I’ve often joked that life is really about anecdote shopping. It’s about finding witty little stories to spice up a quivering conversation, or reminisce about when we’re old and have run out of things to talk to our spouses about.
After my little bolt of lightning, I’ve changed my focus a little. I’m supposed to be keeping a diary about the best things that happened each day. It’s supposed to help you filter for the really positive things, and help any really grey matter fade into the background.
In the last little bit these have been some of my highlights from the pencil scrawled notebook;
Slow cooking litres of bolognaise in the kitchen and dancing around to Angie Stone.
Indulging in a Bondi burger from Oporto’s, down at Bondi, before walking in the sun around to Bronte, and stopping at one of the shortlisted places for The Hungry One’s proposal (after many thwarted attempts, he finally proposed on a deserted island in the Whitsundays- no complaints from this quarter).
Lovely glass of pink wine at Firefly with a roasted beetroot salad adorned with crumbs of goats cheese before seeing a magical play at The Wharf.
Discovering my lunch time toasted sandwich staple (Citta, in Surry Hills) has moonlighting on the menu a tuna on soot dark rye with avocado, tomato and rocket (apart from Vegemite, tinned fish is only thing that The Hungry One can’t abide the smell or the taste of, hence my surreptitious week day lunch habit).
A sneaky trip to Sonoma for rhubarb muesli slurry, trying not to laugh as my niece insists on a take away coffee cup for ‘Borrie’, her beloved- and slightly mutilated bear.
Eating garlic prawns made by The Hungry One on his ceramic, fire cauldron barbecue.
Even if some days the discernible highlight is the large, weak, skim milk latte that I pick up at 9.30 after smacking down the media monitoring (oh the joys of my day job)- then that goes down on the list too.
The thinking is that when the going gets rough you retreat in your head to the sparkle pink, happy nuggets of memories and reignite them. As silly as it may sound, it’s supposed to help shoo away the gremlins.
Bring on the new mission;
mine for as many sparkle pink and calming blue memory bundles as I can; and keep them in a ready made filing system, primed for easy access.
On high rotation at the moment;
September 2007- A weak cup of Earl Grey and a ginger nut to my left, with my brand new niece asleep on my chest.
March 2008- Sneakily scoffing a Peking duck pancake during photos for our wedding, bending forward, laughing and hoping that dark sauce wouldn’t drip onto my white dress (it didn’t).
April 2008- Hoeing into a flame tickled piece of meat on the bone, while The Hungry One mocks my inner carnivore, with the sun on my back at Asador Etxtebarri.
December 2008- Picking at a perfect meal of pizza, banter and red wine while listening to the surf in Maui. This comes after splashing about in baby waves of the warm Pacific. Good company never hurts; that meal we were joined by these two very clever ladybeetles and their partners; http://theplot-thickens.blogspot.com and http://love-you-big.blogspot.com
April 2009, November 2008 and 2007- banquet lunches on the terrace at Sopra. Four courses of more than we could ever possibly eat, spread over gingham and washed down with red wine in carafes. Sun soaked celebrations of birthdays and anniversaries with family of any definition.
April 2009- Sunday brunch- a full table of scrambled eggs- bloated with butter, platter of avocado, smoked salmon, with three boys discussing IT, three lasses discussing life and three beautiful little boys playing with trains, and staring up at us with big eyes.
May 2009- Being woken by the smell of a perfect flat white, with a muddled cap of crema and impressionist latte-art as The Hungry One delivers his version of an alarm clock.
I guess it’s not that much of a coincidence that so many of them revolve around food.
From here we start to keep a dossier of all the good things on the horizon.
I don’t think that’s going to be too hard.
Yay for Maui Pizza! And all those good food memories make me warm and happy, too. Can I borrow your nice memories sometimes?!
xx
Amen for Maui Pizza! I often think back to that wonderful evening. May there be many many more to come (in Maui, Sydney, Paris, wherever!) xx