Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Monday, April 02, 2012
The tale of Miss Jeanie and the "Bad Fish"
I haven't had the blog groove happening for a bit - a combination of life happening and life happening - too much, too fast, too out of control and too crazy - fraying around the edges and not a lot of guts to keep all the balls in the air, so to speak.
So I know I have to get back to blogland, and Bush Babe's mention of the demise of the hapless catfish triggered a memory, and Debby queried and I figured I am up for a yarn...
A long, long time ago (last century) (not even the last decade of last century) (1989 to be precise) Shop-A-Dockets* had just made their first foray into the supermarket checkouts of Brisbane.
At that particular point in time, I was a poor student in Brisbane, sharing with a flatmate called Hip and 2 cats called Des and Cairo in a half-house in a suburb that was about to be launched into renovators delight but at that point was better known for its semi-regular mention in the Fitzgerald Enquiry - we actually thought the girls who often washed their cars in bikinis down the road were just extra friendly!
Anyhow, these factors all collided in the tale I am about to tell... (well, okay, the girls down the road aren't in the story)
In the suburb that was about to be launched into renovators delight the first move into such delights was a brand new shopping centre, with a brand new supermarket - a way fancier supermarket than we tended to gather our folorn vegetables and home brand groceries, but although the delights it offered were ever so slightly more expensive we were tempted - by the proximity (and probably by the fact that they had these new-fangled Shop-a-Dockets - shhh) (the fact that they advertised "singles Thursday" shopping was in NO WAY a factor, however, and I will meet anyone behind the bike sheds who even thinks such a thing) and - well, by the proximity.
At the same time in history, lured - no doubt - by the offer of Yuppies galore, a pet shop a few suburbs away agreed to a Shop-A-Docket campaign.
The collision of these ideas occurred when we noticed their coupon - "Free Fish" - with ABSOLUTELY no requirement of purchase** (although it was limited to "one per family").
When we got our first coupon, we discussed the delights of such a promise. A free fish would be a goodly thing to add to our household - especially since the flatmate-that-never-was prior to Hip had left a fishtank that had held 2 inhabitants, Big Fish and Little Fish - but Little Fish had gone to that great fertiliser factory in the garden and Big Fish was sort of at a loss - that and there was never anything on the television that we really wanted to watch.
It takes a great deal of planning to think about adding an animal to a household - well, it takes at least a discussion of names. Once we had hit upon a name, we knew that coupon would be put to good use. The first fish was anointed "Con" - short for "Fish under Conjecture".
Before we had trekked to the relevant suburb however, manna in the form of another docket fell into our hands. The second naming was far easier - and marks to anyone who could give the reason that the second fish was named "Eric"...
As we were about to get into the car for the foray, our neighbour came to the door with ANOTHER docket - and an offer of being the person to collect on our behalf (she had an assignment due and was desparate for an excuse, apparently. She already had 2 well-named fish)
A hasty house meeting was called in regard to the all important name of the third fish - after 2 great names, what could the other fish be called? We ended up with "Gilla" - short for "Other Fish Singular".
We returned with the fish (from a petstore with a very grumpy owner - apparently the free fish were on the road to sending him broke - although we did purchase some weed, food, fish toys and a filter from him) and set up our new entertainment system.
The first few weeks of fishwatch were great fun, until the weed had well and truly won the battle of space - so we moved the tank from the front window (who knew photosynthesis would be so effective?).
With the additional space, it appeared that bullying was on the agenda for the remaining fish.
First Con attempted to gain the upper fin, as it were, and before we knew it, we had the blue lights out to investigate the case of Big Fish floating - and given the treatment Con was meting out, we thought we had an open and shut case.
Con (renamed Con the Killer Fish) was sentenced to life in the trough, and the next weekend I made the 10 hour trek to my parents property, Con was in the esky.
(At that point in time, life in the trough wasn't that bad - there were at least a half-dozen fish in there, with a tyre hidey-hole at the bottom and an abundance of constantly replenishing green slime that appeared to be superfood for the fish - Con, our biggest goldfish, was about 1/10th of the size of the hardtimers in situ)
However - the next week, Eric was found on the upside of the water, not quite dead but with half a fin missing and the bit of fin left over was pointing at Gilla (henceforth known as Gilla the Killer Fish).
Gilla got the next esky to the property.
So, a bit of an anti-climax to the whole yarn there. Every fish (well, except for Big Fish and Little Fish - but they were support characters only) lived happily ever after. The girls down the road put some clothes on. Jeanie went on to have a fabulous career in Sydney** (and then went on to throw it away and enact the role of "Grasshopper", unfortunately NOT in any meaningful kung fu analogy) and Eric went on and had a long and healthy life with Hip, Des and Cairo.
