muted celebrations

heya


it was (fairly) recently so that my (considerably) better half, look you see, had reason for much merriment and celebration. no, not that, for if i am typing this then such could not be so. what i speak of is that instance of joy which most (unless they elect not to) would commemorate once a year, or if you like a birthday.

the coming of this event prompted many (several) actions of homage and adulation, with wishes both good and kind being forwarded. one such example of this is the lovely card my sister sent on. it was to be, however, a case of not judging a book by its cover. or, you know, whatever the saying is.

what was the issue? well, brace yourself, but have a look......

yes. in the clarity of Commodore 64 mode, you are seeing something of a horror. for some reason, again i know you can see this perfectly but for the sake of completeness, a Christmas themed stamp was used a number of months after the festive or if you will yuletide period had been traditionally considered at an end, or finished. compounding this is the fact that the stamp has been slapped on the envelope in a rather haphazard way, which is to say not straight.

i knew of this before it arrived in the post. my sister was absolutely horrified at what the employee of the postal service in an unspecified nation (Gillian asked me not to slam the whole of the New Zealand post office so i have kept the country name out of it) (oh) did. she remonstrated with the staff member immediately, asking her what she thought she was playing at and demanding that it be peeled off, replaced with a proper stamp placed correctly.

with tears in her eyes, the employee gave a heartfelt apology, for they were aware of the folly they had committed. she further said sorry about not being able to fix it, for to remove the stamp would be to damage the envelope. fearing - perhaps rightly - that this faux pas might cause a family rift, Gillian wrote to me after the episode, explaining the above mostly word for word (mostly), and asking me to pass on my apologies to my (considerably) better half for the certainly not intended insult.

although i did do this, as you can see above when it landed through the letterbox she was not quite prepared for the true scale of the horror. my (considerably) better half gasped, did one of them shocked "shriek" things and then passed out. fear not on the latter, for i fetched the smelling salts and managed to more or less resuscitate her. but my sister is forgiven, for eventually i was able to convince my (considerably) better half that the sin was of another.

my (considerably) better half tells the above in a slightly different way. in her version she simply found the story mildly amusing, and mentioned that unless i, and my sister, had brought what had happened to her attention then in all probability she would not have noticed. how exceedingly brave and giving of her to conjure up such a whimsical cover story.

did any other intrusions on celebrations happen? yes. well, sort of. i had an idea to make some sort of merry, jolly video, celebrating both the birthday of my (considerably) better half and celebrating the fact that she is not that bad to have around. on the basis that it shall play ok here, well, here it is below.

hopefully that plays ok, and indeed i trust that you liked some of the pictures. possibly, too, that you enjoyed the most splendid music. i look forward with some small measure of significant interest to learning if you can actually hear it. well, hear it whilst you have the sound switched on.

the most natural place to showcase this video in the first instance was over on that "social media" business, or if you like facebook. mostly this went ok, right up until the point at which that i got this notification, or if you will warning, or if you like telling off......

oh. quite clever, them facebook lot, to identify the fact that no, i do not "own" You're My Best Friend off of Queen. to my mind i didn't really think Brian May of the hair, Roger Taylor (not the Duran Duran one), John of the Deacon or the memory of Freddie would have much of an issue with it, but it would seem that facebook did on their behalf. apologies, then, to friends in Andorra and Antigua, and in particular to the several revolutionary sisters united in the cause my (considerably) better half has in Afghanistan and the UAE, for not being able to hear this.

something of particular interest is the claim that something called Hot In Cleveland appears on the soundtrack. if it does, then i do not know how. this is a piece of music i have not heard of, never mind put anywhere. perhaps it sounds a bit like the song i actually used, or vice versa, depending on which one came first.

want another look at the unseasonal misplaced stamp? i cannot think of why one would wish to subject themselves to such profanity by choice, but not for me to stop you reaching for the dream.

anyway, as is customary for my musings here, the final image usually cues the fact that i have exhausted all possible words to use.

right then, probably best for me to sign off here, that being the case.



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!