A Really Messy Catch Up

It's been so long that the mere thought of my blog makes me feel guilty. The oh my goodness I've been unfaithful kind of guilty. Which is fitting, I suppose. 

So, there have been a lot of things happening since (OH MY GOODNESS YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME THE LAST TIME I UPDATED WAS IN) May. The siblings and I moved to a new apartment, the sister got married and moved out of the new apartment too, work got a lot busier and slowed back down, I got put in charge of caroling and caroling practices have started! Major changes all around I guess.

The new apartment is great. Now that it's just me and the brother, we have a running joke that we both basically live alone and take shifts being home. Seriously, I never see the guy anymore. Once when Larry went to visit his sister at work (who happens to be the brother's boss), Joash apparently asked how I was because he hadn't seen me in about two weeks. It was hilarious :) Now that I'm house sitting and it's been just me and the dog, everyone has been asking me what the hell I do with myself alone there. I keep telling people that even when I was at home, it's not like I ever saw Joash so it's pretty much the same thing. At least here I have McDog who wakes me up early in the morning whenever he feels like going outside and demands to be wrapped like a sausage in his blanket for entertainment and listens to me talk to myself. Wow that sounded really sad, didn't it? LOL

The sister's wedding was a lot of fun. I think it was definitely the most fun I've ever had at a wedding :) Let's just say it was a night to never forget and leave it at that, shall we? :p

Last Sunday was out first ever caroling practice of the year! It was a LOT of fun. Since quite a few of our newer carolers can't make it for caroling this year, everyone who showed up for practice was strictly longtime friends. That made for plenty of entertainment. Well if you call barely a moment of silence and screaming to get people's attention and having Leanne's baby sister being carried in to be inducted into the caroling habit early in life 'plenty of entertainment'. It really was good fun though :)

So there's the update post. Hopefully now that work has slowed down I'll be able to write something interesting soon :)

A Hilarious Carolers Weekend Part II

Ah the second day. The day of distant and faraway houses. Because we could all fit into one van, Avean now had a van full of people to torment. And torment us he did.

House #1

I think it’s safe to say that we carolers are animals when it comes to chocolate. We were at Benjamin and Christina’s (the cousins) place and they had Kit Kats for us. Pretty soon the Kit Kat bowl was empty and when Thea came looking for some, I asked some of the people I had seen pocketing the Kit Kats to give her one. All of a sudden everyone’s secret stash came spilling out of their pockets. Chocolate makes thieves apparently.

So because I was determined to take pictures and I’m not enough of a camwhore to do it at people’s houses, the van was my only other option. Bad idea.

I had somehow fooled myself into sitting at the same spot I was the day before, getting my head knocked on the side of the van again. Clever me. Nat gave me her hat to see if it could cushion the blows and Avean obligingly ‘checked the brakes’ again and I got another bump on my head. I gave Nat’s hat back to her with regretful thanks saying it didn’t work.

Anyway I was trying to get a picture of everyone sitting behind me so I was perched very awkwardly in my seat. Every time I counted down to take a picture the brakes would suddenly need checking and I would go lurching all over the place. The pictures were, without exception, either blurry or very blurry. Pretty soon I was trying to be sneaky about it and still didn’t manage to get a shot because I was busy watching Avean and he was busy glancing into the rearview mirror to see if we were up to anything. It was on one of these times when the brakes got checked that Avean finally managed to make me fall out of my seat -_-

House #2

The second house was kinda hot but we were all managing okay while we were singing. Then lo and behold, when we gave our customary gift of a lighted candle to our host, he switched off the fan so it wouldn’t go out! None of us said anything, we’re much too polite for that. But when everyone started fanning themselves quite desperately the fan came back on. When it was time for food, everyone crowded into the room where the food was. I stayed outside very wisely and yelled that we were taking it in shifts to get our food because of the limited space and well…air. Suddenly everyone came spilling out of the room because it was too hot and I got to take my food first :D

We also managed to cover up a crime scene when Aaron spilt something when he was throwing away his plate cause he was laughing at me. I grabbed the tissues and blocked him while he imperceptibly got on his hands and knees and swiped that mess clean. Although if I were smart I probably wouldn’t be blogging about it.

Anyway on our way to the third and final house for the night, Joash was telling us all a funny story about his video shoot that day. And believe me, the story wasn’t half as funny as Nat’s reaction. I think the entire van was in hysterics for a good 5 minutes at least. At first we were laughing because Joash’s story was funny. Then suddenly we were laughing at Nat’s hysterical laughter. Every time we calmed down, we’d hear her laugh and the whole van would double up with laughter again. Before I knew it I was holding my eyeliner in place with my fingers because I was laughing too hard to look for my tissues. Everyone calmed down when we pulled over because we thought we were lost so we finally sobered up. Turned out Avean just wanted to ask if Nat was okay after all the high-induced madness lol.

