The Longest Work Day Ever

There really is not much to say this morning. Yesterday was the epitome of uneventful. I woke up and came to work at 7am. I left again at 21h30 or thereabouts. It was a loooong day. I'm helping out on a project that's sposed to be going live tonight (hmmm, we'll see, there's still plenty to be done). I got home, jumped in the bath to warm up and relax and stop my mind spinning for just a second and then it was off to bed again. And here I am at 7am again ... let's hope I get home a bit earlier tonight. I skipped gym yesterday and I'm trying out my friend's new Creativity Gym on Saturday so I really have no idea how I'll fit in my 3 sessions a week at this rate :( Plus I wanted to take Rex to the vet yesterday so that he could have his neutering done today ... oh well. What's one more day, I guess?

Busy Busy Busy

Wow, had quite the busy weekend. But as much fun as that is, it leaves me feeling like I need one extra day on a Monday morning. Hey, at least it wasn't nearly as cold this morning as it was last week!

So what all did I get up to? Went out for a girly-dinner with J9-double0blonde on Friday night, to a little place in Craighall called the Cnr Cafe. I was torn between a soup starter and what I ended up having: Sweet Potato chips with a humous dip - very yummy. J9 had courgette strips in batter that were also good. For mains we both had sage-battered chicken breasts with parma ham on top. It was nice. Good that they have a giant specials board which I hope changes regularly cause their actual menu is not too large.

On Saturday morning I was up early for gym and then Varen & I had a relaxing breakfast at home before heading out. First we invested in our travel insurance (glad that's done) and then headed off to Mellisoo's for our June bloggirls event. It turned out to be a lovely afternoon eating far too much, catching up and watching the rugby with Mellisoo, Cybersass, Angel & Glugs and Sweets :) I will admit I was close to canceling the whole thing on Thursday because a) so few people have been signing up and b) so many people seem to cancel at the last minute. I've always enjoyed my one afternoon a month with these lovely ladies, but lately it feels like no one else can be bothered (aside from Angel, who is always enthusiastic and the only other person besides me, I think, who has only missed one). So yeah, I dunno how much longer it'll be running. But I have been thinking that for the last few months and every time I attend another one I enjoy it so much I decide to do "at least one more" :) So who knows what'll happen. I guess it's just another nail in the coffin of my general attitude towards people (the post I didn't end up writing after my birthday picnic) and how unreliable they tend to be. But I don't want to go into that further now, there's a post boiling under the surface, there has been for absolute ages ... probably since before I started blogging actually ;) But now is not the time.

On Saturday evening Varen & I decided to go and watch The Hangover.

Two days before his wedding, Doug and his three friends drive to Las Vegas for a blow-out bachelor party they'll never forget. But, in fact, when the three groomsmen wake up the next morning, they can't remember a thing. For some reason, they find a tiger in the bathroom and a six-month-old baby in the closet of their suite at Caesar's Palace. The one thing they can't find is Doug. With no clue as to what transpired and little time to spare, the trio must retrace their hazy steps and all their bad decisions in order to figure out where things went wrong and hopefully get Doug back to L.A. in time to walk down the aisle.

Wahahahaha. The trailer was funny. When that happens I'm always nervous that the movie won't actually be anything more that what they've already shown us. this was not one of those times. It's very funny. On the flip side, it's everything that makes me terrified of the boy's heading off for a weekend alone. To clarify when Bean & I were dating and he headed off for a bachelor party, I went out with my friends and focused on the likelyhood that they'd all survive the night and it'd all be fine. I was woken the following morning by a phone call from Bean's mom saying he was in hospital with stitches in the back of his head after picking a drunken fight with a bouncer. Nice. So yes, fears come true. He was fine, he survived and no doubt the boys all think it's a great story and prove that it must've been an amazing bachelors party. Me, it means I have mild panic attacks about what could go wrong when I hear about an upcoming drunken debauched boys event. I could still laugh at this movie, hoping against hope that I wasn't dating one of those guys ;)

Sunday morning started with a disappointing breakfast at Doppio Zero. Varen's favourite breakfast's portion size had shrunk and he was far from amused. My favourite meal was removed entirely. Not an ideal start to the day, but we pushed on. We went and did the grocery shopping and cleaned the bunny hutch (see photo above of them relaxing in their nice newly cleaned hutch). And then J9 came over and the two of us headed off to the Go Organic expo. It wasn't much of what I expected. It was half an expo, the other half was The Women's Show, which didn't really interest me at all. To be fair, none of the expo's I've ever been to have really wowed me. The thing I was really hoping to see, which I've mentioned before and am still avidly waiting to appear in South Africa, wasn't there either :(

After that, the three of us headed off to The Attic for dinner. Oh. My. Word. It was even better than the first time. I didn't really know what I was in the mood for but when I sat down and started looking thru their menu I was preparing to be disappointed, nothing really appealed. So I was all set to have two starters instead (there were at least 4 starts that piqued my fancy!). After we'd ordered our starters, a different waiter came round and told us about 2 other specials they had that evening. One was a beef stew with horseradish mash that was absolutely divine and *exactly* what I had wanted. In fact it's exactly what I thought I was ordering when I'd chosen Goulash at Werner's Bistro and ended up so disappointed! Absolutely divine. Although sadly I had *no* space left for their divine Hot Chocolate pudding :( Another time!

Bait by Nick Brownlee

Ex-Flying Squad cop Jake Moore's career was cut short by a bullet; ten years on, he runs a game fishing business that is about to go to the wall. But old habits die hard, and when cerebral Mombasa detective Daniel Jouma - seemingly the only good policeman in a city where corruption is king - asks for his help in solving a baffling murder case, he cannot help but become involved. The mangled body of a street criminal has been washed up on the beach and a fishing boat skipper and his bait boy have blown up in the water. When Jake and Jouma look closer, they discover that not only are the murders linked, but the conspiracy surrounding them stretches far beyond the reaches of Africa - and has deadly implications for everyone concerned. This gripping crime thriller strips away Kenya's tourist glitz and exposes the country's dark and treacherous underbelly beneath.

