Ms Chocaholic with lots of opinions and an attitude

Friday, July 25, 2008

An unexpected farewell

Marmalade died this morning. He got sick last night, was taken to the vet, had some blood test done, kept overnight at the vet. I went to visit him after work, spoke to his doctor, she said things dont look too good for him. The minute I walked out of the clinic the tears just began to flow. I wasnt expecting to have to say another goodbye, certainly wasnt prepared to fall in love after Julie. When Julie died I decided I wasnt ready for that kind of pain again, and am not going to have another pet for a very very long time if ever. Marmalade was an unplanned addition and now hes gone, and here I am again, almost at that same point, almost a deja vu.

Stuart brought him home last night, after having decided he would put Marmalade to sleep. I said my goodbye this morning....was hard, but kept thinking to myself.....I got the easy end of things, since Stuart decided to go to the vet without me and asked his ex girlfriend to go instead. Was on my mind all day, didnt dare call Stuart until end of day. And there was the news - in some way easier than dreaded - Marmalade died of his own not long after I left for work this morning. Julie died less than 5 minutes after my brother decided we would need to put her down. Animals really do have that instinct I think.

I have to say thanks to Marmalade, and of course my Julie. Thanks for saving us from that conscience. Marmalade - you might not have been part of my family as long as Julie is, but clearly you are loved too, and will be missed. Julie -- I still miss you every day and wish I could take you in my arms again, but even if I cant do that, you certainly are in my thoughts. Big hugs.....

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Unions and the Pope

so I suppose most of the world know that Sydney hosted Catholics big event, World Youth Day this past week. Not sure how many people heard about the threat of strike by NSW public transport union though. They had been in negotiation with the state government over payrise for some time, and shortly before start of WYD 2008, threatened to go on strike for Thursday 17th July, the busiest day for traffic...busier than even during the Olympics apparently (Sydney had an estimated extra 250,000 visitors for this one week and that particular Thursday 700,000 Sydneysiders and visitors would have been affected if the strike went ahead - source SBS News!!)

So in the midst of all that the Union who supposedly claim they aim for collective good of the people tries to blackmail the state government in their pay negotiation. And people wonder why I dont care for workers union?

Many Australians felt Howard's government introduction of the Australian Workplace Agreement was in favour of employers and allowed individual employees to be exploited. I dont know how they came to that logic, cos I dont believe that one person's performance and associated reward should be evaluated based on the average of how an entire group performs. The only thing that would lead to is unproductivity - the underperformers have no motivation to improve as they are over-rewarded, while the over performers will get to the point where they are discouraged to continue at their level while being under-rewarded. So they will lower their performance knowing they will still get rewarded at the average rate. In the medium to long term every one reduce their performance, and oops! overall performance (of the company/the country) has dropped how many ever notches.

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Art and alcohol

the problem is perhaps I should have made it a "Alcohol THEN art" weekend, cos as much as Ive always admitted to being clueless about art, after the experience of looking at Mike Parr's so called art installation I have to say that even IF I had started my day with lots of alcohol before visiting the installation I would still not be able to ever accept his work as art.
All I see is torture. Torture of people, torture of animals. And yes, much as I believe in choice, so you may tell me that the people that took part in the filming of the videos made a choice to let the torturous act be done to them, it still totally baffles me how the City of Sydney can use tax payers money to display such gruesome acts in one of the city's most prominent art festival. (and dont forget you cant use the choice argument for the numerous chicken mercilessly tortured either!).

There wasnt even any attempt to warn people visiting the installation of the awful nature of what people are to expect, and there certainly was no sign of any sort of group protesting the act. I wonder where are all the groups with the moral high grounds that are always out and about protesting far more trivial things?

the installation was bad enough to ruin the experience and any other good pieces by other artists that I saw on the day.

Ensuing discussion that led to the question of the fine line between child pornography or what the parents who are also the artists using their own children as subject certainly didnt help calm me down.

