:: The Wendy House ::

Log fire

I had fun poking that!

Things that got toasted:

• Wendy’s tootsies
• Marshmallows
• Vin Chaud
• Wendy’s nose (it’s not so short…)
• Sox pressie from my favourite SwedishTeenAngel

Poking fires fulfills a basic ‘Wendy need’ and will be cited in the to-be-written Wendy ‘User Handbook’ along with the PMT requirements for

• increasing the hug-to-no-hug ratio.
• reducing the requirement for rationality.

Waves THERE

This view was less than 2 minutes walk from the cabin door. I didn’t even have to cross the road to get there! Road-crossing is not yet one of my well-developed skills.

I was able to watch the sunset then walk home in the dark without falling over or negotiating the complexities of road-crossing!

Luxury

W toasty-hot-stand-up-gal

Mostly Harmless is “the Fifth Book in the Increasingly Inaccurately Named Hitchhikers Trilogy“.  Highly recommended… …read the other books first. 

This was Mr. Adam’s pen-ultimate book.  It is persistently funny in the style of previous books and bleak.  More bleak than earlier hitchhikers guide books.  The audiobook I listened to on SR101 was narrated by Mr.Adams.  His voices suited the characters.  His female ‘Oracle’ voice was evocative of Monty Python females characters.

Mr. Adam’s imagination and storytelling skills remain engaging and outstanding.  The ideas developed around the following quotes, as with many others, had me laughing out loud,  looking for a place to park:

“A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.”

“The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to repair“

“Nothing travels faster than the speed of light, with the possible exception of bad news which obeys its own laws “

Mostly Harmless develops several intertwined themes as a coherent plot, I noticed them as

• Capitalism
  • the impact of success on Hitchhikers guide (Ford Prefect).
  • bureaucratic business strategy.
  • corruption (hacking, fraud).
• Predictability tensions
  • Probable and improbable parallel universes. 
  • Bob and a Bird as omnipotent beings.
  • Astrology and Astronomy.
• Relationship tensions
  • Trilliums story ‘before’ and ‘after’ meeting Zaphod.
  • Arthur Dent’s life ‘after’ the destruction of the earth.
  • ‘Random’ a displaced teenage girl.

W

  wrapped-in-poignantly-beautiful-bleakness

The Oregon coast Tsunami signs are way too common for the paranoid.

DONT PANIC  

(HitchHiker’s guide to the Galaxy,  D.Adams).

Advice provided by Oregon signs:

“Entering Tsunami Hazard zone” (e.g. consider panicing if you hear or feel rumblings that can’t reasonably be attributed to the Sea, your tummy, or a Unix critical internal contingency test)

“In case of earthquake go to high ground or inland” (e.g. if you panic run, drive, uphill)

This sign is generously posted on the coastal routes. Methinks the ‘arrow’ should point at an ‘upward’ gradient because Tsunami escape involves getting to high ground.  

 Wendy the-earth-didnt-move-for-me-did-it-for-you?

Summary impression of the Oregon coast from a British perspective, think of…

• BIG Cornwall with stone cottages replaced by wooden homes.
• Virtually no cell-phone coverage. NO TEXTING
• Big trees. Approximately 3x as tall as anything in the UK as standard issue.
• BIG waves. No surfers due to killer-Trees! Literally big-tree sized logs rolling in the surf.
• Logging. Lots of articulated lorries hauling deliberately felled killer trees inland. This IS Lumberjack country. Sing with me “I’m a lumberjack and I’m OK….” 
• The normal US stuff - wide roads with poor foundations and surfaces - uneven, prone to flooding, lots of cracks, holes, repairs and those big cars they call SUVs
• The same strange bars and cafe’s with inexplicable 1970’s decor, including fake flowers, run by locals with strange hair-styles. It felt like walking into a US centric episode of ‘The League of Gentlemen’

The two photographs below were taken within 2 minutes of each other from the same position. I just turned my body and aligned the camera…

The December Oregon sky is as dramatic as the geography.