I heard about this book on BBC 5Live's Book Reviews with Simon Mayo (a staple of my long list of podcast listens). They raved about it so I added it to my list of Book Club buys. I wasn't especially impressed. They give away the average twist about three quarters of the way thru. It's not particularly fast paced either. I was looking forward to it as I do enjoy things set locally (Kenya, being in Africa falls into semi-locally ... and plus, it's on the list of places I've been, okay?). But no, I wouldn't especially be recommending this one :(

Cryptorchidism in Rabbits

Shoo, there's always some drama in life, isn't there? I read that this week Farrah Fawcett (an original Charlies Angel) died and then heard this morning on the news about Michael Jackson. Not quite on the devastation level as Heath Ledger for me, but the end of an era in both cases, I'll bet. Certainly, I never watched the original Charlies Angels, but you couldn't be a child of the 80s and not recognise the name Farrah Fawcett. Michael Jackson on the other hand was a huge part of the 80s and early 90s and although I was never much of a fan, there were more than enough who were. I remember classmates of mine going to his HIStory World Tour concert in Cape Town in high school. Like him or not, he was a legend of our childhoods.

And then there's drama a little closer to home. I took Rex off to the vet again yesterday in the hopes that his other testicle might've dropped and we could finally have him neutered (he's 4 months already now!). Sadly it appears he has something called Cryptorchidism. Our vet has never seen it in a Rabbit before, but he spoke to some specialists last night and got back to me this morning, and it definitely sounds like what our boy has. I spoke to the breeder last night as well and it turns out that Rex's daddy also only has one testicle. So does another of his sons from a different litter. And cryptorchidism is genetic. Generally if cryptorchidism is left, the animal (or human, I gather) has a high risk of developing Cancer as they get older.

/* here it may get a little hairy for those of you not especially interested in bunny-testicles ;) */

So we have a few options:
1. Put him under and remove the fully-functional testicle (annoyingly his undescended one might still allow him to get Coal or Lily pregnant tho :( ) and see if they can massage out the other (this is only possible if it's in the inguinal canal).
2. Put him under, remove the fully-functional one and cut him open to remove the undescended on ... this may involve a bit of a search.
3. Don't do anything now and wait a month or two before trying option 1 in the hopes that the undescended one (if in the inguinal canal) will be bigger and therefore easier to massage out.

At the moment (haven't been able to chat to Varen since the vet phoned tho), my vote is for the two-phased approach. Go for option 1 sometime next week (luckly the normal neutering procedure isn't very invasive and they recover quickly), and remove our very immediate chance of a litter of babies arriving in about a month. And then, if they don't manage to get the undescended on at the same time thru massage, in 2 or 3 months send him off to a specialist to see if they have a better chance with the massage and if not, they can open him up and get it out. Obviously this does leave a very little chance he could still get one of the girl's pregnant, but I'm really hoping the massage will work (even if it's only in a few months time) rather than them having to open him up and go searching for it. But I can't leave him 100% unneutered for another few month with 2 girls around ;)

Company of Liars by Karen Maitland

The year is 1348 and the first plague victim has reached English shores. Panic erupts around the country and a small band of travellers comes together to outrun the deadly disease, unaware that something far more deadly is - in fact - traveling with them. The ill-assorted company - a scarred trader in holy relics, a conjurer, two musicians, a healer and a deformed storyteller - are all concealing secrets and lies. And at their heart is the strange, cold child - Narigorm - who reads the runes. But as law and order breaks down across the country and the battle for survival becomes ever more fierce, Narigorm mercilessly compels each of her fellow travelers to reveal the truth, and each in turn is driven to a cruel and unnatural death.

This book wasnt' at all what I expected ... I expected it to be more about the plague than the plague merely being a backdrop or setting for the actual story. The story itself is quite bizarre, although I did enjoy it, I wasn't really sure where it was going. There's a sort-of twist at the end that I didn't see coming ... and then it just ends, leaving you not really sure what on earth just happened. Humph. It left me with a bit of a wishy-washy feeling, to be honest. Oh, and what on earth sort of name is Narigorm anyway?

Imagine That!

Last night I went to play Poker with the girls. What a dismal game I had. I was out by 9pm :( But it was a blessing in disguise cause I got to watch a few good hands and then was home by 10. And I was exhausted. I slept really well last night ... even tho I had weird dreams (like a car being hidden in a cupboard, it made perfect sense at the time because it was flipped 90 degrees to stand on it's bumper and bumping into my ex, Bean, who was getting a Madagascan Visa, who thought I wasn't speaking to him when in fact I was shocked speechless by the fact that he was wearing a red & orange suit! I warned you they were weird dreams!).

Varen apparently got home round midnight, I slept right thru that. I haven't even got to see his new toy - for those of you not following @varen on twitter, he got himself a new netbook (which brings the laptops we use to 5 - insane or what?! One is mine, one is his, then there's the new one, and a really old one of his that we use as the media center connected to the TV and the one he uses at work ... but to be fair it doesn't get brought home). Seriously, boys and their gadget's, hey? I can't understand the need for another one ... or at least in my mind a new one means we can move his current one to upgrade the TV on and get rid of the old one ... his mind does *not* work the same at all ;) You know how the cartoons show old men swimming in pools of money ... instead I imagine the updated version: techy guys (like Varen and @saulkza) swimming in pools of gadgetry.

> Follow @varen on Twitter:

Sign Me Up

Nothing exciting to report today. Last night Varen worked late *again*. I hung out at home with the boons.

Oh yes, yesterday I "popped in" to our local Vodashop. I've been getting these supremely annoying phone calls from their people (actually I don't even think they are Vodacom people ... they are the people Vodacom outsources to ... might be wrong on this tho) telling me it's time to upgrade my contract. Eurgh. Why? Why? Why? I am clearly not Vodacom's stereotypical customer. I've had the same phone number *for my whole life*. And years ago (okay, like 2 maybe?) after a particularly bad experience with a Sony Ericsson V800 (my first foray away from Nokia), which involved taking the phone to be repaired 3 times only to find out they'd actually taken the phone off the market but kept insisting on replacing or repairing mine (seriously, there are times when replacing a phone with and "equal cost" one would be a much smarter move on everybody's part), I got myself an old cheapy Nokia 2100 and never looked back. Okay, so to anyone remotely techy, this must sound like the most peculiar move for someone in the online industry who blogs and tweets etc. as I do. It truly is a low-tech phone, but that's why I loved it. I barely ever had to charge it, I couldn't constantly be harrassed by emails. I didn't care that it didn't have a camera, I have a perfectly lovely digital camera :) Plus, once my old full-price contract (with the SE V800) was up, I switched to the lowest contract I could get, not surprisingly with the exact same Nokia 2100 I was already using. R29 a month. And I sold the new phone to someone. Score. I was happy, my cellular needs were all perfectly met :)

And then Varen got me the Blackberry Curve 8900 for my birthday this year. Which I absolutely *love*. So when upgrading yesterday, I wasn't interested in what phone I could get - a concept the salesman just couldn't get his head around. I wanted the cheapest contract again ... he didn't even believe me that I had a R29 a month contract. No no, he says, these days you get vouchers and gifts with your contract. I don't want that shit. I want to pay less *every month*. It took me browsing thru my contract options to find a suitable one. It's gone up to R49 a month, but I guess it has been 2 years, and I got a lowly Nokia 5000 (anybody wanna buy it off me, it's still it the box? I'll consider all offers).

