etfb

We are old. Very very old. And after putting in an entire brand-spanking new floor, my knees are even older than they were. So it's time to do what all musty, dusty old codgers and crones do when they want to celebrate: get a divorce and buy a red sportscar have a party!

You are, of course, invited. Because old people love company. Like misery.

The Nitty-Gritty

When: 7pm, Saturday 31 January 2009.
Where: The Bestiary.
Why: etfb's and thelancrewitch's 75th birthday and floor-warming party.
What (to bring): Yourself, those of your friends we are likely to like, some food (see below).
How (to dress): However you like; we'll all be too busy looking at the exciting new floor to notice anyway.

Food

We'd like you to bring a dessert or a main course. Let us know in advance what you're planning to— oh, that'll never work. Like anyone ever knows what they're going to do ten minutes in advance! Listen, try this: if your birthday was an even numbered month (February, April, June, etc) then bring a dessert; otherwise bring a main. If that's too much of a straitjacket, just bring that thing you make that everyone always likes. See? Easy!

RSVP

Let us know if you're planning to come along, either here in the comments, on Facebook, by phone or (in the unlikely event that we ever see you in person) in person. Whatever. And if it's five minutes after the thing was supposed to start and you suddenly realise you forgot to reply and you're at a loose end and you fancy coming along, do so. What are we, the Gestapo? Rules are for young people with crappy floors.

We got the house cleaned (did I mention we were cleaning the house all yesterday? Explains the brevity of yesterday's post) and we brunched this morning, with uniqueid, miss_terri_girl, her multinymous chum dunk_the_monkey, and Gerrie.

Gerrie has clearly been promoted in the BatPup's eyes: previously she was "that person", as in: "can we go back to that person's house for more fireworks next day?" But now she's "my friend Gerrie" (or rather "my fwend Dewwie" but I know what she meant). Evidently the provision of regular Freaky Sugar is the real way to a BatPup's heart.

Today's brunch was quite heavy on the carbs, although not in a bad way. We had poffetjes, brioche, a savoury bread and ordinary home-(machine-)made wholemeal bread. The real standout was the Beloved's astonishing baked beans, which are to the ordinary crap-in-a-can baked beans as the Sistine Chapel is to a public dunny. But it was all good. On sobre reflection, we should have done some eggs and sausages, of which we have plenty at the mo', but that's life.

Next brunch will be at uniqueid's place, time TBA. The one after will be Sunday the 13th of July at our place again. The second Sunday of every month, remember, except when it isn't.

The rest of the day was spent in dealing with our laundry, which appears to contain a virus: it crashed our washing machine yesterday, and then proceeded to wipe out our kind and helpful next-door neighbours' one today as well. Mysterious! Also, embarrassing and bloody annoying! Fortunately, my brother's washing machine was somewhat more robust, so now we have a large pile of damp clothing to dry in front of the heater, and I have a promise of actual socks! and underpants! and shirts! for tomorrow. This is a Good Thing.

We discovered that it's possible to burn ordinary downloaded .avi files, as of Doctor Who episodes et al, onto DVDs and watch them on my brother's cheap $25 DVD player. Can't do that on our expensive DVD/HD player because it's an LG brand, and therefore a piece of shite. Don't buy LG products, people; you'll regret it if you do. But at least we got to watch the latest Doctor Who on a TV screen while waiting for the washing, so that was good. The episode itself was... a nice try, but fell a bit flat, largely I think because some of the acting and directing went a bit flat.

Home again, a splendid dinner (of course; look who I married!) and off to bed. I'm quite thoroughly knackered and looking forward to sleep, perchance to snooze.

It's time for more brunching and more socialising: 10.30am Sunday. Quite a varied turnout expected, if the FaceCrack RSVPs are to be believed. Come along, bring a plate and even a friend, and enjoy a little decadence in these dying days of Western civilisation. You'll want to be able to tell your grandchildren about the good old days of being able to drive a car to somebody's house (explaining all these foreign terms clearly as you go along, of course) and eating food from other feudal city-states (we call it "interstate", but it's the same thing) that doesn't have the risk of contamination from supergerms or gengineered grey-goo transcription errors. They won't believe you, but that's OK; you'll know.

