Fluffy. 13 Sep 2002 to 7 Nov 2019

So this has been a harder post for one to write than most of the pontifications one one has espoused over the years.

More than a week has passed since the sad day of the passing of one's feline companion - The Tiger. - whom one began taking temporary care of for Svetlana for just a few months back in 2005 and when the plan for shipping overseas fell through, well that was okay.

She of the fluffy physique had surpassed 17 years (nigh 85 in human servant years) and appeared to be going strong - albeit a little older and creakier with less leaping, more snoozing, and a splash of missed litter tray action - when all of a sudden one afternoon she took a turn for extreme lethargy with occasional whinging and not much interest in food.

One sat up with her overnight and she had started drinking a bit of water so in one's naive hope it seemed like it might have been a temporary illness thing - especially when she moved in for one of her infamous lap sits complete with evil eye of "don't you dare try to get up".

Lap sit complete with evil eye.

However in the morning she became more and more listless and at the end One was patting her and talking to her for what turned out to be the final 5 minutes until, after some toe scrunching responses to One's attentions,  she had a big stretch and released her last breath.

It hit One harder than One would have thought but I guess a 15 year companion does get intertwined in your heart - mayhap there was a dash of Stockholm Syndrome involved - and I seemed to have an immediate allergic reaction to her passing complete with watering eyes and constricted throat.


Salsa Girl, Hulk and I said our goodbyes over the course of the morning and are now trying to get used to the empty Fluffy space in our house and our routines.

• No longer is the morning trip down the stairs greeted by a raised head and mew of inquiry.
• No longer will one be trapped under a sleeping feline and forced to watch hours of b-grade scifi and fantasy.
• No longer shall one be woken in the night by mysterious banshee screeching.
• No longer will small children fear to enter our home.
• No longer will some of those children that do enter go missing.
• No longer will she participate in gaming nights 

Gaming nights are great for finding warm places to sleep.

• No longer will she wind and weft around the legs of anyone in the kitchen.
• No longer will the house thrum to the thudding scampers up and down the hallway.
• No longer will she be found sleeping in strange places - on top of posts, in egg carton lids, in her freshly changed litter, on any single sheet of paper left out, Salsa Girl's ankles, atop a lego construction,over the corner of the coffee table...
• No longer will our residence be rife with the fear of leaving a water glass unattended.
• No longer will one have to wait for her inspections to complete before continuing with any task that involves moving furniture or opening cupboards.
• No longer will anyone lying down on the couch be greeted with the "here's a bum" manoeuvre.
• No longer will the Vet quake in fear and lay in extra stocks of band aids before her visits.
• No longer will such deep purring be emitted from simple patting and stroking. 
• No longer will those little paws reach out in delight or those eyes go squinty with the pleasure of a chin scratch.

In her younger days - sleeping in a fruit basket.

Farewell Fluffy, you kept me sane when I was a single man living on my own, and then seemed to set out to balance the ledger once you became surrounded by family.

You shall be missed and have left your mark upon me. Several of them in fact.
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Going on the Market

With the lovely Svetlana extending her return to Svetlanaland indefinitely the time has come for yours truly to return to the status of eligible bachelor.

Well actually the time came several months back and a discussion was had with Svets about my ending the patient waiting and returning to dating. However the plethora of projects and other distractions has kept me from making much of a start on it in the intervening months.

So in true Tales style one of my many seduction plans is to go into online dating with a brutally honest profile that reveals both of my faults.
This should ensure that no Candidates are surprised by what they get and should, in fact, result in them self-omitting themselves from contention if for some unfathomable reason they don't find me suitable.

Amongst all of this preparation I have garnered another Caution for you.
Be careful about asking the girls at work for a little help to make sure you are on the right track. There is a high chance that the likes of Days of our Libraries, Kiwichick, AntagonisticAl, and Lord of the Small Fries, will usurp full editorial control and force a whole lot of help upon you. Including incentive-cake to get you to go-live months before your slow and steady pace would have had you do so.
Of course the good side of the help is that they are making sure I don't make bad choices by enforcing their rules such as "no crazies and definitely no gingers".

