Last weekend Eric and I got to go to our very first bush dance. It was an absolutely awesome event to celebrate the 50th birthday of a dear man of God from our church. Our invitation said "hat required" so we knew it was going to be special. We got Eric a true Aussie hat - an Akubra - as an early Father's Day present. He looks pretty smashing in it to be sure. I got a cheap variety as I'm not one for hats. Armed with our gear (or should I say headed?), we took off for this new adventure.
For appetizers we had barramundi which is a favored fish found here in Australia and crocodile kebabs. We were thinking this was pretty special to us Americans until we found out that many of the Aussies had never had crocodile either. Maybe it isn't often eaten because it doesn't go well with Vegemite?
Cool appetizers aside, the meal was wonderful and we got to sit back and enjoy the presentation of Dave's first 50 years. It was lovely and we appreciated seeing his journey to the present.
Sadly, it was at the end of the presentation that I realized I was completely out of oomph and needed to get to a horizontal surface sooner rather than later. I was terribly bummed because I was dying to do some bush dancing, but knew it would have been something more like "bushed dancing" if I'd pushed myself any farther.
The last few weeks have been an interesting odyssey that, frankly, I really could have done without. In addition to the horrible pain attack, I've been on the wrong side of normal - the way wrong side. I have been to the doctor, had tests done, and enough blood drawn to keep a vampire in fine fettle. It has finally settled into four things. If you don't like listening to people carry on about their medical issues, you won't like reading about them either, so please stop reading now. Otherwise, sorry to bore you, but it is a bit cathartic (for me, not you!).
To my credit, I had realized one thing was not right and had already been to the doctor the week before the attack. While investigating that one, they found a contributing factor that needed to come out so I got to have a day surgery on June 20th. This was the second event where a hat was required. The nurse called it a "party hat", but it sure looked like hospital netting to me. Anyway, the uterine polyp is history - good riddance I say.
While that was all going on, they determined that my thyroid was really on the fritz - no wonder I was so dang tired. That one is a "better living through pharmacology" solution so I now get to start my day with a pill (and no I don't mean Eric!). After a week and a half of the pills I am definitely starting to see the improvement and am realizing this has been going on for some time to a lesser degree.
One of the things they discovered at the emergency room was my liver numbers were quite high. The doctor looked at me with a bit of a smirk and said, "you like your red wine, do you?" and when I said I didn't drink, well, pardon the pun, but that sobered him right up. Armed with that new information he said those numbers are "off the planet for someone who doesn't drink". So, he referred me to an gastroenterologist and I finally got in to see him on Friday.
After a very interesting education on the liver, pancreas, and bile ducts, his conjecture is the pain was probably due to a piece of bile grit that can't get out and in this instance, temporarily blocked the duct exit which really, really got my attention. So, another procedure to verify this and fix if it is the case is coming up in a week and a half.
I'm beginning to think my great visions of touring Australia have somehow been subverted into touring every doggone medical facility they have. All I can say at this point is if that's what gets me well again, then I'll put it on my list of "things to see and do" and count my blessings.
I'm full of blessings - a great husband who has cared for me so diligently (although I'm still wondering what he meant when he implied the sicker me was less feisty!), a wonderful church family here, and a family back home that I will very soon get to see again. We have our tickets for 3 1/2 weeks of glorious family time beginning July 13th with some time in Indiana so we can see everyone. Just got to hold onto my hat for 2 1/2 weeks and we'll see y'all. Yeeha!
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
The Return of Keith and Laurie
There are times in life when you really need a lift. Thursday morning was one of those days. Wednesday found me checking out another facet of the Aussie health care system - emergency rooms. The attack of excruciating pain that sent me there was, thankfully, something that has thus far not come back. While that is a good thing, I was left feeling like I had been beat up from the inside and no answers as to cause which was the state I found myself on Thursday.
Thursday morning was sunny and quite pleasant for winter. The good Lord knew just what He was doing when he dispatched a few of our winged friends to our doorstep - what a day brightener! We suddenly heard loud chirping from the deck and, what do you know, it's Keith and Laurie sitting on the chair trying to get our attention. We obliged them quickly and greatly enjoyed feeding them. We learned from our Aussie friends that they love wet bread so our "special of the night" was just what they were looking for.
Eric and I discovered over the next few days that we are very trainable and they can be quite demanding. They and their would-be friends have come back every day and we have been fascinated by the social (or not so social) world of lorikeets. Our pair Keith and Laurie do not like to share their restaurant at all. The two of them would take turns eating while the other was chasing everyone else away. They nearly drove themselves crazy trying to run back and forth when Eric and I decided to stand at opposite ends of the deck to see what would happen.
The interesting thing is a few days into this and Keith and Laurie are not nearly so rigid in their selfishness and there was much more group dining today. We also had a couple scaly-breasted lorikeets come. They are almost completely green. We captured some of our fun times and they're here - June 2nd, June 4th (scaly-breasted lorikeets), and June 5th.
I am finally starting to get some answers on what's been messing with me, but no firm leads on the cause of the killer pain. We are truly fearfully and wonderfully made and even though we think we're pretty smart, we still don't really understand the human body. It sure can be a mystery, that's for sure.
Thursday morning was sunny and quite pleasant for winter. The good Lord knew just what He was doing when he dispatched a few of our winged friends to our doorstep - what a day brightener! We suddenly heard loud chirping from the deck and, what do you know, it's Keith and Laurie sitting on the chair trying to get our attention. We obliged them quickly and greatly enjoyed feeding them. We learned from our Aussie friends that they love wet bread so our "special of the night" was just what they were looking for.
