To quote Marshall
Mathers, “guess who’s back, back again”…that’s right, I’m back and I plan to
finally finish this drawn out summary of last year – we’re almost halfway
through this year and I don’t know what freaks me out more, the thought that
the year has gone so fast or that I’m now that old person who talks about how
fast the year has gone. Seriously, that
sentence just aged me at least a decade.
July
– only one facebook update this entire month which either suggests a dull month
or speaks volumes on the quality of bagels at Brooklyn Hide.
Sure I might be
slightly biased since I know the owner (side fact: I like saying “I know the
owner” almost more than I like actually knowing the owner) but The Italian and
I had been planning this outing for a very long time and it did not
disappoint. At first I was a little
concerned that The Owner wouldn’t recognise me – don’t get me wrong, we’re
practically BFFs, I’ve totes been part of an intimate gathering at his house,
but without our common link (The Bad Influence) I wasn’t sure he’d make the
connection. Luckily he did and The
Italian was no doubt as impressed by my friends in high places as she was by
her first bagel experience.
“Amazing bagels! Thanks The Owner” (nb: this
status was a little less strange when the original name appeared on facebook,
but that’s just not how I roll here)
August
– not a single status on facebook but definitely a month with some significant
events, mostly revolving around The BH&G Fan and DTM’s family. Sadly this month we farewelled The Armenian
Grandmother and I had my first experience of Armenian church. That was an interesting one. In happier news though, The BH&G Fan
turned the big two one and celebrated with a party in a splash of pink. DTM rocked a mini hat purchased the previous
month in Penang (in hindsight it’s odd that didn’t make it into any statuses)
and I wore a flower in my hair because “that’s my thing” apparently. Not long after her birthday I farewelled The
BH&G Fan as she headed off on her European adventure, first stop Greek
Islands with The Scientist before settling into uni life in The Netherlands.
September
– I kicked off spring by annoying people it would seem, patients and friends
alike and so, as is often the case, I turned to TV.
If full time work
as an optometrist has taught me anything, it’s that a reasonably fast typing
speed will impress most people over the age of 40. It’s a hard call when they marvel at your mad
skills and assume you’ve been taught and you have to decide whether to tell the
truth “no I’m just a lot younger than you and we grew up with computers so it
kinda just happened” or lie and pretend like you did a course in touch typing
“yes along with my 13 years of school and 5 years of university I thought it
might be fun to do a typing course also”.
They seem almost resentful when they see me typing away so sometimes I
look at the keys just to make them feel better.
Clearly my skills are not appreciated by my patients.
“That awkward moment when your patient says
"I have to tell you, you're really pissing me off when you do that"”
A dinner catch up
with M-Dizzle was cut short when mid-cider (and mid-story) I realised she was
no longer awake. I didn’t know whether
to be offended or concerned but turns out she does this quite regularly so I
needn’t have been either. I was a little
worried about putting her on the train to get home by herself but having seen
her since I can assume she made it home safely that night.
“Sending M-Dizzle
to sleep with my stories, like literally”
Bored one day and
with none of my regular shows to watch, I asked DTM for some suggestions. He got me onto 30 Rock (it helped that he already owned the whole series) and I
watched a few episodes. Later when I went
to watch the 4th episode I couldn’t find it so I took a 6 month
hiatus from watching it and have only recently gotten back on board. Unfortunately I am now just at the start of
season 4 and have to wait to watch it with DTM as apparently this is where he’s
up to. I could’ve knocked that show out
in a few dedicated Tuesdays but instead I have to do other stuff on my days off
to pass time…like today when we went to lunch and walked down to Cremorne
Point. So frustrating to know I could’ve
been cooped up inside watching TV that whole time. And don’t even get me started on tonight’s
dinner out with Legally Blonde, Legs 11 and The Hot One…
“Watching the first season of 30 Rock...only 7
years behind the rest of the world”
Since I’m on such a
roll I'm gonna keep going and smash out the rest of this year. That’s right, unlike M-Dizzle who famously
told us “I don’t make the rules, I just follow them”, I’m here to break my own
rule about splitting this into quarters.
Now who’s the rebel M-Dizzle??
October – a
month of long weekends, concert fun, hiding from children and forking out
cash…a pretty pricey month by all accounts.
My work likes to do
this thing where they ask me take annual leave but mask it as them doing me a
favour rather than the other way around.
Sure they’ll occasionally slip in something about the appointment book
not being very busy but generally the overwhelming message is “we thought this
would work out really well for you”.
Well, as much as I like having a proper Saturday-Sunday weekend like the
rest of the world, it hasn’t worked out at that well as I ended up short of
annual leave when I actually wanted to use it and now when I have days off I
don’t get paid. Joy.
“Having Tuesdays
off when there's a public holiday on Monday is kinda awesome, being asked to
also have Saturday off is even more awesome. Bring on the 4 day weekend!”
DTM surprised me
this month with his keenness to see Ricky Martin in concert. And not just any concert, not his big arena
show, no, this was his intimate little gig at Star City which I believe was
being billed as “up close and personal”.
Somehow, sales hadn’t been huge (did someone say overpriced?) and DTM
managed to snap up some amazing tickets for a fraction of the price. While Ricky certainly puts on a good show, it
was a little disconcerting seeing DTM get so into this gay Latino popstar.
“Things I learnt
today - Ricky Martin has a tramp stamp. Who knew?!”
October 29 is a day
marked in my calendar for 2 expensive reasons.
