Computers, kittehs, Coldplay and cakes

First off, Bean is cute. See? Here he is being ridiculously cute in the tunnel he got for his birthday.

Sorry I haven't blogged for a while. I've actually been busy! I started doing Introduction to Computer Programming - a first year course at university in Wellington. So 3 afternoons a week I leave work early to attend lectures then do assignments/ read the textbook etc. It's going ok, but quite challenging. I just got my first assignment mark back and it was pretty good with nice comments from the tutors - so far so good.
A few weekends ago Adrian and I took a trip to the inward cargo area at Wellington Airport. We picked up an Armi. Armi is (was) my sister's cat. A girl cat. Almost blasphemous really. Girl cats are always evil, so I'm not sure what we were thinking. Anyway, Anna couldn't have Armi at her new house in Auckland, so after some discussion Adrian [there are lots of capital As in this sentence] and I decided that we would get a little sister for Bean. Armi is about 2, Bean is about 4.

I tried to take some photos of her, but she's a girl cat. If she just knew how big her butt looks in the first photo, I bet she would have happily posed for me front on. So I tried and tried and tried and in the end I grabbed her and secured a paparazzi-style photo (in which you can even see the crazed eye of the paparazzo). She looked about as happy as Lindsay Lohan does in her pics.

Armi is... interesting. She is SUCH a girl cat. She's always telling us how pretty and foodworthy she is with her cute little beeps and high-pitched mows, infused with a question-mark-like inflection.

"Look, look at me! Aren't I cute? Aren't I? Can you feed me? Now?"

When we first got her to her new home she was NOT a happy camper (cat-per?). Kind of fair enough, after spending about 5 hours in travel, being taken from your Mum, and arriving in a new city with no smells that you recognise. Bean was I think a little confused. All he wanted to do was kind of be friends and cuddle but she just kept hissing at him. It's amazing how confused Bean was looking with a face you wouldn't think could show such emotion.

Anyway after a few hairy weeks she has finally started to calm down. I had to laugh at her today... I was cuddling Bean on the couch, and his tail was hanging down off the edge. Now keep in mind that Armi does not like any less than three metres in between her and Bean most of the time. Armi slowly walked over to the couch and sniffed Bean's tail. Then hissed! I said to her:
"Armi, how many cats are there in this house? Two. [although Bean technically isn't a cat]. So how many tails are there in this house? Two. Which means, if you sniff one that's not attached to you, it's probably going to smell like Bean."
Hopefully that made her realise.

So, she is our newest family member. I have no doubt that she misses her Mum but I hope that she and Bean can eventually be friends. She's pretty ridiculously cute (like someone else we know) when she wants to be. I've noticed she likes playing with things that make noise - balls with bells in them in particular. She's quite fun to play with.

It was my birthday on Thrusday 19th. I took the 18th and 19th off work because Adrian and I bought Coldplay tickets back (in November?) when they first went on sale. It was at Vector Arena in Auckland. We flew up there on Wednesday afternoon and stayed the night at Chris and Sarah's house in Mt Eden (I went to uni with Chris). Was very nice of them to have us - thanks guys :)

Since my sister moved to Auckland we decided to have tea together so had yummy Thai at a restaurant in Remuera. Was nice to see her again although quick.

The Coldplay concert was awesome... you know how you have 'feel-good' movies? Well they are a feel-good band. When they played their song 'Yellow' there were about 20 massive yellow balloons, about 2 metres across, that dropped from the ceiling. How isn't happy when there are giant yellow balloons bouncing around? Also dropped from the ceiling at a different time were peaceful, pastel-coloured paper butterflies which then turned neon coloured and glowed upon climax of the song.

Overall the concert was really cool and although it was expensive I'm glad we went. It was also a fun couple of days 'holiday' for me and Adrian.

When we got back late on Thursday night my friend Bex texted and said she was going to come to our house at about 9.30 to give me my birthday present. She bought me a birthday cake :) And not just any birthday cake - look at it! (Please excuse the poor photo taking - I just wanted to eat it but felt it was worthy of a photo) It was a chocolate cake, iced, with chocolate cupcakes, iced, stacked on top of it. And white chocolate and milky bars around the edges. AND - a musical candle. Neat a! I had told her at some previous point that I couldn't remember the last time I had a proper birthday cake and she took it upon herself to make sure i had one for my 25th. It was really yum as well as pretty!

That's about all... hope this wasn't too boring.

xxx