Eric and I discovered over the next few days that we are very trainable and they can be quite demanding. They and their would-be friends have come back every day and we have been fascinated by the social (or not so social) world of lorikeets. Our pair Keith and Laurie do not like to share their restaurant at all. The two of them would take turns eating while the other was chasing everyone else away. They nearly drove themselves crazy trying to run back and forth when Eric and I decided to stand at opposite ends of the deck to see what would happen.
The interesting thing is a few days into this and Keith and Laurie are not nearly so rigid in their selfishness and there was much more group dining today. We also had a couple scaly-breasted lorikeets come. They are almost completely green. We captured some of our fun times and they're here - June 2nd, June 4th (scaly-breasted lorikeets), and June 5th.
I am finally starting to get some answers on what's been messing with me, but no firm leads on the cause of the killer pain. We are truly fearfully and wonderfully made and even though we think we're pretty smart, we still don't really understand the human body. It sure can be a mystery, that's for sure.
Monday, May 23, 2011
Fun With Kayaks
From almost the first moment we moved into our place here in Salamander Bay, Eric and I said "we should buy some kayaks". These kind of statements are so often more likely to be wishful thinking than to ever be put into any sort of motion that might actually turn those wishes into reality. And so it was for months and months.
Upon Eric's return from his last sojourn back to Seattle, all this changed. With our incredible sense of timing, we decided it was time to finally act on our wishful thinking. Our finely honed sense of timing might be just a hair off as we're heading into winter and that probably isn't exactly high season for kayaking.
Unfazed by this realization, I began stalking my prey on eBay. I found out it takes a lot of time and effort to catch a kayak. Eventually I bagged one, but they didn't deliver, so we had to drive to Sydney to get it. Once we got it home, we tried the kayak out briefly sticking very close to the beach as we hadn't procured a life jacket yet.
At work the next day I was discussing life jackets with a coworker and the Aussie on the other side of the cube popped up (also called prairie dogging in cubicle land) and gave me a very important tip. He said, "don't get yummy yellow - it's a favorite of sharks". I very briefly stared him down to ascertain the veracity of his claim and decided he was pulling my leg. Unfortunately, having seen the movie Jaws as a kid, there is a small part of me that believes him no matter the ludicrousness of the statement; it's the same small part that had a hard time even getting into a swimming pool after seeing the movie. It was really scary - no wait, really, really scary.
Anyway, what should I discover when I got home? Eric had gone out and purchased a nice yellow life jacket. Great! Now the thing will be forever a yummy yellow life jacket.
Since the kayak was a single, I had a job to do - bid and buy another one. I slaved away at eBay once again and was finally successful and got the second one at an even better price. We had to drive to a different place near Sydney to pick it up and discovered we got a bargain - he had never sold one for so low a price. We also found out that had we bought it during the summer it would have cost us twice as much. Wow, maybe our timing wasn't as bad as we thought.
Now we needed a second life jacket. I was determined to get a life jacket in any color other than yummy yellow this time. Of course, what did we find? The store only had yummy yellow life jackets! It's a shark conspiracy I'm tellin' ya!
It might be heading into winter, but it was in the 70s last weekend and beauteous out there. We took the kayaks out for a nice long trip. We went around the head to the next bay and then came back and headed in the other direction to the pier. We concluded our happy little trip with the unfortunate realization that kayaking can also make you feel a bit seasick when it's a bit wavy out there. Guess we'll be investing in some patches before our next foray.
Kayaking off our beach - cross that off the list and add it back in because that's one we'll definitely be doing again!
Upon Eric's return from his last sojourn back to Seattle, all this changed. With our incredible sense of timing, we decided it was time to finally act on our wishful thinking. Our finely honed sense of timing might be just a hair off as we're heading into winter and that probably isn't exactly high season for kayaking.
Unfazed by this realization, I began stalking my prey on eBay. I found out it takes a lot of time and effort to catch a kayak. Eventually I bagged one, but they didn't deliver, so we had to drive to Sydney to get it. Once we got it home, we tried the kayak out briefly sticking very close to the beach as we hadn't procured a life jacket yet.
At work the next day I was discussing life jackets with a coworker and the Aussie on the other side of the cube popped up (also called prairie dogging in cubicle land) and gave me a very important tip. He said, "don't get yummy yellow - it's a favorite of sharks". I very briefly stared him down to ascertain the veracity of his claim and decided he was pulling my leg. Unfortunately, having seen the movie Jaws as a kid, there is a small part of me that believes him no matter the ludicrousness of the statement; it's the same small part that had a hard time even getting into a swimming pool after seeing the movie. It was really scary - no wait, really, really scary.
Anyway, what should I discover when I got home? Eric had gone out and purchased a nice yellow life jacket. Great! Now the thing will be forever a yummy yellow life jacket.
Since the kayak was a single, I had a job to do - bid and buy another one. I slaved away at eBay once again and was finally successful and got the second one at an even better price. We had to drive to a different place near Sydney to pick it up and discovered we got a bargain - he had never sold one for so low a price. We also found out that had we bought it during the summer it would have cost us twice as much. Wow, maybe our timing wasn't as bad as we thought.
Now we needed a second life jacket. I was determined to get a life jacket in any color other than yummy yellow this time. Of course, what did we find? The store only had yummy yellow life jackets! It's a shark conspiracy I'm tellin' ya!
It might be heading into winter, but it was in the 70s last weekend and beauteous out there. We took the kayaks out for a nice long trip. We went around the head to the next bay and then came back and headed in the other direction to the pier. We concluded our happy little trip with the unfortunate realization that kayaking can also make you feel a bit seasick when it's a bit wavy out there. Guess we'll be investing in some patches before our next foray.
Kayaking off our beach - cross that off the list and add it back in because that's one we'll definitely be doing again!
