I'm probably drunk ......

I'm sat idly at my PC listening to Ricky Lee Jones songs and drinking too much straight 12 year old single malt whisky from a stemless wineglass ....

Been a sod of a week again ... Flew to Hamilton for a meeting with the regional manager there and his team ... Traveling with the IT outsourcer vendor managers it was pretty intense and full on .... The regional manager likes me at the moment ...I'd got a few things moving for him and did some politically incorrect enable-ments with a politically aggressive vendor aligned to part of where I work .... Anyway they like me ... The rest don't ...

Ricky throbs out her version of under the board walk ..... it's not bad ...

The wretched weather that's plagued the country recently moved on as we moved into Hamilton... We lunched at a cafe I knew well having worked/lived almost for 2 plus years in this city with a flat soul .... We sat outside and it was sunny and warm without any chill in the air and the laughter around the table was loud and free ...We'd survived the first visit ..even came away feeling positive that we were finally making the change so badly needed ..... The chicken salad wraps and kiwifruit chutney tasted fresh and clean and delicious and the coffee added nicely to the buzz of reprieve ...

and Ricky sings it must be love

And we all pile into the Ford xr6 rental car and I'm driving and the car is like a treat for me used to a clapped out Toyota import and the car strains to go much faster at the speed limit and now and then I let it loose and we sail past the slower cars and trucks and buses on the express way and for an hour or so we are all quiet and the moment is mine ... and then we hit Manukau and the Auckland traffic jam begins ...4:00 pm ... no accidents just the daily snarl up ..... and we slip away and out of it by 6pm to the city centre and the valet at the hotel takes the car away and I wonder whether to ask for it back a little later on and just drive north for the fun of it and see where I used to live and play around Browns bay .....

And Ricky sings easy money

But I'm tempted by the collective decision to eat at the local Mexican cafe/bar and so we pile into the cramped wooden floored, far to noisy cafe and munch corn chips and salsa full of chili and garlic and drink ridiculous coloured and flavored dakaries and take turns to tell tales about our most embarrassing moments and then east enchiladas and chili con carne and chicken fajitas........ And the tequila kicks in nicely .....

I've tired of Ricky and try Rob Thomas if you're gone

The night was the usual half sleep listening to the voices talking inside my head and as I wake fully in the morning I hear them whisper 'he's waking, can he hear us' and I tell them I can but I don't want to and put hands to face and rub the sleep away .... The hotel breakfast food is bland and the coffee bitter and feels like warm mud in your mouth....And then the day in Auckland begins ...

Rod Stewart sings they cant take that away from me ....

And the meeting we've been dreading begins ...I enter the meeting room and wonder where to sit ...It matters believe me ... My main protagonist the national operations manager..the man whose previous job was taken from him and I now have have moves to one end of the long table ... I decide that this time I'll take control ..I sit at the end on my own. The national manager sits off from the end of the table and when all are sat I spell out the agenda and start the introductions of the vendor managers around me .... the meeting is now mine and I open the table for them to voice concerns and we talk about what we are doing and the issues being faced and I get complimented for the recent actions as I was in Hamilton and then its contract discussions and I excuse the architect who pissed me off with his attitude and his comments that have crippled him with the vendor managers and I dismiss the vendor networks Client executive with a friendly comment and into the discussions we go ... I was ready and informed. Corrected the vendor managers who are new to the account as to points within the contract and played the meeting as openly as I could... The meeting had been built up as being a potential blood bath and I had taken it and turned it around ..... I hate meetings and the meeting games and rituals .......

And Rod sings blue moon

And As we walk to the next branch of where I work on Queens street I feel sick from the release of the stress and even sicker from the number of smokers as we drive through the throng of lunch time walkers mostly asian ....

The rest of the day did it's course without event and we were too tired and flat to do do anything but make our way to the Koro Lounge at the airport and fly home in our separate seats away from each other on the plane and make our separate ways home...............

And I load up some scarlatti harpsicord sonatas and stretch out cupping the glass in my hands and wonder when the sandman will arrive for me .........