Dash Dating

I reluctantly agreed to go speed dating the Tuesday after next. Although the more I think about it, the more exciting it seems. I will try not to raise my hopes though. I am only going for a laugh and for the experience. I promise to report back after the fact.

Apart from the whole having a public blog on which I post personal information and pictures of myself, I am generally shy and self conscious around strangers. Dating and meeting people is not really my forte. I am perpetually single. And I don't think being perpetually single helps in the dating game as most of the time, being single makes you want to stay single. Although yesterday I did have one of those rare moments when I just felt hopelessly alone. These moments sort of sneak up on me once in a while and hit hard. Odd too as I had a nice day yesterday.

Luckily, I was on Nixon duty again so had a little furry friend to cheer me up. I also made Sloppy Joes alla The Pioneer Woman and watched the finale of Glee so the loneliness subsided rather quickly. Here is a crappy phone photo of my Sloppy Joe:

It was bloddy deliciously amazing!!!. If I made this for a man, he would fall madly in love with me. This was the first time I have ever had a S-Joe. For the last ten years, everytime I watch this scene from MKA's It Takes Two, I suddenly NEED a Sloppy Joe. So about hundred times I have had this craving ... maybe this is why I have trouble finding a man - haha.

Anyway, the nerd that I am decided to do some research on tips and conversation starters to prepare myself for the night. This is the first questionnaire I found. Sort of like a meme to myself I guess. This is how I would answer these if questioned:

If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be and why?

My little flat as I love it and fear we are going to be kicked out shortly. Note:  L we need to email the real estate agent.

What place do you want to visit most?

Greece and New York are tied at present. I did actually read this question as "where do you visit most" and the answer to that is "work". That would have made be sound interesting and exciting wouldn't of it.

If you couldn't do what you are doing for a living, what else would you do?

I would be an actress. And I would darn well be good enough to be cast in a movie alongside Meryl Streep. Obsessed much? I even have the script in my head. Oh so I guess I would be a screenwriter too (more on this ambition soon - I just have to get around to editing my two page long post)

What's your favorite word?

WHORESLUT. Although my favourite non curse word changes on a weekly basis. You may have noticed. Currently I am enjoying using Conundrum and Insolent.

If you could interview anyone living or dead, who would it be?

Jane Austen tied with Anna Wintour and the Olsen twins. Although a man would probably not understand this answer.

If you could be someone else for a day who would you be?

Serena Williams playing a grandslam final. Wouldn't it feel good to be that good a player and win the game!

If you had to choose a meal that best represented your love life, what would be on the menu, and where would you eat it?

Water. Although probably not the best answer to give a potential suitor. Don't they say you should not talk about previous lovers on dates anyway?

What would be the title of your biography?

"Everything you didn't want to know about me and then some"

If you knew you'd be financially taken care of for the next year, what would you do with your time or where would you go?

I would go everywhere and do nothing.

They say Alexander the Great kept a dagger and a copy of the Iliad under his pillow. What would be under your pillow?

Um are you trying to impress me with pointless information and the fact that a. you know what the Iliad is and b. know how to pronounce it? NEXT you pretentious prat.

What's in the boot of your car at the moment? (As long as the answer isn't:"My ex!")

Honestly, what kind of a question is that? But if I had enough to drink I would say "Some rotting meat that I swear I can smell but cannot find". Not sure that is the kind of impression I want to portray though.

Now that I am all studied up, the only thing to do is stress and figure how what I should wear. I have one vote for this Zebra print Barkins Dress. Any other ideas?

Lovely Lunch Lady

How good does my lunch look today. Thanks C for assembling this for me. I may even forgive you for your recent impertinence. I will provide office wide lunch ingredients everyday if I get this in return:

Oh and look at my cheery shoes. So much cuter knowing they only cost me $30.

I feel so lost and alone not being able to receive or send comments. Blogger please lift your game. Post haste. And please don't delete my blog for my own impertinence. Can they even do that? I will never know if my readers cannot comment and they me know!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Birthday Bash-Up - Mamma Mia

Wow, I have not updated for a while. Sorry. I have been feeling under the weather of late. Not sure what is wrong but I have been hit with an overwhelming desire to stay in bed forever, with the lights off and either listen to Jane Austen audiobooks or watch Meryl Streep movies. I think my “so used to being unhealthy body that is now not unhealthy” is fighting against the flu. It is doing okay apart from my now six day long head ache and sporadic coughing attacks. Fun fact about Fi. Fi does not cough like a normal person. Fi barks like a dog or a seal depending on the severity. Fi sounds like a lung ward. Fi does not know any different. It is very funny when new people meet my cough. Why am I talking in the third person? I don’t know. Brain is foggy, must move on.

Anywho, I have lots of outfit photos to upload and stories to tell but should probably not bombard you with them all at once.

I am finally free from the dogs from hell (or the “delightful little angels” if you are talking to their owners) and back in my own place. I was so relieved to be rid of them I spent the night I left carrying around friend K’s doggie Snap who I normally just pat hello and leave alone as Snap himself is not always well behaved. The two bottles of champagne I consumed on 4.5 hours sleep probably helped my mood that night though.

