Vinnies vidi vici

In the US, we all wish Goodwill towards men, but here in Australia it's Vinnies. Which is short for St. Vincent de Paul. And if it's not Vinnies it's Salvos, which is typical Ozzification of any name - chop of first syllable and add "o", so from Salvation Army we get...

I had an amazing scouring/meditation session and resisted the temptation to buy a heap of unnecessary crapola, but could not resist sharing just a few items - POP QUIZ!

1.

Is it a crime that I did not purchase this for my brother? [y/n]

Does this t-shirt make you want to brb, rsvp or wtf?

2.

You make the call!

Is this clever because

a) the ice cream would be a mess if it were hot?

b) the wearer is "hot", as in good-looking, but they continually spill their food?

c) it's japanese-ish

d) there's a smiley face

e) both c & d

3.

a) We're so glad that Urinetown!

b) Urine for a treat because

c) Poopalopolis is just next door! (on a blouse!)

d) all of the above

4.

Is this capitalism gone...

a) apeshit

b) what does this have to do with capitalism?

c) GREAT!

Just got a cat - don't have a name?

Than this book's for you! We've got a whole list of names across a variety of cat-egories so you can create a name coutured to the uniqueness of your feline friend!

So come on down to What to Name the Cat and get your name TODAY!

Seriously, though. This book was actually full of cat-names by categories such as "striped fur", "curved tails", "calico colouring"...

5.

A series of cat-posed pictures with quotes about love and marriage.

Is this

a) a walloping waste of time

b) i'm too clever for my cat, too clever for my cat, too cleveeerrrr...

c) the most vital to life purchase anyone could ever make - at $9.99

d) the most vital to life purchase anyone could ever make - at <$0.50

6.

This was pretty PAWESOME -

it said so on the back!

Gentlemen, start your engines, and "May the cutest kitten win!"

Where was this maverick of pun-for-all family-pun spawned?

a) Qingdao

b) the moon

c) San Francisco!

Ok, so I did buy this last one.

I had to!

Answers:

1. y, wtf

2. e

3. d

4. c

5. a or d

6. c!

Missy Eliott Presents My Laundry

My laundry brings all the boys to the yard

And their like, It's better than yours

Damn right, it's better than yours

I can teach you...

But I have to charge! (ouch!)

---

Lala-lalala... the boys are waiting...

---

My laundry brings...

New Friend!

After a dinner of roast lamb, beet, and sweet potato salad with butternut squash sage risotto -

[

Risotto, because I bought arborio rice 2 weeks ago for 750 grams at $2. And then the next week I saw "2 for $3" 1 kg bags of arborio rice - you do the math! (here in Australia they say "maths" which is the ultimate slap in the face to anyone with a speech impediment, not to mention straight up annoying.) And then my partner in crime, channeling pretty much all the men of my life (self-appointed 'voice of reasons') exactly: "But Lizzi... we already have arborio rice - and that other rice - at home."

"I know, but this is so much cheaper, and besides risotto is delicious!" Not such a good argument, because really I was just prey to good marketing. My meek rebuttal was followed by a the pronouncement:

"Risotto is just rice cooked badly."

So now I am on rice-crazed mission to prove that risotto is delicious, and furthermore that it was not only a good, but an excellent decision to purchase such an obscene amount of couture rice.

And after round one - mushroom and beet-green with parmasean skins - which was devoured... what do you think? "Well, the stuff around the rice was delicious."

(Everyone here sticks to their guns, we all die fighting... but it's manifest destiny, or destiny's child or meet your destiny that I'm going to win.)

]

(back to the story, and the menu:) and mulled red wine that I preceded to spill all over the house and my guests (not from inebriation but from lack of coordination) followed by chocolate chip coconut chopped date cookies (YUM! thank god they were so yum, erasing any memory of flying wine mugs and stained... everything) - I wished my Polish friends adieu at the front door and...

HELLO MR. LEAF-TAILED GECKO!

s/he hung out with me about the house for about 20 minutes.

I desperately searched the kitchen for cockroaches - which is like finding candy in a candy shop - when you turn on the light a whole lotta cockroaches scatter (and I say hold on fellas...), the floor and all the countertops positively wriggle themselves into shadows - or when you're popping toast in or grabbing a glass a cockroach might fall from the ceiling at which point I say, "Thanks for dropping in!"

I even thrust my hand into the rubbish bin where I knew there were cockroaches because I had thrown out my housemate's infested indian spices box (inFESTED, eggs, the mamas, the works). But when you really need a cockroach?!

oh come oooon!

Probably better I couldn't find one of our cherished domesticated variety, as it might have passed on some of the poison that we have strewn about in hopes to eliminate them. (That so far have proven merely a placebo... at least now our perception of the cockroach population has diminished.)

So back out on the front stoop, the Leaf-Tailed Gecko jumped to the wall and clung.

And in the morning we wake up to our housemate Sam, "Hey guys, there's a gecko in my room!" A different one, a slightly larger body, and smaller tail - from re-growth. (They can lose their tails exactly once and regenerate one, but after that them's the brakes) A beautiful species with a heavily textured back skin and black eyes with slim yellow iris slits, ear holes on the corners of the "diamond" width of its head, 5 fingers and 5 toes.

They make a loud chirping-screech that sounds like the prelude to a toddler's tantrum -

or the whimpering cry that precedes,

"Risotto! Again?!"

aaaa real monsters

beware! the sugar shark lurks in abandoned lots

luring its prey with derelict furniture

MUNCH MUNCH MUNCH MUNCH

I'M GONNA EAT YOU!

