Evil Oddie

So another Christmas is done.  Glen was on call so we didn’t do very much at all.  Glen’s parents are pretty much the only family that we have in Brisbane, and they don’t really get into the Christmas spirit so it’s not like a Christmas with my family.  Glen and his parents have a couple of traditions for Christmas - fruit salad for breakfast and plum pudding for dessert.

My nephew-in-law (his name is also Glen with one ‘n’ - and technically he is my sister’s nephew) and his partner Michael, have moved to Brisbane and they don’t have any family in Brisbane either.  So I went around to their place on Christmas just for a visit.  They were great and they put on some good food and wine.  They love Christmas (like me).  We had bon bons and wore the silly paper crown hats that come in them.

After a couple of hours, I went home and we had a BBQ dinner.  The main course was garlic prawns (I had a sausage cause I can’t eat prawns / meat).

A few people that I talked to weren’t happy with the drowsy weather.  I quite enjoyed not having the sweltering heat that we have had before on Christmas.  I remember a Christmas and it got to 42 degrees!

A friend sent this to me. It is very rare for me to laugh out loud but I did when I saw this.

Employee: ‘Hello this is *****, how can I help you?’

Customer: ‘I would like to order a cake for a going-away party this week.’

Employee: ‘What do you want on the cake?’

Customer: ‘Best Wishes Suzanne’ and then underneath that, ‘We will miss you’.

Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.

Glen is on call over Christmas & Boxing Day and has to go to work the days in between then and New Year’s Day. Quite a pain in the bum. Glen and I went up to Bundy on the weekend to see my family as I wouldn’t be seeing them for Christmas.

We left early on Friday morning. I woke up at 4:30am because I was extremely excited. Glen was still comatose so I drove up. On the way up, there was heaps of roadworks (GRRRRR!!) and there was one that had a sign stating to expect to be delayed for 15 minutes! We ended up getting to Bundy at about 10 ish and we were starving. It felt like lunchtime to us, but nothing was open. The only place that we could get food from was KFC. We had to wait for them to get the fryers on. Only in Bundy.

Because the people that we were going to be visiting had to work on Friday, we cruised around and had our KFC in a park and drove past our old places. We went to where Glen would be staying (Mick & Shaz’s) and set up. We ended up having a nanna nap cause we were still tired.

I went around to my sisters in the arvo for a visit but they were going out for dinner, so I went back to Mick & Shaz’s for the night. On Saturday, us girls headed out for our usual shopping trip - I bought up big again at the Op Shop - and we got Busy Bee chips for lunch… mmm yummo…

On Saturday night, it was my sister-in-law’s 40th birthday party. I got her a little crystal bowl & my sister’s family got the big matching bowl. It was really good to go. I caught up with quite a few family members from my Brother-In-Law’s family. We were going to go out after the party, but my sister’s going out outfit was still on the line, so we couldn’t go.

On Sunday, Mum came down to see Glen and I. So we had Lunner (its like Brunch only between Lunch and Dinner). I have definitely had my share of BBQ’s over the weekend. Glen and I decided that we are going to buy a house in Bundy as soon as we can.

Monday, we left early to get home. There was an accident on the Gateway and they totally closed the motorway. It took us about 7 hours to get home. It normally takes us about 4 - 4.5 hours… When we were unpacking the car, I bumped my leg on the back bumper and it really hurt. I looked down. My left side of my body looks like its from a cooked lobster!

Thank god for Aloe Vera. I have been putting it in the fridge so it’s nice and cool on my sunburn.

The new owner picked up my old Nissan Pulsar GTiR the night before last. It was both a sad and happy moment.

I don’t think I will ever buy another grey import. It took us a month to get the road worthy. I should highlight that there wasn’t anything drastically wrong with the car; it was about sourcing parts. It needed a new shockie. We had to wait a week and a half just for it to get here. Then it went missing while being freighted up. So we had to order another set. I personally don’t think they went “missing”. I think that someone went ‘Holy crap! These are good shockies, they’ll go great in my car or I could get a fair bit of money for them on Ebay.’ The guy who fitted the shockies showed me his invoice. The wholesale price for these were like $600.

The other thing that needed to get fixed was an oil leak. It was just a seal. It had to get ordered from Melbourne. It is less than a $20 part. It took a week to get here and to get the seal on, they had to drop the gearbox. I am really happy that the car is fixed and the new owner is happy. Poor guy, he had to wait a month for a car that he was really excited about.

The next car that we need to sell is the Nissan 300ZX.