So, where did I leave off?

Hmmm, Friday night was my birthday night. L and I went to the theatre. Aka - to see Mamma Mia. Pre-theatre we went to this great little joint in Victoria Park called “TLMP” or “That Little Mexican Place”. We had the most amazing dip ever. It was called queso fundido. Or melted cheese dip. So freaking good. Not so good for the diet though. We also had guacamole made fresh at our table. Yummo and so fresh it seemed to counteract the cheese one or lets just pretend it did. Highly recommend this place. It is BYO and apparently you can even take your tequila. Do book though as it is small (seats 20) and appears to be quite popular. Oh and there are lots of gluten free stuff. The corn chips (gluten free) are AMAZING. We are going back post haste just to have dip and dessert. We had to miss out on dessert that night though a. because we were both full to the brim and b. because we were running late to the show….

Programme sneakily purchased for me by L. Thanks mum :-)

In 2002, when I was an aspiring actor and in year 12, my drama class went on a drama trip to Melbourne. We saw Mamma Mia its opening night. We saw John Wood and Rachel Griffiths and I am sure others but this was 8 years ago so I can’t remember. Certain members of my group may have yelled and waved across the streets of Melbourne at midnight “Rachel, Rachel Griffiths we love you, Woo”, but I promise I was not one of them... maybe. Anywho, at 16 I did not love Mamma Mia the musical. It was light hearted and fun but I only knew a few of ABBA’s songs and from our nose bleed seats, the view was not that great. My memory is that I was not impressed by the storyline or dialogue. Eg “Oh, no this place is falling down around me. Where am I going to get the money to fix it up?..... “I work all night, I work all day to pay the bills I have to pa-ay”. Still I did stand and dance at the end and then I yelled at Rachel Griffiths (oops, no I didn’t).

Then the movie came out and I didn’t go to the cinema to see it. Then my mum and her girls organised a girls night to watch it together, costumes and incontinence inducing mattress jumping inclusive, so mum bought the DVD. We sat and watched the whole thing that day, then again with the karaoke version and then with the commentary. I was a little hooked. Since this time I have been obsessed. I have seen the movie a million times and have both the Broadway and movie soundtracks. How could I not be won over? Meryl and Colin in the same movie.

So when I heard Mamma Mia was going to be in Perth, I knew I had to go. And I thought it was great. The set was simple but affective. Just a few Greek style walls that were moved about into different configurations depending on the scene. I had a little trouble hearing some of Donna's lyrics but I think she was having mic problems and it appeared fixed by the second half. The only criticism would be that the costumes that gave Sophie were awful. The actress is a petite little thing but she looked frumpy in almost everything they put her in. Not that I expected her to walk around in a bathing suit like Sophie does in the movie (and admittedly I find this a little strange) but still they could have done a little better.

The most annoying thing of the night though was the people cheering when songs started (like they didn't know they were coming) and the singing along. SPOILER... During the wedding scene, when Sam is proposing to Donna and Donna pauses before singing "I do, I do, I do, I do, I do-oo", people started singing before Donna did. I was throughly annoyed. I may have yelled "Shut-up" and sunk into my chair. I may have not. Where is the respect for the actors people?

This was one of my favourite scenes. The first after intermission. Sorry about crappy flash-back, my camera and I are having issues.

As I am a firm believer in getting dressed for the theatre. Note little girls who sat next to us - tights, tees and thongs are not appropriate attire. This is what I wore. Reenacted the day after as I had to get my good clothes off asap when I got home to avoid dog exposure.

I love the detail of this dress and the contrasting patterns.

Rodarte for Target Dress

Portmans Jacket

Random Tights

Tony Bianco Boots

So all in all was a great birthday. Oh and I am seeing it again with mum. Promise to post again soon :-)

As much as a packet of Goji Berries

That is how much I lost. 100 grams. Or 0.1 kilos, which is the way I say it for some reason. The weight losing thing is getting pretty ridiculous. I drank at least 2 bottles of champagne, had cake four times, had copious amounts of Indian food on Thursday night, had wonderful cheesy Mexican goodness on Friday night, had nibbles and pasta boxes on Saturday night, had “huge” toasted sandwich goodness for lunch on Sunday (ok it wasn’t huge but granny can’t help but comment on what I eat and the size of it so it felt huge – although I was not commented on as much due to the odd American women who sat next to us, ordered about six meals, two sodas and two milkshakes between them, had about three mouthfuls worth and then pulled containers from their rucksacks (I say this for effect, we call them “backpacks” in Australia.... although that is a personal joke between me and someone who doesn’t even know about my blog so I am not sure why I felt the need to even state it).. gosh where was I???? ... rucksacks and packed the food to go, and left, followed up by a huge home made mummy pizzas on Sunday night. To top it all off, I only walked once and swam once and the swim was half arsed and I only did 30 laps because as usual I was running late to get to K’s house..... So how did I lose weight? God knows. I am all in astonishment. Maybe the weight will just all appear one day, maybe not. Maybe I subconsciously over exaggerating what I am eating......