Off to Gerrie's tonight for the annual dog-taunting that is the Queen's Birthday Fireworks Bonanza. Saw several people I haven't seen in years, including one Mr C sporting deeply ill-advised sideburns (I blame Teninch for that). The BatPup and the EDoD were utterly gorgeous and perfectly-behaved, even with excessive amounts of C₁₂H₂₂O₁₁ in their systems. nessbrain and expandakarl brought Young A. along, and I got to marvel at how compact and svelte he is compared to the great galumphing Boy Wonder, despite being 3½ months older. And we had Turkish pide from the local pide house, and Oh. My. Gods. we'll definitely be going back there, because it had quantity and quality, at a very reasonable price.

In general, a pleasant evening. Home by 8.50 of course, because the monkeys were tired. My eye has mostly healed from the magnesium flare when Gerrie put a whole packet of sparklers in the fire (d'oh!) so I have no complaints. As the BatPup said, we should go to more parties like that one.

Speaking of which: brunch is on next weekend at the Bestiary (our house), from 10.30. That link will only work if you're on FaceCrack, but you can always come along anyhow. RSVP here or there to let us know what food you'll bring, so we don't get too much of an imbalance in our brunchular comestibles.

Speaking of food, I've downloaded episodes 2 and 3 of The Supersizers Go..., a British show that seems to be a cross between Time Team and Nigella Bites, in which a couple of foodie types go swanning about through history examining menus in excruciating detail. I only overheard episode one as the Beloved and the EDoD were watching it via YouTube, but they couldn't get the next one so I bittorrented it. The Beloved suggested that whooz_queen should be pointed towards it, as she would probably enjoy it.

BT has been blindingly fast lately -- I got the entire second season of 1001 Uses For Cardboard And Rubber In Space in less time than it will take to grimace through one episode. Not sure why it's working so well, but I'm not complaining. In fact, I plan to specifically not complain while watching the latest BSG, so that'll do for now.

Much smaller turnout to Brunch this time than last time we had it here. The much-anticipated seagoon and naturalredhead didn't make it due to illness, and faeriefyre called to say she'd be late but got struck by a stray lightning bolt from the hand of the the mad god Finagle, and didn't make it here either. We had nessbrain and expandakarl with their munchkin, uniqueid (that's "you-knee-kweeeeeed") and frodolover ("frod-oliver") with no munchkins at all, and us with all sixteenthree of ours. And no sign of the Bruncheon of the Wedding Party, which meant no Mr The Prevert and no Jen The London Socialite, disappointingly enough.

Yumminess was had and shared, but I still wonder what we need to do to entice more people along.

I suspect making it a bit more regular might help. Say, declare the second Sunday of each month to be Brunch at the Bestiary (the first is SCA Baronial Day; best not to clash) and another week of the month for whoever wants to co-host at their place. And make more efficient use of FaceBook and LJ to coordinate. Perhaps a little more work to plan in advance what we'll each bring, too.

In general, this is a positive-sum game. Venue hire and cooks' wages aren't high, and even when it's just four of us (Mr Kweeed, Ms Oliver, the Beloved and me) as it was last time, it's still nice to catch up and chat. But once one has caught up on the latest goss about CIV2010 and babies crawling, there are still a few minutes left to kill. Fresh blood would be nice.

Ah well, early days. It's only just become a tradition now. Early days.

Too utterly knackered to blog right now, so I'll just remind you: if you're in Canberra next Sunday, come along to Brunch at the Bestiary! Show up from 10.30, bring a plate of something brunchtacular to share, and if you want to make a habit of it, subscribe to canberrunch or contact me via FaceCrack (I'm Eric TF Bat - the only one). Here's the bit of silliness I attached to the event notice on FaceBook:

"Once more unto the brunch, dear friends, once more,
Or fill the tum up with our toasted bread!
At night there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest diet and abstinence;
But when the rays of dawn glare in our eyes,
Then imitate the action of Nigella:
Scramble the eggs, dice up the fruit.
Disguise burnt edges with well-flavour'd marg;
Then load the plate with edible objects..."


