freezing

the temperature doesn't look too bad on that graph but that's cuz that graph doesn't show the freezing cold wind chill. for some reason the melbourne radar doesn't show the wind chill anymore but both the essondon and tullamarine airports show the wind chill being between 0-1.5 C so it is actually freezing outside (and has been for 2 days now). i rode home from work at 1pm and my ears were frozen in the 5 minute ride (i didn't think i'd need my headband over my ears in the middle of the day). i tried to take the dog for a quick walk, didn't wear gloves and my hands were frozen. me and the dog are spending the rest of the day cuddled in the lounge room with the heater on. can't wait to get up to queensland in a few days!

sport

this weekend was a weekend of sports. saturday nite we went to see the melbourne ice play at the new "icehouse" arena in docklands. much nicer than where they used to play in south oakleigh (? i think that's where it was). we were really surprised at the crowd they pulled. it's a 1000 seat venue and we had to stand along with probably 50-100 other people! unfortunately it was melbourne's first loss at their new home rink but it was good to watch some hockey. hopefully we'll make it back again this season (it had been more than 4 years since the last time we saw them play. this rink is a lot more convenient to get to though-- we just need arrive more than 10 minutes before the game starts if we want seats though).



the age even had an article about ice hockey in the sports section today.
after the game we walked down the road to where the canada club was celebrating canada day (a few days early since thursday won't be a public holiday here). we missed most of the celebrations cuz the event had been going on all day (we just hadn't made it down before the hockey game) but still fun to see everyone in red and white and have a beer.
today we went to the community cup for the first time. i think we'll have to make a point of going again. it was an entertaining game of footy between the espy rock dogs and the RRR/PBS megahertz (who won by 1 point on the final buzzer). although as the commentator said "i think football was the real loser today, maybe ice hockey was the winner"-- a lot of muddy sliding around the oval, missing the ball, passing to the wrong team.... but all very entertaining and for a good cause. we didn't make it early enough to see any of the bands before the game and we had to leave right after the game but we did see the living end at half time (although we were paying more attention to all the cute dogs running around the oval than the music)

poor whales

the other afternoon one of the children started talking to my co-worker about whales. he was saying something about his dad being naughty when he fishes because he might catch a whale (he's not usually very clear when telling us things so we're not exactly sure what he was saying cuz his dad isn't a commercial fisherman or anything). my co-worker asked him if he knew there were some people meeting to talk about fishing whales (he didn't) and then she asked if he wanted to write a letter to them to let them know that fishing whales is bad. he thought that was a great idea. i think he got a bit confused though cuz he kind of addressed the letter to whales and then added in "to the meeting boys" at the end. the letter is a bit hard to read in the photo but it says:

Dear Whales and the meeting boys,
I think you are sad because you are getting fished. And the whale from Little Mermaid. She tried to save the whale.
No whales have to get fished. Because they will die.
My sign (on my picture) says NO.
I'm thinking with my picutre and pencil does that.
From, ------

i didn't get a photo of his picture but it was a great drawing of a whale. after he finished his picture and dictating the letter he went around the room trying to get other children to sign the letter or make a picutre. by the end of the day we had about 10 pictures of whales to go with the letter so my co-worker made it into a display in the hall. she was a little worried about getting all political with the children but it was all the children's ideas.

4 seasons

the overnite low was 13C. the low for today was 8C (just before 11am). it's now 12.6C (at 12:45pm). the rain and wind that came with that temperature drop was amazing. we didn't go outside with the children this morning cuz of that. now it's blue sky and sunny. why can't melbourne weather make up it's mind?

liquid chocolate

we wandered up to high st. today (we haven't done that in a long time) and ended up at cocoloco. my kleopatra's brew was the perfect drink for a cold, grey day: dark chocolate with orange flavours and kashew milk. zac got a coco lust (i think)- white chocolate and kashew milk (and possibly some other flavouring?). we may have to make more trips there this winter (we used to go there quite regularly). so good and rich and chocolate-y. perfect on a winter day.
high street is great for wandering- lots of bookshops, cafes and pubs to spend the afternoon in. apparently a new vegan cafe is opening soon near the wesley anne. zac was at a gig at a sock shop (? that was zac's description of what the shop was) last nite and apparently they're closing down and it will become a vegan cafe. we'll have to keep watching for that.

Dog at work

I'm not even sure if she knows what she's doing up there. She jumped up there herself after "talking" to me for 10 min from the floor.

