Wordless Wednesday

Today I found myself once again on the bum end of being too polite. This is my burden to bear.

Actually, this 'burden' feels more like a noose. It is my noose to bear. To the gallows. Where I hand it politely to the executioner and say "As tightly as you please good sir." Sometimes, a part of me steps back from an interaction with my fellow man and thinks "Jessica, do you not realise your neck's about to get cinched by that there circle of rope?"

Short answer: Yes.
Long answer: Yes, but I can't be rude!

I do it all the time, I once smelt a perfume on a colleague that made my nostrils lodge a workplace bullying claim against me. To hide my shock at the smell I said "That's a nice perfume." She had a spare bottle. Which she gave me. Which I now politely wear when I know I'll be seeing her. My nostrils would flare in rage if they weren't terrified of inhaling more abuse.

On Saturday I launched into a conversation with a man about my gumboots, telling him where I got them from and the whole story behind their acquisition. Well he asked didn't he? I was just being polite! Afterwards he said "I'm not really interested, I was just having a flirt."

Awwwwkies.

For weeks now, one particular member of the collaborative commonly referred to as 'My Fellow Man' has been gushing about a manual they inherited from someone many (many) moons ago, that listed common ailments and their natural therapy cures. Here's the low down of where I went wrong on this one.

Error 1 - Feigning Interest.
"Oh wow that sounds great." I mean surely anyone would know that the unsaid tail end of that sentence is "for you"? Apparently not, because Error 1 promptly lead to:

Error 2 - False Engagement.
The "feigned" nature of my interest went ungrasped, leaving My Fellow Man with the assumption that said interest was actually genuine. At this point My Fellow Man then offered to bring in the manual for me to read. What I should have said was "Oh there's no need, I actually use top of the range, completely up-to-date software to supply me with all the scientific and well researched information I need on natural remedies." Instead, I falsely engaged My Fellow Man with "Oh, that would be great." Rookie. Mistake.

Error 3 - Accepting handover.
My Fellow Man returned weeks later with the manual that I barely remembered feigning interest in, a yellowed, crumbling collection of papers, containing information as dated as the typewriter it was originally produced on. Yes, typewriter. Not. Even. Kidding.



I gave the papers a cursory look and attempted hand-back, with a "Oh wow that is quite old isn't it, I don't want to ruin it.". It was a no-go.

Error 4 - Unpaid Labour.
"Yes, it's a bit old." he replied "Do you have a photocopier?"
"Yeah, I'll just scan it in and keep a copy so you can take this one." Intending all the while to fake the scanning part whilst making good on the 'him taking this one' part.
"Oh no!"My Fellow Man protested "No, make a hard copy so you can reference it."
"Mmmm...good idea." I lied.
"Now." My Fellow Man said with a very business like air that grew in me a dull certainty he'd planned the whole affair "Can you make me one while you're at it? And the pages are all out of whack so it might be best put them in order and bind it?"

Here's a list of suitable answers to that:
No.
No, cause I'm not your PA.
No, cause I'm not your secretary, which is what they called a PA back when this thing was typed on a typewriter.
No!

Being the nice girl that I am I opted instead to slip my neck through that proverbial noose and allow myself a good cinching. After all, it's the polite thing to do.



Error 5 - Self-Inflicted Unpaid Labour
So there I was scanning and compiling like so:

When I noticed several errors and out of date information, which logically I left uncorrected in an attempt at passive-aggressive revenge on My Fellow Man.

Except for this one, Anaemia is a common ailment after all, what if he suffered from it and didn't know that Spirulina would set him right?



Oh and this one, because he was greying at the temples and Bet Wetting could become a genuine issue in the near future.



Hmm...actually guys I'm going to have sign off here because I need to make loads more alterations and My Fellow Man wanted the finished assignment by this afternoon.

J xxxo

Apples and Oranges

It's mid-afternoon, I'm lying on my bed with my laptop namesaking it up atop my lap and I'm banging out my novel. Have you ever noticed that it's always easier to do one thing if you've already set your mind on doing another?

I believe the common term is 'procrastination' but my mother always taught me not to be common so I'll use instead the term 'broadly industrious'.

Right now I'm being broadly industrious. Apples and Oranges.

Do other countries have the term 'Apples and Oranges'? Or is it more of an Aussie thing? I'm sure most countries would have these staple fruits in their farmer's markets but what I'm referring to is the use of these fruits to euphemise that it's all much of a muchness.

