I hope you washed your hands ...

Tonight's shift was one of the smoothest, but definitely the strangest, that I've had in recent memory. I was working with Welsh Boy in our usual section and asides from a minor delay (which I shall describe below), everything went swimmingly. We got tipped, we had tables leave on time (or early), we got our resets done. We even sat a table three times. Yet it didn't seem busy. Strange, like a lot of our customers.

There were small weirdnesses like the kid who ordered two drinks at the one time, and the kid who refused his free ice cream. There were slightly bigger weirdnesses like the Australian family who left Welsh Boy their contact details but no tip and the Chinese man with the driving cap who nearly sent his steak back cause it had bacon on it ("That's the pancetta sir, it's Italian bacon,") and then scraped the bacon onto the table for me to clean up later ($10 tip, very surprised). Then there were the major weirdnesses (the first one is just outright disgusting though, and I don't think I'll be over it for a while):

Gross story of the year:

I arrived 15 minutes into shift. There were only two tables in my section, so far, so good.

I took over from one of the girls, who had taken the order from the first table (family with kid with two juices). She told me that the couple at the table next to them had ordered nothing yet, and she wasn't too keen on approaching them since they hadn't stopped touching each other the entire time. The woman looked to be in her late 30s, the guy about 10 years older.

And he is drinking water with NO ice. Fine.

I eventually interrupt them and take their order.

No drinks, one steak, one venison, no sides. Good-o.

I bus their table and give them bread. They are still touching each other.

About 15 minutes later, I notice that their table is empty. Hmm.

I do a lap around the restaurant. No Touching Couple.

I walk past the hot line and their food is up. AG takes it to the table, and comes back empty-handed.

"Didn't you notice there was nobody at the table?" I ask.

"They'll be back," is his idiot reply.

Thanks for your prediction, Australian Goober the Psychic Foodrunner.

I collect the food and put it under the heatlamps.

I check the ladies' bathroom. No Touching Lady in there.

I am concerned that the door to the disabled bathroom is closed. I wait.

I talk to my manager, who confirms that the guy asked where the bathrooms were, and they left together. I am starting to get highly disturbed.

Their food is getting cold, but I am too disgusted to care. Quite frankly, they can just eat it that way. I consider taking their meals and knocking on the door with a cheery "Delivery!". They can damn well eat off the baby changing table.

Welsh Boy and I casually stand guard outside the exit to the bathrooms. About 15 minutes after their food was ready, they emerge. I avoid eye contact, but notice that the woman looks quite dishevelled, is fixing her hair, and isn't even fully dressed yet. Unbelievably gross.

I give Welsh Boy the signal to away their food while I'm taking an order for another table. Ms F*cking (nee Ms Touching) is sitting in Mr F's lap, canoodling. Her top is on the floor behind the chair. Their chair is directly behind the chair of the two-juice kid, who is about 8. I am angry. I go to the hot line to tell them that they are now both on seat 1. They think I'm joking. Their food arrives. The man has moved his chair so he is sitting next to her, not opposite. Closer proximity for inappropriate behaviour in a (nearly) fine dining establishment.

The time comes for me to check on their meals (we have already made a thousand sex jokes in the short time it took for the rumour to spread around the restaurant). I am quite happy avoiding them, to be honest. I consider asking "How are you enjoying your meat this evening?", but manage a quick "How is everything?" before running away after Mr F told me they were doing "Very well." ("Excuse me, sir, while I douse my entire body in disinfectant to make myself feel less dirty!")

After their meals are cleared away, they order a single coffee, no dessert. They begin an extremely thorough exploration of each others' tonsils, again right next to the little juice kid. The senior runner walked by and suggested I get the manager to tell them to cool it. I sincerely think about it.

The next thing I know, the family with the juice kid have gotten up and left, their leftovers still on the table. I do not blame them one bit. I hope they were oblivious, but I know they likely weren't. I feel bad.

Mr and Ms F get the bill and pay promptly (I wonder why ... but don't need to wonder too much). They leave us a $10 tip.

Cheaper than a hotel room, I guess.


