The Mad Scorpion

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THE LOVELY BONES:

I watched this in tandem with Avatar the other night. I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed it!
I know reviews have been mixed, and I can see why, but I just thought it was good. Entertaining.
Not quite as… mmm, cohesive, and, mmm, satisfying as, say, Vincent Ward’s ‘What Dreams May Come’. I mean, that murdering creep deserved more comeuppance than that… Although his comeuppance was pretty crunchy.
And the script could have used a taaad more plotline to tie some bits together, buuuuuuuuuut… overall, I liked it!
THE LOVELY BONES RECEIVES A MAD SCORPION BLESSING.
DING!
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MY AMAZING GREAT-AUNTY ROSIE:
I wish I had a picture to post here, but I don’t.
My friend Anja was over from New York recently. I didn’t get the chance to catch up with her however because I had already planned a visit with my family to visit my amazing Aunty Rosie in Eltham.
…
My amazing Great Aunty Rosie was born in the year 1918.
Can you imagine that? Born in the year Nineteen-Eighteen… She really has lived through it all.
She is 92 years old, and if she manages to make it another 8 years, she’ll be a certified centurion.
Unfortunately, her health has started to fail a little over the last few years, but I have to say, she’s done INCREDIBLY well, and continues to do so.
Her vision is fine, she can still walk, still has all her faculties, all her intellect, personality, brain… She even still lives in the big old family homestead – a house even older than her – and won’t hear a word of living anywhere else, nor does any member of the family wish to remove her from it.
As long as she’s still capable, then everyone is fine with it. She is, of course, kept a good eye on, but I am afraid my days with her in my life might be shrinking rapidly. She has been in and out of hospital lately, with her heart not so strong and her breathing getting harder… She’s fine, but taking a little longer to get better when she gets sick these days. Poor, beautiful Aunty Rosie.
She is my mother’s aunt, and for as long as I can remember her and her sister, my Aunty Sylvia, were the wonderful duo of great-aunts who would drive down from Eltham in their just-as-old blue car ever so often, with lollies and money in tow.Aunty Sylvia, bespectacled and reserved; Aunty Rosie, constantly fussing and smiling. One of them sliding me some secret money, not to be shown to Mum, the other sliding me some money, with the same instructions.
For years and years she lived in the house she grew up in with her sister Sylvia, but after Aunty Sylvia’s death in 2003, Aunty Rosie has continued to live in their big old homestead.
They haven’t always lived in it, but just about. Around 85 of those years anyway.
I visited her on May 16th. Although I have seen her lots growing up, I haven’t been to her house since I was very young – let’s put it this way, I have almost no memory of it.
I have been very curious about this house, hearing all the tales about it. I have very vague memories of it, and I’ve seen photos of my Aunts in the garden, but I didn’t really have a clear picture of it in my head.
Although the outside was pretty much on par with the picture in my head (though the paint job was a lot newer than I had expected) it was the inside that really blew me away.
For one, it’s Huge. It’s got high ceilings, it’s wooden, and old, and steeped in history.
On seeing it, I began to worry immediately that it was exactly that. All those things about a house usually mean COLD IN THE WINTER. Her curtains weren’t nearly thick enough, some of her windows didn’t even have curtains (don’t panic, I’m talking about the kitchen and bathroom, which don’t always, but with a house like that…)… I was instantly more worried about Aunty Rosie than I ever have been.
I wouldn’t ever want her to live anywhere else if she doesn’t want to, but at the same time I couldn’t help but think of all the little ways I wanted to impose on her lifestyle to make things more comfy for her.
I hope she wasn’t too overwhelmed by us all actually. There was quite an influx of us at one point.
I went to sit in the (huge, all the rooms are HUGE) lounge and worked my way around all the photos on the walls and on tops of cabinets…
Although Aunty Rosie and Aunty Sylvia have always been constants in my life, I have to admit… my mother’s side of the family – apart from her brother – have never been a huge part of our lives.
I talked about my Nana Doris recently… After her death, some fairly awful things happened on that side of the family, and from a very young age, I turned my back on it. I kinda had to, just to get by.
To be fair, however, I gotta say… Pakeha folk just aren’t all that keen on their extended families.
Not all, but most. That side of the family are those type of folk, and to be honest… I don’t think we’re missing much. They’re all a bit weird really… But maybe that’s just because I don’t know them.
I don’t think it is, but anyway…
The house is amazing. Old, probably cold (although with all the heaters she has constantly running, she’s never actually cold), but amazing. Kinda like the quintessential farmhouse – all wooden, and with a verandah running round the outside, and big old windows, but in the middle of the suburbs.
