Zinged - Zung?

I am a master at the 2am zinger. You know the kind? The perfect comeback, the world-quaking verbal drubbing, the ZING... That only occurs to me 12 or so hours after the situation I would have used it in.

It's brutal. 

But I've been thinking, perhaps that's not SUCH a terrible thing?

I stumbled onto this post (via Angry Chicken, man I love her) and you know who can deliver some brutal, brutal smack talk? Authors. That's who.
Apparently canny wordsmiths are MEAN when you get 'em riled.
This list of the notable authors verbally decimating each other is entertaining reading... at first...
But then, well then it's sort of... icky.
Elizabeth Bishop slamming J.D. Salinger (#8) makes me wince,

 8. Elizabeth Bishop on J.D. Salinger  “I HATED [Catcher in the Rye]. It took me days to go through it, gingerly, a page at a time, and blushing with embarrassment for him every ridiculous sentence of the way. How can they let him do it?” 

Elizabeth! That's the kind of thing that could cause a person to retreat into crazypants seclusion (sorry J.D., but yuh-huh).
I think what bothers me is that it seems cheap somehow to have the ability to write extraordinarily but to use  your skill to hurt people's feelings. Like having the ability to fly but using it exclusively to fly around doing retaliatory poops on pigeons. (No wait, that actually sounds kind of righteous).

The rare occasion that I manage to spit out just the right mean at just the right time; I feel TERRIBLE about it afterwards. Even if it was deserved.
Because that's not who I want to be.
I'm not saying I want to hold hands with the world and sing Kumbaya and roast marshmallows but -  wait, actually, WHY AREN'T I saying that? That sounds like funtimes. And I love roasted marshmallows.
 I guess I don't really have a point here, this is just a long-winded way of saying that I think maybe my mum was right (she usually is) when she told us as kids,
"If you don't have anything nice to say then you should shut the f*ck up" 
(For reals, she has a mouth on her to make a sailor blush, and it's incongruous 'cause she looks like such a lady).
BUT I think I would still like the ability to think up the instant-zing, because then I could feel all smug that I wasn't using it. Instead of just all hurt-feelingy.
How do you guys feel about this? Do you zap and regret? Or ZING and high-five? Or  keep quiet then lay awake for hours staring at the shadow on your ceiling that looks like chubby-Elvis face until you come up with the perfect comeback?
And do you think it's different on the internetses? Where anonymity and time to plan a response seems to give people the idea that "DUDE. YOUR COUCH SO UGLY" is appropriate (hello Apartment Therapy commentors!).
I'm genuinely curious here. Thoughts? Feelings? Cuppa tea and a scone?

Oh hey! I just thought of something I wanted to add (I guess this whole thing is really jammed into my head but good)...
I read and follow quite a few blogs, some by folks who's politics, religious beliefs and lifestyles are different from mine. I can read a glowing "why I love Mitt Romney" post and completely disagree with it but still wish goodthings and funtimes for it's writer. BUT when one of the bloggers I used to read (I'm not naming names here), decided to write a scathing report, apropos of nothing about  just why and how another blogger's project was lousy. Well, click. Unfollowed.
Ok, rant over. I think I'm done here.

Counting Down to 32

So. Today would be the 7th of October. Which means that in 'sactly one month I will be 32. Which, aside from setting off submarine klaxon noises in my head, is actually OK. Really. I mean, 32 beats the hell out of the alternative doesn't it?
So, I've given myself a blog-based birthday present. See the shiny? With the flashing? And the Orange? (LOVE orange!)
That's my to-myself birthday present.
This is what it's all about:



12 years old. Which was 20 years ago for me, 20 brilliant, shiny years for which I am immensely grateful. SO.
I'll be leaving it up until November 7th. (And hey fambly of mine, if you were wondering what I wanted for my burfday, then VOILA!)
You can find the rest of the skinny here, and the rest of the videos here, and the check out the stuff for passing the message along right here.
x
P.S. smooches at these girls here for passing this along.

