~ Curious Charlie ~

Despise Thy Childcare Center Neighbours @ Sunday, December 04, 2016

Monday 14th November

Monday?... it's Wednesday, but I can barely recall Monday. Oh wait, here it comes, I went dancing, went back to the wrong house (I've been moving a lot lately Aug-Oct), made a bad decision to stop for milk, trains replaced by buses, decided to take a detour. Why are we in St Kilda?! *Pop* Melb Uni... really?! It took me twice as long to get back to the correct house, as lack of sleep and the neighbours driving me crazy is really getting to me. The van has been scheduled for Saturday. I'm moving.

Housemate - Did you try talking to them?
Me - Absolutely not, but we did call the police and talk to a lawyer along with extensive googling. Ok, we also sent them a letter, and stuck it to every door and noticeboard in the building, with the number of the offending apartment on it.

Tuesday

Tuesday, we went to see the ballet. Ratmanksy’s Cinderella. Set in Russia with a surrealist feel, it was dark and different. Dark and moody, no tiars and tutus. The ball was a pant suit event.

In the beginning it was quite challenging to differentiate the stepmother from the stepsisters, as they were close in age and costumes. The father was alive, though an absent alcoholic, so he might as well be dead. We loved the stepmother's tantrum fight dance. This is the first time we've seen Cinderella as a ballet.

Instead of a fairy godmother we were presented with an English nanny fairy godmother, Nanny McPhee much? The mice and animals are replaced with planets who help Cinderella get ready for the ball.

At some point I fell asleep, during the ball and so missed Cinderella's escape from the pant suit ball. Though did see the prince traveling far and wide to find her. There were projections, very surrealist themed, and steam trains. To me it was weird, as I prefer the traditional ballet.

Overall it was good though not what I was after.

Wednesday

Many miles were traveled today. We went up to main street, stopped by our favourite sushi place before going home home. Together with lab partner's help we sorted a desk surface and one draw. Plankton in the great sea of hoarding.

After a year and a bit I'm moving back home, we're going to embrace the hoarding as 'this is the way we live'. Yes we have tried to fix it, but she sees it as not a problem and when you get rid of something like a gorgon it comes back twice as much.

The struggle is very real. We need to buy plastic boxes for food storage because there's a rat infestation. Also roaches, but they don't get into the food.

Dinner was going to be sausage sizzle, a favourite of mine, though we we to the Midsumma Launch instead, with free flowing drinks and an antipasto buffet - which mightn't have been a good idea. If you want people to mingle you do canapes, which there were: salmon pancakes, garlicly arancini balls, and vegetarian rice paper rolls tonight.

Thursday

Taking a break from the god damn awful neighbours, before we pack we were off to the cty for a workshop! Cookie decorating with Julia from Miss Biscuit in Seddon. Instead of sugar dough fondant we used a meringue royal icing!

Here are some tips:

Cut off 1-2mm tip. Line on bag at top
Draw a thin line. Steady hand. Gentle. gentle. Squeeze.
Wait. Give it a couple minutes to dry. Don't touch!
Flood with a filling icing, a more liquidy consistency.
Spread. Shake and tape to spread.
Red lines. Pipe then drag. Clean stick each time.
Give it 24hrs to dry completely before packaging them.

The cookie deco mini workshop was awesome! And something I'm going to recreate at home. We pipped the outline then flooded (filled) the inside, and it didn't flow over the edge! The teacher said if there're dimples you didn't use enough, also make to the boarder lines thin. If you mess up quickly scrape it off.

We were given the recipe to decorate our own cookies, but it was wrong. We were also going to sign up for the $200+ workshop, but based on being given an incorrect recipe we wouldn't consider it now, nor recommend it.

A night off to pack. In six hours we did it, packed up the entire room! We didn't count the bags but they did take up a lot of room. Packing actually started well after midnight and went til 6am. When we crashed till 3pm, went to a organ recital where I saw a spider in church. Kill it with fire!! Apparently not the correct response because it was inside the cover of a Bible. But seriously I nearly died! We finally made it home 11pm, just 27hrs later than planned. :P

Saturday

We're home. Sure there's no noisy neighbors here, but we have other problems. Mother is a hoarder and denies it. She gets angry when people touch her stuff, and her stuff flows from the front yard to the backyard. There are three chairs (that you can sit on) in this house. Table space? There's a third of the round table. Every single surface from tables to chairs, makeshift tables and the floors are filled with junk/clothes/unsorted trash. But she refuses to let go.

Tell me, when was the last time you used that machine that plays cassettes? It uses these huge energy drink sized batteries. She claims there are so many cassettes that she wants to listen to. This is coming from a woman who hasn't turned off her ipad since it was released. Yes she sleeps with it on.

How do you people live like this?
This is the way we live. We are never going to change.

I mean this in the least offence way but I can't wait to clean out the house! The floor hasn't been seen in years, and the cleaning lady is long gone (she quit). You gotta carefully strategically step by step waddle though, the paths are narrow and one wrong step and you can land in a pile of assorted stuff. And who knows what's in that pile!

I just got here but I can't wait to move to move out again next month!

Yesterday we packed the stuff, and today we moved it! Plenty of going up and down the stairs it was a real cardio workout! Sweating like crazy, we moved everything in about an hour, and it all fits inside a van too! We moved everything but the furniture. After we moved out the bags there was so much carpet!

Dinner out nearby, pho night. Used to be one of my favourite foods actually, till a fly died it in, was scooped out and I was forced to eat the rest. Needless to say its never been the same since. That happened back home.

The three colour drink was pretty good, with that coconut milk base, though I prefer the version with four colours (more ingredients). Service was minimal though adequate.

Sunday

A day/night of dancing and research. Research on sugar cookies to decorate, portable clothes racks and going through the misery of pretty much replacing the contents of my phone, after we reset it.

Packing meant we had an opportunity to take stock of all the photo props!

How was your week?