calmerkarma & halloween

✥on thursday jerry gave me his shift at work, so that he could study and so that i could do a little bit of work in my week of unemployment..

the club was hosting a chinese themed event, and the place looked amazing! pillars wrapped in red chinese silk, vases of peonies and strings of chinese lanterns creating a soft pink glow.. they'd really transformed it. while us bartenders were stuck in peasant rice-farmer hats, slaving away on the lychee cocktails behind the bar, the event hostesses were standing around getting paid to look beautiful in coloured satin cheong-sam dresses, hair in chop-sticked buns, giving away fortune cookies... throughout the night they mingled with the corporate guests and drank as many of those cocktails that they so desired.... i snuck a fortune cookie from one of the girls, praying it would promise me great wealth and prosperity or perhaps a great new career opportunity...
'you will soon go on a foreign trip'.. hmmm, still cool but not what i was really after...
i turned to the pretty blonde chinese girl, 'which agency are you with?' ...sometimes we have to make our own destiny, dont we!...

i looked up the calmerkarma agency website the next day and felt like i'd hit the jackpot. bedazzling theatrical entertainment for themed events including circus & cabaret, bollywood, burlesque, fortune tellers, stilt walkers, jugglers....everything fun and weird and wonderful....
i called the number directly.
me: 'i'd like to work for you doing the events, you know like the chinese girls i met last night...'
lady: 'ok, what are your skills?'
me: ...'oh, um, well... i can juggle'.
lady: 'what can you juggle?'....
me: '....balls..?'.
lady: 'we have people who can juggle eight crystal balls, swords and fire, while on stilts'.
me: 'ok...... well i can read tarot cards'...... that seemed to spark her interest.
lady: 'send me a picture of yourself.'

last night at work we hosted a huge halloween party and the costumes were amazing! everyone had gone to so much effort! a makeup artist was hired to do up us staff as zombies and all the bartenders wore blood spattered aprons. there was such a buzz in the air that it would've been a really fun night if i hadn't lost my voice, if all the card machines hadn't stopped working and if my guests hadn't pounded me over the edge without tipping me..
ah.. you win some, you lose some...
:o)

juliet

❀ ive decided to sell juliet, my vintage ladies bicycle from verona. romeo went missing a few weeks ago after jerry left him outside to make space to park the new scooter... some desperado must have picked him up and carried him away since there was a lock through the back wheel. though jerry didn't feel the loss, I was devastated.
now i can't help but feel sorry for poor juliet, abandoned by her lover and neglected by her owner (after my crash, i've been too scared to ride a bike with no brakes in the rain...)

so tomorrow she'll go to a good new home... 'parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it be morrow.'*

'it's only a bike', says jerry.... to me she was a friend.

* shakespeare of course

the bliss...

✬ aah its bliss, this short space of time when unemployment is fun, when the idea that i can do anything i so choose with my day makes me just bubble with happiness. sleeping in, eating breakfast in bed, painting my toe-nails in bed, web-surfing while in bed, staying in my pijamas all day... why go outside in that gray, rainy miserableness when instead i can have a rip-snorting time in my room, listening to music, sipping coffee, editing photos, ebay shopping and blog browsing....

that probably sounds boring to lots of people but to me its the perfect day! in my web searching i came across some amazing photography, i applied for some more film-extra roles and i became a member of a mysterious 'secret cinema' which i wasn't supposed to breathe a word about (oops!).... on ebay i bought a belly dancing coin belt to wear to my class and a polaroid camera (some scoundrel outbid me on the last one!) and i snacked all day (in bed) on my homemade hummus and baba ganoush.... i've said it before and i'll say it again, i'd be more than happy to be a houswewife...

i was forced to leave my bedroom sanctuary for my evening swedish class but that was also fun since i'm the top of the class. i'm that annoying sucky student who always has their hand up to answer the question. it's the exact opposite of when i'm actually talking to a swedish person, in which case i do anything to avoid speaking swedish. when i come home from class and bashfully practise what i've learnt on jerry, his grin stretches from ear to ear, partially at how stupid i sound, but also because he's so happy that i'm learning his language.

lately we've been getting along so well and the smallest things make my heart just melt to butter and coo over him like he's the cutest little fluffy chicken. for example the other day i was watching him standing at the fridge in his underwear, munching on grapes, with his hair sticking up in all different directions, singing out-of-tune to himself and for some reason my love for him just instantly doubled...

