just a day in the life

Upon viewing the movie the Avengers.

Me: Would you be mad if a god came down disguised and impregnated me?
Shawn: Do I get to raise the child as my own?
Me: Sure, until the day he's aware of his parentage.
Shawn: But he'll always respect me for the humanity I gave him.

Other married couples have conversations like this, right?

I've got a Crush(er) on you.

When my brother and I were little, we were often left to our own devices.  While my dad 'watched golf' (he was sleeping in his chair, but if you even LOOKED at the tv controller, he'd wake up) my brother and I would invent games; The Game of Tip the Boat (it had a theme song- we can still sing it), The Australian Doo-Doo Plant (not so much a game as a weird concoction of sticks and leaves), and Sargent Slaughter and the Slaughter House, to name a few.  I'm sure my parents will take credit for our now completely awesome imaginations.....

But on Saturday nights, when my dad wasn't watching golf, we'd be watching Star Trek: The Next Generation.  And on Star Trek: TNG, they had a food replicator, and we were fascinated by it.  So fascinated, that one time when we were left to our own devices, and I was making us lunch, I made us a drink that we decided would be perfect for Star Trek.  The Boctanian Fizz.

Recipe for Boctanian Fizz:

• 1 cup of Sprite or Diet Sprite
• 1 Orange-Flavored Flintstone's Push-Up Pop

Directions:

• Pour Sprite into a cup, or a mug, or a glass.
• Take Orange-Flavored Flinstone's Push-Up Pop out of freezer
• Peel off wrapper and lick it, because they are tasty (really, don't waste it.)
• Push the entire Orange-Flavored Flintstone's Push-Up Pop out of the container.  Note: you may have to warm it a little with your hand.
• Watch it fizz.
• Enjoy.

"Artists" rendering of Boctanian Fizz.

 Of course, it goes to say, if you're making up drinks for a t.v. show you're watching, you're probably pretty into that show.  And twenty some odd years later when that show is now on PRIME TIME in the country you just moved to (seriously, back to back episodes on thursdays) and you're watching it, you're STILL pretty into that show.  so when Wil Wheaton was scheduled to host the video game symphony i was going to and make a stop at a convention Pop Culture EXPO in Melbourne, I lost my mind a little bit.

For those of you who are unaware of who Wil Wheaton is, he played the plucky Wesley Crusher, son to the medical officer, Beverly, on Star Trek:TNG.  Not only did Wesley get to wear a whole host of different Star Trek onesies, but! he also DROVE THE ENTERPRISE.  TAKE THAT.

Do you kiss Beverly Crusher with that mouth?

Anyhow, apparently Wesley was quite the dreamboat even though I'm not sure I ever noticed because I was too busy also watching Seaquest: DSV and trying to figure out how I could marry Jonathan Brandis.  To this day, I am heartbroken over his death.  I'm not even kidding.

Smouldering glare.  Yowza!

(If you can gather, I had a pretty busy childhood...making up games, cooking all my own meals - aka ice cream and soda - and watching nerd tv.)

So first off the Video Game Symphony was pretty good.  Well, Wil Wheaton and two other guys who I have no idea who they were, were hosting and they were pretty good.  And if you've ever played Final Fantasy 7 and secretly right out in the open dreamed of hearing One-Winged Angel done by a symphony and live choir, that right there kids was worth the price of admission. (seriously, I giggled through the whole thing...epic.)  After that, I was pretty psyched up for Supanova.

Even though I am fairly into what society might consider geekery (look, if you want an explaination why, my mom got us a nintendo and my dad had the whole xanth series), this would be my first "pop culture expo" ever.  Shawn tried to prep me and told me I was not allowed to judge people.  I think, in my own defense here, I was not "judging" people, but there are two things I do not like about geekery and they are as follows:

Devon Presents: Things that bother me about cons:
1) I hate it when people are really loud about being a nerd.  You are in an anime costume, do you have to SCREAM about it?  no.  Actually, please stop LITERALLY screaming.   Much like a rabbit, I am easily jostled by loud, startling noises.
2) It would be really sweet to live in Hogwarts (or on the Enterprise) but we don't.  Because THOSE PLACES ARE NOT REAL.  So also, stop doing 'muggle quiddich" and pointing wands and being like "ACCIO!"  the only thing that will "accio" to you, is my foot to your kneecap.

But DEVON, you say, need we mention all of your completely epic and awesome Halloween costumes?  (ha, they totally are, right?) Halloween doesn't bug you?

To answer your question dear friend, no, Halloween is a time for living out your costumed fantasies and mine all happen to be becoming video game and cartoon characters.  Also, on Halloween, I didn't get mad at Shawn for being the cold miser and ruining halloween with a snow storm, because shawn was not really the snow miser.  (isn't he though?)

