And she is a sweetheart. Over the last year, she’s become more and more affectionate – and now she’ll even go up to Tobermory and demand smoochies and fussing, worlds away from the tiny terrified little kitten who skittered away from anyone other than me for months. She plays chasey with Boomer, hops up on the cat climber and plays peek-a-boo with me; and while I don’t think she’ll ever be a lapcat, is very affectionate on the bed at night.

For all that she is allegedly silly – we have witnessed her run away from her own food bowl on more than one occasion – we have also established that Tigra scares herself with the printer on purpose.

See, she comes and visits us in the study. She’ll hop up on the desk, squeak at me, poke around, smooch – idly, I have just about cured her of walking on my keyboard, she is a good girl – and inevitably, she will step off my desk, wander over to Thaqui’s, via the printer. Equally inevitably, she will manage to step on the Go button, and then flail around with fear when it makes the whir-whir-whir-I am a printer starting up-noises.

It’s turned off at the moment, as she managed to print the printer specifications off last night (how? no idea), and really, enough is enough. And she keeps walking on it and poking it. Especially the Go button, which is always the one which generates the “wahscared!leap!” reaction.

She’s been caught pressing it… and leaping back, all “wahscared!!”, then looking sheepish when it transpires the printer didn’t turn on. Then walking on the printer, and poking the go button again.

Busted!

Funny thing. Anytime I refer to myself as fat in Tobermory’s presence, he has a go at me. Not about my weight, but because he objects to me considering myself fat. I suspect his interpretation of ‘fat’ leans towards Jerry Springer Special, and, well, I’m not that bad. Also, despite being overweight, I carry it fairly proportionately; and, critically, I dress appropriately for my size. My clothing actually fits my person, and I do not allow rolls of wobble to fall over the boundaries of my clothing. I might be a bit overweight, but I’m still healthy. I haven’t gained weight in years now, and I do lose some occasionally.

There’s a remix of Hard Day’s Night which regularly turns up in salsa class. I don’t know why it amuses me so much, but it does. I think it’s because I know Tobermory would be vaguely pissed off, because he loves the Beatles. Every time we dance to it in class I giggle to myself.

I have signed up for the next level of class, as next week is the final class of the beginners lessons. I’ll be taking classes on Mondays and Fridays, and hopefully avoiding falling over my own fat feet in the process. I enjoy salsa – for the first time in years I’m doing something physical that I don’t suck at, and having fun. I have also braved the wilds of Ebay to find dance shoes, as I objected to paying $200 for shoes I can’t wear on the street or at work, and as usual when on the interwebs, found a decent deal that utterly thrashes buying shoes in person in New Zealand, aka the arseend of the world where all vendors think it’s appropriate to completely shaft you in price. And I don’t like dancing in my street shoes; either my flats are wrong, I don’t know why I just don’t like dancing in flats, and my heels are not designed for dancing and hurt my feet eventually. I mean, I’ve done it anyway, but that’s not the point.

It’s funny, I am almost embarrassed about how much I’m enjoying these classes. I think it’s because I’ve acquired some vague assumption that being a Woman with a Hobby is a bit dorky, and I must conceal it. But you know what? Bugger it. I’m twenty seven years old, if I want to go to salsa classes and enjoy it, I am allowed!

I don’t bite them to the quick any more. I managed to stop, for awhile there, and had pretty french polished nails that were all my own. Then Tobermory has the migraine which involved him trying to beat his head through the hospital wall, and I bit them all off that night.

I haven’t quite recovered.

These days, they’re just past the quick – there is some visible white – and I think I’ve finally grown out all the damage that I caused wearing fake nails for our wedding. I don’t regret it – they were lovely fake french nails, and the pictures are pretty as a result. I am vain enough to care about this.

It does bother me, and with the damage grown out, I’ve started painting my nails again. At the moment it’s with one of the magic voodoo formulas that Sally Hansen produces – probably completely useless for any of the things it promises to do (Titanium complex! Magic growth formula!) but it tastes so utterly foul when I chew on my nails that I’m less prone to have a vague thoughtless nibble.

