photo saturday: vintage style

This was another week that wasn't much of anything really.

This week's soup ended up being Malaysian flavoured tomato and spinach, a little more watery than usual, but tasty.

Work continues to be a little chaotic and I may have mentioned it in the last couple of weeks already but I really noticed this week that people come to me to ask my advice or opinion... I mean, yeah, I always have an opinion, and you're welcome to it, but now that I've noticed it it kind of feels weird. I don't feel like Responsible Grown-up Who Knows Things™... but clearly that's the way other people see me, at least some of the time.

This week was also Haircut Night. I can't actually remember the last time my natural hair colour was prevalent... but I feel like I should maybe see exactly how grey it's gotten... because the sides are full on salt and pepper at this point, which is part of the reason why we keep them pretty much shaved. My main problem is that my original hair colour is just bleh. We kind of compromised... less blonde through the top, but enough to lighten it up. I do need to bite the bullet though... I can always retreat to the blonde again, but I just need to know what is going on under all the blonde.

Friday I gave myself a little bit of a mental health pass... I got up later than I should, didn't even worry about trying to get out the door in time for the early bus, or attempt to make my own breakfast... and I was still the first person at work (well, I was the only one in the office when I got there). I picked up breakfast on the way and just went with a whole "fuck it" attitude for much of the day. And the day was fairly calm, possibly both because of and in spite of the fact that a bunch of people had days off or just never bothered to show up.

That did kind of let me get some shit done though. Less interruptions.

I also ended up working back a bit a couple of days... just so that I could finish something up before I went home.

Today was... well, exploratory is perhaps the best word... the supermarket portion was about the same as average...

Beyond that neither of us really had any plans, and there weren't any movies that we wanted to see, but Ma did want to go to Target for a couple of things. I didn't really want to go to the Unley Road one again, it's just a little too small, so instead we decided on the one on South Road... it's not that much of a detour, and it's a pretty big store.

And turns out Castle Plaza has a few other decent bits and pieces including an EB Games (all their games are half price, so I bought myself Fallout 4, because why not).

But mostly we just tooled around the fairly massive Target for a while.

On the way back we called in to the tail end (as in everyone was already packing up) of the Fullarton Market... we saw an earlier one at some point, but I didn't realise it was a regular thing (fourth Saturday of the month). It looked decent to be honest... I mean some of the stalls were packing up already, but it'd definitely be worth a look at the end of June. I did buy a set of four wooden bowls... I'm hoping to use the largest one as my porridge bowl, but if that doesn't work, I'll find something to use them for... plus they weren't that expensive.

That was really it though... we picked up something to eat from the market, and when we got back here we called it a day.

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photo saturday: jetty tales

There's a list of things that annoy me about this apartment... but I've really worked out this week that the top item on that list is that after close to twenty years of never closing bedroom curtains, waking up to close blinds is incredibly irritating.

The main issue is that I'm used to judging mornings by the amount of light rather than time, and that's difficult to do when you can't see the light.

I made some pretty great soup on Sunday... except for the fact that I made it with gravy beef and as such had to cook it for about 900 hours (somewhat of an exaggeration), and I started later than I should have. I also didn't end up blending it at the end (although I probably could have, at least a bit), so it was quite chunky and the beef was essentially melt in the mouth.

Work continued to be a little nuts this week... it wasn't without its hurdles. And it seemed like everybody want to pick my brain about one thing or another at some stage. Flattering but occasionally annoying when you're trying to actually get other stuff done.

I'm pretty much finished Assassin's Creed Unity... I just have the last mission to do and any additional mopping up after that.

Much of today was fairly by the numbers... we started off with the usual supermarket trip. I'm intending to make a tomato and spinach soup... possibly with some additional bells and whistles, but essentially that.

After all that and the unpacking and the usual stuff (including a quick fridge tidy, which wasn't so much usual as it was necessary), we headed down to Target just for a bit of a poke around, then we leapfrogged down the road to Big W where I happened to find a book on Florence Foster Jenkins which is half biography and half movie script (as in literally the first half is her bio, the second half is the script) and a couple of Disney DVDs and some kitchen stuff.

From there I was pretty much done, but Ma suggested we take a drive down to Glenelg since we haven't been down there for a while. And it was a nice day for a drive, so what the hell.

We mostly just wandered up and down Jetty Road, although we did have a poke around the new GU Film House cinema that opened in March... it looks, well to be honest it just looks like every other cinema... but supposedly it will "specifically cater to an emerging trend for intimate cinema formats screening niche, arthouse and main stream releases". Whatever the hell that means.

Smaller cinemas with smaller screens I guess.

We mostly wandered, but we did go into Dymocks and I ended up buying three books (damn three for the price of two sale)... The Night Circus, The Martian and Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children.

So yeah, a very book heavy day... especially since I can't remember the last time I bought a book that a) wasn't part of a series I already have, b) wasn't ordered over the internet or c) wasn't a graphic novel.

