Good and Bad Sports

The weekend just gone was a long weekend. For what I have no idea (hmm, just googled it and apparently it was Labour Day. Huh). I added to the collective joy and had last Friday off as well.

Two 4 day weeks in a row was of course for good reason. This past weekend I went to my 20 year High School Reunion – the second for the year, which is what happens when you switch schools half way through high school I guess. So the reunion was for the school I left after Year 9.

I was having a rather jolly old time, possibly carrying on like a pork chop and enjoying one too many lemonades (read: beer), when I spotted a familiar face. The CEO’s exec assistant from my current work. Eh, who would have guessed she was married to a boy I went through primary and most of high school with. My reaction was not particularly professional – in fact I yelled, rather startled, “SHIT!” while looking right at her. I sure hope she is a good sport and holds true on her promise that what goes on at the school reunion stays at the school reunion! I did reconnect with a couple of people I will stay in touch with, so all in all it was a good time. A very fine time was had on both Friday and Saturday.

We rushed home on Sunday morning bright eyed and bushy tailed. In reality The Boyfriend was a champ and drove the whole way home, and I moaned and grumbled from the passenger seat. On our arrival home we hopped it down to a nearby pub to with minutes to spare to meet up with some mates for the NRL Grand Final – which my team were in. (Go Parra Eels!)

After my team lost? A girl wearing a jersey from a different team (one not playing in the grand final having been knocked out a week or two ago by my team, heh) walked in to the pub, spat at me in my Eels jersey, and said “Sucked in you stupid bitch, you f-ing c-face whore”. Only you can guess what the Fs and Cs stood for, she didn’t abbreviate them. Charming. I think we can all agree some of the fans of that team cough*bulldogs*cough are bloody bad sports. I only wish I’d had the presence of mind to fire back a retort – any retort – instead of opening and closing my mouth like a goldfish.  I would have been nice about it I’m sure (“Well at least I’m not ugly” is probably nice, yeah? Or even “I know you are, but what am I”?) This was also followed by groups of loud Bulldogs supporters driving around my suburb with their team flags hanging out their windows whooping and honking horns, not celebrating anything but the fact that WE LOST, even though they did too, several weeks ago.

This performance was more impactful for the fact that I had just witnessed a rather rowdy pub full of Eels supporters clap at the end result, and shake hands with the very few Storm supporters in the place who’d won – after all, it’s clear the better performing team won on the day, what else is there to do.  We were all just pleased we made it as far as we did after a few decades of lackluster performance!

After the busy few days before it, we lazed around on Monday, venturing out to deliver a case of beer and bag of ice to friends who moved over the long weekend. Nothing says “We’re so glad sorry we went away the weekend you moved and couldn’t help” like beer.

Cheesy

Ah, Mondays. Don’t you just love them. Mine was even worse given that I had to get up an extra hour early to salt my cheese. That sentence may make sense after the weekend tales are complete.

On Friday night I gathered a group of friends from The Local and off we went to watch our footy team’s last home game for the season. It was great, especially given that we won. On the way home, we stopped in at a bar. I was refused entry. “We can’t let you in ma’am, you are wearing a football jersey”. I might add, this was one of the seedier establishments in the area. I responded “We are in Parramatta, right?” The bouncer agreed. I continued. “Parra just won a home game, in this very suburb, right?” The bouncer agreed again. “And I am not allowed in because I have a Parramatta jersey on?” Yep, that’s right. I obviously looked oh so threatening, I’d have been frightened myself if there had been a mirror nearby.

Once Saturday morning rolled around, I said to The Boyfriend that I was taking him somewhere special. I should possibly have let him know that it would not involve me feeding him, as he got all his nice clothes on and thought we were going out to lunch. I wondered why he got all dressed up. The Boyfriend drove, so I gave just the address. No other clue – a street address. His response? “What, the homebrew shop?” Yes, folks, my boyfriend seems to know the address of the homebrew shop off by heart. I did buy him something special, of course – all the ingredients needed to make a tasty Stella Artois style beer. And let me tell you – hops smell nasty. Very, very nasty. While at the homebrew shop, I bought myself a cheesemaking kit – just a small one that makes brie/camembert style cheese. I started the culture on our return home on Saturday and I’ve been making the bloody stuff ever since. We watched footy at The Local yesterday afternoon – well everyone else did, I was running home every hour to turn the cheese over. Anyway, I have a new appreciation for why nice cheese costs so much. This stuff had better taste good. Little Miss Muffet curds pictured below.

