Convoy...

I can't quite believe I haven't managed any kind of update all week. Very slack.

Anyway, it has been unusually busy.

Last weekend was mainly taken up with KAT's funeral. It was very difficult, a very sad funeral with lots of people paying tribute to him. I was struck by the amazing sincerity of everyone who spoke. And the strength of his family.

Thinking about the funeral, I think one of the things that really struck me was how much KAT's job defined him. And in turn whether my job could define me in the same way. I know that presently my work doesn't let me do everything that I would like it to. But I know in time that will happen. And I'm not quite ready to pack it in and become a social worker just yet. So we'll see.

Sunday was Kate's birthday and we all went for luch at Prego. Usually I love the place. The food is great, the staff are friendly and the food arrives quickly. Famous last words...we waited an hour and a half for lunch. And because I had ordered ten minutes later than everyone else, my food arrived promptly ten minutes after everyone else. Great work. In their defence, they didn't charge for bread. Hmmm. Not really good enough guys.

After Prego it was off with Larkin to shoot a piece for class until seven, when I met up with Jeff. I'd asked Jeff if I could visit his Church CCC with him. We went to a Youth Service, where a band played. It was interesting but a little too long, clocking in at two hours. But an new experience. I don't think I'll be religion shopping any time soon though.

The week is a bit of a blur of working, editing, babysitting...Thursday was the first time I really went out. Mum and I checked out my friend Sera's new fashion line and then went to Delicious for dinner. I ordered by current favourite, the sweeeet walnut and kumara ravioli. But the curse hit again when the food took around thirty minutes to arrive. Slow for those guys. Not too good.

Friday night was work drinks, for the Sports Inc. leaving party. Then Becs, Nick, Q, Sim and I had some great Sing Star action, before we went home and I hung out with ET under the super patio heater. Highlight of the Winter so far. Saturday was laid back, with long coffees at Benediction (ironically Mum who was there meeting Imy waited fourty minutes for eggs...the curse strikes again!). Caught up with Rowan in the afternoon, and went for beers at GTR.

Around 8.30 people started to arrive for drinks before we headed to the Fleet FM Convoy. Down at the old Pacific Fisheries Building there was lots happening. The space was busy, and the bar packed. The bands were good, with my highlight being Pluto. I have to admit that I've never been a big fan, despite a lot of friends being really into them. But last night they begun to win me over. They played an energetic, tight set, and I for the first time really appreciated their singles. They really got the crowd going, and were the best band of the night.

But not the most fun. Connan and the Mockasins from Wellington were easily the most entertaining and fun band. They were great, double bass and all, and I felt annoyed I haven't managed to see them before. So a good night, with a great crowd. Lots of faces I haven't seen in ages and it was great to catch up with people. Especially lots of Toms' friends, who we haven't really seen since he left.

Today was relaxed with coffee at Ripe with Jess and Rico. Then I filmed a good interview with Jeff. Luckily, he's great on camera. Dad and I had planned to go and see the new Woody Allen film only to find that it's come and gone already. Lame. Instead we went to the new lounge cinema at the Lido to see Crash. Both were great. The cinema is just perfect, great screen, seats and sound. And the film was as good as I'd been promised (good pick there John). It was quite gut wrenching in a lot of parts, but a really satisfying film, and amazingly well cast. Pretty much a must see. Although Peter Calder only saw fit to give it two stars which will pretty much guarantee a short season. Damn his stranglehold on film reviewing.

Busy week ahead, getting ready to lauch the new food channel. Good times I'm sure. And uni "holidays", although that means veeerrry little.

This is just to say...

So this week has been a kind of personal equivalent of that funny week where Princess Di (I know) and Mother Teresa died a few years back. Two more giants died this week, both of them important in my little sphere. First off, and I suppose this is an odd one, but I was really sad that David Lange died. He was our possibly one and only likeable and witty politician.

The second is far more of a personal friend. Not a public figure. But last night, Mr Trembath, of high school English fame died. His death is hugely sad. He was a greatly influential person and an amazing teacher. He had struggled with cancer for the last few years and it seemed for awhile like he might beat it.

