Travel story, Halloween at Auryn… the full story.

As promised here it is, the full story of Halloween at Auryn showroom (Enchantra). In full Technicolor with pictures in full surround sound and HD 3D. Well pictures and words at least.

Jasmine's outfit

Some time ago at the opening of Auryn showroom, I brought my tarot cards, apparently Linda never forgot this because last time we were at an Auryn event Linda asked me if I could come and do tarot readings at the Halloween party. Off course I said yes. Now understand that we love Linda and Robert to bits and we attend every possible event at Auryn. But each time the night before we look at the average travel time and realize that over seven hours of traveling a day, takes quite the bite out of your weekend, though every time we travel back we realize that it’s worth it. This time was no exception.

Halloween means dressing up, having to travel quite a bit by train and because of the party being in a

showroom, too elaborate costumes were out of the question. Besides that I get warm real fast and since I don’t want to sweat on my cards and keep things practical in general, so we decided on a somewhat simpler sort of outfit. Jasmine and I went as a fantasy style Gypsy couple (sorry no pics of me). So with lace up pants, silk short and all kinds of shawls we set out to Zeeland.

Not that scary yet

In the train we met Agnetha en Linda (there are too many Linda’s BTW, we should have a contest which ones get to keep their names while we do a poll on what names the other can pick). We had to change trains at Amsterdam Sloterdijk where we went to Starbucks. Now I’ve been to Starbucks before and yes, they make good coffee. However… no-one had ever told me about the divine brilliance, the nectar of the Gods that is Crème Brule Macchiato. At this point my day was already a success no matter what would happen next.

What happened next was basically nothing for a long time, with half a liter of coffee in me and little to do I started to “entertain” my travel companions, with which I mean “annoy the crap out of” while they where finishing up their costumes and make up (doing eyelashes one train station at a time). I feel everybody was happy when we finally arrived at our destination, the train station which name I just cannot remember no matter how often I read or even visit it. It’s something like Kruiseicher-Jersygohr. The weather kinda sucked and we had to wait at least five whole minutes (!!!!) until our carriage arrived. Other ghouls, ghosts and witches had already joined our merry band of halloweeners at Kruezinger-Yarsocar when Robert arrived looking almost as scary as I do Sunday mornings before breakfast.

Some pictures:

 

 

at work

When we arrived at the showroom we saw nothing but mist at first, when the smoke machine smoke cleared we were greeted by the site of the showroom. The Halloween vibe was amazing, the decorations, the Halloween style food and all the costumes. Now as far as I am concerned they can make every day Halloween if only for the outfits some people were wearing. I was shown to “my table” pretty quickly and set up shop. After ten minutes I started my first reading and apart from two ten minute breaks and a visit to the toilet I have been doing readings up till half past five. I have done some very interesting readings and met some great ladies. It never stops to amaze me how tarot can go so deep so fast sometimes, especially when you are only aiming to do some light entertaining readings, I always strive to help people achieve progress in their lives and I hope I have done so at least a little.

pretty-scary

Across the table they were busy doing scary dares, which were awesome. The professional photo’s are

slowly being made available and it’s worth a watch, so after you finish reading check the enchanting beauty site. Seeing those pretty faces all horror-ed up is the stuff of nightmares. (http://www.enchantingbeauty.nl/?p=6321 use buttons at the top to browse through the entries)

Around six it was time to head home. It’s hard to explain how completely exhausting doing so many readings can be, even a single reading can drain you quite a bit, a “marathon” like this really takes it out of you. So on the ride back I was barely half as annoying as on the way there earlier. Somewhere between Chruusinkar-Jorsiegehr and Alkmaar I found time for pizza slices, crème brule macchiato and I even fell asleep… hope I don’t talk in my sleep anymore. The whole train ride, both up there and back, actually flew buy, thanks to the company of Agnetha en Linda. Time actually flies when you’re having fun, or at least good company.

Also Read Jasmine's blog on Auryns Halloween Party here.

Halloween Tarot readings at Auryn and the brilliance that is starbucks

So here’s a short little blog post about last Sunday. A longer more elaborate post will follow later with pictures and all kinds of interesting stuff. However, I thought I’d share a bit before that since I had so much fun.

First of all, wow I’ve seen some great, creative and hot outfits and especially make-up looks, those who entered the dare contest really blew me away. And the atmosphere with the mist maker and all the decorations was as Halloween-like as one could wish for.

As I have noticed before at events, when you are planning to do light, entertaining short readings, you often end up doing readings with a lot more body, heavier subjects and rarely end up under ten minutes. At Auryn last sunday this was also the case. I met some very interesting people and did some interesting readings, it’s great to get that short look into someone’s life and to be able to give, if but a small piece, advice to help someone achieve their potential in life. In many cases I wished I had more time and a more private environment to dive deeper into subjects and make a more substantial impact. But at a party among al those beautiful and interesting people this was neither the place nor the time.

I want to thank Linda of Enchantra for being a great host, Robert for once again playing (in this case undead) taxidriver and all the people who let me read the cards for them, I had a great time!