On Saturday night, after deciding to have an early night with a DVD, The Boyfriend arrived in the bedroom with this nice little tray of pickles, cheese, and milk before bed. OK, Kahlua and milk, but close enough. I think I’ll keep him.

I sure hope my cheese turns out as nice.

Yes, We Have No Bananas

The weekend before the one just finished saw me going to a fancy schmancy hotel in town for a package deal that included afternoon tea, pre dinner drinks and canapes, 2 course dinner including bottle of wine, hotel room with king sized bed and buffet breakfast. Wow, I rolled out of there. With a banana, pinched from the hotel buffet breakfast. *Note to self – take a large handbag to the next breakfast you go to like that so you can arrive at work after it with a bag full of pastries.

In other news I was amused to check the incoming search terms that land people here. Women who hate undies? Embarrassing bulge boyfriend? How tall is doctor who? Embarrassed skirt lifted? It’s all about me umbrella? Toilets with teeth? I stopped looking after that one. You guys are weird. (No, of course I don’t mean you!)

Toilets and Teeth

Work has been keeping me pretty busy lately. At least I am finally starting to feel like I can do the job. You know I can always still make time for popping in to The Local. Last night I put my footy tips in on the way home. Someone’s been drinking in the toilet again. Weird. Who does that? Then again, I suppose, who takes photos of toilets with drinks left on them with their bad mobile phone camera.

I suppose it’s no worse than the photo I took on the mobile phone last weekend at The Local. One of the local boys was worried someone would take his beer. So he put his false teeth in his glass. Mmmm, tasty.

Undies are Evil

On the weekend, I went to a wedding. Since it’s important for all women to be uncomfortable at these events, I wore a dress and strappy high heels.

A few days before the wedding I tried on the dress I planned to wear and asked The Boyfriend if it looked ok. He looked me over and said “You know what comes to mind when I see you in that dress?” I waited eagerly for his next statement. “A schoolma’am”.

So I wore a different dress. And, because I wasn’t a fan of the belly bulge that was a little too obvious under that dress, I bought a pair of old lady fat-holder-inner undergarments to wear underneath. I was talking to a girlfriend before I left, and told her I wasn’t sure how much fat they could be holding in, and perhaps I bought a size too big, because they felt too comfortable. We even joked about perhaps I had no fat to hold in. Oh I should never have mocked the fat-holder-inner-undergarments.

The wedding started at 1:30. By 1:22, I was texting the same friend with “Wedding has not yet started and I am already starting to rethink the fat holder inner undies and wondering if I can take them off in the loo”. Yeah, those things are evil, man.

On Leave

In 10 minutes I’m on holidays. I’ll be back mid next week with tales of the very strange city of Adelaide. The state of South Australia seems to be mainly famous for serial killers, mass murderers, and generally being a place of weirdos. On a positive note, the Barossa Valley right nearby is one of the best wine regions in the world…

New Year

NYE went off without too many, or possibly even any, hitches. I got all the food prepared on time, which surprised even me, and got the keg set up so that when the first visitor arrived we were sitting back, relaxing with our first drink and looking like it had all been totally effortless.The keg lasted all night, with around 4 schooners left in it the next morning. By 1/4 to 5 when there were still 3 people left, we stopped being so polite and told them to go home so we could go to bed.

One guest, the ex publican, arrived with an extra keg. I’m not sure if I should be proud or checking myself into AA, but we finished that off by the end of the long weekend too. It became a bit like a drop in zone for 4 days, so it’s not like the boyfriend and I managed it solo. In fact, one morning we were woken before 9 by a knocking on the door. One of the boyfriend’s mates, wanting to come over and play. I was all for kicking him out right there, having applied antiseptic to his scraped knee after he’d fallen over in our yard the day before from being a tad too lubricated, but the boyfriend chatted to him for an hour or so before he got the hint and left. The rest of the time we must have served up heaps of cheeses, dips, pate, bickies, etc et al.

