Made from Fail...

Today I...

• Left the air-conditioner on in the bedroom
• Left the fridge door slightly ajar
• Left the back door open, and the screen unlocked

Apparently, I was trying to keep the house cool for the kitties, or something. I'm not looking forward to the next electricity bill.

Hey! I'm walkin' here!

The walking seems to be helping. At least it's starting to hurt later into the walk and less all told. I haven't had the urge to drive home all week...

In other news - I thought I owned two cats, but apparently I own one cat and one pig in a cat costume. And it's not the cat you'd expect who is the food-a-holic. She must have hollow legs, or an enormous stomach that exists in another dimension. I really hate people, even small furry ones, who can eat and eat and eat and are still skinny. Hah! A pox on you all! Unless of course I actually like you, in which case I only hate you a little bit. I don't care that this doesn't make sense - it's my blog, it doesn't have to!

Unfit

I went for a walk this afternoon. I'm fairly sure that all this accomplished was to drive home just how horribly unfit I am at the moment. I can see that there's going to need to be a lot more walking in the immediate future to remedy this sorry state of affairs.

Weird...

It’s a “mystery”!

Some of you will have heard me grizzle earlier this week about the little turds from across the street coming onto our property when we weren’t there, playing silly-buggers in the pool area and chicken coop, and allegedly stealing the eggs. Well, it got worse before it got better.

On Wednesday night, when Rusty went to lock the chookies in for the night, he came back to the house for a torch, because he couldn’t find one of the girls. She has been really broody, a side-effect of which is that she is very docile, and easy to pick up. We feared then that she had been stolen (chooknapped?), but unfortunately had no proof. This didn’t stop R from marching over the road in a contained fury and confronting the turds about Monday’s trespass, to which they blithely claimed that that they were not guilty. This was, of course, patently untrue, because they had been seen and identified by our next-door-neighbour (who we like), and they shut up pretty quickly when presented with this information. So, without resorting to trespass ourselves in search of evidence, we assumed the inevitable – we had lost another chook.

When I got home from work on Thursday night, however, R tells me that the broody chook is back. Apparently, she had been found next door, in the garden of the Nice Neighbour. Now, there’s no way on god’s green earth that she could have got over there under her own steam, and given that she rarely ventures out of the chook house these days, there’s no way she would have tried. This is interesting, though, because we had locked or wired shut the gates down the side and along the front of the carport, so there’s no way that anyone could get into our backyard without a) making a lot of noise and b) being really obvious about it. So, we are thinking that the Great Chicken Bandits (aka turds) took the next best option of returning our property (now that they knew they were under extreme suspicion) was to sneak it into the unlocked backyard of the people next-door.

So, in the end, no real harm was done. Nonetheless, this is still a real betrayal. We have been pretty good to those kids – we have lent them tools and household articles pretty much whenever they have asked, I gave them a bicycle that was given to me that I was never going to ride, R has helped them with projects on occasion – and our repayment was trespass and petty theft (it makes me wonder about a bunch of other things that seem to have gone “missing”, including one of the new passionfruit seedlings that was at the bottom of the driveway). It’s pretty sad, isn’t it? You think you’re building trust and respect, but instead you’re just making yourself into a chump to be taken advantage of. Fucking people.

On an interesting note - I wrote the text of this blog at work using Outlook (it was a ghost town there today) and I was a bit surprised at what spellcheck picked up, as well as what it didn’t. Turds, which is a word in use in pretty much all of the English speaking countries in the world, got a squiggly red underline. Chooks, on the other hand, which I’m pretty sure is an Australianism* unrecognised anywhere offshore (with perhaps the exception of New Zealand) did not. Weird.

*Australianism, which is a real word, in the same way that Americanism is a real and recognised word, also fails the MS spellcheck test. The first suggested alternative is Australianise, which, as far as I am concerned, is not a real word, and is something that someone in the spellcheck office merely pulled out of their arse...

see more Very Demotivational

That's all.

Four weddings...

... and a trainwreck.

I watched that new show on channel 7, where four brides go to each others weddings, and rate things like the dress, the reception, the ceremony, and the food. I knew it would be awful, and I wasn't disappointed!

