Tupperbeware

Okay, so the first (and probably last) thing I ever bought from Tupperware arrived today. It involved a Tupperware party Which Shall Not Be Spoken About, suffice to say it was not to be spoken about (even though it was rather amusing, but you, dear reader are not to be privy to that amusement). But I am willing to say that I have always fondly remembered the ice-block moulds from Tupperware we had when I was a child.

So it made sense for me when I saw that these were on sale that I should buy some. And apparently they won't be made for the next Summer season. Not that I'll really have an interest in other Tupperware items, or obtaining a multitude of ice-block moulds.

I've already looked at them suspiciously, thinking, "When will the little sticks and lids go missing..?"

Which is promptly followed by, "This lifetime guarantee thing better work."

To be honest, I find Tupperware a little creepy and a lot over-priced. It's just plastic. Plastic boxes. Why would you pay more than $100 for a few plastic boxes? If you were going to bury someone in Tupperware, it'd probably be cheaper to buy a gold-plated coffin inlaid with the souls of the innocents.

Maybe I fail to understand the lure of Tupperware with its siren song of snapping lids due to not being overly domestic. Oh, I can cook, clean, sew, host dinner parties, paint, embroider, play the harpsichord (very ill indeed), speak a number of languages and kill spiders all by myself.

But I've never felt like a home-maker. The desire for complete matching china, crystal, serving ware, silver, chintz, throw cushions, husband, children, etc has never overtaken me. I like to have my house clean and things organised, but it's also not the end of the world if it's not. I love cooking, but not all the time. I'm not overly concerned about the containers in the cupboard that house flour, sugar and so on match (although they do - I can't resist vintage canisters).

So who knows where this Tupperware rebellion arose from.

I do know, though, that I don't appreciate being pestered to host Tupperware parties (although I could be tempted if Aunt Barbara did one - see Aunt Barbara's "Is A Tupperware Party Right For Me?" to see what I mean). It makes me feel like I'm being forced into a snap-lock, fridge-fresh version of Amway.

And yet, here I am with Tupperware ice-block moulds.

Plus a free melon-baller (which my friend Michael joked about before knowing I'd actually received one - psychic, that boy) and a Tupperware keyring that's one of their Go Flex (TM) things, which has about enough room in it for the morals of a politician.

^ Snow today at lunchtime was the perfect antidote to feeling like I'd been inside too much lately. It was utterly bracing. Within minutes of getting out of the car, my fingers were numb and I was fumbling with the camera and my phone until my fingers defrosted.

It could have been the hypothermia speaking, but it was quite pleasant up there - not utterly, completely freezing like the one time last year where the wind went through you like you were a cheese grater with extra holes drilled into it.

Apart from the luscious crunch of walking through snow, the colour, the way it blankets everything, turning the world into a winter wonderland, the feeling of flakes falling on your face and all of that sort of thing, it's amazing how it makes things either very, very silent or somehow amplifies echos. And there's that strange sort of almost hissing noise when the flakes are falling.

It's sort of eerie, in its own way, but lovely.

I wandered ahead of the people I was with and was staring into the dense bushland, thinking how quickly silence would just envelop you if you walked into it. How disorienting it would be, too. Rather Picnic at Hanging Rock or something. But of course, without the panpipes and future Nescafe ads.

*cue: "Della? Dellaaaa? DELLLLAAAAAA?!?!?!?"*

*ahem*

Anyway. I love the snow so very much.

^ Apart from flowers, I seem to be somewhat obsessed with books.

We went on an uber-shopping trip today. My feet still haven't really recovered and neither has my bank balance, but it was good. And I also saw the highest and most wonderfully purple pair of heels EVER but didn't even feel tempted to try them on because I didn't want to break my leg again.

But so gorgeous.

Also saw the most expensive pair of over-the-knee, heeled, black boots I've ever seen for the quality they were. But they were awesome enough in their own way as well.

Apart from the shoes, there was a visit to Borders. Damn you, Borders! *shakes fist* I cannot go into that store without emerging some time later, ladened down with books. I only really wanted Alain de Botton's new book about the sadness and joy of work (it seems appropriate), but left with the stack above. Probably have too many Pablo Neruda books now, too.

