Doris!

On my way back from the library at lunchtime my eye was caught by the wonderful word "SALE" and one of those temporary stores selling lovely knitwear.

As I wandered in to have a squizz I passed a couple of familiar faces so did the usual "allo darling, how are ya?", only to be greeted by a blank look then downcast eyes.

I had just randomly greeted the Topp Twins. Doh!

Oddly though, the one I used to swoon after at Cook Street market all those years ago at the tender age of 22, is no longer appealing. Good to see my tastes have matured.

Ring of Fire

Sometimes one chances upon fabulous moments while in deep sofa mode and watching trash tv, the following is one of them.......H.O.T.....

Ball Sports

It's a well known fact that I don't do "ball sports", social, carnal or competitive. For this however I could relent.

You're Never Alone With a Clone

I've been thinking about clones a wee bit of late. This train of thought has partly been inspired by the recent visit of a very old friend. Her husband took the first photo and helped break the story of Dolly the cloned sheep.

Needless to say even though Dolly has passed on, the royalties from the images still live on and of course many fine pictures of Dolly grace the walls of their house. All very fitting for a crofters son from the Isle of Lewis.

The other tangent of clone pondering is one I've visited before that has been reawakened due to the sudden cold snap in the weather and the fact that I'm somewhat jaded at present. The intense stress of work over the last few weeks coupled with an equally busy round of parties has left this lesbian feeling a bit wrung out, a la dish towel. One feels like climbing into the pink fluffy, curling on the sofa in front of the non existent fire while snuggling up with a warm body that does not have fur as it's usual form of attire. Advanced sofa'ing.

Here enters the clone. As much as one does like the blissful pleasure of skin on skin contact, the ex-ex and I keep sleepovers to the bare minimum, it's how it works best for us. However, there are times when one feels the urge to snuggle into bed next to the desired warm body when the jadedness becomes all consuming. This is when the clone is needed.

Unlike Steve Martin in his classic movie, I wouldn't need the clone to converse or communicate in any manner. It wouldn't even need to stay over and would probably be urged to vanish. It's only role would be to be there to snuggle up to when desire struck, and then to discreetly vanish once I was in deep sleep zone.

I yearn for a clone.

Oh My

It seems there is a reject bin on NZDating and two of them are getting married here today.

Yeah yeah, I know, when it comes to revenue I'm a total slut.

Excessive Moi?

So far this morning I have consumed:

1 large bowl of porridge covered in lashings of brown sugar
1 scoop of sauteed mushrooms
1 orange
2 muffin tops (I only eat the good bits)
2 flat whites
1 Roses chocolate

....and all this before 9.34am.

I think I need to get my jaw wired shut.

Channelling Gordon

Ramsay that is, not the Sperm Donor.

If any of you have heard an odd bellowing in the CBD over the last half hour, it was me. I have just intervened in an altercation between a pastry chef (Fijian Indian) and a member of the floor staff (Sri Lankan).

My words were along the lines of this: "I don't fucking care who is fucking lying, just get the fucking scones on to the fucking plate and down to the client. They should have fucking been there 10 fucking minutes ago".

It seems that the effects of my last major screaming outburst (Lions Tour 2005) have worn off, but I think I have now sufficiently let the current kitchen staff know what I am capable of.

I predict that all my departments catering is going to be ready well ahead of time for the foreseeable future.

Muscle Swoon

I haven't visited Dorothy Surrenders for a while, kinda over the glammy femme Hollywood images. However I have just had wee trawl and my oh my this little post is most enjoyable. Yum, YUM.

Possibly not the best thing for this girl to look at late at night before heading off to bed.

Fashion Victim

I have been looking for a new dry wear running singlet for some time. I have tried all the name brands, from what little stock the major sports stores seem to hold, and nothing is just quite right. As you must realise with someone as vain as I, it's not just about running wear, but very much about looking good too.

The ex-ex had suggested I come and look at some of the dry wear samples they hold in stock, so finally today I managed that. There was one product on the rack that suited my exacting requirements but they only had a size 10 sample. I decided to be brave and try it on to get an idea of what size I would need. The size 10 fitted perfectly, swoon.

I promptly ordered 2 of them. This supplier is a screen printing business and I am now desperately resisting the urge to have the garments printed on the back saying "this top is a size 10!"

Sign 'O' The Times # 2

Number 1 daughter and a group of friends are currently driving down to Wellington to attend the Homegrown gig. Of course Mummy is worrying about them doing the BIG drive, but she assures me that the driver is the world slowest and never exceeds 85k. I now panic about that, knowing what impatient drivers Kiwi's can be, and fear bad overtaking maneuvers from said drivers. There will be a lot of texts exchanged today.

What is unusual about this trip is that they are NOT staying at home with Mummy. They will be home briefly to watch (cringe at) the first episode of "New Zealands Next Top Model", then they are off to house sit the property of the Aunty of one of the group. Ok, so number 1 daughter is allowed to drive halfway across the country, attend a large music event, house sit for some unknowns in Wellington, yet she is still not allowed a key and free access to her Fathers house.

Child in situ is off at an Athletics meet in Christchurch. She is now currently the number 1 woman in her event in New Zealand for this season. I fear the rapid swelling of her head may impede her results at this meet.

Current plan if she makes the distance this meet is World Youth in Italy later in the year, then trial for the Commonwealths. She's not too keen on the idea of India, so I think if she qualifies I'm going to have to pitch the concept of the great suntan she could get.

Mummy is going to relish in the luxury of an empty house for the weekend.

