Run, river, run

I'm lying on my old mattress, the one I used to sleep on before Best Beloved moved into my life, and it now lives at Colonel and Lady Duck's prickle farm. I'm down here to teach a bookarts weekend, which I've just done. It was fun, but really hot and sweaty. The mattress is great, and I have the whole bed to myself. Luxury!

There hasn't been much time to do anything else except teach and lie on the mattress, since I've also been writing the paper that I've been trying to write for weeks, that is due by COB tomorrow. Tomorrow I drive back to Canberra to finish decluttering the house in time for the Cleaners to clean, and then on Tuesday we're having our Official Real Estate Photos taken.

Gosh, I'm feeling so ruddy GROWN UP.

I think I've finished the paper. It's for the Impact 7 conference in September. They want the paper now, to be submitted and peer-reviewed, so I'm not too worried. I figure if there's something screwy about it, the peers will pick it up & tell me to make changes. And I will.

Before I left home on Friday, I finally finished all the painting of bits of the house that needed refreshing... nearly all of it, really.

Did I tell you that the goaty smell in Bumblebee's room wasn't actually teenage goat smell, but a school bag or two full of rotting uneaten lunches? EWWWWWWWWWW. My punishment is to not care that his new room has floral curtains when we move in. He can have black curtains and a Sith bedspread when he has proved to me that he can [a] make and eat his own lunches and [b] use a bin if he has leftovers. He's also been given the Monkey Painting to live with for a while.

The Monkey Painting is a special member of the family. Best Beloved, when he was about eight, admired the stuffed monkey of a family friend. So the nice old lady, instead of giving him the monkey, painted. a. picture. of. it. and gave it to him for his next birthday. WTF? It became one of his treasured possessions. So now we have a very odd painting of a stuffed monkey that stares at you inanely from the canvas. Up to now I have hung it in the loo, where it grins down upon you as you wee, and to avoid the stare you have to look at the Times Table poster underneath it. It's done wonders for our maths skillz.

But. Until he's learned his lesson, The Monkey Painting will live in Bumblebee's new bedroom, staring at him until he empties his schoolbag each afternoon. I think it's going to work. I hope so, and then I'll have to find another place to hang it, somewhere out of the way but suitably visible so that BB doesn't think I hate the painting. I don't, but it's slightly creepy in a 1970s clown-on-black-velvet kind of way.

Anyhoo, the title of this post celebrates the fact that the Bega River is running, the first time I've seen it with water in it for YEARS. It was so hot today that a couple of my class participants ducked off at lunchtime and had a swim in the river. I didn't join them because if I had, I probably wouldn't have returned to the class. We were in the Bega CWA Hall, a delightful venue complete with a caretaker living in the back flat, who had been living there for TWENTY YEARS. wow.

OK, bedtime for bo-bos. Tired. Verry, verrrry tired.

goings and comings

Today Bumblebee and I had a mental health day. He stayed home from school to nurse his hacking cough, and I spent the day de-cluttering. It was ace.

I went through the house and found all the books that were lying around waiting to be read, and made an on-the-spot decision about whether I would EVER get around to reading them. Then I went through my shelves (not BB's, I wouldn't dare) and culled all the books that had accumulated that I didn't want to read again.

There's been a big pile of old clothes lying in the door of my study for AGES. That was sorted into various piles: hand-me-downs for littler boys, a bag for Vinnies, a bag for Aussiejunk.

And then we took them away and gave them to various organisations. And felt great.

When we dropped into Vinnies at Dickson we discovered an excellent winter sale. We found Bumblebee a very cool demin jacket and I got two nice cardies. We felt ok about buying them, because we had space.

Then when we went to Woollies to buy toothpaste (something the local organic vegie store doesn't provide), they gave us a big slab of chocolate cake each as part of some Quaint-arse frequent flyers promotion. Bumblebee was stoked, and claimed it was our reward for finally doing the clean-up.

I was so inspired, I went home and wrote some important emails I've been forgetting about. I applied for a residency in New Zealand, I followed through on a tip about the chance to buy some new type. Both of which are chances, but you've got to be in to win, haven't you?