I don't see why they couldn't just let me keep my old contract on a month-to-month basis. Why all the fuss over a new two-year contract? Anyway, the experience was also hampered by the fact that my sales-guy was handling another customer at the same time ... makes for a truly tedious experience. I also had a look at Blackberry skins ... but they don't have any for the 8900 yet :( Oh well, I probably don't need one anyway :)

Let the Payments Begin

Oh. My. Gawd. I have just paid for my flight to Canada. Okay, the flights I managed to find yesterday were cheaper than any I'd managed to find when I was first planning this trip (under 12K, R1 under, for flights to Winnipeg, not too bad considering I could barely get a quote under 20K from Pentravel or Flight Center!). So that I'm grateful for. It's still a shedload of cash and handing it over in drips and drabs for a trip makes me nervous. I've completed and signed my booking form which will be scanned and emailed this evening (which is when they're next awake anyway). And I assume my deposit for that will come off almost immediately. At least the deposit isn't too bad at all. And then hopefully I'll only have to pay the remaining amount in July. Trying to balance payment for this trip and Zanzibar has been a little tricky :) But at least I'm managing to stagger it somewhat and I do have all the money in a savings account waiting to be spent (so it's not affecting my day-to-day). Sheesh. Still, it's something to see your balance drop like that in a matter of a month.

Oh, and with that I should mention that I collected my passport from Visas Zone yesterday with my shiny new Canadian Visa in it :) So how did my experience with them compare to MDS Visa? Well, let's weigh them up. Visas Zone is by far (over R100) cheaper than MDS Visa. But they didn't quote me the actual price I'd be paying ... they left out the VAT. Which is an annoying extra R49 ... taking their fee up to R399 compared with MDS Visa's R513 (or thereabouts). But on the other hand, the process with MDS Visa seemed somehow slicker and more efficient, if only because their had a courier service collect my passport and documents from me and deliver my passport back to me. I had to brave Sandton during midday to drop off and collect my passport with Visas Zone. My Canadian Visa did take longer than I expected but, I think that was down to the Consulate and the public holiday, rather than Visas Zone itself. But, let's face it, my experience with MDS Visa was still a walk in the park compared with Varen's last year. So I'd still say, if you can handle the trip to Sandton, use Visas Zone.

Other than my Polar Bear trip coming together, last night wasn't too exciting. A typical Monday :)

A Weekend at Sondela

This weekend we were away again. It wasn't exactly planned, on our way back from the farm last weekend BrotherSwoop called Varen and said his boss had let him use his place at Sondela Game Reserve and did we wanna join. It all came together pretty quickly after that and they arrived at our place just after 4pm on Friday afternoon. We stopped into the local Woolies and stocked up on food for the weekend and headed out.

Thankfully the Friday afternoon traffic on the N1 North past Pretoria wasn't nearly as horrendous as we were expecting. And the weekend was lovely :)

The accommodation was great, we were in a chalet in the Acacia camp, and we ate well :) We listened to music, played card games and chatted. We braaied, had afternoon naps and went on bush-walks. On Saturday morning we booked ourselves a Night Game Drive and a early morning Bush Expedition for Sunday morning.

I wouldn't recommend doing these sorts of things. It's not expensive compared with other places, the Night Game Drive was R55 per person. But they only have buck, giraffe and zebra. And when we arrived to join the Game Drive, they immediately started playing it down "The bush is so thick now it's very hard to see things" etc. And they were spot on, we hardly saw anything. On Sunday morning we dutifully arrived at the pick-up point at 7:15am (for a 7:30 start). Only to decide to give up waiting at 7:45 when still no-one had shown up (we heard later when we went to get our refund form reception that they'd changed the pick-up point, but none of their pamphlets mention the change nor did the person we'd booked with and nor did our receipt that specifically stated where & when to meet). But we were actually glad after our dismal night drive. So after doing their 6.5km Yellow walking-trail on Saturday, we did their 3.5km Red walking-trail on Sunday morning. It was very cool. We saw giraffe and zebra :)

And I think that's what we learned from this. It's a great place, a mere 90 minutes from Joburg, but is definitely more geared towards DIY game-viewing. Take a walk, drive yourself around.

We also loved the few tame-ish Nyala that we got quite close up to and got to feed as they wander the past the chalets at dusk begging for the R12 bags of pellets :) The other thing that was really awesome for us was their Wildlife Center. We used our Sunday morning Bush Expedition refund for a trip to their Wildlife Center and were not disappointed, I would highly recommend a visit there if you're visiting Sondela. I bottle-fed a baby Kudu. There were so many adorable baby animals: Wildebeest (too cute!), Zebra, Blesbuck and Giraffe. And that's far from all we saw there :)

I'll post some photo's once I've had a chance to download them from my camera.

On Sunday evening after a relaxing afternoon (it's nice to get back from somewhere and still feel like you have a little bit of weekend to sloth around the house ;) ) we went for Father's Day dinner at Adega with Varen's dad. It's not my favourite restaurant, in fact it reminds me of a Portuguese-styled Spur, but I will say I do enjoy their kilo of prawns!

Bunny Courting Video

Am feeling a little better today ... that's the problem with the "fog", it comes and goes. But for now I am content that it is ebbing away. Varen & I are off for the weekend with BrotherSwoop and his girlf, should be good fun :) My Canadian visa is being processed ... which (I hope) is a good sign as it means all the paperwork I submitted was accepted. I'm hoping that since they accepted the paperwork, there shouldn't be a reason why I wouldn't get the visa. So hopefully I'll know later today or Monday.

In the mean time tho, I finally got a little video clip of Rex courting Lily (by circling her he's saying he really likes her ... she is, as usual, not very impressed and tries to get away from him - haha!). The video's not very good because I stayed a bit far away from them, usually if I go closer with the camera they'll stop playing and come over to investigate me. Also, it's the first video I've taken with my Blackberry. You can see how big Rex is now, from the tiny little runt we adopted. Although he's 2 months younger than Lily, he weighs the same as her (they're both 1.6 kgs) - I got them weighed when we were at the vet's on Monday. I wanted to be sure when we "panacur them up" we're giving them the right dosages. Turns out we were under-estimating by half a kilo!

