The Weekend

  1. Every year on May 10 (Matt’s birthday) is Sisig Day. Boil it, season it, grill it, chop it, season it and Uber deliver it.

  2. Sisig is a treat, eating it with rice (as if there’s any other way) is a treat.

  3. I love the Auckland CBD. On a Saturday (or any other given day), it’s like being in a world where none of the real world’s problems exist, because who cares? Queen Street is so tiny with traffic controlled so you can sit at one of the benches and not feel that you’re in a city.

  4. I would love to live in the city; if we didn't have Lily the cat, we probably would.

Snap

Do images say more about what a person is and what their life is all about? I do hope so, because I’ve been struggling with writing about my life. Something just refuses to flow.

I remember when I was younger when it was so much easier. But I was obviously a different person then. I didn’t have any friends, I never left the house, I spent the day reading and day-dreaming and later, writing. Being alone creates the perfect conditions for writing.

But I’m never alone now, haven’t been in a very, very long time. Real life isn’t what I expected it to be, but I’ve made my peace with it. I’ve found my place in it. I’ve found the things that allow me to live comfortably, according to social standards as well as my own. I’ve found the pursuits that give me joy and contentment. I’m learning to set aside the things that I can’t control or have no power over. I’ve put aside the mistakes I’ve made, apologised for some of them and have never repeated them again. I try every day to be kind. I try every day to push aside bad thoughts like grabbing the phone of this idiot in my 7:05am bus who insists on playing his shit music out load, and slapping it across his ugly face.

Real life as it unfolds every single day is the best story of all. At the end of one, I discover that I neither have the energy or the creative words to write about it.

I’ve lived it and survived to live the next one- isn’t that enough? So can I just take a photo please?

Source: ryanamor.com

Out of office

Holidays are exhausting. When you get back, you realise that you need a holiday to recover from the holiday. But with steadily accumulating leave that I can’t even accumulate, I decided to take the whole of the Easter break, my birthday leave and tomorrow’s Anzac Day for a grand total of eight days to do fuck all. Well, actually did a lot. We took a car to the island of Waiheke, did a 24km bike ride of the island, and marvelled at how the rich locals spent a normal Wednesday night drinking $300 wines and nibbling on exquisite, but tiny pieces of roasted lamb loin (it was very good).

Shānmǔ shēngrì kuàilè, xīnnián kuàilè

When did we all start celebrating other culture’s/people’s holidays?

Don’t mind it and the only time that I do mind is when some idiot drags it through the political/racial mud and calls it freedom of speech.

So today is the Chinese New Year and because S wasn’t able to celebrate his birthday yesterday, we thought that we were clever for doing a double-celebration; if that isn’t lucky I don’t know what is.

For good measure, I made sure to make dishes that were auspicious - spring rolls, dumplings and noodles which I got from the supermarket on my lunch break. On our cat’s Insta feed, there was some lady peddling advice on Feng Shui. Apparently, one needs to clean up the south-east part of the house which turned out to be our spare bedroom, the bed of which was filled with unsorted laundry from last week. So I cleaned that up and finished all the dishes in 30 minute.

I thought I could feel a hum in our house, that invisible pulse of energy that meant we were prepared and fortified for the coming year- never mind that NONE OF US WERE CHINESE.

Wonderland

In Auckland city alone, there are over 4,000 parks and reserves, covering almost 11% of the land area. There are no snakes, poisonous plants, pesky insects, scary predators or weird people with bad intentions.

If you feel like reconnecting with nature or simply decompressing, you don’t need to drive far; there’s always a patch of green somewhere.

Epiphany

Over dinner at the second reincarnation of this chicken place in Pukekohe, B asked us the all important post-Christmas question of, ‘when will you take down your Christmas tree?’. I joked that we would still have it standing on the 17th of January so that we would have the pleasure of having M retrieve her birthday gift from under it.

M grinned, making a face and while we all laughed, deep inside, I was still baffled that a woman who has perfected thoughtful, tasteful and financially appropriate gift-giving could forego NOT putting up a tree in her flat. But that’s a boundary we didn’t want to cross; it’s her space and she had all the right in the world to do anything she wanted to do in it including NOT putting up Christmas decorations. It rankled, but I had to respect it.

The answer was that we didn't have a date, or rather, we left it to when we got around to doing a major start of the year clean-up which could be anytime up to the 1st week of February. It wasn’t really a big deal and besides, we liked having the twinkling lights.

‘Tradition states that you could have it up until the Epiphany- 12 days after Christmas- and if you don't, it would be bad luck.” B declares after having looked it up on Google.

Well then, nothing like the Asian in me to be immediately convinced at the mention of two words: ‘bad luck.’

We ended up removing all the Christmas decorations on the 1st of January.

(NOT) New Year resolutions

I just realised today that I may have confused tasks I need to do (and can actually do), with New Year resolutions (which you’re not obliged to do).

So here’s my (initial) list:

  1. Have a proper pedicure

  2. Go to an actual dermatologist

  3. Finish culling your clothes

  4. Go to the gym during the working week

  5. Study stuff properly

  6. Put financial savings into aggressive mode

  7. EAT more vegetables

  8. Bake PROPER stuff

  9. Better food planning

  10. Better time planning