Beautiful etsy finds

I have an addiction to online shopping. Sadly I don't have the budget for it, but still every now and then I treat myself to some treasures.

The upside of this is when you get beautiful items and discover an excellent new seller.

Etsy seller http://www.etsy.com/shop/merchantofkismet is awesome.

Check out how my goodies came wrapped:



Apologies for the blurriness but so pretty! I was expecting maybe a plastic bag but it's like getting a present.

Here are my beautiful buys:


I got a pretty diamante bow brooch, a pearl and lavender string necklace and pretty white flower clip on earrings (I use them as shoe and dress clips).

Unfortunately when zpoc hits these will be useless but it's important to enjoy the finer things in life while you can.

My dog is cheating on me with construction workers

I am a sucker for animals. If it's not human but still breathing I love it. As a result of this, I have three dogs that no one in their right mind would have chosen.
Dash is the original of these. She is a little Kelpie cross Lab cross Collie. When That Dude I'm Marrying and my roommate finally gave in to my request to adopt a dog about two years ago, had they know Dash would be the result, we'd have driven in the opposite direction. Maybe even moved internationally.

This is the cause of the trouble:



When we went to the Animal Welfare League we wanted to get a puppy but were unable because we weren't home enough for one. Dash was listed as Pet of the Week- she was on special and had been there for months as a stray. No one wanted her. I looked through the wire cage and she stared back at me. The boys told me not to touch her, that I couldn't go petting dogs through fences and if I touched her we'd have to get her. It was too late. I was patting her. We named her Dash for ability to run really, really fast.

We soon learned another thing about Dash. She can jump anything. Like, me, and I'm 6 foot. Fences were a joke to her. And tying her up? Also a joke. She just chews through. If she doesn't chew through it, she rolls in her own poo to punish you for punishing her. And another thing? She really enjoys barking. At anything. She has small dog syndrome and must constantly assert her authority over everything. An ant, the mail man, a mother pushing a pram. Basically she's the worst dog ever. She is so accident prone that she's spent as much of her three year life wearing a cone around her head to stop her biting her stitches as she's spent without it.



This is her with a dinosaur bone from a T-rex she took down earlier.


She once got bit by a flesh eating spider and nearly turned into a zombie dog. Seriously, her leg turned green.

Anyway, the worst thing about Dash is her love of people. That little bitch waits till we're merrily off at work for the day and jumps the fence. In the afternoon the only sign she's been out for the day is meat pie wrappers in the yard, a mysterious ball no one bought her and the occasional surprise bone. She's been spotted hanging out at construction sites, service stations and the train station.

Dash now has a second family at the industrial estate across the road. One day, while frantic with worry searching for her, I wandered from workshop to workshop asking if they'd seen a little black dog.

"Oh Dash, yeah she was here this morning... should be at the smash repairs shop about now."

"Yup, little Dash usually come around at smoko - that's her spot."

I look and see a bowl of water in a shady corner. The ungrateful thing has been cheating on us, bumming food off tradies. Apparently she even does tricks for them! They all know her name from her tag but have given up calling us because they just see her jump back home before we show up in the afternoons.

Dog of the Week my arse.



Oh, but how can I resist this?

I am patient zero

I have been in the ugly clutches of the flu for the past few months.
It comes for a few days, I fend it off with drugs and eating everything orange in sight, then I forget, go outside at night and WHAMMO. It gets me again.
I look so horrible and am so snotty and mucusy that I struggle to breath. I can't sleep because if I doze off I forget to hack and snort and inhale. This has resulted in pasty, sweaty skin, dark circles under my bloodshot eyes and basically the air of a decomposing person. I am patient X, where it all began, and there is a good chance I will soon switch to eating human flesh, zombie like, as the mucus consumes my brain.

I look a little like this:

Again, thanks wiki! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Zombie_costume_portrait.jpg

Naturally, the day when I go into work and don't even try to attempt to cover my hideousness with makeup is the day the photographers decide to take new photos off all journos for our photo bylines.
Let me explain - I work as a journalist for a couple of community newspapers - on the index page and along the top of some pages, they run 1/2 photos of the writer - from waist to to of head.

I looked like hell. I not changed my hair from the rough bun I had slept in. I was wearing the clothes nearest to my bed and they were un-ironed and stained. I had not even washed my face. The photographer winced when I smiled. When I removed my bright pink raver sunglasses he shuddered. When he looked took the photo I think he just aimed roughly and hit the button. The results were as good as could be expected.

