Impossible!

I am in awe of impossible pie.

If someone actually said:  "look, just make a custard and chuck in a cup of coconut and half a cup of flour and it will turn itself into a pie..."

Well, that would sound ridiculous, wouldn't it?  Impossible, almost.

But that happens!  You just make some gloop that basically involves putting coconut and flour into custard and poor the gloop into a pie dish, and then physics makes a pie!  The coconut rises to the top to form a crust, the flour sinks to the bottom to form a base, and the custard hangs around the middle for form a filling.

It's amazing!

It's also delicious, and is completely unfazed by replacing the flour with a gluten-free substitute.  I made one on the weekend using a straight swap - half a cup of gluten-free flour for half a cup of plain flour.  You couldn't tell it wasn't made with normal flour.  The magic pastry looked, tasted and felt just fine.

It's magic!  Impossible!  Good.

Siin me oleme (Here We Are)

Siin me oleme

I watched the weirdest movie I have ever seen last week.

It was an Estonian film from the late 70's about a bunch of crazy city folk who turn up at a farm full of crazy country folk and then do nothing at all, really.

It was basically a bunch of sight-gags stretched out into sketches and then stitched together into a plot.

And it made no sense at all.

Things would happen, and there was no reason for them to happen.  Occasionally, this would lead to other weird things happening, but mostly the new weird things were somewhat independant of the old weird things.

Plot lines suddenly disappeared as if they never existed.  New storylines would appear from nowhere.  I found myself constantly gesticulating at the TV saying "What are you doing?  Why are you doing that?  Who are you people?"

There were characters who had no back story.  Of the three city folk who turned up, one was never explained.  She was just in the car with the others, and apparently brought along specifically to be a gorgeous red-head (in a wig).  Who was she?  Was she a daughter?  A sister?  A friend?

Why did she flounce around and flirt shamelessly for the first half of the film, and then suddenly turn into a sharp-witted shrew in the second half?

Where did all the other people on the farm come from whenever an audience was needed for the fat city woman to do something ridiculous?  Where did they all go in the meantime?

At one point I wasn't sure if the farmer's wife was talking to the cow she was milking or the fat city woman.  Then again, the lipsyncing was so bad I wasn't sure who was talking half the time.

And then there were the musical numbers.  They came out of nowhere, lasted for approximately two verses, and then disappeared.  And they weren't like musical numbers you get in normal musicals - where the song expresses part of what's going on in the character's life at that point.  It was more like the characters were just bursting into song because they had a tune in their head at that point in time, and decided to sing it out loud (with magical musical accompaniment).

Much like an average day in office for me, but still a bit weird for a movie.

The whole thing was a bit crazy-pants, to be honest.  Yet strangely compelling.  Nothing much was happening at all, but I had to keep watching to see what would happen next.

Another unnecessary bike...

Can I be considered to have a collection of novelty bicycles if I currently only have two?

Yes, I also have a couple of "normal" bicycles, so I could be considered to have a collection of bikes.  I also have a couple of unicycles so I could be considered to have a collection of novelty cycles.

If you include the Micro scooter, I clearly have a collection of human powered vehicles (although I feel I should buy a trike or a rickshaw to flesh out that claim - or maybe a canoe).

But, novelty bicycles?  I've just got the penny farthing and a folding bike.

Some may not consider folding bikes to be novelty bikes, they're just bikes that do a specific thing.  But seeing as most people who see the Brompton for the first time regard it as a bit of a novelty, I'm willing to say:  folding bike + antique replica bike = almost a collection of novelty bikes.

However, part of me is sure a collection should have at least three things in it.  Which may be one of the reasons why I want this, even though I already have a folding bike:

Or maybe I just want it because it sits in that lovely space between art and bike.

I look at most folding bikes and say "the Brompton has a much better fold", but the IF Mode just looks pretty, so I almost don't care.

Mind, the Brompton does have a much better fold...

I just need to find a spare AU$3000-$4000 to spend on something that's not going to be as good as the thing I already own.

