33 posts tagged “friends”

Yeah so I should probably write up my account of the weekend, eh?
Well on Friday night we went to Jess's to play shadowrun. Jess dragged me into the light so she could see my oddly coloured hair better. Luckily I had foreseen this and worn my special sun block specially developed for vampires to stop them crumbling to dust in the brightness. Andrew and Jess and I sat around talking and hugging Rascal and a floppy, itchy baby polar bear that is supposed to be a dog. Well, Jess and I did the hugging. Andrew isn't so great with cute fluffy animalcules. Dan turned up and we kept talking about random inanities, but eventually got down to the serious business of playing the game ... and I just lost the other one. So did you. Ha. Scott turned up at some point during the night. Anyway, I'll just do some highlights: Jess and Dan tried to figure out how the crystal bowl that brought nanites to life actually worked, and ended up killing Jess and resurrecting her in a new body. Funky. Dan cut the thigh off the girl that was trapped in the crystal tree, but it turned out that she was actually MADE of crystal. I spilled my drink about 3 times. No actually one of those times it was Scott. In any case, many tea towels were used and character sheets dampened. Somehow (much smashing was involved) they escaped, landing in some darkened waterway, followed by freaky thighless crystal zombie girl and dragging earless woman along with them too. Jess's character got into some serious trouble and nearly drowned, so Dan's character abandoned her and managed to find a submarine. He got in and locked the doors so that Jess and the others couldn't get in, charming, noble soul that he is. They drove the sub to a beach and met me there, and we went and dropped off the disembodied arm (somewhat the worse for wear) and the 'contact' (also somewhat the worse for wear), and got paid. Dan suddenly noticed that something was stuck to the back window: a tracking device. And I'd been to his house. Crap. So now we're living in a crappy hotel, and this weird magician guy turned up and tried to scare us, and we ended up making a deal to get the arm back from the people we'd just sold it to. Dargh. Magician dude did not take up my offer of staying and getting some rest. As he left, there was a gunshot. We went out to investigate, and who should it be but that crystal girl with a bullet through her forehead?
One word: WTF!!! (Or is that 3? Meh, who cares.)
The next day I picked up Gity and went to Jess's again. We sat around talking and hugging Rascal and a floppy, itchy baby polar bear that is supposed to be a dog. Well, Jess and I did the hugging. Gity isn't so great with cute fluffy animalcules (actually just dogs). Marie came and patted my hair, and we watched Wall-E. ZOMG it is as cute today as when I first saw it. One of my favourite movies ever for sure. Eeeeeee-va!
We made chocolate cake from a box. It feels like cheating, but is undoubtedly convenient. We played Cluedo while it cooked. Jess won : ) Then we played Uno for a bit. That game never gets old. Jess smashed an Easter bunny on her leg and we devoured it, face first, carnivores that we are. We watched the final episode of Battlestar Galactica until it was time for me to drive Gity home, and then finished watching when I got back. It is srzly epic. I almost cried at the end. Marie left before dinner because she had to pick up her mum from hospital :(
Jess and I watched the Top Gear polar special. Mmm, danger. Surprisingly, the car beat the dog team. I felt sorry for poor Hammond. We watched New Tricks and eventually went to bed.
The next day we had hot cross buns for breakfast, and Jess was showing me spore creations when Marie and then Josh turned up. There were some quite impressive ones. Some people are very good at making space ships resemble random things, like Harry on a broom or a Nintendo DS.  We started playing Uno and Sam turned up and joined us, and then Andrew. They were quite long games, too. Well shuffled. Mm, shuffle. Actually shuffle sounds like it would taste gross. Never mind. Jess smashed a bunny on her leg, but it didn't just smash, it exploded, all over the carpet and under the sofa. I collected most of it before the dogs could Hoover it up with their toothy little mouths and die. People ate the pieces despite the fact that they'd been dog haired. I was proud. Then we played Cranium Conga and I won, snatching victory from the grasp of Andrew, who'd been one piece from finishing for ages. Yay!
And I declared that there should be Speedmouse, and there was Speedmouse, and it was good. :O TINA!!!
There were very few Easter eggs to hide, but there were coins and bunnies. As we were trying to decide how to organise the hiding, Andrew said that he didn't want to go outside, whereupon it was immediately decided that we would all go and hide things and without Andrew and then force him to find them. And so the front garden was chocolatised, and Andrew was fetched with a red box to set about retrieving chocolate. It is always funny when people miss obvious things. We ended up playing hotter and colder. Much coinage was flung in mock-anger. One ended up going down Marie's back, and I told her to eat it because I wouldn't, so she put it in her bra, and the bra quotes flowed in abundance. After a while we all chipped in to help find things other people had hidden, and then things that WE had hidden, because our memories are clearly terrible and we couldn't even remember where we'd put things only minutes earlier. Andrew admitted that he had re-hidden some of the things he'd found, so we got a hunt of our own. Cheese-eating surrender monkeys that we are, we gave up when there were 6 or so coins still missing, and went inside to feast on the spoils of our labour. Well, pick halfheartedly at, anyway. People were quite sick of chocolate by the end of the day. I know, I know, I didn't think that was possible either. We played Ticket to Ride with Stargate in the background. Marie left before the end. Josh whupped our arses quite comprehensively, with nearly 200 points. We're getting better at this game. I remember when anything over 100 was amazing.
I drove the others home. Due to a collaboration of excellent navigation skillz, we ended up going the wrong way for Josh's house, so I dropped off Sam first. As we were driving up Gallaghers Road, there was an odd flicker. We all suddenly realised that all the street lights had gone out, and that it wasn't just our eyes being weird. On the way back the implication suddenly hit - the traffic lights weren't working. It took a while, but we got across the intersection and didn't die. It looked as if Josh was right on the edge of the powerless block, because his neighbours didn't have power but he did. I drove back along Highbury Road to avoid broken lights.
For the past few days I've been attempting to do a massive clean up of our house. I have come to the conclusion that there is too much furniture in our house. Most of it we just have because it was 'too good an offer to pass up'. Also our garbage bin is completely  full and recycling is more than half full. On the plus side, I haven't argued with my mum at all while this has been going on, which is something like a miracle. She's the only person in the world I argue with, but normally when I do something major we argue a LOT.
So yeah. Woot.
It was a good Easter.    

