*Grumble grumble*

I had a chunk of Rudolph this evening. Chelcie’s family barbequed some reindeer sausage. To me it tastes like frankfurt but with a bit of a smokey something else that I can’t quite figure out.

We went on this wonderful hike together. They said it was going to be pretty relaxing and easy, but it turned out to be incredibly steep and tiring. The challenge was on though, there were moments where I had to clamber on my hands and knees to try and get up the slope. I was so pooped I had to refrain from being happy snappy on certain parts of the hike. :P

Still managed to get a few nice ones though. :)  

As we were approaching the summit some cracker dialogue emerged

Chelcie’s Dad: *Something along the lines of we’re almost at the summit, there’s a wonderful view of Anchorage and the surrounding areas*

Chelcie: Can you see our house?

Me: Can you see Russia?

:)

I’m pretty uncordinated hiking on the mountain. I walk with my arms out like Jack Sparrow, thinking it will give me more balance.

After some time back at the house it dawned on me that I had not finished off my washing from earlier. I scuttled to the laundry to find the items of clothing dry and neatly folded. Lol at someone else’s parents finishing your washing. So nice. :)

It’s Chelcie’s birthday tomorrow. I’m super excited and appreciative to be present for this event. As it hit 12 I scamper up to her room to give her a hug and kiss on the head to wish her a happy birthday. Then I begin the construction of her birthday card. It had two kinda cute but kinda lame depictions of her and I drawn in a sort of manga style to be reminiscent of the times we had on Gaia. Writing the message in the card made me really happy as I was expressing how exciting and wonderful the moments we’ve shared together are. However, it also made me wonder if this was the only time in person we’d have together. Would I ever see her again?

That thought hit pretty hard and so I tried to come up with some possibilities of how we could encounter each other again. Chelcie is afraid of spiders so I hope that would not inhibit a possible visit to Australia. Anyway, it’s a hard thing to think about because all this pre-nostalgia sets in even though I’m still here and spending time with her, which in some ways takes away from the time I could just be enjoying spending with her. It’s gut-wrenching to manage and turns into a bit of a vicious cycle. 

I should just let things be really nice. 

When Chelcie returned home we ventured to downtown Anchorage for some lunch and shopping.

For those who know me, I’m a bit of a shopping fiend. Even in my 21st speech my Dad mentioned the ‘shopping gene’ (holds self back from having Sociological critique on this statement). Working in retail doesn’t really help. When I first started working at Myer I would pretty much bring something home after every shift and then justify it because of my discount card.  

Just letting you know in advance I WAS PRETTY GOOD with shopping today. I mainly just bought practical things. And shoes. But one pair of shoes was incredibly practical. >__>

Anyway.

Alaskan car parks are really cute. Back in the ‘berra we do have the whole ‘each level is a colour’ thing going on, BUT WE DO NOT DO THIS:

I just think life would be much better if we combined the colour and animal car park level indicators. It’s just easier to remember “Oh yes dear, we’ve parked on the orange Moose today” rather than “I think we parked orange? Or was it red?” “NO IT WAS TANGERINE YOU IDIOT.” I would just like to point out though that the colours and animals as a set are different. For instance, there wouldn’t be a blue moose level as well, it’s a blue wolf or seal or something. So if you wanted to, you really just could remember orange.

Mind you if we did incorporate the animals and colour system into our car parks in Australia (which, really, I’m pretty sure they would already be around, I just haven’t encountered them, or don’t remember. Let me know if you have seen some please). I would probably be embarrassed. I don’t know what it is about Australian wildlife, but there is something incredibly daggy about them (not the nice adorable daggy either, but the ‘your uncle in a hawaiin shirt is trying to dance to the macarena’ daggy - for the record, I can’t imagine any of my uncles actually doing this). Maybe it’s just the grass is greener phenomenon, but I’d just find a kangaroo or a koala level just a tad silly. I’m struggling to put my finger on why though.

