Kat Johnston

Tag: ‘The Hubby’

  • Vivid yellow dandelions… mmm, a dandelion daydream.

    Vivid yellow dandelions, a pure, pleasurable treat to the senses. A pox upon those who see this precious flower as a weed.

    So… the hubby reads the post of yesterday and disappears from the house for a few minutes. I wondered where he had gotten to. He really is a rather nice ogre, after all, all things considered. I peeked my head outside the front door to see what he was doing, only to find him pottering around on the lawn, snipping up the dandelions to make a little bouquet for me. He had to mow the lawn soon anyway, so he thought he might as well save them and give them to me to enjoy for a few days more instead of pulverizing them with the mower. Isn’t that sweet?

    So, rather than putting up a drawing today, I present to you a photo of some of the wonderful dandelions that adorned my front yard, scattered amongst the green. Still fresh, vivid in their pure, wonderful yellowness – a weed to some, visual and imaginative bliss to me. Van Gogh had his sunflowers, I have my dandelions. I love ’em to bits. I can probably tell you why, too, but perhaps that is a story for another day. Thank you for the dandelions, sweetie.

    I might go through the photos in a little bit and pick out the best, to put up on flickr. I’ll let you know if I do! Oh, and I’m adding a dandelions category too… its about time, really.

    Edit: No James, I really don’t want all your ogre babies. Pfft!

  • Rest in peace, sweet dandelions…

    Ogres are annoying… especially when they go trampling my dandelions.

    Another very quick, very rough little drawing (its Sunday… what can I say?) to make sure that I’ve got today covered in the ‘creative product a day’ vein. This one has a story.

    Since last week, I have been craving a particular type of strawberry flavoured chocolate (this one here) which I can only obtain (in bulk) by getting in a car with my lovely husband and driving over to the other side of town. So, this morning, the conversation went something like this:

    Him: So, what do you want to do today?

    Me: Go to Sunnybank.

    Him: Why? What do we have to go way over there for?

    Me: Candy.

    Him: But there’s a supermarket less than five…

    Me: Candy.

    Him: But the…

    Me: Candy.

    Him: Just down the road, supermarket, full of can…

    Me: Strawberry chocolate candy. Here’s your keys.

    And thus, the rather quick, rather immature battle of the wills was won. Sucker.

    Our car is parked out the front of the house, on a little brick drive-way thingie that curves through the front yard. I was admiring the field of dandelions we currently have taking up most of our excuse for a front yard, as I danced blissfully towards our awaiting chariot to take me to the mythical candy.

    For those that haven’t been reading for a while, you might not realize that I rather like dandelions. Whether dandelion clocks (which rarely tell the right time), or full bloom in their pretty little yellow glory, these unappreciated flowers are just gorgeous to me.

    James knows I like dandelions. He also knows that he is going to have to drive. For over an hour there and back. To get candy.

    I jump into the car, blissfully unaware of his evil scheme, my eyes wide and shiny with wonder at the wonderful world around me, all full of potential and greatness and cuddleyness and dandelion fields. I turn to my loving husband, with all his grumbling and his moaning, gently stroking a hand by his knee as I quietly whisper with downcast eyes, ‘Thank you so much, sweetheart, for driving me across town. I really do appreciate it, you know. You’re so wonderful, and sweet, and kind.’

    He flicks the ignition and the car growls into life, its sound harsh against the twitter-tweet of the blue birds perching on the tree-branches close by. With that, James turns, a maniacal look glimmering deep in the recesses of his wild, bloodshot eyes as he jerks the car forward to crush my precious dandelions, singing ‘I’m an ogre, I’m an ogre, no dandelions for you!’

    ‘Why oh why did you crush my dandelions, my love?’ I whimper, as I look towards him with glassy, tear-filled eyes.

    ‘I’m a ogre. Its my job to crush dandelions.’

    With that, we drove away… and I got my strawberry chocolate candy. But at what price? So many pretty dandelions, so ruthlessly murdered under the tires of a rather vengeful ogre’s car. AND I still have to live with the damn ogre, who will live to crush again.

    Where oh where is my prince, to save me from the ogre, sweep me off my feet and avenge the deaths of so many innocents? Or at least get me strawberry chocolate candy on demand without having to crush dandelions needlessly in the process?

    Disclaimer: events may have been changed just a teensie weensie bit for dramatic effect. Eg, my eyes weren’t so tear-filled, and my fist may have just connected to his arm at that point. Other than that… all true, promise. Especially the blue birds. Blue birds rock.

  • Cashectomy.

