Old dog, old tricks

With the onset of the slightly colder weather, and the attendant need to use my heater, I have been happy to observe Minnie (now thankfully sans bucket after 6 weeks of R&R) up to her old trick of making a doggie tent when I dry my bath towel. Incidentally, I can highly recommend the technique of heating your towel before getting in the shower. Mmm cosy....

City of Ashes - Cassandra Clare

I put off reading the Mortal Instruments trilogy for so long.  I think I feared that it was going to be too similar to what I'm trying to achieve in my own writing and I didn't want to be influenced too heavily. But now I have read City of Bones and City of Ashes and I am completely hooked. I am carefully reserving City of Glass for my writing week holiday, in the same way that I am still hoarding my Easter eggs, trying to eke out their goodness for just a little bit longer...

Much to my pleasure I have also got work Kevin hooked as well, and we have being having frantic, excited conversations about it in between answering phones and shelving books. My reasons for loving these books are many, but they can be summarised as follows:

1) There are gays - hooray! My favourite character is Magnus Bane, the glittery, queeny warlock. What's more, the gay romances and desires in the plot are given as much weight as the straight ones.

2) I love the idea of Marks, and the idea of tracing elaborate runes on the skin that leave pale scars when they fade. I think this is a pretty clever idea as it taps into the current fascination with tattooing. Honestly, in my yoga class you're in the minority if you're not tattooed. 

3) Clare has a wonderfully elegant way of writing, and the books are full of beautiful descriptions of the sky and rivers and streets of New York. 

4) It has some seriously strong incestuous vibes. If it's good enough for George Lucas then it's good enough for me. I actually like things that make me go eeww! a little bit. I know people who have a major problem with the kissing cousin relationship in Meg Rosoff's How I Live Now, but please. It was wartime and everything was out of whack. Similarly in Clare's books there are extenuating circumstances. Jace and Clary ain't no Jenny and John Deaves. 

Kevin has also just finished City of Ashes so we've made some predictions and a wish list for the final book. Firstly, as enjoyable as the incestuous undertones have been, it's not going to be a surprise when it is revealed that Jace and Clary are not in fact brother and sister. Or when (maybe?) Luke and Clary's mum hook up. But our most fervent, fervent wish is that Magnus Bane and Alec have a Big Fat Gay Wedding, which of course will feature very amazing costumes, lots of vamps and werewolves and fairies, and plenty of glitter. 

Strange Fruit: Australian Finger Lime

One of my oh-so-many missions this year will be to eat more strange fruit. It has only just dawned on me that this is a mission. Last year Naz introduced me to the joys of longan, and Tash got me into mangosteens (steens? No idea what the plural should be for any of these fruit). This year I've already given honey plums and persimmon a go. So why not make Strange Fruit a project? 

In a way any fruit could be strange if you've never seen it before. I gave my nephew Archie a fig for his birthday a month or so ago, and it was as if I'd handed him the Holy Grail. He cradled that fig carefully in one hand  for the entire time we were at Collingwood Children's Farm. And, according to my sister, for quite a few days after. What a funny little man he is! Figs strike me as a disturbingly voluptuous fruit, but I've gotten used to them now that we have a tree and I pluck one every morning for breakfast. 

So yea verily thus - I present to you the Australian finger lime.  

I first saw these in the lovely fruit shop just down the road from my work, staffed by the lovely and informative Loretta, who told me that there are about four different types of indigenous limes in four different colours. I couldn't help but buy one. Admittedly their exterior is somewhat turdlike and unpromising. But inside..! Inside are tiny ultra-sticky green pearls separated into orderly compartments by membranes, just like in  regular citrus fruit. When you put these pearls in your mouth they explode, releasing a juice that is deceptively mild at first, but which soon hits you with cheek-puckering sourness. Mmmmm mmmm. I scooped them into my laksa, but apparently they go a treat in a G&T...

The Australian Finger Lime. 

The Afterlife

If there's a heaven - and unfortunately I'm pretty sure there's not - this is what it would be like:

Heaven would be a bed, a king-sized bed with crispy, cotton sheets; plump, squishy pillows and a light-as-air doona. And everyone would be wearing stretchy velvet hoodies and big satin shorts. And there would be a never-ending supply of piping-hot milky sugary tea served in satisfyingly large chunky mugs. And there would be buns. So many yeasty, spicy hot cross buns slathered with butter. And I would be right in the middle of reading a book I couldn't put down. And there most absolutely would not be a frigging annoying Weimaraner with abandonment issues next door barking his guts out.