Crumb

noun
A very small amount of something

Here are this week's crumbs:

Manu money matters
An article was published in "Le Weekender" exposing details about the misuse of finances donated to the Manu Samoa by the people. I won't go into it any further, except to say that it is disappointing and just downright stupid. Greed plus power is a recipe for disaster. It is especially a downer in this case, where people who had little gave a lot, and gave wholeheartedly, trusting that the funds would be managed appropriately by the stewards.

That money could have been spent on so many useful things, like paying someone to do the team's washing, to prevent this from happening:
 

Honest to goodness tweet from one of the Manu players,
whose name has been filtered out to protect his identity
(coz I'm profesh like that)

 Mad love
No matter how bad things can get, and for me they got pretty bad 2 weeks ago, God has been the light. I dread to think of where I would be without Him. This week's impossible work challenges I also overcame as a result of God's power. Nothing but mad love for the ultimate Father.

Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don't try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way

- James 1:2-4 (The Message)

Tow Woes
On Wednesday, my car got towed from the parking lot behind work. The way it works is this: you drive in, park your car, pay the ticket machine thing and print out a ticket, and place the ticket inside your car on the dashboard.

I haven't had any previous problems following those instructions. Until Wednesday. I did everything except the all important last step, putting the ticket on display. So when I walked to my parking spot after work and looked at the empty space, before my heart could complete its sinking motion, my head had already replayed the morning's actions and I knew what I had done...or not done.

We got the car back, but our parking expense for the day, instead of the usual $10, was $185. Big fat tired sigh.


And last but not least...

Hot and Spicy
(No, this is not related at all to the Rugby World Cup)

KFC hot and spicy chicken is "back" ... from wherever is usually goes before it periodically returns. Big yippee from me...I only like the spicy chicken from that place. So every time it returns, our little family has a KFC feed. Just the one...until the next time it returns.



You know where that's going. Straight to the bootay.

And that's where I leave you, folks. Looking a photo of a delicious piece of hot and spicy chicken thigh. Off I go to bed before I make a late night dash to the nearest KFC.

Ezra

My lovely friend Talia Brown gave birth on Sunday 17th July 2011. For the Manu fanatics out there, you read correctly. It was on that fateful day, when Samoans the world over feasted on wallaby meat, albeit vicariously through the Manu.

So needless to say, I attempted to influence the baby naming process, by coming up with this fobby suggestion - Samoabeatwallabies3223. She politely declined (okay, more like flat out refused).

Then yesterday, the news of the boy's name was announced - Ezra Jordan Brown. The thought of the Manu fanatic may be - Have all the stars, planets, moons, asteroids and satellites aligned or what? I'm sorry, but I do not think Ezra Taylor had anything to do with the naming of this child. I am not normally a believer of coincidences, but I think just this once I can say this is purely coincidental.

Here is a link to the source of this super adorable pic (where you can also see a photo of his mother looking mighty fine even after pushing out a 10 pounder...yes, that was jealousy you detected)

Ezra Brown


If you're thinking that this post was not at all what you thought it would be, I am laughing at you.

Weekly wrap

What a week it has been. Where do I start? Well, at the very beginning of course.

Sunday: Manu Samoa beat Wallabies
And by 'beat' I mean 'slaughtered'. It was a pleasure to watch, not just for the win, but the way in which they won. With so much heart, and never giving in to the Wallabies' attempt to take back what you could sense they thought was rightfully theirs.

Monday: Pretty pretty please
I checked the Sky schedule...no more replays of the Manu game. So I sent this short but heartfelt plea to Sky



Tuesday: Baby Becks
The Beckham baby was born. Harper Seven. That confused look on your face? That's what I had on too.

