Category: Diary

 

 

I was just wondering who you voted for.

I know that when talking to my friends the other day about what was our ‘most loved toy event’, as you do, that Big W’s sale came a distant third behind ‘what the &#&# are you talking about Tony?’ and ‘huh?’. I even did a Google search to see who came second but sadly couldn’t find a list.

I wonder which marketing person got a huge raise for coming up with that phrase.

When you hear an odd stat  while listening to the footy (“That’s Richmond’s tenth time they have scored three goals in a quarter when kicking toward the city end playing an away team from Western Australia when Richo wasn’t in the team.”) do you too try and construct the SQL statement they must have used to get it? Or is that just me?

I did note that in two games played today the winner failed to double their opponents score by one point. Hmmm SELECT winner FROM game WHERE…

Now that’s the way a weekend should be.

Friday was Rae’s RDO for the month so it was bonus long weekend, but it really started on Thursday night when Zita sat for us so we could head off to The Sun for a movie. For the first time ever we had a movie theater to ourselves. We could ask each other outloud “what did they just say”, rustle our lollies as loud as we want and laugh as madly as we wanted. Can thoroughly recommend ‘My Year Without Sex’, especially if you are, or are married to, a Bulldogs supporter.

Friday, a bit of a shop, Zita came over for dinner and some work while the women in the house watched a chick flick on the telly. Oh, and there was a bit cleaning up going on ’cause on Saturday Veronica, Steve, Jonathon and the beautiful new Hannah came to visit. Here’s a hint – when you have people over for coffee, make sure you actually have milk in the fridge so you can make coffee for them. Somehow we managed to scrape together enough for a couple of coffees each and the mini scones with jam and cream disappeared pretty quickly, much to Phee’s chagrin as she was eyeing off the entire plate.

That afternoon was spent sitting in the big comfy chair reading a book I bought at the Sun Bookstore when we went to the movies, keeping an eye on the footy on the telly and luxuriating in the quiet of babies sleeping. The night was spent watching the remastered Scarface with Rae and polishing off a bottle of bubbly and some beers.

Today was Sunday morning market shopping, end of tax year new laptop shopping, display home viewing, general lazing around the house and roast chicken eating. It’s been a wonderful relaxing weekend, such a shame it has to finish. Now it’s Masterchef, a warm cup of milk and an early night because when a weekend has been this good you just know that the weekend ahead must have something nasty in store.

While everyone was away today I made the most of a glorious winter’s afternoon and sat outside to get some work done. Bat Out Of Hell on the iPod and some sunshine made the rather dull work of designing a database just that bit more pleasurable.

All last week I’d been looking forward to Saturday night. Rob is away living it up in Adelaide so Rae and I were off to the footy to see my Tiger boys take on West Coast, their first game under the new coach. Rae and I haven’t been to the footy together since the twins came along so it was going to be a great night until I woke up on Saturday morning.

Gout.

My first attack in two years and it had to be yesterday. The day was lost waiting for a doctor’s appointment and sitting around not walking while the medicine tried to calm the pain. I’m so disappointed we didn’t get to go, sure, we won, which is great but a night at the foot with Rae, that’s what the weekend was going to be all about.

The pain has subsided a bit today with thanks to the wonderful drugs but I’m still hobbling and have missed a family trip to Sovereign Hill. Rae and Zita have taken all of the kids and I’m at home feeling sorry for myself. What rotten timing.

Oh, and Go Tigers.

Daniel has started another meme, this one is the alphabetical musical meme and, basically, pick a song on your pod that you’re in to at the moment (or at random) and what are the next 9 songs. Time to discover what I actually have on the little wonder.

1. Sinner Man, Nina Simone. Channel 10 use an instrumental piece from this under their live footy scores. Amazing song.

2. Sister Golden Hair, America. When I was just a young lad my sister, Judy, gave me America’s Greatest Hits on vinyl. When Ventura Highway was featured in an episode of Veronica Mars I downloaded the album again.

