More reasons that I like it here

Just musing on the last week and living in this town that I've kinda grown accustomed to, fond of, part of even. It is now officially a year (give or take a few days) since I moved up to the Blue Mountains, which are terribly high and country and cold by Sydney standards, but temperate, flat and big city compared to some mountainous places around the globe I'm sure.

This last week I have still not been working and have been seeing people, getting into some community projects and getting edgy about hearing back from the job I am kind of hoping to get, then getting edgy about the possibility of getting the job (and all the security, commitment to *career* and stability that this implies to me).

Some lovely lovely little examples of why this place rocks:
- I've put my tv in the closet, for a number of reasons and as an experiement to see what life is like without one... friends around the corner have had me over two Tuesdays in a row for dinner to watch a tragic cop drama that we all enjoy, chatting about lifes little happenings and sharing their cosy loungeroom with me
- I went to the video shop to hire a dvd (hmm, yes clearly this is not a blanket ban on all film!) and the guy behind the counter said 'did you have a voucher or something?' I said no so he said 'oh I'll give you one anyway, otherwise it's too expensive' and proceeded to scan a spare voucher he had behind the counter
- I fronted up to the real estate agent today about the newly arrived (returned) cat in my life, and the agent was friendly and thought it would be fine if I write a letter that they can pass on to the owner. My other real eastate agent and I have discovered a mutual love of felting and chat about it constantly
- I have 3 (count them 3!) students enrolled in my printmaking class. Admittedly we need amin of 5, but I reckon that will happen. I'm very excited about this, all my inner Primary School teacher urges are coming out and I have materials and exercises and lesson plans all in progress.
- I finally found a set of 1950's tea/coffee/flour/sugar canisters for my kitchen (if you've seen it you'll understand why - it just needs them) - picked up a jaunty set of sunny yellow ones with wite lids with very spry white letters on the front. How much I hear you ask??? $20 for the set. FOR THE SET. Unheard of. Thankyou Sunday markets.
- People ask your star sign mid-meeting or mid-streetside chat, as if to place you in the grand design of the universe. Yesterday I got told 'wow - pisces, and you don't smoke! You're doing really well, they tend to have addictive personalities' so I felt all chuffed and strong willed (although didn't mention my slightly addictive approach to books and vintage clutch bags, seemed almost like a piffle compared with all the posible adictions..). Today I got ' aaah, I knew you were a water sign, I thought scorpio' to which I said 'I've dated scorps...' and she said 'yeah me too' - there was a pregnant pause of post-scorio dating solidarity and we went back to planning our project. Later three of us picked a workshop date for a new project kicking off in Feb and then realised it was a new moon in pisces and all agreed it was very auspicious, and no one was even taking the piss.
- love that people swap / straddle/ weave careers and that no-one is surprised or even thinks they need to offer explanations about being a molecular biologist turned photographer turned permaculture gardener or a film and video editor turned bush regenerator, or being a novelist-youthworker-puppy owner or being a baker-painter-practicing buddhist or a social worker-life model-jazz singer-mother. That there is no shame in having multiple jobs, multiple skills and multiple interests.
- A groovy chick at life drawing is bringing me bits of old timber to use for woodcuts

So - how on earth could I move away? Not just yet, not to some more crowded suburb closer to the big smoke where the stars aren't quite as bright and there is no place to go to get an eyeful of horizon. Not somewhere where I would have to share a place and forfeit my newly acquired study and squish all my stuff into a little room, and certainly not just to be closer to a desk job - nosireee.

hey baby

hey for all you expecting folk out there pondering baby names, here is the site for you - baby names from early jazz and blues! Meanings of names are strange huh? I am especially liking Jim from Hebrew "heel, one who seizes another by the heel, one who takes the place of another". My Hebrew is a bit light on, so possibly the meaning gets lost in translation?

Another birthday message

Happy Birthday to Biz who is busy chasing turtles with Aunty B on tropical beaches. Aaaah it's a hard life eh kids??? :) Have a cold one for us.

Cake making part 2

Very timely I thought to finish my cake spiel given that I currently have one in the oven (cake! cake!). Ok so fave flavours dejour:

Rose and cardamom cake
Otherwise known as Mountainspice's birthday cake thanks to Mermaidgrrl. Use plain yoghurt in mix (mmm biodynamic Jalna is good) instead of butter, add a dash of oil to up fat content accordingly. Rosewater - think about a teaspoon, maybe two, go by your nose. Cardamom - use whole pods rather than powdered, pop open about 7 of the little green wonders, and crush up the seeds in a mortar and pestle. Don't have one? Get one! Well worth it for the smell alone while crushing them. Add all of this into the mixture and bake.

Ice with soft peaks of fluffy white icing to which you have added another teaspoon or two of rosewater and decorate with:
- cinnamon sticks or sprinkle lightly with nutmeg
- if you want pink and cute, you can decorate iced cake with fresh rose petals (if you can get them from a garden, don't use florist bought stuff as this is going in your belly and you don't know what they've been sprayed with), or
-(the time consuming but worth it option) dip individual petals in beaten egg white, then coat each petal both sides with castor sugar, put on a cake cooler to dry. They should go almost crispy when dried out (a few hours). Sprinkle cake with these. Note: not so great on highly humid days, sugar goes moist.

