Tuesday

Today it's Tuesday. I'm trying to get my life sorted. And by that I mean going to bed early and going to the gym in the morning before the household wakes up. So far I've tried this twice and so far I've succeeded in going to bed at a reasonable hour but failed at the waking up and going to the gym in the morning. Yesterday morning  it was because Newbie was awake from 11pm till 1am the night before and getting up for the gym a few hours after that seemed like a bunch of bullshit. This morning I guess it was because I had a bunch of babies in my bed and I just thought I probably couldn't get out of the house without waking them. 

But I guess if I really wanted to do it I just would, wouldn't I? God, I'm so confused! I want to get buff but I also want to sleep. On top of that I woke at the reasonable hour of 7am today and I still feel fucking exhausted. Oh well, let's check in later in the week and see how my new life plan is going. 

A better yesterday

K was so right yesterday,  a sunny day really makes life seem great. I love the way thinking about Margaret and David made her feel happy rather than miserable that they we're no longer with us. You know on TV. The way thinking about all the great Hong Kong cinema made her happy rather than sad that we never watch it any more. Or eat as much Cantonese food as we did that year we studied HK cinema. Good weather is really the world's best upper. Not, as some people may suggest, cocaine.

Yesterday afternoon we went to Fitzroy pool and then our neighbours joined us and Housemaid had the most excellent idea to bring a bottle of wine and have UberEats deliver us some pizza and after dinner we basically had the whole (kids) pool to ourselves and there I was back in that idyllic Australia. 

And although today is warm the overcast sky and wind is really bringing it down. But not as much as the fact that I have to start my Christmas shopping today. As soon as I've written this post I'm going to head to the city to buy some KK presents and some kids presents or at least that's the plan. I kind of love Christmas shopping when I know what I'm buying but today I don't and I'm pretty sure that the day will result in me wandering around the city from shop to shop thinking I have a plan and direction only to find at the end of the day that I haven't bought any presents but somehow managed to spend $200 on beauty products for myself. You'd think that given I can predict the disastrous outcome of today I should have come up with a plan to prevent this, like maybe had some ideas for presents and developing the self discipline not to buy beauty products, but sheesh, I'm only human!

Three days, one roller coaster (AM)

When I was in LA I noticed that Mondonna's nails looked really good, painted red and shiny and no chips. 'Gel polish', she told me, 'It's so good, you can do dishes, move house, it doesn't chip and its so cheap here! Come get it with me!'

'Yes!' I said, but it didn't happen. Lodged in my brain though and when we were in NYC I decided to do it! But in the end I chickened out. Did get a regular manicure on the last day though, and it was a great thing to do. I don't usually get manicures, I think they fuck my nails up to much. Also, what a waste of money. But I love them. After a week though they were a little chipped and I thought it was time to take off the polish. And then, on Friday night after work I had some time to kill  before meeting the family for dinner. It was cold and I was bored and my NY nails looked scrappy and I walked past a Tips and Toes and next thing I knew there I was choosing a new polish colour!

So I was a convert. There is something both decadent and soothing about a manicure and as I sat there, with a stranger massaging cream into my hands I could see my future, fortnightly manicures, opportunities to try all the colours I'd ever dreamed of. The future of my nails looked bright and beautiful and I couldn't wait. Chickpea walked past Tips and Toes on the way to dinner too, and while looking longingly at the massage chairs, she noticed me in the back, hand in hand with this small Asian woman. So she came in sat next to me and we talked as if this were the most normal thing in the world. I've seen people talk in beauty parlours in movies a lot, so I brought some of this knowledge to real life and it turns out one can have a normal conversation while a stranger fondles your extremities. This! This is the life.

But you know what the problem is with spending $20 to get a nail colour you don't own applied to your nails? If there are any chips you can't patch it up. And if there are many chips within 48 hours, well you basically just chucked $20 away. I guess a more forward thinking person would have considered if they may do any work on a house renovation in the days after a manicure and then thought better of said manicure. Maybe while working on a house they would have worn gloves or something. They may not have ended up with nails like this less than 48 hours after a manicure.

But even after doing a load of dishes on Saturday I had a small chip, and as soon as that happens the magic is gone.