Although I was expecting it, it's still a big shock. I had hoped he would be someone who would be around for a long time. His funeral is on Saturday and I hope that a lot of his ex students will show up.

And the title? Vintage William Carlos Williams, and one of KAT's favourites.

Nesting

After a monster week at work, by Friday I was totally ready for a break. On Thursday night I was ready for some light relief and went to see The Wedding Crashers with Hannah and Jess. The movie wasn't the best- I never thought Swingers would be the high point of Vince Vaughan's career, but it was funny. Although I am guaranteed to laugh at any film containing a drunken grandparent. Highly amusing. And Owen Wilson was good, as per usual.

Friday evening was the first part of the Senior College Ten Year Anniversary Reunion. As exciting as it sounds, it was not a winner of an event. I'd somehow been shang-haied into making a speech. Still not sure how that happened. So when I finished work on Friday, I trotted down to my old high school, which was a very odd feeling. And then, a small disaster struck. The cobblestones outside the library wrenched the heel off my shoe. I figured the easiest thing to do was to rip off the other one, leaving me with a semi-destroyed pair of Costume National flats. My favourite part had to be the small sticking-out nails which dug me into the carpet for the rest of the night.

The function itself was not too exciting. I had a little too much wine, out of boredom, endured lots of Living Channel jokes from old teachers and mentally berated all the people I would have actually liked to have seen for not being there. The speech itself went pretty well. I ditched the speech I wrote in favour of a bit of impromtu action, which came off okay. The sad part of the night was the news that my favourite English teacher, Mr Trembath is now very sick, with terminal cancer. He's been fighting it for around two years now, which is a huge achievement. Very sad news, about an amazing person.

On Saturday afternoon, I had agreed to host an afternoon tea for Tiffany, a kind of extended birthday for Sasa. Kate brought around masses of baking, and we got stuck into some wine. It was a fun afternoon, which went on almost until it was time for dinner.

Dinner was a huge group affair. Anton, Rosie, Hannah and I had planned to have dinner and catch up. Somehow this turned into fourteen of us cramming around a huge table at SPQR. We ordered platters, pizzas and lots of beer. After SPQR, we moved onto Orchid, Rakinos and then Crow. We hung out there until about four, when Donna decided to move everyone onto a hotel room, and I decided to go home. Very sensible.

Today was spent catching up on some stuff at work, and then hanging out with Jenna, for a long overdue catch up. Q came around for dinner, and we threw together a great Sunday night meal. I have to say that I'm quite enjoying having the house to myself...although I do miss Nick. The house is looking very nice at the moment though, I even put new curtains up yesterday...I think the Living Channel is having a dire effect on me...

OOOOOhakune

Just arrived back from the mountain, via Sasa's first birthday party. Bit tired, and still residually cold, but coping.

No surprises that we ended up at Crow on Thursday night. I went to Mea Cupla and Dida's first, making it a bigger night than intended. Dida's was great, luckily we had a friend working there so we managed to get in, as it's always packed. Perfect tapas and great wine, so it's easy to see why. Crow was fun, but on the quiet side, which was a shame as the D4 were dj-ing and playing some great stuff.

Managed to escape Auckland at 1.30 on Friday, which was a little later than planned, but there was lots of running around involved. Trip was pretty uneventful apart from a very unfortunate speeding ticket in National Park. Not good. Policeman was obsessed with demerit points and didn't take well to my response of "Who cares about demerit points?" when he asked me how many I had...now I have 55.

We found our chalet without a problem and spent the night drinking and playing Singstar after we borrowed a television from some kind neighbours. The next morning Jess and I made breakfast before the ski obsessed Isabel, Erica and Hannah headed off for the mountain. Goose had already left at dawn to get a in full day. Et, Jess and I had no such motivation and lazed around before heading into town for coffee and hanging out at the Powderkeg, where we met up with Mark and his friends.