BTW: I made a very important discovery, Crème Brule Macchiato, is the best drink ever invented, thank you Starbucks for enriching my life…. 

BTW2: Having good travel company made the trip of aproximately 7 hours fly by, thanks Linda en Agnetha, I actually enjoyed the ride.

Thank you, gods of cafeine

Halloween at Auryn, telling your fortune and doing your make-up

9^th of October, your friendly neighborhood tarot reader will be attending the Auryn/ Enchantra Halloween party. The Auryn showroom is the place to be when it comes down to acquiring all of your makeup and cosmetic needs and every once in a while they organize an event where you can shop, chat and be made over while usually being fed and entertained.

It is at one such event I will be doing readings in October. There will also be other cool makeup related stuff going on, like a live onsite dare, most of which will be especially interesting for those of you with the double X-chromosome and less so for the "masculinely handicaped". So if you have the chance and want to restock on makeup and get a tarot reading by moi, make it a daytrip and go to Zeeland to the Auryn Halloween party. If you buy for over a hundred euro’s I’ll even make your future 15% better (yes that is a joke). 

For more information, check the facebook event. 

here's what happened

So here’s a short update type thingy on my life. Stuff that happened and stuff I’ve got planned.

Here’s the short list

- Sorry for leaving you
- Ixani closed for the summer
- Greebo our cat and beloved friend died
- Plans for becoming a tattoo artist fleshing out
- Mum’s cat has kittens, we decide to adopt Freya
- Seriously ill
- Updating my virtual presence and taking a new approach to social media
- RIP NL Tarot Forum
- Auryn showroom
- Coming up

And here is the same list enhanced with a blog like text.

Sorry for leaving you

Yes I’ve been away for a while, I came close to not going back to blogging at all. But I couldn’t leave this one to die. I have downgraded my online presence a bit, more on that further on, and the blog doesn’t really fit in this new approach to the virtual community. But screw it, I have to get my attention-fix somewhere, so for now it stays up.

Ixani closed for the summer

Friend and business relation Anja from Ixani (www.ixani.nl) where I do most of my tarot readings, workshops and coaching’s is moving her shop along with a summer break. Which means that regarding a lot of my tarot and coaching activities, I’m taking a break too. Which is in many ways a good thing, though at times a slight financial inconvenience, especially regarding my Mc Donald’s habits. I am out of a burger budget.

Greebo our cat and beloved friend died

Not everybody is able to understand how completely devastating the loss of an animal friend can be. Our cat Greebo died, most likely of a heart attack. She was ripped from our midst so suddenly we barely grasped what happened. She died in my arms after a terrible but mercifully short struggle. I miss her so much, her cold wet nose against my skin, her warm furr against me as we’re dozing off together on the couch and her running down the stairs in the morning greeting me while cheerfully meowing. I miss you poezemeis.

Plans for becoming a tattoo artist fleshing out

On a lighter note… I have found a tattoo kit of which I think it will help me along my first steps of my plans to become something of a tattoo artist. It’s a long road with many obstacles. I have been careful to find a balance in what I am willing to invest at the moment and what can be done on long term when I learn more about the art itself and how I am able to make it mine. So I have gone some steps above the ultimately cheap Chinese kits but have steered away from the serious professional tattoo guns. So now it’s practice, practice, practice on synthetic skin, fruit and vegetables and pig’s skin and ultimately myself.

I have also played with a name and a logo for when it all gets serious. Who knows, maybe some years from now I will open a shop. For now however it is just playing with ideas, coming up with different scenarios for where to take this tattoo thing.

Mum’s cat has kittens, we decide to adopt Freya

Only a few days after our poor little Greebo died, my mums slut-cat gave birth to four awesome miniature tigers. It is her third litter, it was also about the third time she managed to run away…. That’s what I said slut-cat, when she goes out, she goes to “get some”. Seriously Sophie is one hell of a cat and a great mum. One of the four kittens was Freya, it’s hard to describe or to see on the photo’s but Freya was so amazingly pretty and weird it took her little effort to win our heart and manipulate us into adopting her. We had armorered ourselves against it and we were still stricken with grief from the sudden loss of Greebo, but somehow every objection we had seemed to vanish after coincidence after coincidence and everything seemed to point us to this kitten we have now named Freya Greebo Goldilux.

Seriously ill

A few weeks ago I completely lost my voice. The following day I was hit with some sort of über-cold. Having trouble breathing and being awake for more then half an hour at the time I felt completely miserable, though the pain in my throat cleared I still had no voice and my problems seemed to have migrated to my chest. After going to the doctor I learned I had some sort of bronchitis. Medicated and rested I was still too sick to do anything useful for a period of ten days, after which regular life slowly returned, though up till now I still get tired way too fast and still have some mucus-throat related problems. I seem to be producing slime in Ghostbuster proportions and keeping thing “solid” on the toilet remains somewhat of a challenge during most of the days.

