My (admittedly lame) excuse is that my defenses were down

The past week has been kind of a nightmare, with some points of light thrown in, in the form of my parents' visit and Zeke's birthday party.  To which I forgot to take my camera and thus got no pictures.  Pfft.

So last Wednesday I was in the middle of doing a workout and holding 25 pounds weights in each hand while bending forward at the waist.  It's a hamstring exercise - you keep your back flat and let your legs do all the work as you lift and lower your torso.  And I was maintaining proper form, not even letting my arms dangle, but rather keeping them slightly engaged so as not to pull on my back too much.  But then all of a sudden I felt a little pull right in the middle of my back on the left side, about level with the bottom of my shoulder blade, and then the rest of my torso started to spasm and I couldn't move without excruciating pain. 

I put my weights down and managed to find an ice pack in the freezer and lie down on it on the couch.  J brought me a bunch of Advil and an Aleve, so I took them and waited for the pain to subside while I worried about how I was going to function over the next couple of days. 

Finally the medicine kicked in and I was able to get around without doubling over in pain every few seconds, so I showered and dressed and got the kids off to school.

The next two days were spent at a big annual convention for all of the state special education directors.  I gave a speech on Thursday, which went fine, but Thursday night I started feeling a tickle in my throat and Friday my tonsils and my neck glands were definitely acting up.  I went to the conference for a little while, but by around 11 a.m. I was feeling really shitty and I didn't really need to stay, so I went home.

My parents arrived a couple of hours later, to spend Zeke's birthday weekend with us.  Unfortunately, I spend the bulk of the time feeling crappy and lying on the couch, nursing a virus that mimicked strep in every regard -- extremely painful sore throat, swollen glands, and fever -- but wasn't *actually* strep, meaning that the doctor wouldn't give me any antibiotics for it.  Plus my strained back muscle was still acting up, so I was a pathetic mess.  I felt well enough to make it to Zeke's party on Sunday morning, which was really fun -- we went to a little dinosaur museum over in Morrison that has great hands-on exhibits and activities for kids -- but by the end of the weekend I was spent.

Monday I stayed home from work and slept and caught up on my DVR'd shows.  J went to work, but also had a court date at 1:15 in Jefferson County because he got pulled over a couple of months ago for having expired tags - I thought he had renewed them and he thought I had.  No big deal, right?  All he had to do was show up with the renewed registration and maybe pay a little fine.

Now, I've mentioned in the past that Australians in general, and my husband in particular, are notorious practical jokers.  And I grew up in a family of bullshit artists, so I tend to be pretty good at ferreting out the nonsense. 

But I guess I was tired.  And in pain.  And grumpy. 

And thus obviously unprepared when I received this text message from J approximately 5 minutes after he was due in court:  "$1000 and 10 days jail"

Because I freaked. 

If someone were telling me a story like this about someone else, I would have been all, "Oh, ha ha, good one."

But J has a history of getting kicked around by law enforcement.  So my initial reaction was, "NO!  WHAT THE FUCK??  REALLY??"  followed by furious efforts to call him.  But he didn't pick up his phone and I got more and more worked up and finally I just called the court.

CLERK:  Hello, Jefferson County Court, Criminal and Traffic Division.

ME:  Yeah, hi.  Uh, my husband had a court date this morning for a traffic ticket and I was just trying to find out what was going on with his case. 

[I give her the ticket number.]

CLERK:  Yep, here it is.  Looks like the DA dismissed it.

ME:  Really?  I'm so confused.  I got a text from my husband saying that he was assessed a huge fine and jail time, and I don't get it because it doesn't seem like failing to renew your registration on time would be a jailable offense.

CLERK:  Ma'am, I think he was just messing with you.

Ya think??

TMI Thursday: Would you, could you, in a tree?

OK, folks, time for another TMI Thursday. Click the picture above to read more awesomely cringe-worthy TMIs courtesy of LiLu at LivitLuvit.com.

Back in September 2004, after Jason and I had gotten together but when he had gone back to Australia to reconnect with his family, renew his driver's license, and make some money, I went to visit him. We hung out awhile with his family near Sydney, but then decided to take a trip. Initially we thought about going to the Gold Coast to go to the beach, though it was still kind of winter-ish and not that warm.

