Lest we forget 2016

In the dark, I fumbled for the phone alarm, forgetting in which socket I had plugged it to charge.

In the dark, as I made my sleepy way to the kitchen to boil the kettle for a travel mug of tea, I stumbled into Kibbim who was to join his football team at the dawn service.

In the dark, I took Gina Rose downstairs for a wee and I cursed the fine mist on my face and the sodden roads glistening under street lights.

In the dark, I rummaged in the mess downstairs for raincoats and cursed myself for forgetting to buy an umbrella.

In the dark, I tripped and spilled the travel mug of milky tea as I entered the driver’s seat, flooding the gear shaft and centre console.

In the dark, we made our slow and silent way to the cenotaph in the heart of Atherton.

In the dark, people wearing duffel coats and boots and scarves and bent against the almost-winter wind hurried along watery footpaths.

In the dark, I stopped at the pedestrian crossing for Kibbim to alight so as not to miss the four a.m. start with his team.

In the dark, Kibbim’s disc-shaped eyes glowed with sudden horror and he said, “I forgot my shoes.”

In the dark, while I struggled to think in my half-conscious state, he relaxed and said, "Just go home and get my thongs."

The scenic route

I love Atherton for its verdant beauty.  The Herberton Range rises above this tiny Tableland town and paddocks and crops are within view.  In the middle of suburbia central road verges are strips of lush green and yards are overflowing with foliage and flowers.

     Each walk or drive through town is a visual feast. 

     Which is just as well because on voting day, Saturday 19 March, I did a lot of driving around town with Sutchy, trying to find a polling booth.  It was nothing short of a scenic route as we cruised the streets, me soaking up the kaleidoscope of colour, the dappled  sunlight under the moulting jacaranda trees and the warmth of the late afternoon. 

     However, the angle parking outside the courthouse was empty and the pavement free of candidate-supporters in sun-sensible clothing handing out how-to-vote cards.  The primary school then high school were both devoid of life. 

     I scanned the streets desperately for signs directing voters to polling booths.  I became excited several times, but the signs only advertised avocados at a roadside stall further down the street, real estate, a local stage production and a couple of garage sales.

     It was time for Sutchy to Google – polling booths atherton.

     Sure enough, voting was taking place at the high school.  So I doubled back, took an alternative entrance and was delighted to see one vehicle in the car park.  There were two children, about ten, on roller blades so I called out to the boy who was closer.

     “Hi, is this where people are coming to vote?”

     “Yes.” He tottered for a few seconds and stabilised himself.  “Up there.”

     He pointed in the direction of the court yard I knew well.  After all I had worked at the high school last year. In fact, the library, which housed my classroom, was at the end of the courtyard.  When teaching, I could gaze at rolling hills from one window and the grassy goat paddock from the other.  I loved those goats and their happy bleating which interrupted many lessons.  

     “I’ll take you up,” said the boy as he wobbled over.  

     I parked the car and the two children came  to escort me to where I’d be able to vote.

     “I had to get permission from my dad,” said the boy as I walked and he rolled.

     “For what?” I asked. 

     “To see the goats.”

     “Honey, are there lots of people coming here to vote, you know, line up and write on bits of paper.”

     He screwed his face up.  “Nuh.”

     It was time to get back on the scenic route. 

Bird mites and torture techniques of the Dutch Golden Age

For the last two weeks and three days, as I have scratched frantically at the seemingly invisible mites, it occurred to me in my sleep deprivation and following applications of recommended (and non-recommended) treatments, there were no mites left alive on me or in the nest or indeed within a kilometre radius thanks to a smorgasbord of poisons.  I was certain I was still home to some recalcitrant arachnids.  And I was in a psychologically fragile state although not quite insane since the itching had eased. 

     However, perfectly normal phenomena - the brush of a strand of hair against my neck, a loose thread along my thigh, an ant on my foot, a lost beetle tangled in my hair, a fly resting on my calf - still sent a hot flush through my body and my heart racing as I fear a mite.  I don’t know if it is anticipating the soft, tickling crawl on my skin and scalp is the problem or the fact I’ve had little sleep for over two weeks.  I am being tortured either by these creatures or my own mind.  If I wanted to torture or punish someone, I would unleash upon them mites.  And so I thought of Batavia’s Graveyard.

