Entries Tagged 'Random thoughts' ↓

I’ve just realised that for most devastatingly sad times in my life I’ve written something down. I’m not a hoarder but I knew that somewhere in my collection of bits of paper I’ve got written memories – probably ones I’d rather forget so who knows why I wrote them down – maybe because at the time I never thought I’d recover. I’ve got a few poems from my dark moody 2nd-year university days filled with gin and dispair; a 2-page account of the shock of finding out that a very close family friend had been killed flying and seeing my parents and his family at the funeral and a letter I wrote the Mister when I was almost living in Blenheim when L was dying.

And just now when I dug a Maria Callas CD out of the bookshelf that I haven’t listened to in ages (sounds a bit grown up to be listening to opera on a Saturday night but we’re going to La Boheme in a couple of weeks and I’m exposing the Mister to some of the wonderful arias he’ll hear) I found some scribblings inside the cover of the CD booklet:

Monster’s favourite.
We’d just got this CD when he came to live with us – poor cat was subjected to it day & night. He just lay stretched out in front of the fire & didn’t blink an eye. We played this to him after he died.
15/3/99

God that memory almost brought me to my knees with fresh grief. I remember it so vividly. He was run over and we brought him inside to lay on a towel. I was so distraught crying histerically and choking on the phone to Dad that he had no idea which daughter it was nor which pet it was. For all the talk of living in an apartment I think this is the reason I don’t want another cat.

I love it when it’s the first day of winter coat weather – as it was today – when you’re on your way to work and you stick your hand in your pocket and discover some money or some evidence of what you were doing last winter when you were wearing the coat.

Except for me this morning it was memories of Christmas, not last winter. From my pocket I retrieved Washington DC subway travel cards and tickets to the AMG Theatre in Times Square for the 10.55pm showing of National Treasue 2 that we went to after a fab dinner at Morrell’s Wine Bar at Rockerfeller Plaza on our one night in New York between last Christmas and New Year. I love my winter coat.

On our way back to the car after lunch at Clearview Estate on Sunday I spotted an avocado lying on the ground under their little patch of avocado trees. It wasn’t near the sign that said “these avocadoes and herbs are for our commercial business so please don’t take any” so I figured I could pick it up and take it home. So I did! Had it on toast this morning. YUM. Tree ripened fruit is always so good. Reminds me of the fruit or vegetable musing a while back. (… oh my god it IS a fruit (Wikipedia says so))

Often I hear of amazing things people that I know are doing and can’t help but line myself up along side them which usually has the depressing side-effect of making myself feel rather useless! Things people do or experiences they have tend to define them (and seem way more romantic/grown up/important/noteworthy than mine). I know people who:

• Was/is big chief someone at big company so-and-so
  
• Started company blah and got a huge contract/listed/folded/expanded/got noticed Internationally/was sold in their first year
  
• Moved to Washington/New York/San Francisco/Switzerland/London
  
• Got a PhD/Doctorate/Scholarship in something-or-other and now lectures overseas
  
• Sold company blah for millions
  
• Was Young Achiever/Entrepreneur/Gold Award winner of the year
  
• Is Manager/Director/Chief of something
  
• Had a baby
  
• Was in the paper/magazine, on the radio/TV
  
• Is/was the husband/wife of someone in a band/politics/on TV/who died/did something media-worthy
  
• Owns the blah business/shop/building/restaurant

Me? I am the one who likes orange.

Colourful, but not much else!

Obviously that’s only part of the story, I’ve known plenty of people that have been defined by darker experiences – money/health/family dramas, death, unemployment/bad business decisions. I guess it just depends on what the majority of your circle of people are doing at a point in time that provides the benchmark.

If you’d said the name of that town (sorry city) in the States and asked me to spell it I would’ve said “P-o-k-i-p-s-i-e. Pokipsie.” Won’t be winning any spelling bees with that attempt – who knew it was actually Poughkeepsie!! I’m sure some movie I’ve seen makes reference to it …

I went to buy some shampoo the other day and unlike many I’m sure, I like my hair and think it’s quite normal. So I wanted shampoo (but not supermarket shampoo) for ‘normal’ hair. I haven’t actually bought supermarket shampoo in ages but on this visit to the shampoo store I was struck by how rare normal hair has become!

Bottle after bottle offered me bounce and thickening for fine hair, intensive moisture for dry and brittle hair, repair for chlorine and chemical damaged hair, aloe enrichment for sun-dried hair, soothing smoother for fly-away hair, straightening agents for coarse and unruly hair, curl defining micro-organisms for curly hair, gloss coating for straight hair, colour highlights for coloured hair. I just wanted a bottle of something for straight, thick, healthy natural hair to keep it’s current good condition! Arrrrrrgh. I’m sure from that store I’ve bought some Paul Mitchell stuff that just ‘nourishes and conditions normal hair’ but even that seems to have been pushed out as their range has increased to include other mysterious potions. Might have to go back to Johnson’s Baby Shampoo!

Sometimes 12am calls are good! Blenheim bub is here. Hello lovely little baby boy. xox

It’s cool how Google incorporates a little graphic into their logo on certain days of the year – today there’s a frog for it being a leap year.

I was down at Fuel WT this afternoon and I witnessed a delightful exchange between a mother and ohhhhh 3-year-old? son just after she’d parked their car.

“Mu-u-um. Why are you looking for your money?”

“Because I need to buy a ticket from the parking machine.”

(A couple of minutes later with said ticket procured…)

“Why do you always have to get another ticket?”

“Every time I park in a new place I have to give the council some more money.”

“But why do they want money?”

Hmmm, what else could she say other than what I’m sure is a stock standard parent answer to all the why’s:

“Because that’s the rules.”

Have to say, it left me wondering why you have to pay …

Had to go to the bank the other day to do something other than fast-deposit (or whatever Westpac’s cute name for put-your-cheque-in-the-pastic-baggie-and-drop-it-in-the-shute is) and I got to thinking how much the in-bank experience has changed during the last few years. To get to the right lady, the one that could open an account for me I had to:

• Check in at reception – well stand in line for a good 5 minutes, to tell lady 1 at reception what I wanted to do so she could take me over to the ‘lounge’ for people who needed to see those kind of bank people.
• Wait on the couch – lady 1 didn’t even tell anyone that that’s what I was there for, just for me to wait on the couch and they would call me over when ready. I guess it’s the latest thing, having a couch in your bank colours to make the wait seem more personable – however in the end I was glad of a seat.
• Be reassured several times by lady 1 rushing backwards and forwards directing lounge traffic that lady 2 would be with me shortly – I’d already guessed that myself as lady 2 had just arrived at the only desk that was ‘open’ and didn’t have a customer at it and she was doing her best to not make eye contact with me while she fiddled around and took off her corporate bank uniform heels for something a bit more comfortable for resting her feet under the desk and fiddling with her computer
• Get called up – lady 3 finally came to my rescue after returning to an empty desk and seeing my best ever god-how-long-do-I-have-to-sit-here expression, calling me over to sit down (yes my request was important enough that it was a sit-down appointment). So 25 minutes after walking into the bank, outside of the lunch hour (chosen purposefully so the whole thing wouldn’t take any more than 10 minutes) I had my new account.

Perhaps I should’ve taken the majestic staircase up to the priority banking wing to find my personal banker seeing as I have several accounts and mortgages there and owe that bank a fair amount of money! Whatever happened to the old days of walking in and going up to a teller who could pretty much process all requests, even if you did have to stand up for the duration of the transaction?

Don’t get me wrong, this is not a complaint about Westpac, just one of my random observations about how my banking experience has changed.