This was my childhood
The following describes EXACTLY what being a kid in New Zealand was like for me, it was amazing. I intend to print this out to remind me of all the things that Ethan needs to learn to grow up a proper kiwi; I’m talking about …
Month: July 2009
Tuesday, it's what's in my head
@ wives of men (or men who do other mens laundry): If your husband pulls his socks off and leaves them in balls like this; just know that you are not alone. I thought I was the only one to suffer this affliction but it …
The Sunday Sushi – with Sushezi!
There is probably no way our family could ever eat enough sushi. Dave loves it, Ethan loves it and I love it. In fact Louie loves it too but we can’t afford to feed our Shi Tzu sushi, shame on us I know.
I can roll sushi like a pro, but I can’t do it fast. This means we don’t eat homemade sushi as much as we should because it is a (fairly) cheap and super healthy family dinner. After a quick googling, Dave and Ethan headed to Stevens and picked up our very own……SUSHEZI! I swear this thing is so quick, easy to use and rolls amazing sushi. We love it so much we are having sushi again tomorrow night.
Step one:
Cook your sushi rice and cool, prepare your ingredients. We used smoked salmon, avocado, cucumber, snow pea shoots, honey soy chicken, orange capsicum and cream cheese.
Step 2:
Grease your SUSHEZI! lightly and fill each side with half a cup of rice, create a trench with the plunger rod on each side.
Step 3:
Place your fillings in the trenches, this is the fun part!
Step 4:
Close the contraption with the plunger inside, and screw the plunger in. This will compress the rice and make the sushi roll nice and tight. Make sure the end cap is on – left hand side of the contraption.
Step 5:
Lay out your nori sheet and prepare to squeeze out your 1st sushi log! Look at that thing, it is perfect!
Step 6:
Roll the sushi as usual, wet the edge of the nori slight to make sure that it sticks.
Step 7:
Now let the roll rest for 15min so the nori softens – this will make it easier to slice.
Step 8:
Devour! We were hoping for leftovers, but we underestimated the appetite of our 4 year old.
They can even make Ethan look like a dork!
The boys took Bush to the Sky Tower in Auckland, and all they got was this lousy photo – actually three photos, in all different spots around the city…..hmmmmm, that;s tricky.
Weekly Wrap Up
Sometimes being tucked up in your bed early on a Friday night is the best place to be, especially when it’s freezing cold and it has been a long, busy week. Things I am loving right now; That I finished and submitted my law assignment …
Writers Prompt: Heidi-ho neighbours!
Describe a situation that forced you to confront a neighbor
Oh this is a good one Mama Kat!
I can’t decide which one is best, they all terrorised me equally so prepare to meet my multiple bad neighbours;
1. When Bush and I lived in Tortilla Flats in Encinitas we had a small 1 bedroom apartment. Yes, you did the math right, 2 girls, one bedroom. We didn’t have a bed so get your mind out of the gutter, we both had our own little pile of cushions and blankets that we slept on and we took turns sleeping on the mini-futon. We lived next door to a Mexican family with approximately 11 sons, all between the ages of 18-24. They were pretty fascinated by their new neighbours and would spend most of their time smoking cigarettes and staring in our windows. Blatantly staring. We didn’t have curtains so that was quickly rectified by some sarongs that we kept up for the entirety of our tenancy. It got so bad we were forced to learn some quick spanglish and found ourselves constantly yelling “NO MIRA ME! NO MIRA ME!”. Apparently the general context of what we were saying sunk in I guess, because our bikinis drying on the clothes line quickly ceased being the local water cooler.
