Season's Gratings

Top of the season to ye. Hope your Christmas was of the jolly variety rather than the gritted-teeth-doing-one's-best-not-to-kill-anyone-including-oneself type.



Ours was a bit special, of course, being the first with the kiddies. They weren't too quick on the uptake with the unwrapping idea, but enjoyed the paper and contents in the end.




We had the pleasure of Pauline join us for dinner at the in-laws' house. They're an interesting bunch: a family of eccentric classical musicians. Once dinner was served the TV went on since the Queensland Orchestra was on, in which brother-in-law plays. So we ignored him so we could spot him on the box. Can't say it added anything to proceedings, but hey, it was a small concession to a very nice fella.

Love to you and yours.

...And Shut The Door On Your Way Out.

John Laws retired today after 55 years of broadcasting.


Good.

Fork at the Ready

Don't follow this link if you've just eaten or are in any way feeling delicate. From The Sneeze comes Steve, Don't Eat It! Lordy, but this man deserves a medal. Gasp along as our hero eats and reviews dog snacks, tinned silkworm pupae and pickled pork rind, to name just a small picking from the man's plate. Like Jim Rose Circus with a fork. Gripping stuff.

Federal Erection

At midnight tonight political advertising for Saturday's Federal Election ceases. What a freakin' relief. Not half the relief that most of us will feel come Sunday morning, though.

What a teeth-grindingly irritating campaign it's been. Maybe I'm just becoming less tolerant of political posturing. Whatever the reason, never before has the gallery of hopefuls seemed more shallow, plastic and frankly full of shit. It really saddens me that the direction of our nation is dependent on this process and these people. Not all of them, but certainly most of the ones who will be in a position of real power.

One good thing that has come out of this election has been the final realisation that "climate change" is probably not a good thing, and perhaps we might do something about it. During the last few weeks a report was released exposing Australia as the number one per-capita emitter of greenhouse gases, so it's well past time we made a few changes about the place. The thing is, I recall reading about global warming, as it was known before the term was sanitised, back in the late Eighties, and it's only now that everyone is suddenly up in arms about it. And until very recently, the PM declared himself to be a "climate change skeptic", but has suddenly switched teams just as everyone started voicing concern. "Everyone" being a substantial proportion of voters. The man is a hack, and has had eleven years to do something positive towards reducing energy consumption, and moving us towards cleaner technology. Hopefully, come this weekend he'll just be another page in the country's history, and the new Labor government will get cracking on supporting the development and implementation of green technology, penalising polluters and encouraging those doing the right thing. Of course, in an ideal world The Greens will have the balance of power in the Senate, and can lubricate the whole process.

Anyhoo, enough of my personal political misery. Here are a couple of websites that help unravel many of the mysteries of the electoral process.

The first is the Australian Electoral Commission. Useful are the General FAQs, polling place finder, and practice voting, which is probably recommended for anyone wishing to vote below the line on the four-foot-long Senate paper. (In Queensland we have 65 candidates' names filling out the ballot paper this year, including the superbly named Merlin Manners. I also notice that there are two competing -- wait for it -- fishing parties vying for the Senate this time around: The Fishing Party and the Australian Fishing and Lifestyle Party. Are there so many fishing issues? And what could have driven a wedge between the two that they couldn't unite and further fishing interests together?)

Not so useful, but quite interesting nonetheless are surveys of informal votes in past elections, how the votes are counted (I'd never been quite sure of how the Senate vote worked, to be honest), and how a political party is registered -- if only I'd shown Pauline Hanson this link a few years ago.

The other site I've been digging in to a little for electoral information is, of course, the ABC's Election site. It's a bit late in the evening so I'm not going to trawl through the site too much for you -- you can savour that pleasure yourself -- but a couple of points of interest include the overview of each electorate, the election glossary, the election calculator, and finally everything you need to know to make sure your vote counts.

So may your pencil be sharp and your after-voting beer cold come polling day. Personally I'll have my eyes closed and fingers crossed from about dinner time onwards.

Hot Hot Chocolate, Part II

Some time ago I got moderately excited, then moderately disappointed in Chilli Tim Tams. I was sure at the time that there were other chilli chocolate products out there, and recently some advertising on the local bus stop showed me that this is the case. Lindt, who haven't seen fit to make an Australian website, have slipped a chilli version of their dark chocolate on to the market. And it's pretty good. Not sensational, but considerably better than the Tim Tam version. I'm quite the fan of the earthy nearly-black Lindt products, and the after-buzz of the chilli doesn't detract from it at all. And that's all the heat you get in this product: not a taste so much as a tingling after the chocolate has melted away. I could get used to it.

Greg Mankyfoot was visiting us this week, and reckons that Green and Black's make a chilli chocolate that is even better still. I can believe it. Theirs is the best of the dark stuff I've tasted, so I'm keen to have a go. In the interests of you, the loyal reader, I'll see that I track it down and review it post haste.

Daylight Saving

I received an email petition in my inbox this morning from a daylight savings enthusiast -- you know who you are. Not that I'm trying to imply that I have any influence on these matters; the email was trying to encourage me to put my name to the decades-long campaign to institute the time shift into Queensland.

For the uninitiated, Queensland, unlike the rest of the Eastern seaboard, doesn't have daylight saving, a fact that is often used as further evidence that we are mouth-breathing, inbred and otherwise faintly embarrassing.

