Gardening tangent

Uninspired. Hence, links!

I wanna dress like Annie Butterfly - oh, the colours! The accessories! I tend to wear a lot of black, and I would really like to branch out into wearing more colour. I suddenly feel an urge to race off to St Vinnies and have a browse. I haven't been second-hand shopping in ages.

Kris in Tasmania writes beautifully - about her garden, and her children, and many other things. She makes me want to get out there and plant something. (Also, we were part of the same University society, albeit at different times, so I feel that we're connected.)

That reminds me - I discovered a pumpkin vine in the garden at home. One of the nice things about moving into a new place is discovering what its previous owner planted, and this was a lovely surprise, as I've never been successful growing things-on-vines before. And this vine already has baby pumpkins on it, which is rather exciting. No input from me required.

Also! My brother is gallivanting off to South America for three months, and along with all his worldly possessions and his car, he has left me two Wollemi pine seedlings to look after. Let's hope they're particularly hardy specimens.

OK, I'm sure had more links than that to share, but apparently neglected to note them down anywhere. Never mind. Next time.

Mostly about dogs

* Sentence uttered by Prince Valiant, entirely without irony: "Awesome! Bananarama!"

* I am listening to an audio book of Jerome K Jerome's Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) and have a longing to acquire a small stubby legged dog and name it Montmorency. What a wonderful name for a dog. Monty for short.

* Two of my other favourite names I've heard for dogs owned by people we know are a Staffordshire Terrier named Edgar, and a Rottweiler named Lionel.

* During the last thunderstorms in the area Lionel became frightened and escaped from his home. His owner, one of the Prince’s workmates, drove around in the wee hours of the morning to search for him, and coming across the Rottweiler told the dog it was a big silly, hauled it in the car and drove home. Only to find Lionel had already found his way home, thank you very much, and the Big Silly who was presently occupying the back seat belonged to someone else.

* The sale of our old house fell through, which I was immensely irritated about - three weeks wasted, and so on - but now, two days post the news, I am used to the idea and not particularly bothered by it anymore. Strange that news which made me so cross on Monday that my neck went all red and splotchy (a very attractive little bodily quirk) barely ruffles my thoughts on Wednesday.

Goodbye, fair cubicle

I'm wondering what the definition of a "mid-tier" firm is. In the fuzzy picture in my mind, it's a firm with about 50 lawyers. You know - big-ish, but not huge. Anything smaller than that is... well, small. And when you're small, and you call yourself mid-tier, I think you look a little bit silly.

The crazy lawyer in the next cubicle who has driven me insane for the past year with his overly personal telephone conversations, and his kicking the divider between our cubicles, and his manic giggling, and the irritating way he uses his mouse (and so on, and so on) is leaving today. I am delighted. No longer will I have to hear about the aftermath of his wife's keyhole surgery. (Surgery of what, I thankfully do not know. I started plugging my fingers in my ears at the word "keyhole".)

My boss told me yesterday that he was going to be in late because he had some personal matters to take care of and he couldn't go into the details. I almost knelt down before him to say, "Thank you! Thank you! I don't want to know the details! This is as it should be."

In two weeks my year of cubicle life will be at an end - the firm is moving, and I will be getting an office. With walls. And a window. And (although it was a near thing) a door. Yes, I had to make an argument for the benefits of a door. But I will have one, which is the main thing. I imagine my new work space will be fairly small and box-like, but no-one will be chatting to me about keyhole surgery, and I think this will have wide and far-reaching benefits for my state of mind.

Yet another cube

The offices on my floor of my work's new building aren't going to have doors, because apparently it's too expensive. That's right – it's too expensive to screw a door into the open doorway of my office. Honestly, every time this workplace does something right, they seem determined to do two or three other utterly stupid things, as if actually functioning as a well-run business would be somehow letting the side down.

As soon as we move in, I'm going to be measuring up that doorway and heading to Mitre 10 to buy myself a bloody door. Prince Valiant, who does not have an office, doesn't understand what I am fussing about. But I used to have an office – a small office, true, but I had a door, and walls, and my own bookshelf, and I could have meetings in privacy, and conduct phone discussions with clients and block out the noise of the office while doing so. I have worked for over a year now in open plan, going slowly mad, and dreaming of the day when we would move and I would have an office again. And now I find out that I am in fact getting three walls, and not an office at all.

Pink Lawyer, who is very tall and used to work as a prison guard, told me a story about her employers refusing to have her uniform pants tailored so that they would fit her (so that she wouldn't have inches of bare calf between pant legs and shoes). She got herself some bright pink material, and sewed it onto the bottom of her pants, telling them that was all she could afford. They sent her off to the tailors that day. Prince Valiant, inspired by this story, has suggested that I paint my office door pink, and tell them that's all I could afford. I must say, I am rather tempted.

Triassic

I’m contemplating doing my Masters degree. This proves that I have had a personality transplant somewhere along the line because the thought of doing further study used to horrify me. Now it feels rather appealing. But I’m wondering how I would work the financial side of it, and whether it’s the best time to do it.

I found a Dinosaur Playset at Crazy Clerks for $2, consisting of a large bag of plastic dinosaur figurines. I bought them and have been created little scenes on my desk (as well as leaving them mysteriously on other people’s desks). Then I found the Forest Creatures Playset, and now my dinosaurs are attacking deers and lions. It makes the day a little more interesting.

I also have a new whiteboard, a much more adult workplace innovation than the dinosaurs. But the dinosaurs are more fun.

Puns

I was having a little browse through Amazon’s website for fiction about baking, for some reason – I quite like Kerry Greenwood’s series of Corinna novels, set in a bakery, and I thought perhaps there were some other similar books out there.

Tapping in search queries, I was swept away unawares into an alarming world of cozy themed mystery novels. Below is a list of some of the “Other Books Customers Bought”, some of which I have trouble believing actually exist. I didn’t make up the subtitles either:

1. Latte Trouble (Coffeehouse Mysteries)
2. Acts of Violets (A Flower Shop Mystery)
3. Chocolate Dipped Death (A Candy Shop Mystery)
4. A Deadly Yarn (A Knitting Mystery)
5. The Chocolate Jewel Case (Chocoholic Mysteries)
6. Murder by the Glass (A Wine Lover’s Mystery)
7. Scent to Her Grave (Bath and Body Mysteries)
8. Raiders of the Lost Corset (A Crime of Fashion Mystery)
9. Dark Tort (Goldy Culinary Mysteries)

I think I’m about to collapse due to an overdose of bad puns. (Is there such thing as a good pun? I don’t think so.)