Advance Australia Fair...... right...........

       There is a very interesting thing that happens when you live in oz.  At first I thought it was because they knew I was from the states and they were doing some sort of discrimination thing, (that damn yankee), but upon further experience and reflection I realize that it's just the way people are down here.  Fair is the key word:  people claim that Australia is all about "fair play" and having a sense of "fairness" and the national anthem is even called "Advance Australia Fair" but in reality, I think my old neighborhood in Brooklyn had people who were more fair minded, and who were certainly kinder than most people you run into on the street here.  People down here seem to have a veneer of fair, but in reality they will gladly cut in front of you in line, steal your parking spot, ignore the pregnant lady on the tram, ignore the pregnant lady holding onto the stair rail and push past her, ignore the pregnant lady at the Scout pavilion at the Moomba festival, (are you seeing a thread here?)

        It was amazing - there I was, waiting for Audrey to have her turn at the rock climbing wall.  There was an empty chair, so I sat down because more than 30 minutes on my feet nowadays equals pain.......... and over walks a 14 yr old boy scout who proceeds to tell me to get out of his chair.  So I do, standing right in front of his face in all my pregnant glory (and I look pregnant - like an egg on legs - It's not like you would look at me and say -gee, you're putting on pounds right about where your uterus used to be - have you been hitting the junk food too hard?) and he sits down and that was that until my husband , who actually was brought up with a sense of "fair" leans over and says to him: Can my pregnant wife sit down?  So, it wouldn't be so bad if it had only happened once that day, in that spot, but it happened twice.  While Audrey was actually climbing the wall, I went to where there were other parents waiting for their kids, where there were chairs set up, and I sat down, only to be told 5 minutes later by another scout to stand because my chair was in the way, (which it wasn't).  She didn't even look twice, just made me stand, (not the other non pregnant parent next to me ).  I mean, these are the scouts!  I was a girl scout and my mom was a den mother for the boy scouts in our town and I never knew any kind of scout to be so ignorant (and I'm sure that the scout code doesn't have a part about making pregnant ladies get out of the chair).  It really doesn't speak well for the values that they teach kids here.  

    I guess I have just been noticing this behavior more since I am pregnant and only 1 person has ever offered me a seat on the tram. (Thank god I have NY subway seat sense for other times - you don't know what it's like to get a fast seat until you have ridden every day on NY's finest public transport - I'll say one thing, though, I always offered my seat to the pregnant ladies; most women in NYC will.  It's the guys who pretend that they don't exist),  That doesn't mean it's not there in the other times, it just means that a lot of Australians hide behind fair without actually understanding what it is to treat a person fairly.  The same way some Americans hide behind their patriotism.  

   In reality, I think that there are a lot more whingers (whiners to my US sensibility) in Australia - it's always "not fair" in their minds because everything should be fair all the time but because it isn't, they don't need to be and then starts the vicious cycle.  There just seems to be always something to complain about, some chip on somebody's shoulder that they need to make known to everyone.  The attitude transfers from thought to words to actions - I mean, have you ever met a complainer who was kind to people?   Hey, most Americans know that life is not actually fair and that it's best to just go with the flow.  Do unto others as you would have them do unto you and all that jazz.  I learned a lot of good things being a girl scout and that was one of them, for sure.

I'm thinking about bringing my own portable stool next time I go anywhere to avoid being made to stand.   Or maybe I should just be smarmy Brooklyn girl "yo, I'm pregnant, get your ass out of that seat......."

I'm just thankful that my husband is well brought up (many thanks to his no nonsense mom), but I do think that they should do something about the national anthem..................

     

The Long Hot Summer

    Australian weather is something that I am still not used to.  Particularly Melbourne weather, where the phrase "4 seasons in a day" is very common.  For 9 months of the year, the weather borders on a cool spring/ autumn but for 3 months, 3 dry, hot months, it turns the world into something that is so alien to all of my experiences that I cannot even call it a real summer.

It is truly a frightening thing.