Wednesday: Go the Manu
The already popular 'Go the Manu' Facebook page started gaining even more momentum. As the NZ speeding ads go 'The faster you go, the bigger the mess.' In this case it wasn't the page itself, but more the people that were joining. I suppose it was inevitable. It started with a small group of like-minded fanatics who loved the Manu ... for the team they wanted to be, and for the team that they almost were ... we love them, we LOVE them. (Sorry, did I mention I'm on a Jerry Maguire buzz?) As the numbers increase, a few psycho stalkers and know-it-all loo-hoo-hoo-zer-hers have slipped through too. And of course, our favourite, the anal one, who didn't bother to read the page description: "This is a fun page for all supporters of our Manu Samoa rugby team in the lead up to the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand."

Thursday: Only the lonely
Husband flew out last night for a family faalavelave. It's just me and the tiger-monkey-queen. So I thought, I would revisit my idle Twitter account and see what goes on there. I logged in and never looked back. You can't look back, or blink, or go to the toilet, or take Lyla to the toilet, in case you miss a Tweet. If you ever have a spare 24 hours in your day, Twitter is the place to spend it. Then I found out I could get free text notifications every time someone Tweets me. Yes please! Then I get spammed by Sleepless. No more lonely night for me.

Friday: Lazy
Today was a work-from-home-with-Lyla day. I tried out a chocolate cake recipe courtesy of Sleepless. Bad idea. It's a good sized cake. A moist good sized chocolate cake. The kid is unwell, that leaves me to eat it all. I tell you, life can be so tough.

Now that it's nearly 10pm, it's time to kick into life, and start my cooking marathon. I plan to make mushroom soup, chicken curry and cheesecake - all to freeze and distribute to the needy in the community.

And I'm sorry if you visited just to see some hot rugby player photos. What do you think this is, my secret ogle stash a perve fest? Google him :)

Vicious love

This evening something happened that made the day/week for a lot crazed female Manu Samoa fans. Wait for it...Ezra Taylor joined the Go the Manu Facebook page.

In case you don't know, it's this guy

I am sure the minute the hard-working and devoted page administrator* posted this detail, there was a collective sigh and hearts stopping momentarily as the 600 or so female members of the page swooned. (Just speculating though, will need to check with one of these members to verify *cough*)

Then almost immediately the stampede of gushing comments began, including invitations for Ezra into fans' houses, lives and ... well you get the point. I hadn't seen the page members so welcoming before :)

And then I saw another comment. Saying how beautiful and athletic Ezra's wife is. Ooooookaaaay. *crickets* And ... ? I have to say I literally laughed out loud. Ia ua lelei defender of the universe of Ezra's wife. Now, I have no idea who this person is and if they were related to this wife or if they were offended by the comments/suggestions/invitations. But I found it hilarious. Like the fanatics give a care about wives, I mean, come on. I'm sure he (Ezra, not the friend) was flattered by all the attention and love he was getting, as vicious as some of it might have been. Lol! And it's all just silly and fun and nobody is really gonna hunt him down ... right ...?

Anyway, that's my story. I didn't want to stir the pot on the page by adding my half a cent, especially after the admin diplomatically smoothed things over. I gotta say though, some people are just tuned to a completely different station.

Go the Manu! I still love you lots. In a purely platonic way. Ua ma laia, go back to your wives.

----------------------------------------

* I don't know what the administrator is like, but I have credited her with some of my attributes :P

FB shorts

Lyla has come down with a chest infection/sinus infection/asthma combo. Note to self: don't tempt Murphy by saying things like 'This winter has been quite mild', or he will slap you around with his law. So it's been less blogging and more Facebook stalking for me the past few days, as it's easier to do in the little bursts of spare time.

Here a few interesting/funny/thought provoking (yes, I am still talking about FB) things I came across.

Go the Manu
 

Go the Manu















If you are not a technical guru or rugby purist, but an avid supporter (or extreme stalker type supporter even) of the greatest rugby team in the world (subjective), then this is the page for you. It has all the basic components of a supporters page:

• team photos



• game schedules



• pre-game team line-up



• details of which pools the team will be swimming at (that's right...pool as in swimming pool, not a competition grouping)



• hilarious and/or angry comments (depending on the result of the latest game) from other crazed/delusional/extremist fans



• opportunity to present questions for player interviews

Chemistry funnies
 

"Hey, know any good jokes about sodium?" "Na"












Caution: Contains extremely geeky Chemistry puns

If you think the periodic table is a schedule of monthly hormonal cycles, then it would be best to avoid this page.

