Great Adventures of a Green Goddess

Just a lil bit country

I must admit to wondering what kind of place I’d ended up in the day I went to the local Farmer's Market and saw not one but two separate people playing the accordion (no other instruments were seen being played). Had I randomly and accidentally entered The Polka Zone???

 

Although admittedly this was a one off and mostly my experience despite being in the northern Midwestern state of Wisconsin was of country music. I had always thought of this as more of a southern states thing. As the south is Dixie because it is below the Mason Dixon line (that bit that separates us from the bible belt) and I like The Dixie Chicks.

Rosie had her car radio set to play country music. So every time we were cruising around it was to songs by Brad Paisley, Tim McGraw and the like.

I ended up downloading some of their music and now every time I listen to it I am reminded of hanging out in America with Rosie.

I have great memories, like the time when diving around we’d often passed the same barn. I told Rosie we should give it a name and she came up with the perfect name: Barney!

 

She also liked blue collar comedians like Bill Engvall and the ventriloquist Jeff Dunham. My favourite character was José the Jalapeno on a Stick but Achmed the Dead Terrorist is pretty funny too.

What I do know is that I like it when Rosie gets drunk (she likes to get drunk and cook days) with her favourite alcohol named Captain which she says tastes like cake. She will talk southern and make me happy by quoting trash talkin turleen. 

 

 

 

But my real country experience was when we went up nort as they call it. I wondered if it was like down south but without the banjos...

I must admit that I’ve never seen Deliverance and I probably should have to complete my education in the way of the American wilderness dweller.

 

Before we left for some northern exposure I took the dog for a walk. She dragged me around the house and jumped in the car. She did not want to be left behind! She didn’t have to worry, she was coming with us.

 

I really liked this husky, as I would call her a hairball with a bark. Seriously when brushing her we would stop when she got sick of it, not when she ran out of hair. She would sing along to squeaky deaky and when she got it in to her head that I was taking her out she would follow me around until I walked her.

There was a crime when in a doggy ducknapping she came into my room and took Devil Duckie but we rescued my travel mascot before any harm was done.

 

The wolf (she looks like a wolf but she’s really a dork) had a fish toy and she would shake it so much it fell apart.

I sewed it up for her one day and she carefully watched me performing the operation wanting her fishy back.

My other crafting in the country was making an iPod cover for Rosie. I love the eco felt and the craft stores in America have a fine selection.

Rosie requested a super Mario cover as she has a Nintendo NES she likes to play.

We went with a controller on one side and a fire flower on the other.

 

 

Anyway back to the backwoods.

We set off me, Rosie, her 9yr old niece (let’s call her Daisy) and the dog.

We passed Port Washington and I was all hey that’s the place from Step by Step, because I am cool enough to remember lame 90’s sitcoms.

For lunch we stopped in Green Bay, I didn’t see much of it but I know that the football team is called the Packers and they wanted to bus kids from there to Rome Wisconsin in an episode of Picket Fences which was a good 90’s American show. I love how America is full of places from the TV shows of my youth.

 

Our final destination was a place called Sturgeon Bay in the weirdly named Door County. It is the bit of Wisconsin that sticks out into the lake so maybe it should be Thumb County? Although I think Michigan has claimed looking like a mitten status. Seriously, I didn’t make this up!

 

Rosie’s family’s shack is apparently worth 5 thousand dollars and the lake front land half a million!

After settling in we went for a walk along the pier which is concrete and by a lighthouse and canal.

We looked at the lake. It was rather cold that day and there were big waves. The lake is huge! I couldn’t see the other side. I guess they don’t call it a great lake for nothing.

 

With the weather cold and it getting dark we went back to the cabin and got a fire going.

We played games Monopoly, Game of Life, Skip Do and Clue then watched a DVD (Despicable Me).

For dinner I ate veggie burgers. Rosie and Daisy ate meaty stuff and then made the American camping classic known as s’mores. Daisy managed to burn her finger on the melted marshmallow that is put with chocolate between a couple of crackers.

 

When it was beddy byes time, I slept on a pull out sofa bed beside the fire.

During the night it got very hot from the fire so I opened the door to let in some cool air. Then the fire went out and I had to get up to close the door as the temperature inside dropped during the early hours.

 

We were only spending a single night so after breakfast we cleaned up the place and headed back.