8 Questions, finally.

Ages ago the lovely Andreae from With The Crickets done tagged me with 8 questions. I've had rather a brutal case of the MEHs for the last few weeks. I haven't really wanted to make or do anything in fact mostly all I've wanted is to shovel carbs into my piehole and read 1950's ballet books (what? that's a thing!) but RIGHT NOW seems like the perfect time to knock that nonsense off. And do something actually fun. Like answer some questions about me me me me me.

So. First question:

1. Is there anything you've ever eaten that was so delicious that you think of it and go kind of misty-eyed to this very day?
YAH there is! It's sun dried sheep's cheese. Made by my Maltese honorary-Grandpa, dried in racks on his flat barn roof or kept soft in salted water in the kitchen. It's glorious. Tastes like summer. and warmth. and fat, happy babies. and sheep a bit.

2. Are you a city person or country person? Half and half? Why?
City. City. City! I love the city (and specifically I love this city). I love being able to walk everywhere. I love public sculpture. I love that there is always something to see or do. I love how kind this city is. And that you can throw a rock from my house and hit a few different types of extraordinarily good food. And that if you get tired of noisy cityness it's a skip and a hop and a jaunty ferry ride to the islands. And MUSEUMS! I love being walking distance to the ROM. I like streetcars. In fact I just like the WORD streetcar, so much sexier than tram (I like tram too, but I like streetcar more). I like having this many neighbours, lots of whom are very good friends. I like that I can't walk around the block without running into someone we know. And that folks in the shops know us (and certainly Teddy) by name. It's a crazy mix of tiny-villageness and anonymity.

3. You know how, before you actually have kids, you have all these parenting principles ("I'm going to home-school/make all the clothes/never buy junk food/bury the tv in the back yard"), and then when you actually have to raise a kid/kids, you end up kind of abandoning said principles? Do you have any of those? Do you feel guilty? Liberated? Indifferent?
Heh. One or two. Turns out my house is not a haven of wooden toys and genius design, with nary a piece of plastic to be seen. And I'm OK with that. Really I am. A lot of the stuff that I expected and wanted early on in my pregnancy went poof after my brother's accident. And I'm OK with that too, in fact I think yay for adapability. I figure doing the best you can with what you have is the most you can hope from yourself.

4. What's the loveliest place you've ever traveled? Could be wildly exotic or comfortingly local.
I've been lucky enough to have traveled a LOT. But my favorite places are the ones I've been to with my sweetie, madly in love. Paris for the first time with him, where we barely made it out of the hotel room (ou la la my blushes!), and we ate cake for breakfast at 1.30 in cafes near the Sorbonne. Or the Altas Mountains at this hotel, where it smells like roses and I said "sure, why not!" to an important question.

5. Okay, same as Sigrid: Laundry tips? Please?
Line drying. Finest kind.

6. Do you have a life plan, or do you just sort of truck along?
truck truck truck. I don't EXACTLY believe that the world will purposely bite me on the ass if I make a plan; but I do find myself keeping an eye out for low flying geese and open manholes when I do.

7. Would friends of the teenage you recognize the current you? Would you still get along?
Friends of the teenage me are friends of the current me. In fact the person who occupies the best friend space in my head is someone I have know since I was 7 or 8. (Hey Philip, if you happen to be reading this, I love you. Also, I have a poop story to tell you.)

8. Any novels to recommend for an almost-seven-year-old girl? What were your favourites? Which are you looking forward to sharing with your own kid(s)?
I've been thinking about this one LOADS. I'm a firm believer in the the power of literature to build better humans, and I made a list!
Some of these are better as read along with yer folks books, I don't know if most almost-7 year olds go for that, but we TOTALLY did. Mostly cause my ma is BRILLIANT story teller.

1. The Julian Stories, sweet, funny, still-quote-it-to-your-sibis-25-years-later good.
2. The Borrowers Books by Mary Norton. Because tiny stuff is just cool
3. The Wind in the Willows. I literally can't wait to read this to my bear. Our childhood copy is sat on his shelves.
4. Anything By Dick King-Smith, his warmth and humour is even better than I remember it being.
5. and of course ANYTHING by L.M Montgomery... the first book I ever stayed up too late reading was Anne of Green Gables, but I like the Emily books better.

