Tetherd Cow Ahead

Nurse Myra sent me a link the other day to a site that had some of the semi-ghoulish toys that I used to love as a kid.* I was surprised to see there a set of ‘Kooky Spookies’ a toy that I had all but forgotten. When I was younger† I was completely fascinated by glow-in-the-dark things, and had numerous toys that had this property, along with several kinds of luminous paints, one of which had an extremely peculiar smell that I can evoke to this day.

I was immediately prompted to see if I could locate another of my favourites, ‘Glow Globs’ – a kind of luminous plasticene that came in three ‘ghostly’ colours – and as is often the way with teh internets, I got my nostalgia fix within seconds. I herewith present to you Glow Globs, courtesy of ToyRanch’s Flickr set.

So now yez al know what you can get me for Christmas.

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*I’m sure that comes as no surprise to a single one of you.

†And heck, even to this day!

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It is four years ago today that my beautiful Kate left this place. I remember you always kpop. Rest in Peace.

Anne Arkham draws my attention to the sad news of the death of Laura Huxley, who you may recall I wrote about in the post Brief Candles.

Rest in peace Laura. One of my very few regrets is that I never called the number you gave me.

The LA Times obituary says:

One of her last projects was to bring “Brave New World” to the movie screen. It is now in development with a major motion picture studio, (estate attorney) Jonathan Kirsch said.

Personally, I hope that this never happens. Some things should just be left well and truly alone.

This image just to hand courtesy of Violet Towne:

In Australia, these outfits are called trakky daks. Aside from imparting that bit of cultural ephemera, try as I may I just can’t find any words to do this picture the justice it deserves.

I’ve noticed that a number of the blokes who appear in Phoebe Fay’s regular ‘Beefcake Friday’ offerings have the air of, shall we say, ‘confirmed bachelors’.

To this end I present the above chap in his sartorial splendour for a special Aussie ‘Lamington Friday’ Tribute.

Down, Phoebe, down!

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Thanks to Violet Towne for the scan! x.

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I’m packing up my house into cardboard boxes in preparation for my impending relocation from Sydney to Melbourne. As is always the case when it comes to reviewing the amount of crap one accumulates over the years, there have been many sidetracks, some of which will almost certainly make it to The Cow over the next short while.

This book, which I found in my study, was sent to me nearly two years ago by a fellow blogger with whom I was once in almost daily contact. It is called ‘Strange Red Cow (and other curious classified ads from the past)’ by Sarah Bader. It’s a curious, quirky, charming book and as soon as I picked it up I was reminded strongly of the curious, quirky, charming personality of the woman who sent it to me.

I never actually met her in real life, sadly, and she stopped blogging over a year ago with no warning or explanation, and after the very worst kind of family crisis. She also stopped replying to my emails. I have many friends, both in the real world and in cyberspace, and I know from experience that usually when someone abruptly stops communicating it means trouble. I really hope that’s not the case, and I hope she just got bored with blogging and the ephemera of online friends and has found a really happy and contented space in her real world. I guess I’ll never know.*

Que sera, sera.

When I took a break from my cramming of things into boxes and and had a quick nostalgic browse through Strange Red Cow I found this ad, which I like to think would have appealed to her:

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*We can say for certain that she’s not attending to her blog. Great drifts of spam now clog up all the comments on her posts, reminding me as nothing so much as an abandoned house with its porch ankle-deep in unswept leaves.

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