Life at the Coop

The one where I ramble incessantly. Or, "A little more from the hilly city"

2013-12-21T17:47:00.001+11:00

I can't believe we've been on holidays now for two weeks. We were actually pretty surprised by how long it took us to wind down when we got here. I had this vision in my head while I was at work late at night trying to tie everything up before we left that I would get on the plane, sigh really deeply and then it would be all cocktails, high-fives and good times from then out. It didn't really happen like that. We were just wound so tight...

Anyway, if anything blows away the cobwebs it's a helmet-free bike ride across the Golden Gate Bridge. It's so sad how rebellious I felt to not be wearing a helmet. As we took the steep, curvy decent into Sausalito I didn't feel so rebellious. I just felt stupid and hoped I wouldn't die. The ride was amazing. Before catching the ferry back to the city we ate giant burgers and met a bearded busker with a small dog dressed as Santa. Apparently he runs for mayor every single year. This might finally be the year!

This would be the "long bob" I was recently treated to. Hmmm. It makes my top lip look even more invisible. Weird right?? #nothungupatall

Fire escapes!!

Greg is keen to see all the sport he can. Whenever we get to a hotel room he immediately turns on ESPN. I immediately smother the urge to strangle him. He got us tickets to see the Golden State Warriors play a little b-ball at Oracle Arena in Oakland. I learned that one of their best players (Bogat? Andrew Bogat??) grew up near Greg. Not that he knew him, but when in Rome...(yes, I am aware that metaphor does not apply here, and yes, I am too lazy to open Google and check the name of that player). The game was awesome. More like a concert or stage show- music, cheerleaders, motor cross stunt riders at half time, on-court competitions etc etc. and some of the players are hot. I get it now Kim Kardashian. That 72 days was well worth it.

Then back to more local sights- walked down Lombard St (yes, I'm wearing the beanie as much as possible until my hair grows back even the tiniest bit), clam chowder in bread bowls at the peer and I even managed to beat Greg at early C20th arcade games. Both duck shooting AND old school table hockey. Absolutely pantsed him.

The back story to this is that I am insanely competitive and he ALWAYS beats me at foosball and air hockey. In an act of pure self-torture on my 25th birthday in Venice I even made him play when I was in a bad mood because I thought everyone at home had forgotten me, including Mumsie. I later went on Facie and email and discovered they hadn't of course. But at the time I was in one of those moods where you could either laugh or cry at the drop of a hat. Greg's mind at the idea of playing his highly competitive girlfriend who stared him down and growled "don't you dare let me win. I'll know if you let me win just because it's my birthday" was extremely conflicted. He went through with the game. He won. I pouted and said it didn't matter and felt even more sorry for myself. Then went and logged onto the computer...award for the longest backstory ever. Thank you.

And then we got our Jack Kerouac on. The beat museum was really good considering it seems to run in the smell of an oily rag. Greg is wading through "On The Road" at the moment. I'm reading a Man Booker prize winner with bizarre incestual overtones. You know, the usual.

Peace out.

Be sure to wear flowers in your hair

2013-12-21T17:45:00.001+11:00

San Francisco is such a gorgeous city. I could easily see myself living there. Unfortunately I have zero tech or textile skills so I doubt I'm going to be headhunted by Google or Levi's anytime soon...

According to the guide book we'd missed the seals at Pier 39 and I was bummed, but we walked past and I cupped my little hand to my little ear and said "hark! Is that a large fish-eating mammal with very thick fur who resides in yonder sea?!" And lo and behold it was! I took about a billion photos and they were seriously entertaining. Some totally chilled out, soaking up the sunshine, others barking furiously and head butting each other off their perches. Good times.

We made it out to Alcatraz on a glorious sunny day. I'm annoyed that I can't edit my photos on the blog on the iPad so I can only post landscapes because I'm way too much of a Virgo (a Virgo who doesn't even believe in star signs, but a dyed in the wool Virgo nonetheless) to post some of the gorgeous portrait oriented photos I've taken. They would be all out of whack. All of these were taken on my phone as I can't upload any I've taken on my DSLR. The perfectionist in me fumes...also Greg gave me permission to copy in bits of his "reports" (aka emails to Nan) about our travels but I can't work this fandangled gadget to get it to copy and paste. Ah well, here is my (almost) wordless photo diary report...

At the top of curvy Lombard St

A cutie-patootie cable car

Seals, seals and more seals!

The back of my head as I'm watching seals...

