A Place to Call Home

The living room, with a silly door to the balcony.

The apartment hunting is over! Last wednesday we got the keys to our very own place. (I wonder, does this mean we now have to start acting like sensible adults? Oh dear.)

We're ridiculously happy about this place. It's got a Real Kitchen! It's got light fixtures that work! It's got a stove that also actually works! It won't turn into a big oven in summer! (Well, we're pretty sure it won't. We shall see!) It's got a balcony! It's got a whole small room for clothes! It's got, well, space. We're used to a tiny place with barely any room at all; this new place has a bedroom, living room, that little room for clothes, a nice wide hallway and a bathroom. I mean, we're going to get lost in there!

Mr Morrgan, checking out his favourite part of the new place:
the Real Kitchen.

Oh, plus the balcony! Wonderful, wonderful balcony, how I've longed for thee. I can't wait to fill it up with pretty flowers surrounding a couple of chairs, perfect for ice tea after work. (Well, once we figure out how the door works. We've opened it twice and both times had to spend 15 minutes trying to get it shut again. Not even having instructions thoughtfully left beside it by the previous owner helped.)

But do you know what I really enjoy about this apartment (in addition to the balcony and having no crappy linoleum floors)? It's in the middle of town, yet you can see trees from every window and barely hear any traffic noise at all. Such a huge change to what we've lived in so far.

Now, the only problem is which colours to choose for the bedroom and living room walls. Mr Morrgan has some silly notion about orange being a good idea. He can call it "ochre" all he wants, but it's still orange and a ridiculous colour for a wall, says I. Will we ever be able to decide? Only time will tell!

Zombie Fire Ants!

"Fire ants wander aimlessly away from the mound.

Eventually their heads fall off, and they die."

Hot damn. I will never understand people who think biology is boring.

Fire ants are causing trouble in southern and southeastern USA. To control them biologically, parasitic phorid flies have been introduced. The flies lay eggs in the ants and the results have been quoted above. Read the whole grisly story of horror here.

"The maggot that hatches inside the ant eats away at the brain, and the ant starts exhibiting what some might say is zombie-like behavior."

Hot damn.


As it happens, I've been playing games like Left 4 Dead and Plants vs Zombies lately. And then life comes along and proves itself stranger than fiction. I love it.

May Day! Plus some fish

Yay, May Day! (No, not the distress signal kind, but this.) And what a fine May Day celebration it has been. We tried wine that was older than myself, got to wear silly headwear and had a nice picnic in warm sunshine. (Whilst listening to the, uhm, delightful tunes of the Rocky theme played on a melodica, courtesy of some other picnickers nearby. Again and again. Oh, and got to watch some playful puppies, which made all good.)

Alas, the camera was forgotten on all these occasions, so you will have to make do with a somewhat random couple of photos of some of my fish enjoying their (almost May) dinner. I have at least four different species of Pangio or kuhli loaches in there, but only two or three agreed to pose for these.



In other, knitting-related news, I'm working on a new knitting pattern for the shops and should have something ready this month. Stay tuned, if you feel so inclined.