Let me state categorically: daylight saving is stupid in a place like this. I'll spell it out for you. It's hot here in summer. The sun is what makes it hot. When the sun goes down, the land cools down. Then civilised people come to life and head out to take advantage of the lively summer night activity. With daylight saving it stays hotter for an hour later in to the evening. It's quite simple.

I hope that clears it up.

Woolvs in the Sittee

I've been reading to the kids quite a bit recently, and to keep the selection fresh -- probably for me more than them -- I've been visiting the library. As I was trawling the kids' section last time I found Woolvs in the Sittee. Hardly the kind of thing to be reading to babies, but I picked it up anyway. It's really fantastic. The story is dark and strange and the charcoal illustrations are beautiful. I loved this kind of story as a kid.

Melbourne Cup

It's Melbourne Cup day.

So, on to topics of the remotest interest, I've been going through the incredibly arcane instructions on the Blogger help pages about how to back up this blog. Or "glob", as I tend to think of it lately. Blogger is the only blog service I've used, and I can't help but think that there could be something out there that is a little easier to use. The trouble is, I've been at it here for over three years now, and while it's certainly not going to be seen by history as up there with, say, the letters of Anton Chekov, it's my record of that time and it's currently at the mercy of the Blogger servers. And I'd like to take the whole lot with me if I were to switch to another service.

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The kids had their halfth birthday on the 17th of last month, so that was quite a milestone. So really, it's been fifteen months since I've functioned as a normal person.

These past six months have been the hardest I've endured in my life, and in many ways the dullest. Each day is mind-grindingly the same: feed, change nappies, play a bit, down to sleep, feed, change nappy, read a book, play, feed..... and yet fascinating and fresh at the same time. It doesn't make sense to me, either. They've changed so much in that time and I suppose I have, too. As someone with an interest in language, I'm finding their "pre-language" absolutely captivating. They're a long way off speaking as such, but their garble often follows the basic structure of developed speech. In the mornings while they're still in bed, and at other quiet times through the day, they have long conversations with each other. One will garble for a while, then wait while the other has a turn. And it has variations in tone and rhythm. For all the world it sounds like a conversation, and of course it is communication in some form. It's the same when they're speaking to Lofty or I as well. It's quite a privilege to watch.

They had their first ever swim on Sunday. We went along to a friend's 4th birthday at a local pool, thankfully, as the temperature hit 31C before 10am, which is when the shindig started. I get a real kick out of seeing them experience new things for the first time. The water was a bit chilly at first, so they weren't so sure about that. They never really looked happy in the water, but didn't kick up a fuss, either. It just seemed a bit strange, but kind of interesting. Edie had a mad kick, but Oscar just kind of sat there and gave me a "what the hell do you call this?" look. By contrast, I was incredibly relieved to get in the water, even if it was only the foot deep baby pool.


The laughably mis-named solid food has become a regular part of our daily routine, too. Navigating spoonsful of yellow (it's always yellow, no matter what it is) goo successfully between eight thrashing limbs is a delicate skill, and one that goes to shit the moment you take your full concentration off the job. Once again, watching them try new things is a bit of sport. If the new flavour is on the nose it comes squeezing straight back out like yellow toothpaste. And again, and again. But if this new thing is a goer then they bite and grab at it like it's their last meal. And that's the thing I really like about these two: there's no pretense. They don't care about social graces or what your feelings on the matter might be. What you see is what you get. Such a refreshing change from the complicated world of adults. So much so that on the rare occasion I get out and about I find adults quite strange and ugly. I was in the city recently and was alarmed by faces caked in make up, ridiculous fashions, ostentatious displays of wealth, acts of discourtesy.... oh, just the whole damn lot. My kids will grow up and take part in all of that in the same way that I have, but in the meantime they're just so straightforward and lovely. I wish they could stay like that forever.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The local ABC is a constant presence in the house here at Chez Zezette, and the highlight of the day is The Conversation Hour. Today's guest is John Cale, which I've missed writing this, but not to worry! The interviews are available to download, finally. (And I'll be able to utilise the service when the household streaks forward into the recent past by getting broadband. We haven't bothered until now due to our extremely limited time available for dicking about online.) The interviews are invariably excellent, so I'd highly recommend you head over there and check out the selection. Bruce Haigh, Chris Sarra and Tom Keneally are a few I've particularly enjoyed.

I've Lived Everywhere, Man

Bill
Louise
Cath
Dean
Clinton
David
Paul
Kim
Philip
Sally
Kenneth
Mike
Craig
Courtney
Brian
Tanya
Another Mike
Tristram
Person whose name I can't utter without risking a stroke
Kendall
Alecia
Kevin
Greg
Julie-Anne
Adaiha
Brett
Trisha
Richard
Gary
James
Dani
Sarah
Jennifer
Natasha
Skye
Wendy
Karen
Thomas
Another Brian
Meelele
Keilani
Tim
Melinda
Matt
Anneke
.... I think that's everyone, barring my parents and children.

What do these people all have in common? I've lived with all of them. Some of them briefly, some several times; some are life-long friends, others I'd do well to be clear of sharp implements if I ever crossed their paths again. A couple of them owe me money, and perhaps a couple would say the same of me. And lordy, could I tell you a story or two about most of them. All in all, I think this list shows that my domestic experience is, well, broad.

The Good Old Bad Old Days

The bad old days. They were good days. Being a young freaker in Brisbane in the Eighties was both wonderful and frightening, and I'm revisiting the highs and lows courtesy of a book I picked up from the library today: Pig City.


