inspired.

When I grow up, this is what my living room will look like. I love the combination of this apple-mint green and maroon. (In fact, I think i might like a shirt this colour to wear my maroon brooch with.) My house will have polished floorboards thoughout, and a maroon couch, and two deep brown leather armchairs. This is Greg Natale's design for the Hardwick Turnbull house, which won a commendation in the 2005 Australian Interior Design Awards.

Inside my front door will be these hooks. They are by designer Luca Nichetto, found via Design*Sponge. I don't think you can buy these - they seem to have been commissioned by a company which is not producing them for little people like me. When I grow up I will commission my own. Or these Ikea Asker pots might work screwed into the wall instead - if they start selling them in Australia.


I will keep my jewellery in these ceramic egg containers. They were made by Container Store, which seems not to be producing them anymore. I am thinking about trying to make my own dodgy version, by spray painting an actual egg carton. Found at Mighty Goods.

Also, I will have one of these on the wall somewhere, or maybe even on the ceiling. I haven't decided which yet, (maybe the horse, maybe the animal ceiling roses, maybe a colourful abstract design) but Just. So. Cool.

My house will also have a library (or at least a room) with books all over the walls and sliding ladders so you can reach the ones at the top. Unless I have another whole spare room, the library will also have a nice big heavy desk with a banker's lamp, and a little baby grand piano.

I will live in a cool Second Empire house like this one, or more realistically (since I don't plan to move to America), a nice little two story terrace house would be fine too. Maybe a named one like this:













I will also have a nice big garden, with lots of fruit trees and vegetables and herbs. And poppies! And some kind of no-brainer watering system. When we have water again to spare.

on the good ship lollipop.

After purchasing a (ridiculously expensive!) bottle of Grenadine from Bottega Rotolo, I made a Shirley Temple on the weekend. It's a non-alcoholic cocktail devised by the owner of a restaurant where the stars of the time used to hang out, and named for Shirley Temple because she was too young to drink. It's traditionally made of two parts of ginger ale, one part orange juice with a splash of grenadine. It was ok I thought - nothing to write home about (in fact Shirley Temple reputedly doesn't like them herself because they're too sweet), but then I don't like ginger ale. It layered prettily though, and would be a fun thing to order in a bar or fancy restaurant if you didn't want to drink, but didn't want to stand out.

somehow, not chocolated out yet.

Ok, so I'm officially doing Carousel The Worst Show In The World. Sorry Molly (and also Messrs. Rogers and Hammerstein), but childbeating and saccherine americana songs where I have to play 'pom pom pom pom' for three hours under OH&S nightmare conditions does not a party make. Can someone please give me a human-sized sound-proof bubble for my birthday? Thank God it's for charity, otherwise i'd be snapping off my fingers by now in lieu of actually being able to say 'no'.

Also: here is my ordered list of the best places to sit on a plane.

1. Window seat 'a' next to overwing exit (lots of leg room). Usually 12a but they can be tricky.
2. Any seat on a row all to yourself.
3. Window seat 'a' in the front half of the plane (closer to the exit/entrance).
4. Window seat 'f' in the front half of the plane.
5. Window seat 'a' in the back half of the plane.
6. Window seat 'f' in the back half of the plane.
7. Aisle seat in the front half of the plane.
8. Aisle seat in the back half of the plane.
9. Front of the plane.
10. Back of the plane.

So now you know. I feel so much better now that I've cleared that up.

exercising her warped sense of humour.

I just ordered this tshirt from Threadless. I'm SO wearing this to rehearsals. Tres amusant. Did I mention I have a bad feeling I'm about to get roped into the worst show in the world Carousel AGAIN?

It's for charity
It's for charity
It's for charity
Om....

SERENITY NOW!

Happy Easter everybody! May you all get good and queasy from too many Lindt bunnies and creme eggs!

ripped off.

In between rehearsal and gig on Friday was the time for trying Sarah's, a new vegetarian restaurant on Leigh St in the city. I was kind of excited about this, because I'd heard great things about its sister restaurants at Semaphore (and Glenelg?), which have apparently been serving up amazing vegetarian cuisine for 20 years.

To begin with, the decor is kind of good and bad. It's really big and open, with polished cement floors, and black tables and chairs. I found it a bit stark, but I imagine you could find it airy and welcoming and relaxed. It's split level, and on the top half is a bar, and a space for performers. They have live music every evening, and whoever was playing when we were there was quite good, and it was loud enough to listen to, but not so loud it impinged upon conversation if you were in the bottom restaurant bit.

Sarah's doesn't have a menu as such - you kind of order the size of food you want, and you get what you're brought. So for example, mum had the antipasto platter and I had the plat du jour. The antipasto platter was the smallest/cheapest thing on the menu at $15, and there were bigger options - like a banquet platter ($25 each) and some others I can't remember. My plat was $25 with a glass of wine and coffee, or $18 without. I also ordered an apple juice. The waiters were quite helpful though, which was good because the menu was a bit confusing.