OR make a rose syrup and pour over the cake while warm. Make this in a small saucepan on low heat on the stove: add about a cup of water, three desert spoons of sugar, throw in a vanilla pod or cinnamon stick, and some fresh rose petals. If you go the syrup option, add a few drops of rosewater to the syrup when cooled, before pouring (slowly! you don't want a flood!) on your cake. Spooning over with a tablespoon is good, as is poking tiny tiny holes in unobtrusive places on the cake to help soakage.

Serve with a pot of tea (plain black or Russian cravan if you like it), and get out the best doilies - this is a nice Sunday afternoon tea cake, or desert after a curry.

Honey and spice cake
Make the mix with spices in it, but no honey. Spices pref freshly ground in your new mortar and pestle. Go wild, use your nose and use any combo you like. I prefer to stick to about 3 spices, so the flavours don't get muddy. A grand total of a couple of teaspoons of spice should do it. Some nice combos:
- cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves (go very light on the cloves)
- cardamom, star anise, cinnamon
- a little bit of garam marsala spice mix plus extra cardomomn or cinnamon
- go wild and try a bit of finely ground pepper or some tumeric to give the cake a little edge

For extra substance add almond meal to the mix - it will give it a good texture, make it nice and firm, and also add a nice slightly bitter taste that will go well with the syrup.

Make a syrup out of honey and water in a pan on the stove and pour over the cake, so that it is moist on the top to touch, but not swimming. Let sit for an hour or two in fridge and serve with black coffee, yum!

Archbishop Tutu tells it like it is

"In November of 2005, Archbishop Desmond Tutu gave a speech urging the Anglican Church to accept gay bishops. Here's what he said: "Jesus did not say, 'If I be lifted up I will draw some.' Jesus said, 'If I be lifted up I will draw all, all, all, all, all.' Black, white, yellow, rich, poor, clever, not so clever, beautiful, not so beautiful. It's one of the most radical things. All, all, all, all, all, all, all, all. All belong. Gay, lesbian, so-called straight. All, all are meant to be held in this incredible embrace that will not let us go. All. Isn't it sad, that in a time when we face so many devastating problems — poverty, HIV/AIDS, war and conflict — that in our Communion we should be investing so much time and energy on disagreement about sexual orientation?" Amen to that. " From Nerve magazine's New Radicals article here. Thanks to Mystic Medusa's lovely blog for that one.

Orstralyyya Orstralyyya

Well Australia day happened with minimal fuss up here in the montaines. I saw a flag hanging from a balcony and a small family (small in numbers not in stature) with Australian flag t-shirts and matching temporary tattoos of the flag on their cheeks. If there were any untoward happenings elsewhere, like icky media posturing about or actual riots I am likely to not even know about it for a few days due to a) only buying Saturdays papers and b) not having a tv except in the closet where there is no powerpoint and it's too squishy to hop in watch some. When I was little and we had to sing the anthem on the odd occasion, I thought that the chorus was something to do with a fair - like maybe the royal show or my grandmas church fetes, and that was a little confusing. I still think its confusing.

Speaking of culture (we were?), I got to see the Kienholtz exhibition atthe MCA a few weeks back when I caught the Cossington-Smith show at Art Gallery NSW (on its last day, just!):

'Ed Kienholz rose to prominence in the city of Los Angeles atthe time of the Beat era, a rapidly developing scene later associated with the beginnings of Pop Art. Kienholz emerged as a painter and sculptor creating socially conscious art with a unique force and directness. Hi tableaux and nevironments from this time are now recognised as some of the earliest, and most remarkable, examples of installational art.' More here.

I liked the strong anti-violence themes, as well as the use of lovely lovely old objects that they sourced from op shops and flea markets around the country, the Concept Tableaux where just the ideas for the art pieces were written up and illustrated as stage one ofthe work (and available for sale as such) and had to laugh at The Barter where Kienholz needed a screwdriver out on his property and got frustrated at the thought of having to go all the way into town to buy one, and the step before of producing work and selling it to get the money to go into town to buy the screwdriver. So instead he made a watercolour and rubberstamped it with three words in black: 'For Nine Screwdrivers'. He then traded this painting or the neighbours set of screwdrivers. This triggered a whole series in later years, where he traded the pictures (watercolour background with the words of the item to be obtained printed on) for items as varied as 'A Rockwell portable saw', 'A big cheese from Parma' and 'For Onnsch's Red Mercedes'. Obviously as he got more famous and the works were worth more his barter series had more barter vallue! This reminded me of a story of Kahlo - when she was low on cash would send paintings to friends out of the blue with a bill. This story always made me smile at her audacity - a bold and creative way for the artist to sustain herself! She obviously had wealthy and generous friends. Lucky for them she didn't do paint by numbers kitten paintings... now they'd actually be worth a kasquillion.

Winterson has a lot to say about art these days - have just finished reading 'Art Objects' (yes, in both senses of that meaning) and a while back 'Art and Lies'. Very sharp and insightful prose, albeit opinionated and unashamedly infavour of high culture. Will write up on Booklub soon with some dazzling quotes.

