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 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

Stress Tests

Opening a whole can of worms here, but that's what I do best, I will now explain the reasons you haven't heard from me, or in the case of recent communications, heard back from me:

-- Emergency room visit (mine), that because of a family history rife with heart attacks, blood clots, aortic aneuryms, and COPD, turned into an overnight observation. Being on my own now, with Jorge back in the States, friends were quick to step in and juggle child and dog care responsibilities. Not to worry, I am hale and hearty, though they have recommended a stress test just to cover all bases.

While I was being examined, the doctor let Elle sit in her office and draw with a special mummy pen brought back from her recent Egyptian vacation. Elle floored her by writing her name in hieroglyphics. The next morning the doctor brought in a scarab necklace as a little present for Elle.

-- Meeting the Overseer, the big gun from my Witness friend's organization who annually travels to all congregations to assure they toe the line, at a special appointment arranged by my well-intentioned friend to respond to my doubts, questions, and evidence contrary to their beliefs. Her concerns were unrelieved as the Overseer failed to provide satisfactory answers. No Kool-Aid was served, Mom.

-- Emergency room visit (Elle) after a dish-washing dance party in the kitchen turned ugly. She doesn't like me to call it 'breakdancing,' and she didn't in fact break anything, but there were some wild aikido-like rolls and lots of spins. Her foot slid under the old, rusty fridge and sliced her ankle open right across the top of the joint. Not much blood, but ligaments and bone were clearly visible. No stitches were involved, they used glue and tape to seal it up with the caveat that if it opened up again within the next 24 hours, she would need to come back, probably for a stitch or two. Is tetanus one of the regular childhood immunizations in Florida?

Our thoughts were diverted on the way to the hospital when we spotted a fluffy little bunny running alongside us down the driveway. So cute, until it turned abruptly into our path: AwwwwwwaaaaaaaAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEE! The bunny miraculously escaped flattening and the girls' response provoked gasping laughter for the next several kilometers.

The most frightening events of the night were the drive home in a squall, hoping we would not be washed off the unlit, unguardrailed road into a gully or run over any mysterious hitchhikers as talk turned (unwisely) to horror movies, and wondering if I had remembered to turn off the water in the sink in our hasty exit from the house.

-- Meeting with new landlords to work out moving and property maintenance details and a trip into town for boxes to start packing household items.

-- Tennis tournament that Elle, previously in the lead, was now only tearfully allowed to watch, being sidelined by her injuries. Supposedly. She took advantage of my attention managing the matches to run around and entertain the other children with various acrobatic feats.

-- Emergency room visit (Elle, again) after her ankle wound re-opened. Still no stitches, heavier applications of glue and tape. Next time I'll just visit an office supply store.


The bow too tensely strung is easily broken.

-- Publius Syrus

While most of you were snorkling down heaps of turkey, forty-two side dishes, and pie then lolling in front of the tv in a near coma watching football and spending the entire next day in a spending frenzy, or adamantly refusing to shop, we were almost too busy to notice that one of our favorite holidays was being celebrated on the other side of the world. And, no, for those of you who haven't asked yet and just aren't sure, Australians don't celebrate Thanksgiving. They didn't have happy Pilgrims and helpful Indians. They had convicts. And I'm pretty sure they were none too happy to be here, though after their first year surviving the harsh land they may have been treated to an extra bowl of gruel and a beating.

We had a sleepover with Sarabelle's high school buddy. Yes, on a school night, Mom. There were tennis lessons and beauty appointments (not mine as anyone we visit at Christmas time will attest) and another tennis tournament. I know, I swore them off after the last one. But due to my fever-induced grouchiness and non-responsiveness at our last committee meeting, the extra surprise bonus two-week tourney was foisted on my friend who was overwhelmed and underenthused, so I offered to give her a hand setting up. I knew I would at least be treated to a top-notch cup of coffee. M never skimps and I am not even the least bit insulted when she drops by for a cup and brings her own coffee and plunger pot. Our kids, her daughter, Bee, and Elle, weren't interested in playing in Saturday's novice doubles until they got there and then changed their minds. Elle is currently in the lead so I know what I'll be doing next Saturday. Then there was a bike rally fundraiser for the school's P&C. The kids hoofed it over eleven hilly kilometers around a beautiful country loop road back to the school where they then enjoyed a barbie and a water slide. The older girls opted to pass on Sunday's open doubles and we went for a dip in the creek instead. Last night there was another sleepover with Bee, and here we are. So you can see, things are really winding down...

