Friday, July 16, 2010

On randouvites

In my endless venture to convince the rest of the world that spiffing* up and merging existing words in the creation of new ones is absolutely necessary for human happiness, I have decided to introduce you to a new one. Very new, in fact, since I made it up not ten minutes ago. Randouvite is a merge of the word “random” (not so surprising, considering the writer of this post) and the word “favourite” (which I always spell with a U, since this is one of the few relics of what used to be my “NorwBritish English”. With time, however, it inevitably turned “American English with Norwagisms [-ismes?] in the mix”. Ah, well…).

See, I was going to write a post about current favourites, and then I realized they (like the rest of me) were pretty random. Consequently, a new word was born. Randouvite (note how I also spell that with a U. If you’re American, you might want to drop the U, though, or people will think you are pretentious).


Despite the linguistic twist at the beginning of this post, however, I intended to present said randouvites without too much hurdy-gurdy. (Ha! Hurdy-gurdy is a word! I love it! Of course it doesn’t mean at all what I hoped it would mean, and thus the above sentence makes NO sense, but I don’t care. Hurdy-gurdy!)



I love my fingernails. I realize that sounds a bit icky, and it would have been, but what I love about them is the nail polish on top of them (if you’re a guy and/or still think this is icky, just skip till the next point, won’t you?). Looksie!


(I'm keeping my fingers permanently crossed for several reasons, so I'm the go-to person if you need some extra luck. In case you were wondering)



I love wild flowers. I love picking them, I love keeping them in a regular kitchen glass since I don’t have any vases at the moment, and I love cleaning them up again after two days when they have died a most cluttery death with leaves and petals everywhere. Actually, I don’t love that latter part, but everything else – love it! If I could lie in a meadow of wild flowers all summer, I think I would.






I love giraffes. I know, I know – where’s the surprise in that, right? Well, I love them extra much today, for several reasons. First of all, my friend Powdered Toast Man at 'Just the Cheese' wrote a blog post about them the other day in celebration of his birthday (what a GREAT birthday present to himself, ne?), and he mentioned ME! Yay!

Secondly, I love them because thanks to stumbleupon.com (which is another randouvite – and this one is TRULY random) I found a nifty little website I really wish I had bookmarked so I could share it with you guys, but Cruella must have had the day off and Mari simply isn’t clever enough... The website I didn’t bookmark, though, allowed me to blow up and print out one of my giraffy images, and make a poster of it. So now I have 47 + 1 (which is another poster entirely) giraffes on my wall. Yay!






Finally, I love giraffes extra muchly today because of my continued love for onemilliongiraffes.com. My head have been growing each time one of my giraffes have been mentioned there, and now I think it is about ready to burst (which is a really disturbing mental image, by the way. Eugh!).

What made my head grow, though, was the fact that once again the brilliant blog on this even brillianter (yes, that is a word too. Word!) website brought out one of MY giraffes from the archives. This time it is even one of my favourites – the map of Giraffenland was drawn in a Borders on 14th and F street in Washington D.C. (I even know the date – it was on Sunday the 27th of September 2009, and I was supposed to be at the National Book Festival in D.C., but ended up having my own personal festival a few block away). I feel like I just won the lottery - twice - in just a few weeks!





I love alphabet crackers and tea. They (the crackers, not the tea) were out of production for a few years here, but now they are back. How brilliant is a snack that can both be eaten and used for Scrabble?



(And the word was very randomly spelled, I swear. As was the one below. Any idea what a Peligooz is?)





I love salad art. I wish I was one of those people who could make sculptures out of fruits and vegetables (I saw a picture of a watermelon rosette the other day – it was amazing), but I’m not cut out for that (oh, how clever...). I do have a pretty cool calendar, though, and my friend who was over for dinner the other night made this lovely cucumber man:





Finally, I love blogging, blog comments, blog followers, the blogosphere, the whole shebang (I also love that shebang is a word, but I don’t feel the need to abuse this one by using it in a completely nonsensical sentence, like “Shebang carrot pickle normal allusion forward.” Oops, I just did...)

Anyway, blogging – you guys – you ROCK! Lately I have had such wonderful things happen to me as emails from across the globe from people telling me about their job offers (and an awesome job, but it is not for me to share, I think...); I’ve had friends take on imaginary personas for a laugh; I’ve had people telling me of weird company names that sound Norwegian; I’ve had people pop by just to tell me they share my (weird) sense of humour. It’s such a wonderful place, the blogosphere, that I feel like cramming you all into one, big squishy group hug! Group hug!!!



Those were a few of my randouvite things. (I had to google that song to write the following side comment: ) Maria To-Be Trapp clearly had a glitch in her vocabulary! (In my head it was Mary Poppins who sung it. Extra points to those who know the common denominator... Actually, no extra points. It’s too easy!)





*I just learned of a new randouvite through the making of this post. According to thefreedictionary.com, the word spif (not spiff – we all know and love that one) is:

(Non-sporting Hobbies / Philately) a postage stamp perforated with the initials of a firm to avoid theft by employees Former name perfin.

