Umm, yeah so ....

..... I took our Niece to the Harry Potter exhibition and was frankly shocked by the ripoff that was the gift shop. Still, a wand was purchased because sometimes you really do need what you want.
I have a spiffy new phone, finally a clever one, so the cool kids will stop laughing and pointing now, won't the?
It's been raining, a lot, I think we've quite possibly reached the 40 days and nights benchmark.
I still don't have a puppy/dog but I'm #wearinghimdown.
Life, it goes on.

That feeling ...

... you know the feeling, it sneaks up on you as you're walking along.
You're just walking along, briskly, striding really, you're on your way somewhere ... and you suddenly notice.
You notice your muscles, flexing and relaxing as you bend your knees and swing your arms.
You become aware of the smooth glide of muscles in your legs, your thighs, as they skim over each other as you move along.
That slip of your back muscles, over your ribs, that slight pull at the spine.
There's a slight, not quite click, as all those hundreds of little foot bones move in perfect synchronicity.
You feel your face, your cheeks glow a little pink. You're warm but not hot.
You hear that slight "boom, whooosh" in your ears as your blood pumps along it's circulatory route.
There's no pain, no aches, just an awareness of movement, that everything's working as it should. Flex, relax, slip, slide, skim, sweep as you sally forth.
If you think about it too hard, it disappears.
I love that feeling.
I've not felt that way for quite a while.
I think I need to do something about that.

Been a while ...

... since the last post.
No reason, not blue, just tired.
So, to catch up ... I burned my arm about a week ago, it got infected and there was pus. I think it's going to develop into a reasonably cool scar. I'll be able to tell people I got it in a kitchen fight, or something.
I've ordered some new, quite fancy, pens and am waiting for them to arrive. I hate waiting.
I saw a poor little dead flying fox on the way home, hanging from some power lines.
And today at lunchtime I sneezed 5 times without it hurting. Huzzah!

O, and it looks like Italy in July is the go! Anybody wanna come keep me company while Mr Brown plays with his boating friends?

MORE than 40 per cent of Australians cannot ...

... name their electricity company, don't know what their mortgage interest rate is and don't know if their mobile phone plan is good value, a new study shows.

AGL.
Hahahahahaha!
It's freaking excellent!

Clearly they did not interview me.

Carry on.

What they really mean ...

... sometimes, you believe. Well, I do.

from here

Mr Brown and I met a blogg pal today ...

... Roo, from LaLa Ween World, and his fella Peter.
Once again someone I've been chatting to for ages, and finally got to meet in meatspace, did not turn out to be an axe-murderer. Seems the Internet isn't such a mean-old, big scary place after all. Or perhaps it is, but only for foolish virgins.
High Tea was had, a few glasses of wine were consumed (Australian beer being too cold apparently :)) and a few stories were told.
I let slip to Roo what I actually do for a living, and forgot to kill him afterwards, so he'd better keep schtum or we'll visit, with Tigger!
In other news, on the way to High Tea Mr Brown bought a Tivo machine. We got home 7-ish, it's not 10 to 10. There's a lot of muttering and sounds of twiddling but no actual HOORAY yet. As I tweeted not so long ago, I'm glad it's not me setting it up, and I guess this means I'll have to keep Mr Brown for ever because I don't think there's a single bit of technology in this house I know how to drive anymore.

So ...

... a house-ad came on the TV last night as we were pottering about, something about the ghastly Kardashians.
Mr Brown asks, "who are they?"
"Sluts" I say (why yes, I am judgmental, this surprises you?).
"HA!"
A small high 5 is exchanged as we pass in the hall!

... I was just about to turn off the comment moderation thing .... but it just caught some more of that Chinese spam. On it stays.
In other news, Ping's mouth is much better now the steroids have kicked in.

Amber ...

... I always think of it as a winter sort of thing, Amber.
Perhaps because my first amber was these beads, bought for me by my mum, for my 19th or 20th birthday I think, because I had coveted them for so very, very long.I'm a winter bebe you see. I love the rich golds, reds and yellows that flash out of amber, and the faults and crazes that make it look so beautifully less than perfect.

This isn't amber, it's glass, but until I find the perfect amber heart, like my mum has, until I find that one I'll settle for this. It's cold though, and heavy, two things amber is not.

This isn't amber either, it's topaz, set in old gold. I bought it for myself from some dinky wee estate jewelery shop. I've not worn it for years and years because it's perfect pinned to the throat of a black, woollen, high-neck jumper, which I've not worn since we moved to Sydney. Still, perhaps, one day I'll move back somewhere with a winter.These are amber, three attempts to buy earrings to go with the amber beads. The ball at the bottom was the first attempt, cheapies from a hippy shop. Not very good quality amber but pretty nonetheless. To the right the second attempt, again not the best quality amber I'm afraid.

To the left and below some really heavy Georg Jensen studs, my most recent and most successful attempt at matchy-matchy.

It's hard to get the light just right but at times the deep red gold comes through. They are really heavy thought, and so they don't droop I've got to pin them in hard, which makes my ear lobes go red. I suspect this makes me look like a high blood pressure victim ready to keel over. But I could be wrong.

Someone who knows told me the more faults in the amber the poorer quality it is. You want some, for interest, so it doesn't just look like plastic, but too much, like the ball above, and it's cheap. People who know these things notice. I once wore my beads and the ball earrings and this odd woman came up, extravagantly complemented the beads, and then said "pity about the earrings". This isn't amber, it's carnelian. Another estate jeweler find. Hmmm, macro lens shows up the dirt doesn't it?

