Design Shark’s Neighborhood

I watched a documentary once about lions. And it showed a scene where a lioness was protecting her three cubs from a pack of hyenas. Unsuccessfully I must say - I've been traumatised ever since. (Of course not so much as I was after watching the whole Joey scene in Faces in The Mob).

But I often think of that lioness because I often feel like her. The urge to protect my children is sometimes overwhelming. And often over trivial matters. Of course the older they get the harder it is to protect them. They are out in the world. Out of your control. In fact at the moment I find myself having very fond feelings towards a large pacific island gentleman who is a bouncer at the pub that Kimba goes to and has become a friend of hers. I sleep easier knowing he's looking out for her and will smash to pieces anyone that bothers her. Its good to know.

And then theres Lizzie. A couple of days ago she had a stye form on her eye. It was red and sore so I told her to come home if it got too bad. So she went to the sick bay at lunch time and told the woman in charge. This woman told her it wasn't bad enough to go home and no she couldn't have any panadol either. And that she should just pin her hair back because thats like a major germ spreader and what do you expect and to go back to class. Well, when Lizzie told me this, I felt like going up to the school and finding this woman and smashing her head against a brick wall. I really get this internal rage that someone will decide this for my child who is not a whiner or complainer or trouble maker and its just a couple of bloody panadol.

Sigh - and Lloyd. Off to jaunt around europe and america next week. He's gone out in town tonight and I won't sleep until I know he's home safely in bed. Yet I find him researching web sites such as sleepinginginairports.com. He asked me today will I miss him but I told him that basically I'll just be blocking him out for a few months and pretending he doesn't exist so I don't have to worry about him. I remember once when Lloyd was about five he told me a boy was bullying him at school and one afternoon I got him to point this kid out and I stormed up to him and told him what a nasty little loser he was and basically threatened him.

So anyone - tell me about New Orleans airport at midnight? If you have to - lie to me.

 

How long do you take in the shower?
Submitted by Strive2Be.

I'm a good country girl. I grew up on a farm with tank water so we were always aware of the importance of water conservation. Three minute showers for us and never a bath. At least we weren't one of those families that put a bit of water in the bath then all the kids used it, one after the other. Youngest to oldest. I had a friend who was the oldest in a family that did that. When I had a sleepover there I hated getting in that murky lukewarm water.

I've passed the three minute rule on to my kids now. I can't understand people who stand under a shower for ten or 15 minutes. They don't seem to understand the importance of saving our water supply.  They're probably the same ones who will kick up a fuss when they have to start drinking treated effluent in the future.

We are under very strict water restrictions here anyway - as are most of NSW - due to a long drought. We are living in a time where you can get bashed to death for watering your lawn (as happened in Sydney last year).

So here is a photo of my shower. As you can see I take water conservation very seriously. When we shower we stand in that bucket then put the water on the garden.

 

 

Just kidding - no, we recently pulled the bath out and just have a shower now. I was sick of stepping over a bath to get to the shower plus they are a massive waste of water. Baths should be banned. 

SELF PORTRAIT THURSDAY!
7.3.08

Astoria Bagels (Bagel?) puts TOO MUCH cream cheese on their bagels.

Just look at this big chunk of cream cheese that fell out of my everything bagel:

I just saw the scone I bought for Lizzies morning tea in the pantry. Forgot all about it. Took the easy/slack option of throwing some money at her for lunch today. I've been making school lunches for years. Not that I mind, I like to see them go off with a nice lunch. Some kids take nothing or get told to pack it themselves so take a few packs of chips.But I must admit that after doing it for 15 years, well some days I just can't find the enthusiasm to come up with a thrilling new sandwich filling. Does my head in sometimes to think of the meals I've prepared over the years. Surely I must be qualified to be a chef by now. Or at least a bistro cook.

 

I'm not a fan of hearing people whistle. Sorta annoys me.

And no, it's not because I'm jealous since I can't whistle.

I mean, I can't swim very well at all, but I don't get annoyed when I see people swimming.

(This is the best topic I could come up with after forgetting what I was originally going to write about.)

I can also talk about how Starbucks is closing 600 of their locations around the country. "Experts" think it's because the chain expanded too quickly.

I wouldn't be sad if all Starbucks went away. I don't drink/like coffee anyway.

There was this area in Houston (N. Sheperd and  W. Gray) that has (had?) two Starbucks locations RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET from each other.

I think that is probably one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen.
And I hope both of those locations close down, too.

New shirt variations:

Sarah C. is partial to the pink t-shirt; I'm partial to the green one.
(I might keep the green prototype for myself. We'll see how I feel after I'm done here at Parachute for the day.)