As an added (possible) bonus, we may have some very special guests along. I was chatting with Jon the Prevert yesterday, and he mentioned that the lovely Margie is getting married next Saturday morning, and there are a bunch of people in town for the wedding, many of whom were hoping to have something to do on Sunday morning. I let him know the deal, so we may see the likes of him and the blonder half of the madrigalis gestalt entity and possibly even one Ms Jen, late of Old Blighty! That'd be lovely, because I haven't seen that lot in metric yonks.

Oh, and basal_surge: the reason I was chatting with Jon will be of interest to you. Remember those crepe-paper chinese etching wossnames you left us? Jon expressed delight at your idea of turning those into a hot air balloon, so provided he doesn't mind having the Elder Daughter of DOOOOM along as a spectator, he will be taking possession of the pieces when he pops along to brunch. Photos will be forthcoming in time.

The next Brunch will be in a little under three weeks, at the Bestiary, our house in northern Belconnen.

Time: 10.30am
Date: Sunday 4 May 2008
Venue: The Bestiary (email or phone 0407-468-244 for the address)
BYO brunch to share
Parents (with children) and non-parents (without) all welcome. We promise not to only talk about nappies, sleeping habits, teething, etc for the entire time.

RSVP here and/or on the FaceBook "Brunching Canberrans" group.

(Cross-posted to my LJ and canberrunch; join the latter for more updates!)

The latest episode of Doctor Who was a great one for answering questions. How does the TARDIS's translation effect work when you play silly buggers with multiple languages? How does the Doctor decide to save London from the farting politician aliens but not to save the Titanic from the iceberg? And why, apart from the need to avoid endless socratic monologues, does the Doctor bother bringing brainless English twittettes with him everywhere he goes? All answered rather neatly, and I find myself doing something I was certain I wouldn't: liking Season 4, because of, not despite, the presence of Donna "Tegan Rides Again" Noble. She still irritates me on occasion, but that's fading, because she also works as a character, and her relationship with the Doctor is already so much more believable than the last couple of Mary Sues. This is turning into a superb season, already. Freaky.

(James Moran, the writer of that ep, also did Torchwood's Sleeper, a good solid episode spoiled -- literally -- by its title. He's no Moffat, but he's one to watch.)

Meanwhile, the other question that's been answered is: what is FaceBook good for? And the answer is: organising brunch. Admittedly we didn't see many people today -- just me and thelancrewitch and the two younger munchkins, our gracious host uniqueid and frodolover, and a late arrival from the Sugar Fairy herself, Gerrie. uniqueid's green eggs and ham went down a treat: the BatPup went from "ooh, yuck" when she saw them to stealing them off everyone's plates in about pi seconds flat. And Gerrie brought evil chocolate sauce (of which I did not partake - I don't eat chocolate) and plenty of stuff to soak it up, of which my pick was the fruit salad with a dressing of unusual gorgeousness that included balsamic vinegar! Must get that recipe.

Next Brunch will be back at our place, I think, in two or three weeks. Does anyone have a preference for a date? All are welcome; if you're on FaceBook, contact me (I'm on there as Eric TF Bat, because that's my name) and I'll stick you onto the invitation-only "Brunching Canberrans" group. If you're not, I've created canberrunch (sorry - 15 character name limit) which will hopefully do the same thing. Let me know if you want to be added to that the usual way -- "friend" it, and if I know you I'll make you a member. With any luck, we'll be able to get some serious brunching done. Yay!

Just occurred to me to mention that Brunch this week is at The Eyrie, the home of uniqueid, from 10.30 tomorrow. All welcome, even if you haven't made the acquaintance of His Most Serene Penguinity. Email or call me for details.

The Boy Wonder practises sitting up

The 8th of April is the 99th day of the year, and therefore my 99th day in a row of thinking of something or nothing to say on this LJ.  Here are some loose ends from past entries.


There, that will do.  Surprisingly few loose ends, really.  Perhaps I'm just naturally inconsequential?

What do the common people do on weekend afternoons, if there's no mess left to clean?  I imagine that's why television was invented, but fortunately I have my munchkins to entertain so it hasn't come to that...

