^ Toadstools.

My apologies to Kristin for pranking her this afternoon with the whole Russian orphanage thing...

;)

Although I was quite pleased with the Russian accent. And I'm sure she won't mind that there are 17 orphans to be mailed to her soon, faster than you can say вляпаться в говно.

Other than that, English Russia is pretty interesting, although somehow rather depressing in a lot of ways.

Scary thing of the night, other than an enormous huntsman spider waiting for me at home on the front door (yes, that's right, right on the door, thank-you so much, nature, it was all I could do not to scream):

The guy on the "Editor's picks from ninemsn video" ads for those skanky-looking Seany B things on MSN messenger looks remarkably like a guy I know back in Sydney.

That is all.

Other than that I'm not overly fond of enormous spiders waiting for me when I arrive home.

^ I found a dead wombat in the snow this morning, lying in a trickling stream that cut its way through the thawing snow. This is why you should always think twice about drinking water from fresh mountain streams...

Also, on the way down the mountain, we counted about 90 lyre birds and nearly ran over three of them. They literally hurled themselves in front of the car as if their will to live had expired and there wasn't anything to go on for.

And now for something prettier:

^ More snowy goodness.

^ Web.

Schneeweißchen und Rosenrot...

It snowed! And such a lot. Hurrah!

In other thoughts, the bus I was on yesterday nearly ran a guy over. He just stepped out onto the road right in front of the bus and the driver slammed on the breaks, stopping literally centimetres from the guy. I think the guy was a few sandwiches, a cake, bottles of lemonade, a picnic rug and a sunny day short of a picnic. At least we didn't run him over. It would have been a bit too weird and involved too much time making police statements or something.

But the snow. The snow is way better! The whole time we were there, it snowed. Either just gently falling flakes or blasts of them that would sting your face as the wind swirled them around. There's nothing better than crunching through fresh snow, sinking down into it, kicking it around, randomly being pelted with it by the friends you go up there with...











Also, we had to keep shaking off the umbrellas or the snow would try to make them close. Surprising how heavy it is for delicate little flakes...

Du bist min, ich bin din:
Des solt du gewis sin.
Du bist beslozzen
In minem herzen:
Verlorn ist das slüzzelin:
Du muost immer drinne sin.

- Volkslieder

Ich liebe dich - ich lieb' dich so viel. Wann ich denk' an dich, mein Herz schlägt schnell, und fühlt' wie es wird auf meine Brust springen. Du machst mich lacheln. Und wann ich angst habe, ich will mit dir sein; ich will in deinen Armen legen. Ich wollte nur dich zu küssen. Ich vermiss' dich so viel.

- Should have paid more attention in German at school and practiced more when over there. I don't really remember all of the verbs or how to put them together properly any more. God, I miss doing languages. And should appologise for mangling a perfectly good language above...

^ First attempt at photo stitching.

Hmmm... I have to work on this more.

And I just saw a guy with the most enormous beard on tv. Which is rather random and yet seems appropriate for a Thursday night. Somehow it also reminds me to SMS a friend. He has a beard, although it's vastly less impressive than the one accompanying the old televised bloke.

The smell of Deep Heat reminds me of staying the night at my grandparent's house. Pappa would often put it on his knee, and in my mind the smell of it's taken on a mythical elderly proportion, but also one of cosiness, wood fires, shelves full of books and being able to sleep with the dog on the bed.

Today I bought some Deep Heat to try out on sore muscles. I'd never tried it before and wasn't quite ready for the shock of it all. Standing there in the bathroom, massaging it into the tense muscles in my shoulder, I was thinking, "This isn't too bad actually..."

It hit a few seconds later.

That agonising Deep Heat sensation that I'm pretty sure is akin to being beaten by members of the Khmer Rouge that makes you reel back uttering, "Oh holy mother of God!" in a surprisingly Irish accent that I'd say comes from no-where. Well, apart from that part of the family that is Irish and so far Mum's traced back to 1680 or something like that just through a superficial search. But it was probably more for comedic effect or something with the accent - an attempt to distract from the pain.

