November 29, 2006

Iceberg Ahead!

Yesterday, after I’d had my hair cut and whilst I was having all offending hair wax from my body I received a phone call for Hubby. He had been offered two free tickets to see Titanic – A New Musical at the Theatre Royal, did I want to go?

Being a big fan of musicals in general, the answer was a big YES!

Also, I was curious. How can you make a musical about such a tragic event? This is after all the story of the world’s largest moving object (at the time, 1912) that sank on her maiden voyage after hitting an iceberg.

Make it a comedy, probably best not too. Make it dead serious, not a big draw card. They went for something in between, mostly serious, but a few pieces of comic moments. This is not a remake of the movie on the stage. The title song, is very powerful and tugs the heartstrings at just the right moments. The staging even manages to sink the ship without even a single drop of water.

I did of course cry, as I always do whenever I think of this story. Perhaps it’s because my mum is from Southampton and I grew up on tales of the ‘unsinkable ship’ from my grandad, perhaps it’s because her great uncle was a pastry chef on board and was one of the survivors, I’m not sure, whatever the reason I’m glad I saw it.

If you get a chance, go see it.

Ohh… yeah, and the costumes are fabulous!

(256 words)

November 27, 2006

ANTM 7-8

The recap episode of who’s made it this far.

It showed how the girls got a fashion makeover at the start, stuff got throw out and then they got to got shopping.

The bitching started. Comments like ‘die bitch die’, ‘you smell so bad’, you ate my chips’, she’s a psycho’ and ‘grow a weave’.

The funniest thing ever though was the reaction to a sparrow that was inside the house. The screams and running…!

So nothing really that exciting. We are left with Melrose, Eugena, Michelle, Amanda, Caridee, Anchel and Jaeda.

Beautiful Armidale (long with pictures)

I was lucky this weekend, it started on Thursday.

As volunteer editor of a newsletter about alpacas, I have recently put together and sent out a calendar of cute pictures and regional dates with the approval for committee and members (no easy feat as anyone involved with committees will tell you). So I spent Thursday in my car, driving from Sydney to Armidale (600+ kilometres) for a regional meeting and popping into Information Centre and little shops along the way, trying to sell the calendar. I got rid of 50 or so. I also stopped and interviewed a fleece testing owner for the newsletter.

I arrived at the little B&B I was staying in just after 6pm, order a take away and a bottle of red and chilled out ‘cause I was (quite frankly) knackered after a day in the car.



I awoke on Friday feeling good, and was looking forward to a day amongst the alpacas, blue fairy wrens and plovers, English cottage garden, writing up the interview and generally taking it easy in preparation for the Committee/OGM meetings to be attended on Sunday. At about 12.30/1 I decided to pick up my messages, what a mistake! The last one of five was from the regional president telling ‘we’ll sort out the Carnation* issue at the Committee meeting’.


Well, with a cryptic message like that I had to call her and find out what was happening. After all I didn’t have access to my email in the wilds of downtown Armidale.

It turns out that Carnation had once again been up to her trick of being vindictive, mean spirited and noxious self to the point of recruiting a Crony to attack me, the committee and the calendar by saying such things as the photos were poorly composed and taken on a cheap camera (my camera was not cheap, small, but not cheap), that 85% of the pictures had been taken in one spot (at least 10 different locations including overseas), the animals portrayed were miserable looking and genetically poor (10 of the 13 months are of broad ribbon winners), the advertisers should get their money back (it was sponsorship, not advertising), major events in the general alpaca calendar were missing (not available at time of publication, and still not available) and finally that the calendar as a whole was a ‘disaster’.

As you can image after hearing this and other tip bits that I have not included I was rather P*SSed Off! The President was also miffed as her animals were some that had been accused of being genetically inferior, including her Supreme Champion female. I can quite honestly say, if I had seen Carnation or Crony at that moment I would have nutted her. My leisurely day was out the window.

Many phone calls were made to the sponsors and all but one, were happy with what they got. Carnation and Crony had, btw, not been involved in production at all. Much discussion took place, with my hosts, (also alpaca breeders, who incidentally thought the tone of the emails were personal attacks), and I was calmed down. My weekend on a whole though had a taint on it. After dinner and a few glasses of red, things were looking better, but I still went to bed muttering ‘bastards’ under my cab sav breath.

