You Oughta Know

I'm a little worried posting this...you might read it and never come back! I guess it's a risk I'm willing to take because I thought it was fun and funny to write and hey, you guys deserve to know all about the big dork I really am! So here it goes:

10 Things You Didn't Know About Little D (aka 10 Things You Didn't Want/Need to Know About Little D)

1)I hate flying. It's two months out from my trip home and I'm already thinking about the flight and dreading it. When I book flights I think to myself "Am I sealing my fate? Did I just pick the one flight that week that is going to go down? Should I rebook? But then what if that's the one that goes down?" I used to be prescribed Xanax for flying because I get that nervous. I'd still take it, but I don't have anyone to prescribe it to me anymore. Weird habit for someone who chooses to live thousands of miles away from their family, thus ensuring at least two 14 hour flights home a year, right?

2) I freak out in crowds. I hate people touching me, being too close to me, blocking my way when i've got things to do...whether it's picking out movies or grocery shopping, I panic or get really pissed off and it's a toss up on any given day which it'll be between panicked or pissy. This amuses Boyfriend to no end and he sometimes laughs about how frustrated I get and other times he's really nice and can foresee when the crowds are going to get to me and gets me out of the situation as quickly as possible.

3) I became a vegetarian for a few years starting at age 11 because Jonathon Taylor Thomas did an interview in Teen Beat or some magazine like that where he said he'd only ever date a fellow vegetarian. I didn't know when or where I'd meet JTT but I wanted to have at least that one thing going for me if we ever did meet and he suddenly wanted to date me!

4) I used to have OCD (self diagnosed, but whatever, minor detail) as a child, probably around the age of 10-11 and everything I had to do had to be even....if I ate a bite of food and chewed it on my left side, well then my right side and in the middle had to have a bite chewed there as well. I had to eat an even number of chips or crackers or whatever, I had to flip a switch 2 times or 4 times, but never 1 or 3 times....I wanted things to be fair and I didn't want to hurt these inanimate objects' feelings....One day I finally realized that my little ticks were taking over and decided to try and stop them. I still catch myself from time to time moving different bites of food across my mouth so that things are fair and even, but for the most part I was able to unteach myself my OCD habits. The one thing that I still do(and it's funny given my love of all things being even, I think it has something with me wanting life to be fair and my Mom telling me constantly when I was little that "Life's not fair.") is that I have to wake up on an odd numbered time...the number has to end in a 1, 3, 7, or 9....I even leave out the 5 because it's half way through 0-9. It's the one habit that I just can't shake.

5) The first big concert I ever went to was the Rolling Stones with my Mom, Dad, and Nae when we were probably around 12 years old. It was at Dodger's Stadium and we had seats on the field pretty close to the stage and I thought the whole thing was so neat, but me and Nae kept complaining about the "funny smelling smoke" all around us!

6)For my 18th birthday I asked my parents for Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young tickets and that's what we did...Me, Mom, Dad, Nae and Nae's boyfriend at the time went and rocked out and it was really special. I went through a classic rock phase (I still love it, just don't have it on repeat like I did then). I also used the song "Teach Your Children Well" as the song on my Senior page in the yearbook. (I've also seen Fleetwood Mac, Eric Clapton, Neil Young on his own, Paul McCartney, and James Taylor over the years and about 100 other bands that aren't classic rock.)

7) I was on the yearbook staff my Senior year and it was really fun and I got to meet some good people and use 6th period as a time to just hang out, though I probably should've worked harder and actually met some deadlines.

8) The only school dance I ever really had fun at was at Senior Prom and that's because I went with my whole group of friends finally and my date was a really good friend, the Captain of the High School Football Team. I was really late to our meeting spot and he was really frustrated as I was holding up the whole group, but when he saw me he said the best thing ever, that "he couldn't be mad at me anymore because I looked so good." Swoon! We had a great time: he said something silly to me as our photo was being taken so I love our picture together because I've got the biggest smile on my face, we danced a slow song together but weren't together together so I was free to mingle with everyone and take pictures with a bunch of friends and not be glued to his side the whole night or expected to dance with only him, and at the end of the night since we weren't having prom night sex he serenaded me with this reggae song that I always used to love how he sang and then we partied it up and spent the night together (but once again, not together together) at one of our friends' houses with the whole group.

9) I have the biggest mouth in the world and am awful at keeping secrets, though I really am working on it this year and so far I have 3 secrets from various people that I've managed fairly well to keep secret. Boyfriend and Nae both laugh over my big mouth and commiserate with each other about how their embarrassing moments are never kept private. Oh, and I really talk how I write; there are constant asides that I go off on (just like in these parenthesis) and I'm sure it's hard for the average listener to follow along with, but I get so excited and sidetracked and caught up in details. Though I am a fairly concise speaker when I need to be, like in front of the class because I wouldn't want to confuse the kids. I also talk a lot and it drives Boyfriend and my family crazy. They pretty much think "Do you ever draw breath?" but I can't help it. I've got a lot to say and limited time with my family so I gotta get a year's worth of talking out in 3 months and I can't help it if I get a sudden burst of energy or thing of something really awesome when Boyfriend and I get in to bed at night and just have to tell him before I can fall asleep! Sometimes I like to sit back and just listen, too, to everything that is going on around me.

10) I have a blankie. It's not one that I've had since I was born; my Mom got it for me the first Christmas after I moved to Australia. It's sky blue and has snowflakes and penguins on it (I love penguins...we call them pengoos, Boyfriend and I, is that lame in general? Is it lame couple's talk? Probably on both counts but at least we don't call EACH OTHER Pengoo or Snuggle Butt or whatever, right?). It's a little throw blanket and it's down. It's the best blanket to have on the plane cause it just covers me and means I don't have to use the icky airplane blankets (I've heard stories and you really don't want to use airplane blankets). It's also warm in winter and cool in summer and a great blanket to lay on the couch with. It's a security thing because it reminds me of my Mom and home and being loved and wrapped up in a big hug, but I'm not Linus from the Peanuts...I don't take it to work with me or school with me or hide it in my purse or drag it behind me at the shopping center, but it is nice to come home and throw it over me at the end of a long day or to throw over my shoulders at night in bed for just a little bit of extra warmth.

