The Lair of the Emerald Serpent

Izzie had been plodding along slowly and steadily and gradually imposing the itsiest bitsiest bit of order on the chaos that is the Lair. First port of call was the witch’s kitchen. Some serious tossing and sorting got done and before long there were only three out of the eleven sections were left. But they were the worst of the three full of cobwebs, spiders and assorted bags of legumes, rice and other nibblies. Plastic bags are not quite as indestructible as we have been led to believe and all sorts of creatures have made their niche in this little nook that has not been touched since the froggie tenants came and went.

Then the same thing happened as before - a sudden serpent crash. Loss of interest, fits of tiredness and all sorts of subconscious attempts at sabotage.

Let the inner chaos monster run loose for a while but finally figured it was time to put it back on a leash. But would have to be ever so slow and sneaky about it. Just the thought of attempting anything significant was sufficient to induce the snoozes or a sudden desire to watch the grass growing. But there’s a three year plan to be kept since the end of May. Every week day has to be devoted to either sorting and tossing stuff, squiggling or gardening. Due to the storms yesterday gardening and slinking online were going to be rather limited so that left one option.

Just two shelves of one cupboard was on the agenda last night. A fruitless search for a certain deck of vampire tarot cards missing in action since Halloween 2010 led the Izzie to sorting out the official location of the rest of the stash. Most of the cards were keeping company with a handful of books. These included tarot related stuff as it seemed the logical place to put them and a stack of Graeme Base picture books that really should be in the Big Bad Gift Box as they make the most gorgeous Christmas and birthday presents. Now if only Izzie could remember who she had already given some to. There was a collection of supernatural spooky stories, some Stephen King novels, Michael Leunig cartoon collections, Lord of the Rings things and a very grand and elaborate copy of the Koran got as a freebie at the local university. It’s not just the Christians who proselytize.

There was also one very precious tome in there all wrapped up in paper - a first edition and the only book Izzie ever bought from a proper antiquarian book shop (and also the very first thing the serpent bought online way back in 2006)

Most of the gorgeous Baba decks were there including the Fairytale, Fantastic Menagerie and two version of the Bohemian Gothic along with Deviant Moon, Necronomicon, Dark Angels and other assorted Gothic delights. Turned out that these did include the Ian Daniels Vampyre deck. It had fallen down behind the rest of them. So often the Izzie has put things exactly where they are supposed to be but being as blind as a bat simply cannot see them.

Took all the books out except the Koran. It gets the job as a probably pissed off security guard minding this den of iniquity. Tidied up all the decks and attempted to put them in some sort of logical order which in the end meant the box sets at one end and the packets at the other with their tops facing outwards so that it is possible to see their names at a glance. Counted a total of 36 decks in all but there are another few lurking around the Big Mac computer and the all time favourite in the green every day back pack. With another two presently conscripted on Camp Nano brainstorming duties, that most likely gives a total of 50 something. Really must gather them all together and do a proper head count. Peeking through this old but new again gothic deck was almost like seeing it for the first time. No need to get any more when the fix for novelty can be satiated by randomly choosing one and playing with it all over again.

Until the brilliant folks from Baba come up with their Alice in Wonderland deck, the Izzie is quite content in thinking that she has conquered her tarot acquisition addiction. Now if only the same could be said about that other vice concerning stationery, books and pretty paper of all kinds.

It took around 30 minutes to dust and sort this lot but now there is yet another stack of books sitting in the corner looking for a nonexistent shelf to lurk on.
Also went on a bit of a blitz this evening in the loo, the stove top and the kitchen table. Even bought two expanding folders. One is for miscellaneous articles and clippings and the other for packets of seeds and gardening information. The spell has been broken and the serpent is getting back into the spirit of sorting.