On the plus side my future definitely looks like I will save $20 a fortnight given i now realise I am not made for regular manicures and there may have been a reason that until a week ago I'd only had 2 manicures in my life. Goodbye,  beautiful dream. Goodbye, beautiful nails.

Or do I just have to go for shellac!?

Sunday Baking (AM)

Delia Smith is a doyenne of English home cooking who has lately been mouthing off about the fact that cooking shows don't teach people how to cook. Happily, she has a website that does, or she says.  Yesterday, I watched her tutorial on making sponge cakes and then baked a walnut coffee sponge to take to Mum and Dad's for lunch. I felt like the combination of walnut and coffee was nice and autumnal, and had an old school quality that would make it appealing to my pezzies. The idea that I was making something that appealed to their tastes more than mine made me feel like a really great person, so that's what I did.

Here is some of the stuff that goes in the cake. 

Just the usual really. However, Delia uses self raising flour as well as baking powder. That confused me. And she doesn't separate the eggs and whip the egg whites. You know, to make the cake nice and airy. She just whacks them in there holus bolus. The only airiness comes from sifting flour. 

I was dubious about that.

Everything gets mixed together and then chopped walnuts are folded through. 

Then, the mixture is divided by two 18cm cake pans and baked for 25 minutes.  

Here is where my troubles began. In Delia's tutorial, she told me that tin size is very important in making cakes. But she didn't tell me why, nor the likely consequences of deviating from the recommended tin girth, which I was forced to do because I didn't have the right cake tins.

I don't know it was because of the tins or because my butter was melted instead of just being softened, or whether it has something to do with not separating the eggs, but my sponge cakes came out of the oven like pancakes, barely having risen at all. 

It didn't really matter when I sandwiched them together and slathered them with coffee cream. 

But still, I feel like Delia let me down. A sponge's raison d'etre is lightness and airiness. Without that, it's just a cake. Delia's recipe did not make a light airy sponge, and that makes me feel like she let me down. Did we eat it all? Of course we did, we are not crazy. Was it delicious? It was pretty damned delicious. But sheesh, if one of the world's problems is that no one teaches people how to cook anymore,  I'm not sure D-Smithy is the woman for the job. 

Ways I am no good at being an adult (AM)

In many ways I am a responsible adult. I hold down a job. I have a mortgage. When J and LB used to go away, sometimes I would look after Doggy and I always returned him to them with a shiny coat and a waggy tail. I always make the bed before I leave the house. Every single time.

But there are some pretty fundamental ways in which I am quite bad at being an adult.
And let's get straight to it...I'm talking about cleanliness here. I am really not a clean person. Even though I think having a clean environment to live in and clean clothes to wear is very very important, I don't want to spend any time seeing to those things.  I had four days off over Easter, and I spent no minutes and no hours of any of those days cleaning. And boy oh boy did I have some cleaning to do. But I did all the other things instead.

It's not right. Not for an adult. And I'm starting to realise that maybe I'm someone who should get a cleaner. But that's a big step.  It's basically an admission of failure at being an adult. But so is this I guess. And, on the bright side, getting a cleaner is an admission of success at being a lazy son of a bitch. And it's nice to be honest with oneself.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. There are lots of other ways I'm pretty shit at being an adult too, ways that I can admit to without having to then do something that's pretty...weird. Here are some just from this morning!

Add caption

My toothpaste tubes always get toothpaste residue around the edge. It means you can't close the lid properly and the toothpaste dries out a little. It's gross. I seem to be the only person this happens to and I don't know why.

 There are lots of these little moths in my house. You know, the ones that live in open packets of stuff in your pantry. I found this one dead on my kitchen bench this morning. But he has so many friends that are not dead. An adult would find their life source and cut it off. I just ignore them.

I left this can of tomato paste out overnight after I made meatballs for dinner. I'll probably use it again anyway. And I'll probably get botulism, even though I don't know if that's something you can get. But it's fun to say.

Botulism!

Apollo Thirteens (AM)

This post was going to be about baking these biscuits as christmas gifts for Chambo, Lil and AB, who I am having dinner with tonight.

They look so good on the interwebsite of David Lebovitz...

They're called Baci di dama. Should their fancy name have served as a warning to me? Maybe. 

