haddybobaddy

Pre-emptive fail

So, it turns out that I'm going to be away from tonight until Friday night and without access to a computer. I have been valiantly trying to log in to typepad on my phone, to no avail, so posting remotely does not appear to be an option. NaBloPoMo, I have failed you.  But technology has failed us both.

I'm not too cut up about this, even though I HATE not finishing things I start.  The whole point was to get me posting again, and I like to think that I may continue doing so on a reasonably regular basis beyond November.  I don't know. I like writing but wonder whether I have anything to say that is of great interest to anyone but myself.  And when I say I like writing, I mean I like posting pictures of the dog.  Oh come on, can you blame me?

Really?

Part of the problem I've had with keeping a blog afloat is that I'm not clear on how much I want to share online, and posting about some things but leaving out a whole host of other things seems somewhat artificial.

Eh. Maybe I'm overthinking this.

Abrupt change of subject ahead. Despite the fact that my 48 hour computer-free sojourn is ultimately for work purposes, I still get to spend it with a whole lotta women that I see infrequently, but am really quite fond of.

There will also be wine.

Back on Friday. Maybe.

But probably.

Dirty, dirty, boy

What?

Oh, this?

Funny story. So, me and Jed, we were playing? In the yard? At playtime? And Jed, he tipped, well actually okay, we tipped the paddling pool over?

And, uh, then we kind of accidentally played in, um, the water. And the dirt? At the same time.  But we totally didn't mean to get dirty.

Yeah, I know it kinda looks bad.

But you should see Jed. He looks worse. Honest.

His mum is gonna be soooo pissed.

Hey, look over there.

Or how about over there?

Unvegetable, in every way

Wow, mad card skills people.

Here’s how I intend to use my garden produce over the next few months.

First up: the versatile tomato. Love them. The obvious use is in salads, especially the cherry tomatoes because those little fuckers are pretty hard to slice up into a sandwich, even if we were sandwich eaters, which we are not because wheat and gluten are not our friends. And gluten-free bread? Tastes. Like. Shit.

But the garden variety regular tomatoes are used in just about everything, including:

Quiche (using gluten-free pastry, which is also not awesome, but you only really need it to hold the eggy-cheesy-tomatoey-mushroomy goodness together, so we can deal.)

Butter chicken (I have a great slow cooker recipe which doesn’t even use butter but is still fabulous. I can't believe it's not butter ch... oh never mind).

Lasagne (gluten-free lasagne sheets=not too bad).

Jambalaya.

Chicken cacciatore.

Tacos.

Lettuces: used in salads or chopped up with tacos/cajun chicken type meals.  And that’s pretty much it, because of the whole anti-sandwich thing.

Courgettes: another favourite. We usually have these as an accompaniment to a curry or chicken cacciatore or some other casserole. The preferred means of preparation is to slice them and stir fry in a drop of olive oil until they are slightly browned. Or steam them and toss in a bit of butter and chopped parsley. I also grate them and add them to lasagne or taco sauce; or make zuccanoes from the Moosewood cookbook, which are scrumptious but quite time consuming and I'm a get in get out girl when it comes to the kitchen. And pretty much every other room in the house.

Broccoli: normally steamed and used in much the same way as courgettes i.e. served with a curry (especially good with chicken and mushroom in a satay sauce on rice) or a casserole. Sometimes I splash out and make a broccoli and cherry tomato salad if I can be bothered.  We're not huge fans of the salad. We likes our veges hot.

Corn: eaten the only way God intended: hot, with butter and salt.

Peas: we would like to eat these lightly boiled and with a dot of butter, but the treacherous path from garden to kitchen is paved with open mouths, and quite frankly, the peas don’t often survive the journey.

Strawberries: Are similarly threatened. If they made it to the kitchen we would dip them in chocolate, but alas we are all about the instant gratification.

Cucumbers: I only grow cucumbers to make raita. We eat an awful lot of curry (the aforementioned butter chicken; red chicken curry; chicken and mushroom in a satay sauce; lemongrass chicken curry; green thai curry; nyonya chicken; pumpkin and chickpea curry; kedgeree etc). What can I say? I was weaned on curry. At least I don’t make the girls eat the sort of curry my mother cooked. She made curry for sado-masochists. It quite literally made me cry on a number of occasions. But still. Yum.

