Junior

We have a new junior salesman that started work with us a week or two ago.
When I say Junior, I mean junior. He’s 19 years old, although to be fair he looks a bit older than that. He could pass for 23 – if only he didn’t open his mouth and speak.

When he speaks, it’s like he’s spewing youthful ignorance out into the world. I’m sure that at 19 I wasn’t like this. I mean, we all come off sounding younger than we realise, but he sounds so young. And the thing is, he talks ALL THE TIME. Non-stop. He is so chatty that it makes me want to tear my ears off just to get some peace and quiet.
I don’t talk much at work. In fact, the less talking I can do, the better as far as I’m concerned. But here I find myself with a junior employee who is constantly asking questions, or giving me a running commentary on what he’s doing.


For the past few days he’s been sharing my office while I teach him how we do the design work here. I often listen to music while I work, and so we got onto the topic of music and bands.

I was feeling a bit sleepy, so I put on The Beatles ‘Magical Mystery Tour’. Listening to The Beatles always perks me up. ‘The Fool on the Hill’ started playing. Then, as expected, Junior Salesman started talking:

Him: Is this ABBA?
Me: (jaw drops onto the floor) You’re kidding right?
Him: Nah, it’s ABBA, right?
Me: Ok, I’m going to pretend you’re kidding.
Him: So what kind of music do you listen to? Hey do you like that song by Rihanna? You know, the one with Eminem?
Me: Never heard it.
Him: It’s on the radio all the time.
Me: Yeah, never heard it sorry. Not really my thing
Him: So what music do you like?
Me: Well, my favourite band is probably CAKE…
Him: Who?
Me: CAKE
Him: I don’t know them.
Me: Stop talking please.

I suddenly feel very, very old. I know it’s rare to find someone who likes all the same music as you. KJ and I don’t even really like the same music. But at least KJ has heard of the bands that I like listening to – at least the ones who have been around forever, like The Beatles and like CAKE. So it’s begun. I relate better to old people than young people. This must be what it feels like to start getting old. How appropriate that it should happen just days before I celebrate my final birthday in my 20's.

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.

Satisfaction

Ahhh, Barbie car. 25 years of waiting for a childhood toy desire to be satisfied, taken care of in a single hour of play.

Oh yeah, I think my Niece liked it too.

Birthdays & Barbies

Today is my Niece’s 6th birthday. There are positives and negatives to celebrating a sixth birthday I guess. The positive is that she can actually tell you what she wants for her birthday; the negative is that she may not just be happy with any old thing like she would have a couple of years ago.

I asked her about a week ago what she wanted for her birthday and she rattled off a few things, the main stand out being that she wanted a toy cat. That seemed pretty straight forward, so that was my purchase of choice.

Naturally, me being me, I forgot about shopping for her present until today, so at lunch time I headed over to Kmart, which is the only decent sized store anywhere near my work.

After 15 minutes of scouring the shelves for a toy cat, I was forced to concede that they didn’t have any, and that my laziness had left me unable to fulfil her birthday wish. This left me with the dilemma of what would make a suitable replacement for a toy cat.

Another 15 minutes of window shopping still had me drawing a blank, so instead of trying to find something that she would approve of, I decided I would just give in to my inner child and purchase something that I had always wanted for myself when I was her age. It seemed slightly selfish, but sensible – after all, don’t all six year olds like the same sort of things?

Having an older brother, I spent most of my time playing with toy trucks and running around in our sand pit, so there weren’t a lot of girly toys that I wanted. But what always stands out in my memory is the yearning I had for my very own Barbie car. I think it was a combination of the older brother influence with the car, and the girly side of me that wanted something for my Barbie dolls. Plus, back in the 80’s, Barbie had some seriously good taste in cars. I dreamt of owning this awesome corvette:

To go with my Dream Glow Barbie & Ken Dolls:

Ah Ken - what a Dreamboat!

So with that in mind, I headed to that one toy aisle that smacks you in the face with its pink sparkliness, and found the Barbie dolls.

It took me a little while to realise I’d found them, because I kept looking past the trampy, hooker-ised dolls to try to find Barbie - It took a minute or two to twig that they were the Barbies. Sadly, 20 years have not been kind to Barbie. I guess after the divorce with Ken she got a little desperate and has had to whore it up a bit. I chose the least whore-ish Barbie, but even she still looks like she bought her shoes at a stripper supply store.

