And another whole month...
Has nearly ended.

My head has just about recovered from the joys of a lot of work in a short space of time, and can I have a "Hell Yeah!" for this sacred thing that is "time off" ? I think I can!
The taxes have duly been done and filed, the illustration competition entered unto, and the Grandfather has finally decided to stop driving.
The latter is somewhat sad, but the wandering mind was beginning to cause a bit of concern - certainly if he was knocking on the door near 11 at night, as he did on a couple of occasions - fortunatly Mum was staying at the time, so she could see first hand.
It's heartbreaking to watch someone that one has known all one's life, start to decline. His scans revealed that there was some slow dysfunction happening in the brain, and it is suspected that he has had a couple of tiny strokes that exacerbated this.

Gods know I'm looking forward to visiting my other grandparent - Grandma - though.
She's the oldest of all, and still (fingers crossed) as on to it as ever she was. Will be staying with her for a few weeks very soon, I love her with all my heart.

And the prospect of a month of nothing to do but scribble, drink tea, and do cryptic crosswords with the G'ma - truly does make me a happy chicken.

Hooray for portable modems!
Yes. For the first time in years I can access the net at work....
Not that there's much time! Lots of animating to do for the first ep. of Seeker, thank the gods I'm not doing all of it, but it sure feels that way >.<
The angel film is out now (Vintner's) - a bit hammered by the critics, which is a pity. I expect though, it will have a niche audience who will like it very much.
Could put wings on Bu, suspect he would not be amused (scratchiness!), and would attempt to ditch them at the first opportunity... Heh.
Today's chocolate is brought to you by Whittaker's - 62% Cocoa, Dark Mocha. Coffee infused deliciousness!
Now, back to work...

This past weekend was the weekend of the NZ 48 hours film-making competition - I pitched in to help with the team of a friend :) - we drew musical...
I've yet to see the end result, so looking forward to that this coming weekend.
At the same time, my sister was having multiple panic attacks - not so much fun.
She accidentally poisoned herself a couple of months ago when she got some de-fleaing liquid on her skin - it dehydrated her, and affected her vision and gave her a pretty big scare - she was afraid to fall asleep in case she didnt wake up.
Subsequently, she started having panic attacks whenever she became aware of "dryness in her mouth" - not an uncommon thing at this time of year.
I've never seen her reacting like this before, but because I had some experience of my own with such things, I could at least talk her through it.
For her, it's an alien experience.
It was for me, when I first had them too.

So we're getting through that patch! But yes, on top of the 48hours competition, it was a very busy and tiring weekend, with not much sleep!

On other random notes, more stereographs have been acquired, as of a couple of weeks ago, (via the friend whose team I was part of) - of Brit'colonial India. Some of the descriptions are splendidly anachronistic. Also there's a couple of shots of the coronation of King Edward, in Canada.
They're in pretty good condition overall, with only slight fading, and markedly better than my first acquisitions!
However, I still covet the wonderful ones acquired by a workmate, of documentation of the Boer war. I think those ones will be my benchmark! They are excellent.

Second random note - biscuits. Yay me. I made them a couple of days ago, and felt very domestic about it all. They're even edible.

The weather is turning here, it's definitly getting colder as NZ slides towards winter.
Going outside is like playing Frogger with the weather. It may rain at any moment...!

New stereographs acquired! (Or rather, old stereographs acquired.)
And another "viewer", this one with the wire support for the cards. 'Tis made of wood.
(Wooden lenses :D ? Hmm...)
Subjects range from fancy French hotel dining room, to somewhere in Ireland, to the botanical gardens in Dunedin (NZ), to a couple of spiffing young chaps posing on a bridge in laconic fashion.
Other subjects as well, it was a mixed lot.
Most of the images are in less than stellar condition, but still cool nonetheless, and all are over 50 years old - in the case of the French hotel dining room, around 100.

What luck! Today, I had a hunch that I should go to a small out of the way antiquey type shop on the quest for brass cogs, for Nich's birthday (him being very much into Steam-punky things).
Whilst mulling over a couple of choice pieces of dysfunctional clockery, I spied a pair of farrier's tongs, and seized them at once. (Nich also does blacksmithing).
They went down well.
:)
BUT, also while I was there, I enquired about things stereographic as I usually do, and there happened to be an old stereograph hand-held viewer, from the Versailles Exposition, 1900!
Alas the wire support from the end is missing, but it is still quite functional.
I bought it at once!
And a friend whom I've just dropped home from the birthday doings, said that he'd come across a biscuit tin of stereographs, in a (now closed - Agh!) second hand store. Said store is apparantly sending its stock to auction. I will find out when and where, if I can.

The other purchase was a lovely Air New Zealand plastic hei-tiki, which is wonderfully kitschy cool.

And yay me, for making this second posting in 2009, in such short order!
I'd like to thank the saké from the birthday place-of-dining, for that.
Domo arigato, gozaimasu!

