You know you're too tired to go to your work Xmas party when...

You jump in the shower quickly to wash your face and shave your underarms and you get out after what you think is 5 minutes to find it's actually been 20 and you've shaved one armpit, one leg and washed your hair instead of your face.

The Birthday Scrooge

Last week, KJ turned thirty. So being the wonderful, birthday-loving wife that I am, I threw him a gigantic, no-expense-spared, everyone-invited birthday party. Which was more effort than your standard party, because KJ doesn’t quite feel the same way as I do about birthdays. In fact, he would prefer to spend his birthday pretending that it’s just another day and hiding under the bed when anyone tries to give him a gift. He’s the birthday Scrooge.

But I know, deep down, that everyone has to love birthdays. It’s just not normal to pass up the chance for a celebration. So with that in mind, I organised a massive spit-roast lunch at our place. We had about 50 or so people come by over the course of the day.

I’m not going to go into in-depth detail about the party, because all parties are pretty much the same – food, drinks, laughs etc. But there were a few things that maybe rate a mention.

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In the chaos of running around trying to get things done, I totally forgot to have breakfast, and the first thing I had for the day was a beer at about 11:30am. Probably not the best way to start a long day in 32 degree weather.

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The place was overrun with kids. Kids freaking EVERYWHERE. There were kids from 4 weeks old right up to about 16. It was weird. And people with babies love to pass them round at parties. As soon as someone showed up with a baby, they would throw it into my arms without a thought as to whether or not I actually wanted to hold it.
Watching me holding a 4 week old baby is like something out of a slap-stick comedy skit. Trying to cope with their floppy, flailing heads and their super-humanly strong arms is beyond my capability. And every time someone would thrust one of these little bundles of chaos at me, people would run in from all sides with cameras, saying things like ‘Awww, Torrygirl is getting clucky!’ or ‘Oh, you’ll be next!’ and clicking away as if they were recording some huge historical landmark.

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I ran around to a heap of different cake stores until I found one that still made the cherry ripe mud cake that KJ thought was no longer available so that I could surprise him with it. I am an awesome wife, if I do say so myself.

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Because there were so many people, we couldn’t hold the party in our backyard. We have a big open area out the front of the house, and a double garage that opens onto it – so we used that space. Our house is on a pretty steep block, so the bulk of the house is upstairs with the garage downstairs. This meant that I ran up and down the stairs to the kitchen about 500 times an hour. For around about 8 hours.

Now, I’ve made my thoughts on exercise pretty clear over the years, so anyone who read regularly knows that this much running is not a normal event for me. And man did I pay the price for it.
I ache in places that I didn’t even know I had muscles! I did so much food preparation and lifting and carrying things that even the muscles in my hands ache. My legs ache, my arms ache, my shoulders and neck ache. Even my eyelids ache!


It was all worth it though. We got to spend the day with good people, eating good food in good weather. And even KJ enjoyed himself – which has to be a first.

Maybe it’s actually possible to trick someone into enjoying birthdays.

Dance Music, Glam Metal & Boy Bands

The new formula for my life this week:

Illness = Medication = Insomnia = Me in a very grumpy mood today

I guess you could say I woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. I’m in a terrible mood, and there doesn’t seem to be any particular reason other than the fact that sleep is eluding me this week.

I think what might really be getting to me is the fact that having been ill for the past 3 weeks, I’ve barely left the house. I’ve had to cancel a lot of plans and I think I’m going crazy, like a prisoner thrown into solitary confinement for just a little too long.

Even thought going to work isn’t much of a social occasion for me given that every other person in the place is male, I’m even starting to miss that tiny bit of human interaction. Up until the last few days, I haven’t even really had the energy to spend much time online, which means that even online chatting has been out. My lifelong dreams of becoming a hermit are getting closer and closer to becoming a reality.


Luckily, this weekend marks an event in my calendar that no illness could stop – that’s right, it’s Eurovision time again!! This Sunday Night, a group of my friends and family will be coming around for our annual Eurovision party, where we will which the tackiest best musical talent that Europe has to offer.

The best part about watching Eurovision (aside from the complete and utter dagginess of it all) is that it transports you back about 10 or 15 years. For some reason, Europe seems to be a decade behind the rest of the world musically. Obviously there’s the occasional modern song which will usually fail dismally, or something traditional which fares well with the countries located nearby. But there is an overwhelming abundance of what I would call imitation retro music.

