Bebb is Bereft

It has been a long time since I blogged. It's not because I didn't want to. I am going through a very hard time at the moment and it's hard for me talk about. I just wanted to reassure everyone that I am still here and I will be blogging again. When I'm not so sad perhaps. This is how I feel....

I did try to find a picture of Sadsack from that old cartoon Raggy Dolls, as I do feel like a sad sack, but when I Googled him he just didn't look the way I remembered. I guess it has been probably twenty-one years since I last watched Raggy Dolls.

In other news, my dog Jack sparked a panic the other day when I discovered a huge lump under his jaw. After a trip to the vet, which ended in me having to leave him there all day for surgery, I returned home with a groggy dog, $308 missing from my account and a bag containing a grass seed that had lodged under his skin and caused an abscess. Thank you grass seed, I needed that this week. Here is a picture of the offending seed. Or the $308 seed as it is also known.

I am hoping my sadness passes. I am hoping my life gets back on track. I am hopeful about a lot of things. I promise my next post will be more cheerful as I return to blogging about my life, my loves, my books, my movies...For now, I leave you with this unsatisfying post that only hints at things, I know, but it isn't something I can put out into the blogosphere yet.

Love to you all,

Bebb

Bebb's Lonely Blog and an Amazing Race

This is the longest I have gone without writing a blog post since starting Bebb and the Bubs. The fact that last week was the first week back at work and my blog was neglected are not two unrelated facts. I have had an incredibly busy week- and the kids aren't even at school yet! The other two kinder teachers and I spent the week (when we weren't trapped in meetings) rushing about from computer to laminator to store rooms setting up the classrooms, planning, making displays, etc etc etc. I got home every day with no energy left and certainly no mental room for blogging. I felt like doing this:

On top of that, it was my soon-to-be sister-in-law's hen's night last night, which my other sister-in-law and I had organised. It was an Amazing Race with clues, challenges, the works, and culminated in dinner and drinks. It went really well but took an incredible amount of organising over about six weeks, and we met up just about every afternoon once I finished work last week to make things, buy things, and all the other last minute things. I used my computer-whizz skills to make clues identical to the ones from the show, along with clue envelopes that looked like this:

Louise picked me up at 3pm yesterday (the Race kicked off at 4.30) so we could head into town and set everything up. We had a lot of stuff for the challenges as well as prizes, clues, and four sets of novelty necklaces for the four teams to wear. As I said, lots of planning had gone into this! Here we are about to head into town with all our gear.

Of course, it wouldn't have been complete without an amusing costume item for Megan to wear. She was a very good sport about it.

The Race went well and everyone had fun (a relief after all those hours of planning!) and we ended up at the Prickly Cactus for dinner. Here I am with sister-in-law Louise and soon to be sister-in-law Megan (we are/will be married to three brothers).

I need to make mention of my dress. I love op-shopping and am always happy to have a good find, and I picked up this dress (brand new) in the Scottsdale op-shop for $10. Very happy with such a great bargain! It's always fun to get dressed up in new clothes.

I did my sisterly duty and stayed with Megan until the very end of the night. At that point there were only three of us left and it was 1.30am- definitely the latest I have been out and about in a long time! It was fun and we had a great time dancing, but I had forgotten how many imbecilic drunkards are out in Launceston at that time of night. I felt exhausted today after a big week back at work and a big day and night, and couldn't motivate myself to do much of anything. In the end I reasoned that it was Sunday and I was entitled to a bit of laziness. Mr Bebb was at work all day and apart from rousing myself to take the dogs for a walk, I spent the day lying on the couch watching True Blood. I had good company, as these two were ecstatic to have me at home all day and spent the day snuggling with me on the couch.

My Kinder class comes on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays so I have Mondays off and Thursday is my planning day. It will be a novelty having Mondays off, though I've already got quite a bit of relief booked in at my old school so teachers can attend meetings, do testing, etc. It will be tiring doing relief as well as having my own class but I really can't turn down the extra money and it will be nice to see my colleagues from last year, as well as my old students! 

