Flasks and Foraging Part 2

If you have been waiting with bated breath for me to complete the story from last week, you are probably dead. No one can hold their breath that long, even those free-divers.

So, where was I?
Wanted a flask, didn't get one, had to buy my own. Poor me
Wanted outdoor furniture, too cheap to pay more than $10
Met a bunch of addicts, made friends. Now have someone to sit on outdoor furniture with me.
Had some delicious burrata
Came up with new plan to get outdoor furniture and use flasks

And so the story continues...

Apparently if you drive around Beverley Hills the night before garbage pick-up, you can get all sorts of furniture and rich people stuff that they just put out by the road. It’s true; it’s in my “The Cheap Bastards Guide to Los Angeles” book. I thought this would be fun and productive for me and my friend - we’ll call her “M” to preserve her anonymity in case she feels shame at scavenging off rich people. We’ll call me “K” to protect my anonymity as well. Now, M has a new car and has had the windows tinted. Because it’s easier to drink from a flask in your car behind tinted windows. There was something else about preserving the interior of the car but I think it’s more about the flask. I thought tinting was illegal but she thinks only on the driver window, which she had done anyway. Also, it’s probably only an issue if they pull you over and you’re drinking out of your flask behind your tinted window. Now I kind of have tinted window envy because I have to drink out of my flask in the open but since my car is a heap, not much point in getting tinted windows so thought I would just tack up some black paper. Will just staple it to leather in car – which then makes it perfect for driving to Bev Hills and scrounging all their free stuff that they’ve thrown out. Yes, this plan will work.

Plan is to dress in black, take flasks and my black paper tinted window car and pull up to curb in Bev Hills next to fabulous item, jump out, throw in car and speed off. Unless of course said fabulous item is complete outdoor table and chair set with recliner accessory and umbrella. Will tie to back of car and drag it just far enough away from house so we can tie it on to roof. We may need a third person if anyone wants in but you have to bring your own flask.

Somewhere along the way, I think I might have lost all of you reading this. I'm a bit lost myself. Seemed so clear in my head initially. The point is that I need outdoor furniture so I can lie on it and drink out of my flask, I have to go to Beverley Hills to get it and my car windows need to be tinted so I can drink out of my flask and take free stuff from rich people.

Of course this is now completely redundant since my landlord kicked me out (I like to call "selling the house", kicking me out) and now I live in a place where there can be no outdoor furniture. So, now I can't drink out of my flask and it's completely useless.

This is what I have been reduced to...

Things that do not fit in flasks: Cake

Happy Halloween

I love the Halloween traditions - buying a bunch of candy, locking yourself inside and eating it all with the lights turned down low so no one knows you're home.  Carving a pumpkin to rot on your porch until Thanksgiving, then pretending it belongs to the neighbors so you don't have to touch it.  Making a home-made costume - wearing your costume and having to pretend an 8 year old made it because you still don't know how to color in the lines.  

When I was growing up in New Zealand, Halloween wasn't something that we typically celebrated but because my father was American, he shared the tradition from his childhood. We don't grow the big orange pumpkins at home so he would have to carve one of the small dark green ones known as Buttercup. I looked for a picture so I could show you what they look like when carved but there are none. I have to give this one to America.  Good idea to go with orange. Even with a candle inside, they don't exactly glow the same way but we didn't know what it was supposed to look like and we loved it.

Buttercups - most ineffectual carved pumpkin ever.

I like Halloween but I'm a big scaredy baby about scary things - only movie I ever walked out of: Candyman. So even though I know it's not real, I'm still terrified. Candyman is real though. A friend once told me that if you watch a horror movie and block your ears, it won't be as scary because it's the music that really makes it terrifying. I disagree so I close my eyes. We were the perfect horror movie watching couple.  He couldn't hear a thing.  I couldn't see anything.  No one knew what was going on. Now, I find it easier to just not watch horrors.  It also really irritates me how in scary movies, the person about to be killed (a) goes to investigate when they clearly should get under the bed and play possum.  I do that at least 3 times a night and I'm still alive so seems pretty effective and (b) yells out "hello?" as if the killer is going to yell back - "yeah I'm in the kitchen making a coffee. You want anything?"
 
