What if FACEBOOK ceased to exist tomorrow?

So, dear readers, I am an avid lover and hater of Facebook, the social media platform that has taken over the world (well, most of the world. Heck, I even have friends in Uganda and Zimbabwe who use Facebook all the time).  A number of years ago my sister in England was pestering me to “get a Facebook”. I resisted and resisted and finally got swept away in the tide and signed up.  I was confused and bewildered at first. Poke someone? Why would I want to do that? What is my wall? I don’t see any bricks!  Finally I settled down and got the hang of Facebook and started to really enjoy it.  Fast forward five years and now it seems that almost EVERYONE has a Facebook account.  In fact, I know people (ahem) who wake up and check their Facebook on their smart phones before they even get out of bed in the morning. And I don’t blame them for postponing getting out of bed at the moment –it’s bloody cold here in Canberra!

I love Facebook because it has been a wonderful way for me to make money in various ways and forms.  At one stage I was a volunteer area coordinator for an exchange student program.  I managed to find at least ten host families Australia-wide who wanted to host a student from overseas. Without Facebook, I have no idea how I would have found homes for these kids.  My bulk incentive payment was in the thousands for that one, I was surprised and delighted to say the least.

More recently, I shaved my head for the World’s Greatest Shave (Click here to see my blog post about that event – and a few other Monday related items) and raised over $1500. Sure, half of that was contributed through workmates and my boss at the time, but Facebook certainly helped me spread the word and allowed me to provide the link to my World’s Greatest Shave’s fundraiser page.

When I lived on the Gold Coast, I used to round up all my friends via Facebook, suggesting dinners here, coffees there, etc. It was an excellent and highly successful way of communicating with my mates.  On occasion we would have a group of up to 25 people diverge on Jupiter’s Casino for dinner, drinks and dancing.

Without Facebook, I would not have found my little Staffie, Shadow.  Click here for a story about Shadow.  I saw a photo on Facebook of a poor little old Staffie dog who was seeking a new home because his owner had passed away. The sucker that I am showed my husband the photo, and we both agreed that I should call in after work and meet the little old man. Well, I did, and he was just adorable and so sad, so I couldn’t resist but to bring him home.

I love how I can stay connected to my friends via Facebook because even if they change their phone number or email, I can still find them right where I left them – on Facebook.  Saying that, I hate how people seem to think that communication via Facebook is just a fine way to communicate these days.  I actually make the effort to call my friends occasionally rather than just see their status updates on Facebook all the time.

It seems that Facebook is an acceptable way to spread any sort of news.  I discovered some amazingly good news regarding my friends Chippa and Shannah while browsing my newsfeed on Facebook one day.  Chippa finally (after fourteen years?!) asked her to marry him! I was not about to acknowledge this on Facebook without making a phone call first. So I rang Shannah and appropriately screeched my congratulations down the phone, a call which had to be cut short because she had a plane to catch. Well, that was her excuse – perhaps I just deafened her.

Sadder news that I have happened upon is the death of not one, but two of my Facebook friends. The first was my lovely and amazing friend, Cyndi from Canada.   I met Cyndi online playing Scrabble.  We became Facebook friends and would often send each other humourous little messages, and I would often be in fits of laughter.  I felt sure that should we meet in real life, we would get along like a house on fire.  I hadn’t heard from Cyndi in quite a while, and I, too, had been busy. I clicked on her Facebook profile to see messages of condolences.  I was very confused – what was going on?  Finally I realised that Cyndi had passed away just that very day.   I got in touch with her sister via Facebook, and she told me what had happened. Cancer had very quickly ravaged Cyndi and eventually got the better of her. I keep in touch with her lovely son, Elliott, via Facebook.

The second death was that of Mike, the husband of my dear friend, Susan.  Susan and I started out as penpals, but quickly became Facebook and Skype pals instead.  Again, I saw some details on Facebook and was utterly confused. What had happened? I sent Susan a message and she told me that her darling husband, Mike, had passed away during dinner one peaceful evening.  Click here to read more about Mike.  Mike was an amazing man, and I had, a couple of weeks prior, only just had the opportunity to say hi to him on Skype.

I do have a few “friends” who are major attention seekers. I get so fed up with seeing posts such as “so heartbroken” and “ouchies”.   To me, these posts are just begging for attention. The whole world, it appears, is supposed to drop everything and rush to the keyboard to type in “oh, dear friend, what on earth has transpired to bring you to update your status in this manner”?  Then the person who has made this attention seeking status will either just fob it off as nothing, or air all their dirty laundry for all and sundry to see, and then that issue will have resolved itself anyway within the next few days and it might as well have been kept under wraps.

