What does a Rhino have in common with me?

And if you guessed we can both be cows.......I don't really care if you have a good point or not, turn around and keep walking.

My niece recently went on a school trip to South Africa and she made some very cute videos of the local wildlife.

Here is one of her videos of a Rhino cow and a calf.


 
Rhinos are not only cute and have thick hides, but they also have bad hair, poor eye sight, a great sense of smell and excellent hearing.

And they also eat for a large part of the day.

I read that and watched the video, and it all seemed a little bit too familiar for my own liking.

Particularly right now, after my own recent excursion into the wilds of South Yarra (Melbourne).

I blame my daughter entirely.  Oh yes siree.

She told me she had ordered six 'special' Christmas decorations from a certain design store which she had to pick up on Christmas Eve.

Design store.....Christmas decorations....

I couldn't work out why she had to wait to pick them up, so I thought I would check out the store myself given I was in the neighbourhood.

Talk about a jungle. I had to fight my way to get out of there.

I finally managed to walk out with a waddle that any self respecting Rhino would be extremely proud of.

The store is Burch & Purchese Sweet Studio.

My kind of grazing land.

I finally found the decorations she ordered. Highly coloured baubles.

Highly coloured EDIBLE Christmas baubles to be exact.

Imagine.

They are made from white Belgian chocolate filled with chocolate coated pop rocks (??) and raspberry marshmallows.

Instant Sugar Coma anyone?

This store is like a modern day Willy Wonka Factory.

The open Kitchen looks like part Science Labatory. Amazing works of sweet art (click on picture to enlarge it if you dare)..

You might be surprised to know that I took a risk and tasted quite a few different products. I really had no choice. It would have been incredibly rude to decline the offers of samples would it not?

Now, the only discouraging part about my trip to Sweet Studio is that I now want to totally change my Christmas menu plans.

At this stage, I am thinking of making it much simpler and having - Chocolate, Chocolate and more Chocolate. I mean, you can't really go wrong, can you?

 

And that leaves me with another dilemma - my holiday wardrobe. I have had to entirely rethink that as well.

 

At this stage, I'm thinking Kaftans, Kaftans and more Kaftans. Colourful ones, naturally.

 

 

So what is your favourite food over the holidays? Family favourite? Something new?

 

And no, the store's clever owners are not paying me in money or chocolate to talk about them. Their amazing works of art speak for themselves. They also have an online store so that you can make a total rhino of yourself in private.

 

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The 12 Days of Giveaway ends at Midnight tomorrow night, Australian Eastern Standard time. Please enter if you haven't already. It's not like I'm going to make the winners read all my blog posts for the next five years or anything.... Good Luck everyone. Winners announced late on 1 December 2012.  I will knock at your door with the good news (settle down, I mean via email - you don't need to tidy up the house on my account).

Bridge over troubled waters

Normal transmission resumes.........

I was standing on a balcony of an inner city apartment block in Melbourne yesterday taking some pictures. As you do.

I have looked out on this view many times before but something caught my eye that I've never noticed before....

It wasn't the bridge

 

 

or the traffic

 

but something under the bridge

Mattress, lounge, tables, clothes hanger, makeshift kitchen - someone's home - river view, prime position mmmm

Sometimes we look and look and can't see what's right in front of us.

I'm not sure what to think. Is it a choice? The occupants seem to be resourceful and have made a home for themselves. However, I guess they must think this is safer than living on the streets. It surely is pretty private. I just hope they're not restless sleepers - it wouldn't take much to roll off that mattress and over the edge to the water below.  And that might be an incredibly dumb way to go. 

 

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And speaking of dumb ways to go - you so have to watch this....

 



This is not some cute new song but a public service announcement from Victoria's Metro Rail in reponse to the increase in needless deaths on railway tracks and crossings.

It's becoming a You Tube hit.

Will this cute video get through to people?

I can tell you one thing, I haven't stopped humming the song since I played this. Dumb ways to die indeed.

Rolling, rolling, rolling

I  have so much to tell you but it's so very rude to speak with your mouth full.

Heavenly or what?

There's colour in winter

Oh Melbourne, your winter days start off so cold and grey.

but as the day goes on, you start to thaw out.



One of Melbourne's many gorgeous old Arcades. And it's Sale time.
 It's always sale time.

The pavement outside the arcade

I have to pass this every day - its cruel I tell you

Lunch

Melbourne has the best buskers. What a character this busker is
He never disappoints.

I saw these same guys busking in Stuttgart, Germany
a few years ago. Small world.

Hot pink and orange my favourite colour combination

Legomen, who can resist?

Even the post office dresses up here

Oh what courage - I love the hair.
It's a work of art.

So by the end of the day, you really do look like a different city.

.
I really love you Melbourne.

Vibrant. Colourful. Easy on the eye.

And so damn delicious

that I can just about forgive you for this freezing weather.....

or at least .......until early tomorrow morning, anyway.

Dear Melbourne Dentists

Wherefore art thou?

Well the normal ones anyway.

The fact my last blog post was about chocolate and this one is about dentists is purely co-incidental and not in any way connected.

Although, if I'm to be perfectly honest, the frustrations felt over one might be driving me to do the other..... in some kind of dentist enraged excess.

