It's been busy chez rooruu - but there will be more blog entries next week! I changed the header, as a start...
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Saturday, February 21, 2009
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Card and compass
One of the kids in my family is 21, and we were asked to bring something that reminds us of the birthday one. I got a compass, for the birthday one's strong sense of direction in life, and wrote this in the card:
Time flies! I remember you only a few days old, looking, looking, paying attention to everything around you. Little, when you were very precise about tidy things, like getting rid of price stickers. The Christmas you were two, and hopped with joy from foot to foot, unable to contain your excitement.
It's a joy to see you grown into the person we saw as a baby - change, and not change.
Happy 21st! (the quilt* will come) and every good wish and hope for the realisation of dreams, and the discovery of new ones.
*quilt has already been discussed, and is on the to-make slate.
They grow so fast!
Time flies! I remember you only a few days old, looking, looking, paying attention to everything around you. Little, when you were very precise about tidy things, like getting rid of price stickers. The Christmas you were two, and hopped with joy from foot to foot, unable to contain your excitement.
It's a joy to see you grown into the person we saw as a baby - change, and not change.
Happy 21st! (the quilt* will come) and every good wish and hope for the realisation of dreams, and the discovery of new ones.
*quilt has already been discussed, and is on the to-make slate.
They grow so fast!
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Pool, rain
Round about this time every year I attend a swimming carnival. And, as I do round about this time every year, I take a photo of the water. Today was cloudy, all day, but the rain held off till all was almost done. Such a relief, rain, after the relentless, scorching heat. The temperature's close to half of what it was - from over 40degC to around 20degC. Quite a change. The hot weather may not be all gone, though, they're saying...
Monday, February 09, 2009
Craft helps bushfire appeal - buy on etsy
The death toll in the Victorian bushfire now stands at 131 people. Over 750 homes destroyed.
One way to help? Go to etsy and buy handmade craft from sellers donating the proceeds to the bushfire appeal fund. (But do check the listing page and their shop main page to ensure they are planning to donate with the listing that interests you - this search can throw up sellers using the word 'bushfire' for legit contexts other than appeal donation. Some donating sellers are donating with every listing, some with some of their listings. Another tag to search is "bushfire appeal"; or buy from or donate to this shop).
Here are some examples:
One way to help? Go to etsy and buy handmade craft from sellers donating the proceeds to the bushfire appeal fund. (But do check the listing page and their shop main page to ensure they are planning to donate with the listing that interests you - this search can throw up sellers using the word 'bushfire' for legit contexts other than appeal donation. Some donating sellers are donating with every listing, some with some of their listings. Another tag to search is "bushfire appeal"; or buy from or donate to this shop).
Here are some examples:
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Beautiful things. Beautiful thought. Well done to them.
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Sunday, February 08, 2009
Hot weather and bushfires
We've had four days over 40degC - so relentlessly hot that the state government relaxed water restrictions that have been in place for years, and allowed backyard sprinklers for children to play under, to cool them down. Apparently, Ivanhoe in inland NSW was likely to be the hottest place on earth today at 47degC, or so one newspaper reported.
In Victoria, over eighty lives have been lost in dreadful bushfires. Read more here: (http://www.theage.com.au/national/death-toll-rises-from-bushfires-20090208-80jv.html?page=-1). Entire towns/villages wiped out.
Online donations can be made at the Bendigo Bank at this link or the National Australia Bank at this link.
Last month I was in Bendigo. Yesterday, thirty homes on its outskirts were burned out completely. As we drove through the countryside then, we saw how very very dry it was. Add fire and wind, and disaster is horribly easy to understand. When you learn that half of Australia's bushfires are the work of arsonists (likely including some of these Victorian fires), you're even more horrified.
And not forgetting that in North Queensland, floods that had receded are returning. It's a "wilful, lavish land" all right, "droughts and flooding rains" (see Dorothea Mackellar's poem, "My Country", which I won't put here in full because it's still copyright).
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In Victoria, over eighty lives have been lost in dreadful bushfires. Read more here: (http://www.theage.com.au/national/death-toll-rises-from-bushfires-20090208-80jv.html?page=-1). Entire towns/villages wiped out.
Online donations can be made at the Bendigo Bank at this link or the National Australia Bank at this link.
