Far Horizons

We interrupt this blog post to bring you this special bulletin.

The temperature hit 45C (113F) today. We still have no landline phone or cable Internet. I can't even get through to the provider. My love for my iPhone is growing perverse and unnatural. Due to the heat and renewed gastro-intestinal distress, I'm finding it difficult to keep up with my hydration needs and am starting to feel altered. I'm sucking down water and Hydralyte ice sticks with one hand and typing on the iPhone with the other...

We now return to regular programming.

* * *

I pad into her room, sticky with sweat, a little before 2am. Too hot to sleep, she lies, reading on her bed. "Do you want to go on a backyard adventure?" I whisper.

"Okay," she grins.

"We must be very quiet." I manage a reasonable facsimile of seriousness. "Grab your towel."

Holding her hand, I lead her through the dark house. I whisper earnest warnings about the open cupboard door as we navigate the night kitchen.

We tiptoe down the back steps, holding hands and giggling in the dark. "Come on!" I whisper urgently and we throw our towels aside and step together into the paddle pool. We gasp at the contrast in temperature and hold our breath as we ease ourselves down down into the water. Then we breathe deep; crocodiles submerged with eyes and nostrils above the surface. We feel the water's soft embrace upon our raw skin and direct our tired gaze up, through the dark to immerse our eyes in the oceanic night sky above. "Wow," breathes DK with little girl awe.

Each pin prick of light in the sea of dark is a reflection of our own tiny selves, as worlds revolve around us. We are made large and small in a single, simple moment.

"There's the Southern Cross," I murmur softly. "See the two stars pointing to it?"

"And this is what it is to be Australian," I think to myself.

Not being of the beach or sport set, I have not often had an answer to the question that precedes that thought. All that 'crikey' and 'struth' shit strikes me as crass and jingoistic; a performance for the tourists. I've never known anyone who spoke like that. Maybe they live somewhere far away, chasing crocs on the other side of a vast desert.

"As Australian as meat pies," the saying goes. What if the thought of chopped guts and hooves in pastry makes you feel like expelling chunks of tofu in patriotic shades of green and gold?

"THIS is my Australia," I think; a grown woman lying in a paddle pool at 2am, staring at the sky.

The heat reminds me that I am an interloper in this sun-scorched land. We of the snow white skin are the adopted children of red dirt and eucalypts. We love and are loved as kin, but we were not forged here; we are ill-adapted to this place. We are the descendants of the unloved urchins and ne'er-do-wells of the mother land. We are the living legacy of criminals, fortune seekers, adventurers and refugees.

The olive-skinned babies of our intermingled lives and loves on the scorched earth walk more blithely under this sun. Perhaps they will teach us how to be.

A Bridge

This day of dry, hellish heat began with a confounding and sinister omen when a father stopped his car on the West Gate Bridge in order to throw his little girl to her doom from its heights. I cannot conceive of the fell malignancy that could cause such a thing.

The heat is interminable and inescapable. As the temperature peaks at 44.3C (112F), the woman on the radio says, "Let's just hope we can all get through this."

The street is still and quiet but for the steady chorus of airconditioners. There are blackouts across the city as the grid strains under the burden of them. The phone has stopped working; the Internet gone; cell networks patchy.

So here I am, blogging the end of the world on the iPhone; tapping the apocalypse out letter by letter.

PROMPTuesday #40 - No Air

It's PROMPTuesday...er Wednesday...okay, fine, technically, Thursday...let's just all be joyful that I'm doing it at all, okay? San Diego Momma has asked us to talk about our first job.

Not surprisingly, given SDM's inspiration for this prompt, this question is actually quite insensitive. In my first real, paying job, I worked for a company that sold and maintained air conditioners. I don't want to think about this right now, because we don't have one. We don't have one in our house; we don't even have one in our car. 