Inspired by those, I made some useful phone calls. I'm a phone-shy person; I hate making calls and I hate talking on the phone for ages, it makes my ears sweaty. I used to have eczema behind my ears, and I think a lot of my aversion stems back to that time. But today! I had one of my EUREKA! dreams the other day, about how to find a press mechanic. So I acted upon my dream and found a fellow who is going to visit my studio early next week. HUZZAR!

So there is a chance that my press will be operational by the time I have my studio warming -- which, by the way, has changed dates. I remember promising the 4th of July. But that date went squidgy when I discovered that it clashed badly with a paying function in the complex's gallery -- a function that ISN'T very compatible with a joyful launching of a space.

So the new date is 1 August:



I'm sure I won't have the press running, even if it is operational, but it would be nice to have it a bit cleaner than it is now (it's already cleaner than it was when it moved in, thanks to Bernice's dexterity with sandpaper and oil). I won't be able to do much at all other than stand around waving a glass and talking to people as they wander in and out, but what fun! This date also coincides with an exhibition in the ANCA studio by John Loane of Veridian Press (he prints all of Mike Parr's prints, as well as many other Aust art biggies), so it's a double-barrelled fun time.

And according to Progressive Dinner Party, it is time to plant garlic! I just bought some local garlic the other day, feeling like I wanted to grow some, and now I find that my urge is BASIC and ANCIENT and INSTINCTIVE. I love it when I get things right. Now I'm going to act like a real woman and make some vege nachos with real (pressure-cooked) kidney beans. W00T!

still running, this time uphill

GAH

I've had one of those days that start badly and get better as it goes and then goes pear-shaped again later on.

While my printer is churning out charming little promo slips that I whisked up tonight in time for the Two Fires Festival tomorrow (speaking at 11:30am, have to drive there first) and then almost lost when my software crashed, let me tell you about just one of my tits-up moments:

Another thing I do when Best Beloved goes away is live like a gypsy. Bumblebee and I eat fast, makeshift meals, most often straight out of the saucepan. Pots and pans pile up, the floor goes unswept, and the bed unmade. The day he arrives home, I do a HUGE wash-up and a lick & spit of the house.

This morning I filled the sink with hot, bubbly water, moved around a bit to gather the dirty objects (think opening scenes from Withnail & I, with a bit less mould) and turned back to find all the washing-up water over the floor. OH NOES! The sink has lost its seal! And no time to fix it or get a plumber!

The one good thing was that cleaning up the water meant a clean kitchen floor.

Later in the day I had the bright idea of doing the washing-up in the laundry sink, so BB did end up coming home to a clean kitchen, but also to a very stressed wife, who immediately ducked out the door and up to the studio to gather things for tomorrow.

Don't get me started on heart attacks when looking out the School of Music cafe to see a parking inspector wandering dangerously close to the carpark I'd plopped into without a permit (he didn't get me, thank you Ceiling Cat).

Or the fact that we have discovered that Bumblebee now fits my shoes, and has gone off to school in my nice black Baxter boots, bringing them back all boy-scuffed. Unfortunately most of my shoe wardrobe consists of men's shoes, so I'll have to hide my favorites until he grows out of them (in about two months).

OK, printing done, time for bed.

snort du jour

Best Beloved is away for work until Friday night.

I worked until 1am last night, because I could.

Best Beloved makes me breakfast in bed every weekday, but the catch is that he brings it to me at 6:30am, something I'm normally cranky about, but the truth is that if he's not around, I forget to eat breakfast, so I must learn to stop grumbling at 6:30am.

Padge woke me up at 7:30am, walking around me in circles and banging me on my forehead with his forehead at every pass, and then I started working again, interspersed with school lunches etc. And I forgot about breakfast. So here I am in my Bookstud office, yawning with a grumbly tummy. I've just set up my work for the Art-i-Techs show:



and had a look around, and it is a really terrific show. I'll try to take some photies later in the day when the labels are up.

What was I doing with this post? Oh! Thank goodness I wrote the title first. The snort de jour isn't staying up late nor forgetting to eat nor reminding you that I'm exhibiting; it is this. Enjoy.