I am not in a great place today

I am not in a great place today. I have a lot of thoughts swirling in my head and I didn't get much sleep last night. I'm not especially happy with life at the moment. And I know they say only you can be in control of your own happiness. But you know what, when your life is partnered with someone else, their decisions have an impact on your life and happiness too ... no matter what best intentions you have for yourself. Okay, cryptic, I know.

I'm just feeling really alone at the moment. I had a weird dream about it too. I feel like nothing I do will be enough. I have an ideal in my head I can't seem to reach. And being a girl, that ideal has to do with getting married and starting a family. I know where I want to be and honestly, I can't tell if movies have screwed with my expectations. Since we all know they rarely contain actual scenes likely to occur in real life. My real life just seems to mundane, so day-to-day. I know I'm cynical and I don't believe in all that "love at first sight" nonsense. But I want to believe in something. I want to believe there's a happily ever after and that real life doesn't step in and that the little things don't slowly kill that and drown you into settling and acceptance. I want to feel something, and again I find myself numb. Just drudging along day after day in my little routine: get up, go to work, go to gym, go home, love the bunnies, make dinner, watch tv, go to sleep. See. Boring. I do do other stuff, I know I do. Somehow tho that knowledge just doesn't penetrate when I'm in this kind of fog.

Isn't it the weirdest thing to feel alone but still want to isolate yourself? I desperately want to be happy with what I have and who I am and where I am and feel like I've acheived something, however small. I don't. I want to accept my life and be content that it is enough for me. I want my life to accept me.

I've been having all sorts of weird thoughts lately. Varen worked late again last night. I had no idea what time he was coming home (I know it was after 11pm cause I still couldn't sleep then). I lay in bed wondering if I'd know if anything happened, like if he was in an accident. How do they know who to phone? And how would I react? Am I one of those people who goes really calm and just gets things done till there's nothing left that needs doing and then breaks down. Or am I the immediate fly-into-a-panic sort? I don't know.

I'd like someone to be worried about me for a change, about my well-being. I want someone to notice or care about what I'm doing. I guess that's the life-blogger's curse. People think if you have something to say they can just read all about it here.

My brain is fried. I'd like to switch it off now. Can you tell I'm lost and just going thru the motions of life, wondering what the point is?

Was There a Public Holiday?

We had a public holiday yesterday. Did we? It hardly felt that way. Varen & I had a particularly busy one, getting all the weekend admin done that we missed out on doing while away at the farm.

On Monday evening we had dinner with his mom, sister & BrotherZion at Werner's Bistro in Eastgate. It was pretty expensive, for pretty average food. And it is seriously geared towards meat. I ordered Hugarian Beef Goulash ... thinking something like a stew, with meat and veggies, right? (I have fond memories of having Goulash and Hot Chocolate for lunch while ski-ing in Austria in Dec 1997). Looking at Wikipedia, what arrived on my plate was definitely more of a Pörkölt. There were 5 pieces of meat in a brown sauce with mash on the side. It tasted quite nice tho. And they brought veggies, but there was no space on anyone's plate, especially mine because it was literally covered entirely by the sauce or mash (nor did we have side plates) to dish. I won't be heading back there on purpose but if I do, I'll definitely be having one of their Veal dishes - Varen's mom had one and it looked pretty good. The Avocado Prawn starter was pretty good, but somehow I don't think it justified a R50 price tag. And I found the dessert disappointing. I decided to try something different, their chocolate pancakes ... I was imagining something like a Nutella pancake (yummy!). Nope, these were just thick folded pancakes drowning in ye olde typical chocolate sauce (as one would expect with ice-cream) with a few very teeny nuts (who knows what kind) sprinkled on top.

Yesterday we did our week's shopping and went and browsed at the new Woodmead center. I *hate* strip-malls. It is completely infuriating to me to have to move my car in order to go to the next shop of interest. We cleaned the bunny hutch and watched some series and generally relaxed. The way a "Sunday" should be :)

Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer

To be irrevocably in love with a vampire is both fantasy and nightmare woven into a dangerously heightened reality for Bella Swan. Pulled in one direction by her intense passion for Edward Cullen, and in another by her profound connection to werewolf Jacob Black, she has endured a tumultuous year of temptation, loss and strife to reach the ultimate turning point. Her imminent choice to either join the dark but seductive world of immortals or pursue a fully human life has become the thread from which the fate of two tribes hangs. Now that Bella has made her decision, a startling chain of unprecedented events is about to unfold with potentially devastating and unfathomable consequences. Just when the frayed strands of Bella's life - first discovered in TWILIGHT, then scattered and torn in NEW MOON and ECLIPSE - seem ready to heal and knit together, could they be destroyed...forever?

Am getting more and more slack with my book review posts, sorry. To be honest, Eclipse & Breaking Dawn pretty much merge into one for me (cause I read them one immediately after the other) so it's hard for me to remember where the third one ends and the fourth begins. But I did enjoy this one. Aside from all the cynical bits I've mentioned before, of course. I will say she took the story in a direction I really wasn't expecting in this one. And I wasn't overly impressed with the ending, it fell a bit flat as the ending of "the entire series", but really, what else could she have done? Overall, it's not the best series I've ever read, but it was enjoyable and a nice easy-to-read, "must know what happens next" story :)

I gather there's a fifth book coming out which will be the first one written from Edward's perspective. And I'm almost sure there's elsewhere she could go for prequels and sequels and I'm sure she will. Unlike most of the world tho, I'm not avidly awaiting the arrival of the 2nd movie ... I truly don't like the dude playing Edward. Which just irritates me thruout the movie. More annoying is I thought he was ruining Brothers & Sisters for me too, so convinced was I that it was the same actor ... until I tried looking it up for this post. Turns out there are two completely separate but equally annoying (and not my kinda good-looking at *all*) actors out there. Come on, tell me you aren't equally convinced that Luke Grimes (playing Ryan Lafferty in season 3) & Robert Pattinson (the world's favourite vampire since Brad Pitt in Interview) were not separated at birth (and to prove my point, I'm not even going to tell you which is which!)?



