Miscellaneous

Its mild today, I just walked to work in shorts. Yesterday the frost was inches thick on the shady sides of streets.

Tumbledryer psychology: I find that I set the timer dial according to how badly I want the items dry, rather than how long it will realistically take. Eg - pair of socks/running late for work = set timer to 80 minutes.

A friend of a friend won $500,000 on Millionaire last night. Its the first time I've watched it in ages. I knew Yemen, I knew Jaques-Louis David, but I didnt know lugubrious. I might have come away with a few grand though.

Idea for a cartoon - friend says to upper classy looking wife, "How is George going with retirement?" Wife - "Oh, you know, he sits on a few boards and so on". (Friend can't see George in the shed reading newspaper and sitting on a few boards).

Piano-like

I have a very strange old piece of furniture. It has had a long happy life in an office at some time. It is a kind of hutch, with a few little square pigeonholes and large open area supported by turned wooden pillars like miniature chair legs. There once were six but by the time I bought it second hand, one of the central ones was missing. Marcus was looking at it the other day and he said "This is like a piano. There's three, then there's two". I thought it was an excellent observation - the remaining pillars look like the pattern of the black keys on a piano.

Michael is dancing beautifully now. A bit of foot stamping, some spinning and gyrating - he's quite a mover.

White water

I walked to work this morning. It's stopped raining after about five days - so not quite biblical proportions. We really needed it too. The little rivulet actually had white water rapids this morning.

I went to Jeff Blake's solo show Cancelled by Popular Demand last night. I was very impressed and urge everyone to get along. I think I'll go again on Sunday with Elf. The saga about Bob de Niro falling in love with a zebra and being mauled by lions was superb.

A rare picture of our lads

Are they plotting world domination? Probably.

Japanese

Marcus had a bad dream last night. "We were flying to Japanese on a plane, and a bad man took our white bag so we missed our plane. Then another plane to Japanese came and we were going to go but a lot of people came and took our other bags".

Michael is saying "I running!" "I spinning!" etc as he does them. He can point to or waggle his; ears, nose, eyes, hair, fingers, hands, feet and head. He calls Marcus "Marcoose" and he calls Giz "Giz". He said "daddy" when I picked him up from Allisons on Monday - the first time he hasnt come running to me yelling "Mummy!"

It was the boys last day at "school" yesterday. A little traumatic but only for me. I was surprised no-one in the office had told the ladies who actually care for the boys. I told them and they were disappointed but understood it was unavoidable. Elf's new job starts next week and the boys will start at "New School" then too.

Beach

We went to the beach on Saturday. Sounds mad doesnt it? It wasnt all that cold, probably about 12°, and no wind. We were visiting the Cruikshanks out at South Arm, and all the kids were a little bit stir crazy so we went for a walk. Its a lovely little beach, just down the lane and across the highway and down another lane from their front gate. The kids all dropped daks and skipped about in the water, mad little loons.

Marcus was right about Tingletree. It was the worst school in Australia. We have found somewehere else though, quite close to Elf's new job and quite close to mine too. The boys will have a visit there on Thursday with Elf and then start there the following Thursday and Friday.

I took the boys to the boat park yesterday, and my old soccer team were playing on the ground adjacent. I reckon I could still hold down a place in defence - they looked pretty pedestrian. I got out our soccer ball and both boys booted it about quite enthusiastically. I really enjoy taking them to wide open spaces because they so obviously love it.

Harsh judgement

Elf is changing jobs. Well, her old job was a maternity leave position, so we knew it would end around now. Her old job was Monday - Wednesday, but the new job is Wednesday - Friday. This means we have to find new childcare places for the boys as the current place is booked out and can't just swap days. They are both enjoying what Marcus calls "school" so its a shame.

Elf is taking Marcus and Michael today to see "Tingletree" which is a daycare place in New Town. I mentioned it to Marcus (who has never heard of it before) that we were hoping it would be a good "school". He said, "It's a bad school. Its the baddest school in Australia!"

So - we'll see. I hope its like when he won't come to the table, and says he hates dinner because its yucky, then when he eats a bit he wolfs it all down and asks for more.

Leaves

There are a few hardy leaves still clinging to trees. The sun is very low now, and this morning as I walked to work it was making the usually dark leaves a translucent red-brown. It looked beautiful against the blue sky.

Go taxonomists, go

The scientific name of the lowland gorilla is gorilla gorilla .
Don't confuse this with the western lowland gorilla, which of course is gorilla gorilla gorilla. They get extremely pissed off if you mix them up with one another.

Scratcho

Marcus: "Mum - Hattie scratched me!"
Elf: "Were you playing biffo with her?"
Marcus:" Yes, I was playing biffo with her, and she was playing scratcho with me".

Rees scores!

Marcus and I kicked a soccer ball around on the big soccer ground yesterday. We kicked a few goals, but Marcus got the idea in his head that to really be a goal the ball had to end up tangled at the bottom of the rusty chain-link fence. Unfortunately this ruled out one or two of my spectacular half-volleys from the edge of the penalty area.

Marcus dribbled a few through but he got the hang of running up to a dead ball to get more oomph, and then scored a beauty from outside the 6-yard box. Rees scores - Rees United are one up!

