Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Wasted space

Because phones have cameras on them it means you can take photos of anything. This is great usually but also my phone photo album is so full of crap that I don't know where or how to begin cleaning it up.

When I see this photo as a thumbnail it does not look appetising. Usually I have no idea what it is.

It is a rye bread and it was delicious but when I see it in my photos I see that it is not as good looking as it tasted, it looks more like the lovechild of an armadillo and some crap (absolutely no disrespect to Mickey "Mikey Doubleword" Blue Eyes, who makes a delicious rye bread and who I hope will continue to allow me to eat his baked goods which I love).

This cock on a tenner seemed hilarious. Especially because it came as change from a middle aged woman in a home wares shop. But do I really need to see it every time I scroll through my pictures?! (Just kidding, I love seeing it every time.)



And speaking of cocks, that sure is why I photographed this bowl of guacamole, but now I just feel hungry whenever I see it.


Why did I take this picture?

This delicious croquette looks like fried white turd and for some reason I photographed it after I'd squeezed the lemon. It's so ugly.



And all these photos:


I really gotta clean my phone out.

Monday, May 30, 2011

Monday in Melbourne

It's funny you say that because in Melbourne town it is both a Monday and the first day of the working week! Some people go to work. Some people work from home. Some people do other things I guess.

I do the middle one.

This means that today I have seen this Irish Setter, I like to call him Doggy. (Only in cyberspace though. In real space he has a real name, obviously.)


A collection of novels by a collection of famous novelists. I call these "novels".


And this computer screen.


I am so glad you have to come home on Friday so we can finally be on the same boring page together!

Public holidays in NYC

It is both Fleet Week and the memorial day public holiday in NYC. The city is chocker block with sailor types, people trying to flirt with sailor types and regular folks just wandering around. Due to our shyness/laziness, KJ and I fall in to the latter category. While wandering today, we saw:
This Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, who I like to call Silky:

This Beagle, who I like to call JP:

Famous Australian novelist Peter Carey, who I like to call Peter Carey:

And these cuties on the 4 train to Brooklyn:

We saw lots of other things too, but these ones are my favorites.
I wish I didn't have to come home on Friday.

Friday, May 27, 2011

Shut up Wikipedia

Your compression tights sound fantastic and I want some for myself. I say YES to human performance, multiplied. Who wouldn't want that? Other kinds of performance I would not like to see multiplied however, such as cockroach performance or spider performance. Lets hope they never make a pair of compression tights with eight leg holes for spiders, because those little a-holes are scary enough without multiplied performance. Even though the idea of tiny tiny eight legged compression tights does sound cute. But not that cute.
So now that I have confirmed that I want the compression tights, I am going to do some internet research to find out what they are and how they work.
****Time lapse*****
Oh, interesting. According to the internets, compression sportswear keeps muscles nice and warm so as to prevent muscle strain and fatigue, and enhances athletic performance.
They sound like super great things!
Wikipedia also advises that they are also used as a way to keep the male genitalia in place. Whether this is all the time or just when exercising, I do not know.
Wikipedia totally lost me at this point because it started talking about how jockstraps have fallen out of favor because of their embarrassing looks, and how women also wear compression sportswear when playing sports that involve wearing skirts or kilts. Really? Kilts? WTF kind of sport involves wearing a kilt?
At any rate, hooray for compression tights and hooray for multiplied human performance.

The only girl in the world

You know how when you start a new project you think that if you just have the right tools it is fail proof? Like at the start of a semester you buy new stationery. Possibly with different coloured pens and notebooks for each subject. How you think that if you have the right clothes for exercise you will get super buff super easily and feel better and hotter doing it? But then, who wants to spend heaps of dollars on that kind of clothing when you could be spending heaps of dollars on other, hotter kind of clothing? Right? Am I right? Anyway, you know how you think all these things but actually stationery and clothes don't really help, ultimately?

