When Boredom meets Blogthings

Your Elf Name Is...

Spicy Tinsel Toes

What's Your Elf Name?

Check out Blogthings for all sorts of time wasting crap.
Yours,
Spicy Tinsel Toes.

Abstract

I finally have a website just for my art in the process of being made (thanks to Phil and John ...xxx). Stay tuned for the near future unveiling.
For now here is the latest piece, an abstract this time.


Acrylic on canvas, 80cm x 120cm.

Look this one up

Phil's new word of the day:

"Tall-less-ness n. The state of being un-tall."

even more disturbing...

I don't know if it is more disturbing than Phlegm Chunks, but now I am being found through google under the search term "squashed mouse".
Perhaps I should start writing more about "quality writing", "fabulous blogger", and "best blog", to start getting people to find me through better terms!

New Piece

In January I quit teaching full-time in order to concentrate on painting full-time. I am feeling really good about this, although it is incredibly scary.
Here is the piece I finished this week:


Acrylic on canvas, 1.3m x 1m

If you know anyone interested in buying original artwork send them my way...

RIP Pablo

At the risk of this blog seeming like an obituary column, I have to report the death this week of our beloved bunny Pablo.
I think I have had all the deaths I can take this year...


Pablo, September 2005- February 2006

Beep beep!

I did promise in January to post photos of my now not-so-brand-spanking-new electric scooter. I was thinking of posting just a snap-shot, but when your boyfriend is a professional photographer snap-shots don't come easy.
Me: "Honey could you take a quick photo of my bike for my blog please?"
Phil: "Oh sure... I'll take it into the studio, clean it up, set up a few lights, maybe some filters..." [EYES GLAZE OVER AS HE STARES UN-SEEINGLY INTO THE MIDDLE DISTANCE WHILE NOTICABLY SALIVATING]

So here is Dolly (so named because she is all plastic):





Photos by Philippe Roy

disturbing...

I find it highly disturbing that someone from New Jersey Googled "phlegm chunks" and found my site. On closer inspection I find it even more disturbing that my blog is listed third for this search.

Ahh, more evidence of the quality writing supplied by yours truly.

Must be love...

In honour of Valentine's day... ah, ew, no, even I can't fake that. The truth is I just thought of the following blog entry and tried to make some link with the date, but, to be honest I don't care at all about V day.

[As an aside: That last comment was really so predictable when I was single, or even in a relationship but separated by innumerous seas and borders. I honestly thought that I was only kidding myself with that attitude, you know, putting on a brave face while buried knee-deep in so many dozens of other girls' red roses. But it turns out that, even though this year I am not only in a relationship, but also in the same country as my boyfriend on Valentine's Day, I STILL don't care about the date. Sure it's a good excuse to get flowers, but if I have to buy something in return, we might as well order a pizza and call it even.]

So back to the entry:

It Must Be Love.
6 months of living together and I am reminded daily that love is not red roses or chocolates (especially not chocolates... I am allergic). But rather love is shown in all of the following:

Bringing me more toilet paper when the roll has run out.
Letting me drink from his beer when I'm too lazy to go to the fridge to get my own.
Coming running to hold my hand when I am watching old re-runs of the x-files and suddenly scream in terror: "Baby I need you!!"... (and yes, I am fully aware I am pathetic).
Explaining patiently to me time and time again how "the goddamned demon inside my computer" works.
Not grimacing too badly when asked to pass a box of tampons.
Ikea.
Patiently dragging me bodily out of bed every morning while I whine "But I don't wanna go to school today mum!". Yes, every morning.
Not freaking out when I absent-mindedly pick out "names for the children", while stuck in peak-hour traffic in the back of taxis.
Not getting too uncomfortable when I follow him into the toilet to continue a conversation, and sit on the sink watching him while talking about curtains/dinner/work/etc.
Eating vegetarian when I can't be bothered to cook meat for him.
Shouting indignantly on my behalf at waiters when they bring my dessert smothered in chocolate, even though I distinctly told them I was allergic to it (this happens more often than you'd think).
Always, ALWAYS saying my cooking tastes great.
Letting me proudly show people in public the little belly I have cultivated on his previously flat stomach. And reassuring me constantly about the little belly I have cultivated on myself.
Not pointing out when I haven't shaved my legs in two weeks.
Scratching my back on command.
Putting eye ointment into my eyes, despite turbulence, on an airoplane at 30000 feet, simple because my eyes are dry but I can't be bothered getting up myself to use the mirror in the toilet. (In my defence it is not drops, it's a little tube with a scarily pointy nozzle... one air pocket and I would have had an eyeball kebab! Of course I still could have got up to the toilet....)
Not complaining when I begin asking "are we there yet?" before we have even checked our bags.

