Friday, August 31, 2012

Scone withdrawal and clotted cream deprivation is so cruel.

First came scone hips, then came scone withdrawal. I'd give my right arm for some clotted cream and some fresh scones right now. It's perfectly acceptable to want to exchange body parts for food right? Oh, don't look at me, I'm just the gal missing a right arm (exchanged for scones and clotted cream) and a kidney (sold to pay for washi tape). Not a weirdo at all. Doo dooo..... My robot pals will just get me bionic replacements, it's all good. Maybe I'll get an upgraded arm that, um, holds things and, um, attaches to a hand that I can then use to, um, also hold things. Oh, and don't forget the BEST part: my upgraded arm will then attach to a shoulder which I can then use to...erm...um.....shrug. Yup! SHRUG. Not just anyone can shrug. [just back away slowly from the crazy woman... don't make eye contact, it'll be just fine....]

I'm still trying to get back into the scheme of mail, so no outgoing to report, but tons and tons of incoming from while I was away. Thanks for everyone who sent me mail, you brighten up my day with your awesomesauceness. However, I'm still getting a number of first letters from fellow snailmailers, so just a friendly reminder that I'm not looking for any more penpals. Hilariously enough, I'm getting letters from people who openly admit to reading on my blog that I don't want new penpals, but have thus chosen to ignore it. I love you for your defiant brazenness, it makes me smile, but this isn't a situation of "I can't eat anymore sushi...oh heck, why not just another dozen pieces?!!" I REALLY can't take on any new penpals—my wallet and my schedule won't allow it. So please consider writing another mail enthusiast and maybe leave me a comment instead. I greatly appreciate it regardless.

And on that note, let's turn ourselves over to mail goodies. It's been a few weeks since I've done a regular mail post and I'm feeling a bit rusty. But let's see if it's like riding a bike and just dive right into it! AHOY MATEY! Yes, just call me Laura "mixed metaphor" L.

Incoming:


Check out this wonderfully artsy envelope from Anna:

And if that wasn't awesome enough, check out the back:
Apparently it fell into some sort of space and time continuum because it was returned to her, but eventually it worked itself out and came to me. Oh, TARDIS! You so silly. Such a jokester!



I came home to this amazingly colourful package from my dear penpal Cheryl. It was a great pick-me-up after a long, long flight.

That rainbow envelope contained the below fantastico goodies! It's Afro Ken! A dog! WITH AN AFRO! Things just don't get better than this.

















And that's it from me folks! Turns out blogging is just like riding a bike ace in the hole egg on your face writing on the wall and fighting tooth and nail. Yeah, you read me right: I'm totally off my rocker.

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Curse you cobblestones!!

Hello penpalling world! You may have noticed that I’ve been conspicuously absent from my blog the last few weeks. Did you miss me? I was not kidnapped and punished by the robot police for the insolence of my previous post as suggested by Sara (thank gods, I’m rubbish at binary code and I've heard that doing point gestures at robots can be mistakenly construed as threatening! I’d hate to get exterminated because I was doing my awesome disco moves). Rather, I was whisked away to the Land of Plentiful Scones! Here’s a peek of that land:

LONDON?! What is this London you speak of?! It’s the place of magical scones! Okkkkaaay, you may call it England/United Kingdom, but I prefer calling it the Land of Plentiful Scones because it’s particularly apt for me. Especially considering that I can't fit into any of my clothes anymore because of a condition I've termed Scone Hips. But oh my lord, it was worth it. And considering my goal on this trip was the consumption of as many scones as humanly possible, I consider it MISSION ACHIEVED. The inability to fit anything smaller than a tent at the moment is just collateral damage.

However, I now have something to rival scones in my culinary affections: welsh cakes. OH MY GODS, welsh cakes, where have you been all my life?!! I'm moving to Cardiff simply for these cakes. Life will not be the same after discovering them. They are heaven in a little tea cake.

Here are some of the many, many highlights of my two week trip to the land of my dreams (and fate willing, my future home):
Somerset House in London



Afternoon tea at the Atheneum Hotel in London

Well, would you look at what I found.....

Highclere Castle (AKA Downton Abbey). Unfortunately, the Crawleys had just "stepped out." What bad timing!

 Seriously, I ate A LOT of scones.

Brighton Pier

Sitting in Victoria Park in front of the Royal Crescent in Bath

Bridge of Sighs in Oxford

Torchwood memorial in Cardiff

I think this speaks for itself....

