Idiotic tidbits from the last month

Well, I've really crapped out on my little goal of trying to put out a new blog once a week. But since it should be about quality, not quantity, I shall cut myself some slack. Though now that I have stated such, one might assume that anything I do release for public viewing has been deemed 'quality' by myself and harsh scrutiny by yourself of my belief should follow.

Ugh.

So, I've been quite busy over the last month, though not so busy in the two weeks preceding my last blog, so that's not much of an excuse. I was in Vegas for a trade show and won $50 with just a $3 investment, so that was a treat.

My winning machine.

Straight from Vegas, I flew to LAX and onto New Zealand where I spent six days with Gregg, my parents, my sister and her fiance as we celebrated my mother's 60th birthday. Included on this trip was a joyous trip to the Cadbury chocolate factory, joy which was punctuated by my dad and I linking arms and skipping and chanting "We're going to the chocolate factoreeeeeeee!" Video footage exists. Then onto Melbourne to catch up with my usual crew.

Me, delivering chocolate to happy people.

I'd just like to mention that before I went to Vegas, I WAS busy inventing a new word. The word is "oneion". "It's an abbreviation for "one onion". I admit that you don't really need to save time there, and in fact it takes up more time because you laugh so much when you say it, laughing which would not have occurred if you just said "one onion". I think if there is ever a shortage of onions, the term would be become popular and also, it can help reduce the amount of onions people buy because people will just ask for "oneion" so they have an excuse to say it.

Today...

Gregg: Do we have any onions?
Me: I don't think we have even oneion.

Oneion

Back to the trip...well, I'm, not really talking about the trip at all, but rather some stuff that happened which coincided with the trip...um, I'm slowly becoming a grown up as I've been developing a taste for wine. Previous to this, I would suffer through wine as though it were cough syrup, but lately I've been ordering it with meals and have a bottle of white chilling in the fridge as we speak. I'm even thinking about going wine tasting! My parents live 20 minutes from one of Australia's finest wine countries! Not that I'm 20 minutes from it now, though! Anyway, if you only knew how much I abhorred wine prior to the last couple of months, you'd understand what a breakthrough this is. Now if I could give up the pre-mixed alcoholic drinks designed for teenagers and coffee with 5 sugars/pumps of flavoured syrup, I might be able to fully realise my potential as an adult.

Wine, I'll actually drink you now.

While in Australia, my love of Turkish Delight returned. The rose flavour in particular. After some mishaps in purchasing which led to paying $6 for about 200 grams, I hit the jackpot and found a 2 kilogram box for $9! I converted the weight and now I like to say I got a 4.5 pound box rather than 2 kilos because it makes me sound like a bigger pig. I ate a piece today and I felt a bit sick after it so I might have to cut each piece in half. At least doing this will prolong the pig box.

I really hated Easter this year and wrote a blog about how stupid and ridiculous the whole thing is, but I didn't have time to finish it, but I think it just came out of the fact that I was mad because the shops were closed. I still think Easter is rubbish, so the rant still came from my heart.

I got into an argument with one of my best friends because she reckons I'm crap for liking British Weetabix over Aussie Weet-Bix. When she accused me of switching to Marmite over Vegemite next, I threw her to the ground and ripped out a good chunk of her hair.

I went to two Go-Go classes and wore a dress I made. This dress is rad. The zipper melted when I ironed it, and it makes me so mad because it is no reflection of my dress making skills. I just have poor ironing skills.

Me and Emma and the dress that I made.

I went to see a mentalist and Gregg and I (mostly Gregg) broke my friend's heart by telling him how all the tricks were done. He really wanted to believe in magic. Sometimes I wish I had that naivety/ignorance. Nah. Sorry Dan! The magician levitated my drivers license from my hand. It was pretty impressive, but when he gave it back to me, I could feel some gunk on it. When I told Dan, he had a look of horror on his face was as if I had just told him Santa Claus wasn't real and he'd never heard such a shocker in his life.

