Things I Don't Know How To Do...

But might have pretended that I do.

1. CPR. I have no formal training in CPR since I presume a couple of lessons in high school doesn't really count. However, I am pretty much qualified since I've seen a lot of TV medical dramas. Basically I'm probably already a qualified doctor with the number of hours I've logged. From now on, you should probably refer to me as Dr Finlayson, Thoracic Surgeon. I'm not entirely sure what "thoracic" refers to but it sounds awfully similar to "thorax" and I'm pretty sure that's the middle part of an insect. Ergo, I am a "middle part of the person" doctor and I think that's where one performs CPR. Breath, breath, push on chest and repeat. Or something like that. So no real need for CPR training*.
2. Butterfly stroke. But let's be honest, no one really knows how to do this. As long as you throw your arms around, bob up and down a bit, I think you can claim it as nailed. I don't recommend using this stroke when you're trying to get to someone to give them CPR. It's more of a staying in one place kind of a stroke.
3. Fly fishing. I've done it a couple of times with my grandfather. It wasn't a success. But I might have used that experience to claim the title "Professional Angler" once or twice. Possibly even exaggerated a little bit when on a date and had to cancel the next one because he wanted to go fly fishing. It's ok, it never would have worked. He didn't know CPR or butterfly. My only two requirements.
4. Car diagnostics. I have two go-to's for car problems. "It's your radiator" and "It's your carburettor". I confess to not knowing (a) what either looks like and (b) what either does. I just know that both are very expensive. To be fair, you shouldn't be asking me anyway unless you are comfortable with me using the two tools I own, to fix it. A hammer and a screwdriver.
5. My job. So far no one has noticed.
6. Ballet. I have had an awful lot of training, but it doesn't seem to have taken. So it's not that I don't know how to do it and haven't had any experience, it's more that it's not really in my wheelhouse. Thankfully, this is one of those things that I have not been called out on and asked for a demo.
7. Technology. For example, watch a DVD using my DVD player. I usually say it's broken. Cos I don't know what plugs into what and I seem to have an excess of cords. It's definitely broken.
8. Tie a cherry stem into a knot using my tongue. Well, I can, but I'm going to need you to sit there for a couple of hours. And not watch me. I've been told it's not my best look when I'm really concentrating on getting it done. Which I find hard to believe.
9. Run hurdles. I might have been able to do this back in my heyday. Which was around age 10. But I think my time has passed. And really, it's like math - never going to use it in my day job. Except that I kind of have to use math**.
10. Moonwalk. I think my ballet training might have impacted my ability here.

*Pretty sure someone will complain about this. Please send complaints to someone.
**I get around this by explaining that (a) Excel is clearly broken (b) math is also broken and (c) let's just use our words and the numbers will take care of themselves.

Interesting Hair Decisions I Have Made...

To be fair one of these was made by my mother without my permission so I just had to do the best I could.

• The classic bowl cut. A special silver kitchen mixing bowl was used for this little number. Side note:  Same bowl that was placed by your bed when you were sick and in danger of vomiting. Multi-purpose bowl.  Used for everything but mixing.

So this is a good look for me, no? Nice ear tufts and slightly sketchy fringe. Thinking of going back to this.  Pretty sure I can pull it off...

• Braids. Who here hasn't done this? First of all, I owe my mother an apology. I lied about how much they cost. They were ridiculously expensive so it seemed a good idea to use my student loan money. Not mine. Also, it was incredibly painful having fake hair added into mine and braided tightly to my scalp. For two days, I sat there in a dodgy shifty back room of a shop in Auckland watching Bob Marley music videos and sucking back the aspirin. Seemed a little awkward half way through to tell her I changed my mind - not nearly as awkward as when I went out to get lunch and got all the excess hair trapped in the door of an ATM alcove that closed a little too quickly for someone not used to dealing with waist-length half-braided hair.  Not to worry, I did a half back bend and managed to swipe my ATM card to open the door and free myself. Hardly anyone laughed. Only the whole street.  Note: If you're in a bind, those are not the people you want on your team*
  

  

  Add a black head band once it starts to grow out. You will think it looks good.  You never were a very good judge of what looks good. 

