The Long Walk Home

So we decided to the Round the Bays walk this year. My new flatmate was doing it with a friend. And Reids decided she might try it too, but needed a buddy..... So when we walked past the registration place yesterday I got co-erced into going into it with her.

I like team sports. I'm not so much an individual sport person. And walking/running are not my strengths (as my 'Glacier' nickname would suggest).

So anyhow, I was slightly drunk last night. And woke up this morning a little worse for it..... and would have been agreeable to flagging the whole thing and considering it an $18 donation to some worthy cause, effort-free.

But we went. As we approached the bus stop, we saw all these uber-fit people in proper running gear. They had short-shorts and white singlets and toned legs. I was wearing a baggy t-shirt and long shorts. I was hung-over. We were both intimidated.

But once the race started it was all on. For a while we kept a leisurely pace.....

Until we looked around and realised, in a single comical glance, that we were being beaten by two kids walking along eating chippies, a blind man with a cane (I kid you not) and people pushing prams as they walked. Our pride became dented.

At this point we decided to try and pass 100 prams before the end of the race. So off we zigged-and-zagged, picking off prams like a hyena picks of the weakest gazelle. We got up to ten pretty quickly, in about 500m.

But then we met our nemesis.

She was a woman in a red tshirt, pushing her pram along. She looked introverted, possibly socially awkward, but intense. She had a certain solitary grit about her. We would come up alongside her, ready to pass, and she would suddenly dart away from us, putting on a sudden burst of speed. It seemed she knew what we were doing and she wasn't going to stand for it. Brings to mind that movie quote - 'Why won't you just die?!?'

We figured out pretty quickly that she worked in bursts. She would get a little ahead, but we would soon pick her off and she seemed destined to burn out eventually. And so our game of cat and mouse went on for another 5km, from Oriental Parade to Greta Point. *

We would be feeling confident, thinking we had burned her.... but then one of us would glance back and warn, 'Red Shirt's coming!' and we would have to step it up a gear. It was like some terrible horror movie, where the villain keeps rising from the dead, just when we thought it was safe to rest again.....

And then she started running.

Now, Reids and I had sworn not to run. It seemed like cheating, when you were doing the walking section of the event. It seemed like the people who were running bits were just too chicken to enter the running section, and trying to look like heroes by having the best times in our section. We resented them.

But at Greta Point, 1.5km from the end, we had to run. I have never actually seen Reids run before (bung knee, she has always claimed). But before I knew it, while I was power-striding along, she started jogging. She said it was the only way she could keep up with my long strides, and that Red Shirt was getting away and so it was the only option. This was how badly she wanted to win this battle - she resorted to Public Running (third only to Public Speaking and Death in terms of world-wide fears, surely).

And then, when that wasn't fast enough to do the job, we were both jogging. We passed Red Shirt pretty quickly then, and started walking again, thinking that was her final burst. I had brought up a sweat for the first time in the race.

And then we heard the wheels, coming up quickly from behind. That tell-tale buggy creak, and we could tell it was getting closer.

And she passed us again.

We started jogging, nose-to-nose with her. Reidun dropped off but I could hear her behind me, yelling out, 'You can do it, Kate! Go!'

And it was just me and Red Shirt (and thousands of others), 500m from the finish line. It was my Chariots of Fire moment. Me and the middle aged lady with a pram, one-on-one.

And then, after an intense 50m or so, I gave up. I know I could have taken her. But that battle will have to wait for another day. I slowed down and waited for Reids, and we both shrugged it off, conceding that Red Shirt wanted it more than we did. She'd earned it.

We had never actually made eye contact with her, but she knew it was a race. I could sense it.

She is my new pram-pushing nemesis.

Wherever you are, Red Shirt, let it be known that I shall have my revenge on you! This isn't over yet!

Although, I'll admit that if she's not wearing the red shirt or pushing the pram, I may not be able to recognise her ever again. Cunning! Just like Superman's indecipherable glasses-disguise.....



*I got to reach out to a helper-person for a cup of water (like they do in marathons!) and without pausing to drink it properly, chug it down and screw up the cup, dropping it unceremoniously in the gutter (not realising, along with hundreds of others, that there was a rubbish bin especially set up, a little further on, oops). I felt like a professional! Another life-long goal has been achieved. Next, someone has to sponge me down (like they do in boxing....).

* * *

This is cool. The origins of battle-raps, I'm thinking.

Whoa.... or this is even better! Clay Aitken does theme songs........

Going back to school means.....

1. Not being able to freely wear jandals every day. I added the word 'freely' there because I may well still try and wear them, until a 'general warning' is given to staff and directed at me. I'm a rebel like that.

2. Having to get up before 10am every day. Ugh! I quite happily push Marty out at 7am saying, 'Get up! You don't want to be late!' and then go back to sleep for a couple more hours at the moment.

