I know it's terrible for Americans ....

... and Australian farmers & manufacturers and all that, but this strong Australian dollar thing is great for the average pen nerd.
The mark-up on pens in Australia is frankly a rip off, and with each Australian dollar getting at least 16 million of the US variety I can't help but stock up while the going's good.
Which is why this arrived on Friday. Beautiful box, no? But wait, I removed the lid to find ... a nice piece of paper. The paper peels away to reveal ... a pen! A matte black Pilot Vanishing Point pen to be precise. Apparently vacuum wrapped for safety and freshness. I was, as you can imagine, quite keen to get the pen out of it's fancy wrapping. So I grabbed a knife, for plastic slashing purposes, only to have Mr Brown reveal ... a flip opening doodad. Thank goodness he noticed, or I'd have ruined the fancy packing.
Let this be a lesson to the young folk out there. Patience, not haste. The nib comes out with the press of the clicky end, just like a ballpoint but o so much better! I think I'll fill it with Noodler's Ottoman Rose, the sultan's ink!

I wish I'd had this ....

.... plastered all over a T-shirt back in the day.

It may have stopped some of those comments!

From here

I once had a little too much to drink ....

... while out with friends, in my (very short lived) young & single days.
I got a taxi home and found myself unable to remember my address.
However, I made it home, safe and sound, because I still remembered the WAY home and simply gave the cabbie "right here, left at the next lights" style instructions.
I did not require one of these. Still, some may find it useful. You're welcome.

from here

So, on Sunday ...

... afternoon, before I wrote the last post and before we went to bed ... Mr Brown and I went for a little drive to one of those 'homemaker' centres to visit a bedding shop.
We went to buy one of these. I blush a little because it turns out the product was designed for persons undergoing the ... menopause. But fuck it, I was HOT and could bear it no more.
Then we went to the movies, because there was air conditioning and ice cream (rather good, gelatissimo ice cream as it happens) and then we lingered over our weekly grocery shop at the 'old persons' cooling centre' aka a Mall! (thanks for the term Cookie). When we stepped outside after the hunt&gather the cool change had hit.
Which rendered the purchase of the cooling sleeping mat a little redundant. Still, as a Twitter peep said, "Summer's not over yet".
Anyhoo, I popped the thing on the bed anyway, just to see. Most cooling it was, lovely, almost as if heat was being drawn from our hot little (he hem) bodies. We slept the sleep of the just, with a sheet over us and everything. Bliss.
Until 3am when I am wakened by a frantic Mr Brown.
"Quick, we've got to get this bloody thing OFF. I'm BOILING."
"What? What? What d' y' want to do?"
"Get it OFF, I'm dying!"
He was right, the mat had sucked out all the heat and, ultimately, ran out of cooling mojo and started just storing the warm.
We stripped the bed, pulled it off, remade the bed and went back to sleep. Well, he did, I lay there, cursing, fretting and being cross about the $300-odd lump of pointless gel mat lying on the floor.
I could have bought a nice pen with that $$. Bastard thing.

On the hunt for collars ...

... nice collars, for cats, our furry girlcats.
Most cat collars, when you google these things or even visit a pet accoutrement emporium , are horribly vulgar contrivances, all bling and sparkle. Which I don't understand as cats are generally discrete creatures of impeccable taste. And yet this is the sort of thing I am offered when I pootle through the interwebs looking for something with a little style, a little elegance to grace the delicate furry necks of the Brown-Mouse girls. It's a little like, I assume, being the mother of a little girl and trying to buy her something not pink or princessy. Nothing would compel me to put one of these around the throat of Miss Tigger. And I'm quite convinced Miss Pingu would die of shame if forced to wear this floral tribute. Ugg.Other offerings, like these for example, are too bright and, I suspect, not genuine leather, peeled from a cow. They just don't look well made. This is slightly tempting, particularly for Miss Tigger, who's neck is so thin that no matter how dainty the collar, it just looks huge on her. But, you know, it's nylon and nylon gets ratty, quickly. Well, it does on our cats anyway. Sharp toenails are, I think, the problem. I am quite taken with these, particularly when I spotted the "Tigger in Lime" but up close it's leather is thin and the stitching is not particularly well done. The little fish bell, though, squeee.I really want something not colourful, something a little reminiscent of bridles and harnesses. Smooth, deep brown, oiled leather. Plain with the simplest of attachments. Well made. I found them of course, they are made in Montreal, Quebec. They are perfect. They are just exactly what I am looking for. They are $292 each.
EDITED TO ADD - Bugger, I've just noticed that those beautiful collars don't have the anti-strangulation bit of elastic on them. The search continues.

