Friends

This year has been a hard year health wise for me but Instead of dwelling on that I’m going to give thanks to a few of the things I’m grateful for:

• Thomas, a fascinating and loving partner
• Caycos, a reassuring and fun person in my life that I know I can rely on
• Excellent friends
• Baking club 
• Hanging out with family
• Getting into yoga
• Getting way better at Table Tennis
• Cooking for people

You know that when the pilot says the weather in Wellington looks "umm interesting" that it is time to brace yourself. In the end, the more disturbing element was the low cloud which meant that we couldn't see the runway until we were right on top of it. Good to be home.

having seen my mum yesterday, all day, and having told her that id call her during the week to catch up, and was going to take a day or two to myself, she just called me. some choice moments included her telling me about how happy a family friend is now that shes thin and married, referring to my "little band", and asking me once again if she can buy me a new jacket.

i know my jacket is falling off me in rags. i know its only got a quarter of the original buttons and the ones left are dented. i know the linings ripped and the arms are too short and the black has faded through use and turned faintly orangey from Exit Mould. i know it fits badly, and is too masculine for me. and yes, while i still love it, i mean to replace it. and im in a position to do so. i just havent yet because i havent found anything i like as much. and my other jackets are too small, too formal, or too hot.

gah, i shouldnt whinge, but its upsetting that theres always something that could be improved on. if i dyed my hair back to blonde, took out my piercings, lasered off my tats, dropped 30 kgs, wore contacts all the time, got married, had babies, and dressed in country road exclusively... well, thered prolly still be something wrong.

just a wee vent, and now i feel better.

I had Christmas too! Some bits and pieces:

• Drove to Te Aroha up SH4 (Whanganui through to Hamilton). It's a beautiful road, with lots of the right sorts of curves, gorgeous scenery and not too much other traffic. It also has the advantage of not being SH1 which I have experienced just a few too many times.


• Kim and I did a good job of protecting ourselves from the sun in the open topped car. Hats, sunscreen, etc. Except I obviously failed to sunscreen my right bicep. Ouch. Oops.


• The Te Aroha motel is rather cute - the owners are obviously very proud of it. It's all very clean and tidy. They have a full complement of freebies too - milk, coffee, milo, sugar, salt, shoeshine kit, clothes mending kit, shampoo and conditioner, soap, and mouthwash.


• Two bad points about the Te Aroha motel. 1) It faces west and the rooms get too hot in the afternoon/evening. 2) The motel cat is very needy and it will wake you up with its loud miaowing in the morning.


• Christmas day with the family was kind of fun. Kids love presents so much! We did the normal eating and drinking and I beat the kids at bowling on their new Wii. :)


• Kim and I enjoyed a hot tub at the Te Aroha spa. I was told that their new policy of not being allowed to spa alone is because 3 people drowned in the last year!


• Bread, butter, cheese. So simple and yet it can be so good.


• Vodafone's coverage out of the towns (and their iPhone compatible 3G coverage out of the main cities) is really bad. I think I'll switch to XT once they get their network stable.


• My new goth shirt is the awesome! Thanks Kim. :)


• The iPhone's battery life isn't really good enough for heavy use (email, twitter, photos, maps, etc).


• We went to Sonya and Clarissa's 30th party in Napier. It was lots of fun, we sat around drinking until it was dark and then we kept drinking while playing Singstar. It made me look forward to playing Rock Band again.


• I ate BBQed meat/sausage. It was ok. I think I'll stick with being vege/pescatarian.


• Kim and I woke up early today (as always) and decided to head home before everyone else woke up. We got breakfast from the best looking cafe in Dannevirke - the food wasn't very good but it's nice to see that you really can get good espresso anywhere in NZ.


• We got bread (and eclairs of course) from the French Baker in Greytown. I want to have a bread tasting/scoring session one day in an attempt to determine who is the best baker in Wellington. I think the French Baker will win if I can find a local supplier of their wares.

i have not had teabags in my house for about 3 weeks. ive forgotten them when i grocery-shopped, and have ended up just not drinking tea between work and fam and other commitments where tea is available.

now i have tea. i love it.

also, my cat is still stoned.

today is for laundry and dishes and general chores, interspersed with media. im srsly thinking about watching the 1995 pride and prejudice all the way through. mmm. i always like jennifer ehle as elizabeth bennett. and colin firth. in the wet white shirt. hallelujah.

so this morning i rocked over to the parentals by 11am. got some bebe time before wee sister and bro-in-law took him away to drive up to otaki for the christening. my folks bickered a bit about what time to leave, as it was a 2am christening and a 1.25hour drive. dad won.

