To buy or not to buy.

Probably not hey?

You're my problem!

Because I wasn't feeling very well this morning, ND suggested for breakfast instead of bacon and eggs, we should go out anf eat something healthier like congee.

I really didn't want to go to the congee place in Chatswood because I'd had prior experiences with them before, namely their appalling servce especially when the boss wasn't around.

But the craving for a thousand egg and pork congee was too great so I acquiesed. I should never make concrete decisions when I'm sick and hungry.

So we got there and shocker, shocker the boss wasn't there so the waitresses all had their best FOF (fuck-off faces) on and we got our food and all was right with the world for a little while.

You know, as long as we weren't interacting with each other.

So after a little while, I get up (sigh) to ask them for the bill and they hand it to us with a total of $19.50, which is not a large amount by Australian standards for two people.

I only had a twenty so I put it down and they take it away (for a really damn long time) when a waitress comes up to clear the table and in between her putting things together, the little tray comes back with 50c from another waitress.

It comes back as a combination of two twenties and a ten, which is what Chinese restaurants do when they really really really want you to tip.

The clearing waitress is eyeing me like a vulture, as if she's never seen a tip before (she probably hadn't) so I was waiting for her to leave before I decided what I wanted to do.

Normally, I don't care about fifty cents ( I really don't) but lately I feel like I'm giving my money away willy-nilly to undeserving people. And should I not take that fifty cents and give it to a busker or a charity instead? On the other hand, what the hell you can't take money with you to the grave- right?

So I was mulling on this, when the vulture cleaner finally left and another waitress (the primary rude one) snatches up the tray with a muttered thanks.

Dude, I haven't even left yet. I looked up at her with puzzlement and said 'Excuse me? I'm still thinking about it.'

She turns to me and says 'What's your problem?'

Politely but firmly, I gesture at the tray in her hand 'I am still thinking about it.' (well not really, you kind of made up my mind for me!)

She bangs down the tray down and storms off mumbling expletives under her breath.

And we leave, coins jangling in my pocket.
**

Afterthought:

The thing is, I feel like I am complaining a lot lately about the service of resturants in Chatswood, not just on here but in real life. It's just something I've noticed going on a really steep and fatal decline. Yes, the influx of Asian immigrants into my one-time hood has turned it into a mini Hong Kong, with a dozen Chinese restaurants on every corner and while there are advantages to variety but it's also bringing with it all of these underpaid mainlander waiters/international students who just don't want to be there.

And I get that most sane people would rather be at home on a Sunday afternoon sleeping or playing games than serving me soup. I get it. But I'd rather pay five dollars more in a nice place (in a friendlier suburb) than have to wrangle once more with a resentful waitress who'd rather spit in my food than serve it to me. Who knew the effects of globalisation would trickle into suburban restaurant hospitality.

Anyway, I'm voting with my feet. I won't eat in Chatswood anymore. Do you hear that fwoinky waitresses?! Go find someone else to give your FOF face to. I'm out! (and with that, you will most likely hear less about crap service inrestaurants and more of my regularly scheduled programming. One can hope.)

Abandoned ship

So I haven't touched this blog for over a month now and so out of my own personal disgrace, I've come back to make it pretty again. Doesn't it look fresher and sparklier and aren't you glad those doinky squares are gone?

I am the mum that forgets to feed her child but buys it a ribbon for its hair instead.

Where middle class guilt gets you

The scene: Outside an Indonesian Restaurant in Randwick
Players: St Mary, ND, Mush (myself), Old Con lady

Mush, ND, St Mary: Blah blah blah.. weather.. pancakes... randomised small talk
Old Con Lady: (rolls up in walker, is wizened and hunched and about a hundred years old): bus money... bus money.. please bus money (holds out coin purse)
Mush, ND, St Mary all look at each other and start patting out pockets for change.
St Mary: I have nothing
Mush: I'm out
ND: I have some money (passes her two dollars)

Old Con lady: (receives the money, looks up, looks down, looks up, looks down) .... two fifty?

ND: (patiently) you have two fifty. There's fifty cents in your coin purse.

Old Con lady: Oh. No? (Visibly deflates. Stands there deflated.)

(The restaurant door opens and a waiter comes out with a big bag of takeway and hangs it on the handle of her walker)

Waiter: Here's your takeaway! (whistles, strolling back inside)

Mush, St Mary and ND: (eye her as they realise they've been conned by a master and that that fifty cents isn't going to be so forthcoming)

Old Con Lady: (surreptiously wheels away to enjoy her food and free transport home)

The rude waitress at new shanghai

( I wonder if this title will get any SEO hits. Probably.)