The food took a while to come, considering the restaurant was quite empty. Mum's antipasto was a couple of very small slices of bread, about 5 stuffed mushrooms, and a small serving of chickpeas. The plate of the day turned out to be a small serving of pasta-bake with a very small serving of salad. My juice never came. Mum's chickpeas were excellent, the mushrooms I liked but she didn't and my pasta bake was possibly the best pasta bake I've ever had although I don't really think that's saying so much. It had eggplant in it, and something that was kind of halfway between grapes and sultanas. Obviously a lot of effort had gone into the salad, with the carrots for example, being marinated in something. But still. $18 for an excellent but too small serve of PASTA BAKE is way too much.

Ok ok I know there are a lot of people out there who think that good value in a restaurant equals the biggest piece of meat you can get for the smallest amount of dollars, and therefore vegetarian food is almost always a ripoff because the inputs for a vegetarian dish are just not as expensive as that of a meat dish. I don't think that. I'd rather get the most enjoyement out of my meal for my money, and since vegetables are easier to prepare well (or at least harder to totally stuff up) than meat, I tend to feel like for an average dinner price you're going to get more value out of vegetables, because they HAVE to make it taste better for you to think it's good value. Also, a plate full of vegetables is likely to be healthier than a plate full of meat, and you're less likely to walk away feeling gross.

Anyway. Sarah's is not good value. Ok, they're obviously going to a lot of trouble with their food, and paying attention to detail, and yes it tastes good (although I think Sprouts is comparable) but $18 is too much to pay for a small serving of PASTA BAKE (I know I already capitalised that but REALLY) and average service. It's not like it's presented all fancy-like either. The only things that really indicate the prices are the white tableclothes and heavy silverware.

All this is rather a shame, because I was looking forward to another cool veggie place in the cbd. Still, maybe lunch is better. I noticed their lunch menu, and they serve a salad for $10 and listed baguettes for $6.50 and $7.50, so if they're really good, and of a more substantial size, then maybe that is the answer. I might try that, but there's no way I'm going back for dinner.

a bit weird.

As I mentioned, at my cousin's engagement party, there was a karaoke machine, and some very monotone karaoke-ing a happenin'. One of the songs that was being 'sung' was a song which in Emily land is called 'Emotia Cup', but in the real world, is actually quite a famous song by Elvis, called 'All Shook Up'. Der. In fact, I probably never would've realised my error if it weren't for the fact that karaoke machines have the titles of the songs written on the screen. I probably SHOULD've realised by now that I was wrong, if only for the fact that 'emotia' is not a word, but somehow in my brain it IS a word, nestled somewhere in the Emily dictionary between 'emotion' (real word) and 'milk emulsion' (a kind of 1950s precursor to multivitamins which my ageing rellies used to feed me). This is all funny enough, but really everybody has songs that they've misunderstood (in fact, google registers 470 000 hits on the topic, so clearly I'm not the only one).

The funny bit is that I remembered a story that goes with it. You see, I know Emotia Cup because when I was in primary school there was a nice lady that came once a week and took dance classes in the Thursday lunch hour. These were quite novel, and all you had to do was rock up and pay your $2, and you could join in the (sanitised) fun. We were learning a routine to Emotia Cup, filled with such moves as the runningman. I can still do the runningman. Actually, now I think about it, this story may well explain why I am such a terrible dancer to this day.

After a while though, my friends tired of these classes, and one by one they drifted back to the monkeybars and the handball court. I liked the dance class, but since none of my friends were going, I didn't want to go anymore either. But at 7 years old, I had observed adults enough to know that it wouldn't be right just to stop turning up, even though it was a casual class. So one day, I came into the hall a little early, and told the teacher in my best grown up voice that 'thankyou for the lessons, I really enjoy them, but unfortunatly I just won't be able to make it any more, I've just gotten too busy lately'. And then I went back to the playground and joined in an elastics game that was going on.

TOO BUSY? TOO BUSY? AT 7? Too busy picking my nose and marvelling at my friend Claire's slapband.

And so I stood there, watching this guy butcher All Shook Up, and I felt how lucky I was not to be one of those embarassing people that sing karaoke. I'm past the days of mullets and hypercolour shirts. I'm past embarassing. There I was at a karaoke party cringing at the guy singing 'Emotia Cup' on one solitary note and thanking my lucky stars that I'm not THAT big a nigel. And then a little voice inside of me reminded me that 'no of COURSE you're not that big a nigel. And you never were. NOT'.

running down.

A short history of my weekend:

Friday night:

• played a gig (money!)
  
• tried the new Sarah's on Leigh St (disappointing - more later)

Saturday:

• went to big book sale (it was so full they made us line up around the block, and we were on time! At lest they didn't card us...)
  
• went to Mela Indian festival (ate some yummy food [and NATURA's], bought a scarf for $5, saw a cooking demo, ate some sweets)

Saturday night:

• went to cousine's engagment party, saw the 2nd worst karaoke ever (but good on them for having a red hot go); did not participate in said bad karaoke (that would've made it the worst). Reminded of funny anecdote to tell another day.

Sunday:

• read book
  
• studied French
  
• ate a Big Mac (oops)
• did some washing (replaced fabric softener with vinegar and essential oil [better for environment]. No appreciable difference in cleaning power, neither smells like vinegar nor essential oil).
  
• made Traveller's Lunchbox watermelon salad (yum!)
  
• watched hilarious doco on Star Trek fans "Trekkies"
  
• read more book

Close.