Wednesday, June 30, 2010

The Single Life

Haha, life sure is a funny thing. At the rate I'm going, I think I should enter the lotto :P So you know about 2 weeks ago I was wishing for a boy-crush and suddenly 2 boys appeared as hopefuls.

So not too much actually happened. Well that's not entirely true, it kept me entertained for a little while. Boy-Crush and I exchanged a few very tentative, not really about anything emails and then I decided that they probably fell into the "replying just to be polite, waiting to see who gives up first" category and promptly stopped replying and gave up on that idea. He had my contact details and didn't really seem interested. Internet-Dating-Boy and I exchanged longer and longer emails for a few days, became Facebook friends and I haven't had a reply since last Monday. To be fair tho, he is overseas at the moment, so we will wait and see if I hear from him again when he gets back. The strangest part tho, was discovering that Internet-Dating-Boy is my very good friend's @saulkza and @nadgia's new neighbour ... how mad is THAT?

> Follow @saulkza on Twitter:

> Follow @nadgia on Twitter:

Anyway, back to my story. So yesterday I was wishing for a little sparkle to cheer me up. And I got it! A chatty email from Boy-Crush. Seriously? Don't worry, I was as surprised as you. So yesterday we spent the day exchanging emails again. This morning I'm back to "what the hell do I reply?". These emails are not coming nearly as easy as the ones with Internet-Dating-Boy ... most specifically because they're all very non-committal and vague "so did you watch the soccer" type stuff :P So although each reply has me over-thinking about what to write to keep the conversation flowing, I'm having fun and my mood has definitely lifted :)

Am definitely starting to wonder (having not done this in absolute ages) when it turns from emails into "hey let's go for coffee / get a drink" or something that involves actual face to face conversation?! (which I suspect would be far easier than these emails!)

See, definitely time to play the lotto, the universe is listening! Oooh, and today I'll be booking my trip to Peru :) Slowly getting super excited about that. Have decided that I don't even care if I get an Inca Trail permit or not ... the Lares Trek sounds just as good (in some ways maybe better just because it's not as commercial actually) so have decided to leave it to fate.

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Ups and Downs

Went to 27Dinner last night ... you know, this week is turning out to be as busy as my last one, with only tonight off! Sheesh, I swear it was practically empty like a minute ago.

Anyway, back to last night. I arrived thinking it was awfully naive of them to schedule a 120-person event in Parkhurst (you know, the place with no discernible parking so everyone just takes over all the dead-end side roads), but the venue was fabulous. I absolutely adore what the Vitamin Water pop-up store has done! We started the evening with Vitamin Water cocktails (awesome!) and some very very yummy food and settled in on bean-bags "networking" (haha!). I did meet some new people and get to know some colleagues a little better last night tho, so I suppose it actually was networking :)

I must say that after last night's speaker, I am now super keen to get to the Tech4Africa conference! Although it seems unlikely a) because of cost and b) because I'll hopefully be in Peru when it's on :)

So yeah, was lovely to see / meet @saulkza, @Jenty, @Exmi, @Christian_Simba, @mach1prodigy and @shahil.


> Follow @saulkza on Twitter:

> Follow @Jenty on Twitter:

> Follow @Exmi on Twitter:

> Follow @Christian_Simba on Twitter:

> Follow @mach1prodigy on Twitter:

> Follow @shahil on Twitter:

In other news I am in a very weird place emotionally / mentally. I'm more than disconnected from my family right now, I don't quite know how it happened but I went from speaking to my Mom at least every 2nd day to now barely speaking once a week. I don't know how to fix it, even when we do talk it feels empty :( And my brain is on a serious wear down my self-esteem mission :P Everything about life just seems a little overwhelming at the moment altho, somehow, at the same time everything also seems a little mundane :P Contradictory, much? Spot the single girl at the hormone party :P Sigh, I need something sparkly to pop into my life and make for some excitement. Some excitement that last longer than 40seconds. Sigh. Even planning Peru is not the pick-me-up I was hoping for. So yeah. I'm crazy, I know :P

Monday, June 28, 2010

Five of Six

On Friday, J9 joined myself and some of the SCM crowd to watch some comedy at The Alexander Theatre in Braamfontein. It was awesome, Chris Forrest was MC-ing, John Vlismas was headlining and Tall-Ass Mo, Loyiso Gola and some others I can't remember the names of ... it wasn't very well advertised so I'd guess there were maybe 150 people in the audience. And our whole group got comps (yay!).