Then I read a book by Bill Bryson called In A Sunburned Country, about his travels through Australia, including out to Western Australia, south of Perth, where there are giant trees. Like, bigger-than-most-redwoods giant. That people are allowed to climb.

In addition to these giant, beautiful, majestic - and did I mention climbable - trees, he described the countryside as extraordinarily gorgeous, with rolling hillside and vineyards and cliff-side views of the Indian Ocean and amazing underground caves with stalactites or stalacmites or whatever the hell they're called.

All of that stuff sounded awesome, each justifying a trip out there in its own regard, but he seriously had me at the giant climbing trees. I told Jason that instead of going to the Gold Coast, I wanted to go to West Oz to climb the giant trees.

So we flew the 5 hours from Sydney to Perth, and hung out at King's Park and walked around Perth and saw one of the Bourne movies and had yummy sushi.

And we went to Freemantle, this funky little hippie town south of Perth, and saw funny-looking quokkas on Rottnest Island and stayed in a working pub, which, given the noise of drunk people singing all night, was a better idea in theory than in practice. Particularly since the heat in our room didn't work and it was 40 degrees out, so we had to sleep in our coats.

We rented a car and drove south down the coast to Margaret River, where we sat watching the sunset over the ocean while we drank yummy wine that had been recommended by a skate-rat-looking kid with bleached blond hair and a broken arm from a skateboarding accident. He looked like someone that would be sent over from Central Casting if you called and asked for a typical surfer dude. But then he started talking about grapes left to sweeten on the vine and the acidity of the soil during the winter of 2000 and it was totally like having Keanu Reeves's character from Bill and Ted as your somalier. In other words, kind of awesome.

Finally, finally, it was time to go see the giant trees. We drove into the Southern Forest, and the trees were just magnificent. In addition to being enormous, they are beautiful -- a smooth, shimmery, marble-y grey colored bark, with silver-grey leaves. The climbing trees were fire lookouts at one time, with pieces of steel rebar stuck along the trunk in a spiral to climb up to a little platform/tree-house type thing at the top. They were opened to the public for climbing probably about 30 years ago.*

First we went to the Gloucester Tree, which is about 60 meters high (about 197 feet). And it was amazing. The climb was incredibly cool and the view from the top was spectacular.

Me climbing the Gloucester Tree

View from the top

Tourists

Then we went to the Dave Evans Bicentennial Tree. I have no idea who Dave Evans is or was, but it's a hell of a tree - 75 meters (about 245 feet) tall. It was getting to be late afternoon when we got there, and there was only one other car in the parking lot. As we climbed to the lookout tower at the top of the tree, we saw people get in the car and drive off.

Meaning we were all alone.

And I don't know why -- this is seriously unlike me -- but there was something about being all alone on the top of this insanely tall, beautiful tree, in the gorgeous countryside, on a warm, sunny late afternoon, that kind of ... got to me.

I looked at Jason.

"So...," I drawled.

"Yeah?" he responded.

"What do you think about, uh, inaugurating the tree?"

His eyes got wide.

"Really?"

"Really."

"Really???" I think he was in a little bit of shock.

"Really."

So we got it on in broad daylight in a treehouse in the middle of the Australian forest. And then carved our initials in the railing for posterity.

Poor Jason had a sore neck and probably some splinters in his ass for the rest of the day.

But he didn't complain.

_______________________

*What I particularly loved was that in the U.S., you'd have to sign liability waivers and be attached to harnesses and whatnot - assuming they ever let anyone up on a giant tree at all. In Australia, the rebar was totally exposed - no harnesses, no safety nets, nothing - and there was a sign at the bottom that basically said, "this could be dangerous, turn back if you're not in decent shape." Yet another reason I love the Aussies.

Aussie word of the day: lunch edition

Anyone who knows Jason knows that the boy has an appetite unlike anything most of us have encountered in nature, outside of maybe a ravenous goat. He's a pleasure to cook for, as many of our friends have discovered, because he likes just about everything, is effusive in his praise of a good meal, and goes back for seconds and thirds, plus will relieve you of any leftovers you're looking to clear out of your fridge.

