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A Chieftain Finds Love
Dec. 20th, 2014 11:41 pmDidn't I have this title before? [checks] No, I read The Chieftain Without A Heart. But he also found love. That's where I got confused.
I am currently watching Arachnophobia. I had forgotten all about this film. I went to see it in the cinema when it first came out, way back in the dark ages. As I type, two spiders are in close-up, having a conference and drumming their front legs thoughtfully, like, hmmm, what shall we do now? Because that's how spiders operate. Never mind the spiders, though. Julian Sands is playing a world-famous spiderologist. He is dressed like Indiana Jones with Lucius Malfoy's hair. It is amazing.
Life is not particularly like a bowl of cherries chez Daisy just now. Not many cherries at all. You can always tell when things are going well for me, I find: that's when I find plenty of nonsense to witter on about. And then the glooms descend and I can't write anything. Anyway. I will try to buck myself up. What shall I say?
We had our Christmas lunch at work yesterday, even though we have one-and-a-half days to work next week. We did a Kris Kringle. I like to try and guess who gave what present. I spend quite a lot of time thinking about that. I drew our boss' name, which made it the easiest Kris Kringle gift I have ever had to buy. I am not sure if I have mentioned this before, but his horrible former boss is married to a man who is suspected of murdering his previous two wives. A journalist has written a true crime short story about this, which is only available as an e-book. 'How can I read that?' my boss asked me earlier in the year. I explained about iBooks on his iPad, or downloading the free Kindle app on whatever device he wanted, then whatever app he was using, he just buys the book and reads it to his heart's content. 'I'm not paying two dollars thirty-six for it!' he said, and went off the idea. So I bought the Kindle version and (shhh) removed the DRM so I could turn it into a Word document and print it out for him. It cost me $2.36 plus whatever it costs for toner, thirteen sheets of paper and a staple. That would be nowhere near our ten dollar limit, so I threw in a jar of bacon and onion jam from a batch I made last weekend. He seemed pleased with both. (He guessed they came from me.)
(Julian Sands is no longer dressed like Indiana Jones. He is now wearing a pale suit with a particularly wide-legged pant, which would seem like an ill-advised costume for someone hunting a rogue spider. Not that it mattered, as the spider jumped on his neck to bite him, that being far more dramatic than running up his trouser leg.)
I did well out of the Kris Kringle myself. I think my giver was the office manager, and she gave me a set of mugs:
I like owls, which she knows. What she couldn't know is that only last week, the fourth and final of my one set of matching mugs broke. So that was a timely gift.
The office manager is very sweet-natured. The gift she received was the most ghastly figurine you can imagine. It was about 30cm high, an extremely detailed hamster wearing a blue Hawaiian shirt and a sombrero, and playing a wooden guitar. Hideous. The office manager is so nice, she smiled and said what a lovely surprise, and actually sounded sincere. Then she opened the card and read the note inside, which said that her giver had ordered something nice but it hadn't arrived in time, so please accept this hamster as a placeholder. And the office manager, bless her, said, 'Oh my goodness, I get two presents!' (I believe Jane the Researcher to be behind this.)
(I have to say, top marks to the music score of Arachnophobia. It sounds very dramatic and thrilling. It is doing some very heavy lifting in this scene in which Jeff Daniels is trapped underneath a lightweight wooden wine rack, throwing bottles at a rubber spider half a room away.)
I sat next to New Angela, whom I cannot get used to calling Jenny in these pages. For all her many fine qualities, she is not a woman given to whimsy. Her Kris Kringle gift was a pop pop boat, which is a little tin boat that you stick a candle in to make it putt along in the bath. I thought it was cute, but she seemed slightly baffled. (I think she would have preferred some nice hand cream.) I can't quite decide which of our colleagues gave her that. Process of elimination from guessing who gave all the other presents suggests it was New Lady... yes, I can see that.
She told me she is getting bicycle for Christmas. 'I told Peter I wanted one,' she said, 'and he believed me.'
(Jeff Daniels is now engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the rubber spider. Now he is paralysed with fear while the rubber spider walks up his leg. Now he is flipping the spider off his leg and into a fire. Now he is screaming in terror while the now flaming spider runs at him. Now he is shooting the flaming spider with a nail gun. Man, this is a good film.)
