Tales from toyland

It's been a while :) First my computer developed a bad case of the hiccups. Once it was up and running limping again, I had to spend every spare minute saving anything I wanted to keep onto CD in case its problem proved terminal. After that, the modem decided that being swapped back and forth between my computer and Yeti's was too much for it, so it took a couple of weeks off as well.

Surprisingly, I actually enjoyed my break from the electrical monstrosity, so correspondence from now on will probably be sporadic. I am no longer getting up at 3am, so there is less time to procrastinate in the mornings - and my routines for getting me and the house tidy take priority. Wombat naptime is likewise generally overbooked in the 'to-do' department.

Poetry Friday is here again, and I am jumping in with a short but punchy piece from Canadian Fantasy Writer, Charles de Lint.

Today's round-up will be held over at The Miss Rumphius Effect.

The Puppet

The puppet thinks:
It's not so much
what they make me do
as their hands inside me.

~Charles de Lint

If you have kids, you have probably heard by now about the Fisher Price toy recall, due to lead paint used in their manufacture. Yeti hunted around and buried deep within Mattel's site, he managed to find a list of the recalled products, with pictures for easy and fast identification. Elmo and Dora the Explorer seem to be the primary culprits, and it is confined to toys made this year, but if you've bought or been given any Fisher Price products since May, it's worth checking against your toybox!

We had an adventure this week - a three hour drive into town to visit a friend - who wasn't home - so we took Wombat to the beach instead.

Windswept, salt sand specked,
plucking snails from a rockpool,
stroking a starfish,
peeking at a purple-clawed
crab in a crevice.

~MW