The Lair of the Emerald Serpent

Since the beginning of the Virus times, there are increasingly fewer ways of spending money. All the usual joints are long gone. Books at charity shops, lunch at Malaysian noodle joints and endless mugs of coffee. About the only thing left to buy these days is groceries


On Saturday I decided to leave the Lair and go on a reconnaissance mission to a new shopping centre
I still had a Spud shed voucher for a free 4 kilos of spuds acquired from a fabulous Fringe Show - Tony Galati - the Musical. I don't even LIKE the Spud Shed but I have to admit that Mr G is a marketing and Public Relations genius.
Even thinking about the show induced a sense of nostalgia for long gone days. There were at least 400 people at that show. It now seems like centuries ago. Also a reminder that in some paradoxical way, it is the most local that is truly universal. Mr Galati was the little David who took on the Goliath of the State Government backed Potato Marketing Board and won.

Tickets for the Musical were $30 full price but as a Fringe Friend, I got a 30% discount. At the end of the show, there were 2 men handing out flyers which turned out to be vouchers for a free 4 kilo bag of spuds 'picked by Tony Galati himself'
Of course this was marketing clap trap but it was a smart move giving such freebies to folks who were already favourably disposed to the company as witnessed by their willingness to spend both time and money on a show devoted to the store and its Underdog story

There is no point in actually redeeming such a voucher since a single serpent such as me would never get through 4 kilos of potatoes without half of them going mouldy. It makes far more sense to just lurk and give the voucher to some other random spud munching customer


Petunia had been complaining for years about the limited variety of potatoes available in this bit of Oz. Part of the reason she started growing her own. Being Irish, we take our spuds extremely seriously and insist on proper yellow floury potatoes and not the white waterlogged soapy stuff that the locals think are perfectly normal thank you very much.
For that reason I will only ever buy the red or purple varieties or the exotic stuff such as sapphire or Purple Congo that are purple the whole way through and are only available in oddball organic shops.



But the bus did not stop directly outside the Spud Shed. Instead the nearest shop near the stop was a Turkish grocery store. Curious creature that I am, I went inside. Aside from the usual yoghurt, cheese and tahini, the standout feature in the store was an enormous stash of dates. Dodgy stuff from Mohammed Bone Saw land as well as the much cheaper fat and juicy Iranian offerings

Another Turkish shop around the corner had more fruit and vegetables including the increasingly elusive fresh peaches which have become harder and harder to find since the season recently ended

They too had the giant piles of dates which can mean only one thing. Ramadan must be around the corner. New Moon is tomorrow so I guess that the hunger month must officially start on Thursday at the first sighting of the crescent moon. At least in Oz, it is coming in to winter. Sunrise is around 7am and sunset just before 6pm


I finally found my way to Spudshed. The place is enormous. While all the other shops close at 5pm on Saturday, this joint is open 24/7
The place was packed which was a bit of a worry from the point of spatial distancing

I made a point of finding the price of 4 kilo bags of potatoes. They were $4. I saved my voucher for another day and bought just four purple spuds which were $2.50 per kilo
But the bargain of the day was basil and coriander sold loose for $9.99 per kilo when everyone else charges at least $20
Also the cauliflowers which are $2.50 each or $4 for 2. These are much better specimens than the stuff on sale at the mainstream supermarkets at $7 each
I got some fresh ginger to make tea and some purple garlic for planting around the Lair. They only had Mexican imports which are apparently treated with methyl bromide to kill pests and prevent them growing but there were plenty of sprouting specimens to choose from. I picked those because planting is precisely what I have in mind for them

It is a huge place. There is no shortage of pasta and tomato sauce unlike the mainstream supermarkets and the fruit and veg is much cheaper mainly due to the fact that they grow so much of it themselves. I guess that explains why there were so many people there with young kids

It was an interesting adventure. Now that it is only 15 minutes away by bus on a straight run, I will definitely keep it in mind, but most likely only when I have a craving for potatoes, garlic, basil and cheap butter

I also need to suss out the off peak times because there were just too many people there for my liking.