I'm lucky that my boss ...

... is an equally mad pet owner.
A wee dog in her circumstance but she understood perfectly when I expressed a desire to leave work a bit earlier than usual because I was worried Tigger may have disemboweled herself while I was dallying at work.
Of course, Tigger had done no such thing, and galloped up the hall to greet me when I gasped and panted through the door ('twas HOT outside and I RUSHED up the hill, bad back and ALL).
I'm guessing my strategy of irregular phone calls home to shout "TIGGER - NO LICKING" into the answering machine paid off!*

Me? Nibble stiches? Never!

* Yes, yes I did.

On Friday night I killed our stove ...

... I was going through the motions of making Spinach Rice Gratin, to go with our lovely bits of salmon for dinner. I popped a small pot of water on the stove to bring to the boil and stepped outside to pick spinach & sliverbeet.
Having been outside for only a moment, certainly not long enough for the water to even have begun bubbling, I heard a BANG. Then I heard Mr Brown say a very rude word. Then he called me inside and showed me this.A fault in the pot created a hot spot which burned right through. The water leaked out into the stove element, flooded it and BANG. Sparks flew and the stove died.Twittering helped calm my frazzles, laughing about shit like this helps ease the pain. I was, however, actually quite distressed, as I'd planned to make duck confit on Saturday, for the annual seasonal feast with my parents.Nothing worked and nothing seemed to fix it. At first glance it appeared it wasn't the fuse and I had pictures of violently-expensive-weekend-emergency electrician visits and/or stove shopping the week before xmas! I do not like the shops at this time of year.I did not sleep well that night.Still, tomorrow is always another day and closer inspection led Mr Brown to believe the 16-million-year-old fuse may actually be the problem after all. A call though to my dad and a visit to the evil that is Bunnings, and HUZZAH, the stove lives to cook another day.The moral to this story? Marry a chap who's good with his hands *wink*

That pie ...

... in the post before, it was made for a friend's birthday picnic on Sunday.
A picnic I didn't get to go to because while baking said pie I suffered a baking-related injury.
Yep, I fucked my back. First time ever. Bending down to get baking paper out of a bottom drawer.
My back went 'twang' and I thought to myself "hmmm, that feels funny" and continued on my merry way. Until, that is, I tried to bend over again. It quickly became apparent I would not be bending over again that day.
Nor the next, so the picnic was out.
Monday saw me still out of order, and so at home with plenty of kitteh nursing and pain-killers left over from Mr Brown's eye operations (yes, we horded, we are SO naughty).
Tuesday, after a day of very painful work, I popped down to my friendly local acupuncturist and was almost put to rights. I'm walking and getting up and down pretty well. Sitting for long periods is uncomfortable as is getting up after. But all in all, I'm on the mend I'd say.
Still, fark, this is old age creeping up on me isn't it?

This does not bode well for my twilight years ...

... this morning, handbag over shoulder, coffee in hand, I took a quick sidestep to avoid a severe eye poking from an pointlessly wielded umbrella (really people, once you're under the awning, put the umbrella DOWN).
It was raining this morning and the black granite (I think) pavers were slick, I slipped and came a tumbling down (rather like that rain Slim Dusty sings about).
I hit the ground hard, I felt all the muscles in my left shoulder crunch and those in my right ankle also. Lost the skin off my left knee and my coffee. Actually quite a bit of my coffee ended up IN MY HAIR!.
One person, a man by the sound of it, laughed. Dozens walked by as I sat there, legs all twisted awkwardly. One person, a woman of course, helped me up, fetched paper napkins from a nearby cafe and made sure I was alright. She also tried to give me my crumpled, half empty coffee, "there's still quite a bit left". I demurred.
Adrenalin got me to the office, but then someone said a kind word and I came over all shaky and a bit teary. I hate that.
I filled in an 'incident report' and told the boss I might go home. As I was packing up she told me the work-injury folk had called and "wanted to know if alcohol was involved".
If only, it may not have hurt so much!

One of the things I do during the day ...

