Carte Postale
Around 2 years when I started post crossing, I kept a stash of around 10 cards at any given time. Over the months, this grew to.. well I don’t even know how many blank postcards I have now. I bought about 3 kilos worth while away last year, and I tend to buy boxed, booked and well any old card I can lay my grubby hands on. Some of them end up in my own collection (though I do prefer them written on) and the rest are set aside for Post Crossing requests. If someone wants sunsets, boats, camels or anything else, I would dig through my stash to find something. After a while I got tired of that, and sorted the cards into categories for easier findering. Here’s the old system in action:
It worked pretty okay, but had some downsides. For one, this house is pretty much full of millipedes who like to crawl into boxes and die. Also the cards get bent up and dusty. ALSO the boxes tend to attract other bits and bobs that are not cards. ALSO unless i kept something in there to prop them up, the cards tended to all fall over all the time, which for some reason seriously annoys me.
I just finished sorting out the stash – including all the random things that weren’t in the original boxes – into these drawers. Ideally, I’d like to replace these with wooden drawers at some point, but for now the plastic is okay (and cheap). Plus sides are that the cards are stored flat, away from dust and bugs. The only downside is that oversized cards don’t fit, so I’m trying to think of something to do with those (apart from send entirely oversized cards to people for a while).
It’s odd how good I feel about finally sorting out the pile of cards. I also had a really good clean out of the cards I got in bulk a year or so ago, tossing the ones I’ll never send. Well not tossing, putting in a box to decide what to do with. I SHOULD throw them into the recycling, but I might collage or something with them. You never know.
My god this blog is fascinating, isn’t it?
Airplants
I wandered to Savers today to see if they had any nice breakable china for me to break and stick airplants to. They didn’t, but I hovered aimlessly for a bit eavesdropping on a woman in her 40s who was there with her mother. She was one of those people who can’t do thinking without talking, so the conversation ran like this:
“Mummy, what’s this? Is it for weddings? I didn’t have one at my wedding, but I don’t remember my wedding really. Went to work the next day, so my brain didn’t really realise I was married. Mummy, look at this, this is Copperart, this is. I’m going to get that, that’s collectible, you can’t get Copperart anymore because they closed, that’s really collectible. I’ll get that for a present or something. Mummy, look at this doll, it has fake eyes. No some dolls have real eyes, this one has fake ones. Mummy is that more Copperart?”
For those playing at home who have NO idea what Copperart is, I present you with this commercial:
So so so very collectible, and not at all available in $2 shops everywhere.
Once I got home I was stuck for something to attach the plants to, so after some pondering I remembered the rubbish pit in the paddock. See, this house was built in the early 1900s and being on a few acres the original owners, and a few of those who came after, used a ditch in the paddock to toss their trash into. This sounds very nasty, but it’s full of wonderful broken china and even old toys (although I think our mass excavations of the 1980s uncovered most of the choice pieces). I dug around with a stick for a bit until I uncovered some nice bits of china to mount the plants on, and here are the results.
I’ve long been a fan of Tillandsia, but have only ever found them for sale stuck to horrible fridge magnets, so finding them loose at the Garden Show was awesometacular. Did you notice how I said Tillandsia and not Airplants just then? That was me pretending to know more about them than I do – for example, I have NO idea what the names for these ones are.
While at Mitre10, I picked up a large light globe which I hope to be able to make into a terrarium for another airplant. Ahem, sorry, I meant Tillandsia.
Flower Show
Even though I don’t currently garden, I like pretty flowers (coz I am a girl) and so went along with my mother and aunt to the Melbourne Flower and Garden Show yesterday. It was a stinking hot day, and we about broke ourselves wandering around in the heat, but it was very lovely overall.
