Cat Tripping Shoulder Cramps

Just whistling as I was walking down my street this evening when out from the bushes (on the other side of the road) what should bound up to me but a spritely white cat with a tortoise shell back. All efforts to walk severely hampered by this wirey furryball entwined round my legs. I made slow progress for the next few houses til it gave up the me-owing act and slowly dribbled away.

My shoulders keep cramping up; it's because I have new shoes.

Celestial Bodies

I seem to be obsessed with celestial bodies at the moment. I just have to stop and stare at them wherever I am.

After discovering my last name in the Bible, surviving an earthquake and gale force winds, wresting my kitchen utensils from the Big Bad Wolf and his mangy predecessor, I'm pleased to announce that Saturday's grape-juice making effort was a rather satisfying and rip-roaring sucess. Now to bottle it all before it ferments on the bench top.

Vindaloo

As I was cutting through the mall on my way home from work I got side-tracked by the delectable aroma of Shamiana's spices wafting down from the food court. So I stopped and ordered the chicken vindaloo. The lady told me it was really hot and checked (twice) if I was ok with that.

Of course I was ok with it; I wouldn't have ordered a vindaloo if I didn't want something with a spicy kick. And no, I did not need to order a drink aswell.

The way she went on about how hot it was, I was expecting it to sizzle my tonsils off on the way down and transform me into a veritable fire-breathing dragon. But no. It was only westerner hot. Crestfallen was I.

Despite the build-up of false expectations it was still good and just what I wanted.

Something Strange

...happened this evening. Sarah had just gone out but I thought I caught a glimpse of someone walking past the window. Thinking she'd forgotten something, I waited for her to round the corner and come up the back steps. But no one came. I was fairly certain I'd seen someone or something disappear behind the brick wall.

I had to investigate.

Yanking the ranch-slider open, I couldn't immediately see anyone, so just stood and waited. I was about to waltz on out, when I heard the rustle of dead leaves and saw the silhouette of a human form scuffling in the undergrowth outside my bedroom, and thought better of it. I slunk back in to the safety of the house, all the while wondering what my next course of action would be.

Then as suddenly as she'd arrived, she left, just casually strolling back down the driveway.

I never did find out what she was doing. I have strong suspicions though, owing to the evidence left behind.

Polar Blast!

When I got up this morning I thought Winter had arrived. When I arrived at work my fingers were pegs of white with little bits of red glowing from underneath my finger nails. It had rained during the night and now the sky was clear, there would've been frost if it hadn't been still wet. A SW was racing up from Antarctica buffeting every living thing into a frozen statue. No precipitation, but it sure was chilly! Seeing the new white icing on the Southern Alps cake brought to rememberance the chill of snow-brushed wind. But all that came to mind was part of a song by the "Sons of Korah" called "The LORD's Delight" and based on Psalm 147:

His word runs swiftly
His commands
He sends to earth;
He spreads the snow,
The frost He scatters
The snow like wool,
The frost like ashes

And the hail, He hurls down
Who can stand up to His icy blast?
He sends His word and they melt
He stirs up the wind
And then the waters flow

On the way home all the waterfowl were bobbing in the lakes like flocks of decoys, fighting just to keep balance on the splicing and dicing of the vertical waves.

Armchair Archaeology

This is a 'little' something I wrote/transcribed about a year ago, enjoy...



I just have a feeling you'd better stop now and delete this email if you don't ever want to try and attempt to understand chaotically random stuff.

but I've been noticing lately that when I sit down on my two seater couch, there is not enough room to stretch out so I thought I would catalogue a cross-section of my life by writing down exactly what IS taking up all the room beside me. Here goes....

