The Lair of the Emerald Serpent

The serpent is slowly returning to the usual state of abnormal. Brain cells are regrowing and I have finally signed up for an online course. One called Mindware on Coursera that I constantly had to roll over because I was simply too busy or too brain dead to even look at the material let alone do the tests and stuff.

It's also time to resume the grand project of creating a place of calm amidst the chaos.
Last June and July, I went on a massive sorting and decluttering binge in order to have the Lair looking respectable for Daisy's visit this year. Got more done in those 6 to 8 weeks than in the last 6 to 8 years which is pretty sad.
I had not failed to notice 2 things from this experiment. The first is to never underestimate the power of a serious deadline. Just like in November, it seems to create its own supply of mojo.

Secondly, it is always easier to get stuff done when there is a clear goal in mind. Preferably stated in positive terms. It was far easier to get the mojo going thinking of having a place for everything and everything in its place including a tidy wardrobe containing only clothes that actually fit me and that I like rather than concentrating on getting rid of stuff.

Like Michelangelo faced with a giant block of marble, keeping his eye on his vision of David and not on the chunks of marble that he is slowly and steadily chipping away.

I had already decided that the 2 serpent 'shrines' needed a bit of sorting. One of them had stuff that had been sitting there for several years. It needed a good dusting and there were also little black dots sprinkled around that looked suspiciously like mouse droppings

First step was to take everything off and to clean and wipe the wooden surface. Lemon oil was the perfect potion. It made the surfaces all shiny and clean smelling. That was when the inspiration struck. This is actually a writing desk so it might be a good idea to use it for WRITING. After all, November is coming.

Aside from that, it is the perfect excuse to move the books, notes, pens and stuff that find their way onto the dining room table. And of course once there is a stash of stuff, other stuff gets drawn to it like a magnet.

So with all the papers and things gone, it should now be much easier to use the dining room table only for its intended purpose.

This desk is in front of a window looking onto the garden and also has much better artificial light than the dining room table. Used it last night for its intended purpose and also tidied and sorted the two drawers underneath it which contain pens, markers, pencils and an assortment of envelopes and other stationery.

It was strange. Once I found a suitable purpose for the writing desk, the rest just came naturally. Only problem now after culling half the stuff that had been on it, is finding a place for the special bits and pieces especially the sandalwood bowl, owl and serpent ornaments and the assortment of sinister looking potions bottles got from a sale at the Chem Centre.
The Lair does sometimes look suspiciously like some sinister alchemy lab.

So now I have a bright shiny new spot to write in my Green Goblin book at the end of each day and it was wonderful to use even for such boring mundane Muggle matters.

The serpent has an assortment of strange rituals. One of them is to create a 3 month, 1 year and 5 year plan to be rewritten and reviewed around the time of the equinoxes or solstices.
So it is not that long ago since the most recent revision and I sort of got tired of endlessly rewriting certain items on the agenda
The main offenders being the Teapot Tree, Scarecrows and Hexen Ecke in the garden along with the Design your Own tarot deck which has been on the long finger for a good five years or even more now.
But one item stood out as being especially pesky. Sorting out the serpent stash of books.

Part of the problem stems from the fact that books breed like rabbits while book shelves breed like pandas. Then there is the weekly shift at the op shop sorting, pricing and displaying books on the shelves and there are just so many tasty tempting morsels to drool over. It’s sort of like a boozer getting a job in the bottle shop.

So being October and Nanowrimo on the horizon and all that, figured it is time to finally make a start. The best strategy is to be a sneaky serpent in order to get past the inner beast who likes to sabotage everything
I had seen how successful the strategy was of spending just 20 minutes pruning the woollybush in the garden so adopted the same trick for the book shelves
Will pick just one book case and just one itsy bitty shelf to sort out.

There cannot be possibly any harm in that. And before you know it, by the end of the week the whole 5 shelves are done and the inner beast is still sleeping soundly and does not suspect a thing.

So this particular book case was the last to be added to the Lair way back in July 2014. In spite of having “4 new book cases” on the wish list each solstice and each equinox, nothing was happening.
The top shelf got devoted to goblins and their minions. The Wolf of Wall Street shared shelf space with Warren Buffett and the wonderful Freakonomics folks.
The new wave of Perestroika found more additions to the top shelf. Gina Rinehart, Warren Buffet, Vladimir Putin and He who must not be named all found a place there. Donald’s “Art of the Deal” shared a space with “Putin’s Russia” on the right and Hillary’s “Hard Choices” on the left.

But these accommodation arrangements proved rather unsatisfactory. It was bedlam on the book shelves. So Hillary moved downstairs to share space with Michael Moore and Joe Bageant’s “Rainbow Pie” and Donald kept his room mate Vlad but Alan Bond and Rupert Murdoch got added to his friend’s list. Art imitates life (Alan Bond is the Oz equivalent of The Donald - a con man to the bone and they even share a connection to the America’s Cup yacht race in common)
"Dial M for Murdoch" just has to be one of the best book titles ever.