To align with one British cultural sterotype here’s a wee bit about the weather:

• Nightly heavy rain. Rain-drops, wearing classic Doc Martens, pogo-ing on the cabin roof. I had to sing REALLY loud to make myself heard.
• River floods seeped onto SR101.
• Mystically foggy mornings. Arthurian Avalon style. The fog rolled from the hills out across to the sea likea dragons breath surrounding Tintagel.
• Vibrantly sunny afternoons with clear skys.

Wendy wet-not-weally-wild

Short vacation to the very pretty Oregon coastline begins TODAY!  

Should be stormy, dramatic, beautiful.  I’m anticipating lots of bouncing, cheese-eating, some hiking,  beaucoup de ‘hat wearing,  loud singing a la auto,  wine drinking and bookworming in a cosey cabin with a real hearth & fire…  …I’m taking my sunglasses (optimism abounds*!)…  

…I’m not anticipating an internet connection or hugs…   …room for pleasant suprises… 

W too-excited-too-sleep

*(couldn’t find any good internet entries on ‘Splogenous Abounds’,  a fabulous name for a band… …don’t actually recall their music quality,  just the band name…)

 

"Tiffany was a painter and interior decorator and designed stained glass windows and lamps, glass mosaics, blown glass, ceramics, jewelry, enamels and metalwork."

 

Today I searched (Google) for “Angel of the morning star” who you all you Christians know is Lucifer. 

The morning star is another name for ‘Venus‘ the brightest of the planets.  It’s symbol is the symbol for ‘female’.  In pre-christian Greece (Aphrodite) and Rome (Venus) the morning star represented the Goddess of love and beauty linked to marriage, motherhood and sex. 

I’m curious about Lucifer’s role before his (gender?) fall from ‘grace’.  I’m assuming there was a good reason that Lucifer was “second in command to God himself; he was the highest archangel in heaven“.  This online version tells of how lucifer fell from grace before the creation of man.  In summary,  it suggests that God ran a totalitarian government that did not justify its actions.  Lucifer convinced nearly half of the angels that this effectively made them slaves and insighted them to rebel.  The key request of the rebels, lead by Lucifer, appears to have been

The Issaquah Village Theatre staged a version of the Andrew Lloyd-Webber Musical CATs. 

It was well performed,  beautiful,  with a suitable set, fabulous make-up and sexy costumes.  I didn’t know the ‘plot’ beforehand and the performance did not adequately convey the plot.  That didn’t really matter to me because it was such a beautiful sensual experience.  The performances were well beyond the quality of my expectations for a regional theatre group.  Karen Kaiser’s rendition of the famous song “Memory” was technically excellent and very moving.   

I’d recommend taking the opportunity to see this production. 

For those more discerning than me this critical review is more detailed and a little more critical. 

W

Frank Sutcliffe was a photographer based in Whitby in the late 19th Century.  Whitby is most well known for its key role in Bram Stoker’s Dracula,  its sailing history and Jet works.  This is his most famous photograph, the Water Rats:

I have a copy of the Water Rats in my Water Closet.  With 11 almost naked young boys there are no ‘winkles‘ showing.  An outstanding achievement in tastefulness.  Unfortunately the bum exposure did get Frank excommunicated from the local church for potentially corrupting girls.  I was already irrevocably, severely, corrupted by the time I found this photograph.

W wemembewing-whitby

There are times when I’d like to curl up and blub-blubby-blub-sniffle for no good reason at all.  Unfortunately that’s NOW. 

 PMT (UK) PMS (US). 

I need a hugging device that doesn’t

• ask tricky questions like ‘What’s wrong‘ and “Is there anything I can do?”
• provide ‘helpful’ suggestions like “have you tried evening primrose oil,  vitamin b12?” etc, or “You might find talking about what’s troubling you helps“
• remind me this is one of my ‘nasty’ habits
• have mechanical shortcomings like needs its battery-charging mid-cry,  needs to be plugged into the leccy or wound-up,  or gets rusty if cried on too much.
• need to be somewhereelse soon.

It could giggle and make suggestions like

• ‘lets drink lots of real ale and poke fun of the locals (but not during an international phonecall)’
• ’show me your most outrageous hat’.

