This Australian Life

Hey there readers. In tonight's instalment I'll be telling you some great stories, and bringing you some pictures direct from...you guessed it - my life. First up, my amazing January so far! For Christmas my dearest got me tickets to both David Sedaris and Ira Glass in their similarly named 'An evening with....' shows 1 week apart at the Athaneum here in Melbourne. Josh introduced me to This american life about a year ago or so, and I aint done ever looked back. Much like many other regular listeners or downloaders of the American radio show/podcast, I think Ira Glass (the host) is some kind of demi god. He ticks all the boxes of what I want to hear and is pretty much just a cool dude. It was on this show that I first heard of the author/humourist David Sedaris too. He was reading aloud an essay from one of his books and i was hooked in! His exaggeration technique is like a kajillion times more amazing than what i could ever dream up! 

So first up was the David Sedaris show! I had been reading his books and listening to him for a while and even starting to follow the career of his sister Amy... in a non-stalkerish way naturally. I could not believe i was going to see him in person, and I was nervous too as there was an opportunity to meet him after the show in the book signing!!! Now, I am not the smoothest of characters so I was already envisioning the ways I would embarrass myself. Plus I read that he chats to each person for a few minutes at the signing and then draws/writes something interesting in your book. One lady wrote that he signed her book something about diabetes thus the thinks he was insinuating she was fat. Now I really love DS, and I was thinking if he found fault in me I would have to ceremoniously burn all his books and pretend I'd never heard of  him to avoid the stab of pain that would come every time i saw one of the books laying around. The broken fan heart. Luckily he thought i was AWESSSSSSSSSSSSSSOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMEEEE!!!

Not even joking, Josh had a great idea of writing something in the book before giving it to him so I drew a pic of DS along with some other stuff and when he opened it he grinned and was like "WHO DID THIS?!!" and I fessed up (sorry, i have recently (and ironically) read a DOLLY mag.. omg, i'm OTT crazy atm) and he was like "That's fantastic, i love it etc etc.." so the 3 of us (me, the bf, and the housemate) stood there chatting to him, and he proceeded to tell us filthy filthy jokes!!!!!! It was amazing. He wrote in one of my books how much he loves my drawing, and made sure to tell me again as i left. Hoorah. Guess i can pick up another of his books to add to the collection now. He passed the test. the test of being worthy enough to keep a reader interested. Anyway that was a great night, and a few days later was Ira!!!!!!

We started the night with drinks and postulating what he'd talk about. 

They were cleverly concealing their giddy child-like glee... as was I. Actually i cant really conceal anything so i made a few strange noises and squeeks that happen at these times. Skipping ahead, Ira was also great! He was different to what I imagined (posture and body language-wise) but in a way I was glad to see a bit of the real Ira and realise he is just a dude. Just a normal down to earth dude who had no idea people in Australia loved him so much as he bowed time and time again at the end of his talk. He began his show in total darkness as the voice we all know and love filled the room. When the lights came on, the crowd went wild! One of his first questions as he grinned around the room was 'How do you guys even know who I am??' - funny. I think he has learned quite a lot from his visit and his eyes are opened a little about his fanbase. I was surprised to know that their staff only consists of 8 people. Working nutso hours and trying to pull stories from everywhere they can. So amazing.

Anyway, I also just got back from a little weekend road trip to Adelaide for my cousin's birthday! We took my mannequin 'Derryn' along for the ride and he had fun at the beach. People were a little taken aback, but in the end the police calmed everyone down and we got the head back.

At first i thought we wouldnt even make it, as I had been having car issues. I had no power, and sometimes couldnt get over 80km/hour. i also later found out both brake lights were out. The mechanic my mum took the car to (as my xmas present) couldnt fix the situation and didnt fix my brakelights before returning it. So i got my un-roadworthy car back and avoided driving it. I had it booked into Nissan for a detailed inspection and was prepared to fork out a few hundo (that i didnt have) for a solution. Then luckily my sicko brother did a little online research and found out that my model of car has this in-built safety mechanism thing that when both brakelights are out, the engine goes into safety mode or something. So $3 in light-globes later, the car ran perfectly again. I could not believe my luck!