It's spring time in Oz and time for Izzie to do sorting, tossing, spring cleaning and generally useful and productive activities before the brain draining, soul sapping, sizzling stinking summer sets in and puts an untimely end to all those good intentions.


The usual ritual of watching the sunset at the beach for the September equinox gave way to attending an evening on the art of creating nutritious 15 minute meals from scratch.
I figured that today would be perfectly fine to do the sunset thing instead. But the weather gods had other plans and it rained most of the afternoon. So instead I spent the time squiggling and reading the papers.

Another ritual for this time of the year is an update of the little green notebook. The green notebook is the current repository of a good 3 year's worth of 3 month, 1 year and 5 year plans. It turned out that this September's "New Year's resolutions" were sufficient to fill the remaining pages.
It is a cheap little A7 number from the supermarket and it is half falling apart from the years of use. A timely reminder to take care and get better quality next time. It's just as well I got that stash of Moleskine 2016 diaries back in June for 50 cents each. I'm keeping one of them for 2022 when it will match the year almost perfectly except that pesky January and February. Leap years are such a pain. The others will do perfectly fine as notebooks and there's even a little pocket to stash lists of books to read for the year and other such trivia.

While it is fun ticking the boxes and writing the dates on items as they graduate from works in progress to completed items, it is not so satisfying to find some items being added again month after month and year after year without even any signs of starting in sight. Either they have got to go or they have got to get done.

Writing menu plans, eating more healthily and not wasting food are just some of those things that constantly get put on the long finger and the appearance of that event at the library seemed just the auspicious sign needed to get something done on the munchies front.

Resorting to rituals and creating new habits is the weapon of choice in this battle.
I've got the bathroom, bedroom and laundry cleaning routines on autopilot for nearly two years now to the extent that it requires less thinking and energy to do them than to think of excuses not to. In some strange way I get more energy and satisfaction from cleaning, sweeping and mopping than procrastinating and I get to listen to lots of interesting radio programs at the same time.

Tonight was the first day of the new routine of wiping all the bench tops in the kitchen as well as the dining room table. It was getting tiring adding this item to the 3 month list for the last year and constantly having to put a cross next to it as not been started. Based on past experience, a month of Table Top Thursday's should be sufficient to put this new habit on auto pilot.

Nanowrimo is also looming larger on the horizon. Such a feast of nostalgia and creativity also serves as a reminder of the power of little baby steps of steady squiggling every day as opposed to a giant sprint at the end.

This time I have departed from the usual ritual of generating story ideas.

If I had been following the usual well trodden path, there would already be a reasonably useful story map made from one or more of a collection of some 50 something tarot decks. Between 70 to 90 cards drawn in random batches of 8 or 9 and little index cards with possible story points linking each card to the next and the preceding card.

So it will be interesting to see what difference it makes to wander off into the unknown without the usual safety net and mud maps.

It will also be interesting to see what other ways I can harness the power of the zombie brain on autopilot for getting stuff done.

One of the joys of working in a charity shop are all the tasty tempting morsels that come through the door.
About three weeks ago one of the boxes of books included two spin offs from the first Hunger Games movies with lots of pretty pictures and all sorts of background gossip about the stories and film as well as a book about the latest diet craze - the 5,2 diet. Izzie had been a very good serpent and resisted the temptation of those movie books back in 2012 but now for a couple of silver sickles each could well afford to indulge and toss in the other for good measure.

( munch munch )

Plastic Free July is now well and truly over and this bad bad serpent has begun August by indulging in the evil stuff nearly every single day.
All essential things like toilet paper, cheese and Happy Hour sushi.

But one side effect while I was being serious about not cheating during the month of July (I did yield to temptation 5 times) was doing a lot more cooking at home than usual.

