Monday's Post Christmas 43 Year Old Is Full of Sugar and Chocolate

I am sure I will pilloried by indolent Christmas sloths everywhere, but my cousin Ngaire and I went walking Monday morning. Yes full on exercised to combat the seeming never-ending cascade of calories tumbling into my mouth (through no fault of my own I tell you! Cashews and Lindor Balls can be aggressive when they want to be, and who am I to deny them entry to my digestive tract?) and really enjoyed it... well everything bar the scorching sun that beat down on us as we walked.... there is something about the sun up here that is so much worse than Sydney... I feel somewhat like a fried egg on the griddle (love that word... I feel like I need to belt out a rendition of "Oh Susanna!" with my ukelele when I use it), and while I know there is a cooling shower awaiting me after the walks, I do sometimes question my sanity.... hmm, OK, I question my sanity most of the time, but especially when I am walking in brain melting heat.... still I did lay waste to a large number of evil Christmas calories, and I cleansed my pores with all that sweat, so I am ahead on points....

Big event of the day was my cousin Gayle calling in for a visit with her husband Steve and son Phillip on their way from Sydney to the bright lights of BrizVegas... Gayle is the eldest daughter of my Dad's sister Cath, and so with Ngaire here (eldest child of Dad's other sister Eileen), we had the three eldest children of all three siblings in my Dad's family.... and where were Guiness Book of Records when all this was happening? Conspicuously absent is where!!... Gayle, who I hadn't ever met properly (long story) is wonderfully loud and extrovertive and a joy to spend time with, and we spent a fun 3-4 hours eating (yeah big surprise there!! LOL), talking about New York, family etc, and getting to know each other better.... it will be brilliant to spend some quality time with her in Sydney especially since she has some fab gay friends, and has promised to take me to "some interesting places"..... I am assuming she doesn't mean a museum.... lol....

... and then sloth and indolence did return.... we just lazed around, are some more (including a delicious sticky sweet coconut rice that Mum made for dessert last night), and then talked when a pretty fierce electrical storm prevented us watching TV.... yes I couldn't believe we actually had to relate to each other in the absence of 21st Century media, but somehow we coped....lol... I even spent some time sprawled out on the carpet reading my book, and the Sydney Morning Herlad, just like I used to do when I was a kid.... of course, my body doesn't spring back quite so Tigg'r-ishly as it used to so getting up was an exercise in "Ow!, Ouch! and Aggh!", a reminder that though I exercise and eat well (except rather blatantly at Christmas when my body completely forgets all and every healthy dietary habit), that my body is a little less sprightly than it was when I was 10.... yeah go figure! Still one thing my body is doing remarkably well after a busy, tense year is relax, and it's nice to not feel tightness in my chest as I spent time with my folks, finish up some photo albums Mum put together on our Asia trip in 2007, and realise that life is not just the 8-6 commute but a whole lot more, something that's easy to forget in the blindingly busy headlong rush of every day life....

....oh yeah and did I mention we ate more food? Yeah just in case you were wondering....

On the 3rd Day of Christmas, VISA Gave To Me

One of the most wonderful things about liberation from the tyranny of Outlook, and it's nightmarish insistence on on-the-hour activities (with all the insistent charm and relaxed air of storm troopers raiding small defenceless villages in the middle of the night), is that days just take care of themselves. Amazing as it seems, you can actually go through an entire day without anyuthing being scripted, plotted or massively pre-planned! Get out you say! I am perfectly happy indoors, I retort, before realising you have used a cliched piece of pop culture speak, and moving on to assure you that yes indeed, a day can begin, crest over the middle and crash into the sleep arms of Morpheus without so much as an alarm sounding.....

That was the sort of day today was (yesterday too really when we thought briefly about going to Victoria Park but decided to sleep and sort of watch "The Italian Job" instead before heading out to a yummy Thai dinner at Mi Thai in Lennox Head) - a vague idea that we'd go to the Bangalow Markets, then maybe eat lunch, walk and go swimming at Byron Bay. We did all that but in no particular rush, and with the sort of unhurried gait that would make cows seems like commuters desperate to get home in time for the start of "The Bold and The Beautiful" (of course, there may be other reasons why people rush home but surely watching a trashy prime time soap must rank high on the list!) .... I bought a fabulous new painting (thankfully being shipped back to Sydney since it would have been a bitch on steroids to get into carry-on!), some funky glass ware and a great new T-shirt (to add to the Imelda Marcos-like quantities currently inhabting my wardrobes)....