     Batavia’s Graveyard is more suspenseful than any fiction by Stephen King and Dean Koontz.  I’ve read it three times.  And it’s all the more thrilling because it is the factual narrative by historian Mike Dash of the passage to Java of the Dutch VOC flagship, Batavia: The charismatic, bankrupted and heretical psychopath Jeronimus Cornelisz plans a mutiny, but is disrupted when the ship runs aground on a tiny, unchartered cay in the Abrolhos Islands off the coast of Western Australia.  The Merchant-in-Command then sails for help in Java 1800 miles away and Cornelisz is free to execute not only his desire for power, but also each of the 200 survivors, one by one.

     Part of the allure of the account is the background of Holland’s Golden Age in the 17^th century and how someone so depraved as Cornelisz could have become so influential.  I was struck by the cruelty of the Dutch at the time and their use of torture to extract confessions and the punishments in general. 

     Readers are introduced early to being stretched on the rack.  Torrentius the painter was accused of being a black magician, a heretic and a Rosicrucian (a member of an illegal secret society).  He had joked that his paintings were created by spirits and he also turned his nose up at religion.  The verdict; a court ordered stretching on the rack because, “the magistrates of Haarlem had grown weary of Torrentius’s obduracy …” and failure to confess to the main charge of being a Rosicrucian.

     “Heavy weights were tied to the painter’s legs while four men hauled him into the air by ropes that had been attached to his wrists, he was left hanging in this way while more questions were put to him.” 

     After three sessions, Torrentius’s limbs had been pulled from their sockets and his jaw so damaged he was unable to eat.

     Water torture didn’t require the expensive and cumbersome equipment of the stretching rack nor a trained torturer. All that was needed was a funnel to force water into the mouth of the victim who wore a canvas collar and was strapped, spread-eagled, to an upright frame such as a door.

     Water kept being poured into the collar if the man refused to confess to the point that drinking was the only way to make breathing possible. Then more water was poured into the collar. The man became hideously bloated, his body “swollen twice or thrice as big as before, his cheeks like great bladders, and his eyes staring and strutting out beyond his forehead.”  Naturally he would become dizzy and weak and often faint. The prisoner was then cut down and forced to vomit so the torture could continue and then he was prepared to confess to anything put to him.

     When at sea, environmentally appropriate methods were in order.  Minor offences resulted in imprisonment for weeks in a matchbox-sized cell “at the forepart of the gun deck where the wind whistled maddeningly through the slats.” 

     The shipping company rules decreed, “Anyone pulling a knife in anger shall be nailed to the mast with a knife through his hand, and shall remain standing until he pulls his hand off.”

     Mutiny attracted 200 lashes of the whip, the man often being doused in sea water first to ensure the salt intensified the agony.

     Being dropped from the yardram involved a man’s arms being tied behind his back and a strong rope around his wrists and lead weights were bound to his ankles.  He was dropped 15 or so metres toward the sea till the ropes tightened and dislocated his shoulders.  Twice more he was hauled to the top and dropped again, this part more painful than the fall.

     My favourite in terms of creativity was keelhauling where a man’s arms were tied above his head and his ankles bound.  A long rope was passed under the keel of the moving vessel and the ends secured to the man’s wrists and ankles. He was then pulled from one side of the keel to the other and if he didn’t drown, he was either macerated by the barnacles or decapitated as he smashed into the hull. 

     With the overwhelming majority of crew being male, homosexual relations were inevitable.  Detection could result in the lovers being “sewn together into a sailcloth shroud and thrown alive into the ocean.”  Therefore most of the affairs were between officers since they had private cabins and the status and influence over lesser sailors.

     So, two weeks and two days after first being consumed by the mites and thinking that the Dutch should have included in their repertoire of torture and punishment, an application of mites to an offender’s person, I was driving home on the Herberton Highway on dusk.  A black and white flutter in the second lane caught my attention.  I pulled over and picked up an injured bird, a native peewee.

     Squawks and shrieks erupted from the trees in the middle verge of the road, its parents warning me away. I considered the young bird's fate if I left it on the side of the highway – roadkill - so I tucked it under my shirt (it was instantly calmed) and drove home to call Tableland Wildlife Rescue.

     That night, as I was about to drift off to sleep, the tell-tale creepy crawly sensation started – in my scalp, in the crook of my knee, along my bikini line, my armpit - worse than the last few nights.  I broke out in a hot flush and my heart beat furiously.  It occurred to me that rescuing the peewee had reinvigorated the mite lifecycle.  I groaned out loud.  Could I change my order for the torture and have 200 lashes?  I’d even go for the solitary confinement in the shoebox and savour the maddening wail of the wind.  Stretching on the rack was finite.  Please!  Not mites, not more mites. 

How my girls kept cool this summer!

