Happy birthday Amelia!

Today was/is Amelia’s 19th birthday. I tried – and possibly failed – to get a surprise going. I think she knew, but she acted along well anyway.

I went to the city earlier in the morning to get her presents – yes, I left it til the last minute. I got her a notebook in which I wrote my birthday message, and hopefully she’ll use that notebook to write down some cool dreams that she has. I also got her a box of tissues and some Strepsils because the poor girl had gotten sick just yesterday – the eve of her birthday.

After realizing that she’d be late coming into the city with Ser-, I thought I had enough time to go to the florist right outside the Town Hall and got her a small bunch of mini carnations.

In the end, her friends Ly- and Ei- actually got there before she did, so when Amelia finally arrived, they ran up to her to hug her as a way of surprise.

We went to Dessert House for some cheap lunch. I don’t really think I’m a photo blogger so I won’t post the numerous photos of food and us that Amelia took. After lunch, we went to Starbucks to sit for a bit. We sat there for ages, and Brendan and Nha- joined us, and then later on Des and Tat (they’re all, bar Brendan obviously, Amelia’s friends). Brendan and Nha- got Maccas, and Nha- was nice enough to actually get me a cheeseburger. I think I scared Ser- a bit when I more or less bullied her into taking my money to buy her drink – I just really didn’t want to hold onto so many coins.

L2R, Amelia, myself, Ser- and Brendan. Ser- doesn’t like having her photo taken. This photo was after a LOT of persuasion.

After getting many glares from the Starbucks staff – one of them actually had to tell us to quieten down – we sort of all agreed that instead of going to Papa Gino’s on Lygon as was originally planned, we’d all just eat the cake in the city, then go back to Glenny to have dinner. So I made a booking at Zest 91, and went to pick up the ice cream cake from QV. Amelia cut the cake with a plastic knife, and we ate the cake with little plastic spoons.

At this point, Ly- and Ei- had to leave, so Tat and Des went to Ferntree Gully where they parked the car, so to meet us at Zest, and Brendan, Nha-, Ser-, Amelia and I went to ICUE to play some pool. Nha- is extremely good, Brendan is passable, and I think I made the wrong impression and Nha- thought I was decent, which I am not.

At 5, we thought it best to go back to Glenny. Said bye to Nha-, only to be greeted with sheets of rain. We slodged through a crossing with no lights, and found our way onto a packed Glen Waverley train – one of the few that seems to be running that afternoon. And not surprising either, seeing as already the gutters were overflowing, much less the lowered tracks.

The train ride was pretty terrible, mostly because Amelia had developed a headache, couldn’t sit down to sleep, Ser- had no sense of balance and so kept on falling onto one of us (and dislikes physical touch). I was just glad we managed to make it onto an express train that was running at all. I didn’t even consider the possibility of being stranded in the city today.

Went to Zest 91 for dinner. Sat upstairs, not after going up a crazy winding spiral staircase to get there – not the most comfortable decor idea. Met Amelia’s friends Andrew and Steven.

Oh, right, throughout the day Amelia was trying to find ways to work me into her conversations to tell her friends who I am. Her subtlety led to her telling Tat and Des “oh, by the way, that’s my girlfriend”, and telling Andrew and Steven “oh yeah, Alex, yeah, I’m dating her”.

Because the dinner was mostly Amelia’s closer friends, Brendan and I ended up having a bit of a chat with each other – something we haven’t managed in a while, and I never realized how nice it was to talk to him. It was different to when on Skype or MSN, because online he tends to do weird things and is distracted easily, but in person it was better to keep him on track.

It was a pretty long day, and it was made worse by extremely bad weather. But I really hope that Amelia liked it anyway, because I know that it was some effort for the people who came out, and I know that for the people who didn’t, they wanted to.

And a huge thanks to Ly- and Jan- (the latter of which ended up having to work, so couldn’t come) for helping me organize the whole thing!

Alex.

Ice Cream, Because I Ate So Much

I don’t have the time right now to write a huge long ass blog about last night (which was totally awesome) because I want to try out the new way of beating Megavideo that I learned on Facebook. So this will be very short and funny. Hopefully funny.

Last night after Chinese finished (By the WAY! Count: DONE! DONE AND DONE AND THANK YOU VERY MUCH) I went straight back to Glenny to meet up with YL to go to Whitty’s house.

Now, I have to warn you, I’m going to have to drop a lot of new names this time because I was catching up with a bunch of people, some of whom I haven’t seen in over four years.

