Hopeful, holidays, super short

The old Safe Deposit Building on Queen Street

I'm still alive, in case you were wondering! It's been about 10 days since I had the vein abnormality in my head fixed. The procedure went well, although my recovery was a little rough and I'm still experiencing some pain from it. But! I don't think I've had a "normal" migraine since. It's early days, but I'm hopeful. 

I finished work for the year yesterday (although I popped in for an hour today to finish something). It hasn't really sunk in yet that I'm on holidays. No doubt it will when I board a flight up to Mum's tomorrow afternoon. I'll be there until next Friday. 

I had my haircut shorter today than it's ever been before (apart from the top, which is still relatively long). The back and sides were clipper cut all over and I can't stop patting it - with the grain and against.  It feels so nice. I love the way it looks too. (I haven't taken a photo of it.)

I probably won't blog while I'm away, but I will be posting photos to Instagram as Frisky_Librarian. 

Weird word, Winter Wipeout, summer breeze

Park Street, South Yarra. I love this place. 

(I think I've posted a pic before) 

I had some blood taken this afternoon and when I got home I mentioned to Luke that I'd recently learned a person whose job is to draw blood is called a phlebotomist. I'd seen someone on Facebook the other day who was a phlebotomist and I looked it up. 

Then when I was cooking dinner Luke called me into the loungeroom to tell me one of the contestants on Winter Wipeout was a phlebotomist. How freakish?!

Related: Winter Wipeout is back on! I thought it was on old series, but apparently it's new. Either way, I'll still watch - I can't get enough of seeing people getting whacked in the face or bouncing off big red balls. (Don't tell anyone I'm watching a silly game show instead of 7.30.)

It was a hot day today, but there's now a lovely cool breeze blowing in the window opposite where I'm sitting on the couch. 

Winner, winner, chicken dinner

Tiny yoyo biscuit (part of dessert at my work party) 

I won a door prize at my work Christmas party on Friday. Of all the 100+ people there, my name came out first! I scored a $150 voucher for one of George Calombaris' restaurants. I don't watch Masterchef, but I like Greek food. Food in general, really. Especially free food.  

I have only six or seven working days left in 2016! It's hard to believe it will be over so soon. It would be eight days, but I'm going into hospital on Wednesday to have my abnormal brain veiny thing treated and I'll be off work Thursday as well to recover (I might go in Friday if I'm able). Hopefully I will only be in hospital one night, for obvious reasons, but also because the food is abominable. Not just bad. Abominable. On the upside, more reading time for me! Oh, and possibly fewer migraines. 

We had cheese kranskies for dinner. SO cheesy. Yum.  

Rainbow, bark in the park

I talking to my boss in his office this afternoon and had to interrupt myself to point out the rainbow.  The end of it near the Eureka Tower was so vibrant. 

This photo doesn't do it justice

It was still there about 20 minutes later when I was ready to go home. I was on my way out via the kitchen because I wanted to take a photo of the rainbow out the other side of the building and, as I approached, a partner said to me, "Have you seen the rainbow?" which made me smile because some grown ups with serious jobs are too restrained to appreciate rainbows. (I liked him before he said that though.)

The kitchen window view (with bonus extra rainbow)

I managed to avoid the rain when I was out and about this morning (I had an appointment with the doctor who will treat the abnormal veiny thing in my scone  - next Wednesday!), but when I got off the tram on my way home it started to pelt down. I hid behind a tree in the park. It had interesting bark. 

I got to see the images of my skull/brain from my recent angiogram at my appointment today. It was fascinating, a little bit scary but also funny because in one shot from above my eyeballs looked like a pair of very prominent golf balls. I wanted to take a photo of it (there's an odd selfie) but restrained myself. 

Second win, second wind, new leaf

Stopped by Hosier Lane on the way home 

I solved the Target puzzle again! Twice in a week. I've been making myself persevere beyond the "very good" word count and this time I reached the word limit without really noticing (the word was "sentenced"). Still no confetti shower. 

