Yes, that appears to be what I have been of late. A bump, who is nowhere near a blog. Funny how that happens. I blame summer. I always feel very unmotivated, drifitng around, during the summer months. I think that the heat cooks my brain. SO.... in the spirit of a cooked brain and a bump on a blog, today's entry is low on the effort scale. I have copied one of those survey things here, and I am answering the questions. This survey was called "a girly survey", and was quite fun to read, when I received it from someone else. So, any boy readers might be bored, but there you go. It's high time this blog had some more make-up & handbags type content!!
1.)Briefly describe your personal style:
I guess I'd say kind of bohemian/hippie-ish, with a dollop of goth thrown in.
2.) If you had to take only 3 things from your make-up bag to the desert island, what would they be?:
A lipstick, my eyelash curlers and tinted moisturiser with SPF. (might I be able to bring my tweezers, too? Pretty please...)
3.) Fave lipstick colour?: I'd have to say red, in various hues, but I wear all kinds of colours.
4.) Fave nail polish colour?: It's one I mixed myself, and it's the shade of pigeons or mourning doves...kind of silver-grey-beige-mauve. It's awesome.
5.) Fave brand of make-up?: I use all sorts, but I really love MAC.
6.) Fave perfume?: Right now, I'm grooving on "Petal" by Cynthia Rowley. I always love "Sheer Stella" (Stella McCartney) in the summer, but my other ones I always use are Mitsouko, FlowerBomb & Pleasures. There'a also this Indian perfume oil called Sunflower that I adore, and can only find regularly at Zinnia Worldly Notions in Victoria.
7.) Do you like bath products? If so, which ones?: Oh yeah. I love Avon's Lilac bubble bath, and I have these bath salts called Forget-Me-Not, that I found at Winners, and really really like.
8.) Long or short nails?: I've had both, but almost always short.
9.) Do you paint your toenails?: Sure do. Almost always bright colours.
10.) Long hair or short hair?: Short-ish right now, but I have had hair all the way from a few inches long to nearly down to my waist. Hair bores me, so it's rarely the same for a long time.
11.) What's the most expensive thing in your wardrobe?: Goodness, now there's a question. It would have to be my lovely, lovely, cherry red Prada doctor bag. I paid about $20 for it at a garage sale where a guy was exacting rightful vengeance on his vile ex-girlfriend for running off with his friend while he (the guy) battled Parkinson's Disease. He was getting a kick out of selling all her high-end designer stuff for pennies at a yard sale. Woo hoo! I win. It is a splendid bag, and I thrill to it all the time. Use it constantly. Got both my $20 worth, and likely a good portion of the astronomical price Evil Girlfriend paid, too!!
12.) If you had the chance to splash out on a major luxury item, would it be an article of clothing, a bag, shoes or jewellery?: Oh dear...what a choice. Jewellry, I think, but a bag would be a close second.
13.) What jewellery do you wear the most?: Wedding rings, all my silver bangles and my thumb rings never come off.
14.) Fave piece of jewellery?: My wedding rings are right up there. After I lost my wedding band (yes, I am a loser), we found a perfect Edwardian band with bells and flowers that looks amazing with my Edwardian diamond. I love old jewels. I'd have to add a couple of other faves, too. A big, chunky pewter & agate piece my mum made years ago, my beige pearl that my parents brought me from Rarotonga, all my silver bangles.... this list could go on & on, so I'm going to stop now.
15.) Best deal in your wardorbe?: Again, the prada bag would be up there. Also, I scored a beautiful brown velvet coat, with pink and gold embroidery from the Goodwill for about $8. It's an incredible coat and I always get compliments when I wear it.
16.) Have you ever worn false eyelashes?: Have I?! I am the queen of the false eyelash. Love 'em, and I'll bust 'em out every chance I get.
17.) Would you consider a face lift?: Nope.
18.) Do you go for regular beauty treatments?: Beauty treatments, you say?..... No, I guess I do not, save having my hair cut. I do have a nice pedicure now & then.
19.) Shave or wax?: Shave my legs and my pits, DIY wax the old bikini line, and pluck the odd other stray hair.
20.) Are you high or low maintenance, beauty-wise?: In the middle, I'd say. I like to look nice & well-groomed, but I certainly don't spend inordinate amounts of time in front of the mirror or in the esthetics salon, etc.
So now you know more than you ever wanted to about my cosmetical life. It was kind of fun to do, though. If any of you gals want to do it, send it back to me in a real email. Then I will learn all your secrets, too!
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Serving Sizes....WTF??
You know what really really pisses me off? (maybe not as much as losing my Trooper blog, but still a lot) Those retarded serving sizes on the back of food packets. I came home from yoga, opened a cider, and decided that the packet of "Crispy Tortillaz" I had in my cupboard were not getting any riper, and cracked 'em. Swig of cider, crispy tortilla, swig of cider, crispy tortilla..... You can sense a pattern here, I am sure. It was going very well, indeed, the cool sweet bubbles of pear cider nicely complimenting the savory, MSG deliciousness of the Santa Fe Ranch crispy tortillaz. I could not help but then notice that I had consumed much of the packet. Did not intend to...just kind of happened. I further could not help but notice that the serving size on the back was *get ready* 8 chips. 8. Yes, you read that correctly. 8.
Fuck. Well, there goes about 500 calories. And these weren't even the real thing, for God's sake. They were the Quaker kind that cruelly misleads one into thinking that they are not half bad to eat. Why don't they blazon the serving size on the front, in realistic terms. For example, "Serving Size: the whole damned bag. Calories: unspeakable." I'd really rather know the whole story, right off the top. I mean, what is the idea of giving a serving size that small? I'd guess to keep the calorie count under 3 digits. But who ever eats only 2 digits worth of Crispy Tortillaz? So give us the dirty, people. Then, if by some miracle of the modern world, we manage NOT to down the whole bag o' crispy tortillaz, we feel pretty good that we have not ingested a person's caloric intake for the entire day. Can you not just let us feel good, snack manufacturers? Can you not?
Fuck. Well, there goes about 500 calories. And these weren't even the real thing, for God's sake. They were the Quaker kind that cruelly misleads one into thinking that they are not half bad to eat. Why don't they blazon the serving size on the front, in realistic terms. For example, "Serving Size: the whole damned bag. Calories: unspeakable." I'd really rather know the whole story, right off the top. I mean, what is the idea of giving a serving size that small? I'd guess to keep the calorie count under 3 digits. But who ever eats only 2 digits worth of Crispy Tortillaz? So give us the dirty, people. Then, if by some miracle of the modern world, we manage NOT to down the whole bag o' crispy tortillaz, we feel pretty good that we have not ingested a person's caloric intake for the entire day. Can you not just let us feel good, snack manufacturers? Can you not?
Monday, July 14, 2008
Sadness that gross snacks cannot help.
I have looked at my blog, and I have discovered that my masterpiece, the entry about the Trooper concert, is somehow incomplete. I am crushed. My very heart and soul went into that one, and now some evil blog-eating something or other has sucked it into the cyberspace void. I was truly inspired in my description of the satin jacket wearing, caftan sporting, Phantom of the Opera channeling Trooper keyboard player. Even my husband was impressed. I feel as though I have lost a little part of myself that can never quite be replaced. Even pretzels dipped in Cheese Whiz have not taken the edge off my sorrow. Just think of it....pretzels & cheese whiz, washed down with bubbly wine, in which floated lovely fresh raspberries. And nada.... the pain still skewers my heart. SCREW YOU, DUMBASS BLOG!!!
I am also procrastinating badly. We spent a delightful weekend at the cabin, and returned home last night with the expected mountain of laundry, crap, and personal filth that can only come from a weekend with no mod cons, plus an excursion in bare feet/rubber sandals across the Little Red Deer River. Have I dealt with this? NO no no. Shit. It looms, inducing ever-increasing loads of guilt. But I had an excuse. Last night, I somehow caused my right eye to manifest the world's worst allergic reaction, which resulted in the entire right side of my face swelling and twisting and contorting, so that I resembled the Elephant Man's more unfortunate sister. God, it was unspeakably revolting. Lucky I have a strong stomach. I was kind of ill all morning, and then had to go around in the afternoon with a dishcloth of ice lashed to my face in order to actually leave the house for yoga this evening.
It still feels all jelly-like and creepy. The wine has done no good, nor have the pretzels. And the mess has failed to take care of itself. Tomorrow is going to suck.
I am also procrastinating badly. We spent a delightful weekend at the cabin, and returned home last night with the expected mountain of laundry, crap, and personal filth that can only come from a weekend with no mod cons, plus an excursion in bare feet/rubber sandals across the Little Red Deer River. Have I dealt with this? NO no no. Shit. It looms, inducing ever-increasing loads of guilt. But I had an excuse. Last night, I somehow caused my right eye to manifest the world's worst allergic reaction, which resulted in the entire right side of my face swelling and twisting and contorting, so that I resembled the Elephant Man's more unfortunate sister. God, it was unspeakably revolting. Lucky I have a strong stomach. I was kind of ill all morning, and then had to go around in the afternoon with a dishcloth of ice lashed to my face in order to actually leave the house for yoga this evening.
It still feels all jelly-like and creepy. The wine has done no good, nor have the pretzels. And the mess has failed to take care of itself. Tomorrow is going to suck.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
One for the Money, Two for the Show...
There was definitely money, and there sure was a show. And there was me, having my little mind expanded and amused. Last night, I stayed out waaaaay past my bedtime, I went to a casino and I saw those grizzled gods of 70s Canadian classic rock, Trooper. Yes, Trooper. They are still alive, quite well, it would seem, and playing to frantically devoted crowds in places such as the Deerfoot Casino. And I was there to feel the magic.....
Trooper is one of Dad's faves, so my sis, bro-in-law, and myself all accompanied Dad on his outing to see his band. This led to my being in the aforementioned casino. Boy, what a surprise for little old me. I do not frequent casinos. I would have hardly be able to tell you what goes on in one, save for last night. Now I know. I beheld bank after bank of blinking, chirping, whirling game machines, food stalls, a cashier place behind strands of giant barbed wire, free coffee table (!!), real live game tables, where real live people were playing card games with real live dealers, just like you see in the movies (and didn't my clever brother-in-law, Wally, just go and win $50 at one such table), little people with wagons of snackies, going up and down the aisles of machines, offering much-needed MSG to peckish players, gamblers galore, both serious and fun-seeking, and last, but surely not least, two poor girls on little platforms, wearing skin-tight pants from the Suzy Shier $20 and under rack, doing some kind of gyrating dance moves which were falling on a distincly disinterested audience. I kind of needed to have a little lie-down about 5 minutes after we arrived.
Dad took us to the lounge/pub thing, where he treated us to a great supper of appys, which we all shared. I downed 2 whiskey sours fairly quickly, to fortify myself against the excitement to come. It was really fun. Then, we braved the battlefield of the casino afterward, to fill in the time till Trooper began. Dad gave me $15 to play the machines, and Wyn had to show me the ropes. I went right to a machine which featured monkeys. I knew in my heart that they were lucky monkeys. In went my $5, and out came fuck-all. Stupid stupid lucky monkeys. Wyn played poker on a card machine, and there was yet another shock for me. Who knew that that old Kenny Rogers song was about my sister? Gambler, indeed. She knew all about flushes and pairs and straight-somethings... I could only sit in amazement. Sadly, though, she musn't have known quite when to walk away, or when to run, 'cause she, too, lost her dosh. We ran into a newly flush Wally, riding high on his success at the blackjack table, and on into the show we went.
Got drinks and found our seats in short order. The crowd needs a touch of explanation. Everyone was 50, if they were a day, and there appeared to be some kind of female weight minimum in effect. You must tip in at at least 250 to be a bona fide Trooper fan. (I later suggested that we send Wyn over to the merch table, where the band was signing stuff, purely to show that there was at least one audience member under 40, and under 250. It would have done their little hearts good, I'm sure.) They were seriously stoked for the show. There was some mild rocking out to the canned music before the show even began. And then, poof, Trooper took to the stage, and we all time-travelled back to the good old days of rock and roll. Ra McGuire's voice really is something else. He can hold a note longer than anyone I've ever heard, save from the ranks of opera singers. He held the front of the stage with his astounding vocal prowess, melodramatic hand gestures, bobbing bald head, and artful microphone flinging. Bass player was pretty rock-solid, and young enough to be the oldies' son. Guitar hero Brian Smith
Trooper is one of Dad's faves, so my sis, bro-in-law, and myself all accompanied Dad on his outing to see his band. This led to my being in the aforementioned casino. Boy, what a surprise for little old me. I do not frequent casinos. I would have hardly be able to tell you what goes on in one, save for last night. Now I know. I beheld bank after bank of blinking, chirping, whirling game machines, food stalls, a cashier place behind strands of giant barbed wire, free coffee table (!!), real live game tables, where real live people were playing card games with real live dealers, just like you see in the movies (and didn't my clever brother-in-law, Wally, just go and win $50 at one such table), little people with wagons of snackies, going up and down the aisles of machines, offering much-needed MSG to peckish players, gamblers galore, both serious and fun-seeking, and last, but surely not least, two poor girls on little platforms, wearing skin-tight pants from the Suzy Shier $20 and under rack, doing some kind of gyrating dance moves which were falling on a distincly disinterested audience. I kind of needed to have a little lie-down about 5 minutes after we arrived.
Dad took us to the lounge/pub thing, where he treated us to a great supper of appys, which we all shared. I downed 2 whiskey sours fairly quickly, to fortify myself against the excitement to come. It was really fun. Then, we braved the battlefield of the casino afterward, to fill in the time till Trooper began. Dad gave me $15 to play the machines, and Wyn had to show me the ropes. I went right to a machine which featured monkeys. I knew in my heart that they were lucky monkeys. In went my $5, and out came fuck-all. Stupid stupid lucky monkeys. Wyn played poker on a card machine, and there was yet another shock for me. Who knew that that old Kenny Rogers song was about my sister? Gambler, indeed. She knew all about flushes and pairs and straight-somethings... I could only sit in amazement. Sadly, though, she musn't have known quite when to walk away, or when to run, 'cause she, too, lost her dosh. We ran into a newly flush Wally, riding high on his success at the blackjack table, and on into the show we went.
