Sally's Journal
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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "Sally" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
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12:01 pm
[Link] | Bother. I was very organised back in March, and bought a wedding anniversary card. However, I was overwhelmed by a fit of paranoia while in Tesco's last night that I had lost it, and so bought another one. Predictably, this means I have two.
This is, of course, infinitely better than having none. But it still leaves me with a question:
Poll #1183361
Open to: All, results viewable to: AllWhat should I do?
(assume that at least one of the cards doesn't say "second wedding anniversary", or anything else that would scupper its re-use)
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11:39 am
[Link] |
Two years today!
I, Sally, take you, Matthew,
to be my husband,
to have and to hold
from this day forward;
for better, for worse,
for richer, for poorer,
in sickness and in health,
to love and to cherish,
till death us do part;
according to God's holy law.
In the presence of God I make this vow.
Love is a temporary madness;
It erupts like volcanoes and then subsides.
And when it subsides you have to make a decision.
You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part.
Because this is what love is.
Love is not breathlessness,
It is not excitement,
It is not the promise of eternal passion.
That is just being "in love", which any fool can do.
Love itself is what remains when being in love has burned away,
And this is both an art and a fortunate accident.
Those that truly love have roots that grow towards each other underground,
And when all the pretty blossoms have fallen from their branches,
They find that they are one tree and not two.
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02:46 pm
[Link] | Oh wonderful friends list, please give me suggestions for games that do not require much stuff! Serious ones or silly drunken ones.
I can think of:
The hat game:
2 teams. Everyone writes n names and puts them in a hat. Player 1 of team 1 has a minute to pull names out of the hat and describe them (like articulate) You can pass ones you haven't started as much as you like, but cannot pass one you have started. Then Player 1 of team 2, then player 2 of team 1 etc. Once all the names have gone you score, then put them back in the hat and do it with only three words and miming. Then score again, then do it just with miming!
Consequences:
Boys name
Girls name
He said to her
She said to him
And the consequence was...
You are all lovely and I appreciate your help.
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09:28 pm
[Link] | I'm playing Lyra in the Ardgour readthrough of Northen Lights! It's the best thing in the world.
But I don't have a firm idea about costume yet... what are other people doing (esp. Mrs Coulter and Lord Asrail?)? Are we going for a very precise victorian/steam-punk/replica of the film type era? At the moment I think the best I can do is contemporary urchin, but I want to be inspired!
So, err, even if you're nothing to do with Ardgour but you have a clear mental image of Lyra then discuss it here, because it will be a great help!
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01:06 pm
[Link] | Poll #1171436
Open to: All, results viewable to: AllWhat _is_ your favorite colour?
If you're very bored at work you could rank them all for me in a comment too!
Cheers!
(This post bought to you by atreic-mori, who has no idea what colours people like. Except Sam M likes purple)
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10:10 am
[Link] | Hmm. You ask a train ticket salesperson for a ticket to Cogford, coming back tomorrow morning. The salesperson sells you a ticket that is only valid on trains after 9.30.
Should I have assumed that salespeople are incompitent, and said 'peak time train' very very clearly (actually, in this particular case I _did_ and she still ignored me and sold me the wrong ticket, which is why I am annoyed) or should it be the salesperson's job to sell me the right ticket and if I don't give her enough information to do that she should ask me for more?
[ETA: Does anyone know the ticket restrictions on KX to Cambridge? The woman swore blind I could travel on a saver ticket on the 17.45 train, and only (reluctantly) sold me an open return when I said 'but I'm coming back at 08.15!']
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07:08 pm
[Link] | ( A post on shoes. With a poll )
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09:11 pm
[Link] | I'm feeling so disenfranchised by the London elections.
Over the past two years it's been becoming my city. By far the majority of my waking hours are spent there. I've cycled the length of it from Lewisham to Archway. I've become the sort of person who tuts if people stand on the wrong side of the tube escalators. I shop in its shops, walk its streets, gaze from my office window at the London Eye, get nearly killed by bendy buses on a daily basis. I can give people directions to places, and often they're right. I even sleep there about twice a week. Every morning I cycle over Waterloo bridge and am hit with the great sprawling mess and glorious splendour that is my London.
