The Kids Are Alright

Everyone wants to know, how are they doing, really?

For your consideration:

Exhibit A

The big crack you heard, that was Grice coming out of her shell. She nominated herself as a candidate for School Captain (a move which surprised us all), spent three weeks agonizing over the content of her speech, presented it Monday along with ten others vying for the position, and Tuesday was declared the winner in a landslide election. Next year she and her male counterpart will announce and present the weekly award certificates at the student assemblies Monday mornings, and perform the duties of Student Council member: organizing fundraising efforts and dances, and representing the school at formal events.

Exhibit B

Elle voted for someone else.


Secrecy and a free, democratic government don't mix.

-- Harry S. Truman

Turkey Day

As an ex-pat, I’m feeling a tad left out this time of year, especially when my Yahoo page loads and the first thing I see is Martha’s glistening gravy boat and a link to six troubleshooting tips for the perfect mashed potato topping. I’m not knocking Martha, some of my best non-traditional Thanksgiving traditions were inspired by her, like Pommes Anna and sweet potato fritters (met by my father with a weak smile and a look as if awaiting a punchline or the appearance of some REAL potatoes), cranberry upside-down cake, and haricot vert with garlic and almond slivers.

As I was typing that I thought: Wow. With all this Thanksgiving talk I can almost smell the turkey cooking now. Wait. I do smell it. Or something…


(A BRIEF INTERLUDE WHILE I CLEAN UP THE CHICKEN SOUP THAT BOILED OVER)

Anyway, getting into the holiday spirit, I decided to list a few things I am thankful for today:

SELF-MOTIVATION

I haven’t got much, but I appreciate those around me who do.

-- Sarabelle surprised me this week by announcing she had gone in to see her principal to request taking advanced courses next year in order to graduate earlier. The principal will speak with her teachers about it.

-- Grice is presently working on an assignment to create a book for the first graders on energy. Her classmates’ efforts average around five pages. Grice is engrossed in the subject and has a rough draft comprising twenty fun-filled pages thus far.

-- Jorge has three jobs, like a proper immigrant. This morning he began with the second coat on a paint job for a neighbor, then went off to his regular daytime employment at a resort, and when he is done there he goes on to pull an overnighter as a security guard. We nearly laughed ourselves silly over that last one. The girls wanted to know if he had to wear an embarrassing uniform or got to carry a gun (no and no.) He is actually guarding the costume department and wardrobe for a movie that is shooting in town. Fool’s Gold stars Kate Hudson, Matthew McConaughey, and Donald Sutherland, and is partly set in Key West with Port Douglas standing in for the southernmost isle. Imagine that, it’s cheaper to film halfway around the world and pretend its Key West than to actually do it there. Sure he has to stay all night with creepy mannequins staring at him, but he gets to sleep (his snoring scares away the bad guys), help himself to the food in the fridge, work on his real estate course, make more money than at his day job, and is privy to all Kate Hudson’s measurements. When he finds some extra time, he will finish his volunteer work cleaning and repairing the elementary school’s tennis court.

A DECENT HAIRCUT

I took a big chance today and got my hair cut by a complete stranger. I had been holding out for a return trip to the States so Todd, the guy I had been happily going to, could have at it again. Even if I had to wait another six months. See my photo up above? That's Todd Hair. He seriously scared me at my first appointment after I requested he just “do something with it,” flinging hair up in the air over my head as he sliced away, keeping up a constant chatter and rarely taking his eyes off himself as he spoke -- you couldn’t blame him, a big strapping lad who beautician’s license photo reminded me of a young Richard Grieco, though Todd’s eyebrows were more devilish – but the results were wonderful. Of course, Todd was a stranger when I first went to him, but our mutual friend, J, spoke very highly of him and her hair alone was a big endorsement.

Then J told me that Todd was killed in a car accident in September.

I got a little teary while the new hairdresser shampooed me today. She did an adequate job, didn’t get any soap in my eyes, even did a relaxing massage-y kind of thing, but it wasn’t nearly as invigorating or as fun as having your whole scalp rearranged like Elmer Fudd’s in The Barber of Seville episode, while listening to Todd’s latest exploits and his big, booming, contagious laugh.

