How the Sky turns to Fire

I finally got into the Zen thing I was robbed of yesterday after a couple of hours on my own this evening, mostly in the kitchen. I decided after dinner that I wanted to bake a cake and before assembling the ingredients pressed play on the cd player not knowing what was in it. I love discovering new music, paticularly when it is already loved by someone I love. Anyway the music set the right tone, but standing over the sink waiting for the cake to rise my musings about the day passed took me outside of our karatane kitchen for a moment, to a quiet place devoted to introspection.

I was thinking about the supermarket shopping today. Laurie's away so I had a whole trolley to myself, and I got to the counter and I just suddenly felt all grown up and on my own. Not the fake uneasy all grown up and on my own I used to feel shopping with Jacob, but an actual sense of freedom and unbridled opportunity that you wouldn't normally get from standing in aisle five of Pak N Save. And the place was busy, so I had time while queuing to look around at the families with trolleys spewing over and couples getting assent from each other about certain purchases, and the middle aged man in front of me putting tampons on the counter; grocery shopping was the most intimate thing in the world to be doing at that particular moment in time and I had this sudden voyeuristic wave wash over me. And with this vivid sense of being removed from it all, of my solitude, I would usually have been tempted to feel a pang of something; wistful, empty, envy, cynical. But I just felt too much to attribute it as being either negative or positive. It was just this overwhelming feeling of 'being'.

I pondered over it some more tonight at the sink, while I was trying to reclaim some of that domestic goddess I've lost touch with in recent times, with Patty Griffin's 'impossible dream' playing in the background and I remembered back sometime ago to the Manchester department in Briscoes and seeing this ancient little old man in his Sunday best hand in hand with an ancient little old woman. Together they were walking up the towel aisle so attached to the other it was unclear who was propping the other up. I felt then something similar to what I felt today in Pak N Save. A feeling that I wanted what 'they' (the people around me) had, but even more - that I wanted them to have what I thought that they had. A feeling spawned by that kick in the gutts sentimentality that I do so well.

Even after I pulled my cake out and it hadn't risen as well as I'd liked (when will I learn that there just isn't a creative licence to baking, that is why I don't like it!) and I pulled my new sweater out of the washing machine and it had morphed into a dress (yes the instructions said hand wash) I held on to that sense of 'being'. Maybe it's some delayed side effect of the substance we had Friday night for supper, maybe it's my (slow) progression through the Power of Now, maybe it's just a happy place time of the month. I dunno.

Red Rocks

Note to self: Sunday is the day to do this walk, not Saturday.

About this time last year on a Sunday Sarah and I set out from Island Bay in the direction of the seal colony. The beach is beautifully desolate and windswept and the going quite hard due to the loose rocks you're walking on much of the way, and the stream or two that requires fording, and the exposure to the winds blasting in from the South. Eventually we reached the giant rock formation acting as a natural gateway to where the seals lay camouflaged amongst the rocks as the sun was getting low and the last dregs of light illuminated an otherwise grey seascape. The huge sluggish creatures lay immobile but for the occasional scratch or wave of a flipper. I got too close to one old cantankerous grandaddy and he grunted a telling off and moved just enough to send me skeltering. The smell of the place was ripe and feral, god do they smell. But it was a magical afternoon, and I was looking forward to returning.

Today as Becky, Sarah and I alighted from the Island Bay bus the sky was crispy blue, the air wintery sweet and the wind uncharacteristically benevolent. After walking the rest of the way round Owhiro Bay we came to the start of the walk and there were screeds of SUVs and dirtbikes in the carpark. Walking along I tried not to be bothered by them and instead drink in the deep opulent colours of the ocean contrasting sharply with the pallid shoreline and barren cliffs towering over us on our right. However, the view all along the waters edge, you could see for miles, was being horribly molested by droves of lice-like vehicles crawling along the beach and the screaming of the dirt bikes that roared past with no consideration of cursing pedestrians.

I could potentially understand the bikes, some testosterone driven desire to control an external power between your thighs and find release in the speed and the noise of the engine struggling below you. But why do it here? Why excrete your fumes and noise here? The 4WDs i cannot understand at all. Assumingly the passengers are here to take in the scenery, but they stay inside their cars and view everything from behind glass, unnecessarily removed from their surroundings.

I find even too much conversation inappropriate on outings such as these. I found that frustrating on the Abel Tasman. Boisterous singing and incessant gossiping, so you feel alien and imposing on the natural stillness.

