Playing dress up.

One of my favorite aphorisms is "a wasted weekend is not a weekend wasted" and while that actually does not apply to the last few days (or few years now I think about it) I imagine the pictures below indicate otherwise! Happy Halloween :-)

Home improvement.

I think the key to successful home ownership is to have a crew of honest, reliable, affordable and (as a bonus), tasty men to assist you. Inevitably house parts that make up the whole wear out or break and while I do a lot, some repair and work should definitely be left for the experts.

There is also the cheap-fast-good factor, meaning you only ever get two out of the three aforementioned options. So if you’re a cheap bastard don’t moan about the bloke who does a good job and takes his time. Conversely if you need the job done immediately (if not sooner) I suggest you pay well to get the task done right, coz if he’s fast and cheap then ladies as we all know….he won’t be good!

I have gathered quite a collection of men and decided I should rate them. I was surprised to see that getting things done quickly by a hunk –a-hunk of burning love is not my priority!
...........................Cheap.......Fast......Good......Tasty
The roofer & tiler........X..........................X..........X
The mr.fix- it.............X..........................X.............
The chef...................X.............X............X...........X
The gardener..............X..........................X...........X
The electrician............X...........................X.............
The mechanic.............X...........................X...........X
The bug man............................X.............X.............
The painter................X.............X...........................
The lover...................X.............X.........................X

Anyway this weekend Mr.fix-it was here and we crossed 11 items off the list of 14 which was progress indeed, my favorite being the new storage for my boards etc. He created a simple rack that is total perfection as the PVC rolls when I take the items in and out, in and out and in and out which I did a lot just to received the pure satisfaction of the system working so well :-)

Bloody hell, it’s a good job the lovers tasty!

Kiss of the Spiderwoman.

Anyone who knows me is well aware of how jumpy I am. I’ve lost track of the number of times that a poor unsuspecting friend has jumped out of their skin because of my reaction to ‘the thing’ which, (more often then not) was a stray hair or paper clip cunningly plotting to scare me to death.

So now I’ve clarified my disposition; let me take you to Café Mambo in Paia on Friday night. It was lively, full of happy patrons and I’d just finished a good dinner with friends and was taking a moment to look around to see who was out and about. As I started looking over my left shoulder I was not expecting to look into the eyeball of a HUGE cane spider......ok-it wasn’t that big but it was ‘right there’ where nothing alive and crawling is ever supposed to be.

I became an Olympic champion on every banned substance known to man and simultaneously screamed, grabbed the nearest bicep and started yelling (as one does) “GET IT - GET IT - GET IT OFF ME - GET IT OFF ME”!

The bicep moved into action and the deadly finger flicking was swift and accurate as the spider was sent hurtling toward its doom, but not before it bounced off Michelle’s arm (a body part clearly not to be messed with) plummeted to the ground, bounced off the tile floor and came to rest...officially D.O.A.

Dear God I think I gave more than one person a fright with that little escapade, but madafuka, hands up all those who would have behaved differently! Of course as with all interactions involving man verses beast, the poor spider was the only true victim and I can only hope he didn’t know what flicked him.

No spiders were harmed in the making of this reenactment!