Tuesday 29 May 2018

Food, Glorious Food.


I am so not a *Foodie*.  Food is the bane of my life.  If someone invented a pill so that I need never cook again, ever, I would be over the moon.  Sadly  I am still waiting for this much needed & time saving invention!

My angst is multiplied by being vegetarian in a houseful of carnivores.  When the carnivores are home I get the short end of the stick because Lamb Roast is invariably on the menu & while I can eat none of it I always get the grease ingrained pans to clean.  So gross!

So we have been experimenting because when it is just the MOTH & I it is easy enough to cook vegetarian & do his meat as a *side*.


Roasted vegetable rice was good..


But this Forbidden Rice Salad [which I make warm] has been a surprising hit.  It looks awful: black & rather unappetising but black rice is rather nutty in flavour & with its mixture of nutty, savoury & sweet is surprisingly good.  I've made it several times now as we both like it.



On the other hand this Ropa Vieja was not good. Vegan so sort of thin in the flavour department ~ not that vegan always is but it would have been so much better if the sauce had a little more body.  May try it with coconut milk ~ but then, maybe not.  I really wasn't that fussed though the man liked it.


This, on the other hand [before it went in the oven], the man loved & I am rather dubious about. For starters it is a UK recipe & I was spitting chips about 1/2 way through because none of the measurements made any sense to this cups & ounces girl! The Americans are bad too, never calling anything by it's proper name & working exclusively in pounds & gallons as if stones & pints were beneath their notice.  *sigh*

Out here lasagne & cannelloni sheets are different things but the recipe said lasagne sheets so that's what I bought.  I should have read the rest of the recipe ~ or @ least the title ~ & realised it was cannelloni I needed.  Turned it into lasagne. *sigh* It tasted ok but took ages to make.  Waaaay too many steps, & I used too many pots & pans to make me happy but even though the man went back for seconds we still have left~overs so good value for money!

No prizes for guessing what we are having for tea tonight!

Second Day Running.

It's not often these days I spend much time on the mainland.  Seriously, why would I want to leave this for dirt, noise, pollution & crowds of strangers? Besides ~ there are the cats to consider... So, twice in 3 days did for me. 

Once a year Kenneth & Lynette Hagin minister @ Rhema.  The MOTH, as a student, was obliged to go.  I went to keep him company & on the off~chance I could catch up with alumni friends from my year, always a bit hit & miss as people work & not everyone can take time off for a Christian conference.

As it turned out it was a good call.  Not only was it a great conference that spoke very much to our ministry [not so very surprising as many of the grads are ministering in some capacity], it had a great prayer session & OT was there in his capacity as the Hagin's designated driver.

It was a long, exhausting day complicated by boat mishaps, rain & roadworks & I do find travelling in city traffic, even when I am not the driver, plain exhausting.  So much patience required.  Too many adrenaline hits thanks to the *extreme sports* drivers. Plus, due to the boat mishap, time stress. How I remember that from years of driving the ODD round Brisbane!

We got home to find our supply of kindling had vanished & all I could find was very damp so our fire smoked sulkily for hours before the wood was dry enough to blaze merrily & appease our very put out cats ~ who had not only been abandoned for two whole days but had been left without the compensation of a smoldering fire!



Friday 25 May 2018

A Day Out.

When you have grown children & you no longer all live under the same roof getting time together is precious.  ODD, who works in the music industry, has a completely erratic schedule so even planned times together are subject to the whims of the industry, sudden changes of plan & the vagaries of work opportunities so when ODD rang to organise a *Mother's Day* outing I wasn't holding my breath, you know.  Everything is subject to...

