Lisa

My grandmother passed away a few days ago. She was very dear to me, one of the most important people in my life. She was also one of the people who most influenced my life. An amazing, very spiritual, very gentle and wise person, full of love and light. She taught me so much. Her and me had a very strong bond. I cannot imagine not having her in my life anymore.

I'm dropping everything here and flying out to Switzerland tomorrow Monday for a couple of weeks. I'm feeling sad and homesick and want to spend some time with my family. I feel like I'm never there for anything- babies get born, people get married, people die, and I'm always far away. This time, I want to be there with my family, grieve with everyone and say good bye properly.

The best view in the history of the universe. Or close to it anyway.

Yes, this is it, our beautiful new apartment... I'm in love with it. I feel like a million bucks when I'm there. Check it out. Isn't it amazing?

Rebel with a soft heart

That's me at work. My smile wasn't quite as big as that though today- it's been a long and busy day. I said to one of my collegues at one stage: "Can you please just make sure you don't leave any heavy blunt objects laying around near me? Because I wouldn't want to hurt anyone." Of course I'm just kidding. Peace is my middle name and if you haven't done your work, don't worry about it, just leave it to me. I will gladly do it, and that of your friend and your friend's dog as well. And then I'll put together a business masterplan, do the roster, massage everyone's feet, employ a few new people, make sure everyone is happy, counsel those who are not happy, do someone else's work, smile, answer 53 e-mails, meet a few clients and make coffee for you and your friend's dog. Was that a soy half strength decaf? And don't hesitate to call me at home if you have any problems- I'll be more than happy to come in and do a few more people's work.

Sorry what? Yeah, that was meant to be sarcastic. It's really not that bad, or at least it's partially my own fault, because I take on too much responsibility, much to my friends' and my mum's discontent. Anyway. Seeing that my brain is feeling quite lame tonight, I thought I'll leave you with someone elses inspirational ideas. So here's Bettina's stolen thought of the day:

It is not worth an intelligent man's time to be in the majority. By definition, there are already enough people to do that.
G. H. Hardy (1877 - 1947)

Good point. I'm one of those people who likes to do things differently just for the hell of it. Yeah, bit of a rebel in disguise. But a rebel with a soft heart.

The colour of my hairbrush and why I swear in Portugese

This tagging thing is getting a bit out of hand lately. I accidentally ran into a tag over at Mr. Jones' blog the other day and was asked to answer 40 questions. So here we go. Please find following a list of all the things about me that you were definitely never interested in. It's exciting stuff. And because I'm a kind and generous person, I won't tag anyone. Unless you would like to be tagged of course, then be my guest.

1. Name people who made you laugh yesterday? The girl at the grocery shop check-out, my friend Michelle and I also made myself laugh. Yeah, I do that sometimes. I put together a few sentences with our fridge magnet poetry set and came up with "give us our drugs or he will perform a mean experiment" and "imagine wild psychedelic sex in your cigarette break" and "beer can be a glorious approach to life" and "you must appear more drunk you piece of junk". I cracked myself up. It's a bit sad, I know, but at least someone thinks I'm funny, I guess.

2. What were you doing at 8 this morning? I was on the river ferry going to work.

3. What were you doing 15 minutes ago? Answering e-mails at work.

4. What is something that happened to you in 1994? Hhmmm, that's a while ago. I went to highschool, I fell in love with a few boys, got my heart broken a couple of times and I think I might have smoked my first secret cigarette...

5. What is the last thing you said aloud? "I think that's a great idea."

6. How many different things did you drink today? A banana smootie, coffee and water

7. What colour is your hairbrush? It's got a wooden handle. It's really not that exciting.

8. What was the last thing you bought? I bought three bottles of white wine last night. Yes, my name is Bettina and I am an alcoholic.

9.Who is your best friend? My best friend here in Australia is Paula and I'm also fortunate enough to have a few best friends in Switzerland and many more very close friends here.



10.What colour is your front door? White (how exciting. I'm sure nobody gives a rat's ass about that)

11. Where do you keep your change? Now this is really going to amaze you but I actually keep it in the change compartment of my purse. Wow.

12. What was the weather like today? Beautiful. Warm and sunny. As they say: "Queensland. Beautiful one day. Perfect the next." Cheesy, I know, but it's pretty true.

13. What is the best ice-cream flavor? Chocolate chip. And boysenberry. And mango. And banana. Ohh... l love ice cream. I'm starting to drool. Let's move on.

14. What is something you are excited about? I get excited about all kinds of stuff. I'm currently very, very excited about our new apartment with kick-ass river views. I'm also still quite excited about my new guitar. I'm very excited about having weekends off since I got promoted at work. I'm excited about the fact that we have a new dining table that can fit eight people and about the fact that I can invite people for dinner parties.

