Random Thoughts and Speeding Cartoon Birds

For some reason, it's Thursday and it's the last one in October. I'm not sure where Tuesday or Wednesday went, although I'm sure that they happened - I've got the e-mails to prove it. Even worse it's Halloween tomorrow, which means I will have to leave the house and find some cinema to hibernate in between 5 and 9 to avoid children. Although this gives me the opportunity to wear light up devil horns to work if I so wish.

So obviously we are through the "hump day" of the year and are on the rapid downward slope to the weekend/summer.

Right now I'm feeling a little bit like Wile E. Coyote waiting for the Roadrunner to smack him with an Acme anvil. Seriously, where the hell has the year gone?

Finding Old Friends

So I've had two very busy weekends and am about to have another two very busy weekends.

The weekend before Labour Day weekend I decided to scoot down to the Tron to visit Miss T for a bit of a girls weekend while her hubby was off playing snooker in Wellington.
Earlier in the year I had been on Facebook and found one of my friends from primary school who I haven't seen since she moved when we were 11. We had tried to be pen-pals, but it kind of fell by the teenage wayside. I found out she lives in the Tron too, so we had a wee (online) chat and decided that we should catch up for a coffee while I was down visiting.
So on the Saturday morning, Miss T and I bowled over to Shell's place to meet her (again), her hubby and wee boy James. We thought we would be in for a quick tactical-strike-style catch up for a couple of hours and then out again. Were we ever wrong!
It's surprising that, given Shell and I hadn't seen each other in almost 20 years and that Miss T and Shell weren't particular friends, we just fell back into really easy conversation and were totally relaxed and had a complete blast. There was quite a bit of giggling, hassling her husband, looking at photos, and laughing about old school stories (especially ones that involved us 3 white girls in the Poly Club at primary school!).
5 hours and a really good quiche after we got there (5! 5 hours!!!!), Miss T and I decided that we should leave since Shell was planning on going out later and taking an 8 month old baby out takes preparation. But we swapped numbers and addresses, and have promised to catch up again soon (which is likely to involve some kind of party in her big party shed).
As people may know, I am *not* someone who really chases after people that I knew at school since I've managed to keep in contact with the ones that I actually liked. So I'm really, really pleased that I found Shell again. Facebook, I salute you (but just this once).

So this weekend past was the long weekend. Hurrah the holiday drought has ended! Ahem, but apart from that, Sarah, Alistair, Em and Jess came to visit. Actually they came up for a family reunion but I like to think I was all important enough for them to visit! I have rather missed all the higgledy piggledy noise and mess and hugs. I have forgotten how cool it is to have kids around. I'm all hugged up for the moment, but has made me miss Wellington again..... :/ Which means that I miss everyone.... :/ Damn you all for not moving to Orcland with me!

But to tide me over, I have Nic and Becks up this weekend for Phantom (YAY!!!!!!!) and Judge coming up the weekend after that just for the double-hockey-sticks of it (More YAY!!!!!!!). And then Xmas is coming so I'll be down in Wellington to visit for AGES (well 2 weeks but that's ages in my world at the moment).

So hugs and kisses to everyone, and I will see everyone soon! Unless of course you are overseas somewhere, cause then I won't. ;)

The Good, The Bad, and The Undateable

Good things:

• Charlotte has finally made it home out of hospital. Hurrah Little Fish.
• Nic loaned me the good version of Persuasion.
• The Evil League of Evil Application: The Embezzler. Congrats to everyone involved esp Morgue and Tec. If Joss doesn't pick this one, I don't know what is wrong with him (not that I'm biased or anything).
• A friend has announced she's pregnant. Woo! Especially so since she was starting to get a touch paranoid (*grin*)
• I'm going to visit the city of the future (Tron) tomorrow. This trip I've managed to get time with Miss T and will catch up with a friend that I haven't seen since Form 1. V. exciting.
• I finished my first strategy document ever. And apparently it was good.
• I finished writing my first RFP document ever. And apparently that was good too.
• Work paid for some trips to Wellington which meant I got to see a few people unexpectedly.
• I found some friends through work to play Munchkin and Apples to Apples with.
• "My" girls come to visit next weekend! I'm very excited.
• The Phantom has started at the Civic. Also v. exciting. And I get to go!
• Judge comes to visit soon!
• Xmas is only weeks away and I'm on holiday in Wellington for 2 whole weeks.
• The tax rebates. Took long enough and might actually have some benefit on my savings.

Bad Things:

• Charlotte was in hospital :(
• Babylon AD. Don't do it to yourself.
• The neighbours got burgled, which has made me slightly paranoid about locking things.
• I've been lacking hugs. I'm starting to go into serious withdrawl.
• I've put on weight again and current exercise levels are not balancing it. And I don't want to spend bundles on joining a gym cause I have yet to find one I like.
• I haven't been to dancing in ages cause I've been so busy that I'm finding it hard to actually get to classes.
• I haven't talked to my brother in ages. I'm feeling like a very bad sister.

The Undateable:

After considering my pathetic lack of love life, I decided to give the virtual dating world another whirl. I don't consider myself to be a supermodel in any way/shape/form (unless you count the generous cleavage), but I'm not some huckery-mole either.

So after putting myself out there, I managed to talk to some bloke and arrange for coffee. The obvious next step when you are spending considerable time chatting to each other. Not a problem!, I hear you say. It's just coffee! LIARS, all of you. I got STOOD UP. Luckily it was at the coffee place in Borders so I made myself feel better by buying a new book.