Well forget that. Because last night I was given some compression tights and I KNOW that I am going to just start running the shit out of.. them. I freakin' love these bad boys. The marketing line of this 2XU high performance compression wear is HUMAN PERFORMANCE. MULTIPLIED. And I as I brushed my teeth in them last night I really felt like I was doing the best damn job of it I'd ever done.

The picture on the box looks like this:


So I assumed I was getting full length pants. But when I pulled them out of the box I was a little disappointed to see that they looked like 3/4 length pants. I don't like this style of pant, even for exercising. I guess this is largely due to yoga where there is lots of bending and having my eyeballs that close to my leggies, well, I'd rather they were covered.

Here is a picture of the compression tights against my normal running tights:

But when I put them on they looked like this:

But with my feet right under where the pants finish! THEY ARE SO COMPRESSED!

But that's not all! They made me feel so buff and powerful! LIKE THE MOST POWERFUL GIRL IN THE WORLD! Or, as I like to say at even the hint of an opportunity, like the only girl in the world!* Until you have put on compression tights you have never felt this strength. And I haven't even gone for a run yet! I'm going to be AMAZING!

*WOWSER! I have never seen that video clip before. Rihanna looks crazed.**

**Double WOWSER I think I'm going footnote crazy this week.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Things are rough all over

In the interest of full disclosure I will admit that when I read your post this morning I felt jealous. Yep. Actually jealous. I felt worse when I realised I will probably be 50 before I get to have a holiday like yours. And while I am glad 50 is almost 20 years away I am sad that a wonderful holiday such as yours is also nearly 20 years away. This is a really complex issue.

Don't get me wrong. I am happy for you and KJ that you are living the sweet life. Lord knows you could use a break from all that auditing and KJ certainly needs to take a breather from all those bomb checks.

Anyways, as I was feeling sorry for myself I went to the park and put Baby on the slide and he looked so goddamned happy that made me feel better. Now I am home and Doggy and Baby both appear to be sleeping the sleep of very contented creatures and look adorable so I thought to myself, suck it up bitch, your life is alright. But then I thought to myself, hey so what if this life is sweet, wouldn't lying on a beach, swimming in the Carribean and drinking sundowners also be sweet? Why wouldn't I want that also. God! So complex!

Right now, you feel like this woman (though obviously you guys are not in business suits)*:
I can't even remember the last time I punched the air. Though I do remember when I deferred uni this semester I ran to the car where LB was waiting and jumped in the air and clicked my heels. I guess that is almost the same thing. But usually I would have to say a visual representation of my joy feelings would more closely align with this:

And that's cool too. Better than feeling like this I guess:



*It's true readers, yesterday K sent me a picture of her and KJ doing exactly this.

It's really hard to focus in these conditions

I came to Mexico to lie on the beach, swim in the Caribbean sea, eat delicious food and drink delicious drinks. I know Mexico has more to offer than this, and I know that admitting to these intentions casts me in an unflattering light, but this is the truth of why I am here. I've never done this before and I guess I must be tired and in need of replenishment or something because when I decided to go away with KJ after NYC, I very quickly happened on this plan. Thankfully, KJ was totally on board with it, yet she does not lose credibility because she lives in Iraq and when she drives to work, people stop her car and put what she describes as a giant dentist's mirror under it to make sure she is not carrying a bomb. So in fairness to her, she really needs to relax.

Now I am here I feel slightly regretful that I'm not going to see more of Mexico, particularly Oaxaca, which Chickpea and Biz speak so highly of. But truth be told, I only feel that way for about a five seconds at a time because I am so damn relaxed I can't really keep thoughts in my mind for longer than that. When I do manage to think harder, it's basically just think that coming here was one of the best ideas I have ever had in my whole life. It is a tropical paradise and doing all of the things I outlined in the first sentence is, hands down, the best way of enjoying it.

Let me take you through a typical day.

We wake at about 8am and get ready for the beach. This involves covering ourselves in 45+ sunscreen which is as thick as condensed milk and therefore requires some time to apply. Once done, we collect our fresh towels from Carlos at reception then head off to the beach via our favorite coffee shop. KJ gets an iced americano, I get a cappuccino.



