The Party (like that movie, only better and with more dogs)

Yesterday was the day. It was Monty’s first birthday party. I know, I know; throwing a party for your dog is so fucking lame and i’m totally going to die alone. But I love my puppy, and I love having get togethers and I love Halloween so it was valid, okay?!

I woke up at 8am, trying my hardest to sleep in for longer but failing. After stumbling to the kitchen for coffee and toast, I retreated to the loungeroom to watch the Simpsons (Halloween specials, hells yeah) and hide from my family. After watching the episode where Bart has special mind powers, and those statues come to life because Homer steals a donut, I jumped in the shower and scrubbed myself clean.

Feeling refreshed, I enlisted Jeremy’s girlfriend’s (Kiah) help for putting up the decorations, since Jeremy was much too busy playing PlayStation and being a wankface. Kiah and I trumped downstairs with my bag of Halloween shit, and started decorating. I had a Halloween tablecloth, some witch and Frankenstein platters (which I filled with body part lollies and cheap toys), some ghost and pumpkin bowls (which were also filled with lollies), a light up skull (his name is Hector), and some other little bowls for food.

Then we hung up the ‘Happy Halloween’ banner, which involved Kiah standing on a chair and me standing below her being useless, followed by wrapping some poles with Frankenstein streamers. I was quite proud of the finished product.

When that was finished, I made another coffee and then went up to the shed to see what mum was doing. The neighbours called so we had to go and meet them at the fence to give them vouchers for their granddaughter.

Their granddaughter just stood there smiling at me shyly, which kind of freaked me out but she was still pretty cute. She told us about how she will have a new brother or sister in December, and that she calls it Turtle at the moment. It was pretty adorable. Monty was with us and just stood there barking at them for a while until I threw his ball for him. He sure knows how to get what he wants.

The neighbours let us go so we could start our party, so we wandered back to the patio to set up chairs. While Ma and I were doing that my older brother (Chris), his girlfriend (Yoland) and their pup (Fynn) arrived. Chris and Yoland went straight up to Jeremy’s room to watch him play PlayStation, because they’re all boring motherfuckers.

The party was scheduled to start at eleven am, but just after eleven, people started texting me saying they’d be late (because they’re all assholes. Yes, even you, Miss Professional Ex. Girlfriend). I put some music on, screamed at my family to come downstairs and start mingling (with themselves, since no one else was there) and then went out the front to have a smoke, put a party hat on the letterbox and wait for people to arrive.

Thankfully, the Chancellors arrived while I was mid-smoke, so I didn’t have too long to sit there stewing for. The Chancellors are old family friends of ours, (Mr. Chancellor is responsible for starting his car while our cat was inside the bonnet, resulting in the loss of his tail) and have three kids, so they always bring the noise.

This officially kicked off the party. Monty didn’t know what to do with all of these people around, so he decided to hide under chairs and bark at the Chancellors. They’d brought him a massive stuffed dog for his birthday, which he promptly barked at and backed away from. Everyone was laughing at Monty, and Mrs. Chancellor was stirring him up by shrilly telling him to stop being stupid and then cackling at him. She’s an awesome lady.

Eventually Monty got used to everyone and started playing with Fynn, which provided us with a bit of entertainment. At around 12pm my ex, Seb arrived, which meant that the only person we were waiting on was Professional Ex. Girlfrien (PEG). Half an hour later, she showed up, so I finally relaxed and got into the conversation. Up until that point, I was half listening to people and was frequently getting up to go out the front to wait for people.

PEG’s arrival also signalled that Chris could start cooking lunch. Chris, Jeremy, Yoland and Kiah all got up to supervise the BBQ, while everyone else yelled that they weren’t doing it right, and asking who put Chris in charge. Good times, good times.

We all tucked in to a yummy lunch of sausages, hamburger patties and numerous salads, which shut everyone up for a while. After lunch, Ma was putting party hats on the dogs, which was pretty much the most hilarious thing any of us had ever seen.

Nicky

After laughing like maniacs at that for a while, I went upstairs and cut up the cake. The Chancellor kids and PEG came up and helped me carry all the plates down and everyone tucked in again. Well, most people. You know, the sane ones that like cake.

Then it was time for presents! I dragged the basket of toys into the middle of the circle and sat down with the youngest Chancellor child (Mr. 4) and Monty to get stuck into it. Monty ripped open his first present, which was a packet of tennis balls (he has a thing for balls, heh heh) and then took off to chase them while I sat there stupidly, trying to call him back so we could open the rest of the presents. At this stage, Mr. 4 decided to take things into his own hands and started opening Monty’s presents and handing them around to all of the dogs. He opened most of them, while everyone laughed and asked who’s birthday it was. Monty finally started realising there was an abundance of toys, and got stuck into them, and we all watched as Seb threw numerous toys onto the lawn at once, while Monty, Fynn, Nicki & Mulder all ran around like idiots.

After cake and presents, everyone had bulging bellies and we decided the best idea ever was to go and have a swim. I’m too fat for bathers right now, so I put a dress on over the top of my togs in an attempt to hide. Jeremy, Chris, Seb, Kiah and the Chancellor kids were all in the pool when I decided to get in. It was a tad cold, so I was standing on the steps like a pussy, trying to get used to the temperature before I got in fully. However, Jeremy decided he would make it easier for me and pushed me into the pool. Little shit.

I got used to the water pretty quickly though, and we all played a deformed game of water polo with two balls instead of one, both flying around at the same time with arms and bodies flailing around in the air accompanying by numerous “shits” and “cop thats”.

