Just me

The discovery of some unexpected visitors in our home this week was a bit of a shock. After hearing a sort of dripping sound in the bathroom for a while now, I was wondering if either there was something leaking inside the wall (a potential nightmare after the sneaky ceiling leak we had in the same room earlier last year that took a couple of weeks to track down), or that we possibly had a family of wetas living the good life in our bathroom wall.

Just the other day I finally remembered to take a look out the window on the stairs, which faces the external wall of the bathroom on the side I’d been hearing the sounds, to see if I could see either something leaking or evidence of wetas in the neighbourhood. You know, like a weta welcome mat, or a weta-sized four-wheel-drive parked outside. But no, there was no sign of anything weta-related or leak-related. However, there was something else. Well, hundreds of something else: fecking bees wasps*. Yes, we have bees wasps living in our bathroom wall.

Ick. Totally ick.

I’m not pleased by this turn of events at all, in fact I’m more than a little creeped out by the fact that the noise I’m hearing in my bathroom is the sound of a gazillion little bees wasps shuffling around inside my wall.

What makes it worse is that it’s been so bloody hot this past week but I can’t open the windows on the back wall of the house for fear of being invaded by the winged beasts, since there are so many of them buzzing around the place: you really do appreciate the meaning of “a hive of activity” when you see the actual activity that goes on in an actual hive! Anyway, thank God for air conditioning.

On the day I made my discovery, I broke the news to Fluffy (aka my long-suffering but well-insured husband) that we had a wee problem living inside our walls. His immediate response? To wander around the back of the house, take a look at the entry point that was surrounded by bees wasps and then poke a stick in it. Our unwelcome tenants weren’t impressed by that turn of events and came pouring out of their home sweet home to see off the intruder. I was surprised that the old bugger can still move pretty quickly when pursued by a bunch of pissed of insects.

But really, what is it with blokes? Why do they feel the need to do stupid things like that? Is it just a fixation with poking things in holes or is it something more?

Anyway, the bee assassin* has been hired and will be here on Tuesday to do the deed. I’m looking forward to having my house back.

Note 1: Did I say bees? Turns out they were wasps.

Note 2: Fortunately, the skills required of the average bee assassin are quite similar to those required of a wasp hitman. The dude hired to kill our winged house guests initially looked at them from the safety of the window on the stairs and while admitting that he normally wasn’t keen on killing bees, he said he understood our need to get rid of them since they were living in our wall and there were so damn many of them. However, after popping outside to have a closer look at their entry point, he discovered they were actually wasps. And because of that, he was actually quite excited about disposing of them. And I was excited for him. The wasps, however, weren’t particularly excited about the outcome.

I’m on holiday until the 19th so am off to Aussie for a week or so. Hopefully it’ll be a tad warmer than it is here right now!

And we’ll be back, of course, in time for the opening day of the whitebait season on the 15th.

According to Quartz, the taste for ridiculously expensive weddings is nothing new, but I’m finding it hard to get my head around the average spend in 2013 of an eye-watering $29,548.

I get that brides want their big day, but holy crap that’s a lot of dosh. That’s a deposit on a house, or a decent start on one.

Or a honeymoon.

Or a new car.

Quartz, says that figure represents 49 per cent of the median household income, and while weddings back in the 1930s averaged 25 per cent of household income, it’s almost worse because that was in the middle of the Great Depression, when so many were out of work and the economy was pretty much fecked. Hmm, that sounds familiar…

But I digress. Am I some sort of freak of nature? I spent a fraction of that on my wedding and even now, 18 or so years down the track, have no regrets about our cheap day: the most important thing for me was that our parents were there, and they were. We hurried along our wedding date because my mother’s health had taken a turn for the worse so our wedding went from “we’ll probably get married in the next couple of years” to “we’re getting hitched on Saturday”. That decision was made on a Sunday afternoon, back in March 1996.

I hired a dress (couldn’t find one I liked, didn’t want to pay hundreds of dollars for something I’d never wear again), bought my shoes at the Warehouse (where every bride gets a bargain …), the real estate agent did my hair for me during our open home (we were trying to sell our house at the time, and we actually bought another house that same day), and soothed the nerves of my very, very nervous matron of honour with alcohol.