The latest Farmers Mother's Day and Beauty Catalogue (complete with plastic wrap -no actually, true to my style, that is scrunched up in a heap on the floor!)
Comm. Bible study booklet on the "Symbols" series
Bible (AV)
CDs: 2 Scripture memory songs by integrity music (Encouragement & God's Grace), chillout worship, sons of Korah: resurrection, 2 Hymnstyle vocals (Down-Home Gospel & Country Church), and 2 of the "New Zealand's 25 Favourite Praise & Worship Choruses(#s 4 & 5).
Unopened Telecom bill
Tamil dictionary and phrasebook
Maps of CHCH (book and fold-out form)
"Challenges in Cytology" Picture Manual for the recent workshop on Confronting Difficult High Grade Lesions
RWT Deduction certificate for year ending March 2006
DVDs: Showboat and Gladiator
Unread THE STAR from monday 24 April
Journal
Webster's Dictionary 1991 paperback
RCC Contact Guide
Book containing hymns that I copy down from the internet
4 books: The Air I Breathe, Captivating, "authentic beauty" and Everybody's Normal Till You Get to Know Them.
2 empty envelopes, one from the bank and one from church
A heap of (what looks like from this point of view) junk mail: Pak'n'Save docket $20.81, 16 Belfast bus timetable, DSE Warranty booklet, last night's used tissue, telecom bill for 23 march (I paid this one -I think so, I hope so), bank statement, tolls and internet bill (I also think/hope I paid this one too), another empty bank envelope, Warehouse catalogue issue #38, Mitre 10 5 day bonanza(apr581), Warehouse stationary, office max, Spag's Pizza menu mmmmm, in home childcare, Mitre 10 Mega (apr948), Mitre 10(apr751), Mitre 10 Mega Handtool sellout, The Warehouse, M10 (apr587), Warehouse stationary, office max, In-home childcare, M10 Mega (apr948), M10 (apr751), M10 Mega hand tool sellout, Spag's pizza mmmm, M10 (apr751) (?dejavu anyone?), Westfield Promotion, Best buys, Farmers big brand holiday sale, Damart (wrap intact), other half of my toll and internat bill and direct debit authority form, St Albans Neighbourhood News april, Unread CHCH Mail april19, sheet of bird stickers (one missing), another empty bank envelope (they sure do seem to like wasting these on me!), mail for one of the past tenants (unopened), mail "To the Proprietor", Mitre 10 (apr749), empty envelope from church, The Warehouse, another bank statement, Money saver coupon book, Spag's Pizza mmmm (Ahhh, alright already so I'll go and buy some pizza), Gamesman, Farmers easter holiday sale, psis, easter money savings, quality education, inside page of a church newsletter, CHCH Mail april 12, Farmers easter holiday sale, Gamesman, psis, easter money savings, quality education, Ezibuy Autumn Update, Net Tel Newstalk, Bendon outlet, Footlocker, Harvey Norman, Plastic box, More offspring from aforementioned church newsletter -look, here is the mother too!, SHOWERS from CMCT, Ezibuy Autumn Directory 06, the Realtor, a cuddly toy!(no really, I'm kidding)
The Dog & Lemon Guide
"Masters of Deception" an optical illusion book by Al Seckel
Net Tel envelope (Man, that was hard to write it was almost evelpope, envelpoep, envelpope, enveploep, every time I went to write it, I knew it had to be different but the right combination just wasn't coming out).
Whitcoulls receipt $9.99
greg laurie ticket thing
fine tip felt pen, blue (but hey, what other colour would it be?)
art/ideas/picture notebook
"this is not a toy" plastic bag
tightly folded square of creme egg wrapper
Michael Hill diamond collection (catalogue)
Bible CEV
Hair straightener
Two black sleeves I hacked off a top ages ago
My photos from India
4cm of black cotton
A triangular, Square-shaped blue cushion
2 off-white cushions
And finally the last layer: the couch itself and the blue cover thereof.

So now you know, after that brief foray into the archaeological depths of my couch what exactly it is that hinders the comfort of the sitter. No more, no less. This is not intended in any way to be a true or accurate representation of my house or life. This project was born out of pure curiosity on my behalf and resulted in my couch being able to breathe easier -it only has me to contend with now. Ha ha ha.....

Hope this brightened your day er, night or you'll never know if you did the sensible thing I told you to do at the beginning. And if you have read this far congratulations! You have just proved me right in my assumption that human nature is innately curious (or that some people have waaaaaaaaaay too much time on their hands).

8th Webolution

Last night as I was walking through to the house, I met a spider in my face. The light as glowing from within and illuminating the web from behind. My eyes happened to glance on a spider suspended between the branches, perched on no more than a shimmer of light (like the rounded streaking on a newly polished car, you catch it out the corner of your eye, but never sure if the dancing light is really there).

It wasn't a proper web yet, only the "spokes" were in place. Undeterred by my breathing, I patiently watched as he completed the eight revolution of the spiral in two minutes flat, climbing in what seemed to be the clockwise direction. I soon realised the illusion, as he was completely in silhouette it only appeared to be that way, and he was, in fact, moving counter-clockwise.

And yes, he had his breakfast of flies on toast out there this morning.

Speaking of webs... the other day I was trying to write a word starting with "web" but all that would come out of the pen was www. So I tried again, and got ww out before I scrubbed it out to start again, again, slowly! And this time I managed it; I've never been so proud (well, Ok. I have).

Redpolls

(Click title to see picture)

Guess what I saw when I just happened to be kneeling on the floor gazing out the lounge window? A redpoll! I know, I couldn't believe it either! This was only the third time in my life I've seen them and I didn't even have to leave the comfort of my on home.

Redpolls are primarily seed eaters so they can often be found foraging in vacant lots nibbling up the weed seeds. To the untrained eye they just look like sparrows with a splat of red on their crown (head).

