Festivities – happy everything, everyone!

Yeah yeah yeah I’m a bit slow off the block, I admit:

Here’s wishing you and yours the very best for a fantastic, joyful, much-loved and loving, healthy, and dream-fulfilling 2009.

So did everyone have a good Christmas and New Year’s Eve – or however you celebrate this time of year?  Tux and I, being the dedicated atheists / pagans we are, had a pretty low-key festive period.

Christmas WHAT? When did it get to be December already?

What do you mean, it’s almost Christmas?  25 December indeed;  what the feck happened to November? *

So yeah, Christmas.  I am really not ready for it, it’s not my favourite time of year at any point in time, let alone sneaking up on me in such a sly fashion.  Okay so I am / was kinda out of the whole festive seasonal loop but still. Bastard.

So why am I so Scrooge / Grinch-like about Christmas?  Same reason everyone else is, I guess.  The crass in-your-face materialism, the gross conspicuous expenditure, the fake jollity and playing at Happy Families.  The expectations and pressures and lots of old emotional baggage associated with the holiday.

US election 2008

I believe it would be quite remiss of me NOT to make some kind of intimation that the US Presidential Election took place and had an absolutely bloody brilliant result, don’t you?

The US system of candidate nomination, primaries and the Grand Final, over what seems an inordinately long period of  time, seems exceedingly odd to those of us brought up with the Westminster System . . . which is really the basis of the US system of course, with the two Houses et al, but where did all that primaries stuff come from? 

It makes absolutely no sense and it’s main purpose seems to be to divide the parties [eg, Democrats into Hillary vs Barack supporters; aren’t they all on the same side?  FFSL] and bore the population to tears, with campaigning so far in advance of the Presidential Election that by the time that day in November rolls around no one no-one can be buggered to turn out to vote.

I am cringingly ashamed of my ignorance;  obviously someone needs to explain this to me.  Please be gentle. 

You can all come back now . . .

 . . . I’ve finished with all the girly stuff [for a bit, anyway].

I really am sorry about all that  – I had drafts of most of those posts, and as I was having a crap week pain-wise* I figured rather than go into extended-hiatus-mode I’d pop them up as filler.  I just couldn’t seem to find an appropriate time to post the product reviews and the Best-Of make up series, since I’m not a dedicated beauty blogger they seem a little out of place!

Summer is y cumen in

. . . Sing cuckoo!

Well summer has well and truly arrived, here in Perth, Western Australia.  WA doesn’t really do the seasonal change thing;  there’s no autumn or spring, it’s straight from winter into summer and back again, with a couple of weeks of weird freakish weather in between.  You change your winter -> summer wardrobe and bedding etc over one weekend. 

Summer in Western Australia = Hot.  Dry.  Humid.  Water Restrictions.  Fire Warnings.  Smog And Smoke Filled Air.  Inversion From Wildfires.  Did I mention Hot?  During January and February it’s pretty much over 35C every day and for a couple of weeks in February / March it hits 40C+ every day.  The humidity is absolutely gross, and is definitely getting worse despite the prevailing attitude of “oh no, no environmental impact HERE”.  The air conditioners can’t cope with it all and everyone walks around like zombies, totally enervated and fatigued. 

But for all that it’s my favourite season; I love the warm and the day-after-day-after-day of blazing blue-white skies.  Even though I’ve never been a beach-bunny and am incapable of tanning [I burn and freckle; eventually they all join up] but I love soaking up the sun.  Whilst wearing SPF 30+++, a long sleeve shirt and a ridiculously-large brimmed hat.

It’s my party

… and I’d rather not cry at all thank you VERY much.

So the birthday was yesterday – very auspicious and lucky with all those eights – 08-08-08 [what a pity I wasn’t born in 1970 then I’d have been 38 on 08-08-08 … oh well no-one’s perfect and I was an accident anyway]  – and I’m feeling damn fine about turning 39.  Given that I was told, at the age of 22, that I wouldn’t make it to 30, and that despite other dire predictions from “medical professionals” and EDS statistics, I’m still not in a wheelchair!  W00t!  Go me, etcetera.

It’s been a really nice week as Tuxedo took the whole week off; he really needed the break from work, and it was absolutely lovely having him around, being able to hang out together or do our own thing, just knowing he was there.  Is that too cutesy you want to puke?  Apologies.  Anyway he got in a lot of quality time on Guild Wars while I had my pony time and lots of sleep.

