Dinner party!

'

Another chat–Sally to infinite audience

‘sup!

I got up early to make curry and bake a (packet) cake in preparation for tonight. Turns out I was WAY too organised because I’ve sat at home getting pissed drinking $5/bottle wine since I left work at 1:30 (directly after my manicure).

The bosses are away, so the atmosphere at work is great and no one seems to work. They play cards a lot and then they drink whisky and vodka. No one came to work today because they all got too pissed on whisky last night and were hungover. It was fine by me as I don’t have anything to do anyway! I have some research to do but I’m kind of stumped because I don’t know where to go to get any information beyond high school level. Hmm.

On Monday I’m going to talk to a group of Mongolians that are preparing to move to Australia. They’re being sponsored by the Australian government. It’s an amazing opportunity for these people. They get their family shipped overseas, and get a masters or something equivalent. They have to come back to Mongolia and work, but geez. I’ve met a few and I haven’t met one who has a bad word to say about it.

The hot water system has me beat. I’m looking up instructions and it says the electricity has to be installed by a professional, but it’s just a plug that goes into an outlet. Hmmmm.

Trivia last night was silly. The questions were so hard I’m sure Simon and Lai and Connor would have had no chance. They were so specific and so American. I actually got a few questions and then I just got bored. The bloke that asked me to go didn’t talk to me which was pretty boring – he was on another table. So my friends and I played with my toy camel, ate hot chips and made up silly answers. Then I came home and tried to sleep through the second stupid party below my bedroom. Blah. I dreamt I spat at them, I’m sure. I hope I didn’t – what a way to get beaten up!

Above: The funny menu. And Temmee the camel and his self portrait. He ended up getting too tired and we had to take him home straight after trivia was marked. We remarkably came third out of seven. Don’t ask me how. It certainly was no thanks to me and my Desperate Housewives knowledge.

I haven’t decided what I will wear tonight. I know what I WANT to wear, but it’s a bit OTT for a Friday night dinner party. I can’t wait for my patterns to arrive so I can make some new cool dresses. I just need a couple of fun party dresses (yes, I did bring a lot but they’re not exactly what I’m after).

I can’t believe how easy it is to waffle. I will stop now, before it becomes too prolific.

xox

Share my joy

I've always known that in my family there's been a few people with the addictive personalities that leave you vulnerable to becoming addicted - to anything. I'm becoming increasingly aware of my personality of late, and I definitely have been gifted with quite an addictive personality.

Example one: I loved tomatoes so much I ate too many and burnt the business out of my insides and now I don't function properly

Example two: I joined the gym and prioritised it over everything and now I can lift heavier weights than some boys

Example three: I couldn't figure out how to make handmade pasta so spent two entire days and lots of eggs and flour practicing until I got it perfect

But that's the only examples I can think of so maybe it's just a minor detail.

What made me think of it was how hungry and sore I am from going to the gym too much. Silly girl. I went last night and again this morning - but if I didn't go this morning I wouldn't have had a chance until Saturday and that's too far away. So now I'm just hungry and weak.

Above: The hot water system I found in our cupboard. I am determined to make it work. I found it at 10:30am which meant I was already SUPER late for work so had to just leave it....... But tonight. The battle begins. I must admit, I'm a bit partial to the shower at the gym. The shower head is literally the size of an A4 piece of paper. It's quite lovely! So, share my joy - HOT WATER!!!!

Fingers crossed I never become super famous because this blog will reveal things I'm likely to get burned at the stake for.
Mongolian's hate Chinese - they've spent thousands of years swapping ownership of different areas of land, building walls to keep each other out and making war against each other. Now the Mongolians like to blame EVERYTHING shit on the Chinese.

Oh - your food tastes like shit? The ingredients MUST come from China
Oh - your house is falling down? It MUST have been built by Chinese
Oh - your car won't work? That's because it's a crappy Chinese one

Oh - you can't get a job? That's because the Chinese took them all

Oh - your toy broke? That's because it was a cheap Chinese one

I had a big conversation with my Mongolian friend the other night re: China taking over Mongolia. I tried to say that China will (might) take over Mongolia some way or another - to me it's inevitable because of all the natural resources here.
 He completely and utterly disagreed (he's very worldly so was easy to talk to about this, which is why I was surprised he was so vehemently against the idea). The excuses ranged from NO - it won't happen because Mongolian's won't let it. [what, 3mil Mongolians are going to put up a fight against the largest, most powerful country in the world?!] To NO it can't happen because Russia won't let it; China won't want to come here because it's too cold to live in anyway; Nato will step in and fight against them; USA won't let it happen.........
Moral to that story is that if push came to shove, Mongolians - from what I have seen - are more patriotic than any culture I've ever seen before and would much rather die in battle against the Chinese than be assimilated into their culture.

Loving Hut

For lunch today I tried the 'Loving Hut' restaurant around the corner. I feel like I'm adventurous when I go there because I'll eat anything on the menu. I'm pretty picky so usually I won't eat at least half of a menu. But not at Loving Hut! It's 100% vegan, including their waitresses. I don't need to worry about getting served shaved sheep scalp or salad with bits of mutton in it. I ordered a 'potato pancake' and it turned out to be MORE than just potato in a deep fried pastry. That plus an apple juice that TASTED like apple juice was 2000T which is approx $1.25AUD. It's the cheapest meal I've eaten so far, and I even ate too much.

