Salt and corrosion

Friday! I am usually alone in the office on Friday, so I have declared (to myself) that it is Casual Friday every week. Such decadence.

My first job was in an accounting firm, and it did not do Casual Friday. Suits for the accountants and only slightly less formal for the support staff. At one stage the partners were talking about getting uniform blazers for anyone who wasn’t a partner to wear, but they never went ahead with that, fortunately. Also fortunately, they weren’t quite as formal as some other accounting firms: the City by the Sea’s biggest accounting firm (allegedly) insisted on skirts and makeup for all women. How they must have envied those of us in a boutique accounting firm, able to go around bare-faced and be-trousered if we wanted.

After that, I worked in the local council’s business incubator, which was based in an old factory. I still had all these suits to wear, but because the incubator was far more casual I used them as separates for mixing. And then I spent twelve years at Old Job, which was the very definition of Business Casual. Per Old Boss, who often wore shorts to work in summer: no suits, because suits are for funerals; no jeans and t-shirts, because we have some standards; other than that, we could do what we liked. And we didn’t do Casual Friday, because it wouldn’t be all that different any other day.

So I’ve got twelve years’ worth of Business Casual to wear, and now I’m at New Job, I’m close to being over-dressed. We have a lot of manual workers, so they’re in hi-vis and overalls; volunteers wear logo t-shirts; all the office workers never see anyone, so they wear anything they want. Which I like, I should say, but it has meant that I have had to think carefully about what I wear. Me, whose style could best be described as nondescript. Here is my dilemma: I occasionally have to go out and do things in public or have teleconferences with our big boss in Canberra, so I need to look professional; on the other hand, I don’t want to look so formal that I don’t seem to belong. So I’ve decided to stick with Business Casual, or, as I think of it, Would I Wear This To Old Job?

Which brings me back to today being my own personal Casual Friday, and I wore jeans, ankle boots and a new striped top. I looked presentable on a teleconference with my counterpart in another state; I didn’t look out of place when I went to the warehouse to pick up some stuff; I was comfortable enough that I didn’t have to get changed as soon as I got home. And now it’s a long weekend, so I don’t need to think about work clothes for three whole days.

Here is a thing. Not a good thing, but we'll all be wearing them next year. Ha.

This week, I got my act together and bought a present for my mother's birthday next week (she's getting an insect house), and Easter eggs. So organised. So smug. Until I wasn't.

Driving to work on Thursday morning, I was nearly at the train station where I park when Freddie — that's my twenty-year-old car — started making a noise. I'm not a car person at all, but this did not sound like a good noise. And it wasn't. Long story short, I'm getting a new car. New to me, I mean. Not brand new. Anyway, poor Freddie. He looked very sad this morning when I went to the mechanic to get my stuff out of him. They took his number plates off, poor lamb. And I'm without transport for the next few weeks. So that's what I get for feeling smug about how organised I am.

My mother's former neighbours rang this morning with worrying news. Someone broke into their garden overnight, gave their dogs bones, then broke into their garden shed. The dogs are fine and nothing was taken. "But they wondered if someone was after something to break into John's house," said my mother. So she went out to John's and had a look, but nothing had been disturbed.

I am trying to talk her into getting one of those automated light switch turner-onners, but unsuccessfully so far.

* * * * *
I think it has been years since the fashion page of the weekend magazine has been anything other than wearable. Not necessarily wearable by me, mind, but certainly capable of being worn by tall, thin people without attracting the derision of passersby. Today, though, was a return to form with five ways to wear a pair of shorts. Four of them were fine. One... wasn't. Just look at the model's face. Those eyes are saying, "This was not my idea. I know it looks horrible. DON'T BLAME ME."

( No. )

* * * * *
Actual line spoken by Inspector Barnaby in last night's repeat of Midsomer Murders:

"All nuns look alike in the dark."

I am spending my week of leave spring-cleaning. I did the wardrobe yesterday. I am always surprised to find things that I didn't throw out last time. One thing that went this time was my overcoat. It was a beautiful coat: a wool-cashmere blend, floor-length, soft grey in colour. I bought it from Stephen's, the City by the Sea's former department store. In fact, I bought it at Stephen's closing down sale, marked down from $435 to $90, nearly twenty years ago. I know the price, because it still had the tags on it. That's right: I have not worn the coat once in all that time. What I forgot, in my youthful excitement at seeing that bargain, was that City by the Sea is situated in a Mediterranean climate (Wikipedia tells me it is on the same latitude as Palermo, Sicily), with not many days that lend themselves to dressing like an extra out of Elton John's Nikita video clip. Not any days, in fact. Also, I am not very tall, and the coat is quite long. It looked like a dressing gown on me.