bug killer

I hit a bump on the detox path yesterday, fell over, bumped my head and woke up in scary opposite world: retox! Lets just say that after an exhilerating start to the day of waking up just before sunrise (as per my plan) and flying out the door to go watch sun rise over the valley for a full hour at the stunning viewing spot near my place, I got home feeling really awake and alive (not my usual state for 7am). I had a few hours work ahead of me and thought 'great, all I want now is a nice pot of coffee!'. Then remembered my no caffeine 2 week plan, then thought 'Hey F it, I can if I want - I'm running this show', felt all naughty and in control of my coffee fetish. So made a pot. Started out with mini plunger then got impish smile and thought 'in for a penny in for a pound' and made a big plunger instead. Making it of course a decent strength. Plan was to sit over a long period of time from my lovely little blue tea cup (thanks Aunty B you know the ones). At desk for a few hours and then thought I should stretch so went into room and did some warm up yoga poses - all going well, all very alive and awake feeling, very productive etc. Then... stood up. Big mistake. Think clutching at dresser, sick in the stomach feeling, oh dear am I going to faint or puke, I am so dizzy feeling. Now of course first thought was to blame raw foods, wonder if I'd had enough for breakfast, think I'm dying of sickle cell anaemia or similar (of course). Felt VERY unwell, as in 'oh oh, something is wrong here' magnitude, especially as the dizziness was not the fleeting stood up too fast kind, but lingered with waves of nausea as I walked around. Had a very dizzy shower where I concentrated on my toes a lot to distract from sick in belly feeling. Went out and ate a big solid lunch and hoped for the best, but felt vaguely concerned all arvo.

That night spoke to Mountain Spice about it - she who does not drink coffee ever since an unfortunate early drinking misadventure with a certain coffee flavoured liquor - and she confirmed that caffeine indeed can make you feel very sick in the stomach and want to puke. See, she often drinks just herbal teas and after that when she has even a strong black tea it turns her stomach. Bloomin heck, who would have thought it? I realised that although not a coffee a day girl even, it is very rare for me to have had a whole week without even a black tea, so this is posibly the first time I would have been that decaffeinated and actually noticed. I wont go on because I fear that I'm starting to sound a little bit like a vego mung beany Brigitte Jones but I was just so amazed to feel such a strong reaction in my body (especially when actually feeling nauseous is such an uncommon feeling in my otherwise pretty healthy system).

So there you have it. Will this stop me from ever drinking the dark joe* again? Hell no. Will it make me a little more aware of how it makes me feel - you betcha. I am suddenly very respectful of those little red berries chock full of 'Fuckoff and don't eat me please bugs' alkaloids which we have peversely taken a liking to. And anyway I'm kind of into the green tea ritual now, waiting for the leaves to fall to the bottom of the cup and not get in the way as I drink.

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On a completely different note, tentative good news on job front. One more step to go (as in ref checks) and if all goes well with that likely to be offered a possie. Protracted process to date due apparently to government/uni-ish environmnt in which possie is housed - budgets, sign offs etc. Then again realisticaly it's only been 1 1/2 wks which is nothing for bureacratic box ticking processes. Meri Risa your sage comments on uni processing times seems to have been spot on!

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* But only Fair Trade Organic for home. There is now a good range even at crap middle of rd supermarket chain, so I figure I really have no excuse. Can be about $2 more per 250g, but I figure isn't it better to have less, pay more and appreciate it? Meanwhile those extra couple of dollars can help support better agricultural practices and fairer distribution of profits to primary producers. And, I know there are arguments from the purists about how Fair Trade is only tokenistic because while one group of farmers and their families might be gettting a better deal and improved lives, the farmers producing the 90% (or whatever) of the volume of the worlds coffee sold as not-fair Trade, are still getting shafted and living in abject poverty. And this is true. But I figure surely it's better to do what we can and hope that the rest of the industry will gradually be shamed/inspired into lifting its standards? That's my landing on the matter anyway.

day job jay dob

Oh youse gels! You are the sweetest and most attentive friends to read my long waffle and write back. Just to clarify, I'm not in the depths of despair or even in the depths of life crisis-ness (not really feeling despair and only in the midlands of life crisis-ness, which I guess then isn't really a crisis but a general musing and questioning?). When I first got back from KL well over a year ago now I thought I wanted to become a monk/nun and thought I'd never ever be able to work in an office again. Seriously, I'm not actually joking. The last year has been an excercise in finding the 'middle way' (to pinch Buddhas own terminology), in terms of functioning in the world and also staying true to my own Higher Self (for want of a better term). So compared to a year ago I am currently bitingly worldly and well adjusted to modern life.

I spose I was just meaning to give you an update on my current search for work but then found that it was hard to just tell that surface story without also referencing the bigger stuff. You know when the way you feel about something or a situation can be retold many different ways depending on the layers you feel happy to share? Under one story there is another story? Under the day to day *issues* and happenings are bigger, more primal, more wide-eyed questions and passions and musings? Just thought I'd let them in to the telling of the story too. And feeling confused doesn't always mean feeling lost or at sea - I think I've deliberately created uncertain externalities to mirror the lack of certainty I feel internally, and am adjusting to living with change. Some kind of dynamic equilibrium seems to be emerging. I'm feeling ok about not knowing, as well as feeling baffled.

So swimming back up to the more polite and less daunting sun-warmed upper layers of this green sea for a moment - guess what? I've got some enrolments in the art class I put my name down to teach through the wea-community-adult-education-college-thingy. Yah! I only need 5 people for the course to run (cute) so now am inspired to go off and make fliers to promote it (up till now the only advertising has been one window display at the office). I am such a nerd I can't wait to make my handouts! As it's an 8 week course I would get to include some history and technical context stuff as well as different techniques and approaches. I might ask the guy who I know who runs a cafe on the main street to see if the students can exhibit their works in the cafe at the end of the course, a mini exhibition, what fun.

