In this K2 of ironing piles...

...are 44 shirts. Not mine. They're all R's.

His excuse for this obscene quantity, if you buy it - I certainly didn't - is, "But I need to wear a clean shirt every day for work." Sure. Every day until the end of time.

It is a well known fact that I dislike ironing - hate hate hate it very much indeed. I think it is a pointless and repetitive waste of time and energy and therefore I leave it until the situation becomes dire. Or guilt wangles in as R starts wearing interesting stuff from the early 2000s or buys a bunch of new shirts.

It's a catch 22 situation, really. I'm the sole ironer in the house so if I go on strike (which is all the time - actually if you catch me ironing it's usually because I'm procrastinating like a bi-atch!) R goes shirtless: nice if your his wifey, not if you're buying a car off him. Maybe. Actually, that's a possible angle for marketing right there...

The long and the short of it is this: no ironing = new shirt obsession.

So...I have hired myself a lady who will come to the house and for money will iron all 44 of those shirts (R reckons he can get that number up to 50 by Wednesday).

She's not going to know what hit her but I fully intend not to feel guilty about this.

(A Very Late) Week in Review #6...

...the week in question being already 2 weeks past. Yikes. While the year shifts into ludicrous speed we still seem to be in December, but not the 29th of December, which is when we pack the kitties off to the cattery and head to Bannister's Point. There we shall entertain marvelous intentions of getting work done and instead laze about, for 5 days, eating and drinking too much and dreaming of dining with Rick Stein himself.

Sunday ~ R&R arrived yesterday and we enjoyed dinner at Toshi's last night. Not too tired, which is a good thing as we're off to A Day on the Green to see The Proclaimers, Mental As Anything and B52s. But first there is the obligatory wine tasting. Yesterday we wine tasted at Centennial Vineyards where they had a slideshow running in a loop, including the black and white image of three Italian men, starkers, pressing their feet (as well as wangs and paunches) into a bucket of grapes and suddenly the wine I was drinking tasted funny. This photo had R&R pretty amused and they photographed it for the purposes of Photoshop vandalism at a later date (it's still in progress).

This afternoon, for the eleventeenth time, we lob in at the Marist Brothers Monastery for wine tasting. Here's where, with the priest telling us all about basket pressing, R pipes up, without outlining the context, all about naked men in a tank of grapes and the holy padre shifts to another subject like a Formula 1 driver shifts gear.

Lunch at The Imperial follows and then it's on to the Day on the Green. Exceeds expectations.

Monday ~ Recovery. Spend the day reading The Divided Heart. Quite looking forward to putting this year behind me.

Tuesday ~ Gardening and gym followed by a session in the Komate dry sauna in order to try and sweat out November.

Wednesday ~ Have decided going to the gym in the afternoon is much more productive, leaving the mornings free for creativity and hangovers. Plus there are some serious guns being developed that time of day. Downside of all that muscle and metabolism is that the place reeks more than normal.

Thursday ~ Another day spent in the garden. Creative energy is wilting in the heat and what I have is eked out to my plants.

After three AFDs (alcohol-free days) and this heat, by 5pm I am rather tonguing for a beer.

Friday ~ Move the bookcase from my office to the family room and then decide to move it back - but not before sanding and painting it white. Purchase a pigeon hole room divider which I'll paint also. Huuuuge declutter. Boxes of crap. Gone.

Dinner = duck in a can. Perhaps that's why it's called confit de canard? Hawhawhaw.

Finally tackle the Italian Night video (from way back in July!).

Saturday ~ Sand the bookcase. Not fun. Hours of noise and funky-smelling dust. Easier by hand in the end than with the electric sander as the pads keep getting choked up with old lacquer. 1st coat of paint. Beer.

Summer Garden

Yay! November is a mere hectic memory, it is summer at last and our gorgeous little garden is thriving. After feeling pretty low and gritty last week it has been an absolute pleasure to be outdoors with the cats and playing in the dirt for a few hours.

I've just dug the first harvest of spuds for the season...these are from two plants I only pulled up because they looked so mangey! If this little crop is anything to go by we'll be eating spuds on a daily basis.