I got to stand in the TARDIS. Seriously. Between the welsh cakes and being in the TARDIS, regular life has been ruined for me. 

Little trip to Hogwarts from King's Cross station

View from Edinburgh Castle

Walking the Millennium Bridge after watching Henry V at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre
Walking the city walls in York

Afternoon tea at Betty's (makers of Yorkshire Gold) Tea Room in York

The one downside to visiting a country that is wrapped in history is cobblestones. Cobblestone streets as far as the eye can see. I learned one valuable lesson on this trip: cobblestones are the bane of my existence. Apparently they've waged a war against my feet. WHY COBBLESTONES, WHY?! Why do you hate my feet so that you have to hurt them so much? Did they offend you?!

I actually brought seven letters to respond to while on my trip because I thought I would have tons of time to write while waiting for planes and trains. Guess how many I responded to? ZERO. Silly, silly Laura. I hadn’t anticipated how little time or energy I would actually have to write anything. Apparently a side effect of scone hips is mushy brain, which means I couldn’t have put two sentences together if you asdflkjasdflkajieorwerlkj. [apparently, I’m STILL suffering from mushy brain!]

However, I did manage to send a package to a penpal, as well as a bunch of postcards so not all was lost mailwise.

I’m hoping to get back to regularly scheduled Laura-ness soon (jetlag, be gone!) and back to punishing your mailboxes with my ridiculous letters in the near future. I swear, I need a vacation from my vacation at the moment. Oh, mushy brain kicking in so I'll wrap this up. I received some velociraptor-iffic mail while I was gone and regular moustache mail post will follow. I hope everyone is well and managed to stay out of trouble while I was away. Scone hips and I'm out.

Friday, August 10, 2012

Are you alive? Prove it by sending some mail!

Hello yellow everyone!

You know how some websites require you to do a word verification in order to leave a comment? You write your pithy message, and up pops the word verification stating, "Please prove you're not a robot." I find this inordinately annoying. Does the internet know nothing about robots?! Because hello: ROBOTS CAN TAKE OVER THE WORLD. I'm pretty sure reading words on a screen isn't going to stump them. Oh, I can hack into the nuclear defense mainframe and the entire world wide web and make human beings into my little flesh slaves, but having to input the words "24 attyimiga"  into blogger is so complex and I cannot compute and systems shutting down now..... Clearly the internet needs to learn about cylons. And watch any science fiction movie about robots ever.


So the point is: the ability to input the words doesn't prove you're human, robot, anthropomorphic cheetah, or anything really. Plus, I'm not even sure I'm not a robot. Because if science fiction has taught me anything, it's that the people who think they're not robots often end up being robots. It's the good, old sleeper-robot trick. So because I'm such a smarty-pants, I just go around thinking that I am a robot. I'll use reverse psychology on the robots to convince them that I am a robot so that I won't be a robot.... wait, what?! I'M CONFUSED. I think I need to go in for servicing and maintenance. My circuits are fried. And the word robot is starting to look weird to me so let's move on, shall we?!

Incoming:


Marissa just finished going on a huge European cruise (two of them, actually!) and sent me postcards from the awesome places she visited, such as the one below from Pompeii (she also sent the one from Dubrovnik last week). IT'S NOT FAIR. I WANNA GO TOO. So from now on: if you go anywhere awesome, you have to bring me with you in your suitcase! I'm taking any replies to my letters from now on as agreement of these supposed-to-be-implicit-but-I-am-making-them-explicit-so-there's-no-confusion freaky deaky terms. Oh, and by replying, you also waive the right to be creeped out. Thank you and have a nice day!!






Kay sent a letter to my gunslinging alter ego: Johnny Quickdraw Dylan! That's me! When I'm not being Lady Laura, of course. Apparently I'm wanted for the terrible crimes of rustling cattle and abusing post scripts. WHY I NEVER! I would never rustle cattle! But I do abuse post scripts so hang me, ma'am, if you must.
Kay also sent these fantastico, awesomesauce, velociraptor-iffic Marvel buttons. LOVE THEM SO MUCH. It must be Marvel week for me because Natasha also sent some great Marvel stickers in her Hellboy envelope above. I <3 <3 <3 my penpals; they are seriously the best of the best of the best.




Outgoing:












And that's it! I'm out. Have a great week everyone. Remember: I AM NOT A ROBOT.