    Where I grew up, in the northeastern US, summer means green, lush, humid days.  It means flowers and cookouts and sprinklers.  In Melbourne, summer means dry and hot.  Anything that you have managed to grow for the short spring will die unless you have a water tank and recycled water to douse your plants.   The grass, which is brown and dead, crunches and hurts your feet if you try to walk barefoot.  My flower garden which I planted hopefully this past spring - all dead.  We just don't have enough water from the shower every day to water it all.  I am trying to keep the petunias in front of the house alive because I like the color and it makes it seem more than just a dead yard when you walk by.  It says: someone lives here and cares.

In my whole life I have experienced maybe one or two days of temperatures over 100 degrees.  Over the past 2 months there have been about 7 days that have broken 103 degrees.  Today is another one.  Today is a day of total fire ban - no fires, no welding or machinery that can produce sparks, no barbeques unless they are on a concrete patio and you have water nearby just in case. 

    Which brings us to the fires.  The fires have been burning for weeks and the smoke blows over the city.  When I wake in the morning I can smell it on the wind and I am transported quickly back to my childhood days of campfires at Fourth Lake.  Then I remember where I am and I know that these fires are a very different thing.  

On Black Saturday, the day it got to 117 degrees , the fires swept through an area to the Northeast of the city and killed over 200 people.  They have no idea how much wildlife was lost that day - the estimate is in the millions.  The koala population of Victoria only numbers on the thousands and they were not spared for virtue of being rare and cute.  My husband and I decided that rather than donate to the human cause, we would donate money to the organizations doing animal rescue in the fire affected areas.  Our reasoning is that they would be forgotten.  We are attending other fundraisers so hopefully in the end it will all balance out.

  Whole towns which had stood in beautiful mountain settings for decades were wiped out in one day.  The coroner has bluntly stated that the fires were so hot that there are some bodies that will not be able to be recovered because no trace remains of them.  And still, the fires burn.  Water was moved from one fire threatened reservoir to another and the firefighters still struggle to hold containment lines so that the larger reservoir does not come under threat.

Every day, the fires creep closer to the small piece of land that I purchased in the Warburton Valley last July.  My husband and I watch the maps closely and listen for every fire alert and warning.  The land is vacant, but it is so beautiful, with huge old gum trees and kookabaras which perch on tree limbs and watch you with one eye.  We have already had enough disaster for one year when we discovered that the oldest tree on the property was diseased and had to be taken down after half of it broke away and fell into our neighbor's yard.  It was such a beautiful tree with a wombat hole at the base.  Now it is just a huge trunk without a crown and the wood from the limbs radiates away from the base, most of the pieces so heavy that one strong man cannot even budge them.  The company that did the work for us mulched and took away the leaves and cut the huge limbs into smaller pieces but we still have a lot of work to do and now the fires make us worry that we haven't done enough.  If the fire comes through, the wood will catch and burn.  Unfortunately, our neighbors live there year round, so having a fuel load on our property is not good for them.  So we worry and watch and wait. We have been told to stay away from the area because of the smoke and because if the fire broke the line, we would have no shelter, nowhere to go.  There has not been any significant rain for more than a month and everything is so dry, waiting for one blown ember to come through and catch.

    The valley and town of Warburton is the one place that I have found in this new land that reminds me of home.  When you turn onto the Warburton highway, you enter a lush green world of horse pastures and tall shady trees, gardens and water.  The Yarra river snakes along next to the road and it is truly one of the most beautiful places in the state of Victoria. Huge Mountain Ash trees rise up on the hills that slope down to the banks of the river.  They are the ghost cousins of the Redwood forests, glowing white in the dim light of the gloaming.

  The village of Warburton is one strip of historic shops that backs onto the river.  The area right next to the Yarra is one long park and the town proper is built mostly on the hill above the river.  I am not describing it as well as I could or should, but I knew the first time we drove through that this was where I wanted to escape to on hot summer days.  I wanted my own shady, lush, green piece of land to build a little house for the weekends when the city and concrete were too hot for life.