There are things I probably should do, but I can't. I need to write. Not about anything in particular. It's just been too long, and my headspace needs sorting.

I look out the window at the darkness and ponder, as the music swells and swirls around me. I walk to the door and whistle for the dogs to follow. It is warm, so I wear a short skirt and no jumper. We are the only ones in the park. The grass is deliciously new beneath my feet as I look up at the stars and dance for them because no-one can see me. I love the sky at night. When it is clear you can look up and see the familiar constellations overlayed on a glittering backdrop of the milky way, and try to expand your imagination far enough that it can encompass the whole galaxy. It doesn't matter if you fail - it's the trying that counts.
The spell breaks with the sound of shattering glass. The dogs have wandered away, lost in their own universe of earth and smells, so far from where I was. I call them and they don't appear. For a second dread sinks icy teeth into my stomach: what if I never see them again?
And then the whisper of a tiny body racing towards me, the flooding relief as I lift her in my arms and lose myself in her fur. Our heartbeats slowly settle into synchrony again, and together we sigh as we realise  we were thinking the same things. We could never leave each other. Peace reclaims my soul. We walk home together, me and my friends, my dogs, my children.  There are people walking down the street, and they smile at me. I wonder why people are afraid  to go out at night. I wonder if they miss the moon and the whisper of warm night air through the gum trees.
Shadows move before me, flowing hair and silent grace; I wonder if it is a side of me or a lie told by the silvery light to make me happy.
I curl up in my chair and slowly sink into myself, start to feel lost again. As my dogs fall asleep in carefree innocence I wonder if I should be doing work, wonder how long I can put it off before it is too late, wonder why I would do that to myself, and find no answers that I can accept. And yet I cannot move. Instead I write, and I listen to music, and I let my thoughts out to play.
I think about how in gaining new things we lose old things. I think about taking risks and regretting nothing. I think about fear, about serenity and apathy, wonder if there is a difference. Something clicks and I start to think in moving pictures and suddenly words aren't adequate anymore.
Walking blind
Betrayed by the slink of skin on skin
Legs whispering to each other as you move
A light comes on
A different kind of blindness
Soothing nothings are shared
Under a flutter of fragile wings
As a moth batters itself senseless against clear glass
Darkness returns in a rush
Was it soon enough to save it from itself?
The sound of a hand running through clean hair
The tinkling of a tiny silver bell
Sink into the pillows and keep on falling
Is the world moving or is it me?
Patterns and flashes
Things that have been
Things that could never be
Things I would have said
If only time would stop long enough for me to think
This is not my life now
Nameless, I explore a familiar world
Remember all the things I have done
I save a damsel in distress
But they see me and give chase
I run, panting, through the long and winding tunnels
Rabbit feet pounding the earth
But they are waiting for me
As they raise the knife to end my life, I scream
And the white roof of my room is so far above my head
For a second there is a shiver as the scene fades
Then I realise the world was not mine
I was recalling things which never happened
I will never remember these hours I spent
I return to my life ignorant
Perhaps it is for the better
But I'll never know
Breathe in
Breathe out
Blood
Laughter
Holding each other close
Afraid of the dizzying heights that apear in the chasms between every person
Trying to close them
Wondering if it is futile
Hoping it is not
Fearing that it is
Then he glances up and smiles
And together we sigh as we realise  we were thinking the same things
And the distance doesn't seem so very far after all
I drive home
I am alone, but the stars are watching me
I love the sky at night
And sometimes it only matters that you try