So yesterday – Friday – we’d planned something a bit different for my birthday celebrations.  The usual practice – as far as we are “usual” or “normal” in any way – is to head out at night for a big fancy dinner and for Tux to surprise me [ie shock me into stunned and round-eyed impressed silence] with a major and totally unexpected present*.  This year, given we’d bought a house and all and are somewhat financially challenged, Tux’s idea was to have a Grand Day Out;  brunch / lunch at our favourite café in the city and then a bit of a shopping spree for me. 

Whee!

Soup & sandwich entry

 Life has been rather slow and tedious around here lately, but the general state of affairs is fortunately improving.  My life is one case of “this too shall pass” after another!  April was a good month; I was full of energy, getting back into exercise, and whimpering-in-pain was at a minimum.  Just as well, given the whole moving-house thing; being laid up then could have been a minor disaster.

May pretty much sucked, mainly due to the fucking atrocious weather.  Most soft-tissue / rheumatological conditions are exacerbated by changes in weather / barometric pressure, and I’m a perfect example.  In fact, I’m better than the Met. Bureau, I can predict a weather change a day or two in advance, just “feeling it in my bones” [said in quavery nana voice].  This means trouble; lots of pain, swollen inflamed joints and muscle spasms galore – on top of the “usual” snafu. 

So, May.  Barometric pressure swooping UP and DOWN every six hours; daily temperatures bounding from min to max in huge leaps [eg, 6C in the morning, with a top of 26C? … fuck me], lots of rain, insanely high humidity, thunderstorms.  Crazy.

The result being I spent most of May in bed, yelping pitifully and shovelling in handfuls of painkillers and muscle relaxants with the occasional totter to the microwave to nuke my heat pack once again [which is another bummer; it’s full of fucking WHEAT and I’m allergic to wheat and the smell makes me want to puke, le sigh].

[And then there’s the fact that I haven’t been eating, like ANYTHING, because I have no appetite and I puke at the mere thought; oh and did you know that morphine makes you constipated?  Wheeee!  My mid-section feels like it’s made of concrete.]

. . . . . . . . . .

Rollin’ rollin’ rollin’ …

I’m back, finally, after weeks of packing, moving, unpacking, organising and re-organising, settling into Our Very Own Home.  It’s been exhausting, and oh-so-wonderful.  We got 98% of the move done in one day, which is pretty incredible by anyone’s standards.  Getting everything well packed, boxed up and clearly marked, and keeping a running spreadsheet of what was packed in what box and it’s final location in New House was time-consuming but worth it.   I had to go back to The Hovel a couple more times in the following weeks to clean and do various chores which was unbelievably depressing.   It’s so good to be out of there …

Our house [in the middle of the street ... ]

We’re currently right in the middle of the Joy Of Packing up the contents of our flat [aka The Hovel] for our move on Monday … from the rental into our very very own house!  Wahey!  Moving is exhausting and stressful, no doubt about it.  We’re pretty experienced at this by now though so have a good system going, and my penchant for lists and spreadsheets does come in handy even if I get a bit of flak for it at times … Heh.

Otterkat updates

I’ve made a couple of updates and changes to Otterkat recently :-

-          updated links in general

-          added a new links category, Horse, for my favourite horse people and horse bloggers

-          updated the links category for foodies and floggers, it’s now called Food, Cooks, Gourmets

-          updated the links category for beauty blogs et al, it’s now Make Up, Beauty Blogs, Guilty Pleasures.  I’ve also subtracted a fair few blogs and added some new good ones

-          added a new post category called Horse Talk  Wanna Wanna Pony!, because I do; also for posts about my highs and lows and experiences with horses and riding, and horse people

-          amended the Menagerie post category to Kitten Caboodle, to reflect it’s mostly-about-cats nature [Kitten Caboodle, as in “kit and caboodle", geddit?  OK I’m lame but I thought it was cute]

-          merged the Health and Science post categories into one

-          I’ll edit the About pages at some point too.

I think that’s it.  Check out the new people!  I’ll feature some of my new imaginary friends here and there in the next weeks.  And big hellos and thanks to the new visitors.