Weirdly related but totally different:

We had a party of 12 booked for 7pm. A man and a woman arrived early and had drinks. More women arrived at 7.15. The man leaves to watch the rugby somewhere. The women wait for more friends and don't order til nearly 7.45, although they know they have to leave by 9 (2 hour dining limit, harsh but necessary). The women are lovely though and seem to be having a really good time. At least some of them are lesbians, not that that matters a dime. It's just semi-relevant to how much they love me! Time ticks on by and their hostess has asked me for quite a few things and seems to be really keen on making sure the other ladies enjoy their night.

Mandatory Departure Time looms, and I manage to convince them they don't need (or have time for) desserts or coffees. The hostess is extremely good about our desperate need for tables. They all have to pay separately, so head to the reception desk.

I stop and say my thanks and goodbyes on my way past, and the hostess, her sister and her mum all tell me how wonderful I am (*blush*). The hostess tells me "If I were a millionaire, I'd tip you!" Gee thanks, lady. I'm all smiles though, and she quite sweetly adds "I'd tip you a million dollars!" See how much I'm worth in If I Were A Millionaire Land?

I'm resetting their vacated table when the hostess and her sister come and find me. They rave on again about how great I was to them and how they wish they could tip me. They tell me they have found a way to tip me, and hand me a $50 voucher.

What for, you ask?

Well, the hostess runs a store specialising in "female satisfaction". Oh God. The blood is rushing to my face. [And I was just reading this the other day. Excellent industry site. Funny stories.] They tell me I can just buy a t-shirt, some underwear, even something of the "vibrating variety". They make me promise to spend it, and that they will keep an eye out for that voucher number. I don't think they know quite how embarrassed I am. Don't get me wrong, they seemed like wonderful women, of the motherly yet Girl Power-y type. I have just never been XXX-tipped before. And I swear the old British couple at the next table heard every word.

We pool our tips. I didn't pool that one.

Plans are fluid ...

On Tuesday I wrote a post about all the thoughts whizzing around in my head. I didn’t want to confirm what was happening, mostly for fear of a) sounding like a flake, b) people at work finding out (although I doubt anyone from work reads this) and c) changing my mind and then looking like even more of a flake. I also still hadn’t gotten anything straight and didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up.

So, partly in excerpts from an email I sent out (lazy, but I also thought it was reasonably well written), here is the new plan for the next little while …

I'm still going to Oz for a month or so, but then I'm coming back to Auckland to work for December in the revolving restaurant in Minas Morgul (geek reference), so that I can leave on Dec 26 or 27 for …

China!

An association for overseas Chinese (overseas from China that is) is arranging a 7 day trip for 18-25 year old NZ-born Chinese kids so we can visit and learn some of the history and culture (including kung fu, calligraphy and cooking). We'll be going to visit our ancestral villages as well (apparently mine has a couple of cool forts and is being preserved for historical, and tourism, purposes). I'll be going with one of my sisters and we'll hopefully be doing a bit more travel around Asia in the following weeks. The absolute best part is that the only thing we have to pay for is the flight – 7 days of food, transport and 4 star accommodation is all taken care of! Thanks, Chinese government (doesn't quite make up for putting my dad in jail when he was younger, but they're doing what they can). Actually, I think the real best thing is that there will be a translator to compensate for my banana-ism (if you're not familiar with racist slurs – banana is a semi-derogatory term for Asians who are really white inside. Bananas are supposed to be a "perfect food" though. And high in potassium).

After the China/Asia thing, I will have a little bit of time to spare before going to Turkey. There are a few different options right now, but I’m sure one will come to the forefront eventually.

I’m very excited about the new developments, and although I will be missing the Falls Festival in Australia, I know there will be a lot more opportunities to hang out with my friends, and very few like the week in China.

A little piece of advice:

“Don’t polish your shoes white and wear black trousers.”
– Random English Bureau Nurse to me, this morning.

I agree with his statement, but probably much more than he realises. White shoes and black trousers?! A big no-no in general, freshly polished or otherwise. And we’re talking geeky white running shoes, not trendy street shoes (I am still getting used to the white variety of these, and (although irrelevant) dislike the word "trendy"). We’re also talking white shoe polish, the kind that looks like you’ve drowned your footwear in Twink = Tippex = WhiteOut = correction fluid of all brands.

