Buzzzzzzz

Sarabelle and I attended the open garden/tennis club fundraiser work bee at our coach's house Sunday. Elle stayed home -- she has been complaining of a sore back since Grice used her as a step ladder on a playground last weekend when the three of us participated in a weaving seminar hosted by women of the local Kuku Yalangi (pronounced goo goo YAWL angee) in honor of their grandmother, a tribal elder specializing in basket weaving and local notable who recently died -- I wanted to give her a chance to rest it and make sure it's nothing more serious before her big trip, and Grice stayed home to keep an eye on her.

Sarabelle and I picked up Em on the way over. She was a little under the weather, suffering the effects of a late-night party, but she was prepared to tough it out. Vee wasn't expected to show as her family only had the weekend to get her husband ready for his next two-week, four-wheel tour. Fortunately when we arrived there was one other older couple there from the resort town's tennis club to help, and between the five of us, we got a lot of work done. Sarabelle varnished the bench and my main job was to cut pups off bromeliads and fill in gaps in a large bed, then cage each transplant to protect it from the bandicoots and bush turkeys. I also did a little pruning, mulched another big bed with hay, and hauled some big bags of potting soil around and removed a fridge from the property. My back and neck are a little achey. Normally I would ask Em give me a massage treatment, but she is too busy preparing for an impromptu flight this week to the Philippines to celebrate a cousin's wedding. I'm sure she loves her cousin, but I'm sure she equally loves the idea of missing the open garden.

Coach made up for the imposition by serving us a delightful little tea. There were sandwiches and cookies and home-made muffins plus tea and coffee and champagne served under one of his many elegant little asian-styled pavilions at the edge of a broad, rainforest-fringed expanse of lawn. The older couple didn't drink, Em didn't want to even think about consuming any more alcohol (her headache medicine was beginning to wear off at that point), and Sarabelle is under-age, so that left me and the coach to drink the champagne. And you know it's not like wine, where you can just pop the cork back in and save it for later, once it's open, you have to finish it or throw it away. And it was good. Not like most of the syrupy swill that has to be choked down after the best man's toast (too much like taking medicine, but in order to stave off any potential wedding curses, I always dutifully perform this dreadful task), not exactly Clicquot, but a close Australian approximation. We did not waste it, and gardening chores were so much more pleasant afterward.








We ought to do good to others as simply as a horse runs, or a bee makes honey, or a vine bears grapes season after season without thinking of the grapes it has borne.

-- Marcus Aurelius

The Cone of Uncertainty

It's hanging over my head. Sort of looks like a dunce cap, doesn't it?

Tropical Storm Fay: You can actually see this cone graphically projected continuously on any South Florida news station and it's raining on our parade, threatening Jorge's travel plans. Will it develop into a full-blown hurricane? Will it follow its current projected path? Will it flatten our unsellable but fully insured house? Could we be so lucky?

Rental House: The owner of the rental house I left a deposit on is now considering putting it on the market for sale instead. Needs a week to think about it. There is another house available immediately, an older crummier house on a barren lot in a lesser neighborhood, and though I'm no fan of new-development cookie-cutter houses, they are the same price so I'd prefer the sterile, contemporary, landscaped one. Will she decide in our favor? How much longer will our current landlord put up with us?

Elle: This uncertainty more approaches dread. Jorge is planning to fly her back with him when he returns to the States for a couple months. I might have lost my mind. I certainly will when she is gone. But, fair enough, he misses the girls terribly and Elle is the only one not stuck to a school schedule. What about her studies? What will I do without her? What will she do without me? Will it be 24-hour TV, Toontown, and takeout? Will she even want to come back?


If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there.

-- Lewis Carroll

Winter

The weather has been cool and clear, so gorgeous you forget for a moment the monsoonal rains and plentiful mold of the other nine months. We decided to take our school work outside. Elle dragged out the swag, which needed a good scrub and airing to eliminate the powdery mildew build-up. We also took our morning tea out in an effort to stay warm.