Ummmm, ok, so are you ever coming back again now that you know the dark, dark secrets of my soul? Do you think I'm a freak? Oh well, if you're reading my stuff, you'd might as well know the real me and not just some bright and shiny version. So in summary, I, Little D, am a bad flyer, angry in crowds, a vegetarian to get boys, a reformed OCDer, a concert/classic rock nerd, as well as a yearbook geek (though actually really cool/popular girls from my class were on yearbook), a hater of all school dances in memory minus Senior Prom, a big mouth who can't keep a secret and who talks until her face turns blue, and I'm Linus lite. Stick around if you dare. If not, I understand and it's been nice knowing you! Hah!

But really, things might start to get a bit more interesting around here over the next couple of months because we've got another Ikea trip planned for next weekend(really, this is exciting/interesting to me...we don't have a lot of fun stuff on the Coast, can you tell?) plus a wedding in Terrigal with the whole group, and I've just booked my trip home for the end of October and will actually be celebrating my first Halloween in 5 years! (I told Boyfriend today that we have to raise our kids, should there be any, in America because, really, it's cruel for kids to miss out on Halloween. It's not very big here, no costumes or trick-or-treating...how depressing and that means I won't have any kids' Halloween candy to raid some day!) In the meantime, Boyfriend and I have to decide whether or not we are keeping our little house to rent for the next year or whatever and if not, where we will store all of our stuff until I come back and we find a new place together. There will probably also be a recap of another tearful goodbye between Boyfriend and I, as well as a post to all of you in case I die on my flight home (remember Confession #1?) and then a recap of the crazy people I was forced to sit next to on my flight to San Francisco. Then the process of finding a job and hopefully working lots of hours until Christmas and then Boyfriend coming to California and all of our adventures there this year. There will probably be an influx of posts about me suddenly wondering why I miss my family so much while I'm in Australia because they drive me nuts when I'm home (Mom and Dad and Nae actually had this conversation when they were out to dinner the other night..."I will love being home for a week and then I will hate everyone" haha). I'll also probably have lots of pictures and recipes to share soon because I cook a lot for my parents when I go back home (mostly because they are pretty bad cooks, sorry Mom and Dad but you know it's true, Nae would agree) and Nae is a pretty awesome chef and baker, as well, so I'll share her awesome Thanksgiving and pie and lemon bar and cookie recipes. So keep checking back in and if these posts aren't exciting enough for you guys, then remember you can email me or leave me a comment on what you would like to see me write about instead.

Wedding Song

Oh, can't you see that you were born to stand by my side
And I was born to be with you, you were born to be my bride,
You're the other half of what I am, you're the missing piece
And I love you more than ever with that love that doesn't cease.

You turn the tide on me each day and teach my eyes to see,
Just bein' next to you is a natural thing for me
And I could never let you go, no matter what goes on,
'Cause I love you more than ever now that the past is gone.
-Bob Dylan

Don't get too excited, this post has nothing to do with me getting engaged (you'll be some of the first to know if it ever does happen), but it does have to do with people's right to get married.
You guys know me by now- I love tv, I love cooking, so I love tv cooking shows and this last week on Top Chef they had a wedding challenge and some of the gay contestants were upset by it. On one hand I thought the one girl was being a bit melodramatic about the whole thing as she, herself, even said she knew there would probably be a wedding challenge. On the other hand I thought she had a right to be upset and offended to have to participate in a wedding challenge when she doesn't have to option of getting married to the person she loves right now.

I'm all for gay marriage. I don't think you choose who you fall in love with and I don't think by letting gay people be equal before the law that that takes away from the so called "sanctity" of marriage (give me a break, by the way). I just don't see any kind of love between two consenting adults as ever being something wrong or bad or evil or whatever. As for the people who somehow justify their stance as "If we let gay people get married...what next, people and animals?" I don't see your logic. As far as I can tell this discussion is still about two adult HUMANS wanting to be married. I would love to see if this kind of argument was used back in the day when mixed race marriages were illegal...i.e. "If you want to marry outside your race, what next marrying outside your species?!?" BULLSHIT!

But back to Top Chef, their headchef Tom Colicchio responded to the contestants' frustration by releasing this statement, which says how I feel about the whole thing much more elegantly than I could ever put it:

"I’m going to go out on a limb and say a few words about same-sex marriage: First of all, part of the problem with the issue is that it is framed by opponents as a discussion of whether gay people should get special rights. This is specious – yes, special legislation or court decisions grant them the right to wed in a particular state, however this is done to ensure that they share equal protection under the law by finally being able to avail themselves of the same rights as everyone else. They are not seeking special treatment, just equitable treatment. Second, religion has no business being part of the discussion. When a couple is wed in a house of worship, the officiant may be performing a religious rite, but as far as the law is concerned, that officiant has been authorized to perform a civil function, plain and simple. And even were same-sex marriage to be legalized by the state, no one would be holding a gun to the heads of the clergy to require them to perform a ceremony that their faith or personal creed does not condone. Just as some rabbis would not perform my marriage to my wife because I wasn’t Jewish, clergy can decline performing same-sex marriages; gay couples can either find clergy willing to officiate or can be wed in a civil setting. The idea that religious leaders are continuing to shape state law is just wrong. The institution of marriage should be available to all. The idea that you can have a life-long partner and not make decisions for them in a hospital, not share in insurance benefits, not automatically have parental rights unless you are the birth parent, is just flat-out wrong."

