RIP Favourite Jeans

We’ve been inseparable for more than eight years now.  We met at the GAP back in 1999.  I was a naive high school senior preparing for Winter.  They were a pair of low-rise, boot cut jeans without back pockets that made my butt look ass-tastic.  We were destined to spend a very long time together.

My previous pair of favourite jeans had been bordering on obscene for the past few months and had finally crossed the line from normal jeans to hooker-jeans, complete with an easy-access hole in the crotch and a rip for both knees and butt cheeks. 

Jeans are a lot like men; you have to try out a few before you find your perfect match.  I had to try out about 50 to find the one for me (50 pairs of jeans, that is).  Luckily, being rejected by a pair of jeans is far easier than having my heart broken, or experiencing another soulless one night stand.  My best friend has been there when I’ve had my heart broken and when I’ve looked for jeans.  I think she finds jeans shopping more painful. 

My jeans have always been there for me, through good times and bad.  We’re attached at the hip.  My favourite jeans are like a second skin.  We used to spend nearly every day together, but after college our time together was relegated to weekends and the occasional casual Friday.

Lately my jeans have started falling apart.  The seams are frayed, holes are starting to appear in inappropriate places, and no matter how hard my jeans try to help, my butt no longer looks ass-tastic.  We’re both getting older.  I’m a little fatter and the denim in my jeans is a little thinner. 

I’ve reached that critical point in any relationship where I have to decide whether to try to patch things up, or move on?  Sadly, I think it’s time to find a new favourite pair of jeans. 

I can’t feel my legs

I just got back from running around Sydney like a mad chook.  And when I say running around Sydney, I literally mean running around Sydney.  One of my bridesmaids and I participated in City Chase.  It’s part Amazing Race, part scavenger hunt and part long-ass run.  We swam across the pool on a noodle, ate a spoonful of wasabi, hunted for rocks in a foam party, did boot camp, walked across the Sydney harbour Bridge, played strip tennis, played car soccer, painted the toes of a random little girl, and bonded with strangers.  It was such a great day, but boy are my legs sore!  Here’s the day by numbers:

350: Number of teams of 2 participating

12: Number of checkpoints required to finish.

4 hours 31 minutes: Finishing time of the winning team.

6 hours 30 minutes: Time it took us to finish.

20: Approximate distance (in kilometers) the we had to run.

2: Bottles of wine I had the night before with the neighbour.

8: How stinky I was afterwards, on a scale of 1 to 10.

20: Number of Advil I’m going to need to take tomorrow.

12: Hours until the fiance returns from Japan.  Yay!

I am a Danger to Myself and Others

I miraculously survived the long weekend, but not without nearly burning down the house.  Again.  Twice. 

To banish the burning pita bread smell that permeated the house from my previous adventure, I lit a few scented candles.  Then while attempting to exercise with the exercise ball, I pushed the newspaper over the flame with my foot.  The newspaper went up in flames.  I picked it up by the part that wasn’t burning, ran to the sink leaving a trail of ash in my wake, threw it in the kitchen sink and turned on the faucet.

The next day I  made tortellini for lunch and left the electric burner on the stove on…for three hours.  Not only a waste of energy, but a fire hazard.

I am such an idiot.  How I managed to survive past the age of 6 is anybody’s guess.

Now before you think that I’m completely incapable of caring for myself, I should say that apart from nearly burning down the house I had a very productive long weekend.  I not only tidied the house (put stuff away), but cleaned it as well. 

One fundamental difference between men and women is that men cannot see dirt.  Before the fiance moved in, he figured that as long as he kept clothes off the floor, the place was clean.  Tidy, yes.  Clean?  Not by a long shot!  

His whole apartment was carpeted and he didn’t even own a vacuum cleaner.  I avoided using his bathroom for fear of catching malaria or hepatitis.  When I began staying there more regularly I decided that something must be done.  Armed with thick rubber gloves, a variety of bathroom cleaning supplies (I had to purchase – there were none in the house), and a bottle of bleach, I got to work.  His small bathroom took FOUR HOURS to clean!  This place hadn’t seen a sponge in years.  I won’t get into the disgusting details but as you can imagine, it wasn’t pretty.  After that thorough clean, the weekly clean took a mere 5 minutes.

Now that we live together our cleaning habits have clashed.  I’m naturally untidy, meaning I leave clothes everywhere, and he doesn’t know how to clean.  He wouldn’t be able to identify a bottle of Windex or tell you where the sponges live.  He wants to get rid of the vacuum cleaner to make room in the closet for all our wine.  That’s not practical!

So I’m the cleaner in the house, but he makes up for his lack of cleaning ability by doing all the cooking and most of the laundry.  That’s why we work.  I can’t cook and he thinks the vacuum cleaner is a waste of space.  Without each other, I would starve and he would be neck deep in dust bunnies.  Not that he would notice.

