Captain Sniffles and the Peel.

So, if you get asked on a date I would thoroughly recommend not getting incredibly sunburnt the weekend before ... on your face.

And now the hayfever has kicked in, right as the peeling really picks up a notch.

Sad face.

Chair dancing

Mucho excitemento last night. Icehouse opened for Hall and Oates. Ratty, Alex and I bought tickets months ago, such is our enthusiasm for those who sing our childhood anthems.

We weren't the youngest there, but we were certainly close to it. Ratty and I indulged in some quite serious chair dancing while Alex sat staunchly enjoying the music.

And then it took us a while to get home.

A few days before this I attended Mary's baby shower. I have never before attended such an event and I shall have to admit to some trepidation due to horror stories I have heard of games revolving around poo. Poo and chocolate.

Fortunately, Mary is a lady and so is her sister-in-law. We played nice games and they made what might be described as a fuckload of food. I wallowed. Waddled home.

And ending my week of social was Karen and our day of culture. Picasso and some photo exhibition. Slightly dulling our attempt to be classy and educated were our hangovers and snorts of laughter as we tried to find the man in the Cubist 'Man with mandolin' picture. I found a cityscape that I'm guessing was masquerading as a man with a mandolin. Aside from that, Picasso ain't half bad, man.

Failing beautifully

I recently tried to repel someone by telling them my bursary stats mark. Which got me thinking about failures, because 16%, scaled up to 36% is a quite spectacular failure and one I am quite proud of.

A failure I am not proud of involved today's luncheon - I went out with my workmate to purchase $11 salads and then walk for another 10 minutes so we could sniff the candles in Myer, for we are corporate bitches and that's what we do. While standing in Myer purchasing stuff, the bottom of the paper bag holding my container of pricey and delicious salad ripped and my pricey and delicious salad fell to the floor. Now I have no doubt that Myer has very clean floors but my mother did not raise me to eat smoked salmon off tiles so I had to sort of smush it all back into the remains of the bag, give the oily mess to a sales assistant and then go back to the salad shop and buy another one.

Which makes this a $22 salad and while it's good - it's not that good. Needs capers.

Possibly updating when tired is a bad idea but you've come this far, read on, you poor mofo

Right. Long time, no babbling of the Penelope variety. Forgive me, tiny reading dancers. My home 'puter is entering its teens and I think might have hit the emo stage. Consequently, in revenge for me making it into a desktop (it was an accident, I swear) it is finally taking revenge and now refusing to access the wonderful world of the internets. Basically, it's sulking. If it could, it would be painting its nails black.

So I have my work laptop - which in turn doesn't like me blogging. Probably it senses I should be editing instead. So I've had to steal someone else's magical nerd box to publish this. Please appreciate the lengths I go to to tell you sweet nothings.

Obviously some sort of round up of the past however many weeks is required. I know how you all pine to know the smallest detail of my magnificent life.

In short - went home. Ate a lot. Stayed with many, many people. Will now make a list and grade them.

Hazel - I didn't actually stay at Hazel's exactly, but she did let me use her shower and her iron and gave me cider in the few hours between flying into Auckland and having to go to someone's birthday party. And she gave me a bottle of wine. So far, so good. Hazel has made a flying start - what if it goes downhill from here?

James - In the approximately 11 hours that I spent at James' house I was impressed with the comfiness of his couch. It was also long enough for a Penelope. Extra point for the novelty toilet seat. And for offering me his last tea bag. However, points knocked off for the fact that he left his house at 7am or some such nonsense, and thus did not actually make me a cup of tea with that last tea bag. I refused to make myself a cup of tea and rolled on to the next place.

Brandon - Well, he gets a million points for doing my hair and offering a home to Nic and myself for two nights. And so many more points for suggesting that while we wait for the peroxide to set, we watch Game of Thrones and eat Rashuns. Best hairdresser ever.

Morgan - Has a view out over the bay and Wellington airport. Which means that while I have to work, I do have a better view than usual. However, and this will no doubt seem petty - I keep looking at the bloody view instead of reading reports. Points might have been taken off but then I found the chocolate cake.

Sara - She has kittens! And made Nic and I bacon sandwiches. But then did convince us to watch some programme about fat gypsies at Christmas that involved some weddings.

Jody - She has a cat! And made us fabulous pasta. And might have also watched a rerun of that gypsy programme. It did not improve but, of course, I could not look away.

Robin - Dad has an insane cat. And a magic fridge that is always full of food and booze. And my teddy bear. And a garage full of my stuff that I really ought to do something about but let's face facts, I won't. So many extra points for producing penguins at his work - want a pet one. Daddy says no. Points deducted. Consider stealing one but think customs might make this difficult.

