Boxing Day Tradition Continues

Last year we announced our first annual "Boxing Day Rebellion" which consisted of spending the day at the Gallery of Modern Art. (The title made more sense last year as the show was composed of Asian artists. The tradition actually is older than that - we spent Boxing Day seeing the Andy Warhol exhibit 3 years ago - but we didn't have the great TITLE then. Now we (Boxing Day) rebel with modern art.)

From Art in the 21st Century

The new exhibition features art from the first decade of the 21st century - that would mean the last 10 years. Some of the pieces we'd seen before in the collection. Others, of course, were new to us. Our favorite were the interactive pieces - an infinity room with black-light glowing balls (we'd seen this - and decided to not wait in line again),

From Art in the 21st Century

twin slides twisting down from the second floor (only one of us as able to slide - guess who),

From Art in the 21st Century

a giant table filled with (white) Lego's for building the city of the 21st century,

From Singles 2011

a fabulous swimming pool illusion where you can stand (dryly) at the bottom of the pool or look down at others doing so, and

From Art in the 21st Century

what would without a doubt be Zelda's favorite room - a room filled to about 4 feet with big purple balloons.

From Singles 2011

(Damn. How can I get her in there? The excitement would probably kill her... so maybe it isn't what I want to do for her birthday though Kevin and I have talked about which of our rooms we could do this in. Should we find the wind power, you'll be invited. But, hey, maybe YOU could blow up a few, too....)

Because I didn't see you there, and the museum is closed due to flooding, here are a few of the others we enjoyed.

From Art in the 21st Century

Giant sculpture made from what we lovingly call "poop bags". (These are empty; though on the opposite wall is a "painting" which includes elephant dung.)

From Art in the 21st Century

Good to see the massive swarm of silver balls, again. Though, I like them better when they are floating in a pool.

From Art in the 21st Century

I love drive-in movies - There was an old drive-in screen decaying outside of Urbana when I lived there. I took a few photos, but never ended up with anything that really, really, really pleased me. If I dig around, I don't think I'll find it here. I'm pretty sure I shot it on slide film. (Remember that? sigh.)

From Art in the 21st Century

Now, this room is REALLY cool. The coat hangers are hanging from a grid of wires near the ceiling. When the wires are stimulated by movement of the birds (which, by the way, despite the signage ARE NOT all zebra finches) they transfer that energy into a tone. We were not overly impressed by the "music" produced... but neither was that docent sitting in the corner impressed by me taking a photograph in a room in which NO PHOTOGRAPHY was allowed. Oops. Obviously, I didn't know, since the one and only photo I took was aimed directly at her!

This is serious. This is Christmas in Brisbane.

From Singles 2011

I know. Christmas was so last year. But, maybe you've noticed that I've been on a break for the past many months and now I'm trying to make a comeback, however brief or lame it may come (back) to be. Christmas seems like as good a place to start as any - since here in Aus there is no holiday between the EKKA (state fair) and Dec 25. We do score Dec 26, though -that counts for something. This year it counted for a 4 day holiday weekend. I needed that. I had been sick and exhausted for about all of November and December. (I blame my mother - but that's another story. Maybe someday around next July I'll take time to tell it.)

I don't do Christmas well in Australia. It just isn't right for Christmas to be a summer holiday. There's nothing merry feeling about sweat. Of course, this year there was not so much sweat as rain. Rain. Rain. Rain. Rain. I'm sure you've heard. It's been wet.

We thought we'd try to jump into the holiday spirit by once again taking the "Holiday Lights Tour". This time, however, we thought we'd check out the lights on our side of town. I'm not sure if the rain dampened everyone's holiday effort or only those on the north side of Brisbane - but we were really disappointed. Our tour primarily featured decorated Churches... at least four...about the same number of houses that we saw. And, with few (and NOTABLE) exceptions it seems that the churches all buy their light up decorations (nativities (of course), "merry" kangaroos, emus, koalas, etc.) from the same catalogs. But, really, the exceptions should be shared.

From Christmas 2010

The Baptist church's exhibit was, as far as I could remember, exactly the same as it has been. They still win the award for "most light-up sheep".

From Christmas 2010

The Catholic church altered their giant light tree to make it a giant angel. Well done.

From Christmas 2010

Church #4 gets my award for oddest Christmas animal light. There, in front of the holiday dingo.... a snake. I guess we're letting bygones be bygones with reference to that apple snafu.

But, the oddest display of the season goes to church group number 3 - and I'm so sorry I can't tell you who they are. Maybe Kevin will remember... Just before the "Rain forest Walk" - you know, the walk through the bamboo trail to spot all the illuminated Buddhas - is this gazebo. Please excuse the poor focus - I have better photographs of the component parts... you just need to get some idea of the "whole".