Anyway. Chelcie and I got our lunch on and hit up a sushi place. It was kinda nice entering the food court and only one outlet (Subway) being something we’d have back in Canberra. I got this Dragon roll type thing which had nice little avocado sushi rolls on the inside which is then layered with some eel on top. I’ll admit it, I just wanted it for the name and the avocado.

We had a discussion about fake wasabi, in the sense of how a lot of places use horseradish instead of actual wasabi because it is cheaper. This was definitely a horseradish kind of place, which didn’t phase me so much because I quite like horseradish. It helps you clear up a bit when you have a cold. :) I tried to be adventurous and load up my sushi with loads of psuedo-wasabi for funsies, which felt more like I was using the tactics of a year 4 boy impress Chelcie. Although it’s not the most enjoyable way to eat your food, sometimes I get a kick out of the weird nose tingle and eye watering you get when eating hot things. I ended up just looking silly when trying to engage in conversation though. :P

One of our shopping missions for the day was to find myself some practical shoes for hiking. I was annoyed by the aesthetics of running and walking shoes. The ones that I did like didn’t come in my size, or there was one that fit, which was in a size 6, but then didn’t have a corresponding box and shoe. =/ I did manage to find one eventually. I also had my eye set on a pair of Vans on sale…I got them…I’m on holiday. :) During this time I had the urge to flash mob style dance to a Glee cover of ’Marry You’. Whether I was singing it to the shoes or Chelcie is difficult to distinguish.

Chelcie also pointed me in the direction of amusing touristy items. Nothing seemed super grabbing though. I intended to buy things for people back home but I haven’t really found anything appropriate yet. Usually I’m pretty good at spotting gifts for people but my radar just hasn’t really popped up with anything yet. There was one almost purchase at the Zoo when I saw an animal hat for Sarah, as she wanted another hat to add to her collection. However they were only in small kids sizes and the full animal head hats were just darn creepy. I’ll continue to hunt around for gifts though.

We also went underwear shopping together and it was not awkward. :) I had to do all these size conversions because I forgot that they are different over here. While Chelcie was trying on bras I tried to remain professional and summon up my Myer knowledge of fitting bras. I was a guinea pig for people learning how to bra fit once, it was a tad weird. I suppose I learnt how they do it, and that it’s such a tedious experience. They said I had nice boobs though. :P I almost went and did a bra course for Myer myself, but I had uni on the training day. I’m kinda glad I didn’t though. I’m terrible at measuring things and that’s just something you don’t want to measure wrong because people are already in a volatile position and it’s a long and painful process as it is. Pretty much the only words of wisdom I had were “Did you try a bounce test?” and “How does the cup feel? - ooh you don’t want to spill over”.

I ended up buying a pair of cheap pyjamas shorts  that I could get away with using for working out. While leaving the changing room to see what they looked like I accidentally locked myself out. Chelcie had to press the button to call the attendant. It was embarrassing because I was wearing clashing patterns. *Gasp*

Chelcie and I also entered a department store that looked vaguely like the equivalent of Myer. They had the same font on their tickets at least. I’m down with that being an office bitch myself. After maneuvering the widening and thinning effects of the change room mirrors Chelcie purchased on sale a work skirt with these little pleats at the back. Very nice. :)

To finish our shopping experience we got some multiple fruit smoothies. If I recall correctly I tested out peach and banana because peach didn’t seem like a very common flavour in a smoothie to me. Chelcie had mango and strawberry which I probably would have gotten myself if I wasn’t trying to try slightly different things. Mango is such an amazing flavour. Also Chelcie is a calorie counter, which is fine so long as it doesn’t inhibit her enjoyment of food. Basically it meant that we had to figure out further conversions of things because I get a bit lost in measurements.

I may be from Oz, but I’m not down with oz.

Tasty smoothies though, good choice. :)

I woke up pretty early today so I had a lot of time by myself.

I tried to use this time to work out different settings on my camera. I took silly pictures of things around the house, particularly of cushions. Pretty much I just kept taking pictures of the same cushion using different settings and tried to be down with shutter speed and aperture and whatnot.  

