Perfecting the art of doing nothing

For the last three days, I've done nothing above and beyond washing the dishes and brushing my teeth. I don't think I've cooked dinner either. SciMan did that for me. Look at this beaut!

Poached eggs on toast.

So, for the last few days, SciMan's been under the weather and has stayed home. I've taken Kiddo to school and one morning, after dropping her off, I went to the lounge at the bottom of the hill for breakfast. SciMan had waxed ecstatic over their poached eggs on ciabatta. I decided to give it a go. It was okay. Came with a fried tomato and mushrooms. Ciabatta is good for sammies and paninis, but not really useful for an eggy breakfast. The mushrooms were good though. While eating, and because I didn't have a book with me, I looked up how to make a poached egg as I was, overall, happy to eat one. The website I found, ThePerfectPoachedEgg.com is meticulously clear about the method of making The Perfect Poached Egg. I laughed out loud in the lounge and disturbed several students.

Why I laughed:

The three starter items needed according to ThePerfectPoachedEgg.com are a good egg, a non-stick frying pan, and a reliable toaster*.

 The simple steps

The variables 

I got home and told SciMan what I experienced regarding the ciabatta and said, "Tiger loaf would be more appropriate." He agreed. After more conversation, it was determined that we could ourselves learn to make poached eggs. After all, when in Roma...

 SciMan used Alton Brown's method, but I sure did think that the poached egg website was a riot. And isn't that photo just lovely? It was taken with my new Samsung Galaxy S II.


Dual Core

Lots of Gigs.

Mega Pixels. Also lots.

 You can just feel the cracked pepper in your teeth because of my phone. The crunchy roughness of tiger loaf melting away in a puddle a buttery yolk is brought to you by the letter, Technology and the number, Mine Now. Thanks to contractual upgrades, I'm feeling all Enya-y because of the basil and tomato.

I leave you with a darling video of my darling Kiddo, circa 2009, titled  "In which Kiddo is gifted with her Momma's Grandma's jewelry".

*This is serious business. Unreliable kitchen appliances are shit. Wars have been fought, marriages ended, and jihads commenced over less. 

Alcohol is the best thing about this.

I follow MichonMichon/Jules and she had a video on yesterday's post. It was Epic Meal Time's Breakfast of Booze. I think I was in some way inspired by that yelling man, hence all the curse words.

This is the ingredient list. We're in England, so weights are grams and kilograms for the dry fruit ingredients. Yes yes, Derpina, there are some tsps and tbsps but those aren't necessary to the story.  

Assembly table #1

The cauldron. Normally used for the Christmas Chutneys, but this year, it was decided that the making of the chutney was far too dangerous for their relationships with one another. So, cakes it was.

 This is Ruth's mother, Susan. She's lining the cake tins with parchment paper. Notice the coffee mug. The cuppa is ever present in this house, in this country. Omnipresent, really...like a Route 44 Sonic drink in a teacher's classroom: ubiquitous.

 Commence round 1 with all this butter!

 It goes in the cauldron! Add lots of sugar! That's smart.

Count those mutha-fucking eggs! 12! And we ain't even done yet!

The stuff that goes in cake.

Put some peel there, bitches. Life's too short to drink alone.

Mixed fruit and currants soaked in Courvoisier

They all go in!

Divide it evenly, yo. Make some divots in the middle for the alcohol collection. Was told that one of these would be mine. Dammit.

Start round two. That's me folks. I was a mixin' fool! Roo's mom brought an industrial strength one because she learned from last year's mishap: the mixer's motor burned out.

 Whoomp! Dere it is! Shakalaka. This one was mine. It has crystallized ginger, dates, nuts, and other mixed fruits too. I think there was mango. Not positive. It too has a divot for the alcohol. It was my "practice cake".

 Take it to the pub and eat that brick. Fucker was massive. This was only half of it. Gave the other half to Peter the Bartender. Haven't heard back from him about it, so it must've been alright.

