Delectably Detrimental Delights and Peregrination by Proxy

Today I am a green-eyed peanut. Since I returned from my Seattle Soiree the travel I have managed to undertake has been utterly and completely by proxy (or vivid imagination) through my uni course. 

Brochures depicting young and gorgeous people enthusiastically jumping off boats on the Amalfi Coast, couples clinking glasses on exquisite train journeys across Europe, intrepid explorers taking silly photos with monuments and statues in far off, seldom trod corners of this big, wide world. *sigh* and travel messages containing tantalizingly few details of police encounters, boat trips full of beer and bravado and blissful kisses from the European sun. *fumes* *grins* *crinkles up nose and narrows eyes in playful jealousy*

My adventures have been of the home and university variety of late. Several accounts are to follow:

Yesterday I arrived home after a day distinctly akin in pressured finite timings to an episode of "24" and felt an overpowering need to bake something sugary with a high chocolate content and dates, always dates. 

Once I changed into my Joe Boxer track pants *shudder of fleecy warmth* and Uggs *after-shudder* I consulted the shelves of my half of the pantry. Flour..white sugar..brown sugar...baking powder..salt...umm, DATES! Then I took a peek in the fridge - eggs..and milk! Eeexcellent! And a block of Hershey's 70% extra dark chocolate hand carried from Los Estados Unidos (from whence all fructose-laden goodness cometh).

Expertly creaming the butter and sugar together then adding the eggs, milk and dry ingredients I tossed in an exorbitant amount of dates and chocolate chunks and whacked them in the oven. 

I like my cookies slightly crispy on the outside and nice and gooey on the inside so when you bite into a particularly large chocolate chunk it oozes out of its home nestled in the cookie and inevitably ends up on your shirt/tie/necklace. 

The edges slightly browned after 12 or so minutes on 150 Celsius and I extracted the tray of morsels from the oven and placed them on the stove. The entire house filled with the aroma of freshly baked delicacy and my flatmate magically appeared with eyes like saucers, licking her chops like Sylvester eyeing Tweety Bird, turning him in one image frame from canary to cutlet. 

She has now termed them (with a note written in pink capital letters with highlighter) the "COOKIES OF DOOM (because they're so f*ing lush!)" and neither of us can stop munching on them. Ahh well, at least we live in the House of Metabolism! Redheads do it better you know..

*bites into warm cookie* 

Next - Huzzar for moi! I overcame my Bakers Delight Scone Sampling phobia today! As I walk from the disembarkation point of my first bus I past a number of shops, one of which is Baker's Delight (hence the scone addiction). Normally I wander past, gaze lovingly at the carby, sugary goodness adorning the shelves, wait for an influx of customers and snake a long arm between them to pinch one (read: several) slices of the free-to-good-home scone in the little plastic sample tub on the counter. 

Today there were no customers. It was also raining. And freezing cold. 

"Bugger this rubbish!" I thought to myself, "I'm a human, I have rights to free food!" I psyched myself and, taking a deep breath, entered the little shop. 

"Hi! How can I help you?" said the pre-teen behind the counter, seeing a sale meandering through the glass doors.

"Uh..I'd like a.." I pretended to scan the glass cabinets, "..umm... ok. Look. I'd-really-just-like-to-try-some-scone.-Seriously-I-buy-them-all-the-time-and-I'm-completely-addicted-and-they're-really-really-bloody-good-but-I-have-a-bunch-at-home-and-I don't-need-to-buy-an-more-but-I'd-really-like-to-try-some-is-that-cool??" I admitted with lightning fast speech in her general direction, avoiding eye contact.

To my distinct pleasure she laughed, openly, and said "of COURSE! We do it all the time!"

It was as though an enormous weight was lifted from my part-Jewish conscience and I happily tonged 2 slices of the little baked good into my hand, waved a goodbye to the girls, who were still laughing and merrily made my freezing cold way to the bus stop. Once more - HUZZAR!!

In other news my 16 day adventure tour brochure to Iceland has been printed (after a substantial cookie donation to the people at Kwik Kopy Darling Harbour garnered a large discount) and looks incredible. Someday I want to go diving, skiing, dog sledding, horseback riding, whitewater rafting and lounging in the Blue Lagoon. *shakes fist* "with God as my witness..!"

Last minute I aced yet another 2 exams this afternoon and rewarded myself with end-of-day rice paper rolls.

I passed my dive medical with a lovely aviation doctor in the city yesterday. We had a grand time pinching, prodding and concluding that despite a lower-than-recommended BMI (read: BS) rating I have incredibly good lungs (all the better for yelling at you with, my dear), hearing (for tuning out when you yell back, my dear) and balance (for..well I don't know..balancing I suppose!). 

I actually had a great time and ate far too many blue jellybeans and promised to send the doctor a postcard from my first diving holiday, hopefully not too far away now..!

Tomorrow night is "Diving 101" with this weekend spent submerging in a pool remembering to ALWAYS BREATHE and learning how to empty water from my mask. 

I'm really looking forward to it, breathing underwater has always been a dream of mine.

I shall leave you there, fine readers, until more adventures have I to rehash.

