Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Easterbunny's LiveJournal:

[ << Previous 20 ]

Thursday, July 17th, 2008
6:52 pm	The glass floor "What we can't do, and never will be able to, is cope with the sheer attrition and grind of child-rearing in that brilliant, professional way our womenfolk can. We can't multi-task; we're too easily distracted; we're basically a bit rubbish. And this isn't an excuse. This is a fact." I think James Delingpole is proposing that employers bin job applications from men of child-bearing age. Current Mood: unbaited (7 gold Cadillacs | Who's your daddy?)
5:38 pm	From the Arch of Triumph to the Petit Palais, that's for me This is my last week at home on maternity leave, and I am thoroughly enjoying it. Tuesday afternoon's weather was utterly gorgeous, so I caught the train for the evening's engagement a little early. ( One hundred places to take a screaming baby: #81, the 60% sale at Hobbs. ) I met Adam at Inn the Park, and we had a great evening catching up with Colette and Dave WANOLJ. A man holding his partner's sunhat put it on and used it to peek-a-boo with Katie until he realized that Let and I were also watching him. This led to some hasty concentration on his mobile phone, although he did not remove the sunhat. Some geese caused a ruckus. Yesterday morning I woke up at 6:28 with an alarm-cursing yelp and proceeded with haste to St. Pancras to meet sushidog for our train to ( Paris. ) I cancelled this morning's creche booking at the gym in favor of lying in bed with the laptop and coffee. I had cold pizza for breakfast and Muffin the Mule on Cbeebies. We skipped out of baby massage halfway through the class so that Katie could go back to sleep and I could stretch out on the couch. Life is good. Current Mood: smiling (8 gold Cadillacs | Who's your daddy?)
Monday, July 14th, 2008
6:21 pm	How much is that dinosaur in the window Danny Wallace has already covered the Join Me thrall of cults, but I want followers co-experimenters anyway. Following a pleasingly crunchy sandwich at the Canary Wharf Waitrose last week after following directions on the sandwich wrapper to add complimentary slaw, I would like you to join me in one or more 2 week challenges. Meet back with photos on your journal on July 28th. Same bat time, same bat station. (I'll be back in the office and in need of distraction.) Poll #1223159 Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All Join me? View Answers Yes! I will join you in taking photographs of publicly visible tile mosaics in London or my village, town, city, or conurbation of choice. 6 (50.0%) Yes! I will join you in taking photographs of publicly visible old, fading advertisements painted on brickwork on the sides of buildings in London or etc etc etc. 7 (58.3%) Yes! I will join in following 1 or more serving suggestions on packaged food. I understand serving suggestions to be the wacky ideas like "Why not jazz up melba toast with beet purée and lashings of beefalo?" Avoid confusion with suggested serving size. 4 (33.3%) No. In the immortal words of Princess Anne, naff off with your tiles and your serving suggestions, easterbunny. 3 (25.0%) Weekly roundup: last Wednesday: I joined lots of lovely people at The Lyric for drpete's birthday. Excellent company, and I like the French martini. last Thursday: I tried out the Caffé Piccolo in Worcester Park (must return on a hot day for gelato! gah, stealth website sound!) and joined the NCT girls for our weekly baby massage class in the library. A room full of happy naked babies is pretty funny1. Then Katie and I moseyed to owlfish's place to check out linens in John Lewis, eat pizza and carrots, donate some boot space and see owlfish and C's lovely new house near Epping Forest. last Friday: coffee with the NCT girls in Epsom followed by a crying episode at TK Maxx. I didn't realize how much my stretch marks had faded until the ones I'd scratched had turned an angry red. Fluorescent lighting is cruel. I decided to cheer up by getting something nice for dinner and dressing Katie in her cutest onesie, but that way madness and appliquéd cardigans lie. Saturday: So I went to the gym and the Hampton Court Flower show. Sunday: ( One hundred places to take a screaming baby: #82, Mimi y Coco ) Monday: the world's fastest gym induction ("Have you used this gym before?" Yes. "Anything you're not familiar with or want to see demonstrated." No. "OK, you're all set."), and then Katie and I met haggisthesecond for an afternoon of jewels. It has taken haggisthesecond and I five years to visit the V&A while the jewelry gallery was open, but today we saw it in all its glittering majesty. Interesting historical presentation and some unusual bridal headdresses, but my inner princess has traded a preference for fairytale gems for brutalist (apparently) metal designs. My favourite piece was "Ring of Fire" by Margaret or Margot Somethingorother, a papier-mâché necklace that reminded me of Venetian carnival masks. After the V&A, we nipped across the street to see the Aurora Diamonds at the Natural History Museum. 