I'll put some effort into trying out a new recipe, and he'll have a bite, get a look of bliss on his face, and exclaim, "baby, this is top tucker!!"*

The only difficulty I have, in addition to fights about leftovers, is that his palate is seriously defective. One manifestation of this is his tendency to slather every single thing he eats with some sort of condiment or sauce, be it chili sauce (such as Sriracha on all forms of pasta), salad dressing (some thousand island on a piece of pizza, perhaps), or anything else he can find.

Another manifestation is the sandwich combinations he comes up with. Australians, apparently, will put anything between two pieces of bread.

He called me this morning for our daily 11:20 chat.

"G'day, love."

"Hi, sweetie. How's everything?"

"Fantastic, now that I'm getting ready to sit down for smoke-o. Got a bunch a' sangers* lined up."

"Oh, yeah? What's on the menu?"

"Tuna, cheese, onions soaked in balsamic vinegar, pineapple and mayo."

"I'm sorry, did you just say 'tuna with onions, balsamic vinegar, pineapple and mayo?'"

"Yep."

I hate it when people are all, "EWW, GROSS!!" at other people's food choices. So I just said, "Well, uh ... have a lovely meal."

But, seriously, people. EWWW, GROOOSS!

____________________

*Tucker = Aussie for "food." For full effect, hold your nose and pronounce it thusly: /TAH-kah/

Sanger = "sandwich." /SANG-ah/

Aussie word of the day: toddler edition

People ask me all the time what kind of accent Zeke has, as in, is he picking up any of Jason's Australian accent. And most of the time it's hard to discern any real accent because he's still learning pronunciation. I don't doubt that eventually he'll sound American, but be able to put the Aussie accent later in life when he's trying to pick up chicks.*

So far, I haven't noticed much of an accent, except for early on in his pronunciation of "water" (he used to say "woh-tah," like Jason does, but now has flattened out the "a" and sounds American). I have noticed that when we read Go, Dog. Go! -- sometimes I'll have him "read" the first couple of pages ("Dog." "Big dog. Little dog." "Big dogs and little dogs. Black and white dogs.") -- he says "dog" almost like there's a second "o" in there ("doog"), which is kind of how Jason pronounces it.

Then last night, we were reading Leonardo the Terrible Monster for the 70 millionth time. And we got to the part about how Leonardo doesn't have the benefit, scariness-wise, of being just plain weird, like Hector.

Zeke was doing his "what's this?" "what's that?" thing where he points to different pictures or images in the book and asks rapid-fire questions about them (even though he knows the answers). He pointed to Hector, a very silly-looking monster with 3 eyes and a huge goofy top hat and a tail-thingy that also kind of looks like an arm, and said, "what's that?"

"That's Hector," I said.

"He's weeeeeeeeed," Zeke exclaimed.

I had a minute of panic.

Did he just say Hector has weed? I mean, I don't doubt it, but how the fuck does he know what weed is? WHO'S TEACHING MY KID ABOUT DRUGS??

Then I thought about it and realized that he was using Jason's hyper-Aussie-fied pronunciation of the word "weird."

Big exhale.

__________

*American girls dig the Aussie accent, for reasons I will never understand. I think it sounds all nasal-y and kind of grating, but I can't even tell you how often women have practically flung their panties at Jason when he started to talk, that's how much it happens. Now, give me a good Scots accent, and my toes definitely start to curl. But I digress.

Aussie word of the day: sick-bed edition

Jason is still sick. Very, very sick. Like, can barely breathe or stand up and is still having massive coughing fits in which he coughs up blood kind of sick.

In Aussie-speak, he's crook, mate.

Saturday or Sunday night (they're all running together at this point), I was downstairs in my bedroom, futzing around on the computer. Jason was feeling somewhat human and was up in the kitchen giving Zeke some dinner.

All of a sudden, I heard Zeke yelling, "Daddy! DADDY! Wake up!! Wake up, Daddy!"

And then I heard Jason moaning.

"DADDY WAKE UP!!"