* Wow - I didn't realise you didn't have to actually do the "Shop" part of "Shop-A-Docket" these days - how classy!!!
** As part of my fabulous career, I once got a visit from a Shop-A-Docket rep, and mentioned the tale of the fish - apparently, it is part of Shop-A-Docket folklore and a firm reminder to all promoters of wares through such a method to add a "must buy enough to make the promotion worthwhile" rule of thumb.
So I know I have to get back to blogland, and Bush Babe's mention of the demise of the hapless catfish triggered a memory, and Debby queried and I figured I am up for a yarn...
A long, long time ago (last century) (not even the last decade of last century) (1989 to be precise) Shop-A-Dockets* had just made their first foray into the supermarket checkouts of Brisbane.
At that particular point in time, I was a poor student in Brisbane, sharing with a flatmate called Hip and 2 cats called Des and Cairo in a half-house in a suburb that was about to be launched into renovators delight but at that point was better known for its semi-regular mention in the Fitzgerald Enquiry - we actually thought the girls who often washed their cars in bikinis down the road were just extra friendly!
Anyhow, these factors all collided in the tale I am about to tell... (well, okay, the girls down the road aren't in the story)
In the suburb that was about to be launched into renovators delight the first move into such delights was a brand new shopping centre, with a brand new supermarket - a way fancier supermarket than we tended to gather our folorn vegetables and home brand groceries, but although the delights it offered were ever so slightly more expensive we were tempted - by the proximity (and probably by the fact that they had these new-fangled Shop-a-Dockets - shhh) (the fact that they advertised "singles Thursday" shopping was in NO WAY a factor, however, and I will meet anyone behind the bike sheds who even thinks such a thing) and - well, by the proximity.
At the same time in history, lured - no doubt - by the offer of Yuppies galore, a pet shop a few suburbs away agreed to a Shop-A-Docket campaign.
The collision of these ideas occurred when we noticed their coupon - "Free Fish" - with ABSOLUTELY no requirement of purchase** (although it was limited to "one per family").
When we got our first coupon, we discussed the delights of such a promise. A free fish would be a goodly thing to add to our household - especially since the flatmate-that-never-was prior to Hip had left a fishtank that had held 2 inhabitants, Big Fish and Little Fish - but Little Fish had gone to that great fertiliser factory in the garden and Big Fish was sort of at a loss - that and there was never anything on the television that we really wanted to watch.
It takes a great deal of planning to think about adding an animal to a household - well, it takes at least a discussion of names. Once we had hit upon a name, we knew that coupon would be put to good use. The first fish was anointed "Con" - short for "Fish under Conjecture".
Before we had trekked to the relevant suburb however, manna in the form of another docket fell into our hands. The second naming was far easier - and marks to anyone who could give the reason that the second fish was named "Eric"...
As we were about to get into the car for the foray, our neighbour came to the door with ANOTHER docket - and an offer of being the person to collect on our behalf (she had an assignment due and was desparate for an excuse, apparently. She already had 2 well-named fish)
A hasty house meeting was called in regard to the all important name of the third fish - after 2 great names, what could the other fish be called? We ended up with "Gilla" - short for "Other Fish Singular".
We returned with the fish (from a petstore with a very grumpy owner - apparently the free fish were on the road to sending him broke - although we did purchase some weed, food, fish toys and a filter from him) and set up our new entertainment system.
The first few weeks of fishwatch were great fun, until the weed had well and truly won the battle of space - so we moved the tank from the front window (who knew photosynthesis would be so effective?).
With the additional space, it appeared that bullying was on the agenda for the remaining fish.
First Con attempted to gain the upper fin, as it were, and before we knew it, we had the blue lights out to investigate the case of Big Fish floating - and given the treatment Con was meting out, we thought we had an open and shut case.
Con (renamed Con the Killer Fish) was sentenced to life in the trough, and the next weekend I made the 10 hour trek to my parents property, Con was in the esky.
(At that point in time, life in the trough wasn't that bad - there were at least a half-dozen fish in there, with a tyre hidey-hole at the bottom and an abundance of constantly replenishing green slime that appeared to be superfood for the fish - Con, our biggest goldfish, was about 1/10th of the size of the hardtimers in situ)
However - the next week, Eric was found on the upside of the water, not quite dead but with half a fin missing and the bit of fin left over was pointing at Gilla (henceforth known as Gilla the Killer Fish).
Gilla got the next esky to the property.
