Every Day I Read the Book

Wow, my brain feels on fire these days. Right now I'm watching a French film. With subtitles. I gave up subtitles in 2006. I gave up Chinese films in 1994, but I don't expect I'll ever get them back.

Today I finished Damian Wilkins' Somebody Loves Us All. Last week I finished Transition. Before that, I finished some other book that I absolutely loved, and I know I read all of Tu not long ago. I haven't finished a book since 2006, but all of a sudden, reading's easy again.

Last Tuesday, I passed an exam. I'd studied, revised, done practice exams and actually prepared thoroughly. I'd prepared so thoroughly that I was terrified.

In other news, casa del Ange & Sweeney was a railway station yesterday. Dom fixed the coat rack, with Sweeney's assistance, while Emma and I admired them from the deck. Sweeney's been busting to use his tool set for real, and Dom was soooo patient and nice and got the job done while showing Sweeney a good time. Awesome.

Bela and Liisa came with us to the Greek Food Fair around the corner. Coffee from an enormous vat. Calamari and salad. Outrageous donut-type things. Delicious rice pudding. Oooh-er.

Grandad O'Neill popped in just as we were heading out, and couldn't be tempted to a vat-type coffee situation. We'll catch up with you!!

Then Sweeney's friend Blessing and his mum Agnes came for dinner. I made a pretty adequate chicken curry - felt a little disappointed in myself that it's all I felt up to putting together. These two boys spend forty hours together every week - and I really mean together - and I don't see more than 15 minutes of interaction between them, so it was fab to see them over a period of time. Hilarious, charming, terribly unruly. And Agnes is in a similar boat to mine, so we swapped stories of how we generally fail at getting everything done. Agnes is awesome.

We had a lovely day, but poor Sweeney today couldn't understand why we didn't have people over again. He did some paintings and we played trains, we made some Donna Hay upside down cakes with the terrible apricots that went straight from rocky to overripe, and had polenta and sausages for dinner tonight. And I slinked off for an hour to my room to finish my book.

In other, other news, we went to Kilbirnie today. Normally we go every Sunday to get groceries, run on the beach a bit, go to the pool, visit people. It can take a few hours. Today was Around the Bays, and it took an hour just to get there. Stink.

But also awesome, because I've never seen such an extended example of consideration shown by drivers under difficult conditions. No surliness, honking, dangerous driving, gridlocking, and even buses were nice. I thought to myself that the speed and density of the traffic was similar to getting around in Auckland on any Sunday, and it made me even more convinced that Wellington traffic really is nothing to worry about. No way, flyover!! Do you hear that, NZTA??

Yes, I've noticed that with my brain resuming normal function, I've got a whole lot more Opinions. Sorry about that.