Me! I want to join in!

Given that Emily at The Waiting is one of the coolest bloggers I know, I will follow, sheep-like, any suggestions she makes.

“Do Secret Santa, Laura,” she said last December.

“Yes, Emily,” I said and got a present ready for a stranger.

“Come to my child’s 1st birthday party,” Emily said in March.

“Yes, Emily,” I replied, sending in a suitably childlike photo of myself and my brother so we could attend the celebrations.

More recently, Emily teamed up with Zebra Garden, an equally fantastic blogger, to create a kind of Thursday blog-prompt thing. I don’t definitely understand but I said “Yes, Emily,” obediently and resolved to get my head round it.

Fingers crossed I’ve managed and you’re viewing an impressive looking blog badge thing with Emily and Ashley’s names on it?

Anyway, the theme is sleepover so here’s a kind of hashed-together instruction manual of things that must happen at sleepovers. Because Emily told me to.

1. An evening which turns into an unexpected sleepover will require you to sleep in your clothes rather than ask your friend to borrow some because you’re far FAR too embarrassed. You then spend the entirety of the next day in them and don’t see what the problem might be.

2. Warbling along to Christina Aguilera’s Beautiful and really believing you are destined for worldwide fame because of your amazing voice. You’re singing, by the way, into a deodorant bottle.

3. Drinking J2O and acting squiffy because you haven’t quite understood that it is a juice drink which is designed to look alcoholic but actually isn’t.

4. Eating so many fried egg sweets and gobstoppers that you’re on the verge of vomiting but refusing to stop.

5. Playing truth or dare except it’s mostly truths and it’s mostly ‘which boys do you fancy?’ A big secret must be revealed at every sleepover or the whole exercise seems slightly pointless. In the day following the revelation, you must all giggle and look at each other knowingly across classrooms because you all know The Big Secret. Mine, by the way, was the revelation that I had a massive crush on Arnold Schwarzenegger when I was younger. Look, don’t laugh! I know you’ve got some. Haven’t you?

6. Watching a film you’ve watched a ton of times, that you could recite the entire script to but still insisting that you watch it. Mine and my friend Alison’s was The Great Gatsby (the Robert Redford and Mia Farrow version). Another standard one was The Sound of Music (loved it, LOVED it) or Dirty Dancing.

7. Inevitably, you talk about the current ‘issues’ you’re struggling with. Example 1 –  I’m not sure what to do when I go on the sunbed, do I leave my bra on or not? Example 2 – how long should I wait before squeezing a spot?

8. There must, and I repeat must, be some occasional squealing, high pitched laughter and, if you’re feeling risky, an actual scream or two. A parent will then appear with sleepy eyes and implore you to ‘please quieten down, girls, it’s after 1am and you’ve all got a big day tomorrow.’

9. About every fifth sleepover with the same group, there will likely be a falling-out or, at the very least, a change in set-up of the best friends in the group. The subtle change of moving your number 2 friend into the Best Friend spot will have far-reaching consequences which could deeply affect the demoted friend. Until, that is, the following week in school when you have Maths together and you re-establish her in the number 1 spot. 

10. I don’t really have a number 10 but it’s a better number than 9 so I put it there. Um. Okay, let me think of something to say. O yes, I once left my removable retainer thing for my teeth at a friend’s house after a sleepover and I was HORRIFIED! Too horrified to ask for it back. How. Embarrassing. So I left it there and my bottom teeth moved slightly so now they overlap a little. All because I was 15 years old and embarrassed by absolutely everything.

Welcome to the party!

Yes! Yes, everyone! It’s my blog’s first birthday! I bet you’ve all been hiding behind furniture waiting for my blog and I to come home from work so you could jump out and yell “SURPRIIIISE!”

Well, thank you. Thank you from both of us. Blog is doing well, learning to walk unassisted and eat with cutlery, all the usual stuff a one year old does. Still a little messy and un-spell-checked if I write whilst sleepy but, yes, well. Hard to remember when she was small and new born. We are both well. Thank you for coming to the party.

