The wardrobe in the rabbit hole.

When I woke up this morning I was wondering whether I even washed my face last night and if I did, how I managed. The last thing I remember before falling asleep was staring at my arm wondering why it wouldn’t glow in the dark anymore. Not that it ever did, but glow in the dark paint and blacklight paint are easily mixed up and I had forgotten that my arm was painted in the latter, which would still require the black light in order to shine.

In case you look puzzled now, I do too and I was there last night!

It was just one of these down-the-rabbit-hole evenings, which I had shamefully few of lately so last night was very overdue and very welcome. Naomi and I had booked Toffie’s secret supper club, which is why I am a bit vague and things are still a bit fuzzy. If I tell too much, they may have to kill me. Or I can’t come back. After all it’s supposed to be secret. But to summarize, here is what happened in no particular order:

1. I had a bag of chips, biltong and sweet popcorn and was overly excited to get a pickle as well. So excited in fact that Naomi offered me hers too. Mind you, I could just buy myself a jar, so I think it must have been the bag – it looked like pot kos.
2. We drank wine out of a ceramic pot, which was half abstract pig, half elephant. I was quite fascinated by the thing which is why I even mention it as it was quite ugly and utterly cool at the same time. I will try to draw it.

Free hand in paint and it actually has a resemblance. I'm impressed with myself.

3. Then we drank vodka and quince which was odd, but very yummy.
4. We spoke about Avatar. A lot. Here is my explanation as to why:

Yes, it might be upside down and yes, I do suck at taking pictures in the dark. I know, I know...

5. This is the second time I went into a place that felt like I walked in the wardrobe to Narnia and got stuck in the wardrobe. I wish I would have taken more pictures, but as usual my camera died after a few and I also didn’t want to get caught taking pictures. It seemed like an uncool thing to do and again I was a bit scared as picture taking could be interpreted as leaking The Secret. So here is just the one, which I quickly snuck:

Even with a clear head I am not quite sure what I took a picture of here, but either way I like it.

6. I may ask them to send me a picture of the rhinestone embroidered pair of boxing shorts. They would have made a worthwhile shot.

7. I also want to have curtains with birds, china with pink roses and wallpaper with little cars on it. Maybe not cars actually.

8. I did take the serviette/dishcloth and no, I’m not actually sure I was allowed to.

9. We made new friends who celebrate Christmas in July. That appealed to me since Christmas here always feels like Christmas in July to me.

To sum it up: the way I feel today was worth it for sure, though now I am really terrified of the V&A shopping part on my to-do list. Unfortunately I don’t have a choice as hell has no fury like an eight year old who didn’t get a present from his African auntie...



To-Do list deluxe.

In case you wonder why I’m flustered at the moment, here is a glimpse of my to-do list which should be completed before I leave on Sunday and I think it’s quite extensive.*

*If you wonder why things which should happen in the future are already crossed out – I do know myself quite well, certain things are just not meant to happen and the won’t.

Tuesday:

Do taxes. Play Angry Birds.

Fetch shoes from repair shop. Do yoga.

Get Airbook program from my uncle so I can write on the plane and when annoyed by my mother. Drink wine with uncle.

Wednesday:

Do taxes.

Get Airbook program.

Win Diletto hamper. Nope, just found out, I didn’t.

Have a spa afternoon with Sabina and eat sushi.

Steam clothes, which need to be taken to second hand shop. Will move onto the to-do when back list.

Dye hair. Not a good idea as I will do the early morning yoga class.

Get newspapers and do finish the DIY spray paint project. Will also move onto the to-do when back list.

Thursday:

Do early morning yoga class. Sleep in.

Do taxes if not already done.

Test Airbook writing program.

Make book selection for plane ride.

Got to V&A to the Mac store, buy a cool surfer necklace for Jakob and buy books for plane ride after realizing there is nothing on my own shelf to keep me busy for 14 hours.  Decide the V&A is too horrible to bear on a Thursday.