This year, against my better judgement, I agreed to go on the LA Haunted Hayride with a friend. It's up at Griffith Park which is where you go to bury all the people you kill. You get in the back of a trailer being towed by a tractor, sit on some authentic straw* and get dragged through the pitch black blackness. Along the way, you're terrorized by different scenes and creatures. There's the now defunct zoo filled with people being tortured in cages, the burning children at the orphanage, one of whom gave me a drawing she had done with the words "Help" on it. I did not help. Maybe if she'd been a cat in need...

Every step of the way, scary beings leap out and shove their faces in yours - they're not allowed to touch you but they get crazy close, especially when your "friend" is directing them towards you knowing you are terrified and she is merely amused. The gospel choir, circus and chanting monks did not make things better. They were dead. I was not expecting that. 

Public Service Announcement: 

• This ride is not for anyone that needs to sit in a chair. 
• This ride is not for anyone wearing heels and a nice frock. 
• This ride is not for anyone who is a big baby and has to apologize to everyone at the end for all the screaming**. 
• This ride is not for anyone who did not go to the bathroom first.
• There are no snacks on the ride.  Snacks would have made it less scary.  I could have thrown my snacks at the scary people***

So that was a good time.

My favorite part - food.

The best part about Halloween is the costumes**** but I much prefer the ones that are cobbled together from all the crap you have at home. I also don't understand how anything and everything can be sexified***** into a sexy costume.  Especially animals.

This one is billed as a "Courageous Lion".  I would like to see her with an actual lion - then we'll see how courageous she is.  Nice representation though, it looks exactly like all the pictures I have seen of lions.

This is a fox.  With a corset.  And shaved upper thighs.

Yep.  A deer.  I doubt she would last long out in the woods being hunted.  In her deer hoof heels.

 

And finally a sexy monkey.  When I met monkeys in India, they hissed at me, ate their own poop and tried to bite my head off.  I think I could take her.

But wait - this one is the best.  17 round tupperware containers and 2 square lids to the person that guesses what it is.

See end of post for answer

*I know it was authentic because it was uncomfortable and painful and a lot of it came home with me
**And a little bit of crying. But very brave crying
***Just kidding.  You can bite my head off before I give you my snacks.
****Lies. It's the candy.  Which I am not eating this year.  Just going to lick the tops. 
*****Spellcheck tells me this is not a word. Spellcheck is wrong. In fact "Spellcheck" is telling me that it itself is not a word so how can we believe anything it says.

ANSWER: Sexy Tarantula.  Even with all my costume fails, I think I did better than this.  There was the time I went as Steve Irwin "Crocodile Hunter" (everybody already thinks I'm Australian, seemed a perfect fit.  Only time ever that people said to me "Oh, I thought you were from New Zealand".  Fail.).  The next year I followed it up with the traditional dress of the New Zealand Maori.  Most unrecognized costume in America that year. This year I'm thinking of going as a sexy asparagus.  Which I will showcase in my house.  On the couch.  With the candy I bought for neighborhood children.  With the lights off. Watching happy movies.

How I do Yoga

Get to Yoga studio for first time, super exciting because everyone appears to have a nap mat. Have been prepping for this for some time by shaving legs in shower - it's a newer yoga pose. Luckily I had some wine before I came because I thought it would relax me more and I'd be more limber. I'm very relaxed. Drunk even. I'm in the yoga zone and reflecting on Drunk Yoga - is that a thing? I should make that a thing.