Oh, and on Saturday a guy at a local art gallery asked me if I was interested in working there for a few days a week so he doesn't have to work 7 days. He knew I was finishing up where I was before because we had a life chat last time I was in there. He made a point of emphasising the *special mix of attributes* that one would need for such a job, as in an interest in the arts but also people skills and a bit of business development, and that he had thought last time I was in there that I might have those *special mix of skills*. He told me he was also talking to someone else but invited me to drop a CV in. All this was discussed in low sultry tones standing a bit too close. I am tempted to put in a CV, as it is ridiculously close to home, would involve much drinking of coffee (whoops! make that soy dandelion lattes), and is only 2 days a week, but to be honest the cynic in me thinks that maybe the special skills he is referring to involve things that people do with their clothes off. He is a short little fellow with a bit of a hang-dog, I'd like to make whoopee with you lassie kindof look about him. Moral check in #1 - is it right to follow up a work offer if you think it might be a confused attempt just to get your phone number?

Moral check in # 2 - should I tell my real estate agent about pusscat? Surely we are getting of the age where it is no longer dignified to sneak around with illegal pets in rental accomodation?

Completely unrequested life blah (rated E for terribly earnest)

While you are all most likely heading back to gainful employment after new year revelry, I have just left it and am in that 'hmmm, work, yes, should do some of that soon' space right now. As for the job interview shennanigans, my most recent one went well (the follow up to that December thing) and involved many cups of tea and chatting - 'getting to know you time' (hmm, new corporate casual) before then retiring to the boardroom to wow them with wonderful things with bits of paper on whiteboards. Those of you who do this kind of thing know what I'm talking about, those that don't just be glad that you will never face a workshop session armed with scraps of paper and fabulous engaging processes (said 'PROHHHHHH-cesses' with frown and much head nodding) to plan things, and well workshop things and generally lure ideas out of their hidey holes and birth them into the bright fluoro light for us to goo and gaa over.

Yeah, so thought it went swimmingly well, but that said have not heard back yet which either means I didn't get it, or that it is just taking a while (1 week thus far).

Anyway, quite apart from that I am having a much bigger life rethink, and whilst it is one of the biggest things happening for me and has been for the last year and a bit, I suspect that I don't always talk about it heaps, or clearly. Thought I would at least try to address the former if not the latter with a bit of spill-your-guts-out blogging. Mostly for those dear friends of you who read this and may have been thinking 'what the hell is this girl doing with her life???' but are too polite to ask.

So - here goes for earnest and actually not at all glib or hip or political or even trying to be funny blogging. Drumroll. Bearing in mind that this is just one version, a quick slice through something which is intrinsically changeable and multifaceted - this is like the quick readers digest version. Bearing in mind also that I love all my friends dearly and this is not a dig at you or me or the many ways we all choose to live - it is just a very personal response to the time and place in general that I find myself in.


The story goes like this:

This last year has been great not working full time, such a welcome change. Nice also to be living by myself these last 6 months for the first time in like, well lets face it - forever. The part-time thing has been a deliberate attempt to get some balance into my life and live out some of my values. I don't like working late and then being tired and having not time to eat well or exercise or play or be creative or read or think. I don't like work getting most of my head space. So nice instead to have a more cruisy lifestyle and do lots of creative things to counterbalance work, which tends to be quite 'head' focused.

I am in a phase of opening up more space for things I enjoy doing, rather than just being so focused on doing what I think 'should be done'. Some kind of out of control utilitarian philosophy or lingering protestant work ethic seems to have guided me up until now... So now I am trying to do self-indulgance as well as trying to save the world, in the understanding that what is good for me is also good for those around me - if I nurture myself and am happy, I have more to give - if I have more to give, I am happier. Or "you have to be happy to be useful" as it was articulated in a dream I had.

Actually I have been thinking a lot about what the hell my role is - how I can do the most good in my short days on the planet (yes yes saturn return, almost 30, predictable rethink of approach to life). Of course underlying all of this is a pondering about how to live well in a world that is both fucked up and exquisitely perfect. I still feel like poverty, inequity, enviromental degradation, loss of habitat, loss of species... and many more things that I care about are huge issues, and I feel like they are my issues that I have to contribute to tackling somehow. I have these amazing dreams about animals some nights and I wake up and feel called to do something. Not intellectually, but much deeper than that - in my gut, in my heart, in the places you can't rationalise away. Sometimes I read an article about the fate of gorillas, or toxins in polar bears, or turtles and I cry - I literally cry. It's like reading it makes me hurt with loss because I can't quite reconcile how it is that the people around me and I go about our business day after day acting like the minutae of city life is important when we could lose tigers. We could lose tigers because we came from one of the richest countries in the world, got educations that surpass those of millions and millions of people and proceeded to become the complacent global elite. Like the new nobility, except our serfs are so far away we pretend that we are 'just making it' and that really we're hard up compared to the really well-off(the Packers/ those dole bludgers/ those couples without kids/ those couples with kids/ those migrants / those whoevers).

We proceeded to pretend that we didn't know that the way we live and the things we avoid dealing with are having huge impacts, we act like everything is being dealt with by someone else and we are free to just have pleasant lives with nice clothes and good haircuts and nice whitegoods, and we spend hours and fortunes making our lives pretty enough, accessorised enough and hoping that we fit in nicely and will never stand out or be lonely or feel foolish. We pretend that this now and here is 'normal' - that it is the global and historical norm (while it clearly is not), or that here is the destination of civilisation, that now is modern and developed and hi-tech and clever (and hence above criticism, and hence by definition 'good', and hence not to be questioned). I feel like so much goes unquestioned and so many people in our society live in a torpor of habit and comfort. And I say that with love ! Well, actually with understanding but also with sadness at a lost opportunity.