So, what happens when you stick three bogan chicks and a LARPer into the above formula? Trainwreck, with added saucers of milk. Yup - meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, snark, snark, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, Rowr! Phttt, meow, meow, meow, meow. Nary a nice word was spoken by any of them (actually, the LARP chick was probably the nicest, but she was perfectly prepared to dish the dirt when she felt it was required). The $8,000 wedding dress was deemed to look like a Barbie dress (I hate to say it, but this comment wasn't too far off the mark), the second-hand dress was deemed to be "cheap and tacky", even though it was probably the nicest, the fireworks were sneered at, the "historical re-enactment" wedding selfishly made the guests stand (stand! oh the humanity!) outside in a beautiful garden for a whole hour, and the Lebanese wedding with the drums and the extended wedding party introductions got more than it's fair share of extravagant eye-rolling.

When it all comes down to it, all of the weddings looked to be fairly well within the realms of the average wedding, really. They all had aspects that were OTT, they all had things that were lovely and well done, and things that were a bit on the nose. The important thing - all the girls seemed to have a wonderful time at their own wedding, which is the only real important thing when it comes down to it.

Oh, and to top it all off - the meanest and nastiest girl, who said not a positive word about anybody's wedding but her own? She was the one who got the free holiday.

All in all, I found it to be quite entertaining, mostly because it lived up (or rather down) to my expectations. I only wish that the most outstanding bitchiness of the day wasn't so lavishly rewarded. Just goes to show - it really does pay to trample everyone else's hopes and dreams to get to the prize.

:-(

Serious sad face.

Something killed one of our chooks today (and not the one that was left slightly broken after the last attack, more's the pity). Apparently, just because it could. She doesn't look like she's been particularly nommed on, it just appears that one of her wings and her neck were broken. If I find out what did it, I will rip its fucking head off and stick it up its arse.

In other grumbles - Channel 7, can you go and get a big black dog up you, please? I might have appalling taste in television, but if you promise me that I can watch Bones and Criminal Minds, I would actually like to be able to watch them. Instead, my shows are pushed waaaaay out of their time-slots by mutha-humping reality programmes. Dancing with the Stars? Stars?!? Who are you kidding? D-Grade minor lifestyle-show hosts and footballer's ex-wives are not stars. I'm not even going to touch on X-Factor, mostly due to the fact that it has Kyle Sandilands in it, and then I would need to take a shower...

And to top it all off, I ran out of petrol on Friday arvo, despite the fact that the petrol light had only just come on, which usually means another 20kms. Not this time, apparently.

Sigh. I must have pushed Murphy's granny down the stairs. Moral of this story? Always check who's granny it is that you're elbowing out of the way...*

*This is a JOKE. I only push little kids down the stairs... (also a joke)

Hooray!

Voting is over. Now my letterbox and evening television watching hours can remain untainted by the misery and unadulterated muck-raking that is political advertising.

Oh, and the best bit? Putting an 11 in the little green box next to the Fred Nile Group.

So true!

Quote from Scrubs, which generally don't watch, but since it comes on straight after something I do watch, sometimes some of it filters through...

"People are bastard covered bastards with bastard filling."

So true.

Crappy telly... and ducklings!

Whether you loved it, or just didn't hate it, the end of Masterchef at 7.30 on weeknights has left an enormous black hole in prime-time programming. Now, there is the fine choice of The Simpsons (urgh), World's Strictest Parents (watching belligerent teens carrying on like pork chops? I don't think so), or Two and a Half Men (kill me, kill me now). Yes, yes, there is the 7.30 Report, but I want light entertainment, not thinking! Please can we have something worth watching?

On a more pleasant note, on Saturday morning, R called from the front door in an urgent kind of voice for me to come quickly. I did so, to see a pair of native ducks, like this one:

herding a gaggle of fluffy little baby ducklings, like these:

Down the street. Awwww, the cute, it makes my head asplode! It was a moment of great squee.

Stuff

I've been sick. Again. This is the fourth time in 8 months, and the second time that I've needed nearly 4 days off work. This actually makes me REALLY CRANKY. I don't like being sick, and I don't like being sick so often. So, I went home from work early on Tuesday, and today, six days later, I am still not back to full health, and am getting very puffed and tired very easily. Grr.

In more positive news, I am now officially a permanent employee at my place of work, and have a new title - Tender Co-ordinator, which comes with a small pay increase (I was hoping for a large pay increase, but working for a US-based company can have some drawbacks). Hooray! I work with a pretty awesome team, and the office is only a ten minute drive away. All good.

I think I ate close to my own bodyweight in cakes and finger sandwiches yesterday afternoon. It was lovely. I like proper afternoon teas. I think I might have one for my birthday, too. Oh, and a night out at a posh restaurant. I'd like to have a big flash thing to celebrate the big number, but I don't think I can be bothered at this point...