We stopped for lunch in a place called Sheboygan. It’s just fun to say! Oh and it apparently has a spaceport, strange but true fact I looked up online just now.

 

I didn’t manage to make it to The American Club in Kohler which is somewhere nearby. Yes Kohler as in the bathroom fixtures. That’s where the factory is and the hotel which is listed in 1000 Places to See Before You Die and apparently has really nice bathrooms.

Shame we didn’t have the masses of cash needed to stay there.

 

And that concludes my account of my short venture into the backwoods of Wisconsin. It was a pleasant experience and I have not and don’t expect to suffer any future nightmares from it (I read the Deliverance wiki...)

 

Lastly I just want to add that my only other country thing was done safely back at Rosie’s house and was online.

It was hunting which is a very redneck thing to do, but being a vegan I found the perfect game Tofu Hunter.

I love killing wild tofu with high powered weapons, especially the trophy bucks!

Chinese New Year Cake Wreck

I experienced my first Chinese New Year in Malaysia.

When I had heard of CNY previously I had always thought of the Chinese dragon dance. While I didn’t see that, I was glad that I got to see a lion dance performance at the mall. The show has two acrobatic guys wearing the lion costume as they go up on a frame and jump around to the accompanying drum beats.

 

The Chinese version of Happy New Year is Gong Xi Fai Cai. This means wishing you a prosperous New Year. It actually literally translates to wishing you enlarge your wealth.

And I did.

One of the best bits of CNY for me was the monetary gifts.

I love that I get paid to be an old maid.

Single ladies like me get given the little red packets called ang pow. The cash in mine added up to 191RM.  Yes who knew that being an incel was so lucrative.

I am so staying a spinster!

 

The red packets are decorated with rabbits as we were welcoming in the year of the rabbit.

Yes ladies get yourself a new toy to celebrate as it is the year for your battery operated bunny to shine or buzz...

Back to more innocent items.

Also to show the bunny year there were Chinese steamed buns (Pau) shaped like bunny rabbits.

I was impressed and inspired.

 

I decided to go all out and celebrate with cake.

One day of the Chinese New Year is supposed to be everyone’s birthday so I made a vegan chocolate flying spaghetti monster birthday cake.

Well that was what it was supposed to be. Due to the fact that I ran out of sugar while making the vanilla frosting it was too runny to make good noodles. So it turned out more of a cake wreck.

For those wondering, this monster creation is made of four small chocolate cakes glued together with chocolate frosting. I made marzipan for the eyestalks and the eyeballs are longans.

 

Hmm I just think of my FSM failure as like when I was in Italy and I would look at all the old paintings of the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus and try to pick which child looked the least like you would expect of a Jewish infant born in the Middle East.

Thus this Pastafarian dessert is just a different interpretation of the spagdeity…

 

It turned out to be a tasty treat but so sweet that I classed it as death by sugar. I feared that the cake could be a bit Typhoid Mary too as I came down with a cold around the time I made it.

But no one else got sick and while I thought that I should take it easy, I realised that since my life is one long holiday if I took it any easier I would be in a coma.

A small stay in the Jumbo Hostel

I had flown from Tina’s town as it got me directly to Stockholm’s Arlanda Airport.

I was spending the night here in an airliner. Yeah not my first time but instead of roughing it in a DC10 engine this time I was living it up in the luxury of a Jumbo Jet converted into a hostel.  

 

The Boeing 747-200 aircraft was bought and converted into the hostel by a guy named Oscar Dios and named Liv after his daughter.

 

The plane was named Clipper Belle of the Sky when she was owned by Pam American Airways and this not so little lady got around in her time.

She was originally built in the seventies for Singapore Airlines and when she got a bit old to be a Singapore girl she moved on to Pan Am.

When that airline went belly up she headed up to Canada to fly for Nationalair and Air Club International.

After a couple of years there she took off back down to New York City and Tower Air.

 

Finally as a geriatric jet she ended up in Sweden with Transjet Airways. They lost their operating certificate so this Belle wasn’t going to any more mile high balls.

Sadly being past her prime and ready for retirement this old bird was grounded and labelled as too expensive to be made airworthy again.

Thus she was ready to be remade into a palatial plane inviting travellers to fly right inn (They took away her engines so there is no chance of her escaping).

 

There is a free bus from the terminal to the hostel.