But I don't get to vote. Because I live in Coventry. And it's just another way of the world pointing out to me that it's not my city.
[Oddly, the other day I was in a talk about Civil Service in the West Midlands, and the speaker asked people to put their hands up if they 'worked in London', 'worked in the regions' 'worked in the West Midlands'. And I wanted to scream 'I live in Coventry, isn't that good enough, they're my West Midlands too'. But it obviously isn't]
The moral of this cautionary tale is that living in two worlds just doesn't work; you end up not really living in either. Although you can have a lot of fun along the way.
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01:21 pm
[Link] | That was a lovely weekend. Friday night I hit the town with Noga, to go and look young at the Vaundaville and blag last minute tickets to The Importance of Being Earnest (which I am embarressed to admit I had never seen before). The production was interesting... everyone was stilted and forced and larger than life, but in a very intentional, professional and controlled way. It seemed very self aware that it was Very Famous Light Entertainment, every line loaded with wit and meaning, but then it _is_ very famous light entertainment. It did however, leave me wanting to slap all the characters, especially the girls, for large chunks of the play. The only person who didn't seem to suffer from this was Penelope Keith. This left me wondering if it was because she was so famous the director couldn't tell her what to do. Anyway, it was a great evening out with fabulous company.
Saturday was an ALES rehersal (how I love my ALES friends, how I don't have a clue why they put up with my disorganisation and angst) followed by ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) juggzy's housewarming party in Wocester. She really does have the most fabulous house, all cats and cellars and attics and beautiful women. A most pleasent party.
On Sunday I had a blissful sunny (middle aged) Coventry day. It was wonderful. We went to mass, and did DIY, and bought Herbs! and lazed around in the bath, and watched Buffy, and had Maya maya fish in a ginger, lime and chilli maranade. Yay for weekends!
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12:15 pm
[Link] | How Rude!
I was slightly annoyed by Archer Basset (our agents) when they phoned M at 10ish this morning to say "Some tradesmen will be coming round with the landlord after 10 tommorrow". Not "Is it convinient?" or "Will you be in?" and no apology for "I know this is only one days notice and you're supposed to be in London/Worcester".
So I phoned them up, and tried to explain why I thought 24 hours notice and no consultation wasn't acceptable, in a firm and clear but really not particularly angry kind of way. And hit a barrage of "You serf, you should be grateful, because they're coming out on a Saturday which we don't normally do, because it's an urgent thing*, why don't you appreciate our great magnanimity" and when I deigned to say "Well, actually Monday would have been more convenient because we had plans for Saturday and can work from home most week days with enough notice" I got dumped on hold with as little ceramony as someone hanging up on me. How Rude! When he finally deigned to take the nasty angry woman off hold, he said "I've made a note in your file" and was very cagey as to _what_ note he'd made in our file, although when pushed he said he'd noted that we'd been annoyed at only 24 hours notice and that we'd like to be consulted about when we had to deal with tradesmen in our house. I bet he's actually written "rude and cantankerous tenant doesn't appreciate us fixing her house".
Ah well. Apparently the tradesman in question is a general handyman, who will turn up with the landlord, handymen the bits that are amenable to handymenning, and then the landlord will go on to find electricians and plumbers to deal with the stuff that actually need dealing with at some other, as yet unspecified, time.
*Boggle. While I don't want to downplay our woes, I don't think that needing a bolt on a shed and wanting some picture hooks is in the slightest bit urgent. The electrics may well be urgent, but as you will see, they don't come into this in the slightest. And the house hasn't burnt down yet.
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05:23 pm
[Link] |
New House!
Well, we are in the new house. It is as lovely as I remember, although the majority of the cupboards feel like they were put in in the 70s and then forgotten. Contact details have been updated in the usual place.
Yesterday was a bit manic. Naomi was visiting, and there were 3 removers packing, and two cleaners coming round to give quotes, and then we went to Cambridge for dinner, because I just can't cope without at least one silly commute a day.