In unrelated news... here is a zucchini that grew like crazy while i was interstate. I picked it today when i got up! It is the size of my shin.

Lately I have been doing a little cooking (of course) but not photographing much of my escapades... here's just one for you:

Also, I found this at my front door one night....

I opened the door looking for my cat late one night (yes i know, cats should be in-doors etc etc) and there is was, with the fairy attached to the top like in the pic. As you can see it is half eaten by snails and has obviously blown from someone's bin. In my mind though, some young girl has taken a liking to me from the few seconds each morning she sees me cross the yard to my car and has drawn and almost flawless picture of me. It is quite remarkable how alike we are really. Those dead eyes, the black boots. Amazing.

I've been getting a little arty too, I made a bunch of snowflakes for Xmas to add some christmas flayvaaaa to wrapping paper. these ones went on the wall :) 

Oh and this one... This is not a real person. This is a sacrificial scarecrow we made when Josh quit his job. We burned the uniform and badge and all in my back-yard. It was wild. And scary. And smoky. But mostly funny. Those bits on the ground are the arms. They fell with a dull thump. It's amazing what petrol and hay and leftover wrapping paper can do. Ok, i'm wrapping this up as I am getting way tired. Below is a picture of a gnome i bought from a country op-shop for $1. I thought my suburbian yard needed a little cliche to it. I love his childlike bearded face and cross leggedness.

I am yet to name him though. Any thoughts?

Car Affair

G'day g'day mates! Sorry, I'm a little brainwashed at the moment - I worked at a country car show on Sunday handing out showbags and have got this Aussie bogan twang going on. It was a fun day, I was representing "Just Cars" magazine, so got to drive their company v8 ute 2 hours out of Melbourne to Alexandra: 

It was fun! I don't get WHY this car is amazing, but a lot of people there seemed to think it was! The day was called the "Alexandra Truck, Ute and Hot Rod" show, or something very much along those lines. My job was to hand out free magazines to willing passers-by. Easssy! I saw a few other promo girls floating around... in heels and with make-up plastered on their slutty bitch faces. I was more the honest down-to-Earth promo girl you may not see around much. They say sex sells, and on Sunday I was pretty far off the mark. Let me tell you why. At 1am on Sunday morning I thought I'd better hit the hay, and set my alarm for 5.30am so I could do my vintage hair and makeup. Unfortunately I set me alarm (yes ME alarm - i'm a bogan now remember) for mid-week and the alarm didn't go off. At 6.22am I woke with a fright looking for me phone and a time. When I realised what the time WAS, and that I was meant to be in Fitzroy in 8 minutes time... I cussed the house down and sprang around the room gathering belongings and looking for directions.

I left in a hurry, without doing me hair or make-up, not to mention not eating, showering, peeing or even brushing me teeth (or, chompers). Just literally up and out. I was a few minutes late (heh) and barely found the warehouse in the thick fog that blanketed Melbourne that day. Callum (the dude I was to be promo-ing with) said we had HEAPS of time and I could use the toilet before we left. Woo! We both hadn't eaten so we spent a portion of the 2 hour drive discussing breakfast plans, after we actually introduced ourselves of course!

So it was 2 degrees up there, and I was in the toilets applying makeup and doing my hair as the people started arriving. I treated myself to a hot coffee and foccaccia while Callum started packing showbags. After I'd handed out all 1,000 or however many, I took the liberty of wandering around and taking photos of some cool... or not so... things i saw!

Prepare yourself for this next one... this is a chick's car...

Instant Pig... Just add Rum. Wow.

I don't know if you can see that, but her hat has a tag saying "Fuck off we're full". Um... ok.... :S

This one was more about the dudes sinking piss at midday

What a day! I had lots of fun! There was some PRIME people watching to be had, and I accidentally made fun of mullets and rat-tails when Callum told me he used to have one... when he was 10. Oops! Good thing he was a good sport about it. Hahaha. Next time, if they want me, I'll be dressing up a little for sure! Imagine how many mags we could have pumped out if I had woken up on time!

