"When are you going to have kids/get married?"

Christmas and Boxing Days: Food was good; Questions about 'When are you gonna have kids/get married?' not good. Especially since they came from people I barely know. One I don't even know her name and it was the first time I met her. My simple, polite answer is that I don't want kids. For the first person this sufficed. For the others I got a talking to that one day I might feel differently. I doubt it. Why this assumption that I want kids? I've known what I want for as long as I've been old enough to make that decision. I don't feel an innate desire to have them, neither does my partner and why is the activity or otherwise of my womb anyone else's f***ing business anyway?

It's like asking a person who owns a dog why they don't want to own a parrot instead. 'Your biology will change and you will want a parrot. When you're older you won't be so lonely with a parrot.' What if I just don't want a parrot? Why are you so hell bent on me joining your parrot owning club? I'm very happy with my dog thanks. Grrr.

I wasn't ready to be barraged as I was this afternoon. Usually simply saying I don't want kids is enough. Now that I've been turning the subject over in my head for a few hours now and ranting with my partner at least now I'm prepared for the next time it comes up. It will. I don't understand why some of my aquaintances have felt the need to bring it up more than once.

Next time I'm asked that I'll politely answer back
'Why do you assume that I want kids? I don't. It's my choice as an adult to make. I'd thank you to respect that and drop this subject'.

Fruit Platter

My first fruit platter ever. I made it for my Lovely One as he slept in this weekend because he's worth it. Best, tastiest pineapple I've ever had. I called it The Temple of the Sun. The watermelon shards and wedges are the walls with the golden pineapple in the centre representing the radiant sun. The berries are the worshippers. I'm not trying to create profoundity into my fruit platter, but it's the thought process behind its construction. My Lovely One did note that the watermelon looked a bit 'like Stone Henge or something' where upon I divulged the secret title, so the thought was not lost on my subject :)





We couldn't finish it though, and had to save some for later. It's not fancy fruit carving but I would have researched it a bit before attempting that. I did my produce justice, it was fun to do and a pleasure for us to eat. I got a couple of interesting detail shots as well.



I call this one the March of the Cherries.

Hopper on a grape vine.

This wingless little chap was about 15mm long and so cute! The thing I like about critters like this one is not only are they exquisitely fine but because of his eye structure you can clearly see that he was looking at me.

This particular insect appears to have basic compound eyes made up of many ommatidium which allow a wide and accuate field of vision. Being flightless but a hopper he wouldn't have more than 1000 ommatidium. A housefly has about 4000. Flying insects which rely on strong eyesight include the butterfly, praying mantis and dragonfly. In the case of the butterfly - up to 17000 ommatidium - they need to probe precisely into flowers while keeping an eye out for predators. For the praying mantis and dragonfly - both 30000 - they have ultra compound eyes to enable their formidable hunting skills.

Deviant 'Lego' street art

Each 'Lego' figure holds a different weapon of deviance. The biggest one appears to have been holding a molatov cocktail. There's also a meat cleaver, axe, knife, chair, chain, ice pick, cane ala Clockwork Orange film version, broken bottle, two sticks of lit dynamite.

Fellowship of the True Blue, Southern Cross Son, Manly Man, Ring

Imagine this being read out by an ocker, beer swilling, football following, 'true blue' Aussie bloke. Better still, if you can do the accent, read it out aloud. If it was an 'Authentic reproduction of the original 1854 flag' then it wouldn't be a tiny little man ring and it wouldn't be 'echoing' it either. It would be a flag. It's cheap and nasty rubbish - plated sterling silver not solid. How is wearing an ugly, cheap ring positively patriotic?



What happened to old fashioned quality that's made to last?
Why is it only men can rely on this symbol?

The only thing the ring identifies the wearer as is an idiot. If he was really such a great bloke he wouldn't be wasting his hard earned money on a piece of crap like this. Awful. I was going to say this entry writes itself but I got a bit ranty there ...

Kiwi fruit vine wallpaper and iGoogle theme

Following my previous post featuring photographs of the kiwi fruit vine in our backyard here is an early Christmas present for you, readers.

For those of you with an iGoogle account - it works with your blogger account, I use it for Google Reader - you can now have these photos as your iGoogle theme. Over the course of the day it will change photographs. Simply click 'change theme' then put 'kiwi fruit vine' into the search box, hit search, then click the theme to use it.

If you have a longer format screen as I do then here's a link for a wallpaper of my favourite image from the series (yes it's my current wallpaper). You need to do is download it to your computer then set it as your wallpaper.


click image

[cue Bowiesque riffs] Ziggy had some mail...