Myna birds and the law of karma

I’ve always been attracted to the Buddhist principle of not harming animals whether for food or otherwise and I find some logic in the idea of karma.  I am not a Buddhist and have read lightly on the matter.  I simply like the idea of not intentionally hurting living creatures and I certainly don't want to acquire any bad karma.  

     I have no problem exterminating pests like cane toads and cockroaches providing it’s painless and or quick.  Suffering to a human where the pesky creature survives is not desirable so delivering a humane death, I reckon, is necessary for one’s sanity.  

     I collect toads by a loving hand and slip them into the freezer where they fall into a permanent sleep.  Cockroaches, I squash with a heel and mosquitoes, a palm, always delivering the force with awareness.  Had I found under the sink a carbon dioxide canister (Sutchy’s suggestion), I’d have emptied it into the mynas' home and waited for them to fall asleep for the last time.  But I’ve never known anyone to keep carbon dioxide at home.  So on Friday, a clear and sunny morn, when I went off to the Salvos, the myna chicks were alive and screaming and I prayed they would expire in the cavernous heat from the tin roof.

     Four hours later on my return, when the sun was overhead and burning my skin as I alighted the car, I was accosted by screeching from both babies and parents, the latter from the fence, clothesline, neighbour’s roof, bottlebrush tree, as they flew, paused, and they continued to fly frantically.

     I jumped up on the couch and started bashing at the ceiling, determined to make a hole so I could give the chicks some food and water and allow the parents access.  The damn things would have to grow wings and fly away.

     “Mum,” said Sutchy.  “They’re pests.  Leave them.”

     I screamed at him something about not letting defenceless creatures suffer and to “get me a hammer or something.”

     Sutchy is a big animal lover and I wasn’t surprised when he pushed me out of the way.

     “Let me do it.”  I offered to find him a hammer.  “I’ve got one.”

     Within seconds, he’d smashed a black hole in the white sheeting and blades of dry grass drifted onto the couch.

     “There,” he said and jumped down.

My new veranda ceiling!

     I broke some homemade bread onto a plate and covered it with water.  When I inserted the plate into the cavity, I felt a soft, almost feathery sensation on my arms then my face and neck.

     Bird mites. They are minute, more like invisible and live where pestilent birds nest.  While they can’t live on humans they love to feast on them and I was about to become the blood-meal.

     The parents were reunited with their young and I settled at my computer.  An object dropped from the hole to the couch.  It was one of the babies, fairly developed and able to hop and flap a little.  It was terrified and it eventually made its way under the couch where I slid another plate of water-soaked bread.  A few hours later it was gone.  I was hoping the other chicks would make it out the same way. 

Myna baby

I placed the second myna baby in the garden, out of the wind.  Immediately it cried for its parents who went to it.

      That night I was unable to sleep.  From ten, I tossed and rolled and constantly scratched at the crawling under my skin.  It was bird mites injecting their saliva as they fed on my flesh.

     At three a.m., unable to bear it any longer, I had an idea. 

     Our favourite hen, Billie had recently been paralysed by scaly mites that burrow in the leg scales of poultry. The most effective treatment is Vicks Vaporub which suffocates the mite.  I had used three tubs on Billie (who made a full recovery) and was out.  But the next best thing was Pestene, a powder treatment against lice, mites and fleas in poultry, dogs, cats, horses, calves and goats which I had dusted in Billie’s feathers and in her coop.

     I scattered Pestene on my bottom sheet and pillows then re-read the directions more closely, particularly the Restraints, Not to be used:

·              *on kittens or puppies under three months,

·              *lactating does where milk is intended for human consumption, and

·              *for any purpose, or in any manner contrary to this label.

     That was all I needed to know.

     I dusted my pyjamas and rubbed it into my hair and skin.  Then I slept soundly till half-past nine.  

     No one else had been affected and I’ll buy some Vicks Vaporub for tonight.  The parents have been bringing food and I’ll pray to Buddha to hurry along the mynas’ departure (and forgive me for exterminating the mites - there are limits to my suffering).  I‘ll scratch and bear my itchy insomnia for a few more nights, if necessary with clear sinuses and powdery linen and without bad karma.  The chicks will surely be gone by then and I’ll board up the hole.

The Tell-Tale Squawk: accessory to murder

Just after Christmas, a pair of myna birds started nesting in the eaves on along the deck.  In their native India, mynas are a symbol for enduring love because they mate for life.  Humans are drawn to love stories, even within the animal kingdom and I’m no exception.

     My bird-spouses found the safest of environments to raise their young after an aged section of cladding had fallen off.  