...lately that is, is listen to sound recordings of and read transcripts of conversations taped by the police.
The conversations my be of telephone conversations, tapping phones, or via listening devices installed in cars or in rooms.From this experience I have taken away the following insight:- people generally talk shit, generally don't speak in full, properly-constructed sentences, and often don't make much sense.
I've informed Mr Brown that we need to be more careful when we speak at home and in the car. I'd be horrified if we were taped and a listened to, we'd sound like lunatics. Or dafter than brushes. Or both.
And then there's me, at home, alone, talking to the cats.
For example, me, this afternoon, talking to Tigger (in my lap), and Pingu (on the chair next to me), while pootling about on the intertubes.
"Tiggy, Tiggy, twinkle toes, twinkle toes, twinkle toes (that bit's a song btw). Ooo, shall I kiss you on your little head? Mwah, mwah, mwah, kiss, kiss, kiss. Ooooo, tweak you twinkly toeskis!
"Ouch, no biting. Be a snuggle puss.
"Pingu's a snuggle puss, aren't you Pingu? Princes Pingu Pointy Paws. Kisses for you? Mwah, mwah, mwah! You're such a good girl, aren't you a good girl? My good girl.
"Awww, snugglypuss kitten, softly, softly, snuggle cuddles ......"
And on it goes. I'm ever so slightly embarrassed I've revealed this. Don't tell!

In which Mr Brown goes too far ...

... we are a spider-friendly household.
We don't kill spiders for the sake of killing them. I water the buggers when it gets very hot and have been known to save them before cats pull all their legs off.
We like spiders. At least I thought so. Until today.
Mr Brown came rushing in from the back yard, all "quick, give me Rupert".
So I did, asking why?
"I've found a spider," was all he said.
Then he came in and he showed me the pictures.Holy fuck! Shudders of revulsion and fear tremored through me. I reverted to my most primitive monkey state and shrieked "DID YOU KILL IT?"
"No."
"Go, now, kill it, kill it, kill it, what if it bites Pingu? KILL IT."
"It won't bite Pingu and cats aren't affected by spider bites anyway". (Actually true.)Mr Brown went and checked the backyard spider identification chart we keep in the kitchen (what? Doesn't everyone?). He reported it was a male trapdoor, not a male funnelweb but that did not calm or reassure me one little bit. Something deep down in the oldest, most reactionary part of my brain just screamed KIIILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL.
But he wouldn't. He wouldn't let me kill it either. He practically gave him a little dish of cream and a pat on the head.I got Mr Brown to shake out my boots before I put them on. I may never go outside again! Errrrk, just look at his beady little eyes *shudder*

O, FFS ...

... Clearly I'm getting old.
I've just gone and bought a second copy of The Penelopiad, by Margaret Atwood.
Well, paperback this time, I guess that's sort of different.

Why I changed my Twitter name ...

... my Twitter name was MorganMouse, I'm on a theme clearly.
Anyway, the other day I was visiting a work friend (as opposed to just a colleague), who's very high up in the organisation for which I work, the Government Department that Shall Not Be Named. I spotted a report-briefing thing on her desk with the word TWITTER in the title.
"Hello" said I, "what's all this then?"
"Pfft" said she, "we may get a Twitter account".
"Shit, no, not for reals, surely?"
"Maybe, probably not, but possibly".
"CRAP, I'd better go change my account name, or delete it, or lock it down or something!" Grabbing a copy of the report, I dashed from her office, her office with a WINDOW.
"O, do you tweet?" I heard as I flew on winged heels to my desk.

So, Morgan, it's not a very common name and I'm the only Morgan in the organisation. While I don't tweet much about work, I was still filled with hot-cheeked horror at the thought of work folk stumbling across MorganMouse and possibly putting two and two together.
So now I'm MsBrownMouse. Since Mr Brown is not Mr Brown's actual, real-life name (I know, we are SO sneaky, we should totally be spies or something), I don't think a link will ever be made.
And so, on a completely different subject, as I went out to feed Mrs Poss yesterday evening I spotted, out of the corner of my eye, what looked like a big, fat, red spider.It was not, it was a leaf-curler spider who had made her house out of a hot-pink camellia petal.

The tale of the $300 Mushroom ...