Got drinks and found our seats in short order. The crowd needs a touch of explanation. Everyone was 50, if they were a day, and there appeared to be some kind of female weight minimum in effect. You must tip in at at least 250 to be a bona fide Trooper fan. (I later suggested that we send Wyn over to the merch table, where the band was signing stuff, purely to show that there was at least one audience member under 40, and under 250. It would have done their little hearts good, I'm sure.) They were seriously stoked for the show. There was some mild rocking out to the canned music before the show even began. And then, poof, Trooper took to the stage, and we all time-travelled back to the good old days of rock and roll. Ra McGuire's voice really is something else. He can hold a note longer than anyone I've ever heard, save from the ranks of opera singers. He held the front of the stage with his astounding vocal prowess, melodramatic hand gestures, bobbing bald head, and artful microphone flinging. Bass player was pretty rock-solid, and young enough to be the oldies' son. Guitar hero Brian Smith
Monday, July 7, 2008
Salsa
I cannot seem to stop making (and eating) fresh salsa. Every time I turn around, I catch myself heading kitchen-ward, and reaching for tomatoes, cucumbers etc, and busting out the chopping board. I think I'm obsessed. I make these MASSIVE batches of salsa, and Lee and I fall on it like ravenous wild beasts, and don't stop shoving it in our faces till it's all gone. Every time. It just seems to taste of summer...all fresh and crunchy and flavourful. I'm spending a fortune on veggies and lovely organic corn chips to feed out addiction. Sigh. The crystal meth of summer foods...
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Then. And Now.
There I was, nosing about in my largely ignored Myspace page, when I came upon a bunch of my old blogs from last summer, the summer o' the Great Kitchen Project. Boy oh boy, was I not a happy camper. So, just for fun, I'm re-posting a couple, as a little trip down memory lane, and to remind myself just how good I have it.
World War II....kind of.... Current mood: crazy
Oh. My.God. You know how Dresden, Germany looked after the Allied boys from RAF Bomber Command, in their Avro Lancasters & De Havilland Mosquitos finished with it in 1945? Okay..well, that's kind of how my kitchen looks right now. Holy shitting fuck. Seriously, it's something else..... It's actually my 40th birthday pressie coming true. Lee said he'd reno the kitchen (a long-awaited dream of mine...I used to go into IKEA and moon about in the kitchen section for hours at a time.) for my big 4-0, and now it's happening. I'm kind of traumatised, to be honest. I'm really stupid that way. I was actually shedding a couple of sentimental tears over my old oven being wrenched out of the wall, when Lee (gently) pretty much shoved me bodily out of the house.
The girls & I are staying at my sister's, who is currently sailing on a cruise ship to Alaska with her family. Her little, just-grown-up cat Kota spent much of last night making bread on my flesh, lying across my head and chewing on my face. That, combined with the sheets which refused to stay neatly attached to the bed, plus my usual insomniac tendencies made last night an evil nightmare. AAAARRRRGGGHHHH! Not sure which is worse, home here in the war zone, or at Wyn's palatial house with the love-starved cat!
I'm really excited for the final kitchen outcome, but it's more than a little freaky in here. I've had to stop home tonight and give the girls to Lee, 'cause I have teacher-training yoga tonight. I'd normally just be reaching for the bottle o' vino right about now, but rolling up pissed to one's teacher-training yoga class would be more than a little frowned upon. I've lost my yogic calm somewhere with the old cabinets & counter-top.....Somebody help me! Lee's all about the kitchen & I'm all about a minor flip-out.Gonna try to get out of the house without actually looking into the kitchen. Just the dining room full of the contents of the kitchen. Fuckity fuck. Ok. Bye.
A riff on snacks, cats & no kitchen Current mood: resigned
Ok. So just to bring everyone up to speed on the kitchen reno/housesitting sitch--
-Kitchen still Dresden-like. (Just to even things up on the WWII analogy front, it is also east end of London -like...I can kind of hear a Winston Churchill inspirational radio broadcast when I look at it.) The doorway in is suddenly much wider & my cute husband is thrilling to his carpentry/framing skills. I miss my husband. And my animals & my bedroom a/c.
-I have eaten the following from my sister's pantry: oreos, approx. 5 or 6, a packet of some sort of flavoured rice mix, some antediluvian iceberg lettuce, pringles & frozen pizza. I can feel all the additives coursing through my system, urging me to replenish their levels with yet more pringles & oreos. I shall put it on my "to do" list for tomorrow. I plan to get that out of the way well before yoga.
-Baby cat Kota continues to be a nocturnal menace, but man, I have rarely seen a more exquisite cat. SHe resembles nothing so much as a little blue-eyed lynx. Older cats are grouchy, but sweet.
-I failed to figure out the shower in my sister & Wally's bathroom, and thus resorted to Kelsey's. I now smell of 'Mary-Kate & Ashley" body wash.
-Girls are in Fruit Loop cereal-cable TV-junk food heaven. They never want to leave.
That's all for now. I have run out of wine.
We've maxed out WWII, and thusly turn to literature... Current mood: crazy
We are pretty much through with the "kitchen= WWII" references. I'm off in a new direction. Luckily, this is slap bang in the middle of my field, 17th century literature. Goodbye Dresden, hello Pilgrim's Progress. Lee must then be the unfortunate pilgrim, Christian, and he has mired himself in the Slough of Despond. Yep. On the way to the Wicket Gate, Lee/Christian sinks further under the weight of his burden. I can hear his power tools whining as I type. Poor Lee, poor kitchen, poor me. Pilgrim's Progress for a new generation. Come & see it for yourselves. Actually, don't. I really wouldn't recommend it. You can nearly smell the putrefaction of that Slough. I guess I'm kinda the pilgrim, too, as I attempt to feed & water 3 children (I have a classmate of Raine's every day this week. Great timing.) and myself in the rubble and constructional wasteland that is the kitchen. (There you go--I'm onto another one. Stand up, T.S. Eliot!) I am trying to view this all as an exercise in acceptance and patience. My yogic yamas & niyamas ask that I do indeed embrace acceptance, etc. I'm tryin' over here, I'm tryin'. Lee is so steadfast in his commitment to this project. I do have full faith in him. I don't, however, have all that much faith in myself that I can endure this chaos & confusion for most of the rest of the summer. My kitchen contents sits in teetering piles in the dining room, the living room & the basement. My sink is arse-up on the back patio. I have nary a work surface, and I am stacking boxes of blueberries, bags of mini-bagels, assorted produce, etc in the open tops of drawers, alongside some rather alarming looking tools & whatnots.Lee is swearing a whole bunch, but he soldiers on. I wanted to drown Raine, Cleo & Claire in the paddling pool this afternoon, what with the "Mummy can we have..." "Mummy, I really need...". "Fiona, where is...." AAAARRRRRRGGHHHHH!!! I don't the fuck know where anything is, NO, you can't have --- because for all I know, it's buried under a bag of icing sugar, three wine goblets and a bottle of Murphy's Oil Soap, and if you really do need-----tough shit, 'cause it could be anywhere, my little friends, anywhere... The heat is giving me a dreadful headache, and now i have to go and change the girls' bedlinens, put them both through the shower, wash some dishes (and a bag of cherries) in the bathtub, and then go and shove sharp things into my eyes. Listen. kiddies, to Auntie Fee's parting message. "Careful what you wish for"....(Apparently, I brought this on myself, what with foolish 40th birthday requests.)P.S. It's still going to be a great kitchen when pilgrim yanks himself out of the quicksand!
So how about all of that, huh? This summer is a veritable oasis of calm! But I still need the wine.
World War II....kind of.... Current mood: crazy
Oh. My.God. You know how Dresden, Germany looked after the Allied boys from RAF Bomber Command, in their Avro Lancasters & De Havilland Mosquitos finished with it in 1945? Okay..well, that's kind of how my kitchen looks right now. Holy shitting fuck. Seriously, it's something else..... It's actually my 40th birthday pressie coming true. Lee said he'd reno the kitchen (a long-awaited dream of mine...I used to go into IKEA and moon about in the kitchen section for hours at a time.) for my big 4-0, and now it's happening. I'm kind of traumatised, to be honest. I'm really stupid that way. I was actually shedding a couple of sentimental tears over my old oven being wrenched out of the wall, when Lee (gently) pretty much shoved me bodily out of the house.
The girls & I are staying at my sister's, who is currently sailing on a cruise ship to Alaska with her family. Her little, just-grown-up cat Kota spent much of last night making bread on my flesh, lying across my head and chewing on my face. That, combined with the sheets which refused to stay neatly attached to the bed, plus my usual insomniac tendencies made last night an evil nightmare. AAAARRRRGGGHHHH! Not sure which is worse, home here in the war zone, or at Wyn's palatial house with the love-starved cat!
I'm really excited for the final kitchen outcome, but it's more than a little freaky in here. I've had to stop home tonight and give the girls to Lee, 'cause I have teacher-training yoga tonight. I'd normally just be reaching for the bottle o' vino right about now, but rolling up pissed to one's teacher-training yoga class would be more than a little frowned upon. I've lost my yogic calm somewhere with the old cabinets & counter-top.....Somebody help me! Lee's all about the kitchen & I'm all about a minor flip-out.Gonna try to get out of the house without actually looking into the kitchen. Just the dining room full of the contents of the kitchen. Fuckity fuck. Ok. Bye.
A riff on snacks, cats & no kitchen Current mood: resigned
Ok. So just to bring everyone up to speed on the kitchen reno/housesitting sitch--
-Kitchen still Dresden-like. (Just to even things up on the WWII analogy front, it is also east end of London -like...I can kind of hear a Winston Churchill inspirational radio broadcast when I look at it.) The doorway in is suddenly much wider & my cute husband is thrilling to his carpentry/framing skills. I miss my husband. And my animals & my bedroom a/c.
-I have eaten the following from my sister's pantry: oreos, approx. 5 or 6, a packet of some sort of flavoured rice mix, some antediluvian iceberg lettuce, pringles & frozen pizza. I can feel all the additives coursing through my system, urging me to replenish their levels with yet more pringles & oreos. I shall put it on my "to do" list for tomorrow. I plan to get that out of the way well before yoga.
-Baby cat Kota continues to be a nocturnal menace, but man, I have rarely seen a more exquisite cat. SHe resembles nothing so much as a little blue-eyed lynx. Older cats are grouchy, but sweet.
-I failed to figure out the shower in my sister & Wally's bathroom, and thus resorted to Kelsey's. I now smell of 'Mary-Kate & Ashley" body wash.
-Girls are in Fruit Loop cereal-cable TV-junk food heaven. They never want to leave.
That's all for now. I have run out of wine.
We've maxed out WWII, and thusly turn to literature... Current mood: crazy
We are pretty much through with the "kitchen= WWII" references. I'm off in a new direction. Luckily, this is slap bang in the middle of my field, 17th century literature. Goodbye Dresden, hello Pilgrim's Progress. Lee must then be the unfortunate pilgrim, Christian, and he has mired himself in the Slough of Despond. Yep. On the way to the Wicket Gate, Lee/Christian sinks further under the weight of his burden. I can hear his power tools whining as I type. Poor Lee, poor kitchen, poor me. Pilgrim's Progress for a new generation. Come & see it for yourselves. Actually, don't. I really wouldn't recommend it. You can nearly smell the putrefaction of that Slough. I guess I'm kinda the pilgrim, too, as I attempt to feed & water 3 children (I have a classmate of Raine's every day this week. Great timing.) and myself in the rubble and constructional wasteland that is the kitchen. (There you go--I'm onto another one. Stand up, T.S. Eliot!) I am trying to view this all as an exercise in acceptance and patience. My yogic yamas & niyamas ask that I do indeed embrace acceptance, etc. I'm tryin' over here, I'm tryin'. Lee is so steadfast in his commitment to this project. I do have full faith in him. I don't, however, have all that much faith in myself that I can endure this chaos & confusion for most of the rest of the summer. My kitchen contents sits in teetering piles in the dining room, the living room & the basement. My sink is arse-up on the back patio. I have nary a work surface, and I am stacking boxes of blueberries, bags of mini-bagels, assorted produce, etc in the open tops of drawers, alongside some rather alarming looking tools & whatnots.Lee is swearing a whole bunch, but he soldiers on. I wanted to drown Raine, Cleo & Claire in the paddling pool this afternoon, what with the "Mummy can we have..." "Mummy, I really need...". "Fiona, where is...." AAAARRRRRRGGHHHHH!!! I don't the fuck know where anything is, NO, you can't have --- because for all I know, it's buried under a bag of icing sugar, three wine goblets and a bottle of Murphy's Oil Soap, and if you really do need-----tough shit, 'cause it could be anywhere, my little friends, anywhere... The heat is giving me a dreadful headache, and now i have to go and change the girls' bedlinens, put them both through the shower, wash some dishes (and a bag of cherries) in the bathtub, and then go and shove sharp things into my eyes. Listen. kiddies, to Auntie Fee's parting message. "Careful what you wish for"....(Apparently, I brought this on myself, what with foolish 40th birthday requests.)P.S. It's still going to be a great kitchen when pilgrim yanks himself out of the quicksand!
So how about all of that, huh? This summer is a veritable oasis of calm! But I still need the wine.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Summer starts...
It sure has. Summer has come in like a lion. I've been at a couple of fantastic back-yard summer parties (one of which I'd really rather not care to relive very much--party was great, but the drunken behaviour of myself and my husband doesn't bear much scrutiny), been sitting on the sand at a lake with friends, been up till midnight at the cabin, drinking bubbly and listening to the river, I've flung myself into summer food prep, and made loads of fresh salsas, dips and yummy salads, and I've been chewed on by mozzies on my own, flower-filled patio. Not bad, hey? Okay indeed.
In other news, I've aquired an axolotl. If you don't know what one is, google it and you're in for a treat. Mine is called Gilligan. He's leucistic (which basically means white, with black eyes) and just a baby. I rescued him from an insalubrious home, and I think I've finally got him on the right track. He's just lovely, and currently residing in the basement on account of heat-sensitivty. If they get too hot, one has to pop them in the fridge to have a little spell of health-giving cooling! How sweet is the visual of the fridge-axie!?
