No, no, no, no

Enough. I have to learn to say it, do it, believe it, live it. A life with space in it. A healthy respect for time spent not overtly ‘producing’. No more odd jobs taken on because it feels like I might have five minutes free in my day and I’m compulsively deciding to fill them up.

After all, if I say no, the world will continue to turn. As I transition into this [it will not happen overnight] very little will change for a few weeks. For example, tonight I’ll be in bed late then up at a 5:00 tomorrow and vulnerable during the day to all the normal workaday stuff that a girl should just take in her stride.

But the wheels have been set in motion. A day job that I like. Some daily writing. And the occasional special project. That should just about do it. And I can stop with the palpitations.

Chocolate crackles for grown-ups!

This picture doesn't have the optional chilli sliver...

We have some chilli plants at work. It’s a long story but they ended up on my desk. I spend time nurturing them. I squish aphids on them (eek!) and water them. I fertilise them and talk to them. Anyhoo, we had a harvest recently.  A beautiful single chilli… and then we had to figure out what to do with it. It sat on a few people’s desks… it was a prize in a weekly quiz [don't ask]. And eventually it came back to me. Not my chilli, really, but my responsibility.

The person whose plant the chilli came from loves chocolate. I’m a busy girl with not much time for cooking at the moment. So the obvious solution was to make chilli chocolate crackles. Well, it was obvious to me!

Here’s the recipe.

4 cups rice bubbles
1 cup desecrated coconut
1 cup icing sugar
250 g copha
7 tablespoons of cocoa (most recipes call for 3 or 4)
1/2 teaspoon of chilli powder
1 small chilli for garnish (optional)

1. Mix all the dried ingredients in a bowl.
2. Slowly melt the copha in a saucepan over low heat.
3. Allow to cool slightly.
4. Mix all ingredients together until well combined.
5. Spoon into paper patty cases.
6. Refrigerate until firm.

Makes about 24

Cut the top off the chilli and remove the seeds. Slice chilli into tiny slivers. Place a sliver of chilli on each chocolate crackle. TAKE CARE not to touch your eyes, nose or any tender areas while there is chilli on your skin. It hurts!!

Enjoy!

From the phone

Slow afternoon…

Well,  I managed the first three words and an ellipsis from the phone but then it all got too complicated. It would probably be a great way to while away a few hours at an airport.  Or something. I think I’ll stick to proper sized keyboards for now…

Taking back Saturday

Working 5 days a week brings with it a number of imperatives, not the least of which (now that is a clumsy turn of phrase) is that the 2 days a week we call the weekend become more precious…

My first big mistake, moving from 3 days in the office to 5 days in the office, was to decide that I would get up early on Saturday morning  and work. A sleep in for an hour would have me rising at 7:00am instead of 6:00 am and that would give me a sense of weekend. (I’ll look back on this and laugh, please tell me I will). Then I could go for a quick walk, take a shower, eat my muesli, percolate and sip my coffee and be at my desk by 8:30am, ready for a full day of work. My one concession - a nap in the afternoon.

A wonderful revelation this morning, that giving up brings its own rewards. After another 5 days that ended with me on Friday so exhausted as to be unable to put one foot in front of the other, I decided to go to the gym on Friday night and make no commitments to get out of bed on Saturday morning.

First, I should probably explain the gym thing.

I’m not really sure about the technicalities, but have picked up enough jargon over the past 5 years, since I first attended a gym.  What you might call brain chemistry seems to change when you exercise regularly. I’ve just started a job that’s got lots of stuff going on. Lots o’ stuff. [is there a competition for understatement of the year?] plus dealing with the strange demands of the journal known as extempore; more of that in another post. The whole thing is dragging me down. I don’t get to go out to listen to music half as much as I’d like. I’m always tired. I am losing energy and enthusiasm. The gym helps give some of that energy back. A combination of gym and live improvised music is guaranteed to lift me out of drudgery, but I can’t find the energy to do the latter without spending some time and effort on the former. So it’s gym Friday night and out for some sounds on Saturday…

I got up at 10:00 after reading the arts sections in The Age and The Australian, drinking a cup of coffee in bed and indulging in some bonding time with a certain kitty kat who thinks having the human at home just means an extra dimension of napping pleasure. Stealing body warmth and nesting your kitty kat chin in the crook of the human’s elbow is so much better than curling up on your own on the mohair blanky.

The guilt of not achieving anything has not kicked in because I had not planned to get up at 7:00. When I finally got to my desk, it was after a real sleep-in, a walk to the newsagent and a movie. As I write this, I’ve achieved quite a bit already. There is washing in the machine, a stew on the stove, three emails written, a telephone call made, the page layout for Issue 3  filled in a bit more than it was yesterday… and I’ve also managed somehow to reclaim my Saturday morning. There’s got to be a mantra in that somewhere. Something about letting go?

Either way, 5 days a week is a mug’s game. Seriously. Why do we do it?

Tags: gym, Saturday, Working week

mobile phones and toilet cubicles

Doesn’t seen like those two things go together? Yes, I thought so too, but I was willing to test the concept. You know me, open minded as a very open-minded thing.

Imagine this. I’m at work and need to visit the euphemism. It happens. It’s why euphemisms are provided in the workplace, I believe.

I walked in and there’s a lady on the phone. A workmate lady. She turns around and acknowledges me then keeps talking. I figure she’ll finish the conversation and leave. But no…

I’m in the cube. I hear “Oh, and happy birthday, by the way!”  Then more information about birthday-related stuff.

“Nice,” I think. She’s just doing the obligatory Happy Birthday thing and then she’ll hang up and leave.

By this time, reader, I am in the cubicle and ready to wee.

[Sorry if this is too graphic for you but that's probably about as bad as it gets in this post.]

Then, she starts on about hand towels. Seriously. A new conversation. We’ve moved on from the birthday greetings to hand towels???

I suddenly had this strange sensation of being on a tram. On public transport with my undies down [sorry, there's no other way to say it]

I had a meeting to go to, and desperate need to relieve myself. And I was frozen, anxious, unable to perform due to some deap seated fear of weeing in public. So I took matters into my own hands and said “Excuse me, this isn’t working.”

[It's really hard to figure out what to say at those times, it was the best I could do.]

Her response? “Would you like me to leave?”

My retort ? “Yes please.”

And out she went.

Ye gods.

The results are in: mobile phones and toilet cubicles do not go together!

Tags: mobile phone, toilet

Joan and George have something to say…

The horse-riding statues outside the State Library of Victoria have had notes slung over them overnight. Joan: Skiing causes more deaths than swine flu. George: More people have died from rocking vending machines (interesting thought) than from swine flu.

What masked (or unmasked, only the security cameras can tell) bandits have perpetrated this heinous act of truth-telling? I have taken a photo but in life’s ongoing struggle for interconnectivity between boxes of chips, now need to find a cable to transfer photo from phone to pc to blog…

pee ess: Joan is Jean D’Arc and George is he of the dragon fame. Sorry if I didn’t make that clear.

Tags: SLV, State Library of Victoria, swine flu, technology