Now boys and girls, shall we play a game?

I'm calling it TOP FIVES (suitable for ages 6 and up). You have to list your top 5 things in response to the suggested topic. Expositions and confessions are invited, but not mandatory. I'm going to kick off the first round with "Top 5 Days of the Week". I hope you will play too. Or else this will be sad, like an only child kicking a ball to herself.

1. Saturday. For croissants and to know that if it was a beautiful day and I wanted to read my book in a park on a picnic rug, I could and I wouldn't have to take sick leave to do it.
2. Friday. Goes without saying. See also: Sultan's Table, Enmore.
3. Monday. The easiest cryptic crossword day - finishing makes me feel like a bona fide GENIUS.
4. Wednesday. For a regular morning catch up and coffee with one of my favourite friends. Too bad she makes me do a spin class first. This could have almost led to Wednesday's disqualification, but spin classes do help prevent my bum from looking like two badly parked volkswagens.
5. Thursday. Prior to my recent "Extremely Painful and Incredibly Close" encounter with a netball court and resultant season-ending shoulder dislocation, I probably would have said Tuesday. But given the chance to reveal my huge reservoir of all knowledge uselessly trivial, and the presence of more cool friends, pub trivia Thursdays have quietly slipped up the rankings.

What's yours?

Is it just a coincidence

or is blogroll meant to be a deliberate pun on bog roll?

Is excessive gambling a problem for you?

My old boss likes to place a bet. If you couldn't find him in his office, the joke was that he was probably in the Canberra Casino. Some bets came off rather nicely, like the sweet grand he put on Makybe Diva in the Melbourne Cup one year. Some didn't, like the auction bids he put in for one of those tizzed up units from that renovation-obsession show, The Block. Reality television is another obsession too. He once compelled all his staff to submit to being filmed for an audition tape for Australian Survivor. Apparently I was going to be the "new Kimberley", which will mean nothing unless you ever watched the first season of the US version. (He committed the foolish error of giving us the tapes to submit ourselves- I taped Rage over it not long after. VHS cassettes I miss you!)

Anyway, back to the Melbourne Cup. My boss once mentioned to me that he reads the tarot cards to divine his fortunes on the turf. Now, this is a senior partner in a respected law firm. It's a bit like a judge using a Magic 8 Ball to determine someone's guilt (Is the Defendant guilty? You May Rely On It.). Now, I normally don't condone superstition-ery and I certainly wouldn't pay $5.00 per minute for some student with a call-centre job to tell me my numerological destiny. But since I foolishly fritter my money on a few flutters every year (try saying that with a bit in your mouth), and because I find my old boss to be very amusing, I asked el capo for a reading for the upcoming Cup. And because I want everybody I like to be very very rich, I herewith share his predictions:

ok the tarot read is as follows -

I cant tell you the name or the number. But I can tell the winner will be a boy, so scratch out girl horses. I can also tell you it will be a young male horse, this is a very unusual outcome because normally older horses win. There's an indication that the horse has journeyed, so perhaps overseas horse or one that doesn’t live in melb - it might be a NZ horse as well. There's going to be confusion, so something unusual will happen, there might be sudden heavy rain or even a really close finish eg a win in photo with the actually winner not clear until the photo happens.

But yep a young boy horse, so im imagining somewhere in the order of 4 to 5 max, maybe even a 3 year old.

once the list comes out, I should be able to tell you the exact winner, we should get a good return as I think the favourites are old boy horses.

ps the tarot never tells lies so have faith.

And there's an update to the above prediction, which arrived later today:

but there's more - the strange thing is that the horse is a boy, and young, but it has a strong female element. This could mean a feminine name, a female jockey, or pink colour.

Sorry I have to tell you what I see, and I tried to hide this but there's a paradox at play, it's a boy with feminine overtones.

So to all of you chancers out there, do with this information what you will. I give no assurances as to the quality of his readings, I really couldn't tell you how clear his aura is or anything like that. But if everything comes up "slightly feminine boy horses" for you on Tuesday, remember where you got the hot tip.

This is not an auspicous start to my blog, but killing time at 11pm on a Monday night whilst waiting for my boss to return the UMPTEENTH version of a document usually leads me into dark pits of self-pity and moaning. I was intending to launch my collection of elegant musings/diseased rants with a small coterie of friends (okay, maybe just Andy), and a fine spread of lemon cordial and homebrand cheese on vitawheats. Guess that promising shindig will just have to wait until later!

For reasons explicable only to me, I decided to go "no 'poo" on Saturday. And no, it doesn't mean I am actively clenching but, as an experiment, I decided to forgo shampoo for once and wash my hair with bicarb soda.* It turned out better than I expected. The fragrance of the apple cider vinegar rinse was more suggestive of hobo essence than herbal essence, but there was reasonable texture and shine.

But, two days of dusty renovations (and a suprise porthole into the loungeroom wall later, thanks Reno King Andy!) and a highly stressful day at work later, I'm well and truly resembling the Pantene before shot. Add to that the pasty complexion brought on by my dinner of a fruit and nut chocolate bar and packet of chips, and my red-rimmed eyes as evidence of having my will to live vacuumed out of my brain by 14 hours in front of an LCD monitor, and I think I almost resemble this lady:

And she looks pretty good compared to me right now. I want to go home. Sad face.

* Apparently you can also make your own toothpaste with bicarb soda mixed with a little sea salt. Just perfect for that "seagull shitting in my mouth" taste. Now where do I find a birch twig to replace my toothbrush?