(http://www.towleroad.com/2009/08/top-chef-host-colicchio-speaks-out-on-marriage-equality-after-contestants-are-asked-to-cook-at-a-het.html where I got the quote and the video of the upset Top Chef contestant if you haven't seen it)

I'm Writing Again, These Letters to You Aren't Much I Know

Hey Guys, just a quick update. I now have an email address for the blog that you can contact me on with any questions, comments, opinions, rants, raves, or whatever you might have: lilDdownunderATgmailDOTcom (Boyfriend says I need to write it that way, so spammers trolling sites looking for the @ symbol don't find my address and start flooding my inbox with spam). I finally realized I should get one after a lovely reader named Liz sent me a comment today asking for some advice on a potential move to Australia and I had to email her back with an email from an old account with a name, if not explained, sounds emo and dumb, but actually has to do with bodyboarding. Anyway, so as to never have to feel dumb and explain that email name again, I created the lilD one. Depending on Liz's questions and her permission to use them, I might post up a question and answer thing on here about moving to Australia since I know a lot of my readers find me through the expat blog network and might be having her same thoughts/questions about moving to Australia. Hope everyone has a great weekend and as always, feel free to leave me comments on here or send me an email about things you'd like to see me write about (whether it be boys, travel, things to do when you are unemployed, or whatever) or just questions you'd like me to answer for you directly!
xoxo Lil D (haha, P.S. We just got Gossip Girl here two weeks ago and Boyfriend called me gossip girl today as I spent all morning reading celeb goss so it was funny when I just realized that I ended the blog the way they end the Gossip Girl episode each week! I'm a dork, I know!)

Waves roll in and the waves roll out. See the water squirting out of your spout.

Boyfriend and I are still on our get healthy kick (I mean, it's only been a week, we would be wusses if we had burnt out already) so Saturday afternoon we thought instead of lazing aroud and wasting a day we'd head down to the beach for a nice, long walk. We hadn't even gotten in to the parking lot on the hill that overlooks Soldiers Beach when I told Boyfriend to pull in to the first spot he could find. I thought I had seen a whale. I think we just missed it doing a full breach because there was no way that I could've just seen a little spout of water from where we were and I saw like a whole wall of water in the air. So we jumped out of the car and sure enough we soon spotted a couple of whales way far out. They didn't breach again in the 10 minutes we watched them, but it was still neat to see them surfacing and the shower of mist that they blew out of their blow holes.

We then walked the beach and

the tide was super, super low.There

was a bit of water cut off by a huge sa

ndbar and we walked through it to get on to the sandbar and out to nearly where the sur

fers were. The water was absolutely freezing and we couldn't believethere were a couple of kids out without wetsuits on, but then Boyfriend and I both agreed at that age we would've done the same thing.

As we walked along we saw a ton of tiny little jelly blobs on the beach. They looked like bubbles on the sand, but once you got up close to them you could see they were solid.

Further along the beach we came to this outcrop of rocks offshore by about two feet and we walked through calf

deep water out to the rocks to look in

their holes to see if we could find any fish or crabs. As we got up on the rocks we were blown away because there was a deep crevice between the two sets of rocks that looked to be about ten feet deep and filled with water! Like I said,

we were only about two feet fromdry sand and here was this deep pool of water. I had never seen anything like it. Boyfriend ran back to the car to get his phone so we could take pictures of it.

When he got back he said he really wanted to jump in and see how deep it was so I said go for it. He jumped in at the far end of the rocks where it was closer to thewaves, but actually a lot shallower.He walked further and further in to the crevice and was trying to dive down to figure out how deep it was, but the water was so cold that he couldn't get any air in to his lungs.

He finally put his hands over his head and

sunk down and we measured it to be about 6.5 feet deep at that point, probably 7 feet at the d

eepest and this was at low, low tide. When we walked back past it later the tide was up and it was at least 10 feet deep at it's deepest point then.

We walked on to the end of the bay and were

blown away to see just how low the tide was.

We were standing 15 feet out from the normal tide line and could see on the rocks behind us where we would normally be standing. We explored the tide pools and came across lots of cool shells. Boyfriend found a really big snail shell with a snail still in it. When we turned it over and it was unfurling itself, it looked a lot like a cow'stongue...gross!

We walked the length of the bay back and up to the car and headed home to get ready for the night. We had a proper date night and went to dinner and a movie.

For dinner we headed out to this town called Terrigal, which is about a 40 minute drive from us and on the beach, but I had never been there before. We went to a cute restaurant called the Cove right on the water and we were sat on a closed in balcony overlooking the water. We sat and ate and watched the boats just beyond the breaking waves bobbing up and down. The desserts looked amazing but we were worried that we would be late to the movie so we had to skip it this time, but I'd love to go back and try some, as well as drink more of this yummy, warm, spiced, red wine we had. It tasted like Christmas!

We headed over to Erina to see Inglourious Basterds. The theater there was so much bigger and nicer than the one we normally go to. It felt like an American movie theater. They even had nachos! And unlike how the Greater Union cinemas do it now, they didn't have assigned seating so you could go in and sit where you like (you don't know how much the assigned seating thing seems weird to me and bugs me).

We both thought the movie was really good. It was gory in a few parts, but you expect that from Quentin Tarantino, don't you? For it being a movie about Nazis, we sure laughed a lot! Boyfriend is still quoting lines to me today from it.

Today is just a lazy day. Boyfriend is sitting out in the sun right now reading and then he's got big plans to wash the car. I'm doing laundry and stoked that it'll dry on the line in one day because today is hot like summer and sunny here. I'm also going to make some jam thumb print cookies (the recipe is over at this blog http://www.survivingoz.com/) to take to a bbq at Nan and Pop's tonight. We are also bringing REAL american style hotdogs to their house tonight for our dinner! All in all, a real nice weekend!

Oh yeah, we saw The Hangover on Friday night, too, and I would recommend it for a good laugh, too, if you haven't seen it yet. I just love the little baby that they find (especially, and I don't know why this part killed me so much, when they just strap him in with a seat belt in the car like it was normal, and safe, to do with a baby)!

Hope you all had a nice weekend, too. Enjoy those last days of summer while you still can. I hear that it's supposed to be an El Nino year which means lots of rainy days for the upcoming winter.

