Yes. Really.

After the meeting I calmly explained to him why this was utterly unacceptable.

This afternoon, I was forced to brave the completely ghastly weather and visit the office to collect my surgery paperwork and managed to grab a surreptitious photograph while I was waiting:

uncomfortably menstrual

Just me then?

*cries*

I have no idea why I a holding onto a 16 year old bottle of scent with a barely legible label and two drops remaining

I wavered between unsatisfactory attempts to replicate Beloved Fragrance and nothing …

One of the unsatisfactory variants – completely gorgeous, wonderfully sultry and utterly unsuited to wear during the day.

…and then some years later I discovered an almost perfect replacement – which has now also been discontinued.

no photo – amazingly, I must have discarded the empty bottle

*cries*

And so I went on a quest and sprayed and sprayed and in desperation bought this:

Highly unsatisfactory … the very ordinary scent lasts about 2 seconds before it vanishes completely

And quickly abandoned it.

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Just what is it with vanilla products and their short livedness?

Get to almost the end of the container and a replacement is nowhere to be found! Though I was fortunate enough to find a very heavily discounted replacement for the discontinued St Ives at SupaIGA – which I am using very sparingly.

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And then for a good while, I went with the freshly scrubbed skin … until we were in New Calendonia, walked into L’Occitane and found this!

Which is almost, almost the scent I require and which I have been using with wild abandon.

As you are aware, Joan is in Europe and I asked her if she would pick me up another bottle, it being unavailable in Australia, and me going through it with aforesaid abandon.

Would that it were that simple! No L’Occitane store had heard of it and upon further research discovered it was not L’Occitane at all!

While attempting to source where exactly I could find a replacement, I stumbled across this Ace! website.

It sells wee samples of most of the fragrances they stock and they stock a lot. I went a little crazy ordering a sample of every version of vanilla I could find and sat back for the long wait for them to arrived.

Except the wait was not too long and my wee parcel arrived today!

Contents:

1. Jalaine: Vanilla
2. Van Cleef & Arpels: Orchidee Vanille
3. Farmacia SS. Annunziata dal 1561: Vaniglia del Madagascar
4. La Maison de la Vanille: Absolu de Vanille
5. M. Micallef: Vanille Cuir
6. La Maison de la Vanille: Vanille Noire du Mexique
7. Les Nereides: Douceur de Vanille

In the meanwhile, enjoy some recently gathered (or should that be curated) miscellany …

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Holy!Goodness! That Bessie of ours is creative!

When she was not glued to the InformationSuperHighway, she used her school holiday time to cross-stitch – to the extent of bringing her materials to the pub for Grand Final watching.

inspired by a postcard

What m4d sk1llz she has! This is definitely headed for display.

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Because it is difficult for me to leave The Palace (Of Love) for an extended period except for emergencies [such as employment], Don emptied Joan’s mailbox today.

Among the 80 billion catalogues and half-dozen letters, we found …

infusions and chocolate!

Why is our junk mail never this exciting?

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I was delighted to spot this while waiting for the train on Friday

heart on stuff: part of an occasional series

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The bay tree is, as they say, going off …

Fresh is so superior that we’ve abandoned dried bay leaves entirely.

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Remember those times when bananas were ridiculously and prohibitively expensive?

four ripe bananas, seventy-two cents

On the occasions I see them severely reduced in price or in the spooty fruit section (hence the plastic wrap and styrofoam tray), I grab them for freezing to include in muffins and banana bread (though am yet to find the optimal recipe).

from Marie Claire: kitchen – as yet untasted.

All this and I am not fond of bananas (or banana bread / muffins) at all – but this is just the sort of excellent wife / mummy I am.

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I’d written some very thoughtful and insightful additions to this post, but stupidly hit the “preview” button and lost everything.

Anyhoo, while composing this post we were struck-down by a blackout, which affected (according to teh twitter) 25,000 homes in the innerwest and last for a good few hours.

We were forced to grab what lighting we could and live like the Amish.

Fortunately, we had giant camping torch and our phones because the tealights, while plentiful, were not exactly optimal.

Fortunately too, that we have a gas cooktop, so could continue cooking the meal I had started – though without an oven, freestyling was required.

I’m sure that now most people’s electricity bills have tripled (allegedly to maintain infrastructure), we’ll be seeing this sort of thing a lot more in the future, though I cannot say enough good things about the @ausgrid twitter account – they were excellent with updates and the problem was fixed relatively quickly.

Dear Ute, I spend endless time, energy and dollars to try in an effort to keep you well and this is how you repay me? Bastard.

Given that there are only 19 days until I bid a final farewell to Ute, I’d planned to get a bit of a health on in the short time remaining. Part of that plan meant going out for a run this morning, because yesterday it seemed the Catastrophic Incidents had reduced in severity.

