This Coffee Shop Rocks!

And of course you know what I mean by that title! 

Yes, a little aftershock (4.6). I was getting into my pre-conception nutrition reading, camellia sinensis in hand, when the building started to jiggle and shake. This had a bad effect on my concentration.

I made nervous eye contact with the girl beside me and we both held our breath for a few seconds wondering how freaky it would get. I was thinking pretty intensely about the stupidity of seating myself directly under an upstairs gym.

I'm not sure that diving under the Coffee Culture window-side bench would be much protection if a Smith Machine came through the floor! Luckily, it didn't come to that.

I'd already been thinking about things quaky, having stayed up late fretting for all those people in Indonesia. Ugh. 

Rumbled

I was feeling a bit unhappy a few minutes ago, on account of being rumbled, twice. I was just in the kitchen, doing something with almonds like a normal person (more about these tomorrow)

when a .. 'noticeable' (I can't think how else to describe this one) aftershock came along and shook a few small things off the bench. Geonet tells me that was a 4.0, over in the Lyttelton area (epicentre of the Feb quake). Then I was resettling my nerves, doing a bit of pranayama, when a long, slow aftershock wiggled the house. This was not dramatic, but was long. The Programmer just Googletalked me that this was a 4.7, out in Rolleston, closer to the epicentre of the September quake last year. I think both these quakes are on the same faultline.

This increase in seismic activity is not fab. One is not amused.  

Look at that, these even made the news. As we have aftershocks frequently, the media hardly bother to report on them unless they are especially exciting and have caused a twitter landslide. Apparently 'we will rock you' was playing on the local radio. I guess mother nature loves Queen then?

It is not very helpful that today's little shakes come in the jetstream of another alarming prediction by The Moon Man. He is suggesting that the earthly and cosmic configuration of end of Sept 2011 might be right for a whopper. Awesome.  And for those who say that he is often wrong, I reply, he is not wrong often enough for my liking. 

There is only one thing for it.  Shopping. I feel an urgent need to restock the emergency supplies, preferably before most people finish work because there will probably be a little panic.  But first. Icecream.

A little word about my healthy icecream alternative. If it did not taste as good as regular icecream, I would just eat something organic and with few ingredients. I actually like these home-made ones far better, and I can alter the flavour to match my mood.

Essential ingredient: frozen bananas.

I tend to whack them with a heavy glass bottle before the food processor has a go at it.  Otherwise you get chunks of banana, which can be good or bad, depending on what you are aiming for.

The smashing activity also rids the body of unhelpful earthquake stress hormones.

Today's effort involved the following ingredients:

• 100g frozen banana
• 2 dsp unflavoured Sana WPC (**product placement alert** :D yes, but, I love it... BCAA's, calcium, protein and all that other good stuff). It is the addition of the whey that adds the creaminess, although you could leave it out and add more avocado for a vegan version.
• 1/2 small avocado (healthy fats!)
• 1/2 tsp maca (superfood!)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp raw honey
• 2 tsp water

Blend for about a minute, or until it is smooth and icecreamy. If you overdo it, it will just become a smoothie instead. Mine was a little overblended as I thought I heard another aftershock coming and got a bit distracted.

And now I am seriously departing to take part in the mass emptying of the canned food shelves.  If I didn't believe it was impossible, I'd think that food shops pay someone to cause aftershocks. It is certainly good for their bottom line. 

And my question for you today (and it's a big one, so you know it's important): are you disaster ready? 

Freaky...

As I was saying yesterday, but in a not very eloquent manner (hence the deleted post just in case you were wondering..), I've been working on that thing called work-life balance.  So far, so good.

Last week I actually went out, twice. In this post I'm going to rave on about the second event, because it was last night and because it was awesome! 

Source

As I tend to just hibernate in winter, I had no idea that the Christchurch Arts Festival is in full schwing. Even Quaky Town must allow artists their art. Last night I headed off with Mamasana and The Programmer to see He Reo Aroha, the description of which I will swipe from the website:


A wickedly funny tale of small town love & big time dreams with an irresistible mix of music, drama & comedy. 

It's a very kiwi tale about Kaia, a singer who faces that eternal dilemma: stardom or love?? and Pascoe, a fisherman that developed a serious girl problem. His girl went off to find stardom and forgot to text or email or anything (how frustrating!). It messed with his mind, but he managed to get on with life and make a go of it. He got a boat, took on his cuzzy Rangi as deckhand and then just as it's all coming together for him, what happens?  Yes, you guessed it. Kaia gets a visit from a dead nun and starts pining for home. 

Because.. everyone comes home eventually. :D

There are maybe six characters in the whole play and they are all brought to life by two actors, in this case Kali Kopae, who was a finalist on NZ idol, and Tola Newbery. Tola is my cousin, which is appropriate to the play as nearly every character was related by cuzzy-dom. I think Tola was taking the role of Pascoe in Christchurch only. That's Kali and Tola in the pic above.  

Although the music was fantastic and the acting was by turns hilarious and moving, the most exciting part of last night's show was the addition of special effects courtesy of Mother Earth. Apparently the ticket price included a complimentary adrenaline rush.  Just as Pascoe and Rangi are wrestling with their imaginary boat in rough seas and turfing excess flounder off the side, the earth gave an obliging rumble and the theatre shook with a large aftershock. Even without rehearsal, the timing was perfect. The actors paused for a second, glanced up at the swaying lights and then launched into the next scripted line, which was 'that was freaky!' 