Bee and Grice ready to go. Bee won the Brightest Outfit prize.



Elle and the littlies prepare to head out.



Elle coming up Heartbreak Hill...



...on the home stretch.



Bee and Grice determined to come in last, and nearly succeeding.



The Waterslide








The purpose of a liberal education is to make one's mind a pleasant place to spend one's leisure.

-- Joseph Joubert

Fun

Club Champ



Grice driving on the runway (When I discover the hiding place of the snake I may need a back-up driver.)



Boat ride to Snapper Island



Fun With Fruit, or One Hot Tomahto. Concept by Sarabelle.
(B&W photos shamelessly lifted from Vanity Fair)






Let early education be a sort of amusement; you will then be better able to find out the natural bent.

-- Plato

Cough, cough, hack, hack

Sunburn, fatigue, fever, blisters. Those are just my main excuses for coming in dead last in the women's open. I got the chills in the midst of the finals and couldn't tell if I was coming down with the flu or heat stroke. It was probably a bit of both. And learning today at the trophy presentation that the boys' finals has to be rescheduled for Friday because one of the players is sick and that I am now also in charge of that event, well, let's just say my enthusiasm was greatly diminished. When the coach suggested organizing one more tournament and sausage sizzle before the end of the year, I'm pretty sure I just growled. Fortunately my friend and fellow tennis committee sucker invited me to her house afterward for a cup of coffee, throat lozenges, a large aloe plant, and some beautiful cut flowers from the garden.

Sarabelle ended up girls' open and one half of the girls' doubles champ, and Grice and her partner were girls' doubles runners-up. Sarabelle will go down in history as the first girls' winner in the history of the club, her name engraved on a lovely plaque for ever and ever, amen.

Jorge missed all the festivities staying home to organize the storage room downstairs, the room where he and Elle found the four-foot, freshly-shed, venomous snake skin just outside the door. No sign of our visitor. I am not looking forward to digging through the suitcases when it's time to pack.


A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation.

-- Saki [Hector Hugh Munro] The Square Egg

The Simple Life

Despite the less-than-rainforest-green color of our surroundings, actually it's a greyish-green with lots of brown, and the ever-present smell of smoke as wildfires and controlled back-burns smolder all around us on various parts of the station, we're enjoying the drier climate. There is no mold in sight! Things smell better! And it is exciting to think that the The Wet will not be the muddy, mildewy mess it was last year. At least until we hear the cries of, "Bushy's-gon-ovah!" meaning the creek between here and the schools has flooded. The peace and quiet is greatly appreciated too. During the day the rustling trees and birds are about the only sounds and at night it is occasionally completely still. There is very little road noise from the lightly traveled highway that is close enough to see, usually it's a huge road train roaring past when the wind is just right, and very little air traffic. In fact when we hear a helicopter or plane, it is so rare that we bother to look up and see what's going on and wonder who it is (because there are only a few helicopters around and we might recognize them) and whether they might be going to land here. Not like in South Florida where you know it's either the cops or a news 'copter and think, oh god, what now...

Being so much drier, the sky is clearer. It's pretty cool to look up almost every night and see the Mlky Way hanging right overhead, or watch shooting stars and satellites fly by. It must be really impressive, almost oppressive, out in the desert where there is nothing but flat, uninterrupted horizon to stargaze. That has been added to my To Do list.

We have made friends with the magpie family that lives here. I know now that I'll never be fit for a return to suburbia, not when I can open the back door and gleefully throw the remains of a meal, whatever the dog doesn't eat, right off the balcony into the yard. The birds love it and have become accustomed to me providing treats, unfortunately, they see my mizuna lettuce and cherry tomato plants, in buckets on the front porch, as one big buffet. To persuade them not to bother the dozens of tomatoes that have set and are trying to ripen, I sit in the living room with the sliders wide open and a handful of small rocks at the ready. They think I am feeding them and do not fly away. I'm considering a slingshot. If I ever do return to suburbia, I'm afraid I might end up as the crabby old lady with the yard the kids are afraid to retrieve their balls from.

