Take me out to the ball game (AM)

On Sunday, Appleheart and I went to the ball game—the New York Mets vs the Chicago Cubs.
We decided to see the Mets because eveyone always goes and sees the Yankees, which makes the Mets kind of like the underdogs. Also, John Stewart barracks for the Mets and Appleheard is a real John Stewart fan boy. Also, their mascot is great—a guy with baseball for a head called Mr Met.

I know nothing about baseball.  It seems that watching A League of Their Own a lot as a kid does not prepare you for this game.

It's played on a field that looks like the wifi symbol.

There are 9 innings. It's a pretty slow game. It feels like it should be fast and full of razzle dazzle, but it is kind of slow. I mean, it's slower than cricket. Every time a batter hits a ball he has to run. Even if he (or she, in A League of Their Own) knows (s)he is not doing to make it. So people knew they're going to be out when they start running.  What's exciting about that? Nothing, if you ask me.

In between innings they try a few things out to spruce up the game. At one point, they gave an American flag to a guy who served in Iraq. At another point, Mr Met came out and threw a bunch of tshirts into the crowd. At another point, they got three kids out of the crowd to play a round of Simon Says with the Dunkin Donuts mascot, a giant cup called Cuppy. No kidding.

It's like they know the game isn't interesting enough on its own.

Half way through the game only one home run had been scored. Even nerdy teenagers probably get more home runs than than in this day and age. I didn't, but others would. For sure.

In the end, the Cubs won with a score  of 2 home runs to the Mets 0. Apparently the home team has won every time these two  teams have played this year, until today. More evidence to support my sneaking suspicion that my barracking for a team constitutes the kiss of death.

Regardless, it was actually a super fun day. I've got some photos of it to share with you all, but they' are on Appleheart's camera and he is having a nap right now. You know how sitting in the sun all day can really take it out of you. I'll try to update the post with photos later. 

Things I am going to do on my summer holidays (PM)

HAHAHAHAHA! This crab! Good one!

Well this crab also has two pincers and a high level of excitement about the holidays. And like K, I'm going to Puberty Blues the heck out of them!

I'm gonna hang out with my BFF, sit on the beach and watch my boyfriend surf. Make cakes when it rains. Seriously. And eat chiko rolls. Gado Gado chiko rolls! I can't effing wait. Might even make them tomorrow.

I'll be house sitting in a suburb actually near where my friends live so I may even see them! And I plan to have BBQs! YEAH! And because of the proximity to everything I will also be riding a bike around! Yeah. Gonna be a sweet 3 weeks.

I’ll probably also be wishing I had long, thin legs like the lady in the picture K stole from The Sartorialist because I’ll probably be wearing shorts and hating on my legs. And, if summertime dreams come true, I will also buy a summer dress I like.

Also, eat fruit.

Man I love the summer holidays.

We went climbing (PM)

Let me say straight up that I only agreed to go rock climbing because I have a hard time saying no to Chickpea when she has been asking me to do something over a period of several months. When the requests come over a period of days and weeks I am all "aww, thanks but no thanks girl" and "no way, girl". But after months I reach breaking point, and before I know it I am wearing some nasty-assed shoes and getting taught the ropes literally! (ha!) by a baby-faced Leonardo look alike (or something).

Of course, we only got photos of the shoes, not baby faced Leo, so we will all just have to keep wondering.

Despite only participating because I can't say no to Chickpea, I had a surprisingly enjoyable time climbing the walls. Even though I didn't so much scale as awkwardly clamber.

Note my proximity to people on the ground. I didn't get much further.
I also enjoyed referring to the karabiner (which is this thing):

The karabiner is an important part of climbing. It hooks you on to ropes and stuff and that's how we all stay safe. 

as a caribou.  Ha! Caribou. That's not a Caribou. THIS is a Caribou:

It was a little bit deliberate, and a little bit because I couldn't quite commit the word karabiner to memory. There are a lot of things you have to remember to do in rock climbing you see, and I felt that applying my limited mental capacity to learning the correct technique rather that the correct name for a karabiner was the right call.
But the joke was on me, because at the end of my last climb, I couldn't undo the caribou and liberate myself from the rope. Everyone tried, but we couldn't get it undone.

White knuckled attempt to liberate me

They plugged away for ages but in the end, we had to get a staff member to get me out, using a special professional tool* they have for when people get stuck in a caribou lock. So apart from that slight embarrassment, it was a swell time.




*Her hands.

We went climbing (AM)

 

After months and months of begging, Chickpea finally got me to go "rock climbing". You know, where you climb up a wall in a gym. Really she got K to agree to go and then she organised it, so I went. And by "begging me" I mean suggesting to me. It's not that I didn't want to go, it's just I'm bad at commitment. Until a thing is organised. Then I'm right on board. FOMO.

Strawberry, K and I were all first timers at this joint so we had to be inducted. That is, to learn the ropes. Literally. HA!

We got worded up by a young hipsterish dude that K thought had a young Leonardo thing going on. Frankly, I didn't quite think he was Leonardo, but he was something. K suggested a young Damon Albarn. I thought he was more a young Hamish Blake but the lower part of his face was a little young Brad Pitt. I don't know what the hell he was. I guess we were on some kind of pre-adrenalin high. In fact I'm sure we were because at the time everything he said seemed really funny but now it just seems like regular words. He instructed us how, as a climber, we should hook our harnesses to the ropes and, more importantly, as a belayer, how to belay. This is the important bit, because you are totally in charge of another person's safety and, therefore, life. Which is why I kept wondering when I looked at Chickpea why she was doing everything opposite to how the instructor told us to. I guess she was just being a helpful how-not-to guide. Thanks Chickpea.