I also threw out the coat I was probably wearing when I bought the overcoat. Also a wool-cashmere blend, but hip-length, and black with a bold white check pattern. I tried it on and it was like wrapping myself in a big bowl of soup. It was lovely. I was tempted to keep it, and start wearing it again next winter. Coats are timeless, aren't they? No. Well, coats may be timeless, but shoulder pads aren't. In the mirror, I looked like I was just popping out to say hi to Melanie Griffith in Working Girl. I am surprised I could get through any doorways without turning sideways. So it has gone with the overcoat to the op shop, where, one hopes, they will find new, probably retro-loving, owners.

Today I tackled the craft cupboard. Why do I have so many balls of self-striping sock wool, f-list? And one skein of grey wool pre-hung with sequins. What was I planning to do with that? And four balls of luridly coloured cotton. 'What were they for?' asked my mother, who had come to visit. I remembered that, at least: I was going to knit dishcloths. 'That's a bit mad,' she said. 'Buy them like a normal person.' Happily, I was spared a lecture on what normal people do their dishes with, because something distracted her. 'Is that the swimming bag I made for you in primary school?'

Yes, that's what it was, tucked away at the back of the cupboard. It was a good swimming bag. She wasn't content with making a simple little drawstring swimming bags such as the other kids had, no. This one is shaped like a proper handbag, in a bright tropical flower print. You could carry it down the street today and get nothing but admiring glances. And I may do just that, as the bag has now been washed and revitalised. But what was in the bag when we pulled it out of the cupboard?

It was a cardigan I was knitting for myself. 'That's right,' I said. 'I never got round to finishing that.' I pulled the pieces out. The fronts had been sewn to the back. Do you know the only part I hadn't got round to finishing? Sewing in the sleeves. So close. What a cardigan it would have been, though. The pattern was still with it: I had pulled it out of a magazine dated 13/06/1992. It was cream. The front and back were solid, and quite short, with a tight waistband opening up to a sort of baggy blouson in the body. And the sleeves? Lacy crochet. It was the most nineties garment ever conceived. I was probably going to wear it with a black velvet choker.

They're all gone now. My mother took them round to her friend, Val, who runs a weekly craft session for the Anglican Ladies' Auxiliary. She called later. 'I told Val they could rip the cardigan out and use the wool,' she said, 'but Val said no, she'd sew the sleeves in and see if she can sell it at their fete.' So now I'm tempted to go and see what it sells for.

Incidentally, the reason my mother was visiting today was so that I could help her cut out pieces for a laptop bag she is going to make for me at her annual quilt camp this weekend. She's my bespoke bag maker. We had to go and get some supplies for this new bag today. Spotlight (a craft chain) had a big display of Christmas crafts you could make, including this pattern. I don't know if you can see it clearly, but the expression on the man in the elf costume made me laugh. He's not convinced by it, is he?

Finally, oh! A woman in Melbourne fell into a person-sized sinkhole while hanging out her washing. I love sinkholes.

I thought slippers were supposed to be soft? I wore my new slippers yesterday evening, and they've taken the skin off the back of my heels. That's not right, is it?

March books read

* The Ghost Pirates - William Hope Hodgson (1909)
* William Shakespeare's The Empire Striketh Back - Ian Doescher (2014)

( The Ghost Pirates )

( William Shakespeare's The Empire Striketh Back )

Back to work. Among the email newsletters that had gathered while I was gone was a link to a quiz testing how many fun medical news stories from 2013 one can remember. I scored 15, making me Dr Quinn, Medicine Woman. Sounds about right.

I am currently trying to knit a mitten. Eventually I hope to knit two, but I am struggling with the first. Three times I have cast on, and three times I have joined to work in the round, as instructed, taking care not to twist stitches, as instructed, and three times I have somehow managed to twist it into a Moebius mitten. So I have had to throw it into the knitting bag in a fit of pique.

I started doing that 100 question meme that’s going round, but it wore me down. I bored myself writing the answers, so I won’t bore you with them. Only with this one question, which was about something nice that something has done for me recently. My original answer was the lady who works in my local milk bar (=corner shop), who gave me a mini candy cane from her Christmas display when I went to buy the paper on New Year’s Eve. That wasn’t just for me, though. She had a stack of them, so I think all her regulars were getting one.

Only then I remembered that a random stranger passing by left a comment on my Pinterest shoe board. Just one sentence, and it made my day. This board is a gift to society, she wrote, and you know what? It really is. (If you click that, may I recommend scrolling down (or Ctrl + F) until you find the barefoot high heels, which as far as I can tell are nails.) If I have learnt anything from gathering all those shoes together, it’s that there is more than one make of high-heeled flipper.

'Attention all staff members,' said the announcer at Bunnings Hardware and Nursery yesterday. 'There are still three gnomes missing throughout the store.' What was that about, I wonder?

