Saturday, December 23, 2006

Snoopy's Christmas

Happy Christmas Eve eve you guys! Its very nearly Christmas, and my god I've had so much food in the last two weeks that Im so very very pleased that Christmas is just once a year. It would be horrible to be completely sick of Chocolate 365 days a year (is it bad that i had to pause for about ten minutes there to try and think of how many days there are in a year??). Yup, Im sick of chocolate. If i see chocolate EVER again (for at least 4 days) I will throw up. A large amount. And probably of chocolate. And then I will see THAT chocolate and it will make me feel sick and then I will throw up again and it will be just a vicious vicious circle. It wont be pretty. Which is why its good that Im home by myself tonight.


Yup all by myself, Shelle has already gone to her parents house, and I dont want to leave Pepper here all by herself for too long so I'm staying here for a bit longer, only going out to the parents for a couple days (are you listening burglars and whistling murderers? you better be quick with the robbing and stuff, coz I'm not giving you a large window of opportunity).

So tonight I'm watching crappy Christmas movies on tv. Because Shelle hates them. Sadly the choices are limited. Theres gladiator on tv3 (Gladiator? Really? coz seriously TV3, nothing makes me think ho-ho-bleurgh than Russell Crowe. Theres NOTHING good about that movie, even Joaquin Pheonix doesnt look good)and Fear Factor
(yup, Christmas idiots) followed by National Lampoons Christmas Vacation on 2, and Midsomer Murders on 1. Murders? Its CHRISTMAS EVE EVE tv1! Its supposed to be variety concerts and cheesy movies, not murders! Better be people killed by mistletoe or you're fired!

So yay.... Chevy Chase movie is clearly the only option. And there is but one time of the year that I will ever say that. Chevy Chase is an awesome name, but sadly not so awesome an actor. But he is cheesy (nearly cheesier than Bob Saget) and its the season to be Cheesy (oh my god, the constant mention of cheese is making me feel queasy, I cant believe it).

So since I last posted (crap... when did I last post?) Ive eaten lots and lots of food, got a million and one christmas presents and thrown up nearly every day. Doesnt that sound awesome! So tonight I gave in to ALL my cravings. Now, if you know me you are going to be pretty surprised by the cravings.... check out the list

  • Walking up hills -- yup, I seriously felt in the mood for a walk. And then a walk on the flat wouldnt suffice. So I walked up to Victoria University and had a wander around and then walked further up the hill into Kelburn. It was pretty, but COOOOLD
  • Cleaning things -- I cleaned out my wardrobe because i really really wanted to. But then of course this craving ran out so I just shoved everything back in, and its back to messy
  • Spinach -- I NEEDED spinach! seriously, I needed it. It was very very important. So I had a spinach salad with unsalted almonds and a little bit of chicken. Bland, very green, and it hit the spot by far. I think I maybe needed brocolli too, but the heads of brocolli in the supermarket werent appealing.
  • Water -- lots and lots of cold water. No fizzy, no sugared drinks, no energy drinks, just water
  • Milk. And I hate milk.

So there you go, apparently at Christmas I turn into the anti-Hilarey.

Oh, and my shameful secret of this afternoon - I watched "It's A Wonderful Life" and I cried. Bawled like a little baby at the happy ending. I was just so happy for Clarence and George and Mary and Harry and all the little kids, and the angels and the bells and the tree... And I got to thinking (although, seriously, its not like I want to end my life or anything) but would anything really change if I hadnt been born?

I mean think about it... In the movie George had managed to run a business where he made homes for the unfortunate. He swindled the rich guy who was trying to take over the town. He saved the life of his kid brother, who then went on to fight in the war and stop a transport ship full of soldiers from getting bombed. He had kids, and him being alive stopped his mum from being all alone. If i werent around, not a whole lot would change. And yes, I know there are people who love me, and I know I do a good job at work, but I've never really changed the life of anybody.

Is it too cheesy to make that a resolution for the new year?

Monday, December 18, 2006

Only in my dreams....


So guess what I did on Sunday?