I'm digging the following at the moment:
1.) Book called "the Go-Between", by Leslie Hartley. It's a beautifully written little novel, deft and eloquent in its re-creation of the charmed Edwardian pre-war existense, and the coming of age of its hero. I can't believe that hardly anyone has heard of it, let alone read it. It's a beauty.
2.) TV series called "Bramwell". A great British series from awhile ago, centred around a passionate and principled woman doctor in Victorian London. There were a few women physicians in that time, and boy, did they have an uphill battle. This one is so well done, and the character of Eleanor Bramwell is played fabulously by Jemma Redgrave. I got mine at the library. Definitley worth a watch.
3.) My awesome, embroidered Mexican-hippie-handbag. It's kind of burlap-y, with all sorts of coloured patterns embroidered on it. Got it at good old Valoo Villaj for cheap-cheap. It's totally a Fiona bag. I win!!
4.) Fresh salsas. Simply cannot get enough of 'em. My homemade one is stellar, the best, really, but Planet Organic does a lovely one for my off days.
Lee has fixed my bike, and now with my new helmet, I'll be the biking babe of Haysboro. Gas is just too stinkin' expensive to be popping out to the liquor store any more. It'll be me and my backpack full o' booze.
So life is pretty good. I had a whole lot of busy, but things are slowing down now, so I'll feel the pull of the old blog more than I have of late.
Just looked at my watch.....10:17 pm. Is it too late to go and make some salsa??
In other news, I've aquired an axolotl. If you don't know what one is, google it and you're in for a treat. Mine is called Gilligan. He's leucistic (which basically means white, with black eyes) and just a baby. I rescued him from an insalubrious home, and I think I've finally got him on the right track. He's just lovely, and currently residing in the basement on account of heat-sensitivty. If they get too hot, one has to pop them in the fridge to have a little spell of health-giving cooling! How sweet is the visual of the fridge-axie!?
I'm digging the following at the moment:
1.) Book called "the Go-Between", by Leslie Hartley. It's a beautifully written little novel, deft and eloquent in its re-creation of the charmed Edwardian pre-war existense, and the coming of age of its hero. I can't believe that hardly anyone has heard of it, let alone read it. It's a beauty.
2.) TV series called "Bramwell". A great British series from awhile ago, centred around a passionate and principled woman doctor in Victorian London. There were a few women physicians in that time, and boy, did they have an uphill battle. This one is so well done, and the character of Eleanor Bramwell is played fabulously by Jemma Redgrave. I got mine at the library. Definitley worth a watch.
3.) My awesome, embroidered Mexican-hippie-handbag. It's kind of burlap-y, with all sorts of coloured patterns embroidered on it. Got it at good old Valoo Villaj for cheap-cheap. It's totally a Fiona bag. I win!!
4.) Fresh salsas. Simply cannot get enough of 'em. My homemade one is stellar, the best, really, but Planet Organic does a lovely one for my off days.
Lee has fixed my bike, and now with my new helmet, I'll be the biking babe of Haysboro. Gas is just too stinkin' expensive to be popping out to the liquor store any more. It'll be me and my backpack full o' booze.
So life is pretty good. I had a whole lot of busy, but things are slowing down now, so I'll feel the pull of the old blog more than I have of late.
Just looked at my watch.....10:17 pm. Is it too late to go and make some salsa??
Friday, June 20, 2008
Waves, Water slides and Nearly Wetting My Pants.
First off, dear readers, I must apologise for my silence. Our computer has pitched a fit, and is unusable for the near future. I was completely electronically silenced for a good while, but then lovely Clint kindly loaned us this excellent little laptop (upon which I am currently typing) until such time as Mac the Knife is back up and running. Only problem is when one is used to a Mac, these PCs can be a little confusing. But, hey, I'm managing now, so we're all good. *Thanks Clint! You're my Shining Star!*
Now to the meat of this post, and, as meat goes, it's a little tough and chewy. SO.... the wave pool. I was there this afternoon with Raine's class, as part of the FFCA Southwood Fun Day. Fun indeed. Actually, it turned out to be not nearly as onerous as I had expected, but for one thing. The accursed water slide. A creation of Beelzebub if I ever encountered one. Raine dragged me on 3 times, and each time I think I aged 10 years in the 30 or 40 seconds it took to go down. First part wasn't too bad... Not too fast, and brightly lit. Then, just when one thinks that maybe one is going to get out of it with just some mild heart palpitations and a grey hair or two, one enters the final stage of the slide. One is flung into a gaping, pitch-black tunnel of hell. One is going at about 260 km/hr in this infernal tunnel, which drops off precipitously and evilly, before depositing one into a catching pool thing where spectators snicker and stare as one attempts to gather the shred of one's dignity, pieces of one's now-dislodged bathing costume, and one's carefree child before making a jelly-legged (one, and not's one's daughter, I can assure you) exit into the main pool.
I was thirsting for a champagne to calm my shattered nerves with each descent. The lifeguards would turn on the waves in the pool, which were really quite fun. Raine & I bobbed along in the waves, and our friend Paul took her out into the depths of the deep end at the height of the waves. (I used this opportunity to cling to the side, weep quietly and check that I had not peed my pants, post water-slide) All in all, it was a good day. No children on the bottom of the pool, no fights, no trauma. Well, except my own. I can tell you all that the first drink of this evening will be well-earned indeed.
Stay tuned, now that I'm back in the land of the living, computer-wise. It's nearly summer, after all, and I shall have a bit of extra time on my hands.
Now to the meat of this post, and, as meat goes, it's a little tough and chewy. SO.... the wave pool. I was there this afternoon with Raine's class, as part of the FFCA Southwood Fun Day. Fun indeed. Actually, it turned out to be not nearly as onerous as I had expected, but for one thing. The accursed water slide. A creation of Beelzebub if I ever encountered one. Raine dragged me on 3 times, and each time I think I aged 10 years in the 30 or 40 seconds it took to go down. First part wasn't too bad... Not too fast, and brightly lit. Then, just when one thinks that maybe one is going to get out of it with just some mild heart palpitations and a grey hair or two, one enters the final stage of the slide. One is flung into a gaping, pitch-black tunnel of hell. One is going at about 260 km/hr in this infernal tunnel, which drops off precipitously and evilly, before depositing one into a catching pool thing where spectators snicker and stare as one attempts to gather the shred of one's dignity, pieces of one's now-dislodged bathing costume, and one's carefree child before making a jelly-legged (one, and not's one's daughter, I can assure you) exit into the main pool.
I was thirsting for a champagne to calm my shattered nerves with each descent. The lifeguards would turn on the waves in the pool, which were really quite fun. Raine & I bobbed along in the waves, and our friend Paul took her out into the depths of the deep end at the height of the waves. (I used this opportunity to cling to the side, weep quietly and check that I had not peed my pants, post water-slide) All in all, it was a good day. No children on the bottom of the pool, no fights, no trauma. Well, except my own. I can tell you all that the first drink of this evening will be well-earned indeed.
Stay tuned, now that I'm back in the land of the living, computer-wise. It's nearly summer, after all, and I shall have a bit of extra time on my hands.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Be Afraid.
VERY afraid. It seems that I can no longer ignore it. People are wearing leggings again. Why, O Lord, did you allow the legging to come crawling back out of the unhallowed grave into which it was consigned all those years ago. Why? Is it because of the relentless secularisation of the western world? If it is, we're all very very sorry, and a new generation of church-goers is instantly born.
Ah, the legging... the garment created from cotton, spandex and the devil's back hair..... the garment which is 100 percent heinous and 100 percent unwearable. Even my sister, who is 5'8 and a size 2 should beware the legging. The legging was cast aside, complete with priest and holy water, in the late 80's, and there it should have remained, as a warning to us all, against becoming sartorially complacent. I had written earlier about being uninspired, but 3 (Yes, 3, for the love of all that is holy, 3) sightings today of a legging has banished my lack of inspiration and forced me to the computer keyboard.
First off ,why always is the legging sported by women who really ought to have embraced the tent dress, or the muu-muu? (Don't worry, dear readers--I entirely class myself in the "muu-muu & tent dress" category. I am under no illusions. But neither then do I own a legging.) My aforementioned sister also does not wear a legging, but she might actually have a shot at not looking like Jabba the Hut encased in Saran wrap. Jabba's sisters all apparently own leggings, and they are all in colours like fuschia, lime, and grape. Not for them the subtleties of black. Oh no. They have had their colours done by the Colour Me Beautiful lady, and they are working them in the legging. God help the rest of us.
Why also do they not invest in a pair of Spanx, or a similarly ruthless, gut-sucking undergarment to wear under the leggings that they simply must display to the general public? Not a Spanx is to be found among them. Their Lady Jockeys are simply not up to the task of controlling that quantity of flesh. Nor is the spandex of the legging going to do it. It simply rides the rolls like a surfboard on the ocean.
Now, as I said, I am a card-carrying member of the flesh encased female. I have the decency to keep it relatively well-concealed. Please, please to all of you legging-loving women out there, make them go away. Forever. There ought to be a public legging round-up, where they are all deposited into a lead-lined casket, sealed with uranium-235, and buried in the centre of the earth, with anointed ministers of all faiths speaking prayers of banishment as it happens..... I'm gonna take some medicine, and when I wake up, the leggings I saw today will all be a bad dream. Please.
Ah, the legging... the garment created from cotton, spandex and the devil's back hair..... the garment which is 100 percent heinous and 100 percent unwearable. Even my sister, who is 5'8 and a size 2 should beware the legging. The legging was cast aside, complete with priest and holy water, in the late 80's, and there it should have remained, as a warning to us all, against becoming sartorially complacent. I had written earlier about being uninspired, but 3 (Yes, 3, for the love of all that is holy, 3) sightings today of a legging has banished my lack of inspiration and forced me to the computer keyboard.
First off ,why always is the legging sported by women who really ought to have embraced the tent dress, or the muu-muu? (Don't worry, dear readers--I entirely class myself in the "muu-muu & tent dress" category. I am under no illusions. But neither then do I own a legging.) My aforementioned sister also does not wear a legging, but she might actually have a shot at not looking like Jabba the Hut encased in Saran wrap. Jabba's sisters all apparently own leggings, and they are all in colours like fuschia, lime, and grape. Not for them the subtleties of black. Oh no. They have had their colours done by the Colour Me Beautiful lady, and they are working them in the legging. God help the rest of us.
Why also do they not invest in a pair of Spanx, or a similarly ruthless, gut-sucking undergarment to wear under the leggings that they simply must display to the general public? Not a Spanx is to be found among them. Their Lady Jockeys are simply not up to the task of controlling that quantity of flesh. Nor is the spandex of the legging going to do it. It simply rides the rolls like a surfboard on the ocean.
Now, as I said, I am a card-carrying member of the flesh encased female. I have the decency to keep it relatively well-concealed. Please, please to all of you legging-loving women out there, make them go away. Forever. There ought to be a public legging round-up, where they are all deposited into a lead-lined casket, sealed with uranium-235, and buried in the centre of the earth, with anointed ministers of all faiths speaking prayers of banishment as it happens..... I'm gonna take some medicine, and when I wake up, the leggings I saw today will all be a bad dream. Please.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Blah.
Blah blah blah.... I don't know if it is the rainy, gloomy weather or the migraine that I've been struggling with for the last few days, but I feel singularly uninspired. I have nothing at present that makes me want to sizzle over the keyboard keys and create a dazzlingly fascinating blog entry. (Not that I exactly have a history here of such blog entries, but one can aspire, no?) My wellspring of creativity is not bubbling and gurgling forth with the waters of originality, but rather sits still and abandoned, all but dried up. But stay tuned, my little blog readers, for this is a state which cannot last. You just never know what might start the wellspring flowing again, creating little gems for your viewing consumption....
Friday, June 6, 2008
Tiny Dancers
Well, we're all geared up for the girls' first Highland dance competition tomorrow. They've done dance performances, but never a competition. Competing is a big part of the whole Highland dance thing, so their teacher thought it was high time.
Raine is competing in the Highland Fling and the Sword Dance (the Ghillie Calum), and Cleo is doing the Fling. She was registered in the Sword, too, but as of class on Wednesday, her Sword dance was more like a Sword Epileptic Fit, so we have nixed it for this competition, and are planning on it for the Red Deer Highland Games competition later in June. Anyway, they are nervous and excited, as it their mother. This is really just an experience-gathering exercise for them, and I've encouraged them not to even thinking about getting a medal.
They look so great in their performance outfits: kilts, velvet vests, argyle sock, the whole nine yards. I really hope they have a good time, and that they get a sense of what the whole competition experience is all about.
Regrettably, I have to work a shift in our fund-raising concession at the meet, and I have a bad feeling that I'll be firing off brownies and gummy bear bags to sugar-starved little dancers when my own are doing their thing. Lee will be glued, veritably GLUED to the performance stage, so parental big love will not be a total loss.
So let's hope that Raine doesn't repeat a practise moment, when, due to an ill-placed pas de basque, she nearly impaled a mother with her sword. Yikes! Tonight, we rest, and tomorrow, we FLING!!
Raine is competing in the Highland Fling and the Sword Dance (the Ghillie Calum), and Cleo is doing the Fling. She was registered in the Sword, too, but as of class on Wednesday, her Sword dance was more like a Sword Epileptic Fit, so we have nixed it for this competition, and are planning on it for the Red Deer Highland Games competition later in June. Anyway, they are nervous and excited, as it their mother. This is really just an experience-gathering exercise for them, and I've encouraged them not to even thinking about getting a medal.
They look so great in their performance outfits: kilts, velvet vests, argyle sock, the whole nine yards. I really hope they have a good time, and that they get a sense of what the whole competition experience is all about.
Regrettably, I have to work a shift in our fund-raising concession at the meet, and I have a bad feeling that I'll be firing off brownies and gummy bear bags to sugar-starved little dancers when my own are doing their thing. Lee will be glued, veritably GLUED to the performance stage, so parental big love will not be a total loss.
So let's hope that Raine doesn't repeat a practise moment, when, due to an ill-placed pas de basque, she nearly impaled a mother with her sword. Yikes! Tonight, we rest, and tomorrow, we FLING!!