Get luggage from Naomi. Get luggage and drink two bottles of wine with her.

Have cocktails at Five Flies.

Go to secret supper club.

Friday:

Really do taxes if not already done.

Write out-of-office email reply.

Clean and organize desk. Put everything in a drawer.

Leave early, have cocktails.

Teach a yoga class.

Have dinner with family.

Saturday:

Teach a yoga class.

Get a haircut.

Go to the V&A.

Get annoyed with myself for not going during the week and wonder why so many tourists come here during winter.

Put outfits for trip together. Throw random things in the suitcase.

Decide on 5 books for the plane ride. Realize that might be overkill. One must stay at home.

Wash sheets. Put on the to-do when back list.

Go to bed sober and early. Drink a bottle of wine with the reasoning that it will be three whole weeks till I get South African wine again and if that’s not a good reason, what is?

Sunday:

Do yoga. Get nervous, drink coffee and smoke instead.

Put papers into travel folder.

Take a zip-block bag for liquids on the plane.

Have a celebratory small glass of wine for not forgetting the zip-block bag.

Have lunch and some more wine with Naomi.

Realize at the airport that I left my glasses at home.  No, that was last time and I actually didn’t, but realized even that too late as Thekla was already on her way back to my house to fetch them while I was checking in.

Realize I forgot to buy the body lotion for Julia and thanking duty-free.

Get in trouble for not having a zip-block bag that, well, zips.

Buy another book at airport book shop.

Have a G&T. Have two.

Elephant luck.

I feel I have been absent for ages, so this is not a proper post, but more of a ‘just saying hi’ as I have just emerged. I was in a bubble so to say. My weekend didn’t start very well as I had a huge row with my mother on Friday evening. Not ideal considering that I will be seeing here in less than a week and it kind of spoiled my pre-trip excitement. The weekend was therefore not spent packing and buying last presents, but washing away my sorrows with bubbly. Literally. Well, almost. Thekla at least used the bubbly to wash her clothes and the driveway. That sounds sad, but it wasn’t. It was good for my soul as I got the feeling that at least the South African part of my family loves me to bits. Yes, I know that is not the truth and I am being a drama queen. No need to tell me, I’m already snapping out of it.
Yesterday I wasn’t. I was having a mental hangover from the weekend which might be due to the bubbly as well as the fact that I haven’t eaten anything but Poor Man’s Meal dinners for the last few days. In case I haven’t mention, I love salty food and salt in general. The result was me waking up every hour or so on Sunday night, drinking two litres of water throughout the night. So of course I wasn’t rested at all yesterday and this made me so cranky, I didn’t even go to yoga. Bad idea. Even worse idea to substitute yoga with drinking red wine and eating chicken burgers.

This morning I decided now it was time to change my life and got up at 05h30 to greet the day.

...

You didn’t believe what you just read, did you?

No, of course you wouldn’t. I did get up at 05h30, but that wasn’t voluntarily as I had to teach class. I hope now that after doing it twice that my body will realize that it can, in fact, if needed, get up that early and mustn’t wake up 6 times during the night in a panic because it thinks it have overslept. Either way, class was great and I am even feeling remotely happy and at ease with the world already - and it’s not even 10am yet.
So that’s it for now, just saying hi and showing you something pretty, I am very much in love with right now:

No, unfortunately no picture of the hot French man who was in class this morning and very worth getting out of bed. If I were to know I would get one of these every morning, I would easily get out of bed before dawn all the time!

Poor me.

