Icarus knows where it's good to sit:




Also, I'm a complete fool.  I've been about three steps away from dead the last few days and it's my own stupid fault.  I completely overdid it on the weekend, trying to build a new garden bed and wall.  I should KNOW better than to do  that much heavy lifting, I've been a fitness instructor, I know this stuff.  But no, Saturday was spent wheeling heavy barrows full of stuff, and Sunday I was trying to manhandle big concrete blocks all day.  As a consequence, the last three nights, my body has been aching too badly to allow me to get to sleep - the pain keeps waking me up, but I badly need the sleep to recover properly.  It's classic overtraining and I'm so stupid.

Even more retardedly, I did this after two days' testing at the metal coating lines.  We test from the roof.  It's only reachable by carrying our equipment up storeys upon storeys of stairs and ladders, clambering over rooftops, traversing hot catwalks along the tops of furnaces, and the like.  Plus, it's full of low levels of carbon monoxide gas, for which we carry gas alarms; my gas exposure alarm went off four times in the two days (we have to evacuate for at least one hour when this happens).

So, I was already exhausted when we were finished there, and I went and did myself in on the weekend.  Idiot.  I've been such a mess, stumbling around at work the last few days, that I got taken aside by the boss to make sure everything was 'ok in my life'.  I've done no heavy work the last three days and I'm bit less sore tonight, so I hope I can sleep.

Today was fun though, we had fire extinguisher training.  We got to play with the CO2 extinguishers and set out a gas fire.    I had to laugh when the trainer was telling us about the hazards of using dry chemical powder extinguishant in confined spaces - according to this guy, it tastes terrible, makes a godawful mess, and can present respiratory problems and eye irritation!  No kidding... but thanks to Grimm's NYE party, we already know that.  *sigh*

To finish, another photo... we got a picture of Icarus flapping and carrying on to get our attention, and Tim thinks he's terribly clever at captioning.

It has been remarked to me that I haven't been spending very much time online lately. So, I shall post an apology on my various blogs in case anyone has missed me. 

The reason is, I've been gardening. Obessively and relentlessly, every minute of spare daylight I have, I've been gardening. I'm trying to get the whole thing finished, top to tail, by the end of spring. It's a 1500m2 block so that's a lot of work. Hence, I don't have a lot else to talk about at the moment, so I'm really very uninteresting right now... unless anyone likes hearing about how utterly vile my compost heap smells, or how frustrating it is to try and dig up patches of lawn which have aggressively random chunks of concrete buried in them, or whether or not I should plant pansies in the front.

So that's why I'm not talking much to anyone, and probably won't be for some time. Partly because my time is divided between working, and being exhausted from so much working; and partly because I know all I'll talk about is the wretched garden, and I don't want to bore the pants off anyone.

Oh! But there IS the new bird. Icarus is pretty rough around the edges and needs to learn a few things about 'acceptable' amounts of force (he bites a lot - not maliciously, just in the manner of a very young animal investigating how much he can chew on things, and flesh is SO delightfully chewy), but he's also very playful. Yesterday he discovered a new game where he rolls over on his back and tussles with my fingers while I try to poke him in the belly. He spends a great deal of time rolling over now to make me play with him, and it's funny as hell. I need to take some photos of him soon.

I'm a bit angry at my community as a whole right now.

Yesterday I took delivery of a large amount of gardening supplies - bags of manure, woodchips, fertilisers, that sort of thing, for a large-scale overhaul of my garden that I began today.  This morning I entered my front yard to find two old European men clambering around near the woodchip pile.  I had never met either of them before, but they had just taken the liberty to wander onto my property.  When I came out, they hailed me as if I was a close friend and started demanding to know what I was going to do with all this stuff.

After politely but firmly seeing them off, I found that I had no large shovel, so took a trip down to the local garden centre to buy a few things.  Walking back with my nice shiny new supplies, I was stopped about three blocks away from my house by another old European man (I live in a suburb with a high density of elderly Europeans), whom I have also never met.  