The view of San Francisco from Alcatraz Island

Beautiful pastel painted buildings. I've fallen in love with painted ladies and fire escapes. Yep, fire escapes.

Toasting hard-fought freedoms in the Castro- the first gay bar in America to have large open windows. Now overlooking Harvey Milk Plaza. And amazing murals throughout the Mission...

Hello U. S. of A!

2013-12-12T19:41:00.000+11:00

We've arrived! Thanks for the welcome President Obama. You would never see a photo of an Australian prime minister in an airport so this sort of tickled us.

Our journey was loooong. About 26 hours in transit to San Francisco via LAX. I managed to lose my brand new duck down puffer jacket (still unlocated despite best efforts) so it's lucky the sun was shining when we finally got outside. I was furious with myself- just so wasteful, careless and inconvenient. Have to let it go, there's always something when you travel. We also managed to spend $80 just getting to our hotel as we took the bus to the wrong suburb at first. I could of cried. I was cold, had barely slept on the plane and we were now miles from where we should be. It was one of those "we'll laugh about this one day. Maybe. One day long from now" moments.

Anyway, first impressions- because everyone loves a list of (mostly) ridiculous first impressions... As Greg said "it's the little things that really do your head in"

* Americans sound even more American in America (I told you this was a list of ridiculous)

* the tipping system is really tricky to get your head around when you haven't grown up with it

* toilets fill up with heaps of water here! Sort of concerned I was going to get a wet bum at first...

* there is a lot of homelessness in San Fran. There is a lot in Melbourne too, we've just noticed it a lot here

* "coffee in open cups" that is Greg's offering- apparently he has noticed that people don't put the lid on for you. Hmmm, I hadn't noticed. I'll have to check this out and report back

* San Franciscans are really friendly and according to Greg very attractive

* beer is cheap, sport is on every second tv channel and news shows are hard to find

Speaking of cheap beer- 6 small Coronas "Coronita" for $10. Yes please!

Well, well well...

2013-12-05T23:28:00.000+11:00

We got married!

23 November 2013

Two weeks ago this Saturday. We had THE MOST AMAZING DAY EVER! Hopefully we are getting the official photos from the wedding photographer right before we jump on a jetplane for 7 weeks in the US and South America on Monday. This really has been one of the busiest, craziest, most expensive (!) and positively challenging years of my life. Hoorah! So now I will proceed to spam this seriously neglected blog with copious photos of our wedding. And our honeymoon. And I might even get around to telling the story of how I found myself getting a massage late at night in a brothel as per Jo's request. Oh, so much to do...

Here are a few of my favourites from my gorgeous friend Amy who flew all the way down from Brisbane and brought her handsome man too. Thank you! I'm not a huge kissing photo person, but I must admit that is one of my absolute faves!

Please excuse the excess of exclamation marks. I'm excited and overtired from trying to tie everything up at work to go away for seven weeks. SEVEN WEEKS!!!! Oh and I'm also coming down from having all my hair chopped off today. I swear I look like a brown haired version of Miranda in the early years of Sex and the City. Not good at all. Ah well, I'll just cover my grave mistake of trusting my insanely delightful hairdresser with a beanie as we are flying to a cold climate...oh yeah, photo dump time...

And an Instagram from my new sister-in-law for good measure. I'd about say this sums up our wedding day. It was laughs and hilarity from start to finish.

Another year! (and a month...) Rooster gets old.

2013-07-03T23:58:00.000+10:00

So back around a month ago Schmegeggy had a little birthday. I say little because we made it a wild party of two. Well, actually three. Banjo came into bed with us in the morning to watch Daddy open his presents. I was telling the ladies about this at lunch, stressing the bit where I got up before 7am and cooked bacon and eggs for the birthday boy. He offered to drop me at work as a thank you but I popped back to bed just to rest my eyes for a moment before showering. Open my eyes and the clock is shoving a big fat red 9AM in my eyeballs. Just more proof that I do not function before the sun is over the yard arm. We had a visitor up from another campus at lunch. Very reasonably she asked what sort of dog Banjo was. I replied "Um...he's a stuffed monkey". In a flash her face conveyed a myriad of emotions. I'm going to interpret them as measures of admiration for our vivid fantasy life whilst renting a no-dogs-allowed apartment. I refuse to recognise any shades of pity...