... actually $335 mushroom.When we popped down to Canberra last week I accidentally spent $335 on a ceramic mushroom. Yep, I really did. I really must pay more attention when signing credit card slips.
I thought I was spending $35 and lived with that delusion until Mr Brown telephoned the other day to ask what I'd spent $300 on in a Canberra flower shop?
"No way I spent $300 in a flower shop, I only bought that mushroom and it was $35".
"Well, it's $335 on the statement".
"Fuck, no, fuck, shit, no fucking WAY I'd have paid $300 for a fucking mushroom, it has to be a mistake."
"Do you still have the slip?"
"Of course I fucking don't" (I tend to get quite het up about things like this) "Fuck, call them, it's got to be a horrible cockup."
He did, it was, the $300 was refunded with an "oops, sorry".Anyway, here it is in all it's glory, with some Hellebore shots thrown in for good measure.

Yes, I'm completely aware I'm a step away from garden gnomes, I'm seeking professional help.

So there's this nasty bird at our place ...

... a noisy miner I believe who keeps swooping and "clacking" my Mrs Poss if she comes out during the day. I wave my arms about a bit, wanting to frighten it off but not frighten the flighty Mrs Poss. It laughs at my feeble efforts, I hear it snickering at me.
The little bugger gives me a "clack" now and again too, when I'm hanging out washing. Cheeky bastard.
Still, on Saturday it 'roused my inner mama-tiger, it swooped my Pingu! "Clacked" at her as she sat on the outdoor table and made her duck!
Well, you can imagine. Things were thrown, voices were raised and a delicate oriental tabby cat was swooped up and deposited in Mr Brown's big, strong, manly (man, man) arms.
I went back out to see if I could snatch it from the fence or washing line and dash it to the ground to be stamped (no, not really, but I was VERY cross). It was shouting at me from the jacaranda.
I looked up and now feel deeply ashamed. Can you see it? Yes indeed. So now I can look forward to rescuing bebe birds in the next few weeks. Pants.

Laundry nerd ...

... but I KNOW I'm not the only one (yes, I talking about you Lee). Our new pegs, Clever Pegs, arrived some little while ago, via the magic of on-line shopping and a rainy day Googling "bespoke pegs". Yes, I really did that. It was a rainy day and I seem to recall an overwhelming desire for "something pretty for the washing line".

They aren't pretty, but I am bit of a fan. The magic of the pegs is the double-endedness of them. No more one-handed juggling to get the right end of the peg between your fingers for the big squeeze-n-snap. Either end will do.

See, as the picture above demonstrates, both ends work equally well. On the right I used the bottom end, on the left, the top end. Or is it the other way around?
They are not the cheapest peg on the market, not by a long shot, but the time & temper saved justifies the expense.
I sing, while hanging out the washing, a lot more these days.

Possum came out at 2:30 this afternoon ....

... into the full bright day light. She's supposed to be nocturnal.
She did the usual, asked for something to eat, so she got a nectarine and a couple of tiny tomatoes.
But Google told me an adult possum out in the day means "something is wrong with the animal" requiring capture and assessment.
Guess what I did! Go on. Yep, I panicked, I called W.I.R.E.S and babbled about "my possum" and would someone come check her please.
Apparently it's probably the heat and I'm not to worry, since I could see no sign of injury.
But I'm keeping an eye on her.
Don't tell Mr Brown.

In other news, water on the moon, apparently. Googlemoon is the result.

A much younger Mouse ...

... say 20 or so years younger, would have bought this book and, if asked why, tapped the side of her nose in a knowing way and said ominously "know thy enemy".
Today, I bought it to give to Mr Brown, for a laugh.
See, with age DOES come wisdom.

To market, to market ...

... I went today, for to buy some salad & tomatoes & bread & stuff, for lunch you see.
I was on a mission, nothing and nobody was going to get in my way. I had only a paltry sum in my pocketses, there must be no distractions or unauthorised purchases.
Something fluttered at the corner of my consciousness. It caught my eye. Truth be told, it was something-s, plural, many brightly-coloured flutterings.
So I stopped, I browsed. I bought a table cloth (I also had my EFTPOS card, I should have been a boy scout). A rust-red table cloth. A table cloth with cicadas and olive snippings. I don't, as a rule, do table cloths. The use of a table cloth is just asking for wine crime. A table cloth just begs for a whole roasted chicken, with all the trimmings, to leap from its plate. But it is pretty. And, Cicadas! I love cicadas.