A cluster of baby Ox Hearts. This first sighting makes me very happy as I love their flavour and I thought these lovelies might have been killed off by the late October frost:



Deep into the heart of the red cabbage...fewer holes since I've Derris Dusted. I wish cabbage moth grubs ate weeds:



Our fuzzy fennel:



Fordhook Giant variety of silverbeet:


Cos lettuce, endive, radicchio, beetroot:


The once-stunted rose I half-heartedly transplanted when we moved here, 5 years ago .


Our wild, tangled, self-managed garden:

New Favourites

They're interesting, comfy, cute and make me want to break into a leaping Spanish salsa.

I love them so much...



...I bought a second pair in black.

Week in Review #5

Actually, it's a review of the last week and a half to be precise. I've had no time to blog let alone put together anything from my jottings that is remotely coherent.

Friday: Cats to vets for boarding. Howard's howling becomes increasingly disturbing as he begins to articulate, hoarsely and with much passion, "No-Mum!"
Evening spent packing for Sydney tomorrow.

Saturday: Countrylink to Sydney. The only way to do a train to the city (4 stops as opposed to 900), although still painfully slow. Trackwork along this line is perpetual; 80km is the top speed. Bought First Class tickets, just to see: the differences between that and peasant travel must be subtle – I only seem to notice my wallet has grown feather-light.
Arrive at Circular Quay, dump our stuff at Sir Stamford, have lunch at the Oyster Bar and bus it into Bondi.

I've never been to this “world-famous beach” and probably wouldn't have bothered (there are far nicer beaches in Sydney) except that the Sculpture by the Sea exhibition is being held along the coastal walk all the way to Tamarama.

I’m not disappointed.

The only thing I do find slightly irritating (aside from the ubiquitous dude walking across your lovingly aligned shot), however, is the fact that the artists' names aren’t displayed beside each work.

Dinner = duck pancakes plus short soup. And a tall wine.

Sunday: Morning swim on the roof – a novelty for us. We pass the Oyster Bar and R is keen to go there for brekky. I want to try the place opposite – not just to be contrary – so we sit and wait…and wait…and wait. R wins; we flounce across to the Oyster Bar and breakfast fabulously.
Catch the ferry to Watsons Bay. Meet R & R for lunch at Doyle’s followed by gelati and a walk to The Gap.

Dinner after today's calorific endeavours = room service Caesar salad.

Monday: Walk through the Botanic Gardens and shoot excessive photos of the thousands of flying foxes hanging from the trees like bat berries.

Continue on to the Art Gallery of NSW to see the Garden and Cosmos and Tatzu Nishi exhibitions. Incredible.

If you look closely at this picture you will see that I have left my jaw on the floor of Nishi’s room, just by the steed’s be-doona-ed hooves.
Next stop: House of Jewellery in York Street – Oh, joy of joyous joys! I spend so much there I daren’t enter A&E Metals next door. Instead, we walk back to the Overseas Passenger Terminal at Circular Quay for a few pre-dinner drinks.
Dinner = Italian.

After dinner we head to the Tori Amos concert. Considering I've always heard of her incredible dynamics on stage I am pretty unmoved. Yes, the lighting is pretty, she can play two keyboards and sing all at once, and her voice range is extraordinary. And yet...and yet... there is something lacking. Perhaps it is the scant audience address, or the structure that seems to lack crescendo, leading to a two-hour plateau that has me in a state of constant anticipation for the next song to blow me away. Encore, audience quivers. Old hits? Nope. Sigh. Fair enough, but for the first time live Tori experience I think it might have been a bit of a "Big Whoop". Shame.

Tuesday: Peasant train travel. Finish my book on the way back. Pick up the cats, who yodel with much gusto and both being pressed, pork terrine style, into a single carry cage their vocabulary has increased to include, “Howmomwow” and “Royowyan.”

Wednesday: Clean the house. Holiday washing - ergh. Keep edging toward the novel but unless I can split myself in two it’s just not going to happen this week.

Thursday: AM’s birthday, my fellow on-the Scorpio/Sagittarian-cusp-er. Explains many shared lunacies.
Drive to the airport to pick up parents who have arrived from Launceston. Quiet afternoon and dinner at home.