So the first three shelves got devoted to Wall Street, Goblins and their minions and assorted current affairs and history stuff. Irshad Manji, Ayaan Hirsi Ali and an assortment of infidels, jihadists and spooks also got to share space with Hillary along with David Hicks and his tale of life in Gitmo. Come to think of it maybe I should move that big fat tome next to Don the Con.
It's sort of like sticking pins in voodoo dolls but replacing the dolls with books
The rest of the shelves got devoted to lots of books about science and gardening.

But the strangest thing of all, the simple act of getting started with the sorting unleashed the beady eye of the inner serpent

This time of year is the council rubbish collections known to cheapskate serpents as Vergemart
Around the corner and at the end of the street there appeared one big red book case and a chest of drawers made from real wood. Not the rubbish IKEA flat panel DIY chipboard shit.
Not having a car sort of sucks for occasions like this but did manage to get the cabinet back to the lair drawer by drawer and then finally the main frame itself

It is going to be resurrected as a big fat space for storing books and stuff only of course they will not be so handy and visible like with a proper book case
Unfortunately the red book case got a bit damaged while dragging it along the grass and will need a bit of tweaking and fixing so that it remains stable
Learned the lesson and was lots more careful when bringing the wood cabinet back to the Lair

Until the big red shelves are fixed, the pyramid of unsorted books will remain sitting on the floor of the spare room.
But it is so spooky to think how the inner serpent is on the look out all the time but the Izzie has been too slack and distracted to make the most of its magical powers

PS To honour the real Black Friday, went and signed up for William Perry's new course The Threat of Nuclear Terrorism
His recent online course about The Nuclear Brink was scary and fascinating and it finished well before the results of the 2016 US election. Shit has gotten a whole lot scarier and more real since then

Even scarier is the thought that this ancient serpent likely knows more about nuclear weapons than the present US president. Based solely on these recent courses and an obsession with the topic from 1982 to early 1990s or so.
Including merely knowing what the three legs of the US nuclear triad are which that FM dotard did not know last year during the campaign and most likely has not bothered his ignorant arrogant arse to learn since then.

For the first time in four years, the serpent is squiggling at a spotless desk. Out with the piles of accumulated junk, the paper jungle, piles of books and tarot decks and a mish mash of unsorted CDs. Even the ink pots and pretty pens had to go and the zombie guardian of the Big Mac has been given a few days off duty.

It started ever so innocently with the resurrection of a strange item snaffled at a charity shop. It folds up like a concertina and is designed to hang from a wardrobe rail. While being the perfect shape and size for books, their weight would result in a serious wardrobe malfunction. But there was no reason the 8 compartments could not be used to store an assortment of quirky hats. Much neater and more accessible than their usual lurking ground on the top shelf of the same wardrobe. Next move in this game of musical objects was to use the new space for disks, DVDs and other digital gadgets.

This was the perfect opportunity to start again from scratch. Simply get everything off the desk and give the old Mac a bit of a dust and wipe and worry about the sorting later. That was the map. But once started and getting into the swing of things, it was time to make the most of this unusual mood.

The Izzie sister will be visiting in July so it’s finally time to make some sort of effort. After all the usual CHAOS (Can’t Have Anyone Over Syndrome) is a piss poor excuse to keep some one away who has travelled half way around the planet to get to the Lair. Privet Drive is the main attraction but the Lair will also be on the visiting list.
It’s funny how reading “The Ring” that Japanese story about a definitely dodgy video tape has also added an extra incentive. The Japanese are famous for living in shoe boxes so small that they hire suitcases to go on holidays because there is no space in their flats to store such indulgent luxuries.
And there’s Izzie with all that space and simply wasting it with chaos and clutter.

So now a bunch of CDs and a couple dozen DVDs are sitting on the bed waiting to be sorted. Most of the tarot decks have been assigned to the upstairs linen closet where they now lurk with lots of books.
The real trick will be resisting the siren call of all that stuff as it attempts to sneak back to fill up all that bright shiny clean desk real estate.

Once again it is an external deadline that proves to be the most potent source of serpent motivation. Must make the most of the moment before the usual inertia returns with a vengeance.

So another Camp Nano adventure is over and it is time to return to mundane reality. That includes choosing some new books to toss in the serpent sack for all those spare moments waiting or lurking when out and about. Extra attention is always reserved for certain special occasions. This usually include the obvious such as the new year and Halloween but Good Friday and Mayday are also on the list. Those times are saved for the spooky or spiritual sorts of stuff, Dan Brown included.
The most recent of these was James Herbert’s ‘Sepulchre”. Never heard of the man until he died recently. He was apparently a pretty famous writer of horror and spooky stuff and his most famous books were “The Rats” and “The Fog”. Just the titles alone is enough to make a serpent curious. Ever since reading Orwell’s “1984” at an impressionable age (and recommended by a religion teacher too along with “Animal Farm”) the Izzie has had a thing about rats. A creepy movie also added flies to the list.

