The truth about cutting my grass

The grass needs mowing again. We’ve had a week of alternating rain and sun—perfect for growing grass. You’ll notice I didn’t say ‘lawn’. It took me ages to stop referring to the sort-of-green stuff that we have here as lawn. Lawn goes hand-in-hand with lush and manageable. Lawn is a neatly edged pocket-handkerchief of something verdant. Our home is a 4-acre block covered with grass-like vegetation that is substantially more weedy and bice than lawn.

Random pic of how the dogs feel about the grass.

There’s something so civilized and polite about a tidy lawn. A neatly clipped lawn with a pin-line edge shouts, “The people who live here are proud and responsible citizens.” Either that or it mutters something about OCD and anal-retentives. And the raucous Sunday sound of a lawn mower is practically a suburban anthem. Which is probably why it drives me nuts that Dr Dad is so obsessed with keeping our grass cut. At this time of the year, no day is safe from the cowboy accountant on his trusty ride-on steed. He’ll straddle that roaring beast as the sun sets on even the most perfect of days.

On evenings when we should be wallowing in the soul-bolstering calm that surrounds us — the white noise of surf punctuated by the calling birds, nightfall stretching across the horizon, both kids locked away in the bedrooms plugged into their earpods pretending to do homework — Lawnmower Man goes into overdrive. It’s almost annoying enough to put me off my pinot grigio. Almost. 

Lawnmower Man in action.

 Actually that’s another thing about cut lawn. Some people go into raptures about the luxuriant aroma of freshly cut grass. For them, it evokes childhood, or summertime or holiday memories. Not for me. It reminds me of sauvignon banc. I’m not a fan of sauvignon banc.

I don’t think dogs are enraptured by the smell of freshly mown lawn either, because every dog we’ve ever had… hang it, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say… every dog in the history of the universe, finds the smell of cut grass to have a laxative effect. Am I right? The damn dog can’t wait to lay a barker’s egg right there in the middle of the newly neatened plot. Every time. But I digress. 

Lawnmower Man’s excuse for his obsession with keeping the grass down is that he spends so much time cooped up in the windowless over-air-conditioned environment of the workplace that he just loves to get out there in the fresh air and do something constructive. Yeah, right. I know better. I know that’s only the Y-chromosome-bearing reason. There are two, interconnected real reasons. The first has to do with the fact that, as you can see from the photos, we have a large dam.

 Lawnmower Man has a pathological fear of snakes, and the local copperheads (which only rank seventh, by the way, in the top ten of Australia’s most dangerous snakes) like to live around water. I can confirm this because just last week one took up residence beside the drainage pipe at our letterbox. And even though these reptiles are described as shy and slow to strike, Lawnmower Man is not willing to take any chances. Especially since that day one of the dogs brought us a live hissing plaything, right up to the back door.

So don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining that he wants to keep the property snake free…well, not snake free exactly, that’s impossible, just with grass short enough that we can actually see a snake if it’s sunning itself or making its way somewhere for a drink. I’m just having a whinge about his timing. His timing and the noise.

 I’m so used to sitting here at my computer veritably bathed in the sound of nothing man-made, except the occasional crunching on the unmade road of a carload of sight-seers who’ve lost their way down our dead-end street, that the damn lawnmower chopping it all to hell makes me want to throw myself off the nearest cliff.  

So that’s truth number one about what why Lawnmower Man’s obsession gets up my nose. Call by tomorrow for truth number two.

Same blog time. Same blog channel. 

     

Her Imperial Fluffiness

Last night, Her Imperial Fluffiness deigned to spend a not insignificant portion of her time in my company. I was, of course, appropriately appreciative and expressed my deep resounding gratitude for her presence as she generously aided my naturally inept attempts to sew together the squares of the latest blanket I’ve been knitting by testing both its comfort and the effectiveness of my stitching endeavours with her not insignificant body weight. Ever so helpful.

As her paws absently gripped then released… gripped then released… gripped then released… those ridiculously loopy threads of  my inexpert handiwork, her engine slipped into overdrive, the revving just loud enough to blur the dialogue of the movie she clearly knew was of no interest to me. Why else would I have put the remote control ever so slightly out of my reach?