     Mynas have made the world’s 100 worst invasive species* but I find the chocolate body, charcoal head and sunflower yellow eyes and beak a stunning combination.  However, it was their singing, the melodic smorgasbord of whistles, clicks and light chirps that never failed to lift my spirits at a time when my own love story failed to endure.

     Robert the builder ordered some fibro sheets to repair the damage, but the festive season ensured their arrival was a long time coming.  And I forgot about the impending repairs.

     It wasn't long before the two mynas spent the days flying off and returning with morsels of food for their precious offspring.  What a delight when I heard the most delicate scratching in the ceiling cavity as the tiny birds scampered around.   I was determined to wait until the young had flown away to find their own lovers and happily-ever-after before the cladding was replaced. 

     The other day, I went out in the morning for a few hours and when I returned, the screeching hurt my ears.  A pair of mynas was flying this way and that and crying as if possessed, fragments of pale-coloured food in each of their golden beaks.  Imagine my horror when Robert called from downstairs and announced the noisy birds would be gone soon.

     He’d repaired the cladding.  The parents were frantically trying to find the entry to their home, now smooth, impenetrable fibro.  They cried from the veranda railing, screeched from the roof next door, squawked as they flew to the neighbour’s clothes line to the fence to the bottle brush tree before repeating the route, repeating the screams.  

     Their distress was like a dagger to my heart made worse when the scratching on the other side of the ceiling became louder and more desperate.  I pictured the little beaks wide open, primrose triangles pointing in opposite directions, waiting and crying themselves hoarse.  When weakness consumed them, they managed only hissing. 

     The frantic parents hopped and flew and screeched and the hungry young scratched and hissed hour after hour.  Only when the twilight faded, did mother and father bird seek shelter elsewhere, but the baby birds were invigorated by the darkness.  Their tiny claws scraped on the ceiling, their cries a scratchy hiss that went on and on.

     But they weren’t only in the cavity above the veranda. They were in the kitchen ceiling, the bathroom ceiling, my bedroom, my head.  Their deathly cries filled my sleeping ears. 

     I became the unstable narrator in Edgar Allan Poe’s, The Tell-Tale Heart.  He maintained his sanity even though the heart of a man he killed and dismembered continued to beat and drove him to madness.  Except my own tale was not a piece of short Gothic fiction.  It was a reality.

     I texted my brother and described my grief.  He replied, without empathy, “mynas will set up another nest elsewhere.” 

     Too true.  Mynas crimes are many - they destroy fruit and grain crops, they nest in roofs, ceilings and gutters, they are extremely aggressive to native species, breeding males will protect an nesting area of two acres, they breed easily, are noisy and smell.

     But their worst crime is they dispossess native species of their nests like rosellas and even large birds like kookaburras and galahs.  They can even evict sugar gliders from their hollows which is a death sentence for the marsupials.

     That aside, I wanted to save the tiny birds.  How bad would it be that two extra mynas joined the existing feral population? I bashed at the sheet of Masonite and managed only to dislodge only the sealant in the corner.  Short of finding something like a jigsaw to carve a hole in the ceiling of my deck, I could only cover my ears.  Except their screeching persisted in my head.

     I paced the house.

     “Mum, they’re pests,” said Sutchy. "Don't worry about them."

     I thought of trapping the parents and wringing their necks, but they are extremely intelligent and suspicious creatures and avoided even my pitiful gaze.

     The next morning I thought the ruckus in my head had pushed me into insanity. But when I stumbled out to the deck, the mother and father myna were flying around frantically, their babies chirping and hissing louder than before.

     I left for the Salvos, certain the midday sun on the tin roof would finally end my distress. Then the parents could establish a new nest and hopefully, despite their loss, their love would endure and they'd lay a more successful clutch of pale blue eggs.

     *IUCN Species Survival Commission, 2000

Holding a lifetime on a lap

To see a World in a Grain of Sand

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

And Eternity in an hour.

William Blake (1757 - 1827)

This is my dear friend, Detta at the Cafe Gallery on Thursday Island in December, 2001. She was about to fly home for Christmas and with a half hour free before her ferry left to Horn Island, we grabbed a coffee.

     She is holding little Sutchy Rooster.  

     Below is Detta at the Cafe China in Cairns in December, 2015.  She had a few hours' layover before her connecting flight home for the Christmas holidays.  She is holding big Sutchy Rooster. 

When riding a bike is not like riding a bike!

If tackling a task for the first time in many years like driving a manual car, swimming freestyle and solving a Rubik’s cube are all like riding a bike, then what is riding a bike after a long time? 

     With TK in NZ and the little ones with big sister in Newcastle, there was just Sutchy and me for ten days.  When my brother, Stephen arrived I suggested we train for a ride to Mareeba along the Rail Trail, a round trip of 70 kilometres. 

