sunday was one of the greatest days ever. my brother and i went to new zealand's golden coast to see our nephews and sister. first stop: LINDALE.

it rained. so we could only eat lunch (substandard corn fritters for me, but served with a smile so i just couldn't complain) and watch nains waste his pocket money on a coin operated tractor. btw nains continues to light up my life. he's three. he is hopeless at hide and seek. so anyway, despite the baby chickens everywhere we didn't even attempt to see the animals. instead we drove up the road to southwards.

it was memory lane! i remember first going there with either my uncle or my grandfather (some older male anyway). i must have been about five and i demanded a print of a model t ford. which i got after a lot of argument (nb: even today they are only 50cents, which makes me think it was my penny pincher grandfather that took me to southwards). i could look at the de lorean for hours.




nains was bored with the museum but just about passed out from the excitement of the elevator. my siblings and i were excited by the basement room, which is basically a memorial to every car we've ever owned. which reminds me of my new phrase that i might sell to toyota:

picture me co-rollin'.

anyway, for me the childhood memories and the joy on nain's face when it was over were worth the $10 entry fee. plus they have the best postcards in wellington. you should go.

after the museum we fed nains and tiki up on ice cream and left them to their mother. while we drove back to wellington. i played a game where i was the 91 ZM dj who does "High school hits". so i'd be all like

"high school hits, class of '97" and then play "don't look back in anger".

and so on. it might be the best road trip game of all time. you should try it.

other songs on my high school hits play list:

• semi charmed life - third eye blind
  
• santeria - sublime
  
• every morning - sugar ray
  
• we close our eyes - go west
• misery - soul asylum
  
• time - pink floyd
• intergallactic - beastie boys

basically, the ride home from the kapiti coast is just not long enough.

anyway when i got home i bought we close our eyes on i tunes and to prove its worth, i tunes genius reminded me of this:



NEW FAVOURITE SONG OF ALL TIME.

i have so much to tell you. so basically gush gush caroline and morgan got married. gush some more. it was so lovely but i have no movie to make for them. my photos were a bit lame (plus they are already on facebook) and surely by now everyone has grown weary of my talk of fascinators. of fantasisers. or whatever.

so i'll just leave it as the official 'night of 2009'. end of story.

basically, i am struggling to find anything as awesome as cazza and morgue, so i'm in to escapism. naturally, i'm back into movies in a big way. yesterday: revolutionary road. 8 out of ten but i never want to see it again. why? depressing!!! but also

• it makes you crave martinis cos it turns out in the 1950s or whatever that is all that anyone drank. martinis or sherry, two ice cubes, filled to the brim.
• the fashions are so great it actually hurts
• you might sit next to two losers texting all their friends throughout the entire movie
• kate winslet's hair might likely bother you (too blonde) and
• you might end up thinking of matt damon. ew.

seriously, separated at birth or WHAT?

tonight, twilight. 7 out of ten. i've heard the criticism but frankly a hot guy deep breathing because he is overcome with desire is not such a bad thing. i am not the slightest bit freaked out by how he's a vampire. but it freaks me out that robert pattinson is like seven years younger than me and has been in harry potter movies. yet, i'd totally watch this again. and i might have to. i passed out from pain part way through due to drinking a strawberry bubble tea immediately before the movie then really really needing to pee. the strawberry bubble tea was good though.

now, we're in an economic recession if you hadn't noticed. so, if you can't afford to go to the movies just sit back and watch this. this the exact same movie our teachers used to make us watch before our annual camping trip. frankly, it is no wonder i'm a bit against the great outdoors.....

cliche alert. male gymnastics is so beautiful it makes me want to cry.


god bless the olympics. even if 90% of it is duller than watching paint dry.

so far i haven't caught any male gymnastics on the tvnz coverage. due to their preference for the paint drying sports: cycling, soccer, hockey, god forsaken equestrian. that kind of thing. so i've resorted to reliving my favourite olympic moments through youtube. like this...

ps only watch the first minute of this. the rest is some other gymnasts. why bother?

the benefit of watching clips on youtube is that i can watch them in bed with my electric blanket. you may not have noticed but it is positively siberian round here these days. on saturday i thought i had pneumonia because i just couldn't get warm. then i realised it was my three fin heater and eighty year old flat conspiring against me. so i bought a new heater. and spent my nights dreaming of insulation and heat pumps.

anyway, back to alexei nemov. in 1996, when new zealand had danyon fever, i thought i would die if i never met alexei. surprisingly, i'm still alive. and now he has retired and lost some of his gymnasts physique. i'd still go there though. obv. (but not in a million years for danyon. again, obv. it was the dancing with the stars that took that one over the edge).

then in 2000 i couldn't believe he was in my hemisphere. again, i vowed death a better alternative to never meeting him. as per above, i'm still alive. despite vanessa amorosi doing her best to kill me with her 'absolutely everybody' song. ps only click that link if you are desperate to remember what song i'm talking about. you will only last like three seconds. i promise you.

but by 2004 i was a professional and didn't have time to sit around all day watching the olympics. i worked hard for my money. and plus didn't want my cowoes to know about my obsession. but still, i booed with the crowd when alexei wasn't given a high enough score by judges. i also continued my fantasy where i would marry alexei. as yet this hasn't come true. plus the athens olympics were the dullest yet. i can't remember a single other moment.