I fell in love with her, my little Surfer Girl

I lived a very privileged life growing up...I went to a private school, had a couple of cars passed on to me by my parents (including a Jag that I trashed only a few weeks after receiving my license...that's kind of a fun story to tell, I might post about it some time), and I didn't have to work through high school. I was free to hang out on weekends and surf and after school was also spent at the beach or doing homework and just hanging out. It was a very rude awakening then for little princess me when the summer I graduated high school my Dad told me it was time to find myself a job. I figured I would just continue to hang out, collect allowance, and attend college for 12 or whatever hours a week. I bitched and cried and didn't want to get one. The truth is, I hate change. I was overwhelmed at the thought of starting college and getting a job for the first time all at once. So I searched and searched and got an interview at Target and got the job, but then decided I didn't want to work there at all. I spread my search out further and decided since I was planning on moving to Huntington Beach, I might as well look for a job there. I ended up getting called in for interviews at both the Jack's Newport location and the Jack's Huntington location. I was skinnier then and thought I looked cute in a surf brand tank, some jeans, and some Reef sandals, but when I was offered the job at the Huntington location the manager was like "We wear mostly t-shirts and jeans here, nothing too revealing" so I took it to mean I wasn't allowed to wear my tank top anymore. It blew my mind to then see what the girls from the girls' store would get away with wearing and I laughed later when my friend Crystal told me she had basically been told the only thing that we weren't allowed to show up in was just our bathing suits.

Anyway, so I started work the day before I started my first day of college and I was nervous. I didn't know the protocals. I didn't know if I had to ask permission to use the bathroom quickly or anything and I wanted to do a good job (because while I am lazy off the job, I like to do a really good job when I am working). The first month and a half were pretty boring; I either guarded the dressing rooms to make sure people weren't stealing stuff/hooking up in them or worked one of the sections of the store folding shirts and helping customers find stuff. I was stoked when I got asked to work on the registers and that's when I started loving the job. The girls I worked with: Jen, Crystal, and K-10 were so much fun and it was so cute to see who in the store had a crush on which girl (one of the couples that developed then is still together now, 5 years later!). There was also one boy, Hung, who worked the registers and he was in with all the owners and friends with all their sons/nephews. Once I started working the registers, I also got to know the boys who sold the boards and wetsuits better. One by one my girls started leaving to start school somewhere else or to get married or whatever. Hung went to work in the main office and develop the Jack's website ( http://www.jackssurfboards.com/) and I was left to take over as the head cashier. At this point, I got to know all the owners really well and stopped being afraid of them. I still miss getting harassed by Bob, Ron, Little Mike, Sean, and Jamal (all co-owners) and Moe (the security guard) at least once a shift. I also got to start ordering some of the merchandise for the front counters, along with Bob's permission.

A year had passed and I thought I'd leave Jack's and do surf lessons instead as the pay was better and it meant never having to work until 10:00pm (we were open from 8am-10pm, every day of the year except Christmas). I worked my last day and then went away to chaperone a surf trip to Fiji with my old surf team. Over there I realized I wanted to come back and work at Jack's so I came back with my tail between my legs and asked for my job back. I think I got punished and put back on the floor for a little bit, but then the big yearly comp, the U.S. Open of Surfing, came to town and they needed all hands on deck and I got thrown back on a register.

Time passed and I was kindof goofing off at school and doing the bare minimum. I was still passing and still getting good grades, but I was doing school around work rather than working around school. It got to be that I had worked at Jack's for about a year and a half, only half the people or less that I had originally started with were still there and those were mostly managers or guys who had been working the surfboard section for a few years.

I remember one day these two giggly girls came strolling in to the store with their arms linked together. One had wavy, red hair and the other had long, super straight, dark brown hair. I rolled my eyes and was like "who hired the high school chicks again?" I think I even asked my friend Heidi about them...like who they were, what their deal was and all that. Turns out, they'd soon become my best friends at the shop. On my 20th birthday I trained Bri on the registers and really liked her personality. From there I looked forward to seeing her on shift and hanging out with her and then once she had warmed up to me, her friend Katie did, as well.

A few months later, Nae was back from her first year away at college and I had probably the best summer of my life. Nae came to work at the shop and we had so much fun working together along with Heidi, Bri, and Katie. The time seemed to fly by and we were the cool kids at work so we got away with plenty. We were friends with the managers, like Cheyne, Kenny, and Peter, as well as with nephew's/sons of the owners like Hemzeh and Akram and they'd all hang out near the counter and joke and gossip with us all day, too. At night, I'd head to Bun's apartment and drink a lot and I found out as I stumbled around her pool area one night that Bri and Katie lived just about 5 doors down from her in the same apartment building! Other nights we would pick up Heidi and her and Nae and I would go to parties at Kenny and Geoff's place to hang with everyone from work. I was single at this point and it was just fun to hang out with all my friends and not worry about my stupid exboyfriend. I really can't explain it now or make it seem as fun as it was, I guess, in this post, but it was a great time in my life.

Halfway through the summer the owners me to help out and help manage the girls' store for some shifts. There was a newly hired manager in the girls' store that didn't fit in to the Jack's mode of things, in my opinion. Not looks wise because I'm not the stereotypical blonde surfer girl that you'd think would be working at a surf shop either, but just she'd make the girls do dumb stuff like write about their shift after it was done, like "I liked this about today's shift....I didn't like this about today's shift..." and I thought it was dumb, corny, and unnecessary. So being immature and 20, I wrote her a note saying I thought these end of shift notes were dumb and wasting our girls' time, I mean they were working 8 hours for minimum wage and then they were supposed to write a mini diary entry each day when they were done? Lame! So I think I was promptly sent back to my head cashier position at the main store. I don't think I really got in trouble, the summer season was just over so they were slowing down at their store and didn't need my help. Not two weeks later this newly hire manager got fired for taking in dodgey checks from her friends for a significant amount of merchandise...dumbass!

That was another thing that blew my mind: how many people got fired for stealing or doing dumb stuff like that. I think retail jobs are like that in general. I never took anything, not even a bar of wax or stickers or anything without permission. I got good discounts on all the things I wanted so stealing just never seemed worth it to me, but to lots of people the appeal of all that cool stuff sitting around was too tempting.