Later, when the rest of the population of The Rock was foolishly squandering those annoyingly quiet small hours, she used her remarkable 7^th sense to determine that, with Dr Dad away in London, a little company and conversation would cheer me up. Who could fail to be delighted by the pad pad prod…pad pad prod… of Her Highness on their flaccid cheek?  Or the stomp stomple stomp that accompanies the wafting of a splendidly feathery appendage beneath their nose as Her Majesty makes her way to the bedside table to commence deftly swatting anything smaller and lighter than a house brick onto the floor? 
Not I.
 

In daylight hours, she is often equally as generous with her assistance. When I write, she offers valuable criticism.

And her contribution to my household chores is incalculable.   

But oh, how honoured I am when she graces me with her presence in the evenings. 
I know my place. 
I remain ever her humble servant.

 

Bulgogi for beginners: Korean BBQ beef 101

Until recently, Korean food was a bit of mystery to most Australians. Probably the nearest thing was the occasional Mongolian BBQ restaurant where you’d cook your own meat on a smelly kerosene-fuelled hotplate in the middle of the table. Remember those? Well, lately Korean restaurants have been popping up all over the place and to my amazement (and to be honest, just a weeny bit of horror) I discovered pre-packaged bulgogi beef in the meat section of our supermarket. Not imported authentic pre-packed bulgogi, mind you, locally prepared try-hard-wannabe stuff.

So, as our home is a bit of a bastion of bulgogi ( well, for a pack of Aussies it is anyway), I thought I’d share the secrets of this popular Korean dish. Unlike other Asian cuisines, Korean does not use a great many spices: garlic and chilli—that’s about it — with soy and sesame coming in close behind. Koreans use their spiciest mix with chicken and squid. Beef is treated with respect for the flavour and so bulgogi has no chilli, making it popular with even the fussiest of eaters. And because you often eat it rolled in lettuce leaves, bulgogi makes a great picnic treat too, no cutlery or plates required.

 Here’s what you’ll need:

600 g scotch fillet, porterhouse or rump steak 

4 chopped spring onions (both the white and the green parts)

1 finely grated medium-sized carrot

1 lettuce washed and separated into leaves (Cos lettuce work well for this but a good-old iceberg will do.)

 Marinade:

1 nashi pear – peeled and mashed or grated finely (a kiwi-fruit will do if there are no nashis)

1 tablespoon sugar

6 tablespoons soy sauce

6 cloves garlic (more if you like)

¼ teaspoon white pepper

1 tablespoon roasted sesame seeds

1 tablespoon sesame oil

Here's how to do it:

1.     Slice the beef against the grain of the meat as finely as possible. The easiest way to do this evenly and without trimming your fingernails at the same time is to slice the steak when it is par-frozen.

2.     Mix the mashed pear/kiwi and sugar in a bowl with the sliced beef . It’s best if you squash it all together a little with your fingers, as your body heat will help start the tenderising process. Yes, that’s what the fruit is for: the acid is a natural tenderiser. Set this aside while you prepare the rest of the marinade. The longer the better. If you can be bothered, leave it for half an hour, but really a couple of minutes will be enough. Korean cooking’s an ancient art, not a precise science.

3.     Pound/grind the sesame seeds and pepper, then add the garlic and pound it all together.

4.     Transfer the garlic paste to a large bowl and combine with soy sauce and sesame oil.

5.       Add the chopped spring onion, grated carrot and meat mix to the marinade, combine well, cover and leave to stand at room temperature for at least an hour. If you want to make this up ahead of time, just put it in the fridge overnight.

6.     Remove the meat from the marinade and bbq on a preheated hotplate for two or three minutes.

7.     Spoon into lettuce cups and tuck in!

Once you’ve tried this basic recipe, you can make it your own by adjusting the amount of sesame/garlic that your family prefers. Some people like to add a bit of crushed ginger to their marinade, others increase the vegetable content with finely chopped green capsicum and/or bean shoots, while some go for the straight carnivore version, ditching the veggies completely.

Of course, if you want to serve it with rice instead of lettuce cups, go right ahead. There’s no rule preventing that. And if you want to spice it up, add a sauce made of red chilli and soybean paste that can be spooned on to the beef by anyone who likes things hot.

Koreans would always always serve bulgogi with kimchi — the national dish of pickled, chillied vegetable (usually cabbage). It’s pungent to say the least, and most definitely an acquired taste for most Aussies. Kimchi became a staple in Korea as they could preserve the veggies in huge ceramic pots which they buried in the earth or under the snow for when green vegetables were scarce as a way to prevent scurvy. The rooves of modern apartment blocks in Korea are still dotted with kimchi pots over the long freezing winter months, and a great many homes have a separate kimchi fridge.

