Chinese Appointment

Every week, I seem to be in charge of making the appointment for Saturday Night Chinese. This could be because it is the only telephone number I have memorised here. Back in Adelaide I used to have a lot of numbers in my head, but here I need only this one. It’s at this restaurant which has a beautiful view over the Shoalhaven river, and it’s about a 15km drive from our house, down a road past lots of cows that I say hi to, when it’s daylight saving. When it’s not, it’s dark, and you can’t even tell the cows are out there. :(

It’s at an RSL club that we belong to, they have a bar, pokies, and the restaurant. I never seem to win on the pokies much anymore except last week I accidentally bet a lot more than I thought I was betting, and won $20 in one shot.

We’ve been to the *other* club three times this week, Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. They’ve been having these meat raffles with hams and turkeys and roast porks to win. So far we have two hams, one roast pork, no turkey, and two meat trays. On Sunday we went to the other club, won a ham and a pork, then went to the Chinese club for dinner because we missed it on Saturday and won a meat tray there too.

Soon it’s the special Christmas raffle day at the *other* club, they are raffling off a whole bunch of things, every time you buy a meat raffle ticket or a coffee you get another ticket. I have the winning one here. :) shh don’t tell anyone..

But on Wednesday night, we did not win a single meat tray. It was depressing. At the end of the raffle you write your name and member number on the back and it goes into a draw for a voucher, and I won that instead! w00t $20 ;)

Well I off to get ready for the Chinese.. ;)

About Snoskred, Aussie Culture, family

Aunties are nuts.

My 11 year old nephew is too old to give kisses to his auntie anymore. He’s settling for thinking I am loopy instead. Auntie makes up her own words, and she has crazy sayings that she says far too often.

He bought a game today and he was explaining it to me. He told me it had a squirrel as the main character. I said “Everybody loves squirrels” and he said “I’m going to have to agree with you on that one” ;) Normally he argues with me when I make “everybody loves” type statements. How cute!

We’re off for a chinese dinner, and then I’ll be back to read what all my fellow bloggers have been up to ;) I bought plates, and shoes which are sparkly, yay!

family, things to remember

I got some email..

A scammer I am baiting sent me some photos. I’ve posted them on the scambaiter blog. You can see them here but be warned, he’s in his underwear.

Speaking of half naked, when we went down to Pebbly Beach there was this chick kneeling down on the ground taking photos of the birds landing on her relatives, showing us enough of her crack that I felt like I could see what she had for breakfast. I am serious! It was a very inappropriate amount of crack to be showing. Inches and inches of crack!

My uncle says to me.. Don’t forget to post that letter… and it took me a minute or two to get what he meant, and then I could not stop laughing. And he kept going, he was saying to my parents “Have you got any letters you need posted?”

I am tempted to get a supply of small coins this summer, and anytime I see a crack I should put a coin in it, see if I can do it without the crack-shower noticing.. ;)

I’m a bit busy today so in the meantime here’s a pic of a lady (not the crack shower) being attacked by birds at Pebbly Beach..

birdz.0

family, funny, New South Wales

W00t!

Rock star : Supernova the band is coming to Australia! In March next year. And the ticketing website which is selling the tickets is currently not working so I can’t even find out how much it is or even put a link here to it. grrr. Apparently Toby Rand and Juke Kartel will be the support act which is fantastic news. I definately want to go. ;)

Today we went shopping, we did not go to see the movie I wanted to see because my other half is a pain in the ass about movies, he’s a right snob about what he will and won’t go to see. But he’s happy to watch those silly anime cartoons for hours on end! I’ll probably end up going to see it on my own :(

Then we cooked dinner for my parents, a yummy Jamie Oliver recipe. Except I just use normal mushrooms, remove the thyme and add bacon. I also use half a cup of wine and half a cup of water otherwise the wine can be a little bit much. I’ve tried a few of his recipes and they always work out well.

I have an admission to make to you all. I am somewhat of a germophobe. Not to the point where it’s keeping me from going anywhere, but at times I think I can see there from here.

The two biggest issues I have are food preparation and door handles. I don’t like touching door handles and (this is hard to say) if it is somewhere really germy I sometimes open them with my jacket sleeve instead of my hand. Especially if I’ve just washed them in a public bathroom.

With food prep I absolutely hate tea towels and and refuse to have them in my kitchen at all – paper towel is your friend, I find. I don’t like using sponges and try to avoid them where I can and certainly would never use one to wipe a bench top. I also tend to wash my hands a lot in between handling different foods. It’s probably excessive but we all have to find a way to live with our little insanities, right?

But to a germophobe, my mother’s kitchen is an absolute nightmare. Tea towels! Sponges used all over the place! Dishes not perfectly clean even though she has a brilliant dishwasher, she throws the dishes in there with chunks of food still on them (ugh! I can’t watch her do this, I have to walk away) and no matter how good a dishwasher is there’s only so much it can do.

When I openly show how this situation makes me feel, it makes her mad. She’s like “Well, you managed to grow up in a house where the kitchen was this way” – what she is forgetting is that often when she had “cleaned” the kitchen I would sneak in there when she wasn’t looking and do it again to my level of clean-ness. And as soon as I moved out of home, I was insanely strict about the kitchen must be clean before *and* after you cook in it.

Today she had to go to the dentist and she wasn’t feeling well, when we dropped in before we went shopping she was having a nap. This was a great excuse for me to come back here with all the shopping, cut everything up on my clean chopping boards and do things my way, and then put it all into little tupperware containers, and take it over there mostly done. What a great idea, I never thought of it before but I will be doing that again.

Here’s an example of an argument we always have – about mushrooms.

Mum sees me rinsing the mushrooms off in the sink

Mum – “Why do you need to rinse them, they’ve been washed already at the supermarket”

Me – “You see all these little black spots of dirt? You know what that is? They grow these things in manure, you know, that’s what that is, and I really would rather not eat shit if I can help it”

Mum – “I don’t know why you have to be so picky about everything”

Me – “I’m not picky about everything. I’m picky about this. “

Mum – “I never did this when you were growing up. You ate them like that all the time”

Or the other night –

My other half was about to cut up onions for hamburgers –
Me – “Stop, that knife is filthy!”

Mum – “I just used it to cut the skin off the onion, it’s only onion on there”

Me – “No it’s not, it is something dried on from the dishwasher”

(the other half walks to the sink and starts cleaning the knife)

Mum – “You’re being ridiculous”

Me – “I’m not being ridiculous, I just want to have things cut up with a clean knife, that’s not too much to ask”

(the other half returns and it is still there)

Me – “That’s not clean, it’s still there!”

(the other half starts scraping it off with a knife”

Mum – “, That knife is perfectly clean”

Dad – “I don’t think it is, he’s trying to scrape it clean with another knife and it’s still not coming off”

Mum – “Just use another one”

The other half got it clean and washed it again but in the meantime she’s handed him another filthy one! I quietly say to him – use the one you just cleaned.

She thinks I’m too fussy about it but then again, I have to live with *her* insanities so she should live with mine! What’s her insanity?

When shopping and you make a purchase, you must take that purchase out to the car before entering another shop. And of course she’s parked in the furthest park from the supermarket, so you have to walk a kilometre anytime you buy something.

I do not complain about this. I just recognise that she has an issue with that, and deal with it. It’s annoying, don’t get me wrong! I mean the bag has the receipt in it, and even if the other shop does not sell that product, there’s no talking her out of this. It just is.

cooking, family, germophobe