Anyway, so summer ended and Nae had gone back to school and by this time I had been accepted to the University out here so I knew my time at Jack's was coming to an end. Those last four months were still a lot of fun. I looked forward to coming in and seeing all my friends and sad that it was going to end. Katie, Bri, and I started calling our crew the "Jack's Elite Crew" and on my last shift with them I brought in cookies and shirts that I had made for them with their names and Jack's Elite Crew on them. They also threw me a party at their place with everyone from the shop pretty much coming. I got sloppy drunk, I think I asked Cheyne to make out a few times, and then drove him and Hung home with my friend Patty and as we were walking to our car I decided I would do a sneak run and jump on to Hung's back and instead jumped on him and knocked him over...I was so embarassed when I remembered the next day and again when I saw him a few days later. But in general I thought it was so cool that the girls had thrown me a party and everyone had turned out (whether it was for me or just for a party didn't matter, they were there). Leaving was really sad, but I thought I'd be back that summer to start working again and told everyone as much. I ended up not coming back to the U.S. until that Thanksgiving when I went back to Jack's and asked if I could work the season for them. The boys were all still there, but by that time Bri and Katie had found other jobs and Heidi had had a baby!

I still look back on my time at Jack's as one of the best times in general in my life. I was part of the family and it was a big, crazy, fun family to be a part of. I'm still friends with Bri and Katie and try and see them whenever I go home. Bri and I talk a lot over email and she had even asked me to be in her wedding (but I couldn't because I didn't have enough money to go home this past May)! I haven't talked to Heidi since right after she had her baby, but I'd love to get in contact with her again and I know Katie still talks to her so maybe there is some hope there. Just recently Cheyne added me on Facebook and through him I found Hung, and my other friend Peter just popped up in my "People You May Know" feature. I don't talk to any of them on there, but it's nice to just have that link to them still and know that I could talk to them if I wanted to. I'd also love to pop in and see the owners at some point because they were all really good guys and I miss them and their advice.

Like I said, this post doesn't do it justice because I don't have any really crazy stories to tell (well, except for this time this guy K-Rod "borrowed" my phone and took it in to the bathroom and took 5 pictures of himself posing in his underwear on my phone for me, or the time Nick and Aaron Carter came to the store, or the time I rang up one of the lesser known Jackass guys, or the time when we made fun of someone's girlfriend for wearing Barbie pink blush really heavily, or every week when the handicapped group would come in and their care taker would hit on one of the other cashier's and tell her how he'd like her to check out his studio and how he'd like to paint her) but overall it was just the whole experience of working there that was great and I will always look back on that time very, very fondly.

I Kissed a Girl, Her Lips Were Sweet. She Was Just Like Kissing Me.

Have you guys heard of Tegan and Sara? I love them! I first heard them at this benefit concert that Neil Young puts on for the Children with Disabilities School that his kids attend. I think Neil Young actually discovered T&S and helped them get their first records recorded and stuff. I listen to their two CDs "If It Was You" and "So Jealous" a lot and their newest album "The Con" is supposed to be great, as well. I'd say start out with "So Jealous" as a first CD if you're interested cause I love all the songs on that one. Tegan and Sara, in addition to being twins, are also both lesbians. I didn't realize this until I went to see them one night by myself when they were playing the bar at my university here. I thought it was odd that there were lots of single girls at the show and lots of really butchy girls, but didn't think anything of it until I heard some time later that they were both gay. My Mom gets really mad when I say it, but I'd totally go a little lezzy for T&S. They make great music (and they have really cute stage banter back and forth), they have really cool and unique voices, and to be quite honest, there is something totally hot about them. I don't think there are any other girls that I'd say I'd want to date, but it might be "Bye Bye Boyfriend" if I had a chance at Tegan or Sara, but mostly Tegan. Haha!

This first song kills me everytime. It makes my heart hurt because it makes you think back to getting your heart broken as a teenager and whatever and they just sing it so raw and beautifully. Tegan wrote it after she and her girlfriend of 5 years broke up and I think she totally nailed that broken up feeling on the head.

I'm just going to give you guys a list of song titles, a little blurb about the song, and links to check them out if that's ok?

"Not Tonight"-the first T&S I really fell in love with. "Everything in my body says not tonight, Everything in my body says no" http://tinysong.com/74Bq

"Where Does the Good Go"-about when a relationship is falling apart, their voices are awesome

on this one and the chorus is something I could listen to over and over again, "look me in the eye and tell me you dont find me attractive,look me in the heart and tell me you wont go,look me in the eye and promise no love is like our love,look me in the heart and unbreak broken it wont happen,its love that leaves and breaks ,the seal of always thinking you would be, real happy and healthy strong and calm, where does the good go,where does the good go" This song actually might have been on an episode of Grey's Anatomy

"Fix you up"-I just love the line that they repeat half way through the song and how they sing it

"This love is all I have to give" http://tinysong.com/74Gy

"And Darling"-"You slip your hands inside my pockets. Tell me nothing else would do, Without me you can't live." Just reminds me of me and Boyfriend wearing hoodies and keeping warm and hanging out together. Plus I like how T&S kind of sing over and around each other on this one, not completely in synch. http://tinysong.com/74Gl

Boyfriend listens to this song by NoFX called "Creeping Out Sara" which is all about the singer creeping out and harassing Sara about being a lesbian. It's pretty goofy. Here's the link to that one: http://tinysong.com/74us

Anyway, I hope you guys like Tegan and Sara as much as I do. I can't wait for them to

come back to Australia! We saw them hanging out behind the venue before the show the last

time we went and saw them and all the boys were like "Go say Hi" but I was too shy so

maybe this next time I won't be and maybe we will fall in love. P.S. Sorry about how jankity the

text is on this, I don't know what's wrong with it as it all looks normal in the window where

I actually write out the blog but it's displaying weird.

Old MacDonald Had a Farm....

Have any of you Aussies or expats in Aus been watching the newest series of "The Farmer Wants a Wife"? I just finished watching the 3rd episode and all I can think are "Geez, those are the goofiest looking guys ever. No wonder they are in their 30s-40s and single, yikes!" And the girls for the most part, aren't any better. There's one kinda cute shy guy (he went on the aquarium/shark dive group date if you watched) and he's into a cute kinda shy blonde girl and other than that, they are all white trash, goofy, or awkward. Of course I'm still going to watch it, but it'd be nice if there was more than one person's story I was interested in. Also, "The Farmer" is immediately followed by some lame American show "Drop Dead Diva", if I have to hear "See that aspiring model over there...." (the opening lines to the show each week) one more time, I might punch someone. I can't even sit through 10 minutes of it to tell you what it's about other than the aspiring model nearly dies and ends up in a chubby girls body and life is horrible, except that she now gets to eat donuts and drink regular milk instead of skim-that's it, that's all I've learned so far....sounds like an award winner though, right?