Then it was on to the DFO. Once again, much walking. But not so much with the spending, apart from being unable to resist a bright scarf, which is really long, annoyingly fluffy and still kind of fantastic. And a cardigan with a fake-fur collar. Because I feel the need to look like a 1950s grandma.

There was a blur of shopping after that as well, but I didn't really end up spending all that much, apart from on the books. But books, as I like to think of them, are an investment and should last for a lifetime. Or two or three or more (considering slightly more than half of my books are from parents, grandparents and great-grandparents). So it's worth parting with money for them.

Even if it's only so that future generations can go, "The Mighty Book of Boosh? Whaaaa'..??"

^ More flowers.

Strange flowers

^ The most impulsive buy of the day.

I had to have them. They're so freakish and odd. And such a glorious bright colour. I have a real obsession with flowers at the moment, which really is a bit of a waste of money. But they're pretty, smell nice and make the house look a little more... err... crowded with things.

Night photos

^ Photos from last night. Got a bit bored while cleaning the house. I hate how it gets dark so early - that's what depresses me about Winter, although I love snow and cold weather wins out over the increased risk of bushfires in summer.

So now when I get home at night, it's dark. And you can't do anything outside in the dark (especially in the yard I have - you'd fall down it, keep rolling and end up in the blackberries), even though the yard needs to be raked and straightened up thanks to all the leaves and branches brought down in the strong winds last week. The whole dark-outside-in-evenings thing is rather limiting, so I've been working on doing some cleaning, reorganising, etc, inside.

When I'm not distracted by TV and other shiny things, that is.

AKA: not much has been done yet.

And I have to get it all cleaned by the weekend when friends are coming over. ARGH! Shall have to do it tonight. And find time in there to sleep, too, because there shall be no sleeping in on Friday morning. Who gets up to leave at 6am to go shopping on a Friday? Me! Ha! Suckers!

Oh. Wait...

Skeleton

^ The way to amuse me this afternoon was through a squishy sticky skeleton, obviously. Although it's not as good as the eyepatch and fake moustache, which I may post at a later date. Or not.

Random joke of the week

This has amused me far too much this week:

Two bandidos were in the desert, running from the law for five days. Suffering from severe dehydration, exhaustion and delirium as they stumbled across what looked like salvation. Dragging their limp bodies through a narrow gorge, they see a bush growing up ahead with what appears to be meat hanging from it - bacon, chops, pork belly.

The temptation is overwhelming.

Jose turns to Miguel and says, "Eeezzz too much... I have to geet some fooooood!" With a single motion, he is up and running towards the bounty. But before Miguel can muster the strength to follow, Jose is cut down in a hail of gunfire.

Turning to his friend in despair, Jose uses his final breaths to say, "Stay back, Miguel! Eeezz a hambush!"

Sunday Photos #1

Went for a nice, long walk this afternoon. Well, it was nice until my formerly-broken leg decided to freak out while I was still about 1.5kms from home. Had to hobble back and it took quite a long time, much gritting of teeth and wondering whether it would possibly be less comfortable to crawl uphill than it would be to walk it.

But I made it home, and, to my mind at least, the photos were worth it. It was a gorgeous day and lovely to be out and about in. It was nice to be able to make the most of some good weather, although hopefully it won't be the last sunny set of days before Winter starts to set in properly. Although, that said, we need rain. A lot (just not all at once).

The DSE were doing burning off in the vicinity and it made me think how strangely welcome the huge amount of smoke billowing up into the sky was, compared to just a little over a month ago when smoke was a terrifying sign of fires in the area.

Really should be sleeping now...

Sunday Photos #2

Sunday photos #3

Re today: Ow, ow, ow *hobbles off to bed*

Just enough energy to say that teen skaters singing Mighty Boosh songs on the train made me smile so hard. "Listen to your heart, everything is good here, nothing befoooore was reeeeeeal..."

Also:

Small child running up and down train aisle, shouting: I'm not trashed! I'm an icon!

Very puzzling.

Must book back in to physio. This ankle thing is still painful.

^ And it was so nice yesterday...

The guy on the Just for Laughs: Montreal Comedy Festival - the one who played the keyboard and was all obsessed with underwear - was seriously not very amusing. He mostly looked like a sex offender. From the 1980s.

*flicks back to Underbelly repeats*

^ Autumn sun.

Dandy...

