My Bank Annoys Me

I bank with one of Australia’s largest back which recently posted over $7 billion in profit

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-14/commonwealth-bank-posts-record-profit-as-bad-debt-charges-fall.html

This annoys me because I feel in many ways the bank does not offer me the services that matter to me so I asked myself if they would listen what would I say

Dear Commonwealth Bank of Australia

Why is there only one ATM that I have so far been able to find in the city that will accept deposits? And why do I then need to wait for it to issue me an envelope from its bowels that I then I have to put my check or cash into and fill out information on the front, then stick back into it? Tell me again why I cannot just stick my check into a slot and get a print out with the front of the check? And same for cash – each denomination has unique features so the slot should be able to identify the bills as I put them in; after all the pay machine in the parking garage or vending machine can tell a twenty from a fifty surely you can come up with something that can too.

One of the features I loved from Chase was the ability to send the word BAL to a 5 digit number from my cell phone and get a response back as to what my balance was I could then use the word TRN (I think) to transfer money between accounts if it fell below a certain amount. But you, oh you only allow me to have ONE miserly text message a week. And there is no number to send the request to – it is all set up and controlled online. So on Wednesdays at 4pm I can find out my balance via text but at no other time – thank you.

Thank you also for making it impossible for me to transfer money between accounts via ATM; I can only do it online which really keeps me from touching germy ATM machines

Thanks also for a lack of apps for mobile devices – who needs those silly things cluttering up their cell phones anyway

And oh the need for a phone banking passcode – let's see; I have provided my name, address, bank account number, client number, given the names of all the accounts I have, first born child and oh now you need the code before you can help me…….sigh I do not know what it is OK?

Cashing US cheques and money orders hmm 8-10 weeks to clear like seriously, seriously – we are not even talking personal cheques here.

And what do you do with my paycheck for 2-3 days after it's sent out? Do you just sit on it gather some interest before you release it to me?

Yours,

A disgruntled customer

Lets Make Up Our Own Sport

I have been trying to get out and about and meet new people and sometime interesting conversations happen like this one between myself and a lovely guy from the UK:

Guy: So how did your other country do in the Olympics?

Me: terrible

Guy: Has any one from there ever won a medal in the Olympics?

Me: Nope

Guy: Do you guys have a national sport that you are really good at and beat other countries

Me: hahaha No

Guy: You know what you guys need to do; you need to make up a sport

Me: Huh?

Guy: Yeah make up a sport like the Aussies did

Me: What sport did they make up?

Guy: Aussie Rules Football aka footy – they were not good at anything else so they made it up

Me: (fascination) Really?

Guy: Yup that’s why it's pure crap, look the Americans play American football, people in Europe and Asia play American football I have lived in different parts of the world and it has spread all over but no one wants to play Aussie Rules football because it's pure crap

Me: Yup but they do have those tiny shorts and they are really proud of it

Shine a Light But Where?

Like a wavy wispy cloud I remember the highest electricity bill I had in San Francisco, I was so horrified back in 2010 when I opened my email to discover I had racked up a whopping $48 bill to PG&E in one month. See prior to this extreme lapse in judgment and increase in carbon footprint my bills usually came in around $28 to $35 per month depending on the time of year. I picked up the phone prepared to rip them a new one after all how dare those municipal numbnuts raise my bill so high? Then it hit me – I had been sick for the better part of the previous month with bronchitis then a sinus infection, had been working from home a lot and had been using the heat in my apt a lot. Phew hole ripping diverted plus PGE was busy defending themselves after blowing up San Bruno so my rage would not have gotten me far.

But the fact to remember is that most of the time I left my computer on, had TV on all the time as back ground noise etc all for around $35 a month

And then I moved to Australia and started getting electricity bills

I discovered a few facts:

1.       That the electricity bills are sent out every 2 months

2.       If you live in a complex sometimes they will not read the bill or try to read the bill they will “estimate” it. Now I have had bills estimated before in the US but it was based on living in an apartment/house for a while and they would average it over a few years for that month. However NO ONE had EVER lived in my apartment before

3.       I had to pay a really high fee to get connected even though there was electricity in the unit when I moved in – the fee was to put the bill in my name

So what’s in my apartment?

·         One TV

·         One fridge – medium size full fridge (by that I mean it is too small for the built in space and cannot hold a lot especially the freezer – but is great for me)

·         A washing machine

·         A dryer

·         Electric stove

·         Hot water heater

·         One bed site table lamp

·         A laptop

·         An electric kettle

·         A Vacuum

·         A cell phone

·         An e-reader

Behavior Patterns

·         Turn off stove and kettle after use (always afraid they will catch fire as stove was seriously hard to figure out)

·         TV – 30mins in the AM while having breakfast, 2-3hrs most nights of the week

·         Over head lights – living room, kitchen, dining is open plan to keep only one light on because they are seriously bright. The builders put in the worst lighting ever!