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.

Remember to breathe

This morning the banksia tree decided to have a dance with the camelia bush behind my home office's roman blind. It was so lovely I sat and watched it for ages and then decided to capture it for future dreaminess.

It reminded me a bit of Laura's kitchen blind, which would probably evoke similar dreaminesses.

BINGO!

Tonight I went to a ripper little fundraiser for Craft ACT called the CRAFT ACT BINGO EXTRAVAGANZA!

Prizes galore, a nice crowd, and a caller who had the voice but sadly didn't really do his homework on the bingo calls... just five minutes on Google would have done the trick. Still, we did a bit of yelling back at him and at times he rose to the occasion with flair.

I sat at a table full of winning energy and luck. Two of our members won five prizes between them, and another member and I won something as well (a $20 voucher at the local art supply store). We all agreed that if any of us won another prize, we should all duck for cover as glasses would be thrown at us.

The people I arrived with ducked out to buy some nibblies as the games were starting, so I marked their cards as well as mine, and discovered that a keen typesetter's eye is a distinct advantage. When they came back I found marking one card a bit boring, so I moved to two, and by the end of the night, three cards, none of which were particularly lucky.

All of it flashed me back in time to when my late Nana took a teenage me to a bingo venue in Perth to join in on her regular game. She was a true professional, armed with her flat-tipped bingo marker, and at least four cards laid out in front of her. Her hand would flash back and forth, and she would join in to all the comebacks, because for many of the bingo calls, there is a traditional response, from whistling to cheering to chanting along. I wish I'd paid more attention to them, but I did have a few on hand tonight. I tried to channel Nana Annie tonight, but she seems to only be present when I'm doing a housework binge, not a gambling binge. This is strange, because she was the sort of person, bless her, that if she won at Bingo, would take the money and buy a lotto ticket with it. She must have spent the equivalent of a lottery win in tickets over her lifetime.

She was a classic nana, sending us bits of money in our birthday cards (these cards stopped as soon as she was bedridden; no-one else took up the habit, and my grandfather always relied on her to know the right dates), using Darrel Lea like a supermarket and sending us packages stuffed with lollies, and taking on the role of being shocked whenever we did anything outrageous. We only saw her every few years, because of the vast distance between WA and wherever we were living, but she made the trip as much as she could, and we returned the favour as much as we could. Nanas are always the cement in a family, aren't they?

Ahh, Colonel Duck will be thinking of Nana Annie tomorrow; he always manages to tell us wistfully sometime on Mother's Day that he 'hasn't got a mother anymore' and we mentally play snarky little violins for him, but at the same time tossing around a thought for Nana.

I'm not sure what to expect tomorrow -- there has been a lot of whispering about me between my boys over the last few days. It's usually pretty entertaining, so I'll keep you informed...

Here's the story, morning glory

I'm sleeping so well at night at the moment, not because my mind is clear, but because I have switched pillows from an old stained foam slab to a fluffy new microfibre jobbie. When I finally get to sleep (which is an exercise in self-deception, trying to trick my brain into feeling relaxed enough to let go of multiple problems long enough to recharge) I sink into a space where my neck doesn't hurt and nothing bothers me until morning. Apparently I had a mumbled conversation with BB in my sleep a couple of nights ago, which is something I used to do years ago when my sleeps were solider, so while it worried BB, I see it as a Good Thing.

Anyhoo, I woke up this morning to this blissful sense that my neck was quiet, and started to go back to sleep when I realised that it was Market Morning. And that the markets weren't close to home this week, but over the other side of the city, thanks to the Canberra Show setting up for next weekend. Bugger. I really, really wanted to just turn over and go back into pillow heaven, but the markets really are better early in the morning. So I arose with an acute feeling of martyrdom and left BB to his microfibre pillow, even though he doesn't heart his as much as I heart mine.