296 diamonds are displayed on butterfly pins in a case that alternates daylight with UV light - about a third of the stones fluoresce. Go see it if you have a chance - it's in "The Vaults" exhibit of the minerals gallery. Diamonds! Pointless snack food of the day: tiny little plastic pots of fruit-flavoured yogurt. They do not fill me up. They do not assuage cravings of any sort (one must agree that nacho-flavoured yogurt would be as revolting as Jimmy Dean Blueberry Pancake-Wrapped Sausage on a Stick™ ). They only make me angry. Yet I am currently eating a Flora pro-activ peach yogurt that's been dressed up with a bit of All Bran. Why? Adam and I have nearly achieved our lacklustre goal of eating everything in the fridge and freezer so that we can defrost them over a few days. This included such serendipitous discoveries as the frozen mashed potatoes that turned out to be frozen smoked haddock soup, but also a fair amount of unidentifiable sludge. The peach yogurt was a donation from recent guests, but I am disgusted to report that the All Bran, which is nobody's fault but our own, has a best before date of January 9th 2008. I *could* make this up to myself with nachos for dinner, but I *should* find a recipe that uses both cauliflower and barbecue sauce. Edit: good grief, I've used "lovely" 3 times in this post, which actually just outranks my usual hit rate of "just" and "actually". Must learn new words. Strig. Fugacious. Loach. 1However, none of us were able to surmount the cliffs of awkwardness sufficiently to sing "Tommy Thumb" with convincing volume. The instructor finally gave up and said that we didn't have to sing if we didn't want to. It reminded me of the sheer hell that was 9:30 - 10:45 on Tuesdays and Thursdays at my summer camp - MWF was arts 'n' crafts, but TTh was Bible songs. All of them had at least 27 verses and were pitched in a funereal key. On the up side, Tuesdays were cinema afternoon and Thursdays were usually field trips to somewhere exciting like the Purity Dairy (cf free ice cream sandwiches vs free chocolate milk). Current Mood: tired (9 gold Cadillacs | Who's your daddy?)
Thursday, July 10th, 2008
12:04 pm	Tiny bubbles My first book of travel memoirs shall one day go to press as I Took the Bus to Monaco, and I now have the followup: I Took Velveeta to France. Sometimes a girl needs a little rotel to cut through all the brie. I've never cared for Dover as a pleasure destination, but there's something to be said for not doing battle on the M20 with ealry weekday morning port-bound lorry traffic. Jane, WINOLJ, had booked rooms at the gorgeous Walletts Court Hotel, and we arrived with ever so slightly wind-blushed hair on Wednesday night to find Adam and Neil WINOLJ waiting with reviving fizz and cheeseburgers. The next morning we braved school groups, ferry coffee, and OH MY GOD I'VE LEFT MY BABY tears to cross the Channel and drive to Reims. Crêpes! Thunderstorms! A tour of Taittinger! Let the debauchery commence. The four of us joined margotmetroland, drpete, nisaba and willmate at at the self-catering Manoir de Maffrecourt. Maffrecourt is twinned with Jésus l'Est, but the remoteness made for beautiful sunsets and a gentle wakeup call from the church bells next door. The closest town is St. Menehould, apparently known by the locals for 1) its nickname of San Menou and 2) availability of pigs' trotters. We looked to the San Menou Super-U for such provisions as pastries, cheese and duck paste. The group shoved two tables together and ate breakfast and dinner in the garden every day, and then everyone earned their champagne through lawn boules and riproaring games of Stick with Hector the black lab. But champagne is a serious business, and serious businesses require an ( agenda. ) Neil introduced me to the ( stag game ) As with white wine, Moz and I are champagne anti-particles (except for the rosés we both liked), so to spare the planet from future annihilation, the obvious solution is to each toast with our own bottle. Cheers! Pictures are here. Current Mood: tres continental (Who's your daddy?)