Yesterday was Bastille Day and I read a comment on Twitter that said 'The French invented kissing and toast.' The toast reference struck me as a bit odd (I thought toast was a truly American invention) and the kissing of course reminded me of the Frenchman, which was no good. I was also having quite a busy and productive day so to make it all better I decided to treat myself with the epiphany of comfort food: The Poor Man's Meal. As you will without a doubt already know, it is pasta. It manages to be even more comforting than all the other kind of pasta dishes as it originated from my Mum, with a bit of help from Jamie Oliver I think, and then made its way to New York, where it became a staple amongst Gladys, Marie, and I. It not only tastes great, but has a double amount of good memories attached.
My Mum started the craze years back and has slightly altered the recipe over time to suit her tastes, but whenever I go home, I know it is the first meal I will get and I get it in the original version.
Once I introduced it to the girls in New York, they loved it so much, that we started making it all the time. It quickly became known as ‘The Poor Man’s Meal’ as we would especially make it towards the end of the month when money was tight. WhenI tell you now what is in it, you will think us the most decadent college students ever. You cannot get any further from Ramen Noodles (Two minute noodles for the South Africans) than that.
Zucchinis are drenched and fried in lots of virgin olive oil with crushed chillies. Pasta is tossed into that and than topped with mountains of Parmesan. My mother would add a bit of saffron to it as well, which I remember because I have managed to mess up quite a few of her good fabric napkins over time. Last night I used Turmeric instead, but even without the saffron it is by no means close to Ramen or any other student budget appropriate meal. Why? Well, as you can tell by my end-result picture – I am and always was incapable of not covering my entire plate with real Parmesan.

P.S. In case you wonder, the picture above represents amounts of cheese appropriate for picture taking and was tripled right afterwards for eating.

Drumroll please.

I’m actually working for a change today and spring cleaning in the process, so not really much time to whip out a literary piece of genius here. I did want to remind everyone though that the final countdown has started and I’m already almost back home. Ten more sleeps and a tiny 24-hour travel. I was looking online for an appropriate animation to celebrate the occasion, but I honestly couldn’t find anything better than good old Llama font. And true to their promise, really everything, even this already joyous occasion, is better when said in Llama.

Only problem I realized too late – Llama can’t do numbers it apparently. Egal! In case you wonder what I meant to write, I put it in simple bolt as well:

Final Countdown! 10 days only...

In case you worry that I might be getting a bit too obsessed with the Llamas (spelled Llamas not llamas, yessir!), you might be right. Considering that the previous animal-related obsession was a fairytale minature giraffe, I think I made progress.

Hangover III - The Recipe.

I had my sleep, I had a juice, and my phone is M.I.A. so I have no excuses for distraction. Therefore I’m going to tell you how we met the cast for, what I think, would be perfect for Hangover III or, according to Thekla, Sex and the City with guys. There is unfortunately neither sex nor nudity involved and if you wonder why I even begin to tell the story, I can sadly admit that it was the highlight of my week. Since my last date clearly got abducted my rude aliens (they wouldn’t even let him make a courtesy phone call to cancel our date), I have had nothing exciting to kiss and tell. There you have it, this story happened because I didn’t kiss a boy. That’s a first.
It started at &Union with a rather unassuming group of four guys sharing our table. Quickly a conversation was struck over the sharing of some wine and the unassuming group turned out to be so bloody unbelievable that I thought they must have made it up.

Let me summarize the recipe for 5 guys on a bachelor trip so you can follow easily:

2 x Swedish guys - one either a spy or a diplomat
1 x Dane living in Australia
1 x Canadian who doesn’t speak French and also took it with good humour when asked whether he was American Canadian (If I had to be Canadian, thankfully I only have a Yankee accent, I would have moved tables after that remark.)
1 x Bachelor living in Geneva with a condo in Miami.

All of them met when going to school together in Saudi Arabia and meet once a year ever since.

If you read carefully you will now realize that I was talking about four guys first and then added a fifth. You ask why? Well, the bachelor actually wasn’t a bachelor really since his not-future-wife-anymore had left him a few days prior. Apparently she preferred the Miami condo life a bit too much for his taste. To cheer up their mate, they decided to still go on the trip and voila there we all were, happily drinking away at &union together. The bachelor though had felt the need after too many bottles at Rust en Vrede to curl up at their hotel room and be a sad, drunk bachelor-no-more.
Eventually he did come out and proved a good sport following all of us to Zula. There we had as much fun as you can have with 4 married guys and a guy who just got left by his fiancé, which turned out to be not bad at all. It also gave me good material for the characters if I ever want to write a screenplay, because as it turns out my teacher at university was right when he told me that life writes the best stories.