From Christmas 2010

Obviously, on the fence you've got a pair of matching dancing skeletons

From Christmas 2010

with giant spiders on the roof and corners.

From Christmas 2010

What you can't see well - the tombstones inscribed with "Trick or Treat" and the "host" of the gazebo - standing in the center...

From Christmas 2010

Dracula. I am not kidding you. This is serious. This is Christmas in Brisbane.

"Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk"

From Singles 2011

My former mate had been dead for all of three days when my mother set me up with the daughter of one of her neighbors. We met at dawn, in a big oak overlooking a pasture. Below us on the grass, a white calf took her mother's teat in her mouth, and my date shouted, "Faggot!"

"I think the word you're looking for is 'lesbian,'" I said. "though even that wouldn't make sense. What they're doing isn't sexual -- it's called nursing. It's the way mammals feed their young."

She said, "Yeah, faggot mammals."

-from "The Greiving Owl"

Breathless

From Singles 2011

"What has hands like theirs?"

"We do."

"Besides us."

"Nothing."

"There must be something."

"Yeah. There's them."

The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey

From Singles 2011

“But what if,” the child asked, “what if you ain’t sure that he mean you harm?”

“It’s you that mean to harm him,” Coy said, pointing his thumb and forefinger like a pistol. “Life ain’t fair. Life ain’t right. Life ain’t no good or bad. What it is is you, boy. You makin’ up your mind and takin’ your own path. …”

No One Sees You Like Your Dog Does

Zelda begs to differ.

Around our driveway

From Singles 2010

I know what you’re looking for. What is happening out in front of #51??

Last night – death and destruction. We returned home from our evening walk to find our blue tongue friend* headless and mostly innardless, smushed flat on our drive. I, of course, first thing looked to see if my tires most closely aligned with this hit-and-run scene. Ah, no. Then, I remembered that I took the company truck to the clinic today and Kevin pulled our car in behind us. Could have been me.

We gave him a moment of silence then, being garbage night, Kevin hefted his remains into the nearby bin. It was not a difficult scrape – AND when we walked down the driveway on our walk we hadn’t noticed the grisly scene – makes me wonder whether he’d been killed elsewhere and the skin dropped on our drive by those murderous crows.

This morning –confusion. Kevin, leaving before me, standing in the doorway says, “They’re working on the road.”

Ann: “What?”

Kevin: “They’re working on the road. There’s a man with uh-uh-uhs.”

Ann: “There’s a man with elephants????” pushing past to look out.

Kevin: “There’s a man with a YELLOW FENCE.”

Ann: “Elephants are way cooler.”

*By the way, this is what he looked like when he had a head and a third dimension.

"Dexter is Delicious"

From Singles 2011

Typical medical arrogance and indifference; doctors think they're so smart, and all because they passed organic chemistry.

Welcome Christmas

For all my Aussie friends

(and Kiwis) who haven't carved a jack o'lantern... step by step. No blood lost.


Note: I took the bottom off the pumpkin. It makes it easier to put a candle in AND the "lid" doesn't shrivel over time and fall back into the "head".

Jack survived Halloween night out on our mailbox and is ready to play some games tonight!

Happy 20th Anniversary!

For my dear husband. Congratulations!!

RIP Big Bird

From July travel - mostly OHIO

He was one of my squab - hatched 25 years ago and raised by hand and, thereby, doomed to a life of unrequited love of people. He always remembered me and greeted me with a hearty laugh and a flury of coos. He loved a bath or shower and whenever I was home I made sure he enjoyed one. This photo is from July 2010. A dear friend. The world has became more quiet.

Front Garden!

Eating Mexican in Brisbane

Just confirming - I still haven't found the Mexican Restaurant of my dreams. (And, I'd settle pretty much for Del Taco...though I'd do some pretty unscrupulous acts for Chipotle.) I was feeling heady with my successful morning, (was that sarcasm that just flew past?) and thought I'd check out "Enchiladas" in Aspley. All I wanted was a bean burrito. Kevin and I had stopped by a couple years ago one evening and thought the prices were much too high. But, I reasoned, for sure they'd have a lunch menu with more reasonable prices.

No.

I went ahead and paid $17.95 for my bean burrito (CRAZY!!) expecting to find something mammoth - two fisted - exquisite. Only to find the entire burrito could fit on the palm of my hand - with a similar volume of beans and rice on the side and a few stale corn chips - no salsa. When will I learn???????????????

Is there anybody out there with some restaurant experience who would like to open a Chipotle in Brisbane??? I can guarantee you two frequent fliers - and I know there'd be more. Please. I'm begging!

