Ahhhh,
today I didn't have any work at all, how sweet it was. In fact, I had
crossed today off the calendar a couple of weeks ago, believing that it
was a national holiday. Uh, no, unless you are a lobourer. I realised on
Friday that actually, most people would be working, but no clients
called and booked me, so I was free, gloriously free!
The
day started well. I slept in until 7 am. Now, I realise, that by most
people's standards, 7 am is NOT sleeping in. However, I've been waking
up between 5:50~6:30 am for about the last six weeks, so 7 am seemed
like a nice lie-in.
I didn't walk the dogs
this morning as both Little Fella's splints have worn holes through
them! I didn't realise that the other splint was close to wearing out
and on our last long walk it wore through. And continued wearing through
to his foot. Which I didn't notice until the next morning when I
changed his bandage (he gets fresh bandages in the morning.) Poor Little
Fella. When I use his cart the wounded leg (which is the one suspended)
gets all hot and swollen, I guess due to the not-yet-healed abrasions.
So, no cart until he is healed up and no splints until the new ones
arrive. Poor bored Little Fella.
I enjoyed
my breakfast while trying to finish yesterday's crossword. I didn't
succeed, darn it! Then I started a quilt for Kitty. Kitty is Angela's
cat who died of FIV (Cat AIDS) the same day as LW. As I make AIDS quilts
with the guys at Lourdes, it seemed reasonable to make a mini quilt for
Kitty. I have been talking about it for weeks, today I finally buckled
down and got it mostly done. No photos or descriptions as I won't be
giving it to Ang until May 12th (her birthday!) and she reads my blog.
Hee, hee, you'll just have to wait, Ang!
After
a quick lunch I went to Taipei city to run some errands. First, I paid
rent. I have to pay in person as I suspect my landlord does not claim
this income. It's a pain in the neck as it is nowhere near an MRT
station. I usually pay three months at a time, this time I paid four
months, so I don't have to see him again until September. Good.
Then
I went to the shop where I bought my camera and asked them to send it
to Sony for me. I will find out at the end of the week if it is fixable
and how much it will cost to fix. Meanwhile I am considering buying a
digital SLR camera. Does anyone have any thoughts on the matter?
Next
to the bookstore...because it's a bookstore, d'uh! Then back downstairs
to Starbucks to get coffee for the house. I don't know about Starbucks
in other countries, but here they only have one 'fair trade' coffee
available. Fortunately it is delicious! It is not always available and
often I have to track from one Starbucks to another, just to get a bag
of coffee. (I tried Starbucks in Tai Da hospital last week and then
another store in Gong Guan. I finally had success in Yung Ho! Huzzah!)
(You
falling asleep yet? I know, it wasn't an exciting day but it was so
very pleasant...I didn't have to meet anyone or be anywhere at a
specific time...lovely!)
I took the MRT to
Grandma Nitti's to drop off a couple of bolts and bearing...uh...things
for the wheelchair that I returned to Animals Taiwan. Then over to
Jane's to say hi and to give her a 'pizza oven', the 'surprise' in
Ethan's 'Kinder Surprise' on Sunday. Jane was interviewed by some people
from the 'Apple Daily' last week. The Apple Daily is a horrible, awful,
trashy daily paper that is fabulously popular here. Since then she has
been incredibly busy. They keep selling out of food by 8 pm! Anyway, she
has new menues coming out and she asked me to proofread them. Mostly
the problems were punctuation (or lack thereof) and capitalisation (or
lack thereof). As payment I drank a glass of wine. ('Any time, Jane, any
time!!')
Charlie and then later Beki
showed up, so we chatted about this, that and the other. They both
commented on my very nice new haircut. 'Er, no, not a haircut. I've lost
10 lbs.' Very amusing seeing their surprised expressions!
And
so I eventually returned home, fed the beasties, enjoyed my Greek-esque
salad with a second glass of wine. I still have to go up to Constance's
and get some wood shavings for my dog to sleep on, I'm nearly out.
