i am very busy and important

Definition of unneccesary: being cc'd in on the results of someone else's ergonomic desk assessment (and accompanying maintenace request form).

Bigwig me, with the ever expanding head, is acting manager at the moment (shorthand: 'acting up'- a hilarious double entendre, you can imagine). Apparently this means being privy to such items as:

'Donna (alias) has an angled keyboard. Have advised her that if she has hand or wrist issues she should flatten this' and

'provision of a midline document holder is recommended to prevent neck lateral rotation movements'.

Such jobs exist?

Unrelated: Op shop shoes proving a great purchase, fear of catching tinea wholly unfounded.

Kitty

golden walls and new old shoes

Are op shop shoes disgusting? Maybe. But I have a fantabulous new dress and leather jacket purchased on the weekend and no shoes to wear them with. Rather than make people avert their eyes, lest the hideousness of my patent easy steps offend them, I purchased these lovely items from the op shop up the road while on my lunch break. Ironically they are easy steps too! It is a happy and affordable day – just $2 per shoe. In fact, it was nearly less than this as the 'helpful' (read: extremely bossy) attendee had placed my shoes on the 'for sale' shelf while I was looking at my feet in the mirror. She put them on the $3 stand... ouch.

In other news, on Sunday Dad and I went to Melbourne Open House. This is basically where public or commercial (and ideally, interesting) buildings are opened up for the public to have a sticky beak. The concept originated in New York and this is its third year in Melbourne. It was great! We only saw two things on account of spending an hour and a half queueing for the second, but it was worth the wait. We went to the ANZ gothic bank, which is fully sick. The bank part is a proper bank, only amazing x 1000. It's like a cathedral inside. Unfortuantely and rather unimaginately the bank have the following picture of it on their website:

Underwhelmed? Not shown is the full gothic arched roof, giant marble pillars and other fiddly gold bits. This is all on show during banking hours, but we also got to see the upstairs residence, which almost never open. It had a billiard room, a library, a dining room and other rooms named for quite specific activities... It was all very Cluedo but without the candlesticks/murder. Also, the walls were made of gold (leaf, but potato/potato). Our tour guide, very enthusiastic, not very interesting warned us not to touch them. I like to think this is because the gold would come off and we would be rich! rich! but it was actually because of something boring called oxidation (blah blah science-y blah blah). Anyway, worth a visit.

Kitty

the two Tones and a dinner party

Last night Carney and I went to the Wheeler Centre and saw Tony Wilson and Tony Martin (‘The Two Tones’) at a thing promoting Tony Wilson’s new book Making News. It was great – such interesting, funny guys. I’m adding them both to my ‘5 people I’d invite to a dinner party’ list (currently it is a party of two: myself and Stephen Fry*). Possibly this is not such a blessing for them, it will be a bit of a squeeze as my parents will also be dining on account of living at home and unless they (invitees) have the same EXTREME liking for roasted pumpkin they may find the menu dull/pumpkin heavy. (On the flipside, if they do have the same EXTREME liking, it will be a happy, happy occasion for all).

Anyway, in his book Wilson’s protagonist starts an internship at a tabloid newspaper and is told articles must incite on of three reactions: 1) ‘tsk, tsk’, 2) 'poor guy’ and 3) 'that’s weird’. Martin said he was told by a senior journalist that the Murdoch enterprise’s philosophy was even simpler: ‘make em angry or make em stupid’. You only need to look at the Age online for about a minute to know both are frighteningly true... There's probably even a third/fourth category: 'shameless cross promotion/tenuous links to Masterchef'.

I must say, I could listen to Tony Martin talk all day. He uses words in the most satisfying of ways. He reminds me of Bill Bryson**, and boy do I love BB. Tony's got a website called the scivereners fancy, it started off as the place where rejected articles went to die(/live?), but now he writes something for it weekly. I would like to report it is excellent, but this computer is not letting me access it... It is reportedly excellent then.

Kitty

*Along with a million other people. I read Stephen Fry is the most cited person included in these lists. I did wonder how this is measured, but it was probably a statement to illustrate a point, more than a statement of fact the more I think about it.

**I feel like Bill Bryson is put in the same bucket as Bryce Courtenay, both being popular fiction writers. He is so not Bryce Courtenay. I think he’s brilliantly clever, and would also invite him to the pumpkin buffet. I hate Bryce Courtenay, I had to read one his latest books while in Thailand last year and when I got home I threw it in the bin lest it sit on my bookshelf and people judge me. As well they should. Stay tuned on this, I have been spending these past few months selecting books for the bookshelf in my future unaffordable home, so as to create the best possible impression of myself.

Canned goodness

Some really good things come in small, long life packages... Where have you been all my life ham-flavoured baked beans, served with plastic cheese in a toasted sandwich? I heart you. Sorry readers, this recipe goes to the grave.

Unrelated - I forgot to tell you how amazing Simon Coronel was. Well, he was amazing. Carney thinks I have a crush on him, it is lucky he (Carney) did not see me congratulating him (Simon) after the show. The words 'I'm going to write to the Herald Sun to tell them how good you were' were probably a bit over top... I take some solace in not getting him to sign my chest.

I feel compelled to add I did actually write to the Herald Sun...

Kitty

my number two self

Ever googled yourself? I googled myself today, small diversion from more constructive things. And I’m not the number one me! In fact, I don’t exist in the world according to google, unlike one 92 year old with a potty mouth and a myspace page (I believe she is using my name as alias).

I am a tree falling in the woods that no one can hear.

Truth be told, I am a crippled tree, falling in the woods. My hip is gone. Carney came home from the gym and said he could run 4 kilometers in 21 minutes. I thought I could do much better than this and ran 5 kms in 30 minutes. This not only meant I did not win the 'I can run faster than Carney' (secret) title, but I am nearly killed from the effort. If only I had made the effort in a more honourable quest (e.g. I had hurt myself saving small children from a fire), I would be a hero and more obvious on google.