You don’t have to stay the night but can just make a quick flying visit if you prefer.

Visitors can walk around the outside of the jet (the tail swing is fun).

Inside the nose of the aircraft is a small cafe area where airline style meals can be purchased. These are served by the nice staff wearing retro looking flight attendant uniforms.

Also in this area there is a nice model of the plane to be admired.

For those who want a little jumbo stay keepsake there are souvenirs for sale.

 

A little further back there was a door through which only residents could pass. I was happy that I was allowed past this gateway and could head back down the aisle to my room.

 

All the room numbers were painted on the doors in the Boeing typeface and all started with 7 just like the Boeing aircraft designation numbers.

The hostel has 25 rooms and there are a total of 85 beds.

The rooms have different configurations, private rooms for one to three guests and four bed dorm rooms. These all share bathrooms located to the front and rear of the aircraft.

 

The upper deck is a luxury suite with the best room number, 747 of course. The cockpit is a bedroom with private ensuite bathroom and there is also an upper deck lounge complete with first class seats.

 

As no one was staying in the cockpit luxury suite at the time I was able to go up the spiral staircase to have a look. Peering over the bed and out the cockpit windows all I could think was ‘wow it is really high up here!’

A little later using the hostel’s free wifi I said to my 747 flying friend how weird it must be to land. He said that you get used to it.

 

When I went exploring outside I read all the signs at various spots around the aircraft with information about 747’s, took photos and swung on the tyre swing under the empennage.

 

Oh it made my geeky little heart happy to be staying in the Jumbo Hostel!

To misquote Cat Steven’s 'Well I think its fine, sleeping in jumbo planes'.

I had first read about the jumbo stay hotel online and thought wow that is so cool, I so want to stay there one day. Subsequently when the Scandinavian idea took off it became added to my list of must do’s.

 

My Boeing bedroom was one of the dorms with four beds. The bunks had plenty of legroom. I got a bottom one and really who apart from the crew ever gets to sleep in a bunk bed on a Boeing? (Ok so they get extra points since theirs is going). I know that on some 747-400’s the crew rest area is up some stairs in the tail section. The back of this bird just had the bathrooms.

 

I do wonder I anything is going to be happening with Liv’s cargo compartment.

I didn’t see any access to it while I was there but I know that some aircraft types have lifts down to galley in the belly of jet. Although I did hear of it being fatal once, so stairs would be a much better idea. It would be cool to have a self service kitchen and laundry for the hostel down there. Or maybe a games room.

 

It would also be cool if they put up barriers on the wing so you can’t fall off (it’s a long way down) and then using one of the emergency over wing exits for access you could go for a walk on the wing.

If skin damage is what you are into, you could sunbathe there without the risk of being swept away in the slipstream.

 

To balance this report, there were a couple of negative points.

I don’t mean to whine like a jet engine but it was a pain that I had to take off my shoes at the entrance door.

 

Also annoying was that the rooms had the system where you had to put in the room key card to make the power run.

This sucked as the rooms had a TV but if for example you took out the card to leave the room for a quick trip to the bathroom during an ad break, it turned everything off. On your return you then had to turn switch on the TV again and by the time you found your channel you had missed some of the show.

 

I fixed this by cutting a rectangle out of a cardboard box and shoving that in. Worked like a charm although the TV did get its revenge by suddenly turning itself on and beeping in the middle of the night.

 

But all was forgiven as I took a shower onboard while thinking ‘Where else am I going to get the chance to shower on a plane?’ Well until the day I can afford to travel first class on the Airbus A380 and then I can wash while airborne.

 

Jumbo stay is a really nice hostel, certainly at the luxury end of the hostel scale. It is a little more to stay in as I paid 400SEK and a 4 bed dorm in a city hostel goes for around 300SEK per night. But really it is still in line with Swedish accommodation prices making it a relatively inexpensive place to stay and you can’t get any closer and or more convenient a location to Arlanda Airport.

Or if you have some spare time at the airport, just head over for little stopover at this unique and fun place.

Attack of the blonde in the boonies of Sweden

I caught a bus to Sweden to visit my old flatmate. Hmm Swedes are like turnips. I think I she shall now be known as Tina Turnip.

 

The interesting thing about buses in Sweden is that people actually use the onboard toilet. Like everyone does. Most places you go eww so tiny and icky I will just wait till we get to the destination.