Then we walk to the end of the street and this is what we see:


That photo is not even from the interwebs, it is from real life! Every day it is the same. Beautiful blue sea and sky. Sometimes there are fluffy white clouds to accent how blue the sky is.
Anyway, we walk along the beach and find a spot we like the look of. We lie on lounge chairs under the shade of umbrellas until we are too hot.
Then we get in the water which is so refreshing we say "aaaahhhh" like you do after the first sip of beer on a hot day. We bob around in the water and watch all the people around us and make (tasteful and approprite, but always hilarious) jokes about them. We only get out when we are too hungry to go on.

We then find somewhere for lunch and eat delicious Mexican food that I always forget to photograph because we are so hungry by this point. Suffice to say it is extremely delicious.
Highlights have included the fish and prawn ceviche and the thing that was like of like an arepa.
Then we either laze about and read our books or go for a walk along the beach.
In case you've forgotten, it looks like this:

We do this until it is time for what KJ likes to call a sundowner. In case you don't know, it looks like this and it is as refreshing as a swim in the Caribbean Sea:


Then it's time for dinner and more sundowners. Last night, dinner was gazpacho, followed by fried school fish and margaritas.


Then we go to sleep and do exactly the same thing the next day.
Isn't it great? Wasn't this the best idea I've ever had?
So forgive me if the last few days blog posts have felt a little distracted. It is quite hard to concentrate in these conditions.
Sadly, it will all be over on Friday, when we return to NYC. But going to NYC isn't exactly a hardship, so I'm not complaining.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Carlos V

Sweet treats are one of the great joys of life, and while they should certainly be rationed, they should never be stopped altogether. Just count yourself lucky that it took you until you were knocked up to develop the insatiable desire for sweet treats. I feel like i've had it since birth. I don't think there is a single sweet treat I don't like. I even like carob.
Anyway, it's funny that you should mention the Chomp bar, because yesterday I ate what I think might me Mexico's answer to the Chomp. It's called Carlos V.


You see, I like the eat the local sweet treats when I am away from home, because what if one of those treats is really delicious? My record of loving pretty much every sweet treat I have ever tasted makes me pretty optimistic about my chances of success. Carlos V did not disappoint, Delicious, with a good chocolate to wafer ratio.
You may also have noted that there is another treat in the photo with Carlos V. This little baby consists of a thin layer of caramel held together by two slices of very thin wafer. The caramel is the most delicious ever and the wafer adds a lovely little bit of crunch. Thanks Obleas, and thanks for everything, sweet treats.

Sweet, sweet cake

I want to eat sweet treats a lot. And it is tearing me apart. Because they are bad. And I kind of eat them a lot.

I've always enjoyed a delicious sweet treat but it wasn't till I got knocked up that I started craving those bad boys like nobodies' business. And now even though I'm not knocked up anymore I still want to eat sweets all the time. I make biscuits. And sometimes when I am in the supermarket and realise I am starving I buy and eat a Chomp. (Chomps are delicious by the way, light from the wafer but chewy from the caramel. I kind of love them.)

So I keep thinking I need to cut out sweets pretty much altogether. Because I know from experience that this is the only way. The less you eat of a thing the less you crave it. But then there always seems to be a sweet treat in the house. Sometimes this is my fault. I did go through a phase of making desserts a lot.


And those biscuits.


But then other times people give me things. Like a recent haul of ice-cream related paraphanelia which would be disrespectful not to use. Or some banana and sticky date cake I was given and is sitting in the kitchen right now!

And then there are the recipes I see that pique my curiosity and I think, just this one last time. But then curiosity begets curiosity. Or something.

You see I read a recipe for chocolate cake in David Lebovitz's The Sweet Life in Paris and it only had 2 tablespoons of flour in it. Anyone would be curious about that, right?

