Category Archives: Walks

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Museum adventures

Betty has been enjoying her long sleep-ins, and has spent a goodly amount of time watching The Office and not working out, but even so, yesterday she decided to behave like a grown-up person and go and do something useful. Not useful exactly, because what she decided to do was this: she would hop into the car and go to St Luke’s mall, because you can park there easily, and after that, she would go to the museum.

St Luke’s was a pleasant enough interlude, though Betty did get accosted by a cuticle-oil salesman; she extricated herself and did a modest amount of wandering around. Then she had a brief jaunt down Karangahape Road and found a shop selling handmade satin slippers with embroidery on them, which she has half a mind to buy and wear to work sometimes, because it’s all indoors and her current sneakers leave giant footprints on the mats. Then she picked up the boy person friend and headed to the museum.

They were only an hour before closing time, so it was a selective trip.

They looked at the dinosaurs, and then at the kiwi eggs and the albatrosses. There is a moa skeleton from a collection in England. Interesting.

It seems odd, though, that museums don’t ordinarily have a human anatomy section. They have a mummy — Betty discovered it by accident on an early date with the boy person friend, shortly after explaining to him that he was on no account to let her see it. He announced its presence with some surprise, causing Betty to quail within and freak out. It’s a smallish mummy; it looks about ten or twelve, horrible wizened-up thing.

Still, though, a bit of comparative anatomy wouldn’t go astray. Betty casts her vote for a few plastinated cadavers, or at least some human skeletons to stand beside the dinosaurs, for scale, and so on.

After the natural history section, they had a quick whip round the war:

…and the archives.

And then it was time to go home, a fact that was made abundantly clear by the ringing of the Last Post. Betty, however, has firm plans to go back for the special exhibition on roses (sequel to the special exhibition on orchids). Museums are lovely.

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Mission Bay mish

The other day, Betty and the boy person friend went to Mission Bay, which is a swish beachy affair with a Movenpick parlour. There were no Movenpick icecreams eaten on this mish, however.

Pretty, huh? They walked along the beach for a bit, and then bowed to the inevitable and went for a burger.

Betty’s was a remarkably good crumbed pumpkin and spinach pattie with salad. Nom nom nom.

While they ate, Betty wondered about the blue tarpaulin lashed to the side of the cliff. Some elderly lady, no doubt, who lives in one of the swish houses on the top of the cliff probably lowers herself onto it every morning to do her sketches.

I want to be like her when I grow up.

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An Omnibus of Evil

The Auckland bus service, as is its wont, decided on another strike. Silly fathead idiot-minus smeckin’ misbegotten what-the pain in the proverbial singing, dancing, all-out pants bus service. Why were there knees to receive me? The latest bus strike was limited to only a few bus companies and lasted for several hours; this one is near-universal and expected to go on for days. The scurvy bottom-dwelling blighters took down their website, so Betty, ever the forward-thinker, hoofed it to the local bus stop in plenty of time to investigate the promised replacement services — you know, the ones you catch when you’re in actual need of getting from Point A to Point B, and you’re docile enough to be grateful for the good nature of the drivers, who should, by the way, be paid a decent wage, and rubbish fast. It turned out they were running replacement buses from Takapuna to Milford. Milford. As an aside, if I throw a small pebble in a northerly direction, walk over to the pebble, spit with reasonable force, and walk to where I have spat, I will be in Milford. So excuse me if I’m not all saints-be-praised at the thort.

However. Betty is made of stern stuff. Why, just this very morning I spent an hour and a half doing an Advanced Reformer and a complete Spine Corrector workout, among other things. I can take it. So I set off.

Some statistics. Time at waking, 0545 hours. Time of departure for work, 0750 hours. An atypically late start, I might add. Projected time of arrival back home, 0010 hours the following day. Time of departure for work tomorrow, 0645 hours. Elapsed time for sleeping, 6 hours and 35 minutes, minus any time frittered away on tooth-brushing or changing underoos. Look at it another way. Total walking time to work, 1 hour and 40 minutes. Total walking time once I’ve got back home tonight, for those interested, will be 3 hours and 20 minutes. Total workout time today, bear with me, 4 hours and 50 minutes. Some observations:

  • Walking may reduce depression, but it has been known to exacerbate homicidal rage.
  • I should have the body of Jennifer Garner.
  • I am too old for this.
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Picnic

The boy person friend and I took his dog for a picnic the other day. I had an extremely fine veggie burger from the takeaway bar, with avocado and so on: it was lovely. The BPF had some sort of pie-like substance, and Monty had a jerky chew and some chips.

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Job interviews: the final saga

Thursday dawned for my job interview. I had a 7am Pilates lesson, a duo, which was lovely: whatever else happens, I will always have a warm and loving relationship with spinal extension. Few things in life are not improved with a backbend, don’t you find. Following this, I watched my boss having a lesson, and then I taught a newish client.

So far, so good. I had to wait a bit for a bus, and I had to catch the Mairangi Bay one, not the Windsor Park; that meant I had to hasten up the hill on my feet once I got there, which was inclined to leave me pinkish in the cheeks of my face. Fortunately, all three of my interviewers were stuck in traffic, so I got to sit peacefully on the couch for a wee while.

As readers are aware, the interviewers know me quite well, and so it was not necessary to discuss my personality defects or perceived or actual intelligence in any depth; I breezily described a few scenarios in which I have recently (a) forced someone against his will to do something unpleasant, such as eating vegetables or washing, (b) worked in a team, (c) used my perceived or actual intelligence to accomplish some important task, (d) withstood mind-altering boredom, and (e) other things like this. They delicately inquired after any warning signs I am likely to display just before I asplode from stress, and then we devolved into chatting for a moment or two.

Then I walked home, and on the way I discovered the Milford mall, which has quite the reputation as malls go around here; so I went in, and found it was dimly lit but well-stocked with swanky shops, which I did not peruse; I was making my way out when I received a call from the alpha interviewer, who offered me the job.

So there it is. Betty has a job. Onwards and upwards.