Greg isn't into sweets but I just don't believe that it's really a birthday without cake. I spent two days labouring over the Mint Chocolate Chip Cake from Raspberri Cupcakes. It was an homage to Greg's one sweet indulgence- the mint Choctop at the cinema. I didn't have any cones, so unlike Steph's masterpiece I decorated mine with Mint Slice biscuits. No less indulgent. And this cake was saweeeeet! Even I struggled through my (very large) serve. The rest was packed off to Greg's work to share with his salesmen bff's. I also packed him some corn chips, spicy salsa and Pringles to share at play lunch. Remember play lunch?!

If I don't score points with his workmates with chips and cake I never will.

Happy birthday my studly ginger one. May the next year (read 11 months due to my bloggity slackness) bring you adventures galore.

And hopefully a house and a rescue greyhound.

..I'll wish for that at my birthday too and we might have twice the chance of making it happen.

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If Alanis Morisette wrote a little ditty about my life...

2013-06-21T20:07:00.004+10:00

Well by Jove it's been a busy few weeks at the Coop. Or rather, it's been a busy few weeks outside the Coop. It doesn't feel like we've been home much *she says preparing to go out the door and down to Mumsie's*. That there is a bit of irony. Irony- "One of the most misused words in the entire English language" according to Urban Dictionary. I would have to agree. In fact I don't even know if I just used it correctly then. Let's refer to a definition:

i·ro·ny (r-n, r-)n. pl. i·ro·nies
1.
a. The use of words to express something different from and often opposite to their literal meaning.
b. An expression or utterance marked by a deliberate contrast between apparent and intended meaning.
c. A literary style employing such contrasts for humorous or rhetorical effect. See Synonyms at wit¹.
2.
a. Incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs: "Hyde noted the irony of Ireland's copying the nation she most hated" (Richard Kain).
b. An occurrence, result, or circumstance notable for such incongruity"

- The Free Dictionary

Hmmm...Alanis Morissette used a fair bit of poetic license in her 1996 hit of the same name. I mean let's consider the following:
"It's like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife"- I'm going to pay that one. That seems fairly ironic (and annoying) to me.
"It's meeting the man of my dreams/ And then meeting his beautiful wife"- that's not ironic. That's just unfortunate. It's far more ironic that she wrote a tortured break-up smash hit about Uncle Joey wanting to marry her and then got engaged to hottie-mc-hot Ryan Reynolds...

Anyway using Alanis' poetic licence here is my version of Ironic...

It's like having TWO social events to go to on the weekend (when usually you mooch on the couch eating junk and slothing it up) and looking at your hairbrush on the Friday morning and thinking "geez I've had that thing forever". Hairbrush instantly disappears. This is a one bedroom apartment. Where the hell did it go??

It's like having Sam Kekovich use you sitting in the front row as the butt of his "dumb young girl doesn't know big words" jokes in a stand up routine when you majored in English literature at university. Seeing as I was sitting with a Liberal MP candidate that the footy club is trying to squeeze $2 mill from I sat through 20 minutes of it with my best smile and jolly hahaha!'s while thinking "I am in fact aware what a sonnet is and you're lucky they aren't serving your precious lamb cutlets or I'd stab you with the blunt end you vile misogynist". The sonnet is the only example I can remember of the whole, long, twenty minutes. There was a hell of a lot more of it. Got to love comedy!

It's like looking forward to new/clean sheets day for way longer than you care to admit and after nestling into bed realising that your bum has just rubbed a hole right through to the mattress. Have I bothered to change the poor threadbare bottom sheet again? Hell no! That would require effort. Instead I'm turning it into a science experiment. How many days until my bum sends the rip over to Greg's side?

It's like irony is a lot of work dude. I'm packing this in and looking forward with great pleasure to driving an hour and a half to go squeeze Mumsie. See that? Irony.

Side note: Sam Kekovich is actually a really good public speaker. Damn it!

Blast from the past: 90s pop edition

2013-06-12T00:53:00.001+10:00

Today a dream I never realised I had was fulfilled. Anyone remember this song?

I'm not sure if it was just a one hit wonder in Australia or if it went further than that. As soon as I heard it my immediate guess was that I had danced to Apple Eyes in my lounge room as a tween in 1996. Close, it's actually from 1995. Anyway today I met the lead singer. He's an anthropology lecturer at the university I work at. How bizarre is that?! From 90s pop front man to crusty old anthropology lecturer!

Actually he's not crusty at all, he's aged very well and is hilarious. I can't believe I've only found this out now. To be fair he does work at a different campus to me and I would never have made the connection in a million years so it's not so surprising that it's only just come to my attention. Luckily we have fabulous colleagues who don't let him - or others - forget his colourful glory days!

