The Lair of the Emerald Serpent

There's magical numbers about today but the serpent's green cells see very few ones but lots of zeros today
But kept plodding anyway

Been a baby steps year so far. Not just on the decluttering and gardening front but also in nano land

Slowly catching up on all those Wriye Big Yellow Board word building exercises

Two reasons - to get into the habit of sticking to a schedule as outlined in recent assignments and because it is too hot to do anything else the last few weeks or so

Sometimes keeping going when nothing is happening is the secret to lighting the spark plugs

Will not be unleashing the big bad decks until February for which there are many ritualistic reasons
In the meanwhile, been thinking that it might be interesting to associate a certain deck with each of the main characters and give a quick shuffle and stir to see what happens to them next

The main thing is to stick to the 200-500 words per weekday plotting, planning and outlining routine and gradually ramp it up as November gets ever closer

Using a similar baby steps trick on the decluttering front. Instead of the usual fasting followed by a rare feast indeed, decided it is best to stick to a simple rule of tossing out ten things a day - be that old grocery store receipts, bank ATM slips or out of date bus time tables
No rule that says we cannot do more but it is the routine that is the main thing. Some days even managed to binge and fill a few empty Amazon boxes with assorted junk

But the number one rule now is to not accumulate any new useless stuff. No more six month old Woolworths Spring Recipes magazines or brochures from last year's Arts festival gathering dust under the bed. Time to let go of the past to make more room for the present

Had intended this interesting date to be the occasion for a visit to the Secret Garden cafe after work to do a newly invented "Wheel of the Year' tarot spread to find ideas about what projects to give extra attention for each month
But it was a seriously shit day at work and missed the bus back to the Lair so decided to just do the return bus ticket thing to another cafe for mundane stuff like reading today's paper

While we are all melted over here and there's bushfires raging down south which is usual for this time of year, up north in Carnarvon and over in Queensland, they are literally swimming. It's a veritable deluge of rain of plague proportions
Particularly strange and spooky when a town on the top of a medium sized mountain range gets flooded. It must have a strange geography indeed but Toowoomba is indeed drenched by torrential rains. This was the town some several years ago where the mayor tried to bring in recycled water due to the dangerously low levels of water in the damns. Now they are overflowing

Praying for rain is not a good idea these days in Oz. Be careful what you ask for and all that.

The more local and parochial story which becomes more like a soap opera with each passing day is the Taj Mahal on the Swan. The owners have apparently filed for bankruptcy because the shit has literally hit the fan (they own fertilizer factories) and the builders have packed up their bags leaving the place half completed
There's been some seriously amusing suggestions concerning the possible uses of this Peppermint Grove Palace.

Izzie once heard that most suffering is caused by trying to make reality repeatable - ie trying to control reality and become attached to it. So it's nobody's fault but Izzie's for today's string of stuff ups.
Nothing serious or dangerous happened at all just quite a few knocks on the head for our nostalgia fest

Not sure if it's plain old age or something more seriously sinister like brain damage, but this serpent is becoming increasingly sensitive to the low drones, brake slamming and general jerkery that is the experience of being a passenger on the local gruesome gas buses. It's like being stuck for 40 mins in a spin dryer on full speed.
By the time of arrival at our destination, Izzie is either homicidal, exhausted or just about ready to burst into tears. Sometimes all three at once.

The whole point of today's visit to Fremantle apart from nostalgia was to visit the new farmer's market which started today and will be on every Wednesday now for probably the next four months
As Izzie normally works on Wednesdays, this was our one chance to snoop and slink and sniff out all the tasty morsels. Due to the stuff up with bus connections was already 30 mins later than expected and totally neurotic and claustrophobic. Did get some delicious bread and olive oil but otherwise made a quick getaway and slinked off to the library
Turned out that the one book of the three due back today that was left back at the Lair was the one that was not able to be renewed as another reader had requested it. Not surprising really. It's called "The Art of Graeme Base" is extremely beautiful and also very expensive. Had often drooled over it in the book shops, never imagining it to ever appear in a public library.
Did renew the very interesting and informative "The Decorated Page" which is full of inspirational ideas but was happy to dump the crappy and corny "Scrapbooking for Dummies"
Altered books and decorated journals do appeal to the inner serpent but scrapbooking is just way too corny and kitschie for Izzie

In fact, today was to be a veritable feast of squiggling, scribbling and playing with pencils, stamps, ink and stuff in the evil green journal to be followed by a picnic at 3.30pm in the gardens of the old lunatic asylum.
It turned out to be a gorgeous sunny day and after reading some of the most interesting chapters of the 6th Potter book (yesterday's plans to read them while sitting outside the city's historical graveyard well and truly got rained on) was finally calming down and getting all relaxed and almost normal.
After playing around with wine corks and ink but making more of a mess than anything artistic, it was time for a proper picnic with wine and cheese and those crusty sesame seed rolls from the market that morning. It was exactly at that time that it started raining. Drips at first but more and more and faster and faster. It was a quick scramble to get books and pens put away before everything got all smudged and soaked.
So slinked off sulking into the old asylum buildings to look at the latest art exhibitions. The usual pretentious waffle. Especially peeved now that they've got their paws on the now closed museum to peddle their pretentious perversions.

Did do a coffee crawl later and another attempt at mastering the intricacies of beginners crochet - still not yet got the hang of it. But after getting rained out and the ordeal of another grueling astronaut training session on the way back to the Lair, any inspiration was well and truly sucked out of this serpent.
Yessss - if this Dursleyish serpent could have one magical Potter power, it would just have to be Apparition. Not the most glamorous but well and truly the most useful. No bus or jet lag ever again and lots of afternoon trips to Amsterdam, Paris, Barcelona and the bestest organic shop ever in Vienna. Not to mention all the cafes and other feasts for culture vultures.
Must be off now to practise those 3 Ds - Destination, deliberation, determination.

And here's hoping for a happier day for the next Wednesday 2nd which will be in December this year.