    Kat Johnston Sketch – I started with the eyes, then went from there… I think she’s starting to take on owl-like properties.

    The above was a quick sketch I did earlier… I think she might have something in common with the owls I have drawn before. No big story about her today, but I am going to post another little story, since my hubby was reminding me of it again last night.

    The other week, the hubby and I went out to get some lunch together. We went to this little shop called ‘Magic Chicken’ where the chickens aren’t really magic (lets face it, they got caught and are about to get eaten) but the taste of the food sure as hell is. Best hot chips on the north side and I may just venture to say in Brisbane, too.

    Anyhow, we got to the store, went inside, made our order, then the alarm for the car started spontaniously whirling and burling its siren. James tossed me his wallet and scampered off to check on it and switch the bloody thing off. I must admit I decided to be opportunistic about this wonderful situation laid before me. I took a good $80 in notes from the wallet, stuffed them into my own, and just as I sneakily made to close his wallet he comes back inside. ‘What are you doing?’ says he. ‘Cashectomy,’ says I, as I toss him his wallet and skip next door with a merry little jaunt in my step to order a double thick-shake with all the extras. Then, skipping back in to retrieve my meal, James had to pay for the original order. The moral of this story? If you are my husband, don’t leave your wallet unguarded when there is ice-cream for sale close-by. Mmm… ice-cream…

  • The saga of the coffee.

    Kat Johnston Sketch – Mmmm, delicious coffee is delicious. Probably even more so when you know it is probably going to be one of only two cups for the day. Damn lack of milk…

    This is a picture of a steaming cup of what is meant to be coffee. To understand why I felt the need to draw a picture of a cup of coffee, read on.

    I woke this morning and dredged myself down to the computer to perform my daily morning rituals… a glass of water, a quick check of the e-mail, the more recently added ‘first twitter of the day’ and so forth. I had mint dark chocolate for breakfast… not exactly the breakfast of champions, I suppose, but damn it tasted good. It was then that I dragged myself back upstairs and threw together a coffee.

    As the water was coming to the boil, I grabbed the other essential coffee-making tools: a teaspoon (you can never have enough teaspoons), the coffee itself (sorry, it was instant) and milk. I should never be shocked to see that there is little milk in this household: my partner drinks milk as if he were entirely made of calcium… perhaps the need for milk accounts for all the bull sometimes too. Did I really make that joke? Why yes, I believe I did. Zing, Mister James. Zing.

    Anyhow, long story short, after this coffee, there is only actually enough milk for one more coffee. It got me to thinking… who was the first person to put milk in coffee? Why? Were they mostly out of water one day and went ‘huh, let me try it with this bovine secretion, perhaps that will taste ok’? Perhaps that is taking it a bit far – I realize that, as with sugar, somebody probably went ‘you know, it might be a bit more drinkable if it has something a bit sweeter in it’, but there is another step to this thinking. I’ve never really tried coffee with a range of other liquids. Liqueurs, milk, cream, ice-cream, all yes… but not, say, orange juice, or pomegranate juice, or creaming soda. Perhaps I am missing out. Probably not, seeing as I don’t see many ‘coffee and creaming soda’ drinks out there on the open market, but you never know.

    I think I’m going to do some experimentation later… probably much to the disgust of my adoring husband who thinks I am crazy when I pick up a random drink from the Asian grocery store and go ‘you know, I think I’m going to try this’ even though I can’t even make out the words on the label. But as with picking up random drinks at the Asian grocery, while some may be absolutely horrendeous, you never really do know when you are going to stumble on something out of this world. Who knows? I might start a whole new coffee-drinking trend.

    Oh, by the way? I drink my coffee white, no sugar.

  • Last minute polishing… so no time to post.

    Kat Johnston – its just one of those days, and this is something quick to get it out of the way and get something posted before it passes me by.

    Ohhh, another very quick picture today: so quick in fact that I couldn’t take the time to pick up a pen and sketch it on paper, scan it in and crop it down and so forth. Instead, thank god for the wacom tablet to cut out that extra step for quick and dirty posting.

    Just in case it wasn’t obvious, the past few days have been a bit busy, and today will be no exception with some last-minute polishing of an assignment underway. Every time I get to the point of finishing big assignments, I turn to my hubby and say ‘Why? Why do I torture myself so? Why have I gone back to university time and time again? Please, for the love of god, stop me if I try it again, ok?’

    I think the fact of the matter is that I just adore learning… I really do. I can’t help but enjoy picking up these little snippets of knowledge here and there before rolling them all together to create a brilliant bigger picture. That said… I still hate assignments. With a passion. So there.