I didn't realize that the summer, the time when I needed that green escape the most, would be the months that I would have to stay away and worry.  I didn't realize that this landscape was itself a fragile thing.  I didn't realize it could all go up in flames and be destroyed in one day.

What were those first settlers thinking, making their home in a land like this?  I think they were fooled, the same way I was.  So now I wait on pins and needles.  It's another 100+ degree day and the fires above Whitegum Drive burn an area of 250,000 hectares behind the shaky containment lines.  

      "Don't know whether to laugh or cry while the long hot summer just passed me by......"

     

Bill of rights, what bill of rights? Some musings on politics near and far.....

Australia has no bill of rights and the constitution applies only to the behavior and protocols of Parliament.  My husband keeps saying that Victoria (our state) has a bill of rights but when prompted he cannot locate it on the internet.  Apparently, it is a "bill" that was passed that clarifies, in very vague terms, some general freedoms.  To me, that's not a bill of rights.

What we consider to be basic rights in the US are only protected by court precedents.  The police routinely pull over thousands of people a night to give them breathalyzer tests (they set up check points and make everyone stop).  In principle,  it's a great idea because this country has some issues with drunk driving and alcoholism, but in the US wouldn't that be unreasonable search and seizure?  If you fail the test, they impound your car and off you go to jail.  There is no guaranteed freedom of speech or right to public assembly.  They can apply a strict or loose definition of what makes an unlawful demonstration depending on the mood of the police.  I do agree with the very strict gun control laws - guns are extremely regulated and allowed for people who use them for recreation, but only at a gun club and guns cannot be kept in the home.  If you live in a rural area and use the guns for hunting and farming purposes (dingos eat domestic animals, kangaroos must be hunted for meat - they cannot be farmed. ) guns are registered.  It allows sportsmen to have guns, but keeps them out of major circulation, which is exactly how I think it should be in the US (when was the last time the president called on the minutemen to fight the red coats?  not recently... no-one needs to keep a gun under their bed).  

They just sent some guys to prison for sedition - they had stated that they would like to commit some terrorist act but they had no connections to weapons, no plans, no organization, no evidence beyond a few statements.  Isn't that wrong in the US?   Or is that what brought down the late governor of Illinois, (and I wouldn't call selling a senate seat sedition).  Sedition, think about it.  I hate the president! Treason.  Dick Cheyney is the devil and I hope he dies!  Sedition..........  luckily, all of those statements were made in our recent past and better times are ahead, I hope.

In Australia, everyone has to vote - if you don't vote they will find you and fine you.  I'm only a resident, not a citizen, but as a landowner, I had the right and the obligation to vote in my local council elections.  I said to my husband "is this legal?  I'm not a citizen"  "Just do it" he replied " better to vote and they disqualify it than not vote and get the fine".

In the US, people act like they are doing such a great public service by voting.  Voting is not a public service - it is your right as a citizen and that right can actually be taken away from you.  Voting is only one of the things that make a democracy.  Public Service is the other.  I have been thinking a lot about this lately based on conversations I have been having with people and I truly think that public service and the choice to serve is just as important and more pivotal to a democracy than the right to cast a vote.  Stepping up and putting your hat into the public service arena means that you are beyond words and are ready to take action.  We'd still be paying tax on tea if our forefathers had kept it to words.  We have no battles, in the military sense, to fight, but there are so many battles to fight to keep life fair and to make sure that those that do not have much of a voice are heard.  Like therapy, there comes a point when talking to your friends and family is not enough.  If you believe passionately in something and you have the ability to make change, I believe it is your duty in a democracy to stick your neck above the crowd.  This is hard because often you will find that by sticking your neck out it makes a lovely target for all of those people who choose to keep their actions to words.  

It's easy to make someone a target, but the more difficult road comes when you become the target.  

This is a quote from congresswoman Tammy Baldwin, Democrat from Wisconsin, describing what made her stick her neck out: " Achieving health care for all is the reason I got into politics.  It is my goal, my passion, my motivation".

