Would you like some fries with your salt?

Firstly, let me recount this story to you. This afternoon, I skipped out on work by about an hour. I figured I was owed from the long hours produced last week and subsequent stress it caused me. So, I caught the train home (my new lot in life, since my wheels have gone to their new home) and then picked up the car at the station and drove to the supermarket. Standing in line, wishing I was standing in the Super Duper Express line, instead of the snails pace, I'm ageing as we speak line. When I finally got to the register, I started to unpack my stuff, giving it to the displeased service girl, as she went through the motions (and let me tell you, she looked like she'd have more fun passing a motion), when one of her colleagues walked over with what I can only describe as a turd-sized piece of sweet potato. She asked my motionless service chick whether the customer was allowed to cut a piece of the sweet potato off the whole piece and buy that. My chicky-dee didnt know the answer and advised her to speak to the manager, and rightly so! So, the other chick called for the manager of the fruit and vege department to come to the service desk. By this stage, customer was getting a little more than pissed about the situation and started giving her grief.

As I was leaving with my paid purchases, the last thing I heard come out of his mouth was "Havent you got better things to do than be petty?"

Irony is a bitch.

_____________________________________________________________________

The weekend in review, mostly in order:

• Went to the movies on Friday night and saw Children of Men - very good, very Orwellian.
• Helped a friend whose car had died and drove her home
• Went to the motorbike store to pick up a part for Glen's bike and take a test ride of my one true love - the Suzuki Burgman 400, only to arrive in pouring rain and realise it just wasn't going to happen
• Ten minutes later, as we were leaving, the sun began shining. Just wasn't meant to be
• Drove to inlaws place with Clio in the back. She slept the entire way
• Spent a few hours at inlaws, Clio romped with Jake, the german shepherd. It was love
• Came home and collapsed from exhaustion
• Fed animals, microwave died
• Cursed the microwave
• Next day (Sunday), purchased a new funky microwave, kettle and toaster - had to buy in threes!
• Toaster is faulty and going back next weekend. Grrr.
• Mowed the lawn and did all good things related to housework.
  
• Watched some TV
• Went to bed, shortly thereafter freaked out by what can only be described as either a plane breaking the sound barrier nearby, or a very low flying 747 plane over the roof! Freaked out too much to sleep properly.
  
• This morning discovered it was a 2.9 earth tremor in nearby Caulfield. Grrr. First earthquake related type event. Never want to relive.
  

Anyway, sorry for the crap update. Really tired and headachy. Need to relax without a PC in front of me. Talk more later.

I lost my virginity to richter

We felt this last night. It freaked me out so much, I couldn't sleep for the rest of the night. It never occurred to me that it was an earthquake and even now, I am slightly in denial. I am finding myself asking the big question, "Will it happen again?" and "Are we living in an earthquake area now?"

It sucks. It felt like a huge 707 was flying low over our house and we sat there in silence, wondering what the fuck it was until Glen concluded that it was either some jets pushing the sound barrier or a nearby factory exploding from fire. We never heard the fire truck sirens, so it couldn't have been the latter.

It was my first and I hope, the last.

Incommunicado...

I know I owe a bunch of people email. I have been very quiet the last few days, and probably part of last week. There's a good reason for this. The network link at work is down. That means, email and internet access have been completely useless for work access since Monday morning! I've had to work from home the past few days to get my document done, which is due Friday. Not impressed. It makes it very hard to communicate with people via email and phone, whom you'd normally see in person in the office.

We'll survive. But can I just say that T*elstra are fucking pricks! Honestly, how long does it take to fix the network access in a building? That's right, the entire building is without internet and email. This means, 14 floors! 14!

Grrr.

Anyway, am having breakfast, then off to the chiropractor before heading into work to see whether the network is up, down or in between. Such a debacle.

So, please forgive me for my silence, be patient and we'll resume our normal programming shortly.

You’ve got that burning feeling…

No, this isn’t an entry about genital itch or burning sensations when you pee! It’s about the gym and those evil bastard people better known as Personal Trainers.

It’s no secret (although, I don’t know whether I’ve mentioned it here?) that I have been seeing a personal trainer (PT) for a few weeks, as part of my “Let’s stop being a big fat slob and develop some muscles in my body” goal. So far, it has been fine and the guy I see is quite friendly and supportive. I don’t feel like a big slob in front of him and even when I push out two sit ups before screaming in agony about the pain, he’s still encouraging me.

I go during the day at work, once a week. When I planned this with him, I analysed the times of the day and week when I would be less likely to pike out on him, resulting in me feeling guilty to the point where I ignored his phone calls in the end and never saw him again!