Wednesday, July 9th, 2008
12:14 am	14K Gold with a Silent Snow chaser Inspired by sneerpout: I can't remember who introduced me to the concept of spiritual hair colour - I'm sure it was one of my triumverate cinquecento of favourite redheads, but my spiritual hair colour is blonde. Every once in a while, my hairdresser will do something complex involving a browny-purple base colour with highlights, lowlights, and sidelights, but most of the time I say, "Oh, let's just bleach it again." Poll #1220074 Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All What is your spiritual hair colour? View Answers Blonde 5 (14.3%) Brunette 4 (11.4%) Redhead 13 (37.1%) Raven 4 (11.4%) Rainbow 2 (5.7%) Cueball 2 (5.7%) As natural as the muesli-fed bristles of an organic bandicoot 5 (14.3%) Obligatory in them days we was glad to have our heads snagged in a combine harvester answer 0 (0.0%) Week in review: Good lord, is it Wednesday in 41 minutes already? last Wednesday: I took Katie to see Prince Caspian at the babytastic cinema morning. I think I can safely tell you that it ( spoilers ), but Eddie Izzard as the voice of Reepicheep was a stroke of genius. Afterwards my in-laws came over, and then Jane came to pick me up, and then we drove to Dover. last Thursday - Sunday: I ate a great deal of cheese. More on this later. Monday: I went to the gym for the first time in a very long time. I have combined my spanking new gym membership with my love of library socialism and have now checked out a selection of large print mysteries to read on the elliptical trainer. In the evening I met nisaba and ladycat for quiche at Ray's Jazz Cafe in Foyles, and then we ran through the rain to Leicester Square to watch Sex and the City. I think I can safely tell you that it ( spoilers ), but Eddie Izzard as the voice of Reepicheep was a stroke of genius. Tuesday: I took Katie to the lab, the library, the vet, and a nature loop around Leith Hill Tower. I have the oddest feeling that Adam and I went there as young people under the aegis of the IC Fellwanderers. I believe we ate bourbon biscuits. I would like to share a tidbit from a Sunday newspaper I believe to have been the Telegraph: refuting the claim that chihuahuas are more vicious than either rottweilers or pit bulls, a spokesperson for the British Chihuahua Club has explained that the small dog breed is merely "a little bit stroppy" and not a patch on those beastly dachshunds. Current Mood: relaxed (17 gold Cadillacs | Who's your daddy?)
Friday, June 27th, 2008
9:17 pm	Dirty knees Happy birthday to zoo_music_girl, ladymoonray and Colin, and have fun to everyone waving off Betty Ford tonight! ( One hundred places to take a screaming baby: #85, Garson's PYO farm ) Pictures are at the bottom of this page. Thought for the day: “PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile.” ~Ambrose Bierce 1Didja see what I did there?2 2Sorry. Current Mood: muddy (6 gold Cadillacs | Who's your daddy?)
Thursday, June 26th, 2008
12:45 pm	Apparently that *is* my monkey Just for andrea_r: As a union of babies and cats, I offer this followup to a recent conversation. I was right that cats outrank iPhones, but wrong in that babies outrank neither. Ranking of 3 popular flickr tags: cats - 888,033 results iPhones - 346,085 results babies - 173,203 results Finally, as a brief hiatus from all things baby-related, have some pictures of my cat: Current Mood: still in pyjamas (20 gold Cadillacs | Who's your daddy?)
12:59 am	Duck and cover. This is only a drill. Sunday: afternoon tea party at sushidog's with truly stupendous chocolate chip cookies followed by comedy at the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre. Adam and I saw Lucy Porter and Stephen K. Amos - both excellent. Monday: toast and coffee with the in-laws, and then I took Katie to the afternoon baby clinic. Tuesday: I had many plans for Tuesday. The only one that came to fruition was a flying visit to Snappy Snaps. ( One hundred places to take a screaming baby: #86, the American Embassy in London ) We left the embassy at 11 and walked to and through Green Park. We watched a marching band in bear hats march to Buckingham Palace, and in sleb-spotting moment #2 we watched Forest Whitaker watch the marching band. Finally, we had brunch at Chez Gerard, and then I took Katie home. My next major accomplishment was a 4 hour nap. Flickrwhack Challenge: remember the googlewhack? Go to flickr and search for a combination of 2 words that individually bring up several photographs but together point to only one. Bonus if you search tags only instead of full text. Examples: ididerod bored (full text, but great picture) certified llama waikiki dinosaur Current Mood: sleepy (12 gold Cadillacs | Who's your daddy?)