He, too, greeted me as if I was a long-lost friend.  Then wanted to know what I was doing carrying around a big shovel like that.  I suppose I could have told him that needed a new shovel to bury my most recent murder victim, because my last good shovel broke while I was bashing their brains out.  I totally should have done that.  Instead, I nicely told him that I was doing some gardening.  That's when he got weird.

He mumbled something that sounded like he was asking if I wanted to have sex.  I dismissed that as unlikely and repeated that I was going home to do the gardening, and I'd better be on my way.

  "When will you be home?" he asked.
  "Oh, about five minutes.  I don't live far away."
  "Where you live?"
  "Just down there a bit," and I waved my hand vaguely in the direction I was going.  I wasn't going to tell the guy which house was mine.
  "Can I come back to your place then?"
  That made me uneasy.  I decided to pretend to be obtuse.  "No thanks, I don't need any help, I should be able to do this on my own," and waved the shovel at him.
  "How much cost?"
  "What, the shovel?" I asked.
  "For sex.  How much cost for sex?"

This time there was no mistaking what I'd heard.  I stopped being polite and left him there.  I still can't believe I was asked if I could be paid for sex, by a seventy-plus-year-old man, walking down my street.  I was wearing dirty work clothes and carrying a fucking shovel.  If I looked like a fucking prostitute, I must have been catering for some pretty specific fetishes.

This isn't the first time I've been approached inappropriately my elderly men in my suburb.  I've blogged a little bit about my neighbour before, but I don't think I mentioned the time he actually tried to kiss me and grab my breasts, or the time when his friend was trying to persuade me to come back to his place for reasons I don't want to think about.  Then there was the shop owner who gave me a long and sad story about his dead wife, before asking me to marry him.  But this is just beyond a joke, I'm getting completely sick of it. I don't understand how they can possibly think this is appropriate behaviour. And why are there so MANY of them?

Yesterday was... interesting.  On Thursday, we left work with the warning that if it rained on Friday morning, we may get a 6am call saying not to come in at all.  So when I woke up on Friday to crystal clear skies, it was with a duality of emotions.  Grateful that I'd get another day's work because the last few weeks have been a little lean; but regretful that I wouldn't get to go back to my warm bed. 

So I proceed to work.  We pack the gear van and head out to our planned analysis venue... only to find that the machinery has gone down for the day, hence leaving us nothing to test.  Nutz, I could have gone back to bed after all.

Next week, though, we'll be testing at the sinter plant, which is our highest testing platform.  Getting the testing gear up is always a huge circus, so we decided as long as we weren't doing anything else, we'd haul the gear up there and leave it over the weekend.  So.  I decide to head straight up the stack with Matt (another team mate), leaving the other guys to unpack while we lowered the crane to haul the gear.

The platform is roughly five hundred steps up, but there is a lift that takes us half way, leaving only two or three hundred stairs to climb.  Me and Matt board the rickety, clanking lift, and ride to the top level.  Where it gets stuck, six inches below the landing, so locking the door and trapping us inside.

I've been inducted to use this particular lift, so I'm supposed to know how to use the emergency tools to free yourself if you're trapped.  You either have the choice of using a lever to let off the brakes (theoretically allowing you to coast to the next landing and unlocking the door), or using a specially-designed tool to manually work the door gears and open it.  I realised I wasn't happy about the first option.  I don't know about any of you, but the idea of letting the brakes off in a lift I was standing in isn't my idea of fun and good times.  So we found the tool instead.  One problem?  I couldn't reach the spot where you can access the door gears.

So Matt had to do it, and he had never been inducted, so he struggled a bit, and managed to drop the tool on his nose.  Oh, great.  We've got blood on top of everything else.  In this day and age, in this industry, that means paperwork, incident reports, and all of that fucking about.  Aargh.

We did get the door unlocked in the end.  I had to call for help over the PA (so everyone in the fucking sinter plant could hear that there was a damsel in distress caught in the god damned lift), but at least we managed to get out on our own.  So embarrassing. 

After work, we had a function to farewell one of our long term team members, who is retiring.  This was a pleasant enough affair.  One of the guys on my team brought his little two-year old, Jack, who is fairly well-known to everyone else.  They introduced him to me by saying, "This is Karyn, she works with Daddy!"

