Friday Nights Alright for Flirting

So my friend Ree invited me up to her place for cocktails last night. Sweet, something to do on a Friday night so I was glad to be invited. Now, my friend Ree is kind of a reformed wild girl - she's a few years older than me, she has three sons and after her husband passed away she went of the rails a little. But she's one of these people who have an infectious enthusiasm for life, so its great to see she's seetled back down somewhat, but has still maintained her " you're only as young as you feel " views. I'm kind of proud of her for that actually - Lord knows it cant be easy trying to raise three children on your own after losing your husband, whilst still keeping a part of your life for yourself. My point is, whenever Ree gets the chance to have some fun, she does the fun up right. So what if some of the people who said they were coming didnt turn up ? Those of us who were there had us some pink champagne cocktails and a big, girly chatfest ( you know, clothes, shoes, sex.... all the good stuff ). After a few hours of drinking at her house, we decided going out to the pub would be a good idea, it being a Friday night after all. Ace!

She had told me earlier that the very casual dress code for the cocktails was " classy " so i chose to wear my darkest pair of trouser-cut jeans, a crisp cotton cami, tan open-toe stacked heels and a cute necklace. I didnt scrub up too badly for a girl who didnt have a lot of time to plan her outfit, and i was glad i was able to pull that outfit together because I would have felt a little out of place at the pub if i had just worn jeans and a t-shirt. The point of all this talk of my appearance is - I was not expecting in the least to pick up. Thats right folks, i said " pick up ". Who knew that a woman dressed like a lady could get a guys attention ahead of girls dressed as skanks ?

I dont mean that to sound crude, but i like to have a little decorum, a little class in the way i dress and speak and present myself ( on most occasions ), so it came as a suprise to find myself getting a little special attention on the dancefloor, ahead of the girls wearing mini skirts and tops that they could potentially fall out of. He was cute - not much taller than me ( but hey, short guys need loving too ), had the build of a football player and some sexy stubble going on. The fact that he was dancing up against me with his hand on my hip was enough - this girl was sold. I'm ashamed to say, but i didnt actually catch his name - he did tell me but its that noisy on the dancefloor that i couldnt quite make it out. Brendan? Nathan ? Benjamin ? Something like that..... This did not, however, stop me from spending some good, quality time with my lips glued to his, and getting a slight case of pash rash. Yes, sometimes, I am THAT girl, the one who is bumping into you and your friends because she's too busy kissing random cute dudes. Oh, and while i'm busy feeding you all ( ok, most of ... ) the juicy details, as best as i can figure out Mystery Stubble Guy is probably 20 years old at the most. Yes, that now makes me a cougar.

Don't judge me! I gave MSG my number, I had a freaking great night, and isnt every girl allowed her " i was a little tipsy, plus it WAS really noisy " indescretions?

There goes the neighbourhood....

So you know how I said the horizon had been defeated ? Well, it had been. But, as with the real world, their has been the dawning of a new day - and its sunny and warm people, sunny and warm! For all of you who are lost ( which is, i think, probably all of you... ) let me explain. I put on offer on some property - different property to that which was previously mentioned ..... and it was accepted! Once the solicitors have drawn up the papers and everything has been signed, I will officially own real estate! I never thought i'd be this excited about something like this, but I have to admit it does feel awesomely cool ( and incredibly grown up ). So once everything is official, I will be the proud owner of a modern, two bedroom duplex. Two bedrooms with built in wardrobes, a bathroom with bath, shower and toilet, kitchen, laundry, living and dining rooms and a single garage. I have a few plans for it already - I'd like to render the interior brick wall and paint it over, and knock out one of the kitchen walls to make the living area much more open plan. Oooh, and do some painting. And, because it has a fairly decent sized backyard, I can finally get a dog! The only thing is that the current owners would like to keep living in it until April - theyre building a new home which wont be ready til then. So, rather than turf them out in the street, we've decided that i will buy the property and lease it back to them until theyre new home is ready. So even though i wont be moving in til the end of April - isnt this all exciting ?

So, until April i plan on saving a little extra money, watching a lot of the Lifestyle channel ( Thom Felecia is going to be my new best friend ), reading a lot of interior design magazines and trolling Ebay for cute, funky furniture to replace my boring stuff. If anyone has any cool decorating tips or ideas they wanna share, leave a message after the beep*.......

* BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP

I am the Blackbird - koo koo ka-chu!