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Irritating person and irritating insomnia
I cannot sleep of late. I fantasise about a night of solid, deep, restful sleep. Take the desert islands and the lottery wins and shove 'em where the sun don't shine...I'd take a full night of sleepy-sleeps over just about anything right now. It is, perhaps, due to my insomnia that I am unusually irritable at the moment, and there is a certain person who is really making me want to bitch slap her a couple of times, and maybe push her down a small flight of stairs.
She is basically a decent human being, and a good portion of the time, I even kind of like her (although I sure as hell feel sorry for her husband, but that's another story.) I don't know her all that well, but in the short association we've had, I've felt on more than one occasion my hands floating towards her neck of her own free will. She does not try and hide the fact that she has some grave reservations about me, my person and my perceived shortcomings. Tit for tat, annoying person, tit for tat...
She is, however, incredibly nice to my girls, who kind of think she's the Second Coming. This is a good deal of the problem. She thinks that children are the centre of the universe, and that they are all inherently angelic, fascinating beings who give off auras of saintliness that would put Padre Pio to shame. I need to state here that I am still a reasonable mother, despite the fact that I do not wait with baited breath for every utterance to fall from my children's lips, and I that I do not treat these utterances as always original and thrilling contributions to the annals of human history (as she does).
Furthermore, just because I know my way around the business end of a lipstick, and do not (usually) dress like a homeless person does not make me some kind of domestic anti-Christ. She gave me a bag of apples from her mum's tree once, and then proceeded to tell me, in the manner of addressing the profoundly retarded, that I might make apple crumble with them, and told me step by excruciating step just how I might go about that terribly challenging task. I wanted to clout her about the face with her stupid bag of apples. Apple goddamned crumble, I ask you... my dad could probably do it if he had to, and he is hard pressed to heat up his Hungry Man dinners when my mum's away.
Well, got that off my chest, and am feeling marginally less pissy. Whether I'll sleep is anybody's guess, and if I don't, who the hell knows who's gonna get skewered here tomorrow...
She is basically a decent human being, and a good portion of the time, I even kind of like her (although I sure as hell feel sorry for her husband, but that's another story.) I don't know her all that well, but in the short association we've had, I've felt on more than one occasion my hands floating towards her neck of her own free will. She does not try and hide the fact that she has some grave reservations about me, my person and my perceived shortcomings. Tit for tat, annoying person, tit for tat...
She is, however, incredibly nice to my girls, who kind of think she's the Second Coming. This is a good deal of the problem. She thinks that children are the centre of the universe, and that they are all inherently angelic, fascinating beings who give off auras of saintliness that would put Padre Pio to shame. I need to state here that I am still a reasonable mother, despite the fact that I do not wait with baited breath for every utterance to fall from my children's lips, and I that I do not treat these utterances as always original and thrilling contributions to the annals of human history (as she does).
Furthermore, just because I know my way around the business end of a lipstick, and do not (usually) dress like a homeless person does not make me some kind of domestic anti-Christ. She gave me a bag of apples from her mum's tree once, and then proceeded to tell me, in the manner of addressing the profoundly retarded, that I might make apple crumble with them, and told me step by excruciating step just how I might go about that terribly challenging task. I wanted to clout her about the face with her stupid bag of apples. Apple goddamned crumble, I ask you... my dad could probably do it if he had to, and he is hard pressed to heat up his Hungry Man dinners when my mum's away.
Well, got that off my chest, and am feeling marginally less pissy. Whether I'll sleep is anybody's guess, and if I don't, who the hell knows who's gonna get skewered here tomorrow...
Thursday, May 29, 2008
DIY Zombies
I'm reading "Legends of the Chelsea Hotel" right now--a collection of tales and anecdotes about that most iconic of bohemian destinations, the one-of-a-kind Chelsea Hotel in New York. One of the first stories the author related is about ethnomusicologist/filmmaker and all-round wack-job, Harry Smith, and how old Harry made himself a zombie. The author of the book refers to this rather singular episode as 'fiction' in the introduction, but it seems, given Smith's apparent lifelong interest in all things occult, that there might be a teensy grain of truth here, at least where the attempt at a zombie is concerned. The zombie episode occurred fairly late in Smith's life, when, by all accounts, he was a brain-fried train-wreck lurching along in a drug-induced, hallucinatory fog. Not in right mind=urge to manufacture undead lackey. Makes sense to me...
Anyway, the story goes that Harry called upon his prowess as a voodoo priest (he had studied voodoo extensively in Haiti many years before) to zombie-fy some unlucky conscript. He press-ganged some poor down and out, stoner junkie off the street, dragged said junkie back to his room at the Chelsea, and got him even more bombed and insensate. Junkie is sitting there in a stupor when Harry and his disciple get the party started. Harry channels the spirit of the voodoo snake god, Damballah Wedo, and anoints the junkie with cat's piss and chicken blood from the poor chicken he has just sacrificed. At the appropriate moment, he blows a big puff of zombie dust into the junkie's face, and part 1 is complete.
For part 2, Harry and disciple take glazed and incoherent junkie up to the Chelsea's rooftop garden, dig up some lady's tomato plants, and bury the junkie in the earth for his requisite, crazy-ass zombie slow-cooker simmering period. After however many nights, they dig him up, and poof! Bob's yer uncle! Harry has a zombie. Harry gets the zombie to do all his dirty work, crappy errands such as queuing up at the drug dealers, bringing home booze, and occasionally removing plastic bags full of poo from his room to the garbage outside. Zombie Boy lives in Harry's closet, and it's all as tidy and efficient as anything.
I wish for a zombie houseboy of my own. I can think of many tasks which would be well-suited to a zombie's undead hands. Dishes, yardwork, shovelling dog poo from the back yard, (if Harry's story is anything to go by, zombies are good with poo) vacuuming, etc. It would seem to me that a zombie would have a sort of insensitive, cack-handed approach to task completion--he is undead, after all--but these sort of jobs would be fine to hand over to his lumbering ministrations. I don't think I'd want him doing the ironing, say, or much in the way of food preparation; we just don't know where those zombie hands have been. But for simple, manual labour-type domestic tasks, he'd be perfect. Perfect. So I want one. If only Harry was still with us... I would offer to buy him drugs in exchange for a quick zombie creation ceremony. But, until such time as I do get me a zombie, all of those zombie jobs I mentioned sure as hell ain't getting done with me sitting here. Maybe I'll *pretend* that I'm undead while chiselling flakes of petrified oatmeal off of cereal bowls....might be the only way to get through it.
Anyway, the story goes that Harry called upon his prowess as a voodoo priest (he had studied voodoo extensively in Haiti many years before) to zombie-fy some unlucky conscript. He press-ganged some poor down and out, stoner junkie off the street, dragged said junkie back to his room at the Chelsea, and got him even more bombed and insensate. Junkie is sitting there in a stupor when Harry and his disciple get the party started. Harry channels the spirit of the voodoo snake god, Damballah Wedo, and anoints the junkie with cat's piss and chicken blood from the poor chicken he has just sacrificed. At the appropriate moment, he blows a big puff of zombie dust into the junkie's face, and part 1 is complete.
For part 2, Harry and disciple take glazed and incoherent junkie up to the Chelsea's rooftop garden, dig up some lady's tomato plants, and bury the junkie in the earth for his requisite, crazy-ass zombie slow-cooker simmering period. After however many nights, they dig him up, and poof! Bob's yer uncle! Harry has a zombie. Harry gets the zombie to do all his dirty work, crappy errands such as queuing up at the drug dealers, bringing home booze, and occasionally removing plastic bags full of poo from his room to the garbage outside. Zombie Boy lives in Harry's closet, and it's all as tidy and efficient as anything.
I wish for a zombie houseboy of my own. I can think of many tasks which would be well-suited to a zombie's undead hands. Dishes, yardwork, shovelling dog poo from the back yard, (if Harry's story is anything to go by, zombies are good with poo) vacuuming, etc. It would seem to me that a zombie would have a sort of insensitive, cack-handed approach to task completion--he is undead, after all--but these sort of jobs would be fine to hand over to his lumbering ministrations. I don't think I'd want him doing the ironing, say, or much in the way of food preparation; we just don't know where those zombie hands have been. But for simple, manual labour-type domestic tasks, he'd be perfect. Perfect. So I want one. If only Harry was still with us... I would offer to buy him drugs in exchange for a quick zombie creation ceremony. But, until such time as I do get me a zombie, all of those zombie jobs I mentioned sure as hell ain't getting done with me sitting here. Maybe I'll *pretend* that I'm undead while chiselling flakes of petrified oatmeal off of cereal bowls....might be the only way to get through it.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Panic Sets In!
I feel like a cornered rat. Things are a-comin' at me from all sides and I CAN'T DO IT ALL!!!! NO! My work contract is up at the end of the month, and I have a bunch of things to get through to cram onto my last invoice. I have most of my bios for the Folk Festival programme book to write and submit, also by the end of the month. I have a crapload of yoga work to do, not the least of which is teach the Moon Salutation in class tonight, and I do not in any way have it all in my head.
The end of the month is only a few days away. One of these days (tomorrow) is mostly taken up with transporting my lovely friend Jan out Priddis way to a birthday -type-coffee-lunch-get-together thingy, which will be delightful, except that I will plagued by the sound of relentless clock ticking in my ear. I kind of know how the dude in "The Telltale Heart" felt. I can also hear Cher singing "If I Could Turn Back Time", with a sort of extra rhythm section provided by the tick-tocking clock. I'm panicking and losing my mind (what's left of it, anyway)at the same time. So why the hell am I writing this blog, you ask, rather than doing any of the aforementioned tasks? Good bloody question. I DON'T KNOW WHY! It seemed like a good idea at the time. Time? Who mentioned time? Time is the enemy. Well, time and Cher.. ... (It seems that the Clash have just rolled up and punted Cher off the stage in my mind)....Cue "Should I Stay or Should I Go"...And now I really gotta go.
The end of the month is only a few days away. One of these days (tomorrow) is mostly taken up with transporting my lovely friend Jan out Priddis way to a birthday -type-coffee-lunch-get-together thingy, which will be delightful, except that I will plagued by the sound of relentless clock ticking in my ear. I kind of know how the dude in "The Telltale Heart" felt. I can also hear Cher singing "If I Could Turn Back Time", with a sort of extra rhythm section provided by the tick-tocking clock. I'm panicking and losing my mind (what's left of it, anyway)at the same time. So why the hell am I writing this blog, you ask, rather than doing any of the aforementioned tasks? Good bloody question. I DON'T KNOW WHY! It seemed like a good idea at the time. Time? Who mentioned time? Time is the enemy. Well, time and Cher.. ... (It seems that the Clash have just rolled up and punted Cher off the stage in my mind)....Cue "Should I Stay or Should I Go"...And now I really gotta go.
Monday, May 26, 2008
In Which Queen Fee Explains Her Hairy Afternoon
Cleo came off the bus today looking a bit like grim death. I, like any good mother with a grim death child, asked what was wrong. She pointed to her head and said "that!" I wondered right away how I could have missed it. It seemed that a small and messy bird had made a nest in the top of Cleo's hair, a little above the elastic of her ponytail. Seriously, something had to be living in this clumpy, lumpy snarl of hair and dried foliage. Upon closer examination, it proved not to be the bolthole of a tiny feral creature, but quite a clump of burrs. The following explanation was offered: "Well, you know today when we made the birdhouses, and we made them in the church hall next to the school? Ok, so we finished a little early, and the birdhouse teaching man and Mrs. Payne thought it might be a nice thing to pull some weeds from around the church. So we did, but then me and Clodagh and Elena kind of went into the burrs, and a whole lot got stuck in our hair, and Mrs. Payne couldn't get them out for us and then Elena cried." "Did you cry, Cleo?", I asked sternly. "Uh...NO..... But I was really mad at the burrs." Right.
We were to meet up with Mum at Safeway after school, and Cleo found her little Che Guevara cap in the truck and jammed it down on her head before she would consent to enter the store. My real problem was just how the hell to remove an animal-nest sized clump of burrs from my daughter's hair, but my wise Mum came to the rescue. (Good thing this didn't happen last week when said Mum was still out of the country and thus not available for such vital advice!) She suggested pouring a whole lot of hair conditioner on the clump and then gradually working out the awful snarl. So that is what transpired when we got home.
The scene is this: Cleo is standing in the bathroom, draped in a towel and looking none too pleased. (Grim Death has made his reappearance in this tale) Raine, of course, is crowding in to get a piece of the action. I depress the pump of the conditioner, and somehow manage to miss Cleo's head entirely, and hit Raine square in the chest, in her hitherto clean school uniform. I sigh, and mentally file away yet another mess to deal with at yet another time... I get the conditioner into the snarl, and began working it through with a pick-comb. Cleo is moaning and howling like she's being flayed, while Raine is exhorting me not to hurt Cleo as though she's pleading for her life in front of the Spanish Inquisition. I am pulling out huge chunks of burr and hair and dropping them in the toilet. Cleo begs to be allowed to flush the offending burr down the toilet when all is said and done, which is far from being the case at this point, let me add. Operation Burr continues in much the same manner as above for about 20 minutes. FINALLY, the wretched burr has been all extracted from Cleo's head, and I put her through the shower in record time.
This all was before I had finished unpacking the groceries or thinking of supper. What a production. But all's well that ends well. Burr is gone, Cleo's hair is shiny and smooth, AND she got the last laugh, giving the final flush to her prickly attacker. Raine helpfully added that now we know how to do it for next time. Next time, you say? I really have to go lie down.
We were to meet up with Mum at Safeway after school, and Cleo found her little Che Guevara cap in the truck and jammed it down on her head before she would consent to enter the store. My real problem was just how the hell to remove an animal-nest sized clump of burrs from my daughter's hair, but my wise Mum came to the rescue. (Good thing this didn't happen last week when said Mum was still out of the country and thus not available for such vital advice!) She suggested pouring a whole lot of hair conditioner on the clump and then gradually working out the awful snarl. So that is what transpired when we got home.
