Cinnamon patrol

Should not be allowed to use computers, and especially email and auction sites like TradeMe.

I'm all for the democracy of the Interweb, I just despise my personal interactions with electronic dunces.

(Professionally I love the dunces, because they prove that nothing is as simple as developers and marketers tell us. But in my own time, I have better things to do.)

People: check your emails. Read things through twice. Delete carefully. It isn't that hard. Really.

Labels: Grumbles, Laura, the Interweb

If you were going to eat vodka jelly, what flavour would you want to eat the most?

Or, even better, rank the following:

Lemon
Lemonade
Lime
Orange
Strawberry
Cranberry

Or something else?

Please leave a comment - I'm trying to sort the hen's and stag nights' kick-off entertainment.

Labels: Food + drink, Laura, wedding

Do you remember your last injection?

Probably not.

Me? I remember my last four injections. In great detail.

Last year I got a Hepatitis A boster, since I only had 95% immunity. It was a very unpleasant experience: intense pain that lasted for 10-15 seconds, and that culminated in me declaring that I was about to pass out. And then I passed out.

Injections 3 and 2 were last week: polio and typhoid. Not pleasant, but not terrible. I did lie down after the first one, just to be safe, but I was fine. The injection sites were sore for awhile afterwards, but it was a fairly decent experience, with a great nurse.

My most recent injection was today: a tetanus booster with diptheria. Because you can only get them as a package deal now, apparently. And my experience? Tetanus HURTS, people! It hurts A LOT!

To be fair, it was a very short burst of pain, which is what kept it manageable (and me conscious). But what sucks is that my left arm is now really sore. It hurts to use it for lifting or carrying things, and it still pulses with small, sharp bursts of pain every now and then.

All this is in aid of 2 1/2 weeks in Goa, India for part of our honeymoon. And all I can say is: it better be worth it!

If you could see me sitting here typing, you'd laugh, because while I'm trying to type in my customary manner, I'm also trying to keep my arm immobile so it doesn't hurt. My typing style is unusual at the best of times, and I am sure I look even odder now.

But it HURTS!

Time for some ice cream to numb the psychic pain. Better to eat it before my final dress fitting tomorrow, than afterwards...

Labels: Grumbles, Honeymoon, Laura

Late last week I decided that I did need a diary this year, after all. Relying on Lili being by my side to keep track of all my appointments is... well, a flawed plan to say the least.

So we looked for my diary. Small but not tiny, attractive, not hideously expensive.

And we looked. And looked.

I was perfectly willing to pay full price (for a change), but could I find a decent diary? Hell no! All the diaries that remained from the post-New Year's diary sales-orgy were ugly, impractical, and odd. Not to mention still a bit of a rip-off.

Stores (and Whitcoulls, I'm mostly speaking to you here), please stock a small range of attractive, non-bog-standard diaries for the stylish people about town who may have neglected to purchase on earlier. You'd do very well in sales I'm sure.

I did get a diary in the end - a lovely (and expensive) pale blue model from kikki.K. Bless you kikki.K for stocking something so lovely!

Moral of the story: buy your damn diary before the end of January if you're a discerning diary-buyer.

Labels: Grumbles, Laura

(doo doo doo doo, doo doo doo doo doo...)

There are now less than two weeks till The Wedding, and less than five weeks till The Move.

Consequently, we haven't had any time to enjoy our voluntary unemployment. We've been hard at work every day, liaising, organising, shopping...

With less than 2 weeks till we tie the knot, we've managed to get most things fairly sorted, and have had the chance to start some serious moving-related work.

A big part of that has been selling stuff we don't want on TradeMe. David takes the photos, I put the listings up and communicate with buyers, and post the items when required, and he deals with the face-to-face buyers.

We've had a fairly good run. OK, so selling our fan for $1 the week before it really started to get hot was not that smart, but to compensate we've done really well out of my knitting stash.

Deciding what to sell and what to keep is a work in progress. Storage ain't cheap, and neither is shipping, but it's hard to overcome the emotional attachment to some things. Here's hoping we get there...

Labels: Laura, Moving

Our house was a bower of flowers last week. Really.

First of all, we had the flowers I was given on the 19th when I left work.

Then on Tuesday we received a lovely vase and bouquet from our neighbours, aka the rockin' librarians.

(OK, that's not what we really call them, but it's how I think of them. Partying, fun-loving... they're not your mother's librarians... Unless you're me, though my mother the librarian is not that kind of librarian...)

But I digress.