Once we'd made it all the way to the beach we headed over to Orange Spot to grab some lunch, took it back to the beach to eat it and then called it a day and come back here.

An interesting day... not thrillingly exciting, but at least we did something slightly different.

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movies: florence foster jenkins

Florence Foster Jenkins was "an American socialite and amateur operatic soprano who was known and ridiculed for her lack of rhythm, pitch, and tone, her aberrant pronunciation, and her generally poor singing ability" according to Wikipedia.

It's also a surprisingly lovely movie.

I only say surprisingly because I wasn't completely sure what to expect. It could have been done in a very "cringeworthy" kind of way, but thanks to the very delicate touch of Stephen Frears (who also directed, amongst many other things, Mrs Henderson Presents and Dangerous Liaisons, which is one of my favourite movies) it never ended up there.

Sure, it delved into farce more than once, but all three leads, particularly Meryl Streep as Florence manage the balance of comedy and, I guess, pathos requited brilliantly. It always amazes me how at the same time Streep can disappear totally into a role, but at the same time remain thoroughly Meryl. And I do enjoy when she does comedy.

A much, much older Hugh Grant (and I don't think it's make-up effects, although it could be) seems to have managed to leave many of his Hugh Grant affectations (most notably the stammer) at the door for the role of Florence's husband. And while it would be incredibly easy to hate his character early on, there's something about the way he plays it which makes you genuinely want him to succeed.

The most surprising to me was Simon Helberg in the role of (the very obviously gay, but closeted) pianist Cosme McMoon (it's a great name). I've only ever seen him in his role of the slightly creepy, perpetually horny Wolowitz on Big Bang Theory, but there's no trace of that here, and I'll admit, I fell in love with his portrayal of McMoon more than a little bit.

As with any "based on a true story" movie, a cursory glance at Florence's Wikipedia page point out any number of liberties that were taken with the story, but I don't even mind that in this case. The story is both hilarious and touching and also surprisingly deep in places (although some of those moments do go rushing by quite quickly)... it also made me laugh out loud more than once, albeit mostly in reaction to other character's reactions to Florence's singing.

It's definitely worth a watch though.

yani's rating: 4 sold out shows out of 5

photo saturday: bridgework

This was one of those weeks were nothing much really happened.

I started out by making a phone call on Sunday afternoon, which in turn led to a drive down to Toy Corner in Ridgehaven and a full set of the Lego/Disney minifigures. They ended up costing me a little more per piece than if I'd gotten then from Galaxy Toys, but at least I secured a full set. But if the whole "we're only getting these ones and there's been a lot of demand" was all bunk, then I'll be a little annoyed.

After that I spent the evening making a hell of a lot of tuna mornay, heavy on the spices, but not too heavy on the heat fortunately.

Then once again this week there were far more instances of me either skipping breakfast and grabbing something in town, or having breakfast and then missing my bus. I really need to get better at that... whether it's because my brain isn't used to being in a bedroom where the curtains/blinds need to be closed overnight, I don't know... which in turn means that I don't acknowledge that the actual time is the actual time. But I need to start paying more attention to my alarm.

On Monday night after work I paid a visit to Greenlight Comics in the city... they opened on the weekend, and I wanted to go and check them out. I left with three graphic novels (Batman #6 and #7 plus Paper Girls, which comes highly recommended) and put in an order for three more. It's a great store, the guys behind the counter couldn't be more friendly and welcoming and adorably geeky about comic books (which is pretty much exactly what you want in a comic book store owner/employee). Plus it's the first comic book store (okay, technically it's more of a graphic novel store, since that's what they specialise in... although they will order in comic books too) where I felt completely comfortable walking through the door. I can't really explain why, but it definitely has that feeling.

Maybe it feels more like a bookshop, and I'm always at home in a bookshop... I don't know... but I highly recommend making a visit.

Other than that the week was fairly dull. Work was slightly mental all week, which I've kind of been expecting, although I was kind of distracted by a bunch of stuff other than our core work, which was good to get out of the way, but annoying in that I hate it when our shared mailbox is a total mess and I'm unable to clear it out.

But like I said, other than busyness, dullness.

Today I got off to a little bit of a slow start, so I wasn't quite ready when Ma arrived.

Oh, and finally, she got her hearing aids this week. So hopefully she'll be able to actually hear me properly now, which will make my life so much easier. Turns out that hearing aids are not fucking cheap though. And seriously, why hasn't somebody come up with a rechargeable battery for them? C'mon smart people, get on that.

The supermarket safari this week was mostly fresh stuff yet again... I'm going to try a beef and vegetable soup this week. I haven't actually added major meat to a soup before (not counting chicken), so that'll be interesting. And I'm mostly going to be making it up as I go as per usual... although I may have to poke around a few recipes as well for some additional inspiration.

After we'd come back here and done the unpacking thing we headed off to pick up the artwork from the framers (it looks great... I need to photograph it tomorrow I think), and then head into the city to eventually head to the movies.

