So Saturday night was Sarah’s birthday party. For whatever reason I’d been thinking the whole time – since receiving the invite on all of Monday, way to go for warning :/ – that it was Friday, and had confusingly messaged Sarah on Friday saying that I’d try to stop by on my way back from uni. I eventually realised, but not after probably confusing her and seeming a bit forward by inviting myself around. Ah well; she wasn’t there anyway, so I didn’t stop by. :)
Anyway, Saturday night. I caught a lift up with Sket & Sean. Bobo was supposed to join us, but said she wasn’t feeling well when I phoned her from Sket’s doorstep, which Sket later explained was that she was having a bad day and had decided to give it a miss. So it was just the three of us then. We arrived about 7:30pm or thereabouts, when it was still relatively sparse. Over the next two hours quite a lot of people turned up – I was surprised that some had made it, such as Roxanne & Ebony. Sarah’s grandparents were there as well, and her mum turned up with Rachel & friends in tow as well. Sarah’s cousin, Sean/Shaun/Shawn (pick your favourite) was also there, whom I hadn’t seen in probably four years or more. He looks completely different from how I remember… much better now, not that he was that bad back then though. Anyway, he lives in Melbourne now, and has for a while, so I’d known he was about, but of course hadn’t seen him.
Unfortunately Adele & Ann-Marie had also brought their dogs, so there was a bit of a puppy-party happening in the backyard. I say unfortunately, although really it wasn’t that bad, but they were occasionally annoying, and broke out into little growling scuffles now and again, which inevitably prompted one of Ann-Marie, Adele or Terrance to get all shouty and angry, which is undoubtedly more annoying than the dogs themselves. As of course everyone knows, I’m not a dog person, although there’s certainly some that I don’t mind at all – Sarah’s old dog, Jessie, for example, although sadly Sarah seems to have more or less abandoned her. :(
So it was good to catch up with people a bit, although I found I didn’t have much to say to many of them, which is usually how it goes; I was never that “in” with the Ben group and all those guys, so now when I see them all of once in a blue moon it’s often quite awkward. I tended to stick with Sket & Sean a bit, I realised, and they too were a little outcast. But there were certainly people there that I would have liked to talk to more – Chantelle, Sverra, Lisa, Roxanne – but for whatever reason I didn’t get the chance to all that much.
There were a few interesting highlights, such as the barbecue catching on fire. Like, really on fire. It was a standard four-burner gas BBQ like every man and his dog has, and they’re usually pretty good; I’ve never seen anyone have any trouble beyond an empty gas bottle. Still, I guess I don’t usually see one get used so much in so little time – like the usual Sarah- & Gail-operated shindig, this one had ten times more food than everyone could possibly eat – and evidently there was a huge amount of grease and oil in the meat. I saw Terrance clean the grill at least once, so it’s not like it was all nasty and whatever… just a bit of bad luck, I guess, that enough grease trickled down into the pan below and caught fire.
It was quite funny to watch, although I was a little wary when it first started, with a nice shiny full gas bottle so close to a big hot grease fire. Luckily Terrance quickly disconnected that and put it well out of the way; good thinking. After that it was just a matter of trying not to set the house on fire. Someone suggested throwing flour on it, which I’ve heard of before but was wary of, since I know that flour is explosive in some cases. I think that’s in very low densities, however; not when dumped by the kilo on top of the fire. As it was, it did virtually nothing; the fire was raging on the charcoal pan, which the flour didn’t get to. The lid was closed as well, although by that time the fire was sprouting out the sides from underneath, so that didn’t help as much as it perhaps could have.
In the end, the flaming pan was carefully pulled out onto the ground, and the dog bath dumped on it. The dog’s had a clam-shell kiddy pool half filled with water, which was filthy dirty, but nonetheless worked wonders putting out the fire. Sure, you shouldn’t generally use water on a grease fire, but when you dump enough at once it certainly works.
Unfortunately, one or more of the dogs had evidently peed (or worse) in their little pool; as soon as it was dumped on the fire and the smoke rose, the whole backyard was filled with a disturbingly strong smell of dog doo. Not cool. And it wasn’t just me – Chantelle immediately looked at me in understanding, too. :)
I remember mentioning this to Sarah, in one of brief moments I actually had to talk to her, and it seemed to offend her that I’d suggest such a scenario. Dog lover’s, eh; rationality optional. :)
Anyway, other than that, and Sket leaning against a window which then cracked (or was cracked already; Sean thought it was; I hadn’t been paying attention), that was about it for the evening. We left shortly before 10, which was late enough for me… I thought of staying later and angling for a lift back from someone else, but as I noted it really wasn’t my sort of party; I hadn’t been planning on going, and had indeed been actively trying to find something else on that night that I could use an excuse not to. I knew if I didn’t I’d probably cop flak, not that it really matters.
But then ironically enough it was while watching Blast from the Past on Wednesday night or whenever it was, that I changed my mind. The movie made me feel like being all nice and gentlemanly and all that, so I resolved to go.
And now, well, I went, so I can’t get in trouble. :)
After that I headed back to dad’s; I’d messaged Bobo asking if she wanted company, given she evidently wasn’t feeling that great, but after an initial non-comittal response she never got back to me further, so I went on back to dad’s.
I’d actually meant to get Sarah a present, too… I’d been thinking about it for a while; she’d mentioned her birthday party months ago, and had at the time made a big deal about me having to go and all that (this was back when we were speaking, obviously, so at least two months). So I’d had some time to try to come up with something. I’d been coming up a little short… I lightly toyed with the idea of a stripper, although that was mainly experimental to see how much Sarah’s changed in the past few years. My other ideas weren’t real suggestions, just spiteful little things in jest; I feel I really haven’t gotten in my fair share of spiteful antics over our break-up, and while I really don’t care about Sarah & Terrance being together now, I sometimes feel I have a responsibility to be all crabby about that. But then I sort of try and just can’t find the motivation. Ah well. :)
It’s kind of funny, really, to feel bad for being too lazy to be upset. There’s worse ways to be. :)
But yeah, coming back from my mum’s I had the idea of getting her a model Mustang from Mind Games or somesuch place that sells things like that. She said relatively recently that she’d marry the first guy to buy her a Mustang, so I thought I could play off that a bit. But then I realised I have no idea what type of Mustang she actually likes. Myself, the only ones I can really stand at all are the modern ones, which are much more sporty than your “classic” 1970’s muscle-car Mustangs. But then Sarah’s love for Mustangs is a lot older than modern Mustangs, from memory, so maybe she goes for ugly American cars. Who knows. :)
Anyway, I forgot, so that settled it. :)
I’m very disturbed by all the Christmas crap that’s started already. I’ve barely had time to start enjoying summer, and already shops are full of cheap and nasty junk. And the only thing I have to look forward to is in the week after Christmas, after they sell of all the left-over crap, when they start stocking shelves with easter stuff instead. :/
