MWNews 98

OK, so this photo is not of Maeghan and William.  But most of this post will probably not be about them either, so I thought I would change things up.

The photo is from our anniversary.  We went into Sydney and had a day to ourselves.  This is from the the Chinese gardens.  Had to set the camera on a rock and take the photo on a timer, so it is not exactly centered or anything but it is a nice photo.  I have better ones, but I cannot tell from the tiny thumbnails which are the good ones and which are the ones that are out of focus.  Anyway, that is us.

I started this entry just to point out something that happened about a week ago that had me feeling the weight of time.  It seems we went to a party for a friend of ours son.  He turned 18 and had about 30-40 kids over to help celebrate.  We were there, with about 15 other adults that were friends and family.  The night started slow, supposed to start at 6 but most of the kids did not show up until 10, so we adults sat around and drank beer and ate all the food.

During the evening, the topic somehow came around to how old some of the kids were and some of the couples that were there.  It seems a few of the older kids were married, or living together, I was never sure, and it turns out that one of them was pregnant.  This was a relative and her parents were there and they started a discussion about them being too young to be grandparents.  This started the discussion about ages and how old everyone was.

This is the scary part.  It turns out, I was the oldest person at this party.  I had a whole lot of trouble convincing everyone that I was only 39, but Juanita was there and she kept telling them otherwise.  Now most of these people couldn't care less, but it turned out that I was actually the oldest person at the party.  I have said that before.  It is not as if I go to a lot of parties, but it has never been the case anytime we have gone out, party or no party, where I was the oldest one there.  There have always been grandparents, parents, neighbors, relatives, someone who is actually older than I am, present at whatever the occasion might be.  But if I haven't mentioned it, I was the oldest one at this party.

Now I am sure that most of the people who might actually read this entry are much older than I am, I am only 39 or will be next year, so the chances of anyone interested in the doings of Maeghan and William being younger than me are pretty slim.  So you can understand my shock at this revelation that I have moved into the ranks of eldest person.

Not that I have a lot of problem with it, okay, I lied, I have a big problem with this.  It cannot be so and I reminded everyone there, at the party, that I was in fact not the oldest person there and there must be some kind of mistake in the invitation process and as soon as the rest of the guests showed up, my status would change.

We ended up staying until around 11 or 12, way past my bedtime, and as the evening wore on, the only people that showed up seemed to get younger and younger.  Having had my fill of the beer and draining most of the cheese and cracker plate, I finally decided to slink home without letting anyone know I had been there at all.  So, if anyone asks, you can honestly say that I was never there and I was definitely not older than any of the other guests that might or might not have been at this so-called party.  It never happened, and I am not afraid to swear to that in any court of law.

That's my story and I am sticking to it.  Just to bring this around to having something to do with Maeghan and William, they were not there at the party.  They stayed home with Natalie.  So I guess that makes this a post about them and not the trauma I went through that probably caused me to miss most of the next day.  Either that or it was the beer and late night that kept me asleep.

I am going to go now.  I do have other news and I sent a lot of it to Daddy in an email.  Not sure how much I will get around t repeating here, so if anyone knows who Daddy is, they can ask him.  As for me, I am still working out of my funk and will probably need some kind of vacation or therapy in the near future, so posting news might get a little sparse.  Then again, how much more sparse can it get that it already is.

Talk to you later

MWNews 97

It's been a few minutes since my last post.  Or maybe longer, I can't remember.  Been busy with all kinds of fun things.  Then again, maybe that depends on your kind of fun.

The mother-in-law and sister-in-law were here for a couple of weeks.  We went lots of places, but not really anyplace at all.

The first weekend, we went to a shopping mall.  I say this like it was a destination because it took all day.  We went to a shopping center about an hour away.  We never really go there but they have redone the whole thing and we were there a few weeks ago and wanted to take them to the new chocolate/coffee shop we found.  The problem is, it is a new chocolate/coffee shop, so it is always very crowded.  When I waiten in line and placed my order, they told me 30 to 45 minutes before we would get it.  That was not really a problem, unless you think about having William with us.  There is no way he was going to sit and wait for that long.  There is a kids park right outside the door, but it was pouring down with rain and he could not go out there to play.  So he spent his time visiting all the tables that had kids at them.

You say that about William, he is not shy.  He talks to just about anyone.  He went to all the other tables and introduced himself and pointed to us and said that is my family.  Some of the kids had toys to play with, so he joined in where he could.  They also have what we assume is a fake chocolate mixing machine, suppossedly it mixes the chocolate and feeds it through pipes to the where they make the chocolates.  We have out doubts about whether it actually pumps the chocolate through the pipes but the kids like to watch it mixing.  They spent a lot of time watching that.

There is a very expensive chocolate shop at one end of the place.  Very expensive as in a box of six chocolates, less than an inch square, cost $19.  That is over $3 a chocolate so I assume it is very good chocolate, I have never tried it.  We had to keep a keen eye on the kids and not let them go to that end of the shop.  Wouldn't want them to knock something over and cost us a couple thousand dollars for chocolate.

Everything there has chocolate in it, even the coffee.  They serve the coffee in this cup that has a groove around it that goes down into the cup.  They fill it with coffee and then put a chocolate on the side of the cup.  The heat of the coffee melts the chocolate and it runs down the groove into the coffee.  So it means, you get a little bit of chocolate in every sip of coffee.  I am usually not found of sweet coffee, no sugar or milk for me, but this is ok.  Not great, but ok.  We go there for the other treats they have.

I like the brownie.  One problem with brownies over here is they are not really brownies.  You can find them, but in most cases, when you ask for a brownie, you get what they call a chocolate slice.  It is kind of a brownie but not really.  I can't really put my finger on what the difference is but when I can find a real brownie, I order that, and this place has very good brownies.  They heat it for you and then drizzle chocolate over the top.  They can also put cream or ice cream on it but I don't do that.  I have it just with the chocolate.

Another thing they serve is what they call a chocolate dip.  It is just a bowl of chocolate and they give you this flat plastic spoon to dip into it and then lick the chocolate off.  It is a very small bowl but it is cheap and we usually order two to share.  I say usually but we have only been there twice.  The family enjoyed it, even with the wait.  By the time we left, the place was beginning to be less crowded and I would have liked to just stay and order more coffee and chocolate, but we ended up leaving.

The new shopping center, or newly remodeled shopping center, is really big now and you can actually get lost in there if you don't watch where you are going.  Since we spent about an hour looking for parking when we went, we did not get a chance to see the whole thing, but we got around most of it.  It was pouring rain most of the day and that generally means people go to the mall, not sure why, but it is always crowded during the rain.  They have this new parking system there that tells you where and how many parking places there are at any given time.  Not sure if it was the rain, or stupid people or what, but we sat on a ramp from one floor to another for 30 minutes.  It did not clear up until the center sent people out to direct traffic.  Once they had people telling the drivers where to go, it cleared up pretty quickly.  Since the signs were telling everyone where to go anyway, I can only assume that these people can drive, but they cannot read.  Little glowing lights everywhere telling you where the empty parking places are and where to go to get there, but apparently, they would rather sit there and wait for the one parking place they want to open up, or so it seemed when we were trying to park.

There are some other things to talk about, like going to the Easter show and my birthday dinner, but I will save that for the next post.  Since I had no posts during April, or maybe just one, I might not get back to it as soon as I like, but I will give it a go.  Right now, I have to work.  Yes, I still have a job but from what I hear, but you are tired or hearing about my job woes.  Been eight years and still the same threat of walking in one day and being told they are letting me go.  I won't go into the latest, or maybe I already have.

Anyway, until next time

Talk to you later