After the Tequila...

This one's dedicated to Dave - for the love of castles..

For Dona - sharing some of the robust tulips taken at the Tamworth Castle grounds. They may not be my flowers, but it makes a great wallpaper on the desktop!

Check it out:
http://www.storewars.org

May the Farm be with you!

Not only am I sleep deprived, my eyeballs are ready to fall out of my face. Yeah, it's bad!

Okay, I'm taking a break from my UK journal...I'm losing my creative touch and beginning to squint at the monitor - it's a sign that I'm transforming into a big fat bore. It's amazing how much time has flown by and I've been back on the US soil for nearly 2 weeks. Whenever I try to recall and type up my UK travel details, setting back the time stamps seem almost surrealistic - has so much time elapsed already?

My memory is starting to get choppy and there wasn't much time to take notes during my trip. This is all coming from my dizzy head. In a matter of months, I won't remember any of it.

But the good news: Detox is making me almost 100% human again. I've accomplished a great deal this week, thanks to mum tending to Miki in the mornings and evenings. I still have plenty of wedding pictures to enhance and edit, but overall, all of the needs at home have been addressed.

Yesterday on a whim, I went for a cheap facial and felt like a new person. Although there is a massive difference between paying $45 vs. $150 for a facial; nonetheless, I felt all of the yuckiness being scrubbed away from me. The extraction was a bit rough for my taste, it was as though the girl rearranged my face. Anyhoo, I walked out feeling so giddy that I headed right over to the hair salon to get my greasy hair done. I was on a roll.

Because my hairdresser was not in on Wednesdays, I settled with the next available one who happened to be an adorable 25 year old guy. He did a pretty good job and gave me the fluffy layered bedhead look I donned a long while ago. I tend to get attached to long hair since I really do love the length. It was a tad bit shorter and wee bit flippy, but it's extremely low maintenance. Plus, I love the smell of hair products in my hair after leaving the salon. Yum!

Today, I managed to knock down more piles of paper and did a large load of laundry. I should be good to go for the next few days. WAHOOO!!

Ya know, although I preach and semi-practice feng shui, I never quite realized the benefits of the exercises. Except until now.

For me, I prefer adhering by the rules of decluttering - the art of allowing energy to move freely around your home without unnecessary obstructions like clutter, or crap - as I would generally classify it. Basically, don't buy, store or acquire things that you don't need as inanimate objects promotes stale/negative energy. So, I've mastered some serious self-control when it comes to shopping since I try not to buy in excessive quantities. Within a small fraction of time, clutter can accumulate in places that are least expected and you have to reorganize your home every few months to maintain positive energy movement.

The reason why I don't practice practice feng shui in its full form is because I really don't have any directional sense nor do I truly understand the concept behind artistic placement. Is my window facing north or east? No light bulb going off here. I don't have the slightest clue as to where my money corner would be, so why even bother? I wouldn't be surprised to find my garbage pail sitting in that corner...

I've been absent from home for over 2 weeks due to my globetrotting stint from the UK to Myrtle Beach. I noticed the dreariness from the very moment I walked in. It wasn't the mess, or the fact that a tiny mouse dug a large hole through my floor, or even the large pile of mail sitting on the bench. The sense of drab was clearly there even though my home was not raided by marauders as I originally assumed. The energy at home simply stood still.

With bad bouts of jet lag and me being dense me, I was able to do something yesterday. Yeah, recovery for an alcoholic takes a while, doesn't it?

After lighting a bunch of candles and a massive clean up, the energy began to move again.

It's apparent how a strong positive and psychic entity needs to exist in the present tense to preserve the essence of the home. If not, the inner workings begins to deteriorate and all efforts to revive it may prove to be moot.

I've always wanted to do something nice for Andy, but the big boy always have me stumped.

So, this time around, Andy did the honors by requesting crystals. The day before my ultra-special UK trip, I hauled my ass over to a shop in the East Village to find them stones. Back in the good ol' days (before the massive commercializing of the Village), you could find a slew of eclectic boutiques and stores everywhere. Now? They're either hiding somewhere or have gone belly up.

After I dropped off my rugrat, I got up there at 10AM. Dammit, this particular store was not open till noon. *Sigh* - so what did I do? Spent time at K-Mart and Barnes & Noble on Astor Place. By noon, I popped back to the makeshift crystal shop which shared 1/3 of its space in a large Middle Eastern bodega. The place seemed to have everything, but from a psychic perspective, I never had a 'calling' for crystals.

I was absolutely clueless. Andy never gave me the 411 of what he wanted, so it was basically up to my intuition to get him something. When I entered the store, the stuff was piled up everywhere and strewn about. I realized that I had some work to do and digging was required on my part. The store owner, part Asian mutt mix and part surfer dude with long hair, looked at me curiously as I walked by behaving like a total snot. It's an attribute I learned my from my wealthy Chinese girlfriends who spend their days shopping at Bloomie's and getting weekly manicures. Because I ventured to an unexplored domain, I might as well get ripped off being an arse rather than an easy target.