Why I Should Not Be Left to My Own Devices

The fiance is the cook in the house (and the reason I’ve put on a good 10 pounds since he moved in).  I can bake up a storm, but when it comes to cooking dinner and the like I’m a bit of an idiot.  I can go months without having to go near a cooking appliance, so his fears that I am going to starve to death in his absence are somewhat founded. 

 All the shops are closed for Good Friday so I’ve been forced to prepare my own meals today.  For lunch I decided to warm up some pita bread to eat with Hummus.  How can anybody fuck that up?  Here’s how: put the pita bread in the broiler to heat it up and make it a bit crispy, sit down in the living room to surf the interwebs, then totally forget about the pita bread…until the smoke alarm starts blaring.  Perhaps I should stick to using the microwave.

I’ve been alone for less than 24 hours and have already managed to nearly burn the house down.   God knows what I’ll manage to do in the next 10 days.

Cockroaches: Soldiers of the Devil

They say that after a nuclear apocalypse, the only surviving creatures would be cockroaches.  After a three week battle with the little fuckers I totally believe it.

One night I went to the kitchen for a midnight glass of water.  A filthy little roach was sneaking down the window frame hoping that I wouldn’t see him.  Attached to his (or her) butt was what looked like a rollie pollie bug.  With the stealthy cockroach capturing skills I had developed over the previous weeks I snatched it up in a paper towel.  Curious to find out why it was toting another bug around, I opened the paper towel to inspect my kill.  Turns out that the ‘bug’ wasn’t a bug but an egg sack!  Ewwwwwwwwww!  I took a toothpick, pried open the sack and discovered about 50 larvae.  Totally and utterly disgusting.  Blech.  Is it considered cockroach abortion if I kill the larvae while they are still in the egg sack?  If that’s the case, I’m totally pro-choice: my choice to prevent cockroach life.

Last weekend we waged war on the infestation.  Armed with roach bait, roach traps, and a helluva lot of roach spray, we enacted our own version of shock and awe in the kitchen.  Oh the carnage!  Bodies everywhere!  The aftermath was disturbingly satisfying.  Little shelled bodies on their backs scattered the floor and countertops.

We discovered their lair in the space above the dishwasher.  The conditions there are perfect for roaches and their spawn: warm and damp with easy access to food scraps.

After two days of avoiding the kitchen and the poison had done its work, we finished painting the kitchen and cleaned EVERYTHING in the kitchen thoroughly.  Hopefully we’ve seen the last of those little buggers.

Alone

The fiance is in Japan for 10 whole days.  He only left this afternoon and I miss him already. 

To cheer me up, I’m going to list the positive things about having the house to myself:

• I can eat fish for dinner.  He’s allergic so we never have fish in the house.  Salmon for dinner.  Yum!
• On the other end of the spectrum, I can eat chocolate for dinner if I want to.  Or cheese.  Or wine.
• I can keep the house as dirty or as clean as I want.  Probably the former though.
• There’s nobody else for Boy Dog to pay attention to so I don’t have to feel jealous about Boy Dog loving the fiance more than me.
• I can watch crap TV without him rolling his eyes and complaining.
• I can take up the whooooooooolllllleeeee bed!
• I’ll have control of the Playstation long enough to pass Guitar Hero on hard.  And boy howdy is it hard!

It’s like the parents are gone and I can do WHATEVER I WANT!!!  Boy am I pathetic if cooking salmon is my idea of letting loose.  When did I become such an adult?

Poop is Not Funny

We both got home late last night.  I was in bed reading when he burst into the room and started blowing raspberries on my belly. 

Him: Name a food.

Me: Um…french fries?

H: Hmmmm….Ok!  This is the noise of a french fry poop. Fffftttt, ffffftttt, ppbt, fffftttt…

M: Ew!! That is SO gross!

H: Wait, there’s more.  Pppppbt, fffftttt…

M: Ok, that is too disgusting.  No more.

H: I just have finish.  Ffffffttttt……………Pbtttttttttth….Ploop!

M: YUUUCK!!  Oh my god, I’m marrying a three year old.

H: A three year old, you say?  Plop, plop, pppptttthhh…

M: Are you making the sound your poop would make if you ate a three year old?

H: Yep!

I will admit that I giggled uncontrollably for about five minutes, but tried to make it very clear that it was his weirdness I was laughing at, not the poop sounds.  Boys are so gross.

Back at Uni

At the beginning of every semester I tell myself that this semester will be different.  That I will finish all my reading before class, that I will start my assignments more than a week ahead of time, that I will keep up with the online reading, and that I will get the most out of my education.

Then every semester I end up barely browsing the material before the first assignment is due,  I rarely read the online material, I start the assignments as late as possible and do a pretty half-assed job.

