It's a wonder women aren't angry every day of the month by Dr Jane Usher.

There was a bit of a kerfuffle the other week about this woman's research, I believe, but this article about PMS is really interesting.

And makes you realise that occasionally being a grumpy person who wants to devour all the chocolate and do nothing but curl up on the couch and maybe even cry your eyes out for irrational reasons (like a show about animal rescue and all of these gorgeous little dogs) for a couple days a month is not a bad thing!

It's part of life! People need to get over this!

And also people should be helping others more. And realising that people aren't perfect and women don't have to be superwoman all the time. Hurrah!

The Mystery of the Shrinking Food Bits

And if it wasn't for you meddling kids, they woulda gotten away with it!

*ahem*

Last night, I bought some muesli bars. Hadn't done so for years, thought I may as well. Besides, who can resist crunchy nut crumble oaty goodness?!

Anyways, I was up early this morning (shock, horror!) and decided to have one of these muesli bars for breakfast. So I opened the wrapper. Surely there was a muesli bar lurking somewhere inside it? Ohhh, naughty little muesli bar! (with emphasis on the little) Hiding away down in the bottom corner of the wrapper like that...

It was TINY!

Of course they always say it's not the size that counts but the way it tastes. But AAAARRGHHH! It just seems crazy to have tiny muesli bars we pay more for than before when they appear to be about half the size or less than they were. Maybe the name should now be measly bars.

Wir lassen nie von suchen ab...

Don't get too shocked, it's just a pretendy one ;) But I've kind of fallen in love with it in that position... Still, I know how hard it would make life if I did decide to get a tattoo there (and then work up the arm to form a sleave) in terms of jobs and so on. BUT... on the tattoo front...


Something, perhaps like the above, is still going to be my reward for weight loss. And the weight loss plan is swinging into action as of today. Yeah, that's right. After way too long with procrastinating and whatnot, I've decided to seize the moment by the bollocks and do something about all of this. No more, "Well, how about tomorrow then," stuff.

My measuring stick will be what I've dubbed The Coat. It's one of my favourite coats and being so far from fitting into it is so (*!#^$*!#&$^*(!@# depressing! So the more exercise I do and the healthier I eat and whatnot, the more I figure The Coat will fit. It will be my guide throughout the rest of the year! Go The Coat!

"We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time"
- TS Eliot

I *heart* my boots!

Altho they make my knees and legs look chumpy from that angle...

But I love my boots!

667

I just realised that the Cravings and Cereal blog entry was my 666th post!

o.0

How much better would that have been earlier in the month! :-p

Cravings and Cereal

It's midnight and I want cereal.

But maybe bed would be better. Cereal is meant to be an AFTER bed thing...

*yawns*

Just talking to one of my friends who's saying his ex blames me for them breaking up, which is bizarre. But then she hated all of his female friends and apparently blames them for stuff too. All of this, of course, rather than accepting that them breaking up was prolly due to her being a skanky tart who made Paris Hilton look like a nun.

Or at least Paris in a nun's costume.

Ugh, that's not a happy thought, particularly before bed o.0 *scrubs eyeballs*

Other than that, go Germany this morning!!! I'm up for the soccer (again), but here's hoping Germany gets through to the final eight. I figure if Australia doesn't get through, at least I can always barrack for Germany :)

Following photos from the past weekend.

Oh how I miss having a digital camera!

Yay!

Go Socceroos!!!

*ahem*

So I've been up for about 17 hours now (having risen from bed to many grumblings from the man of the house to view the Australia v Croatia match at 4.30), but I'm still surprisingly perky.

How incredibly nerve-wracking was the second half!?! How bad was the refereeing? No wonder he's being encouraged to not referee for the rest of the tournament, but I guess everyone has a bad day at the office now and then.

Went shopping in the afternoon. Was pretty good. Bought stuff *makes expansive random arm-wavey gesture* You know how it is when you need bed.

Oh, other than saying Placebo's Meds album with the bonus DVD is amazingly awesome and I love love love love LOVE the DVD.