So, a bit of an anti-climax to the whole yarn there. Every fish (well, except for Big Fish and Little Fish - but they were support characters only) lived happily ever after. The girls down the road put some clothes on. Jeanie went on to have a fabulous career in Sydney** (and then went on to throw it away and enact the role of "Grasshopper", unfortunately NOT in any meaningful kung fu analogy) and Eric went on and had a long and healthy life with Hip, Des and Cairo.
* Wow - I didn't realise you didn't have to actually do the "Shop" part of "Shop-A-Docket" these days - how classy!!!
** As part of my fabulous career, I once got a visit from a Shop-A-Docket rep, and mentioned the tale of the fish - apparently, it is part of Shop-A-Docket folklore and a firm reminder to all promoters of wares through such a method to add a "must buy enough to make the promotion worthwhile" rule of thumb.
Sunday, March 04, 2012
Disaster Quiche
Yesterday was a big of an interesting day. Not bloggable interesting, but more a "lets see how different stimuli act in this test" type of interesting.
Anyhow, part of the experimentation that went on was me trying to think of healthy, edible alternatives for the girls for weekend lunches... I was so "involved" in the experiment that I even went so far as to whip up a batch of cheese and vegetable muffins.
There is a VERY good reason that you don't see any results here in picture form, and that is because they TRULY SUCKED.
They were dry, crumbly (a very brave V did say that they were tasty, but he had to swallow several times to get the words out - they were so dry, they didn't just have liquid deficiency, they created a liquid vacuum) and I spat the dummy (unfortunately not the first dummy-spit I had - nor the last - yesterday).
The girls ended up with toasted ham, tomato and cheese sandwiches for lunch. I make a mean toastie - obviously far more proficient than muffin maker.
So last night, the quiche I had envisaged got a unique crust - made of crumbed cheese and vegetable muffin - and was based on a lorraine recipe - so cream (okay, it was Philly light - but nearly cream) and bacon made an appearance - as did all of our vegetables because I was darned if we were going to go without a bit of time down at the front and it meant our whole meal could be in one pan cooking while we took advantage of the good weather.
I didn't take a photo of the beginning of the meal (mainly because my third dummy-spit of the day had just been incited courtesy of a child's carseat - don't ask) (and the wine still hadn't kicked in) and it crumbled into a million tiny pieces on the plate...
However - it was a success, because the crust was delicious (very rich - but will tweak the cheese and vegetable muffin mix and try again one day) and both girls ate enough to tick the vegetable quota boxes.
(Fear of my dummy-spits played no part in that, I have been assured).
It still looks disgusting, though!!
Anyhow, part of the experimentation that went on was me trying to think of healthy, edible alternatives for the girls for weekend lunches... I was so "involved" in the experiment that I even went so far as to whip up a batch of cheese and vegetable muffins.
There is a VERY good reason that you don't see any results here in picture form, and that is because they TRULY SUCKED.
They were dry, crumbly (a very brave V did say that they were tasty, but he had to swallow several times to get the words out - they were so dry, they didn't just have liquid deficiency, they created a liquid vacuum) and I spat the dummy (unfortunately not the first dummy-spit I had - nor the last - yesterday).
The girls ended up with toasted ham, tomato and cheese sandwiches for lunch. I make a mean toastie - obviously far more proficient than muffin maker.
So last night, the quiche I had envisaged got a unique crust - made of crumbed cheese and vegetable muffin - and was based on a lorraine recipe - so cream (okay, it was Philly light - but nearly cream) and bacon made an appearance - as did all of our vegetables because I was darned if we were going to go without a bit of time down at the front and it meant our whole meal could be in one pan cooking while we took advantage of the good weather.
I didn't take a photo of the beginning of the meal (mainly because my third dummy-spit of the day had just been incited courtesy of a child's carseat - don't ask) (and the wine still hadn't kicked in) and it crumbled into a million tiny pieces on the plate...
However - it was a success, because the crust was delicious (very rich - but will tweak the cheese and vegetable muffin mix and try again one day) and both girls ate enough to tick the vegetable quota boxes.
(Fear of my dummy-spits played no part in that, I have been assured).
It still looks disgusting, though!!
Saturday, March 03, 2012
Saturday afternoon
This Saturday is the first beautiful (weather-wise) Saturday for it seems like forever.
I am inside looking out at the sunshine - but I have a toddler sleeping (still - shhhh) and plans to get out there when she awakens.
Although it is Autumn, there still may be a few Saturday afternoons at the beach - we can but hope.
Regarding the last post - I am so tired of being negative.
I am time poor, I am cash poor and it seems for every great idea that flits, ever so briefly, across my psyche, I can crash it down into a whole big pile of never-going-to-happens.