> Follow Stephenie Meyer on Twitter

Mostly Friday

Okay, I think that this will be one of my shortest weekend posts ever. The really fun stuff all happened on Friday :)

I managed to get all I needed for my Canadian Visa Application (thanks a brazillion to Travelstart who let me book a flight and then cancel it after I received the email confirmation - finger's crossed that's sufficient for the visa folks) and hand in the application on Friday. Hopefully it'll all be in order and I can get it back on Wednesday :) Hopefully. As I've said before, visa applications make me irrationally nervous ... they have the weirdest requirements that I'm never sure if I've met sufficiently. Which is also why I use a visa courier company ... Can you imagine going all the way there only to find out that all the masses of paperwork you've spent a week getting together is insufficient. I tell you, I for one will not be shocked when they require a vial of blood for dna to go along with a visa application. It's about all they aren't asking for these days :P

Then after work I headed off to Livng Health at Living Yoga for my 2hr Ayurvedic treatment (a birthday gift). Wow, it is quite different to a usual massage etc. I started having my feet washed and then moved on to a 4-handed massage (that is brilliant! And I couldn't believe how in-tandem the two girls were, impressive stuff folks). After that I jumped into a steam box for a while, it's nothing like a sauna. And then had oil drizzled onto my forehead (which was the least impressive experience of the afternoon for me). All in all, a brilliant package. But, if you were only going to pick one experience, I would highly recommend their 4-handed massage :)

On Saturday we were up early to head to the farm. I used to love going to the farm, but the 3hour drive there just no longer seems worth it for a 2 night (or in this case, a 1-night) weekend anymore. Anyway, we went and it was freezing. I spent most of my time outside reading my book making sure the bunnies had sufficient run-around time after their car-ride (which they really don't like that much). Lily and Rex are being very weird. She's nipping at him and trying to mount him (I think trying to dominate him so that he leaves her alone!). And he ended up with a sore front leg ... it seems better now (he's using the foot again), but I still might take him off to the vet for a look later. And then 27hours later, we climbed back into the car and drove all the way back :P

And now, I'm at work trying to make it thru the day so that I can have an "admin" day tomorrow when I should be relaxing and doing nothing because we didn't get any of the shopping etc. done on the weekend. Sigh. Sometimes I hate responsibility.

Oops and I forgot to mention that (also on Friday, see it turned out to be a great day!), I bought my boots ... just in time for the farm :) Am desperately trying not to buy Canada-trip related stuff before my visa is approved and I have booked the flights and paid the trip deposit, but with an impending weekend on the farm, I just couldn't resist buying these boots now :)

On the truly bizarre side of things, I bought them in Sandton (since I was there to drop off my visa application). At Sandton (and on their website) they were priced at one price and at Cresta & Clearwater, they were priced R200 cheaper! Now it's just a simple printed price below the boot shelf, and probably when it got scanned it'd be the same, but it seems pretty un professional to me. And sadly I couldn't a) prove that it was marked lower elsewhere or b) wait to go to another branch cause of my Ayurvedic treatment and leaving for the farm at 6am on Saturday morning ... so I ended up paying the higher price. I am still not feeling thrilled by this. Definitely a Cape Union Mart fail in my opinion.

I Hate Visa Applications

Not much to say today. Varen & I finally had a night home together. He made dinner, I had a lovely bath, we caught up on what's been happening in our lives face-to-face and watched some series. It was nice and quiet. This weekend we're off to the farm so although there's loads to get done, it'll have to wait till next week ;)

I do plan to sort out the flight information part of my Canadian visa today. How idiotic is it that they want detailed flight information (ie. you have to provisionally book a flight, you can't just print out the flight you intend to take) ... but they tell you they advise that you don't book the flights before applying for your visa. So since I'll be using Travelstart (seriously, they have offered the best rates! And I didn't even know they offered International flights) I have to book the flight then get the confirmation email and then cancel the flight. all this makes me fairly nervous. Because I won't actually be booking the flight I intend taking. This all sounds crazy, I'm sure, let me explain: There are 4 Polar Bear tours that each start between 15 - 30 October. Now I intend doing the last one (best flight prices at the moment), but I don't want to limit my visa to only being valid from 30 October, in case by the time I've got it, I end up choosing a different tour with an earlier start date. Crazy, isn't it? What happened to the good old days when you could just book the things you wanted to do and apply for the visa after the fact! Makes things so much simpler! This getting-your-visa-beforehand thing is really stressing me out. Cause I feel like I have to rush it so that I can book my stuff asap. And to be fair, visa applications make me nervous at the best of times. So yeah, as soon as the "Live Help" people at Travelstart wake up, that's what I'll be doing today ... and then hopefully I'll be handing my application over to Visas Zone (what a ridiculous company name, seriously!) on Monday and have the visa before the end of next week ... and then things start to get really expensive :)

Empty

I am not in the mood for writing. I'm not in the mood for much. I feel neutral. I feel meh. I feel like I'm just plodding along thru life. The things that are keeping me going at the moment are my bunnies and my future holiday plans - although those are still fairly uncertain. Must go get Certified Bank Cheque today. Blegh. Bank queues. Sigh.

I'm not especially enjoying work right now. It's complicated to explain, but I haven't been on a single project for long enough that it's become the norm. Which is frustrating. I have no idea what I'll be doing each day when I get in (which might sound ideal to some of you), but you can be sure it'll involve all sorts of teeny little bits that no one else wants to do, but need to be done and therefore they land in my lap. And not being assigned to any one thing, everyone seems to feel like they can wander up to my desk and say "Hey, could you do this? I'm sure it won't take long". I feel like I'm being pulled in any number of random directions during a day. I find it rather soul-destroying. Like being constantly busy but getting nothing done. Oh, and then there's the not being remotely interested or intrigued by the things you are doing. I'm sure very little of this makes sense to an outside reader so I won't continue.

And then there's home life. I feel like I'm living alone. Varen worked late on Monday night. I had book club on Tuesday night and then he worked late again last night. I'm not sure if it even affects my life anymore, I'm slowly getting so used to eating alone and spending my evenings doing my own thing. Things just seem to be happening around me and I'm just plodding along, in a bubble. Unaffected and untouched. I feel numb. I feel like other people have other more important things that are driving them (be it work or family or whatever). Me, right now I have nothing driving me forward other than the fact that time moves along whether you are paying attention or not.

I feel empty.

Why do ID Photos Always Suck?

Went to Book Club last night. Was lovely and at least I got to see Varen (who was home at a regular hour) before I went. The sweet boy smsed me yesterday to ask if I'd found my surprise yet ... no! He's sneaked a 3-pack of Red Lindt Balls with a sweet note into my handbag the night before (yes, after working late!). Now that's my kinda surprise!