It was awesome, I haven't seen live comedy in a while, and I love it! The venue is also pretty funky ... although we were lucky we could just wherever we wanted because some of those rows are too close together for taller people to sit comfortably (I was fine tho). And underneath the theatre is a little bar area where DJ Fresh & Euphonik were supposed to play, but apparently they left because of the minimal turnout (apparently someone forgot to advertise the evening ?!?)

> Follow Chris Forrest on Twitter:

> Follow Loyiso Gola on Twitter:

> Follow DJ Fresh on Twitter:

On Saturday evening I had another 30th Birthday Dinner Party. I made the same dish as the first (Spinach & Ricotta stuffed Pasta in Tomato Sauce) and I think practice is making perfect because it turned out even better than the first evening! The group was lovely, a few of my poker-friends, The Housemate, Louisa and Jackson's Mom. After this one I'm actually thinking I should've mixed the groups up a little and introduced everyone to a few new people ... perhaps I will have to plan a few more dinner parties in future. Although once my SCM Dinner Party (last one) is done, I really wanna have a Games Night again.

> Follow Louisa on Twitter:

I had a truly awesome time, especially catching up with Louisa & Jackson's Mom who I hadn't seen in ages! And after they left, it was off to RR to celebrate Bri-Guy's birthday. Was a bit of a weird night ... usually people at RR leave you alone on the dance floor, but this was one of those nights when the guys were particularly lecherous. Not the most fun I've had there.

Sunday wasn't terribly exciting, I mostly slothed but did get some admin done. *And* I went to gym on both weekend days. That's 7 times in 9 days. Not too shabby, me thinks. Am hoping to finalise the holiday booking before the end of the week. Apparently August is the time I should be traveling (according to my numbers :P), so that is the plan ... even tho I don't buy into this stuff, I don't really have any special preference either way for August or September, so why not.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Busy Little Bee

So it's been another crazy busy week. Went to SCM Dinner on Monday night. On Tuesday I left work a bit early and headed to The Keg & Filly again with some work-mates and watched the Bafana-France game, which in my humble non-soccer-mind was the best of the 3 games to actually watch (the fact that we actually won obviously swung a lot in it's favour!).

It was really quite interesting to watch the opening match and this one in the same venue, such a different vibe! But we still had great fun :) Mmmm, Keg Nachos. Yummy.

Then yesterday I popped off to a nearby O'Hagans to meet up with @scottjorton and friends to watch the USA-Algeria and England-Slovenia matches. I know, soccer-madness all round ... well no, not really, just a good excuse to go out :) Haha. And then I met up with a very good friend who is up from Cape Town for dinner at Rocket :) Was awesome. I even actually ordered fillet. You may not realise what a momentous occasion this actually is, but I think it ranks as like *maybe* the third time I've ever ordered an actual steak on purpose. I'm really not a big red-meat eater :) It was delish, served with Bacon & Brie. And of course there was mostly talking and catching up ... I think the last time I saw her I hadn't even started dating Varen properly! Shoowee.

> Follow @scottjorton on Twitter:

And tonight, I thankfully have a night off ... I am looking forward to climbing into bed at 6pm and watching series :) Haha. I almost had plans for tonight as well (would've made it a completely full-up week!) but it got postponed to next week. And then tomorrow evening is drinks with the girls (hopefully it won't get postponed again!) and then Saturday is the 2nd last 30th Birthday Dinner :) Yayness. Wow, when will I sleep? Sunday!

Oh, and in case you were wondering I've stuck with the gymming, only skipping Tuesday because of having to leave work early and going to watch the soccer. I'm kinda impressed with myself actually ... from zero to dedicated with one easy holiday intention ;) Haha! Hey, clearly it really is all about finding out what motivates you ... cause clearly just losing 10kilos wasn't enough to motivate me (but I'm kinda hoping that might be a nice side effect - a girl can dream!).