     I convinced them to do a reccy ride to Rocky Creek the following day.  I was feeling fantastic having just kicked the flu after three days in bed.

     They were in. 

     The Atherton Rail Trail is a compact dirt track restored following the removal of the railway line between Atherton and Mareeba in the 1980s.  I’d ridden to Tolga before and knew the track was in good nick.  The 26 km round trip to Rocky Creek, past blueberry and potato crops, along the irrigation channel and through the bush would be a great start to Sutchy’s and my  holiday.  He had held the fort while I was sick – mediating the little ones’ fights, doing the housework and walking the dogs.  I wanted to spend some quality time with him doing what he loved.  

     That I hadn’t ridden for 12 months and that I had just battled the flu were minor concerns.  I knew endorphins would kick in and get me there and back.   

     Riding a bike is like riding a bike.

     We left at 8.45 in perfect conditions.  The baby blue sky and gentle tail wind heralded a perfect day.  We reached Rocky Creek in 28 minutes.

     “Let’s ride to Walkamin,” I said after a drink.  

     The endorphins were coursing and even if I was bike-unfit, the worst I could expect tomorrow was pleasantly aching quads and palm muscles and perhaps a tightness across my shoulders.  Stephen and Sutchy expressed some concerns about my health, but I was having none of it.

     I whipped out my phone and Googled the distance, six ks, to support my argument for another reccy for our Mareeba trip.  

     "I feel fantastic.”

     “Mum, you won’t when it’s over.”

     “Okay,” said Stephen in a flat voice.

     A reccy is a good thing providing it’s not done on the back of another reccy.

     Soon after leaving Rocky Creek, we encountered a minor obstacle; the track to Walkamin was sand.  An internet search that night revealed the track from Rocky Creek is due for upgrade! 

Relaxing under the Rocky Creek bridge

A potato crop out of Rocky Creek.

Crossing the irrigation channel

      An hour after leaving Rocky Creek, we made it to Walkamin, a quaint little community with a population of 630, a corner store, a school, a caravan park, public toilets and tennis courts. 

Perfect climate

     I recalled talk in the mid-nineties Walkamin came out tops in research about perfect world climates.  It’s a lofty claim since it was damn hot and dry and the “fact” hadn’t seemed to attract more residents in two decades. 

Walkamin public toilet signs. Tee hee!

    

      I was keen to leave.  The endorphins had run out and so had the food.

     “It’s all uphill and into the wind,” said Stephen, again with a flat voice. 

     Then I remembered a few real facts. 

·              The irrigation channel we crossed after Rocky Creek irrigates farmland between Tolga and Dimbulah.  

          Water flows downhill.  We were downhill of Tolga therefore ...

          We had a tail wind on the ride to Walkamin therefore …
     Wind speeds increase during the day therefore ...
     The temperature increases towards midday therefore ...

     And riding a bike is not like riding a bike.  I’d forgotten about the curse of the bike seat for females who haven’t ridden long distances for a long time.  The sand, head wind, heat and the laborious climb were nothing compared to the sensation of having a Brazilian done slowly with a cheese grater. 

     I couldn't maintain motion and kept stalling. Repositioning myself on the seat was agony.

     I got within 1.5 km of home, a mammoth 36.5 kms and stopped.  Stephen had to ride home and return with his ute.  The round trip took four and a half hours.

     I needed another three days in bed.  The Atherton-Mareeba trip was off.

     Riding a bike is not like riding a bike. 

How do they watch this stuff?

I’ve always tried to limit the time the kids spend sucking on Flat Screen Nipple, but sometimes I need to suck up the fact there are occasions when they need to indulge their desire to watch TV.  One of those is when we have dinner at my mother’s place because Home and Away is always on the menu during the week. 

     I can say I’ve never watched an entire episode mainly because the show just doesn’t grab my attention. It’s not right that I stop my kids watching something they enjoy simply because I think it’s shallow and unnecessary.  But I am constantly asking myself, How the hell do they watch this stuff?

     For starters, I am unsettled by the over-representation of beautiful and unhealthily-thin women.  They all wear heavy makeup.  Also, there isn't enough Slip-Slop-Slap and the characters spend a disproportionate amount of time at the beach.

     I appreciate there are some topical issues covered like family violence, alcoholism, gambling and sexual abuse but the characters always manage to overcome their adversity/addiction with an ease that simply doesn’t happen in real life.  Characters hook up and break up with disturbing regularity and I am surprised that STIs haven’t been a focus issue (come to think of it, I’ve missed the plots focusing on melanoma, over-eating, bulimia and anorexia).  

