15 posts tagged “max”

...I'm being a sook I know.  Great news first though.  I've found a place to live!  :)  It's large inside, has a large courtyard area for Max, in a complex which will not only accept cats but a lot of the people who live there are cat lovers.  The location is closer in to the city central (approx 10-15 min drive depending if its peak hour or not).  it needs work but it can be done. I'm praying this is a new start.  I've applied for a larger mortgage than what I need, so that I'll have extra to cover things I need to do to the place (new carpets, that kind of thing - there is currently nasty navy blue carpet in there which looks like it belongs on the floor of a recreational centre floor). It's in a lovely back street, quiet, front villa, quiet complex, close to cafe's and restaurants, close to a few pubs, a cheaper cab fare home if I go out in the city centre at all on a Friday night.  The place has potential.  And it has a brand new stove yay (I've been working with a dopey old stove for the past 2 years which is on its last legs). 

Meantime Angel sightings have been infrequent.  He's run cold the past week & a half or two.  It hurt a bit.  I put it down initially to him freaking out.  After a week it was a little less usual. When I didn't get a response to an excited sms saying I'd found a place, I was stung. 

By the end of the week though I'm getting an email asking when he can see me.  Imagine a very unimpressed face.  in the past he used to tell me how he'd miss me, and I'd believe him.  NOW when he says he's missed me, I feel like a PART of him has missed me, but it's not enough.  I need someone who can be there for me.  Someone who really CARES.  I think I've outgrown this quasi-relationship.  Maybe I'm just saying this because I'm hurt and for a while needed someone who really cared.  Someone who would be excited for me, who would want to know where it was, why I liked it and if I got a bargain.  Someone who might want to go for a cruise past the place with me.  To ask me when i'm moving in to the place, whether there were any conditions the sellers insisted on.  Someone who'd ask me about my rollercoaster ride at work (figuratively speaking).

The weather is foul outside (wind howling, spatters of rain slamming against the window) and I'm inside, having read a letter from a family friend who is acting as settlement agent, informing me that I have to come up with a cheque for approx $12k for stamp duty, in the next week or so!  EEK. I THINK I'll be able to get the bank that is doing my mortgage, to generate the cheque though but geez that was a nasty feeling reading that letter! That, and a girls night in on Sat night watching freaky movies where again it would've been nice to snuggle up to someone... meh I'm feeling a little needier than usual.  

Just when I think there's at least a minimum of a connection there and that he'll at least be there as a close caring friend he acts like he doesn't give a crap.  When I ask him about it he flippantly excuses it off as being busy, then tells me he's missed me and crassly asks me when we can rectify that.  His barriers are back up and I've got no patience or tolerance for it right now.  I need the guy who I thought was a close friend.  Instead I see the worst side of him, the callous side that really is all about his own needs and wants. 

Anyhoo there's my pout for the day.  ;) no use crying about it.  I'm just disappointed & disillusioned.  As pathetic as it is, it'd be so much easier to find prince charming in someone I sometimes like sometimes THINK I might love, someone I have that physical connection with, rather than considering being out there dating again.  It's just too damn hard. 

So, my sister, nephews, brother in law and mother have gone away for a trip to a lovely tropical island off the coast of Queensland Australia. 

I'm burying myself in house stuff, while knowing that my further studies at college pick up again soon this time online.  I'm going to try to focus more on some of my friendships that I've lost contact with a little lately.  

Woohoo I got a cash offer for $5k more than my minimum but subject to a 6 week settlement - aiee!  The little funky place so close in that I had my heart set on has gone dammit. So now I'm out madly house hunting.  If I don't find something I like though, I'll have to store my stuff in storage, and board max for a few weeks hopefully no more than 3 or 4 weeks.  *WINCE*

I don't want to rush into a place for the sake of it however.

