Cantaloupe Smoothie

In the midst of the growing cold and ever golden-turning trees, what could be better than a taste of something that brings you back to the first days of summer? God knows I've been getting kinda bummed lately about the chances of snow and -2 degree celsius nights, and this morning I decided to make myself a smoothie for breakfast simply because I took a banana to uni in my pocket yesterday and didn't remember it until it was bruised and blackened. Rather than toss it, I decided to liquify it with anything else in my fridge/fruit basket that looked like it might be appetizing together. It ended up being delicious. So delicious in fact, that I'm writing the recipe here for posterity.

Taste-of-Summer-in-the-Middle-of-Autumn Cantaloupe Smoothie

1 banana

2 slices of cantaloupe

1 container of those snack sized Danone yogourts, strawberry flavour

1 1/4 cups milk

drizzling of Canada no. 1 medium maple syrup

Throw it all together in a blender, liquify for about 30 seconds and you're set. Pour into aesthetically pleasing glass and add a straw to slurp up a mouthful of time warp to bring you back to a lazy day in July. Makes about 2 cups.

Wunderbar Weekend!

Although it's already Tuesday and the weekend is well on its way in the distant past, I still feel the need to mention what an amazing weekend it was.

To Andrea and I's friend, we were catsitting for her and her boyfriend while she went to Toronto for her birthday. To Andrea and I, we were commandeering an apartment in Montreal for four days to chill out and go crazy.

Granted our "going crazy" only included two nights of... *cough*...technically illegal things, and for the most part we just watched Barbarella and That 70's Show and Star Trek and botched three batches of Rocky Road Cookies, but it was magnificent all the same. For me, it was the longest I've spent in consecutive days in Montreal. I went grocery shopping, left for work only half an hour before the start of my shift, and only had to walk down the road to go to my internship instead of getting up 4 1/2 hours earlier to get there on time. There is no way to describe how phenomenal this phenomenon was.

Also it was strange. For someone who's always lived with large, green, open spaces and a fairly sizeable front lawn (even in Wollongong), having a ground-level apartment with your front door on the sidewalk where people walk by your window at all hours of the day and night, it was definitely an experience. Just being around so much asphalt and concrete was bizarre. I think I'd need to get used to the city before genuinely loving it in and of itself.

The proximity and possibility to do anything at any time of night was brilliant, though, and I got used to that all too fast. Now that I'm back on the South Shore... I won't lie, I'm a bit bummed. Catching buses that are 40 minutes to an hour long can only be tolerated for a certain amount of time, and I've definitely reached my expiry date. All the same, I'm keeping my future life abroad in mind and that surprisingly does help in a lot of ways - mostly in the becoming-more-conscious-of-my-spending-habits part.

One other thing that was wonderful though about being in the city that deserves mention is that it really unstuck my writer's block. The South Shore really sucks the creative energy out of me, but hopefully this'll tide me over for a while.

On an unrelated note, the book cover art that I was commissioned to do has now been published!

And for one last tangent, I really need to get a wallet. Ever since mine got lost/stolen, my cards and change have been floating around like a free-for-all plastic and metal orgy in my pocket.

Wednesday Whinge

Not to sound like a dirty bum walking around with hovering flies and green stink as a reeking halo, but I hate taking showers.

I don't know what it is, I don't even take particularly long ones - between 10-15 minutes, depending how awake I am - they're just boring. Same routine over and over, day in day out, morning after morning. And then after you have to blow dry your hair, style it, put on your makeup - all while feeling clammy and sweaty from the residual water droplets you weren't able to towel off.

I wish there was a way you didn't have to shower every day - without becoming a social pariah.

Tuesday Relief

Back at school today. Andrea and I rented a kiosk from school (illegally it turned out, as the woman contacted us after our formerly approved slot of tabletime to say it was under no circumstances possible for us to sell books at that time (....lol, Concordia)). I also finished off all editing for the Rebetika book I'd been working on - it's been sent off to the press to be printed!! So happy and relieved, words can't even cut it.