This is not generally a problem. We are, after all, hard core. But Tuesday was 36C (97F). Wednesday was 43C (109F). The forecast for Thursday is 43C (109F). The forecast for Friday is 43C (109F). Saturday, however, is predicted to be a little chilly, with a maximum of only 35C (95F), so the week looks set to end a little anticlimactically temperature-wise. Nevertheless, I don't want to think about air conditioning. It's just too, too painful (sniff...sob...), so here's the CliffsNotes version of 'My First Job'.

• I did a little office work, but mostly I just called customers and said, 'Legionnaires' disease' a lot to scare them into having their unit serviced.

• One night the CEO really, really needed me to stay back late and do a stock take with him in the warehouse.

• It was such a successful stock take, he felt we should hug.

• In fact, he was so overwhelmed with joy at that wonderful stock take, that he felt we should hug again.

• Then he closed his eyes and tried to kiss me with his big, ugly fleshy lips.

• I was all, 'WTF? Hugging over a particularly good stock take seems perfectly normal to me, but let's not go too far.'

• He started yabbering on about life and how things sometimes happen in life and it's just a thing and, hey, things can be great, can't they? Have you met my wife and kids?

• Then he leaned 'casually' on this huge executive type desk and the top flipped right over and he's all, 'Hey, look at that...a thing...right there. Case in point. Really must get that thing looked at...Where was I?'

• Then I quit and he drove me home and paid me lots and lots of money and sent me a reference that may have said something about me practically running the company.

• But note to dim-witted adolescent self: Seriously, why the hell would the CEO be doing a stock take? Oh, and just for future reference, stock takes are rarely so exciting as to warrant hugging.

Grace In Small Things: 5 of 365

1. The way my bed looks when it's made.

2. Cornflower blue.

3. The blistering sun on my shoulders as I work; thawing the very last icicle.

4. The startling white of my skin against his; the sand between his toes and the salt on his lips.

5. The rainbow on the kitchen bench.

Grace In Small Things: 4 of 365

1. Australia - I feel incredibly lucky to have sprung from the dusty loins of this 'wide brown land'. I allow for the fact that the feeling might not be mutual.

2. Ben Lee's iTunes Originals. I haven't felt this passionate about music for a very long time. It feels like waking up.

3. Vegetarian tacos.

4. Fruit smoothies - they're way better than vegetable roughies.

5. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. And the fact that I've now read the entire trilogy aloud to the two great loves of my life, a decade and a half apart.

Grace In Small Things: 3 of 365

1. Radioactive iodine.

2. My iPhone.

3. Holding my friends' tiny miracle in my arms and realising that she didn't have to be of my body to make my heart flip over in my chest.

4. Flylady.

5. Freshly ground black pepper.

Grace In Small Things: 2 of 365

1. Mythbusters. 

2. Seeing spiders with new eyes.

3. Sesame oil and soy sauce.

4. Finally making time to give the grass a haircut.

5. Ben Lee's Ripe.

Neighbours Say She Was a Quiet Girl Who Kept to Herself

Just wondering...

Do other parents find this sort of thing when they wander innocently into the bathroom at 3am?

Grace In Small Things: 1 of 365

Better than I think I could, Schmutzie says:

'The world we live in is loud and harsh and bright and demanding, and it is easy to slide into a less than thoughtful survival mode in which we do what we have to do to make it through the day with the least amount of strife possible. This robs us of the time and energy to be mindful of ourselves and those we love and to recognize the grace that exists in small things.

'It is with this thought that I am beginning one year of posts called "Grace In Small Things". Every day for 365 days, I will post a list of five things that have graced my life, either on that day or at any time in my life. Feel free to join me. Or mock me. Or, you know, do whatever's in your heart. You can start on whatever day you want, so if you come across this six months from now, don't let that hold you back.'

I think she's right. In fact, I think that she's happened upon something very important, so here we go. I won't commit to posting every day, because that's just not realistic for me right now, but let's just say I'll try to do a year's worth of 'small things', however long it takes me.

1. The preparations I made in advance (just in case) that meant that pharmaceuticals and convenience foods were on hand when I got sick.