OK that's me done.
AND I'm passing the whole gig on to:
Liz over at Little Dash, who's writing style is as charming and awesome as a raucous-laugh-after-a-dirty-joke. and who throws a brill party by the looksa things.
Renaissance woman Affi'enia at blue frog sticks who sews, knits AND plays in the dirt, farmer style!
Stephanie (who's new table I literally want to steal) of Made in Australia By Stephanie
Erin from Howl, who inspires me keep running (and to not stuff cake into my face!)
And of course Emme. Who is a hero. An honestly and truly one.

And my questions are...

1. Is there anything you feel nekkid without? (aside from clothes!) For me it's painted toenails, even in the winter, I just feel better with two coats of dark red on my piggies.

2. Books, magazines, games, comics, pieces of art that made you who you are today? Hello Sassy magazine. Talking of which, have you seen this?

3. Monkey or Robot? Which would you rather have?

4. Food you make when the poop hits the fan? Do you cook/eat for comfort?

5. How did you meet your sweetie? Is it romantic? (Will I need a tissue?... no really, I cry at everything).

These next two are the same as Andreae's

6. Do you have a life plan, or do you just sort of truck along?

7. Would friends of the teenage you recognize the current you? Would you still get along?

8. Could you show me something pretty? Please?

Here's a random picture of some balloons that I strung to a tree on the island at a BBQ last weekend. because posts feel naked without pictures.

Boot Camp

I'm not going to be posting too much about this, but today was the first day of boot camp. And it was... harder than I thought. And funner.
This was the assignment. I found it a bit difficult; I have a strict "if you don't have anything nice to say then shut the f*ck up" policy, only sometimes I don't apply it to myself as stringently as I would to oh, pretty much anybody else in the world.
Anyway, the word for today was IVORY. And these are my images:
First the official one I posted on flickr (which was hard, there's a lot of serious talent in the group)

Two shots, taken seconds apart, no meddling with exposure or colour. A reminder to keep my eyballs open.
And some other things I was playing with:

Still Alive... And PLOTTING!

I am I am!

I've been... slacking. And lounging. And playing out. And ignoring housework. And sipping martinis in our courtyard with my girl chums. and stomping to the parks. and sewing summer dresses (because I don't have enough of those nope nope nope). and watching my bear play with his new water table. And sitting in the sunshine with my brother. And eating icecream with my sweetheart (who is turning swoon-inducingly blond in the sun). And spotting new awesome street art projects to see with Teddy. and and and...*
It's sunshiny, see.
And cleaning the bathroom when it's sunshiny outside is like honking a spit in Mother Nature's eye.
That's my theory and I'm sticking with it.

Anyway. I have good intentions and there's rain in the forecast, so here's what's coming up chez my blooge over the next little while:


June is Sew What month with two of my favorite bloggers. Melissa of Until Wednesday Calls and the Cynthia (The Sewing Dork herself!) are running a challenge where you pick one type of fabric (linen, denim, whathaveyou) and stick with it for each project. I'm going with knits (because they scare me and I want to practice). You guys should join in, s'going to be heaps o' fun!

They other thing I'm doing is this



Which is just what it says. It's a creative kick in the pants. Only without the kicking (or the... pants?)
It's free, there's no obligation to share if your don't want and a bunch of pretty awesome folks are on board. I'm going to be using my camera. And I SUPER excited about it. (and also maybe a bit nervous? but in a good way).
There's still time if you want to play along with either of these. And hey maybe we could compare notes?

*Wow. Reading that list back is funny. I don't mean to sound smug (Do I sound smug? Maybe? Little bit? Sorry if I do...) it's just that I feel like my life is pretty charmed and writing down what's good is a nice way of reminding myself.

Serendipity Strikes!

You guys! You guys! Today I got smooched FULL ON THE MOUTH but the sparkly unicorn of serendipitous shopping. I did, I did.
(Today was a much better day than yesterday!)

And here's why; for the last two months I've been eyeballing a pair of sketchers sandals. These fella's here (only in dark brown):


They're cute, they have enough of a heel to look like lady shoes, they're as comfy as a pair of Merrel's, they go with lots of things, and they're cute.
I didn't instantly get them because, well, $70 plus tax. And I thought maybe I should hold out for something in a neutral.