Another game Marcus devised required me to stand still on one side of the ground while he dribbled towards me from so far away that he was a mere speck in the distance. When he finally reached me I was bawled out (in oddly familiar phrases) for standing in the wrong place. "Next time listen to what I tell you!".

Quotable quotes from the weekend

"So, we have seen two planes today - one jet plane, and one prr, er, pell, er.. one other sort of plane." - Marcus
"Fire!" - Michael
"3 plus 3 plus 3 is nine!" - Marcus
"Water!" - Michael
"Have you got any... kings?" - Marcus, who has taken to playing cards
"No - MINE!" - Michael

Happy birthday Betty

Queen's Birthday long weekend. Usually long weekends are pretty hard work, but I felt like we got through this one pretty well. I have such a cushy job in such a convivial atmosphere that it is very hard to think of even ordinary weekends as "rest" anyway.

We went to Bonorong Park on Sunday to pat and feed kangaroos and wallabies. Marcus got to pat one of the koalas too. We go out there at least once a year, this was the first time both boys have been ambling around. Marcus took Michael's hand and led him down towards the first mob of wallabies - then left him and ran up to the first one, squatted down and said "Good morning". I thought that was hilarious.

We had a lot of roo poo on shoe and stroller wheels by the time we left, and I'm sorry to say (from a public health standpoint) that we tracked a lot of it into the Royal Hobart where we went to meet Nick and Anna's new baby Katherine Rose. Everything went well with the labour and she is bonny, sleeping and feeding well. Anna is tired but, one must say, radiant.

Space

I've been re-reading Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything. Everyone should read it.

Did you know if you sat Pluto on top of the USA it would only cover about half? Its tiny. Its smaller than our moon. I thought Pluto was the edge of the solar system, but there is actually stuff orbiting our sun that is fifty thousand times further away than Pluto.

I thought that the diagram of the solar system in the front of my Jacaranda atlas was to scale. I have always pictured it being this way when I read about space stuff. In fact, if Jupiter was the size of a pea, Pluto would be about 2km away and it would be the size of a bacterium. I would quite like to make a proper scale model. But if the biggest planet was a pea and the whole shebang was 4 or 5km long there would have to be some big arrows pointing out the planets.

I'll get back to you on the scale model.

September 11 explained

I was talking with Marcus about an old postcard from New York, and somehow we got onto the World Trade Centre being "knocked down by a plane". Actually it was my fault for saying they "used to be" the biggest towers in the world. Why did they get knocked down by a plane? "It was a big mistake" I lied.

Then a day later - were there people in the buildings? Were they at the top or the bottom? I told him lots of people were in there. They are dead now, they're gone for good. [We are trying to teach him not to lightly bandy around the words "kill" and "die" by teaching him that it is permanent and very serious].

"That's a little bit sad" he said. Probably empathising with the building - he hates it when the towers he builds get knocked down.

Freezing fog

Fog. Frost. Freezing fogs and frosts. Fog was rolling down the valley past our place this morning. It seems to mimic the water - all the tributaries meeting at the main flow. The rivulet flows down into the Derwent River, and our little stream of fog follows along above it and joins the massive bank of fog going down the Derwent. The river fog here is called Bridgewater Jerry for some reason lost in time.

Question - does the fog come up from the water? Or does the fog originate in some mystical way at the same source as the water and just follow it? Water follows contours, and so does fog, but fog has a bit of extra gaseous freedom that lets it waft around with the wind.

So, in closing: fog eh?

Turkish body language

Turks indicate yes [evet] by nodding forward and down. To say no [hayır] nod your head up and back, lifting your eyebrows at the same time. or just raise your eyebrows - that's no too. - Lonely Planet Guide to Turkey

I hope this is helpful to anyone in Turkey, going to Turkey or just surrounded by Turks who are constantly asking them questions.

About Giants - by Marcus

Giants can be fat tall, tall tall or medium tall. Giants are kind. There are people giants, car giants, house giants, truck giants and bus giants. Yes, people giants live in house giants. Giants can do helicopters and aeroplanes too. You are tall Dad, but you aren't a giant.

McBirthday

We took the boys to a birthday party at Kingston McDonalds yesterday. One of the kids was named Zeno (mum and dad found the name in a book). Books have a lot to answer for. I relived my extreme skydiving bungy-jumping days by going in to help Marcus find the way out of Hamburglar's climbing gym/maze/slide. You have to be able to walk under Hamburglar's finger to be admitted, BUT the fine print says that kids 3 and under have to be accompained by an adult. Shoes must be taken off, and I noticed all the little slots in the shoe-tidy fitted probably size 6 shoes maximum. I don't think many mums and dads actually get in there, and I don't blame them. I am no gymnast, I am 6ft and nearly 100kg, and the downward double corkscrew at the end nearly did me in. They would have had to cut me out with an oxytorch. Lucky I had only eaten a filet-o-fish.

Michael has been saying things like "hand" and "finger" and Marcus is very keen to visit Central Park, New York - heavily influenced by the Wiggles mentioning that there are squirrels.

Exhaustion

Sorry - exhaustion starting to set in. Not a lot of brain power available for blogging. Will make notes this weekend for big blog week next week.

Here is a recent pic of the boys working out on the whiteboard. The world map in the background makes it look like they are planning world domination - and maybe they are.