Rusty is making dinner tonight. I swear, buying him a Jamie Oliver cookbook for Chrissy a couple of years back was a really good idea!

Thanks for the messages of chicken solidarity, the girls appreciate them greatly... :-D

So - ChickenMissing turned up. She was just hiding, or so it appears. ChickenInjured is doing much better, she's eating and drinking, at least a bit, so she should get better pretty quickly.

We are almost certain it's a cat - there are zillions of them around here, and we've never seen or heard anything that would suggest foxes in the area. Rusty-the-ex-chicken-farmer has seen the aftermath of plenty of fox attacks, and he reckons it's quite a different M.O. This is good, cos I reckon a fox would be more likely to come back and try again.

Anyways, we think that it will all come good in the end.

Chicken troubles

They've been doing so well up until now...

Last night seems to have become a turning point, though. At about 10 or so, Rusty went down to the garage to get something, and discovered that one of the girls was out of the enclosed portion of the yard, and couldn't get back in. It was dark, and she was cold and alone (awww), so R put her in the coop, admonishing her that if she had stayed where she was supposed to, she wouldn't be in this predicament.

In the wee small hours, R was woken up by the sound of the chickens being attacked by something. He was sleeping in the spare room at the back of the house (he wanted to get up at 5am, and he knows how grumpy I am at being woken at oh-god o'clock, only to have the snooze button used 15 times...) which is just as well. He opened the back door, at which the @$%&*!ing offender scarpered, fortunately not taking one of our chooks with it. The morning showed the coop full of feathers, and one of the girls injured and in shock. She seems to be a lot better this arvo, though, so she should be ok. We haven't been locking them in the coop, because we haven't needed to - they take themselves to bed at bed time, and no-one has bothered them in all the time we've had them. The effing cats in this neighbourhood, who wander all over the effing place, into my effing house to eat my cats' effiing food, and now trying to eat my effing chickens as well... Not happy, Jan.

Rusty got home this arvo, and went out to check on the chooks. I got home, had a look at Injured Chook, and then realised there were only 3. "They were all here when I got home!" Rusty exclaimed, "That was only half an hour ago!"

So the tally stands at one injured (although on the mend) and one missing. They all seem to have been through enough trauma that they are not laying.

Sigh. Obviously a sacrifice needs to be made to the Chicken Gods, or something. Good thing we're having lamb for dinner, eh?

We're shifting into high gear with this totally ass rapingly awesome hyper ball gargling Spiderman stick shift knob modification

I laughed so hard I nearly passed out. Regrets y is bad, bad, bad for my ability to not spend my whole life on the interwebs, laughing at the amazing lack of talent so many "crafters" possess.

The totally awesome Spiderman Shite-Mobile takes, not just the cake, but the whole goddamn patisserie.

What's wrong with this picture?

I went to an all-day finance meeting today that didn't suck.

No, I don't really believe it either.

There were also team building exercises that also did not suck. No really, I'm not lying!

The actual financial part of the meeting was actually relatively brief, and against all the laws of accountancy, our financial controller is a very good public speaker - he is engaging, well spoken and interesting. At least, my eyes don't slide instantly shut upon hearing the words "forecast", "budget" or "projected growth".

The team building exercises were very simple, and surprisingly effective. The first one had everyone standing up, and ready to move about the room. You shook the hand of the person next to you, and you told them your name, and they told you theirs. Then you said their name, and they said yours. And then you moved on to the next person, and so on around the room. It was all over in 5 minutes, pushed no-one too far out of their comfort zone, and actually got us to meet other people in the greater department.

We were divided into teams for the next team building exercise (which involved building a tower out of spaghetti, masking tape and string, and putting a marshmallow on the top (ours sagged gracefully over until it deposited the marshmallow onto the table - the idea was to build the highest one. And no, before you ask, I don't know what this has to do with finance...), and the method of choosing the teams was kinda nifty. Everyone picked a piece of puzzle out of a box - there were 6 pieces to each puzzle, and about 6 puzzles - and you had to find the people with the other pieces to your puzzle. The teams not only found all of their members, but all put their puzzles together to see the picture, completely spontaneously. It actually made a fantastic ice breaker, and provided a really good rallying point, if you will, for interaction.

I know that i am starting to sound like I have got religion - don't fret, I'm still the same old miserable cynic that I've always been! I am, however, very pleasantly surprised to discover that it is possible to have a positive experience at an all-day, team building finance event.

Who knew?

I like my entertainment to be light and fluffy...