Last month I was in Bendigo. Yesterday, thirty homes on its outskirts were burned out completely. As we drove through the countryside then, we saw how very very dry it was. Add fire and wind, and disaster is horribly easy to understand. When you learn that half of Australia's bushfires are the work of arsonists (likely including some of these Victorian fires), you're even more horrified.
And not forgetting that in North Queensland, floods that had receded are returning. It's a "wilful, lavish land" all right, "droughts and flooding rains" (see Dorothea Mackellar's poem, "My Country", which I won't put here in full because it's still copyright).
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Thursday, February 05, 2009
It is very hot.
It is very hot. Day and night. Teetering around 40degC/over 100degF. Very hot. Not cooling down much at night, either. Tiring. Hot. That is all (for now).
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Sunday, February 01, 2009
An artist's view of the inauguration
Whether you're over Obama inauguration hoopla or not, take a look at this artist's piece in the New York Times - illustrator Maira Kelman's very individual take on the day in thoughtful watercolours and engaging observations: The Inauguration. At Last. from her blog, And the pursuit of happiness.
It reminds me a bit of the work of Australian cartoonist Michael Leunig (who was officially declared to be a National Living Treasure a couple of years ago).
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It reminds me a bit of the work of Australian cartoonist Michael Leunig (who was officially declared to be a National Living Treasure a couple of years ago).
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Vintage cutlery II
It's all very well finding a cache of lovely vintage forks and spoons, but you do need knives...
A sharp eyed friend spotted a mixed box of vintage cutlery in an old wares shop we were liking very much. A bit of sorting and hunting, and I had a set of knives. I gather the handle on these isn't bone, but some sort of early plastic (xyrene or some name like that, someone said) and they're stainless steel.
But now we lay the table with beautiful cutlery - not all quite matching, esp. if there are more than six people. But like the spoons and forks, these are happy in the hand. My previous set of cutlery, basic plain vanilla 80s stainless steel, has served well. But these vintage pieces just add something extra to the ordinary business of daily meals.
I did look at modern sets, and never quite found one that I liked. Either they didn't work in the hand, or were too moderne one way or another, or trying to be too clever or designed, or felt somehow flimsy. The sturdy, plain design of the vintage cutlery that's come my way is just right. Just right.
And then I chuckle, because it's very much like the cutlery I grew up with, except now (I don't remember why) my parents use a moderne set.
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A sharp eyed friend spotted a mixed box of vintage cutlery in an old wares shop we were liking very much. A bit of sorting and hunting, and I had a set of knives. I gather the handle on these isn't bone, but some sort of early plastic (xyrene or some name like that, someone said) and they're stainless steel.
But now we lay the table with beautiful cutlery - not all quite matching, esp. if there are more than six people. But like the spoons and forks, these are happy in the hand. My previous set of cutlery, basic plain vanilla 80s stainless steel, has served well. But these vintage pieces just add something extra to the ordinary business of daily meals.
I did look at modern sets, and never quite found one that I liked. Either they didn't work in the hand, or were too moderne one way or another, or trying to be too clever or designed, or felt somehow flimsy. The sturdy, plain design of the vintage cutlery that's come my way is just right. Just right.
And then I chuckle, because it's very much like the cutlery I grew up with, except now (I don't remember why) my parents use a moderne set.
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Vintage cutlery I
I've picked up a few vintage epns cutlery pieces from market stalls and vintage shops over time. In daily use, I found them to be distinctly stronger than the cutlery I bought years ago when I moved out of home. So I sort-of had my eye idly out for a set - and this one came to my attention.
Plain as anything, as you can see, and with the faint scratchings of use by their former owners. But, like the pieces I have, strong and beautiful in their simplicity, comfortable in the hand and weighted right. Such a little grace, good cutlery. It's like the new china I bought last year, a daily pleasure as part of everyday life.
So now, unwrapped from the newspaper bundled around them, released from rubber bands and washed, they're ready to use.
When I was little, my lovely grandmother used to clean our family silverplated cutlery with Silvo polish, and I remember the next meal always tasted just a tad funny, as the polish hadn't quite gone...
No knives? Ah, stay tuned...