I chatted to the boss today about my experiences while he was away – he laughed when I told him I knew why he’d been cranky in the past because I sure went home a bit stressed and cranky every night while he was gone. This was all part of a warm up routine – he gave me Thursday & Friday off this week and Monday & Tuesday next week.

Woo! 6 day Holiday!

And in totally bizarre news? I’m feeding the old publican’s cat for the next week (small price to pay for a free keg, I figure). He lives over The Local. So guess who has a key to The Local!!!*

*Of course, I would never use it for evil, but I like the thought that I have it

NYE

The old year is drawing to a close. Tonight a dozen or so friends are coming over for a BBQ at the boyfriend’s house. He did get a little pissed off when I told him I bought a keg, he was frightened hordes of strangers would crash the party. But hey, what else can you abuse your relationship with The Local for if not to have them bring a keg to you, give you free gas, set the whole shebang up for you, then a select few of them even come over later to help you drink it  (like the old publican, the one we like heaps more than the evil new publican. Although new publican isn’t so evil since he wheeled a keg of beer up the street and brought free gas and ice to the door).

I’m at work. I seem to have forgotten that I had to work when I assured the boyfriend I could easily whip up salads and nibblies for 12 people. (HOW? HOW DID I THINK THIS? I AM AT WORK!) Somehow, between 4:30pm this afternoon when I get home (yep, am abusing my newfound powers and letting everyone go home at 3:30 today) and 6:30pm I need to make spinach dip, cheese platters, a particularly yummy special recipe potato salad, a pesto pasta salad, a garden salad, and probably a million other things. I suppose at least I didn’t plan on cooking satay skewers, chops and snags should be easy enough to sort out.

Countdown to New Year? It’s already started here, but it’s the countdown to 3:30pm! 25 minutes to go, and counting.

Have a fun NYE!

It’s Beginning to Look Alot Like Christmas

My mum’s started calling me Scrooge. I think it is due to my rather vocal disdain of Christmas. Perhaps if my family were not quite so dysfunctional I would be fine with it, but my Christmas Day actually just makes me understand why it is that the suicide rate escalates around Christmas.

I always love the parties and the functions beforehand though! However, I am starting to tire this year – perhaps I am getting old. This morning I actually laid down on the floor of the office for a while, explaining it away very convincingly as being for a bad back. Really though, I just wanted to lie down.

I think it is a clear sign that perhaps I should worry when I looked in my handbag this morning after arriving at work, only to discover a stubby holder (one of those things you put stubbies of beer in to keep them cool). I have no idea why I put it there, or when, but it made me laugh. Rather than deciding to dry out a bit before the silly season kills me I decided it must be a sign to catch up with my best friend this evening who is in town unexpectedly, and staying in some fancy apartment near town.

So tonight I have drinks with some ex work colleagues after work followed by dinner and a sleepover at my friends house (am I too old to call it a slumber party? And will she mind that I forgot to bring PJs with me? Ha). Tomorrow I am meeting friends at the pub to play pool, Thursday a dinner party at a friend’s place, Friday the local pub is having a Christmas Party. Then on the weekend? I will be doing my Christmas shopping. Yikes. Send help.

Cruisin’

Yesterday afternoon I headed off to another Christmas party – this time a small gathering of 40 people for an afternoon harbour cruise. A fine time was had by all. Well, except for the girl who got so seasick she spent 2 hours throwing up and we ended up having to stop and let her off the boat. A fine time was not had by me this morning on trying to get out of bed and realising the room was still spinning.

I’ve managed to get through the day by getting a headset for my phone that I’ve been dialling in to the TV mounted on the wall in front of me which I have mentioned before. The headset is a vast improvement on holding the phone handset up to my head that I’d been doing up until now. All I need to do to make things better is paint eyeballs onto my eyelids and catch a few zzz’s. Perhaps I’ll tackle that one on Monday. Although I am finding that I am feeling my second wind coming along, increasingly so as 5pm rolls nearer and nearer.