·         Bedroom – use only the bedside lamp from Target with the cheap energy efficient bulb.

·         Laundry – 2 loads per week, put outside to dry then 15mins per load in dryer once dry to remove pollen and dust picked up outside or my allergies riot.

·         Cell – plug in and charge at night

·         Nook – plug in and charge at night

So here is what that gets me in terms of bills one from Jan when it was 101 degrees F and I was using the airco and one from June when it's around 50 degrees and I am NOT using the heat because well… see below

So last month I paid it in 2 parts because I just did not have the money so that incurred 2 late fee charges. I then decided that next pay check I would pay something towards the bill in small increments so that I would not be stuck with a huge payment that I could not afford all at one time so I paid $90 in advance of getting the June bill which is reflected below - so now I only owe them $164 that I have to come up with before July 6th

With the carbon tax going into effect July 1, 2012 it is estimated that household electricity prices will rise 10%. I am tired of being broke and running around turning off every appliance, using candles instead of light, having to put my clothes outside and wait a day or two to dry instead of using the dryer, washing my clothes in only cold water, turning the laptop off then realizing I need to do something else and having to go turn the power switch on then the laptop on etc.

I am starting to think the Amish might be really on to something: if it wasn’t for the long dresses, hard manual labor, that I am way too old to get a good choice of husbands, worry about giving birth in a barn by myself and dying, having to give up my Nook, my food processor, my computer etc it might be the optimal cost saving way of life.

Gluten Free Gozleme

Sometimes inspirations strikes, that and hunger. So tonight I decided to attempt making some gluten free Gozleme because I saw it being sold at the markets today and had nothing else at home for dinner but some spinach, feta and other salad stuff in the fridge and was tired of salad. Just one leetle problem I had no yeast and while the bus does run an extra hour and a half on Friday nights there was no way I was leaving the house to go and buy yeast and importantly yeast means kneading and I am too tired to knead. So I would give it a shot and if by 8:30 I had nothing edible I was going to get out the menu of the Chinese place down the road and order Kung Pao chicken. Yes I would have to walk and pick it up but by then I would be hungry enough to chew my arm off so…

This is the combination of ingredients I came up with (I wrote them down with great hope I would have something to take pics of)

• 1.5 cups of self raising gluten free flour (I was out of the non self raising kind)
• ½ xantham gum
• ¾ c greek yogurt
• ½ tsp salt
• Feta cheese – here is where things fell down. I just drained the water off what remained of it and broke it up with a fork
• Spinach – it was a bunch of English spinach, no idea what it weighed
• 1 tbp olive oil
• 2 cloves of garlic finely chopped
• Salt and pepper

Preparation

I mixed the flour, gum, salt and yogurt in the food processor and pulsed a few times till mixed. It did not form a ball like it does when it is flour, butter and ice water but it looked like tiny bread crumbs.

Oh what to do I wondered.

I dumped the mixture out into a bowl and started to feel it with my hands and it was damp enough and just formed into a ball really easily. So I set the ball aside, washed up everything and decided to cook the spinach.

I think if I had pre packaged baby spinach I may not have washed it but this was the grandma spinach that said “cook me”

I love my spinach cooked with garlic sautéed in olive oil then the spinach gently wilted, salt and pepper then a dash of fresh lemon juice. So that is what I did and set it in a colander to drain any additional fluid.

All of this was so exhausting and I still had no idea it would work as my ball did not look any bigger. Did I mention I was starving? So off to the couch to check Facebook I went because well what else does one do when they are starving and dinner is an uncertain prospect?

Eventually I went to have a piece of fruit (I have been eating healthier) and decided to cut the ball open as time was ticking by and to my surprise it looked like dough inside. Cue the music as I did my happy dance in the kitchen. This might just be OK

My past experience with GF dough is that I have to roll it out between plastic so I got 2 sheets of cling wrap and put a quarter of a ball and rolled it out till fairly thin.

Meanwhile the skillet was heating up with some cooking spray. I gently flipped the dough from the plastic into the skillet put the fillings in flipped the other side over.

Would it be heavy, doughy, tough, would I be going out for Chinese? I waited with baited breath and growling stomach

No it was perfect – slightly crunchy on the outside from the high heat and cooking spray but soft and gooey with the melted cheese and garlicky spinach inside. I was in heaven; I stared at them in awe. Definitely no kung pao tonight or tomorrow either.

Served with a side of Tzatziki that I made earlier in the week for something else

Trying to Go to Margaret River

A plan was hatched – lets go to Margaret River for the Labor Day weekend, we will see some wineries, get some chocolate and cheese and spend the weekend.