That's my grumble. It was actually really nice, I had just remembered the place a lot more reverentially. And the vehicles aren't permitted there on a Sunday, so I suppose that's the day to worship.

Saffron

Saffron would cost $14,000 NZ dollars for a kilo. I think that is what we worked out tonight.

What I used tonight in the Paella, just a pinch of Saffron threads, is the dried stigmas of the saffron flower, hand picked from each flower with 75,000 flowers producing just one pound of Saffron threads. But it's pretty strong stuff. That and the chorizo and jimmy's cheffing skills, and it was the best paella I've had since the first time I ever had it, on Waiheke Island at one of Mark's work functions, and that one was just jam packed full of shell fish and was free, so it had a bit of an advantage. I'm excited about how one tiny, very expensive, ingredient can add this sudden charism and intensity to a meal you have made plenty of times before. It inspired me to transfer the other spices I had from their bags and packets to the set we got for a Christmas present from his mother a couple of Christmas' ago. shit maybe three Christmas' ago. I was going to chuck it, but I still use heaps of other shit that I could get rid of for the same reason. My snorkel. My CD tower. I can't wear the jewellery, but I'm too scared to wear jewellery mum gave me, I'm funny like that. Anyway I'm feeling inspired by the Saffron and feel the need to cook a lot of fussy kitchen-demolishing meals in the next week, especially with tomato!

I'm excited about this weekend and it's only Wednesday. But that's only two working days to go.

dum dee dum dee dum

I'm bored but too fired up to sleep. Was around the red head tonight, though she seemed slightly more demure this evening. I hope she isn't some sort of junkie. That's a weird thing to say.

Anyway, she wanted me to go for a drink after, so it wouldn't just be her and the white middle class men, but I was feeling too pleased as punch, and didn't think I needed a drink considering the natural high. But I am quite taken with her, found out tonight that she is 34. I hope I am that rambunctious at 34. I wonder if rambunctious is a synonym for lost, and settled a synonym for found.

Lou is looking for work in Auckland. She told me today that her and the racing car driver mechanic boyfriend are definitely moving, in July! I think it's great, she needs an adventure. I think you'd get Winston Peterised if you stayed in Tauranga your whole life. I know a few of those type....

Laurie must be almost to LA by now. Or maybe there. Shit I dunno but the place seems so much emptier without her. No cooking buddy. ):

I should go to bed. Spent the whole day being distracted and need to be really productive tomorrow to compensate. distracted by my window, by emails, by the little earthquake i thought i felt around lunchtime, by my impending doom - which ofcourse turned out to be me turning a molehill into a mountain (how uncharacteristic!)

Best hang over in a long time

And first time out dancing for a while too. Oh well I went out in Tauranga when I was there couple of weeks back, but first in Wellie for ages. Ugggghhh. You know how you wake up early and bound out of bed to pee or cause your thirsty and think, I should feel way worse than this. And then you make the mistake of going back to sleep and wake up and can't get your head off the pillow. And I spent soooo much money yesterday, I don't even want to think about it. The head is helping with that.

The good news is that our friend went out for the first time since she was married (over two years ago) last night and was in an even better state than me (do you like the positive connotations i'm giving to this, see i could have said worse state then). Husband was on fireman night shift and he thought she was going to town to play a quiet game of pool. I wonder what he would have said if he knew we had to get a taxi down the hill cause it would have been a long trip walking considering the diffiiculty she encountered descending our steps. I think the drunkenness was progressed by someone else arriving pretty cut (having started at about 3 that afternoon) and setting the standard before we had even eaten dinner, and also by a substantial game of 'have you ever?' right before we left (I've got some great material I'm going to recycle at the hens' party next month). Not to mention our top shelf is quite healthy at the moment thanks to all the duty free Laurie has been bringing back.

I could write about the night once we were in town but it's pretty patchy. I've got in to this terrible habit of waking up the next morning after a big night and thinking, "oh shit, what have I done", but nothing's drifted back - yet . I know we went to the Lab and as per usual upset the otherwise homogenous demographics on the dance floor. I have no idea where we went next but it was one of those generic trendy places at the top of Courtenay Place that are far too small to do any 'real' dancing but probably quite good for grinding against strangers until they go home with you. We weren't there for too long. I don't think.