There IS NO Thorn Street exit from the Clem 7!

I knew I had a doctor's appointment this morning at 8:30 - and Kevin arranged time off to come with me. Google maps, which is now dead to me, told us it would take 38 minutes to get across town. That didn't include "peak hour" traffic - so, we left at 7:20. (Our original plan was to leave at 7:00 - since I wanted to get there early, becuase I expected there'd be paperwork to complete.)

This was our first experience with the new supercool tunnel under Brisbane - The Clem 7. As it turned out, it was also our second and third experience. My instructions requried us to leave the Clem 7 at Thorn Street exit - turn right and then right onto Schafston Ave. The first exit from the Clem 7 is for Wynnum Road to Schafston. I thought we should take that - but I wasn't insistent AND we had not gone 3.7 km yet. So, we continued....until we ran out of the Clem 7 and onto the Ipswich Highway. Oh great.

So, we turned around.

There are no exits of any kind when traveling north. So, we found ourselves back on Lutwytch Road. Turned around and tried again.

Roads did not match up, but we had our refedex and pulled over to identify our own path. We found the clinic, made a potentially illegal U-turn, parked in the garage and sauntered into the clinic at pretty much exactly 8:30.

Only to find my appointment is next week.

I guess that explains why no one called yesterday to confirm my appointment.

Fitzgibbon Chase

Saturday I came home to find that Fitzgibbon Chase, the new development off "our" round-about, was having an open house. Free sausage!!!!!!!!!! And, more than 1/2 a dozen homes to walk through. (Walked through before eating - so my ability to count was impaired. Actually, there's more to the story than this. Later.)

I was SO impressed - I MUST have one!!!** They all had CENTRAL AIR CONDITIONING and DOORS that linked the GARAGE to the HOUSE!!! OMG!!! Civilization has come to Australia! They all had beautiful outdoor living areas - which Kevin reminded me, should they be "our" living areas and assuming we actually had furniture in them, would soon be covered in spider webs and gecko shit. Ah, Queensland. This is why we cannot have anything nice.

We finished our house tours about 2:10. That would be 10 minutes after the end of the "sausage sizzle". No joy for us.

**Spiders, gecko shit and money aside (outrageous money), we won't have one because there are no more lots available.

Aussiecon 4

From Melbourne - Aussie con

Though it was weeks ago and I have recently, in fact THAT weekend, told Kevin I was going to take a hiatus from this blog, I thought I might scribble down some impressions from MY first World Con.

World Con = World Science Fiction (Speculative Fiction??) Convention. I learned that "new" S-word translation of/from the acronym SF while there. I'm not sure if it has "usurped" Science when used in naming the convention. Let's face it, the first thing that should be said is

"I don't know much."

My first World Con SHOULD have been 30 years ago when that was all I read and I read a lot of it. Then I would have known the writers, at least. But, graduate school and John (oh dear! I have forgotten those 2 middle initials!) Staddon* got in the way. John was my first advisor at Duke and I think it was at my admission interview where he asked me what I read and was INCREDULOUS that I didn't read any non-fiction. I guess I internalized something of a message there: grown ups with graduate degrees were more broadly read. So, I stumbled into general fiction, mystery, thrillers... but couldn't grow enough hair on my chest to read non-fiction.

Since I knew so little, other than the 5 or 6 short stories that were nominated for HUGO awards, I was pretty ill prepared to select "panels" to attend. Therefore, I set a goal to create a reading list - to find a few new (oops, 'bout wrote science) speculative fiction authors or books that I might read to put myself back "in touch" with my roots. That took me to panels titled things like "The Best Books You've Never Heard Of". (What is most amazing about that panel was that I had actually READ one of those books: Jasper Fforde's "The Eyre Affair". Thumb's up.)

When there were no appropriately themed panels (a panel being a collection of 2 or 3 or 4 people who sit at a long table facing a room a chairs, have microphones and a room title but often no real agenda, outline, purpose, or preparation) I floated. The first day this resulted in bitter disappointment. (You probably already picked up on that by the definition of panel provided above.) UGHHHHHHHHH. I wanted to run screaming from rooms as I listened to people have conversations about topics I knew nothing about and as a consequence never wanted to hear about again. Even a topic I thought I'd love - Ghost Stories Across Cultures - was a painful exercise in filling time with 4 voices. It was obvious that the panelists did not communicate before the panel about making an outline, establishing a theme, identifying relevant or important topics, ANYTHING. My rambling here is a taste of what I experienced. (Sorry.)