3. No more leisurely lunches and shopping trips with the other teacher-folk and no more meeting Marty for lunch in town with the other worker-bees.

4. Having to get used to my own hand-writing again.

5. An onslaught of new names to learn. I'm teaching two Year 9 classes and two Year 12 classes (a year level I have missed teaching each year, so they'll mostly be unknowns too).

6. Ironing.

7. Morning and afternoon traffic.

8. Having to greet everyone at work with chit-chat and small-talk about how the holidays went. I shall try to pre-prepare three varying responses to cover all questions. eg - 'Did you have a good break?' or 'Did you manage to get away?' or 'What did you get up to?'

9. Being the same as everyone else! It's fun getting to gloat and make average corporate types jealous of our job for once, while we have our mammoth holidays.....

10.

Done.

Cass got hitched without a hitch.

Now Ant is trying to quit smoking. So if you see him walking around look miserable and

Bye bye, Miss Savage!

One more sleep.......

The social event of the season is toooomooooorrrrooooow!

Exciting!

Went to the rehearsal yesterday. I figure all I have to do is watch what Laura does (she's the middle bridesmaid and I'm the last one). I get to be escourted around by Scott. That's a good deal. He's the tallest.

Me and Scott (mainly me) whispered a lot during the boring bits of the rehearsal, where we weren't involved. I told him about how we did a gospel version of one of the readings .... and it was great. I double-dog-dare Laura to do that reading tomorrow - and I promise I will join in with, 'You tell 'em, sister! Love is king!'

Today we have to get our nails done and finish all the party savours for the reception, possibly setting up the reception too. Busy busy busy! And hence I am up at an UNGODLY hour (for a holiday day).

While I wait to wash my hair dye out, I shall blog.

Just realised another reason why we've never had a girl in the sleepout before...... girls have waaaaay too much crap! Our already cluttered flat now has even more stuff. And I think Reidun will keep having small hernias until it is all put away in a more organised manner.........

On the plus-side, we have had no rats or mice this summer!

* * *

Marty's gig.

The comment was made that Marty looked Jack Johnson-esque (must've been the jandals). To me, this is high praise!

* * *

Two days until Cassie's wedding! I intended doing a rather thorough bridesmaid diet.... but plans have failed. Food is too good. Exercise is too hard. I actually managed to lose some weight last week.... only to put it all back on (chippies are good!).

And thus my stomach will protrude a little. I like to think that my imperfections will only bring more attention and adulation to the blushing bride..... and thus I can justify not looking more fantasmic :) It is a generous thing on my part, really.

I think Cassie will look gorgeous. She is healthy and has the longest hair she's had the whole time I've known her. Very girly! And she will glow (literally) with all her sparkles and glitter.

I'm sure I intended doing much more other stuff in preparation for her wedding.... January goes by way too fast! Morgan is right.

* * *

Basketball starts up again tonight. Always takes a while to readjust to shooting a heavier ball than in netball. And it makes me puff. A lot.

* * *

Oh.... and school starts back soon. Ugh! Work! Getting up early! Only good thing is that Julie is back at East.

I told her to apply for a job that came up at the end of last year (after she had worked at St Mary's for a year) and she did..... and then I heard no more. So I assumed that she hadn't got the job (or else surely she'd have sent me the 'Got it!' text.... or something...). This surprised me greatly, as our HOD has nothing but high praise for her from her last stint at East.....

Turns out Julie is just a slacker and assumed I knew somehow. So, yay! Always good having a friend on staff. Julie is super-easy to work with. And we find the same people annoying, so can share the odd raised eyebrow during staff meetings.

Oh yeah, and the accountant at school thinks last year's magazine was the best one he's seen at East. High praise! He liked the way the kids wrote the articles - more in their own voices, rather than formulaic..... I was just surprised that anyone actually read the articles. And I think we've finally found a printer who's easy to work with and reliable and reasonably cheap. So that's one less stress for this year's project.

* * *

Marty and I are finally at the same place in our Gilmore Girls watching patterns. Both up to Series 7. The final series. I have read bad reviews of it, as the original creator left the series that year.

* * *

I love jandals.

* * *

The Week in Three Oopsies

I just reread my previous entry. The last line was something about going off to wax my legs. The above picture is the result of....

Ooopsie #1

I heated up the wax in the microwave. It was still a bit thick. So I heated it some more. Now it was too liquid and piping hot - too hot to use. So I gingerly carried it up to my room .... and tripped on the stairs somehow. Hot wax sloshed out of the container and onto my hand. At this point I probably screamed out an expletive. More wax was spilled as I waved my arm around in pain. This wax only went on the carpet.

I ran up to my room and used my trusty water bottle to douse the pain. More expletives were uttered. I wiped away the wax with a towel.....

Only to look down and see that I'd also wiped away the skin off my thumb. Owww, I thought. I debated the merits of cutting it off or pulling it back over the raw bit. I went for the latter option.