Something went wrong along the way. 

Was it how I roasted the hazelnuts, then skinned them like some latter day furrier?

Hazelnuts to the left, their skins to the right.

I don't think so. 

Was it how I used my coffee grinder instead of a food processes to grind the nuts?

Probably. Whatever it was, when it came time to roll out the dough it just was not happening. It kept crumbling and seemed like it was game over. 

This was disappointing because baking failures cut so deep. Also because I wouldn't have presents for my friends. And also because I would have to tell you guys about the failure because I hadn't prepared anything else to post about today. Despite my disappointment I went ahead with the remaining steps in the recipe because I am a TROOPER. 

I put the dough in the freezer as instructed and left if there for 20 minutes.
When I took it out and started rolling it in to little balls, it seemed to be holding together quite well. Like, exactly how it was meant to.

Things had taken an unexpected turn.

Then I baked them and shit you guys, they totally worked.

These are the actual biscuits I baked. I know, right? 

I guess I shouldn't have been so hasty to dismiss them. And lucky I followed through, because I really almost didn't. And if I hadn't I wouldn't know how thoroughly effing delicious taste, truly like the kisses of a lady (which is what Baci di dama translates to), if the lady who is kissing you is made out of biscuit.

But you know, because I touched the void a little during the moments when I thought they hadn't worked, I am going to call them Apollo Thirteens after the famous failed moon landing brought to life by Tom Hanks and Gary Sinise in the movie Apollo Thirteen. Because like the Apollo Thirteen voyage which was unsuccessful because they didn't land on the moon but successful because they didn't die, I feel like these biccies both did and didn't work.
You can get the recipe here. Don't give up when the dough appears to lack integrity!

Merry Christmas Lil, AB and Chambo. 

Fitness Friday - Progress update (J or PM)

Oh, shit. Man, I really thought that K being stuck in a bunch of depressing motel rooms would be a great situation for her to do exercises. What the hell else are you going to do when stuck in a motel room on the side of a highway. Probably watch Embarrassing Bodies or something.

Well, I would like to tell you that I had a really successful week of exercise, but I did not. I went for one run and I did Jane’s workout one time. My only excuse is that I do not like exercising in miserable weather. I know, so lame, it’s the truth though. Seriously as soon as the sun comes out I can’t wait to run and pump iron. Also my intensity is for shit. BUT I can say that after my run and my Jane workout I felt pretty darn great. So let’s keep these goals realistic. This week I did one run and one Jane, next week I will do two of each. That sounds realistic right? I guess we’ll find out soon enough.

Fitness Friday - Progress update (K)

Oh, hello there readers.

Remember how last week we were all lets get physical, physical, I want to get physical, lets get in to physical et cetera et cetera?

Remember how I was going to do the special Jane Fonda in a book workout that J outlined for us last week and then report back today? 

Well being away for work all week has kind of broken me and robbed me of the will to hear my own body talk. 

Somewhere between the depressing motels and the endless meetings and being advised that the meals at the bistro at the I-talian club are very reasonably priced, I lost touch with this whole J and K do Jane thing.  

I thought about just pretending that I did it but I don't want to lie to you, my little Crab friends. I don't want to lie to you at all. Plus, admitting failure is the first step towards...not being a failure? I don't even know. Anyway, I'm sure that this afternoon J will be able to tell us about what it's like when you apply yourself and actually follow through on the Fitness Friday challenge. Take it away, Matey.

I share your hair fail

OMG, mate was it THIS straightening product you bought? The one with 50 times the safe level of formaldehyde in it?! I think you should stay away from hair straightening products mate. But I understand why you were tempted.

You know, after your original grooming post, I thought I would try to do a little hair specialness myself. I tried to recreate the hairstyle that I wore for AB's wedding. Here I am in the hairdressers chair, getting it done.

I really loved that hair style. People complimented me on it all night, so much so that I started to think that my hair must look really fug most of the time, because there was genuine surprise in most people's compliments. Anyway, it was an awesome hairstyle and it took the hairdresser all of five minutes to prepare. Five minutes! That's nothing, right? I couldn't help but think that if it was so easy for him, perhaps I could do it too.
The other day I tried.
It ended up looking like this.
I can't do it guys.