We have a thing in my household, a new thing of appreciating the weather. See, in my town, it's normal to whinge about the weather because it's notoriously changeable and whatever clothes you put on in the morning, there's a chance they'll be inappropriate by the afternoon. But we decided to love and appreciate our weather, her highs and lows, her brooding moods and abrupt storms and oppressive heat and melting humidity.
We decided our weather is like an opera singer, and that without her emotional extremes, she would lose her essential character and become an emo or a disco floozie or one of those tedious popular bands with nothing to say. As it is, she is dramatic and intense. Yesterday we baked in sunshine and today we drowned in floods. I'm not exaggerating. I sloshed to work today like a car ad, with wings of water fanning out from under my wheels. Amelie liked to run her fingers through a sack of grain (who doesn't?) and I like to slosh through puddles in a car making water wings and a whooshing sound. Also, with the delays and traffic and the general city people thing, I was half an hour late for work and was therefore able to run through my whole choir repertoire in the car. Mozart, Handel, Verdi. Carole King. What gifts the weather brings.
Now I'm sitting in the evening sunshine with a pot of dandy and honey and some exhausted dogs at my feet. There's terrible wear and tear on them in stormy weather because the thunder gods roar and threaten them and they have to run and hide under our feet and in our beds. They are even more responsive to the weather than the humans of the house. And we are responsive. All this rain and sunshine, we will be sprouting and photosynthesising and blossoming and thriving under the hand of our fickle mistress, the weather goddess. Bless her.
Monday, February 25, 2013
Friday, August 31, 2012
Not a good day to own an iphone
I'm off to England. Brother's wedding. I thought hey, maybe I can upload some music to my phone before I leave. I thought this three months ago. Turns out, I can't. I won't bore you with the details. Why invent such a brilliant phone and back it up with such a lousy program?
Oh well. The adventure starts here. Today. Now. The sun is setting over Melbourne, and I am on my way.
Oh well. The adventure starts here. Today. Now. The sun is setting over Melbourne, and I am on my way.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
not again
Yes again. Moving. I ask you.
Of course in times like these, when house moves happen once per quarter, I turn as usual to tea.
Green tea today. I have drunk so much of it I'm exuding antioxidants. Of course, the dramatic, awful moves (and this was another one) happen interspersed with visits to friends to pour out tales of woe and heartbreak, and tea is involved, of course, then as well.
This is a difficult moment as I have poured out the tale of woe and heartbreak so many times that I'm all taled out. Of course, I don't have anything else to talk about other than I saw a wonderful house staffed by a man with green eyes, white teeth and a gentle, intelligent way of being. I won't move into his house but it was wonderful to meet him. My friend Sharla - there aren't words for her. She is a friend with the power to realign your world when it has slid out of kilter without you knowing. We try so hard to be perfect, all of us, and we never will. Isn't it nice, though, that we try?
Sips some more tea.
Sharla and I agreed that it's nice to be a wanderer. But that there comes a time when you need to interface with the world and its clocks, and other people and their concepts of time. Moving house is a dreadful time but it is also a clean time when you can leave a bad environment and move forward. Sometimes it's good to be gone and then again sometimes it's nice to stop running. Or so people tell me.
Of course in times like these, when house moves happen once per quarter, I turn as usual to tea.
Green tea today. I have drunk so much of it I'm exuding antioxidants. Of course, the dramatic, awful moves (and this was another one) happen interspersed with visits to friends to pour out tales of woe and heartbreak, and tea is involved, of course, then as well.
This is a difficult moment as I have poured out the tale of woe and heartbreak so many times that I'm all taled out. Of course, I don't have anything else to talk about other than I saw a wonderful house staffed by a man with green eyes, white teeth and a gentle, intelligent way of being. I won't move into his house but it was wonderful to meet him. My friend Sharla - there aren't words for her. She is a friend with the power to realign your world when it has slid out of kilter without you knowing. We try so hard to be perfect, all of us, and we never will. Isn't it nice, though, that we try?
Sips some more tea.
Sharla and I agreed that it's nice to be a wanderer. But that there comes a time when you need to interface with the world and its clocks, and other people and their concepts of time. Moving house is a dreadful time but it is also a clean time when you can leave a bad environment and move forward. Sometimes it's good to be gone and then again sometimes it's nice to stop running. Or so people tell me.
Monday, August 8, 2011
Chinese sweet facial beauty tea
A friend came back from China with this tea. I haven't noticed its effects immediately, however it's nice to think that a tea could enhance your facial beauty.
I'm completely over it just now. The rain is howling down, summer stuck its head out only to retreat again and I've been moving house and office. Everything in my life has moved to somewhere else in the last week, apart from ten boxes I put under Mum and Dad's house in 2001.
The reasons for living, somewhere in all that moving, liquefied and dripped out from the bottom of my sump. Or they evaporated and are now part of a cloud. Moving will do that to you. There are things that should have gone. They should have dealt with themselves and become resolved while I stacked them in boxes and left them lying around. The dead baby bookmark. The books that should be read and returned to their rightful owners. The unwanted gift plate.
But they didn't. They aren't. They haven't.
No, they are stacked up and hanging round and waiting to be resolved and absorbing all the light and energy surrounding them.
mph mph mph mph (sobs).
Moving. Overwhelm. Disturbia.
I'm completely over it just now. The rain is howling down, summer stuck its head out only to retreat again and I've been moving house and office. Everything in my life has moved to somewhere else in the last week, apart from ten boxes I put under Mum and Dad's house in 2001.