After the lessons were done and the day warmed, the clothes came off and there was some brief unprotected high-ozone exposure. Lulu was even allowed to briefly share the towel...



...and when she thought no one was looking, she continued her sunbathing.




I have nothing to ask but that you would remove to the other side, that you may not, by intercepting the sunshine, take from me what you cannot give.

-- Diogenes

The Big Show

Well, well, well. Finally found a new post, did you? Surprised?

First of all, the above photo. Let me explain. We had our big, local agricultural show a couple weekends ago and this was a highlight. To me this epitomizes the attraction of a small-town country fair: The owner of this particular diversion, a well-dressed older man, travels around Australia with his Indian Runner ducks, dressing them up for fashion shows (including the obligatory bridal dress finale) and races. He's quite the tailor. The dog is not going to eat the ducks, he is their friend and is only waiting for one of them to step out of line so he can immediately get them back in order. It's his job and he loves it. Photo credit: Crazy Duck Guy.

This show, or fair, is nothing like the scary Broward or Dade County Youth Fairs. My kids were free to wander around with their friends while I chatted with a few other parents and drank giant cups of coffee. While I was not directly supervising them, there were many others pairs of eyes keeping watch over them. It takes a village and all. I had been delaying this post in hopes that I would have a video clip to attach, showing you the band competition Sarabelle participated in, but, alas, I have not yet received my promised disk of the show. Up on a real stage, with lights and professional sound guys, in front of people she mostly did not know, she played in two of the four bands competing, greatly increasing her odds of bringing home some prize money. And that she did. First place went to her boy friend's (note the space) band, and she took second with the school jazz band's rendition of Joe Cocker's "The Letter" and Men At Work's "Land Down Under," and third place with a last-minute ensemble of friends playing "Sweet Home Alabama" and some other songs I can't think of at the moment. She doesn't get it from me, that's for sure.

The tennis club continues to haunt me. Em, Vee, and I, the only moms, who along with Em's partner constitute the entire body of interested, participating parents, were thrown into another fundraiser. This one promised to be fun though. Our coach and president was planning to open his garden for the countrywide Open Garden scheme and suggested our club be the beneficiary of the entrance fees and bake sales proceeds. At the meeting last week, I thought to decide if we were to proceed with this plan, my dreams of a weekend spent drifting around a lovely sunny tropical garden serving tea were shattered when we were instead handed a list and given a tour of the kilometer-long rainforest paths to point out what work had to be done to get his garden in shape. Not just weeding, I'm talking chainsawing, replanting, trash hauling, furniture scrubbing and polishing... When we got to the shed where he indicated the replacement bench for the rotting hulk out on one of the trails, still in its box and told us that "First we'll have to assemble it, and ideally before that we should take it all out and varnish it..." I nearly burst out laughing, except one look at Vee's stony expression told me she didn't think it was terribly funny at all. Of course his "we" was only a figure of speech, he has injured his back and is out of commission. Indefinitely. He won't even be offering lessons this term. We have all committed a couple hours to his "work bee" but with three nominally single moms (all partners being out of town or out of the country on business), one working, one homeschooling, one working and homeschooling, and no other offers of assistance, it just doesn't look very good. I think it's time he and his mysteriously absent wife call in a landscaper. And in an unofficial poll, the majority of members, secretary, and treasurer (the same four of us) have decided we would like to politely decline his kind fundraising opportunity.

That is also a bad weekend for us because Jorge is coming for another brief visit! We may just have to head out of town on another mini-holiday. You never know.

In the meantime, we are thinking about relocating. How many times have you heard me say that? This time it would only be down the hill to our small country town where the girls attend school. It would be nice to be able to walk everywhere -- to the grocery store, the post office, the park, the library, the Gorge, the pool, gymnastic lessons, school, the bank, community events -- especially when diesel is the equivalent of $6.92 per gallon.


I went to the animal fair, the birds and the beasts were there...

-- Unknown