Ode to a brave new world: it's more than a bear can bear

A political entry in a faux-travel blog?

Much to LRD’s disgust, yes. Any who aren’t interested in my undergrad political musings should tune out now.

After 10 years (count them…10!) of ‘non-core’ promises, Tampa, GST, Workchoices, marginalising the disadvantaged, the degradation of our public hospital system, the systematic dismantling of public schooling, the continuing decline of our Indigenous communities into poverty and its associated crime, poor health and substance abuse, Children Overboard, the Iraq war, the denial of climate change and support for a policy of expanded emissions, the quiet permission given to Australians to be racist thugs and the subsequent Cronulla riots, the villification of marginal groups such as the Muslim community, and spiralling domestic inflation that left us unable to afford healthy food (all the while being told how much better off we were)…the lying little rodent a.k.a. Little Johnny has finally left the building.

And if that sounds more like a rant than a sober analysis, it is. Good luck to Kevin ’07. I’m sure you’ll disappoint us in the end but at least you can’t be any worse than your predecessor. P.S. Still haven’t entirely forgiven your wife for making me redundant.

Maybe this is a statement about our modern reliance on technology

Oh, the trials and travails of me and technology. If it's not bad enough being homeless, my computer gave up the ghost and then my new unit doesn't have a landline. Dear Lord, what to do? Live without my laptop? Not bloody likely. So, a new laptop and an incredibly expensive wireless connection connection lately and I can sit on my balcony at my new abode, overlooking the water, and typing away. Loving it.

And loving Darwin too, btw, particularly the weather. If there's one thing I hated about Canberra, it was the 'freezing in winter and bloody dry and hot in summer' thing. Give me tropical anyday.

Well, the purpose of this entry is to put up some exciting photos of my new home for my family. Anyone who's not fascinated by my feature wall and photos of my living room can tune out.

I know it's just a wall, but it's pretty...

Anyway, better go and do something about dinner (gee my life is exciting at the moment). At least I'm eating it in the nicest place I've ever lived (apart from my wonderful family home that Mum and Dad still live in and where I'm going for Xmas and no slight on the Villa Costa Lotta, I swear).

Cue that unique Darwin feel

Had a great time this evening. Headed off to the iconic Mindil Beach Night Markets for fantastic Indonesian food, some live music and a beautiful sunset. It seems I arrived in Darwin just in time as this was the last market before the wet season. The weather was perfect for sitting on the beach watching the sun go down: clear skies and just a slight tropical feel to the air.

I wandered the stalls sipping some mango lassi (not as good as India but, you know, didn't expect it to be) and then bought some rendang before heading down to the beach (along with everyone else) until the sun had dipped below the horizon.

After dark the markets were really pumping, full of tourists but also locals out for their last market experience until May next year.

Well, that's item number 1 on my 'sights of Darwin' checklist done. Next stop: fish feeding at Aquascene and then a trip to Katherine Gorge.

I'm only human now I've sat on my rock

After four days of vomiting and diarrhoea, I finally got to clamber back up to my rock this morning and take a photo of the Bay. Damn those Coronas.

Still, as I lay on my balcony overlooking the waters stretching all the way to the mainland, I reflected that it could have been worse: I could be feeling sick inside a teeny apartment in cold Canberra watching repeats of Doctor Who to pass the time.

Photo: View from my rock. I've been climbing up here since I was about 12. It's my favourite place for contemplation and solitude. It's the one place in the world I will always be at peace.

LRD was very annoyed at me for being sick. He was having a ball drinking Black Rats with Ben and Dad. In fact, here’s a photo of him chilling at the Island. Back to reality and a quick move to Darwin tomorrow.

Will you still love me when I'm 64?

I’ve been back from the island for a whole week now but will keep pretending these blog entries are being uploaded as they were written.

It was Mum’s birthday ‘today’. She’s not very computer literate so will probably never read this. Please no one tell her I published how old she is.

We had a lovely early-morning swim and a BBQ breakfast on the beach, chilled, had Dark and Stormy’s on the balcony in the afternoon and went out to a fantastic dinner at a new restaurant on the Island. Rick, Jen and I scoped it out last week (I had oysters and Atlantic Salmon) and this time I had the Coral Trout. Delicious meal, two bottles of Shaw and Smith and a beautiful Hennesy’s XO Cognac to finish.

I was feeling a bit healthier today after being sick for a few days. At the beginning of my holiday, I said something along the lines of, “I’m not a coeliac so as long as something doesn’t make me sick, I can have it”. This was used to justify my consumption of a carton of Corona with Rick and my preparation to consume another with Dad when he arrived. One flaw: apparently Corona does make me sick, it just took a week to happen. Well, another happy delusion has been stripped away. It was a lovely day and hopefully I’m up to snorkelling again tomorrow.

