A short note on sucky English and closets.

Why oh why, am I writing about this right now?

Some days ago, I published a post with possibly the wrong choice of word in the title. I only realised it the day after. I decided to let it go.

Who was I kidding?

Here I am, 17 minutes away from being another year wrinklier, and all I can think of is - "I must change that title!"

It's tough being anal. Are you, by any chance, the same?

+

By the time you read this, the deed will have been done. Yay! I'm so happy! I think I might just push on and clean out more closets now. FaceBook, google reader and contact lists. Ready or not, here I come.

See you on the other side of midnight :) x



A last laugh for the year.

And pigs will fly.

I can already hear the sirens wailing.

Dear everyone,

It's the last day of 2011. I hope it's been a good year for you.

It's been okay for me. Mr Thumper went away, which was bad. But then I got his bed, which was good. I got to go to holidaycamp too, not just once but twice!

Also, I got a job! I don't know why My Typist hasn't told you yet. Maybe she's been busy working haha.

I didn't have to apply or beg or anything like that. My Cushion's office moved to near where we live, and The Person In Charge Of These Things said I could go work there too!

I've been a few times already. Here are some pictures of me on my 1st day at the office.

I went to work in a ute. It was very high up but I wasn't scared.

I helped the humans move in. My job was to make sure no one would come steal anything.

9.30am

 

11.05am

2.10pm

 

4.15pm

I hope you don't think I was sleeping on the job but it was hard work being at the office all day.

6.30pm

No wonder My Cushion sometimes comes home in a bad mood.

One of the best things about my office is the view. It's a lot better than my backyard.

Outside, there's a nice deck for me to walk on, and to look at boats and ponder meaningful things.

"Hmmm. I wonder if anyone's breaking for lunch."

It's also good just to relax there.

Although today's the last day of the year, I had to go to work this morning.

There was a lot of stuff happening near the office because it's one of the places where humans come to watch Our Famous Fireworks go off at 9 and midnight.

Someone had put these things up at the end of the road.

My Typist doesn't like using them because one new year's eve night, A Drunk Man pulled the door open [even though she was hanging on to it tightly] and caught her with her [under]pants down.

With an awful experience like that burned into her brain, you'd think she'd know better than to show you this picture.  

But she says she's never seen these open types before and just had to share. My Typist deserves no sympathy.

Although the weather wasn't so good this morning,

many humans were already at the park.I don't think I'm going to go see the fireworks tonight, like Mr Piglet and Mr Thumper did. My humans don't think I'm ready yet, though I'm not scared of loud noises anymore.

I'll probably have an early dinner, watch some telly, then go to bed and get an extra big cuddle at midnight [if anyone is still awake].

I hope your Last Day of The Year is s*pEcial like that too!

That's all for now. Much love, Georgia xox

*

And moving on.

"Success!" to quote our favourite tour guide.

Both Christmas lunch salads were devoured with just a tiny bit left over that the hosts happily kept for themselves.

Here then, are the recipes, as promised. Perhaps you can make one for New Year's Eve!

Thai Green Mango Salad
500g green mango [peeled and grated. NOTE! these are Thai GREEN mangoes, not the usual eating types. You should be able to get them from an Asian/Thai grocer. I wish I had a picture of them, but I forgot to take any.]

1/4 cup shallots [raw, thinly sliced]
7 cloves garlic [raw, peeled and crushed]
1/4 cup basil leaves [preferably Thai basil, roughly chopped]
1/4 cup coriander leaves [roughly chopped]
2 tbsp peanuts [buy them raw, toast them in a pan, then roughly chop them in a food processor]

Put some oil in a pan and fry this lot together, in the order as listed:
1 extra shallot [sliced]  and 1 extra clove of garlic [chopped]
200g minced pork or chicken
2 tbsp Thai/Vietnamese fish sauce
1 tsp sugar
Put aside.

Put some oil in a pan and fry these 2 ingredients together:
2 tbsp dried shrimp [from any Asian grocer]
2 bird's eye chillies [the small hot ones! sliced]
Put aside.

ASSEMBLY

Put the grated green mango into a big salad bowl. Add all the other ingredients, 1 at a time.
Top off with the herbs and peanuts.

Toss and mix well. Serve!

In the original recipe, this salad was made to be served with steamed rice. But it'll go down just as well at a barbie.

Please do not be put off by the ingredients list. They're pretty common and easy to get here in Sydney. [Not sure if that'll be the case if you're living in Nova Scotia.]

I learnt how to make this salad after having it a few years ago at a Centennial Park foods market. It was So Good, I had to google the recipe after I got home. There were loads on the internet! I printed one out, made adjustments based on what I'd eaten at the market and hey presto!

WARNING! Under no circumstances should you be kissing anyone after eating this. Not even if they have a whole mistletoe bush hanging over their heads. Of course, you can fry up the garlic and shallots, but why be a woose? They're phenomenal eaten raw! Gargle gargle.

***

Here's the other salad I made. The one I've never even eaten before.

I would say most people at Christmas lunch enjoyed it. Just this morning, the hostess called to ask for the sauce recipe, so I guess it's good enough to pass on.