We got back to LA yesterday and I went back to work today. As you may have guessed, I like to reveal my neurosis and such in my blogs and here's a new one: I'm really into the turning over of numbers. In September of 2005, I'd only been at my job for 5 weeks when I could see the big "50000" was looming ahead in the numbers given to entered orders. I was leaving the job, possibly forever at the end of six weeks, so you should have seen my furiously entering orders so I could have the pleasure of entering the big "50000". I made it on my last day and I shall treasure that day forever. At the time, I went away for two weeks and returned to the job, so my order entry has continued since then. Upon my return today, I discovered we are at about "59440" and I got goosebumps thinking about almost missing the big "60000"! I made it back in time! I predict the big turnover will happen in the next 45 days. I'll save the discussion of my joy over peeling off stickers from watch and LCD screens for another day.

Today we drove around and did some errands. I was happy to catch myself turning on the wipers instead of the indicator only once. I'm transitioning back the opposite side of the car well. The road itself is another matter. While out erranding (new word) we were just behind a woman in Jaguar and we both pulled into the supermarket parking lot. There were a couple of spots available right by where we entered, but you had to drive around a few cars to get to them, but this worthless rich bitch just pulled up in the roadway next to one of those little sections with trees, right across from the supermarket entrance and parked there. I was so mad at her, and since she was already in the shop by the time we reached her car, I spat on her windscreen on the driver's side. Who did she think she was? Behaviour like that really stings when the person is driving a really expensive car, looks like the wife of a producer and is too busy talking on the cell phone to give a crap about her obnoxious behaviour. So I spat. Am I an animal? This plus the Turkish Delight: all signs point to "yes".

Lastly, I just want to apologise for not commenting on people's blogs. I appreciate all your comments, and likewise, I read and comment back, but I've been slack and I'm sorry and I look forward to resuming my reading at once! Comments make the blogs go round, so while I'm not at all suggesting you were holding out for my tuppence worth, I'm just telling you I wish I had the time to contribute! I did read an article in the technology section of the paper (The Age, in Melbourne) about blogs and how the guy who invented the phrase has no money and how many blogs that there are and it was all great for reminding me how insignificant my little rants are. I promptly put myself on suicide watch.

A more focused blog to follow in less than 40 days, I hope.

*Some acts of violence depicted in this blog are purely fictional and for entertainment purposes only. For further entertainment purposes, which is which will not be divulged.

Unreasonable Phobias Part I: Wet bread

Sure, I have your usual run of the mill kinds of phobias like those of spiders, needles and deep water, but I also have a few odd ones which I will talk about now.

I can't decide which is worse for me but I seem to have fairly equal reactions to both the sight of octopus and wet bread. The sight of either one leaves me squirming, screaming and shielding my eyes.

I think the wet bread started in school where you would often see sandwiches on the ground. Boy did I hate that. Stemming from that is my being grossed out by scrunched up Glad Wrap. Worse when there are crusts scrunched up in there! I just got goosebumps and that isn't even really the phobia I'm talking about. Back to bread, any kind on the ground really bothers me, though I do recall a time outside a Faith No More concert where a roll we stole from catering was dropped as the catering woman chased us, and that didn't bother me, even after someone flattened it. Perhaps when the whole exterior is baked, it isn't as gross. It's like it's sealed. Once you get into a loaf, you are more susceptible to later hazards of bread on the ground.

With the addition of a shoe, this image could induce hysteria.

One great consequence of bread on the ground is the foot print. In a clean piece of white bread, a footprint will come out vivid and bold and the connection between foot and mouth is made and gagging ensues. Again, with a roll, such prints are not as easily distinguishable. I remember one time Gregg's shoe was laying on it's side in the kitchen and when I saw a morsel of bread wedged in the tread a began screaming and backing away. This must sound hilarious and overdone for comical purposes, but I kid you not that that was my genuine reaction. I scolded Gregg for allowing stepped on bread to occur in our own home. You think you have a safe haven only to have that harsh reality set in that stepping in bread can happen anywhere at any time.