We welcome you to our humble abode, here in cyberspace. Do you like how I got the place ready for the party? O, the balloons? All five hundred of them? Yes, I blew them up myself. I am Supermum. No, I didn’t let little Blog help me. Blog was busy sticking down pictures of the sky and playing with food.

All these exquisite little snacks which look like they were made by a gourmet chef? O, you flatter me! Yes, it was me. I made them. And the petits fours and lovely mini tarte au citron? Yes, those are mine too. Har har. I just knocked them up in ten minutes. It was nothing, really.

My dress? Yes, it’s one of Viv’s. I mean Vivienne Westwood, of course. I call her Viv. She loves me calling her that. It’s like a little private joke.  And the bag is Dolce & Gabbana obviously. I know, haha. I look great, don’t I?! And I just came from work like this. I’m dressed down if anything!

What’s that you say? This is the best party you’ve ever been too? Really?! Well, yes, that is understandable. Fab. I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself.

O, Blog? Where’s little Blog? I dunno. In a corner somewhere. It’s all about me, really, isn’t it?

O, is it not? Is it really about little Blog? Ok, little Blog. You take the limelight. You would like to give a little speech? But all you do is talk, don’t you want to give it a rest? Ok, go on then. Do your bloody speech then.

Blog: *clears throat* Hello, everybody! Thank you all for coming! Thank you for supporting me over this past year. I’d like to say things like, “It’s been hard and I almost gave up and thanks for keeping me going” but in actual fact, I’ve never almost-given-up. It’s just been loads of fun. I’ve never made numbers a priority. I’ve always just spoken my mind and talked about things I wanted to. It’s a nice compliment, however, when you see that people click ‘Like’ every so often, or even make a comment. Oo, the commenting. What lovely fun. I’ve made what I’d consider real friends via that little box underneath the posts that encourages people to share their thoughts! Ah, how lovely. And now, everybody, dig in! Grab a canape! Have a glass of bubbly!

HAPPY 1ST BIRTHDAY ME!

Last minute post

Ok, I got in late from a friend’s birthday party and am going out early to work so it’s just going to be some pictures from the party, I’m afraid.

Some of the pretty food

Bloody Mary shots!

Pass The Parcel

The two prizes I won during Pass The Parcel – an Angry Birds pen (which I promptly broke) and a Lego aeroplane kit.

The big prize at the end of Pass The Parcel – a Super Mario mug and chocolate egg. What every 28 year old needs.

No party is complete without a party bag!

“Oo! Let’s all blow our balloons up and let them go at the same time! Ok, ok. Are you ready? One! Two! Three! Hahahahaha!”

Oooooo… Bubbles!….

An inconvenient birthday

About three years ago, I was in my final year at uni and my dissertation was due three days after my birthday. I was planning to let my birthday go by and then celebrate when my dissertation was finished.

I’d had a bit of a bust up with my flatmate, which consisted of her telling me that the flat was too messy and me agreeing but saying I couldn’t do anything about it at the time as my dissertation was due. I was therefore holed up in the library the majority of the time, trying to avoid more confrontation.

I had been to America the previous month, doing research for my dissertation, so it was really important to me that I did well. I hadn’t eaten or slept properly in days. Or changed my clothes. I just needed to get it done.

In the midst of all this, a friend said to me, “O, let’s go out for dinner for your birthday.”

I was like, how oblivious can you be? I’m clearly way too busy right now. Just hold off until the weekend and then I’ll be free.

In the nicest possible way, I kind of said, “I’d prefer not to.”

But he was insistent. “Yeh, let’s go for dinner for your birthday.” Another friend was there, looking at me expectantly.

I then kind of tried to say in a nice way, “Ok, but it needs to be really close by so that I can come straight back to the library.”