That night we hung out together at the chalet, for another round of drinks and Singstar before heading out to a party at Simon's house, where Mark was. It was a fun party with a huge fire going. We stayed there until we got too many dirty looks for taking over the stereo, so we headed into Mardi Gras proper. Which was actually quite hideous, and kind of like paying to go into a death camp. We were thinking about leaving after we'd tried a few revolting bars, and then somehow scammed out way into a party at the Powderkeg. Et and I were still keen to go home though so we used our new handy trick of smoking inside in order to get asked to leave (she likes to do it while saying loudly "The bar gets fined not the individual"). Highly amusing. So we did go home, and I got a semi-early night before the drive back in the morning.

We were away at 7.30, and made it back to Auckland in five hours. When we turned up at Tiffany's with presents in hand, the fairy bread was in full swing. Sasa is very sweet and growing up super quickly, even though he has recently been forced to become a vegetarian...A good end to a fun, if action packed weekend.

Brrrr

It was so cold this morning that my windscreen had a layer of ICE on it, which I had to wash off before I could go anywhere. And by go anywhere, I wait ten minutes for the pathetic thing to defrost the window so I could see. So seriously Winter. And yet, the days are beautiful and sunny. I hope this holds for the weekend. Then I think I'll be looking forward to it a lot more.

My class on Tuesday meant that I spent Monday night (until Desperate Housewives) editing my piece with Hannah in it at work with Becs helping/doing big chunks. My AVID skills are so bad. Luckily we have all sorts of AVID jockeys at work. One helped me master the lasso tool. It just still seems so clunky. I can't wait until it starts to make some kind of sense.

Class was at ten on Tuesday. I got Rose to give me a lift down from work in the new Living Channel-branded Smart Car. It was the first time I'd been in a Smart Car, and it was quite weird. For a start you feel like Gulliver, and then everything's so folded up and fastened away it all looks too dinky too work. Car aside, class was good. I got really nervous about showing my piece, as I have the sneaky, and correct, suspicion that I'm the least camera-experienced in the class. Plus my editing sucks, as discussed above. But I was saved from that as instead we all talked through two of our doco ideas. I think Jeff and Play It Strange held up really well, and luckily, I'm good at talking about things. To the point that I'm actually looking forward to pitching in a few weeks, and thinking about going in for competitive pitching at some point. So I didn't lose face horribly in class. Maybe only the tutor, who I assured I could shoot and edit, will know my horrible secret.

After work, I met my parents in town at a friend Olivia's exhibition opening. Unlike a few of the Elam shows I've been to recently, the art was great. Unfortunately a great series that my parents loved sold just before they got there, cutting short my visions of the paintings hanging on my bare white walls...Apart from the lack of beer, the opening was lots of fun, and I ran into a few buddies, including one person that I just keep running into, in the nicest way (sounds mysterious huh? It is).

We went for dinner at Prego afterwards. Dad's still stoked after they sold the Sultan's property and got a nice write-up in the Herald last Saturday. Prego was great, I hadn't been there for ages, except for take out, and it reminded me of how good it is. We kicked off with some great oysters (I wish the season was all year) and calamari. Then I kept on with seafood, with a lovely char-grilled hapuka fillet. So good. We all sat outside, and they thoughtfully provided rugs, so we al sat around looking like old men under our blankets.

Today was a very frustrating day at work, where I couldn't get a whole bunch of stuff finished. On the plus side, I managed to hook my friend Morgan up with a researching job so he's in the office. It's funny, we haven't seen each other properly for ages, now he's in the next room. We went and had lunch together today, at this Japanese place I keep walking past. It's called Toki, and is in the back streets somewhere. It's really good. They have a different daily ten dollar special. Today was a deep fried pork lunchbox, with little side dishes, miso and cut up fruit. New favourite. Can't wait to take Olly there. And they play eighties classics.