Pumpkin: pumpkin and chickpea curry; thai pumpkin soup; red chicken curry.

I used to also grow brussel sprouts but the Brussel Sprout Accord 2006, arising out of the Brussel Sprout Mutiny 2005, prevents me from even mentioning them, let alone serving them at the dinner table.

Oh my god, NaBloPoMo is kicking my arse. Tomorrow, I’m going to give you an itemized account of what is in my underwear drawer.  Hint: not just underwear! But mostly.

How does *your* garden grow?

One of the best things about having a bit of land is the opportunity to grow our own food.  I had a good crop over the 06-07 summer but last year the drought had a severe impact.  Despite the fact that I recycled as much of the house water that I could, only a few tomato plants survived.  Then, over the winter the weather tried to compensate with rainfall that started late April and continued through to August.  Weather gods? Moderation, please. 

While I have heard speculation that we are in for another dry summer, I've planted the garden full to bursting point. I love having all the ingredients for a summer meal in the garden and the thought that I can prepare a meal from scratch without needing to go to the supermarket. 

To that end, we have courgettes:

Also, peas:

 

So that at Christmas time we can do this...

while resisting the temptation to eat them all straight from the pod.

Here we have lettuces, corn and broccoli:

You will note here the trellis, which borders this particular bed on all four sides, to prevent Haddy running through it at full throttle. Because going around? So overrated.  Last summer several courgette plants in their prime were tragically mown down and despite frantic efforts at transplanting, they could not be saved.

For our sweet tooths teeth: strawberries:

 

And I noticed today that the feijoa tree has blossoms on it

although I think it's still a bit young to produce anything of significance.

Over in the garden that Haddy does not have access to, and is therefore free of trellis, we have tomatoes (cherry and regular), more courgettes, more broccoli, and cucumbers:

And lots and lots of weeds, which I am trying to ignore because staying on top of them is a full-time job.

And finally, my first attempt at pumpkins:

Again with the weeds.

Tomorrow, if you play your cards right, I'm going to tell you what's on the menu for the next few months. 

Hell, just play your cards.

Big dog? What big dog?

Today we went to Tirau for a bit of a wander and a look at the shops. I decided we needed to get a picture of Haddy in front of the big corrugated iron dog.  It took a while.

This nice man with the kete wanted to know how often I wash Haddy. Answer: whenever he needs it which is pretty much a full bath once a week and a hose down most evenings: he's a dirty bugger.

Quick, take the picture now. Oh, too late.

This lady didn't want to ask questions. She just wanted to pat him. Haddy said yes please.

 

Okay, now.

What we don't have photographic evidence of is all the other interactions Haddy had with his adoring public, including the ageing paparazzo who had to get a photo since they never see dogs like that where he comes from: Whangamata. 

We are gonna have to get an agent, pronto.

I bet I'll be auf'd first

Having survived two years of dance recitals without being required to furnish a home-made costume, I was somewhat ill-prepared this year when both girls needed particular dresses in a particular fabric for jazz, and Q needed an orange and green lycra ensemble for hip hop.  The Head dance teacher is in her sixties and finds it hard to comprehend that not every mother has sewing skills in the new millenium.

My mother taught me to sew when I was about seven, but the woman is not known for her patience so it wasn't a particularly enjoyable learning experience.  Despite this, I did spend an awful lot of time as a youngster making dolls' clothes on my sister's old Singer: tiny little dresses with rick rack or bias binding for straps; hooks and eyes and domes to fasten, or something vintage from my mother's button jar.  I have already asked my mother to leave me that jar, and I will only be satisfied by an express provision in her will.  It is a big, brown glass Maltexo  jar, which is older than I am and in addition to all the buttons Mum has collected over the years, also contains buttons left over from my great-grandmother's sewing.  Mmmm, button pr0n.

