Rosie fresh from America

Hello Possums, I’m laughing a lot as I gradually hear stories from my two eldest daughters about their recent trip to the West Coast of America. They performed twenty-one times over the three week period that they toured with their choir, but they also had a bit of free time with their host families, some time for sight seeing and shopping.

Rosie came home with thirty-five different flavours of lip smackers!

Why did you buy so many Rosie!

To add to my collection – they don’t have these flavours in Australia.

Possums, she now has root beer, pineapple Fanta, Dr Pepper, cookie dough, marshmallow treat… etc. Thirty-five flavours!!!

Rosie related some funny stories about conversations she had with host families. Apparently in Americal they call whipper-snippers weed-whackers! Now as if this isn’t funny enough, the hosts were also trying to teach her to say weed-whacker with the correct emphasis on the -er sound! She then tried to teach them to say whipper-snipper with the -a sound for the -er as we tend to pronounce here (whippa-snippa). They had heaps of trouble cutting out the -er.

They couldn’t understand her when she asked for water.

What’s wart-a? Is it something like a wart?

No water! That you drink! It comes out of a tap…

Oh, you mean waater!

Rosie learnt to ask for waater.

Rosie raved on and on about the differences between Australia and America:

… and they really do drive on the wrong side of the road and their toilets really do flush in the opposite direction. Oh, I wanted to film the toilet flushing! I really meant to, but I didn’t get around to it, damn!

Oh dear! A twelve-year old’s impressions of another country are pretty bent!

Reunited

Hello Possums. It was an exciting morning in our household this morning. Our two eldest daughters flew in to Melbourne Airport after a three week tour of the West Coast of North America with fifty-five other girls and their choir tutors.

We waited for almost two hours before they emerged through customs to the ‘other side’ where we (and masses of other people) were waiting. We stood around for ages, chatted to a couple of the other choir families, and then went and had chai lattes and chocolate muffins just to fill in time. I find these in-limbo type of occasions excellent for people-watching. I honesty don’t do it intentionally, but I find myself watching and getting a little sucked into other people’s dramas, if only momentarily.

I saw a young mother who had obviously been traveling alone emerge carrying a toddler in a Macpac baby-backpack (just like I used to use with my four when they were little enough) and pushing her luggage in front of her stacked high on an airport trolley as she scanned the crowd for her loved ones. She found her partner in the crowd behind the barricade. He was exceptionally tall and thin, but not unhealthy looking. He had an outdoor look about him, wiry and a bit tanned in the face. He looked gentle and anxious. I watched as his eyes lit up. His whole body jolted with recognition and he immediately began moving towards the edge of the barricade. It looked as though he fought the impulse to jump over it. They stood opposite each other and he touched her shoulders tenderly, before his attention was drawn to the child. He kissed the child first and stroked its hair. The couple then embraced and kissed for quite a length of time. He spoke quietly to her whilst running his fingers up and down her long blond plait. The young father then picked up the child’s hand and said something to it. In this way his attention moved from woman to child behind her in the backpack, and back again. Clearly the separation from his two loved ones had been painful to him. I wondered why they had been separated, and for how long. It was a very tender reunion.

The barricade, however, did not hold everyone back. A man in his late thirties with broad shoulders and a large build entered the walkway loaded up with bags criss-crossed over his shoulders and also stacked on the trolley he was pushing. He smiled at his family who were standing close to the barricade and picked up his pace to be reunited with them more quickly. All of a sudden his son sprang from his mother’s arms to land on his dad’s shoulders. He dropped most of his bags to catch the son securely in a superb reflex reaction, because it had taken him and everyone else by surprise. Other passengers helped him re stack his trolley and he pushed it out more slowly carrying his son. Onlookers, including me, were smiling. He was aware of everyones attention and was smiling too, but focussed mostly on his son.

I waited on the wall side next to the pot plants, and not behind the barricade so that my younger two had a good view of the arrivals. A group of people standing near us startled us with squeals of delight when an elderly woman was wheeled out through the doors in a wheelchair. The old woman was very frail and slumped slightly to her right in the chair. She wore a cover over her mouth like doctors do. I wondered whether it was to protect her from air born germs or whether she had an infectious disease. When she was greeted by her relatives her eyes registered happiness. She tried to sit up straighter by pushing on the arm of the wheelchair. With her good hand she pulled on the mask to reveal her mouth, but she was unable to speak even though her lips moved to almost form the shape of the words she wanted to say. She released the mask and let it fall back over her mouth, gave up on sitting straight and just waved and waved to them. The relatives were almost skipping, they were so excited to see her. The wheel chair driver paused as the family rushed into the aisle and momentarily blocked the traffic. There were hugs and photos taken before they moved on.