The unglorious morning glory.

I am so so tired, I just want to cry. I had to get up really, really early this morning. Getting up really, really early if I am not trying to catch a flight to go on some fabulous trip, is absolute torture for me. But I promised my yoga teacher to at least try once and make his life easier and teach a 06h30 class. Yes, I know all the mothers in the world are rolling their eyes at me now. So is my co-worker, Mark, for whom 06h30 is a late start. I do know I’m spoiled. I can’t help it though, my body is not designed to function on less than 8 hours of sleep and regardless of how early I put myself to bed, by body with a mind of its own, refuses to get up before at least the sun is out (In winter that is, the summer rule is obviously different). If you want to try and convince me that I’m missing much awesomeness by sleeping late – tah. Save it. I’ve heard it all and it ain’t true.
The problem is also since my body is biologically not designed to get up early (there must be scientific explanation for this somewhere!), that I sleep very uneasy when I have to. Last night I literally woke up 5 times in a panic, scared to have overslept. That wouldn’t have been the end of the world as I did ask my yoga teacher to give me a security wake up call, but it surely didn’t make for good night’s rest.
The other problem which people underestimate – I am unable to speak in the morning. I would make a good spy, being tortured for secrets, as I will not under any circumstances open my mouth before I had coffee and read my emails. That’s not really a problem for me, but apparently for others. They think me grumpy and impolite, which can be true, but in this case is not. I just can’t make out coherent sentences in the morning. I remember that one of my friends was shocked to discover my morning silence once she moved in with me. It took her several failed attempts to get me talking, me biting her head off with my still closed mouth, and finally a conversation in the evening with a bottle of wine for her to understand – it’s not you, it’s me, luv! Same phenomenon which guys who have just come home from work – silence, more silence, a beer and then the wife can ask questions. That’s my morning - exchange beer for coffee. Or bubbly.
When forced to speak, I tend to mumble and stumble and this morning even mixed up thumbs with palms, which made look people funny in their postures. But apparently no one noticed but me. Everyone seemed happy, which in return made me happy. Ergo – teaching yoga in the morning leads to be being very tired, but happy, which as it turns out is not the worst combination to start a day. Though now, call me a diva, but I’m still tired, which makes me feel like the world is all against me. I decided with the left over happiness and good will from earlier to look on the bright side: According to my inner clock it’s already cocktail hour. Getting up earlier means you get to drink earlier too. Will write it on a post-it and put on my alarm as a mantra for next time.

P.S. The guy at the video store asked me the other day if I knew was ‘morning glory’ meant. He was referring to the movie ‘Morning Glory’, but somehow I still felt that was a tad bit inappropriate.

Life lessons from a coconut.

I have toyed with the idea of writing a story about coconuts for a while. If you wonder why that seems necessary, it’s quite simple actually: I love coconuts. Anything with coconut in it to eat makes me swoon and the smell must be one of my favourite smells of all times. So I thought the coconut deserved a little ode.
I’m not even sure when and how it started, it may have been since I moved to Cape Town as coconut and New York doesn’t really seem to work well together, but I can’t really point a date and time. Come to think of it, I did start a quite obsessive love affair with coconut water already back in NY as they would sell it at my yoga studio. The best thing ever to hydrate, I would gulp down a tetra pack before class and probably two after and in between when a shopping marathon proved to tiresome.
Can you imagine my excitement when I went for strolls in the Seychelles and they would sell fresh coconut water in shell and all at the side of the road? I must have been too excited as I managed to schlep a 1.5kg coconut drink around for about an hour while slowly savouring it.