Those moveable joints must
make pole dancing a breeze

Sadly her car isn’t quite as cool any more either. She’s gone from a shiny metallic Corvette to something that looks a lot like a hot pink convertible Smart Car:

I can only assume she had to sell the Corvette to pay for her many, many surgeries.


Despite my disappointment in the changes to Barbie since my childhood,  I grabbed the doll and the convertible and headed to the checkout. After all, little girls love dolls, and they love the colour pink, so what is there for my Niece not to love?

As the check out chick was scanning my items, she said to me 'Oh, someone's a Barbie fan!'
'Yeah,' I said  'Aren't all little girls Barbie fans?'
'Not these days.' she told me authoritatively 'No, not anymore.'

So it appears my theory on all little girls wanting the same things may be slightly flawed.
I guess we'll know at 6 o'clock tonight. On the plus side, I might find myself in permanent possession of a Barbie car, thus fulfilling my childhood dream (if in a slightly sluttier way than I imagined at age six).

Twenty Eight

Yesterday I turned 28. I’ve never had any problem with getting older, except of course for my increasingly old-ladyish behaviour. My sister-in-law freaked out when she hit 25 because at that age you’re officially closer to 30 than to 20 and that means life must inevitably get slightly more serious. I had no problem with 25. Or 26 or 27, for that matter. But yesterday, I woke up and realised that I am 28 years old. My life plans ran out at 27.

When I was little, I always imagined that 27 would be the age where my life would be sorted out. At 10 years old, it’s easy to imagine that by 27 you’ll be married, living in a big house and having kids. It would have been nice if I could have imagined myself up some more interesting life plans while I was at it, but what’s done is done. I was probably a pretty dull 10 year old.
In my childhood mind, 27 was baby-making age. It was suitably longer than my own parents waited to have kids, allowing me to have a bit more fun early on, but not so long that I would be old (30 seems seriously old when you’re only 10).

After age 10, I never really thought about it again until recently, when I realised that things don’t always work out in the idyllic way you imagine them when you’re younger.

Then yesterday, I woke up and I was 28 years old. I’m now at the end of my life. Well, my childhood life plan anyway. So what now? I should have thought a bit further ahead I guess. Or maybe this gives me license to go back to behaving like a 10 year old while I try to decide what to do next. I definitely need to put myself in a childish frame of mind; otherwise any future plans would be way too sensible. But 10 year old me couldn’t come up with anything better than getting married and having kids. Maybe I need to revert back to 6 year old me who had a little more imagination. Surely a six year old could come up with a better way of spending my remaining years. I mean, I’m 28 and I have no idea what to do with myself now, so obviously experience doesn’t count for anything.

My only concern with letting my 6 year old imagination decide on my future fate is that I’m pretty sure that when I was six I was the only kid who didn’t have a “when I grow up, I want to be a *insert occupation here*”. Which I’m pretty sure basically equates to “When I grow up I want to be a jobless bum”. My 28 years of experience might not have given me enough knowledge to decide what to do with myself for the rest of my life, but they have taught me enough to know that ‘jobless bum’ isn’t a very desirable occupation.

Or maybe I’ll just have to wing it from here on out. Planning 18 years in advance didn’t end up getting me to my goals, so maybe the best bet is to make it up as I go along.

Birthday Enthusiasm

Tomorrow is my birthday. I’ve said it before, and I fully admit that this makes me kind of (ok, completely) a loser but I really, really love birthdays. Seriously, what’s not to love? You get to spend time with the people who you love the most, you get to eat cake, you sometimes get gifts – and now that I’m old, I get to drink as much as I want mid-week without getting in too much trouble at work the next day for being hung-over.

I never outgrew my childhood love of birthdays, so I look forward to mine every single year. The problem that I’m faced with now that I’m heading toward my 30's isn’t that my excitement about my birthday is starting to fade, it’s that everyone I know has gotten older too and their enthusiasm for birthdays in general has pretty much disappeared. It’s hard to muster up the same level of excitement as usual when the people you want to celebrate with can’t be bothered.

This situation clearly needs fixing. I can’t let birthday fun end before 30. For me, the day I don’t care that it’s my birthday is the day that I'm officially an old lady. And despite recent old lady-ish tendencies, I’m not ready for old-lady-hood yet.