  

  Take your hair camping in a casual half-up, half-down style.  Don't feel you need to bring all of it back with you - birds in the wild can use it for nesting.

  
  

  

  Add sunglasses and a sassy pose.  It won't help.

• You know the best place to hide the hair you just cut off your brother's head?  Not behind your parent's bedroom door.  Won't make that mistake again.  Probably won't get the chance since he's a little gun-shy now...

• Barbie.  We all cut Barbie's hair off, right?  Actually had a pretty good go at Ken's as well.  Unlike Barbie, he does not have the face to pull off the shorter look...

Well I think she looks nice.  Bit more modern with the side-laying-down-mohawk in front.  And look at the smile on her face - she loves the light breeziness of it!

• Anything I did doesn't even compare to what my mother did as a child when she cut all the neighborhood kids hair.  Her mother dragged her around to apologize to everyone.  Pretty sure it was a "sorry not sorry" apology.  Smart really, she was now the best looking kid on the street, the only one not half bald...

*Side note 1 on braids.  After a while once your hair begins to grow out a bit, they tend to fall off.  It's pretty hard to deny it when someone presents you with a a long blond braid in the pub "This fell off your head."  After vigorous denials that weren't fooling anyone, I stuffed it in back pocket to add to my collection at home. Side note 2 on braids - it sounds like a great idea to have an unbraiding party and invite all your friends over to help you take them out.  Possibly if I'd offered refreshments, I might have avoided the awkward situation with my friend who got bored and just started cutting them off when I wasn't looking...

Sugar...And The Lack Of

Good news - I can eat the cat food. No sugar anywhere in it. Feel a bit bad for Albert not having ever tasted sugar before. Going to give him some icecream tonight. Maybe cat nip is his sugar? Probably bad parenting to experiment on your cat. Don't want him to get diabetes, he needs to retain his slim 11lb figure so he can squeeze through the bars on the window and get out. Mama doesn't want a litter box.

Bit concerned about the tocopherols though.  You have to watch tocopherol consumption in cats.  Also, what are tocopherols?

On another note - I've now been sugar-free for 13 days. I feel amazingly wonderfully exactly the same.  So that's good.  Only now, all I can think about is sugar and not having it.  

It's also affecting my behavior.  And not in a good way.  For instance, I bought my nieces their Valentine's Day chocolate this weekend and normally I like to buy it, package it up ready to post, have emotional need for it and eat it.  Then go re-buy it again the next day.  And repeat.  Up to a max of 5 times.  This year, I had to post it off immediately in order not to fall into the same delicious pattern.  I don't like change, this is making me uncomfortable.  Thank god the 66 days will be up by Easter - I'd hate to buy just one lot of Easter eggs.  

My New Favorite Thing

...photobombing people at The Grove, the outdoor mall by my house. It's filled with tourists who love to take pictures. So nice to see them creating those special memories with their families and loved ones. And me.

They didn't even notice me.  I had to climb inside the tree.  Photobombing Level: Extreme Xmas

Photo poses could do with some work, they're not even paying attention.  Made it easy to sidle on in.  Looks a little like I'm pickpocketing her.   I'm not.  Was just having a look.  That kid is trying to steal my thunder by walking ballerina style. Photobombing Level: 4 Best buds on a Park Bench (well, 3 and me in the garden). 

Awww...  Just the three of us.  Photobombing Level: Crate & Barrel

Hey...I'm coming too!  Also.  I am a giant.  Let's go get some sugar. 

Ok, I'm bored of it now.

Things I Have Done Lately

1. Nothing. But I did a lot of it so I think a lot of nothing is something. So, it's not nothing.
2. 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle. Of autumn leaves. I give this a difficulty level of: F*&$ing boring*.
3. Not eat sugar. I read a new study that said it's no longer 21 days to break a habit. It's 66. I bet the same people that thought a 5 day work week was a good idea, came up with this. I have 59 to go. Another reason why I can't leave the house ever again. But turns out my desire for sugar is over-ruled by my laziness. So if I don't have anything in the house, I won't go and get it so I just go to bed angry. It's really doing wonders for me**.
4. Started a 4 week Meditation course. Not as much napping as I would have liked. However, I really think this is going to help offset the sugar deprivation issues. I'm hoping that it'll turn into transcendental meditation where I can float on over to the store and get some sugar. It's good to have an end goal.
5. Taught the cat to put his paws on my knee, step onto my hand with his hind legs and allow himself to be lifted up.  Somehow I feel like he has put one over on me.  Someone taught someone something.