Facebook and the internet in general, I suppose, provides a way for us to project an image of ourselves that we would like the world to see. Myself, not so much, but others, most definitely. I have a friend (friend of a friend, actually) who is the biggest dork you could imagine. He is really shy, socially inept and finds the internet a great way to communicate with people. If you were to only read his Facebook profile, you could be mistaken for thinking he is outgoing, fun, witty and popular with a wide variety of interests.  A more sinister aspect of Facebook anonymity is that predators can do much the same thing, only their agenda is much scarier than just wanting to be liked and popular.

I have, on numerous occasions, sworn that I will delete my Facebook account.  However, it proves too valuable to me, both with its reach, potential, and ease of communication with my friends and family. Heck, my mum even sends me a “happy birthday” via Facebook! (her excuse is that she never knows what my work hours are going to be…)  If I were to delete my Facebook account, I wonder if I would feel like I am missing out.  I mean, dear readers, my world would not be the same without chirpy little “thank god it’s Friday” posts, status updates of my friends, pictures of hideaway cottages, photos of my friends darling little babies (I have many friends who have had kids in the last few years, so yes, I do tend to get inundated with those), brag photos of new cars/ovens/holiday tickets/gardens,  and witty animal photos that say things like “I gotz da fly! I didz!”

I do have a few favourites that keep popping up on Facebook, one of which is Grumpy Cat. I just love Grumpy cat so have decided to spoil you all with some grumpy humour.

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So, really, if Facebook ceased to exist I dare say that there would be a lot to miss, but there would be a lot of time reclaimed, a lot more relationship successes (after all, don’t people get jealous of their partners when they are “friends” with their exes, or their new boyfriend/girlfriend doesn’t immediately change their status to “in a relationship”?) a lot less bullying and people might take the time out to talk face to face, not screen to screen.

Well, dear readers, its bed time. I might just have time to check my Facebook account on my phone before lights out.  I know I only just checked it on my desktop computer before I got into bed, but who knows what amazing things I might have missed in that five minute interval! Sleep well!

p.s. If you want to add me on Facebook, click here for the link… I’ll be looking out for you!

Men of the Produce Aisle

Reblogged from A Confederacy of Spinsters:

Alternately titled: Shopping for Men at the Grocery Store

Two years ago the husband of a best friend suggested I look for dates at the grocery store.  “This,” he proclaimed, “Is where you will find a man!”  He directed me to our local specialty grocer after declaring that it was not acceptable to date men who regularly shop at the organic grocer (“Granola-eating pretentious pricks.

Read more… 902 more words

This is a blog post about dating in the supermarket aisle. I just loved it! Have a read and don't forget to check out/follow Confedercy of Spinsters. They are three awesome gals who give me a good giggle every time I open their posts!

Confessions of a Laser Lady…

Once upon a time, dear readers, I was a checkout chick. That’s right, readers. I was a laser lady.  Whilst it was a mostly boring job, I did have some fun there at times. I was working for a large supermarket chain (here’s a clue – it wasn’t Coles) and, at times, we got quite busy.

As part of our customer service, we had the “seven steps of sale” which we were expected to follow, and these were typed up nicely, laminated and stuck up at every register for the checkout operators to study in earnest when they were not cleaning the conveyor belt or dusting the scales.  Naturally, we rarely followed all seven steps of sale, as these included things such as “is it a home delivery or is the customer taking their groceries with them”.  Well, one day I was happily working away, when my supervisor came and stood near where I was working.  “Drat!” I thought to myself. “Now I will have to follow the seven steps”.  So, I greeted the next customer in line, who happened to be about fourteen months pregnant.  She and her partner had piled their groceries sky high on the conveyor belt, eagerly awaiting the time when their goods would be all bagged up and they could toddle along on their merry way.  “So, is it a home delivery?” I cheerfully chirped as I started to process the order.  “No, we’re having it at the hospital” the woman replied, delighted I was taking such an interest in her blooming belly. Well, boy did I turn red!

