Author: ThirdCat

LOL and OMG and I can’t believe I’m not there

If the mister had not had the idea to move to the UAE then this blog post would not exist. And if the internet did not exist then I bet you would never have seen what you are about to see.

But we did move to the UAE and there is an internet, and so, I am able to bring you, more or less live from the Date Festival, this gi-normous date:

From miscblogphotos

update: the mister apologises that he cannot provide photos from inside the date, but the date is only open in the evenings, and he is there in the afternoon. He has tasted prize-winning dates, date cake and coffee and reports they are all delicious.

(I agree, it is a bit undergraduate here at the moment, come back tomorrow and we will be our normal sophisticated selves)

I hope he’s wearing sunblock or he’ll end up a prune

So you know that I am in Australia enjoying the cool weather, but the mister is in Abu Dhabi writing proposals and going to meetings and looking at spreadsheets and so on. He tells me – by phone, not skype, because he can’t work it out, and how does an engineer not understand skype, like it was working dude, but anyway, and moving on – that it is very frigging hot. And humid. And he’s working hard.

But it’s not all hard work in his life you know.

No sirree. There be adventures.

For today, he and his friends are off to the

drumroll please

Festival of the Date.

Laugh? Fark, I nearly carked it.

talk to you tomorrow (or perhaps the day after)

There is possibly a better winter lunch than a toasted sandwich, but I doubt it.

I had an email from a friend today and she told me that in Abu Dhabi at 11 pm last night, it was 45 degrees. Myself? I am sitting in front of a gas fire, half a bottle of red still to go and not to mention that block of green & black’s dark chocolate that hasn’t been opened yet.

I have a great number of other things to say, because it is mighty fine being here in Adelaide. But right now I’ve got wine to drink and chocolate to eat. Perhaps tomorrow.

Oh. That’s just what I was thinking.

So I was at the newsagent to buy a 2 ring binder to replace the 3 ring binder which, when I bought it, I was sure was a 2 ring binder, but anyhoo and moving on, at the newsagent, I saw Caroline Jones’ book, through a glass darkly: a journey of love and grief with my father and I bought it.

Even though I was on the way to the bottle shop to buy (yet) another bottle of Langhorne Creek Bernoota (cannot recommend it highly enough) for the purchase of which I did not need to seek my husband’s permission, I sat in the carpark and opened the book and there, in the introduction, I read this:

“I was unprepared for my own grief and for the extent to which it disabled me….the main quality of my condition was uncertainty. It was difficult to make decisions. I found it hard to know what mattered. My sense of meaning was shaken and I was unclear about my purpose. I put on a good face and I made myself do everything as usual, but my heart wasn’t in it. I felt very sad most of the time and sometimes I was angry. What most people talked about seemed very trivial. I felt that I was behind a pane of glass on the other side of which people’s lives went on. But I was not part of that life.

I now have come to think of grief as a sort of severe illness, bordering at times on derangement; an illness that dislocated me physically, mentally, psychologically and spiritually…

…Suffering, loss and grief are facts of life for everyone, although I am sure some people accept the death of a parent as a sad event but one which is acceptable in the order of things. While they may feel sorrow, they soon resume the business of their lives without suffering any deep trauma. People who experience a parent’s death in this philosophical manner would, almost certainly, find this book a puzzling over-reaction to a natural life event.”

Having read most of the book in the six hours since then, I agree that many people might find this book an over-reaction. But for myself? I say, Caroline Jones, I will never be able to thank you enough.

It’s raining here in the riverland

I am now back at my mother-in-law’s kitchen table after having had the worst espresso I have ever had.

Given the amount of time I’ve spent drinking franchise coffees in Middle East malls, this is really saying something.

The man at the table next to mine (at whom I wasn’t staring, but at whom, given our seating arrangement, I could not help looking each time I lifted my gaze from my diary) was having a cafe latte which looked to have good creamy froth.

I shall try the latte tomorrow.