Anyway, ran around for a while photocopying posters, buying cream puff pastries from Harmonie, hanging up posters, drinking juice, forgetting our original poster in the photocopying machine, returning to pick it up... Eventually we got back to our table, just in time to put everything away with the help of our fellow volunteer who had stayed to guard everything in the meantime.

Before heading off to study, we went to Voyages Campus to see about a trip to Cuba during reading week. We found an excellent one for $640, all inclusive - meaning flight as well as bungalow, food, drinks, disco, and snorkelling. I'm tempted to book it immediately. First we'll see if we can gather up some women to join us and make it even more of a blast.

So then, with spirits high and heads in the sunny Cuban clouds, we went to go study - only to get distracted with thoughts of shopping. I convinced an all-too-eager Andrea to skip her class, and we went to HMV for an hour and a half and eyeball-raped every single individual piece of merchandise. I also convinced her to buy the fourth and fifth seasons of Six Feet Under, because being the good friend I am. We also found the most wonderful thing: the first two seasons of That 70's Show for only $12.99 each. Needless to say, we bought them - one each - in preparation for our weekend in the city (we are hijacking Andrea's friend's apartment while she's away for deviant cooking endeavours and cat-sitting duties).

Yup. Then class, missed bus, went to library, found books, came home, ate late, fell in bed, and talked to my Australian lover for about 2 hours while falling asleep. OH and I also got my USB key in the mail that I'd forgotten at my other Australian friend's house - plus a wonderful note! It made my day, particularly because on my USB key was around 10GB of music that I'd been craving a terrific amount. Lately I've reached that stage where none of the music on your iPod, despite how awesome it is, is in any way aurally appealing. So now I'm looking forward to some good trance music indulgence.

Saturday Chillin'

Went pumpkin picking today! It was quite fun, although it was a sad season for apples so that side of the farm hick experience was a little disappointing. But at least I got my quota of fresh wonderful apples for the year - and some effing delicious apple muffins fresh out of the oven on top of it!

Must say I love October best of all the months. Usually it's when the Indian summer comes around, so the weather is pleasantly crisp verging on the occasional warm, and the sun is still brightly gracing us with its presence before ducking down for a more permanent stay in the Southern hemisphere. Also the trees are just turning red at the tips, so you get that lovely green-yellow-red-orange thing going on with a couple of crispy brown leaves you can kick around and stomp on while on your way to school or work. Plus, best of all, everything is preparing for Halloween and you get the best parties of the year to look forward to at the end of the month.

Oh and I guess Thanksgiving is pretty awesome too. You get amazing food. Pointe finale.

Anyway we got to the farm pretty late in the day so I had to cancel the date I had planned, sadly. Afterward I went to work and within the first 10 minutes of manning the front of the store got told off by some hard-done-by Quebecoise who didn't hear my "Bonjour" half of my standard Indigo greeting ("Bonjour, hi!"). She ranted at me for a good three straight minutes about how you don't hear French in Montreal anymore, and when she comes to Centre-Ville, toute est en anglais tabarnak! (Well she didn't swear at me to be fair, but I was fairly indignant at her lecturing me on my job performance inadequacy when it was a simple misunderstanding). Really, Quebec. Get over yourselves. The rest of the province is yours.

Also, just to randomly add, after work, I was walking down St. Catherine's and saw this guy crossing the street and seriously throw out his ankle. He limped to the side of a building to cling for dear life to its concrete support and alleviate what seemed to be the agony of his injury. As he passed me I asked him if he was alright and offered him some Advil. I felt so bad for him, I figured giving/accepting pharmaceuticals from a complete stranger in this instance would be justified. He happily took two liquigels and went on his hobbling way. So I guess that was my good deed of the day. Unless of course my pills wreck his insides because he has some strange foreign allergy to Western meds.