The scene is this: Cleo is standing in the bathroom, draped in a towel and looking none too pleased. (Grim Death has made his reappearance in this tale) Raine, of course, is crowding in to get a piece of the action. I depress the pump of the conditioner, and somehow manage to miss Cleo's head entirely, and hit Raine square in the chest, in her hitherto clean school uniform. I sigh, and mentally file away yet another mess to deal with at yet another time... I get the conditioner into the snarl, and began working it through with a pick-comb. Cleo is moaning and howling like she's being flayed, while Raine is exhorting me not to hurt Cleo as though she's pleading for her life in front of the Spanish Inquisition. I am pulling out huge chunks of burr and hair and dropping them in the toilet. Cleo begs to be allowed to flush the offending burr down the toilet when all is said and done, which is far from being the case at this point, let me add. Operation Burr continues in much the same manner as above for about 20 minutes. FINALLY, the wretched burr has been all extracted from Cleo's head, and I put her through the shower in record time.
This all was before I had finished unpacking the groceries or thinking of supper. What a production. But all's well that ends well. Burr is gone, Cleo's hair is shiny and smooth, AND she got the last laugh, giving the final flush to her prickly attacker. Raine helpfully added that now we know how to do it for next time. Next time, you say? I really have to go lie down.
Saturday, May 24, 2008
A day of rain
I really love the rain. The little bit we get every year is just lovely, and the dry and thirsty ground is slurping up this moisture about as fast as I get through a bottle of champagne! (One bottle for a whole night is really not enough...) But rain has its own requirements. My Raine announced this morning that her rubber boots were too small. She and Cleo had a play outside this morning that was cut short by Raine coming in with her toes hurting. As the rain is set to continue, I told her that I would pop out in the afternoon to get her a new pair o' boots. Simple, hey?
Oh my fucking fuck....this turned into a fiasco of EPIC proportions. I went to the following retail establishments: Zellers, Wal-mart, Superstore, Sears, the Bay, Children's Place, Shoe Warehouse, Winners, London Drugs, Once Upon a Child, and NADA! Not a whiff of a goddamned boot for her in any. Wee teeny baby boots, and a couple pairs of grown-up boots, but nuthin' for real children. Now, I really abhor a large retail establishment (other than a thrift shop) and I REALLY abhor an exceptionally busy one. This is Saturday afternoon, and the stores are crawling and I want to put out my own eyes with my house keys. I have lost the will to live by Wal-mart, where I was nearly run over by a 300 lb man's cart full of Snackwell's Diet Cookies. I wanted to scream and swear at him, and tell him that his Light Snackwell's are not going to help at all, and that he should get the hell out of my way and go have his stomach stapled....By London Drugs, I have purchased a family size chocolate bar, and am shoving it into my mouth with more than a faint air of hysteria. (I think I ate a bit of foil...)
The clincher came when I called home to give Lee an update of my whereabouts (so that he didn't place an all-points bulletin out for me, it had been so long) and spoke to Raine to deliver the bad news about the lack of boot. She happily chirps "Oh, it's OK, Mummy, 'cause Cleo's boots are too big for her, and they fit me fine, and mine fit her!" I literally pulled the car over to the nearest parking lot, draped myself over the steering wheel and wept bitter, bitter tears. An afternoon of my life, and a weekend one at that, that I shall NEVER get back...
The only plus was that I managed to find Lee a copy of the Patrick O'Brian book he's been wanting. I stumbled in the front door, and immediately began drinking.
P.S. I have made a decision on the sundress mentioned in a previous post. I have decided that it has an air of "young Sophia Loren in the Italian summer" about it. All being well, this is what might come to mind when I wear it, and not the air of "Shrek in a tablecloth in the festering fug of the swamp..."
Oh my fucking fuck....this turned into a fiasco of EPIC proportions. I went to the following retail establishments: Zellers, Wal-mart, Superstore, Sears, the Bay, Children's Place, Shoe Warehouse, Winners, London Drugs, Once Upon a Child, and NADA! Not a whiff of a goddamned boot for her in any. Wee teeny baby boots, and a couple pairs of grown-up boots, but nuthin' for real children. Now, I really abhor a large retail establishment (other than a thrift shop) and I REALLY abhor an exceptionally busy one. This is Saturday afternoon, and the stores are crawling and I want to put out my own eyes with my house keys. I have lost the will to live by Wal-mart, where I was nearly run over by a 300 lb man's cart full of Snackwell's Diet Cookies. I wanted to scream and swear at him, and tell him that his Light Snackwell's are not going to help at all, and that he should get the hell out of my way and go have his stomach stapled....By London Drugs, I have purchased a family size chocolate bar, and am shoving it into my mouth with more than a faint air of hysteria. (I think I ate a bit of foil...)
The clincher came when I called home to give Lee an update of my whereabouts (so that he didn't place an all-points bulletin out for me, it had been so long) and spoke to Raine to deliver the bad news about the lack of boot. She happily chirps "Oh, it's OK, Mummy, 'cause Cleo's boots are too big for her, and they fit me fine, and mine fit her!" I literally pulled the car over to the nearest parking lot, draped myself over the steering wheel and wept bitter, bitter tears. An afternoon of my life, and a weekend one at that, that I shall NEVER get back...
The only plus was that I managed to find Lee a copy of the Patrick O'Brian book he's been wanting. I stumbled in the front door, and immediately began drinking.
P.S. I have made a decision on the sundress mentioned in a previous post. I have decided that it has an air of "young Sophia Loren in the Italian summer" about it. All being well, this is what might come to mind when I wear it, and not the air of "Shrek in a tablecloth in the festering fug of the swamp..."
Friday, May 23, 2008
Prine line for May 23.
"You can change your mind
for somethin' else to do
And your heart gets bored of your mind
and it changes you..."
-(the immortal beloved) John Prine
p.s. there may well be more Prine lines here in the future...stay very tuned!
for somethin' else to do
And your heart gets bored of your mind
and it changes you..."
-(the immortal beloved) John Prine
p.s. there may well be more Prine lines here in the future...stay very tuned!
Thursday, May 22, 2008
A Letter
Dear Death Plague,
Go away, and leave my household in peace. We never harmed you in any way, yet you feel the need to come back, again and again, and infect various members herein with your vile germs. Honestly, you have TRULY worn out your welcome. What kind of guest visits without invitation and then stays for weeks and weeks, perhaps drifting out now and again, but always returning with a vengeance. Did your mother never teach you the rules of visits such as these? You have reduced me to shoving wads of tissue up each nostril to stop up the pouring (yes, I know this is an exceptionally vivid visual, but you won't pay attention to anything else), and to smearing diaper rash cream all over my nose and upper lip. You have reduced Lee to dreaming of Neo-Citran rather than beer. You have caused Cleo to miss a crucial, pre-competition dance class. In short, Mr. Death Plague, you have royally fucked everything up. So pack your bacteria-laden bags and GET THE HELL OUT!
Sincerely (though in no way "yours truly")
The Snot Queen
Go away, and leave my household in peace. We never harmed you in any way, yet you feel the need to come back, again and again, and infect various members herein with your vile germs. Honestly, you have TRULY worn out your welcome. What kind of guest visits without invitation and then stays for weeks and weeks, perhaps drifting out now and again, but always returning with a vengeance. Did your mother never teach you the rules of visits such as these? You have reduced me to shoving wads of tissue up each nostril to stop up the pouring (yes, I know this is an exceptionally vivid visual, but you won't pay attention to anything else), and to smearing diaper rash cream all over my nose and upper lip. You have reduced Lee to dreaming of Neo-Citran rather than beer. You have caused Cleo to miss a crucial, pre-competition dance class. In short, Mr. Death Plague, you have royally fucked everything up. So pack your bacteria-laden bags and GET THE HELL OUT!
Sincerely (though in no way "yours truly")
The Snot Queen
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Life's like that.
Ah yes, the ups and downs of life. And, as one's day is simply a microcosm of one's life, one's day, too, will have these ups and downs. What a philosopher she is, you think.... shut up. I can state the obvious here and there if I feel like. So there. Sometimes it's the only thing I'm any good at stating. And yes, my little microcosm-life, my day, DID have ups and downs.
I had the worst sleep ever, coughing and hacking like I'd spent all my life down the coal mines. Woke up ill and groggy, with a foul head. Down.
I opened a new packet of Voortman Tea Ring biscuits at coffee time. Loves me a Voortman tea ring, and there is something about the crispy freshness of a new packet that just makes me happy. And hungry. Up.
I tripped as I was negotiating the basement corner with a bunch of laundry, and landed....IN the goddamned cat box. Yes, in it. As in very close proximity to all the poos and the pee clumps. I had pee clump imbedded in my knee. Plus, the shitting laundry spilled everywhere. Down.
I finished making a lovely bracelet for myself, with memory wire, featuring turquoise of the most beautiful shade--all bluey-greyey-greeney-- , red coral, and sterling beads. It is beee-you-tiful, thank-you very much. Up.
I signed Sueage's passport tonight, and I had the immense thrill of putting '36' in the 'years the person is known to you' line. How cool is that? Up.
I was making hollandaise sauce for supper, and because I w as multi-tasking like a creature possessed, I hit the blend button with the lid still off the blender, and now I have teeny flecks of hollandaise sauce in my hair. It looks like nits. All you blondies out there could probably have an equally distressing hollandaise incident, and then go off for tea with the Queen, and all she's gonna notice is a faint lemony-buttery aroma (which could easily be the little tea sarnies), and not weird little blobs decorating your 'do. Hollandaise and black hair is definitely a no-no. Down.
I have one last thing upon which the jury is still out. I bought this sundress at the Goodwill today. It's a pretty reddish floral pattern, with a halter neck, and fits like a dream. Problem is, it has a full, swishy skirt. I'm not sure this swishy skirt does me any favours. Like the dress a lot, but I'm just not convinced I have what it takes to deploy the full and swishy skirt. Like I say, jury's out.... Up? Down? You tell me...
I had the worst sleep ever, coughing and hacking like I'd spent all my life down the coal mines. Woke up ill and groggy, with a foul head. Down.
I opened a new packet of Voortman Tea Ring biscuits at coffee time. Loves me a Voortman tea ring, and there is something about the crispy freshness of a new packet that just makes me happy. And hungry. Up.
I tripped as I was negotiating the basement corner with a bunch of laundry, and landed....IN the goddamned cat box. Yes, in it. As in very close proximity to all the poos and the pee clumps. I had pee clump imbedded in my knee. Plus, the shitting laundry spilled everywhere. Down.
I finished making a lovely bracelet for myself, with memory wire, featuring turquoise of the most beautiful shade--all bluey-greyey-greeney-- , red coral, and sterling beads. It is beee-you-tiful, thank-you very much. Up.
I signed Sueage's passport tonight, and I had the immense thrill of putting '36' in the 'years the person is known to you' line. How cool is that? Up.
I was making hollandaise sauce for supper, and because I w as multi-tasking like a creature possessed, I hit the blend button with the lid still off the blender, and now I have teeny flecks of hollandaise sauce in my hair. It looks like nits. All you blondies out there could probably have an equally distressing hollandaise incident, and then go off for tea with the Queen, and all she's gonna notice is a faint lemony-buttery aroma (which could easily be the little tea sarnies), and not weird little blobs decorating your 'do. Hollandaise and black hair is definitely a no-no. Down.
I have one last thing upon which the jury is still out. I bought this sundress at the Goodwill today. It's a pretty reddish floral pattern, with a halter neck, and fits like a dream. Problem is, it has a full, swishy skirt. I'm not sure this swishy skirt does me any favours. Like the dress a lot, but I'm just not convinced I have what it takes to deploy the full and swishy skirt. Like I say, jury's out.... Up? Down? You tell me...
Friday, May 16, 2008
One hell of a movie
I watched one last night. A HELL of a movie. An enchanting, singular movie. I haven't seen a movie that moved me so much in a long time. It's called "Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont", and it is essentially both a love story and a hugely sensitive exploration into the complexities of old age. The love story part is not what one expects. It's not romantic love in the traditional sense, but the real love that exists in profound (and in this case, unexpected) friendships. In a nutshell, Mrs. Palfrey is an elderly, elegant widow, who moves to London and takes up residence in the shabby grandeur of the Claremont Hotel in Lancaster Gate. She strikes up an unlikely friendship with a young writer called Ludo, in circumstances both amusing and poignant, and the results are magical. I'll say no more, except to exhort everyone to watch this amazing, simple and exquisite film. I shall leave off with a quotation from the movie, which kind of sums much of it up. It brings a lump to my throat.
Mrs Palfrey says, "I've spent my entire life being somebody's daughter, somebody's wife, somebody's mother, and now, for this last part of my life, I just want to enjoy...simply being myself."
Mrs Palfrey says, "I've spent my entire life being somebody's daughter, somebody's wife, somebody's mother, and now, for this last part of my life, I just want to enjoy...simply being myself."
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Robotic Cuteness
I'm not sure why this story tickled me so much, but it did. I somehow just love the idea. The pictures are lovely, too. I particularly like the one of the little robot-maestro shaking hands with cellist Yo-Yo Ma. Yo-Yo looks quite tickled by the whole experience. Enjoy!
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Corny Cats and Carroty Dogs.
I just love it when the animals get all excited about food that you'd never expect. I came into the kitchen a few moments ago, and found Hamish sinking his little cat-fangs into a cob of the unhusked fresh corn that will be on our supper plates in about 45 minutes. I have heard that this kitty passion for corn is rather common. One of my friends has a cat that will carry a cob of corn around in his mouth like a dog with a bone. Brian, on the other hand, thinks that the scrapings of my morning bowl of muesli, yoghurt and soy milk are manna from Heaven. He even once ate a leftover raisin from the Alpen bowl. Crazy, corny, muesli-y felines...
Dorian LOVES carrots. Truly loves them. This is the dog who will eat pretty much anything (see previous post about the cheese-skirt, and you will find a partial list of things Dorian finds to be tasty treats), but some of the things he eats are really just time-fillers. Carrots, however, rock this dog's world. He's even choose them over poo. And that's saying something....
