Skittle Chat, Episode 1

"Hello, anybody home?"

~   ~   ~

"Hey guess what!"

[whisper voice] "Prop 8 got reversed which means that a law defining marriage as a heterosexual union is unconstitutional - which means that homosexual marriage is not not legal!"

"Fo' Real?!  - 

But wait, does the double negative make it doubly bad?"

"I think the 'not not' symbolizes two of the 'sames' coming together and creating something positive."

Skittle Chat is brought to you by the Rainbow Lorikeets that visited ma chére amie's window while we were sipping our morning tea and basking in the glory of the previous evening's killer dance moves.

Why hello there, 2012!

The grand entrance into summer here in Sydney saw no relief from the curtain of rain. And now here on Australia Day 2012... intermittant sunshine between determined showers. Cute summer dresses? Sigh...

A myriad of adventures and trials have come and gone. Here's a bit of photographic evidence:

vietnamese dumplings and overpriced adult beverages at the picturesque Opera House Bar (you pay for the view)

cleaning frenzy before the Royal Visit... didn't it turn out well?! actually the majority of the clean out of junk twas the night before (chaos), but the final clean (translation: Operation Spider De-Camp) and final construction and decor were under Mum's authority... as she was greatly needed to battle the eightlegged creatures/monsters while the resident arachnaphobes squealed with panic in the distance.

 

his and her traditional christmas eve dinosaur tails

 

all dressed up for christmas dinner with mumzy!

Map Quest

(file this under "back-log blog"...)

From time to time Silvino takes me on fun tourist dates - which after all the time I've been in Sydney, I haven't ticked any of these "sightseeing musts" off my list. Partly because it pains me to admit I'm a tourist... even though I most undeniably am. And partly because I haven't had the right playmate.

I must admit that it is... quite fun! to do all these blaring -

¡¡¡ I'M A TOURIST !!!

I'M TAKING TONS OF DIGITAL IMAGES!!!

OF WHICH ONLY A FEW WILL BE WORTH LOOKING AT LATER!!!

MOST WILL BE SENT TO MY VIRTUAL TRASH CAN!!!

- things.

So here are a few from our Sydney Tower date, now worth looking at.

The edited, compiled, resized and notated.

sydney harbour view, looking NE

at the far side of the picture is the Pacific.

we take a ferry from the bridge (far left of picture) to where we live.

i take another ferry from the bridge to where i work in Rose Bay.

double ferry commute toot toot.

this is the best place for skateboarding: Hyde Park that borders the downtown.

i walk from left to right when i'm on my way to "school".

going from right to left there is a 2% grade downhill which means you can just glide on your board the entire park without paddling even once. the tiles of the pathway are so smooth with almost no crevices in between, it's like a dance hall floor.

the long straight lines of the picture are covered by an arched canopy of australian giants.

this country has the most magnificent trees.

and i've climbed most of them!

(obrigada o meu amor for being the best BEST

playmate.)

Parabéns o meu Amor!

DINONITE!

The Australian Museum, the oldest museum in Oz according to its website, is the natural history museum - which means it is full of cool weird and interesting things because this continent is full of cool weird and interesting naturalness.

but what is more natural than native-habitat-ifying the museum to better-suit the local species?

what does that mean?

museum + BEER! = Jurassic Lounge

a museum special of late night Tuesdays where 18+'ers (drinking age) and the like can visit the museum - free drink with entry! and ooh and ahh at the dinosaurs and get down to disco beats.

(nonsequitor: one of the sailors on my sailing team, 7 years old? has named his boat "the Rockasaurus" and he has drawn his own "Rockasaurus" on the back which resembles a T-Rex gripping a microphone.)

or... the Silent Disco!

Which actually wasn't silent at all, there was so much ambient noise it really dampened the effect, but we had fun scooting about listening to bla-pop music in a room with no actual speakers. honestly, the exhibit about dinosaur poo was a lot more fun.

The museum can be pretty sneaky!

With hidden creatures poking out behind walls, or sitting on top of them...

These 3 mice were dead, but they looked like they were alive

These baby crocs were alive, but they hardly moved we thought they were dead.

Raptor-ous love

(I just love how my eyes match my lipstick and my dress!)

I'm going to take a page out of this stick-bugs life...

and stick with this man.

It was a pretty fun night and sometimes we were

owling with laughter!

i love the

cause they're so delicious!

and just as prehistoric as the word "fishes".

Silvino wore his a green dinosaur tail and I wore baby blue shoes.

the end.

¡sour power!

you guys....!!!!

I MADE HOME MADE SOURDOUGH!!!

(and it's delicious! and i followed the recipe almost kinda most of the way!)

and it wasn't even that hard! ok, well actually it was a little bit hard on the outside because i didn't have a spritzer bottle and used a baster-brush instead, so the crust got a bit crusty, but by Grapes it is sour and delicious! Tastes like home! just the way my... Bay... used to make! (mommas, have you baked a loaf of bread, ever? I'm not sure Rum counts.)

and it all wouldn't have happened if it weren't for my appendix.

literally the day i would later be inducted by the emergency ward i wasn't feeling that hot, so i decided to stay home and just "take it easy". i really didn't have the energy, or stamina to do anything, especially when things like sitting upright hurt. a lot. so i spent a good chunk of time lying with my belly over ice and tinkering away on these very keys researching... sourdough!

not completely out of nowhere (boredom), but greatly influenced by 1 part homesickness, 2 parts fed-up-sickness with "sourdough" i buy and isn't hardly worth the name at all, with a dash of inner-prairie-woman who makes her own yoghurt and winces at the thought of bouillon cubes... and VOILA! I'm in the kitchen mixing up white goo and thinking how FUN that in two weeks time I'll get to see if this works.

of course spending 56 hours in the hospital wasn't exactly part of the recipe... you're suppose to "feed it" every 48 hours. so you can bet the first thing i did when i got home was to feed those yeasties. silvino had to lift the bowl for me, and reach for the flour. and help me re-clean the bowl and set it back up on the shelf and... just about everything else that day.

2 weeks hence i've finally got the strength back i knead... i'm not doing somersaults just yet, but i can scoot around without looking so pathetic and lift marginally sized objects - and the kicker is i can reach my hands up - before there was too much stretch on my wounded abdomen and its 3 little scars.

so an afternoon of kneading, a night of rising, a morning of shaping and just like jesus (the original yeastie boy) with an afternoon rise again... and a pre-bed bake! BAM!

warm crusty sourdough with butter for a pre-snooze snack!

flower tower

tower

taken by a young chinese father. not a place for meditation, the sydney tower was full of loud, wriggling families and bustling nikon lenses.

it's hard to tell from the picture, but well below us lies sydney. we perused the gift shop and i made some audible annoyance about knick-knack crap and then lo-and behold i saw a wine aerator... for $13 - not the $40 as i've been eying in couture cookery shops.

so now i have a sydney tower signature series memory to help my wine breathe.

flower

taken by a a teenage skater boy who couldn't hold the camera still because his friend kept making fun of him, they were probably high. this was the least blurry of the trio. it was in a pop-up art gallery, a white tent at Circular Quay, part of the city's "art and about" event. we were waiting for the ferry back to Manly (our little township on the north shore) and after a long day of walking/hobbling around the city i needed to sit down and there, magically, were white leather sofas, a bit of art and early teen angst.

this was one of the paintings.

(in the garden of quay-den!)