A week in Westeros

Gentle readers, I must apologize for my recent absence - I unexpectedly took a vacation.  My office was closed last week, and I just didn't know what I was going to do with myself as I couldn't afford to go away anywhere for a holiday, and Paris is a ghost town in August.  So, having thoroughly enjoyed the fabulous "Game of Thrones" on TV, I decided I would read the first book in the series just for all the extra details, and then I'd eventually read the next book after the next season of the show.  But it didn't quite happen like that.  I got to the end of the first book and promptly ran out to buy the next one...and then the one after that...and then the one after that.  I literally couldn't stop - I was so enthralled I was up until 4 or 5am every night reading.  My laundry didn't get done, my dishes stacked up in the sink, my emails piled up in my Inbox, I saw no one, I barely took the time to shower and get dressed.  So blame one Mr George R.R Martin for luring me away from you - six books, 5060 pages, 11 days of reading and now that I'm done, I feel like I've actually taken a vacation after all.  Because, trust me -  a world full of dragons and hot men in armour is waaaay more exciting than Paris in August...

Things you might see on the street #20 (dragon)

Is it just me, or is this dragon the most camp thing you've ever seen?  Doesn't he look like he should be wearing sequins and getting ready to belt out "I Will Survive"?   I'm sure there's a joke to be made somewhere here about putting the "drag" in dragon, but I'll just leave that with you...

Sub culture

You may recall that I finally got a second job, but I didn't really get into the specifics of it - well, it involved submarines.  You may very well be thinking that Miss K ended up working behind the counter of Mr Sub (and it may yet come to that), but noooo - this is about the actual under-the-sea machines.  And dammit, I've now got "Under The Sea" from The Little Mermaid playing in my head...and now it's in yours too, mwahahahaha!  (Sorry, I swear I haven't been drinking - I am, however, deeply silly.)

Basically, it was a voiceover gig - listening to an engineer speaking bad English and then summarizing what he had said into good English and recording it onto a slideshow about building submarines.  Listening to the engineer was unbelievably boring (sorry, engineers - much love to you guys!), but the actual stuff about the submarines was really interesting.  I did modules on eleven different systems, so at this point I feel like I could build one of the damn things myself.  Of course, I have absolutely no mathematical ability or engineering qualifications whatsoever, so it would probably end up shaped like a unicorn and sink like an anvil, but hey, I never said my submarine would actually work.

Anyway, it was a great gig - I could do it from home and it fit around my other job, and it was also extremely well-paid.  I made about five months worth of rent in the space of three weeks, but it was a ton of very detail-oriented, extremely time-consuming work on a brutal deadline.  It's done now, but if they get another contract in September, hopefully they'll have some more work for me then.  

And who knew anyone would pay me to talk??  I can honestly say that I have never once in my entire life considered my deep voice to be an asset, but apparently the clients were very happy with me.  Of course, that's probably because I put on my super-smooth, female-version-of-Barry-White voice for the narration, and got to say all sorts of sexy engineering things like: "mounting", "studs", "enabling the shaft to move smoothly within the tube" and on one glorious occasion, in the section on ballast, "after a good blowing".  Hee!  Ahh, I make my own fun...

Farewell to Furry Man-Whore

I've been putting off writing about this because it was so hideously painful, but I guess I have to get it over with.  I originally ended up with Furry Man-Whore because I sublet an apartment at the end of January from a divorcing couple, neither of whom could take their cat with them because both their new partners were allergic.  So I looked after the cat, and eventually even Miss K's frozen black heart couldn't withstand the onslaught of feline charm that FMW unleashed upon me:  every time I walked through the door, he was there to greet me; every time I sat down on the sofa, he jumped into my lap; he was always up for a cuddle any time I picked him up; he slept curled up under my chin every single night.  In other words, he was impossible to resist - he even seduced my friends who don't normally like cats.  So when I was told at the beginning of April that I'd have to move out at the end of June, I was very keen to formally adopt him, and after a month of dithering about it, the owner told me at the end of April that it was "90% certain" that I would get to keep the cat.  

Well, 90% is pretty definite, so I naturally spent the next two months thinking that Furry Man-Whore was going to be living in my new place with me, so you can imagine my devastation when the owner changed his mind at the last minute and decided to keep the cat.  My joy at moving into my new apartment was almost completely ruined by a) having to leave him, and b) the fact that I had pictured my life here including him, so it felt like I was living here with a little furry ghost.  I was able to mostly keep my mind off it during the days, because I was busy with two jobs and running all over town looking for the things I needed for the apartment, but the nights were rough.  I couldn't sleep at all without him, so I spent the first three weeks of July taking a sleeping pill every night and washing it down with a bottle (yes, a bottle) of wine.  It was all horribly dramatic and Judy Garland (although in my case, without the talent), but I've managed to slowly start getting it together since then. 

Anyway, sorry to bore you with all that, and I know it makes me sound like Crazy Cat Lady Extraordinaire, but it really affected me and that's one of the reasons I haven't been very consistent with posting recently - I've just been too damn sad, but don't worry, I'm coming back from it.  I won't talk about it again, but for the cat-lovers out there, see below for some fine Furry Man-Whore moments...

Should I feel insulted or complimented?

Y'know, I haven't totally gotten back on track with this blog, and I think it's because I've tried to get back to normal posting even though I still have lots of things to yap about that happened during my looooong absence.  So, clearly I'm going to have to backtrack and talk about those before I can get back into the regular swing of things.  Okay?  Okay.  

So, one of the things that happened is that I was apparently mistaken for a gay man.  On one of the few nights out I had in July (when I wasn't busy packing like a demon, working like a demon, or generally stressing out like a demon - there were a lot of demons involved, is what I'm saying), two friends of mine were celebrating their impending move to Berlin.  It was one of those evenings that start out with nice, civilized cocktails and end up with stumbling home at 6am.  Anyway, one of our merry group was a very nice Austrian guy, let's call him Herr Wienerschnitzel - he was cute and charming, but I immediately pegged him as gay and thought no more about it.  So we all caroused from bar to bar and ended up in a skeevy nightclub, which is where we remained until 6am.  At that point, our group scattered in various directions, and it turned out that Herr Wienerschnitzel and I were going in the same direction, as he lived a block away from me in the Marais.  So he and I strolled home from St Michel to the Hotel de Ville, passing Notre Dame  along the way (and here's a little tip for you - if you ever want to get a photo of yourself in front of Notre Dame with absolutely NO ONE else around, 6am is the time to do it), until we arrived at my door.  I started to say goodnight, when, with no warning whatsoever, he suddenly pounced on my face and started smooching the hell out of me.  Gentle readers, not much surprises Miss K anymore, but I did not see that one coming!  I lived in the Marais for five months, so I do have a tendency to assume that every handsome, well-groomed and well-dressed man I see is gay, but even after Herr Wienerschnitzel snogged my face off and claimed he was straight, I'm still not convinced about him.  I think I know what happened - as I've told you before, I'm tall and have shoulders like a lumberjack, plus I also have a deep voice.  The pickings were mighty slim in that nightclub, so if he ignored my cleavage and long hair, I was probably the closest thing to an attractive man that he could find.  So I'm still trying to decide if that's an insult or a compliment to me...

Favourite Paris photos - 39

Things you might see in a shop #9

Hmmmm...  Now what could this shop be selling? Anyone?  I don't know, I just can't seem to figure it out, I really wish they'd stop being so damn mysterious and just tell me already...