~!!~How Utterly Camp~!!~

Hello my lovely readers, it appears we meet again! So, do you come here often? I think you might. Maybe not as much as you would like, maybe a little too much and it scares you. Whatever the case, I appreciate you reading this :) What you are about to read is a post I must say I am excited to present! For those of you who find my erratic post themes confusing, let me remind you of the thick and juicy vein snaking through subarashiiblog, connecting all the posts and supplying them with life-blood direct from my heart. The List.
Remember the list? The quaint old bucket list I made shortly after my 23rd Birthday to ensure I get more out of life and become more proactive and involve myself in new scenarios and potentially remove myself from my comfort zone. I am LOVING IT. Let me refresh your memory by showing you the list again, this time complete with pseudo highschool graffiti.....

I think i will add to the graffiti over time. I like it. If it's anything like the back of my school books it will just have in-jokes about Bio-Dome and the word "hey" written in fancy font EVERYWHERE. So, the list. I have make OK progress i think, I still need to cook a few more things, write a few more poems, and check out some new vego restaurants among other things. The garden looks better every day so I'll end that as late as i can! Anyway you may notice a few things ticked off that you don't remember me actually completing, and you may be thinking "Hey bitch, hold up, hold up!". Well don't get those knickers in a twist just yet, I'm here to tell you that I have SMASHED a few more things off the list in the last week alone. Grab your galoshes and brolly, and let me take you on a journey into my world dot dot dot dot dot dot dot

Some friends of mine started organising a camping trip a few weeks back, and I naturally jumped on board. I was eager to go proper camping with neither electricity or toilets, in order to see how I handle being out of my physical comfort zone. Now, I'm not exactly a princess. I come from Tom-Boy origins. Sometimes I wear the same clothes AND underwear (turned inside out of course) for two days in a row to work if i randomly stay at Josh's place. I wear 'house clothes' which are torn, food-stained and are invariably made up of tracksuit pants and a t-shirt. One weekend i didn't shower for 48 hours. I even continue eating my lunch if i drop it in the toilet bowl. Wring it out, it's alright! Nah that one's a joke. I swear. The point is, I wanted to see how primal I could really get without being ashamed. I should point out that the one time I went camping in the past (November 2004) was where I met Josh - at Schoolies in Lorne. We had electricity, toilets, showers, music, jaffle irons, even a hammock which i stupidly forgot to bring along this time. Everyone said "Pfft, that's not REAL camping!" to which I swore I would experience one day. But if I hadn't gone, I would never have met Josh and be as happy with him as I am today, over 6 years later! eeeee *heart swell*

Anyway, enough mush! Let's talk about bush...

So off we went on Friday morning. Not only were we all excited to be going camping, we were exponentially excited due to the fact that we were NOT going to work :) Double yayz! We drove up to a place called Cobram. A place where you can walk around with no shirt or shoes, where Ute's are more common than the flies buzzing around your unwashed hair, and where the very best Op-Shops can be found. It is situated 262 km North of Melbourne on the banks of the Murray River. What I somehow failed to realise the whole time I was there was that on the other side of the Murray was New South Wales.. but NOW I know. As do you! So, as I have never driven around these parts, I am deeming this item 16) Road Trip to a new location COMPLETE. You may say "Well obviously if you go camping on item 15, you've gotta road trip it - they are like the same thing!".. wrong. I could easily have set up a tent in my spacious backyard or at the park up the road and become 1 with my dog and cat and learned to live as they. That would be weird. Anyway, the weather forecast was not looking good. Rain and flooding were forecasted. I was worried that my camping trip dream was going to become un-hinged. Luckily we were all invested balls-deep in the plan so we still went for it. While the boys got super-wet and set up ramshackle shelter...

....we girls went foraging for mushrooms and more importantly... bug corpses:

It was like 'Naussica of the Valley of the Wind' up in there! You might say that our transcendence into camping bliss was quite similar to the birth of a bug. For example, we sat in the safe cacoon of the car watching while the elements outside were too fierce for us. When they calmed down and the time was right, we emerged from the car refreshed and full of energy to explore our surroundings and start to potentially .... bug.... the others. Haha ok, that pun was a stretch, but here's a picture I made of bugs having a tea party to distract you from my inadequacies as a comedic writer...