So having gone live with my profile yesterday it is now time to sit back and wait for the responses to begin. I expect it shall be much like waiting for popcorn - starting with a few odd pops but quickly becoming a deafening chorus.

In the meantime I shall be busy enjoying my incentive-cake.
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The First Present

During the week past I received the first of what will probably be many presents in recognition of my somehow, inexplicably, making it through this roller-coaster life of mine all the way to a ripe old age.

Thankfully, as my last blog post should have proven, ones physical and mental age are usually quite far from being aligned in a meaningful manner that would allow others to use date of birth as any kind of significant measure of expected behaviour.

In any case, this first gift came from, of course, Svetlana herself.
It was, unfortunately, not Svetlana herself couriered here in an oversized crate lined with newspaper and comfortable pillows.
It was also, again unfortunately, not something one could eat.

The first gift of this ageing season of mine was a sizeable container of aftershave balm - enough to have one thrown in detention should one attempt to board an air-o-plane (for bringing a balm onto the plane - get it?).
It is a product of cheese-eating-surrender-monkeys - which should make Legion3 happy in his Francophile way - but was delivered from Hong Kong in a plain and battered off-white box with a purple ribbon daintily tied about it to make it look oh so presenty.

I can come to only one or two conclusions:

• Svetlana's habit of referring to me as her "smelly English piggy" is not as cutesy and tongue in cheek as I had believed up until now...
• or there is some sort of perception that I am one to butcher himself horribly while shaving and would therefore welcome the chance to sooth those savaged cheeks and chiselled jaw of mine with a balm such as this
  

Either way it is a saddening line of thought, particularly when one has a weekend at home alone cleaning and tidying in preparation for the inevitable post-party inspection of one's living space by the hordes of Librarians attending one's celebration event next weekend.
It is a lot of hard work concealing decades of geekery in the meagre allotment of cupboards with which my humble abode is equipped. I hope nobody glances underneath the couch.

Sigh.

Hmm, on second thoughts the balm bottle doesn't say that it is poisonous, so it must be edible after all - and it does smell delicious...
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... The Week with Extra Mr Prada

Nobody can say I don't listen to my legions of fans.
Due to overwhelming request today's post will have the first MR PRADA content for a while. Quite a while I see after doing the research and noting his last appearance was back in June. He must have been doing something wrong, or right, to not warrant any mentions in The Tales in all that time.

And so to business.


The Early Week
I was lucky enough to spend the early part of the week back at my desk and luxuriating in the company of MR PRADA and others at my home branch. It was an unusual experience after the last few months however, sure enough, I was soon dragged back to the other branches.


The Fresh Starts
The rest of the big things of note this week seem to be gaming related - there was some big statistics things but that is more boring than hearing MR PRADA prattle on about mapleland's superiority.

We had another great session on Tuesday with the evening seeming like a fresh new game - said freshness having nothing to do with the absence of Gavman or Pirate Dave and all to do with lower numbers making for a more free flowing game, plus without Pirate Dave punning me or Gavman stunning me with his gaming non sequiturs every 30 seconds I was much better able to run the game.

On Wednesday I suffered once more at the hands of The Viking Hat GM as he forced me to partake in another of his games and play a foppish noble yet again, although he will surely claim "the dice did it!".

Thursday gaming did an abrupt about face as we (well Fantomas and I) decided to switch from space to fantasy in order to help our newest gamer adjust to what it's all about and ensure that the gaming addiction would take properly.
I look forward to rolling out a long brewing fantasy of mine involving all present even as I mourn the loss of the space adventures.


The Maple Maverick Returns
This week did see the return of The Maple Maverick however my only real interaction with him was to bamboozle him with a new backup tape system - much like the way MR PRADA bamboozles us lesser fashionistas with his dazzling array of finery.


Seven Ancient Wonders by Matthew Reilly
Along the way this week I finished reading the latest, for me, book from Mr Reilly.