Shortly after this, the daughter of the choir parents who had been standing next to me and chatting came out. Both parents rushed to their daughter and held her firmly. This family of three just stood there crying for a minute or two. As I watched, tears came to my eyes too.

What will I be like when my daughters arrive, if I’m this hopeless just watching you? I said to the mother a little while later when she returned to her spot next to me. Her daughter was saying her farewells then to other girls and staff from the choir. She shrugged and nodded her encouragement. She was still emotional and speechless.

As it was I had a little time to pull myself together before my girls arrived. It was wonderful to see them, and the overwhelming emotions were joy and relief – no tears!

Kat said after I embraced her, I didn’t miss any of you, only the cat!

So of course I say, Well your cats dead, sorry. We forgot to feed it.

Kat wasn’t sure how to take it for a second or two, but did a theatrical look of horror anyway. She was quite right, I was only joking… and so was she, I hope!

 

  

Kat refuses to keep a straight face (left).

Rosie looks tired after the flight (right).

Gone to the dogs

Hello Possums, have you read the classic ‘Great Expectations’ by Charles Dickens? Do you remember the character Miss Haversham? Let me assure you that the character Miss Haversham was most certainly based on a real person. There are Miss-Haversham-types out there! I kid you not.

When I first met my husband, there was no mention of Aunty Veronica. It wasn’t until we were married that my mother-in-law sat me down and explained my duties with respect to the hubby’s elderly Aunt. She had in her hand a pre-addressed lettergram with the postage pre-paid. She placed the lettergram in my hand as she related the following story.

Aunty Veronica had no children of her own. She was the eldest sister of my father-in-law who immigrated to Australia in his thirties from the UK. Both of his sisters still resided in the UK. One in Aldershot and the other in Chichester (or Chi as she referred to it, I later found out). The two sisters were ten years apart in age and had not spoken to each other for thirty years. Consequently, eventhough her younger sister in Chi had three children, Auntly Veronica found herself lonely in her twilight years.

Aunty Veronica’s home in Aldershot was large and built on a considerable size of land. She had also accumulated additional wealth in the form of shares. Many years ago, long before I came on the scene, she expressed her deepest wishes to my mother-in-law concerning her assets:

Since I do not have children of my own, she began, I would like you to know that when I go I intend to leave my entire wealth to be split between your two lovely boys.

Just to put you in the picture, Possums, she was referring to my hubby and his brother. They were pretty young at the time this pledge was made. My mother-in-law, however, was obliged from this moment on to keep in contact with her husband’s oldest sister in the UK – what else could she do?

My mother-in-law expected me to uphold the Family Obligation to Aunty Veronica, set in motion by The Pledge. I was expected to write to her! For those of you who have not visited my blog before and who don’t know that I am an Australian and that I have rarely traveled out of Australia, I need to point out that I had never met this old woman before and she was thousands of miles away somewhere in the UK.

What would you do, Possums? I was bound by The Pledge, just as my mother-in-law and my husband felt they were. So I wrote to her. My husband regularly phoned her. This went on for thirteen years.

Sadly she passed away five years ago. She left all of her money to The Lost Dogs Home. The explanation she gave for this decision in her final will was that no one gave her enough attention – except for her adoring Labrador, Adam.

I didn’t care. But I realised that my hubby was upset about her final decision.

I don’t want the money! He said. It’s just that I feel betrayed. Why did she bother to make the promise to mum, if she wasn’t going to follow through in the end?

I can’t explain it either.

I don’t think we’re supposed to understand the Miss-Haversham-types!

I blog because…

Hello Possums, do you ever catch yourself saying stuff that you hadn’t expected, but it just sort of comes out in the context of a conversation, and then afterwards you might think, either:

Oh, why did I say that?

Or, conversely, you might think, Yeah! That’s right! Like agreeing with yourself in hindsight.

I often have these moments of reflection, both types, because I tend to talk before really engaging the brain.

I hadn’t given much thought to the reason why I have taken to blogging like a Scotsman (or woman) to whiskey. So far, when asked, I have been accustomed to providing the ‘excuse’: Well, it keeps me writing every day and that really helps with my work.