I am currently watching Arachnophobia. I had forgotten all about this film. I went to see it in the cinema when it first came out, way back in the dark ages. As I type, two spiders are in close-up, having a conference and drumming their front legs thoughtfully, like, hmmm, what shall we do now? Because that's how spiders operate. Never mind the spiders, though. Julian Sands is playing a world-famous spiderologist. He is dressed like Indiana Jones with Lucius Malfoy's hair. It is amazing.
Life is not particularly like a bowl of cherries chez Daisy just now. Not many cherries at all. You can always tell when things are going well for me, I find: that's when I find plenty of nonsense to witter on about. And then the glooms descend and I can't write anything. Anyway. I will try to buck myself up. What shall I say?
We had our Christmas lunch at work yesterday, even though we have one-and-a-half days to work next week. We did a Kris Kringle. I like to try and guess who gave what present. I spend quite a lot of time thinking about that. I drew our boss' name, which made it the easiest Kris Kringle gift I have ever had to buy. I am not sure if I have mentioned this before, but his horrible former boss is married to a man who is suspected of murdering his previous two wives. A journalist has written a true crime short story about this, which is only available as an e-book. 'How can I read that?' my boss asked me earlier in the year. I explained about iBooks on his iPad, or downloading the free Kindle app on whatever device he wanted, then whatever app he was using, he just buys the book and reads it to his heart's content. 'I'm not paying two dollars thirty-six for it!' he said, and went off the idea. So I bought the Kindle version and (shhh) removed the DRM so I could turn it into a Word document and print it out for him. It cost me $2.36 plus whatever it costs for toner, thirteen sheets of paper and a staple. That would be nowhere near our ten dollar limit, so I threw in a jar of bacon and onion jam from a batch I made last weekend. He seemed pleased with both. (He guessed they came from me.)
(Julian Sands is no longer dressed like Indiana Jones. He is now wearing a pale suit with a particularly wide-legged pant, which would seem like an ill-advised costume for someone hunting a rogue spider. Not that it mattered, as the spider jumped on his neck to bite him, that being far more dramatic than running up his trouser leg.)
I did well out of the Kris Kringle myself. I think my giver was the office manager, and she gave me a set of mugs:
I like owls, which she knows. What she couldn't know is that only last week, the fourth and final of my one set of matching mugs broke. So that was a timely gift.
The office manager is very sweet-natured. The gift she received was the most ghastly figurine you can imagine. It was about 30cm high, an extremely detailed hamster wearing a blue Hawaiian shirt and a sombrero, and playing a wooden guitar. Hideous. The office manager is so nice, she smiled and said what a lovely surprise, and actually sounded sincere. Then she opened the card and read the note inside, which said that her giver had ordered something nice but it hadn't arrived in time, so please accept this hamster as a placeholder. And the office manager, bless her, said, 'Oh my goodness, I get two presents!' (I believe Jane the Researcher to be behind this.)
(I have to say, top marks to the music score of Arachnophobia. It sounds very dramatic and thrilling. It is doing some very heavy lifting in this scene in which Jeff Daniels is trapped underneath a lightweight wooden wine rack, throwing bottles at a rubber spider half a room away.)
I sat next to New Angela, whom I cannot get used to calling Jenny in these pages. For all her many fine qualities, she is not a woman given to whimsy. Her Kris Kringle gift was a pop pop boat, which is a little tin boat that you stick a candle in to make it putt along in the bath. I thought it was cute, but she seemed slightly baffled. (I think she would have preferred some nice hand cream.) I can't quite decide which of our colleagues gave her that. Process of elimination from guessing who gave all the other presents suggests it was New Lady... yes, I can see that.
She told me she is getting bicycle for Christmas. 'I told Peter I wanted one,' she said, 'and he believed me.'
(Jeff Daniels is now engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the rubber spider. Now he is paralysed with fear while the rubber spider walks up his leg. Now he is flipping the spider off his leg and into a fire. Now he is screaming in terror while the now flaming spider runs at him. Now he is shooting the flaming spider with a nail gun. Man, this is a good film.)