Plain as anything, as you can see, and with the faint scratchings of use by their former owners. But, like the pieces I have, strong and beautiful in their simplicity, comfortable in the hand and weighted right. Such a little grace, good cutlery. It's like the new china I bought last year, a daily pleasure as part of everyday life.
So now, unwrapped from the newspaper bundled around them, released from rubber bands and washed, they're ready to use.
When I was little, my lovely grandmother used to clean our family silverplated cutlery with Silvo polish, and I remember the next meal always tasted just a tad funny, as the polish hadn't quite gone...
No knives? Ah, stay tuned...
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Doubt film flyer
The cinema foyer wasn't brightly lit, so even though I kept my camera as still as possible, this was the best photo I got. And then I thought, it's oddly appropriate to the film's subject matter. I know all four major performances are Oscar nominated, but overall while I'm happy to have seen it, it's not on my Pete-Repeat list. If any of them do win Oscars, I can nod sagely and say, ah yes, I saw that film....
(in an airconditioned cinema. werry welcome, in this weather! not the only reason to go, of course, but additionally appealing.)
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(in an airconditioned cinema. werry welcome, in this weather! not the only reason to go, of course, but additionally appealing.)
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Morning mist
Don't be fooled. It's not winter, but a balmy summer morning, early. That mist is soon gone, and then it's been heating up and up and up. The seven day forecast still has our part of the world being 35degC or more every day (close to 100F) or in the forties (definitely over 100F) next weekend.
February's the hardest month of summer - heat, humidity. Mind you, it's been hotter in Adelaide and Melbourne, enough to cause power outages and buckling of railway tracks.
Roll on autumn.
February's the hardest month of summer - heat, humidity. Mind you, it's been hotter in Adelaide and Melbourne, enough to cause power outages and buckling of railway tracks.
Roll on autumn.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Alexander McCall Smith books
Now why would this photo make you think that this house has been holding an Alexander McCall Smith readfest?
With the holidays over, the pace has slowed a bit. But so far, having read all the published Isabel Dalhousie books, the first No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency book (the second will be here any day) and being partway through the first 44 Scotland St book, I've enjoyed each in their different but similar/similar but different ways (the sly observational humour in each of them, for instance).
Just have to get his latest daily novel, Corduroy Mansions, onto my bloglines (which it doesn't seem to want to do, so I've added it to my favourites Feeds folder. If you know how to bloglines it, do let me know!). You can find Corduroy Mansions here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/corduroymansionsbyalexandermcca/
and there's a daily audio feed/podcast as well as the text feed.
What's really happening? Up early, it's hot. Go to work, it's hot. Work hard, it's hot. Come home, the house is hot despite drawn curtains. Sleep, but it's hot. Wake up, it's still hot. Seven days of 35degC or more (that's 95degF) is rather wearying. Lots to do at work, though, and friendly faces. Roll on March (when it cools down a bit and is less humid).
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With the holidays over, the pace has slowed a bit. But so far, having read all the published Isabel Dalhousie books, the first No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency book (the second will be here any day) and being partway through the first 44 Scotland St book, I've enjoyed each in their different but similar/similar but different ways (the sly observational humour in each of them, for instance).
Just have to get his latest daily novel, Corduroy Mansions, onto my bloglines (which it doesn't seem to want to do, so I've added it to my favourites Feeds folder. If you know how to bloglines it, do let me know!). You can find Corduroy Mansions here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/corduroymansionsbyalexandermcca/
and there's a daily audio feed/podcast as well as the text feed.
What's really happening? Up early, it's hot. Go to work, it's hot. Work hard, it's hot. Come home, the house is hot despite drawn curtains. Sleep, but it's hot. Wake up, it's still hot. Seven days of 35degC or more (that's 95degF) is rather wearying. Lots to do at work, though, and friendly faces. Roll on March (when it cools down a bit and is less humid).
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Monday, January 26, 2009
Australia Day
Thought I'd better mark Australia Day, so here's the front cover of today's Sydney Morning Herald. Surreal artwork by Reg Mombassa.
It's thankfully cooler today, much better for a day when people are out and about.
I've just done a catchup of blog entries on films and books and more (can you tell it's work tomorrow, holidays over?).
Yesterday the extended family gathered to celebrate a big-0 birthday, and just sitting around talking across the generations was one of the best days of the holidays. Hearing more of Dad's stories of the RAF in WW2, talking sushi trains and Thai food with the older kids, talking books and films and who's done what, all sorts of conversations big and small, and much laughter. So good.