House #3

I probably shouldn’t have announced just before going into the house that this was where we screwed up every time we came. I told my people that we should try to break the tradition but we decided to stick to it instead lol. Of all things, I screwed up When A Child is Born. My first ever solo. I should be ashamed.

Anyway one good thing came out of it though. Nygel decided that we were so bad that him joining us would probably be good for us so he said he’s coming for caroling this coming week. YAYYYY!!!! Finally, success. After goodness knows how many years of trying to get him to come for caroling, all I needed to do was screw up a solo while everyone watched :D

Quote of the day has to go to Joash (Surprise, surprise. I swear there’s no nepotism involved here) from when we were at the petrol station before making the trip back to church from Putra Heights.

“I may be a parian, but I still have feelings!!”

Here’s to staying sane til Wednesday when the madness starts up again!

A Hilarious Carolers Weekend Part I

The weekend began as one would suspect. I woke up late running to get the landline that was ringing only to discover Joash was closer to it but couldn’t hear it cause he had his earphones on -_- ANYWAY in the afternoon there was suddenly a flurry of activity in the Selvaraj household as we all ran around getting ready for our first day of caroling :D

So we got to church and realized we had a few too many people to squeeze into one van, so we had to take two. Little did we know that everyone was going to squeeze themselves into one van, leaving me, Joash, Edwin (Holy crap haven’t seen him since his wedding we were all so excited he was there!! When the sister told me he was coming I almost fell over.), Michael, Valentine, Elisabeth and Avean our ever responsible driver in the other van that could seat fifteen lol. We were very happy that we all had room to stretch out. Unfortunately that also meant that there was more room to be jostled about in, which Avean was very happy about and took full advantage of as he ‘checked the brakes’ every opportunity he had. I kept almost falling and hitting my head on the side of the van, yet very cleverly never moving.

House #1

It was a good omen that we got lost on our way to the very first house. Best part was that when we finally got there after asking for directions from a bunch of scary looking Indian boys, we discovered that it was Aaron and Andrea’s place but they had just sat quietly in the other van, not saying anything lol.

After we had finished singing (fabulously as usual) we got to eat a bunch of delicious doughnuts. Nathalie, the crazy person who hadn’t eaten since 11am the day before, ate four of them and proceeded to pack the rest to eat in the van. Joash of course didn’t let her live it down and now immediately summons her in every house for the purpose of bungkus-ing food :)

House #2

One of our hosts pointed out that our van tyre or rims or something to do with that area looked like it was…about to be punctured? Something like that. Avean proceeded to explain the problem and tell me and only me to avoid weighing down the van -_- Curses.

House #3

Well it wasn’t exactly a house, it was a big condo party that we were singing at. Where we sang for an hour by the way. It is a thing to be proud of, I tell you. We were off to a slow start because both our guitar and bongo player, namely the dear brother and Edgar, got lost looking for the gents. So the rest of us were just standing at the ready for almost five whole minutes waiting for them to show up. That was fun.

So we sang and sang until we were hoarse and when the coordinator announced that the carolers were taking a 10 minute break, we all gratefully tumbled away towards the drinks, which we discovered were all cold. So…no liquid refreshment for us then. A mere 3 minutes later we were summoned back to sing, which obviously surprised us and we scrambled back there to croak another couple of songs plus an encore cause the people there thought we were just that good. By the second half, Joash was rubbing his shoulder from his enthusiastic strumming, Edgar was massaging his fingers and I was bent at the waist rubbing the spot where I kept battering myself with the tambourine.

House #4

THEY GAVE US FERREROROCHER!!! Needless to say, we finished one box and Nat was tempted to bungkus the other lol.

Our hosts were our Area Fellowship-mates so that was fun. It was such a nice house. So anyway when we went downstairs and were waiting for another elevator-load of people, I was asking the kids what the other van was like and when they said it was really quiet I asked them why and if they all didn’t like each other or something. The silence was deafening and I officially got worried lol.

When Joash came down and we were all getting onto the van he started yelling how our van was the party van and it was party time and all that. Next minute he suddenly whispered, “Sleepy la cha.” LOL

House #5

So by the time we got to Uncle Joseph Manuel’s house we were all sooooo hungry. While we were singing I could smell the wonderful scent of chicken curry wafting over to us, effectively distracting me from singing in any level of decent. Luckily the singing was soon over and we all indulged and then listened to Nat for entertainment :)

Quote of the day would have to be Nat telling us a joke while we were walking from the vans to Uncle Joseph Manuel’s house.

“So this is a fish right? (wiggles hand) So what’s this? (makes a fist and wiggles it the same way)

A fishball.”

*Smack forehead* Joash and I looked at each other then he couldn’t stop himself from asking Nat if she was high.