We had the first of what I hope will be regular brunches this morning.  seagoon and naturalredhead couldn't make it due to medical emergencies (apparently caused by medical incompetence), but we were pleased to host miss_terri_girl and (I think) dunk_the_monkey, uniqueid and frodolover, nessbrain and her munchkin, Bart and Gerrie who heard about the event via FaceCrack, and special guest blow-ins rococoabean and her friend from Deepest Darkest Bangalla*, Dr S.  Not a bad turnout, given the short notice!  Bart brought a scrambled-egg-tomato-relish concoction that was my personal favourite of the contributions, and we also had two different fruit salads, the Beloved's blueberry muffins and bacon muffins and nessbrain's cinnamon pancakes, and lots more.  No chance of starvation.

Plan is to have another Brunch at the house of one of the above in two weeks time; I'll let the host or hostess advertise same and manage the invitations.  If that goes well, no doubt we'll do it again here the time after that.  No reason why we can't have semi-regular get-togethers to enjoy good food, excellent company and several kilolitres of baby drool in convivial surrounds.  Beats cornflakes!


* (For Ghost Who Walks - Old Jungle Running Gag)

I've taken leave from work for the rest of the week to work on what I call Operation: Nailgun. The plan is to get The Bestiary (our house) de-cluttered and sorted out, so we can live here and have friends over to visit without a near-fatal cleaning frenzy every weekend. The living room, to take an example at random since it's where I'm sitting right now, needs three quarters of its books stuffed into boxes so that the bookshelves can function as FSM intended, not as layered dumpsters. My study needs its piles of computer parts and comics placed Somewhere Else (Neptune, preferably) and some solution to the problem of where to put Ocelot, our only remaining Windows computer that we only keep around because our colour printer/scanner doesn't work with Linux.

Our goal is to get this all done by Sunday, so that we can have...

Brunch At The Bestiary, 10.30am This Sunday

If you can read this, come along. We'll provide muffins and coffee. You bring the ingredients for a suitably decadent brunch, and we can re-heat it or provide a frying pan. I'm thinking bacon, eggs, sausages, baked veges (pre-baked elsewhere, heated here), pancakes, fruity drinky stuff, and whatever else makes sense for a proper brunch. Bring separate cooking utensils if you and your brunch are vegetarian, so you don't get that thing with the meat-juice-flavoured lentil patties. Extend the invitation to people we'd like. Our address is here, friend-locked, or you can email me or call 0407-468-244 for same.

We're going to brunch tomorrow, ten o'clock, at the usual venue.  If you know where that is, come along and join us.  If you don't know where it is, email me, come along and join us.  If you know where that is and don't want to come, don't come.  If you don't know where that is and don't want to come, stand on your head in a bucket of fish and sing La Marseillaise.  If you're not sure you know where it is, but you don't have email and you're all out of fish, recite pi to twenty seven decimal places and then get a degree in astrobiology by correspondence from the University of Nepal.

There; I think that's everyone.

I keep forgetting to post reminders about this, and even the Beloved forgot about it (and the EDoD claims she never even knew). So: I'm having a birthday party this weekend! Come along! Contact me to tell me what you're bringing by way of dinner or dessert, and I'll provide a clean house and my scintillating presence. Come on - you know you wanna!

I've posted something on FaceBook inviting some Canberrans to my fourth birthday party on Saturday 1 March 2008. If you're going to be in town then and I've inexplicably not invited you, let me know and I'll add you so that the FaceAche can remind you. And if you've inexplicably avoided getting into that particularly inept "social network", I assure you you're not missing anything. You should still come to my party though.

Important things to note about the party:

• There will be small people (BYO or cuddle ours!)
• You can invite other people along, Corey Worthington style, provided you follow the traditional House Smithfield rule: you brought 'em, you keep 'em sane or clean up after 'em.
• It's a typical bring-a-plate affair. Contact me to coordinate so we don't get fourteen cheesecakes and an eggplant soufflé (cos I hate eggplant).

I didn't bother having a birthday for my host body this year, due to couldn't-be-arsedity.  But it's a leap year, and 16 years since the creation of Eric the Fruitbat, so I think I'll have a 4th birthday instead.  The 29th is a Friday this year, so I might make it Saturday the first of March to allow more time for tidying.  If you can read this, you're probably welcome to come along; if you would have been able to read this even if I'd friend-locked it, then definitely consider yourself invited.  Otherwise, what the hell: come along anyway.  Can never have too many guests at a party provided they all bring some food.