In Scandinavia they charge you many kroner to use the bus station toilets. But on the bus is free to pee…

 

The bus also has free wifi. This sounds good until I realise that it is reading and remember with the familiar and much dreaded queasy feeling that reading on a bus gives me motion sickness.

 

Being a student, Tina lives in a university town. Well more accurately her place is out in the countryside. In a frightening house, seriously it was like something straight out of a scary movie.

We called it the ex dental house of horror and doom!

Yes really the house was a formerly dental surgery and creepy as all hell. It had a strange design and was really old and dusty with rooms of old furniture and the showers down in the basement (where no one can hear you scream...).

I actually rather enjoyed it for someone who hates horror movies.

I was just waiting to be possessed by the evil spirits of the house. Cue dramatic music and the buzz of a dental drill...

But the only effect on me was that I kept sneezing. I wondered if it was the dust or if I was developing an allergy to blondes.

 

As I had never been to one I thought it was cool that my first trip to an IKEA was in Sweden. It was so exciting to me that I made a pilgrimage to an IKEA store in its homeland.

I was fascinated by the arrows on the floor to follow and the paper, tape measures and pencils available.

There was also food and they had a big book of ingredients so we could find the vegan stuff.

I kept a lookout for the cookbook with the artfully photographed ingredients but did not see any copies.

 

In the toilets there was a notice on the bathroom door, now I can’t read Swedish so I assume that it is like the safe sex messages they have in other countries.

Look it even has slut in it. I think it says something like ‘Listen friend now that you have decided to become a slut...’

 

At Swedish supermarkets they like to sell stuff in tubes. Said stuff is usually strange smushed seafood. Seriously there were fish eggs. In a tube!

 

Tina bought some candy and offered me a piece saying that it was vegan. Oh sure it was vegan but it was also the most disgusting thing I have ever tasted.

 I should have been warned by the fact that it was black and shaped like a skull. Behold the death of all things holy actually I wish it killed my taste buds at least that would have stopped the horror inflicted upon them.

It was salt liquorice. I cannot describe how bad it tasted. Worst candy ever!

Tina thought it was hilarious. She said she knew I wouldn’t like it but she didn’t expect me to hate it that much. Apparently my face was quite a picture of distaste.

 

Tina told me I was a huge failure in the kitchen for not breaking the spaghetti before putting it in the boiling water. Shock horror scandal I am a bad wench.

Sorry but I think I tend to do better than The Swedish Chef!

Others reassured me that only brutish people break the spaghetti first. But Tina told me that she was going to mention me and my failure in the kitchen to the Swedish speaking world.

 

One day Tina’s friend came over and they go ready to go out to a university function together.

Therefore there was a time when I was in the room with two blondes in their underwear and all I could think was ‘Yeah this is what I thought Sweden would be like!’

 

Another night I almost got lesbian raped.

A friend of Tina’s flatmate was over and they were in the process of getting drunk. I’m gonna call her Inga as I feel should have at least one Inga from Sweden on here.

On a related side note I did not meet any Svens. Despite my long held desire to find one.

So anyway Inga made me an origami water lily flower.

She then jumped me on the bed like she was going to have her lesbian way with me.

She was a fun drunk.

But in the end no delicate flowers were violated.

 

Leaving I was annoyed to discover that the buses don’t go to the airport on Sundays and I was of course leaving on a Sunday.

I was not happy about having to spend a chunk of SEK on a taxi to the flygplaten.

It was a tiny airport and I was the only passenger there when I arrived and not many more turned up for the flight to the big city.

Touched by Apple, Played with by play.com

So I finally got myself an iPod.

My pretty bestowed on me by the gods of Cupertino is a 3^rd generation 32GB iPod touch to be exact.

I joined the iPod generation and became Steve Job’s bitch only a decade after they first came out. Yeah I’m not much of an early adopter.

And since the 4^th generation has come out I don’t know how I can even show my apple fangirl face anymore with this out of fashion obsolete piece of technology.

Ok seriously I still love this thing. It is a great gadget!

 

It was Hunnybunny who first put the idea of getting an iPod touch into my head. He was drooling over them and I began to think I would like one too. Not just to make him jealous I swear!

So then I got a bonus at work that just happened to be exactly enough to cover the cost and decided that it could be my birthday pressie to myself.