Woohoo! Alas my seriously neglected blog!
Ahwell.
Only 8 or 9 guesses before I managed to hit my email and my password AT THE SAME TIME!

So, back from the Viva La Vida Coldplay concert (thursday, Auckland) - FUN.
Funfunfunfunfun.
And why music makes the world seem better sometimes.
I have a t-shirt and tour poster, not that I need more sentimental detritus in my life, but it was such an awesome and win event, that it required me to spend more money on it.
Plus I have my souvenir cutout butterflies, woooo!
:D

So it's half past five in the a.m., and my ability to sleep seems to be PANTS! Too much brain-chatter (you know, when all those niggles and worries - usually about circumstances beyond one's control, (and even more annoyingly, OTHER folk's circumstances!) demand the hugest slice of attention pie!
Hooray for Friday coming up, I'll get through the work day somehow... :p

I have a little place I try to retreat to in my mind's eye - it's a beach. The groundwork for it was laid around 20 years ago! (I took "relaxation" as one of those "hour-long hobby class at school" compulsory things, 'cause I figured I might be able to get some sleep :p)

Sometimes it's me, sometimes it's me-as-a-character, sometimes there are other characters/people there too - but only of my own choosing. Of course! It's my beach.
But I'm not going to get there with this damnable laptop on top of me. Sand would fuck up the keys.

Zzzzzzz

I freely admit it. I am a techno-luddite - I am okay with technology, but I''ll cling to the familiar and quail inwardly at having to deal with the new. (and it only took me two attempts to remember my password for this little corner of my netritus, so yay me, already!)

What has happened then since the last post? Well, my Nana died. This is the one who had dementia. It prompted some weird and slightly melancholy dreams (featuring her in the state of her last years), I don't know when they'll taper off. The final downhill run was when she pretty much refused to eat - she wouldn't swallow - she couldn't remember how to swallow. She started sleeping a lot (uncharacteristically), and about three weeks later she didn't wake up one morning. G'pa was with her. Sis and I were supposed to be visiting that afternoon.

First time I've seen a dead person in the flesh. Waxy looking. Her face not quite set like the stereotype that one might imagine of "looking like she was merely sleeping" - the eyelids were just slightly open, as was the mouth. I drew her portrait as my sister and I sat with her through the day. First, last, and only time. If I sound clinical, it's possibly because I don't type emotions terribly well! But I mourned for her passing, and I mourned her loss long prior to that as well - for that's the cruelty of dementia. Turns folk into little baby chicks, peeping, but not really knowing what anything is about. I would see G'pa shepherding her into a car - and they looked like two sparrows to me - small twitterings, nervous little movements and fussings, and very frail little beings.

The organisation of her funeral was vaguely chaotic - not that she knew a mountain of people or anything, but more it was about the little details.
One thing though, she was cremated prior to her service. Which meant she was not embalmed. Frozen, then crisped (morbid humour, moi?), and I rather like the idea of that.
I don't really like the idea of having any part of me substituted or bolstered with embalming fluids, just so my dead self can be looked at prior to being baked to a crisp! It seems even more morbid than this blog entry!

Not that I'm planning to shuffle off any time soon. But yeah, her funeral turned out pretty smooth after the semi-fiasco of its planning twixt my mum, her brother, and her father.
(Much as I love my uncle, I didn't think one of her favourite restaurants was "quite"the place to stick someone's coffin for a service!)

Some churchy shaped place with a celebrant or whatnot, eh, that's good enough. But what I really think would be morbid and hilarious would be if one could be one's own celebrant. Posthumously.. "insert dvd and press play"!


I read a couple of poems for her. Scottish ones, because she wanted to visit the place again but never quite made it. I remember little bits and pieces about her fondly. Wrapping 'em in cloth, and putting them in the Nana box of the brain.

*Cuts through swathes of email addresses and oft-forgotten passwords, to struggle into the harbour of my own blog*

Consolidation. Seriously, I've so much digital junk, that if my computer life was a room, and the information was all on bits of paper, I'd be squashed beneath it, bleeding from a thousand and one tiny papercuts.

AND I'm not one of the world's more net-present folk! Yarrrrr.
It's freezing here, and late. Went to see Kung Fu Panda, and missed out on yet another film at the Film Festival in town - I miss being a student at times like these! But KFP was good fun.
Saw the band of a colleague performing this evening - the drummer has the arms of Shiva, and is well versed in flipping the beat about, and the two guitars provided excellent curtaining for this non-vocal performance. It was loud, which I confess to not being my most favourite volume in a small room (where one's ears have to get used to the sheer noise level) - but excellently thumpy.
I recognised the tribute to Dune when I heard it.

I need more moviescores. But what? Which? By Whom?

Life in Winter seems to be mostly centered around keeping warm, and the inherent disorganisation which attacks, is caused by not wanting to leave the warmth of the heater to chivvy bits of tax-paper and other sundries away.
I am, however, managing to paint. Small brushstrokes here and there, but enough to make me feel like I'm doing something!