Yep, must be love.

so sad

I don,t know how to write this well. In fact I am not sure how to write it at all.
A week ago, my best friend in Shanghai, Miriam, was electrocuted and killed in her own appartment. The wiring in the old building was very badly done, and the building had no ground/earth wire.
So due to crappy chinese wiring, my beautiful friend was killed.
Her family in Italy have lost their daughter, sister, granddaughter and aunty. Her boyfriend has lost the love of his life. And I have lost a friend who I only knew for 6 months, and who I thought I had forever to get to know better.
I have never cried so much in my life, it is just so senseless.
Phil and I have now come to his home in Montreal, to get a break. At least here I don't see Miriam everywhere I go, remembering the last time we were there together. However, trudging through the snow, half a world away, I still see her in my mind. And cry. And cry. And cry.

Moving Up... or at least sideways

Phil and I decided a month or two ago that we needed a bigger place, as although this tiny one bedroom flat is enough room for one person, it is not comfortably enough room for two people, and a rabbit. It is especially uncomfortable when one of those people is a photographer with copious ammounts of photographic equipment, and the other is an artist with just as much art supplies cluttering up the place. The bedroom here is so small that one side (my side) of the bed is jammed up against the wall, and there is only a foot clearance on the other side. On top of that there are now four 1-2 metre canvases propped against the wall for want of anywhere better to store them. The 4x5m livingroom is also Phil's study, and my studio, and we have to move either the couch or my easel each time we want to open the balcony door. We are starting to feel like Alice in wonderland when she gets stuck inside the shrunken house. More so for Phil who is 6'2".
I have been teaching full-time since I came to Shanghai 5 months ago, however a bar near here has agreed to exhibit 6 of my paintings. It is time to quit teaching full-time (I'll still be going part-time) and get serious on the painting. Yet aside from having no room to paint, this apartment is sucking the creative juices right out of both of us.
So, last Sunday my fabulous friend M and I went apartment shopping. M has studied Chinese for years and astounds me with her knowledge of the language. Without her I would have been completely up the apartment-shopping creek without a paddle.
The temperature on Sunday was -3--4 degrees celcius. For future reference this is not a good day to be traipsing on foot around the city searching for a new home. ANY appartment looks good when it is -4 outside. Even the apartment that was stuffed so full of boxes we couldnt see the windows properly, and had two cats trapped in the wardrobe. Yes any apartment looks good compared to that temperature.
But the fourth place we saw was the winner. I expected to be hunting weekly for months before finding somewhere appropriate. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw this place. It was nothing fantastic, but it was suitable, cosy and not too costly. There are two bedrooms, the smaller one will be my studio, and one of the two living areas (really one long one separated by the dining table) and will be Phil's work area. The bed can be accessed from BOTH SIDES. At long last I will be able to get out of bed like a grown up, instead of scooting down to the end like a kid in her parents bed. The apartment has BATH! A Chinese-sized bath, but that is long enough for a shrimp like me. Phil still dreams of a bath that he can fit into, but for a giant like him, that's never going to happen in Asia. And like being in a hotel, there is a phone next to the toilet! I can see it's practical usage, but I just don't know how comfortable I am to talk on the phone to my grandmother while sitting on the toilet. The pis de resistance was when we walked into the kitchen and saw a tiny little dishwasher. I actually gasped and clapped my hand to my mouth. It is barely big enough to fit a dining plate into it, but it is there. Our current tiny little dishwasher (the new, and lovely maid) is going to love it.
In the mean time we have to pack up this place before Sunday, and again I ask the same question I ask myself every time I move:
HOW IN GOD'S NAME DID I COLLECT THIS MUCH JUNK!