     Both my parents have stuck their necks out numerous times to run for office, participate in political actions, participate in county and state politics and planning boards.  Some people love them for doing this.  Some people, (like the slate company down the street who illegally dump their contaminated water into the Mettowee River and gets upset when my Dad calls the environmental protection agency) would like to see them disappear.

But the one thing that you can never say is that they didn't take part in the great democracy that is the USA - they served, still serve and will probably serve until they can no longer drive through the snowstorm to get to the planning board, until they can no longer be propped up to speak at the council meetings.

Sometimes I feel like I have not done enough, but then I remember that my passions lie with arts education, and I think of the hours spent teaching dance in NYC public schools and teaching design to kids who were told all their lives that the arts were not a path that should or could be taken by someone like them and I realize that I am able to take action and make a difference in my own way.  As for politics, I've gone door to door with my mom and handed out flyers, I've worked at the Washington County fair booth and spoken to more than a few people about the democratic party in Washington County and while I don't think it has even scratched the tip of the iceberg, it was something.  My brother,!! (and if you know the history, you will know why I am so amazed) has even become involved in environmental issues and politics in the El Paso area - working on senatorial campaigns and fighting against the reopening of industrial plants in the El Paso area, (look up ASAARCO, sp? and you'll see what his current battle is).  Is it something in our blood?  Is it being descended from so many colonists?  Who knows, but he's got the bug too and he has found his passion. 

   So when I see people rail against some injustice, or misrepresentation,  I urge them to step up and take part and get involved; actions will always speak louder than words, especially if they have the connections and intelligence to do so.   I have the amazing example of my family, so it is only natural for me to urge people to do more.  I often get a response akin to "I do my part,   I vote" or a look that makes me feel as if I have sprouted another head.   But I still believe that to be part of a democracy, you must do more than vote.  If you rage against the great "them" and "they" it is your duty as citizen to learn that there is no "them" or "they" but only "us" and to immerse yourself in the myriad of grey areas that exist between the left and the right.   We have nothing to fear but fear itself............

Boy, am I missing the US or what?  Parliament and politics down under are just not as interesting.  I'll give it another look and then see how I feel.   But I will never give up my US Passport....never, ever, ever............

It's too darn hot..........

Melbourne is having a 100 year heat wave this week and we don't have air conditioning.  Normally, we don't need it because dry heat usually means lovely cool nights with a breeze that flows straight from Antarctica.  Not this week.  It's 108 degrees right now, 5pm on Wednesday, (that's 42.5 Celsius) and it's supposed to be hotter tomorrow.  We shut the house up at around 7am this morning and the coolness still lingers on the southern side (don't forget, it's all backwards here) but only while you are standing.  Once you sit, it's just hot.

The commuter trains have huge problems in this weather because the steel tracks expand with the heat.  That leaves lots of hot people on the train platforms getting hotter. Greg took the tram this morning so he wouldn't be stuck in traffic in an overheated car.  We'll see how the tram goes.

 I have been putting my computer on the marble fireplace mantle so that it will cool down between uses.  I have not left the house today.  All the shades and curtains are drawn and I am sitting in a dark room drinking my 8th glass of ice tea, (I make my own, with mint, the way Maria L showed me a long time ago), in front of the fan, which seems to be blowing hot air at this point.  The floor is even hot, (no concrete slabs here - most houses are built up off the ground - at least the old ones are).  You'd think that people would have built basements in this kind of climate, (cool basements with concrete or stone foundations - it's not like there is so much groundwater).  But, no, they have omitted that from their architectural repertoire.  They also have more deadly insects here than anywhere else in the world but look at you funny when you suggest a thing like a screened in porch.

To top it all off, I'm 6 months pregnant, (give or take a few days) so my body, the oven, is not coping as well as it could.  I'm going to make my husband take me to 24 hour kmart tonight, or even to a 3 hour movie so that my skin can at least cool down.  Of course, the kid is kickin' like crazy - she must love this weather!

I keep making ice.

I suppose I should be happy because for the rest of the year it's cool and our house can be drafty and cold - cold, as in, we have no heat either.  I just can't seem to win!