This looks a bit too primitive for my needs: http://www.monkeyview.net/kal@seemen.org/videos/HUGMAC_1.vhtml

Meanwhile I’ll make do with another gallon of Tea.

W

A special guest entry written, edited and coloured by language specialist Eyan (aka WhitePrince):

Now time to tell you my Gouda with Cumin seed dream before I go to bed:

It starts off with a Japanese boy being interviewed in a tv programme about a plane crash he was involved in. For the sake of clarity I think the Japanese boy is the author’s alter ego. He couldn’t be much further removed from the author’s ethnic profile, but there you go. As the interview progressed, images from the plane crash were shown, which, of course, then became a reality, or a dream reality let’s say. The Japanese boy was pinned to the back of his seat terrified as the plane was losing height very quickly. He was aware he was about to die. At this point the author chose to terminate the performance as he knows plane crashes are rather distasteful. He woke up breathless, but this was probably more due to dust mite allergy than anything  else.

From a scientific point of view - to what extent did the cheese have an effect on the subjects dreams ?

Things to be taken into consideration -

a - The subject is a regular air traveller. He has experienced some very intricate flying manoeuvres, especially in Iberia planes over the sea whilst coming in to land at Barcelona airport. Some pilots should understand that planes do not make u-turns like a stolen car would do when driven by tearaway teenagers.

b - He is a fan of Johan Grimonprez’s “Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/dial-history/, a art video film mainly about hijackings. He has seen it again twice recently at the Caixa Forum art centre http://portal1.lacaixa.es/Channel/Ch_Redirect_Tx?dest=1-38-00-00000. In the film there are interviews with hijack hostages. There are also Japanese in the film, both hostages and Red Army hijackers. For American sensibilities this is probably not a recommended film.

c- He suffers from allergies and asthma, so any dreams involving frightening, breath-taking situations may be attributable to this.

Hope you enjoyed the show. Thank you and goodnight.

Eyan wisely outlines a clear impact of waking life events and interests in dreams.  Waking life events have lead to my own investigations this week going awry heavily due to more

• fish-eating
• cheescake eating
• varied cheese intake.  (Roquefort bread, Brie, Cream cheese, Edam BabyBel).  Yummy!
• Abnormal alocohol consumption (mulled wine,  mud slides etc)

Wendy free-form-dream-diary-till-January

Mountain Lion = Puma = Cougar = Catamount, Felis Concolor

I learned that letting a domestic kitty range outdoors in the NW US risks it becoming some local predators lunch. Lots of preditors here that don’t live in the UK. The picture below is not a puma eating a domestic kitty. It is a Puma carrying its cub.

You too can have a trophy-kill cuddly-toy on your own wall at home

Cuddly-Puma-Head

W Watching-Weally-Wild-Caged-Cats

Fourth report in my ongoing cheese investigations. 

Eating pase (Edam cheese supper):

5/5 nights produced no awareness of dreams. 

Half way through the week I skipped the supper and that night had an Outstanding,  unpublishable, dream.

Decontamination phase (no Edam supper):

1 Vivid,  long, extremely enjoyable dream about living in a Victorian red-brick townhouse with many colourful guests and secret passage-ways under carpets & behind furniture.  Wonderful textures and details.

I ate seafood on the two nights that I didn’t eat Edam and did dream.  I don’t normally eat seafood.

Conclusion?

Edam is a dream supressant.

Seafood may be a dream stimulant.

This week I’ll be eating mostly mini Babybel.

20 brilliant things.  A self-referential indulgence  

Any one of these things can make my day sparkle:

1. Bakelite
2. Boyfriends
3. Bunnies
4. Cheese
5. David Byrne
6. Dreams
7. Glasses (optical accessories)
8. Gravity operated catfood dispensers
9. Hats
10. Lists
11. Mums
12. Other people’s clothes
13. Paper
14. Poetry
15. Pressies
16. Pretty dresses
17. Real Ale (NOT US Microbrews)
18. Wendy’s Frendys
19. Wendy’s Wardrobe
20. Yellow roses

What is really brilliant is that this list could go on and on and on and on….  …there are soooooooo many brilliant thangs…   …your brilliant list of things is probably different.  May include furry bedding or something.  What-ever,   lots of goodies for the holidays.