I think it would have been slightly harder to guess if I wasn't so proud of the fact I remembered I could upload a picture.
Yup, I walked the bypass. It took all of 40 seconds, but now I can say I have walked up two major roading structures on their open days since when I was 5 I walked the Moonshine Bridge just when they finished making it. Sadly, there were no clown, no balloons, no unicycles, and really not much of anything. Apparently at some stage there was protesters, but since I never saw them I guess they weren't very effective protesters.
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So this week has been a busy one! On Thursday I had so many parties to go to that I ended up on a gigantic sugar high that i spent all of Friday feeling awful about. I also had a significant amount of champagne at the respiratory Christmas party dinner Thursday night. Margaret asked if I would like a glass, so of course I said yes. She bought me a whole bottle of special reserve blanc de blancs. Who am I to refuse such generosity? Its not like she could send it back. Plus we were on a boat (we took the Wellesley Cruise around the harbour, and it was a beautiful night, but still rocky) so I was already feeling a little drunk and somewhat heady (and i desperately needed to use the head, but I actually never found it) so why not get a little drunk. Although perhaps the sensible adult inside me was yelling "WORK CHRISTMAS PARTY... DON'T DRINK!" but I never listen to her anyway.


So aside from the small turnout, the inadvisable amount of alcohol, and the semi-average food, the cruise on Thursday night was awesome! We got guided back into harbour by several dolphins, the view from all sides was amazing, we could see the heads, and we went slowly around Somes Island and several bays, and the water was as flat as we could ever possibly have hoped for. If only I wasn't so tired it would have been perfect

Why was I so tired I can hear you wondering from upstairs (Linda....) well, I've been having strange dreams again. In one of them I was feeding deer, and one of them had a big red nose. I didn't think anything of it until later when I got the letter from a very bitter Santa, informing me that I was solely responsible for the poor children getting no presents this year. My deer food was so good that Rudolph opted not to go out on Christmas night, and with nobody to guide the sleigh Santa had driven into a tree and caused irreparable damage to all the presents. Oops.


Then later in the week I dreamt that my boss was forcing me to do Lung Function tests on a baby elephant. And if I didnt get good results she would fire me. I spent ages trying to get the nosepeg on that little trunk, and then trying to convince her to put her mouth aroud the mouthpeice was a trial as well. And as for her blast technique.... well, lets just say if your boss ever asks you to test an elephant, its a thinly veiled excuse for firing you.


At least I didnt have such a strange dream as one of my patients. She is on anti-depressants, and I think that might have caused it. She dreamt she was married to George Clooney (well, really, who hasnt) but she caught him having sex with her sisters dog (who was, of course, pimped out to him by the chemist). She forgave him and all that, and everything was all fine, until she developed dog aids. And then there were all these tests and treatments and it was terrible. So I guess the moral of the story is, If you are going to marry George Clooney, make sure you never let him go to the chemist alone.

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Joy to the World

Wow, a new post, and I'm sure its been less than a month since the last one...

Um, not a lot has really been happening, except that I just switched to blogger beta version, and apparently its a lot easier to do things, only it was never really hard to do anything to start with, so I'm not really that excited about it. Oh, and thanks to Schnozz over at schnozzfest
(http://www.schnozzfest.com/blog/ check out her NaBloPoMo story, its awesome) I also have Google reader, which makes checking blogs at work that much easier. So woohoo for that, a new, easier way to avoid doing work. Like I needed one.

We went to the Christmas Carols in the Stadium on Saturday. Very cool. They were using the PA system that had been set up for the Elton John concert tomorrow, but they were clearly unprepared for such a system because golly gee that was LOUD! Deb and I couldn't hear anything but fuzz out of our ears for hours afterwards. The carols worked much as they always did, all the people that were there purely to be seen were down on the grounds, wandering back and forwards, back and forwards, back and forwards (there was a lot of walking clearly) wearing completely inappropriate clothing and being scorned by those sensible among us who were there for the carols and were dressed warmly (and also secretly envied because of the self confidence and large groups of friends, two things I never really had). Nick Tansley (a local radio "celebrity") was running the show and basically every carol was set to some random beat he had found on his electronic keyboard. I bet you never heard "Away in a Manger" as a march before...

