On Top of the World

Happy New Year everyone! I shall be spending it at home, trying to find the one spot in the house that our woefully insufficient air conditioner manages to pump some lukewarm air.

It has been stupidly hot here for the last 3 days. Yesterday it was 40°C from around 11am until 8pm straight. Ugh. And today it was around 38°C all day. The computer room is unbearable in the heat, and even at after 8pm I’m sweltering in here. Totally foul.

The weather thing in my sidebar says it’s 31°, and it may well be at the airport where the thingie gets its data from, but it sure as hell doesn’t feel like it at my house.

I saw this on Steph’s site, and thought I’d give it a go. The fact that there were only 2 questions helped.

What Your Underwear Says About You

When you’re bad, you’re very bad. And when you’re good, you’re still trouble! You’re comfortable in your own skin - and don’t care to impress anyone.

Merry Christmas, everyone! My day’s drawing to an end, but I hope all those of you whose Christmases are just beginning, have a lovely day.

It was M’s birthday on the 23rd and I gave him a voucher for 5 laps at Eastern Creek Raceway in a V8 supercar, including training and a video of the event. I bought the present in August, and it’s a very similar present to the one that Steph gave her husband for his birthday - when she wrote a post about it a few months ago I was dying to reply to it and say that I’d got my husband something similar, but I was too scared to in case M read her comments! At the time I bought it they didn’t offer anything like it in South Australia, but they do now of course. Oh well, we get a few days in Sydney, which will be nice.

We went out for lunch for M’s birthday, to a really nice up-market restaurant. We hadn’t been there for a long time, and while it was nice, it’s not our favourite. I think if I’d ordered the beef instead of the lamb, I wouldn’t have been disappointed because the rest of the meal was excellent. Still, the entree and dessert were really nice, it’s just that the lamb was a little rare for my taste.

We had the neighbours over for Christmas drinks last night, so we got nicely drunk on a few bottles of wine, accompanied with some cheeses and other goodies. The only problem with having drinks on Christmas Eve is that I feel slightly hungover the next day, so I don’t really feel like having a celebratory drink. I did manage one at lunch time though. But the drinks went well, and we inflicted some of our holiday photos upon our poor guests.

We got to bed at around 1:30, and had to get up early today because M’s sister was going to call past in the morning, so we had to get up and ready for her, as well as give each other our presents before she came. I got a clothes voucher and a mini model car, and one of those cool carpets with roads printed all over it so I can play with the car (and M’s other toy cars) on it. Yes, I did actually want the carpet! I just think it’s cool, so there.

We went to my parents’ place at 11, and among other things, I got a music voucher, so I’m trying to think of all the songs I’ve ever liked so I can get them. I have 40 songs to choose, and so far I’ve got 7. Not a terribly good effort. I know there’s one I really want, but I can’t remember how it goes or who sings it, which is not helpful at all.

I had a really nice day, though, and was completely stuffed after Christmas lunch. We’re driving to Wallaroo tomorrow to visit my grandmother and uncles, so hopefully the weather will be nice for it. Other than that, it’s lazy holidays as usual until M and I go to Sydney for his car racing early in the new year.

One of the breweries just out of the city has a tradition of putting on a Christmas light exhibition. It’s the same every year, but it’s still nice to go and see it. It used to be just the lights and nothing else, but now people have capitalised on the event, and there are sideshow attractions, and hot cinnamon donuts. So we might head down there tonight and have a couple of donuts, but it depends on how energetic we’re feeling. I’m still feeling pretty lethargic after my huge lunch.

During the period where our cats were using the laundry floor as their toilet, things didn’t seem to be improving so I followed Mandy’s suggestion and put the litter box in the corner where they were going, and it seemed to solve the problem. Bingo! I was thinking yesterday that it had worked quite well, because there hadn’t been any other incidents in almost a month. That’ll teach me for not controlling my thoughts a little better.

