exhausted but intact

Well, we all survived the weekend exhausted but intact. There were no tears, no major tantrums and no screaming “I want my mum”. And the kids were okay too.

We managed to keep them entertained from about 10.15 am Saturday to 5.30 pm Sunday, so did pretty well for amateurs, I thought. Especially considering they decided they were wide awake at 5 o’clock on Sunday morning, which is not an hour I consider civilised. I must confess, though, I’m glad I don’t have to do this every day. Parenthood / Caregiving is certainly not an easy job.

wish me luck!

The Boy and I are looking after my 6 year old godson and his 4 year old sister this weekend, which should be interesting. Although we’ve spent time with the family on holiday, and I’ve had one of the kids at a time for short periods, it’s the first time we’ve had them overnight without “parental supervision”.

Fortunately The Boy loves kids, so I know he won’t abandon me to it (not if he wants to live, anyway). Plus, he is already a favourite with The Godson due to his willingness to kick around a soccer ball for extended periods of time.

So, wish us luck – hopefully we won’t be complete physical and emotional wrecks by Sunday (and hopefully neither will the kids!!). I figure if all else fails, we can always go visit my mum…

cooking machine

I’m not sure what’s got into The Boy lately, but he’s been a cooking machine for the past couple of weeks. He would definitely have cooked more than I have in the last two or three weeks, which is pretty rare.

I don’t know what has caused it but, believe me, I’m not complaining – long may it last!

selective blindness

I have a question – do guys have the same eyes women do? I’m starting to think that the male of the species has a genetic defect that causes selective blindness.

How many times have all the women out there heard “Babe, where is the XXX”? Yet when you tell them precisely where to find whatever they’re looking for, they can’t see it. Even when they’re looking right at it.

How many times have you seen a guy staring blankly into a cupboard (or wherever) completely unable to see what they’re looking for. They insist that you’re wrong and that the item is not where you say it is. So, you interrupt whatever you were doing (which is clearly less important) and pick up the item from right in front of their nose. Every time.

If someone could find a cure for this selective male blindness, I’m sure there are millions of women out there who would happily pay any sum of money for their men to receive the treatment. I know I would.

tough decisions

Never mind “First Up, Best Dressed” – in our house its “First Up, Warmest Shower”.

The fact that I love my long showers has been a standing joke in my family most of my life. Now the biggest joke of all (and its on me, sadly) is that these days I live with someone who is even worse than I am. And compounding the problem is the fact that we have quite a small hot water cylinder.

So, every morning, especially in winter, it’s a race for the 2nd person in the shower to finish before the dreaded cold water starts flowing. Unfortunately that person is usually me, since The Boy starts work earlier than I do (and therefore gets out of bed before I do). What a horrible decision to have to make – get out of bed earlier, which I also loathe and despise, or have to have a super-quick shower. I must really love that Boy to live with this.

sold out

Don’t you hate it when you’re really looking forward to seeing a movie but its sold out when you arrive? That happened to us on Saturday night with Pirates of the Caribbean 2. We would normally have pre-booked online, but I had free passes which couldn't be pre-booked (but could be used at No Complimentary movies, so obviously not Hoyts passes…).

The other choices weren’t too hot. The Boy refused to see Take the Lead, I refused to see Final Destination 3 and we’d already seen Superman and X-Men. That left a choice of Click or RV. I’m not a big fan of Adam Sandler, but it seemed better than watching a Robin Williams family vacation movie, so we saw Click.

Even when the movie you end up seeing isn’t too bad, you still have that dissatisfaction of missing out on your first choice. Oh well, no doubt we’ll see it another time.

one for the record books

You may remember the posting about how much cheaper the trip to supermarket was without The Boy along making all his usual impulse buys.

Well, we made the personal record books last night – a trip to the supermarket with The Boy with no impulse buys! Amazing but true.

We had a little chat before we went in about how we're supposed to be saving money and how the little things have a habit of adding up. We decided to see if we could make the rounds without picking up any wee extras, and we actually made it. It really made a difference at the checkout, too. I’d hate to promise that we’ll manage it every time, but its good to know that we can if we have to.

shameless plug

My friends Danika & Andrew are heading off to compete in the Salsa World Champs in Las Vegas in December (go guys!). They’re having a fundraiser on Thursday 27 July at Guada Bar in Manukau (Ronwood Ave, opposite the mall). Tickets are only $10 each, which includes a free drink, free salsa lesson, a band and a bunch of performances by some of NZ’s best latin dancers. There will be sales at the door, if there are any tickets left by then, but why not secure your tickets beforehand? It should be a great night.