The Markets were a ball too.... lots of gay boys in town for Tropical Fruits so much guy candy, stalls selling wonderfully authentic jewelry, arts and crafts and organic food, and the odd torrential downpour to remind you why the Far North Coast virtually never suffers drought.... and the people were all so friendly.... possibly all high on something but it beats the ambiguous nothingness of a lot of Sydneysiders (much as I love the place and it's people, it's not as warm and fuzzy as the hippie-fied locals of Bangalow etc)... we even sheltered in one of the stalls while the skies opened up, and the couple there were just delightful... I even bought some of their glass ware so clearly having a captive audience works!

With the Markets done and dusted (or mud-ded really given all the rain), we de-camped ( so true in my case!) to Byron Bay for more shopping, a delicious lunch with the smoothie to end all smoothies (large enough to end all world hunger I am fairly sure!), and lots more walking....before hitting the beach just as a strom hit.... and more rain! Yes our (my brother Steve, cousin Ngaire and me) timing was impeccable..... so the swimming has to wait till Tuesday since while I love swimming at the beach, I am not so much a fan of being BBQ'd in the water while I do it..... yes weird that I don't want to be electrocuted on holidays but there you go... colour me wildly eccentric....

.... and so on this day that Outlook was banished to the nether regions of Microsoft's evil domain, I am now ready to finish my book, eaten a yummy home cooked green Thai curry and slide into a stupified state, content in the knowledge that tomorrow will be just as unpredictably all over the shop..... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz........ good night!

Boxing My Digestive Tract Into Submission

I am fairly certain my stomach is wondering what on earth has hit it. After weeks of mostly very healthy eating, and swimming and walking, not to mention frenetic forward momentum (I gave up running backwards when I kept hitting telegraph poles, and going backwards in time proved a tad problematic), it has been met with endless sloth, and indolence, and more food thatn you could poke a fork at..... I keep telling myself I will abstain and just eat vegetables on dry stale bread, but amazingly very aggressive handfuls, nay shover fulls, of cashews, Lindor Balls and jubes throw themselves, wantonly, and with complete disregard for my waistline, into my mouth.... and then hit a very confused stomach... I am inclined though to let it stay befuddled and enjoy this excess of fabulous food for as long as I can.... now for the pork roast Mum has just cooked, followed by pavlova.... with lots of fruit though, and fruit is undeniably fantastically good for you.... yes it is...

Anyway I need some nourishment after an exhausting afternoon of watching "The Wedding Planner" and parts of "Ocean's 11" and reading the 7th book in "The Saga of the Seven Suns", and napping.... yes napping is exhausting.... hmm perhaps I am doing it wrong....

Right well I hear crackling calling me... must run!

The Day After the Tinsel Monster Bestrides the Land...

Well I made it through Christmas and only devoured 2-3 truck loads of ham, turkey, chocolate crackles, salads and nuts & lollies.... quite an achievement really given the sheer volume of high fat foods stuck in every nook and cranny of my parents' kitchen... everywhere you turn, cashews, honey covered macadamias, Lindor balls by the gigaton (yes there are none left in Switzerland at ll - they are all in my parents' home , my kitchen in Sydney.... or more likely given my addictive personality, in my digestive tract somewhere!), jubes, and chocolate crackles beckon like so many high-caloric siren singers, all seducing you to come ashore on the Island of Yuletide Lard, and throw your carefully laid plans for stay somewhat thin past 40 into total disarray....naturally I took all my will power.. and told it to get the hell out of my way while I responded with alacrity to the nut-driven siren song, and made sure that very few, if any, of those Lindo balls will ever see the beautiful shores of Lake Geneva again....

In an attempt to behave a little bit - let's not get carried away! Just a smidgen of self-control, not a lot! - I went walking in the tropical heat this morning at 8 a.m.... and sweated buckets as my legs seized up on me.... I had forgotten just how hilly my darling home town is, and just how hot that sun can get so early in the morning.... I came back looking like I had been walking in a tropical downpour, which was true in a way...except that the down pour emanated solely from my forehead's sewat glands... still I have at least walked off some off yesterday's fatty intake (not that I regret one minute of it, trust me!), and I am not ready to.... yep, eat some more!! I figure I have 12 days when I get back to Sydney to swim every day and that should more than make up for all the excesses of a week at the Ancestral Estate....

As for the rest of the day, I foresee in my eerily Nostradamus-like holiday way, that I shall consume many Lindor balls, nuts, lollies, and crackles, stopping only to read more of my novel, and nap, with a brief detour to watch "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" and "The View"... a hectic schedule to be sure but it's important ot indulge yourself when you can and do it to excess....

Have a brilliantly great Boxing Day!!