Thursday, May 12, 2011
Everybody Rug Up
It has been a little hard to come up with stuff to talk about because most of life here is starting to seem pretty darn normal. Well, as normal as being in a constantly confused state could possibly be. I can't for the life of me get spring/fall and winter/summer straightened out. Without fail when I'm trying to refer to the July-August time-frame I'll say "this summer". I am at least now following that statement directly with "I mean winter", but I just cannot seem to make the mental switch.
The news this morning told everyone to "rug up" because it's unseasonably cold. That means put on your jumper (sweater) and coat. I have the worst time when people (especially men) talk about putting on their jumpers. Unbidden comes this image of them putting on the dresses I had to wear to school as a kid. Not a pretty sight even if it is just in my head!
Another thing that's a little strange is this cold snap being referred to as an "Antarctic Blast". It does make sense since Antarctica is the continent directly south of here, but it's still an "Arctic Blast" to me.
It was cold and ridiculously windy for my soccer game yesterday. We tied a team 0-0 that was much, much better than us so we were claiming it a moral victory if nothing else. I had the most dubious distinction of laying one of their best players out flat. I don't have the great kicking ability of many people and I have absolutely no experience in this area, but I have it on good authority from my better half that this situation requires only hitting the "right spot". At any rate, I was mortified as my team was having quite the time making sure I couldn't forget what happened both at the field and later again at work. There's a definite downside to playing soccer with your coworkers, that's for sure.
We're making plans now to come back to Seattle for a few weeks starting in mid-July (please don't ask me if that's winter or summer - I don't know!) with a stop in Indiana somewhere in the middle of it. I sure hope it'll be warmer than here (no guarantee for Seattle, but I'm thinking our chances are pretty good for Indiana). We will have lived here for a whole year by then - where in the world has the time gone? I sure hope we get to see all our dear friends and family because we sure do miss you all.
The news this morning told everyone to "rug up" because it's unseasonably cold. That means put on your jumper (sweater) and coat. I have the worst time when people (especially men) talk about putting on their jumpers. Unbidden comes this image of them putting on the dresses I had to wear to school as a kid. Not a pretty sight even if it is just in my head!
Another thing that's a little strange is this cold snap being referred to as an "Antarctic Blast". It does make sense since Antarctica is the continent directly south of here, but it's still an "Arctic Blast" to me.
It was cold and ridiculously windy for my soccer game yesterday. We tied a team 0-0 that was much, much better than us so we were claiming it a moral victory if nothing else. I had the most dubious distinction of laying one of their best players out flat. I don't have the great kicking ability of many people and I have absolutely no experience in this area, but I have it on good authority from my better half that this situation requires only hitting the "right spot". At any rate, I was mortified as my team was having quite the time making sure I couldn't forget what happened both at the field and later again at work. There's a definite downside to playing soccer with your coworkers, that's for sure.
We're making plans now to come back to Seattle for a few weeks starting in mid-July (please don't ask me if that's winter or summer - I don't know!) with a stop in Indiana somewhere in the middle of it. I sure hope it'll be warmer than here (no guarantee for Seattle, but I'm thinking our chances are pretty good for Indiana). We will have lived here for a whole year by then - where in the world has the time gone? I sure hope we get to see all our dear friends and family because we sure do miss you all.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Learning Aussie English
I don't know where the last month has gone, but I have been soaking up a lot of Aussie everyday words and phrases. While a number of people at work have been feeling crook (sick), I've just been tired. I also haven't wagged (skipped) work or church. Granted with Eric having been gone more than three weeks now I am dangerously close to cracking the sads (being unhappy or upset). So what have I done?
Sadly, the one thing I vividly remember is my cockie (cockroach) experience a couple weeks ago. What we have learned is this is an ideal climate for them and Aussies here will tell you they're just a fact of life - you know like killer spiders. On the surface I could understand this concept, but the reality was much different.
I turned on the light in the kitchen that night only to discover a monster cockie in a bowl on the counter. In that moment when my heart lurched I contemplated the possibility of peaceful coexistence with this behemoth (behecockie?), but in the next instant the vision of sharing my pantry with him made me realize it was so not possible. Thenceforth every thought left my mind except killing it. I found and brandished my weapon of choice (a shoe), and the chase was on. He retreated to the side of the counter by the dining table so I had to go around only to discover some other little bug on the floor. Since I was armed, the little one was dispatched post haste. Back to my first quarry. He was smart and was staying by the corners. I took a few unsuccessful whacks at him and he was off to the other side again. Back to the kitchen. He and I worked our way to the toaster oven with a few unsuccessful whacks. As I tried to move the toaster oven to get at him again, another monster roach came out of that! Oh the horror!!!
Now I’m chasing two and they’ve gone in different directions. I finally got the first one and based on his size, I'm sure you can imagine what a sickening display that was. Ugh!!! Since the job was not done I couldn’t allow myself to think about having to clean that mess up. The second monster was by the mixer and he was equally disgusting – bleah!!! After cleaning up the messes, it was awfully hard to contemplate sleep what with the memory of the carcasses, the knowledge that I was a triple murderer, and that there were probably gobs more of these monster roaches waiting in the wings to ruin my life.
It was definitely a troubled sleep that night and I have been checking the kitchen carefully ever since and haven't seen hide nor hair (and they were big enough to have that stuff if cockies could) of a single cockroach. Guess the other ones can just feel their imminent doom so they're laying low. Aussies would give this a shrug and a no worries, but personally, I'm thinking pest control is my next step. I just hope they don't laugh at me too hard - they probably only think pest control should be used for the poisonous things.