It is sparkling white, with a huge front lawn, and an old old greenhouse that is mostly used for garden tool storage these days but still has RIPE grapes growing in it, and a back garden that is more like a back drop, with an overgrown, windy, steep path that heads down through the bushes, stopping intermittently to fork off in either direction that lead to little, flat, small garden banks, but continues to eventually end at the river. It is an amazing piece of land, that although isn’t that big, manages to contain a lot. Like a TARDIS lawn plot – All together now, “IT’S BIGGER ON THE INSIDE!”
It wasn’t exactly awash in colour at this time of year – it was mostly just lush, overflowing green – but I imagine in the summer that overgrowth is teeming with flowers…
As I went through her photos – all her black and white originals, from a time when capturing images had only just been invented – and saw her as a child, with her siblings (most of whom have died), as a young woman (abs and all), on the beach, with her mates, outside the landmark buildings of various cities around the country, graduating and becoming a nurse, amazing Morticia-like white streaks of hair appearing before it finally graduated to the all-white bun I’m familiar with… An entire lifetime spread before my eyes, crammed into these photo books, and all this before colour film had even been dreamt up…
It was quite an overwhelming experience really, and also, very gently, allowed the gates to that side of the family that I had kept shut for so long to finally open.
I was really… not forced but… swept in, to the fact that this was my history too. That this woman’s life runs through my blood (or at least would if my mother hadn’t been adopted).
Realistically, yeah, I could denounce that branch of my tree, simply because they are NOT blood. ...
But I am not stupid enough to believe that whanau is only blood. ‘Cause it isn’t.
Whanau, family, whatever you wanna call it… It is the people we know, the people we love, the people we were raised with… It doesn’t matter if those people have your blood in their veins, because you are still an integral part of who they are, and you are still in their system…
I am probably babbling a bit here, but… It has taken me a long time, and I’m finally beginning to accept… that I am made up of many things.
Maybe the blood roots aren’t there, but – and in a way this quite apt, and just like my cut-up and stitched-together spine – other branches have definitely grown and been grafted onto my tree.
I love my Aunty Rosie with all my heart, and I am glad she is, and will forever be, part of my family tree.
…
My friend Anja wanted to know more about Aunty Rosie, and what was her secret…
I don’t know what her secret is. Personally, I’m not sure I’d like to live that long (especially in this body, I already feel 80), but I imagine never having kids or getting married certainly kept a lot of fuel in the tank.
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THE NATION’S BUDGET, DELIVERED LAST WEEK:
….I know you’re expecting me to be all over this one. Ranting and raving like a mo-fo.
But I gotta tell ya… I’m still ingesting it all, and doing some thorough research before I open my trap to speak this time.
I know that the dreaded POLITICS monster is, so a Blogging Bible tells me, one of the ten commandments of blogging no-no’s, can be personally offensive to some people, and all the rest of it, but that’s just too bad because Me being Me, I’m going to say shit about shit I don’t like one way or the other, but… this time?...
And this will shock a lot of you…
I’m not so sure that I do don’t like it.
This shocks me a lot, because Me? And National? UGH. They disgust me to the core.
And yet… I’m not seeing a lot to not like so far…
Sure, it ain’t Great, I’ll give it that much, but…
Like I said, I have to think more before I go into this like I want to, but…
It currently has me in an intellectual tail-spin.
More news at 11…
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A BIT OF A DUNEDIN RANT:
I mentioned earlier that I have been missing Dunedin a bit lately.
It has been in my mind, in my dreams, in my thoughts.
I can picture in my mind vividly the city, the streets, the hidden pockets, the buildings, the beaches…
And when I do, I am flooded with good feelings, happy thoughts, etc.
I’m under no illusion that I was always happy while I was there, but when I try and think about Wellington in the same way, it doesn’t really fill me with the same feelings.
I get more of a “Meh” feeling with Welly. Take it or leave it.
Perhaps because I’m relatively fresh off the boat from living there, I’m sure the fact that my ex is there probably weighs in there somewhere – although, these days, not as much as they once would have, which is a nice revelation – but as a city it just isn’t all that inspiring for me.
Dunedin just has that magical creative vibe – or at least it used to when I was there, I’m hoping it still does – that Wellington… not so much.
In Wellington, the creative sector is quite… hmm, what word do I wanna use for this… industrailised? Not quite commercialised, I don’t mean that, but it is… a Business. And let’s face it, Wellington is very business oriented.
In Dunedin, the creative sector is everywhere, high class, low class, and everyone appreciates everything. Not only that, the amount of quality, council funded public street art that pours through the Octagon at almost every opportunity that comes along earns it bonus points just on that alone.
Plus, Dunedin has Thai Hanoi restaurant, which makes one of my two favourite dishes ever.
TANGENT!
The first of my favourite dishes ever comes from Cinta Malaysian Kitchen Restaurant in Wellington.

