Melodramatic Monday

Well, a change is as good as a rest, right ? My MIL often fans the tiny melodramatic spark in me, and this time you, Dear Reader, must pay the price.

The children have been away for a week staying with my MIL, at Mini Diva's request. Plans and arrangements were made, which - not for the first time - have crashed and burned because my MIL changes things at the last moment without much apparent thought for the effect on other people, who may have made their own subsequent plans and arrangements based on what was originally agreed, for example, the MOT for the car, a long-awaited, anticipated and promised day trip, meals and days out for my MIL who was expected to return the children and visit for a few days. At least this time the spanner in the works does not upset the children. This disruptive behavior is compounded by my DH bending over backwards to accommodate her.

I'm not even going to get into the (admittedly petty) fact that each. and. every. single. one. of DH's siblings and their significant others received a hand-knitted scarf from me last year as birthday gifts. That's 9 scarves; made from rather expensive yarn, too. One person didn't even bother to say thank you. My own birthday gifts this year from his family ? One. A lovely gift, from the same person who gave me a thoughtful gift last year.Yes, and I know we don't give just to receive, but this is just an extra few straws on this camel's back. I might feel a bit ashamed later, but right now I'm boiling angry. Obviously I won't be wasting my time and money this way again.

Oddly enough, how this makes me feel vicious and stabbity was not what I meant to write about. But I feel better for letting even a bit of it out, so it can stay. After all, it's not like any of my family or in-laws read this blog.

And then, the coup de grâce was the discovery made while mucking out Mini Diva's sty; no, no, no - nothing interesting and talk-show-worthy like drugs or birth control; after all, she isn't quite 9 years old yet. But if I hadn't totally lost my sense of humor just now, I'd be laughing:

Leaving on a Jet Plane

After many hours burning the midnight oil, trawling Ravelry and her blog, red-eyed, bleary and overcaffeinated ..... actually, Not. My swapee seemed easy to find gifts for. I say 'seemed' because I don't know yet if I got them right. I thoroughly enjoyed putting it together, even so.

This was my box:

It needed to go to my swapee in the USA. Declining to pay the iniquitous postal charges of the Royal Mail (£35 ! that's $55), Google was mi amigo, and therefore my box started the 1st leg of its journey like this:

It was received on Monday 13th ....and one of the nice things about losing one's memory is that whatever is in her box will be almost as big a surprise to me.


Edited to add: as of midnight Weds. 15th Feb. my package is still not being blogged about, although all the packages have been opened in one go,  and bunged back into the box, apparently to be blogged about on an ad hoc basis. There's more I could say, but I deleted it.

For My Valentine

I saw your doubletake there, but it's OK, don't run away, you are on the right blog, even though you know I don't do cutesy - this did make me giggle, particularly when I put it together with the following song for The One I Love:

Surrealism ? I haz it.

The Mills of God

Well, now. Having railed a few times here, here, and here about the unethical and money-grubbing behavior of the head of Tarot Professionals, a while back I wrote a post disengaging myself from this Katz who seems bent on making the whole tarot world his personal litter tray; his latest attempt is to trademark ''World Tarot Week''.

Recently, I find that the scales have fallen from the eyes of quite a few others in the tarot community, and I am no longer a lone voice crying in the wilderness:

Lisa at Tarotize

Michael at Tarot by Michael

Paul Nagy also seems to have withdrawn his support, along with a few other previous fans who I see in the list of contributors to that thread.

my old sparring partner, Major Tom, that stalwart of indie tarot, has been kicked out without a reason being given, as has

Robin Dalton; I wonder if she received a refund ?

Of course, there still remain those established tarotists who, for whatever motives (I hesitate to suggest they benefit financially) continue to laud Katz and his spin, not to say obfuscation; usually they are American (bless them, are they born gullible ?) - Den Elder, Mary Greer, Enrique Enriquez - or novices to tarot, noobs in the tarot community who seem desperate to give this Magician money in their quest for knowledge, in spite of the somewhat dubious practices of his organization - handing out awards to fakes, listing people as honorary members without their knowledge, trademarking ''World Tarot Week''.

I merely sit and watch peacefully as the revelations gain strength and impetus. Myself ? I'd prefer to keep my distance from Nemesis 

  
                    allegorical painting of Nemesis by Georghe Tattanescu

Pray, Love, Remember

'' There's rosemary for remembrance; pray, love, remember.

And there's pansies; that's for thoughts.''

                            Hamlet, IV.5.

Today my mother would have been 75 years old. The similarities between our personalities were far less obvious than the differences, but just as strong. Taken at my cousin Linda's wedding ... umm ... about 22 years ago, the photo below quite clearly shows the difference; I believe I may have mentioned before the challenge to me that is 'subtlety'.

  

One of my favorite photos of her is this one:

  

She is still very much missed.

If At First You Don't Succeed .....

... try, try again. And once or twice more. Really, until you run out of patience or you get hungry, cold and wet and go home.

Yesterday we woke up to a generous covering of snow; parental chores completed, after lunch a visit to one of the nearby parks was indicated. Sebastian loves snow, so we took him as well, and I took my camera, a Xmas gift from DH.

So here are some fantastic photos of Sebastian gambolling in the white stuff:

 

 Aha ! Gotcha !

Another One

This lovely card from the Victorian Flower Oracle is what I wish for today. Kinda depends on the kids behaving, though, so I amn't holding my breath if the pre-breakfast sparring was a sample of the day ahead ....

My godmother was doing some tidying and came across this photo of my mother holding me, somewhere between newborn and 6 weeks old: it was a lovely birthday gift to send to me, and I was surprised to be so emotional about it.


But then again, knowing that something is hormonally caused doesn't mean that one is in any way able to either mitigate it or control it. Without drugs or alcohol, anyway.