Trying New Things

I admit to having some issues. Clothes color-coded in my wardrobe. Which is actually normal and very helpful. Separating out M&M's into their color groups which is also completely normal as it's very bad to mix the colors in your stomach. I think it causes tuberculosis.* I also like to match my outfit to my cat - this just makes good fashion sense, thankfully he's not a ginger tabby which would be much harder to match with.

On further reflection, it looks like I don't actually have any issues and am completely normal. Perfect, even.

But in the interests of becoming a better person**, I have a new plan***, every time I feel the need to indulge in any one of my issues, I have to go and do a handstand. Who was expecting that? I was just reminded about handstands in a recent yoga class where I was commended for my excellent form and ability. The instructor asked where I learned my skills - childhood and pole dancing class. He was not expecting that.  So, just as soon as I receive my life alert pendant, I will be solving all my problems with handstands.   Safety first. Although, if things go horribly wrong and while upside down, without my helmet, I land awkwardly, I will have much bigger issues to worry about. Win win, really.

Who's with me?

*Not yet verified. But I think most of you remember my struggle with Tuberculosis from earlier posts and I distinctly recall mixing up my M&M's and eating them right before I got hit with the disease.
**Which is hard when you've just pronounced yourself perfect
***Not my idea but claiming it as mine.  especially if it works.

Tips For Losing Weight*

Diet To-Do List

1. Create a To-Do Diet List.
2. Check off first item**
3. Set goal of losing 30lbs by January 1. Only have 40 to go.
4. Focus: Lie on the couch concentrating really hard about losing weight and eating cake. I think this will work
5. Set realistic goals: On the one hand, I need to lose weight. On the other hand, doughnut
6. Come up with weight loss plan: I'm going to lose weight. I'm going to exercise everyday. I'm going to go on a diet and stick to it...oh is that cake?
7. Clean out cupboards of all naughty food - throw in trash***
8. Cheat on boyfriend - not food****.
9. Attend social occasions and focus on people not snacks*****.
10. Borrow someone else's Weight Watchers points when a big event comes up
11. Hope for food poisoning - that's 5lbs right there
12. Take it slow - remember you didn't put the weight on in a day. On the other hand, how much have I lost since this morning?
13. Make small changes to see results e.g. eat a cupcake without sprinkles. Have a waffle without syrup. Unless you're having a cupcake and waffle for dessert - then it's fine.
14. Remember, no one is judging you on your weight because you're a good person******.
15. You are what you eat. Today I am a lentil.

*Not actual tips - if I had any that worked, I would be a lot thinner. This would be a lot more useful and we would all be miserable together.
**Congratulate self on completing two items on list. Reward self with nap. And small snack. Of 12 cupcakes 
***Retrieve from trash - no point in good food going to waste.  Start tomorrow.  Again.
****Don't have boyfriend - food it is. 
*****Those people look delicious. 
******All lies 

An Open Invitation To My House For Thanksgiving/Rugby

Dear all of my friends*,

As most of you don't know, NZ is playing Ireland on November 25th which is close enough to Thanksgiving for me to combine the two. Since it's being played in Dublin, it's probably at some horrific hour but there's that whole time difference thing which is like long division and who can understand that? I asked for them to play around 9amish but it seems I no longer have the power to (a) convince New Zealand to play at a time more convenient to me or (b) reverse the world's time zones. I'm like Harry Potter but without magic. Or a wand. Or an owl. Or a broomstick**. Or an invisible cloak. Actually, it turns out, I'm not like him at all. That was a poor example.
Normally, I would have come up with some fancy invite but I forgot that I'm not a graphic designer. So I got out my stick and dirt. Drew a cool invite with my stick in the dirt but I can't figure out how to get it on my computer. If you want to come over, can you come look at my dirt invite? I'm going to need you to RSVP in the dirt.

I will make a full Thanksgiving dinner, provide you with beer and wine and sophisticated party snacks. I will also be making and decorating little rugby ball cookies. But if you show up and there aren't any cookies, just know that in my head they were delicious.

This is what I want them to look like.

