the.dude's blog post - The Birthday Week That Was

hi everybody

well it’s all over now. Everyone has returned home and it’s all back to normal.

it started early. i thought they arrived at 10am or so, and went to bed around 4am. they arrived at 7am. they failed to wake me at first, so they went off for breakfast and then came back and managed to wake me that time. they had a quick nap, i had a shower and then we went off to show them some of smith street, brunswick st and then the city. home again for more nap, and off to the city for dinner and drinks. so many drinks. at one stage i had at least 4 lined up on the table waiting for me. i was good and didn't mix drinks at all until the very end when i started on shooters and long island teas again. after the first place we ended up at the horrible bad karaoke bar which i think i’ve mentioned before. i so need to find a better karaoke so when this group of people insist on karaoke, which they do when drunk, i can go somewhere better than where they keep taking me.

after we left we had the normal problems with taxi’s in the city on a weekend night, and eventually made it home safely.

Sunday was spent sleeping till about 6pm or so, at which point we headed to Grilled on brunswick st for hearty burgers, and then to polly for real cocktails and more alcohol. the boys from perth were pretty impressed with polly and finally understood why i liked going there and only there so much. when we finished, it was about midnight. the guys had to catch flights at 6am or so to get back to perth in time for work that morning. because we were in fitzroy not the city, we had no taxi problems, walking home easily and enjoying the nice night. the weather that day had been typical of melbourne - 4 seasons in one day. it was hot when we all woke up, it was raining while humid while we walked to burgers, it pissed down while we ate burgers and drank, and when we finished drinking, it had finished raining and was hot again.

I had organised the monday off work which was a good idea because i slept for most of the morning. i eventually got up and showered, went and bought myself some more birthday nikes and then came home and had a quiet drink by myself and recovered from the weekend.

tuedsay night i caught up with friends for dinner where they gave me their birthday present - a 2 litre ice-cream maker which is also capable of, and was bought for the purpose of, making slushies (so we can make margarita’s easier). however it’s turned out that the bit that needs freezing for 12hrs won’t fit in my freezer at all. it’s just too big. so now we’re determining whether to return it, or whether buying a freezer for my back yard is a good idea. there’s no room in the house so it’d have to go outside, which would mean we’d have to be able to secure it with bolts and chains or something. i can’t afford it by myself it’s simple, but the people who gave it to me are considering it might be an investment in that we can stay home and drink margaritas instead of going out and paying exorbitant dollars for margaritas, which we do now anyway. that would also mean we could store more alcohol for those um emergency situations where more alcohol is required urgently. anyway, while the present was being exchanged more friends turned up including a new friend (from france i think). if i get the story right, he’s a ex-UN employee who is on a tourist working visa? for a year. he’d arrived 4 hrs before and was now xxxxxx into coming to the bar by the mutual friend. from that bar we went to trippy taco but there was no seating and the bar menu wasn't up to one friends standards so we went around to corner to somewhere i cant remember the name of, and straight to the beer garden for dinner and more drinks. i had an emu burger which was nice enough i guess. tasted a bit different but not unpleasant. from there it was home.

Wednesday i caught up with the ex after work (again for my birthday). her dad is dying of cancer and has maybe weeks but no more than months to live. its a long complicated story, but basically he’s an alcoholic dickhead arsehole. she was bashed by him and left home early because he wouldn't stop bashing her and her mum and nobody believed the stories that she was being abused by a good family friend. it has been a major drama her whole life and impacted a lot on us when we were together (about 10 years or so). when he found out he was dying 2? years ago, he changed his view on a lot of things, and reached out to her. for her own peace of mind, she responded. long story short, she’s now having to nurse him through dying. he can’t retain a nurse for more than a day or two because he swears and is an idiot and a dickhead. my ex puts up with it because its her dad. anyway, its pretty draining for her, and so most of wednesday night was just listening to her and giving her some space to sit and just not really have to think about it. it’s pretty shit (for her) at the moment really.

crap i just scrolled up. its an essay again.

thursday I had server dramas at work and didn't get home till late. i did think of a perfect user name for twitter but i’m not sharing it here. if you know me and really want to know, ask me. it’s a perfect name for me IMHO (and the few people who know it now). wish i’d thought of it earlier.

friday was drink with geeks night and despite some political dramas that i’m refusing to deal with anymore it was a good night. some of my friends from tuesday night turned up and we got stuck into the tequila and did a pretty good job i had thought. no hangover saturday morning though. we had some dramas coming home with a taxi driver deciding that being rude and ignoring the law was an option. i wasn’t going to bother reporting him but as he left he nearly ran through a cyclist. unfortunately while i had the car number i didn't have the drivers number but i’ll know for next time to use the phone to get a pic of his ID. that’ll be easiest i know some taxi drivers have a hard time but that doesn’t mean that ignoring the law becomes an option. i’m a regular taxi user and have made myself familiar with the law because of the number of bad taxi drivers out there. but still it was a good night out.
Saturday and sunday i did very little. some friends came over saturday to chill out and play some nbajam on the 360. saturday night i actually went to bed around 9:30pm just for a change and slept through till about 10am this morning. today i pottered around the house a lot and played some GTA4 and caught up on some email and wrote this essay. i thought an easy day would be good for me after the activity of the week before.

NotZoro has been back to visit and is behaving very friendly and purring and all now. it’s like he misses Zoro perhaps and is bored, so i’m now an acceptable person to talk too. when i got up saturday morning, he was coming out of the study. he’d let himself in the window that i used to leave open for the other cats, and had decided to investigate the house. he had wanted to come in the last few times i saw him perhaps he decided i’d said no often enough? after the number of years he’s ignored me it just seems strange. he did hiss at me again today, but that was because i was trying to guide him out the door lol he’d been out the back and decided to meow so i assumed it was because he wanted out the front. but no. he just wanted to sit in the open doorway and look out the front. of course how could i be so mistaken. i thought it was funny after so long at hissing at me when i tried to pat him previously, he was now hissing because he didn't want to leave my house. still no sign of the real zoro though

anyway, that's the week that was i guess. don't have any plans for the week ahead so far. still need to find a housemate - guess i should work on that.


have a good week everybody