Katy Klein Has a Chat

For ages I thought I was the world’s worst bride. I didn’t want to go frock shopping, I don’t care if serviettes match the flower arrangement and I am never going to spend time on Bonboniere. In fact I am perfectly happy to continue on living in sin. Given the chance I would get married on holiday with whomever we could muster up to be witnesses and then kick back with a cocktail (or two, okay maybe four). The thought of spending a year planning my fairytale wedding is just too gruesome to contemplate.  I would have thought that most guys would be super happy to have a low stress, relaxed big day. But I was wrong.

Bridezillas are a well known phenomenon and are mentioned through gritted teeth by anyone lucky enough to be chosen to be their bridesmaids. But it would appear that we have a new contender for the title. For those of you who thought it was meant to be all about the bride, turns out that may no longer be true. Enter the GROOMZILLA!

I think I mentioned that I really wanted to get married at Crocosaurus in the Cage of Death on a recent trip to Darwin. The wedding photographer would have cost $110, white bikinis and board shorts would have been around $150 and getting the croc to cough up the rings – priceless. But noooooooo, I wasn’t allowed to do that. That would have been too easy.

Turns out that my ‘non-traditional’ partner is in fact fairly traditional. It did take me a while to figure out we were at cross-purposes though. My version of ‘non-traditional’ involves no fancy dress, no make-up or hair do, no guest list and preferably getting married overseas.  Turns out that his version of ‘non-traditional’ is not having a wedding in a church.

I tried every option I could think of to find a happy compromise. Getting married on holiday and then having a big party when we got back to celebrate. NO. Having a small guest list and going to a really good restaurant (to escape the chicken or beef dilemma). Fine as long as we could invite a lot of people. Inviting everyone to a party and then getting married unexpectedly. NO. We were allowed to elope, as long as every came along with us (Def. ‘Elopement’: Run away to marry secretly). For me, the only person I want there is him. For him, the only people he wants there comes to an 80 person guest list. Which isn’t a problem unless you happen to be paying for the hole shindig yourselves.

So I’ve watched other brides rise to the challenge and get the happy day sorted. One particularly focused new fiancee I knew had the venue booked and the dress bought within two weeks of the question. Some of them even complain that their fellas aren’t at all keen on being involved (oh I wish). But I’ll get there eventually Groomzilla or no Groomzilla.

That’s right I’m a winner! Go me. When the count came in at the end of July I had racked up drinks on a total of 5 days with a grand total of 6 drinks – that’s right I was two drinks under the eight drink maximum. I wish I could say that I had seen the error of my ways and I didn’t feel like I needed a drink anymore but that would be a big fat fib.  We toasted the end of the challenge with a bevie and it was good!

So we’re back from Darwin having achieved life-long dream #2784 – Crocosaurus’s Cage of Death.  It was more like Cage of Photos in our case since the crocodiles weren’t that interested in working with us. Hence we now have a lot of underwater photos of us doing thumbs up action and riding each other like cowboys.

It was a pretty cool set-up though.  You climb into a plexi-glass tube which is large enough for two and you then moved along sort of like those claw games where you try to win the soft toy.  We were dropped into two of the pools and were wiggled around enticingly but well fed crocodiles really don’t want to know you even when you made appropriate crocodile attracting splashy sounds. What you may have needed was a poking stick to  liven them up a bit.  Being lowered into the pools though, gave you an idea of just how large the big boys are, they could swallow you whole and you wouldn’t even be a bulge in their stomachs.

The little crocs were a lot more keen on tourist action.  You can swim beside the tank of little crocs and they come on over in droves. If they could get through the glass I am fairly sure you’d stagger out with about 14 of the little blighters attached to you trying desperately to do mini-death rolls. On a side note there was more than one tasting platter on offer featuring crocodile spring rolls, can’t get more Australian than that!

Our final stop of the trip was to see the Jumping Crocodiles on the Adelaide River.  This was just amazing and I highly recommend NT Safaris.  We hadn’t even left the dock before ‘Godfrey’ popped up off the port side waiting for his treats.  Godfrey was huge and for a 100-year-old he still had quite a few teeth.  He wasn’t taking any prisoners, when he attacked the bait there was this ‘WHUMP” sound as his mouth closed with 3000kg of pressure.  A human has about 24kg of jaw pressure which is why we’d never win a biting contest against a croc. I was busy taking photos and at one stage Godfrey passed below me, seeing his golden eyes focused on you definitely makes you take a step back.  I’ve never felt more like takeaway.  We were on the only boat on the river which wasn’t double storey and when you see crocodiles that close you realise just how scary they are. I’m currently reading ‘Crocodile Attack in Australia’ (with a foreword by none other than Paul Hogan) and it makes for scary bedtime reading.