:o)

angel

✻ although it would be handier living closer to work, jerry and i are happy living in angel. it has a down-to-earth and slightly bohemian vibe but is still clean and classy... there are some annoying junky street poets and some foul-mouthed teenage mothers pushing prams at the church st. market but then as soon as you reach upper street, with its huge array of funky cafes, gift shops and eateries, you feel that certain buzz of being somewhere cool and happening.

our little neighbourhood is a mish-mash of characters of all colours and classes. the kids from the high-rises ride their bikes in circles and play football on the road, making me constantly feel lucky for having grown up in the country in houses with backyards, gardens, trampolines, cubby houses....

on the corner of our street are all the ethiopian restaurants, internet cafe and afro hairdressers... the smell from those restaurants is so mysteriously seductive, yet we can't quite build up the courage to eat there... when i first heard of an ethiopian restaurant i couldn't help but laugh. how is it that they have a cuisine when all we hear about them is how starved they are. i guess that's pretty ignorant... of course they must have cooking traditions...

angel is full of old corner pubs and quirky wall murals which remind you of the long history of london... today was beautiful and sunny, and feeling a little bit freed from my nanny shackles, i took my camera out and went snapping... oh how nice it is to be semi-unemployed!... until the rent's due anyway...

f#ck it, let's go bowling...

 ❉ things to do tomorrow:
- quit my nanny job. why...?....its a long story, beginning like this: i was sneakily reading a fashion magazine while supposedly playing with the child. in the mag was an interview with alexa chung. she was asked what her most dreaded thing was, to which she replied: 'to have to do something i hate and pretend to like it.'.... that answer was like a punch in the guts. it made me realise how much i hate that job. firstly, because instead of just supervising the child (while reading magazines), i'm expected to actually get into her play house and make pretend meals on her plastic kitchen set, enjoy tea-parties with her dolls and do the voices for building block robots....all day, with a happy face and a chirpy voice because somewhere, around the corner, the mother is always lurking....
secondly, because the mother seriously asked me if i would please call poo 'duties', piss 'wissy woo' and farts 'windy woos'.... i'm not willing in all three cases. dealing with them in nappies is bad enough.
lastly, because i just cant fake it anymore. i can't pretend to have fun playing doctors and nurses with a misbehaving two year old and a stay-at-home mum watching anymore.  

so ive decided that tomorrow ill quit. life is far too short for that shit.
instead i will spend the day taking photos at the market in angel, making home-made hummus and tzatziki, skyping my mum, reading books and drinking peppermint tea.... oh doesnt that sound like such a better way to pass the day!??
i may also have to spend some time looking for a new job i guess...
;o)

winter cocktails and flannel pijamas

❆the winter cocktail menus have come out at the nightclub and i was totally chuffed that my cocktail invention 'lady marmalade' made it onto the list. it's citrus vodka, cinnamon syrup, orange juice and orange bitters shaken with a spoonful of tawny orange marmalade and dark chocolate liqueur, served martini style with a chocolate shaving garnish. i'm quite proud of it, if you can't tell ;o) ... and i'm gonna get so much satisfaction every time i hear guests ordering it....i'll probably interrupt their order just to gloat that it's mine.

jerry and i have had a busy week. his course is getting pretty hard-core and my nanny job has worn me into the ground... but we still managed to fit in some fun stuff. i had my swedish class which was easy-peasy and made me realise that i know a lot more swedish than just the swear-words, then we went to a live blues/fashion charity event that one of our colleagues was modeling for; we went out for dinner with an english friend of jerry's from sweden and his aussie girlfriend to the lovely cuban restaurant 'cuba libre', and then of course, with the weekend comes work at the club, which i classify as fun...

we also squeezed in some shopping in oxford street where i bought jerry his first pair of pijamas. can you imagine never having worn pijamas?! there's nothing better than lounging around the house on a cold winters day in a pair of cosy flannel PJ's. i bought myself a new pair too, despite jerry's protests that i look like a clown in them and couldn't i buy some sexy nightware instead?... no way! that stuff isn't comfortable! i'm all in for no makeup around the house, pissing with the door open and morning breath kisses. for me that's real love.
:o)

polaroids

❅the rain is pouring over london town.
jerry and i drove the scooter wearing our matching head to toe navy rain jacket and pants, over the rest of our winter woolies so we looked like two balls on a bike. then the rain stopped and the sun came out and we felt pretty ridiculous.

jerry went to school and i went down chiltern street to browse the bridal boutiques. it really is mission impossible to find a wedding dress that i like that doesn't cost more than the whole wedding. i decided screw it, i'm gonna stop worrying about it now. the right dress will find me ;o)

i've been inspired by some other pretty blogs to redesign my own...do you like it? in my blog-browsing i also stumbled across some amazing photography, in particular a polaroid photo collection. polaroids are so cool aren't they? they have such atmosphere to them. so i jumped straight on ebay and put down a bid for one. i'm hoping it will get my creative juices flowing... in the meantime i'm using the iphone ap 'hipstamatic' which gives a polaroidish sort of effect..