Friday: Wander about town. I don’t actually do this much in my own town so when I have the chance I’m as surprised as any visitor or return traveller to find new shops and other changes.
Lunch with the bosses and parents at Gastronome, a fab and funky little café, quick and friendly service, although it was (no, we were) in need of a fan in today’s 40°C heat.
SoHi congregation at The Imperial with the editors – great to meet both new and familiar faces.

Saturday: Mum not so well today and hot again outside so it was a quiet one. AM and the Dragon Fairy drop in for visit so Mum and Dad get their grandparentalism out of their systems. Stuff the child full of lolly snakes and send her home just as the sugar lag commences spectacularly.

Sunday: Lunch with parents, boss and friends at Zen Oasis, a vegan restaurant owned by a Buddhist family. So no alcohol, which is fine because we make up for that soon after at boss's house.

Monday: My birthday - the big Three-Oh...plus GST. The day is spent swimming through a bleary haze because the night before R and I thought it a grand idea to open - and consume - that second bottle of red. And then follow it with a shot of Frangelico. Spontaneous dancing occurred to music to get the barking-dog-neighbours back by. And if reading that last sentence doesn't make sense at first, don't worry. Read it three times and you'll get it eventually. I did.

Tuesday: The 2nd anniversary of my cousin Kendra's death from a brain tumour. I miss her honking, unabashed, head-thrown-back laugh.

I buy my weight in books – literally (haw-haw) - then drive parents to Macarthur Station and after seeing them off I visit the Square. Crikey. Nothing’s changed. Great to see the prepubescents all putting their Baby Bonuses to good work. I wonder what would happen if the bonus were to be given on the stipulation that both parents were over the age of 25 and had received a complete high school AND tertiary education/traineeship/apprenticeship.
Meow-hiss! I shouldn’t be so scornful. If given $5000 (sans the baby, please) I’d only spend it all on stationery, wine and cat dental biscuits, in that order.

Week in review #4 - Thursday to Thursday

There seems to be a lost week. It mustn't have been blogably exciting. I'm not worried: it's OK to lose a week here and there. Just ask Britney.

Anyway, the week and a bit in review: Thursday to Thursday, so as not to conform too much to the calendar...as if I could anyway. I'm a writer. The calendar's merely a loose guide punctuated by the shrieks of deadlines.

Thursday: Finish off the manuscript and post it to my two writerly readers. Gives me a "sqeeee" feeling to see it all bound and packaged up, like I'm sending my words off on a little voyage. Actually, that feeling could also be denial disguised as relief...or just the museli I had for brekky.

Friday: Off to Sydney to see R&R this afternoon. Fartarse around all day, writing, washing, packing, wandering around with a cup of chai. I've had all day to sort it all out, take the cats to the cattery, etc, and we're still stuffarsing about at home twenty minutes before the cattery closing time. Take up SoHi magazines. Dinner at Aperitif, a French restaurant in the Cross. Try snails for the first time. Not bad at all, but that could have been the sauce.

Saturday: The Galaxy Room at Randwick Races. Fabulous buffet but we eat too much and sit about like stuffed puppies afterward. It's terribly sad when you're so full you can't even drink. Fun day, but a little over the Sydney race scene. We come back to life in the cool of the evening and make an advertisement for ear candles...stay tuned for that!

Sunday: A little bleary after having gone to bed at 3am. The photo below encapsulates the feeling.

Carb-o-rama breakfast (quiche, ham & cheese croissants) does nothing for an already squishy liver, but delish no less.

Pick up the kittybubbas from daycare, I mean, cattery. Girl at the desk gets the bill wildly wrong, an occurence here more common than not. R thinks they do it on purpose. We now have a credit at the cattery. Who would have thought.

Monday: Work. Well, lots of staring off into space while my ether catches me up. I think it's still trying to score a ride somewhere along the Hume Highway.

People everywhere today seem unable to talk about anything but the weather, to the point it makes me want to rock and dribble. Yes, it's hot. It's supposed to be. It's November!

Tuesday: I get to Ken's at last (and for the last time this year). Prolific day in which I make two small silvery trinkets. Bring home my silver and considering all angles of setting up the studio space in the garage. I've been saying that all year. It'll happen.

Today's dry sauna day, but it's 35 outside, it's 3pm and I haven't had lunch. After running around the supermarket I think I've sweated enough. In this hungry, hot and wan state, covered in silver filings and daubed in polish, I visit the Tannin Man and buy bubbles for tomorrow's pre-Bong Bong Races drinks. And more Astrolabe, of course.

