Shopping in Bugsplat, shopping in Bigsplat.

It's a cool sunny Saturday, and Gray and I have just returned from the Bugsplat Food Co-op where we bought fresh beans, beetroot, cos lettuce and cherry tomato; packages of tofu and soy burgers; bags of brown and basmati rice; and a jar of pickled eggplant.

I wonder how long we could go if we just bought stuff from the Food Co-op?

Like brilliantly coloured aquarium fish in a fishtank full of trout, Bugsplatians don't blend in that well when they're down in Bigsplat to do their shopping. Bigsplat is hotter when it's hot, and colder when it's cold. Shopping days in Bigsplat are painful. People are less friendly. Fellow Bugsplatians smile at each other on the sidewalks, and the girl at the bank is nice, but in general, people seem very unhappy. And sometimes cars full of angry young men drive past, too fast, and glare menacingly at the world through the windows. And sometimes, people scowl at each other, perhaps for private reasons. Calypso hates it, says it's like a city but without the good bits, says there's a bad energy there.

We've had a hard week. Real estate anxiety is a special circle of hell. All those lives we've led, kitchens we've painted, gardens we've planted, pets born and buried. It's exhausting.

Mr and Ms Harbinger-Jones.

Once there were a couple of hopeless barely employable dreamers/pontificators/lazybones who occasionally pretended to be a "writer" or an "artist" or a "website designer".

Now, that was an interesting couple of months. I'll never forget Gray's chickens; they went round, you see. Round and round. Nobody knew why. Nobody knew what they were doing on a law firm's website either.

We shall call them Mr and Ms Harbinger-Jones.

Anyway, they scratched out a bit of a living over the years; drooling for fun and profit, waitressing, modelling for artists, computering for people, playing music for beans etc., not getting commissioned works published, winning art prizes, etc... mostly just drooling for fun and profit.

"Darlink?" said Mr Harbinger-Jones, to his wife, one day.
"Yessink?" she said, in reply.
"Have you noticed a disturbing trend in our lives?" he wondered.
"Do you mean how wherever we go, dinky little coffee shops start popping up?" she said, conveniently.
"Yes, my dear and "Nice" is what might say..." he said,
"...as we innocently swill our latte soy dandy..." she said.
"...until we can't afford the rent." he said, in sudden and inexplicable fury.
"Or the latte soy dandy." she hissed, in outrage.

Comforting each other with the thought that Australia is indeed a big country, they set off for what they took to be a real backwater, a little village of flood-prone houses on the banks of the mighty Clarence. It was on a dull stretch of highway ten kilometres from the nearest Coles. The Coles-sized town was also very promising (of security of obscurity) being rather grim and devoted to agriculture and featuring a bitter looking great big old stone jail - still in the incarceration business. These signs seemed very promising to the Harbinger-Joneses who valued, above all else, cheap rent and a quiet life.

This time, it was a plague of antique stores that turned their idyllic little backwater into a so called 'artist's haven'. When the rent went up, they sold their books to the nouveau intelligentsia who were arriving en masse for the dandy soy lattes, and the Harbinger-Joneses set off around Australia looking for a place to call home again.

After months of sun addled and sandy socked travelling they found the little town of Bugsplat. On a road to nowhere. Rows of empty shops. Asbestos in the walls.

"Hooray!" said the foolish Harbinger-Joneses.

Monsieur Baton & the Piano Mistress.

Monsieur Baton = Gray
Piano Mistress = Polly (mostly Mannie and Thea)

Newsflash! We have bought a piano.

See, you can't buy pianos if you have a mortgage, really, you can't.
(Well maybe one or two but seriously, pianos are a Very Expensive Habit.)

And.. since we lost out on the little block of land, we have no mortgage.

Therefore, it naturally follows that.. we should buy a piano.
(If it weighs more than a duck, and believe me, it does.)

It's a very beautiful piano. Stay tuned. I shall post a picture of it.

Busty Rusty to the rescue.

Busty Rusty, of Lysergia system made this for us.

He posted it in their journal with the following text;
Busty Rusty to the Rescue!
in this episode, Busty Rusty swoops away the fair damsels of Oz, bringing them to a place where they may show their True Powers of Multiplicity. stay tuned.

And yeah, Rusty also said something really cute!
He said;
(these tights are itchy.)
(but i'll wear 'em for you anytime.)

And then he gave me a *cheesy grin*.