The first problem – we waited till Friday afternoon to book a hotel and by that time everything was booked up. I could only find 2 hotels available in Margaret River and they were in the $500 a night range; no way Jose – I have a bed at home that I am still paying for.

So we decided instead to start off early in the morning and make it a day trip instead. By 10 we were at Bunbury having coffee at Dome which overlooks the beachy industrial area below

We then decided to drive up to another beach and look at the rocks

Then the lookout tower from which you could see the entire town of Bunbury

We next headed to the Cheese factory where I picked some cheddar with truffles and one with chives and onion.

By this time we were getting hungry and decided to head for Busselton in search of fish and chips. We had an incredible lunch at a café on the beach. The fish and chips with mixed greens dressed with balsamic vinaigrette took at scant 8 minutes from order to come out. The fish tasted fresh from the ocean and the chips like only the Aussies can do chips – crispy outside, tender inside. (forgot to take a pic) but here is the Busselton Jetty

After Busselton we visited the Happs and Three Hills winery where we got 3 bottles of the Eva Marie Semilion 2008 – they only had 15 left and I thought the owner was going to cry to part with 3.

Next up the Gabriel Chocolate Factory – really amazing chocolate that they make from beans from different regions of the world. I came home with a Venezuelan Milk, an Ecuadorian 58% dark and a 65% Ghanaian dark.

Then we hit the Windows Estate winery which was lovely and modern and I enjoyed all of their whites but purchased only a 2010 Mousseux and a 2010 Chenin Blanc which I had never heard of before but was delightful. Unfortunately by time I paid for them it was 5pm, and everything was closing so it was time to head back to Perth.

We took at stop at a beach something that started with a G then decided to try and make it 3hrs without a bathroom break. A daunting task for two tiny bladdered people. One stop to stretch our legs and do the pee pee dance in the woods and we finally made it back to Perth by 9pm where my grateful bladder was happy to see my own toilet.

Everything here in Western Australia is FAR and it takes a lot of driving between places to get anywhere – going to Margaret River is not like going to Napa. You cannot get there in 45-60 mins its more like 4-6hrs. We never even made it all the way – we only got as far as Dunsborough

Perth, Friends and Singlehood

I was single when I lived in San Francisco but I was never so keenly aware of my lack of marital status as when I moved to Perth.

Let me explain what Perth is like; it is a quiet, clean city where the shops close at 5pm, most do not open on Sundays, there are lots of little parks, trees and tons of suburbs. Most people live in the suburbs and commute long distances via bus, car or train into the city for work each day. At 4:55 each day when I look up from my desk it is to the sound of the mass exodus as everyone heads for the door at 5pm (Granted they do start at 8pm so I do not blame them for getting out of there) but what is interesting is that they are all rushing home to families.

See Perthites marry, or get into relationships really young. So far the only people over 30 who I have met that are never married, have no children and not or have not been in a long term committed relationship are those like myself who have moved from another country. I wager there are more baby faced engaged, married or relationshiped 20 somethings than there are people in that age range with four year degrees in Perth.

And if you have lived here your whole life you also have the same 20 friends you had since kindergarten and Perth is a very cliquey town so most people I have met that are from Perth are not at all interested in making new friends. Don’t get me wrong they are very friendly people and you will enjoy working alongside them, interacting with them in the store, church etc but they have a partner, children and the afore mentioned 20 friends and thus no room to add a new person – you.

So my new strategy is to grab them while they are still fresh off the boat/plane like myself and as such I have met a couple of lovely girls I hope to get to know better. I am still open to getting to know the locals but now that I know how Perth works it no longer bothers me. Plus, I am lucky that I have always enjoyed my own company.

Now that I have the friend thing figured out (fresh off the boat), I have been given random, unsolicited advice by male colleagues on how to go about finding a man. See on Monday when everyone is reciting their family and spousal weekend activities mine are usually solo so one day I have the following conversation:

Male Colleague (MC): “You need to get a boyfriend”

ME: puzzled, what vibe I am giving off “I do?”

MC: “Yeah don’t you want one?”

ME: “Yeah if the right one came along”

MC: “Well get out there and find one”

ME: “Ah So where do people meet other people here?”

MC: “Online, Bars, Clubs, getting drunk”

ME: chuckle “None of those are really my thing”

MC: “You just need to get out there get drunk and meet someone”

ME: “So tell me how did you meet your wife?”

MC: “Oh we were both drunk in a bar”

ME: “Ahh ha how’s that working for you?”

MC: “Great it’s been 10 awesome years, 4 beautiful kids”

ME: “Oh my wow”

I knew so many beautiful, fabulous, single friends in San Francisco so that being single was just a part of life and I will confess that when everyone else in the prayer group was praying for husbands I was praying for a killer body and tons of money. So far God has not seen it fit to answer either of those prayers and now I live in Perth so even if I started praying for a husband now I suspect it will take a miracle and I am still really holding out hope for the killer body and the tons of money too.