It's hard to describe to people who didn't experience the police state that was Bris Vegas at that time. I didn't have more than close shaves myself, such as being searched on the street for merely looking.... like whatever I was looking like, or being shoved up against a wall and threatened with the watch house for smiling at a plain clothes officer as he checked my ID at The Treasury. I did, however, know of people who had the phone book treatment at Roma Street or the CID building alongside the Gabba. The police were an ever-menacing presence, and ugly, ugly, ugly. I hasten to add that I wasn't particularly up to no good, it's just that as far as the constabulary were concerned, I simply looked it, which was more than enough to attract their unwelcome attention.

I flicked straight to the chapters dealing with the eviction of 4ZZZ from the UQ campus. I'd all but forgotten the morning* I woke to hear the "emergency signal" being broadcast telling of the early morning ousting and calling for all and sundry to rush to the studio to occupy the building. I was living in nearby Toowong at the time, so duly made my way over after a coffee or two. I don't remember a great deal about the day, just being crammed into the tiny basement studio with the most astonishing array of freaks, some just having fun, some deeply committed to seeing wrongs righted, some just deeply and violently disturbed. All screaming for all they were worth at "the fucking pigs". It turns out that John Birmingham was there reporting the whole debacle for Rolling Stone.

It's all a long time ago now, and both Brisbane and I have become more middle class and bland. The Treasury has been turned into a faux-Irish pub, ZZZ has a professional-looking website, police are polite and helpful on occasion, and I live in the 'burbs with two kids and sensible clothing. I'm looking forward to being reminded of a time when we were all a little more colourful. Now excuse me, I'm off to do some reading.

*Probably early afternoon, actually.

Captains Creep-out

We paid a visit to Reverse Garbage on the weekend to pick up a variety of junk for household projects. As I ferreted through the junk Lofty browsed the book pile, and picked up this:


I wasn't sure why it had caught his eye until I looked more closely later:


On the back cover it says: Harvey Cheyne went to sea as a boy and learned to be a man!

I can't believe that the graphic designer wasn't having a lend when it was decided that this would be the picture to grace the cover.

We've Started Solids

Literal Lesson

Readers of Suburban Safari are educated and intelligent, so have no need of this lesson in usage. Regardless, one of my favorite linguistic cock-ups has popped up several times over the last week so I feel moved to say something on the subject.

I speak of the word "literally". Here's what Bill Bryson has to say on the issue in Troublesome Words:

All too often used as a kind of disclaimer by writers who mean, generally, the opposite of what they are saying. The results are generally excruciating [...]

It should not need saying, but if you don't wish to be taken literally, don't use literally. The word means actually, not figuratively. It is acceptable only when it serves to show that an expression usually used figuratively is to be taken at its word, as in: "He literally died laughing."

I have ABC Local Radio on in the house most days, and have heard these gems over the past few weeks:

The shelves are literally groaning with diet products these days...

Geelong literally butchered the opposition...

He was really clingy after that. He was literally stuck to my leg all day, every day.

I literally flew through the door...

Choice.

I'm a Person, At Last

A remarkable decision was made by the Australian Anglican Church recently. It decided that women are people.

I've been arguing this point for some time, so it's nice to have some support in high places. The decision came in discussions on whether the church could allow women to become ordained as bishops.

Apparently, the church's constitution stated that a bishop needed to be a person 30 or older, baptised and a priest. The Diocese of Sydney argued that "person" in this context meant "man".

Bugger Rugger

For various reasons, I had a late night last night. Just as I was thinking of turning in -- finally -- I caught a little of the Rugby World Cup match between Australia and Canada. I had no intention of watching, but after five minutes or so I was sucked in. I just couldn't believe the size of the players.

They're impressive, in much the same way as the prize beef cattle at the Ekka are impressive. They're huge. And when they pack together into a scrum and butt heads: amazing. Two tons of hairy sweaty meat colliding. It's quite a sight.

Readers may not be aware of this fact: I took part in Rugby for a time. Let me tell you about it. It was a few years ago, and I was battling through a rather ugly and complicated industrial relations case. To relieve the resultant stress I decided that a bit of sport might be the ticket. But not the same old sports I'd played before; I wanted a bit of a change. I'd pondered for a few weeks which game I might pick when it came to me in a dream. I don't remember the main thread of the story, but what I do remember is John Eales driving past and waving. It was a sign. Rugby was the one.

So I researched which clubs offered places for women, and decided on Easts. I showed up for my first training session all twinkly-eyed; this was the beginning of a new pastime, new people, and new angle on life. Mustard-like, I was keen. I won't bother you with the full details, most of which are exceedingly dull. The upshot is that I was paired with an enormous woman (of course), handed a tackling pad, flattened, hit my head on the ground on what I swear was a small patch on concrete in the middle of the paddock, and lost vision momentarily. While I was down one of the pair next to us ran over my forearm at full tilt. For the next week that hand flopped on the end of my arm like a rubber glove, and I had concussion to boot. Shamed, I never went back.

Needless to say, I didn't watch last night's match with an expert eye. Nevertheless, the spectacle of the game doesn't need a great deal of knowledge to appreciate. In the pounding rain Australia wiped the floor with Canuckistan, as was to be expected from two such mismatched teams. Canada, though, did themselves credit, and didn't look like the schoolboys that the less accomplished team can in these draws. As I write this Lofty and his mate are sitting glued to the Rugby League final, hooting encouragement to Melbourne Storm. I'm not interested. The Ra-ra leaves League for dead in my book.

Divinely inspired

Nothing like a touch of the crankies and a bit of Cooper's Stout to get you inspired to post.