The only comfort I could find was the warmth of the Gluhwein at Sylvia's accompanied with meeting the lovely Yoko, and of course memories of my first Gluhwein at IAF, and once again with Sascha and Juliane in Dusseldorf

Friday, July 11, 2008

a non appreciative cat

I dont think Marmalade realises how priveleged he is. I cooked him dinner last night. I never ever cook for myself. Certainly didnt cook for my Julie. and here I am standing in front of a stove cooking red Kangaroo meat. (have to say it was a yuk experience! that stuff smells!!)
and my reward? he ate a tiny bit of it then walked away. grrrrr what a fussy cat!
he didnt seem to enjoy the chicken either. the other night he loved it. then he wants mince pork. then the next thing, and the next. not sure I have enough creativity left in me to offer him any more choices. sighhhhhhh

Addition: he ate some more of the cooked Roo meat this evening...with a bit more enthusiasm. about time too! especially considering the torture I went through cooking that stuff!!! (made me almost literally sick! thats how bad it was!)

Tuesday, July 08, 2008

My chocolate Sunday

I decided to go to the 'Aroma' festival at the Rocks on Sunday. It used to be the coffee festival, but this year they changed the name cos theres more inclusion of teas and chocolates (my main reason for going!!). Ive been to the Coffee festival once before... some 10 years ago it must have been...with Wang and Gorn...reminds me of a certain thing that Wang made me a part of that day, but nah Im not going to advertise it online :)

anyhow...so ten years later, Im back there this time trying some strange vanilla honey, or cinnamon flavoured tea, some sweet dessert wine (tasted like a REALLY yummy cough syrup HAHA), and ofcourse all sorts of chocolates!! mmmmmm a quite interesting one was the pinot noir infused choc...I dont usually appreciate liquor chocolate, but this one was done quite well.

Perfect day to be out enjoying the sunshine, chocolates, and live Turkish music complete with a group of girls dancing to it having lots of fun. Reminded me of Rana, Inci, Burcu, Loubna, Maia and all our other Turkish music dancing nights in Gummersbach. The frangrance of shisha pipe also reminded me of the night out with Tareq, Berk, Dr. M, Carla, Munazza, Amira, Tauseeq, Gulmina and hmmmm did I miss out anyone's name?? but well you get my drift......

As if all that chocolate wasnt enough, after a quick stroll around the harbour, Sylvia and I decided to head to Max Brenner for guess what! MORE CHOCOLATES!! Choc dipped strawberries with a nice hot chocolate with crispy waffles. mmmmm. bliss. Ive come full circle, this is where my love affair with Max began, and this is where I am again :p
(well ok it really started in Paddington....but its Sydney!)

Friday, July 04, 2008

Everything needs a closure

so does the EURO 2008, and yes I know Im somewhat late....but for the above named title I decided I still had to put in writing the disappointments in the last few games. So after the dutch were eliminated, although I still watched every game, the enthusiasm had certainly changed. Saw Germany go through after a lacklustre performance against Turkey ... who really were the better team that night and should have won. the Germans were lucky and got to the final, but finally paid the price in the final game. On the other side..well Spain did a tremendous job against the Russian... or perhaps it was also the Russians didnt play as well as when they beat Netherlands....whatever it was... the final ended being Spain vs Germany. And what a game it was...the Germans looked almost amatuerish on the night...in particular the defence... terrible really! and this coming from me, a somewhat of a hlaf new-ish supporter of the German team since the growing number of German friends in recent years, means it was really some bad football.

I guess my consolation is that in both the Semi's and the Final, Cesc Fabregas played really really well for Spain....he was the key playmaker actually!! So Im really happy and smiling over that. He continues the momentum to the start of the EPL season would mean a good start for Arsenal :)

but for now...I guess I have to live without football for a month!

might be time for me to turn some attention back to the chaotic political situation in Thailand in recent weeks. more on that soon...but for now...gee!! what a mess!!