Here's the thing, I am the world's largest doormat when it comes to bad service at restaurants. I am the abused wife that crawls back to the asshole husband- I always give restaurants with bad service another chance.

Maybe it's the optimist in me but I always think that the next time won't be so awful, that it was a once-off, that it'll never happen again! More often than not, I am left gypped and fuming.

It's not like there's a shortage of restaurants in Sydney for me to go to so... don't ask me to explain what's going on in my head really.

Anyway it was late on a public holiday holiday and ND and I were searching for something to eat on the lower north shore, when he announced that he felt like Shanghainese food. There's really only one place that's open that late and I was pretty wary about going back.

I had tried it three times previously and each time there was something rather hilariously comical about just how hard the waiters/waitresses didn't care about anything. Really they should rename it the New Shanghai Restaurant of Apathy. If I don't know better, I would seriously say that the owner has been long dead in the closet in the backroom and the service staff are running the show because I honestly can't believe that any person that really gives a stuff about their business would only hire angry depressed teenagers.

If I didn't mention it before, the restaurant is called New Shanghai and you can find me validated here.

But back to the story, I just looked at ND with wounded eyes and said "Because I love you, I will sacrifice myself and go back to a restaurant where they're going to be rude to us."

He just laughed and said "You're just picky. Don't be so melodramatic." ( I really was not being melodramatic.)

So we sat down with St Mary and of course the same rigamarole ensued of no tea, no food, slow service and plain ol' just being ignored. I probably would have been okay with that (not happy but okay).

Generally as a bunch, we're pretty environmentally conscious. We recycle and switch off our switches at the plug and blah blah blah. The menus in New Shanghai double as placemats, kind of like the ones you used to find at McDonalds. Someone has put them some effort into them and as such we all felt loath in wasting that kind of paper so we put them aside on the table next to us and proceeded to keep talking. The waitress picked them up and tried to hand them back to us (and in all honesty, don't you think keeping us fed and liquified is more important?!) and we gave her a puzzled look and said "it's okay, we don't need it.... you can recycle it?"

This for some reason triggers the inner hulk in her and she flies into a rage. I don't even know how to convey the suddenness or the violence of it.

"YEAAAAAAAGGH!"

She snatches the placemats and crumples them up, slams into the counter and bins them.

We're all left blinking at her. Actually I'm blinking. ND has his jaw agape and St Mary is spluttering "whatthefuck? whatthefuck?"

Well, yeah what the fuck just happened? Why does she hate the green movement so much?
And then to look at her, she was just wandering around serenely afterwards as if flying off the handle at customers is an everyday occurence. Bad service is one thing but Jekyll and Hyde-ing it out is another.

Needless to say, we didn't leave a tip and we will never ever go back, not even if those dumplings are awarded a Michelin Bloody Star. Four times and a placemat rage experience is more than enough for me to say goodbye to it forever. If you choose to venture into the Gorgon's lair for food, don't say I didn't warn you.

Ways to leave a mark

Ok, so I know people read this blog because I have the stats (and because my darling friends tell me so) but not many people leave me comments and when they do it's often something about viagra for sale or something they've paraphrased from the book of revelations. There are lots of crazies out there.

Once in a while, someone will say something smart about anime or comment on my 'JTT is gay?!' post but all in all as far as discussion goes, it's really quiet in here.

Even though I'm fanatical about SEO at work, I have absolutely none of that on this blog at all. There are no tags, no meta-keywords, no blog circles, and so when people come in from Turkey and Iceland, I often wonder what they typed to get here. (Haha, How did I get here right?)

I logged on today to see that Joel had left me a comment on a post I had written on Photoshop all the way back in 2008. Apparently if you type in Google 'photoshop draw a fucking rectangle', my blog comes up as first. Needless to say, that totally made my day.

That's the kind of internet footprint I want to leave! (Adobe still does frustrate me from time to time)

An unforgettable start to the new year

This was at eleven, we are really old.

As the clock struck twelve (AEST of course) while everyone started to gather on the balcony, I followed ND into the bathroom and at 12:01, I stood there aghast as he hurled exorcist-style all over the Happy Wrestler's bathroom.

I have never seen so much intestinal juice in my entire life. It covered the walls, the floors and the sink was full of it.

Normally (normally!) I'm the one holding people's hair as they throw up but even I couldn't step into the swamp of vomit. If you say your love is unconditional, I defy you to try walking through the contents of their stomach. No- wait, I mean on. On the contents of their stomach.

And then he went to collapse on the couch, exhausted and not very kissable (unless of course, regurgitated acid is your kind of thing). I think he might have tracked it on the carpet.