That's not so much of what I got tonight, though. (Warning: once you get to the bit about SVU, I start talking about rape.)

Some of it was, of course. It's not possible to watch Glee when they are doing a Lady Gaga special, and not get a lot of fluff. But the writers are really good at addressing some interesting social issues.

The part that I found most touching was the way that Kurt's dad really stood up for him, his sexuality, and his lifestyle choice. That he was prepared to risk his own happiness with a woman that he cares about in order to protect his gay son. Now this guy is a mechanic, the kind who wears a trucker's cap and one of those sleeveless puffer jackets. He's a man's man. But whoo baby, don't fuck with his family. It's one of the things that Glee does really well - it really portrays "alternative" lifestyle choices as being perfectly valid, even desirable, which is seven kinds of awesome in my opinion.

What I really struggled with tonight was SVU. I used to watch it a lot, and then kinda got over it a bit, and have been watching it a bit recently, mostly because there's nothing else on. The case on tonight's show was a rape, as many of them are. One of the characters was a witness to the rape, and was reluctant to testify because she was in the US illegally. Her story came out in rather dramatic detail during the trail, and it was all I could do to keep it together.

She was a refugee from the Congo, an area rife with conflict. Rebels had forced her way into her home, and raped her and her five year old daughter, who then dies. Her husband then throws her out, because he can't stand the shame. She is later picked up and taken to one of the camps of the rebel militia, where she, and many other women, are beaten, tortured and raped, over and over again. She tells of how she was penetrated with guns, and that once one of the men doing this pulled the trigger.

I know that this is a TV drama, and is a fictional story. But really, we all know that none of this shit is made up. We all know that anything that happens on shows like this has happened, many times, to many people. It does my head in, big time. Honestly, what the fuck is wrong with human beings?

Argh - sorry for the major downer. It was just one of those things I had to share, y'know?

Anyways, I'm off to bed now. I might need some brainless fluff to read to clear my head... hmm, pity I only have book number two of the Twilight series (and that was a joke present, and all), that would certainly fit the bill.

Blergh

I'z sick. Thanks to the snot monster who has appropriated my form and is now residing in my dressing gown and fluffy slippers. Thanks a lot.

On the plus side, I got a lot of sleep today...

Because Snuggies are, like, sooo five minutes ago...

Think Snuggies are stupid? Yeah, me too.

But these... these would be so totally... well, stupid too.

Meet the Lazypatch Duvet Suit. Yup, that's a doona that you wear like a pair of jammies. Apparently, they are the perfect Mother's Day gift, according to the ad that played late at night on Go, which goes to show what their advertising budget is. They will cost you, however, around $150, which makes them about 10 times the cost of your regular KMart flannelette pjs. And you get to look like a huge twonk in the process! Hooray!

Mmm, duvet suit - for when you just don't feel Michelin Man enough in your regular jimmy-jams.

Timing is paramount...

Apparently, I have not only been kicking Murphy's dog, but this time I pushed his granny down the stairs as well, because that bastard has it in for me.

Our hot water heater has gone the way of the dodo. Dead as a doornail. Pushing up daisies. Etc, et-bloody-cetera.

It chose to sing it's swan song the day after the weather finally realised that it's not summer any more, right at the time when a cold shower becomes actively unbearable. See what I mean? Murphy, you bastard, bugger off and bother someone else for a while, will you?

On the plus side, this has precipitated our prospective plan to give the old and expensive-to-run electric storage system the ole heave-ho, and get LPG shipped in. Oh yeah, we don't have a natural gas main up our street, or this would have been done years ago... On the less than plus side, this is a two-and-a-half grand spend we hadn't counted on. Poo. Still, I am looking forward to instantaneous gas hot water, coming from a heater that is no more than two metres away from the taps, rather than ten (yup, the person who designed our house was an idiot).

In the meantime, it's a good thing I got in all that practice bathing in a bucket at Festival. I'm really hoping that this week will not end with me in a miasma of my own unwashedness. Ew.

Festival wrap up

Things to remember from this year, and things to remember for next year...

The weather was gorgeous. The days weren't anywhere near as hot as they could have been, and the only real rain was Saturday and Monday nights. The coffee shop did quite well - all the cakes went, with a day and a half to spare. I went through 2 1/2 kilos of coffee, about 4 tea bags (out of 400, I guess I will be drinking a lot of tea in the coming weeks) and a moderate amount of hot chocolate. I'm pretty sure my costs were covered, and it paid for Rusty and my festival fees, with a bit left over. I think the prices were about right, but I would make the tea cheaper for next year. I would like to have had more staff, as I felt like I was a bit nailed down, and really didn't get to spend much time in the campsite at all. Rusty did seem to really enjoy working the coffee shop though, so maybe getting him more involved would be a good idea. At least next year he won't need to leave site for half of Saturday to go and pick up his new motorbike like he did this year.