Last Christmas I Gave You My Heart...Which Has Made Sending Blood to my Vital Organs a Tad Hard Ever Since

After a full-on year, when I was self-diagnosed with Forward Momentum Exhaustion (FME - yes it's a verifiable medical condition....possibly), I have finally made it to my parents Ancestral Estate in Alstonville, NSW, for Christmas, and I am doing my best to ingest more nuts and chocolate that the entire population of Switzerland on a Lindt bender (very messy yet well run)... my two sisters and brother have joined me, and in just a short while my Nanna and Great Aunt will be joining for yet more eating.... it's what we do well so why fight it?! LOL I even resisted exercising this morning and it was bliss to sleep in and get out of bed at the comparatively late time of 8 a.m...... at which time, I had the traditional breakfast of Lindt chocolate.... just the way to start a festive day! I fully expect that by the time the week here is over that I will have ballooned to the size of several small South American villages but I figure nothing that a few thousand laps in the pool won't cure.... the main thing as I see it is to get off the giddy nausea-inducing top-speed whirl of life's merry-go-round, and take some time to smell the Lindor balls....and eat them....

I spent Christmas Eve watching traditional fare such as "The Unit", which is a heart warming tale about a terrorist arrested in the USA for trying to bomb a tunnel, and his subsequent interrogation by the military (haha!), and completely missed the tacky cheesy exuberance of "Carols by Candlelight" which is bores me to tears but is always on the TV at our place on Christmas Eve, if only for 5 minutes... I also got to decorate the tree all by myself, with some artistic input from Mum, and we ended up with a light-saturated, tinsel, smothered riot of clour that looks like a lot of fun.... oh yeah, and we ate some chocolate.... quelle surprise!!

Well its time for more nutritionally deficient food, and so as yet another Lindo Ball begins the slippery slide into the acidic depths of my stomach, I wish you all a wonderful Christmas, and a fabulous 2009!!!

The 8 Days of My Birthday

I have never been a thoughtlessly traditional guy (I will embrace a tradition if it's still relevant and involves copious amounts of chocolate ingestion! Say Christmas, or Take Your Parrot to Work Day) so it should come as no surprise that not only do I not restrict my birthday to just one day, but by clever use of time zones and endless social outings, manage to make the day itself stretch to 43 hours, and the celebrations last 8 days. I mean I have to wait all year for it, and it's over in 24 hours? I don't think so!!

DAY 1 - Saturday Nov 22

Having fled the Not Me Anymore confines of Sutherland Shire a year ago, I have periodically returned to see some good friends there, and did just that on Saturday Nov 22 when I drove to sunny (and very windy that day!) Cronulla, picking my good friends Ellen & Tracy on the way, for a fun steak lunch at Hogs Breath cafe.... only again displaying a breathlessly brazen seditious streak, I didn't have steak! Oh OK I did eat steak, but it doesn't sound even remotely rebellious to say that..... fortunately in the midst of such culinary conformity, I had a brilliant catch up with my friends John & Susie, Ellen, and Tracy, and finished it all off with a walk down Cronulla mall.... the plan was a leisurely walk along the Esplanade but with the wind blowing like a madman chopping wood (no, I have no idea how that would look either), and the very real risk we'd be blown to somewhere just offshore Auckland, NZ, we opted for a walk on a tiled mall past shops to a car park..... very picturesque.... well the tiles are blue.... they're pretty... really...

I raced from there back home, changed clothes in a frighteningly fast 7 minutes (trust me that's scary quick!!) and drove like a mad man chopping wood in a car (OK an overused analogy and physically hard to do without risking artery severing or eunuch-dom ..... or both) to Cammeray to watch the delectably handsome Daniel Craig in "Quantum of Solace" (the official birthday movie) which was brainless but emotionally-tinged action fun, and would have been a good movie if all Daniel Craig had done was wear fabulously sexy clothes and stand there (YUM!).... followed that cinematic fun at the Cremorne Orpheum with a delicious dinner at Malabar, after some quick car repair after I detached a mudflap in a bout of reckless curb hugging by my car's left back tyre..... I do love my curbs, it's true..... and mad man analogies.... and parrots.... but I digress..... and Day 1 of Andrew's Birthday Festival 2008 was done and dusted....