     I reckon there are too many sexual encounters for young viewers and I can’t understand how these got past ACMA.  These would be fine at a later time-slot but this is peak family viewing time at 7 pm.  Sadly, ACMA has approved, from 1 December, M rated viewing (15 years and over) on TV from 7.30 pm (previously 8.30 pm) along with watering down other safeguards for young viewers.

     I’ve never got a handle who is who in Home and Away and when I ask the response is a loud and often chorused, “we’ve already told you ten times.”  So many of them look alike – white and thin and beautiful or white and toned and handsome - so how am I expected to distinguish between them.  I am often confused by the plot and if I ask about it I am told, “stop asking questions.”  How I wish I was away from home!

     So I always find something else to do like focus on eating my dinner, reading the ABC news on my phone, the tickling of soap suds on my hands as I wash the dishes or even sitting and doing nothing ... except, of course, wondering how the kids can watch “this stuff.” 

     A couple of weeks ago, Seffie and Kibby were making breakfast while I was doing yoga on the deck. 

     “What’s the name of Andy’s brother in Home and Away?  Kyle's friend?” Seffie asked Kibby.  

     “I can’t remember,” said Kibby.

     “Josh,” I yelled out without thinking.  And then I asked myself, How the hell do I know this stuff? 

WWJD

Years ago there was a little religious shop on the main street of Thursday Island called Sower.  Sower was hand painted in a cursive script on the outside wall.  The shop is long gone, but I always thought it had an odd name, even for a religious shop.  A sign at the door also proclaimed it was the agency for Uzu Airlines.  

     Inside was packed with bibles and other Christian literature.  Considering the musty smell and the film of grey dust on the shelving edges, I figured there wasn’t much demand for religious literature on TI.  However, it did sell dust-free, divine nick-knacks like crucifixes and Jesus statues along with posters, cups and placemats bearing the Lord’s prayer and the ten commandments, biblical quotes like, Ask and you shall receive and catchy adages like, The family that prays together, stays together.  These Godly accoutrements were displayed in the front window, enticing passersby inside. 

     My absolute favourite sale item was the wrist band that bore the letters, WWJD.  The wearer was constantly reminded to ask, What Would Jesus Do?

     There’s one problem with asking Jesus questions and that’s to do with his tendency not to answer directly and then not without many Our Fathers and Hail Marys.

     The image of the WWJD bracelet has stayed with me. When I have a problem I often find myself asking, WWJD, but I’m lucky.  I have a mortal to ask; my good friend Julia.  I can text and call.  If she doesn’t pick up the first time, she’ll always ring back or text. Somehow Julia either knows the answer to my question, has had a similar experience or we start brainstorming solutions and, voila! I come up with the answer I need.  The kids know I value Julia’s advice because I often say, “Julia’s suggested …” or “Julia reckons …”

     Now I have a couple of issues I need to address and I have regularly discussed these with Julia, but I’ve not settled on a solution that doesn’t involve going cold turkey.  One issue is yelling and the other swearing and they are inextricably linked.  For example, if I have asked the children to do something twice, they know I will yell on the third request.  If that goes unheeded, I may drop the odd expletive and more on the third, fourth, fifth and sixth request.  Please note I never swear at people, only at the situation.  I just, somehow, unintentionally, through a frustration that even Jesus and Julia could not tolerate, utter sinful words.

     Not long ago, I said to Seffie and Kibby that I needed to stop swearing and yelling, that I needed their help, that is, they needed to do what I asked, when I asked, the first time.  I reminded them that I only yelled and swore because they refused to do what I asked or they fought to the point of violence.

     “You’re not Julia, Mum,” said Seffie in a condescending tone.

     “Julia swears.”  Seffie raised her eyebrows as if I’d blasphemed.  “She does so swear.”  Seffie did not believe me.

     “Well, Julia doesn’t yell.”

     “She doesn’t have to yell because her daughters don’t fight like you two and they are at boarding school in America.”

     “But they come home for holidays and Julia still doesn’t yell.”

     “THEY COME HOME TWICE A YEAR.  JULIA DOESN’T HAVE TIME TO YELL.”  How could Seffie not see the connection between not yelling and not having children around? I was trying to stay calm.

     “That's because she just doesn’t yell.”  Seffie was very calm.

     “THE LONGEST THEY ARE AT HOME FOR IS EIGHT WEEKS.  NOT LONG ENOUGH FOR THE GIRLS TO GET BORED AND START FIGHTING AND NOT LONG ENOUGH FOR JULIA TO GET FED UP WITH THEM AND START YELLING!”