This isn’t really all that exciting, but it shows you what I mean.

Fail, lol.

The next grand task I set for myself was to do the washing. I’m aware of this banal household chore, and I know it probably isn’t worth writing about. However, I’m a spoilt only child who barely had to do any housework, so this was actually a big deal for me. I had not completed the entire process of washing by myself before (I’ve hung stuff on the line and soaked a couple of things…I’m probably not making my case any better here).

I asked Chelcie for a tutorial of how to work her washing machine. Even for those experienced washing folk, I’d say it’s a pretty good idea to be aware of the possibility of specific functions of a person’s washing machine, so I didn’t feel all that silly asking how to use it. I also had to muster up the courage to ask her about her recommended process of washing awkward items (I’m going to be pretty vague here, but just being a girl sucks sometimes yeah?). 

Anyway, Washing skill EXP + and contributes to skills required before unlocking the achievement of moving out. :D [FUTUREANACHRONISTICOPPORTUNITYSPOILEROMGJESSYAYAYAY]

That night we cracked open the Cranium with Chelcie’s family.

I quite like board games. There’s a certain level of amusing competition between people and it’s a lot of funsies watching various tactics play out in the game.

I have heightened and mixed feelings about Cranium though.

On the one hand, it reminds me of the time that the Erindale posse played Cranium outside our tents on a coast trip. We were so into the game that we did not realise that we were getting incredible sunburnt.

During that game Bernie and I had a peak experience in our friendship. Bernie had to act out a star performer card. All she had to do was place her hands on her chest and yelp “PIRATE BOOBIES” and as quick as a squirrel with a mini samurai sword I responded with “KEIRA KNIGHTLY!”

On the other hand, Cranium can be just as painful as the sunburn. A few months ago I went to a friend’s house for a board games night. The friend and her boyfriend are some of the nicest most welcoming people. I was very impressed with their energy in dancing at my birthday party. However, I wasn’t such a big fan of some of their friends, particularly in the context of playing board games.

We spent the first 15minutes of play bickering about whether you play a card and then move or move and then play a card. Some of them were uber pedantic about getting the exact wording. For instance I had a charades style star performer and had to act out “The Winning Lottery Ticket”. My partner and I managed to get all sorts of combinations such as:

“Winning the Lotto”

“The Winning Ticket”

“The Lottery”

“Lottery Ticket”

And so on and so forth. But no. They didn’t count to the other players, it had to be the exact wording. -___-  

Yes I acknowledge that I may be annoyed because it was a move my team would have received if it was allowed. But really, in that situation I would have just let the other team have it. It’s flipping close enough.

Other things that annoyed me that night were that one of the guys was rather arrogant and kept shutting his girlfriend down. I distinctly remember him saying to her “WHAT? You couldn’t spell Pharaoh backwards? I should have done that one.” also I remember on one of his star performers he got The Full Monty and he smugly proclaimed “Well everyone wants to see that”.

Grumble, grumble.

Anyway.

ALASKAN CRANIUM. :D

A much more delightful experience.

For starters, we were listening to Cake and the Cranberries while we played. Chelcie’s family have fantastic taste in music. Chelcie’s Dad was even wearing a Cake t-shirt at the time. They are also down with Maximo Park and some other bands that I’m pretty pleased with.

The actual game was fairly slow to start as it took a couple of rounds for anyone to make any progress on the board. Chelcie made me act out all the star performers as she didn’t like embarrassing herself. On the most part, the kinds of questions were fairly similar, there were just a few American events I wasn’t aware of (or aware enough to recognise). Chelcie and I managed to bounce of each other reasonably well with the creative cats though. :)

We didn’t win, but we had a bit of a sudden death with her parents at the end.

There was no sunburn and no arrogance. :)

Yes, yes, work it for the camera. Be a Moose. :D

I’m sorry, but Chelcie is flipping gorgeous.