Tomorrow will include a visit to the cute little cafe in the bookstore visited last week. Must bring along a third box of muses and see what inspirational ingredients they have to add to the soon to be brewed cauldron of alphabet soup

Izzie has been one seriously lazy serpent.
Since Thursday the weather has been seriously gorgeous. Warm and breezy but still crisp and crunchy. Nothing at all like the appalling icky stickiness of previous days where the air was so thick with humidity you could almost feel yourself being crushed by it

On Thursday the main item on the agenda was a meeting at 6.30pm for a discussion group just joined on the topic of Wikileaks
Figured that we should go to that suburb a bit earlier than 5pm like last time when all the interesting shops and cafes were closed
Of special interest is a book shop with the intriguing title "Love and Hate" which specializes in romance, crime and thrillers. But that turned out to be still closed due to an extended Christmas holiday
The other was the Pottery gallery and cafe. Used to visit that place years ago for the annual Teapot show in the pottery gallery. The cafe was not there at the time
It is a beautiful old building with a tin pressed roof, stained glass windows and doors and is made of rusty old red brick.
Sat out in the garden down the back. You have to wake down the side of the old building to get to it and it seemed uncannily like the old haunt "Village Cafe" with the plane trees against the wall
This had citrus trees and lots of pots of various varieties of basil, thyme, oregano and mint
The fragrance was just gorgeous
Spent a good two and a half hours there. Would have been longer but they close at 4pm

It was the perfect place for peeking at the Paulina deck - the one opened on New Years' even but not looked at.
Had also brought along the Victorian Romantic deck. This cafe will definitely be a nano inspiration lurking ground

The rest of the shopping strip was not so inspiring. Bottle shops and Boganville sorts of stores aplenty.

Then there was a visit to a very beautiful old pub that has now been converted to a cafe which was the location for the evening's meeting

Turned out that all of this newness in the wake of a week of draining weather must have been too much for the serpent senses.
The following days was even more gorgeous but had well and truly crashed
Ended up spending the day lurking around the Lair pottering in the garden and sorting out stuff

Doing quite well on the decluttering and tidying front. Decided that it is better to do one thing a day no matter how small to keep up the momentum rather than feasting and fasting which always ends up with less feasting and more fasting and then getting nothing done at all

Tossed out all the groceries receipts from the serpent purse thinking that if we were too busy to sort them out and put the totals in the little black scrooge book then it would be no more likely we would find time this year. And what did it matter anyway? So out they went. The purse feels so much leaner and meaner with lots more space for bright shiny notes now

Out want all of last year's atm receipts too since there is no reason to keep once they have been verified against the quarterly bank statements

The big one is the piles of unsorted books, old newspapers and the odd deck of cards or two. Started on that yesterday as we needed to have something to show for wasting a whole day
Did also get started on nano plotting and planning by doing the first two Wriye world building exercises but that's a story for another day

Only hoping that being so zonked on a Friday is not a sign of some evil bug lurking and ready to unleash itself

Izzie had a pile of grand plans for the day. Bet the Gods had a good laugh about that
Was going to be up bright and early to go to the Saturday City Farm Organic Markets. Less to buy anything as it is so very expensive but more because there's such a nice atmosphere and it's so lovely to go mooching around their gardens
That was going to be followed by coffee crawls and a visit to a nearby historic graveyard. Our original plans of pottering off to the Swan Valley got dumped due to too much month at the end of the money
But from around 8am or so it just poured and poured and poured. There was thunder and lightening and the works. Just the sort of day for curling up in the serpent basket with a good book or God forbid - actually doing stuff on that 101 list.

In between all the showers, did slink out into the garden to plant some proteas and the big juicy pomelo tree bought last week at City Farm nursery. Already had the hole ready since Thursday but was just too busy slinking off elsewhere
From plenty of experience, come to the conclusion that May to June is easily the best time for planting trees or anything really if you want them to survive the sizzling stinking summers here
At this rate, the Lair is rapidly turning into a citrus orchard with one large and one little orange tree, two limes, one mandarin and now a pretty pomelo which is like an oversized but sweetish grapefruit

Due to the lightening and stuff, figures that it might not be safe for the Preciouss so instead did something on the old to do list from way back in January - sorting out stacks of boxes - mainly full of old magazines, brochures, maps, cards and stuff
Like most things - it's the thought of doing something that is worse than the thing itself. Tossed out half the box and the rest needs sorting and it's all sitting on a table right next to the computer trying to make the Izzie feel guilty
But been on holidays nearly two weeks now and got to do something productive with our time. There'll be far far less chance of doing any serious decluttering when back at work

Next item on the agenda will be the big monthly backup of everything. Well - that's the theory anyway