I guess it is about time

 to admit that I'm no longer living a life downunder.  We moved back in July of 2018.  Back.  Ohio.  Now, Brisbane is a memory.  A warm and mostly happy memory.  Thanks for visiting.  Ann

I was recently at the hub of Brisbane current events!

I never know what is going on. I hear about things after the fact, if at all, but two weeks ago I was at the heart of major Brisbane news. Having had that experience, I am now prepared to spend the rest of my days behind the eight ball. Two weeks ago, Thursday, I arrived at work to find something sureal occuring at the house next door. Was that an ambulance? Why was there a tent/canopy between the trunk and the house - beyond the obvious - Cyclone Diane was dumping rain on our fair city. Oh, and crime scene tape. And, that "worker" is dressed in a blue disposable suit including hood and mask. I learned that this excitement had started Wednesday. I don't work Wednesdays but it had encouraged "coffee breaks" outside in the parking lot trying to piece together a story. The story wasn't too hard to find. Google search - police reports, Bald Hills, street name. OK. I didn't find the answer immediately but I did find it. Early in March a young Brisbane man, S, driving a fancy orange Mustang disappeared. The fancy orange Mustang was found in NSW but not the man. Seems our neighbor had been arrested for murder and the house next door was being searched. We know nothing - especially me. You cannot see the house. There are big shrubs and high fences between us. Our clinic has no windows. And, I come in to work from the other side now that I'm training full time - so I don't even walk past from parking up the road, anymore. There are some interesting things. Like our man has a new kitten for which he missed his vaccination appointment earlier in the month. Something came up, he told us. (The appointment was rescheduled so she's had her shot. Whew.) Our man went to the neighborhood hardware/home center store a few days after the day S disappeared....bought a tomahawk (really? there is something you buy in Australia called a tomahawk?!) and 20 liters of acid. Later - a day? two? - he returned and rented a floor sander. In addition to the crime of the year story...there's that cyclone that was used to set the scene in paragraph one. The rumor was that public transportation was going to shut down at noon, so I left work about 10. Kevin picks me up from the train station these days. It isn't far - about 2 km - but it is quicker than taking a bus or walking. Quicker unless you try to drive through a deep cyclone inspired puddle at the bottom of the hill on our street - in which case your car dies. Dies dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead.

Oh, yeah.  That was in March.  Nothing exciting since!

The week in which I cost my family increasingly less money

Wednesday - speeding ticket.  School Zone.  School hours.  I tried to navigate my pulled over car close enough to the police vehicle that the officer couldn't get between the cars to see our missing turn signal - and prayed he'd somehow be blinded by sun in his eyes and miss the big wound in the windshield - oh, and the hole in the passenger door.  "We don't give out tickets like this," as he mimes handing me a ticket.  "If you get an infraction notice in the mail next week, it will be from this event."

"If?" 

I stifled that question. 

Thursday - missed lunch to get my body scanned - up down and sideways - I stopped at the mall to buy emergency bananas and a couple of salads at the food court.  Then, I left my salads at the counter.  Only cost me $8.50.  Oh, and still no lunch and now no dinner.

Friday - Slow day and so I clocked out from work about 10 minutes early.

Saturday - tried (unsuccessfully) to use a Coles coupon at a Woolworth's gas station.  4 cents/ liter - 30 - some liters. 

Sunday - didn't leave the house!

I am a terrible mother

From April 2016

Zupe brought this delicacy home in his lunch box.  The day care kids have been playing "Sweet Shop" and selling cup cakes and milk shakes to each other.  (This is the follow up to veterinary clinic.  When will our clinic start pushing desserts?)  He has a great teacher.  She organized a bake-off. 

What do you think?  A muffin?  I have no real idea what has been dropped into that batter and baked.  I'm pretty sure the other kids scoffed their specimen rather than bringing it home to dear old mom.   But, dear Zupie does not eat dry foods - no cakes, no bread, no alien muffins.  So, it came home in his lunch box rolling in the damp gooey box between the emptied bowls of fruits and vegetables and pastas.

I did wait until he was out of the house before I threw it away. 

Yet another very poor decision

From April 2016

Possibly the worst decision in recent times.

Quite possibly.

Kevin left for his month of single nerdhood in America on Easter morning.  Kevin took the big suitcases, yes, the super-cool big suitcases, and got out of the car at the airport where everyone has super-cool bags and luggage carts and didn't take Zupe.  This was not going to make our little boy happy.  Not one bit.