Our first Friday cancelled out.  No surprises there.  We did manage on our second attempt. I went into Logan with the MOTH & he went in to class while I waited on the girl showing up because she was inextricably tangled in traffic but show up she eventually did & surprised me by stopping off @ Koorong ~ possibly her least favourite place in the whole universe because she can never get me out of there ~& shouted me a couple of books.
Now I never go into Koorong without a plan of attack & a list of things I'm hoping to find on their shelves so an unexpected visit meant I had nothing @ the forefront of my mind that I really, really wanted despite hours on Amazon because I had nothing that I wanted that badly.  Of those  Christian authors I really appreciate I either have their stuff already or it is no longer available.  To take a punt on an unknown author without time to really have a good look @ the book is to chance being landed with really poor theology & something like The Shack ~ don't get me started!

However, Koorong has recently been carrying more of Bethel's stuff ~ more charismatic stuff all round really ~ rather than the stuffy Baptist theology that makes me so wild & wonder how on earth they have landed where they have if they have read their bibles @ all?  Besides I like the way Bill Johnson teaches.  He is calm, logical, & I can see from the scripture how he gets where he is going so I took a punt on Hosting the Presence.  I'll let you know.

My other choice was something I thought I'd missed. Every time I go to Koorong I cruise the bible section: shelves & shelves of every imaginable translation in all sorts of covers & one of these days I am going to find an inter~lineal that makes sense & I can actually read ~ but I digress.  I was given, on my confirmation [being raised Anglican & all that] a soft covered, white, RSV which after 40 years of use literally fell apart on me & when I found most of Timothy missing with no idea where he had vanished too I decided it was time to invest in a new bible ~ but the RSV was no longer the newest, most up~to~date, hot~off`the~press translation  & not readily available ~ & I did not want the strange Catholic version, or mum's strange spare version with all those stick figure illustrations ~ yuk!! Or yet again all Jesus' words in red, which so disrupt the flow of scripture.  I am fussy about my bibles & for years have compromised so I don't read as much as I used to just because I do not really like the way the pages look & sound ~ quite apart from the fact that I am a word person & everything I know by heart is according to the old RSV so am constantly being tripped up by the strange wording of other translations ~ & we have a few: KJV; NJKV; NIV; NLT; ESV, GOOD NEWS... *sigh* Besides my eyesight is not what it used to be so I can really struggle with the print & LP bibles are generally cumbersome & not really nice to handle.

All that to say that last visit I spotted a ELP NRSV in a soft leather jacket but of course it was more than I could really afford so I went away to think about it & then expected it to be vanished into the netherland by the time I went back ~ but no, there it was sitting lonely on the shelf, the only one of its kind with it's nice broad pages, large print & nice wide borders for scribbling notes.  Gripe of my life: bibles you can't scribble notes in! Thanks ODD.  It will be well used.

It was then on to Trinder Park to pick up my MIL ~ first visit since she was taken into care.  She had no idea who either ODD or I were, no idea why we were taking her out ~ pretty much no idea about anything & she had forgotten her glasses, despite me asking if she needed them, so couldn't read the menu & our venue, on the recommendation of one of ODD's friends, was far too noisy to really carry on a conversation.

When we were notified where sGran had been placed the first thing I did was get on their web site & check it out.  So reassuring.  Lovely gardens.  Some bushland.  A man made lake. Everything looked rather nice but the reality left me depressed & rather appalled.  Gran is in the nursing facility: old, run~down, clinical & all these old dears in wheelchairs staring vacantly into nothing. OK, so a home~away from home is too much to expect but I did think her room would have some of her mementos: pictures, a painting or two, or a piece of the quirky art she so enjoyed.  Nothing. So sad. And she has no access to the lovely gardens & parkland.
We bundled Gran into ODD's new [to her] car & eventually found the recommended caf



We all ordered the Avo Toast:  Avocado wedges with pea + mint bruschetta, macadamia ricotta, semi-sundried cherry tomatoes + balsamic glaze on thick cut toasted sourdough rye.


It tasted as wonderful as it looked.


This was my choice of drink ~ so outrageous everyone had to taste it: a Hot Bae warm strawberry milk with whipped cream topped with fairy floss [yeah, I know!] & a side of iceream, strawberry sauce, a lone strawberry & 2 strawberry oreos.