I have since realised there are many things it is awkward to do with a big gauze plaster on your thumb. Things such as applying sunscreen to the back of the opposite leg.

Oopsie #2

It was Cassie's hens night on Saturday. Many photos are on facebook.

I had the huge responsibility of having to find a restaurant for us. I duly booked Grand Century for 7pm. I figured you can't go wrong with BYO and a lazy susan......

So me, Ange and Lauren turn up at 6.50 and are seated in the window. We amuse ourselves for a while by perving at the boys walking past (some of whom Ange knew, by chance) and drinking our wine. By 7.30 we started saying, 'Bloody hell - where are the others???? Slackers....'

By 7.45 I got a phone call from Cassie. I answered with, 'Where are you???' to which she replied, cryptically, 'Where are YOU?' We then went on to echo each others responses with, 'At the restaurant....'

Now, we had been sitting by the door the whole time. No way could they have snuck in without us seeing.

Turns out they were at the OTHER Asian restaurant on Tory St, Eastern Sunrise. They too had opened wine and were sitting there cursing US for being late. They thought, 'Typcial Kate!' - which greatly offends me! Besides which, I was arriving with Ange, which means you will inevitably be early.

So they had to sheepishly offer to pay corkage and slink out of their restaurant (after spilling wine on the table) in front of a Chinese clan reunion of about 200 people.

Good times!

Oopsie #3

Yesterday was a nice sunny Sunday afternoon. Marty and I fancied an outing to Day's Bay. He suggested going on a wee bush walk. I couldn't be bothered wearing sneakers (having gotten blisters recently) so said sure, as long as I can wear me jandals.

So off we went, in our jandals. Note that I was slightly hung over and had neglected to properly rehydrating - figuring I would have an icecream later on.

First of all we went the wrong way, to the Duck Pond. It was a short walk. Rather trecherous and cliffy. We came to a dead end and decided to take one of the side-paths which went up-up-up and had been etched into the cliff by some child's hands and feet. I took off me jandals and put them on my arms. Up I climbed on all fours. I was very impressed with my balance and agility.

We then found this path went nowhere in particular. And we would then have to climb down one of these trecherous mountain paths, like mountain-goats would. I had just watched the documentary Out of the Void, so I felt like one of those adverturer guys, knowing that one wrong step could cost me big time. Got down ok.

Walked past some kids getting stoned and heard the mutter of ... 'works at East....' After a quick glance I couldn't recognise any of them. Walked onwards.

This time we took the correct path. It was a 45 minute walk up to Ridgeway Lookout, or something. It started off nicely enough. We sighed and said, 'This is more like it!' A canopy of native trees, a trickling stream. A few little upward slopes, but that's ok.

Then the path changed and became very steep. I figured it was a brief climb..... so up we went in our jandals. I was getting thirsty by now. The water in the stream looked tempting. Marty drank some to show me it wasn't poisonous, but I still didn't trust it.....

We climbed up for a while. Then every corner we came to was another climb. Then some steep steps. We realised at this point that maybe jandals were inappropriate footwear. I had visions of us breaking our ankles and being air-lifted out like hapless English tourists. A few people passed us going down. They were dressed in tramping shoes and had day packs.

Marty had a hat on. That was our only piece of useful equipment.

But neither of us being quitters, we kept going up. At this point I had to have a wee stop or two. Too puffed.

Then some people coming down told us there was another four hours to go..... or there was a nice seat with a view about five minutes up the path.

We opted for the seat with a view. That seemed doable. Though, we realised that five minutes tramper-time was probably more like 20 minutes layman-time. We kept on trekking.

We are proud to say that we did overtake four people at this point.*

And finally, sweating and dehydrated and squinting in the sun...... we emerged at the seat. It was a lovely seat. I had, for a good ten minutes, begun to think it was a mythical seat that didn't really exist.... as Marty kept thinking he'd caught sight of it further up the path, only to be wrong.

Indeed, it was a lovely view. We wished we had brought a camera (not to mention water and a pair of good shoes). It made us realise we had walked up a long long way, for an afternoon stroll.

And down we went. Going down in jandals is actually more trecherous than going up. There were a few close calls. Towards the bottom, where the path flattens out again, we passed a few people coming towards us in jandals. We tut-tutted and gave each other a knowing look. Fools!

And that's how you do it Naenae-styles.

* Two children, a mother and grandmother.

January.

January is shopping time. Many teachers have the same attitude. You look for excuses to get out of the house, after all your other friends are well and truly entrenched back at work.... and shopping is the most appealing one.

Yesterday I went with Cassie (fellow teacher) to the mall in the Hutt. Our primary goal was to get makeup for her wedding. She bought a sample of everything that had 'bling' or 'glitter' or 'shine' in it. She is going to be well and truly blinged out. I got my makeup done at a counter by a professional lady and proved to Cassie my theory that I look horrible in bright pink lipstick. It makes my eyes look ridiculously green and freakish. The more plum-toned lipstick was an improvement, but still dark enough to be a shock to the system. I'm more of a lipgloss girl.

