The Prodigal Blogger Returns

The Transportation Security Administration take their jobs very seriously. We were body scanned and had our hand luggage and /or our checked baggage rifled through at every single airport we stepped foot in. I forgot at the first airport that I had 110 mls of coconut sunscreen in my hand luggage and we got ripped out of the line and questioned. Another time  Mr. P had a breath mint in his pocket that looked like an ecstasy tablet.  I'm pretty sure that was what placed us on a watch list for every subsequent airport. At one point I was pulled aside by a security dude who, to add insult to injury, was pissing himself laughing , because apparently the bras in my hand luggage looked suspicious. The only thing suspicious about it was that he hadn't ever seen bras that huge before and he was obviously concerned I could make a Sherman Tank out of all that underwire on the 29 minute flight between islands. 

I strongly suspect that Mr. P wearing this t-shirt didn't help our cause. And I'd like to point out that my checked bags were only fully searched when they were mislabelled with Mr. P's name. Yep-it's official- my husband looks suss. 

In comparison, on my arrival back in Australia I duly declared my 345 packs of Oreos (I literally squealed when I saw the huge range in supermarkets there) and one of everything single thing Hershey manufactures, 400 York Peppermint Patties, maximum allowable amounts of cheap liquor, and my awesome wooden salad hands. I could have been a mule for a Columbian drug cartel carrying 19 kilos of A grade cocaine but because I was speaking with an Aussie accent mate, I was just waved through without a bag check. My fears of ending up on an episode of Border Security and having my Oreo stash confiscated were completely unfounded. 

It took me forever to get over the culture shock of being in another country. There were so many things that were different and not just the obvious ones like accents and driving and money and the fact that I gained an extra day that I also lost again somewhere over the Pacific en route home. America did you know your butter is completely different to ours? Is yours made from albino cows or something? And why does all your bread taste like someone fell over into the dough vat with a 20 kilo bag of sugar?  Any why are brown eggs more expensive than white eggs? Don't all eggs come from a chickens butt? What's up with your bacon? The good bit is missing.  What do you do with it? Why is your walk man at the traffic lights white and not green? Why are your light switches upside down? And why do your toilets suck everything down with a g force that was so great that I was concerned for my life every time I had to pee? I found that so amusing I had to video it.  Pondering this and other imponderables kept me amused for hours. 

American Butter 

The Aussie variety 

On the other hand American restaurant chains are the shitz. I fell in love with them and the price of booze in the US. I thought Mr. P was going to wet his pants when he bought a bottle of Canadian Club for 13 bucks. I had to remind him to start breathing again. How you aren't all obese alcoholics has me buggered.  I swear if I lived there I'd be drinking Southern Comfort like it was water and staggering to Denny's 3 times a day for fully loaded cheese fries. And I'd eat breakfast at least three times a day too. In fact , some days I did. I also defiled your bread by adding Vegemite at every possible opportunity. 

I bow before your burger greatness America. You ARE the masters. Hand you a hunk of hamburger mince and some cheese and you knock out something that is awesome in a way Australian burgers will never be. 

And you know how to do proper chocolate fudge cake too... Cheesecake Factory how I love you so. I miss you already. If I could have worked out a way to get this stuff home without it growing fur and going green I would have done it. 

It wasn't all eating and getting shit faced on cheap booze (although I have noticed an inordinately large amount of food and cocktail pictures among our holiday snaps). We did see some of the sights too. Sea turtles and lava and hydrangeas the size of my head. Pearl Harbor, a palace, gorgeous beaches and hula dancers. Most of Hawaii is incredibly beautiful. And we only drove on the wrong side of the road twice.  

And naturally I managed to accidentally stumble into a few quilt shops. And had to post 40 pounds of fabric home in secret because that was the only way of keeping Mr. P from knowing exactly what I bought to augment my already overflowing stash ....

I came home to this jar of treasures that Little P had been collecting for me since we left. It doesn't get any cuter than that. 

Things that are treasures to a three year old

On the agenda for this weekend is getting re-acquainted with my sewing machine and spending some serious time in my pyjamas. And drinking some decent tea. And sleeping. And trying to find a recipe for chocolate fudge cake because the 12 pounds I put on overseas simply wasn't enough. 

Home Stretch

Do you know that feeling where you're anticipating something but you have a lot of crud to wade through first to get to the good shit? It always feels so close and yet so far away. It's like those dreams where you're being chased by something hideous (insert your biggest fear here) and not being able to reach somewhere safe.  That's been me this week.

I've been refusing to get excited about Mai Tai's and grass skirts and sunshine until I got through some of the billion skillion things I had to do this week in order to get to the cocktails, flip flops, sarong part of my life.  I gotta tell you people it's only Wednesday and this week has been as slow as molasses. 

One thing I can cross off my list of things to do this week is "getting an ear infection". Naturally I had to do this the week before I'm going to be stuck 10 miles up in the sky in a tin can for 10 straight hours. I'm not great with decompression in planes anyway (I'm the pathetic creature sitting in Row 7A keening and rocking when we descend feeling like my head is about to explode)  but I really did it properly this time and am dosed up on steroids and antibiotics so my ear drum doesn't perforate mid flight. Dousing the plane with ear goo isn't the way to make friends on a long haul flight. 

Cool stuff I'm looking forward to (because this time next week I'll actually be in Honolulu-not bragging- just saying) includes being somewhere the sun DOES shine, driving on the wrong side of the road, learning how to tip and having everyone stare at me because I talk funny. I'm hoping we aren't going to stick out like dog balls and embarrass the crap out of Australia somehow. 

I suppose I should probably start with not saying things like "stick out like dog balls"...

Mish Mash

With our departure drawing closer, I've been working long hours so I can go on holidays from work with a clear conscience. Not much else that's blogworthy has been going on here unless you count the batch of cakes I made that I forgot to put eggs in (they were like little rocks and tasted very strange) or the fact we've been living on takeaway for about a week. 

Mordecai is firmly ensconced back in usual life after his near death experience. My credit card is not so much dented as completely smashed into tiny pieces. But it's nice to have a happy (breathing)cat.

He is minus a lot of fur , and all the neighbourhood cats are taking the piss out of him. I told him to tell them this is the "half poodle" cut and it's very chic right now. 

While I'm bitching and moaning about how poverty stricken I am I'd like to show something I ordered before the cat decided to suck the life out of my credit card. I haven't bought shoes in weeks so I went on a bender.

There are actually two of each shoe but I was trying to be arty with my photography. I Love Billy is my absolute favourite brand of shoes and since I bought three pairs on sale for the price of one it would have almost been sacrilege not to buy them.

I've done a bit of sewing lately but it doesn't feel like a huge amount of progress is being made. I've pressed all the bits for this quilt that is making it's debut appearance on my blog. I stupidly announced to Little Miss Sunshine that I was  aiming to have this top together before we went away and once I have an idea out there I find it hard to change it so watch this space.

And I finally sucked it up and basted Flurry yesterday because it's been sitting here mocking me for about a year now. 

I was assisted by my helper , Little P who has obviously been watching me baste quilts for so long that he knows how it's done without instruction or prompting. And yes- he did it in his pyjamas. I'm so proud. 

The plan for today is to quilt that darn thing. I'm already plotting about how little quilting it really needs to remain stuck together! If you hear crying- that will be me. 

P.S. 9 sleeps!