As for me, I felt it missed something. I'm not too sure what yet and will ponder the matter further. Perhaps a trip to a Thai restaurant to eat the real thing might help.

Uncle STeve's Thai Carrot Salad
Reproduced here without permission because he's not answering his email, and with some variations [already].  

4 medium carrots [grated into long strips]

1/2 bunch mint [roughly chopped. Since it's an Asian salad, I decided to use Vietnamese mint.]
1 bunch coriander [roughly chopped]
1 and a 1/2 cups peanuts [buy them raw, toast them in a pan, then roughly chop them in a food processor]
1+ cups shredded coconut [I suppose fresh would be best but I used the moist pre-shredded type, which I picked up at Woollies.]
1/4 cup sliced raisins
1 chillie [sliced, for garnishing]

1 generous handful of fresh bean sprouts

The dressing, which does NOT have to be pre-mixed:
Juice of 2 lemons
1/4+ cups of Thai sweet-chilli sauce
1 tbsp Asian hot chilli sauce

ASSEMBLY

Put the grated carrot into a big salad bowl. Add all the other ingredients,

1 at a time EXCEPT for the bean sprouts.

When it's just about time to serve, add the dressing. [You can adjust the balance of the lemon juice and chili sauces to your liking at this stage.] Toss and mix well.

Finally, add the bean sprouts. Give it a quick last toss and serve immediately.

NOTE! The world will not end if you add the bean sprouts before Aunty May turns up, but they will get soggy in the bowl and won't taste as nice.

***

I hope you enjoy making the salads. If you do make them, please drop us a line and tell us how they turn out. If you have any questions, please ask. I'm feeling in a helpful mood, no doubt because I've been imbibing in some red as I type this.

Bon Apetit! :)

[Sorry. I have no idea how to say that in Thai.]

*

And what about ME?

Some times, I think The Typist gets carried away and forgets whose blog this is.

Here's MY Christmas family lunch story.

This is cousin Ralph. He's my only rellie that turned up.

I don't know why he doesn't look like me. I guess he was not so lucky with the genes.

As usual, I brought my special Christmas lunch.

As usual, cousin Ralph didn't bring anything. So he ended up with 1/2 of mine.

My Cushion told The Typist off for giving 1/2 my lunch away. But it's okay. It was Christmas after all.

It would've been nice if cousin Ralph had said thank you though.    

Don't you think? 

Other than that, I had a good day!

I hope you did too!

Time to tiptoe quickly past the sleeping bloggers.

I've been a bad girl, Santa. I've procrastinated doing something for 9 months. No wonder I didn't get any pressies. I want so badly to start the new year free of guilt cramps. I think today might be the day to come clean! Everyone's away, or fast asleep because they pigged out at Christmas lunch. Haha.

So shhh. Quietly and quickly now. Can we get started?

"Oh hey!"

"You're not talking about ME, are you?"

*

I'm sorry to say I've not been keeping up with all the awards that I've so generously been given over the past year. I would have said a quick thank you at the time, but I haven't done anything more.

I know you can't see this but I'm giving myself a good smack across the knuckles for being such a bad girl.

I've taken so long to get down to this, that one of the bloggers listed below appears to have stopped blogging. Sadly, Lavi will now forever believe that I was a total ingrate.

But in fact, I started a draft some months ago in June,  just to keep track of the goodies.

Here they are - for what it's worth, in chronological order, and dating back to March...

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Thanks Lavi and Aschiuta!

This little beauty

I put here as a warning to all bloggers not to swoon over every award that's out there. Sometimes, it really is as suspicious as it looks.

Thanks Didi and Prince George!

Thanks Kristine and Shiva!

Thanks Mel, Daisy and Jasper!

Thanks Elizabeth, John Farleigh and Doo-weeee!

Thanks Lori, Freedom and Casper!

Thanks Lori and Our Best Friend!

My 7 links

Thanks Katie Sorene!

My 7 links

Now, this isn't even an award, as far I understand. It's just a way to re-introduce 7 of your favourite posts. I think it's a terrific idea! But having eaten way too much Christmas lunch myself, my brain won't allow me to proceed further with it.

Thanks Human and Flo!

Thanks Sue, Beryl and Frankie!

Liebster is new to me. It's an award for littleblogs like this one, so haha! it's something the biggies can't ever EVER hope to get! Indeed, I'm very happy to have less than 200 100 80 followers. I think there might even be time for a few more Liebsters in my future.

That's it then! I hope I didn't miss anyone!

Now, of course, I'm supposed to pass the awards on.

Here are some technical problems I'm encountering -

+ I don't have enough blogs on my google reader to pass on the required number of awards.

+ Some of the blogs I follow are no fun and have clearly specified No Awards, Thanks.   

+ Most of  the blogs I follow already have so many awards, what would they do with yet another?

+ Last but not least, I'm a lazy fart.

So I guess, perhaps disappointingly for some, the chain ends here.

{However -

If I'm wrong, and you're reading this and rather hoped you'd be getting one of those abovementioned awards [not the Memetastic I hope] - please do help yourself to it. You don't even have to say where you got it from. It'll be our little secret.}


 *enJ*oy! 

With love and respect always, The Typist xox


Yay! Done! I think I might get some shut-eye now.