And the holiday plans are in full swing too :) Am just trying to choose between 3wks in August or September ... I think September might be winning, just to give me a little more time to get organised. And I've been looking at flights. Flight Center is (as usual, in my opinion) a total waste of time, Pentravel has been very helpful, but Travelstart is cheaper and then (the most surprising!) Pick n Pay Travel is even cheaper (although their website is hideous)! I'm also planning on arriving a day early in Lima because I definitely want to visit the Archaeological Museum there (I missed out in Spain :( ).

Monday, June 21, 2010

That was all ...

Am in a weird mood again. The weekend was up and down. Am still feeling pretty disconnected from the world at large and opting for escapism (I blame the absolute freezing cold that engulfs my cottage from about 6pm after the sun has completely disappeared).

On Friday night I was disappointed because 2 drinks plans I had (one with the single book club girls and one with the work crowd) were both canceled, due to the cold ... seems no one really wants to be out in this weather! So I went home and consoled myself under a blanket with some series. Until about 21h30 when The Housemate got home from collecting his American friend from the soccer and announced they were going to Katzy's in Rosebank, did I want to come along?

So I thought what the hell, I haven't been before and I really wasn't doing anything else ... in retrospect, I shoulda stayed home tho. The evening was dull dull dull. The Housemate was happy, he was eyeing the girl who'd invited us there. The American Visitor was happy, because hey, this is all part of experiencing South Africa, right? He even got to see South African band Denim performing live. Me, I stood around on the dance floor reading tweets :P So not my scene, the music or the (old) people ... Luckily The Housemate & The American Visitor were driving down to Durbs early the next morning so we didn't have to stay too late (the only real upside to my evening).

On Saturday I headed out without much hope of getting myself FICA-ed, but I was surprised and my bank accounts have been re-activated (thank goodness!). I also began Project "Get Fit(ish) For the Inca Trail". No, I haven't actually got round to booking yet, but have gone back to gym. Twice. In One Weekend. I know, *amazing*.

And then on Saturday evening it was off to Schwabing (I don't seem to be as sold on this place as everyone else is?!) and then Red Room from one of the SCM crowd's birthday's. Lovely lovely lovely to be back at Red Room. Sigh.

Sunday was a dreadfully lazy day, aside from the gym-visit. I had some great intentions, I always do, but it was warmer just to climb back into bed and watch series. I also realised I am dreadfully missing going out to eat at new restaurants, but that requires actually having someone to go out to eat with ... And yes, I guess I could invite single friends to do this ... but it never occurs to me. I must snap out of this blue funk.

Friday, June 18, 2010

On Boys and Bees

Urgh. I'm having a serious case of "be careful what you wish for" :P

So yeah, after all the pleas for the universe to send me a boy-crush, someone I could actually be interested in, someone to occupy that part of my brain, I'm sorry I asked! I kissed a boy on Tuesday night. Only the second since Varen and I broke up. And someone I could potentially be interested in seeing again (although to be honest the idea of *actually* being interested in someone right now terrifies the hell out of me and I suspect I may be hoping I can blame nothing happening on the boys every time). Urgh, and yesterday we swapped emails and now all I want to do is ask "are we just replying to be polite, waiting to see who gives up first, or are we actually sussing each other out?" I have *no* idea. I'm so out of practice in trying to read if someone is interested or not. And you'd think writing to practically strangers would be easier for me, what with having a blog and doing it almost daily, but it's not.

Which brings me to another point. Internet Dating. I have not been as dedicated to this as I expected, but it also hasn't quite been the experience I was expecting. It's been quite boring. There have been quite a few stop-start type conversations using the site's messaging system, but I still just feel weird and awkward typing to these strangers. Until last night. I actually got into a messaging conversation with someone it was easy to write to. Let's not get overboard and excited here ... at the moment all I have is a great pen-pal :P

And on a funny (scary?) note, here's another bizarre message I received from someone on the site: "You will be mine ..... OH YES..YOU WILL BE MINE". Seriously, do boys expect girls to reply to messages like that? And that folks is why Internet Dating has for the most part not captured my attention even one bit. Me thinks Speed Dating where you actually meet in person is far more my thing, must try that again, I think.

In other news, I took what I think may be my new favourite #365 photo yesterday. I noticed these aloes while driving earlier this week so thought I would use them for one of my photos and when I went to take pics today, I found these bees harvesting pollen. I'm truly amazed at the quality I got with my plain old boring standard lens! (Obviously these are just thumbnails tho so you miss a bit of the quality, but it's *awesome*)

Thursday, June 17, 2010

I heart Public Holidays

Brrr. It is freaking cold this morning. Even the bunnies' water bowl had frozen over, that's the first time that's ever happened! Keep reminding myself they have plenty of fur and hay and each other to snuggle up with so they'll be okay in this cold weather.