Oh, the irony.

Kitty, the second.

Top Five: Breakfast

It is lucky I do not hope to be a food blogger or stylish fashionista dispensing advice... You'd be unimpressed a) by some of the gruel I serve up and b) my mothers shoes I am now wearing to work daily on account of saving money for a house*. There is also the small matter of an extremely warm but ugly polar fleece jumper - I cannot believe I once pooh-poohed this very functional fabric. What was I thinking (in my attractive but non-wind resistant clothing)?

But I digress. Things were looking up this morning! Carney got out of bed early and was going to make an omlette. For us, I assumed. I lay thinking happy thoughts of breakfast in bed, until a it became clear while the omlette was definately ready, it was not coming my way. 'I'm starving!!' I yelled, 'I'm so very hungry!'. This, to the click click of a knife and fork and the crunch of some very tasty toast. 'I'm withering away... I feel weak...'. I yelled, 'Did you hear that? That was the sound of my bones crunching as I try to raise myself...'.

But nothing.

Which is fine, because I don't actually like omlettes anyway.

This is all a long winded introduction to my top five things to do with breakfast:
1. The paper. Refer to previous top five.
2. Frozen grapes. I am a creature of habit. I happily eat the same thing everyday and my favourite same thing is frozen grapes, consumed as soon as one rolls out of bed.
3. Earl Grey tea. With milk.
4. Muesli and yoghurt with psyllium husks. Without lowering the tone, psyllium husks are amazing on so many levels, chief among these is that they produce teflon poo (sometimes suddenly).
5. Good raison toast. As opposed to bad raison toast, which is very, very, bad. You know who you are Laurent, little cafe in Melbourne CBD where I consumed one post fun run breakfast and was extremely disappointed. Nay, inconsolable.

Kitty x

* These shoes are extremely comfortable. They really are Easy Steps. I feel like my foot is cushioned a small ergonomic cloud of marshmallow/cotton buds.

short and not so sweet...

I saw the most depressing thing in the world today: a case full of old spectacles at Cash Converters. Isn't that the saddest thing ever?

Kitty

by the water cooler

Office awkwardness is both hilarious and, well... awkward. Today we had a scholarship ceremony where Planet X awarded some students money for books, living, etc. It was an extremely smiley, small-talk laden event with jokes such as:

Mayor: ...and here’s your cheque

Student: thanks...

The student to goes to receive the cheque and the Mayor pretends to take the cheque back (i.e. classic ‘fake out’).

Mayor: ...ha ha, no really here you go

Student: mmm... thanks.

Actually, that didn’t happen, but it would have been the highlight, I assure you. I think there was a small gag around the number of crackers (few) relative to the quantity of cheese (a considerable amount), but that one gets rolled out here all the time.

The philosophy if discharged with camera duties in these situations is ‘it is hilarious to take as long as possible (while subjects are posed) to take the photo’. Obviously this is funny in and of itself but today’s festivities were marked by the presence of a small boogie up the Mayor’s nose; you will agree this is both unfortunate for him (it was estimated to be large enough so visible when the shots are printed in the paper) and provides a small amount of hilarity for internal consumption/delight.

Anyway, the gluten free muffins were free flowing and that’s what really matters.

Ciao,

Kitty x

nod to you, number one millionare

This is hilarious! It would probably be even funnier if I knew who this person was!

http://numberonemillionaire.blogspot.com/2010/05/carlos-d-is-dead-to-me.html

Kitty x

hello sunday morning

This concept is yaffled* from elsewhere: a short lived blog by my oldest friends sister. It is my top five days of the week, which I'm taking one step further, pin pointing exact times in said day.

1. Friday, because of Friday 5:01pm, weekend begins. Not that I don't like my job but this marks the beginning of two days of freedom baby, yeah.

2. Sunday. Sunday morning + paper + breakfast = heaven. Sunday is let down slightly by Sunday night which is all about Monday morning (you'll note this is absent from the list).

3. Thursday night. Largely because of proximity to Friday. This makes it a good night to do 'stuff' as you never need as much sleep on a Friday. Thursday is also good because it is generally 'buy my lunch day' which means I get sushi from a little place in Blackburn. I love this sushi, I dream about it and the waiting between ordering and receiving is actually sort of excruciating. It's so exciting and so long... I'm even willing to eat in when a couple of regulars I vaguely know are there and I have to pretend to be interested in all sorts of uninteresting things to avoid eye contact and small talk.

4. Saturday. refer Friday.

5. Wednesday night becaust of cheap steak nights, pretty much my favourite thing ever.



Anyway, today is Sunday and it started in the usual fashion, directly after Saturday, which this week was extremely civilised. My friend Suse and I went to ACMI for a very short while. The Tim Burton exhibition was on but the queue was wayyyy too long for us (school holidays, uugh), so we ducked out heads in the free bit. Look at what we saw:


http://marcuslyall.co.uk/slow-service



It's slow motion footage of people getting food thrown at them. It's utterly compelling viewing - you see their eyes move as the food (off screens) heads towards them. Then their faces cringe and the food makes it way slowly across the screen. It hits the face with a poof! and then splashes widely before revealing a flour or pea covered face. Finally, gravity kicks in and the muck starts to slide down and the person starts to smile and a bubble of custard or meringue starts to form at their nose. There are probably more cultured things to be impressed by, but this was a definate highlight.

Later we had mulled wine. For fans of the elusive winter warmer, you can get it here, here and here.


Kitty x x

* Is this even a word? My dad says it and it means 'stolen'.