Last year’s completion saw a lot of bad 90’s style dance music:



with a bit of what I’m pretty sure is classified as glam metal thrown in:



as well as a few 90’s boy band-ish love ballads (I call this one Danish Ronan Keating):



It was like a trip down memory lane – that is, a trip down a foreign and slightly confusing lane where everything looks sort of familiar, but the signs don’t make any sense and you have no idea where the lane is leading.

As always, I highly recommend that everyone watch Eurovision. It might not be quite as funny since Terry Wogan retired from doing the commentary, but it’s still pretty amusing, and this year should remind you of a lot of music in the early 2000’s.

Now all that is left to be decided is what kind of foreign food I’ll serve at the party. I was angling to make something Norwegian since this year’s competition is being held in Norway, but it turns out that from what I can find, Norwegian food is slightly less than exciting and also pretty heavy on the flatulence inducing ingredients. Not ideal for a small room full of people if you ask me. I’m thinking maybe I can just go with a Scandinavian theme and do a bit of grocery shopping at IKEA. Maybe meatballs will do the trick – they seem appropriate.

I’ll leave you with last year’s winner, a guy that freaks me out because he looks a lot like a boyfriend I had in high school.

Old-School Embarrassment

On Saturday night (my only night out all weekend) I had that embarrassing experience of showing up to what was supposed to be a costume party and finding that what I was wearing was way over the top.

And I was worried that I would be under-dressed for it!

We were supposed to dress up in vintage cocktail attire – specifically 1920’s or 1950’s; so I went all-out 50’s style with the big swing skirt and the curled hair and red lipstick only to find that everyone else showed up in dresses that could only vaguely be attributed to being styled in a rough approximation of a 1950’s-ish look.


This is why costume parties should be banned.


My brother-in- law, on hearing that we were going to a costume party said to me 'I would rather be stabbed than go to a costume party'.
At the time I thought he was being a little extreme. After going to this party, however, I’m inclined to agree with him.

The only saving grace of this particular costume party is that it was thrown by a girl who is an absolute genius at making punch. She has a skill that somehow allows her to make a bowl of punch from 3 bottles of hard liquor and a very small quantity of juice that tastes entirely non-alcoholic. Needless to say, things tend to get messy fast and this is helpful in trying to ignore the fact that you’re dressed like you’re headed to a 1950’s dance hall.

The other very odd thing about this party was that of the 25 people there, only four of them were male. Odd. It was like a girls night out on steroids.


So I’m vowing ‘never again’ to the costume party idea. It’s corny and expensive and you only end up looking like a fool and needing to get really drunk to compensate.

Christmas Party

Three last, fun filled days of work before we’re on holidays - finally!

I have to say that the one thing I miss about my previous job is the Christmas parties. They were big affairs at trendy restaurants with lots and lots of booze and no limitation on how long the bar tab ran for. If you could ignore the half of the staff that were pure evil, you could have a really good time. I never went to one that didn’t last at least 12 hours.

In the new job they’re a lot different. I’m not looking forward to this one at all. It’s tomorrow night at a cafe in the middle of nowhere, an hour’s drive from home. There is no alcohol, because the cafe is BYO, so if we want to drink, we have to supply our own alcohol. And the place is only licensed for BYO until 11pm anyway.
There are no taxis home if we do drink, because it’s seriously, without exaggeration, in the middle of the bush. Besides which, an hour’s cab ride from the middle of nowhere would probably set me back an entire day’s wages.


So I can’t really say I’m all that enthused about this one. Or perhaps it’s just my increasing cynicism around the festive season that is making me un-enthused. I’ve always loved Christmas, but this year I’m struggling to really get myself even a little bit excited. That could be the reason that the Christmas party isn’t appealing to me as much. Maybe I’m just reaching my Scrooge years.

Dresses

It’s reached that time of year where I’ve hit my work wall. I need a holiday.
I had Friday off work, so I effectively had a 3 day weekend, and yet it still didn’t feel like anywhere near enough.

This weekend we had a wedding to go to, and it reminded me how much I enjoy wearing dresses. I normally wear jeans every day – I don’t even get to wear summer dresses or skirts to work, because it would make me way over dressed (since my office is attached to a factory in an industrial estate).
I usually only get to wear a dress if we’re going out somewhere special, like a wedding or..... something else that calls for formalwear. Actually, mostly just weddings.

We don’t get to go to anywhere near enough formal events. There’s something about putting on a pretty dress that makes you feel incredibly good about yourself. And you know that statement is true, because it’s not just women that get a kick out of it – there are a hell of a lot of men who are partial to a bit of dress wearing.

So if you’re like me and are feeling like you’ve had enough of 2009, try putting on a dress – it will help, I swear.

