Ms Fifikins

I so wanted to include this xkcd in here, but it won’t fit in my layout and looks crap! It needs to be shared! So in the immortal words of Molly Meldrum “Do yourselves a favour…”

I will admit to frequenting Gloria Jean’s from time to time. I have read about the support of the Mercy Mission and the philosophy and ethos of the Mercy Mission and the like, but still enjoy a Crême Brulée chiller every so often or a latte or a Chai.

This morning, on my way to my waxing appointment I stopped off for a Chai. They were relatively busy. When my name was called, there were marshmallows floating in my drink.

“Um, er, you did call Fiona?”

“Sure did, enjoy your drink!”

“Um, but I ordered a Chai…”

“Oh, I am sorry.” Then she yelled “Can we please have a large Chai on Skim, NOW!”

So I go back to waiting and a very skinny lady sidles up to me.

“You know you shouldn’t drink Chai when you are pregnant. There are all sorts of spices in it that cause miscarriage.”

“Really?” I said, “I’ll keep that in mind if ever I find myself pregnant.”

“Oh, sorry, I’m limiting myself to one cup of real coffee a day and having decaf for the rest of the time, don’t think the little coffee bean inside will complain then.” And she patted her very very slender tummy.

Now Bec Cartright-Hewitt-Home-and-Away-Tennis-Wife-and-Mother-Extraordinaire looks more pregnant on the front of a woman’s magazine this week than this lady. And no, I didn’t buy the magazine, I saw it as I queued to pay for my groceries last night. Next to the one that proclaimed she’s sacrificing more motherhood for her husband. Whatever!

So a few points to ponder… I googled ‘Chai tea safe pregnancy’ and was hit with a number of Yahoo! Answers pages. Knowing some of the people who frequent those pages (Hi @andrewsayer and @yonderboy!) I decided that perhaps it wouldn’t offer the most accurate information. I did find this which is somewhat interesting and looks semi-reputable, and this which basically says that green tea helps prevent folic acid absorption which in turn leads to birth defects, although they try and say that it is the green tea causing birth defects. Sigh! Medical science at its best.

So as I sit at my desk, barefoot, but not pregnant (Hi Mum again!) I remember my early days of pregnancy. Of course I was a food and drink nazi and didn’t touch any caffeine (some people reading this will remember trying to work out how much caffeine is in milo- Hi Suzie!) I don’t think I ever stood in a coffee shop though and proselytised about the negative effects of tea with spices. Especially to someone who may look mildly pregnant, but is in fact, just overweight! Oh and somewhere there is irony about pro-life and stuff, but I’ll let you find it for yourself as the link between Chai and miscarriage is pretty tenuous.

Had a gorgeous date Friday night with the MIML™ (man in my life.) We had dinner at Verdi’s. Possibly the nicest pizza I have had in long time. Of course the company was superb too. Now we went for pizza, but couldn’t pass up dessert. Yes, we may have the emotional intelligence of a pair of teenagers, but when the specials board is written up with “Brandy Snaps filled with cream and masterated strawberries” curiosity got the better of us. I couldn’t bring myself to ask the waiter what the chef had done to masterate the strawberries, but the MIML™ has a brilliant poker face and was able to make quips that brought tears to my eyes and made the couple at the table near us giggle too.

We joked to each other that if they came out as phallic things with cream oozing out… thinking that they would actually be baskets. But no. This is what I was greeted with:

Yes, the jokes kept coming. And yes, I know it is macerated! But hey. We have dirty minds!

Edit: Oh and they tasted damn fine too!

I hate toads. Try to get at least 3-4 in my freezer each week. This really tickled my fancy…

I was just glancing at the google terms people have used and then hit my site in the last month. I have always found googling extremely easy and have been dubbed the Google Queen. I can still marvel at other people’s google skills, especially as it gets them to this. Here are some random search terms that people have used to get this blog.

It appears lots of people are after the facts:

• 100 brilliant facts about France for kids
• 100 facts people don’t know
• 100 random things about me
• cool random facts
• random facts about teachers
• random facts I never really wanted to know
• 100 random facts about the world
• 100 random sex facts

I hope the souls hunting for ‘random things about me’ didn’t click on this blog thinking it was about them, because it is all about me, surely! I do have worries for school kids looking for assignment fodder who might be using this blog as a source and plagiarising my work. Do you need a lesson in referencing? If so, just ask! Oh and if you are looking for sex facts, um… not sure where you should be looking really

Then I have had other interesting search terms lead here:

• why doesn’t my child do well in exams
• regret losing nice guy
• may 2,3,and 4 2008 menopause the musical queensland may 2,3,4 2008
•  “remove my balls”
• nigella bagels
• gerbera urine

Now I don’t know why your child doesn’t do well in exams. Perhaps it is because they are not open book or open google exams. I regreted losing a nice guy once, but looking back he was too nice- get over it honey! It appears someone went to great pains to find information about a musical about menopause and still thought they might find it here. Removing balls may not be a specialty of mine, but hope you found what you were looking for. Yes, I baked Nigella’s bagels. Very yummy too.

Now the final term bamboozles me. But at least I will be able to tell people who can’t spell fifikins (it has 3 i’s you know!) that they just need to google gerbera urine and you will find me.

Pie Wormer?

Originally uploaded by fifikins

Wednesday last week we were cut off from the world by flood waters both to the south and the north. Several of the Northern Beaches were cut off and the highway was closed making travel into Cairns troublesome.

I know at work we had a very depleted workforce. Obviously this café did too, but I still worry about what exactly a pie wormer is!