25 things

right, so someone on their facebook is doing a random list of 25 things about yourself.  i don’t use facebook so my friend, let’s call him M,  emailed me and asked me to do one.  i think he just wants to see if there are 25 things he doesn’t know about me.  we shall see…are you ready M?

1. my favourite colour is orangey red.
2. i’m scared of heights.
3. i’m addicted to caffeine.
4. being late stresses me out
5. i was once asked to this same list but 100 things. i failed miserably. i think i can handle 25.
6. when i buy fruit and veggies at the market, i always have to make sure my final quantity is a prime number (yeah, don’t ask, i’m weird like that).
7. my favourite movie is “rear window”
8. my favourite book is “to kill a mockingbird”
9. i love the smell of bacon frying
10. the thing i miss most (besides friends and family) in america – taco bell
11. if money weren’t an issue and i could have any job in the world, i would be a dog walker
12. i blog because it’s cathartic.  these crazy thoughts have go somewhere
13. my favourite song is “joy to the world” by three dog night
14. i own every muppet movie.  my favourite?  muppets take manhattan
15. My favourite workout CDs are Outkast, Usher, Maroon 5, and Madonna (the husband is dismayed by my choices – music snob!)
16. i’m dying to go to china’s panda reserve (maybe this year)
17. i have over 100 pairs of shoes (had more but had to make room)
18. my biggest pet peeve is girls that wear makeup to the gym (on purpose)
19. the things i like the most about living in australia are the weather (with the exception of the recent heat wave), everyone is generally really friendly, and wombats
20. my  husband is my best friend
21. i regret nothing
22. i’m the youngest in my family
23. i wear two perfumes – fuzzy peach perfume oil from the body shop in the summer (even though the flies love it) and Marc Jacobs Cotton in the winter
24. my favourite flower is the gardenia (too bad i can’t keep mine alive!)
25. 95% of my wardrobe is black (i’ve been delving into colours lately)

so there it is.  there’s nothing you didn’t know already, i’m sure.  hmm, i’m not very mysterious i’m afraid.

birthday weekend part 2: the best part

yep, i’m another year older (but if anyone asks, i’m 25…again). and despite the incident with the weirdo last night, it was a perfect weekend.

we went to the opera on saturday morning (la rondine by puccini) which was lovely and then we got home, got ready for dinner and headed out to some fancy schmancy restaurant at the Crown Casino.  it was the end of the horrendous heat wave so it was cooling off a bit but that didn’t stop a really nasty case of heat rash.  i looked like i had scavies and couldn’t wear the dress i wanted to. minor setback, but i wasn’t going to let it get to me and by the time it was time to go, i wasn’t itchy anymore (i thought the Brit was going to make me wear mittens to keep from scratching).

dinner was really good. I had  $100 steak but to be honest, it tasted the same as a $30 steak so i don’t know what the fuss was all about. the Brit had kangaroo which tasted nice but it made me sad so i couldn’t eat any more of it. kangaroo is supposed to be really good for you but i just can’t do it.

after dinner we headed to the theatre to watch “the 39 steps.” it’s a play based on the alfred hitchcock movie and it was really really good. i was pleasantly surprised!

sunday i got to open my pressies!  I have to hand it to the Brit, he’s good. I got two DVDs (30 rock season 2 and an animal documentary “the life of reptiles” to complete my collection – say it – NERD!),  2 CDs (rachael yamagata and john legend) and (this is the best gift), a signed numbered print by one of my favourite artists at the moment Shag.  (picture below!). 

 after opening pressies and special morning birthday coffee, we walked into the city to buy me some games for my Nintendo DS.  I won’t tell you which games i got because  you will think i am extra nerdy.  after shopping, the husband cooked me extra special birthday brunch and we just watched movies for the rest of the day.  it was great.  birthdays are fun. i’m going to celebrate them more often.

birthday weekend recap part 1: the bizarre/scary part

i felt like i was in an episode of Cops last night.  some thug decided to jump our garden wall and hide out there for a while.  It’s not really a garden, it’s actually a narrow walkway which leads from the garden door of our bedroom to the garden door of the other bedroom.  The wall facing the garden in our bedroom is all glass so he woke us up (not to mention our window was wide open).  here’s a picture of our bedroom (on moving day  – the husband waiting for me to clean up my stuff so he could move the bed in).  you can see the garden wall just outside the window.

 

The Brit is running around upstairs, downstairs, back upstairs to check and double check that everything is locked.   I’m desparately trying to remember what 911 is in this bloody country. after debate, we tried 000 and were connected to a menu “fire, ambulance or police?”  oh christ, i can’t even formulate the correct answer in my head, i’m half asleep and freaking out, thinking that he’s going to jump through the bedroom window and thank goodness i’m wearing clean underwear…. “oh yes, police, thank you.” 

“what’s the problem miss?”

“um, yeah, some guy just jumped into our back garden and now he’s just sitting there. he tried to come in but we shut the window.”

I was shaking and freaking out and also incredulous at how dopey the person at the other end of the line was.  “can you describe the individual miss?”  and as i spurted out the description, i’d be interrupted by “okay, wait, hang on,  blaaaack paaants…” (you can hear her typing in the background, and it sounded like she only had one working finger).  i wanted to tell her to hurry up, i could be raped or dead in a few minutes but the Brit was stroking my head trying to keep me calm.

The police were at our door in less than two minutes and they had to use the garden door in our bedroom to apprehend the weirdo. so about 6 cops (wearing CSI gloves) come running in while the Brit is fumbling with my keys trying to figure out which one unlocks the door.  All I can think about is how our bedroom is a mess, my clothes are all over the place and they better not be stepping on any of them.  as soon as the back door is opened, i heard yelling, scurrying, i see the police guy pull his leg down (he’s trying to escape over the wall again) and they’re yelling at him to get down and put his hands behind his head.  It was scary and cool at the same time.  i didn’t even know cops here had guns.  I thought maybe they threw boomerangs and possums at people.

Turns out the dude was on the run for something else he did and the police were very happy to have him in their custody finally.  Sweet, i told the Brit we should get a medal of honour or some sort of prize (because i do love prizes!).

We were too keyed up to sleep so the Brit and I stayed up for a while and talked about what happened.  It was funny to hear what was going on in our heads during the incident.  I was doing a mental inventory of the dirty laundry on the floor of our bedroom and trying to remember if i left any of my underwear in plain view.  The Brit was saying that he was just trying to find ways to be helpful and the only thing he could think of was to put the kettle on and make the cops a cup of

 tea. 

I lived and worked in downtown detroit for almost ten years,  I lived in Chicago for five years during my University years.  I have seen some weird shit. I feel like nothing fazes me here because you can’t get any worse than detroit. this is the last place i thought this would happen.  I mean it’s flippin’ Melbourne for god’s sake. Cuckatoos fly around and i walk home from work by myself at night without a care in the world.  I blame the heat wave.  I think it makes people crazy. 

So… i didn’t get much sleep after that and i’m really sleepy today.  I think we’ll be sleeping with our window shut from now on.

stay tuned for the good part of the weekend.