A fascinating fascinator tale

So many of me........our choir, Cool Harmonies, is making a calendar this year. No one else in my section was available the day we did the photo shoot, "stepping out with the sopranos" so I volunteered to do all the costume changes. I have a harder time singing all the parts however. One of these lovelies actually IS me, can you tell which one? Hint: I am not the one in the lower right corner letting a bit much of her middle aged upper body hang out.

Friends and Fam

A few nights ago was Tom's birthday dinner. We gathered at an Indian restaurant to toast the big 55.Tom noted the significance of this year, as he was born in 55. All his previous birthdays have been celebrated at a time of year when the nights are getting longer and colder, but here it's warming up daily. I can see the advantages for Halloween; those little ones dressed as princesses can skip the thick tights and coats over the costume. Our Aussie friends tell us Halloween is gaining momentum  every year.......a sign in front of the chemist attested to this,  "Save $ on Halloween fragrances." The other day I saw a nipper dressed in a jaws costume.  Mel and her friends are planning to dress up Sunday night and hit the streets, but she has been cautioned that it is entirely possible when they knock on doors they will receive quizzical looks and not candy.

the dome above the shot factory

Mel embracing modern art

Recently we spent a weekend in Melbourne visiting a couple of Tom's friends from his sailing days. The second largest city in Oz is  fantastically unique, with heaps of ultra sleek modern architecture often nestled next to quaint and well preserved historic buildings. Like Brisbane, there's a free city loop bus/tram for tourists,which is a great way to see the lay of the land, and  also nifty when your  feet are worn out from walking. Melbourne is truly a city that loves to shop. This 165 foot tall lead shot factory was one of five in the city and built in 1899. Inconveniently located in what became prime real estate, it has been preserved by being enclosed in a large glass dome, and  is now surrounded by numerous retail therapy opportunities. 

Nov 2 looms.....election day at home, and Melbourne cup day here. In California they'll be deciding which multimillionaire has had the most effective negative campaign for Governor, and whether some Humboldt county folks will be moving forward with plans to open bud n' breakfast establishments, if Prop. 19 passes decriminalizing marijuana. It seems this particular midterm election is fairly, uh, spicy. I admit I'm not sorry to be missing out on all the P.R. (promises and rants.) Australia gets points all around for gentler, much shorter, and less ridiculous campaign seasons.  If only the millions spent on campaigns could somehow instead used for improving education and paying down the debt....... for starters.

frocked up teddy

Melbourne Cup Day isn't actually a holiday, but apparently no work gets done as anyone and everyone is at the races and/or gathering with friends and family to watch it on TV. Friends here are having a party, but I'll be in the outback. Yup, I'm Charleville bound on Monday. Claiming 3500 residents, Charleville is the hugest thing around for many a mile.  I hear they have a dirt race track, so I'll be eating dust and  hanging out with folks I just met watching my first horse race. I'll be frocked up in my new fascinator and heels. A what? A fascinator is not one who fascinates, but the name of the hair doodly-bob that is part of going to the races. Watch this space for forthcoming photos......... I'm excited about my adventure but will be missing my family!  I've never been away from my kidlets for two whole weeks before. Tom will be in charge of continuing to seek solutions for Mel's ongoing foot/heel pain, which has her sidelined from dance for a couple of weeks. Also he'll be continuing to encourage/demand that  Eli spend at least a little time at home when he isn't eating or sleeping, as those are seemingly his primary reasons for being around lately.

Here are some shots of my new favorite tree, the jacaranda. The fluffy purple blooms are SO gorgeous, and they are gracefully punctuating the countryside everywhere! It's possible my previous swoon inducing botanical purple, the wisteria, has been usurped. 