It worked out that Thursday mornings at 11am suited best. This decision was not made lightly and was determined for the following reasons:

• I was less likely to develop my afternoon headache/migraine if I went in the morning.
• Thursdays were a good way to push myself into the weekend after starting slow on Monday.
• It got me out of that “oh-so important sales meeting”, and
• Because my first session with him was a Tuesday and meant that I could stretch the time before seeing him for the second session which followed the Thursday after!

Today’s session started badly. In fact, it started long before I got to the gym. It’s beginning to get stinking hot here, where the nights don’t bring much relief and the days you are sweating in your clothes before you even get to work. I love that sweaty bum thing you get on the scooter. It’s very lady-like and sometimes I feel like people are staring at my “just peed my pants” look after I get off the bike seat! Nonetheless, it happens to us all!

Upon discarding the just peed my pants bike gear, I got to work and received a charming email from one of our specialist people, admonishing me for not painting his profession in the best light possible. So, felt it necessary to send me an email, thereby painting a picture of him less than flattering and probably more damaging than anything I could do to him! Having said that, he Cced my manager, perhaps thinking that my boss might yell at me? He doesn’t know my boss.

I left work, headed for the gym in a very bad mood and took one look at my PT and said, “This IS NOT a GOOD DAY!” His response? “It’s about to get better then!” As if!

I was subjected to crunches, pull ups, push ups, steps and whatnot, all of which portrayed me in the most unflattering poses. Thank god I don’t need to be multitasking at the gym and keeping an eye out for a suitable suitor because it just wouldn’t work! Who wants to flirt with a sweaty mammoth who’s face is redder than a tomato? Alrighty then!

I think I told my PT that I hated him about 31 times, cursed him another 49 times and gave up another 123 times, only to endure another set of whatever he was killing me with, as punishment!

Here’s a word to the wise – don’t abuse your PT – they get a huge kick out of making you do another set. I think it’s because it shuts you up because you are so out of breath that you can’t blurt out those expletives! Let’s face it, they don’t get paid that much, and they do their job for love of it and because they are sadistic!

Of course, I pay him for it and I’ll be back next week for the pleasure and to be told, “Feeeeeeel the burn, Sam!”

How do you exact revenge on a PT?

The end of an era

Scooter for Sale
Originally uploaded by Sams76.

Today was a pretty sad day for me. I took a sizable deposit for the purchase of my beloved scooter. The new owner was pretty in love with it, so I feel ok about letting it go home with her in a few days. You might scoff to hear me say ‘beloved’, as I’ve spent the last few months cursing the bloody thing. It’s starting to show its age and doesn’t get me out of those tight situations like I want it to. Of course, it has nothing to do with the fact that it’s hauling my lard arse around constantly. Noooo!

Anyway, it’s all good. I’ll have to resign myself to the fact that I’ll be spending at least the next three months schlepping it with the rest of the commuting population and catching the stinky train. Might I add that the primary reason I bought the scooter back in 2004 was because I was sick of the trains, so I am certain that I’ll save ultra fast for a new one!

It’s pretty sad for me. The scoot represented a certain degree of freedom and confidence that I hadn’t had in years. I highly recommend the experience to anyone whose self worth and confidence are at rock bottom, or close to. It’s very liberating to pull on the throttle and hurtle along at break-neck speeds, with the breeze in your face and your tongue lolling around like a drug-induced Labrador in the back of the family car! You get about so much quicker than the rest of the commuting population and you pay an offensive small amount of money in fuel each week. It’s just sweet.

You do have to put up with morons on the road who believe you don’t deserve an entire lane to yourself, or that you aren’t travelling fast enough. And then there are the fools who like to tailgate and intimidate smaller scoots, such as mine. Which is exactly why I’m getting a kickass 400cc after Christmas. No one will mess with this biker chick!

The upside to train travel – not many, but the fact that you get to catch up on some good book reading, which I haven’t done in God knows when. And, listening to your Ipod with real headphones! Amazing concept. I won’t have to worry about changing out of stinky bike gear, messing up my perfectly coifed hair or sweltering under the helmet, jacket and gloves every summer! And mostly, I won’t have to bitch and moan about my numb or sore arse. Yes readers, you get a terribly numb bum from riding my scooter. Admittedly, it was not built for long distance commuting, but that metal bar under the rider’s seat is a real bitch. Highly unrecommended!

And most of all, I’ll miss that little hopeful face at the driveway gate every afternoon, with that knowing and expectant look on her little black face, as she hears me buzzing up the street on my little 150cc scoot. Clio has fabulous ears and can tell whether it’s me or Glen coming home and has already plonked herself in her usual position, waiting for us to appear up the driveway. I’ll miss that.

When all dignity has gone…

This morning, as I was getting ready to go to work, I saw Tilly, my oldest and most cat-like cat wandering into the laundry for her morning poop. Yes, she has a routine that I am all too familiar with. It includes having breakfast, which usually consists of some tasty cat milk, a small clean and nap, preceded by a morning poop and then a mad morning run around the house to celebrate her religious pooping experience.

This morning, it was slightly different. I was standing there eating my vegemite on multigrain toast, enjoying the peace and quiet, when I looked over to her in her litter box, doing her business and I thought to myself, “Geez, she must be really relieving herself!” Well, no I didn’t exactly think that, but it was a little more vulgar in nature, but you get the drift.

I walked over to her and asked her what she was doing – as you do and realised she hadn’t pooped anything, but was struggling to do number twos! She jumped out of the litter box, turned around to peer at what she hadn’t done and then ran out of the laundry into the kitchen. Upon arriving in the kitchen, she sat her butt down on the polished wood floor and dragged her arse across the room. However, if you know anything about polished wood floors, you know that they aren’t conducive to butt dragging exercises!

So, I did the only thing a mother would do. I grabbed a wad of paper towelling, had Glen hold her still on the floor and wiped her butt. However, she still had a large portion of her business stuck up her butt, so I had to remove the offending item. This occurred after much to-ing and fro-ing before it would ‘release’. You see, the dumb cat had been eating grass. Well, eating isn’t an accurate term, because if she ate the grass, it wouldn’t have been pulled from her butt holding all her poop together like a string of sausages!

To finish, Tilly ran away at high speed, leaving me to clean her business and mop the floor, and shortly after that, washing my hands thoroughly!

It was very reminiscent of the time a few years ago when she went through a very similar experience of number twos not coming out, by running around dragging her butt over the carpet – the CREAM carpet! I chased her around the house, pulling red cotton thread dotted with poop from her butt, which seemed to go on forever and ever. Yes, you read it correctly – ream and reams (no pun intended) of red cotton sewing thread, which she had eaten.

If that didn’t kill her, I should have! Honestly, the cat acts smart, but under that cat-like gaze, she’s as dumb as they come!

Obviously my leisurely morning breakfast was ruined and I am forever off vegemite!

Office Politics

Today, I sat at my desk, viewing a whole wad of documents that I needed to print. I was conflicted, do I sit and print one and rush to the printer to claim it, before it gets sucked into the abyss of other people’s printing, never to be seen again, or do I print the entire lot and hope to God that they come home safely with me, and not in someone else’s pile?

I was conflicted. As I sat there thinking about what is best to do, I thought how irritating it can be to see someone just pick up paper from the printer, without looking at it and wandering off to their desk. It is one of my pet peeves working in an office.

People just don’t get it, they have no concern for anyone around them and think that the printer was put there for their own use. It’s just maddening.

Then there’s the people who print reams of paper, leaving no room for the rest of us with one or two pages to send through. So, you invariably stand there waiting for a whole pile of printing to get done before you pick up your half page document.

And then there are the people who stand behind you huffing and moaning and groaning at the printer, whilst you photocopy or print something. They have no patience or tolerance and act as if you are there getting a tan! I love standing at the printer, staring off into space as I mindlessly wait for my documentation to come through. I am sure I have better things to do.

So, I sat there at my PC, agonising as to whether I should print one document at a time, or send all of them through to the printer, finally deciding to send all of them through and make a quick run to the printer. As I rushed to the printer, I realised that no one else was hovering around, waiting for printouts, so snatched up my printing and scurried back to my desk.

As I sat at my desk, feeling smug and very efficient, I worked my way through the pages. This took me about 30 minutes to review. When I got to one of the final pages and saw Joe Bloggs name at the time, imagine my surprise when I realised the one thing I strived not to be, was who I was – a hypocritical document thief!

You just can’t win, can you?

So, I did the only honourable thing you can do in that sort of shared office supplies situation – I scurried back to the printer, dumped the offending page on the printer and ran like a bat-out-of-hell back to my desk before the owner could trace the missing page to me!

Ironic, isn’t it?

This was a true story brought to you by the letter H – Hypocrite and the letter N – Naive Fool.

Relieving the past...

We had a productive day in the kitchen today. We finally got the exhaust fan installed, like I said below. All is good - well, it's getting better.

Tonight, I decided to have a shower because it was getting late and my knee was killing me. The hot shower really helped. Outside in the kitchen, Glen was preparing our lunches for work tomorrow. You see, in our house we have wooden floorboards and so, it's very easy to hear when someone is walking around. So, I'm washing my hair and letting the hot water run over my head and warm me, when I hear him walking around the house. To me, in the shower, it sounds rather heavy, like he's cranking and instantly, I freak out and expect him to come crashing through the bathroom door to yell at me.