So, good mother, Ann, decided she would plan fun things for Zupe.  First, we went to the secret road behind the airport - it probably isn't a secret, but it was a surprise to me - where you can park and watch planes take off and land.  It didn't take long before I realized that jet planes were more interesting to Mommy than Zupe.  He really only wants to watch bags being weighed, pulled and loaded onto luggage carts and conveyor belts.  So, plan B.

Plan B - The Boondall Wetlands.  A nice cool morning.  A boardwalk.  Trees.  And, millions upon millions of biting insects.  Maybe I should have more fully considered why there were no other cars in the lot.  But, it WAS Easter morning.  And, I had tropical strength insect repellent.

At least my give up time was not excessive.  I didn't have to watch the swarming mosquitoes, and worse, biting midges, too long before I turned the stroller around and said, "Let's go to McDonald's and buy pancakes!"

Those damn midges (aka, sand flies).  I woke up in the middle of the night tearing the skin from my legs and continued to scratch and rub and rub and scratch for almost a week.

From April 2016

Not the most attractive self portrait- but not as bad as my ugly toe shot.  Still, the point here.  I double applied the tropical strength repellent to behind my knees.  What would this have looked like without it??

Oh, and a bit of good news.  Mr. Zupe, for reasons I cannot explain, is not allergic to insect bites!  No itching on the raised red welts all over his arms and legs.  At least I am the only one to pay for my folly. 

I am living in the future

From February 2016

I have been so busy! Yesterday, I had to pick Zupe up early from "kindy" to go to a feeding therapy session across town at 1:30 and then dash to his podiatrist at 3 PM. It is a 12 min drive. It was going to be tight and I sort of wondered while I was making the trip why I hadn't thought this through more carefully.

We made it only about 6 minutes late - which isn't bad considering we then waited for 40 minutes for our appointment. It was mostly an appointment to make an appointment - don't you love those?

 This morning my brother-in-law posted on Facebook that he was now engaged to his girlfriend. (Brother-in-laws can do that when your sister is deceased.) In my mind, at the time I thought, oh, Valentine's Day.

Later, this morning, sometime after mopping the kitchen floor and searching for the best of Robert Palmer, I thought, "CRAP! It is Renee's birthday! Why didn't FB remind me?" Then, "I didn't say anything to my mom this morning." Then, "Sam, you F****- announcing your upcoming marriage on Renee's birthday" - or one day off if you are in the US instead of Australia.

I went to FB and then to Renee's page and it does list her birthday on her page so it isn't that FB doesn't know it is her birthday.

Then, I note that the date today is the 16th.

Her birthday is the 23rd.

That might explain it.

 I went back to my FB home page where I once again forgot the date and thought, "Oh, crap! I still forgot to wish Renee a happy birthday." Went back to her page and saw the date (again).

 Then, I remembered. Our appointment with the podiatrist was for the 22nd.

I had to call "My Foot Doctor" and cancel......apologize and thank them for seeing us a week in advance.

Unfortunately, my two days living in next week did not reveal any winning lottery ticket numbers. All it did was free my Monday afternoon...next week.

I have discovered the limit of my horror

From February 2016

Zombies, monsters, serial killers, vampires.... Bring them on!

Stephen King has done it, pushed me to my limit!, in the last story of his short story collection The Bazaar of Bad Dreams. "Summer Thunder". A post-apocalyptic story about a man who has lost his family - they were unfortunately in Boston when the Eastern Seaboard was obliterated by nukes, his elderly neighbor, and a stray dog, Gandolf. This is all the life that is left in the corner of Maine in which the story is set. Everyone else has fled to Canada where it is rumored the radiation is less or has taken their own life. For reasons I'm not too clear on, maybe because they can't eat canned food and bottled water, all the wildlife save a loon or maybe two, is decaying in the forests. Radiation sickness is a powerfully bad thing - prolonged and painful. His friend has lost his intestine and 7 teeth but is now prepared with a gun with a bullet. And, he gives our protagonist a syringe of Demerol to use for Gandolf who can't get up to travel anymore. (Yesterday his hair started coming out and he developed lameness, weakness and pain. This morning he was having projectile bloody diarrhea.)

Just shove it deep into his neck. Hold onto the collar in case he flinches. Maybe he'll be gone when I get home. He was in pretty bad shape when I left...**** replies.

But, he's not. He lifts his head. He thumps his tail on the ground twice.


And..... I turn off the CD. I cannot go on.

My life is the limit of my horror.

 

From First love

"A little bit of grace. That is what a good dog is." Stephen King

Merry Christmas! Happy New Year!