Sunday, June 22nd, 2008
12:54 pm	Lights in the summer sky Mmm, coffee and bacon sandwiches. I've had a good weekend so far. realtan_dannan came over for lunch on Friday, and Adam's parents arrived yesterday for grandparental babysitting. I had an excellent evening at nisaba and willmate's, although my on-the-fly cocktail inventions do not seem to be leading to a fast-track career of tropical bartending. sushidog asks ( 5 questions ) Collection notice: if you asked for a collection recently, it's time to lay your cards on the table. owlfish has posted references to birthday saint St. James the Greater, and flickgc has produced photos of swans around London and the West Country. I believe that magfish has one or two lamppost photographs tucked away. Any others? Current Mood: relaxed (8 gold Cadillacs | Who's your daddy?)
Thursday, June 19th, 2008
11:45 pm	Birds, bees and flowering plants ( One hundred places to take a screaming baby: #88, Sainsbury's (again) ) ( One hundred places to take a screaming baby: #87, Wisley Gardens ) Poll #1207641 Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All Which of the following best described your attitude to primary school field trips? View Answers Yay! A fun and educational day away from school! 20 (58.8%) Yay! A fun and educational day away from school, field trip chaperones and permission slip activities which I plan to spend acquiring tetanus and / or heroin in an ally behind the purported educational venue! 7 (20.6%) Rhymes with "snoring". 0 (0.0%) OMG there's going to be a quiz at the end and I am going to fail third grade because I won't remember the correct order of widget assemblers at the Corvette factory. Arrrgh! What kind of paint? How do I spell chassis? Are we still in Kentucky? 4 (11.8%) I didn't go on primary school field trips. 3 (8.8%) Have you ever seen A Scot in the Arctic? A digital snowflake is employed to cover Billy Connolly's post-watershedhood. He is a brave banjo player. Current Mood: mmm, cake (28 gold Cadillacs | Who's your daddy?)
10:13 pm	Guess who's coming to dinner I am watching Hugh Ferret-Widdershins present his hairdresser and her two friends with a wriggly cuttlefish. He has made them scream by grabbing their hands with the cuttlefish used as a glove puppet. During the hairdresser fishing expedition, he has said, "You can't eat it if you wouldn't kill it." This point has been brought up during many discussions of meat eating and the ethics of not eating meat, but I'd like to explore a more general question. I've never killed anything that I've eaten, and I've never eaten anything I've killed (mostly insects, arachnids and roadkill). Gordon Ramsay has famously never changed a nappie despite fathering four children. Do you prefer to outsource some tasks (whether paid or unpaid) to other people? If so, are there also tasks which you think other people should not outsource? Adam points out that there's a difference between unwilling and willing but unable. I'm not sure I agree: I am willing to outsource all of the following types of tasks, and since I am a (sub)urban warrior instead of a pioneer loner, I don't see a reason not to: willing and able: gut fish (but it's easier to buy prepackaged fillets or get the fishmonger to deal with gutting and descaling) willing and unable: cut hair attractively (if Hugh FW's hairdresser kills a fish, would he have a go at cutting hair? Adam theorizes that Hugh would happily try, but hasn't been trained to do so. I participated in a few group split-end trimmings during university and even once bleached Adam's hair, but I would be rubbish at anything more complicated.) Also rocket science. I would love to have a go, but you'll notice that I don't have any launch codes. unwilling and able: cleaning toilets that are not my toilets (I've cleaned plenty of toilets for relatives and also in the bookshop where I worked in high school. I am, if I do say so myself, rather handy with a toilet brush. I have no desire to clean the toilets at work, at the local library, at Mothercare, at Wisley RHS Gardens, at Victoria, or any other baby-friendly convenience I have frequented recently.) unwilling and unable: brain surgery. I am really glad that someone out there does brain surgery, but ewwwwwwwww. Also public defending. I like living in a society that provides lawyers (and the public defenders I've met are very good lawyers) for people accused of crimes who cannot afford lawyers, but, in the words of the celebrity police recruitment advert from a few years ago, I couldn't do that. Is there a category of tasks that one ought to