So. How to make people enthused about birthdays again? I considered just throwing a big party, but not telling people it was a birthday party until they arrived. You know, letting them have fun for a while and then just wandering up and saying “Having fun? Great! Because this is actually a Birthday celebration! See, they are fun after all!”
But that seemed sneaky. And no-one likes a sneaky birthday girl. Besides, I didn’t really want a party. I think that once you’re past 10 years old, birthday parties are reserved for milestone birthdays only.

I thought that maybe if I just wore a party hat around all day, people would be amused enough to get more involved in birthday fun. Then I thought about it some more and realised that if I did that, people wouldn’t think it was because I love birthdays, they’d think that I was having some kind of early mid-life crisis and that I was trying to recapture my youth.
Which I guess I am, to some extent. Birthdays were just so fun when I was little, I’d like to have that kind of birthday fun every year. I suppose this kind of age crisis is better than buying myself a sports car and getting a boob job. This kind has cake.

Some excuses to start the week

So you’ll have to forgive me for being slack about posting last week, but it’s been quite a busy one. It was my mother-in-law’s wedding and a friend’s 30th birthday - and to top it all off, I got a fantastic almost-migraine that had me in bed all through Friday and Saturday and left me feeling ill all weekend. Fun times.

Ahhh, there’s nothing like starting the week with excuses. But I’m trying to make up for it by posting twice today. Does it count as twice if one of those posts was supposed to be Saturday’s?

The wedding was a Sunday night thing, which is fine, but in all honesty, I am absolutely stuffed this morning. It finished up early – about 10:30 – but a wedding is still a long day, even when it’s shorter than average. And because I’m still not well, I was kept up all night by these crazy dreams about running around the airport about to miss my flight because I’d lost my bag with my ticket in it. Perhaps the headaches mean that I’m going nuts.

After thinking the dress dilemma through on Friday/Saturday, I decided on the pretty one rather than the sexy one and it was definitely the right choice. I had a whole lot of strangers tell me that it looked really nice, so that’s got to be a good sign. Actually, they weren’t strangers; they were relatives-in-law. I think. To be honest, I have no idea. They’re the kind of people you see maybe once a year, and when you do, you can’t ask their names because they all remember your name and you’re stuck in that kind of awkward conversation that goes exactly like this with every single person:

Them: Hi Torrygirl!
Me: Oh, hi....er, ah...(giving up on trying to remember their name) How are you?
Them: (as if we’re long time friends) I’m great! How have you been, I haven’t seen you in quite a while!
Me: (not quite believing we’ve ever met before) Er, yeah, it’s been ages hasn’t it?
Them: How are your parents? And your brother and sister? And that cute little niece and nephew?

And that’s about where I give up and try to sneak away from the conversation without them noticing - which mostly ends up with them thinking I’m really rude, but since I only ever see them once a year, I’m not that fussed about what they think.

Except, of course, for the bit where they tell me I look nice ;)

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!!!!

An EBay Experience

I had my first EBay experience last week. Despite my super nerdiness, I’ve always resisted the urge to purchase on EBay - firstly because I am an addict by nature and I know that if I start, I’ll find it hard to stop; Secondly, because I’m spoilt and I like there to be a newness to my purchases. I like to be able to open an item and know that it has never been used before. That’s not to say that I’m opposed to second hand items, because I’m not. I just like the experience of unwrapping something new. It’s like a birthday present that I’ve bought for myself, but it can happen any time during the year. What can I say? I’m a big child. I LOVE birthdays.

The reason that I moved past these reasons and finally made a purchase was because I wanted to purchase something that has a totally unrealistic retail value. My new car has a USB connection and I wanted the manufacturer’s iPod cable so that I can control the iPod menu using my stereo buttons. Sadly, this tiny little cable retails for over $100. For a cable. Crazy! I wasn’t really keen on the idea of forking out that much money for a piece of wire, so I searched around to see if I could find somewhere else to purchase from, and eBay was the only result I came up with.

The fact that this item isn’t going to be purchased new is ok with me now, because I came to a realisation that negates all of the second-handed-ness.
This item will come in the mail. And not just the regular mail, but international mail. And if there is one thing as exciting as a present on an un-birthday, it’s opening the mail box to find a package that has travelled 12,000Km to reach me.

