It was never planned to have Chinese by candlelight for Christmas, but that’s exactly what happened. We’d thought we were clever by cooping ourselves inside, turning on the air-conditioning and watching a movie, but a three-hour power outage, via a thunderstorm, put paid to that idea. We had only moved house two days previous, so locating candles or a torch was quite difficult. When one of us sobered up (me), candles and Chinese food were fetched, and both were consumed at the same time.
I bought a pretty row of festive-scented candles on Boxing Day, in preparation for a delightfully pungent blackout, but for the life of me I can’t think of where I’ve packed my lighter.
…
We moved. To a house, a house to call my own. The house belongs to someone else, yes. But it is the first house I’ve lived in independently; so far it’s been apartments hither and thither since moving out of casa de Parentus. This is my house, with three bedrooms to mess up, with loving wooden floors to scratch up, with gardens to leave wither and die, and unscreened windows to keep mosquitoes and burglars out of. Our driveway is steep, and apparently a magnet for neighbourhood children on Christmas-gifted bikes. All I have to do to complete this picture of suburban bliss is to stand on my stoop shaking my fist, muttering something about Durn kids gittoff mah propahty.
Moving makes me nag. Naggy nagger McNag-A-Lot. I may be a master of procrastination, but boy do I nag when other halfs are dragging their legs. Especially when it’s hot and all my stuff is meticulously packed and labelled. When I’d had enough of nagging I ended up riding Drew’s bike up and down the driveway to our apartments. A mean feat, considering I can’t ride a bike for shit. And still can’t, as illustrated by all that wobbling around the driveway and my bruised shins and ego and my complete lack of balance or grace and my mother laughing at me.
