Time is flying, like my leisure, out the window

Yesterday was the two-weeks-until-leaving-mark. And I was suddenly hit with the 'two weeks today, I'll be...' thoughts.

Feels silly to be making a fuss about going to NZ, when lots of people I know go much further and to much stranger places. One of my friends is in China at the moment, and her partner has been getting bits of her emails, like censored letters sent home by the army. Scary.

Thanks to Caffeine Faerie, I know now that there is an arse-kicking Farmers Market in Dunedin. Won't it be nice to just go to a market to cruise, have a cuppa and sample some wares for brekkie instead of rushing in, doing the whole week's shopping and rushing home to get the family's breakfast? Yairs.

I'm surrounded by piles of paper, each pile a little bit closer to fine, each promising that once I have paid the proper attention to them, I can go travelling with a clear conscience. Some of the piles are going up to my studio this afternoon, to be put into other piles and somehow neatly put away.

I am *so* unorganised. I get everything that I have to do done, but I never get time to look back over my shoulder until the piles of abandoned projects and files threaten to topple forward onto me.

And my vague idea about having a quiet time when I get back from NZ until school starts next year has completely flown out the window, on huge glittery bat wings like the mythical creature it was. Suddenly I am spoken for, in many ways:

-- two workshops
-- speaking at the NGA Printmaking Symposium
-- making a BIG, nay, HUGE wall piece for said printmaking Symposium, thanks to Megalo sending me an invitation I can't refuse.
-- working with the Majura Women's Group as artist in residence
-- having three people come to do residencies with me in my studio. One of them is Pete McLean, who is my other broadside residency recipient. The other two are travelling from Qld, separately, to use my equipment and pick my brains.
-- I will be hopefully finishing a chapbook with John Pratt that we started a few years ago.

Is that going to be enough to go on with? I think so. I hope so.

In the meantime, the cats are happily enjoying the fact that we are all home because the car is making horrible steering column noises and is stuck at the mechanic's shop for the weekend. Bloody car. I hope it doesn't eat up our holiday money. Because I want to go somewhere where I can be snowed in and just read and eat and flop. Waneka sounds like just the place. The boys can go here and I can sleep.

Gold

Goodness, I keep forgetting to blog... that's because I came back from Mackay and stopped thinking and doing, and started exploring Facebook while I lolled (in the more traditional sense) and got sucked into all kinds of silly but fun games like this:



This is a snapshot of my Farmville farm, with a little folly of boulder and daffodils on the left, plus animals and plots of rice and raspberries and sundry other things. Contrary to real-life appearances, I love gardening, but I don't have the time of energy to do it, and have always set it aside in my mind as something I will do later when I have more free time and fewer fine motor skills. So Farmville is appealing to my green yearnings and Social City is... dunno, but for now it's fun. And, as usual, I'm doing things way after everyone else has lost interest in them, which is a problem when it comes to having 'neighbours' or fellow participants...

Speaking of lovely greenery, I've been doing a fair bit of driving over the last week or so. I went to Cooma to deposit Bumblebee with Colonel and Lady Duck, and all along the drive I saw the most magnificent golden leaves on the poplar trees, glowing in the sunshine along the roadsides.



That shot (taken precariously whilst driving near Michelago) doesn't do the glory justice. I do so love Autumn.

I also, in the last week, got my first and hopefully only GOLD TOOTH. Up the back, so I don't glint alarmingly when I smile, but I flash when I yawn. Apparently as a chronic tooth-grinder, gold is safer and will last longer under the pressure. The gold crown is covering a cracked tooth, probably from said grinding, so I really should do something to relax my jaw when I'm sleeping/working, the two main trouble times. Although how to relax further when you're already asleep is beyond me, really.

I've run out of time tonight (probably because I keep checking my Scrabble/farm/city), but tomorrow I will come back and talk about Mahri Autumn, which is another thing altogether.

Stuff

Padge made me do it.

We're all a bit sad because we thort Bernice was coming to tea last night.

But she dashed in and told us that her car was dying, and she needed to drive home straight away (90 minutes drive) so that she could at least get home before it did die, got us to push start the car and then buzzed off into the evening.

I wouldn't mind, only it's the second time she's done it to us. The first time was admittedly my fault ultimately, for giving her a dying car -- but I can't believe it's happened again!

You owe us some guestpitality, Bernice. We're holding you to it.

In other news, Dr Sista Outlaw is coming to stay this weekend with her baby and her just-out-of infancy squeeze! Yay!

In other other news, I'm sorry, those who have subscribed to me in Twitter. I just can't do it. I can't even update my Facebook 'what are you doing' thingy, so what makes me think I can keep up the twitters? I guess I'll leave it up -- I can see it would be fun for liveblogging something like the Two Fires Festival -- but this blog is about as public as I can make my activities, there's just TOO MUCH to do to reach for the phone/keyboard. Sorry!

Best Beloved has been off tonight learning how to sharpen knives. He's having a learning spurt. Last night he finished his Sausage-making course, and came home with a vast mountain (I'm not exaggerating) of pork & prune sausages (made with internal plum sauce!). They look amazing, and they should have sat long enough for us to try them on the weekend. In a gesture of amazing synchronicity, ALDIs had a special sale of sausage machines TODAY. Wow.