Basically the recipe was 4 eggs, separated, 250gm bittersweet chocolate, 120gm butter and 1/3 cup of sugar. And the 2 tbls flour. You melt the chocolate and butter over water, mix in the flour, egg yolks and half the sugar then whip the whites with a pinch of salt and the rest of the sugar and fold that through the chocolate batter. Bake for 35 mins. So I was imagining something light and delicious and chocolatey and I just couldn't get it out of my head so I had to make it.

The batter was delicious. Just like a super chocolatey chocolate mousse, cause that's what it was basically. And the cake was nice too. But dense. Really dense. Though not heavy. It had a delicious dark chocolate flavour. So I am not complaining about that. I should say though that I actually doubled the recipe, and not all recipes double well, so perhaps that had an effect on the density.


But now, right when I am trying to not eat sugar, all I can think about is finding the perfect chocolate cake recipe. You see when I was figuring out how best to present this chocolate cake I came across another chocolate cake recipe with no flour, no meal. Nothing. Eggs, cocoa, a couple of other things. How can I not make this!? But where will it end? WHERE?

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Picture from a friend

Your mum is funny! Interesting how in relation to, say, a baby windy bop sounds adorable. In relation to a sixteen year old boy, absolutely not adorable. But word up to your mother for going ahead and using that term in all contexts. Right now I am sitting next to Doggy who is doing plenty of "windy bops" and I can assure you that name does nothing to help.

Speaking of delightful communiques, here is something I got from friend and MSC reader, Toni. (Thanks Toni, I hope you don't mind me posting this. I can't wait for the sculpture.)


Familiar?

An email from Mum




Mum sent me the following hilarious email after she arrived home in Australia.

Hi Darling,
Thanks for phoning to say you had arrived in Mexico safely. I hope you have a great time in the beautiful temperature there.
Dad said to tell you that the 4 remaining in the dead cert* are still going as we all chose Collingwood. Dad is leading the footy tipping by 1 point on 51, you are on 45, Midbro is on 46 and I am on 41. We looked after Baby A yesterday for about 3 hours. She really has "matured" in the time we have been away, you will see a big difference.
No news to relate from here.

Speak to you soon.
"Have fun"
Love Mum xxx


ps...I watched a few more episodes of "the office" on the way home, if you have not already seen the double episode of the birth of the baby, make sure you watch it as I thought it was hysterical!!!
The 16year old guy sitting beside me made smelly
windy bops** all the way from LA to Melbourne, gee I was glad to see the back of him.
(the " back of him" does not relate to where the smells were coming from, it
was just a figure of speech), he also snored quite loudly which made me feel guilty for how I treated you***.
bye bye


* My Dad runs the footy tipping competition at his bowling club. Not satisfied with a regular comp, he created a parallel competition called the Dead Cert. In addition to choosing the 8 winning teams each round, participants in the Dead Cert comp must also choose a single team that they 100% for sure think will win that round. This is the dead cert. It's a sudden death comp, so if your dead cert loses, you're out. The four people left are my dad, my mum, my brother and me. I know.

**My Mum calls farts windy bops. No one knows why.

***My Mum is a snorer. But I didn't mind - I had ear plugs. She was so worried that her snoring was bothering me, and wouldn't listen when I told her it was no problem. Seriously Mum, it was fine. Better snores that windy bops!

Monday, May 23, 2011

A fine romance

It's so nice that LB buys you things he knows you will like from op shops. That's a super nice thing to do! It reminds me of something Chambo told me. Apparently she likes a sweet treat at the end of the day (who doesn't?) but doesn't feel she should have them. Most of the time she resists the urge but once in a while she becomes overwhelmed by the need for a sweet treat. On these occasions, she get's a little hysterical and has been known to take it out on her sweetheart, Cez. But rather than take offence, Cez goes to his hiding spot and retrieves one of the sweet treats he has been stockpiling for Chambo. Isn't that nice? Apparently it makes everyone very happy. Chambo, because she gets to eat the sugar, and Cez because he gets to solve the problem.

But yes, I basically agree with everything you said about romance. Its just people being thoughtful and doing nice things for their sweethearts.