Leaving me leaning in the doorway of one filthy bathroom at 12:06. And who was going to clean it? This is when my Asian martyr complex officially kicked in (do I have one? yes I do.): oh fuck, it's going to have to be me.

And so there I am on my hands and knees mopping up vomit for the next hour mumbling to myself:

There are cleaners out there who will be doing much worse tomorrow morning.
There are cleaners out there who will be doing much worse tomorrow morning.
Of course, they are doing it for money and I am not.
There are cleaners out there who will be doing much worse tomorrow morning.

This is while all my friends do drive-by inspections of the bomb site. Complete with witty and vibrant commentary of 'ew!' and 'Oh my God, I will never get to pee.' Someone tried to get a camera shot in (in which I say, over my dead and disintegrating body.)

A little while later, ND's woken up and is feeling guilty so he decides to help. By pouring water all over the hallway. I look down at the matted carpet, look back up at him, look down on the carpet and I think I am turning a nice puce colour- the colour of a vodka cranberry. He hightails it back to the lounge room before I can kick him like a puppy. And then promptly passes out again.

By 1:15, everything is clean except the sink, which had clogged itself. And at this point, I am this close to bursting into tears at the thought of having to dump my hand in there and scoop stuff out. My hands were made for typing! and manicures! and being pampered! And no chopstick/fork/sparkler/kitchen utensil was making a dent. So in the end, I had to bail the water out with a plastic cup. Which is what people do when their boat is sinking normally I guess.

Eventually it's all done and I go and collapse on the couch, smelling like peaches and cream (you believe me right??). We are both hella exhausted (imagine how our goodbyes went- they were sort of muted) so I take him home, I'm holding bags of something and he's holding a big bowl of pasta.

I swing open the door and I think he's holding the door behind me. He is not. So the door flies back and hits him (in the face) and sends the bowl of pasta flying everywhere.

There's pasta and food all over the floor.

I start to peal in hysterical laughter and then begin to rock backwards and forwards like a mental person. Happy 2012!



--

(Of course, then the next day we locked ourselves out with no keys and no mobile phones. It's an extremely auspicious start if I must say so myself.)

Short Looking Back

"When she was a girl, she expected the world."
-Paradise, Coldplay.

In comparison to the past few years, 2011 was the calm after the storm. It was the year I learnt to stop panicking (and stop blogging apparently).

What me panic for right?

It's like this- there's always an alternative. There's always another way. If you lose your job, get a new one. If your boyfriend dumps you, take a sabbatical. If your car doesn't work then take a bus and quit quit feeling sorry for yourself because you expend so much time worrying about things that don't even matter in a few months.

So what did I gain this year?
Lines under my eyes that won't go away. Sigh.
Perspective.
A new appreciation for the comforts of home ( I think I must've locked myself out about four times this year including today).
An iPad. A kindle. I was debating between them at the beginning of the year and then somehow I ended up with both? It's like the magic fairy in the sky is trying to turn me away from paper.
An allergy to nightclubs. I can't do them anymore.
New friends. Old friends. Of which I am much grateful to have always. Also lucky for them, they are no longer graced with drunken midnight phone calls.



and last but not least, a big goofy goofball.

They say that 28 is statistically the best year of people's lives. I didn't bungee jump off a cliff or perform any death defying acts (that I can think of) but you know what? I'm really happy with it. You really can't ask for more than that.

Drive Through Breakfast

Some prep history:
I drive past ND's house everyday on the way to work and if he's at home, we'll wave at each other. It's goofy I know. (Sometimes I wonder if we were to split up, if I would have to drive an alternative route to work, the problem is that there is no alternative route that doesn't take five hours. Anyway.)

And more prep history: I always eat two sandwiches in the car on the way to work.

So this morning, for some fuzzy reason- I left my sandwiches on the counter and didn't remember that I was missing something until ten minutes later. Fk! fk! And thus I message him with an appropriate morning epistle of 'I left my breakfast at home! fk! fk!' (I'm a morning person, can you tell?)

I didn't actually think he'd be awake and so I was surprised when he replied 'Stop by. I have breakfast on the go here.'

Ten minutes later, with tactical CIA co-ordination and the help of a bucketload of traffic, he managed to open my cardoor, propel a lunchbox of poached egg and toast into the passenger seat, wave and dash off Flash-style.

And to make my heart go a little bit smushy- it was raining as well.


When I got to work (a million hours later) I opened up the box to see this.



M: There's a bite missing from my toast!
N: Yes cos it WAS my breakfast!

