Happy Birthday To Me

I don't know if I've mentioned this, but I love holidays. Christmas is so exciting, with the secrets and the tinsel and the food and the presents. Halloween means you get to be anyone you want, and it's also me and the boyfriend's anniversary. But my birthday... My birthday is the best of all.

Sadly, a few weeks before my birthday this year, my old car (like, older than my little brother) started to have some problems. Luckily,  my dad was coming down to visit for my birthday so instead of letting him rest from his flight, I dragged him off on a weekend of car looking at.

Now, people in fiction always seem to get a car for their sixteenth birthday. Veronica Mars got one as a graduation present. I got neither of these, but finally, FINALLY, I did get a car for my birthday.

In addition to getting a freaking CAR for my birthday, I also had The Best Present Idea Ever.

I didn't throw a party this year, instead opting for drinks, a breakfast, a lunch, a dinner, other drinks, and a football game with various groups of people. Therefore, according to my Theory of Birthday Presents, I wasn't entitled to real presents from people who weren't family or otherwise obligated to give me some.

Enter, The Best Present Idea Ever.

 

I bought this pretty pretty recipe box and forced asked all my friends to give me their favourite recipes for my birthday. Major success! I got all kinds of recipes, and plan to try out one new one every week.

Am I a genius or what?

Hot Chocolate

I am sure I have mentioned on here before that I Don't Drink Hot Drinks.

I kind of blame it on growing up in Darwin, but I know plenty of people who grew up in Darwin who drink hot drinks, so that doesn't really fly.

I remember my grandma tried to get me to drink tea once when I was fairly young. I didn't like it. I have always hated the taste of coffee. I will drink soup from a spoon, but not a cup. Two winters ago, I had one hot chocolate. Last winter I may have had two.

This winter, in the course of my new job, I was taken out for 'coffee' on multiple occasions. I had four hot chocolates in one week that week. This week I discovered Cadbury mint hot chocolate which is the best thing ever. So far this week I have had four hot chocolates in two days.

I may have a little bit of a problem. (A DELICIOUS ONE.)

I suspect next winter I may even end up drinking tea. (But never cofffee,  no never.)

***

Adding this here because it's really not a whole post...

Overheard on the train: "She just should have divorced him seventeen years ago when he had the affair."

Eating And Driving

This visit from the boys was a little different to our past ones. No big trips were scheduled - no Great Ocean Road or Odyssey Trip. No old favourites were automatically pencilled in - probably due to the mere six month gap between this and the last visit.

Instead we had zero plans, unless they were of the Last Minute or What Should We Do Tomorrow? or That Sounds Cool variety. This resulted in what shall be known as the Holiday Of Eating And Driving.

We ate at bakeries, pubs, pancake houses, all-you-can-eat diners. We drove north (to a wheelchair basketball game that just finished), south (to the Fruchocs factory, where we proceeded to add imperfect chocolates to our menu), east (to Hahndorf, home of bakery, pub, and elusive doughnut place), and ... actually we didn't drive west, as that's the beach, and this is winter.

It was the holiday of frisbee, BSG, card games, and books. And for the old guys it was the holiday of woodturning.

It was pretty awesome, as always.

Free Feed, Stop Your Whinging

First of all, quite seriously, I have a question for you: Say you happen to be attending a lunch provided by the English department for its Honours students and staff. When you and your two friends arrive, there are two of your fellow students sitting in the middle seats of a long table. Do you:

(a) sit next to them,
(b) sit at one end of the table, or
(c) sit at the other end of the table?

If you answered b or c ... um, okay, then I will stop my ranting, because that's just what the people I want to complain about did. But seriously? Is that not rude? (Honestly, I'm asking.)

Anyway, other things I experienced at yesterday's lunch:

Professors really do discuss such pretentious things as the opera, the latest reviews they've submitted, and what journal articles they've read recently.

I'm not sure which is worse: me, being mistaken for an idiot kid, or my classmate, being mistaken for a lecturer that had been hiding all year.

The hilarity of a plan largely depends on the number of glasses of (free, so really, shut up, me) wine its beholder has enjoyed. (It's ok, they all stopped soon after ... and went back to marking essays.)

Everyone has Facebook, even the oldest of lecturers. No-one claims to actually use it, however.

I discovered why a university located in the south of Adelaide and populated with, you know, uni students has a fancy brunchy restaurant - so the now-postgrad students and their lecturers can pretend to be above everyone else all together.

Some people are just much better at being sociable. It's a gift and not everyone has it.

Well, I waited til today to write this, and apparently being back at uni makes me very bitter about things. Whoda thought?

The Celebration Continues

Last night was the Hall Musical. I really didn't know what to expect, but I have to tell you, there are some hella talented people at Flinders. It was a murder mystery, with people from the Hall being killed one by one. It was written and performed and musicked and whatever elsed by Hallies, which makes it all the more impressive.