Wednesday: Bongy Races with AM & W. Five minutes in we spot The Big C (R's ex-wife). This sensory stimulation appears to overwhelm AM who promptly drops a plastic cup of bubbles that doesn't just soak into the dust. No - ah, the laws of physics coupled with the mirth of the cosmos - the cup bounces and the liquid shoots straight up my leg. Nicely done.

Skip forward a number of hours and we're in a restaurant in town AM swore she would never, ever set foot in, drinking three litres of water.

Thursday: Oh, that's where my liver is in relation to my pancreas.

Week in review #3

It's been three weeks since my last confession - ah - I mean, week-in-review blog. This one's from a few weeks ago, jotted on scraps of paper that I just rediscovered in the bottom of my handbag, shoved in books, even one in the bathroom cupboard.

Monday: Wake up to email from Steampunk Tales who tell me they want my short story "Miluth" to be included in issue #4 of their iPhone "penny dreadful" application. In a giddy tiz for the rest of the day at work.
Bearing silver, I went to the Pop Up Co-Op to see Sarah from SoHi magazine. Looking at mid November to put silver in the shop. Invited to the hand-editioning of 2000 copies this Thursday. That is, the issue with my very first published article (just a short piece but deeply satisfying). Photograph by Janyon Boshoff.

Tuesday: Worked 9-7. Two hour lunch break, enough time to phone the parentals, scoff lunch and hoon through the supermarket. Sell "Ensign" earrings and "Winterscape" necklace (the latest incarnation of which bears a few alterations to the one in the photo below).

Wednesday: Blog last week's review. Slightly narked that, considering the network of people who have our phone numbers, it is through default (read: Facebook stalking) we learn that a friend's Dad passed away over the weekend. The funeral will be held tomorrow.

A friend calls; I haven't seen her in almost two years (a distance of 5km and 5 children will do that). Nice to catch up.
Fartarse around with manuscript chapters. Two find themselves complete before I decide I need to spray tan my legs.
Email Mark Tredinnick regarding manuscript workshopping: the next workshop is in March. Patience...patience...

Thursday: The largest funeral I've ever been to. Sad that it's funerals everyone catches up but in the case of a number of friends it was at a funeral that we last saw each other. Same old lines: "lets all catch up." It's just niceties and I have to inwardly screech to a halt before I say, in a whiny Jerry-Springer-guest accent,"whatever."

SoHi catch up - 2000 copies of the mag numbered. Very satisfying to be amongst likeminded creative types and playing my part in a thing of quality.

Friday: Wake to discover tan application shocker.

No, I did not do this drunk. Yes, I shook the can. Yes, I definitely sprayed my feet, and that pale swatch above my ankle. I even resprayed, just in case. No, I do not recommend this brand that starts with G, and I certainly won't get that job at the smash repairs.

Saturday and Sunday: Drink a little wine, dance like fools in the backyard and burn through the camera's memory card with one million trillion gratuitous photos of the cats. Again.

Aum Crescent Moon & Infinity Caged

It has been a couple of weeks since I've blogged or made anything new in the studio. The last few weeks have been flat out with the novel...but does anyone else find October and November the busiest months of the year? More so than December, I think. I'm looking forward to getting Christmas out of the way so that I can relax, just me and the sea (and the laptop).

Today I got a couple of pendants made. I'd been thinking of an Aum design for some time and think this has worked out OK for the prototype.

The next design is loosely titled "Infinity Caged" and will be a friend's birthday present (we saw him the other day and as I hadn't been near the studio to get it done in time, a giant Toblerone and a ticket it Saturday Lotto had to play temporary surrogate presents.

My Week

I've had to work the last two days at my 'big person' job so all my bloggings have been pent up, able only to be jotted disjointedly on receipts and Post-It notes. So at last...my week:

Monday ~ Blog about last week. Research nostalgia for a short story. Did you know that in the 18th Century nostalgia was accepted as a mental illness and documented as early as the 1500s? Nostalgia, in my view, is simply reality edited by memory and embellished by time. Wafty. Australia televison networks can be somewhat nostalgic in the 18th Century sense. Take the Hey, Hey reunion, for example.