Once I get back into the swing of being back at work I'm sure I'll have more energy to blog- and not just on the weekends- as I really did find myself missing it. I'm off now to catch up on everyone else's blogs over the past week. Enjoy your week, everyone! I can't wait to meet my new class on Tuesday.

Love always,

Bebb

My Guest Post at 'Winter Love'

It's no secret that Mr Bebb and I are trying to start a family, and getting a wee bit frustrated with the whole thing. A fellow blogger, the lovely Nat over at 'Winter Love', was kind enough to invite me to write a guest post for her blog about the trials of trying to conceive. I had fun writing it with a humorous slant! Head over here to read it.

Bebb and the Cub

Anyone who knows Mr Bebb and myself knows how much we love animals. It's one of the first things we bonded over and on our first 'date' (after being friends for three years first!) we discussed how much we would both love to get up close and personal with a lion or a tiger. I also had the dream of meeting a dolphin. I ticked that one off the list in 2011 on our honeymoon, when I met beautiful Nyla at SeaWorld. That was a great day.

We both love wildlife parks- in fact, while studying teaching I worked at one- and especially love Zoodoo in Richmond, which I think is the best wildlife park in Tassie. We've been there quite a few times now- in fact whenever we make a trip to Hobart we seem to end up stopping by Zoodoo. We didn't realise until recently, but we've managed to get an almost identical shot (completely accidentally!) each time.

2008

2009

2010

2011

Yep, I do love those wallabies. We also love seeing the tigers and the white lions, who we saw as cubs in 2010. A few weeks ago we read in the paper that the zoo had a new female lion cub and was going to be running 'cub encounters'. We were very excited and when Mr Bebb received some money for his birthday from relatives, he decided he wanted to use the money to book a cub encounter for us. Since we couldn't arrange an overnight trip to Hobart around his work, we decided to drive down to Richmond yesterday to meet Malika the cub. Two hours of driving later, we arrived at Zoodoo and had some time to spare before our 4pm encounter, so we had a look around at the other animals first. The beautiful tigers were snoozing away.

A highlight for us this time- apart from meeting the cub of course- was seeing the quolls. Every other time we've been, the two quolls have been curled up in their log, fast asleep, with only a bit of their backs visible. This time, the adults were still in that position but their six little offspring were out and about!

We realised we've only ever visited Zoodoo in winter before, as we tend to go to Hobart around my birthday in July, and therefore it's obviously not baby quoll season. It was such a treat to see them. They were adorable and very playful and we watched them for ages.

We even got to see the adult's faces this time, as at one point one of the babies went in and started pestering them- and was quickly told off!



Soon it was nearly 4 o'clock and we headed over to the Big Cat area, both very excited. We could see Malika, the 4 month old cub, lying on the grass looking sleepy- and adorable.

The keepers arrived and after signing our lives away in case of injury (yep, she certainly looked fierce!) we were let into the enclosure. We were told to cuddle and pat her as much as we liked while they took photos for us. She was awake when we went in, and we sat next to her and started patting her. I couldn't believe I was actually patting a lion cub! She was amazingly soft and obviously very worn out, as a few minutes after we started patting her she fell asleep again.

After lots of cuddling and exclaiming over the size of her paws, she woke up from her catnap (sorry, I had to), climbed onto our laps and started nibbling on our legs. Has anyone else out there been nibbled by a lion? Pretty good talking point!

We were being watched very closely by the adult white lioness, named Kiara, in the next cage. She had grown an awful lot since we saw her and her mate as cubs themselves. Malika will eventually go in with Kiara and her mate Bakari, but not until she's at least 18 months old as they would probably kill her otherwise. The keepers asked if we wanted to pat Kiara through the wire. This was a little nerve wracking but we couldn't resist! The head keeper, Trevor, obviously has quite a close relationship with her as she was smooching her face against his through the wire, just like a house cat- but a lot bigger, obviously! You could tell how much Trevor loved his lions and was even speaking to them using lion sounds.