Spoiler Alert: This is where I'm going to brag about our kids. Yesterday Eli brought home his grade for his Shakespeare test, and his teacher told him it was the best essay in all three English classes! We're chuffed, as this has not been standard behavior for our oldest this year, or any year actually. The Australian  public school system, from our perspective, requires quite a bit less homework than they're used to, but, when a project/assignment/test is graded, A's are not so easy to come by......
And for the daughter, she and her dance teacher were over the moon as she received a 'merit'  score for her Royal Academy of Dance exam in August. This score is above a 'pass', which is what she was hoping for. Yeah Melissa!

Countdown! We are both eagerly and sadly preparing to depart. Now that we are coming to the end of our year, we finally know our way around, have friends and find plenty to occupy ourselves. In addition we know where to get the best yogurt,  and have found new cool bike trails. All good things must end. Tom reminds me daily that even if we wanted to stay, our visas won't allow it and we wouldn't exactly look forward to a run in with immigration officials. So we ARE coming home, and we'll get that day back we lost when we came over: We'll be back January 13 at 3:45pm, which is an hour before we leave Sydney!!

shocks in oz

Not electrical, not traumatic, not even happy ones like a child of ours volunteering to clean up a mess they only partially contributed to....no I mean the tiger, great white, and the bull shock or shark as they say elsewhere. These three are the only shark species known to attack humans. Nonetheless, in Queensland as well as New South Wales, many popular beaches including the one close to our house, a shark net or a drum line offers a modicum of protection for swimmers/surfers/surfboards.  We have a drum line here, which is a large single baited hook suspended from anchored yellow buoys. These are detractors of this practice of course,  as the hooks and nets sometimes also catch dolphins, rays, turtles, and whales.  A few months ago it was decided they will be equipped with "pingers" to alert the whales to stay clear.  Good to know whales understand Ping.


The Commonwealth games are going on in New Delhi at the moment, as they have been every four years since 1930. Originally called the British Empire games, the Aussies are dominating in the medal department. Around 70 countries  participate, and the competitions include many Olympic sports and also games more typically played in commonwealth countries,  like lawn bowls, which is a close cousin to  Bocce ball. We have a lawn bowls club here in Coolum, but I don't see many Olympic types hanging out there. Other records recently noted: In Brisbane, at the local version of Starbucks,  a team of employees trained for months, and last week set a new world record: 5,164 espressos poured in one hour. That's a lotta cuppa!

Random ramblings: we spotted two pairs of yellow tailed black cockatoos on our bike ride home from the gym today....Kmart etc has no need  to wait until after Halloween to start stocking the shelves with Christmas bling (as there is no orange and black closet clutter for sale here)......massive amounts of foam on the beach, due to the recent storms........I'll be sewing my way through October as I just hauled reams of fabric destined to become skirts for Melissa's studio's concert Nov 27.......enjoying frequent but not daily early morning walks......overheard at the post office today: a young mum and her small child, who had began to whine for a bag of plastic dinosaurs: "Now, let's not have a tanti"  and, at this late age in life I can finally do a headstand, but my kids made me promise I wouldn't post a photo.


In other breaking news, a 100% Australian owned business has launched a free software/app called itakeaway. Now it is possible to order and pay for food from a handheld. Have you noticed this word has ceased being an adjective and is now a noun?  Then, courtesy of Google maps you're directed to the participating restaurant. hmm...how long until the food will be ready for pickup carside via an ATM type machine? I don't like this trend.

Just when we thought summer was here and we started looking longingly at our pool that we haven't been in since the early days of April, we're having ourselves a fierce little deluge. The rains in the last 24 hours have already exceeded the average for the month, and there is more to come. Oh joy. I'm just glad I wasn't one of the 8 thousand or so who paid a significant sum to attend the Caloundra music festival on for this last weekend. The performers were under cover but the fans had themselves a big mudfest.

