Inner nanna

I just had an inner nanna moment. I baked chocolate chip cookies and took some over to our next door neighbours. It felt good and wholesome and very 1950's. I shoulda put on an apron and some hair curlers for the occasion. Now my belly is full, my sore tooth has become a sated sweet tooth, my kitchen smells yummy and my neighbours are chuffed. The sun is out and I am heading to a black diamond PK, where I hope to acquire a lot of very cheap climbing toys and such. Life is good.

Long in the tooth

My tooth is sore - perhaps I am getting a little long in the tooth. Or perhaps I am chewing too much fat or maybe I bit in to a bad apple while distracted by the apple of my eye - or was it the pie in the sky? They say pigs may fly. I wonder if they do so with flying colours? And, do they go as the crow flies? I guess the sky, after all, is the limit, at the end of the day.

Ideas often start as dreams, but cliches often start as poetry.

I digress. I do have a sore tooth. For want of somewhere to start, I thought I'd start with what was most on my mind. Having a sore tooth while on the other side of the world is a little scary, especially when only earning $11 an hour!

I think it is my past coming back to bite me, quite literally. (There we go - another cliche!) If thirteen years ago, I hadn't been jumping on a tramp-a-line after drinking too much cheap wine, with about five other people, I would not have fallen and knocked out my tooth, so therefore I would not have a dodge capped tooth jammed into a nerve right now. But, if I hadn't been jumping on a tramp-a-line I would have been doing something else. They say everything goes in cycles. I feel I am starting the cycle of re-visiting my youth, or is my youth re-visiting me?

corporate love

I got this message on my (rip off) mobile, oops - I mean "cell" - phone:

"Hey! Remember we are gonna take $20.on May 17. Be sure to add cash! Questions? Dial 611. Lots of love, from 611."

Isn't that sweet?

Not just love, but lots of love.

Cell phones here charge for incoming and outgoing calls. They are such a rip off, but at least they give you lots of love.

I asked this man on the bench what he thought of companies selling their love with their services. He was unmoved.

beautiful sandwiches

Lets make sweet, sweet…

sandwiches together.
You and I
two grains of rye
callously cultivated then
plucked from the field
of homogenised mass production.
Pressed, pounded, moulded, and baked
in life’s fan forced oven
only to find ourselves
facing each other blankly
wondering what is in between.

***

Bad poetry aside, this sign made me smile. Some people really are dreamers ;-)

artichoke no joke

You know how certain foods can play a big part in your life at particular points and then for no particular reason you just stop buying, eating and cooking them? Sometimes you stop because you overdose on them and need a break – a rehab. This was the case for me with tofu, soy milk, felafel's and hummus after my vegan era. Good news is that after going cold (mock) turkey for some time, I have since made space in my kitchen for all of these items again, except soy milk. That stuff is gross. Don’t know how I ever convinced myself otherwise.

This is all a big preamble to introduce the latest food item to make a re-appearance in my life: artichoke hearts.

I think I went off them after working in a café where I would eat foccacia’s every day for lunch. This meant that I over-dosed not only on artichoke hearts but also on sundried tomatoes and all grilled marinated veggies. But, artichoke hearts have made it back, and even better, they have given a favourite staple of mine – chickpeas – a new exciting twist! I am going to share the recipe that I created with you. (If I can remember). It is remarkably simple but mighty yummy. You know what? I wanna create a separate recipe page. Yeah… that’d be cool. Mmm… but while I figure out how to do that, I’m just gunna put it in right here and now before I forget it.

It went something like this:

Foodstuffs:
Chick peas (I like to use dried ones and soak then cook them, cause it is cheaper and yummier, mainly). About, ummm, I dunno, 4 cups or so.
A few carrots chopped into large-ish chunkish type things
Garlic – ‘bout 3 cloves
One Onion (but me thinks a leek would be a yummy substitute)
Fresh sage – about 1 tablespoon or so (dried is ok as a substitute, but fresh is best, to use the supermarket motto)
½ a lemon
Yummy stock (I used an onion stock cube – but mushroom would also be good, or vegie or chicken… homemade… whatever)
A bit of water – I dunno how much… not too much to make it a soup but enough to give a little liquid
2 – 3 tomatoes, chopped roughly
As many yummy tinned artichoke hearts as you desire. I used a can
Pepper
Chili flakes and chili powder (not too much mind!)
Little little bit of paprika
Salt to taste

Basically put it all in a pot, (assuming chickpeas are cooked already – oh, and I used the cooking liquid from my chickpeas as the water… just adds a bit more flavour), bring to boil, turn right down to low and stew for atleast 30 mins or more – till carrots are lushisly soft and the flavours have all melded and done their thing.

EAT!!! With Quinoa (that’s what I used) or cous cous, or spaghetti, or millet… or rice. With some garlic bread and a leafy salad. Yuuuuuuuuuuuumm. Sounds boring, I know, but it is actually damn fine.

OH, PS- Forgot to mention - a good hearty tip of sherry or white wine in the pot

This Blogging thing

I love text chatting and reading and blogging... but, I think I need to draw some lines somewhere.