From November & December

I sort of thought I'd get a holiday note written this year. Really. There were moments of composition in my mind. Now, as Chinese New Year is roaring past, I am starting to think that might not happen. Still, I do have our holiday greeting photo. You see in November the Jacaranda begin to bloom in Brisbane. Very pretty. And, there is one that lives at the corner of Beams Road and Carselgrove that I pass by multiple times daily above a nice little brick wall. I thought, "It will be so pretty with the red brick and the jacaranda and the scattering of purple petals everywhere." Then, I met with reality. My tripod which had been traveling around in the car since, yes, I hate to admit it, last year's Christmas photo ... well, a leg fell off. Still, we were dressed so I thought I could maybe find something else to prop up the camera. The stroller! Off we went. Kevin and James in their Hawaiian-esque shirts and me in my new - oh geeze - this top is a bit big - dress...into the gusting wind. That skirt. It really catches the wind. I had my arms wrapped around myself trying to keep whatever level of modesty I could maintain while Kevin pushed the stroller-cum-tripod to the corner. Did I mention this tree/wall/petal situation is at a busy street corner? I didn't think so. See, I wasn't thinking about that, either. So, you have the photo. Unless I parked the stroller IN the street there was no including the tree and the wall and the family. Oops. Anyway, I took 3 on self-timer (automatically). In each the level of the horizon became more and more steep as the stroller roof-cum-tripod sank a little bit more. It is not a great photo by any stretch of the imagination. But, I think you might see we were having fun, while trying not to flash any passing cars. Happy (post) holidays!

edited in 2022 -  Hey, Ann.  That wall isn't brick...

It is still happening

I was driving down the Bruce highway the other week going to North Lakes to pick up Zupe. I needed to merge into the right lane. I turned on my windshield wipers.

The Horror of Halloween in Australia

From Sept/Oct/Nov

I had been thinking that Australia's greatest crime against Halloween was in creating a bit of apathy on my part for pulling out the decorations and doing the holiday right.  Yep.  Until, yesterday.

On Thursday I took two orange Halloween pumpkins to day care for the kindergarten class to help carve.  Well, they didn't carve them, of course.  I did.  They fished out the ooey-gooey pumpkin guts out of the pumpkins - after I had raked them over well with a spoon.  Then, they sort of lost interest and I turned them upside down over the garbage bowl and started carving.  That brought some of the kids back.  They had taken basic shapes and designed the faces I was to carve.  I edited.  I was not going to carve flower eyes.  Too hard... went for triangle eyes.  I did my best at "love heart" eyes on the second one.  I suggested to their teacher that if she soaked them in a dilute bleach solution for an hour or so they wouldn't rot quite as quickly.  And, then I told our inclusion support aide that she could take home one of the pumpkins on Friday afternoon.  She's great and I want her to stay happy and helpful.

On Friday evening, after work, I stopped in the "kindy" room to pick up lunch box, extra clothes, communication books and our Jack o'Lantern.  One of the kindy boys who is quite chatty with me ("Do you have a pet?  Are you a doctor?  I guess doctors can't have pets.") told me that they had taken the other jack o'lantern and cut it up for pumpkin soup.   OH MY GOD.  What is wrong with these people?  Not only was it cleaned by half-a-dozen unclean hands, left out on the counter overnight and possibly soaked in bleach BUT IT HAD A FACE!!  It was smiling at them!!  Arghhhh.  I don't know that this story is actually true but if I were going to put money on one side or the other, I'd put my money on abomination.

(Then, they ate the soup.)

They also ate the pumpkin seeds that were similarly well handled and some of them purposefully dropped onto the ground by my own son before being put back into the bowl.  I guess a lot of vegetables get picked up off the ground and washed then eaten.

But, I'm still grossed out.

What has happened to Ann???

From Sept/Oct/Nov

I think that photo about says it all.


Sorry about the crushing disillusionment.    I know you were expecting more.  The red sequin thongs that I usually wear were found in the crisper tray and the light wasn't as good there for a photo.

Update on that last post

My mom told me a got a package at her house.  Hmmm.  I didn't order anything.

Where is it from?

"Kimberly Clark.  It says yoga pants."

"?? Go ahead and open it, please."

"It is a sample of Depends."


I'm so pleased that someone is reading my blog and having fun.  Thanks.

And, where are the yoga pants?

Is this really necessary?

From July Aug 2015

I think about aging.  Sometimes.  Sometimes I ponder the process while watching clouds float by and sometimes the world steps up and slaps me across the ever-more-lined face.  I've long considered compiling a (surely incomplete) list of aha moments of aging.  Then, in Coles (the grocery) a comment from another shopper.....