So onward though the next 7 weeks or so of the final term of school. Melissa will finish her year of high school so she can go back home to middle school....... For reasons unknown to me, Eli finishes the year two weeks earlier than Mel.  He'll be surfing with his mates, waiting for sis to finish up, and we'll start packing our bulging suitcases in preparation for departure.....SIGH.  As of tonight, Tom has worked his airline magic and procured tickets to fly to Bangkok Dec 12.  From there we are still a bit open but for New Years we'll be in Bali, and I suspect we will not be alone. Jan 12 we're flying to to Sydney to reconnoiter with heaps o' stuff we needed for our year here (or thought we needed) but don't need for travel, and assuming all goes well, we'll be stepping off that plane in Arcata January 13 at 3:47 pm!!!

Coolum Beach

Meantime, we're headed off to  'Melbun', also know as Melbourne, for a long weekend. Tom is going to stay a couple of extra days and re-connect with old friends from his sailing days. Shortly thereafter I have signed up for a two week volunteer project in the outback through an organization called frontierservices.org. I'll be dusting off my cobwebby speech pathology synapses and lending what I can to an early education team who travel to visit both Caucasian and Aboriginal families with young children.  I'm looking forward to the adventure. I'm flying to  east to Charleville from Brisbane November first (a two hour flight) then traveling upwards of 1900 kilometers by car...even in miles that's a loooong way!

photoblogging

because they could, they did

It's a boy! new resident at 1875 11th street
Silas Morrie Issac, 7lbs 11 oz, born on Sept 18

Team California wins the race on the Margaret river back from the Bushtucker tour,
but only because Eli and Melissa cooperated so well in paddling

Cape Naturaliste Lighthouse, which the kids agreed was one of the
most boring places we went, but the parent Perretts disagreed

Camera priorites for this trip: family (1) wildflowers (2) and birds (3)
Splendid fairy wren, near Smith's beach, WA

Those waves will be here any minute now

Lurking in the wildflowers

He would have preferred it if there hadn't been
a safety wire around the ladder

future refrigerator repair man

My three favorite people

walking in the canopy of the giant Karri trees...
we're over 100 feet in the air!

Reliving his time at sea oh so many years ago,
Tom takes the helm of a whaling ship....

Testosterone driven teenager

geez it's a long way down there

rock/tummy bonding

One of the 482 flower photos my camera forced me to to take

Report from double you aye

The state of western Australia is about the size of India...... but in this state you'll find only 88% of one person per square kilometer. Just for comparison, there are 32 people in the same space in the U.S., and over 18 thou in the most densely populated place, Macau, China. We have chosen to spend our two weeks in the lower southern corner, where almost 90% of the state's residents live. Two reasons: 1) our children's unfavorable reaction when we say things like "we are going to see lots of beautiful scenery today" and 2) at this time of year it can be scorching hot in most of the rest of the state.

Eli brought his body board along, so the first item on the agenda was searching for waves. The lovely, artsy port town of Fremantle (Freo) is our home base here, but big waves are not one of it's attractions.  So armed with a surf report promising good things, we trained it to Cottsloe Beach in south Perth. Much disappointment as nothing was splashing over ankle depth. However the day was young so next stop Fremantle Prison, and whoo-wee, this was a horrifying place; accommodating over 300,000 convicts and later prisoners enduring, um, harsh conditions. Closed in 1991, reportedly it took a year to get the smell out of the 900 or so men housed there at the time. I can imagine. Sanitation is cited as one of the main reasons for closure, as a metal bucket in a cell the size of a restaurant cold room was all that the two occupants had available for hygiene. On our tour was the gallows, remnants of the flogging rack, and the interior of the solitary confinement cells. Tough stuff......fascinating in its gruesomeness.

Monday found us and 38 Japanese tourists traveling inland and north about 300 miles to see a wildlife park (more kangaroo petting and Kodak moments with koalas) spectacular wildflowers ("specky" in Australian), a wind farm (not the highlight), the pinnacles desert with very cool limestone formations, and then the part the kids waited all day for, sandboarding! We arrived at massive snow white sand dunes in the town of Lancelin, climbed up and onto the wheel-less large skateboards and off we went. Whee! My first couple of runs went well but then I put my feet down and might has well have been dipped in sand fondue.