I managed to bag a bargain to finish off Cassie's wedding present from a group of us. She was admiring something in a 50% off sale section..... and it happened to be worth the EXACT amount I had left in the budget. And it also happened to be a brand that I adore and own myself........ So I said to her, 'Cass - even though that's more for you than Ant, would you like that to be the final piece of our present?' and she said 'Yes!' instantly, dismissing the fact that it, in theory, should be something they both can use. She pointed out that most of the engagement presents were kitchen-oriented, which is more Ant's domain.

Then for meeeee...... three new tops. All on sale, I'll add. One from Cue that will make me look mega-classy at work. Cue is the best place for work clothes. Very chic. And it has the best sales (never buy anything full price there - much like Briscoes and Rebel Sports). Then two tops from Kimberley's. Cassie talked me into the 'slimming sexy one' which will do for her hen's party. It shows a tasteful amount of cleavage. And another one is my favourite new silhouette - the long baggy tshirt with elastic at the bottom. So comfy!

Food and culture (and Jon)

Damon hosted a BBQ that was primarily set up for people who went up to Hokio Beach (Levin) to use up left over sausages and beer. Damon cooked stuff on the BBQ. Because we are grownups, there were even lots of veges.

I just like this photo.

Mary, Dylan and Dave gate-crashed the BBQ (but were most welcome). Dave made a date with Fish to take her for a ride on his motorbike (she may report on that herself at some stage, but they ended up having a lovely time and riding all the way to Otaki to stop for icecreams).

Much fun was made of my 'face' (my blog doesn't have rude words).

* * *

We have been to two Summer Festival concerts. The first one was Don McGlashin in Civic Square. Unfortunately, the group opening for him firstly came on quite late and secondly played a very long set full of music that (as Dave put it) would be more interesting if you'd just smoked a big doobie. So we all piked before Don even got on stage and went down to the St John's bar and had chips and gravy and Tiger beers. That was perfect - out in the sun.

Tonight we went to The Warratahs in the Botanical Gardens. That was also lovely.

There are plans afoot to go in a group to the Irish group playing at the gardens on Tuesday night - and even be organised to enough to bring snacks this time. Should be a good night.

* * *

Ange and I went for a long walk today. It was my first anything-near-exercise all holidays. I am glad netball starts up again tomorrow! My belly needs shrinking post-eating-season.

* * *

Not long til Cassie's wedding! I have to be delegated some bridesmaid tasks for the hen's party, buy new shoes to go with dress and lose belly. I saw Cass in her dress. Awww! She's starting to feel like a princess. I think Ant'll be a happy man :)

* * *

Am currently watching Season 5 of Scrubs.

* * *

Avocados are cheap and good this time of year!

* * *

Shot, Morgan. Dave told me. Well, he had this vague conversation with me where he asked if I'd talked to you recently .... then suggested I called. I was perplexed and asked questions like, 'Why? Have I offended him? I didn't reply to his new year's invite.... but I often don't reply to texts..... surely he's not pissed off......... ' And eventually Dave hinted unsubtly enough that I guessed. So, shot!

Dave felt very odd being the one to tell me a good friend is engaged. He is well and truly in 'the loop' now. He's getting the inside word even before me.

New Year's Eve

Me and Ange share the same attitude to New Year's Eve. We both don't care too much about it. I hate the pressure of the chit-chat that starts, 'So - what're your New Year's plans?' or 'So, what'd you do for New Year's?'. Ok - so I hate most chit-chat.

Anyhow.... we had a BBQ round at her and Marty's flat. It was good. We are all (mostly) well over going into town and standing in queues and paying ridiculous amounts of money and feeling old and making jokes about girls in pulling-outfits (ok - that bit's still fun).

The food was good. Marty almost made potato salad (Ange ended up doing it, as predicted). Ange made fritata and brownies. The brownies were good. Especially heated up. We had several for breakfast the next day. Ant brought his special recipe meat patties (with sun dried tomatoes and other yummy things in them). Marty claimed his rightful spot at the BBQ and cooked everything to satisfaction (with some 'helpful' advice from the onlooking men).

There were games. We played Buzz. I like Buzz! I was unfairly targeted in the pie-throwing and points-stealing rounds, I feel. Cassie was consistently good. As she said, that was the form she should have shown on the TV quiz shows we went on...... If only!

Sing Star was also fun. Me and Cass belted out some rock hits (being better suited to yelling songs than ballads or 'skill-songs') while Dylan and Marty actually sang properly. Dave looked for someone he could beat... and found Ant. Ange did not partake.