Tomatoes. They're red, they're round, they're tasty. I generally buy the "vine ripened" ones, simply because they actually taste like tomatoes. And you must admit we're spoiled for choice when it comes to the love apples.

The tomato market must be a tight one. You've got yer organic, you've got yer vine ripened, you've got yer cherries, egg, Roma, and so on. I don't doubt that it's tough for the tomato producer to keep ahead such a competitive pack. But tonight, when the shopping contingent returned with the makings of tonight's dinner, I realised just how tough it must be:

Jesus wept. This came off one of the tomatoes I'll be sinking my choppers into tonight. I just don't know what to say. Except that I'd prefer Iggy tomatoes next time.

Boys Will Be Boys

Prime Minister John Howard has warned against an overreaction to a video showing Australian soldiers binge drinking and one person dressed in a Ku Klux Klan (KKK) outfit.

Mr Howard says it should be left to the military to deal with the issue.

"I just think we can overreact a bit with these things and people get into a lather of sweat and so on," he said.

"Let's be sensible and understand that people will let off a bit of steam."

The video was posted by a former soldier on YouTube and has been condemned by the Australian Defence Force (ADF) and Attorney General Philip Ruddock.

Defence Minister Brendan Nelson says people should not pass judgement until the results of an inquiry are known.

He says although some of their actions may be inappropriate, a lot of it could be blowing off steam.

"There's always been a kind of irreverence, I suppose, which has underwritten the core values of our three services," he said.

[...]

From ABC News Online


Are they serious? The nation's troops, people who you and I pay an absolute packet to maintain, dress up like the KKK and behave like complete arseholes on video and that's just fine with the Prime Minister.

This kind of "irreverent" behaviour is a major reason I absented myself from the ADF after serving only about a third of my contract. You see, your tax dollar — and make no mistake, they take a huge slice of that dollar — funds that kind of behaviour every day. I laugh rather bitterly when these "Ooh, ah!" stories make the news because that brand of antics can be found on any military base on any weekend you'd care to look. I become incredibly frustrated when I hear stories of further funding going to the defence force. Put bluntly, the entire institution is corrupt, wasteful, nasty.

This sounds like the bitter rantings of an ex-sailor, and I suppose in some ways that's true. Certainly, I met many people working very hard at their jobs while there, many good people. But in my admittedly limited experience the lazy, the bigoted, the ignorant, the bullying, and the cheating were not a quiet minority by any stretch.

But I digress. There seems to be few other statements John Howard needs to make now to confirm beyond doubt that he is ignorant, racist and someone we really, really don't need in the driver's seat. How can you "overreact" to members of the military imitating white supremacists?

Scrabble

I've been enjoying a bit of Scrabble online recently, which has been bringing my mother to mind.

Mum died of breast cancer last October. Scrabble was our thing; we played together as far back as I remember, which must mean she suffered coaching a young child through the game. We had a difficult relationship at times, but when things became a bit awkward the Scrabble board would make it all rosy again. At times it seemed to be one of the few things we had in common.

She was a good player. We were fairly evenly matched — even enough to keep it interesting — but she won more often than not. When we packed up her modest belongings I pulled out the note pad tucked into the Scrabble box, and found records of our more recent games. I'll probably never have another person to sit and play with in the same way.

She knew the most obscure words imaginable. When I'd ask her how on earth she knew such a word, she'd always reply, "Oh, I don't know. Must have read it somewhere." And she was a prodigious reader. She instilled a love of words, books and reading in both my sister and I, and it's utterly central to both our lives. It's something I really have to thank Mum for. I never did of course. She died so swiftly.

I wrote a eulogy for her funeral, and people seemed to think it was a good one. My sister said that she wished I could write one for her now, so that she could have the chance to read it while she was still alive. We never do thank people for what they give us, do we? Perhaps I should get cracking and write eulogies for the important people in my life before they die, so I don't miss out again.

Gutted

Lofty often takes the wee ones out for a bracing walk in the pram before I'm awake of a morning. A few weeks ago he came back wild-eyed and frantic, spitting out -- with much hand-waving -- chunks of a story that took me some time to piece together.

As it turns out, they were on one of the lovely bikeways we have in the area when Lofty spotted a crow swoop down and pluck something off the adjacent soccer field. Looked like a rat or other small creature; he didn't think much of it and kept walking.

The crow flew up in a great arc, landing on a branch over the path. Whatever it was carrying dropped and landed right in the pram.

The "thing", as it turns out, wasn't a rat or small animal at all, but the decomposing gut of something larger, possibly a possum, and was oozing with semi-digested goop from the tear down its length. And it landed right on little Edie's face.

Little Edie is very difficult to get to sleep at times, and she'd only just dropped off after a couple of hours' solid screaming. As it hit she let out a god-awful shriek which brought not only Lofty but two other nearby walkers rushing. The thing hit her across the eye and seeped goo all over her face and down her neck; thankfully missing her mouth. Lofty snatched her up, one of the walkers bravely scooped the goo out of the pram with a couple of leaves, and together they all ran up to the shopping centre to wash her off. There's a camaraderie among early morning walkers.

It hit hard enough to leave a red mark for several days. So young to learn about the cruelties of the world.

War on Tourists

This Mohammed Haneef thing mystified me for some time. I wasn't paying particular attention when the story first surfaced, but as it developed I thought I must have been missing some vital piece of the story.

