Glorious day

Gosh, you can really feel the sap rising in Canberra at the moment. It's days like today when you never want to leave the place: blue sky, fluffy clouds scudding by in the warm air, blossoms on trees everywhere, bulbs breaking out wildly in gardens.

I had a lovely day today, helped by having a great sleep on one of our pillows that until now I'd overlooked. I'd bought it for Bumblebee, recommended by a mattress shop as being good for young growing things. He used it for a couple of years until I bought him a memory-foam pillow and he discarded this other one instantly. It has a sliver of rubbery stuff through the centre of it, and I've been using it to prop myself up when I read, but only last night tried it as a sleeping pillow. Oh! The rubbery bit allows your head to move easily without any effort from the neck muscles; it's like floating on water all night. I'm hooked. Mind you, I did have a vivid dream about travelling around Greece and Turkey with Pavlov's Cat and Zoe: eating, drinking and laughing through some very odd scenes. But the sleep itself was FABULOUS.

So the rest of the day was spent lolling in bed for half the morning and then hoiking up the roller doors and pottering around my studio in the sun getting small but important jobs done, occasionally just stopping in the sun to sit with a cat for a while. I love those days.

Yesterday was spent being nice to strangers while I worked in the Book Studio for the ANU Open Day. So today had to be my whole weekend, and it did very nicely as such.

My residency is swinging along; I wrote another report about it here, including a photo of myself as Professor Snape. To make myself even more authentic, I wore contact lenses for the day for the first time in ages, something that makes me squint and scowl a bit, so I had that Snapey look down pat. I took them out when I got home with a huge sigh of relief... sure, I can see boundlessly, and colours look great without dust and scratches on them, but I can't see close up comfortably, and my eyes just feel nakedly naked. Glasses just feel RIGHT.

I would like to put on record here that I am very angry with Officeworks Online. I have been struggling with my inkjet printer for weeks (sorry, Book Art Object peoples, this is the big hold-up story) and finally, after endless cleaning of printheads and stoopid wastings of paper and ink, I got online and purchased a new printer. I thought that, since it said that the printer in question was in stock and I could pick it up from my local branch, that it would be quicker and more line-jumpingly easy to order and pay for it that way.

But NOOOOOOOOOOOOO. I went in, and was informed (nicely and regretfully by my now-familiar nice man in the Braddon store) that despite their having a FULL SHELF of the sodding things, he was not allowed to give me one because the order had to be processed by gnomes and stamped by fairies and the printer had to be delivered to the store from a 'central' warehouse and the whole process would take 'at least' two working days. This being Friday, that means, EVEN THOUGH THEY HAD A BIG SHELF OF THE BUGGERS, Monday or more likely Tuesday before it would magically happen.

PREHISTORIC FRIGGING DINOSAURS. I am imagining the order being couriered by a unicorn ridden by puss-in-boots rather than instantly transmitted through the ether and hitting someone's computer within seconds.

I gave written them a very nasty letter and promised that I would whinge to anyone who would care, so this is that moment. I am CRANKY, and I will use my local people happily, but after this and the fact that I couldn't use their sodding upload file button a few weeks ago for their print service, I am abandoning any part of their online facilities. And so should you, unless you live in a regional area and can't get to a real redblooded sales person in a store. GAH.

{think of the clouds scudding today... breathe}

Bah, I think I'll go and resume my newfound relationship with this pillow. I wonder what dreams I'll have tonight?