Things to remember and take note of:

• 3 kilos of coffee might be enough. Depends on whether I think it will do a lot better next year.
• I ran out of orange & almond cakes with time to spare. There were 6 dozen of them...
• I ran out of Gateau Breton with time to spare. There were 3, and I think they were cut into twelfths.
• The Prince biscuits with ginger in them are a much better idea than Prince biscuits with caraway seeds in them. Went through very nearly 2 batches.
• The Digby's didn't do so well. I reckon 2 batches would be enough.
• Only buy small packets of tea, and not boxes of 100. 
• The double burner and 2 coffee pots worked well. Seemed like a good plan.

On a personal note - I MUST make myself a comfy throw-on garment. I'm thinking that a waffenrock would work well. I just need something that doesn't need a bunch of lacing and primping and kirtling and fidgeting with. Something non binding for when the tight bodices get to be too much and for standing around the campsite in the morning in.

I might add some more to this - it's more as a reminder for me than anything else. I can type faster than I can write longhand, and this way it won't get "put into a safe place" never to be seen again...

Odd

You know how sometimes things just strike you as a bit odd? Yeah, well here's one:

I was trolling through my favourite sites on the (or should that be teh) Cheezeburger network, and I found something that piqued my interest. I think it was on Very Demotivational (but I'm not entirely sure now), that I saw a post that was of Ash from the Evil Dead movies* who is played by Bruce Campbell . I was sooooo in lurve with Bruce when I was in my very early twenties, and with the advent of the interwebs and Wikipedia, I can look him up and remember the glory days.

The odd bit? When I typed "bruce" into Google, the first line on the autocomplete bit was, in fact, Bruce Campbell! Now, of all of the famous Bruce's in the history of the world, I would not have thought that Mr. Campbell would rate quite that high on an internet search. Surely Bruce Lee would be the one that would spring to mind straight off the bat. Odd.

* My all time favourite quote, and I mean ALL TIME, is from Evil Dead 2, which is a classic in the genre. Ash, our hero, has just made mincemeat of his girlfriend with a petrol powered gardening tool after she became totally possessed, and he is looking into the mirror in an attempt to save his dwindling sanity. "I'm... fine" he says to his reflection. His reflection then leaps from the mirror and grabs him by the throat. "I don't think so. We just cut up our girlfriend with a chainsaw. Does that sound 'fine'?" You can see it here if you are interested in taking a peek into my psyche...

Bloody bugger shit poo bum...

You know what really makes me cranky? The fact that I am writing this at one o'clock on Thursday morning. Not awake to do the writing by choice, you understand, just awake. All week I have fallen asleep with a book in my hand, but as soon as I put the bloody thing down and turn off the light... Ping! Eyes go open and I am wide awake. For hours. Tonight is worse than usual.

This will mean that I am tired and out of sorts again tomorrow, which is really not what one needs when one is facing a killer week at work.

I've had enough of the bloody sleep issues - you can bugger off now please!

Blergh! Moisture Infused Pork Is Crap!

Am I the only one who thinks that "moisture infused pork" is smeg? I bought a couple of pork steaks a couple of months back, and allowed myself to be talked into the moisture infused version, on the info provided that they were "tastier, juicier, more succulent and easier to cook". Sounds great - although in the back of my mind a little voice was saying "it's just soaked in water, you moron! Don't you rant about how meat is being soaked in water to make it heavier, and therefore better value for the supplier? Don't you? Huh?!?"

I cooked it up that night, and served it forth with veggies and gravy or sauce of some kind, and I was very, very disappointed. The meat was, as promised, juicy and succulent. It was also really salty (that would be on account of the brine), really lacking in any other flavour, and the texture... well, the texture is a whole 'nother story. Have you ever had reconstituted meat? When they have taken "genuine pig parts" (or other animal) ground it up and reformed it into a meat-like product? Yup, I think everyone has. You know how it's a little bit... spongy? Yup, well that's what the "moisture infused pork" was like. Obviously the brine is forced into the meat under pressure, or it would just cook out. This high pressure "infusion" makes the meat spongy. In hindsight, it seems pretty obvious to me. Pity I wasted a perfectly good meal on it.