12:25 wee sister calls to say theres been some kind of accident up that way and traffics at a standstill. bro-in-law advises driving over the akataroas.

now, i love my dad, but hes pretty pedal-heavy with his driving and on that road, its not really the best approach. add some galeforce wind and hosing rain. suffice it to say, a VERY FUCKING CLOSE SHAVE ensued, due to oncoming car from blind corner, skiddy road, and sharp drop off. we almost bought it.

then we got as far as pekapeka before hitting the traffic jam. crawled for Ages, periodically texting sister, who was trying to stall the priest. i believe she ended up feeding bebe maksim as an excuse.

we got there half 2, didnt miss a thing, and thank God for that!

then back to the in-laws for foods and yarning. it was lovely. father-in-law smoked a ham on his barbeque, no shit, and it was spectacular. mother-in-law made tiramisu. (some sugar headaches are worth it) nephew-in-law showed off his adorable vocabulary and trike-steering-skills. it was lovely. i was exhausted. now im home after a blissfully uneventful drive back, and im mostly thinking that my sister has married the most marvellous famblie. im glad. =)

today bebe maksim is getting pasteurised. this will keep the nasty evil from breeding in him. so i have to get all fancy, and go to otaki, and itll be lovely, but ive almost reached the end of this batch of Holiday Season People Tolerance, so im looking forward to tomorrow, when i shall spend the day listening to music, cleaning my hoose, watching medi0r, and eatin' tasty foods. hurrah!

what the devil am i going to wear? what lookks nice against gently sauteed caucasian skin?

Regarding the Great Copenhagen Summit of Fail:

World leaders have decreed that they will limit the rise in temperature of the earth to no more than +2^oC.

Could they please explain to me (with my degree in physics) how they will persuade the Supreme Being(s) who regulates the temperature of the sun to play along with this? Or are we in the territory of HUGE UNOBTAINIUM SUNBLOCK SHIELDS and other such fantasy implements?

i have a little pink nose, under my little pink forehead, and a flush across my decolletage despite sunscreen and the shade of a tree. i spent the day happily surrounded by people i love, and their friends and their bebes. i quietly and slowly drank a few beers, and then meandered home.

now i have tabouleh and spudato sarad and some tasty meats. i have a kitteh full of treats and surprisingly grateful about it. soon there will be a movie and an early night. tell me my life isnt perfect.

much love to all and thank you especially to the friends who shared my day with me. xx

[EDIT] i was thinking my cats quietness was indicative of her post-treat gratitude, til i turned around to look at her. she was lying on my bed, hugging my shoulder bag and LICKING IT. i was thinking "wtf, did something meaty fall on it at the pickanick? or worse, IN IT?!"

so i looked in the bag. lovely presents from serena and daniel, peter and megs, and demi... nope, not meaty... water bottle and sunscreen... no meat there... i rummaged right down to the bottom, where i found the catnip shirley and dave gave me today.

now, ive mostly kept my cat off the drugs - she already exhibits signs of psychosis, and had a long and fruity kittenhood, complete with vertical jumps, wall-climbing, and a liking for garlic mushrooms. i didnt want to encourage it. but shes almost 14, and hasnt clibed a wall in years, so i gratefully accepted the catnip when shirley gave me it, as i thought it might be a nice treat.

my cat has the biggest stoner eyes ive ever seen. and she hasnt miaowed in over an hour. god help me if she gets the munchies.

observing how my brain works (or doesn't work, as the case may be) is interesting to me

for a very long time i lived without any biological family. this was due to a wide variety of factors. and for a lot of it i was pretty darn content* with just my chosen family/friends.

earlier this year, my sister Vanessa found me online and since then we've developed a rapport, and we spent a goodly amount of time together while Bex and i were in Portland in September. one of the side-effects of this is that "sister" has once again become part of my vocabulary again… after not being in use for a long time.

