So tired

My cats are gorgeous, granted, and they are great studio companions,



but sometimes I could brain them with a bookbinding hammer.

Mr Pooter (named for the main character of Diary of a Nobody by George & Weedon Grossmith) is living up to the POO part of his name: he has a bad habit of not wanting to poo in his litterbox at night if Mr Padge (named after a minor character in the same novel) has been there first. So he will walk around the house yowling, and if we're too dead asleep to do anything about it, he will either poo in the bath or keep yowling until we do something about it, like cleaning out the box in a zombie-like fashion (a zombie with Tourette's Syndrome) or we kick him outside and he can bloody well take his chances in the dark with Alpha cats and cars.

Last night was one of those nights.

Add that to Padge stomping all over the bed constantly because he'd decided that the snap cold weather means that he needs more food to cope with it, even though he's so fat that he can't fit on our overly-generous window ledges



and you end up with one tired Duckie.

Add to that the fact that it's been a week of homework emergencies (why do teacher make all their assignments due the same week?!!) and flat batteries in cars (OH! IS SHE PREGNANT? lisped the charmingly Hispanic NRMA battery man when he saw Padge) and that teaching and marking has finished, and I guess you can surmise that I've crashed at the end of a big year.

My evergreen and never-ending TO DO list (it's now a book) has been set aside while I have just slumped in a corner and pretended to move piles around while I play Facebook games. It helps that Best Beloved is off in North America running through as many museums as he can fit between meetings, it means that I only have to operate on a teenage level -- and the kitchen reflects that.

In fact, I'm only really writing this post to procrastinate from the mammoth task of cleaning and preparing for tonight's Thanksgiving Dinner, being held for my lovely homesick yankie neighbour Julia. There's a lot of people coming, but there's twice that many dustbunnies dancing across the carpet in front of my bleary eyes, and a big sack of potatoes waiting to be peeled in the kitchen (mashed potato is apparently very important for a successful TG).

And I'm so CRANKY after watching the end of Spicks and Specks last night. I absolutely adore Adam Hills, before last night he could do no wrong, but did he really think he could wind up an iconic Australian music show with a half-arsed band fronted by a talentless loser like the Uncanny X-men and engender any form of nostalgia from the audience? I hated Brian Mannix in the 80s, I hated his every appearance on the show (and I'm sure I'm not alone in that), and to give the UXM a plum tv opportunity like that smacks of something bad smelling: maybe their promoter offered the ABC a lot of money, or maybe Mannix knows something about Hills that he shouldn't... or maybe they just got it horribly, horribly wrong, and it truly is time for them to stop. Whatever it is, I went to bed very grumpy last night, and that five minutes of ending will be the only bit of S&S I will never watch again.

Sorry, peoples. I just needed to vent. I guess it's dustbunny attack time. Tally ho!

Sirens, blasts, chemical tang: Canberra's having a party

We are stuck at home this morning thanks to a huge chemical fire in the industrial zone near our suburb. We are within the ten kilometre zone and have been repeatedly told to stay indoors, keep all windows closed, and to turn off any air-conditioners and heaters.

It's very exciting.

I was woken this morning about 3:20 by an emergency text message that said

The ACT Fire Brigade responding to chemical insadent in Mitchell. Resadents of Franklin, Crace, Harrison, Watson, Downer, Kaleen, Lyneham, Hackett, stay indoors

All the spelling mistakes are theirs, and apparently lots of people thought it was a spam or scam because 'spelling mistakes are an indicator', but I know that no one but emergency services would have a number like 444 444 444, and everyone knows fireys can't spell (but they are fabulous) so I took it seriously.

About 4:15am we got an automatic recorded message on our phone from the SES, saying something similar.

At 5am there was a huge blast that I heard through our double brick walls, and the sirens started up again (everything before that was pretty faint).

Between all of that, Best Beloved snored like an engine, so I think I got a snatch of sleep between 5 and 6, when he awoke and turned on the ABC for updates.