So: bring some food.  Dinner, dessert, whatever.  Bugger presents, unless you'd like to bring a gorgeous, scantily-clad alto (one that my Beloved can share, please!).  Or a million dollars; that's good too.  But in general, your presents mean less to me than your presence.  (And a big hand please for that joke, now enjoying its six hundredth year and still going as strong as ever.)

More details as I figure them out.  You've got a month.  Scribble it on your calendar.

ETA: My contact details are in this friend-locked entry.

I never got into Yum Cha until I moved to Sydney and met the Marigold restaurant in Chinatown. A couple of people mentioned Yum Cha on their LJs and I find myself wondering: where does one go for that particular cultural experience here in Canberra? I'm guessing Dickson (Canberra's Little Chinatown) but where in particular? And... if it's suitably far in the future (I'm booked this coming weekend) does anyone want to get a party together? I think it would be fun to introduce the Elder Daughter of DOOOM to the chicken feet and the dessert tentacles and the White Wobbly Cubes of Dubious Deliciousness.

There are only three things I miss from Sydney. The various restaurants, cafes and takeaways are one; the functional public transport system is another; and the all-night Kinko's copy shops are the third. Sure the people were generally nice, but there are nice people anywhere. But a good takeaway Indian curry, a train that will get you where you want to go and a colour photocopier at three in the morning when the deadline for heraldic submissions is looming? Priceless.

Off to brunch bright and ugly this morning with thelancrewitch, seagoon, naturalredhead, madradish, icansinghigher, monnsqueak, Monsieur la boîte des chiens, Petra and Dave. Many free-range eggs were sacrificed to our brunching lusts. Behold the Radish of Madness in her guise as a woollen Martian! Marvel at the image of a Seagoon, photographed at brunch on a Sunday morning without his customary hung-over look! Stare in amazement at the first bass to set foot on the alien planet Soprano ("I wandered through the weird and lurid landscape of another planet; for the vegetation which gives Mars its red appearance had taken root on Earth"). See, people? In Canberra, we know how to brunch.

Many stories were shared of choral goings-on. It's vaguely pleasant to hear the news -- I'm particularly impressed that SUMS has finally divested itself of El Directore, Conductor-For-Life Dame Bennett Anton McPherson OBE QED RSVP, who I gather has now retired to his dust farm in deepest Mudgee. I thought they'd never let him escape; he's been a painted-on and immoveable fixture in the job since the choir started in 1836, except for one semester when he took time off to fight in the Boer War, and another short period of about a fortnight during the Depression when he went on the road as John Steinbeck's batman. But the new lad is apparently fitting in; icansinghigher told me stories of him bitching out the tenors, so He'll Do Quite Nicely, thank you very much.

And now that I've met the Woman of the Box of the Dogs, I can see why he's given up his James Bondian -- nay! James Brownian! -- lifestyle and settled down to unmarried bliss: she looks good for him. A bit of a worry with the whole knitting fetish, but that's OK and at least she doesn't do Muttaburrasaurus impressions at small children, so that's a relief.

Went home to collapse. I seem to have developed a sore throat, so I'm off to the Medical Centre to be ignored by undereducated subcontinental immigrants and told it's all in my head, after which I shall while away a happy afternoon tidying an EDoD's bedroom and debugging software. Oh joy.

EDIT: Sorry - yasutani, had to delete your comment. The brunch venue was indeed the place you recognised, but I want to make it more difficult for random loonies and e-stalkers to find us at a whim. Given that we often go there for Sunday brunch, it's better if it's not possible to plot our whereabouts with just a Google search...

Behold! The four LJers of the Apocalypse!

The Elder Daughter of DOOOM and I went along to Politarchopolis's signature event, the Saint Valentine's Day Ball, which this year was run by Lady Alexandra Hartshorne as The Valentine's Day Massacre: an assassin's feast, complete with grisly murders. I caught up with, and photographed, syridian, japester, madradish and, briefly, icansinghigher, and whiled away several happy hours chatting, telling terrible jokes, watching the thunder and lightning and eventually the rain, and eat! eat!ing until we were no longer even remotely too thin.

An utterly splendid event, in the finest of fine Politarchopolan traditions, and one to be proud of. Very pleased.

