Last night was the high school's big Presentation Night when awards are bestowed upon the worthy; class leaders, house captains, and the dux are announced for next year; and the outgoing Year 12s say their official goodbyes. It's a sort of graduation without the pomp and circumstance.

Sarabelle played electric bass first with the orchestra band and later with the jazz band.



Somewhere in between those performances she was due to receive a merit award, but because Grice mentioned not hearing Sarabelle's name called during the practice (even though Grice is notoriously unobservant on occasion), Sarabelle incorrectly assumed maybe some error in her grades had been detected and the award rescinded, so she didn't get in line to go up and receive her certificate. Boy did I feel silly with a camera stuck to my face waiting for her to appear in my viewfinder.

Grice (on the far right below) received an even higher honor, a distinction award, for her efforts. Light was low and my shutter speed slow; I missed the shot of her stage walk and congratulatory handshake.



But I did get plenty of decent photos of other people's kids! These are from my favorite part of the evening, the cultural performances by the Kuku Yalanji doing their rainforest animal dances and then a Torres Straight Island dance. While they are recognized formally at such gatherings as the traditional custodians of the land, they are not always the traditionally dressed custodians.








Don't worry when you are not recognized, but strive to be worthy of recognition.

-- Abraham Lincoln

The Aussie Vote

Australians overwhelmingly back Obama as US president. Besides the general election numbers, see what respondents had to say about The Greatest Country on Earth and its inhabitants.


A man should never be ashamed to own that he has been in the wrong, which is but saying... that he is wiser today than yesterday.

-- Jonathan Swift

Big Day

I spent the day in Cairns, getting a couple of those female-type tests done, the regular annual check-up ones, the ones that would cost me if I had them done back in Florida. Seriously, people, what is wrong with socialized medicine?

I also had another appointment with the immigration officers. We have come so close in our quest for citizenship. We had only to apply and pay the fees, but our hasty departure threatened the success of this venture: Passports must be submitted with the package and application approvals may take up to three months. And we will be needing our passports very shortly. The phone representative I spoke with a couple weeks ago could not advise me on any expediting services and recommended a visit to the office.

My hope was that they could at least make copies of our voluminous documentation and begin the process. The officer wanted to know why it was so important to obtain citizenship when we could still come and go, attend university, and have healthcare with permanent residency status. I explained my biggest concern was that immigration rules might change in the time we are overseas, as they had done already since we undertook this endeavor. First of all, she informed us only the three of us still in Australia could apply. She let me know she could initiate the process but warned it could be hung up by the police check because my first name and surname are fairly common. If a match or partial match to my name appeared, a complete background search would be required at the federal level which could take up to three weeks. And even if I passed the police check and our application could be approved, I would still need to attend a formal citizenship ceremony on Australian soil, foreign embassies excluded, and most likely would not have time to then secure Australian passports for everyone, even with expedited service. Since Australian citizens are required to enter Australia on Australian passports this could be another dead end.

But.

Re-entry for citizens is allowable with only a certificate, though you are almost guaranteed to encounter greater delays, so says the department's online information.

I decided to go for it.

The police check was clear and our application was approved right then and there. The officer advised our next step was to contact our local shire and request a private ceremony at least two weeks out to insure timely delivery of the certificates.

The girl at our shire office questioned the need for a private ceremony. Couldn't I just wait until January 26th, Australia Day, when they are normally performed? After I explained our time frame she asked if we wouldn't mind having our ceremony combined with another group's already scheduled for November 21.

So November 21 it is.




We are one, but we are many,
And from all the lands on Earth we come;
We'll share a dream and sing with one voice:
I am, you are, we are Australian.

-- Bruce Woodley and Dobe Newton ("I Am Australian")

Gone Troppo Encore

Saturday we were in Port for a junior busking event. We enjoyed a wide variety of talent including the girls' friend and his partner who impressed us with their magic tricks.



And we were back in Port again Sunday when Sarabelle's high school jazz band opened the Footprints Music Fest's Sunset in the Park event. You cannot beat live music outside on a beautiful spring day. Even if your drummer doesn't show up and your guitarist has to fill in on drums and another friend, in a florescent-yellow-so-not-a-school-band-uniform shirt, fills in on guitar and the wind is blowing your hair and sheet music and you can't see anything except the lights from the equipment the stage guys are testing and you are very uncomfortable because you are inches from the blazing hot lights in the daytime wearing your multi-layered, polyester formal band uniform, the show must go on...