The Johnny Depp: Unlikely Superstar article by Sean Smith in Newsweek is fantastic :) Just had to share that!

Plus Johnny Depp is gorgeous. And now we return you to your regularly scheduled blogcast...

My friend Drewsy (he calls me Dellsy, it's only fair I can call him Drewsy) sent me a few MMS's this morning at some crazy hour of the new hardwood floors that were put into a couple rooms of his house yesterday. His house looks like it should be in a magazine! I'm so envious *lol*

Also the fact that his lounge room looks larger than my entire house... well... *lol* But really, renovations are exciting. Seeing the changes, feeling a great rewarded sensation once you complete one of the tasks you set out to do, tailoring the house more to what you want, making it look fantastic.

Having finished the undercoating in the main living areas of the house now (with massive thanks to my Mum and Dad for the help with the final three walls!), it's time for me to start working on the bedroom, spare room and possibly the laundry area. And then the garden. Ohh the dreaded garden.

Ah well! I'm sure there'll be something I can do with the garden, other than scream in horror each time I get down to the very back part of it with the blackberries and that creeper and so on ;)

I'm vaguely inspired by *some* of The Urban Canvas now as to what to do with the new space in the kitchen and some of my spare canvases.

Something like the stripey thing (<- left, natch). But with a little more green (to balance out the red and woods in the house) and as a nice contrast against the pure white of the walls. It's plain, non-complicated and easy to create. Plus I want to spend this weekend as a totally me-time thing :)

'Sides, a couple of friends and I are doing a girly Friday of shopping so hurrah for retail therapy! Must contemplate the budget... and not the Federal one, but my own ;) And then I figure Saturday and Sunday will be my times for lazing about and trying to get my body clock back to some variety of normallacy because I keep waking up at 4am!

Unless this is my body telling me to get up and watch the 4am World Cup games or something, who knows. Maybe it's a preparation thing for the Socceroos actually getting through to the final 16 and then more matches they'll play at unholy hours (our time), leading to the gaggle of wins and a World Cup final!

*ahem*

Not likely, but it's a nice thought. I still remember getting up at some crazy hour to watch France thrash Brazil in '98. So I guess if Australia doesn't make it through, I can still barrack for Germany, and if things don't go well for them, there's always Spain and then France if that option fails.

Yay soccer :)

I'm afraid he's going to be a vegetable... possibly a brussel sprout...

Okies, I'm an organic fruit and vege lover, although I'm not really that fussed if I can't get my hands on it (it's like a treat when I can, I guess), so this article kinda pricked my interest:

A growing concern by Steve Dow.

I was surprised to see that Safeway/Woolworths and Coles sell up to half of the $A300 million worth of organic produce sold each year in Australia. I guess that's because my experience with organic produce from supermarkets hasn't been good. So it was with cries of inarticulate joy that I fell (well, not fell, but you know what I mean) upon the fantastic selection of organic fruit and vege at the local deli (favourite shop in the whole town).

I guess I was also surprised by the article's comment that the organic produce is often many times the price of non-organic produce, seeing as the things at the deli here are really reasonably priced, often costing less than the same thing from the supermarket. But maybe that's just sheer good luck :)

Organic produce almost always tastes better, though. Plus it tends to be more truly representative of what you'd call being "seasonal," unlike at supermarkets where you get pretty much everything the whole year 'round and can never be sure when it's been picked or what processes it's gone through to be in such a state of shiny-looking "perfection."

Perhaps it's all because organic fruit and vege tends to be more like the end result of the things you grow at home yourself - loads of flavour, lots of variety in how things turn out (well, how many rude-shaped raddishes have you seen in the supermarket lately?), you know that it hasn't been blasted into submission with pesticides, and yeah, that whole taste factor.

Maybe it's time to put in a garden...

I love the warning generator website my friend Tony found :D

Malcolm Fraser, who was the Australian Prime Minister from 1975 - 1983, has an article that's well worth the read in The Age today, even if it's just to note the following statement:

Have we forgotten that we live in one world? Those who pollute the environment affect the entire world, not just their own countries. In economic matters our leaders speak of globalisation. But when it comes to people, we divide ourselves into islands, into separate groups, into races, into religions.
... When will we demand a return to decent, humane behaviour?

