Who will help me make this cider?

I spent my weekend in Greytown. I spent most of my weekend in a cold garage, helping dad make cider. This isn't the sort of thing I usually do for fun (I would have much rather been inside by the fire playing scrabble), but I didn't protest. Why? Because I remember that story about the little red hen ("who will help me make this bread?") and know that when the 180 litres of juice turns to delicious alcohol, I'll be the first in line to help drink it.

LIST...

... Of minor achievements which I am likely to bring up when drunk:

1. Women's Day Photo Comp, 1987

I've never thought I was a particularly cute baby, but according to popular media, I was. The proof of this is in a 1987 Women's Day, which features a full-page colour photo of me in a fetching little blue sundress and hat. TBH I think my knees are a little chubby and I could be looking a bit less like I just soiled myself, but mum hasn't sent photos of me to any magazines since so I guess this was me in my prime.

[If I can get the scanner at mum's working I will update this post with the photo - it feels like an empty gloat without it]

2. Masterton pub karaoke night, 1993

Anyone unfortunate enough to have been out with me in Auckland will know I'm partial to a bit of Karaoke. What they may not know is that this passion spawned from a night in 1993, when at age 7 I took to the stage of a Masterton pub and performed my favourite song. It wasn't on the karaoke list and I think they tried to tell me I was too young, but eventually I wrangled the mic off someone and started singing:

Maori joker on a hilltop playing a flute,

Cooler than Goodman, boy he was beaut,

And the thought that he thought in between each toot,

was Tamatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapokaiwhenuaketanatahu"

I am not even shitting you. The song has about five verses - which get progressively un-PC - and all of them end with this long and deliberately mispronounced place-name. The audience must have been bewildered. What was this small white girl doing in a Wairarapa pub? Who let her on the stage? Why was she singing this mildly racist song? It was probably just all the Tui, but at the end they clapped wildly and awarded me with a Jimmy Barnes tape. I didn't know who Jimmy Barnes was, and I didn't care. I was elated. It was the first prize I'd ever won.

3. McNugget victory, 1994

Remember how you used to be able to buy Chicken Mcnuggets in boxes of 6, 12, or 21? Remember wondering what kind of crazy person would eat 21 Chicken McNuggets? Well at age 8, that crazy person was me. My memories of this are pretty hazy - but I know that Grandma Jane bought them for me (she always bought us all the junk our parents wouldn't) and that I scoffed them down with Sweet 'n' Sour sauce and not too much difficulty. I also remember I had been pulled out of school early that day to go and watch a special advanced screening of The Secret Garden, making this the single greatest day of my childhood.

4. Kairakau Beach Camp Limerick Competition, 1996

Campers at Kairakau beach were invited to write a limerick starting with the line: "There once was a Kairakau camper", which was then to be recited at a cut-throat competition in the surf club. Thankfully for the purposes of this blog, and literary history, I can remember how mine went:

There once was a Kairakau camper,

Who fancied himself as a tramper,

He was actually a wimp,

So covered in Dimp,

He left when the weather got damper

So I'm not the next Gertrude Stein, but I was 10 and mine was the only poem which didn't try to rhyme camper with wanker. I don't think the other competitors - who I remember thinking seemed a bit dim - actually knew what a limerick was. I took home the grand prize of $14 and bought 14 dollar mixes which I ate slowly and gleefully in front of my siblings. They had been riding bikes and boogie boarding instead of farting around with poems. Suckers.

5. I Can Has Cheezburger glory, 2007

Most people don't know what I'm talking about when I brag about this, which is a shame because I brag about it quite often. Three years ago I went through a stage of making my own Lolcats and submitting them to the I Can Has Cheezburger website (I know, I'm so hip, right?). I never really expected any of them to make it on to the illustrious pages of ICHC, but one day, one of them did. If you're not slapping your hand to your mouth right now then get this - they get over 10,000 submissions to the site each day, of which only about 10 make it on. So you see - kind of a big deal. I wish I could link you to the pic so you could witness the cat-captioning genius for yourself, but sadly it has since been lost in cyberspace. (Anyone who read my pun-riddled cat story on Stuff this week will have a fair idea of how funny it was.)

An open letter to hornyteenslut69, who has been trying to befriend me on Skype for a week.