Sooo, we had a public holiday yesterday, which was just as well because we went to work drinks of Tuesday afternoon. Well, it was one project team from our office and a project team from another company who we worked with on a recent project, so we all went out to celebrate at Mi Lounge. Left the office at 14h30 and eventually got home at 2am on Wednesday morning! It was a pretty awesome afternoon/evening :) Sadly tho, that does mean I missed my #365 photo of the day because I figured I'd take one when I got home ...

As you can imagine, Wednesday was quite slow. But in the evening I headed off to Doodles' to watch the Bafana-Uruguay game. Was lovely to see her and @Arkwife again, but sadly the soccer was a bit of a disappointment. I can honestly say I'm glad I wasn't at the game. It must have been freaking cold sitting watching in the stadium!

> Follow @Arkwife on Twitter:

In other news, I think I have picked my Peru tour! Now I just have to figure out the flights and bookings and come August or September I'll be outta here for 3 weeks :) Yayness. It came down to choosing between 2 very similar tours with 2 different companies, both of which I've traveled with before, Imaginative Traveller to Thailand and Intrepid to Spain, Portugal & Morocco. I was kinda hoping the ImTrav trip would win, but in the end, I have chosen the Intrepid tour.

> Follow Imaginative Traveller on Twitter:

I'm also seriously annoyed with Standard Bank at the moment! Like seriously. They have frozen my accounts. I got an sms a while back (more than a month at least!) saying I needed to FICA myself. So I called their call-center and asked what I needed to do. No no, they don't know why I received the sms cause they have FICA documentation for my from my bond application (from March), so I'm all up to date and can ignore the sms. Okay awesome. So I listened to them :P On Monday I discovered my frozen accounts and called them up. Nope, they have no documentation for me (do they throw this stuff away because I didn't take their bond?!). So I duly tried to FICA myself on Tuesday (my branch has closed down cause it got robbed too many times in 3 months apparently tho :P). I took along my Telkom statement ... which I printed out because I receive my statements online. Not acceptable apparently! I mean really?! My options now (because the original Telkom statement I have is more than 3 months old) are a) have some Standard Bank dude come to my house and sign some document saying that yes in fact I live there or b) get my land-lady to sign some co-hab document and bring in my lease (my lease is no good on it's own because it's a month-to-month lease with no expiry date). I was so pissed off when I left the bank (for so many reasons not least of which was actualyl having to go into a branch in the first place - hate it!), I could barely speak. Now what I'd love to do (if only this had happened a month ago!) is go in with a pile of documentation proving I live in a million different places and tell them to fucking pick my residence because their system sucks *so* much! I have my Telkom bill from March saying I live where I actually do, I have my car license from Feb saying I still live with Loulou, I have my SARS docs which say I still live with Varen and I'm pretty sure I could scrounge up some official letter which thinks I still live in Cape Town with my folks! I have always hated FICA. Before when I had no utilities and was living with boyfs, it was so hard to try and prove where I lived and I thought all my woes were over now that I had a Telkom account in my name ... but apparently not. Seriously, I am a law-abiding citizen who is not living in any sort of weird or stretch-of-the-imagination circumstances, how can they make this so fucking difficult for me?! How on earth do other people manage? My solution is to switch my Telkom statements back to postal (how else can I get "the original" :P) but I hate that that is the solution, it's silly and not very forward thinking of them. FICA, you *suck*.

Monday, June 14, 2010

Four of Six

Still in that weird headspace. Not exactly pleasant, honestly. It's like I'm not in the mood to do anything, but I do still keep myself doing stuff ... and I don't have a bad time and sit there wishing I was at home or anything like that. It's more that nothing is really exciting me at the moment, I guess.

Anyway, on Friday we left the office at 2pm and walked up Rivonia Rd to the Keg&Filly (figured the traffic and parking would be nightmarish) with a whole bunch of the work crowd to watch the opening game. The vibe was truly awesome. I have no real clue as to what happened in the actual game (that was probably the most boring part of the afternoon/evening for me), but I do know we drew 1 all with Mexico.

