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 |  is paved with good intentions... |
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** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Hi, I'm Elle. I'm based in Auckland, New Zealand. I'm the mother of two young adults, the wife of an entrepreneurial gamer and the Queen of Unfinished Projects. This blog will contain poems, short stories, possibly photos and book reviews if you're lucky, and my thoughts on a variety of topics. Hope you enjoy it. |
What or who brings out the worst in you? ~ "JAFBG"  Write about a fact of life that many people seem to have trouble grasping. ~ "JAFBG" Tell us about something/someone that fucked you off this week. ~ "JAFBG" This seems to fit all those prompts.   I'm a very even-tempered person. I don't get angry often (although my kids might argue that!) and I don't get upset often. It's actually a thing I became known for. I remember once my mother intervening in an argument between myself and my sisters with "You made Elanor cry. End of discussion." The fact that I had cried was so telling that my mother didn't need any further details. And I also vividly remember when I hurt my arm at high school (the doctor later informed that I'd bruised the bone), my friend saying "Wow, this is the first time I've ever seen you cry." I do cry more since I've had children, I've found. Stupid hormones. I'm also someone who avoids confrontation wherever possible (again, my kids might disagree!). My way of dealing with problems is usually to sweep them under the rug unless it's an issue that truly needs resolving. Steve and I are not one of those couples that has shouting or screaming matches. Fuck no. If we need to resolve a disagreement, we talk about it calmly. If we can't be calm, it's shelved until we can be. If it can be shelved permanently because it's not really important, great. I don't mean to infer that Steve and I go through life without communicating about things. We do. We just don't communicate in raised and angry voices. Okay, so now you have an idea of who I am. I'm not volatile or temperamental, I'm normally very calm and good at diffusing issues and conflict. Which makes what happened all the more distressing. We were having drinks at work on Friday afternoon. As time went by, there were four of us left - my boss, a male colleague, a female colleague and myself. The female colleague goes to leave, and the boss offers the male colleague a top up of his wine glass. Then he hesitates. Boss: "Are you driving?" Male colleague: "Yeah, but it's okay. I'm good to have another one. When I've been drinking I always concentrate extra hard on my driving, so it's not a problem." (I'm paraphrasing) Elle:   I was totally flabbergasted. I'm pretty sure the words that came out of my mouth first were "Wait, what?" Then maybe something along the lines of "Are you serious?" I was just gobsmacked. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. The male colleague babbled something, but I honestly couldn't tell you what he said. I was so shocked, and it was kind of like a mix of a roar in my ears and the way things go hazy when you look back on them, and I couldn't tell you anything else he said. I took his glass off him, and him and the boss both said "Woah, woah, woah," as if I was overreacting. The boss gave him back his glass and I said to the boss "That's on you now." He kind of nodded, but I was already turning to the male colleague. "That's bullshit," I said, and walked out. Stalked out. Stormed out. Whatever. I gathered up my stuff and put my glass in the dishwasher, running into the female colleague who was doing the same before she left. I was all "How can someone think like that in this day and age? That's so fucking ridiculous! Regardless of the danger to himself, what about everyone else on the road?" She agreed with me, but left pretty quickly. I went back in to say goodbye, purely because I both like and respect my boss, and because... I don't know why. Because it seems wrong to storm out of your workplace in a huff? Because I had to go back on Monday? Because I know they're both nice guys who have been good to me since I started working here? Because I actually like them both, despite my male colleague's appallingly lax attitude towards drink driving? I dunno. My boss immediately said to me "He's under the limit, he hasn't had that much." Elle: "That's not the point. He said it was fine to drive drunk because he concentrates more on his driving when he's been drinking!" I was still talking in that tone of someone who literally can't believe what they're hearing. Colleague: "No, no, I didn't. I don't drive drunk." Elle: "That is what you said." Colleague: "Fine. But it's not what I meant. I only meant it in regards to when I'd had a drink or two but was still under the limit. I do not drive drunk. I'm not that reckless." I kind of mumbled something and left. Then I sat on the train for 40+ minutes trying not to cry. I couldn't quite understand what was making me teary. Was it the confrontation itself, the fact that I'd made a scene, the fact that no one backed me up and that they thought I was being unreasonable, or the whole drink/driving issue itself which is a trigger for me? I don't know. Don't suppose it matters, but that was me on the train home. Then Caitie rang me and said she hadn't started dinner because Jayden hadn't started the dishes yet. I just couldn't cope with those two in that mood, so I rang Steve and arranged to meet him at the mall for dinner. When he met me, he asked something like "You alright?" and I told him what had happened. He wiped an errant tear from the corner of my eye and I batted his hand away. "Don't, you'll make me start and I've spent the last hour trying desperately not to start!" So we went and had dinner and talked about other things and I eventually calmed down. So yeah. Fun times. This is the second time I've taken a glass from that particular colleague. When he says he doesn't drive drunk, I don't believe him. I believe he doesn't drive when he thinks he's drunk, but people who have been drinking can't accurately estimate their own levels of intoxication. Last time, I took his drink off him because he was slurring, and he had fully intended to drive that night. My boss did back me up that night, telling my colleague to catch an uber instead. So fuck off with your "I don't drive drunk." Don't fucking drive when you've been drinking, full stop. Right, enough ranting. Time to move on. |