This bug collection was moved onto the back shelf of the car unbeknownst to the driver. When he found my morbid little collection later on, he came back to the camp fire saying how his car was a bit too "Silence of the Lambs" for his liking. Oops. That's all part of my charm. I was only collecting them so I could give some kid a cool present. "Hey little kid, come over here. Aunty Jade's got something for you....." hmmm. I actually forgot to take them home so I don't know what became of them. Back to reality (oops there goes gravity), Nat and I faffed around while the boys made a great shelter so we could start drying fire wood and eventually set up tents. Here's Nat playing with my new umbrella:

How cute! Some time and tummy grumbles passed and we worried that the second car of friends wouldn't make it through the muddy tracks, and it was getting late. Eventually they rocked up in a blaze of mud and spinning tyres and we commenced making dinner #1!

Note: this is not how a well managed kitchen should look. Cooking by lantern light was cho subarashii though ^_^! We didn't have much to work with so I made little tin-foil vegie parcels to go with the burgers, and man... they were awesome. I put some Dill in there, and blew some minds, let me tell you. Here's the boys cooking the boigers, just before the 3rd car turned up!

OMG! One camping fantasy I had went all the way back to childhood. See, I used to be obsessed with the 1993 movie "The Sandlot Kids" or as it is called in the US, simply "The Sandlot". You know the one, all those cute little boys playing baseball to a rad 50's soundrack and there's that monster dog and James Earl Jones features in it? Ah, I can see them all now: Smalls, Squints, Benny the Jet, Ham, Yeah Yeah, Timmy & Tommy, and of course Wendy Peffercorn. In one unforgettable scene (to me, they all are) Ham explains to the n00b Smalls what a S'more is. Here is an excerpt from the scene:

Ham Porter: Hey Smalls, you wanna S'more?
Smalls: Some more of what?
Ham Porter: No, do you wanna S'more?
Smalls: I haven't had anything yet, so how can I have some more of nothing?
Ham Porter: You're killing me Smalls! These are s'more's stuff! *motions to the confectionary surrounding him* Alright, now pay attention. First you take the graham, you stick the chocolate on the graham. Then you roast the 'mallow. When the 'mallows flaming... you stick it on the chocolate. Then cover it with the other end. Then you scarf. Kind of messy, but good!

Well, obviously I had to make s'mores! The best part was that while I was making them, Ruari, Stevenz and I had fun quoting the movie to each other. Actually, the best part was the taste :) I couldn't get hold of  "Graham Crackers" at such short notice so I got some Arnott's wholemeal cookies instead. The "Aussie equivalent" it seems. I wrapped them in foil and popped them in the embers to melt. Amazing.

Yum. This was not the end of my cooking adventures though, oh no! Stay tuned for more!

Let's jump to the morning after the first night. I was so hung over. I suppose part of this recollection is to outline the things that were uncomfortable about my trip. Going to the toilet was probably the worst for me. There wasn't much in the way of shrubs to hide behind so peeing in the daytime was annoying. You had to pick the perfect spot and keep your eye on camp. If anyone made eye contact while i was peeing.. that would have been just creepy. "Yes, I'm urinating. What of it?" The worst thing was that the further back you went, the more of camp you saw and assumed everyone could see you too! The boys just told me to come swimming and pee in the river. I didn't want to admit that it was the best idea I'd heard all day, but eventually I was 'talked into it'. We were all swimming around and they were like "have you peed yet?" every now and then. Mortified. But really, the current was so strong where we were on the first day I just had to make sure there was no-one downstream of me and it wasn't so bad :) But yes, as you can imagine... AGB's are not great in the bright morning light, having to squat with no cover or balance. I didn't make that mistake twice. After the AGB episode I came back to camp to find Jake and Corey making tea and snags for breakfast. Saints. Absolute saints! They kindly gave me some as my Muesli was looking as appealing as kitty litter at that point! After the heary breakfast we did the only rational thing possible: we drove to town and  went op-shopping. Obviously. I bought $11.50 worth of GOLD, but i forgot to take pictures - sorry :)

Back at camp, we decided to go fishing and swimming. Of course, first we needed worms for the rod, so I helped dig for worms, and then in no time it was all three girls elbows deep in mud yelling "I got a BIG ONE!". That's when we noticed this guy and had a bit of a 'girly moment':

After the screaming died down, we realised he was actually a bit cute! He was pretty scared so we put him back and set off to find a good fishing spot :) We found this amazing still lagoon which would later become the scene of yet another list item being SMASHED! If that's not a lure to keep reading, i don't know what is! While Jake fished, and Corey foraged, I rambled on incessantly to Jake - who i had only just met - and got my feet nice and muddy. It felt so good...