The female I saw was deftly twirling her way up and around the dandelion stalks. Then I saw the male barely a metre away from me through the glass. It looked like someone had slit his throat with two streams of blood trikling down his breast.

I stayed transfixed for those few minutes, even managed to open the window and hear them twittering away to each other, and then they were off leaving my garden void of dandelion seeds (I knew I was culivating them for a reason).

One New Thing

Today I learned that equal perpendicular line segments connect the opposite centers of squares exterior to the sides of any quadrilateral (otherwise known as van Aubel's theorem). Quite interesting I think.

Chilli Quest

During my week in Australia I tried a few out-of-the-ordinary chilli based products.

First, a BOOST Juice called Chilli-Chilli Bang-Bang, which was just your basic crushed berries and apple base with added chilli flakes. Interesting... and surprisingly refreshing with just the right degree of KICK. I liked it well enough (mmmm, yes I did) but not being a big liquid fan it meant I could leave it in the fridge and rest assured it would still be waiting for me later. David quipped "it's chilli-chilli today, and bang-bang tomorrow"

Of all the fudges I could've tried I had to choose the Hot Chilli Chocolate one, and yes, that was good too. Sweet chocolatey sugariness then slowly in crept a wave of chilli til my mouth almost exploded. It sure was a good way to eke out a tiny sliver of fudge!

Then there were sweet Thai-chilli sour cream flavoured Doritos, jalapenos on my pizza, portuguese spices on my chicken and when we got back to Kiwiland I got to tuck in to a "Wendy's" chilli with extra chilli.

And I wonder why all my food tastes so bland now?

Monophthongalization, etc

Some words that I never knew existed until quite recently... (thanks, to TheFreeDictionary for most definitions)

Monophthongalization: (WARNING: this is my own definition) The process of turning a diphthong into a monophthong. (where there are two different vowels) both vowel sounds used to be pronounced but now they are pronounced together to make only one sound. i.e the reduction of a diphthong to a simple vowel. Which means practically nothing unless you know what they both are.

Well, here goes: A Diphthong is is a monosyllabic vowel combination involving a quick but smooth movement from one vowel to another, often interpreted by listeners as a single vowel sound or phoneme. While "pure" vowels, or monophthongs, are said to have one target tongue position, diphthongs have two target tongue positions.

I came across this lovely find of a word as I was reading how modern Greek language was derived from the ancient Greek via the Koine (common/Biblical) Greek.


Silviculture: the branch of forestry dealing with the development and care of forests
(forestry - the science of planting and caring for forests and the management of growing timber)

I first came across this in a newspaper article as someone's job description, and I, curious as I am, turned that very same hour to GOOGLE AKA "source of all knowledge" to find out what the guy actually did for a living.


Filibuster: The use of obstructionist tactics, especially prolonged speechmaking, for the purpose of delaying legislative action.

I first saw this as a "Word-of-the-Day" on my homepage www.thefreedictionary.com (that's right, I have a dictionary for a homepage!) and not knowing what it meant, just assumed it was something to do with horse training... how wrong could I be? Then, just recently I read it in the paper when one political party was accusing the other of filibustering. Well, Parliament can be a bit of a circus sometimes.


Excoriating:tear or wear off the skin or make sore by abrading or to express strong disapproval of.

This one I heard in church, but can't remember exactly the context. It seemed kinda self explanatory at the time but I couldn't help wondering what scoria had to do with anything (& it doesn't).


Laniard (Lanyard): A cord worn around the neck for carrying something, such as a knife or whistle

David mentioned this one last week. That's right, he used a word I didn't know and what's more he's known this word for about the last ten years. I had actually wondered if there was a name to call those strap things that go around your neck to attach your keys/card to apart from "those strap things that go around your neck to attach your keys/card to" and now I know.


Degustation: To taste with relish; savor. Taking a small amount into the mouth to test its quality. Sampling all of the chefs signature dishes in small portions at the one sitting. Usually eight or more courses, it may be accompanied by a matching wine degustation.

I've seen this twice in two weeks now. First it was part of some prize package to take part in a degustation meal. And by association, my first thought was "how disgusting" but being in a prize package perhaps it must be something good afterall.


And what's more, my spell-checker doesn't even recognise half of these new words.

Flying Warthog

I saw a flying warthog today. A disorganised group of metaplastic cells was masquerading as a warthog in "Superman" pose, looking like it had just been shot out of a cannon. It had everything: snout, tusks and trotters.

an ou ead his log ntry?

At the moment I seem to be fixated with trying to pronounce words on signs when only some of the letters are present. Such as broken neon signs or peeled off stickers. Leading to such combinations as... FOODTOW, WHI LL'S, ar caf' and acking bate.

Yesterday and today I had nine butterflies hatch (two of which were males).

OOoooo and today marked my quarter century.