tacit

I had plans to go to the cinema with Jim to meet R (an ex-housemate), and R's friend Steve who, incidentally, I fancy the pants off. Jim was driving my car, because I was putting on makeup in the passenger mirror for Steve's benefit. I quite often give Jim my keys - I'm not a bad driver, I'm just aware that Jim is a better driver than, possibly, everyone. He also likes to keep an eye on how my car is running. He is fully aware that I don't notice things like squishy tyres or squeaky brakes, and he's probably the only one who ever checks the oil.

Turns out that squeaky brakes are a problem. A week or so ago I got into my car after parking it on a hill and the handbrake felt stiffer than it had been. I ignored it completely, and ignored the occasional high whine, but Jim was all frowny as he drove and telling me I ought to get it checked out.

And then we approached a busy roundabout in the middle lane, with cars either side of us and cars ahead on the roundabout, and the brakes failed. Like, failed completely. They were operating at maybe 10% - which is nothing! - and made awful, awful noises. Apparently we left the brakes disks on the road behind us when they fell clean off the rear wheels. We had no option but to drive onto the roundabout. We were going a little too fast for comfort even had there been no other cars. We missed two cars by inches, and got honked at by a bunch of people, but, somehow, nobody got so much as a scratch.

We were about 500m and two more roundabouts from Jim's house. I'd have rolled to a halt somewhere awkward and obstructive, but Jim felt safe to get us home - we went along at about 15mph and he slowed us with the gears - which also sounded awful but not as awful as the brakes. This is part of why he rocks. My panic response is the hit the brakes; his evolves in nanoseconds into using the gears to slow down. I was already informing him of how much I loved and adored him by about 50 metres past the first crisis.

We switched cars, and after the cinema Jim drove me home - which is an hour round trip - and the next day he pulled a sickie to fix my car, and delivered it to my house. ♥

So, a thank you cake was in order.


( cut for cake )

In the past few days I have also:

1) seen Eddie Izzard live. You have not lived until you've seen an intepretation of how dinosaurs might have attempted to communicate Christianity's ten commandments. Arghh roar argh argh, roar argh! Grr!

2) gone to Alton Towers, (it's a theme park) and queued up a lot to go in a halloween themed maze with actors whose job it is to scare and shock, and on rollercoasters that made my knees go wobbly. But not as wobbly as being in a car when the brakes failed.

3) applied for teacher training, although I remain unconvinced that I want to do it. But the deadline was approaching so I thought I'd cover that base and zap off an application. Pros: a honking great bursary while I train and then an actual salary. Cons: crowd control, having a boss, having to work mornings, having to go to teacher training.

4) eaten out four times. But they'd all been planned for ages and as such do not count as a spree: spending; calorific; or otherwise.

Phew. I need a lie in.

There are a bunch of things I've been meaning to post about, and for some reason they are all to do with food.

1) In looking for my passport last Wednesday night (at 2am when I was leaving on Thursday morning, shut up), I found some bathroom scales on my bedroom floor. I weighed myself for the first time in over a year, and found that I weigh the same as I did when I finished the year of manual labour! HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE? I suspect every gram of muscle I had has turned to lard and migrated to my ass, belly and hips; there is no other explanation.

2) I have been obsessively doing 'Five a day' - that is, a minimum of five portion of fruit or veg every day. Generally, a handful is a portion. Juice counts as one, regardless of quantity (from a small glass upwards). This is the best food-related drive I have ever been on. I am eating so healthily! I used to normally have three or four portions a day and sometimes suck and have one. Or, um, none. Those last couple have really cut into my unhealthy snacking. My skin is great, my fridge is stocked with all sorts of exciting things, and I get to feel virtuous even when I've also eaten 100g of chocolate because I ate the fruit/veg, and that is all that counts! I don't know how it would be for weight loss, but for feeling healthy and energetic? It's fabulous. I am going to do it every day for the rest of my life.

3) I had an email forwarded to me that contained a recipe for a five minute mug cake. I timed it and really it was more like 7, but that was from the moment I started pulling ingredients from the cupboards to the moment the microwave dinged. I can't really resent those extra two minutes, you know? Cake. In a mug.

deltacephei and I tried the recipe and pronounced it most acceptable. We also tried it using coffee and walnuts instead of cocoa and chocolate chips. The mix was very wet with the coffee, so I added another spoon of flour and didn't notice the resulting cake texture being any different.

( 5 minute mug cake )

It lacked that crispy yumminess of the edges of a fresh oven-baked cake, but, you know. Five minutes. I can't complain. If I make it again, I will switch the cocoa and choc chips for a tablespoon of swollen stoned dates, as per my mum's recipe for the best cakes in the entire world ever. In fact, hmm. *hunts* She emailed it to me. Here, have a go. Seriously: THE BEST.