2. Watching my seven-year-old (whose lack of independence has concerned me of late) take care of me and herself while I lay bobbing on an ocean of nausea.

3. Waking from a nap to find notes on my arm saying, 'I love you!' and 'Get well soon!'.

4. Getting through an entire day when the phone did not ring; no one knocked at the door and almost nothing was asked of me.

5. Feeling relatively good again after only 24 hours.

Tinsel Regurgitation

It seems I missed the clause in my blogging contract that says that every blogger who celebrates Christmas in any way must post pictures of their Christmas tree and possibly a lengthy treatise detailing their decorating philosophy.

I did my taxes last week. They were due on the 31st of October 2008. Using that as a baseline for my own personal timeline, that means that I got my Christmas tree post up six weeks early. Yay me!

Thankfully, my strict adherence to this timeline means that until last week, our tree was still up, so I took a few photos.

You might be thinking that it's looking a little fatigued after six weeks of less than gentle childlike awe. This, however, is not the case. That's pretty much what it looked like the day DK decorated it. In fact you may congratulate us on celebrating our first Christmas ever when the tree was not inadvertently skittled at least twice a day for 30 days.

For those of you blinded by the sheer, unadulterated sparkliness of the thing, I'll attempt an evocative word picture. Just close your eyes (or not if you're one of those people who have trouble reading small print with your eyes closed), relax and simply imagine that Dasher and Dancer got a bit carried away while grazing in the magical Arctic tinsel fields. Then imagine that, staggering about, giggling and unsteady on their hooves, they stole just a pinch of Santa's special magic dust. They used this to gain entry to our house - through a window or possibly the gas heater flue - magic dust is not really my area. It was then that their tinsel binge caught up with either or both, causing a sudden regurgitation in the corner of our loungeroom. That's our tree.

Our tree is also a little girl's conception of beauty. It is all about the pretty and the shiny. See that silver thing there at the very top. Guess what that is? That's a smaller Christmas tree. Why? (As if you need to ask.) Because too much goddamn Christmas tree is never enough, of course.

This plastic and metal facsimile of life also stands as evidence of just how far I've come.

That first year, the year DK was two, just buying that tree was a challenge for so many reasons.

That year, we chose simple, tasteful ornaments. Okay, I chose simple tasteful ornaments; she chose shiny-pretty things and lots and lots of tinsel. I resisted anything too hideous, including the large, pastel pink tree she had so desperately coveted.

I guided her little hands in precise tinsel-draping and carefully instructed her in the fine art of even bauble dispersal.

She explained, in her way, which at the time probably involved a lot of exclamation marks, that she preferred to see baubles arranged in clumps and tinsel in dangling piles or trailing along behind her as she ran about the house, shedding little metallic hairs, in a variety of colors, as she went.

She nestled her favourite toys in amongst its branches and discarded the star that we had lovingly crafted to top our masterpiece in favour of one of her inanimate fluffy friends, causing the topmost branches to bend alarmingly.

And she knocked it over.

Again.

And again.

And again.

I twitched.

A lot.

Then I met another mother who told me that she decorated the tree with her children then 'fixed' it when they went to bed and suddenly I remembered that there was only one reason I had bought that tree.

So that there is my daughter's Christmas tree. It is a thing of gaudy, unsophisticated beauty and I love it half to death. Just exactly the way it is.

The alcoholic, baton-wielding glitter angel is saddened by the rampant commercialism of Christmas. This year, she wants you to buy goats for villagers in developing countries instead of presents. Actually, she really just wants you to buy goats for your loved ones, because that would make for a really really funny Christmas day.

Australian legend has it that The Great Kangarangel sheltered the baby Jesus in her magical star pouch as Herod's men scoured the land. It's on the Internet. So it must be true.

Aaaaaah!!! My eyes! My eyes! Tiny, shiny cupid butts!

Behold the magical Christmas panda. He knows if you've been bad or good...and if you've been bad, he'll snap you like bamboo.