Before we were let lose on the climbing gym we had to get some more intimate instruction from a delightful lady called Christina. She was super helpful, even if she did tell me I counted one pair of rope in a knot twice. Thanks Christina, but I have been counting to five for a really long time and I almost never count a thing twice.

See all the rope pairs in that figure 8 know. Five pairs.

But seriously folks. She was good and we all conquered that little wall pretty easily.K was the first to climb, and looking back on it her hysteria when being belayed down after her climb pretty well supports my pre-adrenalin high theory. So we moved to a harder wall. I scaled the heck out of it. See?

But enough about me. Let's hear what K thought this afternoon.

Early update from Miss Soft Crab's visit to Hobart (PM)

That was a good question! Did we just wait for Baby to wake up then go and get a whiskey? No! In fact we worked on our video clip until the desire for whiskey was so strong we just put sleeping Baby in the pusher and went out for a whiskey. Or so we thought.

The walk was pretty. It looked like this :

And this:

Then we got to the whiskey joint. We went to the Lark Distillery where they make whiskey. From the outside it looks like this:

But on the inside it looks like a Gloria Jeans. It was so unpleasant we didn't even stick around for the whiskey.

Instead we just ate these fish and chips by the water.

Before we went home for a second dinner of roast vegetable, pea shoots, sunflower greens and $15 goats cheese. DELICIOUS!

Early update from Miss Soft Crab's visit to Hobart (AM)

Miss Soft Crab is in Hobart! Chickpea and Baby are here too. We invited LB, but he wanted to stay home and eat pizza in his underwear (not a euphemism). I'm sure J and Baby are missing him, but it must be said that we're having a bit of a laugh riot on our own.

We came to see some art and eat some food. So far, we have done heaps of the second activity - but today we're off to MONA to do the first.

We'll tell you all about it in a few days, but in the meantime check out some of what we've seen/done so far.

Yesterday, after a breakfast of leftover indian food, we went to a farmers market in the city.

We had some snacks and bought a whole bunch of stuff including these slippery jack mushrooms which we plan to cook with pasta tonight.

Actual mushrooms we bought. 

We then ate some more snacks:  sushi that this guy made to order for us...

...and on the way home, some delicious sundowner apples that had been picked the day before (so the guy selling them told us). When we arrived home, it was time for proper lunch, so we ate some toast with goats cheese, then tea and a delicious German cake called a Bienenstich.  All of this by about 1:00pm. 

Shortly after, J put Baby to bed for an afternoon nap, then Chickpea asked: "So how does this work? Do we just wait for Baby to wake up and then go and have a whisky?"

Good question, Chickpea. Good question.

The Rules of the Game (PM)

Yeah, I used to play Words with Friends. Obsessively pretty much. I couldn't go to sleep if I hadn't played at least one move. But then, as with all games on my phone, I just stopped. I got distracted one day or I had bad letters in all my games or I had to wait too long for people to make moves and then after a couple of days of waiting and not playing that was it. It was over for me.


Though I won't lie, when I saw that you had the letters TLautne in a game I pretty much wanted to start playing again right away to see if such magic would ever happen to me.

I had to republish this pic cause I love it so much

But I know miracles don't come around that often.

I hate it when people use words you can just tell they were trying their luck on too, mind you if I am playing someone I don't much like, I've been known to do the same thing. Then I don't like myself.

Also, Words with Friends is in American which is pretty annoying.

Maybe jagg is American for jag? Did you look it up on Mini Macquarie on iPhone? That thing knows less words than I do.

Anyway, now I play Draw Something.

The Rules of the Game (AM)

Remember last week, when my computer was broken? Remember how the wifi I normally use was also broken, and therefore I had to use the free wifi at the McDonalds over the road from my work to post on Miss Soft Crab? Well thankfully, that situation is now over and I now have pleasure in presenting the post that I would have posted last week, had technology not stood in my way.
It's all about the hit game Words With Friends. Lets begin!

So who here plays Words With Friends?
Me too!

I'm not very good at it, I seem to lose more than I win, but gee I like it.
For me, the joy of Words With Friends lies in being able to make awesome words.

Here are some awesome words I played one time.

I'm pretty sure I played Alpaca too. 

Sometimes, I like to go for an amusing word.

Sometimes, the universe is really on my side and gives me a set of letters that almost spell out the name of my favourite teen wolf.

That was such a great game

The pinnacle of WWF achievement, however,  is when I get to use all my letters on a single word. Like the time I played the word Crusades.

I love WWF. But you know what I don't like? When people makes fake words in a cheap attempt to grab the big scores. Words that they don't even know the meaning of, but have just tried their luck on. I did not realise this was a thing until recently. I was so naive. I mean, it would never even occur to me to do that. The only reason I play WWF is so I can make words! If I don't know the meaning of the word, then how can I have fun making it? I can't have fun making such a word. I just can't.  The fact that others can and indeed prefer to play WWF this way was a real rude awakening.

Check this shit out.

Jaggs? Jaggs?! The Macquarie Dictionary has no idea what this word means, because it is a fake word. That means that if you were a contestant on that show Letters and Numbers (which is a great show) and you tried that shit, Lily would not have a bar of it.

This particular opponent was a serial offender. Many games had been played, many fake words played within them. I just went along with it because it didn't interfere with my ability to form real words. But this goes too far. After my opponent played this word I immediately resigned the game. I can't have fun in these conditions.