Things you shouldn't try when you are tiered

I tatted my first flower this evening and found there are some things you just shouldn't try when you are very tiered. Needle tatting is most likely close to the top of the list, somewhere near trying to carry out a phone conversation while learning to needle tat.

Its a bit wonky and doesn't look as good as the one in the video (and my version was accompanied by the sounds of feral budgies pushing each other off the swing and Jack continuously farting- I am sure its all the vegetables Luke is feeding him, unlike the birdsong in the video), but I am pretty pleased with my efforts. I think I will try it again when I have had enough sleep and patience.

Reflector legs

I have been keeping busy helping out Luke with his irrigation work on the weekends (when I say helping out, I mean following him about and preventing rolls of pipe from rolling onto the road). In recognition of all my hard work last weekend (and the sun tan I am slowly developing since my skin is so white it reflects the sun's rays and was possibly a danger to oncoming traffic- I thought I have finally gotten rid of my iridescent white legs when it turned out I was just covered in dust. Hurumph!) Luke very generously splurged* a whole $1.40 on a packet of four upholstery needles so I could have a go at tatting. So here is the result of a few hours of cursing and lots of tiny bits of knotted string...


*I am being facetious here, I actually asked for these needles and had overestimated the price as $2, so was totally thrilled at the 60c saving (which I kept and refused to give back, even though you probably cant even buy a redskin with it any more...)

Just stand there and dribble

Its the corporate cup challenge time of year. Its like the adult version of PE. Thankfully I have managed to skip a couple of years by hiding in Gove (the adult version of a note from your mummy). After my earlier experience of the dangers of "friendly" games, much in the same way "friendly fire" isn't particularly friendly, I had renewed my vow to never ever, under any circumstances, play another social team sport again.

Thankfully I arrived in Jabiru after most of the teams had been assembled, which saved me from having to think of an excuse for why I couldn't join in on the fly. I am not particularly good at making things up on the spot and probably would have told them that since I was abducted by aliens if I jump around too much my head falls off. Then I would have realised what I said and tried to sidle unnoticed from the room (of course at this point I would kick over a bin, making a huge noise thereby resulting in even more people looking at me and be left seriously thinking about telling them I can't speak English).

Today in the car on the way home there was a discussion about the rules of basketball and how they differ from the rules of half-court basket ball. All I could contribute was 1) don't forget your playing basket ball and start hitting people in the shins with a hockey stick and 2) if you aren't sure what to do, just start whistling and twirling the ball on your finger- everyone will be so amazed they will stop to watch how amazing you are. I was told that this only works for the Harlem Globetrotters

Thats just a chicken on stilts

I gobbled up all my internet early in the month, and have been unable to post anything because I keep getting disconnected from sites for being too slow. So now I have a few pictures to share, the best being what I thought was some sort of brown long legged relative to the jabiru. Being fairly short sighted I took a photo and figured I would see what kind of bird it was later. I was quite excited about it and was all prepared to send the picture to a friend who never quite got to see the jabiru's while she was in Gove.

It turns out it was a bird on a pole. Damn! I felt like a slack jawed local at a sideshow expecting to see a unicorn that turns out to be a large dog with a horn sticky taped to its head.

I also went out to see some of the drilling work being done on site, and part of the expedition involved a bridge crossing. Although the bridge had been constructed of plastic pallets which sort of floated on the water held in place with ropes. As you can imagine, we had arm loads of stuff to carry and the pallets were bobbing about in the current. I had a strange moment when I thought I was in sonic the hedgehog...

We got across (twice), with only some wet socks to show for it

Its not aliens

On Friday (when I originally intended to post this) there was an alignment of three planets (I can't remember which ones though) which were theorised to be either satellites or (of course) aliens by the astronomers at work. I know I much prefer the aliens explanation because then I probably wouldn't have to worry about spending 10 hours in front of a computer at work.

Besides there have been many instances of unexplained phenomena that could probably be attributed to aliens. For example, I tried four new pens and none of them worked, and we went through a whole roll of paper towel in one day.

Unfortunately my photo of the stars (not aliens) didn't really work out. I think you need a special camera to take these kind of photos...

5 hours later and I have a Katy Perry song stuck in my head

I have been horribly slack in keeping this blog updated. My grand plans for daily updates, or at least every couple of days, has been thwarted by my inability to get back into a routine. I am finding that after 10 hours at work, I am no longer able to even think coherently let alone string a sentence together. I figure either I'll get used to it, or I will become tiered enough to go to bed early and catch up on my sleep. Hurumph! I still want a puppy though.

So I thought to myself that I should get it together so I could resume my carefree blogging. This of course requires a topic, or at least an idea, something that has been eluding me lately. This afternoon on the way home inspiration finally bludgeioned me over the head- I would share the joy of carpooling with a MADD person. Let me explain...

When I was growing up, I had the misfortune to share a TV with a chronic channel flicker (this disorder is formally known as CCFD). It used to drive me bonkers, not so much the occasional channel change during the ad break, but the crazy mental flicking where the sound on the telly is broken up into incomplete words. This also results in a disco flicker, that would have had me fitting on the ground if I hadn't already gotten annoyed and left the room to read a book (I think had the CCFD suffer found you could create the same annoying effect by rapidly turning pages and trying to make out the story as the pages flashed by, they probably would stood over my shoulder flicking the pages wildly whilst commenting that if I drew a dot in the corner and moved it a bit for each page, it would look like the dot was bouncing around*).

Anyway, the point of this is that I have now identified another version of the terrible CCFDs- MADD. Thats music attention deficit disorder. This is where an aflicted person flicks through music tracks (or if that isn't possible, radio stations) never quite hearing an entire track in its entirety. At its best, the effect is like a mash-up of vaguely familiar songs that may or may not be intentional by the MADD sufferer. At worst, they wait until after the catchy bit of the song has played and then flicks. This results in not one but five horrible pop songs getting stuck in your head during a 10 minute trip. They then drop you off and leave you humming a song you just know will still be with you the following day. Damn MADD people.

*Actually they did impart this magical piece of trivia to me, along with the trick of making shrinky dinks out of chip packets on the stove. I shared both these gems with my best friend, and subsequently was banned from her house by her parents when she nearly burnt the house down attempting to shrink chip packets on the stove while they were at work.

Inspiration is like a squishy banana

I thought to myself this afternoon that I should stop being lazy and post something. All my grand plans to write something almost everyday is slowly resembling the squishy banana on the sink that I never get around to eating (and now throwing out).

As you can see, its just not happening this evening. I will have to find something interesting for next time...

*sigh*