It's time I got back to the Good Life. It's time I got back...And I don't even know how I got off the track

So Friday was pretty uneventful. I think Boyfriend and I just worked and hung around the house. Saturday was housework day because we have a property inspection from our real estate company on Wednesday and I don't think we've mowed our lawn in about 3 months. We had clover that was so big and bushy it was halfway up Boyfriend's shins and other funny tufts of grass that stuck out like mini mohawks around the yard. Our yard gets really jungly and it is a really big yard and it is a pain to mow, but we made an awesome team of me going nuts and hacking the crap out of stuff with the weed wacker and Boyfriend following behind me with the lawn mower. It looked so nice out there once it was all mowed and the weather this weekend was like perfect spring time weather ( in the 70s, which blows my mind because technically we should be having weather similar to what it would be like in February back home right now) and we laid out under the trees listening to the kookaburras and lorikeets after we were finished.

Because of the warm weather we have been getting, lots of flowers are starting to grow around our place.

We thought we just had weeds growing in the little garden area underneath our kitchen window, but all of a sudden I have a bunch of freesia in bloom and it smells so good everytime I walk by!

Our bananas are also starting to get a little bigger. We've only got 11 real baby bananas right now, but lots of blooms underneath those that might turn in to bananas? I can't tell at this point.

These leaves are from a plant called "monstera deliciosa" and their flowers are huge and white and look like lanterns. Apparently you can eat the fruit off of them so we are going to try them next time they fruit.

And this is the big gum at the end of our property. It always has a kookaburra or two or a few lorikeets on it. A pair of lorikeets actually live in one of the holes in the tree and they typically sit in the tree and screech at me while I hang out our laundry. I tried putting out some oranges right below their hole to see if they would come down and feed, but so far they haven't. There is another big gum tree a few houses down from us and bees have moved in and created a hive in one of the tree's holes. It is so neat to walk down and see!

It's been great having Boyfriend here with me. He has totally stepped up and stepped in to the role of the live-in Boyfriend. He helps make dinner, he does yardwork, and he buys gadgets that we need for the house that I wouldn't think to get or am just too lazy to look for. It's been nice to have him here all the time and to have had him make the transition so smoothly. Our parents still aren't too stoked on the situation, but it is really working out well for us and we are really happy together.

I Wonder What They're Doing (In Sydney Today)

Yesterday Boyfriend had a meeting with a recruitment agency down in Sydney and asked if I'd come down for the ride with him. I said sure and got excited because only the week before I had gotten a coupon for 30% off of lunch at Tony Roma's down near Darling Harbour (I think the area is technically called the King St. Warf area?) so we decided he'd do the meeting and then we'd go eat some ribs. Once his meeting was done we had about a 10 minute walk up to King's Cross Station and stopped at a convenience store to see if they had any Reese's products. They did and we got a standard back of peanut butter cups (i.e. 2 cups) for nearly $3! I couldn't believe it! While we were in the area, we decided we might as well stop in at Gomez y Guerrero and pick up another pack of tortillas in case we weren't back in the area for awhile. Then we hopped on a train to Town Hall to walk down to the restaurant.

I don't really eat red meat or pork, but when I was back home at Christmas time, my Mom and Nae made ribs one night and it smelled so good that I decided to try a bite. That bite turned in to 3 or 4 and I've had a craving for ribs ever since! Figuring I shouldn't push my luck too far with my stomach not being used to meat, I ordered the half slab of baby backs (in my Dad's opinion the only ribs worth getting and I certainly like how they taste) with french fries on the side. Boyfriend went for the full slab and while he techinically only got 3 ribs more than me, his were all a lot bigger and meatier than mine. He got his with mash potato and the cole slaw. The sides were all just "Meh"- the french fries were undercooked and cold, the mash doesn't come with any gravy or anything and is fairly bland, and I'm not a coleslaw person anyway, but their's looked pretty watery. But we weren't there for the sides, we were there for the ribs, and they were AMAZING! Haha! It was a really good lunch and if you're a local, I'd say to definitely sign up for the Tony Roma's website because you'll immediately get a coupon for a buy one get one 50% off meal and then quarterly they send out emails with good deals, like the coupon I got last week for 30% off lunch or 15% off dinner, Monday-Thursday.

Rather than walking back up George Street and just passed stores and businesses, I suggested that we go for a walk along Darling Harbour since it eventually ends down near China Town and a short walk from where we needed to get back to-Central Station. What a great idea that turned out to be! It was a beautiful and sunny day, with just enough heat to make walking comfortable. I always have to run to the side of the walk and peer into the water and yesterday the view was gorgeous-you could see down all the way to the bottom-probably 10-15 feet in some spots! We saw some fish and it was just pretty to see the seaweed swaying on the pier pilings underwater. There were also a bunch of tiny jellyfish swimming around and they looked so neat doing their funny, undulating little swim that they do. They were clear and seemed to be glowing from even far depths from just the little sunlight they could pick up from down there. Further down on the walk, the water was still clear below but on top there was lots of gunk. I thought maybe someone had chucked over the side or had let their bilge out, but as we saw more and more of it, I'm thinking it was an algae bloom. It was red and red algae blooms are neat because at night, if disturbed, they glow, but aren't cool as well because they are a neurotoxin to animals like dolphins.

I remembered that their was a Starbucks before you start walking in to China Town and got a craving just to go in to the place. Boyfriend said let's go pick something up so I got an ice tea and he got a Grande 4 espresso shot carmel macchiato...I think I'd have a heart attack! Then we continued on our walk and came across a mother duck with 9-10 little, fluffy babies swimming with her. I have been looking for ducks with chicks for the past couple of weeks, hoping I'd see some and know that spring was finally, nearly here and now I've seen them! They were so cute and darted across the water so quickly. You can see one little one has the cutest, tiniest wake behind it.

Directly behind the ducks was a huge ferris wheel, with completely closed in buckets. We contemplated going on it, but figured we should get going to our train, plus they set it up kind of dumb, the buckets face in towards the city, when I think they should've faced them so when you are at the top you are looking straight out over the Harbour. Oh well, it was still really big and

would be a fun ride.

