DISTURBing Behavior

Anyone who has met me can vouch that I’m a total heavy metal enthusiast. I can head bang with the best of them and my daily wardrobe consists of black band shirts with zippers and safety pins and all that other weird stuff on them...Alright, fine I’m secretly a 60 year old woman living in a 22 year olds body. I love Elton John, Billy Joel, Cher, Bette Midler, Franki Valli...the list could go on. And when you look at Sam’s iPod, it reads like the soundtrack to a Grey’s Anatomy episode. (No really, it does - that’s where she gets all of her music from) We would probably be the last two people in the world you would expect to see at the Disturbed concert, but that’s where we were on May 3^rd, 2011. 

It all started one Sunday night at Fox’s when Sam and I were working on a particularly quiet night. A group of tattooed older guys came in and were very loud and funny, and since there was literally nothing else to do behind the bar, Sam just talked to them the whole night. Unbeknownst to us, they were actually the members, managers and crew for the band. And since Sam is so charming, she somehow managed to get two backstage passes to the concert on Tuesday night. I would never go out of my way to go a heavy metal concert, but when life hands you backstage passes, you don’t say no. 

I looked through my wardrobe for an appropriate outfit and realized I’m probably one of the preppiest people in NZ. I literally had to google ‘what to wear to a rock concert’ so I wouldn’t look too out of place. I ended up going with a leather jacket (From Kohl’s by Lauren Conrad – so badass I know) and a purple floral shirt. I did some heavy eye makeup and put my hair back in a bun. We showed up to Vector Arena, got our backstage passes from the ticket booth because were so VIP, and then walked to the backstage door and pulled our passes out. The guard kindly informed us we couldn’t get in. After actually reading the “Backstage Passes” more carefully, we noticed the not so fine print that said, “This pass does not allow entry to: hallway access, dressing rooms, or backstage.” What was it a pass for then? Luckily the guy who gave it to us came out to get us and let us in. We then spent the rest of the night right by the stage listening to the music up close and personal. In retrospect, the bun was actually a bad idea. Have you ever tried head banging with a bun? It just doesn’t work.  But that’s okay, I just ended up doing the robot – it never fails.

APRIL.

This post will account for the entire month of April. Ready:

It rained. A lot. Guess the old saying of April showers is true even in New Zealand. Except for the ‘brings May flowers’ part because all it brought was more rain. I think I forgot how much it rains in New Zealand, but I’m quickly remembering. 

Oh yeah, and Easter. It didn’t really happen this year either. Sam and I had work (shocker). We’ve gotten used to not celebrating holidays on their actual date. We usually postpone it and celebrate it ourselves whenever we have a day off together. I’m pretty sure we ended up celebrating Christmas a week into January, but it works for us. We planned to go out to dinner at Mecca for it like we did for New Years Eve, but then our American friend Elyse invited us to dinner with her parents who were visiting. Dinner at Mecca by ourselves which we’ve done before or free dinner with actual people at a new restaurant in Ponsonby? It was a toss up but we went with the latter. It was really nice meeting them and talking to Americans again. It was even nice just to be around a family, even if it wasn’t mine or Sam’s. Also, they had the most amazing gnocchi I’ve ever had in my life. I know you’re supposed to be polite at dinner and converse and eat slowly, but I devoured it. 

Later that night, it got me thinking about my own family and how I’ll be back home soon in the states and out of Auckland. Then I realized something that made me really sad for the moment: What if I never get to have that gnocchi again for the rest of my life?! And that completes this segment on “Deep Thoughts by Nicole Riverso.”

Return of the Original Cookie Monster

So not that I watch Sesame Street anymore, but I’ve heard a disturbing rumor that Cookie Monster now likes to eat healthy foods...What is this about? I feel like I don’t even know him anymore. Well, our friend Sarah from work likes to bake cupcakes and Sam is always baking cookies. Sarah came across this Cookie Monster cupcake recipe that combined the two so it was a perfect combination of their baking talents! We headed over to her house (because she actually has a full sized kitchen as opposed to our “kitchenette” which is a cute way of saying “crappy kitchen”) to start baking. It was very fun and relaxing to have a girls’ night in. We drank wine while baking and listened to music...which somehow turned into a Backstreet Boys dance party? Anyway, back to the point. These are the final results of all our hard work:

You may have noticed that I said Sarah made the cupcakes and Sam made the cookies and are now wondering what the hell I had to do with any of this. Well, for your information, I made the eyes which required the painstaking precision of putting dark chocolate on top of white chocolate.........In other words, I don’t bake and it’s probably for the best.