Oh,
and tomorrow evening I will be meeting many of the Servas Taiwan
members for an informal dinner at a coffee shop. We have a Servas guest
from Japan for three days, starting this evening. She was going to stay
with me, but then the organiser of Servas Taiwan asked if I could let
her stay with someone else as I am almost the only person to have had an
overnight guest so far here in Taiwan! A Taiwanese woman, Mei, wrote a
book about her Servas experiences overseas last year. After her book
came out our membership increased something like ten-fold. I went from
being the only 'over-night' host in Taiwan to one of 60! As we don't get
many Servas guests in Taiwan I don't think I'll be hosting anyone for
awhile, if everyone is going to get a turn! :o) I did a lot of Servas
travelling in the States and Europe in the early nineties. It's a pretty
amazing organisation.
(If you are wondering what Servas is, check out this link (English) or this link (Chinese).)
Well, that's all the news that's fit to print. Have a great day/evening!
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
PS I need help for the last two clues of today's crossword:
1. Coral or Cortez (answer: S_A)
2. Geared up (answer: _ARGER)
Any ideas? The two blanks are the SAME letter as 1 is horizontal and 2 is vertical. Many thanks!
On
Sunday I finally had my much delayed Easter party. The guests were all
Taiwanese and very keen to do the Easter thing. Irene (one of the
engineers) brought Min, a woman she had met at a self-development
seminar. They arrived first. After a bit of chatting and making of a
quick cake, I thought we might go for a walk while waiting for the
others to arrive. A cursory glance at their shoes told me that walking
would have to be limited to level surfaces. So we walked a few hundred
meters along the edge of the resevoir, then down a set of stairs to a
mini-temple. The path continued down to the water's edge where they
could see, well, water. And a few guys fishing, some egrets, perhaps a
snake eagle or two. No boats (or technically any fishing, either!) as
this is the drinking water for Xindian.
I
got a call to say that Sophie was on her way down to my house--oops! So I
left Irene and Min and raced back to the house. Sophie and I walked
back to Irene and Min. I did quick introductions then returned to the
house again, this time to take the cake out of the oven. I then hung up
the Easter eggs on a tree near the front door. I borrowed about 25
painted plastic eggs on ribbons from Lourdes last Thursday. They are
really cute and look like real decorated eggs.
Irene,
Min and Sophie came back. We did a mini tour of the house/garden, then
sat down to blow out the eggs. Min had used a proper 'egg blowing out'
tool before which I scornfully pooh-poohed. Real women poke holes in
their eggs and blow the innards out, like energetic mouth to mouth
resucitation! They all got into it; I think Sophie blew out about five
eggs, she was looking pretty red in the face by the end.
We
went to play a little in the stream for a bit. There were Tong Blossoms
everywhere which Sophie enjoyed throwing at us. (I suggested that
throwing dry ones was a better idea than wet ones.) Laurie, Thomas and
Ethan rocked up at about 3:15. They joined us at the stream for more
paddling and Tong Blossom throwing. Eventually we went in and enjoyed
our afternoon tea: just baked cake, cheeses, crackers, olives, pickles,
pate, coffee, tea, juice. Mmmm, I like afternoon teas.
And
then we started decorating. I had food dye in bowls, a candle for
dripping wax (but no funnels, I'm not that fancy), paints and brushes.
The eggs turned out beautifully! (My camera is broken, *sob*, so I am
waiting for the others to send me some photos.)
Then
we had the Easter egg hunt. It was hilarious! I had prepared mini
ziplock bags of chocolates, one for each person, each bag with a name on
it. The rules were simple: You had to find your own bag of chocolates
without help. If you found someone else's bag you weren't to not touch
it or say anything about it. If you cried out that you had found someone
else's chocolates you would forfeit your own. (Yes, as a matter of
fact, I did teach little kids for quite some time. Why'd you ask?)
I
sent everyone outside for a minute while I hid the bags then called
them back in. They were so sweet, dashing here and there, looking for
their treats. Min found a bag and held it up with glee. I pointed out
that she had found Sophie's bag: they both looked rather horrified. I
laughed and told Sohp to go outside so I could hide her chocolates again
and told Min to look for HER bag. Sophie came back in and resumed
hunting. After a few minutes of growing frustration, Sophie needed a
clue as I had put her chocolates in the fireplace ('Somewhere that gets
very hot.') So did Laurie. But then again, Laurie's chocolates were
behind a picture hanging on the wall.
We
were going to have egg and spoon races (in fact, ping pong ball and
spoon races) but ran out of time...another day. A good time was had by
all (including the hostess.) And, having guests over made me get off of
my computer chair and clean the house. A very Good Thing!!