Something's not right, I thought to myself.

I sprinted up the stairs to find Jason passed out cold on the floor. He came to a few seconds later.

"What happened?? Are you OK?"

"I don't know. I was standing at the sink and then I was on the floor and I heard Zeke yelling at me to wake up. I must have passed out."

"Jesus Christ. I told you to take it easy. Get into bed now, please."

It turns out his pneumonia is viral, not bacterial, meaning it doesn't respond to antibiotics. So instead of being better within 5 days or so, as the ER doctor predicted, it looks like he's going to be out for at least another week and a half. Another week and a half of him feeling like shit, not being able to breathe, not being able to do anything.

I was telling my mom about it this morning.

"Poor thing!" she lamented.

"Yeah, which one?" I asked.

"You, of course."

I'm trying really hard to keep it together for everyone. The kids are diapered and fed and in laundered clothes, and I'm doing my best to keep the house from looking like the "before" part of an episode of Clean House. This too shall pass, I guess.

In the meantime, happy Australia Day, everyone!

Aussie word of the day: fake-out edition

My brother Sam, who finds Jason's linguistic machinations hilarious, recently heard someone exclaim "cheese and rice," and assumed that the person was Australian and was using rhyming slang in place of "Jesus Christ!"*

For the uninitiated, rhyming slang involves using replacing a word with other words, with the last word rhyming with the word it's intended to replace, e.g., "cheese and kisses" for "missus," "frog and toad" for "road," "Pat Malone" for "alone," etc. It gets even more convoluted when the last word (i.e., the rhyming one) is left off altogether, like when "septic tank" is used to refer to an American ("Yank"), but "tank" is omitted and "septic" is abbreviated to "seppo."

Have I mentioned that Aussies are a little nuts?

Anyway.

In Sam's case, he was right. The person was undoubtedly either Aussie (or maybe British), and was using "cheese and rice" as a sub for "Jesus Christ."

But sometimes Jason will use an expression that sounds to me like it should be part of a rhyming combination, but actually isn't, so I'll sit there racking my brain trying to figure out what he's trying to say and what's supposed to rhyme with what.

My favorite example is "she'll be apples," which means "everything will be OK." As in, "Don't worry about the party, love. We'll get what we need from the store and I'll watch the kids while you cook, and everything will get done in time. She'll be apples!"

The first time I heard this phrase, I assumed that "apples" was part of a rhyming combination, so I was sitting there with my brow furrowed and smoke coming out of my ears, trying to be all clever and figure it out, as I thought to myself, "apples and pears? what rhymes with pears? apples and something else??"

And Jason saw the confused look on my face and asked, "what's up?"

"Apples and pears?"

"What?"

"What goes with apples?"

"What are you talking about?"

"What's 'apples'? You said, 'she'll be apples.'"

He laughed and explained what it meant.

"Oh, OK. You're not just messing with me?"

"Fair dinkum, baby, I wouldn't do that!"

*sigh*

___________

*Incidentally, I did some research and discovered that the Cockney rhyming slang for "jew" is "five and two." But Jason said he'd never heard this, so it must be a Brits-only kind of thing.

Aussie word of the day: food storage edition

I've become so immersed in my husband's Aussie-speak that I'm beginning to use it myself, to the point that today, I couldn't remember the word "cooler," i.e., the thing you put sandwiches and drinks in when you go on a picnic or to the beach.

For example, like everyone in Australia, we have an electric kettle for boiling water.  They drink lots of tea there.  Only they don't call it a kettle -- it's a "jug," as in "Darl,* would you be a dear and put the jug on for a cuppa**?"  "Jug" is also used to refer to any container in which liquids are stored.  And now I never say "turn on the kettle" or "boil some water."  I always say "put the jug on."

I need to do a Target run today, and I was making a shopping list.  Jason needs a couple of things for his job up in Vail, and I was planning on picking them up for him.  Specifically, he wants a big thermos to keep drinking water in, and a little cooler for packing his lunch.  So I wrote:

children's motrin

note pad with magnet for fridge

bananas

ketchup

strawberries

blueberries

Special K

water jug

esky

First, note that I wrote "water jug" rather than "thermos."  Second, you're probably asking yourself, "what the hell is an 'esky'?"