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It's thankfully cooler today, much better for a day when people are out and about.
I've just done a catchup of blog entries on films and books and more (can you tell it's work tomorrow, holidays over?).
Yesterday the extended family gathered to celebrate a big-0 birthday, and just sitting around talking across the generations was one of the best days of the holidays. Hearing more of Dad's stories of the RAF in WW2, talking sushi trains and Thai food with the older kids, talking books and films and who's done what, all sorts of conversations big and small, and much laughter. So good.
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Star Gazing by Linda Gillard
I bought this one on a punt, because the premise intrigued me: a woman blind from birth who visits the Isle of Skye with a man who says it's so she can see the stars. That sounds clunky and suggestive, and in some ways cliched, but it isn't. It's a lyrical, engrossing, well-written novel that I'm really glad to have read.
To start at the end, as I closed this book I realised that, in a way, we all come blind to any novel we read, dependent on the author's words to make the novel's world visible to us. Maybe we have other visual experience on which to draw - we've been to Edinburgh, or seen pictures, or know what leafless birch tree looks like - but even so, we come blind. I hadn't quite thought of it in those terms before.
The story is substantially told from multiple points of view - Marianne, the blind woman; Keir, the man she meets; Louise, her novelist sister. I got a fascinating insight into what must seem unimaginable if you've never had sight - how to explain a wheeling mass of birds in the sky, or glass? It's not at all a sentimental book - part of the attraction between Marianne and Keir is the fact that he doesn't make unnecessary or patronising concessions to her blindness, but instead finds ways to challenge her, and to provide musical analogies to explain the unexplainable.
The author has a website here: http://www.lindagillard.co.uk/star-gazing.php and I got my copy of the book from the Book Depository http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/ . Not sure if it's in Australian or US bookshops as yet.
Recently I read The Forgotten Garden, and have now mostly forgotten it as I didn't enjoy it at all. This, however, is one I'm going to be happily recommending to friends - better written, better story, more engaging characters.
Oops: I typed the heroine's name as Margaret, when it's Marianne. The author kindly pointed this out, so I'm happy to have fixed it.
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To start at the end, as I closed this book I realised that, in a way, we all come blind to any novel we read, dependent on the author's words to make the novel's world visible to us. Maybe we have other visual experience on which to draw - we've been to Edinburgh, or seen pictures, or know what leafless birch tree looks like - but even so, we come blind. I hadn't quite thought of it in those terms before.
The story is substantially told from multiple points of view - Marianne, the blind woman; Keir, the man she meets; Louise, her novelist sister. I got a fascinating insight into what must seem unimaginable if you've never had sight - how to explain a wheeling mass of birds in the sky, or glass? It's not at all a sentimental book - part of the attraction between Marianne and Keir is the fact that he doesn't make unnecessary or patronising concessions to her blindness, but instead finds ways to challenge her, and to provide musical analogies to explain the unexplainable.
The author has a website here: http://www.lindagillard.co.uk/star-gazing.php and I got my copy of the book from the Book Depository http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/ . Not sure if it's in Australian or US bookshops as yet.
Recently I read The Forgotten Garden, and have now mostly forgotten it as I didn't enjoy it at all. This, however, is one I'm going to be happily recommending to friends - better written, better story, more engaging characters.
Oops: I typed the heroine's name as Margaret, when it's Marianne. The author kindly pointed this out, so I'm happy to have fixed it.
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Film/movie catchup: Slumdog Millionaire, Valkyrie, Milk
This is the pick of the bunch. It starts with a torture scene, and at times is hard to watch, and yet so much of it has you on the edge of your seat, utterly engaged with these characters and this story, as you find out how Jamal, a chai wallah (tea boy) and slumdog, knows the answers to the TV quiz questions. A terrific film.
Competent, workmanlike, at times tense - I'm damning it with faint praise, aren't I? I'm not sure how much of that is due to the fact that one knows the outcome - the Valkyrie plot to assassinate Hitler failed - and yet I'm happy to say that I learned new information about the immediate aftermath of the plot. The British headliner actors do their thing - although Bill Nighy's general is so fluttery you wonder how he would have become a general - and I was glad to learn at the end that Von Stauffenberg's wife and children survived. It's by no means a terrible film, but it's not a great one, either.
