I've told Ben that this grandmother story may beat his 'are you sure you don't want some of these cheese balls?' grandmother story, if that's possible. (Now I feel compelled to share Ben's grandmother story with everyone so people can vote on which is funnier. But I don't think that's particularly fair, because a) no one knows Ben apart from me, and even I've never *seen* him; b) Ben's story is sacrosanct to Ben himself; c) maybe neither of these stories are that funny if you write them down; and d) I just gave away his punch line (sorry, Ben).) But I have to share my grandmother story! So pretend it's funny, all of you. Write me emails waxing eloquent about its funniness, or something. Lie if you have to. (For some reason, this story has never been told to me until a few nights ago. I don't know how my mother kept it to herself this long.)

My grandmother Bonnie died over twenty years ago, when I was five. She was a very small, beautifully dressed, vivacious, brave, naive sort of person. Not exactly prim, but almost innocent, and very very funny. In the early seventies, when she was 50ish, she went off by herself on a coach holiday through Europe. Somewhere in Scandinavia, possibly Oslo, the coach passengers were told to go and buy themselves some lunch. Their tour guide recommended they buy bread and fillings in separate shops. So Bonnie went trundling off, got herself a bread roll, and went in search of some meat for her sandwich. Believing she had found a deli, she entered a shop and began pointing at various things, asking the shop assistants to help her. They seemed bemused. Not daunted, Bonnie opened her bread roll to signal her need for sandwich filling. You can guess what kind of shop she *actually* was in, right? Well, she didn't. Finally the owner had to take her outside and point at the flashing red and blue neon sign she had (bizarrely) missed on the way in. 'Sex Shop'.

:D I can only *guess* what she was pointing at to ask for sandwich meat... Apparently my grandmother's friend Tom laughed so hard when she returned to New Zealand and told this story that he literally fell off a chair.

Not being too familiar with everyone in the US government, I didn't know who Paul Wellstone was until he died. But having read the obituaries, it seems such a huge shame. An honest unionist politician in favour of universal healthcare, who made an effort to thank the Senate cleaning staff and learn all their names, and voted twice against war with Iraq, most recently when it seemed to mean he would lose his seat. How many lefties like that are there anymore? Plus, George Bush senior called him a 'chickenshit'. He must have rocked.

This must be one of the world's most bizarre finds, and it's why I love secondhand shops. We're in the little town of Helensville, which is about an hour north of Auckland on a road to pretty much nowhere (unless the Kaipara Harbour counts). Imagine rural New Zealand, if you've been there. If you haven't, I urge you to go, there's some great pie shops to stop into. But anyway: there we are, looking at the stuff in this junk shop which is behind an old deco movie theatre which is now a cafe, and we found *several* original promotional movie posters for... ta-daaaaah! Mother, Jugs and Speed! What the *fuck*? :)

I had a bit of an epiphany today. We got Brent's 'diabetes-related tests to send to the immigration department' back, and they weren't exactly brilliant (but not exactly bad, either). The doctor says that in order to get the disease *fully* under control, we need to go and see a dietician and a podiatrist and all sorts of people. We can't afford to do that until the residency is approved by the immigration department, because non-residents don't get subsidised by the healthcare system. But we can't get the residency approved until the disease is fully under control. But we can't get the disease fully under control until the residency is approved... oh wait, isn't this where we came in? Is everyone else noticing the circuitous nature of this problem?

I'm going to send these damn things off with a covering letter and hope. Meanwhile, Brent waits, undieticianed, unpodiatrised, and unemployed. Poor bastard.

OK, it's probably inexcusable to link to one of these *twice*, but this one is better than the White Stripes one, IMO. What would happen if Geezer Granville was a cat and wanted to sing a Destiny's Child song? Go forth and find out, my friends... (thanks to Siobhan and Jac for the link)

I have an uncle who lives in Australia. He's kind of a dickhead (well, you have to be to move to Australia and *then* start supporting *their* sports teams against us), but nonetheless: his annoying wife and her grandchild (jury out on annoyingness, haven't met her, but her name is Chelsea so she probably sucks) were staying 400 yards away from the bomb blast in Bali. Yeeeeesh. Talk about lucky. Talk about awful. Poor things. Poor everyone involved...

My grandfather is making excuses to come up to Auckland so he can see the puppy. Awwww....

I keep up to date with current events! Really I do. Behold, the rather awesomely cheesy, if somewhat disturbing Iraqi music video 'Saddam Our Father'.

Another 'it would only happen to Gary' story: he went on an amusement park ride with the eleven year old son of the woman he's dating. The kid, according to G, 'thinks his shit don't stink'. Kid projectile vomits on the ride in such a way that Gary didn't receive a drop but the little dude was covered from head to toe. Mmmmmm....

Gary, kindly, didn't laugh. I would have.

It was my birthday yesterday. I'm 28. Eeep. That's officially 'late 20s'. And I've discovered - after a raucous evening with the librarians at which 'happy birthday' was sung to me four times - that I can't really hold my liquor anymore.

Elvis is in Texas right now. I swear he's doing this to drive me nuts. The only consolation: PJ Harvey and Queens of the Stone Age at the Big Day Out in January 2003.

I have always thought that Alex and I (and by extension, Sonnet and Brent) have some weird similarities. Alex and I were born a month apart. We are both from Anglo-ish cultures (in Alex's case, actually England!) We all love Elvis Costello and the Beatles (has Sonnet been forced to love Elvis? I've never asked her!). Three of the four of us have MAs in history (well, Alex got some big-ass fancy prize for best thesis from UT and Brent and I didn't, but...). Alex immigrated to Texas at the age of seven; I immigrated to Texas at the age of 23. We both married Texans (the aforementioned Brent and Sonnet!), within a year of each other. Then both couples moved long distances away from our former residences, within a month of each other. However, I think that the synchronous nature of our lives reached a pinnacle last week, when unbeknownst to each other, on the *very same day*, Brent and I and Alex and Sonnet *both got puppies*!

It's just plain weird.