Rāhoroi! Saturday!

Ka tīmata te pō whakangāhau i te Rāhoroi! (The party will start on Saturday!) Well if you call doing the washing & dishes a party, yes it does.

And before anyone starts thinking that I've become fluent in Te Reo Maori overnight, think again. Nah, it's a dinky new link I stumbled upon the other day for Cultureflow When you sign up they email you a new kupu (word) of the day along with a short sentance to put it in context. I'm liking this a lot more than some of the other online learning sites - a word a day I can cope with where some of them are so overwhelming with information my brain freezes. The Madcows manager at work is keen too and we're hoping to sign up everyone in the office as part of the Nga Take Maori competency in our performance plans.

The other link that I am totally addicted to is The Sartorialist It's not like I'm a fashion freak but my week is just not complete without a scroll through what people on the street in New York are wearing. It's like an online glossy magazine - you know the kind you never find on the shelves at the bookstore but somehow are always at the hairdressers. Now what's that about - do hairdressers have some secret magazine supplier?

I love magazines. Any magazine. I've been known to graze through copies of "Hot4's" & "NZ Performance Cars" when I can't find anything else in the house - just got to have those glossies! I blame my grandmother. She shared the addiction (or perhaps started mine) and always had a huge pile of English mags next to her chair and the two of would devour every word & picture about people who may have been very famous in the UK but who were totally unknown down our side of the planet. It didn't matter though. They were magazines for goodness sake. We needed them! She also used to buy some rather tacky "tits and bums" type mags which she assured us all were "just for the crosswords" which might have been convincing if we didn't all know about her predilection for some rather raunchy novels. Have to wonder about Bess sometimes!

Now of course I judge professionals by the quality of reading material in their waiting rooms. For several years I went to a GP in Wellington not for his medical skills (minimal) but rather for his subscription to "The New Yorker". I also had to find a new therapist several years ago when obviously the man had finished rennovating his house (House & Garden, Home Beautiful) and was now spending my outrageously expensive appointment fee on a new boat (Sea Spray).

The downside to this habit is the difficulty in storing this great quantity of paper. Grandad Shaw to the rescue and now to match the gorgeous scrapping desk he built me, the lounge is now home to these "just what I wanted" bookshelves. They arrived last week but it's taken all this time to finally get them filled and tidy. You know what it's like when you start unpacking books - so many you've forgotten all about that you just have to sit down and read. More about that little trip down memory lane later.

For now it's back to the couch. "He Who Shall Not Be Named" is out at work and with control of the tv remote I've got "Easter Parade" booked. Fred Astaire AND Judy Garland. Aaah that's class.