Saturday, say hubby and I doing a rather long, delightful tourist drive to see the waterfalls of the New England Tablelands. Bakers Falls was rocky and dry. Wollomombi Falls, according to the postcard I purchased is supposed to be a rushing torrent forming the tallest waterfall in NSW, it was dry. The surrounding landscape was spectacular so that kinda made up for the lack of water. Lunch at the Wollomombi General store saw hubby eating the biggest burger on the planet and me selling the owner 5 calendars.


Further on up the road was Ebor Falls, now this one is perennial, so it had water. And boy, was it purdy! One waterfall made up on an upper and lower falls. The Upper falls was wide with lots of rocks for the water to divide and break over. The water then wound its way to the lower fall which is a sheer 100 metre drop to the bottom of the valley. The drive back to the B&B took us onto dirt roads, past sweeping plains and amongst many iddy bidy baby moo cows.

Saturday night we had dinner with the committee and discussed all sorts of things at length, including the calendar, and pretty much decide that Carnation and Crony could take a runny jump and that we were not going to let them get to us (mainly me ;-) Nice dinner/bbq, good company and a dash of good drink.

Sunday and the day of the Alpaca meeting, 32 mad keen people in attendance. Pretty much all of them said how much they liked the calendar; in fact I sold 40 at the meeting. So, in my general business of this blog entry I would like to say, 'get you’re your bloody facts right, Carnation and Crony!’


On the drive home, hubby and I were so engrossed in our discussion of volunteer organisations and need for people on the side lines to criticise and put down those that help, he got caught speeding by a nice policeman in a red car. The Copper gave us a ticket for going 123kms in a 100 limit, we gave him a calendar.

*name changed to protect the Cantankerous Old Bat.

(898 words)

November 23, 2006

Duel

After my soul had been returned to me when I left the office today (my current job is very boring and each morning I surrender my soul at the door, only to have it returned as I leave) I went to a seminar at Uni about food writing. Or should I say Writing about food. It was a lecture given by a food critic/author/food lover about what not to do if you plan on a career as a person who writes about food. I’m not explaining this well! ;-) But I think you get the jist.

After, I had a meal of raw salmon wrapped in rice grains and seaweed, deep fried Tofu with teriyaki sauce washed down with nice, cold, not so fresh apple and blackcurrant juice. The company was fine, in the form of Edna and Hubby. The ambience of the Sushi Bus engendered lively conversation and much hilarity. Service as always was par excellent, even when the train derailed and spilt plates of food onto the counter in front of us. Plates are just $3 and $7 each, so none of that trying to figure out if the plate is pink, grey or bronze.

Anyway, I think you get the ideaJ

I drove Edna home, then drove to Bucketty. The traffic was a pain, despite being after 11 at night. I had to stop on the F3 so some loose rocks could be knocked off the rock walls just south of Berowra, then again, for tree trimming just north, added 20 minutes to the trip. After I got off the freeway (motorway to the POMS out there), I picked up a follower. Very odd really, I slowed, he didn’t overtake, but when I sped up he kept pace. I couldn’t shake him. All i could see was two bright white, glowing headlights. On the plus side, when I turned onto our dirt track, I lost him. No driving over cliffs to shake him required. Very Steven Spielberg!

(317 words)

November 20, 2006

ANTM 7-7

Impromptu photo shoot with Tyra taking the pictures, saw the girls wearing cat contacts doing scary beautiful.

The lesson today was from Sutra and Dita Von Tease and how to be sexy. Caridee went over the top and showed her knickers, Dita told her to tone it down.. Brooke was horrified at having to pretend to strip. Later all the girls had to strut their stuff on the dinner table of the director of Seventeen Magazine, Cathy Gould. Melrose won the challenge and took Brooke, Amanda and Michelle along to the editorial photo shoot prize.

The bitching continued with Anchel being given advice on how not to be fat. Melrose being told she too old. Jadea continued to moan about having her hair cut, get over it already it’s been 6 weeks!

Fabio was the prop for the romance novel front cover photo shoot. Brooke accused him of being as thick as a tree (his thighs) and was sacred silly, Anchel nailed her impression of Cleopatra and Melrose played the perfect Madam.

In judgment, Brooke was accused of being beauty queen, but not a model.

Brooke and Eugena were in the bottom two. Brooke went home in time to go to graduation.

(202 words)

November 18, 2006

The Crops are in

I picked the first of the peas from the plants on my balcony today. I think I may be a while away from self sufficiency!

Count them carefully!