Side Bar: I do give cred to EVERYONE who makes their own costumes and wears them to cons (or halloween!).  The level of detail some people go into is amazing, and I appreciate it, I just don't appreciate it when you are throwing "Hadoukens" around like they're real.  And when you ARE doing that, you usually are not watching where you are going and you walk into me.  And anyone who's been around me ever, knows I hate hate haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate being walked into.  It's a constant reminder of me being short.

Moving on.

It actually wasn't too bad.  I didn't run into too many people who were screaming, and not too many people who were actually believing they were chewbacca. 

But there was one little Obi Wan, (themostadorablechildever.) and his run in with R2D2.

Completely filled with awe and wonder.

How does this work?

Every child, when they still think maybe the force is us all (who am I kidding, I tried to get to Narnia in my bathtub, no lies), should be able to have an experience where they still get to believe in the wonder of fantasy.  This was too cute for words.  (Furthermore, I'm still not convinced people CAN'T get to Narnia, but I'm pretty sure you have to be British.  And Shawn has made it abundantly clear that unicorns will never again come to me if I call for them, which I think is the meanest thing he's ever said.)

We decided to get my ticket to get my Wil Wheaton ticket first.  You had to pay separately for picture and signature, so I chose picture, because being next to Wil Wheaton is much cooler than just having him sign things and also anyone who's ever been around me knows my penchant to say STUPID SH*T TO MINOR CELEBRITIES the more time I have to talk to them.  I met Bruce Campbell once, and I YELLED at him.  Not in an excited way, in a i'm-tired-and-cranky-and-my-feet-hurt-could-you-just-sign-this-already?  Admittedly, HE was cranky first, but I don't think that makes it better.  And actually, me saying stupid things is not wholly related to celebrities.  When I am nervous, I say weird things.  For instance, when at a second interview for a job, I met with the boss of the office and she asked how I liked meeting with the other two people, and I said "Well, if they had a baby, it would be me."

Please just mull over that for a minute.

And also keep in consideration, i GOT the job.

Hey, I'm number 156!

 Anyway, photos were more safe.  But I wanted to say something like "Hey, thanks for all the really cool memories for me and my dad." Because it really has. But I thought that might sound weird.  I decided on saying "Hey, it's really awesome to meet you."  which was safe and I said it without stumbling for the most part, and then Wil said "Awww that's so nice!"  The *Snap* goes the picture and done.

For the record Shawn made me go in alone, another thing I don't like doing (<----safety in numbers person). But I think I did okay on my own.

A picture of my picture.  Which is on my fridge, next to an advert about the LOTR symphony and a video game expo.  oh there really IS no escaping this now that I've opened the flood gates, is there?

We went to see him talk, and he gave some great anecdotes about working in the industry for so long and read some things from his blog.  He had a really great question and answer session and kindly reminded Australians that they don't need to make up drop bears, they can just tell us about the actually scary size of cars spiders.  It was not Fanboy-y at all, much to my relief.  

After that was over, Shawn and I thought we might drop in on the Weasley Twins lecture.  Maybe they'd talk about their experience on set or what it was like to be in a multi-series movie.  Y'know things that might actually be fascinating.  But instead we got questions like this:

"Sooooooo, what's it like to be dead?"
"Um, what's your favorite animal?"
"If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?"

I felt like I was reading an issue of Tiger Beat.

NO ONE cares about you TIFFANI!! Jonathan and I are about to go SHOPPING.

  While sitting in the audience, Shawn and I thought of our own questions:

Me: "If you had to fight to the death, RIGHT NOW, who would win?  Also, fight to the death.  right now."
Shawn: "So you guys are like, twins right?  Do you sleep in twin beds?"

We also skadoodled out of there as fast as we could.  not that the questions weren't interesting.  (It was weird to be dead, penguins and Australia, respectively) it's just the questions.  weren't.  interesting. 

We did other things while we were there, we shopped a bit and no big deal, we SAT IN THE DELORIAN!

Gonna go back in tiiiiiiiieeeeemmmmeeee

please note the cardboard hubcaps.

 All in all my first con was not that scary and I got to meet Wil Wheaton.  Shawn tells me cons are more impressive in the states, and there's more things to do.  So maybe when I get back, I'll check one out.  Stranger things have happened, I never thought I'd move to Australia either.

Party on the Poo Porch!

Just so everyone is aware.  This is what I'm doing.  On a Friday Night.  At 1am.  (and yes, i agree.  the spice girls are best as spoken word.)  PS jack your audio up, though the dance party is loud in person, it's less noticeable on the flip.

I bet you wish you all lived here with me....IN THE 1990's!  (enter here Brunswick joke that no one will get.)

Other popular hits include:

Love Shack
Coco Jamboo
Daft Punk
and...TEENAGE DIRT BAG?  Touche, Australia, I respect you for that one.  and everyone who is singing along right now.  and if you're not?  you don't know what you're missin'.