Meantime (sorry guys who don't get the restricted posts as work ones I've taken to hiding and some work ones are combined updates - only neighbours can view those), Angel and I had been catching up at least once a week, getting along so well - no dramas no arguments, if there are any worries by either of us we talk it out, it's been too easy to fall into a very old trap of thinking that I really like spending time with this guy.  He's nice, comfortable to be with, damn sexy.. but a self confessed louse in the past.  :S  bugger.  And sure enough after catching up to spend the whole night together 3 or 4 times in the past 2.5/3 weeks, he seems to be starting to cool and starting his old habit of suggesting only catching up late at night.  If anything I'd want to progress towards catching up socially amongst friends but no chance at all of that.  Meh.  There is a lot that is good about him and we have a close friendship but I'm going to have to cool that connection if this is all that is on offer. 

It's been nice though as a not-relationship, to stave off loneliness, to receive enthusiastic appreciative attention.  But it's hardly a relationship and I know his signals well enough to know when his attention is waivering.  Stuff chasing him like some lovelorn puppy.  He's lucky to have me, I was lucky to have him too for a bit. 

But seriously to be kept at arm's length like a big secret, it can be fun sometimes but eventually it gets really old and tired and irritating.

GF has been friendly lately but also had a schiz turn at me calling me at work getting savage wanting to know what I've said to a male friend of hers.   I'm also always treated like a backup to another friend of hers which is nuts.  A childish part of me feels like I'm back in school with the stupid friend politics of that era, another part of me cannot be bothered with it all - I didn't go out with her and her cronies on Friday night as I was tired and freaked out after being completely screamed at over 2 days by a psycho boss - GF turned it around and into a "so what are you REALLY doing tonight?".  I didn't need the crap at the time.   

Well, to follow the instructions of the real estate agent lady, I've gone all out and purchased a heap of paint (with the idea that if I have any leftover I can use it when/if I move anyway).  I spent about $500 on paint, lacquer for the slate tiles and all sorts,and other paint paraphernalia and I've gotten just about everything in the house painted.  Well, I'm about 2/3 of the way through, with a little help from Eyore and her new man today. 

It's all going to a neutral buttermilk colur that has a pale barely noticeable lemon tinge to it to  brighten up the place.  It looks clean and fresh which was the idea.

I went out and caught a movie last night called "The Method" - I'll give the link here.  All I can say is that it was weird.  A demonstration of just how much people will go through out of competitiveness and to win the job.  I found it a bit bleak though and a scary demonstration of just to what lengths people will go to ethically to win a role. 

SO, I got a call this morning from bub sis, ill and needing to rush over to the doctors and needing someone to mind Nephew1.  She's going to be ok and I got a nephew fix, then charged off again to get some supplies.  On the way home out of curiousity I checked out an outdoor furniture sale.  BIG mistake or a good idea, I'm yet to decide.  I walked away with a receipt and instructions about where to pick up the chairs and flatpack. 

AIEEE.  One 5 min quick stickybeak turned into the mission from hell which, if you were a fly on the windscreen, you'd be laughing your butts off. 

I drove to this pick up point, to discover that I could only JUST manage to cram the outdoor tempered glass table into the car.  I drove home side saddle in the front seat as I couldn't squeak my leg between the steering wheel and the seat it was so far forward and drove very awkwardly with nose practically pressed up against the windscreen of my little jelly bean hatch car.  I got home ok,dropped the table off and went back for the chairs.  Who'd have thunk it, but the outdoor chairs turned out to be an even huger mission!  The trip home was easier, but getting them out by myself.  Errr not so good.  I struggled and swore and tugged and pushed and finally got them out much redder in the face and puffed, took them out the back and started putting everything together (new purchase, HAD to be done!). SO I did that, gapfilled around the front door (oh my aren't I becoming handy..next I'll grow chesthair!)

Eyore and her man came over and helped out then with painting (goofing off and being cute just as much as painting - it was barfably adorable).  I realised later I had skanky undies on (laundry day) and the grungy pants I was painting in were doing nasty plumbers crack things and woo nelly her man must really love to her have tolerated me exposing the icky green last of the underwear grundies!

So the house is a mess, but the walls are starting to look fabulous.  The garden is still a mess - I've not had a chance to look at it in far too long.  Case in point for looking for another place. 