In addition to the magpies, we've recently been visited by the black cockatoos. There are about half a dozen or so out this morning and now I will take a short break to try to capture this phenomenon...

Okay, here you go... Pretty aren't they? See that flash of red on the underside of the tail? There's another under their wings but it's not so obvious in this shot.



We used to get excited to see the clouds of white, yellow-crested cockatoos that live here, like Fred from Baretta, all cute with the "Freeeeeeze" and the head bobbing (the ones around here do not spout police jargon), until we began to realize what a nuisance they are. Farmers shoot them. A small flock can decimate a fruit crop in a matter of minutes. And they are loud. Constantly, screechingingly loud. So we are not as excited to see the big bullies as we once were. The black cockatoos so far have not lost their ability to charm. They are less common in these parts, less aggressive, and less squawky (more of a gurgly shrieking caw.)

Even though we are farther out of town than we ever were, friends still pop in unannounced. Lulu spent one lovely afternoon racing around with her sister, Asha (on the left in the brown collar), and doggie friends Muffy and Rosie. While the moms relaxed with a cuppa and and the littermates collapsed in a heap on the porch, the sweaty kids cooled off with icy-poles. Living out here where Lulu has plenty of room to roam has greatly improved her behavior, where before, at the other rental, the only flat-out exercise she got was chasing our landlady on her four-wheeler all the way down to the horse paddocks while trying to jump on the back to ride alongside landlady's dog.





Grice is off on a traveling adventure with her bestie and bestie's dad. They are at the stage when touring around with your family is not quite interesting enough and pals must be procured for back-up companionship. They are going out to see some dinosaur fossils and visit a gorge before school starts back next week. Sarabelle is planning to attend a music camp Thursday through Sunday and we are trying to figure out how to work this around the scheduled removal of her stitches on Friday. Being a DIY kind of girl, I've got my own highly unpopular ideas on how this can be accomplished. Elle, demonstrating the powerful catalyst boredom can be and cheerfully adapting to her parents' stubborn refusal to participate in the mass consumer world of children's toys, crafted her own set of building blocks from end cuts of wood Jorge was using to build us a computer desk. They were not as eye-catching in their natural state, so she took out her paint set and began decorating them. At first they were just solid colors, then some sported spots and stripes. A few became caterpillers, ladybugs, watermelons, books, others had humans on one side and aliens on the other... Her sisters thought it looked like so much fun they eventually joined in, and the three of them spent an entire afternoon, hours, out on the porch painting, sharing, cooperating, without one bit of bickering.




Poor and content is rich, and rich enough.

-- Shakespeare (Othello)

Dark Ages

If you have nothing nice to say, you should say nothing. But I will tell you a few things anyway.

I am living in the Dark Ages. We've moved into our new rental and this weekend is the first we have had to spend some time in it relaxing (or at least not schlepping boxes.) Life on the cattle station is certainly different than living in the rainforest. Yes, Dy, it is very brown, but unlike your water situation (which I'm glad to see has been, if not resolved, at least identified) we have been encouraged by the landlord to use as much water as we need to keep the yard green. Cuts down on the fire hazard. Hopefully the electric meter for the pump is not on our account. You'd think this would be easily determined. As easily determined as whether broadband Internet was available before we moved in. There is a brand new shiny cable installed out front, but so far the wonderful robots at Telstra have only been able to confirm that broadband is unavailable, we have only one dial-up line, and a second line will cost us $300. Wireless? Sorry, that 98% country coverage doesn't include us. Satellite? The government was supposed to fund the "Broadband For All" satellite subsidy back in April but nobody has heard a word since.

And to make matters worse, our phone is not working properly. All calls are presently being made with the fax's handset and its painfully short cord. And, really, making it a moot point anyway, my laptop is dead again. After the Mother's Day Eve Disaster and subsequent hard drive replacement I was cautioned that there could still be some undetectable hairline crack in some board somewhere that could one day just shut the whole thing down. That day was today.