Went to the gym when I finished today, for the first time in way too long. Seemed very busy, and everyone was very focussed and working hard. I didn't go for that long. It was good though; I'll go more. Supermarket followed, where I stocked up on pancake supplies and general junk for the weekend. Should be fun. I'm taking Jess and Mark down, leaving at twelve on Friday, assuming I can sneak away from work. We're all going for Yum Cha tomorrow, so I might mention it then, to avoid any surprise jobs.

Am a bit worried about warmth situation in Ohakune- after quick clothes inventory, I think the only way to keep warm will be to wear all clothes at once. At least now the revolting Ugg boot things will be in their element...One of the two guys coming just bailed, giving us a very estrogen heavy chalet. Will be interesting. Hope there are no warring parties. Sure there won't be. Although, there will be board games involved...(yes, we are VERY cool).

Of course, before any of that happens, there's Simon's Party at Crow tomorrow night, which promises to be a good one, with lots of Jagermeister flowing. Could be trouble, except that I am very restrained and will only pop in before getting lots of sleep before the drive on Friday.

Poseurs

At work on a Monday, and everything looks as fuzzy as I feel because I forgot to bring my glasses. Again, a powerful case for contacts.

Haven't posted since Wednesday, which seems long ago now. Have packed a bit in since then. Met with Jeff again on Thursday which was good. Doco is taking shape more and more. It's becoming a lot less abstract, which although good, is something I want to keep an eye on. This is a creative project after all. Jeff seems happy with how things are going though.

On Thursday night, Hannah, Nick and I went to see The Machinist. I'd heard varying things about the film, and it leaned towards the not so good side of things. Christian Bale was great, and looked terrible, weighing in at around 47 kilos for the role. But the film itself too far too long to build. When the twist happened, we'd been waiting for it for a good hour. A good idea, but it seems like Fight Club or maybe Memento launched a whole genre of memory/personality based films when one good one would have done. And they are both good enough. So no more please. Still waiting for Sin City to come out here so I can go and see that again. Film Society starts next Monday which is going to be good. Looking forward to getting back into it.

Friday was quiet, with work drinks at the Empire, and then an evening spent babysitting and watching the OC. Saturday, I cafe-hopped, taking in Ripe, Dizengoff and 5 Loaves. A very impressive list. Loving Ripe at the moment. Had a super mushroom risotto ball there on Saturday. Well worth going to, and good take out.

Saturday night was almost as big as planned, but not as much fun for some reason. Started out at Rosie's house, with Olly, Mark and Hannah. We moved onto Lucy's party, taking the special party mix CD and lots of vodka. There we commandered the stereo for manic dancing, which was lots of fun.

Here's the Lucy Party CD tracklisting:

1. Take On Me- A Ha
2. 3 is the Magic Number- De La Soul
3. Deceptacon- Le Tigre
4. True Faith- New Order
5. Honest Mistake- The Bravery
6. Oh! You Pretty Things- David Bowie
7. Girls and Boys- Blur
8. Lola- The Kinks
9. Girls on Film- Duran Duran
10. Mr Brightside- The Killers
11. Teenage Kicks- The Undertones
12. Just Like Heaven- The Cure

Alek and Meredith showed up around 12, Meredith still in full cabaret costume from her work party. A gang of us headed to Rising Sun for Poseurs, the all night Kiss and Make Up Club party. Charlie Ash were playing when we got there, and I wasn't too impressed with them. Luckily, DJ Geekboy aka Andrew jumped on after them and saved it with lots of music for dancing. Everyone peeled off one by one though, and I went home around three, feeling that Kiss and Make Up lost something in the translation. Crowd seemed very different anyway. And not for the better.

Went out with the parents to Gloria for breakfast on Sunday (actually best Eggs Benedict in town). After that somehow got shanghai-ed into going to 'a drive' up to the Kaipara Harbour. Four hours later...was nice to get out of Auckland though. Hung out at Rosies after, discovered happily that I had left my keys there and not somewhere in town. Popped into Hannahs to see her and Goose, and then headed home to find Nick looking very sorry for himself and lying on the couch. Lucy popped over for a post-party catch up, and after that I called it a night and a rather long weekend...