Anyway, I can sew, in the sense that I can use a sewing machine, and can cut out patterns, but I am not a good sewer.  I run out of patience very easily (the apple doesn't fall far from the tree), and things like buttonholes and zips, pleats and darts, all turn pear-shaped in my hands.

When this year's costume crisis arose, I managed to cajole a friend's mother into making the jazz dresses and I had an ex-cousin-by-marriage lined up to make Q's hip hop outfit, but she ran out of time at the last minute (AIEEEI!) so I had to take it to a dress-maker which cost me $55 in labour.  Combined with $34 for the fabric and $18 for the pattern -- I KNOW! Criminal!  -- I paid $107 for a fluoro-tastic tunic that Q will never wear again (if I have anything to do with it), plus about $30 each for the fabric for the jazz dresses.

Last night I rang my friend's mum to thank her for making the dresses and in the course of the conversation I mentioned that I might have to upskill in preparation for future dance recitals, and she told me she is selling her old sewing machine and asked if I wanted to try it out.  Yes please, I said. Then I asked the girls if they wanted to learn how to sew and they said yes please as well.  So, hopefully between now and next November, and between the three of us, we will be capable of throwing something together.  Q is particularly excited since she is going to be a fashion designer anyway (in addition to studying economics, accounting and finance. In France) so this will give her a jump start.  It's going to be just like Project Runway at our house. Only without the supermodels.

Kickin from the hip

Now that dancing is over for the year, lest I end up with any spare time on my hands, I have taken up Thai boxing.

I had my first class last night.

It was like stepping into an episode of Brat Camp, including being required to take off all jewellery and remove all piercings (I took my watch off) and doing circuits of the hall running forwards, backwards, and sideways. Thank god I've been running with the dog of a morning, otherwise that little "warm-up" would have had me prostrate before we even got to the boxing.

For the actual boxing, the instructor paired me with  his 9-year-old daughter, Sofia. I sized her up. Shorter than my 9-year-old, whose arse I could most definitely kick, were I of a mind to, but stockier and with a mean glint in her eye. Plus she had shin protectors. And an attitude.  But ultimately these were no match for my strength and sheer brilliance. Either that, or the fact that another 9 year-old showed up, meant that Sofia and I parted company and I was left to take on her dad.

He is a big sonofa...gun.  But still I managed to make him wince.  When he saw my pitiful attempt at a scissor kick.

Basically, the class (90 minutes long) consists of the aforementioned warm-up, then a series of "techniques" that are done in pairs: one person will  hold a boxing pad, and the other does a left punch, right punch, leg block, kick, for example.  Or left punch, right punch, arm block, turn, backhand punch, kick.  Then we covered some self-defence manoeuvres (deflecting the stranglehold and stabbing arm) before finishing with a kind of ritual dance, for the purposes of "calming the mind", the idea of which brings this to mind. 

I followed the instructor's suggestions to have a hot shower when I got home and do some exercise today (Haddy and I went for a run).  I'm not feeling too bad, when you consider that both my thighs and my ribs were kicked in the precise same spot upwards of 25 times (per side). The only obvious sign of injury are the bruises on my shins.  But best of all, the instructor told me that I have a good physique for a boxer since I am small and bony.

I float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.

Unagi!

The birthing: version 1

Only 11 years 11 months late. Phew. Imagine if I'd left it another month. How embarrassing.

First, let's back up the bus. (Figuratively -- while I felt as though I were the size of one, I'm just giving a little of the backstory here. I'm banking on the fact that I don't need to explain the entire history of the pregnancy because it was pretty much: we had sex, I got pregnant. I was very lucky. The dad, on the other hand, felt a tiny bit ripped off, since I think he was counting on at least a couple of months of jiggy jiggy -- excuse the technical term).  Anyway, the dad was (still is) a doctor who had lots of experience with the whole go to woah of pregnancy and childbirth.  This was pretty handy, most of the time.  Think about all the times during pregnancy when you've got no fucking idea whether what you're about to do (eat, drink, smoke, snort, inject,) will have a deleterious effect on the baby.  So, you either abstain and wait until your next doctor's appointment, or you don't abstain and then you spend the days until your next appointment googling listeria poisoning, mercury poisoning, or foetal alcohol syndrome.   Anyway, no such worries for me, since the doctor was already in da house.