You see an apple (the novel) is very good as it's own thing and can't be compared in value or worth against an orange (this blog) because the two are of such very differing natures. However, if one wanted a piece of fruit (or in this case, to be industrious) one could either have an apple (novel) or an orange (blog) and despite their vastly different natures it wouldn't matter much either way.

So you see really I'm still being industrious....I'm simply not confining my industry to one task. Apples and oranges, kapish?

Plus I wanted to show you the West End markets. Where, as luck would have it, both fruits are available in bounty.

Apples (my lovely friend Courtney modeled for this shoot - isn't she a dish?)





And oranges





Also, flowers





Flowers have nothing to do with anything really, which I think is a sign that I now truly am procrastinating. What will mother say?

Speaking of my mother, she once moved our entire family to a new home simply because she wanted to live on Jacaranda Street. My mother loves Jacaranda trees, a trait I've inherited. The difference being that I've never made major life decisions based on that love, I choose instead to express my partiality towards the beautiful blooms by taking pictures of them. Much more practical.





That's actually how they look, no filter used I swear!





How could anyone not fall in love with a carpet of purple flowers?





Well that's all the time I can justify for posting today. I really MUST knuckle down to business now.

Perhaps I'll make a cup of tea first. Oh and I HAVE to do up a batch of health cookies for the week ahead. You wouldn't believe it but the recipe for that contains both (you guessed it) apples and oranges. Not. Even. Kidding.

J xxxo

#jzalbumreview The Wombats, Modern Glitch

Welcome to my first #jzalbumreview on Wordpress! I've done a few of these things in other forms of social media and LOVED it, so please join me today as I feature quirky Liverpool outfit, The Wombats & their 2011 release Modern Glitch.

These boys are a delectable treat for the lover of off-beat lyrics and catchy tunes, filling their upbeat second release with a sardonic, can't-help-but-laugh portrayal of their own sufferance from the human condition. It's a quintessential revelry in first world pains.

 At first it's easy to write this three piece off as just another synthed up pop band, but with obvious influences ranging from Joy Division, Sex Pistols and The Cure to Queen, LCD Soundsystem and The Killers these guys are anything but average.

Image courtesy of www.gigwise.com

Frontman Murphy showcases his intelligent and honest songwriting with tracks like "Walking Disasters" and "Last Night I Dreamt..." all the while contrasting the dark lyrics perfectly with his insanely perky keys.

Image courtesy of www.gigwise.com

Drummer Dan Haggis' provides seamlessly intuitive beats for every track, while Tord Øverland-Knudsen pulls it all back into classic rock band focus with his strong, reliable bass lines.

Image courtesy of www.gigwise.com

Stand outs from Modern Glitch are definitly the three already released tracks Tokyo (Vampires and Wolves), Jump Into the Fog and my personal favorite "Techno Fan", it's quite possible that "Shut up and move with me, move with me, or get out of my face" is the best thing I've heard since John Lennon encouraged me to Imagine.

Liverpool sure knows how to produce a good lyricist.

All up Modern Glitch is a brilliant album and well worth the download, BUT why not head into one of those crazy record store places and pick up a tangible copy instead? Better quality than an MP3 AND you get the joy of flicking through the album artwork as you decipher the brit-pop lyrics. Modern Glitch gets out 4 of 5.

Sweet Suzie

Today I'm missing my bestie. She lives in London these days, which means that whenever I listen to The National's High Voilet, I get a bit weepy come track 10:

You must be somewhere in London

 You must be loving your life in the rain.

Suzie and I have been mates for 14 years....that's half my lifetime. Starting next year, I'll be able to say 'most of my lifetime'. Mind. Blowing.

Side note, ever had that awkward moment when you start counting someone you met at 14 as a 'childhood friend'?  But it's true! Suze & I were just babies when we met. I suppose at 80 I'll chuckle as I read this very post and think how 28 was still a baby. Life, hey? It'll be the death of us all.

[caption id="attachment_182" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Me on left, Suzie next to me and the ragtag misfits following."][/caption]

 

So Suzie and I used to kick it together at Cleveland District State High School. Us and a ragtag bunch of other misfits with whom I'm now only connected via facebook. I'm not sure why Suzie and I kept in touch whilst my other friendships fell away.

That's a lie. I actually do know why. It's cause I used to be terrible at keeping in touch. You see Suzie is still in contact with loads of people and it is only by her wonderful efforts that our friendship managed to make it past high school and to the point where I realised how much my life (my life) would suck without her (thanks Avril). If not for Suzie keeping in touch, I would never have realised how important it is to stay in touch.