Life Lesson 1:
It’s very exhausting to carry a coconut and drinking the water will not make up for sore arms the next day.

Not the right kind of coconut for eating, but makes for a more dramatic picture.

I was even more excited to realize that one can actually just take the coconuts, which lie on the beach, and take them home to eat. That is if you didn’t make the mistake to lie under a palm tree and get hit by one. That happens more frequently than you would think.

Life Lesson 2:
 Even in a fight 100-year old tortoise against falling coconut, the coconut wins. True story, I saw the surviving tortoise and she did not look pretty.

I was staying far away from any trees and would just quickly run towards a coconut, grab it and dash away. Back at the guest house I would spend hours trying to bash it open, which becomes the ultimate DIY project if you don’t have a hammer or whatever professional coconut-opening-equipment there is. It is however a very satisfying way to spend an evening when you only have one TV channel in French. The reward is a fresh coconut snack and when no one else is around, you can actually pretend it tastes so much better than the pre-cut coconut you can buy at a store and that it was worth chipped nails and the trouble you got for bashing in a tile on the veranda.

Life Lesson 3:
See above. Maybe if you pretend long enough that it was worth it, you can at least convince your friends when telling vacation stories.

I however was not put off and my love for anything with coconut in it has continued. Bread, cake, macaroons – you name it. About two years ago, I discovered something else coconut related – Coco Extreme. A fragrance which smells of nothing but coconut and sun tan lotion and beach (A Thai hooker or boozy Malibu smell comes to mind if you wanted to be mean). A fragrance which goes perfectly with summer for obvious reasons, but also works in winter if you need a reminder that there will be a summer again sometime soon.
The other day a friend came to my house and she used my bathroom for, I guess the most elegant way is to say, a Number Two. She came out, closed the door and I interjected, saying she should rather leave it open and we would air out the flat. She said it wasn’t so bad as she has used my air freshener. I was a bit puzzled as I don’t use air freshener ever. I prefer matches. Guess what – a really expensive French fragrance can in an emergency situation a) be mistaken for air freshener and b) quite adequately do the job too. That is if you don’t believe like I do, that any kind of fruity air freshener only makes the smell worse. So I literally twice as now the coco smell was, true to its name, very extreme in my bathroom and well, my friend had just sprayed about $5 worth of fragrance into the air.

Life Lesson 4:
Don’t leave any fragrance that doesn’t come in a chic glass bottle and spells Chanel, Gucci or Dior on top of the toilet.

Lessons learned. Yet my love for coconut remains as unbroken as most of them I attempted to break.

Sunshine soaking.

With all my recent moping about pretty much everything, I realized today that actually I’m very easy to please. It doesn’t take much to make me silly happy.

It takes 5 to be exact:

1. A really yummy sandwich. Which I got from Dear Me where I finally ventured today. After being a tad bit disappointment that they couldn’t seat me, I decided to take my sandwich for a picnic lunch. Bresaola, gruyere, and pickles – which I almost asked them to remove, luckily I didn’t! – on rye. I don’t understand why not every sandwich can be this good. It was so good that it almost didn’t survive the drive to the picnic lunch location as I was taking a huge bite at each red robot. 

Isn't it pretty? Luckily it made it till picture taking time.

2. A cute guy, who looks like the guy from Lost, driving in the car behind me who a) wears cool Aviators b) drives a really beat up Fiat (I am a sucker for guys in crappy cars, drive a Z3 and I’m already less interested) and c) bought The Big Issue.

3. Driving with my window open, singing along very loud to Katy Perry’s Teenage Dream and then seeing the Quaggas at Animal Camp.

4. Sunshine-soaking. Term of the day, speaks for itself.

5. Gardening. Or my version of it. Strolling through and having my picnic lunch in a garden. Found the perfect spot at the gardens of Hohenort Cellars in Constantia. More sunshine and also soaking up good green energy as the trees gobble away any negative. The term comes from my aunt Kathy, who tells me the trees gobble whenever we go to the forest. What can I say other than gobble away! It’s working.

