Proof of Dragons

Anytime people express doubts about the existance of dragons, point them my way.
The proof is within me. I house the pivotal DNA strands of dragonware or, dragonwere. There are wererabbits and werewolves so why not weredragons.

All the signs are here. I am capable of breathing fire, I sleep in the shadow and most telling of all, I hoard. Today whilst looking for the USB connector for my camera I found a Haida necklet my sister gave me at 12 years of age, sitting in the drawer besides the Sunday School attendance chart made by my Grampa for my mother. It is a symbol of the ties that bound the two families, so diverse in circumstance together. Grampa T. was the Sunday School superintendant of the Church mom's family were attending. Brethren, no doubt.

My father is definitly not the author of these genes. He is Mr. Clear and Clean. He is only happy when every surface is gleaming, bereft of anything resembling clutter. My mother, on the other hand, put the obsessive in OCD. She had closets of clothes in all sizes, hundreds of shoes all catalogued and sorted, every jewel ever given her in her Elisabeth Taylor mode, and money. Lots and lots of money cloistered away in shoeboxes and drawers and pockets. God only knows how much we gave to the Salvation Army before we caught on to the pockets.

It would be easy to blame a mental illness for the hoarding trait- except that Grama B, mom's mother, also hoarded. In her case it was good leather gloves. There were dozens of pairs in her drawers, all wrapped in scented tissue. She also had stashes of toiletries that never saw the bathroom shelf. They lived under the cupboards. As I was born when my Grama was 61, I saw only the residual hoards.

Now to me. Today being a snow day and me being stir crazy I decided to go through my bedroom drawers and declutter. It is almost 8pm and there is nothing in my donation box. When I find the connector cord for the camera I will take a picture of one of my drawers. The younger generation has inherited my dragon gene. If I am bad, she is worse. I console myself by reminding myself that I have always trained her to pay her own bills and live her own life. We who choose to be slightly a-typical must never rely on the kindness of strangers. Or husbands.

Like Smaug, a ray falls from my eye on the items removed. I know when my stash has been lessened. It is a strange thing this gene. Perhaps it explains more that just the shiny thing attraction.

Daughter of dragons? Daughter of daughter of.... hmm, more than just those Sinclair genes are perculating here. I wonder what ever happened to dragon spawn. Besides being burned at the stake that is.

More Thrift Shoppe Adventures

So many shiny things, so little time.

Off I went to the Thrift where the boutique case held bags of junk silver and one little bag of junk gold. This is the same store that has on display, an empty wedding setting in platinum, priced at $89.99. A ridiculous price for melt worthy metal. I asked to see the bag of gold. priced at $44.00. Inside the bag were three 18ct earrings without partners, a beautiful droplet of fine chinese jade, six or seven single stud earrings and two chains. S*O*L*D

Self control?
I have no idea what you mean!!

Shiny things

Believe it or not, after 7 years of blogging it all out loud, ranting and raging and spitting into the wind, I am jest about talk-ed out.

That's right you heard me.... talk-ed out!

I deleted the old blog in a moment of unclear on the concept, but this one is going to stick around.
Likely I will start posting about my beloved shinies.
The things I cannot change continue on. New day, same old shit, and being shit I need to flush it.

I can't change the world, only my own mind. I try to be kind every day and share joy.
I live in hope that all the good people are doing likewise and better, and thus the world is improved. Actions are imperative. Talk is cheap.

So - shiny things! Let's hear it for Shiny Things.
Shiny, glittery, loverly things.

Todays shiny thing is the curtain on my wall. I have no idea what the symbol means.
But its cool.
My thinking regarding symbols is that they mean whatever you imbue them with.
--- posting picture later when I get batteries for digicam

Weird dreams

I remembered to write down some keywords from a very vivid and strange dream.
Believe it or not I was dreaming about the Empress of Blandings .. ( yes, yes I know, stranger than strange)
Okay, so I consult the paper that I jotted down keywords, thinking I would remember everything....
The list reads:
" Empress, Jello, pool, 6th husband"

Uhm, okay....
+- +- +- +- +-

Antibiotics finally got my immune system to reboot. I feel alot better altho I am still completely deaf in my left ear which is still feeling *full*. The mass on my jaw is loosening. My teeth, although still sensitive are tolerable. THANK YOU GOD!