Mexican Food in Perth

Dear citizens of Mexico it is time for you rethink you emigration strategy. See what you are doing right now is no longer working all that well, not for you and certainly not for me. This whole running, walking, crawling, digging a tunnel, hitching a ride across the US border is just getting you shot, caught, dehydrated and lost to death in the desert and with those crazy Texans arming themselves well, we all know you will be target practice. Not to mention the drug cartels…yeah I can’t decide what’s worse either – crazy armed Texans or drug cartels hmm.

Anyway I have a better idea for you, one that has worked well for thousands of people from Iran, India, Afghanistan, Iraq, Thailand, and many other countries…come to Australia…on a boat. See these guys turn no one away and sent no one back as long as you show up claiming to need political asylum. And with all your corrupt officials owned by the cartels well you have a case for asylum if I ever heard of one. And oh not only do they not send you back, they house you, educate you (English and school for the kids) even if it takes 7-10 years to sort out your paper work. And I have it on good authority that the housing for the boat people is better than the housing for the welfare people.

What? You have a problem with boats? How do you think the Cubans, Haitians, Santo Domingans, Jamaicans and the rest of my Caribbean peeps have done it going to the US all these years? On boats mis amigos on boats so off to find a boat you go. There are just a few conditions:

1. Make sure you bring Abuela’s recipes with you
2. make sure you bring a few people in the boat that can cook said recipes (the more the merrier), and
3. make sure whoever is carrying the recipes has them wrapped in oil skin (water proof) and can swim

See last Saturday night I went out to what has been touted as one of the ‘best’ Mexican places in Perth – it’s so hot you needed a reservation in advance to get in and there was a line of the non reserved waiting and hoping for a seat.

I ordered a small margarita ($12.50) boy was it small and had zero alcohol in as far as I could tell and was SUPER sweet and came from a spinning frozen machine I later found out

No chips and salsa for free so I ordered the sampler ($16.50) and it came with 3 dips: salsa, guacamole, and chili con queso (I skipped the chili and got just the queso). For my main meal I ordered the shrimp enchilada ($12.00)

Everything came out together (pet peeve)

The chips were from a bag – yup they were store bought with very little corn in the corn chips. Doritos makes a plain ‘corn’ chip for the Aussie market and I swear it was that. The good news is that the guacamole had fresh avocado (not the powder stuff) but that seemed to be it, I did not taste any garlic, onion, cilantro, lemon or jalapeno. But it did have a dollop of sour cream on top of it. Hmm the salsa I am not sure what it was it was a runny red liquid that tasted as if it might have been ancho chili from the jar purred with a tomato. And the cheese was just you just cheese from a can that 3 chips in made me feel queasy so I had to stop.

The Enchilada was a single corn tortilla with 4 small tough shrimp inside the outside was covered in Enchilada sauce and cheese and the whole thing was (I believe) microwaved. The cheese stuck to the plate and came up in a whole crunchy piece - the best part of the dish (who doesn’t love hot crunchy cheese), the tortilla had dried out and cracked and there was some shredded iceberg lettuce and 6 pieces of finely diced tomato. (No beans, no rice and not a cilantro in the house)

I decided to investigate to creators of this gastronomic delight and took off to skulk around the back of the restaurant and peer into the kitchen. See what I failed to mention many paragraphs ago is that NONE of the wait staff in the restaurant were Mexican or of Mexican descent. In fact looking around I would said I was the closest thing to Mexico there. Working there were Caucasians, Asians, Black, and some Mixed but no Mexicans. So there was I at the back door peeping in when I saw two people one was male dark hair, dark skin one was female skin lighter than mine with lots of dark hair in a bun. Those two were working together but the owner was an older Caucasian guy. So I don’t know. Maybe they are Mexican but we all would admit it’s not every Mexican that can create great food.

The others I was with really enjoyed their meals so I was not about to burst their bubble by telling them that it was not even Mexican food. See I have had good Mexican food from the Americanized version to the ‘we know you just crawled across the border but don’t care because this is so good’ version.

I got home feeling queasy and sick, spent Sunday going to the toilet every 2hrs and today Thursday my system still has not fully recovered.

So until my dear Mexican friends get here by boat and get processed and start a real restaurant or hand deliver Abuela’s recipes to me so I can start the restaurant and hire them. I am going to back to what I have been doing for the past 7 months – making my Mexican at home. It’s fantastic!! If I do rather un-humbly do say so myself, I have never made myself sick and my guac brings all the boys to the yard (perhaps only in my own mind but still...)

Check out the pictures below – one is the back of the tee-shirts the wait staff were wearing and the other was from one of the dining rooms. I am telling myself it has to be a deliberate joke (the manyana misspelling)