I bet you'll never guess what the topic of this blog is. There are three main topics:
- my pets
- food
- me
I
bet you're astounded! So, without further ado, here is Ms Dodo in her
winter jacket. It was kind of cool for a few evenings so I put it on her
at night.
It's
muddy and disgusting out the front because it rained for weeks and
weeks and weeks. Thankfully the last three days have been warm and sunny
(yippee!). More rain for the coming week, though. Rats.
This
next photo is Little One sniffing Sprout's bum. A most unsanitary and
just plain GROSS activity, however it seems to be what cats and dogs do.
(And three-quarters of Dodo in this photo, too!)
Our
final pet photo of the day is of my five cats enjoying their breakfast.
Yum, cat cookies! Crunchy, fishy, yucky, stinky little brown bites.
Yech. (And peeling paint under the window...story of my life in this
house. Oh, but you can see just a bit of the new floor. Nice, eh?)
And onto the much happier topic of people food. This was my lunch on Friday, followed by Angela's lunch:
We
ate with Tilman, Daiyu's husband, who had just come back from another
press conference. Tilman is a journalist for the GIO. The Taiwanese
ultramarathon runner, Kevin Lin (林義傑) was being
interviewed. He is ultra-amazing. He ran across the Sahara desert with
two other men. Shall I type that again? He ran across the Sahara desert
with two other men. They finished in March. 7500 km. 111 days. AMAZING!
So he had to tell us all about the press conference and this man, Lin.
Tilman had to go home and walk his dogs before going back to work so
then Ang and I got into some real chit-chatting. Ang left and I waited
for Daiyu to stop being busy as I was to teach her how to make scones
that afternoon. It turned out that it wasn't just Daiyu, but one of her
very good friends (who has a teahouse) and good friend's daughter. And a
couple of staff who wanted to watch, too. Man, I hate being on display
like this. If I am teaching someone I know, it's fine. Or, if I am hired
to teach, that's ok. But when I got there the woman was all gushing
over me--and I couldn't remember her. In fact, I helped her to translate
her menu into English as a favour for Daiyu. She was way OTT: "It's so
great that you know how to make scones, I just think you are so amazing,
you're just wonderful [blahblahblah]" Hey, it is great
to be appreciated, but it's like someone gushing about being able to
make a toasted cheese sandwich, or a coffee: it's not that hard. I know
that this is just the Taiwanese way of showing thanks and appreciation
and normally it's not a problem. I think I just got an OD of publicity
on Thursday and didn't want any more people watching my every move!!
Grrrrr!!
I would so NOT survive as a public person. I love being an anonymous 'voice' on a CD or on the airwaves.
Ok,
bitching aside, it actually was fine. I told myself to stop being such a
'princess' and get on with it. I have made scones 8,000 times before,
(at least!), using my standard recipe. My scone recipe has NO SUGAR.
When the pastry chef tried a bite he had the same look on his face that I
had the first time I tried (evil) sweet popcorn: it just isn't right!! I
explained that these scones are best eaten with lots of jam, masses of
whipped cream (Yes, yes, I heard you: you're asking about clotted cream.
In Taiwan? Hahahahahahahahahahaha...gasp...so, where was I?) They are
even better if you have on a straw hat with flowers, a large pot of
piping hot tea, milk for the tea, your best friend and at least three
hours. Well, we did without the hats (and flowers), best friends and
some of the time. Everyone enjoyed at least one (and the pastry chef had
two...with jam and cream.) Half of this batch had raisins, half had
'real' parmesan cheese added to them. I thought the cheesy ones were too
salty--shouldn't have added any salt to the dough mixture. We made
another batch, following a recipe kindly suggested by Treesparrow.
This one had an egg, some milk and sugar in it. I liked the texture of
these ones very much. As they already had a little sugar in them they
could be enjoyed plain. The others prefered the first batch (the cream
and jam gets 'em everytime.) Anyway...just wanted to explain what I
wanted the scone recipes for. Oh, and no photos as my hands were covered
in dough most of the time.
And now onto my
last photo of the day and my newest hobby: I made all of these
bracelets! The silvery one with purple beads I totally made: I put the
metal loops together to make the chain (like making chain mail.) Cool,
eh? I bought a few magazines, some tools and too many beads (greedy
Amanda). It's fun to play with beads! And then I get to wear them and
brag to all my friends.