There was white powder all around his cuffs. The statement was also completely out of the blue. Which begs the question – does he feel compelled to tell strangers about every small embarrassment, or does he think I need fashion tips from the inadequate?!

Another justification for my committment phobia

I have a lot going on in my brain at the moment. Sure, it’s never really a vast, imbecilic wasteland (thanks, Alex from The Apprentice, that was probably one of your better contributions to society), but I have had a little upheaval in my short-term planning (which equals long-term planning for me) and need to consider a lot of options that have only just wandered into my mind.

So before I take the plunge and begin to tell everyone afresh what’s going on, I need some time in my headspace to work out a new plan of attack. Thankfully I hadn’t told everyone in the world before a spanner was hurled into the works (a la the Passport Incident).

In the meantime, here’re a couple of miscellaneous thoughts I had recently:

• In the throes of mild road rage, I wondered what crowded city streets would be like if pedestrians had their own horns. You could honk people that stopped suddenly or walked too slowly or didn’t bloody indicate before they turned in front of you and cut you off (yes, I get pedestrian rage as well). Of course you wouldn’t have a bubble to hide your expletives and abusive hand signals in, but I still think it’s an interesting concept. A lot of people need to take lessons in footpath etiquette, especially in big cities.
• I was making a coffee in the staffroom this morning and overheard a couple of the dermatology doctors chatting. They were talking about a melanoma that DD1 had removed from DD2’s back (this is my basis for assuming they are derm doctors, by the way, as the other clinics here are respiratory and dental). Then DD2 told a story about how he had removed one of his own moles, giving himself a local anaesthetic etc. What?! I'm guessing it wasn’t a difficult one, but still … I thought it was weird.

My last Monday morning

Well I didn’t get further than the title this morning since I suppose people getting paid is more important than keeping the internet up to date (this is very debatable, but I’m getting paid to do this job, so … ).

But it means that I can now say I’ve completed my last Monday morning for the foreseeable future! Hooray! I’m also having leftovers courtesy of the lovely Jade. We went out for Chinese after work last night, but none of us were very hungry. I got to try a frozen lychee drink (I still don’t know what the name of it is, Jade ordered for me) and caught up on sorting out all the work gossip and lies I had missed out on lately.

The weekend was mostly filled with work and errands, asides from a dancing jaunt after work on Saturday night. I was subjected to the Globe (a backpacker bar which is a cross between the Globe and downstairs at the Tron, both in Edinburgh) and had an okay time despite being forced to associate with (or at least stand nearish) the only person from the restaurant who doesn’t like me (henceforth known as AG – Australian Goober, not to be confused with AJ, Aussie Joe – ooh, I’d almost forgotten about him). AG referred to me as “That Bitch” on Saturday night, which I’m quite pleased about. It means he doesn’t want to work with me either, and it also means that he’s a little more astute and perceptive than I thought (I am always at least a little condescending to him, if not outright bitchy or mean). I don’t really mean for it to happen, it just does. I am hoping to increase his debating skills so that he has a backup comeback when “Whateverrrr!” doesn’t work (who am I kidding, it never works, especially if you’re not a Valley Girl).

Last night I picked up a shift and ended up having to train the new guy. I usually end up with jobs like this because nobody else has the patience. I think I only pretend to have the patience. Newbie was SO SLOW. Either that or he was spending a lot of time hiding in the toilets, ‘cause he sure as hell wasn’t in section doing his job. I was too busy doing both of our jobs to berate him enough, so I have resolved to be harder on him if there is a next time. If only to whip him into shape for the sake of everyone else. I’m leaving in two weeks, so I don’t really care if he and AG decide to form an Anti-Me Club.

Grumble grumble grumble

I bought a sausage roll from the bakery for lunch, and realised it was cold. When I took it back, the girl said “Oh, you wanted it hot?” which is exactly what I wanted, and expected, from something that came out of a pie warmer. So she put it in the microwave for me (shudder) and when it was done she said “There, it should be warm now.” Warm, yuck. I hate when food is disappointing.