I must be getting better...

I bought a bikini today.

I haven't worn one for years.

I bought boy-leg bottoms, a slightly padded bra top, both in black with coral and pink bits, and a hot pink rash shirt. I love modern mix-and-match swimwear.

I haven't the figure for it, but I've decided not to care, since I usually swim where no-one sees me, and it's very comfortable.

I tried a little bit of other, more Christmassy shopping, using my weird shopping trolley that looks like it's been cobbled together from a supermarket trolley and pram wheels. I dressed smartly to offset the dagginess of it, but still had pensioners coming up to me as I was taking my half-hourly panting breaks to ask me where I got it from.

Golly, I'm unfit. I don't think I'll be doing too much dancing at the Woodford Folk Festival! I was supposed to teach workshops at the festival, but I cancelled once I knew my operation date, worried that I wouldn't be up to it. I'm very glad I did now, I don't think I would have managed.

We're leaving home on Sunday, heading north to Brisbane for a while, and then working our way south via family and friends after the festival. I'm more confident about driving now, which is great because I'm a very bad passenger and BB is not a particularly confident nor relaxed driver. And he's going to be doing all the toting and lifting, so I can pull my weight with the driving. I can't believe how fast the last four or so weeks have gone! I see my surgeon tomorrow, I hope he likes what he sees...

I also bought a very nice orange top. I didn't like orange much a few years ago; I've done a complete turn-around about it, as you've probably noticed. Now I love the energy it gives me.

Energy not present now. Time for bed.

Normality is resumed, whatever that is

The view out of my window is spectacularly wet, which is very cheering. I didn't think we'd be getting cool weather on the first day of summer, so HOORAY!

I didn't blog my drawmo on thursday or friday because they were Shitty Days.

I usually ride my bike to & from the bookbinding class I attend on Thursdays, but I drove the car because it was my turn to provide supper (a couple of cheeses, biscuits, some rockmelon slices and a huge slab of chocolate beetroot cake).

I got as far as a kilometre from home when the poxy car broke down. Luckily the road had just split into two lanes, so people could get around me, but the waves of hate and inconvenience flowing towards me were tangible, even with my hazard lights flashing. I rang Best Beloved and he and Bumblebee got a lift from Owen so that they could help me move the car off the road. By some sort of modern miracle (I think it's because I told the phone operator that I was blocking traffic), the NERMA (sic) man came within ten minutes and had delivered the bad news that we needed a tow-truck. I was torn between staying with the car and helping myself to the goodies and sending the boys home, or leaving them with the car and going to my class to feed the hungry masses. Since the class wasn't contactable by phone, we decided on the latter.

Poor boys! The tow-truck took one and a half hours to arrive, by which time I'd got to class by taxi and fed everyone. I was stressed and cranky and didn't have a good time at the class. I got a lift home with a class member, and when it was time to jump out of her very old car (one of those 'second' family cars that usually get driven by wives), I pulled at the door handle and broke it! She'd forgotten that the child-lock was on. I felt awful! I got inside the house and of course Bumblebee had only just gone to bed because they'd had to go with the tow-truck and lock the car up at the mechanic's yard. Bumblebee thought it was a GREAT night, full of taxis and trucks, but we were less impressed.

Next day I went to see the AP as usual for a Friday, and had to do it via Canberra's great public transport system (read that with lashings of irony). She was in a really awful mood, and the morning was horrible.

To cheer ourselves up (Bumblebee is with his dad this weekend), we went to Elizabeth: The Golden Age, which, I'm sorry to say, disappointed me dreadfully. Oh, Cate was fabulous, and the costumes were fabulous, but the whole thing was like one long fashion parade with a few plot-lines thrown in for good value. It was such an amazing, lush, conspiratorial era, and the writers really dumbed it down and left out all the really good stuff. It was a bit like hearing in the news that Kevin Rudd has decided to pick his cabinet without kow-towing to the factions and not knowing how the hell he did that without being garotted. I hope they do better with the third Elizabeth movie, but seeing how this was the really riveting part of her life, I doubt it.

The car is all better, BTW. For now. Sigh.

It's December 1 (surprise!). World AIDS day, the first day I'm able to tolerate any Christmas twaddle, and my brother's birthday, which is never a sad occasion, more of an 'OMG he would have been [fill in the age]' moment on the phone with my parents (38, this year!) and then get on with the day.

Recently I looked up an old photo album because I suspect that one of my dear friends used to go to school with the bro, and found this hilarious photo. It cheers me up immensely.



Happy birthday, Tiger.

Take me home, country road

You'd think that researching the kind of car you wanted, test-driving a few bombs in that model, finding a pristine version at a reputable dealer and paying the top price in the range you'd researched would pretty much allow you to drive out of the car yard and live happily ever after, wouldn't you?

Not in my world, Nelly. We drove to Tumut yesterday to visit my beloved aunties, and thoroughly enjoyed the smooth cruisey world of Holden Commodore. Then, ten minutes into the way back, the power cut out. Nothing. No steering, no brakes except the handbrake. All I could do was vaguely point towards the side of the road and stop. Bugger.