So with that as a backdrop, and aside, a wider frame, I guess I am trying to find what it is that I can do which is useful and also energises me. I do know that working in laminex world with plodders does not energise me, and although useful and related to the *issues* I care about, is a form of clock-ticking sensory deprivation which makes me feel like a battery hen - confined and lifeless. I know that drawing and writing energises me but I suspect that filling blank books and putting them in the cupboard is not useful to the world at large. I like people too and amazed at the complex and subtle cross-fertilisation of ideas and mutual support that happens across relationships, but I hate being surrounded by people 24/7 and I get edgy if I am forced to be around busy, noisy people without time out for quiet contemplation.

So: back to the day job issue - I can't figure out what I should be doing. (And I don't usually use the word should, but do so here because it feels right, because I do know what I *could* be doing - I could wallpaper rooms with lists of coulds).

My ideal life is like one quarter hands on field ecologist and environmental activist, camping, watching the stars, living quietly, having chickens, shopping at the coop, doing community projects/ one quarter UN Environment -Development policy director doing research and writing big bossy reports and guiding action wearing fuckoff suits and swapping between all the appropriate European languages/ one quarter very messy bohemian artiste in overalls, never brushing my hair and drinking red wine and dancing and singing the blues / and one quarter ascetic bookish hermit writing tomes of ponderous theory and austere poetry. Of course rather than pursuing these vocations in succession over decades, I seem to want to pursue them all concurrently, which is why I feel at such an impasse currently??

Anyway, I realise you didn't say 'so, J, tell me about your life crisis' so I wont go on anymore. But you get the gist.

Did I get the job?
Do I want the job?
What job could I possibly do that feels like it authentically contributes to the things I care about whilst also nourishing my spirit?
What on earth am I supposed to be doing?

Or as Jeanette Winterson so beautifully put it in Art and Lies:

"How shall I live? The question presses on me through the thin pane. The question tails me through the dense streets. In the anonymous computer-face of the morning mail, it is the only question that I read in red-ink, the question burning the complacent page...... ..The question daubed on dooor-posts. The question drawn in the dust. The question hidden in the bowl of lilacs. The insolent question at a sleeping god. The question that riddles in the morning, that insinuates at noon. The question that drives my dreams to wakefulness, the question physical in beads of sweat. 'Answer me' whispers the voice in the desert. The silent place where the city has not yet come."

Welcome home boombah!

Guess who is curled up on my lap as I type? Cassie B Bar. Sleek, shiny and yowly. He has a few more white hairs, but then so do I, and hey who's counting. OOh life of the pet owner. I envisage less nights 'down in town', visiting the town vet soon for a general check up (him, not me), and no more visits from Bindhi-Belle the world's best and smartest kelpie.

On a different note, caught up with Meri Risa yesterday and she is definitely showing now - aw, little belly popping out!

minor adjustments

Just giving you the latest and greatest on my detox week after checking in with my naturopath ('my naturopath' sounds very herbal doesn't it?). She reckons that it's a great idea for a week or two, especially in warm weather, and said 'the body always appreciates having a rest from all the packet foods' (which I thought was cute).

She confirmed that raw fruits, nuts and veg is fine, and will be balanced nutrient wise. She suggested I not eat the dried fruit (I was having figs) as they are too rich for a light cleansing diet (and poss take too long to digest comparedto the rest?). She said fresh juices also good (although I personally prefer to eat the whole fuit - less waste and you get all the fibre etc too), and suggested a cup of warm water in the morning and at night - arruyvedic medicine is keen on the cleansing properties of this apparently.

While there I checked out the white spots on my fingernails (you know the kind? I have a couple) because she flagged before that they can be linked to nutrient deficiency. She confirmed this and said I might want to try getting more zinc, and that peppitas (pumkin seeds) are very good for this.

She always checks my meridians at the start of a session (think having your pulse taken at different places up your wrist) and as per usual my kidney one was a bit low (mind you liver was ok this time - maybe thanks to alcohol free couple of weeks??). For improving kidney function she suggested making sure celery is part of my food this week (oops, is now), and later when I'm cooking again to have adzuki beans (apparently very easy to digest, good for kidneys) and sea weeds. Bring on the miso soups I say. Oh, on all that, another sneaky tip the girl at the food co-op gave me was that if you cook your adzuki beans* (which lets face it I hadn't even bought let alone cooked before) with a little square of kombu sea weed in the cooking water, the minerals from the sea weed jump out and mingle with your bean mix - et voila! Unobtrusive seaweedy goodness. Food co-op grrl was so keen on adzuki beans she was very excited telling me all about them, she even thanked me for asking because it has reminded to her to eat more of them. Huh - and there I was thinking the food co-op staff would go "you mean you've never eaten them before???? Out out you coles-shopping pseudo co-op supporting adzuki bean virgin"...but not at all. See - pays to ask.

Just thought I'd share that as a community service announcement in case anyone was thinking of following suit. Would hate for you to be eating dried figs by the handful and skipping your celery :)

* Otherwise cook as per any other beans- soak overnight, or at least 5 hours, cook for around 45 mins. The 'd' is silent I think.