One of my pot plants got a bit droopy because I forgot to water it. Until it wilted, there was a long thin flower thing pointing towards the ceiling, but lack of water had it pointing to the floor. It was still drooping long after I watered it and I thought it was doomed, but when I got up this morning it was pointing up again! Yay! I saved it!

One of our other indoor plants  - a palm of some description - has sprouted its first new leaf since we bought it a few months ago.  I was worried it was failing to thrive. 

Six months down, foreign words, 10 days to go

In my street

I reached the six-month mark of my shopping ban last week, but I didn't realise it until yesterday. I guess that's a sign that not shopping for shoes and clothes is my new normal (and also a further sign that this year has whizzed by at warp speed). I think I mentioned previously that I've decided to extend my shopping ban for a year, so I'm just past the half-way point now.

I like this list of German words we need in English. I've heard (and blogged about) some before (backpfeifengesicht, zugzwang, drachenfutter, kummerspeck), but treppenwitz  - literally 'staircase joke', meaning a witty comeback thought of too late - caught my eye because I know of the French word for this - esprit d'escalier (staircase wit). A lecturer at uni used this expression, and for some reason it has stuck with me all these years. (It's more than 20 years since I finished uni. HOW CAN THAT BE?!)

Buzzfeed apparently has a thing for mining the gems of other languages. It has published a collection of Japanese,  Scottish, Italian and Nordic words (and probably others) it thinks English should steal. I love these lists. 

I also like this list of made up (but etymologically meaningful) words from the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, which describe emotions that English doesn't already have words for. I particularly relate to 'enouement', the bittersweetness of arriving in the future, seeing how things turn out, but not being able to tell your past self. Sometimes I feel this way when I look back on my childhood, when my parents were still together and my dad was still alive. 

I have 10 working days until I'm on holidays. 

COMPLETE!

 

I did it! I found every single word for the first time ever on the Target puzzle I have on my phone (as opposed to the similar, but different, one I play on the computer, which I've only solved once). Usually I give up - or get bored - after I reach 'very good', except for one time when I got every word bar one (which was "oohs"), but this time I kept going and got them all! I was hoping for a small confetti shower, but all that happened was "COMPLETE!" popped up and then disappeared.  

Round and round the garden

I wandered across the road to the Botanic Gardens this afternoon for vitamin D and photo taking. It's my first visit in months, partly because of our non-existent spring, but the sunshine today was splendid (my attention to re-applying sunscreen isn't so splendid...)

I saw a paddling* of teeny tiny ducklings, plenty of busy bees, a couple of caterpillars and some butterflies and moths. Also lots and lots of flowers. 

Strange bud 

One of only two poppies left in the herb garden 

Bananas in the glasshouse 

Tiny pond in the centre of a bromeliad

Purple

Munch, munch, munch  

The living and the dead

Succulent

Coming in to land

Bzzzzzz....

....bzzzzzz

Spent

*That's one of the collective nouns for ducks on water.

No more NaBloPoMo

Well, my NaBloPoMo efforts didn't even end with a whimper, let alone a bang. I only published 19 posts, but I'm too too bothered. 

Today is the first day of summer and, as if on cue, the cicadas have just started singing (or whatever you call that noise they make).  It looks as if we've finally - thankfully - left the winter weather behind. Spring? What spring?! I saw on the weather report last night that it was Victoria's coldest spring for years (I forget how many. Eight maybe?).

I'm so glad it's my weekend now. I've been busier this week than I have for a month or so and I'm clearly not used to hard work because I'm very weary. I'm very much looking forward to putting my head to pillow and keeping it there until well into tomorrow morning.  

I had to do some maths today. It's end of month billing and most calculations are done automatically by the software, but I needed to use my brains for one particular bill because the tax-inclusive total had to add up to the same amount of money we had in trust. I worked out the pre-tax amount on my calculator then typed the figure into the computer and BAM! It all added up perfectly! Go, me!