On Sunday, Glen decided that we needed to clean out the gutters. He asked if I could drive the ride on mower with the trailer attached, so that he could drop the leaves and gunk straight into the trailer. Glen knows that I am not good with heights, so he didn’t even bother asking if I wanted to get on the roof.

I haven’t driven the ride on mower much, but after a quick lesson, I was right to go. When Glen got onto the roof, he discovered that we only have one gutter. We have a flat roof and it slopes to the back of the house. Seeing that there has been a verandah attached after the house was built, Glen couldn’t dump the leaves straight into the trailer. So I parked on the side of the house and Glen did trips with the leaves. I was collecting stray leaves and gunk that missed the trailer when Kaos (my cat - approx 7 years old) came and visited.

After a few pats and smooges, Kaos had had enough. She walked down towards the back when something caught her eye. She turned when she got about 2 metres away from me and started stalking something to her left. I was scared it was going to be a blue tongue lizard, so I threw a bit of gunk from the gutter at her. It didn’t interrupt her concentration. I was watching her to see what she was chasing.

She pounced at the garden bed and out slithered a SNAKE!!!! I was back on the ride on. It was the quickest I’d moved all day (it was really hot in the sun too). The only other snake that I have seen while we have been in this house was a DEAD green tree snake. Well, this one was a brown snake. It was probably the same size as a 10 cent piece in diameter. I was peaking. I was scared that Kaos was going to get bitten and there was no way I was going anywhere near the snake. I grew up on a farm and I have had too many run ins with snakes. I do not like them at all!!

I yelled out to Glen to tell him about the snake. Glen wasn’t too worried, the cat is a hunter and she is very quick. I was considering actually getting on the roof to get away from the snake.

The snake rared up a couple of times and Kaos just swatted it away. It wasn’t too long before kitty had killed the snake.

Now I have a whacking stick that I take with me when I walk out the back…

I love Christmas so much, normally I have our personal Christmas Cards completed before December 1.  This year however, I haven’t even started yet.  I’m thinking about only sending cards to the people that send a card to us.  Sad I know, but that’s where I am at the moment.  I think the reason behind this is doing all the cards for Ingenuity.

I ordered the cards through Guide Dogs Queensland.  They are absolutely beautiful cards.  However, before I ordered them, I asked if they could print our greeting in the card.  I was told they could.  So when I ordered them at the beginning of October (yes I’m very organised), I was surprised when I was told that I couldn’t get them printed with our greeting.  So when we got our order of Christmas Cards - a lot dammit - I had to print our greeting onto it.

Our laser printer has a habit of grabbing 5 cards at once, so I had to stand at the printer and feed each card & envelope in.  Then stuffing them into their appropriate envelope, putting on the stamp and then the card only sticker (the Aussie Post guy told me that I had to put on the card only sticker or we will get charged extra).  After a full week of doing the Christmas Cards, I’m well and truly over it.

It was Cameron’s birthday during last week. He called to see if he could arrange a Guitar Hero night at our place on Friday night. It was supposed to be a boy’s night, but apparently, I am pretty much one of the boys. So I got to stick around, seeing it was at my house and all…

It started later than I assumed it was going to, so I cooked dinner for Glen and I. Seeing Pete was still in the office and he was also sticking around for the games, I made extra for him.

In the end, there was Pete, Cameron, Stinky, Glen and I for the games night. Some of the other guys who were supposed to come got sick or forgot. Guitar Hero was a pretty good game, but it wasn’t a spectator game. We got bored quickly, and changed to Ping Pong. We all had no idea what you had to do. Pete was kicking everyone’s butt. When I played, I just mashed buttons and hoped that the guy would hit the ball. It sucked cause Pete had been drinking and he still beat me 11 to 1!

After Ping Pong, the guys got excited about some crashing game. I remember this from ages ago. Seemed like the same game from years ago.

I was starting to get tired. Yes, the jobless bum who can sleep whenever wanted to go to bed first. It wasn’t long after that everyone decided to call it a night. Cameron wanted to go home and because he was smashed, Glen drove him home. Glen didn’t know where Cameron lived and the funny part was, Cameron fell asleep on the way home! So Glen had to keep waking him up to get directions… It was ages before Glen got home.

We finally got to bed about 3am. As usual, Glen and I woke up about 7am. Pete stayed over in the downstairs room named “The Oddie Box”. Apparently that’s where I’ll get put when I’ve been naughty. Check out his blog about the night - Click Here.