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Thursday, December 21, 2006

Faa laa laa laa faaarrrkkkkkk

I know it's only Thursday, but it's the end of a very long, busy week for me, and tomorrow I start a holiday which I hope will be full of fun and rest. As I type the house is half destroyed and half packed; small backpacks everywhere filled with life's little essentials (my booklight, his gameboy, books, sunscreen etc); large backpacks stuffed with clothes for hot weather and one or two things for a cool evening; boxes of sheets and towels (note to self: DO NOT FORGET TOWEL); CDs carefully selected for long journeys (we're going to listen to the Harry Potter 6 audiobook until I get the urge to write hate mail to Stephen Fry); and two nervous cats are pacing the floors, knowing that we are doing something but not sure if we're taking them or not.

We're not. We're off to Queensland, to stay with a dear friend for Christmas and then entering the wonderland that is the Woodford Folk Festival. A week later we'll emerge, dusty and tired, and spend a bit of time around Brisbane and the Gold Coast. We promised Bumblebee a day at Warner Bros Movie World, and not just a day, but a day where Best Beloved and I are not allowed to whinge about line lengths and general tackiness. This is his reward for pulling himself up by the bootstraps at school.

We have a lovely friend who used to share a house with me years ago, and she works long and thankless hours as a nurse and lives with her mother to save money, and every half a year or so she ups and goes somewhere exotic. She's a fantastic housesitter; the cats adore her, and we don't have to clean the house too much for her, because she's used to my messy ways and still likes me. Gold, absolute gold. She'll be arriving tomorrow for three weeks of lots of public holiday shifts to work, but inbetween a house with no mother and as many DVDs as she can watch beside the rotating fan, covered in cats. Her idea of bliss. The only downside is that she'll have to live through the noise of Summernats, but she doesn't seem to mind that.

So, just for future reference, so that I can see how mad I was when I look back at this post in years to come (I haven't had time to jot things down in my diary), here's a list of what I achieved this week:

1. I repainted our car.
The original design was by byrd, and as much as we all loved it, I needed a pick-me-up. I couldn't move house or redecorate (although I did find a comfy secondhand couch the other day which has transformed our living area), and I've done the haircut thingy, so the next best thing was a car makeover.

car before
This is what it looked like before I started spraying. I bought ten cans of good graffiti paint from an excellent new shop called Writer's Block in Curtin (get thee hence for all ye HipHop supplies, dudes) and at first decided to follow byrd's shapes but in a new colour scheme.

However, it all got a bit fun, and I started getting really seduced by the colour combinations... and this is what I ended up with:

car after

Hmm... a LOT more crazy. Sorry, byrd, I lost the plot. But I'm very happy with it, and I can see why people just keep spraying. It's pretty addictive.

I did keep a byrd souvenir:

car back

I kept the birdie on the right hand side, which is one of my favorite byrd images. I've been getting a lot of good feedback from people about the car; it's going to be fun to drive it up to Qld and back... if you see us, come and say hello.

2. I made a killer costume very quickly
Bumblebee had a class play they were performing for the end of year (they've been studying drama this term), and costumes were encouraged. He was playing 'Daddy Spider' in a play about Little Miss Muffet. On the morning of the play I whipped this up:

spider daddy

It's so annoying when all the photos of him smiling were fuzzy, and the one where he loks glum is sharp. He loved this costume, really. He wore his batman suit with a black t-shirt over the top, and then I filled two pair of stockings with rolled-up tissue paper and tied latex gloves stuffed with plastic bags onto the ends, and tied the end of each to each other and to his arms, so they waved around when he moved his arms. Gloves on his hands and feet made it all look pretty hoopy. So simple, and so effective! Made up for months of no effort on my part.

3. I did a shitload of work
All my design clients needed something done by Christmas, so I've been glued to my computer working on a catalogue for the art school, a scholarly journal, and a dictionary of Italian cinema. All finally finished at 6.30pm this evening.

Faaaark goes the crow. I've had enough. I'm on the road tomorrow with the wind in my hair. I'll continue to blog periodically, including my yearly commmentary on what's happening at Woodford (lots, according to my programme. Hooray!).

In the meantime, I wish you all a very happy and safe Christmas. I hope you get to do what you like best. And thank you all for being such good comrades within blogosphere. I hope 2007 continues our virtual adventures together.

Hooroo!

15 comments:

cristy said...

Have a fantastic time!

I haven't been to Woodford since 1994 and would really love to get back there one day.

I am already hassling Paul for us to go next year...

Mummy/Crit said...

wow! You rock! All those projects deserve independant congratulations, but of course I'm about to rush out the door to work - so have a lovely time in QLD. I'm jealous of your Woofo exploits, but I guess I'll get there again one day.

Anonymous said...

omg your car looks amazing, and so does Bumblebee! Have a great trip!

Mousicles said...

Brilliant paint job of the car! I'm impressed and inspired. Maybe one day I'll give that a go on my car...

Anonymous said...

This freakin' ROCKS. Will you be MY mom?

Alex said...

I envy you. I'm leaving Queensland and spending the holidays in Canberra. I love Canberra, but summer sucks.

My mom used to make me cool outfits when I was a little'n too. I was the envy of all the other kids whose mums weren't as cool as mine.

Mindy said...

Great work Ducky. Hope you have a fabulous Xmas and the lines are mysteriously short at Movie World.

Anonymous said...

I didn't even realise there was special graffiti spray paint.

Such a productive week. My week has been work christmas function after work christmas function.

Melly` said...

Oh the car and Bumblebee's outfit are both WONDERFUL! Did he show off from out the window of the car to impress other motorists and pedestrians? Now that would be wonderful to drive past.

I bet you made heaps of peoples day with that.

Anonymous said...

Love the car, love the spider. Ask Bumblebee if i can borrow it one day. Enjoy Woodford. Enjoy your very well deserved break honey.

Val said...

The car is unbelievable! Well done, but hope you don't cause any crashes, what with the double takes people will do, passing you on the roads.

And don't feel too bad about the unsmiling spider - a smiling spider would be rather sinister!

Have a good break and enjoy the festival.

Meredith Jones said...

You're a wonder woman, but all those latex gloves worry me. Inspired to paint my car now - what does it cost?

Ampersand Duck said...

Thanks Doods and Doodettes!
I'm sitting at my friend's house in Qld, and will post about it in a minute -- but wanted to say to Meredith that the paint cost about $120 for ten cans (they gave me a deal for a bulk purchase) and I ended up with nearly a full can and lots of little bits of leftovers by the time I made myself stop. I could have kept going for hours, but started to lose daylight and I was as red as a prawn. A small price to pay for a change of scenery. I figured I could either move house or get divorced or paint the car. Option 3 was the least destructive :)

worldpeace and a speedboat said...

hey Ducky, I hope you had a great Xmas!

the car rawks so HARD I'm speechless - and I'm so glad you keep that little bird, it's the finishing touch.

Bumblebee doesn't look gloomy, you can see a little pleased look in his eyes and the corners of his mouth. he looks a bit chuffed in that self-conscious way children do, to me :)

enjoy your break. you deserve all the rest and pleasure available to you! if there were a few oiled fan-waving Nubians* I could throw your way they'd already be in the post.


* but not Anglo-Nubians. although I must say they rock too. for different reasons.

genevieve said...

If I didn't want to stop driving forever, I would get you to paint my car IMMEDIATELY. That is incredible. I wish you were my mother too.

Happy times at Woodford for all of you, have a lovely holiday Ms Quacker.