Netflix sent me "The Apple" yesterday in the mail.
Have you ever seen that movie? It's really stupid and insane and funny.
But I've only seen it 1.25 times.

Today "The Brown Bunny" is being sent to me. I don't really like Vincent Gallo (seems a bit self-absorbed/self-centered---and not in the good way) that much, but I liked "Buffalo 66". So, maybe I'll like this.

I also want to see Chloe Sevigny be a respectable actress.
 

Lloyd leaves next friday for a four month trip overseas.

I wondered yesterday how he was going to find his way around europe and america when he can't seem to find a loaf of bread on the kitchen bench.

I just finished these cute coasters. I have perfected the spray technique. I always read the bit on the can that says several light coats are better then one or two heavy coats. But I can't seem to control my finger when its on the nozzle. Its like when you use hair wax. You have it looking pretty good but think you'll just put a bit extra on and then it all turns to shit.

Oh damn - I put them in the scanner in the wrong order - the little clown with the balloons is supposed to be gradually falling down. You get the idea

 

 

So, I never really formally actually introduced my new assistant Sarah C. to you, did I?

I've shown her photo on my blog once before, but in case you've forgotten, I'll show you again:

And the both of us:

She's only been in the US for a couple weeks now. She came here from Liverpool, but she's originally from Manchester.

She used to be my internet stalker, but all that persistence and creepiness really made an impact on me---so I decided that this girl must be good people. I figured I should just be her friend.

I call her Crompy, not Sarah, though, because I already know a Sarah.  I can't keep up with more than one Sarah, especially when there's one working close to me in the same studio.  Jeez.

So, Crompy is here until September. And then she'll unfortunately have to go back home to England. =(

But who knows, I COULD end up really hating her by the end of her stay because sometimes she does things that I just really don't approve of.

Exhibit A:

Today she though it'd be a good idea to put her gummy worms in her iced coffee:

And THEN she thought it'd be a better idea to drink it:

You know that I can't handle stuff like that.
(My stomach is already starting to hurt just looking at those photos...)

So, that's Crompy (aka Sarah C.).
She's just like me---but a UK female version.
And she's a good assistant.

Just an annoying person...
We need to work on that.

P.S.
It's my birthday on July 8th.
That is in one week, okay?
I'll be 24.
(And according to my Texas state ID, I'll be 34.)

That's me on my birthday a couple years ago:

And that's me later on that night:

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Eh, I thought I'd write about the zoo, but the moment's passed.

I'm feeling strange today.
And the guy at the bodega asked me if I was feeling all right because I look really tired apparently.
I think I got up before I should have---I got plenty of sleep though.

Perhaps the muscle relaxer I took before bed made me want to sleep in this morning. Who knows.
(I took the muscle relaxer because my back has been weird again this week. Not painful, just tight and lots of pressure.)

I watch "Mama's Family" before bed last night.
I forgot how much I missed that show. It's so funny.

If you don't like it, you can fuck yourself.

Lillian G. and Ben J. last night at Lillian's studio:

Show us a puppy.

Teddy

I just noticed these photos were in my photos here but I thought I'd deleted them. However here is me with Jem before we went out on Saturday. As you can see my hair is in the interesting orange shades on its way to blonde but it's only had two hits of bleach so going well.

 

 

And this is probably what we looked like about ten minutes into that crap move The Happening and realised it may not have been such a great choice.

 

Every now and then Jem comes for a sleepover. We go to the movies then go out and eat and drink too much and talk and laugh a lot. And every time we go out we always see something strange and hilarious. Last time we saw a plastic shopping bag stuck to the road and it was slowly waving about and as we approached it we thought it was a dog that had been hit by a car and was in its final death throes and we were going to have to deal with it. Mind you that wouldn't have been hilarious. But when we crept up to it and saw it was a shopping bag, well we thought that was hysterical. This time of course the movie was the strange and hilarious thing we saw. Although we did see dying feather boa on the footpath. And a loaf of garlic bread sitting on a park bench we considered hiding just in case we couldn't get a meal anywhere. But we had an enormous chicken snitzel and it was bloody good so we didn't need the garlic bread. And Kimba had said we were not in any way allowed to go to the pub that she goes to because you don't want your mum hanging around with you on a saturday night. So of course we went straight there. But she didn't really mind because I am the money tree apparently and bought her drinks. Then we had a laugh at a few strange people and I had to tell Jem to put her manners back in. Twice mind you because she's going deaf and talks really loudly. And she's really annoying because she's one of those people that as soon as you say - don't look now - turns immediately for a gawk. I wonder did anywhere else in the world see that australian interview where tom cruise told Peter to put his manners back in. Ahh good times.