Her cut was very precise, not exactly a bad thing when it comes to a haircut, and though she asked far too many questions instead of delivering a cheery, snarky monologue, to her credit she didn’t try to sell me any fancy skincare treatments even if my complexion currently resembles someone in a Faces of Meth “after” photo (it’s just hormones and humidity, Mom), and for that I am especially thankful.

FRIENDS

Old ones, new ones, ones who surprise you with a bottle of hard-to-find ant juice.

NEWSAGENTS WITH LARGE SELECTIONS

Went in for a few school and office supplies, came out with The Thirteenth Tale: A Novel; Lisey’s Story; Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation (wherein I have discovered I am an Oxford comma kind of girl); and another Lynne Truss effort, Talk to the Hand: The Utter Bloody Rudeness of the World Today, or Six Good Reasons to Stay Home and Bolt the Door. I also noticed Carl has a new book out, Nature Girl, but I decided to show some self-control.

THIS

...along with the built in iSight camera on my laptop enables me to scan in all the UPC symbols from all my books and get my library under control. Best program ever.

HELLMAN’S/BEST FOODS MAYONNAISE AND THE ONE GROCER IN ALL OF FAR NORTH QUEENSLAND THAT CARRIES IT

There is no substitute. Slap some on white bread, add a little stuffing and a lot of black pepper and think of me.

Happy Thanksgiving!


'Twas founded be th' Puritans to give thanks f'r bein' presarved fr'm th' Indyans, an' . . . we keep it to give thanks we are presarved fr'm th' Puritans.

-- Finley Peter Dunne [Mr. Dooley]

Happy Birthday!

Awwww, look at those little ridges!

(Donna, I replied to your note below.)

We received an excited phone call this morning: Ashaki was missing all morning but they just found her and she was having her puppies right now!

We jumped in the car and arrived to find her tucked under the woodpile with her new litter. When they settle in a bit, we'll go pick out a little girl.


I am his Highness' dog at Kew;
Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?

-- Alexander Pope (on the collar of a dog)

Funky

As The Wet gets underway I am noticing some new things, particularly the way things smell. There is a peculiar scent I now associate with The Wet: Body Funk, a condition that borrows its appellation from an ineptly named piercing and tattoo shop down in trendy Port.

I noticed it immediately when we moved into the first house. A subtle whiff of putrefaction, nothing as obvious as a dead animal though nearly as gagging; one not easily identified or located, but one which punches you in the face when you finally discover its font of nastiness. An appalling, wandering, ghastly smell; heavier, cheesier than any standard mold or mildew stank you’ll ever come across. It turned out to be the fabric shower curtain the owners had left behind, the source pinpointed after I had the misfortune of taking too close a sniff. The second instance of the creeping crud was detected while viewing a property for sale up near Cooktown. This time it was our tour guide. The realization that this stench could manifest itself in human form was truly frightening. Good God, could I ever possibly smell like that? But granted, this guy was a hermit who lived in an open shed, a roof and no walls, out in the bush, whose hygiene appeared to be slightly lacking to begin with. Recently we looked at another property for sale, a charmingly ramshackle Queenslander on five acres, a bargain, that we might have snapped up were it not for the odiferous emanations wafting out of the bath house. The termite damage, the bedroom that was nothing more than an open porch, none of that that fazed us, but, put it this way, our own family’s body funk we might be able to tolerate, but we are not going to spend money for someone else’s. A few days ago I again crossed paths with the noxious scent. My friend, who is generally clean and well kempt, opened her car door and it blasted me. Was it her or her vehicle? I’m not going to get close enough again to find out, but if she could stink like that…

I showered before bed last night and woke this morning smelling like someone’s grandfather. Maybe I should reconsider my mother’s Christmas offer of a new bottle of Chanel No. 5.

Like lice, apparently body funk is just another inconvenience of life in the tropics.


That smell…that smelly smell that smells smelly…

-- Mr. Krabs

The OK Corral

Yesterday our friends invited us greenhorns over to watch, help, stay out of the way, whatever, while they tagged and branded seventy head of their cattle headed off to market. They thought we might enjoy it and we did. We watched mostly, we helped a little (I closed one chute door once), and stayed out of the way a whole lot, especially when that last little heifer freaked out and caused a heap o' trouble kicking our friends' dad squarely in the...well, ouch, use your imagination.