Okay, before you all think I've gone completely mental and mixed up my Beatles lyrics, let me explain. Firstly, yes, i know that I am the Eggman, you are the Eggmen and I am the Walrus, koo koo ka-chu. This is not the point. What is the point is I was listening to the soundtrack to " Across the Universe " while i drove a little ways out of town to visit a friend and I'm singing along to " Blackbird " and do you know what i realised ? That song is about me - I am the blackbird ( koo koo ka-chu! koo koo ka-chu! Sorry, couldnt help it... ). You know what I mean, like when you're listening to a song and then all of a sudden the lyrics just become so overwhelmingly profound, like John and Paul forsaw the future and are actually trying to send me a personal message ? Witness :

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to be free

Don't you see ? Blackbird taking broken wings and learning to fly = me breaking free of depression and crap and moving on with my life. Its genius! Ah, The Beatles save the day again....

Not the day really needed to be saved - i was having a great day as it was. I finally saw " Australia " and let me tell you - fantabulous. Sure, I might be just a tad biased - because i live here and i'm almost completely in love with Hugh Jackman and Baz Luhrman is my second favourite director - but it really was great movie. It was epic on the scale of, say, " Giant " or " Gone With The Wind " but i dont think its on the same " classic " level. I can see what Baz was aiming for but he misses by this much. ( Which is to say , like, this <...> much ). The cinematography was superb, as expected - the shots of the Australian landscape are gorgeous, the use of colour is strikingly simple, and the costumes are perfect ( god, how Hugh Jackman looks so delicious IN clothes... ). Mr Jackman does a good job and brings this beautiful raw charisma to the Drover, but Nicole Kidman is a slight let down. I do not care how much she tries to deny it, the womans face is pumped full of plastic. She smiles, there are no smile lines; she frowns, her brow does not furrow. The real suprise packet though is the child who plays Nullah ( Brandon Walters i believe his name is ). He has a beautiful expressive face and he seems so authentic in his role - i suppose in part to his upbringing in a remote community. I am telling you, any of you who have read negative reviews on this film, especially those of you in the States, please give this film a shot.

The best part of my day though was the visit to my friend, Mrs N. Now Mrs N is a woman who was, for lack of a beter description, a teachers aid at my primary school. I should say is, because she still works there after 20 years. I have never asked her old she actually is ( that would just be rude, wouldnt it ? ) but she would have to be in her late 70's , if not older. The thing is, Mrs N gets me. She is the easiest person to talk to and she is never anything but gracious, kind and non-judgemental. In lieu of the relationships i DON'T have with my grandparents, Mrs N is like a surrogate grandmother to me, and its a relationship i very much appreciate. She indulges me intellectually too. It is so wonderful to be able to spend a few hours with someone, to be able to discuss so many topics and ideas and issues and have someone understand and appreciate what you're saying. Its an incredible boost to divulge your most personal demons to someone and still have them say they love you, admire you and are inspired by you. I feel like everyone should have someone like Mrs N in their lives.

I told her about my smile challenge, but what I didnt tell her is that spending the afternoon in her ramshackle little cottage was the biggest smile I'd had all week...

The Horizon Has Been Defeated

For now.

So, I put in an offer on a property today .... and it was turned down. I put in a deliberatly low bid ( thats the way you play these thngs after all.... ) but still it was a little disheartening to be knocked back. But no worries, i plan on putting in another, slightly higher offer tomorrow. Of course, I've never actually tried to buy a house before so I'm not entirely sure of the processes of house hunting, but what i do know is i like the house i inspected today. It's relatively small - two bedrooms, but its still a whole tonne bigger than most shoebox apartments in major cities. Its also 58 years old, but its been nicely refurbished on the inside so i'd barely have to spend a dollar on improvements if didnt want to. So I guess all is not lost - i still have another chance and if that offer gets turned down i have a few more thousand dollars to play with before i have to admit Game Over. Wish me luck ?