Our other creepy crawly story has to do with our mailbox. For some time we were noticing that our mail was rather chewed up and there were dregs in the bottom of the box. Hmmm. Eric finally discovered the culprit one day - a snail. Mystery solved and we've started calling him our poor man's paper shredder.
I never finished our vacation blogs - lucky you. I think part of it was I didn't want to admit that the highlight of day 5 was our visit to Costco in Melbourne. How pathetic is that? When the beautiful coastal scenery is overshadowed by seeing and buying real paper towels, you know you haven't really completed the adjustment to living in the land of Oz. Buy, hey, it was a real treat to buy something more towel-like as opposed to paper-like.
We also appreciated greatly that the inside of that store was so Costco you could almost imagine yourself back in the states. That is until we passed by the big jars of Vegemite and noticed the "import" tags on many of the products. We bought lots of stuff and were thrilled to find so many comforts of home to take with us.
Speaking of the states, Eric has been gone 3 1/2 weeks now. With a week and a half to go it feels like it will never end. I spent almost two of those weeks with a broken TV antenna. There is not much worth watching here, but a dozen channels are definitely better than none as sometimes it's nice to hear someone else talking (and no I haven't started talking to myself - I meant someone talking at all!). I have been very fortunate in that members of our church family here have invited me to dinner every week so I'm not too lonely.
Remember the budgie smugglers? I had an Aussie acquaintance who thought that the equivalent American slang was "banana hammock". I had to say I'd never heard of that one and truth be told, I thought it sounded more Aussie as they tend to be quite a bit more "visual" in their slang.
I don't think I can sink any lower so I'll stop now.
Miss you all.
Sadly, the one thing I vividly remember is my cockie (cockroach) experience a couple weeks ago. What we have learned is this is an ideal climate for them and Aussies here will tell you they're just a fact of life - you know like killer spiders. On the surface I could understand this concept, but the reality was much different.
I turned on the light in the kitchen that night only to discover a monster cockie in a bowl on the counter. In that moment when my heart lurched I contemplated the possibility of peaceful coexistence with this behemoth (behecockie?), but in the next instant the vision of sharing my pantry with him made me realize it was so not possible. Thenceforth every thought left my mind except killing it. I found and brandished my weapon of choice (a shoe), and the chase was on. He retreated to the side of the counter by the dining table so I had to go around only to discover some other little bug on the floor. Since I was armed, the little one was dispatched post haste. Back to my first quarry. He was smart and was staying by the corners. I took a few unsuccessful whacks at him and he was off to the other side again. Back to the kitchen. He and I worked our way to the toaster oven with a few unsuccessful whacks. As I tried to move the toaster oven to get at him again, another monster roach came out of that! Oh the horror!!!
Now I’m chasing two and they’ve gone in different directions. I finally got the first one and based on his size, I'm sure you can imagine what a sickening display that was. Ugh!!! Since the job was not done I couldn’t allow myself to think about having to clean that mess up. The second monster was by the mixer and he was equally disgusting – bleah!!! After cleaning up the messes, it was awfully hard to contemplate sleep what with the memory of the carcasses, the knowledge that I was a triple murderer, and that there were probably gobs more of these monster roaches waiting in the wings to ruin my life.
It was definitely a troubled sleep that night and I have been checking the kitchen carefully ever since and haven't seen hide nor hair (and they were big enough to have that stuff if cockies could) of a single cockroach. Guess the other ones can just feel their imminent doom so they're laying low. Aussies would give this a shrug and a no worries, but personally, I'm thinking pest control is my next step. I just hope they don't laugh at me too hard - they probably only think pest control should be used for the poisonous things.
Our other creepy crawly story has to do with our mailbox. For some time we were noticing that our mail was rather chewed up and there were dregs in the bottom of the box. Hmmm. Eric finally discovered the culprit one day - a snail. Mystery solved and we've started calling him our poor man's paper shredder.
I never finished our vacation blogs - lucky you. I think part of it was I didn't want to admit that the highlight of day 5 was our visit to Costco in Melbourne. How pathetic is that? When the beautiful coastal scenery is overshadowed by seeing and buying real paper towels, you know you haven't really completed the adjustment to living in the land of Oz. Buy, hey, it was a real treat to buy something more towel-like as opposed to paper-like.
We also appreciated greatly that the inside of that store was so Costco you could almost imagine yourself back in the states. That is until we passed by the big jars of Vegemite and noticed the "import" tags on many of the products. We bought lots of stuff and were thrilled to find so many comforts of home to take with us.
Speaking of the states, Eric has been gone 3 1/2 weeks now. With a week and a half to go it feels like it will never end. I spent almost two of those weeks with a broken TV antenna. There is not much worth watching here, but a dozen channels are definitely better than none as sometimes it's nice to hear someone else talking (and no I haven't started talking to myself - I meant someone talking at all!). I have been very fortunate in that members of our church family here have invited me to dinner every week so I'm not too lonely.
Remember the budgie smugglers? I had an Aussie acquaintance who thought that the equivalent American slang was "banana hammock". I had to say I'd never heard of that one and truth be told, I thought it sounded more Aussie as they tend to be quite a bit more "visual" in their slang.
I don't think I can sink any lower so I'll stop now.
Miss you all.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
First Australia Vacation Day 4
One of the first things we realized the day before was that we weren't prepared for it to be cold. Our hope was that the coldness of the previous day was an aberration and it would be warm and lovely for our sightseeing. Well, it wasn't. It got down to 10 Celsius in the late afternoon (50 Fahrenheit) and since we were used to the lovely summer up north, that seemed especially cold. Our little hiking forays to check out all the cool places were brisk walks - literally. It was quite windy and we found the weather to be either threatening rain or or having a little sun break in between the threats.