- We're all responsible for this government's inhumanity by Malcolm Fraser.

Weird things, weekends.

Always seem to arrive not quickly enough and then Monday appears before you're ready for it. But this past weekend was really good. Mum and Dad have been down staying at my home on the range and the weekend was a good family time before they headed back to their home this morning :)

Did a whole lot of family sort of things, which are generally great fun. Went shopping, drove around exploring the area, went on walks up the mountain (let me tell you, it was freezing up there. I don't think it was as cold when it was snowing up there last year as it was on Saturday), took photos, laughed loads, went out to dinner, met new and interesting people (who'd think there'd be so many in such a small town!), etc etc. Oh, plus we finished the undercoating of the main living area. Yay!

It looks so very very good :) Plus the family time was awesome. Gettin' all sentimental here, but it was great.

And then Mum and Dad headed off this morning *sigh* So it'll be weird going back to a quiet house. Kinda lonesome I guess, but I really should throw myself into some cleaning up and cooking and then try to get my computer set up. Family's so awesome though :)

Dolmio has a new-a look! It's-a smaller!

*ahem*

Fake Italian Dolmio-style accents aside, I'm getting kinda annoyed by these ads for "new look" food products. There's been a whole lot for Continental and Dolmio lately, all braying about how fantastic the new look is while maintaining the "same good ol' taste."

What a lot of bosh.

Whenever anything says "new look" about food stuff, it's just code for "We're going to make the servings smaller and charge you the same price. And then we'll hike the price up at a later date. Suckers."

Continental serving sizes have apparently decreased from what they used to be back in the day. Today while doing a quick grocery grab, I saw that the little grocery store had both the old bottles of Dolmio pasta sauces as well as some of the "new look" ones. Comparing the two quickly, the "new look" has 20 grams less pasta sauce than the old style ones, taking it from 570 grams to 550 grams.

Okie, so it's not a massive change, but why don't they just say, "Yeah, we're making it smaller, charging the same price and using the money we've saved on putting pasta sauce in a bottle to bombard you with ads to make you think it's a good thing. Australians are getting too fat anyways. You should thank us, you ingrates!"?

Exodus 20:13, anyone?

Ugh.

Reading or listening to "Christian" news services, which almost always seem to have an extremely right-wing bias, really makes me feel marginalised as a non-right-wing Christian. I wouldn't say I'm left-wing, really, but I guess my politics do lean somewhat toward that direction.

However, it seems like the vast majority of "Christian" news services around the place are running the pro-right-wing line, much of which seems to be really contradictory to what the Bible actually tells Christians to do (you know the stuff about loving everyone, not killing people, etc).

This morning I received an e-mail from one of the "Christian" news services with a message from General Jack Singlaub about how we should all be supporting the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, how they were "winning the war," how the media was evil and corrupt for saying that things weren't going all that well over that way for the "Coalition of the Willing," how Christians need to take a stand and tell the troops how great they are for going somewhere to kill or be killed.

It literally made me want to scream.

This guy wrote: The liberal media want you to believe that U.S. troops in Iraq are guilty of widespread torture...oppressing civilians...murdering U.S. journalists...opposing the war effort... And losing the war. Whatever the facts about an isolated incident with a handful of Marines in Haditha may turn out to be, we can't let it take the focus off of the real mission -- supporting the troops who are defeating terrorists like Abu Al Zarqawi in Iraq so we don't have to fight them here at home... And despite being immersed in a lethally hostile environment, they're [the troops] upholding the highest standards of decency and civilization in their selfless mission to liberate the Iraqi people from tyranny and confront the America-hating terrorist fanatics on their own ground.

What a lot of piffle. And God, why am I imagining this guy with a very Southern accent all of a sudden? Quite possibly in a white suit? Sitting on a verandah, typing this on an elderly typewriter as a servant dutifully wipes the froth from his mouth?