Generally speaking, I didn’t really enjoy the “Arrangements”. Not to crap on those who worked hard on them, but they just weren’t to my taste. A little too much “deep meaning” and not quite enough plant life. I know, I know, it’s art and that’s great and I love that people did it, just not my taste. Having said that there were two I really loved:
I really liked the rose graffiti, for one. The colours are awesome and the booth was laid out really well. The second one I loved was the carnation wheel:
The building was not as busy this year. Last year when Mama and I went it was a day of almost non stop torrential rain, so everyone was inside mostly. This year was totally opposite, the gardens were packed and the hall pretty empty. There were plenty of lovely shady spots to collapse though, which was handy.
The stalls and booths varied from the simple to the complex, with prices to match. One booth which stocked a delicious array of carved sandstone garden sculptures also had prices up to $16,000 so I don’t know how many sales they made on the day.
Gardeners are a generally friendly lot and while wandering alone looking for Mama and Jan (I’d dashed over to the Museum to stock up on postcards while I was in the area) I struck up quite a few conversations with people as we wandered the pathways. Conversations about flower colours, prices and delicious furniture, as well as offering directions and suggestions. Everyone was there for a good day, and the cheerfulness of the crowd was pretty infectious.
The Collectors Stand was probably the busiest. They were selling cuttings for cheap, for one, and for 2 (grammar be damned) they had a wonderful collection of cacti, air plants and other weird and wonderful plants.
I picked up four air plants (one of which is stuck to a frog ornament, there’s a shock) and a Dead Elephant Plant*. The airplants, which I’ve always loved, will be mounted this weekend. Mama availed herself to the cheap cuttings (seriously, some people were buying up huge amounts).
The Growers section was back again this year, giving us so much beauty and colour.
Just deliciousness. You can see a few more shots (including the garden chairs someone needs to buy me please) over at my Flickr Set of the show.
*If you go to your local nursery and ask for a Dead Elephant Plant they will think you’re a lunatic. What you need to ask for is a Stone Plant. Mama and I call them Dead Elephant Plants because when I was a mere slip of a girl we had one that looked like someone had buried a dead elephant with its feet sticking up out of the ground.
Simple Rules for Conversing with my Budgie.
Chook the budgie was a random purchase one day when I was in the pet shop looking for things to spoil my dogs silly with. In the “baby males” cage was this little scrap of an albino budgie, and I decided, after coffee, that he needed to come and live with me. The lady in the pet shop was thrilled and helped me sort out the cage, food and even sold me stuff I’d need, and didn’t try to sell me stuff I didn’t need. She was thrilled because apparently it’s harder to sell the whites, people want the greens and blues – typical budgie colours. She spent about an hour with me, chatting about birds. She herself has (or had, I daresay she’s gathered a few more) a collection of “NQR” budgies. These are the Not Quite Right ones that won’t sell. Birds with odd feet, or odd beaks or any other imperfection that makes them unsaleable go home with her and live a spoiled life. As a lifelong owner of reject animals, I very much liked her dedication to the odd birdies.
Anywhoo, back to Chook. Who was originally named Mojo, but Chook suited him better and he sorta kinda answers to it. The thing about Chook is this: He is demented. Utterly and totally off his trolley. Nuts. Adorable, though.
The video there shows Chook’s one party trick – stick control. This brings us to…
Rule #1: Do not touch, handle or otherwise interfere with the seed stick.
Seriously man, it’s not worth it. For one, you will be abused by a tiny feathered ball of rage. He will be FURIOUS, hang on to the stick and either bite you or headbutt you (when he’s so cross he forgets how to bite). The stick belongs to him, you may not have it.
Rule #2: Do not allow an empty seed stick to be empty.
I’m pretty mean in that I wait till he’s eaten ALL the seed before I replace the stick. This means that some mornings when I take the cover off his cage, I am greeted with a little cranky ball of fluff who grabs the empty stick and shakes it at me with recrimination in his little pink eyes. If a stick is not forthcoming, he will rage. This brings us to …
Rule #3: Do not laugh at tiny adorable rage.
In his head, Chook is the size of a horse and therefore his rage is neither funny or cute. You may cower suitably, but do not giggle.
Rule #4: Gifts and bribes are acceptable at all times.
Grass is always welcome, you may peg it to the perch. Thank you now bugger off.
