Its all about ME

Since I know you are all DYING to know all about me, here are a few little details for you to treasure:

Five Fave TV Shows Ever

1. Red Dwarf
2. Black Books
3. Family Guy
4. Sex and the City
5. Futurama

Five Things I Want To Do before the year is out

1. Go oversees - Greece is the goal, Bali is probably within budget
2. Buy LOTS o shoes
3. Get fit - hey stop laughing, i meant that dammit
4. Tidy my spare room - I said STOP laughing
5. Learn a dance... eg.. belly dancing

Five People I Would Like to Have Dinner With

1. Douglas Adams - before he died.. not now obviously
2. Johnny Depp - altho I would need a bib
3. Princess Mary - for advice on how to marry into royalty
4. Marian Keyes
5. Richard Branson

Five Places I Would Like to Visit

1. Greece - culture, food, history, beaches
2. Antartica - i think it would be really different and something worth seeing
3. The Moon - just to look back at the Earth
4. Egypt - the pyramids would be an amazing site
5. Kakadu - coz I'll never never know, if I never never go

Five Favourite Desserts

1. Toblerone Cocktail. Chocolate and Alcohol - what more could I ask?
2. Mars Bar Cake - it nearly always defeats me though
3. Baklava - celebrating my inner woginess
4. Lemon Merangue <--- shut up, I know its spelled wrong
5. Pavlova - go aussie

Well, there you go. Riveting stuff hey? Anything you would like me to further enlighten you on please leave as a comment. I am sure there is plenty more you are just dyyyyyyying to know.

Diet Week

You always know when it's my diet week. You can tell because it ALWAYS coincides with a new food/drink manufactured specifically to tempt me being released.
Last time I gave up soft drink Cherry Coke was released. It was a fizzy and lengthy affair. By the time good ole CC was withdrawn I was hooked, I tells ya, hooked on the bubbly stuff again. I couldn't tear myself from the glory days of guzzling that cherry sweetness by the bucketload back to WATER. So I eased onto Fanta - the second sweetest drink I could find. I am now weaning myself onto Diet Vanilla Coke - my current compromise.
I have been trying to be good with food too. Have been going down to Coles to buy healthy/cheap food in an attempt to slim my ass and plump my bank account. I almost made it out unscathed too. Right up until the 12 Items or less express lane with my salad and fruit. Then, just when I thought I was home free, my eyes were drawn to the latest slight against my good dieting intentions. Tim Tams.
So what - you say. Tim Tams are old news. They should be expected. I should scoff in the face of their chocolatey biscuitiness. Well I WAS. Until I looked closer, drawn in by the slight colour alteration on the packet. When realised this signified a new - iristable Black Forest - flavour I fell to my knees, wrenched a clump of hair from my head and bellowed 'WHY DOES THOU TEMPT ME SO' and beat my fists on cool tiles in the express lane. Thankfully that was just in my head. In reality I turned and ran up to the register, paid for my rabbit food with shakey hands and made my exit gasping for each ragged breath.
Well done you say, I won the battle. Oh yes, victory was mine. That was until last night when I went to Safeway with a friend. I HAD to go to the biscuit aisle to get wafers for my mum and there we were. In drooling distance of my latest advesary.
Twice in one week was too much resistance for diet week to handle. I crumbled like the chocolate coating and my insides melted to gooey ooze like the raspberry filling. They are now in my kitchen, Mocking me. Just one, they say. One little biscuit. It wont hurt. Just a taste. No one will know.
The gods of diet week will know. Penance for this minor Tim Tam digression will be a plague of pimples - my mark of shame. My kingdom for a good concealer....

Pain, Public humiliation and Patricide

Last weekend we went to a Greek restaurant for my brothers birthday. The food was ok, he loved his presents and there was much hilarity as we watched each other get dragged up by the waiting staff to participate in the Greek dancing.
Earlier on in the night I decided to embarrass my brother [my duty as an older sister] by asking the guy playing the guitar in the corner to play happy birthday for him. The whole restaurant joined in. I thought 'Great, my work here is done'.
As the night progressed there was a fair amount of drinking. Not by me, as I was driving but suffice to say spirits around the table were merry.
As people finished up their meals the guy with the guitar was back. This time he had ideas beyond the singing. This time his chosen method of humiliation was getting people to dance in the middle of the restaurant.
Who do you think he approached first? The girl who asked him to sing to her brother. Me. I politely refused, showing him my dangerously high CFM's - those shoes ain't made for dancing.
He eventually got my brother and his girlfriend up while I fumbled to get my camera on movie mode. When you review what I recorded it is basically several inebriated restaurant patrons dancing in a circle to the accompaniment of evil cackling from behind the camera [I didn't realise I was doing it so close to the mic. oops].
Everyone had a sit down after that for a while and more to drink. However, little did I know, the dancing was not done for the evening. The guy came back and dragged me - and my unwieldly - shoes to the floor. I dragged my friend - as public humiliation loves company. The dance progressed with the waiter telling me I had to show off my beautiful shoes in response to my protests that I was likely to break an ankle [his would have been my first choice].
This was NOT the ideal maiden voyage for these shoes. I wore them because I planned to spend the evening SITTING DOWN. Not attempting unfamiliar dance moves in the cold light of sobriety.
I had the grip of iron on the waiter and my friend next to me and had to concentrate far too hard on not rolling my ankle to actually get the steps right. Rhythm was not the order of the evening.
Eventually I made my escape and filmed more of my brother and his girlfriend getting into the dancing. I am much more comfortable laughing from the sidelines than joining in.
I limped my sorry feet to the car and drove my family home.
Later in the evening I decided the shoes HAD to come off. I was in the car, with my friend at the petrol station and getting them off involved hitching a foot on top of the steering wheel and rotating it round so I could reach the buckle. Most people would have opened the door and leaned down but clearly I am not most people. Instead I rested my foot on the steering wheel. More specifically ON THE HORN on the steering wheel.
The guy parked in the car next to us turned around at the sound of the car horn just in time to see me struggling to remove the patent silver CFM's and attempting to disentangle my foot from the steering wheel. I think he locked his doors after that.
I drove home with WELTS on my ankles. WELTS I tells ya. On the whole the evening was what I expected from a night out with my family. Pain, public humiliation and thoughts of patricide.

