Friday Walk: A dreary day

Thursday walk: My secret lookout

The path begins wide...

but the entrance is neglected,

the way steepens,

and then

the rewards are wonderful.

Tuesday walk: Red Tailed Black Cockatoos

Sweethearts sat still and let me take photos.  They were eating the cones off the she-oak.  Sounded like pop corn going off in a pot.

Monday Walk: Light and Shadows

Sunday Sunset Walk

The Weekend ends...

From the dark comes the light.

Weekend

The best thing about my weekend: I didn't leave Wivenhoe Pocket.  After a 12 hour day on Friday doing the school run, working, then going to Tama's football game, I felt like a rubber band was wound around my head and shoulders.

Saturday/Sunday I got to do an exercise class, write, garden, make chutney, have a bonfire and bbq at friends and not leave the confines of my little, round country street.

Simple.

Priorities

I choose positive people over negative people.

Rage

I read a Cathy Kelly book once. My sister flys a lot and tends to pick some easy reads. She left a pile of books at my place. I am game for just about anything. I have read, and enjoyed, almost every genre, so why not this new phenomena of chick lit.

I was drawn to the main character, unhappy working full time. She wants to be at home with her young family. Me! Me! My unhappiness too.

Turned out her husband earned plenty of money and she had a marketable skill that could make her money from home. All she needed to do was decide to do it.

It was so easy for her to change her life I wanted to set fire to the book there and then.

Oh course, I finished it. I’m like that. Finish what I start, never late, be prepared.

At some point in the last chapter the main character’s name changed. Let’s say her name was Katherine, by the last chapter she was suddenly Kathleen. Was the character's journey so meaningless her name became meaningless to?

Where is that book? I wonder do I still have it somewhere. It might be cathartic to rip it apart today.

India, the fluffy white dog...

I have been telling my dog that some days are just harder than others.

Most days are tiring, a little mundane with some highlights.

Some days are just a bit harder than others.

But without those days we wouldn’t appreciate the good days.

I think she understands.

I surprise myself

I sprinted the other day.

Usually when my personal trainer says – SPRINT – I think, oh yeah right and jog.
But this day I actually sprinted.
It was surprising. Mind you, I wasn’t fast. I have come last in every race I have ever run. In fact, the last race I ran, the last time I sprinted was in 1984.
Yes, surprising.

Last Year's Lunch

I have procrastinated for over a year and then, the school tie saga. It takes Tama and me an hour to find his school tie in his room. Something must be done.

Step 1: Take antihistamine

It’s not like he doesn’t clean his room. He is made to clean it every Saturday morning. It is his method of sweeping contents to the edges, on top of things under things and at the bottom of his cupboard.

This is what I found:
1. Dismantled car radio and calculator
2. A letter to himself that he is not allowed to open until he is 17 (do I wish it wasn’t sealed!)
3. 2 unused light globes still in their boxes.
4. A rubber with a paper tail stapled to it and other with a cape.
5. A list of “Things to Do” I am 100% sure is not his.

The highlight of what I found is really rather sweet. It seems my boy is so attached to the lunches I make him he decided to keep the remnants of the last one I made him for primary school.

That was four hot summer months ago.

Hellstra Again

Telstra hands out there pre-paid credit at 3am in the morning.

How do I know this?

Because at 3am in the morning I was woken by the Midnight Beast singing "Wake up in the morning feeling like Winehouse"

Not the most soothing of songs, certainly not in the wee hours.

Once common sense kicked in and I realised I wasn't being attacked and my son's phone was somewhere in my room, I concentrated on steadying my racing heartbeat in the hope I would be asleep again soon.

No such luck.

There it goes again... "Wake up in the morning feeling like Winehouse"

Right, he has his phone scheduled to notify him of a text until such times as he reads it. Useful if I am trying to contact him. Less so at this moment.

I get out of bed and rummage.

Can't find it.

It goes off again.

Problem is, the lyric is just long enough for me to get a general direction, but not to locate.

Yes, I could ring it myself, but it s 3am in the morning. You think I am thinking straight. No I am not. I am just rummaging. And swearing. A lot of swearing.

Eventually I find where it as fallen between the cupboard and the dresser.

Lucky really, no one ever would have looked there otherwise.

Meanwhile, I woke up in the morning feeling like Winehouse.

Too much of a good thing (3)

The decent coffee quest continues.

I tried, and settled for the Steam Expresso Bar, then the brew yesterday tasted like insipid water.

I had to go across the river at lunch time, so waited until I got to Gloria Jeans for my hit.  I sighed with relief. Paul, still not as good as yours, but at least it rolled smoothly over my tongue.