We had some time to kill, so we ended up wandering around the city for a while... took a detour to Zing (because I can't avoid that place), found a couple of boxes of the Lego/Disney minifigures in Target and managed to feel out a second Stitch, Ursula and Maleficent (all of whom are most likely headed to my desk at work for now).

Then it was lunch at Burger Theory for their very tasty but very spicy green curry chicken burger before we headed to the movies (more on that later).

Weirdly, when we got back to my place after the movies, I found a parcel on my doorstep. Granted I knew exactly what it was, and I know it's been in the country since Monday, but since when does Australia Post deliver things on a Saturday at noon (I checked the tracking). Don't get me wrong, I'm appreciative (and would have been more so if it'd shown up at say 10:30am) but WTF?

And that was about it really... nothing particularly thrilling...

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photo saturday: coloured planks

It's a little hyperbolic to say that this week was a total train wreck, but it was certainly challenging and had more than a few moments.

Most of it I'm going to skip over as it's either not particularly interesting, involves too much backstory or I just don't want to share.

I made really good soup this week though... a combination of a lot of different vegetables, the Spanish flavoured stock and a crapload of bacon. Bacon makes everything better, it really does.

This week I'm doing a tuna mornay instead of a soup... it's soup adjacent (just on the other side of chowder), and I woke up this morning with an overwhelming urge to make it. So there you go.

My tattoo is healing nicely. It was a little problematic at the beginning of the week, because it was almost like I was running a fever... but I think it was more like the after effect of sunburn... where your skin just feels overheated, which makes you feel a little gross overall. And as Owlgirl pointed out, "beauty is pain".

But now we're at the "moulting" stage (well, he is a bird after all). Basically every time I do anything, I feel like I'm leaving little bits of blue or black skin behind me. Gross, but accurate.

Work was the main cause of all the challenges this week. Not only did everybody need everything urgently, but we came to the end of the second phase of the big project which meant less work for them, and an increase in work for me and my team. And a whole bunch of change, which I never cope particularly well with.

Suffice to say there were moments this week I could have handled better, and I also could have applied myself a little better at other times.

Thursday night was Haircut Night... so it was something of a relief to just be able to go see Tink. As usual we chatted about all manner of things as she did my hair, then we kind of got sucked into the Ink Master TV show as we were waiting for the colour to bake in my hair. I have to say that that should would be greatly improved if they never let the contestants talk to or about each other. And some of them not even then.

Friday night after way too many detours in my work day to solve other people's problems, it was time to go to the pub. Yay.

I'm often surprised that we don't get thrown out of pubs... we're so fucking loud as a group... although we're never rude or violent... but still. Even I think we're a little obnoxious at times, and if we were other people, I'd probably hate us.

It was a pretty good group... unfortunately people didn't really move around once they were in a spot like what usually happens, but as some of the lightweights floated off, we did kind of close the circle and come together. In the end, it was me, Pixie and Pinkie, and we sat around for quite a while just talking crap about one thing or another. I kind of feel like I both drank more than usual and also didn't... but I think that's more because I bought a jug... and instead of having a drink, waiting a while, having another, etc, it was more of one long everlasting glass for the first couple of hours. So I possibly got to the drunk stage a lot faster, but once I was there I didn't really have any other drinks, so in essence I only had about four drinks.

After Pixie left, I waited with Pinkie until her ride came and then stumbled off in the direction of home. I'm pretty sure it was about 8:30 when I left the pub, but I didn't get to my front door until 10pm. Partly because I wasn't particularly rushing, and also because I went a different way from the way I go home every other day.

Essentially, because it was 10pm, I just left a trail of clothes, grabbed a bottle of water and got into bed. Weirdly I had a horribly night's sleep though, I tossed and turned like I haven't in... well, I don't actually remember... and more than once when I woke up I thought that it must have been close to dawn, it was actually only about 11:30 or just past midnight. So yay for bad sleep. Not.

Clearly I didn't drink the optimal amount for me.

I also wasn't hungover when I woke up, but I was decidedly feeling seedy, plus I had the dry mouth thing from not drinking enough water and a mild case of the radio announcer voice from yelling over the stupid guitar dude (seriously, fuck off with live music in the pub on a Friday night... we're there to talk to people after work, we don't need fucking live music... save that shit for Saturday night).

Today was fairly dull to be honest. I got up, changed my bedding, got ready, Ma arrived, we went to the supermarket and did the usual shopping. We came back here, unpacked, then headed out to the Central Market.

Neither of us really wanted to do a full produce shop at the markets, but I wanted some steel cut oats since Uncle Tobys no longer seems to make them, and Ma wanted to make a visit to the container store... we didn't even do a full potter around to be honest, we kind of hit the two or three places we needed to, then headed off again.

And we didn't really want to do anything else, so when we got back, Ma headed off home. I then had to make two visits to the drycleaners because unlike the one in the North Adelaide Village, this dry cleaner is vaguely useless and couldn't find my pants. Thankfully they did on the second visit.

That's about it though...

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