Rule #5: Just because he’s making kissy face at you while you’re outside the cage doesn’t mean he wants to be your best friend.
Thankfully budgie bites are not painful, but while he loves everyone who passes by while they’re outside the cage, the minute they invade his space he becomes a whirling dervish of rage and biting. See Rule #3.
Usually, despite his addiction to seed sticks (he does also have ordinary seed to nom, which he enjoys) he will allow the boring empty one to be taken away and replaced with a nice new full one. As of yesterday however, he has decided all sticks must remain his. This is handy in that when I let him out for a flap around I can catch him easily by waving the empty stick at him. He’s very sweet and kissy to me most of the time.
As a note, I once went to a supermarket to get some seed sticks, and they didn’t have the right kind in stock, so I had to take a FORTY MINUTE detour on the way home to get him some. Don’t tell me I don’t spoil my animals, coz I do.
Hooded and Hot in all the wrong ways.
It’s around 31 degrees in Melbourne today, which is about 87F for my backwards friends. Warm. Hot, in fact. A good 11 degrees over my happy place. Most everyone is wandering around in the lightest clothes they own, apart from the poor guys working for the council in their council issue overalls.
Mama and I did the grocery shop and as we got back into the car (inside temp of car: Approx 7,000 degrees) and we looked up to see a family of three crossing the road. Two teenage boys and their mother were heading for the cafe. One of the boys was wearing shorts and a singlet type top, the mother was wearing a sundress. The other boy? Shorts… and a fleeced hooded jacket, zipped to the top, hood up. Under his bleach blonde hair, his face was the general colour of a tomato. Obviously too hot, and the heat escape which normally happens from the top of the head was blocked by a layer of thick grey fleece. No lightweight hoods for this guy!
Now, I know that the pants around the knees and hoods and whatnots are coming to our shore from the US, and I also know that suburban Melbourne and downtown Chicago are practically identical (I know I sometimes think I’ve passed out and been smuggled to the states when I drive through our suburbs), but there’s got to be limits to how much one will do for “cool”.
Back in High School I had some Goth friends who scurried from shelter to shelter in order to avoid getting any sun on them. One day a bunch of us went to the beach, and I listened in hysterics on the way home as one of the goths complained bitterly that he’d got a tan, despite the frequent and massive application of sunscreen.
This same guy once spent a 35 degree day in black leather pants, a black longsleeved shirt and boots up to his knees. Also black. He must have downed about 5 litres of water that day, and spent it looking rather red and bothered rather than cool and interesting.
I’m not knocking people’s fashion alliances, if you want to be goth, hoody, emo or whatever else is around now, then by all means do and enjoy, but maybe make sure your wardrobe contains a few things for different weather. You can’t just not go out in summer, and sweating like an old ham isn’t really that pretty. Also, it makes your makeup run.
Let’s talk about chests.
Boobs, tits, jugs, devils dumplings, fun bags, bazoombas, norks, The Girls, yabbos, dirty pillows, ding dongs, breasts, boulders, mozzie bites, milk bars.
Let’s talk, universe, about the female chestal area. Nature has seen fit to provide women with a means of feeding babies – just as all mammals do – with milk. Thankfully, we skipped the 6 nipple variation and went with two. For whatever reason, breasts are also a sexual thing which I don’t deny, even if I can’t explain why. Women spend hundreds of dollars on bras that lift, support, separate, squish, enlarge or flatten their mammaries. Other women just like them held in place. Some women, curse them, don’t even need a bra. Of course, some of THOSE women wish they did need a bra, so really no one is that happy with what nature gave them.
In many cultures (as any teenage boy with a copy of National Geographic can tell you), women are not required to cover their breasts. I suppose it’s just never occurred to them that boobs are evil and must be stopped, so they get about with a bit of a belty thing and a basket and all is good. In western culture, where we don’t have to worry about things like getting enough to eat, we have ample time to be concerned with the ampleness ladies carry about. Apart from the occasional topless beach, or nude beach, or commune or whatever, women are expected to keep their top half covered at least enough to prevent any public nipple exposure. While some places have no laws to say women can’t go topless like men, other places would explode in a blast of horror if a lass got her goods out in the street.