Giving someone a SIM card doesn't constitute an act of terrorism, thought I. I mean, it's the kind of thing I would do if I was leaving a country. "I don't have any use for this any more, but if you can use it you're welcome to it." Seems fairly innocuous, don't you think? As it turns out, the Australian Federal Police would beg leave to differ on that point. And yes, that was pretty much all there was to the story.

I think the root of Dr Haneef's problems are in translation. I heard George W on the radio recently banging on about "the war on turr". He was all for bringing the turrists to justice. Poor old John Howard, with his impaired hearing, thought that to mean "tourists", so the likes of the Indian doctor are in for a hard time. I'm sure there's no malice intended.

The whole affair is yet another shameful episode for Australia, and an absolute nightmare for Dr Haneef. He flew home to Bangalore last night to be with his wife and newborn son after his ordeal. After all the backpedaling the AFP have been doing you'd think that the government would have the good grace to leave the guy alone now. But tonight the Immigration Minister said that the doctor's departure only served to make him "more suspicious", despite the charges brought against him being proven to be baseless. And it seems unlikely that his work visa will be reinstated. I just find this incredible.

If I was in Dr Haneef's position I'd be high-tailing it out of here at my earliest opportunity, too.

Hitchoock Had It Right

Frickin' magpies. They come into the house if I forget to shut the back screen door. Then they freak out and fly around the house, bumping into things and shitting everywhere. There's one sitting on top of the pantry right now, tap dancing on the baking trays. They're not too bright: the pantry is right next to the back door and freedom.



Half and hour later this idiotic bird was still flying past the open doors in a panic.

Rainy Day

The drought looks to have broken;

It’s dull and damp and dreary.

My baby boy is hungry

and my baby girl is teary.

Another day at home;

I’m tired and flat and weary.

Grubs

Another Belly Angle

I didn't notice the feet on this picture until I had it up on my monitor recently. The best belly shot I have, I think.

Moo

I have a fair bit of idle mind time at the moment, and every now and then the idea of my body producing milk strikes me as no less amazing than if I found myself crapping Freddo Frogs.

Passive-Aggressive Notes

People can be hilarious when they're angry. And I don't mean in the using-caustic-wit-to-get-your-cranky-point-across way, I mean in the uncharitable, laughing-at-the-unfortunate sense. Feel the same way? You'll enjoy Passive-Aggressive Notes in that case. Similar to Found magazine, but focusing on notes left by the irritated. Quite priceless.

Thanks to The Hegemo for bringing this site to light.

Update: Passive-Aggressive Notes has moved. I'd hate you to miss out on ready access to illiterate bile.

Fleeced

From the Sunday Snail.

Thousands of Japanese have been fleeced in a scam in which they were sold Australian and British sheep and told they were poodles.

Flocks of sheep were imported to Japan and then sold by a company called Poodles as Pets, marketed as fashionable accessories, available at $1600 each.

That is a snip compared to a real poodle which retails for twice that much in Japan.

The scam was uncovered when Japanese movie star Maiko Kawamaki went on a talk show and wondered why her new pet would not bark or eat dog food.

Then hundreds of other women got in touch with police to say they feared their new "poodle" was also a sheep.

I've since heard that this story is rubbish, based on a misquote or mistranslation. We're pretty quick to assume as true any story that shows the Japanese to be ridiculously eccentric, stupid, or stupidly and eccentrically ridiculous. But what the hell. I think it's a great story anyway. I only wish I'd thought of importing the sheep myself.

Pictures of Little People

...and one large person.

The belly at its peak. The morning of the birth, in fact.

And the results. Edie an hour old.

And Oscar.

Edie chowing down on Oscar's head.

Edie at three weeks.

Oscar, three weeks.

Motherhood

What on earth could possibly have kept me from updating for such a long time? What indeed.

Edie and Oscar arrived as planned on the 17th, and life since then has been a fog of breasts, shitty nappies and milk sick. My life is now focussed on my ability to produce a dairy product, not something I'd ever really considered before.

The little 'uns are healthy and lovely, and Dad and I are learning to be incredibly grateful for sleep in blocks of four hours or more. Edie was born with her eyes open and staring, and continues to take it all in at every opportunity. Oscar came out wailing and with his eyes clenched shut. He's a bit of a delicate flower, sensitive to loud noises and bright lights. Can't blame him, really; I wanted to scream in the surgery, too.

It's nice to (kind of) have my body back. The sheer ease of movement post-belly is a truly wonderful thing. Moving around with a wriggling baby attached to your leaking chest has its own challenges, though. Currently typing this with Oscar on my lap; also a little difficult.

One thing I was not so aware of is how novel people find twins. When we take them out in the pram, something we do every other day, it's rare that we get more than a few metres before someone stops us for interrogation. Are they twins? How old are they? Are they identical? Should you have them out at that age? Do you have twins in your family? The answer to all of these questions is Please just sod off. Please. You're the fourth person to ask me that in the past ten minutes, and you're really trying my patience. I only had three hours sleep last night. Step aside immediately or I may not be responsible for my actions. I know people are trying to be nice. Sometimes. But it's still trying.

Parenthood Eve

This time tomorrow I'll be deflated, drugged, stitched, and a Responsible Adult. Is it too late to change my mind?

Someone asked me this afternoon if I was nervous. I'm something, but I'm not sure if nervous is quite it. I've certainly had that restless pacing around that comes with waiting for anything. Over the past few weeks I've had reflux so bad (wakes me up several times a night) that any cure, even at the point of a scalpel, seems welcome. I'm kind of dazed I suppose. We grow up seeing the whole birth thing as being quite unpredictable in terms of timing, so to know that at about 11am on the 17th we'll be parents is pretty weird. I'm looking forward to meeting the little 'uns.

