Goblin Housekeeping

[izmeina]

Oh what a wonderful start to our evening slinking in Cyberia. Stinking sucky F$%^& Firefox decides that this would be just the perfect opportunity to play dead. Yet one more reason to finally download that OS update and get back our good old fashioned reliable Safari and aMSN neither of which work since the Great Crash of July 2006

And it was such a nice day too. Pretty good pottering downtown and even work wasn't the soul sucking nightmare it's been lately since the arrival of a very bad batch of bitches. There's two sections - one called Rose and the other Camelia. And you just know that if you get stuck amongst the thorns - it's like being kissed by a dozen Dementors. But Izzie has been lucky - 4 of the last five days with the cuties of Camelia. But Monday was our unlucky day. It was also the day we had grand plans for pottering and chatting online.
They'd rostered on two complete and absolute newbies and Fluffie Bunnie in the middle who is as good as useless (since Mummy is the Matron - she does what she damn well likes since she knows she can get away with it)

So, after an utterly awful night where we were kept totally busy until the last minute and even by knock off time at 10pm had still stuff left to do, was still the hope of slinking off to the Lair on the broomstick and listening to Late Night Live in the garden with a glass or two of red. By the time it's over at 11pm would have finally gotten over the shift from hell.

But no. This was the very day that the broomstick decides to throw a tantrum too. Flat as a pancake. Had the old maintenance kit handy but five minutes later - back to where we started. So instead of riding, had to walk the bugger back to the Lair and did not get there until 11pm.

At that stage, was in no state for anything but lurking. And the after effects lasted until yesterday. In spite of the simply glorious weather, was simply too agitated to enjoy it. Lucky was not assigned to Rose that evening or would have been a nervous murderous wreck for the rest of the week.

So, this morning woke up all chirpy and cheerful and finally recovered. Figures that since we don't care too much for walking to work (Still not fixed the broomstick) best thing is to kill two birds with one stone and do stuff today that otherwise would have complicated our plans to visit Fremantle tomorrow.

The biggie was the visit to Vultures (Also known as the Tax Office) Originally intended to drop by on Friday but went to the motherfucking movies instead ;)
It's not just that Izzie is too mean to waste money on a stamp but wants to be sure that the thieving bastards actually get our stuff and don't try the trick of slamming us with a 100 silver sickle fine for late lodgement. (If you don't use registered post - you cannot prove it ever arrived)
Inside the Door of the Dark Dungeons are usually two boxes for other such like minded cheapskates - one for north of the river and the other for south.
But this time they were not there. So Izzie goes to the counter and asks. The lady says this has been discontinued for security reasons. Izzie asks if this is because they are afraid some one might add anthrax to their envelope. Pretty much so she says. We ever so innocently replies that warfarin is our weapon of choice.
These days you can get arrested for saying that sort of thing. Not sure if she comprehended the exact nature of our evil intent but said that if we took the form out of the envelope and gave it to her, she could accept it. Tossed it into a big white round bin with a plastic lid - the sort they use in kitchens to store flour or sugar.

So, that evil piece of paper out of the way, one that will probably cost us 410 silver sickles (Izzie never ever gets refunds) next stop was an Italian deli in search of munchies. Found the long lamented and much missed Konigsbrod crispbread - a round papery thin thing - suspiciously reminiscent of communion wafers - not your common garden variety but the biggie reserved for the priest at the altar. An absolutely essential ingredient for moonlit picnics at graveyards with rats.
Had assumed the company had gone bankrupt since it had vanished a long time ago from our usual source, so was most happy to find a new supplier

The other essential ingredient for this weeks Moonfest was our Chinese mooncakes which are only available for about 8 weeks of the year. Theirs is on 6 October but there's nothing stopping Izzie celebrating twice like we did last year. Sri Melaka make the most munchy magnificent mooncakes - freshly baked in the store - not the imported sickly sweet shrivelled up muck from Taiwan that you get in most Asian specialty stores. They are not cheap - ranging from $$6-8 in price - but that's the whole point of rituals - something special that cannot be had every day - not like Hot Cross Buns which can be got from the first week of January.

Then we got a big kilo jar of tahini and various other bits of wog food - zaa'tar, cardamom pods and other such tasty morsels too before slinking off to get a bus to be at work for 3pm.

Had a very good day in fact apart from the hell that is the Dining Room for Dementors. So, it was a bit of an anticlimax to have such a nice day stuffed up by the Firefox freeze. But it's behaving itself for the moment - LJ autosave is a wonderful thing.