I mean, obviously the person who wrote this wasn't thinking about the video of a marine singing a song about how fun it was to kill Iraqis (including the lyrics: "I grabbed her little sister and put her in front of me. As the bullets began to fly, the blood sprayed from between her eyes, and then I laughed maniacally. . .I blew those little f**kers to eternity . . .They should have known they were f**king with the Marines."). Of course, the guy who did the vid has now said that it was only a joke, but don't they say that often the truth is spoken in jest? Obviously there's some pretty twisted attitudes going around out there, as well as actions that have seen Iraqi civilians murdered by Marines in Haditha (think of the case from last November).

Or about how the US presence in Iraq is seen by many European and countries with a high Muslim presence as being more of a threat to stability in the Middle East than the things that Iran is currently doing. What about Abu Grahib? And those rumours about more massacres? Or people who get taken away by the police/military and disappear? How will they deal with the specter of civil war that always seems to be looming around the corner?

And the media in the West really isn't reporting all that much about the War on Iraq. Did we hear about the thousands of Iraqis who took to the streets to protest the arrival of George Bush? Perhaps it doesn't serve America well to have stories about thousands of people, as opposed to the five or six they cobbled together for al-Zaqarwi's death, protesting and raising their voices against what they see to be an invading force? There are a lot of interesting perspectives on this kind of thing to be found at Daily War News and Baghdad Burning. Unlike what this general has said about "liberating the Iraqi people from tyranny," it seems more like they've created a different style of tyranny and it is definitely not welcome or appreciated by the majority of the people who have to live in that country.

And as I don't have my own servant, I shall wipe my own froth from my mouth following that little rant!

But all of that aside, how, as a Christian can the War on Iraq be justified? How is it just and right to kill people? How is it morally correct to have based the invasion on a lot of lies? How is torture justified? What kind of Christians are we if we do not condemn all of the wrong things that have happened in Iraq, regardless of which side has committed them? Saddam Hussein was bad. The "Coalition of the Willing" is bad. Those leading and carrying out the suicide bombings, attacks on people, etc are bad. Let's not pretend that there are any sides in this conflict who'll come out of it "better" than any other.

As Christians, we are meant to be showing love to the world, encouraging healing and treating people with the care we would like to be shown ourselves. Loving our enemies and doing good to those who despise us. After all, I think that was kind of what Jesus was telling us to do all along...

"Hey! It's the old alma mater!" Part 2

I heard back from my high school yesterday about the scholarships/award sponsorships idea, which was exciting and strangely scary at the same time!

Perhaps it was because the person I heard back from was my old high school's deputy principal, who taught me in Year 10 maths. Year 10 maths was the only subject in which I wasn't concerned about working my butt off to get A's for. In fact, I think Year 10 maths contained a glorious lot of escapades (mathscapades?) and all of about four pages of work. So I think my old deputy principal was a lil' disappointed I didn't work harder. You know, as teachers are wont to do...

Anyhoodle! All of those gloriously funny memories aside (can you really be a nerd who doesn't take study seriously? Hmm), it looks like the scholarship/award sponsorship thing is a high possibility of happening. Exciting and scary. Exciting because it'll be cool to be able to put something back into I guess what you could call "the community," and scary because it's a bit weird, I guess, and I feel kind of young to be doing something like this.

I mean, it would make more sense if I was 50 and reminiscing in my foxy middle-aged lady voice about how good it was back in the old days while languishing on a pile of money or something in a mansion by the beach. But I'm 22, in my first job and live in a tiny two-bedroom place.

Ah well :) It'll be fun.

Ferns and freezing

Shopping yesterday can be summed up thusly:

Freezing.
Ferns.
Flipping freezing.


Went to Bunnings to get some house repair stuff (my poor house, cute as it may be, is still at that stage where it just needs to have work done on it - the lesson to be learnt is to only ever buy new houses). I generally love Bunnings. It's huge, there's loads of stuff, I always think "Oh I would love to weld that to that and make some weird art!" and there's so much to look at.