I swear, that was the actual line. I checked with Tola later and he tells me they didn't change a thing. However, he is an actor and you just can't tell when they are lying.

After the show we kidnapped the star and went to The Coffeehouse for beers, wines and various foodie bits then wandered around Hagley Park, which is festooned with happiness-inducing coloured lights for the festival. My toes were turning to lumps of ice and my lips were so numb I couldn't make words by the time we got back to car, but I didn't care. It was all fantastico. 

Tomorrow I'll try to post about the film festival movie Netherwood, which is the quirkiest slice of kiwiana I've seen for a while. I've also got a massage booked for the morning, which I'm hoping will set the tone for next week... relaxed and blissed out. 

In the meantime, for those of you that read this blog because it's about health, here is an update on my experiments with molasses:

I think I can make this work, but they were still a bit 'intense'. I'll post the recipe once I've figured out how to tone them down a bit.  Still, The Programmer ate two, so that indicates they do not taste like they dropped off the weird food tree in weird food-ville.

Lastly, tonight I set my oven on fire, somehow.  The original blaze was far more impressive and I was seriously tempted to dive for my camera. However, it would have been hard to explain that my house burned down while I was fiddling with my shutter speed (flames are bright, dammit) so I smothered the photo op with a fire-proof oven mitt. I'm sorry, I'll never make a photojournalist.

Perfect timing!

This morning, instead of being pounced on as expected, we woke to an empty house, which is a strange feeling when it is someone elses place!  My brother had taken The Squishies to the library and the sista-by-long-term-defacto-relationship (let's call her sistasana#2) had gone shopping.  

We chilled, made coffee, raided the cupboards for healthy eats (homemade muesli), chilled some more and then Brosana turned up with The Squishies and announced that we were going to Te Papa.  It was 'cats and dogs'ing outside and Te Papa is an enormous indoor space where you can set children free and be fairly sure that you won't lose them.  It was brilliant fun. The Nef#1 is a child with an exceptionally tuned inquisitive streak. This is Mr 'draw me a robot, Aunty Sara'.  Right before cracking out the door we were reading about space travel and I had to get ultra-inventive about what might be inside a space station - I'm sure they have genetically engineered gravity-defying vege gardens.  At Te Papa he was all over the giant squid and kept reminding me that we must see the 3D squid movie which had been packed out when we first tried. Eventually we did it, got to the front, donned our 3D glasses, and then he provided running commentary to the whole room about what was on the screen. :D Well, there's no point in being a wallflower, huh? 

We skipped the earthquake simulator -  The Programmer had tried it yesterday and deemed it 'lame' - and headed for the cafe. There Miss H (niece#2) impressed me by devouring at least half of my salad (feta, pumpkin and greens) and some of my chocolate, which she also thought was awesome even though it was 75% dark.  I had to confess this to Sistasana#2 later, and having been lulled into deep relaxation by a few hours without the kids, she assured me that this was totally ok.

About the time I was thinking about attacking my espresso, someone thought to check the time and then all hell broke loose as we realised there was a serious danger of missing our plane back to shaky Christchurch. I should mention that Brosana is also a programmer and when him and The Programmer get together, the incomprehensible conversations can go on without pause for hours. I think, like horses or dogs, they get overexcited to  encounter their own kind and time passes too quickly. The up-side to this is that Brosana is an e-commerce expert and was imparting some high-end tips about what to do with the Sana site. It was a quick drive back to their casa and a veeery quick pack, but we made the plane.  To our surprise there was a welcoming party when we landed - Mama, Papa and Sista Programmer, looking a bit shook up.

Apparently, while we were in the air, there was a major aftershock (5.3) that knocked out the power in our area. The Programmer and I looked at each other, psychically communicating messages of concern about our new, massively expensive TV, which has not yet been firmly tethered to the wall. It was the first thing The Progammer checked when he got home. In fact, he did that even before helping me get the bags up the driveway (it's important to have your priorities in order). It was still were we left it, unlike the books on the bookshelf, which have fallen over.  We were relieved to find that power had been restored and headed out to find food at the Tandoori Palace. I got the lamb korma, which is quite creamy. The trick there is to leave most of the sauce in the pot and team it with carrot sticks... that's what I did tonight in any case and now I'm munching an apple for dessert and thinking that I did ok, foodwise, over the last two days.  The only off-plan thing was the Paris Cafe indulgence and that was small and, most importantly, worth it.

Well, I've been fending off hug-deprived cats for the last 20 minutes, so I think I'll head to bed and just surrender to being used as a warming device. They are feeling completely hard done by because I accidentally left the cat-flap locked when we raced out the door on Thursday. I was too busy doing my last-minute blogging... That means they could get out of the house but not in and therefore spent most of the last two days outside as the cat-sitter didn't know how to fix it. Oops. I suppose I'd better make it up to them by sleeping in tomorrow. :D

Aftershock experience

I know I just posted (so don't forget to scroll down and read that), but this is very classic.

This is exactly what an aftershock is like. The rumble, things shaking, immediate concern to save your wine and your TV.