And a final piece of amber, a ring, mid-quality I guess. I always thought it looked a bit like a cat's eye but up close it's now reminding me of the eye of Sauron.
Call Mr Brown to come take me away if I start whispering about "my precious".This isn't amber, but the evening sun shinging lights her up like she was made of it.

A wibbly trip ...

On phones ...

... just the other day I popped my mobile telephone on the table in front of me (at a pub, it's true) so I would know when Mr Brown had arrived, or had got lost or decided not to come and join us after all.
"I can't believe you still have that ratty old thing, it's disgusting," said a drinking partner.
I defended the poor, tatty old thing with words to the effect of, it works, it's not as if I use it all that often (something that irritates this particular drinking partner no end) and that Mr Brown would hand me down his nice Blackberry just as soon as he upgraded himself. "Disgusting" was a little harsh.
This morning (6:30 on a Saturday, those damned Americans did something to my brain I tell you), I read this, by Mr Fry. "We do not possess antlers, horns or tusks, we cannot display fans of feather or manes of fur, the best we can do is express our personality, aspirations, beliefs, outlook, sexual potency, status, right to breed and place in the hierarchy through the choices we make in our possessions: and no possession, here in the early part of the twenty-first century, speaks quite so loudly as our smartphone. Once upon a time it was our motorcar and in the future it may well be a robot, a rocket-pack or a hoverpenis that defines us, but for the moment it is, for good or ill, a smartphone."
Perhaps this does not apply to me because my phone is not one of these "smartphones", but if it does, I'm not entirely sure I like what it says about me. Cracked, worn, out of date, probably all true but still, one does not like to trumpet one's faults from the roof tops. I must start implying Mr Brown's phone makes him look like an elderly gnome or something.

O, and also, hoverpenis, wow, I do hope I'm allowed to have one!

Today I was thwarted several tines ...

... walked to a pretty frock shop only to find it wasn't open on Mondays.
Got blisters, I'm not sure if I should blame the boots or the socks.
Ate 2 (small) pies, which I shouldn't have since it made me feel ill.
Curdled lemon curd, ick.
Had a nana nap and woke from it from a very creepy, bad dream.
Started Capote's Summer Crossing - I expect to finish it now.
Got frustrated with American restaurants, remembered it's Sunday there, still got grumpy because the booking was all on line anyway, and got an offer of rescue-ment from the wonderful Cookie Crumb.
Now I'm off to tackle a complicated Greek pasta pie thing with lots of spinach & silver beet. Wish me luck, today I'll need it.

Mr Brown has just told me ...

... my new, wee, laptop thing is arriving next week. Now I shall be able to obsessively blog and tweet and surf the interwebs from the comfort of my own bed! Or the lounge! Or New York even!
Which skin will I get?

More ...

... o, my o my, this is brilliant.

Just wonderful ...

... grab a glass or cup of something, pull your chair up close and watch.

Water Brain Complete Edition（16：9） from Johann.Poo on Vimeo.

This post ...

... over at MightyGirl (who NEVER responded to my email about the "I fuck like a girl" t-shirt, AND which she doesn't appear to sell anymore), reminded my of a dream my sister once told me about.
She said she sat up and spat out a tooth, caught it in her hands and stared at it. Then, another tooth, and another, and another, they all started tumbling out.
I can't remember if is was she who told me, or if I looked it up or asked one of those mystical, horoscope-reading, dream-interpreting women I used to work with, but somehow I formed the idea that dreaming about losing your teeth = death (turns out it does, and many other things besides!).
My sister didn't die, of course, but she DID infect me with that dream. Or a version of it anyway. I don't dream of my teeth simply falling out, O no. I dream that my bottom row of teeth get caught behind my top row of teeth, my jaw locks and in my struggles to right things all my top teeth SNAP right off. Leaving nasty jagged stumps.
I wake in fright, feeling for the tooth shards and the stumps. It doesn't take long to work out it was "only a dream" but it's a horrible way to wake up.

I remember reading in a book ...

... Angela's Ashes I believe it was, about a bebe having a terrible cold and being all stuffed up with snot. And so, the father leaned down and sucked the snot right out of the bebe's nose. I remember gagging not so quietly upon reading this, causing Mr Brown to look up in alarm. I think he was concerned I was about to projectile vomit all over the nuptial bed.
Hell, just thinking about it now has brought an uncomfortable feeling upon me, a sort of pre-gag.
Anyhoo, I came across this the other day (no, I don't care to explain why), and thought to myself, just how very far we have come.
That is all.

As per last post ...

... ABC2, Mr Blandings Builds his Dream House. Pure bliss.
If Mr Cary Grant didn't have a beautifully hairy chest, I don't want to hear it. (He must have, with that magnificent 5 O'Clock shadow).

I've been around exactly ...

... 15,325 days.
Anne of Cleves was three weeks younger than me when she died on July 16, 1557. The fourth wife of King Henry VIII, died 410 years before I was born.
I've also outlived Alan Turing by one day. He was a mathematician, cryptographer and the father of computer science who was prosecuted for being gay. He died of suicide by cyanide poisoning on June 7, 1954, 14 years before I was born.
How about you?