You're in Clare Country!

Please accept my bouquet of blog entries for being away so long . . . .

I'm back!  My 4-month hiatus was self-imposed.  Work demanded most of my attention (as explained in a few of the recently-added blog entries) but work has also given me much inspiration in the last few months.  The Christmas & New Year holidays have come & gone but my urge to record my inspiration on paper has remained.

New blog entries I have added since my last one of August 2007 are:

• Captain Booger Features' 9th birthday party
• The postponement of The Divine Plan
• When Ravi's cousins from Qld paid us a visit
• Initiating the 'written warning' process at work
• My boss's eccentricities (some mothers do 'ave 'em)
• Lauren & Peter's wedding
• My cousin's 21st birthday party
• Attending a World Wrestling Entertainment event
• Mick & Karen's wedding
• Watching the Mundine fight live
• Dad's birthday
• Kris Kringle at work
• Ravi & I at the Post Office (some mothers do 'ave 'em)
• Captain Booger Features buys his first present for a girl
• Work Christmas party
• Book reviews of 2 novels by Liane Moriarty
• Example of Murphy's Law
• Christmas get-togethers amongst family & friends
• Happy new year!

Phew!  Click on the links & read them in your spare time.  Watch this space for more of my (mis)adventures . . . .

Image originally uploaded by robinhamman.

Bring on 2-0-0-8!

Happy new year, everybody!  Ravi & I spent NYE at the Turkish restaurant Efendy, sampling their NYE special dinner (3 courses - all divine!  I wish I had 2 stomachs!).  Better yet, this was the first NYE where we've WALKED home!  Love it!  Didn't matter how much we drank, it was only a hop, skip & a jump back to our place.  We watched the city fireworks from our balcony as well as the TV - the only time you'll see television personalities & presenters drunk on air.

Hope everyone had a wonderful NYE & I hope you get everything you want in 2008!

Stuffed like a Christmas [insert meat of choice]

                                                                                Along with Christmas eCards & rabid last-minute shoppers, Christmas also brings with it invitations to eat, drink & be merry.

• Ravi, Captain Booger Features & I celebrated Christmas eve with family at my Aunt & Uncle's place, where we stuffed our faces with Christmas ham, pork (lechon for all you Filos out there), potato salad, noodles (palabok), chicken (adobo), rice & a gingerbread house (for dessert).
• Boxing Day lunch was a barbecue at David & Astrid's place where we saw their cute son Taliesin for the first time (he has a penchant for biting knee caps).  When I write barbeque, I mean bar-be-que!  There were 3 massive slabs of meat (Flintstones-style) on this hi-tech barbeque range that could navigate planes down from the sky!  We didn't stop eating until 4pm when we left to . . .
• . . . host Boxing Day dinner at our place for 14 friends.  Of course we over-catered!  We served marinated chicken drumsticks, roast pork, capsicum stuffed with cous cous, potato bake, corn on the cob, & fruit salad for dessert.  Friends brought pasta salad, chciken salad, duck & chocolate crackles (which the kids loved).  There was the usual exchanging of gifts & consumption of wine - a great time was had by all!

Captain Booger Features gave me a Diva necklace & Ravi a key ring that emits a beeping sound when someone whistles (great for locating missing keys as an alternative to Ravi's current system of looking with his mouth: "Has anyone seen my keys?") - pretty soon the thing was beeping irrespective of whether anyone whistled, driving us bananas.

Ravi got me a cute little red handbag & an iPod nano.  I got Ravi a stainless steel Superman amulet & necklace from Nomination, & Ravi & I got the captain a foosball table.

It's been an utterly satisfying & fun Christmas because everyone I love dearly is happy & healthy.  I hope everyone had a very happy Christmas  :)

Murphy's Law Strikes Again

    Don't you hate it when the forces of nature conspire with each other to make you look like an idiot?

One Friday night, I was staring intently in my wardrobe, trying to decide what to change into for drinks with an old uni pal (Nicolle).  I had sweated in my t-shirt & jeans that day after a very nice lunch at Becasse courtesy of a research agency.  The unrelenting sun beat down on me as cab after cab passed me by on my way back to the office. 