After that stop, we figured we should hustle to the train and the gods were on our side because we made it on to an express train with about 4 minutes to spare! All in all it was an awesome day out in the City. Boyfriend has a couple of meetings next week with companies and other recruiters and I said, Ok, I'll come with you on Tuesday and we'll hit up our favorite spot Malaya, then Wednesday we can go back for Flying Fajita Sisters, then Thursday...Boyfriend just laughed and said let's wait til he technically has a job and money to spend...sensible that one!

I am the Fire Starter

Last night we went over to Croc's parent's property for a big bonfire. I never realized how far back their land stretches. When we arrived, Croc and the Teacher loaded us in to an open topped trailer and pulled us behind their quad down to the back of the property where the bonfire was. It was huge! There was a10 foot tree that was still standing in the ground, but was dead as termites had built a huge nest inside that we could see, and that was the centerpiece of the bonfire. All around it were other huge chunks of wood that were alight, too. Beside Croc and the Teacher, it was all of Croc's family-his parents (who are super nice and super funny people) and his brother and sister (who are great as well) and their boyfriends and girlfriends, and then the Soccer Player and the Hairdresser.

Croc and Boyfriend were little fire bugs. Boyfriend had brought over some old fireworks and firecrackers he had lying around in his closet and he and Croc lit them off and shot them at Croc's brother. Croc surprised his brother and chased him so far across the backyard and even hit him with one shot from the firework! The other amusing thing the boys got their hands on last night was a cattle prod. The Soccer Player jolted Boyfriend twice with it and Croc's brother snuck up on him and gave him the biggest shock with it in retaliation for the fireworks. Boyfriend luckily had layers on so he said it didn't hurt super bad but Croc got prodded on his arm and it burnt him! The Teacher had a big night and had to head to bed early with Croc's help. After she went to bed Croc brought out the "goon sack" which is the bladder inside a box of wine. This boxed wine was port and we all took sips off the pouch. It was pretty white trash but was a lot of fun and even Croc's Mom had a few gulps off of it (but only after she had seen me do it)! Then as we were getting ready to leave, all the quads were being used up at the house so Croc had us hop in to his 4 wheel drive and gave us a tour of the back part of the property. We slammed through little trees and it was just like off roading. His brother came up on a quad with his girlfriend on his back and two friends in the open trailer and they ran in to the back of the car we were in. Then Croc put his foot to the floor and we were doing burn outs and racing through the backyard and seemed like we would crash in to one of the old dirt bike jumps or old dead cars they had back there, but we made it safe and sound to the house. It was just like Mr. Toad's Wild Ride at Disneyland and I was squealing and screaming and laughing the whole time!

You're So Last Summer (Actually You are So 6 Summers Ago...)

Highheel Gal over at http://thehigh-heeldiaries.blogspot.com/ had a posting today titled "Click...Ignore" all about getting the dreaded friend request from an ex on Facebook. Just recently I got a friend request from the Loser ExBF so I could totally relate to that "Click...Ignore" experience. I don't hold any ill will towards the Loser at this point, but I also don't want anything to do with him. We weren't friends then(and maybe that's what was lacking from the relationship??) and we won't be now. Even being completely over him there was still something very satisfying in clicking the ignore button to his request, haha, evil right? Highheel Gal also linked to this great song "Are You Fucking Kidding Me" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7MuwPlOiNQ all about exes asking to be friends on Facebook.

Here are some of the lines:

All the memories are flooding back to me now. All the ways you stole the light from my eyes.
I travelled so far just to get away from you! Till this mornings friend request surprise.

At times it really felt as though I'd never smile again. You narcissistic ass hole, oh you nasty nasty man.

And now you wanna be my friend on facebook... Are you fucking kidding?

I dont wanna know what kind of cocktail you are or which member of the beatles or which 1950's movie star. I dont give a toss if you're a ninja or a pirate, I'd suspect you'd be a pirate but i dont wanna verify it. and I dont give a shit what your stripper name is or if your Kitty had a litter...

Look, just follow me on twitter.

I dont care about your family tree and i certainly dont want you poking me... again.

And now you wanna be my friend on facebook... oh you fucking fucking fuck.
Click, ignore....

Wastin' Away Again in Margaritaville

Saturday afternoon Boyfriend and I got ready and headed down to meet Stylez and Turk for a fun night of Mexican and booze, or as we call it: a Mexibooze night, and karaoke. We were running late and so was Stylez so once we got there we started our walk to find a cab into Glebe and to the restaurant- The Flying Fajita Sistas. Once there, we met up with another friend whom Stylez, Turk, and Boyfriend had all worked with waaaaay back in the day and his girlfriend. Stylez and I immediately ordered margaritas and the boys ordered Dos Equis (XX) in honor of my Dad because that is what he always gets when he has Mexican food. The drinks came and they were fantastic. I feel like I probably gulped mine down but it was the best margarita I have had in a long time. We ordered an appetizer for the table and I really liked the cheese dip (top right yellow), smokey salsa (top left red), and the bean dip (bottom right white and brown) which was just like beans you'd get as a side dish at a CA Mexican place. Of course the lighting was awful in both places we went so I've had to borrow other people's pictures

that I found online.

After that we ordered our dinners and Boyfriend and I shared a fajita platter for two. He chose snapper and I chose shrimp for my meat. We also decided to order a litre of white sangria for the table. The snapper and the shrimp were so delicious, like "WHOA" they were so good! The tortillas were just "Meh" that came with it, Guzmen y Gomez has better ones, and I wasn't a fan of the black beans or rice that came as part of the meal. I really wished they would have served more of the "bean dip" instead. The waitresses were really, really dumb and would come to ask if we needed water or anything and then when we asked for more booze were told someone else would have to come and get our drinks (this wasn't a bus person or a person under 18 so I dunno why she couldn't have) and they didn't know basic stuff like they threw in a bunch of tortillas in to two warmers instead of 4 for the 4 of us who got fajitas but didn't tell us that and handed them to the people with two single orders rather than one for me and Boyfriend and one for them to split and then couldn't tell us how many tortillas we were each supposed to get with our meal when we were then trying to divy the tortillas out. I thought the sangria was just "Meh", as well. I had wanted to try sangria and now I have, but I wish I would've gotten another margarita instead. If you go on a warm night, I'd suggest asking to sit out back; they've got the cutest little patio area to sit out in. Tuesday is Taco Tuesday and they do $3 tacos and I'm pretty sure $3 shots of tequila. All in all I can't wait to go back for margaritas, the snapper, the shrimp, and the bean dip. Check them out at http://www.flyingfajitasistas.com.au/ or they are located at 66 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe.