So theoretically speaking, there'd be a cake in a tin on my counter (aka 'bench' in this neck of the woods) and I'd be "feeding" it spirits each week... Like I have some minor cake god to appease.

I couldn't wait for that though. I wanted to try it out. And you know what? It was like fruitcake. I don't like fruitcake really. Neither do SciMan and Kiddo. But you know what else? When Roo gives me the Christmas Cake that I helped to make, I'm going to eat some and be grateful that I have such a great friend in her. She drives me places that would take me an hour by bus (not counting wait times). We have a lot of laughs together; our taste in alcohol is similar: I like it straight from the bottle and not in a cake, so does she. My kid loves her and vice versa. She's my first grown-up friend* and I'm very very lucky to have one like her.







*to all my other friends that I made before I was "grown-up": I love you realhard. It isn't that I don't think you are "real" friends, it's that you met me when I was young and stupid and you liked me. You even like me now when I'm older and more stupid than before and I imagine that you'll keep on keepin' on when I'm way old and catatonically senile. I sure as hell hope so. You know my skeletons, so to speak. And maybe, just maybe it's because of that that I'm wondering what's wrong with you.

Alive, alive OH!

And now I can breathe a bit. Have moved to new home and have unpacked the lion's share of the items we own. Am looking forward to getting rid of 80% when we leave for good. Really, we've too much. Have family round one here in town (village?) via France. Nice to have mom for a visit. 

And because I'm too busy to care more, here's a lovely set of pictures to tide you over until I feel like talking to you for real. Food, birthday, night out on the 'toon', and Scotland. Enjoy.

this makes...

...this. om nom nom nom.

I live here. Well, not here here, but near here. Okay, I live in a place where this is common.

Happy Birthday to the Kiddo! It was a successful party. I gave the moms each a cupcake. It was like, innovative and shit. To them, at least...like no one ever gives the mom cake. I remember the first birthday party here and that I didn't get cake. It upset me.

I got dolled up. Mom saw this picture and asked who my friend was.

Um, that's me, the "yummy mummy".

Giggity.

And this was tame. 

On the wall of the restaurant, which was inside the Victorian era train bridge. Yes, inside the bridge, bitches. So, already, had high hopes for the food in this place. The calzones were enormous and beautiful looking... 

...but I ordered this shit. Mexican risotto. Like I said, I had hopes of something good, given the menu's description of this dish. I'm ashamed to say I put half of this plate's contents into my face.

And then I realized that I didn't like it. So I stopped. Progress in baby steps, bitches.

After the meal, it was time for more immersion in the night life culture of Newcastle... #3 party town in Europe!

local lad

his friend

Angie, another local lad, and Kath. Ruth refused to be seen by my camera. Clever clogs, her.

We're brilliant.

 I just got back from Scotland too. Tomorrow, we head out for Peppa Pig World. Hey, I got a four-year old and I'm in England. It's not like Harry Potter World is anytime near in the future for me.

The Jimmie Hat. In retrospect, I should've bought it.

In the quiet car. Probably not the best location for us. That's mom on the right, friend from OK on the left. They brought the sunshine with them. 

Castle in Edinburgh

Princess Diana memorial tartan

First time for everything

To every season...

So, I don't often sing, but when I do, I do it with pizzazz. It helps if you have a talented co-spotlighter. Towards the end of my patriotic tribute, Kiddo was yelling sternly at me to listen to her and stop singing. I had to know more...

...and it got so cheezwhizzy by the end.

Don't worry. It's not going to happen again anytime soon. Or maybe not. Could be a new vibe for Fun Video Friday... hmm. I'll have a think.

Today, I've got a guest post at Kristina's A Perfect Dose of Life. She's been moving from KS to CO and so asked a few people to keep her blog company. I was one of the lucky beggars chosen. I wrote a more in-depth analysis of Geordie Shore for her and I really did try to minimize the cursing. Peter the Bartender makes an appearance. She says that I "make her laugh *most* of the time". I guess the other *part* of the time, I've made her piss her pants and so she doesn't want to say anything to bring attention to that. I can be scary, sure, I guess. I make grown women forget their potty training. Champion.