Back to my wardrobe problem - I was in a panic because Ravi & I had to leave soon in order to get to the Rose Hotel on time.  Ravi suggested I wear what I was wearing yesterday - I hadn't sweated in those clothes (being in air-conditioned comfort that whole day) & my shirt & skirt were hung neatly on a hanger (so I wouldn't need to iron them).  Ravi said the chances of anyone from work seeing me at the bar that night were pretty slim.  I listened to him (in hindsight, why, oh why did I listen to him?!) & so changed into my outfit of yesterday.

When we arrived at the Rose Hotel (Ravi, Lilanee - another uni friend - & I) who did we see but another uni friend (Barbara) sitting at a table inhabited by people from the advertising agency my work does all their below-the-line advertising through!  What made it worse was that I sat through a 4-hour workshop with one of them (Nick) yesterday - in this very same outfit!  I was mortified!  I tried hiding behind Ravi but Nick saw me & came over to give me a drunken hug & kiss.  What are the chances?  What are the chances?  About 98% in my case.

Don't you feel sometimes that Someone 'upstairs' is laughing at you?

Lilanee, Ravi & I ended up catching up with Barbara since Nicolle failed to show up.  Apparently no-one called Nicolle about her email invite (and she was already on holidays when I emailed her back a few days later saying we were coming) so she thought no-one was free to catch up.

"The Last Anniversary" & "The Three Wishes" - a book review

I found another Australian author I love!  Liane Moriarty - such a gifted storyteller!  I thoroughly recommend any of her first 2 novels (so far), particularly "The Last Anniversary" which relates the history of 2 sisters, the mysterious disappearance of the 2 tenants in they house they rented out, & the baby the tenants left behind.  It's a funny & compassionate read, with pockets of suspense as the mystery unravels. 

"The Three Wishes" is just as funny & touching, detailing the (mis)adventures of a family of triplets, unaware of the impact they have on everyone around them.  The thing I love about these stories is the absence of saccharine sentimentality which chicklit tends to ooze when authors become sloppy.  The ending is never necessarily happy, nor an ending - but enough to give the reader clues that imply the development of the characters.  This progress in itself provides closure in the sense that the reader is left believing that the stagnancy of the characters at the start of the book has been overcome & opportunity (where success & failure fuel each other) is born.

Image of "The Last Anniversary" cover from Harper Collins website.

Image of "The Three Wishes" cover from Harper Collins website.

Christmas with Guys & Dolls

                                                                                       The work Christmas party was a strictly gals 'n gangsta affair, with everyone dressed up in mobster suits & flapper dresses, dripping with pearls.  It was held at teh Crystal Boudoir room at the GPO.  It was great seeing everyone outside of a work environment, packing guns, learning the Charleston & talking with people outside their own departments.  Ravi was a big hit with his white suit, with a number of people commenting that he should have won the 'best-dressed' award - he probably would have if we had arrived at the party earlier for the judges to have a look at him.  Hardly any gossip - just that one of the Networks guys headbutted another Networks guy.  No lawsuit appears to have been filed.

Cupid Finds the Captain

Captain Booger Features bought a present for a girl with his own pocket money for the first time!  She's an older woman (Yr 4) & for the purposes of this blog we will call her Angelina because she has very full lips.  The captain wanted to buy Angelina a Christmas present so we went to Diva where he picked out a cute pair of rainbow earrings.  He strode to the counter to pay, followed by his proud mother.  There were 2 girls behind the counter.  My pride turned to irritation when the following exchange unfolded . . .

CBF: I'd like to buy this please.
Girl#1: They're nice earrings.
CBF: (Alarmed) They're not for me!  They're for a girl.
Clare: It's his first present to a girl using his own pocket money.
Girl#1: (Smiles) That's so cute!
CBF: I'm a little nervous.  I have to get past her girl guards to give her the present.
Girl#1: I'm sure she'll love the earrings.
Girl#2: You know what else she'll love?  (Reaches across counter to retrieve a box)  She'll love this gift box of 5 lip glosses at only $7.95.
CBF: (Nervously) Umm, okay-
Clare: (To Girl#2) No, he's just going to get the earrings, not the lip gloss.  And you should be ashamed of yourself!