Another time I finished off a transaction with an older female customer.  Again, my supervisor was hovering annoyingly close in the background so, again, I cranked out the seven steps.  “May I check your bag, please?” I politely asked.  “Oh, you don’t want to be doing that, dearie” the old duck quacked back at me.  “I’m sorry, but I really must,” I replied, still in earshot of my supervisor.  The old luvvie presented me with her open bag, the old fashioned type where plastic laminated cardboard featuring a photo of the Eiffel Tower is laced together with brightly coloured wool. Well, blow me down if she didn’t just have the bag opened when a rat-sized dog leapt out at me, teeth barred, barking like there was no tomorrow! I jumped back in shock, and promptly burst into tears.

Apart from following the Seven Steps of Sale, regular checkout duties were quite dull, so I tried to liven them up for myself as best I could. One day a woman was leaning over her trolley and literally throwing the items up on the conveyor belt. It was a complete shambles with no particular order to anything. I packed her bags nicely, but when I got to the fruit and veg section, I packed by colour. Corn, baby squash, lemons and witlof all went into one bag. Zucchini, green capsicum, grapes, broccoli and bok choy went into another bag.  Carrots, oranges, and rockmelon all went together. You get the picture.  I was quite pleased with my work.

As a checkout chick, I was always trying to find ways to get away from actually checking out.  One of the preferred methods to escape the dreaded checkout was to ask to go to the toilet.  My supervisor, at one stage, snapped at us in frustration “I wish you girls would pee in your own time!”

Another way to get away from the checkout was to ask to put stock away. “Stock” refers to the trolleys full of stuff that customers leave lying around the store that they have changed their mind about.  A customer might decide that the cordial no longer suits their needs so they will dump it on top of the potatoes.  They may no longer feel desire for the pot of Nutella they had moments before lovingly plucked off the shelf, so have unceremoniously dumped it amongst the dog food.  When items such as the misplaced cordial or the unloved Nutella are discovered by staff, they get chucked into the “stock” trolley at the front of the store near the checkouts, and the checkout chicks then get the dubious privilege of putting these items back in their rightful places.

I was quite good at locating where all the items went and one day had snaffled a box of Kellogg’s Cornflakes to replace onto the shelf.  “Easy peasy!” I thought to myself as I headed to the cereal aisle.  I headed to the right section only to find that the shelf stockers had beat me to it and the Kellogg’s Cornflake shelf was bursting to overflowing.  I decided to throw the box up onto the capping, or very top shelf where the random, left over goods are kept.  Being a short-arse, I leapt up and as I leapt, I threw the box onto the capping, only to watch as it skidded all the way over to the other side of the capping and off the other side into the tinned vegetables aisle!  I heard a muffled “Uuuhh” and raced around to see an old woman clutching her head. “Oh, goodness! I don’t know where that could have come from!” I muttered as I snatched up the offending box of Cornflakes and raced back around to put them properly on the capping, leaving the old dear clinging onto her shopping trolley handle for grim death.

Now, dear readers, the guys I worked with had quite the sense of humour (?), on occasion.   If we needed a price check on something, we would call “Grocery, service 40 on register 10,” and a staff member from the grocery department would hastily come running to provide a price for the item that wasn’t registering.  Service 20 was customer service (read: customer complaint), service 60 was mop and bucket required, etc.  Well, whenever there was a hot chick out and about, the guys from other departments would get onto the p.a. system and call “service 69 in aisle four” and there would be a mini-stampede from all available (male)  staff to check out the hot totty in aisle 4.

In your dreams,boyz…

Stocktake was an event that came around all too often for my liking.  One time I was counting stock whilst standing on two milk crates, one atop the other as all the safety steps were being used.  I completed my count and stepped down off the milk crates, only to realise that I had forgotten that I was standing on two of the bloody things. Well, the ground wasn’t quite where I thought it was so I went crashing backwards, almost giving myself concussion as I slammed into the pole behind me.

Another time, I was expected to double check the numbers that other stock takers had come up with. Well, readers, my maths is not great at the best of times, and in this instance I had to work out how many individual cans of dog food were on a pallet. Now, I was hard put to work out how many boxes were on that pallet, let alone the further step of knowing the individual can quantity.  The previous counter had come up with a figure, and I did the sums seven times, coming up with a different figure each time, none of which matched the original counter’s total.  I ended up, disappointingly, going and working back on the check outs until home time.