do (with training), not just be willing to do, before one may outsource them? There's quite a gulf between saying "Yeah, I'd kill a chicken" (or "Yeah, I'd clean toilets at San Quentin") and killing a chicken (or cleaning toilets at San Quentin). I've previously told a vegetarian friend that I'd be willing to try to kill a chicken, but now I'm not so sure. I pay for the outsourcing of petroleum product production and distribution, so why not outsource chicken hitpersons? What about knowledge? I had an interesting discussion many years ago after being slated for not knowing off the top of my head the rounded off number of seconds in a day (it's 86,400 - I looked it up and haven't forgotten). The person in question stipulated that everyone working in our group should be able to describe the workings of any component of the instrument from first principles up through software calibration. I asked if this included a thorough understanding of linux architecture, and the conversation paused. (I don't personally have a thoroughly understanding of linux architecture, but there were an awful lot of computers and legacy programs involved that could perhaps be considered the battery poultry execution of the chicken cordon bleu of satellite operations). If you kill animals and eat animals, good for you. If you won't kill animals and won't eat animals, good for you. Where is the line drawn between brain surgery and toilet cleaning? Current Mood: curious (10 gold Cadillacs | Who's your daddy?)
12:17 am	Adult swim When was the last time you rubbed elbows with students and youth hostellers on Queensway? Are "hostile" and "hostel" rife with potential punnage in your accent? On Tuesday night I strode past the £4.95 all-u-can-eat buffets of yorish days, tossed a nostalgic glance in the window of Khan's, and eventually met magfish for dinner at Al Waha (website has sound) on Westbourne Grove. I must acquire more data points before I can empirically deduce that all Lebanese food is good or all Lebanese food I have eaten in London is good, and Al Waha did not disappoint. I chose it from a list of restaurants for the discerning vegetarian to try. While I will happily eat most dead animals so long as nobody produces a sock puppet during the meal that says, "You're eating my mommy," I secretly like eating vegetarian meals out. magfish and I split hummous, moutabel (a.k.a. babaganoush?), aubergine / smoked pepper / tomato / garlic / spring onion salad, kallaj bil jibneh (halloumi cheese toast), foul moukala (fried broad beans), falafel and fatayer (these reminded me of empanadas stuffed with spinach, pine nuts, pomegranate, and other stuff). Very good food - I would happily go back if I was meeting someone in the area. This sounds like an odd caveat, but Westbourne Grove is such a pain in the ass to get to for an area that does a convincing impression of central London. On the plus side, Al Waha will deliver locally - locally to a picnic site in Hyde Park...? Yum yum. A splendid evening catching up, and we had a walk through Hyde Park afterwards that incorporated the Elfin Oak, the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain, and the Princess Diana Memorial Pirate Ship Adventure Playground OMG11!!!!11FTW! To play on the memorial pirate ship, adults must be either accomapanied by a child or view the ship before 9:30 am. We speculated upon the number of adults that ebonyrae could reasonably chaperone. swisstone asks ( 5 questions ) Current Mood: full of aubergine (11 gold Cadillacs | Who's your daddy?)
Tuesday, June 17th, 2008
3:00 pm	Twenty minutes of freedom Poll #1206284 Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All Did you have a bicycle during any point of your childhood and / or adolescence? View Answers Yes 59 (90.8%) No, I never had a bicycle 6 (9.2%) No, I was never a child or adolescent 0 (0.0%) If you answered "Yes" above, which if any of the following accessories did your bicycle sport? View Answers basket 21 (46.7%) flag on the back 3 (6.7%) streamers from the handlebars 8 (17.8%) baseball cards in the spokes 6 (13.3%) obligatory "accursed Americans and their cultural entitlement; obviously we had cheese and marmite sandwiches in our spokes instead of baseball cards" ticky box 24 (53.3%) In unrelated news, while in Devon I picked up a handful of pebbles on the beach, and two were shaped like hearts. Charlie Brown's Big Book of Questions and Answers #1 stipulates that human and animal hearts look nothing like valentines. What is the history of ♥ as a symbol? Current Mood: achoo! (28 gold Cadillacs | Who's your daddy?)