Anyways, the best part of it was that the brass band section were all dressed up as super heroes. There were the usual culprits, Batman, Robin, Superman, and then there were the ones tailored for the younger crowd, like Mr Incredible. Then there were the less usual culprits, Virgil Tracy from the Thunderbirds and Zorro. And then there were two completely new superheroes. There was Pink Super hero woman lady thing... and Captain FartyPants. Now, Fartypants' had a very obvious super power, but I'm not sure what Pink Super Hero Woman Lady Thing had as her superpower, but perhaps it was the power of wearing pink. Because there was a lot of pink. It would definitely blind her enemies.

Oh, the other best part (shut up, you can too have several best parts, its not a competition) was the fireworks. We were right under them and couldn't see them. But I'm told they were good. If only they had pointed them out to us before they sang Mariah Carey songs over the top of the bangs (Mariah Carey can drown ANYTHING out, even a sonic boom).

Hmmm... what else? Oh, on Saturday we had people round, and after they left we discovered poor Logan (the backwards eared bunny) had been tied to the top of the Christmas tree. People, this is not the best way to convince the kitten-cat not to attack the tree. You cant tie her favourite toy to the top and then expect her to leave it be. So the only way to stop her trying to climb the tree was to make the tree come to life. Its very hard to attack something that shakes and growls at you in a very big boomy voice.

Also, I baked. But we had none of the real ingredients, so I improvised a bit. Or, a lot. We didn't have eggs so I used Greek yoghurt, I had a banana I needed to get rid of so I put it in my blueberry muffins, we didn't have baking powder so i used a teensy bit of baking soda. They still turned out edible. But my hokey pokey cookies were the best. The recipe (not from the book obviously) is as follows....

Hokey Pokey Cookies

  • Some random amount of margarine (we didn't have butter)
  • Approximately 1/4 cup of milk (recipe called for a tablespoon I think)
  • Lots of golden syrup
  • Some sugar (recipe said 1/2 cup, I used around twice this)
  • Flour

    Put margarine, half the sugar and milk into a pot. Squeeze in a generous amount of golden syrup. Turn on element. Wait for margarine to melt.
    30 Minutes later realise margarine isn't melting, notice pot isn't getting warm. Wonder what is wrong but decide to give it some more time.
    20 minutes after discover smoke coming from element next to pot. Realise wrong element is turned on, and that hot element has some crusty leftovers on it that are just about on fire. Turn off hot element hope it doesn't catch fire, turn on element under pot.
    Stir until margarine melts, taste ingredients, add copious amounts of golden syrup. Taste ingredients. Mmmmm syrupy. Add rest of sugar. Stir until sugar melts. Add more golden syrup. Taste. Yum. Heat until nearly boiling. Taste. Ouch hot, run cold water and put tongue underneath
    Take pot off stove. Hunt desperately for something to put hot pot on but, since unable to find anything, hold pot for twenty minutes waiting for ingredients to cool.
    Prepare to sieve flour into pot. Discover that you have no sieve. Decide to use colander instead. Discover colander not a good replacement for sieve.
    Clean flour from bench. Add some fresh flour to pot. Stir. Add more flour. Stir again. Add more flour. Stir some more. Keep adding flour until you have a consistency that will allow you to roll it into a ball. Add more golden syrup. Taste. Discover slight floury taste. Add more golden syrup. Taste. MMMM good.
    Roll into balls of varying sizes, put onto an oven tray. Crush balls with a fork (laugh evilly as you do so). Realise you have forgotten the baking soda and this is the biggest your cookies will go, squash some more.
    Put oven tray into oven. Cook until you become impatient. Take cookies out of oven. Eat one. Run water and place tongue under it. Leave cookies to cool.

    There you go, hokey pokey cookies. That taste like squishy fortune cookies. Yum.