Author: Joan

America in food form

Our house celebrated Independence Day with a BBQ today. I stuffed myself silly with cookies, brownies, strawberries, pie, watermelon, zucchini bread and a concoction of orange, cottage cheese and whipped cream. Then, when dessert was done, I had a homemade hamburger and hot dogs, hot off the grill, plus a Southern pasta salad and American chilli. I am so sad that I am too full to eat any more food.

Vegetarian kebabs

Blueberry pie, which was declared, ‘America in food form’.

Sangría.

What Independence Day party would be complete without an American flag cake?

2010

Janice let the couple progress through the hallway, the study and the living room. Soon enough, they had reached the kitchen, the heart of every house. The woman glided her hand over the granite bench top, nodding approvingly. The man gazed up the skylight, then pulled open the German-engineered oven.

‘Good morning,’ Janice said. ‘My name’s Janice. How do you like the house?’

‘It’s nice,’ the man noncommittally. ‘A new paint job in the hallway, I see.’

‘Yes,’ Janice replied. She was glad he had noticed. She had told the Cranfields it was an easy way to add £1500 to the asking price so they had it done three weeks ago. The paint smell was gone in time for house inspections. The Cranfields had also taken their agent’s advice and removed personal photos so that prospective buyers could more easily imagine themselves living here. There were fresh flowers in the house, too. Janice was a good agent. She knew what the punters wanted.

‘I like the natural light,’ the woman buyer said.

‘The skylight really does open up the space, doesn’t it?’ Janice enthused. ‘The owners also installed dimmable halogens. This really is a great lifestyle house. There’s a heated conservatory, and the media room, of course. And it’s close to shops.’ Janice recited this all with the perfect illusion of spontaneity.

‘I’m not sure about the halogens, Dean,’ the woman said, turning to the man. ‘Or the other lights. Halogens use up a lot of energy.’

Dean nodded. ‘Janice, are the lights the energy efficient types? What’s the SAP rating on the house?’

‘SAP rating…’ Janice felt her control of the situation begin to fray at the edges.

‘Yes, the energy rating of the house? The insulation are in the walls? What are the owners spending on energy? Is there a heat recovery system?’

‘Erm.’ Janice started shuffling through the promotional material, scanning for something about the ‘SAP rating’ or heat recovery.

‘Dean, can you ask about the heating controls too? We’ll want to keep the kids’ rooms warmer at night but turn down the temp in the study and guest room.’

Janice was rifling through the brochures a second time. ‘Ah, I’m sorry sir, madam. I don’t seem to have the information here but I’ll call the office now and see if I can get it. Could you hold on?’

The agent darted into the study to use her mobile phone.

‘Troy, what on earth is a SAP rating?… Build regs? You mean people care about that? … Sheesh, I can’t believe it. I’m sure Cass and Jim got asked the same thing last weekend… No, the lifestyle angle isn’t working, you’ll have to send the energy info… That’s three days away! …Oh, fine! Nothing we can do about it now. Bloody marketing. Gotta sell houses like cars these days.’

When Janice returned to the kitchen, the couple had opened up the boiler.

‘Forty kilowatts is a bit excessive for this size house but at least it’s a condensing boiler. More efficient than the electrics. I know this manufacturer, had some warranty issues five years ago but they seem to have sorted it out…’

‘Sorry for making you wait,’ said Janice. ‘We do have the energy information at head office. It’ll be here on Friday. Ah, if you leave me your details, I can post it to you or you could come back…’

The couple exchanged looks. ‘All right. Maybe we come back in a bit. We’ll look around a bit more, see a couple of houses.’

In the face of failure, Janice put on her most genuine smile. ‘Of course! And here’s my card. Give me a call if you think of anything.’

Would you like a haircut?

I was walking home this morning after a meeting when two women came up to me.

‘Hello! My name is Letty. I’m an apprentice hairdresser. Would you like a free haircut?’

Letty’s companion added, ‘Letty has basically finished her training. I’m her teacher. She just needs to practice for the test.’

I said cautiously, ‘Sure. I’d love a haircut.’ I wondered if they had spotted me walking down the street and targeted me because of my terrible hair. So now I have an appointment for a haircut this Friday, just in time for Di’s Fourth of July party at out house.

Try this! It’s pretty amazing. Put on your headphones and listen to the YouTube clip. I read about it at Why not try a virtual haircut?

An expensive adventure

Last Wednesday, I had to travel to Solihull, which is less than two hours from Cambridge by car but more than four hours by public transport. I was smart, though. I bought my train and bus tickets a week early so that it only cost me £22.

Here is what happened that day.

11.04

Train from Cambridge to Birmingham. Productive two hours, working on my laptop for my dissertation.

13.45

Arrived in Birmingham New Street station. Walked to Birmingham Moor Street Station

14.20

Train from Birmingham to Solihull

14.45

Bus from Solihull to meeting location (I was so lucky! The bus only comes every hour and the trip is half an hour so I arrived in time for the 15.30 start time.

15.50

Meeting starts late.

