blogfession: the new boy in my life

Yes, the time has come for me to make my blogfession. While I remain committed to the belief that some aspects of one's life are not really appropriate post material in the blog environment, I am concerned my recent absence in blogland has become fodder for blogossips, and that's just not on! I'm here to set the record straight.

It is true, there is a new boy in my life. :-) We met only recently, and it was not, as some of you may have guessed, via the online dating site. In actual fact, our meeting was facilitated by my Mother! I know that sounds a bit hokey, but to be honest there is no-one who knows me better than my Mother. She knows what I like, what I want, and most importantly what I need. When she showed me a picture of my boy, I knew that she was spot on with her prediction that it would be love at first sight. *siggggh*

And love at first sight it was, on both our behalves. How rare and beautiful is such an occurrence? On the day we met, he said not a word of complaint as I wandered around the shopping centre with him in tow. I think he was just delighted to be in my company. How sweet is that? We have spent many blissful hours together since that shopping centre meeting. He is a quiet and reserved type, so mostly we have stayed in, cuddling in front of the television taking in a number of movies. He's a cuddle-aholic! Luckily, so am I. He's also extremely easy going, always happy to allow me to choose the movies and willing to watch whatever takes my fancy. The other night we watched "Secret Window" - which really just gave me an excuse to snuggle into him during the scary bits. ;-)

I've often come home to find him waiting for me, lounging on my bed, in nothing but a silky red ribbon... am I getting too personal here? Oh well, better not go into any more detail other than to say that his name is Bobby, and he said it was fine if I wanted to share a pic with you all, dear blog friends.

Is he not the cutest boy bear you ever did see?

PS. Lady Beetle thinks he belongs to her, but I know better.

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[BloHaMa] Hang ye scurvy lubber!

Yay! Another wee man saved from the noose over at Singlefin's place. Let's see if this hanging man will be so lucky!

the word --> X Y L O P H O N E

Congratulations go to Casyn for saving the scurvy lubber from the noose... this time around!
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guessed letters --> B C E H M N O P S T

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In other news, today is White Ribbon Day, or United Nations International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. I'm 100% in support of such a cause (and yes, I'm wearing a White Ribbon, courtesy of The Body Shop) but gee that is a mouthful to say. Hmm.

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run away with the circus

You'd be forgiven for assuming that I have, indeed, run away with the circus, so absent have I been from my poor little blog of late. And after Saturday night, a part of me wishes I could run away with the circus! Alas, I'm not blessed with any appropriate circus talents (although there are some who know me who might tell you that I could take a stab at becoming a clown).

Saturday night, you see, I was lucky enough to pop along to see the fabulous Cirque du Soleil's "Quidam" show. Lucky in more ways than one! The first being that it was a real treat to see a live Cirque performance. I have watched a few on television in recent times but it just doesn't compare to the magic of entering the big blue 'n yellow tent with its sometimes cloudy, sometimes starry, sometimes stormy (and therefore always atmospheric - heck, we were even rained on at one point!) ceiling. The second being that I was ever so lucky to enjoy the show free of charge, having some time ago offered my company to the lovely Pickwick in order to solve her ticket quandary. Hey, I'm an enterprising sort, certainly not one to miss such a fabulous opportunity!

And fabulous it was. In the first place, it was a pleasure to meet Pickwick in person. She's in many ways much as I imagined she'd be from her blog, and yes she does have amazing hair, even if it wasn't in all its amazing glory on Saturday night, as she confessed. ;-) We had fairly good seats for the show - side-on to the action, which apart from a (very) few occasions, was perfectly fine.

I'm hard pressed now to remember the order of the acts, but I do believe it began with the German Wheel (which looks like a ridiculous amount of fun but I'm sure is damn hard work) and possibly ended with the Banquine (some of the most breathtaking acrobatics I've ever seen). In between were a number of acts that were equally fascinating and impressive, and I often found myself completely mesmerised. There's nothing quite so thrilling as watching talented people displaying the full range of their talents! Even the skipping rope performers, something which I myself used to be quite good at, had me gaping at their abilities. That was a highlight, along with a woman who performed Aerial Contortion in Silk, which I thought simply beautiful. In fact, all the performers in the air were stunning to watch. And those on the ground. And the musicians were wonderful, if perhaps a little over enthusiastic volume-wise at times.

Then there were the clowns. I didn't realise there was such a comedic aspect to Cirque du Soleil! There were two main skits in which the clowns enticed people from the audience (oh what fun that would be!) and proceeded to make them amusement value for the rest of us in the audience. Good stuff! The woman sitting in front of Pickwick had this weird howl or whoop or something when she found something very funny, which I in turn found very funny. Much laughter to be had!

All in all it was a great night's entertainment, and definitely well worth experiencing. I shall be looking forward to the next Cirque show to make its way to Brisbane, whenever that may be. And yes, I shall save my pennies to buy myself a ticket to that one. ;-)

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security alarms, reckless drivers, glitter, mint chocochillos and gollum

Otherwise titled as "Monday, glorious Monday!"