An extension of the plain bread on the ground, is the complete sandwich. It's one thing when the sandwich sits complete and tidy and wrapped in it's wrap, albeit on the ground, but quite another when the discarding of the sandwich has occurred POST unwrap and now resides on the ground. Take that another step further to where there is a footprint in it. Then go that additional step where some sort of skidding has occurred and the entire thing is laid out like a poker hand. Spread out, exposing all the insides. The moist condiments which at one time would have once made this sandwich edible, even pleasurable, now cause it to become a visual atrocity. It's like seeing a motorcyclist strewn across the road. The cheese is now gritty with dirt and bears signs of a shoe print. And there it is again. Something I would have once happily placed in my mouth now bears dirt and footprints. And so my body begins to shut down in response.

It wont be long before the moisture seeps into the bread, rendering the sandwich inedible. Now put the sandwich on the ground, step on it and try to keep your own lunch down.

But it can still get worse. Wet bread.

Wet bread is the absolute final and most repulsive stage of the degradation of bread. Apply all of the above to bread, and then add water. There are different levels of wet bread ranging from dampened by the onset of cream cheese or other moist sandwich toppings, to the completely soaked by water type which is a complete travesty as water and bread have no business together. I understand water has a part in the process, but that is at the dough stage and they must part ways beyond that point.

When the bread is completely soaked, worst when it is so soaked it is almost transparent, it is then that I feel a tightness in my chest and all the blood draining from my upper body. Veins throb in my temple as I try to figure out how I can get away from the wet bread that is terrorising me. I don't know what it is. The sight perhaps, but more so maybe the immediate connection of what it would be like biting into that and having cold water flushed out of it into your mouth and the mortifying consistency of said bread. I kid you not, but my chest is tight and head light as I read over this.

I've been thinking more about it and I think that while a lot of it is any kind of moisture, I think it's that moisture coming from water that makes for an exceptional case of fear which differs from the reaction of others. I've talked to other wet bread haters to compare notes, so if this fear is news to you as of this blog, you will be surprised to know that I am not alone. The area which I feel like I fall short on the expectations of my fellow haters of wet bread is how I eat my cereal. I am not afraid to eat cereal that has become soaked, and to make matters worse, when I prepare my Weetabix each morning, I like them to be completely drowned in milk. They couldn't get any soggier and are indeed at the height of grossness that is wet bread. So committed am I to this method that in Australia, whose Weet-Bix are far denser than the Weetabix of the UK, I would drown them in milk and WALK AWAY to allow time for sufficient absorption. What is going on in my head? I know if I saw that same soggy wheat cake on the ground, I would be likely to vomit on the spot. We can possibly find the fine line in this instance where one time, after thinking I was done and adding a little water the prevent the dregs from drying in the bowl in the sink, I decided to eat the last scrap as it grossed out my house guest who was doing the dishes. The second I put that soggy mouthful of Weetabix with water added, I began gagging and shaking and simply couldn't get it down. I very nearly threw up back in the bowl.

In my search for images of wet bread in order to illustrate this blog, I found even more people. One girl named Kimmy has to cover the remains of her children's cereal bowl with a paper towel and have her husband deal with it. Here's another quote I found posted on a blog:

"Also, I loathe wet bread. If I encounter wet bread in the sink, I start dry-heaving and can’t touch it to remove it. I have to avoid the sink until someone else takes care of it. I can’t even eat a sandwich in which the bread has become soggy. If that happens I have to wrap it up and get it out of sight quickly."

Now that you know that there are more of us out there, perhaps you can help me find a name for us. Something scientific sounding. I'm thinking something like painaquaphobia, but I'm open to more suggestions.

If we're ever walking down the street together on a rainy day and I seemingly, with no explanation begin screaming and backing away, scan the ground for wet bread and you will have your answer. If we walk together and you happen to see it first, kinda shift my attention to something in the opposite direction, all the while ensuring my feet steer clear of it.

Next time: My fear of octopus.