Roar! food

Am eating only raw food this week. Part detox part give my poor cells what they crave - ie vitamins, ie water, ie not caffeine or alcohol or processed food and stodgy breadlike things. So far have eaten avocado, zucchini, sesame seeds, brazil nuts, cashews, dried figs, oats, capsicum, bannana, parsely, garlic, ginger, yellow zucchini, mango, grapes, nectarine, apple. And drunk green tea, rosehip tea, peppermint tea and detox tea (made from scratch which included such unlikely sounding fellows as red clover, dandelion root and liccorice root but amazingly tasted fine). Not that I don't at my fair share of vegies anyway, but it is amazing how satisfied you feel eating raw things - maybe because they are so chock full of vitamins which haven't been broken down or leached out by cooking that your body doesn't need as much? I'm not even wanting to add salt or oil or vinegar to any of my salady creations. Maybe because the flavours are stronger raw and because there are enough good oils from the nuts and salts in the vegies because they are grown organically in good soil? All of the above have been bought organic from you guessed it, the local food co-op (ahem, award winning co-op at that!). Seeing my naturopath this arvo for a shiatsu massage (gotta love those multitalented natural therapists) so will check in about nutrients etc to help plan rest of week.

Loving the idea that not a single 'food product' which is represented by a number will go into my body this week. Amazing when you get down to thinking about it how much crap we can put into our bodies with every jar or loaf or packet of well-meaning food which has salt and sugar and preservatives or anti-flaking agent or colours or flavour enhancers... etc.

PS Yes, am having to pee more.

Making Groovy Things

Yes trans-galactic DIY blog 'Making Groovy Things' is now up and running and hats off MrMicool for breaking the ice. If you want to add yer lovely self to the member list so you can post just drop any of the current members an email.

Cup of tea? Slice of cake?

Part 1: Cake - the basics

Well I have well and truly settled into the notion over the years that some of my interests are a little on the nanna-ish side. That is a fondness for jam making, a commitment to the healthful benefits of a cardigan and a clean hankie, a warm rosy glow of love for all things that grow in gardens, a delicious indulgance for vintage tea cups (ooh matching side plate as well as saucer!), penchant for pickles and chutneys and a social life that often involves a Brittish period drama, a not-too-violent detective show with some 'nice young man' in it.. or since culling the teve, an early night curled up in sensible pjs reading.

Oh - and cups of tea, lots of cups of tea.

On that theme, and as a gesture of solidarity with other young nannas (see here for more info on this legitimate social movement - although movement at a nice sensible pace, none of this rushing about senselessly...) I thought I would share a recent cake favourite.

I recognise that cake can seem a little indulgant and not connected with *the people* (the whole 'let them eat cake' thang), and not so great for those who have vowed never to eat carbs again, and your standard cake recipe is not going to be a hit with those who don't eat animal products or who have gluten intolerances. So, that said, and the shortcomings of cake acknowledged, lets get down to business.

Some of you will be reading this disdainfully mid-way through spinning toffee for your 7 layer saffron and honey gateux whilst others will be feeling a little edgy at the notion of facing a cooking task that requires delving into your hitherto untouched stove nether regions. These handy hints are aimed at neither or both.

There are lots of basic cake recipes out there to provide your cakey back-bone. Look for the buttercake or pound cake or tea cake or something similar. For the record creaming butter and sugar really isn't hard, even if it does have that mysterious ring of finding the lost city of Atlanta about it. Don't worry, you can do it, and even if you do a crappy job the worst that will happen is your cake might have a few largish sized air holes in it - nothing that can't be explained away by calling it something exotic, or distracted from by the use of good icing or something clever with fruit. It will still be a cake, and it will still taste fine.

Now, if you are lazy (I often am), don't own a wooden spoon, have RSI, or don't want to do the hand held electric mixer thing, but want the warm innner glow of making your cake from scratch, don't despair. This cake recipe was given to my mother by an older artist friend of hers who we would drop in on from time to time when we were living in the Adealide Hills. She would say 'coffee? cake?' when you arrived and if you answered in the affirmative would proceed to make one. It was in the oven in literally minutes and a nice surprise for the second trimester of the visit. I admired this woman's non nonsense approach to life, driving a sporty green MG around windy hill roads well into her late 70's, tackling wall-sized canvasses and living an unconventional life. I also admired her no nonsense approach to cake making.

Jo Caddy's Quick Cake Mix
1 Cup cream
1 Cup sugar
1 1/2 cup self raising flour
2 eggs

Beat all the wet ingredients and then add the flour and flavourings. Stir with some vigour using wooden spoonuntil there are no dry clods of flour to be seen and narry a lump either. Pour into tin ( either line tin or use non-stick). Bake till cooked.

Now if you are feeling daunted by the prospect of the above, or want to start out with something more exact, more sure-fire, then there is no shame in the cake-mix. Lots of brands and types out there, and they are very good to modify. My fave of late is the Green's brand vanilla cake or buttercake. Both are good, and the reason I go for that brand is that it sports no artificial colours or flavours. A while back when I realised that the chocolate colour in packet-mix chocolate cake owes more to the combination of palette-loads of artists colours than it does to cocoa I started going for the Greens brand.

Next time, the fun bit - different flavours and types, including the Summer 05/06 fave the rose and cardomom cake and recent entry, the honey spice cake. Plus things with plums. So start picking out the good china...

Good quote

That I have shamelessly lifted from the sign-off of someone else's email...

