were joking though right. No next minute Sal's dad is striding past the dinner table with a big gun and a couple of minutes later the report signalled that fluffy was on to his tenth life. I was a bit embarrassed about how distressed I was about the whole thing, especially when the dogs came back in with blood on them.

I'm sure there is more to write about but I'm tired and have had enough of the computer.

I have to stop checking out girls

It makes me nervous how often I do it. But there are lots of cute girls in Wellington. And I'm tired of feeding the egos of boys, particularly dark-haired lanky ones with no meat on their bones.

Oh god, that was really worth opening this site for. Ummmm, what else can I say. I'm still at work which pretty much makes me sad, but I wanted to hang around in case we were doing the welcome back Pat thing, which may have gone ahead and nobody informed me, which makes me even sadder. Oh I'm getting depressed.

Speaking of Pat coming back though, he couldn't fly in yesterday because of the fog. But it was a God Almighty day today. I actually love the heat, which is weird because I don't really feel the cold, well I'm a warm person. That's what my acupuncturist said, and she doesn't mean that i'm really lovely. It's probably hippie shit translation for good circulation or something. Man I'm annoying tonight.

So back to this great weather. I woke up this morning and felt the light before I opened my eyes because of my tissue thin curtains and knelt up and looked out on to Wellington Harbour........and it wasn't there. It was shrouded in this dense fog with just a bit spilling over the mountains like an inlet. God it was gorgeous. And to make everything more magical I did the dishes before breakfast looking out at it as well (man I live in a great house) and I guess because of the heat or something buzzy bees and butterflies were flying around outside the window. I'm actually restraining a giggle. (This is the kind of thing that gets a Pixie off).

OK, better go home. But I need to right something more sombre later about skin protection.