Bambi: The Previously Untold Goat Story

This morning I awoke at 5:50am or so, looked at the clock and though, "Mm, this is too early, I'll just nap until my alarm goes off." Except my alarm didn't go off at all. The only thing that woke me up from the dozing state I was in was my phone doing the SMS alert thing it does. Rolled over, looked at the clock and leapt out of bed when I saw it read 7:25.

AAARRGHHH!!

Rushed around like mad, threw on clothes, dashed out the door and tried to figure why on earth my alarm wouldn't have gone off. It became even more bizarre when I noticed my phone was telling me it was Friday, the 30th of March. Sudden moment of thinking, "Do not tell me I slept through Thursday completely..." But somehow my phone had apparently decided that in going back an hour in time, it would also be appropriate to go a day forward. Make sense of that if you will...

Anyways. Oddly, the whole thing ended up providing me with an incredibly amusing start to the morning as I was rushing down one of the roads on the way to work. There's a house with a couple of goats out the front of it who have been eating their way through some creepers, blackberries, long lawn, etc out the front of it. There's also been a deer that's been lurking around the local area for quite a while now.

This morning, the deer (obviously he's a mini-buck) was attempting to mount the white goat. The owner of the house or goats or whatever had rushed out the front in his trackies and an old singlet and was shouting at the deer to "GET THE F**K OFF MY GOAT!" The deer scarpered. The goat is bleating in a confused way (not sure whether it was distressed by what the deer had been attempting or by whatever was being attempted being interrupted). Trackieman is standing there watching the deer run up the road. I'm trying not to cry with laughter.

To think, I would have missed that if the alarm had gone off as it was meant to. Oh well. I'm working 20 minutes through lunch to make up for being late this morning.

I had a little nut tree
It brought me nought but sorrow
It didn't bud
It's just a dud,
I'll take it back tomorrow
- Fractured Fairytales and Revolting Rhymes

Natural Born Killer

AARRGHH!

Enormous huntsman spider inside!!!

It's time to find my spider-squashing shoes, the insect spray and killin' courage.




Guess this means that rain really is on the way for the next couple of days. Wish the occasional spider that decides to come inside would find somewhere else to shelter for the duration!

Maybe I should set up a spider shelter outside. Far from the house. It could serve tiny cups of soup to homeless spiders...

Okie, killing to do!

PS: Della does not endorse or condone the killing of the homeless. Just homeless spiders.

I *heart* Cyanide and Happiness.

It's so often a whole lot of wrongness wrapped up in a whole lot of goodness wrapped up in lots of craziness. Just the way I like to approach Mondays.

Now I need you, despite the fact that you've killed all my plants

The crash that's killed at least three people in the Burnley Tunnel in Melbourne this morning made me think about a whole lot of mortality-related issues while attempting a nanna nap this afternoon (I'm still sick, I have an excuse!).

It's kind of like we're constantly running into possibilities for death every day, even if it never happens until we're old and in a nursing home, passing away our final days wondering whether monkeys live in the wardrobe or something.

Maybe I just ponder things like death too often because of all the times I've come close to it and realised it. Hopefully I haven't used up too many lives...

Anyways. Death. There kind of comes a point in life where death actually has a personal impact on you rather than just being something you hear of people doing on the news. Of course pets die, but it sort of hits home more when it's a relative or friend.

The first funeral I vaguely remember going to was for my great-uncle John where I stood up on the pew and asked what the big box at the front was, was told it had uncle John in it, so I asked when he was going to get out. To a three-year-old mind, I'm pretty sure that makes perfect sense. Great-aunt Mary died years later, but I don't remember much of it.

But when death really registers on the radar, it happens in a big way. In 2000, a girl in my homegroup was killed in a car accident, my Pappa had a massive heart-attack, two more people from school were killed in other accidents...

Life suddenly cuts into pieces where you had someone you love (or like, or tolerate, or are just used to) around, then when they're never going to be around again. There's so much left unsaid, so many more things you want them around to see, things in the future that aren't the same because they're not there. And you can't just rush out and get a replacement, like you could with an indoor plant or something.