But no! He wanted to half way across London to Paddington. What. On. Earth! This is ridiculous. And really annoying. Why would you go all across London when there’s plenty of places for dinner near uni and you know I’m busy.

“It’s a great little place which does Lebanese food.”

I’m sorry, pardon? Lebanese food? You’ve brought me all the way across London to a random little restaurant, right in the middle of working on my dissertation and not being in a good mood after having a bit of an argument with my flatmate…. For Lebanese food. I mean there’s nothing wrong with Lebanese food, its nice, but it’s not like I’m a well known Lebanese food lover. Italian, yes. French, ok. Thai, I’m there. But never in a million years would I choose a Lebanese restaurant myself.

“Just go into the pub next door for a quick drink while I make sure everything’s ready in there.”

What. On. Earth. I need to eat and leave ASAP. I don’t need to be hanging around ‘having a drink’. I was on the verge of saying, “Thanks for the effort and everything but I’m going to go now. I’m trying not to offend you because I see that you’ve made loads of effort but I have to do my dissertation.”

Anyway, I go into this pub with my other friend, while the organising friend goes to the restaurant. We go in and there’s a bar upstairs that I’m told to go to as it’s quieter.

Up the stairs I go, into the little bar and….

“SURPRISE!” shout a load of my friends. I look into the room, see everyone looking at me and walk off…..

Not the traditional response, I realise. But really now… A party all the way across London, three days before I’m due to hand in my dissertation, my final peice of work for my degree, the culmination of three years of hard work. Really?

I sat in the toilet for about 20 minutes assessing the situation while another friend convinced me it would be fine. Eventually I chilled out a bit and rejoined the party. And it was lovely. Of course it was lovely. It was fabulous to see everyone in the same place. And I had a great time after managing to force myself to forget about the deadline. But I’m not going to lie, it was extremely badly timed.

The same friend who organised it also got me a nice dress (to wear to the party, but when he tried to convince me to wear it, I gave him a look that said I was not pleased). A few weeks later, I decided to wear the dress somewhere. I put it on and it was faaaaar too big. He had bought me a dress two sizes up from what I wear. TWO sizes up! How can you guess a dress size which takes someone from an average size to a definitely quite large size?

You know sometimes when you’re like ‘Are you EVER paying attention when I speak or do anything?’ That was how this incident felt.

How does a person sitting in a library day in day out for about two weeks, three days away from handing in a peice of work which really matters to her, make you think, o I’ll throw a surprise party right before her hand in date?

And that is my one and only experience of surprise parties! No-one else has thrown one for me since. I think I know why…

My staple diet

We’re going back to my university days again for this one. My flatmates and I were having a bit of a party. I think it was someone’s birthday. It was one of those nights were huge sections of it don’t make sense.

For example, at one point, we were all in the kitchen, listening to music while standing on the chairs and waving teatowels around furiously. Yes. Teatowels. Given that our kitchen window was easily within sight of the campus bar, it’s quite likely that the people in the bar were wondering, in amazement, why the girls in B block were being so crazy.

At one point, one of my flatmates drunkenly said to the other (who was sober), “You’re so drunk!” … She was not drunk.

There had been balloons at this party so after a vigorous session of teatowel waving, it was time to pop the balloons with a knife. Obviously. A shaky video taken on a phone still exists somewhere of me tearing around the kitchen, knocking stuff over, climbing on chairs and tables, chasing these balloons around. Everyone had cleared out of the kitchen, as I was armed and dangerous. One of them hates balloons being popped because it releases the “old stale breath” inside. On the video, there is a little voice in the background going “All the breath! All the breath.”

The finale of the video is me chasing down the last balloon and throwing it gently in the air, with my knife poised underneath it and at the moment the balloon touches the knife and bursts, I let out a short but loud, “WAH!” then smile smugly, although I have defeated a baddie and saved mankind.