Dear Hornyteenslut69,

Do you mind if I just call you Horns? I don't mean to be rude, it's just your name is a little lengthy to type and, if you don't mind me saying so, a tad crass for this blog.

Horns, I want to start by saying that I'm reallty flattered you want to be friends. Of the millions of Skype users you could have offered yourself to, you picked me - a mere stranger on the internet - and I'm getting genuine warm fuzzies right now just thinking about it.

I appreciate too, how relentless you've been in your efforts - not minding that I've never answered a single video call, or once responded to your generous offers to show me your anatomy.

I really hope you're not offended by this - as I'm sure all you're a very attractive girl - it's just that I'm not really into females. Or teenagers. Or video cyber-sex.

It's not even that though really, if I'm being honest. The truth is I'm worried you might be able to see me too. I feel like you'd be there looking all glamourous, and I'd hit the wrong button and suddenly be caught in bed, in my tracksuit, clutching the cat and scoffing Malteasers.

I hope you don't take what I'm about to say the wrong way, because I'm really just thinking of what's best for you.

I think you might be better off seeing other people.

Now I know thats easier said than done - it's not like you can just pick any name at random and start persuing them on the internet, but I really feel like there's someone else out there for you. Someone who wants to show you their bits just as much as they want to see yours.

I'm going to do something drastic now Horns, and I'm going to click 'block'. Harsh, I know, but it's for your own good.

Goodbye and good luck,

Galletly86

Somebody stop me

My flatmate said yesterday, in jest, that I was in need of an intervention. It wasn’t for any of the obvious reasons – drinking, drugs, or an addiction to porn* – but a more harmless affliction that could easily be overlooked, shrugged off as a sign of the season and left to spiral quietly out of control.

*Mum, I know you would probably much rather that I was addicted to drugs or booze or porn than what I’m about to confess, but remember I'm your daughter and you need to love me no matter what.

Hi. I’m Alice, and I've recently become addicted to junk food.

I’ve blamed the weather, the pill, the lack of vegetable space in the fridge and excess of takeaway joints in Kingsland. The truth is I have no idea – but it's real and it's happening and I can't seem to stop.

Don’t believe me? Lets take a look at Friday:

I get up, have two crumpets with butter and golden syrup (dessert cleverly disguised as breakfast - GENIUS) and head off to work. Mochaccino. Muesli bar. 'Nuther moccachino. I walk to the dairy, buy a sausage roll the size of my forearm and a banana. Back at the office I scoff the food, and am told I need to attend a lunch at the rotary club to get a comment from John Key.

Do I think to myself: “Gee whiz! That’s a bit exciting that I get to meet the Prime Minister even if he is a complete plonker”? No I do not. I think to myself “Rotary club = old people = buffet lunch. Huzzah!”

It is a buffet (downfall of the compulsive eater), and happily I pile my plate up with three meats, potato salad, bread, pasta and rice. I'm a bit disappointed there's no free wine, but John’s speech is set to be long and boring so I shell out for a house sav.

John’s speech is long and boring, but made bearable by a plate of mini desserts I've stocked up on first. I eat four miniature strudels as JK explains to the ancient crowd that global warming is real, two bite-sized sponge rolls as he pokes fun at Shane Jones. China’s economy is the one to watch he says... Or perhaps it's the Philippines. I have another glass of wine and a chocolate truffle.

Later that evening, after I’ve wiped the crumbs from my mouth and tipsily accosted John (I would later realise my fly had been down), I return home for a raging Friday night of scrabble. I eat Subway for dinner, then pop out for a pack of biscuits. I return with wine, chocolate, chips and onion soup dip. I eat/drink these. My friend comes over with wine, animal biscuits (remember those! They still taste just as good, only they've stopped making pink ones. Why god, why?), and chips. We eat/drink these.

It's epic.

It's disgusting.

The next day I eat even more.

Last night when Sylv joked that I needed an intervention, I laughed. What a ridiculous idea I thought - like something off Home and Away. I imagined Alf telling me awkwardly that he was only doing it because he flamin’ cared about me, Irene calling me darl and making me a cup of trim-milk tea.

I laughed, holding my belly like a jolly Saint Nick. I popped another crumpet in the toaster.