this time round all i have is other moments. due to no alexei. and no male gymnastics for me so far. only godforsaken equestrian.

from third to sixth form i was like this economics genius. but i pretended i didn't care. at fifteen, people who care a lot are vile. now too, i guess. unless it is me being a care bear.

in 7th form i dropped economics for calculus and a low grade.

anyway, thanks to my economics pedigree, i know all about demand and supply charts and opportunity cost. which is how i figure i could have watched a whole disc of who's the boss series one instead of going to work today.


who's the boss is my new obsession obviously. it makes me feel the way i felt when i watched four seasons of cheers in like three weeks. in short, wonderful. so how work won the battle for my time today beats me.

if we pretend my sunday afternoon at work didn't happen, this weekend has been all about family. the bower/micelli blended family obviously. but also my own. i took my ryles to the zoo. where he banged his head and knee and ate pebbles (the delicious chocolate treat rather than the small rock) off the ground. and made me laugh until i cried. and my mother made me the best ham sandwich ever. and i think it was just ham and white bread. and dad made fish for lunch, which reminded me of sundays of my childhood (even if i don't think my dad actually cooked a single meal throughout the 80s). i also made cupcakes despite my no baking rule. but on the flip side i fought all temptation and did not buy myself a new dress even though i DESPERATELY need it because i am going to a ball. the opportunity cost though is i go to the ball looking like a hobo. but i'm still a bit proud of my will power.

anyway, the opportunity cost of me telling you any more is that i wont get to find out what happens in episode 9 "samantha growing up". and given the scarcity of my time, samantha wins. i hope this episode has a lot of mona. she's the real star if you ask me. and this dude.

shannon is cold. i know this because i spent most of the day at shannonfarm, which is where my sister lives. i went dressed warmly but i didn't realise i would be as cold as i was when i was in austria that time and old women laughed at me because i was so underdressed for the weather.

going to shannonfarm was somewhat of an achievement for me given that there are mice living there. but just for safety's sake i didn't ever put my bag on the ground. mice like to hide in bags apparently (thanks karori wildlife sanctuary for FREAKIN' ME OUT ABOUT THIS WITH YOUR SURELY SUPERFLUOUS BAG INSPECTION ON ENTRY). i also tried to spend as much time outside as possible. i went to look at the cows. but they smelt like effluent so i kind of tired of that quickly. also, i got to wear my gumboots on the farm. i think this is the first time ever that they have gotten muddy. it only took me three years to break them in.

if i ever had to live of a dairy farm i think i would go insane. it would be nice to have lots of room to move. and it is really really quiet at shannonfarm. but i am fully dependant on brunch locations and movie outtings and bars with expensive cocktails. not to mention my aversion to mice. but luckily for me, i "studied" dairy farming in fifth form for geography. so i am by no means a novice. i am familiar with the ins and outs of rye grass and clover and whatnot. okay, so you've got me. rye grass and clover, along what they do with bobby calves, are the sum total of what i remember from fifth form history. but they are very solid building blocks.

which reminds me that i still haven't found anyone who went to my highschool reunion last week. so i have no idea whether the peacocks were present at the walk of the grounds on sunday afternoon.

which also reminds me that even though i have no desire to join the oldgirls in thinking about the good times at high school, there is one high school reunion i have been adoring this weekend. i have finally got my hands on season two of 90210. and guess what? if anything it is better than season one. who would have thought it possible. not me. and fyi joanna: steve sanders continues to be hotter than i remember. but since brandon is essentially my first love (behind gilbert from anne of green gables and luke goss from bros) he retains a soft spot. and dylan in a wet suit, reow. so basically i'm hot for all of the boys except brian austin green. if only i'd gone to west beverly high instead of the east girls college i did attend. miss fortune is such a cruel bearch.

so my high school is having a reunion. old girls of the nineties rejoice. anyway, i think i would probably end up self harming if i actually attended so guess what? since i'm not actually middle aged, i wont be at the loaded hog that (or really any) night.

but in honour of the girls making an effort i've been listening to ub40s best of volume one for the last two days. there's a rat in mi kitchen. and all that. in 1994, i was on holiday staying with my cousins in christchurch. they were all old - like nineteen - and smoked and had boyfriends and drove and had ub40 tapes that we listened to when driving to akaroa (they also had billy joel, which i secretly preferred but kept quiet about cos i didn't want to be judged). plus i went to an all you can eat buffet with my aunt and uncle and the rsa or something and someone played rat in mi kitchen on the juke box and i thought i was the most cosmopolitan person in the world when i like recognised the hardcore reggae.

anyway, when i came back to wellington a week and a lifetime later i took up ub40. i even remember the day i bought it on lambton quay. and then rode the cable car listening to it on my bff's walkperson on the way up to visit her dad at the university (why, i'm not sure, but i remember doing it).

then in my first or second year of university, when i was too cool for reggae and all about the cure, my bff and i held a car boot sale - literally - at the old markets where reading cinemas are now and sold my tape.

this week though, i discovered that my cowoe, who sits two seats away, has the same album on cd!!! and then, when i got the invite to the reunion i knew it was fate. so i played that cd, ripped it to my work pc and blissed freakin' out. high school memories freakin' rule.