     “See, you’re yelling,” said Seffie with an evil grin.

     “SHIT!  THAT’S NOT FAIR.”

     WWJD, I wondered. 

Why drive when you can catch the bus?

Why drive when you can catch the bus? That’s what I thought when Bubu offered to drive me to Trinity Beach to pick up my brother's ute so I could collect a double bed from Smithfield.  Seffie and I could have some quality time together and buses are an environmentally-friendly mode of transport.  More people should catch buses.

     For a year Seffie had been politely asking for a double bed so she could sleep comfortably with two dogs.  There wasn’t a double bed on the Tablelands in my price range.  So I bought one from Lifeline at Smithfield, 84 kilometres away which wasn’t a problem when Seffie and I could easily catch the bus that stopped at Smithfield then take the council bus to Stephen’s place at Trinity Beach to get the ute.  I was excited.

     The driver advised our ETA at Smithfield was half ten, a bit later than usual being Friday, he said.  It wasn't long enough, I thought as Seffie and I snuggled in with the blankets we’d brought for the bed.

     Five minutes out of Tolga, the driver slammed on the breaks.  Passengers were thrust forward as if giving speedy Japanese bows.  We were in a convoy behind a rusty ute.  Two vehicles ahead took turns overtaking the ute and suddenly we were on the wrong side of the double lines.  I gripped Seffie’s hand as a white car barrelled towards us. I wondered if we were far enough down the bus to avoid being pulverised on impact.  Then we were jerked to the left just in time.    

     When racing down the main street of Mareeba the driver again braked without warning as a bulldust covered Toyota Starlet turned right.  Our driver was a maniac. I located the nearest emergency exit with a hammer of life attached.

     As soon as we pulled up to collect more passengers, I insisted we move.

     There was an odd assortment of new passengers that filled the bus - sunburnt European backpackers, unhealthily thin, hoodie-clad youths, young mothers dragging reluctant toddlers by their arms.  A large bellied man sat across the aisle from me and was snoring within seconds, his fingers interlaced atop his gut.  There were invisible passengers also – odours; stale alcohol, old sweat and freshly turned earth. Relieved Seffie and I were near the emergency exit, I tried to enjoy the ride … except for one of the backpackers crooning a love song in stilted English and out of tune (THE WHOLE TIME!), a child whining intermittently, the mother cursing it and the American woman in front of Seffie asking her to stop kicking the back of her seat (which I didn’t see her do).  The sleeping man across from me snored and snorted and gasped for breath at times as if he was choking.

     “I am supposed to start work at eleven,” said a woman in to her phone as we hit the Kuranda Range, “but we are running late.”

     Twenty five minutes late.

     Half way down the range, the bus pulled sharply to the left and stopped on a thin strip of gravel.  The engine died and the silence was near deafening.  The driver stood as if to address us.  Thinking of the Umpqua school shooting the day before, I imagined the driver whipping out an SKS. I closed my eyes and gripped Seffie’s hand.

     “Sorry, folks,” said the driver, “the engine’s overheated and we’ll need to wait here for a while.”

     Some passengers disembarked to light up.  Although we were in the shade, without the air conditioning, it was soon stifling.  That’s when I became aware of another odour, unidentified yet familiar.

     I fished out a book I’d been trying to read for some weeks, To Cut a Long Story Short by Jeffrey Archer.  The title irritated me in the circumstances.  I decided on reading the ABC news on my phone.  There was no signal.  I gazed at the passing traffic.

     Eventually, the driver called everyone back on board.  Strangely, six or so of the passengers at the front moved towards the back with their bags.

     “Someone’s spewed,” said one of them.

     Ah, the strange though familiar smell.

     We made it to Smithfield without incident.  I rushed for the exit and leapt over a puddle of lumpy, grey gunk at the front.  Seffie and I stood in a cloud of diesel exhaust and I smiled at the rear of the bus as it pulled into the traffic.

     “Mum,” said Seffie, “I think I stepped in the vomit.”

     We traipsed to the opposite end of the shopping centre to the bus stop only to discover we were about to board a southbound bus to Cairns Central.  That’s when I learnt, after 15 years of visiting Smithfield Shopping Centre (including living in Smithfield last year), there were two bus stops: one for southbound buses and one for northbound buses which we needed ... at the other end of the shopping centre.

     Eventually we made it to Stephen’s place, an hour and a half behind time.  What a lovely sensation, a steering wheel beneath one's palms.  As I pulled out of his driveway I thought, Why catch the bus when you can drive? 