We saw some fabulous coastal formations and cliffs. As you can see, it's pretty special scenery. We especially enjoyed the Grotto and the Loch Ard shipwreck area. The ocean has long since erased the remnants of the Loch Ard wreck, but the story remains. The whole stretch we drove was dubbed the "shipwreck coast" because so many ships have met their end along there.
One of the highlights was the Twelve Apostles formations. Unfortunately they've lost a few apostles over the years, so it's now a bit misnamed, but the ones left are doing their best to look especially good.
We also went to the Tree Top Walk which was cool, but in our opinion was quite overpriced ($22 AUD each). I saw a new bird there - the Eastern Yellow Robin - and managed to immortalize it in the camera.
We next headed to Cape Otway where we would be spending the night at the lighthouse manager's accommodations. As we drove down the road to the lighthouse, we had heard there were koalas so we were keeping an eye out for koala bums (and the rest of their bodies, too!). It wasn't long before we saw one, then another, and we just kept seeing them. We stopped and got lots of pictures of these cute (sort of) little furry guys. After forever scanning the trees near our house for koalas with no success, we felt like we'd hit the jackpot. We also spied our first fox in Australia.
Staying at the lighthouse was an interesting experience. It truly was a step back in time as there was no cell phone coverage, internet, television, or telephones. We were - gasp! - cut off from the world. I think if I were to live there for any length of time I'd need an awful lot of books. But for a one night stint, it can and does keep its charm.
I posted the full set of scenic coastline, tree top walk, koala, fox, and lighthouse pictures here (Pictures). As you can see by one of them, the wind blew my hair into a frightful 'do.
We saw some fabulous coastal formations and cliffs. As you can see, it's pretty special scenery. We especially enjoyed the Grotto and the Loch Ard shipwreck area. The ocean has long since erased the remnants of the Loch Ard wreck, but the story remains. The whole stretch we drove was dubbed the "shipwreck coast" because so many ships have met their end along there.
One of the highlights was the Twelve Apostles formations. Unfortunately they've lost a few apostles over the years, so it's now a bit misnamed, but the ones left are doing their best to look especially good.
We also went to the Tree Top Walk which was cool, but in our opinion was quite overpriced ($22 AUD each). I saw a new bird there - the Eastern Yellow Robin - and managed to immortalize it in the camera.
We next headed to Cape Otway where we would be spending the night at the lighthouse manager's accommodations. As we drove down the road to the lighthouse, we had heard there were koalas so we were keeping an eye out for koala bums (and the rest of their bodies, too!). It wasn't long before we saw one, then another, and we just kept seeing them. We stopped and got lots of pictures of these cute (sort of) little furry guys. After forever scanning the trees near our house for koalas with no success, we felt like we'd hit the jackpot. We also spied our first fox in Australia.
Staying at the lighthouse was an interesting experience. It truly was a step back in time as there was no cell phone coverage, internet, television, or telephones. We were - gasp! - cut off from the world. I think if I were to live there for any length of time I'd need an awful lot of books. But for a one night stint, it can and does keep its charm.
I posted the full set of scenic coastline, tree top walk, koala, fox, and lighthouse pictures here (Pictures). As you can see by one of them, the wind blew my hair into a frightful 'do.
Monday, March 7, 2011
First Australia Vacation Day 3
One of the things we all seek in a vacation is the chance to "get away from it all". Well, we got away from it all - including the internet. All it took was a few days of no internet and suddenly I've nothing to say. Sadly this is mostly because I can't recall half of what happened, but this is where pictures are a leaky mind's best friend.
Based on the evidence presented by the camera, we first saw a gannet colony. It might have been a lot more interesting if we could have actually gotten close enough to the colony to tell we were looking at gannets and not just some moving birds of some sort in the distance, but the environmentalists must have deemed our visage so repulsive to gannets that they'd no longer be able to reproduce if they took a gander at us (oops, I think I'm mixing my 'birdaphors').
Apparently the only thing gannets can look upon with equanimity are Maremma dogs. They have two of these dogs and the two dogs take turns guarding the gannet colony. The dogs are trained to make a fox wish it'd never even thought about a gannet dinner. All I know is I felt kind of sorry for the dog that was there because he sure seemed to want some human contact.
We moved on down the road and after checking out a reproduction of an old boat, we turned off into an area called the Tower Hill Reserve. It's a monstrous crater from long ago volcanic activity and is a lush environment. We found a shingleback lizard, emus, koalas, and one kangaroo that scared the dickens out of me and vice versa. It was a completely different world.
We hopped back onto the Great Ocean Road and made our way to Warrnambool. Warrnambool has a lovely viewing area on one beach to look at whales, but since it's not the season for the whales to be around we contented ourselves with admiring someone's beach artwork. Pretty cool, eh?
We moved on thinking we'd spend the night in Peterborough. That plan fizzled when we saw the motels there - they just didn't look like what we were hoping to find. We moved on to the next town and found a place to drop our carcasses for the night in Port Campbell.
The next stretch of road holds the big attractions of the Great Ocean Road so we looked forward to seeing even better stuff after a good sleep.
Based on the evidence presented by the camera, we first saw a gannet colony. It might have been a lot more interesting if we could have actually gotten close enough to the colony to tell we were looking at gannets and not just some moving birds of some sort in the distance, but the environmentalists must have deemed our visage so repulsive to gannets that they'd no longer be able to reproduce if they took a gander at us (oops, I think I'm mixing my 'birdaphors').
Apparently the only thing gannets can look upon with equanimity are Maremma dogs. They have two of these dogs and the two dogs take turns guarding the gannet colony. The dogs are trained to make a fox wish it'd never even thought about a gannet dinner. All I know is I felt kind of sorry for the dog that was there because he sure seemed to want some human contact.