Usually, I avoid lattes and cupofchinos at untested cafes. This is on account of our experiences at the Invercargill Airport, following two winter days (or was it three years) on Stewart Island. Have you seen that Blackadder episode when Baldrick is offering coffee with milk or without milk and so on? Yes, well, the baristas at Invercargill Airport learnt everything they know about making coffee from that Blackadder episode (though in fairness, that day was many years ago and things may have changed, but all the same I do not recommend a Stewart Island winter trip).

I am very much enjoying sitting at my mother-in-law’s kitchen table drinking a cup of soup.

edited for clarifications: I don’t want you to think I was complaining about my mother-in-law – the espresso was not made by her, and I would hate to think anyone thought I was using the interwebs to complain about a woman who is nothing bu welcoming and hospitable, and particularly in terms of food and drink

shiny things

Arguments against buying an ipad
– I am on a long vacation in Australia and even if I am sponging accommodation and cars from friends and relatives, vacations are expensive
– we might soon be leaving Abu Dhabi and moving is expensive
– we might be staying in Abu Dhabi another year, and living in Abu Dhabi is expensive
– I don’t have certain employment
– I already have an iphone
– I already have a netbook
– despite proof in pudding of two points above, I don’t actually like getting sucked into consumerism and unnecessary purchasing
– the enough project is pretty bloody sobering, and I don’t find this especially reassuring
– there is bound to be some weird-arse territorial reason that ipads bought in Australia and used in Abu Dhabi can’t download the things I want to download
– it will just be something else I have to try and manage along with the lads’ audiobooks playlists, my music playlists, their music playlists, the odd television show or movie, and the podcasts that I sort of have under control subscriptions-wise, but not at all listeing wise
– I already have a to-read list which I can’t get through unless medical science triples my life expectancy

Arguments in favour of buying an ipad
I want one

On not

I’ve been reading a lot about creativity lately, particularly about writing, but about creating more generally. And particularly about doing it. About sticking your bum to the seat, about putting in the time, about letting the housework go. And so on. I’ve got myself good goals and am filled with optimism and the joy of getting it done. I’m more or less sticking to my programme of little bits lots of times, stitch by stitch, step by step, brick by brick and so on.

Now, I’m not sure why, but all this reading has led me to wonder about all the people who don’t become writers. All the brazillions* of people who go to weekend workshops, join groups, find mentors, go on retreats, invest in scrivener, but don’t, in the end, write ‘writer’ on their departure card.

I know some of them become lawyers or travel agents or gardeners or nurses instead. Some of them are lazy or unfocussed or find they’re better at something else. Some of them are handed lives which making writing impossible. And a not-small number must be a bit like me, setting plans and meaning to get onto it, just as soon as I am settled in to Abu Dhabi, once I’m back from Edinburgh, after Christmas, once I finish work and so on and etcetera.

But some of them, one or two at least, must, at some point, have looked around and thought, ‘This isn’t working, is it?’. There must be some who looked at their words on the paper and thought, ‘I know I could do this, but the world won’t miss me if I don’t, I’m going to finish knitting that silk, lace scarf instead.’

There must be someone out there for whom not writing was an active decision. And their’s would be an interesting book.

*still my favourite George W joke

I didn’t hear you

We went to Turkey for ten days which yielded all manner of surprises including a balloon ride, and a sumo wrestler in front of the blue mosque.

Here is a photo of eldest lad absorbed in a Charlie Bone audiobook. Also sprawling and taking up what seems to be a lot of space. It wasn’t at all difficult to get a photo of eldest lad, sprawling and absorbed in an audiobook. I just had to point my camera at him at any random time.

From miscblogphotos

I really wanted my children to love stories and narratives and losing themselves in other worlds.

Except, you know, for goodness’ sake. We’re in Capadoccia. You could listen to Charlie Bone in the plane.

Which is pretty much how things are between me and eldest lad right now.