As much as I disliked my job as a checkout chick, overtime was always sought after as I was saving up to go overseas on a six month holiday to Europe.  One day when I was asked if I could do overtime, I happily grabbed for my “closed” sign to hang up over my checkout aisle, when I grabbed it wrongly and a huge splinter (read:  shard)went up underneath my fingernail.  I ended up having to go straight to the doctor and getting five needles to numb my hand enough for him to be able to remove the bastard.  The worst part about that whole incident was that I was robbed of my overtime! I did get a day off work the next day, however, as my hand was so sore from the splinter that I couldn’t move it.

After four years of working in different departments at the grocery store, I finally had enough money saved up and happily handed in my notice to head overseas on the holiday of a lifetime.

Enchiladas all round!

Shredded beef… ready to go into my enchiladas.

So, dear readers, ever since I was a kid, I always loved, loved, loved that shredded Mexican beef that would appear in my favourite tacos or enchiladas at the local Montezuma’s restaurant.  I never thought it would be something I could cook as I had just no idea where to even start. Well, the other day I decided that I was sick to death of all the same old same old that I was cooking and went to my recipe books to get some new ideas. The only problem with that idea was that I’d forgotten I had sold all my recipe books at a garage sale before leaving the Gold Coast to move down to these colder climes two years back.  Off I toddled to the local book store and spent $50 on some new ones. I got about seven new cookbooks for my money, which I was very pleased about. Somehow, however, I managed to purchase THREE Asian cookbooks! I think I only meant to get two.

While I was looking through the recipe books, I noticed in one book that I didn’t purchase, a recipe for enchiladas. I had a quick read and thought “too easy!” So I headed home with my new Asian cookbooks and the idea of an enchilada recipe in my head and off I went. I didn’t manage to find a Mexican cookbook amongst those for sale, so I went online just to make sure I was on the right track for my enchiladas, and lo and behold, I discovered a recipe for SHREDDED BEEF TACOS! I was beside myself with excitement! As I didn’t have any beef to shred, I started out making chicken enchiladas as my first enchilada attempt.  Following is the recipe for shredded beef enchiladas, but you can just as easily make them using chicken. Either grab a bbq chook from the local Coles or Woolies and use that meat, or poach your own chicken (far better value for money, I feel), shred it with a fork, and use that.

Here is a link to my poached chicken recipe

I did not demonstrate how to shred the poached chicken once done, but you simply take a fork and scrape away at the chicken and it will shred quite nicely.

Ingredients for Mexican Shredded Beef

1kg Gravy beef or chuck steak, cut into 2cm cubes (or random chunks about that size)

2 tsp. salt

2 tsp. pepper

1 tsp. cumin

1 ½ tbsp. chilli powder (I used Mexican chilli powder here)

1 tsp. garlic

1 chicken stock cube

4 bay leaves

1 onion (fine dice)

Water to cover

NB, when trimming up the gravy beef, you can leave some of the sinew on. remove the really thick bits, but it is not necessary to remove all of it as it will soften up nicely in the pot.

Okay. So. In a good sized pot, add all of the ingredients except the onion and the water. Cover about 2cm over the meat with the water and pop it on the stove.  Bring to the boil and then stick a lid on the pot. If you don’t have a lid for the pot, simply use a frying pan that will seal the pot off nicely (old chef’s trick, that one! We never bothered with lids in the kitchen!) Allow to boil for a couple of hours, giving it a bit of a stir now and then. Just be sure that the water doesn’t boil away, even with a lid on. I saved mine at the last minute and added a whole bunch more water (back up to almost the original level in the pot).

Chopped up meat with bayleaves, spices and water.

After a couple of hours, add in the diced onion and boil for one more hour with the lid on and stir occasionally. I had to add more water at this stage.  Somewhere inbetween adding the onion and the one hour after that, the meat will start to break down and become “shredded”.  Remove the bayleaves (remember how many you have put in the pot) and continue to break the meat down using a wooden spoon or utensil of your choice.  Keep boiling (at a low boil, not rapid) until the liquid has evaporated, and keep on poking at the meat with the spoon to shred it up nicely.  It took me about 2 1/2 hours to get the meat shredded nicely.  Well, the shredding took about fifteen minutes. The entire beef cooking process took 2 1/2 hours. Don’t forget that once the water is starting to evaporate out, you should stand guard to make sure you don’t waste $15 of good meat and 2 hrs cooking time by burning the pan!

Getting down to the shredding stage, with enough liquid to still keep cooking the beef.

Nom, nom, nom… shredded beef!

So you have your shredded beef ready. Now for the fun and messy part!

