Save the world – in your PJs
Amnesty is an organisation that defends human rights internationally by researching unjust situations and then writing letters and petitions to those in power. Which means ordinary schlubs like you and I can simply go to their website, click a few buttons, and help save lives around the world.
How awesome is that?
Indulge your ennui
Meh. Couldn’t be bothered being awesome today. Anyone else just wanting a nice lie down?
Here’s some cat pics to inspire you.
Fish tanks are like tattoos. . .
. . . once you have one, you want more.
And so it was that CJ and I bought another fish tank (just a little one, and with the totally rational excuse that our fighting fish would be happier on his own).
Here it is, before little Gandalf was put inside:
Naturally this meant I had an excuse to buy more fish. I bought two semi-tropical guppies. One of them died more or less immediately (presumably, since only one died, he was sick when we bought him – and it’s therefore not my fault). The other looks a little like this:
Shiny, shiny colours!
Coming soon: Steam Train to Bungendore (there shall be costumes, and pics) – and a Eurovision party (ditto).
What could possibly go wrong?
I haz discovered cheese!
Pay attention, and I’ll tell you the secret to the most awesome home parties: Know the weaknesses of your guests.
Here’s some examples from my own life:
Parental units: They no longer have children at home sucking them dry, they have actual real jobs, and their mortgage is almost paid off. This means they have a steady income – and they’re old enough that they no longer try to impress people with home-cooked meals (that’s a phase young parents go through). They’re also polite and reliable.
Conclusion: Whatever part of the party you assign to them will be bought, and will be high quality. It will also arrive on time and on the right day. Exploit this for all it’s worth.
Intellectuals/Writers: Poor. Addicted to sugar because they can’t afford alcohol.
Conclusion: Ask them to bring lollies. Their nose for cheap, tasty lollies is infallible. Plus they’re constantly on the verge of starvation, so they’ll inevitably impulse-buy far too much. Make sure they know in advance that there is going to be a free meal and a lift home.
Sidebar: Make sure you get them to take home any leftovers – especially meat or vegetables.
Sidebar #2: I had scurvy one time (self-diagnosed and self-treated with instant results). Another friend of mine used to look through university rubbish bins for scraps others had thrown away (before we met, obviously).
Extroverts: The default extrovert social occasion is, “Let’s go out for drinks” which means they live in a mental space that simply assumes wine must be present.
Conclusion: Ask them to bring drinks. Leave the interpretation of the word “drinks” up to them (but be aware that they probably won’t think to bring anything for those who don’t drink alcohol). They’re probably good for taking people home, too.
Vegetarians: Will probably have to cook their own meals at/before many parties.
Conclusion: See if they’d like to cook the main meal. It means they get to eat WITH everyone else, and the meal will probably be both healthy and delicious (assisting the intellectuals, and totally offsetting all the lollies).
Close friends: Love you.
Conclusion: Some friends can handle complicated tasks – others can’t. Since they’re close to you, they have specific likes and dislikes, and specific weaknesses. Individualise tasks accordingly – keeping reliability in mind as your #1 concern (eg don’t assign a vital ingredient to your heroin-addicted workmate).
My friend Ann has a weakness for cheese, so I tend to suggest it whenever she’s bringing something. It seriously paid off last week when she brought a BRAND NEW CHEESE.
Okay, it wasn’t a brand new cheese really – but it was to me. Can you believe I’d never had goat’s cheese before?
It’s a lot like really delicious cream cheese (but tastes nice by itself on a cracker). We ate it with quince paste (another substance new to me). It was a taste sensation and a personal revelation (that’s brie and hommus in the background, in case you’re wondering).
Today’s blog entry was brought to you by my new book How to manipulate friends and influence pizza.
Oh, and you can get away with ridiculously complex demands when it’s your birthday.
Pie, professionalism, and panic
Today’s official awesomeness is pie. Specifically, pecan pie from the Cheesecake Shop. Being healthily obsessed with that particular pie, I decided to buy some two months ago (a rare treat) only to discover that my usual Cheesecake Shop haunt doesn’t make it any more! Disaster!
Luckily, I was able to travel across town and buy one elsewhere.
Here’s what it looks like – it’s surprisingly heavy and rich.
Yesterday’s contest fiasco was simple lateness on the part of the judges (I assume the relevent web sites were simply programmed to shut down when the results were announced – which of course they weren’t at the time). With the help of that publisher’s customer service people and Mr Google, I was able to prove to my own satisfaction that the competition was legit after all.