*I usually do jigsaw's with my mother and sister-in-law and wine. It's a lot more fun. Not as easy as you think to do a jigsaw over Skype.
**So far I have noticed that I am angry, resentful and leaning towards eating the cat. My results appear to differ from everyone in the studies I've read.

Other Things About Vegas

1. You can't count cards* in Roulette. You can only close your eyes and pray.
2. Most of the world's cigarette smoke is in Vegas. I wish there was an invention to use second hand cigarette smoke - I know where I can get some.
3. There is something very wrong about having a cigarette while you drag your oxygen tank around with you at a casino. I don't know what it is, but just doesn't feel right.
4. Bowling might be my thing. But just the first game, then I crack under pressure.
5. Xmas in Vegas is the same as Vegas all year round. Everything is always bright and shiny. Except for people's lungs. They're like a lump of Xmas coal.
6. The best way to play slot machines is with someone else's money. Also, just bash all the buttons, stuff will happen.
7. If you see a family you like, just tag along. Worked out great for me. 
8. Buffet was $6.99.  Which is ridiculously cheap. There is a strategy to buffeting.  You have to eat enough to last you all day until you go back in the evening but not so much that you're sick.  Took me a couple of go's to strike the right balance.  On reflection, there's probably no need for ice cream at breakfast.  Unless you're putting it on oatmeal.  Which cancels out anything bad.

*Let's face it, I can't count cards at all. Even if I knew what that meant, it's hard enough adding up to 21 with just my cards.

Change Is Afoot

In case neither of my fans noticed, I didn't post yesterday. This was due to a couple of reasons:

1. I am lazy
2. I was in training learning how to give effective feedback. For the record, you cannot punch someone if they do something stupid and you cannot expect to get good results out of someone by bringing them in and carefully explaining that they are stupid. I know, was an eye opener for me too.
3. I have a new plan.

I'm thinking of just writing three days a week, how do you both feel about that? Probably Monday, Wednesday and Friday but maybe not. I need to carefully analyze my analytics to find out when most people read my stuff. And then only post then. Probably time to get out the chart skills again.

The reason I'm doing this apart from number 1 above is that I'm thinking of writing an e-book. And the only reason I am putting this out there is because of number 1 above - now that I've said it and you all know it, I have to do it. So instead of the 10 minutes every evening that I carefully set aside to bang something out for the blog, I'll devote all of that to the book. Should be done in no time.

Don't worry, I won't be overly straining myself, just going to take everything I've written over the last year and a bit and do some clever copy pasting. If it doesn't work, then I'll just give up immediately*. If it does work, I suspect, I will be very rich. Or at least as rich as this blog has already made me. $39.33

*This is my new motto. It's very liberating and allows you to move on to other things quite quickly.

Vegas...and Newly Acquired Gambling Skills

Since I'm a little behind with everything that happened over the Holiday break, I've missed writing about a few important things. Namely, that I have now mastered Blackjack. 
Golf, Surfing, Graphs - is there anything I can't do? Technically have not done surfing yet but I can't see that being difficult at all so just calling it "nailed" now.

Played a lot of skittle blackjack while I was in Vegas, prepping myself to go out and hit the high roller tables. By the end of the week, it was time so I swaggered on over to the $5 table - go big or go home...

Playing for Skittles is harder than money but more delicious.  And for the record, the dealer will smack your hand hard if you try and eat his Skittles.  He will also penalize you by taking Skittles away if you're seen to not be paying attention or color-sorting your Skittles.  I learned gambling in the school of hard knocks, the real world is a lot easier.