All up, I think our big day cost maybe a couple of hundred bucks.

It’s not what you spend that makes it work.

Oh Jasmine, we’ve never officially met but I just wanted to say that I am glad we had the good sense to put some distance between you and us on Friday night. And I can’t help but wonder just how you are feeling today.

Who is Jasmine, you may ask? And indeed, that is a good question.

We went along to the 2 Degrees Comedy Convoy show (part of the NZ International Comedy Festival) on Friday night and after finding our way to our seats, we settled in for what we hoped would be a bit of a giggle. And then they arrived: a gaggle of already drunk, raucous, cackling, swearing young women who lined up in the five or six seats in the row behind us and proceeded spend the first half of the show kicking the backs of our seats and knocking over the booze they had apparently smuggled in (full sized bottles of wine). There was a river of cheap wine and beer trickling under our seats but the little coven behind us still somehow managed to get more drunk even though they were sharing so much of their booze with the floor.

But the show was good and the laughs were coming thick and fast. Unfortunately for us, Jasmine had the loudest, most obnoxious laugh ever heard. It didn’t really sound like a laugh … it was more of a Yeti mating call.

And that noise emanating from our dear Jasmine was so loud and invasive, it attracted the attention of Paul Ego, the poor bugger trying to perform on stage. To be fair, he took the piss out of her while managing to extract some information out of the gentle wee soul, which is how we all came to know that the woman behind the headache-inducing noise was a teacher named Jasmine, with a surname that sounded surprisingly like Hairy Target (something that gave Ego a tangent to explore … ).

Half-time arrived and I was wondering if I could handle another hour or so of Jasmine screeching in my ear. While I was pondering this, the girls all decided to pop out during the intermission. As they all left their seats and managed to hit every poor bugger in the row in front of them in the head with their arses and I’m pretty sure one of them farted on the way past. Do these people not know that leaving your seat isn’t a contact sport?

Anyhoo, I suspect a trip to the bar was the initial plan. However, by the time they returned I’m not sure if they made it that far.

Jasmine needed a bit of help to get back to her seat and looked a tad ill. I suspect she may have spent the intermission having a bit of a chuck.

Hubby and I both had the same idea: do we really want to sit here? This girl looks like she’s gonna blow (chunks) and we don’t want to be in the firing line. There were some empty seats a row in front of us and we thought about moving there but instead headed for the rows at the back of the theatre.

Ahhhh, the second half of the show kicked off and we were able to sit back and relax, and enjoy the comedy without the risk of bleeding eardrums from shrieky Jasmine.

The nice usher lady was sitting behind us, giggling away at the comedy offerings and enjoying herself.

Then I heard a noise. Ooh, I thought, that sounded a little like someone throwing up. Half a dozen rows in front of us, Jasmine and her friends up and left. In a hurry.

About a minute passed, and all of a sudden at least three rows of people stood up and did a runner. Yes indeedy, Jasmine has tossed her cookies.

Some of those people left the show completely, some noticed the other empty seats at the back of the theatre and sat there. The nice usher lady and the bloke who was on the door when we arrived then had to clean up the mess as the show went on.

It stunk, both literally and figuratively. Although, they managed to deal with the literal stink with a can of air freshener.

While Jasmine was a bit of a numpty for getting trollied and chucking up in a crowded theatre, her friends were worse: not one of them was a drunk as her, in fact one of them appeared quite sober, but instead of getting her out of there when it was obvious she was so green ’round the gills, they took her back to her seat and just tried to get her to drink some water.

Clever.

Anyway, if you know Jasmine the teacher with a surname that sounds like Hairy Target, pass on my good wishes and gratitude that she waited to do her technicolor yawn until after we’d changed seats.

PS: The show was awesome! The acts were Paul Ego, Justine Smith, Markus Birdman, Carl Donnelly and Jarred Fell … all of whom were very, very funny. And not vomit-inducing at all.

Phew, that’s Christmas all done and dusted for another year. Hope everyone had a fun day doing whatever it is you like to do to mark the festive season 2013.