Why would I think that? My childhood.

Whenever I did something wrong, my mother would yell and it has had a very big impact on my life. I don't respond well to loud noises, yelling or anyone who 'appears' to be unhappy with me. I totally crumble and get very upset. I am rather sensitive to a person's mood, so if they sound unhappy or irritable, I instantly feel like I've caused it.

Please hear me when I say this, Glen has never yelled at me, never chastised me or burst into the room after I've done something wrong. He isn't that kind of person. I am so totally lucky that I shouldn't have to feel insecure like I used to. I shouldn't feel on edge and uncertain about his moods. But I do.

This is my childhood upbringing and this doesn't fault my mother, because she never hit me. Yes, she raised her voice and I guess that's why i respond so quickly to someone yelling. I'm just very sensitive to it.

So, I sit here, thankful that I live with a very caring person who loves me for who I am and who doesn't treat me like a child. However, I still feel on edge, I still expect to be yelled at and chastised and I'm just waiting and watching his moods, wondering what it is he means when he says something. I read too much into everything.

When will I get over it and what sort of behaviours would I be passing onto my children? It's scary that I might pass on my idiosyncracies and hangups to someone so innocent. And will I yell at my children like my mother, so that they might become 30 years old and still wince when yelled at, or near?

House Warming Invitation

House Warming Invitation
Originally uploaded by Sams76.

Glen and I are getting close to finish out kitchen! Yay! Today, we got the range hood installed, which is a bit of a huge feat for us. Now, all that is left to do is install the pantry light, finish the cornices and paint the architraves and feature wall in the adjoining dining area.

Anyway, if you are in Melbourne and you know me fairly well, you are probably welcome to come. :) If that's the case and you are free, email me or leave a comment. I don't expect anyone will want to come that I already haven't invited, but you never know :)

Get a life!

I'm noticing these days that a lot of people who are around my age are complaining that their lives lack purpose, they lack direction and don't understand where their place is in the world. They are tired and lost, think time is running out and are generally dejected and depressed about it.

I'm one of those lost individuals, struggling to find her place in this world. I'm lacking direction, and don't know what my purpose is. As a result, I seem to flit from one thing to another, without finishing things; for I get halfway through a task and realise that it's not really what I wanted. For example, I started a teaching degree a few years ago, got maybe 1/3 the way through and lost interest. This was partly due to the fact that it was hard to study and work at the same time, because I had moved to Melbourne and found a life and also realised that I would infact be earning much less than I was currently. Yes, money spoke and I listened.

So, recently I have been wondering what life was meant to hold for me. What was my higher purpose? I am struggling to come to terms with it and what it means to my life. Right now, I feel that if my life ended today, no one would really have much to say at my funeral. What would they say? There isn't much. I mean, they can't say, "survived by children...", "grandmother to..." or "founding member of...". There's just nothing there and it really makes me feel empty and lost.

I am lost and I'm struggling with that concept. I am 30 years old and I haven't found my place in this world.

It's a good day to not get up...

Yesterday, Melbourne had it's first hot day. I suffered a little, but in the main, I was safely ensconced in my office, enjoying the air conditioning. Last night, I suffered in the heat, we put the air conditioning on and when I went to bed, I put the fan on. It didn't help and I spent the majority of the night, tossing and turning. I think I got about 3 hours of sleep and this morning, I woke up with a lovely headache and a churning stomach. Lack of sleep just does that to me. So, I stayed home. yay for me, not. I hate being at home, there's nothing to do and it's boring, which is basically the same thing. However, it's been good as I have been clearing the crap off the set top box!

In other news, it's a real bitch to have a blind pimple above my left eyebrow on the bone. It's really painful and I feel like Quasi Moto. Grrr.

Fucking get over it!

Click the title above to read the news article I had the misfortune to read today.

Can you seriously get a fucking clue? Does it freakin' matter? I think not!!

Report real news. Research more important things. Stop sweating the small stuff.

Honestly. It's just pathetic.

One Little FUCKING word people!

One little ONE SYLLABLE WORD!

Sheesh.

Update only

Just a bit of an update.

Friday, I got fitted with my orthotic innersoles at the podiatrist. He's very optimistic about my future. Apparently the arches on my feet collapse, which places pressure on my knees, which in turn puts pressure on the muscle which connects to my hips and then gives me migraines because of the pressure it places on my spine. So, I suppose if I got my feet sorted out, maybe I won't get migraines? It'd be nice.

As usual, the weekend flew past without feeling like much was accomplished. Oh sure yeh, we accomplished a fair bit. Cleaned the spare room, unpacked some boxes, filled the garbage bins, drilled some holes etc.

Same old shit.