*sigh* Okay, rambling. It can be summed up thusly: death sucks.

And in closing thoughts, the words of W H Auden spring to mind:
As the poets have mournfully sung,
Death takes the innocent young,
The rolling-in-money,
The screamingly funny,
And those who are very well hung.

Also, I hate being sick. It steals my brain. I actually had a point with this post when I started out, but that went somewhere else while typing it and it felt like a waste of time not to do something with it *sigh*

PoP! goes my heart...

Although the old stove was terrible, I still loved it - it held many hours of baking joy as well as sadness over its shabby state (and surprise when it arced a hole in the bottom of an 18-somethingwhatsie saucepan from one of the hotplates).

It was sad to part with it, but I've already fallen in love with the new stove, which was finally installed this morning. It's white, shiny, ceramic topped, has a light (ooh, shiny things!), fan-forced, yada yada and features in the pic above right. Shameless stove hussy that I am.

But things could not have been more bizarre with the whole situation. It was delivered last week, but Clive Peeters had failed to organise installation as promised, so that was delayed until today. At 7am. This morning I wake up at some disgusting hour like 3am and the power's off - it stays off until around 9.30 this morning. Natch, I go back to bed and hope the power's on when I wake up at 6.30. It's not.

So when the electrician arrived at a bit after 7, I'm hunting for candles so there's some light in the house at least. And the electrician reminds me oddly of Drewsy. In spite of that, candles are just a bit of a bizarre thing even though they're necessary to shed some light on the subject. That said, things always seem to go weird if there's a tradesperson coming to fix something.

Anyways, the electrician guy gets the stove installed and I help him carry the old one out and up the steps and it's all good, apart from no electricity. I'm stuck imagining the stove works amazingly. And seeing as it's going to be 35 degrees today, it's probably best to just stick to imagining it. Honestly, 35 degrees for the first day of a new stove. So not funny :-p

But huzzah for new stoves.

Sand art is surprisingly fun

"Don't Eat the Yellow Snow," Della, 22/03/07.

I found this sand art site this morning. It's so gloriously 1970s and oddly kind of fun. But then again, I'm still kinda sick, so let's not trust my judgement right at the moment.

Another five and a half hours of work to go and all I want to do is fall asleep on my desk. Oh well! :) Things will be better after the weekend and copious amounts of sleep.

...on a platform of skateboards that's tied to a tram

I hate being sick.

And by sick, I mean really, really, really sick.

Haven't felt that bad since the time when I was little and had my appendix out. Stupid stoic me didn't go to the doctor yesterday when whatever it was that this malaise is hit, just went home and rested. Oh, and threw up too.

Delightful!

Honestly, I don't know how bulemics do it. It's gross enough when you're sick and kind of have to, but to actually voluntarily go the technicolour yawn? Blech! And to think of what long-term bulemia does to your teeth, too.

Got doctors appointments and whatnot tomorrow. Always something to look forward to. Especially if I have to ask them to run some tests on various things my Mum's specialists are insisting I get tested for.

Regardless, I'm thinking of starting an ayurvedic detox. Have some ayurvedic detox tea somewhere, which tastes like how I imagine licking armpits would taste, but is probably a sign that it's awfully healthy for you.

A little history lesson

I found this on the Psychadelic Lounge today - a quote from me from waaay back in Year 12, which I believe I'd written in Frankie's diary:

"Placebo says, 'It's a hard, hot, horny, Mephistopholese.' But I don't believe them. But maybe we should run, screaming, from the room because Mephistopholese could spontaneously combust and schrapnel the room in burning pieces of horn. And it could be painful..."

Gad, how I loved Year 12. Those were indeed the days!

I needed to see something beautiful, so I went for a walk and found these. Really must get some of these plants for the yard here.

It's just been one of those weeks and to top it off, I accidentally sliced off half a fingernail (which went on to bleed for three hours without stopping - I need more band-aids - and no, I didn't go to the doctor) and the store I bought the stove from didn't book a time with the electrician as promised so the stove won't go in until next week.

Gah.