Gloria - Which means Fleetwood Mac and breakfast made for me as if I was 7 and not 33. And many, many cups of tea and feet up with Arthur Ransome. Downside - she was moving and I had to offer to help.

Harriet and her family's bach - I can't blame Ratty for the rain, so shall congratulate her on putting a roof over my head. And the comfortable sofa. And the massive cooked breakfasts. But -that rain. And the local pub that didn't do cocktails (look, I'm a Sydney wanker now, I demand Flirtinis).

Hayden - Homekill venison. Small child and massive dog. Small child throws plate through glass coffee table. Small child falls out of high chair. Small child is utterly adorable and shows me his toy chainsaw and pretends to chop my arm off. Consider stealing him but think Hayden might make this difficult.

Fi - I also can't blame Fi for the quakes. And while I like to think I'm hip with the quakes, it turns out that I do still find them a bit scary in a city with a bit of a rep for big, nasty, killer quakes. However, Fi has a cat that won't get out of bed for a quake that's less than a 6, which is rather spectacular. And she took me shopping, let me work and best of all, let me treat her house as my own. Possibly she regrets that. I'm not very tidy.

While home I also attempted 'networking'. I am not a good networker. The reason I carry business cards in my wallet is so I can put them in bowls in bars to win stuff. I now have several other people's business cards that I must remember to put somewhere else so I don't accidentally put their cards into bar competitions instead of mine. However, it was an enjoyable few hours but I think maybe that was the wine. Which I need to make polite conversation.

Met my editor in Auckland, the lovely Hazel who lets me blog on the website she works for. She shows no signs of regretting this which leads me to conclude that possibly she's a heavy drug user. However, I have now been to her apartment and I swear, she looks clean.

Dripping hot

It's bad sign when you rock up to your 8pm hot yoga session and they announce they're not bothering to turn on the heat because it's already so hot outside that the studio's already at the correct temperature. Actually, over the correct temperature.

Sadness

It's taken me a few months but I've just finished smashing season 7 of the West Wing, which I saw off with fellow fan Karen and far too much cheese and not much wine because concentration is required for all the witty banter. Sweet baby Jesus I will miss it. It's as bad as the obsession Oren and I had with Battlestar. Possibly worse because I watched most of this by myself and therefore went on binges that resulted in my flatmates calling the show my porn - because I'd closet myself in my room for hours and emerge announcing that I loved them all and would lick most of them.

So I need new porn. It's probably going to be Game of Thrones.

However, a reason to leave the house on the weekends has emerged, and that is summer, complete with the Manly girls in their dresses so, so, so very short and their high, high heels they cannot walk in properly but instead adopt a bizarre, pigeon-toed clomp for. Some of the best entertainment around.

Give me a P

A P party in Sydney is quite different to one in NZ, which I imagine is illegal and much less fun. However, a P party over here is also fraught with difficulty, namely, what the phuck to go as? I refuse to hire costumes because it's lame. You can hire parts of costumes, yes, but not the whole thing. That means you're lazy. It also means you can't fall over, trash it, lose part of it or give it away.

For this particular party I dismissed the obvious, going as myself, realised my bank account said I couldn't purchase much in the way of accessories and then realised that with ten of us going, we could probably manage a posse of something. Pirates, as it transpired. Which, I grant you, could sound a bit old hat, a bit so 1998. So we had to throw in another P. Pregnant for the ladies, proctology for the chaps. Because we just happen to have a suitable amount of small cushions and vet rectal gloves lying around the house. A smear of marmite for the gloves, an extra plump to the pillows and we were off. Accompanied by the usual German porn star. There's always one.

As always at such parties there are the people who cannot think outside the square and the women who feel the need to wear as little as possible. I'm sure you could add pirates to that, except we were all up the duff and wearing tights to support said ... duff? So the usual assortment of playboy bunnies, prostitutes, police officers and so on. What became alarmingly apparent quite early on was that apparently a posse of pregant or proctologist pirates was just a few too many p words for the average punter. Consequently most just assumed that we were in fact pregnant or proctologists who had come dressed as pirates. Not even the sight of Ann and I necking back rum stopped some believers. Or the fact Nic is quite clearly not responsible enough to be allowed to wear rectal gloves for any occasion other than a dress up party.

At any rate, eventually people braved the bellies and enquired after our health. I'm not sure I should have lifted my dress to show them my tights straining to contain my cushion but it made for a good photo.

Regret of the night - not convincing the two ladies dressed as Pocahontas to fight it out for number one. Pochahontas A was far, far sexier than the Pochahontas B. Definitely a reason to fight to the pelt knickers.

Important to note - I look quite dashing with a moustache. Maybe I should have given my belly one as well.