Long macchiato or Shiraz?

I just want to stay here! It's wet and miserable outside, I don't want to go back to work. I want to order a long macc and linger over it, the paper and a muffin. I don't want to go back to the office where a reasonable proportion of staff are off sick, meaning things need to be picked up by others, especially around a team training that's happening later this morning and much of that will fall on me. I'm currently missing a meeting (which ain't all bad!) because I had to attend to a crisis, which involved being abused by two separate individuals over the phone. Everyone's feeling overloaded and I'm sick of listening to their complaints of how bad their lot is. I just want to stay here and drink coffee, catch up on the news, increase my sugar levels and watch the world go by without engaging with it for a while.

All this was going through my mind this morning while I stood in the bakery. Seeing I had missed most of the meeting I thought it worthless going in for the rest of it, so I offered to go and pick up the birthday cake (because despite the crazy morning, we know what is important at work and celebrating birthdays with cake is one of them) as half the admin staff were off sick.
After the training, which was laborious, mainly due to nitpicking people who can't seem to appreciate the bigger picture (and I know I've described myself as anal in the past - but I am anal about the important things in life, unlike most other people in the universe!) I had moved on from needing to spend time in a cafe sipping coffee to going to the pub that has a fire and opening a bottle of Shiraz!

I think I need a break, which I am fortunately having next week. The above is really an average day at work and normally I can handle it without this sort of effect on me. Only two more days to go!
Thanks for listening to me complain about how bad my lot is. It's not really and I'll get through the next couple of days then have a change in routine for the next couple of weeks. Haven't got anything much planned, but it's school holidays here so my son and I will hang out together. Looking forward to not having to do anything in particular or be anywhere particular. It'll be good just to hang.

Tagged, yet again!

I’ve been tagged again! This will make 16 things you’ve discovered about me in 5 weeks, so they’re bound to be more trivial and boring! This pyramid is slowly building.

1. I was born in Princess Elizabeth Hospital in the country where the Princess became a Queen.

2.
I have one brother who is 5 years older than me. We are very different and not particularly close. The main thing we have in common is around parenting. We have the same parents and we became parents around the same time.

3. My favourite dogs are Great Danes. I feel in love with them when my family visited some friends in Yeppoon
(mid Queensland coast) who had two Great Danes (mother and son) and a cattle dog. They used to walk them along the beach, the cattle dog would tear up and down the beach while the Danes would lob along like
the day would never end. Maybe they reflect my energy levels. Of course Great Danes are not very good for living in a flat, so I’ll have to wait until I live in a more appropriate dwelling.

4. I have a sweet tooth. I don't like sweets as in lollies, but I love cakes and puddings and of course, chocolate, particularly dark chocolate.

5. Shiraz is my favourite drop of grape juice.

6. I love open fires and could stare into one all night.

7. As a child I played hockey and actually enjoyed it. As an adult I have not played any sport.

8. I'd love to learn the cello one day. I think it is a beautiful instrument with more depth than the violin.

Whilst I'm not going to build other people's pyramids, I did enjoy doing this again. Thanks Paul.

Sexual Harrassment?

I work with a good bunch of people. Some have become close friends. There is one woman, K who has become a good buddy over recent times. We have some things in common about how we see life. One thing we have in common is an appreciation of good looking and cute men. We were having drinks last Friday night after work and commenting on many of the men in the wine bar.
The other week we were having a meeting in an upstairs open plan office. An IT guy from our larger organisation came up the stairs. I got this kick under the table from K who was sitting next to me. I have to say it hurt as the heel of her shoe hit my ankle! I also have to say that the kick was totally unnecessary as I had indeed noticed Mr. IT who had been in once before and is very cute. I can’t say our attention was totally on the meeting after that!
It got me thinking. If we were two straight guys ogling women would we be seen differently. Ogling is too strong a word - we admire from afar and in no way that the gentlemen in question would be conscious of - unless our vibes are stronger than we are aware! Anyway, the question is, do straight men have such a reputation when it comes to women that when there are two or more men gathered and their attention is on women that they are seen as boorish? Are assumptions made that aren't made when women's attention is on men, or gay men's attention is on men, or gay women's......well you get my drift!

With Thanks....

....to my IT consultant for my new background - the Campbell tartan of course....clever hey!