I’m doing this masters degree because I genuinely want to learn.  Each course is applicable to my job and jobs I may take on in the future, so I want to make sure I get the most out of it.  Plus, it’s costing far more than my wedding so I should try and derive some sort of benefit from it.  Why then, do I not give it my all?

I’m sure my ADD has something to do with it, and the fact that I’m fairly lazy.  Even when I make a concerted effort to study, I get distracted waaaaay too easily.   Also, I’m the queen of procrastination.  Case in point: last night I finished about 3/4 of the readings, then gave up to watch DVD’s with the fiance.  Now when I should be finishing the remainder of the reading before class tonight, I’m blogging.

FYI: my first assignment is due towards the end of April.  Expect to see a multitude of blog posts then. 

(S)wanky Bars

We’re going to Ivy for gazillion dollar cocktails tonight.  It should be cool, but I always feel awkward and self-conscious in swanky places.  There’s no relaxing because I feel like I’m being judged.  How does my hair look?  What must they think of my handbag?  Are my clothes fashionable enough?  Totally superficial, I know, but I can’t help it. 

When my friend was visiting from the US a few months back, we went to the Argyle.  We got there early to check out the decor.  As other people arrived he said, “these people are…how do you say?..wankers.”  True that. 

Pity, because the place is awesome.  Located in the Rocks, the Argyle is a modern bar that manages to still exude historic charm.   On a balmy summer night enjoy a beer amongst bizarrely oversized lamps in the cobblestone courtyard.  Be warned that cobblestones, heels and beer are a messy combination.  Inside you can lounge on cushy red seats that are practically beds with tables in the middle, or have a pow-wow in what we call the “Knights of the Round Table” booths.  You can head upstairs to lounge some more, or perch on little ottomans.  If you don’t feel like sitting and want to do a bit of dancing, the Red Room  

Whoever designed the lighting is a genius.   The textures of the sandstone and wooden beams are accentuated by soft, indirect lighting.  Overhead lights are limited to vibrant, medusa-like chandeliers.  The DJ booth is a clear cube suspended above the entryway by wires.  I’m guessing they don’t hire many female or Scottish, kilt-wearing DJs. 

Just when you think the place can’t possibly get any cooler, take a trip to the toilets.  Or should I say, toilet?  No ladies and gents here; just one big room with a trough in the centre for hand washing, stalls on either side and glowing, clam-shaped urinals at the far end.  Gimmicky, but well done.

Overall, the Argyle is a really cool place: incredibly well decorated, great drink selection and a fantastic location.  I just make a point of arriving early and enjoying it before the crowds arrive. 

I’m usually a pub and beer sort of girl, but sometimes it’s nice to sip a cocktail or boutique beer without the sound of cricket and footy in the background.

Kitchen Renovation

One of the (many) pitfalls of living in a house that is over 200 years old is dealing with the bizarre renovation choices of dozens of previous owners.  We’ve been in the house two years now and we still have a lot of work to do.

By far, the worst thing about the house was the kitchen.  I took this photo at the open house before we bought it.  Behold:

Notice that the previous owners covered their clean dishes with a dish towel?  I suspect the dishes are there because they will stay far cleaner next to the sink than in the cupboards.  When we moved it in, it took me EIGHT HOURS to clean the kitchen!  And it was still disgusting.

So this kitchen probably dated back to the 60’s.  The material: chipboard with fake wood laminate. See that white film on the cupboards?  Yeah, they whitewashed the fake wood laminate.  Why?  I’ll never know.  The chipboard was swollen, deteriorating and infested with cockroaches.  A bit of cleaning fixed the roach problem, but unfortunately, we had to live with the kitchen like this for six months.  During that time two of the drawers next to the sink fell apart, the stove stopped working (the oven door didn’t close), and the fan above the stove blew up.

We couldn’t afford to do a fancy remodel, so an IKEA kitchen would have to suffice.   First things first, we ripped out the old kitchen.

We hired an electrician to rewire the circuits and a plumber to install the faucets, but the majority of the work was DIY.  Well, DI-Dad and Brother-In-Law.  Truth be told, the fiance and I were working during most of the remodel.  We did the finishing touches like painting, hanging shelves and attaching the doors and handles.

Here the kitchen is starting to look a bit more finished.

The kitchen looked like this for a few months until we found time to finish the job.  It’s still not 100% of the way done but it’s looking infinitely better than before.  Please pardon the lack of editing in this photo.  It was taken hastily a while ago so it’s not looking its finest.  I’ll try to take a better photo later.

This kitchen is such a pleasure to cook in.  Not that I cook much because the fiance is the chef in the household.  Because the person who doesn’t cook has to do the dishes, I’ll admit that now I don’t mind doing the dishes in this kitchen.  The pot rack is super handy and the addition of a dishwasher has made life so much easier!  I love having open shelving.  Everything is now so accessible.  Granted, this isn’t the nicest kitchen in the world, but it’s certainly a significant improvement.