17.45

Meeting runs an hour over time. As I leap on the bus back to Solihull station, I realise that I’m not going to make it in time for my 18.25 train from Birmingham back to Cambridge.

16.15

The helpful man at the Solihull ticket office tells me that I will have to buy a new train ticket to Cambridge for £38.50 (A$96). I realise I can go to Oxford for half that price. With five minutes before the Oxford train departs, I try to buy the ticket. The card machine will not accept my bank card. I am forced to use my Australian credit card — foreign transaction fees 🙁

18.25

I get on the train in time.

19.40

I arrive in Oxford. I walk slowly to Damjan’s place. A day of walking in heels is painful. I make in time for Damjan’s birthday — hooray!

It turned out to be an expensive adventure. I wasted a train ticket from Solihull to Birmingham and Birmingham to Cambridge. I had to buy a bus ticket from Oxford back to Cambridge. I needed a new toothbrush, clothes, and a pair of shoes (the heels were not a long-term walking proposition). But I had a nice unscheduled holiday. Damjan had Melbourne friends over, we went punting and also had a birthday celebration.

Now I am very far behind my dissertation schedule. If I don’t post as frequently, this is a good sign for my research.

Diamonds are forever

Anna was telling me about the clever Tiffany’s campaign, which singlehandedly spread the idea that the right amount to spend on a diamond engagement ring was three month’s of the man’s income.

‘They even put a calculator on their website so that the man could work out how much he should spend,’ she said. ‘Although, any man who needs that calculator probably isn’t worth it…’

‘I read somewhere that the original reason for the diamond engagement ring was because once people got engaged, well, it was kind of like they could start sleeping together,’ I said.

Anna looked puzzled. ‘Was it to prove that they really were engaged?’

‘No. It was in case the woman got pregnant and then got dumped. She would at least still get some money to survive on by selling the ring.’

Anna considered this briefly. ‘So the ring’s like a deposit?’

I started laughing. ‘Exactly!’

The Mosuo

The Mosuo are an ethnic group living in the province of Yunan near Tibet. My parents visited them on their last trip to China.

Mum described the matriarchal society. ‘The women are the bosses. They run the village, the families and businesses. When a Mosuo woman sees a man she likes, she can point to him and say, ‘Come here’ and they will go to her bedroom. To show that there she has a man in her room, the man’s hat is hung on a hook near the door. When the woman is tired of him, she can tell him to leave. He takes his hat with him and the hook hook by the door is empty again.’

I listened, astonished. ‘Mum, I don’t know if many men would mind that…’

Mum shrugged. ‘Well, if the woman gets pregnant, it is the responsibility of her brother to raise the child. That is the burden of the men, to look after the children of their sisters.’

You can read more about the Mosuo here.

Eight computers, unhungry again, and unproductive

On the weekend, I spent 6.5 hours cutting open dozens of cardboard boxes, pulling out eight sets of computer towers, monitors, keyboard, mouses, software, assembling them, crawling under computer desks to wire them up, plug them in, untangle them, rewire, uninstalling trial software, installing indispensable freeware, installing Microsoft office, setting up a wireless network, printer network, riding to electronics stores to buy more power boards, setting up administrator and user accounts, setting defaults for printing, security, software updates, registering software, flattening cardboard boxes, piling them into a mountain of tired cardboard.

Today I posted a box of software back to the computer store, was on the phone with tech support to troubleshoot a dead DVD-RW drive on one of the new computers (turned out the computer assembler didn’t plug the power into the drive), picked up two new toner cartridges and installed them, posted instructions for accessing the wireless network on the wall, updated security settings on the computers, and helped someone with the wireless settings on their laptop.

Exhaustion.

In the past week, I have lost my appetite. I eat breakfast and lunch as normal. By the time dinner comes around, I prod my stomach and am still unhungry. I’ve skipped dinner about four times in the past week.

If you’re not hungry, is it better to eat something as scheduled or not eat?

I haven’t changed my level of activity. I ran around doing the computer stuff on Saturday, biked four miles and walked the same on Sunday, ran around carrying boxes today.

Besides puzzlement about my lack of appetite, I’m worried about all the food in the fridge. I bought enough groceries to feed normal Joan appetite. Now there’s too much food. Lack of eating led to three of my potatoes turning green and white and fluffy.

I ended up cooking a big pot of vegetable curry to stop any further deterioration. That was on Thursday last week. I’m not sure how much longer I can keep the curry.

I wasn’t hungry today but I ate dinner anyway. I hate wasting food.

I’ve decided not to buy any food this week and live on the dried foods in my cupboard, plus 10 eggs. I might buy some milk and a bit of fruit too.

Maybe I’ve been eating too much all my life. For each meal, I would typically eat one or two sandwiches worth of food mass (I rarely eat sandwiches but you get an idea of the serving size). It will be hard to change my concept of ‘meal’ to something smaller.

I haven’t been productive at all for the past three weeks. It bothers me. Mostly, it’s my own fault. I get tired and instead of working through it or walking it off, I sleep or read or go on the internet. Like now.