Well today in conversation with one of the gorgeous women at the Primary School Uniform Shop I articulated another reason, which is probably closer to the truth (if there’s any such thing as truth). The conversation went like this:

Hey, Bindi, I’ve been reading your stories on your blog. I’m really enjoying them.

Oh great! Have you read the Chicago ones yet?

No, but I loved the one where you were in a bar in Sydney on St Pat’s Day!

Oh yeah! Hmmmm. We laughed then, like conspirators sharing a private joke. You know he was very drunk! I added.

I think its great reading about what you’re getting up to! The writing must be therapudic?

Yeah, I’m really enjoying the writing. You have to have some sort of outlet for that stuff! Like, really, who’s going to listen to it otherwise?

We both laughed then. But upon reflecting on our busy lives as mothers and working women we both nodded our heads in consensus.

So there you have it! I blog because its an outlet for my life stories that don’t get much of an airing otherwise (you may have noticed that there is quite a backlog!).

Oh, and probably also good writing practice.

The hubby gets a reputation

Hello Possums. The story about my surprise birthday present has been well known around our community for a couple of months now. My husband is getting a reputation amongst the women because of it.

The crossing lady at the front of the kids primary school is always on for a chat. We have broached interesting topics such as correct and incorrect ways for drivers to approach the crossing and the virtues of parking only in designated spaces. She also loves to report erratic driving behavior, or to provide reports on goings-on in the community. Last year around schoolies week she was able to report on random acts of vandalism in the form of tacks deliberately left on roadsides in prominent parking areas. Upon that occasion she took to issuing the warning, Watch where you park! with the seriousness of a sage.

Anyway now days she has taken to giving me a count down to her birthday, and has expressed a keen interest to be added to my husbands birthday list. She hasn’t started to relate her preferred car colours or makes yet, but that’s next on her agenda for sure!

Similarly conversations with the women in the primary school uniform shop (where I volunteer my time once a fortnight, or weekly in busy periods such as changes of season) have indicated that there are a few women who look differently at the hubby now that word has spread around. I have personalised number plates, so people have been easily able to recognize the change of vehicle.

Oh, Bindi, I noticed you were driving a new car this morning! Nice, very nice.

Yep. Surprise birthday present. And then if we have time, which we usually do, I relate the whole story.

Oh, what a nice man!

Yeah. I think I’ll keep him.

Well, if you change your mind, send him my way.

On this particular occasion, one of the other women chipped in with, Yeah, but after a divorce, he probably wouldn’t be able to afford new cars for birthdays!

Hmm, yeah true. Oh well, it was still a nice thing for him to do. You could send him over anyway!

No worries!

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: Melbourne vs Chicago.