By the time the Deep Heat innitial sensation wears off, you've already promised to do more charity, live a life of celibacy and go to church three times every Sunday. Which is awkward, because I don't go to church even once on Sundays.

The smell of Deep Heat still makes me think of being at my grandparent's house, though. Oh, and hot water bottles that were always too hot and that strange pink woolly stuff that Nanna would use. And pawpaw ointment.

As well as steaming hot mugs of Milo, cheese on white bread toast for breakfasts, cauliflower mornay, Derek (my dog) hiding under the sofa with just his nose poked out, mountains of blankets, the imposing wardrobe in the spare room, Christmas lights and missing them both dreadfully.

Voodoo toads

After this week, a little retail therapy was in order.

Give me something shiny and I'm a happy girl for at least a few hours, obviously. Particularly if that something shiny is a CD that I've wanted for ages and finally find and buy (after doing a mini-happy-dance in the store about it). If there were such a thing as past lives, I think I would have been a crow. Which would explain the love of wearing black and shiny things. Unless I'm a Greek grandmother in disguise. Hmm.


Also, I saw tonnes of new graffiti while out and about, which just goes to prove how well those new draconian "anti"-graffiti laws the state government passed are working out. To me, they seem ridiculous (not only from the perspective that I find quite a lot of graffiti quite artistic).

Why not make a law that if caught, they have to scrub it off with a toothbrush or something? If councils are going to bang on about how much it costs them to clean it up every year, why not involve the people making the "mess" with the cleanup? Also, the $550 fine to anyone carrying spraypaint and unable to "prove" it's for work-related purpsoses? Que le eff? And anything can be a graffiti "implement." Most of the graffiti I've seen on the trains is the stuff scratched into the windows.


What about introducing more legal walls or spending money to address the root of the problem? Oh wait, I forget. It's a government. That sort of thing rarely happens. Instead, laws are created that seem disproportionate to the "crime," while if police want to deal with issues like stalking, then there's not a whole lot there in the laws to help them do so.

As for graffiti being a "blight" on our society, what about domestic violence? Poverty, homelessness and the increasing gap between rich and poor? Centrelink? The problems of educational disadvantages that result from schools not receiving enough funding to help students who genuinely need it? Overconsumption of finite resources? The abuse and destruction of land that can be used for farming to build more suburbs where all the houses look the same? Racism (I saw white power stickers while out and about today - that was deeply scary!)? Sexism/misogyny/misandry?

Hell no. It's those people with spray cans and fat black textas who are the REAL problem with our society. Along with bad shoes. And those frightening bogan-tastic plaid shirts/jackets/etc that a lot of people sport.

In other thoughts, I now have a rather cute hot water bottle arrangement, thanks to more retail therapy at Spotlight.


It's rather cute. Or at least I think so. Provided it doesn't leak, in which case it will be deeply unpopular. But it reminded me of the dream I had last night of running through the streets of Paris, looking for my dog who had run away, and asking people in French whether they'd seen him. Unusual.

Time waits for no mushroom

I've got the joy, joy, joy...

Actually, no I don't.

The insurance sagas are continuing.

After not hearing anything from them for weeks, I rang to see how it was all progressing last night. Someone from my insurance company rang me back today with the delightful news that I shouldn't be ringing because the building company had assured them that the house had been fixed.

Err...

Tell that to my house.

I was busy with work stuff at the time, so had to call back the insurance people to talk about it further. When I did, they'd talked with the building people who said that they'd never told them that the house was fixed. Methinks they may be lying liars who lie. Or something.

And apparently something that should be relatively straight-forward (replacing a faicure board) will be something that will taken another week or more to get around to. And needs multiple reports written about it all (which I do understand).