Did I get it all? Pets, yup; food, uh-huh; me, oh yeah. Ok, that's it friendy, catch ya later!
Dinner was delish!
Here are a few shots of the chef at work:
First
course was Dahl (dal? dall? daal?) This is a dish made with lentils,
like a very hearty soup. It has lots of Indian spices and is a bit spicy
(as in hot). Mmm, good!
Our main course was Chicken Korma and Aloo [something]. 'Aloo' means potato and [something] probably means spinach.
We also had cold tomato-onion salad and the Mogul lamb.
Of course there was rice as well. Here is my bowl...delicious!
But
that, my friends, was not all. No, there were presents, too! Andy had
some birthday presents for me. (Hey, I always say "Better late than
never!" if we're talking pressies for me!!)
I
opened the first one. A scarf? Nah, too stiff. I unfolded it. "A
tablecloth?" Nope, said Andy. "Insulation?" (like a camping survival
blanket.) "Nope," again. "Oooh, it's a cape!" *Andy laughed* "Well,
sort of! Open the next one!"
The next present was...A sceptre! For a princess! For ME, xindianprincess!
And
the crowning touch...A crown! Well, a tiara, anyway. Sophie found the
ties to my cape and helped me prepare to greet my subjects:
And here I am, Xindian Princess, in my throne. "We are extremely amused!!"
My day today: I didn’t have any work! Yea! :o) Briefly:
Walked the dogs.
Coffee with Constance in the
garden: first sunny morning for
ages.
Mower to vet: Mower is now MOLAR-LESS. Friends, if you
have a cat, keep on top of that tartar! Buy special cat toothpaste and use it!
Went to Constance’s and
made a barrier out of old wood
for the door, thus preventing Dodo from wiggling back inside the house.
Went to Lourdes: made
Chocolate Chip Cookies. Between batches (tiny oven, nine cookies at a time) I
cut out squares of fabric to make a ‘samples’ folder. Thus the guys can choose which fabrics they
want to use which I will then bring the next week--saves
me from bringing all my fabrics up to Lourdes for eight months. Of course, I
had to bring a third of it to Lourdes in order to cut sample squares out. I’ve
been meaning to do it at home for weeks and haven’t yet: quilts must be
finished by November 1st” tempus
fugit, and all that. One guy was folding ‘ghost money’ to burn on ‘Ching Ming
Jie’ (Tomb Sweeping Day) which falls
on April 5th this year (I will hopefully do a blog about Tomb
Sweeping Day early next week). He was folding the paper into little shoes,
similar to Dutch clogs (‘sabots’?) I thought they were pretty
neat!
Here’s a
photo of cookies from today in a cookie jar that was given to Lourdes by my
friend, Jerri. Jerri will be returning to the States at the beginning of May and has kindly donated a bunch of stuff
to Lourdes, including a sewing machine (Yes!), a yogurt maker (Yes!) and an ice
cream maker (Yes!) We love Jerri!!
Dinner at home (mmm, leftovers!)
Dodo is officially installed in her outdoor dog house and not too thrilled
about the change in accommodation. She spent a fair bit of this evening
alternately whining pathetically and giving short, sharp barks in order to
remind me that I had forgotten to let her in. Dodo is the dog who pees anywhere
and everywhere. Dodo is not suited to live indoors!
Up to Simon and Constance’s for
a glass of wine. I introduced Sophie (8) to the pleasure of the monster drawing
game, you know: Each person draws a head on their paper then folds the paper so only the neck is showing. You
trade papers and draw a body, folding again so only the bottom of the waist is
showing, etc. She thought it is a fabulous game! We watched two episodes of ‘Sean
the Sheep’, a claymation show.
It is utterly charming and quite amusing. Similar to ‘Wallace
and Gromet’ without the dry humor.
It’s 10:23 and time for bed.
I have a cloth-back copy of ‘The Man in Brown’ (from the orphan’s book sale) to
begin before I turn out the
lights. It’s a copy from 1946 and has that musky, old book smell. Happy
Amanda!
Yea, it's the weekend! This picture is for Kat's 'Feline Friday!'
I did 30 hours of recording this week, 11 of which were on my own. Bowzer will understand that I am one tired little camper.
