Saturday, December 26, 2009

Box me up day.

So this guy really has Christmas' number. Yesterday was a good day, as far as days go.
But today I woke up and couldn't get up. Again. This isn't a new phenomenon; it's been a recurrent theme of my holidays thus far. I seem to have contracted a virulent form of inertia.

During term-time I fill my head with reasons the next day has to happen; lessons, errands, people, stuff. On holidays nothing seems to have the same urgency.

I've been told I need to 'upgrade' my violin. This, being a task which could consume finite amounts of time, money and emotional energy (hey, I'm attached to that thing. I've played it most days for the last... fourteen years) is simply too much for me to contemplate.

Can't do it. It's going to require communication with my accountant (who is LOVELY, but whom I prefer to avoid like the plague), some kind of refinancing or redraw on our mortgage, which then makes our mortgage BIGGER... and really, truly and not-quite-ready-to-deal-with-this-yet, I can't justify keeping my violin as well.

Which is a little devastating.

Oh, and then I have to FIND a violin I'm happy with. Which makes me recoil violently, imagining all kinds of uncertainty about is this one better? Significantly better? However many thousands of dollars better? Really? AM I SURE???

Luckily I have my darling husband to divert me from my existential angst with riveting enquiries such as this one: "At what age do you think I should stop carrying Lappy on my hip?"
Dude. It'a a laptop. I know you love it like your firstborn child, but if Apple haven't come up with a way to make it follow you from room to room on delicate silver legs YET, it's probably never going to happen.  Think of it as your wonderfully intelligent child with tragically withered and useless legs.

And never mention baking trays again. Thank you.

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Armies of elves fuelled by sugar

Did I REALLY make all those tiny desserts? It's possible elves have been in my house. Or one of those terribly helpful and lovely humanoid aliens from Avatar. We've determined, by the way, that hubs is descended from those guys. He has just enough human to turn his skin pink and bring his eyes a bit closer together, but all the other stuff is right on track to be one of The People.

Hilariously, when we went to see Avatar on Tuesday night, we were handed 3D glasses. Now, hubs suffers from a lazy eye and I am so long-sighted in one eye and short-sighted in the other that my reading glasses give ordinary people migraines. So we weren't so sure that the 3D lark would work for us... I think we both had headaches by the end, but it was probably worth it. That or the kilo of sugar I'm managing to eat per day. Hard to be sure.

I'm currently reading book 2 for Neal Stephensons' trilogy The System of the World and will be tempted to continue doing so tomorrow. We have a breakfast with friends scheduled, which is desirable, lovely and wonderful, then a detour which will add about forty minutes to the trip to my parents' place (DAMN THEM FOR MOVING!) then dinner with half the hubs' family. Not so much my kind of day. Can I veto? I have a feeling today will require copious quantities of toast. Tripod is helping. Particularly their rendition of "I hate your family". A little editing would work wonders.

 Oh look, a mosquito. Because being plagued with red, itchy, revolting lumps will CERTAINLY make my day better. Or maybe I could pass it off as smallpox?

Oh, one more thing.

 Family: Christmas cards in the post: yes yes, very lovely, well done, horrifically organised, supporting charity of your choice who produce the damn bits of cardboard,  but you live ONE suburb away from me and I see you weekly: WHY did you MAIL it??? I'm just saying.

My smallpox is itching.

Today I am melting.

Really. It's one in the morning and I am so hot it's absurd.

This may or may not be my own fault for fashioning sugary christmas goodies (SURPRISE!) until very recently; eleven pm is a GREAT time to start making miniature christmas puddings, complete with baptism in dark chocolate then icing with white and the careful placement of a glace cherry on top (hubs).

And when you finish said puddings, let's make hedgehog! Because surely it will all be fine if I go to bed an hour later every night and get up an hour later every morning; at this rate I will barely be cognisant for Christmas lunch. If you know my family, that's probably a good thing.

Tomorrow: apricot delight (oh yes, condensed milk and dried apricots do a thing of beauty make) and coconut ice. Because that is how I roll. No cooking unless it's assemble and refrigerate. Actually, that's so not true, but I've consumed a LOT of cooking chocolate (accidentally, I suddenly regained consciousness with a wooden spoon in my mouth) and am feeling a little manic. Little? Hmmm. Gargantuan tiny bit.

Would coconut ice be offputting if I dyed it.... blue and green instead of boring pink and white?

Monday, December 21, 2009

Why is my life such a strange and difficult place?

Damn those tea-infusical whatsits with their clampy-shutting properties.
Make tea. Leave infuser on sink. Decide I want more tea. Knock out leaves (still wet, of course) and dip infuser back into brown paper bag of tea (I KNOW, it loses it's flavor uness hermetically sealed in tupperware blessed by the Pope and consumed within five hours of purchase, so shoot me now)... where damp edges of infuser contract sticky tea leaves. Which I fail to notice until I drop the damn thing into a cup pof hot water and it begins to haemorrhage Black Vanilla tea leaves everywhere.

This is why I should only drink mint tea made from mint leaves growing through my front decking. Or, choc-mint tea, as my beloved bro-in-law gifted us with CHOCOLATE mint (oh baby) a few years back and it's run feral with the established mint so I now have some very strange variations on a theme of mint colliding with cocoa running wild under the rosebush.

Ahem. You may have realised that around here silly season really is silly season. It starts with ballet concerts and violin recitals, but then it turns into holidays, and suddenly all my very focused and directed manic energy is turned utterly, rampantly outwards. We've been dancing Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday of the week just gone. Nearly went again tonight, but venue of choice has a puny dance floor and an open mike, meaning that if you CAN dance to the music, you'll probably fall over someone while trying.

Amusingly, on Saturday I was approached by a photographer who offered to do a photo shoot of me to promote.... myself. Uhhuh. Because I spend SO much time promoting myself. Dude, I'm fighting violin students off with a STICK (not a bow. Bows are not weapons, they are part of a delicate instrument and if you don't treat it with respect you'll have to play with an air bow. Ahem.)... yeah. A STICK. And I'm married, so it's not like I need to advertise for a husband. Although that could provide excellent leverage for... most things.

Why else would I want to promote myself?! HEY! LOOK! I can dance (if there's a band, and a guy who can lead, and I don't fall over because the dance floor is so crowded with people holding up their drinks, the bar and each other) sometimes. Wow. That totally deserves some promotion. I feel so lame. (Actually, that's pretty funny. Dancing, and then the lame. Lame like limping. Forget it. No-one's got a vocabulary any more.)

Why should I do a random photo shoot? I mean, really. Would you?