krisalis

Literary Friday Five:

1. What is your favorite type of literature to read (magazine, newspaper, novels, nonfiction, poetry, etc.)? There’s a time and a place for all different types of literature. For examples, magazines are for longhaul flights and the occassional lazy Sunday afternoon over coffee. Newspapers rate as functional reading, not usually something I’d pick up and read cover to cover. Novels are staple reading material, especially good for pre-bedtime and general escapist relaxation. Nonfiction has it’s place, though I haven’t read any for a while. Can’t say I’ve ready much poetry since high school.

2. What is your favorite novel? Probably “To Kill A Mockingbird” by Harper Lee, though there are many others in contention.

3. Do you have a favorite poem? (Share it!) Shel Silverstien all the way. Favourite poem: “The Crocodile Went To The Dentist”.

4. What is one thing you’ve always wanted to read, or wish you had more time to read? Let me think about this one…

5. What are you currently reading? “Northern Lights” by Philip Pullman.

Busy. Working long hours. Putting together wedding registry and chasing down other details when not working. Reservations, appointments, favours, disposable cameras. But it’s going pretty well, overall. I think. I hope.

However, wedding shoes have been returned to Australia (where, in turn, they will be returned to the shop from whence they came) because they have somehow mysteriously become different colours to each other. How did that happen? Not impressed. I hope it can be fixed somehow – either a new pair of shoes or a refund would be fine. No point in stressing over silly shoes.

Fed up with sitting in front of computer. Pah.

This picture is a little cutesy, but it gives me the warm fuzzies none the less. It’s one of the sample shots taken by our wedding photographer man.

In exactly four months from today, we’ll be in the UK for the wedding.

I took this picture late one sunny afternoon whilst I was in Canberra over Christmas. I used my sunglasses as a filter, in an attempt to polarize the light, and capture the cool sun-through-the-clouds effect.

There’s something infinitely more enjoyable in eating a kit kat nibble by nibble.

First, I like to bite off the chocolate bit at the end of the finger, then nibble my way around the edge of the finger, stripping away the chocolate. Then, when I’ve layed the perimeter bare, I will munch my way down the finger, finishing off the wafer underneath the chocolatey exterior.

Repeat as necessary, until all kit kat fingers in bar have been consumed.

I was seven years old when we left Houston, Texas and moved to Glasgow, Scotland.

Actually, I say we moved to Glasgow, but really, we moved to East Kilbride, which is a small town beyond the Glaswegian suburbs. We spent our first couple of weeks staying at a hotel in the centre of East Kilbride. The hotel was called The Bruce, and it was a big concrete slab of a building, with squeaky beds and scary bathrooms.

As a seven year old, just about the only thing I liked about staying at The Bruce was that it was quite close to the swimming pool. A big, Olympic sized swimming pool, complete with diving platforms – 1m springboard, 3m diving board, 5m platform and the almighty 10m platform. Heaven.

Freshly arrived from Houston, where most of the the neighbourhood kids were on the local swim team, Billie and I could swim like proverbial fishes. We headed straight for the big pool, and jumped right in.

It wasn’t long before the lifeguard pounced. She eyed us warily, and informed us we could only swim in the big pool if we could swim 2 widths, unaided. Otherwise, we would have to stay in the wee pool (better known as the wee wee pool, for obvious reasons). We were not impressed.

Our parents were nearby, and probably would have intervened if we had needed them to. Billie, who was only 4, took matters into her own hands. She promptly dived in and sped off towards the deep end, her little legs and arms ploughing through the water in a strong frontcrawl. I jumped in and raced to catch up. We swam two lengths (why bother with widths !) and returned to the spot where we had left the lifeguard. The lifeguard reluctantly agreed that we were allowed to swim in the big pool.

Once that was settled, we headed for the diving boards. We played on the 1m springboard for a while, bouncing and jumping and diving. Naturally, it wasn’t long before we decided to try out the bigger platforms. We climbed up to the high boards and I jumped off.

Peeeeep, peeep, peeep. The lifeguard was back on our case.

“You can’t jump off the diving platforms. They are for diving only”, she scolded me.

I took this message to Billie, who was perched up on the platform, waiting for her turn.

So Billie walked up to the edge of the platform, peered over the edge, and dived off.

I don’t think the lifeguard had ever seen anything like it. She watched Billie plunge head first into the deep water, and stood there, whistle dangling from her mouth, waiting for my sister to surface. Billie eventually popped up from the depths and headed straight for the side to climb out and go again.

I had a shot at implementing a “most recent comments” feature this evening. You can see it over there in the left hand menu. It’s sort of working, though I’d prefer it if the comments displayed such that the most recent one was at the top.

I’m tempted to change the comments over to a single page format (ie get rid of the pop-up comment window), so that the recent comment link will go directly to the post, for future discussions, but I know a lot of people like the pop-up comments. I guess I could have both versions. Though that would eat up storage space on my account. Hmm.

Anyway – I used this scriptygoddess post as my guide. Gert had kindly emailed me some other instructions last week, but, being the doofus that I am, I managed to delete that email. Oops.

I have been half-watching the Michael Jackson – Martin Bashir interview whilst tapping away at the ‘puter. Maaaan, Michael Jackson has issues. What a fruit loop.

Apparently, a restaurant in North Carolina has renamed their french fries: “Because of Cubbie’s support for our troops, we no longer serve french fries. We now serve freedom fries“.

On the back of this, Troy has thoughfully begun work in a project that we can all contribute to – the creation of a guide to familar foods and phrases in anti-France America:

For example: - French Toast = Freedom Toast - Chocolate Eclair = Chocolate Freedom Pastry - Deja Vu = Something that feels like it’s happened before in the name of Freedom

Then there’s the ‘freedom’ manicure, ‘freedom’ salad dressing, and, my personal favourite – ‘freedom’ kissing.

More tongue-in-cheek cheekiness here: France tends to make itself an easy target. Oooh, la la.

S’il vous plait, dessin-moi un mouton.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has a website informing citizens what to do in the event of biological, chemical, or nuclear attack.

This parody site by idlewords had Mark and I laughing out loud. Be sure to check out all 5 links! Oh, and there’s more here.

Friday Five

1. What is your most prized material possession? My engagement ring.

2. What item, that you currently own, have you had the longest? Ahem. Probably my teddy bear, George.

3. Are you a packrat? Maybe just a little one. A packmouse, perhaps.

4. Do you prefer a spic-and-span clean house? Or is some clutter necessary to avoid the appearance of a museum? Well, I’d prefer spic-and-span, but it’s probably never gonna happen.

5. Do the rooms in your house have a theme? Or is it a mixture of knick-knacks here and there? A theme? Where do you think I live? Disneyland? I don’t think we have a theme as such, though we do have several asian-esque pictures on our walls that we have picked up on various trips around S. E. Asia. Otherwise, our decor consists of lots of framed photos of family and friends and lots of books. Do books count even as decor?

Sometimes, when I surf other websites, I wonder why I bother with mine.

There are people out there who write so beautifully, who take such amazing photos, who tell funny and touching and heartbreaking tales from their everyday life. There are people who analyze world events with razor sharp wit, people who review movies and make me want to go to the cinema, people who create arty graphics, people who make gorgeous crafty items and cook gourmet meals from scratch.

I want to be these people. Or at least have their knowledge, passion, ability and enthusiasm.

And then, when I’ve finished reading, and day-dreaming, and making random ridiculous resolutions, I manage stop navel-gazing for long enough to realise that this is me, and that’s OK too.