Fire Mania

We’ve just started to slip into summer weather this week and it’s caused this kind of fire prevention mania. Last year’s bushfires have everyone freaked out. Everyone is (understandably) paranoid about another Black Saturday since they’re predicting that the weather is going to be even hotter this year than last year.

As a result of this excessive paranoia and because of the fact that I live very close to where last year’s bushfires were, not a single day goes by when I don’t get a brochure in the mail for some kind of fire repelling product or service.

This means that I now have a house full of paper – just the thing I need to fireproof the place – a nice big pile of good old fire friendly paper. Thanks, anti-fire product suppliers. You might have sold me fire gel, mesh and roof sprinklers, but you have made the inside of my house a fire’s best friend.

In un-fire-related news, this weekend is the party that I was dreading. My problem has been solved (sort of) by the fact that we aren’t able to go. It turns out we had already planned to go away for the weekend, so we won’t be around to go to the party. Really this just pushes the issue back for another time, but at least for now I can forget about it.

An oldie but a goodie

Saturday night was the dreaded Hen’s night. I managed to sneak out early, using the excuse of driving home my pregnant sister-in-law, but unfortunately not early enough to avoid the stripper. I have to say that as far as strippers go he was quite tasteful. Ish. I’m not sure tasteful is a word that you can really use when it comes to a stripper, but I can’t think of anything more appropriate.

He was dressed as a cop and I have to give him credit because he was actually a reasonably good dancer. The lewd gyrating was kept to a minimum, but I’m not sure that that was because of tasteful dancing, or the inability of his hips to cope with the movements. Which brings me to my point for this blog post – at what age do you become too old to be a stripper?

Now I’m not suggesting that he was old, because he wasn’t. But given that the primary job of a stripper of this sort is to perform at hen’s nights, there comes an age where you will realise that you’re stripping in front of people who could, given an unfortunate virginity losing mishap back in your young and wild days, be your daughter. Or at least, your daughter’s slightly older friends.

The point I’m making here is that the stripper seemed a bit too old for the crowd he was performing in front of. At a guess I would say he was pushing 40. Now to me that’s not a huge age difference, but add a few more years difference for the bride and her friends who are quite a bit younger and it’s a pretty fair sort of age gap!

There must be an age that you reach when you start to realise that you’re closer to the age of the mother of the bride than to the bride herself. Wouldn’t that make it a little awkward? Or is that awkwardness overridden by the total awkwardness of getting nude in front of a room full of strangers?

Either way, the stripper wasn’t as bad as I imagined, but this could be mostly attributed to the fact that he respected my baby oil free perimeter and kept well clear.

I think the most appropriate description of the stripper is the one my grandma often uses about a favourite song – he was an oldie but a goodie.

Another Naked Man

This weekend I have to go to a Hens Night. I say have to go, because in all honesty, I’m not particularly enthused about it. These sorts of things are really only properly fun if you know a few people and in this case, I will only know two people – the bride-to-be and my sister.

Ok, I’ll be honest - the real reason that I don’t feel particularly enthused about going is that they’re getting a stripper. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not against the idea of a naked man in your normal sort of naked man circumstances (in fact, under the right circumstances, a naked man can be quite nice). It’s just the idea of an oiled up stranger gyrating to tacky music and stripping off to wave his what-not around in someone’s face that doesn’t really appeal to me. I know I’m not alone in this, so I’m not afraid to admit it.

Add to this the fact that I will know only two people in the room and it all becomes a little creepy – I might as well go and sit in a strip club full of strangers where I can practise my creepy old lady faces. At least that way I could leave whenever I wanted.

Happy 100th!

Welcome to my 100th blog post! Ok, so 100 posts isn’t a huge milestone when you take into account the other 150 or so posts that are here at my old blog, but I’m celebrating it anyway because if I count it as 250 posts, the next big milestone isn’t really until 500, and that’s a long way off. Plus I like celebrations. Any excuse for a party.

Because this is such a milestone post, I’m going to make it a bit special by sharing 10 things about me that you may not know. Ok, so maybe that’s not special to you, but it’s my blog and my 100th, so I get to say what’s special around here!

I was going to list 100 things, but I don’t think I could come up with that many things (I’m really not that interesting) and it would also take forever.

1. I could live on Indian food. It is my all time favourite and I could eat it for every single meal. We have it at least 3 times a week. Oddly enough though, I have no desire to travel to India and eat the food – I think it would spoil my love of the flavours by being too hot. I also believe that the pappadum is one of the greatest inventions EVER.
   