Jungle

So while I was at work today my room was busy growing a jungle.

I now have a giant potted fern to care for, and I'm not sure how it got there.

Goodnight, Moon

I just read a blog article today about the last shuttle launch NASA will send into space for its undetermined interim period of financial deficiency. It finished with the words, "Thank you NASA for an amazing space age and good luck in the future, I hope we go to the moon again in my lifetime." As someone who has spent her whole life anticipating the day when I become a filthy rich writer so that I can buy two tickets to the moon (one for me and one for my dad), and become a legitimate space tourist, the possibility that the space age might cease to exist for the remainder of my lifetime hit a terrifically tender spot. Granted, this tremendous realization happened nearly three months ago, but all the same I never thought our 21st Century sprint into progress would halt so close to the starting line.

It tweaks said tender spot even more knowing that even though I was a spectator in a 2007 satellite launch from Cape Canaveral, I never actually got to see it leave the atmosphere.

I remember it was on a school trip. Our graduating high school year always got to go on a Florida vacation during March break, and I was among one of the lucky two busloads of sixteen-year-old snowbirds migrating from Montreal to a week's worth of romping about Cocoa Beach. Originally I'd wanted to go to Cape Canaveral itself to check out the space center, but only one other person was interested in going and our teacher "supervisors" were intent on tanning in their deck-side lawn chairs with no inclination to ferry us anywhere.

Luckily, we heard about the satellite launch. I figured this would compensate well.

When we went out to the beach that night, we were surrounded by dozens, if not hundreds, of spectators. What I remember most was how freezing it was. The air blowing off the ocean was wet, chilling me through my sweatshirt so a coating of clammy droplets clung to me like perspiration. My two best friends weren't there because they'd gone to the theater to watch Music and Lyrics for the third time. I waited on the beach with a bunch of other classmates whose cliques I wasn't quite a part of but with whom the camaraderie of traveling had kicked in to make us associate in a friendlier-than-usual manner. Needless to say, on this cold night, standing on damp sand, frustrated with how little I could see in the dark (and only vaguely knowing where I was supposed to be looking), I couldn't quite wait to go inside and catch up on the sleep I'd been mourning missing out on since the crack of dawn that morning.

For some reason, I was also bent on having my camera with me. I think I wanted to film the takeoff for my dad. In any case, I had it with me and was determined to snap a shot of the moment the satellite left the atmosphere.

I was so determined, in fact, that when it came down to it, I missed it entirely. My camera was not a night camera. It only caught something happening in the nighttime if it was on a long exposure, which needed to be held absolutely still, which my state of bitter shivering was no conducive to.

After an hour or so of waiting, by which time my lungs were drenched in Florida's famous humidity, the satellite took off. That part was masterful, even if it was rather far in the distance. We watched it trek across the sky, leaving a trail as glistening as a slug's, and going only slightly faster than one (it seemed). My camera was poised, and I got distracted by the majesty of the moment before remembering I needed to focus on getting the picture. I turned my eyes to the LCD screen and zoomed as far as I could go. So far, it turned out, that it became impossible to navigate where to point the lens because the sky was one big black monotonous reference point. I did catch it just in time, though, for its grand exit of our planet, and clicked to take the photo, focusing on not moving so it wouldn't turn out all blurred.

Except then I was looking at a blank screen instead of in the air when it actually happened in that split, singular second.

So to this day, even though I was there and can perfectly recall the thunderous sound of atmospheric impact as the satellite passed through it and beyond, I still have no idea what it looks like for the atmosphere to be breeched.

I feel like this is a fallacy in my life. I need to move to Russia to watch their space launchings instead. Either that or make it my personal mission to get the States out of their debt crisis.

Nice People

This actually happened yesterday, but I forgot to write it down.