But this time 'round it was SO VERY COLD! It actually felt colder inside the Bunnings centre than outside (ie: weather a penguin would grimace at). It made concentrating on anything rather difficult, because all you wanted to do was keep warm. So it was good to have a shopping list, or else I think we would have wandered around in a daze, wandered out and not bought a thing.

Of course, that saves money... But it's not generally a good thing to have the store so cold that the customers can't concentrate on what they want, let alone things that are superflous to their needs (but that might distract them and become part of the trolley's contents along the way).

But I bought a nice fern.

And it was so very very nice to get back in the car.

Haribo macht die Kinder froh

I love Gummibaren, but couldn't find any yesterday on the shopping adventure (more on that later, possibly. Once my brain defrosts), so I bought some other gummi-product by Haribo instead. Really tasty of course, but sadly the photos don't do the actual objects that much justice!

Yes, the green thing is a dinosaur. But I swear the red thing was like a werewolf gummibaby! It had arms, legs and a furry head! Oh, and moobs, which was disturbing to say the least. But yes, it was a gummibaby werewolf I'm certain. Obviously too many Brothers Grimm stories there at the Haribo factory.

Morning papers without the coffee... hmm...

A number of things in the newspapers interested me this morning and I can't be bothered to think too much about writing anything else blog-worthy, so decided to natter about news. Mmm, exciting.

Unbelievable win for Socceroos
Yay! *happy dance*

Beazley IR plan "kills ambition"
...according to the Prime Minister. But then we know how focused John Howard is on trying to sell the idea of Australia and Australians all being able to afford their own wide-screen TVs and travel in their own individual enormous 4WD vehicles ("aspirational Australians" - so feel free to focus on your self rather than the nation, please! The PM says it's fine to do so. It stops you asking questions about the Australian Wheat Board, disgusting treatment of refugees and sales of assets, etc). Plus it ignores the fact that workers are more at risk under the current IR laws with working agreements than they were before. But to get rid of individual contracts entirely is a bit silly ~ it works for some. Although I don't think that Beazley promising to do the job thing secures his job, as this article suggests.

Volcanic lake erupts in a riot of colour
A lake that was formerly blue-green is now bright red! Yay for science stuff and nature and interesting chemical reactions, etc.

Nation embraces "orphan" Huda
The Israelies, who kill three Palestinians for every Israelie who has died in the 60-year stupidity-fest that is the Israel-Palestine conflict, have given the Palestinians another "martyr" of sorts. But really, how insane is the situation? And how insane is it that the Israelies are always represented as being the "less naughty" party in this all? It's ALL stupid.

Generation Ink
Mmm, tattoos. Well... only "mmm" to good tattoos, really. I still want mine, but is it bad to say it ticks me off that they're so popular? *lol* For me, it's not about the "Oh, Heath Ledger has one, so I want one" because Heath Ledger also has hissy-fits about water pistols, and I definitely don't want one of them, but about it being a long-term goal and something symbolic. Plus it'd be quite an involved process.

Also coming to you in the Sydney Morning Herald AND The Age, the Sam and The City blog, remarkably the same in The Age and the SMH (meaning equally woeful). There's also the Jack Marx blog or whatever it is. Oh, plus the same letter on the letters page of both papers from some anarchist's organisation whinging about the Queen's Birthday like he's never appreciated public holidays.

But on the thing of letters, here's an interesting one from The Age:
SO WHAT did happen to al-Zarqawi? First we were told the Americans found him injured and handed him over to the Iraqis and he later died of injuries. The next day it was reported that he was dead when the Americans arrived. Then we were told that he was alive, but attempted to escape from the stretcher he was on and was manhandled back on to it. And now an Iraqi man is reported as saying that he saw the Americans "beating an injured man resembling Zarqawi until blood flowed from his nose" (The Age, 12/6).
Does it matter, or are we happy to accept any account of events served up to us, even when they differ from day to day? We seem to have accepted changing justifications for the war in Iraq - and now I learn that the suicide of three Guantanamo inmates was an "act of war". Long live spin.
Grania Poliness, East Kew

Also, just how many freakin' blogs can the SMH have?! Check out this page for the complete list. Although I have to say the Freedom of Information one looks like it could be interesting.