Also, I love that you wrote a message to LB in cheese.
Speaking of cheese, tonight KJ and I ate jalapenos stuffed with prawns and cheese. As an appetizer, of course. I'm sorry to say that the cheese didn't really add anything for me, but jalapenos and prawns have a very fine romance indeed.

Romantic schmomantic




Inspired by this interview with Prince William and Kate Middleton that you showed me some weeks ago in which they make multiple claims that he is a real romantic* and the approach of my birthday I've been thinking about this romantic business. I guess I was thinking, what does this even mean, "I'm a real romantic"? You see I was also thinking, I wonder if I will experience this "real romantic" business on my birthday. But I both did and I didn't. Because I'm pretty sure that what Prince William and K.Mid were talking about was just some bullshit.

I mean, LB won't book dinner at a fancy restaurant (except once when I pretty much made him) or give me jewellery (except twice, once when I told him exactly what I wanted and once when the jewellery shop owner he works for sometimes bullied him into taking some earrings for free one Valentines day). But he bought me exactly what I wanted for my birthday.


And whenever he sees something in an op shop he knows I will like he always, ALWAYS buys it for me. Especially when he is interstate, but often just for no reason. Like this one time, he bought me an Eminem biography. And another time a David Bowie biography. David Bowie, now if that isn't romance I don't know what is.

And this other time he bought me this beautiful serving service!


But I bet if we were being interviewed and I said LB is a real romantic and used these examples they would scoff. (Not cool people, losers I mean.)

And why is it always the man that is called a romantic? Why couldn't I be called a romantic.

Once when I was making baked beans for LB, I wrote 'I heart u' in cheese on the top. I bet no Prince has ever done that.


Just cause ol' Princey can afford to take his lady to Africa to propose in some fancy mountain top something (is that even the story? I don't really know) really doesn't make him anymore romantic than anyone else. Sheesh.

*I couldn't be bothered watching the whole thing and only saw them each claim this once. But I'll believe you, K.

Friday, May 20, 2011

Reflections on shit

Well, well, well. I see that you snuck those jalapeno chips into the back of the photo, perhaps hoping that I would not notice that you had bought the ONE BRAND I (implicitly) TOLD YOU NOT TO! I see how much you listen to me. What's next mate? All those other things I told you not to do?!? Like, some things I have no doubt recommended against!?

What did you think of them, anyway? Was I too harsh on them? Did you like their dirty flavour?

It's funny you got shat on by a pigeon. I mean, obviously it is funny, right? Am I right? But also funny because LB just got shat on by a bird the other day! SHIT TWINS!!! I can't remember the details really. I feel like we were sitting somewhere. In a park? And it shat on his leg. I know this is not much of a story, but if I could remember more about it I bet it would be HILARIOUS! So please feel free to laugh, y'all.

Do you think that listening to 'Empire State of Mind' in NYC is the same as wearing an 'I heart NY' t-shirt?

Reflections on pigeon shit

A pigeon shat on me today. It was very surprising. It was also weird because just the other day I had been thinking about the fact that birds never shit on me. The reason I was thinking that was because in NYC, you can't walk five paces without seeing a pigeon or a sparrow. Looking at all these birdies everywhere made think about how lucky I have been, to avoid the falling shit of a bird. It would be so gross and embarrassing! I thought to myself. Boy am I a lucky girl! I also thought

It happened when I was walking down west 58th street, feeling good about myself for making the effort to go west side*. It took me a little while to realise what had happened. It hit me on my right shoulder, and splashed on to both my bag, (which I was carrying on my right shoulder) and my hand (which was holding the strap of my bag). As expected, it was gross and embarrassing. The grossest bit was the fact that it was really, really warm. I just had no idea that it would be that warm. It was also brown. Not brown and white, like you imagine bird shit to be. Just plain brown. Again, I had no idea it would be just brown.
I found the experience a little distressing, and as a result I inadvertently walked around the same block twice. But on the second trip, a car drove past with the song this song blaring and it really turned my mood around. I found a nice looking sushi place and bought all of this:


Now I'm back at the hotel, eating those jalapeno chips and watching the series finale of The Office.

