allsortsoflicorice | Recent Entries

1. What's the happiest thing to ever happen to you?

My children

2. What's the saddest thing to ever happen to you?

The loss of my daughter

3. What's the thing that got you the most angry in your life?

My divorce

4. What's the most frightening thing to ever happen to you?

Medical things have happened to me that should have frightened me at the time, but somehow didn't, like a non-malignant brain tumour and nearly dying of malaria. I'm not easily frightened by physical danger, but I do have some irrational fears. The three things that have made me most irrationally frightened are tinnitus, vertigo, and internet banking.

5. What's the most unbelievable thing to happen to you in your life?

The fact that I'm still alive.

1. Have you ever been the president of anything?

School debate club.

2. What do you think is the most important leadership trait?

I think there are three that are of equal importance
- ensuring all voices are heard, including the quiet ones who retreat to the corner
- decisiveness
- the buck stops with you: be willing to take the blame when things go wrong

3. What time period did you find the most interesting to learn about in history class?

Ancient Rome

4. What's something you think about doing, but you haven't gotten back into in several years?

Sewing my own clothes

5. If you could add one more random holiday to February, what would it be?

My birthday should be a holiday for all!

1. Do you cook regularly or does someone else cook for you?

I live alone and do all my cooking. I rarely eat at restaurants and never order in (except for Chinese once a year and Popeyes Chicken once every summer, but I go to get it). I LOVE cooking. I hate most shopping, but I adore food shopping. I revel in the whole process: planning, shopping, prepping, cooking, eating, sharing what I cook, even the clean-up afterwards. Cooking for people is a way to tell them you love them.

I love reading cookbooks. IMHO the greatest cookbook ever written is Claudia Roden's "Book of Middle Eastern Food" - it's a cookbook, an anthropological study, a history book, and a collection of poetry and fables, all rolled into one, and her prose is like poetry.

2. Which are you better at making: sweet or savory foods?

Can I say both?

3. If you had to work as a chef in a restaurant of your choice, which restaurant would best complement your current culinary skills?

My dream would be to work in a bakery, or a cafe where I can serve up all my cakes and biscuits. I'd also love to work in one of those rural French or Spanish restaurants where it's the menu du jour or nothing.

4. What is a cooking tip that you know, but other people generally aren’t aware of?

I am pretty sure I don't have one.

5. Do you have a recipe you would like to share?

I would like to share all the recipes in Claudia Roden's book, but if I have to choose just one, it would be megadarra.

https://www.thecoeliacsrevenge.com/our-blog/gluten-free-mejadarra-megadarra-mujadarra/2020/6/25

It's basically just lentils, onions and rice, but you can add all kinds of things to it. I like adding cherry tomatoes and rocket (arugula) and eating it with some olive oil and lemon yoghurt dressing, which would probably irk purists, but I think it's delicious. I can cook a batch of this on Sunday and live on it for half the week, and never get tired of it.

@purglepurglepurgle

1. Are you easily offended or upset by things other people post online?

Offended? No. Upset? I can't remember that ever happening. Irked? Sometimes. Amuse? often.

2. How much does the order in which the Friday Five questions are presented here matter to you?

It appears I have never thought about it, so not at all, I guess.

3. Have you ever made an effort to be inclusive, only to have someone complain that you were not being inclusive enough?

Ha ha no.

4. Are you having a happy holiday season?

I will do once I get home.

5. Which holidays do you observe or celebrate?

We're not religious, and the only one I get time off from my job for is Christmas.

Can't fictional characters just have personality traits any more? Does everything have to be a diagnosis?

1. It's 17 days until Chrismas. How do you feel about that?

Excited because I'll get to see my family again and hug them.

2. It's the second night of Hanukkah. How do you feel about that?

Glad for my Jewish friends, but it's not a holiday I celebrate, so personally I don't feel any way about it.

3. It's Howie Hawkins's birthday. Have you wished him a happy birthday yet?

I don't know who he is.

4. John Lennon died on this date in 1980. Your reaction?

Everybody has to die some time.

5. Beethoven's 7th Symphony premiered in Vienna with Beethoven conducting, on this day in 1813. Can you hum any part of the 7th?

Maybe?