Got dealt my first card. Got my hand smacked for picking it up without waiting for the second one. Looked at my cards. Turned 'em over. Got yelled at for turning them over. Asked for a hit with a subtle hand movement. Got schooled on the correct hand movement (pretty keen on making my own special hand movement at this point). At this stage, the dealer had made me nervous and my usual lightning quick mathematical calculations weren't working as well as normal. 
So my first few hands were a bit suspect. In general, if you have just 4, you should probably ask for another card. Also, if you have asked for another card when you had 20, you might be considered an idiot.

Made myself a friend who gave me a few tips.  I gave him a tip in return to just to be friendly.  "Get some teeth.  Yours are all missing."

Finally got into the swing of things - turns out different tables have different hand signals and ways of doing things but the dealer's will let you know pretty quickly. And they don't always use their words.  I apparently misinterpreted the look that I thought meant I was a beautiful, smart and canny blackjack player...

After a while, I'd broken even and decided it was time to move forward with my plan to make a billion before leaving to catch my flight in an hour.  At a $5 table, betting $5 at a time, I calculated the number of minutes remaining and odds of me winning all the hands and it came out to a sure thing which is how gambling works..    

New Year's Resolutions

Am still very weak and currently dictating this to the cat, but didn't want all 7 followers to leave me. It's taken 18 months to get them and I can't afford to lose anyone else from Latvia. So here you have them - my resolutions for this year*.

1. Never get as sick again as I have been. Which means no more going out in public, socializing with people and definitely no children. 2015 is the year of not leaving the house. Made an excellent start so far. Ordering food is the best - I buzz them into the building and tell them to leave it outside my door so I don't even have to have contact with the delivery person. Goes nicely with my other resolution about not putting my face in the sun. Trading skin cancer for Rickets. Is it the Rickets or just plain Rickets?
2. Invent the next best thing, retire and never do anything again. All from inside the house. Hopefully something can be invented from excessive amounts of cat fur because I don't want to have to go to Home Depot.
3. Stop buying pretty dresses. Except for the ones that I really need. Like ball gowns.
4. Learn how to repair holes in exhaust manifolds. Ignoring it has turned out to be a less than optimal solution.
5. Make more friends**. But without leaving the house. Or seeing them in person. So, basically pen pals. I'm bringing back pen pals. Email is is 2014.
6. Buy stocks in tissue companies. People use tissues like they're going out of style. Tissues have been my closest friend of late. Note to self: invent hands-free tissues.
7. Give less damns.  I don't even care if no one likes this post.  That's how good I am at this one.
8. Learn telepathy.  There's some people's heads I need to get inside.  So far this is working well with the cat.  Commanded him to sleep using just my thoughts and he was out like a light.  He even pre-empted my command and went to sleep before I even thought it.
9. Learn to drive with my eyes shut.  After I've mastered Telepathy so I can use my mind to tell people to get out of the way.  
10. Floss every day.  Why is this so hard?  

 

*I've decided to follow the Medieval calendar which celebrates the New Year from March 25th to April 1st. So technically my year isn't really starting just yet and I have until then to revise these Resolutions. Feel free to join me if your year started off with a cough and a lot of snot and you want a do-over.
**But not friends with kids. They make you sick.

Happy New Year From The Cat

Since I'm still milking this illness thing, Albert wants you to know that he's psyched for 2015. You can see it in his eyes. Sorry, eye.

This is how he spent New Year's Eve.  Had to tell him to rein it in a little at one point when he almost fell off the couch.

His new thing for 2015 is hashtags so he asked me to add these*:
#letsgetit
#makingbigthingshappen
#2015yearoftheoneeyedcat
#Day6andimstillonthecouch
#imnotfatimfluffy
#firedup
#canyouseemyenthusiasm**

*Don't be ridiculous, do you really think he asked me to do this?  Everyone knows, cats don't ask...
**If there is a job out there where all you do is think up creative hash tags all day, I want it.  #messageme

Sick

I was originally going to start posting again today but I'm sick and probably will be at death's door tomorrow. So I need to save my strength. Besides, I was just going to post my New Year's resolutions so you're probably better off not knowing.

Normal activities will resume as soon as I can walk up stairs without losing a lung in a couching fit. Or when I feel like it.