The Slug with Two Brains

First off: I am behind this week on, well, just about every form of communication. However, with my DAY OFF tomorrow and the weekend tantalisingly close, order shall be restored in due course.

In the meanwhile, let's talk slugs.

Once upon a time, there was a Two-Headed Slug Monster, who had nothing in particular to do on a particular day. And there was also a Sleeping Princess.

Did I mention that the Slug Monster had poison? Well, it did.

It all worked out okay in the end, but that was mostly down to kissing some form of royalty or other. Just a regular afternoon in these here parts...

Checking in

Another evening, another FlumpFest...

Family is thriving; days are packed with soaring imaginations and energies. And I get to see the dawn each morning, which is a treasured time.

Uncharacteristically early nights are a welcome treat!

Learning to fit in

Lovely weekend: music, art, conversation and fine cocktails on Culture Night, followed by a reasonably lazy couple of days.

The kitties are settling in: there's a lovely stone sunspot-seat in the garden (aka Pear Land), which Max takes full advantage of in the afternoons.

And they're both enjoying the evocation of tetris afforded by the building work going on nearby :-)



Trying not to clock-watch, yet thinking there's time for a bit of reading *and* eight hours of sleep if I'm quick about it...

Almost Snuffed It

Well, this week shall be filed under 'Things that Zip on by'...

Operations are over (most successfully - yippee yippee); I've caught up with nearly all my family, and my bags are properly unpacked (i.e. the coffee machine and my Wonder Woman mug). The kitties are being Very Naughty Indeed in their adjustment period. All I'll say is:
(a) I think I can patch up those lovely sheer curtains
(b) Sniffy the adorable dwarf hamster lives. We should focus on the positive...

Sigh.

Dublin City is recovering from last night's Guinness-a-thon, and Culture Night is about to kick off - a veritable smorgasbord of delightful treaty things.

Have a lovely weekend, folks X

Colouring Life

Okay, yesterday disappeared without broadband + energy co-existing in the same time-space continuum.

I'm learning the ropes of Life as it Currently Stands for my nephew & nieces: school pick-ups and schedules and preferences of films and food and toys. Although Malahide has grown exponentially over the years, there are zillions of familiar school/work folk who have stayed/returned here to raise their own families; catch-up conversation tends to be peppered with "No, no, these aren't my children..."

Today was manky rainy day here: after walking the twins to school (and spotting a squirrel en route), Lily & I spent the morning in the local library (all hail Carnegie and his legacy). Then there was lego a-go-go: turns out Indiana Jones & Star Wars are the new black, so I was well within my comfort zone. Touch-and-go moment when Princess Leia got kidnapped and held in Colouring Land, but it all worked out okay.

Then back through flooded roads and more manky weather to reasonably well-behaved kitties, dinner and flumpydom :-)

Living with Sleepies

Yawwwwwwwn... peaceful and quiet first day in Dublin. Halcyon moment when I sat out in the lovely sunshiney garden, surrounded by pear trees laden with fruit, watching the kitties eagerly exploring their new world.

There were a few bouts of the Sleepies, and it shall certainly be an early night. But apart from unloading/unpacking/napping, I got to catch up with family & friends, which was restorative in itself. Hopefully a good sleep will have me ready for Kidlet Duty bright and early :-)

Final Friday

There's an autumnal nip in the air; the Summer has waned... I'm Dublin bound this weekend - driving through Sunday evening (with kitties) to get an early morning ferry from Holyhead.

Deep breath.

But back to today (trying not to have daily life be about the next transition). Some editing this afternoon, before heading to Pineapple Studios for my last belly dance class with our lovely little group and our spectacularly graceful teacher Azahara.

Then meeting friends, and on to the V&A for its Louis Armstrong (a la High Society) evening. (The photograph below was taken on the movie set.) I find it utterly impossible to hear his playing without smiling.

Have a lovely weekend, all :-)

Fishy Relationships

A few weeks back, having been enticed to The Deep Sea exhibition, we beat a hasty retreat from the crowds at the Natural History Museum. And conversation turned to angler fish.

Sara explained to me that the iconic image of an angler fish (scary ginormous-mouthed creature with translucent pointy teeth and bioluminescent rod bait-ey thing) is always drawn from the female fisshies. The boys, it turns out, are teeny in comparison, and look quite different.

They resemble tumours, as it turns out. Here's the science bit from National Geographic:

"In lieu of continually seeking the vast abyss for a female, [the male] has evolved into a permanent parasitic mate. When a young, free-swimming male angler encounters a female, he latches onto her with his sharp teeth. Over time, the male physically fuses with the female, connecting to her skin and bloodstream and losing his eyes and all his internal organs except the testes. A female will carry six or more males on her body."

The weird growths on the Lady Angler were once thought to be proto-fins; turns out they're a selection of her mates, all permanently squodged in and living off her.

Off the scale on the Wacky-Meter...

Tum de dum, back to work now :-)

Seeing the light

Some great images (and words) in this NY Times piece on the photographers who documented the US military atomic tests from 1945-62. The short narration is by George Yoshitake, one of the few surviving camerafolk (they worked closely enough to feel the heat of the blasts). He speaks frankly about how he thought of the work as 'just another job' until he witnessed the devastation from the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs.

This image is from a 1951 test in the South Pacific; an atomic flash highlighting its VIP spectators...

Staggering to think on.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/09/14/science/20100914_atom.html

Should you choose to accept it...

Autumnal day here. I'm gathering my belongings into little piles, sorting clothes, preparing for the next steps.

And in parallel news, Inspector Squirrel has been burying nuts around the garden, when he thinks no-one is looking.

He's like a one-squirrel Mission: Impossible :-)