Mu old ferret, Dukie, was passionate about his veggies, and would physically recoil from meat. Ferrets are meant to be all fierce, the little, sinuous rat-slayers of England, but Dukie would only show his deep-seated ferret ferocity to unlucky cruciferous vegetables. The one time he ever bit me in pure fury was when I wrenched him off a lovely fresh head of cabbage from the Farmer's Market.
I guess I'm kind of waiting for Jemma Newt to bust out of her aquarium, slither into the kitchen, and make herself a pot of ichiban. That would be awesome. And now, I have to go and boil all the cat-cooties off my corn cobs!
Dorian LOVES carrots. Truly loves them. This is the dog who will eat pretty much anything (see previous post about the cheese-skirt, and you will find a partial list of things Dorian finds to be tasty treats), but some of the things he eats are really just time-fillers. Carrots, however, rock this dog's world. He's even choose them over poo. And that's saying something....
Mu old ferret, Dukie, was passionate about his veggies, and would physically recoil from meat. Ferrets are meant to be all fierce, the little, sinuous rat-slayers of England, but Dukie would only show his deep-seated ferret ferocity to unlucky cruciferous vegetables. The one time he ever bit me in pure fury was when I wrenched him off a lovely fresh head of cabbage from the Farmer's Market.
I guess I'm kind of waiting for Jemma Newt to bust out of her aquarium, slither into the kitchen, and make herself a pot of ichiban. That would be awesome. And now, I have to go and boil all the cat-cooties off my corn cobs!
Monday, May 12, 2008
My husband is just a wonder.
Lee's in the bathroom, fixing some sort of malfunction in the shower. I am always amazed and impressed in equal parts at all the useful things he can do. So what if he's not exactly a dab hand in the kitchen--the man's a freakin' star with the fixings and the buildings. Of course, the most impressive project in the past year has been my wondrous 40th birthday kitchen, (and, boy, and I looking forward to a summer that is a world away from last in terms of chaos, unsettledness, and teetering mountains of kitchen goods filling the dining room, basement etc etc. Oh, and a whole lot less of washing dishes in the bathroom sink) but I can think of so many recent examples of Lee's cleverness-- the door handle of Richard Leakey (our death-trap ancient Volvo), the gear shift knob of same, the drywall in the living room ceiling, my gorgeous, antique milk glass boudoir lamp, Dad's lawnmower, the hot water heater, and the list goes on... He deals with broken toys, smashed china, injured books, hanging pictures, infirm computers and listing bookshelves, to name just a few, with grace and efficiency. SO many reasons to love my husband. AND, it must be said, he does actually cook a mean perogie...
...he also used to paint my toenails for me when i was too pregnant to see my feet...
...he also used to paint my toenails for me when i was too pregnant to see my feet...
Sunday, May 11, 2008
A Li'l Pick-me-up
Just returned from putting my aged parents on a plane bound for sunnier climes, and, despite a delightful post-airport Denny's lunch with my sis, her fam and my fam, I find myself a little.....a little....., well, flat. Glum. Down in the dumperoos.
This needs to be fixed, and just in case anybody else is similarly afflicted, I'm going to share with everyone a song I have already listened to as a mood lifting tool. I shall leave proper music blogging to my infinitely better qualified husband, but I think I can safely tack this little gem onto this here blog, this one time. Listen and enjoy, little friends. It's by Desmond Dekker and the Specials, and it's special indeed. Go away and thrill to it now!!
• Carry Go Bring Come (MP3, via RapidShare - scroll down and click the "free" button)
This needs to be fixed, and just in case anybody else is similarly afflicted, I'm going to share with everyone a song I have already listened to as a mood lifting tool. I shall leave proper music blogging to my infinitely better qualified husband, but I think I can safely tack this little gem onto this here blog, this one time. Listen and enjoy, little friends. It's by Desmond Dekker and the Specials, and it's special indeed. Go away and thrill to it now!!
• Carry Go Bring Come (MP3, via RapidShare - scroll down and click the "free" button)
A Bad Name.
I'm currently working on my specialty project, which is required for my International Yoga Alliance 500 hour teaching certification. I'm loving my subject--doin' laya yoga, and chakra stuff. It's a great subject, but Lee earlier pointed out to me that one of the books from which I'm currently drawing research is authored by an Alan Finger. Now, I'm sure that Alan is an awesome yogi and and a reliable authority on all things chakra, but his name's Finger, for God's sake!!
Come on, Alan. Yes, you were born with the name Finger, but there are avenues to correct these kinds of unfortunate mistakes. You go by your mother's maiden name, for instance. If that name is something like Finkelstein-Burpworth or something, then off you go, Alan, in all haste to the government office, pay your nice money & change the damned name. I've never understood why folks let themselves be continually saddled with dismal names, when they don't bloody well have to. A name says so much, and you know, if I was called Fiona Stomach, or Fiona Collarbone, or Fiona Anal Sphincter, I know what I'd do. A body part name is a BAD name.
Come on, Alan. Yes, you were born with the name Finger, but there are avenues to correct these kinds of unfortunate mistakes. You go by your mother's maiden name, for instance. If that name is something like Finkelstein-Burpworth or something, then off you go, Alan, in all haste to the government office, pay your nice money & change the damned name. I've never understood why folks let themselves be continually saddled with dismal names, when they don't bloody well have to. A name says so much, and you know, if I was called Fiona Stomach, or Fiona Collarbone, or Fiona Anal Sphincter, I know what I'd do. A body part name is a BAD name.
Friday, May 9, 2008
Nearly Died Laughing... (No, I really did)
I bet you did not know that one can actually be harmed by laughing. Well, my dears, it's true. Just let Auntie Fee explain it all for you.
You see, there's this thing that happens to me, and as far as I can tell, doesn't happen to anybody else in quite the same way. (I see, in my mind's eye, my husband giving the "duh" shrug. He thinks that I may actually be an alien life form. Unfortunately for me, he has more than a little evidence to back this up. But that, on the whole, is a story for another day.) It involves laughter. Terrible, violent, uncontrollable laughter that goes on and on and on and will not stop until it has run aground. The most minor of humourous incidents can set it off, and it only happens when I am in some sort of already weakened state. It goes like this:
1. Minor funny thing is said or done, often involving Lee, whilst I am a little sub-par.
2. I begin laughing like a normal person, and then, somehow, the switch is tripped. This appears to be completely random.
3. The laughter turns hysterical, and then into overdrive. I shake uncontrollably, no real sound comes out, except for an occasional whimper or moan, as I attempt to head it off. Tears pour (and I mean POUR) out of my eyes, and physical damage begins. My body hurts and I feel like I'm in the throes of a seizure. I CANNOT STOP. The episode must run its course, and this can take awhile.
4. Often, if Lee is there, I set him off laughing, too, which just adds rocket fuel to my Guy Fawkes style bonfire of laughter. I usually wave my arms desperately to make him stop, and at this point, I have lost my vision due to the quantity of tears which have soaked my face and my clothing. I am now in SERIOUS DISTRESS.
5. When the episode has run its course, I begin to wind down, but this is still a critical time, as I seem to be unable to stop my mind returning to the thing that triggered the laughing in the first place. More minor additional waves may occur here.
6. Utter exhaustion and physical pain leave me a damp and lifeless heap, and recovery is somewhat arduous. A little lie-down is often necessary.
Many of my nearest and dearest have witnessed this spectacle for themselves. The first time anybody sees it, the reaction involves utter incredulity and not a little confusion. I really traumatised an innocent staff member once at the A & B Sound bookshop, when I had one of my more legendary episodes in front of a customer service desk, in full view of the public at the end of one of our Boxing Day sales. It was really quite awful, and I couldn't even walk at the end of it. I would catch the poor fellow shooting me nervously quizzical looks out of the corners of his eyes for months afterwards... Sigh.
SO. If you're ever of a mind to lay a bet on what's gonna carry me off to the Big Bug Zoo in the Sky, this is a distinct possibility. Me, I'd still lay major cash on a stupendous hangover, but death by laughing is a sneaky second.
You see, there's this thing that happens to me, and as far as I can tell, doesn't happen to anybody else in quite the same way. (I see, in my mind's eye, my husband giving the "duh" shrug. He thinks that I may actually be an alien life form. Unfortunately for me, he has more than a little evidence to back this up. But that, on the whole, is a story for another day.) It involves laughter. Terrible, violent, uncontrollable laughter that goes on and on and on and will not stop until it has run aground. The most minor of humourous incidents can set it off, and it only happens when I am in some sort of already weakened state. It goes like this:
1. Minor funny thing is said or done, often involving Lee, whilst I am a little sub-par.
2. I begin laughing like a normal person, and then, somehow, the switch is tripped. This appears to be completely random.
3. The laughter turns hysterical, and then into overdrive. I shake uncontrollably, no real sound comes out, except for an occasional whimper or moan, as I attempt to head it off. Tears pour (and I mean POUR) out of my eyes, and physical damage begins. My body hurts and I feel like I'm in the throes of a seizure. I CANNOT STOP. The episode must run its course, and this can take awhile.
4. Often, if Lee is there, I set him off laughing, too, which just adds rocket fuel to my Guy Fawkes style bonfire of laughter. I usually wave my arms desperately to make him stop, and at this point, I have lost my vision due to the quantity of tears which have soaked my face and my clothing. I am now in SERIOUS DISTRESS.
5. When the episode has run its course, I begin to wind down, but this is still a critical time, as I seem to be unable to stop my mind returning to the thing that triggered the laughing in the first place. More minor additional waves may occur here.
6. Utter exhaustion and physical pain leave me a damp and lifeless heap, and recovery is somewhat arduous. A little lie-down is often necessary.
Many of my nearest and dearest have witnessed this spectacle for themselves. The first time anybody sees it, the reaction involves utter incredulity and not a little confusion. I really traumatised an innocent staff member once at the A & B Sound bookshop, when I had one of my more legendary episodes in front of a customer service desk, in full view of the public at the end of one of our Boxing Day sales. It was really quite awful, and I couldn't even walk at the end of it. I would catch the poor fellow shooting me nervously quizzical looks out of the corners of his eyes for months afterwards... Sigh.
SO. If you're ever of a mind to lay a bet on what's gonna carry me off to the Big Bug Zoo in the Sky, this is a distinct possibility. Me, I'd still lay major cash on a stupendous hangover, but death by laughing is a sneaky second.
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
In a Mitford mood.
" 'The food, Sadie, it's the food. I know how difficult it is for you in wartime, but we are all, in turns, being poisoned... The fact is, dear, that if Mrs. Beecher were a Borgia, she could hardly be more successful--all that sausage mince is poison, Sadie. I wouldn't complain if it were merely nasty, or insufficient, or too starchy, one expects that in the war, but actual poison does, I feel, call for comment. Look at the menus this week-- Monday, poison pie, Tuesday, poison burger steak, Wednesday, Cornish poison---'
Aunt Sadie looked intensely worried. "
-The Pursuit of Love, by Nancy Mitford.
P.S. If anybody has gone this long without reading The Pursuit of Love & Love in a Cold Climate (I can't think how this could be possible, but I'm willing to entertain the ever so faint possibility) READ THEM NOW.
Aunt Sadie looked intensely worried. "
-The Pursuit of Love, by Nancy Mitford.
P.S. If anybody has gone this long without reading The Pursuit of Love & Love in a Cold Climate (I can't think how this could be possible, but I'm willing to entertain the ever so faint possibility) READ THEM NOW.
Saturday, May 3, 2008
In Which Q. F. throws a couple of points to ponder out there....
1. Why is the combination of potato, salt & fat, in any permutation, so f-ing delish?
2. Why is it so comparatively easy to haul in support for a human charity, and so difficult for an animal charity?
3. Why does Dorian stink so much? He can have baths, be doused in doggie deodorant/cologne, have his cushion Febreezed, etc etc, and he still pongs to high heaven.
4. Why do I always lose the objects I enjoy most?
5. Why does champagne do for one what no other bevvie does?
And now, my friends, I sign off, and leave you with the above to ponder. If you have any answers, please feel free to submit them to me. There may be a reward in it for someone who can help deodorise the dog...
2. Why is it so comparatively easy to haul in support for a human charity, and so difficult for an animal charity?
3. Why does Dorian stink so much? He can have baths, be doused in doggie deodorant/cologne, have his cushion Febreezed, etc etc, and he still pongs to high heaven.
4. Why do I always lose the objects I enjoy most?
5. Why does champagne do for one what no other bevvie does?
And now, my friends, I sign off, and leave you with the above to ponder. If you have any answers, please feel free to submit them to me. There may be a reward in it for someone who can help deodorise the dog...
Sunday, April 27, 2008
A Skirt With Some Cheese In It...
As I was readying the girls for bed tonight, I heard shrieks of laughter and saw them tear out of their room, reprimanding Dorian...."Dorian, no!! Dorian, drop it!! DORIAN!!..." I arrived on the scene just in time to see the dog drop Cleo's jeans skirt and skulk off to his cushion in our bedroom. I expressed amazement that Dorian was at all interested in Cleo's skirt. Clothes have never been his thing before. (It might be a good time to mention that quite a few other things are, in fact, Dorian's 'thing'. The list is lengthy. The following are a mere sample of the things I've seen him eat, or at least seen the *aftermath* of his eating: Barbies, crayons, pens, pencils, plastic horses, turtles, deer, rubber snakes, Polly Pockets, Polly Pocket accoutrements like cars, dresses and a patio set, doll house furniture, rocks, kleenex, plastic sandwich boxes, a wristwatch, etc etc. But never clothing. Except, now that I recall, a sock.) Cleo replied gaily to this, "Oh, he's probably hoping there's more cheese in it." Cheese. In a skirt....Sigh. I did not even attempt to gain an explanation for the concealment of cheese in her skirt. My head hurt even thinking about it.
The things that children don't even register. Or be able to produce a satisfactory explanation for. I recall about 3 or 4 years ago, when the girls were truly little barbarians, and never safe to leave alone. I obviously had a mental lapse, and did that very thing, because I one day noticed weird reddish stains on the ceiling in the kitchen. I put this to the girls and received the following reply: "We might have been throwing some ketchup...maybe..." Ah, yes. Throwing ketchup. A mandatory activity in all good kitchens.