But I found these lovely flowers on the side of the road and took a whole lot of photos of them. The sun was shining, the breeze was gentle and cool and it was one of those afternoons it'd just be nice to keep always. Then I came home to white tea with raspberries and Raga Maru-behag and Raga Aheer Bhairab from Sitar Meditations.

Suddenly I realise the whole hippy kind of feel to passing an afternoon in such a fashion. The area must be rubbing off on me or something. But I've always loved that sitar record - used to drive Mum and Dad somewhat bananas by playing it regularly when I was little and mastered the record player. As long as I don't start looking at 100% natural organic hemp hand-dyed ridiculously-priced clothing lustfully, it's allllll good.

Oh, and next door's truly irritating dog frightening the heck out of itself by backing into a bucket, starting forward and subsequently nearly jumping head-first into the fence while barking madly at whatever it is it felt like barking at (which can be anything from a Soviet-style parade down the street (not had one yet, must admit) to a bird breathing).

The Paris Hilton of Politics?

Penguin's phallic toadstool started the day in a hilarious way.

Then I read PM dines with porn king via news.com.au after reading something about the Santo Santoro shares thing and had to laugh some more. All of this stuff about who had dinner with who and how naughty they are is getting ridiculous, because most politicians would have come in contact with many, many undesirables in their career (themselves included perhaps?). Pointing the finger about din-dins with a Burke ends up meaning there are fingers pointing back at you with a porn-king or two and perhaps some non-declared interested shares.

Scott Phillips, who's currently in jail serving a five-year term for doing some rather horrible things, was a late inclusion for din-dins with the PM a couple of years ago (at a fund-raiser for Andrew Laming, whose offices were recently raided by the federal police).

I believe there was some kind of mention back when the Burke thing came out of whether it was a nice cosy meeting to lobby for K-Rudd's promotion a couple years later to leader of the ALP. This has made me wonder whether John Howard had any personal cosy chit-chats with Phillips for any variety of lobbying and hoping that there won't be a home video coming out any time soon, Paris Hilton style.

Oh how I wish politics would get back to the policies and off of the mud-slinging personal attacks.

The one that disgusted me the most being Tony Abbott's column in the Sydney Morning Herald attacking K-Rudd's memories as an 11-year-old following his father's death - VERY poor form from there from the Health Minister who never seems to write about health in his columns. It came across as truly insensitive and disrespectful of a family's grief rather than an inspired commentary on how big a liar-liar-pants-on-fire Abbott believes Kevin Rudd to be.

My grandpa died when I was 16 and that was traumatic enough. I can't imagine what it would be like to lose a parent at such a young age. For Vocational and Technical Education Minister Andrew Robb to defend the attacks as a legitimate way of "testing" K-Rudd's fitness to be PM is totally hard-hearted, as well as quite bonkers.

Regardless, the SMH reports: PM refuses to concede Rudd attacks have backfired *le sigh* Frankly, I'd rather see the PM collaborate with Phillips on a home video, gaining him the title of the Paris Hilton of Politics, than more of the same-old-same-old mud-slinging stuff.

Expenses always arise when you can least afford them to.

On the weekend, the stove died. I'm not entirely sure how old the thing was - it looks like it's from the era the house itself was built. Everyone dislikes the stove, but I somehow managed to become quite fond of it with its lack of temperature knob thing for the oven, odd heating, lack of light, the grill never working... Well, the more I think about it, the dodgier it really is.

But it served me well. Until on Saturday it arced a hole in the bottom of a saucepan on one of the hotplates. This to me was a sign that it was time to go out hunting for a new stove. And brace myself for parting with muchos dineros *sigh* It's so depressing spending money like that. Yes, I realise that sounds odd coming from a female, but it is. That's money that's meant to be going towards my trip to Germany for the wedding in June.

But now I'll be having a brand spankin' new stove arriving on Friday and the electrician guy coming to install it on Saturday. Hopefully. The new stove is shiny, white, has a ceramic cook-top (which was only $100 more than stoves with just the normal hotplates), isn't lacking essential knob bits, etc. I'm mildly excited, mostly not. Hopefully it'll all work out okay.