I saw an advertisement yesterday for a vacuum cleaner with 'guaranteed no loss of suction', according to the voice-over man. And later he said it came 'with no loss of suction guaranteed'. That seems a really awkward way of expressing that, doesn't it? Unless No Loss Of Suction is some sort of trademarked property that this vacuum cleaner has.

This will be the last time I mention this, I promise, but in case you missed it: I have created a Pinterest board to keep all my terrible shoe finds for posterity. (I've changed the name and therefore its link, as I found another Ugly Shoe board.) I had all my ugly shoe links in a folder before; more than I thought there were, and some I had completely blocked from my memory. The human-tooth-bottomed brogues, the rat slippers, the fish thongs. Enjoy!

A new entry in my ugly shoe files:

It looks like a glittery little animal with great big teeth.

This is Race Week in the City by the Sea (race in the sense of horse, rather than skin colour). Thursday is a public holiday, but the other two days of the racing carnival are busy enough. My work shares a car park with a motel, and we've been asked not to use it for the duration. I had to walk, ooh, MILES from where I ended up parking this morning. Two minutes, at least. Maybe even three. Aside from that, it was a beautiful autumn day - warm sun, chill wind - and we got to spend some of it hanging out the top floor window looking at a team of draught horses, complete with Dalmation on the back, as they clattered down the street. So that was nice.

Angela's research assistant, Mya, filled in for a friend's trivia quiz team last month. They came fourth, just missing out on a prize, and ever since she has been dreaming of winning something, anything. So with her friend's team back up to full strength, she put together a work team, comprising herself, Angela, me, Tim the new chap, Angela's husband and Angela's 16-year-old German exchange student. Obviously, that is a crack team, and we came second, thus winning a prize pack and making Mya the happiest girl in the world. The highlight of the evening for me was discovering that Mya believes that, if stretched out, the average person's small intestine would reach the moon.

Annoying red-suited jumping lady has disappeared from the log-in page! Oh, happy day.

I had my emergency optometrist appointment yesterday. They had the lens expert ready, and he took the glasses away to check that they had the right lens in. When he came back he had a little ruler to measure the distance between my eye and the lens. 'Seven millimetres,' he said, and sucked his breath. He took the glasses away again and changed the nose pads so the glasses now sit closer to where the old ones sat. While I was wearing my new glasses, the optometrist held some other lenses over my right eye, and one of them was perfect. I don't think I've ever seen as clearly as that. I said as much, and she noted it down, but she didn't say, 'Well, that's the very thing!' Maybe I need glasses for my glasses?

Anyway, I've got drops to put in, and I have to wear my new, adjusted glasses for a week, then go back on Monday to see how things are going. After twenty-four hours I can still feel my right eye working harder than the left one (and I still can't see as well out of it, which is the reason I wanted new glasses in the first place), but it doesn't hurt like it did. Although now I've thought about it, they do feel a bit achey. But then, if I concentrated on my toe, I'd be hyper-aware of how it might be feeling, even though there's nothing wrong with it in the first place. So I'll give it time. I'll go driving one night as a test, though I'm a bit nervous about that.

I saw these in a shoe shop catalogue today. Would you wear socks or tights with them? Or just bare feet?

I normally avoid the sporting part of the news, but I saw it tonight. There was a story about a man who used to play for a football team, who now plays for another team, and this week he will be playing against his old team. 'He knows what to expect on the field,' said the reporter. 'Verbal ribbing.' Oh, no! Not... verbal ribbing! How will he cope?

I am in one of my gloomy fits about work, so I am thinking again about doing a Master's degree. Today I got as far as seeing what I had to do to apply. Apparently the university needs a copy of my birth certificate to prove that I am me, even though it gave me a bachelor's degree without it. That makes no sense to me. As it happens, I don't have a birth certificate; I've got this far in life with just an extract of it. So I thought, even if I don't apply, it wouldn't hurt to have a copy of my birth certificate handy. I looked up how to get my birth certificate from the Northern Territory. I can get it in person, but that seems a long way to go just to get a piece of paper. I could mail or fax my application, which would require getting certified copies of other proof of identity. Or I could just fill in this simple online form, no questions asked. So I did that. It seemed a bit too easy.

I have a new pair of blue suede slippers. They have a delightfully springy sole and a sequinned bow on them.

My little cactus, which has sat like a spiky green blob for about four years now, has some little pink spots on it, which I think are going to be flowers.

Today I needed a lemon and I picked one off my tree. This is my second tree: the first one died after years of doing nothing, and this one had a rocky start to life. But here we are, two years down the track, and I've finally got a lemon. It was delightfully lemony.

So that's what's going on today.