The weekend that was…?

Friday: Expanded my meat cooking r’epertoire with roast lamb, and also finally attempted kitling‘s yummy roast vegies. Don’t think they were as yummy as kitling‘s, but not bad, and the lamb was definitely a success. I’m getting a real kick out of finding/developing new cooking skills. Said roast was devoured by my lovely housemates, plus tentatores (who arrived early and so got roped into peeling and cutting), zen_cat, kitling, nigelw and lirion. Aaron also joined us for board games so we set up two games of Settlers – Stone Age and Space Farers (I think – I was playing Stone Age) and d_kerrie arrived in time for the end of games. Yummy food, fun games and good company. An excellent evening, ended by a drop in to Fluid Oz to see Marie and Ben briefly.

Saturday: An easy start to the morning, rocking up to the zoo ummm..sometime mid-morningish. Saw the tigger cubs playing. Soooo cute! Of course the otters were also a must, and the butterfly house and zen_cat had not yet seen the new heffalump village so we walked through that. Unfortunately knee grumbles finished our perambulations about there – oh no! No snow leopards on a zoo visit! A first in many years I think, but just considering it made my knee hurt more. Next time. I think tigger cubs playing more than makes up for snow leopards, once. Definitely need to get FOTZ membership again.

Lunch and an introduction to Scrubs, before heading off to the airport to pick up Kristian. I am amused by Scrubs, though yet to be sucked in to the point of I. Must. Watch. More.

There was Chinese banquet in Chinatown – we missed yum cha by five minutes, not bad considering it was 4:30 by then.

Saturday night was two birthdays. The first was Susi’s – an IHer friend. We actually missed the gathering but still had a pleasent evening with her, her housemate and another friend. Bizarre twist being that her friend and zen_cat knew each other from school!

Then there was Denz’s birthday which was also a great gathering. Don’t ask what the hours were filled with – I mainly have impressions of happy conversations, people critiquing whiskeys, vodka and raspberry to keep me awake and being oft distracted by zen_cat. Lack of definite memory of the evening due to the latter, rather the vodka as some might be forgiven for thinking!

Also discovered Saturday night that my labret piercing heals within a couple of hours of being taken out. Damn my body and it’s mutant piercing closing powers. I got determined and shoved it back in, much to the detriment of my consciousness! Guess any employer is gonna have to take me on, piercings and all.

Sunday: An early start to get down to the Photoimaging Expo being held at Exhibition Centre. All up, had about 30-40 minutes there before having to get into work, with much thanks to zen_cat for making it happen where it would have been too easy for me to decide it wasn’t worth it for just half an hour. Even that was worth it! *drool* Would have been awesome to stay and listen to the presentations. The snippet I heard about Aperture had me very excited. Pay and visa payment going well this Friday, I may just head into the city and purchase a copy. Yes – I’m *that* excited and inspired by it. So much quicker than what I’ve been doing – and all in RAW format. Sweeeeet.

Work from 12-6. I was so worried about forgetting the swipe card which would let me in the building that I completely forgot the keys I needed to unlock the labs. Idiot that I am. So labs opened 3/4hr late, after I went home and picked up keys.

Then dinner with the lovely thorfinn,seedy_girl and arienmir. Melt in the mouth chicken spiced with toppings of choice was presented to us from the clever hands of thorfinn. Another lovely evening spent and the weekend ended.

Now, I should get back to whittling down the list of things to do today. It gets frustrating sometimes when one task takes up half a day. It seems so little and I can never answer people when they ask me what I do with all my time – sorting out Centrelink stuff shouldn’t be that much time and work but I will be going in the third time in six weeks with yet another different letter from my doctor trying to establish payment without looking-for-work obligations for another three months. I started this current negotiation at the start of April. Sheesh. Hopefully this week they will be satisfied and not demand I go back *again* to my doctor for stuff.