Koreans also always serve a range of little side-dishes to pick at with chopsticks during every meal: things like seaweed, spinach, cucumber or mung bean salad; blanched zucchini strips; steamed eggplant; pickled white radish; honeyed sweet-potato or tiny potato pancakes. And of course there's rice.

 So maybe next time you have friends over for a bar-be, you can switch things up a little bit and serve bulgogi and sausages. We do!

I didn't love 'The Rosie Project'

I didn’t love The Rosie Project.

I was in conversation with Bernadette, the wife I’d never met of a man I know a little from work. I don’t remember how we even got onto the topic of what we’d been reading, but everything was going swimmingly until I uttered those few words.

I didn’t love it.

In less than an instant, her expression dropped from animated smile, through vague surprise, to blank stare. Like she couldn’t imagine what kind of humourless bitch wouldn’t love The Rosie Project.

I don’t usually do that. Disagree with people I don’t know, I mean. Normally, I return the smile and utter something that mirrors their point of view, that will make them feel comfortable. Maybe even fool them into thinking I’m a nice person. So I’m not sure why this time I just blurted without first pouring my words through the be-nice-filter.

Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t looking for an argument, or trying to stop the conversation. I wasn’t being un-nice. I guess perhaps it was just a view that I wasn’t prepared to set aside. I really didn’t love The Rosie Project. I didn’t dislike it, either. In fact, I enjoyed it. I found it diverting and amusing —a pleasant holiday read. But I didn’t love it. 

Mostly, that’s because I DO love The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. 

I think the protagonist/narrator, Christopher John Francis Boone, is far more engaging than Don Tillman as a representation of someone who is ‘on the spectrum’, and I believe Mark Haddon’s structure and plotting is superior to Graeme Simsion’s.

Haddon’s work is clever and funny and heart-breaking and thought-provoking and whimsical and logical all at the same time. It’s so adeptly crafted that the crafting goes unnoticed. The interplay of what Christopher sees with what we as readers see is genius. Even the gaps and silences in Haddon’s novel have an authentic voice. I adore it. I can read it over and over and it hangs together so tightly that I love it even more.

So, while I am all-too-willing to wear the badge that says Picky Bitch, Humourless Bitch I am not. I’m sorry, Bernadette, because I didn’t intend to upset you or shut you down. But I don’t have any passion for The Rosie Project. Perhaps that’s it. Perhaps when I’m truly passionate about something, I simply cannot apply the be-nice-filter.

Is that so wrong?

The Rosie Project was published by The Text Publishing Company, Australia, 2013

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time was published by Random House, United Kingdom, 2003.

...a Pollyanna kind of morning

School mornings rarely run to plan in our household. Monday mornings are often particularly bothersome. But this week, after a 4-day weekend, it was Wednesday that caused the most trouble.

Boychild had failed to set his alarm. Boychild had to be woken (twice) ten minutes before our usual departure time and so spent the day unwashed, unfed and decidedly crinkly.

Boychild had two of his final exams on Wednesday.

No, Wednesday's was not a good morning. But it wasn't that unusual either, which led me to wondering ( because I'm reading a book about positive psychology at the moment) how our mornings might be represented in a Pollyanna / Little House on the Prairie kind of novel. So here's an excerpt :-)

NB: Names have been changed and expletives deleted to protect the guilty. 

 

‘Kyle, are you ready yet?’ The click-clack of his mother’s heels overhead was almost as loud as her voice. It sounded to Kyle as if an angry camel was tap-dancing in the kitchen. Kyle knew the look she would have on her face: the look of someone who was thinking one thing but saying another. She always wore that face when they were running late.

‘Have you two cleaned your teeth? It’s time to go. We’ll be late,’ she called down the stairs. Then she added, ‘ Has anyone seen my keys?’

‘Not yet,’ Kyle clicked “Shut Down”. ‘Gemma’s still in the bathroom.’ He didn’t bother to check this. His sister spent most of her life in the bathroom.

‘Does anyone have any idea where my keys might be?’ Judy Carter was standing just outside Kyle’s door as she spoke. He had been too deep in thought to notice her coming down the stairs. Now he’d have to think quickly. He should have headed her off before she made it this far. His room was not very tidy. In fact, his room was very not tidy.