I also found out that the woman I’m covering for has been lying about me to cover herself! She accidentally gave me printouts of a couple of emails, and one of them said
“Also: would you be able to send me a copy of the new roster again?
There were no end dates on it. What dates does it run to?
(+ The temp at GCC is tabulating it and has deleted something.)
Thank you.”
Way to blame me when I totally didn’t delete anything! I am a little peeved about this, since I don’t like my reputation being undermined for no reason. I know I’m just a temp, but I still do a good job!

The Proof

Here are the pictures of me pre-jump and mid-jump. Post-jump to come, hopefully!

Grrr ... the links don't seem to work at the moment, I will have to try again from work where the computer and connection aren't completely pants!

Speaking of pants, I saw a video of a guy I knew while I was at uni on TV for Nude Day. It was quite disturbing. Thanks for that, Simon Ward.

[The links do work now, it was just small tweak which was taking forever with the dial-up at home. I left in the above two paragraphs because of the seamless transition between them.]

Arrrrr, me hearties!

Avast, this day be International Talk Like a Pirate Day! Well, it was yesterday for us, but today for some! So strap on your cutlass and buckle some swashes, swab your decks and bury your treasure. Aye, matey, it's pirate time!

And according to the teachings of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM), global pirate-talking will also reduce global warming, so do your bit! FSMism has been brought to light by one man's struggle against the Kansas School Board and their proposal to teach Intelligent Design (ID) alongside evolutionary theory in science classes in schools. Millions of people have agreed this is wrong, and that it if they insist on teaching ID as a science, then it is logical and necessary to also teach equally valid (if not more supported) theories such as FSMism. FSMism is gaining ground at an incredible speed, and as much as I condemn bandwagoning, I fully endorse this religion! Arrr!

Update: I have found out since spreading word about the above that my dear friend Bec has already made this connection, and written to Column 8 about it. Very proud of anyone I know who gets published, but especially for such a worthy cause!

Wendel McWong, and a fine pirate name it be ...

Twenty four minutes and fourty nine seconds

Well Brett did get me what I was asking for, and he thanked me for being so patient, so I can't really be annoyed. Luckily there was nobody around at work to realise that I just wasted their money for nearly half an hour.

20 minutes and counting ...

I’m on hold with my bank’s contact centre trying to get an advanced credit card renewal and have only just found out that it’s the guy’s first day. Argh. My card expires in January, and since I’m going to be out of the country at the time, I figured it best to get the replacement card now. They’ve done this for me before at no charge, and he’s just told me he’s going to have to charge me $10 for it. When I queried this, he put me on hold again … so still have to see what he’s going to come up with …

Dammit Brett, get it sorted. Poor guy, having to deal with me while he’s still in training.

Tower! Plane! September! Drama!

We were in the middle of service last night around 9pm and there began a sneaky and efficient evacuation of the Sky Tower. I didn't even cotton on to the fact that there was anything going on initially, although it was a bit weird that a couple of the new tables were waiting on people that were apparently not allowed up the tower yet. The evacuation was quite well done, in the sense that it was done in an orderly fashion and nobody was told what the evac was for (to reduce the possibility of a general panic).

When we got to our meeting point (the staff cafeteria), the election coverage was on the TV. Yesterday was election day and it's still so close that the special votes could swing it. We won't know who is going to be Prime Minister until all the votes are counted and one of the major parties has negotiated with the minor parties to form a viable government. Very interesting. Meanwhile, I digress. There was an announcement on the election coverage that someone had stolen a small airplane from Ardmore Airport and threatened to fly it into the Sky Tower. Yikes! So we waited patiently and after about half an hour they announced on the TV that he had crashed into the sea off Kohimarama Beach (some distance from the tower).

As soon as we'd heard we were safe and sound, it was back up again to the strangely deserted restaurant. It was eerie, the lights were still dimmed, there were tables fully laden with food and wine, but no customers in sight. We turned up the lights and the music, and demolished everything that was waiting on the hotline to be delivered (mmm oysters and smoked salmon). Clearing up didn't take near as long as usual since we didn't have to wait for guests to leave. There was a bit of a discussion aftewards about the crazy man and the plane, and we weren't even sure that the Cessna would have done all that much to the tower had he hit it. There was a lot of rumour and speculation but we were all pretty glad he didn't actually make his target.

