argh. what have i done?
which doesn’t mean so much really. just that i know some road rules and will now be even more incensed when “licensed drivers” try their hardest to run me down in the street. and then there’s the small matter of being able to see over the steering wheel. sigh.
still, to celebrate, summer rolls and rainbow drink at xic lo in chinatown, and then a mixed bag of buns for home.
sunday culminated in a waffle cone of badde manors sour cherry sorbet and pistachio gelato, and a detour into the side streets of ultimo to admire a row of decades old corrugated iron warehouses. before that, a two hour walk through the inner west to the inner inner west. before that, a big fat greek breakfast, which due to surprise “sydney weekender”-induced crowd delays, became brunch, which by the time it was served, became lunch.
whatever, it was tasty. “greek beans and scrambled eggs” on the menu, but plated up, it was beans (fat creamy white beans and al dente green beans) cooked in tomatoes and onions, eggy eggs, fried haloumi, avocado, baby spinach and a basket of turkish bread toast. oh, and a cup of tea. after which the boy’s mother cheerfully said, “round the corner for cake and coffee?”
it is a sad and unprecedented day when i turn down cake, but i didn’t think i would eat again until, um, tomorrow. obviously, three hours later, the ices proved me wrong.
saturday was napped away after crumpets and jam. i awoke midafternoon to stroll up to the corner and procure a fillet of snapper, a sweet potato and a little knob of ginger. a couple hours later, there were three bowls of fish porridge eaten as quickly as the scalding factor would allow, while watching potato battle on “iron chef”.
friday ended dismally at the table of a portuguese restaurant in petersham. maybe because it had started on such a high — double plates of pippis in garlic — there was only one other direction for the evening to proceed.
so, there was this girl visiting from england, friend of a friend, who due to a bottle of wine, or the professional requirements of being a barrister, or something, could not stop talking. towards the end of the night, after the boy (to my right) started telling her about travelling through pakistan, she (to my left) thought it appropriate to cut me out of her line of sight, lean across me on several occasions, and gesticulate with her hands not five centimetres from my nose. she really wanted to go to pakistan to scatter her father’s ashes, and to find pakistan and have it find her, and not be like when she went to india and was disappointed to not finally feel a sense of belonging, and —
oh bloody hell, shut up, and remove your hands from in front of my face, and your wine glass from my bit of table. no kiss goodbye for you when we all finally end up on the pavement at midnight. pah!
the oven roasted salt cod was meaty and good, and there were so many paprika-sprinkled potatotoes i couldn’t even meet them halfway. if only i could have shared the cab back to the city with them, instead of non-stop talking indian barrister girl from the UK.
what better thing to do on a weekend where it’s too hot to even think, than try and learn about implementing css.
sure. you might put forth the option of strolling into your local gelatissimo store and availing yourself of the yumminess on offer. there’s a secret deal at the moment where if you say to the cashier, “gelatissimo is yummissimo” he will smile at you in a way that doesn’t make you feel like a dill, and then he will give you a pretty alright discount.
but having already done that yesterday, i thought a day at mr. computer would be equally fun. so. here we are. a new layout. i was aiming to get it done in about a week, when this blog turns a year old, but i was editing and uploading and suddenly it was all up there.
does this text look inordinately small and illegible to you?
some days the air is so warm and moist that your armpits are no longer just armpits, they are pits of hell. is there a steaming carcass tucked up there? something that crawled inside and died?
on such a day, it would be wise to catch an airconditioned bus to the airconditioned cinema, where you can see “infernal affairs“. you will bite your nails down to just before it starts to hurt. you will stop breathing a few times, it gets so exciting. my word was i excited!
in the dark you might have a bottle of apple-cranberry juice and a tofu nori roll, and you will have tony leung chiu wai, surely the most handsome chinese man in the world (sometimes the most handsome man ITW fullstop, depending on what sort of day keanu and jude are having).
your armpits will thank you.
it’s only a good thing when you step aboard a boat and minutes later a chipper crew member is offering you a cup of tea and a bit of apple cake. little do you know, at this stage, that just hours later you will also be offered, amongst other tasties, crayfish and soft rolls and salad, with which you can make a proficient crayfish and capsicum sandwich, to be eaten in a sunny spot on deck, where you will still be trying desperately to become warm after a short paddle in the icy waters off rottnest island.
yes, a whirlwind trip to perth can surprise you, with a boat of guys, who if not exactly “great” are definitely good; with your father willingly accompanying you to the art gallery; with your sixth aeroplane flight since christmas not being that one that kills you by plummeting out of the sky…
early on in the game, your host says approvingly, in the presence of your father, “your dad is really laid back, isn’t he?”. this is the most surprising of all, and you can only stutter, after a pause, eyes darting, “um, well, i guess he has his moments.”
some things that were eaten in tasmania, where it’s 12° in summer and where people drive *old* minis, were: a slice of pink cake, a wagon wheel, and a lamb roast with such accompanying vegetables as roasted parsnip and crumbed cauliflower. also: large flavorsome strawberries, small tart apricots, and yummy yummy cherries. a lamington filled with cream and jam. a venison pie. a baked apricot custard slice. an esmerelda, which is a ball of dessicated coconut covered in hard toffee. a dark chocolate cup, filled with berries and covered in double cream.
why o why are the old people of tasmania so damn grouchy? because they lack the teeth to eat nothing but porridge?
why oh why oh why am i stuck on a department store escalator with people standing both on the left side and the right side of the step, denying me overtaking privileges? why has the volume of said people tripled in the last two hours? why do they all smell slightly sour?
could it be that i, who don’t do christmas shoping, last minute christmas shoping, am participating in this most diabolical of year-end traditions? ummmm… yes.
fueled only by a just-bought package of braune lebkuchen mit früchten und schokoladeboden, and a small bag of mcdonald’s fries i got free with the coupon they gave me the last time i gave blood (now there’s an incentive to rock up to the red cross with elbow pit bared), i’ve been riding escalators between floors for ohhh… three hours, trying to find the most classy photo album for ‘a reasonable price’. why is it the cheaper the album, the shinier it is?
message received 19 december at 7.20pm:
well well well.
well well…
well… well… well…
[ evil cackle ]
i mean, there is a yakun kaya toast in junction 8.
how can we do?
and there is a tako pachi!
i mean, there is no need to leave the heartland… ever… man.
c’mon let’s go! eh, don’t be shy.
good bye.
following which, an sms conversation made possible by global telecommunications technology:
nellie: eh
bowb: EHHH!!!!!! TAKO PACHI!!!!!!!
why am i languishing in tako pachi-less sydney? sigh. not for long. woop!
bloody hell i’ve been whingy of late. but look. here, bringing cheer, is an amazing smiling flower biscuit, which came out of a packet that nellie brought me a few months ago. that these biscuits came from nellie is noteworthy, because she generally leaves a trail of smiling flowers wherever she goes.
you see? … … …
however. after i got extremely excited at the sight of amazing smiling biscuits falling out of the packet, it was pointed out to me that in fact the smiley face was just a U with an umlaut over it. i guess it made sense. ülker is a turkish company who make, amongst other tasty treats, a damn fine banana wafer and an even finer pistachio chocolate bar. they sure added a sugary sparkle to those dusty days in turkey all those years (three) ago. [sigh]
despite the fact that amazing smiley biscuit is now just a routine branding exercise, i still feel a bit regretful every time i bite into one; it’s hard to eat something with such a happy disposition. they just keep smiling though, the little troopers!