 

I looked at them in the Regent Street London Apple store but ended up getting Chuck to buy it from the Hong Kong online Apple store (he gets a discount) and bring it to me. I saved £50 that way (would have been even more if the stupid exchange rate hadn’t changed).

 

As it came from an Apple store I could get free engraving and admittedly I rather obsessed about the possibilities.

I found a bunch of funny suggestions online such as:

Made by some sort of Fruit Company

Apple mind control device

10000 stolen songs inside

I’m a bad apple

 

My favourite idea was to quote to Bender from Futurama’s ‘Bite my shiny metal ass’.

But Apple wouldn’t let me have that. Inappropriate message text it claimed. There is censorship in the permitted engravings. The deity of the Apple cult has decreed that we must not use the ass (I guess it is a lot like the Christians who I used to torment when they came knocking on my door…). 

 

I considered a variation posterior/behind??? But it just wasn’t the same.

I ended up going with a song from The Rocky Horror Picture Show

‘Toucha toucha toucha touch me, I wanna be dirty’.

It’s an iPod so a song is appropriate (no matter how inappropriate the lyrics) and it was an iPod touch so a song about touching and getting dirty. Perfect!

 

I now needed to protect my new baby.

I had seen iPod/iPhone covers online I thought were cool. But I realised that I could just make then myself.

Being an eco conscious vegan I had heard about felt made from recycled plastic bottles. I my brief search with Mr Google for stockists in England didn’t find any. So I just bought some coloured sheets of synthetic felt from eBay.

I was overjoyed when it arrived and turned out to be the Kunin Ecospun felt I had wanted.

 

I got the ideas of what I wanted to make online and just adapted them.

I didn’t know how to embroider so I read up on how to do it on the internet and even watched YouTube videos on how to backstitch. Thanks to the internets I was now able to make the covers.

I made the game boy cover first and then with that experience it was easier to make the iSketch Etch A Sketch and the classic iPod covers.

 

The iPod touch turns out to be perfect for travelling. There are apps that are helpful for travel plus games to play, books to read and music or podcasts to listen to when bored. Awesome how much assistance and entertainment can fit in one little shiny shiny tech toy.

 

Here is a list of my top ten favourite apps:

Angry birds and angry birds seasons - I am an official angry birds addict. This Israeli peace process parody video is hilarious.  

Plants vs. zombies - the zombies are coming! I think it has a good vegan message on the power of plants.

Flight control – play air traffic controller, drinking problem encouraged with a refreshing beverage offered when you get a high score.

Aargon – who knew reflecting laser beams could be so fun or addictive?

Trip it – you can put all your travel plans in one place and give your trips fun names. 

Stanza, iBooks and Kindle - you can mix it up with your choice of eBook reader.  

Lastminute.com Spanish - it will show you the translation and also has audio for those essential phrases such as “I’ll show you my white bits if you show me yours” 

Xe - I love that you can set a bunch of different currencies to compare and it works offline, resetting the correct values when you have wifi. You can pull it out, look at the rate and then say wow that is so expensive! While the vendor in some third world country wonders if the device you are viewing it on cost more than they make in a year…

VegOut – in the beginning this wasn’t too good on the iPod touch as it didn’t work without wifi. Luckily they listened to feedback and updated it so you can now set favourites that can be looked at offline when you are out and about and hungry.

Vegan soundboard - because sometimes it is just too much effort to say all those pretentious vegan phrases yourself.

 

Really the only bad thing about this little beauty is that it doesn’t fit the iGoatse case I coveted.

Mine has a black and white rebel touch skeleton (Yes a case and a cover to keep my precious safe).

I had problems with play.com getting it.

I placed my order online and it was not in stock but advised it usually shipped in ten days.

Yeah ten days my ass! On what planet? Venus???

 

When I called I was told that if I cancelled my order and reordered the same item, then it should clear any glitches in the system and I would receive the item. Oh how they liked to play with me as I just got the same result as the first time. No case was coming my way.

When I emailed to ask for an update on availability with an answer that wasn’t just keep waiting. They replied to keep waiting!

 

I understand that a company can run out of items but what annoys me is that the item has always remained for sale on the website stating that it is usually dispatched within 10 days.