Born to Ride

As of last Monday I am now the proud owner of a shiny electric scooter, just like this one:

Only mine is red... because that makes it go faster, you know (I'll post real photos soon).
While it looks pretty, it is actually made with more plastic than Dolly Parton and R2D2 combined. Yeah! Plastic Fantastic!
The manufacturers warranty is for 5 years, but at the rate of bicycle theft in this city, I'll be lucky if it lasts 5 weeks, even with a bloody great big lock strapped around the back wheel.
And as I rode down the streets of Shanghai at a dizzy 20km/hour, with the wind in my hair (well, just managing to lift a few strands) I felt like I had truly become a part of this mad city.

Oh, and it has a kick-arse horn.
(PS: Love and kisses to Phil/Santa for making my electric scooter dream a reality)

Cirque de Shanghai

There is a workman standing on our balcony in blue overalls and shiny fake crocodile-skin dress shoes. To be more accurate he is standing on the 3 inch-wide ledge OUTSIDE the windows of the enclosed balcony, and is hanging on to the thin strip of protruding metal at the top of the window sill to keep his balance.
Did I mention we live on the 13th floor?
Obviously Western occupational health and safety standards have not yet reached China.
The workman is here to replace the putty in the windows, as it has completely dried up and started falling out in giant chunks. Without the putty there is nothing holding the window panes in, preventing them from falling 13 floors into the school playground below us. And I'm not even going to start talking about the freezing winds that blow into the apartment through the gaps.
Here I am, I sitting on the couch, trying not to look at him precariously balanced on the window sill. It is like driving past an accident… you know you shouldn’t watch, but, by god, you just can’t look away.
As his toes are scrabbling at the edge of the ledge, trying in vain to get a better grip, the tune of Beethoven's Fur Elise fills the room. His mobile phone is ringing in his pocket. Our eyes lock as he silently panics at the obvious dilemma.
Oh, dude, don’t answer it. Seriously!
But in the history of mobile telephone technology in China, I think there has never been a ringing phone that has gone un-answered. Phones are answered in public toilets, in classrooms, in doctors’ offices, during candle-lit romantic meals, and while riding motorbikes.
So I watch in horror as the workman releases his grip on the window, leans in and tries to grab it with his chin, and answers his phone.
Let me recap: He is balancing in dress shoes on a three inch ledge, 13 floors above the concrete below, phone in one hand, putty and chisel in the other, gripping onto the window with just his chin.
The last time I checked, our chins did not have opposable thumbs.

A Very Aussie Christmas

[I have included some Aussie Slang definitions at the end of this post for those less-informed about the aussie lingo]

Jingle Bells, Aussie style (Traditional/Colin Buchanan © 1992 Rondor Music)

Dashing through the bush,
in a rusty Holden Ute,
Kicking up the dust,
esky in the boot,
Kelpie by my side,
singing Christmas songs,
It's Summer time and I am in
my singlet, shorts and thongs

Oh! Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way,
Christmas in Australia on a scorching summers day, Hey!
Jingle bells, jingle bells, Christmas time is beaut !,
Oh what fun it is to ride in a rusty Holden Ute.

Engine's getting hot;
we dodge the kangaroos,
The swaggie climbs aboard,
he is welcome too.
All the family's there,
sitting by the pool,
Christmas Day the Aussie way,
by the barbecue.

Oh! Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way,
Christmas in Australia on a scorching summers day, Hey!
Jingle bells, jingle bells, Christmas time is beaut!,
Oh what fun it is to ride in a rusty Holden Ute.

Come the afternoon,
Grandpa has a doze,
The kids and Uncle Bruce,
are swimming in their clothes.