Like I said, it's very exciting. Here's my favorite photo of the smoke plume, taken by my friend Fiona from her penthouse in Civic:



The red dot is roughly where we are.

Oh, the ABC just announced we're now clear to leave our house. All the dogs in the neighbourhood just started up, so obviously we're all listening.

Bumblebee is ecstatic because all the local schools are closed, which means I can't go to my residency school either. Woo hoo, studio day! Bonus. And now that we've got the all clear, I can get to my haircut appointment this afternoon too. I've decided to banish the Snape look for a while (my hair always reverts to it eventually).

I hope the toxic plume doesn't land anywhere awful. It's headed north and eastish, which means coastward. Watch your water supplies, peoples. The local radio, the tv, facebook and twitter are all a-twitter. I can't get over the masses of people who walked over to the fire to have a look despite all warnings.

I might have a nana nap soon, all this excitement is a bit draining. I spent my waking hours playing games on my iPhone and thinking about how helpless we'd be if this turned out to be something really serious. The first thing I said to BB when he woke (resisting the urge to say something snarky about snoring) was 'let's get some emergency water supplies stored up'. I think he just grunted, but I'm determined to do something about it when the traffic calms down.

Excitement!

The rest of Easter

Firstly, may I just say how DISGUSTED I am about the BBC's decision to press the ABC to axe The Chaser's coverage of the impending royal wedding. Since Channel 7 is still allowed to air its wedding drivel and Dame Edna isn't being stopped, obviously the Palace is targetting this edict at REAL satire. Bugger, that was the only thing to look forward to about the event. I won't be watching any of it now, out of protest; actually not a hard task. I'm sure there will be much rehashing in print and other media.

I've been sulking today. My skin complaint is turning out to be much harder to treat than my doctor predicted... I've got scabies, you see. Horrible flesh-eating mites that have been burrowing under my skin for weeks without my knowing about it, and over the last week, since a proper diagnosis, have been itching like billy-o and have NOT been succumbing to the supposedly easy treatment prescribed to me.

All of you who have been in contact with me, don't panic. They're not as easy to catch as popular tales tell. We'd have to have been rubbing up & down each other nakedly at length to really transmit the buggers. Luckily Best Beloved and I have been so tired & cranky while moving house that he's going to have to be very unlucky to get them from me (although I am going to treat him tonight just in case).

And how did I get them? Best bet is from the possum that broke into the house just before we moved in, and I was unlucky enough to pick up a fresh mite in the move. It takes a few weeks for everything to reach an itching frenzy.

So EEEEERRRGGGGGGGGG. I was misdiagnosed for a while: told it was Athlete's Foot, then Dermatitis. The creams prescribed for both of those made my skin tough and brown, and then the scabies oil that I had to paint ALL OVER me (twice) just made everything go wild. So now I'm utterly miserable and about to try a new cream, as well as taking strong antihistamines to help with the itching. The soles of my feet are ragged and bloody. My hands are flaky slabs of ouch. It's not too publicly ugly, most of the yuck is under my clothes, but it's really painful.

Sorry, that was probably too much detail.

When I went to the Folk Festival I rugged up and wore gloves and didn't touch anyone. I got a few odd looks for picking up cups and plates with latex gloves on, but it was better than having things spilled on the ouchies.

I'm hoping this next treatment works tonight. If it does work, I'll be a happy duckie tomorrow. Tonight I'm grumpy. I've just reached the end of my capacity to be philosophical about it. All day I've been teary. I cried on the phone to the doctor, who was amazed that the first treatment didn't work. I almost lost it in the chemist when the girl behind the counter looked at what I was buying and said sympathetically, 'oh, they're really hard to get rid of'. And I tried not to cry when I ran into byrd and his little boys, but he could see I was trying really hard to hold it together. It's the itching, you see. Even when I've killed the greeblies, the itching will continue for a few weeks until everything sloughs off. It's driving me crazy and it's very hard to stay positive.