Tuesday ~ Questionable night's sleep filled with dreams of me working in a restaurant at the top of a mountain, a two hour hike from the car park below.

Ken Raffe's in the morning. Not much in the way of creativity - mostly polishing, adjusting, etc. Ended up fiddling with and breaking Mnemosyn. Errgh. But all fixed now. I'm thinking of approaching Bowral's Pop-Up Co-Up with my silver (one of the editors from SOHI magazine is associated with it).

Blame cats for stealing two metres of leather cord. Later find it neatly rolled up in draw.

Wednesday ~ Watch Holy Smoke for the eleventieth time.

Also, due to lack of sunshine for weeks now, the cats' solar batteries ran flat today.

Thursday ~ Editing second half of manuscript - now have definite deadline of 14 days.

My tomato, capsicum, chilli and basil plants are gauges for just how much frost we must have got. Thank you, Jesus, for October frosts.

Cooking NZ mussels, vongole and prawns. That's one pile of crustacea/bivalve molluscs you coudn't jump over.

Friday ~ My body is evidently purine-saturated. Eyes are puffy. Arches of my feet are sore, which is my main indicator for eating too much of something. Gout? Ew, hope not. They need to rename that condition. 'Gout' conjures up greasy, porky King George IV. Anyway, feel like I've been dragged behind a horse, worse as the day goes on. Unfortunate, really, as Friday is my go-into-town-for-wine day. And I was going to take the silvery trinkets in. I'm dressed for it...

Don't get there. Curl on the lounge instead.

Suffering and self-pity interrupted by spontaneous visit from AM with godchildren. So sudden I don't have time to hide the exercise ball. One of them invariably manages to injure themselves on it then shriek with outrage it could have happened to them. Today we think it has been avoided until Miss Dragonfairy sees us watching.

"Look at meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

I see it all in slow motion: the inevitable flailing arms, legs straight up in the air, followed by the 'crack' of forehead/cheek/chin/head against piano stool/coffee table/stereo cabinet/the only hard part of the lounge. Today it is back of head against stereo cabinet - pause - "Arrrrrgggjhhhhhhhhhhhhhwaaaaahhhhhwaaaaaahhhhhhhwahwah" - deep breath - "aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaahaaaaaaaaa..."

AM and I hide around the corner and giggle.

Bugger me, kids learn the hard way, and slowly.

Saturday ~ Motoring through the chapters now. Deadline is October 27.

Play tourists and, between rain showers, visit Milton Park. Have only ever been there at night. Gorgeous gardens and views - a wedding on, so we aren't able to circumnavigate the main building.

Come home and watch Paperback Hero - Hugh Jackman long before the crank that was Australia.

Sunday ~ Lazy morning. Reading The Book of Dave by Will Self. Read for an hour and a half before growling stomach kicks me out of bed.
Visit the Bald Archy exhibition at the Milk Factory Gallery. Some banal stuff but quite a few have R and my sniggers echoing through the gallery.
Drive out to a local privately run garden.

Absolutely stunning formal arrangements, well established planting and quality urns and challises are somewhat undermined by the ubiety of concrete ducks, cherubs and, in the "Japanese garden," piggybacking frogs.

Mount Ashby Estate in Moss Vale is the next stop for some wine tasting. Great spot. AND I find the old EF Davis & Son shack - I once, briefly, lived next door to it when it was located in Bowral, before Aldi landed.

Aren't terribly keen on the reds (R and I are into the heavy-and-smooths - rare in the Southern Highlands' climate). However two very drinkable wines - the '08 Pinot Gris and the '04 Petit Rouge (a merlot/chardonnay Rose) - come home with us.
Head back and make Uber Troppo Dog Royales (gluten-free, nitrate-free Eumundi hotdogs with pinapple, onion, bacon, hot English mustard and tomato sauce on a white gluten-predominant air bun).

Feel sick and lethargic for the rest of the afternoon. Much later, my dinner consists of a radish, a handful of sunflower kernels and a cup of nettle tea.

Australia Post

http://www.crikey.com.au/2009/10/14/australia-post-stamps-out-raunchy-penguins/

I wonder if I complained that I find Dora the Explorer offensive they'd remove every skerrick of merchandise?