Hello Possums. If you asked pretty much any Victorian child what the three R’s of sustainable living were, they would be able to tell you.Reduce the amount of waste you make. This includes sensible packaging choices. I like to shop at the fresh fruit and veg markets because things don’t come on foam trays and wrapped in plastic (also the food is generally fresher).Reuse stuff instead of buying something new to do the same job. My parent’s generation were excellent at this. They have the skills to repair virtually anything. The skill to sew was passed down to me, but not my sister. There are fewer and fewer people who can sew or who can just generally wield a tool these days.My father and his sister are still Magpies* as a result of this philosophy. My favorite cousin and I often discuss this trait of our parents’. We do believe that there are limits on the number of broken bits and pieces, plastic bags and ice cream containers that one person needs to save. My aunt hardly has room on her shelves for useful items, because of all the junk she refuses to throw out (that’s another story).I reuse glass jars when I make jam, and plastic containers for the kids’ painting fiascoes, ice cream containers for mixing bowls for play doh, and large glass jars for vases. I repair holes in the knees of my kids jeans by sewing on a patches, and other general clothing repairs. The hubby is handy in minor ways and can repair things made of wood or fibre glass. His dad is handier, has more tools, and can repairs things made of wood or metal. He fixed the handle of my griddle when I burnt the original handle and it eventually fell off, by turning another handle out of wood, encasing the end in metal and welding it on for me! … the father-in-law fixes quite a lot of stuff for us, and the inlaws give me their sewing jobs.It’s not much. We still tend to throw out the toaster when it nolonger works and buy a new one. Repair people won’t usually bother with toasters either, because the cost of labour to repair it would be more than what you’d pay to buy a new one. I can’t help thinking that there is something inherently wrong with the way economic discourses tend to dominate our thinking and our actions. Where are the sustainability discourses? The market price of a lump of metal, does not reflect its value! Nothing short of a societal rethink of values is needed here.Recycle. Now I’m proud to say that in Victoria, most councils provide excellent recycling services. Our household now has more to put in the recycling bin than in the rubbish bin. In our municipality, the rubbish bin provided by the council is half the size of the recycle bin to encourage just that. Our household also recycles food waste as compost. We have two compost bins on the go out the back and we also have chooks, who equate to the best recycling deal I can think of. I never stop marveling that they can turn grass, seeds and our scraps into beautiful, fresh eggs. (And they make great pets. I often hear myself saying hello girls as I arrive home and they run across the yard clucking to greet me – pic of Sally cuddling Chickpea).If any of you are from Australia, you could probably add a thing or two about how the whole country is applying the reduce, reuse, recycle philosophy to water. Some of my friends and neighbours are becoming very inventive with their grey water reuse. Over summer it was common practice for people to shower with buckets on the floor to catch the water, then empty the buckets onto their garden afterwards. There are water saving devices readily available and most people I know have reduced-flow shower heads. Also, research is being done in urban design that includes trial suburbs with the infrastructure to treat and recycle water locally.But, in Chicago recently, I was surprised at the waste generated in the city. Every cafe served us on disposable plates and provided disposable cutlery. Everyone carried around disposable cups, meal sizes in restaurants were twice the size they needed to be – there was so much waste! In contrast, at the San Fransisco air port, I noticed posters up around the place about conserving resources and recycling. So Illinois, what’s your story? In this day and age, there is no excuse: Chicago, lift you game!*The Magpie is an Australian bird that tends to collect things, especially shiny things.

I am a brat

Hello Possums. I wasn’t going to tell you this story because it incriminates me as a brat. But this morning as was I was driving to Pump, noticing how chilly the mornings were becoming, I looked down at these little buttons that I hadn’t yet used in my new car and decided to give them a whirl. These little buttons heat the seats! I turned mine on and instantly the chill left me. I drove in comfort, silently thanking my lovely hubby for my car, which he gave to me as a surprise for my birthday in Feb.

He didn’t tell me! He pretended that he needed me to drive him to Brighton to pick up his race car after a service. All the way there I sulked.

I can’t understand why you picked today of all days, My Birthday, to make me drive you out to Brighton to pick up your bloody car! We should have been going out for lunch or something instead!

Well, we could still go out for lunch afterwards. He replied, most reasonably.

No, we can’t now! Because I’m too upset. You should have thought about it before!

So we drove there in silence. He is very clever, and he knows not to step into the arena with me when I’m behaving like this. We arrived at the car yard and he said,

Why don’t you come in and have a latte? They have a nice cafe in the car sales area these days.

There is no way I’m spending My Birthday sitting in a car yard drinking lattes. I’d rather wait in the car and sulk! I kid you not, Possums, these were my exact words.

My husband then went into the sales area and, unknown to me at the time, had a brief conversation with the young sales manager that went something like this:

I need your wife to come in here to sign the documents.

I can’t get her to come in. What should we do?

The next thing I notice is a young man emerging from a car that had been parked directly in front of where I was sitting and sulking. He looked squarely at me with a lovely grin on his face. I returned the smile, but had no idea why he was looking at me. It is not that unusual in my life at the moment to be approached by young men, so I really didn’t think much of it, until he reached into the window of my car, dangled some keys in front of me and said,

Hello, here are the keys to your new car!

Well, I was completely surprised – bowled over in fact – and feeling very, very humble.

Thankyou. I said to my husband sheepishly. I feel awful… how dare you make me feel so small and humble on My Birthday! Don’t you ever do it again.

My husband thought it was a great joke. He confessed that on the drive over, the more brattish I became the more fun he had anticipating my surprise/ humiliation.

More Weird Searchings

Hello Possums, I’m still getting a laugh out of people’s search phrases. Yes, I know I need to take part responsibility because these people have ended up on my site for some reason or another. But the fact that they were searching on some of these phrases to begin with is in itself a funny thing.

why do men end relationships after two years This is an interesting search item. I wonder if any of our reading Possums can shed light on this question for this poor, frustrated searcher?

