Yesterday I re-read my last blog post - the one written with half a bottle of white wine running through my veins - and I learned something about myself: my spelling and grammar go to shite when I'm drunk.
For the spelling, I don't know why it should be; there's a decent check-as-you-type spell-checker in my browser from which I write these posts that underlines every misspelled or suspicious word with squiggly red lines that grasp my attention more effectively than any sexually-suggestive advertisements on TV (or it seems any word not part of popular culture since before 2003 - case-in-point: in the paragraph above, the word 'blog' is underlined in red).
As for the grammar: no Firefox extension as yet exists for giving assistance to my inner grammar nazi, so I'm left to rely on my own proof-reading ability which apparently also takes a back seat when the communicative hemisphere of my brain is fuelled by fermented grapes instead of reason and H2O.
So as I was reading what I vaguely remember writing the other day, I laughed, I cried, I cringed, and then I cried some more. I was tempted more than once to hit the Edit button on that post, but I thought it best that I leave it as is, thus turning that post into a lesson for my present and future selves of what had transpired here.
Bah, drunk again. I don't mean to make this some sort of running theme of posting blogs while I'm inebriated, but at the moment it feels like the best ideas are coming to me when I'm not thinking straight.
Once again, the reason for my slight intoxication is because there's some leftover wines at my place. No, a friend didn't leave it behind like last time - I finished that one off pretty quickly. This time, I bought this one myself. Why? Because I was told white wine was an ingredient in a good pasta sauce htat I oh so enjoyed.
If you haven't already figured-out from my food-related blog posts, I strive to make a lot of Italian dishes because I like Italian food. Oh 'like' is too weak a word for it: I've been to the same Italian restaurant for my birthday since my 21st, and when I was making travel plans for Melbourne for a friend's wedding and was told about Lygon St - a street lined with restaurants serving all manner of Mediterranean cuisine - I almost kissed my travel agent right then and there (oh nevermind that Lygon St is now in the news because of all those gang killings; that can all happen in the background while I'm chowing-down on some epic gnocchi dish for all I care).
Much like with my documenting of Pizza 1.0, 1.1, and 1.2, I'm trying to do the same thing now with a white pasta sauce: create something which contains all the parts I love most about pastas based on white sauces. With Pizza 1.x, it was easy to list my goals because all of the things were based on very tangible parts With the pasta however, it's all a matter of taste.
I did however come across a pasta dish which approximated what I was after when I was at one of my favourite cafes one Friday lunch time, and so I asked one of the staff if they could maybe ask the chef to share with me the recipe so I could make something like that myself. She came back and relayed the words of the chef back to me: "...it's the same as your usual cream-and-bacon sauce, but with some white wine added."
Now I should've asked WHICH white wine they used, but because I'm not a wine connoisseur (holy crap I spelled that right while my head is swaying side-to-sode out of my rational control and in time to the music playing right now) and to my unsophisticated palette all white wine tastes like all other white wine and all red wine tastes like all other red wine - yet I can tell the difference between regular Coke, Diet Coke, and Coke Zero... go figure - because the next time I went shopping I was planted in the middle of the wine section surrounded by more bottles of wine than there are stars in the sky, and without a damn clue as to which one to buy. So I picked one and hoped for the best.
I didn't hope hard enough.
The next time I tried my pasta sauce, I added the wine and, while it did add that little something that my normal sauces had been missing, it didn't add the right flavour, so now I'm stuck with this bottle of wine which I am now drinking down like water (and if my guitar buddy read that part right now she'd tell me off because she's trying to get me to slow-down my drinking since I still drink anything, alcohol included, like I do my Coke). I should really throw it out of just give it to somebody else who might actually enjoy it more than I, but there's another overriding part of myself that really hates being wasteful and throwing things out. So, down the gullet instead of down the bin it goes.
I don't know where it came from, but I really hate throwing things out or being wasteful. Back at my family's house my dad keeps a compost that helps fuel the garden he keeps in the back yard - I really like the idea of having our food scraps being put to good use. Also, they participate in the city's recycling program. The apartment building I'm in however, doesn't even participate in the recycling program, so every time I throw a piece of recyclable paper/plastic/glass into the massive bin at the side of the building I feel like I might as well eat a new-born baby for all the good I'm doing the world. So you know what I do to absolve my soul? I actually save-up my paper (all my utility companies still love sending me paper bills no matter how many times I click the 'e-mail me my bill' option on their websites) and when the pile is large enough, put it in my bag and TAKE IT TO WORK where they have a some semblence of a recycling program.
(I haven't even verified if the sort of recycling my work does is actually good, or if all it does is collate our various piles of waste into neat bundles of similar material and then ship it off to some overseas developing nation's slum where they drop it on unsuspecting children. If that's the case, then I might as well just throw the rubbish out and eat a new-born baby to spare the transport company all those wasted travel miles - cut-out the middle man.)