... but he'd already moved from here,
and the spiders in the yard.
So we forwarded on his mail,
and this wasn't the only item.


A previous tenant at my new house. What an awesome name!


I prefer the Bauhaus cover version. It's edgier.

Kiwi Fruit Vine

These photographs are of the female kiwi fruit vine in our backyard. Her male counterpart isn't ready to fertilise her flowers yet. Hopefully he will have some mature flowers on him soon thus enabling our mature lady to have kids/fruit. Otherwise she is flowering in vain, unless there's another male in the neighbourhood.



It's a bit like the quintessential modern woman who is ready to have kids but her partner isn't mature enough yet for that to happen ... In the vine's defence he took a knocking during the drought and almost died, so he is growing as well as can be expected under the circumstances. She's all luscious and leafy and he's all thin and barely grown decent foliage. Perhaps she is encroaching on his area of the garden bed? [shrug]

We will help him along with food and water.

Then we will eat their kids!

[semi-evil chuckle]

[EDIT] I have made an iGoogle theme using these images and a desktop wall paper. Links to follow soon.

Pizza. Just eat it!

It has never occurred to me to do anything else with it! How about you?

Kneadable eraser gone wild! Ooer...

This is not typical of what happens when the three of us at our house have a drink together. One housemate has a kneadable eraser she uses when doing sudoku puzzles. At the time we were drinking she had a cold. I marked our glasses with blobs so we wouldn't get it. My other wanted something else and it all went downhill from there! My eraser owning housemate made the ample pair for my glass but I made the man and woman nether bits.

Polly wants baked beans on toast!

'Best description of owning a parrot: "... it's like having a toddler running around with a canopener on its face..."'
a friend of a friend on Facebook.

Concept Radical

Finally won something for my art as an adult*: third prize in the Concept Radical art competition. In my characteristic and ironically artless way on receiving my prize
"Oh wow, I never win anything!"
Professor Carl Schiesser, Director of ARC while shaking my hand
"Well, you've won something now"
"Thank you! [big grin]"


Flow
digital image of collected beach flotsam

Concept Radical Art Exhibition
Free, and open to the general public
Wednesday 2 November 2011 – Wednesday 9 November 2011.
The gallery is open 11am – 5pm Monday to Friday.
George Paton Gallery, Second Floor, Union Building, University of Melbourne, Victoria.

Official site here.
Summary and details here.

*Have won things as a child. It has been a while...

Stop by the bakery.

Near a bakery and some (Victoria Market's deli section has a few baked good purveyers) Melbourne CBD. I was waiting to cross the street to catch my tram, and noticed what I first thought was simply a little cake sticker brightening up the sign, then on closer inspection:

Someone has gone to the trouble of creating a whole sticker with wording to match and blend into the sign. Nifty! I love spotting quirky little things like this when I'm out and about. It's one of the things I love about Melbourne, which is well regarded internationally for street art. I am wondering how long it's been there without me noticing and also many more are out there.

Brain juice needed

At work in the city my colleague's first customer of the day:
"I'm after a juicer."
"What sort/type?"
[pause] "Zzzt! Zzzt!"
"Electrical?"
"Yes."

Smurfing power point

Being short sighted and not having poked around in the cupboard near this I didn't notice a quirky little feature in our new house's bathroom - one of my housemates did. It's a tiny little faux powerpoint. Totally cracked me up when she showed me. The painters seems to have masked it off and painted around it just like a real one! I've included my Smurf keyring and keys to give you an idea of scale.

You don't wanna touch this

Mike Rowe on TV show Dirty Jobs is instructed to clean up the living area for the birds in a Las Vegas magician's show. On being told to get the kinks out of the long, pink water hose
"This is a very kinky hose ... The kind you don't take home to Mama."

Take a closer look

The first time I noticed this eucalyptus was a few months ago, while jogging by. I thought it was just a bit of branch some kid had shoved into a crack in the weathered mooring post. It seemed to stay fresh for a rather long time. Over a week later I took a closer look and realised it was a tiny tree. It's been there about 6 months now.

Taxman/highway man same diff: both like to bowl!

Generously proportioned, red wine glass/trophy with shiney silver rim and graphic was bought from Savers in Brunswick. Depicts Australian highway man/hero (WTF? I've never understood that, he was no Robin Hood) Ned Kelly.

Random thought on God.

Not sure if one person wrote both of these or not since it would be odd to write it in two different media yet the script is similar. I happen to like hommus though I haven't always.

Lost silhouette

An oulined shadow of a person next to a sign in Footscray. It has since been removed.