Driving to the shops yesterday, the following conversation took place.

OH (out of the blue): ‘He’ll go suddenly, you know. One day he’ll wake up with all the wrinkles, and a pot belly’.

Me: ‘Huh?’

OH: ‘Your bloke*. He’ll go suddenly. He’ll go to bed one night, all youthful, and next morning he’ll wake up wrinkley. Bags under the eyes, you know. Pot belly. It’ll all be there.’

Me: ‘Ah. You mean someone will have found the portrait’.**

OH: ‘I’ll give him a year. OK, maybe five. Five years. Then one day … he’ll go. Wrinkles. Suddenly.’

Me: ‘And you know what?’

OH: ‘What?’

*Crickets*

OH: ‘Oh. Yeah. I know what.’

*Pause*

OH: *Sigh*

Me: *Snigger*

OH (mutters): ‘But I’ll laugh. On that day, I’ll laugh’.

* Johnny Depp. Who else?

** As in ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ by Oscar Wilde

Today I was awarded the Arte y Pico award by Ruth Hull Chatlien. I was also given this one a few weeks ago by Drowsey Monkey and since she was very low key about it all and didn’t insist that the recipients went ahead and passed it along - and I was away on holiday at the time - I thanked her warmly and that was that.

I very much appreciate when people take the trouble to send me things like this, I’m touched, and honoured, and it makes me feel warm and fuzzy all day, and there are plenty of blogs out there who deserve these things from me, so it’s time I did something about that. I’ve been lazy, and that’s the truth of it, so now I’m being a good girl, joining in, and putting it all right.

And while I’m on the subject of awards, laziness and putting things right, I also received the Johnny Depp Award from Sandy, of I Beati - again, while I was away. This was my first ever award and I had no idea what I was supposed to do with it, except I thought perhaps it was intended to be embedded somewhere and I haven’t a clue how to do that, so once again, I went all warm and fuzzy, thanked Sandy most sincerely, and parked that delicious picture on my desktop, where it still remains, so that I can ponder how it is that a man can look that good in a ripped tee shirt whenever I see it.

To these wonderful people, I’d like to say a huge thank you. I really do feel honoured, and will now pass them along to some very fine fellow bloggers.

The Johnny Depp Award goes to my friend and fellow drooler Jenny, of I’m Having A Thought Here. Jenny, please accept this award for the blog with the most Johnny Depp references and quotes that I’ve ever seen, and for being a great Deppsister.

The Arte y Pico award is for creativity, design, interesting material, and also for contributing to the blogging community, no matter what language.

The first to get this one is Mr Nighttime, and you’ll see by the post which I’ve linked to that he does indeed provide services to Blogdom. He’s also sharp and funny and at times, thought provoking. Mr N, I don’t know if you’re into awards or not, but you deserve this one!

Then there is JD of I Do Things who selflessly does all manner of things, like .. um … sneeze … so we don’t have to. She’s a scream, and I strongly recommend that you visit if you haven’t already done so.

Babs from Beetle Blog is next. Babs, I salute you. You write the funniest product reviews and the most wonderful diatribes I’ve ever read, and I love your reminiscences too!

Don’t Bug Me - an excellent and very funny blogger whose repertoire is broad. You never know what you’ll find there, but it’s always worth reading! I particularly like her posts about small creatures (oh, alright, insects, bugs etc), and she’s not above making a decent social comment either.

One of the very first blogs I added to my news feed was English Mum in Ireland, and she is my last recipient. She encourages new bloggers, promotes the cause of ex-racing greyhound adoption (she is owned by the delightful Bertie) and writes in a pithy and often very funny way about a wide variety of subjects. She has also led me to some great blogs which I now read regularly.

So now for the rules.

If you choose to accept this award, this is what you should do:

1) Pick five (5) blogs that you consider deserve the award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and also for contributing to the blogging community, no matter what language.

2) Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.

3) Each award winner has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her or him the award itself.

4) Award-winner and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of the Arte y Pico blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award.

This time the victim is Commodore Minxie, a fellow blogger, who, even though she is clearly a long-time Depp fan, didn’t truly understand what the Depp Effect was really all about.

It seems that she was able to meet the man during filming for Public Enemies at the Santa Anita racetrack, and she and the friends she had with her at the time were blown away by his sweetness and his generosity towards his fans, which will come as no surprise to those of us who’ve had similar experiences.

As you may know if you’ve read my older posts, I’ve had the honour of meeting Johnny Depp three times now, and on one of those occasions I was extremely privileged to have the chance to chat with him in an uncrowded situation. You may think that you’d be so tongue-tied that you can’t think of a word to say, but he is just so sweet, and so good at talking to people, that you feel, for those few minutes, that you’re the only person in the world of any interest to him and the conversation will flow.

At the same time, he is humble. So many people use those same words about him; sweet and humble. And that’s because it’s true - there is absolutely no feeling that you are in the presence of a Great Actor and Superstar. He clearly doesn’t feel that way about himself, and therefore in no way comes across as being conscious of any such thing. It’s a bit like meeting up with a very old and dear friend you haven’t seen for years.

Only different.