Do the locomotion - but not in your car

Nothing like a good dose of public humiliation to start the day. I was driving up the South Eastern, new Kylie CD blasting in the car accompanied by enthusiastic singing and probably a little too much sit-down dancing [lots of wiggling, head shaking and arm movements].
I was in my own little world. Weaving in and out of traffic while getting down to the tunes and having a good ole sing. Well, I THOUGHT I was in my own little world anyway. Obviously I was not. Obviously I was driving down a busy freeway, attracting the attention of other drivers but completely oblivious to their double takes and giggling.
That is, until a car pulled up level with me and I caught the eye of a front seat passenger. She just looked at me and looked away but it was enough to snap me out of my daze. Enough to make me aware of the guy in the back seat of the car, who as he became level with me, launched into his own dancing with lots of woggy arm movements to the accompaniment of hearty laughter.
I had the good grace to laugh myself before shrinking down in my seat and resisting the temptation to veer into the emergency lane and take off across the grass.
Every time I snuck a peek in his direction he would be at it. And I would go a little redder. Man was I glad when my freeway exit came up. I could blend in with traffic, people who hadn't seen my disco driving.
The drive home was much more subdued. I tried to keep it to lip-synching and steering wheel tapping. Not as much fun. Potential for embarrassment significantly lower though.
I'd be less disturbed if this were the first occasion. Tragically every now and then I get busted diva-driving to work on the Nepean Hwy. That's worse. These are people that could come in my shop later.
Maybe the guy today thought it was cute. Maybe I came across as fun and carefree rather than daggy and a little psycho. I should be so lucky....

I'm Freeeeeeeeeeee

Yay, it's finally my weekend off. Now that I am used to having them I really hang out for those two days together. I am not getting up to too much this particular weekend but still relishing the rest and the time to do some stuff.
tomorrow I am going shoe shopping with K. Supposedly to buy work shoes but if we confine ourselves just to that I will be very surprised. And somewhat disappointed.
Today I have mainly been sleeping and doing nothing. I didn't get to sleep until three AM. That's another story.
I could go out tonight but it sounds windy and rainy and crap. The perfect kind of night to hole up with DVD's, junk food and my doona.
The house needs a major tidy but I can't see that happening tonight. The pets are fed and the house is blissfully quiet after the oppressive noise of working in a shopping centre all week.
Well this entry is quite boring hey? The thing is, I am not bored. Just happy for a break and the chance to read/sleep/watch TV. The next few weekends are fully booked. Engagement party, a couple of birthdays and a couple of house warming's plus the Easter long weekend. Bring it on.
Oh well.. Off to do nothing for a little while more... jealous?

The Outsider

Lonely. I get along fine with the people at work, I guess. I still feel like a scotty though. They are a pretty tight bunch and it gets uncomfortable when they are all talking about stuff I don't know about or stuff they are doing together.
I hate being the newbie. I am not the confidant type [at least not on the inside] who will elbow my way in and angle for invitations. I am not even sure I would want to see some of them socially anyway.
I guess it's more that Limbo status that unsettled me. Coming from a job where I knew people and had close friends, it is hard to start all over again. Especially as a boss.
And then the people from my previous work move on too. So it's kinda lose/lose. I am sure I will settle in and get to know people soon but being me, I assume they don't like me much.
There are plenty of people there who are great to chat too, have good senses of humour and seem like genuinely nice people who would be fun outside of work too. I hate feeling like, just by hoping they like me that I am asking too much or forcing myself on them.
I always feel.. Separated.. from people and too shy/low self esteemed to try and fit in. I worry they think I am snobby or if I am too nice that I am fake.
I know people will say 'just be yourself' but it hasn't done me huge favours so far so I am reluctant. I want people to LIKE me, not run in the opposite direction.
So for now I float around, relishing the friendly faces and fun chats then receding back to an unobtrusive corner, trying not to do anything to fuck things up....