Yesterday I greeted the day bright (read: "grumpy due to restless disturbed sleep") and early (read: "8:30am") and ready for adventure (read: "therapeutic money spending")! I headed off for Adventure #1, to my local multiplex for the first session of "Saved!" - I'd heard good things, I wasn't disappointed. Perhaps not as hysterically funny as I had expected, but I chuckled many times and may have even let out a guffaw or two. It's short, sharp, and avoids the sap until the ending, which was vaguely blah but not entirely unexpected, so I'm not really complaining. If you've not heard any whispers of the film, here's the basic gist: Girl, about to enter senior year at gloriously Christian highschool, has the perfect Christian life, perfect Christian friends and the perfect Christian boyfriend. Then lo! Boyfriend says he is gay. *gasp* She must save him, and how better to do that than to throw her Christian promise to wait out the window and give him a good shagging! Hello Teenage Unwed Pregnancy! Wheee. :-) It's fun and more interesting than you might suspect. *I'm looking at you, Casyn* ;-)

Adventure #2 was a round of clothes shopping because I'm a glutton for punishment! As it turns out, it wasn't entirely unrewarding as it has been so frequently of recent times. I picked up a swish pair of navy pants (impressively discounted) and a pair of jeans (alas, not discounted) from the fine 'n fancy Tar-jay (or Target for us yokels). I also tried on three tops, all of which went straight back to the rack. I wasn't particularly upset about that except for one of them. It was this delightful vibrant green/blue number that snugged above and over the breasts, then fell in gentle flows to the top of the hips, very flattering over my cuddly pot belly! Unfortunately, leaving so much bare skin up top it made me look all broad-shouldered and low-chested and just frankly quite ridiculous. Boo. :-( It was also decorated with not-very-well-glued-on glitter, a large portion of which I left on the floor of the dressing room. Pretty, sparkly carpet!

So, I decided to move to K-Mart (yep, I'm cheap) in the quest for tops, greeted the lady at the entrance with a cheery smile and promptly set off the security alarms as I entered the store. D'oh! I hate when that happens! She checked my bags which, you know, rather pointless considering I was entering the store, but informed me that many people who have come from Target set off their security alarms. Stupid Target! I set off the alarms again on my way out at the checkout (success, found a cute top!) and had my bags checked again while the people behind me in the queue looked at me warily and laughed nervously when I said with a grin "I'm not a shoplifter, don't ya worry!" Hmm. The K-Mart lady advised me to return to Target otherwise I would probably set off other store security systems, and even though I wasn't planning to continue shopping, I went back and had Target deactivate the tag they had neglected to deactive the first time. The weird part of the story though, is that when I left Target (the first time) I didn't set off their security alarms. Shoplifters take note! ;-)

(I really am not condoning or encouraging shoplifting, because stealing is wrong, mmkay?)

I was feeling a bit hungry by this stage, but my tastebuds weren't tempted by any of the choices on offer in the food court. They were, rather, craving a chocochillo from New Zealand Icecream. Mmmm! Seeing as I hadn't indulged them in some time, I made my way to the NZ Icecream store. While consulting the board to see how much they were, I discovered that there were other chillo flavours I'd never noticed before, one of those being mint chocachilllo. Being an absolute freak for choc-mint, I couldn't resist. Ohhh, it was so good! Yum yum yum! And suitably filling, an added bonus.

Driving home, I was approaching traffic lights not far from my house when I observed a 4wd driver run a red light. Granted, people running red lights in Brisbane is far from uncommon, but I found this one particularly surprising. This particular driver was waiting in a right-hand turning lane as I approached, stopped for the red light. The straight aheads had the green light at the time. Now, the red arrow stays on at these particular lights because the view is not particularly good, but this driver, who had stopped for the red light, just randomly decided they didn't want to wait any longer and off they went! Madness. Nothing untoward happened, but it made me cranky, because it's foolish rule-disrespectin' drivers like that who cause "accidents" at traffic lights where there is just no excuse for "accidents"! Grrr.

On a lighter note, I have a Lord of the Rings desktop calendar, one of those ones that you tear off a page each day. Yesterday's picture was my favourite for the year to date, so I had to share. Heeheehee! :-)

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groovin' to: "Extraordinary Day" - Delta Goodrem
last movie viewing: "Saved!" [cinema]
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today I have learned:

(1) That leftover, reheated macaroni cheese is all kinds of nasty and therefore should never be eaten by anyone, under any circumstances, for any reason known to man, except perhaps as a cruel and inhumane form of torture! (if that type of thing floats your boat.)

(2) That Harry Connick Jr is coming to town early in the New Year and performing with the Queensland Orchestra! As Molly would say, do yourselves a favour and book your tickets (on the 15th) for what is guaranteed to be a night of sensationally smooth music stylings.

