At long last, I am able to return to my rightful place at the head of the Purple Sock Friday cult. After many long months of being unable to find any purple socks, not even for ready money, I struck gold in John Lewis in Milton Keynes yesterday! To make up for the terrible time when I was unable to make my observances, these socks are two colours ( Read more... )

Frog, verb. To unravel a piece of knitting. From rip (same meaning), via "rip it" and "ribbet".

How cool is that as an etymology?

(No, this isn't new knowledge for me, but I've just decided I have to frog my silly purple hat so I can reknit it smaller, and I'm reminded that I think the word is cool enough to share.)

How does one authorise credit card transactions in the US - is it signature or PIN? If it's PIN, and you don't know the relevant number, does that render the card useless, or is there a way around it?

And while I'm posting, happy birthday to the five million people on my flist who have birthdays today! (That's undyingking, kesstrel and marnameow, I think. And happy birthday killalla ( Read more... )

There's a phone call I need to make this morning. I've made about ten attempts at it now, of which about seven resulted in an engaged tone, and the other three resulted in the phone just ringing out. How is it possible to be engaged one moment and unanswered the next in an office where taking phone calls is part of the job? Grrrr.

Hanging behind my desk I have a rather lovely Emily the Strange calendar. It's there because it's pretty, and because I occasionally need to check things like what the date will be two weeks from Tuesday ( Read more... )

Microsoft Word's thesaurus (yeah, yeah, I know) thinks 'insight' means 'nearby'. Grrr.

Talking of things I did back in August... as well as trying to document the music my head plays at me, I bought a lovely pair of red boots. Without really thinking about the practicalities of footwear in a city where you can't avoid doing lots of walking, I took them to Venice, because they were new, and I'd hardly worn them. I was lucky. They were ( Read more... )

I have a hairdressing appointment this afternoon. It needs cutting anyway, and I'm probably going to get it dyed, too. The original intention was to go back to scarlet, but I'm surprised to find that I rather like my current approximately-natural dark brown, even though I've spent the last ten years avoiding it, and only returned to it because my ( Read more... )

I came to a rather surprising conclusion yesterday.

( Rambling which will eventually tell you what the conclusion is )

My uncle emigrated to Australia when my mother was about nineteen, and visited here for the first time only a few years ago. Somehow, separated by half a world, and several years apart, they each managed to produce and raise one of two identical girls ( Read more... )