And..... there was much posed photo taking by me, Ange and Cass. We love it! And we got some very flattering ones (once the others were filtered out).

Perfect.

At 4am, after the Andrews Family departed, me and Marty did a quick tidy-up of food, rubbish and drinks. The only real carnage was a few spilled drinks (and a lovely wine-like aroma that filled the lounge the next day) and a near-fight (drama!).

And so it is 2008.

I like January. It's when the 'real' holiday starts. December is for rushing around buying presents and seeing family. Late December is for catching up with friends and having BBQs and feeling bloated from over-eating. January is where you finally get to take a breath and have a bit of Me-Time. If you're a teacher, that is. Other people may be heading back to work now. Sucks to be them!

* * *

Ten Things I have Been Doing

1. Yesterday I started looming a scarf. Get in early, I say. This scarf will be ready BEFORE the end of winter. Ange helped me. She is busy crocheting another blanket.

2. I read books. Most have been blogged about already, but Marty also suggested I read the autobiography of Mankind (the wrestler). It's not bad, 30 pages in. I have been 'thoughtfully' included in so many wrestling events of late that I even had a wrestling dream the other night. I have suspicians that Marty whispers things about wrestling in my ear at night while I'm drifting away, trying to convert me subliminally.

3. I went to the Irish Society on Cambridge Tce. A friend of Marty's was having some drinks there (he is the president of the Wellington Celtic Rangers Supporters' Club). It was fun. Cheap drinks, free pool, sing-a-longs, nice folk.

4. Key Lime Pie at Sweet Mother's Kitchen. Enough said.

5. Drinking beer with summery names.

6. BBQing with Kirsten and Richard. That Bastard. He got the winning answer for the boys' team at Trivial Pursuits.

7. Watching DVDs. Kyle, the new flatmate, thoughtfully brought back a whole stack of them he borrowed off his brother. Prozac Nation was good, as was The Best Thief in the World.

8. Getting a little sunburnt. Usually the right side of my body. Most recently both my knees.

9. Wearing jandals. Everywhere.

10. Cursing the crap air flow in my car.

I will blog more.

Resolution #1 (renewed from last year's list, and year previous to that)

Eat Less Crap

Progress report: Not doing well. Ate Honey Mustard Grainwaves and chocolate biscuits in bed at 1am last night.

* * *

Going to a free concert tonight at Civic Square - Don McGlashen. Sam is also going. Maybe I should have resolved to see more free cultured stuff. I'm doing ok in that front!

* * *

Have seen 'The Kite Runner' and 'The Darjeeling Express'. Both good. Glad some nice movies came out for my holidays.

* * *

Must go now - hair dye will start burning my scalp soon.

Christmas

Where's Harry? My second-cousin plays hide and seek in the torn off wrapping paper.

We had the usual Judge Christmas. There is a three-year rotational system between Dad and his siblings. It was supposed to be at our house this year, but since Dad and Lynne just shifted they got passed in the rotation and we went to Aunty Susan's instead. She lives in one of those hill suburbs out Lower Hutt way. They have one of those trouts that sings Christmas songs. Many generations of cousins have enjoyed that.

There was confusion over who was picking up Nana and when...... so me and Dad ended up driving back out to the rest-home to get her. We drove into the carpark and saw her sitting up in her room (which overlooks the carpark) staring blankly at a tree. We tried to wave, but she didn't see us. She'd been waiting since 11.15am. It was nearer to 1pm by then. Poor Nana! She's the kinda person who is ready early, with her good shoes on and is sitting there clutching her purse in anticipation. It was Uncle Peter's fault (most likely) and he got a good-humoured telling off.

Zoe enjoyed the whoopie-cushion. The first thing each parent in the room said was 'They taste yucky when you blow them up'. Must be something they've all endured.

Harrison adored each and every present he opened.

Lynne noticed for the first time that she was now part of the 'older generation' as I was the one rushing around getting her and Dad packed and ready and in the car (after checking they had keys and phones and suggesting we put everything in a chilly-bin) and they sat passively while I drove down to the Hutt. I think she admitted this with a certain level of acceptance.

Lunch was smallish by our standards. We even had miniature Christmas crackers that only had hats and jokes in them. And salads instead of roast vegetables. It was far less grand than it has been. Sign of the times?

The best bit was watching my cousin's two kids open their presents from sundry relatives. Little Harry would actually hug each present as if it was EXACTLY what he'd always wanted. The pure joy of it! And Zoe discovered the joy of her first whoopie-cushion, much to her parents' amusement (the present came from naughty Auntie Lynne and Uncle Merv). Then Harry proved the well-known theory that kids enjoy the wrapping paper more than the actual presents by making us bury him in the discarded bits. He would then pop up and be a puppy (a naughty puppy at that). Sometimes we had to utter magic words in order for this to happen. There was a wand for us to use.

Then we went over to my step-sister's house. She has three little ones. Again, it's the kids who are most amusing.

