Hawaii

So we shopped, bought nice groceries which we consumed in our (sigh) kitchenette, and ordered Pay-Per-View movies on our tv and generally chilled out.  

For two reasons:  

First of all, because we are both very lazy, but secondly because SOMEONE was approaching...  

If you were paying attention way back there in New Zealand, you will remember Brownie.  Certainly she is hard to forget, but in case you have, she is a a tiny little person but sports a personality bigger than Don King’s hair.  

She has two speeds, full stop and full steam ahead.  She is obsessed by gadgets while being completely unable to operate any of them.  She knows everything about fashion and clothes but spends 90% of her time in a pair of penguin pyjamas.  She can be unspeakably evil and still make you love her with her naughty smile and wicked eyes.  She is most definitely a bad influence.  

She openly encouraged me to bounce on Caro's bed one morning because she was bored and Caro was still asleep, which is not something one should attempt if one wants to remain a possessor of a functioning penis.  

On another occasion she dared Caro to try and recruit in the US army.  "Go on.  I dare you.  I tried to apply to the Fire Brigade once.  I was only in there because I wanted to look at the pictures of the mangled people in car crashes and then this guy asked me what I wanted so I asked him for a recruitment pack.  I don't think he believed me."

Another of my favourite Brownie stories concerns her search for a new flatmate back in London.  The other flatmates, who apparently don’t know Brownie AT ALL gave her the job of interviewing the potentials and she was forced to go through a procession of losers before coming up with a French guy named Sebastian.  

He was very good-looking, seemed normal, and most importantly could pay the rent.  Brownie sent him away with the assurance that he would get the flat, but she had to complete the rest of the interviews first.  However, no-one compared to Sebastian, not even another guy named Sebastian who turned up and gave a monosyllabic response to most of the questions.  

Brownie called French Seb up, and had a long conversation with him on the phone, telling him yes he had the flat, no it was no problem that he would have to leave after six months to do military service in France and see him soon.

A few days later, she was at work when she got a panicky call from another of her flatmates.  "Sebastian's outside!" he spluttered.  "He said you told him he could move in today!"

"That's fine!" said Brownie, who had by now told all her friends that a hunky French guy would be moving in.

"No it ISN'T!" replied the flatmate.  "It's the WRONG Sebastian!  And this one has a frighteningly large collection of Babylon 5 videos!"

Brownie had found the wrong piece of paper and called the wrong guy.  "Why the hell didn't he say something when I was twittering on about the French Army?!" she raged.  She concluded that "once again, it's apparent I've been put on this earth purely for comedy reasons."

Add to this Brownie’s unique way of talking, and you’ll start to get an idea of what was on its way to us from the UK:

How To Speak Brownie:  A Lesson
Take any everyday sentence and insert a random selection of the following words:

Fiasco, debacle, crisis, trauma, situation, whole, bloody, malarky, mangled, abortion and Jesus.

As in "I have spilt my coffee " would become:

"Jesus!  I'm having a bloody coffee trauma crisis situation!"

Brownie's favourite word is "flange".  Flanges made their way into almost all our conversations during her stays with us, which were frequent.  

When we lived in Edinburgh, Brownie and Caro could achieve a level of lethargy together which most potted plants would struggle to emulate.  They would lounge about, reading mags, painting each other's toenails and ridiculing Mariah Carey.  But then, after coffee and chocolate there would be a sudden burst of Brownie energy.  

I could hardly keep track of her that first night in Waikiki as she ran back and forth across the hotel room, from her bed to the balcony and back again.  I hope she never takes speed, because if she did, she would just be a BLUR.  Her reputation amongst our friends is legendary, as you can see from this email I received from Mechelle days before Lisa’s arrival:

From: Mechelle, Edinburgh, 21/5/01 – 2:57pm
Dear, Poor, Abused and oft maltreated Symon,
 
Your holiday in the sun is now to be disrupted by them bad-ass mama's from hell, Caro AND Brownie.  Hide while you can, I spoke with our little Ms. Brown and baby, she is dying for a holiday!  Which means everything is about to get cranked up several notches.  If rumours are true then your poor beffudled bowels will simply not be able to cope with the hectic times that lie before you.   
 
lots of love and sloppy smooches
mechelle (and jim by proxy)