Now I like my animals to perform a bit but seeing the little crocs jump over a metre out of the water to get themselves a slice of buffalo was sensational. Then the birds decided to join in.  One recalcitrant croc wasn’t even taking a bite at the bait when it was laid on it’s nose which is when a brown kite swooped in for a quick feed.  The Whistling Kite also got in on the action and whistled continuously until our boat captain threw some meat up for him as well. No matter where the meat was thrown the kite grabbed it with a claw and then stuffed it into his mouth before the next bit was thrown.  I tell you if that kite ever figures out that alfresco cafe tables are a goldmine for treats, that’ll be the end to outdoor dining.

We completed our crocodile experience by channeling our ‘inner-Godfrey’ and taking on Sky City’s seafood buffet. Now if you are anything like me you take buffet as a serious challenge.  I was starving so we had got in early, along with the seniors, who tend to slow you down a bit in the queue.  Pausing too long between platefuls can be fatal as it gives your body time to register it is actually full. I thought I was doing pretty well when a guy sitting by the door laughed when he saw me go back for my fourth haul. And that was before dessert. My partner turned out to be a bit of a buffet-girl’s blouse and rolled around in pain from his bellyful afterwards but I was feeling good – as someone I knew once said, sometimes you just need to get a big plate of food!

Anyway, the NT turned out to be a fantastic holiday spot, even better than what I thought it would be.  The weather is awesome and the people relaxed and friendly.  Icy cold beers are advertised everywhere and the Barra Burgers are so good. But you do need to remember that the only things hungrier than the crocs in Kakadu are the mozzies – don’t forget the Aeroguard.

Katy Klein was born two months ago to help a friend out. This friend had serious doubts about a real estate agent he was trying to deal with. He asked me if I could go to an Open For Inspection to check it out.  Of course you can’t go to an OFI and give them your real name and number (unless you are actually interested in the property).  As a wet-behind-the-gills young thing I had initially done that when I commenced my house search.  Getting legions of calls about insurance products I didn’t want quickly led to me becoming a Sharon, Vanessa or something a little more outlandish like Myrtle.  I like to spell them out with interesting spelling variations for a little more authenticity.

I also enjoy signing visitors books around the world with names of famous Australians, it just makes me laugh every single time.  Overhearing a family discuss whether Nicole Kidman had indeed visited a small museum in the back end of Mexico was just hilarious.

So on the way to the OFI I came up with my Nom de Guerre to add a little spice to my undercover work.  Unfortunately the agent was well versed in the duplicitous arts herself and I suspect she was on to me.  I’ve never seen an agent provide so little information before, despite fairly active questioning.  What was interesting is that she did provide a lot of information to another chappie who I guessed was the other party interested in the property.  She even went so far as to disclose my friend’s offer to him.  Something I am fairly sure is completely unethical if not illegal. Luckily Katy Klein has very big ears and my friend got the heads up (if not the property).

I’m not sure if it helped my friend out very much but it did make for a fun afternoon.  And when I decided that I wanted to have a bit of a chat blog-wise, naming it was easy.

So tonight we are flying to Darwin on the red-eye special. I so desperately need a break from unemployment! Anyway we’d been thinking about Darwin for a while to see Kakadu and Litchfield National Park but the clincher was watching one of those travel shows and seeing a segment on Crocosaurus.

Thus arose life-long dream #2784 (actual number assigned completely arbitrarily). My last life-long dream was seeing Tarsiers in the Philippines which are just about the cutest things in the world and they can reallyjump.  Then there was zorbing in Brisbane which was my birthday treat. The best one ever was cage diving with Great White sharks off South Africa, one of the most amazing experiences of my life.

So when I found out you could be submerged in a plexi-glass tube in a pool with a great big crocodile in it, there was never a doubt in my mind.  I even wanted to get married in the tube but the boy was a bit of a stick in a mud about that.  Even after I said I could wear a white bikini and everything.  The photos would have been awesome although I’m not sure any bridesmaids or best men could have also fitted in the tube. You could possibly get a tux onto a croc though but getting him to cough up a ring might be tough.