Ingredients for enchiladas

Shredded beef from above recipe

1x can refried beans

1x can salsa dip or enchilada sauce

1x can diced tomatoes

1x cheap can tomato soup (optional)

1x packet of 10 tortilla wraps

1x packet grated mozzarella/pizza cheese

1x tub sour cream

Now for the fun! Combine the salsa/enchilada sauce with the diced tomatoes in a bowl. Open the tomato soup and pour a little out onto a plate.  Stick spoons in the sour cream and refried beans.  Please see photo descriptions for instructions.

Spread a generous amount of the tomato/salsa mix on the bottom of your baking dish/es. Not too thick, not to scant.

Please excuse the ruddy complexion of this photograph! Place a tortilla shell on the plate that is awash with red tomato soup. Spread some refried beans nicely along the centre of it.

Place some of the shredded beef (or chicken, if that is your preferred filling) along the length of the shell atop the refried beans.

Now a nice sprinkle of cheese and a spread of sour cream completes the filling.

Roll the enchilada up nicely and place in the baking dish. You can see that the tomato soup is coating the tortilla to give it some nice colour and a bit of extra flavour. You can also either use a spoonful of the tomato/salsa mix, or not coat the tortilla with any sort of tomato.

Repeat the process until the baking dish is full. Spoon a nice amount of salsa/tomato mix along the centre of the tray of enchiladas, and then sprinkle a good handful of grated cheese along the tray. Place in a preheated oven for about 20 – 30 minutes until the cheese is nicely done. I usually put my oven on 150 degrees celcius, but it’s broken so I’m guessing they might cook well at 200 degrees. Don’t forget to use the FAN OVEN setting, too. And a timer to remind yourself that your delicious dinner is almost done!

And yum yum yum yum yum. It’s cooked! Now, simply use a spatula to scoop out the serving and place it on the plate and enjoy. I like to serve them with a nice guocamole and some sour cream. In the restaurants you invariably get a nice side helping of fajitas (refried beans) and some Mexican rice. I couldn’t be bothered with all that, so you will get enchiladas and you will eat them and you will like them. Happy eating!

Making the enchiladas with poached chicken is a heck of a lot quicker as the poaching only takes about half an hour in total.  So, dear readers! What do you think? Will you give this one a go?

Still more tunes I dig!

So I have decided that it is high time that I expose you all to some more awesome tunes. Mum, I know you won’t like any of them, but the rest of you might appreciate one or two of them.

 

Temple of Love –  Sisters of Mercy –this song is one of my all-time favourites. It’s not the most amazing quality clip, and I have bequeathed upon you the long version with a home-made video clip that someone put together, but please, listen and enjoy!

 

Yolanda Be Cool – We no speak Americano – this song grabbed my attention recently. I believe it might have been on the hit parade (top 40?) at one stage. It’s old fashioned music with a modern beat and a fun video clip to watch too.

 

Gold – Guy Sebastian – our home grown Aussie rocker, Guy Sebastian, has come up with another winner. I have this as my phone ring tone. J

 

Trans Siberian Orchestera – Wizards in Winter – now, TSO I discovered while looking up pretty Christmas lights on the internet. This song was attached to a Christmas light display that an engineer had put together. The trees and lights all flashed in sequence with the song.  It might take one or two listens, depending on your musical preference, but it RAWKS!

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AFI – Miss Murder – this song is one of my faves at the moment. I used to watch it on MTV when I went to the gym.  As much as I loathe Hitler, the style of the clip is very Third Reich and militant. I think the lead singer looks awesome with his very EMO haircut and makeup.  (please ignore the gobbldygook underneath the clip as I have NO idea where it came from and how to make it go away).

 

My Chemical Romance – Black Parade – an EMO group, this song just really does it for me. I appreciate the heavy guitars, the melancholy lyrics and the overall appearance of the band and melody of the tune.

 

 

 

One sad day.

 

Shadow. A.k.a. Ding Dong.

Well, the time has come, my friends, that my dog, Shadow (a.k.a. Ding Dong) is no longer able to walk very well.  About a year and a half ago when my husband and I were living in Berridale I noticed on the local Cooma Facebook page that someone was trying to find a home for a little old Staffie called Shadow.  Being the sucker that I am, I thought I ought to tell hubby about this little man.  Well, he beat me to it, saying “did you see this little old Staffie on Facebook?”  Apparently Shadow’s owner had died and poor Shadow was left at the house to fend for himself most of the day and night, with a caring relative popping over to make sure that he got some food and water, and the occasional walk.