‘Oh Kyle, this is a disgrace,’ his mother breathed heavily as she spoke. Sometimes Kyle thought she did this so her head wouldn’t explode from all the pressure that built up inside it. ‘It’s unhealthy, Kyle. It’s a wonder you can find anything in here.’

Kyle resisted the temptation to remind her that he wasn’t the one who’d lost his car keys.

‘Sorry, Mum,’ he looked into her eyes as he spoke. ‘I’ll clean it up first thing after school. I promise. And I’ll do my teeth as soon as I can get into the bathroom.’

‘Gemma, would you please let your brother have his turn?’ Kyle’s approach had worked. Attention had turned to his sister. ‘What’s taking you so long? Actually, don’t tell me, we don’t have the time. Just hurry up. Your brother hasn’t even…  So that’s where I left them.’

‘You know you could save a lot of time if you just used spray paint on your face,’ Kyle offered helpfully as he reached in front of his sister for the toothpaste.

‘Oh you two do make me laugh. Come along now. I’ll be waiting in the car.’

Just another day in paradise.

...the mid-night hamster wheel

Scientists have known for a long time that daily rhythms are driven by some kind of clock in our bodies. But they didn’t work out exactly where it was until the middle of the 20^th century. They found this out when they did surgery on hamsters. They took out a tiny part of the brain of hamsters called the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN). After this, the hamsters totally lost their rhythm – and not just on the hamster wheel. It used to be easy to predict when the hamsters would run on a wheel. But after they lost the SCN, they ran at any and all times of the day and night. That was the first big step in understanding.

http://www.sleephealthfoundation.org.au/files/pdfs/body-clock.pdf  
 

How’s your suprachiasmatic clock? Mine is way out of synch. I firmly believe its regular settings were totally lost at about the same time that my short-term memory disappeared into the post-menopausal-black-hole. If scientists were to remove any tiny part of my brain, any tiny part at all — left or right, frontal or back — I’m convinced they’d find it riddled with even tinier holes through which my hamster rhythm has been gradually leaking away.

After all my late night farnarkling routines have been thoroughly exhausted, you know how it goes —tidy/ablute /brush/check Facebook/put dogs out/ check emails/let dogs back in/charge phone/check blog/ turn off computer/find book— and I finally squeeze into the piece of the bed left for me by the dogs (which is always always the bit where there is plenty of doona cover but not one square inch of warm fluffy doona) it isn’t long before I fall asleep. Often with the light still on and a book on my face.

At some stage during the night, every night, no matter how many cups of coffee, glasses of pinot gris or life–sustaining minutes of exercise in the fresh air preceded it, I will wake. But here’s the thing, I wake at 2:22, 3:33 or 4:44. What’s with that? Comedic cosmic compensation? Or is my body clock trying to tell me something?

I don’t understand.

...a beguile of magpies

Something of this handsome bird might be said with advantage in a homely way. It appears that in captivity Magpies show an aversion to anyone who has annoyed them, as well as to anyone who looks like the person who has annoyed them.  The voice of the offending person is quite sufficient to agitate the bird and cause it to rush post haste towards its tormentor to wreak a terrible vengeance. Although it is principally children and ladies that they have a grievance against, some children and ladies pass by as very good friends.

The Useful Birds of Southern Australia: With notes on other birds was written by Robert Hall and published by T.C. Lothian (Melbourne and Sydney) in 1907. It was one of very few things handed down to me by my paternal grandmother.

 

Happily, the magpie clans that populate our little piece of The Rock and I have come to regard each other as ‘very good friends’. I know I shouldn’t feed the wildlife. And yes, they leave the upstairs deck looking like this:

They also have a rather nasty habit of barfing up lumps of shiny hard bug-body-ambergris. It’s kind of gross, but who am I to judge.

My neighbour shoos them away from her place. She doesn’t like the way they peck holes in her lawn and she practically wretches at the thought of their poop getting into her water-tanks. But I think when they really pissed her off was when the cheeky blighters worked out that she keeps bees. Easy pickings. Meal in a box. So she shoos them off to come over to visit the crazy-bird-lady next-door who feeds them mincemeat and bacon rind. And they do.

I lob the tasty tidbits high into the air one at a time for my clever black and white friends to swoop and catch in midair all whooshing wings and click-clacking beaks. It’s a spectacular show.

The young birds wait warily on the grass below for any treats that should fall. A clumsy hurried foot-race for the prize ensues . They make me laugh.