On the positive side of life here, the kids finally have a nice horizontal surface to ride bikes on. They cruise around on the station's airstrip instead of careening down the side of a mountain. I love to watch Elle pedaling around and singing to herself. The world is hers. She could go anywhere. As long as it is on the paved surfaces, not in the grass where all the giant venomous snakes live. That's freedom. And as inconvenient as it is now to have to drive 15 minutes each way to get the kids to and from the bus stop twice a day, it always makes me smile to see the kangaroos hopping across our driveway. There are at least 20 of them. It's sort of like seeing manatees and porpoise out on our island, you might see them every day but it's still a thrill.

Highlights of our friends' visit, which I can now only mention as all photographic evidence is firmly lodged in my dead computer, included a tour of Aboriginal sacred rock art sites and a bush tucker walk. We ate green ants, the ones that tilt their big heads up at you in thoughtful consideration before they bite you. This had nothing to do with the vomiting that occurred later on. We attended a bull ride competition, not part of any big flash traveling rodeo show, but a real local one where we knew many of the riders, who included several of the kids' classmates, and a fair bit of the audience. We also took a bracing swim in beautiful Lake Eacham, a volcanic crater lake, on our way back from a cave tour out in Chillagoe. Chillagoe is where the stomach virus kicked in. We presumed it was the seafood chowder the first batch of ill travelers had eaten (causing me to secretly think of our vehicle as the Sushi Express) until a few that had passed on the chowder then got sick later on and we since discovered that the same bug had simultaneously struck nearly half the population of our little town. Anyway, a dip in the lake made everyone feel better. For a while. Those were a few of my highlights, I'm pretty sure theirs differ.

Meanwhile, Sarabelle celebrated her quinceanera yesterday. At school she has progressed from basic music lessons to being a member of the strings ensemble. They have been invited to play a gig, Sara's first public performance, at a dinner honoring a local philanthropist (and grandfather of her friend, the ensemble's cello player), in two weeks. I only just learned that the monstrosity she is lugging around mastering, the double bass, is only a 3/4-sized instrument.

Sarabelle and Grice have taken up gardening. In a show of pure stubbornness, today Grice dug up the dirt from the garden plot she would have shared with her sister and carted it over in a box on a handtruck to the other side of the yard where she will make her own. Grice also informed Sarabelle that she put a grub in her vegetable patch. Ah, sibling rivalry.

Time to plug the phone cord back into the fax so I check and see that we've received forty-two messages since I logged on. Posting will be few and far between from Ye Olde Cattle Station.


We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.

-- Carl Sagan

Spontaneity

We've got loads of it, you know.

The five of us set out in my vehicle which seats five almost comfortably, plus a dog and all our gear for a week-long adventure. Our plan was to start out at Undara Lava Tubes to witness some ancient geological marvels and work our way down to the historic mining town of Charters Towers to experience some not-so-ancient architectural marvels.

But, of course, it didn't work out like that.

Here we are in front of the windfarm at Ravenshoe (pronounced Ravens-hoe, not Raven-shoe), one of our Tableland neighboring towns, where the temps dipped to a record -7 C/18 F the night before. Elle explained the reason for the cooler weather was that someone left all the fans on.



First stop, Innot Hot Springs where some of us enjoyed a relaxing soak in the heated water...



...and some didn't...



...and some, namely me, seriously considered spending the entire night in a pool of water under a blanket of volcanically heated sand, the only warm spot for hundreds of miles around.

It was at the springs where I met Jane. Whether Plain Jane or Jane Doe or Tarzan's Jane comes to mind, you'd have a pretty accurate image. She told me her story while she stripped down to nearly nothing, bathed, and heated her and her daughter's pot of soup in a pool adjoining my own. She came to Australia from New York six years ago as a backpacker. She homeschools her only child and is greatly concerned about the increase in regulations and decrease in freedoms she perceives here in Australia. Something that's been gnawing away at us as well. Jane is considering a move to a freer society, but hasn't yet figured out where that might be, and may even head back to the States until she does. We had loads to talk about, being of similar minds. Elle was overjoyed to meet her daughter, both Americans, both homeschooled, both six years of age; she reckoned they were nearly twins. We had a very enjoyable afternoon sharing our common bonds.