First and foremost it is The Marge’s birthday but secondly, it is the
day my car rego is due. I stupidly
requested a “minor service” with my pink slip check and before you know it I
was answering multiple phone calls a day from my mechanic which all started
with the all-too-familiar line “I’ve got some bad news”. I get that my car is older than The BH&G
Fan but surely it needn’t cost THAT much to keep the beast running?
“$3016 to keep my car registered...starting to
think I should've just bought a new car”
Always a sucker for
a well placed charity person, I was casually doing some grocery shopping one
Tuesday when I got stopped by an American man asking me to sign up for regular
monthly donations. I’m no stranger to
the monthly donation game and over the years The Starlight Foundation, Surf
Livesaving Australia, The Red Cross and Fred Hollows have all benefitted from
my “generosity” (truth be told they’re really benefitting from good timing and
my inability to say no) but I was willing to switch it up and change charities
for 2 reasons: Canteen have helped my man Samuel Johnson and no one says no to
a man singing Will Smith on the streets of Forestville. If I find out that charity guy wasn't really
from West Philadelphia, born and raised, I will be ropable!
“Well played
canteen charity man at Forestville - how can I possibly say no when you start
singing the theme from Fresh Prince of Bel Air to me?”
The end of October
can mean only one thing – an excuse to dress up and get free lollies from your
neighbours. Or maybe it can mean two
things, because in my case it meant turning the TV right down, closing the
blinds and pretending I wasn’t home when the aforementioned dressed up beggars
knocked on the front door.
“That awkward
moment when you find yourself hiding from 6 year olds because you didn't buy
any Halloween treats”
November
– The Weather Girl turned 30 while I was controversially at a Beyonce concert,
we flew to Melbourne to watch some horsies run laps and I came to terms with
not always being the smartest person in my office.
Since The Melbourne
Cup conveniently falls on my usually inconvenient Tuesday off, DTM and I
decided why not fly down and lose our money in person. We got an early flight that morning, checked
in to the hotel, made our way to the racecourse, lost our shit when we realised
there was a Grill’d truck making burgers, spent too much money on expensive
drinks and bad bets, hung out with Lleyton Hewitt, lost our shit again when we
realised they were selling Connoisseur Cookies & Cream icecreams, went back
to the hotel for a nap, headed out to dinner, went to bed, woke up, went out to
breakfast, went and watched King Kong
The Musical, had a late lunch/early
dinner at TGI Fridays then flew back home to Sydney. It was a whirlwind but entertaining 2 days.
“Had better win
some money on the cup today to make up for the fact I woke up at 3.45am only to
sit on the tarmac in Melbourne for the past half hour waiting for a parking
spot.”
I don’t entirely
recall the conversation which led to this next status but I do know the child
in the room was asking way too many questions for which I had no answers. He realised this too when he started ending
his questions with “or would I need to ask a neurobiologist?"
“That awkward
moment when you and your 9 year old patient realise he might be more
intelligent than you... “
December – a confronting World Cup draw and a lack of Christmas
presents I’d ordered online were setting this month up to be a disappointment
but just before NYE everything fell into place with a dinner party at The
Italian’s place and the fulfilling of many university time wishes.
Looking back and
realising Australia are the lowest ranked team in The World Cup, it’s strange
to think I even cared about the draw.
Maybe I was being optimistic or possibly just naïve to think there was
such a thing as a good draw but it certainly felt like we’d been dealt one of
the worst draws possible.
“Spain, Netherlands
& Chile - too easy. Sure they're currently ranked 1, 9 and 15 and we're
outside the top 50 but we've got this covered!”
This year, in a
move that DTM would be proud of, I did some Christmas shopping online. I allowed what I considered ample time for
the gifts to arrive and yet come Christmas Eve I was without presents for DTM
(serves him right for talking up online shopping really) and The Weather Girl
(not a complete disaster since it was only 1 of 2 presents I was giving her).
“All I want for
Christmas is a national postal service which does its job efficiently”
For several years
we have admired The Italian’s various photos before every night out when she
will pose, often with her brother or a cousin or a combination of relatives, in
front of a brick archway in her house.
It is inherently Italian. We’ve
longed to feature in one of these photos and have often talked up the day we
would go to her house and stand in front of those bricks. We’ve also wanted more than anything, to
watch Police Rescue 1994 (it should
be noted we remain unsure that 1994 is actually part of the title but The
Italian is adamant that we call it that) as The Italian featured in this movie
when she was just 4 years old alongside a then unknown Cate Blanchett. It’s interesting to see the different paths
their movie careers took after that film…
“Getting a photo in
front of the brick archway, viewing The Italian's movie debut alongside Cate
Blanchett, enjoying a gourmet feast and finding The Italian's page on a talent
website - a successful evening all round!”
And so there it is, my 2013 summed up in facebook
statuses. If anything it has taught me
that some of the biggest moments of my year went by without so much of a
mention on facebook. Cocktails in the
pool at a luxury resort in Malaysia – no big deal. Graduating after 5 long years of uni – not
worth mentioning. Milestone birthdays
for some of my family members – whatever.
A trip to New Zealand for The Wannabe Ranga’s wedding – same old, same
old. The important thing is I didn’t
forget the little things like friends falling asleep mid-conversation, the bad
movies I watched, the TV shows I was hooked on or the endless parade of painful
patients who walk through my door. Now
that I’m done summing this up it’s hard to say what I’ll write about next…
I realise nowhere in this post did I mention Miley Cyrus and
her Wrecking Ball Christmas decoration which featured on the tree of our
Christmas hosts, but I couldn’t not share the pic.
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