Up until now, none of my yoga pants have ever been to yoga so they're excited.  It's their chance to get off the couch. I might not have been to a studio, however, I've been doing a lot of Bikram yoga, except at room temperature and no stretching and in my bed and watching the TV. Going for the real thing now - going to make this a hobby*

When you're at yoga, you have to concentrate on nothingness and feel your inner peace. I'm having trouble finding my inner peace but I think it's cos I have the wrong pants on and this top is a different brand and my pants and top are fighting.  Nike Pants: 1.  Gap Top: 0.  Nike is wearing the pants in this relationship.  Wonder what would happen if I brought LuluLemon into the mix? Ok, back to thinking about nothing.  Why is nothing so full of thoughts?

1. I’m doing this! I’m totally this! I'm some kind of yoga genius.  I definitely burned off that free cake from work**
2. I need a new sports bra. I should get some lululemons. Not to fit in, just because I think I'll make them look really good. Then they'll probably want to give me free stuff. Yes, this will happen.
3. It’s definitely been an hour. Where’s the clock? Wait. There is no clock. No clock? This must be what prison is like***.
4. I probably have like a million text messages. Everyone must be wondering, “Where is Kirsten?”**** I didn’t even have time to tweet or check in.
5. I do not know any of these “songs.” I think whales are singing to tropical rain forests. It's really hard to sing along. Note: Don't pick this at karaoke.
6. I’m dying. Getting in this position was a bad idea. I'm going to need help.
7. I’m totally going to eat cake after this. Or maybe salmon. Got it – salmon cake. Brilliant.
8. Breathe in on 1 and out on 2, in on 1,out on 2...shit, I'm off. Yoga is not for the rhythmically challenged. Too much breathing in, not enough out, can't conti....

*I'm a master of starting new hobbies.  Three this week alone.  I'm so good at new hobbies that I only have to do them once and then I'm done.
**Note to self: Just because it’s free, doesn’t make it fat-free. I should tweet that.
***Ask person next to me if they think it's been an hour. THIS IS AN HOUR AND A HALF CLASS! How did this happen? When I was drinking? I've got to get out of here. Somebody call me and pretend it's an emergency. What's that, Timmy fell down the well again? I'm on my way.
***Confirmed at end of class. No one was wondering

Flasks And Foraging - A Two Part Special

A while ago, I got the idea that I needed a flask – it was one of those things that you got back home when you turned 21. Something your friends banded together and bought and sometimes even engraved it for you. Not my friends but everyone else's friends - that's ok, friends, I’m sure you got me something else, even though the only thing I have ever needed/wanted in my life is a flask.

So, I found myself a really cute flask - one for me and one
for my friend because we have visions of us going to sporting events*, concerts and sneaking into LA hotel pools and avoiding expensive bar prices by bringing our flasks.  Which we will then drink out of. Surreptitiously.

In hindsight - I could have bought a cheap flask and stuck a picture on myself but I chose to pay $25 instead.

And then I had an even better idea for the flasks after trying to buy some very cool, second hand wrought iron garden furniture in a mint green color – color not so cool but I had a plan for that too. Called spray paint. The furniture's at this place called Rehab Consignment and I keep driving past so I can go and see how much they want for it and they’re never open. So one day last week when I was working from home**, they were finally open. I think they also keep the people in rehab there too but they’re not for sale. But back to the furniture - the point is that I was going to take it off their hands so that (a) they didn’t have a comfortable place to go sit and drink/smoke crack etc anymore, thus helping them with their addiction and (b) so that I could have a trendy retro outdoor set for me and all my friends*** to sit on. The bad news: apparently they want $900 for it (they must be on crack****). In cash. Which is never a good idea in a rehab place…that incidentally is next door to a bar, which also seems like a terrible idea for recovering addicts. Hyperion Public – not a bad place, a little dark inside in the bar part but I don’t think addicts mind that. And one time, they gave us burrata on a plate, just by itself, just cos we wanted burrata. I know, right?

So, the net result is that I still don’t have any outdoor furniture but I like the idea of getting some second hand stuff and doing it up. Right up until the point where I don't.  This might be one of those hobbies# where I get bored about twenty minutes in to it and stop and have half finished furniture.  Have you met my dining room table? Which I started refinishing about 6 years ago. It’s close. Better than the cot that Dad started building when he found out Mum was pregnant with me.  It’s not quite finished. 

