Entries from May 2005 ↓

Made friends today with another cat on the side of the road … I know I shouldn’t have picked him up … but he was so soft and friendly.

I’m one of those people who often take advertisements literally. Not because I’m the ultimate consumer but because I’m somewhat cynical and am always dubious about the accuracy of what’s being said. I actually checked up on something I’d heard advertised on the radio and was pleasantly surprised – it was and ad in the series of “Need a …?“ Yellow Pages ads.

‘“Mee-oww” scratch scratch scratch “Mee-oww” scratch scratch scratch … “Need a cat door?“‘

I didn’t trust that you could go to the Yellow Pages and look up ‘cat door’ – but – you can! It’s right there in the handy index at the front … obviously it points you elsewhere but the ad was right. You can find cat doors in the Yellow Pages. And Telecom will be pleased that money was well spent on me – look at all the time I’ve devoted to this from one ad!!

“I’m sorry, Columbine didn’t do orange this year.“

And so the search for more orange knee-high tights has ended. Sigh.

Now that Vroom with a View is over I need something else to read. I have a stack of crime/mystery novels but last night I couldn’t be bothered going upstairs to sort through the pile at bedtime, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to stay awake long enough to really get into something, so I rifled through the mixed bag of books on the bedroom bookshelf. Hmmm, O’Rielly texts, World Wide Web Unleased (published 1997!), Icebreaker 2005 catalogue, Holy Blood Holy Grail, Rules of Golf and settled on How to be a Man (by John Birmingham & Dirk Flinthart) - given as a ‘joke’ present to my man last year.

It was rather amusing, the 2 chapters I skimmed through, but I already knew all that stuff … as I should … but still, interesting to see what men are being ‘told’ … smelly feet are a turn off, choose only cotton socks; scrunch fabric to see if it crinkles before you buy the suit, because if it does it’s cheap; listen when women are talking; don’t fart and think it’s hilarious … I think I’ll start a crime novel tonight after all!

When I got to work this morning, I found this in my in-tray.

When I said to a colleague who rang from Australia last Friday (when I overheard someone ordering duty free cigarettes) “bring me a present“ I never expected this. How bloody fantastic! I love L’Eau D’Issey stuff but I’ve never seen or smelt this one. So I feel very special today – apparently it’s thanks for all my help with stuff … which I didn’t think was much … but obviously it has an impact on them.

While at my parents recently I ran out of things to read and found something rather interesting amongst their James Heriot and Dick Francis books … actually a book I gave my mother … Vroom with a View by Peter Moore.

It’s about a guy who for his 40th birthday wants to drive a 40 year old Vespa around Italy – given to my mother to so she could read about wonderful countries on the other side of the world that they’re yet to visit. It’s turning out to be a great read given that I’ve been to half the places he references in the book. I’m not sure whether he speaks Italian or not as he seems to get stuck in the most remote places needing to get the Vespa fixed and the locals are always very helpful.

One year ago today we set off on our European adventure – time flies! We were just reminiscing this morning about what we did – the memories are still pretty fresh:

• arrived Basel very early Friday morning, local food shops, sleep & dinner at a farm house (onion and proscuttio pizza thing)
  
  
• drove to Champagne that weekend, visiting Paris on Sunday, touring Veuve Clicquot, meeting up with family and going up to Brussels for a few days
  
  
• back to Basel for a bit of a rest before touring French wine country and Piedmont – partaking in the momentous 9-course degustation meal while sitting next to a table where a couple were downing very old wine
  
  
• Milan, oh wonderful Milan for shopping and wonderful coffee, spending nights on the banks of Lake Como

Sigh. Next up … New York

While not in the car listening to the last CD in the Broker series, I quickly ploughed through Fish – one of those inspirational pep-up-your-team books given out to our Group by our manager at a recent team building session. It’s a short, easy read, the first of four in a series. The basic premise is that if fishmongers working in a market under constant srutiny from the public can love their jobs and are happy at work all day, then anyone can love their job, no matter who they are, where they work, or what their job is. Interesting ‘easy’ story to introduce some basic work place cultures rather than a ‘to do’ list. Haven’t noticed any effects yet …

There’s a common word uttered around town whenever we Wellingtonians see someone with an umbrella – “tourist”! We all know that rainy days are normally windy as well and it’s just ridiculous to try and keep an umbrella up in these conditions. However, if you have umbrella skills, as I believe I now have, putting and keeping up an umbrella on windy rainy days can be attempted. The criteria for success that works for me:

• must have both hands free – this means using a back-pack rather than shoulder variety of handbag
  
  
• umbrella must be one of the folding kind because they are far more flexible that the long handle ones
  
  
• once the umbrella is up, keep it low, almost resting on your head
  
  
• peep out the front regularly to avoid bumping into people
  
  
• swivel eyes constantly around what you can see from underneath the umbrella to gauge the direction of the rain and ensure the umbrella top is pointing right at it. Be prepared to snap-&-point as the wind direction can change in a split second
  
  
• on especially windy days your second hand should be on the clasp ready to collapse the umbrella and the second it appears to bend outwards, release the clasp to partially collapse the umbrella to avoid it turning inside out (this should be avoided at all costs because it is the ultimate umbrella embarrassment and you will undoubtedly receive the “tourist” eye-roll from locals)
  
  
• overall, pick a route to walk that provides the most shelter and thereby limiting the use of the umbrella. But beware side streets and they are wind tunnels as the wind is likely to come from a totally different direction.