I heart NY.

* I was also feeling good about myself because a man who was trying to sell me something in Central Park told me that I had the face of an actress. Even though he was trying to sell me something, I was feeling good because he kept it general, which allowed me to imagine that he meant this:

rather than:


Thursday, May 19, 2011

Morton's Steakhouse

I love adorable waitstaff. They are the best. In fact, people who are reading this right now, if you work in a restaurant and you see me coming, just be a little bit adorable and I will be stuffing money in your pockets before long.

I also love the sound of your strange but delightful dinner. Were the cashew and sweet potato dumplings good? They sound really good.

I just came back from dinner at a place called Mortons Steakhouse. It would be fair to say that Morton's Steakhouse is not my kind of place. Firstly, they restaurant has a tagline, and that tagline is "The best steak, anywhere!". Really? Anywhere? I just don't see how that can be true.

My reservations were not helped by the fact that my waiter was not adorable at all, and was actually a little gross. He had a ponytail. A bad bad bad ponytail. I know, it was a ponytail, of course it was bad. But really, this was the worst. It was basically just a tiny little tuft of hair. In volume and quality, it looked like the brush from a tub of clag. Remember clag, everybody?

As if that wasn't bad enough, he brought over a tray containing various uncooked steaks, just to give us an indication of what they have on offer. Honestly. I think we all know what a porterhouse looks like. Keep it to yourself, guy.
Truth be told, the steak was really delicious. If I was tipping the cow, I would have given him/her 40% minimum. But I wasn't, so I didn't.
Now I'm watching Jay Leno and Andy from The Office is on.
I heart NY.

Imperial dinners

I started writing this post in my best Bret Easton Ellis impersonation, because last night I felt like I was in a BEE novel but I felt the tone was necessarily kind of bitchy and I actually had a great night so I decided that I'll just talk about it in my own voice.

LB and I decided to go to Cookie for dinner but it was so packed we moved upstairs to Toff. We easily got a little table at the back and as we were both starving and thirsty I ordered two beers and a serve of olives at the bar. I felt a bit worried that I didn't tell them accurately enough where we were sitting for the olives but figured we'd see them come past and those olives would be ours.

We just happily drank our beers and because I am now such a lightweight and those olives didn't come before I finished my drink I felt kind of drunk. A waiter came up to take our order. He was quite a cutehead and we ordered from him (appetizers of rice pancake with roast duck for LB, sweet potato and cashew dumplings from me and mains of grilled porterhouse and mushroom and spinach wonton jungle curry.)

"Do you want the appetizers to come out first?" the waiter asked.
"Sure," we replied. Then we thought it would be a good idea to ask about our olives.

LB: We also ordered some olives we haven't got yet.

Waiter: Olives?

Me: Yeah, I ordered some olives at the bar before but we haven't got them yet. I'm not sure if I gave an accurate description of where we were sitting.

Waiter: Yeah, probably sitting somewhere else would be better. If a booth comes up would you like to move there?

Me: Um... yeah, that would be great. But um... just about the olives we ordered before, I'm not sure if they are coming.

Waiter: Oh, yeah. You guys will be next in line for a booth. It shouldn't be more than a 15 minute wait.

Me: Um...ok. Great...?

I could barely wait for him to leave the table before asking LB what the fuck had just happened but he was as clueless as me and we couldn't quite figure out if we didn't get out enough and this was a normal interaction or if that was some weird shit.

A little while later this totally adorable waiter brought us our olives and asked us if we'd ordered any other food. "Oh, yeah, but it was separate to the olives so we're not in a hurry for it."


He insisted we tell him what it was, just so he could make sure it had gone through. "That's weird" we thought. Until about 15 minutes later the original waiter wandered past with some sort of meat skewer looking for the intended recipient. "Did you guys order food?" he asked us. "YES! FROM YOU! ONLY 15 MINUTES AGO!!!" I shouted in my head, while I smiled and said, "Yeah, but that's not ours."