The reason I bring this up now is that I popped into the shopping centre at Winston Hills on the way home from work, and they have a nice butcher there. Not one of the really high-end ones, but they seem to have a good quality of product. I was going to buy some pork, until I realised that (in small, hard to read writing) all of the little plastic signs with the cut of pork and the price on them were labelled "moisture infused". So I asked the chap if all of their pork was so. Yes, says he. Ugh, says I. He tried rather half-heartedly to tell me that he has tried it and it's very nice, but I think he could see that I wasn't going to be convinced. So I sold my soul and went and bought some at Coles (for which I will no doubt burn in the fiery pits of hell for all eternity)

What really worries me is that this is the "future" for all pork. I did a Google search on the subject, and nearly all of it was industry stuff, and overwhelmingly positive, or blogs, and overwhelmingly positive. I did find one blog that panned the whole idea a bit, but only one site in ten pages of entries. That's really worrisome. Funnily enough, Speedy, if you read this, there were comments from you on this blog. Even on the interwebz, it's a small world.

I know that some of you are prolly thinking "SERVE YOU RIGHT, YOU HEINOUS BITCH! DON'T YOU KNOW HOW PIGS ARE REARED FOR MEAT PRODUCTION THESE DAYS?!?". And you would be right again. I just haven't been able to wean myself off the meat of the magical pig just yet, and haven't found a free-range pork supplier anywhere in the area.

Why do they keep fucking with our food? Can't it just be food again? Why does it have to be science?

Anyone?

Anyone?!?

Eek!

I went to sit on the couch in front of the telly (and the fan, more importantly) and trim up some boning and slide it into the freshly sewn channels. It's not the boning I wanted to use, of course, but that standard plastic bridal boning that we all used to use before we discovered the good stuff. I'm just using more of it than the good stuff. I wandered into the living room, but had not even rounded the telly yet when I heard the distinctive, sexed up saxaphone sounds of Lethal Weapon. "Aargh!" I said loudly, "what's this shit doing on again?" Yep, one of the other 400 movies made in this franchise had been on last week, and Rusty had watched that too.

I couldn't even bear to be in the same rooms as such visual garbage. Even from here (the land of Spar-Oom) I can hear  the endless screaming and carrying on like pork-chops. Gag.

I might call mine Larry...

A couple of weeks ago on afternoon radio on Triple J, there was some discussion, including sound bites, about Jennifer Love Hewitt getting Vagazzled. According the partial interview with her that they played on the Js, a friend of hers put Swarovski crystals on her "precious lady" (her ghastly terminology, not mine) and that it was "like a disco ball down there". Please, please don't ask me any questions about how or which er... specific area - I pondered this briefly until I realised that I was actually taking time to think about JLH's vagina, and I changed my train of thought very quickly. (Aaargh! Ponies! Rainbows! Pretty butterflies!) Overall it was mildly interesting in that "why on earth would you bother" kind of way, and had a reasonable amusement factor.

It must have sparked further discussion on the Jays that I missed, as they were playing a bunch of soundbites this arvo, generally of people saying various euphemisms for the female genitalia, including a reference to having it made all sparkly - gemitalia. There was one that made me laugh out loud though, which is still making me a bit giggly...

... Lawrence of Alabia.

*guffaw*

Yep, it's lame, but it's still funny.

Grump

Hmph! I was going to do some frocking tonight, but instead I got to do the reeve report. Woo-hoo.

Oh, and I've lost my good plastic boning, which is making frockage more difficult than it needs to be.

All in all, pretty grumpy.

Bugger

Guess who had to change a tyre in a white linen top today?

Fortunately, I was at the shops when I realised that the tyre was flat, which meant that there were an assortment of random helpful gentlemen to give me a hand. One helped to get one of the wheel nuts undone, I managed another, and then a chap came along who had amazing wheel nut technique who got the other two in about 10 seconds. I fart-arsed about with the jack for a while (it's the one that came with the car, so it is designed to go in a very specific spot, which means (of course) that it was really hard to find), before another chap came along to help with that. Between the two of us, we got it all sorted in good time. No thanks to the twit who commented "hur hur hur, you can teach her how it's done", which earned him my very best "eat shit and die" look as I told him that I have known how to change a tyre since I was sixteen. The helpful chap agreed rather wholeheartedly with my opinion, and made a rude gesture on my behalf to the twit once his back was turned. Aw shucks, how sweet!