A part of that is probably due to the weather - when you are cooped up because of impending, current or just upended rain, the humidity warps your mind as you are swelling to the edges of your shelter.
A whole lot of it is me. I can look at a wonderful situation and pick it apart to find all of the possible negatives. I have worked out it is no longer a gift, but a burden.
I am so tired of feeling negative. I always have the reason why not, the ready-made "but" - I know WHY I have that response, I just have to work out a way to still give myself room to make my life choices without kyboshing all of the possibilities.
I have decided that one of the ways I can chose to not be so negative is to take a good look at positives, and for at least a while, identify and acknowledge them.
I know that it isn't going to be easy (look at that - true to form, I find the excuse) because there is often a core reason as to why we do the things we do. I also know that, according to the books (or would it be blogs these days) it takes at least 28 days to change a habit.
So I am going to try, for the next 4 weeks, to meet the world with a "whyever not" attitude.
I cannot promise that it will mean that I am going to be up for everything (just in case spammers want to offer me international roles or for me to act as their intermediary in getting back Mubarek's millions) but I am hoping that it means that I can live more consciously.
I am inside looking out at the sunshine - but I have a toddler sleeping (still - shhhh) and plans to get out there when she awakens.
Although it is Autumn, there still may be a few Saturday afternoons at the beach - we can but hope.
Regarding the last post - I am so tired of being negative.
I am time poor, I am cash poor and it seems for every great idea that flits, ever so briefly, across my psyche, I can crash it down into a whole big pile of never-going-to-happens.
A part of that is probably due to the weather - when you are cooped up because of impending, current or just upended rain, the humidity warps your mind as you are swelling to the edges of your shelter.
A whole lot of it is me. I can look at a wonderful situation and pick it apart to find all of the possible negatives. I have worked out it is no longer a gift, but a burden.
I am so tired of feeling negative. I always have the reason why not, the ready-made "but" - I know WHY I have that response, I just have to work out a way to still give myself room to make my life choices without kyboshing all of the possibilities.
I have decided that one of the ways I can chose to not be so negative is to take a good look at positives, and for at least a while, identify and acknowledge them.
I know that it isn't going to be easy (look at that - true to form, I find the excuse) because there is often a core reason as to why we do the things we do. I also know that, according to the books (or would it be blogs these days) it takes at least 28 days to change a habit.
So I am going to try, for the next 4 weeks, to meet the world with a "whyever not" attitude.
I cannot promise that it will mean that I am going to be up for everything (just in case spammers want to offer me international roles or for me to act as their intermediary in getting back Mubarek's millions) but I am hoping that it means that I can live more consciously.
Thursday, March 01, 2012
Gratitude
- I am grateful that today, I woke before anyone (except Eddie) and got to have my cup of tea in peace.
- I am grateful that I saw a link to a new post by an excellent blogger who always make me think.
- I am grateful that the sun is promising a gorgeous day - I love rain, but have a thing about moderation and there has been little of the moderate of late with our weather.
- I am grateful that yesterday was the start of the sunshine, and V ticked off some items on his looooong list of things he wants to get done. One of them was to dig out the Poinciana sapling that had nestled along the neighbour's fence and moved it to the centre of the back yard - not an easy task considering our back yard consists of large boulders slowly filtering anything looking like soil into the netherworld. We used to have one near the back (eastern) window, and the glow of red throughout the kitchen thrown by sunlight through blossom was so delightful - less delightful for our neighbours, however, who couldn't get their washing dry and were fearful of its roots interacting with their slab. It also was a rogue sapling from a previous poinciana...
- I am grateful that today is Thursday, which means that it is the last day of my working week and I can look forward to spending time with my gorgeous girls and V.
- I am grateful that I worked extra on Tuesday afternoon, so I can leave early this afternoon and collect 'Salina from school and have my precious one on one time with her.
- I am grateful that she loves her new school and is enjoying the learning process - it is half the battle won!
- I am grateful that, touching wood, neither of my girls are sick. We have had little niggly things dragging on around here, and I am starting to get jumpy about it all.
- I am grateful that Paris is the sort of child who goes to bed without drama, and when she wakes she plays in her cot and sings songs until she is ready to face the day.
- I am grateful for all of my extended family (including some very wonderful friends), living in this country, living in this part of the country, having enough work to survive, having enough food to not be hungry, having my own health, V (far more than one letter, really), being alive - gee, once you open up this gratitude list thing, it sort of grows, doesn't it?
Which, I believe, is my cue to start the day.
Have a lovely morning all.
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