After a while, the girls got restless and went off to round up some wild mulberries.




As I was a-walking one morning for pleasure,
I spied a cowpuncher a-riding along.
Whoopee ti yi yo, git along little dogies,
It’s your misfortune and none of my own,
Whoopee ti yi yo, git along little doggies,
For you know Wyoming will be your new home.

-- Anonymous

Ashaki

See the big belly? Less than a week to go...

Zimbabwe, formerly Rhodesia, is bordered on the north by the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, but the girls do not care about the literary roots of the name, nor the fact that it comes from one of their mother's favorite stories, they refuse to call their dog Limpopo.

Any other great ideas?


Somewhere, what with all these clouds, and all this air,
There must be a rare name, somewhere…
How do you like “Cloud-Cuckoo-Land”?

-- Aristophanes (Birds)

Melbourne Cup

The Kentucky Derby ain’t got nothing on the Melbourne Cup.

Jorge, without my prior consent, volunteered us to assist today running the Sweepstakes that our local tavern was hosting in conjunction with Australia’s most famous horse race, with twenty percent of the take to benefit our elementary school. Good thing we went too because the other key person did not show up making Jorge and I two-thirds of the team. We sold tickets and raised about $1,000 for the school’s P&C.

As with any official school sponsored event, there was alcohol served so Jorge and I spent the afternoon swilling champagne because unlike the Derby there is no official drink associated with the event.

Unless you live in Kentucky, when was the last time your teachers stopped their lessons and made you listen to a horse race on the radio? Grice was fortunate enough to have to deliver a paper to the office and got to see it live on television with the rest of the staff. Several of the teachers wore hats. Apparently funny hats are de riguer. Men and women arrived for the prix fixe lunch wearing fancy outfits and “fascinators”, Australian for “funny hats”. The fascinating part was figuring out what bird gave his or her life to spend eternity perched on the head of these people. For weeks the Cairns Post has featured full-page spreads on Melbourne Cup fashions. For those who must know, I wore my fifteen-year old Liz Claiborne tropical print linen skirt and newer button down cream, French cuff blouse (the same outfit, sans pearls, I wore and ended up on the front page of the Boca Beacon with my boss and Catsitter Extraordinare for the premiere of Hoot.) It was hot and I was sweating, which almost inspired me to bet on Glistening in the Calcutta event, an auction for each of the twenty-three horses running in the Cup, because we all know women don’t sweat, they glisten, but Pop Rock was our first choice being the only name that rang a bell (our kids have eaten them and we are not so old that we haven’t enjoyed them either) until our hostess, the owner of the tavern, outbid us. Then I thought we might buy Mandela, being all politically correct and all. Instead, caught up in the excitement of the day -- and after having our glasses refilled several times -- we ended up wildly bidding on Delta Blues because it was the most American sounding horse after Pop Rock, and because Jorge had just spent a few days in New Orleans with his brother and niece surveying investment potential there before returning to Australia, and because it reminded me of Jorge’s buddy Mike, whose favorite blues tune is Stormy Monday by the Allman Brothers, and because, well, I don’t know, just because.

Our new landlord and his wife were there. Let’s just say there is no doubt we will be able to make the rent this month. And I could even afford a hat or two.

Melbourne Cup Results


Australia is a lucky country run by second-rate people who share its luck.

-- Donald Horne (The Lucky Country)

Moving

The last two weeks or so have been jam-packed. Grice and Elle had swimming for HPE (Health and Physical Education, pronounced “Haych Pee Ee”) which I volunteered to help out with all day and all week long, then there was a P&C (Parent and Community, pronounced the usual way) meeting and pot luck supper, plus the high school’s annual sort-of-near-the-end-of-the-year award ceremony where Sarabelle received a Merit Award, and we also packed up all our belongings and relocated to our newest temporary abode with all the difficulties of new phone and internet service, so please excuse the break in posting.

We’re now living in a guesthouse on the side of a mountain. The owners’ property includes most of the mountain, their fortress of a house up above us, and the 40-acre piece with the convertible stables, two creeks, and several ponds that they recently subdivided and will be placing on the market down below. The owners don’t mind creative financing, they don’t need the money, but are primarily concerned with finding good neighbors because the properties share access and water systems. They are taking us out for a test drive.