Suzie's an angel like that.

Famous angels never come through London

London gets the ones you never knew.

See this proves she's an angel! She wore a white dress to our Year 12 Formal...that's me on the far left with the blue dress and sexy 90's lipstick.

When I left school at 16 I saw it as an opportunity to break free and start fresh, I had no idea at that point in my life how much I actually needed people who knew me, who knew my story and loved me all the more for it. People with whom I shared history but also people who will always be there in the future. People like Suzie.

But don't just love Suzie because she knows my story, it's that I know hers. I know how wonderful she is despite the not so wonderful things that have befallen her.

 And yes, because of the stories we share.

 

 

I love the fact that all I have to say to crack Suzie up is "5 Fuse Bars for a Dollar!" I also love that I can say "5 Fuse Bars for a Dollar!" if she needs reminding that it always pays to be prepared. Especially so, if one wants to avoid trudging to a servo at 3am with a two-dollar budget between 4 people, each with a mean case of the munchies (did I mention I wasn't always a Christian...well let me tell you friend, this was far from the case at 15).

 

Incidently "5 Fuse Bars for a Dollar!" can also be used to illustrate that always, in our most deperate hour, provision will come.

 

I love that Suzie is my Co-Inventor for the most awesome game ever invented in the history of ever. That game my friend, is Harry Potter Hangman, whereby the challenger is limited only by their store of Harry Potter trivia and the opponent is limited only by their ablility to guess not just the word, but how the challenger would have spelt that dang word!

 

On that note, how DOES one spell Alohomra....ahlorohama...oh forget it just use iTorch 4!

 

  

 I love that Suzie and I weren't always besties. I do. I actually love that part of our story includes not getting along all that well at the start. When God first threw us together Suzie was very tough and I was annoyingly insecure, we grated on each other a bit. I'm not sure when that stopped, who knows maybe in all that grating on each other we actually rubbed off on one another.

 

Side note, Suze, do you know that I truly belive it's God who decided we should be friends? I thank Him for that often.

 

I don't even think to make

I don't even think to make corrections

 

[caption id="attachment_185" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="This was taken the night Suze left on her big jet plane. I sang The Cure's Mint Car cause I was the 'Vanilla Smile' and she the 'Gorgeous Strawberry Kiss'. Sadly I couldn't get the tune right so Suze just stared at me blankly. Love you always babe."][/caption]

 

 J xxxo

Chicken & Dill Pasta Salad

There's a small, easy-going city in the south-eastern corner of Queensland, Australia which I call home. Others who don't live here, call it Brisbane.

Brisbane, I love thee in all thy seasons, but I love thee best in Spring. Sadly my waxing lyrical on the wonders of Brisbane in Spring will have to wait for another post, however what I will tell you now is that no city does a storm like Brisbane in Spring. Our climate is deemed "Sub-tropical" which means our storms typically brew all day, gathering moisture from the dense humidity on the ground then, as the horizon-bound sun begins to ease it's heat abuse on the atmosphere, all that humidity gets thrown back down on us with wild winds, flash floods, apocalyptic lightning, ear-splitting thunder and deluges of warm rain.

Stunning.

So I was all cavalier and glibly unconcerned about my picnic plans when the weather app predicted this for Saturday:

 

Allow me to interpret the above image into Brisbanese for you. It means a balmy, sunny day & a ferocious end-is-nigh storm at about 4pm. Really, for a Brisbanite, the above image is actually an excellent picnic omen...as long as one plans to wrap things up before 4pm.

You could imagine my surprise, then, when I woke on Saturday morning to find the weather looked exactly like this:

No swag, Brisbane.

Luckily I was not so glib and cavalier as to not have a back up plan. The picnic was moved indoors to my delightful friend Carling's incredibly delightful home where a dozen or so girls ate food and played board games. Moral of the story; When life gives you lemons, say "Why thank you, Life!" and use them to make the dressing for this Chicken & Dill Pasta Salad which was my contribution to the picnic food.

Chicken & Dill Pasta Salad.

Difficulty: Smurfs could make it.

Ingredients

• 500g Dried Pasta


• 2 Free Range Chicken Breasts


• 5 stalks of Spring Onion, stringy  bums removed


• 1 Pink Lady Apple


• Generous Handful of Dill


• Juice of 1 Lemon


• Loads of Olive Oil


• 1.5 tbs Sesame Seed Oil


• Salt & Pepper to Taste
  
   

Directions

Firstly, smother the chicken breast in oodles of the delicious sesame seed oil. Jesus invented this stuff. Yum.

