Sick My Way

Well, the mood this Easter was FULLY SICK. Not the Folk Festival, just me. Sick as the proverbial dog, with a bad head cold thingy. So I spent a little bit of time at the Festival, a bigger bit of time nursing myself with whiskey and chocolate and the company of my sister-outlaw Naomi, who is camping in my back yard with her common-law spouse (BB's big brother) and child, and a lot of time nursing myself in front of the computer with even more whiskey and chocolate, working on my commitments. I'm feeling much better now, but I've gained a few kilos in the process.

One of the things that has made me feel much better is my special Sick Soup. I eat it once a day when I'm coldy or fluey. You know how people tell you to eat lots of ginger and garlic and lemon and chilli? I worked out MY best way to do it. It's a bit low-brow, but by gum it works. Here's how it goes:

SICK SOUP (for 1 person)

-- 1 pkt Trident Thai Hot & Spicy instant noodles (this particular flavour is very important).
-- At least 5 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped in half.
-- A 5mm thick slice of ginger, peeled and grated.
-- A variety of vegetables, chopped and or sliced, about a good handful of them altogether. My staples are: carrot, cabbage, broad beans (frozen), broccoli, capsicum, peas (usually frozen, but I'll use fresh if I've got them, of course) and snow peas or baby spinach.
-- You can add tofu or chicken if you want, but they're totally optional.
-- The juice of one whole lemon, a really juicy one.

Ok.

1. Use a small to medium saucepan, fill with as much water as the quantity of soup you want.
2. Add contents of soup flavour packets, and don't forget to use the chilli packet. Add garlic and ginger. Bring it to a simmer.
3. Add the hard vegies like carrot, cabbage and broad beans. Let it all simmer for ten minutes.
4. Add the softer vegies -- except broccoli and snow peas. let simmer for a few minutes.
5. Add the noodles from the packet, make sure they're covered by the liquid, place the broccoli and snow peas gently on top without stirring through, and cover the saucepan. Turn the heat down so the soup doesn't boil over. Leave for three minutes.
6. Remove the lid, turn off the heat and add the lemon juice. Stir through.
7. If you're Nice, you can tip the soup into a large deep bowl and sit at a table to eat it. If you're sick and couldn't be bothered washing up something extra, like me, take the saucepan and a heatproof mat and eat the whole lot from the saucepan in front of the tv. Have a glass of cold juice and a box of tissues nearby.

You'll sweat for the next half hour after eating that, but it'll do the job.

Naomi went around to visit Zoe yesterday; I didn't because I didn't want to spread the Lurgy like a plague rat. But I did lend her my brand new copy of the first series of Love My Way that BB bought me the other day (yours is coming home soon, Sach sweetie).

Zoe's having a lovely weekend, just her & Jethro, as her other boys are campin' and fishin'. I got a text message from her this afternoon:

LMW awful! Floods of tears + I blame you

Yeah, I was like that for days the first time I watched it. It's a truly amazing Australian drama. Not quite a soapie, unless the soap was something really classy and fragrant, something you could buy from a soap shop like LUSH.

I got another text from Zoe a few minutes ago:

omg do u have season 2?

No I don't, and I'm hanging out to see it (and then season 3) too. We just conferred on the phone and decided to get it/them ASAP and share them. If anyone can help us in this matter we'd be very grateful.

ANYHOO, a marvellous and relevant thing happened to me today, the sort of thing that blogging is made for. Just listen to this.

At the Folk Festival, as I mentioned on Friday, they have been conducting their annual tribute competition, and this year the theme is The Sound of Music. Perfect -- Nazis, nuns, love, children, goats: all stuff folkies love to love and hate. It's been quite hilarious, and it's a wonderful way to get a taste of the different acts at the Festival on a level playing field, so to speak (or should that be a steep mountain side?). The winner in my mind was festival regular (and Woodford breakfast co-presenter) John Thompson, who dressed as a nun and sang 'Climb Every Mountain' loud and proud in the most stunning tenor falsetto any of us as likely ever to hear in our lives. It rang around the walls of the huge venue! Marvellous. But he only got a Very Highly Commended. The official winners were Shortis & Simpson, a Canberra cabaret institution, who were admittedly very good, and deserved to finally win after 5 years of missing out with great performances. They did a ribald cabaret medley of the showtunes using Marlene Deitrich as the performer.

Between heats the presenter would pull children onto the stage to perform actions to a crowd-sung 'Do Re Mi'; my nephew was the first to volunteer on Friday, along with a very cute little girl who looked very familiar. I thought she went to Bumblebee's school, she was that familiar.

Over the last three days Nephew and Cutie were the first on stage, and were joined by various other youngsters. Yesterday I taped a snatch of them:



My nephew is 3rd from the left, Cutie is at the far right (since she was the smallest). As usual it's crappy quality, because I was standing a fair way back and the taping was very spontaneous, just wanting a snatch of it to prove to Nephew's mother (not Naomi, another sister-in-law) that he was up there.

Today, I took Bumblebee with me to the finals of the competition. When the kids jumped up on stage to perform for the last time, I asked B if he knew Cutie... nope, never seen her before, was the reply. So why did she look so familiar? I puzzled over it for a while, and then suddenly it jumped into my head, as remembered things tend to do these days (like masked men with guns crashing into a room): she was the little girl from the first series of Love My Way!!!

Her name is Alex Cook (I have a dreadful memory for author and actor names, so it didn't click when she introduced herself as Alex) and she played Lou:



As soon as I realised, I had an overwhelming urge to run up to her, take her in my arms and give her the hugest cuddle I had in me, and anyone who has seen the show will know why. If you don't know why, I won't say, because you need to see it for yourself, goddamit. But I didn't, because the poor child probably gets scared by people like me on a daily basis, or did a couple of years ago, anyway. Still, even though I know that actors AREN'T their characters, la-de-la-la, I'm still feeling hugely relieved and content. It was a lovely moment, and I can stop being haunted by her face.*

Right now I have an extra 5 people in my tiny house for the night, camping out the back and sprawled on the floors. They just watched The Sound of Music and sang along, which provides another kind of closure for the weekend. And I just have a leetle bit of tweaking to go on the things that are due tomorrow, and then my Easter is over.

Did I mention that Bumblebee turns 10 in a week? Eek!


* It's even more understandable when you know Bumblebee's history. SPOILER ALERT! ONLY GO TO THIS LINK IF YOU KNOW (OR DON'T CARE ABOUT) WHAT HAPPENS IN LOVE MY WAY.