I was immediately struck by how much the story read like a parody of himself - similiar to the way in which MR PRADA's recent freakouts have become just a parody of the earlier installments. It was vaguely reminiscent of several of Legion4's boyhood stories of spydom almost verbatim in some cases - "some bad guys came running so I pulled out a grenade and threw it at them" - would not have looked out of place in this story.

It was also full of obvious repetition of plot elements and ridiculous cliffhanger endings to paragraphs that were contradicted at the beginnings of the paragraphs immediately following.

e.g. they fired at him with a rocket launcher that couldn't miss in the enclosed space...

Which missed by an inch as he ducked underneath the rocket.

Oh well Mr Reilly not your finest hour and somewhat tarnishing my memories of those of your older books I did enjoy.

Skyping the Svets again
I spent a raging Friday night on the internet phone to Svetlana much to her amusement that I had no partying to go to. One can't believe that she is blind to the obvious sacrifice I made of my rich social life to spend time talking to her. It's like MR PRADA and I were saying the other day in the library over a metaphorical beverage, "chix man, who can understand them?".

Speaking of my rich social life I must be off to attend Legion3's Half 70 party. I shall return bearing tales aplenty methinks.
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... The Small Victories

This week so far has been one of small victories.

It began when I finally wrestled correct function out of our receipt slip printers as they'd been limping along with minor annoyances since our recent upgrade.
In the process I have become a master of xmlst programming - or more correctly a master of "I'll just change this and see what happens... woohoo nothing broke let's try another one... two hours later we have success". Still as long as my staff don't see the toil they'll continue to think of me as an IT Wizard extraordinaire.

My next small victory was in getting our training room DVD player to work through the overhead projector before Sister Serials eviscerated me for not having it working in time for her special book club meeting where they watch a movie... yeah I don't get it either.
In any case the problem seems to be that some hyper-efficient IT Man in LibraryLand had plugged one to many cables back in to the projector after changing the globe earlier in the year and one was blocking the DVD signal. Some quick unplug this, unplug that and viola it's all working again.


Another small victory was being able to leave work early, well, on time - which is early for the last few months.


And the most recent small victory was getting gmail chat to work despite lashings of sarcasm hurled in my direction by both Svetlana and The Viking Hat GM as I struggled to undo my all-to-good hiding of the chat functionality.

Anyway I must be off to accumulate further small victories.
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... The Free Food Frenzy

So I spent most of the last week in training sessions in the heart of our beloved city.

Many and varied was my company including: Devil's Advocate, Sister Serials, Sonja Roster Queen and Miss Amanda for the majority of the time and special guest appearances by Mr Prada, Days of our Libraries, Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum, and The Pragmatist.

All of these exciting training companions were overshadowed by the fact that this particular round of training was accompanied by an incredible four days of free lunches!!!

I don't believe I have ever had it so good. I didn't even mind heading out for a girly shopping expedition on behalf of Svetlana.

On top of this bounty of brunches came the Friday farewell party for a libraryland associate of years past - complete with free drinks and circulating snacks!


However, as with all good things, the universe had to right the cosmic karma imbalance and, during my Saturday attendance at the footy with Legion2 and The Great Sandro, my hunger got the better of me forcing the purchase of sustenance in the form of one $20 pie.


Things did swing slightly back in the other direction today when I was able to take advantage of a free trip to NSW care of BestFriendSincePrep.
I was recruited for my excellent company on the long drive and possibly to put my strength into lifting the package we had headed North to collect. Many hours of great conversation and camaraderie was had before we returned to his abode and he 'remembered' an IT issue he had that required urgent proffessional attending to.
Sigh.
It seems I can never escape IT on my weekends.
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... The Life Brightonian

Contrary to all my planning I ended up spending most of last week anchored to Brighton branch.

This lead to my partaking in all facets of the Brighton lifestyle: the lunches, the perpetual snacks on the kitchen table, the crazy computer users, the nigh-constant hubbub of noise from the workroom, the late working nights trying to catch up on all the work that was missed due to unavoidable participation in said hubbub and snack ingesting.