Perfect Melbourne Monday

Easter Monday presented the perfect opportunity to go to the Ian Potter Centre to check out the VCE Top Arts 2008 exhibition and some of the other things they had on display. It was pretty busy, but that's to be expected on a long weekend. The VCE exhibition wasn't too bad on the whole. A few sort of generic pieces, but there was some really amazing work as well. Hopefully we'll get to see more from some of these artists in future.

Also checked out the Shared Sky and 2009 Cicely & Colin Rigg Contemporary Design Award exhibitions. I liked the commonality explored by Shared Sky and it was great to see some old materials and artworks relating to stars, their movement and so on. I particularly liked the small artworks on a comet from the 19th century. The contemporary design exhibit wasn't too bad, but not all that exciting.

Looking forward to checking out the John Brack and The Satirical Eye exhibitions at some point soon. Saw some John Brack works today and they were fantastic.

In thoughts related to art and because they have a fair amount of Sydney Nolan's work at the centre, I HATE SYDNEY NOLAN'S WORK. He paints like he has the brush wedged between his buttocks. It's just a personal perspective on his work, but I just cannot stand it. Obviously this is some variety philistine admission when it comes to Australian art, but dammit. I know there's the whole thing about defining the notion of nationalism and heroism through figurative potential. But I don't care. My instinctual dislike of his work cannot overcome the intellectual side of it.

Apart from the artfeast, it was the best day for overheard stuff.

Small loud child on train: My granddad's 70. Connor's great-uncle is 90! Except he's dead.

Small child with two front teeth missing, very seriously: Teasing people is not funny. Making fart noises with your hands and armpits is funny, but teasing people is not.

Small child: Star Wars is a GAME, not a movie!!
Other small child: It is a movie!
Small child: No, it's not! I'm telling dad!!

Valleygirl on bus: If you do that, he'll tie you up, take you out to the Dandenongs and bury you in a shallow grave. Oh s**t, that reminds me... *pulls out phone*

Other valleygirl: MySpace is your best friend!

Kel of The X Facta tagged me to do the "Seven Things About Me" thing.

So, without further ado...

> I apparently inherited my love of bagpipes (when played well) from the grandfather who died before I was born. I also like sitar music (when played well), which he apparently also was fond of.

> When I was about six, and just past the age of kinda "believing" in Santa, there was an Incident on Christmas Eve. Back on the farm, my bedroom was right next to the main lounge, which had a large fireplace. I had retired to bed for the night when there was a scrabbling in the chimney. Could it be Santa!?!? No, it wasn't. It was a possum. And possums do not deliver Christmas presents. They just get grumpy and have to be removed by Dad wearing his motorcycle gloves.

> That wasn't the end of animal incidents in the old farm house. A few years after that on Boxing Day, my friend Meals and I went down to our cellar to check it out. There was no electricty down there, and Mum asked me to check the beams for termites with the torch I was carrying. I'd just finished shining the light around the "ceiling" and was getting ready to explore the cellar properly when I shone the light down on the floor. A foot in front of me was a six-foot king brown snake, curled up, asleep. "Meals, there's a snake. We have to get out of here now," I said, very calmly. We shot up the steps, slammed the lid down on the cellar and rushed to the kitchen. My parents thought we were joking. When they saw the snake, they called the snake handler guy, he removed it and released it out in the bush. By the time they got up there, the heat had woken the snake up and it was thrashing around like crazy. Thank God for freezing cellars.

> This afternoon was one of the most pleasant afternoons I'd had for a long time - warm afternoon sunshine, hot lemon-peppermint tea, a comfortable chair I dragged outside, a blanket and The Oxford Book of English Verse edited by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch. The old English from the 13th Century was puzzling at first, and I'd never really taken the time to explore how language has changed in terms of verse. Oddly, most of the words, although more or less nonsensical now, make sense. Probably the context.

> I love Allen's lolly pineapples. And racing cars. And was overjoyed when they stopped doing the dreadful natural flavours and colours thing with Snakes Alive.

> The more I see of Melbourne, the more I adore it. I think it'd be hard to leave, because the only other place I'd really want to go back to would be South Australia (or overseas). I despise Sydney with a passion, Queensland is too humid and Tasmania was pretty, but so silent.