In other news, we have the booking forms for Zanzibar, we're full steam ahead :) And I got some (hideous) ID photos taken for my Canadian Visa application (1 step at a time!). Why oh why are ID photos always awful. No, scratch that, I had one good one (thankfully it was in my first passport and ID Book, so I can never loose that!). Back in the day when they were still black and white and the actual photo was pasted into the document. Since then they've all been pretty rubbish. I think it was the move to colour, personally. And no matter what colour the photo is in, if the dude taking the photo is taller, the angle is always bad. I look like I should be holding a numbered card below my face in these pictures. But, I'll console myself with the fact that it's only for a visa. Which reminds me ... why do they only offer 6 photos these days. Who freaking needs 6 of these blasted things? (Can you tell I'm not the sort to painstakingly keep my left over ID photos till the next time I might need them?).

This morning I have brought the remaining mice to work with me, in their fish bowl. I'm going to take them to Free Me a little later (they only open at 8am). Was chatting to Lime at bookclub and she voluteers there and was telling me that mommy mice can attack and start biting their babies if they feel threatened. I do not want that happening. Plus although the babies all seemed fine last night before book club, 2 were not looking great this morning. I think they're still alive, but am beginning to wonder if we do actualyl still have the mom ... or just a very fat or pregnant other adult mouse. Or if they're getting too cold outside in this bizarre weather we're having (ordinarily they'd be underground, not under a few layers of lucerne!). So I'm hoping the folks at Free Me will have more luck and I can stop stressing about their survival. I could kick myself for not doing this on the weekend, but I really wouldn't have thought they'd take in mice. I was thrilled to hear they do tho :)

Regular Update

Another grey day ... in Joburg, in June. I know I've only been here 5 years but I didn't think this was the way Winter worked up here. I mean, it rained yesterday.

Last night was very quiet. Varen worked late again. i have no idea what time he got home, but he was there when I woke up this morning so, at least I know he did. I vegged in front of the TV with Brothers & Sisters and let the bunnies run riot in the house. They don't get to spend the evening inside too often, but since the maid changed her day to Wednesdays, Monday and Tuesday nights are a treat :) On the down side, I saw Rex humping Coal. This is a bad sign folks because I have not yet been able to locate those walnuts. Am starting to seriously wonder if separation might be the way to go for the mean time :( Will be sad because they are all so cute when they cuddle up together. But I don't want another 6 for them to cuddle up with, so it may be on the cards shortly.

I also think 4 of our adult mice escaped (so far I don't think the mom was one of them ... but it is pretty hard to tell). The babies are doing fine and peeping away, so far as I can tell.

I got some bad news this morning, the Polar Bear trip I was waiting to hear back from isn't running this year because they didn't get enough interest - I'm guessing cause their site doesn't show up on any searches I did, most people didn't find them either (plus I was annoyed at them cause their site says 10day tour but then the itinerary shows only 7days ... bad advertising, much?). Well at least it means I can move forward and get my visa for the trip I was planning before. I can feel myself stalling, just a little. It's quite a giant step here ... getting the visa, buying the plane tickets and paying for the tour. Sheesh. But today I will begin, well, maybe tomorrow?

Meese, Anyone?

Had a good weekend :) Varen & I went out for dinner with J9-double0blonde on Friday night, it has been ages since we saw her properly so it was nice to catch up. We ate at hanna b. in Greenside. The food was good, I just had a boring Chicken Prego roll. But they did give us free soups before our main meals. What a lovely idea in winter!

On Saturday we had a busy day. Up and off to gym for both of us. Then scrambled eggs at home before Varen started building the bunny-hutch addition I had designed. Okay, so Lily has been burrowing up a storm in the garden and in the lucerne (currently stored in the old hutch which makes it easier to manage now that the bale has disintegrated). And as I mentioned, it has me worried about Rex not being neutered yet ... sigh. Anyhoo, we are also a little worried about them in the cold weather - although they are Northern Hemisphere animals. So I designed a "plug-in" for the hutch (and that folks is why I love my hutch design more and more every day!) which is completely separate but gives them two hideaway boxes that we can fill with lucerne and they can cuddle and get warm in ... or burrow in if the need arises. Luckily it didn't cost us a cent as we just used wooden offcuts we already had :) So far they seem to be enjoying it ... although seeing Coal this morning made me worry that Lily might not actually be our problem. She was fetching bits of lucerne in her mouth and taking it into one of the boxes. Meep. I hope we don't have baby bunnies just yet. I could maybe manage one litter ... but if she's starting to nest now, that means we could well end up with more! Which I really do NOT want. So far as we've seen, he hasn't yet mounted either of them, so I'm still staying hopefully ... and checking him closely for the moment those walnuts appear so I can whisk him off to the vet!

Right after the plug-in was built, we set about cleaning the hutch. And while we were doing that we decided it was time to try catching our resident mice and take them to the field next door (no, that's not a euphemism, we will really be taking them to be set free in the field). We'd counted 8 last week, that's enough for me, and I'm sure we hadn't even counted them all! So when we were cleaning the stoep (patio), and the water rushed over into their holes, I ran about catching them - they'll really stupid little things, they run upstream. I caught all except one and we had 5 adults.

Then we decided to try flushing out some of the other spots we thought they were living ... and ended up finding 1 mom and 5 babies (sadly we found 1 dead baby on Sunday so obviously we didn't get them all :( ). Five babies who's eyes had yet to open. There was no way I could set this lot free into a field, they wouldn't survive! (That's them all drenched in the bottom of the watering can - I had no idea where else to put them while we caught them, they can climb up almost anything, included facebrick, except glass and watering cans, apparently)

So, I now have a huge family of mice living in an old giant fish bowl. Mostly they live outside, because we're still a little nervous they might jump out - they were certainly trying hard enough on Saturday afternoon! I'm also worried about them surviving to all be set free once the babies are older. They've got water and bunny food (and they even got a grape like the bunnies yesterday!) and they've got a pile of lucerne that they have burrowed into, so they seem fine. Anybody interested in pet mice, going free to a Joburg home with NO snakes. Or maybe your kid's school classroom wants them? Let me know.

And then we relaxed for the rest of Saturday afternoon ... Varen was exhausted ;) And in the evening we headed off to the Civic to see John Vlismas' current show, POW! We decided to head off early and grab a bite to eat at the Newscafe there. Remind me to book next time! But luckily we did manage to get a table and have something to eat before the show started :) Meh, Newscafe. I really have no idea why it's so popular. The cocktails are average and overpriced, as is their food.