Unfortunately, clouds and thunderstorms are predicted for the next three days so we can only hope they hold off until after moonrise tomorrow.
Only four more days of house elf slavery until we are free for a whole week before departing on our grand European adventure. Still got a bit of packing and stuff to do - making photocopies of essential documents and making our list of things to do and places to go in Amsterdam

Hoping to do lots of pottering online and catch up on all that commenting we had planned for the last few days.
Defrosted the fridge and dejunked on a major scale. Nothing left now but cheeses - lots of cheeses, milk and various sauces and pickles. And a big fat juicy bottle of Sparkling Shiraz which we will drink either on this Tuesday to celebrate the end of our last shift or next Tuesday - our last sleep in Oz for 8 weeks or so.

Comments

Munchies and MSN

[izmeina.livejournal.com]

Oh communion wafers are sad little things - like eating cardboard. These critters are just as thin but much crunchier and made - it seems by pouring batter in circles on some sort of hotplate. Most of them are small round little things - the size of normal cracker biscuits and the flavours are plain, poppy seed, sesame seed, or mixed herbs. Konigsbrod is different in that they are much bigger with rougher edges. But what Izzie really likes - there's an indented pattern on them with a cross in the middle of a circle in the centre with lines radiating out from it which is suspiciously similar to the design on those big communion wafers. And they are very nice dipped in red wine or with slices of camembert or brie on top

And wog food - Izzie loves anything made with chickpeas - these tasty little critters are used a lot in Middle Eastern and Indian cuisine. Hummous and pakoras are among our favorite. Pakoras are deep fried vegie thingies. Was only recently Izzie found out that the flour used in the batter is made of chickpeas. And tahini is simply a sort of peanut butter but made with sesame seeds instead of peanuts. Damned delicious. Rather fattening but dripping with protein, vitamins and minerals.

Oh and who says the Izzie won't be chatting for 8 weeks? Apart from the fact that both the Izzie sister and brother have computers, netcafes should be easily available and the time zones in Europe are probably more serpent friendly than the old red eye midnight shift in Oz.

Re: Munchies and MSN

[izmeina.livejournal.com]

Yessss. Many moons later - Izzie slowly catches up. Glad to see that it's not just Izzie who is the sesame seed junkie. Always on the eternal search for the unhulled variety so we can grow the little buggers ourselves. That most brilliant of organic shops in Vienna had both the normal brown unhulled variety but also the extremely expensive Japanese version which are black. Not sure if they taste the same or not but the Izzie has done a good job converting her friends to the delights of gomasio - a Japanese seasoning consisting pretty much of nothing more than sesame seeds and sea salt but is much much tastier than you'd imagine based on such simple ingredients (There's a Californian version that toasts the seeds in garlic as well as salt. So so scrumplicious)

In Holland, discovered their own speciality which we've never seen anywhere else. Sunshine in a bottle is what Izzie calls it. Basically pureed sunflower seeds. The consistency of peanut butter but rather more like tahini in flavour. One idea we will most certainly be stealing. And roast pumpkin seeds is another bad habit the Izzie has acquired on her overseas adventures. All rather fattening but dripping in essential vitamins and minerals and the sorts of goodies that can only otherwise be got in nasty expensive pills. Pumpkin seed oil is truly amazing stuff - bummer that the buggers snatched it off us. It's so much fun getting folks to guess just what the hell it is since it has a sort of walnut, pine nut and all sorts of other interesting hints of other flavours. Found the stuff here in Oz where it is pretty damned expensive. Hard to believe that the Austrians are the only folks in the world who seem to make this stuff. (Yesss - that's also where the one in Oz comes from as well as the bottle that the buggers snatched off us at the Amsterdam airport)

Yesss. And aside from the week from Hell at Dudley's place - internet access was truly lousy (and even there - he kept slinking and snooping about so chatting was totally out of the question) - did not get to post about half the stuff that happened let alone have a hope in hell of chatting. Wireless seems to be everywhere so we guess most folks use laptops so there's less need to provide net cafes. Oz is the exact opposite. Lots of reasonably cheap netcafes but bugger all wireless and the little there is is very rarely free

[max-und-moritz.livejournal.com]

---"We ever so innocently replies that warfarin is our weapon of choice.
These days you can get arrested for saying that sort of thing."

AHHHAHAHAHAH! (But, you´re joking about the latter part... right?)

And when are you arriving hereabouts???? (just so the Guest Lair is ready, of course :p)