Wherein I rant about Honkie matrons

Just a slight disclaimer beforehand, I'm not disparaging all honkie ladies, just that certain type- those 40plus matrons that carry their LVs like they're hotshit even though their wealth comes from marrying a rich husband and not from any actual any hard work ethic. Yeah, you know which ones I'm talking about- don't pretend like you don't!

So I'm with my cousin Matty for the soft opening of my uncle's cafe and this lady (we'll call her Queen Money for fun) swans in and my uncle comes up to greet her. This is how the conversation actually went and how I tried to keep my eyes from rolling out of my head with sheer force of will

U: Oh hello! Thank you for coming! I appreciate it so much
QM: Oh no problem, I always do what I say.
U: So this must be your lovely daughter.
QM: Yes, I just had to bring her. She has a great taste for eating. She eats wherever she travels, so in Japan, in Europe, in America. We're always looking for fine dining all over the world. Ha! ha! ha!

At this my face contorted into some sort of spasm where it just folded in half. Matty just looks at me and says: I concur.

So we're at different tables and I ignore their conversation but bits of it float towards me like twenty year old air freshener and I hear bitching about shopping. Life is hard.

Nighttime falls and my uncle comes outside to play with the light switches and he adjusts it to give it this amazing effect of being bright yet romantic. He calls over to me and asks," how is it?"
And I respond "Super! It looks great!"

He calls over to her table and asks what she thinks as well.

QM: Well it's fine for Asians, but a bit bright for caucasians because they like it dimmer for their fine dining. But we fine dine so much that we're used to their lighting.

I think I almost spat my orange juice.

Here in a 'normal' situation, an ordinary person would say either a) it's too bright! b) it's a bit dim or c)it's great, thank you. But she is so determined to flaunt her wealth and make her status known to everyone, that a base question that can't be answered without a graceless aside.

Let's play an example game of how I see conversation with her going
M: Oh it's sunny outside
QM: It is isn't it! I must take my Hermes umbrella out to protect my SKII protected skin.

M: How do you find these carrots?
QM: They are nice, but they are nothing like the ones I had last week. They were 700 a carrot and boiled by Belgian monks. Ha! Ha! ha!

Seriously, I hate people like that. It just wouldn't hurt them to show a little grace and humility (and for some reason in Hong Kong, these types of matrons multiply like seagulls on a damn chip. I can't explain it, I have no idea where they come from. They're a mutant phenomenon.)

Divorce as dinner conversation

So the six of us were sitting around the dinner table when for some reason or another it occurred to us that we all had divorced parents. I think we were all a bit gobsmacked by those odds and then we mentioned the mutual friends who were running late and they turned out to be children of divorce as well. Eight out of eight.

When I was a child, no-one had divorced parents. Divorced parents were an anomaly. I think about how ashamed my Dad and Stepmum were of being seen as a blended family and how I was ever the only child on the airplane flying interstate between parents.

Now everyone has a blended family and flights are filled with children who got the short end of the stick in custody battles.

Some of us told stories about the traumatic things their parents had done to their families before and during the divorce. Some of us stayed quiet not wanting to share things which were too personal even for close friends.

I think though that we'll all in our way, be more self aware when we choose our partners to not make the mistakes of our parents.

Coconat spoke up at some point to reassure us ".. it doesn't matter, because despite everything we all turned out okay."

No-one agreed with her though and the table went silent.

In a canoe

Ehm. As much as I love my blackberry and it takes a good photo, I really miss my pink point and shoot. I'm doing so many amazing things lately and I'm only documenting it with my swiss cheese brain (which is overtaken with such useless factoids as did you know the Easter Island statues used to wear hats?) so it'll only be a matter of time before I completely forget that I did anything at all.


So this weekend I went to see Strassman (who doesn't love a bear puppet right?) and
I went kayaking. Yeah me, kayaking. Did you fall down in a dead faint yet? I thought I really haven't pushed the limits of my comfort zone this year so I thought I might go and do something that I wouldn't normally do.

I'd build some emotional growth and have an adventure at the same time. See, and this is where the photos would have come in handy to prove that I did it. Whoops.

In any case, I did it and we didn't run into any speeding boats, were not attacked by any bullsharks (I probably wouldn't have put my hands so flippantly in the water if there were any around) and didn't overturn the canoe at any point (ND did fall in when he was getting out, but that isn't counted I think) but most of all we had fun.

See? I can have outdoorsy and healthy fun! Who woulda thunk.

Older?

I always look sleepy in photos lately. They say that as you get older, your nose gets bigger. They never said that your eyes shrink to go along with it. (There's an easy squinty Asian joke in there somewhere but I'm bigger than that and I won't do it!)

