Stranger Than Fiction

A Tuesday afternoon trip to a Taxidermist.

Please pass the laminating machine…

When I was about twelve I went through a stage of laminating anything that felt important or precious to me.  Birthday cards, old family photos, pictures of River Phoenix  torn out of the You magazine.  My little tween brain was obsessed with preserving this odd assortment of things that seemed like they would always matter and need to be waterproof.

When the Ever Lovely Lindsay Jane sent me this simple little mantra the other day, I had the sudden urge to go on a laminating rampage.  To print this out as big as a door and laminate the heck out of it.  Ameezing, Ever Lovely Lindsay-Jane.

Sunday Night Blues

I have the Sunday Night Blues.  The kind of blues that sting particularly harshly after an ameezing weekend of friends and dog walking and Skype date breakfasts and deelicious market food and movies and vintage Levi denim shirt bargain finds.  The kind of Sunday night blues that make me glad I don’t own a tv to hear the Carte Blanche theme tune sound tracking the end of the weekend.

Despite the blues, here are some things from the interweb that have got me smiling like its Saturday morning instead of Sunday night 🙂

Find the first three images here and the fourth image here.

Here and There

Tuesday:

Schools Out

Wednesday:

Freeway

Thursday:

Mr Ameezing

Friday:

Little Laurens Finally Home

Nine Friends. The Bush. Part Two.

Okay, I confess.  Part Two is just an excuse to post this picture.  Making out in the bush is the best.  Missed Part One? (With nine actual friends and the actual bush) Check it out here.

Four Weddings and A Power Failure

Ms Love dresses like a Victorian chamber maid.  She speaks in a soft, girlish voice and says, ‘hhmm, yes’ alot.  She is somewhere between 40 and 70 years old, it really is impossible to tell.  She wears her hair up in Victorian kind of ‘onion’ bun and doesn’t wear a stitch of make up.  And when she comes to open the gate for us she is very apologetic about the fact that the power is out.

Ms Love runs a museum from her house.  Or rather, her house is a museum, a perfect replica of Victorian times.  Right down to the whale boned corsets hanging in the closet and the calling cards at the door.  Did I mention she lives in Auckland Park? The Auckland Park next to Melville, Joburg.  Her front door not more than a kilometre from Campus Square.  This absolute treasure of a time capsule, right there, a suburb or two away.

We arrive on Saturday morning to see her exhibition of wedding dresses from the last 150 years.  Even though there is no power, she walks carrying a candle (it is an eerily fantastic sight, a Victorian chamber maid, carrying a candle through a darkened hallway lined by century old wallpaper) and the house it freeeezing cold (those Victorians weren’t as much about heat as they were about velvet curtains and well stocked libraries), the exhibition is an incredible collection of dresses and wedding paraphernalia.  Made only better by Ms Love’s great knowledge of anything Victorian.  “My mother’s honeymoon underwear was made out of parachute material.  It was around the time of the war and they had no other fabrics so many wedding dresses and other garments were made of soldier’s parachutes”, she tells us.

The experience is absolutely spell binding, fascinating and creepy in a really wonderful kind of way.  I cannot recommend her tours enough.  The Wedding Dress Exhibition runs until 31 July 2011.  Regular tours of the house are by appointment.  Lindfield House Museum – 72 Richmond Avenue, Auckland Park  (011) 726 2932.

Ooh, and afterwards she serves a full tea with jam and cream scones on her verandah in the sunshine.  Ameezing.

 

Like…

Like astronauts miss gravity

Like a fattie on diet misses Smarties

Like Oprah would miss Gail

Like Aero would miss bubbles

Like we all miss the hazy days of the World Cup

Like Kate Moss misses Topshop

Like a reformed nun misses kissing

Like Kylie misses Donovan

Like Mark Zuckerberg misses the twins

Like your beetle misses you

Like Posh misses carbs

Like the Karoo misses hail

Like Harry misses Hermione

Like a stamp collection misses tongues

Like. A lot.

Before Sunrise

One of the very few benefits of having a 4:30am call time on the roof of a 22 storey building in town when its -2 degrees outside, is seeing the city before sunrise.  There is something eerily beautiful about Joburg just before the day begins, the calm before the storm that is another day here.  After seeing this view and watching the sunrise creep across these buildings I think Joburg is definately a morning person.  High Five, you tricky little city, you.

Nine friends. The Bush. Part One.

From the top: Cousin Robyn, Ameezing Ty, Little Lauren, Ameezing Joel, Justin, Kieronie, Mr Ameezing, Me and Cousin ‘Merlin’s Beard’ Dillon.

Thanks to my eight fellow bundu bashers who graciously and (mostly) fearlessly crossed possible snake infested veld to have their picture taken.  Ameezing.

The Post in Which I Propose to Tina Fey

Dear Tina,

May I call you Tina? Little T? Just T?

Hello Tina, how the heck are you?

I have just finished reading your book and found it really funny, simple, deliciously honest but most of all, darn enjoyable. Sometimes it seemed a little like you didn’t know what you were doing, but that only made it more entertaining and real.  I like how you are so casual in your writing.  It felt as if we had had a long coffee session together.  One where you spoke a lot and I laughed a lot. And blushed a little at the ginormous girl crush I have on you.

Which leads me to my next point, let’s get married.  Please lets.  We’ll be the brunette Ellen and Portia.  We can wear our matching mouthguards at night and tell embarrassing stories about when we were chubby teenagers and thought boys, all at once, weird and incredible.

Hear me out, Alec (Baldwin) could officiate the ceremony, Amy (Poehler) could be your bridesmaid and Steve (Carell) could be the Master of Ceremony.  Ameezing, no?

So give it a think.  In the meantime, please carry on doing what you are doing, making us nerdy, brunette girls everywhere proud to be nerdy, brunette girls everywhere.

Thanks for the book. Please write another one soon.

I love you.  Very much, Tina.

Camilla

PS. Above is a picture of your book on my coffee table.  See, we go together like doughnuts and pimple cream.

[My letter to Mindy Kaling]