To which he looked at me and solemnly pronounced, "No, she's too little."



Later in the night, when the crowd had dwindled, I somehow found myself being lectured by one of the men, with whom I've previously had very little contact.  It started with my being somewhat underwhelmed at the thought of receiving flowers from a partner (no, he wasn't trying to offer me flowers - it was just part of the conversation at the time) to which he blithely informed me that "Oh, you can't really be in love then.  If you were in love, you'd be overjoyed to get anything from your partner - you'd treasure and cherish it."  That offended me for a start.  Yes, I would be... appreciative of flowers, they're a nice gesture.  Yet also a potentially thoughtless one (they ARE kind of a cop-out gift, if you can't think of anything more original to give) and well, not really very useful.  Put it this way, I wouldn't be unhappy about getting flowers, but neither do I long for them.  And how dare someone tell me that just because I don't melt at the thought of receiving flowers from my loved one, I don't love him.

I think he realised I was offended at that, so he apologised and hoped he hadn't upset me, but then went on to say that he thinks I'm 'trying to be too tough' and I'd grow out of this 'phase'.  Meaning my cynicism, my attraction to heavy metal, the way I dress, my piercings.  I'd get sick of my tattoos, start listening to other kinds of music (I already do, but thanks for asking) and I'd become a 'mature lady'.  I was 'too intelligent' to go on like this forever, and the only reason I hadn't already was because of my partner and his lifestyle. 

I've heard this before, so it doesn't overly offend me, just rather exasperates me.  It's simple closed-mindedness.  He thinks the only way to be is the way HE sees things, so because I am 'intelligent' I will eventually come round to this way of being.  I politely left shortly after this.  He was half-drunk anyway, so talking to him would have been fairly useless, and there was no point - neither of us would change the others' mind.

I'll never understand why some people think the best way to comment on another person's life is to inform them that 'one day you will be like THIS'.  Who knows?  They may be right.  But if you tell someone the way they WILL be, without letting them decide for themselves, you're likely to make them want to be the complete opposite just to spite you.  Perhaps one day I will take out my extraneous piercings and stop diving into moshpits.  In fact, I can say this is almost certainly true.  The piercings will probably not suit me when I grow towards middle age, and I'll not always be robust enough to withstand a savage pit.  But telling me with smug certainty that I'll grow up one day, and stop being the way I am, isn't going to make me very well disposed towards a person.

Rain!  What the fuck is with all this rain in winter time?  Yeah, I know this is the way it usually happens in the blasted Sydney region.  But the proper time for rain is in summer, don't'y'know, when it's hot and rain becomes a totally awesome thing.  There's nothing more miserable than winter rain.  The thing I miss MOST about Queensland is the climate.

I haven't been able to do any clothes washing for over a week and I've run out of underwear.  I can't mow my lawn.  The creek to the side of my property is flooding, and the far end of my backyard is starting to amass a worrying collection of standing water.  My gym has two inches of water in it.  This is ok, it has drainage holes at the back and none of the electrical bits are actually touching the floor, but it'll be all muddy and stinky when this eventually stops.  Yuck.  And it's offensively cold!  I hate cold! 

Worst of all, perhaps, all the rain means it's really difficult for us to do any outdoor sampling at work - so the amount of hours available to me, as a casual, plunges.  I only did 19 hours work last week, about 5 below my 'safety level' (ie the amount I need to work to comfortably meet my mortgage payment and still afford a decent week's food).  Next week is therefore Tight Arse Week.

Plus my intolerant QLD immune system has caught a cold, so I'm sick and emo (hence the whiny petulant emo blog).  Stay awaaaaaay.

I did manage to disguise the sick and the emo enough to drag myself out to see a marriage celebrant yesterday, who booked me in for a date (1st March next year, if anyone wants to know such things) and gave me a folder full of Lame.  Sorry, I meant a folder full of lovely and uplifting suggestions for poetry readings, stupefyingly sweet and sugary vows, and pamphlets for the kind of florists and cake makers who would charge me two weeks' wages just for the privelige of breathing the air in their shops.  Oh, that's unfair of me.  The celebrant herself was awfully nice and helpful, and very understanding of the fact that I'm somewhat intolerant of ordinary wedding culture.  She should do just fine.