Lofty, however, is quite anxious at this point. I think it's that situation of seeing someone else go through something difficult and being helpless to do much other than watch. He's a bit of a doer, so knowing that his biggest contribution tomorrow is going to be holding my hand and reassuring me is frustrating for him. I understand that completely, but I think he's underestimating just how important the hand-holding is going to be.

I'm getting a bit sentimental about the belly. I've been living with it and watching it grow for such a long time now that suddenly losing it is making me a little sad, despite how damned cumbersome it is. I've enjoyed rubbing it, feeling it move around... it's got a personality of its own, you know.

I think I'm feeling too reflective to be nervous. It's a big day, this last day of childlessness. At 37, tomorrow I finally have to grow up. *sigh* And so life wanders relentlessly on.

It's a Date

We got the big news yesterday: Betty and Bob are scheduled to enter this world via caesarean at 10.30am on the 17th of April. Less than two weeks away!

And they tell me that there'll be two babies for us to take home at the end of all that. Because that's the thing: despite having months to come to grips with that idea, the layers of disbelief are still falling away, one by one. I'm guessing it won't be until they hand them over that I'll finally say, Holy crap, you mean these are mine? Forever? What the hell are you saying? Being given a date was rather sobering.

So, the knife. Over the past few weeks the two of them have been very acrobatic indeed, resulting in some major jolting and wriggling, and some very bizarre (and painful) belly shapes. Turns out that Bob, previously lying sideways, has now decided that breech is the go after all. And they've completely swapped sides. You wouldn't think that there was room to scratch yourself in there, but they've wriggled and fiddled and somehow made the switch. It explains a lot! But as a first birth, both twins breech is just not considered safe to attempt naturally, so slicey-slice it is.

We landed ourselves a very good doctor at the hospital yesterday who gave an an entire hour of her time to explain everything and answer our questions, and we're both satisfied with her reasoning for both the method and timing of the delivery. The 17th will be 38 weeks 4 days.

So we now have two weeks minus a bit to get unpacked and arranged at this new house, wash all the baby things we've been given, pick up the baby things we're missing, arrange for a dog-sitter for delivery day and after, buy a new fridge (ours died in the move, annoyingly), finish what we both need to do at our respective workplaces, and, and, and.... *phew* We're hoping to be all done by the weekend prior so that we can have one last grown-ups weekend, meaning dinners, movies and so on. That's the plan, anyway.

Belly Update

Perhaps I should change the name of this blog to "Gestational Safari". Or maybe "Cervical Safari" would be better feminista cred. Regardless, a belly update.

Betty and Bob are still in residence in my ever-wearier body. And they're either having a cracking time in there, or anxious to get out, if the bouncing and wriggling is anything to go by. I mentioned their movement last time; now it's even stronger. My regular chair is one of those sprung plywood framed jobs. It moves around with every body shift. Now I can be sitting perfectly still and the squealers' movements will actually set the chair bouncing about noticably. It's quite remarkable.

Once we've finished moving house (more on that later) I'll post a picture of said belly. It's really very impressive. When I see myself in the mirror I find it hard to believe that my body has done what it has. I've put on 30kg during this pregnancy, which takes me up to 98kg, 2kg more than my 6'8" partner. It's a lot for a 5'7" frame to take. No wonder my joints are starting to complain.

Having said all that, things are still going swimmingly, really. I'm tired and riddled with aches but healthy and happy, and as a friend pointed out recently, at least while they're still in there they're quiet and need no attention. Make no mistake, I'm grateful for every day's reprieve I get on that count.

So, the house move. As of Saturday I'll be a resident of The Gap, tucked in the foothills of Mt Coot-tha and Mt Nebo. (Or is that Mt Glorious? I always get them confused.) I've always been a south-sider, so it's a bit of a novelty being so far from the familiar. The house itself... well, it's like your Nana's house, which is good and bad. It does suit our decor, that's for sure. It even comes with a concrete flamingo in the back yard, which will be getting a coat of pink paint very shortly. With southerners swarming in to south-east Queensland like mice into a silo, housing is at a premium right now, so I'm incredibly grateful to have found it at all. We've been searching on and off for months now, and it was starting to seem like a race between finding a place and the babies arriving. Urgh, it's been a stress I could do without. So once we've finished moving in this weekend, and we've unpacked at least all the essential boxes, Betty and Bob can come at their leisure. And at that point we'll be significantly happier.

They're officially due on 3 May, which I find mysterious. That's 40 weeks, but twins are considered full term at 38. Despite this the medicos are clinging to the May date, but always with the twins-come-earlier caveat. So mid-April seems to be the best guess. I'll keep you posted.

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On a slightly different note, a few weeks ago when Lofty and I were out at Mitchelton to look at a potential house, we were checking out the facilities nearby. As we approached the corner of the street he pointed out a well-known cake shop with the comment, "The Cheesecock Shape's nice and close". Whoops. Over to you, Uncle Sigmund.

A New Journal and Pen = A Post

Nothing like a shiny new journal and pen to get a bit of writing inspiration happening. That, and yet another appearance of a tiresome neighbour. I have to leave him to chat to the housemates, you see, because I’m “very busy”. Liam’s not so bad, really, but he does tend to make himself at home with remarkable ease; he doesn’t even bother to knock anymore. He just walks right on in. Helps himself to whatever you’re eating. And seems to have a remarkable ability to turn up at the most inopportune moments. Hardly hanging offences, but at times....