Alas, I was woken at 5am with yet another CI, which lasted for more than 4 hours. To give some indication of just how severe we are talking about, there is no sanitary product or combination of products in existence which will keep me, my clothes and the furniture protected for more than 20 minutes.

So it would seem that getting the health on might consist of iron tablets, steaks and resisting the temptation for home surgery.

WordPress now suggests tags for posts, based partially on content, and partially on … I don’t know what. The suggestions from the previous post were tres entertaining.

Alas, it appears those difficulties have returned with a venegeance.

Around 12 months ago, during my last appointment with Serge, I mentioned that things were not optimal and appeared to be getting worse. He advised there were really only two options available: ride out the gradually worstening situation until menopause or take Drastic Action.

After couple of recent very unpleasant incidents I’ve been really considering my options and yesterday morning on the train mentioned to Don that I was giving some thought to the Drastic Action route.

Such is the way of TheUniverse, I was visited by several particularly catastophic experiences (I will spare you the graphic details) later that day and decided Drastic Action was the only thing I could do. I called Serge’s office for an appointment and was fortunate enough to score a cancelled appointment for today. Normally it takes months to get in.

We discussed recent developments, he explained the risks and I am booked in for Drastic Action on 25 October.

Just how did that happen?

We’ll discuss that Ducks tattoo I promised I’d get on my bottom 10 min out from the siren (bargaining with TheUniverse for teh win) at a later date.

And I don’t really want to go into too much detail regarding the difficulties in getting into our preferred Grand Final Viewing Venue (where Don and I had Such A Romance in 2006) – unfortunately, though ariiving quite early, we were unable to get in because of Extreme Queueing (even before opening time). We ended up at at pub I’d regularly pushed a tiny Joe/Frank past in the stroller when we walked Joan to school (before my horrific insane-inducing Suburban Experience) back in 1994/5. The pub ended up quite Ace! and all the better because the most excellent Heather (the local) joined us.

Anyhoo …

When Bessie and I arrived at SCG today, we got a good look at what has become of my beloved Noble Stand (under de-construction in 2012). Honestly, Noble really made the Ducks experience for me – so very 1960s RSL club – the members bonding, the ghastly snack-bar food, the hideous carpet, the after-match function compleat with horrid band & the Z-Grade player appearances, the decor, the stupid comments by officials, the belonging. Honestly, it felt like I was part of something and my game experience has been much the poorer since we moved to the other side of the ground.

Today, Bessie and I chilled in the Ladies Stand (we’d not been able to sit there previously because of Reasons) and waited for the playing group / football department (one apparently does not refer to the team as the team) to arrive.

Ducks!

While we waited, we shopped …

Way too much spent on merch! But how can one resist?

But I think this is the very best merch I have ever seen in my whole entire life and I am having a sleep before I commit to buying. But hey, think of the savings we’ve made by not travelling to Melbourne and gifting our Grand Final ticket allocation to Don’s colleague.

Ace! I thought, I’m being head-hunted!

Alas, he wanted to offer people to me (the perils of moving to a Management role). We chatted for a while about the composition of my team and how he might offer me some excellent, unbelievably skilled, candidates beyond my wildest dreams.

We then indulged in idle chit-chat and Recruiter asked where I was from / what my background was. I was somewhat nonplussed for a second …

Me: “Are you asking if I’m Australian?”

Recruiter: “Yes”.

Me: “Yes, I am”.

Recuiter: “I am very surprised, because you’re extremely well-spoken”.

Recruiter could not understand why I was corpsed with horrified laughter.

Honestly, what the hell?

And, of course, we celebrated with Footy! Fortunately the anniversary of the first date coincided (almost) with the anniversary of the second² (and the first time the Ducks have made it to the Preliminary Final since).

Honestly, this is my absolute favourite time of year, I have so many wonderful memories from when Don and I first romanced.

geared-up in prep²

Gourmet anniversary dinner (tickets being what they were – the whole evening cost more than a Very Nice Dinner would have)

pretty Ace! seats. We took the cheapest option (at $70 each) and they exceeded expectations

And … we won!

It is a testament our collective Ducks experience that, even with 2 minutes to go and a commanding lead, the Members all still considered losing a distinct possibility.

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I leave you with comments from the 2008 anniversary post. Clearly any Nostradamusly qualities I might possess are really rather lacking …

hazelblackberry says:
September 27, 2008 at 3:12 pm
Aaaawwwwwwww, happy anniversary to you two.

carolbaby says:
October 1, 2008 at 9:50 pm
Oh, gee thanks! Given that we are unlikely to get hitched (although our longish surnames somewhat similar, so it would be great to be hyphenated), it’s probably the only anniversary we’ll have.

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¹Though possibly the second date was an infinitely boring Industry Breakfast (with TheProfessor, ghastly coffee & horrid pastries) very early in the morning after our first date (and the morning of aforementioned Preliminary Final), so maybe PF should be considered Date 2.2.

Step Two: put your duck in the box

it’s a duck in a box!