Sadly our outing was rather spoilt for ODD dropped me first so I could get my lift home with the MOTH but found all hell had broken loose in the Nursing Home because the Power of Attorney had to be notified  that Gran had gone out & apparently she doesn't want any of our side of the family taking Gran out. Drama. Drama. Drama. The ODD has thought of all sorts of ways around this but sadly, due to Gran's dodgy health, we will not be doing this. The reality is it probably doesn't matter.  Gran is remembering less & less & it is probably best that way. The reality is bitter & sadly she is to blame for the outcome.  ODD swears she is bringing her to OT's wedding in July but I am rather doubtful that is is really up for such a long & exhausting day.



Saturday 12 May 2018

Come & Gone.

 My boys have been home.  You can tell because only my boys would leave clothing draped over the verandah chairs in winter.   It gets wet.  The birds poop on it.  The cats use it for blankets. And then there is this...



You would not believe how badly it stinks.  Not just fishy but old, rotting stinky~fishy. *sigh*


They redeemed themselves by replacing the old pine staircase with this lovely hardwood one. OT salvaged it from a condemned house & it was lugged over in a tinny, sanded back & oiled.  We have been tripping over the stringers in the hallway for months, waiting on the boys finding a convenient moment while we wobbled up & down the old staircase in fear of life & limb.  The backs are still to go on but they are usable & it is so nice... though the jury is still out so far as the cats are concerned.  They lost a perching place.

The boys are gone again, of course.  They have busy lives & OT has a wedding to plan but they have left me with all the fishy clothes to wash & the fishy bags to dispose of & beds to be stripped & remade.  Just the same, I would rather be doing all that than have them never come at all. They are such busy, busy people & we have got used to being quiet.  The halcyon days of carting ODD round Brisbane for whatever musical mania she was involved in are over & in all honesty ~ I do not miss them.  I do miss the music & rehearsals but all that running?  Nah. It is lovely to sit with the fire glowing, the rainbow lorrikets screeching through the trees & cats vying for space on my lap.  Bliss.

Saturday 5 May 2018

A Little Indian.



“Animals are my friends...and I don't eat my friends.” ~ George Bernard Shaw


When you don't like to cook & are vegetarian in the midst of carnivores, mealtimes can become problematic.  The temptation, @ least in my case, is to become lazy because thinking what to cook, then what I need in order to cook it & maybe having to go out to buy what I need, just takes too much time from things I would rather be doing ~ which is just about anything else. I know.  I know...but I eat to live, not the other way round.

Anyway, like most people, I run out of ideas.  No matter how full the fridge is there's never anything to eat. *sigh.*  Actually, I probably run out of ideas faster than most simply because I get tired of the *same old, same old* rather fast.  We've been there for about a week now so it was time to gird my loins & consult Mr Google ~ though seriously, it never matters; I investigate the ingredients & omit half of them because it's stuff I don't like & who needs stuff they don't like in their food?

What I decided to try, minus all the funny things & icky things & unobtainable things, was Chitrannam ~ which is just a fancy name for lemon rice. And let's face it, if you absolutely have to cook, Indian is a pretty good option. It not only smells good, the colours are pretty amazing as well.  And it doesn't have to be hot.  I don't like hot.  And you can always add nuts.  Lots & lots of nuts. Poppadoms. The man had steak with his.  Ugh!


I said the colours were amazing.
It didn't taste too bad either.

Wednesday 2 May 2018

A Most Traumatic Day.

I'm a cat person.  I make no apology for it.  Dogs & I are not sympatico.  Now the MOTH used to be a dog person  ~ a long time ago, before he met me but we have only ever owned one dog because, like most women, the bulk of care fell to me & I find dogs just too much.

Over time the MOTH has come to tolerate the plethora of cats in his life but it was Issi who turned him into a cat man.  Issi was an alpha male, protective of his person [me] to a fault, incredibly loyal, smart & affectionate.  Some animals who come into your life are just special.  It is an honour to know them.  Issi was that cat.  Losing him was devastating.