I've news of my own. We're moving too! Next Monday, I pick up the keys to our new terrace house! Looking forward to dealing with the change of address stuffage and to having clean pants!

Does Anyone Else...

...have to feed their kid like they're a baby bird to get them to eat? I really wonder sometimes if Kiddo is trolling me hardcore, because she's done this since, well, day one of self-feeding.

But I couldn't get her to eat this (smaller portioned, of course) superhardchampion meal...

This meal courtesy of my mad skills, Lidl, Tesco, and the United States Postal Service

...because she's doublejonesy for some PB&J. I make gourmet dinners and all she wants is the classic field trip stand-by.

That's African springbok(!) in the southwestern corner, bordered on the north by Belgian Brussels sprouts and on the east by Uncle Ben's tasty San Franciscan treat.

Why won't she eat it?! That meat's badass. Like butter and no, not like the time I ate butter on camera (heh, that was fun) but like so tender I could use a fork to cut it, no knife! And as for fat and gristle? Non-existent.

Will she eat chicken? No. PB&J? Of course, dummy. That's patriotism, that is. Will she eat meatloaf? Yes...odd, that, even with considering how my meatloaf would kick your mom's and grandmother's ass... meatloaf's ass, not theirs. And I sometimes still have to feed her by hand. Like we're not done with the whole imprinting/bonding process. Did I stop nursing too early?

Meh. That's not it.

She's got no problem eating fruit on her own as long as I get the fruit washed first. (GASP, BOOM, SHUDDER...there may have been times she's eaten unwashed fruit! Horrible mother.) I bought a bag of apples on Saturday. There are none left. Hell, I have to restrain her from chowing down on the wild strawberries growing out the back. She'll eat the green ones if I'm not constant vigilante.

"Honey, Mommy needs to wash it first. No, don't eat it just yet, it needs to be washed. Babygirl, let's walk the 50 feet to the kitchen so I can wash it. NO, I SAID NO! IT'S DIRTY!"
 Look at her, kid's so drunk with lust for that strawberry. Not even paying any attention to me.

It's great! Today, I taught her how to open a banana. Why so late? Because she's hit and miss when it comes to food. Food she liked two years ago, two months ago, two weeks ago (I'm done) even aren't safe from her censorial "blegh". She'll make the good food choices; real fruit versus Welch's fruit snacks, until the real fruit's all gone...then she goes after those little bags of gummy goodness. And she goes AllieBrosh-like on ice cream like how Allie Brosh goes on cake. She is almost four, y'all.

So I still wonder, do the lunch ladies at Nursery feed her by hand, too? Should I get a meal calendar from the school, so I know what's she's eating? I want to set up a CCTV feed direct streaming to my laptop so that I can  watch gather evidence figure out what to do about this, to prove it one way or the other. It'd probably violate many of those children's parents' official wishes to disallow their child from being  photographed (that's a totally separate issue) but this is getting serious for me! I have to know, for reals like, if Kiddo is already a mastertroll, manipulating me and her dad so that she gets what she wants, how she wants. If so, then babybird girl's done me proud.

Because I like to think she gets it from me.

National Clean Out Your Refrigerator Day

I guess it'd be to make room for the cupcakes... and upcoming Thanksgiving Dinner prep and leftovers.

We took Kiddo to Krazy Kingdom for a classmate's 4th birthday. If this birthday party is any indication of British birthday traditions then, for the kids, it's awesome. For parents like us, it's crap. I think we each had the unspoken goal of getting to meet and talk to parents.

Kiddo had a blast! And we enjoyed watching her have a fantastic little-girl-running-amok time. There were trampolines (which she made a beeline for) and a three story climbing structure not unlike the one from the PlayPit.... it was just huge! There was a posted policy saying you can't take pictures or videos of children in the play area, which was the entire warehouse-sized space. But I took one anyways. It's my kid, I can do what I want.