I've been looking at recipes on Epicurious and there are a good number that are relatively simple and don't call for a list of ingredients as long as your leg plus a six-inch heel.

However... the majority are not. The list rolls on and on and you wonder if there'll be anything left in the cupboards by the end. Or they want exotic ingredients like the cheese made from the milk of virgin goats from the Himalayas who have been milked by an elderly lady sitting on a schemmel made of sycamore wood and collecting the milk in pails of beaten silver.

It seems like recipe books from back in the day had recipes that were simple enough to make and contained simple enough ingredients. Although they tended to not be as attractively presented as recipe books these days... hmm...

"Hey, it's the old alma mater!"

Daria quotes aside, I've been thinking for about six months or so now about sponsoring an award or scholarship thing at my old High School. So this morning I bit the bullet and wrote an e-mail to my old English teacher and Year 12 coordinator about that very matter. I guess we'll see what comes of it. Maybe it won't be possible at this point in time. Or it might require an insane amount of money or something like that.

But I'd really like to be able to put something back into my high school. I had an absolutely fantastic time there (gotta love crazy fun friends, great teachers and general enjoyable mischievousness :) plus I really appreciated the academic encouragement there (well, subject awards and scholarships are nice even if homework's not always that thrilling!).

Yeah, sure, there were subject awards and whatnot through uni, and that was a fun place, but my HS I guess has even more fun memories (ahhh, BTES, what would have HS been like without thy glorious amusement?!). And there's always that affection for the old home area, family traditions, etc. Plus it'd be good to be able to encourage others with academic persuits.

We shall see what shall be seen.

Don't just keep up with the Joneses, thrash them outright? o.0

In a quoting kinda mood I guess. But a friend said this this morning when we were talking about materialism and I thought it kinda summed it all up:

"...and the nature of materialism is such that no set of possessions will ever be adequate, and we ramp up to those items which are most appealing within (and sometimes beyond) the range of our income instead of enjoying simple things and using money for its purpose and not allowing it to gain control where it has no business..."
- Jerry

If You Forget Me
by Pablo Neruda

I want you to know
one thing.

You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.

Karina and I have been discussing the whole sugardaddy thing this afternoon and both agree we can see it working. Although she has some issues with them having wrinkles *lol*

The sugardaddy thing aside (because it really is shallow to be attracted to someone for what they have rather than who they are), there's something kinda enjoyable about dating older guys. They tend to be less inclined to encroach on your freedom/independence while still being caring and interested in you, plus they're lots of fun to date and you can almost always guarantee great conversation. Plus they tend to be more at home with who they are and not feel the need to show off or control things.

Hmm... Anyways, kinda quiet afternoon. It's been bitterly cold today although beautifully sunny. The wind has been right off the Antarctic. Can't wait to get home and get the fire going and prolly think about soup and toast, which seems entirely appropriate for the kind of day that today is.

It's my friend Danny's birthday today, so a massive HAPPY BIRTHDAY and chocolatey luv 'n kisses to him of course!

He's turning 36 today. On the 6th of the 6th '06. And of course, 36 is 6 times 6. So yes... Danny, is there something you're not telling us about yourself and the whole thing associated with that number? ;) Happy birthday anyways :)

Oh, and that "bounce around your desktop" thing with the pic... no idea why that's there, but it's the only picture of a birthday cake I could find at the moment that didn't look totally demented/scary/vaguely obscene (Clare, the cake tins you've been checking out spring to mind...!). But feel free to bounce on your desktop anyways.

Yay birthdays :)

*le sigh*

Well, the report on my dog is that he seems to be doing pretty well following his fit yesterday (which my Mum thinks might have actually been a stroke).

EXCEPT...

And this is a somewhat large except...

He's totally blind now.

The poor little old munchkin :( I think he must have been rather distressed yesterday too, because he managed to kind of bumble around the house and mangle a whole lot of things. At least he knows the basic lay-out of the house so he's not too bad on manouvering around now. But it's really upsetting to see him walk into things.

