Salt and corrosion

It's been a while since we had a fashion suggestion from the magazine in the Sunday paper. ( So savour this )

From a piece about the people remembering the sinking of the Titanic:

Some participants in the memorial events - many of them history buffs or descendants of passengers of the doomed voyage - came with personal stories about how the Titanic touched their lives.

Wendy Burkhart, a British Columbia resident who crossed the continent to attend the ceremonies in Halifax, said James Cameron's 1997 movie about the tragedy was a trigger for her marriage to college sweetheart Jerry Evans, who reminded her of Titanic star Leonardo DiCaprio.

"I was struck by his resemblance to Jerry when we were younger," she said.

"Right there, I vowed to someday get back together with him."

That's... that's not really anything to do with the ship sinking, is it?

I think one night recently a great flock of these family stickers swept through town and landed on every third car. They are everywhere. Everywhere, I tell you. Except on my car. The office manager at my work has them: husband, her, horse and dog. Except she actually has two horses, two dogs and a cat, so every time I pass her car I wonder what the other horse, the other dog and the cat did to annoy her the day she bought her stickers.

Do you have trouble with those strings that are attached inside the shoulder seams of some shirts? They're very handy for helping shirts stay on the hanger, but they're an awful pest to wear. I seem to spend half my day tucking them back in.

The office manager at my work was in a bit of a tizz yesterday. Her son is getting married on Saturday, and she bought a dress to wear months ago. She liked it, obviously; she showed her son and his fiancée, and they liked it. She duly put it in her wardrobe, pleased to be all sorted out so early.

Tuesday night, she thought she'd better try it on, just to make sure that it was all in order. Her husband took one look at it and declared it to be frumpy, like something his nan would wear. He suggested that she wear an old dress that he liked, and was surprised when the office manager explained that the mother of the groom really shouldn't wear white at a wedding. Hence her tizz yesterday, rushing around trying to find something. Well done, husband of office manager.

Of course, she couldn't find anything, partly because she was panic-looking and partly because just after the sales and in the middle of tourist season isn't the best time to find something. She was nearly in tears when she came back from lunch.

Anyway, last night she sent a photo of herself wearing the dress to her daughter, who pronounced it 'classy'. So the dress is back on and today she went out looking for shoes. So that was a saga.

Another saga has been running hot in the local paper. A family had a dog called Ted. They went away on holiday, leaving Ted in the care of a friend. Ted went missing one day.

What had happened to Ted was this: someone had found him and taken him to the local animal shelter. He wasn't chipped or registered, so they held him in the shelter for the required length of time, then put him up for adoption, from where he was taken in by a new family.

So the first family came home from their holiday, and started searching for Ted. After a week, their vet told them Ted was at the shelter and had been adopted. The vet acted as an intermediary, but to no avail: the new family won't give Ted up. So the first family went to the local paper, and now everyone in town has an opinion on the matter.

I think they should get together and see who Ted wants to be with.

I went to buy this morning's paper at ten o'clock-ish and the customer ahead of me was wearing pink flannelette pyjamas and a grubby white chenille dressing gown. I can't imagine doing that. I prefer to get dressed as soon as I get up, and even on days when I might have breakfast before showering, I can't imagine leaving the house and going to the shop undressed. Then again, to get the shop, I have to walk down a short street and cross a service road, both lanes of the highway and another service road; this woman drove, so she probably didn't feel so exposed.



Day 310. Keys, Day 311. Moon, Day 312. Storm from my office window, Day 313. Sheep bags, Day 313a. What a coincidence, Day 313b. Spiky, Day 314. Quite a grand staircase for a door that has no handle, Day 315. Inside my bedside lamp, Day 316. The split rock plant splits

When I was about thirteen, I saw a knitting pattern for the world's best cardigan. It was so lovely. It was a cream bolero with a lace edging round the bottom and cabled sleeves and a checker-board pattern on the body created with squares of stocking stitch surrounded by moss stitch borders, and in every second square was a cross-stitch motif in brightly coloured wool, and it was done up with eighteen tiny buttons. I know. You are imagining that and thinking, I wish I had one of them.

My mother said that the model wearing this cardigan was tall and slender and could carry off a bulky, cropped jacket. I, she pointed out, was naturally bulky and cropped, so the cardigan might be too much of a good thing. I was unconvinced, and despite her misgivings, she knitted it for me. (I don't remember this, but I imagine she had assistance from my grandmother, who was a fast knitter. If my mother attempted it by herself, I'd still be waiting for it.)