The subject of many culinary experiments is trying to replicate the delicious dahl that they serve at the Hari Krishnas and at Annalakshmi on the Swan.
This dish has got so many things going for it. It's tasty, healthy and dirt cheap so what's not to love? Only problem is that every attempt at DIY dahl invariably ended in disaster. If the lentils did not stick to the pot then they were insipid and tasteless.

There seemed to be 2 different lines of thinking on proper procedures when producing this dish.
The first and most straightforward version involves dry frying the seed spices, then adding oil, onions and garlic, followed by the turmeric, lentils and water and then letting it bubble and brew away until the lentils are all mushy.

That was simple but most of the time the end product tasted rather insipid and bland. It was likely that the onions had all the flavour boiled out of them.
The other version involves boiling the lentils in water, frying all the spices, onions and such in another pan, adding them all to the lentils at the end and letting the whole concoction simmer away for a final five minutes.

That definitely produced the right aroma and taste. But there was one rather tiny problem. In spite of soaking overnight with lemon juice and bubbling away for more than 40 minutes before adding all the flavours, it turned out that the split yellow peas were still not properly cooked and therefore the whole dish was inedible. What a waste of time and ingredients. But all was not totally lost as I just buried the lumpy sludge in the garden to keep the bugs happy.

This time I was taking no chances. The buggers got soaked for a good two days with the juice of two lemons tossed in for good measure. After 40 minutes of bubbling the yellow critters were well and truly mushy and ready for a big fat pan full of onions, garlic, ginger and leeks.


It finally worked. It tasted almost as good as the real thing. A few bay leaves and a bit of chili next time might just be the magic missing ingredient.

Next kitchen witch experiment is going to involve the dark art of fermenting garlic and DIY kimchi as the local stuff is just a bit too heavy on the chili.

Izzie’s got the munchies. The other week one of the local supermarkets had cauliflowers on sale for $1.70 when they usually sell for somewhere between $3 and $4. So this was just the excuse to indulge in something a bit healthier than cheese, bread or potatoes

They also had broccoli for $1 a head so added one of those to the basket too. Did get to thinking that anyone who has ever grown these critters knows how long it takes and how hard it is to get a half decent sized head. If the supermarket can sell them for $1.70 one can only imagine how little the grower is getting. But of course there is the age old problem of been torn between paying a fair price to the producer while having a limited stash of cash for food.

( serpent snacks )

Three weeks ago I came across a cute little Italian cafe where a health food shop had recently been. Went in for a sniff but was on the way to the century old Carriage cafe. The cafe is not that old. That honour belongs to the railway carriage it is in. It is located in an tree lined old park near the edge of the ocean and is a most magical place indeed.
Came back next day to the Italian place for a proper peek. There were all sorts of delicious looking pastries with sliced apple, plates of very tasty elegant rolls stuffed full of interesting savoury ingredients and boring sweet and sickly stuff like donuts.

( Serpent snacks )

Medieval Madness

Saturday was the day of the much anticipated medieval festival. This is a must attend event on the serpent calendar ever since discovering it by accident way back in 2006.It was the best April Fool’s Day ever. Since then along with the odd cancellation it seems to have slowly slinked back in time to mid March. But it’s been jinxed ever since getting an ankle twisted on the way to this event back in 2010. Got to thinking about that today. Had booked the day off ages before the event so there was no need for the usual mad rush to the bus in order to be at the mad house for a 3pm start.
Back then had a good 500 plus hours of sick leave already accumulated. Got the dodgy ankle treated by the St John Ambulance mob who attend pretty much every public event. They had issued some pink little form. In spite of hobbling to the goblin office in a state obviously incapable of work and with this pink piece of A4 paper as written evidence, this was deemed as insufficient. Only a medical certificate signed by a doctor would be considered acceptable evidence as incapacity to work. Never mind that there’s at least a week’s wait to get a doctor these days. All those happy thoughts resurrected themselves in the emerald serpent skull today.
At least this time there was no need to put in a request for the day off several times and several months in advance due to the complete incompetence of the teflon coated cockroach in charge of the roster.

