Tell me about your childhood...

Monday 7pm

I woke up late this morning. The day progressed from coffee, to tea and now duty free gin. It is a public holiday today. I am not sure for. Perhaps Labor day. Or the Queen's birthday. Actually, Work Choices abolished Labor day, so I'm not sure. I am grateful for it just the same.


I am listening to the postal service (because my sister stole my 'the herd' album) and organising my desk. This is the last thing I have turned to. I vacuumed, and cleaned the spare room, dusted all the surfaces and wiped the basins and sinks. And it is only just now that I have turned to my room.

This is clumsy metaphor for one of my greatest weaknesses. I focus on everything else and give it all my energy before I turn to deal with the internal house cleaning that really should have been done first. And so, almost focused on the work at hand, I decide to post.

We did go to Europe, and we did have a most diverting time. We were rained on a lot. And we were constantly surprised by the English propensity to eat icecreams by the seaside when it rains. We were shocked by the cost of everything in Paris (and so Jools and I contented ourselves with fresh bread and cheese and cheap red wine). We enjoyed deep fried cheese and surprisingly good vegetarian food in Prague. We were thoroughly delighted to bump into my mother's sister in Berlin (she was meant to be in the Black Forrest). We played in Legoland and resisted the lure of kippers in Whitby. We laughed at the Edinburgh Fringe festival. We gratefully took to our beds when we arrived in Canberra.

And I hardly thought at all. I had planned for days of quiet introspection and thought. It didn't happen. Perhaps there was too much to see, or perhaps I was just too tired or out of the habit.

I read Neil Gaiman (Neverwhere) and Virginia Woolf in London, Primo Levi in Berlin, Kafka in Prague, a Whitby murder mystery in Paris and the Guardian and Times when in the UK. Photos below.
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Tell me about your childhood...

All I want is room somewhere, far away from the cold night air*

My housemate and I are are holed up in the dining cum study room. I have relocated to this room because I have been having troubles with the wireless dropping out. I'm reading about family provision as I update the book and D is reading about the law of sexualities for uni.

We are both very warm and happy, lifting our heads occasionally to comment on this, that or the other. We are sipping chamomile tea and listening to Ani diFranco. The little oil bar heater is on and I am wearing the vest my mother found all but completed a month ago. It was intended for me as a 13 year old and somehow was misplaced. Mum placed it in Grandma's capable hands and now it is all stitched together and woolly warm. It's a little short. But I'm good with layering.

We leave for Europe in three weeks.

*My fair lady
Tell me about your childhood...

Here's something I prepared earlier...

Middle-eastern roasted pumpkin, carrot and parsnip

900g pumpkin, unpeeled and sliced thinly
1 tablespoon olive oil
4 large carrots, halved, sliced thickly
2 large parsnips, chopped coarsely
1/3 cup firmly packed fresh flat leaf parsely leaves
1/4 cup roasted pine nuts

Spice paste

2 cloves garlic, quartered
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon coriander seeds
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 tablespoon olive oil
20g butter
1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 1/2 cup apple juice

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1. Preheat oven to moderately hot (200C)
2. Combine pumpkin and oil in baking dish. Roast for about 25 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, boil, steam or microwave carrot and parsnip separately until just tender.
4. Make spice paste
5. Place vegetables, parsely and nuts in large bowl with spice paste and toss to combine.

SPICE PASTE: Using mortar and pestle, crush garlic, cumin, corander, cinnamon and salt and oil until it is a thick paste.  Melt butter in frying pan, cook paste, stirring, until fragrant. Add sugar and juice; bring to a boil.  Cook, stirring, about 10 minutes  or until spice paste thickens slightly.

Can also be served with 1/2 cup natural yoghurt and 2 tablespoons of corriander pesto.

Source: The Australian Women's Weekly Cook Book p323

________

I made this last night and it was a triumph. I put the meal in my cake tin for ease of transport, which was a success also because the tin keeps the veggies hot.  

You and I

this could be destiny, oh sweetheart *




I know it's not chic to disagree, and I know we all are meant to think that we should live and die for a cause (although the strip above isn't so keen as causes as it is on increased heart rates). However, a large part of me would much rather die due to poisoning of cucumber sandwiches than High Adventure.  Then again, death by afternoon tea is just as terrifying as death by explosion.  

The wierdest thing about Tolstoy's [forget] Sonata is that his wife doesn't die right away. She takes a few days. This means she has to think about it, and so do all the people in the house.

...

We must not portray you in king's robes,
you drifting mist that brought forth the morning.

Once again from the old paintboxes
we take the same gold scepter and crown
that has disguised you through the ages

Piously we produce our images of you
till they stand around you like a thousand walls.
And when our hearts would simply open,
our fervent hands hide you.

Rilkes Book of Hours, I,4 (a present to Jools for his birthday),

...

My new computer screen is sitting on top of my collected works by Jane Austen, gifted by Damien and Jacqui. I rather like the juxtapostion. It won't last long though, for I suspect I shall soon get a hankering to read Persuasion again.  Waiting at the doctor's after work this evening (a horrid fluro light place with sick people) Nick called me from Paris with the Sims.  Another juxtaposition. One I don't like quite so much.

...

* Interpol Antics
Tell me about your childhood...

if time is my vessel then learning to love might be my way back to sea*

Francesca sent me TWO ribbons for my little blue typewriter. Isn't she just darling?



This has made my week. I haven't quite worked out how to install them in the typewriter but I have done some internet research and I am confident that this will be resolved soon. Stoked. I am composing (comprising?) a package suited to such a dear (unseen) friend and such a generous gift.

...

Work still sucks, But I like the money and the stationary and most of the people. And it is only four more days until the weekend.

...

I am the proud owner of a 19inch screen which I have attached to my laptop (or rather, sweetly asked Jools to attach). I expect this to change my life. Really, truly.

...

I made lemon friands tonight. Nice.

...

yes is a pleasant country:
if's wintry
(my lovely)
let's open the year

[and]

the great advantage of being alive
(instead of undying)is not so much
that mind no more can disprove than prove
what heart may feel and soul may touch
- the great (my darling) happens to be
that love are in we,that love are in we

ee cummings

...

* Interpol