For details on how to get tickets, see www.sensalsa.co.nz or email me at pjinthecity@gmail.com.

super long

The Boy & I went to see Superman Returns last night (not my first choice, but the timings were best). It was better than I was expecting, which probably wasn’t hard, but it was a bit long and waffly. The new guy looks eerily like Christopher Reeve in some of the shots – its quite bizarre – and Kevin Spacey is a good Lex Luther. Its definitely more of a wait-for-dvd movie, though.

zero bubbles

As everybody not living under a rock will have seen, Coke Zero is Coke’s latest ‘new big thing’ here. Although I agree that the taste is a bit more like original coke than diet coke is, I’m not going to be rushing to buy more coke zero. Why? Because it goes flat faster than a popped balloon or a New York gang member hearing gunshots.

I can’t understand why, but zero seems to lose it’s bubbles ten times as fast as original or diet coke. Strange but true.

what is it with guys & chicken?

There is a bit of a standing joke in our house – whenever The Boy asks what I’m making for dinner, my answer is chicken (whether that’s the truth or not). Although he has become better about it over the time we’ve lived together, along with learning how to eat veges, he doesn’t really consider chicken to be real meat. Thinking about it, my dad and my brother are pretty much the same – its not real meat unless its red.

So my question is this: why is chicken seen as ‘chick food’ (no pun intended)? What is it about chicken that makes it ‘unmanly’??

ah, nostalgia…

I popped in to a dvd sale on the weekend and picked up a few $10 dvds. The title selection at these sales is always pretty sad, so it was slim pickings. I did find a couple I couldn’t resist, though. Not necessarily because they’re such fantastic movies, but because they take me back to my high school years and memories of watching them again and again with friends. It was a real nostalgia trip, and I loved it.

Of course, since he doesn’t have those memories and was just judging the movies on their actual merits, The Boy thought I was totally mad. Maybe I am, but it was fun.

where does it come from?

I’m in the process of moving offices at the moment, which is a pain in the butt. You don’t realise how much stuff you have until you have to move it, although at least it isn’t as bad as moving house. Mind you, what could be?

The thing that really amazes me, though, is how dirty things are. I like to think I’m pretty good at keeping my office clean – I clean my desk and shelves regularly, ditto my keyboard, mouse and phone. And yet I was looking at my hands after moving a bunch of stuff yesterday and they were seriously black with dust. So where does it all come from? You’d think an environment as sealed as an office building would be cleaner (its not like our windows open or anything). I guess it just goes to show how shoddy and unhealthy our air-conditioning system is.

girly-ness gone mad

Mum has always been the ultimate girly-girl, with a ‘pink is good and pink & fluffy is better’ kind of attitude. So you can imagine how happy she was to see Telecom’s new offering – the Pinkilicious mobile phone. Yes, it’s a pink phone, with pink casing and pink buttons. And yes, she got one on Monday, the very same day they were released (and wanted it bad enough to go to three different shops to track one down).

Oh well, it may be way too frou-frou for me, but I guess it will go nicely with her pink keyboard and pink mouse…

extreme ambience?

I know many restaurants like to have ‘mood’ lighting to add extra ambience, but SPQR in Ponsonby really takes the cake. The lighting is so dim that you need a torch to read the menu. Seriously. I had dinner there last night with a couple of industry friends, and the waiter was giving patrons a torch to read the menu with. And, believe me, it was necessary.

Mind you, dim light is my best light, so I shouldn’t complain too much!

Despite its wee quirks, or perhaps because of them, I do like dining at SPQR (aka Camptown). The food is always good and the waiters are always entertaining.

overly desperate

The first season of Desperate Housewives was great. It was quite camp, quirky and funny – a true guilty pleasure. The second season has turned out to be a bit of a disappointment, largely because of that dropkick Susan. I swear she gets more ridiculous every week. I think what the show needs to improve it 100% is for the psycho young guy in the basement (Caleb? I can’t remember his name) to do us all a favour and kill Susan off.

can I get a refund, please?

I was wondering – who do I need to see about getting a refund on a crap weekend? Surely there must be somebody I can complain to about this.

With the exception of a lovely dinner with friends on Saturday night, this past weekend wins the Most Crap Two Days Of The Year So Far award. It was one of those weekends when you wonder why you bothered getting out of bed, because everything that can go wrong does. It was so bad that the highlight of the whole two days (other than dinner Saturday) was giving the apartment a somewhat overdue spring clean.

So, if we can be refunded for products that don’t live up to their promise, doesn’t it seem wrong that we can’t be refunded for time that doesn’t?

surprisingly ok

Well, Brazil’s World Cup is over for another 4 years – ignominiously bundled out in the quarter finals. I was expecting some tantrums and tears, but The Boy is surprisingly ok about it. I think the fact that Argentina and England are also out helped a lot. I was sorry to see Brazil go – I was hoping they’d win – but at least we can go back to having a decent sleep now.