The Week in Profile

Monday: Have decided I need this sign:



Tuesday: Blog/pretend to write. Wag jewellery. Spend most of the day trawling networking sites and Ebay, telling myself it's OK since I'm slightly hungover from a long weekend of rich food and beaut wine. I need to ease into my week. Do a few lunges, stomach crunches, starjumps until I've rattled the brimstone from my sinuses.
Detox in the Komate Box at work; tell myself that half an hour of hyper-sweating per week is sufficient to rid my body of the evils I put into it.

Wednesday: Gym. Facebook/Twitter. Repeatedly. Writerly friend from Berry arrives bearing Melting Moments. She has the physique of a ballerina. How can that be when 12 Melting Moments contain 500g of butter?
Receive an email from SOHI magazine with the proof for my article on a local WIRES volunteer, and would I like to write for the next one.
Um...yesabsolutely!


Thursday: Dreamed last night that I was swimming in cave water and a plesiosaur attached itself to one of my tattoos. Wish I could have filmed it.
Frost on the car = me holding my breath for my Mediterranean lovelies in the vegie garden.
Gym. No boxing tonight, however, as my sciatic nerve is still grizzling two weeks on from the injury. Prise myself off the computer to line edit three chapters. Gah! Sometimes I view my manuscript with a mixture of disdain and the kind of beige lethargy an accountant's office evokes. No doubt it'll type itself if I leave it long enough.
Overcome with ennui, I vegie garden. Snails are abundant with the week of rain. For the hundredth time consider purging said molluscs and turning them into garlic and parsley delicacies. Then decide that my current level of (truly) French tastes only really entails Veuve Cliquot, bouillabaise and duck confit, beyond which I'm pulling my own pud. We'll leave the eating of backyard fauna to our Gallic friends.
Had announced on Monday that we'd have a dry week until Friday. Pfffft. Into the Wild Red we skip. Find myself unable to withstand that milling R does when he gets home, loitering, pacing, needling to see if I'll be the first to cave. He points out, yet again, that our friends who are currently travelling in Europe have had three dry days out of an entire month.
Perhaps I'd like to toast my article?
I cut him a filthy side eye.
The excuse pyramid is at last topped with, "Ya gotta shake it up sometimes."
By sometimes I think he means from Wednesday to Sunday.
He is Irish.

Friday: I wake to see fog in the bedroom. No, wait - we shook it up, didn't we? That fog'll be the too-much sulphur and hystamines from the too-much wine, resulting in the herniation of my sinuses into my eye sockets.
Slow to start but have discovered the delight of adding beetroot to my daily carrot, celery, parsley and ginger juice. Weee. Still shakin' it up.
Weekly jaunt into town for toilet paper, chocolate and wine (what else does life require, really?). The Tannin Man points out NZ Sauvignon Blanc, Astrolabe, and two Margaret River reds, both from Windance. Make seredipitous discovery that he, too, is writing a novel. I dance when someone admits to writing a novel. It's not information I tend to offer since I haven't had a novel published. When asked what I 'do' I will invariably say "writer" and then promptly squash it between"silversmith" and "chiropractic assistant." I think it's the fear of not being taken seriously, but also the sheer dread of someone asking, a.) what the hell is the book about, and, b.) have you had anything published yet. Shit. My toes curl thinking about it.

Saturday: AM: Bowral Farmer's Market. Next month it'll be moving from Bowral Public School to Moss Vale Showgrounds. Speaking to several stall holders tells me they're pretty disgruntled by the proposed new venue, mainly due to its exposure to the elements but also because they love the intimate surrounds of the school. Stall rent is exy and non-refundable, so if a crap venue turns customers off I can see their concern. Our darling mushroom people, for example, aren't going to take the risk and make the move. I wonder why it isn't going to be held at the old Steiner school and have made up my mind to sus that out. This may involve inquiring as though a potential stall holder.

Ha! Subterfuge.