Being so long at the one location gave me opportunity to scientifically test my hypothesis that my presence has a detrimental effect on individuals problem solving skills.
I was able to first hand see the problems I was asked to solve devolve from the beginning of the weeks fairly reasonable "Phill! my computer just exploded", through to the late week puzzlers along the lines of "Phill! How do I click my mouse again?"

Luckily I was able to make good my escape and spend my Friday luxuriating in the autonomous environment that is Sandy.
The only hardship being having to put up with Days of our Libraries claiming my latest knee injury was merely my latest attempt to get out of going down on bended knee before Svetlana no matter how much I assured her that, when I come to engage in such an endeavour, I shall do it in a thoroughly modern manner and send Svets an email.
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... The Skyping of Svetlana

So last Friday I bit the technological bullet and installed this thing called Skype onto my PC at Svetlana's insistence.

However lo and behold but when I cut short the soccer night out drinking to rush home and try giving the good lady a stupendous Skyping I get nothing. Ignored. Completely.

When I had finally gotten over my huff and contacted her tonight she came out with some sort of guff about May 1st being a holiday in Svetlanaland - May Day or some such - a likely story.

Anyway we made the connection and talked away for a quite a while. I never really knew about Skype but find it nigh mind-boggling that computer to computer calls are free. I guess they hope you'll get used to it and then start a paid account so you can call real phones from your computer.

The quality of our conversation was good (I mean sound quality the other sort was... well, you had to be there to appreciate it). There was no sense of lag at all and the only thing that stopped us going all night was my need for food after getting home late from trying to fix a Brand New Problem™ that Days of our Libraries and Kiwichick managed to unearth in their late shift. Those two need to be separated, especially now that Mr Prada is off in Mapleland and the whole place is falling apart.

Ahem. I seem to have wandered somewhat from my initial point. Suffice to say it works, I think I deserve some sort of IT hero award for getting it going, and I believe that there shall be much more conversation with Svetlana in the future - as long as my internet account can handle it anyway.
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... The Watching of The Watchmen

I went and saw the Watchmen movie last Saturday night with Legion2 and BrotherStealer.

I enjoyed it although the violence and steamy bits did seem to be pushed to make a contrast to the mostly talky way it all goes in the graphic novel. I'm not surprised that parents in the US who took their eight year oldsdecided to walk out - I am surprised (a little anyway) that they even took them into a MA15+ movie. It must be that whole attitude of "superheroes a for kids"

In an unintended homage to the films grim run-down eighties New York setting we saw it at the Greater Union cinema which had seen it's best in the eighties and is now a large, empty, grim, run-down space haunted by the ghosts of my teenage film viewing experiences.

The highlight of the evening was, of course, the Mexican meal afterwards. There's nothing quite like that bloated-by-beans-and-light-headed-from-margaritas feeling.
The lowlight of the evening was that Svetlana refused to talk to me on the phone while I was in my Mexican Nirvana. However that was rectified the following evening when it was just me talking with no margarita involvement at all.
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... The End of the Busy Days?

I think that was just my biggest non-Svetlanaland break. As the title may give away I have had very little "free" time to blog and also because of the massive tome that Badger has had me reading since January first I have had no easy "just finished a book" posts to make.

That doesn't mean, however, that nothing has been happening - as this sample should prove irrefutably:

• a team lunch at The Yacht Club followed by gaming at my abode in the evening
• the physio's all clear for knee go-live day at soccer
• multiplying my RFID tagging output by ten at Hampton and reaching the allusive 100 items! (only 5467 steps that day however)
• another regular card tournament at my place with most of the regulars in attendance
• the soccer groups annual family BBQ
• spruiking the RFID at Brighton to not one but two visiting contingents of interested libraryland visitors, then rushing to Hampton to lose a battle with a virus infested staff computer, and consequently arriving late to night one of my second great experiment of gaming with The Viking Hat GM, and Exploding Ninja Pony - this time under the auspices of a new GM (blogname pending - edit: The Blithe Bogan)
• network outages ending, virus removal complete, and regular gaming all evening
• early morning wake up calls from The Tiger, who now needs me to stand by the bowl in order to eat - who says cats aren't neurotic!
• working on the desk with Sister Serials while the Sandy Squad talk about me in their staff meeting and, more distressingly, have cake and biscuits in said meeting without me.
• session two of gaming with a baby in the room. I must say it does inspire having the players encounter a screaming monster
• attending a morning tea and lunch - flanked by some talk about wireless hotspots - out in the far reaches of libraryland. The event itself being marred somewhat by the onset of yet another Man-Cold
• spending my training day preparation time suffering from the aforementioned YAMC. Being fuzzy headed and sneezy and sniffly is not conducive to scribing precise answers to IT questions. I did while away some time watching The King of Kong - force-lent to me by Sister Serials. It was lots of fun and I think I may have found my new hairstyle in the bad guys mullet. Mr Prada did ask the pertinent question though - "is it Svetlana approved?"
• a tortuously early start to training day under orders from Devil's Advocate to collect IT gear from the corporate castle, leaving me too exhausted to properly demolish the morning tea, lunch and post-event drinks

So there you have it. Up to date and ready to return to our regularly scheduled blogging.
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... The Subject of Dreams

As is the way of synchronicity two individuals whom have never met - except in my mind's eye pan across the rogues gallery of people I know - have had me feature as a central figure in their dreamscapes.

It is understandable, of course, given how larger than life and mentor-y I am for both of them.
In any case the substance of their unconscious imaginings may shed further light on any actual cosmic connection.

The first instance occurred in the depths of Mr Prada's RFID induced delirium. Having spent most of an afternoon last week discussing how we were to move a heavy trolley from one branch to another - including the option of wheeling it the 1.9 kilometres (distance includes the block looping and doubling back that I am consistently able to produce in Google Maps) - his nights rest took on a nautical theme with the two of us transporting said device around the bay in a row boat, of which I was presumably the captain.

Our other case-study is MatrixMan who conjured me into one of his regular siesta-time somnabulances. In this instance he was napping on the non-existent balcony at my place, I decided to begin our latest tournament without waking him and he was peeved to no end. Obviously with or without a balcony that is something I would never do and I have already changed my plan for tournament day accordingly.

So there you have it - if you include the fact that I am a guaranteed gallivanter through Svetlana's nocturnals - I am the denizen of dreams of those I know and therefore shall probably be visiting your REM realms in the near future as well.
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... The Collection of Short Stories

My apologies for going almost a fortnight between updates however I have been suffering under the ravages of my unshakable man-cold and - yes Supervisor Grand Chief K - working quite a lot.

The gap has however allowed me to gather up a collection of small tales of the events that have occurred during my absence.

So let's begin...

The Duchess and the Admiral
I had the opportunity to play this with Pirate Dave and Juzzy J Thursday week.
Hmmm, perhaps I better point out it was a role-playing game.
Hmmm, maybe a better further point out it was role-playing in the dice, pen, and paper sort and not the other kind.
Anyway, with The Bastard's back problems re-surfacing I have been handed the gaming reins and, as I am so busy with work, rather than spend oodles of time prepping I have been experimenting with some quick random dice rolls for the initial set-up and then improvising the evenings episode. I have dubbed it Random Travelling and with this Thursday's game going well it seems to be a success.


The Corporate Image
Friday week I was back in the Corporate castle working hard imaging up a pair of computers for the library. Whilst slaving away there I was introduced to The Warden the new boss of all things IT.


Farewell to The Doctor
After the hard working week my Saturday was a reasonably relaxed day at home. I finished my watching of the second season of the new Doctor Who. I am really quite fond of it, although I suspect the emotional resonance bits that I like were virtually non-existent in the original so traditional fans may want to burn me in effigy.