So you get the picture, it’s all a bit excitable and silly. Into this mix, we put some hunger. We are hungry and we need to eat NOW, at 1am. What to have? Obviously cheese toasties. There was a toastie machine so we got everything set up, closed the lid and waited impatiently for the green light to click on.

When it eventually did, we were ravenous. So Sophie unclips the clip thing, opens the machine and toasted onto the top of one of the toasties…. was a staple! I still to this day have no idea how that could have happened. As silly drunks, we laughed uncontrollably for maybe twenty minutes. That kind of laughter were you can’t even see straight and your tummy muscles ache and you get breathless. And then Sophie, in her infinite wit, said, “It’s our staple diet!”

Well, we were off again. Up until that point in my life, I think that might have been the funniest thing I had ever heard. Actually, maybe it still is…. Staple diet…. Hilarious.

Big fat swim challenge fail!

It’s my first week of Being Sporty. So I thought a good starting point was to challenge myself to do something active every day for a week. I decided to swim. I am calling it my Swim Challenge Week. No sooner have I spent hours deciding what to name my ‘challenge’ and I’ve already failed it. I am here to ask for your forgiveness.

Day 1 and 2 went well. I just went after work. On Day 3, I knew it was going to be a bit of a squeeze finding time for it as I was working early, going straight to Yaya’s 4th birthday party, then going straight to a leaving party for some work friends. But I thought I might be able to squeeze it in somewhere. Off I went to work, then off I went to the first party. There was a pirate ship cake! There was a new bike! There were fun temporary dinosaur tattoos! (I obviously got one too. A stegosaurus on my left arm. I have officially joined the Cool Gang.) There was an amazing racing car game and a shooting gun thingy with foam thingies to fire at stuff! It was all huge fun.

But it was getting a bit late. The work party wouldn’t go on forever and I would have to go straight from one to the other if I wanted to make it. But what about the challenge!? I couldn’t fail before I’d even been doing it for long! I panicked slightly. I thought about just writing a blog saying I’d done it anyway but I knew I’d be too nervous of being found out.

Then I had a brain wave. I’d go to a swimming pool nearby and have a quick swim here, then when I left later I could just go to the second party, without trying to swim in between. So I pottered off to the nearest swimming pool. It wasn’t my local and it wouldn’t be outdoor with lovely trees around it so I could pretend I was on holiday. But it would be fine for now. I walk to the main desk and say I’d just like to go swimming please.

The lady at the desk says… Are you ready for this?….

“Yeh, it’ll be open again in 45 minutes.”

Fail! I don’t know whether she realised that, with that one little sentence, she had ruined my Swim Challenge Week and, hence, my life. Life ruiner. Ruiner of lives. I couldn’t stay for 45 minutes to wait and then swim and then go back to the party! I would have missed all the fun by then!

I didn’t say anything for a while. Then I mumbled something or other about it being ok then I left. It was NOT ok. It was really annoying. There I was, ready to swim. Towel and costume in bag. Goggles at the ready (that’s right, I have invested in some goggles, this is getting serious). But no. No swimming for me.

I weighed up my options on the way back to Yaya’s party. Should I give it all up, blame others for my misfortune, start living off fast food and become house bound due to my depression over being thwarted in my efforts? Or should I swim every day for the rest of my life to make up for the guilt of having missed a day? Or should I just keep going tomorrow and not stress about the missed day? I’d like to say I chose the last option but in reality I’m leaning toward a mixture of the last two.

I swam this morning and did more than usual to satisfy the Swim Gods, who count your lengths and decide whether to punish you with a guilty conscience or not.

In other news = when I went swimming this morning, I was midway through doing a whole load of back stroke when I realised I still had my ‘cool’ stegosaurus tattoo on my arm, which I’d been lifting out of the water a lot. If anyone saw it, they must have thought I was dinosaur mad.

More news = Yaya got a bike for his birthday and had learned to ride it by the afternoon! Also, my name has become Lau-lau in babyspeak.