both of my daughters are adults now, and our conversations reflect that.
the curious thing is that in recalling one of the recent conversations to Bex, i go, "my *familial noun* was saying" and my brain goes reaching in the box of nouns and comes up with "sister" rather than "daughter" initially. and then i have to correct myself.
this makes a certain kind of sense. my interactions with my daughters has not been all that dissimilar to my interactions with my sister… in all of those cases we're adults telling each other about our respective pasts.

i have not had this issue with "brother" and "son" though. i suspect that this is due to a couple of factors. 1. although Stevie (my brother) and i haven't conversed a lot over the years, we have been in contact at least once a year for the last several. so "brother" was already in my vocabulary at least a bit. and 2. my son is the youngest of my children and his writing reflects that. he'll be 18 next month, which in certain ways makes him an adult, but the way he expresses himself, at least on-line, does to me have a voice more of a teenager, which i don't find in his elder siblings.
no particular judgement in any of that. just observation, mostly of my own perceptions.






*i had learned that in some ways i had to be content. if you cannot change a thing, then what you can do is change how you feel about a thing. with my children being the most obvious example. i couldn't contact them. so eventually i had to make peace with the idea that i didn't know when that would change.

Being a Charger fan has been painful for nearly 30 years. Which is why I'm a bit cautious at the moment. But damn. The Titans really *needed* today. The Chargers didn't. And they looked damn good anyway. That was one helluva win.

I really do think this is a team that could go all the way. In typical Charger fashion, I think the biggest adversary they face at this point is none other than the Chargers. Same as it ever was.

Still. Go bolts.

/me cringes in anticipation of the evils soon to come...

I'm off to get paralytically drunk pleasantly merry in memory of the season.

Best wishes to all, and see some of you on the 29th.

The 1995 Margaux Grand Cru beckons - see you later...

the third best line of today was at mass, when the very earnest priest told us all to Imagine We Were That Baby! (ok, im baby jebus, and all that, but can someone PLEASE change my swaddling clothes?)

the second best line was when we were sorting out the Christmas Cracker Shenanigans, and my mum said "your father can just pull himself".

the best line of today was when my mum rolled her eyes at something my sister said, turned to my brother-in-law, and said "for gods sakes, Keep Her Pregnant!"

i almost weed from laughing too hard.

tomorrow is the boxing day pickanick at aro park. sunday, Giant Bebe Maksim gets Pasteurised by God. we're having a very virtuous christmas!

im so so full, and want to describe the dinner because it was epic. then im going to bed.

entree - salmon and crayfish mousse with hollandaise and toast points.
main - Big Motherfucker Turkey with roast spuds, parsnip, and punkin, peas, tiny snossidges and devils-on-horseback, gravy and cranberry sauce.
dessert - ub0r berry trifle from 'Nam, christmas pud, brandy butter.

plus, some VERY nice wine. i had half a glass each of the lovely white and two lovely reds, and no more. to drink too much of those wines would be sacrilege.

life is beautiful. seriously, BEAUTIFUL. now im going to bed. love to all. xx

so far today has been about church, fry-up brunch, an imperial fucktonne of cooking (including the requisite Turkey Puppetry), ella fitzgerald, pavarotti, the arrival of sister, bro-in-law, and Giant Bebe Maksim (has it really been over 2 months? hes PHUGE!) and the usual exchange of gifts.

still to come, the Dinner O'Doom, and the lying about groaningly full and watching christmas movies. its simple stuff, but it means the world to me.

merry christmas, everyone, and all my love. xx

The modern country village - a cafe that looks just like one in the burbs and sells a decent organic coffee and an excellent vege quiche.

Still the country - the magazines on the rack for patrons are "Rod and Rifle".

oh my christ. i was hijacked on my way home by kelly and clea and CC and forced through an inordinate amount of booze. its always funny hanging out with those ladies - theyre superclassy and dress well and are generally fabulous, and i dont quite know how i fit in, but i love them and theyre my bighearted all-singin all-dancin bitches, and you cant buy that shit.

however, it resulted in HANGOBER OB DOOOOOOMS and im plucking up the courage to venture back into the shopping fray before the family stuff.

someone shoot me.

My pohutukawas just finally started coming out 3 days ago. Much later this year than previous ones. I'm not sure what that means, as omens go.