Angel emailed me on Friday joking about how if he dared to come over, he'd pick up a paintbrush so long as he could have a wine glass in the other hand.  I didn't respond.  He sms'd me last night while I was in the movie asking how the house painting was going and reminded me to change my clocks back to remove daylight saving (ugh I hate it... I have enough trouble going to bed early/getting up early so this morning was supposed to be a fabulous sleep in ah well), then gushed on about how I should come over his place and help him with his plants (his usual excuse for trying to vie for help/company as it'd worked back when I didn't know him well, as a friend).  I ignored the sms. 

It's stupid I know - we have no hold on each other and I should know already where he's coming from, but it hurt, it was insensitive, and I've known for a while that the friendship wasn't working for me.   

1. Angel emailed me today asking when we'd see each other, giving me a heads up that his brother was visiting him this weekend but that he was sure he could "sneak away".  The tone from a 'friend' had me completely puzzled.  It was like seeing me was important to him.  I'm sure the cynics out there will have a theory on that.  Yesterday he quizzed me over sms about who was in my car with me in passing conversation - I'd been spotted again at the carpark apparently.  It wasn't said in a stalkerish way but more of a friend who was paying close attention.  mph the last time we caught up alone would have been over a month ago.  It was a hot night we walked and got icecream and shared them on the way back to my place.  Totally platonic but nice.  Just when I think I know which way is North, things get a little muddled again.  I'm not ruling out anyone else though - I can't that'd be crazy.
2. Max located and dispatched his latest mouse.  He dropped it repeatedly right at my feet so completely proud of himself I had to congratulate him while choking on the guilt of not rescuing the poor little thing.
3. Work has been unproductive between new starters not showing up until after the orientation has finished (resulting in me doing two in  one day), new starter paperwork, a fire drill today (I'm the only fire warden that KNOWS any of the procedures currently), and two seminars on the WorkChoices legislation today one after the other.  I feel like I'm not getting anywhere fast.

Kudos to PrittyPritty whose entry moved me to tears.  It's things like this that I think of whenever I hear about someone simply giving up on their adoring, committed worshipful pets.  Animals who rely on their owners for their welfare, health and emotional happiness. 

You would probably not be surprised, as an animal lover and RSPCA supporter, how many emails I get from friends who know I'm a sucker for a cause and they send me the latest email bulletin of someone with a pet wanting to travel, or move interstate and the owners have up and decided that the lifelong commitment which they've made to their pet is just far too hard, so they go shopping for a home for the animal.

Luckily, every email I receive, gets circulated to about 30 or 40 people I know, and so far none of them have had to go to a shelter that I know of. 

It makes me cry - people need  a licence to drive a car, but don't need any kind of training to become a parent or a fur-parent.  It's scary how cheap these animals lives are to some people.

I met a guy a week ago who boasted that he hates cats, and once tried patting a cat's belly, and because he'd scared it a stranger patting its exposed belly would, it grabbed onto his arm and hand with its claws to warn him to back off.  He thought it was just a vicious brute though and was determined not to back down.  He thought he was a hero for closing his hand around the poor scared cat's head and squeezing, the harder the claws went in, he squeezed harder.  I just looked at him horrified (it was at ChefGurl's farewell so I didn't want to make a scene but damn I really hope Fate treats him the same way some day only with his balls...woo big man has to mistreat an animal), and told him that while he hated cats for being vicious, I hated the people who made them that way out of mistreating them.  That seemed to embarass him a  little - as it should have!

Our pets have some defenses, but they're basically out our mercy - every time I think I've had a bad day I think of Max cooped up in my house unable to go out for a run because the neighbours hate him.  He has his cat run which seems to provide him with a mouse or so a week (oh yay) which thrills him no end, and other than that he watches the world go by through the window and waits for me to get home, meowing with a silently open pink mouth with nose pressed at my window when I arrive home.  