So following all of this I have continued my search for someone who I might make friends with, with a potential to date, with a remarkable lack of success. I swear that I must have some kind of glow in the dark sign on my forehead that says "DON'T DATE ME". Obviously this means that my very stylishly modern uber-pessimism superhero overundies (with hi-beam anti-dating labelling) have particularly successful. I'm glad to see Not-Kate is having more success than I am, cause someone has to be.

Poor Baby Whale

(I've finally figured out how to change my timezone! Hurrah!)

I've been avidly avoiding the stories about the baby whale on TV, on the various websites that I view, and in the newspapers (even though I don't see a whole lot of those). But this morning I saw on the NZ Herald site that vets are going to euthanise the poor little blighter because he's starving, and my pathetic girly hormones kicked in and I started to tear up.

In my logical brain, I have a voice saying it's for the best, cause you don't want a starving baby to suffer.

In my illogical, girly brain, there is a big storm of pathetic sobbing saying don't kill the baby whale, get a whole lot of milk and get a really big baby bottle and just attach it to the bottom of a yacht.

This is why I don't watch animal movies. I worry too much about the animals and just can't cope with all the drama.

Edit Note: It's 3.45pm and I've just been told that they put poor baby whale Colin down. More tearing up. :(

Amusement

1. There is a man that rides a bike around the streets near work. He's put a lawnmower motor on his bike and rides around pulling wheelies all the time. I'm guessing the wheelies are so that he doesn't accidentally apply the breaks to the wrong wheel.
2. The end of my student loan is in sight. Mwah ha haha. My last statement suggests that I should be free and clear leading into the beginning of the next tax year. There is a lot of happy happy joy joy about this and anticipation of the future freeing up of more funds.

Life is like a Tui ad.

I've come to the semi-conclusion that Life is sometimes like a Tui ad. Something will catch your attention and all of a sudden Life will pop up and tap you on the shoulder and shout "YEAH RIGHT" in your face, while turning you upside down and shaking all the change out of your pockets.

But anyway....

Following the last post, I made a bit of a mad overnight dash to Wellington to attend the funeral of the now-deceased person. I'd forgotten how much I truely dislike funerals. I always get a bit creeped out by having a dead body in the room, especially since I know the general stuff that goes on inside a dead body when things don't work any more and the whole embalming process..... I think that some of that is from the number of different "accidentally burying the live person" permutations that come out in all the horror movies that I've watched in my life. On the other hand, it was nice to see some of the people that I knew back then and see that they were kind-of-okay.

I spent a weekend in Torbay (the last suburb before you get to Rodney District!) with a friend of mine. It was the weekend of the big and nasty storm, so I drove down to the beach and spent some time watching the ginormous waves break right up over the dunes at the top of the beach. It was very cool to watch although the stupid idea Deb and I had of getting out of the car to have a closer look was just that - stupid. It was cold, and windy, and I had a better view from the car without all the sand and water blowing in my eyes.
So we headed back to Deb's place to watch DVD's and sit and stuff our faces in front of the fire. This was a brilliant plan until the power went out - for 7 hours. Deb and I sat at the table doing her 1000 piece puzzle (Toni joined in when she arrived just after the power died) and Deb's partner sat there counting down the time until the first Bledisloe match was due to start. I would like to say that I seriously admire everyone who existed before electricity. You wouldn't believe just how hard it is to finish a 1000 piece puzzle by candlelight.
The power kicked in about 5 minutes before kickoff, and by the time MySky loaded up, the TV kicked in just as they put the boot to the ball (not that it would have mattered if we missed it cause we LOST).

I've been working alot, and I mean alot. Over the past 2 weeks I've pulled one 11 hour day, two 10 hour days, one day where I have no idea how long I actually worked but I put it in the vicinity of 12 hours, and the rest were 9 hour days. This is NOT conducive to actually doing anything. It also means that I have not been to dancing in over a month. BAD.

Yesterday (today according to the post date?), it was 8 years since my dad died. It's quite an odd feeling realising that. Only 2 years to go and it's a decade. Sometimes when I'm feeling out of sorts stuff like this makes me wonder where my life has gone, cause a third of it has shot by. I think this may be part of the Tui ad that I'm feeling. *sigh* Life is like a box of chocolates......

I've finally gotten round to seeing The Dark Knight. I couldn't find an Imax session so I went to a regular session on Saturday afternoon. Heath Ledger is a legend in that movie. Movie psychos will take a lesson from this movie I'm sure. I'm not sure if it's worthy of an Oscar, but then I've never really got exactly how they manage to pick some of the awful crap that they've nominated in the past.

And on to the regularly featured Oscar acceptance speech of this blog:
Big ups to 2Trees & Laura. Hope everything goes well for the weekend.
Hugs to Judge. You are such a dude, and see you soon.
Hugs to Chell. Thanks for the sanity check
and super special thanks to Nic for the lend of the clunker.

&$*%&#(%@#(&#)@

I don't know if you all remember my semi-rant about bad surprises.

Well, the bad surprise has delivered it's punchline (almost literally) and the afflicted person died this morning.

Apart from the godawful experience that I know is happening to a loved one in Wellington, I'm feeling particularly crap about the whole thing and to be honest wanting to go home and sit on my deck with a really really really big glass of wine (you know one of those ones that take almost an entire bottle at a time).

I'd feel much better if I could have one of those huge bear hugs where someone you loves wraps you up and you just disappear into a nice comfortable cocoon of arms, but that ain't on the cards today.

So *virtual hugs* to the person that is in Wellywood going through all this without me, and more *virtual hugs* to me cause I feel like them.