Rapitinui

Hats for cats

2007-04-04T19:59:00.000-07:00

Ah, Easter time again.. perhaps my favourite of the holidays, having grown up in an irreligious household. To me it means five days in a row off work and all the buns and chocolate I can eat!
One habit I've never really grown out of is playing with the tin-foil wrappers from easter eggs. Last weekend I was making little hats for my cat out of them, so I thought I'd share some of that simple pleasure.

Carefully flatten out the foil, coloured side down.
Place a small vase, cup, glass or similar object in the centre.

Smooth the foil down evenly over your form.

Fold the foil up perpendicular from the edges, to make a brim.

Fold the edges down over on themselves, keeping an even radius from the centre.

Remove the foil from your form and tuck all excess foil up inside.

et voila! the finished article.

Place the hat upon your cat when he or she isn't looking.

I'd love to post photos of other peoples' cats in tin-foil hats here, so if you're so inclined, send them to me: rapitinui at gmail dot com.

Great Cats of Our Time

2007-04-03T14:10:00.000-07:00

Gus
? - 10th March 2007

Gus passed away a couple of weeks ago now.. the cancer finally took him. Fortunately he was comfortable right to the end, and he held on til the weekend when I was there with him.
He's now sitting in a rimu box in pride of place on top of the bookshelf.
I miss him.

A meerkat smoking a cigar, atop a flamingo

2006-05-25T19:36:00.000-07:00

..any questions?

So much for silence

2006-05-17T23:56:00.000-07:00

Hmm.. well, it's not quite a year since I've posted anything here. I see the only comments have been left by spambots, nice! Hell, I couldn't even remember how to log into this thing - at first.
A few weeks I decided that I shouldn't worry about this log, since I'm unlikely to have anything particularly important to say. Rather, I'll post the odd little inconsequential thought from time to time.. (I think) I'm more interesting in a dialogue, than just rambling on.

For example: I happened to switch over to Fox News the other night, flipping channels in the wee hours. Usually I avoid it, but I saw something then that told me a lot about that particular channel of hate.
Apparently Mark Fuhrman's putting out a book about the JFK assassination! and he was on this show to plug said book. The blow-dried anchors introduced him as a "former LAPD officer.. you may remember something about that"!? Yeah, I fucking remember. That former officer who beat that unarmed man, on camera. Then there's the riots.
But no, they just breezily wafted over that painful history, and let him plug his assinine, conservative little book. Fuck me.

What the hell, time for another drink.

Don't somebody want to be wanted

2005-07-26T12:00:00.000-07:00

E hika ma! why, it's nearly August already. Gets one to thinking, what have I or should I have achieved in 2005? This year of the Cock was supposed to be good to me.
Yet, I feel only... bored.

Still. Keeping one's head above the waves. I did find a new place to live, and it's working out well. Closer to town, more secure - and bigger. The cats seem to like it too, even though I find myself cleaning up little 'accidents' on an alarmingly regular basis.

Otherwise I guess I'm still on 'cruise' at the moment.

"Sometimes days - seem to move just like a big fat man;
sometimes days - seem to end up where they first began..."

oh! and last week I walked by my old street. Where there used to be a nice old block of flats, there's now a big fuck-off pile of rubble. They didn't even strip the place before bulldozing it. Perversely, my letterbox was still standing forlornly amid the ruins, peeping out from the chainlink fence.
I didn't think I was that attached to the place (it was only eighteen months, after all), but it was a strange feeling. No sir, I didn't like it.

Lazy, lazy

2005-05-17T12:02:00.000-07:00

give me your answer do!

As predicted, I haven't been writing in this 'blog at all for months and months. No surprises there - I've been too busy being me to write about being me.

That's okay, though, since nobody's been reading it either.

My ex- told me she was very disappointed at the lack of anything incriminating/exciting/even vaguely interesting on here. Again, why would I write secret, private things in a space as public even as this? There are plenty of anonymous sites for such confessions, not that I have any.

Really.

So, what's new... still working away, day to day. I did have a brief trip to Kawhia, ki te tumu o Tainui, ki he wahi o oku tupuna; now that was great! Still sad to be back on this concrete wasteland.

Dramas, dramas... looking for a place to live would be the only one right now. Whoopee.

I guess I sound a little down, but it's probably just the rain. Filthy weather this week, as we come quickly into winter.

More fun to follow.

it's that time again

2005-02-14T14:07:00.000-08:00

They say suicide rates go up around Christmas, on account of people feeling lonely and unloved. To me the festive season is a time to be with family, and that's just fine.

Saint Valentine's Day, on the other hand, celebrates a different kind of lovin'. I can overlook the crass commercial aspects, the crappy cards, the wilted flowers, the chocolates blooming past their use-by-dates... but it's a difficult time to be alone.

Especially on such a lovely sunny day. I half expect to see cartoon woodland creatures gambolling arm in arm.

So, this is a picture I made a couple of years ago:

Isn't it lovely? Yes. Now, by contrast, here's a picture I made this year:

I guess that about sums it up.

Happy V.D., everybody.

he hikoi ki Whanganui-a-Tara

2005-01-24T14:46:00.000-08:00

Just had a week in Wellington with my family, since my brother was getting married.
On a beach, which was lovely - and went more smoothly than expected.

Auckland's such a wretched hole of a city, any time away just cheers me right up. Particularly in Wellington; maybe a part of it is mana whenua (Te Ati Awa reprazent), since all branches of my ancestry have passed through that place at one time or another. Maybe it's because it's still deserving of its reputation as the country's cultural capital. Sure, you can get a good coffee in most places around the motu now, but I still love that place so much.
If I hadn't scored a job I like here in Auckland, I'd probably be living there right now - and there are so many more libraries to choose from, I doubt I'd be without work.

E hika, it's just nice to have yet more time off. A week in Wellington with very little to do apart from what was needed for the service - in other words, finally a chance to do some serious shopping. Since I'd worn holes in the soles of my shoes.

Heoi ano, home again now, on this concreted, car-infested isthmus. At least the weather's beautiful for a change, a late summer for us perhaps, after so much rain.

he timatanga hou ano

2005-01-18T15:54:00.000-08:00

heoi ano, I've started a new weblog with blogger.

How nice.

I did have a livejournal, but I decided to let it die the death it deserved. I hadn't posted in it since August, and besides - it was boring as hell.

This, I fear, is a common feature of 'blogs in general. Simply because any monkey can set one up, doesn't mean he/she should, nor that that person has anything worth sharing with the world.

Myself included.