Case in point. Nibbles. My friend K set up the games table with a small nibbles platter in each corner. I sat at the one with hummus and rice crackers. I picked all night but only at the olives, hummus, salsa, carrot sticks and apple slices. I may of had a little slice cheese but lets not count that. Before, I would have eaten a lot of cracker biscuits and cheese. I didn’t even feel like I was missing out though. So I guess it’s not that bad after all. I am glad my habits are changing, and it feels quite naturally, so maybe this is the key for me.

Any who, the Goji Berries. I got some today from IGA for about $13 for 300grams. You can get them in Coles for between $6 to $10 but they usually only have 150gram packets. House mate/best friend, who we will now refer to as L, is on a gluten free diet at the moment and she picked some of these up to snack on the other day. I tried them, researched them, read the Voguettes opinions and decided they were for me.

The benefits of Goji Berries aka Wolfberries are they contain lots of amino acids, protein, vitamin C, antioxidants. They also contain some anti-cancer trace mineral. So basically they are the super food of super food. As I am now old, I need all the help I can get.

Back to the berries, I like them, others don’t. I think the taste could be acquired. You can eat them as they are, put them in cereal or oats, make tea or add them to soups. I am sure there is a myriad of other things you can do with them too.

The packet say a serve is 100 grams (which is only 1.5 WW points) but I am just going to leave them on my desk and snack on them (and sneakily not count them as points) and see how they go.

I also went to the Orthodontist to get moulds and photos for my braces today. Wait, have I Fiona Moaner’d you about my braces yet? Don't think so. Long story short, I have the teeth of a 50 year old and have to get nearly all of them crowned. Not as easy as just crowning them though. Little jaw, little teeth, eroded enamel = crowns won’t stay on so I have had to have very painful blood inducing Prosthodontics (for my genetic gingivitis that went undetected for 24 years and costs $400 a pop), followed by braces on bottom teeth to fix my bite and create more room for. YAY for me. And yay for being a complete fat ugly loser with glasses and adult braces. Haha. Woe is me. I didn’t really mean that, I just like being dramatic. I am actor after all. Ok I was an actor but that’s not the point. More on that later.

So very soon, this will be me:

Wait a minute.... Haven't I looked like this before?

Twirling, Twitter, Terribly Tired and Tea Time

Sorry in advance, I am tired so I don’t feel like being witty or interesting. Not that I am saying I am usually witty or interesting, it's just that I am not even able to put effort into trying to be so.

There are people in the office across me (that is in the next building not the next cubicle) doing aerobics. Before it was star jumps and now it is squats with weights. It is terribly off putting when one is trying to work.. cough. I guess that puts to rest my query as to whether they can see me when I strip starkers to get my swimmers on. I always work off the rule that if I can see them, then they can see me. This is a lesson learnt after many years of believing that if I squinted so I could not see out the window past my bed post, then the bogeyman standing man outside would know see I was in my bed. Although perhaps the fact that there is room enough for them to be running around means there is no actual office there and the fact that I have never seen these exercisers before means that have not seen me in the past. My head hurts.

Maybe from all the twirling I did in this dress today.

I left the house unaware there was a giant hole in the back of my tights today. Classy in the front, trashy high school girl who thinks holes are cool in the back. Please note I was not one of those girls. There was never knots tied, staples affixed or nail polish applied to my holes. I left them as they were and spent the rest of the day obsessing over how awful it looked. I then went home, was berated for mum for being clumsy and bought non-uniform shop tights from Woollies for the rest of the year (between you and me the non-uniform tights were not the exact same colour as the uniform shop ones so they totally made me look worse than the trashy girls - I would have preferred the ripped ones I think). Bet you didn't think that much could be read into holey tights huh.

Anyway enough about my tortured childhood. In other news, I ordered the work coffee via twitter today. I may have done it twice, one private message and one @ message as I was not convinced they got the private message, but I did it. And it was weird. Tweeting has not really taken off here in Perth. Out of the fifty odd people I follow (haha just checked and its 103), I only actually know 4 of them (including the coffee shop). Now given this fact, I think it is pretty brave of this coffee shop to embrace Twitter as it has. They have mini laptop and a flat screen above the counter and everything. I have been assured a bell goes off every time they get a Tweet too so they don't miss an order. Now answer this. What is wrong with walking into the coffee shop, ordering and waiting a few minutes for it to be made. Or better still, picking up the phone, dialling the number and speaking to the coffee shop people. Maybe I have just not been won over by Twitter yet. Celebrity babble and banter, yes. Glee kids (do tell, is it just the actors having fun or do they actually hire people to tweet for the characters?) daily run downs, yes. Using it as a way to make us even more lazy and uncommunicative  .... not sure. And I will sure need more than 140 characters to explore this one.

Just a little something for you to think about.

I just had me some Healthy Nachos for dinner.

This is what I started with.

And this is what I finished with. Yum Yum.

This is how you make it if you are interested:

Cept I added avocado too.

Anywho, I am off to scoff some licorice allsorts and maybe get an early night for once.

Piece.

Pics courtesy of my camera whose battery apparently can only take 5 pics max. I am guessing this is my the parentals were so keen to hand it over.

Recipe courtesy of Weight Watchers Online