We made it to the camp ground near Undara, set up both tents, put out a picnic and lolled in the lovely hot sun for an hour or two when we got the phone call. Remember the hush-hush stuff I hinted about earlier? Jorge had applied for a job over on the west side of the Cape York Peninsula, one that would enable us to stay in Australia regardless of whether or not our Florida property sells, one that not only pays well, but provides housing, a vehicle, and tax breaks. It seemed as if he was well-suited to the position, but so much time had elapsed we figured it must not have been a real possibility. They had called leaving a message on our answering machine to say he had been short-listed and wanted to do a phone interview. Jorge returned the call and suggested that since we were halfway there he head on over as he preferred to interview in person, and I wanted to see what we were potentially getting ourselves into, so the next morning off we went.

The Cape York Peninsula, the little triangle up on the top right of the country? It's enormous. Takes nearly 11 hours to get across the base of it, and the "highway" is a single lane road with dirt shoulders that you have to swerve onto for oncoming traffic. The oncoming traffic usually meets you halfway veering off in a cloud of red dust, unless it's a 164-foot long road train, they don't budge. You also have to watch out for livestock. Stations are so huge they're unfenceable; cattle grates cross the main highway every once in a while to mark boundaries. It was not a boring drive at all.





Because we left all our gear behind, we stayed in a motel for the night in the nearby town of Karumba where the mouth of the impossibly indigo Norman River meets the Gulf of Carpentaria. The motel welcomed dog owners, but would not allow the actual dogs into the rooms, so I spent the afternoon and evening sitting on the porch with and sleeping in the car with Lulu. You will not see any pictures of that.

The interview went well, and to celebrate Jorge and I feasted on giant Gulf prawns and seafood chowder sans kids and dog. The girls were finally advised of the situation -- the reason it had been hush-hush is that they would have had a stroke anticipating a move from this place they love so much -- but a quick tour of the town (all it takes being a tiny, remote, outback flyspeck of a place), its interesting old buildings, the house we would potentially live in, the sports complex with the giant pool and tennis courts, and the historic train station (the end of the line, which takes passengers ultimately straight into the big city of Cairns) produced no huge objections, although Sarabelle inquired about the possibility of boarding at a friend's house.

We headed back to camp and though we still had plenty of time to reschedule a visit to the lava tubes, we stayed one more night and then just packed up and headed home a day early. We saw plenty of geological wonders along the way and took an alternate route home through the mining town of Herberton where we enjoyed the charming vernacular architecture.

Jorge should hear something by Friday...


It's not just a job, it's an adventure.

-- Anonymous (U.S. Navy slogan)

More of the same

Beyond the sihouettes of the trees outside our kitchen window, the ones that are daily dropping delicious exotic fruits in the yard, it looks as if the world has disappeared. In a way it has. Fog has been sitting on top of us for a week or so and I am happily ignoring any chores that require I leave my little cocoon. The rainy season is lingering and mixing with the cold weather, but surprisingly it is not dreary, not with a stack of books, a hot cup of tea, and a wool-filled comforter (a.k.a. doona) to keep you company.

What is rather dreary, but in a nice way, is listening to Sarabelle and Grice practice playing their instruments, the double bass and clarinet respectively, attempting to collaborate on various pieces. It reminds me of the gloomy rendition of "Jingle Bells" from The Nightmare Before Christmas, and I have taken to walking around the house announcing, "The King of Halloween has been blown to smithereens..." whenever they strike up the band.

The winter holiday is fast approaching and we are thinking about taking a little mini-vacation somewhere. New Zealand? Tasmania? Yep. It's cold and wet here in the tropics, let's really torture ourselves and head south, especially after I left all our heavy-duty winter coats back in Florida on our Christmas trip to prevent them from turning into big smelly piles of mold. Mostly, any place that gets me far away from the tennis courts in our town will be fine, though, no matter how bitterly cold it might be. After the last tournament I was looking forward to six blissful weeks without tennis, then at the lessons I shill at, the coach announced a mini-invitational he slipped in during the holiday. Of course Sarabelle and Grice were included, and naturally he'd need someone to help him run the event that day, including a sausage sizzle, and then I received an email later that day stating he's realized after sending out the invites, that day doesn't really work for him so I'd be on my own, oh, and he's going to be out of town for the next several days and doesn't want to find that there have been any problems organizing and securing participants when he gets back.