You cannot beat that backstage area either.



Grice and I spread out on a blanket along with the other band families, and waited four hours for the main event, not the headliners, but the headliners' opening act's opening act: The Kan'd Peaches.



After a pleasant afternoon of mostly mellow acoustic music, and lots of beer drinking, the sun finally set and the crowd was ready to crank it up.



With a five song set of Red Hot Chili Peppers, White Stripes, and Arctic Monkeys covers plus two originals, the boys totally rocked the place.








There is no such thing as a great talent without great will power.

-- Honore de Balzac

Gone Troppo

trop po |ˈtrɑpoʊ| |ˈtrɒpəʊ|
adjective Austral./NZ informal
mentally disturbed, supposedly as a result of spending too much time in a tropical climate : have you gone troppo ?
ORIGIN 1940s: from TROPIC + -O.

Port Douglas kicked off its first ever Go Troppo Arts Festival this week. Sarabelle was there Friday evening performing with her high school strings ensemble to open the ten-day celebration at the Low Isles Exhibition out on the old Sugar Wharf. It was a beautiful night on the water, the sun setting behind the mountains, classical music and art inside, and a trio performing acoustic sea chanties outside.

Last night we hit the Central Hotel with a couple friends for the Port Shorts Film Festival. Entries were under three minutes and contained a preselected item, this year's being, "BEAM." Sarabelle was requested to be there by her friend, actor and producer of last year's winner, Pig Boy. While his entry last night was not selected for Best Movie, a collaboration with his partners from Pig Boy won the top prize with a very funny short about an alcoholic loser, Joe Beam, and his overworked liver, starring the friend in the role of the much abused organ.

Next up, the busking competition next Saturday, where another friend of the girls, producer of this stop action short, is performing.

We'll close out the festival Sunday with Art In The Park followed by the Footprints Sunset Concert, where Sarabelle will be playing with her school's jazz band, and their friends' band, Kan'd Peaches, winners of the 2008 Mossman Show Battle of the Bands and 2008 Cairns Battle of the Bands, will also be performing.


The barriers are not erected which can say to aspiring talents and industry, 'Thus far and no farther'.

-- Ludwig van Beethoven

Creepy Crawly

1) With Halloween right around the corner and no celebration in sight -- why, oh, why isn't it a big deal down here, I wonder -- I read Stephen King's latest, Duma Key. Duma Key, in case you're wondering (and even if you're not), is a fictional island just off the southwest coast of Florida, and is connected to our own island, Little Gasparilla by way of Don Pedro, on its scary south side by an equally fictional footbridge. While it was fun to spot familiar places, Dan's Fan City, the Nokomis 7-11, and Casey Key, and frequent mentions of The Bone, "Tampa Bay's Classic Rock Station," there were a couple nights spent wishing I didn't have to get out bed and walk all the way down the hall, about ten whole steps, to the pitch black bathroom.

2) Grice went to a sleepover not too long ago and now we're all enjoying a rerun of The Itchy and Scratchy Show. One of the only things I will not miss about this place. As a potential card-carrying member of the National Pediculosis Association, please join me in celebrating "September Is Head Lice Prevention Month". Oh, damn. It's October.

3) The post office clerk commented when I sent off my absentee ballot the other day (return receipt requested, thank you) that she had seen quite a few of these come through lately. People who hadn't voted in years were making it a point to have theirs counted in this very important election. She predicts a landslide. When questioned about the potential winner, she winked and said she believed it would be "something new!" for America. A woman VP? Nah, we've already done "stupid," so I'm thinking she meant a black guy. Or Ralph Nader. And later that day, turning in Grice's donations for her 40-Hour Famine fundraiser, her teacher, an honest-to-goodness bleeding-heart liberal if ever there was one, tossed out a few favorite bits from Bowling For Columbine and expressed his fervent hopes for a non-McCain/Palin win. (I'd quote him, but many times in conversations with Aussies I'm left feeling as if I need subtitles. Move your lips, people!) I was feeling quite optimistic until I got home and read an article on the Bradley effect.


People are not disturbed by things, but by the view they take of them.

-- Epictetus

On The Move. Again.