+- +- +- +- +- +-

A good score for me. 75th anniversary edition of *Dracula* starring Bela Lugosi.
I have a soft spot for Lugosi thanks to Nightmare Theatre (late nite highschool tv on a friday night), Chris Houston's rant about Bela Lugosi being *buried beside my record company* ("I aint losing it" on the Evil Twang "War of the Dudes" early 90's release. Or was it 89?
----and----- of course from my Goth days, or is that my poseur days? or hmm, just like listening to deep voices intoning melodious atmospheric music days, BAUHAUS
I still love that damned song.

Don't tell ye olde thrift shoppe but my jeweller training allowed me to buy a hollow gold bracelet. $6.99 Hell yeah. Not as good as the day I found a 60 pt VVS2 diamond earring there in a platinum setting for $2.99 but still very satisfying.

While at the Sally Ann, the very nice clerk laughed when I commented on my usual gleanings of shiny things and candles... I spotted a key chain under glass for 50 cents, It was a pester crown with three charms hanging down; a tiny crown, a VW bug style charm and an elongated shoe. The key chain was engraved in large letters - QUEEN OF THE ROAD.

The only way it could have been better was if it was either queen of the fucking road or queen of the whole damned road. As I asked her to include it in my booty haul, and made my shiny thing comment, she laughed and said loudly:

" I see. I want. And I shall not be denied."

ok, uhm yeah. Busted.

Thrifty Scores

I had resolved NOT to buy anything at all this week from the Thrift. Olde habits die hard and I found my car pulling into their parking lot and my rogue feet walking through their front door.
The rest of me obliged.

Nothing of huge note except for some candles for 50 cents. The three wick variety. And a little alabster angel for 3.99 and hmm a pair of celestial candle holders for 30 cents.

And silk lounging dress and cape vintage 1960s and hmm oh yes, a set of miniature plates for 99 cents. Oh and a tiny piano box for 30 cents and a little sterling blush brush for 50 cents and a silver frame for 50 cents.

See how easily I am led astray?
Shiny things. It is always about the shinies.

Magpie Convention on the Water

-=-
I had my schedule changed. (There's a surprise.)

Instead of galavanting about the entire District I was to the same house for 6 hours.
Normally I decline these sorts of things but I happened to know that there was (yet another)critical shortage of staff. Flu season you know.

I had traded my regular heavy-care day, here, there and everywhere, for one little care task, and was companioning, (bfd). The hardest part of the day was staying awake whilst my client watched that square box that broadcasts garbage 24/7.

Returning home, I was muttering about how cold I was.
Everyone who knows me is aware that when I mutter about being cold, --
it means I am about to fall aszzzzzleep.
The last person to know it is always me.

Despite being layered in fleece, and coming upstairs to my warm room,;
despite blankets and yes, towels, strangely adorning my shivering body, I bravely decided to update my blog.
Possibly 45 seconds later I was under my down, snoring.

I am living proof television is mind-numbing.
The less you do the less you want to do.
Give me the heavy care any day.
-=-
There was a wooded area around the river's edge in the middle of the District which until very recently was not developed. A handful of people had homes along the waterfront and accessed them via a poorly serviced road. Perhaps 20 years ago a development adjacent to them was put in alongside the Highway. Still, the rickety road was not upgraded and the waterfront remained mostly virginal.

3 years ago the parcel must have changed hands and suddenly the little road was paved and widened. One by one along the waterfront, big homes went in; big and bigger. Now that area is one of the very elite among this area of nothing-these-days BUT-eliteness, and every house is over $750,000 with many way over 1.5 million. There are no empty lots left on the waterfront and even in the estuary, right to the river's banks, whole streets are being put in to maximise the big bux housing area. After all, the beachfront there is *private*.

On either end of the waterfront there are 33 foot frontages for public access to the beach. Most of the (now) pricey homes have constructed breakwaters and other strange landscaping devices designed to keep the great unwashed public away from *their* beach.
Guess what I think about that!

One of my new clients is down on this street.
Hers was the very first house in that area on the waterfront. *THE* first.
She and her husband built it 39 years ago and enjoyed all the wildlife.
She told me how her husband was a boat builder but refused to so much as make her a canoe or rowboat. She borrowed one for herself, and went out to merrily row along the seascape.
She wanted to look at areas she could not get to by foot.
"I never did it twice. Do you KNOW how hard it is to row a damned boat?"
yup, I do.
And yup, I don't much go in for rowing.

We sat and watched for herons after a good big chat.
I was a little worried about her.
She has been on her own for rather too long and is just plain vunerable.
I believe she would welcome anyone at all into her house, which would be fine,
except she is no longer capable of discerning intent. After all, I walked in after knocking,
and not knowing me from a hole in the ground nor why I was there, she showed me
the whole house including awesome stashs of things I too collect.