And you know what gives you luck ? Or rather, what pays you back in awesomely good karma ? Giving to charity, thats what. Which is exactly what i did today - I donated some canned goods and new toys to my companys annual Christmas appeal. Each Christmas we try and gather small donations to give to a local charity and this year nobody had given anything yet. So i decided to set a good example and get the ball rolling by using the spare cash i had in my wallet to buy some non-perishable food and two small toys. I opted for a Barbie doll for the girls ( i always a Barbie kind of girl, as opposed to playing with "baby" dolls ) and a Transformers action figure for the boys. I, of course, made sure to get an Optimus Prime because everybody knows Optimus Prime was the bomb ( followed closely by Jazz ). Hopefully seeing our basket now has something in it will encourage others to give aswell. I'm not going to mention what the donation cost me but suffice to say it was probably more than some families can afford to spend for themselves. So now i get the good karma of having done a good deed, a satsifying good feeling and some family somewhere gets a little bit of a brighter Christmas. And isnt Christmas the season of giving ?

Oh, and in case you didnt read between the lines there, this is me now actively, officially and very obviously asking you to give something - time, money, food, toys, whatever - to someone in need this Christmas. Charity should be a year round activity, but if your only going to be proactively charitable once a year, why not make it during the holidays?

A Long Weekend by The NUmbers, Plus an Update on the Smile Challenge

So technically it wasnt a long weekend here in Australia - that is, we didnt have an official public holiday or anything. However, seeing as I had both Friday and Monday off, I had my own long weekend. Thus, you get the stats from four days rather than two. Aren't you people lucky ?

4 - numbers of days I had off. I said that already, didnt i ?

10 - amount in dollars that Tradie lunch cost on Friday. Make that a $20 Tradie lunch, because i bought lunch for my auntie as a birthday treat. My 7 month old cousin ate tiny Vegemite sandwiches from a cup.

5 - number of open houses i intended on inspecting on Saturday morning.

2 - number of those open house inspections that actually went ahead. The other three were cancelled: two because of the weather and one because it had been sold.

40 - approximate number of minutes i spent driving around to get to and from these cancelled open houses. What a waste of petrol.

2 - number of naps I managed to fit in over the course of Saturday afternoon/evening. It was one of those rainy, stay-indoors-and-do-nothing kind of days. Somehow i manage to fall asleep easily when it comes to naps, but i lie awake for what seems like forever at night...

87 - approximate number of minutes my mother spent farting around looking at shoes and pretty tops on Sunday morning. Don't get me wrong - I looooooooooooove shopping - but my mother is the most frusturating shopper on earth.

1000 - approximate ( and slightly embellished ) number of jumps my neice did, in a row, on the trampoline at our house. Seriously. We had a barbecue on Sunday night and after she finished eating she was bouncing on that thing for like an hour straight. I dont know how she didnt bounce her little brain to death.

1 - number of Christmas's ruined by my neice. Yep, seems like the three year old can't keep a secret.: " Hey, Aunty Amy - we bought you a yoga mat! ". This prompted her mother to, mockingly, tell her she'd ruined Xmas. " Yea? Well you cant look at me anymore ". Cue (still ) bouncing, now with her back to us.

60 - number minutes of spent getting a facial. Ah, the pampering....

170 000 - amount in dollars i can realistically borrow to buy my first home. My modest first home.

180 000 - amount in dollars i could afford to offer, as a maximum, on a property. A modest property.

6 - number of seperate tests they need to run to try and figure out why i'm so low in iron. I'll let you guess for yourself what kind of tests they may, or may not be.

3 - number of days i need to be on a exclusion diet to run some of those tests. Woo hoo - no broccoli!

10 - number of minutes i spent lying on the floor after i almost passed out at the gym. OMG - so embarrassing. Apparently you should not push yourself so hard on your first day back at the gym after being sick.

And so, onto the smile challenge update. Granted, i havent been keeping a regualr blog list of each and every thing that has made me smile the last week or so but, believe me, I am taking notice. And its working - think my colleagues are starting to think i've gone even more mental. Just, you know, in the opposite direction. And, for each negative thing that happens, i've been able to find a positive and much better side to focus on. For example, no, I wont be able to borrow enough money to build a new home ( boo hoo hoo, disappointment ). However, now that i know my budget and range, I'm looking forward to seeing what i can find and figuring out what i can do with it ( i've been watching a lot of the Lifestyle channel lately. I love Thom Felicia! ). Or so it was rainy and three open houses got cancelled ( wasting my time and petrol - poo to that! )? Yea, well it gave me a whole bucnh of time to catch up with a friend who lives a few houses up my street. She's almost 32 (totally old according to her ....) she has three kids, and she went flying off the rails when her husband died three years ago, but she's getting back to a good place. She's wonderfully funny and irrevent and because of all her derailing at various times in her life, she has great advice sometimes.

A total plus huh ?