You see, the sad thing is that when you’ve met up with that old friend from years ago you can exchange phone numbers and arrange to meet again, but when your ‘old friend’ is Johnny Depp, that clearly isn’t an option. And meeting him like that, away from the glitz and glamour and frenzy of an official media circus event will alter the way you feel about him forever.

So this is the Depp Effect. He is now a real person to you, not just an actor, a superstar, or an idol on a pedestal. However, unlike many actors, superstars and pedestal-idols, Johnny Depp is worth your time. He is a genuinely super-nice person. Sure, he has ordinary, human flaws - reputedly a fearsome temper is among them - but he is a good man. Even the papparazzi can’t dig up any real dirt on him .. although they may not be trying too hard, because rumour has it they like and respect him, too. Most of them, anyway.

And so he is inspirational. Having experienced what it’s like to be in the presence of such an awesome personality, you want to be like that too. You want to be the one to make time for people and watch them smile. You want to be the one who is able to do nice things for people without feeling you have to shout about it. And you want to be the one who can feel free to do what you like without having to conform to anyone else’s standards.

For me, that meant learning that I, too, could say ‘Fuck it!’ and still be a likeable person - even if my kids do think I’m insane.

I may need a little more practice before I’m up to the Depp standard, though. Best keep trying, huh?

Just before I left for America, Daniel Cox of Notions to the Left of Far Right tagged me with a meme for six quirky things about myself. Apologies, Daniel, for not getting to it sooner, but my excuse is that before I left, I was too stressed to think about it and for the last week I’ve had very limited internet access, but now I’m sick with some icky chest virusy thing and this meme is a gift. I can post without having to think too much.

Anyway, quirky? Am I quirky?

Well, yeah. OK, I admit it - I have a few quirks. One or two odd kicks in my gallop, as it were .. but which ones to share with you guys? I mean, we don’t want to go frightening people! And if you know which movie that quote comes from I’ll take my hat off to you!

I guess that leads me to my first quirk.

1) I’ve developed a serious fondness for hats. It’s Other Half’s fault. He has always loved hats, and just recently he indulged his fancy for a genuine panama, and I have to say, it’s gorgeous. Forget the ‘genuine panamas’ in the chain stores (would you believe we found one in Marks and Sparks last year that claimed to be genuine but was made in China, from paper?), no, this was a genuine, hand-blocked Ecuadorian panama hat, made by a chap named Freddie, and it arrived in a beautiful balsa wood box. Anyway. Quite apart from my fondness for OH’s hats, and Johnny Depp’s hats (there’s another fine hat man for you!), I love my own hats.

I treated myself to a Russian style ‘fur’ hat a couple of winters ago, made from sheepskin. It’s beautiful, it suits me (kind of … ) and it’s seriously warm! For the summer, I’m sporting denim ‘baker boy’ peaked caps, or if I’m feeling frisky, a black straw cowboy hat. With a pirate scarf. Quirky enough for ya?

What next? Oh yeah. I have this thing about wallflowers.

2) I love wallflowers but I seldom plant them. I have a bizarre superstition that if I do, we’ll move house before they flower. It happened once, and once only, but I can’t get it out of my head, and OH keeps telling me to plant wallflowers because he’s desperate to move away from here and he wants to see if it works.

Perhaps I’ve mentioned this before, but -

3) I love knives. Pretty much any knives, but small and beautiful is best. I love the way they feel in my hand, and I love the timelessness and the salt-of-the-earth indispensability of them. All of humanity uses knives for various purposes from the peaceful, to the aggressive, to the fun. If I’m feeling miserable, don’t let me walk down the household goods aisle in Sainsbury’s or I’ll probably buy one to cheer myself up. So, here I am on holiday in the US and what am I bringing back as a souvenir? I’ll give you one guess.

4) I hate to drive. I especially hate to drive long distances, by which I mean anything over twenty miles. OH thinks it’s really weird that when we go out in my car, I want him to drive, but so it is. Oh, and I prefer the rock-bottom utility seats. Those all-singing, all dancing, adjust in five different dimensions at once jobs just don’t cut it for me.

5) I take my pillow with me whenever I travel. This probably can’t be considered truly quirky, since I do it for the sake of my damaged neck - you can never rely on any hotel to provide you with suitable pillows, and in my case, if I don’t have a suitable pillow, I’ll wake up in the morning with a hideously painful neck which may well need a visit to a chiropractor, or if I’m really unlucky, I’ll wake in the night with an asthma attack. And so, I travel with a large suitcase, or even two, depending on how long I’m planning to be away. This led to an excess baggage charge last week, dammit, on my flight from St George to Los Angeles.

6) I can’t eat and watch Johnny Depp at the same time. I just can’t. Why? Uh … I don’t think I can explain that one to you. See if you can work it out for yourselves.

So, here’s the rules -

Link the person(s) who tagged you.
Mention the rules on your blog.
Tell about 6 unspectacular quirks of yours.
Tag 6 following bloggers by linking them.
Leave a comment on each of the tagged blogger’s blogs letting them know they’ve been tagged.

And my victims are -

Momma Mia, Mea Culpa

Still Amazed

Diary of a Housewife

The Introverted Exhibitionist

DeaFulgora

Godless Sunday

Please don’t fret if you don’t want to take part. It’s voluntary!