The crystals were not organized nicely and the lighting was horrible. I knew the stuff was pretty authentic as there was so much dust floating about, but nothing appealed to me. In the midst of this crystallized mine, only one thing did catch my eye: the Herkimer diamonds (I originally thought they were only for $3 each, not per gram!). I grabbed the largest ones and fished around the tiny place for other odds and ends. Since the store wasn't exactly pleasing to the eye, I asked the surfer dude what would be a proper purchase for a friend. He stated that every crystal had a metaphysical property and it was up to the individual what he/she wanted to do with it.

Whatever. That was mighty helpful to me.

Anyway, I picked a few more items and went for the weigh-in. Everything seemed decent until he weighed the diamonds. Based on the weight alone, the 7 Herkimers cost over $50! So I picked the nicest one and put the rest back. My total order came up to $25, so I gave him 20 & 10 dollar bills.

Either he couldn't break change or my attitude piqued his curiosity, he offered me a deal: he'd give me any 5 Herkimers for 5 dollars. Without a doubt, I grabbed 5 of them - which happened to be the same large ones I picked up earlier and called it a deal.

As soon as I left the store I rang up Lisa on my cell phone and barked into her voicemail about these darn rocks. What I should've done was to ask Lisa WHAT sort of crystals to buy and why. After all, she's very much into them and took my runes which were made of rose quartz (hey, am I ever getting those back?!). All I wanted to know was whether or not I had been royally ripped off. An hour later, I get an email from her outlining the facts. Whew!

On that note, I outdid myself. Then I excitedly rang up Sarah & Andy yapping over the same thing. I was on some wacky high - they were amused by my rambling tirade over these crystals. Sheesh, maybe I need to get out of house more. They were astounded by my discovery because Andy hadn't even heard of these crystals. Herkimers are found in upstate NY and were plentiful 'round these parts. Cool.

For once, I was gloating in a good way. I couldn't shut up about my fabulous find and was even more ecstatic to learn that Andy didn't have any. Apparently good quality stones are harder to come by in the UK. When I finally handed him the stash, he was like a little kid opening his presents on Xmas day. We came across these crystals at one of the local shops in Tamworth, but they were butt-ugly for £3.

For whatever the absurd reason, I spent the entire week blubbering over this one particular incident. I'm surprised they didn't try slapping some duct tape on my face and serve a dish of mashed potatoes mixed with epoxy glue to shut me up.

On a very sweet & wonderful note: Sarah & Andy are renewing their vows this June through the rite of handfasting. It's magnificent because they actually have a Druid present to perform this ritual for the wedding! Based on its properties, the Herkimers are the PERFECT crystal for the couple to use as betrothal gifts to each other. Man, I'm onto something!

[Had I known about it sooner, I would somehow plan my arrangements to attend, but I came a wee bit too early for a visit! Maybe I can finagle something again???]

Lost a post. Pissed to no tomorrow, especially since this was a long one.

Back from the Carolinas and don't really plan on going back unless I have to 'claim' furniture...we saw a large store that said, "Unclaimed Furniture".

Anyhoo, my laptop got hacked and I'm trying to fix it. Doesn't seem to be working...yuck. I got a big job ahead of me and hopefully Ron-Ron will come to my rescue (as he always does!).

Last but not least, I will be backtracking my UK travel stories. I will somehow organize the content so that it falls on the blog chronologically - ooh, ah...my brain has to work now.

So, I will be off in dreamland and wake up replenished with mindful of creative writing energy. Hopefully I'll be funny enough to keep y'all entertained.

Shit, going from the British culture to the Southern mannerisms is putting my internal system into some serious shock.

BAHHHHHHHH!!!!

Ciao for now...

Knackered Curt trying to seat himself on the same level as I...and he thought I was from Birmingham! (OY!!!)

P.S. - He thought Mikayla had awful taste since she adores Roland. He made a point to say that he'd have to do something about that.

Roland commended on my origami folding skills after I handed him over the turtles (These guys must think I have nothing better to do...).

He thought Mikayla has fantastic taste because she adores him.

Well, at least, they used to be. OMG - Doug Petty is actually VERY sweet and HOT. Charlton was considerate about me being vertically challenged, so he remained seated (he looks rather pensive and possibly pissed, there were plenty of good drinks there..).

Here's Nick being normal...he's still guffawing over the hairy chest comment made by Roland at the concert

Giving me the bug-eyed look

Just got back from the UK and very sad at having to leave the land of great ale and fish & chips.

However, I did sorely miss my salad and other variety of vegetables. Never in my life did I think I would actually say that a head of iceberg lettuce would look mighty good to me.

Hopefully I'll be able to account most of the events of the trip later this week. I have to fly my ass out of here again on Tuesday to attend Lisa's wedding on the 5th. It should be a blast, however, I'm suffering from jet lag right now...so who knows how I'll be later this week! Li-Li, forgive me if I pass out on ya!

Detox time!