Of course, she was right. I realised that as soon as I put on the finished cardie. It cropped me at the waist, making me look short and dumpy. It was thick and heavy, the cabled sleeves especially, which in turn made me look thick and heavy. And it was cream, which made me look enormous. I couldn't have picked a more unflattering garment for my body type if I'd tried. I knew I could never wear it. Oh dear.

I felt so guilty, because my mother had knitted it for me even though she doesn't really enjoy knitting, and because she'd done a really good job. That winter I made sure to put it on a few times, just round the house or visiting elderly relatives, so she'd see I was getting wear out of it. Once the warmer weather arrived, I put it at the back of the drawer and hoped she'd forget about it by the next year.

She did, and I did too. At least, I forgot about it until a few years later, when I was at university. I was sitting up in bed late one chilly winter's night reading a text book. My arms were cold, but when I put a jumper on, it was too long and bunched up round my middle. If only I had a cropped bed jacket, I thought, and suddenly, lightbulb! I did have one. I dug out the cream cardigan and it turned out to be just the ticket.

And you know what? It still is. I wear it as a bed jacket for reading every winter. I was looking at it earlier hanging over the back of a chair, and thought it's probably time to wash it and put it away for summer, when I realised that it's nearly twenty-five years old and must be the oldest garment I own. Which is unexpected.

( And here it is in all its boxy, 80s glory )

This jacket caused a great deal of hilarity at work the other day. One online review declared to it to be 'a modern-day chastity belt', which seems a bit harsh. I'd say it was more of a clown suit. And uncomfortable.

Today my mother and I had made plans to go to the City by the Sea's artist group's annual show, but first she wanted to go and see her friend Val's entry in the Anglican church's Festival of Flowers. So that was all very jolly, but I have made a mental note not to listen to her next time she says, 'Let's have lunch after we do this,' because we didn't have lunch until after three. Which was all well and good for her, since she had planned for this and had mid-morning brunch before coming to meet me, whereas I had breakfast when I got up at eight and so was quite hungry by the time we'd finished looking at all the things there were to be looked at.

One of the artists exhibiting in the art show nearly had my name. If I'm Alicia Daisyname, she was Alicia Daisynhom, if that makes sense. Perhaps I should have voted for her in the public's choice category, because how good would it be if she won and then I was drawn out as the lucky door entrant? Sadly, I couldn't bring myself to vote for almost-me's painting of a buxom, leather-clad, mask-wearing fantasy heroine riding a merry-go-round horse suspended from a storm cloud. Points for imagination, though.

1. I have been feeling... disengaged lately. Flat and sluggish and blah. It's probably from my cold. Maybe a list will get me back on track.

2.My mother went to a quilting camp last weekend. While there, talk apparently turned to her meat-free sausage rolls (so meat-free they don't even include bacon) and she promised to give copies of the recipe to all interested parties. She finished telling me this by saying, 'And you're so much faster at typing than I am.' Which is true.

3. So I typed this recipe for her, so while it's fresh, ( you can all have it too )

4. May I say, they really are quite good. The raw filling looks like grey gloop, but is more or less indistinguishable from normal sausage rolls when cooked, but not as greasy. I mean, you wouldn't want them every day, but as a party nibble, they're fab.

5. Today I read a couple of articles about the 'last name effect'. Apparently, if your last name begins with a letter early in the alphabet, you deliberate longer over shopping choices; if your last name is towards the end of the alphabet, you shop more quickly. People with last names in the middle of the alphabet (like me) are somewhere in the middle. But! The effect is only linked to childhood last names, so if you changed your last name as an adult from Zebedee to Arbuthnot, you'd still tend towards speedy purchasing decisions. So there you go. Make of that what you will.

6. I'm not really happy with my Monday and Tuesday photos. I actually forgot both days until quite late at night; part of the previously mentioned sluggishness, I think. So yesterday, I thought I'd make an effort and stop somewhere scenic on my way home. And it was beautiful. Officially the first day of winter, but really a lovely late autumn day, crisp and still, and I was looking down a hill at a lake surrounded by golden-red trees, with the sea in the distance. Oh, it was lovely. Then I turned my camera on and the screen said MEMORY CARD ERROR and wouldn't let me take a photo. So that was the end of that.