The show was fab. Although I must admit that although he's one of my favourite SA Comedians, I last saw him (I think) in Grahamstown in '98. He's one of only two people in the world (Billy Connelly is the other) that I could listen to swear for an hour and a half straight and think it was the most brilliant show ever. There's just something about them. So it was super curious to see the show where he wasn't allowed to swear. I enjoyed it, and my cheeks hurt from laughter ... but I'll be honest and say I prefer him swearing. Varen thoroughly enjoyed it, it was the first time he'd seen John Vlismas perform.

On Sunday, Varen wanted to watch Terminator (what is this one now, five?). So I compromised and we went and did some shopping at Clearwater first ... I'm desperately eyeing items I need for my Canada trip ... but will only let myself buy them once I have the visa in my passport and my flights and tour are booked. Which is proving tricky since this damn company I found with the longer tour has *still* not replied to my email! I just might be phoning America a little later :P

Judgment Day has come and gone, leveling modern civilisation. An army of Terminators roams the post-apocalyptic landscape, killing or collecting humans where they hide in the desolate cities and deserts. But small groups of survivors have organized into a Resistance, hiding in underground bunkers and striking when they can against an enemy force that vastly outnumbers them. Controlling the Terminators is the artificial intelligence network Skynet, which became self-aware 14 years earlier and, in the blink of an eye, turned on its creators, unleashing nuclear annihilation on an unsuspecting world.

Only one man saw Judgment Day coming. One man, whose destiny has always been intertwined with the fate of human existence: John Connor.

Now the world is on the brink of the future that Connor has been warned about all his life. But something totally new has shaken his belief that humanity stands a chance of winning this war: the appearance of Marcus Wright, a stranger from the past whose last memory is of being on death row before awakening in this strange, new world.

Connor must decide whether Marcus can be trusted. But as Skynet adapts new strategies to end the Resistance forever, Connor and Marcus must find common ground to take a stand against the onslaught to infiltrate Skynet and meet the enemy head-on.

Okay, so I'll be honest and say I haven't watched *any* of the other Terminator movies ... the most I knew about them was they stared Arnie and have the famous line: "I'll be back". But I figured the Star Trek movie was such a great movie, I'd give this one a try too. Wrong.

Wow, this is the most uselessly boring movie ever. You know why? Cause you know that no matter how much danger John Connor or his dad (Kyle Reece) are in ... they survive. Why? Oh because they're in the other movies and this is the prequel. I'm so starting to agree with Mark Kermode on this (although he said it for Wolverine!). And in typical movie-fashion, no one talks to each other and tells them the truth or what their story is which leads to confusion etc. I will say /* spoiler start */ there was a great bit when an Arnie look alike breaks out of a room, I was in hysterics, I think that might've actually been the best scene in the movie for me. /*spoiler end */

And then we went home to relax for the rest of the weekend ... although it was only about 3pm, it felt much later and we were both in bed at 7pm. Which I'm telling myself is not that different than lazing in bed for a late morning ... right?

[Insert Appropriate Title Here]

Hmmm, weird. I don't have anything to say today really. We had a bit of a nothing night last night with Varen "studying" (which meant watching 24 with me with his book on his lap) last night. But I did finish the last Twilight book :) Oh, and we have finally chosen our Zanzibar tour option and are just waiting to hear about availability on our preferred dates.

I also found what looks like an even better Polar Bear trip (it's longer and includes a train trip for roughly the same price). While looking for the October Weather in Churchill, would you believe. What luck! Dammit, I wish people would hurry up and mail me back. I really want to apply for my visa next week ... and I know I'm not booking anything before I apply, but I would sorta like to apply with my intended trip & flight dates, in case they somehow limit the visa - can you tell visa applications make me skeptical & paranoid ;) Oh, and thanks to @Travelstart, who has been very helpful on Twitter.

Aside from that, I'm thrilled that it's Friday and we're off to see John Vlismas's show tomorrow night. Love him!

Lucky Me

Seriously, how can it not be Friday yet? Sigh. You'd think after a month I'd be better prepared for these 5day week. Well I'm not. And to make matters worse I momentarily thought that it was Friday when my alarm went off this morning. Trust me, that makes the realisation that it's *only* Thursday a lot worse!

At least things were back to normal at home last night. It was a lovely night. Varen came home and got stuck into making dinner. He made Melanzane, which is one of my fav's and he usually hates Aubergines - so quite amazing! And Cheese & Onion bread. It was delish and I can't wait to have more of the bread with my tomato soup at lunch today. I'm amazed at how fab he is at baking, and how much he seems to enjoy it. So while he cooked us up a storm I went and lazed in the bath. (How spoilt am I?) Seriously folks, I'm now down to the last 50 pages in the last (for now, I hear there's a 5th coming?) Twilight book ... I'm amazed I managed to turn off my light and will myself to sleep at a reasonable hour last night!

And then while we ate we watched more 24. Shoowhee but there was such a twist I didn't see coming!

Other than that, not much news. I've pretty much decided on which Polar Bear trip I'm doing ... not my first choice, but in the end they all offer very similar trips and excursions that it really came down to price. So it looks like I'll be doing The 7-Day Polar Bear Experience Tour with The Great Canadian Travel Company. I'm just waiting for flight info and then I'll be applying for my visa. I was thrilled to discover Visas Zone yesterday, which offers a far better rate (R350 compared to R513) than MDS Visa which we used last year. And our planning for Zanzibar is also going well, it's now just down to price ... unfortunately I don't think Varen's budget can stretch from 7days - 10days. Which is sad, but I think will be fine since we're both using our leave elsewhere on other trips. I think even a mere 7 days on a beautiful beach with some scuba diving and Robinson Crusoe-style living will be fabulous :)

Eating Alone

I spent another night home alone last night while Varen worked late :( Hopefully that was the last of it for a while tho. So, I decided to make Fish Bobotie in Poppadum Cups for dinner. It worked out really well :) I got the recipe out of the June Fresh Living mag (page 87, if you're interested?). Am quite unimpressed with PnP actually, now that I look around online trying to find a website for Fresh Living ... or even more than just an animated gif advert on their own site. Such a pity, it really is my favourite magazine these days!

Anyway, It was a lot easier than I thought and the Poppadum cups worked out so nicely :) They make such a cute little meal. Although it wasn't so great eating "a meal that turned out so well I needed to brag a little" on my own tho ... so I phoned my mom :)

Exciting life I lead, hey? Well, at least it's giving me plenty of time to laze in the bath and read Breaking Dawn!

Decided

I haven't been sleeping right for the last 2 nights ... yet I'm somehow not completely exhausted. I think my body is practicing for jet-lag in October - haha! And I had the weirdest dreams, which is very unusual for me.