(3) That Andrew Symonds' (cricketer, QLD and Australia) fro has gone so crazy wild that there's just no saving it!

(4) That blogger seems to think I am on daylight savings time. Hmmmm.

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do you hear what I hear?

(No, it's not the ridiculously cheery sound of Christmas carols being pumped over store sound systems two months early.)

Last night as I lay in bed still wide awake at 1am, I listened to the squeakings and squealings of the fruit bats in the trees outside. I hear them most nights and have always liked their funny chitterings. Some nights they alight in the large tree that the local crows call home. Then follows quite lengthy arguments between the bats' chitterings and the crows' cawings over who has the right to use which branches. I think the crows must win because they are always still perched in their tree come morning.

I've often suggested that if I were forced to surrender one of my five senses, the one I'd send gleefully tumbling off the plank is my sense of smell. I'm blessed (and cursed) with what I consider quite an acute sense of smell. I tend to pick up on scents in the air before others notice them, which, depending on the scent, can be a good or bad thing. I find it unpleasant to walk down the washing powder aisle at the supermarket. I hold my breath when entering Myer via the perfume and cosmetics section. I hate to be sat next to someone who wears anything more than a subtle hint of perfume/deoderant/cologne. On the flip side, I love driving past the park by my uni which, in recent times, has been filled with jasmine. Walking past the cookie store at the local shopping centre is delightful. Inhaling the sweet scent of Mum's chameleon rose plant in the front garden is one of life's simple pleasures.

The bats' chitterings last night got me thinking how much I value one of my other senses: hearing. Even disregarding the joys of music, such an integral part of my (and many others) life, there are so many small sounds that I hear throughout a given day that give my spirit a boost. The gentle yet frenetic bubbling sound of my goldfish gobbling their weetbix crumbs each morning. (Bet you didn't know that Aussie fish are Weetbix fish!) The muffled and constant chirps of my budgie, muttering away with her beak planted firmly in her feathers. Raindrops on the roof. My youngest nephew's giggles. The wind through the leaves. A duck's quack. A cheerful voice on the telephone. ...to name a few. :-)

Now to remember what a blessing it is to not live in a silent world next time one of the neighbours revs up the lawn mower at 7:30am on a Sunday morning, or has a rowdy late night party, or the local hoons go for a 2am spin round the block.

You take the good with the bad!

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feeling: [funkariffic!]
groovin' to: "The Sun" - Maroon 5
last movie viewing: "The Notebook" [cinema]
bookworm currently enjoying: "Joe Cinque's Consolation" - Helen Garner
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random space-filling nonsense

Poor blog! It's been looking rather neglected this past week (and a bit), apart from its gentle facelift, of course. Yeah, look at my blog, all style and no substance! Quite the opposite from me, or at least I like to think I'm all substance and no style. Well I know I've got the "no style" bit down pat.. ;-)

Anyway, life has been pretty average since I finished uni. Any sane person, in my position, would be doing cartwheels over the fact that another university semester has bitten the dust, staring down the barrel of months of holiday bliss. But not me. Nope. Instead, I am meandering around feeling just generally "meh" about life.

I've decided the problem is that I define myself as: Uni Student. Thus, when university ended for the year I became: Blot. Now, when I am Uni Student, I feel that I have purpose, and a sense of direction, and that I belong somewhere in this big scary world. When I am Blot, I lack purpose, and direction, and wonder where I fit.

Blot. Blot. Blot.

Admit it, you love that word as much as I do!

I'm sure I should have all this stuff sorted by my age, but you know, I've always been a bit of a late bloomer. Or maybe it's just a really early mid-life crisis. Yeah, that might be a more positive way to look at things.

So! I went shopping the other day (because shopping is fun even when you're lacking wads of cash) in search of Josh Groban CDs. I've been seeking them for a while, and they're either difficult to come by, or really expensive. And when I say really expensive, I'm talking $33. That's nuts, who pays that much for a CD? Certainly not I, said the not-so-nutty squirrel. Disheartened at the lack of affordable Josh Groban CDs, I decided to cheer myself up by buying "Troy" on DVD. I missed seeing it at the cinemas, though for the life of me I can't recall how that happened. I know that I had every desire and intention to see it at the cinema but it just didn't happen. And now that I've since seen it on a small screen, I really regret missing the opportunity to bask in its beauty in an appropriate environment. Boo hoo! :-(

Yes, one really should see a buffed Eric Bana on the big screen.

*wink*! Obvious aesthetic pleasures aside, I did find the movie really entertaining. And knowing squat about history, I of course didn't notice the apparently numerous liberties taken by the script-writers. Sometimes ignorance is a bonus! (Mostly it's an embarrassment.)

But anyway, imagine my surprise and delight to discover that the song playing over the end credits was performed by none other than Josh Groban! Yep, turns out I scored some Groban goodness after all. :-)

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