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.

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...

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...

I hope my father is reading...

"Only God helps the badly dressed."

-anonymous 19th century Spanish quotation

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!

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!

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!!

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...

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