“i’d love to have a penis”. Apart form the literal interpretation of this phrase (that this person either used to have or never had a penis and wants one now), there is also the interpretation that there is a blog scourer out there who is interested in similar themes to those broached on epossums in the cocktail party conversations numbers one and two. My bet is, stay tuned for an article somewhere in the papers or magazines about it. The question is will they give credit where credit’s due? The other interpretation is of course that a previous reader of the cocktail party conversations wanted to reread them for a laugh!

tight dress can’t zip I sympathize with this problem, but why you would want to search on the phrase I do not understand.

patch ITA pick Me Honey This one is anyones guess!

midget surprise to child This one is also slightly eclectic. The post on epossums that does use both nouns from this phrase illustrates a child’s empathy and asks comedians and other adults to raise the bar.

tribute to daughters This is a lovely thing to search on. There have been some beautiful posts on the topic recently. I notice the reader did find my ‘Child of Mine‘ post, but I could also direct them to Charlotte’s blog, where she has linked her post on the topic to other posts with a similar theme.

wet twats Is this sick or funny? I can’t work it out. They were probably disappointed when they arrived on my site anyway. My references to twats and wet pants were not very riske.

woman wetting her jeans Oh dear. Some people have strange fetishes.

Autumn

Hello Possums. Isn’t it strange how, when you’ve been away, you expect that things at home will have changed somehow? I rang some of my friends to say, hey I’m back! What’s been happening? What have I missed? And they’re like, um nothing much. Same old, same old.

But, one thing I did notice that had changed were the leaves on the trees! We’re now fully into Autumn. The beautiful, old pin oak in our back yard is now so far gone that the leaves are getting a reddish tinge. Today with all the rain, the leaves were really starting to fall too. I was inspired to take this photo.

I probably need to explain to you what the plastic strip around the tree is doing there. If you’re not from Melbourne, you wouldn’t know about our urban possum population. Well, in my suburb, there are possums in abundance. They climb the pin oak and then jump from it onto the tin roof of our bedroom. Do you recall how loud birds walking on a tin roof sounds? Well, imagine what a fat possum jumping from great heights and landing squarely on the tin roof of your bedroom in the middle of the night sounds like! A bloody bomb, that’s what. So the plastic is there to prevent them climbing the tree.

Rejuvination

Hello Possums, I’m pleased to be able to report that its been raining in Melbourne since yesterday. This is a blessing.

I had a house full of girls yesterday. Sally requested a “double play-over”. These three little friends had been cooking up schemes to build a club house together all week and Sally was determined that they follow up their plans over the weekend. We had them here from midday. Emma felt left out, rang a friend, bringing the girl-total here to five, not including me. Then it rained!

As I have found out recently, there is an unwritten law about mothers traveling or having fun. When you get home, one of your appliances will go on the blink! Poor Charlotte (of Charlotte’s Web) had three appliances go on her, including her car, after her fabulously decadent holiday in Europe; my friend L (the mother of Emma’s friend) had been to a reunion in New Zealand and her microwave packed it in on her return. Me – well, I’ve been to Chicago, had a hoot of a time, came home to vomiting children and a washing machine that decided to pack it in. Those of you with children will understand the seriousness of this situation: vomitous doonas and no washing machine!

Well the technician came on Friday. The doonas hadn’t quite dried, so on Friday night I left them out. When it started to rain on Saturday at about three in the afternoon, I had forgotten they were out there. Perhaps if I had remembered to bring them in, it wouldn’t have rained so much. Because, Possums, we have had a lovely soak.

The girls had fun playing outside with umbrellas for hours. This shows how much of a novelty rain is for us these days!

When one of the fathers came to pick up his daughter at five. We talked about the weather (of course):

I say the mandated conversation starter. Isn’t it fantastic! Great for the garden.

Yes, but it isn’t going to last, he says authoritatively.

Oh, it looks pretty well set in. I say, looking up at the greyness that had closed in around us just beyond the canopy of our gum trees.

No, unfortunately, he elaborates, it won’t last. I’ve been on the internet looking at the radar map. And its going to pass within the hour.

Well, it rained and it rained. This morning I woke up to the sound of heavy, steady rain on the roof – beautiful, rhythmic, peaceful sounds. The doona is still on the line but I don’t care. The garden looks rejuvenated, and I feel as though its flowing through to me. I’m so glad he was wrong about the rain passing quickly. Not just because we need the rain so badly, and because I adore the sound of it on the tin roof, but because I love it when those scientific and statistical types get it wrong! He he.