Today's news announced that the guy was a former flying instructor and the whole thing was motivated by a relationship breakup (maybe someone dumped him cause he was a psycho?!). He stole the plane at about 7pm so must have been flying around for ages. And the police have admitted that there would have been nothing they could have done if he really had gone for it. NOT very comforting, police, thank you.

Updated highlights

Geez, 10 hours after the end of my daytime work day and I still haven't gotten to bed. Friday night was long at Orbit. To sum up the good stuff:

• Got my drugs back.
• Got to work with Jones.
• Would have won the tip-earning competition had we not just completely ignored it. That was satisfying enough (plus it was only a bottle of wine for an incentive).
• VIP-Veuve-Cliquot-Drinking-Rich-Man-Birthday-Party Party left very happy, even though it all started out a bit wrong (STRESS, sort of).
• VVCDRM very generous with the on-the-sly gratuity.
• Completely missed the massive fight that apparently happened amongst the kitchen staff and somehow included a fight between the head chef and the restaurant manager.
• Drank leftover Veuve and ate chocolate mousse cake (sorry Dex, we will get you a fresh birthday cake next time you come in).

I was going to put in some bad things that happened, but I figure that I don't need to remember them!

One last highlight: it's time for bed!!

I love free baked goods

Last night was my first night with the new menu. I spent a joyful first half hour or so with it and my red pen, proofing and highlighting all their mistakes (funny word, proof. As is much, which I realised today). I’m a geek but I do get such happiness from pointing out the errors of others. I had to train someone to be a senior waiter, which was interesting with the new menu and the consequent kitchen delays. She was better than I thought she’d be, but I think I was also extra bubbly and lovely which underlined to my guests who was really the best. There was almost a fist fight between two of the waiters, and I was sick, but despite all these things, I was in a really good mood. I must have been high on Phenylephrine.

I think that the woman I’m covering for is a little fruity and weird. She doesn’t seem to deal with stress very well, and this is definitely not the sort of environment she belongs in. Apparently she’s an actress of sorts, but fell into this job after temping for a while. I hope that doesn’t happen to me!

Highlights of my day so far:

• Free muffins! Carrot and pineapple, carrot and something else, pumpkin and pecan, banana, chocolate, blueberry, some other kind of berry … tried most of them and wished I could taste better today (still sick) cause they were yummy.
• Got paid for doing probably 3 hours of running around today and yesterday (two trips to the city hospital, running over to payroll a few times, drinking coffee, etc).
• Someone yelled out “Jesus!” to me while I was having lunch. I had my devil horn hoodie up cause it had been raining. I don’t get called Jesus very often.
• Completed a World Famous in New Zealand quiz. Stumped by some rugby references, but got there in the end. The link is for an Excel file download. I think non-kiwis will find it pretty difficult, but feel free to try it!
• No supervisor!
• Not desperately needing the decongestants I accidentally left at work last night.

Eww, but sort of aww ...

I still feel ill. I figured it would have gone away by now but I’m at the needing-copious-amounts-of-tissue stage. I couldn’t even taste my coffee this morning, and this doesn’t bode well for having to be nice to customers later on tonight.

I was walking to work this morning and was following this little man wearing glasses and an entirely brown outfit (you know the type). I didn’t take any notice of him until he stopped and turned around and started looking at something on the ground. I automatically looked as well, and must have seemed puzzled, because as I noticed there was only a gob of phlegm on the gravel (eww), he said “I coughed and made a bit of a mess”. As I walked past, he bent down and got some sort of moss from the side of the footpath to clear his “mess” away. I have to say that this is the first time I have ever seen something like this happen, and, although slightly grossed out, I was actually sort of impressed. There is too much disgusting spitting on the ground these days, and it was nice to see that someone felt chastised by their own accidental disgusting behaviour. Stop the spread of meningitis and tuberculosis! Thank you, little brown outfit man.