I do know I must have looked pretty trashed by the time we got there. I have historically been given a hard time by bouncers which is ridiculous considering my size. I accept this is their job and assessing body language is their trade, but do I look like I'm going to make trouble? (rhetorical) Usually they just make a big deal about the identity of the person on my drivers licence, or ask what my plans are for the night. But the guy last night (who was just HUGE) asked how much I had been drinking, and (I wasn't being smart, not intentionally), I think I asked if he wanted me to quantify it in millilitres. Which must have confused him (or at least demonstrated an acceptable level of sobriety) because then he let me in, after a warning to take it easy. Which in turn confused me. Let me in to your bar but instruct me not to contribute to your profit margin. Dumbass.

However, probably the worst, and most embarrassing altercation was outside the Fat Ladies Arms (it was a looooong time ago in my defence, after Awhina's 21st). I had got to the front of the queue, got my stamp, saw someone I knew just behind the bouncer, gone to talk to them, then attempted to go inside to find everyone, (having already received my stamp), and the bouncer clotheslined me, and told me to go to the back of the queue, which I had a wee bit of a whammy about, so then, when I got to the front of the queue again, the mongrel says, "You have yourself a good night somewhere else kid" or something equally patronising. Rejected from sleaze institutionalised, the shame. Ha ha crappy-old-Fats-closed-down-now.

I need bacon...

Cher was a man

Damn i'm on fire tonight. A fire engine (I wonder if Jason was in it) did go screaming along Upland Road tonight when I was walking home and apparently around 30 house fires in the last three years have been caused from not turning your tv off properly at night, which we undoubtedly do. Although our smoke alarm is activated merely with the iron going underneath it so I think we should be appropriately notified in the event.

The house fire thing came up this evening in a conversation with the four of us that really got me going, I just sat there pissing myself laughing and thinking, "these people are great". And although I know the people I live with are really smart there's no pretentiousness resident in the small talk. Conversely, the conversation was inspired by mundane features in the Wellingtonian: how Sarah knew that Cher was a transexual and had actually had the operation in Egypt in 1977 (she had actually said 'she' referring to a woman who used to be in her Maori class but Lauren and I misheard) or the fact that Mark Blumsky's eyebrows are part of his campaigning (God they are HUGE) or the brilliant idea to have a bonfire in a brassiere in the backyard for Sarah's impending 24th (apparently someone in the group had never heard of a brazier, I won't name names). I don't know if it was the one beer I had after having been on a bit of a wine binge of late, or that those girly day blues have subsided, or how impressed I was with the outcome of the funky dinner I concocted by baking nearly a kilo of fish in foil in the oven with some coconut cream and kaffir lime leaves and some grated lime rind (I know, you'd think it'd curdle but it didn't) and a bit of cajun spice and green capsicum. Maybe not so fusiony but it had this nice Cambodian thing going on and it wasn't too spicy for Lauren which was good because I had cooked it in sort of Last Supper fashion with her jetting off to LA via Hamilton then Auckland tomorrow. Whatever the reason for my good vibrations, EVERYONE seemed mellowed out with the tv off and the silly conversation and I was revelling in it and giggling like, well me I guess, until the conversation switched to PBRF or some postgraduate business that the other three seemed to understand but I didn't and got bored and maybe killed the vibe by declaring it.

Later I redeemed myself by changing the lightbulb in the lounge that had stumped both the Phd student and the man of the house (it was a bit stiff and needed a bit of small-handed cajoling, that's all) and then I took that bitch of a sewing machine instruction manual to town and hemmed my pants and they are CUTE! So yes, feeling very satisfied with myself right now.

Oh and talked to Frank today because of the whole State of Emergency flood thing in Tauranga and they were alright, I kind of knew they would be because they are on a bit of a hill, but in the lower parts of Otumoetai people were getting evacuated and Jacob's school (along with most of the schools in the area) was cancelled today to keep people off the roads and it just sounds nuts. Meanwhile it is incredibly mild here today, where has Winter gone? Although I walked down from Kelburn in a dreamlike cloud this morning (external to myself for a change) with the fog closing the airport AGAIN.

I think the budget came out today. I guess I missed the news while discussing Cher's op...