Many of my aging insights have come from observations of myself.  I'm not overly good at this.  Despite the fact that you've just looked at one or maybe two photos of me that I took in a mirror, I don't really much look into mirrors.  I make sure I get my hair cut in ways that don't require styling and often don't require that I remember to comb my hair after I get out of the shower.  I don't now and never have worn make up.  The only mirror I've ever owned were the ones that came stuck on the wall or medicine cabinet in the bathrooms of homes I've owned.  Still, I do remember the day I turned 40.  Kevin and I were traveling and staying in a YMCA in Perth.  I looked in the mirror and noticed I had lines going between my nose and mouth which must be my face slipping off my skull.  (For quite some time after I wondered how long they had been there and even considered collecting old photos to find their origin - but that didn't happen.)  And then there was the time I was practicing my qi gong and doing a forward bend and saw that my thighs were trying to droop over my knees.  These days I don't need a mirror - I can feel gravity pulling my face (primarily though not exclusively) into the ground.

That being said, PLENTY of aging comments have come from OUTSIDE me.  The first time I was offered a senior discount at McDonalds was only WEEKS after the Perthrevelation.  Really?  Really?  At 40?!  There have been other fast-food-faux-pas but the comments really accelerated after I started going out with Zupe.  I'm sure the grandma comments exceed the mommy comments by 10 to 1.  I've started just nodding my head and moving on.  Maybe when it bothers Zupe, I'll start correcting people again.

But then - in Coles -   Kevin and I and Zupe were doing our Sunday morning grocery run.  Kevin had the cart with Zupe in the produce  section and I had stepped aside to pick up something elsewhere.  When I returned he was talking with an older woman.  (Yes, they do come older than me.)  She was making over Zupe - as they ALL do.  (Here I must apologize because I cannot recall her exact words but to effect...) "Aren't you lucky to be out with Daddy and Grandma?"

The silence that this met with was only surpassed by the pain cry which followed.

Praise be to Kevin who introduced me as his wife while I was drawing back my walker to beat her about the head.


NOTE - photo from my 40th birthday party - sorry, your invitation must have been lost in the mail - would you offer this woman a senior coffee?????!

NNV- A Blog Down Under: Mirror, mirror…. review

From May, June 2015

Kevin fixed my iphoto problem and now I have access to the photos I scanned before moving from the US so many eons ago.    With regard to this blog, particularly this blog entry, I refer you back to October when I wanted to do a contrast of my mirror image between Ann at University and Ann visiting at home. But in October, I couldn't access the old photo.  Now, I can/have.  And, you can make the comparison by clicking the link below.


NNV- A Blog Down Under: Mirror, mirror….

Toe news

Just cause I know you've been up at night wondering.

I was released from my anti-fungal regimen last week.  My toe is now considered "healthy-ish".  I don't think anyone would yet consider it beautiful.

My life of crime

I thought I'd begin my life of crime yesterday.   Well, I suppose not.  I suppose like most hardened criminals, something just happened and, there I was, a fugitive on the lam.  (Note - not on the lamb - they run much too slowly.)

I was filling up the car at the local service station and mulling over whether Zupe really needed a flu vaccine and if I had time to run all my errands and still make the 2 PM school pick up and then I found myself driving out of the parking lot.  I entered the currently not so busy road and thought,

"Hey.  Did I pay for that gasoline?"  (I love saying gasoline here.  People find it so irritating.)

I quickly reviewed my memory and couldn't see myself going into the shop to pay.

So, there I am on Beams Road with a big slab of concrete between the right and left lanes, the east and west-bound lanes, and no obvious near-by turn around spots.  The light ahead was red and I did what I had to do.  U-TURN.  Driving west now toward home - but there is still that slab of concrete between me and the service station.  It (the concrete) does end before I get all the way home and so, continuing on my life of crime, I made a second illegal U-TURN, buzzed back up east back to the "Woolworth's Petrol" station, and into the spot in which my life of crime began.

I ran into the station shop and waited.  Waited and wondered:

a.  why does it take so long for someone to come out from wherever they hide to take my money
and
b.  are those sirens in the distance?

Turns out the clerk was busy watching my criminal activity on her video recording and no.

"You're lucky.  I haven't called the cops yet."

My felonious behavior could all have been prevented by a simple pay-at-the-pump system - but here in Oz they pride themselves on growing crims and selling an unnecessary candy bar at every fuel purchase.

All this reminds me - the new season of "Orange is the New Black" returns this weekend!  Hello sisters!