Avoiding doom with Doom
After a coffee catchup with Rugrat Twin the rest of my Sunday was devoted to gaming. The main
game of the afternoon was Doom's sprawling Arkham Horror boardgame and we were surprisingly effective in preventing eldritch horror from manifesting and destroying the earth - yay us!


The Twilight Party
After two long, hardworking days back at work I was looking forward to crashing this school holiday event. However Lord of the Small Fries banned me from participating despite my claims that an old man hanging out with teenage girls was completely on theme for Twilight and besides I am only a third of the age of perfect Edward. Oh well at least I was able to console myself with leftover pizza from the party.


Setting the date
Thursday morn brought me back to the Physio and we determined the date for my return to soccer. Oh and since many of you undoubtedly though this was Svetlana related I should mention that I had myself a quite short haircut afterwards that would most likely not be approved of by the lady herself and will most likely see her show up on my doorstep to chastise me any day now.


A real werewolf film
After making it late to farewell drinks because of having lots of work to do I scooted home to catch up with BestFriendSincePrep to go and see Underworld: Rise of the Lycans a really and truly werewolf film. Considering how bad the second in the series was this one was quite enjoyable although it was quite dark and I did feel like shining a spotlight at the screen to see what was going on.


The Morning Nip
I resumed my morning walk/jogs this morning after a couple of weeks off due to illness and work commitments.
So calmly dragging myself along the path I was suddenly beset upon by a vicious pack of bloodthirsty yippy dogs. One of them took it upon himself to stretch up and bite me just below the knee (the good one thankfully) then as I was busy saying ow he nipped around to do the other side. It didn't seem to bad so I let the owner off with only a mildly upset look and was on my way again.
Now in the cold light of afternoon I sit here anxiously awaiting the onset of rabies - or perhaps even werewolfism (and I really don't relish the idea of turning into a yippy dog at the full moon).
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... The Romance of Cat Poop

So it seems I have been accused of being un-romantic.

I received a late night/early morning SMS from Svetlana the other night - she's currently gallivanting around Srpski next door to Svetlanaland since her job has gone into winter hybernation.

In my reply I mentioned that I'd had to spend some amount of my middle-of-the-night time freeing The Tiger from a fluff and poop disaster of her own making, and that I wished Svets herself had been there.

Apparently, as was said (texted?) to me with much sarcasm, that was one of the most romantic things to reply with - hmmm, unless it wasn't sarcastic - who knows with these Svetlanese people??

In any case my stating that I would have kissed her afterwards, mysteriously didn't seem to improve my case at all and I thought that doing things together was one of the cornerstones of romance.
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... The Very Messy Xmas

Xmas day started off with a glorious hour long phone call with Svetlana discussing such interesting things as the weather - it was -5 in Svetlanaland at the time.

After all the scintillating conversation was finished I set out for a twenty minute walk/jog to counteract the coming feasting but unfortunately my MAMILS was acting up a little so the jog part dropped by the wayside.

I collected Legion2 and headed over to our ancestral home for a lunchtime BBQ with Handy Dad and the rest of the Legion. Of course I had to do some updating of Freeloading Mum's computer while I was there and didn't notice how quickly Legion4 was downing the beverages.

Time came to head over to Aunties for the traditional evening meal and cousin catch-up. Legion3 headed home while 2 and 4 piled into my vehicle. I failed to notice that Legion4 had thought it necessary to bring a beer for the 20 minute trip. I did notice though when said beer was finished within the first half of the journey.