The 2.2 million people living in this state can make the following claims: It has the largest herd of wild camels in the world (who knew?), the longest straight line of railway, and it is the second largest subnational entity in the world (edged out by a very large chunk of land in Russia). I was curious to find out if WA'ers use a different dialect...and so far my small sample size says no.  As in Brisbane and Sydney, however, this third largest city in the nation has some ethnic diversity. Fremantle has a large Italian community as well as a significant number of Indians and Pacific islanders. Interestingly, Perth is the most isolated capitol in the world.... it is closer to Jakarta than Sydney.

Yesterday we took a  30 min ferry from Freo to Rotto. "Rotto" is local speak for Rottnest Island, the only place in the world where these cute little marsupials called Quokkas live. Amid gorgeous turquoise blue bays and inlets and rolling hill we bicycled away the  afternoon.  Eli has some sore ribs and wrists from a nasty fall, but otherwise it was a fantabulous day out and about with supreme weather to boot. We were lucky to get to visit before next week, when it will be school holidays for kids here, and the population density on the island would surely exceed .88 person.

Off to Albany shortly......back atcha later!

The Spring of my September

Australian money is gorgeous. The lovely hues are a beauty to behold...many countries have different colored bills, but these particular bank notes resemble the pastel colors of baby clothes. Adding to the perfection is the good quality of the notes- there is nary a tear or rip, because they're made of plastic! Another advantage of this currency is each one is a different length; the smallest denomination is the smallest note. Gee whiz it's logical.

Speaking of money, I have heard some rather astonishing statistics about the Australian economy. The unemployment rate now is down to around 5%, which is considered full employment (any less and inflation is feared). While the U.S. and many countries in Europe are struggling with twice that, or more in some areas, why has Australia been left out of the global financial crisis?? The short simple answer seems to be China's growing need for exported minerals. And we've got them in spades: It's the largest producers of opals, and down under the down under there is heaps of coal, aluminum, iron ore, nickel, gold, uranium, zinc, and diamonds.

In Victoria,the spring carnival on the horizon.  This is not any ol' pony trot, it is "The Celebration That Stops a Nation" according to the website. THEE preeminent horse race with the world's largest handicap, a cool 6 mil. It happens in early November and fans are closely tuned in everywhere, not just in Melbourne. I guess it's kinda like the Superbowl, except every man, woman and child on the continent is a fan. The richest Australian companies offer no competition to the richest folks in the gulf, so the major sponsor since 2005 has been Emirates International Airlines. Hmm.  Dressing up fancy is de rigueur, including head wear. In not many places I hang out could a woman wear one of these things besides for Halloween.  At the races the top milliners walk away with 20 grand in prize money. If you'd like to part with several hundred dollars this lovely topper could be yours.

Back on the non-decorative hat wearing home front, here's some snaps of the kid's woodworking projects.  She made the pencil box (the designs are miniature footprints) and his adjustable, foldable deck chair unfortunately will not be making the trip back home with us.

Here's a few more of the most Australian Australianisms I've come across recently. Other terms like 'ring' for call on the telephone and 'book' for reserve are a little mundane, but these are nifty:

rugged up: dressed warmly
chuffed: happy
dear: expensive
ute: truck or 4 wheel drive vehicle

gettin' good with a footy bag

stuffed up: messed up
dunny: port-a-potty
daggy: sloppy, usually referring to dress
dodgy: sketchy or suspicious
stubbie: short beer bottle
arvo: afternoon
bummies: short shorts
whoop-whoop: seems to be similar to hinterland, which is just inland, further inland is the bush, and then keep going and you're in the outback.

kissing a mosaic 'roo

At the Australia Zoo wildlife hospital, a koala is prepped for surgery after
being hit by a car

new school bag we made last night

Jabiru at the zoo

Birdlog: I've been trying to take note of all the varieties 'round here, and my list is at almost 30. I'm sure there are hundreds more however my aging eyes are slow and the birds are fast, but it's been fun to learn. Thanks to Scott and Cindy we have use of a field guide and are slowly getting familiar with all the incredibly colorful species here. These are just  a few of my recent finds (not this Jabiru, they live in northern Oz)

brush turkey...they are everywhere

spotted turtle dove

School holidays are upon us in a week, and we're venturing to the western third of the continent, creatively named Western Australia. We'll be visiting caves and hopefully catch some waves,  and there are penguins to be ogled at as well as wildflowers and some of the tallest trees in the world (outside our beloved redwoods). Tom returns from Bangkok on Wednesday, and then we're off to Perth on Saturday!