Sigh.

Anyhoo, I hear you say, shut up about the itchy shit and tell us what happened at the rest of the Folk Festival.

Well... I went back only for the evenings of the next two days, because I discovered that when I was moving around the studio fully occupied and happily making, I didn't itch. So I did lots of printing and playing with paper.

When I did get there, I watched these people play:



They were fantastic. They did a cover of 'Sweet Transvestite' from the Rocky Horror Picture Show that was FABULOUS, all slide guitar and sexiness. Noriko was in fishnets and a mini-kimono and moved like one of the women in Robert Palmer's 'Addicted to Love' video. Combined with George's accent, I haven't enjoyed Japanese-flavoured music so much since Shonen Knife.


I also, as you may see over on the right in my Twitter stream (I only twitter about five times a year, most of those during music concerts), went to see Don Walker's late show. He was doing one at a morning session, but I knew he'd do a better night show than day. He was introduced as 'Don Walker and the SF', and he started the gig all Jimmy Webb-ish, singing Khe Sanh accompanied only by his organ keyboard.

That was a clever move, getting the Cold Chisel fans off his back before launching into 45 minutes of NickCavesque grungy delta blues with a kick-ass band that he declared to be named, 'now that it's late and we're all adults', Don Walker and the Suave Fucks. Yee haw! It was a very male, very wry, very Aussie session.

That, and the divine mulled wine that is made by Troubadour Bar, and a group called the Sweet Lowdown that I only caught the last ten minutes of, and the company of Mummy Crit and her lovely little boy Eric who was so utterly obsessed with a 'Big Monster Raaaabbbbiit' that it's now firmly entered the lexicon of my extended family, was all for the Festival for 2011. I rode my bike home (past, bizarrely, a big dead rabbit on the road) and moodily sat in front of the telly with a huge chocolate rabbit to eat and itched.

I hope to report back tomorrow or the next day much more happily. Hopefully Bumblebee will get back after ten days with his father and will have missed all the boring itchiness.

I hope you all had a lovely Easter in your own beautiful ways.

Oh! And a big hello to Roslyn, who is too shy to delurk online, but had the courage to approach me in the bike lock-up of the festival and say lovely, lovely things to me. It was such a buzz, thank you.

Happy New Year

Welcome to my eighth year of blogging. I hope you're all enjoying the new year so far.

Our new year started with being woken by fleas in our bed.

Apparently fleas like a quiet house. I've had two tales told to me by members of each side of my family (old and new) of going away and coming back to a house so full of fleas that [tale 1] their feet were black with fleas as if wearing ankle socks and [tale 2] they had to sleep on a shelf of a wardrobe with the door closed to escape them. Apparently vibrations keep them (fleas, not both sides of my family) from wantonly breeding, but that sounds a bit suspect to me. Probably more to do with the lack of attention.

Anyhoo, we woke up resolved to do something about it. Going to Woollies at opening time on New Year's Day is now my favorite time to shop... so quiet! And all the people who are there are clutching their heads slightly. Almost as good as Best Beloved's mother who apparently went shopping while the whole world was watching the moon landing. Again, I'm a bit skeptical of that tale. Who was serving her?

We pulled the bed apart and cleared all the floors of the carpeted end of the house, kicked the cats outside, and set off some flea bombs. This, of course, meant that we had to go out for a few hours into the killing heat, so we went to the movies.

We saw The King's Speech. It was in Dendy's largest cinema, and there were no spare seats. The audience was vocally appreciative, laughing and cheering and at the end clapping. I think it's not only that the movie is excellent, with wonderful acting and a spiffing script; it does more to generate a sense of pride in being Australian than any Australian film could. I can't speak for any other audience member, but I related to Lionel's egalitarian spirit, his larrikin (sp?) streak, and his cheekiness. Colin Firth was his usual loveliness, especially when he swore. Sigh.

We came home feeling karmically unbalanced, having unleashed noxious gases upon hundreds of little bodies. But a solid vacuum and a bedding change later (plus a good cold shower), we feel much, much better.

Good enough to keep packing & cleaning tomorrow.

Photos are off, luv. I did lose my camera. Yes, I know that my iPhone has one, but it hasn't got a flash or macro. I'm officially in Object Mourning.

'angels'

Did anyone else have offspring who whooped & hollered on the edge of the couch last night during Dr Who and then who woke in the night, freaking out at every slightest noise and asking if they could sleep on the floor of your bedroom?

We settled for him sleeping on the couch in the loungeroom, with Ultimate Cat Protection.

And now my eyelids are finding it very hard to stay open.

going bananas

good morning.

It's Monday. In Canberra, it's a public holiday. Here's testament to the weirdness that is Canberra. The powers that be decided that every second Monday of March should be a holiday, to celebrate our great city (whose official anniversary is 12 March). And so it is.

But... the actual Canberra Day celebrations (street stuff, concerts, fireworks, etc) are held on the weekend after the long weekend (as in next weekend), because whenever Canberrans get a long weekend, they piss off down to the coast and no-one comes to the celebrations. So essentially there are two weekends of fun to celebrate one day for a city that no-one besides those who live here actually likes. Sigh.

I'm sitting in the loungeroom in my jim-jams with my laptop on my -- gasp -- lap, watching the sun come up through the window. It's up now, I assume, because I can actually see the outline of Mr Pooter on the other couch. An hour and a half ago, when I sat here, I couldn't see anything but the keyboard and a faint grey glow out of the window. There's no actual sun -- it's raining really hard outside, but the light has increased, so therefore it must be day.

I couldn't sleep. I lay in bed for an hour trying to slow my brain down by listening to the rain, but it kept whizzing merrily along with all sorts of things: the fact that I missed my nana's birthday yesterday, what I was going to say in my talk at Mackay next month, how I was going to move the cabinets of type I bought from Braidwood to here, is my neck pain caused by too much work or have I actually got disc damage (I had x-rays last week)... you know the whizziness I mean.

I'm waiting for the boys to wake up -- we'd all agreed to sleep in today -- so that I can make banana pancakes for us. This is something Best Beloved discovered at a street stall in India and has become a firm family favourite. You make nice thick pancake mix -- more like flapjack mix, I guess (I make them with self-raising flour, yogurt and 2 eggs) -- and start to cook them as usual. While the first side is frying, you scatter thin slices of ripe banana on to the raw side (they sink into the batter slightly), and then turn the pancake over. As the second side cooks, the slices of banana caramelise. Serve with plain yogurt, or cream if you're that way inclined. Or even icecream. Come on boys, WAKE UP.

Today is going to be the final day of clearing out my study, I hope. I did the big clean-up weeks ago, but today is taking apart the furniture & putting it on the front verandah (under cover, under wraps -- darn rain), ready to sell or give away. And de-fleaing the cats. The poor buggers are as itchy as anything.

It's not all excitement and drama around here. I spent the weekend in the studio, binding books and making new pieces for a show I'm in through Easter called 'Three Chords & the Truth: Art Inspired by Music' (timed to be in conjunction with the National Folk Festival). One of the pieces was a collage made from bits of sticky-taped pages from an old hymn book I'd found at Lifeline. The tape had turned a golden translucent amber colour over time, and made the bits of page translucent too. I made the collage look like a church, and it looks quite lovely, I hope. I also made a Michael Jackson bangle out of sheet music for 'Thriller' that I'm calling 'Secret Thrill'. Sorry, my digicam is stuffed, and I forgot to use my iPhone to take shots, so I'll have to show you when the exhibition opens in April.

Damn. Mr Pooter just knocked over a whole stack of CDs in a gentle attempt to persuade me to let. him. out. I guess that woke up BB at least. On with the show...