It better for $1359. Dammit.

Stella! Stella! Don't go! (And 1000 posts)

I got the dress I'd lusted after from the Stella McCartney collection!

Not entirely sure what possessed me to go brave the wild throngs who were at the release of the collection, but it was fun enough. I didn't go to one of the major centres, and I'm glad - read about the wild scenes at Chadstone and in comparison we were quite sedate and very, very polite with no trampling of children or snatching of garments from the hands of those crushed underfoot.

The dress I'd initially thought was lovely was average. No, it was worse than that - poorly designed. I tried it on and it made me look like the twins were trying to escape and hide under my armpits. Not good, and apparently most other people who tried the bird-print dress found the same problem. But the material (silk) was gorgeous.

So I hunted around, tried on loads of different things (it was cool how everyone was swapping around things that didn't fit/they didn't want/etc), found a shirt I fell in love with but parted with it because it was dry-clean only and that's just something that doesn't get allowed in my wardrobe.

To be honest, most of the collection was pretty average - basically what you'd expect most competent fashion graduates to be able to produce. But you're not expecting haute couture when it's just an off-the-rack thing for Target. There were a couple of things that were truly lovely, though.

Kinda get the feeling that there'll be a lot of people who get their stuff home (like the lady I saw with a trolley loaded entirely with Stella McCartney stuff), look at certain items and think, "Hmm, formulaic... floppy... Supre but nicer material..." and then sell it on at profit on eBay ;)

Der Metzgermeister

I am outrageously, disgustingly, unutterably ecstatic!

While reorganising and recategorising my library (I'll call it that, seeing how I have more than 700 books these days), I discovered a whole load of papers from uni with print-offs of things I'd thought I'd lost forever when my old computer died last year.

Those papers included my essay on cannibalism in fairytales. All false modesty aside, it is my best-ever essay and reading it again today made me think, "Yup, that deserved the excellent mark it got." It's freaking awesome.

I had the best time researching that and it was amusing how people I'd mention it to would have either a fascinated or "Eep!" reaction. But really, it was a perfect opportunity to assault my ear-drums with Mein Teil in the name of "research."

Also found some narrative non-fiction work. Seeing as the post after this one will be my 1000th post, I might put up one of the non-fiction works or something. Funny reading back over them and how a couple of them mentioned my ex and the way he used to put my hand on his thigh every time we were driving somewhere. I'd totally and utterly forgotten that until I read a piece I'd written about visiting my pappa's grave with said ex.

Bizarre.

If you are looking at your boyfriend, thinking he's so yummy... If you are looking at your girlfriend, thinking she's good enough to eat... Well think on this don't think too long, Well think on this... Cannibalism's wrong - The Lads.

Hmmm...

I went for a three-kiolometre jog last night.

Not entirely sure why, other than I was feeling like running, which was downgraded to jogging after a little while and ended finally in nearly dragging myself back up the hill with my teeth (the final hill always makes me breathless in the way I don't like).

I know three kilometres isn't much for those who start their day with a brisk 20 kilometre run done while embroidering a decorative wall-hanging and solving the problems of the Middle East, but it's something I haven't done for ages and ages and ages.

Never really been a fan of jogging - I always kinda worry I'll end up smacking myself in the face with my boobs or something. After last night and the knee I hurt the other week complaining loudly at me this morning via that good ol' sense of pain, I think I'll stick to just power-walking those kilometres.

Huzzah for exercise :-p

RIP John Inman - thank-you for many, many years of Mr Humphries.

Operation SneakyBunny

I was going to write earlier about the recommencement of Operation SneakyBunny, but then we had an earthquake. Yup, for real-real, not for play-play. It lasted for quite a while and then rumbled off into the distance. Thankfully the building didn't fall down around our ears.

My officemate and I did the sensible thing and stared at eachother with "What on earth..!?" expressions on our faces the entire time instead of hiding under a desk or doorframe or whatever it is you're meant to do in those sort of situations. Will have to check out everything at home this evening to make sure that it's all okay and the house hasn't split in half or something like that and slid down the mountain.