We moved on thinking we'd spend the night in Peterborough. That plan fizzled when we saw the motels there - they just didn't look like what we were hoping to find. We moved on to the next town and found a place to drop our carcasses for the night in Port Campbell.
The next stretch of road holds the big attractions of the Great Ocean Road so we looked forward to seeing even better stuff after a good sleep.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
First Australia Vacation Day 2
We enjoyed our "free" breakfast this morning and then headed for some real coffee or at least it was espresso. I got a kick out of ordering an iced mocha with extra ice only to discover their iced mochas don't normally come with ice. Once again, another bad assumption in a country where I've found things just aren't always as logical as I might wish.
The weather today was rainy and very overcast to the point of being foggy in sections. We decided that based on that, we might as well do the inland drive to the other end of the Great Ocean Road today because it wasn't going to be conducive to short hikes and sightseeing.
We skirted Melbourne, and then stopped for lunch in Geelong. The lunch was excellent and we wandered around the Geelong waterfront for a bit and then hopped back into the car. From there we headed pretty much due west and saw cows, sheep, cows and sheep, and sheep and cows. It was kilometers and kilometers of pastureland. What was puzzling was the pastures were semi-separated by lines of trees that had been obviously planted a large number of years ago. I'm only guessing that the trees were meant to separate the properties as there didn't seem to be rhyme or reason to much of their placement.
I was profoundly disappointed that in all those hours of driving we did not see a single kangaroo except for a few who had found their close encounter with a vehicle to be their last unfortunate moment. We did finally see a mob of them in the evening near Cape Bridgewater, but I was surprised that was the only time we saw them since I see them at least half the time on the way to work and here we were in absolutely prime grazing land.
We ended our day in Portland of all places. I guess people long ago did not have much in the way of imagination as they seemed wont to use the same names for many places. At least we'd passed through some places with much more interesting names like Warrnambool and Bolwarra. You just don't find those towns all over the world now, do you?
We found a place to stay for the night and then took off for Cape Bridgewater which was supposed to have a seal colony. To my great disappointment we didn't find the seals. We thought we saw some penguins at one point, but it turned out to be some well-fed cormorants. Drat!
We drove around the port in Portland and it looks like Portland ships out a lot of grain and who knows what else. One of the ships appears to have been a fish processing ship as there must have been 8 stories of lighted levels.
Tomorrow we start the Great Ocean Road and with any luck the weather will be an improvement on what we had today.
The weather today was rainy and very overcast to the point of being foggy in sections. We decided that based on that, we might as well do the inland drive to the other end of the Great Ocean Road today because it wasn't going to be conducive to short hikes and sightseeing.
We skirted Melbourne, and then stopped for lunch in Geelong. The lunch was excellent and we wandered around the Geelong waterfront for a bit and then hopped back into the car. From there we headed pretty much due west and saw cows, sheep, cows and sheep, and sheep and cows. It was kilometers and kilometers of pastureland. What was puzzling was the pastures were semi-separated by lines of trees that had been obviously planted a large number of years ago. I'm only guessing that the trees were meant to separate the properties as there didn't seem to be rhyme or reason to much of their placement.
I was profoundly disappointed that in all those hours of driving we did not see a single kangaroo except for a few who had found their close encounter with a vehicle to be their last unfortunate moment. We did finally see a mob of them in the evening near Cape Bridgewater, but I was surprised that was the only time we saw them since I see them at least half the time on the way to work and here we were in absolutely prime grazing land.
We ended our day in Portland of all places. I guess people long ago did not have much in the way of imagination as they seemed wont to use the same names for many places. At least we'd passed through some places with much more interesting names like Warrnambool and Bolwarra. You just don't find those towns all over the world now, do you?
We found a place to stay for the night and then took off for Cape Bridgewater which was supposed to have a seal colony. To my great disappointment we didn't find the seals. We thought we saw some penguins at one point, but it turned out to be some well-fed cormorants. Drat!
We drove around the port in Portland and it looks like Portland ships out a lot of grain and who knows what else. One of the ships appears to have been a fish processing ship as there must have been 8 stories of lighted levels.
Tomorrow we start the Great Ocean Road and with any luck the weather will be an improvement on what we had today.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
First Australia Vacation Day 1
We finally decided to take the plunge and take a week to do some touring of this huge continent called Australia. Since we hadn't seen much of anything except what was within a few hour's drive from our place, there were lots and lots of options. We finally decided on the Great Ocean Road. This is reached by essentially driving south until you hit the ocean at the bottom of the continent. The Great Ocean Road then runs west to almost Adelaide.
Eric commented that it was odd that the climate gets cooler as you go south - just another thing that's backwards to our lifetime of experiences. There is never any shortage of things backwards to us here, that's for sure.
We took off a bit late this morning, but Eric had planned for a not-too-strenuous day of driving. It was all pretty normal to start with as we've done the drive to Sydney several times now, but it did take on new meaning as I've been reading a series called the Australians which is a fictionalized account of the settlement of Australia, but has kept to factual history as much as possible. It was fun to head through a few of the suburbs of Sydney now knowing about the story of their most humble beginnings.
It wasn't too long after we departed Sydney that we hit new territory. Eric and I commented that the land was starting to seem very normal to us. It turned very hilly which surprised us, but eventually started to flatten out again and then we started to see sheep and more sheep.
I was surprised we didn't see much in the way of wildlife. The only thing we saw was what might have been a fox and some lizards crossing the road. The areas we drove through seemed like they would have been prime kangaroo land as it was pasture after pasture, but we saw very, very few of them. Maybe tomorrow we'll see more critters.