Initially I thought I would make my own furniture and then I looked at a few patterns (recipes?) and the measuring part of it, which has never been my forte - owing to the large amount of mathematics that seems to be involved - got me a bit confused and I quit. Also the building part. 

This is taking a long time to get to the point which is not about furniture really but flasks and things I will do with flasks but furniture does come into it.   Tomorrow.  Or next week.  Or whenever I feel like finishing this...

*Not Really 
**I was working but I just happened to be taking a break in my car and not being at home. 
***Yes, by friend I mean my cat.  Let's all stop pretending.
****Not funny. But a little bit. 
#Not like cake decorating.  I am totally dedicated to that.  It's just that I am finished now. 

More Nemeses

• Cobwebs - it's not even the spiders, it's that you can't see what your face is covered in and removing them is like trying to brush your hair with boxing gloves on*. Also, it's the spiders. Because they might turn into cockroaches.**

• Valet Parking - they always open the door before you have all your stuff so your exit is awkward and rushed and when in a dress, unladylike. And heaven help me if I'm wearing heels as well. I may as well just open the door and fall out. This has happened and let me tell you, it's very hard to come back from and look dignified. And then you can never go there again. I never have the right change AND money for a tip so then it becomes a "hi - here's $2 in quarters and a $1 in pennies.  I put it in this plastic sandwich bag for your convenience". Also, I feel like they don't like my music because it's always turned off when I get back in. There are a lot of places I can never go back to because of valet parking.

• Quicksand - ever since Tarzan got trapped in it, I've had a fear of quicksand. It's like bears, you're just not sure what you can and can't do. Although I don't recommend the fetal position in quicksand and that's my go to when threatened by a bear. Which has never happened. But I believe in practice. Oddly enough, quicksand seemed like a bigger threat when I was kid and felt the danger of running into it was always imminent***.

Despite all my fears, I firmly believe that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Except bears. Bears will kill you.

*Verified - I tried just to make sure this was valid. Just finished cutting hair brush out of hair. Which can also not be done with boxing gloves on. Very little can be done. Punching is fine though.
**Unsubstantiated but it's only a matter of time
***Quicksand has never been found in my home town. Which doesn't even make it close to imminent. It makes it very far away and unlikely. Which is exactly when quicksand will get you.

Weekly Round-up

• Cruise to Mexico is back on and booked despite the Government trying to shut me down. Turns out you can have three to a room for the same price.  When I get a roadblock thrown at me like that, I like to fall apart, bemoan how unlucky I am and announce that my life is over while stomping out of the room and slamming the door.  Surprisingly enough, there's usually a solution.  Which makes my dramatics look a little overly dramatic.  So, apologies to the Government and I take back the stomp and slam.
• Audience Stats - To my friends and followers in Iceland - "sefshfjshf!"*. Also welcome to Vanuatu, Spain, South Korea and Afghanistan.  
• Blog Monetary fund: Empty.
• Tupperware - still have 17 round containers and 2 square lids.  Willing to trade for a lot of money** to add to aforementioned Blog Monetary Fund.
• Achievements/Hobbies: 

1. Cake Decorating - Level: Extreme (know your limits). 
2. Blind Putting-Up - Level: Not Quite Competent (currently stapled to wall)
3. Earthquake Training & Awareness - Level: Pretty Good As Long As I Can Take My Purse.  
4. Parenting - Level: Gold Star for Imaginary Children (B- for cat due to eye incident)
5. Dating - Level: Could Use some Work. 
6. Guitar Playing - Level: Fail***

• Cockroach -seems to have left of his own volition.  I left a picture lying around of dead cockroaches to send a message.  I think he went out the cat door and down the ramp.  

 

• Albert got his first fan mail - he was sent a packet of Mickey Mouse band-aids by a friend who was concerned that Hello Kitty was damaging his manly reputation**** - so the next time he has a booboo and his eye falls out or his leg falls off, I'll slap on a mickey band-aid and call it good.