The downside did not become apparent until approximately 3 a.m. on January 13 1997 when I went into labour.  Mr Experienced decided I had hours, nay days, of contractions to endure before I needed to go to the hospital.  I think his exact words, when I woke him with the news of my regular and frequent contractions, was "wake me up when you want to go to the hospital."

I haven't worked out why our relationship ended.

Anyway, due to his laissez faire approach, I thought I must have hours of labour up my sleeve, and that I had better just grunt up to it. And I did. I grunted my way around the house, standing in the doorway each time a contraction hit, pressing my hands against the frame, and whispering the most blasphemous phrases to myself over and over. I'm not sure if I read somewhere that the doorframe thing was a good idea, or whether I was confusing labour with earthquakes.    

At about 5 a.m. the pain was getting worse, but was it bad enough to go to the hospital? I didn't know. It's pretty hard to judge when it's your first labour.  I woke the dad. By this stage, I couldn't get myself down the stairs to the garage so he brought the car up to the front doorstep.   The front garden was never the same after that.

At this point I thanked my lucky stars for two things. Firstly, that the hospital was only two minutes away, and secondly that I am not tall.  I was at the stage of labour called "cannot bend" and couldn't manage to sit in the car. I had to brace myself upright, and at a 45 degree angle between the footwell and the roof. But then I started to panic (being completely rational and all) that we would get pulled over because I wasn't wearing a seatbelt.  All this time the dad was saying really helpful things like "breathe" and "you're not breathing", "breathe properly" and I was giving entirely reasonable responses like "I've been breathing for 30 years without your help sonny jim".

Still not wholly understanding why we broke up.

We did not get pulled over for my seatbelt infraction, but we did run a red light. Well, we didn't actually run it. More like, hey, we've been sitting here for about two minutes. There are no other cars around. Okay, we'll wait another minute. Still no cars around. Not one. Let's just wait a bit....omg, contraction! Hit it, m*fucka!

The next bit is a bit blurry (did I not mention it was almost 12 years ago?)  We were obviously admitted to the delivery suite and the next thing I can recall was the midwife telling me to get up onto the bed but ignoring her because of an almost overwhelming...ummm...urge. I whispered to the dad "I need to go to the loo".  "You probably need to push", Mr Know-it-All said. "No" I insisted.  "I need to...go to the loo." "Let the midwife just check you first", he said. I, just about crying at this point said "No..I really need to...poo".

But he was right. (I. hate. that.)  I was 10 cm dilated, and ready to go. But while my cervix was primed, my brain wasn't.  I kept saying, "no...I've only just got here. Shouldn't I be wandering around panting for a bit first. No? Really?" I was convinced that I was supposed to be in labour for like 72 hours or something.

As it turned out, it still took me two hours to push her out. Two excruciating hours, during which my friend Jan (unbeknownst to me) scalded her fingers by holding boiling towels on my back.  I couldn't feel anything apart from this baby taking her own sweet time to move down the old canal and taking all my internal organs with her. Or so it seemed.  It transpired that she was facing towards my spine which causes an awful amount of back pain and apparently a lot of bad language.  So I started sucking on the gas like there was no tomorrow, but it made me feel sick, so I told them to take it away. And then the pain got worse so I told them to bring it back again. And I don't know, because I thought I was being quite polite and restrained, but it is entirely possible that I might have told them to take it away and bring it back a few more times. Let's face it, it's about the only time we're allowed to get away with such bad behaviour.  No one's gonna argue with the woman who's got a baby stuck in her fanny.

After about one hour fifty-five minutes it all started to come to a head. Ha ha! So funny. But really not funny at the time because hello? My vagina? Not so stretchy, as it turned out. And my doctor is all, "I can see her head, do you want to see, shall I get a mirror?" and I'm all "Nooooo. Just get it out. Get. it. out." and then the bastard cut me open and she was out. And I was all, "oh, that feels better."  And it was all good, and she was beautiful and then the doctor says, "oh, you're bleeding" and the next thing I know they're calling for help and the dad is trying to stick a needle in my arm so they can put a drip in and I'm batting him off  and saying "wtf are you doing? Give me my baby" and then I start to not feel so good, but by then the cavalry has arrived (with bystanders! who have apparently never seen a post-partum suturing!) and they stitch me up and I don't bleed to death. So, yay.