I found YL with El, Jez and Elmo. We were going to take the 754 but Reb was late. Had to wait for her, then we took the next bus to Whitty’s house which is in Rowville. Honestly. Where the bloody hell is Rowville? It feels like Woop Woop.

On the bus I just happened to see Nina who I went to primary school with. We had a long chat about how things were etc. Exchanged numbers. Very good.

Elmo kept on falling down whenever the bus took a turn, so when Jez warned us “left turn coming up” YL and I grabbed Elmo by the shoulders and tried to hold her in place.

FINALLY got to Rowville (I swear China was closer) and it was a hot walk to Whitty’s place. Got there and everyone else was there already, playing Mahjong.

(And, in the blogging style of Katherine)

Hi hi how are you nice to see you again oh mahjong sucks where’s the drinks?

Drink drink.

Laugh.

Play with dog.

Make a few jokes about Swin.

Make many jokes about YL.

Then they decided to play Twister so Mani, Huey and I hid into Whitty’s room and played with his electric guitar. Then Cat joined us. She sat behind the door so when Whitty ran into the room, throwing the door open, she got hidden behind the door.

“WHERE’S CAT?!” He asked.

I started laughing hysterically, because right behind him looking absolutely terrified was the girl he was looking for.

“I have no idea,” Huey managed to say.

Whitty ran out of his room, and Cat’s phone rang. She pretended she was outside. We could hear Whitty in the next room saying, “WHERE ARE YOU?”

We re-joined the rest of them in time to watch a massive orgy happen on the Twister mat, where YL is flashing everyone. Sat down on the couch and started throwing stuff at the players to make it more interesting. Started a pillow fight by accident.

Then we had this weird ass game where you get a cup of milk/water and pearls, and you have to (and man the double meaning is tenfold here) suck up all the pearls, keep them in your mouth and don’t swallow, and then in the end spit them out. The person who spat out the most (as in kept the most in their mouth, as in sucked up the most) won. I got 9. YL got 9. Law got 13. Cat got 1. Everyone else swallowed. Baha.

Then I accidentally started a straw fight. I blew air through the straw at Mani. She blew back at me. I blew it towards Elmo. Then she took it to the next level and started blowing everyone.

Oh wait that…well that probably sounded wrong because Law then remarked “STOP BLOWING EVERYONE!”

Cat was made to eat an entire cup of pearls mixed with ketchup. She didn’t.

Then we had ice cream cake. I got 2 slices. It was good.

Then we started watching District 9. Except by watch I meant YL and I sat there and every time something came on screen we would remark that the other is it. So for example when a guy with a bad haircut came on screen I yelled, “YOU’RE HIS HAIRCUT” or when a guy with a big nose came on, YL yelled, “You’re his NOSE!” We had no idea what the movie is about.

Then we played this other ice-cream game. By this point everyone wanted to die, we had that much ice cream. The game (another one by Swin and Ayms) included four whole scoops of ice cream, and weird ass utensils to eat them with. When I say weird ass utensils, I mean a large spork, a spatula, a roast fork, a freaking potato masher, and an egg whisk.

I was screaming at Cat and YL who were on my team to “JUST SHOVE IT IN YOUR MOUTH IT’S NOT THAT HARD!” Apparently someone filmed it and it would probably float onto Facebook some time soon.

My team won.

So then we sat around watching Huey, Mani, Whitty and YL play this weird video game called Small Fighters or Tiny Fighters or something like that. Elmo and I got bored so we joined Cat on the other couch. Cat then decided to try to torture me. Ok I swear I heard her say “Can I talk to you?” I said sure. She actually said, “Can I torture you?”

Whitty discovered that I’m ticklish, and him and Elmo started tickling me. Unfortunately I thrash when tickled, and Cat had to hold my legs down while I nearly kicked her in the face.

Had a group photo outside on the veranda. The dog was in it.

Then we went back to the living room after having locked everyone outside for a while. Then someone decided (and seriously I don’t know why we said yes) it would be great fun to play hide and seek in the dark. The lights got turned off and instead of playing hide and seek we just walked around with my mobile phone lights scaring people. Then Elmo and I sat on a sofa listening to the distance voices of Cat screaming “STOP TOUCHING ME! HELP ME!” It was relaxing.

Got dropped off home by Mani’s parents at around 10:30. Got home, started changing when I noticed my right earring was gone. I figured it must have slipped out when YL decided to play stacks on on Elmo and myself without telling us.

And that was that.

Damn it still ended up being over 1000 words.

Alex.