A Mysterious Parcel

Lunch time in The Staff Room sometimes reminds me of the film 'Mean Girls'. Or maybe Lunchtime when I Really Was at School, like about forty years ago.  

It's a Minefield. 

Will I sit at my desk & eat 'alone' & risk being seen as Unfriendly?

 Will I sit at Trixie Drew's desk & eat lunch with her & then risk scattering crumbs everywhere & making others Feel Excluded?

Or will I go sit in the Favoured Table in the Larger Staff Room with an assortment of People & risk all sorts of things that I won't go into now.

You can see how Nerve-wracking it all is.

On Thursday, I magnanimously decided to eat my lunch with everyone at The Favoured Table. But before I sat down, I noticed a small parcel pertly sitting up inside my pigeon hole. 

I raced over & grabbed it, heart racing.

I rarely get anything out of the ordinary placed in my pigeon hole. Pay slips, reminders about School events, invitations to attend Yawningly Boring Study Days, duty rosters, phone messages from disgruntled parents. Perhaps an occasional Rogue Chocolate given by a well meaning, but misguided colleague.

But A  Mysterious Lumpy Parcel! It obviously had things in it apart from paper! And there was was No Name on it!

I raced back to my place at The Favoured Table & began tearing open the envelope. Everyone was transfixed. Who could it be from?

Could it be a Belated Gift from that Special Year 12 Student from The Class of 2008 who I spent the whole year Selflessly Helping & who forgot to thank me when she finally walked out the door?

 That's the whole problem with being Selfless when you're really  Selfish At Heart. It Never Really Works. I guess I'm just Selflessly Selfish.

Back to The Parcel.

It contained a beautifully colour co-ordinated & presented Birthday Gift of many gorgeous earrings from Peru. Who would send me this? Someone who obviously knows my taste, whatever that is.

I opened the lovely handmade card. It was to 'Della'. 

OMG! A gift from the OtherWorld.

Lisa, a fellow Middleagedteacher, who I've never met, has been reading 'Della' for some time. She also teaches English at a girls private school in Sydney. And she loves shopping & bargains.

Trixie immediately exclaimed, 'How wonderful'. So did The Duchess. 

And that's Exactly how I felt.

But I could see that others were slightly disappointed that they didn't get a gift put in their pigeon hole. Serves them right.

I'm still trying to work how how Lisa tracked me down. I'm intrigued! And thrilled!

Thank you Lisa! You've made my week.

It's Like Running an Empire With No Subjects

With bucket loads of old crap rotting in ziplock bags & old biscuit tins, I felt it was time to start making some necklaces again. I can't stand those well-meaning but whiny blogs where people talk about creative projects they're desperate to finish if only they had the time. But in my particular case, it's true. It's like I'm running an Empire with no subjects. With all my frantic thrifting to find more outfits to feature in even more outfit snaps to upload to flickr's wardrobe_remix,as well as documenting the rest of my life to use as fodder for this blog, I've hardly got time to go to work & do all the things that I'm actually paid to do.
But this past weekend between thrifting & snapping, I managed to start necklace production.Here's a sample in their unfinished state. It's great fun to make the centrepiece - it's like making a sculpture, but then deciding what beads to string around it is actually the hard part. So, I'll have to finish them this week, & publish the results by the weekend. What a challenge! If only I was like the overblown artist, Jeff Koons who has a whole army of worker bees toiling away in his Factory Atelier.

The Duchess of Windsor's Wild Animals.

In my view, there are two types of people: people who are fans & people who are not fans. I fall into the first catagory. When I admire something, I automatically become a fan. My first outward demonstration of fanhood was in 1964 when, aged 11, I covered my bedroom walls with hundreds of pictures of The Beatles, mainly John, who I imagined marrying some day. Thank God I didn't because now I'd be a widow.
I have always been a fan of The Duchess of Windsor (top photo). The Duchess was enormously stylish & Cartier made all these wonderful wild animal brooches for her, the most famous being The Panther brooch (next photo). She famously said, "You can never be too rich or too thin". Unfortunately, I am neither, so am reduced to buying v. cheap copies of her wild animals at junk shops & markets. I've got a small collection now - an elephant brooch & two panthers that I wear mainly in winter on coat lapels. I'm sure the Duchess would approve. I've photographed them on top of pages from vintage World War 2 British Vogue Magazines that Mr. Middleaged bought in an expensive shop in London recently.

Love Lollies

It's been a challenging Wardrobe Week. I've spent most of it outside of the comfort zone of the classroom at the Annual Swimming Carnival, at a depressing suburban 'Aquatic Centre' & then three days at a senior 'Retreat' at a pastoral location outside Sydney surrounded by enormous Alpacas (I think that's what they are: huge wooly animals that look like a cross between a camel & a horse) & a large quantity of high spirited 17 year-old girls. It was  full on: supervising a dizzying array of spiritual/personal growth activities interspersed with huge carb meals all to an Enja/John Denver/Cat Stevens soundtrack.

It was one of those Wardrobe Moments when I really have to dress for practicality & warmth. Sydney has been experiencing some unseasonally cold/rainy weather not seen in my lifetime which I'm sure is related to some horrendously depressing Global Warming Issue. This explains my rather bag ladyesque leg/foot attire. My feet were so cold, I couldn't feel them. So I loaded up with animal print leggings, thick black men's sox (stolen from B.) & polka dot flats newly bought from 'Target'.

But I had to wear some jewels. I thought my diamante 'LOVE' necklace suited the theme of the retreat & the multi-coloured beads added some colour. I can't go anywhere these days without a whole armload of little armbands mainly featuring religious icons. Everyone else seems to be wearing them too. But I don't care. I'll wear what I like!