Ok, I'm jumping out of chronological order for a second to tell you what we did late that night at this very lagoon..... we went:

Oh yes! That's right! In this spot, we went night-time skinny dipping! Three girls, two boys, no clothes, and so dark that everyone just looked like a pale blur. I have taken the liberty of labelling the diagram for you.

Point A: This log is where we left our clothes (and a house key which is gone forever)
Point B: This is out toward the river's current and where we sat on a log doing tumbles into the water.
Point C: The Jumping Tree. This is where we did bomb dives. And this is also where I scraped my tummy and boobs clambering up into the tree looking like a dead rag doll slumped over it apprently.
Point D: Allllll the way back towards camp is where my friend placed my glasses for safe keepings when i did my bomb dive from the tree.

I asked my friend to hold them but she swam all the way back to shore and proceeded to walk for about 3 minutes fully naked until she found an ambiguous enough place to leave my glasses. Needless to say that we searched for ages afterwards shivering and clutching towels and clothes to ourselves. We actually gave up but on the way back to the camp, she said "Oh, a fence! I hung them on this fence!" and there they were. I still don't know why she swam and walked soooo far, it's pretty funny though.

So with the Skinny Dipping challenge complete, there was yet another item I knew i could complete. Fruit challenge! I bought another new fruit to eat. The final one of five. This time....

Amazing! It wasn't a good idea wearing white shorts while eating them, in fact it was a poor choice wearing them all together. I liked the pomegranate, but I got bored of eating it well before I was satisfied. It was like pulling little teeth out of some bitter white gums, but tasted nothing like teeth. I should know. Eew. Ok, so bringing it back around... before the skinny dipping we made out second dinner. Corey and Jake had some pasta ingredients and I had a few gourmet touches to add as well so we ended up with the most gourmet camp pasta ever!

In that rich looking dish was: Onion, Garlic, chilli, butter, oil, white wine, salt and pepper, basil, salami, some left over blue cheese and brie, and some philly cheese... I think that was it. It was so rich and amazing. After scarfing that I was commissioned to recreate some vegie parcels for those who missed out on the first night....

And then naturally we started playing drinking games, namely Kings. Below is a photo of boxhead/drinkbitch. As if it isn't humiliating enough being the slave who gets everyone's drinks, you have to wear a box on your head and almost trip into the fire while doing so...

That was really fun, especially when one of the rules became that we had to talk in European accents until the next Rule card is drawn. There were some interesting sounding British accents out there, that's for sure. I didn't realise Borat lived in London :) Ok so it was after this game that we were charged up enough to go skinny dipping, then danced and sang until around 3.30am when i fell into blissful sober yet exhausted sleep. I was awoken at about 6am when the others went to bed. Glad it wasn't me ;)

On the sad drive home, I had a peanut butter sandwich made with squashed white bread and spread on with the back of a plastic spoon. It was one of the nicest things ever. It was the last stop on my journey back to childhood.

It was also the last thing i made camping style. I am hereby saying that all the camping food i made counts as 1 dish on my list of 52 dishes. So, Dish 37: Camp food. Wee! JUST after I ate the sandwich, they suggested we stop and get a country bakery pie - one of my other favourite things ever. So naturally, i had a second lunch.....

Then I fell asleep on my pillow and snoozed for an hour or more, and woke up minutes from home. The fun memories and the acheivements unlocked are still fresh on my mind. Even for the first few hours of being home, or at least until my first shower, one little fly kept buzzing around my face. I think I unintentionally brought a little bit of Cobram back with me ;)

my relaxing weekend away

Firstly, awww, look at this egg I saw at Josh's mum's house on Saturday morning, how cute!