The Friday Five for 24 November 2023

1. What did you eat on Thursday?

Sausage tray bake and mini-stollen

2. How many miles (kilometers) did you drive on Thursday?

None.

3. How many relatives did you see on Thursday?

Two, because they live with me.

4. What did you wear on Thursday?

Leggings and linen dress.

5. Are you planning to buy anything in particular on Friday?

Food

Thursday was just another ordinary day for me.

I feel like there must be something interesting happening somewhere in the FFVII fandom, but I just don't know where to look. Maybe outside the Anglosphere?

I miss the old days of fandom. It wasn't even that long ago, but it feels like an age of innocence, and not because I was a kid myself then, because I wasn't. I didn't come into fandom until after my kids were old enough to introduce me to video games.

1. What song do you live for at the moment?

"Live for" is maybe a bit of an exaggeration. I enjoy music, but I don't need to be listening to it 24/7. I'd rather have silence than a song I don't actively like.

Anyway, that said, right now it's a toss-up between Jackson Browne's 'Stay' and 'Millenia' by the Soweto String Quartet.

2. Is there a band or artist that you attach to a particular memory? What memory is it?

I can't listen to Whitney Houston singing 'I Will Always Love You' because it was constantly playing in the background when someone I loved was dying.

3. What's the most beautiful song lyric you've ever heard?

"Take This Waltz", Leonard Cohen

4. If you could choose any band/artist to cover any song, which combination would you pick?

I have been wracking my brains but can't answer this.

5. What's the best concert you've ever attended?

Tenebrae performing in the Berner Munster

1. Are you prepared for the Zombie Apocalypse (essentially any disaster, natural or otherwise)?

Honestly, no. I always seem to have plenty of food in my cupboard but that's unplanned. I don't even have a torch (flashlight).

2. What's in your bug-in (stay safe at home) kit?

Well, I have some antibiotic creme, some bandaids, and some panadol. I think I have some string somewhere.

3. What's in your bug-out bag?

I live on the 4th floor. I am not leaving. That said, we have a nuclear bomb shelter at my place of work.

4. What's on your 'to get' list?

I should probably get a couple of buckets.

5. Do you keep gear in your vehicle, if so, what?

No, I don't own a car.

No Friday Five this week so far as I can see, so I thought I'd catch up on some older questions. These are from the June 16th post

1. Can you diagram a sentence?

You betcha! Diagramming sentences was one of my favourite things in primary school. I loved learning about all the moving parts of a sentence and how they fit together.

2. What word do you always spell wrong, no matter what?

ocassion

3. What word always looks like it's spelled wrong to you but isn’t?

dessiccate

4. Do you have any little memory games when it comes to similar words, like principle and principal?

Nah, I just remember. To be honest, spelling is a trivial skill, but it's something I've always had a knack for.

5. Was grammar something you enjoyed or detested in school?

Loved it. LOVED IT. I love learning the grammar of new languages, too. Once I figure out how a new language works, I tend to lose interest in it.

from The Friday Five

1. Do you want to get married?

No. Been there, done that.

2. Where would you like to get married?

If I had to get married I would like it to be either in a forest glade or Wells Cathedral.

3. If you were getting married in a week, who would be in your wedding party?

My sons, my sisters, my brothers-in-law, my mother

4. What would your wedding colours be?

This is a bit like asking what my favourite colours are. For the record they're green and brown. But there would be no wedding colours, no colour theme. It would be come as you are.

5. Does marriage mean to you 'til death do us part?'

Good question. Since I'm divorced, obviously not. Historically marriage has hardly ever meant till death us do part; it's more often meant, 'till your husband decides he no longer wants you, but still wants to keep your property'. I'm not a big fan of marriage as an institution, and would never encourage my kids to get married - though I am all in favour of people throwing a huge party to celebrate their love. That's a great idea.

This isn't a ghost account. I visit it regularly. I'm keen to connect up with fellow FFVII fans.

But you won't see any posts from me here, unless I publish a fic on AO3 and put a link here.

I was never one for keeping a secret diary under my pillow. I've never been tempted to blog or journal. I have a lot of thoughts, but if they don't find their way into my fic, or into a conversation I'm having with someone, they'll stay in my head forever.

Anyway, if you're into FFVII - just the OG, or the Compulation, or the Remake - any and all of it - give me a wave.