This morning Teddy and I were strolling around and decided on a whim to pop into the Winners on the corner (something we never usually do) and...
There they were. In my size, in a lighter colourway than the ones I'd been looking at. And the best part? They were 39 squee - inducing bucks.
I pounced on them like a... something that pounces on shoes? (A Puma maybe?)
I came home and called my sweetie.

Me: SWEETIE Igotnewshoes FOR CHEAP they were right there and the ones I wanted and everything.

My sweetie (bemused): That's good.

Me: No you don't understand. THEY WERE RIGHT THERE! IN MY SIZE! And I got them! MINE MINE MINE!

My sweetie: Ohhhh-kay?

Me: mine mine mine...

My sweetie doesn't appear to understand about The Sparky Unicorn of Shopping Serendipity. (See him carefully place the bargains in just the right spot to be found by just the right person? With his sparkly unicorn horn? and sparkles? and maybe rainbows?)
So I'm telling you guys. This is them and I heart them AND the unicorn who delivered them unto my feeties.



x

A Dilemna

Sunshiny sunshiny sunshininess! Squee.
You know what this means?
NEW SANDALS!
Well at any rate, it means browser window shopping for new sandals. Only I have conflict. Very real conflict.
And here's why:

Yup. They're... ridiculous. But they're what my inner six year old wants. Observe if you will,

Me: OOOU! They have Pink on them! and they're REALLY high! And now we're grown ups we can wear REALLY high shoes. And they have pink! PLEEEASE?

Me: No Erin. We can't. They're... look I'm gone be honest... they're kind of ridiculous. And maybe a bit whorey? Tiny bit?

Me: NOOOO! No they're not. They're LUVERLY. We LOVES them.

Me: Not so much. and 'sides. We'd fall on our ass. A'ly we can't walk in heels and B'ly. What? We'd wear them to take the dog out would we? To the Gym? The playground? Really?

Me: We could LEARN to walk in them. We could we could. OH HEY! Is that a giant duck? *tap tap tap*

Me: Did you just add them to our shopping bag?

Me: Noooo.

Me: Uh Huh. I'm sitting right here. Listen, what about these? They're cute and sensible right?
Me: But.... but... I... I hate you.

101!

Eeeei!
You guys! That last one was my hundredth post. I knew it was coming up but I didn't realise until just this morning. It's made me cheerfully introspective, and in the mood for a recap.
Since my very first post I have.

• Learnt a little about HTML (I have three columns now! and I can make a grabbable button... and yet Microsoft still haven't called.)
• Met (well internet met) some folks. Who are lovely. And awesome. And for whom I am crossing fingers and waving flags and offering imaginary cookies. (only less crazy than that sounds)
  
• Sewed a bunch of stuff.
• conquered my fear o' meddling with vintage.
  
• Been totally inspired by other folks' blogs and Wardrobe Refashion (what a brilliant kick in the sewing pants that has been)
• Had an outlet for the kind of boo-hoo for me, or YAY for me! stuff that everyday life is made of. (and gotten unexpected support and kindness. Thanks. x)
• Recorded some stuff that I might have otherwise forgotten.
• Written out some stuff that. hurt. like. pulling. teeth. but left me lighter after it was done.
  

And there's been other life stuff happening too.

• My bear has turned into practically a big kid right before my eyes.
• I've made some pretty big lifestyle changes. As in, exercise and less pie. And lost 48lbs because of it.
• My sweetie and I hit our 13 year anniversary of being sweeties. 13! I am super proud of us.
• Gotten a new niece! Who is delicious, and whom I can't wait to meet.
  

So thanks for sticking around to listen to the stuff. You guys are a big part of what makes this fun.
xxx

Now With 95% More PINK!

Notice anything different? Do ya? Do ya? Do ya?
I gave my blog a makeover. WITH PINK! And I did it ALL BY MYSELF. Which, kind of obvious maybe.
I was poking around with my HTML and you guys, I'm pretty sure I had the same expression on my face as a monkey trying to tie a bow.
But it was really fun. And I made all the little imagey things. And if you click on the twitter thing IT ACTUALLY WORKS!
So, what do you think? Too much pink? Weird? Hurt your eyeballs? Do let me know if there's anything you hate/love!