Hannah and Ruby grin out for the camera from Ruby's new pop-up princess castle.

As was pointed out bitterly, several times, the littlest one who is only 2 got the three biggest presents. She got a pop-up castle, a ride-in car and a doll's pram. Finn put on a violin concert with his Aunty, after much prodding and bribery. Hannah was her co-ordinated self, doing flips on the trampoline, and Ruby just soaked up attention wherever she went, whether it be taking Nana for a walk or reminding us of the pure joy of blowing bubbles. Toddlers are enchanting, huh.

Finn and his violin.

This way, Nana.

Finn got some one-on-one attention from my brother, who spent ages outside playing catch with him (an intricate game they had devised that was like two-person juggling of soccerballs back and forth).

Dave and Finn play catch happily in the front yard - doing man-stuff.
Hannah doing back-flips on the tramp (much to Ruby's chagrin as she tried to do her bum-jumps at the same time).

One of Lynne's kids got her a Trelise Cooper top. Nice one! She says that's the payoff for all those hard years of parenting.

Then it was home again. Sneezing. I am allergic to everything at the moment. And they don't have tissues at Dad's house. So at midnight I was trapsing around trying to find SOMETHING to blow my nose on. And there were only about 5 bits of toilet paper left in the the house, so I had to chance going to the garage-toilet to get some (there is broken glass on the floor, as I learnt the hard way the other day, blood poured out of my foot).

Anyhow. I have finished my Black Swan Green and also finished The Orange Girl by Jostein Gaardner (whose books I always love, until near the end where they get too preachy and philosophical in an abstract way, rather than sticking to the narrative).

I miss Wellington.

Christmas Dinner 1

We had a festive dinner round at my flat on Sunday night. It was partially in honour of the two English fellows flatting at Ange's house. They both have no family here, so we figured they ought to have a proper christmas-ish dinner at some stage.

Early in the day there was scare-mongering by Ange, who thought her boys had all piked at the idea of a) cooking things and b) spending money on ingredients. But turns out she was worrying without cause, because they pulled through. Marty quite proudly brought forth the ingredients for a Greek salad (after instructions from Ange) and Dave produced a cheese-board (again, after instructions from Ange that 'no - a packet of peanuts is not enough to contribute to a pot-luck dinner'). Reidun made a miracle of a dinner in almost an hour and a half, including roast lamb and minted potatoes and christmas pudding with brandy-cream.

I stuffed some pepperdews with cream cheese and they were yummy.

In all-out fashion, Reidun instructed me to rearrange the lounge into a proper dining-room. So the table was brought into the centre of the room and sundry chairs were gathered from around the house. A kiwiana centre-piece of driftwood and succulants was assembled and we were so posh that we polished the wine glasses (which weren't even used, because it was beer-weather). I had to sit on the computer-desk chair with wheels on it.

Crackers were pulled. Ange lost all three of her goes. Hats were worn. Even Daragh got in the spirit. Dave had some meat with his gravy and some token greenary around the edge of his plate. Daragh went back for thirds. I spilt some of my beer. Mint sauce is yummy.

We had lashings of icecream and icing-sugared raspberries and strawberries with christmas pudding and flaked chocolate.

Then we played Scattergories. It was highly competitive. I do believe I won. I am still miffed that they didn't accept 'Gangrene' as 'something that grows' beginning with G. Marty is equally peeved that we didn't accept 'Pants!' as 'something you would shout' beginning with P. And Ange tried hard to persuade us that 'Dummy' was a 'term of endearment'.

I had a scary dream that night. I woke up and quite coherently and somewhat still half-asleepishly said to Marty, 'The lions jumped over the fence! Me and Ange had to hide!' I remember being very relieved to have woken up at that point. You can't hide from a lion. They can climb trees (we were in a forest). At another point in the dream our netball team was on a stunt-like amusement-ride, testing it out for Peter Jackson (Morgan is his personal friend and had volunteered us for the job....).

Funeral

We went to Fish's Dad's funeral today. I think one of the memorable things is that it started raining heavily, and quite suddenly, right at 11am. That is the time the funeral was set to begin. Me, Cass and Ant walked in and it was barely spitting, and by the time we had seated ourselves in the pews it was thundering down. Kind of appropriate.

Murray read out a lovely tribute from Fish and Carol. It was interesting. Hard to think how other people would sum up your life in a 15 minute speech.

As a complete aside, I thought Fish looked lovely in her green top and very slim.

I think funerals are a very necessary thing. I always find it hard to actually picture a body inside the coffin as it goes past.

I remember 12 years ago, at almost the exact same time of year, going to my mum's funeral. I tried not to cry, and made it outside afterwards before people hugging me made me crack. It makes for a quite sombre christmas, though in my experience with a lingering death you become almost ready to move onto the next phase of grieving, where you try to adjust to life without the person there. I still have dreams with my mum in them, and she's usually sick in the dreams and I have this half-aware feeling that she shouldn't be there or at least that she will be gone soon.