Naked

I thought I'd include a nude photo of myself in this post, just to see who's still paying attention.  Then I remembered I don't have any nude photos of myself since the age of oh, about 10 months, and I'm happy for it to stay that way.

Also, I'm not digitising those naked baby photos, so you'll just have to do without.

This post is on body image, hence the reference to nudity.

I had an interesting moment the other day when I thought "well, I'm 34 and I think I'm finally having the 20s I would have wanted if I was paying attention."

This is for various reasons, in terms of lifestyle, career and extra-curricular activities.  When I was in my 20s I was an overweight couch potato who barely had any hobbies that got her away from books and computer screens.

I'm much more active, now, and I have a physique to match.  At my worst, in my 20s, I was hovering at about 95-98k.  For the past few years I've been hovering steady at 75-78.  At the same time, my muscle definition has been improving, so even though I haven't lost much weight over the past three years I think I'm still replacing flab with muscle, so I regard my current weight as "not so bad".

I still have a fair amount of flab to shift - which, as is standard for my body type, is couched around my hips, thighs and lower abdomen.  But I'm not that stressed about it.  I figure I'll just try to eat better and try to keep up a sensible and sustainable level of exercise and if I'm still carrying a bit of "conditioning"... well I'm probably meant to.

a) I'm a woman, b) I'm Caucasian.  We're supposed to carry stores of fat in certain key locations - it's biologically normal.

I found myself thinking, the other day "man, if I had this body back in my 20s..."

And then I realised that, the end of that sentence would be "...I'd have hated it just as much as I hated the body I did have."

I look at myself now and see the improvement.  I appreciate my current physique because I know what it was, and I can't help but think "there's less of me, and look!  I have muscles now!"

But if I hadn't lost weight and gained muscle - if I'd sorted out my lifestyle sooner and hadn't stacked on the weight after puberty and let poor choices add to it in my twenties - I'd be seeing the flaws, rather than the success.

As previously established, a) I'm a woman, b) I'm Caucasian.  That seems to dictate a level of complete dissatisfaction with one's body.  I don't know if that's biologically normal, but it's certainly part of our culture.

My physique is far from supermodel (unless you count the 17th century - I'd totally be a supermodel back then), and I think, if I didn't have the previous version of me to compare it to, I would be seeing it in a completely different light.

Which sucks a little.

I feel sorry for all the young girls who have never been ugly, and therefore have no idea how beautiful they are.

Jump the fence

As part of my attempt to build a better athletic base this year, I've discovered plyometrics.

I was looking for some exercises designed to improve explosive power (lots of sudden lunging and jumping forwards and backwards in fencing), and some of the sites I found mentioned this plyometric thing.  Being a typical librarian, I raided my library's collection and found a couple of good books on the subject.

Also some pretty average books and some downright boring books, but I can say I quite like these two:

High-powered plyometrics by James C. Radcliffe, Robert C. Farentinos. (ISBN: 0880117842)

and

Training for speed, agility, and quickness by Lee E. Brown, Vance A. Ferrigno, editors. (ISBN: 0736058737)

The core idea behind plyometrics involves a lot of jumping, skipping and bounding - making your muscles work like springs to propel your body in all sorts of ways.

It seemed like a good fit for a sport like fencing, so I've been starting with some of the less intense exercises to build a few work-outs.

I've only done it a handful of times, but I have to say my plyo workouts are amongst the best I've ever had.

I don't need a gym - just a park with a patch of land big enough to do some sprinting.  I don't need any equipment except a pair of shoes (although a boxing bag or a medicine ball add an extra dimension).  If it's raining, I just go to the PCYC and use the boxing area or the basketball court, depending on what's free.

My favourite plyo exercises so far involve a combo between jumping and sprinting.  You jump a few times (either a long jump or a lateral jump), then suddenly change direction and sprint for a few meters.  You feel absolutely hammered after a few reps of these - but it's a good feeling.

I give myself a 10 minute warm-up of light jogging, some skipping and some stretching, and then run through a few combinations of five or six plyometric drills for 20 minutes, then spend 5 or so minutes doing another round of jogging and stretching to cool down.