Which brings me, eventually, to the two things I found very super interesting. One of them is quite old, actually. I would have blogged it at the time but I was taking a nap. Anyway, in 2006 (told you), a magazine called Baby Talk featured a cover photograph of a baby being breastfed. The outcry was immediate and intense. Women complained it was “gross” and “disgusting”. Many women said they had destroyed the cover before their husband or sons could see it. It wasn’t the act of breastfeeding which was upsetting them, it was the fact there was a breast on the cover. You can see the cover here, where you will note there is no nipple and not really even a lot of breast.
According to this article, the concern was that men – being the animalistic dorks they are – would see this picture of a baby feeding and instantly be turned on to the point of passing out. Which is a load of old balls, if you’ll pardon the expression. Not wanting your husband to see it? Has he never seen a boob before? Not wanting your 13 year old to see it? Honey, the internet is full of boobs and I assure you, your son has seen a few by now. The fact is, that while they are very sexual, they are basically milk delivery systems, that’s the point of them even existing, so if the idea of someone seeing a picture of a baby feeding at the breast is so disgusting, then clearly something is not right.
Moving along swiftly to the website Cute Overload, who recently posted a photo of a hamster tucked inside his owners bra while she cleaned his cage out. You’d honestly be amazed at how much rage there is on a blog dedicated to adorable animals in the first place, but this really pushed a ton of people over the edge. More “gross!” and “disgusting!” and “Ewww!” with a few “Get over it!” thrown in for good measure, but the overwhelming feel from the comments on this page is “Breasts are nasty, let us never speak of them again”. The owner of said breasts came in and told everyone off, and the owners of the site repaid stupid comments in kind, so kudos to them.
The “Breasts are disgusting” mindset is dangerous for three reasons (mine gott but this post is getting long. Feel free to grab a cuppa).
1. Teaching women that boobs are disgusting and should be hidden away from the world and never talked or thought about means less of a chance these women will be doing breast self exams. The key point of breast exams is not just finding lumps or bumps, but it’s spotting changes in your breasts. Women who consider breasts to be evil or dirty are far less likely to be watching for these changes, and that is a dangerous thing. Every female from the teens onwards should be checking regularly for changes, and yes young women do get breast cancer. There needs to be open acceptance and discussion of methods, times and what to do if you happen to find a lump or a change, not a blanket “Ew, icky, let’s talk about daffodils”. Women need to be familiar with their breasts, and the changes in shape, size and texture that happen throughout the month.
2. If the concept of breastfeeding is seen as nasty or gross, or something to be ashamed of, less women will attempt breastfeeding. Now I’m not saying that every woman SHOULD breast feed, for some women it’s not possible for a variety of reasons and there’s never a reason to shame or blame these women. However, those who are able to should be encouraged to do so. Nature grants human babies with the ideal food, and telling women they should be ashamed of taking advantage of that is a terrible crime.
3. Women have long been taught that their bodies are wrong and disgusting anyway. Natural things like cellulite, body hair, padded hips etc are held up as signs of disgrace and ugliness. Surely we deserve a break, and if that break is boob shaped then so be it. Regarding the Cute Overload drama, my boy said “It’s amazing how many of the offended people are women”, and it’s true. A lot of the people screaming “Gross!” on both the CO post and the magazine cover are women. Women, far more than men, are being taught to be ashamed of their bodies unless they are able to meet an impossible ideal. To add breast hate to that list is just too too much.
I’m not saying that women should wander the world topless, but I am saying it’s time we dragged our arses out of the dark ages and realised that breasts are just skin and fat. They were not sent by the devil to tempt men, they were not designed to cause the downfall of society. They exist, on a purely biological level, to assist in the raising of babies. And, in my case, to get in the way a lot, but that is a blog post for another time.
Who’s for a cup of tea?