If you do not have the item I think that it should be removed it from sale, then advise those that have ordered it that you are just screwing with them and offer an acceptable alternative.

To just be kept hanging on for months is very frustrating.

I vented my frustration by writing emails:

 

Dear customer support team

In regards to our correspondence I am left with the feeling that your standards of service leave much to be desired.

I see that that you new chief executive John Perkins said: "Play.com has established itself as one of the top online retailing brands in the UK and Europe by putting the customer at the center of everything it does. There are few companies that are so committed to the customer, and I am looking forward to building on the company's success so far and leading the talented Play.com team."

I do not feel that you response has shown a commitment to customer service that Mr Perkins would be proud of.

I would like to tell him about my experience myself, could you please provide me with his email address?

If you are unable to do this, could you forward my email to him as I would love to receive Mr Perkins response to my complaints about the fact that:

1) An item was advertised for sale with a usual shipping time of ten days when I have still not received it after 2 months

2) When I asked not to be left hanging on about when I would receive the item the first email response I got told me to just keep waiting.

3) After realising I would probably never receive my preferred item, when I asked for a very small discount on an alternative for the inconvenience and disappointment that the company has caused me I was denied this small token of customer service.

I have given your company many opportunities to put it right and now I do not feel that the company is as committed to customers like me as Mr Perkins thinks it should be.

 

Yeah unsurprisingly Mr Perkins did not deign to offer me his excuses on what a total liars he and his company are.

Thus I got to write one final email:

 

Dear customer support team

I have now cancelled my order.

Quoting your legal status in the matter does nothing to help when the problem is not with the legality of what your company did but how you handled it to make the situation better for the customer.

I am very displeased with the customer service experience I have had and I don’t feel that my custom was valued at all.

It is a shame that your company does not realise that it’s easier to keep loyal customers than gain new customers.

Now I shall now commence telling everyone about my bad experience with play.com as the old saying is that one happy customer tells 3 friends (on average), one unhappy customer tells 10.

You should also remember that behind every complaint hide another 99 people who didn’t feel like hanging around to tell you the very same thing. So listening to one person’s problems has the potential to fix a lot.

Please take a moment to consider this before you hit the delete button on this email.

 

Yeah I am sure they just deleted it, but it felt so good to send it.

 

P.S I ordered the SwitchEasy case on eBay and it arrived the next day.

Punktured

I got pierced in Brighton because it’s like rule, if you go to Brighton you have to let them tattoo or pierce you. It’s just that type of place.

 

I went with the girls I met in Camden who had lead me to vegan ice cream in Hackney.

Actually I never gave them names. Let’s go with Lucinda the tattooed goddess and her less tattooed by just as lovely friend Susannah. Both had enough piercings in their bodies to make metal detectors musical.

 

So we caught an early bus. It was National Express and the driver was very funny. He had a great laid back sense of humour and got on the public address system as we arrived in Brighton (passing a random pair of legs).

He was all wakey wakey and began complaining how cold it was.

He called the Royal Pavilion the world’s largest Indian takeaway as we passed it and claimed that we could get a free popadom on Saturdays all we had to say was that we had travelled on National Distress.

Then we were reminded to take all our belongings when we got off the bus or we would never ever see them again. Unless his wife didn’t want them for Christmas, then we could buy back them back on eBay.

Lucinda was snorting with mirth at this while I laughed until I cried.

 

Stepping off the bus I was like ‘oh wow it really is cold!’

We went to look at the sea from a safe distance. The big icy waves were smashing against the rocks with lots of spray. I did not have any desire to walk on the famous pebble beach.

 

We quickly went looking for somewhere warm and found a café with vegan breakfast.

One of the major reasons to come to Brighton is the vegan food.

There is a vegetarian and vegan pub (The George, which sadly I never made it to) and a fast-food place called Red Veg that was deliciously greasy.

 

The shops are awesome too. There is a supermarket that has so many vegan products that I wanted to buy everything. They even had a bakery section with vegan chocolate muffins, scones and pizza.

There is a dress shop with the coolest retro style dresses in vivid prints. I think I might have been able to make dresses like that if I had a sewing machine and some punk pirate fabric…

 

We went to a piercing studio named Punktured which I think is one of the coolest names for a piercing place ever.

 

The girls wanted to get a couple of their piercings checked out.