New Blog

As a result of comments on the post below I have found a new blog to read, the commenter very cunningly put his URL in the comment, good ploy.

I've had a wee squizz at his site this morning and I am well amused, especially when I read sentences such as this:

This" I thought to myself, "is going to lead to me picking up my mate, dusting him off and telling him that he'll get over it in time" after the bride had systematically pureed his heart to a fine paste then served it on crackers with a garnish of fresh spring onion and a nice cup of tea.

I am now convinced that this writer is in fact a reincarnated Mitford sister in drag. I would sit and have a thorough read but apparently I have to do some, errrrr, work.

Recession Impact

I've been quite skeptical about this current recession as it appears to me to be a media driven wind up. Yes, yes I know, America sub prime and all that, but that's them, not me and as I'm the centre of my universe it's all about me.

In my business it has had zero impact. My revenue for February far exceeded last years and the same is forecasted for March, I am holding much more for the rest of the year than I normally would at this point and also for a post election year, and the rest of the property is maintaining 100% mid week occupancy at a good average rate.

However, in my personal world I have finally felt an effect. On Sunday after the as usual fabulous Newtown fair I went to the local for a few chukkas of pool. Was pleased to see that new pool tables had been put in over the last week, as the prior two were getting a bit shabby, however my pleasure was short lived.

The tables are slightly higher (annoying for those leaning over shots), the balls are smaller (harder to focus on!!), the felt is fast and the cushions bouncy (all good), but shock HORROR , they are now $2 tables. That is a whopping 100% increase in 7 days.

Even the old fullas came over to have a little moan about that. I'm now trying to decide if I'm a sad fukker or not when it was realised that I have now lived through 3 different sets of pools tables at the local.

Avoiding the Robot

Cactus has asked me to reveal how I avoid the IRD telephone robot, so here is how I have managed to do it. It's not too tricky.

Go the login page on the IRD website, click on the forgotten password link, (or in my case forgotten user name and absolutely everything). The next page gives you an 0800 number which is a different number from all others displayed on the site.

Call this number. You will be answered by a real human being. At this point act innocent and and say that you want to try and sort out xxxx problem (start describing the problem to the agent) but you have forgotten your password/user name/everything. The agent will then go through the process of re setting your password, which of course you can immediately change back. When that is done you then ask if they can connect you to the relevant section, if they haven't already offered to do so.

As you are now connected to the internal phone system when you are transferred you will be answered by a person in the relevant department. Very simple.

Speed Dating

Or to be more accurate, Lesbian Speed dating.

This last week in Wellington has been Proud 09 with lots of different events happening. I've managed to attend several of them, the party on Saturday night, the Drag Kings (swoon) show on Monday night, and last night the Lesbian speed dating.

I was "dared" into going to this, but when I saw that it was a wine options evening my competitive spirit came to the fore and I quickly signed up. I also convinced several others to attend.

The event was held at Wineseeker a lovely little wine shop. I urge everyone to visit this store at some point because not only does it NOT stock any of the Sperm Donors product, but going by the quality of the wines presented last night and on the shelves, the owner has an excellent palate.

Due the small incestuous nature of the community that we play in, the actual "speed dating" concept was a bit of a fizzer as most of the women knew each other anyway, and had all caught up the night before at the Drag Kings (swoon), but the wine options was most successful.

For those of you who don't know it's a multi choice game. You are given a sample of wine to taste then you have to attempt to answer several questions on the wine. It was all made easier by the excellent knowledge of Nicola and the clues she imparted when discussing the various options available. I won the game though I was gutted that I got one question wrong. I did feel a bit guilty that I had an unfair advantage, but karma won out as my prize was a bottle of wine of a variety that I don't like.

I am now about to contact my fellow attendees to see if any of them have been contacted for a date.

A New Low

I received an assessment this morning for my WFF tax credit for the next financial year. When I saw the new credit amount I first went "woohoo", then my next thought was no wonder the country is going bankrupt if this is how much I'm getting.

I then read further and saw that the error was in my income assessment. I know I work in Hospitality which is famous for crap salaries, but for some reason my income had been assessed at $34556 for the upcoming year. Fuk me, I pay the staff more than that!

I then settled in with book, laptop and phone ready to waste an hour of my life getting it sorted. It didn't take too long really as I've found a way to circumvent the tiresome phone robot and speak directly to a real person.

When I asked why my income had been assessed so low when their on screen records show what my current income is, I was told "we have to assess it as something then the client can contact us to correct it". When I queried that wouldn't it be logical to assess at a similar rate to the previous years income I was then told "we don't know if you have got a new job or not". I resisted the impulse to say that I'd have to a total dumb fuk to take a new job with such a hefty salary drop, instead just commented that "you must be getting a lot of phone calls then", to which the agent agreed.

I must say I find this whole thing quite alarming if this is a new trend in income assessment by the IRD. Not everyone who gets WFF is going to be astute enough to pick up the incorrect salary level and probably just think that the subsidies have been increased. If other peoples notifications have been as incorrect as mine I forsee a lot future problems for them when they have to pay back any overpayments made to them.

Sharpen up IRD.

Counting Down

Only 1 month to go till the Duffy show. I am so the Mistress of anticipation.

I have also briefly considered going to the Veronica's and P Money show next week, as the child wants to go but has no one to go with. However the consensus from all age groups I've consulted is that the she probably doesn't need to see Mummy trashed bouncing around at the front of the stage. As in "who's the old fukker at the front making a fool of themselves", oh no it's MOTHER.