Yesterday was the 3rd anniversary of myself and Helpdesk Man. I wasn’t expecting anything exciting, as we’d made vague plans to go to a hot pool or something on a convenient weekend (see a couple of posts ago). But then the night before Helpdesk Man warned me not to make any plans for the evening, and at 10:30 yesterday morning a lovely floral display of marigolds in pots turned up. Naturally I then felt immense guilt about not having organised anything, and spent the day feverishly cleaning the house. (Thank heavens for immense guilt, incidentally; it was filthy. NaNoWriMo does my already precarious domesticity no favours.)
At five-fifteen Helpdesk Man returned home and prepped the snortlepig for a trip to Gran’s. We then donned our motorbiking gear, headed into town and had dinner at Oliveto, a Mediterranean restaurant. We suspect it’s a front for the New Zealand Mafia actually, as it’s always suspiciously empty; but the flatbreads are good.
We then went for a saunter down y the river as a tribute to more carefree times, and emerged opposite the movie theatre where I used to work. It’s currently being revamped as the Lido, and the door was open; so naturally we snuck in and fossicked about a bit. It’s niiiiiice. Chandeliers, chunderous Victorian swirly patterns, tiered seating, the works. They’d totally redone the cinemas, changing the entrances and adding stairs and so on - must have cost a fortune. Anyway I was very pleased, and briefly flirted with the idea of going back to work at nights before considering that I would then never see Helpdesk Man, a distinctly un-anniversaryish thought. Also, I’m staggeringly lazy.
Another saunter back down the street to Lone Star for dessert; then we were going to go see 2012 as an homage to our first date-that-wasn’t-a-date, The Day After Tomorrow. But being grown-up and responsible we eventually decided it was silly to shell out $31 on a film that promised to be rubbish, so we re-sauntered back up the street (well, I limped; I never did break in those motorbiking boots) to Auteur House, a v swanky arthouse video store. It turns out Auteur House is a dangerous place to go - we ended up with not one DVD but six. (Twelve Monkeys, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?, The Iron Giant, Clerks, American Graffiti and Fantastic Planet - the latter an animated French scifi which I did not dare refuse.)
We returned home and were partway through Twelve Monkeys - which has no monkeys in it at all, I found to my disgust - when the snortlepig returned. She stole a piece of white chocolate, promptly fell asleep on the milks and woke up an hour and a half later covered with white goo. It seemed she had been clutching the chocolate in her hot little hand for her entire nap. I had to change. Then we left the last half-hour of Twelve Monkeys for a less midnighty hour, went to bed, and I had a distressing dream that the snortlepig had an incurable disease. Still, it was a nice evening. And the kettle is polished for the first time in its life. So all is well.
Miriam Says: