From the mouths of babes

I drove for an hour, getting totally lost, to source a bell jar to display Mollie's skull in. The girl sat in the back chatting endlessly, as per usual, until I yelled "OK, you need to stop talking now because we are lost and I need to concentrate on where we are going". She sat, sullenly but quietly, until we reached out destination.Bell jar purchased, we headed off to a teddy bears picnic. Now, I had set the alarm to go early, so I could get organised for our big day. My husband had other ideas. So with only 45 minutes to get ready, a few things got overlooked. The day had a space theme, so girl had decided to go as Batman - yeah, I don't get it either. But anyway, she put her costume on and was happy. The things that got overlooked were money and food. Driving back from the-middle-of-nowhere-bell-jar-hunting we ran out of petrol - at a petrol station!! How good is that? Anyway, three of my brain cells were functioning enough to prompt me to buy drinks when I paid for the petrol. We got to the peninsula where the picnic was, queued up for 20 minutes to get into the car park and then nabbed a spot right out front. Also good!! It was probably the last hot day of summer, it was dusty, and it was crowded. The peninsula was teeming with people and small children clutching teddy bears. Lots of aluminium foil and many coke bottles had been used to make space outfits for teddies (except ours, which was a nudist space teddy) and one teddy had a clear, plastic teapot on its head (I was impressed). The girl found a market stall selling masks and demanded a pink mask with pink fluff on it. She did the pleeeeeeeeese thing and I pointed out the mask cost $5 and I had $6.40 so nothing else after the mask. She enthusiastically agreed. The teddy put the mask on, we checked out the Daleks,
then queued in the sun for half an hour so the girl could spend a few minutes on the jumping castle. Of course, after that she was hungry. I had nothing (potentially my nomination for mother of the year?) except $1.40 in change and all the food was $2 or more. I tried to talk her into going home, but she wouldn't be in it. We wandered about a bit more, she whinged about her hunger and we joined another queue so she could pat a sheep. The third queue, for face painting, was closed. Tears welling, tolerance levels reached, hunger overwhelming and tiredness setting in, the girl reluctantly agreed that we could go home. In the car the tears finally fell, she sat there mumbling about how crap it was, "all I got was a mask that won't stay on". I felt so sorry for her. It must be hard having me as a mum.
The next evening she showed me a dirty, old dog bone that she had found in the schoolyard. She had carefully wrapped it in the cling film from her cut apple. I was horrified "why are you collecting and bringing home dirty, yucky stuff like that?". My brother, who was staying with us, said "she's copying her mother". The girl put the dirty bone on the table next to Mollie's skull. I had to admit I had been trumped. It remains. My organisational skills are rubbish, my foresight is non-existent, but I am not a hypocrite.
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How can we dance?

So with fires now threatening Warburton and Daylsford the major headline of the day was that Peter Garret is reforming Midnight Oil for a charity concert to raise money for the bushfire victims. I guess we are getting bored with the fires. I mean, they have been burning for over two weeks now, enough already.
It never ceases to amaze me how superficial people are. We all sat glued to our TVs and computers watching updates about the fires; the death toll clicking up almost by the minute. Over two hundred people have been killed and 10 times more homes have been destroyed. We have been bombarded with pictures of wailing women, men with their face in their hands, people in hospital bandaged from foot to head, burnt out cars and dead livestock. I’ll admit I’ve read articles about fire fighters giving koalas drinks, a man who walked away from his burning property leading his horse - beer in the other hand, the 15 year old who drove a tractor through the fires to save his family. I’ve read these stories with tears in my eyes. I’ve donated money, I’ve lamented the tragedy with my co-workers and then I’ve got on with my life. We seem to revel in the drama, but once we’ve had our fill – we move on. Shame those that lost family/property/skin can’t do the same. And tomorrow will be 38°C so the fires still burning will probably flare up. There isn’t going to be much of Victoria left. It does make me grateful that I live in the inner city and am protected from wild fire by thousands of tonnes of cement and bitumen.
So in 38°C heat the husband, the younger stepson and myself will be attending a heavy metal festival. I’m looking forward to seeing Lacuna Coil – I love them. Also the opportunity to see Nine Inch Nails won’t go amiss. I’m half heartedly interested in seeing Alice in Chains but my greater interest will be in the crowd itself. I love crowd watching at these sorts of things. I will post photos next week.

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The Psychology of Cows

I love Christmas. I really do. But this Christmas I could have done without.
It all seemed so good. I had booked flights using our credit card points and we were staying at my friend's house while they were overseas. Free flights, free accommodation and my sister had offered to do Christmas lunch (usually my job) so I could sit back and relax for a change.

Unfortunately the husband doesn't share my enthusiasm for Christmas and had misgivings about several aspects of our trip. Our first hurdle was my brother offering to pick us up from the airport. My brother is a typical 20 year old yobbo and has, in his two years of driving, rolled a car, been caught speeding and recently rear ended somebody writing off his own car in the process. The husband objected to being chauffeured by somebody with such a bad track record. Unfortunately both my parents had been sick so the question of who was going to collect us was a difficult one. But my Dad dragged himself out of his sickbed and did the 1 ½ hour drive to the airport. I started to worry about him when he missed two turn offs, but we made it home safely and my Dad went to bed early.

Santa had forgotten to pack the present for my girl so the husband and I took my Dad's car into town to find a replacement. The husband was very edgy and moody by this stage and going through the crowds on Christmas eve wasn't helping. We found a present, paid some Salvation army ladies $2 to wrap it for us (so Santa's paper would be different from all the others) and I dragged the husband to a bar to ply him with beer and hopefully improve his mood and strengthen his resistance to my insane family.

It seemed to work and the evening went well until it was time for bed. My parents house is pretty big and even though they have enough furniture to fill 4 houses for some reason they don't have many spare beds, so the husband and I were relegated to the caravan to sleep. My Mum bought the caravan in the early 70's and it's comfortable enough except the fly screens have started to fall apart. My parents place also has lots of trees and my Mum fanatically collects water where ever she can. The result is that their property is a mosquito haven. So before I retired I checked all the caravan windows, closed the ones that had damaged screens, put tape over any holes I couldn't close and climbed into the small bed. The husband decided to stay up and wait for my yobbo brother who had gone drinking with his buddies. The yobbo and his mates had drunk most of their money and were sharing a taxi home. About halfway home the yobbo decided he needed to urinate so asked the taxi to pull over. Unfortunately their funds didn't stretch to a toilet stop so his request was denied. In defiance he wound down the window and relieved himself. Not surprisingly the taxi driver immediately pulled over and threw him out. He walked the remaining 5kms home. So by the time he got there the husband had made his way through two bottles of wine. They sat and talked and eventually the husband wobbled his way to the caravan and fell into bed, leaving the door of the van open.

The next morning, covered in mossie bites, we went through the rituals of Christmas. The girl played with the spirograph from Santa and the adults drank champagne and ate panettone. We waited for my sister and her family to arrive before doing the presents - she was putting the lamb and pork on the spit for lunch.

We all did pretty well present wise: I got series one and two of Star Trek Enterprise and all ten Star Trek films, a beautiful necklace that has a large black stone and a skeleton hand and Nigella's Christmas cookbook. The husband got a stack of obscure Goth CDs I sourced from the States, including two of Crime and the City Solutions, also a pair of spider cuff links and some horror films including "Christine" which was my dig at him for bingling my car a few weeks ago.

The girl, who has been complaining about "all the creepy Goth stuff in the house" opened her present from us, saw a skull on the front of the book and very melodramatically rolled her eyes and then collapsed on the floor. Later, when she discovered that it was a pop-up book of human anatomy and not creepy Goth stuff she was fascinated.

At midday the phone rang – my Grandmother and Great Uncle had arrived at my sister's place to find no-body home. So I hurriedly grabbed what I needed and my siblings and I jumped in a car. I couldn't find the husband before I left and I worried for his safety alone with my parents.

At my sister's house the spit roasting meat smelt fantastic and I busied myself making drinks for my elderly relatives. My sister took a large, raw chicken from the fridge and began prepping it for the oven. "It won't take long" she said. Suddenly understanding that lunch was hours away I asked about entrée "Prawns" she said, and pulled two trays of prawns from the freezer. I was horrified. My mobile rang, my husband yells down the phone "Where are you? You've left me alone!" he was about to get in a car with my parents to make the 4km journey. I reassured him and got back to helping with lunch.

My mother handed my husband a tray of jellies in glass bowls as he sat in the back of the car. She had made "frog in a pond" for the kids, except she didn't have any blue or green jelly so had used red. She also didn't have any chocolate frogs so had used grapes. About 500 meters up the road they discovered their neighbour's cow wandering the road. My Mum stopped the car and jumped out to go alert them their cow was out, yelling at my Dad to get the car off the road. My Dad drove the car up a driveway then got out to go help round up the stray beast. My Husband, still sitting in the back of the car balancing his tray of grapes-in-blood become somewhat alarmed when the driverless car began rolling backwards. Fortunately my Dad was able to jump back in the car and put the handbrake on. He and my mother then proceeded to yell at each other about the cows most likely course of action as they chased it back into it's paddock. Eventually they arrived at my sister's place and my husband, still balancing the tray of jellies looked at me and said from between clenched teeth "don't ever leave me alone with them again".

At this point my Great Uncle asked when lunch was because he had taken his insulin shot some time ago and needed to eat. I panicked. "Mum, where are the Devils on Horseback you made?" I asked, "Oh, I left them at home. Get your brother to drive you over to get them". So I did. (It's only as I type this that I wonder why I needed my brother to drive me). About halfway there we met my Dad coming the other way, he had gone home to go back to bed (still unwell) but had then changed his mind, he had the aforementioned horse-doovers so we turned around and headed back.

I presented the food to my aging uncle, silently praying he wouldn't lapse into a hypoglycemic coma then noticed they were sitting out in the blaring midday sun without any cover. I fiddled around with umbrellas, made a joke about stapling a bed sheet over the eaves then asked my brother to drive me back to my Mum's to get another umbrella. The husband asked me to bring back more wine and I was glad he had found the only coping mechanism available when dealing with my family.

While we were gone my brother-in-law appeared with a bed sheet and a staple gun and they attempted to staple the sheet to the eaves as I had suggested. Unfortunately there was nothing on the other side to support it. So the sheet came down and they fiddled around trying to suspend it between the two umbrellas using clothes pegs. In between the activity my Great Uncle and my Grandmother sat, having a sheet dropped on their heads over and over. At this stage my husband decided his best bet was to remain out of the fracas, under the willow tree in the garden, with his bottle of wine, and make friends with the dog – a boxer named Carla.

By now, the lamb and the pork on the spit was cooked and my sister was reheating the frozen McCain's roast potatoes and steaming the life out of some vegetables. I asked where the turkey was "Oh I didn't get a chance to buy any" was the reply. But hadn't I run into her at the supermarket the day before? I bit my tongue. The gravox and the kraft cheese sauce appeared and I almost collapsed. I decided to join my husband and anesthetize myself.

After the main course (and the meat was gorgeous - home grown lamb) I busied myself reheating the pudding. I asked for a mixer to make the brandy butter with and my sister replied "I'm not getting that out, it's at the back of the cupboard", and she handed me a stick blender. I was about to explain how you can't whip with a blender but decided to just shut up and make do. I was annoyed and the couple of tablespoons of brandy turned into a damn good slug of brandy, then another for good measure.

I had varied my pudding recipe: using glace cherries, muscat raisins, prunes and figs, a block of 75% cocoa chocolate, real suet and lots and lots of rum. It was divine. I will stick with this recipe. After the family had raved about the cauliflower cheese they all baulked at the pudding and complained that the brandy butter was too strong.

We adjourned to under the willow tree, my brother-in-law went and sat in his nearby car and played with his new Navman. We teased my brother's girlfriend about how she could do much better for herself than that idiot yobbo. My husband and Carla the boxer snuggled together on a chair, the kids zoomed around on their new bikes and our conversation was occasionally punctuated by a female, American voice announcing "You have reached your destination".

Two days later, our backs aching from the cramped caravan bed, mosquito bites itching, dehydrated from avoiding the over flourided water, desperate for a real coffee and with a sigh of relief the husband, the girl and I boarded a train for the city.

The house we were staying in belongs to my friends and neighbours. They have a cat so I had been taking antihistamines for a few days and hoped I would be OK. We arrived safely and the girl gleefully set about rampaging through the kid's room. I think there is nothing better than unhindered access to another child's toys. She was also overjoyed at the prospect of sleeping on the top bunk and demonstrated to me how she could climb up and down and "wasn't scared" of falling.

The cat arrived home, looked at us and said "who the fuck are you and why are you in my house?" then walked into the kitchen and demanded to be fed.

I walked past my house, tried very hard not to seem like a nosy landlord but longed to go in and resettle in my home.

We caught up with friends and family and the next day the girl's father collected her and I spent the evening going through that transition wherein I am suddenly childless and have no idea what to do with myself. That night the husbands bowels were gripped with a gastro-like illness that left him debilitated and sick for over a week.

The next day I was leaving to go visit my paternal grandmother; the cat was in the kitchen having it's breakfast so I left the back door ajar as I didn't want to shut it in the house. The husband was home so I didn't think twice about doing it. Unfortunately someone who was prowling the laneways peered through the back gate and saw the door open. They ripped palings off the gate until they could reach through and unbolt it then ran in, grabbed the husband's phone and charger and his backpack which contained all of his beloved rings, the cuff links I gave him for Christmas, an almost new bottle of Dolce&Gabana cologne, his art supplies and the house (Blandberra) and car keys. Even more unfortunately the car keys had the only remote for the alarm/immobiliser on the husband's car. Ordinarily this would be a nasty blow, but as he was already sick and feeling low the impact of the loss was even harder. When you are sick or you've been robbed your instinct is to find a safe place, curl up in your nest and wait until the storm passes. The husband couldn't do that, we were in somebody else's home and even though he could curl up in a comfy bed it wasn't HIS bed and he became more miserable with each day that he wasn't able to enjoy his holiday.

For New Year's Eve we had offered to cook for about 20 people, which between the 2 of us would be a piece of cake but it was decided that the husband would be banned from the kitchen, apart from not wanting to infect my friends with the gastro bug there were also going to be two pregnant women attending and the consequences of them getting gastro could have been devastating. The husband didn't deal with this very well. He knew logically that he shouldn't be involved with food prep, but he loves to cook and the exclusion added to his misery. To deepen the insult I decided to change his menu. My sister had given me a huge leg of the lamb they had slaughtered for Christmas and the husband was going to curry it. I thought that was a waste since the meat was so tender and flavourful without any added seasoning and I wanted to just roast it, keep it simple to allow the meat's own flavours to stand out.

I had two kitchen hands to help me chop veggies, wash dishes and keep my champagne glass topped up. I'd already pre-prepped one of the entrees and the dessert so the day of cooking went relatively smoothly. I had a great time and was secretly glad to be doing it on my own as the husband can be somewhat controlling and bossy in the kitchen and doesn't often let me indulge my passion for cooking. The husband showed up just as the party was starting and having spent the day with his best friend he was in a good mood. The Party was fantastic, it was so wonderful to catch up with friends, to see the poor, miserable husband enjoying himself for a change and to just relax into a social situation with people I love.


Two days later we arrived home. Any money we saved with the flights and accommodation has now been spent replacing the husband's phone, getting the car towed to an auto electrician to have the immobiliser removed and replaced and the husband has started to replace some of his rings. The husband's bowels have started behaving normally and the dog has almost forgiven us for abandoning her. It could have been much worse; no-one died and we have all recovered from our various afflictions. The girl is away with her Dad and Grandparents for the next few weeks so the husband and I have some precious time alone.

I still love Christmas. Read more!

Old and New

This is the last blog I will write on my old computer. My new computer arrives tomorrow. This computer has been dying a slow and painful death for a few months now. I thought of paying to get it fixed/rebuilt, but its 8 years old and probably not worth it. This is one of those times when I am reminded of my never ending sentimentalisation of inanimate objects - my love of stuff. As on object, this computer is ugly, of the horrid bone, beigey colour that was popular for computers back then. So it's not an aesthetic thing. I bought this computer for X to use while he was doing his Dip Ed; he set it up and put himself as administrator so I see his name every time I use the computer and it shits me. So it's not that, in fact I'll be glad to be rid of that aspect.
If I think about this clearly, it's been about the things I have written on this computer. I have written long and heartfelt letters, emails and blogs. I have, at the lowest, drunkest, most depressed points in my life, written stuff on this computer. So if I had used a pen, would I be sentimental about said pen? No. Obviously I am being totally illogical. This struggle with materialism is one I fight every day.
While I am writing this, I am transferring files to the external hard drive, making sure nothing is lost. Ah, that's it – the fear of losing something. Something I may need one day. Somehow my grandparents managed to instill their life-during-the-depression mentality in me. Save everything – you never know when you might need it. Certain aspects of this are good: recycling etc. I save the elastic bands off vegetables, I save corks and I save jars. Why? I'm not sure; because I have to, it's how I was raised. You just do. Why throw something away when it has value? Any value? No matter how small, if it's not actual rubbish. Just because I haven't used it for 6 years doesn't mean I won't one day. One day I will wear all those size 10 clothes I have (yeah, if I contract a terminal disease and loose 30% of my body weight).
There have been things I have thrown away and will regret forever: the nude portrait my boyfriend did of me when I was 20 (at the time I thought "I can't put a nude picture of me on the wall!" Now, 20 years later, I would love to. I'll never look that good again.), the suede mini-skirt that matches the jacket I kept (I can't believe I broke up a set), photographs of people I never wanted to see again but now wouldn't mind. Parts of my life that have slipped away.
This is an uncomfortable aspect of my personality: unless I have a tangible reminder of an incident, a time span, a relationship, I feel like I don't have any memories. I keep THIS because it's the first present he ever gave me, I keep THIS because it's the last present he ever gave me, I keep THIS because it's what I wore to my high school formal, I keep THIS because I made it when I was 8 years old, I keep THIS because – oh, what is THIS? I've forgotten. Now it's safe to throw it away.
Let it go, let it go, let it go. Move on. Move with the times. Go forward. Onward and upward. Forward – march!
My new computer isn't purchased - it's leased. After 3 years I will return it and get a new one. Perhaps that will prevent me from attaching ridiculous associations with it. Perhaps.
Perhaps I'll make some jam, then I'll need jars! Read more!

Belonging

Today, as I walked through the Uni campus carrying my dog's head in a chiller bag, I started to understand somewhat why some people think I'm a bit weird.
I loved my dog and I'm sad to part with her. It seems natural to me to want to keep a part of her. Skulls are beautiful things, the shape and the structure is stunningly beautiful. To turn her skull into an ornament to keep as a memento seems perfectly rational. The process of getting the clean, white, polished skull however is quite gruesome and a tad disturbing. I haven't reveled in the process. I cried my eyes out as I held her frozen body while my husband (bless him) hacked her head off with a meat cleaver. I was quite rattled as I left the home this morning carrying a small chiller bag with a dog's head in it.
One of the joys of my new job has been returning to a world of science in which my pragmatic nature is accepted without hesitation. When I asked my colleagues how one would go about stripping the flesh from a skull they instantly offered several suggestions, none of them being that I seek psychiatric help. In fact, the mortuary manager offered to do a large part of the process for me. Hence the chiller bag and the walk across campus to the medical school.
When I asked the mortuary manager's advice on my project he instantly told me exactly what I had to do and then offered to do it for me. He is going to remove the skin and flesh then boil the skull in hydroxide to break down the connective tissue. I will be left with some cleaning to do, then the bleaching. He said once I had the skull as I wanted, to bring it back and he will coat it with a preservative varnish. He did not once ask me why I wanted to do this.
Acceptance and a sense of belonging is an inherent need in humans. When you belong to a subculture, like Goth, you make a conscious decision to live outside the norm. But belonging to a subculture means that even your rebellion is orthodox. We still want to belong.
I don't associate with many other Goths; my husband is my main source of comfort. At a dinner party some time ago I asked if anyone thought Tim Burton had modeled Sweeny Todd's look on David Vanian. I was met with blank stares. It was an uncomfortable reminder that my friends aren't Goths, that I don't quite belong there. My life the past year has been very much a reminder that I am different. The women I met at the gym, the other mothers at school that I got to know – many of them I like very much – but I don't think I could ask their opinion on the new Bauhaus album. My isolation has been on many levels. So to go to work and confront a bunch of people I hardly know with the question of how to strip a skull and be met with nothing but suggestions and offers of help is a multiple joy. Firstly that they can help me in my quest, but also that they don't judge me and possibly even understand why I want to do this. I belong in that environment.
My little dog belongs with me; I don't want to leave her in the ground of a random rental home in Blandberra. I will keep her skull with me and I will treasure it forever.

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Mollie

On Friday night when I got home from work my little dog was collapsed on the floor. She seemed to be unconscious so I grabbed the phone and hoped the vet was still working. He was about to go home, but I exclaimed "she's just gone into a fit!" so he said "bring her straight over". I picked up her spasming little body and she went limp, I put her in the car on the seat next to me and was I probably breaking the speed limit before I got to the end of the driveway. About halfway to the clinic she sat up, looked around then looked at me as if to say "are we going somewhere?".
The vet met us at the door and smiled "so she got better then?" he asked. He had the green dream and syringe ready, which he quickly put out of sight. He checked her over, couldn't really find anything wrong. He explained that when dogs get old they can develop a form of false epilepsy, that the excitement of me coming home may have been enough to trigger her into a fit. We discussed options and I took her home.
The husband and I had a reservation at a posh restaurant and we considered canceling, but it had been so long since we had been out somewhere nice that I insisted we go.
When we got home little Mollie wasn't at the door as usual. She wasn't in her bed; we searched around the house then grabbed torches and headed into the back yard. The husband eventually found her, hidden behind some pots. I put my hand on her, she was still warm but wasn't breathing. The husband grabbed her and started hitting her on the chest and yelling "Mollie! Come on Mollie!" but she was definitely gone.
We bundled her into a garbage bag and put her in the bottom drawer of the freezer, lit some candles and opened a bottle of sparkling shiraz. We made a toast to Mollie: she was deaf, blind, senile, incontinent, smelly, annoying, constantly underfoot, stubborn and difficult to groom. We loved her. We were going to the big city the next day so I was ready to put her in my suitcase and take her home, bury her with my other dog. But the husband pointed out that we couldn't a) travel with a dead dog in our luggage and b) turn up on somebody's doorstep and say "Hi, we're here to bury our dog".
So she's still in the freezer until I decide what to do.
So now we can open cupboards or the fridge without having to move a small dog, we can walk across a room without tripping over, there are no puddles in the hallway and no disgusting smells in the lounge room. There's also no little dog on my lap when I'm watching telly. I miss the scrofulous little mutt.

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In sickness and in health

I am sick. Although most who know me would instantly associate me with an Alice Cooper type sickness, at the moment I am physically unwell. Not severely, I have something of a cold, starting as most do in my throat and now settled into my lungs. Basically, I feel like shit. After a horrendous shopping trip this morning I convinced the girl that she needed to look after me and let me lie in bed and rest. Soon I was tucked under a sequined purple piece of fabric, clutching a teddy bear and eating a pear that she had massacred for me. Bless her. I even managed to read a few chapters of my latest Bourdain acquisition (A Cook's Tour) before she got bored and demanded attention.
I am not a traveler. I have been a few places, but I don't really enjoy it. I am a homebody to the core. In my own home I feel safe and comfortable, I can relax. But reading Bourdain's accounts of exotic lands and even more exotic food I imagine that I could enjoy traveling; all it would take is an unlimited budget and the license to eat anything I wanted – this would mean a get-out-of-jail-free card in terms of calories and dysentery inducing micro-organisms.
Bourdain's descriptions of Vietnam brought back many memories of my trip there several years ago, in fact, he was there the same year I was. It was pre-bird flu and Vietnam was still finding its feet in terms of the massive tourist rush that was in progress. I had never been to any Asian countries and I was totally unprepared for the poverty and the constant harassment.
But back to the start…
At the end of 2001, after more than 18 months of trying to get pregnant and two miscarriages I walked into my doctor's office and asked her to try to find out why things weren't happening for me. She shrugged, reached for one of those big books doctor's have on their shelves, and commenced to write an order for every test imaginable. I had blood work done for hormone levels, vitamin and mineral levels, anything that may have been a factor, including genotyping. She ordered all the same tests for my husband. Weeks later we were back in her office as she explained the findings: my husband had a genetic mutation, a translocation of a part of chromosome 8 with chromosome 10. There was a chance we would never be able to have children. We were gutted, the rug pulled out from under, hit by a truck and several other metaphors for devastated. We walked out of the doctor's surgery, turned right and walked straight into a travel agency. "Send us somewhere nice, with beaches and good shopping, nothing too touristy but nothing too primitive, even a bit of luxury" was our request and we handed over our credit card. $8000 later we were booked to go to Vietnam for two weeks. Now anybody who knows anything about travel in Asia will immediately exclaim "$8000? That's outrageous!", and it was, but we had neither the strength nor the will to argue, we just needed to get away and have somebody else organize everything for us. And we did what I called the "rich white bastards" tour of Vietnam, we stayed at the best hotels, had guides and a personal driver for all commuting. We had several stretches of independence so we didn't feel like totally useless tourists, but these proved to be only opportunities for us to argue over what to do.
One of the drawbacks of attempting to run away from problems is that they invariably follow you. After two weeks of bickering our way around Vietnam it should have been obvious to us that our marriage was doomed, but we were both pig-headed idiots and soldiered on. A few months later I was pregnant with the girl.
I brought back with me from Vietnam many things – a gorgeous lacquer dinner set (which we gave to friends as a wedding present), a few lacquer photo albums, many clothes, hundreds of photos and an embarrassment for the excesses of my rich western lifestyle but also a deep seated shame for the damage my country helped the Americans inflict on people who basically just wanted to be left alone.
Also I think the seeds of hatred for my then husband had started to sprout, he was the worst traveling companion I could have imagined and turned what should have been a great adventure holiday into a grueling ordeal.
Anyway, I have decided that when I don't have anything utterly riveting to blog about, e.g. what I gave the cat for dinner last night, I will write an episode of a travel blog from my trip to Vietnam. Read more!

A Hill

I've struggled with making friends since moving here, mostly from lack of opportunity – as I'm not working the only people I meet are other parents at the pre-school or women at the gym. But also because I am not naturally sociable, I am the world's biggest snob and have a tendency towards arrogance. I do, however, do my best to internalize these negative traits and am generally friendly (I think?). But there have been weeks when the only adult I have spoken to is the husband and as much as I adore him I need other people as well. I have one friend here, who has kept me sane and I am enjoying getting to know her (Hi Jaibee!!) but it would still be nice to have a social life of some sort. Poor me, boo hoo.

Anyway, some of the women from the pump class I go to meet for coffee after the gym so I invited myself along and they seemed fine with that. Then they invited me to come swimming with them on Wednesday morning (today). I was chuffed and was looking forward to it. Anyway, I got up this morning and thought "I don't have anything in common with those women, I don't really like swimming and chlorinated water makes me itchy". So I decided to go for a walk up Red Hill instead.
I studied the map, put my ipod, phone and water bottle in my bag, dropped the kid at pre-school and set off. I had been told there was a café at the top of the hill so my reward for slogging up the incline would be a fabulous view and a nice hot coffee to recharge me for the walk home. It was all good.
I got about ¾ of the way up when the path split in two different directions. Either way led to a summit, I didn't know which way to go but I saw other walkers going to the right so I went that way. After an arduous trudge up a very steep hill I got to the top and all that was there was a bored looking kangaroo - and it wasn't selling coffee. So now I was faced with a dilemma: go back the way I came, take the other track and try to find the café or just keep going. I have something of a mental block about going backwards so I continued on. I got to a part on the track which was seemingly in the middle of no-where when I realized I had absolutely no idea where I was, which direction to go, that the battery in my ipod was about to go flat, I needed a wee and it was starting to rain. I got really cranky. If I had a friend to go walking with I wouldn't need to guess which way to go and I wouldn't get lost. So I stood on the hill, tried to figure out where I was from the buildings I could see in the distance and took a path that seemed to go around the bottom of the hill. Fortunately it took me back to the golf course near home so I knew where I was. The husband rang to ask if I was lost and stranded on top of the hill. Smug bastard. I continued trudging along the edge of the golf course, wondering when a stray golf ball was going to hit me in the head and kill me, when I realized that when I was packing my bag I had neglected to pack my keys. The coffee, hot shower and lunch I had been looking forward to evaporated. So to top off an all round disappointing morning when I finally got home (exhausted) I had to scale a fence, convince the staffy I wasn't a burglar, then climb in through a window. Hideous.


The girl is currently planning her birthday party (for December) and is heart broken because she only likes one of the girls from pre-school and she can't invite her friends from Melbourne. She said to me in a small, sad and lonely voice "we only need to make one invitation". I hope that's not true. I'm sure we will both make some more friends eventually, we have only been here a few months and these things take time. When the girl goes to school next year she will meet heaps of kids and I will start getting out more, doing more things that involve other people, maybe even go swimming. Read more!

Found

A few weeks ago the husband found my video camera in a bag of clothes. This confused me. I distinctly remembered packing it with my rings before losing them all in the move. Anyway, I was glad to have it back.
This morning I was looking through a bag of knitting stuff that was under a coffee table, crammed into a corner and almost inaccessible, and I found a little cosmetics bag. I opened the bag and there were two ring boxes. One containing my engagement ring and my white opal ring and the other box contained my mother's engagement and wedding ring from my biological father. The significance of the find almost knocked me off my feet. Relief flooded through me and I cried for a bit and was teary for about an hour afterwards. I took the rings into the kitchen to show the husband. He was overjoyed. The loss of the engagement ring has been a sore point and the cause of considerable anguish for some time. The husband has used it as his right hook to finish me off during arguments. He took it as a personal insult that I had taken the ring off at all - I was merely trying to protect it. We had run out of boxes and bags to unpack and the ring had not appeared. We had both started to come to terms with the fact that the ring was lost. I was considering trying to find another (how do you replicate a custom made ring with a unique black opal?) and the husband was considering buying me a replacement. I guess we both had to let go before the rings could come back to me. Fucking life lessons. Praise be to the gods – many thanks.