They make this DELICIOUS Sweet and Sour Tofu, BUT you have to eat it wrapped in roti bread with coconut rice and their amazing satay sauce… It is the BEST.

I have been going in there to get it sporadically since 1996, to the point that the old man who runs it (who I’m afraid might have died because I don’t see him in there when I go anymore, I hope not!) calls out “Hello My Friend! You want your tofu, yes?”

My second favourite dish ever comes from Thai Hanoi Restaurant in Dunedin,

and it is Seafood Claypot Rice, and Oh My God… It is Also the BEST.
Whichever city I lived in, I was constantly craving the dish from the other.
Man life is hard sometimes…
ANYway. What was I saying?
Ah, yes. How much I’m missing Dunedin…
There are many reasons I’m living where I am right now. But when I think about where I’ll live next, Dunedin feels like a good choice.
…except for the cold.
I miss ski-suits, but I don’t miss having to wear them.

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FRITTERS:
I have been on a real Fritter buzz lately. I rediscovered them last week, and by god if they aren’t the easiest thing to whip up.
What’s better, is that in rediscovering the fritter, I am realising their potential for greatness.
This week, I’m going to provide my FIRST EVER RECIPIE!
Here’s a nice comfort food dinner that, of course, you can twist and turn however you like.
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THE BASICS:
1 cup Flour,
½ - ¾ cup of Milk – it pays to add ½ cup first, then add a bit more if necessary,
1 Egg,
1 ½ tspn Baking Powder – don’t be stingy or exact about this. There’s never any harm in fluffy-ER fritters.
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That’s the base for any self respecting fritter. And here’s where you can get interesting. These are my current flavourite additions:
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½ cup (roughly) diced, fried chicken fillet
¼ cup mixed veggies
¼ cup corn
A handful of chopped basil
Some shakes of pepper, ½ tspn salt
A crumbling of vegetable stock (optional, but delicious).
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Mix to a good consistency – not too thick, not too runny.
Add large spoonful-sized amounts to a hot, oily frying pan, and flatten out the mixture to make them round and not too thick.
Fry ‘til little bubbles start popping in the middle – or until the underside is golden brown, you don’t wanna burn them stoopid – and them flip ‘em over. Keep frying ‘til the other side is golden and
WA LAH.
Perfect winter night dinner.
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Before you start the Fritters, just dice a couple potatoes, salt and pepper ‘em, veggie stock ‘em, basil ‘em (I love Basil in just about everything), oil ‘em, and chuck ‘em in the oven on 200°, and by the time your Fritters are done, you’ve got chips mate.
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Next, smother it all in whatever sauce you’ve got on hand (I don’t recommend Watties Tomato Sauce for this, I’m talking Sweet Chilli, or Sweet and Sour) and you’ve got the perfect winter nights meal.
NUM NUM.

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