Hellstra

I have discovered what happens to you in hell.
They send you Telstra bills, then make you sit on the phone to them for eternity.
Here are the stats.
- Rang the number and it hung up on me before I got to speak to a real person: 7
- Put through to the wrong number: 4
- Finally found someone who could answer my question and they could suddenly NOT hear me: 2
- Just randomly got hung up on: 2
- Times I explained my problem: 8
- Number of times I gave my birthdate and phone number: 12
- Number of times I cried: 2
Length of phone call/s: One hour and twenty minutes.

Too much of a good thing cont.

Friday and the search for a decent coffee continued.  I ventured into the Qld Flour Mill in the heritage end of town.  I love this part of Ipswich.  I love the stained glass windows above the door of the Qld Flour Mill.  I really, really wish I loved thier coffee.

Too much of a good thing

My favourite barista has shut up shop and left town.  It's like he doesn't care about me at all.

The question is, can the city of Ipswich offer me a decent cup of coffee.

So far:
Monday - De Lamantra - 38 beans to choose from.  Mine is so bad I tip it down the sink.  Tastes like dirt.

Tuesday - on my way to a meeting so I stop at MacDonalds. Coffee is like thier food. Bland.

Wednesday - De Lamantra is the closest so I give them a second chance and try another of the 38 beans.  I am thinking 38 beans is 37 too many when you only have 38 customers a day.  Dirt taste I am putting down to stale beans.  Not worth $4.00

Thursday - Mammoth effort on the phone to Telstra for and hour and twenty minutes.  It all ends in tears.  Do I need a coffee! The Cactus Expresso Bar is next on my hit list. A cup the size of thimble. Not worth the walk up the hill.

The last day of the week, Friday approaches and I am still hopeful.

How Racist are You?

When I was 12 years old, I went to boarding school. A girl shared my dressing room. She was Torres Strait Islander from Badu Island. One day she picked up my acne cream, read the label, and asked me about it.

My first surprised thought was, “She can read!” My very next thought was, “Of course she can read. What would make me think she couldn’t read?”

The question still remains, decades later. What causes a 12-year-old child to believe that a person, because she is brown and has tight curly hair, is less smart?

So I have to rewind to the first twelve years of my life. I belonged to a farming family, in a community of predominately German descendants. If there were Aboriginal kids at my school, they didn’t tell us about it. I remember nothing rampantly and obviously bigoted. Yet somehow, like osmosis, I absorbed unsettling stereotypes.

What was my 1970’s education telling me? It told me Captain Cook ‘discovered’ Australia, and the ‘first settlers’ struggled to tame a wilderness. It told me, almost in these exact words, the Aboriginal people did not fight back. Underneath these untruths was a subtle message. It said the Aboriginal people were not capable of fighting back, they didn’t try hard enough, they didn’t deserve to ‘keep’ this country.

What did 1970’s television tell me about Aboriginal people? Most likely it said they were absent and invisible. I don’t remember any Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander faces on The Sullivans or Young Talent Time.

The Department of Education sent some Aboriginal dancers to our school. The boy sitting next to me said, “They are not real Aboriginals – look their palms are white.” I looked at my palms, I looked at their palms, and I could see his point. But it made no sense that they would send out pretenders.

By the time I got to university, my friends and I were going to Land Rights marches. Sadly, at the end of the day we went back to our own lives. We did not really connect. But we were questioning what we had been ‘taught’ as children.

When my daughter was 6 years old, she said, “Mum, I always wanted to meet and Aboriginal person.” It is a step up from the boy who denied those dancers their aboriginality. It said to me she was curious, perhaps respectful, seemingly lacking any negativity. But it also says to me, there is still a divide in our community.

Priorities

I choose weeds over weedkiller.

Shutter Island

I like to go to the movie theatre well informed. It is all too expensive to turn up at any old random movie that has an interesting name. I choose to go to the movies I think I will like.

There are times though, when I get invited to a movie and attend through social politeness. This has been at times traumatising - Jerry Maguire - its been 12 years and I still remember sitting in that theatre surrounded by people laughing hysterically wondering why it just made me want to spew.

More recently Mamma Mia! proved not quite traumatising as irritating. What to say to my fellow movie goers who loved it?

I knew nothing about Shutter Island Big names do not a good movie make. Happily I was neither traumatised or irritated, although the soundtrack needed a bomb put under it. I was in fact intrigued and until the last moments unsure which way the film would go. It won't go on my list of all time favourites, but it was interesting enough for our family to discuss for most of the car trip home.