"Most of the things worth doing had been declared impossible before they were done. It is impossible to foretell precisely when any of our endeavours will reach critical mass, suddenly creating change." Justice Louise Brandeis

hunter gatherer

Groovy clothes shop in Melbourne which raises money for the Brotherhood of St Laurence, supports local designers and most importantly was, as I understand it, the first retail line in Australia to be accredited as a 'No Sweat' brand. This means that none of the items produced use sweat-shop style labour conditions - whether here or overseas.
http://www.huntergatherer.com.au/hg/index.php

A good one to visit next time you're in the City of knitwear and wine bars.

Learn Greek, Learn Latin

Here is a website to help.

a year gets ready to sprout

Well here we are in the early days of the year, which feels much like a little seed just sprouting, yet to pop its head up aboveground. I am in summer holiday mode and just can't quite shake it. This week I am enjoying the subtle breezes of a good breeze catching abode, playing with windows to catch gusts much like Merri Risa describes. I have this feeling that now would be a great time to be very busy, and um, productive and generally tackle everything and anything that is waiting to be done.. especially because I am in a little hiatus work and study wise... but no (computer says no?).

I instead am day dreaming and staying up late reading in the bath and then accidentallly not quite getting up as early as planned. I am doing things slowly and day dreamy, rather than fired up and efficiently. I've read a few books, cooked a few cooks, thought a few thoughts, listened to music, stared out the window. Things refuse to disentangle into tidy tasks and sit with hands in their laps in neat to do lists. Each thing I start leads me on to the next task, everything seems very connected and overlapping. I start doing one thing, I end up doing another. I haven't quite prepared for a presentation I'm giving on Friday, but I have defrosted the fridge. I set out to work towards orgainsing a wkshop I'm running later in the month, instead I end up web searching short courses and booking myself into a full week workshop in the city. Plan to read a book on radical ecology, end up reading 2 mystery novels, getting a sore arm from weighty hardcover schlock. It feels like holidays - when you stop being guided by a sense of 'acheivements' and just enjoy noodling about. I have made lists and mused on 18 month plans as a gesture of commitment to actuallly having a plan and not being blown around like a dandelion.

Maybe this is how January always feels, a little bit like a prequel to February, like a strange twilight month before the year really starts. A month to not reallly do much, but enjoy the sense of dreaming up a new year. When you work in an office there is always a sense of January being almost not counted - how could you? It's not really a real month afterall, it's still below ground, summoning up energy to sprout, to reach upwards to sunlight and a great big world beyond the surface of this small dark chamber where we sit as seeds.

Astro types talk of key planets being lined up in a 'grand cross' for the last few months, which is creating a time of frowning and stuckness (that's my version). According to Astrobarry it's fine to feel a bit spirituallly /materially constipated in January because Feb is going to be incandescent with exciting new things(paraphrased). Or, speaking of astrology, perhaps this slow feeling in Jan is more aligned with Chinese New Year. If the year didn't actuallly start until Feb, that would explain my January feelings. January would become the month of cleaning up the dishes and winding down after Decembers big party, Feb would be the next morning when you wake up fresh and excited about going out to eat bruschetta. Or something.

Welcome back to Southern Cheese by the way, nice to hear from you! And a happy birthday to Mermaid grrl enjoying a warm one no doubt up in steamy Brisvegas. Have a glass of bubbly for me!

NB Hmmm my weekly stars actually contain the line 'Yes, it's tres woo-woo but so are you. '. So that explains it.

Thanks to a little Angel for info on this series of debates and lectures on at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney: Free radicals. While in the city checking out the Powerhouse Museum why not pop to the art gallery of NSW and catch the Cossington-Smith exhibition too - finishes this Sunday. Apparently her bohemian diagonals are delightful.

If you aren't in the emerald city but don't want to miss out check out this new website . The site presents a selection of material from the Sydney designers unplugged exhibition, including video interviews with some of Sydney's leading industrial designers. It is a great resource for those interested in design and technology.

Snippets

Mistermicool in Oz briefly from London, he came and stayed on weekend. Went bushwalking yesterday and walked down the giant stairs... how is it that walking down steps can make strange muscles in your calf muscles yelp for days afterwards? Oh, but only every time I walk or move - so that's ok.

This morning finshed reading quite a good book (will write up shortly on Book Club), which I had accidentally lingered over for months. Good summer reading feng shui to shift some of those halfread tomes I reckon, and instead get teeth into new ones. I also think is good book returning season, so stay tuned for returend books in the post over next few months those of you who have generously left reading material at chateau de sea green.

A mystery was uncovered this afternoon on checking my emails. A mysterious gift from a relative in another state came to me while I was up North celebrating Christmas. A few of you have seen said item as I held it out and we put it on our heads asking 'tea cosy or hat?' Neither prospect was very convincing, due to certain design features lacking (hole for spout/ shape that mimics head) but now I know why - it's a bag! As in for putting stockings in or maybe a jaunty knitted clutch. Glad I opted for a tactful and vague thankyou email and also very very glad I didn't pack it for my next winter visit to home town, and arrive at family bbq with it on my head!!

Had a nice surprise catch up call from Aunty B last week. She and Biz were in Peru at the time, sporting a clean bill of tummy health (yah!) but a nasty bit of top of the world sneaky sunburn (not yah). Hats off to them both for covering much ground and for jumping in feet first with their Spanish. Check out their current exploits at Polenta Files.

Finally, a sulphur crested cockatoo has just landed on the topmost point of a prominent pine tree out my window as I write this. The sky is grey and heavy* as a backdrop and cockie in foreground is lit up white and shining. His crest is up and he is stretching and turning circles. He looks like a Christmas tree angel.