Boring, I know. I’m so sorry there wasn’t a giant conspiracy. Also, I didn’t win.
You know what else is boring? Dryers. After two years of marriage, and having written a “Thank you for your lovely wedding gift of cash. We used it to buy a dryer” note (we actually spent it on groceries) – CJ and I bought a dryer.
We bought a Simpsons 4 litre, and bargained the price down to $287.
Still bored?
Here’s a panicked kitten picture just for you.
We didn’t switch it on, but we did close the door.
You can expect to see at least one picture of her enjoying the styrofoam packaging in the next little while.
Name and shame?
I recently entered a short story contest.
It had several peculiar characteristics (danger! danger!), so I wouldn’t have entered except that (a) It didn’t cost anything to enter, and (b) It was backed by one of Australia’s biggest and most reputable publishers (I checked on their web site and it was indeed legitimately based there).
The results should have been announced yesterday. Instead, all traces of the contest were deleted from the internet.
It looks rather like I’ve been had.
A few moments ago, I emailed the publisher with the details and let them know they had six weeks to explain and/or fix what I graciously pretended to assume was a technical glitch.
After that six weeks, if they don’t do the right thing, I will share with you – and any blog or media outlet that will listen – exactly who they are. Which of course I also told them in the email.
Will this be the greatest showdown since my cats decided they didn’t like getting picked up? Or will this reputable publisher explain that actually it WAS a technical glitch and they’re awfully sorry?
I hate that thousands of dewy-eyed writers get preyed on every year by unscrupulous people claiming to be real publishers/agents/contest judges. It’s not gonna happen in MY town. . . not without consequences.
Young Symphonists on Strings
Liza Picard’s Victorian London book quotes the following advice for elegant young ladies: “Playing the violin-cello is of course out of the question, while the violin, while not so openly obscene, necessitates an awkward position of the head and neck which is not recommended.”
Today, it is difficult to imagine anything more elegant than stringed instruments – or more beautiful to hear. The low notes make you weep and the high notes make you shiver.
CJ and I saw a fantastic (and free) performance last Saturday – and the most surprising part was that most of the participants were around fifteen years old. They played with stunning precision, having received extremely rigorous extra tutoring from the Australian Youth Orchestra’s exclusive program – leading to the laughable understatement, “They’ve worked very hard all this week.”
Kids these days!
The musical director was Yoram Levy, and this is the list of pieces played:
CPE BACH Symphony for Strings in Bb, WQ.182, No.2
DVORAK Two Waltzes for strings arr. from piano, B101 & B105
BRITTEN Simple Symphony (written at age ten)
DAG WIREN Serenade, Op.11
GRAINGER Molly on the Shore
I made a short video from that night:
PS Today’s Miscellaneous Monday has been switched with Tuesday’s Daily Awesomeness (which you’ve just read). Tomorrow you’ll be reading a short story that I think you’ll enjoy (which I definitely don’t say about all my short stories). It’s a 500-word murder mystery.
For batter or worse
In 2006 I decided to do nothing but write – mainly in order to discover if I could handle it (I can; I still write for a minimum for twenty hours each week). For a period of three months, that’s all I did. In order to keep going as long as possible before going back to the world of paid employment, I was EXTREMELY careful with money. I worked out later that I’d spent an average of $5/week on food and even less on transport (usually I walked up to two hours in each direction).
(For those who are wondering, this is not a recommended career choice for writers. 95% of us keep our day jobs for life – and that’s just the ones who get published.)
Previous poverty experience had taught me that if I don’t get three meals a day I stop being able to function. So I ate pancakes – generally twice a day, and sometimes three times a day. I had a regular schedule of three actual proper meals each week, which I relied on for my nutrition (I’d spend dinner with my parents – who of course didn’t know how badly I was eating – W, and another friend). Towards the end I staggered when I walked, and was hovering on the edge of illness. But I could still type, so I didn’t care.
(As you can tell if you know anything at all about CJ, this was before we met.)
The pancake recipe I used (really crepes, since they’re so thin they’re see-through) was:
Batter: Mix 1 egg, 2 cups milk (mixed from powdered milk), 1 cup of plain flour.
Fry pancakes in margarine and eat with sugar and lemon juice.
The astonishing thing about this piece of personal history is that I still like pancakes (although they absolutely must be fried in real butter these days). So for our monthly date this month CJ and I went to The Pancake Parlour for breakfast (expert’s tip: If you eat out for breakfast somewhere with freshly-squeezed orange juice, DO NOT brush your teeth beforehand).