...which segues nicely into something I heard on the radio first thing this morning. Apparently the Merkin army has been finding it a little tough to keep up the supply of bods to hurl at Iraq, and so have decided to lower the standards required to join up. They are now accepting people with a criminal history. Not so exceptional, thinks I, to welcome folks with, say, a minor drug conviction or one for petty theft. In my experience, it would help them settle into the military environment just that little bit better. As the espresso trickled into my cup the story continued, and a few of the allowable offences were read out. They include—and I wish I’d heard this after my coffee--”making a terrorist threat, murder, and raping a child. Consider my gob well and truly smacked. So, anyone serving there may have to place their trust in someone who’s thrust their erect penis into the body of a screaming or drugged six-year-old. And the Iraqi people have to accept such people in their country, and armed. Sounds like a great idea. And this is the government and campaign that our own dear PM won’t hear a word against. I really shouldn’t listen to AM over breakfast.

Anyway, enough of that. Betty and Bob are doing fine, and I’m not doing too badly either. Betty beats Bob on the basis of baby busyness; but my, that Betty is a boisterous bub. At New Year she was head down. Then she shuffled around sideways to lie transverse. During the latest scan a week or two ago she was breech, which brought about a conversation with the doctor involving the C word. “Caesarean” in this instance. Now, after some more shuffling and thrashing about, she’s transverse again. Have I mentioned how uncomfortable all of this lively poppin’ ‘n’ breakin’ is? Imagine if you can being kicked in the (permanently full) bladder from the inside. Now the bowel. Now imagine someone gouging you in the stomach so vigorously that you’re in danger of losing your last snack, and then throw in the sensation of drinking a half a cup of caustic soda. I couldn’t have imagined these things before I’d experienced them, so perhaps they’re lost on you, too.

Strangely though, I’m really enjoying feeling them move around. Bob is tucked away behind his athletic sister, so I don’t know him quite as well. Betty, on the other hand, has become quite familiar. At times I can feel her limbs quite clearly when I press my hands on my belly, and her movements are visible when I’m sitting. Sometimes they catch my eye when I’m reading. If I rest things on my belly—which is a natural thing to do given that it’s now like having a permanent table in front of me—she belts them off. A plate of toast went abruptly flying recently. When, pre-pregnancy, I’d tried to envisage what it would be like to have another little person inside you I’d imagine it being creepy and alien, like having a tapeworm from hell. Or something. But not a bit of it! They’re comforting, agreeable company. I never tire of feeling them jostle about, and become vaguely impatient when I rest my hands on my great ball-belly and find it all quiet.

I wish my Mum were here to share this with. She succumbed to that most trendy of ailments, breast cancer, in October. I’m incredibly grateful that I had the opportunity to tell her that I was pregnant; in fact, it was the last lucid conversation I had with her. She’d always teased Little Sister and I that we were prime candidates for twins, given that most of her family tends to spit them out in pairs. We didn’t learn that we had a double-yolker until the week after her funeral. She would have gotten a real kick out of that. And there’s so many things I want to ask her about when she carried me, about my birth, what it was like caring for a new baby at the age of 22... so many things. In some ways I feel closer to her now than ever before. I miss her terribly. But her death was swift, and can we really ask for more for the people we love?

This is all pretty stream-of-consciousness, eh? I don’t have the energy for anything more disciplined. Creating people takes a lot of creative energy. The only other thing I want to say tonight is that the second baby of the great wave arrived recently: Dorothy Clare aka The Hoffling. She came gently and quickly, and brought a great peace and happiness with her into the family. The Hoffs are among my favourite people, and deserve every good thing. Brendan’s pot roast is due in a couple of weeks—and let’s all hope it takes its looks from its Mama--but I’m not sure who will be next to come after that. Maybe Betty and Bob, or maybe the baby of Anna, sister-of-The-Hoff. Or Matt the Tatt’s brat could beat us both. Then there’s Shayne and Danni’s third little brown lizard to factor in. The bets are on!

(You know, if we all pooled our Baby Bonus money we could buy a great block of land.)

Sprung!

Thanks to Cheryl for dropping me an email to let me know that Thomas Allen had found some comments we made on her blog about his art work. Fortunately, he thought we were funny.

Who is Thomas Allen? I made a gushing post about him myself around the same time as Cheryl's post. I loved his work then and love it no less now, so I have no problem whatsoever in letting you know that he has a book coming out later this year, called Uncovered. Drop by the man himself's blog to stay abreast of the where, when, how and so on.

So, We Talked About The Weather For a While...

Discussion of the weather is unfairly maligned, I say. When it's extreme in one way or another it colours everything we experience, so why wouldn't we want to talk about it?

The weather -- or the temperature, more correctly -- has changed very quickly over the past few days, and is indeed having an impact on daily life. For most of summer so far we've been sitting waiting for the heat to hit; that wait is over. This morning at 10.30am it hit 33°C, after an overnight low of 25°C. 25 sounds quite mild, but at 4.30am it's stinking bloody hot. Still, we've had it incredibly easy so far this year, so it seems ungrateful to bitch now.

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In other atmospheric events, McNaught's comet is giving our skies a bit of glamour at the moment. Or so I hear. For the past week there has been cloud cover in the South West, the area in which the comet is sitting. I'm really, really hoping that the sky clears before the comet disappears.

