Impromptu House Party: As Requested by Bill

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Yesterday started as planned and ended in the least expected way. First the mundane…I went shopping for the final items for the place, toilet bowl brush, cleaners, trash cans, kitchen wear and the like… I was rushing to to my first proper grocery shopping (vegetables, fruits and your everyday staples.. milk, bread etc.. along with you less ordinary including a collection of herbs and spices, cooking oils vinegars, wine, beer al that good stuff that no kitchen should go without. I needed to pick up all my ingredients for my planned dinner for the Flemings; which was supposed to kick off at 6:30 at my place.

While franticly pushing my shopping cart around the grocery store at 4:30pm I ran smack into Stephanie. We chatted for a while and eventually I gave her a ride back to her place. I got back to my place at 5pm and realized that I had to come up with change for the parking meter, as we couldn’t access the garage. I didn’t have the required amount on me so I had to run to a convenience store (known as a dairy) to change a $10.

Somehow in the hour before guests started to arrive I managed to put all my day’s purchases away, all the while preparing dinner… beef schnitzel, greek salad, grilled potatoes and a specialty bakery bread.

Officially my place has now been christened by the Flemings. We carried on with our typical dinner debates, arguments, disagreements, agreements and general solving the worlds problems over a glass of pinot noir.

We got a call from Sarah and got her to come over just after dinner so we were now five and from their the numbers grew. Before I knew it we had 12 or so people. Most the food and alcohol purchased that morning was consumed in one evening. Ha, ha. Eventually, when the last of our supplies were depleted it was proposed that we go to our neighborhood karaoke bar (see earlier blog entry from 2006 for the description of the place). We showed up much to the pleasure of the proprietor of the establishment, a man of small/slight stature and not of New Zealand heritage. He moved us into one of the largest rooms and gave us two lists; one all the English songs that we could request (significantly less than the asian selection that at this time of the morning you begin to think you could actually sing and know the meaning of what you were singing, the other a list of poor quality canned beers at microbrewed prices. After a few round of songs and rip off drinks H and D decided to go downstairs to the liquor store and try to sneak some better drinks past the less than observant proprietor, as I learned later.

They went downstairs with their average size body frames and came back looking as if they’d each put on 20lbs, mostly in the legs. They had actually gone down to the main road purchased a case of beer and then right on the street proceeded to load up the legs of their pants with glass beer bottles, personally from a male health/safety standpoint placing glass bottles in your pants just doesn’t seem like a good idea. Anyway, somehow they managed to walk (bowlegged) by the karaoke staff and enter our room… sounding as if they were the neighborhood glass recycling truck… I’m surprised no one stopped them entering the building with that amount of clanking (from the glass bottles moving in their pants) sounding from their lower extremities.

Somehow we managed to get a full two hours out of the place before the staff told us they were shutting down for the night. As we made our separate ways into the night I learned that two more unnamed people had learned from H & D smuggling operation and had taken a liking to the $2 shop tambourines in the room. They too lodged the musical instruments in their pants and once again walk by the reception desk, down the stairs and out to the street. I could hear the jingle of the tambourines with every step they took. I can only imagine what the karaoke staff thought as they saw these two guys walk out of the building with the blatantly obvious musical bulge. I’m sure the staff has seen some crazy stuff in their time. PS. I understand that these were returned to the shopowner today.

Thank goodness we had an extra hour last night (change in daylight savings time). When I woke up I still had to clean up the debris of the previously unplanned night.

Sweet.

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Photos

Joan and Dave?
Random photos that were on my camera this morning.

???
From L to R: Audry (american studying in Auckland), her friend ????, Dave, Georgia, Mark

New Addition The Hanging Light Shade
There was no power cord with this architectural light shade that I purchased in Wellington. I went to a hardware store and purchased the cord, plug and outlet; all of which required some electrical wiring. After Stephanie left I went at my little project while we kicked back and chated/watched music videos. Hamish got a bit impatient as I methodically went about my work. He took one end of the cord and stated that he'd finish his end before I finished mine. We'll to be honest he did, but I suspect that when the apartment burns down the cause will be found to be his wiring. No, just kidding. The light looks great. We've got an assortment of low wattage(25w) bulbs to use as mood lighting for the apartment. From outside the building the windows now glow red at night.

Comments

[Uncle Cliff]

Soda Pop
that much soda pop is going to rot your teeth out

[Bill Bryant]

Turn on the fun machine.
Looks as if everyone had a great time - so I take full credit.