Oh BTW apologies for the dodginess of my pics, I've only my iPhone :'(

Let the chicken marinate in the fridge for 10mins at least, longer if you have the time.

Next, check your pasta for directions, if you're jiggy with the cheap stuff, more power to you. That stuff takes longer to cook so maybe pop it on first up. Regardless of the hoity-toityness of your pasta make sure you put LOADS of salt in the water, think Dead Sea. Throw in a good splash of olive oil too so that the pasta won't stick together. The very first thing I did was get this oily, salty water heating up.

The planning of the pasta only matters if you want to have this salad warm, which I can vouch for as a delightful way of having it. Should this not matter, then neither does the timing. I used a quality semolina pasta which takes under ten mins to reach al dente so I didn't put mine on until the chicken had already been on for 10 mins.

Which brings us to the chicken! Do you have a steamer? Oh, I hope you do! They make excellent house guests for the time-poor, fuss-adverse & health-concious. Pop the chicken in the steamer for 18mins, trust me on the 18 mins...don't get all avant garde with those precious mins and round it up to 20, this will dry the chicken out. Sad. Face.

This is what I'm talking about when I say steamer BTW:

If you're using one of those hipster bamboo thingis, fantastic, I'm kinda jel. Sadly however, I've nothing to contribute by way of suggestion for timing. You're on your own kiddo. If you've got neither hipster bamboo nor yuppy steamer, you could try poaching the breasts. These guys claim to be able to do so perfectly - best learn from them.

Once the chicken is on, it's time to get slicing. The remaining ingredients are all quite distinct in their flavours. I am very unfond of large chunks when it comes to strong flavours, it's much better to keep it small so that you can get an even blend in each mouthful.

Apple (Avoid the core, or pre-core it if you're all diligent like that. Once sliced, set it aside in a bowl and cover w lemon juice so it doesn't brown):

Shallots (I used 3/4 of each one from the white to the green, basically I stop slicing when the ends get ratty):



Dill (Oh how I love the aniseedy goodness of Dill, what an unsung hero this lil guy is! Pretty fronds like these look too nice for chopping and the flavour is released without it, so I tore the fronds from their stalks instead.):



The water was good and boiling so I threw my pasta on about now, but there's no pic of that because the mathematical equation for concentrating on pouring pasta whilst taking a photo looks something like this:

(1 x iPhone +  1 x Pot of Boiling Water) - absolute value of my concentration = -1 x iPhone

Pa-Ding! That's the noise my steamer makes when he's done with whatever task I set him. So I transferred the chicken onto a cutting board and started shredding (chicken, not Slash solos....oh oh oh OH! Sweet Child 'o Mii-I-iiine). I don't know how the pros do this but I just get two forks and cut sick like so:

Now everything comes together....right now...over me. lol jks....over John Lennon.

If John Lennon were the name of my serving bowl.

Once the pasta is al dente, strain and refresh with cold water. Let drain for a minute or two (no one likes a soggy salad), then pour into your serving bowl. Add in all the other ingredients and toss together, when you transfer the lemon soaked apples, be sure to include the liquid. Then add ooodles and ooodles of olive oil and salt & pepper to taste. I use Himalayan Crystal Salt because of it's health benefits and brilliant flavour. Fresh cracked black pepper is my preference.

There you go. Delicious goodness of yummy yumminess in my little red bowl. Tastes excellent hot or cold.

This is just a lil somethin' somethin'  that I created from what I had available at the time. Other ingredients that would be delicious:

Basil (rather than dill), Cherry Tomatoes, Lebanese Cucumber, Parmesan, Fresh thinly sliced Chilli, Mint....take free reign my friend. The WORLD is your oyster....though I don't support the use of oysters in this dish.

J xxxo

Sharcha

Sharcha is a customer of mine. It should be noted that in the interest of protecting Sharcha's identity, I have refrained from using Sharcha's real name, instead I googled "unisex names", landed on www.cool-baby-names.com and found myself in a veritable playground of gender non-specific names. Apparently the names mean different things for boys and girls, so let me tell you something if Sharcha is a man, his name is of Jewish origin and means Dawn. If Sharcha is a woman, well then it's also Jewish and means Dawn. Fascinating stuff.