I find it amusing (and perhaps a little worrying) that Roast Beef from Achewood is also preparing to get married at the same time as me, and that his observations echo mine rather minutely.

On a brighter note (for some of us, anyway)... Stage of Origin, motherfuckers.    Love that winning feeling.  What a weird game it was on Wednesday, though.  How many times did both teams get close to, or even over, the line - but only three tries were actually scored.  Nobody did anything particularly stupid, and nobody did anything particularly heroic.  Almost no penalties for the whole match.  I guess that just means it was a straightforward game, but I dunno... In Origin, I suppose I expect the players to try more over the top plays which could turn out to be either absolutely amazing or totally disastrous.  There was none of that, just solid defense and sensible play.  I'm not sure whether that was a disappointment or not.  I'll go with not, because we did win, after all. 

Wah, I just burnt my toasted sandwich   I'm going to go and watch Scrubs dvds and ignore the fact that I need to clean my house, on the grounds that cleaning house will only make me sneeze more.  Blaarrrrrr.

The weekend just past was spent at mum's place again.  It was her birthday, and my grandfather's, and my stepbrother's, so there was much in the way of family party occurrences.  Yay!  I took the opportunity, while there, to do some planning.  The wedding is taking shape and so is the preparation of the landscaping.  I now have a plan of action that my auntie somehow managed to make perfectly understandable to me, despite the fact that I know nothing about gardening.  I shan't say much more about the visit (at the risk of boring everyone away) except that it was very productive and things are well.

More complaints about my neighbour:  Last night he interrupted House.  HOUSE.  It was an important episode in the current plot arc and you don't fucking well walk through my door right when I'm watching an important episode of House god dammit.  "Where have you been?" he says, in a tone of voice that suggests I've been away for ten years, rather than three days.  Obviously he's been trying to call in several times over the weekend... is this creepy?  I feel like it's creepy.  Also, again with the touching.  He patted my shoulder and caressed my back the whole time we were talking.  When I stepped away (usually polite body language indicating that time for touching is over), he followed me in order to stay within my personal space.  I don't like this at all but I've no idea of how to approach it with him. 

Today at work, we had our personalities profiled.  I went into it with a vague impression that it would be fairly wanky, but it was actually pretty interesting - it was the Myers-Briggs personality test, if anyone's done it.  They break you down into one of sixteen personality types, characterised by a quartet of letters which each give an aspect of your type.  I came out as Introverted (as opposed to Extroverted), Intuitive (as opposed to Sensitive), Thinker (as opposed to Feeler), and Perceptive (as opposed to Judging).  You can come also out at different points along the scale between one or the other.  For example I was very strongly introverted; but when comparing Thinker vs Feeler, I was definitely on the Thinker side of the scale, but still had some Feeler characteristics.

At first it seemed to be fairly rubbishy.  The comparison between Introverts and Extroverts, for example; I was pretty much exclusively introverted according to my profile.  Introverts think before speaking, extroverts think better when they talk things through first; introverts do not talk well to people, extroverts find this easier; and so on.  I was thinking as this was being explained that it's impossible to say where I fit on this.  Anyone that knows me knows that I don't generally go out of my way to talk to people and I can often seem unsociable or shy, but if there's a discussion happening that I find interesting, I can talk myself dry.  How then can I be exclusively introverted?  It's explained by my combination of Introvert and Thinker - a very introverted thinker feels uncomfortable talking to people they don't know, but can be extremely talkative on subjects they are knowledgeable in.  Thus I hate small talk and won't approach strangers at parties, but I'll rabbit on for ages if I know what I'm talking about (or think I do ).