Just say yay

Very strange it’s been, watching Australia’s politics from afar. I do a quick read of the papers and the ABC site online every day, so I knew Kevin was having iss-ewes, but doesn’t every prime minister, and don’t the papers always say there’s trouble in the lead up to the election and so on.

Then, the night before the party room vote, I was freaked well and truly out. I didn’t understand what was happening. I made a quick skype call home, ‘What’s happening?’ I asked, and my friend watched Lateline for us both, even coming back with the notes she’d taken so she wouldn’t forget anything. But I still didn’t really understand. From this distance, it looked like the beginning of one of those messy, messy times where someone challenges, doesn’t win but doesn’t lose decisively, then no one is convinced of anything, no one trusts anyone and all of a sudden Tony Abbott comes along and wins the next election. My friends, I was scared.

At the same time, I’m exactly the same as all othe women of my age, political persuasion and so forth. To me, Julia really should’ve led the ALP in the last election. So when I went to bed, I was like, Far out, this really could be it.

And it was.

Wow. Julia. I did get goosebumps, and I did cry when I woke up the next morning, and switched the computer on before I’d properly opened my eyes. Oh, wow.

For the first time in perhaps ever, I will be voting for a party led by someone I want to see as our Prime Minister (never was a Keating fan I’m afraid – do think he’s quite something, but he was just never quite my cup of Prime Ministerial tea).*

I haven’t really read heaps about it all, because on the day it happened, I went off to my last day of work (had to quit my job, long story involving reasons and tears beyond reason), then went home, packed my bags and caught the 2.30 am flight to Istanbul, but I have seen quite a bit of rubbish recorded in the words I have read.

For example, I read someone say that this was the most underhand move since the dismissal. That’s just bloody stupid. Here’s the thing: when was there ever a graceful change of leaders in Australian politics? Myself, I’m not so hot on the ALP’s machinations, bit concerned about the apparent influence of the media and so on. But there’s a pretty big gap between this and the dismissal. Also, Tony Abbott saying there would never be anything like it in the Liberal party. Good grief. Dude, even the bloke who was at the centre of the dismissal thinks you’re nasty.

And another thing: don’t use the word ‘coup’, just don’t. It’s completely inaccurate and it’s bloody disrespectful. We live in a democracy,** and we get to vote without fearing for our lives, and no tanks rolled up to the steps of Parliament House, and Kevin Rudd got the opportunity to make a dignified farewell speech and no one got locked up, and no one has disappeared, and actually elected representatives voted on it, and whether you like it or not that is the way Australian politics works. And you know what? If you don’t like it, you can bang on about it as much as you like. You can write about it on your blog, you can ring talkback radio, you can start your own ‘I’d never backstab anyone’ party, you can even meet Kevin Rudd for a drink and discuss it with him if you like. You can do all those things because it wasn’t a coup.

Anyway, enough of the don’ts and back to the dos. Do say yay.

Yay to the day Quentin swore in Julia.

(UPDATE acksherlly, as a couple of people have pointed out there wasn’t a vote, Kevin Rudd stood aside. Also, ‘whether you like it or not’ is a bit clumsy and leaves the impression that I think we should just accept the way the ALP goes about things. Again with the acksherlly, I don’t believe we should accept it – for myself, I don’t like it at all, and it’s one of my real issues with the ALP, and in fact, it’s one of the reasons I carry out my activism outside political parties. But I still maintain it was done with a broadly democratic process, and enough with the use of ‘coup’)

*strictly speaking, I won’t be voting for them, because I vote Greens these days, but of course, I effectively vote for the ALP. I can’t really see my reasons for voting Greens changing, though I’d happily change back to the ALP if they started backing public education again instead of building on the Howard-era scarifying of it, and if they showed a bit of humanity on the refugee and asylum seeker side of things (and there’s a few other things, but to me, if they’re getting those things right, then they’re prolly doing other stuff I like too)
**well, technically speaking, I don’t live in a democracy at the moment, but you know what I mean when I say ‘we’