Danger is (or will be) his middle name

My Sister-in-Law was supposed to make a baby on Wednesday, but sadly, she is still pregnant. I say sadly, because tomorrow is my birthday and as I love birthdays so much, it won't do to share my birthday with the new baby - We will be ripped off out of one party per year if that happens. Our birthday celebrations will forever be combined, when we could easily be having two separate parties and double the birthday fun.

I've asked her to try to hold the baby in for a bit longer so that it won't happen, but apparently things don't work that way. I have a feeling she's going to go into labour tomorrow. I told her that for my birthday present, I wanted to pick the baby's middle name. I've picked 'Danger'. That way, when he gets older he can tell everyone 'Danger is my middle name.' She wasn't very impressed. My brother thought it was great - and it's definitely way better than splodgy, so I guess we'll just have to wait and see how it goes.

Another weekend eaten away

Ah yes, another weekend draws to a close and yet again I’m sitting on my bum on the couch after having eaten (ok, and drunk) my way through the weekend. I feel that I can justify my total lack of….anything…by saying that it was KJ’s birthday and that means that the weekend should be all about him. This means there is no time for practical things like Christmas shopping, housework, exercise or moving my butt off the couch.

It was a good day today; things went pretty much as I had hoped they would with only a few minor glitches in the plan.

Instead of waking up around 8am, I woke up at around 6 after a long night of disturbed sleep filled with what I fear are the beginning of an endless stream of dreams about our wedding. I wasn’t so excited (and cruel) about his birthday that I was going to wake him at 6 to make him open his present, so I spent 2 hours on the couch trying to doze off again. At 8 I kicked into birthday mode and jumped around and made him open his present, which was this – A slot car set in the shape of the Bathurst track. Obviously this present meant that as predicted he got out of bed faster than he would normally, so we set the track up and had a quick go at it before we had to start getting things ready to have the family over.

The rest of the day was just the same old regular birthday business. Family over, presents exchanged, food consumed, endless slot car races and an afternoon nap on the couch. It was a good relaxing sort of day but now I’m so tired that as I’ve been typing this, I’ve been putting the words in the wrong order and I have hit the backspace key more than any other on the keyboard. I think this may be a sign that it’s time to drag myself off the couch into bed.

No Plan B

It’s KJ’s birthday on Sunday and I am SO excited. I’m a total birthday fanatic. KJ, on the other hand, can’t stand birthdays, so I feel that it’s my duty to be excited enough for both of us. This is easily done, because the more I think about how great birthdays are (even other people’s), the more excited I am on his behalf. I’m especially excited about this one because for once I have managed to think up the perfect gift for him. I’ve been so careful not to let it slip to him what it is that I’m too scared to even write it down here in case he sees before Sunday. Let’s just say that it’s fun, childish and something that all boys would love.

I went to the shops at lunchtime today and bought it, then brought it back to work with me and wrapped it up there. Before I wrapped it, each of the sales guys came down and laughed at it before making half-arsed attempts to steal it. This is the great kind of gift that I have found – it’s silly and pointless, but all the boys want it. This is the main reason that I’ve managed to muster up so much excitement on KJ’s behalf – it’s such a great present (if I do say so myself).

Here’s how I imagine Sunday morning will work:

At about 8am Sunday morning, I will wake up and begin jumping up and down on the bed like I would if it were my own birthday. Then, while he whinges about me waking him up so early on a Sunday I’ll jump out of bed, run down to the garage and grab the present out of my car. I’ll run back upstairs, leap onto the bed only to find that KJ has gone back to sleep. A bit more bouncing will wake him up, at which point I will thrust the present into his face and demand that he opens it. He’ll stuff around for a while, rubbing his eyes and pretending to snore while I bounce around impatiently. There’s a good chance that he might even make me go and make coffees before he’ll agree to open his gift.

Eventually, he’ll open it, get really really excited about it and get out of bed to play with it all day until his friends come over for a BBQ around lunchtime. Once they arrive, they’ll all take turns at playing with it until late at night when my birthday excitement has worn off and I make them all leave so I can go to bed.

At least, this is how I would like it to go. The only small snag in this plan is that there is a very good chance that once the present is open, KJ will go back to sleep and there will be no-one to get birthday-excited about. I haven’t thought up a plan B for if this happens, so Sunday could end up being an enormous let down.

I better get the butcher's paper and textas out and start brainstorming.