Guilty Pleasure Friday – 29/06/2007

Sometimes when I reflect back on all the wine I drink I feel ashamed.
Then I look into the glass and think about the workers on the wine farms and all of their hopes and dreams.  
If I didn’t drink their wine, they might be out of work and their dreams would be shattered.  
Then I say to myself
“It is better that I drink and Let their dreams come true than be selfish and worry about my liver.”

Meow – What the gossip mags say

The Sydney Morning Herald has a scathingly brilliant wrap up of what the Australian gossip magazines are bitching about every week.

It makes me laugh every week.

My favourite lines from this week include;

On Angelina: “Her brain is discombobulated by malnutrition”

Jennifer: “In a strange reversal of a common female fantasy, Aniston has managed to lose the husband but keep the mother-in-law.”

“This visit deeply upset Jolie and in protest she has starved herself in the manner of Irish Republican Army prisoners in the 1980s.”

Regarding the incarceration of Paris: “The mag reports that she wanted to make her cell more “homey” and, while to most people this would mean a few scatter cushions and perhaps some scented candles, to Paris it meant putting a portrait of herself on the wall. Cruelly, the warders refused to allow it, which only worsened her depression.”

Baaaahahahahahahaha.

Anger.

News like this makes me really angry.

I take cabs regularly, for work and also because until recently, I was a non-driver.

A large percentage of the cab drivers in Sydney are like this guy, decent men who are a valued part of their family and like the flexibility that cab driving gives them.

I have had some really interesting and inspiring conversations with my cab drivers. Don’t get me wrong, I have had my share of rude and aggressive ones, but most of them, are just trying to do their job and support their family.

A job that is becoming increasingly more dangerous.

I am not saying that this is any more saddening than any other murder, or that you have to agree with me. But it really saddens me.

Guilty Pleasure Friday – Blessed are the cheesemakers.

Mmm.

Easy Cheese.

But hey! Why not check out these “equivalents” within the aerosol cheese market.

Yum yum pigs bum.

I hate painting.

It sucks.

It sucks big, green boogers hanging out of a bats nose.

No. I do not know where that expression came from. Just talented I guess.

Did I tell you we moved? I forget. It is all so long ago now, lost in the mists of time. It seriously feel like FOREVER ago, though it is probably about 5 weeks.

It feels like we a living in some weird vacuum of time, wherein time is moving so quickly and we have done so much but at the same time, it seems like we have so much to do.

This apartment was a rental for 13 years or so prior to us buying it… one of the first things we wanted to do (after buying a dishwasher and changing the locks so the crazy Russians could not get back in!) was paint the place. Babushka and Mishka used to chain smoke inside so the smell of stale smoke seemed to have impregnated itself into the walls.

Frankly it stunk. The fug of a million cigarettes ghosts were living in our walls.

First we washed the walls.

That was fun.

No really.

We decided to paint over the buttery cream colour with a buttery white.

It was so, so very exciting to paint over buttery cream with buttery white.

And then painting the ceiling trims. That was exciting.

Getting a drop of paint in my eye was also lovely, I really liked the stinging sensation.

And I really, really loved the fact that it was rainy, miserable, freezing cold weather so I was unable to sleep with my bedroom window open so that I inhaled paint fumes ALL night and had a weird rash on my cheek when I woke up.

Seriously, painting fucking sucks.

And I just. can’t. wait. to do it all again this weekend on a bigger area.

Joy.

Presents!

To my darling Lara, Happy 25th little one. May this year be everything you desire and so much more. Even though we are thousand of miles apart, you are one of the most treasured people in my life.

Now… onto your gift, which is not for you, but as is your wish, for someone else.

I give the gift of my words to my beautiful boyfriend, Mick.

After being single for 4 years I had sort of given up on finding someone who felt the same way about me as the way I felt about them.

I didn’t think that I would find someone who my friends liked and who liked my friends.

I didn’t think I would find someone who loved me, and even loved my quirks.

I love that you love photos of me, even the ones that I think are gross.

I love that you are so passionate about new music and love Triple J, yet still let me put on the golden oldies station and sing along to Paul McCartney.

I love that you have never told me that I am a bad singer and to shut it.

I love that you love your children, and that you are still friends with your ex-wife.

I love that you are willing to teach me how to drive, and don’t yell at me when I stall the car.

I never thought I would find someone that I love so much.

Little Miss Stress

Angela posted the other day about finding a $100 note and being present when it was returned to the rightful owner, it brought to mind an incident that happened to me about 4 weeks ago and how I wish I knew that the lady involved in my story knew how much I appreciated her act of kindness.

It was the week after we moved house, I had a lot of pressure on at work  and was also trying to deal with the bank regarding my personal loan and our mortgage. Long story, very boring, but very stressful. I was spending countless hours on hold to the bank and countless hours debating the correct decision with Schoon. I think the worst part was Schoon was having a week or so holiday so it made it harder for me, and probably ruined his week off.

Fucking banks. Fucking mortgage brokers.

I was so stressed about money and life in general that week that I was like this:

You know how when you are stressed it’s the tiny little thing that finally makes you crack?

I broke my favourite oversized, white Ikea cup. It’s like one of their glasses but mug like, so I tended to drink water or tea out of it. I stupidly poured cold water out and poured boiling water in.

Probably not so mug like after all.

It cracked and so did I.

My poor lover phoned and had to listen to 25 minutes of wailing, snuffling and hyperventilating. He is a lovely boy.

I guess I just felt like I had had enough.
I could physically not take anymore.
That cracked white cup symbolised everything shit and overwhelming about my week. I felt tired, old and ugly. All week cold sores had been threatening to erupt on my chin so I had been slopping Zovirax on it. Zovirax is some powerful shit obviously as by Friday night my chin was peeling.

I knocked myself out with a sleeping tablet and slept for about 12 hours.

All in all in was a pretty rubbish week.

Come Sunday I was feeling much better, I had fannied about and cleaned the house, I sat in the sun on my balcony with a cup of coffee, I did a bit of balcony gardening and re-potted my herbs and jasmine plant and my lover was about to arrive!

I was feeling better but the stresses of the previous week were still there, whispering at the back of my mind.

We popped out to the shops to get some groceries and I queued up at the ATM in between the fruit shop we were about to go to and the coffee shop.

Lover pointed the cheap avocados out to me and we wandered over to have a look, 4 for $1.99 is ridiculously cheap. We were in the middle of chattering when a lady approached and started asking me if I had been at the ATM.

It took me about 30 seconds to process what she was saying, I had walked away from the machine without taking my money.

$150 of money. In the scheme of things it’s not a grand fortune but I had just bought a house and car for the first time in my life so it was everything I had at that moment.

She handed the money to me and sat back down at the coffee shop.

I said thank you to her, but I feel like I should have said thank you more. To be honest, I was in a bit of shock. I kept imagining the moment when I would have realised what I had done.

When people talk about a “cold wave of fear” I know that feeling. It is a horrible, horrible feeling.

Her honesty and kindness in following me and giving me back my money saved me that week.

Losing $150 would have well and truly been the proverbial final straw.