hnpcc | Weekendia

The "Sound of Music" dressup/singalong/30th birthday party went very well, despite my morbid forebodings as we were driving to the house. I dunno why I get so paranoid about going to parties of people I haven't seen in ages, I think I must be turning into my mother. Or something.

Dean and I went as "brown paper packages tied up with string", which was probably the second most low budget costume there. We got the paper from Lindcraft, and the string from K-mart (surprisingly we couldn't find string in Lindcraft). The most low budget option was, of course, "Me, a name I call myself", which at least two people came as. The majority of people came as Austrian themed people, i.e. slightly Tyrolean or Germanic looking clothes, although we also had one person as "Raindrops on roses", another as "Ray - a drop of golden sun" and one who came as the entire "my favourite things" song. He had:

A model of Homer Simpson (D'oh!) and a model deer in one pocket (a deer! A female deer!)

A laser pointer (Ray! a drop of (actually bright red but never mind) golden sun)

A name tag (Me. A name I call myself)

Sneakers (Far - a long, long way to run)

A needle pulling thread coming out of the right pocket - which was attached to a cut out music note with La! written on it.

And a tea bag around his neck. Too creative by half. ;-)

The birthday girl's Mum came as the mountain - and danced around to "Climb every mountain" every time it came up. Surprisingly few people came as nuns.

We sang along to the entire (pirated - birthday girl's been living in Cambodia for the past couple of years) DVD, and cracked up entirely at the "what is it you can't face?" line. Which wasn't ruined at all by subtitling.

And I caught up with a lot of people I hadn't seen since Christmas and birthday girl's family, who I hadn't seen in about 3 years or more. It was fun.

The following day I woke up to find an unusual sight for this time of year: Sun!! So I made Dean come out to breakfast at the South Melbourne Market. We hadn't really been to the South Melb Market before - generally we go to the Queen Vic and/or Preston. Or Pipeworks, although that's a bit further out again. But this time we'd headed in the direction of the sea (sun! sea! - they go together for me) and decided on spec to go there.

It was very quiet when we arrived, but all the traders were set up and ready. And there was food everywhere. Yum. I love markets, they make me want to go insane buying fresh fruit and veges and meat and cheese... I managed to restrain myself to breakfast (at Nick's cafe), one incredibly large rye loaf - seriously this is a huge loaf, about 2-3 times the usual size - and some of the South Melb market dim sims, which are well known in Melbourne... cos they're really yummy. Unfortunately we forgot to get the cooking steamer on the way out, so we'll have to go back next weekend.. and this time I'm buying groceries as well. ;-)

After the market we rang Chrus, to ask if he did in fact want to go and see the Art Spiegelman exhibition today (after telling him the night before that I was probably busy). He did, so off we all headed to the Jewish museum in Alma Rd. I read Maus a couple of years ago, so it was interesting to see the development behind it and also to see the interviews with his father, and the earlier work he'd done. They also had a copy of In the shadow of no towers which I hadn't seen before - no idea if it's come out in Australia anywhere. It'll be interesting to see what else comes out of the Sept 11 attacks, from an artistic viewpoint I mean. The strip switches between an account of what happened to the author and his family on the day of the attacks, and the emotions and fallout of the next year or so, up to the start of the Iraq war. I particularly liked the line:

"The administration is reading Revelations. I'm reading the paranoid science fiction of Phillip K. Dick."

Heh.

Dean and I went through the remainder of the Jewish museum once we'd finished the exhibit - I'd never really realised how many of the Jewish festivals are agriculturally based before. I knew about the more event based days (purim, passover) and the more religous ones (Yom Kippur) but I never realised there were days in there where the focus was praying for rain! And quite a few based around the middle eastern agricultural cycle. It made me wonder a bit if some older customs had been grafted on to the then new religion - as with Christianity and Easter/Fertility and Christmas/Solstice. Long time ago though - although I'm sure there are theological scholars out there who could tell me. Some of the agricultural days reminded me a bit of the Harvest thanksgiving kind of services.

From the museum we came home and lazed, having completed all the cleaning in a paranoid frenzy (mine, Dean just got sucked into it) the day before.

A nice weekend.