Accent, what accent?

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The West   Your accent is the lowest common denominator of American speech. Unless you're a SoCal surfer, no one thinks you have an accent. And really, you may not even be from the West at all, you could easily be from Florida or one of those big Southern cities like Dallas or Atlanta.
The Midland
Boston
North Central
Philadelphia
The Northeast
The South
The Inland North
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Not quite gourmet

We had some friends over for dinner last night, and since it was a bit of a spur of the moment thing, I cooked meatloaf, baked potatoes, veggies and cornbread muffins.

The meatloaf with the secret sauce was well received, but to my surprise the big hit of the evening was the cornbread.

I'm glad some people are easy to please!

Sail away to Key Largo

This time of year is the "cyclone season", which is the reason that we're getting so much rain. It's been raining on and off all day, and still pretty humid.

This evening, the old Bogart and Bacall movie, Key Largo was playing on tv. I'm not much on gangster movies, but this one is so well made that its better than the typical shoot-em-up story.

I won't give away the entire plot, but the basic premise is that a returning soldier decides to pay a visit on the father and widow of one of his fallen comrades. Turns out they run a hotel in Key Largo. Also in residence are some Chicago gangsters, along with their boss who is attempting to return to the U.S. from exile in Cuba, in the pre-Castro days. And this being a Hollywood movie, of course there is a hurricane thrown in for drama.

The movie is film-noir, made in glorious black and white. I've always enjoyed this movie because of the location, the Florida Keys. I've taken a few holidays down there, and the scenery is wonderful. Since the movie was based on a stage play, most of the scenes take place inside a hotel. In the time before air conditioning was invented, high ceilings and ceiling fans were the norm. Throughout the movie, characters are fanning themselves and complaining about the heat.

In one scene, the old hotel owner could be speaking about Townsville rather than Key Largo. He says "Don't look for it to get any cooler before November. The thermometer will go down to about 100. The sand flies and mosquitoes will disappear. It'll be right livable for about three months...except for tourists."

The tropical ambiance of the Keys is not that much different to the environment where I live now. Instead of hurricanes we get cyclones, but the only difference in the two storms are the geography.

Old Mother Hubbard, What's in Your Cupboard

I don't know if it's all the rain that's keeping me indoors, but lately I've been on an organizing kick. And for some reason I've convinced myself that I can't be truly organized until I have things put in little plastic containers. I don't know who's responsible for the brain-washing, but it's been effective.



I decided to put up a couple of pictures of my newly organized cupboards.

This one has my baking goods. The items with the white and black labels are generic stuff.

I have flour and sugar in the tubs at the bottom, to keep out the ants and other critters. Next to it is corn meal, or polenta as they call it here.

If you'd like to see a larger version of the picture, just click on it.



On the right hand side of this shelf is a jar of molasses that it took me 3 YEARS to locate. And like the polenta, I found it in a health food store. Amazing.

The big jug at the back of the cupboard is cordial. It's pronounced "Cord-ee-ul", and it's a flavored syrup used to make a kind of kool-aide sort of drink.

Also on the top shelf is the obligatory can of beetroot (for Dave, I won't go near the stuff), and two little brown containers of Vegemite.

I was amazed to see that probably over half of the items on the shelves at the supermarket are American brands. Most times it's a U.S. recipe, but it's made with Australian ingredients. So, I've got Campbells soup, Quaker oats, and El Paso refried beans and enchilada sauce.

Valentine roses

I love roses, they're my favorite flower. Here are the roses that Dave gave me for Valentine's Day. I particularly love the gold fabric that the flowers were wrapped in. Very swanky!

A mouse in the house

A few months ago, when I was out on the back patio, I saw a tiny mouse scurry across the cement and scoot underneath an impossibly small space under the door.

I hadn't seen any mice in Queensland before, so I was a bit surprised. I took a quick look in the house, but as I expected I couldn't see where he went. I'm assuming that it's a he, for reasons that I will explain later. I told Dave about it when he came home, but then I pretty much forgot about the incident.