If I'm lucky, they'll look like this

So, I think that went well,

You might want to bring a cushion or a chair as I have a three seater couch. If only 2 people show up, we will be fine. A little awkward perhaps, sitting side by side, staring straight ahead. Also, don't touch my stuff.

Hope to see you***,

K

*Hi Mum.
**Actually I have a broomstick but when I command it to fly, it just falls limply to the ground. So we just sweep instead.
***Not true. Also I have changed my mind about doing this.

Great Invention Ideas I have Had

• This Blog
• Velcro Wall Wardrobe - this one's a winner. Pretty sure there's going to be rush on velcro after work tonight. Wallpaper a wall in your room with the prickly side of velcro, sew a small piece of the fuzzy side to all your clothes. Instead of having to hang them up, just throw them at the wall. You're welcome.

Solving two problems at a time:

• Fat stations - if we could power our cars by sucking the fat out of people you could just pull into a fat station, hook yourself up to a fat volunteer, fill up with fat. You get free fuel, fat person gets thin. No more pollution, no more obesity. Genius.
• Feed the fat people to the hungry. No more obesity, no more starving people. World Problem's No.4 and 5 - cracked it.
• Using the skins off garbanzo beans (chickpeas) as contact lenses. I'm like Fred Hollows but without any qualifications. Or skills. Also I don't save Australian eyes*

Plenty more where this came from.  A can.  $1.43.

• I just had this idea today after my third ever yoga class last night.  Now that I'm a yoga teacher,** I think I'll open a yoga studio and have everyone just show up with their mats, unroll them, then...nap.  It's a different style of yoga.  New.  Its origins are from my head.  You should stay in the nap pose for an hour.
• I can't tell you in case you steal it for yourself. 

*Look him up.  Try and ignore the part about where he defected from NZ to Australia and focus on the good he did.  The Australians take all our good stuff - pavlova, Crowded House, Phar Lap, meat pies, the electric fence, spreadable butter, probably our sheep.  Then they turn around and try and give us their crap in exchange - prisoners (and pass them off as citizens), possums, spiders of a ridiculous size.  Probably cholera and plague (there's no evidence online because they stole the internet too). 
**Self-appointed.  The nap part is just until I learn more than Downward Dog.  Is fetal position, a position?  I'm good at that.  I practice for the bear attacks.

How To Go To A Bar On Your Own

• Leave the house. Congratulate self on good plan
• Return to the house to get Kindle (just in case)
• Select your outfit carefully - bar seats can be tricky to manage. Dresses and skirts will get shorter when you sit on a bar stool. Depending on the crowd this can be a positive... 
• Do a drive-by, but with your legs, of several bars to scour for an even mix of (a) empty spot at the bar (b) interesting looking people* (c) large groups**
• Select your bar, casually saunter in, look around questioningly as if you're meeting someone. Head to the bar and grab a seat. I like to sit in between a couple but not many people are open to this. I find being persistent works. Sometimes you end up with three seats to yourself.
• Ask for a menu and peruse it as if your life depended on it and there is nothing more interesting, because once they take it away, you are left with looking at your phone, bringing out your kindle or making an origami crane out of your napkin which you would think would be a huge talking point and have people flocking to you***
• Order something respectable and sophisticated. Like this****:

Classy.  Just like me.

• Consider ordering food - just remember, as a solo person, you are invisible to the wait staff so make sure they remember you by telling them everything you are allergic to. Eliminating gluten from your diet is tough but not nearly as tough as eliminating talking about eliminating gluten from your diet.  This is not the time to try - you need to drive the point home otherwise you will starve.
• Take a notebook and start drawing or writing in it - this is to draw people over to you to see what you're doing that has you so engaged. It will not work
• You will be judged for being a woman in a bar on your own. No one will believe that you just wanted to get a drink and hang out. And make new friends so you can invite them over for dinner parties where you will sit around and have witty and intellectually stimulating conversation.  Not around a fire pit.  Because you don't have one.
• At a certain point, you will realize that since you have no one to talk to, you have drunk a little too much, a little too quickly. That's when you receive an imaginary text "You can dance - Sincerely, Wine". And you do. And you can't. And it's a bar not a club. No one else is dancing. And they want you off the bar. But you had a hard enough time getting up there so there is where you'll stay. So you pretend it's a piano and you try and look all sexy and writhe around on the bar and then you fall off and realize getting down was easier although more painful than you first thought.
• If you have not been kicked out at this point, you take your seat with grace. And a little huffing and puffing which sort of ruins the grace part.

