Monday, September 22, 2008

4th Anniversary

So Viva and I have now been married for 4 years ! Wow ! Where did that time go ??

I was in a bit of a dilemma coming into this one though - namely because of the gift. I am trying to go the traditional route with anniversary gifts - and so is Viva. Our first anniversary ( paper ) I got her tickets to something ( a show of some sort - damned if I can remember right now what it was... ), and she got me a book of the 'Indian Ink' play scripts. We both flagged the second anniversary gifts as cotton was too hard. The third anniversary gift ( leather ) was a nice pair of gloves from me ( I know what you're thinking - and the reason I didn't go for THAT idea was that I didn't get her measurements in time. You can't just get that stuff off the shelf y'know ! ). I received a pretty sharp belt ( not round the head either ! Tee hee ... ).

But the 4th anniversary ? Flowers and fruit. Hmmm.

Hard to get something really cool there. I mean - there's the obvious idea I guess, but who wants to be obvious ?

I was quite stumped. And then I had a odd ( and mildly disturbing ) dream. I was a student in this bizarre Tim Buton-esque school. I was in a science class of some sort - and a Goth girl student was having an argument with the crusty old professor about the chemical symbol for silver ( while a hulking, shaggy haired behemoth of a student was lurching around behind us - he had rope nooses instead of hands - which was the mildly disturbing part ).

'Silver!' one would shout - pointing at a symbol on the board.

'SILVER !' the other shouted back - pointing at a different symbol.

On and on it went until I woke up - crying out a strangled 'Silver!' myself !

And then it hit me - a silver charm bracelet ! I had seen these really cool 'Pandora' ones in the window of Pacific Jewelers in Johnsonville. I did some research on line to see if there were any fruit or flower charms, found that there were, and zapped in to get one !

Freaking genius !

Viva really liked it - and it has the bonus for me that I can now get OTHER charms as other gifts !! Everyone is happy !

Thanks strange and mildly disturbing dream !

( Viva got me a selection of fruit based sweets, and a bottle of apple wine - and freaking yummy they are too ! :-) )

Monday, September 08, 2008

Fathers day and Bill Bailey

This entry is mostly to answer Debbie's comment from the last post, seeing as she has been nice enough to be leaving them !

My first father's day was very nice indeed. I spent the lion's share of the day with Angelo - who had got me a lovely framed photograph of himself for a present ( got through his PA I think ). We had visits from friends for lunch - and Grandma and Grand-dad visited later on ( which, yet again, made doing any marking difficult - but screw it ! ).

The Bill Bailey concert / show / gig / whatever was very VERY funny - my face was hurting for a good hour afterwards and I think I damaged my friend's hearing. We had KILLER seats too ! We were three rows from the front, pretty close to the middle.
As is always the case with comedy - I remember very little about the show ! Why the hell is that ? Anyway - some of the funny things I remember him talking about were :

- England's potential opening ceremonies for their olympics, with a giant inflatable Winston Churchill dancing to a drum and bass 'God Save the Queen', and a robotic Queen shooting corgies from her neck
- His deep suspicion of joggers - who always find the bodies...
- A hilarious emo self-hurt song
- The Bucharest flag being two bears fighting over a pineapple ( which, I was sorry to discover, it isn't )
- An argument with various parts of his subconscious ( 'I control you!' 'No ! WE control YOU!!' )
- Satan singing Lionel Richie songs.
- How England's national anthem should be changed to "The Pink Panther"
- NZ's border patrol being obsessed with finding illicit potpourri

Laugh ? I almost died.

It was a nice break for Viva and me too - I think it might have been a little more scary for her to have been away from Angelo - but his aunt looked after him really well !

A great night out, and worth every cent of the ludicrously expensive tickets.

Monday, September 01, 2008

Sister and Babysitting

Here follows a transcript of a conversation between my sister and my father concerning the baby-sitting that she's going to do for us on Friday night so we can go and see Bill Bailey ( yay ! ) :

Dad - So ... I hear that you're going to baby-sit Angelo on Friday night.

Sis - Yup. It'll be fun.

Dad - ... Do you need any help ? I can come down you know - I should probably come down.

Sis - I've got it under control dad.

Dad - But, it's a baby - you haven't baby-sat before, have you ? I think I should come down.

Sis - I've baby-sat LOTS of times. I'll be fine.

Dad - But you might not be ! What if he needs changing ? Can you change him ? Have you even changed a baby before ?

Sis - Yeah. Loads. I'll be fine.

Dad - But ... um ... what if he starts crying ?

Sis - Oh, I'll just shake him until he stops.

Apparently a lot of conversations between my dad and sister end with my dad telling my sister to "Shut up!".

I wonder why.