McNaught Comet photogallery from Spaceweather.com

Cornucopia of Crap

About a month or so ago my housemates, Mr and Mrs Fungus, got Foxtel hooked up here at the house. Lofty and I aren't taking part in the paying for it—quite the waste of money as far as I'm concerned—but it's there, I'm largely incapacitated, so I've been availing myself of the vast array of absolute shite it has to offer.

I watched a bit of Hawaii Five-0 last week, and I confess it was a bit of an eye-opener. Not only were the fellas very caring, sharing Nineties kinda guys (not something I generally expect to see in Seventies telly cops), but the main protagonists of this particular story were very engaging in their own ways. The bad guy, for example. Steve and Danno spent some time telling us just what a hard-arsed, bad news grub he is, so I nearly choked when his mug finally made it on to the screen: it was Luis from Sesame Street! All wrong! And the visiting good guy du jour looked familiar, and his name in the credits rang a distinct bell, too: Gil Gerard. Known later to some as Buck Rogers. All this, and the infinite pleasure of the Hawaii Five-0 theme song. Beautiful.

It's remarkable who turns up on these old shows. Recent episodes of M*A*S*H have turned up Patrick Swayze, Shelley Long, Barry Corbin (better known to me as Maurice from Northern Exposure), Pat Morita, Brian Dennehey and Ron Howard. Spotting them has become a sport.

The creme de la creme of appalling Foxtel dross, though, would have to be Hong Kong schlocker, The Mighty Peking Man. What a hoot! Best seen with a bunch of kitsch-lovers in the mood for a few beers and some convulsive laughter.

But when all is said and done, I still wouldn't pay for any of this guff.

If I Only Had a Brain

Email received this morning:

Do you realise you didn't post a blog for the whole of December?
Man, I’m ripping up my subscription!! Surely it can’t be that hard to knock out some creative genius that titillates the great unwashed??!! Up the duff issues aside, your public needs you. So, get crackin’ slacker!!!

Hmph. Yeah, I know. The trouble is that I have no brain. Seriously. These two "creative projects" I'm carrying about have been sucking my creative energy dry.



There is so much to write about: the death of James Brown; Tony Abbott's allocation of funding to a Catholic organisation for "pregnancy counselling"; severe water restrictions in SEQ while Tarong and Swanbank power stations continue to chew through 55 million litres a day to produce electricity to sell to NSW; Christmas consumption; the sad, sad show that was The Ashes.... but my brain just isn't able to process these topics to any coherant level. Sorry about that.

I've been reluctant to turn this into a pregnancy diary, but perhaps that's what's going to have to happen if anything's to be written. That's all my brain can focus on for the time being. Those not interested can find the door on their own, I'm sure.

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My latest pregancy joy is heartburn/reflux. I've never had it before, but a hot/cold burning in my throat is now my constant companion, particularly in the middle of the night. I don't know where I've put my packet of Tums, a product I discovered whilst in Canada, and now available in Australia, but only in the orange flavour. They make a nice change from the minty products. I must track it down before I turn in for the night.

On a better note, lying in bed Christmas eve I felt them moving for the first time. It was quite exciting. I'd been wondering when I might feel them, and thought I probably had already but not recognised it. That night it was unmistakable. Lying on one side Betty would drum away, roll over and Bob would take a turn. (Have I mentioned here that we have one boy and one girl? I'm not sure that I have.) Then, on New Year's Day, they were boogie-ing away enough for Lofty to feel them, which was a buzz, too. A couple of nights ago I could make out what seemed to be a leg poking up under my skin. It's a very odd experience, but the thoughts of the dinner scene from Alien are becoming less and less frequent.

It was a bit of a relief to feel them being active since I'd had a minor scare a day or two before. I'd had some painful belly cramping, enough to send me trotting off to the hospital to have it checked out. The staff were excellent. They checked me over and kept me in overnight just to keep an eye on things. No great conclusions on what caused it, but everything seems to be fine, and they encouraged me to come back if I was concerned about anything at all. We like to bitch about our public hospital system here--and heaven knows it could do with some improving--but my experiences have been quite satisfactory to date.

The ward they had me in was the actual maternity ward--my window had a nice view of my workplace, hurrah!-- so I was surrounded by wailing babies and their exhausted mothers. One woman who stands out was baggy-eyed and waddling alarmingly down the hall. I don't know the circumstances of the birth she'd had, but I can't say it looked too comfortable. But hey, what comes comes, so there's no point dwelling on it. I'm just trying to avoid birthing horror stories at the moment. I don't see the point in getting uptight about it, despite the world's seeming desire for me to do so. People seem to have a keen desire to get me to blanch or get all wobbly-kneed by telling me horrific stories. Or by laughing when I mention that it's twins. Well, to those in the latter group I say, can it be any worse than dealing with a newborn along with an attention-seeking two-year-old or two? I don't think so. And to the horror story brigade I say this: fuck off. Seriously. Take your morbid, thoughtless stories and jam them sideways. I really don't care that your friend's friend's sister-in-law's neighbours organs all dropped onto the floor just before their dog ate their baby, who had already died of SIDS anyway. Really. Why would I want to hear that story? It doesn't make me fearful, it just makes me think of you as a sad, maladjusted, self-absorbed, ambulance-chasing idiot. So let's just keep that a suspicion, rather than you confirming it, eh?

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This Friday will mark 25 weeks. Although it's beginning to feel as though I've been pregnant forever, it also feels as though it's cracking along very quickly. Good grief, if all goes according to plan, we'll have two squealing pot roasts on our hands in around twelve weeks or so. Ha, and you think my blogging is sad now?