Before bed tho, I had a very restful evening, but Varen worked late and was only home after I was in bed with the lights out already. Poor boy. He's trying to get into a new routine to fit work, gym and studying in and work is just not helping :(

Me, I watched Desperate Housewives (which is getting pretty dull - I hope this is the last season they plan on making, seriously, where can they go from here?) and let the bunnies run riot inside the house - cute things!

And I'm not too worried about Lily & Rex anymore either ... she seems to be nipping at him if he gets too keen ;) Looking at them all trying to fit in their inside bed, I think we may need something a little bigger :)

Other than that I've now definitely decided that I'm going all-out to get my Polar Bear's in Canada trip sorted out. I figured if I can save like a demon between now and then, it won't dent my savings too badly. And I'm now starting to get super excited about our Beach Break in Zanzibar in September. After finding little that a) fitted my budget or b) appealed to me at the usual Travel Agents, I contacted Barefoot Breaks because they have some amazing Zanzibar options on their site! And have so far been very impressed with their service :) I had a long phone call with them on Friday morning (probably less than an hour after I sent an email outlining what I was looking for) and yesterday evening I received an email with holiday 5 options within our budget. I'm really starting to get excited about these trips now. Now to investigate the visa's for Canada!!

A Weekend at a Glance

Well it was a fairly quiet weekend. And no, nothing concrete has been decided about the holidays yet either ... although it's looking more and more likely that Varen & I will be spending our week together in Zanzibar. I have weird irrational fear about booking my Polar Bear holiday ... and I'm not sure if I should be listening to them or not.

Friday night was it's usual quiet self, with series watching on the couch. Varen had been to a cooking-team-building so he wasn't in the mood to do anything more exciting - although I would've been quite keen to go out for dinner or something. I feel like we haven't done that in ages, just the two of us, like a date-night. Hopefully we'll do that this week tho.

Saturday was an admin day. I started the morning off with some gym. I have consistently been going 3 times a week since I started at Curves. And I'm pleased to say that I had my monthly measurement on Saturday morning and I was down ... in kilo's, centimeters (between 2 and 4!) and bmi, everywhere! Even tho I can't see or feel a difference, typical :P What a relief tho, because I was sure I was going to be up, after the birthday picnic and all that cookie-dough ;) I am loving this new gym routine.

After that Varen & I took Rex to the vet. He's just over 3 months now and is definitely starting to show an interest in Lily. Watching Rex, I should've known Coal was never a boy ... Rex behaves differently than any bunny we've ever had. I was watching him on Friday afternoon and he would run circles around Lily. From what I've found online, if your bunny does that to you, it's a sign of affection ... if they do it to another bunny, it's courting behaviour! Meep. Luckily Lily doesn't seem too impressed with these circles at the moment and probably just thinks Rex is being a silly boy ;) Coal also doesn't seem too impressed with Rex's interest in Lily and seems to be quite protective of her ... must be a dominant bunny thing. Anyhoo, it was off to the vet with us. Only to hear that he's not yet ready to be snipped (physically the vet's have to be able to feel the testicles before they can neuter him, apparently we're looking for little walnuts under the fur between their back legs) ... and that bunnies can be fertile for 2 - 4 weeks before these walnuts show up! Coupling that with the knowledge that they can be fertile up to a month after the neutering ... well who knows what we're in for :) We've decided not to separate them tho, they're all so happy together and we'll take a chance that he doesn't figure out what he's supposed to be doing. Or maybe we'll end up with one litter of babies ... we're doing our bit by getting him snipped as soon as we can, until then we're letting fate decide.

In the afternoon, I headed off to Cafe Sofia for the May bloggirls lunch. Was very cool to see the ladies again after a bit of a break in April ... and to meet some new faces :) So thanks to Doodles of a Journo, Mellisoo, CyberSass, Angel's Mind, Boldly Benny, Ruby Letters and Arkwife for a lovely Saturday afternoon spent sipping sangria, eating tapas and to Angel for more of her delish cupcakes! And I'm still amazed by how empty this restaurant is every time I go there.

And that was it for Saturday, I was feeling very lazy after the bloggirls lunch.

On Sunday, after a huge fight over breakfast ... which thankfully got resolved and I think I'm feeling better, Varen & I had another very lazy day. We'd especially done our week's shopping on saturday so that we could spend Sunday doing something fun together. But after the way the morning started, neither of us were really in the mood for heading out ... although we did have some vague plans for the afternoon, that got trashed after we cleaned the bunny hutch and got hooked on 24. But we did head off to watch Night at the Museum 2 (I was in the mood for something silly).

Security guard Larry Daley infiltrates the Smithsonian Institute in order to rescue Jedediah and Octavius, who have been shipped to the museum by mistake.

The movie brings to life the Smithsonian Institution, which houses the world's largest museum complex with more than 136 million items in its collections, ranging from the plane Amelia Earhart flew on her non-stop solo flight across the Atlantic, Al Capone's rap sheet and mug shot to Dorothy's ruby red slippers and Archie Bunker's lounge chair. No major film has ever been shot inside the Smithsonian in Washington. Until this one.

The movie definitely fulfilled my silliness quotient. And I won't go into the minor details they over-looked (because honestly, if you're going to set up a world you expect me to believe in, at least stick to your own rules), /* spoiler alert start */ like at the end where the Smithsonian exhibits can enjoy the rest of the night till sun-up ... even tho they've taken the tablet back to New York (and the fact that the tablet arrived at the Smithsonian was the only reason they "woke up" in the first place) /* spoiler alert end */.

The most annoying thing about this movie-going experience was these kids (now I was expecting kids in this movie so I was fairly patient), who's folks had obviously left their kids in this cinema to head off and watch a movie of their own ... undisturbed by their unruly under-10 brats. Now, I don't like *adults* who talk in movies, and I really don't like kid's in movies generally (seriosuly folks, until your child can sit still and quietly watch a dvd at home ... don't bring them to a movie theatre after 2pm!), but I understand that when I'm watching a fairly kid-oriented movie there's no getting away from them without going to the 11pm show. But surely you must realise that if you're not there to tell your kid to shut the hell up or to take them out of the cinema half an hour before the movie ends because now they're restless from sitting still that long and just want to run up and down the aisles, you're just ruining it for everyone else ... who has *payed* to watch the movie. It's damn inconsiderate if you ask me. The only time I think you could *perhaps* (and that's a stretch!) get away with this is in a 11am or 2pm movie, you know, the ones *for kids*.