November 15, 2006

Feasting On Flesh

I went to the Opera House tonight with my buddy Edna to see Feasting on Flesh. What a fantasic show! Circus for Adults as Edna put it.

There a little blonde guy who could be mistaken for the Energiser (Duracell if you’re in the UK) Bunny who bounds around the stage doing back flips and acrobatics wearing a tux, a pair of blank boxer or nothing. The dark, tall muscular guy who wears the same plus a lilac sequined G-string and does some amazing ariel acrobatics. The beautiful and luscious big girl with flawless skin who wears everything and nothing who sings, dances and does magic. Then the tall, dark, skinny girl who dances, get wrapped in cling film and pretends to be a severed head on a platter, ohh and squishes tomatoes with enthusiasm. The older guy who narrates, pushes cake into the little blonde guys arse and smokes with meaning.

Finally, you have the Musician, the delectable Gotye. Tall, dark, handsome, talents with percussion and piano, sensual music to delight the senses (I’ve been a fan for a while, you might notice), also, as I discovered tonight, a mighty fine Dutch accent and a surprising opinion on the taste of semen. Apparently you have no taste buds at the back of your throat! And ladies, when men dine out, it’s not the food that counts but the ambiance of the restaurant. Take Note!

Also, as Edna pointed out as he was standing on the stage in front of us, big shoes...

Big Feet!

If you haven’t booked a ticket to see this show, it’s on till the 18th November. Go Now!

(229 words)

Toilet Humour

My cold is still hanging on and when I get sick, my tummy also plays up. Anyway, without going into too much detail, earlier today I had to go to the loo. As I was walking through the office toward the ladies I was joined by someone else who wanted to chat and fix her makeup.

I’m one of those strange people who doesn’t like going to the loo while someone else is around, so after making an excuse to leave I made a dash down the stairs to the floor below, only to find the cleaner going in.

Down to the next floor, 3rd time lucky, anything but funny!

(110 words)

November 13, 2006

Hurting Hair

I'm sick!

My hair still hurts today, much worse than yesterday in fact. So everything makes sense seeing as I didn't have that much to drink on Saturday! I'm pretty sure it's just a head cold, but I feel shocking, coughing, sneezing, aching and sore eyes. So no swimming today! ;-(

November 12, 2006

Blog Spam

Due to Blog Spam in my comments, I have had to turn on Word Verification.
Sorry for the inconvenience.

Weekend Précis

I drove up to Bucketty on Friday night for a quite night and a good night’s sleep, something I don’t always get with a snoring hubby by my side. I was going well until I hit the Pacific Highway and had to deal with this little jerk. A red P plater in a heap of junk Ute with lorry mud flaps (why would you do that?) and a really sucky attitude. At a merge he wasn’t going to let me in until I played the ‘I’m older and got more insurance’ card. You can’t see it here, but his stickers had words of wisdom such as;
If you don’t love it LEAVE! (next to the Aussie Flag)
Bullbars, better than airbags
Real Cars are made with spanners, not chopsticks
B&S Ball 2006

He wasn’t happy that I had got in front and tail gated me until I hit the F3. Once on the F3 the weather rewarded me with a spectacular show of rainbows. Shooting from the steering wheel and pointing the camera in the general direction gave me these shots.
Fast forward to Saturday, a waxing trip followed by 40 lengths in 30 minutes was then followed by a night out with my good buddy Toddina. I haven’t had a night out with him for over a year and it turned into a big one. He did point out to me that my Japanese Subara may have been the reason the dick in the Ute didn’t want me to merge in front of him. I had disturbed his well thought out and pea sized brain, bogan sensibilities. We drank to his being offered the chance to study for a Phd and the fact I had enrolled in my Masters. We drank to boys. We drank to the great Australian Weather (it was 34degrees yesterday). We drank to us and anything we could think of really, which by 3.30am was a lot of old crap.

Civilised dinner at the Bavarian Beer Café on York Street had turned into Cosmo’s at the Imperial in Erskinville. Ohh...dear!

Today...my hair hurts!

(338 words)

November 10, 2006

Mum

Work is really slow at the moment. So slow in fact, that as of next week I will be working part time for the next few weeks. It sucks, but I am managing to fill my working hours with a bit of writing, a bit of surfing and plenty of walking around looking busy. I can quite honestly say I have only ever been bored at work.

So, as it turns out, today my colleague Reg is also suffering from a lack of inspiration and we got to chatting, as you do. He revealed that in the thirty odd years he’s worked here, he has been bored more than inspired, then out of the blue he says ‘I miss my mum.’