We put in for the evening in Albury. As seems to be so common in smaller towns, walking into the hotel room is a step back in time - like 20 years maybe. It's clean, but the bed has seen better days. We joked that the checkout time was 10:00 because they didn't want people sleeping in too much as they're trying to make the mattresses last forever.
The room came with free breakfast and we were told the breakfast was already in our room. With great curiosity we took a peek in the fridge to discover a little thing of orange juice, a little thing of milk, and four slices of bread with butter packets. I found myself thinking that was pretty funny, but then we discovered there was some Vegemite and packets of jam. Uh, dibs on the jam! We next discovered there was a packet of Weetbix and a single serve cereal box so the breakfast options were definitely improved, but that was as far as it went.
Tomorrow we hit Melbourne. We'll launch from there to the Great Ocean Road and eventually loop back to Melbourne before we head back home. There is a Costco in Melbourne and we find ourselves looking forward to seeing what an Australian Costco sells. I'm especially looking forward to seeing if there are huge jars of Vegemite.
I hope everyone back home is not freezing too much. I must admit I'm certainly enjoying the glorious summer here. You can too, just hop on that plane and get your arse over here. I can never have too many excuses to take more vacation!
Eric commented that it was odd that the climate gets cooler as you go south - just another thing that's backwards to our lifetime of experiences. There is never any shortage of things backwards to us here, that's for sure.
We took off a bit late this morning, but Eric had planned for a not-too-strenuous day of driving. It was all pretty normal to start with as we've done the drive to Sydney several times now, but it did take on new meaning as I've been reading a series called the Australians which is a fictionalized account of the settlement of Australia, but has kept to factual history as much as possible. It was fun to head through a few of the suburbs of Sydney now knowing about the story of their most humble beginnings.
It wasn't too long after we departed Sydney that we hit new territory. Eric and I commented that the land was starting to seem very normal to us. It turned very hilly which surprised us, but eventually started to flatten out again and then we started to see sheep and more sheep.
I was surprised we didn't see much in the way of wildlife. The only thing we saw was what might have been a fox and some lizards crossing the road. The areas we drove through seemed like they would have been prime kangaroo land as it was pasture after pasture, but we saw very, very few of them. Maybe tomorrow we'll see more critters.
We put in for the evening in Albury. As seems to be so common in smaller towns, walking into the hotel room is a step back in time - like 20 years maybe. It's clean, but the bed has seen better days. We joked that the checkout time was 10:00 because they didn't want people sleeping in too much as they're trying to make the mattresses last forever.
The room came with free breakfast and we were told the breakfast was already in our room. With great curiosity we took a peek in the fridge to discover a little thing of orange juice, a little thing of milk, and four slices of bread with butter packets. I found myself thinking that was pretty funny, but then we discovered there was some Vegemite and packets of jam. Uh, dibs on the jam! We next discovered there was a packet of Weetbix and a single serve cereal box so the breakfast options were definitely improved, but that was as far as it went.
Tomorrow we hit Melbourne. We'll launch from there to the Great Ocean Road and eventually loop back to Melbourne before we head back home. There is a Costco in Melbourne and we find ourselves looking forward to seeing what an Australian Costco sells. I'm especially looking forward to seeing if there are huge jars of Vegemite.
I hope everyone back home is not freezing too much. I must admit I'm certainly enjoying the glorious summer here. You can too, just hop on that plane and get your arse over here. I can never have too many excuses to take more vacation!
Sunday, February 6, 2011
More Things Not to See and Do
Yesterday we went with friends to check out Barrington Tops. We tried to do Barrington Tops when A.J. was visiting, but according to Eric, A.J. and I did not correctly navigate us to the real Barrington Tops. Strangely enough, A.J. and I thought that a brown sign that said "Barrington Tops National Park" with an arrow that pointed left meant we should go that way. So, yesterday, Eric was determined to get to the "real" Barrington Tops and that meant not following those signs. Instead, we would go to one of the "i" stores the Aussies have sprinkled everywhere to get the needed information and maps.
We stopped at the Gloucester "i" store and encountered Lorraine. She was a kick. She gave us all sorts of good information, stories, and maps. My favorite was the story of the group of Chinese tourists who ran across a sizable lace monitor (goanna) and they all started pointing and yelling "clocodile". The goanna thought maybe he just might like Chinese food so they had to leave before the "clocodile" got them.
Armed with information and maps, we first fortified ourselves with a chicken, curry, or mushroom pie at the local bakery except Eric who had a sandwich (weirdo), and then sallied forth into the hills. We drove a while on fairly level roads, but as we started to climb the road suddenly turned into gravel and dusty gravel at that. As the elevation increased we noticed a welcome drop in temperature. It was over 100 degrees when we started, but at 1500 meters elevation it was more like 80 - much better. We got out for the first walk at Honeysuckle something-or-other. It was a 30 minute return walk (round-trip) so off we went. It was a little damp and Ron was setting a brisk pace. We were back in just under 15 minutes and a bit disappointed that it wasn't all that interesting. Little did we know.
We hopped back into the car and took off for the next point of interest which was Thunderbolt Lookout. The lookout was a 300 meter walk. We got out of the car to go and I just happened to look down because I felt something on my leg. I wigged out because there was a creature there and got it off as quickly as I could not caring one whit about identifying it first. The quick look I got made me think it might have been an inch worm - that was until I looked at my leg again. There nestled next to my sock was a black thing which I was horrified to realize was a leech! I got that off as fast as I could and it bled a bit because it was in the process of attaching itself for some lunch. Eeek!