:o)

2nd anniversary ♥

♥ saturday was jerry and my second year anniversary and both of us completely forgot about it on the day! ...pretty amazing that two years have passed. it feels both like a moment ago that we first met and like a lifetime that we've known each other....
i know i've already told the story about us first meeting on the cruise ship in my 'anniversary' blog last year, but i thought i might tell some more stories about our first encounters....

the first crew-party we both went to was a masquerade party where i ran into him at the bar and welcomed him on board. the second crew party (the following night) was a toga party (we were cruising around greece). i of course dressed up in a makeshift toga costume (my cabin towell), got pissed and danced around making a scene, as usual at those crazy crew parties. jerry wasn't dressed up and was hanging back on the sidelines, behaving himself, with erika, his swedish friend. i remember asking him where his toga was and he said he didn't have enough friends on the ship yet to get away with wearing a fancy dress costume....

at that point we'd only had a couple of short conversations and i had no idea that he had a huge crush on me. at the end of the night when the DJ announced the last song (a slow romantic one), everybody grabbed a dancing partner. jerry happened to be the guy nearest to me so i grabbed him. he told me that in sweden they don't do 'the last dance' and that he'd only seen it on american movies. he asked me if this was 'first base'... 'no, this is first base', i told him, holding his hand, 'this is second base', giving him a peck on the cheek, 'this is third base', squeezing his breasts, 'and fourth base is 'slicka min snippa'...(a dirty expression i'd learnt from a swedish colleague and one of the first things i'd said to jerry at the masquerade party the night before after learning he was swedish.) .....what a flirt i was, considering i wasn't even interested in him then!

we docked in istanbul a few days later and a group of us went out partying together. in the early morning we ended up at a shisha lounge where we lay on cushions drinking mint tea and smoking apple shisha. jerry made sure he sat next to me and gradually slid further across his pillow until he was on mine, leaning his head against my arm, with my room-mate nudging and winking away at me...

it's a funny thing when you think about it, that some creatures, including humans, choose a partner to stay with the rest of their lives. swans do it too, so do wolves, sea-horses, eagles, gibbons and lovebirds. it's a really special thing to find that one creature who will stay by your side, keep you company, be your closest friend, your rock, your touch stone, your treasure, your soul-mate, forever...
i feel pretty lucky to have found mine.

rock-n-roll

❈ on wednesday the club hosted a music event with sam bransons band, delilah, and two other up-and-coming british bands; tinash and new young pony club. i was the personal cocktail waitress for their backstage band/ VIP room, there to basically keep their table of booze tidy and the glasses and ice stocked up... they were so tame that i ended up getting to just stand and watch the bands play from backstage almost the whole night. there was no movie-scene backstage mess with diva rockstars snorting cocaine off table tops with half naked blonde groupies straddling them and band managers pleading with them to get on stage... these kids were sitting on sofas eating chicken burgers and doing vocal exercises. i guess it was a wednesday night and they're not big time yet.... there were a few B-list celebrities and some B-list royalty (is that mean calling princess beatrice B-list?) ... i had hoped richard branson would be there so i could ask him if i could maybe come work for him on necker island for a little while ;o)... and maybe get him interested in dreamwalk, my brothers new iphone ap, for him to invest in. but he wasn't there...

i really enjoyed the music and realised that i never listen to new music anymore... jerry and i have both had the same itunes list for ages and we just listen to the same stuff over and over. lately we've been so sick of our playlists that we choose silence over our music! the thing is i cant be bothered going out searching for new bands that i like!... it'd be so good if someone who knew my taste would just present me with new music and install it in my itunes for me each week...