My Beloved has spoken recently of the mushroom tarts from hell, which were her contribution to the buffet feast. They came out with the second remove and were wolfed down. I'm no fan of fungi (I know where they've been!) but these were spectacular. Ysabella over-catered, in true and proper Politarchopolan style, so we had a wodge to take home, which is a good thing because the Beloved and the BatPup elected not to come along due to extreme knackerdocity. The EDOD was a joy, of course, because she always is, and anyone who says otherwise has obviously not been paying attention.

(There was a moment there when I got to apply one of my personal favourite parenting principles, which is this: "No" is a valuable and precious thing, and must not be thrown about willy-nilly without due care and consideration; use it only when nothing else will do. The EDOD had managed to get her hems a bit damp by "accidentally" jumping into a puddle, but was being generally careful not to get too wet in the v. v. welcome rain. But I remembered that she'd changed out of the garb she'd worn to the picnic, earlier that day, when we dropped her off to her horse-riding lesson, which meant the garb was still in the car. So, I said, there is no possible reason why you should avoid having fun: go jump in puddles and get soaked, and when you're done we'll get your other garb and you can change. And as it was spoken, so it came to pass: she got utterly soaked and had a glorious time, and then she got changed and was perfectly happy for the rest of the night. Show me a "no" that could have had that much benefit!)

At Oriel's and the Baroness's request, I gave a short toast to the memory of Aveline after court, just saying something along the lines of: she was magnificent, and she touched all our lives in all sorts of ways, and the world is a less wondrous place for her departure, and we drank to her memory, those of us who knew her, and that was good. Kat, who knew her best of all, thought it was well spoken, so I'm happy with that.

Tomorrow, we shall head off to brunch with madradish, japester, icansinghigher, seagoon and naturalredhead, for the latter two are hosting the alto and the soprano at their palatial abode, and they often do brunch at a particularly nice spot of a Sunday. Her Radishness is looking forward to meeting the BatPup, having met and been impressed with her very well-behaved big sister.

But now, due to my own not inconsiderable knackerdocity, I'm off to bed.

That was a fun party. We had a fair few friends over: seagoon and naturalredhead brought spanikopita and pineapple upside-down cake (and she didn't even know it's my favourite dessert^[1]!). ingysledge and irishmark popped in on their way from one party and toward the next -- I had to explain to the BatPup that she shouldn't be too alarmed: Ingy is not usually so overdressed, but it's important not to cause car accidents when one walks past so she's become more conservative in her dotage. nessbrain called in sick, sadly, which is to be expected when one is busy gestating. uniqueid brought Caesar salad, which I quite liked even though I'm not usually a big fan of salad, and a bitter chocolate mousse that I am told was evil (I never eat the stuff, so I'll take everyone's word on it). Michael and Belinda, who I'm sure are much too old to have LJs, took pity on my mundane former workmate Steve and his wife Tracey, and chatted with them to save them feeling too confused by all the strange choral people. Mathilde and Gabrielle were the sole SCAdians, who popped by early on their way to Joanna's 50th birthday (which was the reason Jaysen, India and Cate weren't there at all). Shelby brought her wide-eyed six-month-old creature Tim, and Conrad popped in on his way to Joanna's as well. Tim is just stupidly cute, and so light! The Beloved is now utterly convinced that we must have more babies, which is a change in policy because previously she was utterly convinced that we must have more babies^[2].

So: we should have more dinner parties. I think I shall celebrate my 457th birthday, which is coincidentally this time next month. And my 458th, which is the month after that. Bat years are much more convenient than other years.

Tomorrow is The Bowral Movement: the family reunion in Bowral. This will be the last time we let my mother schedule a family trip/reunion on one of our birthdays. She can just apply to get onto our calendar like everyone else, and take her chances. But birthdays, Mother's Day and the feastday of Saint Ambrosius of Peebles (patron saint of artichoke salesmen, lemurs, small non-distinct smudges of an indeterminate brown colour on the arm of the sofa, fried eggs and plaid) are sacrosanct, and may not be filled up with driving and barely-remembered graunts and gruncles. We have decided! And I agreed!

---

^[1] The pineapple upside-down cake, that is; I had no previous opinion about spanikopita but now I think my Beloved should make it lots.

^[2] Now I come to think of it, this could not in all honesty be characterised as a major policy change. Hey ho.