Books & shelving

Lately I've kind of been obsessing over shelving. Especially bookshelves. Mostly because I have what Mr Rubyslippers would call a metric fuck ton of books. And dvds. We have nine, yes, NINE, bookcases in our bedroom and Spare Oom, and the depressing thing is that I've left hundreds of books at my parents' house because there was nowhere to put them here, and I kind of miss them. I mean, I probably wouldn't be reading them anyway, but I miss having them around. Books to me are twofold: they are awesome to read AND they look awesome on a shelf. Maybe it's the collector in me, but I just love the look of rows of books. Especially if there's a full series. MMm. This is probably why I still look out for the Nancy Drews I don't have, even though I haven't read one for years. I am a completist.

Anyway, lately I've been saving a lot of pictures of bookshelves and just shelving in general. Some practical, some not at all, but still totally awesome.

This is what I've always wanted: a full wall of shelving (except mine would go all the way up to the ceiling, because, really, that's just wasted space up there!)

Another one that's pretty awesome:

But then I see awesome things like this, and I want them, no matter how much space they waste:

Clearly I like tree-shaped things. :-)

And then I get into swirly shapes, and it just sets my heart aflutter:

And my personal favourite:

Look, another tree:

I love the idea of this, even though the book-lover in me cringes at the idea of leaving a book lying open face-down like that. It's SO bad for the spine! But look how cute, like a little birdhouse!

This is so elegant:

And this is completely crazy:

I'm so obsessed with interior decor at the moment!

Randoms & Ramblings

Just a bit of a brain-dump for you this fine Wednesday night; or actually, early Thursday morning.

Pick 'n Pay has started making their own Jaffa Cakes. Result? One very thrilled Mr Ruby Slippers, and one "suddenly-really-liking-guzzling-Jaffa-cakes-late-at-night-oh-shit-this-is-bad" Mrs Ruby Slippers. I've already gained enough weight this year. I could barely fit into my wedding dress anymore at my TTD. It's all this sitting on my lazy ass in front of the computer all day I'm doing now. Gah.

I just watched season one of Beverly Hills 90210 (the original one; that all my friends and I were obsessed with when we were 12/13, not the shitty remake/re-imagining). It's so awesome. TOTALLY cheesy, and so dripping with moral messages that you could sink and drown in them, but I'm loving it! I'm so getting season 2 ASAP.

I just about died during the Grey's Anatomy season finale. I don't know how I'm going to wait until September to see what happens. One of the best finales EVER, I thought. Unlike Lost, which was, as I suspected, a huge letdown. I should have stopped after season one. Clearly, like Heroes, they had a fantastic premise which just couldn't last. At least I managed to stop putting myself through Heroes, but I got too invested in Lost, and the time-travel stuff in season 5 was so frikkin AWESOME.

My awesome husband is in the production of Noises Off that my theatre group is putting on, and tonight I went along to rehearsal. It's turning out soooo good! If you're in Johannesburg at the end of July/beginning of August, you have to come see it! The cast is working really hard, and it shows.

On a related note, I wish I could have seen the Noises Off production that starred Patti LuPone. Bootleg, anyone? Or of anything else with Patti? We are so out of the loop here at the arse end of Africa.

One of my friends is in the USA right now, and just saw Liza in concert on Sunday, and Promises Promises with Kristen Chenoweth and Sean Hayes today. I am completely eaten up inside with jealousy, especially  because he does things like this all the time. Bloody rich people. But at least he knows how to spend his money. Dammit, someone pay for me to go to America and see shows. Seriously.

A friend of mine went to Australia for business (also jealous!) and brought me back some chocolate, some cocoa-flavoured body lotion, and chocolate kisses lip balm. I guess I'm just really obvious.

That's it for now! Sleep tight/good morning/good evening, wherever you are!

Do it at home, people.

Today on my way home from an awesome photography workshop-slash-get-together, I got the following text from Mr Ruby Slippers:

"Supper plans? Because I was thinking (doesn't need to finish sentence)"

Which made me chuckle, because obviously - to me - he was referring to eating out, which we both love, and which is probably our one vice as a couple, because it tends to eat into your bank balance a lot more than cooking at home. So naturally I said yes.

Anyway, once I got home we decided on ribs from the only place near us that makes ribs worth eating, Thundergun. NOM. We then had to decide on somewhere else, because it was nearly 7pm and I made Mr RS call and make sure there was a table. Which there was...in "at least an hour". So it was back to our old faithful, Ruby's sushi, which has great sushi and is never jampacked. And I'm kind of glad we did, because we got to hear the couple at the table next to us having a fight, which totally made my evening, if only because it highlighted how much cooler we are than them. Ugh. We would never go out for sushi and then spend the evening bitching at other in lowered tones that everyone around us could hear anyway about "never listening" and "this is shit" and "I care more about you than you do about me" and other such crap.

I have to say this tiff at the table next door really aroused my curiosity, because I'm nosy like that. It took Mr RS longer to cotton onto the fact that there even was a fight, but then I think men don't eavesdrop as easily as we women do. Sorry ladies, fact. So there we were in the middle of a fab conversation about how they could possibly make a continuation series of Firefly  (which would have to be a prequel so that Wash could be there, but then that would leave out River and her brother, which I was fine with because Summer Glau has always kind of annoyed me anyway, but Mr Slippers, for some reason, likes her, so he disagreed) and all the while I was straining my ears to hear what on earth was going on with this crazy couple, while still listening to Mr RS and responding intelligently. If ever you want to test your powers of concentration, do this. It's hard.

Anyway, I somehow got the feeling that the beginning of the fight sprung up, seemingly out of nowhere, soon after the arrival of their sushi (where they discussed which piece was which), because "you never talk to me and you never listen" (guess which gender said THAT). And I couldn't help but think it was because they were listening to us talking and laughing and making it look so easy to be a fun, in love couple who could happily just talk about random interesting things. Because there certainly was a pause from their table (seriously, these tables were close. I could have stretched out and taken their sushi without getting up) while we were having a conversation about alleged top movies, and why 2001: A Space Odyssey needs a rewatch to be sure it is that bad (Mr Slippers) and why Butch Cassidy was awesome, and ergo why we should watch The Sting (me). Maybe it's all in my head, but I think they envied us. So of course we endeavoured to make our conversation all the more sparkling and witty, because that's just what we do. All in unspoken agreement, of course. Afterwards, when we both admitted we'd been doing it, I fell in love with Mr Ruby Slippers just a little bit more. :-)

As for the couple, eventually the woman got up and hissed, "I don't want to argue in front of these people," and I thought "I thought you already were", and the man said, a split-second later, "I thought you already were." I almost went "SNAP!"

Then they stalked off outside, and when we left, the woman was sitting in her car alone, and the man was halfway down the block, sulking next to a streetpole. As for us, we went and got delicious icecream and said things like "I love us" a lot.

I wish people would have the decency to fight in the privacy of their own home, but since it happened that they didn't, I rather enjoyed it. I just wished I was someone like House, and could come up with some flabbergastingly brilliant remark, and actually have the guts to say it. Now that would have been awesome.