Reading

I have 9 books out of the library, as I previously posted. I have now finished The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. I really liked it. It was easy and fast to read, and had that innocence of a book about a 9 year old boy, but was poignantly tied in to history. Kinda hard to explain without giving away some of its loveliness, but I recommend it. Only took a few hours to read.

Now I am 120 pages into Black Swan Green, which we started teaching to our 7th formers this year and which they actually quite openly liked. Very rare! I like it so far. Quirky and lyrical with good humour. The narrator has a stammer.

Tra-la-la-la-la.

It is the festive season well and truly! I stayed out of the Secret Santa lotteries. They always end up stressing me out at the last minute because I like to take pride in present-buying.... but this is such a rushed time of year.

The school magazine is due to arrive today. Will it? Or Won't it? It's a cliff-hanger every year.... I am afraid to ring up and ask them the ETA......

My desk is getting clear for the summer..... it's refreshing. I think I've talked to several people recently about how the state of one's desk is a reflection of the state of one's mind (same goes for their car). My mind has been frazzled and jumbled and disorganised for a long time, if that's the case. Now it's clearing.

I almost sat down and read a book last night. I had nothing else to do! Bliss.

I borrowed nine great looking books from the school library for summer. Come and browse them if you need some reading! I will of course read the book I borrowed off Kirsten a year ago first :) I have started watching Citizen Kane......... I borrowed that off Richard at the same time.....

BDO - Levin Style

The following blog entry is to stop Marty (the only person I know without Facebook, who has to rely on Blogger for all updates and photos) from complaining about being left out. Stop your whinging now!

Marty is a man of adventurous spirit. He wanted to be whisked away somewhere dangerous and romantic. So I took him home to Levin for the night.

On Saturday it was time for a tour of the town. Sticking to the main highlights because time was limited (he'd bought tickets to Beckham, not knowing it would drag him away from Levin so quickly).

First stop was, of course, the Giant Market Gardener. Marty was duly impressed by his impressive stature and ethnically vague features. Lynne had said that on Friday she'd seen that someone had put a christmas decoration around his neck. When we got there it was evident that some young hoodlums had set fire to the decorations and all that was left was charred remains. This defacing of the Giant upset me greatly, so Marty took it off. Many people stopped and watched as he jumped into the shrubbery and interacted with the Giant. Then, as can only happen in small-town NZ, an old man stopped and had a yarn with me. He'd seen me photographing Marty with the Giant and thus assumed us to be tourists. He said quite happily, 'That's our China-man.' All the PC-Wellington-ness in me wanted to point out to him that China-man was a perhaps not an appropriate name..... scenes from Crash were flashing through my head. But I appreciated his sentiment in that he was trying to support Levin tourism. He went on to give a quick explanation of the importance of market gardening in Levin. I said, 'But I thought maybe he was supposed to be ethnically generic..... ' and the old man gave it a serious thought and said, 'Maybe...... but no....... he definitely looks like a China-man to me.'

 Next stop was to New World. We made a B-line to the bananas, which was where Ange toiled away during her years as a Produce-Girl while at T-coll. You could be guaranteed to walk in and find her restocking bananas 9/10 times you popped in.

Then a quick stop at the Salvation Army Shop and it was on to Levin's best cafe, Whispers. My local knowledge led me to order the mocchachino because I knew it came with a Sante Bar and marshmallows in the shapes of little duckies. Marty got a stink old boring old latte. He said it was ok though.

Luck would have it that we were in town on the day of the annual Gardeners' Club of Levin's flower show. We popped in for a look. Marty bought a ticket in the raffle. Good luck, Marty! He was taken by the succulants and I tried to talk him into entering one of his pot-plants next year.

We drove down to me and Ange's old school for a peek. It looks pretty flashed up since our days.

Last stop was the Adventure Playground. I had billed it as the best park in the world and Marty had been dubious. But by the end he had to agree.

He warmed up the trampoline for Dave (who did competitive trampolining at high school and has promised us a demonstration one day).

And helped a four year old girl hop up on the flying fox (forgetting the sign that said you had to be 10 years and above...... she lived..... it's ok.....).

He sucked at the rotating barrell thingie. Assed over right away.

I was awesome.

I am happy because I was having a skinny-photo day. That meant I could eat Burger Wisconsin for tea and not feel guilty.

The End.

* * *

Two Quotes for me to Remember

"All that learning you did at school was super-fluous"

"I'm gonna go graffiti 'philanthripist' on his picture"

A student said to me sheepishly this morning.... 'So, were you at the parade?'

And I said, 'The christmas parade in the Hutt? Yes, I was.' She lives in Wainui - it makes sense she was there.

And she smiled, knowlingly.