Or the time I caught Cleo rifling the pocket of my very expensive velvet coat as it hung in my closet. I naturally questioned the miscreant, mid-act, and she stated indignantly that all she was doing was looking for her minotaur. So now you all know, if one's minotaur is found to be M.I.A., clearly the place to look is in the pockets of a little-worn, posh velvet coat which does not even belong to one.
So now I'm off to look for my mislaid bottle of pink champagne. It's sure to be either in the skirt, with the rest of the cheese....
The things that children don't even register. Or be able to produce a satisfactory explanation for. I recall about 3 or 4 years ago, when the girls were truly little barbarians, and never safe to leave alone. I obviously had a mental lapse, and did that very thing, because I one day noticed weird reddish stains on the ceiling in the kitchen. I put this to the girls and received the following reply: "We might have been throwing some ketchup...maybe..." Ah, yes. Throwing ketchup. A mandatory activity in all good kitchens.
Or the time I caught Cleo rifling the pocket of my very expensive velvet coat as it hung in my closet. I naturally questioned the miscreant, mid-act, and she stated indignantly that all she was doing was looking for her minotaur. So now you all know, if one's minotaur is found to be M.I.A., clearly the place to look is in the pockets of a little-worn, posh velvet coat which does not even belong to one.
So now I'm off to look for my mislaid bottle of pink champagne. It's sure to be either in the skirt, with the rest of the cheese....
Friday, April 25, 2008
PAR--TAY!!
I am about 30 minutes from the arrival of a bunch of 9 year old girls, coming for Raine's 9th birthday party. I am also currently drinking champagne. Is there a correlation between the two? You betcha.
I admit that I've never been good at kids' birthday parties. Children in any quantity scare the living beejesus out of me. When the girls were really small, the onslaught of party dress clad, gift clutching, shrieking toddlers almost sent me shooting out the back door to skulk in the alley, shuddering, sweating and chain-smoking filterless cigarettes. And I don't even smoke. Lee was always the voice of reason, and the reason I got through them. Those 2 hours always lasted a lifetime....
Those years are behind me now, and I'm oh so thankful. A group of quite sweet 9 year olds, who really want a little independence, while still a little scary, is manageable. Especially with champagne. I am feeling the fear and doing it anyway.
SO.... the cherry-chip cake is made. The movie, "The Magic Emporium of Dr. Magorium" is queued up, ready to play, the spaghetti just wants cooking, the treat bags are full and on the sideboard, the basement in balloon-filled and be-streamered and I am just ever so slightly (and necessarily) tipsy.
Let the party begin!
I admit that I've never been good at kids' birthday parties. Children in any quantity scare the living beejesus out of me. When the girls were really small, the onslaught of party dress clad, gift clutching, shrieking toddlers almost sent me shooting out the back door to skulk in the alley, shuddering, sweating and chain-smoking filterless cigarettes. And I don't even smoke. Lee was always the voice of reason, and the reason I got through them. Those 2 hours always lasted a lifetime....
Those years are behind me now, and I'm oh so thankful. A group of quite sweet 9 year olds, who really want a little independence, while still a little scary, is manageable. Especially with champagne. I am feeling the fear and doing it anyway.
SO.... the cherry-chip cake is made. The movie, "The Magic Emporium of Dr. Magorium" is queued up, ready to play, the spaghetti just wants cooking, the treat bags are full and on the sideboard, the basement in balloon-filled and be-streamered and I am just ever so slightly (and necessarily) tipsy.
Let the party begin!
Thursday, April 24, 2008
I did it!!!
(I meant to add this as a p.s. to my last post, but only remembered when I'd already posted it.)
Yes, I did. I did it. And I'm not a little proud of myself. At this point, I fully acknowledge that what I did really isn't that astounding. It will not enter the annals of groundbreaking Canadian achievements, alongside Banting & Best with the insulin thing, Bell and the telephone, etc. But I still have that comforting sense of satisfaction. I made a nail polish colour that, heretofor, has not existed.
I decided that I really wanted a nail polish the colour of pigeons. Now, pigeons are a singular hue...not quite grey, not quite silver, not quite brown, but all of the above together. This turned me into Girl Wonder Amatuer Nail Polish Mixologist, and I poured and mixed and poured and mixed until I had this lovely silvery-greyish-brownish, with a hint of purple, nail polish the colour of pigeons. I am wearing this pigeon-polish right now, and I am constantly admiring it. It does not exist anywhere else but on my fingers, and in the bottle in my dressing table. I rule.
Yes, I did. I did it. And I'm not a little proud of myself. At this point, I fully acknowledge that what I did really isn't that astounding. It will not enter the annals of groundbreaking Canadian achievements, alongside Banting & Best with the insulin thing, Bell and the telephone, etc. But I still have that comforting sense of satisfaction. I made a nail polish colour that, heretofor, has not existed.
I decided that I really wanted a nail polish the colour of pigeons. Now, pigeons are a singular hue...not quite grey, not quite silver, not quite brown, but all of the above together. This turned me into Girl Wonder Amatuer Nail Polish Mixologist, and I poured and mixed and poured and mixed until I had this lovely silvery-greyish-brownish, with a hint of purple, nail polish the colour of pigeons. I am wearing this pigeon-polish right now, and I am constantly admiring it. It does not exist anywhere else but on my fingers, and in the bottle in my dressing table. I rule.
SHE'S BAA-A-A-ACK!!
After a lengthy hiatus, Queen Fee returns to being blog-tastic! Yes, it has been awhile, but I had some serious stuff to cram into that hiatus. Let's see..... So what exactly was I up to??
1. Had my long-scheduled little surgery right after the Easter weekend. Went v. well, indeed. I had a nice, long recup. period where I did the following: read, rested, ate nice, healing foods, walked with Dorian, watched all the "Keen Eddie" episodes, (why, oh why did American audiences have to be too lame to get the show, thereby facilitating its cancellation? Why?) had a few coffees out, and rested some more. Not exciting, but thoroughly enjoyable and likely good for my overall health. Oh, and I did some needlepoint, too.
2. Lee & I re-thought the layout of the living room, which turned into a massive fix-up project, fuelled by much blood, sweat & tears. I practised a good deal of yogic non-attachment, and punted a serious quantity of stuff to either the garbage, the recycling or the give-away pile. So therapeutic, I must say. And now the living room looks so much better, although the new look has also brought the urgency of a new paint job to our attention. Soon, smudgy little walls. soon..
3. I did not do any yoga for close to a month. That has been easily the longest time I've not done any yoga since Raine was tiny. Maybe I needed a bit of a break there, too. It wasn't entirely of my doing; my teacher was away for a good while, which nixed classes and then I was getting over my surgery, which nixed my home practise, as well as classes. The end result of all this is that my hamstrings, never exactly loosey-goosey, are pathetically tight, and a smidgeon of my upper body strength has faded, too. Now that I'm back in the saddle, I'm happy, but I kind of regret my slackitude. Now I have to work even harder to claim it all back. On the good side, my nice, long, stretchy quads didn't let me down and I can still rock the supine thunderbolt like no-one's biz!
4. I had a most delightful visit from my cousin Terrie. Terrie lives in Australia, and due to unfathomable geographic distance, we hardly ever get to see one another, so this was such an amazing treat. Like always, we just picked up where we left off. We had great chats, tons of laughs, many bottles of bubbly, an old-time-Fiona-&-Terrie-drunken-dance-marathon, and a chance to enjoy old memories and make a few new ones. Lee & the girls had never met her before, and they took to her in a flash. It really was such a lovely few days....wish it had been longer, but I'll take what I can get. So, little cuz, "Happy trails to you, Until we meet again..."
Thus, my dears, life has returned to normal here at the Court of Q.F......quiet days while my family is at school & work, ferrying the girls to school, birthday parties, dance class, lots of yoga, cozy evenings with my huzbind, kicking the dog off the bed, finding excuses not to change out of my pjs, likewise finding excuses to open bottles of bubbly, etc etc. I dig comforting and uneventful like that. I really do. And now I blog again.
1. Had my long-scheduled little surgery right after the Easter weekend. Went v. well, indeed. I had a nice, long recup. period where I did the following: read, rested, ate nice, healing foods, walked with Dorian, watched all the "Keen Eddie" episodes, (why, oh why did American audiences have to be too lame to get the show, thereby facilitating its cancellation? Why?) had a few coffees out, and rested some more. Not exciting, but thoroughly enjoyable and likely good for my overall health. Oh, and I did some needlepoint, too.
2. Lee & I re-thought the layout of the living room, which turned into a massive fix-up project, fuelled by much blood, sweat & tears. I practised a good deal of yogic non-attachment, and punted a serious quantity of stuff to either the garbage, the recycling or the give-away pile. So therapeutic, I must say. And now the living room looks so much better, although the new look has also brought the urgency of a new paint job to our attention. Soon, smudgy little walls. soon..
3. I did not do any yoga for close to a month. That has been easily the longest time I've not done any yoga since Raine was tiny. Maybe I needed a bit of a break there, too. It wasn't entirely of my doing; my teacher was away for a good while, which nixed classes and then I was getting over my surgery, which nixed my home practise, as well as classes. The end result of all this is that my hamstrings, never exactly loosey-goosey, are pathetically tight, and a smidgeon of my upper body strength has faded, too. Now that I'm back in the saddle, I'm happy, but I kind of regret my slackitude. Now I have to work even harder to claim it all back. On the good side, my nice, long, stretchy quads didn't let me down and I can still rock the supine thunderbolt like no-one's biz!
4. I had a most delightful visit from my cousin Terrie. Terrie lives in Australia, and due to unfathomable geographic distance, we hardly ever get to see one another, so this was such an amazing treat. Like always, we just picked up where we left off. We had great chats, tons of laughs, many bottles of bubbly, an old-time-Fiona-&-Terrie-drunken-dance-marathon, and a chance to enjoy old memories and make a few new ones. Lee & the girls had never met her before, and they took to her in a flash. It really was such a lovely few days....wish it had been longer, but I'll take what I can get. So, little cuz, "Happy trails to you, Until we meet again..."
Thus, my dears, life has returned to normal here at the Court of Q.F......quiet days while my family is at school & work, ferrying the girls to school, birthday parties, dance class, lots of yoga, cozy evenings with my huzbind, kicking the dog off the bed, finding excuses not to change out of my pjs, likewise finding excuses to open bottles of bubbly, etc etc. I dig comforting and uneventful like that. I really do. And now I blog again.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
a-weary, a-weary...
Indeed I am. Weary as weary can be. More riveting posts will be upcoming, but I cannot find it within myself to write anything of note right now. I will add, as a closing bit of trivia, that somehow, a bunch of teeny weeny snails have recently appeared in Jemma Newt's aquarium. V. odd, as I definitely did not put them there, but they sure are cute! Now, keep your fingers crossed that these infant snails do not all end up at newt snacks. Jem is a hungry girl.
Monday, March 17, 2008
In which I Tell You What I Want, What I Really Really Want.
I have wants. Quite a few of them, it appears. I have been innocently engaged in all manner of random tasks, and abruptly, a "want" will force its way into my mind, and dislodge all else going on in there. Here are some of the things that I want, Spice-Girl style...you know, as in "really really want".
1.) I want my basement to be dealt with, once and for all. I spent many gruelling hours this weekend, cleaning and organising, and, while I now have a pantry/laundry area that is up to snuff, (in all but aesthetic details. Sigh) the rest is the work of the devil. While some of this is our own messy, slobby, pack-ratty fault, (Lee, raise your hand here!) some of it is not. As many of you know, I moved into my house after my grandfather had an accident and couldn't be here any longer. Word to the wise: never ever take over a house in which an 80+ man has lived alone for some years. It is not for the faint of heart. Slobby? Packratty? While G.Mac. was an exemplary soul in many ways, his housekeeping skills left a little to be desired. I am STILL coping with vestiges of him some 15 years down the line. And, yes, while I'm guilty of not purging stuff better, I DID NOT personally purchase the packet of pickling spice from 1976--I wish this was a joke--that was, until Saturday, still cluttering up my shelves. So, this all goes to show that I'm a little behind the 8 ball on the basement. I want it all to be nice. I want everything gone, except that which we use and need. I want a decent looking play area for the girls that isn't going to frighten visiting children, etc etc.
2.) I want a nice holiday somewhere "holiday-y"...like to a place where you need a passport.
3.) I want lots of chilly bottles on champagne in my fridge at all times. I want to replace them as soon as they are consumed, so in case of some sort of gigantic global crisis, I will have bubbles to sustain me.
4.) I want paint jobs on most of the rooms in the house. The living room and dining room would be some sort of rich, gorgeous pale browny-red. Our bedroom would be shades of rose and cream, the hallway would be a smooth, buttermilk colour and god knows what the girls' room would be. Doubtless they would choose some particularly noxious shade of magenta.
5.) I want to eat takeaway from Aida's Bistro ALL THE TIME.
6.) I want to go deep within my being, and find the will to change out of my pajamas of my own volition and not merely on those occasions when I absolutely have to. I would like to be motivated to dress in clothes regularly. About the only times in which I will be seen in actual clothing are situations where a pajama-clad me would cause untold mental misery and shame to other members of my family. It would be good if this wasn't the case.
7.) I want a handbag with fairies on. Ideally, this would be a big frame bag, with double handles, in a pale spring-like shade. The fairy/fairies would be simple and kind of feral-looking, with little crystal accents, and done in watercoloury tones. Such a purse does not exist, I am sure, which is why I'm having to contemplate somehow creating my own. I'm quailing before the prospect, but I don't know how else to proceed. If anybody has any ideas on how this can be done or designs for such fairies, send them to my address, c/o the Fairymaster.
8.) I want more coffee, with a glug of Frangelico in, so I have to stop now. I received a lovely new bottle of Fran for my birthday, and it's crying out to be busted open. I'm singing the Spice Girls are I walk off to the kitchen...