February 17th is Random Acts of Kindness Day.  What acts of kindness have you done or plan on doing today?
Submitted by Emeree.

It was? Man, I wish I'd known, I wouldn't have pushed that old lady down the stairs. I jest, I jest. But I do wish I'd known. What kindness did I do in my day-to-day life? Well I had my RSPCA weekly volunteering thing. The baby rabbits are growing up fast, and are absolutely adorable. Their mum's gone now. When I gave carrots to them and the guinneapigs the 4 bunnies all tousled with each other over one even though there were loads around and they could have had one each. Ah, sibling rivalry. There was an adorable baby deer named (for reasons unclear to me) Dobby. The ridiculously friendly goat they got a few weeks ago they've decided to keep, and he now has another little one to keep him company. I went to give them some watermelon (as you do ...) and the "friendly" one kept headbutting away the little bitty one in fits of jealousy, so I gave the melon to the emu instead. She only had a few bites before leaving it to the chickens.
I donated all the change I found in my purse to the rescue effort for animals affected by the fires.
After that I went to Josh's place, and he and Sam and I played singstar; Sam and I were about equal in our lack of excellence, but managed to beat Josh once or twice because one of the mics broke. We also played settlers, which I won for the first time ever, scrabble which Josh won as usual, and another settlers which Josh won to the sound of me exploring his music library.
Random act of kindness number 3 could be driving Sam home and Josh to Scott's place, but neither were that much out of the way. I said hello to Scott and AJ and Dan, and Scott brought out his current kittens to show us - they're grey half siamese with cat flu, which is why they still have them even though they're 14 weeks or so now. The one Scott was holding kept trying to eat his buttons, then started chewing on his hands. The one AJ had (who was meant to be Mr Purple but who people actually call Smoky) was providing contrast by being completely relaxed and well behaved. I left after about 25 minutes when they started getting out their magic cards, having given up on Andrew, who wasn't there yet. They have a LOT of magic cards, apparently.
Tonight I watched a video of myself teaching puppy class. That was kind of interesting. I laugh ridiculously often. But I think I did an alright job, which is comforting.
And I convinced Jess to start learning dvorak, which I will consider an act of kindness, because learning new things is good for the brain, and dvorak is more ergonomic than qwerty.
That was my day. It's now over, because it's past midnight already. I think I performed some random acts of kindness, so can I go up a level? I can? Sweet. Thanks Mr GM of life dude.