10:20 am	Happy plaice Head: A 9 week old baby will expand her repertoire of cooing sounds to include such syllables as "ah", "guh", "ma", "beh", and "eugh". She may utter a series of these noises to herself, "converse" with an adult who repeats the sounds back to her, or merely utter single coos inside a wider array of gurgling. No cognition is attached to the cooing sounds at this time. Heart: OH MY GOD, MY BABY SAID HER FIRST WORD ON FRIDAY, AND IT WAS 'MAMA'. Clear as day. I have four witnesses, including my husband, my inlaws, and one half-shorn sheep frisking about on a National Trust coastal path. New favourite restaurant alert: my beloved Creeler's has been demoted, and the Oyster Shack is now in pole position. Since we're in Devon for our anniversary, I requested lunch with Adam at the Oyster Shack in Bigbury. Adam's mother looked after Katie, Adam's dad provided pick-up and drop-off services along the tidal road to Bigbury, and Adam and I embarked upon an orgy of shellfish as high tide rose. We sat outside on the porch. Two orange sails have been stretched over 10 - 12 tables to keep off the worst of the wind, rain, and sun, but we had a dry, overcast day. ( Le menu du Shack ) The crab was the size of a smallish John Deere bush hog, so it became a labour of love for both of us. Intense concentration, and no talking beyond, "Pass the winkler." "Crab cracker, please." (Both implements delivered with a hot towel inside a red plastic sand bucket.) Aside from a moment of exquisite agony when I smashed my finger inside the cracker, the meal was bliss. The one lane tidal road will tickle your inner budding sad swotty bird watcher - storks, egrets, gulls, shags, swans with cygnets, and all kinds of tiny zooming birds. The Oyster Shack is highly recommended, although make sure that you have a tide table unless you plan to ford the road in a monster truck. Current Mood: loved (8 gold Cadillacs | Who's your daddy?)
Thursday, June 12th, 2008
1:31 am	The portmanteau contains USDA Red 40 to maintain a 'natural' tomato colour Friday: I felt something cold and snuffly on the back of my thigh in Cafe Nero. When I looked over my shoulder, I saw a guide dog with its head under my skirt. Saturday: field trip to metropolitan Chesham to visit James, Fiona, Alex, and newcomer Eleanor, NOWAOLJ. Eleanor is 3 weeks old, but she did not make Katie look like a monster baby. It was a gorgeous warm day, so we took the 3 small people to the beer garden of the local pub with Thai kitchen. After 15 minutes, we noticed that our table was the only one enjoying the summer weather. Oops. Sunday: I took Katie to an NCT teddy bears' picnic in Nonsuch Park. I had no idea that so many family picnics, Hook the Duck booths, and Chinese dragon exhibition areas could fit inside the cat yard behind the defunct1 aviary. I considered dressing up but hesitated after totting up the future therapy bills. Nice visit with 3 other NCT ladies, but I left when the Lion King karaoke started. Monday: sunny picnic lunch with margotmetroland in Lincoln Inn Fields followed by pink fizz, risotto and kittens at Neil and Jane's. Tuesday: picnic at Polesden Lacey with NCT Rachel and Imogen. My diet is now 97.3% tortilla wrap and individually packaged fruit portions. I'd been overwhelmed by the morning's outfit changes, and it must have shown while I was ferreting through the diaper bag for my wallet. The National Trust lady said, "Oh, I shouldn't worry about it, dear. Just go on in." Rachel and I set up camp under a tree with a view of sheep, and the two babies kicked, waved, gurgled and slept. Polesden Lacey has a gorgeous rose garden featuring a barbed wire interpretive squirrel sculpture and a well-appointed tea room. Wednesday: lunch at Carluccio's with haggisthesecond in St. John's Wood followed by a great deal of time spent staring at a wall in Marks & Sparks while my brain may have been used by zombies, and finally a reviving visit to Inn the Park with Adam. This is becoming a habit. If there is any threat of having to squeeze onto a rush hour commuter train with a baby at an unknown distance from the end of a tether of length x, let's go to the park instead. ( One hundred places to take a screaming baby: #89, Abbey Road ) Choose your own adventure: you've just sneezed on somebody's head. What do you do? 1Due to vandalism and chicken theft. The parakeets are still in their hutches, but visitors must peer through the fence. 2 Someday they will do dance battle with hippies who have sought out Jim Morrison in Père Lachaise. Both camps will mark me, and I will die of trite. Current Mood: really sleepy (16 gold Cadillacs | Who's your daddy?)