Well.

In typical passive-aggressive style, I will either go on vacation or blow up in spectacular fashion. The choice is obvious.


I personally gave up the Absolute...I fully believe in taking moral holidays.

-- William James

It's a magic number

Things do come in threes.

First my laptop crashed, literally (and has fortunately been restored to near perfection after a hard drive replacement from the very generous Apple guys), then the brand new one that Jorge brought back for himself went on the blink almost immediately (it too has now been fully restored to its shiny-new goodness) and then our less-than-one-year-old printer died (planned obsolescence and a low price tag destined it for the dump.)

Jorge, in his infinite kindness, brought home a new printer to allow me to continue working on the tennis club sponsorship letters without interruption, and a wireless modem so we don't all have to huddle around the one tiny table next to the plug anytime someone has to get online. Did I look forward to trying to set up a wireless network on three different operating systems (OSX, Vista, and Sarabelle's XP), knowing that Australia has the reputation as a dumping ground for outdated, defective Asian electronics? Oh, no, I did not. But it went smoothly and I am now ensconced on the couch while Grice huddles at the table with her Sims. Woo hoo, welcome to the twenty-first century.

Three other things that have kept me busy these past three weeks:

1) We are now two-thirds of the way through another junior tennis tournament

2) I've been invited to express my interest in participating on a committee to advise the director-general of Queensland's education department on homeschooling concerns and have replied in the affirmative

3) The tennis club president and I successfully staged a coup, or rather, a sort of mutually beneficial merging, of the district's sporting club (we needed an umbrella organization to cover our incorporation status to go for the big grants and provide the physical property for our efforts to build an additional tennis court; they needed a secretary to keep their incorporation alive. I am now, in effect, writing letters to myself: The tennis club requesting the merge, the sports club welcoming the tennis club onboard, the tennis club thanking the sporting club...

Must practice saying "No."

No, no, no.


Baa, baa, black sheep,
Have you any wool?
Yes, sir, yes, sir,
Three bags full:
One for my master,
And one for my dame,
And one for the little boy
Who lives down the lane.

-- Anonymous

That's Entertainment

A few weeks ago Sarabelle, Grice, and I joined up with Grice's friend and her stepdad (both Aussies) and mom (a Kiwi) to compete in the P & C's fundraising trivia night competition. I was a little concerned that the questions would be heavy on the Australiana, like the incomprehensible crossword puzzle book I once picked up, and so we covered our bases by establishing an international team with a vast array of knowledge. Various members specialized in literature, Eastern medicine, history, and Star Wars. Two are teachers, one even gets paid. The girls and I were pleasantly surprised to find quite a few "American" questions and not so pleasantly surprised when we missed nearly every one of them. (Okay, smarties, where does the U.S. flag always fly at full staff? And where is the only official palace in the U.S.?) In spite of a few forehead-slapping errors, we held a respectable tie for first place through every round and then dropped in the final round to a not-too-terribly-embarrassing third place. I assumed having a man on the team would help us in the Sports category, our last and lowest scoring, though to his credit he would have scored us an extra point in General Knowledge, our specially selected bonus category, for the answer "testicles" -- Question: What did men swear on before they swore on the Bible? -- if all the female team members hadn't been too squeamish to actually commit it to paper. (The Story of the World Volume 1: Ancient Times neglected to include that interesting tidbit and I'm certain Sr. Anne failed to mentioned it as well.)

Speaking of sports, not really, but whatever, Evonne Goolagong Cawley dropped by Grice's elementary school to meet and speak with the students. She told the children amusing stories about her early years as a young naive girl being taken off the farm traveling to the big city, Sydney, to train at tennis camp. Her husband of 37 years, British pro Roger Cawley, accompanied her and they were a lot of fun, answering questions from the kids:

Student to Evonne: What was your biggest trophy?