So basically, while the individual categories can seem excessively narrow and confining, when they're combined with the other categories you fall into, it becomes a lot more interesting and informative.  I'm skeptical about this sort of thing (and even THAT was mentioned in my profile ) but I found this very interesting.  Here's some snippets of what it thinks I am when my personality types are combined:

- Logical, analytical, objectively critical
- Detached and contemplative
- Asks difficult questions
- Works best alone and independently
- Finds it difficult to work on routine tasks, works better on things that arouse curiosity
- Disorganised, not good at organising others
- Tolerant of a wide range of behaviours
- Highly values intelligence and competence in others
- Approaches things with skepticism
- Want to express the exact truth, but may make it so complex that others have difficulty understanding what the hell I'm talking about
- Mentally quick, insightful, ingenious, intensely curious about ideas and theories
- Independent, valuing autonomy
- Quiet and calm
- If frustrated with a person or situation, may become cynical or sarcastic, or have a tendency to isolate myself and procrastinate
- May be insensitive to the needs of others
- May be impractical or forget details
- Under great stress, may erupt in inappropriate displays of emotion which will be unnerving to others and embarrassing to me as I'm usually calm and controlled

... All of which I think is pretty damn fair enough.  Let me know what you reckon, based on what you know about me

Interesting fact:  I just discussed this with my mother, who has also been Myers-Briggs profiled at her work, and she's apparently my polar opposite.  *eyebrows*

Another interesting fact:  If a building you're standing on is constantly vibrating (say, from a very large fan or piece of machinery operating beneath you somewhere), every solid surface you sit on potentially becomes a vibrator.  This sounds like a lot more fun than it actually is.    Some women suffer from a condition known as PSAS (look it up, I'm not explaining it to you); yesterday at work, I discovered just what they go through every day - and it's not good at all.  Aargh.

...sick & miserable.  Not sure what it is, whether it's an overblown allergy again or something more nasty, but I'm feelin' very blue.  Running nose, sore throat, itchy sneezes, sore eyes, a little nausea coming and going, headache, weak and a bit shaky, possible slight fever.  I don't like it, no I don't.  None of these symptoms are severe on their own, but together they're adding up to a major annoyance.  I will be going to bed shortly.

I'm particularly annoyed by this because on Monday, I was supposed to be going out to sea on a boat with the CSIRO.  I like boats.    They're sampling the harbour waters and out into the open ocean to see what kind of pollution is coming from the steelworks, and I'm to be there as official steelworks personnel.  If I'm still sick on Monday, I won't be able to do this and I will be sad.

In other news... The neighbour situation is getting more weird as it goes along.  On Wednesday, the two old guys were babysitting their grandkids.  These kids were also brought along while the final bits of yardwork was happening, which is... well... ok, I guess, if the kids hadn't been climbing on my garage, playing with my punching bag, jumping in and out of (thankfully empty) garden beds, and generally running amok.  I'm not comfortable with this.  I tried to explain that to him nicely when I got home from work, but as always, I'm not sure how much the language barrier gets in the way of our communicating.   

Also, Nico is starting to insist on hugs and kisses when he comes round to talk to me, which is fine, really... but he doesn't respond to the usual "ok I'm pulling back from this hug now" body language that one would usually employ to break a hug.  I find it difficult to extricate myself and sometimes I could swear to GOD he's groping my breasts. 

I have been finding myself hiding sometimes when he comes knocking at the door, which is cowardly, but he's always dropping over at that really inconvenient time of night when I'd usually be cooking or eating dinner or having a shower and I just don't want to be disturbed, dammit.  Sometimes when I get home from the steelworks, I just want to strip off and lie on the couch for a while because I'll have been in bulky sweaty clothes all day; at such times it's a joy to just not wear anything for a while.  Now I feel weird about being naked in my own house, because I might get a neighbour dropping over and have to find clothes in a hurry.  It's infuriating because he's not doing anything wrong.  It's me who is being antisocial and un-neighbourly, but for fuck's sake I'm just like that.  I need to preserve my boundaries of misanthropy. 

However, the yard IS looking very good.  I'm now organising to have a landscape consultant look at it (she is also distinguished by being my auntie).  Hopefully we'll be able to choose plants that even a plant-killer like myself will be able to cultivate.