   
2. I have an incredible relationship with my sister and it makes me very happy. We had some insanely evil fights when we were younger, but have somehow grown to have a very close relationship and she is one of the few people that I trust completely.
   
   
3. I’m a brunette - and regarding blondes having more fun, the only thing I think blondes have more of is bleach. No offense to any blondes reading this.
   
   
4. I play online scrabble and bejewelled blitz almost compulsively. It’s pretty much the main reason that I have a Facebook account.
   
   
5. I thank God every day for giving me a metabolism that has kept me slim despite my serious addiction to good food - because I am way too lazy to exercise.
   
   
6. I can’t imagine myself ever having babies or being a mother, but will eventually do it anyway because it seems like something I might regret not doing when I’m older. After all, I need someone to check me into happy valley when I’m too old and decrepit to look after myself.
   
   
7. I love painting – and while that sounds all clever and creative, I don’t mean the arty kind of painting, I mean the house kind of painting. I find it therapeutic and relaxing to paint walls, but I don’t do it very often because I can’t stand the prep work.
   
   
8. My house had brown shag carpeting – a relic from the 70’s when the house was built. It’s quite worn and needs replacing, but secretly I don’t really want to get rid of it because it’s warm and comfy and makes the house feel lived in.
   
   
9. I hate winter because I can’t stand being cold, but I love it because it means I get to wear scarves, which I adore. I have about 10 or 15 of them, mostly knitted woollen ones. I’m currently wearing a grey wool scarf that is twice as long as I am tall.
   
   
10. I started blogging because I wanted to take the thoughts out of my head and get them into some kind of order so that I could think things through more clearly. Publishing them online seals the deal by casting them out into the wide open so they’re not just my inner thoughts anymore. Also, the occasional comments are nice because you don’t get those if you keep it all in your head (unless you’re schizophrenic, of course).

So there you have it – 10 things about me that I’m pretty sure you didn’t (and maybe didn’t want to) know.

Happy 100th!!!!

Constructing a drink

On Saturday I donned a fluoro vest, hard hat and tool belt and went out for a night on the town!

The outfit was a costume that I was wearing as a 'construction worker' for a 'C' Themed birthday party for one of the sales guys at work. Sadly, construction worker was the fall-back costume and there were quite a few of them there. It's pretty hard to come up with something original that starts with the letter 'C' that you can make yourself without spending a fortune.

I was a bit disappointed that i didn't get to wear something a bit more original, but unlike the other construction workers there, my costume had a practical side. I discovered that even if you don't have any tools to put in a tool belt, the pouches at the front (which I assume are for nails or something) are the perfect size for holding beer bottles. And there's a kind of metal thing on the side that made a perfect cup holder. Now I'm thinking about taking it to every party I go to! It's the perfect party accessory! It even had a spot for a measuring tape at the front that was the perfect size for a pack of cigarettes (Have I mentioned how much I miss smoking?).

No wonder labourers have the stereotype of being big drinkers - they have a drinking belt as a uniform!

Eurovision Excitement

It's almost time for one of my favourite events of the year and I am excited. Only 8 days until Eurovision 2008 begins!

It was inevitable that Eurovision would become a part of my yearly routine, as it works in perfectly with my favourite hobby - singing bad music very loudly in my car on the way to work. And what is there not to love about hearing musicians from all over Europe trying to imitate popular non-European styles of music? You've never really heard rap music until you've heard it in Israeli, you've never heard swing music until you've heard it in German, and you've never heard punk music until you've heard it in Catalan.

And honestly, tell me -who doesn't like their music with a bit of piano accordion in it? Eurovision never fails to deliver on that front. It's amazing the variety of music styles that can have a piano accordion instrumental added to them. It makes everything 5% more fun. There aren't enough songs in the charts with piano accordion in them. In fact, oddly enough I don't think there are any...

I love it because even when you aren't laughing at the commentary by Terry Wogan, you can't help but laugh at some of the contestants. Every year we have a Eurovision party for the final. It's a good excuse to get together for a bit of a laugh, and this year will be a lot better, because I think they're broadcasting it in High Definition - that means i get to see singers like mini George Michael in life-like quality.

I'm running a pick-a-country-out-of-a-hat sort of betting thingy this year (does anyone know what the proper name for that is?) because I always feel a bit bad for all of the countries that don't have anyone cheering for them during the party. If anyone wants in, let me know. There are 42 countries and only 8 people coming to this year's party, so there are a few extra to go around.

I'll leave you with a video of the act that in my opinion should have been last year's winner, but shockingly only came 37th out of 42.