7. MasterChef hasn't been gripping me at all this year, which is sad. Still, last night someone made wasabi and lemon myrtle spring rolls, so that's a taste sensation to think about. Then reject.

8. It's inspired a poll, though.
[Poll #1748047]

9. I am currently harbouring ill-will towards cold people at work who insist on having the heating turned way up. I tend the other way, but I'd be happy to strike a deal whereby the heating is permanently left at a mutually agreed level and cold people could, you know, put on a spencer, as opposed to the current arrangement whereby they can turn the heating up as high as they like. Yesterday morning the temperature had barely managed to get above zero, but inside was tropical. I hate it. I'm all hot and bothered and it makes my nose block up (admittedly, that will stop when my cold clears up). My colleague Brian is retiring at the end of the year and the office manager has suggested that she might move out of her lonely, sweltering office and sit at his desk. 'Would you like that?' she asked. Well, no, not if she controls the thermostat.

10. Finally, I've lost my good gloves. Has anyone seen them?

My work has just had a three-day strategic planning meeting. It was exactly as fun as it sounds. I was only needed at the Monday evening and Tuesday morning sessions, so it wasn't too bad. They are working on the train tracks, so the three-hour train trip to Melbourne took four hours, partly by bus, which was a drag and meant that I only had half an hour free on Monday afternoon, which wasn't really enough time to do anything other than go for a head-clearing walk before starting work. But it was a nice day and my hotel room had a river view (the first time I've ever seen anything other than a car park from a hotel window), so I can't really complain.

Because I don't sleep well in strange beds and certainly not when my room is directly across the river from Crown Casino and its columns of flame that shoot up regularly in a choreographed routine, I was up in time for another head-clearing walk at dawn. So that was all very nice. Also nice: because our Tuesday morning session involved a small group of people, we weren't in the hotel's conference room but in the penthouse suite, a place I am never likely to visit for any other reason. My standard room's little bathroom would have fitted into the bath in the penthouse bathroom. I think my house's bathroom would have fitted into the penthouse bathroom. We all oohed and aahed about that like the country bumpkins we are.

I use an electric toothbrush, which I couldn't be bothered taking with me. I do have a normal one, but I couldn't remember last time I used it, so I thought, hang the expense, and bought a new one. It has a bumpy area on the back of the head, which the packet tells me is a tongue scraper. Gosh, toothbrush technology is moving on apace, isn't it?

While I was away, I got my mother to come in on Monday evening to feed Percy, and she said she also popped in mid-Tuesday morning and gave him a pat. Which is more than I did when I arrived home on Tuesday because he wasn't there. He still hasn't been round today either. I don't mind if he's got the huff and moved on to mooch off someone else, but I do hope nothing's happened to him. ETA: He's back.

What else? Oh, in my ongoing quest to find the world's ugliest shoes, I came across these hoof boots recently. I like that they have the female models in vaguely jockey-ish outfits. I've never thought that people who ride horses actually want to be horses, but maybe they do. Anyway, I was looking for the hoof boots to show someone the other day and discovered that there is more than one style of hoof boot. I like (for a limited level of 'like') the ones that have horse shoes on the bottom of the hoof boots; that's commitment to an idea, isn't it? I don't know about the deer hoof boots, though. I thought deer had cloven hoofs?

You know how it is: the invitation says 'smart casual' and you just can't think what to wear... until you remember your smart new purple top is just the right colour to go with your most casual hand-knitted track pants. ( Problem solved. )

Also today, one of the underwires in my bra snapped. That could do a person some damage. Was she stabbed or did her underwire break? There's a mystery novel waiting to be written.

Today my mother threw a slug at me. Well... she found a slug in her vegetable garden and tossed it into her wheelbarrow, aiming badly and not realising I was standing nearby. It landed in my hair. So that was a thrill. Not in a good way.

I am feeling better today. I restored my equilibrium by continuing my ongoing search for the world's ugliest shoes. Today's contenders. I have to admit, I find the banana shoes (halfway down the page) a little bit delightful.

This is a sort of take on elaine4queen's room posts, except I don't have any problems with this room. None at all.



Except for the lighting, obviously. That room is all white. It has an LED lighting rig that changes its colour. I feel ill just looking at it.