Anyways. Operation SneakyBunny.

Last year in the weeks leading up to Easter, I put Easter eggs around in people's offices most days of the week (usually about five per day). Maybe they all figured out it was me, but so far I think it was only my old officemate and I who knew about it. And this year I hope to continue this tradition!

Big packets of Cadbury Easter eggs were on special today, so I bought one and am now armed and ready for the egg offensive to begin. Huzzah. But shhhhhhh about it, 'k.

Oh. My. Gah!

Thanks to Go Fug Yourself, I discovered this "dress." The first thought that popped into my head is that this is obviously something that many people in Elizabeth and Salisbury are going to consider a God-send. It solves their problems of what to wear to formal events when the usual tracksuit may not be entirely appropriate.

Nice...

Question is, would it be called a trackdress? Or just a flaming load of ugliness that no-one in their right mind would wear unless suffering from a severe bout of concussion and had hallucinated that this was really a Galliano gown, resplendant with Swarovski crystals that had been hand-sewn on by blind nuns from the Holy Order of the Inate Sense of Fashion and Taste?

I went to a wedding in Salisbury last year. Although it was for one of my best friends from high school, it was still Salisbury and there were drunks that had to be chased away from where the wedding was being held. And there was someone at the wedding who was wearing one of those shiny tracksuits. I guess at least it had been World Cup year. I feel somewhat disappointed that nothing like this was in attendance on someone's person, though.

But the bridal party truly did look absolutely lovely. And that reminds me that I haven't e-mailed everyone photos yet, or posted the CDs with the pix on. Sod.

What can I say about the country? I love it.

Line dancing lessons one night, positively enormous branches anihilating the fence between you and the neighbour's house the next, chopping up said branch the following morning... Yup, I wish the country life for me (here amongst the greenwood trees!). The excitement never ends.

Last night, it was just a bit into Neighbours (for some reason, the chick Boyd did the underpants Charleston with while in Tasmania has lips that make me think of leeches - frightening - but anyways) when outside there's a cracking sound, the rush of something incredibly heavy falling through the air and a huge thump.

Another branch off one of the trees. A rather large one.

And it's squashed our fence.

These trees are called "widow makers" for a good reason.

But in all of this, I'm ashamed to confess I coverted my neighbour's chainsaw. I want a chainsaw so, so badly now. But me and powertools? Bad, bad combination. To be honest, I truly wouldn't trust myself with a chainsaw. Had a near miss last year with an axe and my leg.

Chainsaw + me = possible carnage. No, make that definite carnage. Perhaps it's that I'm easily distracted or something, or am not as serious as I should be around those sort of things. Mowing over a coiled-up hose while still back on the farm and powering around on the ride-on mower is still one of my most hilarious, humourous moments. Great stuff.

Anyways, here's some pix of the branch that so generously graced the yard and utterly flattened the plants near the fence that I'd been planning to pull out (positive to every negative? Hmm):

Gonna make you mine, better get in line...

5, 6, 7, 8!

Oh how I hate that song! Although I did always get a giggle out of Step's rendition of Tragedy! But moving right along to other things... This week has been so busy (thus the lack of posting).

On Monday, my boss came into the office and announced I was taking over another section of a mag on top of what I already do. I hadn't been told about this, so it was rather surprising. And it's not just a one-off, it's for always and ever. Joy.

Tonight's meant to be line dancing night again. Last week I didn't go because I fell up the steps out the front of the house and smacked my knee on a step. That was a whole mighty lot of ouch, seeing as those steps have gravel on them and it was the knee I tore ligaments in in a bridge incident some time ago.

I spent the evening with my leg elevated, ice-pack applied to it and casting my gaze upon Komissar Rex. Mmm, Gedeon Burkhard. If he were to lead out in the line dancing, I'd be there early and wouldn't at all mind learning how to side-together-side-together from him.

Ultimately, I'm in two minds about the whole line dancing thing.

It's good exercise.

But it involves country and western music, which I hate with a passion that cannot be surpassed by wriggling my ass.