So, a real blast from the past. Ever met a (possibly faded) pop icon??

Currently

2013-06-05T23:34:00.000+10:00

watching: teen mom 2, series 4. greg has training every night this week so i'm loading up on trash

eating: wish i could say teresa cutter's cauliflower and white bean soup like i had planned, but i was lazy and ate chocolate covered fruit and nut for dinner instead!
recovering from: bodystep last night. step aerobics classes are so bizarre when you think about it

wearing: my new slippies from target. SO cozy

obsessing over: game of thrones and the last few episodes of the walking dead
theme: prep for winter hibernation...

Nervous

2013-06-04T23:14:00.002+10:00

Last week I got to spend three days down in Queenscliff on a professional development course. I LOVE PD. I love how so often you get as much from it personally as you do professionally. Well, unless it's a three hour session on Excel. Blerg! We stayed at the beautiful Vue Grand Hotel built in 1881 and my room overlooked the old post office. Not that I was on the balcony for long, I'd have freezed my baguettes off...I did manage to be disciplined enough to fit in a run (mostly walking and stopping to take photos) each night. It's ridiculous how much eating, networking and thinking can take it out of you!
I'd forgotten how sleepy Queenscliff is in the winter...

A shocking iPhone photo but isn't the glass amazing?

The first two days were focused on middle management and run by a psychologist. She was amazing. I loved her. I wanted to put her in my pocket and take her home with me. During the break I got talking to her about my "issues". It was totally work related. I swear I don't run around badgering random psychologists about my personal life- Scouts honour! She could tell that I wasn't completely at ease with things and asked if I was seeing someone. I explained that I had in the past but it had run its course blah blah blah and I hadn't found anyone new. Could she recommend anyone near me?

So tomorrow night I have my first session with a new psychologist and I am NERVOUS. Not because I don't know what to expect, but because I do. I hate the first session where you have to explain all the back story and yadda yadda. It feels like I've done it so many times. What I am most nervous about though is that I'm actually going to like this lady. That I might actually get something out of it and it will be the beginning of an exhausting and soul-uprooting "journey" that may last months. I'm tired even thinking about it.

I would recommend counselling to anyone in a heartbeat. It can be such an amazing experience for the littlest problems to the biggest (although I do sometimes entertain an internal debate about it being a totally self-indulgent, white, middle-class thing to do. That is a whole other blog post though). And you can't just give up if you don't take to the first professional you try. I suppose that's why I'm back here again. I'm not willing to live anything but my best possible life. It's just so bloody exhausting. Not to mention expensive!

Rooster says- Ray Charles edition

2013-05-21T21:02:00.000+10:00

Grumpy hates iPhone selfies...

Greg: Remember in that Ray Charles movie where he tells how good looking a woman is by touching their hand?
Me: That's what you took from that movie?!

(We were talking about love languages after I took an online test. Physical touch is second for me behind quality time. Look how much he enjoys quality time with me...)

***

Day 21: A list of links to your favourite posts in your archives

A post about begging for your partners urine here
Giant hot dog attack at Xmas here
Photos of my own conception (!) here
A post about home and my big old fur baby here
An explanation of Pancake Theory here and
A list entitled "It's not cool but I..." here
Some thoughts on managing mental illness here

D.E.T.E.R.M.I.N.E.D. aka the crocodile did it?

2013-05-20T22:37:00.000+10:00

Day 20: Get real. Share something you're struggling with right now

Well to be honest I'm sure as hell struggling with this "Blog Every Day in May" challenge! Realised yesterday that it had been ten days since my last post. Sheesh! Anyway I'm determined to get them all done even if it takes until Christmas. D.E.T.E.R.M.I.N.E.D.

So in light of this struggle here is day 10, 10 days late...

Day 10: Most embarrassing moment (s). Spill

This was tricky. I have so many! But after stumbling upon some old travel photos of the Rooster and I in the Lauterbrunnen valley, Switzerland, I have settled on what to me, is the cringe worthy story of The Finger:

We stayed the longest in Lauterbrunnen of anywhere in Europe. I think it ended up at around 9 or 11 days? We'd planned on 5. Apparently we were just shy of winning the longest stay extension award at our camping ground (we sacrificed Lake Como. Sorry George Clooney). So many beautiful mountains to hike up and mountain-bike down, waterfalls to explore and cows with REAL bells on them just wandering down the street. Simply meandering! Man it was something else! As you can imagine from the height of those cliffs, it was also very popular with base jumpers. Apparently on average one died in the region every week that summer. We met some absolutely mad base jumpers in the evening. Those guys and girls are intense as a rule.