As per usual macro shots for Marie.

Picnic lunch spot for Schildi and me.

In memory of the Macaroon.

I probably have mentioned already that my favourite sweet treats are Macaroons. I like them enough to give them their own label here. I once tried to make them myself, but failed so miserably that it almost put me off eating them forever. Luckily Cassis was close so I just bought myself a cheer me up pack there and all was good with the world. I haven’t attempted since and just accepted that it will be one of these things I just won’t make myself. Same as the fishcakes and that’s okay. Not everything has to be homemade, because it just tastes so much better. Sometimes it actually doesn’t and one has to accept the facts.

I have tried my way through Cape Town’s pastry shops, but the best I have found are still at Cassis. I thought they were a special-occasion-only for their price – I find R5 for a mouthful, well, a mouthful. That was till this morning. I was at the Cape Quarter and decided to use the chance to nip into Daniela’s as I had had one of their chocolate brownies the other night at the blogger meeting and thought it the best brownie ever. Thekla then told me that they were also famous for their Macaroons.

I bought only two and almost fainted when I was asked for R20. That would mean they would have to be double as good as the ones from Cassis. I carried them around in my hand like the Holy Grail for the next hour as I know Macaroons don’t like to travel in purses and tend to crumble when you just look at them.

I may have to add that I usually only eat Vanilla and Coconut, so my choices today were quite out there as far as Macaroon flavours go for me. Maybe not quite an even start into the competition, but Rose and Mint flavour just sounded too enticing to go for plain old Vanilla. Were they as good? Objectively no, but the Rose one tasted like a soap, which I had as a child, smelled. Before you cringe - they didn’t taste like soap! I had a tiny container of little soap sheets I would take for travelling and absolutely adored the rosy smell of them (and therefore probably never used any). Eating this Macaroon just brought that feeling back of me as a kid and the excitement of going on a trip. R10 for a childhood memory preserved – that’s priceless actually.

Post in progress.

I love the blog Flourish in Progress. Not the concept so much of her one year of no shopping, I think that is just insane, but her Monday dares.
I realized once more yesterday that yoga or not I’m still the most impatient and potentially snappy person I know. And even with all the good mantras in the world that I tell myself each day, it’s just not getting any better.
So last night I decided to give myself a bit of a dare. One Wednesday, no snapping, no bitching, no rolling eyes, no hooting (yes, I do that A LOT). I will update as I go along and hand in my final report tomorrow as tonight is Prego-post-yoga night.

The morning didn’t start so bad...

09h15 Don’t you hate it when people ask you for something - in my case to write something for a friend of mine - and a) tell you it’s urgent, when it’s not and b) don’t read what you wrote. This morning I got an email from her basically indicating that a) and b) were the case and I got a bit annoyed. I was about to re-write everything in bold with an appropriate comment attached when I remembered my dare. I’m proud to say I rephrased my response nicely and still got my point across.

B+
Stay tuned. The phone is about to ring....

I should elaborate about the phone thing. It drives me absolutely, completely insane when people call at my office and do not say their names. It’s probably the German in me, but it has led to serious arguments, which culminated in someone hanging up as I didn’t want to tell her my name before she told me hers. Mind you, I had already picked up the phone saying company name and my name. Just thinking about it gets my pulse up.
So needless to say South African phone etiquette and I don’t really get on with each other. I knew going into this dare taking phone calls would be my biggest challenge. I was right. Here is what happened at 09h45:

Caller: Hi, can I speak to Sweetness?
Me: There is no such person working here.
Caller: But I have on my records that she works for you.
Me: I think we had a Sweetness about 5 years ago, but not anymore.
Caller: Can I speak to someone in HR whether you have a Sweetness?
Me: We don’t have HR and I’m telling you she doesn’t work here.
Caller: So do you have a Sweetness working for you?
Me: Lady, THERE IS NO SWEETNESS WORKING HERE ANYMORE.
Caller: Why don’t you say so?