After the first day, I got smarter. I established my goal - see above - and when there was nothing I was pretty confident I'd enjoy, I decided to listen to people read - read out loud, I mean. And, in this way, I enjoyed the rest of the days. (Thanks, also, to enjoying the company of friends: Eric, Iain, Llyn, Aaron, Yasmine (who I must thank for the group photo).)

I guess this is the place to note that by far the MOST interesting events were scheduled for the kids' room. I'd drift by and peer in looking for other taller, older people building models, getting face paint... In particular, I really, really, really, really wanted to hear how they handled the discussion on Sunday, "Surviving the zombie apocalypse". (How did they handle the tricky questions like what to do about the dog - or baby?!! I can't maintain an objective viewpoint when Kevin and I discuss this - how do you tell a child that they need to dump the barking dog so as not to lead the zombies to the family hiding place??) I'm not totally sure they followed through with the scheduled discussion. All I saw happening was lego building. (Note: the discussion was scheduled to follow the 10 AM zombie make-up session. Not sure what side of the zombie apocalypse these folks are supporting.)

From Melbourne - Aussie con

Saturday night - Costume Competition. We RUSHED through dinner to get to the auditorium by 7 pm only to learn that the doors opened at 7 but the show didn't begin until 8. While I don't want to disparage any of the generous and talented folks who took the time and effort to create costumes, it was very disappointing that there was all this anticipation for a total of 10 costumers. Ten. OK. Maybe eight. I can only blame the lack of widespread Halloween celebrating in Australia.

Sunday night - The Hugo Awards. Fortunately, Australians have experience and understanding of award shows. They even have mastered the art of voting - with record setting numbers of votes being cast this year! This, I believe, is easily attributed to the practice of mandatory voting in Australia. (This is not to insult the Hugo nominees or winners - Maybe your entry was responsible for the increased voter turnout.)

Beyond the con- Other than making a special effort to see the casino "fire show" along the river, we only made one trip away from the convention. Sunday afternoon we strolled down to the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) to see the Tim Burton exhibition. Very cool. No photography permitted. And, no time for Abba World. Sigh. (Note- link takes you to the MoMA Tim Burton site - the original location for this collection, I believe.)

From Melbourne - Aussie con

*Google confirmed the wispy memory floating forward - John E. R. Staddon.

Work story

Been a long time since I've had one of those. I've had some (surprising) successes and some sad cases. The usual. Working too much for the next 6 weeks - but nothing can be done about that. I need a nap.

Anyway. Tuesday the nurses were entering microchip data into the computer. When people get a pet microchipped they need to provide both contact details for themselves and for a designated alternate party. I tell them this is the most important information on the form. "Think about someone who doesn't move or change their phone number, because while you may remember to change your details (I did after only living in Brisbane for 4 years!), your alternate contact will likely never think about it.

So, this form.

Alternate contact: Christ.

What's better - I've got his cell phone!

NOTE - This is ALL true. We didn't call Christ, however, so I don't know what he's been up to.

Pygmy

From Singles 2010

"Pleased to meet you,Pygmy." Say, "I'm Reverend Tony."

Mouths of operative me say, "Happy to engage you, crafty stooge of superstition."

Mouths of operative me say, "how is you healthy, puppet of Satan?"

Worship leader fashion forehead to lift single hair brow arching above eye. Devil Tony preserve smile. Say, "This little young 'un needs to practice his English."

Pygmy is a foreign operative/terrorist who along with a cohort of similarly trained agents is "planted" in an American Junior High School. His observations of life in America (featuring school (of course), church, and Wal-Mart) are amusing in part because of the way they are expressed. His back story of becoming an agent is horrific - though to him it seems less so. After all, he's been prepared for this, learning early on the nature of good and evil and what god wants... He wants to hurt you but not feel bad about it.

Acclaimed instructor say, every today must human follow example given from deity. Action of mercy, say instructor, an insult to eye of deity. Say deity no display such mercy. Say operative acting mercy place self on top, standing on top head of deity. Envision self possess more wisdom deity.

Esteemed instructor say top deity ordains all living creation suffer -- wasted disease or screaming wearing covered blood-- then must some today all to die. Only tragedy if suffer and die during innocent. No sin, no crime, then extinction not earned. Such waste an affront to deity.

"Because all suffer then die," say instructor, stroking white fur rodent, "then operative must ear own some today extinction."

Justify future cruelty acts of deity. Make of deity no sadism, instead vast wisdom judge....

More sin, more crime, say instructor, more deity will rejoice upon extinction of operative.

While I found parts of this to be very amusing, it was ALWAYS quite challenging to read. I only "got better" at reading this dialect by skipping over the longer descriptions.

West End(ish) - Wall Art Tour

It was a beautiful day and as it turns out the store I wanted to shop in didn't open at 9 AM. They opened at 10. More time to stroll.