Updates

So, first of all, I've rejoined the ranks of the employed, courtesy of a four month (ish) contract with Ontrack, the organisation that owns and maintains the railway tracks. They needed someone in a hurry, and I got a call at Thursday close of business from a recruitment agent I've been dealing with, saying that I had an interview at midday on Friday, and if they like me it starts on Monday. I turned up, guy doing the hiring asked if I'd eaten and we went off to the nearby cafe for an interview. He seems a good guy, seemed to like me, and I do start on Monday. :-)

Secondly, it's the something or other anniversary of when Repton and I started dating and he took me out for a suprise dinner. I knew about the dinner, but he didn't say what we were doing after - as we were going for a walk in between times we looked at the big board advertising the Arts Festival gigs. "Ooh," I said, "Shaolin Kung Fu monks. I went to see them once in Auckland" and burbled a lot about the cool things that Shaolin monks can do involving spears, acrobatics and sharp edges. Then we went to the theatre - yep, Shaolin Kung Fu monks. Except this was a very nontraditional performance, basically an arty minimalist ballet done in kung fu, and awesomely well done. (Although there's a wicked part of me that kept remembering a roleplaying game I was in once where we were putting on a retro minimalist production of Iolanthe, and Nisha Talitha's character kept insisting that "You can have three shades of grey. The fairies are the lightest shade of grey!" These guys also had black and some plywood boxes they had a lot of fun with. Written down, it sounds weird, but it was a seriously cool production.

Thirdly, I got a provisional grade for my St Margaret of Antioch essay, by dint of emailing the alternate marker and asking him. A+ for me, plus lots of nice comments about what I'd done (although he also pointed out a bona fide mistake I'd missed in revision and pointed out some areas I could have done more on.) Which makes the whole thing done and complete - huzzah!

And today, to celebrate, I'm doing a heap of housework like vacuuming out my room that I've been meaning to do for ages. Death to hayfever!

This has been a good day

Am a bit afraid I'll jinx something by talking about it.

A good day.

My Cat has a Cold

She's been sneezing and is now curled up under a blanket looking Sorry and Sad.

She's eating ok and was out and about exploring the linen cupboard earlier, so I'm not too worried, but I do feel sympathetic about the headache I figure she has.

Cooking Stuff

So a couple of days ago, Repton and I were wandering through Moore Wilson's wondering what the difference is between a boutique grocery and a regular supermarket. Then Repton asked how you cook goat meat. I didn't know, so we went home, looked at some recipes, decided that we could do that, and next time he went past the shop he procured some.

It turns out that goat meat isn't good to fry or roast because it shrinks like billy-oh, and most of the recipes out there are for curries or casseroles. I don't have much experience with curries, but casseroles I do, so this is what we went with (adapted from here.)

- some flour (about half a cup?)
- various dried herbs (we had rosemary, thyme and oregano)
- about 500g of goat meat
- two small onions chopped into large chunks (I guess one large would do)
- two cloves of crushed garlic
- one cup chicken stock
- half a cup red wine

Season the flour with the dried herbs and coat the goat chunks in it. Fry briefly to brown it and place in a casserole dish with the onion, garlic, chicken stock and wine. Add some extra rosemary.
Cook at 150 degrees for three hours. (Every hour or so I stirred the mixture.)
Served with basmati rice and grilled capsicums.

It smelt _really_ nice, and tasted pretty good too. We also ended up asking the obvious question of: so how much does it cost to run an oven for three hours, anyway? which Repton worked out from first principles and I looked up on the internet. Turns out to be about a dollar fifty, or less than the cost of the cooking wine, but even so, we made shortbread as well.

My Body Clock is Seriously Messed.

As in, I go to bed at a reasonable hour and find myself wide awake and staring at the ceiling by midnight. Not even a 10km walk today, which should have exhausted me, has done the trick.

(Actually, was pretty wobbly when got home, but dinner and tv watching with a friend fixed that, and now I'm disturbingly wide awake again. Gah!)

I am allergic to bee stings.

Not deathly allergic - no running around with adrenalin shots for me, but still, 30 hours after the fact, I have an extremely swollen, extremely itchy foot which the wonders of modern chemistry are not doing much for. Have given up trying to be staunch about it (not much sleep last night is not helping.) Hijacked Nisha Talitha from the Larp picnic, and we went to Sherlock Holmes instead. It was fun.

Am also trying to rerun my Kapcon game and finding this a very difficult task what with all the people who are interested but can't make particular nights, and the two people who said that they could make a particular night, then changed their minds after I set that night as the date. Am grouchy and wondering if it would be easier just to cancel the thing entirely. [/grumble] Will probably feel better tomorrow morning.

EDIT: Went to the doctor and got a better grade of Better Living Through Chemistry (steroids! woo hoo!). (Haven't worked yet, though.) He laughed when I said I was there about a bee sting, I insulted his typing - it's nice when you get to have a regular doctor, it's much more informal.

EDIT2: Still itchy, but the swelling has gone down a lot. This is a Good Thing. Have spent much of the last few days with my foot ensconced in a bowl of water - would be nice to be able to put it away.