Oh and yeah, happy birthday Mum.

Chilling in EcksEcksEcksEcks

Late afternoon: the soundtrack of my life is the near-silent whoosh of the waves on the beach below my unit and the lorikeets in the trees. There is nothing better than a lazy afternoon. I’m reading a cracker Terry Pratchett novel, ‘The Last Continent’ and drinking the inevitable Corona. I’m relaxing after a nice morning. I went down to the beach for my early-morning swim as the sun rose over the Bay and it was stunning. Too good not to share so the photo is here:

The tide was in, so I couldn’t clamber up to my rock, but I didn’t mind as the water was heavenly. Warm and calm and deep. At this hour the beach is all but deserted and it’s as though Paradise was created just for me. Back home afterwards for a fry-up with my niecies then straight back down to the Bay for some quality snorkelling round the point. Saw sting-rays, Parrot fish, Rock Cod and Coral Trout. Also lots of other little fishies, most of which looked like dinner but the Bay is a Green Zone so they live to swim another day.

Lunch, relaxing, games with the kids and then a barbeque dinner by the beach. Lazy, yes. Awesome, undoubtedly.

Should my Nieces Speak Goa’uld?

Things I was supposed to do today:
Go for my early morning walk to the beach, climb my rock and watch the sun rise over the bay, swim in the warm, still waters, wander home for a cup of tea on the balcony.
Have a relaxed breakfast and then go back to the beach for a snorkel or a swim or possibly to build sandcastles with my nieces.
Have lunch.
Do the Fort Walk. Haven’t done it since I was about 15 and felt I could use the exercise.
Relax on the balcony with a beer and read my book.

What I did today:
Wake up and realise there was a tropical downpour.
Have tea and wait for downpour to pass.
Have breakfast and wait for downpour to pass.
Play backgammon and cards with my nieces and wait for downpour to pass.
Have lunch and wait for downpour to pass.
Buy a bottle of Vanilla Vodka and shot glasses and spend the afternoon playing a Stargate SG-1 drinking game with Rick, the rules of which are attached.

Jen joined in intermittently, mostly clutching her drink in both hands yelling at the show to do something on the list so she could have a drink. Much to our horror, my nieces insisted on joining in. I told Jen I was going to teach them Blackjack this evening ‘cause I felt gambling was a natural progression from modelling binge drinking all afternoon.

No, they’ve come through it unscathed. They just run around emoting ‘Shal'kek nem'ron’ at people and can only be summoned to dinner with ‘Jaffa kree’ (in Caitlin’s case’ Tokra kree’ ‘cause she’s decided she’s a Tokra and not a Jaffa).

Want more Stargate and scifi fun...it's all on da other blog.

Stargate drinking game

Take one drink anytime:
Jack says, "Fer cryin' out loud."
Jack says, “Bad example”.
Teal'c says, "Indeed."
Teal'c raises an eyebrow
Jack cuts off Sam in the middle of her technobabble
Jack mispronounces a technical or alien word
Someone makes a Wizard Of Oz reference
Jack and Daniel get into an argument over civil rights (Two sips for “But Jaaacck”)
Something splats against the gate's iris
A beautiful female alien falls in love with Daniel
One or more of SG1 gets shot (includes zats)
Jack makes a smart-ass comment to someone holding him prisoner or at weapon-point
Hammond uses the Red Phone
They start the Gate Self Destruct mechanism
Sam cries
Vala hits on Daniel/ flirts with Daniel
Vala casts aspersions on Daniel’s sexual performance
Daniel loses his temper at Vala
Daniel speaks one of his ‘23/27 languages’
Someone says ‘Jaffa kree’
Someone says ‘Shal'kek nem'ron’ or ‘I die free’
Someone says ‘unscheduled offworld activation’ or variation thereof
Jack mentions fishing and/or his pond
Fraiser shines a light into someone’s eye
Daniel loses his shirt
Daniel says “I have no idea” or “I don’t know”

2 drinks whenever:
The technician says ‘Chevron 7 LOCKED’
Silar gets injured and is then seen being patched up in the medical bay
SG1 walk through the gate armed to the teeth and Daniel says “we’re peaceful explorers”.
Daniel gets so excited about his explanation for something that he becomes incomprehensible
Daniel receives a "fatal" injury i.e. dies, nearly dies or they think he’s dead
Someone jokes about how Daniel always dies and/or they don’t believe he’s dead this time
Someone ascends or changes into an ascended being
Daniel and Vala kiss
Daniel loses all his clothes
Mitchell loses his pants
Someone says: “if you immediately know the candlelight is fire, the meal was cooked a long time ago.”

Drink the whole nip when:
The point of the entire episode is that Daniel is always right

Want more Stargate and scifi fun...it's all on da other blog.