Don't worry so much

I just did the dishes listening to the new Pheonix Foundation album. I liked how I filled the sink with bubbles and went into that meditative state you go into doing mindless stuff and drifted back to the Summer evening not so very long ago when they played at the Botanical Gardens. It was all still and balmy and the kids were chasing the bubbles pouring out of that machine but there were just millions of them, too many to pop and some escaped and glided over to the grassy knoll we were sitting on with our beer and Sarah's pumpkin pie, the first pumpkin pie i'd ever had, and I wouldn't pop them, not after they had made it so far, but I'd blow on them and then watch them drift upwards until they disappeared. I liked the pudgy little ginger-haired girl that kept interrupting the cutesy couple on a blanket across the path from us who were obviously in the early throws of their courtship (the girl was cute and I had kind of been spying) to ask for another pringle. I liked the music (ofcourse) and how it harmonised so well with the ambience of the evening and I liked the people, like most of the younger population of Wellington seemed to have turned out, and families, and older couples in their camping chairs sharing a nice bottle of wine. And I liked how as it got darker the lights they had strategically placed amongst the trees and in the foliage of the gardens started throwing technicolour shadows every direction you looked. It was just such a nice night.

My alarm didn't go off so I had nine hours sleep, I finished my third ten hour day at work in a row and things are looking quite tidy there, and I conquered that last machine in the weight room tonight that has had me a bit daunted. Little things. Little things, probably the same as yesterday. But it's perspective right. And as conscious as I am of it once it's blown over, sometimes things just spiral in your mind a bit, take over, you have to wait for the pressure valve to kick in to be able to step back and see how silly you are being. Well at least I haven't figured out the alternative yet. I figure I'll find it at the end of the Power of Now, it's my new Church for Sunday mornings. And I don't even have to get out of bed.

I don't think wisdom and years go hand in hand

I need to stop letting myself get tired because I am no fun when I'm tired and cause myself trouble by doing silly things such as ringing the trustee/aunt in the wrong frame of mind, hence not taking the phone being slammed down in my ear (for I dunno the tenth time since this all began) so well. Or writing my boss an indignant email at about quarter past six tonight, having not been able to express my indignation verbally due to her being at home for the day suffering a nervous breakdown after one of the new/old boys has given his notice so he can follow his dream of becoming a professional rugby referee. And I just gave up on the sewing machine almost in tears, never having been particularly good with instruction manuals, so my new pants will go unhemmed and unworn for another day. Dumbass girl.

I had this unerring belief in the infallibility of grown ups until I was about 12. My previously sheltered pre-teen existence had protected me from the ghastly truth that adulthood does not automatically invest the bearer with the ability to behave or cope in an "adultly" fashion or mean that they are incapable of making mistakes/being lost/telling lies. Although in some respects I have not been completely disabused of the notion that being an adult means having it together. I still have trouble with the equation me = woman. Age denial; quarter life crisis manifesting in self doubt; not being able to work a freakin sewing machine. I try to convince myself with the fact that if something happened to me, I went missing or got killed in a car accident, the paper would report on a 24 year old woman. Not 24 year old girl. What is my point? I'm tired and have forgotten.....oh, but I definitely do not trust/respect someone simply because they are my senior and after the little performance today I have decided to hell with complacency and called the lawyers. Unfortunately he wasn't available to take my call.

I discovered Carmenere at Stand 91

I watched Lost in Translation tonight. I liked it. I did. I love Bill Murray, always have. But you know those movies that get under your skin and kindof niggle at you a bit? Perhaps it is the change of pace from staple Hollywood, a sustained level of intensity that isn't intense for the graphic violence or sex or special effects or stunts, but just intense because you feel so strongly for the characters, for the story. So now I'm all kindof "whoa". And it's Saturday night, i've been on my own in my jammies and pink fluffy ugs with a giant bowl of slightly scorched popcorn and it's a bit weird to be feeling all "whoa".

The gym is making me all rashy and itchy - too much sweating, I'm sure it can't be good for you. Not that I really sweated this afternoon, more like fumed as I think my body is probably more parts alcohol than water at the moment.

I can't get over how attracted to myself I am right now....

Was out with work last night, just a bit of money in the kitty or something, went to Zibbibos and ate way too much and drank red out of a giant fish bowl glass and after a few of those (it's surprising) but I actually had a pretty good time. I do like some of the people I work with; I even like my boss when she isn't having a meltdown. I just get so lippy when I'm drinking which isn't great with people you spend the better part of your time with, but never get past a certain level of familiarity or intimacy. And another thing, all of them, even the younger ones, are coupled out. In these situations, inevitably, the conversation takes a turn for the worst and the limelight is on you and your love life (or lack of) and a large group of people are surmising to each other that they don't think you are as sweet and innocent as you appear to be. And then a colleague may ask if you are going out to find some action that evening, and that is unfortunate because you may instinctively fire a rather terse interjection across the dinner table asking the colleague if he is enjoying his meal, and on the affirmative, telling him perhaps he should shut up and continue eating it. At which stage knowing glances are exchanged, "we knew it" those glances say. Creme brulee was pretty yum though.