The cottage is only a one bedroom, one bath space, but it has soaring ceilings, plenty of square footage, an almost-gourmet kitchen, laundry, large screened back dining porch, and a very clean bathroom. The owners were beach resort developers so the place has the feel of super-roomy, upscale motel accommodations from the generic artwork to the headboard and hair dryer mounted on the walls. The best part though is the land itself. The property was formerly a working mine and logging site so there are trails and roads all over the place. Our landlord maintains the old roads, connected some others, and pushed a few new ones in too. From their house you can see the mountains all the way down south to Cairns, about a 90-minute drive from here, and if you take the path up past their house, you can see the sea. There’s a 90-foot waterfall and spots with names like Picnic Pasture where you can laze around after a hike through the rainforest. It’s like having your own private park. When I was around nine, back in the days when childhood was fun and dangerous, we visited friends of my father in Connecticut who lived across from a beautiful park with terraced rock gardens and heavily landscaped walks. With endless hiding places and armed with coffee cans full of marbles, we played the most fabulous war game ever (and nobody even lost an eye.) Now my kids can experience the same delights.

Elle, after a walk down the mountain where we discovered the back side of one of the horse paddocks, crossed a hillside covered with blue-tops, and found three ponds before visiting the creek this afternoon, excitedly said, “Let’s go adventure some more stuff, Mom!”


Man is a singular creature. He has a set of gifts which make him unique among the animals: so that, unlike them, he is not a figure in the landscape – he is a shaper of the landscape. In body and in mind he is the explorer of nature, the ubiquitous animal, who did not find but has made his home on every continent.

-- Jacob Bronowski (The Ascent of Man)

Elle stumbled out into the living room this morning in classic Elle fashion, underpants and bedhead, flashed her index and middle fingers in a sign of victory, and announced with a big grin, “Two more days…!”

Sure she has been missing her dad all along, particularly when Mom dishes out punishments, but since the extended phone conversation yesterday, our requisitions for goods and clothes, Elle has been especially excited. Dad is bringing back her one special request: Her white high heel sandals (actually Grice’s hand-me-downs from three flowergirl stints.) Totally impractical, I know, but Elle has a shoe fetish. Has ever since she could grasp objects in her chubby, dimply hands. Clothes? Toys? Who needs those when you can strut around in high heels and underpants?

Chris, our house and cat sitter extraordinaire, has officially usurped me as the Queen of Packing. All hail Chris! She was on hand to help Jorge with his transcontinental treasure hunt and managed to fit all the books, clothes, special stuffed animals, and blankies into two, small, airline-sanctioned boxes. Jorge has a few more last minute special items to secure before boarding his flight, namely a tube of Neutrogena Anti-Acne, Anti-Wrinkle Cleanser, because you don’t know how many years it took me to finally find a product that keeps my skin in manageable condition and one that targets that narrow demographic of women with zits in their crow’s feet and my current tube is just about empty; some Dell Crossword Puzzle books, because crossword puzzles here have incomprehensible Australian references; and maybe a Vanity Fair, because you can only occasionally find the UK version here, which unfortunately does not include US editor Graydon Carter’s fabulous anti-Bush tirades.

Two more days…!


You are eternity’s hostage
A captive of time.

-- Boris Pasternak

[Ed. note: Today at the newsagency I Iocated an International edition of Vanity Fair, only two months behind, but it did contain Graydon's Editor's Letter.]

Time Out

“There, there, dear, I’m sure he’ll be back…” accompanied by a sympathetic, knowing smile and the promise of assistance if we need anything, has been the general response when I answer locals’ queries about my husband’s extended (again) absence. Add to this the facts that our rental house has been sold, we have been given notice to leave, rentals here are practically non-existant, the choice properties are being snapped up by wealthy drought refugees from the south, Elle snapped the door off our brand new clothes drier by swinging on it, the real estate market in Florida still stinks, and probably will for some time, and you can see what fun I’ve been having lately. Without jinxing things though, I will say things are starting to look up…

In the meantime, when confronted with too much reality, I soothe myself with a heavy dose of fantasy. In addition to the second season of Lost, I have been catching up on all the movies I’ve been wanting to see but haven’t had time for: Donnie Darko, Finding Neverland, Crash, The DaVinci Code, The Village, Walk the Line, I Heart Huckabees, and Romper Stomper. Continuing in the Australian Legends vein, I think I’m due for a little Mad Max and maybe The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.

