it’s the weekend.

it’s time for me to go home which means it’s well and truly the weekend.  i’m getting a bottle of wine and drinking it as soon as i get home.  maybe i’ll be drunk before the Brit gets home.

my cover got approved  so i had to call our Hong Kong office to coordinate printing.  i had to talk really loudly (because they are apparently deaf) and very slowly (my american accent is not universally accepted/understood) and still they didn’t understand what i meant when i said my cover bled to the edge.  i expected them to know what this meant because they’re printers.   i had to tell them how to print it.  it was bizarre.  when i got off the phone,  everyone around me was laughing and imitating how slowly i was talking.   i was not feeling good about my covers so i convinced everyone here to print them in melbourne and send them to hong kong (i offered to take them there personally but i got denied).

this weekend i’m hoping will be a quiet one.   next weekend is our last weekend in melbourne before we fly home to america so i want to lay low and take it easy.  we’re going to see “Phedre” at the cinema tomorrow (live broadcast from the national theatre in london) so i’m looking forward to that but other than that,  i am staying in my pajamas.  hell, i may even wear my pajamas to the cinema.  it’s the weekend after all. 

until monday.  have a nice weekend everyone!

x

long day.

book covers done. not yet approved… so i guess i couldn’t do it in an hour but i did manage to knock up two options.  now i have to wait around and see what they really want.  they’ll probably want something completely different.

the Brit thinks he has solutions to my walking/clumsiness problems. this morning,  as i walked into a doorway,  the Brit laughed at me and looked at me like i was one of those special needs kids they hold telethons for.  a bit later,  i walked upstairs (tripped on a step on my way) and sat down to have my coffee. 
Brit:  You should wear knee pads and a helmet so you don’t kill yourself climbing up those stairs
Me: very funny.
Brit:  why is your left eye all red
Me:  because i poked it with my finger
Brit:  i’m going to get you little baby mitts for your hands so you can’t hurt yourself.  Where’d you get that bruise from?
Me:  i walked into the door handle. 
Brit:  maybe there’s a magic serum you can drink that’ll make you grow cat whiskers.  maybe they’ll help you balance yourself and you won’t walk into things.  you can wear a little catsuit too. 
Me:  it’d look really good with knee pads, helmet and mittens.
Brit: but at least you’d be safe! 

he’s such a help isn’t he?  if it were up to him,  i’d look like a mutant.

challenge me.

can i design a book cover and get it approve  in less than an hour (yeah, it has to look good)?  oooh, the race is on.  i’ll check in later.

enough already.

it’s only wednesday…  ugh.

was the big announcement yesterday at 5pm life shattering?  no.
was it important?  no.
the announcement?  we won new business.
does that mean we get raises?  no.
so…do i care?  emphatic NO.
did my boss bring me donuts? no.

it’s been a wonderful week so far.  on a positive note, i’ve been such a grouch at work that i have co-workers buying me lunch to sweeten me up.  makes me thnk that coming into work grouchy is the way to go from now on.

Project Runway Australia starts tonight and while i hated last season (because nothing will EVER compare to the American version, right?) i have set the DVR to record it every week.  there’s a trailer for it that lasts about 15 minutes that they’ve been showing for the past week.  it looks ghastly but i love crap TV.  i made the Brit watch a Mrs Marple movie with me the other day.  I thought he would enjoy it simply because it was British but bad TV is bad TV no matter where it comes from and he couldn’t help but laugh the whole way through and make narky commentary. 

The Brit can laugh at me all he wants for watching old people shows on TV but i caught him washing a paper plate the other day and that’ll give me weeks of “you’re weirder than me” mileage.  The Kiwi baked eclairs and brought some over on a paper plate (mind you this is a paper plate, not one of those disposable plastic plates).  the next thing i know, i see the Brit scrubbing the chocolate off of it and running it under the tap to return to the Kiwi.  WEIRDO.

crap. boss back from meeting.  gotta look busy.

yet another day.

yes. i am grouchy today.  know why?  because my manager scheduled a meeting at 5pm when my hometime is 4:30 and lately i’ve been on this kick of going home on time  and not being lured into staying late to work on jobs.  my change in attitude coincided with a memo stating that i won’t get paid overtime anymore during monday-friday.  financial crisis sucks.

now that i’m sort of over the flu and have passed it on to someone else in the office,  i worked out for the first time in a week yesterday and i wanted to die.  i actually went for the full hour but it was painful.  i was going to take the day off,  told the Brit that i was going to wait until i was feeling 100% (what a load of crap, i just needed to rationalise),  but on my way home, i started feeling really grouchy and whiney.  the only way i know to curb that is to work out so that’s what i did.  it was slow and i almost quit more than once but i felt much better.  i was so proud of myself for this achievement, i made sure the Brit knew all about it when i got home (i also pointed out that i did the dishes and swept the floor).  i was buttering him up to tell him that the dress i ordered may not be enough and i need to order one more just in case and then i’ll return the one i don’t wear.  he really doesn’t care.  again, it’s justifying my crapness for my own benefit.  i’m weird like that.