Updating my virtual presence and taking a new approach to social media

You know that angry post with which I left you? Well that attitude stuck for a while. I had a lot of frustrations to sort through and I am still working on that. One thing I did was take a good look at my life in cyberspace. Facebook, twitter, blogspot, myspace etc. etc. a lot of my regular frustration seemed to stem from somewhere online. So I changed that around, I chose to minimize and centralize my online efforts. I deleted a lot of “friends” from facebook, starting with colleagues. Somehow half of my friendslist seemed to consist of colleagues. So at home I would still be constantly confronted with work related issues and at work my private life seemed to have become public property. Though I had first planned to quit Facebook altogether I decided to just cut down a lot.

RIP NL Tarot Forum

Yeah I scrapped the forum, nobody came there so no use in keeping it up, it appears there is just too little need for forums anymore. I personally find Twitter and facebook too superficial. As I have posted before I have a warm fuzzy feeling when it comes down to for a, but there’s little sense in me posting all by myself.

Auryn showroom

This last weekend we had a fathers day type happening in our friends webshop showroom Auryn. It basically boiled down to beer, BBQ and lots of pretty girls. Yes I had a blast. It was interesting to see was the girls behind some of the biggest beautyblogs (makeup, fashion etc.) of the country. Some took a very professional and businesslike approach to their online presence and some just “do what feels good”, neither strategies are any guarantee for success or failure it seemed.


At one point there was a bit of a fuzz and half of the ladies there took out their Blackberries and Iphones, apparently there was some sort of online drama with other beautybloggers calling each other names…. A wave of gossip ensued and suddenly I pictured this American beauty salon with all the women gossiping with curlers in their hair or under those fifty style blow dryers. Some things never change, even though the means by which things are done may.

I am soooooo looking forward to the next Halloween themed Auryn event, where I will actually be participating… how? You’ll see.

Coming up

So what’s next? Well I have a pretty busy schedule coming up filled with kitten adventures, tattoo practice and computer games (Alice the madness returns, F3AR). I’ve got ticket to Cantus Buranus (Corvus Corax and orchestra) and Castlefest (renaissance fair type thingy but cooler). Harry Potter the Deathly Hallows will soon be hitting the theatres and when I’ve gone and watched it I can claim having seen all the HP flicks in the theatre… still having an internal debate on if that’s something to be proud of.

My inner nerd is content.

Friday...yay, "eluveitie", "Yes it Hurts" opens, sunday at Auryn.

Yes it’s Friday…

We have survived yet another week, you can congratulate yourself on that. For me the week has been an okay one, somewhat tiring but most certainly rewarding. I gave another interesting workshop last night and the week has been filled with small victories and interesting surprises and off course I started the week last Sunday with my trip to the Auryn showroom in Zeeland( http://www.enchantra.nl/ ) besides my own post earlier, here’s another report from Oh my gosh blog. Not a bad week.

Music tip…

Eluveitie, now I’ve known them for a while but somehow I kind of forgot about their awesomness. Until recently that is, we got reacquainted during PaganFest festival. Eluveitie is fast and hard Death metal like music complemented with typical Celtic instruments and melodies resulting in a fast and invigorating sort of folk metal which today made me bounce to work. Eluveitie is pure energy besides being a musically intelligent and well worked out concept which takes the best of different worlds and brings it together in an accessible and enthusiastic kind of music.

And then there’s this…

Skincrafter, tattoo artist Lennaerd is opening his new tattoo shop “Yes it hurts!” in Schagen, the Netherelands. If you happen to be in the neighbourhood be sure to pay him a visit! Yes it hurts on facebook Yes it hurts!

And here’s today’s card…

Three of swords, three of swords is a nasty piece of works. It symbolizes pain and loss, the heart pierced by three swords, besides reminding us of old school sailor tattoos in itself is not a happy picture. Though most cards can be flipped with a positive spin, the most positive thing about three of swords is that it’s at least over quick.

So that was Sunday… I am in need of man stuff….

Another weekend has passed so it’s once again the start of the five day struggle. I did however have a strangely awesome weekend. Strange because I had fun at something I would have said little fun could be had.

I went to this opening type thingy of Auryn ( www.enchantra.nl ) , in short… lots of make-up, lot’s of women buying and talking about make-up, the occasional stylist giving advice… and me. And I had a blast. Looking back I can’t say what it was that made the day so much fun except for the people there. However… traveling to and especially back from Zeeland, where this happening took place was bad, real bad. With just about 7 hours of travel time in total of which at least 1,5 hour on the trip home spend standing packed like sardines by train, it was extraordinary coming home with the feeling of having had a great day… I mean I didn’t even buy anything? I guess it was a combination of interesting people and good hosts.

I did have time to do some drawing (see pic), feeling like an island of zen in a sea of make-up raiding estrogen. Other then that I actually did some palm reading (to prove that it’s a gimmick) and some interesting tarot readings.

On other news today… be cool, join my forum, besides the fact that I love the attention, I know some pretty awesome people are out there who should spend time talking to each other online… yes you are one of them… go join http://nltarot.forum2go.nl/ .