And it was hilarious. They were all playing different people from the Hall, and it was amazing how they managed to capture the mannerisms and sayings and things like that from each of their characters. Love. I also loved the Glossary, specifically some of the things they felt it necessary to include, such as "Ranga," "Tekkin 3," and "Facebook."

This morning was the Christmas Pageant, but I decided that a warm bed was better than an 8am start in dubious weather. Next year!

Tonight was dinner at Hoggies with the work crew. Very tasty, although not the best experience I've had there. Our drinks were sitting out so long that the cream melted, and no, it wasn't even hot inside. I do love me some curly fries, however. And after that we went to Bracegirdle's, which is a chocolate place at the Bay. One word: yummmmmmmm.



Celebration Day Three: Success!

Pizza Party

My grandma and my aunty are coming over for dinner tonight. They haven’t seen me or the house since I moved in. This wasn’t on purpose on my part. I always intended to invite them to dinner, but then uni happened and work happened, and I didn’t. Until now.

They don’t think I can cook. When I asked what they wanted to eat, they said, “Oh, well, you’ll want to cook something simple.” When I suggested home-made pizza, they said, “You’ve been practicing pizza, have you?”

Actually, no and no. For me, one person, yes I want to cook something simple. I’m a slacker like that. For three people, I don’t mind putting in a little more effort. And I never cook pizza for myself. I figured it would be a crowd pleaser, and yeah, ok, hard to mess up. Add in some garlic bread and salad for not much more effort and call it a meal.

My room is tidied, the kitchen table is clear of bottle caps and cards, and the pizza and garlic bread are ready to go into the oven.

The salad is at the shops, where I forgot it. Who says I can’t orchestrate a whole dinner party?

I had to write that earlier, in Word, because my internet took an afternoon nap. Now it's 9:47pm and my guests have just left. They left me a mere two slices of pizza and a small piece of cheesecake for breakfast. I think we can call that a success.

Dinner's Ready

When I was little, my dad would sometimes call me from work when I got home from school and ask me to take the meat for dinner out of the freezer and let it chill out in the fridge. Invariably I would forget until some point later in the afternoon, but this was ok as I could simply take it out, leave it on the bench in Darwin's lovely (read: stinking hot) weather, and it would be defrosted in time for dad to cook it for dinner.

It seems that my childhood left me illprepared for both following instructions and defrosting food in Adelaide's more chilly climate.

Dude, Seriously?

I have this breakfast routine that I am very fond of.

I went through a couple of stages when I was younger of eating cereal for breakfast, but I have now come to the conclusion that cereal is a dinner food. I had a while there when I didn't really eat breakfast, because the Hall serves breakfast way early, and I had better things to do.

But now, I'm firmly back on toast.

Two slices gets me through class/a shift/an essay/a morning watching cable. The first slice is vegemite. If there is a second, it's peanut butter. (And used to be if there was a third, it was cinnamon sugar.) If I'm out of peanut butter, I'm cool with having both vegemite.

Vegemite is the key here.

And yet, when I woke up this morning, there was no jar of vegemite on the bench. No vegemite in the fridge (where I didn't leave it) or the cupboard (where I also didn't leave it).

How does this happen? I don't get it.

Missy had her first dinner party ...

... and all you got was these lousy photos.




Rest assured there was pizza and garlic bread and ice-cream. It was yummy.

Bite Me

The other night, we were having a conversation about food (probably our lack of it, or a sudden need to eat junky varieties of it) and we got on to the topic of strange food things. You know, the yummy things that you eat that make everyone else cringe just a little.

I'm not even going to get into the fact that a whole country seems to think it's ok to put peanut butter AND jam (yes it's jam, not jelly) on the one sandwich. However. I thought I'd share two awesome snacks that you just have to try. (In convenient picture form.)

                         

On the left, we have a lovely lunch right there: a vegemite, chips, and cheese sandwich. There should be another piece of bread on the top of that pile, and the chips and cheese layers should be repeated another couple of times. Yum.

And on the right, a morning/afternoon tea snack thing: saos with cream and banana (rounds). Delicious, no? (Yes.)

Your turn: what gross thing do you love to eat?

The good thing about living by yourself is...

... you can have pumpkin soup and hot cross buns for dinner at 11:30pm.

Hypothetically.

Eat It! An Update

Tonight's dinner? Um, toast. Yeah, we're master chefs.

Still alive

Another day, another meal.

This time, it was omelettes.



If you think that look is something like "Ok. It's near my mouth. Just take the damn photo," then ... well, you're very perceptive.

Just kidding, of course.



Two more empty plates.

Not starving ...

... yet.

Last night I made risotto. Shelle and I are still alive. I think this is a pretty big achievement.



If anyone wants to copy my mad cooking skillz, all you need is rice, tuna, corn, ham, onion, garlic, chicken and sweet corn soup, apple, and mushrooms. I think that was all.

Oh, and a spoonful of nutella for dessert.

Bye All (and other random thoughts)

Today is the day before Moving Out Saturday. This means the whole Hall is moving out some time in the next two days. Bye! I'll miss drinking with you!