I'm going to do that sleeping thing and hope to goodness I'm feeling better tomorrow. 

I watched The Sixth Sense the other night, when it was shown on TV.  It was the second time I'd watched it; as with other unexpected twist movies (Fight Club was a good one), the second viewing is the best one.  You begin to pick up all the clever little clues to the ending which you overlooked the first time.

But, while watching this movie, I am perenially distracted by the wretched little boy who plays Cole.  His name is Haley Joel Osment and he looks just like my little brother.  Well, not now.  My brother is 23 and it'd be a bit of a worry if he still looked like that, but when he was that age, he looked exactly like that kid!

... but, I can't find a good photograph which shows the resemblance.  It's more in the expressions and oh, I don't know, mannerisms that the kid had in the film.  It was weird.  Anyway.

My ancient Macedonian neighbour Nico and his brother Boby have invaded my yard over the last week or two.  I let it get very overgrown in February, which was a very busy work month for me, and somehow never found the time to catch up.  It's a big job.  Nico and Boby volunteered to clean it up, so I gave them some cash and let them go for it.  I felt bad at first because usually they've been doing it a bit at a time while I was away at work, and couldn't help them; but I learned today that they didn't want my help.  I tried to help them but they wouldn't have a bar of it. 

"No, no," they told me as I tried to load a wheelbarrow full of weeds, "you go, inside, have a rest or do washing or cleaning.  That is your job, this is ours."  They wouldn't even let me clean my own lawnmower.  I got totally chauvanised out of doing my own gardening, but in a nice old man kind of way.  If it was anyone else I probably would have found it annoying, but that's the way they do things, I suppose. 

It is a... little... annoying when they make it their business to tell me how to do things.  Like, that I shouldn't be planning to make a native tree garden down the back, and I should definitely be planting vegetables instead.  Or that wanting to replace the ugly corrugated iron fence is silly, because it's not broken, just buckling a little, and it'll last for another ten years if I just shore up the concrete foundations.  Or that my electric lawnmower is not good enough and I need a petrol one.  Or that I'm not painting my garage right, I should have put mortar on the walls first.  And so on. 

The language barrier is mostly impassable between us.  Their English is fairly broken and sparse and I don't understand their language, so I can get away with nodding and smiling most of the time.  They are really lovely old men so I can forgive them for it... again, just the way they do things.  I'm not sure what they think of me working on the steelworks, though.  I'm sure that's not meant to be women's work either. 

Last weekend I paid a visit back home to see mum.  This is always good.    It had been a while since I'd been able to get there, so it was great to spend some time bumming around in QLD.  Actually no, there wasn't much bumming around at all; I was busy the whole time, but it was a good kind of busy.

Every time I go home, I have my hair done because it is muchos cheaper in Brisbane (cut and permanent colour on my extreme long hair for $130 - I am ze winner).  I now have a new layer cut and a rather nice shade of copper, which will be lost on my workmates because my hair spends most of its time bound up under a hard hat.  Oh well, I like it anyway.  Also the fancy shampoo they gave me smells like chocolate.

This time I got to spend some decent time with my good friend Ngaio, with whom I spent most of my childhood and has been appointed my chief bridesmaid for the eventual wedding.  Ngaio is an incomparably crafty person and she has learned the art of corsetry, so I asked her to make a corset for me to get married in.  I hadn't put much thought into it past the "I would like a corset" stage, but she was absolutely brimming with ideas.  I was slightly surprised to discover that between us, we've almost totally worked out what I am going to wear, and now all we have to do is make and/or find all of it.  She's clearly much better at  this than I am.

What else... ah, Saturday was Overcranked!  That was the excuse I had for going up to QLD in the first place.  The LORD lads had a spot on Overcranked, a festival held in the RNA showgrounds (we were in one of the agricultural pavilions - I think the metal stage was set up in a cow barn).  They got a great reaction and the set went well with Shane from Transcending Mortality as stand-in guitarist.  They shared the stage with several bands well known to us; Pathogen (GREAT to see these guys again), Terrorust, Psycroptic & Ruins, among others.  We also discovered an old school punk band from the Gold Coast called Vicious who sang songs about drinking, are self-proclaimed terrible musicians but were fucking legends on stage.  It was an awesome day.    It would have been better if BOTH my cameras hadn't thrown in the towel early, but you can't have everything.