Croc-diving also completes my diving-with-huge-things-underwater travel monopoly set.  The trifecta being diving with the Great White’s, diving in a net full of tuna off Port Lincoln and now crocs. I can’t wait!

So we’ve hit a bit of a snag in our Semi-Dry-July quest.  In fact the boy is already out of the running with a total of 3 drinking nights but a staggering 10 drinks, breaking the 8-drink maximum.  Seven of these drinks were in one night as ‘No more for me thanks’ is obviously not part of his vocabulary. Considering he bought the dryness into our house I can’t helped but feel a tad miffed.

Unfortunately I don’t have much to crow about as although I am still in the running, I am rather concerned that all I wanted last night was a juicy glass of red wine.  I also cheated and rounded down 1.4 standard drinks to one drink.

But I did manage to attend book club and not partake of the champers (although not without complaining).  We had read Barack Obama’s first book  but we didn’t get around to discussing it until we had first checked on our first intra-book club romance and then heard details of two of the attendees romances: secret-sex-man and not-quite-sure-if-I-am-in-or-out-man. For those of you who have spent some time dating you’ll know who I am talking about, we’ve all met them.  I’m sure there are some female equivalents and I would love to know what they are. 

So I came out of the closet and told the girls that I was unemployed and they were just lovely and supportive.  I told them part of the Snake Woman story.  I’ve stopped talking about it as I found that most people don’t seem to believe me. The worrying thing is is that more often than not people will say that they were bullied too or know someone who was.  It seems to come in a lot of forms and be rather common. But no one talks about it much. Anyway I am finally working through it and are still constantly grateful that I don’t have to work with the Snake Woman anymore. And now I only occasionally think of revenge scenarios like signing her up for a mental health newsletter! Unfortunately you just have to rely on karma for such people.

I signed up for mystery shopping a while ago but eventually turned off my account after being besieged by mystery shopping opportunities by email.

Thanks to unemployment I have reactivated my account.  It’s quite silly because I could be earning enough money to buy lunch by going to a job each day.  Instead I am getting real joy out of a free lunch with a tidy $7 profit. I also get to try new things.  Although in the case of fast-food-mystery-shopping on Monday it wasn’t as exciting as I had hoped.  But I am repeating the experience today (with a different meal combination).

I was quite excited about my first mystery shopping experience which involved going into a store and trying on a clothing item.  I carefully rated the customer service I received. An unfortunate side effect of this though, was that I found that for the next week I was rating the service I got in every shop.  I even found myself thinking that I wished I had a rating form for one shop – so very rude! 

But it’s very easy to be critical.  On my last assignment I was a little more considerate towards those working in the store.  I remember my days of working to put myself through Uni and sometimes serving customers all day does your head in.  I found that whilst most people are polite and some even friendly, there is that constant percentage of people that range from rude to downright obnoxious.  Unfortunately they are the ones that drag behind you as you go home for the day. So I still give good feedback now but I make sure I am also a lot more understanding.

So me and the boy are attempting Semi-Dry-July.  It’s the watered down version of Dry-July which was never going to happen.  Not because I am a raving alcoholic but I just really enjoy a nice glass of wine.

Dry-July is a challenge where you stop drinking for a month and are sponsored for your efforts with the money going to charity. Our version includes five nights where we can have a drink and a total of eight drinks for the month. Obviously no one will sponsor us for this and the money we save goes to our favourite charity – the mortgage. It got off to a shaky start as by the 5th we had both racked up two nights of drinking (largely due to the opened bottle of wine which we didn’t want to go off!).

So last night we went to see ‘MyLife in Ruins’ at The Como.  Nia Vardalos (last seen in My Big Fat Greek Wedding) was there to introduce the movie and she looked stunning.  She had all the charisma that she has on the screen. Waiting for the movie to start I normally would have had a glass of wine with the girls but thanks to Semi-Dry July I couldn’t, and I missed the social element of it. Walking past the bottle-O later I found myself looking longingly at a bottle of cheap plonk.

Substituting a delicious glass of juice (200% RDI of Vitamin C) in place of wine for dinner hasn’t quite cut it but I am hopeful that I can make it through the month. Even if it means avoiding walking past pubs and bottle shops.  On the bright side it is a really good excuse should you become pregnant and don’t want to tell people for a while.  But they may catch on as Semi-Dry-July leads into Stone-Cold-Sober-August and then TeeTotal-September……….