Ugh. This all makes me feel rather cross, though.

It's getting a little annoying trying to smile sweetly and say, "Oh yes, of course these things take time. And how silly of the building company! What scamps!" while you really just want to tell them to bend over and insert it.

And they say romance is dead...

Maybe it is ;)

(The photo's from the site you need to click on "dead" to view, by the way - I've not suddenly gotten all Ready, Steady, Cook and whipped it up in my lunch break.)

Autumn magic

...these are a few of my favourite things...

I got a little bored this evening and while looking at the bottle of ruby red grapefruit juice, thought, "Ooh, I could take photos of random things that I currently view as being favourite things! Yay!" So now you get to be inflicted with them.


^ Ruby red grapefruit juice. It's so yummy!


^ Also delicious are the vitamin water things. Which are about as vitamin-a-licious as slapping yourself with a herring, I'd say. But they're so tasty. Sort of like a nicer version of cordial.


^ Jelly sticks! I LOVE these. They're seaweed jelly with various fruit flavours/juices. Apparently they're "best" when frozen but that was something I never want to repeat again. Squishy goodness is best for these.


^ Milkacow! Bought at the Hamburg airport while waiting for the flight to London. Not only is it purple, but it contained blocks of Milka chocolate. Mmm...


^ Charles Worthington Dream Hair products. Shiny goodness.


^ For some odd reason, I really love Listerine. Although it's taken me ages to work up from the "mild tasting" ones to the proper ones that make you feel like someone's punching things inside your mouth. It's masochistic niceness. And good for the teeth.


^ While cleaning the spare room, I found my old pair of jeans! YAY! I love them. They're rather comfy and perfect for slothing around the house. And they're slightly flared, even if the legs are kind of skinny. Straight-leg skinny jeans make me feel violent. Especially when I picked up a copy of Shop Till You Drop recently in which people were extolling the "virtues" of skinny, straight jeans. I HATE YOU ALL SO VERY MUCH. *ahem* That's better.


^ New cute shoes.


^ Creepy slime. Childhood memories and whatnot. When I was young, we had a school excursion to the Investigator Science Centre and I picked up some green creepy slime there. It was great! Until the container it was in broke and oozed (and dried) all over some things in my school bag. Oops. When I saw this in Spotlight, I had to get it.


^ Paints. Love 'em. Must paint more.


^ Peacock feathers are my favourite sort of feathers. These were ones I got in Hahndorf while on another school excursion. There were more feathers (as well as objections from people on the school bus who freaked out about the feathers being inside and that they had the "evil eye" or some crap), but they're back on the farm. Possibly.

And on that note about superstition things, I must remember to watch the thing with Richard Dawkins (I think it's Enemies of Reason) tonight on Compass. Looks like it should be interesting.

Update: Okay, it seems perhaps a little odd for a Christian to watch Dawkins and find him fascinating, but Enemies of Reason was quite interesting. He seems like rather a grumpy man in general somehow but the viewing was compelling. The bit that made me giggle somewhat was when he was visiting the new age fair. Psychich about Dawkin's granny: "I get the feeling she had a lot of cats." Dawkins: "She never had a cat. She hated cats as a matter of fact."

Anyway. "The world is wonderful. There's real poetry in the real world. Science is the poetry of reality. And yet today, science is under attack..." was an interesting point. It is disappointing how there seems to be a general move away from scientific exploration/interest in the general community. I loved science subjects at school. But perhaps it's because they offered the opportunity to burn things, explode things or cut things up (our heart and lung set had cancer!).

The conspiracy theories Dawkins mentioned were also things that you think that anyone who would be willing to engage in thought about them could spend an extra few minutes doing some reasearch about. But I think I'm just annoyed due to getting forwards from people that contain warnings about this, that or the other relating to whatever conspiracy they feel like sending on from a friend who sent it to them after they received it from another friend who had a friend who saw it somewhere else by some guy who knew something about... bleh.