I said, 'Were you there too?' I could see it coming.....

She looked around at her friends and then said, 'Yes. I saw you with your booooy-friend.' At this point her friends perked up and there was a chorus of, 'Ooooh!'s.

I said, 'You saw us at the Ukuladies at Te Papa too.... Are you stalking me?'

'Yes.'

I walked away to go and growl some other kids.

Snapped eh. That'll ruin my spinster-cat-lady-teacher image - the one I have been so carefully fostering with them.

Birthday Done!

I had a great birthday. Thanks to lots of people!

I got fairly drunk by the end of the night, due to several mean people buys rounds of shots. I had a fantastic night's sleep and woke up at 9.30am wide awake and feely reasonably good (nice to know I can still drink and get away with it at 30).

Marty is older. He is suffering.

I wanna start practising my ukulele, but it is in the boot of Fishy's new car. That'll be fun.

Birthday Done!

I had a great birthday. Thanks to lots of people!

I got fairly drunk by the end of the night, due to several mean people buys rounds of shots.

It is my birthday now.

I am having a lovely day. Perhaps tomorrow I will feel old, but for now I am feeling good!

I have yet to come up with a suitable face to put on when people are singing happy birthday to me. I tend to just slump into my seat and and grimace. But I appreciate the sentiment......

It's My Birthday Soon

I am turning 30.

That's ok though, because I have a lovely dinner planned. With lots of my favouritest people. That is making my week fun, rather than ominous!

The guest list includes....

• My dad and 11 other relatives (he is keeping specific identities a mystery for now - he likes to do that - he inherited that off me - but I do know it includes my young neice and nephew who are VERY excited about coming to a grown-ups party)
• Possibly my brother if he remembers to ring up and get details off me
• Me
• Ange and her three flatties (Dave who is a competitive trampolinist, Darragh who used to flat with me, and Marty the Savoury Giver-away-er)
• My flattie Reidun
• Cassie, a fellow teacher and posse member, and her fiance, Ant
• Ryan the body-builder who flats with Ed and his girlfriend, Andrea
• Julie who used to teach at East
• Damon from Rumpus
• Justin from netball
• Girl Sam from netball and her husband, Scott
• Michelle from netball
• Svend who used to flat with me, and his partner, Celeste the librarian
• Mervyn from Levin who used to flat with me too
• Clint and Lulu from Levin who went to school with me and are engaged to each other
• Jono from netball
• Lauren, Ange's friend whose 30th we were at in the weekend
• Fish who us a teacher and plays netball with me (without Sam, though)

That's 37 people confirmed.

Two non-replies from Poppy and Ed and a maybe from Steve. That's 40 people max. Yay.

Netball Sam and Morgan can't come but might catch up with us afterwards, and Richard and Kirsten are in Australia.

I am going to make informative-conversation-starting name-tags. And it's my birthday, so you have to wear them!

Famous Peoples

It was a night of star-spotting in Wellington. First of all Ange and Cass spotted Giovani Ribissi (or 'the guy who plays Phoebe's brother in Friends') whilst they went to a money-machine. Lauren was not looking, but managed to catch a view of his back once alerted.

Apparently he is little. And weedy. And has a jaunty step. He was wearing a hoody and rather fitting trackies and was with a big buff guy (perhaps his 'minder').

Then, we went to Surf Aid at the Town Hall. There we saw Jason Fafoi - the guy from What Now. Turns out he was in one of the bands too.

Ed also spotted a guy from the news - Maori guy with a name that's fun to say (though I can't remember it).

Then Brett from Flight of the Conchords was playing with the Ukulele Orchestra. Sweet! He is my hero now. Cool looking guy.

Terms of Endearment

I was talking about this with Reidun today. She sometimes gets 'Reids' or 'Rei-Rei'.... All my name can go to is 'Katie'. I quite like Katie though, from most people. I noticed the other night at netball that Jon has taken to calling me Katie any time he wants me to pass him the ball.

I figured out that about the only term of endearment I use (other than shortened or lengthened forms of an actual name) is 'you'. Reidun thought that sounded ridiculous. But I gave the example of, 'Hey you' in the right tone and she came to understand.

I wonder why calling someone 'you' can come across as affectionate.

Birds

I got another bird top today. It is a fetish. Officially. I have a fetish for bird clothing and accessories. This one has a tucan on it.

Bed

That'll do. Bed time. I get the bed allllll to myself. That is good in that I have been accused of being a 'bed hogger' at times. It's funny that when I'm in a bed by myself, I am quite happy to sleep right on the edge. I prefer it, if anything. I am very compact. But if someone else is there, it becomes a challenge to drive them to the edge :) and I suddenly get the urge to stretch out in ways I usually don't. I think Matt cottoned on to this fairly quickly and used to pretty much pin me to the edge straight away, spooning me from behind and not moving all night. Clever.