AS anyone reading will realise, I am new to this whole blogging game. I now have two blogs which I am updating semi regularly – through definitely not daily. I think I have become addicted to them, and I can see that the more time I spend on them, the more I will find to spend my time. I will start meeting friends that have blogs, and so I will start reading all of their blogs and writing comments and finding new cool little tricks and gadgets and bits of code to incorporate… but then, I have this commitment-phobe inside of me that is increasingly concerned about this new found interest of mine. It is whispering stuff in my ears like “But you won’t be able to keep it up!”, “You won’t always be able to think of interesting, insightful or witty things to say” – (actually this is more my writers block demon than my commitment phobic one speaking here)… oh, and mostly, “HOW WILL YOU FIND THE TIME??!! Your life was bursting at the seems before with all the things you wanted to do, how will you be able to fit all these cyber-based activities in as well?”

I guess I can ignore the other whispers, but the last one is a bit of a concern.

I am already finding it hard enough to live with all the me’s I have. I am perpetually split between the athletic, adventurous out-door me and the arty, creative, pondering indoor me. And each of those me’s are split aswell. The outdoor me wants to be a shit hot climber, paddler, mountain bike rider and surfer. The arty indoor me wants to learn Spanish, write poetry, learn guitar, learn how to knit, paint, draw, take photos, read… oh, and that is just a start of both me’s. The extrovert and the introvert.

But, I guess the arty, creative, thinking introvert is the part of me that often gets neglected, so maybe this new-found blogging addiction will feed that part better. Mmm… yeah, that justification works. But that is the other problem, I can justify anything, even when it is the wasting of time. And blogging is definitely a great justification for procrastination. Two things that I am very good at: procrastination and justification. They feed each other really, in a self-perpetuating cycle.

If it were just the blogs, that would be okay, but then there are all the other things. The social networking sites for instance, the live chats that just conspire to eat in to your life too much. I have been asked by a recruiter (that I have met and who has lined me up with a good interview) to join some professional networking site, which I did, I guess because I am unemployed and vulnerable. My boyfriend has just joined Myspace, in order to get in touch with an old friend, and someone else has just asked me to join Facebook, which I have dutifully done this morning, because I am socially isolated and lonely. But then, so what now? I join these sites, and I log in each day to view and read and send comments? As well as logging into my blogs and every other blog I want to read, check me emails, read the news, look for and apply for jobs and then manage to get some fresh air, exercise and a find a social life in there somewhere… Oh, and I haven’t even put in a proper profile to my blog yet let alone to the other social networking sites…

Like right now, it is nearly lunch time, and I have not even started doing anything with my day. Arrrrrrrrrrggghhh.

Will my computer crash (with all the junk I am downloading on to it) or will I crash first? Mmm, somethings gotta give, methinks. Am I just having teething problems?

Do any of my vast readers out there (lol) have any words of wisdom to offer?

paraskavedekatriaphobia

Well, I have successfully avoided applying for any jobs all morning and now it is lunch time already. I really am refining the art of procrastination.

I was about to open up my incomplete application for a nice lil’ multimedia editor job, when the perfect excuse hit me: Friday the 13th. Actually, I hadn’t even consciously absorbed the fact until I read Kass’s blog. Where would I be without your blog in my life, Kass?

I am not at all superstitious, unless it suits me to be. And it suits me just fine today.
I can’t apply for a job today. It might all go hideously wrong. I haven’t quite got the imagination to conjure all the possibilities… but they could include the accidental sending of pornography or viruses and being blacklisted by all potential employers in Vancouver…maybe some ghost code writer (lol) might insert lines of evil code in my emailed cover letter that will make - - I dunno, bad shit happen.

It then occurred to me though that I had absolutely no idea what Friday 13th was actually about or where it originated. Neither it seems, do many people. I went to the good ol’ Wikipedia and found out that it is considered to be a day of bad luck in English, German, Polish and Portuguese-speaking cultures around the globe, but that there are only really stories and theories about why. There is not really any authoritative documentation of it, that I or wikipedia know of.

13 is considered an unlucky number, and Friday is considered an unlucky day, apparently (but what is unlucky about Fridays? I love Fridays! I think Mondays are much more unlucky.) But other than that, there is very little that links them together.

Some stories (taken from Wikipedia) include:
* The Last Supper, with stories that Judas was the thirteenth guest, and that the Crucifixion of Jesus occurred on Friday.
*That the biblical Eve offered the fruit to Adam on a Friday, and that the slaying of Abel happened on a Friday (though the Bible does not identify the days of the week when these events occurred).
*Many modern stories (including The Da Vinci Code) claim that when King Philip IV had many Knights Templar simultaneously arrested on Friday, October 13, 1307, that started the legend of the unlucky Friday the 13th.

None of these nor any other historical date has been verifiably identified as the origin of the Friday the 13th superstition though. The first documented mention of a "Friday the 13th" is generally listed as occurring in the early 1900s.

So anyways, I think it is amazing that as a culture we are terrified of this particular day, and none of us know why! How dumb are we???

Interesting facts (also from Wikipedia):
· "It's been estimated that [U.S] $800 or $900 million is lost in business on this day because people will not fly or do business they would normally do."
· Some people are so paralysed by fear that they are simply unable to get out of bed when Friday the 13th rolls around. The Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute estimates that more than 17 million people are affected by a fear of this day.
· A British Medical Journal study has shown that there is a significant increase in traffic related accidents on Friday the 13ths.