( spooky books and stuff )

While having long ago given up on the ever some ambitious “100 things in 1,000” days ‘to do’ list, still decided that the idea in itself is worth keeping but in some more useful and productive form. The aim would be more on a few big projects all linked to each other rather than a list that is so long that you end up making up stupid stuff just to reach the magical 100 things.
But regardless of form, certain items kept getting moved from one list to the next and on again and never quite managed to get themselves crossed off as finished.
Organizing the Lair with a place for everything and everything in its place is the biggest offender on this front. The best books on decluttering and sorting stuff all say that unless you concentrate on moving towards what you do want rather than obsessing about all the stuff that is wrong then you will never make any real progress.

( All sorts of stuff )

Two weeks ago I took advantage of a free ferry service to visit the port of Fremantle. It was a gorgeous sunny day and the perfect weather for going on a river cruise. An added attraction was landing right near the centre of the town right next to 3 very pretty tall sailing ships. They had arrived the previous week and had been open to the public on the weekend. With a bit of luck they’d be open for a couple of days before the scheduled departure on 3rd August.

Spent a good 30 minutes drooling over the gorgeousness of the three boats and looking for the opening times which turned out to be not that day but Friday and Saturday.
The free ferries were running the next day so it was the perfect excuse to come back. Unlike another sailing ship - the replica of the Endeavour which turned up in October 2011, they were not charging a ridiculous $18 to go onboard but only a (gold coin) donation. So much for the reputation of the Dutch for being mean and miserly.

( The Shipping News )

Here's wishing a happy and prosperous new year to all the Izzie's serpent associates

Had such grand plans for the day. Was meant to be off slinking about in the city where a whole bunch of streets have been closed to cars for all the snaky celebrations. It looked to be a seriously massive street party with lion and dragon dances and a guest appearance by the Wagyl (the local Rainbow Serpent who usually slithers about in the river)
The supermarkets had strategically placed bags of snake sweets on the end of aisles and the fruit sections had dragon fruit, lychees, longans and all sorts of decadent indulgences. Even one of the big four banks got in on the act and had their shelves adorned with rows and rows of snaky 'piggie' banks. Such a pity its corporate colours are two horrid shades of blue.

But the gods giggle when serpents make plans. Had been looking forward to this weekend for quite a while and then at the very last moment the Weather bureau goes all wowser and party pooper by predicting and delivering a sizzling stinking 41 degree day.

So no special green hat, no silver serpent necklace, no green skirts and stuff for slinking about in the city. One could get nuked from just walking out the door into the sun light. Pity any poor vampire who live in this part of the planet

While it might be true that once you are busy, out and about and actually doing stuff you are less likely to notice the heat than just sitting inside looking out and moping about it, it still doesn't prevent you from getting sizzled. And as the ultraviolet levels are so extreme in this bit of Oz, such little things can have long term serious consequences

Here the sun is so savage that you can get nuked even from the sun shining in the window at 7 in the morning. Sometimes snoozing in an east facing room does have its drawbacks. Even curtains present no serious obstacle.

Just stayed slinking about the Lair doing very little at all. And now they are promising us another two days or more of the same

Lots of the freaky Fringe Festival events tents do not have air conditioning so any venturing out will require being quite fussy about which shows to go to, if any.
As for the garden, had a whole pile of beans eyed up for soaking and planting last Friday. But the weekend forecast soon put an end to that

Had a big week attending assorted culture vulture activities. Everything here seems to happen in February. Even Saint Michael of Leunig will be gracing the Writer's festival two weeks from now with his presence. He's doing workshops on creativity but they are quite expensive. But should be able to manage one 60 minute talk to gaze upon his greatness as a member of the adoring audience.

Will probably spend most of March recovering from all the excitement as well as spending some much needed time in the garden if there's any of it left after weeks of this weather

The first two weeks of the bright shiny new year are over. The weather has been seriously sucky from even before the year started with only four decent days for doing useful stuff rather than just moping about and melting

Finally slinked outside to plant the bags of seeds that have been sitting for weeks patiently waiting. There’s supposed to be rain on the way.
The latest stash was a mix of buckwheat, alfalfa, mustard and fenugreek. Its sole purpose is to grow quickly in order to cover the soil and protect it from the big yellow microwave in the sky
So much of the ground has been nuked due to the recent weeks of sizzling sunshine. Aside from the sweet potatoes which are the only weeds that thrive in this weather, so much other stuff is looking seriously sad and shriveled.

The only consolation is that the well established weeds such as the grape vine, fig and woolly bush trees are now big enough to be able to look after themselves and to provide much needed shade and nibblies for the visiting birds.

( 13 bits of trivia )

Izzie is beginning to suspect one of the real reasons for her incurable addiction to books. As well as being paper teddy bears or Portkeys to magical and mysterious worlds, they serve as a source for all sorts of inspiring or useful stuff. After all life is too short to reinvent the wheel.

( Lists and little black books )

In an attempt to be organized recently bought two bright shiny expanding folders. The bright lime green one is for packets of seeds sorted by month and season and the lurid pink one for bits and bobs, scraps of paper and articles that don’t really fit anywhere else.
But while 18 brown pockets might be all right for seeds, it is not so useful for other stuff. Had already considered clearing out the contents of an old folder and assigning it to this new purpose. But like so many other good intentions this one ended up in the too hard basket. That was until tonight.

( Bills and things )