W wonderful-thanging

Confusion sounds like Confucian

This can produce a phonologically based spelling challenge.  No prizes for guessing who’s recently made that Malapropism.

W Most-Often-Miss-Pelt

Are all stunning,  scenery and animation are also top-notch.

But these excellent parts do not gestalt to a good film.

The Disney Narnia film storyline didn’t really work for me.  It covered the second book of seven in the Chronicals.  Why not start at the beginning?  

Tilda Swinton was outstanding as Queen Jadis. Jim Broadbent’s cameo role is also exquisite though not used effectively for plot development.  Tilda’s performance held my interest in the film. The other female characters were stereotypical ‘healing’, ’supportive’ and did all the blubbing in the film.  Yuck.  Somewhat uninspiring.  Even the two lead ‘boy’ characters appeared shallow and poorly developed thoughout the film.  James McAvoy who is often cast as a loveable rogue played a convincingly trustable Mr. Tumnus.  The sets and graphics (snow, animals) were extremely impressive but didn’t sufficiently make up for the lack of good quality character development.  Thankfully, these children do not feature in the other books.  I haven’t seen the BBC version of 4 of the books.

I wouldn’t recommend this film.  

Here’s a picture of my vintage (between 1 and 2 hundred years old) French Wardrobe instead.  It’s cheaper and almost as entertaining.  It slots together, no ’screws’ and I can climb in it with both my kitties.  It’s the only piece of furniture that I care about.  Care about furniture?  Not normally,  but a wardrobe that once contained other people’s clothes,  a doorway,  Norman arches,  Barley-twist, beautiful oak and quality craftsmanship.  Golly gosh,  it even SMELLS good!  Must have a cup of tea before I get toooooooo excited about my wardrobe….

W Wardrobe-Worshiper

By the label;   Silly!    It’s obvious.

This wine just called out to me….

Wendy Marketing-victim

Silent companion 

Complete pussycat

Erotic God(dess)

Someoneelse’s Synopsis 

This picture was part of a card he made to let me know that he had won the Alternative Miss World Competition as ‘Miss Gale Force” in 1991. 

We met when he was responsible for the set design for a production of Rumplestiltzkin.  I was cast as Rumplestiltzkin.  His set was wonderful.  He let me help him paint it. 

In Birmingham UK, we often found ourselves in the same nightclubs.  We would dance near each other without acknowledging we knew each other.  I would call for him in the small hours of the morning and sit on his bed drinking tea,  reading, writing, or watching TV while he worked on some project, for hours at a time.  In those days when he wasnt clubbing he looked like a young Jim Morrison . 

He leant me clothes. 

We rarely spoke. 

His last spoken words to me were about 4am on a 1986 June morning as I left his room

Wendy: “bye“ 

Burnel:  “Do you want to talk about it?”   

Wendy: “No.  I would cry” <left room then cried>

Even then the moment was a flashbulb memory for me;  as if I somehow knew that I would never see him again.  We wrote across the years before he died.  More was said in any one letter than passed between us when together.

I miss him most during the dark long winter nights of the party season.  Sometimes when I’m very sad I imagine he’s there,  just there,  silently working on a project.  I’m glad he once was.

W Missing

I placed & decorated an evergreen tree in my home this weekend.

Puuurrrr-itty

Christmastree.com suggests that a ‘christmas tree’ orginates from St. Boniface,  a British Christian,  trying to persuade some German Druids the Oak was not sacred.  Meanwhile:

“Centuries ago in Great Britain, woods priests called Druids used evergreens during mysterious winter solstice rituals. The Druids used holly and mistletoe as symbols of eternal life, and place evergreen branches over doors to keep away evil spirits.”