So, boo hiss to flat tyres and random twits, but hoorah for random helpful people. I must admit, I had completely forgotten that a chick changing a tyre will attract help pretty quickly, which is generally handy for the wheel nuts if nothing else (those little fuckers are almost impossible for humans to get off...)

Not really the way I wanted to end the day - hot and sticky and covered in skunge. I managed to keep my shirt pretty clean though - and I didn't have to take it off*...

*Thank goodness for small mercies!

The awesomeness of Paddle Pops

No really, they are Teh Awesome.

I haven't had a PP in years, and after helping a bit with Feral Cheryl's moving on Sunday (on a day that was no less than 247% humidity) I was in need of an icy treat. I am happy to report that not only are they still reasonably priced, but they really do taste as good as they did when I was ten. I had thought that they would be a bit like all nostalgia - better in your memory than in actuality, but I was pleasantly surprised.

So, whilst I was slurping down my yummy ice confection*, I read the nutritional and ingredients info (like you do when you are thirtysomething, but not something that worries you when you are ten), and was even more pleasantly surprised. They are not actually an ice-cream, they are more of a milk ice. Made mostly out of food ingredients, rather than numbers, and involving quite a lot of skim milk, they are also only about 5% fat, and about 5% of the RDI of kilojoules. Pwah!

So I enjoyed my almost entirely guilt-free Paddle Pop very much (and bought a box of them at the supermarket yesterday - they worked out to be abut 55 cents each, which is barely more than double what we paid for them from the corner shop in 1979). It's nice when sometimes the good things from your childhood are still roxor when you are nearly....erm, I mean years and years away from being forty.

I know this sounds a bit like blatant advertising for ice-cream manufacturers, but in this case I am prepared to tip my hat to the continued awesomeness that is the humble Paddle Pop, and may they still be awesome in another thirty years.

*OK, ok, I actually had two, because I couldn't decide between banana and chocolate. They both tasted exactly as I remember them. They were yummy. I enjoyed eating them a lot.

but I wanted to keep that money...!

Took the car for it's annual rego check today. It's quite handy - the shopping centre down the road has an Ultra-Tune which does the e-checks (and then emails your pink slip to the RTA, so you can do all the rest online. Hooray!). So I took the car in, thinking it would cost me $35, plus a little more for new headlight globe.

Hah!

Put a one on the front and a zero on the back and you'd be a bit closer to the truth. Needed new front shocks, shock capping thingies, two new tyres and about six globes, and then $35 for the rego check. Bugger. Still, the car is seven years old and has done over 100 000kms, and I really haven't had to spend a lot of serious money on it yet. Compare this with the Hyundai Excel that I bought mumblemumbletwentymumble years ago, that needed a new clutch at 3 years and all of the gearbox bearings replaced at 60 000kms (it had a 3 year/60 000km warranty, but you could see that coming, couldn't you?), both of which were quite pricey. It was nine years old when I sold it, and in much, much worse condition than the Astra, even taking another two years into consideration.

So, in summaary, I spend 1300 bucks today, and didn't even get something shiny for it (the car doesn't count - currently, it's really not so much with the shiny...)

Pout.

Of fail and win

So, it seems that I suck at Hollandaise sauce. Tried a couple of times - fairly epic fail. Poo.

However, I did manage to poach a couple of nice googies to perfection*, with lots of oozy egg yolk. Nom. Just a pity they didn't have lovely home-made Hollandaise on them...

* You may be wondering why this is blog worthy - I haven't actually poached an egg in more years than I can remember, so it is an achievement, albeit a smallish one.

I'm having trouble with my digestive processes - again. Hoo-bloody-ray. Some biting stomach pains and last night a bout of rapid expulsion of everything that wasn't nailed down. (sorry - TMI I know).

So, fast forward to this morning - a reasonable nights sleep and not having whatever it was that was poisoning me in my system any more putting me mostly to rights - and I am feeling a lot better. I was sitting here on the 'puter looking up times for the days activities, (and watching R wrestling with the cat, who seems determined to "help" R play Warcrack), and I got one of my tummy hurts.

"Are your pains hurting you" himself asks with concern...

Yes honey, that's what pains do best. We had a good giggle over it though.

Ugh. Bit over the heat. Over 40 degrees is boring. I was interested to note, however, that according to the BOM , at ~3pm this arvo the temp in Sydney City was 41 deg, and the temp in Penriff was 41.7 deg. That is actually quite unusual - poor old far western Sydney is usually 3 or 4 degrees hotter (on a hot day). Nice to see that the suffering is being a bit more evenly distributed today!

Still, bring on the cool change!