I spent years, as a teenager, wishing I was someone a bit different. I think most people go through a similar phase. But I grew up; and sometime in the last few years I realised that the only way to get to be the kind of person I want to be is get off my butt and do something about it. Yes, that’s an obvious comment, but knowing it and actually KNOWING it, having your brain go “Hey, I could do X and it would make me more like who I want to be!”… there’s a fairly significant sea change involved in that thought process. Somewhere along the lines, stopping biting my nails, and thus having presentable pretty hands, is part of the change to who I wish I was. It’s also why I bought suits in the UK, because I’d kind of like to be the kind of woman who wears suits. And now, I guess, I am a woman who wears suits, because frankly it makes life easier in the mornings – fall out of bed, find clean shirt, throw suit on.

And pretty hands is just one of those things that … well, appearances are important. People – or at least, women – notice your hands, your nails, and I want mine to be attractive.

I have new shiny cooking equipment. One KitchenAid mixer, with sundry attachments.

Owing to my inability to make appropriate portions, we have had three days worth of home-made pasta meals, including lunch portions. Very tasty pasta, mind you.

I am continuing to learn to salsa. For the first time in years, I am actually enjoying something related to exercise; admittedly I had a bit of a mental paddy with myself tonight, when the instructor tried to walk me through something I hadn’t done before and I got it wrong, but hey! That’s my own mental quirk which I really, really need to deal properly with, because newsflash: people are not expected to be good at things the first time ever. It has been fun every other lesson, and frankly I need to give my WAH I AM NOT PERFECT a good kick up the arse, because hey, not perfect and THAT’S OK.

In other news, I swear to god I am not lying: I got propositioned by a hooker on my way home. (The dance studio is near our red-light district and… I guess my car was parked too close tonight?)
Her: “Hey honey, you want some fun?”
Me: “er, what?” (thinking: don’t you have some original lines?)
Her: “… this is K road. What do you think?”
Me: “Get bent.”
Her: “I already am?”
I wasn’t trying to be funny…

Also, I don’t know why, but some part of me is actually quite insulted. She wasn’t even very attractive.

With the new job, and the fact that at twenty-seven years old I really ought to be willing to do something like dance All By Myself, I found a salsa class. The eight-week beginner’s class? Started today. My birthday was yesterday. It seemed like the right kind of omen, so I signed up, paid in advance, and did the first class tonight. It was fun!

There was the predictable mix of couples, unattached females, and one wannabe lothario present. He didn’t quite fit the mold, in that he actually possessed a chin and appeared to be of Asian descent, but still.

I had fun, in a mildly malcoordinated I-wish-I’d-left-my-high-heels-on kind of way. Also predictably, I failed to catch signals from men trying to lead me – I get insistent on staying in time and forget that women are supposed to follow their partner’s lead, but by the end of the class I’d more or less gotten over myself.

It’s funny, I’ve gotten to the age of 27 and still periodically discover a way in which I have unexpectedly grown up, or gained confidence, or whatever. A month or so ago I was in a foodcourt, couldn’t find an empty table, and marched up to a chap eating by himself, plonked down at the table (politely, with a “d’you mind?”) and proceeded to eat my lunch. I wouldn’t have done that a few years back. No confidence.

Funny the things that change.

I dialled the 0800 number on my lunch break. A helpful male voice replies, and tells me that it’s terribly sorry but it does not accept 0800 calls from mobile telephones – if I want, I can dial a number that will cost me monies, or perhaps I could visit the website instead! Goodbye. *click*

I dial the number. A helpful male voice replies, and tells me that it’s terribly sorry but the lines are overloaded; perhaps I could visit the website instead! Goodbye. *click*

I dial the number. A helpful male voice replies, and tells me that it’s terribly sorry but the lines are overloaded; perhaps I could visit the website instead! Goodbye. *click*

I dial the number. A helpful male voice replies, and tells me that it’s terribly sorry but the lines are overloaded; perhaps I could visit the website instead! Goodbye. *click*

I dial the number. A helpful male voice replies, and tells me that it’s terribly sorry but the lines are overloaded; perhaps I could visit the website instead! Goodbye. *click*

I redial the number a total of NINETEEN TIMES. Eventually the phone is picked up (by the same automagic male voice) and I am walked through one of those godawful phone trees where you have to use voice-response for everything.

I apparently mis-navigate the system, because the helpful male voice replies, and tells me that that information is available on the website! Goodbye. *click*

I swear. Quite a lot.

I dial the number. A helpful male voice replies, and tells me that it’s terribly sorry but the lines are overloaded; perhaps I could visit the website instead! Goodbye. *click*

I bang my head on the desk.