He followed that very rapidly with, ‘I know that a silly thing to say.’
‘Not at all, it’s understandable,’ I reply and little shocked.

He buried his mother 4 weeks ago. She passed away after a battle with lung cancer. And this is the only sign of grief he has ever shown whilst at work, even to the point of turning up at a workshop just two day after the funeral.

Anyway…he started saying that when bored he would phone her for a quick chat ‘cause even if he was talking crap she would still love it, ‘I put butter on my bread today Mum.’ Then in a high pitched voice, ‘Ohh, don’t use to much, you don’t know how lucky you are, we only had dripping and not that fancy stuff they have today.’

It broke my heart, I wanted to give him a hug, pat him on the back and say it would all be OK!

(275 words)

November 8, 2006

Swimming 8

Didn’t do much tonight, only 10 lengths, but then Edna came to. We chatted, did a bit of Aqua Aerobics then had a spa followed by relationship over analysis in the sauna for 30 minutes. It was a real girlie night!

On the way out we saw a couple of rather hot young things entering the pool area and spa. As we left they asked if we would turn out the lights. We did, but not before I had warned them that the security camera could still see them. As we got to the lifts, the Spa alarm was going off. I rushed back to tell them that the President will be visiting soon to reset the alarm. I got a call from the President about 10 minutes later to say he had found them have sex in the spa and their lease will be terminated!

(148 words)


UPDATE : 11.12am 9th November 2006

The naughty boys in the spa last night last, broke the emergency alarm, had been smoking and drink whilst in the spa and abused the President when he went down to reset the alarm. Their cute butts are outta there!

ANTM 7-6

Michelle announced that she ‘may be gay’, her twin sister Amanda seemed to have trouble with it

Mark Steines for E Entertainment Tonight gave them a quick lesson on the red carpet before throwing them to the wolf in the form of Janice Dickerson
CariDee asked why she was over pungent, Brooke asked her why she was such a bitch, AJ lost it. Melrose won a chance to file a story for E.

Tara came into the house interviewed each of the girls to find out how they were doing. Amanda revealed that she was worried that her sister would be judged for revealing that she was unsure of sexual orientation. Their mother took it really well.

The photo shoot was Celebrity Couples. Each of the girls was photographed as the male first then went back into makeup to come down as the girlie half. Photographer was Matthew Jordan Smith. Brooke shone through this week posing as Britney and Kevin. CariDee redeemed her earlier faux paux as Angelina and Brad, complete with babies in tow.

Jaeda and AJ were in the bottom two, AJ went home.

November 7, 2006

Swimming 7

21 in 12 minutes. It was past 10pm and I started seeing the boogie man in the shadows. I really must start going earlier so i can keep swimming without my heart rate raising due to a freaked out imagination!

Melbourne Cup Day

It's that time of year again. The race that stops a nation.

Do I place a bet or not...? Do I willingly go into a TAB and hand over $20 for a slip of paper that will be useless to me in little over two hours?

I'll keep you posted!

UPDATE - 11.34 7/11/06
Glistening received the kiss of death when I put $5 each way on it.

New Club in Town

On Friday Edna and I went to a new fetish club that has opened in Sydney. Called Vice it operates in the basement of ARQ at 16 Flinders Street on the first Friday of each month.

Dressed in my lovely new red boots, short black skirt, black corset and white shirt. Edna worn a snappy pink t with rolling stones lip, black short skirt, and flower printed doc martens. A sexy pair we made as we rocked up to the front door at 10.30.

At 4am we left after it took a while to get going, fairly bad music and plenty or vodka and orange. Edna had a bad experience too, and I had to get Master Tom to have a chat with a ‘tourist’ so he didn’t go around trying to get girls to put their hands on his dick under the table.

Hellfire is still our favorite destination on a Friday night!

(154 words)

November 3, 2006

Naughty Poems

I asked Edna to read my poem Achilles Heel from her valuable opioin and she came back with this reply ‘I do like the poem, although one should not read it when eating one's breakfast. Or maybe it's just that I am very good at picturing things in graphic detail... :-) As to what it's about- it's obvious- it's about going on holiday and trying to find someone to water your plants for you!’

Mate, it's about foot massage!