While we were patting Kiara, her mate Bakari was sitting back looking aloof.

After we went back to Malika, his curiousity overtook him and he deigned to come over and check us out. The keepers called us over for a photo. I was oblivious in the following picture as to how closely this huge lion was examining me!

We realised how close he was when he let out a roar- right into our ears! That was an experience!

After laughing over our very close encounter with Bakari, we went back to play with Malika some more. The good thing about having the last session of the day was that the keepers let us spend a little longer in there, so instead of 20 minutes we got about 30. I couldn't get enough of rubbing Malika's belly and she seemed to love it too.

The last thing we got to do was feed her some little pieces of meat. She spent a long time licking my hand afterwards- just like a much, much bigger version of Pesto's tongue.

Then it was time to farewell our new feline friends and head off. The keepers put all the photos onto a disk for us and we watched the tigers while they were doing that. The tigers had woken up from their nap and were being very, ahem, active and intimate together. Quite a sight, and no, I didn't take any photos of that!

After collecting our photos we set off to drive home, both buzzing with excitement and happiness over our encounter. It was a great experience and now we can both tick 'cuddle a lion' off our list. Mr Bebb's next wish is to skydive. Mine is to overcome my fears since the accident and abseil again. Watch this space... 

Clumsy Is as Clumsy Does

Maybe I should have titled this post 'Accident Prone Is as Accident Prone Does'...because not all of my unfortunate accidents are my fault. Things just tend to happen to me. Granted, some of it does come about through general clumsiness...but not all of it, y'know? Mr Bebb and I were friends for a few years before we started dating and after we eventually fell in love and moved in together, he came out with, "I had no idea you were this clumsy. You hide it really well." I think this statement came about after witnessing me flinging my hand out dramatically to make a point, thus sending my drink flying, which in turn startled the cat who knocked over a potplant. The flow-on effect of clumsiness...

But in my defence, and as I stated above, things do tend to happen to me. As I type this I have a heavily bandaged right foot. Bandaged in three places, mind. But we'll get to that. We'll get to that. Here, for your entertainment, are some of my more bizarre/ridiculous accidents over the years...

• Aged seven, brushing my teeth with my sister. She threatened to tickle me and I ran from the bathroom to our bedroom, toothbrush still in my mouth, and jumped onto my bed. The toothbrush hit the pillow, jammed into my throat and when I pulled it out there was a literal explosion of blood, which jetted out of my mouth with such force that it hit the wall. Colourful. And very fun for my parents to discover when they rushed in to see what all the screaming was about.
• Still aged seven (a good year), being pulled along by my sister on Dad's golf buggy. The plastic handle cover pulled off in her hand, the buggy fell forwards with me on it and the exposed metal of the handle stabbed me in the chest and sunk in about a centimetre. Ouch.
• Broken toes...many, many, many. Since Mr Bebb and I moved in together three years ago, I've broken four. The same one three times, as well. Varied causes...tripping, accidentally whacking it on a table, etc. Clumsy is as clumsy does. ("But you seem so graceful when you dance!" says he. Am yet to break a toe while performing or teaching bellydance, and am able to maintain the appearance of grace. I have, however, performed WITH a broken toe. And painkillers.)
• Okay, so the following was my fault. Aged 17...to amuse my flatmate I stood on two glossy magazines and 'skated' across the carpet. Lost control, fell, broke wrist. Yep, that was a bit silly.
• Last week...making soaps, accidentally splashed myself with boiling water. Leapt backwards, tripped over Johnny the dog, crashed into the cupboard and broke my long-suffering little toe on my right foot. One day I will wake up and this toe will have jumped ship in the night and left me. I can't blame it...since the age of 7 it's been broken at least 6 times, by my count.
• Also last week, a day later...I dropped a butter knife which, though blunt, hit my right ankle at enough speed and at the right angle to gouge it open. That was bandage no. 2 on that foot area. Are you keeping count? Let's get to the main event...