Spamorama

As much as I love spam and everything, I decided I didn’t want it in my comments. So apologies for the newly installed word verifications (I hate those things, personally), but if you don’t have the intellectual capacity for them, you don’t deserve to comment on my posts anyway. If you lack the motor function or are severely visually impaired, you probably can’t comment anyway. Sorry again.

Fulfilment via espresso and ice cream

Ever notice that the word “fulfil” is really weird looking? I had to use it multiple times in a flowchart today.

I am back at the hospital, but working as support for a clinical team. It is going okay so far, despite not having my own office and having to start work at 8am. I was asked to ask some people to do something for me this morning, and they refused since apparently it’s not their job (and it’s easy to refuse a temp, cause I don’t know what’s going on). When I told the woman who asked me to ask them (why she didn’t ask directly is beyond me), she was “dizzy with shock” (seriously, that is what she said, and she did sound a little faint on the phone) that they weren’t going to fulfil (hehe) the request. I really don’t want to get involved in office politics on my second day.

Hopefully they will keep me on here until the end of the month (unlike the last debacle with the real estate people). My cut off date is the 30th of September though, and my last day at Orbit is officially the 9th of October (just in time for the staff party which will be the next night).

Oh, big news: I finally bought my ticket out of here! I bit the bullet and committed to a flight, mostly so that I could line up welcoming committees and couches to sleep on with minimal guilt about screwing people around with dates and times. I arrive in Melbourne on Sunday the 16th of October, after having to get to the Auckland airport at 7.30am. Yuck!!

I went out for dinner with my family last night for my little brother’s 21st. It was a pretty good dinner, with only the usual level of embarrassment that comes with having dinner with one’s whole family in public (or mine at least). I ate way too much, but couldn’t turn down an affogatto for dessert (or a taste of the banoffee pie (yum) and the Kahlua/Moro bar cheesecake (also yum) that other people ordered). What I want to know though is why had I never even heard the word affogatto (a scoop of vanilla ice cream with an espresso poured over the top) before about a month ago?! I guess I’m not as with it as I thought I was. It is a fantastic invention though, I must say.

Errr, uncomfortable ...

Is being caught with a 19 year old boy in his room at 3.30am by his mother. Nuff said. Except that nothing is going on! All the guilt and weirdness with none of the benefits.

Mmm ... sleep ...

I didn't get The Call from my agency today, so I took the opportunity to get some more sleep. Heaven. The gym afterwards was not so blissful, but helped me justify the yummy scrummy burger I had from Burger Fuel when I had lunch with non-boyfriend #1. Not quite as good as lunch with NBF#1, but also quite good, was the fact that I got to wear shorts today, yay!

I picked up a few more hours at the restaurant to make up for my not being at the EBJ and watched Spirited Away (Japanese anime film dubbed in English, kind of strange, but also quite enjoyable) and Napoleon Dynamite (to see if it was, indeed, funnier the second time. It was).

And here I am again, at nearly 5am, wondering why I avoid sleep so much when I'm not working ... especially as I love it so much when I have to get up ...

You're Fired ...

Sunday, Father's Day. I got up during the fuzzy border between afternoon and evening. Decided to make dinner, so went food shopping and did some minor organising to get all the sibs home. Roast lamb, veges, potato salad, Beanfeast shepherd's pie. My sister made a lemon cake. Very full after.

Monday, back at Excrutiatingly Boring Job. Some lady comments on my accent, thinks she heard "American" in there. I will argue that if there is, it's Canadian (sorry, Canadians). Gym. Dinner with Jonesy (again, what is up with having restaurant choice not work out? Three tries again, but at least we actually only set foot in the last one), aimless driving, Mt Eden, ice cream, tea. Late night, and can't sleep lately.

Tuesday, repeat EBJ. Except today find out that they, contrary to popular belief, wouldn't need me for the rest of the week. F*ckers. I was even going about half speed because I predicted this would happen. The boss was all apologetic and like "this doesn't normally happen" - but it did, the last time I was there! I'm not so upset, except that the three days of work I did there has effectively blocked out 10 days of potential other work. And also messed up a lunch date I had for tomorrow. Grrr. On the plus side, The Apprentice was on tonight. Somehow it's not so much fun now that I know who wins ...