As you know when you move cities you have to find new hairdressers, shoe shops, chocolate shops, gyms, doctors and dentists pretty much in that order. Yes, that order.

I am still working on the last one. Finding a good dentist.

It shouldn't be hard in a city of 4 million. Right?

Well the fact is, there is something seriously wrong with dentists these days. I am just going to put that out there hanging in the breeze.

And this is coming from someone whose last dentist Heidi, was a little on the unusual side given she is a plastic surgery junkie. You can read about her here and here because bless her, she is well worth discovering.

My search for a new dentist started in my local neighbourhood.

I made an appointment, filled out the 24 page questionnaire and 40 minutes later was sitting in the dentist's chair. I cannot tell you what the dentist looked like as his 24-carot ultra white smile blinded me.

All I know is, apart from his perfect pearly whites, everything in his office was the palest of blue. Walls, chairs, uniform, eyes and even possibly his hair. One hour later, I felt like I had just been a part of "the fast food shuffle". No, he didn’t offer me fries but ol' blue eyes sure was keen to upsell, cross sell and oversell in order to get me to commit to a full mouth makeover.

What's more, he promised to give me "a winning grin". Is everyone morphing into Charlie Sheen? Winning?

There was nothing wrong with my teeth before I visited him but I came out with my hand clasped over my mouth, full of shame. A broken smile.  A psychologist has now been added to the bottom of my list.

All I wanted was a check up and clean. If I had wanted to look like the woman above I would have asked.

I then found an Holistic Dentist. Very promising I thought.

That find resulted in a dental consultation in which I never even had to open my mouth. The dentist talked at me the whole time and my mouth remained closed. A most unlikely scenario for anyone visiting a dentist and, as you know by now, hell nigh impossible for me to achieve.

He told me I needed $1500 of tests to determine what might be impacting on my dental health and when he had the test results he would look at my teeth. Why I needed to get x-rays and other assorted tests for every part of my body supposedly linked to my teeth is beyond me.

Right. $99 without opening my mouth. Holistic dentists are now crossed off the list.

I realise that dentists have had to drastically change their business plans over the years because people have far less cavities and have far more interest in looking 'perfect'. However, it's gone a few steps too far.

I don’t need to use my teeth to see in the dark or to grace the pages of any fashion magazines. I just want to be healthy. Healthy teeth, healthy gums, happy smile.

In fact, I really just need strong teeth to chew 'real food' but, if this keeps up, I will be using them to BITE… some poor unsuspecting professional in a white coat.

Very. Very. Hard.

Is it really too much to ask for??

 

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You have to smile..

Image: Luna Park, Melbourne - for the young and young at heart

I was on the phone today with an insurance company call centre and some way into the conversation I had to confirm my date of birth.

"Wow", said the person on the other end of the phone. "That's a real surprise, I wouldn't have guessed you were that old. You sound so young, like you're 30 or so".

So I am that old but sound that young?

Disturbing.

What does a 30 year old sound like anyway?

I mean compared to a 40 something or 50 something or 60 something person?

Alive?

Full of joie de vivre?

All giggly and girly?

Perhaps I should have mentioned to the 20 something person that I also obviously write as young as I sound.

My blog stats are telling me today that my most viewed post of all time (by far) is titled Sex on Moving Motor Cycles.

Well that was a surprise. Not. A. Proud. Blogging. Achievement. Really.

However it does make me smile. Widely.

It must be so disappointing when the Googlers get here looking for such critical advice and find instead a middle aged blogger who would be hard pressed to even get a leg up over a motorbike let alone point out the finer techniques required to achieve such mobile feats.

Maybe I need to start acting my age, whatever that means! But I wish people would quit thinking they compliment us (when we are in our 40s and over) by telling us we act younger, look younger and sound younger than we are. I, too, am guilty of doing the same thing to others and I am going to stop. That's why "growing young" becomes a fixation for us. It's an insult in some ways that our maturing age makes us 'less' somehow . I for one am happy to be where I am in life and want to go forwards not backwards! I think we need to hear more from bloggers in one of those countries where age is revered and not feared. 

Tell me what is your most popular post of all time (see stats on blogger dashboard)? I will go read your post and put a link to it here. I wonder what it will say about the people searching for answers via Google?

Go visit my readers' blogs and check out which of their posts Google has loved the most!

Six Decades and Counting - Car Seats for Seniors  - so very funny!

Gappa blog - Rukhwat Memories  - beautiful post with a wedding theme and a profound message!!

I was just thinking blog - Another week nearly over - a post full of topical issues relevant across the world.

Middle Age Ramblings blog - There is no such place as far away -  this post is a must read and a real gem and inspirational!!!

A Glimpse into Midlife - Meet me on Mondays -  check out more about Betty and living in Paraguay.

A Few Clowns Short - Ken Burns PBS Series - educational post about the Civilian conservation Corps in the Depression - very interesting.

Over Cups of Coffee -  My dream home  - post about the author's dream home, great taste too.

Where are my Angels - We were 80s - post about all the things in the 80s that we did and kind of regret now, hilarious!!

Kirti's Take on Life - From paperless to on paper marriage - Kirti discusses her marriage in India and the lengths she had to go to in order to get paperwork to prove her marriage some 16 years later.

Gran speaks - Hijacked Facebook Meme - Are you a Mickey Mouse lover too?