24-Hour Noise Curfew finishes at 9am tomorrow. Later! Won't miss you at all!

I just read approximately 50 bajillion Thanksgiving posts. I've never had pumpkin pie.

They cooked us a Christmas Dinner on Wednesday. I think crackling should be crackly not chewy. I don't like Christmas Pudding unless it has money in it.

Apparently there was nothing hot at last night's dinner. At all. Which I think is taking the Christmas Day / Boxing Day metaphor a bit too far.

I didn't mind because I had Subway. The amount of Subway we (at the Hall) eat is ridiculous. And! I heard today that they are thinking of putting one in at Flinders! But the other ones don't want us to stop going to them.

I say apparently because I was at work. Where I will be all weekend. This is because everyone else who works there will be off at Schoolies in Victor. (Schoolies is where all the little kids who just finished high school go off and get drunk for a week/end.)

This means that everywhere we wanted to go and drink in the past week has been filled with little kids. How you can tell? They haven't learned to take off their shoes until they're at the front of the line.

Life is uncertain

When we go to dinner, we check the menu board and look at dessert first. Basically, I live for the Hall's chocolate pudding or apple crumble. (Or APPLE CRUMBLE! as some of us like to call it.)

Today on the late tea order sheet it said 'choc pud.' Yay! Tonight on the menu board it said 'choc pudding baked in custard.' The hell?



Tonight was the first time ever I have not finished my chocolate pudding. (Usually I go back for seconds. Shh, don't tell anybody.) I sincerely hope this tragic event will never recur.

Do not mess with custard when you're making my dessert.

Hmm. Two posts in one day. I may regret not saving this for later. Probably on like the 30th of November.

This is where the words live

So right now I should be writing an essay. According to my schedule, I have a critical analysis to finish by tonight.

I'm on a study break.

It was my birthday yesterday!

First there was Quiz Night on Thursday night. The power went out for much of the night which added a nice community/school camp feel to the festivities. Unfortunately we didn't come first, second, or last, but I did get Gary to give me, Rikki, and Petey birthday shout-outs, and I scored a bottle of Hard Man Ale. The label reads as follows:

Hard Man Ale
Boys Day 2006
It May Or May Not Kill You.

We weren't drinking but we managed to eat a shitload of junkfood which had much the same effect alcohol would have.

And then it was midnight and MY BIRTHDAY!

Saturday we went to lunch at the casino with Grandma and Aunty Lyn. The apple crumble there is worth its weight in ... apple crumble I guess. Very yummy. Then the girls were introduced to the wonders of gambling, but in the spirit of a cautionary tale I blew twenty bucks on the money wheel thing in about 45 seconds.

Then we went to Ikea because Jollan is Swedish. Also because the rest of us had never been, and because Shelle and I had inherited so many clothes from Bea and Eri that we have nowhere to store them besides my floor or under her bed. I bought a lamp, which means I have to tidy my desk, and some storage box things, which means I get my floor back!

We (which means me, Jollan, Shelle, and Bristol. The four of us. No-one else) went shopping for supplies then headed back to the Hall to start on dinner - lasagne followed by triple choc brownies. Which meant we took over two whole kitchens but hey, we provided music!

And finally (looong day) we headed off to Glenelg spelt backwards. I got an awesome shout-out from the band at the Jetty Bar, and got wished Happy Birthday by a random chick every time we saw each other. Tiff's EXboyfriend is a dick, but all the girls in the bathroom (whether we knew them or not) were able to provide hugs and makeup and advice for Tiff and name-calling for the ex. We finished up begging the guitar man for Wonderwall repeatedly, eating the best chips in the world on the metal squiggly thing, and taking awesome pictures of me (thanks Jollan!).

I would like to wish everyone in the world a Happy Birthday. I hope you feel like a princess.

What's For Dinner?

That's me blowing out the candles there,

in case it wasn't obvious to you.

Food...

Lunch at the Cas. Bristol is full now.

...But not too busy to bitch

We arrive for dinner at 6:35.

[Just so you know, 6:30 is the START of second sitting. It is not the END of first sitting. (And even if it was, it would be the middle, since tea finishes at 7.)]

There was
NO potato
NO rice
NO pasta*
NO bread rolls
NO chocolate pudding
and by 6:50
NO cold drinks.

*Also, and this is what pisses me off the most, is that when I asked - for the second time - whether more pasta was coming out, I was told that no, there was none cooked, and it would take 20mins for some to be ready. "That's okay," I told her, "I'll wait." "I'm not putting some on now," was her outraged reply. Perhaps it wouldn't have seemed so outrageous if you'd put some on TWENTY MINUTES AGO WHEN I FIRST ASKED FOR IT, AT THE START OF THE SITTING WHICH YOU'D THINK WOULD BE A GOOD TIME TO HAVE FOOD AVAILABLE, NO?

I understand. You're punishing me for this, aren't you?