Against the Odds I Managed to Make a Heartfelt Blog Post Out of It

I was eight when I started work on my first novel - the tale of an anthropomorphised mouse. As I remember it, I never really got past the blurb. I think it contained phrases like 'the heartfelt story' and 'against the odds'. I had an early and tenacious grasp on cliche. I've struggled (against the odds) ever since to rid myself of it.

This year, I have decided, will be the year of Writing More. I like to choose attainable goals, so I haven't resolved to finally complete that mouse novel, just to Write More.

The moral of this story is, therefore, that you should expect to read some (more) mediocre writing if you plan to keep dropping by here. I sincerely apologise in advance.

And now, without further ado, I wrote the following yesterday. I think you'll agree it's a 'heartfelt story'.

* * *

I'm staring out the window at a dove cooing for her lost fledgling. She looks manic; frantic with worry, although I guess she'd look like that regardless, because, let's face it, that's just the way doves look.

I know, however, that she's lost her baby, because he lies dying in a box in our lounge room. I rescued him from the neighbour's Persian, who I like to call, Mr. Fluffypants. A gaping wound in his crop tells me immediately that flying lessons are done for him.

Ethically, I know that my local vet can only euthanise him, because he's not a native. And though I have taken that last journey with several other rescued beasts, this one I'm leaving in his box in our lounge room. He is deep in shock; quiet and calm, blinking dolefully in the dim. I think, perhaps that this will make a better death than the car ride and stainless steel; human hands and the sting of the needle. I could be wrong though.

* * *

I tried to photograph the grieving parents. In the digital delay between click and photo, this is how they chose to pose.

In case you missed it, here's a close up.

Still, who am I to judge? We all cope with pain as best we can and there is undeniable solace to be found in the coming together of warm bodies.

* * *

The real tragedy, for this blog post at least, is that somehow, that mortally injured bird made it through the night.

I took him outside in his box, thinking that if he made a bit of noise, his mother might come to feed him. I stationed DK near the door and began to explain that she had to watch for Mr. Fluffypants while I made breakfast and we waited for the mother bird.

It was about then that the doomed fledgling puffed himself up and flapped majestically away.

DK and I looked at each other. "Well, that's got to be a good sign..."

I know he'll probably still die, but having watched him fly off into the distance like that, the part of me that really matters can forever believe that the little guy survived 'against the odds'.

* * *

You know, having had a closer look this morning, I'm not even sure that that fledgling was a dove - which pretty much just makes me some kind of freaky bird pornographer. In fact, with the whole shooting between the blinds, blurred focus and long range lens effect, I think I could only have managed a pervier shot if I'd taken the photo from behind a bush...

...while masturbating.

PROMPTuesday #37 - My Book Report

Yes, I finally managed to complete one of San Diego Momma's PROMPTuesday prompts. I'm sure you're impressed beyond words. This week she asks the musical question "What was the best book you’ve ever read and why?"

I'm not sure I answered the question, but the following might give you a hint. On the other hand, it might make you say, "You know, I really liked tinsenpup better when she was less cheerful. At least she seemed to be speaking English back then."

* * *

Harry winced as his scar began to burn.

"Is it He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?" whispered Hermione as Professor Snape glanced at them suspiciously.

"No, no," groaned Harry, clutching his forehead.

"Is it a basilisk, hissing its dark song of tainted blood in your mind?" demanded Ron.

"No, it's...it's..."

"Is it the Dementors come to suck your very soul out through your mouth?" gasped Hermione as she gracefully deflected Draco Malfoy's sly attempt to send the furnunculus curse Harry's way.

"No," moaned Harry, "I can't explain it, but it's almost as if a fully grown muggle woman is obsessively following our every move; hanging on our every word; laughing and crying with us through all of our adventures and yearning, ever yearning for Warner Bros. to release the fucking film they've had in the bag for months, instead of holding it over to ensure a blockbuster for the studio in 2009...when she's not secretly practicing wingardium leviosa with a size 4 knitting needle, of course."

"That's so creepy," trembled Ron.