Wednesday, June 11th, 2008
12:16 am	Saucy grinch Poll #1202944 Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All The use of bechamel sauce as a fondue? View Answers That's a fonDON'T. 9 (45.0%) Bad and wrong. Bring it over here. 8 (40.0%) Bread, new potatoes, strawberries, kangaroo... there's no way that bechamel sauce doesn't work as fondue. 3 (15.0%) All 18 LJ collection challenges have now been posted here. Current Mood: sleepy (4 gold Cadillacs | Who's your daddy?)
Tuesday, June 10th, 2008
8:52 pm	Lasso the cow in McPherson's Paddock I love summer. I have a farmer's tan. The cats are lolling in the dregs of sunset, there's jazz on the radio, and the baby's asleep on the bed. I owe the world emails, thank you notes, eBay packages, embassy forms in triplicate, and 9 collection challenges. (And if you're the twinkettes, there's a moratorium on baby pictures until my camera dries out from the water I tipped into yesterday.) But not right now. I have a glass of wine and a bechamel sauce to make for Adam's lasagne. The lasagne drank most of the wine, but the bottle in the chamber has a cowboy on it. And cherry tomatoes that taste like sunshine dust. Current Mood: delighted (Who's your daddy?)
Monday, June 9th, 2008
10:10 am	Sunny Monday A year and a day ago, offensive_mango presented her mixed media collection of references to Shakespeare contained within the flotsam and jetsam of modern life. miss_soap collected pun-based business names in and around the Docklands while owlfish kept an international photodiary of windmills. denalyia photographed orange things. I collected signs of public transportation connecting London with Nogales, Mexico. Now offensive_mango has challenged me to challenge the LJ collective to collect once more. If you would like to participate, click "Yes" below. I will post challenges under a cut tag on this post, so check back here. (And rattle my cage if you don't receive a challenge within 24 hours but still want one.) Poll #1201876 Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All Would you like a 1 week LJ collection challenge? View Answers Yes! 18 (72.0%) No, but I MUST HAVE A BUTTON TO CLICK. 4 (16.0%) No. And I don't need a button to click, either. 3 (12.0%) Real Life tips from Douglas Coupland: ...Falling out of love happens as quickly as falling in. ...Good-looking people with strong, fluoridated teeth get things handed to them on platters. ...Animals spend time with you only if you feed them. ...People armed with shopping carts who know what they want and where they're going will always cream clueless people standing in the middle of aisles holding vague shopping lists. ...Time speeds up in a terrifying manner in your mid-thirties. ~The Gum Thief Question of the day: Why do I check out Douglas Coupland books thinking, "Ha ha, this will be funny. Boy was that Microserfs right on the money!" He is a brilliant writer of characters, but I think that comes from a hobby of scooping up star-nosed moles in a jai alai stick until they blink painfully under a 500 watt examination light1. ( LJ Collection Challenges: the first 9 ) 1Disclaimer: I have no reason to believe that Douglas Coupland has ever exercised cruelty against a star-nosed mole. I do keep forgetting that his books are bleaker than the Hotel Ibis breakfast buffet. Current Mood: gorgeous day (35 gold Cadillacs | Who's your daddy?)