Should Mackerel be $150 per fish?

Second day in Paradise and the soundtrack of my life is Blister in the Sun by the Violent Femmes. And yes, this is because of the sunburn although how anyone can get burnt with 30+ sunscreen lathered two inches thick all over their body is beyond me. I’ve also been joltered and jarred so much that I’m still trying to remove my coccyx from my throat. The Corona helps. Maybe not the best thing with the dehydration. Hell, I’m on holidays so I’ll have my nap early.

The reason for the jolting, jarring and burning was the frustrating fishing trip we went on this morning. We got the worst morning for fishing in the history of fishing mornings. Overcast, windy and rough. The fish were nowhere. Ten minutes in, Jen (my sister-in-law) and my two niecies piked and went ashore. I don’t blame them. Rick and I stayed for the full five hours, caught only one mackerel and got tossed about so much in the small boat we couldn’t walk the next day. $75 per person, which caused Rick to comment that it was the most expensive mackerel ever.

Still, we’ve gotten into such a routine on the Island that it was nice to do something a bit different and the baked Mackerel was delicious.

Photo: Me, fishing. Rare moment of actually putting in a photo of myself. The bruises are because my family keeps beating me up ;-)

My Island Home As A Title Would Be Too Clichéd

The soundtrack of my days is Going Home by Mark Knopfler because that’s where I am: home.

From the minute I flew away from a cold Canberra morning into the September warmth of Far North Queensland, I am where I am. Part of me exists here even after I have left and it seems sometimes that it is only here that I am whole. My brother, Richard, says the rocks of the Island are magnetic and that bad emotions, stress, anger, frustration, are sucked out of us as soon as we step upon these shores again.

The view from my balcony is the ocean stretching toward the mainland and the lapping waves upon the tranquil shore. Wallabies, lorikeets, currawongs and possums vie for my attention and my food. I sip a Corona and am relaxed for the first and only time this year. I am home.

No machines guns, please. I'm an Australian bear.

Late Sunday afternoon

Canberra

I am seriously tired and my house looks like it’s been descended upon by rabid animal liberationists. The days of being able to put my life into a single backpack are long gone, it seems, as are the intervening years of being able to put it into the back of my car. Suddenly I have fridges, washing machines, coffee tables, TV units, bookcases, beds, bookcases, oh and then there’s my bookcases. Suddenly I’m doing inventories and insurance declarations and for the first time considering if I really need that sheet music from highschool band or the birthday card from that person I don’t even remember.

Yes, I’m a hoarder: guilty as charged. I’m thinking I might even throw out that love letter from my Year 9 boyfriend with all the spelling and grammar corrected and a mark of 2 out of 10 (I chickened out of sending it…I’m too nice). Oh, and I do still have that letter (also from Year 9, I think) with the declaration of undying love and the letters N O and T in various words underlined throughout (you know who you are). I laughed too much reading it this afternoon to chuck it.

So as my necessary trip down memory lane continues, I’m putting in one of my favourite photos of LRD. This was taken in Prizren in 2001 right down the road from a KFOR-protected mosque. Considering how tense everything was in Kosova at the time, you can imagine what a fruitcake I looked taking it. But a tradition is a tradition goddamn it.

Walking in Memphis or Conversations with Dead People

Otherwise known as a walk through the past.

My Mum is a scrapbooking fiend and she's been at me for years to give her my photos of bumming around Europe so she can scrapbook them. So I've been meaning to scan all my photos into my computer and send the hard copies to her.

My move to the tropical north has spurred me on (anything I don't get rid of, I have to move after all) and I've been sitting for two nights in a row scanning in old photos.

It's a strange feeling being here, in this little unit in Canberra, watching places long visited and people long gone dance across my screen. The music playing on my laptop makes it feel as though I'm watching my life with its natural soundtrack: I have it on shuffle so don't know what I'm getting until it's there.

Paris is 'Lemon Sunrise' by Powderfinger and 'Take Your Mama Out' by the Scissor Sisters, Canning Town is 'Walking in Memphis' by Marc Cohn, Hong Kong is 'Bad Day' by Daniel Powter and Ireland is 'Yesterday's Gone' by Bernard Fanning . And life? It's Stringmansassy, 'Beautiful Day'.

So, all this melancholy happiness has inspired me to start the Blog I've been meaning to for the last 5 years. Little Red Dave is my faithful travelling companion and though he's lazy, noisy, greedy, drinks too much and, to be perfectly frank, is kind of sleazy, he's been with me through thick and thin. Mostly because I keep putting him in my pack and forgetting he's there.

So hello to my old friends all over the world, smiling at me from my computer. A Guinness raised to you and to the memory of those who are no longer with us.