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Sunday, September 1
[I couldn't be bothered calling...]posted by pete at 3:13 PM .......I love unexpected visits from friends. Yesterday Jacqui dropped by unannounced, and it was lovely. The only bad thing about surprise visits is that (a) you might look like you've just fallen out of a bin, and (b) you might not have anything delicious to offer the guest. Both applied to me yesterday, so I quickly got changed and immediately dragged Jacqui off to the city for a splendid coffee session.
My friends and I are clearly in the 'theme party' stage of life, and Friday night's Mothra evening was a resounding success. Jessica had decorated her house splendidly, adhering faithfully to a Japanese theme. She had blossoms, beautiful tealight arrangements, fairy lights, table settings of Asian design, and more. We all pitched in and made a fabulous feast of sushi, inari, steamed dumplings and other splendours. So delicious. And then we watched Mothra! It's clearly the best film ever made. :)
This weekend's events continued in grand fashion last night with a bit of a get-together at Sarina's house. Then today I went into the city with Deb, browsed in Borders and then walked home. With the promise of a visit to Melita's tomorrow morning, it looks like the excellent times can only continue.
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[Subconscious]posted by pete at 1:15 PM .......I'm coping far better with far less sleep these days. I feel refreshed after 7 hours, and have been getting by on around 5 over the last few days. Either I have trained myself to require less – which could, no doubt, be attributed to the ridiculous hours kept in our house – or I'm going to hit a very sturdy wall rather soon.
I tend to hope for the former.
Really, it's a good thing. I have often exclaimed that I could get so much more done if I didn't need to sleep so much. Maybe I'm being given an opportunity to <cliche> get more out of life </cliche> for the next few years, before I hit the one-third-life zone, get tired at 11pm and fall into some sort of *gulp* routine.
Which is clearly what has happened to our narky neighbours.
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[Citizenship]posted by pete at 6:31 PM .......I am not getting into this essay.
I am just not getting into it at all.
[B'day fun]posted by pete at 2:07 AM .......Wishing a super 30th birthday to my gorgeous sister Miriam, who will no doubt be catching some rays in her adopted homeland of Fiji!!
Also, yesterday marked the 21st birthday of the glorious Asia Ange! Congratulations lovey! :)
And in non-birthday related news, yay to Lisa B for agreeing to be my new housemate! Woohoo!
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[Madness sets in]posted by pete at 11:49 AM .......It would seem that Deb and I went a bit mental last night, probably from a combination of tiredness and, for me, uni-induced mania. We manifested our madness in ways such as shrieking, laughing crazily, making noises, frothing at the mouth, etc. The crescendo occurred at around 1:30am when the tidiness bug hit and we were inspired to chuck all unwanted junk from our rooms off the landing onto the floor below.
The items we flung into the void included boxes, coathangers, money, a blowup cactus, shoes, clothing, feminine hygiene products and other nick-nacks.
A terrific source of stress relief, I must say.
Talk of all this carry-on brings me to another subject which I've been surprisingly quiet about... noise complaints. Deb and I are effectively on our last warning from the strata for undue noise. This sounds so feral, but there is so much more to the story than meets the eye. Protagonists in the drama include one set of neighbours (out of 10) who have a bee in their bonnet, so to speak, and are rather fond of sending us anonymous notes or, failing that, calling the police to attend to our racket. It is just so unfair. There have been strata meetings about us and everything, but fortunately our landlord is on our side and has been really supportive.
The amazing thing is that most people in the block say they NEVER hear us. It's borderline harrassment as far as we're concerned. We admit, we do make noise. But so do other people, and I think we cop the blame. Just because we're young, fun and interesting doesn't mean that we can be scapegoats for the woes of the boring pre-middle-aged one-third-life-crisis-ridden folks who inhabit a townhouse three doors down.
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[You know they're out there]posted by pete at 4:48 PM .......Hello to Hannah, merrily blogging away in Adelaide!
[Jessica is glorious]posted by pete at 4:42 PM .......My friend Jessica deserves prize after prize just for being wonderful. Yesterday she and I were enjoying a leisurely pot of green tea when, as always, the conversation turned to food, homewares and interiors. Sometime during the proceedings, she whipped out a recipe book and began transcribing a recipe for some sort of Thai or Malaysian curry, (containing eggplant, potato, lemongrass, coriander, coconut milk, the works) and demanded that I make it that very night.
Naturally I had almost none of the ingredients in my fridge/cupboard, and I informed her of this immediately. Then, before I realised what was occurring, she had assembled a lovely box of fragrant ingredients for me to take home!
So, rather late last night I made this exotic dish, with much help from Ange. It was easy to make and seemed rather appealing.
Sadly, we may as well have eaten air, for all the blandness this dish presented. It had very little flavour, and required the addition of much salt (or pasta sauce in Ange's case) in order to become enjoyable. Deb refused to try it. Perhaps I should say it was subtle. That's much more positive! I think the flavours matured over time, and it actually became rather delicious when I had some later in the evening. After all of this, I am in fact really looking forward to finishing it off tonight.
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