4th of July started off sucky but ended pretty well. I didn't get to bed until 4AM, keeping up with the bet, writing the entries. I meant to set my spare travel alarm clock, high-pitched beeping until you slam the button off, and I leave it across the room so I have to be fully awake for the button slamming. Cause you know, if it's by the bed, my sneaky night owl brain incorporates the sound into my dream, makes me roll over slam the thing off and never really wake up. I sleep very soundly, if I'm not fully out of sleep, it takes nothing at all to dive back down through the sleep clouds. This is the same sneaky brain that once made me pick up the phone by my bed, carry on a complete conversation with more than just grunts, actual repeat it back to me paraphrased and applied type conversation, hang up, go back to sleep, and not remember a damn word until the friend came to pick up the spare key I had told her was ready and tested. I thought the whole thing was a dream! I try not to pick up the phone by the bed now til I'm standing upright, I can be pretty sure I'm in the right plane of sentience at that point.

The same sneaky brain that in the AM of the 4th of July 2002 convinced me that I didn't need to turn on the loud beepy alarm, nooo, why harsh my sleep buzz with that noisy thing? no, the gentle peeping of my Palm next to the bed, that'll wake me up.

Next thing I know I'm asking Jeff what time it is and it's 3:30 PM. The BBQ is timed to start at 4:00PM.

Oh.

fuck.

OH! Fuckity fuck fucking Faaaaark!

This is one of those mornings (see the brain is cool with the morning starting at 3:30PM) when I go from horizontal to vertical in under a microt. See, I'd promised to take a Pavlova and Chicken Kebabs to the BBQ. Not only have I not made the pavlova, I haven't even soaked the skewers or marinated the chicken. This was all part of my "Get up at noon and have 3 hours to relaxedly cook and shower and toodle around" plan. The plan that was so resoundly and completely fucked by my sleeping completely through it.

Jeff had turned the AC off earlier that day, that's what we do, leave it on for one night, it cools down the house and rachets down the humidity to a bearable level so we can deal with the heat and humidity until it either breaks or builds up to when we put the AC on again in a couple of days. Saves us money and we really don't need it on the whole time usually. Usually. By the time I got up, the heat and humidity had re-racheted themselves up to a point past the point when we'd put the AC on the night before. So, it's muggy and nasty, and I'm heading to the kitchen to cook. The one shining white knight against humidity, or ceiling and floor fans.

Which have to be turned off, because they keep blowing out the pilot light in the oven that I need to cook the pavlova in. Wonder-fucking ful. The oven is on, the air in the kitchen is superheated enough to make me wonder if I could cook the pav by waving it around for an hour, and I'm trying to work out how to make this food that takes me 90 minutes to do , and shower, and be at the BBQ by 4:00. Which is in 15 minutes at this point.

At this point is when I turn around in the lounge room and run full tilt into this.

This is a telephone table that I found underneath my house in Canberra and rescued because I thought it was retro and cool. REtro and coil and with a big, undiscovered hereto before now, nastyPointy Bit. That I rammed my left leg into with great force.

I have a temper, did you know that? Most of the time is fiery and shouty and yelly and over with quickly. This time we take away the shouty and yelly, add a touch of the ultraviolence leaving a remainder of the over quickly. See the little plaid cushion thing? Excellent for lifting it up by and flinging it against the wall. Excellent stress remover, completely allowed me to go into the kitchen and concentrate on the cooking. Jeff told me afterwards, as we're both picking up the scattered papers, books, basket and pushpins (good thing they have clear tops, almost perfectly blend into any carpeted surface, ulk) that went flying, he didn;'t actually see me fling the thing. He was reading the paper, heard me run full tilt into something followed shortly by an almighty crash, and he half expected to see me crumpled on the floor rather than standing calmly telling the telephone table that that is what happened when it hits me.

The nasty purple circle on my leg is the initial effect later on that night. It's been going all shades of purple and yellow since then, really a very cool bruise that hurt like a motherfucker for about an hour and hasn't been any trouble since.

I truly am addicted to meringue. If I had to choose between never having meringue or never having icecream, the icecream would go. Chocolate would be a fearsome choice, but meringue might just edge that out too. Licking the bowl of cake batter, cookie dough or meringue? No contest, meringue, meringue, meringue. When I was first flatting and on the hunt for something sweet, I'd always have eggs and sugar, whisk up the egg white with the sugar, scoff half down raw and fluffy (it's like marshmallow creme only far far better) and cook the rest in little piped niblets.

In Australia, you can buy little meringue shells and put cream and fruit, or creme anglaise and fruit, all that, and the combined coolness and crunch is just to swoon. and and I have about half a dozen recipes on the theme on meringue, but sometimes it's just nice to go out and buy some ready made, just to have for a nibble of something sweet. I haven't been able to find that here (southern New Jersey) for all the time I've been here (1998) until now.

Shoprite has Miss Meringue. I didn't see any of the shells, but that's because I bought 2 of these.

I bought them with the excuse that I could use them as a back up to the pavlova for the 4th, but that was never going to happen. Mine, mine mine! The colourful ones on the left are vanilla/plain flavoured, the colour is for effect not taste. The ones on the right are mint chocolate chip. The minty ones are OK, I think they'd be better in winter with a big cup of hot tea.

I just love the way they puff and dust in my mouth, the mouth feel is astounding.

The rest of the day was up from there, the kebabs came out great as ever (they're my thing, I take them to all of the family BBQ's, roughly 40-50 and they're mostly devoured), the Pav cooked for the hour it needed then we turned on the AC and all the fans and life in the house went to something less than molten.

Updated 12 July, 2002

Copyright Amanda Page, 1996-2002