I had been thinking about getting pierced before I came to Brighton. I don’t know why. I guess if you hang around alternative type people long enough it all starts to seem normal…

I had four piercings, all in my ears.

I enquired about attaching some extra jewellery thru my body and I felt really nervous so said I would think about it.

 

We then went to the vegetarian shoes shop. I wanted to buy some boots but they didn’t have the para boots in stock in any colours except black. So I tried them on to know my size and ended up ordering the blue ones online.

 

Anyway since I hadn’t bought any boots then I was like well this money is burning a hole in my pocket. Let’s go get me some new holes!

The major queasy fear of pain that I had been feeling before when thinking about it disappeared once I booked and I felt much calmer (only a little apprehensive). There was a wait before I could get it done as I chose bars with green jewels on the ends and they needed to be sterilised first.

I had chosen to add two new piercings to my body.

One in each nipple.

 

When we went back the piercer referred to me as the nipple girl, which I thought was great. I said that I should put it on my business cards.

In the piercing room I stripped off from the waist up and lay on the dentist like chair.

As the piercer was standing on my right she did my left nipple first so she wouldn’t be leaning over freshly pierced nipple.

So the left nipple was held with like little metal tongs and a large hollow needle was poked thru my delicate flesh.

The barbell was then slid inside the needle and the needle pulled out.

Yes it hurt but it is pretty quick.

But my right nip which was done second hurt way more. Lucinda had to remind me to breathe (I did my best Lamaze impression as learnt from sitcoms). Apparently the nipple opposite your dominant hand always hurts more, dunno why.

I was sent on my way with instructions on making a saline solution to clean the piercings twice a day. Yay something to obsess about. Oh and if you want to see what the piercing looked like click here.

 

We had to run to the bus stop. Let me just add in that if you didn’t guess that yes running after getting pierced is a bad idea. My nips were stinging. But afterwards I swear I felt some kind of high (endorphins kicking in?) and as we sat on the bus at the back waiting to go back to London I was feeling a rush.

I also noticed that the pattern on the bus next to ours looked a lot like the hunks of metal that were now thru my nipples!

 

After our rush to get there on time, the bus had a flat battery and wasn’t going anywhere. So there was much waiting and then changing to a new bus.

We had to change at coaches again at Gatwick and got the same funny driver from the morning. He recognised us (Lucinda is pretty distinctive) and said ‘you again!’

He kept referring to himself as Captain Simon and made funny announcements such as advising that if you wanted to use the onboard bathroom you needed to decide what you wanted to do before trying to enter.

I mostly slept on the way back. It had been a big skin breaking day.

What would I do if the pee stick turned blue?

I went to the pharmacy in Palmyra but the pharmacist did not speak much English he was like “women issue?” and I said “yes” and he produced a package of pads.

This was when the Lonely Planet guidebook came in handy as in the words at the back was the Arabic word for pregnant (not really surprising since one of the writers is a total breeder) so I was able to get him to understand what I wanted with having to start miming ‘I’m a stupid tart who had unprotected sex and wants to see if I am knocked up now’.

 

I don’t think I had much chance to get pregnant really as I doubt I was at the most fertile part of my cycle and he did pull out.

But I wanted to take a test as to me it seems like a kind of rite of passage to womanhood or something.  

 

It only counts of course if you actually have a chance of getting a positive result. So no peeing on a stick if the only chance of it having a thin blue line involves god and an immaculate conception! So I was glad of finally having the opportunity to do a test for reals.

 

I read you should wait until 19 days after the sex to test. I figured that I would end up getting my period before I could do a test.

But I didn’t so that’s how I ended up conducting the test like my own little science experiment in a hostel dorm room bathroom in Syria.

 

I waited until my roommate was out and seriously wondered if 6 hours concentration of urine was long enough.

The first challenge was that this was a collect a sample, then test version rather than just pee on the stick.

What was I going to collect the sample with?

So I had a MacGyver moment and cut a water bottle into a crude collection device.

With the sample collected I used the dropper provided to activate the test.

A few minutes of waiting and there it was.

A single purple line.

If purple ye see, no baby thar be!

 

I am not sure what I would have done if the pee stick had been blue, or two purple lines or whatever says ‘congratulations you have ruined your life’.

 

I am pro choice but that doesn’t mean that it would be an easy choice to make.