To shoo away any remnant of the night's revelry it made sense to go to the Food and Wine festival at the Stadium today. It was the most stunning day, fariytale blue sky and crunchy autumn air. Kind of a shame to spend a large part of it inside bumping amidst crowds of overweight and pretentious people and eating and drinking a ridiculous conglomeration of tidbits (including Monteiths new drop - Winter Ale, very nice) until your surroundings become rather stark and hilarious and the live music sends you scuttling in fits of laughter at how utterly earnest it is, and you may try for sophistication while you pinball around the stalls partaking in free samples but it's damn difficult when one of you is trying to suppress the hiccups and the other is being asked for identification to prove you are over 18. God I wish I'd told him his wine wasn't worth the effort to get my drivers licence out. The outing was a success however, and the piece de resistance was when I stumbled across a stall with a jolly old snow-haired man peddling wine from none other than Chile! Which got me excited at first glance, but when I read the label and it said Misiones de Rengo! Well I nearly peed and spluttered out,
"Hey, my little sister lives there"!
To which he very jovially said, "Well you have to try some now".
And I was there for some time as he took me through the collection including the dessert wine, until I started feeling a bit heady and bought my favourite. Then the old dear leaned across the stand and said, "May I?" and before I could answer he had stuck a sticker on my breast that said "I discovered Carmenere at Stand 91". Yes I did.

What is a tumbleweed that ceases to tumble?

The woman at the gym has confirmed my shin splints, told me I have low blood pressure, and given me a programme that involves machines that I found too complicated to hook myself up to this morning. Which did not help the sensation of being completely out of my depth, teency tiny in a sweaty testosterone-pumping environment. Dumb girl. I just want to be able to run through the gardens again.

I was awake at ten to six, at the gym by 6:30, having a shower at work (and it is the best shower!) by ten to eight, and at my desk quarter of an hour later. But bare foot. I forgot my shoes again. I went out morning tea time with the idea of buying some, and came back with giant baby pink fluffy ugg boots with a generous white trim instead. Wore them for the rest of the day, reaffirming my professionalism to all and sundry around the office, and then to the supermarket this evening where I got a few cute smiles, and a bottle of Merlot to take the edge off what has been a very long week thus far. Like away from home for over 12 hours interacting with people you have to perform for kind of days, on top of my marathon weekend. And work is crazy and going to get crazier because another one of the girls (who I have gotten quite attached to and is off to the UK and trying to convince me I should be going with her) is leaving, and as much as my boss is going on about how grads don't stay long enough, the old fullas they have hired since coming to that realisation don't seem to be coping so well with the pace. Not that I can talk - I'm pooped.

Having signed up to this gym membership for 12 months and by association another 12 months in Wellie has freaked me out a bit and I'm already questioning my ability to hold to my resolution to 'slow down'. I've been 'stable' here for 15 months, which is the longest I've been fixed anywhere since I left home at 18. One weekend in Tauranga with Jake had me talking to a friend who is practising there sussing things out, (he seems to hate it and is making about ten grand less than I am but he gets to tell people he's a real lawyer - so shallow Miss Pix!) I'm just so commitment shy, and work doesn't inspire me at all, but I doubt my motivations for wanting to live a tumble weed existence and trying to reaffirm internally the importance and value of long term goals. Yawn.

Some daft boy handed me a leaflet on the walk home from work tonight that said Mark, Miles and Nick are having a mean party on McKenzie Terrace Friday night. I'm almost tempted to drop by to see what kind of devastation ensues from such an invite. Have a prior business engagement that evening however.....

The most beautiful card in the world

For Kelly, although I thought I had written about my weekend, I assume you are wanting to hear more about our little bro.

I picked him up on Friday afternoon and Trish was outside waiting to go in and vacuum, and I was talking to her waiting for the bell to ring. When he came rushing out he had something in his hands and looked very pleased with himself, they had obviously been making cards for mothers day. He proceeded to open it in front of me, and this is the cute part, he'd obviously got glue on the inside, and it started to peel up and take the writing with it. He took this very well and looked a bit sheepish about it, and I tried to help him peel it gently apart, but Trish was still trying to talk to me, she had spotted my tattoo and was showing me hers and all I wanted to do was convey to him how wrapped I was with his art work. And it is a very cool card, 3-D with corrugated cardboard as a vase and then little cut out orange and yellow flowers. On the inside it says:

Dear Bridie, thank you for makeing each day a special day you are a special person to me.

