Shopping, Snoozing and Happy Belated Birthday to Me!

So it's a rainy Saturday afternoon, Heather is currently napping on my couch, and I'm about to go do some writing until we head out for dinner at my fave Mexican place, Cafe Pacifico. Mmmmm. Can't wait. I had pseudo-Mexican for lunch (Chilli con carne) but I'm looking forward to the real deal....I'm salivating already....

We went to the Glebe Markets this morning - Heather was ever so impressed that I got out of bed on my own, on a Saturday, at 9am. Even though there were lots of cute butterfly things taunting me at the markets, I showed a lot of restraint and did not actually buy anything. Besides, it's the end of the month, and I'm strapped for cash, as usual, so I have to be good!

I know these pics are late, but I've finally uploaded a few photos from my birthday party last month.  The first one Gavin took without my knowing, ooops! The second one is of me, Claude and Johnny. The last is of me, Owen, and Mer. Hilarious Retro madness! Never forget that "Walk Like An Egyptian" really is a great song for dancing!

I've just been playing Heather some music I'm hoping she'll get into, namely the lovely Gelbison and my amazing future husband, Jason Mraz. ;-)

A billion squillion thank-yous to my hero, Stevealicious, for sending me many live Jason Mraz CDs AND a Jason Mraz DVD. Yay! It's like Jason is performing for me in the comfort of my own bedroom every night!

Death to L.J.H.oo.ker

I have this love/hate relationship with my real estate agents. I love to hate them. ;-)  So, I pulled a Stupid Lori Trick today. All was going ok, I actually got up after only hitting the snooze button like 4 times (instead of 10!) and grabbed my purse and ran out the door and just as I was pulling my apartment door shut (and locked) I realised that I did not have my keys. Doh!

And the friend who had my spare keys for the last year just gave them back to me last week because she's moving further away and will no longer be my key keeper.  So my spare keys were also in my apartment along with my main keys.  Doh.

And for some stupid reason I had taken home my other spare house keys, which were also, useless to me, in my apartment.  Doh.

I have never actually done this before - I have never left my apartment without my keys before, in 5 years. Which is pretty surprising, considering what a preoccupied flake I can be.  Sure, I did accidentally drop my keys down the elevator shaft of my building a couple years ago, but that could happen to any good klutz! ;-)

To make things extra exciting, my real estate agents are notoriously unreliable, ridiculous, and stupid. It's always a hassle to get them to do anything, including returning a call.  And even more exciting is that Heather arrives from Melbourne tonight and was expecting to stay with me, so it was not fun to send her a message this morning going, "Um, don't panic, but I'm currently locked out of my apartment and the real estate agent won't call me back...."

Of course, I couldn't even remember who my main agent was now. It changes all the time. Stupid Melissa is gone, but that does not mean anything. So I got in touch with my main agent, Alex, and he was like, "No problem, let me just make sure we actually have your key here, and I'll call you right back!"

6 hours later, I had still not heard from Alex. I had left 3 messages on his work voicemail and 2 messages on his mobile. Nada! The receptionist wanted to kill me, I'm sure. Every time I kept trying to explain what happened and ask if someone else could just have a quick check on my keys she cut me off and put me through to Alex's voicemail.

At 4.30pm, I gave up and decided to just go over there and try to talk to someone in person, thinking I'd be harder to ignore that way.

So I turn up and Alex is gone getting coffee for the office.  He comes in the office, hears I'm waiting for him and is all smiley with me when I announce that I am the tenant who has been stalking him all day, since I am locked out of my apartment. He was all, "Oh yeah, I tried to call you several times, but it said you were out of range." I was like, "Really...yeah, cause I was just in Surry Hills all day, you know, in the city and then he goes, "I also sent you a text message - did you get that?" Of course I didn't because the bastard so did not send me one and he so did not call me either.  My phone never says I am "out of range" even when I am - it just goes to voicemail. I'm not a "fresh off the boat" American, so obviously Alex didn't know who he was dealing with.  He then tried to start flirting and joking with me going, "Oh, it's not that cold today, you could have slept outside!" Ha. Ha. Ha.  He was cute, but cute wasn't going to cut it!  Idiot! ;-) I decided to keep my snotty comments to myself and instead was sweet as sunshine to my agent. If I ever lock myself out again, I don't really want to make it even harder for myself to get him to actually return my call! :-)

And the best part is, my real estate agent did not ask me for any ID. I love it! So basically anyone could have pretended to be me and get copies of my keys from this guy!  I was like, "Um, don't you need to see some ID?" and he goes, "No, I trust you!" And I was like, "No, really, check my ID!" so he looked at it and handed it back to me. I said, "Don't I need to leave it here when I take the keys?" and he goes, "Nah, that's alright" and smiles at me.
Dumbass!


I went down the road to make a copy of my keys and I got the sweetest keycutter. He was young and cute and kept winking at me and he actually cared enough to point out that two keys were nearly identical and he offerred to put a cut in one of them so I could tell them apart. What a doll!

So, in typical Lori form, I worried all day about something that turned out just fine in the end.  

I'm going to find out if I can get my keys surgically attached to my body ;-)

Butterfly Backpackers Fully Booked

Well, once again, my Butterfly Backpackers is open for business...Heather arrives tomorrow and then Kristen arrives on Sunday. This means that there will be a ton of story-telling, chocolate, and Sex & the City DVDs.  I am very excited to seeing Buttercup and Kristikeet and all the girlie bonding that goes along with it. Kristen is bringing me a shitload of Hershey's chocolate. This makes me very happy. :-)

So I had a very lovely weekend...spent Friday night celebrating Ruth's birthday at the Lord Dudley Hotel in Woollahra and then Carlos and I headed back to the City...it's funny because I was thinking I'd be home in bed by about 12.30am but did not get to bed until about 6am as we went to eat, then went to Stonewall, the Colombian, and back to Stonewall for more dancing. We were thoroughly entertained by the bizarre collection of people at Stonewall. Comedy everywhere! Lots of drag queens-in-training who have a lot of work to do (hint: it's not a good look to have to hike up your pretend cleavage every 5 seconds!) and guys who were sadly dirty dancing with themselves up against a wall.  I witnessed the first guy at Stonewall to ever take his shirt off and have patrons actually throw it back at him, asking him to put it back on! Heh!

I also got to catch up with Jorge, Kuan, Kevin, and Hussain on the weekend, which was fun except that it was hard to leave the hotel we were at because it was so freaking cold outside. Yes, I know, I am a total wuss.  I am no longer a true New England Girl.  22 years of Massachusetts winters are all gone. I've totally gotten used to Sydney winters, and I now find them cold even though they're pathetic compared to what I grew up with.