This started its life as a response to Gity's post. It got a little wordy. Here you go, the comment that decided to be a post:

I was feeling a bit nostalgic recently too, so I read through all my old blog posts. It's funny, I thought I couldn't remember anything, but then when I read what I'd written I remembered all of it...
I like remembering the quiet times, the everyday routine we got into. The times we never wrote about, because that was just our life, and now it isn't anymore. I used to go to the library everyday and wait for Marie and Jess and Cass, and at lunchtime we would pick up a book but we wouldn't read because our conversation would take over, becoming louder and louder. Silence in the library my arse. They should've kicked us out more often than they did.
It changed in year 11 when I started to get to know you and our other friends. with the demolition of our old haunt, the scitech became our new monopoly. Josh taught us to play Bang, and games became our next big thing. It was a great way to spend an hour, more if we had a free to spend. Everyone wanted to be Jose delgato. We did eventually get banned by tight arsed teachers, and from then on we would shift from the tunnel to the scitech locker bays, the sofas downstairs, and (once it was finished) the new library. It was so nice to curl up on the radiators in the depths of winter. You and me and Jess and Marie and Josh and sometimes one of his friends - Sam became a regular. AJ would sit nearby with a book, or she would get the newspaper and we'd do the word puzzles. Sometimes I'd nick off to see Andrew, Bharat, Tess or Aparna and the rest, sometimes they'd join us. Occasionally, when the mood struck, we might go for a wander around the grounds we felt we finally owned now that we'd reached the top echelons of studenthood by virtue of surviving the first 5 years of it. The last days of school were the best and the worst. I realised that after all these years of hating school, I couldn't imagine anything I'd rather do than wake up at 6am, wait around for crappy public transport, and then spend several hours pretending to listen to various teachers prattle on while actually devising sneaky ways to communicate with friends without getting in trouble. I have to confess I even cried a little, when all the exams were over and it was time to move on. But they were the best days because it was the start of something new, something big and fun and full of possibilities.To steal the corniest phrase ever, it was the start of the rest of our lives.

Marie covered much stuffs so I won't go in depth. Though mostly that's because I can't be bothered. My GPS is teh suck in the rain. I had to do a DIY detour around a crashed truck and got lost becuase it wasn't giving me directions. It was really nice seeing people like Dave and Bharat who I haven't seen since the reunion, but even better seeing people like Josh and you guys who I haven't seen for ... er ... a couple of days XD Josh was sitting against the side of those game whatsamahoosits instead of sitting on a chair like a proper person, so I pushed on his shoulders to try and make him collapse but only succeeded in forcing the whatsamahoosit to move with a loud and sudden grating sound. Oops ...
I totally sucked in the first darkzone game, even though I was a green. I kept shooting members of my own team accidentally. I did improve quite a bit in the second one though :) At one point I was crouching in a shadow waiting for someone to walk past so I could shoot them and this loud disembodied voice came out of nowhere and said "Stand Up Please". I stood up guiltily and moved on.
I had peanut butter and chocolate gelati. It was really nice. I just lost the game. I hate AJ but I hate Jess even more.
Would you rather it was raining darts or rocks the size of tennis balls? Still haven't decided.
Word association is AWESOME FUN! Our minds are, at times, strange and freakish places. Hm. Scratch "at times." Scott and Bharat planned an epic movie in which Josh and I fight over Scott to the death. *Nervous laughter*
We stood around for a while, and many hugs were distributed and recieved, many with enough force to cause overballancing, screaming and near misses with large glass windows.
I drove Scott home and we were watching Jess and Josh in the car in front rocking out to something. Scott tried to mime "turn the volume up", but it failed to do anything but looks like a strangely suggestive gesture. I realised that my P plates had fallen down and told Scott to put them up, and he got one out but just left it on the dashboard. I told him that if we got stopped by the police it would be his fault. Jess started making various hand gestures out the back window at us. I was somewhat puzzled, as it seemed to include even more suggestive hand gestures and the "Reivan ... Nekaun ... NNNNNH!" Thing from ages ago. I mimed some more back at her. Then Josh called Scott and said that our lights were off. I totally hadn't realised because we could see just fine, what with the street lamps and everything. Scott asked what they'd been rocking out to, but Josh had already hung up. Then we had to turn and stop following, which was disappointing. We discussed magic mushrooms, smoking and marathons. And kittens. Obviously.
Mum came with me to dog school this morning cos I was doing demos of dog dancing and agility, and she asked what time I'd got back. I said quarter past 12. "Rrrright. Hm." That led on to her discovering the fact that I'd got home at quarter past 5 on wednesday morning. For some reason, she found that hilarious. But YAY for parents who let me do what I want :D
Yeah. Parties are awesome fun. Any suggestions on what I should do for my birthday would be appreciated. Ima miss you guys :(