With a three-day weekend ahead plus a couple more movies, I should be able to get through the next few days until Jorge returns.


Now I’ve got schemes
And I’ve got schemes
Let’s get together and dream some dreams
Let’s go
Time’s a wastin’

-- Carl Smith (sung by Johnny Cash and June Carter at the Grand Ole Opry)

After hearing the story from a friend about how upon responding to the shrieks of her five month old she discovered a huge python in the baby’s crib -- they did what any self-respecting Aussie would do, they put it outside. The snake. Not the baby -- and after I publicly outed myself as a paranoid with a vivid imagination who can’t differentiate between a psychotic murderer and my washing machine, and after breaking my promise to myself and foolishly watching another couple of scary movies, I must tell you this:

Last night around midnight, after being awakened by the two cups of coffee I had swilled right before bed, I climbed back under the covers and heard another noise.

Scritch scrotch,scritch scrotch

Coming from inside the house. In the kitchen, again. And I hadn’t done any laundry lately.

I crept through the house and in the dark could make out a bulky shape moving by the back door. By the size I determined the uninvited guest was not two-legged and by the scratching I determined it was not no-legged.

Please don’t be a rat…please don’t be a rat…please don’t be a rat…

I switched on the porch light to softly illuminate the intruder and found this:



Armed with a broom I tried to gently push the soccer ball-sized mass of spines toward the now open back door but he defensively curled up into the corner and eventually worked himself under the cabinet below the laundry sink. I called Jorge who offered no help, and only laughed about the most elusive creature in our neighborhood, the echidna, one I’d been trying to catch a glimpse of for months since he spotted some by our driveway coming home late one night, being trapped in our kitchen. The kids were woken up to experience nature face-to-face. Sarabelle was put on guard with the broom while I gathered coolers and trunks to cordon off the area. With the lights turned back off, he waddled out the door about ten minutes later.



How long was he in the house? We had been out to dinner for a couple hours. Did he nose the not-so-securely-closed door open while we were out? Or had he strolled in during the day while I had the back door propped open? We’ll never know. But he was inside long enough to wander around unnoticed through the house and leave us a surprise in the unused third bedroom.




Wee, sleekit, cow’rin, tim’rous beastie,
O, what a panic’s in thy breastie!
Thou need na start away sae hasty,
Wi’ bickering brattle!

-- Robert Burns (To a Mouse)

Whoops

Forgot to post some pithy quotations after the previous bunch of photos. I won't let it happen again.

Be not careless in deeds, nor confused in words, nor rambling in thought.

-- Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

Part 3 - Cont'd

Holiday Part 3

Yesterday was busy.

First on the agenda was a visit to the Rainforest Habitat Wildlife Sanctuary which is conveniently located in the same parking lot as our grocery store. We went early for their Breakfast with the Birds program. Bird poop in your orange juice (and on your table and on your seat) is a small price to pay for so much fun. Especially if you come with us, because we get the local price.







Besides the fantastic enormous aviaries, there are other walk-through animal enclosures loaded with native animals. This is a must-see for anyone coming to visit, unless you have ornithophobia or pteronophobia, in which case I recommend you stay far, far away.

After the Rainforest, and after grocery shopping, we returned to find the realtor waiting, unannounced, to show another group of people through the house. After that slight inconvenience, we packed up to meet our friends at a local swimming hole, one we hadn't seen yet.

Then it was movie night. The kids watched Two Brothers and Babe with our swimming hole friends while I cooked dinner, made popcorn, and enjoyed some adult conversation.

Today the movie festival continues with the conclusion of Lost Season One, a series Stephanie convinced me I should not miss and which Sarabelle, Grice, and I are now completely hooked on; a family favorite, The Nightmare Before Christmas since this is probably as close as we will get to trick-or-treating this year; and continuing our Tim Burton worship, Big Fish.