PM: Italian Night with friends we met on the Tannin Man's wine tour. They had been keen to "get into it" but learned in the weeks leading up to it that she is pregnant. So R and I, out of sympathy - um, I mean celebration - make up for their wine deficit.
Indeed, I have my liver positively juggling wine glasses, but I take pride in that I am able to stop short of unleashing spontaneous operatic arias. Close, though. They're there, bubbling in my throat.
We even cut the rug along with the over 50s; conga line looks fun but the circle has already closed without us in it.
No dance for you.
:(

Sunday: I feel uber energetic today. R...not so. Honey ciabatta toast and magical ginger beetroot juice couldn't reach him. It was up to me to jaunt into Bowral for coffee, Kilkenny and newspaper. Newspaper inevitably disappointing. I only really buy it to look at the travel section and the Domain catalogues. Ever notice just how much of the paper is sport these days? Speaking of which: Bathurst car races are on, gods help us.
Get a call from other chiropractic assisitant: the dodgy lock at work has eaten her key. Rescue her and return. A Kilkenny each followed by both Windance reds, only so we can make an educated comparison between the cheaper cab merlot and the award-winning shiraz. Had four-hour cooked Eumundi Smokehouse ribs for dinner. Ate them outside with our hands while the cats sat on the table and watched.
We're so full of class.

Celestial Shenanigans

The long weekend has been, well...long. It rained from Friday through till Monday afternoon and while R and I had plenty of work to tackle on the website it would have been nice to clear up the computer coccyx and been able to go for a ride.

We did do lunch at the Milk Factory Gallery, drink some fabulous wine and, umbrellaless, pretended to be tulip tourists for ten minutes.

As soon as we got home yesterday the sun came out and provided a fabulous double rainbow to the east, set against very heavy skies. We partook in what must have appeared to our neighbours to be a post modernist performance, standing on the outdoor furniture and holding aloft spray bottles and hose heads. The neighbours (the barking dog ones) have spotted my Buddhist prayer flags in the garden and heard my regular opera renditions; I think we've been long ascertained as creative types.

Or just weird.

Oh, and no pot o' gold on the roof. I checked. Antenna dude must have swept that account in advance.

Farewell, Megpig.

Megan was a border collie kelpie cross breed and well known for her shocking habit of flicking out her bungy tongue whenever one's face came within range.

Like all of the animals my family owns, she was the last one left, the runt nobody else wanted. After my free-to-good-home purchase from the Moss Vale saleyards in 1995, Meg began a pretty cruisy life, starting out on a farm in Joadja where I was offered $300 for her as a sheep dog. Knowing this would most likely shorten her life (in regards to becoming a puppy factory upon retirement) I declined and she moved to Bowral with me. Since then she had moved with my parents to Crookwell, to be with the rest of the "pack", back to Bowral, and four years ago on to Launceston, where Mum had to lie about Meg's age so that she would be able to fly across.

This morning, at the age of 13, she had to be euthanased after presenting with a huge fever and abdominal pain. We had discussed what to do in the event of this decision. Having had to say goodbye to my beloved "Puss" last year after an ordeal that involved every test under the sun and finally the removal of his spleen, I swore I wouldn't put another geratric animal through it all.

So, my Megpig, you had a great life. I'm sorry I couldn't be there with you this morning, old girl.

Destructi-Cat

If cats have 9 lives, is 13 months the cat equivalent of the "Terrible Twos"?

Howie and Vinnie will both be thirteen months on Thursday - a fitting number considering their behaviour over the last few days - and although Howie looks like a heavier monster than what Vinnie does they are each a neat 5kg. Neat, that is, until they both jump on your chest in the dead of night.

Since yesterday there have been two more rooms barred to them when not supervised - the family room and the lounge room/my office. R's office was the first to be off limits after we discovered Howie sitting in a nest of obliterated phone chargers, while the bathroom came a close second, right after I caught Vinnie chewing my toothbrush (I wondered how long that affair had been going on).

However, it seems to be Howie in particular who has recently taken up two new habits:

Habit A.) Climbing the interior. This means anywhere inside; vertical (up curtains, fly mesh and my office screen), horizontal (around and around the borders of rugs and the bases of lounges) and upside down (underneath lounges, beds, etc). In fact he has all angles well and truly covered.

Habit B.) Plucking at things until they fall apart. Not content with the plethora of cat appeasement devices and feline-hardy furniture, Howie seeks out the soft underbelly of things. He gnaws and jabs until a portal into another dimension forms, sucking into its singularity hair elastics, pens, human patience and wine corks.