Friday, June 6th, 2008
1:36 pm	Mills, walls, tidal defences, and further ducks ://You know those days when there's nothing in the cupboard for breakfast except the sad dregs of some boll weevilly muesli? Not today. I heard the faint vibrato indicating choirs of seraphim in the refrigerator1, and, lo and behold, contained therein was a ready-to-bake fully-loaded meat lover's pizza. I have done a little pepperoni dance. Poor Katie is tetchy this morning following a big day out and day 3 of a snotty cold, but the pepperoni dance seems to have put her to sleep.   ( One hundred places to take a screaming baby: #91, a scheduled maintenance closing of the Thames Barrier, and #90, the Isle of Thanet. ) This did not go entirely as planned4, but an hour and a half later I did find a free parking space and the congestion charge was long over. I met some lovely people for dinner and battle plans at Inn the Park. I was surpised to find that my lovely, baby-friendly, and above all empty on weekday evenings oasis had been mostly booked out by Unisys with the remaining table space crammed full of tourists fresh from the trooping the colour rehearsal and pedestrians daring to enjoy the pleasant summer weather. Nevertheless, a large table had been secured in the cafe section, and the outstanding waiters brought cutlery and let us order from the restaurant menu. The self-serve food is always good, but I can now recommend both the fish & chips and the steak. A great day out followed by a great evening, and now I have a baby with starfish fingers snoring on my lap. Little does she know that we have a coffee date in 45 minutes. 1Why is the diminutive endearment for "refrigerator" spelled "fridge"? While we're on the subject, why is "Dick" one of the optional shortened forms of "Richard"? Or "Libby" for "Elizabeth"2? 2Never call me Libby. I won't answer, but I will remember. And when you least expect it, I will assail you with a ninja star. 3I've just realized that in our haste to decamp from Sarre, we missed the Sarre Wall and Wall End, which I feel sure must host a kissing gate to Stardust.  4 Had I in fact followed my original plan and left the car in the Limehouse parking space I pulled into and gotten public transport, I would have been there in 20 minutes. But why waste those 5 minutes on the tube when I could be admiring ducks? I am a nitwit.  Current Mood: coffee sooooon! (10 gold Cadillacs | Who's your daddy?)
Wednesday, June 4th, 2008
7:12 pm	Sunday, Monday, happy days; Tuesday, Wednesday, happy days Saturday: I went to the beauty parlor to get a few inches whacked off my hair and undergo my summer cloroxing. Since the establishment in question is within range of my home wireless network, I usually take my laptop so that I can feed my LJ addiction avoid chit-chat log into work. No need this time. Adam had Katie, so I spent 3 hours flipping through magazines and learning about Devon's Beer Quarry Caves from the girl doing my foils. billyabbott joined us for cheeseburgers and Lynchburg lemonade, and I am amazed to report that no dual action Guitar Hero was undertaken. Sunday: at last, at last we made it to the Morden Hall Park rose garden while actual roses were actually blooming! We also saw all the dogs in the world, tiny puffball moorhen chicks, Wandle fish, and very nice cakes in the tearoom. Monday: Katie's 8 week checkup. I have the only non-bilingual baby in the baby clinic catchment area. But I've just dripped cold rotel on her foot, so at least she'll have conversational white trash. Tuesday: superstar sushidog kept watch over Katie, so Adam and I joined haggisthesecond, naxos, owlfish and colins_journal for dinner at Baltic. (Warning: website has sound. Not just sound, jazz. The menu is eastern European. I had Siberian pelmeni, blinis with a selection of toppings (herring, mackerel, salmon, mushroom / aubergine, and mystery roe), kasza with bacon, Hungarian torte and some Tokaji. It seems I have been mispronouncing everything I have ever ordered at a Polish restaurant. In fairness, I have probably been mispronouncing everything I have ever ordered from any restaurant not specializing in fried catfish. Delicious food and sterling company - fantastic evening. Wednesday: coffee with sushidog and then off to the movies! ( One hundred places to take a screaming baby: #92, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull at the Epsom Odeon newbies screening. ) Canadian of the year: "Sort of like a No Exit with feathered hats." ~Samantha Bee on Sex in the City. I would have Samantha Bee's babies if she was not already having Jason Jones's babies. Cassandra speaks: "Don't fight it son. Confess quickly! If you hold out too long you could jeopardize your credit rating." ~Brazil, 1985 And finally, in rare awareness of current events, Obama has the Democratic party presidential nomination! Wow! Current Mood: mmm, rotel (16 gold Cadillacs | Who's your daddy?)