"We must tell Professor Dumbledore at once!" announced Hermione, standing so suddenly that a house elf who happened to be passing was sent tumbling down a nearby flight of stairs.

"This time, Hermione, I agree with you. Lord Voldemort is one thing, but we've never faced an adversary like this before," said Harry grimly, forcing himself to his feet.

"Don't leave me here alone!" exclaimed Ron, joining them, his wand at the ready.

 

RIP Balloon Puppy

He was barely recognisable when I found him lying lifeless in the yard. One moment frolicking and carefree, moving with the wind like a delicate sprite; the next, 'POP!'; he was just a nose in the dirt.

It really makes you think...

Yeah, next time maybe I'll buy the heavy duty balloons... 

I Know It's Wrong to Blog About Blogging

This blog boasts a small and exclusive readership. Okay, fine, just small then. Nevertheless, having read your comments on my last post and given them due consideration, I feel I can extrapolate to make the following, completely accurate, statements about all people, everywhere.

Thanks to Ali, Dana, Cheri, Wes and Michael, it is now clear to me that we all succumb to the undeniable charms of vegetarianism at some point in our development. Then we eat meat - most often slipped to us by a Sharpie-wielding wench in an Asian restaurant. We then either get sick or climb a mountain (I still haven't decided which I'd prefer).

If we remain vegetarian, we face another difficult trade off. We smell great, but then we grow a fibrous continent in our ass. Although I think I can safely say that, in my case, inadvertently ingesting a trotter has cleared out any traces of Kenya or Angola that may have been forming in there. For now, at least.

Further, I feel I can accurately predict that Csquaredplus3 will get some interesting looks when she starts bandying the word koumpounophobia about at the dinner table, because seriously, tell me it doesn't sound just a little bit dirty.

Your comments have also taught me that all costumed superheroes are kinky (although that was probably self-evident); that other synesthetes have way better colour schemes than mine (I'd kill for a light misty green 5 - I bet Ali's 7 is a delicate fuchsia pink with rose flecks); that Sarah Palin has extremely poor judgement and finally that there really is no nice way to kill a turkey, so we should all band together, become vegan and grow the United Nations out of our butts...or something.

Now you should all leave comments here and I'll write a post about those and then this blog will spiral in on itself, before ultimately imploding. Heh. Cool.

Tinsenpoop - 'Black with Yellow Around the Edges' Things About Me

The lovely and talented Bridget of the Yellaphant Bridgets tagged me for a meme, which almost makes me feel like a real live blogger, except when I look down and see that my little tap-tap-typing fingers are still made of wood. (Sigh...)

Anyway, apparently laying my soul bare on the Internet isn't enough for Bridget. A girl after my own heart, she wants more; seven more things you might not know about me, actually. Therefore, I say to you, read the following genuinely random and pointless facts about me at your own peril. An excess of tinsenpup may cause minor skin irritation, sudden death or anal leakage (in that order).

1. I have synesthesia.

Just so you know, 2 is red and 5 is bright blue. I'm fairly fond of both, but I don't think as highly of 7, which is black with a little yellow around the edges.

2. I also have koumpounophobia. Seriously, I can't even tell you what it is. It's that bad. It's also impressively lame as far as phobias go.

3. I once paid $60.00 to fall asleep 5 minutes into a lavish production of 'Les Miserables'. I woke up just in time to see the lead, arms outstretched, sing the final, admittedly impressive, note.

Just say, "No" to drugs, people. Getting stoned may cause you to sleep through expensive musical theatre.

4. Conversely, I once got paid to stand about guarding a rather small endangered orchid in a pot. I'm not sure what I was supposed to do if someone tried to steal it. Perhaps I could have screamed, “A curse upon your lapel and those of your descendants!” as they made their escape, leaving behind them a scattered trail of potting mix. Thankfully, it didn't come to that.

5. This is one of only a few photos I have of me as a child. Cute and all, but holy freakin' hell, that fringe is so big it looks like it's eating my head.