Lying on the sofa wrapped in my blanket. Mystic jumps up immediately and curls into a little ball in the curve of my waist, and then Merry will quietly join us and stretch out in the nook between my legs and the back of the sofa.
Slowly bing lulled to sleep by the sound of the rain on the roof.
Waking up gently, dreams slowly dripping away, and staying wrapped in my blanket for hours just because I can.
Green leaves and warm sunlight, admiring the ethereal tapestry as dusk melts into swirling constellations.
Walking barefoot through soft grass and watching the dogs leap and race.
Seeing a friend and being unable to stop the smile which creeps over my face.
Warm hugs.
In jokes.
Laughter.
Good books and board games and racing just for fun.
The murmur of voices close and quiet late at night.
"Let's not go home yet."
Feeling loved, and loving in return.
Family.
Friends.
Life.

Which 5 words would your best friend use to describe you?
Submitted by Ross.

I pulled out an old QotD because I have nothing better to do. And because of that reason, I will research the answer properly and look in my yearbook. It's hard to pick the right words out of so many, but here is an attempt:

"Love ... your wonderfully cheerful spirit" ~ Marie
"...crazy mad dog cat lady" ~ Jess
"You are not a mushroom" ~ Josh
"You're awesome ... just to know" ~ AJ

The next ones are not technically descriptions of me, but do say something about me:
"Shun, shun the non-believer, SHUNNNNN-UH!" ~ Gity
"Anyway ... I enjoyed bugging you." ~ Viv
"You've ... eaten lots of cheese" ~ Aparna
And one from Mrs Kennedy, because it's a nice one: "I'll miss your smiling face"
Andrew did not describe me, but he did draw a colourful picture of the beginning of time for me to enjoy.

"You are a great friend" was a recurring theme also. Can I just say my own five words in response: I LOVE ALL YOU GUYS!!!

I finished nanowrimo. I now know that it is possible to write a heck of  a lot in a day. I also know that there's no point in writing stuff you don't want to write about, so I will not be participating in nanowrimo next year unless I have a good plot. Even with random penguin attacks and living chutney which everyone forgets about, this year's was almost painfully dull to write.

Our little possum Poppyt, who only likes fruit, is becoming quite the little intrepid explorer. When we got her a few days ago she slept all the time, and looked on death's door. Now when we pick her up we have to be careful that she doesn't clamber over our heads or dash across the loungeroom to find a tiny dark place to investigate. She is very, very cute, and not afraid of anything at all, the silly darling. She likes to groom herself, but when she scratches her back she always falls over backwards; it looks hilarious. It will be sad when we have to hand her over to a foster home when we go to New Zealand :(

Games, DVDs and friends are the best things ever invented (along with dogs, cheese, youtube and chocolate, of course).
 

• In dot point form! Woot!

• Falling behind in nanowrimo. 5000 words behind and counting. Will try to finish. Honest.
• Stress is very bad. Chocolate is very good at making it go away temporarily.
  
• Mum bought a ton of chocolate.
• AND SHE WONT LET ME EAT IT.
• Didn't study for psych.
• Pwnt psych.
• Have methods exam tomorrow. Preparing to suck badly.
• DnD is fun.
• Kittens are cute. They're all soft and furry.
  
• Need to do more social stuff to prevent brain imploding.
• Year 12 is over in 4 days. Again.
  
• I achieved more this year, professionally speaking, than I have in pretty much the whole rest of my life combined.
  
• GAP years ftw, even if they aren't really GAP years.
• I like cheese.
• Mum bought lots of cheese. It's in the fridge.
• AND SHE WONT LET ME EAT IT.
• But on the up side, we're having chinese tomorrow.
• Knight of Ni over and out.
  