Day 2 - Sunday Nov 23

It dawned bright and clear with visions of Yum Cha (Dim Sum) delicacies dancing in my mind.... all very disconcerting especially when they started pole dancing in a very suggestive manner not befitting Chinese food .... I met my dear friend Heather, one of the few Very Good things to emerge from my time at FedEx in the City for more pork buns, dumplings and egg tarts than you could poke a pole at (a well danced with pole if my fervent imagination is any guide) at the Palace restaurant in the Piccadilly Arcade.... followed by lots of fun holiday and birthday shopping... two gifts for me, one for someone else, three for me, one for someone else etc.... we had a lovely catch up away from the same telecommunications company we both now work at, and actually got to talk without the sense we had to run back to our cubicles and apologize to our PCs for neglecting them so......

Day 3 - Monday Nov 24

So it's Birthday Eve (usually celebrated by gaudily decorated camels racing around a dirt track chasing bagels on a stick..... a weird tradition but there you have it) and I did what anyone sensible person facing a fun birthday would do... I went to work! In an attempt to completely drain the day of any fun whatsoever with stress, over work, and sense of relentless foreboding (not to mention a needy PC who demands my everlasting attention), I raced from one email to another task to a meeting so fast that my head spun like a mad man chopping wood while possessed.... projectile vomit does not help with chopping accuracy let me tell you! .... the day was only saved by my dear friend, Sammi, who whisked me off to the trembling social environs of North Strathfield for a fabulously OTT dinner at the Outback Steakhouse, eating an American's idea of traditional Aussie food..... the waiter was wonderfully cute (sadly not our one but the cute guy walked past enough to make it seem like he was our guy.... how did he know it was almost my special day.. what a nice guy!), the food actually yummy and full of all the stuff I normally avoid eating (which is essential in any sort of celebratory eating), and the company a delight, as always..... and I had another steak.... clearly my commitment to vegetarianism was faltering.... mainly because I am not one... hmm, that could be it....

Day 4 - THE DAY ITSELF!! Nov 25 - Ring the bells! Sound the klaxons of joy! Hit a saucepan (till the neighbours come over and throttle you!)

I am an absolute stickler for always taking my birthday off work, mainly because my idea of a fun celebration is not endless piles of work to be done in a crushingly finite time frame with everyone standing around expecting everything to be done instantly, or even soon if the space-time continuum can be bent fast enough).... I know crazy idea but there you have it..... I am a wacky rebel, what can I say? Anyway my time-honoured tradition of telling work emails to go throw themselves off a very large cyber cliff and fall onto the jagged rocks of the Don't Care Inbox of Death went completely off the rails when my birthday (aided and abetted by nemesis Outlook, which controls all calendars) fell on a Tuesday, the busiest, longest, most frantic day of the week.... a usual Tuesday is a blur of Trade Report writing, information collating, agenda setting and a 4 hour management meeting that I sit in on to take notes etc.... more fun than a madman covering himself in fairy floss and running naked down a crowded street.... no, no it isn't.... this Tuesday initially bucked that trend by  showering me with tons of wonderful emails, phone calls and Facebook messages from wonderful friends, and keeping my good mood robust and intact.... my boss, who I really like working for (really!) even bought me a piece of Rocky Road for morning tea.... all seemed well till about 12 noon when the flood gates of overwork opened up, and I was swept downstream in a swirling mass of reports, impossible deadlines, and a meeting that went for 4.5 hours when I was due to head out for dinner.... 

I tried enormously hard to stay upbeat but was eventually defeated by the ennui of endless discussion points and droning agenda items.... thankfully the HR lady who sits in on the meeting offered to type up the notes from the meeting, and I raced to meet my good friend James who picked me up from work and whisked me (there is a lot of use of that fabulous kitchen item in this blog and rightly so..... it sounds like so much fun, and speedy too!) to a yummy dinner with another close friend, Jason at Chinta Ria, one of the best restaurants in Sydney and home to a funky fat Buddha, and a wine called Cockfighter's Ghost, which can be mispronounced in the most embarrassing way which I won't detail here.... James gave me a beautiful Italian pewter bowl, paid for dinner and made me feel very special indeed, and I finally relaxed and enjoyed the Best Day of the Year..... well for me anyway and on November 25, I get the make the decrees..... it's enshrined in law somewhere trust me.... 