Seeds II

there are a heap of pots and potted things in our front yard. I got semi-inspired (possibly by sale at local grocery store - advertising works!) to investigate what was growing and what was going... there were succulents up the wazoo, aloe vera and various sister species, clippings and offshoots of some mother plant that were being salvaged and reborn in a new pot. miscellaneous trifolium (clover sprouts, and not the pretty kind). most of the succulents got consolidated. the clover cover got tossed, roots and all, leaving behind rich and ready soil. (and yes, it was I who did it... even though I just cleverly tried to use the passive voice to evade the responsibility of clover-cide.) in went the new seeds - spinach, sugar snap peas, arugula, mustard, water cress and scallions, y mas ¡espinaca!

yerbas! 4 for $10! curry plant, thyme, sage and, skip one, mint.

(that's $10 AUD, which is about five squillion USD's at the mo...)

salad bowl to be.

the round one has a border of arugula, with a scallion center. it's sitting on a plate which sits on a magazine which sits on a 500 piece puzzle of a 1970s dinghy sailing club purchased at the local thrift store for one dolla, which sits on a glass table, which sits in the sunroom where I sit para minhas aulas de portugues, quando estudo sozinha com meu livro.

the small square pot in the back has water cress and mustard seed. (OUCH!!)

this small pot also has water cross and mustard seed. it sits on the kitchen windowsill above the sink, and looks out over our own "vista del freeway" - only it's not a freeway, just a semi-busy bridge with a tidal estuary - harbouring the most contaminated water in all of New South Whales (the state) according to my biologist and water scientist housemate. which isn't saying much because the water is crystal clear and there's plenty of aquatic life swimming or growing around in it. and children and dogs splashing across it. you just wouldn't want to eat anything from it. and nothing in it would want to eat you. (no crocodiles)

alongside runs a park with a paved bicycle/walking path. it's the location of my skateboarding debut; silvino and i took turns on the long flat run scooting along our borrowed board, making all the 10 year-old boys look like X-game pros. it's also the bike path we take (on our bikes) to get to the local grocery store.

once we stopped at the "pump park" along the way and did pull-ups. yuck.

strip show

who let the trees bark?

who -- who who -- who?

otoño

the southern hemisphere is shying away from the sun.

autumn species are popping up, new colours are out -

i'm wearing socks!

don't eat me

moses takes up suburban landscaping

redleaf district

"untitled"

¡frushi!

meu homem trabalho na pizzaria... então, tenemos sushi grátis!

ok, so the pizzaria, that gives us a never ending supply of pie, lies sushi place adjacent. and sometimes 'out with the old' falls our way!

working in the restaurant biz rocks - our grocery bills!

dare to fridge-a-daire

the day after jesus ascended into heaven, our fridge decided to ascend, too. in temperature, that is. it became a hot-house for cheese, a saucy sauna, a very loud, tall freezer.

not a travesty. it was purchased for 40 bucks by our housemate dan 3 years ago and has seen its fare share o' livin' since then. a share-house hopper ice box, and now it was an ice box in the literal sense as i filled each shelf with make-shift ice trays (slabs of ice in tupperware containers) in order to preserve the preserves... and 7 jars of mango chutney.

7 jars? just kidding. one of the first things I did when I moved in was to consolidate the - yes - 7 jars of mango chutney into 2.5 jars, 0.5 of which has been used since so now we are perilously teetering on the brink of a mere 2. (don't hold your breath! if the temperature keeps climbing in there, those 2 jars might just get hit with spring fever and we could have 15 more jarricitos on the way...)

all the "very perishables" (most things that say "please refrigerate me" don't actually need to be refrigerated. example? mustard.) were living in a giant orange eski (ozzi for cooler) in the shape of homer simpson's prized "duff beer" - a present dan's mom gave him over the recent easter holiday, and thank goodness as now it was the only thing between the humongo vat of yogurt silvino and i just made and the odious perfume of dairy gone dangerous.

the threat of which was so great, it spawned operation FRIDGE-HO! housemate sam, silvino and i trekked to the ute-rental (ozzi for flat-bed truck), and then took a drive about 40 minutes north to a retirement community in the darien-connecticut-esque beach suburb of mona vale. this tiny, robust hungarian woman was selling all her appliances - she had a fridge that could harbour food for the masses, and was.

After 2 hours of dismantling screen doors and door knobs, she had a brand new oven for sale as well. untouched, the manual still in the top oven tray. sold. (in her front yard were 2 giant orchids about to bloom that she had snuck into the complex-tended landscaping, and a giant spider whose body was the size of a mouse. she was also sprouting mint, rose clippings and a transparent-tipped suculant.)

none of us had eaten more than a piece of toast, and after 6 hours of op F-HO the starving missionaries peeled into the uppercrust - a renowned pie shop on the route home (my mouth waters just typing the name). and gracias a dios the rain had stopped so our new whiteware didn't get washed away.

the new fridge really is larger than life and it consumed our weekend...

and now with all our food transferred (like filling the pacific ocean with 3 guppies) we are happily chillin once more.

op F-HO takes over the living room part 1

op F-HO takes over the living room part 2

installation team part 1

installation team part 2: the final push

the only problem now is that the rest of the house looks pretty third-rate compared to the new-to-us, cleaner-than-thou, modern side-by-side fridge.

don't worry little toaster that burns every other bit of bread. we still love you.