The reasons for living, somewhere in all that moving, liquefied and dripped out from the bottom of my sump. Or they evaporated and are now part of a cloud. Moving will do that to you. There are things that should have gone. They should have dealt with themselves and become resolved while I stacked them in boxes and left them lying around. The dead baby bookmark. The books that should be read and returned to their rightful owners. The unwanted gift plate.
But they didn't. They aren't. They haven't.
No, they are stacked up and hanging round and waiting to be resolved and absorbing all the light and energy surrounding them.
mph mph mph mph (sobs).
Moving. Overwhelm. Disturbia.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
I cracked
I've gone back to black tea with soy milk. We got evicted. It was too stressful. It was too awful. Black tea sorted it out. OK, black tea didn't really help all that much but I cracked anyway. Turns out the other housemate, not the nice one who turns up in this blog every now and again but he other one, well, he wasn't paying the rent and well, we got chucked out. With a week's notice. Luckily the nice housemate was already gone on an overseas trip and didn't have to be involved.
Still, awful, I know.
What i learned from quitting black tea is that my life is very boring. I thought my life was quite interesting. Turns out that I was just ingesting a mild stimulant every now and again, and that it wasn't really interesting after all. Without the mild stimulant I felt... bored. And I thought, what kind of life am I living that it's not even interesting? Why do we all live in cubicles where we can't see the sky?
I had no answers, so went back on black tea again. Sometimes I look at all the other people and wonder. What are we all doing?
Still, awful, I know.
What i learned from quitting black tea is that my life is very boring. I thought my life was quite interesting. Turns out that I was just ingesting a mild stimulant every now and again, and that it wasn't really interesting after all. Without the mild stimulant I felt... bored. And I thought, what kind of life am I living that it's not even interesting? Why do we all live in cubicles where we can't see the sky?
I had no answers, so went back on black tea again. Sometimes I look at all the other people and wonder. What are we all doing?
Friday, January 28, 2011
quitting black tea
Black tea is one of the wonders of the modern world. But I quit drinking it because of the caffeine and feel much better. There you go. I write a tea blog and don't drink tea. Not sure how to go on.
Basically I quit tea in the same way I quit everything, by going to a festival and then realising that things have been so upscale and exciting that I haven't had tea in five days and am past the headache stage. Then I figure I might as well keep going, see what happens.
What happens is I feel calmer and less exhausted, which is nice. There is a Russian Caravan tea bag sitting on my desk, staring at me balefully. Sorry Russian Caravan. Maybe in a month.
So now it's dandelion root, rooibos, chai and green tea. Often five in a day because you don't just quit black tea and replace it with nothing. It's good because it makes you get out and about, tea wise, and see what other varieties work. I'm liking Linden leaves and red clover. Also rooibos chai. Suggestions?
Basically I quit tea in the same way I quit everything, by going to a festival and then realising that things have been so upscale and exciting that I haven't had tea in five days and am past the headache stage. Then I figure I might as well keep going, see what happens.
What happens is I feel calmer and less exhausted, which is nice. There is a Russian Caravan tea bag sitting on my desk, staring at me balefully. Sorry Russian Caravan. Maybe in a month.
So now it's dandelion root, rooibos, chai and green tea. Often five in a day because you don't just quit black tea and replace it with nothing. It's good because it makes you get out and about, tea wise, and see what other varieties work. I'm liking Linden leaves and red clover. Also rooibos chai. Suggestions?
Monday, December 6, 2010
cinnamon
A great and pestilential scourge is on us. Fleas. They invaded sometime last week, laid eggs and then three days ago the... eggs... hatched......
And the leaping, climbing, hopping infestation began.
It's disgusting. I haven't really slept in two nights. Itchy, jumpy fleas. Apparently it's the humid summer that's making them bad. Today I burst into tears at my desk. I'm not very resilient to insomnia.
Tea with cinnamon is good, she said, changing the subject and ignoring the jumping things climbing up her legs. You can put cinnamon into almost any tea, and if you leave it to steep for half an hour (and then reheat the tea), it goes into another gear, flavour-wise. I never ever use ground cinnamon for this purpose because it's gritty. Always cinnamon quills. There were six months back there when rooibos tea with cinnamon and soy milk was what kept me sane.
Tonight I'm not sure if even cinnamon can do that, as in spite of one flea bomb and a severe carpet spray, the floor still jumps and it's likely to be another night of scratching and starting. Misery.
Sigh, off to bed. Sleep well.
And the leaping, climbing, hopping infestation began.
It's disgusting. I haven't really slept in two nights. Itchy, jumpy fleas. Apparently it's the humid summer that's making them bad. Today I burst into tears at my desk. I'm not very resilient to insomnia.
Tea with cinnamon is good, she said, changing the subject and ignoring the jumping things climbing up her legs. You can put cinnamon into almost any tea, and if you leave it to steep for half an hour (and then reheat the tea), it goes into another gear, flavour-wise. I never ever use ground cinnamon for this purpose because it's gritty. Always cinnamon quills. There were six months back there when rooibos tea with cinnamon and soy milk was what kept me sane.
Tonight I'm not sure if even cinnamon can do that, as in spite of one flea bomb and a severe carpet spray, the floor still jumps and it's likely to be another night of scratching and starting. Misery.
Sigh, off to bed. Sleep well.
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