Day 5 - Wednesday Nov 26

A day off!! Yes, my boss approved it, and I ran screaming from the building Tuesday night (not far off the truth - see above!) and claimed it as my own.... technically I still had my birthday off since although it was Nov 26 in Australia, it was Nov 25 till 9 p.m. my time in Hawai'i, USA.... so I swam 1.5 km to buy me some calorie space (after all the lunches and dinners the caloric storage areas were starting to bulge a little more than I would have liked) and headed into the City for lunch with my dear close friend, Justin..... and where did we end up? At the saucy end of pole-dancing Chinese cuisine.... Yum Cha! We talked about anything and everything, ate lots and followed it up with a wander through Tiffany's (I did my best Audrey Hepburn languid stroll and looked wistful as hell, trust me), and the cosmetics area of David Jones to hear the paino playing (Justin loves it), a trawl through Borders and JB HiFi and finished it all off with a delightful afternoon tea at the Tea Centre in the Glasshouse.... I even got to try Iced Turkish Apple tea.... served by a waiter with a sexy smile..... naturally we asked which tea was best for a good 5 minutes and flirted and made him laugh.... hey. it's my birthday in Hawai'i damn it! Why not?! LOL .... after all that shopping, eating and perambulating (never easy on a full stomach!), I met up with Warren and we ate up a storm (like a mad mad throwing lightning and hitting garbage cans lids together to simulate thunder!) at Tony Roma's, a bastion of American cooking and a great ribs.... yes oddly enough I again ate way too much, a hallmark of all my birthday outings thus far..... I was not only sentimentally embracing my birthday as special, but also enough calories several small Bolivian villages for a year....

Day 6 - Thursday Nov 27

Another day at the cubicle coal face, working like mad man who is... ah screw it, that analogy must be given at least one day's grace... followed by another a star-studded fabulous birthday gala... well there were no stars and it was reasonably gala-lite, but I did get to have a fabulous Indian meal, complete with great service, with my friend, Kevin, in between his stints flying overseas as a flight attendant at another restaurant called Malabar... yes it is a bizarre and strange thing that I can't escape restaurants with that name... fate? Or just great pappadums? Will I ever know? The only downside was the humongous hill we had to walk up to get to it in Darlinghurst but all the wine, food and great conversation soon made for all that... now as for that abrogated mad man analogy.... oh, OK I will leave it alone....

Day 7 - Friday Nov 28

This was not an official day of manic birthday celebration because (a) it's Friday and my usual state of TGIF-dom is exhaustion and a general overwhelming sense of relief that I have two days ahead of me that don't involve travel on Sydney's trains; and (b) I knew I would extra-exhausted, and like a seer of old predicting the future from a cup of sheep dung, I was indeed exhausted beyond belief.... and yet.... and yet.... I ventured forth into the pounding sock-soaking rain and met my friend Peter at St Leonards, and walked with him to the only marginally drier environs of Cammeray to have a general catch up and dinner at Pappaya, a brilliantly innovative Thai restaurant with some of the best entrees known to man.... and it was not raining inside the restaurant which was a major point in it's favour before we even got in the door..... add to the fact that a very hot guy was sitting at the table next to us, that Peter and I had a great conversation, and that Pappaya managed to do things with lime and tuna that my taste buds adored (in such a way that marriage to the chef was a distinct possibility, regardless of his or her sex!), and it made for a wonderful night out.... from which I was driven home where I could finally take off my drenched socks, which frankly did not fare anywhere near as well as my stomach that night, and the less said about that smelly mess the better ....

Day 8 - Saturday 29 Nov

The Big Night. The night when all is revealed. When worlds collide.... when destinies are revealed.... when all power.... oh OK so not that dramatic but you can't blame a guy for trying... tonight was the supposed Big Night Out.... drinks at The Colombian, a gay bar on Oxford Street, followed by a delicious dinner at Tandoori Palace across the street (and being flirted with by a very cute Indian waiter.... now that was a great present!) and then dancing our socks off (within acceptable hygiene levels of course) at Palms, just up the street.... and you know what? It was fun! I brought together my best friend Warren, close friends Ian, Peter and Fahmi, another good friend James and his friend Alison, while a soaking downpour screamed down outside... very atmospheric.... we even saw an Elvis (the real Elvis is working night shift at a 7-11 just outside of Des Moines, Iowa... trust me, Marilyn Monroe told me) doing cheesy Indian-pun laden versions of his songs and a Neil Diamond song too... what the?! Well the hens party downstairs in the karaoke bar didn't question it..... and neither did we... OK I did.... I'll admit it... but I danced away all those nagging questions at Palms till 3 a.m. with only Warren for company, everyone else having decided to leave by 12.30 a.m. to get, um, sleep..... I would have gone to sleep earlier too but I feared dreaming of a Tandoori coloured Elvis singing songs about Blue Suede Pappadums and who wants those kinds of nightmares on your birthday?

......... and so it ends for another year..... and I walk off into the sunset of my 43rd year on this planet, clutching my J B HiFi vouchers close to me, I think to myself.... only 4 more weeks and I get to eat more crappy food at Christmas!!!! Woohoo.... yes I dream big my friends, I dream BIG...... party on like a mad man.... well you know.....