I did come to some sort of conclusion in my white pasta sauce endeavours recently, and I made a variation of that recipe (one that didn't include the wine which is why I still have so much of it to waste on myself) for my family when I stayed with them for dinner last weekend. Hell the meal even included ciabatta bread with pesto on the side. It was the most Italian my family could ever get and I swear I was peeing olive oil the following morning.
Significantly above waist height
(apologies if I don't seem my usual self through my prose or writing style or whatever it is that manages to reach through my blog posts and into your heads - I'm a bit tipsy right now. I need to stop letting people leave unfinished bottles of wine at my apartment for me to finish by myself)
Something I've written about before, although only in story e-mails, are the security keypads at my work. Using these keypads, there's a sensor in it somewhere that used to detect the presence of these company-issued security tags to let only authorized personnel enter a work area. What I loved about these things is that, when combined with the tag that I wore at waist height, I could feign all sorts of silly acts in my attempts to unlock the keypad. Acts like: pretending to rub my ass right up to the keypad when I wore the tag on a belt buckle closer to my back, or pretending to thrust my crotch at the keypad when I wore the tag on a belt buckle closer to my front - the possibilities were endless!
I only ever did these in-front of one workmate (who has since left) just because it was the sort of thing he'd do too.
Now, those last paragraphs were all in past tense because, as of last week, they changed the security system.
The system is much like before: something you carry with you that, when put into proximity with these new sensors, will let you into areas of the building you are authorized to enter. The problem with the new sensors is that they are installed significantly above waist height. No, they're not way up at shoulder level or anything as high as that, but they're just high enough that I can't really get any rude part of me up to meet it without jumping. I only need to jump a little bit, but even a 1 centimetre rise above the ground is more effort than I'm willing to make for a small joke, thus my fun is ruined.
I know I said in my last post that I'd try not to let work get to me down/stressed as quickly as it used to, but when they start taking away the 'perks' of my job, it gets kinda hard to maintain my positive attitude.
Back to the meat grinder
2 days after my return from the ski holiday, my first day back at work today, and I'm surprised how easy it is to slip back into my old routine: I went to work buying breakfast from Wholly Bagels on the way since I hadn't re-stocked my pantry/fridge/freezer yet (something I usually do on a Friday when waking-up late), I cleared-out a billion e-mails sitting in my inbox (something I usually do on a Monday to start my week clean), I went to the library at lunch time and got too many books again, and when I had finally cleared-out my backlog of e-mail love I went straight into programming like I hadn't left at all.
Sure, there were changes - new people brought into the team at work, my apartment mailbox filled with mail not addressed to me, and there was a note from the property inspector thanking me for leaving my apartment in such a nice clean state - but it's like there was a gap in the city just waiting for me to come back and fill it in.
I know, I've only been gone a week (or 7 working days if you count the Friday/Monday I took off before/after the ski week) so I can't really expect a lot to happen in that time, but having to wake-up in the morning in what was effectively 5 different beds over one-and-a-bit weeks and then coming back all relaxed (albeit sore - I was limping around the city today) made me look at everything a little bit differently as I walked to work this morning.
I guess what I'm experiencing is a little bit of disappointment; although the city had let me go to recharge my batteries, the city itself didn't recharge one iota. It isn't helped by the fact that the weather is still exactly the same as I had left it: grey, gloomy, as wet as a fish and as inviting as putting your hand on a hot element. And while I wore a bit of a 'ahh, I've just been on vacation' smile, it only made me notice the lack of smiles on the faces of others as I walked by.
So while the city may have left an opening for me to return to, it isn't so much a gap made by open arms as it is a gap left by grabbing-hands as it tries to fit this cog back into the machine. But unlike the feeling of being a rusty gear when I left for my vacation, I've returned a well-oiled cog.
The daily grind will get to me again - it always does - but not for a while; I'm going to make sure of that.
Tweets from the mountaintop
It's that time of year again - mid-winter and the school holidays for primary/secondary students have just ended meaning less people to crowd the mountain - time for another ski week! :D
Just like mentioned in last year's blog I set my out-of-office reply to something not-entirely professional (can't remember the exact words, but it had something like "...I'll revel in your e-mail love when I return" in it.), but unlike last year's blog I'll have a bit more skiing practice under my belt when I hit the slopes from Monday (provided the weather is good). I really enjoyed last year's ski trip, and I hope to repeat that wonderful time I had with this year's one.
What I don't want a repeat of however:
- Having the bus I took to get there hit a cow on the way up (we had to stop for another bus to come get us while we sat there in the dark with a blood-spattered and smashed bus. Sure the cow was much worse for wear (it died) but it was an inconvenience I think the passengers, the driver, and the cow could have done without)
- breaking my tailbone when I was learning to snowboard and not knowing it was broken for a month after coming back from the trip
For my friends and family, I'll do like I did last year and post daily injury stats to Twitter/Facebook. That way they'll know whether to have an ambulance waiting for me when I return.
