A weekend in the suburbs
Monday, 06 August, 2007
On the weekend, we went to keep Lizz company while Hans and Cathy were out of town. We were late getting our act together—packing our bags to go—but it was Friday night, we were both rather tired and who can be bothered to think straight about packing on a Friday night? Lizz had dinner waiting for us (beef stir fry—yum!) We decided to watch a movie and I got Ben to choose because he's rather picky about his movies (he and I don't really have very similar tastes in movies—for example, I love Centre Stage but it's #1 on his list of worst movies of all time). He had settled on Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure before discovering that Crackerjack was on TV so we watched that instead.
Saturday we had a lovely sleep in, then had crumpets for breakfast. I do not remember the last time I ate crumpets; it must have been more than two years ago as we are now a non-bread household and the toaster is buried in the back of the cupboard somewhere. Lizz and Ben got stuck into their homework while I walked to the shops to get food for dinner. (Nice sunny day but very cold wind!) I spent the rest of it watching Season 1 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer while knitting (finally finished stitching together my wrap jacket—knitted in black Bendigo Woollen Mills wool. And now I've started a scarf using diagonal openwork on 8mm needles with pinkish cotton). I made noodles with bok choy, corn, peas, carrots and eggs for lunch, then coconut chili basil chicken for dinner. Then I asked Lizz to give me a make-up tutorial on eyeliner, eyeshadow and mascara. I never realised I have such small eyelashes. I'm not sure what's the point of putting eyeshadow on me; if my eyes are open, my eyelids are nonexistent.
Lizz was going to meet a friend to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix—a film I hope to studiously avoid for the rest of my life (I've given up on them; they're all terrible, though Prisoner of Azkaban is marginally—I say marginally—better than the others). As we were her only means of transport, we decided to go see a movie too—The Simpsons Movie (I enjoyed bits of it but wanted it to be more clever, and Ben thought it was silly [in the words of Facebook, “Disappointing. Not terrible but more for people who like their Simpsons lame and crude.”]). In a moment of total nerdishness, I decided to book all the tickets online. (Lizz was in luck because her movie was the Cinebuzz movie of the week so tickets were only $9.) Should I be worried that I did sort of feel like a rock star when I got to jump the queue?
The following morning we had to rise bright and early because I was having breakfast in the city with Arnjali and Elsie. The Town Hall steps had just been washed down with water—presumably to stop people from sitting on them. The gaggle of baby goths were also out and about (I wonder what they do all day). Arnjali was running late so Elsie and I went to Kinokuniya to have a browse. We ended up having breakfast together at a café called Giorgio Espress which was quite nice (big breakfast for $12! And they have chai latte). Afterwards, we walked down Pitt St and went to Priceline where we checked out the make-up section. (Please note: I'm not getting obsessed; I'm just trying to educate myself. My dad's 60th is this weekend and I thought I should really make an effort—especially as I have to give a speech.) Elsie had to go at 1 so Arnjali and I walked back towards Alison's place (passing the Dean and Helen plus grandchildren on the way!) We were standing outside Alison's building when she arrived, fresh from church. I said my goodbyes then and went home to wash the sheets, put away the laundry, wet-blocked my wrap jacket, check my email and do various bits and pieces (like rearrange all my email inboxes so they are now listed alphabetically by surname—how geeky is that!) until it was time for church.
I wore my dress coat to church (Yvonne really liked it!) But it was too cold in the church to sit there without a coat over it. I hope they fix the heating soon; I'm sure it will be summer by the time they do. Malcolm preached on Acts 8 and there were lots of Bible readings throughout which made it a very long sermon. Ben and I left at about 9 and I was intending to go to bed early but didn't actually get to bed until 10:30.
Today I finished editing Michael's article for The Briefing (and he went through the edit and gave me changes very fast after I sent it to him!) and compiled Interchange for Tony. I only have two things left: Gordon's article and the Bible Brief. I'm still going to miss the layout deadline anyway 'cause it's tomorrow. I left at 4 to pick up Ben and we went grocery shopping (boring!) I made red chicken curry with vegetables for dinner, we watched a bit of Australian Idol (Ben wanted to watch it) and I spent the evening playing Scrabulous on Facebook (got six games going and the best score ever on the game I'm playing with Guan and Bec! Ben, however, is totally thrashing me in our game), burning CDs of the audio of the Human Need and Christian Care conference, and listening to bits of the audio of The Faithful Writer conference.
I need to stop being so busy. Sleep now.
Blinks:
A way of funding writing in the future: pitch and idea and get people to support it.
Place where you can hire play equipment for parties, etc.
How to recalibrate the home button on your iPhone.
Unsolicited manuscripts accepted by Pan Macmillan with certain conditions.
Thought Balloon is a group blog in which the writers tackle a new theme every week? month? with one-page scripts. This URL is for their Phonogram ones.
How to sew a zipper on a knitted garment.
Issues organised by tale.
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I was in Kinokuniya the other day and read the first chapter of Harry Potter and the Deadly Hallows (I think that’s its name). I was very impressed with Rowling’s writing style. I’ve never read the other Potter books, but page 1 of the last book had me hooked.
oh yes, kudos on that scrabulous score - I was most impressed! I still haven’t managed to use all 7 tiles yet. I seem to be specialising in boring three or four letter words.
I’ve never had a worst movie list. I’m not sure I could come up with one. A so-bad-I-would-force-people-to-watch-it-list, maybe, or a movies-other-people-rate-really-highly-but-I-think-are-dreadful-list, maybe. But not a purely subjective bad movie list.
Hmm.
I may have to start some lists of 5.
My goodness. You’d think that an entire blog devoted to that sort of thing would get old after a while!