*In case you haven't noticed, I am really not a hot weather person. The higher the temp, the more whinging. It's a hard life being a cold climate girl in Sydney. Really need to move back to England...

I want to move now please...

I am starting to get really tired of hearing the Bogan Queen across the street screaming "Fucken fuck fark, fucken fucken wanker fucken" at her kids all the bloody time. It's really, really distasteful, and I just don't want to hear it. I'm not a prude about "fruity" language, and goodness knows I can turn the air blue at times, but there is a time and a place, and the whole street doesn't have to listen to me swearing.

I think we are going to have to move. I wish we could do it now, but I think we are still going to have to wait a couple of years.

All I want is a quiet neighbourhood, is that too much to ask?

The week that wasn't

This has not been a good week for me. In fact, I would be so inclined to say it was one of the most god-awful weeks I have endured in a long time.

Why? Simple answer: stomach flu.

I woke up on Tuesday morning not feeling myself at all - nauseous, grumbly tummy, feverish. I had a very small, plain breaky to see if that would calm things down a bit, and debated long and hard as to whether I should go to work. In the end, I did, and part of me is glad that I went, because everyone got a good look at how well I wasn't, before I proceeded to take the rest of the week off.

So I came home and crawled into bed. I know I had a fever by this time, because I was freezing, even though it was hitting the high twenties outside. I think I slept most of the rest of the day. At about 8pm I realised I was burning with fever, and asked R to take me to the doctor. Over an hour later (and $75 - my Medicare card had expired, and I hadn't realised this.Bugger.) I finally got to see the doctor. Money not well spent, I am sorry to say. He talked over the top of me, asked the same questions 3 times, really didn't listen to what I was saying. My symptoms were pretty simple - temperature, nausea and vomiting and ... er ... other gastric symptoms. He looked at my throat (no inflamation) and took my temperature. It was 39.4, which is pretty high, but not alarming. He basically gave up on me then and there - high temperature is out of his league, and he would write me a referral to Westmead Hospital. Oh, after he told me it might be Swine Flu. WTF? Since when are gastric symptoms part of H1N1, huh? And I had a distinct lack of a sore throat, (which is a SF symptom). It's a good thing I am not a panic merchant or hypochondriac. What a moron. So, we tootle off to Westmead, where the triage nurse takes my temperature again (39.3) gives me two Neurofen, and tells me to see her again in an hour. So we went home. And came back in an hour. She took my temp again (38.7) and told me to wait for the doctor. After another hour, I overhear someone else being told that there is a minimum FOUR HOUR WAIT. Again with the WTF. So we went home. And stayed there. I wasn't going to sit for 4 hours (it was nearly midnight by now, and R had work the next day) to be told it is a stomach virus, go home and keep my fluids up, which is all that they could have told me, and what I did anyway.

So Tuesday was bad, but I think Wednesday was worse.

My fever waxed and waned, but never came down far enough to give me any real relief. And now was when the really heavy duty nausea and vomiting kicked in. All day, and well into the evening. I have a ring around my midsection where my diaphram joins my trunk, which HURTS! Like fire. Ow. But far worse is the misery of feeling constantly like being sick. I don't know how women who get morning sickness that lasts all day cope - I would go mad in a millisecond. Also by this stage I am starting to get thoroughly sick of rice crackers, even though I have only eaten about nine - but that is all I have eaten. Make it stop, Mummy!

Thursday - my temp came down! Hooray! So not feeling like a miserable, sweaty space cadet any more. Now about those stomach cramps...and the continuing vomiting and diarrhoea. Can stop any time. Any time, now. Aaaaaany time...

Friday - almost feeling like a human being. Almost. REALLY sick of crackers. I went down to Parramatta to go to the Medicare office and renew my card. There were a couple of moments where I thought I was going to crash into people, fall over or pass out. Or perhaps crash into people, fall over and pass out. Not out of the woods yet. I ate my first food at 3.30pm (and that was only a couple of mouthfuls). I have completely lost interest in it. I really only ate because I know that I have to. You know I'm really sick when I have so little interest in food...

Saturday - I ate real food! A whole cheese sandwich and a couple of peaches. And one piece of pizza.

Today - almost back to normal. Almost. Still eating bland food, and not a lot of it. But getting better.

The silver lining to all this (cos there's got to be one, or I would be VERY CRANKY) -  I have lost 6 kilos! It's not all fluid - I never actually got all that dehydrated, but i will have to be careful to not pile it back on again.

So, that was my week. Hope the next one doesn't suck so badly...