My office screen is the latest casualty on both fronts. I made it by hand with kittens in mind and thinking that their impishness would fade into fat and lazy neuteredness, which it did, sort of, for a while. But beware the lull. The screen is no match for a bruiser of was-Tom moving at Grand Prix speeds. I have experienced being deeply ensconced in writing at the moment Howie has crashed the screen over the desk on top of me, Venus flytrapping me inside it.

Likewise, the screen door has become a nascent subject of destruction. It came with the house, which was once a rental property, so it must be pretty hardy stuff to have withstood probably a decade of punishment. The kind of punishment I'm talking about includes countless guests (and myself) attempting to pass, spirit-like, through it while it's closed. Usually spirits are involved and they tend to strain through the mesh from the glass held by the stunned person who just realised there was a flyscreen there. Even the cats have pelted into and climbed it with gusto, hoving themselves towards out-of-reach moths. All, till now, has been without damage.

However, yesterday Howie discovered where the magic mesh tucks into the rubber seal ...

Ginger Skies and Everything Else

The world owns a rusty tinge today after the overnight dust storms. Earlier, the sun rose a bilious orange and visibilty was down to twenty metres. While the clouds are looking a bit dirty still the dust in the air has cleared a little, leaving in its wake a coating of Western Australia on my kittens' feet, over the washing on the line, and absolutely everything else.

The chiminea might actually come up shiny after this.



Look! We have our very own Simpson Desert outdoor table (Dalhousie Springs sold separately).



So glad I washed the windows two weeks ago.

Guess what R will be doing for the rest of the day at the caryard...

One Ouroboros Ring, as per Request...

My sterling silver 'corkscrew' ouroboros ring will be travelling all the way to Texas to live.

Hawkers-B-Gone

Somewhat irritated by the sudden increase in door-to-door salesfolk, I've put up this sign at the front door.

All right...I know they're doing their job but what they're doing has become a daily nuisance.

It is spam on legs.

I used to answer the door to them until a salesman for a telephone company got pretty antsy with me when I said "no, thank you". Yep. Intimidation's really gonna make me buy your product. He suddenly found himself facing the sheer wall of the door.

Now I just ignore them by hiding behind my office screen. Even without looking I know it's not someone I like (the doorbell being dinged madly accompanied by hysterical giggling is a dead giveaway that it'll be one of my friends). Hawkers, on the other hand, press the bell and hold (so that the ding fades into pointless static). Pause. Press the bell and hold (because the static really roused the occupant last time). Shuffle about on the front step. Cough. Sigh. Sometimes there'll be a third ding (pretty keen for that sale/entry into heaven/quota) and this is usually where I've been caught out hiding from them. Normally after that second ding I'll wait a moment before peeking round the corner. Yesterday I peeked too soon; the woman, clipboard of tedium in hand, actually had her face pressed to the window, peering in. What she would have seen, no doubt, was a velocity-packin' silhouette diving out of sight. Subtle.

Yes, wow, famous.

This snippet was published in the Southern Highland News in winter last year. Dorky photo, which I didn't expect to be the one out of the several taken to be chosen, and my interview answers had been edited, making it appear as though the artist - and my instructor in all things silver - Ken Raffe was someone who had inspired me in the past and not any longer. Amazing what one little word in the wrong tense can imply. I have always wanted to change that 'was' to an 'is'(difficult to do when it's already gone to print).

If you wish to read excerpts from my current work-in-progress and my perspective on all things writerly visit my other blog: http://alisonboyd.blogspot.com/

A Sign of The Times...

A song about heartbreak and Face Book.

I Just Need To Vent...

...at people in the line at the checkout who require a price check on a sole Lebanese cucumber. The supermarket's fault for not adding a barcode. But if I thought it might be holding up other people behind me in the queue I might have decided to let it go, or decided to grow them, which I myself wouldn't because I don't like cucmbers, yet growing them would still probably yield a faster result than waiting for a price check.

It didn't end there, however. No, no, Ms. Cucumber proceeded to bargain with the checkout chick (sorry, is that not politically correct? I don't care today), wangling down the price from $1.50 to $1.

Way to go.

Today's test in patience has served only to further fortify my dislike of cucmbers.