My Virtual Life Continues

That's it. That's the beast that ruined my week-end.

It's both pretty and poison.

I'm able to surf the 'net again, and post to my blog, and read others blogs, but checking e-mail takes a solid half hour, and sending an e-mail is just as complicated. Maybe it's just as well I lost my address book and can't contact anyone.

Let's move on, shall we?

My birthday! (We need to go back in time a week and a bit - I guess that means I'm even older now!)



This is my new camera. It intimidates me completely.

~The rest of the photos in this post were taken on the new camera.~

Nigel surprised me with the book "Bags that Rock" by Kelley Deal - she's the twin sister of Kim Deal, bass player with The Pixies. The sisters were also in the band The Breeders back in the 90's.



Elly, I think there's one in there you might just want to make. It uses a set of junior-sized drumsticks as handles. Can you see it? It's the little red one in the corner of the cover. Funky!



The boys also gave me a EP single of "Heaven" and the LP "Talk Talk Talk" by The Psychedelic Furs. I remember buying a copy of this album back in 1979 at The Bay when I was just fifteen. The music has aged much better than me. I remeber being totally smitten with Richard Butler (the lead singer), he's so cold and adorable - he must be gay. ~There's a video waiting at the bottom of this post if you want to see him.~

Nigel was concerned that these offerings weren't going to be enough, so he told me to go out and get something else for him to wrap.




Don't I have great taste? This is a sterling and moldavite necklace by artist Charles Albert. It's from his "Out of this World" collection. Moldavite is a stone from the Moldavia region in Western Romania. 10,000 years ago a meteorite struck the region, creating the gemstone called moldavite. Some believe that the stone is extraterrestrial, while others believe it's the sandy soil of the region melted into a glass-like stone. I think the melted sandy soil idea sounds pretty likely, but I'm awfully fond of the outer-space line, so humour me - it's my birthday.

Elly didn't disappoint either.

She sent a fantastic little parcel filled with goodies for everyone.



A box of Butler's Chocolates. We discovered this chain of stores in Dublin, the chocolate is fantastic. Also a bag of reds and blacks from Marks and Spencers (we can't get these here). Ian helped me eat the red ones. Also a card that made reference to "snaffling cake". Elly and I decided that snaffle must mean "to eat", and not to snag or ruin, as in "there's a snaffle on my new cardigan", or "this computer totally snaffled my week-end" . I love learning this Gaelic language.

Nigel also scored his very own bar of Butler's chocolate, with whiskey truffle filling. It made him very happy.



And Ian got an R2D2 filled with chocolate and a Beanie Bar. The R2 sat sweetly for most of a day, before he was torn open and his insides all eaten.



Elly also sent this fantastic hank of yarn from This Is Knit, dyed by Elana. The colours are much better in person (I'm still working with this new camera). It has deep purples and magentas with a great swath of rich teal, gorgeous, kind of like a medieval circus. I'm still deciding what it will become.



Thank you Elly and Nigel and Ian! I love all the pressies.

Happy Birthday to me. Let's swoon, shall we?