Well ... reunion.
I lamented the fact that no-one had brought playing cards. A lot. I now keep some in my purse.
Marie gave me a packet of sugar that she wasn't going to put in her irish coffee (or whatever it was), and I ate it and enjoyed it immensely. She went and got 3 more packets, to my delight; but AJ STOLE THEM! Incensed, I tried to yoink them back, and failed. We ended up in a tug of war which the packets lost, and sugar sprayed all over the carpet. It was a tragedy, but an amusing one, particularly as I wasn't the one who had to vaccuum up. I took the two mangled, depleted packets and downed the contents, and AJ secreted the third (unbroken) packet somewhere about her person. And WOULDN'T GIVE IT BACK! "Don't have it." She said, liar that she is. (When I asked for it as we were leaving, she realised that she really didn't have it anymore. Maybe it went to the same place as left socks do?)
 Marie spoke to Mr Tatnall, and I spoke to Mr Ross. He was reluctant to distract me from Josh. I think he thought we were a couple, or possibly just that we hadn't seen each other in forever. I guess it was the excessive glumphing.
We spent a while hovering around the finger food. There were untrustworthy-tasting spring roll-looking things, which I ate tons of simply because they looked like spring rolls and therefore should have been nice, as well as the other regular party whatsamits and very little vegetarian.Marie came in crowing that she had been challenged to a drinking competition and lost, and I won my bet. The rest of the night was all downhill. I pilfered Jess's scarf for a laugh, and hid it in Marie's purse. Then some dufus came along and spilt beer allllllll over it. *Shudders* Sorry Jess ... We tried to wash it in the sink. I don't think it worked very well. Marie started swearing loudly at everyone, repeatedly threatening to physically assault Will. After the millionth time, I said "Oh no, she's ghosting!" At one point she ran after him, screeching, and opened a door into her face. Jess and I tried to make sure she drank water and didn't fall over or yell anything that would get her killed, but those last two turned out to comprise an almost superhuman task. Will admitted to Jess that he wanted to make out with her, but wouldn't because it was his fault she was so drunk. That was something at least.
Everyone left fairly early.
Mm.