On Saturday I had another dinner party, this time with the Cape Town crowd. As I said I wasn't really in the mood for it, but I ended up having a nice evening and the food worked out really well :) I made the smoked snoek bobotie in poppadum cups I was going to make last week (so easy to make and so impressive to serve!). So shopping should've been a breeze - I only had to get salad stuff and replace the smoked snoek. But no, in a style I'm getting used to, I had to go to *four* Woolies branches before I found the smoked snoek. In the end I just headed straight to 4ways (although I despise having to go there on a Saturday after 9am because it is *always* chaos), because they're the only shop that ever seems to have stock of the ingredients I actually need :P So unimpressed by Woolies these days.

I didn't end up going out after dinner either.

Sunday was pretty quiet. After the busy week I'd had all I wanted to do was hang out in my pajamas and catch up on Series. Which I did :) I also did some more house shopping and finally bought bath mats, hand towels and bath towels :) YAY!

*series spoilers ahead*
So in the last week, I've finished a lot of the latest seasons of the series I watch. First was Lost s06, the final Lost installment. Which was truly rubbish, such a cop-out and had huge gaping holes in it! The whole season actually was a total waste of time. Now I've gone thru ups and downs with Lost, but generally I've enjoyed it. I think it's very tricky to have a series with this many characters and at the end of the whole show I still can't figure out who I actually liked. I do know I couldn't stand Ben or Locke. I also couldn't stand any of this whole Jacob story-line. Urgh. It's annoying just thinking about it.

Then I finished House (only had the last episode left to watch). Definitely an interesting end, I'm looking forward to the next season as always.

I finished Accidentally on Purpose, which has been cancelled after s01. whic is think is just fine. It's basically just Knocked Up in series form, so light entertainment.

Urgh, I love Criminal Minds but I *hate* "To be continued" finales! Also, am devastated to see how badly Tim Curry has aged ... I will now spend a minute just thinking of him as the awesome Frank in RHPS, sigh.

The season finale of Grey's s06 was also very cool. Although I seem to have had a far tamer reaction than most people ... it was an awesome double-episode, but really, all the characters they killed off were pretty mundane anyways (my only worry is Karev, I'll be annoyed if they kill him off!). The rest was fairly predictable, in my opinion and I definitely wasn't manually holding my jaw up like I was at the end of the last season.

ps. you may have noticed I screwed up my numbering. I actually only have 5 dinner parties planned ... the sixth party (in my head and where the confusion came in) was the work cheese&wine. I only have 2 dinner parties left - wow, it seemed like there were so many when I first started planning them!

Friday, June 11, 2010

Feel it, it is here.

So today is the day, the first game of the Soccer World Cup in South Africa. The place is crazy with excitement. I'm not wildly into the whole soccer thing, but the generally happiness of the people, I'm enjoying that.

Am looking forward to heading to a local pub a bit later with the work crowd where we've booked a table for 20 to watch together. See, that's the bit of sports I like. The getting together and watching as a crowd and the vibe. I would never in a million billion years be the sort of person who sits at home on their couch watching sport (if I even had a TV), but I'll definitely go along with a group to watch in a pub or to a live game. (Although I'm not going to any of the soccer games - soccer interests me not a jot ... I was kinda keen to go to one just for the vibe and experience tho, but we didn't end up getting tickets).

So the week. Yes, I can barely keep my eyes open. Poker on Wednesday was a blast (The Fairy Godmother and I split the winning pot in the end - awesome, I was worried I'd completely lost my poker mojo!). And then last night was bookclub, also great fun :)

The highlight of yesterday tho, was pranking @jarredcinman ... who the office has taken to calling the Grinch of the Soccer World Cup. He was in Durbs on Wedneday for business and we took the opportunity to "gees" up his corner of the office. It was truly excellent :) My 3 favourite bits were the spare keyboard we made for him, sticking pentagons on his exercise ball-chair and hanging mini-soccer balls from his ceiling!