Shadow – the first time I met him at his deceased owner’s place in Cooma.

The rest of the relatives could not take him on board as one had five Burmese cats that would rip him to shreds, and another rellie lived in an apartment that did not allow pets. The rest of Shadow’s extended family, it seemed, just didn’t give a rat’s proverbial, and even went so far as to suggest getting the poor little mite put down.  As a last ditch effort, Sue, one of the deceased’s relatives, put a notice on Facebook, thus catching my attention.  I sent her a message and arranged to meet her at the house to meet Shadow and see what he was like.

I showed up and met Shadow. At first sight, I thought he was the ugliest dog I had ever seen in my life. He was covered in dandruff and lumps and bumps.  However, I went home and told hubby that he was a beautiful boy and we should take him home.  I arranged with Sue to pick Shadow up on the weekend, but the following day I couldn’t bear the thought of Shadow sitting around any longer, waiting for his master to come back. So I went and brought him home.

Shadow on one of his first walks, out in Jindabyne with my husband, Tomi.

When we first got Shadow, he was literally that – a shadow. He was feeling somewhat displaced and nervous and thought that if we left him, we, too, would not return, so therefore was constantly at the hells of either Tomi or myself.  I was a little concerned with how Shadow would get along with Tyson and Max, the other four footed furry friends living in our house. Max, the cat, steered clear of him for a little while but now they get along fine. I am sure that Tyson, our Kelpie/Staffie X drives poor Shadow up the wall sometimes. They are the same age, but Shadow is an old ten, whereas Tyson is a very youthful ten.  Max is just a cat ten and that’s that.

Shadow used to have a couch at his old home, so I bought a cheap $10 second hand lounge seat for him to sit on. At our house in Berridale I would position it so that he would get maximum sun exposure and enjoy the winter days.  He loves basking in the sun or being in the house with us.

Shadow, the sun dog, on his $10 couch, loving life.

Over the year and a half that we have had Shadow, he has earned himself the nickname of Ding Dong.  He is not the sharpest crayon in the box and is always doing silly things to which we would say “you are such a Ding Dong, Shadow!” and the name stuck. Things like walking the wrong way around a fence so the lead gets stuck, falling backwards down the stairs because he is so excited about going for a w.a.l.k. that he is not paying any attention to his surroundings, tipping over his water bucket, getting himself tangled up in the shopping bags, escaping from the yard on a regular basis, chewing through the fences, not noticing when we have put a piece of food for him on the ground so he keeps begging for it etc.. .have all helped contribute to his nickname of ding dong.

One of my favourite nick-name earners came about when hubby and I decided to go for a road trip up to Queensland to visit the parents and bring back some more of our possessions that were left with them.  We took the dogs rather than putting them in a kennel. Max went to the local kennel, but the dogs came for the drive.  Being very hot up that way, on one of the days of our visit we took a short detour to a local river for Tyson to swim. Luckily for me, just recently a friend had told me that Staffies swim like bricks (I thought all dogs were born with an innate knowledge of how to swim).  Anyway, Tyson, who can swim in circles for hours without touching the ground, was delighted to get a chance for a paddle.  Shadow, on the other hand, is very disdainful of the water and usually never goes near it.  On this day, however, Tyson was having such a jolly old good time jumping in and out of the river that Shadow thought he would give it a go, too.   Before we could blink, Shadow had run at the edge of the water next to me and launched himself in, promptly sinking right to the bottom.  I remembered my friend’s wise words and leapt straight in after him, seeing the bubbles from his mouth floating upwards, and snatched him up out of the water.  I had my phone in my pocket and, fortunately for me and the phone, the water only came up to just below my pocket.  I dragged the dog out and once Tomi and I had gotten over the shock of what had happened, we burst out laughing.  I was drenched and muddy so ended up riding back in the car in my undies, with my dirty shorts thrown in the back of the Landcruiser with the soggy dogs.

This is about as close as Shadow would ever get to the water’s edge. Tyson, on the other hand, loves the water and we have trouble getting him to come out so we can go home!

The two dogs in the back of the Landcruiser ready for an adventure.