About this time we happened to notice about 3 booths were empty but we were still sitting at our little table. Then the adorable waiter came and moved us to a booth. All our food arrived all at the same time with apologies about the delay.


But it seemed like a totally reasonable amount of time to wait for food.


The food was really yummy.

Basically, I have no idea what the hell happened last night, but I gave that adorable waiter about a 40% tip.

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

A day in Melbs

Dottie's bathroom is fantastic! Is it fantastic? It looks fantastic! With your stories of Dottie and pictures of her house I can really imagine her. She is fleshed out by the many Queens' old ladies I have seen on the TV and in the movies. Thanks Hollywood!

That bathroom reminds me of a bathroom I went to recently. A toilet actually. And it only reminds me of it insofar as it was a place with a toilet and some notable decorations. It was at a cafe though and it was ironic, or whatever, so it was not quite as exciting as Dottie's bathroom. But I was there when I was meant to be on a plane to Adelaide and I'd woken up at 5am or something. So I was in a really weird place and in a really of weird place.



I guess it was really nice of Tyrone to let you ride the bus for free. But what is with the American aversion to change. There is always so much goddamn change floating around, everything cost something dollars and 53 cents, but when you try and make up that cents amounts with cents they look at you like you are some kind of freak show. As a result of this I ended up with so much damn change when I got home.



On the flip side they also freak out when you try to pay with big bills. When I first got to America on my holiday I tried to pay for two coffees (regular size) and two snacks at a Starbucks with a 50 dollar bill. An $8 purchase with a $50 bill. Not so crazy, right? I mean I just needed two 20s and then some in change. But the dude totally flipped out. At motherflipping Starbucks. I mean, surely dude had a few 20s in the till. Not that I want to come down on USA. That place is great. Wish I was there.

Instead I am in Melbourne which is also nice. For example, today I enjoyed a coffee and muffin in a park


and bought some more socks to see me through the winter. Can't complain about that.

A day in Queens

One of the reasons my Mum and I made this trip to NYC was to hang out with our American relatives. My Grandmother's sister, Dottie, married an American and has lived here since 1946. She had a daughter and now has a bunch of grandkids and great grandkids. We've been hanging out with them a lot, and today we went to visit Dottie at her house in Fresh Meadows, Queens.

Everyone kept telling us that Queens was far far away and an attempt to travel there by PT would be crazy. Really, it was fine. In fact we caught an express bus that took us right there. We collected all our quarters so we could make the bus fare.


This is Tyrone, our bus driver.
He's been driving the bus for 32 years. He gets five weeks leave per year and enjoys sunny holiday destinations like Bermuda. He dislikes laziness, and the poor driving habits of his fellow bus drivers. He also dislikes his neighbour George, but I'm not entirely sure why. I don't know whether it was because he enjoyed our conversation or didn't like the look of our pile of quarters, but he let us ride the bus free. Thanks Tyrone!

We were a little early, so we stopped off at Starbucks so I could have a coffee. I asked for a small latte, but they misheard me and gave me a tall one. Check out the size of it:

It was gross.
Anyway, when we got to Dottie's house and she had a couple of slices laid out for us:

Yes!

For the next few hours, Dottie told stories of being a war bride in NYC. The woman is seriously hilarious. Highlights included the time she told her boss what her plans for the afternoon were when he made the rhetorical statement "What are you going to do?". Turns out that she used to work at an advertising agency on Madison Avenue and if her stories are anything to go by, Mad Men is totally real.

Anyway, no story of a visit to Dottie's house would be complete without acknowledging the specialness of her bathroom. It's wallpapered with a silver and pink clam shell print.

That's the wall and the roof. It's everywhere. See?

And as if that isn't good enough, she also has a cushioned toilet seat.

So comfy.
Anyway, we had a delightful day. As we were leaving, I managed to take a snap of this novelty kitchen wall decoration.

Nyuck nyuck nyuck.
Dottie lives alone, mind you.