| On Saturday morning, Steve and I headed into town. We had breakfast at Ronnie's (oh, the memories of their ham sandwiches and custard swirls from my Munich Re days!) since we were there a little early. My second cousin, Carla, and her husband Murray arrived about 10am, and said they were hungry too, so we sat back down and they ordered breakfast. We immediately fell into a very comfortable, casual interaction, which was awesome. It could have been awkward, spending the day with distant relatives we'd never met before, but it was easy and fun right from the beginning. We caught the 11am ferry to Waiheke and picked Dad and Andrea up from Devonport on the way. We arrived at Waiheke and collected our rental car without any trouble. I'm glad Steve was driving, it was more like a van than a car and had things in weird places. I could have driven it if I'd had to, but I was glad I didn't have to. We went to Cable Bay first because Dad was hungry for some lunch. We did a wine tasting there of three whites and a red. Technically our group of six only did two wine tastings, because we shared the samples around. It worked quite well. I'm pretty sure we had a sav blanc, two chardonnays and malbec. I didn't really like any of them (of course, I don't like whites as a general rule). Steve bought four bottles of wine for the office from Cable Bay (all whites), and we got the price of the tastings back (which was extra handy since the others had paid for the tastings!). How do you like your pizza (and do you call it a pizza pie)? ~ "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" We had pizza for lunch at Cable Bay. I ordered the margarita pizza which is my favourite, but this one didn't have any fresh ingredients on it. That is, all the ingredients were baked onto the pizza. When I get the margherita pizza from Dominos, it comes with cherry tomatoes and basil leaves on the top, and it tastes fresh. This one was very plain, with tomato sauce, basil and buffalo mozarella, but all baked, so it didn't have that fresh pop of flavour that I had wanted. Andrea and Dad ordered the El Diablo pizza, which had chorizo on it. That had a nice flavour. Carla and Murray ordered the King Salmon pizza, which had raw salmon added after baking. We all shared them around, and Dad's favourite was definitely the salmon one. After lunch, we went to Mudbrick, because Dad wanted to show Carla and Murray the gardens there. Mudbrick offered three different tastings, so between us we ordered all of them so we could try the range. - chardonnary - pinot noir - syrah - merlot/cabernet/PV/malbec - pinot gris - rose - syrah/PV - noble reisling - sav blanc - methode traditionelle - gewurztraminer - pinot gris I liked the reisling, and so did Andrea, so we bought one of those. Steve liked the reserve pinot noir so we got one of those too. And I think we got one other one, but I forget which. Maybe another white for the office? Then we went to Obsidian, which was the one I was most looking forward to. When we drove in, Dad said "Hmm, not much to look at here", but he had to admit afterwards that they had the best service by far. The girl who looked after us (Steve said her name was Deb) was very engaging, very personable, and loads of fun. We had a great time. The wines were good too. I think we tried the Reserve Syrah, which I really liked, the Vitreous, and maybe a rose and a white. Or was it two whites? I forget. I really liked the syrah, which is unusual for me, but I was dead set on getting some more of their flagship wine, The Obsidian, and it was the same price. Steve said "Go on then" when we were in the shop and I said "Oh, no, no. Tell me how many I'm allowed to buy!" I thought he'd say two, but he said four. Win! So I got a 2010 (which can be drunk any time from now on), two bottles of the 2013 (which is apparently outstanding and was the most expensive) and a 2014. We'd previously had the 2012, which we'd loved, but they'd sold out of that. Considering she said the 2010 was only just starting to be at good drinking age, we obviously drank the 2012 too early. Never mind, it was delicious. She said the 2010 and 2014 should be similar to the 2012, so I'm looking forward to those, and the 2013 should be even better. She recommended cellaring them all for minimum ten years (from the date on the bottle) but preferably 15. So those went straight into the cupboard as soon as we got home! Oh, and Steve was overheard to be saying "We're going to need a wine fridge if we're going to be buying wines like this." Yes! Didn't I try and convince you of that when we saw that one on sale?  He also spoke to the lady at some length about the benefits of joining their wine club. Ohhhhh yeah!We finished off at Stonyridge, which is easily the most expensive winery on the island. To put it in perspective, the most expensive bottle at Obsidian is NZ$95, whereas the most expensive at Stonyridge is NZ$350. We paid $18 for a tasting of the most expensive, then sat down in the cafe and had a hot drink. They did an amazing hot chocolate too, I'm pleased to say. I liked the Larosse, which is the expensive Stonyridge wine, but I'm not sure I liked it $350 much. They didn't have any of the Luna Negra available to try, which was a shame because I've got a bottle of that in the cupboard at home and I was interested to try it.We returned the rental car and caught the ferry back. We had 11 bottles of wine all up, of which five were for the office and six were for us, I think. Four of The Obsidian, and the noble reisling and pinot noir from Mudbrick. None of the others bought any bottles. Dad made a few comments about "Must be a good business if it can afford all this wine" but he wasn't too bad. We went to Monsoon Poon for dinner, which was nice. It was really busy and really noisy, but the food there is always a hit. I had summer rolls followed by chicken lettuce cups. Steve had crumbed squid followed by the 25 herb and spice lamb curry. Everyone else had something different, except Murray also had the curry. There was a lot of sharing and tasting amongst us which worked quite well. We'd paid for the rental car ($110) and Murray and Carla's ferry tickets ($80) so they paid for our dinner. I estimate our portion of dinner cost about $90, so I think that was okay. It meant we were a little bit more out of pocket than they were, but I'd rather that than the other way around. I think Steve paid for half of lunch, and Dad gave Murray $50 for his share, so I think they pretty much got a free lunch too. All good. Better for the locals to pay a bit extra I think, than the visitors. Leaves a nice impression.  Everyone seemed to enjoy the day, so all in all, a success. We were so lucky to have beautiful weather too, because it's pretty rainy lately. And now I have to try and keep my wine buying to a minimum for a while! |
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