Upon arrival we reacquainted ourselves with cousins, uncles and aunties. We also acquainted ourselves with Cousin Dave's wife.
Pre-dinner conversation and nibbles commenced in the backyard in the wonderful Xmas day evening twilight. It was during this part of the evening that things began to turn messy. Legion4 had continued to avail himself of the amber liquid since we arrived and became variously loud, obnoxious, angry and incomprehensible. He also seemed to come down with a special case of Tourette's repeatedly loudly blurting out things unrelated to current conversation topics - I suspect they were all in-joke sayings he and his friends share when they get smashed at the pub.
Needless to say the embarrassing and cringe-worthy nature of his behaviour brought on a telling off from Handy Dad - quite a surreal experience as one drunk person staggered over to tell the other they were a disgrace and embarrassing the rest of the family. Legion4's only response being an imploring "why me? What did I do?" look towards the rest of the group.
After a dinner time lull he was back at it and yours truly had to leave before dessert to take him home - making it the third time this month that I had missed dessert, hmmm, is the universe trying to tell me something?

The journey home was a wonderful fusion of a building headache punctuated by sudden shouting with small bouts of driver interference all topped off with repetition of "Where the f*** are we?" even twice while waiting at the same set of lights.

Finally he was dropped home and peace descended. Dropping the pleasantly affected Legion2 home was sheer bliss in comparison and then it was straight to bed for me to shake off my blinding headache that had mysteriously developed over the course of the evening.
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... Postcards from the Svets

Well Xmas cards actually. Well card to be exact, but I won't let that interfere with a great title.


So it has come to my attention that I have only mentioned Svetlana in passing since her demise, I mean departure. There are no suppressed anger or passive-aggressive issues involved, merely passive-lazy ones. We have spoken several times on the telephone and continued to exchange electronic mail so quit your worrying.


Anyway, I had a joyous moment coming home from work the other day to find an enormous envelope postmarked from Svetlanaland.

Upon tearing it open I discovered a huge Xmas card with some sentimental message inside and - best of all - a picture of her local castle in the midst of winter on the front. The lady knows me too well.
Of course she timed it all so I would be unable to return post a cardboard missive in time for the occasion. (Since then we've had another epic phone conversation which I hope has alleviated the need for cardboard sending)

Things are going okay for her although the job front looks a tad shaky so there is the slight possibility that she may have to return to my side. In which case I would be able to return to a once a fortnight posting schedule instead of this inhumane level you have me at now.
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... A Lazy Weekend

I've been enjoying my first lazy weekend for ages after surving the tail-end of my anniversary week.

I do think that I have to point out that box cake might come from a box but it is still stirred (by hand I might add) and bunged into my oven. I want to squash those rumours of my bringing cake straight from the shop, as we all know that shop-cake means reputation death in the library staff room.

Anyway, thanks to random computer and borrower failure, I was only able to have one piece of the cake as it was naught but crumbs by the time I got back to it at the end of the day. Oh well, I can just say that it's a part of my renewed fitness program.

Friday started off well with an invigorating pre-work walk/jog. Things soon took a turn for the worse when I arrived at Brighton to find that Sister Serials and I had "worn the same dress to the ball". It turns out that when Svetlana gives you a green polka-dot shirt it's part of some cosmic joke and SS will be there in her red twin of your shirt the moment you enter the building and you'll have to put up with Xmas themed humour at your expense all day.

In any case I soldiered on and, with the help the disturbingly Miami Vice like collarless Mr Prada, proceeded to run yet another 2.0 remedial class. Sonja Roster Queen, Sister Serials, Nurse Janet, Devil's Advocate and a new casual were the victims of the day. From some points of view it was successful as yet more staff finished their 23 things before there IT Man.

Friday was finished off with a surprisingly dinner-free Sandringham Xmas dinner. Still it was good to be home again although it does sound like I'll have to give them an anniversary cake of their own. Hmm, I wonder if etiquette allows me to buy this one?

I was going to make a one sentence post saying that a lazy weekend leaves me with little to write home about but I seem to have blathered on and filled my quota.
And blather is what it is compared to some of the heartfelt blogging I've read recently from the likes of LittleBigGirl re her and BigBen's horrible health issues; and Tooticky's farewell to a monster I knew in passing; not to mention The Viking Hat GM's world/people saving efforts. Still, I am famous, judging by LittleBigGirl's blog, so I must be doing something right... right?