It was a quiet country road with no mobile reception, ten minutes drive from the aunties, but half an hour's walk. Best Beloved was due to fly to WA before dawn the next day, and I was teaching a class the next day, and had hoped to get back in time to ensure that the Book Stud was habitable (lots of workmen skulking though the week spreading toxic MDF dust). Bugger.

And we'd just spent the last hour laughing with Auntie S about her weird and occasionally aggressive neighbours. We hadn't heard anything about nice ones, probably because they're not as amusing lunch conversation.

So when we flagged down a surly-looking old dude in a four-wheel drive, we were a bit nervous, and I made BB get in the car with him for a lift back to the aunties while I sat in the dead car with Bumblebee and read the papers we'd luckily brought with us. BB is tall, and wide, and looks quite tough. He's not, he's an absolute wimp in the snaggiest sense, but they don't need to know that.

Luckily he was one of the good neighbours, and 90 minutes later we were driving my auntie's spare car (she has a ute and a long-distance car), following our shiny grey Holden which was towed by the local NRMA teenager mechanic. I remembered to pluck my ANU parking permit off the windscreen before we wended our way back along the Hume, stopping only for lapfuls of hot chips, which is the sort of comfort food you want to eat when you've been pissed off by the side of the road for over an hour in winds straight off the snowy mountains.

One of the advantages in researching the kind of car you wanted, test-driving a few bombs in that model, finding a pristine version at a reputable dealer and paying the top price in the range you'd researched, is that the car comes with a 3-month warranty, and so we don't have to pay a cent for the inconvenience, and luckily my auntie is coming to Canberra on Thursday anyway, so we can do a car-swap then.

But Dolly has lost our trust. She still has our love, but we're going to be warier with her until she proves to us that she's not going to leave us stranded again. We miss Suby-Ruby, because at least when she broke down we could SEE what was wrong with her (especially the time her radiator exploded and shot green shite all over the windscreen!), and with Modern Miss Dolly it's all hidden in facings and computers. Sigh.

In other news, my class today went well, although it's very hard to teach a group the basics of letterpress in one day. People used to spend years learning this stuff! After three hours of my intensive ramblings, I looked up and saw that if I said even one more word they would implode. So I sent them off to work out what text they wanted to play with next week. I was in such a good mood that as they left I actually waved my arms and said

'Fly, my pretties! Roam free!'

The returning students smiled and walked off. The new ones looked a tad worried. Bumblebee, who is coming in to school with me this week because the Albatross has the flu (it's his holiday access week), snickered. Ah well, who ever said that teachers had to be dignified? Besides, it's hard to look dignified when your son is sitting in the corner of the room dressed up as Harry Potter . . .

Well, hello Dolly

I'm feeling very grown up at the moment. And snotty still, but that's old news. I'm feeling grown up because I've gone from driving this:



to driving this:



Actually, it's not so much growing up, it's blanding down. Until we can get byrd to do something tasteful to it in muted metallics (think of a subtle Japanese woodcut print). Until then, it just murmurs Welcome to the Burbs, Ms Duck as it swooshes around corners.

I'm ashamed of how much I enjoy driving this car. It's an 8-year old Holden Commodore Acclaim (VTII, if you care), and it has pretty much every mod-con -- except that it has manual windows, which makes me very happy. Electric windows give me the willies. How hard is it to wind a window down, bejeezus? And it's an automatic. I lost the quest to find a manual car. Manual stationwagons under ten years old just don't exist anymore.

We do a lot of long-distance driving, which is why we've gone for the big car. It will be the first car we've owned that tall Best Beloved can sit straight up in, whilst stretching his lovely long legs comfortably. And the fact that it's a petrol guzzler has strengthened our resolve to ride our bikes as much as possible, even when it gets crazy cold.

In my family we name our vehicles. It's a bonding kinda thing. My first car was Hilda the VW Type 3, then came Poppy the red Laser, then SubyRuby the wonder car and now... Dolly.

We had a debate about the name on the way to picking up the car. Bumblebee wanted to name it after his latest girlyfriend, which I vetoed (after living with at least three animals called Monica at the same time when he had a thing for Monica Trapaga); I suggested Gracie (Grey-cie? geddit?) but Best Beloved said that he quite liked Gracie as a name and didn't want to waste it on a car. 'What', I quipped naughtily, 'saving it for your first-born? Let me know when you find the right woman for that one'. BB replied 'If you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.' Do you know which 'philosopher' said that? Dolly Parton. And people think she's just a big pair of tits!, which is a reading from the gospel of David Brent, of course.

We all cracked up, and whilst laughing, agreed that Dolly was an excellent name for a car. A few more quotes, a bit of singing to educate Bumblebee on the wonders of Dolly, and a car was born.

Meanwhile, Subyruby has gone to live with a friend who hopes to do her up (and strip her back to bare metal! cool! It'll be like a bionicle!). She can presently be spotted lurking near the Sydney Writers' Festival. If you see her, give her a wave for me. I had a lump in my throat as she drove off, I must confess.