Moata's Blog Idle
Moata Tamaira is a librarian with a black-belt in sarcasm who's been meaning to get one in procrastination too but always ends up watching TV instead. Her blog is an unholy mash-up of whimsy, cynicism and wry observation.
Undie pressure
One of the premises of the excellent film Hot Fuzz is that people can be driven to murderous acts by the relatively small annoyances perpetrated by their fellow citizens. I couldn't help thinking about this as I read the story about Adam Sandler's maid rubbing poison ivy over him as he slept as retaliation for having to clean his stained underwear.
Now, this is a terrible, terrible thing to do to another human being. It violates their trust. It's vindictive. It definitely isn't going to look good on your CV. But I couldn't help snorting with laughter when I first read about it, partly because it sounds an awful lot like the kind of highly improbable setup that happens in Adam Sandler movies, like non-identical twins that both look so much like Adam Sandler that he can play both roles, or a remote control that can pause, rewind and fast-forward life, or a Mossad agent who fakes his own death and becomes a hairdresser. This is just the sort of misanthropic prank that gets played on people in Sandler's films. He's made a lot of money from portraying this kind of thing. Enough to afford a maid, even. And so the circle of life continues.
But back to the gruds.
Truly, scrubbing someone's undies is a most intimate of tasks. In Whare Fox-Tamaira laundry duties are shared and I can only speak for myself but when faced with another person's skid marks I tend to adopt an "I didn't see it and you can't prove that I did" plausible deniability* approach. That is, everything goes in the wash and let's just hope those hungry enzymes** in the washing powder aren't fussy eaters.
Basically, if you want your gruds to be streak free, I believe this is up to the individual responsible. The only favour you'll get from me is that I'll make sure they're not inside out when I hang them up to dry. So the Silver Fox need not sleep with one eye open. I don't feel any particular pressure to make sure his undergarments are immaculate. No, I am not harbouring secret resentments toward him. As he is all too well aware, I wear my resentments on my sleeve.
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Downton guest stars and other foolishness
What did we ever do without the Internet? As infuriating as this place can sometimes be, it never fails to deliver all sorts of weirdies and wonderfuls to your eyeballs. And this week has been no different.
For one thing we learned that Angelina Jolie's natural born boobs are no more, after she penned an opinion piece on her decision to have a preventive double mastectomy. This prompted many people to go "whoa, that's pretty full-on", myself included. Unfortunately it also made a number of people go "there's a shortage of perfect breasts in the world, it would be a pity to damage yours", which is a reasonable enough thing to say to your one true love, but is a less legitimate opinion to have about the boobs of a perfect stranger. On the upside it did prompt someone to make this very pointed and clever cartoon about it. Internet people can be maddening but also very, very awesome.
Meanwhile, another story tangentially related to breasts, made it's presence known over on Blog Idle's Facebook page, when Kerry McSaveney asked why no one is paying any attention to the enormous-whale-monster-with-giant-udders air balloon that has been commissioned as part of Canberra's centenary celebrations? Having gazed upon a picture of said, er, "thing" I have to agree that this is a very good question. It's not every day you see something that looks like a cross between Admiral Ackbar and the women's shower room at Les Mills. I can only assume everyone involved is so traumatised by it that they've blocked it from their minds. Personally, I can't get it OUT of mine, but I'm weird like that, I guess.
Another thing that happened on the Internet this week but which blessedly has nothing to do with the chesticle region was that Sean Combs aka Diddy trolled everyone by claiming on Twitter that he was joining the cast of Downton Abbey. Downton fans everywhere swooned and upon waking questioned everything they knew to be true about the world that they live in. In truth, we were only being set up for a Funny or Die clip (warning - contains swears) where Diddy joins Downton with the help of some digital trickery. Well played, Diddy, well played.
A consequence of this little prank is that I have since been fantasising about who I'd love to see on an episode of Downton Abbey. So far I have -
Don't lick the asbestos
Now that I am a ho-meow-ner, specifically a Christchurch one, I have the joy of not only paying rates and wondering things about insulation, I have also entered into a relationship of sorts with EQC.