> Follow @jarredcinman on Twitter:



Thursday, June 10, 2010

Deeper than the Dead by Tami Hoag

California, 1985. Four children, playing in the woods behind their school, stumble upon a woman's body, eyes and mouth glued shut. Close behind the children is their teacher, Anne Navarre, horrified by this gruesome discovery that marks the end of the children's innocence. What she doesn't yet realize is that this will also mark the end of innocence for an entire community, as the complex ties that bind families and friends are tested in the wake of the killer's ever more devastating activity. Vince Leone, a pioneering FBI investigator, is called in to try to unlock the mind of the killer using the fledgling technique of profiling - a strategy that pulls him ever deeper into the lives of the children and their young teacher. Secrets spill out, reputations shatter and people get desperate as the lives of these very different children are bound tighter and tighter together by the suspicion that falls over their families. Vince and Anne know the lives of more women are at stake - but they soon realise they are also fighting to save the futures of these children. After all, growing up in the shadow of a killer leaves its marks. Perhaps evil binds as tightly as love...

Thoroughly enjoyed this one ... although it was easy enough to figure out in the end cause I don't think she was trying super hard to hide who the killer was, it was more one of those "it is definitely one of my characters" sort of books. I will be on the look out for more of her books.

Wednesday, June 09, 2010

The Gautrain Inaugural Breakfast

Wow but yesterday was a looong day for me.

I did still go to SCM Dinner on Monday night, but left around 9pm, so that I could drag myself out of bed at 4am to get up and ready for The Gautrain Inaugural Breakfast Run. Getting up so early was surprisingly easy. I met Maroon, benguela and Bengis Khan at the office at 4:40am and we headed off to Sandton station.

Considering we'd seen maybe five other cars on the road during the drive there, the entrance to the station could be described as a traffic jam. It was definitely where everyone was heading! And they seemed to have a problem with their entry booms, which is actually what I think was causing the delay.

We got in quite easily coming from the opposite direction than most others and found a parking easily. I will say that the parking resembles Benmore's new lower parking (near the post office boxes) a little too much for my liking (you know, pillars and oddly shaped bays all over the place), but perhaps it's still just under construction. And then we walked around to the entrance and down the (first set of) escalators and joined the crowd queuing to get a ticket.

The ticketing process was probably the most frustrating part of our journey. We were told the parking only opened at 5am and the first train left at 05h27. And after arriving we discovered that the ticketing machines actually only go online at 05h15 ... bad planning if you ask me! So we stood there queuing, looking at 2 working machines of the 5. The machines seemed to hang fairly often (clearly this *was* their load-testing!) but they seemed to keep at least 2 up and running quite consistently. It did mean missing the first train out of Sandton station tho :(

I've got my Gautrain Launch Edition Card now :) Which we loaded up with 200 rond and swiped ourselves thru the tube-station-like gates. and then it was down down down into the bowels of Sandton (seriously folks, it's like 5 stories under ground!).

The whole experience was unbelievably first-world. It's clean (well it is brand new still, but let's hope it stays this way!) and efficient. They have boards announcing the arrival time of the next train (every 12 mins) and one of those speaker-voices who floods the air with the same information over and over and over again.

After about 10mins our train arrived (the 3rd one of the morning to leave Sandton station) and we climbed aboard. It's just as lovely and clean and brand-spanking new inside (obviously, I know, but still, what a pleasure!). And then we were off, zooming thru the tunnel to Marlboro station. We couldn't see any of the country-side between Marlboro and Rhodesfield, it was still too dark, but it was slowly getting lighter as we headed between Rhodesfield and OR Tambo.

Arriving at OR Tambo was quite amazing (sadly we didn't spy any arriving soccer teams tho). The airport is looking gorgeous too these days. and we settled in to enjoy breakfast at Mugg&Bean and gush over the experience and what an awesome job had been done!



And then it was off again, back to Sandton, this time in the morning light, enjoying the view. It's kinda surreal to be honest, reminded me a lot of the trip from Heathrow in London (although I was last there in 2007!). You pass industrial areas and then vast open spaces, with hay bales and rivers.

I loved it, I think it's truly awesome and I reckon even if you don't have any flights planned in the near future, you should at very least take a trip on it, just for the fun of it.

Yay, another thing added to my "Trying New Things at Thirty" List :)

> Follow The Gautrain on Twitter:

Monday, June 07, 2010

Two of Six

Another good weekend, another Monday. Wow, the year is really flying by.

Friday night was quiet, went and had a drink and some dinner at JDs with CollegeInstructor and MissB.