I dial the number. A helpful male voice replies, and tells me that it’s terribly sorry but the lines are overloaded; perhaps I could visit the website instead! Goodbye. *click*

I do this a total of four times, before eventually getting through to the damnblasted voice activated phone tree.

It turns out it is much easier to navigate phone trees when you are so angry that you are snarling at the telephone.

After a number of grumpily snapped responses, I finally got the phone tree to agree to forward me to a human being. At which I discover that I am in a 45-minute queue. If I want, I can hold, which I am sure my phone bill would appreciate – or the IRD will call me back! But only on a land-line number, not on my cellphone; perhaps I could visit the website instead!

I swear vitriolically at the system and hang up the phone. Then I bang my head on the desk.

It only took twenty four phone calls, all of which I had to pay for, and a significant chunk of my sanity.

I returned to the website, gave up; searched the wilds of the general internet until I found a forum that answered my question, and armed with the correct tax terms, returned into the wilds of the website to extract my answer.

After all that, I don’t owe the bloody tax department money.

See, she’d parked on level 3, discovered the machines on level 3 don’t take credit cards, and so she’d driven up to level one to pay. Instead of, y’know, leaving her car down two levels and walking up to the booth like the rest of us. Apparently the fact that the levels aren’t labelled (lady, they’re still in the middle of construction) is MISLEADING and she can’t work out what level she’s on – “it’s the PINK ONE isn’t that GOOD ENOUGH????!??!?!?” She was doing the whole nine yards, the “WHY WON’T YOU TAKE MY MONEY???!!?!?!?!?”, and I just lost it in laughter when she actually started jumping up and down in frustration. This is a slim, mid-40′s woman in high heels, business clothing… and she’s jumping up and down clacking her heels on the concrete like a toddler in a tantrum. She just would not be told that you’re supposed to LEAVE your car on the third level, not just visit it in passing.

She turned to the queue building up behind her to apologise for the communication failure; judging from the snickering behind me (and also the way no-one was willing to catch her eye) no-one agreed with her. I kind of wish I’d spoken up, but I couldn’t face arguing with an idiot before I even started my shift.

Eventually they gave up arguing with her, and she drove off, presumably to go back down to level three and park (I wouldn’t count on it).

My own transaction went quite smoothly.
Me: “Hello, I’m parked on Level Three!”
Her: “Excellent, that will be Twelve Dollars Please!”
Me: “You know, I never thought parking here was terribly complicated.”
Her: *snicker*

Anyhow.

Tub of icecream: Labelled Caramelita. It’s on the top shelf of a cupboard-style freezer, I yoink it into my basket, and go.

Two days later, I decided to have some. And think “huh, that’s odd, a walnut. And this doesn’t actually taste much of caramel.” But it’s late at night and I kind of forget about it.

Two days later I decide to have some! And there is walnut again, and this time, I notice the LID has a Maple Walnut label.

The tub? Caramelita label, Caramelita ingredients list. The lid? Maple Walnut. The contents? Maple Walnut!

Actually, it’s pretty tasty, I am totally eating it anyway, and I’m mostly just glad I don’t have e.g. nut allergies. And as, somewhat to my surprise, I still have the receipt, I’m contacting Movenpick NZ just, you know. As a polite FYI…

I’d already realised that I wasn’t cut out for her faith. I just couldn’t do it, I wanted other things, I was miserable being forced into the mold young people in the congregation were expected to like, I wanted to be normal. We had an argument, no unusual occurrence for a teenage daughter and menopausal mother, and mid-argument, I finally summoned up the courage to say “but I don’t WANT to be part of the congregation, I don’t WANT to be part of that faith.”

Mum turned around, looked at me, snorted, and said “oh, don’t be silly.”

It was a small moment, really. But I couldn’t believe that she’d called something so IMPORTANT to me silly. I tried to explain a few times, probably failing terribly badly in an overblown emotional teenage fashion, and the moment passed.

From that day forward, I lied to her. I lied about where I was and what I was doing, and who I was doing it with (or to, as the case may be). And I was utterly miserable for, god, I don’t even remember how many years. Teenage blues, yes, but I’ve realised that my stomach problems in uni were stress induced, the varying sleep issues I’ve had over the years are certainly stress-aggravated.
( after the jump )