"Esky," which is short for "Eskimo,"*** is the Australian slang word for "cooler."  And as I was writing out the list, not only did I instinctively write "esky," but when I tried to remember the American word, it took me a good 20 seconds of thinking hard to come up with it.

I think I'm becoming indoctrinated.

________________

*   darl = short for "darling."  Sounds like "doll," but with an "r" thrown in.

** cuppa = cup of tea

*** as I have explained previously, Aussies abbreviate everything.

Don't mess with Aussies, Part 2

A while back I wrote about Jason's penchant for practical jokes. Let's just say that you don't want to get into a game of one-upmanship with him in the practical joke department. His creativity and deviousness is matched only by his willingness to take things a step further than anyone else would dare.

My favorite story is an old one, involving a joke he and his mates played on a boss they had years ago in Australia. Apparently the guy was a real humorless prick and had done something obnoxious that warranted retribution. So Jason rewired the guy's car so that every time he stepped on the brakes, the horn sounded. He and his buddies followed the guy down the highway, watching the boss get more and more befuddled and frustrated as his horn continued to go off without explanation, pissing off all the cars around him as he sat at a light.

His latest is a doozy.

Jason recently started on a new job. Every morning, he takes with him a gallon jug of water to drink throughout the day.

From the first day of work, he discovered that one of the guys is surreptitiously sneaking water from the jug when he thinks Jason isn't looking. He doesn't ask or acknowledge the action, he just assumes that Jason won't notice.

Jason noticed immediately, and started putting different things in the water. Dirt one day. A really sweet cordial syrup another day. But the guy continued taking Jason's water unabated.

Today was the pièce de résistance. Jason brought his water jug as usual. He drank about three quarters of it. And then he peed in it.

While the guys were sitting around at lunch, Jason mentioned that he was on this new diet (I think he even gave it a name, the "Junaloi" or something). He explained that part of the philosophy of the diet involved the recycling of the body's fluids, including drinking urine.

The water-stealer said nothing. But the look on his face as he realized he had been drinking Jason's pee? Priceless.

I consider it something of a betrayal. Don't ask me why.

Most Americans' exposure to vegemite extends no further than having a vague recollection of that Men At Work song that was big sometime around when I was in 9th grade. We sang along to the "she just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich" line, thinking it sounded kind of funny, but having no idea what the hell a vegemite sandwich actually is.

To quote Inigo, "let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up."

Vegemite is a brown paste that is made from yeast extract. I'm not quite sure who first had the idea to spread it on bread or crackers, but it's huge in Australia, something of a cultural icon.

It is unquestionably an acquired taste, i.e., if you don't acquire it before you're old enough to know better, you will never, ever think it tastes good.

I first tasted vegemite when my mom and I took a trip to Australia back in 2001, while she was stationed in Papua New Guinea. With a "when in Rome" attitude, one morning I gamely spread it on my breakfast toast.

To say it tastes like salty toe-jam would be overly generous. (And don't ask me how I know what toe-jam tastes like. Some things you can just imagine, OK?)

But, notwithstanding my distaste for the stuff, I abhor people who feel the need to comment negatively on what other people eat. There's nothing ruder than when someone takes a bite of something they love, only to have someone else say, "Eeeeew! How can you put that in your mouth?? That's DISGUSTING!"

So, when I married an Aussie, I made a point of scouring the various grocery stores in Atlanta until I found one that sold vegemite, so that I could keep Jason supplied with the stuff of his homeland. When he was working on a job that required him to get up crazy early and leave the house by 5 a.m., I got up with him and while he was showering and dressing, made him coffee and vegemite toast to take in the car.

Jason has looked forward to the day when he could introduce Zeke to vegemite. I wrinkled my note at the thought of it, but couldn't voice any legitimate objections. It's perfectly healthy stuff, loaded with B vitamins. But still, in my mind, Zeke is American. Self-respecting Americans don't eat vegemite.

Until now.

