I put some junk out for hard rubbish collection on the weekend.
Behold what it looked like when I stacked it all neatly, then the mangled carcass after the neighbourhood vultures had shopped from it.
Hooray for the biggest unofficial street recycling party in the world!
I went to see my Ma on the weekend. She pootled me about her small town telling me gosip and news, pointing out houses for sale. It’s a game we’ve played since I was a kid, finding houses we’d like to live in.
“I want that one! Not the main house, the little studio!” We’d passed a fancy-pants new house with a funny tiny square box to one side with huge banks of windows.
“Oh, that,” said Ma. “That’s a portable classroom. There’s a paddock full of them near Kyneton for a few thousand each.”
“Can we go look?”
It took a bit of highway-turnoff-wrangling but we found them. They were shut up behind barbed wire like neglected ungulates at Werribee Zoo. Some were smashed up, others were just a little tired.
It’s been a while since I devised an elaborate hare-brained scheme. I think I’ve just found the next one. Can’t you just imagine one of these little suckers nestled onto an acre or two? More or less my dream country shack. And look, totally doable.
Curmudgeon doesn’t agree. “They were freezing at school. Even in Queensland.”
Spoilsport.
We had a phenomenally successful garage sale this weekend. So many large, unnecessary objects were hauled out onto the street and flogged for cold hard cash. They got bargains, I got moolah. I was absolutely giddy when it was all over – partly exhaustion, but partly with relief and delight. I’ve been hoarding so much junk for so long. Now it’s gone. Praise be.
And the cash? The cash will be sunk into a shiny new bicycle. So every time I go for a ride, I’ll think about all the junk that paid for the pushy.
People throw out the most amazing things in hard rubbish.
I’m pretty sure this is Chippendale. The workmanship, the quality of the timber… it’s unmistakeable, really. And with a little bit of polish, the rich mahogany grain was as-new again, as dark and lustrous as the day it was felled in Honduras perhaps 200 years ago.
Befitting its proud heritage, I’m going to keep records in it. And pop my priceless Ming vase collection on top.
Camberwell Market was kind to me today. How lovely is this teapot? ($5, made by Diana, Nefertiti range). It replaces the promisingly sunshiney yellow but devastatingly drippy $2 tip shop teapot.
So then I spent an hour or two of this rainy afternoon crocheting it a cosy. We tested it out with the deluxe cups and saucers that Vetti gave the Curmudgeon and me a few years ago (which we’re usually too frightened to use because I love them so, and they are made of fine porcelain and we are clumsy oafs) and look, matchy matchy! Mustard, grey and teal!
Report: Teapot doesn’t drip. We didn’t break the cups. And I have mad custom-cosy skillz.
Livebird. Covering the big issues of the day. Now, who wants to come round for a cuppa?
This post will take a while to type. One-handed. The dog is curled up on my left hand. It is impossibly cute.
So, I have too much stuff. I’ve been piling up stuff with a vague “I’ll sell it on eBay” notion, but I never do, because listing things is only slightly sbove pulling the grotesque wad of scummy hair out of the shower drain on my list of Things To Do. It’s ever so tedious.
‘Twould be nice to just have it all vapourise and have the real estate occupied by hoarding returned to living. In the absence of an ACME disintegrating pistol (“brother, when it disintegrates, it really disintegrates”*) the next best thing is to give stuff to people who can use it.
So if you are an acquaintence of mine, be warned – you may have stuff thrust upon you. You are welcome to decline. But you are also very, very welcome to grab everything and run. It has already begun… I gave away an awesome but ill-fitting blue 70s leather jacket yesterday and it felt real nice. But completely bewildered the recipient. Anyone want to submit a shopping list?
*nice Scottish ducky-yellow mohair shawl from the Hoarding Pile to anyone who knows from whence this classic quote was plucked.
Spurning the regular Saturday morning grocery hunting-gathering ritual, we did way more fun stuff today.
First, breakfast at Gingerlee. Delicious and a cosy place to wait out the rain.
Next, we went and picked up Russell. This is Russell. He’s our new housemate. I didn’t know we needed a fish until I found a great cylindrical fish tank for $2 at the tip shop near Ma’s house…
Next, inspired by the getaway car from Malcolm, we converted a single piece of furniture from the op shop….
to two bedside tables…
That first picture is an action shot of the Curmudgeon beginning the dismantling. See, we had to saw it in half on the street outside the op shop to fit it in his car (what fool would design a car with TWO DOORS that preclude transport of junk? WHO??) There were some tense moments. We had to borrow a hammer from the op shop, and in passing I looked in their skip and found a Noritake bowl in the same design as my grandmother’s dinner set.
Such happy memories of breakfasts eaten out of these bowls while perched at their laminex bar. I don’t have much of Gran’s everyday stuff, since I was overseas when she died and most of it was unceremoniously dumped, so having this bowl brings me much quiet joy.
This project only took five years to do.
I bought this card game called AugeNaseMund from an indie bookshop in Munich in 2005. They were local artists and I loved it to bits. I didn’t buy many souvenirs on that overseas trip, but this one was a must-have. (Although now I see it’s on Amazon and you don’t need to go to Germany to buy one. But I did. So mine’s always going to be cooler.) I thought, “One day I’ll frame those.”
Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago when I was walking the dog at 7am and spotted a HUGE, can I say again, GIMONGOUS frame in an alley, cast out of someone’s abode. I can understand why. The frame was gold and the contents were excreble – print of big loud brighly-coloured tulips done in oil pastel. I would have thought it was really cool in about 1993. So I hauled it home, with a lot of difficulty, and with protestations by the dog on the way and from the Curmudgeon when I got it home.
I was sick of tripping over it so this afternoon I pulled it apart (anyone want the tulips? No? Didn’t think so), painted the frame red, glued down all the cards and framed them. It looks ACE. And will look ACER, when I take the next step, and hang it. Give it another six months to a year, I reckon.
Oh no!
Just a few days after releasing Cisco, the second male mantid, because I feared there would never be a special ladyfriend for him, we have not only Elvira:
… but another female has turned up in the comments! So now we have two spinsters instead of two bachelors! (Compare her voluptuous rear end with Manuel’s slender form). Elvira is a devastating carnivore who systematically demolishes blowflies. She’s awesome, even though she’s nowhere near full size.
Maybe her pheromones will attract some suitors… meanwhile, the search is on again, only this time for two (or more, depending on coital cannibalism) males! Sigh.
Look, I’m not intimidated by the soupy filth that came out of this rug I hauled in off the street when I washed it. But I’m a old hand at this hard-rubbish thing. For me, this is manageable. But some of you might not be prepared for this and find it a little … confrontational. Which is why I post this picture. A sort of community service announcement.To leave all the hard rubbish for ME, ALL OF IT FOR MEEEEE.
The rug came up a treat after a jolly good scrub, rinse and dry. Squid finds its nubbly texture just perfect for rolling around on with feet in the air, making wookie noises.
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November 2011:
Women of Letters
Edited by Michaela McGuire and Marieke Hardy