So it was Saturday night. Mr Bebb was away for the night, camping at the East Coast for his brother's buck's night. I was home alone- apart from the dogs and my broken toe. At about 10 o'clock, I heard barking. The dogs were outside and I hobbled out to investigate with bare feet. I realised that it was actually the neighbour's dog making the noise, and turned to go back inside. Ouch! What the hell? Something stabbed into my right heel. Something sharp. It was very painful and I lifted my foot to see a piece of metal sticking out of my foot. Okay, not good, I thought. Where did that come from? And it's in my foot...Right, that has to come out. Sizzling the air with a few rather colourful words, I yanked it out and realised that a) my foot was now bleeding quite heavily, which was understandable given that there was a gaping hole in it, and b) I had been stabbed by a rusty nail. Given that I was home alone and didn't think I could drive, I had no option but to wrap up my foot, call a taxi and head to the emergency room. Five hours later I was home, after spending a lot of time waiting and reading tattered, year-old copies of Woman's Day, witnessing some horrendous drunken behaviour, crying quietly in a cubicle as I felt so alone, and having my wound cleaned and sealed with surgical glue. I also received a large and nasty tetanus booster and was told I was a 'brave girl' by the same nurse who had come bustling in with scratchy tissues when she saw that I was crying. Slightly condescending, yes, especially since that at a few years shy of 30 I wouldn't really call myself a girl, but by that point I was willing to take any sympathy I could get.

So, now I languish on the couch with a right foot that has suffered a broken bone, a gouging and a stabbing in the last week. I'm sorry, right foot. I'll do my best to take better care of you in the future, but I can't promise anything. Accidents just seem to have a way of finding me.

Goals, Revisited

Back in December I posted a list of things I hoped to achieve during the summer holidays. Now that I have one week to go until the new school year starts, I thought I would take a look back at my list and see if I achieved everything on it...

 

<> sleeping in Check! I have indeed done an awful lot of that these holidays, helped along by our new king size bed. Sharing a double bed with a 6ft4 New Zealander (aka Mr Bebb) made for several years of cramped conditions and it's great to have plenty of room. The dreaded insomnia has still been hanging around of course, but it's much less stressful being awake at 2am and knowing I can sleep in, as opposed to knowing I have to get up in 4 hours for work.

<> gardening Check...but not as much as I would have liked. I had a great harvest from my vegie garden, but a combination of the heat and being struck down by laziness meant I didn't do all the things I had planned. Ah well.

<> spending lots of time with my beloved (days off together- oh joy! He has had Monday and Tuesday as his days off pretty much all year, and seeing as I have weekends off it has been difficult) Check! But once again, not as much as I would like. His ten days off (all he was allowed to take in the busy holiday period) went much too fast for both of us. But we've still enjoyed lots of sleep ins and evenings together, gone out for lunch and dinner, watched movies and relaxed in each other's company.

<> hopefully, a camping trip No, alas. Just didn't happen what with Mr Bebb only having 10 days off, etc etc. We are hoping to go during the Easter holidays.

<> a roadtrip to Hobart with my best friend, Madam Mojito or MM as she shall henceforth be known, to see my favourite band, the Dresden Dolls, live Yep! We had a blast. I blogged about it here. Here's another photo from the concert, taken by Jude. I look very happy, which is understandable given our close proximity to the stage!

 

 

<> a roadtrip to Cradle Mountain with Mr Bebb and two of our closest friends to celebrate our first wedding anniversary We certainly went, and had an amazing time. It was the perfect way to celebrate our first year of marriage.

<> reading for hours I have definitely achieved this one! Many happy hours have been spent on scorching hot days, lying in front of the fan with a book. I'm currently reading the Southern Vampire Mysteries by Charlaine Harris, upon which the TV series True Blood (my current addiction) is based. They are proving to be just as addictive as the show and my record is devouring one in a single evening/night.