This morning before school, I was making some cinnamon toast for Zeke's breakfast. Jason said, "I think I'll let him try some vegemite toast." So I cut the piece of toasted bread in half. Jason spread his side with butter and vegemite, and I spread my side with butter and cinnamon sugar.


Zeke chowed down on all of it, the little freak.

Aussie Word of the Day: Unemployment Edition

Aussies tend to abbreviate everything. No frequently used word remains intact for long. The two main forms of diminution are by shortening the word and then tacking "-ie" or "-o" on the end. Thus, "afternoon" becomes "arvo." "Petrol" becomes "pettie." "Beverage" becomes "bevvie." Jason's brother Dean becomes "Dean-o." "Sunglasses" becomes "sunnies."

My favorite of these is "smoke-o," short for "smoke break."* Smoke-o falls at about 11 in the morning, between breakfast and lunch. For those that don't smoke, it can be used for morning tea or a snack. When Jason was working, he would call me every day during smoke-o to say hello. In fact, he set an alarm on his watch to remind himself.

This morning Jason and I went for a surf after dropping Zeke off at daycare. There's a nice swell coming in from the northwest, so we decided to head up north and hit one of our favorite breaks. The waves were nice and clean, about 3-4 feet, with an offshore breeze. There was a good 5-10 minutes in between sets, so we tended to bob around on our boards waiting for the waves to come.

A side view of the wave

During one of the lulls, I looked out at the waves just in time to see, about 50 yards away from me, a dolphin jump out of the water and spin around before diving back in. There was a huge pod swimming and playing, and the younger ones were showing off to each other, flying out of the water and flipping around. Then out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of a giant turtle surfacing not to far from where I was sitting. He poked his head up, looked at me for a couple of seconds, and then went back under and swam away.

There's something so magical about being out in the ocean and encountering beautiful sea creatures willing to share their habitat. And it was a gorgeous day, sunny, not too hot, not too cool, blue skies. I may not love living in Hawaii, but on days like today, it's hard to beat. There
are certainly worse places to be unemployed (or under-employed).

So there we were, enjoying the day. I caught a bunch of really great waves, including one that was about as perfect a ride as I've ever been able to produce. As I was paddling back out to the line-up, I heard Jason's watch beep.

"What's that?" I asked.

"Smoke-o!" Jason laughed.

"Well, thank God. I certainly need a break from all this...perfection."

_____________
*For full Aussie effect, say the word with as nasal a voice as possible, and pronounce it "SMAU-kau."

Aussie word of the day: rhyming slang edition

This latest edition of the Aussie Word of the Day is inspired by the faux pas I wrote about yesterday, in which I insulted my husband's efforts to be sweet to me.

In terms of the etymology, my understanding is that rhyming slang derives from Australia's English roots, specifically Cockney rhyming slang, in which two or more words rhyme with the intended word. Apparently, it was a way for people to speak in code so that authorities would not understand what they were saying.

So if Jason had been really pissed off at me, an exchange with a buddy of his might have sounded something like this:

"G'day, Steve-o! I'm headin' down the frog-and-toad to the rub-a-dub-dub. Care to join me for a bevvy or two? I'm having a bit of a domestic with the trouble-and-strife and I think it would be good to get out of the house for a bit."

Translation: "Hi, Steve. I'm going down the road to the pub. Would you like to join me for a drink or two? I'm in a fight with the wife and I think it would be good to get out of the house for a bit."

On the other hand, once we made up, he might say something like this:

"When I was traveling, I was lonely for the old cheese-and-kisses. It's so boring to be all on me Pat Malone."

Translation: "When I was traveling, I was lonely for my missus. It's so boring to be all alone."

And yes, my husband really does talk like this.

Aussie word of the day: houso

I speak Australian. And for real, not like those Foster's ads. After being with an Aussie for 4 1/2 years, I know rhyming slang, regular slang, alternate usages, etc. So I've decided to spread the wealth.

houso \HOW-zo\ (for true Aussie effect, hold your nose while you say it), noun: someone who lives in public housing; the Aussie equivalent of calling someone "white trash" or "redneck."

"I'm not so sure about that little wifebeater ["singlet" or "singy" in Australian]. Zeke looks like a baby houso."