Kiddo is in the pink jacket and purple trousers. You can't even tell who the other kids are. Take that, massively invasive public policy! I pwnd you!

Then a gal came on over the PA system and announced that it was time to have the party and would all attendees for that party please make way to the room at the stairs. We make our way there and before I get into the details, let me talk about what happened between me and another parent.

We're all milling about around this small area and some parents stay downstairs, others go up the stairs... for the same party. I overhear someone say "well, which one is it?" I look around quizzically, and I kid you not, I catch a parent's eye and she says, "Normally, we queue." This means, "Normally, we line up and wait for someone to tell us what to do." I sigh, and decide to remove Kiddo and myself from this state of limbo. We go upstairs, just to look around and saw.... a GO-KART TRACK! AND TWO BOWLING LANES! Really neat! We make one circuit around and sure enough, by the time we come down the other set of stairs, the birthday party queue is sorted and everyone knows what is expected of them. It was kind of fun to watch. *cough*

In the room, which was about the size of our current living room, they crammed 20 kids under the age of seven into two long kid-sized picnic tables and served them lunch. The accompanying parents jostled each other for wall space. Eventually I channeled my mom and had to get out of there...it was claustrophobia inducing. That many people in that small of a space is not something I would do if it were up to me.

And where's ScienceMan while we're doing this? Eating a hamburger. To be fair, his food came out first so it was no problem for me. He finished and then I got to eat this surprisingly good (and large!) pizza which I had to take home. ScienceMan was smarter than me; he stayed in the doorway where he could see Kiddo and help her if he needed to.

Okay, so after the other kiddos ate, they passed out small styrofoam tubs of vanilla ice cream, which Kiddo demolished. Quite right. Her lunch looked like laskdjfslfdjkks. And then there's the cake. It was the size of my laptop. Who gets cake? The kids.

Who doesn't get cake? Me.

But it wasn't good cake either. They do cheese and butter and yogurt really well here, but when it comes to pastry that isn't cheese, onion, and meat-stuffed, they're crap.

So, 4 candles are lit and blown out. Everybody sings 'Happy Birthday' and shouts 'Hip hip hooray' four times after. The cake is taken away (I'm really upset about the cake, I now realize) and everyone is ushered back out into the play area. Meanwhile, the cake is cut into several pieces and each piece is individually wrapped and put into the goodie bags which are handed out after everyone gets ushered back into the room. Yes, there was another announcement on the PA system. At some point, I'm eating my pizza, and I see Krazy Kingdom's mascot, a red dragon, walk into the room. Every British child in the room, and those outside in the play area not attending the party, goes nuts. My kid reacted like you think ScienceMan would react. I reacted like you think I would react: furtive glances around the room (i'm outside the party room at a table eating) looking for the destructive children who run up to mascot/characters and kick them and then take off running. I had a bad experience at a Cavs game.  I'm really enjoying my pizza though.

But I kept thinking, "soon we'll get some cake."

Eventually (2pm), it's time to go home, without cake. I finally figured out who the birthday girl's mom was and introduced myself and said thank you even though she never allowed me cake. Received a goody bag on behalf of Kiddo. Drove homewards through some heartwrenching English countryside views that ScienceMan got to enjoy and I saw only peripherally (was driving, so am responsible, Sensible Lady). Sheep with black faces and with white faces. Horses. Gigantic windmills. Hills and valleys. Cloudy and shafts of sunlight. Fall foliage. Arrived at home and opened goody bag with Kiddo, confiscated cake. Took one bite. Had to meet my kid's gaze afterwards. Resolved to never raid my child's party bag ever again.

Summary: Kiddo had a great time. ScienceMan and I ate lunch and watched our kid have a great time.
Stats: New friends: 0.
         Increased personal knowledge of the island's geographical range: yes
         Increased personal knowledge of personal behavioral tendencies to be selfish: yes
Result: Successful day.