I loved her for it, and certainly I am considerably more gifted at first visits than most,and of course there is always that "people tell YOU everything" bit, but even so, this was rather special. I enjoyed it, but took pains to gently advise her against leaving the doors open and/or giving tours of certain things/areas.
I hate it when I must do that!

Perhaps in a few years it will be me giving tours of my tiny condo here.
Perhaps my family will be frowning in as I show off my bits and baubles and give the impression that I am rolling in BIG CASH MONEY because of all the shiny things I possess.

Magpies just collect shiny things.
Paper money aint shiny.
I am destined to be *just making it* and never rich in cash.
Magpies never sell their shinies for big huge cash money no matter what! (awww)

Our little town is growning at a rate unsustainable and with every new family come possibilities good and bad. Crime is going up and we have a problem with crystal meth.
The street kids are more than just summertime slackers. They are addicts.
Like other paradises, everyone wants to live here.
Who am I to say what "undesirable" really means.

I would rather have ten homeless persons enjoying that waterfront than ten more million dollar palaces. Funny how the newly rich want to fence out everyone else.
My new client is not like that.
She does, however, need to find a middle ground.

-=-

Almost finished

Today I came home to the funky chandelier installed in the second bedroom. This is great! There are only a few things left to do here and we are finished completely the inside.

The library shelves are being built for downstairs and should be in this week.
Then, the storage room will be completely empty and ready to be made into a walk-in closet for the second bedroom. I could use a bigger closet in here too but I do not really require it.

My handyman, Tom, is very good to me. He charges me a flat rate and does credible, though unimagitive work, and always cleans up after himself. Whenever I call him he says: "God, its not another chandelier is it?"

heh it usually is. I love chandeliers.


Next year I plan to tackle the outside. I know I said that this year but life got in the way. I am going to pot everything next year in outsize pots. Nevermind anything else. Just pots and more pots. And no grass. Gravel and moss suit me fine.

This weekend is the fundraiser for our trip to the Calgary games in July 06 for the Canadian Highland Dance Nationals. I offered to help in the Kitchen. ---oops
Apparantly I also offered to supply ten prizes. That I can do. I can help in the kitchen too, I just will need to hover near the back door lots. I am not very stable asthmatically just now and really need alot more rest than usual. I will do my best.

Anyway I am so looking forward to the Library being completed downstairs.
I can't wait.
:)

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Here is a hug for you dear reader for being so patient as to listen to my rants and raves.
And here is a hug to the family of the gentleman who died yesterday. It was a good day.
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Perception is everything!

I had a call from an old friend.
In the course of the conversation he mentioned my prior incarnation as an "Ostentacious woman".

Not the word I would have chosen to describe myself.

It gave me pause primarily because of something I was told a little time ago. A co-worker of mine ran into a dear friend and once they established me as a mutual point of reference, my dear friend reported that the co-worker said:
"You know, she should be an actress. She should be on stage. I just don't know why she isn't."

My dear friend found this to be endlessly amusing and kept his thoughts to himself until he could gleefully call me and hold forth.

It never really crosses my mind when *I* meet people what they should be. What I think they should be doing with their lives. I just like people alot and love to hear their stories. It is a fascination and a passion. I love people. I love feeling useful. The idea of my *ostentaciousness* was alien to my primal self-concept however it brought a little idea to mind.
I called a few people and in the course of our conversations asked them how they would describe me to others in just a word or two.

People close to me in my very younger years said:"Crazy. In a good way of course."
--- uhm, thanks. I think

People from my twenties said: "Outrageous. Fun. " Three people used those words.
---- uhm, ok.

People from my early thirties: "Tres jolie." "flambuoyant" "Fun"
----- still not quite my own perceptions but hmm, okay.

People now: "Confident." "Fun" "Joyful"
and yes... "Sparkley". "Bright". "Showey."
And what does showey mean anyway? Is it a comment on personality or ornamentations?

Is this evolution or devolution.
Hah.
If I was describing myself in a word I would say "content".

I also got *Flambuoyant* alot. I dont think of myself that way.
I am just a magpie who loves shiny things.
Shiny me.
Shiny shiny.
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Fierce passions discompose the mind,
As tempests vex the sea;
But calm content and peace we find,
When, Lord, we turn to thee. ~ William Cowper, 1779, from Olney Hymns, vol. 1, hymn 131