> That said, I like silence. But on my terms. Someone I knew when younger said last year I'd be the kind who, even when married, would want my own space (and possibly even house) for when I was in a solitary mood. Strangely, for someone who hasn't seen me for years, he was right.

As the rules of the meme go, I now pick seven bloggers to share seven things themselves:

Penguin @ Penguin - Life As Me
Clare @ insane troll logic
Kaisa @ The Homely Housewife
Kris @ Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Free Speech
PowerPuff @ Ramblings
MaybeMelody @ File Under 'Miscellaneous'
Deb @ The Debn8r

Here's what you do:

> Link to your original tagger and list these rules in your post.
> Share seven facts about yourself in the post.
> Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and links to their blogs.
> Let them know they’ve been tagged.
> Let your tagger know you've completed the meme.

You can tell it's going to be a quiet day when the most exciting thing that happens is that you get your foot stuck in a gumboot for 10 minutes...

My right foot with the broken ankle thing is still somewhat odd, even though it's recovering okay. It still swells up occasionally, and the gumboot got stuck on my foot. Cue me pondering after a few minutes' of struggle whether or not the scissors would cut through it, or whether I should try the garden shears.

But it was all good.

Also found the most enormous black spider outside when doing some external surface spraying. Although I have a policy of live and let live with spiders outside of the house (and live and let die if they come inside), I sprayed this one. Even though it was probably the grandmother of all black widow-esque spiders.

There was also a little kid who came around collecting money for the Good Friday Appeal and he said he and his family used to live in my house and "did it up." I pondered not giving him money just for the fact that they may have been the ones who "did it up" with the suede-effect paint in the lively colours of depressed plum, baby-poo tan and verdigris, all of which have taken a lot of effort to paint over. But I gave him some money anyways. And resisted the urge to tell him his parents have appalling taste in paint.

^ From an early-morning walk over the weekend just past.

*insert Hammer Time reference*

^ Hammering lollipops. A surprisingly fun stressbuster.

Melbourne, I love thee

Well, more specifically, I love your public transport system.

It's full of nutters. Nutters who say amusing things.

These are some recent examples of things overheard on public transport:

Camp chumpy bogan boarding bus: I can't believe my seven-year-old sister is paying for my bus ticket. How embarrassing. Wait... *to sister* You didn't understand a word of what I just said, did you?
Sister: Uh-uh?
Camp chumpy bogan: Great. That means you can't repeat it to any of your little friends now, can you.

Small child on SERIOUSLY crowded train, wailing to mother after a very large lady bent over in front of her, thus introducing buttock region to facial region: Kiiiilll meeeeee! KILL ME NOOOOOOOOW!

Old guy wandering up and down a platform at a station out west, shouting (possibly in Very Polite Tourettes): “C**K! UP YOURS! Oh, excuse me. Excuse me. GET STUFFED!! C**K!!! Sorry! Excuse me!”

Grumpy-looking older woman on mobile, talking loudly: Look David, don't make excuses for your affairs, please. I'm going to be living with it, we have to have SOME form of relationship. None of the children approve. No, I do NOT want to hear your excuses! Look, I have to go. People are staring.

I wonder why.

Apart from that, there has been an abundance of really amicable train and bus conversations of late. As a whole group. Whether it's about the fires or the trains doing random things or whatever, it's been rather amusing. And strangely community-like in regard to the fires. People who are complete strangers talking about what happened to them during Black Saturday or in the weeks following, how people they know were impacted, how their houses were destroyed/damaged, how lucky they felt they were to avoid the fires coming to their property or town or whatever.

I love Melbourne.

^ More of the lillies.

In other thoughts, I love Stockinger. Finally bought the first half of the series and will have to find the second half. Stocki is funnier than on Komissar Rex and the scenery is even more tempting than that around Vienna. The huge mountains, snow, meadows, etc - so pretty. Makes me wish I had a vast amount of money to just travel around to these sort of places and waste my time with enjoying the sights and taking copious amounts of photos.

*sigh*

Catnap

^ Devil Kitteh was waiting for me when I got home around lunchtime, lurking beneath the stairs and staring out at me with his big green eyes. He came inside and slept on my bed for about six hours, then left.

Don't blame him, with how much it absolutely poured with rain. The gutters overflowed, the bank of the neighbour's driveway started eroding and the yard was temporarily flooded. Rather impressive.