Mr. Cawley: That would be me.

I was invited by our coach, a friend of the Cawleys, as the secretary of the tennis club to photograph Evonne with all our junior club members.

And speaking of fish out of water stories, and in another near-brush with celebrity, or a brush with near-celebrity, Sarabelle was sent home from school with a media release last week. The Australian Broadcasting Company's television series Seachange, a reality show about city slickers making the move to tiny rural coastal communities, is being revived and filming episodes featuring two high school-aged Melbourne girls whose family has relocated to our little part of the world. One of the daughters is in Sarabelle's class.

And finally, no bad segues here, Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks's joint venture The Pacific, a ten-part miniseries about WWII's Japanese theatre, is set up and planning to be in town for about the next year filming the companion piece to their other war series, Band of Brothers. One of our local beaches is doubling for several little Pacific island beaches. A notice appeared in the local paper and high school newsletter advising residents not to be alarmed if they heard bombs and machine gun fire, those would just be sound checks.


Trifles make the sum of life.

-- Charles Dickens

Another tournament, another trophy. Our little group played a squad match against the resort town yesterday. Elle ended up in a sudden-death match after a three-way tie for second, ultimately placing third.

My day began in a torturous fashion, having to endure 15-minute rounds of sub-juniors who could barely get the ball over the net. The coach thought he was going to take a couple singles players over to the other court leaving me, with so little patience, to manage the festivities, but fortunately for me he stayed put, having to coach, referee, and score each and every match. He's a very stoic man. My expertise was needed for organizing the player draws, recording scores, and keeping the time. I'm very skilled at watching the clock.

After a while, about halfway through, excitement levels began to rise. You could see the kids' games improving and we even had a few real rallies. At one point things got very interesting. A crowd gathered around the sidelines to look at something down on the court, concerned parents ran over to see if there was an injury, and then the entire mob in unison let out a piercing shriek and broke apart like confetti in a party popper. It was only this little guy, but he managed to bring the game to a complete standstill.



We finished up with the awards presentation and a sausage sizzle (oh, how I am dying for a good old Hebrew National), and in the end it was really a fun day.


Accept the challenges so that you may feel the exhilaration of victory.

-- General George S. Patton

Lest We Forget

I have been doing you a favor by not posting lately. Really. Until yesterday you would have had three weeks worth of: He's going, he's staying, he's going, again, oh, wait, he's staying, no, he's going, maybe... And probably would have been very annoyed by our indecison, much as I have been, but yesterday morning we made it official: Jorge got on a plane headed back to the States. In fact we are expecting a call any minute to say he's arrived.

In case you're wondering, there are no attorneys involved, no custody battles ahead. He's just got some work lined up and should be able to float us for a while longer. Salaries here, while fairly high, still can't carry living expenses here plus multiple mortgages there. I'd say we did prety well getting by for the past eleven months. Maybe he'll solve our unsellable property problems while he's there and we can continue on with The Plan.

A reunion is tentatively planned around Christmas.

In the meantime...

Today was ANZAC (Australian New Zealand Army Corps) Day and it's huge! Bigger than Easter -- by the way, I discovered Easter Monday is officially the day for picking up small bits of colored foil from all around your house -- and even bigger than Melbourne Cup Day. It was so big the students were required to wear their full dress uniform, meaning they had to put shoes on. We were treated to a memorable small country town parade led by the local constable and a contingent of active military, followed by retired service personnel and the students from the two local primaries. There were speeches, most notably delivered by Grice and her co-captain, which led to some good humored quips about the Yank and the Pom, and a reading of the names of local fallen from WWI and WWII (a dozen in all.) There was one small hitch when the newly added Kiwi flag (without which the day might only be properly called AAC Day) became terribly tangled and would not go back up from its half-staff position, but otherwise it was a perfect day, followed by a barbecue at the school.


They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

-- Laurence Binyon

Tennis, anyone?