Getting To Know Me- Its An Epic

You people know i love a meme or two so, in the spirit of particpation, I've decided to take part in Andy's " Getting to Know You Week ". And, in the vein of Andy's most recent post ( involving what may or may not have been a ghostly car chase ) I've decided to tell you all about a small part of my trip to Peru. The spooky part. Sure, the story is not from my childhood, but is from my past which is an integral part of getting to know me, so i'm going to assume Andy wont mind me slightly bending the rules. One or two of you may have heard this story before - for those of you who havent, hold onto your seats....


For those of you who are not up on your geography or world heritage sites, that is Machu Picchu, an ancient Inca city built into the Andes mountains. You may recognise it from Lonely PLanet guidebooks, National Geographic calendars or any of the 1001 travel shows being broadcast around the globe. It is, undeniably, a popular tourist destination - and the best way to get there ? On foot. Yes - foot: a four day trek through the Andes, starting at an outpost known as KM88 and finishing at Machu Picchu ( hopefully at either sunrise or sunset, if you time it right ... ). So that's we're i'll start my story - on the Inca Trail, on the 2nd day of the trek.

I'm not going to lie - the Inca Trail is no easy slog. Its not like i was some kind of ultra-fit, athletic superwoman . I was a slightly-larger-than-I-am-now trekking novice who'd never done anything at altitude before. But it promised to be the adventure of a lifetime, and who was i to turn that down ( even if it did feel like my lungs were going to explode ) ? Just making it into camp on the first day - accompanied by my all-male encouragement troupe, 3 guys i'd only known a few days before who insisted that singing " Eye of the Tiger " would motivate us up the mountain - was a Godsend. Day two promised to be harder. By mid mornng we would be ( slowly, painfully ) making our way to Warminwayusca, or Dead Womans Pass. This pass is 4500m above sea level and, as the highest point on the trek, is considered the toughest part of the journey. With the whole group having reached the summit, we stopped for a snack and a photo opportunity. It was from here that everything went downhill- both literally and figuratively.

My boys, after the trek - i believe they had moved onto Spice Girls songs by then

When our guide said it was time to pack ourselves up and get on the move, i tired sitting up but i felt all lightheaded and lethargic - it was like all the energy had been completely drained out of my body. I took a minute and tired to gather myself together but, when i looked a little wobbly on my feet, my guide and one of the other guys volunteered to walk at the back with me. Within a half an our, not only was i wobbly on my feet but i could barely seem to lift my arms - rather than walking with my walking sick, i was dragging it behind me in the dirt. My trekking buddy, Lachlan, said he'd carry my pack for me and my guide Jugo supported me on one side. I'd been drinking water and we'd only just eaten, so i should have all the energy in the world, but within another half hour, my vision had gone blurry and i was now being supported on both sides. I wasnt so much as walking, as being slowly dragged up the mountain side by an ex-Army recruit and a small Incan man. Mind you, all the guides are trained in first aid and a nurse in our group mentioned she thought i might be dehydrated or could possibly have altitude sickness.

And so we stopped. Jugo radioed ahead for one of the porters to come back with some blankets and he sat me down on a very comfy rock on the side of the trail. He gave me me water and put me on an oxygen tank for 20 minutes. He also made me inhale some foul smelling yuck, which apprently alleviates the symptoms of altitude sickness. All of that and - nada. I could barely breath, by this time could barely see, and felt like both my arms and legs were being weighed down by concrete. To be quite honest, i wuld have been perfectly happy to curl up on that there rock and die. Obviously, leaving me to die on a barren hillside isnt wasnt exactly part of Jugo's job description so... they carried me. Yes, you read that right - Jugo, Lachlan and Alejandro, the young guide who came back with the blankets, carried me. On their backs, They tied me on with the blankets, just like Peruvian women do with their babies.Hell, they even ran! Lachlan was a big guy, but Jugo and Alejandro were typically short, small, Incan men, and they ran with my whole 60kg/150lb of weight on their backs. I was slipping in and out of conscious - the only thing i do clealy remember is catching up to the rest of our group and Jugo telling them they had to get me immediately to camp.