Pieces and Bits

One never knows when a snake will slither up your driveway. We've seen a few before, but this one was a bit thrilling. After researching (with the laptop on top of the car) we were just a tiny bit disappointed to find out it was mere harmless spotted python and not a super venomous Death Adder. He (or she?)was as big around as a hot dog (bun included) and as long as our dining room table.

Wintering on the Sunshine Coast has been a most pleasant experience. We feel particularly gleeful to have missed one of the foggiest summers on record back  home. Arcatans have learned, however, to wait for those few days early or mid September when, for hours on end you haven't reached for a sweatshirt.  We are coming into spring here, which means the days are warming up. We had dropped into single digits (Celsius) but these days it is hovering in the mid-twenties( that's the low seventies for you Fahrenheit-ies)

Recently Mel and I had a little road trip down to Brizzy so she could take a dance exam. I didn't know there were such things until we moved here and she enrolled in a studio which follows the Royal Academy of Dance syllabus.  She completed her exam wearing the prescribed leotard etc including a particular hair ribbon (really??)  Now she waits 8 weeks for the results.  Meantime,  rehearsals begin for the studio's annual concert in late November. On the way home from Brisbane we detoured slightly to Wild Horse Mountain Lookout, and snapped this shot of the nearby glass house mountains, just before sunset.

Or Tony?

Will it be Julia?

Last Saturday's election resulted in no result. Neither party obtained the necessary 76 seats in the house needed in order to win government (meaning that  party's leader is P.M.) The Aussies have themselves a hung parliament, first time in 70 years.  And about that mandatory voting......the local paper reported that over 20% of eligible voters did not turn up. Apparently, when the $50.00 fine notice shows up in your letter box, a polite written excuse will get you out of paying.  I was recruited by my friend Julie (the local green party campaign manager) to hand out fliers on voting day, which was fun in a political way if that is possible.  No rules here about no campaigning 100 feet from a polling place.....I literally handed them to folks as they joined the queue.  I accompanied Julie into the cardboard voting booth and was aghast at the massive ballot, which about as long(horizontally) as that snake in our driveway.  It may be weeks before we know if it will be Julia or Tony, as both parties court the independents.

Tom-ism:  "Let's have a nice salad" and "I'll be there in a minute, I just need to take my (scrabble) move"  Recent accomplishment: getting past halfway in the 967 page tome he's reading, and bicycling up the beach (meaning tires in the sand) to Sunshine Beach, and back, about a 20 mile trip.  Favorite Aussie food (FAF): poached egg on toast with vegemite.

Stephanie-ism "Mute!" and "I'm going to yoga"  recent accomplishment: Not getting lost driving home from Mooloolaba (the most confusing signage ever) and taking a solo all day hike in the hinterland. FAF: essential grains fruit bread

Eli-ism: "You're not funny"  and "What's for dinner?"  Recent accomplishment: 93% on his last maths assignment, and without any nagging keeping his room strikingly clean most of the time.  FAF: creme filled lamingtons.

Melissa-ism: "How ya goin', lovey?" and "There's a spider in my room!"   Recent accomplishment: Spending most of the day Sunday finishing her physics project, and getting a facebook page (resulting in longer time to finish physics project)  FAF: lamb and beef kabob from the Lebanese deli.

Eli is now 15,and has thoroughly enjoyed his 48 hours of fame. When his birthday was done and dusted here, it had just started in California. How good is that.....