-------------------------

Slang Definitions:
Lingo: language
ute: a
pick-up truck
esky: ice box perfect for picnics and footy matches. Click here for the perfect aussie esky
singlet: tank-top
thongs: flip-flops
swaggie: old-school back-packer
beaut: shortened form of beautiful

Isn't it Ironic

The definition of Irony: mispronouncing the word 'pronounce' as "pronunciate".

Teaching in the 21st Century

My classroom is completely invaded by technology. The students must complete a certain number of hours looking at the English softwear in the computer lab before they can even book a class, and once they finally get to class, the sound of the electronic dictionaries bleeping away constantly almost drowns out the sound of the ringing mobile phones, and the MP3 players still dangling around their necks. Students will actually answer their phones and talk loudly in the middle of class. I have lost count of the number of times students have whipped out their mobile phone and taken a photo on it of me in mid-sentence. Teachers used to have to worry about paper aeroplanes being thrown at them, but now days the students will probably just email the aeroplanes from their internet-capable mobile phones without even leaving their seats.

And counting...

I just realised I have taught over 300 English classes in the last three months.
That's just plain scary.

"I had a dream..."

Martin Luther King dreamed of equality, justice, liberty and respect.
I on the other hand had a dream last night that I went to an AA meeting for the free coffee, however the cups were so impossibly tiny that I had to get up several times during the meeting for re-fills.
Oh, how awkward.

"Whaddya mean BELOW ZERO??!!"

Today the temperature was a high of 3C and a low of -2C (see MSN Weather). Currently, at 6pm it is 1C, which, according to the weather forecast, with the winds it actually feels like -3C.
This Aussie is freezing her [insert suitable body part/s] off. For the first time in my life I have had to buy a REAL winter coat: an off-white, knee-length, quilted down coat, commonly referred to by Phil as my 'Michelin Man' coat.
Three months ago I had the air conditioner going at full-blast, and I was sitting under it in my underwear.
All I can say is that this city sure doesn't do things by half measures.

The Parent Trap

Phil and I have only been living together for four months, and I never imagined we would become parents this quickly.
Mum, sit back down, and take your hand off the phone while you wipe up the tea you have just spayed all over the computer monitor.
I'm sorry I should have phrased that better. But it occured to me last night when Phil and I were crouched concernedly over Pablo's cage that we had unwittingly become parents.
Allow me to present the evidence, Your Honour:

• We call each other just to talk about Pablo.
• We pepper every other sentence when we are away on holiday with "I miss Pablo".
• We talk about Pablo at parties until our fellow guests' eyes glaze over.
• I go shopping just to buy supplies for Pablo, and forget to buy food for the adults.
• We have spent a ridiculous amount of money on Pablo, without even a second thought to the expence.
• We (only jokingly... so far..) manipulate Pablo when talking to each other: "Pablo, I know YOU wanted to cook dinner while I was out slaving over the grocery shopping, but unfortunately PAPA was too busy playing PS2 games..."
• We spend far too much time worrying over Pablo, and devising ridiculous plans for him: "Perhaps we should put in a doggy door to the balcony so he can come and go as he pleases"; "Perhaps we should give him a doona to cope with the cold this winter"; "Perhaps we should start a college fund and enroll him now in all the best Prep-schools, it's very competitive these days"...
• When Pablo has been cute, I call him 'our' rabbit. When he has left several hundred "messages" on the couch and chewed all the books within rabbit reach, I tell Phil he is 'your' rabbit.
• We have had to baby-proofed the entire apartment, wrapping all exposed electrical cords in plastic covering and moving all chewable items above jumping height.
• I get all warm and fuzzy when I walk in on Phil cuddling Pablo and whispering sweet nothings (or plots to take over the world, what do I know) into his lop-sided ears.
  

The Prosecution rests, Your Honour.

I know he is only a rabbit, but our behaviour says Parents.

" Rabbit's clever,"said Pooh thoughtfully.

" Yes,"said Piglet, " Rabbit's clever."

" And he has a Brain."

" Yes,"said Piglet, " Rabbit has a brain."

There was a long silence.

" I suppose,"said Pooh, " that that's why he never understands anything."

--A. A. Milne