For those of you who haven't heard yet, we are packing our bags and heading back to the other Sunshine State, Florida, in the good ol' U.S. of A.

Besides the downward economic spiral and the dead real estate market and the difficulty of being a family divided that you've seen me blather on about for the past couple years, my mother-in-law is dealing with a serious illness and we want to be there for her. But don't tell her that, okay? She would adamantly insist we not sacrifice or alter our plans in any way because of her troubles. She is very cool like that. And stubborn. But, daring to compare myself to her, I too am determined, so that's that. Only we won't let her know about it. We're just coming back for the school holidays if she asks.

Elle will stay with Jorge in Florida until Sarabelle, Grice, the dogs, and I fly back, possibly around the beginning of December.

Hey, did you notice I said "dogs" plural? Our family got a little bigger last week. Em couldn't take Lulu's sister, Asha, to New Zealand with them, and she's such a sweet dog and Lulu's best friend that I couldn't not take her. I can't wait to turn them loose on the beach at the island and just let them run 'til they drop.


Who travels for love finds a thousand miles not longer than one.

-- Japanese Proverb

Crystal Balls

Interesting to read The Australian's take on the election.


Prophecy: The art and practice of selling one's credibility for future delivery.

-- Ambrose Bierce

10 Reasons Why I Hate Americans

Humor is the first of the gifts to perish in a foreign tongue.

-- Virginia Woolf

Reality? Check.

Some of you already know that I have a vivid imagination. And sometimes, late at night especially, I hear things. Sometimes they're false alarms and sometimes there's actually something to them.

Like last week. I heard a bang and a squeal of tires and announced to the girls that I thought I'd just heard an accident on the highway, maybe right at the top of our street. Sound travels very well up the side of our mountain. "Yeah, right," was the general consensus. I was vindicated 15 minutes later when we heard a siren. We knew it was pretty serious when we heard the helicopter about 20 minutes after that. Our neighbors' horse escaped his paddock and was hit by a van with eight passengers. The horse split the van in half and came to rest inside the vehicle behind the driver's seat. The van rolled over, but everybody, except the horse, survived with minor injuries.

And then, the night before last, I awoke to a loud ssshhhhhhh-ing sound. I bolted out of a deep sleep and after finally getting my gummy eyes to focus, noticed the room being lit by a rhythmic pulsing glow which caused further disorientation until I realized the power had gone off and then back on resetting the clocks on the microwave and stove and restarting the ceiling fan. Phew. Then I heard the noise again. A few possibilities shot through my mind: The wind? The water heater cycling on? The water heater springing a leak and shooting high-pressure water all over the place? And then I realized it was coming from directly overhead. Up in the attic, whose floor creates the ceiling of the small nook where I sleep. I held my breath. My fingertips were buzzing with adreneline. It sounded like a sandbag being dragged around. A very heavy sandbag. A very, long, heavy sandbag that could be dragging around on both the left and right side of the alcove ceiling simultaneously. It was a snake. A big one. Lulu, our faithful guardian and protector, looked up at the ceiling and whimpered. Little bits of plaster fell inside the wall behind my head as it shifted around and that's when I remembered a) the news story of the local man who had a snake so large in his attic it collapsed his ceiling; and b) the attic access door in the girls' bedroom. It was headed that way. Luckily the door only swings inward, so unless a big gust of wind chanced to blow it open, as it has done on occasion, I figured that was fairly secure. I wanted to wedge a fishing pole through the door handle but I needed a ladder and I was not going outside in the pitch black to drag it in. Except, really, what did I have to fear, the worst thing out there was already inside my house. Then I set to worrying about the hole in the wall, a snake-sized gap cut to allow the knob on the door between our rooms to swing fully open and not dent the drywall. I propped the door open with a large trunk, doorknob filling the hole, and hoped for the best. I listened hard thinking that if the basilisk started whispering to me I would lose it. After an hour, the noise became almost inaudible and concentrated near the outside wall, where it presumably slipped back outside through the eaves.

I'm guessing (hoping) it was a python and it was just wandering around looking for some tasty vermin and that when it didn't find any (and since we didn't hear anything last night) it decided to keep wandering outside. I'm sure this one wasn't a figment of my imagination, and I'm sure not going up there to find out.


Fantasy, abandoned by reason, produces impossible monsters; united with it, she is the mother of the arts and the origin of marvels.

-- Francisco Goya