I was working on cash, and this woman came in to pick up an order. She didn't have any photo ID on her, which is required as the pick-up policy, and it sort of created a bit of a hassle. I felt bad, so I conferred with a fellow cashier and we told her we'd be able to swing it this time but we'd need it in the future to avoid giving someone's order away to the wrong person.

Then I went to find the order, only to realize that it wasn't there. I hate when this happens, and it's been happening a lot because of the sheer volume of orders coming in of late. I returned to the woman, who was looking rather frazzled in her face by this point, to tell her I couldn't find it, and ask when she had received the phone call. She informed me that she hadn't been phoned at all and that relief of understanding settled on the scene like one of Horatio's episode-concluding one-liners. It tends to happen a lot; customers get the confirmation of shipment email and think it's a confirmation of arrival.

I always feel bad having to tell customers that they came to our store for no reason, and that they have to go back home empty handed. I tried to be as nice as possible to the woman to compensate, and she shrugged.

"I guess I was just so excited I got a little carried away," she said, eyebrows rounded high above downcast eyes.

"Yeah, I can imagine," I told her. "They really get you going with the anticipation."

She laughed and started flicking through the Godiva chocolate bars displayed in tantalizing rows in front of the cash register. "Might as well get something while I'm here."

"You know," I said, leaning my elbows on the cash, "We just got these really amazing new ones in - they haven't even put them on the shelves yet, they're still behind the cash."

She paused, two lacquered nails resting on the dark chocolate raspberry bars. "Yes?"

I nodded. "Yeah - there's one with cheesecake filling. My coworker keeps telling me how amazing it is, and I was going to get one yesterday but my other coworker said I'd explode in fatness if I indulged." I grumbled the last bit and shook my head.

The customer laughed again. "Well I think I want to try that one."

"Awesome," I smiled.

I ducked behind the cash to search through the floor level cupboards. I found one cheesecake, and two other kinds.

"I've also got tiramisu and chocolate truffle cake."

"Well you've got me craving cheesecake now," she chuckled.

"Alright - excellent choice if I may say so!" I rang it up for her.

"Actually add another one in too," she said, pointing a long finger in the direction of the cupboards.

"Sure thing," I smiled.

I looked through the boxes of severely depleted chocolates - my friend seemed to have raided the boxes a vast amount - and with a consternated brow said, "I'm having a bit of trouble finding another...I think my coworker might have eaten them all."

"Oh, are you sure?"

"There's a lot of tiramusu - she says that one's excellent too...?"

"No, no, cheesecake, cheesecake," she said. "Definitely has to be that one!"

I dug deeper into the cave of boxes. "Okay, lemme see..."

With a couple of more rifle-throughs, I managed to get my hands on one.

"Last one!" I declared triumphantly.

The customer smiled and I added it to her bill, sliding it over to her with a mild pang of regret that I'd never get to taste the famous Godiva milk-chocolate coated cheesecake.

"Do you need a bag for those?" I asked.

She looked at them for a second before shaking her head and hand at the prospect. "No, no, should be fine."

"Alrighty, it comes to $8.55."

She handed me her card and as the receipt printed, she said, "Wait do you think you could give me a bag after all?"

"Sure," I said, a little exasperated as I always am whenever a customer asks for one after everything's been paid for (they cost a whopping $0.05 and we're not supposed to give them away for free).

"I'll just hold onto this one here and I'll put the other one in the bag," she said.

"Sounds good," I smiled pleasantly, and handed her the bag with the chocolate inside. She took it, carefully put away her card and zipped her bag, then took her time rolling the chocolate in the plastic bag.

In one swift and understated movement, she slid the package back across the counter to me and patted it once. She didn't say anything at all, just smiled.

I picked it up and held it to my chest, mouth in a wide O. "Oh my god, are you serious?" She just smiled. "Thank you so much," I said, genuinely close to breaking down in a full-on weep at how touching this simple act of kindness was.

"Thanks for being so kind," she said, and walked off.

And there we go, folks: moral of the story is karma does exist.