3. Sister Madly, Crowded House. Reminds me of Moriah St, all those, um, decades ago. Still have the cassette in a box somewhere.

4. Sister Moon, Transvision Vamp. I don’t care. I still love Velveteen. First concert I saw in Melbourne when I moved down, at Festival Hall – not the ‘ooops, there goes my dress’ gig at The Metro.

5. Sister Winter, Sufjan Stevens. Genius. ‘nuff said.

6. Sisters Are Doin’ It For Themselves, Eurythmics May have been the second concert I saw after moving down to Melbourne. Not the strongest track of that album, but the final line is still great.

7. Sisters Of Mercy, Leonard Cohen. Not one I know that well.

8. Sit Down, James. I love this song – it’s a 10 minute live version. There is a special place reserved in hell for people who blow hooters at concerts.

9. Situation No Win, Big Audio Dynamite II. Is it just me or is there a lot of 80s music on this list… This is Rush (Change of Atmosphere) from the live Globe bootleg.

10. Size Of A Cow, The Wonderstuff. 80s English music. Again.

Not sure how indicative this is of my actual music tastes, no need to comment Miss Marita, but there you have it.

I did the second coat of the deck this morning bright and early. It had been a dry night, no moisture or dew anywhere so I struck while the iron was hot/deck was dry and the coat was dry by lunch time.

And what a good thing that was.

This afternoon is a good old fashioned winter afternoon. Footy on the radio, sky so dark the lights were on all afternoon, comfort food in the oven, jumpers on inside (even with the heater on) and something very rare – soaking rain. Looking out on the deck I can see that Andrew was right, the extra two coats produced the wonderful site sight below.

Time for a little round up.

Thursday was my birthday and thanks to a sneaky wife and Mother In Law who gracefully accepted being the bad guy I had a surprise visit from mum and Peter. It was a total surprise when I answered the door to see them standing there and it was right at that moment I wish I had spent the morning cleaning the house instead of moping around on the PC. We ended up heading to The Coat for lunch  and then home for afternoon tea and some grandkid time.

Lunch was just one of the dining out experiences of my birthday. Wednesday night Rae and I got to go out together, again thanks to Zita. On Thursday the whole family went out for dinner, which even with a dodgy parma at The Deer Park Hotel, was lovely and then we topped it off with one of mum’s super light cream filled sponges.

Not talking about Friday. Goodbye Terry Wallace. Hello starting all over again.

Saturday morning I finally made it to Daniel’s place. He’s only been there three and half years and he’s only been to our place(s) on countless occasions over this time. Man I’m a bad friend. It was a great couple of hours sitting around and chatting with him and Miss Marita until the kids let us know it was time to leave. When you’ve got young kids never plan on spending more than a couple of hours in any one place that’s not your home.

I had a nap in the afternoon, a bit of footy on the telly in the evening and that was the day done.

This morning started off with a leisurely read of the papers and a big breakfast with coffees. I then did the first of two extra coats of oil on the deck, as recommended by the guy who built it, while Rae was busy hanging curtains and making ties for them. The deck looks great, must take a photo tomorrow when it’s freshly done, and our room is finally nice and dark at night. This afternoon we used the black out blinds in the theatre room for the first time and watched our latest QuickFlix DVD – Crash. What a fantastic film.

Now we’re bidding on a buffet on Ebay, watching MasterChef and getting ready to start one of my birthday DVDs, Scarface.

All this and there’s still one day of the weekend to go.

I had one of my recurring dreams last night, the one where a plane drops out of the sky and lands safely near by,  so I was a little disturbed to wake up to the news that a plane has disappeared over the Atlantic.

Zita, Rae’s mum, inherited Rae’s old laptop. She’s well and truly one of us now.

It’s really sad that I was working on two PCs in the office and the kids were playing Pinball on their PC at the same time.