The Pensieve

Lazy Izzie requested today off to celebrate the serpent birthday - or more accurately - the 8th anniversary of our Izzie incarnation
If we ever get around to doing the annual end of year questionnaire for the whole decade - 2002 will get the accolade as the best year of the last ten for this particular critter

So the usual routine is to slink off to Fremantle and to spend most of the day in the gardens of the arts centre and museum which used to be a lunatic asylum
It's the day for doing the ritual of switching over to the diaries for the new year - both the mundane muggle Scrooge diaries and the green squiggly ones
It's the day for a picnic with the bestest bottle - traditionally Wynns Cabernet Sauvignon, special water crackers (the ones that look like Catholic communion wafers) and brie or camembert cheese
The wimps version of Wormtail's "Flesh, Blood and Bone" ritual ;)

Recent additions to the agenda of the day include a new deck of tarot cards. Last year it was the creepy spooky Deviant Moon deck. This time it was Kat Black's Touchstone Tarot

It was reasonably hot today but breezy and not muggy and quite pleasant. The main spoiler for the grand day was a party of loud and raucous critters also in the garden. They were loud and annoying and telling lots of lame jokes.
Luckily they left just after 3pm so had at least two hours of blissful peace and quiet

Got all sad and nostalgic sitting there. Had chosen this particular day to bring along the last Potter book. Had a big red Fremantle Museum rubber stamp on the inside page - this being the place that Izzie always went on the grand Potter party days to read them but not before getting the proper seal of approval.
The museum has now been closed and the desk with the two lovely ladies and all the old fashioned geekish toys and things - music boxes, books, post cards, wildflower seeds and such are all gone and the evil yuppies in the arts centre have taken over

Decided to take a peek at last year's squiggles before starting the newest diary. There's still 1/3 of the old one not filled but a new decade calls for a new diary - especially now that the serpent has decided to abandon the tradition of writing 'auf Deutsch' so that nosy Petunia couldn't snoop and read it.
In 2008, had the abysmal record of keeping only 1 out of 10 new years' resolutions. Last year managed to get it up to 4 out of 10.
Didn't bother with a list this time other than the 101 things in 1000 days list of which only two months remain
Most of those things on the resolutions list were from that list - a couple were not and they turned out to be miserable failures

This time, with the knowledge of nano and 900 days of The List, finally picking up a few tricks
Decided to be an ubersneek and instead of making all year resolutions, will adopt a particular theme for one month only
The big one that turns up every year in various incarnations and almost always fails are variants on reducing spending and waste etc etc

Last year's spending limit of $$100 per week did not make it past the second week of January
This year's variation is a bit simpler - for the 30 days of January to buy no munchies except milk and vegies. (there's butter and tahini in the fridge and pantry and flour to make bread and ryvitas if too lazy to do so)
To start on the right foot and increase motivation, peeked in the fridge and found a two week old half empty guacamole dip and a carton of cream dated January 2008! Also tossed out an unopened brie that looked very dodgy. Since brie or camembert is supposed to be an essential part of the picnic, decided to bring the other one for the picnic but not to eat it since it was dated best before some time in September. But we could make a ritual of disposing of it
So just the dip, two cheeses and cream had cost around ten silver sickles between them. Sheer neglectful wasteful stupidity

Had cheddar instead of brie and it was a perfectly acceptable substitute. Since the best way of resisting temptation is to avoid it, substituting something in the fridge for brie rather than going to the shops and buying some was the perfect solution and it was not like we did not have the brie, it was just that it was a bit dodgy to eat so got offered up to the art centre sulo bin

Apart from munching, drinking, reading and squiggling, the other main event was to peek at the new pack of cards - another addiction that will need to be brought under control
While beautifully packaged in a user friendly box and not one of those awful A5 presentation packs which makes a deck very bulky and not easily transportable, the quality of the cards was nowhere as good as the Golden Tarot. Sort of flat and matt and not oozing the same sense of medieval gorgeousness.
Some of the pictures were very similar to the original but the main feature is the emphasis on the faces of the characters. It's definitely one of the best Rider waite clones out there but different in that the main thing is not all the symbolism but the faces of the characters
It's hard to believe that these pictures - all based on oil paintings are not copies of original art works but collages. The integration is so seamless that you would never know
Some of these characters are seriously gorgeous - the Queen of Wands for instance and others are just plain damned creepy. But unlike other decks - it's the faces where most of the meaning is
Izzie's favorite has got to be the Happy Squirrel card - apparently dedicated to those ever so dysfunctional Simpsons
But then there's the book and the amazing message from the Secret Benefactor - seriously spooky Izzie suspects it's either Mark McElroy of "Putting the Tarot to Work" fame or Adam McLean who runs an alchemy and tarot website

Will post the quote next time from the Secret Benefactor - it's so amazingly relevant in these gloom and doom post GFC crisis days. From Enron to Firepower - even in the new millenium, there's still snake oil salesmen trying to convince gullible investors that they can in fact turn lead into gold but they usually prefer the modern incarnation of perpetual motion machines or magical pills or procedures that can convert landfill into biodiesel
It's spooky how he mentions Edward Kelley who offered such investment proposals to some prince in Prague. He did not deliver the gold and ended up in some dungeon. This very prince makes an appearance on the Dark Grimoire emperor card.
It's a small world out there in tarot land

So far, it looks like the serpent expectations for lots of magical and alchemical mysteries for 2010 will be well and truly exceeded

Well everywhere except on the work front. Back again tomorrow. But at least it's Sunday so there'll be no arrogant idiots from management to annoy the hard working house elves