[from s(tamp) p(erforated with) i(nitials of) f(irm)]


Perfin/Spif

(Yay Canada! Or, Canada, eh!)

22 comments:

Natasha said...

Love every single one of your randouvite things. And the word definitely sounds more Mary Poppins than Von Trapp.

PS - your nails are really cool- love polka dots, but will never dare do something like that :-(

Hannah said...

hmmm, randouvite. Palindrome approved.

I love using real words wrongly-like. It's fun. Now I will finish fandangoing this comment and get to work because I am supposed to start in 2.5 minutes. And yes, I do start work exactly on the dot. :P

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

I like your new word!

Cruella Collett said...

Natasha - start wit your toenails! Much easier to cover up, and much further away from your eyes ;) Sadly my nails are back to boring naturelle now...

Palindrome - yay! Palindrome approved! And I love that you start working exactly on the pinnacle!

Alex - yay! It's spreading! :)

(I'm in a yay sort of mood, if anyone is wondering. But now I have to leave for work, so we shall see if my customers will yay me up, or if they will yay me down...)

Anonymous said...

These are pretty awesome randoUvites. I'm with you and the U thing. I'm Canadian so we always put and extra u into words.
The giraffes are so adorable. I think I'm falling in love with giraffes now. And you need to send a photo of your salad art to Gourmet Magazine AND Martha Stewart. U (did ya see what I did there?) could write your own magazine article for them. - G

M.J. Nicholls said...

Such positivity! To think that, pre-internet, people had to leave the house to make friends and feel good about themselves. Pah! What a bleak time!

RosieC said...

Your list is awesome. I can't tell you how much I giggled at your salad face :)

Deb and Barbara said...

I have to tell you that you have become one of my randouvite things (and I get to spell it with a U because I am Canadian).

You are so ADORABLE!

B

RHYTHM AND RHYME said...

A wonderful post loved the nails must have taken some time to do. also the photo's were fantastic. enjoyed the read also.
Have a good week-end.

Yvonne.

Cruella Collett said...

Georgina - I almost typed "American or Canadian", but then I realized the Canadians probably stuck to Queen's English *phew*
Yay for giraffe love! And tee hee for Martha Stewart - she would be interested, you think? (And writing "U" instead of "you" is, strictly speaking, not adding a U, it's removing a Y and an O... :p)

MJ - I know, how awful was that!? Actually, I'm not as positive off-internet. I think my browser comes with rosy glasses or something...

Rosie - *snort* That is the one that stands out, huh? Must tell my friend...

Barbara - aw, I'm positively blushing now! You guys are of my randouvite things too! (And yay for U!)

Yvonne - the nails did take some time, and a lot of layers. But it was not like I had a thesis to write or anything... Ahem... Have a great weekend too! :)

Unknown said...

This is may most randouvite blog post ever. It had me smiling, then laughing, then smiling again! Great post Mari!

Cruella Collett said...

Chary - tee hee, I should imagine! They don't come much randouviter than this... Glad you enjoyed it! :)

Lisa said...

Love your loves!

Marjorie said...

This blog post is now one of my randovites. See how I omitted the U? You made me laugh about 5 times, and I smiled the entire read. You also make me want to draw giraffes. That's another 50 points for this blog!

Cruella Collett said...

Ocean Girl - Oooo, are you... Neri? (If you have NO idea what I am talking about, it's an Aussie sci-fi show I watched as a kid, and I absolutely LOVED it. If you do have an idea what I am talking about, though: squeeee!)

Marjorie - yay! I've got 50 points! You should gather your lovely family and make them all draw giraffes. It will be a blast, I promise :) (And yay for randovite - I knew it'd work in the US too!)

Missed Periods said...

Your enthusiasm is contagious. After reading your post, I am smiling and thinking love love love.

Cruella Collett said...

MP - thank you! I love it when enthusiasm spreads :) And it makes me feel warm and fuzzy when people get a smile out of my posts - what a great thing to share, right?

Cheeseboy said...

I've never heard of such a salad art lover. Cool.

I am surprised how many bloggers love giraffes. I wonder why that is. I should conduct a study on my blog.

* said...

I've heard of coffee art (where there are pictures in the cream on top), but not salad art. That's a new concept to me!

PS: Giraffes rock. I used to love to visit & feed them @ the San Diego Wild Animal Park. They are amazing creatures!

Cruella Collett said...

Cheeseboy - you should conduct a study! The result is given, though: because giraffes are AWESOME!
(And you haven't loved till you've loved salad art!)

Terresa - I like coffee art too, but I find salad art more fascinating. And for the record, "salad art" may not be the official term. It MAY be another word I made up. Maybe...

And I'd LOVE a wild animal park nearby! Those are the best - the animals seem so much freer with all the space (it's probably too cold for outdoorsey giraffes in Norway, though)

JournoMich said...

Wow. Hilarious! A great introduction to a new blog for me.

Alphabet crackers? What a great idea! Where do you get those stateside? I have to find them...

Michele
Southern City Mysteries

Cruella Collett said...

Michele - thanks :) I never saw alphabet crackers when I was in the US. Ours are made here, but I can't imagine Norway being the only country to have them. Good luck tracking some down! :)

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