Checkin' in on Kel

Photos of Alan and Lisa's visit last weekend. Two well hung and tender boys stand beneath a sign in the Farmer's market ;)

One more day and all our visitors leave... As lovely as it is to have people come and stay, we'll never do this again. Three weekends in a row of visitors, no privacy and no head space. Cooking meals, trying to appear interested in chit chat.... no more for a while.

Correction! The organ recital is in October. So many shows, I'm getting very confused what's what and where I am supposed to be on any given evening. Last night Ben treated me to a night of classical music. We lapped up the four movements of Beethoven's 7th symphony performed by the wonderful Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra. I did get it right that it was performed in the majestic Usher Hall. I had to close my eyes to truly hear the rich tones and try not to get distracted by my odd fellow audience members. One chappy sat there with the music score manicly flipping the pages as the pieces were being played. What was with that? It's like going to a play and sitting there reading the script. Another chap who was seated above the orchestra (by the organ) was watching the orchestra as if watching a game of tennis; his head darting about from one violinist to another. As I shut my eyes I was carried away by the rich tones and delighted to actually be able to hear the first lead violinist's finger work. A lovely much needed relaxing night amid a stressy week at work (PhDissues - I won't go there - and a house in chaos due to French Doors being installed in the kitchen and the last wave of visitors arriving on our door tonight)

I'm all Fringed out and yet there's still another week and a couple of days to go. I'm (dare I say it) scunnered of Fringe shows. All I have the energy for is a list (not in chronological order of seeing them, but possibly by fave):
Fringe stuff:
Children of the Sea (a delight to see survivors of the tsunami smiling, and in the stunning setting of the Royal Botanic Gardens with the backdrop of Edinburgh City))
Squeeze Box (extremely talented actress)
Come Again (brilliantly cast)
National Hero (Timothy West gets his jollies off with some young thing - well acted though)
Michael Franti and Spearhead ('how ya feelin?')
An Oak Tree (1/7 of us enjoyed it - yes, it was Ben)
Some shiite 'comedy' (for want of a better word; I'd use misery and abuse personally) at the Pleasance
There might be more... but I'm knackered just thinking about it...

Book Festival:
Adam Phillips
Fergal Keane
Ned Sherrin (good story teller)
Margaret Atwood
Raymond Tallis (It's all about the hand... YAWN!)

Festival: Ben's treating me to an organ recital at the Usher Hall tonight.

I love the madness of the population trebling and the city being brought to a fever pitch. However, towards the end I can't wait for everyone to pack up and leave me be. Some reclusive time around the odd Greek monastery is sounding extremely appealing come the end of September.

This weekend coming, Ben's cousin Jason and girlfriend arrive from the Netherlands as do my friend, Todd and his girlfriend. That's the last of the visitors for a while. We've had a couple of waves of the Irish descending on our doorstep. First weekend Ben's medic mates, Steve and Ange, came up from Newcastle. Last weekend mates of mine, Lisa and Al, came over from Paris. Oooo la la.

Steve and then Al sure gave our livers a run for their money. I thought Aussies could drink, but my meagre efforts paled into insignificance once the boys got going. What is it about the 'drinking culture'? Why is it so important to drink ourselves stupid (or slightly more intelligent in some people's cases)? It's a compulsion not to be a party pooper, not to let the side down, and some kind of... hmm... addiction problem possibly? Hey, don't get me wrong.. I love a few select bevvies and that warm glow of inebriation every so often. But not every night, and not to the point of throwing it all up again (what a waste of money!)

Any way, I can't keep up these late nights and big benders. The PhD really must take priority. I've made some ditsy mistakes recently and I can only blame myself for not getting earlier nights and keeping sharp.

With that, back to some non-parametric statistical tests! Yipster!

From my Canuck pal, Sly...

"me the meme lemming - it's all about you now
1. Reply with your name and I will write something random about you.
2. I will then tell you what song/movie reminds me of you.
3. I will pick a flavor of jello to wrestle with you in.
4. I will say something that only makes sense to you and me.
5. I will tell you my first memory of you.
6. I will tell you what animal you remind me of.
7. I'll then ask you something that I've always wondered about you.
8. If I do this for you, you must post this on your LJ."

So to fulfil my end of the bargain...

"Kelly, och, backlog! this ain't fedex, ya ken! away ye go ya wee bastard or i'll give you a skelp!
1. would that be ken and belly, or bell and kenny?
2. spring, summer, fall, winter... and spring
3. x-treme wild berry
4. upfront, right?
5. getting irritated because you beat me at... an AUCTION!! ok, so i was PMSing.
6. white-tailed deer
7. will you always be an ozgypsy?"