Yes, everything printed in capitals is me yelling. That’s a big fat F. Hanging up would have been more polite on my part.

10h15
Another email from that friend of mine. Okay, she did apologize for rushing me, but I still don’t think she has read the text. My answer deserves a B - now.

13h25

I deserve an A now. No snapping, no nothing. If I’m honest though that might be due to the fact that I have not spoken to anyone for the last hour and a half. Expect for a chat with Thekla about how control freak women are very much like vampires and how bad it would be (for the men) to actually be a control freak vampire. We decided that would make us vampire queens of the Western Cape and might be quite scary indeed.

15h00

I'm practically a saint here. To be even more saintlike = honest I think today doesn't count. It's not daring to be nice if there are no phone calls and no human interaction. Yoga doesn't count because I'm actually never snappy at the studio or in class (SIT DOWN LOWER NOW, PEOPLE! does not count, that's motivation.) The drive to the studio could be interesting. We will see. I shall report tonight.
On another note - I was just accused of drinking in regards to me mentioning vampires. I really did not. I wish. And the vampires were all Thekla's fault anyhow.

Rest of the day

I am proud to tell that it just got better from here. No hooting, no yelling, no snapping. I did make a somewhat inappropriate comment in class by mistake, but that just made everyone laugh.
This morning I continued on a similar good streak and only showed one guy the finger, but he deserved it the way he was driving. The sales lady who was telling me in detail that I was looking at soap, then body lotion, then body scrub - yes, lady, I am looking at it and can tell it's soap - only got a little frown and still made a damn good sale from me.

So all in all I'm quite proud of myself and will just remind me once in a while of the two wise sayings that 1. Rome wasn't built in a day and 2. People don't do the things that bug you to bug you. They just do what they do. - That came from my yoga teacher. Quite profound, but good to remember once in a while when you think the guy in front of you is driving 20kmh in order to ruin your day.

Yellow Monday.

Yesterday I all of a sudden had a craving for anything yellow. Maybe inspired by the fresh orange juice and gooseberries at PnP that I felt were going to be really good for my still aching body. It seemed to help instantly as I almost ran out of the house in the evening to do a yoga class, the first since Thursday. When I came back I felt so amazing I drew a little sun on my 30 day challenge board, which admittedly had suffered from a lack of attention due to my lack of attendance.

This morning after long days of suffering (or so it felt like) I rose like phoenix from the ashes and would have put on something yellow if I had anything in my closet. The sunshine outside made up for it and I felt tempted to show a picture of my flat with the new yellow mirror bathed in sunlight. Unfortunately the DIY project didn’t turn out as nice as the inspiration, so now everything will be re-painted in dark blue instead. Of course, it’s me, so it hasn’t happened yet and won’t go with my yellow theme of the day anyhow.

Yellow, here you go. Facts about yellow thanks to Wikipedia and friends.

Shades of Yellow
These words are synonymous with yellow or represent various shades of the color yellow: banana, cadmium yellow, chartreuse, chiffon, cream, golden, goldenrod, khaki, lemon, mellow yellow, saffron, topaz, yellow ocher.
I would like to argue how khaki made it on this list. In which world does khaki have anything to do with yellow??

Yellow in drawings.
The comic book character Green Lantern was afraid of the colour yellow.
Flavaphobia?
13th episode of the Simpsons was called ‘The colour yellow’

Yellow and printed.
Yellow" ("giallo"), in Italy, refers to crime stories, both fictional and real. This association began in about 1930, when the first series of crime novels published in Italy had yellow covers.

The name and concept of "Yellow Pages" came about in 1883, when a printer in Wyoming working on a regular telephone directory ran out of white paper and used yellow paper instead.

Yellow Holidays.
The Christian holiday of Easter is represented by the colors yellow and lavendar because the crocus flower, which is yellow and lavender, blooms in Europe in the spring.
Good luck with that, Easter Bunny! Luckily a crocus can push through the snow.