I used to spend the second weekend of December in The New Forest gathering the Wiccan symbol of Holly to decorate our home.  I miss the peaceful, social, activity of gathering natures wealth.  Definitely preferable to ‘Shopping’!  Mistletoe is more difficult to find.  Neither decoration appears common in the NW US wild or stores.

Audrey overlooks 3 different trees…

W Miss-Tree

Wikipedia provides a good summary including the lyrics from the song of that name.

Basically,  Christians celebrate for 12 days after Christ is born,  not before.  The 12th day after Christmas (6th Jan) is called ’Epiphany’.  It is likely that this period was chosen by the Christian church to usurp pre-christian solstice celebrations.  Evidently Shakespeare’s play ‘Twelfth Night’ refers to the 12 days of Christmas.

it was a crime to BE a Catholic in England 1558 thru 1829. 

The song “The Twelve Days of Christmas” was possibly a Mnemonic used in England to help young Catholics learn the tenets of their faith.  This carefully avoided written material that could lead to imprisonment or executed in very nasty ways.  Though these tenets do not appear different from those of the Anglican church. 

Codes used in the song include

True love = God

Me = Baptised person

Partridge in a pear tree = Jesus on the cross

2 Turtle Doves = The Old and New Testaments
3 French Hens = Faith, Hope and Charity, the Theological Virtues
4 Calling Birds = the Four Gospels and/or the Four Evangelists
5 Golden Rings = The first Five Books of the Old Testament, the “Pentateuch”, which gives the history of man’s fall from grace.
6 Geese A-laying = the six days of creation
7 Swans A-swimming = the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, the seven sacraments
8 Maids A-milking = the eight beatitudes
9 Ladies Dancing = the nine Fruits of the Holy Spirit
10 Lords A-leaping = the ten commandments
11 Pipers Piping = the eleven faithful apostles
12 Drummers Drumming = the twelve points of doctrine in the Apostle’s Creed

W must-finish-reading-Gods-secretaries…

"Do you know anything about train control circuits ?  Me neither. making it up as I go along"

 

bread = money. From cockney rhyming slang, bread and honey = money. Bread also has associations with the expression ‘earning a crust’, or having enough money to pay for one’s daily bread.

Third report of my cheese-dream intestigation. 

Eating phase (Cream cheese supper):

3/6 nights produced dreams.  Nothing vivid, lucid, outrageous.  Nothing where the content is even worth reporting or ‘unpubishable-ing’.

3/6 nights.  No dreams.  Pah!

WonderWoman had a similar experience with ‘Laughing Cow’ cream cheese:

“Despite slavering Laughing cow onto several begals, I have no dreams to report whatsoever. <unpublishable caveat>”

Decontamination phase (no cream cheese supper):  1 night. 1 forgettable dream.

Conclusion?

Rather like not eating a cheese supper at all. Pah!

Recommended for the unadventuous.  I’m beginning to suspect that soft cheeses are just not dream-tastic.

This week I’ll be eating Edam.

The WhitePrince, who is experimenting with coloured emails, reported yesterday that after eating Edam:

I dreamt we were in your kitchen, each making his or her own breakfast and talking about <unpublishable>. You filled your French-style coffee bowl with frothy hot milk and I ate my weetabix from a large white cutlery tray. You were displeased when I accidently put sugar on top of your frothy milk.

"By the Monogram of Christ is ordinarily understood the abbreviation of Christ’s name formed by combining the first two letters of the Greek form… …The Greek letters XP combined in a monogram occur on pre-Christian coins (e. g. the Attic tetradrachma and some coins of the Ptolemies)"

"Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain"

Jazz Alley is a ‘Dinner and Jazz club’. That seems to mean a big room in a posh hotel. A bit more ‘classy’ than I’m normally used to. A treat.

Joe Bonamassa was not an artist I was familiar with before the evening. He played with a bass guitarist and a drummer. He had 15 guitars next to the stage. He used 8 of them during the performance. 

The music was wonderful; his hands were captivating. Like watching a fire as they danced over the strings. Many of the songs were instrumental. When he did sing Joe had a rasping voice. Sounded like the Blues to a novice like me.