Here's my dilemma, I don't know if Sharcha means dawn or dawn (would have worked better if my name choice was actually one with separate meanings, however attaining such a name looked to be a time-costly project and Sharcha just sounds SO fun when you say it quick. Sharcha-Sharcha-Sharcha). That aside, what I'm trying to say, is that I'm not sure if Sharcha is a man or a woman.

Now look, lets clear something up real quick. I don't care if Sharcha means dawn or dawn, the sun still rises all the same if you know what I'm saying (if you DO know what I'm saying, congratulations, that gives you one up on me). As far as I'm concerned Sharcha is a soul Jesus loves and one of my favourite customers and if anyone gave Sharcha lip in front of me, den deys best be 'specting ta git roooolled. While I'm not aware of which gender Sharcha identifies with, what I am painfully aware of is that whatever gender Sharcha's gender-journey began at and whichever gender (if any) the journey has come to a close at, that journey would not have been an easy one and the last thing I'd ever want to do is add any sorrow to it.

So, now that's all cleared up, shall we proceed?

The only reason I'm mentioning any of this is because I need to tell you how immensely, profoundly, incomprehensibly DAFT I was yesterday when Sharcha came in, bubbly and wonderful as ever and brought a few of the usual products to the counter. I work with Natural Health Products in case you're wondering and if you weren't well you need to know anyway because this information integral to the story.

Anyways, when Sharcha came to the counter this is how the conversation went:

Me: Sharcha! How are you?

Sharcha: Good thank you, just in for the usual.

Me: Wow, you've been flying through this stuff!

Sharcha: Yes I love it, I'm finding it's amazing for my energy levels.

Me: I'm so glad to hear that! I was thinking about your little health regime actually and I've been meaning to ask, do you take a multivitamin?

Sharcha: No, do you think I should?

Me: Yes! Definitely, I think it would really help. It's like the missing link in everything you're taking.

Sharcha: What would you recommend?

Ok I just need to warn you it's about to get super awkward. Please, for your own safety, please only proceed if you deal at least reasonably well with awkward.

Deep breaths.

Me: Well this one here is my favourite, it's a really great general multi.

(it truly is BTW and it's the one I always show customers first and then I....well...yeah, read on...)

Me: Or you could try a...

I've trailed off there because what I usually do after showing the first general multi is take the customer to a gender specific multi. Bugger. Realising I couldn't say what I'd been about to say, I instead opted for:

Me: um...something...ah more specific.

At this point I should mention that I often over think things and had become certain that Sharcha knew exactly what I had been about to say and I felt horrible that I might have hurt his/her feelings.

Sharcha: Oh, like which one?

Me: Well yeah just something more specific...like...

Here's a list of things I could have said:

• stress management


• gaps in your diet


• helping with joint pain


• age-specific


• useful for long periods of time spent in deep space

However, in all reality each of those options would have brought us back to the issue of a gender specific multi. Cause once you go past the generic ones, they all go to 'Women's Stress Multi' or 'Men's Deep Space Multi'. Clearly this is NOT my fault and instead is a massive oversight on behalf of every vitamin supplier In. The. World.

So here's what I said:

Me: like a specific one for...you?

Sharcha stared blankly at me for a moment before comprehension dawned. Solemnly the eyes travelled our vitamin clad shelves, each multivitamin package in girly pink/purple or roguish blue/green. Surely at one of these fancy vitamin companies, someone in legal has brought it up with someone in marketing that there exists a huge liability for having a class action brought against them by angry trans-genderites tired of being excluded by this blatant gender specific packaging???

Sharcha was gracious enough to return to the multi I originally waxed lyrical over and politely read the ingredients before returning to the counter to pay for the products placed there earlier. To describe the atmosphere at that point as 'awkward' would not have done justice to the situation. I was dying inside.

Do you remember the movie Titanic?

There's this bit when they're floating in the water, Jack's just died and Rose is all "I'll never let go" and then promptly lets go. Well it's some point after that when the search party arrives and almost don't spot her. Rose then feebly stretches out a hand and calls "Come back."



This was what I call one of my "Come back." moments, where words or actions issue forth from me before I can realise how completely inappropriate they are. Then as I watch the repercussions of them unfold around me, a little Rose in my head stretches forth a feeble hand and calls "Come back.".

Lucky for her, the boat did come back. Sadly for me, my proverbial ships have always sailed.

I really hope I see Sharcha again :(

J xxxo

P.S. I google imaged "trans-gender" and this came up. How odd.