In the mornings, they wait at my kitchen door. One cheeky male even taps on the glass to remind me they’re outside. A row of them will be on the railing singing. And oh how they reward me with their warble-garbling  a cappella routines.

I don’t know if there’s a collective noun for magpies, but there should be. A beguile of magpies, maybe? Or a carol?

I believe in signs

As we turned nervously into the school we’d selected for Girlchild  and Boychild, I was in awe of the vast greenness of the wetlands that lined the driveway. Waterbirds, wallabies and blooming wattle. Divine. Acres of fresh air and native plants were surely a far better choice than the concreted rat maze we’d left behind. I hoped the kids would be happy, that the transition would be painless for them and they would be comfortable in their new world.  Magically it appeared. The sign that assured me they’d fit right in:

And so they have. They love it here. What kid wouldn’t love a school that has a vegie garden, baby animals and a surfing academy? But the transition hasn’t always been so painless for me.

I’ve always said I should write a book titled The Oldest Mum in the Playground about the perils of later-life parenthood and the joys of being mistaken for the grandmother… or the nanny. It’s something I’ve always been self-conscious about. Moving to The Rock hasn’t eased that. Not even a teeny-weeny bit. Most of the mums down here look like they could be dating our older son. Oddly enough, it was a Cape Barren goose who provided my sign.

These elegant large-bodied creatures abound down here. OK, so their honk sounds disconcertingly like a snorting pig, but their grace is undeniable.  And they mate for life. I have absolute respect for them. So I was more than a tad disturbed when one pair chose to make their nest in the middle of the roundabout at the school's kiss-and-go drop-off point. Not just that, this couple was starting very late in the season.The other parents were already proudly showing their progeny how to forage and swim when this female settled to sit on her ill-placed eggs. 

The school bells rang, the cars came and went, the buses rumbled by. And still she sat.

Some days her partner hovered nearby. Other times he clearly lost interest and wandered off to find something decent to eat. But she sat. She sat as the other mothers herded their broods and preened themselves in the sun. She sat and watched as the fluffy chicks about her grew to be unkempt adolescents, feathers askew as they filed behind their parents.

My heart broke for her. Her laying had been too late. Her eggs were no good. She’d have no babies to tuck under her wings as the cool night airs fell.  

 

And then it happened.

She had her reward. 

I had my sign. 

This is home.

...writing into the void

I've been 'gunna' start a blog for ages... not quite as long as I've been gunna start a diet, but definitely longer than I've been keeping a list of thing I might write about. Absolute ages. What stopped me wasn't an inability to express myself in words, nor a dearth of ideas; it was the lack of an audience.

Several years of my professional life were spent in a publishing house, and it always bewildered me that so many people wrote manuscripts — whole books — tapping away during every spare minute they had for years, writing into the void without first checking whether there was actually an audience for their work.

Hundreds of would-be authors had complete faith in the twaddle and dross they submitted for consideration, thinking of themselves as great writers, even if nobody had ever read what they’d produced. They assured me there clearly was a market for their masterpiece, because their husband/mother/son/ aunty/neighbour/best friend/highly literate cat had simply adored it. And every one of them was stunned when I rejected their submission. Stunned and hurt.

So, if I started a blog, who the heck was it for? Just me? If that was the case, then perhaps I should just keep a journal. For my friends and family? Let’s face it, they listen to me in real time, so it would be grossly unfair of me to expect them to devote their alone-time to hearing my voice too. I had snookered myself. No readers = no point in writing.

But a couple of months ago, I went to a writing workshop that promised to help me get started with whatever it was I was burning to write. I hated it. I sat through the whole day battling the voice in my head that was telling me I was a fraud, an imposter, not a writer’s bootlace. Publisher-me kept rejecting writer-me.
What are you going to write?
I have no idea. Just stuff.
Stuff? What sort of stuff?
Oh, you know… life… work…kids…
And why?
I dunno. Just because I want to…
And who’s it for? Who’s your audience? Your market?
…ummm…

And then the instructor said this: It’s none of your business what you think about your own writing.

The woman is clearly crazy. What does that even mean?
She might just have a point .
Are you kidding? It’s meaningless drivel.
But what if she’s right?

So, here I am. Writing into the void. Throwing my voice into the black hole. Making a commitment to blog every day for a month, with no safety net. And no known audience. But that’s none of my business either.