oh lordy, i’m craving donuts now too.  the boss is flying down from sydney tomorrow so i’ll tell him to bring us some.  i’ll have to pretend i’m busy again but i’ve booked him at a different desk than his usual one so he can’t see my screen.  i’m so sneaky but i’ll do whatever it takes to make it through the day.

so it’s almost time for the big announcement at our meeting. everyone is asking me what it’s about but i haven’t the foggiest.  my boss is visiting melbourne unexpectedly…maybe i’m being made redundant.  uh oh.  i won’t ask him for donuts then.

busy. grouchy. monday.

no time to write. i am sooo grouchy.

told you so.

i was feeling a bit under the weather yesterday so i went home early.  later that night at the pub,  i contemplated calling in sick today but couldn’t justify it (mainly because i was out instead of “resting”).  the Brit said “you’re going to regret not calling in sick…” i hate when he’s right.  i’m miserable.   a “wild” night of 2 drinks and stumbling in the door at ten o’clock cannot account for the increase in mucus production overnight.  these are the key takeaways of this story - i’m going home,  going out did not make me sicker and i should listen to the Brit more often (but don’t tell him i said that).

some things bear repeating.

i’ve posted about this already and you can read all about my rant here but people seriously annoy me.  the weather was horrible yesterday and with the rain,  all the loonies with their umbrellas came out.  i’m surprised i made it home with both my eyes unharmed.  some lady was charging forward with her umbrella in front of her so she couldn’t see anything.  i think she poked more than a few people in the chest.  there is a car lane and a bike lane.  there should be an umbrella people lane – they can torment each other with their huge golf umbrellas.  i got pushed out of the covered area of the tram stop by that same woman that was charging people with her stupid umbrella.  why the hell does she need to stand under the coverered bit?  she’s got her tacky pink leopard print umbrella (which she kept open whilst waiting under the covered bit!).  what’s worse is that she wouldn’t shut her umbrella fully until she got on the tram so it was mildly amusing watching her trying to board (she also didn’t wait for people to get off first, but that’s a totally different rant of mine).  then she shakes her umbrella next to me and gets my tights all wet.  i step back (maybe a bit melodramatically) and she kinda looks at me and says “oh, i guess it’s kind of wet, huh?”  yeah, no shit sherlock.  rain is wet and now it’s all over me (p.s.  not according the brit.  the brit will say that rain gets things wet but is rain itself really wet?  see how weird he is?  it’s one of those riddles where the answer at the end of the day is “who cares?”).  anyway,  she takes her wet umbrella and puts it on the seat across from her but at the next stop,  more people get on so she takes her umbrella off to let people sit but it’s all wet and people don’t want to sit there.  she shrugs her shoulders and puts her umbrella back on the seat.  the tranny in the gold lamé skirt sat on the wet seat.  umberella lady gave him funny loooks and clutched her umbrella like a weapon.  i just looked out the window, contemplated my wet stockings and hoped for sunny days the rest of the week.

tram people.

yesterday on my journey home on the tram, i sat next to a man wearing a gold lamé skirt,  track pants underneath, legwarmers and cowboy boots.  he also had a black eye.  i surmised that the gold skirt may have had something to do with the black eye.  if i wore it,  i would expect people to hit me.  it’s just wrong for anyone. 

just wanted to share.

tuesday.

a colleague of mine made the mistake of giving me sheets of bubble wrap to play with.  and they thought i couldn’t get any more annoying… 

my throat is killing me.  it’s a vicious circle -this cold/flu thing that i started here months ago.  it seems that it has found its way back to me.  my plan is to sweat it out with a long workout when i get home from work if my clothes are dry – i actually did a load of laundry last night.  the brit thought that aliens had taken over my body.  (hee hee, i said “load”).  anyway, the weather here has been really weird and i think it’s messing with me. my body is telling me to stay in bed.

tom cruise is in melbourne because his whats-her-name is filming a movie here.  i’m thinking i might hang out around the scientology institute (it’s down the road from my office) and see if there are any tom sightings (and maybe get a stress test while i’m there).  i’m going to have a find a poster of “cocktail” and ask him to autograph it citing it as his “best movie ever!”  i’m sure he’ll love me (everyone does!)

…. my bubble wrap just got taken away from me.  crapbags.  i’m going home.  promise to write more tomorrow.