15. When was the last rainbow you saw? I can't remember. A few weeks ago maybe. Does it matter?

16. Do you have a sister? I've got a few "sistas" (right-fist-tapping-on-heart-movement) but no real sister.

17. Are you very random? Very random? Sometimes.

18. Do you want to cut your hair? I think about it sometimes. I had very short hair when I was about 20 years old and I think it suits me. Plus, I think long hair is a bit more boring- most girls have long hair.

19. Are you over the age of 25? Absolutely. But I still have to show my ID all the time. Which I actually don't like much. I always feel like going "Do I strike us as being 17? Are you calling me imature or what?".

20. Do you talk a lot? Not as much as Paula, but I can talk.

21. Do you watch The OC? Not unless someone forces me to. Which has never happened before. So, no.

22. Make up a question and answer it. Do you think your scooter is hot? Yes.

23. Do you know anyone called Steve? Sure. I know about three Steves. Why do you wanna know that?

24. Are you ticklish? I can't tell you that or I'll have to kill you. It's a secret.

25. Are you typically a jealous person? Not particularly. I'm generally very tolerant and forgiving. I strive to be peaceful like a monk. But I have my jealous moments. I have called other girls bitches before- not generally to their face though. I know, that's not very monk-like.

26. Name a friend whose name starts with the letter ‘A.’ Ash, Anna, Anita, Angie and Andrea. I know that's more than one. I'm just showing off.

27. Do you chew on your straw? I have been known to. I don't generally do it though- I'd rather draw on my serviette or play with the sugar sachet.

28. What is the next concert you’re going to? I'm going to this very cool festival with Michelle and Paula on the 1st of April to see Groove Armada. I can't wait! I think it will be a life-changing experience. Failing that, it will at least be extremely cool.

29. Who is the coolest person in your life? You of course. And my mum. My dad is pretty cool too.

30. What is something you say a lot? I like saying sarcastic things like "thank God I'm not drunk" or "thank God she's not stupid" and I like to annoy my friend Dan by saying "what-eva" to everything he says. Because it drives him crazy. I also swear in Portugese a lot- I say "porra" all the time (which is basically the f-word). And there's a few more nasty things that I can't mention here. This is all Paula's fault by the way. She teaches me the wrong stuff. Shame on you, Paula.

31. What is the last thing you ate? A croissant. Croissants here are nothing like the ones in Switzerland though. I'm a bit disappointed most times I have one but I never give up trying.

32. Have you seen the movie ‘Donnie Darko’? No. Is that a problem?

33. Do you have work tomorrow? Oh yeah. Lots of it.

34. Is marriage in your future? Can I not comment on this please? Actually, can I have a lawyer?

35. What should you be doing right now? Working

36. Do you have a nickname? Some of my friends call me "B" or "Miss B".

37. Are you a heavy sleeper? Fairly heavy I think.

38. When was the last time you used a skateboard? The last time I "used'' a skateboard? Don't you "ride" skateboards? Anyway- my best friend at the time and me used to have "snakeboards" when we were about 16- we were real little skater chicks, into hip hop and everything.

39. What is the best movie you’ve seen in the past two weeks? I think I only saw one- Borat. Some pretty funny bits but I expected a lot more from it overall.

40. Are you currently depressed? Absolutely not- do I look depressed to you?

Moving sucks

We moved on the weekend. The new apartment is the absolute bomb- a dream come true. However, the move itself was ugly. As always. I don't understand how it is possible that I have moved that many times in my life, yet keep on forgetting just how incredibly nasty moving is. I was definitely reminded of it again this weekend. Moving sucks. My back hurts, the lounge room floor is still covered in boxes and bags, I can't find any of my stuff, I can't decide which way I want my bed to face, we haven't done the condition report yet although we should have done it on the weekend, I need to buy a desk and a bathroom mat and a coffee table, we have to get the phone connected and the fridge delivered and one of those strange shutter things in my room is broken (yeah, I don't know what a strange shutter thing is either, don't ask me. I've never seen one before either).

But other than that, things are great. I'm serious. The apartment is absolutely to die for. I wanted it so badly that I was prepared to kill, sleep with anyone I had to and bribe people. I know that's a bit extreme, but it worked out really well. We are now living on the 8th top floor of an older style mini highrise building in an inner city suburb right on the river. There's only two apartments per floor, which means we get half of the floor and have views on three sides of the building- full river views on one side and full city views on the other. We get the most amazing breeze through the place. There's lots of trees around. Every single room in our apartment has incredible views, even the laundry. Have you ever had a laundry with river views? Yeah, I didn't think so. We are so close to the river that we could jump in from our window (which of course I won't do, I promise. At least not when I'm sober. I'm just kidding). It's rather bloody amazing. When I stood on our balcony last night with a glass of champagne (ok, it wasn't champagne, it was cheap sparkling wine) and a cigarette, looking over river, I couldn't help but wondering what the poor people were doing.

Having said that, they might be sitting in an apartment somewhere with lots of boxes around them everywhere and with no money in their bank account because they had to pay bond and moving vans and two weeks rent in advance.