Today has been strangely interim - the movers packed yesterday and are unpacking tomorrow (yes, I know that's bad planning, wires were crossed) so we looked at the inventory and bought a few bits and bobs (new battery for motherboard, new padlock for the shed, etc) and sneakily moved a few odds and ends like kettles and bathrooms. I think tomorrow might not be so tranquil...
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09:25 am
[Link] | Do the test! (unless of course, you've already seen it on andrewducker's blog) I failed... *blush*
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04:04 pm
[Link] | I often walk past highgate cematory, through dark rainswept London, and I look at the crumbling looming gravestones, and think of those that lie forgotten under them. The rambling wilderness has an abscene of any hint of human rememberence, such as the precarious vases of flowers that teeter in current cematories. But this morning the birds poured out their requiem and the spring flowers rolled over the weathered old gravestones, and the atmosphere was completely changed.
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10:10 pm
[Link] | Wow! Has everyone seen the really cool new LJ feature that gives you exciting new double golden padlocks on your filtered posts [only if you're in Style 2 though]? And tells you which of your filters can see them? So useful!
Ah, LJ, we do love you. How else could we continue to be emo inconsistant psycho bleeding-heart cliquey gossipy two-faced control-freaks if you didn't make it so easy ;-)
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03:45 pm
[Link] | I remember a path that wound by a long forgotten footbridge over the A14, through tangles of cows parsley and fronds of long wild grass. I remember freewheeling, giddy and laughing and frantically breaking as the road approached, watching rabbits scatter and cows stay calm and placid. I remember the illicit delight of taking the long way round just to watch the summer, and then curling up in Girton's grounds to soak up quantities of sun and mathematics that I no longer have the time for, wandering echoing corridors and pondering the age of obedient ears.
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11:21 am
[Link] | Wow, life is busy. I am flailing madly trying to cope with new job, house move, ALES play, getting ready for IVFDF, going to see my mum, insuring the car, planning Easter, and probably a whole handful of other things that I'm not flailing madly about but only because I've forgotten them.
Still, I can point at things I have done this week that I hadn't done last week, and that's good. Including organising a Whole New House![1] It is two miles nearer the station than the old house, which is 20 minutes more to sleep in every morning, and 20 minutes more to do *censured*[2] with my husband every evening. Win :-) We have signed the contract and given notice on the old house, so my paranoid brain is running out of stuff to predict will go wrong. But even if something does, there are other houses in the world. Still, this one seems Nice and things are going OK so far :-) *touch wood*
[1] Actually, my husband did most of this. But I played a large role, because organising a House takes a surprising amount of stress
[2] Yes, probably watching Buffy and playing Guitar Hero :-)
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09:35 am
[Link] |
Anonymous comments
Just a quick note on my policy on anonymous comments, after aquiring a few on the previous post.
I have anonymous comments enabled, with IP logging, mainly because I want people without LJs to be able to comment if they so feel the urge. However, I find anonymous comments, where the author doesn't sign "Fred Bloggs" or "ircnick" or similar at the bottom, make me slightly twitchy, and I would really appreciate it if people signed their comments. For the record "S", on a journal by a Sally and read by at least a Simon, a Steph, a Stark and three Sams is not a unique identifyer. Even though it is probably Stark.
I guess that anonymous commenting happens for a few reasons...
( reasons )
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01:06 pm
[Link] | Note to self, do not read the Sun, it will only make me angry.
( Cut for the Sun's opinions on the Death Penalty )
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10:47 am
[Link] | Poll #1144016
Open to: All, results viewable to: AllThe most famous obscenity trial of a book or film is But other ones worth considering (if, for example, I was doing a later tickybox poll) are...
[ETA yes, plays count too. I don't know why I forgot to put it in the poll. Any obscenity trial about Art, really]
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02:29 pm
[Link] | The other week I was given the most bizzare business card for Mr Kajali. It made me laugh, so I thought I'd blog about it. However everything has been blogged about already, and Mr Kajali is no exception
Still, I thought I'd reproduce the business card and have a poll
( Cut in case you have better things to do with your life than watch Sally gently mock african spiritual advisers )
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