Adventures in Working 'til the Cows Come Home...

Sitting on my balcony this evening, I was enjoying a beautiful sunset and a lightly cooling breeze ... and working industriously on my linguistics projects.  Just as the world slipped into the magic moment that only lasts for about 10 minutes, and only on the very best of summer nights, I heard the tinkling of bells.  For a moment, I thought it was the ice cream truck (well, the ice cream motorcycle with a chilly side car to be precise).  Since I had just encountered my very first freshly made coconut ice cream on Sunday, I was prepared to skip downstairs and have another.  Looking up, I saw it wasn't the ice cream-o-cycle after all: it was the cows coming home.  The small herd of cattle that moves from field to field near my apartment was making its way around the traffic circle and heading for the lane.  Something about watching those cows heading home in the twilight after a long days grazing made me feel very peaceful and content.  It also made me realize I've been sitting here typing for too long.  I'm going to find some ice cream.

Adventures in Sheepish Confessions...

My plans last night fell through, so instead of going out, I stayed in.  I sat for a while listening to the pouring rain, the croaking frogs and the chirping crickets...then I got bored listening to the rain, frogs and crickets, and I let my mind wander.  When left to its own devices, there are a few well worn paths down which it wanders.  The History Path is one of them, and that's where we found ourselves last night.  After finding some rather ghastly information regarding health care and childbirth in the 19th Century, I eventually stumbled upon a decidedly less horrific subject: how women managed to get all those curly tendrils without the use of hot irons. The secret?  Brown paper!

I just happened to have a pile of brown paper hanging around doing nothing, since I had forgiven my orchids (see the previous post) and bought them a proper vase - wrapped in brown paper.  "Hmmmm", I thought to myself, "maybe I could..." I hesitated though; after the disastrous results of my 1940s hairstyle reproduction attempt, I had vowed to avoid any further ...ahem ...entanglements. However, the rain, frogs and crickets had lulled me into a bit of a dozy trance, and I thought I could handle it.  Half an hour later, I was desperately hoping that there would be no reason to evacuate the building during the night, because I looked like this:  

 After a good night's sleep, I pulled out the papers this morning, curious to see what was atop my noggin.  I tried coaxing the curls into a passable Regency era coiffure, but the result would have mortified Jane Austen, and I won't even post the picture here it was so bad. Once I shook out the historical horror though, the curls actually weren't so bad.  While the experiment failed miserably as an 1810 'do, it was passable as a 2010 one:

 There you have it...I sheepishly confess that this is what I do when left to my own devices for an evening. 

Adventures in Airing Dirty Laundry...

 I mean the title of this post quite literally.  At 4:30 this afternoon, I aired my dirty laundry.   If you want to know why, I should back up a few hours...

  I had a fantastic lunch with my friend Britte-Catherine. (I had a grilled chicken, avocado and salsa sandwich on 7-grain bread, in case you wanted to know.)   Afterward, we spent a few minutes sniffing lovely lotions and shampoos in the drug store (yes, I'm a girl), until I accidentally squirted one up my nose, after which everything smelled like jasmine and cocoa hand cream (but now I have a very soft nostril, in case you wanted to know.)  While Britte-Catherine was still sniffing, I realized we were close to the flower market, and since I cleaned my apartment yesterday, all my tabletops were looking bare and neglected without their towers of books and lacy coating of dust.  I also have a great moldible-flexible plastic vase that has been sad and empty for quite some time.  Putting all these things together in my mind, (while trying to discreetly empty my nose of lotion - unsuccessfully, in case you wanted to know), I thought it would be a great idea to pick up some fresh cut flowers on the way home.


 I bought a gorgeous bunch of red and orange orchidy kind of looking things and carefully unwrapped them when I got back to my apartment.  I pulled out my vase and cheerfully arranged the flowers in it.  However, they wouldn't all fit, so I just arranged a few and put them on my bedroom dresser.  I turned my back for a moment, and when I looked again, the vase had toppled over and soaked the cat's carpet covered scratching post, so I spent 20 minutes scrubbing the hairy thing dry.  


  When I was finished, I tried again - but with fewer flowers in the vase.  It looked sturdy, so I came out here to tell you all about my pretty flowers.  Moments later, I heard the unmistakable sound of pouring water...the vase had toppled again. This time, it spewed all its water directly into my laundry hamper.  Muttering under my breath, I hauled out my soaking dirty laundry and started hanging it up on the drying rack.  I felt a little ridiculous pinning up dirty clothes. 


  Since I've had the vase for a long time, and have always liked it, and since the flowers are quite new, and I don't know them very well at all, I have naturally blamed the flowers for both disasters.  As a result, the whole lot of them are now sitting ignominiously in my mop bucket. 

Eventually, I'll forgive them, and go find them a bigger vase.