Perhaps the lack of motivation for research is more to do with people being somewhat lazy, as well as the effect of post-modernism (thought it was interesting how he stuck the boot in to post-modern relativism).

I'm looking forward to the second part of the series next week, especially as it looks at the health side of things. There's a wellbeing centre in the area and it has excellent products (comfrey and arnica and so on) as well as the stuff that I feel skeptical about - crystal healing, etc. Plus I don't want to talk about auras or whatever while listening to "alternative" instrumental music that sounds like a camel falling down an elevator shaft onto some drums, a collection of string instruments and something pointy.

Things. So many things.

^ New boots from the other week. And look, there's the dogsitting dog in the background. Ain't she a cutie.

I've now got three pairs of black knee-high leather boots. It seems that every Winter, another pair gets bought. The oldest pair is sitting in the corner in my room, slumped over and in need of heel repairs. The ones from last year are in better condition and I love the red leather that runs around the inside of the top of the boot.

My excuse for the new pair was that I recently donated an older pair of boots (in perfect condition) to charity so there's room. But there's not really. The other extra pairs of shoes bought recently are also crowding the shoecase and areas under other bedroom furniture.

Obsession? Yes, I think it must be.

The redemption will be donating more of the shoes to charity, along with the loads of clothes I've discovered I no longer want while working on this Autumn clean. The way I see it is that only things that are in good quality will be donated and if someone can make better use of it than I can, well and good.

But I'm never giving away any of my books.

*shakes fist*

There are so many of them now that both bookshelves are stuffed to capacity and I've taken to stacking the books on the floor. I just tell myself that I have nowhere near as many books as my parents do, though, with their triple-stack deep bookshelves on the walls in their office.

If ever I have that many, though, I shan't fit into my tiny house.

In other thoughts, I heard the worst rendition of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor BWV 565 this morning on a CD I purchased yesterday. It was played with the timing and talent of a mentally handicapped chimp on Ritalin. Thankfully, the rest of the CD is excellent. But the Toccata? It was such a disappointment.

It occurs to me that I should finish painting the bedroom. It's been more than a year of only the first application of undercoat. I've gotten massively distracted, obviously. The whole bedroom aesthetic is rather Soviet gulag thanks to the lack of second undercoat and topcoat.

This weekend I should really make an effort, break out the paint tins, find the painting kaftan that repels paint, dig out the drop sheets, move all of the furniture, chase dust bunnies... Oh, as well as burn all of the leaves in piles in the yard, do the washing, cleaning of the spare room and throwing out of junk, cooking, ironing, painting, bill paying, cloning of self so there's another self to send on errands...

Maybe the painting will only get done if there's time.

Or if the making of a clone works out.

Also, I've been thinking about the utter and complete lack of politics-related things posted on this blog recently. I had thought of suggesting a range of clothing for the 2020 Summit (like the ones for APEC (or was that OPEC?)), but didn't get enough time. There's mileage to be had from the WA Libs leader and the chair-sniffing event but meh. Or Brendan "Teh Doctor" Nelson supporting him (hopefully not in chair-sniffing. I hate to think of that being passed as a piece of legislation). Or I see something politics-related and read another blog and think, "They've said it so much better. I can't be bothered now."

Braaaaaaainnnnns... Braaaaaiiiiiiinnnns...

^ If people bring their kids into the office and their kids leave toys around, this is what happens when my officemates and I get bored... As well as all agreeing that Bratz dolls look skanky.

Also, I have decided to start up a weekly recap of odd/disturbing searches that have led to my blog. Mainly because I just had "Julius pleaser lyrics" and "dating someone with a diaper fetish" searches lead to the blog today. I am somewhat disturbed by both of those concepts. They'd make baby Jesus cry.

Hmm...

Officemate: You sell yourself short. You're the antichrist.
Me: I know. I've got my marketing committee working on that.