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... The Long Silence

Well it's been four weeks since my last post and finally The Viking Hat GM has cracked in this staring contest of will-I-post-again-or-not and left a comment on my last post - as Kiashu (remember the devil wears many hats!).
So I win the staring contest and can resume updating you, my loyal readers, on the oddities that surround me in daily life and in LibraryLand.

(Egad, while I've been drafting this missive Days has cracked as well. I better get on and release it if I ever want delicious cake again!)

SOoooo anyway the main reason for my lack of postings is that I've been far too busy with my starring role in The Lazy and Crazy Show that Svetlana's visit was. (I won't tell you which one I am but the good lady is of Eastern European extraction and I spent a whole lot of time doing nothing over those three weeks so make an educated guess...)

However now Svetlana has fled the country - as of several Saturdays ago - leaving me to the long silence of the now empty apartment. Even worse the kitchen has mysteriously stopped producing yummy dinners for me!
And so the parade of dvd watching, beer drinking, shopping expeditions, relative visits, beer drinking, a Cup Day drive to Mt Macedon and Hanging Rock, catch up drinks with all and sundry, trimming The Tiger, popping into work with slightly less frequency than normal, beer drinking, paddling in the shallows at the beach, much unavailable-in-Svetlanaland Asian food, rearranging of apartment (or should I say arranging, as it was all just shoved in there when I moved), and beer drinking, comes to an end.

Since my dear lady's departure I have been nose to the grindstone proving that the best way to appear to be working is to do some actual work. I dunno... I think faking it is easier.

I've also slipped the odd gaming event in and have spent a bit of time reacquainting myself with the internet. I like it and I think I'll stay. We'll talk more soon.
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... Expeditions, exhaminations and other extreme events

So it's been a week since my last post.

A week of Svetlana's stay gone by in a blur of:

• expeditions to fondly remembered parts of Melbourne - quite a few of them neither of us have been to for over two years!
  

• extreme furniture rearrangement in the flat (you know - all done on bmx). Now more open space and 5% less clutter
  

• examination and acceptance from my library staff (including unfortunate bonding against me with the shady likes of Days of our Libraries)

• excessive eating while on a visit to local relatives. There may have been some excessive drinking but I blacked out after my second scotch before lunch...

• extension of our traditional memorial Absent Friends Jyhad Card Game into it's third year with a good turnout who all adapted to the newly reconfigured gaming environment with consummate ease
  

• exasperating network outages (for which I did not get the memo!) dragging me away from Svetlana to fulfil my after-hours support role for a few too many "after" hours.

Updates may be few and far between in the coming weeks but you can probably get the gist of what I've been up to by re-reading this post every four or five days.
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... Supervising Svetlana's Sleeping

As of last night Svetlana is in the country. [Phill does the dance of joy]

There was much reacquainting and examining of the flat - everything passed inspection [Phill does the dance of relief], although the study/junk/games room did almost cause a cardiac incident, but it is my contractual blokes room of the house so it is excluded from the upcoming extreme house makeover.

After all the excitement of her 30 hour flight Svetlana is still snoozing away well into this morning.
I keep going in to sit by the bed and watch her sleep in a way that's totally romantic and sweet and not at all creepy and stalker-ish.
It is hard to believe she finally made it - I might have to go in and pinch her one more time just to be sure.
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... Farewells and Frantic Preparations

With Svetlana flying in this week I have been saying my farewells to clear up the schedule. Monday night was farewell to The Viking Hat GM, The Mad Magyar, and Exploding Ninja Pony as we wrapped up our Spooks-esque game. It was a great story arc we played through and I intend to return to their table some time in the future.

Tuesday was the farewell for the library courier. I convinced him to leave in case our blokey camaraderie would be too much of a threat to Svetlana once she arrived.


With the farewells over I have spent my remaining time preparing the flat - i.e. franticly scrapping a year of bachelorhood away - and making the place look spiffy. Although I do think the romance of a vase full of roses is diminished somewhat after The Tiger has had a good chew on them.

Oh, well, I better sign off and get myself out to the airport.
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