Here is a video of her "talking" shortly before she jumped up on my lap- it's fairly dark but you can hear her talk.

those growls are some of the most intimidating growls she does. often her growls are even more whiney, like she's trying to talk .

The view

This is the view from the back door. We found a couple marrow bones in the park 2day. She's a very happy dog and has taken them 2 her house 2 chomp on.

(this post was from a few weeks ago-- i was trying to publish it from blogger on my mobile. it didn't work but i guess it was stored somewhere in the phone and published today when i published the post above)

chocolate and lettuce

i forgot how much i loved timtam slams in the morning. i haven't had a timtam since i went fully vegan over a year ago. i don't even think i've had any of the vegan versions of them since i went vegan (before i went vegan zac would bring them home but usually he just used the "too good for share" line and made me get me own non-vegan timtams). zac brought home a packet of Choculence cookies the other day. best vegan "timtam" ever! the past 3 days i've had a much needed chocolate cookie with my coffee in the morning. soooo good.
that chocolate helped me thru the conference i was at all day yesterday. i had to fight the special dietary requirements "soup nazi" lady all day for my food (it was the same woman last year and she is pretty much the soup nazi of special dietary requirement meals-- like anyone who could eat the other food would choose the big salad or gluten free cookies). for some reason, the catering people decided vegans didn't need a special morning tea even though the pastries on the table were definitely not vegan. only gluten free people had special cookies labeled with their names. i managed to get the last spare plate of gluten free cookies after i got the soup nazi to go back and confirm that they were also egg and dairy free (she kept trying to hand them to me saying "gluten free, gluten free" even though i'm on her list as "vegan"). i kept repeating i can eat gluten. i can't have egg and dairy. eventually, she went in the back with the plate and came back a minute later saying "no egg or dairy" (so hopefully she was telling the truth and not just trying to make me go away). for lunch we had a large bowl of salad and that was it. no protein, no carbs just lettuce, tomato, onion, artichoke and beetroot. it tasted ok but if i hadn't had my bag of nuts and dried fruit i would have been very hungry. Why do catering companies think all that vegans eat is salad (and there were at least 5 or 6 names on the list that had vegan next to them)???? my coworker who is vegan and gluten intolerant was smart and brought her own sandwich to go with her large salad. i do put on the conference evaluation form every time this happens that the food was poor and vegans need food other than salad but i'm sure that info rarely gets passed on to caterers. i think it was more disappointing at the last conference which was a sustainability conference that was completely catered with vegetarian food but still, all the vegans got for lunch was salad while everyone else had wraps that were vegan other than the cheese. could they not have made some cheese-free wraps for the vegans??? at least then we would have had some carbs to help fill us up. maybe i just need to get more organized and just pack my own meals and snacks when i go to these things.

eggplant bhurta and cravings

we had 1 small eggplant that was starting to go past it's prime sitting in the fridge and needed to be used for dinner last nite. it wasn't big enough to make eggplant parma with so i flipped through some cookbooks for ideas and decided on eggplant bharta from la dolce vegan. it was quick, easy and was really tasty. i love all the spices in this indian dish. next time i might try it with quinoa instead of brown rice, just to add more protein.
i also made chocolate pudding for dessert. i hadn't made chocolate pudding in ages and ever since a co-worker was talking about it last week i've been craving it. now that craving is satisfied but i have a new one (and no i'm not pregnant)-- i want to try a grilled 'cheese' and asparagus sandwich. i ran into a co-worker yesterday on sydney rd. just as she was heading to radical grocery for the first time (she's vegan and wheat intolerant and i've been telling her to check out radical grocery for ages and she finally made it there yesterday). she sent me a text today saying how excited she was to have grilled 'cheese' and asparagus sandwiches for the first time in 10 years now that she has cheezely. i've never had asparagus on my grilled cheese. it sounds like it would be really good though. i have cheezely but no bread or asparagus and i'm to lazy to do anything about that this afternoon.

please sign

below is a link to sign a petition. this petition is to get the government to fund the one effective treatment available for the life-threatening disease PNH. it is a rare but life threatening disease that basically causes red blood cells to be destroyed. this causes major health issues that can lead to death (35% of PNH patients die within 5 years of diagnosis if they don't receive effective treatment). zac's cousin's wife was diagnosed with PNH in january (2 months before her and her husband were married). she has had to undergo several blood transfusions since diagnosis and was depending on the one drug treatment that is known to effectively manage PNH to be funded by the government in this year's budget. the government did not provide that funding for the 70 australians who have been diagnosed with this disease. the PNH support group is petitioning parliament to pass legislation to give PNH suffers access to life-saving treatment. the age (as well as other newspapers and online news sources) printed an article on this issue.