( tacit's mum's recipe for Sticky Toffee puddings )

I think it'll work really well adapted to the mug cake because in my mum's recipe, the cakes have the wonderful flavour and the sauce provides the texture sensation. :)

4) I baked my first ever grown-up cake for my mum's 60th. It was good! I learnt how to make ganache. I planned to do more icing modelling, but I started so late in the evening that I just didn't have time. /o\ You can't tell from the picture, but the icing was smooth and the whole thing was a geometric joy - with a ton of chocolate and cake inside. \o/ I now have an LJ tag for cake. I posted a small slice of it to the other side of the world in the guise of Marie Antoinette, but that is another story.



5) At the posh French hotel my mum's birthday was based in, I chose a dessert that had a long description that I couldn't adequately translate, and an in-built menu translation that said, 'pineapple, pineapple, pineapple'. What with my recent fannish love for Psych, I didn't see how to resist. It turned out to be three things: a piece of hot pineapple baked in foil with a vanilla pod; a light pineapple mousse on a sponge base; and a shot glass of pineapple sorbet with something very boozy in it. *swoons* It had three pineapple leaves jabbed artistically into the mousse, swirls of something pineapply doodled on the plate, a rakish line of coconut flakes, and swirls of something bright red and yummy... I wish I'd had a camera with me, it was amazing.

I have not weighed myself again since I got back from France. I do not want to know.

I owe people betas and emails and responses, but I have been eaten alive by Christmas. This is me poking my head above the digestive juices on my way down, pancreas-ward. Spleen-ward? Pre-ileum, certainly.

My family has descended upon me, and it's all fun so far - the first two days usually are. It may be a different story after my brother arrives, and by boxing day I'll be sick to death of them. But right now? Fun!

I wanted to share the British tradition of the pantomime with you guys. We went to the panto today, which is a totally normal Christmas thing to me, but according to various people it's incomprehensible and freakish to the rest of the world. What could be more fun than going to the theatre, watching singing, dancing, cross-dressing silliness and heckling the cast? The one we've been to the past few years doesn't have the semi-famous and their career-promotion - it's a purely amateur thing and much better for it. This year was (nominally) Aladdin, and it sold out in November because the writer is a legend in these parts. My group of family and friends caused the panto to overrun by almost an hour today with all the ad-libbing they had to do. They wondered aloud where the princess was as a cue for him/her to come on stage, but we yelled the traditional, 'He's behind you!!' and they looked over at us, like 'oh, it's going to be you lot today, eh?' They did the 'oh, really!? Let me look!' thing, complete with band accompaniment, even though the scene was in a little little set and the only place she could've been was like, in the oven). The tenor - who I quite fancy and who I will always think of as Buttons from a few years back - got the giggles, and the ugly sisters Widow Twanky and the genie diverged significantly (and hilariously) from any script they might have once had, to the point that the princess (less comically talented) was rather confused and my mother (my mother!) cried laughing. Plus, the Widow Twanky had an astonishing range (6? 7?) of garish, wonderful costumes with skirt hoops/bells/sparkles/clown feet/frilly knickers/'microwave safe' labels/5 foot wide hip flares. Buttons accidentally really slapped an ugly sister, the sorcerer couldn't hypnotise Buttons without getting wittily interrupted by a kid a few rows behind us, and a penguin lost a shoe; but everyone hit every note, nobody misdelivered any jokes, everyone danced in step. PANTOS ARE AWESOME. And I don't care how tacky and ridiculous they are.

Is it just us? Sod cricket, Wimbledon and the monarchy - someone tell me pantos have spread!

So, dodificus , naye , deltacephei ... I haven't checked my flist lately and have barely been reading email. I am not dead. I have a spare couple of hours on Wednesday, which I intend to use catching up.

dodificus ! It doesn't work on my ipod atm. Format suggestions?!?

OMG!! TOMORROW I AM PAYING SOMEONE TO SHOOT LASERS INTO MY EYES.

I feel sick.

And I may be offline for a few days, depending on the OMG PAIN when eyes are attempting to focus/endure anything besides blessed, pitch darkness. Yes, I could have gone for the pricier option that won't disable me quite so much. Yes, I am too cheap.

Sekrit message to Cath - but if I have any time in the morning, I will be spending it re-reading parts 1 - 3 and emailing you! ♥

ETA: But! This started in my comment to <lj user=villainny>, below, and became a bit of a anti-glasses rant. There are so many things I should stop having to deal with as of tomorrow!

Missing a stair because I switched between looking through vs looking under my glasses at the wrong moment. That gritty, dry feeling I get when I've worn my contacts too much. Rain. Not feeling hideously unattractive whenever I'm not wearing contacts. My entire working life, with the dust and the lense splattering. Lying with my head smooshed into a cushion and being able to see the TV anyway. Reversing the car. Glancing up at someone without needing to move my entire head. Not having to plan my eyesight around social occasions. Snogging. Being able to see when I first wake up.