I slept in this morning and he curled up hard against me purring, (he has just learned to trust someone enough to purr which is heart warming), and after I woke up he followed me out to the loungeroom and has curled up against my side while I type.  It is hard explaining to friends that I don't want to go out drinking all night to crash on their couch or their spare room on weekends, or stay out late during the week, if I've done it more than once or twice, because I'm mindful of him waiting with bated breath for me to get home and feed him and give him the cuddles he deserves.   

Our latest battle has been over whether he can stalk all over the kitchen counter top looking for his latest mouse (which he's lost), leaving grubby puddy-prints over the counter to the horrified dismay of his owner.  I go to sleep at night after attempting to 'train' him not to get up on the counters and he pays me back tenfold.  I wake up in the middle of the night to clatter clatter clang clang and he's fishing around in my cleanly washed left out to drip dry dishes, which he's never done before, but obviously knew it'd irritate me and wake me up (either that or the mouse... ewww now I'm going to have to wash them all!) ..  

My manager called me in to her office on Thursday and told me that she and the MD had put me forward to overseas head office, for a $5k bonus. :)  Could've knocked me over with a feather.  She went on to say that my hard work, dedication, long hours and cheerful positive disposition hadn't gone unnoticed and that MD had not knocked her recommendation but supported it, from the moment she put it forward.  I rather pathetically teared-up at that because it's been a rough year work ways and I'd thought the hard work had been assumed and unappreciated.

I've been with this company 6 years.  I KNOW about this discretionary bonuses though I've never been awarded one before.  The senior management only and maybe one or two line managers, receive them each year. If there's some poor soul who has been working their ASS off, they might get put forward but the figure gets bartered down and pared away to whatever small amount they can finally agree on or in a lot of cases the bonuses are disputed and knocked on the head after a bit of discussion.  I love the job.  Always have done despite the guys sometimes being notoriously thick when it comes to life skills.  Engineers what can I say.  ;)

This is above and beyond my pay increase, and a one off thing.  I'm thrilled!  I'll be able to afford airconditioning.  The actual cash in hand figure though by the time the tax man takes his Jaws-like bite out of it, will probably be half of what I'm being given - it sucks totally.  HOPEFULLY I won't fritter it away on frivolity but dammit it's so tempting to spoil myself sometimes.  My wishlist of things I'd like to spend it on depending how far it'll go, includes first and foremost, airconditioning.  I do NOT cope with the hot weather - I end up with migraines from the heat (oh and joy oh joy it's meant to hit 36 degrees this public holiday Monday, and the Tuesday, 39 degrees, after a week of rainy weather and Angel and I throughout the week joking about "Doonah Day" and how it'd be so nice to go home snuggle up under a doonah and watch dvd's (this being the final straw in the Nic's gonna panick and back out of flirting with Angel as she's gonna get hurt by him AGAIN fast packpeddal later in the week).  Dammit.  I'd just been crowing to myself that the cooler weather had arrived, and no more bunch of hot days one after the other turning my home into a furnace and dammit here it comes again, on the next long weekend.  Someone upstairs hates me I swear it.

Anyhoo enough of the self pitying.  Next on the wishlist, lighting.  Approx $400 worth by the time I buy all the new fixtures and then the cost of having them installed.  Worth it as the light fittings here totally suck.  No other way to describe them.  Ugly big black bugs of things perched up on the white ceiling.  WHY would anyone want black light fittings on a white ceiling can I ask?  They're big bulky and hideous. 

SO if there is cash leftover, a new standalone cheapie stove so I won't singe my eyebrows the next time I try to grill something (thank God for George Foreman or I'd be the size of a house..grilling being one of the best low fat ways to cook after all). 