Apple Core, Who's it For?

Chain Gang.

To state the complete obvious, Australia is different from the United States.  I know this shouldn't come a shock to some of you, but there are so many things we take for granted in the United States that when you arrive in another country, is a complete culture shock.
Let's take grocery shopping for example.  First off, you're only buying for the week, which is a hard habit to get into for someone who basically went once a month. And because Shawn's 'thriftiness' has invaded my mind, I refuse to pay to get a grocery cart.  Yeah, you pay for one.  You put your little coin in (like a dollar or two dollar coin) and then you get to use the cart.  Want your little coin back?  You return the cart.  It seems a little uncivilized to me, but maybe that's because I'd never actually steal a grocery cart, because I am a rule follower, and thoughts like stealing grocery carts do not enter into my mind. (does that enter anyone's mind?)  Also, it does not matter to me that I get the coin back.  it's the PRINCIPAL. So mostly, I just use the baskets (which you DON'T have to pay for) and pretend I am working on my muscles by lugging around pounds of meat and litres of milk.  (I will be ripped and I will call them my milk muscles)

Another thing I've taken for granted is the ability to get foods I like.  You think, oh yeah they're going to have new foods (I'm talking to you Vegemite) but they are totally going to have things like hot dogs (rare) grape jelly (yeah that's not happening) and apple sauce.  (WHAT?  NO APPLESAUCE?).  Okay, Australia, I will give you the first two, but applesauce seems, i dunno, universal? 
In my inability to create the first two items (no, I am not making my own hot dogs lest I never eat hot dogs again and let's be honest, I don't even think grape jelly is made from normal ingredients <----pretending hot dogs are....) I decided I was going to make some applesauce.  The fact that it NEVER OCCURRED to me that I could make my own applesauce just goes to prove, I am a lazy, lazy girl.  I also figured I'd need a food mill to do this, and then I realized me and my super hand blender (seriously, it's my favorite thing) can accomplish anything together!

My Lovely Apple Purchases.

So at the Farmer's Market, I got approximately a dozen 6 million gala apples for $2.  Since Shawn sometimes eats fruit (re: only fruits that contain the word "apples") and sometimes does not eat fruit (re: every other fruit in the universe and sometimes apple-fruits), I started to worry about my growing fruit collection.  But I felt like using one apple was boring, and besides, I also have a bag of granny smith apples, and applesauce seemed like a better idea than me trying to make an apple crisp or apple crumble (it's FALL here!!) because of all my oven drama.  (STUPID STUPID OVEN.)

Anyway, I found a recipe online and doubled it because I wanted to make SO MUCH APPLESAUCE.  I also took out the sugar (yeah stop judging) and replaced it with Splenda.  That box was approximately $45.  I am not kidding.

Yes, I used a knife.  All by myself. 

I prepped all my little apples and y'know, I think granny smiths are very pretty.  That's sort of a weird thing to think.  But I don't think I ever realized the inside of granny smiths were that different in color to a red skinned apple.  Whatever, it's my blog, if I want to think they're pretty, I will.    

I added the apples, some cinnamon, the $17 of Splenda and some water. Then into a pot to simmer with a lid.

Cauldron of delicious apples

Sufficiently mushed.

BLENDED Y'ALL.

All in all, I think it came out pretty good.  I think Shawn does not like it, because of the cinnamon (and because it's still in the fridge) so if I make another batch for him, I'll leave it out.  But I think it's tasty, if not a bit too watery.  So less water next time and probably make it chunkier.  Because just like peanut butter, applesauce with chunks is better.  (is that a controversial statement?)

This realization that I could make my very own applesauce has empowered me.  Yeah, it's just applesauce, to you non-applesauce making noobs.  But, I'm like...I'm like....like A PIONEER WOMAN!  I AM FORDING THE RIVER.  I AM NOT DYING OF DIPHTHERIA!  MY OXEN ARE STILL ALIVE!  I MADE IT ALL THE WAY TO OREGON AUSTRALIA!   

Somewhere, I'm sure Martha Stewart is very proud of me.  Well, she's probably not, she's probably rolling around in a pile of money or something, which is what I'D be doing if I were Martha Stewart (rolling around in a pile of money in a homemade, decoupaged money bin, FYI).  I really do wonder if I could make grape jelly though.  Maybe I can get Jesalyn to give me some tips since she's the Jelly Queen.  I'm not sure that's a flattering monicker.  But I like it.  

Tears in the Library.

My Library Discovery:

Oh hai.  I'm a huntsman.  I'm the size of your HAND.

My reactions were the following:

"ohmygod."
"How would you even KILL that thing?"

Then i literally started to dry heave and had the leave the library.  I dry heaved for the next 10 minutes.  

Kudos to me for not running out of the library screaming.