The Pancake Parlour in Canberra is a subterranean wonderland of leather-padded seats, wooden booths, and brass fittings. The franchise began in Melbourne, and is found in most large Australian cities.
CJ had a full country breakfast:
I had a “Red Dawn”, which consists of two cheese pancakes with rashers of bacon cooked into them, served with a giant scoop of butter (it looks like the sun at dawn, see?), and grilled tomatoes. (As you can see from photos taken this week, that beanie is staying firmly planted on my head until Spring.)
I didn’t finish the tomatoes (just empty vitamins). I did, however, steal some of CJ’s maple syrup – because although bacon and maple syrup is gross, when served with a pancake it’s sheer gastronomical genius.
Mmm. . . pancakes. . .
Why not make your own this weekend?
The ex-boyfriend, and an incident with a broom handle
I like my ex-boyfriends. Mostly because I’m only attracted to interesting, intelligent people who don’t hold grudges. Also because I am an interesting, intelligent person who doesn’t hold grudges.
One of my exes is now good friends with my brother, and has also run into CJ at work (which pleases all of us). This ex and I rarely see each other, because something about our complementary flaws makes us both depressed if we see too much of each other – but we always wish each other well and enjoy hearing positive goss about each other.
Also, he’s Koori. You wouldn’t know it to look at him, so for him the main benefit is that he can get into an argument about Koori issues and then spring his Koori status on his opponent just as they think they’re getting somewhere (I may have mentioned I like people who are – and I quote – “interesting”). Also, he’s allowed to eat certain endangered animals – and in the Northern Territory, he can legally ride without a seatbelt.
And so it was that I picked up the phone to call an ex-boyfriend I haven’t seen or spoken to in years – waking him up in the process – and asked, “Do you know what nation you’re from?”
He told me his Koori side is from the Canberra area, which I informed him was no use to me at all. But he happens to know someone who’s Koori and from Victoria – and into speculative fiction. So he gave us both each others’ email addresses, which gives me a brilliant place to start on my place-specific information and permission.
We talked for a while about various things (mutual friends having babies, rather gory traditional funeral rites – you know, the usual) and then he went back to sleep.
Man, I have excellent taste in guys.
Later in the day CJ and I went to the National Library (I badly wanted to read “Triumph of the Nomads” by Geoffrey Blainey and “The Mish” by Robert Lowe – who many will know as the awesome Aussie footballer who also happens to be a Victorian Koori). Every book that’s ever been published in Australia is available at the National Library, so it’s a brilliant resource for obscure bits and pieces (and/or books that are out of print). Here it is:
Naturally I was distracted and spent a big chunk of time looking at books on pepperbox revolvers, the Eureka flag’s peculiar journey, women of the Ballarat goldfields, and convict ships.
“The Mish” (short for “The Mission Base” – where he grew up) was a fun and fascinating book that saw the funny side of poverty and racism and the author’s many childhood accidents.
Here’s a chunk of the book that made me laugh in a manner that isn’t considered appropriate in a library (if you are Koori, be advised that he mentions a deceased Koori by name):
Thanks to the mother’s broom and the father’s plough (he ploughed severely all around the house, making a muddy moat the government men weren’t able to get their equipment through), the house was saved.
The Mish now belongs to the people living there.
And here, because I can, is the pretty view out my window that greets me each Autumn:
BBQ at Pine Island
Bil (Brother In Law) and his girlfriend visited Canberra last weekend, and gathered their friends and relations for a barbeque at Pine Island. It was quite peculiar meeting the girlfriend because I know she reads this blog (which is really flattering – and makes me think, “Oh dear. What horribly embarrassing things does she already know about me?”) She was exactly as charming as I expected – and now I’m all annoyed because I have another non-Canberra person to miss when she’s not here.
Curse you, rest of the world!
And here’s Bil:
Here’s the paparazzi, in the form of Bil and CJ’s dad:
I’ve been to Pine Island exactly once before. On this occasion it was a cold and blustery day, but there was no way I was going near water without having a paddle.
The water was. . . well, let’s call it “invigorating”. The mud beneath had a surprisingly sticky quality, much like I imagine the slime from the Bog of Eternal Stench.
Totally worth it.
“Is that a. . . ?”
Play along at home: Imagine your own underwater horror and fill in the blank.
Felicity Banks 