1.) I want my basement to be dealt with, once and for all. I spent many gruelling hours this weekend, cleaning and organising, and, while I now have a pantry/laundry area that is up to snuff, (in all but aesthetic details. Sigh) the rest is the work of the devil. While some of this is our own messy, slobby, pack-ratty fault, (Lee, raise your hand here!) some of it is not. As many of you know, I moved into my house after my grandfather had an accident and couldn't be here any longer. Word to the wise: never ever take over a house in which an 80+ man has lived alone for some years. It is not for the faint of heart. Slobby? Packratty? While G.Mac. was an exemplary soul in many ways, his housekeeping skills left a little to be desired. I am STILL coping with vestiges of him some 15 years down the line. And, yes, while I'm guilty of not purging stuff better, I DID NOT personally purchase the packet of pickling spice from 1976--I wish this was a joke--that was, until Saturday, still cluttering up my shelves. So, this all goes to show that I'm a little behind the 8 ball on the basement. I want it all to be nice. I want everything gone, except that which we use and need. I want a decent looking play area for the girls that isn't going to frighten visiting children, etc etc.
2.) I want a nice holiday somewhere "holiday-y"...like to a place where you need a passport.
3.) I want lots of chilly bottles on champagne in my fridge at all times. I want to replace them as soon as they are consumed, so in case of some sort of gigantic global crisis, I will have bubbles to sustain me.
4.) I want paint jobs on most of the rooms in the house. The living room and dining room would be some sort of rich, gorgeous pale browny-red. Our bedroom would be shades of rose and cream, the hallway would be a smooth, buttermilk colour and god knows what the girls' room would be. Doubtless they would choose some particularly noxious shade of magenta.
5.) I want to eat takeaway from Aida's Bistro ALL THE TIME.
6.) I want to go deep within my being, and find the will to change out of my pajamas of my own volition and not merely on those occasions when I absolutely have to. I would like to be motivated to dress in clothes regularly. About the only times in which I will be seen in actual clothing are situations where a pajama-clad me would cause untold mental misery and shame to other members of my family. It would be good if this wasn't the case.
7.) I want a handbag with fairies on. Ideally, this would be a big frame bag, with double handles, in a pale spring-like shade. The fairy/fairies would be simple and kind of feral-looking, with little crystal accents, and done in watercoloury tones. Such a purse does not exist, I am sure, which is why I'm having to contemplate somehow creating my own. I'm quailing before the prospect, but I don't know how else to proceed. If anybody has any ideas on how this can be done or designs for such fairies, send them to my address, c/o the Fairymaster.
8.) I want more coffee, with a glug of Frangelico in, so I have to stop now. I received a lovely new bottle of Fran for my birthday, and it's crying out to be busted open. I'm singing the Spice Girls are I walk off to the kitchen...
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Babies n' things...
So a friend of mine is expecting her first babe right now, and I know of a few other folks who are trying to get pregnant, discussing trying, or even discussing the discussion of trying. This all puts me in mind of babies, and the whole motherhood thing. Now, I have no idea what it's like to try for a baby. They just seem to happen to me, whether I had tried or not. We never discussed it, except to agree that we really weren't up for the whole procreation thing, thank-you very much. I am much better with things having upwards of 2 legs--things that have fangs & fur, or 17 eyes, or 350 legs, or spit venom, or, *oh happy day* all of the aforementioned at one time! Babies usually scare the living shit out of me. The only one who never did is my niece, the gorgeous & now-13 year old Miss Kelsey. So we never "pulled the goalie" (as my pal Dona so aptly phrased the tossing aside of contraception) and waited with bated breath....
Having said that, babies did appear. Twice. In a year & a half. And so I turned into a real live mum, for better or worse. And it really has been better. I've struggled and railed against it as a fate not of my choosing, but my life has been honestly so enriched by the existence of my little gals. And now, thinking of my friend's upcoming baby, I've kind of come over all queerly....
Her babe most emphatically *does not* make me wish for another one of my own. What it has done, here & there, is make me wish I could turn back the clock. Just for a little while. They really are tiny for so short a time, and now my girls seem to be growing up at a galloping rate. This is wonderful--they are becoming sensitive, eloquent and really interesting little individuals, but they are finding their own feet, just as they are meant to. I've been getting a pang of nostalgia once in awhile lately, for smallness forever lost, for soft baby faces and tiny, unsure steps. We raise our children to find their own independence, and the nascency of this is in the elementary school years, where one's children really begin to find a slice of life that has nothing to do with their parents. And my girls are doing just that.
But all of this baby business has had an entirely unexpected effect on me, if only sporadically. Wow. Queen Fee misses her babies sometimes, and not just the ones with fur and venom...
Having said that, babies did appear. Twice. In a year & a half. And so I turned into a real live mum, for better or worse. And it really has been better. I've struggled and railed against it as a fate not of my choosing, but my life has been honestly so enriched by the existence of my little gals. And now, thinking of my friend's upcoming baby, I've kind of come over all queerly....
Her babe most emphatically *does not* make me wish for another one of my own. What it has done, here & there, is make me wish I could turn back the clock. Just for a little while. They really are tiny for so short a time, and now my girls seem to be growing up at a galloping rate. This is wonderful--they are becoming sensitive, eloquent and really interesting little individuals, but they are finding their own feet, just as they are meant to. I've been getting a pang of nostalgia once in awhile lately, for smallness forever lost, for soft baby faces and tiny, unsure steps. We raise our children to find their own independence, and the nascency of this is in the elementary school years, where one's children really begin to find a slice of life that has nothing to do with their parents. And my girls are doing just that.
But all of this baby business has had an entirely unexpected effect on me, if only sporadically. Wow. Queen Fee misses her babies sometimes, and not just the ones with fur and venom...
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
I hope my father is reading...
"Only God helps the badly dressed."
-anonymous 19th century Spanish quotation
-anonymous 19th century Spanish quotation
Monday, March 10, 2008
Vive le Valoo Villazh!!
Today I made a trip to that mecca of mess, le boutique Value Village, as my pals & I used to call it. LOVES a Valoo Villazh, me. Really do. I went to my second choice one, as I was in that neck of the woods anyway. I had a lovely ramble round, and came away with the following: a pretty pink & brown sweater vest, a pair of stellar blacky-brown, pointy vintage cowboy boots (yay!! Go little boots, and join your fellows in my burgeoning collection), a lotus flower candle holder, a beee-you-tiful, ruby red champagne glass (drinking from it RIGHT NOW), some books for the girls, a lovely, long woolly & denim coat for Raine, and finally, a sweet, jeans skirt embroidered with flowers & butterflies for Cleo. Oh, and a great Skydiggers cassette. Pretty awesome haul, overall, with middlin'-cheap thrift store prices. This is the good bit about VV. But, as Axl Rose so sensitively pointed out, every rose has its thorn......
I went to examine a beautifully crocheted afghan/throw, all of colourful granny squares. It was in fine shape, and really lovely colours. As I picked it up, getting ready to add it to my loot, a thing fell out of it. The thing was a ball of human hair the size of a small dog...all matted & kind of crispy & wispy. Funny how the glamour fell off it at this point...
I was then looking at the bags which, I found out, were v. near (V.V. near) the washroom. As I browsed along, and admired a cute, summer straw bag, I was treated to the sound of grunting at a decibel level and pitch I only though possible from labouring water buffalos. Seriously, somebody was in some real trouble in there. So my straw bag would have been forever tainted by the noises accompanying someone's pre-911 toilet experience.
The yin and yang of the Double Vs is something to behold!
I went to examine a beautifully crocheted afghan/throw, all of colourful granny squares. It was in fine shape, and really lovely colours. As I picked it up, getting ready to add it to my loot, a thing fell out of it. The thing was a ball of human hair the size of a small dog...all matted & kind of crispy & wispy. Funny how the glamour fell off it at this point...
I was then looking at the bags which, I found out, were v. near (V.V. near) the washroom. As I browsed along, and admired a cute, summer straw bag, I was treated to the sound of grunting at a decibel level and pitch I only though possible from labouring water buffalos. Seriously, somebody was in some real trouble in there. So my straw bag would have been forever tainted by the noises accompanying someone's pre-911 toilet experience.
The yin and yang of the Double Vs is something to behold!
Sunday, March 9, 2008
P.S. And another thing...
I forgot to mention in my last post that the arrival of the millies just tops off a weekend of highlights, such as the lovely birthday supper given in my honour, and the truly astounding birthday gift of not one, but two, beautifully packaged dead tapeworms. Marianna knows the way to this girl's heart....
The Millies are here!!!!!!
O Happy Day!! The Court has been infinitely enriched by the arrival of my adopted Giant African Millipedes!! They are just beautiful, and I am so pleased. Now, some might remember that most excellent of millipedes, Tabitha, who has gone on to the big Forest Floor in the Sky--these two will then seem quite familiar. They are likely boys, because of their comparatively small size, and where Tabby was black, with mahogany highlights, the new millies are a real mahogany all over. They have been named for both of my much-loved & long-departed grandfathers....Grant is the more gregarious of the two, where Stanley is a little less outgoing. They are both still wary of great, big, ham-fisted humans (sensible little souls!), but they are clearly headed down the path of great social conquest; what they lack in witty repartee, they more than make up for in grace, beauty and incomparable, jointed feelers. They will be receiving visitors quite shortly, and, boy, are you all in for a one-two punch of glossy, 600 legged magnificence!
Saturday, March 8, 2008
In which a stellar book goes to my shelf & an indifferent one goes back to the library.
The two books on question are "Journal of Dora Damage", by Belinda Starling, and "Ghostwalk" by Rebecca Stott. "Dora Damage" was truly outstanding. In case anybody goes to read it, I will not divulge any sensitive information, save a couple of plot details. It is about a 19th century London wife, who takes up her husband's bookbinding trade after illness makes an invalid of him. SHe soon slips down more than one slippery slope, and just how she handles it all is fascinating. Such perfect period detail, lovely writing and a super heroine. Dora is a keeper.
I finished this book on such a high, and turned immediately to one I had been eagerly anticipating, "Ghostwalk". Well, what a bummer. It looked so promising...about a woman who had spent her life researching Isaac Newton & the 17th Century Cambridge alchemists. Right up my alley, or so I thought.....Has anyone encountered a book where the main character is SO FREAKIN' ANNOYING that it renders the book unreadable? Well, see, I'm raising my hand, right here, right now. To boot, that author writes in the most self-absorbed, cack-handed manner, thrilling to her own attempts at enigma, mystery & sensuality. Gackk!!! I felt personally let down by this book--I wanted to take Ms. Stott, and smack her about a couple of times before pointing out that she entirely sabotaged a potentially great book with her pretension, and unbelievably crap character (who is also the narrator...cue adding insult to painful injury...).
So I will take no small amount of pleasure in posting it, unfinished, right back through the library slot from whence it came. Thankfully, I didn't pay money for it.
Some people are dogged book finishers. My mum is one of these. SHe will slog excruciatingly through a book which is holding no pleasure for her, just to complete it. I know others like this. I was kind of that way myself years ago. But, truly, there are just too many good books out there, madly waving their little book-hands, begging to be read & enjoyed, to spend time with vampire-books, the ones that suck all your energy out in the read & give you nada back.
"Dora D." is happily settled on my shelf, waiting for an inevitable, satisfying re-read, and poopy book is gone away, out of my life. I'm reading one now on vintage clothes....books, & the second hand shop experience in one package. Sweet for me!!
I finished this book on such a high, and turned immediately to one I had been eagerly anticipating, "Ghostwalk". Well, what a bummer. It looked so promising...about a woman who had spent her life researching Isaac Newton & the 17th Century Cambridge alchemists. Right up my alley, or so I thought.....Has anyone encountered a book where the main character is SO FREAKIN' ANNOYING that it renders the book unreadable? Well, see, I'm raising my hand, right here, right now. To boot, that author writes in the most self-absorbed, cack-handed manner, thrilling to her own attempts at enigma, mystery & sensuality. Gackk!!! I felt personally let down by this book--I wanted to take Ms. Stott, and smack her about a couple of times before pointing out that she entirely sabotaged a potentially great book with her pretension, and unbelievably crap character (who is also the narrator...cue adding insult to painful injury...).
So I will take no small amount of pleasure in posting it, unfinished, right back through the library slot from whence it came. Thankfully, I didn't pay money for it.
Some people are dogged book finishers. My mum is one of these. SHe will slog excruciatingly through a book which is holding no pleasure for her, just to complete it. I know others like this. I was kind of that way myself years ago. But, truly, there are just too many good books out there, madly waving their little book-hands, begging to be read & enjoyed, to spend time with vampire-books, the ones that suck all your energy out in the read & give you nada back.
"Dora D." is happily settled on my shelf, waiting for an inevitable, satisfying re-read, and poopy book is gone away, out of my life. I'm reading one now on vintage clothes....books, & the second hand shop experience in one package. Sweet for me!!
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Jesus meets Buster...
So I've been listening to an old Neil Diamond tape in my car--the stereo is ancient & in no small state of disrepair--and I've been unfortunately stuck on "Done Too Soon". Now, I am a declared fan of Neil Diamond; I've seen him in concert and it was just fantastic, pure showmanship. I've listened to him since I was a teenager, and I have defended old Grecian-Formula McSparklypants to all comers on more than one occasion. SO....I'm not a hater here, but when considering "Done Too Soon", I really must ask the question, "Just what the fuck was Neil thinking when this little corker came into his head?" Was it put there by the powers of darkness in a mischievous mood? He treats us to singular gems of lyric-ery such as "Wolfie Mozart, Alexanders King & Graham Bell", and he rhymes Ho Chi Minh with Gunga Din, for fuck's sake. His choice of subjects defies reason entirely, and it might be the only occasion when Jesus Christ, Allan Freed, Buster Keaton & Genghis Khan (for the love of all that is holy!!!) are linked together thematically. Buster is, no doubt, tickled quite pink by the company he's keeping, but something tells me that J.C. is a little less than flattered...
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
In Which My Blog Takes Form.
...Like vapours from the champagne bottle, so are the days of my life...
Now that my blog has crawled from the (electronic) primordial soup, and found a life of its own, stay tuned here for regular outbursts. Nobody listens to me in real life, so I gotta aim for a captive audience elsewhere.
xx
Now that my blog has crawled from the (electronic) primordial soup, and found a life of its own, stay tuned here for regular outbursts. Nobody listens to me in real life, so I gotta aim for a captive audience elsewhere.
xx
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