Saturday I decided what I was making for my 30th Birthday Dinner with the Bookclub girls and headed out to get the ingredients. By the time I got home with all the ingredients (13h15 or so), the power in the neighbourhood had gone out. So I went shopping while I waited for it to come back on. I think I spent a fortune on clothes on Saturday, but it was so needed, I can't remember when last I actually bought clothes ... (those 2 dresses in December maybe?).

Power still wasn't on by 4pm which is when I suspected I should've started cooking. So instead I got ready to host the dinner without power ... by the end of it, my dining room looked ready for a seance, rather than a dinner party :) But, I had candles, cupcakes and wine ... we were in for a good night anyway!

The girls arrived and there was still no power (it came on sometime after midnight while I was asleep) so we ordered some pizza. The amusing part is that we'd done that on the first book club I'd hosted after I moved, but then I still had no furniture and we sat around eating pizza and drinking wine on the floor ... at least this time we had chairs - haha! I had a lovely evening and got completely spoilt!

Did get quite drunk tho (didn't realise it at the time, until I tried to go to bed and felt quite ill) - I realised when I woke up on Sunday that I hadn't eaten between breakfast (around 11h30) and dinner (20h30) the day before. I have been eating weirdly lately. The other night I didn't even have dinner and I wasn't hungry the next morning either. Weird.

Sunday I spent most of the day hanging out with DJMike stocking up on Series. Luckily the house wasn't in too much of a state (ah, the other perks of take-out!). I ended the day with a bit of a Lost marathon in bed (am on episode 13 of the final Season, don't spoil it!).

And then I woke up this morning to find we had no power *again*. It's fucking annoying. And tried again to remind myself that my alarm will be going off a full 2 hours earlier tomorrow because I am crazy enough to be doing the Gautrain Inaugural Breakfast Run! Madness.

There's other stuff going on. I'm feeling oddly blue. Am also feeling a little self-destructive. This feeling has been here for at least a week and I can't seem to shake it :P Am feeling disconnected from my family and a little lost generally. I also need a boy-crush. Although it's weird, I feel like I have absolutely no space in my life for another person right now, I am still longing for that excited feeling, that anticipation of watching mutual interest unfold. Urgh. Sadly as busy as I am socially, I'm not really meeting anyone new and certainly no potential boy-crushes. It's getting me down in my current state because I start to wonder if I'll ever meet someone I want to be involved with again.

Thursday, June 03, 2010

Preparation

This week has been decidedly quiet ... but I'm trying to soak in every minute of that because I know the next week in going to be *insane*.

This week has just had the usual SCM Dinner on Monday evening and a trip to the movies last night. Went to see Robin Hood.

I enjoyed it. Okay, it's a far cry from your usual Robin Hood story (which I kinda liked actually) and it felt a little like it was trying to be Braveheart. But other than that, I enjoyed it :)

After Friday tho, things turn crazy. There'll be another Birthday Dinner Party (still haven't decided what I'm making yet!), an SCM Dinner, the Gautrain Inaugural Breakfast Run (which will have me waking up at 4am!), Poker night, Book Club, the opening game of the Soccer World Cup (which I'm not going to, but I will be going to the pub to watch it with some work-mates) and then yet another Birthday Dinner Party. It's going to be a full, full week! Sheesh, I'm feeling exhausted just thinking about it!

Tuesday, June 01, 2010

The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

Six years in the writing, "The Lost Symbol" is Dan Brown's extraordinary sequel to his internationally bestselling Robert Langdon thrillers, "Angels and Demons" and "The Da Vinci Code." Nothing is ever what it appears in a Dan Brown novel. Set over a breathtaking 12 hour time span, the narrative takes the reader on an exhilirating journey through a masterful and unexpected landscape as Professor of Symbology, Robert Langdon, is once again called into action. Expertly researched and written with breakneck pace, "The Lost Symbol" once again demonstrates why Dan Brown is the world's best bestselling thriller writer.

I actually enjoyed this. But, I also enjoyed reading The Da Vinci Code when it came out. I haven't read any of his others tho and would avoid the movies at all costs. I do think that one of the "big twists" was glaringly obvious from quite early on. But still, a fun read. Also, I thought he was going to do something very very brave with the story-line somewhere around 3-quarters thru ... but he didn't.

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