Last night I was upstairs websurfing, and M was downstairs watching tv. He buzzed me on the phone upstairs, and said that the cats had found a new place to go to the toilet. I tentatively asked where, and he said “the toilet”. Wow! I was really impressed that they actually used the toilet for its intended purpose (although that generally doesn’t include use by animals), until he clarified that he actually meant the toilet area, and not the toilet itself. We have a toilet adjoining the laundry, and since their usual corner in the laundry was now unavailable, they decided that they’d use the corresponding corner in the toilet.

Conveniently, M was about to leave to go to play badminton, so I was left with the happy task of cleaning it up. I came downstairs to survey the damage. It trickled from the corner of the toilet area, out the door and halfway across the laundry floor. I started wiping it all up, and then looked behind the toilet door (which is near a corner) to check there wasn’t any there, only to find a huge pool accumulated. Ugh.

So now the toilet door is permanently shut, as is the door to the bathroom nearby, just in case they get any ideas.

I still haven’t finished my Christmas shopping, and given that tomorrow’s temperature is meant to be 38°C (100°F), I don’t think much is going to be achieved then either. I woke up at 11am today, and figured that the city was going to be absolute hell to venture into, so I didn’t bother. In fact, I really didn’t do much of anything today, and it was very nice indeed.

So that leaves next weekend for shopping, and that’s it. Some cark parks in the city are offering free parking for the first three hours, so you have to get in as soon as the car parks open in order to get a park. And trying to deal with thousands of last-minute shoppers is hardly my idea of fun. Christmas is such a pain.

My sister has all her shopping done - she’s usually finished in November. She’s had my birthday present for weeks, and it’s not my birthday until January. I guess it’s good to get it all out of the way, but if you do that, you miss out on all the pre-Christmas sales!

I had a great night last night. After work I picked up a friend of mine from her house, and we went to a pizza place in the city. We had a yummy pizza with eggplant, semi-dried tomato, capsicum, bocconcini (and other stuff I can’t remember), and chatted. The main course was followed by a coffee and baklava. Mmmm syrupy.

After dinner we were wondering what to do, so we went for a bit of a walk, although the end of town we were in wasn’t terribly scenic. So we decided to go back to the car and go for a drive. We ended up down at the beach, where it was blowing a gale, and walked down the jetty. It was nice standing at the end of the jetty, watching the waves crash into it. Given that it was so windy, there were actually semi-decent (by Adelaide beach standards) waves, and there were some people in the water trying to make the most of them.

I didn’t have a jacket with me, so in the end I was a party pooper because I was getting a bit cold. We wandered back to the car and went back to her place for a little while. I got to see her cats, which I hadn’t seen since they were tiny kittens. She thinks one of them is huge now, but actually he’s nothing compared with my cats! She has a boy and a girl, and the boy is a lot bigger, but still small on the cat scale. When she comes to my house, I’LL show her a cat!

Her partner has been teaching himself card tricks, and he showed me a few. I was really impressed! I got home a little after 10, and mucked around on the computer for a while before going to bed. A very nice evening indeed.

I’m feeling a lot better today, and could have gone to work if I’d had to, but I thought it was better to be safe than sorry so I stayed home. I’m still not feeling particularly hungry, but I’m sure that will change now that I’m getting better.

This gastro was really bad timing because it meant I missed out on TAFE last night. This was good and bad. It was bad because we were having an end of year dinner in the training restaurant that night, and I was looking forward to it because the menu looked really good, and I’d already decided what I was going to have. We also decided that we’d do a Secret Santa thing, except just bring the present with us on the night and exchange then, rather than be assigned someone early, just in case someone didn’t turn up (there’s always someone missing from our class) and so the person they bought for missed out. I bought my Secret Santa present last week (and was quite pleased with it!) and was disappointed that I didn’t get to give it to anyone.