And oh I'd so dearly love to splurge on myself and do all the things that through a lack of having spare cash, I've not spoiled myself with in ages.  A haircut.  Last one was July last year.  I kid you not.  I have VERY long hair.  Just as well I use good product (one of my few self indulgences other than adding to my dvd collection). Otherwise that long hair would be trailer-trash straw in all probability.   So, haircut, maybe a new bottle of perfume - faves being Red Door, Chanel #5 (my fave..the one Marilyn is famous for quoting herself as sleeping nude in), Moschino (the one with the little tricoloured ribbon around the lid), Anna Sui Dreams; but then here's my handbag and lingerie fetishes -neither fed for some time due to mortgage-dom.  mmmm nope I have to sort out the house first.  THAT way if I ever want to sell up and give Max a home that doesn't include psychopathic-towards-cats neighbours so he can roam freely outside, I'll be better equipped to.  As I type this, he's spread out lying like he's human, full length (which is impressive) on my couch beside me quietly snoring with his belly exposed oh-so-innocently like a bear trap.  You stick your hand in there to pat, you might get it back bloodied or gnawed on.  Ironically, it's a rather tight budget this fortnight, and I've got to run now to grocery shop, while dreaming about how much the tax man might oh so kindly leave me to spend next fortnight, once the cash is paid to me.

Oh boy. There is a mouse in my house.  It's tiny, adorably cute, completely wild, and probably one of an ever increasing pack??  Its the 4th or so in as many weeks. 

I can't face looking at the poor cute little fuzzy petrified thing trying to huddle in upon itself away from Max and his over zealous playing.  But it IS a rodent and they are obvously breeding in the area and it's a pest.  I don't want lots of them around.  I can't let it go and I can't possibly kill it.  I don't think I have much of a choice other than to congratulate him and try to harden my animal-loving heart and try not to look or think about it. 

So guys, I'm almost at the stage of offering to loan him out as requested!

Yup I'm an aunty again, to a littlie who I'll nickname Tie. I've only seen him once so far, but he was adorable tho he slept the whole time.  Another little rugrat to spoil rotten, teach what chinese burns and camel bites are when he's older... lots of fun. 

Work has been the normal, busy.  Been spending more time at home tidying up (the house has needed it), and Max has caught yet another mouse.  Yup in case I didn't mention it before, Max is a mouser.  BUGGER.

heh heh.  GF asked me to go to see the latest Bond flick Casino Royale with her in Gold Class Cinema as Scuba had yet again totally upset her by sending a cruddy "I've met someone on Saturday, sorry can't see you any more and don't want you to go to my work christmas function either as she's sooo perfect I want to try to make this work.  HERE'S A PHOTO, SEE, SHE'S JUST SO SPECIAL HOW CAN I DO ANYTHING BUT DUMP YOU" kind of email.  I kid you not.  He was meant to have been going with her to the gold class movie as well, they'd booked it as a date last week.  What a ...nope I won't do it but you can imagine what I was thinking.  She had to step away from her computer upon reading that, to go into a meeting at work. 

SO we went to a nearby bar for a few wines and a gasbag and I tried to lighten the mood and silly things up to keep her mind off the recent shoddy behaviour of Scuba.  We then joined some of her posse at a nearby pub for a brief drink and that turned into a bunch of us deciding to go for dinner at an Indian restaurant.  YUMMY. 

We then had to fly out to the cinema for Casino Royale.  Yummy Yummy Yummy.  Daniel Craig is that his name?  I will be memorising it after seeing him also in Infamous on Sunday night at an outdoor cinema.  Yummy.  Masculine rather than this fad for wimpy "sophisticated" men.  rrrowrrl.  I liked that the movie had moved away from the cheesy stereotype into something a little more real while maintaining some of the hallmarks.  I'm sure some of the diehard fans will not be thrilled however.  GF fell asleep for a bit and quietly snored away to herself in her armchair til I woke her.  I think I got to bed around 12:45am.  THEN Max decides he's hardly seen me and needs to give me a welcome home present... a nasty big flying cocroach dropped at the foot of my bed.  Nice.  I had to get up around 2am to chase away a cockroach.

Max The Cat, as I went to check my messages, was busy chewing on my sneaker like a dog would.  He will 'go' someone like a dog would, if he feels he's been threatened.  He chews on my sneakers.  He'll follow me around when he's so inclined. Doglike.  With catlike agility to get up on top of furniture *wince*

Meantime mum and I just spent over an hour walking around the area looking for her cat, dropping fliers in letterboxes and posting a few up at intersections and at the local store.  Here's hoping the cat shows up.