Achilles Heel

The touch of skin
to skin,
my digits entwined
fingers

thumb wrapped around
squeezing,
choking my big toe
throbbing

wet tongue to arch,
probing,
stroking the length of
heaven

the sweetest spot
between
the second and third,
honey

slowly you tease
my flesh
temptation the last
head back

soon the end comes
biting
from toe tip to calf
tickles

November 2, 2006

Swimming 6

I have had to come up with a sequence of swimming titles. This is the sixth day I have been swimming since last Wednesday so its swimming entry six. I hope that clear ;-)

21 lengths in under 20 minutes. Don’t know exact time ‘cause my stopwatch flaked out and i didn't have my glasses on, so therefore couldn't see the clock, not that I checked the time going in, but I got out the pool at 1740.

November 1, 2006

ANTM 7-5

They started the episode with a lesson in extreme high fashion posing with a contortionist. Melrose had a go at Anchel for eating to much and not doing cardio to work it all off (she had 4 eggs for breakfast).

Everyone got stuck into Melrose when she brown nosed Twiggy at dinner.

The high fashion posing came in handy when they had to play statues at fashion show. Eugena did the best poses and won $32,000 worth of jewellery. After Melrose did her best impression of Derek Zoolander by saying ‘I just wish I’d been softer and smiled a little more, this face (pulls face) is very different from this face (pulls same face).’

The photo shoot was ‘turn of the century circus freaks’. Caridee was praised for a great job, and the twins worked it as Siamese twins joined at the head.

Jadea and Megg were in the bottom two…Megg went home.

Swimming

14 laps in 9 minutes, I would have done more but my creepy neighbour came down, sat in the spa and watched me. Eww!

Hair Removal

After a lunch of gelatinous white grains with raw sea dwellers and salt water botanicals I popped into a chemist with Edna to purchase a hair removal product for her ohh so hairy legs (it’s summertime nearly and the short trousers are coming out of the dark end of the wardrobe). So we are standing in front of Wax strips, Cream, Nads and razors discussing the options. It was decided that waxing is messy, shaving causes stubble and after a tale of cat hair, cream is also messy. So she’s going to see a girl.

The cat tale – long ago in a land, far, far away there was a lady called Sally (aka Muv). She decided one day to use hair removal cream on her legs before going out for her once a year fancy outing with her husband (aka Dad). So there she is, 6 o’clock in the evening, walking around the house, doing stuff for her five children with hair removal cream covering her legs from ankle to thigh. Picture an exaggerated John Wayne walk. Jodie and Sorrell, the family cats started playing and Sorrell ran away using a path that went directly between Sally’s legs. But on the way through he caught his left side on her leg. Sally then spent the next 10 minutes trying to catch the cat. When she finally caught him it was too late. Hair remover works as well on cats as it does on humans and for the next few weeks we had a partially bald cat.

(252 words)

I Don't Want Too!

I appear to be working a life force vacuum. I walk into the building where I am currently employed and feel all energy and enthusiasm drain from my body. However, my emotions go haywire, especially the one that controls reactions to criticism.

On Tuesdays I go to Uni in the afternoon were I am studying for a Postgraduate Certificate in Writing. Poetry, as you know was giving me a few problems earlier in the semester, but I’ve got a handle on it now.

So anyway, yesterday morning I was at work having a meeting about forms. I have spent days of effort on these forms previously and am quite frankly sick to my back teeth of changing things back to how they were on the original forms. So after an hour and a half of talking about the title of fields, I needed to think about something else for just a couple of minutes before making the changes requested. So I thought I would quickly move a couple of pictures about in my visual poem (yeap…I’m thinking outside of words now) before saving and getting it ready to print when I got to Uni.

After about 30 – 60 seconds of this I turned around to see the Project Manager sitting on the desk behind me and he asks what I’m doing. I quickly explained. His response was, ‘the forms are of paramount importance at the moment, as are the rest of the communications. Your University work should only be done outside of working hours.’

You could have knocked me down with a feather, ‘cause he had just finished telling me about how great Midnight Oil was in concert when he saw them several years ago.

Fast forward to this morning.

I realised as I lay in bed listening to my alarm going off for the umpteenth time that I didn’t want to get up and go into the office. I hate how I feel when I’m there (drained, cold, muffled head, generally flu like) which takes hours to shake after I go home, the project I’m working on has no support from the director how engaged us and finally I feel like I’m banging my head against a brick wall with what I’m doing. What’s the point of playing the role of Change and Communications Manager when the project goal posts keep changing form day to day, hour to hour and some day there isn’t even a project?

(408 words)