click HERE to sign the petition. (the petition is only for Australian citizens)

cold

it's 6C out right now. it's supposed to get to 20C today. i'll believe it when it happens. for some reason the weather people keep putting the day's high about 2 degrees above what it actually gets to. they've been doing it for the last couple weeks. why do they get my hopes up? why don't they just put the high at 2C lower and then we'll all be surprised when it gets warmer than predicted. at least even if it gets to 18C today, that's reasonably warm if i stay in the sun.

velo

velo cycles came to my rescue again today. this morning i realized part way to work i had a flat tire again (this is the second one in 2 weeks plus a third time where i pulled the valve off the tube while pulling off my bike pump-- i'd only had 1 other flat on this bike before this month). i decided just to lock it up and walk the rest of the way. i picked it up on the walk home for lunch and after eating i decided to try to fix it (i still had 15 minutes before i would have to start walking back if i didn't finish fixing it). the hole was really easy to find so i patched it, checked for sharp pieces in the tire and quickly re-assembled it. i was only gonna be a couple minutes late getting back from lunch but as i was riding in my bike was bumping up and down. i had a quick look but couldn't figure out what i'd done wrong so i called work and said i was gonna be a bit late cuz i was going to go a block out of my way and take my bike to velo. i went in and the guy noticed right away i hadn't put the tire on the rim right. he deflated the tube, fixed it and re-inflated it on the spot (and added a bit of air to the front tire as well) . velo is really good like that (i've seen other people walk in with quick issues they've fixed right there and they've replaced a snapped gear cable for me on my way in to work). so glad our closest bike shop is a really good one (they also sell microcosm bike related t-shirts, patches and stickers which is really cool and they used to have pamphlets about with reasons to go vegetarian on the counter)

nachos 'n' cheesecake

i couldn't be bothered cooking last nite so we decided to stop by the east brunswick club for dinner on our way home from our afternoon wandering sydney rd. i convinced zac that he would be full if we split the nachos and then got dessert (we've never had dessert there because every time we go, we're too full from dinner and don't hang around long enough afterwards to be hungry enough for dessert). i was impressed with the nachos but i didn't get any photos cuz the room was extremely dark (and i realized we were sitting in the darkest corner of the dark room). i can't even say exactly what was on them, cuz it was so dark: beans, jalapenos, salsa, corn, guacamole, vegan cheese and sour cream.... they were good-- and loaded with toppings. for dessert i went with the berry "cheese"cake and zac went with the chocolate coconut "cheese"cake. it was one of the best vegan cheesecakes i've had. it even had a cream cheese aftertaste to it. sooooooo good i really didn't want to finish my beer afterwards and wash away the cheesecake taste (i did though). we'll just have to go back again so i can get more cheesecake. fortunately we have some omni friends who have been saying they want to go back to the east with us and it didn't work out this weekend so maybe next weekend will have to go back with them.

smoked tofu

i was inspired by this post and decided to make smoky vegan lasange tonite (no photos cuz i didn't take any before i cut it up and i can't cut and serve things like lasange without slopping them everywhere--there are good photos on both links though). i've had smoked tofu at CERES and forgot that i really liked it. i've never actually cooked with it though. when i was reading through the recipe the woman stated that her husband commented that it tasted a bit like smoked salmon (and it sounded like he is an omnivore t00). i loved smoked salmon and i thought how can tofu taste smoked salmon-y? i tasted a bit as i was crumbling it--- wow, it is like smoked salmon!! i think i've found a new favourite food. the flavour worked great in the lasange.

case moth

this case moth lives at work:

one of the children found it one afternoon last week. the 2 afternoon staff didn't know what it was but one of the other children told them it was a case moth. the teacher (very gently) squeezed the case a bit and decided it was empty so they brought it inside. the next day i noticed it sitting on the edge of the counter. i asked one of the staff about it and asked her if that was where they put it when they brought it in (it wasn't-- the larva inside had moved the case along). i took it outside and just placed it in a large planter box of lavender. a couple days later we noticed it attached to lavender near where i'd placed it. today it was hanging from the outside of the planter box on the opposite end (about 2m or more from where it was last week)-- that's where i took the photo above.
a bit later, i was standing near it with some children and it popped its head out! i've never actually seen the larvae before, just their amazing cases.
it carefully unattached it's case from the wall so it could move. unfortunately a gust of wind came past and knocked it to the ground. that scared it and it went in its case. we moved it back into the box so it could come out and move when it felt safe.