I took a trip to discuss landscape gardening with my green-thumbed Aunt; went to dinner with my lil sister and her friend who thinks my blogs are funny (hi Lucy!); got engagement presents from my mother (a new knife set, YAY) and her neighbour (lovely serving bowls ); drove around to random places with my stepfather; and went to breakfast with Ngaio and her new boyfriend (we seemed to approve of each other).  It was a satisfyingly full trip which was only slightly marred by the wretched coldy sneezy thing I conveniently picked up on the plane from Sydney.

And  now, because I don't want to forget how to make it -

Slightly barbequey sauce
(this is based on a thing I saw Jamie Oliver do)

2 whole cloves
Half tsp each fennel seeds, anise seeds, and smoked paprika
5 dried allspice berries
Quarter tsp grated nutmeg
10 black peppercorns
1 tsp each dried oregano and parsley (or fresh equivalent)
3-5 cloves minced garlic
5 tblsp each balsamic vinegar and extra-virgin olive oil
2 tblsp each mango chutney and sweet chili sauce
1/4 cup tomato sauce
Juice of half a lime
1 onion
500g steak
250g starchy vegetables (potato, sweet potato, pumpkin etc)

Preheat oven to 200 degrees.  In a mortar and pestle, beat up the dried spices until they are well-ground.  Tip into a 20cm cake tin.  Roughly chop the herbs (if using fresh), mince the garlic, and add these to the tin.  Pour in vinegar, oil, sauces, chutney, and juice and stir until well-combined.

Roughly chop the onion, chop the starchy vegetables into chunks, and add these to the tin along with the whole steaks.  Toss well to coat in the sauce.  Cover the whole thing with foil and bake for 90 minutes.

Remove the steak, onion and vegetables from the sauce and serve as a separate meal.  Allow the leftover sauce to cool - it should have developed flavour from the cooking of the steak, and thickened slightly from the starch in the vegetables.  Store in a clean jar in the fridge and use within a week - serve poured over anything you'd normally use barbeque sauce with.  The sauce should be sweet, spicy and fairly strong in flavour.

Tim proposed.  I said yes.  Marriage pending.



Well ok, I guess there's a slight bit more to it than that, but yeah... that is the meat of it.  We're engaged. 

He surprised the hell out of me, but what also surprised me is how happy it made me.  I'm not particularly fussed on marriage; it's not what you could call one of my life goals.  I haven't thought about it much.  So in light of that, I am really amazed at how happy I feel about it.  I guess that means it's the right thing to do.    I'm proud to be at this place in my life with this wonderful person, and I'm proud that he would ask me to be with him this way.  Love you, baby.

Ok, the sopfest is over, you can quit retching.  Some answers to questions that may be asked:

- No, I'm not changing my name.  I like my name, I've had it a long time.
- No, we don't have a date yet.  I have a vague-ish sort of idea, but there's no need to worry about that at this point.  There will be plenty of notice given because of interstate family members and so forth.
- No, Tim will not be wearing a suit.
- No, he didn't give me a ring.  Why would I want an expensive sparkly lump of compressed carbon?  The thought of wearing a piece of jewellery that is more expensive than a fridge, on my hand, gives me the heebie jeebies.
- Yes, I'm having bridesmaids, so anyone taking photos will have a bunch of hot chicks to photograph. 

That about covers it.  Whenever it happens, it's going to be very informal and unstructured, whatever comes naturally.  It'll likely be more like a barbeque or something than a wedding, and the actual ceremony bit will probably be the short, short version ("Do you?" "Yes."  "Do YOU?" "Yes."  "Good!  You're married!  Kiss her!").  We're also not really making a big deal about it because, well, if he puts up an announcement it'll feel like a press release.  This is something for us, not everyone else.  Obviously the news will get around a bit but we'll be basically keeping it low key.

So there you have it... our news