Dementia and the periodic table

As my parents age, my fear is that one or both will develop dementia.  There’s a saying that the fear of an event is much worse than the event itself occurring.  But dementia is an exception. I’ve listened to heart-wrenching stories from children who have cared for demented parents; the slow decline of their memories, the loss of spirit, the greed of others who can fleece them of cash and treasured possessions, the fatigue that develops while caring for them and when that is no longer possible, the tortuous and often delayed decision to admit them to a home.

     My father prides himself on his memory and ability to problem solve.  At 75 he is still consulting in chemistry, nationally and overseas.  If I have questions about anything scientific, I simply call him.  It’s easier than using the internet and the explanations are more thorough and at the same time, user-friendly for idiots like myself. 

     I call him The Scientist.  He lives and breathes science in his scientific world.  We children grew up being lectured to about the wonders of science, particularly chemistry.

     At my seventh birthday party, he gave a demonstration to my awe-struck friends and pretended to be a child playing in the shed with chemicals.  He poured liquid into a beaker and added different drops from different pipettes.  Each addition of drops changed the colour of the liquid from clear to blue to green to red.

     "Then," he said wide-eyed and theatrical, "my mother calls for me, 'Jooohn' (he said this in an embarrassingly high-pitched voice) but I can't let her see what I am doing.  It's too dangerous for a little boy."  He pulls out a new pipette.  "I'm in here, Mum." Dad added drops from the new pipette and the red liquid became colourless.

     He reverted to the voice of his mother.  "John, what are you doing in here?"

     He held up the beaker of what now appeared to be water.  "Just having a drink of water, Mum."

     My friends clapped their hands and bounced on their tippy toes, thrilled by the performance.  I was cringing against the far corner of the room, convinced I had the most embarrassing father in the universe.  Of course, I knew of the universe because The Scientist had delivered quite a few lectures about the solar system, constellations, eclipses, planetary orbits, gravity and so on.  I knew the universe was much bigger than the world so my situation was truly desperate.
     The Scientist tutored me through junior high school science and later, Maths B and C and Chemistry (I traded Physics for French at the beginning of year 12, unable to tolerate so much science in my life).

     It's the periodic table that has featured most prominently in my life.

     It is plastered on quite a few household items such as mugs, tea towels and the shower curtain (I think he is on his third periodic table shower curtain!).  The shower curtain is a hoot and often commented on by visitors.  It faces in to the shower recess so while you are showering, you can brush up on reciting the 118 elements of the periodic table, their atomic weights and whether they are alkali metals, alkaline earth metals, noble gases and so on.  I’ve never forgotten the first 20 elements I learnt in 1981, probably because I revise them in the shower at the farm, and more so, when The Scientist checks my understanding of a chemical equation or molecular weight or joke.  Here was the last one.  And much to The Scientist’s pride, I worked it out.

     If The Scientist ever forgets the correct order of the elements of the periodic table, dementia will be to blame.  It’s something I fear yet know is probable if a scientific approach is taken – the longer one lives, the longer organs, cells and chemical and electrical processes have to deteriorate.  I want to spend as much time with Dad, and Mum, of course, as possible because they are, after all, in the winter of their lives.

     So last Saturday I went to the farm to help The Scientist with some window cleaning (yes, quite a few chemistry-based discussions on the appropriate substance to clean windows because Windex was too pedestrian!)

     After a couple of hours of back-breaking and wrist-wrenching work, I’d taken a break from cleaning and accompanied Dad on a drive to check the electric fences.  After returning, I had a cup of tea while he showered.  I was trying to motivate myself to tackle the next couple of hours of window washing.

     Then I heard it.  The Scientist muttering … to himself.  I leaned in toward the monotone, like someone reciting the lines of a play.  At that moment, I knew dementia had arrived. 

     I clear my throat of the lump of fear that had lodged like a razor blade.  “Dad, who are you talking to?”

     “Myself.”

     I knew it. Only people with dementia would be so honest about starring in a soliloquy in their bathroom.

     “Why are you talking to yourself?”  It was a stupid question to ask someone who obviously wouldn't know.  I was panicked and speaking without thinking.

     “I am learning the elements of the periodic table backwards.”

     I love having a fear of dementia.  It’s much preferable to the alternative.  Next time I visit The Scientist, I’ll time-test him on how fast and accurately he can recite the periodic table in reverse and start a record of PBs! 

Grrr!

Mum found these wild shoes at the op shop, each pair a steal at $1.  The gum boots are a size 8 and the brand new Diana Ferarri flats are a size 10.  They both fit me perfectly. I have size 9 feet!