After dinner, we hopped in to another cab that took us in to the heart of the city to the karaoke place- Echo Point. It's run by Japanese people and has lots of Japanese snacks and drinks to buy from the front desk. It isn't like normal karaoke because you order private rooms to sing in, rather than do it in a room full of strangers. We had about 10 people hanging out in ours. There is just a tv, a karaoke machine, coffee table, a black light, and some comfy seats built into the walls in the room and you punch in the songs you want to do and go for it. I had fun watching everyone sing. I did not take a turn on the mic. Some of the girls sang love songs, the boys sang a bunch of random stuff from Prince to Metallica to the Prodigy, and Stylez, Turk and Boyfriend normally sang as a threesome and chose cool punk/alternative songs like GreenDay, Weezer, and Blink. I even got Boyfriend and Stylez to sing me a duet of "I'm the One Who Wants to Be with You" by Mr. Big! It was $16-$17 for each of us for a 3 hour session, I think. It's a fun way to spend a night every once in awhile. If you are a karaoke fanatic then you should take a group of friends to Echo Point. They've got all their songs listed on their website (I think they've got over 1,000 to choose from) (http://www.echopoint.com.au/), too, so you can have your set list picked out for the night before you arrive like Boyfriend's one friend did!

I don't normally keep track of Boyfriend's drinking because I'm not his parole officer (before you ask, no, he doesn't really have a parole officer) and I figure he can handle himself and he knows his limit, but I maybe should've been a little vigilant on Saturday night because he was drinking sake, which he's only had a couple of times before and always during a meal. He ended up getting drunker than I realized on that and beer and when we headed back to Turk and Stylez's place and went to bed, he immediately had to get up and be sick. All in all he was probably up about 6 times puking through out the night, but at least he was really neat about it and didn't get it all over their super cute house!

In the morning he was still feeling crappy, but felt a little better because Turk and Stylez hadn't heard him being sick or been kept up by it like I thought they might have because it seemed to echo all across the downstairs of their house, where their spare bathroom and guest bedroom is. We decided to go to a local place for breakfast and they thought maybe it was best to just bring us breakfast back or to at least drive over, but I thought the walk in the fresh air might do Boyfriend some good. Right before we left, he had to make a quick dash to the bathroom to be sick again and then he said he felt lots better. The walk through their neighborhood was really nice. No one was out, it was a quiet Sunday morning and the view if you turned and looked was of the Sydney skyline, CentrePoint Tower, and the tops of the Harbour Bridge. We sat inside because all the outside seats were taken and Boyfriend made it through breakfast feeling just ok. We walked back to Turk and Stylez's place, chatted a bit longer, then hit the road.

Boyfriend's Dad's birthday is this week, so is Nae's, and Bob just moved in to his new place so we figured while we were close, we might as well hit up Ikea...the only one in NSW, I think. I was in heaven once we got inside! Boyfriend seemed to pick up a bit, too, and we had fun looking at all the neatly designed furniture and bedding and stuff they had. Boyfriend especially liked all the kitchen designs they had displayed. We came away with some office and home stuff for Boyfriend, a funny little present for Nae, lots of new kitchen stuff for Bob, struck out on stuff for his Dad, and got me a vase for $4 and a couch cover that I had wanted when I bought my couch 3 years ago since the couch is white and was the cheapest one they had, but didn't think I could afford it then (in the last year my couch has suddenly looked thrashed so it was awesome that we could buy a black cover for it that would better hide stains). We also had to have a look at all the good Swedish food they had at the food shop past the registers and bought some yummy cookies, blueberry concentrate drink, a non-alcoholic pear cider, a Daime chocolate bar that Stylez recommended, and some salted black licorice (yuck!) that Turk recommended, as well as the meatballs, at the last minute, because everyone else in line had at least one bag of them and Turk had said they were delicious, too.

We got back on the road and Boyfriend was not feeling so great. He asked if he got us out of the City could I manage the drive on the freeway home? I have never driven more than about 10 miles maybe and never on the freeway so I was a bit nervous, but said if he just rested and didn't fall asleep on me, I'd do it. Once I got going, it was as easy as driving on the regular side of the road, and soon, I was passing slow pokes. The drive took about an hour and we got home just as it was getting dark. We basically had time to unload the car, go to the bathroom, and then we were back on the road to Nan and Pop's for Sunday dinner...this week a bbq for Boyfriend's Dad's birthday. Lots of the cousins were there and they brought their babies with them and it was good to catch up with the girls and have a cuddle and a play with the babies. The one little girl is about 1 and a half years old and is so smart- she remembered my name after the first time I played with her and still remembers me months later and always calls out "Little D, Little D" to get my attention and get me to come play with her. For some reason she was afraid of Boyfriend last night and would run away or hide her face in my shoulder anytime he came near! Don't they say that kids and dogs can sense when someone is evil? Haha, just kidding Babe!

It turned out to be one of those weekends that are so jam packed you don't feel as if you've had a real weekend, but I love those and had a great time! Today I put my tutoring ad in two of the local papers and one will run on Wednesday and Friday in the one paper and the other will be delivered in to people's mailboxes in the area later in the month. I'm so excited and can't wait to see how many calls I get! Fingers crossed for me guys because I really could use the income.

Oh yeah, and check out Stylez's stuff at reJENerate (link up the top) she's got a blog, a website, and stuff on Etsy. I saw some of her bags lying around at her house and their are some cute ones right now. She also has been doing custom bridal and bridal party clutches that are cool and fun and match without being too matchy, if you know what I mean. She will have an order from me if I ever take a stroll down the aisle!