Jennifer is..........

I have finally joined facebook - years too late, as usual, but being pregnant and mostly kicking around at home, it has become a large, almost obsessive part of my daily routine.

I think it's different for me because I am so starved for news of my US friends and from home.  Kari is obsessed with rap music - awesome!  Julie froze during the inauguration -  Cool!  James has a hot girlfriend - does she know what he looked like in high school!

And then there are the status updates: Jennifer is over summer, Zoe is glad she left her windows open, Lily is on her way to work..............

There are some strange things about facebook - such as people that you maybe said hi to 3 times in Jr High school wanting to be your friend, or your old neighbor that you never really liked wanting to all of the sudden be privy to your philosophic musings.  Also, there are so many people not on the site.  If only there was a universal way of just finding all the people you ever cared about in your life and collecting them together in one community.  Of course, there is always the ultimate shock of seeing your senior prom date and his oh so fake tan and thinking: OMG - I actually went to the prom with that? (but the corsage was so awesome!?  what happened?)

Then , the people you do like send you strange things like "hugs", "drinks" and "plants for your lil' green patch".  A couple of people I know play scrabble with strangers.  My husband plays eleven fighting games.  I have fulfilled my slot machine quest by winning over a million dollars, (fake of course) on the casino games page.  And then I think - hey, I don't have time for this nonsense!  I have a baby to get ready for, a life to live, a house to get in order, a business to plan, etc!

The thing of it is, there are so many people who you don't really know anymore that you keep your life light and superficial, when in reality it may be full of doubt, angst, issues, misgivings with the direction the world is going, anger, intense passion, creative urges, inspiration, longing, homesickness, morning sickness, pain, fatigue, happiness, joy, music, art and laughter.  How do you sum that all up in "Jennifer is............"??  You really can't, and so everyone, in a desire to truly connect, is left at arm's length from each other.

Life is.............

Cricket is not just a bug in the backyard.........

Summer down under.  Bored kids.  Hot sun.  5 months pregnant..... What's a girl to do besides obsessing over the latest baby gear? (and the fact that I can't get it down under!)

In the states, I'd break up each day with baseball on the radio.  I really, really miss coming home to the Yankees vs whoever on WCBS FM.  I miss the commentators, I miss the history, I  miss the pace of the game and the feeling of lazy summer evenings.  I miss keeping the radio on by my bed until the wee hours when games were being played on the west coast.

Here, there is cricket.  It's not played every day but it does have it's own charm, once you figure out what's going on.   It's not perfect, and there doesn't seem to be rhythm to the schedule, which leaves me a bit in "cricket withdrawal" a few days a week.  There is strategy, in a way, some excitement, some boredom, huge amounts of tradition and lots of things for an american girl to laugh at in her quest to find a replacement for her missing "boys of summer"....

The cricket ground is a large round field and in the center is the "pitch" - a dirt runway of sorts where the bowler (equivalent to the pitcher) bowls the ball.  At the end of the pitch are two "wickets. stumps?" , of which each one is protected by a batter.  At any given time there are two batters from the opposing team on the pitch, but only one is being "bowled" to at a time.  The bowler is trying to knock over the bales and stumps, the batter is protecting them and at the same time hitting the ball in order to score any number of runs.  When the batter wants to score a run, both batters run up and down the pitch until the fielding team has the ball under control.  If the batter completes one length of the pitch, it counts as one run, etc.  A hit that makes it to the boundary automatically scores 4 runs and a hit that makes it into the stands scores 6.  

The batters are out if: 

 -  the bowler knocks the stumps and the bales fall off (think of 3 posts with 2 small pegs balanced on top).  This is usually obvious, although I have seen games where the ground was so hard that the posts just did not move after being whacked by the ball.  Then the wicket keeper, (like a catcher) often tries to jump up and down next to the stumps in an effort to get them to fall over. 