tonight my cousins and a big group of their friends are coming in to work. i got them a VIP table and they're so pumped! its gonna be fun having people i know in there! last night i only had two tables and they were so boring that i stood at the waitress station eating chocolates all night...
:o)

swedish class

❈ today i had my first swedish class and the teacher didnt show up!! the good thing about that was that the students all began chatting while we were waiting and got to know each other a bit. we exchanged swedish stories, whinged about how hard the language is to learn and admitted our individual shame at not knowing any swedish already. i thought i was bad because i've lived in sweden for a year and don't speak it. some of the others are half and even fully swedish and dont speak it!!
it's a really fun group of people and i'm looking forward to next week when hopefully there will also be a teacher...

jerry's started his hotel management course this week and he's never been cuter than he is sitting at the kitchen table with a notepad and pencil, doing his homework.... he looks so out of character and like such an adorable little boy that i cant help but smother him in kisses. i ask him what we're going to do to celebrate our 2nd year anniversary which is on saturday. he makes mock snoring sounds. 'are you making snoring sounds in referral to our anniversary!?!.. for that you have to come with me to 'ain't nothin' but the blues bar'.... i dont care if you hate blues, im not a big fan of swedish either...'
:o)

shared scooter and separate bank accounts :o)

❉ i've finally started to chill out and trust jerry driving the scooter in london traffic and we've been zipping around all over town on it. its amazing how much attention you draw arriving somewhere on a bike. sometimes after taking off my helmet, i feel like doing the loreal shampoo-ad head swirl just to satisfy the audience ;o)... it is a super cool bike and getting places is all of a sudden a lot less of a tube mission.

i'm feeling much better this week, having formulated a list of things to keep me busy and that's supposed to be the key to staying happy isnt it? ....hold on, why do they tell you that- isn't that just repressing your emotions?!... oh well, i'm feeling a lot more cheery anyway. i'm getting back into wedding planning, booking in bridal shop appointments and searching for interesting wedding rings. i even found a jewellery shop that offers a sunday workshop where you and your partner make your own wedding rings! wouldn't that be fun?! surprisingly, jerry was into the idea, although he may just be keeping me happy. he's gotten quite good at the 'yes dear' thing... and we're not even married yet!

jerry was talking to his mum about the wedding, telling her how much each of us have to save and she asked in surprise 'dont you and anna share your money?'... before that we'd never really thought about it... after organising your own finances for so many years, the concept of a joint account seems a bit scary. i told jerry that if we shared money there'd be no holding back on my shopping sprees ;o). he reminded me that right now i'm earning more than him. hmmm....i think it's better if we keep our cash separate for a while ;o)

ella fitzgerald

* with my knee pretty much recovered from my bike smash, i hit the gym today and sweated it out on the treadmill, while reading elle magazine. normally exercise and fashion inspiration are both really effective in lifting my moods, but lately i've been so glum and melancholy that neither one worked!
i met jerry afterwards at 'euphorium' bakery, a gorgeous little cafe positioned on the corner of our local street market, so you can watch the people browsing all the street stalls at the same time as drinking your latte and enjoying the jazzy blues they always play in the cafe. ella fitzgerald's voice always makes me dreamy and nostalgic. i would have loved to have lived back in her day. maybe i did in my last life and that's why i love her so much :o)
when i was 17 i had a photography exhibition in a private little art gallery and for the opening party i put ella on repeat. there was such a wonderful mood at that party, everyone there got pissed and i sold loads of photos..
remembering how happy that exhibition made me, i decided that the key to getting over these sads is to do something creative. my mum always told me that and its true. making something; art, cooking, sewing, whatever, always makes you feel good. i need a new project...

the new scooter

❉ jerry and i bought a scooter today. it's a gorgeous beast of a thing; a black tamoretti which is basically a copy of jerry's havana mojito vespa that he had in stockholm... i realised today that i will never ride the thing, except on the back. it's probably ten times my body weight and nearly as wide as a car. it does have a lovely padded passenger seat with back-rest though!
we drove it to work today for a tanqueray gin presentation and although we thought we'd fly there in no time, it actually took longer than the tube because of all the traffic and we were half an hour late! it probably didn't help that i was clutching onto jerry like a rabid monkey the whole way, squealing at him to go slow and take it easy. i think it'll take me a little while to get used to it. the streets of london are not as calm as those of stockholm and the double decker bus and black cab drivers smash around like they couldn't care less if they knock someone off.