Yellow Transportation.
In some countries taxicabs are commonly yellow. This practice began in Chicago, where taxi entrepreneur John D. Hertz painted his taxis yellowbased on a University of Chicago study alleging that yellow is the color most easily seen at a distance.

And of course:

Yellow Yoga.
Manipura or Solar Plexus Chakra is representative of vitality and will. When this chakra is open, it acts to empower a person and help them find their personal strength. It will help turn dreams and goals into reality.
Sounds like a plan.

Simply Yellow.
Yellow shines with optimism, enlightenment, and happiness. Shades of golden yellow carry the promise of a positive future. Yellow will advance from surrounding colours and instil optimism and energy, as well as spark creative thoughts.

Seems like I finally had a good craving yesterday.

Airbook One.

I was in bed all weekend. Not in the good way as I was alone and sick. Not quite all alone as there is a new member in the family:

Isn’t he pretty? I’m much in love. Though I doubt the guys at the Mac store are with me.
Working for a computer company inarguably makes you somewhat of a nerd. Yet the guys who work for Apple are the Marc Jacobs of nerds. They make it cool to be a nerd. They’d define the term nerd-chic. So for me to run in there Saturday morning with hair sticking out all over, cladding a bunch of cash and shouting “I want to buy an Airbook, I want to buy an Airbook.” - not cool. Not cool at all. The nerds stared at me and I was gently reminded that it is not called Airbook though I think that name would be much more nerd-chic and appropriate. After my request the conversation went like this:

Nerd: Let me see if we have one in stock.
Me (nervous snarl in the voice): Someone said last night you do have stock.
Nerd: The computer says we have one, let me just ask the manager nerd to go and check.
5 minutes later.
Nerd: I will just go and see how manager nerd is coming along.
5 minutes later.
Nerd: There is one, but it is a sales order so we are just checking with the person who ordered it.
Me ( just snarling, no actual words coming out): &^$%$#&!!
Manager Nerd: Here you go, it’s all yours.
Me (smiling, yet still snarling a little as I hadn’t gotten over the shock): Thank you, manager nerd.

I wish I could say I was already on flu medication when this happened. Sorry, nerds!

My criminal youth.

Back when I was little I had a Setzkasten above my bed. In case you don’t know what that is, this is what I got from my favourite online dictionary: case, jig, letter case, pan, seedling tray, settling tank, or type case. Neither seems to fit quite right. If you were to translate it one to one, it would literally be a sitting case or box. Probably because stuff, which can’t find a home elsewhere, sits in it and collects dust and becomes a general nightmare for maids or mothers to clean.

Today I found a new website called Ferm Living Shop, which got me wallpapering my entire flat in my mind within a minute of browsing. In fact I have already moved to a 12 room mansion, just so I have enough space for everything they sell plus of course the rich husband, who owns the mansion and can buy be all of their stuff.

Yes, that was little day dream number 1 today.

Then I found this on the site:

They call it The Dorm. Love! It reminded me of mine back then and all the treasures I put in it for display. For anyone growing up in Germany – remember the time when they had Maya the Bee collectables in the Kinder surprise eggs. Their slogan was that in every 7th egg you would found a special surprise: there was mini Smurfs, Happy Hippos, and at some point Maya and her friends. I had about 3 figures from that series and was set on getting them all. So when my mother sent me off grocery shopping, I happily obliged and used the chance to buy myself another egg. Since it was my mother and not a job which would require slips for any spent amount of money, I did get away with spending 1 DM for my treat without her knowing. A treat it was, I did get a new figure for my Maya collection. Happy end it could have been was it not for my mother’s sharp eye that immediately spotted the new addition in my case when she tucked me into bed one night. She even congratulated me on having been so lucky. Me? I felt so bad for taking the money and NOT even getting caught, that I burst out in tears and confessed everything.

I’m not only a bad liar; I’m pretty much a saint.