It's amazing how effective that can be.  I've been doing this as my "warm up" before fencing on a Friday night, and it has completely revolutionised my training...

Just not in the way I expected.

You see, quite often I get to fencing and waste half my warm up time getting dressed, then do a couple of drills with the group, then have a few exercises on my own before a short class with the coach*, then I get maybe two bouts in before it's time to take of my 300 layers of clothes and go home.

So often, I get to the end of a fencing night and thing "I could really do with some exercise or something".

Now that I'm doing this plyo work-out ahead of fencing, I'm actually coming into the fencing session feeling like I've already done a decent amount of exercise for the evening.  I seriously don't care if I spend the next two hours largely spectating - I've moved, I've grunted, I've sweated and I've done stuff that makes me feel kind of like an athlete.

Who cares if all I got was a training session where I felt like a dork and two bouts which I lost?  I had a good session.  I did serious sport.

The fencing is just the icing on the cake.




*which usually leaves me feeling like a moron - for some reason I can never work out what he wants me to do, and when I finally work it out I do it poorly.

Bessie

I have named my softball glove "Bessie".

I've signed up for a softball team, you see, and it occurred to me that I should write some sort of identifying piece of information on my glove, just in case a couple of other people have the exact same size and model.

For some reason, I decided that writing my own name on the glove was silly.

I mean, what would happen if I play for exactly 8 weeks, decide the whole thing is a bad idea and decide to sell my stuff to someone else?  Who would want to buy sporting equipment that has someone's name written all over it?

But if the glove had its own name, that would be different.

You might not want to by a glove with "Sharon B" written on it - but a second-hand glove called "Bessie"?  Well, that might seem fun and light-hearted.

And, in the mean time, should I become separated from my glove for any reason, the odds that anyone will have the exact same size in the exact same model with the name "Bessie" written in the exact same place are fairly slim.

I'm thinking of extending this to my fencing swords.  Most of my swords are recognisable from the grip, but I'm about to buy a sabre that's a bit more generic.

I think I'll call it "Maude".

Painting the house

Redecorations are afoot at the family home.

It's one of those things.  When my grandmother was still alive, I kept making comments like:  "This is rather old and a little bit broken, should we replace it?"

Like the paintwork.  I would say things like:  "This house was last painted in 1988, should we have it repainted?"

Generally speaking, this would result in people frowning at me, and then completely ignoring my suggestion.  The idea was that we didn't want my poor invalid grandmother who was stuck in the house all day every day to have to put up with anything new.

I could never quite work out why a new fridge would cause her distress and sadness.  Personally, I would have thought being stuck in a nice house full of pretty things would be preferable to being stuck in an old, ratty house full of old, ratty things, but then I'm a normal person.

Apparently, in my family, being able to put up with crappy stuff for no good reason is a sign of courage, or something.  Either that or, once you get to a certain age, you no longer deserve nice things.

Anyway, now that my grandmother is long dead, my mother has finally come around to the idea that maybe 25 years between paint jobs is a bit much.

I think it helps that I've mentioned to her that a lack of maintenance lessens the value of the property, which will have an effect on my inheritance.  More than once.

This is the way we have to play in my family:  You have to find the right buttons to push, and then you have to push them multiple times... and wait for many years to see if it had any effect.  However, if you accidentally push the wrong buttons more than once, you may ruin all chanced of ever achieving anything.

So, anyway, my mother came up with this grand plan of wasting her long service leave on repainting the interior of the house herself (she hired professionals to do the exterior).

This does, of course, mean that we are engaging in the following, well-worn pattern:

• I must help my mother as much as I can, or I feel like a failure as a daughter
• She must prevent me from helping her as much as she can, or she feels like a failure as a mother

But, that said, we are managing to paint the house.  Just not well.

For some reason, a 60yr old English teacher and her librarian daughter aren't quite as competent at house painting as, say, professional painters.

We just keep reminding ourselves that it just has to look good enough to convince people that it has, in fact, been maintained over the years.  Once some other poor sap has bought it, they can do a proper repainting job themselves.