There's an incentive?

Apparently there was, and even though I wasn't told about it, I still won! The aim of the game was to sell the most Chef's Specials and we would win aforementioned Chef's Special (Hereford prime Scotch fillet steak served on oven roasted potatoes and baby cress finished with a prawn and bacon veloute sauce). I win! I get steak! Hooray. Last time I won as well, but had done so well that we sold out, so no steak. Note to self: tone it down a little with the steak. Perhaps that's why they didn't tell me about it tonight. I don't think they told anyone else either though, which made it fair. I usually don't eat full sized meals at 10.30pm, but I'll take exception for free steak dinners.

The toothpaste buzz

Whenever I'm extraordinarily knackered, brushing my teeth before bed always wakes me up a little bit, which is quite frustrating. I understand that it's the minty thing that energises you, but it's still somewhat annoying. I decided to use the force to write a quick post before the 16 hour workday on the 4 hours of sleep overpowers me ... also, please forgive the lack of editing, my brain's not in the ON position.

I went to the dentist on Wednesday. I had decided to boycott the dentist I saw last year due to the wisdom teeth issue, and Julie my new dentist is really pretty cool. She sorted out a couple of things for me, and I came out of there with a couple of new fillings, a numb cheek and another increase in my credit card expenditure.

I spent the rest of Wednesday with Simon, making the most of the glorious sunshine and the fact that we actually got to hang out with each other. We went to the beach, ate ice cream (with awful awful coffee), went shopping, saw Sin City (finally! I really enjoyed it, but it really did seem incredibly long and full of waiting for people to die horribly. Elijah Wood was also uber-creepy in it), had Melt pizza (oh so so good), watched the Fifth Element on DVD (geez, it only took me about 8 years to see that film), ate cheesecake and drank wine. It was pretty much a perfect day, especially after the anaesthetic wore off and I could eat food.

Also, within three days I got to go to two different beaches on two different coasts (with two different Simons!) and the weather was stunning. So, so happy.

I also managed to totally screw my sleep "pattern" again, so have been surviving on too little/too much. I also managed to forget, in my haste, to put baking soda in my second attempt at carrot cake. Fatal mistake. Those Orbit people do not know how lucky they are with their light and moist, not stodgy and flat, cake.

On Thursday night I had a middle-aged woman do a really decent impression of a screaming harpie for a really long time, partially at me, but mostly at my manager (heh). I think she just really wanted to be mortally offended by something (maybe because her kids were such demons and she'd yelled at them enough already), and proceeded to yell so half the restaurant could hear that she thought she had been kicked out before she could even have dessert. I think I actually got pity tips from some of my tables who heard her ridiculous performance. Of course, she was right about some things, although I blame all of those things on others ...

Today was day 1 of a 6 part series of mind-numbingly-boring-no-outlet-for-skiving data entry. Blah. I am so taking my own music in on Monday so I don't have to listen to the Classic Hits No Repeat Work Day. Since when has Coolio's Gangster's Paradise been a classic hit? Although hearing my middle-aged female supervisor singing along was kind of hilarious. There was also a farewell morning tea (I'll jump on the goodbye bandwagon for some free cake), and office antics which involved a Saffa squashing himself into a wheelie bin which then fell over. Eventually he managed to jump out and scare his target so much that she screamed and spilled her coffee all over his farewell card. Comedy.

The highlight of my shift at Orbit was finding out that I've been credited for drastically changing the direction of someone's life (for the better, of course). I'm extremely humbled.

Lexicon update: I have noticed that since leaving Canada and coming back to NZ, the incidence of the word "super" in my speech has decreased dramatically, almost inversely proportional to the level of usage of the word "bro", which is still climbing. "Awesome" is still one of my favourite words, and "dude" still occurs frequently. I do say "sweet as", like any good kiwi, but feel free to slap me if I say "chur" (don't even ask if you don't know what it means, you are better off in the dark, especially as it is ridiculously hard to explain this concept).