Living in the tropics, a person must learn to share their house with various types of critters. Here are a few that have taken up residency without my permission.

This guy is a gecko, and they're really cute. They cling to the ceilings and walls, and hide behind curtains and picture frames. We've got about three or four that live around the front porch and the living room.

They make an astonishingly loud chittering sound when they speak. An unfortunate aspect of their tenancy is that they leave behind little "presents". But since they eat small bugs and mosquitoes, they are all right in my book.


The geckos don't seem interested in the ants however. When the wet weather started, the ants were flooded out, so they came into the house for a bite and a dry off.

No matter how tidy I keep the house, it seems that they come in their hordes. This is the tiny wastebasket where I throw food scraps. It's emptied at least once a day, but the ants still find it very yummy.


So, in addition to the ants and the geckos, we have a mouse in the house. It's currently living behind the oven. Dave is investigating methods of termination, mouse traps and such. He thinks that there is only one mouse, and that it's been making the rounds at night, trying to find things to eat.

After Christmas the mouse ate a stale candy cane that I'd left on a shelf. It apparently didn't agree with him because the next night he ate an antacid tablet left in a basket on my desk. He also ate some polyester batting, and some papers from Dave's office. Since there is only one mouse, we're going on the assumption that it's a male house mouse.

Let's hope it doesn't find a girlfriend.

Going away party

One of Dave's closest friends is moving overseas for a few years. To send him on his way with a bang, we held a small going away dinner for him and his wife.

Andy and Shu will be returning to her home country of Taiwan to work for three years before returning here to Australia. Andy happened to mention that he would like to take a little bit of Australia with him, so two of his friends bought them jackets so no one could doubt where they are from.






Along with the jackets Andy got a hat to keep his head warm, since Taiwan is quite a bit cooler than Queensland.

Shu has done a marvelous job of learning English, now it will be Andy's turn to learn Mandarin. They are a newlywed couple, with a great adventure in front of them.











By the way, the rain finally stopped so that we could have a beautiful night.

Home food

I've been wanting to cook some trout ever since I moved here three years ago, but it's always too expensive. I finally found a sale at the grocery store, and I bought two of the fattest trout you ever saw, nearly a pound a piece. I would have LOVED to have caught one of those when I was a kid in Oregon.

These rainbow trout were probably the fish farm type, and thus not "real" trout according to some folks, but they looked pretty good. I wish I'd thought to take a picture of them, but I was too busy cooking to worry about it. They turned out great, and Dave loved them. Who knew that Aussie's like trout?

Growing up in the country, we ate what I considered country food: fresh fish, deer, pheasant, quail, crab, roasts, and lots of steak. I was quite surprised to find out exactly how much that sort of food costs in the city.

My dad had a smoke house which he used all the time. So it was no big deal to eat smoked salmon or trout. I was horrified to find out how much that stuff costs in the supermarket.

We just bought a nice freezer, and I'm looking forward to filling it up with all sorts of good things. I wouldn't mind putting some of that venison or crab to good use now.

Rainy day mornings

It's raining. It rained yesterday, and the day before that, and it will rain tomorrow and the next day. The backyard is under about 3 inches of water. Some of the roads here in town are flooded, and the major highway going up north has been closed, or "cut" as the Aussies call it.

I am so thankful that I have a car now. So instead of waiting for the bus in the soppy rain, or trying to ride to school on the scooter through pelting rain, I can ride in relative comfort.

One problem with all the rain is that the ants have returned. When I complained to Dave about the ants he said that they needed to come in because it's raining. I responded "No they don't!" What I meant was that this is my house not theirs! I have to admit to zero interest in the fact that their nests are probably flooded. Tough luck.

When I turned on my laptop with morning, illuminated in bright light was an ant, crawling across the screen. Maybe he wanted to check the weather report.