Once in a lifetime

From May, June 2015

The pitch was something like that.  This is your only opportunity.  Be a part of history.

Walk the Legacy Way Tunnel!

I missed one of those limited opportunity events back in Cleveland.  Posing nude with scads of other people (over 3000) in the way too chilly (winter) dawn photoshoot of/by Spencer Tunick.  I regret it, sort of.  I still balk at the cold even in my imagination.

So, we went for it.

From May, June 2015

It seemed like a much bigger opportunity until I learned that every tunnel opening or bridge opening or new crosswalk in Brisbane is accompanied by this same historic event.  (Not the opportunity to walk through the Legacy Way Tunnel, but.. you know.)


We did it.  It was 4.6 km of windy, noisy, fluorescent-light adventure.  Zupe walked and was carried and was forcibly strollered.  I doubt the photos will ever make a traveling exhibition.

Well, it's official

The Royal Queensland EKKA Show will once again have no entries in the best photo from Ohio.

With Kevin out of town this weekend, I sat down to complete the application to find that entries closed May 27.  Ten days ago.

The show shows in August.

I'm pretty sure I could still get an entry into the world famous Poultry Days Fine Arts show that starts on the 12 of June.  I think I could probably FLY to the US then drive to Versailles and still get my entry submitted.  Of course, the competition in the category photo from Ohio will be stiffer.


Moral of the story - don't forget Poultry Days in Versailles, Ohio next weekend!

And the rain, rain, rain, came down, down, down

From April 2015

That would be two Fridays ago on the 3rd of May.  The rain had started Wednesday or Thursday.  Steady.  Not overly impressive.  But, on Friday, every time I went outside the rain had gotten heavier.  I took the day care supplies to the car.  I took Zupe to the car.  I took everything into the day care.  I came home.  I went to work.  Still, that was nothing.  Mid-afternoon it let loose.

We live on the north side of Brisbane.  I work a bit farther north.  A little farther north - less than 30 min drive away (I've read recently that people from Ohio identify distance by driving time - there you go; it must be true!) was the place it rained the heaviest.  Let me check the stats.  I saved them.

About 4 PM I got a call from day care that the kids were being evacuated.  I left.  It was maybe 4:10.  I remembered the way the little cut through road I usually take flooded earlier this year and chose the highway- where I sat unmoving for almost 30 minutes.  Unmoving and without a phone to call to let the school know I was trying but unsuccessful.  Five minutes before my "give up" time - the time I was going to stop the car and GET OUT INTO THE DOWNPOUR to beg a phone from one of the other dozens of stopped cars, the traffic started moving again.  I drove through almost a foot of water, I'd guess.  There and then again on Beams Road.  I turned the little "u-turn" on Beams that is required to get to the day care and saw the lane into the center.  Well, not really.  There was no seeing that lane it was sincerely under water.  As the evening was getting dark, very dar.  I returned up Beams and took the left at the round-about to attempt the back way into the center.  It was a good drive, until the road dipped down and who knows how deep the water was there!

I ended up parking in a high lot and wading the block to block and a half to the center.  As I waded through knee deep water I thought about the new shoes I was wearing that I had to buy for work and I watched the unmoving traffic on Beams Road.  I decided it looked very unlikely that I would succeed in driving home and that I would need to carry Zupe home.  Or, maybe Kevin could.

I borrowed a phone at the center, after stripping out of my coat, my shoes and my socks, and called Kevin.  He said he'd bring the stroller.  I said "Do not bother."

He came through water over his knees and his knees are pretty high!  Walking home it was even deeper than walking TO the center.  The water washing across Beams was moving - that was fun!  But, at least the deepest bit - in the train station parking lot - mid thigh on me - was still.

I left the car overnight.  By morning the water was mostly someplace else.  The photo above shows all that remained in the lane at the day care.

I am so thankful that we live close enough that we can walk to the day care and that Kevin is/was working from home.  Carrying Zupe on my own, particularly where the water ran fast or those times I stepped into deeper holes, could have been treacherous.

My free lesson to you - socks really help keep your feet warm.  I couldn't face putting my soaking socks back on to make the walk home and so I had only my nylon running shoes between me and the flood waters.  Nylon = breezy in a watery sort of way.  Breezy and cold.  Yikes.

Request - Yes, I'm asking you

Every year I think I'll enter a photograph in the state fair here in Qld.   And, it never happens.  It is that time again, I think.  I'd really appreciate your input - have you seen a recent photo on my blog(s) that grabbed you.  You know, in a good way.  Thanks.