foiled plans & kombucha

If everything had gone according to plan, today's post would recount what I am sure would have been a glorious long-weekend escape to the beach with friends. But life does not always go to plan. Sometimes that stomach flu that has apparently been "going around" hits you square between the eyes and wakes you in the dead of night screaming "I AM HERE! FUCK YOU AND ALL OF YOUR AWESOME PLANS, YOU WON A TRIP TO VOMIT TOWN!"

Tom had it three days earlier, and I was so certain that I'd made a lucky escape (admittedly a fantasy when living in the small quarters of a one-bedroom flat) that was excitedly picking out books to read on the beach and buying Tanqueray and Rekorderlig to drink over interesting (and later, ridiculous) conversation during those balmy nights out on the deck.

Alas, it was not to be. (I wish I could honestly say I use the word alas in my day-to-day vocabulary, but most of the time I just waste the opportunity by using a swear word in it's place.) We spent Australia Day on the couch watching The Matrix Trilogy, which I somehow managed not to see in the fifteen years since it's release, which is unfortunate because of all the Thomas Anderson references I could have made throughout the last two years. Other than those misses opportunities to tease my boyfriend, though, I don't feel like I missed out on a great deal. The first was good, but the other two? Whole sequences of CGI people with jelly-limbs hitting each other? Twenty minutes on a single chase scene that wasn't remotely necessary to the development of the plot? Machines and computer programmes with an inexplicable will to live? The first was enough; ignorance was bliss and I wish I could un-know the whole Architect/Oracle/One storyline and the stupid love story between Neo and Trinity. /accidental rant

 

In other exciting news, I finished my first batch of kombucha and I'm dorkishly proud of myself. I'm please that I have a boyfriend with a background in biology, because I needed him to assure me that none of the new growth around my SCOBY was bad, regardless of how ugly it appears. Even though I knew what kind of things to expect in a normal batch of kombucha, I was still anxious that I had somehow broken it and infected my SCOBY with horrors unknown. It reminds me a little of when I first started nannying the twin one-year-olds when I was eighteen. When they tripped and fell I would run and scoop them up, afraid I was doing a terrible job. It only took a week or so for me to become more relaxed and just let them pick themselves up and go along their merry way. Things are usually not as dire or serious as they might initially seem. I'm hoping that kombucha will become second nature to me and I won't be anxiously checking the progress of each batch multiple times a day.

I'll be honest, this first batch hedged a little close to the over-brewed, slightly vinegar stage. In an Adelaide summer like this I think it could use a day or two fewer to be of the beautiful tart standard of Mojo, especially with the mini heat wave we have to look forward to this week. I hope you're all well and that any of you Aussies had a more exciting/less sick Australia Day than I, but right now I really ought to get ready for work - I've made a terrible habit of being exactly two minutes late to work every day, but I think today shall be the day I break that streak and catch the earlier train.