Seattle Soiree - Installment 1

I recently returned from Seattle and a fun and retrospection/self-realization-filled trip to my home town. These were the e-mails (slightly abridged) which I sent to someone very special to me who stayed behind for various reasons;

INSTALLMENT 1 aka HOLA FROM LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS

I am in Seattle! After 1 very long flight from Sydney (and 1 not-so-long flight from LA), 1 beautiful listening experience, several movies, lots of sleep, delicious wine, champagne and food (which I will go into tantalizing detail about in future correspondence) I got into LA yesterday. My cousin picked me up approximately 3 hours after my flight arrived so I was treated to the best the "International Food Court" at LAX has to offer *insert vomiting smiley here*. *shudder* I think whatever I ate most likely used to bark..or at least meow.

 

My cousin Katisse had thrown his back out so I forced him to stop at a physio on the way home and while he went in for treatment from a Hawaiian shirt-clad orange-coloured sort of person named Bob (whose second question immediately following "what's your name?" was inevitably "are you married?". *sigh* that's LA for you..) I meandered down el Camino Drive and received multiple "mmmmmmm hmm you work those boots grrrrl!!* and "damn suga' you got great hair" from large females of the African-American persuasion. I chuckled and went into a petrol ("gas") station and paid $2.72 for a coke. Who on earth prices a drink at two dollars and seventy-two cents, it's inane, I almost paid them $3.00 just to accentuate my disapproving thoughts on the matter. Unfortunately when they added on the lesser-publicised "government taxes not included" it came to $3.13 so I rolled my eyes and gave them lots and lots of pennies, just to prove my point.

 

Post back-adjustment we went to Katisse and Sue (his girlfriend of 6 years)'s house in Culver City and ate the most enormous salad in the history of time at the local Mexican cafe. I then immediately passed out on the couch.

 

I woke up with an enormous amount of energy and very itchy feet so I asked if I could borrow Kat's bike for a cruise down the Marina del Ray pier since he had other things to do that evening before the gig. It was a surreal and fantastic time biking along the harbour for the next 2 hours, I have some great photos.

The most amazing thing happened on the way back - I finally got to experience "the Santa Annas" - those unannounced gusts of piping hot wind which whip up from nowhere and make you feel as if the world has turned into an enormous blow dryer and some one's aimed it at your face. One minute my nose was slightly pink from wind chill and the next I was sweating in 40 degree heat. It was the hottest night on record for the past 2 years - 34 degrees Celsius!

 

Katisse's gig at The Baked Potato was awesome, he played flute and saxophone (with a bit of beat boxing thrown in for shits and/or. The guy on piano was absolutely phenomenal, I bought his CD. I got chills listening to the stuff he'd written, and I'm not even that crazy about jazz!

 

I ate a Teriyaki Chicken Baked Potato with Broccoli and Sauteed Mushrooms the size of most small children in Africa, it was delicious. To my great amusement I was poured a glass of Jacob's Creek Cab Merlot to wash it down! Just can't seem to escape Australia wherever I go..

 

The amusingly disgruntled crew on Virgin America flew me up to Seattle this afternoon (the safety-demo is a gas, YouTube "virgin america safety demo vid" - you'll piss yourself, it's very clever) and mum snuck up on me at baggage claim - she would've been easy to miss, somehow she's shrunk to about 4 feet! I'm a full head taller than her!! I keep kissing her on the top of the head and chuckling.

 

We had dinner at Blue C Sushi Train (chilli lobster with avocado, omlette and edamade rolls were absurdly good, as was the unagi and melt-in-your-mouth salmon and abalone sashimi), did a bit of shopping (I bought a kick-ass little camera) and came home.

I can't believe I'm here, it's half-odd because things have changed a little (rooms rearranged, walls painted, that sort of thing) but also comfortable and home-y. I needed to come back and see it on my own, to see whether I would actually break into the beaming grin I found on my face when we drove past the dance studio and the shits-all-over-Harris-Farm "Metropolitan Market" (where I used to spend too much time nonsensically roaming the aisles admiring the expensive but delicious products on offer) and up to our little grey and blue two-storey house nestled between my huge tree and climbing roses on one side and the rhododendrons and cedar hedges on the other. It's so nice here, I finally feel like this was my home.

 

Mum's just now gone off to bed (and sent my new mobile a goodnight message from the other room which I found quite amusing, I've finally brought her into the portable information age! *slightly chuffed*) and I'm able to check the internet for the first time.

 

I'm off to bed now too, marvelling at my utterly non-alcoholic mother's foresight to purchase bottles of reserve Penfolds, D'arenberg, St Hallet, Drumborg and various others back in the late 1990's and store them all in our underground stone basement. I'm very much looking forward to cracking open a bottle of the Penfold's Wine Maker's Reserve 2001 Shiraz tomorrow night to go with the roasted capsicum's stuffed with steak chunks, rice spring onions and coriander I'm planning on cooking for mum (with banana cake and maple yoghurt for dessert) - she hasn't had a glass of wine in 4 years and is worried she's going to "get sloshed" (heehee, because I never have that effect on parents..).

 

So there's an abridged War & Peace of my first few days in the USA. It's actually really nice to be back. Aside from the weird pricing, humongous food portions which you feel guilty for not finishing even though if you did you'd literally explode, odd looking and leering Mexicans who ask you when they'll need to have you home tomorrow morning when you ask them where the closest atm is, mothers who drive the pace of snails with back aches and amusingly hardened consonants, I'm liking it. And I'm glad I came, very glad.