On the upside, residents have stopped calling me asking me to cover their stories. They obviously value their lives.

Dear computer, we used to be such good buds. Why would you do this to me?

My computer has selfishly decided to take a time out from our relationship, which is why all has been quite on the interwebs lately.
The computer has been making amazing grinding sounds for several months, and if I don't hold it exactly right the screen dies.
Sometimes is makes ascending whirring noises like it's about to take off.
Finally it just stopped turning on, so I've sent it to be fixed, but there is a good chance it's now dead to me. Which means future updates will be typo-ridden and from my iphone (why does it predictive text the world's most stupid words? Its should NEVER be changed to IRS) or ffrom my roomie's stolen laptop while they sleep.
In other news, I've decide to visit Melbourne this September (yay tax return!). Any suggestions on what to see/do?

A Tax Haiku

According to www.wikipedia.org: Haiku (俳句, haikai verse?) listen (help·info), plural haiku, is a form of Japanese poetry, consisting of 17 moras (or on), in three phrases of 5, 7, and 5 moras respectively.[1] Although haiku are often stated to have 17 syllables,[2] this is inaccurate as syllables and moras are not the same. Haiku typically contain a kigo (seasonal reference), and a kireji (cutting word).

The world rushes on
but my tax return stays still. In
my head I've spent you

Well, I did get all confused with my syllabals and my moras (something which I'd mastered in 7th grade Japanese, so this haiku experiemnet is further proof that I am getting dumber as I get older), but I think I mainly got it. There are definately some cutting words.

A ghetto ode to my tax return

Bitch - where you at? My shizzle don't pay for itself. It's been three weeks. Deposit yourself or Ima have to bust a cap in yo ass. Word.

Looking back I should have tried to write the word crunk in there, but I can't seem to fit it.

It's been three weeks since I lodged my tax return and I have already spent it six times in my head. Realistically I will put it on my credit card, but in today's dream i will instead travel to the Tim Burton exhibit in Melbourne.

So until you make nice with my bank account and move in tax return, I will post a poem about you each day. And there is a reason I am not the next Shakespeare.
Prepare yourself. Dope, word, crunk etc.

The splendor bender

I've been quiet around the interwebs the last week or so, caught up in the epicness that is Splendor in the Grass.
For those non-Aussies, this is the most expensive and awesome musical festival in our country, and goes for about four days.
This is the first year I've managed to get tickets (which was a mission in itself and had my entire office screaming at their computers as we all hoped and prayed and got kicked out of the queue at 17 only to return in 38,9078 place. No really), so I was pretty excited.

It was a great festival, despite some awful traffic issues and the general freezingness that is Woodford, so I've managed to get over my hatred for the ticketing system. Bands included Goldfrapp, Scissor Sisters, Mumford and Sons, THE PIXIES, Florence and the Machine, Temper Trap, Washington, Clare Bowditch, Paul Kelly and lots more awesome.

I have some radcore oozing wounds on my feet from dancing in my gumboots and will need to sleep for a few days but it was all worth it.



ABOVE: Me in excellent raver sunnies, a vintage 70s dress and rainbow gumboots on my way to the site.

Splendor would be a deathtrap in a zombie invasion so I dressed appropriately
Crappy raver sunnies,a warm dress, tights in my bag for when it gets colder, a sack with the essentials (water, snacks, phone)and hardcore gumboots (ok, they're rainbow and sparkly but still legitimate gumboots).

The reason Splendor would be so dangerous in an outbreak is the sheer mass of people and over-excited security guards. It's set in rough bushland with large open spaces carved out for stages and paddocks for the hundreds of cars and campers. Small paths and bridges link the areas. If even one was infected it would quickly spread in such tightly packed crowds and seeing as a lot of people are already hallucinating some crazy crap on drugs anyway, it would not be recognized as an outbreak.
If it happens, your best bet is to ignore the security guards and make for any kind of exit -not the marked ones as those will be hard to get to - but any fence or barricade you can scale. Then head for the high ground surrounding the festival site and let the zombies feast on the masses as you look for a defensive position to ride it out in until you can move to a long term spot or your back-up bunker.

My rainbow gumboots were made for this shiz.