ma's very seahorsey birthday

Well, Very Seahorsey-Themed Birthday Gifts anyway...

Of the "non seahorse" items, I got the Geisha jewellery stand while I was at work yesterday, and getting it home on the bus in the giant paper bag they gave me was actually much less painful than I thought it might be.

I've been going a little bit nuts over the last week or so looking for the right card... I have this thing about needing to get just the "right" card (when I bother doing the card thing) for people's birthdays... and since this is the big Six-Oh for Ma, the card had to be perfectly perfect... which of course means that I must have looked at every 60th birthday card, every "To Mum" birthday card, every girly pretty blank birthday card in every possible shop selling cards I've been near in the last week and a half. And if it had been any other birthday I could have bought a card maybe ten times over... and I will admit, the card I ended up getting was actually one I'd seen in at least three different stores, and was also one of the first cards I think I picked up when I first started looking.

When I told Ma on the weekend about going to every card shop known to man she laughed at me and then apologised (which threw me for a second), since I'd actually forgotten or not thought about it, but it was what she and my Nanna used to do when I was growing up... they'd keep looking for just the right card, and keep picking up the same ones in various shops, then pretty much go back to the first place they went and get a card there, or else pick up the first card they looked at, but in the sixth or seventh place they'd seen it.

I'm pretty sure my obsession with finding just the right gift for the right person on the right occasion actually comes from the pair of them too (although that could be mostly me with a little bit of them... it's that nature versus nurture question again *wink*).

Actually, like with the final decision on the card, when I went out today to get all the boxes and bags and whatnot, it all turned out much easier than I was expecting.

After getting to sleep in for an extra hour (yaaaaaay!), I went off for my walk, which was odd, since the sun had already come up, and it's been a while since I saw the sun while I was walking... then I just got to potter about a bit when I got back here, take a slightly more leisurely approach to the morning, but ended up being ready to go around 9am... although I did have a little bit of a mental breakdown when I realised that the movie I'd decided we would probably go and see tonight wasn't the movie that I thought it was, so now I don't know what the hell we're doing tonight (and Ma hasn't returned the long babbling message I left her earlier).

Anyway, I took off for Arndale (oh, and for the record, my Pink CD works again, I don't know what was going on there on Sunday), thinking that I could have a look around there, and if nothing looked promising, then I could take off for Northpark where I do my grocery shopping and finish up there. Fortunately I never needed the second option.

It was actually all a breeze... yes, I did end up looking everywhere and then coming back to the first place I'd looked, but I hit the bottleshop, got the wine, then a brief visit to EzyDVD where I spotted a cheap copy of the Russian horror/fantasy movie Night Watch... but that was just for me.

Then, after a brief trip to two or three other spots to look at cards and bags and boxes, it was back to the Newsagent near the door where I came in, where I ended up getting everything... and once I started, I just went with this whole "bright solid colour" theme... and then black for the tissue paper (it was the best choice out of a bunch of bad choices), and a final, last minute impulse buy of the "60 WOW!" badge when I was standing at the counter.

The only really "not easy" bit was when I went to pay for the bags (which all turned out to be on sale... yay!), since I'd given her my Visa card instead of my normal ATM card, so the pin number kept coming up wrong (dur!)... then I realised that the giant blue bag that I'd picked had a split along the side of it (when she went to put my other purchases in it), so I went over to choose another one... and of course, the one I'd picked turned out to be the only blue one left... so I went with pink instead... but I already had the pink box... so I was less happy about that... since I wanted everything to be a unique colour...

Being the compulsive detail freak that I am, I ended up having another look at the bags on my way out, and swapped the little green bag I had for a little blue one, and the giant pink bag for a giant green one... but after a brief trip back to the register to tell her that was what I was going to do, at least everything was unique again.

Anyway, once I was done being anal about colours and came home again, this is what I ended up with for Ma's presents...

• DVD Seahorses (thanks to Stu pointing it out to me when he saw it on eBay)
• Felt Seahorse giftbag from Planet Party for the DVD
• Pink and blue Geisha doll jewellery stand
• 2005 Promised Land White Cabernet (with it's seahorse logo)
• Two necklaces from Putting on the Glitz at Marion last weekend
• Crystal & seahorse "suncatcher" from Body Mind & Psychic Expo
• The "60 Wow!" badge (which I'm going to insist she wears to work on Thursday... hehehe)
• A piece of Rum & Raisin fudge and a taste of the other three flavours of fudge I bought at the Expo on Sunday

I really should have put some more lights on when I took the photos though... it all looks a little dull...

In addition to all that stuff, on her present list this year there's also the whole trip to Pirates 3 in Gold Class, as well as the "birthday lunch" thing, even if that did turn out a little lame...

And then I'm making Hearty Herdbeast Stew (an old classic that hasn't come up on rotation for a long while, but I'll post the recipe for that sometime tomorrow) and Rhubarb Crumble before we do whatever the hell is it that we're going to end up doing tonight.

Oh, and she told me on Sunday that after we'd gone looking at those watches the day before, and she'd decided against them all, she actually went in and bought the one we were looking for at the store near here... as her birthday present to herself... when she knew that I'd said I had planned on buying it for her if she'd made up her mind when we were both there. Mothers... whatyagunnado! But on the up side, it meant I could still go and get her the Geisha jewellery stand.

The addition of the wine to the list is a little bit of a departure... Ma isn't really that much of a drinker to be honest (and neither am I really), but while I was looking around at work for links relating to the project I'm working on (all official and above board, I promise... well, mostly), I came across the Taylors Wines website, and noticed that their insignia is actually three seahorses. And since Ma's newly discovered favourite wine is the White Shiraz from Banrock Station, and one of the Taylor labels, Promised Land, makes a White Cabernet... I'm hoping she might like that one too. If not, well, the story of the Taylor winery and the Promised Land brand might be enough to carry it as an addition to the "Very Seahorsey Birthday".

"The Promised Land range of wines owes its name and symbolism from the discovery of fossilised seahorses on the Taylor family estate in the Clare Valley. During excavation of the vineyard dam, the remains of three tiny seahorses were uncovered - fossilised in limestone bedrock. The Taylor family agreed that this was a truly promising omen and later named the new area the Promised Land."

And now I should find an appropriately DVD full of colour and movement that I don't really need to pay attention to and make a start on dinner, or the preparations for it anyway, and then maybe tidy up the house a bit.

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