It was the MOTH who said to get another cat.  In fact he said to get 2 cats & though we were all still grieving Issi one does not look a gift horse in the mouth & so the girls & I went cat hunting while the iron was hot.

The MOTH gave us a long list of instructions.  He had very definite ideas about the sort of cats he wanted.  Luckily we did what he meant, not what he said because he was quite rattled by the 2 we finally brought home.  Not what he was expecting. They were older kittens, semi~long~haired, timid, & being Ragdoll Xs, very immature.  But they were exactly right for our house being affectionate & docile & happy just to be with their people, which is nice because we are home a lot.

 Marlow was incredibly timid & once bonded to me wouldn't let me out of his sight.  It drove us all to distraction while he matured & grew up a little into a very confident, social cat.  His brother is still very skittish around strangers.  Even now, neither cat is very far from me.  Oh, they go off on their own but never so far as they can't see & hear me & know exactly what I am doing & they expect, as a matter of course, that they will be petted any time I happen to wander past, even if I have to wait for them to reach me.

Our routine in the mornings is predictable ~ & we all know how cats like routine. I am almost always first up & depending on whether one or both or neither cat has slept with us cart cats downstairs with me because the first order of the day is to feed them.  Only then can I proceed to make coffee.

As soon as the cats have finished eating they proceed to the verandah door & wait to be let out.  The thing is, no matter how early I get up they are never allowed out until it is fully light, which just now, is just before I take the MOTH down to his boat.  By the time  I return they have finished their business & are waiting to greet me @ the pathway before settling into their daytime positions: Kirby on the shadecloth over the western garden, Marlow on one of the verandah chairs.  On wet, cold days they are usually back inside before I get home.

Yesterday, Kirby greeted me enthusiastically but there was no sign of Marlow.  Not worried.  Very occasionally he gets distracted & arrives a little later & I will find him happily ensconced in one of his usual possies. I called him around 9ish, not having seen him but no cat arrived.  My prayer partner arrived shortly after that & we settled in for a couple of hours of serious prayer.  I called Marlow again when she left.  No cat. By now I was starting to worry.  Understand:  this cat never does this!  He is constantly underfoot, moving when I move, always there, somewhere in my vicinity, always squeaking & chirring to me.

By the time the MOTH arrived home I was seriously concerned. My imagination did not help.  I was having trouble keeping the most awful thoughts @ bay: crabbers who put cats in their pots; snakes, hawks, foxes; council trap.  The thought of my marvellous, timid cat alone, hurt, frightened & wondering why his people didn't come for him was excruciating.  I walked all over our point calling for him for hours. The MOTH, with his nice big voice, joined me.  The whole neighbourhood must have known we had a missing animal!

It got dark.  The boys dinner time had come & gone ~ no Marlow.  Marlow is the cat whose mind is constantly on his belly.  For him not to arrive early for his food has never happened.  He starts an hour or so before he knows it's dinner time in an effort to persuade me he is literally starving to death & how could I be so cruel as to deny him food? 

I shot off an email to the council pound.  I prayed.  I went out in the dark & called again ~ & again.  No Marlow.  It was heartbreaking.  There was nothing else I could do but the thought of shutting down the house for the night & trying to sleep without knowing where my cat was was agonizing.

I know some people would say: It's just a cat...an attitude I do not understand.  Our cats are family.  We are responsible for their care & well being. Taking good care of our animals is not only the right thing to do, it is the godly thing to do, so it was with a very heavy heart I began turning off all the lights.  It was then I heard a thump on the verandah.  A very skittish Marlow was slinking towards the door, tail down, belly to the ground, anxious to reach me & be let inside before he was shut out for the night.

I don't know where he was hiding.  Somewhere close, too frightened to come out, but he must have heard us calling & calling. We are so relieved to have him home!  So very grateful for God's care & provision for him ~ but I never want to have another day like that. Ever.