Which is where i woke up. I woke up with Jugo leaning over me, stroking my head, telling me i was going to be okay, not to worry, he was sending someone into see me. Yep, no worries - zzzzzzzzz. Next thing i know there is a " Hola, senorita ? Hola ? " at the opening to my tent and in comes this really old guy. Here comes the cool part - he props my head up and starts muttering, kind of chanting, in the local Incan language. I was already almost completely out of it, too far gone to make any objection to what he was doing anyway. So the old guy keeps up the muttering and then he lights up something a bowl until it starts smoking. Once he had his smoke going, he blew it all over me: directly into my face, over the top of my head, down the front of my shirt, everywhere. He rubbed whatever he'd crushed up in his bowl over my face and arms, finished up with his chanting, said " Buenos noches, senorita ", and disappeared. Two of my female trekking companions them came in and helped me put on more clothing layers and then - blackness. I passed out or fell asleep for a while and then rested very fitfully ( i;d say slept, but i dont think i really did ) for the rest of the night.

Morning comes and .... i feel awesome. I wake up feeling great, go out and eat breakfast with everyone - albeit while copping some very strange looks from my trek buddies. Everyone wants to know how i feel and Jugo takes me aside to make sure i'm feeling okay. And that was it, we set off for the day. No-one rally talks much about the day before, except to say that i looked terrible, all limp like a rag doll and one of our older members thought i might have been dead. No-one bothers to tell me what may or may not have been wrong with me, but it didnt really matter because i was doing fine. It wasnt until our first snack break that anyone decided to let me in on what went on the previous night. So, take a deep breath people, here it comes : I WAS POSSESSED. Don't re-red that to see if it makes more sense, it wont. Apparently, whilst i had been laid up in my tent, delirious, Jugo had taken everyone else aside and told them what was going to happen, because he didnt want them to think i was being taken advantage of or anything. He, and the other porters - all Peruvian indian men - thought i had been taken over by a mountain spirit, spirits that the Incan people believed kept guard over their trail. The elderly gentleman, who turned out to be one of our porters, was also a kind of Incan medecine man, was going to go in an perform some kind of exorcism ritual, and expel whatever spirit it was that had taken me over.

And there you have it - when all the scientific medecines didnt work, when i only continued to get worse, it was decided that i must have been possessed and only pagan magic could save me. And you know what ? It did. The oxygen, the foul smelling inhalant, the water and pills, none of that worked but the chanting and the smoke blowing had me feeling as fresh as a daisy. Not only did i not struggle with the rest of the trek, but i was the second person to make it to the gateway to Machu Pichhu. It was like i'd been suddenly blessed or something. When we had finished our tek and met back up in town with our other tour guide, Jonathon, he told me in full what had gone on. He said he had only heard of two other women in 15 years of leading tours who had got so sick, so suddenly, and in the same spot on the trek ( straight after Dead Womans Pass ), and the same smoke blowing, chanting, praying-whatever worked on them too. You can believe what you want but, having lived the experience and being of a hippie-dippie spiritual mind anyway, i'm like 95% sure something otherworldly happened to me up there.

Either way, it sure beats the hell out of most peoples vacation stories....

My weekend by the numbers: a recap

1 - number of fetes i attended. A fete is pretty much a country fair for all you non-Aussies. I took my neice because i knew she would appreciate the jumping castle and face painting.

4 - times i ate fast food over the course of three days. A serious blow out. The next thing to be blown out ? My stomach.

1 - number of doctors bills paid. Yep, the bill from my wisdom teeth removal.

670 - amount in dollars that it cost to have those teeth removed.

3 - display homes visit. For anyone wondering what a display home is, its a fully built replica of a home you can have built for yourself. I'm kind of thinking of building one, you see - if i can afford it.

245 000 - amount in dollars of the cheapest house and land package being offered in my town right now. Maybe i cant afford it.... but we'll see.

24 000 - amount in dollars the Australian government is offering as a first home buyers grant. Sure helps a bit with that affordability thing....

1 - number of handbags i bought myself. White, textured, Fiorelli tote. Not a Birkin bag by any means, but cute, classy and functional.

3 - number of days i saw my neice this weekend. Yep, that would be every day.

2 - number of days i saw my 7 month old cousin this weekend. Apparently, it was a weekend for the kiddies.

And there you have it. Look forward to next weekends recap - I've taken the Friday and Monday off work because, well, i havent had any actual holidays this year and i figure i deserve a long weekend. The forthcoming recap may or may not involve one or more the following: facials, $10 Tradie Lunch, " Australia ", visits by new reps, trips to the mortgage broker, old houses, new houses, broken hearts and children. Guess which ones i'm looking forward to ?