Out to the car, and suddenly I was hit by the coolness of the morning; the car was covered with dew, and I needed to turn the de-mister* on, just for a minute or two. As I turned the corner onto Northbourne Avenue, the windscreen cleared, and the sky revealed itself to be a pale, dewy, cool blue, with a horizon-line of hot-air balloons. My first Balloon Day of the year! In my world balloon days occur all through Autumn in Canberra, and auger a good day, if only because they put me in such a good mood that anything seems possible.

The Farmers' Markets have moved to the Canberra Institute of Technology (Reid) carpark for this week and next, and it's a much more open venue than at the showgrounds. At 7.45am it was all still in shade, with a touch -- a hint -- of cool to the air, and all of us early-risers wandered around and sampled and bought and chatted, and looked up at the balloons overhead, and...

... well, it was just so damn CANBERRA.

I lugged my trolley full of nice things home, put The Lighthouse Keepers on the record player, and made a cracking good breakfast of toasted bagels covered in deli yummies with lashings of tea. Then on a whim I hussled Bumblebee into some clothes and took him over to the National Gallery to see Egyptians: Journey to the Afterlife. We just made it into the first mosh of the day without lining up, and when we came out there was a waiting line that seemed to go on forever... and deeply impressed Bumblebee, who thought my getting him there early was just a new variation of Mother Torture. It's nice when kids look at you with a note of respect in their eyes, but it never lasts long enough. I've been wanting to get to that exhibition for months now, especially after hearing Floppy talk about it when we met, but it's taken until the second-last weekend for me to get there (as usual, nothing like a deadline to force me into action). It's fabbo, if you can find spaces between the hordes to see anything. Bumblebee fell in love with the mummified cat, which for me wasn't as good as the one in the Civilization exhibition of years ago (early 1990s?).

So here I am, stuck again in front of the computer, chipping away at the pile of paper that is Mary Gilmore's Collected Verse, Volume 2, but I've had a marvellous morning, which is something I was not expecting when I dragged my sorry bum out of bed. Thank you, hot-air balloons!


I think there's something in that for all of us...



* not sure if this is the right spelling, looks like something you could buy to get out of a bad relationship (in a better universe).

Blog yer pet Friday

Snout out

No, this is not a muppet. This is Lucky, our extremely inquisitive family mongrel. We know he is part Jack Russell and part fox terrier. We think he is also part whippet, as he has very long legs and a whippety chest, and he's the fastest dog I've ever known. Let's just say he's not anywhere near a pedigree dog.

However, he is a wonderful family dog, great with kids large or small, and has a ball obsession. No joke. This dog can play ball until he drops dead of exhaustion, and even then he'd try for more. He also likes sticking his snout where it's not welcome.

He is meant to belong to Bumblebee, but of course he imprinted on me, so I am Ruler of the Universe, which has made me sway away temporarily from my preference of cats. I've never been so unconditionally adored. It's addictive. I feel like I'm betraying my late beloved cat, but what else can I do when my little furry mate just sits and stares lovingly at me all day? Throw the ball, of course.

Still (f**ked-up) Life

I've had a really shitty day. Actually, it would have been a really enjoyable day except that I made a big mistake early on, and it fucked up everything. There's no other way to describe it. I made a mistake that potentially ruined a four-year artist book project, and didn't only because a solution around the problem eventually appeared, but it still means a lot of deviationary work over the next few weeks. I'm not going to go into it here because I think yesterday's letterpress entry was a boring enough excursion into my world of dirty letters.

Instead I want to share one of my weekly pleasures, which is visiting an elderly friend for a few hours to help her with anything she can think up: shopping, writing, changing lightbulbs, you get the picture. Anyway, she has a lovely way of arranging her house and the things in it, and each time I visit she's set up another little still-life somewhere. I've started taking my camera over and creating my own still-life shots of these little 'moments'. This is one of my favorites so far, not the least because there's a spunky little bookpress in the background.

I often find myself envying the amount of space she has to work with, but then I pull myself up and remember that she is alone in a big house; her husband died, and her 3 children have grown up and moved away. I'm sure when she was my age she also lived in complete chaos with books and clothes everywhere, toys to trip over and pets underfoot.
So I just enjoy my trips to her house. It's like an oasis of serenity amidst all the crap I wade through daily. And believe me, today I needed to look at this.