Third Time Unlucky

So Saturday morning saw a group of us standing around in the cold watching son's tennis team lose their Grand Final for the third time. They have been here three times now and that final win still eludes them. It was a very close and exciting game. Unfortunately there were a couple of unpleasant incidents - yep, you guessed it, caused by the parents. Demir Dokic was at his best, actually walking on to the court at one point to have an altercation with the umpire. The saddest moment for me was when he took his son away after he lost his singles game with a tie breaker (ie. a VERY close game). Now I don't have supersonic hearing, but I can only guess that he was doing a post mortem on the set with him, telling him where he could have won extra points. I reckon there is a time to experience life and a time to reflect on it and straight after a game like that is not the time to reflect. Overall we only lost by three games, I'm never sure whether it's better to be thrashed or be just pipped to the post.
Unfortunately for me, the day ended in a worse way. Demir had organised for the team and parents to go out for dinner to (hopefully) celebrate our win, which of course ended up being a commiseration. Now I really like son's friends, can't say the same for their parents (not all I must say). So I had a few hours on Saturday night of reliving every lost point of the morning as well as the politics of the tennis club. At least the kids enjoyed themselves.
So that's the end of another season until the next - only four weeks away!

Hello Young Lovers

My son’s tennis team is in the Grand Final of his tennis competition next Saturday, having won the semi final the Saturday before last. Last Saturday was a break being a long weekend here in Melbourne. The team coordinator, who is the Demir Dokic of the northern suburbs of Melbourne, felt the team should get together for a hit on Saturday anyway, so they don’t lose their groove. Now there is a girl in the team, lets call her B, whom all the boys like. She is quite aware of this and plays the field rather successfully. (We are talking 13 and 14 year olds). Now on Saturday B was focusing her attention on my son. After the hit in the morning we went for lunch and then to the movies for some team bonding. We went to see Shrek 3. The six kids who are in the team all got seats in the same row and the two parents (me being one of them, Demir Dokic the other) and Demir’s younger daughter got seats a couple of rows behind. As I woke up about three quarters of the way through the film (it just so happened that I saw it the previous night with much more pleasurable company and also I was tired due to said previous night) I sat up and noticed that B’s head was on son’s shoulder and son’s head was inclined on hers.
I have to say it gave my heart a little flutter – my little baby’s growing up! Also to know that he’s experiencing those feelings of the heart gave me a warm feeling. It got me wondering, do those feelings really change as one gets older? Sure we mature (hopefully), but do those raw emotions of the heart, in whatever form we might experience them, really ever change? I’m not sure that they do – and ‘ain’t that a grand thing.

The best mates I've never met

This was the title of an article in the Sunday Life magazine of the Sunday Age (newspaper in Melbourne, sorry couldn't find a link). It was about bloggers and the support they have received from readers of their blogs. Now I've blogged about this before, how I feel a part of a blogging community and yes you have all been very supportive in different ways. This has become a significant part of my life. I feel a sense of belonging. This is an outlet for many thoughts - my own as well as contemplating others'. I sometimes wonder though, is this a replacement for face to face communities? "There are people on the internet that I would consider closer friends than I have in real life" - a quote from the article. How close can an internet friend be. I mean, how effective is it to send off an email or comment on a blog at 3am when we're having a crisis? What would a health professional think if we gave them a blog address as someone to contact should we end up in an Accident & Emergency room of a hospital? Do we have more control over cyber relationships than face to face relationships? Is this why some people may prefer cyber relationships?
I guess the answer is that we should have a balance of relationships in our lives. Cyber relationships, important as they can be, should not be our only form of relationships, but be one of the images in our kaleidoscope of life.
I want to take this opportunity to say thanks to all you readers - for your comments and own blogs which have been supportive, amusing and thought provoking. You certainly add colour to my life.

Living On After Death

I was at my parents over the weekend. They had asked me to bring any photos I had of my aunt as a friend of hers realised he didn't have any of her and they said they would send him some. My aunt died nearly 20 years ago now. She was what is euphemistically known as a 'maiden aunt'. I've always thought that non-partnered aunts and uncles with no kids of their own are a bit like younger grandparents. They lavish more attention on you than the parents of your cousins, cause they've got the time, but are younger than grandparents, so often have more energy for you and are closer to your the understandings of your own age group (this is generalising greatly of course!). I always regret that I didn't get to become more of a friend to my aunt in that adult to adult way. I always wonder what it would have been like to have come out to her. I have a feeling she is a family member I could talk to more about it.
I have a few items of hers which are special to me. She began my collection of busts (of the musical masters variety) as I inherited hers. What I use quite regularly, which is special because it was hers, is her dictionary. Words and music were important to her. Whenever I look up her dictionary, I sort of feel that she is assisting my expression of life. This is one way that she lives on.
I sometimes wonder how I will live on after I'm dead.