I quite enjoy the puns that people post on this page. I admire their wit (or is it lack of better things to do). I don't ever plan on commenting on the page though, for fear of being shot down by those waaaaay more geeky than I. When chemistry geeks get angry at you for not subscripting the numbers for a chemical formula...it ain't pretty.

Reminder
This is day 3 of working from home as Lyla's too sick for daycare. She has been driving me up the wall with her whining and constant demand for attention (*cough* love). Then I see the FB status of a friend, a single mum of 2 little boys, saying one of her boys has bad tonsillitis and they've been up all night and he might be going for surgery. Oh shucks, now I feel like a drama queen. Puts things into perspective. A little bit more gratefulness and a little less selfishness can do wonders. And so does prayer...so I'm praying for you Xavy!

Blast from the past
There are quite a few photos and posts on my News Feed about the annual Sootaga, which is like a convention for the Samoan Students Associations from the different universities in New Zealand. It reminds me of my uni days at Canterbury. And how I refused to join such an association, because it consisted mainly of NZ-born Samoans, and I was a real Samoan...a Samoan from Samoa...real Samoa, not American Samoa. What a narrow minded turd I was. In my last year of uni most of my real Samoan friends were gone, either graduated or failed the previous year on a break, and it was during that time I came to befriend many of these NZ-born Pacific Islanders. I came to appreciate the realness to them of their culture and roots. I even frequented the Pacific Islanders study room, and for that got mocked by another sufferer of I'm-a-real-Samoan-and-you're-not syndrome. Po-tay-toe, po-tah-toe.

Right. Back to FB stalking.

Rugby gaga

The rugby world cup starts in 66 days. Now, before you assume I am the face-paint rugby crazed type ... I'm not. I do have teams that I love - Crusaders, Springboks and of course, the boys in blue - Manu Samoa.

As a teenage girl living in the wop wops of Samoa, I was quite fanatic about rugby. I won a trophy/cup in high school for something (note: something COMPLETELY un-sporty like mathematics or chemistry) and the side that had my name and the subject on it, I covered with a piece of cardboard on which I had scribbled "Webb Ellis Cup". True story. The lovely ladies at the photo shop past Molesi were quite used to me turning up clutching a newspaper photo asking for it to be laminated. They would smile and ask "Oh, who's this?" It was usually Bobby Skinstad. Or Joost van der Westhuizen. Yes, stalker scary fanatic.

Fast forward n years and I no longer have the energy to be fanatic (apologies for sounding repetitive, this is the general tone of my posts - getting old and tired). For my teams, I will sit still for 2 hours and Facebook/catch up with the blog world in front of the TV and look up to watch when the commentators voices start rising.

For a while the thought of the rugby world cup "coming to town" was just blah blah to my ears. But today, the pool match tickets went on public sale. I had the honour *cough* of buying the tickets for hubby and friends for one of the Manu Samoa games. And it wasn't until I received the confirmation email for the tickets that reality hit...the Webb Ellis cup was going to be competed for in this country in 2 months time. Ooooh exciting! At that point I also felt a bit of envy that I couldn't go. And in a matter of seconds, that envy turned into relief that I wasn't going, because like I mentioned before, I'm too old and tired for that stuff.

However, I am still excited about the games. Excited about the excitement surrounding the games. With hubby going to the game(s), Lyla and I will be able to enjoy the games girlie style. Hmmm, I think we'll dress up and have a high tea party while we watch the game on SKY. So our theme is completely unrelated to rugby or Manu Samoa. That's a minor detail. Woohoo for the world cup and William Webb Ellis and all things rugby!