I do look fairly similar now, except that fringe actually ate down past my nose in 2003, so these days, I'm pretty much just hair and mouth.

6. I was once asked out by Shadowhawk when we were both working at a comic book convention. He had a retinue of small boys following him. I said, "No". It was awkward.

It's still difficult to comprehend why he chose that moment to make his big move rather than half an hour earlier, before he put the costume on.

And no, that's not just an excuse to post another photo of My Precious. It just happens to be the only Shadowhawk pic I had on me. Oh, and by the way, me + iPhone = beautiful little iBabies. Cheri knows what I mean.

7. I've been vegetarian for nearly bright blue years...UNTIL LAST NIGHT... the BFG, Wes, had some Asian take away delivered, because he's nice like that. I generally reciprocate by giving him a call when I'm cleaning out the fridge and offering him all the stuff that's starting to look kind of funky.

Last night, the conversation went a little like this:
Wes: I got everyone a vegetarian curry puff. Here try this.
tinsenpup: Okay, thanks.
Wes: DK this is yours.
(DK glances at the curry puff; screws up her face and cringes as if the curry puff is about to attack. They have a sixth (green) sense at that age.)
tinsenpup: Oh wow! This thing is incredible! Yum! (tinsenpup proceeds to have an orgasm over the first couple of bites of curry puff). Hang on, are you sure this is vegetarian?
Wes: Oh yeah. I specifically asked. The guy actually went and checked with the chef while I waited on the phone.
tinsenpup: (Takes another bite) ...mmm...It's so nice... You know, this really doesn't look like TVP (Textured Vegetable Protein). (Takes another bite.) I think this is meat. Seriously. Don't you think this is meat? (tinsenpup grabs a pinch of suspect curry puff filling in her fingers and passes it to Wes like some herbivorous ape questioning the bona fides of what was supposed to be a plantain, but is starting to look a lot like a bloodied pig trotter.
Wes: (Eats the filling thoughtfully.) Nah. Nah. That's not meat. I have a very finely tuned sense for these things. Remember when I ate that salad that was contaminated with a tiny bit of chicken? I knew straight away; the second I bit into it. No one could tell me otherwise. This (grabs a curry puff of his own) definitely isn't meat. It's cabbage.
tinsenpup: Really?
Wes: Definitely not meat. It's that cabbage stuff, you know? But if you're not sure...
tinsenpup: Nah that's cool. (Takes another bite.) It's really nice... (Takes another bite.) I don't think it's cabbage though... I've never seen cabbage like this... (Takes another bite.) And it's not TVP... I think it's meat. (Finishes curry puff.)
Wes: DK, do you want your curry puff?
DK pauses to look horrified then goes back to scarfing her soup.
Wes: tinsenpup, do you want DK's curry puff?
tinsenpup: Nah, I really think that might have been meat.
Wes: I'm going to have this one with the little red thing on it.
tinsenpup: Hah! That looks like a little 'V'. Like they just write a little 'V' on it with marker to make it vegetarian.
Wes: Heh, heh...Yeah...You know...this one is different from my first one... It tastes kind of...
tinsenpup: (Leans over to paw at Wes' curry puff) OMG! That's tofu!
Wes: ...tofuey!
tinsenpup: OMG, the vegetarian ones have tofu! That was meat! Show me the other one.
Wes passes over the last curry puff, reserved for his omnivorous housemate. It looks like this:

Wes: My first one didn't have a little 'V' written on it...

tinsenpup: Neither did mine...

Appalled silence ensues, because:
a. We ate trotter.
b. I enjoyed eating trotter just a little too much.
c. They write on their food. At best, diners get to choose between food with trotter and food with red marker.

DK: (Pauses momentarily in soup-scarfing to announce:) I'm glad I didn't have a curry puff!

I have chosen not to tag anyone for this meme, because I prefer your stories to unfold at their own gentle pace (and also, and perhaps more to the point, because I don't think any of you would actually do it), but if you want to do it, we could just pretend that I tagged you, couldn't we?