One time when I was staying with Ashleigh Webb we had minor problems with mice and major problems with maggots. Hah. The beauty of living on a farm. The maggots were easy. The mice was not. I saw this mouse just sitting in the corner checking us out. I remembered catching a mouse in a tea towel when I was little and feeding it to the chooks. I was obviously a brave child as I was not brave this time. I got a tea towel, caught him in it and then freaked out. WHAT DO I DO WITH IT NOW. I thought I could suffocate it but for some reason I couldn't. So we ran a bucket of hot-ish water and thought we'd drown him. But he kept swimming. So we took the bucket outside and put Redback work boots on each hand, slowly tipped the bucket out and BANG hit him once he poured onto the grass. He was still moving so I hit him again and the Ashleigh decided that he wasn't dead enough so she JUMPED on him and he POPPED. Oh man, it was so disgusting. Then we had to hide him from the puppy which meant we had to PICK HIM UP (as flat as he was) and put him in the bin.

And now he's in mousey heaven.

What made me think of that was the tea bag I just flavoured my hot water with (that tastes like jasmine tea with that blue smelly toilet stuff in it). I threw it in the bin and it didn't make it and it fell 'flop' on the floor like a dead mouse does.

I just ordered some meat from Joel the butcher. Order as follows:
3kg diced UN-marinated chicken breast (smallish cubes if possible)
1kg pork loin steaks marinated
1kg fillet steak marinated
2x UN-marinated chicken breast (whole)
1kg ground beef mince

We're having a dinner party on Friday night. A little unexpected and I feel slightly unprepared but if anyone can do it, I can! (right?! RIGHT!)

It's Sarah's birthday so we're having some people over. A friend of ours is conveniently an ex-chef so between him and I (and Sarah's grocery shopping skills), we'll cook up a storm on Thursday and Friday. We will mise en place (that's French for prepare) on Thursday night and then cook on Friday night. I will bake a cake, make some tomato salsa (I promise I won't eat much), make green chicken curry, clean my room (oh yes I know, I could just shut the door. I probably will) and serve lots of tea. You could choose from: Lemongrass and ginger, peppermint, lemon, pink tea, pink tea with ginger, jasmine tea or boring black tea.

There will be approximately 15 people at our house on Friday night, which I feel is a good number. ALSO, great news - our Mongolian friend's sister has had a baby. A nameless little girl (yes, I offered Sally- what a good name) who weighed 3.9kg and is very healthy and all the rest. I'm pretty excited to meet her.

I have also decided that instead of writing Trevor a book (sorry mum, my writing skills aren't good enough - it would be setting a bad precedent for him), I will make a blanket. Out of pretty Mongolian material. Sucked in Nikki, you'll have to use it even if you hate it. If it turns out like I'm thinking, it'll be nice anyways. A good picnic rug if nothing else.

Perhaps it won't work though. I have a piece of shit sewing machine. That cruise control that I was bragging about the other day is more efficient than I want it to be. Imagine pressing 'cruise' on your car, driving at 100km an hour for a good period of time and then pressing the button again to stop it. BUT IT DOESN'T STOP. That's what I'm facing, except it's a sewing machine and I feel it's just as dangerous. Digits (ie fingers) are super important and every time I need to stop the machine I feel like I'm putting my digits in jeopardy.

I'll give it one more garment's chance before I round up a Mongolian/English speaker and take it back to demand one that works.

Sooooooooooo many boogers up my nose. I can't imagine winter time. I don't WANT to imagine winter!

Still no hot water. At the gym or at home. My hair is getting stinkier by the day.

I am after someone that may want to meet me somewhere full of VitaminD (read: tropical) in February 2012. It's a long time away, but keep it in mind. I will need a winter respite.

I am also taking nominations for accompaniment. I need/want someone to catch the Trans-Siberian with me at Christmas this year. It would be probably 19 December, starting in Ulaanbaatar (stay with me a bit too if you want, beforehand) and going all the way to St Petersburg. I'd be flying from there to London. You could come too if you wanted.

So far it's taken 6 weeks for mum's parcel to arrive - if you have sent letters or parcels, allow at least 2 months for them to arrive. Literally. It's bloody crazy!

What's happening on the block

Read: Potential delicious crepes for breakfast just downstairs (opening soon)

My apartment is on the RHS, top level.

This is why we don't have hot water - there are no pipes at the moment

This is why we won't have hot water for at least another month: they're digging up the entire block's water pipes and replacing them. They've finished one side and are on to the next. Boo. I <love> warm showers.

Please note all the green on the trees. It's so beautiful around here when the leaves start to sprout. There's a general feeling of happiness, which I'll be sad to see go when the air becomes too cold to function.

I was showering at the gym. The gym's now got no hot water either. Cold showers are okay if you're in a HOT climate, if the water is cold but not 1 degree from freezing (I'm not joking; this water is like glacial melt and wholey dooley it is FREEZING. For example, when I try to wash my hair a. the shampoo doesn't come out properly because the water is too cold and b. I get brainfreeze of the kind you get when you eat too much ice cream too quickly. But it's from the water. Only worse because I don't even get to eat the ice cream.