And then after I made a bit of a fuss and oohed and aahed about Trish's tattoo I had to hide the card because Edna was over by the playground and I wasn't sure how that would go down. Actually I was pretty sure how it would go down which is why I hid it.

Dialup is not fun

which is what Frank has at his place, but my weekend has been very fun, with lots of magical moments that left me challenging everything; challenging my own complacency, formulating a grand plan. I'm feeling a bit dreamy right now, meant to catch up with a few people in town last night (Saturday) for a few quiet drinks, got home about 3, and Jacob hopped into bed with me at 7:30 this morning. "We" are watching Spongebob the movie at the moment, he is following along with the dialogue the way us girls used to with the Sound of Music. Lou and I took him swimming at Pilot Bay yesterday, it wasn't that cold if you kept moving, Lou stayed on the beach and played with her new digital camera. He just loves the water, which is funny cos neither Frank nor mum were/are that confident.

On Friday I took the Terrano for a blat around McLarens Falls, did some fishtails in the gravel, kindof accidentally. As much as I don't like the cold, I don't think it would be as beautiful up there at any other time of the year. Found the waterfall, about 30 feet high, just a little way into the bush (I like how it is different to the bush further South somehow) and then walked around the lake and watched a duck fight, well it was either a fight or maybe it is duck mating season I dunno, but they were thrashing the shit out of each other by lying sideways in the water and beating with their wings. Yeah...probably not the most efficient way to procreate but I've been told sex and violence are inextricably linked. I'm not sure if I buy it, maybe in the animal kingdom. There was also a mass of black swans, making little cooing sounds that reminded me of learning to play the recorder in primary school. And there was a beautiful doe that put her head through the wire fence so I could pet her, nevermind that she didn't like the grass I had picked for her. Then I went out for tea that night and ate Venison.

I'm finishing this off Monday night, there are other things I'd like to write - the little baby on the beach that came up to me calling mum and putting his hands up to be picked up and then cuddled into me when I did, the hot drummer in town with the dimples and my sister standing on a chair to spot the wedding ring in characteristically inconspicuos fashion, dad and how weird he was with me, how Jacob manages to break my heart one minute and send steam pouring out of my ears the next, but I've had about nine or ten hours sleep in the past three days and I imagine this post will reflect that......

Only adults aelod if its importinte

Well, I'm in Tauranga, it is just after 9am and I have already been to the dentist, shelled out $96.00 for 20 minutes of nearly shaking his chair to pieces (and some x-rays I guess) and then drove back to Frank's and walked with Jake to school.

It's surreal coming back now. The landscape is so familiar, and yet it isn't home. It is like tuning in to a favourite soap opera after having a long break, and although the set remains the same, the actors have changed and you don't know the storyline. I suppose it doesn't help that Kelly isn't here, that there is a stranger living next door in mum's house with three daughters, and that Jacob grows about two feet each interval I am away.

Lauren and I got in quite late last night, and when I got inside everyone was in bed. Jacob's bedroom door was closed but there were some hand written signs posted on the outside. The top one says "Only fiends" and the bottom one says "only adults aelod if its inportinte". I had him up about it when I hopped in to bed with him this morning and he said that the sign doesn't count brothers and sisters. Phew! He's so cute and cuddly when I first arrive, and his eyes were still all squinty from sleep, and on the way to school he started sussing out how long I was here for and making plans for us for the weekend. We got to the road patrol crossing and his new entrant's teacher was on patrol, (he is Year 3 now). The teacher and I got to know each other quite well the year I was in Tauranga and it is always nice to see her, she's very "old-school" but so lovely. There's this shared understanding between us, and well, pride I suppose, at how far the little fulla has come. It chokes me up a bit when I come back now and he is busy getting his own breakfast and putting on his uniform unassisted (I have to applaud Grandma there) and then he charges out the door eagerly. When I think about how long we spent in that awful after-math period where his little heart would break and he'd be beside himself every school morning, not wanting to go, then not wanting me to leave when we got there, and pulling on my pants leg while his teacher bundled him up and told him to be brave and the other little kids sat there and looked on in horrified reverence. To be fair, others in his class went through the same thing and I think most of the little ones have rough mornings and don't want to be left, but for him it was just - more loaded, I HATED leaving him.