<> sewing my mini bears Done! I've also branched out and started making soaps and candles, and have my first market- the Longford Maker's Market- lined up for next Sunday. I'm very busy getting everything ready for it. Here are a few of my wares...

 

 

<> taking the dogs to the beach for the first time. Not yet-but it looks like Mr Bebb and I will head out to Mum and Dad's for a night next week and cross that one off the list.

<> getting ready for a new class next year! Sort of...I don't feel as organised as I would like to. But I'm going into school with the other Kinder teachers on Monday to do some setting up and I'm sure I'll feel better after that. I keep reminding myself that I always feel slightly panicky and underprepared when a new school year looms, and that it always comes together in the end.

 

As well as all of that, I've also caught up with a few dear friends who have left Tassie and were home visiting family, spent lots of time walking ze dogs, accompanied by ze cat, cleaned out cupboards (thrilling) and along with my sister in law, planned an Amazing Race style hen's night for our soon-to-be sister in law. Our Race kicks off in two weeks and should be a lot of fun (fingers crossed it all goes smoothly and that everyone gets into the spirit!)

 

It's been a great holiday and I feel rested and recharged, which was my main goal. To finish, here's one of my favourite moments, taken on our first wedding anniversary at a place I will always love.

 

(Disclaimer: Mr Bebb would like it to be known that that is not his girly purple backpack, and he was merely being a good husband and carrying it for me.)

 

At the Movies with Bebb...Part Eight...Trollhunter



Happy Wednesday, everyone. I'm trying to deal with the fact that I only have one and a half weeks of glorious summer holidays before the new term starts. The holidays always seem to go far too quickly. But on the other hand, I'm looking forwards to meeting my new class of Kinder students and I'm excited about what this year will bring. Anyway, onwards to today's review...

Trollhunter (2010)

The film opens by telling us that the following footage was sent to the film company by persons unknown and that it is believed the events are true. We then begin the story...When bears are found dead in Norway, three film students- Thomas, Johanna and the cameraman Kalle- decide to investigate. They find a mysterious hunter, Hans, and follow him to find an explanation for the killings. The reluctant Hans at first tells them to leave him alone, but after saving their lives from a mysterious creature in the dark forest he agrees that they can film him in action- provided they follow his orders. Soon the students learn that Hans is actually a troll hunter who works for a secret government agency. Furthermore, several dangerous trolls have escaped from their territory and Hans is assigned to eliminate them.

This 'found footage' Norwegian movie is one I've been wanting to watch for some time now as it's gotten great reviews. It was made in 2010 but has just been released here on DVD. Mr Bebb and I both enjoyed it, as it's very well made and quite thrilling. 'Found footage' films have gained popularity in recent years since the success of the Blair Witch Project, and Trollhunter is definitely one of the better ones.

It looked and felt incredibly authentic. The handheld camera coupled with the very natural, believable performances and some very realistic looking trolls all combined to make one feel that you were actually watching a true documentary. The trolls were a combination of CGI and puppetry and they really did look like living, breathing mythical creatures caught on film, which made for fascinating viewing. The movie had some great moments of humour as well as moments of incredible suspense and other moments that were quite frightening! However, as with the best found footage type films, what we didn't see was far more frightening than what we did, and the filmmakers had used this to great effect. There wasn't much gore at all as it mostly occurs offscreen- and in our imaginations!

The storyline was very captivating and the characters likeable and easy to symphathise with and care about. My only real criticism is that it seemed slightly too long- I think if it had been cut by even just 15 minutes it would have made for a tighter plot. It's a great movie and I was disturbed to learn that an American remake is already underway, which baffles me.

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars. Best 'found footage' movie I've seen in a long time. Intriguing, thrilling and scary enough without being terrifying! See it before the remake.