*(just for a change? Where has summer gone in the mountains - it's rainy and foggy and shite. Although as dead pan shop attendant at local art store said to me just last week 'if it never rained we'd all die'... ahuh, yep thanks for that pearl.)

Pizza, pets and new year pizzaz

Went to my new favourite pizza joint (to tell you the truth I never had an old favourite)and drank too much red wine and told told hilarious stories to mountain spice who was remarkably sober and her partner who I don't have a bloggish name for so will remain unnamed at this point. We all ended up somehow strangely in our local supermarket on the wiggle home, unnamed partner listening to pixies in the car to pick out cords for some future loungeroom guitar jam session and mountainspice and I roving the isles for *those* almond finger biscuits - you know the kind, all solid and moist and european... So there we are at the checkout and the probably still in school checkout dude says 'ok seeyou Monday, it's the next day I'll have free to skate!' with a roving lofty arm in the air towards his last checkout customers, older, cooler, almost long gone through the automatic doors to freedom. He looks back towards us, sad to be brought back to now and we say chirpily 'what kind of skating?' and he says 'what?' and we say 'what kind of skating do you do' and he looks tickled as if we'd read his mind or sensed something private and mysterious from the cut of his grey uniform shirt or cock of the eyebrow (when in fact all we did was eavesdrop with no effort at all) and he says 'aggressive rollerblading!'. To which we laugh and I ask if this involves elbows stuck out in the way of passerbys, and he explains that recreational rollerblading is people in lycra along beaches and that they are much like skateboarders instead (only their wheels stay on). Think 'grinding' along the tops of concrete structures and going 'weeee' down handrails. He is so animated we forget our almond biscuits and the machine that goes beep and the hideous fluoros illuminating his every pimple and our purplish rings under tired eyes and we find out the best places in out town to aggressively rollerblade to and the best tricks and I stop short of asking when the rollerdisco movie is coming out and we leave laughing, thrust into the midst of large girthed surly supermarket men on their smoko, forming a tight sullen circle of grey shirt and bringing us back to reality.

Other news to break - boombah is coming home! That's my old and cantankerous cat, for those of you who may be wondering. Black, grumpy, alternately clingy and standoffish but cute as hell. Gave him away to a good home about a year ago in light of my itchy feet (travel not athletes foot), but now stable new mum is also about to go gallavanting so looks like I will be a pet owner again. Perhaps my karmic destiny is to nurture and care for more than just my houseplants after all??

Oh - an update following a snide comment made about a neighbour in an earlier post. Grater now returned with jar of honey made from his own hives (who has their own hives??). Yum yum say unpasteurised honey and all of it's wound-healing and muesli-adorning properties after me.

New year pizzaz - re-oiled my wooden floorboards (they were tung oiled not varnished so lend themselves to easy re-pizazzing), dusted some randomly selcted surfaces and even cleaned out my kitchen under the sink cupboard (my jam making to jam jar collecting ratio seriously out of balance hence no room in cupboards for new christmas stick-mix and attachments. Have purged the less glamorous of jars and vowed to fill the others with all manner of organic pulses from the co-op any day now...).

Well my dears I am back from my tropical adventures and hastily typed posts. I got back and opened the door to the flat rather tentatively but all was well, tidier than I remembered, no vines creeping in through cracks in walls in that post-apocolyptic way that I half suspected may have happened while I was away, as in nature reclamining the space, as in things in the fridge evolving into intelligent lifeforms, as in general chaos and dissarray, but no, nothing so exciting or alarming. Quiet and a bit mustly, like the whole place was holding it's breath until I could come and reopen the windows, then woosh! breathing again.

Still not unpacked. Suitcase open like a smorgarsbord of dirty clothes and christmas presents that I graze from as I pass. Oh, metaphorically speaking - the fridge isn't so bare that I'd eat my own dirty clothes.

And backtracking just slightly - Ney Years! Did you all survive it / relish it / notice it? Has everyone recovered from that slightly sticky slightly overtired feeling that can come at Christmas/ Ney Year / assorted years end celebrations? I ate quite a bit of sugary crap and hence sported a few end of year facial blemishes, got a bit overexcited and overtired and teary once or twice, watched way too many bad family movies which I wish I could unwatch (Did I really watch The Pacfifier?? Chrismas withthe Kranks?? Just count those irretrivable hours!*). Other than that it was lovely (lovely!), with lives overlapping ever so briefly, and exchanges of ideas and heat and water and hospitality.

So, in the spirit of a New Year here are a couple of quotes one that I came across recently that seem fitting for new years and futures and what to do with them:

Fear not the strangeness you feel
The future enters you long before it happens
Just wait for the Birth
For the hour of clarity- Rainer Maria Rilke

Dancers are fools: watchers are fools! If we must be fools, why not be fools dancing!
(Japanese festival saying)


Hope it's a good one - may peace prevail.




* This may in part have contributed to my decision on on returning of having a tv free 2006. TV and vid safely tucked away in the cupboard of the spare room as of yesterday. Has opened up a corner of my mantle piece that was previously hard to decorate (yah), and opened up many a future night for reading all those squillions of books I want to read (yah) or if I'm feeling social I might spend some of those nights on the phone to people whose lives I actually care about (also yah). Also makes a fab excuse (like you need one?) to go see more films, buy a few games and procure more good music for nights in. Upside is now I am completely safe from accidentally ever watching any commercial news or current affairs program and feeling dirty for being part of the culture that birthed and consumes them.