This morning we got to class, school bag and shoes came off, book bag went in to desk, (he has one of those desks where the lid comes up now - very grown up!) and then he was out the door in the direction of the playground. He stopped on the porch and waited for me, I got a big hug, and then he was off, no backward glance, no fuss. But I got an "I love you too" as he ran off.

410

Steps.....that's how many I walk up to get home in the evenings after work. As well as some stretches of hill that aren't steps. Fortunately, I didn't walk up anything tonight, just got a taxi home in a cloud of fog and red wine from Jimmy's house. Gotta pack now, I'm going to Tauranga tomorrow afternoon to see my brother and sister.

So work. I am on the fourteenth floor looking South West out over the city. I just worked that navigational thing out by myself so it is probably wrong. Or very impressive. Anyway, usually I get very little flirting action on my floor. It is a very female dominated environment, including the CEO, the Registrar and the better proportion of management, (I love that ad with Michael Laws running at the mo and he's saying New Zealand is a boarding school boy's heaven with all the school marm fantasies playing out - female PM; governor general; attorney general; speaker of the house and chief justice, New Zealand's an act to follow). So the men who are at my work on an average day, they don't really count, they are well, pussies. At the moment, the 14th floor on the other side is being ripped down and reconstructed due to an immense increase in staffing making office space a problem. The result. Lots of tradesman, rippling biceps and boys good with their hands. I haven't got particularly conversational with any of them, I got a cute one going in the lift the other day (No, not like that!), actually no he started it by commenting on the fact I was eating raisins. Perfect opportunity for a lynx effect moment there in the lift but for the accompaniment of his "WWF heavyweight champion of the world" completely silent companion who the cute one felt the need to speak on behalf, I found this irritating. But I have appreciated the over all intensified masculine presence the last couple of weeks and just being able to smile and bat my eyelashes and shit. Ofcourse with them has come untold hammering, drilling, sawing, fume induced headaches etc etc (although we were all assured this would be carried out where at all possible outside of normal business hours) I have got off the phone a few times busting with laughter by the ridiculousness of the racket in the background.

In other news I found out today I'm being sent out in to the field....to Timaru of all places to re-accredit a hospital. Plan on picking myself up a doctor to marry if I achieve nothing else. I'm slightly boozed and still have to pack.....ugh.

How could I not want to write when it looks this good

I think I'm in love with my new blog. It's so purty.

It's absolutely pouring out tonight, the kind of rain that makes you feel cosy just to be inside sheltered from it, and like diving into bed just so you can fall asleep listening to it. I walked home in it tonight, I never mind the walk home when it's raining cause you know you can get there and strip off. And I now have the superdooper million dollar raincoat I bought for the Abel Tasman which makes me much more receptive to the elements! And it's cute.

To write anything about today I would have to focus on work. Because that is where I have been all day. Except for the gym which I have joined to circumnavigate both my bung shin (which is getting less bung I'm pleased to report) and winter. I don't really like the concept of a gym, biking but never getting anywhere, running but seeing nothing but the sweaty old man in front of you. But I get a natural high off the workout and the cardio seems to stabilise my susceptibility to histrionics. And it is safer than me running like a banshee through the bot gardens in the dark.

I have got my first credit card in my life up and running today. I have a BNZ account now and the man was very nice to me and heaped praise on me for being sensible about making repayments on my loan already (I am paying back about a grand a month, it hurts). My ANZ student account expired, I tried to make an appointment with them to get a graduate account through the call centre, the useless bastards failed to ring me back after two separate conversations, so I made a final appointment with them, the woman would not give me the branches direct line so I could ring and confirm myself and wasn't particularly sympathetic to why I was losing my patience, so I just never showed up to the appointment, and went to another bank. Yeah, I'm sure they'll be devastated considering the millions I will be taking off them.......

Well that's pretty good

<<<- drunken lecherous slurring ->>>

Well hello new design, you're doin alright for yourself, lookin pretty good, if ya know what I mean.....

Much too classy for me in my opinion, but I shall have to rise to the occasion. Anyway, thank you Mr Southgate, particularly for making the bottom look less square and also to Mr Whitaker - (for cutting out the wings). I'm just going to gaze at it admiringly now as if it is my own handiwork........