When Sarabelle wanted to get back into tennis, though we have a perfectly good court just down the road at the park, the only organized events and lessons available were 30 minutes down the mountain. I inquired into the possibility of private lessons with the coach who teaches primary school students up here before classes on the school's court. It turned out he has been trying to get a formal club going up here for some time and before I knew it, I was secretary of the tennis club, and Jorge handyman emeritus. At first Sarabelle was a little put-off by Coach A's technique after the kinder, gentler, friend-of-the-family British coach she had in Florida. Coach A is Australian. I must say his style, loud, commanding, demanding, and funny, is a good motivator and her skills are definitely improving. He got me playing, even with my preference for sedentary activities, first as a shill to attract other adults to the evening lessons, and now because I enjoy it. I might actually be able to play without looking like a complete ass. One of these days. Maybe.

Our second multi-week, mixed doubles junior tournament wrapped up yesterday. Sarabelle placed second runner-up. She has been invited to join the team that will compete against a group from the Cairns area, and has accepted the challenge to enter a regional tournament in conjunction with the resort town's spring carnivale festivities.

Here is my hillbilly eldest daughter receiving her award barefoot. She forgot her sneakers in the big rush to leave the house. No worries though, only about one-fourth of the kids wear shoes when they play.



Grice, a natural but disinterested player, made it through the three-week event, but then bowed out of yesterday's later matches with the legitimate excuse of ill health. (It's just a cold, Mom.)

Elle, as they say here, couldn't give a stuff about tennis and besides she had found her own trophy, someone else's discarded ten-year old soccer statuette, on a trip with her dad a few weeks back to the Refuse Tip -- that's the dump, not advice to serving staff or the task a demolitions expert performs when rehabilitiating an old explosive device -- and was perfectly satisfied with that. But after seeing the fun her sisters, especially reluctant Grice, and her former schoolmates were having, she decided to start taking lessons and to participate in the tournament as well. The only problem was that in the last junior tournament, right before the Christmas break, she had been competing against the B group of novice players. None of those kids signed up this time, so she was playing doubles (which if you were her partner was really like playing singles against a doubles team) with the advanced kids 4-9 years her senior. The coach decided at the beginning of the event she would get an Encouragement Award just for participating. I kept mum about it. The trophies came out much bigger than we expected and when the kids saw them they wondered if these were display trophies that would only have their names engraved on and would sit enshrined in a case somewhere like a holy relic; they could not believe they got to take these home. Elle was in such awe of the presentation table contents she did not believe me, lowly secretary that I am, when I said the winners would keep these. When the coach presented her with her very own gold colored plasticky prize, she whispered something to him to which he smiled and replied, "Yes, forever!" She reckons it's worth about 5,000 dollars. She's also been invited to play on the junior junior squad which will play against a team from the resort town, and has readily accepted.




We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us;
His present and your pains we thank you for:
When we have march'd our rackets to these balls,
We will, in France, by God's grace, play a set
Shall strike his father's crown into the hazard.
Tell him he hath made a match with such a wrangler
That all the courts of France will be disturb'd
With chaces. And we understand him well,
How he comes o'er us with our wilder days,
Not measuring what use we made of them.
We never valued this poor seat of England;
And therefore, living hence, did give ourself
To barbarous licence; as 'tis ever common
That men are merriest when they are from home.
But tell the Dauphin I will keep my state,
Be like a king and show my sail of greatness
When I do rouse me in my throne of France:
For that I have laid by my majesty
And plodded like a man for working-days,
But I will rise there with so full a glory
That I will dazzle all the eyes of France,
Yea, strike the Dauphin blind to look on us.
And tell the pleasant prince this mock of his
Hath turn'd his balls to gun-stones; and his soul
Shall stand sore charged for the wasteful vengeance
That shall fly with them: for many a thousand widows
Shall this his mock mock out of their dear husbands;
Mock mothers from their sons, mock castles down;
And some are yet ungotten and unborn
That shall have cause to curse the Dauphin's scorn.
But this lies all within the will of God,
To whom I do appeal; and in whose name
Tell you the Dauphin I am coming on,
To venge me as I may and to put forth
My rightful hand in a well-hallow'd cause.
So get you hence in peace; and tell the Dauphin
His jest will savour but of shallow wit,
When thousands weep more than did laugh at it.
Convey them with safe conduct. Fare you well.

-- William Shakespeare (Henry V)