Sean Penn is such an accomplished actor. He is so different in this to the contained man of The Interpreter, or the death row inmate in Dead Man Walking. It's a biopic done with care and attention, well acted, using archival footage to make you realise how much, in some ways, the world has changed.
As the cinema didn't have posters of Slumdog Millionaire or Milk, I've used and acknowledged posters from http://www.impawards.com/, where among other interesting possibilities you can search posters by designer. So click here to see the many other striking posters designed by the same person as did the one for Slumdog Millionaire.
And what else did the cinemas have to offer this week? Air conditioning....and it's good to pack in a few before the holidays end and the world of work takes over next week.
The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency and book price maths
Having zoomed through the entire Isabel Dalhousie Sunday Philosophy Club series by Alexander McCall Smith, I've started on the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series. This one I picked up in a second hand book shop as a start and to see if I like it.
I did. Very much. One down, eight more, almost nine more to go.
I don't think I'll be buying any of them at the full rrp in Australia. See, here are the sums: second hand prices for these seem to range between $8 and $12 (I'm talking second hand book shops, not lucky op shop finds). The rrp on the paperbacks in bookshops that sell at rrp (and some charge more on some of their stock AND DON'T TELL YOU) is $22.99.
Ordering from the Amazons, or Amazon marketplaces, or Australian online shops attracts postage, which offsets any discount.
BUT: if I order them from the Book Depository (http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/) they are around six British pounds each, which on the current exchange rate is just over $12 Australian. Plus free shipping from the UK.
Which leads to my question: why can a UK online bookshop sell me the identical book for about half the price charged at my local bookshop? It's crazy, somewhere in that equation. Admittedly, our dollar has risen against the UK pound recently, and dropped against the US dollar, so UK prices have improved. But even so.
So sometime next week (Book Depository orders take a week or two at most, easily beating the Amazons' month or so) I'll be reading the second book in this series and enjoying more sly humour.
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I did. Very much. One down, eight more, almost nine more to go.
I don't think I'll be buying any of them at the full rrp in Australia. See, here are the sums: second hand prices for these seem to range between $8 and $12 (I'm talking second hand book shops, not lucky op shop finds). The rrp on the paperbacks in bookshops that sell at rrp (and some charge more on some of their stock AND DON'T TELL YOU) is $22.99.
Ordering from the Amazons, or Amazon marketplaces, or Australian online shops attracts postage, which offsets any discount.
BUT: if I order them from the Book Depository (http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/) they are around six British pounds each, which on the current exchange rate is just over $12 Australian. Plus free shipping from the UK.
Which leads to my question: why can a UK online bookshop sell me the identical book for about half the price charged at my local bookshop? It's crazy, somewhere in that equation. Admittedly, our dollar has risen against the UK pound recently, and dropped against the US dollar, so UK prices have improved. But even so.
So sometime next week (Book Depository orders take a week or two at most, easily beating the Amazons' month or so) I'll be reading the second book in this series and enjoying more sly humour.
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Bacon and egg pie and salad
The Loaves and the Dishes cafe in Leura remains a favourite - a mouthwatering cabinet of quiches and wraps and pies, crunchy interesting salad and yummy dressing.
Dachshund dish
A few days ago we went up the Blue Mountains to browse antique and vintage shops and escape the heat.
This dachshund dish made us chuckle!
This dachshund dish made us chuckle!
Saturday, January 24, 2009
100 Word Stories: a tale about a tail
It’s a steady thump, a heartbeat. Maybe muffled by the living room carpet, Dane’s body glued to his latest computer game but carefully not moving his chair so he doesn’t run over the dog. Maybe louder on the kitchen’s wooden floor as I race around making dinner and accidentally on purpose dropping bacon scraps. A damp nose pushed into your hand, a warm, heavy weight on your feet in winter.
Or it was. Dane looks up, abandoning his screen for long enough to ask, “When will he be back?” and wait for an answer.
“Tuesday,” I say, missing Dogger too.
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Or it was. Dane looks up, abandoning his screen for long enough to ask, “When will he be back?” and wait for an answer.
“Tuesday,” I say, missing Dogger too.
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