This year was going to be a bit different in that their usual 10-5 schedule would be tweeked for a 9pm finish. Most peculiar indeed thinks the serpent. But that means a quick peek at the so called international student festival before slinking down to visit the oldies. Last year this student thing was also on the same day. Turned up at 5pm and it was all over. So got there early and discovered that it was not worth the bother. Even the so called Global Food Village was a nonevent and the munchies were certainly not at student friendly prices. The plan was to spend about an hour there before going down to the medieval fair but it was so boring that it was worth making a deviation to the state library for a free 20 minutes on their express computers. The main purpose was to read emails and take a quick peek in Livejournal land. But Livejournal had turned into Deadjournal on this particular occasion. So no luck there

Since there was no decent affordable munchies at the so called student festival it was time to slink down to Annalakshmi which is not only kosher and very tasty but conveniently located very near the Supreme Court Gardens which is the site for the medieval festival

( Dungeons, dragons, swords and sorcery )

So for the day that’s in it - here’s a toast to exiled emerald serpents everywhere ;)

Izzie’s been a busy but flustered serpent of late. The stinking sizzling weather is gone and there’s even been lots of rain lately. But in spite of all this good stuff just cannot snap out of this present state of doomy gloomy awfulizing. Been so many dramas with the ant man, dodgy taps and the roof repairs that just seem to be dragging on and on and now we will soon be in the middle of the rainy season. All this shit should have been finished on their first visit in early February

So much gossip and so little squiggled. Been taking a peek in the old Pensieve from many moons ago and could not help but think that way back in 2003 and 2004 with two jobs and three subjects at uni and no computer or internet in the Lair, managed to squiggle far more stuff in Livejournal land than now with all the time in the world and a Big Mac with its very own Portkey to the magical world of Cyberia

Had so much fun back in 2005 putting bets on the new owner of the ‘Fisherman’s Shoes’ Almost as a joke and sign of utter evilness was hoping that a certain Joseph Ratzinger would get the top job. It’s up there with Barack Obama or Henry Kissinger getting the Nobel Peace Prize

This time had the old forked tongue crossed for George Pell for Pope and Tony Abbott for the Lodge (there’s a federal election in Oz this September. It’s already been nicknamed the Yom Kippur election due to the impeccable timing)

Lucky it was only Monopoly money as the silly bugger blew his chances by claiming that the Papal resignation was setting a bad precedent and was ‘just not cricket’
So we end up with some outsider who bears an uncanny resemblance to one Alberto Luciano. If it is more than skin deep he will definitely not last long in that job. Only got a proper peek at the papers today but it was the big story all yesterday.
The minute I heard he was going to take the name Francis was very impressed. Francis of Assisi must be the nearest thing that Christianity has to a Buddha.
Was ever so amused how the only local journalist who saw any significance in this was one Walid Ali - a card carrying Muslim! Turns out that he had thought of a second Francis. Had forgotten about the Xavier fellow. Must go googling Francis Xavier. Always getting him mixed up with Ignatius Loyola.
Here’s hoping that he will resurrect liberation theology and all the left wing stuff that his predecessors wanted dead, buried and cremated.
Bring it back from the dead. Zombie theology is just what the world needs right now. Maybe he will even restore Anthony De Mello to the pantheon of saints where he belongs. His predecessor said such awful things about him and that was how Ratzi first appeared on the Izzie radar

Anthony de Mello was the Peter Cundall of Catholicism

Not that it should matter to this agnostic serpent. The Roman Church has become rather known for all the wrong sort of stuff lately - the stuffy bureaucratic old boys club that considers looking after its own much more important than doing the right thing and the whole obsession with sex, suffering and virgin mothers. But one thing that they do brilliantly is smells and bells. Religion without rituals is just missing a certain something.