 - The umpire deems that had the batter not been blocking the way, the bowler would have hit the stumps, (huh?  this becomes accepted but I still think it's strange and very subjective)

 - the batter hits the ball and it is caught

 - the batter does not make it to the safe line on either side of the pitch: this is called being "run out".  The fielding team can beat the runner by knocking over the bales before the "safe" line is crossed.  This can be exciting as sometimes the guys way out in the field throw and hit the stumps.  Most of the time they miss. Often, they appeal to the instant replay (3rd umpire) to see if the batter makes it safe across the line before the ball hits the stumps.

(author's note:  I'm not keen on the 3rd umpire because in baseball they do not watch replays - they trust the umpires and that's that....)

The bowler changes, (usually) after an over, which consists of 6 bowls/throws.  The score is read as such: 5/125 means there are 5 outs and 125 runs scored.

A batter who is out on their first swing gets what is known as a "duck" and they put the duck symbol on the scoreboard next to their name.

There are 3 different kinds of cricket game formats: tests, one day and 20/20. 

 - A test is a game that can last from 4 - 5 days.  Each day consists of a morning and afternoon session, 2 tea breaks and lunch.  It generally starts after 10 am and finishes 

( to"call stumps" is the term) about 6pm.  The players wear white, (which is the traditional uniform of cricket).   The teams toss a coin to see who bats first.  The idea is that the batters stay on the field until the other team has gotten 10 outs, or wickets.  This can take quite some time, (up to 2 days).  It's usually hot and the players mostly stand around and watch the ball when it is hit into their section of the field.   There are not many heroic catches in test cricket.  They are mostly waiting for the drinks beak.  Once the first batting team makes 10 outs, they switch and then the opposing team has an opportunity to chase their score and see if they can make more points.  In a typical test each team bats twice.  If a batting team has a huge score, they can give the field to the other team in a very gracious gesture.  Sometimes this can backfire.  A good score is over 300. 

  - 1 day cricket is about the same, but each team gets 50 overs, (300 balls bowled to them) or 10 outs, whichever comes first.  The teams generally wear badly designed colorful uniforms that hurt your eyes.   One team gets the afternoon and the other the evening.  Because the games are shorter, the fielders do get a bit more energetic and occasionally chase the ball.  Some of them even slide and catch the ball when it seems like they can.  Mostly, they are still signing autographs on the edge of the stands and waiting for the drinks break.  

 - 20/20 is cricket's answer to baseball - a game which finishes in about 3 hours and has a format which requires the fielders to chase after the ball since they are actively trying to keep the run count low.  Each team gets 20 overs or 10 outs... as above.

Some things about cricket:

 - The fielders do not wear gloves which I think leads to the low percentage of balls caught near the boundary - I mean, have you ever caught a fly ball barehanded?  That hurts!  I'd stand there and watch it too.

 - The bowlers run from a fair distance off in the field before the throw the ball - they throw with a locked straight arm and the ball bounces before it is hit by the batter.  All this running and they still throw slower than any major league fast baller.  

 - The announcers have all these terms like"fine square leg" which make no sense to me and even my husband sometimes admits that they are making stuff up to fill airtime.

 - The 12th man on the team, (the extra player) has to carry the drinks out to field whenever the team celebrates an out by having everyone run together and slap hands.  I often think they fake outs (which is quite common) sometimes so that they can get the drinks onto the field faster.

 - The crowd is often more preoccupied with beach ball passing than watching the game......

At the MCG, they have people dressed up as seagulls on the sidelines and the crowd will throw them chips, (french fries) which the seagulls will then try to catch with their mouths.  So classy.

All this, and I'm still looking forward to the one day cricket starting this afternoon.  Pitchers and catchers report on Valentine's day, so I've still got a ways to go 'til the real boys of summer take the field.....sigh........

News and Noteworthy in a land down under

The other day I was watching the late news and this is what they said:

"A body pulled from the Yarra River with hands bound has been deemed "suspicious" by the Victorian Police"

Needless to say, It took several minutes for the laughing fit to calm down.  I'm glad our police force is doing a crack job.  I'd hate to think of all the dodgy things that body could have gotten into before it was discovered.  Petty crime, loitering, vagrancy..................