*Not a word. Made it up. Testing them to see if they're paying attention
**A lot of money is probably a billion, I think.
***Although have not actually started.  I decided to teach myself how to play the guitar, which was a bad decision, cause I didn't know how to play it. So I was a shitty teacher. I would never have went to me.
 ****To be fair, I did have him neutered so his lack of manliness is partly my fault. I had his reproductive man parts ripped out so it's possible it's not his fault that he's such a pussy.

Cake Decorating - Part 3

And now we reach the last stage of what I am already a bit bored with. This frosting/decorating thing is a very expensive hobby for a one-time hobby that I'm about to do for one time. I think I'm a bit OCD and ADD which means I do everything perfectly, just not for very long.  But, I'm totally focused and ready to do this - nothing will detract from my commitment.  Oh look, a puppy.

Fondant in a thousand different flavors, a fondant lifty uppy thing, fondant smoothy thing, leopard print duct tape sheets (to tape the cake together if things go horribly wrong) and fondant cutter. Apparently different from a knife and therefore essential.

So things went well - started at 6pm, ended at 3am, was ready to be done at 7pm. Now, that I am a master baker and decorator*, I feel I can share some tips:

• Get everything ready and have different stations for each stage of the process. Visit the wine station first.

Hands-free wine

• Safety first - do not decorate when angry or in an angry place. No one got hit by a rolling pin but I did feel threatened and in an unsafe environment at times.
• Do not give advice. You will get smacked in the head by a spatula**. Constructive criticism only works when you constructively criticize yourself and even that never goes well for me.
• Toothpicks are your friend. Just because you use your mind to keep a cake element in place, does not mean it will. Please eat the cake carefully - it will not be like looking for a needle in a haystack, unless the cake is the needle.
• When dying white fondant to another color, you will reach a point when you think the color will never even out. You will be right.
• If you select yellow fondant and think you can make it better by adding more yellow. You are wrong. So you will add orange. And then you will try and correct that by adding brown. Then you will start over.

Hepatitis Hands

•  Before rolling fondant. Stretch. 

Before we started rolling, our arms were flabby and un-toned.  We owe everything to fondant.

• Before rolling fondant. Get someone else to do it
• While rolling fondant your arms will get tired. Just quit.
• While rolling fondant, wear a headband. It will stop you from getting salty fondant.
• When lifting fondant to drape on the cake, it will go badly.
• When lifting fondant to drape on the cake, keep in mind that you will do this several times. Then you will just accept that sticking fondant lumps on as patches is not standard practice but you no longer care.
• Part way through you will look at what you have made and realize that you have made an egg. Your theme is jungle.

Caution: Not a real egg

Finally you will finish. The end result:

Made a zebra/giraffe cake.  Put ears on it.

Photo bomb: Level Giraffe

Despite my scoffing at Schmistine's lofty goals for her first time, she nailed it.  Actually literally nailed it.  And glued it and threatened it.  Nothing is moving.  However, Schmistine tells me she has learned her lesson and will next time just attempt a small round cake...and create a world globe. 

Her son has just started pre-school and they're having a bake sale - so while the other mothers show up with banana bread loaves, Schmistine, will show up with this.  Just a little something she whipped up the night before.  Take that, other mothers.

For those that think this is amazing, you are right.  I did an amazing job.  While I may not have done the actual decorating, I was there every step of the way giving advice, constructive criticism, eating the fondant, rolling out fondant to replace what I just ate, fixing holes I made after careless rolling pin placement, holding the hot glue gun and I must have rolled fondant for it for a good 10 seconds.

Cake is totally edible.  Cardboard, rhinestones and glue will probably not have a detrimental effect on you.  Eat at your own risk.  Step aside fondant, this is case for glue.

So, I think we can call this hobby a success...and infinitely better than any of these...

Does anyone want to eat this? Worst baby shower cake ever

Sometimes it works better in your head...execution is difficult

Why you never relay the message over the phone

*Self-appointed
**Rubber ones hurt more than wooden