So anyway, to the embarrassing bit...for several days we had passed one particular base jumper on the trails and always stopped for a quick chat. Not sure where he was from, but he was a lovely. A friendly, totally insane base jumping dude. One night at the pub we bumped into him right as I was about to take a photo of our group. You know when you travel and you have to do that awkward apologetic "excuse me, sorry to bother you but would you mind taking our photo?" etc etc. It gets old real quick. Seeing as I knew the guy (and probably had a few beers under my belt) I thought I'd mix it up and be a little cheeky. "So how are you with your index finger?" I asked him holding my camera up. He replied; "Oh that ones fine, it's just the middle one I'm missing". He proceeded to hold up his right hand and his middle finger was completely absent. Holly molly. I paused and asked meekly "Oh how did that happen?" whilst trying to will the beetroot red from entirely enveloping my face. "A crocodile got it".

Somehow I doubted that but at that point I just said something lame like "ouch" and handed my camera over. I was hardly going to challenge the guy on the story of his missing finger after putting my very large foot in it! I wanted to dig a hole and crawl in. The first time I had ever said something cheeky and ridiculous about fingers to a semi-stranger I was asking a favour of and said stranger was actually missing a finger. You can bet I stuck with the old "sorry, excuse me..." for the rest of the trip.

To make my humiliation worse we kept seeing him around for several days. He was just so nice. I wanted to face-palm whenever I thought of it. Luckily Greg couldn't tease me too much. He'd arm wrestled a guy with Bells Palsy in Prague. By accident of course. He was mortified so knew where I was coming from.

Yeah, we do and say some weird and positively un-PC things when travelling. We are probably a good pair. I'll leave you with some snaps of the amazing Lauterbrunnen valley...

2009 australian rules football grand final. we got up at 5am and rode a cable car up the mountain to watch as our team was playing. greg had arranged with a man with satelite tv to open his pub super early so that we could watch. five of us trekked up that hill bleary eyed to find that the channel needed a subscription! luckily greg had brought the laptop last minute. we huddled around the teeny tiny screen as the sun rose on the hills around us. it was beautiful. oh and our team won! later that evening greg may have been dancing naked draped in his footy jersey in a mountain nightclub.

i was asleep!

the beer tower. not such a challenge

my birthday present from eggory- paragliding!

our favourite cafe in lauterbrunnen (this photo doesn't do it justice), with a book swap room in the back and delicious coffee- it was run by aussies!

picture postcard perfect!!!! we love you lauterbrunnen

Baby lovin' & blog lovin'

2013-05-19T22:54:00.001+10:00

A beautiful moment from my Sunday: baby Kits' 1st birthday!

Congrats Rabbit and husband on getting her to the 1 year milestone.
She is an absolute delight and "Aunty" George loves her to bits xx

George, Rabbit, Kits, Kylie (Aunty KiKi) and her real Aunty Emelie

Some quick iPhone photos I just had to share. This one shows exactly how much Aunty George loves this little one (she basically thinks I'm a freak). This party and all the details were amazing. Rabbit did an incredible job- including making the birthday dress! So many photos to show off soon...

Day 19: Five of your favourite blogs and what you love about them

Nat the Fat Rat

I've mentioned this one before. I totally heart Natalie. Love her writing and her general spirit. Getting lots of ideas about our coming (honeymoon) Christmas in New York from this lovely lady.

The Daybook

The blog that first got me into blogs. Found pictures of her cute style on Pinterest and started following her life as she went from fashion blogger to new Mum. Her little baldie is absolutely edible.

This Little Port

A local favourite. Well local-ish, as in Australian! Although having said that she is a Canadian ex-pat. I enjoy her blog for the craft, photography, healthy cooking and yoga. I might not get as much of all four in my life to the extent that I would like, but hey, that's what living vicariously through others is for!

Design*Sponge

Another one of my first blogs. Before I even really realised I was reading a blog...gorgeous homes, styling, DIY projects and peaks into the way people live and design around the world. Too much great content.

Meet Me At Mike's

Ok a real local! She even lives close to my old share-house-of-love in Brunswick. Pip is an amazing creator and a truly good lady. Her voice through her blog is so authentic and she always replies to comments/tweets etc. She even taught me to crochet through her video tutorials. Without all out stalking I hope I run into her in Melbs one of these days...