The Pensieve

Lazy Izzie requested today off to celebrate the serpent birthday - or more accurately - the 8th anniversary of our Izzie incarnation
If we ever get around to doing the annual end of year questionnaire for the whole decade - 2002 will get the accolade as the best year of the last ten for this particular critter

So the usual routine is to slink off to Fremantle and to spend most of the day in the gardens of the arts centre and museum which used to be a lunatic asylum
It's the day for doing the ritual of switching over to the diaries for the new year - both the mundane muggle Scrooge diaries and the green squiggly ones
It's the day for a picnic with the bestest bottle - traditionally Wynns Cabernet Sauvignon, special water crackers (the ones that look like Catholic communion wafers) and brie or camembert cheese
The wimps version of Wormtail's "Flesh, Blood and Bone" ritual ;)

Recent additions to the agenda of the day include a new deck of tarot cards. Last year it was the creepy spooky Deviant Moon deck. This time it was Kat Black's Touchstone Tarot

It was reasonably hot today but breezy and not muggy and quite pleasant. The main spoiler for the grand day was a party of loud and raucous critters also in the garden. They were loud and annoying and telling lots of lame jokes.
Luckily they left just after 3pm so had at least two hours of blissful peace and quiet

Got all sad and nostalgic sitting there. Had chosen this particular day to bring along the last Potter book. Had a big red Fremantle Museum rubber stamp on the inside page - this being the place that Izzie always went on the grand Potter party days to read them but not before getting the proper seal of approval.
The museum has now been closed and the desk with the two lovely ladies and all the old fashioned geekish toys and things - music boxes, books, post cards, wildflower seeds and such are all gone and the evil yuppies in the arts centre have taken over

Decided to take a peek at last year's squiggles before starting the newest diary. There's still 1/3 of the old one not filled but a new decade calls for a new diary - especially now that the serpent has decided to abandon the tradition of writing 'auf Deutsch' so that nosy Petunia couldn't snoop and read it.
In 2008, had the abysmal record of keeping only 1 out of 10 new years' resolutions. Last year managed to get it up to 4 out of 10.
Didn't bother with a list this time other than the 101 things in 1000 days list of which only two months remain
Most of those things on the resolutions list were from that list - a couple were not and they turned out to be miserable failures

This time, with the knowledge of nano and 900 days of The List, finally picking up a few tricks
Decided to be an ubersneek and instead of making all year resolutions, will adopt a particular theme for one month only
The big one that turns up every year in various incarnations and almost always fails are variants on reducing spending and waste etc etc

Last year's spending limit of $$100 per week did not make it past the second week of January
This year's variation is a bit simpler - for the 30 days of January to buy no munchies except milk and vegies. (there's butter and tahini in the fridge and pantry and flour to make bread and ryvitas if too lazy to do so)
To start on the right foot and increase motivation, peeked in the fridge and found a two week old half empty guacamole dip and a carton of cream dated January 2008! Also tossed out an unopened brie that looked very dodgy. Since brie or camembert is supposed to be an essential part of the picnic, decided to bring the other one for the picnic but not to eat it since it was dated best before some time in September. But we could make a ritual of disposing of it
So just the dip, two cheeses and cream had cost around ten silver sickles between them. Sheer neglectful wasteful stupidity

Had cheddar instead of brie and it was a perfectly acceptable substitute. Since the best way of resisting temptation is to avoid it, substituting something in the fridge for brie rather than going to the shops and buying some was the perfect solution and it was not like we did not have the brie, it was just that it was a bit dodgy to eat so got offered up to the art centre sulo bin

Apart from munching, drinking, reading and squiggling, the other main event was to peek at the new pack of cards - another addiction that will need to be brought under control
While beautifully packaged in a user friendly box and not one of those awful A5 presentation packs which makes a deck very bulky and not easily transportable, the quality of the cards was nowhere as good as the Golden Tarot. Sort of flat and matt and not oozing the same sense of medieval gorgeousness.
Some of the pictures were very similar to the original but the main feature is the emphasis on the faces of the characters. It's definitely one of the best Rider waite clones out there but different in that the main thing is not all the symbolism but the faces of the characters
It's hard to believe that these pictures - all based on oil paintings are not copies of original art works but collages. The integration is so seamless that you would never know
Some of these characters are seriously gorgeous - the Queen of Wands for instance and others are just plain damned creepy. But unlike other decks - it's the faces where most of the meaning is
Izzie's favorite has got to be the Happy Squirrel card - apparently dedicated to those ever so dysfunctional Simpsons
But then there's the book and the amazing message from the Secret Benefactor - seriously spooky Izzie suspects it's either Mark McElroy of "Putting the Tarot to Work" fame or Adam McLean who runs an alchemy and tarot website

Will post the quote next time from the Secret Benefactor - it's so amazingly relevant in these gloom and doom post GFC crisis days. From Enron to Firepower - even in the new millenium, there's still snake oil salesmen trying to convince gullible investors that they can in fact turn lead into gold but they usually prefer the modern incarnation of perpetual motion machines or magical pills or procedures that can convert landfill into biodiesel
It's spooky how he mentions Edward Kelley who offered such investment proposals to some prince in Prague. He did not deliver the gold and ended up in some dungeon. This very prince makes an appearance on the Dark Grimoire emperor card.
It's a small world out there in tarot land

So far, it looks like the serpent expectations for lots of magical and alchemical mysteries for 2010 will be well and truly exceeded

Well everywhere except on the work front. Back again tomorrow. But at least it's Sunday so there'll be no arrogant idiots from management to annoy the hard working house elves