So the second bouquet, which had beautiful pinks and greens and whites, to tone with the oyster-coloured vase. (Love that vase!)

Then Wednesday rolled around, and we met with the florist to go over the wedding flowers. At the end of the meeting, she gave us the flowers she'd used to demonstrate the styles: mostly white hydrangeas, but also lisianthus.

So much for needing to buy flowers to celebrate unemployment!

And if you're interested, Lili very obligingly took some photos of the flowers for me.

Labels: Laura, Pretty pictures, wedding

"All the problems of human life arise from the complexity of our existence, the obscurity of its essential principle and the secrecy of the inmost power that makes out its determinations and governs its purpose and its processes. If our existence were of one piece, solely material-vital or solely mental or solely spiritual, or even if the others were entirely or mainly involved in one of these or were quite latent in our subconscient or our superconscient parts, there would be nothing to perplex us; the material and vital law would be imperative or the mental would be clear to its own pure and unobstructed principle or the spiritual self-existent and self-sufficient to spirit. The animals are aware of no problems; a mental god in a world of pure mentality would admit none or would solve them all by the purity of a mental rule or the satisfaction of a rational harmony; a pure spirit would be above them and self-content in the infinite. But the existence of man is a triple web, a thing mysteriously physical-vital, mental and spiritual at once, and he knows not what the true relations of these things are, which the real reality of his life and his nature, whither the attraction of his destiny and where the sphere of his perfection." - Sri Aurobindo, Essays on the Gita

Labels: david, spam

Bravely we decided not to get a DJ for the wedding reception.

The idea was that I'd compile playlists and plop them on the ipod and we'd be laughing - money saved, no gawky DJ in manky suit and bowtie.

But I really didn't think that one through. For one thing, the ipod isn't much chop as it will probably will run out of batteries at the most inconvenient time. And fumbling around on the scrollwheel in a dark corner to pause or replay a song isn't so great either.

So then I thought I'd use the laptop. That would be especially good, I thought, because I can use a player with volume leveling preventing our poor helper from running to and fro jiggling the volume when one song is too loud and the next too quiet. But then I find out the "background music" needs to be on CD, so a volume-leveling player doesn't really help. Never fair, I found a great little utility call MP3Gain which will boost tracks to a fixed volume without decoding and re-encoding the mp3. Now I remember the audio output on my laptop is a bit noisy (you can hear all the little pops and squeaks of the electronics) so I'll need to buy or borrow a USB sound card.

And this is aside from actually ripping and compiling the playlists. I'm using a simple formula to predict the complex upper / downer effect required from the music. Basically, as long as everyone behaves exactly like me, it should be perfect :-o.

Labels: david, music, wedding

There are many things I don't miss about work: getting up at a semi-regular time, having to wear something appropriate, having to walk downstairs to refill my water bottle, the dodgiest air conditioning ever...

But I do miss the Internet.* The nature of my job and my daily routine combined to keep me online all day, every work day. And when my work was done, I'd accomplish a few personal Internet-related tasks like blogging, emailing, reading my ever-increasing blogroll...

Now we're officially unemployed, I don't have that routine. Hell, I haven't even been using my own laptop! (David's has all the wedding-related stuff on it, so it's permanently installed in the living room for easy access.)

As a result, I feel the weensiest bit cut off from the world. I'm getting out more, and seeing loads of people - occasionally unwillingly (note to self: malls on Monday are not pleasant) - yet I feel strangely disconnected.

*And, of course, all my lovely co-workers, and the thrill of a job well done. Just not enough to drop into the office yet.

Labels: Laura, Work

While showering this morning I was reflecting on our honeymoon-cum-moving itinerary. To my delight, I counted 10, yes 10, separate flights. I'm wondering if I should take a special log book with me to record the flights, the type of plane, the captain, runway, weather conditions etc. But if I bring this up with Laura it may lead to a pre-divorce (that's the kind of divorce that happens before your married).

For my fellow jet-heads: AKL->HKG, HKG->BOM, BOM->GOI, GOI->BOM, BOM->LHR, LHR->ATH, ATH->CHQ, CHQ->ATH, ATH->LHR, LHR->DUB. Ahh.

Labels: david

Why is leaving work permanently nowhere near as good as going on holiday? There is something reassuring about leaving when you know you’re coming back - and it’s nice how the “machine” keeps operating without you. It’s not terrifying to be leaving for good, but it will take some getting used to. Especially on Monday morning at about 7.30.

Labels: david