we had our 'half time' staff party on monday which was a proper formal dinner event in the function room with four courses and free wine. all the managers dressed up in disney costumes and did fabulous speeches, sang songs and put on a great show. afterwards we all went out in covent garden to 'the roadhouse' and it was so much fun partying with such a huge group of people. everyone was in a really playful mood, probably spurred on by the costumes (and the free wine). one of the restaurant managers lifted me up on his shoulders and got yelled at by security. then my bar manager spun me upside down and nearly got kicked out. the guards were onto me after that and all i had to do was lift up one foot higher than the other and they'd be pouncing on me, telling me to get down.

to my absolute delight, they were doing live music karaoke, (with a really good band too!) and i immediately hunted down the karaoke girl, who put me on as the final act. i had wanted to do tina turner's 'simply the best' but someone had already taken it so i did 'sex on fire' instead. i barely knew the song but was juiced enough to wing it and had so much fun up there singing with the live band on stage and all my colleagues singing along on the dance floor below...

jerry and i skipped out at midnight, since i had to nanny early the next morning. we stumbled back into the house, running into our housemates, who took one look at me and laughed at how obviously tanked i was. our new housemates, darren and mona are a super cool couple, really friendly and interesting and laid back. we have opposite working schedules to them so we're rarely all home at the same time, but the other night the four of us had a mini dinner party and cinema outing together which was really nice. i hope they're as happy with us as housemates as we are with them... :o)

one year of blogging

❉ wow, i really copped some shitfull comments on that last blog! ...did i really sound so shallow and vain?? i thought i was sulking about the fact that i don't have a successful career.... which is the opposite of being 'up myself'!

in response: no, i don't just want to be famous. i want to do something meaningful. i would like to have a career i'm passionate about and proud of, which challenges me and inspires me and makes me feel happy...and hopefully somehow makes a difference to the world.... probably the same thing everyone wants...

it's quite amusing to me that people who have such critical opinions of me even read my blog. piss off!! this blog was intended for my family and friends who i've lived away from for many years, so they can follow what i'm doing. i'm surprised and flattered every time someone tells me they've even read it. if you're not interested in me or my life then why read my blog!??

it so happens that today it's been exactly one year since i first started writing the yellow brick road. jerry and i were living in marbella and since i couldn't get a working visa (or a job under the table either it turned out), i was spending my days as a bored housewife; cooking, cleaning and lounging by the pool. jerry encouraged me to start a blog to keep myself occupied and i got so into it that i remember spending most of each day composing blog entries! i looked back and read my first entry and remembered how i was so embarrassed about the whole thing that i wrote it in secret for a few weeks before i finally told just my mum about it.

i would continue this blog even if no-one else read it. it's somehow therapeutic and i know one day, as a senile old woman, i'll be glad i kept such a thorough journal to reminisce these good old days...

the blues

❉ i've been working so much this week, doing double shifts, extra babysitting hours and life drawing classes, while also squeezing in doctor appointments etc that i completely wore myself out... and was then hit with the blues.... 'what am i doing with my life, changing the pooey nappies of other peoples children and serving snobby rich people who look down their noses at you and brush you off when you're just offering to refill their wine glasses.' i'm the under-achieving serving class.... and i always thought i would amount to so much more than this.

as an ambitious and vivacious teenager and uni student, the world felt totally like my oyster and i dreamt of being an artist, an esteemed photographer, a singer, an actress, an environmental activist, an anthropologist. i wanted to be cultured, well-travelled, knowledgeable, to make a difference in the world, as well as being glamourous and elegant and of course, rich.

every time i get the blues, i despair at my non-exixtant career. i wonder what i could have been, had i only made different choices, taken different jobs, studied different things... and then jerry hugs me and tells me he loves me and reminds me that i even if i don't have all the rest, i have the most important thing in the world and that's someone to love who loves me in return.
all of a sudden i feel better and promise myself to take it a bit easier next week...

last night at the nightclub we had a huge event with the VIP area completely full. us cocktail waitresses were given a new uniform: satin corset, tutu skirt, fishnets and fascinator head piece. the other girls hated it while i absolutely loved it! normally we blend into the crowd but in those uniforms we're a spectacle.

i was serving richard branson's kids and at one point sam branson asked me if he could move two tables together. i said to him 'since you own the place, im pretty sure you can do whatever you want here'. he replied 'don't tell me that while you're wearing that sexy little thing!'

i guess ive found a different form of glamour, a different way to travel the world, to study different cultures, to be involved in art and photography.. and as for being rich, there's plenty of time for that isn't there...