*This is very hard to tell. And hard to do without appearing judgmental. Luckily this is my blog so I can do whatever I want. Avoid very beautiful people. You don't want the competition. You also don't want super ugly people.
**Sometimes they won't notice that you have attached yourself to them and are pretending to be one of the crowd. Casually helping yourself to the bottle of wine they have ordered will help you to blend. Generally. Sometimes you will have to leave. Very fast.
***You would be wrong
****This will also let your fellow bar-goers just what kind of person you are.  And they will want to be your best friend.  Sometimes, they won't know this immediately.

A Study Of Carrots*

Yes, this is how I spent my Sunday afternoon.  Why?

When good carrots go bad...and grow horns.

Carrot porn

Dirty carrot

Easter Island Carrot

Carrot in a bikini**

Hawaiian Carrot - Aloha!

Incognito Carrot - pretending to be a snake

Native American carrot

Carrot on a zebra - "We ride at dawn!"

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Carrot

Punk Rocker carrot

Here comes the bride...carrot

Positive carrot

Xmas Tree carrot

*No carrots were abused or harmed in the writing of this post.  They were however, eaten.  Some of them had glue on them.  They should not have been eaten.
**Awkward moment where I have just realized a carrot looks better in a bikini than me.

Flasks and Foraging Part 2

If you have been waiting with bated breath for me to complete the story from last week, you are probably dead. No one can hold their breath that long, even those free-divers.

So, where was I?
Wanted a flask, didn't get one, had to buy my own. Poor me
Wanted outdoor furniture, too cheap to pay more than $10
Met a bunch of addicts, made friends. Now have someone to sit on outdoor furniture with me.
Had some delicious burrata
Came up with new plan to get outdoor furniture and use flasks

And so the story continues...

Apparently if you drive around Beverley Hills the night before garbage pick-up, you can get all sorts of furniture and rich people stuff that they just put out by the road. It’s true; it’s in my “The Cheap Bastards Guide to Los Angeles” book. I thought this would be fun and productive for me and my friend - we’ll call her “M” to preserve her anonymity in case she feels shame at scavenging off rich people. We’ll call me “K” to protect my anonymity as well. Now, M has a new car and has had the windows tinted. Because it’s easier to drink from a flask in your car behind tinted windows. There was something else about preserving the interior of the car but I think it’s more about the flask. I thought tinting was illegal but she thinks only on the driver window, which she had done anyway. Also, it’s probably only an issue if they pull you over and you’re drinking out of your flask behind your tinted window. Now I kind of have tinted window envy because I have to drink out of my flask in the open but since my car is a heap, not much point in getting tinted windows so thought I would just tack up some black paper. Will just staple it to leather in car – which then makes it perfect for driving to Bev Hills and scrounging all their free stuff that they’ve thrown out. Yes, this plan will work.

Plan is to dress in black, take flasks and my black paper tinted window car and pull up to curb in Bev Hills next to fabulous item, jump out, throw in car and speed off. Unless of course said fabulous item is complete outdoor table and chair set with recliner accessory and umbrella. Will tie to back of car and drag it just far enough away from house so we can tie it on to roof. We may need a third person if anyone wants in but you have to bring your own flask.

Somewhere along the way, I think I might have lost all of you reading this. I'm a bit lost myself. Seemed so clear in my head initially. The point is that I need outdoor furniture so I can lie on it and drink out of my flask, I have to go to Beverley Hills to get it and my car windows need to be tinted so I can drink out of my flask and take free stuff from rich people.

Of course this is now completely redundant since my landlord kicked me out (I like to call "selling the house", kicking me out) and now I live in a place where there can be no outdoor furniture. So, now I can't drink out of my flask and it's completely useless.

This is what I have been reduced to...

Things that do not fit in flasks: Cake