And of course it was these lovely folks who brought us the Inquisition which reminds this serpent of a recent request for questions from an online friend

An Inquisition Meme

Izzie doesn’t do many of these lately. There’s way too many other distractions. But now and again a nosy Inquisitor comes along with ways and means of persuading serpents to respond. It was even tempting to answer some of the questions she gave to her other victims

The Dinner party is always an interesting and revealing hypothetical

( Serpent Snippets )

Last Thursday was a glorious crisp and crunchy sunny spring day. Not too hot and not too cold. A veritable Goldilocks day. It was perfect weather for a picnic in the park at the top end of town. But that particular activity was already scheduled for the very next day.

Thursday evening would be spent at a discussion group on the topic of “What makes us tick”. So it made sense to find some place to lurk near the bus route. The first visit to the group’s new meeting venue way back in May had made it quite obvious that this was not a place to linger any longer than necessary. It too had been a beautiful sunny day but a bit crisper and colder than at this time of year. But being unsure of exactly where the new meeting place was and how long the bus took to get there, decided to make a day of it rather than just timing it to turn up an hour or so before the 6.30pm start

It took a week to recover a visit to the hell hole that is the Galleria shopping centre. Izzie hates large shopping complexes at the best of times but this place is just so enormous, so noisy and crowded and infested with rug rats and squealing rampaging beasties.

The group used to meet in a cafe right next to the train line in a pretty old suburb with lots of spooky little streets and interesting locations to lurk. Was most peeved indeed when they changed their opening hours to match the rest of the nanny cafes in the area meaning that the venue was no longer suitable for long and rambling discussions about life, the universe and everything.
So the grand plan was to lurk in a lovely old bit of the city and to catch the bus around 4pm in order to avoid the worst of the rush hour traffic. It would also be an opportunity to find some interesting locations for lunch.

Been trying out various cheap and cheerful Asian restaurants in the search for kosher cuisine suitable for vegetarian serpents. Figured it was time to broaden the horizons beyond dahl and basmati rice.
Chinese vegetarian food is generally bland. The only spice option seems to be chili and more chili. Malaysian and Indonesian seem to have the best of both worlds with both a Chinese and Indian influence along with one marvelous magical ingredient - satay sauce.

Found a pretty poky but seriously cheap and cheerful Indonesian joint on the north side of town. The owner is very friendly and the food is cheap but decent. In spite of the low prices it is not your average greasy spoon. It also happens to be a short walk away from a gorgeous little cafe on Lincoln Street overlooking a spooky art deco cooling tower.

Izzie likes the quiet quirky places that are just off the beaten track and these two are little gems. It is also wonderful to walk along the side streets looking at the gorgeous old houses and gardens.

( slinking and snooping )

Last month the Izzie got adventurous and decided to abandon the monthly meeting of the Vegie wannabees group in favour of a recently joined book club. They both had their meetings on the same day. One had the theme of Mexican vegetarian food and the other was discussing “The Hunger Games”
The meeting was scheduled for 7pm so decided to slink over there around 2.30pm. A bit late for lunch but that was not a problem as Rifos had their $12 pasta special until 4pm. Would just keep an eye out for the place while on the bus and then slink around the cafe strip before arriving at the pub in time for the book club.

But the map is never ever the territory. Had the beady Izzie eyes out on full alert but this pasta palace was nowhere to be seen. Silly Izzie should have gotten the exact address. While there was a very long strip of cafes and restaurants nearly all of them closed their kitchens by 3pm. Was well and truly ravenous by the time they opened again around 5.30pm. Chose an Indian restaurant. Last darkened the door of the place on Wednesday 12th September 2001. That was a day that was very easy to remember. Izzie always chooses the vegetarian thali as variety is the spice of life. But the waiters claimed that they only do those at lunch time. So made do with Biryani - the Indian version of fried rice. Decided to come back at lunch time some time in the future to do the Thali test. It is interesting to get the same dish in lots of different places and see the variations in both quality and price.

Today was the perfect day for a second visit. Had been to visit the vampires for blood tests and had to fast for ten hours or so. Had nothing to nibble since 10pm the previous night so by midday was feeling exceedingly ravenous.

( In search of the perfect noodle )