Mrs. Chancellor brought Monty down to the pool and I swam around with him while everyone laughed at how much he looked like an otter. He swam to the steps almost straight away, got out and starting running around like he was on crack. Fynn joined us for a swim (much to his disgust), then ran around in the garden with Monty while I got out and attempted to dry off.

After going upstairs to get changed, I made myself a coffee because of how stupidly tired I was. It was about three o’clock by that time, and I hadn’t had a nap so I was feeling pretty dang drained.

People started leaving at about four o’clock, which was when Ally arrived for our horror night. We all started cleaning up and once that was done PEG, Ally and I went upstairs for more food and to start watching some movies.

After only watching two movies, PEG and Ally made their way home. I went to bed pretty much straight away, but I wasn’t the only one who was tired; Monty was already passed out on my bed by that time.

I really should have more gatherings like that.

What's my name?

For once, I actually had a pretty good weekend. And I got out of the house!

Saturday morning started off slowly. Ma made me breakfast and then I baked some biscuits for Holly and puttered around doing housework for a while. Since Ma and Gabriel were in their house cleaning frenzy, I decided to take Monty for a walk.

It has been stupidly windy around these parts for the last few days, and there has been non-stop rain which means that there has been a bit of flooding in my hood, so I knew I'd get dirty. I’ll be honest; I don’t walk Monty very often because I’m a lazy whore so he was pretty damn excited to be off on an adventure. There were branches strewn across the footpaths and puddles all up in my face, so we were a tad slow moving.

About ten minutes into our walk we encountered a bush turkey who was all “what’s up” to Monty and Monty was all “not much, man” and then the turkey ran away because I called it a slut. We continued along until we got down to the river, where you could see where it had risen to as all the grass was flattened and the pavement was cracked.

I love it when it floods so I was all excited; skipping around and taking pictures on my mobile while Monty looked at me like I was retarded. There’s a little sand island I usually cross the river to get to, but the water was head high and flowing rapidly so I didn’t even attempt to get over there, which sucked, because I like sitting there while Monty plays in the water and tries to catch lizards in the grass. Have you ever seen a dog try to catch lizards? It’s so cute when they stick their heads in the grass and stand still and then pounce around for a while.

As we were making our way home, we got swooped by some asshole birds (when I say ‘we’, I mean me), so I was starting to get irritated. My older brother showed up with his puppy Fynn, so Monty ran off to prance with him. After lunch, I had my customary nanna nap so that I would be lovely and refreshed when I went to the Coast later in the afternoon.

Unfortunately, that was when mum decided she was going to mow the lawn, so she was going up and down the front yard, which just so happens to be outside my bedroom window. I swear she did it on purpose. So I didn’t get much of a nap, and had a headache when I got up.

Just as I was going outside to have a smoke, my older brother (Chris) rocked up again and asked me if I wanted to go on a walk with him, his girlfriend (Yoland), and Monty & Fynn. I agreed, since I had nothing else to do and off we went again. This time we went down to a different part of the river, where there is a dirt path running along the side of it and it leads to a suspension bridge near the old Koala sanctuary.

The river was still higher than normal, and the path had been washed away in a lot of places so we had to wade through pools of water and stretches of mud so I ended up leaving my shoes on the path and continuing on barefoot. Chris kept saying we should go back, but Yoland and I soldiered on, because we’re tough bitches like that, so he had to as well. Fynn kept running into the water and scaring the shit out of everyone when he got too close to the currents, so we wandered back home.

On the way back, we passed an almighty stench and naturally Chris went to investigate. He found a massive fish, way up above us on the slope that had obviously been swept up there in the floods and wasn’t able to get back to the river. Poor little guy. Chris poked him with a stick for a while and then we continued on.

When we got home, Chris, Yoland and Fynn went back to their place and I got ready to drive to the Coast. I was pretty excited about going up there, because I was to meet one of my twitter friends. I know what you’re thinking: What if she is some crazy ass bitch, and locks you in a cupboard and makes you touch her inappropriately? Well I was pretty sure I’d be the craziest one in the meeting, so I could beat her crazy off easily. Heh heh beat her crazy off.

Anyhoo, I set my GPS to the Coast so David Hasselhoff’s voice could guide me, and set off. I went to an old family friend’s (Kath) place first so I could meet her new puppy and because Holly wasn’t home yet.

I had a good catch up session with Carol and her family while I waited for Holly to get home, and got to meet their gorgeous little puppy, Vala.

Isn’t she cute?

After that I headed off to Holly’s place and it wasn’t anywhere near as awkward as I thought it would be. She was stupidly easy to get along with, so we had dinner, chatted away for a few hours, watched Most Haunted, laughed a lot and I even got hit on by her dog a few times. After that I went back to Kath’s to stay the night.

The next morning at Kath’s, her parents came over and brought her nanna with them. Her poor nanna is 93 and has dementia. I’ve never been around someone with dementia before so I had no idea how to act, or what to expect. Her nanna kept asking me what her name was, and was calling Kath’s kids the wrong names. She seemed to be happy enough, but it was still horrid to see what the disease had done to her.

The kids somehow coaxed her into taking her false teeth out, so everyone had a chuckle and the kids seemed suitably horrified. After they all went home, Kath and I went shopping, where I bought Monty seven million toys for his birthday, and some more gifts for Ally’s birthday (NO I’M NOT TELLING YOU WHAT I GOT YOU). After lunch, I drove the hour or so home, and had a much deserved nap.

I thought I'd have a shitty weekend, but it ended up being pretty dang awesome. There were no unicorns or double rainbows, but I enjoyed it all the same.