The reason it was good was because for the last couple of weeks, we’ve been learning how to sign a Christmas carol, Santa Claus is Coming to Town (I don’t even know if that’s what it’s called). Our teacher started choreographing it, and we found out last week that we’d be performing the carol at the end of year dinner. Eep. We were even going to be wearing Santa hats, and have sacks. I bought a Santa hat especially, and didn’t get to wear it! But as I said, that is a good thing. I wasn’t looking forward to signing a Christmas carol in front of restaurant full of strangers. It was a bit disappointing though because I think it was going to be videoed, and I wanted to show it to M. Someone from the class emailed me and said that it was going to be videoed, so I could watch it next week, so hopefully I’ll be able to get a copy and show M. So that would work out well, because he gets to see the video, but I’m not in it. Eeexcellent. Since I didn’t get to wear my hat last night, I thought I’d post a picture of it.

Anyway, since I’m home today the cats are allowed outside, so I’m off to let them out now that the kid from next door has left for school. I was a bit worried about letting them out while he was home - not that I really thought anything would happen, but you never know.

M brought me home from work at lunch time yesterday because I wasn’t feeling very well, and we hadn’t received any camera updates since just after we’d left for work, so M was worried that the kid next door had done something to it and/or the house.

We got home, and the house was in one piece so that was good. I went straight to bed because I was feeling so crappy, and spent the rest of the day alternating between the bedroom and the bathroom. Not a nice afternoon. I tried to sit up for a while because it was just so boring lying down all day, but whenever I sat up I felt nauseous and dizzy, so I had to go back to bed.

I managed to go downstairs for a while, and ate a little tub of yoghurt (the only thing I ate all day), and watch a bit of tv while lying on the couch, but in the end I just felt too uncomfortable and went to bed again.

This morning I was hoping to be able to go back to work, and I got up to have a shower but started feeling dizzy again so I went back to bed. M went to work and I got up for a little while, but still felt sick and slept for another 3 hours. I felt a bit better after that, and could sit up without feeling too bad, but I noticed that I had weird spots on my face - not raised bumps like a rash, sort of like little freckles. M was worried and said I should go to a doctor, which I did, if only to find out whether I was going to be stuck with the spots for the rest of my life.

I don’t have a regular doctor around here, so I did a bit of ringing around, to find that one place was closed due to unforseen circumstances, another wasn’t accepting new patients, another one didn’t exist any more and was a residential number, and the last one was full. The woman from the last place suggested a new medical centre that had just opened up near me, and I remember seeing on the way to work. What was good was that you didn’t need an appointment, and they bulk bill. Two ticks from me.

So I went down there and only had to wait for a few minutes until a doctor was available to see me. He said that I have viral gastro, and just to wait it out. He also said that the spots were just my immune system trying to fight the virus, and that they’d be gone in a few days. So that’s good. I asked if I was still contagious, and if I was feeling better tomorrow, whether it would be ok to go back to work. He said it would be ok to go back, but I think I’ll stay home just in case there’s still something hanging around.

So I came back home and have been watching tv and sitting outside with the cats. I still haven’t managed to eat anything today, and haven’t been drinking as much as I should be. You know when you’re hungry, but you still can’t bring yourself to eat anything? I think I’ll have to make myself eat some toast or something. Hopefully that will make me feel a lot better.

The good news is, thanks to all the visits I paid to the bathroom, I’ve lost 1.5 kg since yesterday. That’s the only good thing about getting sick - everything else is as depressing as hell.

*****

As a followup to busting our trespasser a couple of days ago, when I was in bed yesterday afternoon the kid came over to apologise. He said he didn’t realise that we felt the way we did (yeah, like it’s so hard to understand why people don’t want other people trespassing and interfering with their property), and that he didn’t have a particular reason for doing it. Yeah right. He also offered to pay for the camera system, since he was the reason we got it in the first place. M said that we probably wouldn’t take him up on that (trying to keep things civil), but said again that he did call the police but didn’t make an official report.

At least his mother did talk to him after all, which was good, and it was good that he came to apologise, even though any hopes of a normal neighbourly relationship with them are totally dashed.