Girl#2 completed the purchase silently.

Can you believe her cheek?!

Needless to say, Captain Booger Features used his superhero skills to get past teh girl guards & give the present to Angelina in person who exclaimed, "This is so cute!"  That night teh captain was pretty happy with himself.  He said there was a Yr 4 boy who was angry with him because he likes Angelina too (so that apparently makes her off-limits to any other kid) but teh captain didn't seem to mind if Angelina liked the Yr 4 boy better.  I asked the captain if he expected Angelina to give him a present (or a hug/kiss) in return for his gift but he said, "No.  I just wanted to give her a Christmas present."  My heart sang with the knowledge that Ravi & I are raising a person who is content in teh act of giving without expecting anything in return.

However my singing heart hiccupped when I asked about his Christmas presents to us, to which he replied, "I don't have that much money.  I can only afford $2 for your presents."  And he spent $10 on that hussy!  Can you believe his cheek?!

Picture: Captain Booger Features at Movie World in the Gold Coast in October 2007.

An exasperating thing happened at the post office the other day . . .

One day Clare & Ravi went to the Post Office to arrange a box of presents to be sent to Ravi's parents in Sri Lanka.  The presents (6 items ranging from clothes to a customised Kikki calendar decorated with photos, flowers & stars) were still in their original packaging but Clare had purchased tissue paper in order to wrap each present individually & place it tastefully in the mailing box.  Clare had also purchased a Christmas card.  The following recounts the exchange between Clare & Ravi which could be heard by Post Office patrons unfortunate enough to be within earshot.

Clare: Okay, you write in the card & I'll pack the presents in the box.
Ravi: Right.  (Takes out the card from the envelope, holds pen above card & pauses)  Okay, what do I say?
Clare: (Sighs) Oh for God's sake.  Okay, I'll write the card.  You pack the presents in the box.
Ravi: Right.

Clare finishes writing in the Christmas card & turns to Ravi.

Clare: Is this okay?
Ravi: Yep, that's good.
Clare: Have you finished packing the presents?
Ravi: Yep, all done.
Clare: (Puzzled) Why is the tissue paper still in the packet?
Ravi: I didn't use it.
Clare: But then how did you wrap the presents?
Ravi: I didn't.  I just took the presents out of the original wrapping & stuffed them in the box.
Clare: (Exasperated) Oh, for God's sake!  I'll wrap the presents!

Geez louise!

Kris Kringle at Work

                                                                                 I love Kris Kringle, especially if I'm Secret Santa to someone I know because I love getting them presents that relate to them as opposed to generic presents that everyone (& therefore no-one) likes.

This year I was Kris Kringle to Little Miss Trouble (who, like me, also reports to Mr. Forgetful).  She & I get along famously, probably because we are so much alike & give Mr. Forgetful hell - his fault for employing strong women!  For $20 (maximum spend limit) I got her a voodoo doll with the word 'the boss' written across the chest (complete with a set of needles), & a toy remote control for women to control men with a push of any button (useful for when Mr. Forgetful gives her crap).  She loved it.  When she opened it in front of the team, I turned to Mr. Forgetful & said, "You'll definitely know when she's thinking about you."  He laughed (but deep down I'm sure he was scared).  hehe

Another Year, Another Yum Cha

It's become a tradition to celebrate Dad's birthday with yum cha so we found ourselves chowing down on prawn dumplings, dim sum, chicken feet (Yech!  But Mum, Ravi & Captain Booger Features like it), tripe (yech!  But Dad likes it), etc.  This year we gave him 2 sets of summer pyjamas & a couple of Westerns on DVD (all featuring Clint Eastwood in his salad days).  'Til next year . . .