Addendum

There was one fly or flies (pun intended) in the ointment on the weekend away.

These particular flies were thirsty little sandflies that latched onto my bare sweaty ankles when I returned from my run and sat outside waiting for my face to turn from deep purple to cerise pink.

I am so itchy if someone put a box jellyfish in front of me I'd give it a big kiss in the hopes that the pain would distract me from the itching.

I will have no skin on my ankles by the end of tomorrow.

Weekend Away

I just had the best weekend. 48 hours of chilled out chilledness. Beach side setting and nine individuals doing just exactly what they wanted, nothing more and nothing less. I read one and a half books, drank a variety of wines and ate about three kilos of cheese with people who were funny and serious and lively and calm and drunk and sober and cool cool cool in all the right quantities... pretty much my dream weekend.

So now I'm already planning the next one. Labour Day in the Corromandel. This one will be with my sis, Fiona, and Aine who have been travelling around South America and having a ball by all accounts. And hopefully a representitive portion of the crew from this weekend.

Life and Death

My oldest cat, Puck, has been very sick. In a 'could have died' kind of way. I won't disgust you with the details but he spent seven days at the vets with a catheter and a drip, had to have an operation and will be on a special diet for the rest of his life.

But basically what it amounted to was a urinary tract infection. Which is a bigger deal for cats than it is for humans but it still shouldn't be a terminal illness. and in Puck's case it wasn't - for two reasons.

1. I took him to the vet in time (it can kill cats in three to six days)
2. I could afford to pay for the treatment he needed.

Now here's the thing. Point one is down to the owner spotting the issue and acting in time. there are a million reason why that might or might not happen. You're away for the weekend and the neighbour doesn't notice when he/she pops into feed them, the vets are closed for the long weekend and you're pretty sure it can wait etc etc.

But point 2... Now I understand if an animal is in a lot of pain with something major like a serious accident or a terminal illness. But this is something that could be easily fixed with no long term effects.. as long as you have a spare $1000 or so.

What if I didn't?

Would the vet have put down an otherwise healthy animal?

Does anyone know?

Car list

If a man's home is his castle, his car is his kingdom.

I am now a Commuter. And in my daily commute I see people, sitting in traffic doing all sorts of things in their cars. Not the sorts of things they would do just a metre further away on the footpath walking along at the same speed as the commuting car.

Once people are in the car, they feel like they are invisible to others. Or at least the act that way. They are completely, utterly, comfortable doing what they would if they were entirely alone. Or at least just with the other people in the car with them at the time.

Below is a list of just some of the things I have seen people doing in their car. I very much doubt many of them would feel comfortable doing these things walking up the street.

Blatantly checking themselves out in the mirror
Putting on makeup
Fighting with their family
Singing (and emoting) at the top of their voice
Shaving
Picking their nose
Eating their snot
Squeezing their spots
Shouting at their kids
Moshing
Plucking their eyebrows
Reading the paper
Gesticulating at other motorists
Filing their nails
Crying

Company car

I have a company car. This is new to me. I'm not sure what to do about petrol and other nonsense relating to that.

What I am sure about is that when something happens to it or a staff member asks to borrow it you're guaranteed to feel like more of a dick and generally dodgy in terms of cleanliness, mileage and actually just driving it than if you were just driving your own car.

So it was with conflicted emotions that I decided to pop into the car wash on Monday on my way to work to get it cleaned. You see it was VERY dirty. With the recent storms and the fact that I rarely get to a car wash, it's just generally filthy. And I'd had an early morning meeting on my side of the city (which is the opposite side of the city to where I work) at 9.00. So my working day had started an hour later than it generally does and I felt lke a bit of a skiver to be stopping to get my car washed as opposed to going straight into the office.

But as mentioned the car was FILTHY so I stopped about 200 metres form the office in a BP station to get their very finest, 'premium wash' or 'exclusive wash' or 'thorough cleaning' or whatever the $11 wash is called.

I was sitting there, aerial retracted, windows shut, side mirrors folded into the body of the car; feeling like really I should be at work and hoping that no one from the office happened by. I generally skip lunch and work on average two to four hours a day more than my contract requires so I have NO reason to feel this way, but that's how I was feeling.

So it was with some horror that I witnessed the brushy, swisher part of the car wash sucking one of my wind screen wipers out of it's docking station where it was safely nestled and straight up into a 90 degree angel form the bonnet, snapping the wiper blade.

But it wasn't over yet. There was still the drier. In the pass from from to back it sensed the wiper and passed up over it. I could hear it returning and all I could do was mentally will it to sense it again and raise up over it for a second time.

It didn't.

In fact it steamed right through and snapped the wiper of at its (2cm thick) base.

Brilliant.

So instead of surreptitiously washing my car, I had to declare my inappropriate car cleaning during work time to a slew of people in the office in order to lodge an insurance claim and get a new wiper shipped from Japan for my car (it's yet to arrive so the pain has only just begun).

Outstanding