Other than that, he can still hear the rustle of a Schmackos packet at 50 paces, his appetite hasn't diminished, he was tail-waggingly ecstatic about me being home last night and so on.

I know he won't be around forever, but the weird thing is that there are times when it's really looked like he's been on his last legs and somehow he pulls through and just keeps going. Like with his operation in January - it was like he had a new lease of life after that was done. Maybe he just has a huge lust for life.

Just hope I haven't jinxed it by saying so!

Thoth and Bubble?

Very bizarre dreams this morning before my dog woke me up by having a fit (and yeah, I mean a real full-on nine alarm fit, which totally freaked me out and I don't like being hysterical at 5.30 in the morning. He calmed down and so did I after a little while, but things were looking bad there for a while. Fingers crossed he'll still be in the land of the living).

The one I remember most clearly was being involved in an in-depth conversation with Anubis and Thoth. I was wearing black (which isn't uncommon, so no real significance there), we were seated somewhere that was slightly shadowy with sand underfoot and it was very peaceful.

Of course, Anubis is the Jackal-headed figure from Egyptian mythology. He was known as the Finder of Lost Things. He also supervised embalming and had a lot to do with the Underworld, being present when you died to weigh your heart against the Feather of Maat on the Scales of Truth, as well as doing tour-guide work for the souls of the dead. Apparently he was also the announcer of death. Thoth, on the other hand, is the Egyptian god of wisdom and learning. He was believed to have invented writing and created the Book of the Dead. Although he seems to multi-task a lot (including being the heart and tongue of Ra), he's also present at the judgement of the dead.

Mercy knows what that all means, but it's odd considering what happened after it. Doesn't bode well, methinks.

Okie, the past weekend was fantastic! :)

Winter Fest was on and usually I'm not one to get festive about Winter unless that involves hiding inside in front of the fire with a good book, hot chocolate and good company. Although Winter here does hold less of a prospect of burning to death in a raging bushfire than Summer does. The less said about that subject, the better.

So a couple of weeks ago, I received an inviatation from a local gallery to go to an exhibition launch there on the weekend for an abstract landscape artist who's internationally renowned, etc, etc. Decided to go. It was a good excuse to check out other Winter Fest stuff anyways.

The exhibition launch day comes, my little dog and I rejoice in the sunny weather (although we bundle up because it's still cold, just in case people were going to get the wrong idea about Winter and Fests and so on) and toddle off down the street, deciding to leave early and meander.

Oh the fortuitousness of that decision! It meant that we ended up seeing most of the performance by Strange Fruit, a group of amazing performance artists (http://www.strangefruit.net.au/). It was amazingly beautiful! Just perfect, so uplifting and an amazing way to get you ready for viewing art of all other kinds. Of course, my lil' dog gets fawned over and patted by all and sundry while this is happening. He loves the attention...

But the performance ends and 2 o'clock comes and it's time for the exhibition. It's not bad. The stuff is very abstract and I think to myself I could do much the same thing with one foot but it's good anyway. End up chatting away to the artist and his son (who wanted to pat my lil' dog).

Meandered home after that, talked to loads of people, met some neighbours and talked to them, etc. Very relaxing! :)

This is weird, but...

I absolutely love my dentist.

No, I don't mean in a romantic kind of way, duh. But my dentist is seriously fantastic! I've never experienced any pain when she's been working on my teeth (or afterwards for that matter), she's very conscientious, we always have a bit of a gossip and everything before the tooth work starts and she's so funny!

There really can't be many dentists out there like that. Most tend to be somewhat grim (no comments about their work being all about being down in the mouth, 'k!) and when the anesthetic wears off there's some kind of pain happening. Or they talk to you while they're doing the proceedure and if you don't know sign language (or they don't) so you can tell them about your holiday to Prague and how little Jimmy is going since the tragic accident with the ferris-wheel ride and the capsicum, things are rather challenging!

So yeah, my dentist is awesome! :D And now I just have to see whether the oral surgeon I've been referred on to is equally awesome (for removal of wisdom teethies).