“You Can’t Call It Drinking All Day If You Don’t Start In the Morning”

So...I managed to commit the cardinal blogging sin: I forgot to blog. It’s harder to blog about things after they happened so long ago, which is why I regret not doing it immediately afterward, but it’s still nice to write it down to read. And who are we kidding, it’s not like my life is THAT exciting that I missed too many things.

I’ll start with St. Patrick’s Day. Being half Irish, I take this day to celebrate my ancestry and all the fabulous and rich cultural traditions that come with being a descendent of Ireland...oh yeah, and to drink mass amounts of beer. Of course, when you work at a bar, having St. Patrick’s Day off is just not an option. Sam and I had work at around 3, so we got up at around 9AM and met our manager Ashley and our friend Orielle at O’Hagans for drinks and breakfast. I decided to be really patriotic and drink Kilkenny – doesn’t really go down so smooth that early in the morning, but hey I tried. We bar hopped to all the Irish bars around Auckland and even ran into a famous photographer at one and he offered to take our picture. He was doing all these really weird angles and I thought to myself, “These are going to be pretty cool.” Then I saw them. Note to photographer: Weird angles = Double Chin. Not cool. So needless to say, you won’t be seeing any of those photos tagged on Facebook. Then we went to Fox’s to start our shift. At this point I was still under the delusional belief that since we weren’t an Irish bar we might be dead and we could get out early. But no, that was not the case. Let’s face it - the Irish don’t care where they drink as long as there is beer. I was on the floor picking up glasses for the night and it was so packed I could barely move – and drunk Irish guys were constantly hitting on me, grabbing me, and trying to dance with me. It was, hands down, one of the worst nights of my life. After that shift, I was in desperate need of a relaxing shower and a good night’s sleep...and possibly the number to a sexual abuse counselling hot line....

Overall, it taught me an important life lesson: never WORK in a bar on St. Patrick’s Day.

Birthdays Were the Worst Days, Now We Sip Champagne When We Thirstay

For Sam’s Birthday, we decided to be classy as and go to the Auckland Race Cup. People here go all out with giant hats and fascinators (flowery/feather hair clips). So Sam, Elyse, and I got all dressed up in floral dresses with big hair pieces and fancy shoes, and set out for the races in style!...by bus. 

Once we got there, there was a Stella Artios photo shoot going on where you could pose for model shots. I’m not gonna lie I look pretty awkward in most of them, so even if I wasn’t 5’2 I still don’t think a modeling career would have ever been in my near future. 

Stella Photo Shoot

The races itself were a blur due to Sam’s dad treating us to three bottles of champagne across the world thanks to American Express. After weeks of studying the races, the horses, and their jockeys, we developed an extensive, fool-proof system of picking horses that we thought were going to win and I shall share it with you here: Coolest name = winning horse. It’s a mathematical fact. 

 After the races, we went home to take a nap. Then the real birthday celebration began! I made Sam some oatmeal chocolate chip cookies for her birthday (which I burnt to pieces, but it’s the thought that counts right?) and we put a candle in one of the cookies and sang happy birthday. 

 Then we headed down to fox’s for our “pregame.” Every two weeks, Fox’s has to clear the beer lines, so they empty all the remaining beer out of the kegs and put them in jugs and the employees get to drink them – one of the perks of the job. People from work came in and we sat around, drank, and even introduced them to flip cup! I don’t see it catching on in NZ any time soon sadly. We went out on the town after that and had a very fun night filled with birthday shots, which is why the day after Sam’s birthday, March 10^th 2011, is basically a missed day in our lives. We never made it out of bed. Okay, well that’s a lie. I got up once to open the door for the pizza delivery man. 

Beer Lines

UNI ORIENTATION WEEK!!

Woo! It was just the beginning of classes at Auckland Uni, which means Orientation Week where they set up booths in the quad to sign up for clubs, get information, they play music, and give away ice tea, ice cream, and coupons, etc. You may be asking yourself, ‘But Nicole, didn’t you graduate already? Why are you excited about Orientation Week when you have no reason to go?” And to that I would respond with two things. 1.) They don’t know I’m not a student there and 2.) If you reread the beginning of this paragraph, you’ll notice I said they “give away ice tea, ice cream, and coupons.” 

So yeah, Sam and I crashed Auckland Uni Orientation for free giveaways. And it was amazing. We also got a new sticker put on our student ID to show that we are current students so now we get discounted movie tickets and things like that. Sure, I had to put down a fake name (Nicole Rivers) and student ID number but I was already long gone before they figured that out....We also got lunch on campus at this place we used to love there, Strata. Embarrassingly enough, even at a school that big, we ran into three people we know. It was really good to see them, but I’m sure part of them was judging us...And by part I mean all.