Re 4. Right on!
To answer question 7, I dunno. I suspect so for at least another 2 years... Next year is all about being an ozzie gypsy (oh and finishing my PhD and graduating). But I'll return to the UK for love. Whether my love stays in the UK or my love is willing to try living elsewhere remains to be seen. Much water wading to be done in the mean time. So we shall see ya?
Rain check on the x-treme wild berry jello wrestling ;)

Fringe has sprung, the sun has ris, I wonder where all the birdies is? Well, this bird is spending more and more time having mini melt downs about her PhD. Finally, last night (after almost a week of thinking how to leave the country quietly out the back door) I managed to account for every single last patient in every group... all 2244 of them from some original patient number of over 43000. You have no idea how much I hate numbers right now. Anyway, there's nothing like a panic attack to extract the proverbial digit and get one busy! But boy, do I have a lot of work to do.

That aside.. you know me (well, chances are...), I like to cram it in. As originally indicated, the Fringe festival started 10 days ago. My first show was 'The Exonerated' written about six people who were wrongly convicted to death row in America. Of the six actors on the stage, one was clearly no actress, and it turned out to be Sonia 'Sunny' Jacobs herself. She received a standing ovation at the end of the show, as she had been on death row from 1976 to 1992, even though she did not shoot the two policemen she was imprisoned for killing. She missed seeing her children grow up. Her partner, Jesse Tafero, was executed brutally as the electric chair malfunctioned three times. My curiosity was tweaked - how could a 'peaceful hippy type' as she referred to herself, end up on death row? And I came across this website...
and if you read further about each defendant in the case, Sonia Jacobs, Jesse Tafero, and Walter Rhodes, one finds that there are spectrums of innocence... Jacobs and Tafero may not have murdered the policemen, but they have both been wanted for drugs and carrying armed weapons, and Tefaro had several charges of rape. I don't think anybody deserved to die as Tafero did. But I do believe that their illegal actions of carrying arms and drug dealing whilst on parole got two policemen killed. And for that, some time needed to be served. I now feel a little duped for giving her a standing ovation...
An added twist... I wondered who was putting the 'asking4justice' website together? Who was this Sara Lyara Estes? None other than the wife of the self confessed murderer, Walter Rhodes.... So that show certainly sparked my attention.

I've listened to Ned Sherrin tell some good stories at the Book Festival.

I've been subjected to some appauling comedy which ended up with the compare calling us all a bunch of 'cunts' - scuse my language, but his words not mine. I really didn't enjoy the experience of being called a C. Especially as they were just a bunch of talentless dropouts who should have been paying us £10.50 to put up with them, not the other way around!

I've seen a man pretend to be a hypnotist and like this review, I found it all a bit hard to swallow. Ben thought it to be brilliant, so it just goes to show that art is in the eye of the beholder.

But by far the highlight so far was Squeeze Box by Anne Randolph. She imitated numerous characters, especially those who lived in the shelter for mentally ill women, where she supposedly worked. And she had me enthralled with each one, who would she be next? Her sentiments about success and failure, love and life all rang true, but most of all it was a welcomed reminder that 1) the little things we do for others can and do make a difference, and 2) the seemingly insurmountable troubles of today can make great stories of the past.

Last weekend Ben and I did the Gullane triathlon. As if in a funeral procession, we were piped down to the beach. For me, the tri meant starting off with a 750m open water swim. OH MY GOD... it was frickin freezing. I hate to admit I nearly chickened out it felt so cold. Fortunately, I wore my hoody fleece down to the shore and ended up swimming in it under my wetsuit. Ha ha. If only there was a photo I could post of that little number. I swear to God I couldn't feel my legs when I got out of the water and tried to run up to the transition area to change into my cycling gear. A bizarre feeling indeed. But I am ALIVE! Hoorah. Every day from here on in is a bonus.
Benster, Lynne and John (the mad buggas) did double the distance and swam 1.5km, 42km cycle and 10km run. Hats off to them.

Otherwise, life is ticking along. I've spent the last working week sitting at my study trying to write. As a consequence, the PhD is planted firmly in my mind. I've been having dreams of leaving things on buses and chasing them about town, being lost in foreign cities, and having people to visit whilst I'm sitting on the toilet in the middle of doing a poo. Hmmm, some anxieties bubbling under the surface there... or I'm just lost and constipated...