Lessons in Love

She: (after I had done her a favour) I love you!
Me: Haha.. no I love you.
She: Thank you!
Me: Did you say thank you? What does that mean. When someone says I love you- you say I love you too.
She: Oh, I didn't know that.
Me: .. What do you say when your husband says 'wo ai ni'??
She: He's never said it to me.... Stop making me face reality!

(Edited) Sigh

I seriously want to talk about how I feel but I think I'm going to get in trouble for salacious gossiping. So, let's just say this: If your girlfriend has only kissed you once all year? She doesn't really like you all that much. Also, get yourself a new one that likes you.

Kinda saved a dog

The above image is not mine- I pulled it off someone else's images. It's an approximation of what the dog looked like. Actually in all honesty they could probably be identical.**

Let's be frank, I am not a cat person and lucky for me (and unlucky for all the cats in the world because I am a super duper owner) ND doesn't love them either. So I live in a relatively cat-free world. I am without a doubt a dog person. Dogs love me and we generally get along because they don't try to claw out the backs of my thighs.

In a moment of frustration with my company a couple of weeks before, I exclaimed angrily to ND "Fuck this! fuckitall! I'm going to quit and become a dogwalker!"

Of course God heard me and went 'heeheehee.. she thinks she wants to be a dogwalker. I have a plan to make her stay in marketing forever!'

And ever since then I have been saving dogs all over my neighbourhood. That is, rather hilariously you'll find me chasing Ted from downstairs up hills or rounding up poodles back into their gates. Here she comes to save the day.

Today however, I thought I would spend a quiet afternoon in the park near mine.

You know the one. And I was on the phone with St Mary (because I am one of those annoying loud people) and there was no-one around except an old lady and her two dogs. A staffy and Bobby .. a rat terrier? Well, they were in line of my vision and then Bobby was not. Bobby fell straight into the water with a plop. If you can see the photo, it's kind of a deep drop down.

I was baffled. Dogs are dumb at the best of times, how the heck did that happen?

The lady then started calling Bobby and was trying to coax him to swim to safety. Of course, safety was about 100m to the left and Bobby was a small dog. She gave up and hopped down there to save him.

Lucky for her and Bobby- that it was low tide and she was standing on a little shelf. That little shelf is not usually there. She propped Bobby back onto land and by then I was like 'lady, do you need help??' She looked sprightly but she wasn't young. I was a little bit worried about how she thought she was going to climb back up.

That crazy dog was running around in circles and weaving everywhere and she said breathlessly 'Please get him! He's blind!'

And Bobby was weaving right back to the edge of the harbour so I dived for him before he reached and he got frightened and headed the other way, before turning back and almost weaving back into the damn ocean.

Have you ever tried to stop a miniscule (and wet) rat terrier from falling off a ledge? It's kinda hard. Everytime I almost had him by the collar 'here Bobby, here boy, good boy..' he'd duck and go careening too damn close for my liking. That dog had a massive death wish.

Finally (finally!) I had him tightened to a lead and he was frightened (He probably thought the dogcatcher was chasing him around. The staffy was just sitting there enjoying the show.) and I was puffed. I peered over the ledge- 'Are you okay?'
She made her way to dry land and she pulled herself up. I gotta give her props for that.

She thanked me profusely and I made my way back to my handbag/mobile phone/ipad which were rather miraculously still there (Thank jeebus for white middle class suburbs where they couldn't be bothered to steal these kinds of things because they already have them in spades)

At any rate, the lesson for today kiddos, is don't take your blind dog off leash near water. Well you can, if your dog is massive like a saint bernard and doesn't have any chance of falling in. Don't do it if the dog is smaller than your backpack.

--

Only way down

It's just that I don't feel like writing and my point and shoots are all broken so basically I feel like I have nothing to say.

And when I come in here and realise that I've written half of what I did last year, I feel super duper guilty.

(I guess if you wanted to know why I'm not around so much anymore.)

Through the grapevine, I heard that someone I used to be friends with is in a mental hospital after trying to kill himself. When I was first told this, I didn't believe it.

But then there are people who can't stand the noose of normal life. Who look for the maddest and most flamboyant ways to self-destruct. Those who hold tragedy like badges of honour. Who think the bravest way is to die down and out.

I believed it after I thought about it.

There's no place like home hey?

Old love letters

I'm cleaning out my computer and I came across a really old love letter.

It made my heart go whap-whap-whrrrrfrr?

I have no idea what to do with it, am I supposed to save it?

I thought I got rid of everything in the great purge of 09.

Picnicky