After that, apart from the gas-induced puking, and the pumpkin-sized haematoma *down there*, it was all pretty good. It helped that Q was the most gorgeous newborn ever. I am not even exaggerating. But I was still pretty pissed at all the people who told me that childbirth didn't hurt as much as you'd expect.  Fuck knows what I was expecting? A headache? A dose of gas? A walk in the park? Whatever I was expecting, it wasn't what I experienced. So much so, that one of my first coherent thoughts was "I am NEVER doing that again." 

A male friend came to visit.  So, he asked, how bad was it? "Dreadful" I said. "Really?" He was surprised. "How does it rank with say, slamming your finger in the car door?" "Oh ho ho" I said, and here is how I explained it, so that a man could understand.

Imagine you have a basketball jammed up your arse.  Like right up there, not half in half out. Then, imagine that every couple of minutes, someone is going to kick you right in the nuts.  Okay, if you can imagine that, that's a good start.  But: you can't start pushing that basketball out UNTIL you get kicked in the nuts.  Now do that for anywhere from 30 minutes to two hours. Hurt much?

How to dress your children funny: Christmas 1973 edition

It seems to have escaped my mother's attention that my sister and I are not twins.  I shudder at the thought of the abominations we would have been forced to wear had we been.

I would also like to challenge her on the whole hairband versus ribbons issue. Obviously I am scowling because my sister is rocking the hairband with her hair out while I have mine in pigtails and ribbons. I am so pissed. Wearing our hair out was like totally rad. And mostly forbidden.  It is so. not. fair. that she was allowed all that hair freedom, and I was denied it. This clearly was a precursor to the 1976 Christmas debacle when she got an ABBA t-shirt and do you know what I got? I bet you cannot even guess what I got.

I got a Wombles t-shirt.

No, sorry. I can't talk about it. I thought I could but I can't.

Back to 1973.  I also take issue with the fact that my sister's dress is both pink AND bedecked with flowers. The rule is that if you get pink, then you also get the ugly pattern. It's what god intended. But nooooo. Not in 1973. Not only did I get a white and red dress (FYI Mum. Red and white? So not a susbstitute for pink, just so you know) it had, I don't even know wtf that is on that dress. Space ships? I fucking hope not.  Fruit? Maybe. Yeah, possibly fruit. Better than space ships but it still doesn't have the same cachet as flowers does it? For the record, if it's not flowers on your dress, it bloody better be hearts.

In light of this, do I even need to address the doll* issue? She gets the HAIRBAND (PINK!), the PINK dress with the FLOWERS, and the doll with the PINK dress? Did you really hate me that much, MOTHER?

I take some solace in the fact that my brother did not remain unscathed. Buttoned up to the neck = so cool, sucka. Also, floral fitted shorts? Niiiice. But don't be fooled by that smile. He would have been crying on the inside and I can almost guarantee that right after this picture was taken he punched me to let off a little steam.

*I rolled that doll down a grass bank and her eyes fell out. It taught me a valuable lesson, and to this day, I have not rolled any live babies down grass banks.

Back to our regular programming

Works for the council.

Or works for Village People.

 

Either way, he's working it.

He wears his high visibility vest on our early morning jogs.  I'm not entirely sure he needs it, since the lights of the big cattle trucks that come thundering down the road seem to sufficiently illuminate his big white arse.  But I think he looks cute in the jacket regardless.

Speaking of white, he stayed at the kennels over the weekend and they washed his face with whitening shampoo.  I don't think he's ever looked this...clean? And I was really reluctant to drop him off again this morning since it is raining, and with rain comes mud, and Haddy and the mud? Not such a good combination, akshully. 

But still, and I might be the tiniest bit partial here, isn't he lovely?

Look at that face! Butter would. not. mel....mmm, butter.