Previously my only interaction with EQC has been in relation to three claims for damaged contents. Eventually I received cheques to pay for replacement wine glasses, crockery and furniture and though there were a few confused phone calls, and some lack of clarity about the process, for the most part this didn't have much of an effect on my life and it all got sorted out in the end. Indeed there have been many, many times during the past couple of years when I've been mightily glad not to be a ho-meow-ner.
But those days are no longer. When we bought our house we knew that it still hadn't had its earthquake repairs done. It would have been nice to move into a house that had already been fixed up but the reality is once you've narrowed down the available houses to what you can afford and then narrowed that further to what you can get a mortgage for (TC2 land or better only), adding an extra filter of "places that don't have any earthquake damage" pretty much leaves you attending open homes for garden sheds in Halswell.
I'm happy with the choice we made. I like our house and the damage is mainly cosmetic. It's not leaky or damp. Repairs would certainly involve colour charts (exciting!) but could be quite some way off. Or so we thought.
About a month ago we got a call from EQC organising a time for some buildery types to come around and inspect the house in anticipation of our repairs getting under way. This was all happening a good deal more quickly than we'd counted on, but hey, we're not going to argue.
Think before you grope that gnome
At the weekend the Silver Fox and I, as a method of avoiding the state of the garden (we haven't bought a lawnmower yet), indulged in a little art appreciation. The Christchurch Art Gallery was celebrating its 10th anniversary with a whole bunch of outdoor art. This is actually something they've been doing for a while, what with their building needing significant repairs. Yes, we Christchurch folk are getting used to enjoying our art "al fresco".
We were particularly drawn to a pair of enormous chrome garden gnomes that stand stoically outside the art gallery, shining and gleaming like old-school Cylons (albeit with a less threatening attitude). They are most impressive and if you're in the area I recommend you check them out.
We approached with enthusiasm but minded the large red signs that asked people not to touch the artworks and reminded everyone that they were under "24 HOUR VIDEO SURVEILLANCE". Fair enough. I got close to one of them, noting with some interest that for the first time ever I could see my face reflected in a gnome's bum (tick that off the bucket list!), but made sure not to touch. As anyone who as ever owned any chrome kitchen appliances will know, that stuff attracts grubby marks like a freshly laundered white shirt attracts spaghetti sauce.
We took a few pictures and then stepped back to let others get a little gnome-time.
And of course most of them put their hands all over the art.
Six things that don't suck about winter
So it's not actually technically winter yet, but really, what difference does that make? The fact of the matter is that this week many parts of the country became decidely inclement. In my own neck of the woods we discovered that after a frost the deck of our new home closely resembles an ice skating rink. It was only the quick hands of the Silver Fox that stopped this ice queen from triple kowtowing off the side and into the herb garden the other morning. Nice work, fella. Now could you do the same thing but this time in a sequinned unitard?
But hey, winter is just one of those unpleasant things that you have to go through, like puberty. That being the case it's probably in our best interests to just try to make the best of it. So below I have compiled my list of things that are good about winter.
Soup - Hot and tasty and usually not very hard to prepare. When it's my turn to make dinner, there's a good chance toast soldiers will be involved. I have a tendency to stockpile soup in immoderate quantities, so cold winter weather is the perfect opportunity to justify this hoarding behaviour.
Fat - Having a little bit of extra padding around the tummy isn't usually considered an advantage, but it sure as heck is when it comes to staying warm. Also, with multiple layers of clothing to hide behind, there's no way anyone can really be sure how much of that is you and how much is that chunky sweater and scarf arrangement. Time to take a break from holding the gut in and just ease ourselves into corpulent inactivity.
Fire - Our new house has a log fire and my new favourite hobby is "burning stuff". It's very restrained arson. I know it's not very friendly to the environment but it's just so warm. I derive ridiculous levels of satisfaction from successfully building a fire. So much so that I'm entirely convinced that cavemen discovered and nurtured the ability to build fires for an ego boost and to have something interesting to look at as much as for any ancillary purposes such as warmth, light or cooking.
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