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Of Dogs and Phones

More things are lost. I lost my mobile phone on Thursday night. Fortunately I was eligible for a free upgrade, so I have a new one at no cost, but now I have to track down all my phone numbers again. (If anyone reading this thinks I should have their number, please text me!!) Unfortunately all of the phones that were on offer were hideous, so I have chosen one almost identical to my previous phone – except it's hot pink. Quite a contradiction, I know, but my theory is: I live in a house that has quite a bit of black décor, it is relatively dark in most of the rooms. There is every possibility that my phone is somewhere in the house but perfectly camouflaged. A hot pink phone will be less easy to loose. Also I realised the other night that I have lost a book my mother gave me for my 21st – The Complete Works of Shakespeare. Not a small book, in fact if you dropped it on your foot it would probably break bones. I didn't pack it, unpack it or see it during the entire moving process. Another for the list of things lost. I struggle with my materialism still. I am getting the hang of this housewife gig. The girl and I have settled into a sort of routine. The husband, bless him, is getting up with her every other morning and letting me sleep. He doesn't start work until 10, sometimes later, so often I get to sleep past 9. Utter bliss. It also means that the balance between a nocturnal husband and a child that rises at dawn is found. For a while I was stretched so thinly I thought I would snap. So life progresses, compromises are found, comfortable spaces established.
Someone who is having more difficulty adjusting is Rose, our staffy. The other night she was so depressed we thought she might be sick. Yesterday the gorgeous knitted princess seems to have gone on a tour of the backyard and has lost most of her face. Luckily there are no holes in her and she can easily be washed and repaired. Rose is currently sitting on the couch having tassels tied to her ears as earrings and being constantly cuddled. She is our own little martyr. But she occasionally looks to her master and says "when are these people going home?". I understand her stress and aren't mad about the princess. She's only naughty when under duress. My other little dog, Mollie, continues to bumble around in her dark, quiet little world. Last night she got up off her bed, walked straight into the telly (clonk), dottered around for a bit, then got back in her bed. She is a sweetie. I'm sure she has no idea where she is or what's going on. The husband calls her our martial arts trainer, as we are constantly tripping over her, having to side step suddenly or make leaps to avoid squashing her. It's amazing how a blind and mostly deaf dog has the instinct to know exactly where you are about to put your feet.
Well, the My Little Pony DVD has just been put on, I think it's time for shoes and socks and a walk to the park. Read more!

Materialism

There have been a few tragic losses as a result of the move – particularly my career and social life. Some materialistic losses have also occurred. A few wine glasses, the toaster, a picture frame, a mixing bowl and the wheel bearings on my caravan all perished in the journey. These losses are trivial.
Before I left my little house in the city I packed all my precious things in a small box and took them with me in my car. These were things not to be trusted to the removalists, I would carry them myself. The box contained my most expensive rings, including my gorgeous black opal and white gold engagement ring and my mother's wedding and engagement ring from my father. Also my video camera and the tapes of the girl learning to walk and various other moments from her babyhood. These things are all gone. I have searched for them everyday for the past month. They are not here. The box is not here. I am devastated.
One of the philosophical questions that has arisen as a result of the move concerns my materialistic view of life. I acquire, I hoard. Why do I do this? I can contribute an element of it to my childhood in a single parent family in which money was scarce and "nice" things were few. I compensate now for what I feel I "missed out on" as a child. I love to surround myself with beautiful things, my sense of aesthetics is strong, if not slightly unusual and I feel more comfortable in an environment that looks good. Maybe I can throw this back to childhood as well. I always felt envious when I went to friends houses and they had nice furniture and things that matched. I was always embarrassed when friends visited me and our furniture was secondhand, tatty and what would now be considered "an eclectic mix".
I also have many hobbies, crafty stuff and cooking. As a result I own a sewing machine, over locker, boxes of dress patterns, sewing paraphernalia and mountains of fabric. I also have many knitting needles, crotchet hooks and bags of wool. I have a multitude of books that accompany these past times. But by far my greatest love is cooking. I have many cookbooks, hundreds of foodie magazines (porn) and folders full of recipes. When I cook (or do anything) I like to have the correct utensils, so I also own every kitchen appliance and gadget available. I have many knives, multiple wooden spoons in many shapes and sizes. I have peelers and zesters, corers and crushers. I can make ice-cream, bread, juice, waffles, toasted sandwiches and pasta. I can blend, puree, chop, shred, grate, grind, mix, whip and knead. All at the touch of a button. I can make cakes in various sizes and shapes. I can make cupcakes or muffins or madellines.
All this stuff I feel I "need" and I do actually use most of it. I admit I haven't made waffles for years and I haven't juiced a carrot for longer than I remember….but if I wanted to….
So the question has been presented – do I really need all this stuff? I have started to cull things and have made several sizable donations to the Smith Family bin at the shops. And just when I think I am getting better and I am attaching much less importance on material wealth I finally have to admit my box of precious things is lost. Of all the things I could have lost – why this stuff? Why not one of the boxes of the girl's baby clothes? Why not a box of books I haven't read for years?
I appreciate that occasionally the universe or the gods or whoever/whatever it is that dabbles with our lives feels the need to teach us a lesson – but why is it always so damn harsh? Why do we always bump into our ex boyfriends on the day we have finally felt brave enough to organize a date with a potential new love? Why, when we have a cold and are feeling glum do meet somebody who has a brain tumour and is cheerful? Why do we only meet old high school buddies in the street when we have just popped out quickly with no make up, bad hair and wearing track pants?
These things are sent to try us…try us for what? What are we being prepared for? To be the most well adjusted and serene corpse in the graveyard? Fuck that.
So I say this to the gods…stick your life lessons up your collective bums and give me back my rings and my girl's first steps. Read more!