I mean I am a vegan, I believe in not killing animals. Shouldn’t that extend to any womb parasites I may be careless enough to conceive?

But at the same time I am pro choice because I wouldn’t want to force a woman to continue with an unwanted pregnancy the same way I don’t want animals to be forced to suffer in cages.

So I really would have had to think about my options.

 

I may have decided to continue with the pregnancy but not keep the kid (me being a mummy is really not an option).

But I have heard about morning sickness so bad that you are puking until you give birth. If I suffered that much I think I would be begging for a termination.

 

Then there are the stories I know about how bad labour can be (including the infamous ring of fire, my sister filled me in on that delightful detail!).

I suppose I would have to tell myself that perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad as long as they keep the drugs flowing (the hard stuff, straight into my veins).

 

I am very glad I don’t have to make any difficult decisions and solemnly swear not to be so stupid about protecting myself from potential babies in the future.

It is a relief that the test was negative, which I take to mean that I passed it!

Inflatable entertainment

I bought this balloon animal making kit in Hicksville (A place where one has to search for entertainment options, others in the local population got their inflated amusement from the neighbourhood topless bar…). I got the kit for a couple of bucks so it’s cheap fun. Plus it looked like a good, clean and wholesome form of amusement.

But I managed to change that. But believe me I didn’t even do it on purpose, it started purely as an accident. Honestly!

I started out just trying to make the classic French poodle.

My first problem was that the bubbles would not stay when I made them. They would easily undo on their own. I found I had to try and hold them until I could do the twist lock together bit and then they stayed as they should. After working that out it seemed that then it was all going well. I did the head and the front legs, that’s when I encountered a major problem. I found that I didn’t have enough slack in the balloon to twist the rest as any more bubble attempts would have resulted in a tragic poodle pup popping incident. So I did what I could and kinda folded it together.

I looked at my finished result and that’s when I (with my naturally dirty mind) discovered that it looks like its wanking a big dick!

Next I tried another chaste poodle in an appropriate pink balloon. I didn’t inflate it as much as the last. This didn’t work as I ended up with the opposite problem and didn’t have enough balloon inflated to finish the depressingly deflated dog, it looks like one of those dogs that’s missing their hind legs. I feel I should make it a little cart thing to pull around its back half in. but the instruction book didn’t come with directions for making that.

So I made a lucky shamrock instead.

But that was a bit tame after my previous efforts so I instead did this:

Now I figured that I wasn’t the only one with a deviant mind who would pervert the innocence of balloon art. So I did a quick search and discovered that I was right and there is in fact a whole book showing how to make lewd, crude and just plain rude balloons. Good to know I am not alone with my smutty skills.

Penguin hot water bottle cover

On the featured blog here on the front page of typepad one day there was the penguin books blog. The picture of the penguin inspired me to make another hot water bottle cover.

Yeah it’s taken me awhile since I actually started many months ago. But I finally finished it as it didn’t have much else to do but that which I had been putting off. Is boredom the solution to procrastination?

Not sure what to even do with it now since it is so hot here I have become accustomed to sleeping without even a top sheet on my bed. It would be better in cold climes when such penguin power could give you happy feet on a cold winter’s night.

And to be honest the image I had of how this birdie bedmate would turn out was slightly better than how it is in reality. Things tend to look better in my head…

Friend fine and shrinky success

Ok so Eggy emailed me and I phoned her so we are all good again.

This is a big relief as I was worried about our friendship.

Yay for good buddies!

My other success was with shrinking plastic.

I remember they used to have the shrinky plastic things in cereal boxes when I was a kid.

I wanted to try making some again. Yes I am all for reliving the fun of childhood.

I read online that instead of spending up large on shrinky dinks sheets I could use old yogurt containers.

The info was that the bottom was the part to use.

So I ate some lovely soy yogurt and then kept the containers.

Then I cut out the bottoms.

I drew (very badly but hey this is just a test run) and cut out shapes.

I put a bit of cardboard on an oven tray and carefully placed my shrinky bits on it.

I read the instructions for shrinky dinks to learn that I needed to heat them in the oven at 163C for a couple of minutes.

Then I let them cool while being very happy that it worked!

I can now consider all the things I can make with my free shrinky plastic.

Will have to be teeny tiny as the yogurt container bottoms are quite small but they are free and fun!

I feel some more crafty ideas coming on for this wench.