There was no ‘back-stage’ when Joe and colleagues left the stage they loitered to the left with the guitars. Very informal.

Another excellent evening.

W spoilt

Wikepedia describes Morcheeba as a British band that mixes influences of Hip Hop, Blues and Pop. Morcheeba’s official UK website adds ‘Soul’, ‘country’ and ‘electronic’ to the influences. I recently watched them play at the Showbox. Near the downtown public markets:

Mellow music to relax, sing and dance in

I thoroughly enjoyed myself

Worth the entry-charge

GORGEOUS

Were they good? Yes

Morcheeba performed as you would expect professional performers. Good quality. Morcheeba have recently changed their lead singer to Jody Sternberg. Changing singers can often change the whole impact a band makes. Jody has a wonderful voice and is lively and charismatic on stage. She plays flute and saxophone and co-wrote some of the bands earlier songs.

Did they play a broad range of material? Yes

The set included songs from the new Album (Antidote) including ‘everybody loves a loser’ and classic songs from several older albums including ‘Rome wasnt built in a day’, ‘part of the process’, ‘Sea’. I was sceptical about Jody effectively conveying the older songs. Thankfully my scepticism was unwarranted. The ‘hip-hop’ and ‘rapping’ influence was not evident in their set. For me this was a positive shift in their musical direction.

Were there memorable moments? Yes

Ross Godfrey gave gave the audience stories about the inspirations for specific songs. For example, ‘Blindfold‘ was written about a friend going into a mental assylum for 3 months then staying there for 10 years. I love to hear type of story at a concert. His guitar playing was impressive; as was his ability to smoke a cigarette for the whole duration of a song while playing continually and not noticeably dropping any ash on himself.

The back-up artist provided some ‘memorable’ moments. An asian lady wearing a green long-hair wig, pink bunny-earmuffs, red-velvet dress. Her singing was squeaky and heavily accented. It reminded my companion of ‘Tiny Tim’ and me of a 1980’s Lena Lovich. Despite this bizarreness she was a very talented lady. She played Ukulele, Sitar, accordian, Keyboards and probably more!

W bop-bop-bop-PING!

Packet Inter-Network Groper "acronym was contrived to match the submariners’ term for the sound of a returned sonar pulse."  Wikipedia outlines complex nuances of PING outside the software community.

"named for the act of pointing. " was a program to "to solve the need of users who wanted information on other users… … to check the availability of a person" 

GP "The origin of the term "jeep" is somewhat of a mystery.
Popular notion has it that the vehicle designation "GP" (for "General Purpose") was phonetically slurred in pronunciation, eventually becoming "jeep."

Eating phase (cheese supper):

All 6/6 nights consistently produced looooooooong, dull, dream sequences.  Dream content was forgotten quickly.  I did manage to remember scenes of ‘packing’ and work related problem solving.  Yawn.  With one disturbing exception the dreams were soooooooo dull they sent me straight back to deep sleep!  The exception on the 3rd night suddenly woke me from a dream of my death (Saber plunged into my heart).

Unlike the British cheeseboard study participants, I would not summarise the dreams as either ‘Nice’ or ‘Cryptic’.

Decontamination phase (no cheese supper):

1 night. No awareness of any dreams. 

Conclusion?

For me,  Brie produces dull, forgettable, dreams. 

Not recommended.

This week I’ll be eating a cheese with a very promising, US relevant,  name: Philadelphia, ‘brotherly love’

W cheese-o-phile

This Diner conversation dumbfounded me:

Wendy: “I thought I’d ordered a SPANISH omelette”

Waitress: “I thought you ordered a SWISS CHEESE AND BACON  omelette“

‘Spanish’ sounds like ‘Swiss cheese and bacon’?

I couldn’t hear the similarty.  Later I engaged the waitress in small-talk.  She found my speech very difficult to hear even when I used my best Queen’s English and diction.  No mumbling.  It reminded me of when I first arrived in the US.  Just listening to people talk had been suprisingly, physically, tiring.   I gave her a big tip for trying so hard to overcome the difficulties of my poor spoken ‘American’.

W Miss-Understood