On Friday Marie had her party. I skipped work so I'd be able to finish my assignment and turn up at 3 at Jells Park. I packed the dogs in the car and went to pick up Gity. The front door was open but the flyscreen locked. I knocked, but no-one answered. I  tried again. And again. I called "Is anyone home?!" and got no reply. Worried, I turned to leave; but just then I heard a boy say something quietly inside, and a minute later Gity came to the door. We were a little late, but so were most people, so that was okay. Hugs were distributed. We had some nibbles and purloined the playground for a while. Jess amused herself by teasing Mystic with some dog food she found in her pocket. I managed to incite everyone but AJ and Jess to come on a walk with me, and we set off across the park. Andrew demanded to hold the leash of a dog, whereupon he leapt around like a maniac and fell over. I removed the leash and handed Merry to JR instead. We didn't get very far before it started to rain, and then to hail. I quickly realised that the hailstones were freaking massive, and JR and I picked up the dogs and everyone ran back. Well, I think Gity stayed behind on the swing. But most people. As the hail slowed down, the inevitable hail fight started; it was a battle of epic proportions and duration, inciting in the participants the most devious and conniving tricks to get those long-lasting stones down the back of people's necks. In short, it was brilliant fun. Luckily AJ, Jess and Josh had managed to rescue all our stuff and hide it in a little troll tunnel under the playground. As the hail slowly melted, our fight simmered down and we ended up (as always) surrounding the swings and chatting amiably. When the thunder started I suggested we bring the cars closer and (after a while staring gob-smacked at the sky like the peasants that we are) we did so. Andrew was convinced that it was going to be a brilliant storm, so we waited a while just in case the heavens decided to open so we could have the pleasure of getting throughly soaked and cold. Summer thunderstorms are absolutely brilliant. Sadly, this turned out not to be one. We had started playing forty forty when I had to leave to take Gity and the dogs home.
No-one answered the door at my house, so I went around the side and put the dogs through the catflap. I found mum and viv entrenched in some word game in the bottom room. "Hi," I said. No answer. "I'll be off then ..." Non-commital grunt. Nice to feel important :P
I went to Jess's house, only to discover that Jess and Josh were the only ones there - The others had had to go back to get a bag. Through a series of tense phonecalls, a drama unfolded - Marie's mum wanted her home. Nay, DEMANDED her home, and piffle to the fact that her friends were throwing her a party too. So AJ and Andrew turned up a while later, and Marie did not, and we had the second half of her party without her. She said we should eat her cake, so we did, and we sang and wished her a very merry un-birthday party as we did so. It was nice cake. We played clebrity heads, had chips and Andrew's bean salad for dinner, and watched "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" because one of my characters had been Sean Connery. It was good. I hadn't seen that movie in ages.
 The next day I went to see The Pirates of Penzance with Marie. Her mother was in hospital with high blood pressure [ :(  ], so my mum came with us instead. It was excellent. I freakin love that musical. Gilbert and Sullivan, u rok guyz. It would have been better if the actors had been given microphones, but oh well.
"So you said often, *frequently*."
"No I didn't, only once."
Hehe
Yeah
Played DnD last Saturday. There was a lot of trying to get into insanely hard to get into place which we knew was full of plague and corpses and violent giant mutant ware-rats and what have you. For no apparent reason. We got in, threw up, fought for our lives, rescused the last remaining inhabitants and then KEPT GOING against insane odds just for the vage mention of some mystical secret fridges or something. Which no-one would tell us how to find. And we fought for our lives, ended up trapped with some crazy masochistic bitch who killed a little girl and made Joanne go nuts, then killed our awesome but suicidal androgynous muscle-person (stand in for Betty) before leaping to her death. And then Joanne leapt after, using featherfall, and discovered that yes, the little girl WAS in fact dead and severely mangled. And now she's stuck. Sigh. I hinted that she should go cannibal and not starve, and then I went home.
The next day was the Royal Melbourne Show. The Excellent Snooker course was quite nasty. Merry found food on the ground as we walked into the ring - little kids were throwing stuff everywhere. Crap. After she'd choked on that for a while, I set her up and off we went ... Merry with her nose glued to the ground, looking for more food. but she still managed to finish the openeing sequence, right up until the last jump, which she knocked the bar off, because her nose was on the ground. Sigh. I started the closing sequence and she was with me until the end of the A-frame, whereupon she vanished in a blur as she did her superfast zoomies around the course. The crowd was loving it. Eventually she came back, and I tried to get her to go into the tunnel, but she wasn't having it. So, seeing as we'd already failed, I picked her up and shot her into the tunnel (like you do in training when you're building speed). She shot through, came out the other end and did more zoomies. Hoorah. She went and visited a kid by the fence and I picked her up and tried to get her to weave ... and off she shot again. I caught her the third time, smiled indulgently to the amused crowd, thanked the judge, and left. Ah well. There was a big break before my next run, so mum went and explored the show, and then sent me off to buy whatever I wanted from the animal pavilion next door. I got a shmackos showbag and some pig's ears, and admired the tolerand cats are ridiculous looking rabbits. Our second run of the day was Strategic Pairs. We weren't holding out much hope, since B'ellanna (Merry's partner) was having an even better day than she was. I was the one to start. The judge said "Go," I said "REaaaady? GO!!!" and dashed forwards ... leaving Merry firmly planted and blinking placidly at the crowd. I went back and, using my finest encouragement skills, finally got her to move. Off we went, jump, jump, tunnel, where's the dog gone? She'd stayed in the tunnel. I bent down to look in the tunnel and called her, and out she blazed ... from the wrong end. The crowd were pissing themselves laughing. I sent her through the tunnel again and over the next jump, then hel her collar while B'Ellanna started ... or didn't, as the case may be. She decided that she'd rather give the A-frame a miss, thanks all the same. On the 3rd attempt she finally went up, and the crowd cheered. With an excessive amount of cajoling, she managed the next 5 jumps, and it was Merry's turn again. Jump, weave ... or not. she went past them. The judge called a refusal, even though it's games and there technically are no refusals. Gr. B'Ellana went into the weaves, was gaing nicely ... and popped out at the second last pole. The crowd groaned sympatehetically. Merry had her turn again and did them perfectly, as she normally does, and the crowd cheered again. I realised too late that I was on the wrong side, and did a very sloppy cross-over, but we still managed to get through the jumps. B'Ellana was moving in slow motion, but still managed hers. I sent Merry through the tunnel, over the jump, into the chute (fingers crossed, please don't get tangled up ...) and she came out the right end! Just in time I remembered the last jump I had to do, and we raced off to finish that one. And over to B'Ellana ... who would rather give the dog walk a miss, thanks all the same. She got up on the FIFTH try, and over the very last jump. We finished in an incredible 3 minutes - 2 minutes over the time limit - only to discover that I had disqualified us right at the beginning when I'd crossed back over the start line to get Merry to go. Ha! Good thing it wasn't a good run then, hey what. Merry got her chicken and then went in her crate to sleep while mum took me to see the handicrafts, and then we went home. All in all, an amusing day.

Toodle pip.