When we moved to Canberra, we discovered a lovely place to take the dogs to the lake.  Tyson is in his element here, but Ding Dong used to not even go near the water.  One day he was standing near the water’s edge on the boat ramp and I gave him a little nudge and he stepped in the water up to his ankles.  We did this for a few visits and eventually he was actually going into the water of his own accord. As he swims like a brick, we purchased a doggy life vest for him and now take him for the odd swim. Tomi will cart him out into the lake and put him down and he will swim like the blue blazes to get back to the shallows.  It’s supposed to be good exercise for him and is very amusing to watch.  In the hotter months he actually started to take it upon himself to run into the water and then plop down to cool his tummy off.

Lake Ginninderra, where the boat ramp is. A great place to take the dogs for a swim as the depth is gradual.

Ding Dong in his cute little dog flotation device.

Over the last few months, Ding Dong has not been walking so well. His hind legs have been weak and occasionally collapsing on him.  The vet diagnosed arthritis in the hind legs and prescribed a course of four cartrophan shots (or something like that that helps with muscle regeneration).  This seemed to have no effect whatsoever, so I am reluctant to try that route again.  We just bought the dogs new jackets for winter, as I feel that the cold weather is probably affecting Shadow’s arthritis.  We also give Shadow glucosamine and fish oil daily.  The next course of action might be to purchase special food for him, but there will come a day where we will just have to bite the bullet and decide whether Ding Dong is still having a good quality of life or if he is just in constant pain and we should make the decision to have him put down.

Shadow and Tyson modelling their cosy new jumpies.

When I first got myself a cat (Max) I had to think long and hard about getting a pet for this very reason.  Dogs and cats don’t live as long as humans and there comes a time when we will lose them or have to make the decision to have them put down.  The joy, however, gained from having a pet does well outweigh the grief of losing one. Of that I am certain.

Here is a montage of my pets.  Do you, dear readers, have any pets that give you endless joy in your lives?

You’ll eat it… and you’ll LIKE it. Experimental cooking: purple carrot soup.

In our house we have a rule.  “You’ll eat it, and you’ll like it”.

So I saw some purple carrots in the supermarket the other day and the old, retired chef in me said “COOL! PURPLE CARROTS!!!!” so I threw them into the trolley and chucked them in the fridge when I got home. A couple of days later I decided that I wanted to cook some soup and that purple carrots would be awesome to use in a soup. So I had a quick squiz at Chef Google online and got the basic gist of a few items that one might toss into carrot soup.  Ginger, onions, chicken stock cubes, oh, and of course carrots! I noted that one recipe called for orange juice, another for cumin, a knob of fresh ginger, etc. Yep, I ticked quite a few boxes there, and decided to make some delicious purple carrot soup.

Most of the ingredients I used in my purple carrot soup.

What a perfect combination. Everyone knows that ginger and pears go well together, onion goes well in almost everything savoury, as does salt, pepper and spices.  I was set!!! I happily peeled my carrots and ginger, diced up the pears, and cubed up the onion ready to go.

Bubbling away nicely!

I tossed it all into a pot along with a stock cube, water and a little bit of apple juice for good measure (I had no orange juice in the fridge).  I was very excited. You can see the purple splashes all over my stovetop where the water bubbled a bit too vigourously.

I had started to pour then remembered to take a photo first…

Once all the ingredients were well cooked and soft, I pureed the hell out of it…. to realise that I didn’t have enough liquid in the pot.  I added the rest of the little popper of apple juice and pureed some more.  Once I looked at it I decided that it needed straining…

Straining the soup…

So I sent it through a fine strainer.  I got a few cups of soup out of it, but it was like a broth, so I added back a couple of spoonfuls of the fibre until I liked the consistency.  I was getting very excited by this stage, as I was eager to taste my wonderful creation.,

As you can see, it turned out looking divine. Yum! Who wouldn’t want to eat this awesome looking soup.  Well, I tasted it and it was WRONG.  I know that the combination of ingredients that I put in all go well together…. but in my excitement, I forgot that I usually find that particular combination at a juice bar for brunch, and said ingredients arrive in a deliciously cold, freshly squeezed format, frothy and refreshing, NOT cooked and pureed. Also, because it was purple, I kept expecting a deliciously earthy beetroot taste, which I just didn’t get at all.

Oh well, house rule has been revised from “you’ll eat it and you’ll like it” to “you’ll eat it”.  In fact it has actually been further revised to this: “  “.  Yep, this poor soup ended up in the compost bin.

(to my credit, this is only the second total culinary disaster I have made in 20 years… so not bad going).

What is your worst culinary effort?