Anyway so despite the title, the weekend didn't start out that relaxing really. On Saturday I was tired and hadn't eaten anything still by 2pm-ish and was driving with Josh to Nagambie, when I suddenly felt the crazies set in. If I'm tired or hungry I can really act like a baby. Fo real. I can't even remember what I was being dramatic over. I think i was annoyed firstly at the scattered rain, which was torrential one moment and nothing the next, and the fact that my wipers were making that squeaky noise almost every time, regardless of all the rain. I was also trying to eat my roll, drive, use wipers and indicators in the Tulla freeway roadworks and I think Josh was trying to tell me something with the music loud and his mouth full of food. That might have done it. But once we got there at about 4.30pm I had a nap on the couch and was 100% after 15 mins. Poor Josh :)

The whole weekend was pretty much all about food - just the way I like it! Due to the serene setting and lack of distractions, you consequently have a limited number of things to do so you use meals to break up the day. It. was. amazing. ....Statement. We bought bags and bags of food and drink with us, and just thought we could take it home if we didnt eat it. We didn't even get close to finishing it! On Saturday night Josh wanted to make that Jamie Oliver Crispy Sticky chicken recipe again, so we had that with some salad and wine and watched about 3 episodes of Futurama with the directors commentary on. It's really interesting listening! We had healthy fruit and cereal breakfasts and then stuffed ourselves stupid for the rest of the waking hours. Cheese platters, chips, lollies - you name it, we ate it. On Sunday we went for a drive to Shepparton and got some new shoes (which i forgot to take photos of) and also did the obligatory SPC factory visit. I got a slab of Bundaberg "Peachee" and lots of those delicous Baxters Chutneys. That place is coco loco. We were too hungry to wait for our lunch plans so we got some KFC chips for the drive back. Gotta love drive-thru car chips!Yeah so we got dressed up and visited the local Tahbilk Winery to pick up a jar of the beautiful Purbrick & Crawford tomato and chili relish they sell, and got some late afternoon lunch at the Wetlands cafe there:




I had the herb encrusted salmon on a beetroot, carrot and herb salad. Josh had the beef with broccolini and a potato filled with its own potato mash. They were both so delicious. After that i'm pretty sure we went back to the cabin for a nap. I was so deep in my food coma that it was a bit of a blur. Seeing as we ate our lunch at about 4pm or something we ended up picking at a cheese platter and salad at around 10pm. That was a cool dinner :)

We also went into Nagambie town as I wanted to visit the antique shop where I got my kitchen hutch... but i saw it was under new ownership. I laughed because my dad had swiped 2 cheap souvenir bells from there on seperate occasions to give to me as a joke (he has a strange sense of humour and is rapidly becoming a full blown clepto). I told him that the bells were the lynchpin and he put the owners under. He didn't seem very upset, maybe only a little for the fact that his running joke was now over. The new owners had a table outside of $1 nick nacs and I got this:

This just reminded me of my family because when I was growing up, every cut or burn called for some Menthol Camphor. I showed this to my dad and he was pumped and his eyes went all glossy. He told me that his dad used to work for Watkins as a door-to-door salesman - I can't believe I never knew! I said he could keep the tin or give it to my nana as a gift. I will have to keep my eyes open for more cos I'd like to have one for myself :) The writing on the back is funny, it recommends use of menthol camphor for almost everything you can think of including cuts, burns, colds, rectal irritation, frostbite, non-venomous insect bites and they say it's also great after shaving. Hilarious.

Anyway on Monday I wanted to have a carboot picnic somewhere weird to tick off the list item "have a picnic in a strange location" but we couldn't think of anything good enough so instead I taught Josh how to drive my manual car and do hill startrs and everything...

.... all so that he could reverse it up to the view of the river and we could just eat lunch next to the cabin and watch the water flow by. We had leftover sticky chicken on rolls and some beer and chips. Very relaxing day...

I also painted my nails...

And watched lots of movies while Josh did his Uni Assignments like a good student. We watched "UP" and I cried about 3 times... hahahaa! What a sad/happy movie that was! Oh and also I made a delicious new dish which i will post about very very soon!! I didn't really take many photos, I was too busy laying on the couch or on the grass by the water enjoying the quiet :)

*sigh* I want to go back!