Ok, I remember why i signed up it now. After the next week, this should be pretty awesome. But tomorrow? Sickywobblypukeyscariness!

Who knows dogs? I brought home my pup today. He's very cute and playful, and is doing fairly well with the housetraining... but he's mounting me! He's only 8 weeks old, so it can't be hormonal. And I put him in his cage - which he was fine with while I was in the room - but as soon as I'm out of sight he whines and barks and howls. Which is more of a problem than the mounting, as it's driving me crazy. Mounting I can deal with - lots of judicious ignoring til he stops. Is the howling inevitable? Do I give him ten minutes to see if he shuts up, or should I be preventing this behaviour in some way? Act or react?

The cat, on the other hand, is an angel.

The dog's making my ears bleed. Will be patient. Will. Not. Panic about taking on a puppy when I really don't know what I'm doing. I read books and all... but the learning curve is steep!

Help me obi-flist! *headdesks*

Last night I went on a date with Funeral Guy a friend of my cousins'.

It was such a great date! I like him a lot and am already eagerly awaiting my next date with him - usually at this point with guys I get a bit 'Yeah... but really?' But he's easy to talk to, and a lot of fun, and attentive and sweet. And clever and playful... he's pretty ideal, really. And we've got a lot in common - we grew up in the same town and went he went to the boys' version of my school, and, obviously, he knows my cousins really well and was perfectly willing to give me loads of truly excellent gossip about their exes and babies and feuds.

I may rewrite history later to say that it wasn't really our first date, because I did end up being a dirty, dirty stop out - in his hotel room, which is just so classy. (Although we did get breakfast in bed that neither of us had to go and make, which I could definitely get used to.) But I'm not sure I'd rather say that I met him at funeral. Or that I met him for the first time at my cousin's wedding when I was 18 and he was married.  Hmm. He hasn't told my cousins yet and neither have I, and I told him it was his call - he sees them more and knows them better.

But there is a point to this post! (Beyond me going 'LOOK! A MAN! EEEE!' which is pretty much my default today). His favourite TV show? Smallville. HE'S A GEEK! This makes me so happy. He claims it's not about Lana (he thinks she's a whining pain in the arse as well, he has taste!) or Chloe, he just likes the Superman stuff. I asked him whether he ever suspected Clark and Lex were doing it, and he apparently never did. So, who's got vid recs of Clark and Lex eye-fucking? Something that convinces the viewer they are totally doing it, or at least that they wish they were. Perhaps not one of the genre that starts 'given that they're blatantly shagging, don't y'all think x/y/z?' I want one that subtly re-edits canon, not one that tells an entirely different story. Apparently it was on last night and he missed it cos he was out with me, and he'll miss it again next Wednesday because I intend to go see him again that night. I'm going to put the two eps on a memory stick, with a vid or two in there too. I'm going to introduce him slowly to my geekish ways.

Speaking of geekery, I am obsessed with a new show! It's all deltacepheiand naye's fault. Move over SGA, Torchwood's got me hooked. I am so in love with Jack and Ianto, and Jack/Ianto. This LJ may see fannish content again after all...

So, I haven't been around LJ much lately because RL's insane. Housemates are moving out, workhouse is winding down. I've been driving up and down the country a lot, collecting ebay furniture and uttering the phrase 'No really, I'm stronger than I look' on what feels like a daily basis. We've moved from the grouting of tiles to the purchasing of soft furnishings, which is quite an upgrade in the fun department.

I've been plotting out how my life is going to be after my housemates move out (in a couple of weeks! I'm looking forward to it!!) and after we finally finish the house we've been building/renovating for the last year.

One of the big changes I'm going to make is pets. I'm going to get a cat and a dog; or more specifically, a kitten and a puppy.
( Specifically, potentially, one of these puppies )

I don't usually post about my dates, because there's only so many times I can write OMG SO BAD before I want to spork myself. But tonight? You'll like this.

First date. We went to a cheapish restaurant. Conversation was a real struggle - he didn't pick up any of my conversational salvos and didn't offer any of his own. He'd answer open-ended questions with things like 'hmmm'. Maybe he's shy, I don't know. I also no longer care. The bill came, and it was £31.45. I put down £20, because I'd had dessert and he hadn't, and I figured that was about right . He studied the bill for a really long time, and then fished through some change and put down £11. So, it was 45p short. I waited a moment, expecting him to add to it, but no. I had to fish my wallet out of my bag again to fix it.

45p!

I was so surprised I actually laughed out loud. And then I made my excuses, and I left.

I just emailed an ex to suggest a drink sometime. He's completely gorgeous but we had nothing in common. Bad idea? y/n

Have also emailed four other guys from various dating sites, hopefully consigning myself to the bus problem - that several will come along at once. I figure it's like being unemployed and sending out job applications - no sense in just going for one at a time, right?

It's possible I've cracked. This is how bad first dates happen! Bad, self.

::twitches::