I'm nothing if not responsible. Responsible and desperate. Desperate enough to badger and guilt James into dragging himself and his lovely wife Lesa to the new Cock'n'Bull in Newmarket for a drink on Friday night. I'm not proud, I promised him all I needed to to get him there. His demands included comfy chairs, and a table by the window. It was a tough deal but I was prepared to make it.
With the prospect of drinking in Newmarket after work, came the need to formulate a plan to get there and back home again safely. That meant no driving. That, in turn, meant taking a combination of public transports to get me where I needed to go. I managed the first leg by catching the ferry in the morning. If you've been playing along at home you'll know, the thing about catching the ferry is that it's cold work. As beautiful day as it was on Friday, the air was chilly and it was cold out there on the water. I, who may be both responsible and desperate, was not sensible enough to wear enough clothes. Oh, how very dumb-twentysomething-female of me.
I'm coatless at the moment. My coat seems to have outgrown me and has been left at The Mission for those who need it and fit it better. I've been meaning to purchase a new coat and now is the time of year for paying less than you normally would for a coat as Spring is just around the corner.
Rather chilled by the time we disembarked at the Ferry Building, I decided to see if the sturdy Rendells store in Downtown had any coats. They did, but unfortunately, only camel coloured - which, while a lovely, classic coat colour - happens to be the exact same colour as me. I spent some moments talking to myself, telling myself the coat was a good price and a smart fit, but when it comes right down to it, I was one camel colour from head to knee and therefore: invisible to humans / attractive to camels. I consulted my purchasing directive "Only buy what you love", and even though the coat was a practical buy, and given we've already established I am not sensible, I left the coat with the shop assistant and paid the same amount of money on a ticket to Manhatten Transfer's only Auckland concert at the Ticketek counter outside Rendalls.
I grabbed a taxi to work on a day themed in public transport, and arrived in time to start my day in the fashion of the whole week: a bit too late for comfort. The day progressed and I did some work, and organised some things, and wrote an important email, and laughed with the reps as everyone seemed in a relaxed and overly noisey mood. Lunchtime came and I decided to go shopping again. Tired of the chipped cups on offer on level 7, I decided to buy my own. The most impractical place to purchase an office-coffee-cup is Smith and Caugheys in Queen Street. So, that's where I went.
Their top floor is China Heaven. They stock *all* the brands of fine and bone china. I don't think I really thought I could find a $9.99 cup, and sure enough after paying $35 for one I chuckled at my spendthriftness and how the hell I was going to cope with having such an expensive mug in a hotdesk/sharing environment. I'd have to keep it under lock-and-key so it wouldn't go walkies and/or get chipped etc.
I really am so frickin' impractical sometimes. But the mug fell smack dab into the middle of my shopping directive so that's okay for now. If I'd just held on for five minutes I could've brought my lovely big elephant cup to the Help Desk but Patience is a virtue I often don't have.
The afternoon carried on. I drank coffee from my new cup, and Oreos from Michael who seems to love feeding me with sweets and tastey treats. I ordered my taxi to pick me up outside work at 4:45pm which was a bit on-the-nose considering when I wafted in, but my drinks with James and Lesa were important, and now they were sandwiched in between work and the Manhatten Transfer, I really needed to keep to my schedule.
The time came to pack up and shut down, and wish people a good weekend and I left to catch my taxi. I got downstairs and an Alert Taxi was sitting there. I asked "taxi for michelle?" and he said he was picking up four gentlemen so I made myself comfortable waiting for my Cab.
And I waited, and.. I waited. 4:45pm I had told them. It must be that by now.
I looked at my watch. I blinked as I realised it said 3:30pm. I'd managed to leave work an hour earlier than intended. I just *couldn't* go back upstairs after saying goodbye to everyone, so I did what any redblooded Kiwi'd do in my place, I walked down to hide in Borders bookstore. I phoned Alert from there and changed my venue pickup - they laughed at me "Decided to go shopping eh?" yes, okay, yup that's what I decided to do.
So after paying $20 on a taxi to Newmarket after an accidental end to work on Friday, and after drinking with james and Lesa, and after coming back into town to see the Manhatten Transfer play for a very short, very expensive, very good 2 hours. Of course, the loudest most avid Manhatten Transfer fan sat next to me. He was so loud, the Manhatten Transfer told him to settle down. But he was having a good time. He even knew some of the words to some of the songs and happily sung along. Only trouble is, jazz is never the same twice so you can get out-of-synch quite easily but hell, he was fun and it was nice to have someone to agree with.
I ended up sitting in a very drafty ferry building finding very little warmth from my concert ticket stub. There is a young man sharing one of the few wooden benches with me in the terminal (the rest are metal and very cold upon one's sitting apperatus). He had the hiccups. He was trying to fight them but from the vibrations rattling down the seat, he'd decided to just "go with it". He passes the time between hiccups watching an overloud news broadcast on his mobile phone. I'm spent mine blogging old school: pen, paper and a can of Coke.