Very
briefly, I had a wonderful birthday (two dinners and two cakes so far,
all separate occasions.) I have sanded and varnished almost half the
floor. No, it doesn't really take that long, I just haven't had huge
amounts of free time to work on it. (Aside from the fact that 2/3 of the
holes to be pegged are TOO BIG and thus I had to track down slightly
larger dowels. It was I who selected the drill bit and thus it is 100%
my mistake. Argh.) Did I mention I have been busy at work?
Tomorrow morning at 8:30 Simon, Sophie and I will go up to Tien Mu for the Orphans Annual Secondhand Book Sale:” yea, books! At one I am meeting Bernard for lunch. I worked with Bernard for about a year or so maybe seven years ago. We have met very infrequently since then so I am sure there will be a lot of news to catch up on. At four I am seeing Tsai to have something done with the rat'™s nest I affectionately call my hair: a few artistic streaks and a trim. Then home to Xindian via the grocery store to prepare for Tilman and my combined birthday brunch. The brunch is kindly being hosted by Angela and Stacy as their home is much more central than mine. This is especially important for Belle who lives in Dansui, about an hour and a half from my place.
What else? Sophie slept over last Saturday. I read a story to her until about 11 pm then we went to sleep. As she is a middle of the night blanket thief I make her bring her own. Uh-huh, and she woke up in the middle of the night saying she was cold, so we had to share anyway, rats. Sunday morning we went to Joufen, about an hour northish from Taipei, with Stacy, Angela and Tsai. We
had an awesome day, playing kalah, drinking tea and tea and tea from
thimble-sized cups, eating, chatting, taking pictures: Ang got out
her Tarot cards and told our fortunes. I didn't believe mine, but then I didn’t like the result, hmph. We got back to Taipei in the early evening. Stood
outside Grandma Nitti'™s drinking beer and chatting with Simon and
some Animals Taiwan people, then over to Jane's for pizza, wine and
(more!) chatting. What a surprise.
On our way home Sophie and I stopped to watch the 'sky lanterns'™ and fireworks over the bitan bridge.
Ok, I must go downstairs and make a shopping list or else I'™ll be hooped tomorrow and forget to get half the groceries. There will probably be another pause in blogging as I have another very FULL week of taping looming.
Have a wonderful weekend!
I
had a fab day but boy-oh-boy am I tired! Did three episodes of dubbing
the cartoon which is getting better and better. This afternoon I joined
Hugh and a bunch of cattle/beef guys from Canada in some seminars with
Taiwanese beef-related people. Hugh is the father of Kathy, my
university roommate of three years. Hugh is one of my all time favorite
people in the world, so it was great to see him this afternoon/evening.
The delegation arrived yesterday evening from Japan, tomorrow he flies
back to Canada. And now I am off to bed....ahhhhh.....
So, since time is limited I will *briefly* recount...
Wednesday
afternoon Simon and I went to Andy's to finish off his floor. The part
that is unstained is the bit we did Wednesday, the rest was done over
three times (I only helped the first of those three.)
Thursday
morning I went up to Simon and Constance's and loaded 81 pieces (220 cm
x 15 cm, tongue and groove pine) of wood into their van. A little while
later Simon drove the van down just as Andy arrived and we carried the
wood into the house. We laid out the 'sticks', discussed the best
layout, added two more sticks then started laying the floor. The first 5
or 6 rows went well. I was ecstatic! We then stopped for lunch (it was
about 2 pm and I was ravenous.)
Laying out the sticks and thinking:
Back
to work and the wood was getting stubborn: The tongues and grooves were
not fitting. After banging the wood, thinking many bad words and trying
to work out what was going on I went up to ask Constance's advice. She
figures that as the wood has been stored outside for 3 to 4 weeks it has
probably absorbed some moisture from the air and so has swollen. (Yes,
yes, the wood was thoroughly wrapped in many layers of plastic and so
was not wet. However, Taiwan is in the tropics and the mountains of
Xindian are very humid.)
I
grabbed a router and made the groove on a few bits of wood bigger (or
groovier?) Andy and I then managed to put together three rows in about
20 minutes! Yea!
Clearly I will have to re-rout the grooves on the remaining pieces of wood (that's about 50 planks. Oh, what fun!)
The
third that we finished yesterday got pegged and sanded this afternoon. I
will varnish it tomorrow to protect it from muddy paw prints, hair
balls and other little souvenirs from my furry friends!
Ok, alarm just went off. I'll add the photos then off to bed.