Part 2 - More Mill Pictures

Holiday Part 2

The next day we had to be out of the house because the realtor was showing the place so I planned a tour of the sugar mill. Before we could go though, a visit to a local clothing store was necessary. Safety regulations require closed-toed and closed-heeled shoes, which half of our group did not own (sandals and bare feet get you in everywhere else around here, even the grocery stores, churches, and restaurants. No shirt, no shoes, no drama, mate.) We lucked out on a great sale and even found a beautiful pair of leather boat shoes for one member of our party, one who didn't even need shoes. They were only $10.00 (AUD). How could I pass that up? On to the mill we went.

The sights! Humongous steaming pipes and vats; a massive antique steam engine so close you could touch it, and lose your arm if you were not pulled completely inside the machine and pulped into cane juice (but we were good and stayed inside the very narrow yellow safety lines and were fortunately not wearing any loose articles of clothing); a certain industrial beauty; our friends' dad up on a very high catwalk waving to us.



The sounds! Well, whatever deafening roar we could hear through our mandatory hearing protection. Thunderous clanging, whirring, and a constant hissing. Our guide wore a bull horn strapped to her side but none of her commentary could be heard. Luckily we had been briefed before about the process of making sugar and she held up information cards throughout the tour to explain which part of the operation we were viewing. We also had to don hardhats as part of the safety requirements, but with all the giant machinery, hot pipes, boilers, and steam venting all over the place, a hard hat wouldn't really help. All I could think the whole time I was in there was, "She's gonna blow!"



The smells! Mmmmm. Molasses. And other vague molassesy smells.

And of course we got to taste our way through the plant, sampling the syrup and various refining stages.



One of the difficulties in planning sightseeing activities while Jorge is gone is that if we did want to go anywhere majorly exciting, like, say, the Undara Lava Tubes for example, we would eventually have to do it again when Jorge got back, which is generally too complicated and too expensive. Well, this was pretty incredible so I'm definitely going to have to take Jorge when he gets back, after the kids head back to school. I have an affinity for factories thanks to Fred Rogers and Mr. McFeely. The best episodes of Mr. Roger's Neighborhood were always the ones where he toured a plant, whether it was a crayon, pencil, bowling ball, bubblegum, or shoe factory. Even the mushroom farm episode was pretty cool. Our friend told us to be sure and talk to her husband, he can give us a free private tour. I can hardly wait.

Holiday

Our favorite neighbors, afraid the children would have nothing to keep them occupied during their two-week school holiday, and who don't realize boredom is a wonderful catalyst for creativity, probably because they have no children of their own, stepped in by generously donating their Yahtzee and Trivial Pursuit games, taught us all to knit, and delivered a large supply of twelve-foot, freshly cut bamboo poles from their farm so the kids could build themselves a cubbyhouse.



In between those activities, we've done a fair bit of sightseeing.

First we visited High Falls Farms for brunch...



...and learned from the proprietors that there was a nearby glass studio so we went to take a look. Talk about hot -- and no, I'm not referring to the Swedish glassblower, though he was admittedly in nice shape -- there we were, in the middle of a rainforest clearing baking in the burning sun with three huge furnaces blasting while we watched the artist create a glass bird sculpture and then a ruffle-edged bowl.

Fight the Good Fight

If you can, please help.

Thanks.

Go "Just Cure It!"


Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living!

-- Mother Jones

Licked

Maybe because we all looked like Professor Quirrell or because I felt like Professor Snape, we sat through the first three Harry Potter movies Monday. It was the only way to keep all four of us distracted and still long enough to kill all the bugs. The other suggestion was to take everyone scuba diving. At some point the creepy crawlies would simply be crushed by the pressure. I chose the less expensive option:

1 1/2 cups Olive Oil
80 drops Tea Tree Oil
60 drops Eucalyptus Oil
40 drops Thyme Oil


Nasty little buggers.

-- Oliver Wood (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone)

Simple Pleasures

Elle and her friend D twirl around on the backyard swing



Grice prepares to unwrap the biggest chocolate bar they've ever been allowed to eat



Elle keeps busy while Grice picks out some produce at the local farm stand


Manifest plainness,
Embrace simplicity,
Reduce selfishness,
Have few desires.

-- Lao-tzu