2. The first apartment Dave and I rented by ourselves was in a sweet 5 apartment complex so close to the beach in San Diego you could hear the waves at night. We were super happy there, or at least Dave and Ethan were. I was to discover that apartment living is really not for me. Poor Dave, I was constantly dispatching him to ask John & Rion the single surfers upstairs to turn their TV down, the lesbians living above me would stomp around at all hours and their loud toilet flushing would just about put me over the edge. The thing that drove me the most crazy was their roommates habit of clipping his nails on the shared outdoor steps. He left the clippings on the steps people! It wasn’t just the nastiness of leaving his nails all lying around but for me it was the whole ritual that grossed me out – the very sound of the clippers would make me run for my ipod to drown out the noise. It was akin to water boarding for me, in fact I think I would actually give that a whirl rather than sit through the sound of Miguel ever trimming his nails again.
3. Same complex. New Years Eve. Neighbour on top floor is a semi-retired early fifties divorcee. He loses the plot on New Years somehow gets a hold of a massive amount of cocaine, snorts himself silly then goes on a 48 hour prostitute bender. Once the working girls stopped coming over he made do with porn. Problem was he turned it up so loud that the entire alley 3 floors down was awash with the various soundtracks on New Years Day. Yeah, I did some serious yelling that day.
4. Home in NZ this time. Our first sweet little flat here was next door to a small, old and quite lovely graveyard – nothing spooky about it at all. It has a bench at the top that must be one of the best places to sit and relax on a sunny day – problem was, every sunny day the drunk frenchman would park himself up there with his 4 pack of large bourbon and colas and get hammered. First three were pretty quiet, but he would then totter back to the local liquor store and grab his second 4 pack and then he was ON. Louder and louder, more cuss words by the minute. This guy would get so lost in his own conversation with himself he wouldn’t even see you coming. I lost count of the number of times I called the cops and would peek through my fence as they came and took him away. Mean I know, but I just couldn’t understand why he couldn’t keep his boozing at home like us normal people do.
Where oh where is my life?
I have been sucked into the Bush vacuum for the last 3.5 weeks and it is so weird. I feel like I have been forced to take a vacation from my life but in my own house. There are strange things afoot, like the pile …
Writers Workshop
The Prompts:
1.) Tell us about a “dirt cheap” you’ve taken this summer.
2.) When I grow up I want to be like…
3.) Describe a difficult moment that you survived.
4.) List 5 things you like to do while camping…or 5 places you’d like to go.
5.) What are you paranoid about?
Well, it’s not summer so #1 is out, I just plain do not want to grow up so I can’t even entertain #2.
3. Describe a difficult moment that you survived. OK let’s tackle this guy.
The first situation that springs to mind is Ethan’s Christening. I don’t even know if that’s what it was called, maybe his dedication or something? Obviously I am not much of a ‘force religion on your child’ type-person. We were in the south, staying with Dave’s family for the final month before we moved permanently to New Zealand. There was this ridiculous drama surrounding the whole thing, certain family members had not spoken to us for 3 of the 4 weeks because we weren’t shelling out money to their children left and right (cause we are filthy rich right?) so tension was running high. Add to this, it was Mothers Day and I was being forced to go to a Baptist church and do something I felt quite strongly against. It was a ill planned joke in the church. On a day when a number of very young children were ‘booked in’ for this procedure, the pastor decided to make the kids wait til the end of the service. By wait, I mean a couple of hours. Can you imagine? So when it’s finally the time to address the issue of the screaming children and their destiny with Jesus we line up in front of the congregation. It’s very quiet, everyone is listening to the pastors inroduction of each little family. Ethan is pissed and wallops me across the face with this satisfying slap that was totally worthy of a Sopranos sound bite. That’s how The Jack family met the southern baptists.
To amplify my mothers day misery, it was a Sunday. In Georgia. Do you know what that means? NO LIQOUR SALES. I was unable to drown my sorrows. So I did what any self-respecting, miserable wife would do – I sent my husband and my best friend to Florida to buy beer. Happy mothers day!
Project 365* Day 18: Tame Cafe Parrot
This pic was taken at midday believe it or not. This crazy bird was so tame, when I arrived at the cafe it was sitting on Pauline’s head.