We realized I must have picked it up on the first walk and as you can imagine our entire foursome immediately commenced with our best Chubby Checker imitation - doing the twist in earnest to complete a thorough inspection for leeches. Finding no more, we next debated whether or not we wanted to do the hike since we now knew it to be true that leeches can just drop from leaves when a potential meal passes by. Attempting to show some Aussie spirit, we decided to do the short hike. The lookout was nice and showed a great expanse of heavily forested area below.
The view was somewhat diminished in my eyes since I had the misfortune of brushing against a stinging nettle plant; bushwalking was definitely starting to lose its allure for me. I was starting to feel like the weak animal of the herd - you know, the one the lions have for dinner. But Eric unwittingly came to my rescue by noticing there was a black thing on his sock. Another leech! He yanked it off only to realize it had been a bit more attached than mine was - you know, like mine was at the hors d'oeuvres and his had started the main course. He had more blood on his sock than I did which was disconcerting because the best prewash spray they have here we have dubbed "Spray 'n Wish" as in that blood may be there to stay.
After we all did the twist one more time, we checked out some marshes and then moved onto an area where they did an experiment years ago with planting firs. The firs did very well and were now quite dense. We took a quick walk through the firs and the meadow behind them, but Eric also brushed against some stinging nettles. We both had a little tingly/throbby sensation at the point of contact the rest of the evening - nasty things they are.
We went through the dingo gate and just like that we were on the other side of Barrington Tops. I think we expected it to be a bit more scenic (and less leechy) than it turned out to be, but it was on our list of things to see and do, so we can cross it off the list. Heaven knows the leeches and stinging nettles have been completely blacked out on that list because we really don't want to do that again.
We stopped at the Gloucester "i" store and encountered Lorraine. She was a kick. She gave us all sorts of good information, stories, and maps. My favorite was the story of the group of Chinese tourists who ran across a sizable lace monitor (goanna) and they all started pointing and yelling "clocodile". The goanna thought maybe he just might like Chinese food so they had to leave before the "clocodile" got them.
Armed with information and maps, we first fortified ourselves with a chicken, curry, or mushroom pie at the local bakery except Eric who had a sandwich (weirdo), and then sallied forth into the hills. We drove a while on fairly level roads, but as we started to climb the road suddenly turned into gravel and dusty gravel at that. As the elevation increased we noticed a welcome drop in temperature. It was over 100 degrees when we started, but at 1500 meters elevation it was more like 80 - much better. We got out for the first walk at Honeysuckle something-or-other. It was a 30 minute return walk (round-trip) so off we went. It was a little damp and Ron was setting a brisk pace. We were back in just under 15 minutes and a bit disappointed that it wasn't all that interesting. Little did we know.
We hopped back into the car and took off for the next point of interest which was Thunderbolt Lookout. The lookout was a 300 meter walk. We got out of the car to go and I just happened to look down because I felt something on my leg. I wigged out because there was a creature there and got it off as quickly as I could not caring one whit about identifying it first. The quick look I got made me think it might have been an inch worm - that was until I looked at my leg again. There nestled next to my sock was a black thing which I was horrified to realize was a leech! I got that off as fast as I could and it bled a bit because it was in the process of attaching itself for some lunch. Eeek!
We realized I must have picked it up on the first walk and as you can imagine our entire foursome immediately commenced with our best Chubby Checker imitation - doing the twist in earnest to complete a thorough inspection for leeches. Finding no more, we next debated whether or not we wanted to do the hike since we now knew it to be true that leeches can just drop from leaves when a potential meal passes by. Attempting to show some Aussie spirit, we decided to do the short hike. The lookout was nice and showed a great expanse of heavily forested area below.
The view was somewhat diminished in my eyes since I had the misfortune of brushing against a stinging nettle plant; bushwalking was definitely starting to lose its allure for me. I was starting to feel like the weak animal of the herd - you know, the one the lions have for dinner. But Eric unwittingly came to my rescue by noticing there was a black thing on his sock. Another leech! He yanked it off only to realize it had been a bit more attached than mine was - you know, like mine was at the hors d'oeuvres and his had started the main course. He had more blood on his sock than I did which was disconcerting because the best prewash spray they have here we have dubbed "Spray 'n Wish" as in that blood may be there to stay.
After we all did the twist one more time, we checked out some marshes and then moved onto an area where they did an experiment years ago with planting firs. The firs did very well and were now quite dense. We took a quick walk through the firs and the meadow behind them, but Eric also brushed against some stinging nettles. We both had a little tingly/throbby sensation at the point of contact the rest of the evening - nasty things they are.
We went through the dingo gate and just like that we were on the other side of Barrington Tops. I think we expected it to be a bit more scenic (and less leechy) than it turned out to be, but it was on our list of things to see and do, so we can cross it off the list. Heaven knows the leeches and stinging nettles have been completely blacked out on that list because we really don't want to do that again.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Happy Australia Day!
Australia Day, January 26th, is the day Australians commemorate the First Fleet's 1788 arrival in Sydney Cove. As the ships held many convicts and were coming to start a colony, it isn't exactly equivalent to our July 4th celebration, but close enough. Eric and I originally planned to spend Australia Day with friends, Ron and Pam, in Sydney but my health misadventures made that a bad idea. In the end we decided Eric should proceed with the original plan and I would spend the afternoon at a coworker's celebration.
Eric left before 6:30 AM and spent the entire day exploring some of the "real" Sydney using Ron's store of information from growing up there. Even though they opted not to stay for the fireworks show, they'll be getting back real late. I look forward to the next time we get to go to Sydney so Eric can show me all the cool places he now has in his hip pocket.
I spent the afternoon doing another version of the real Aussie experience. I got to eat handmade meat pies made by Aussies who clearly had some experience in this. I found out Aussies all go for a swim on Australia Day. There were Australian flags everywhere, it was hot, and there was plenty of alcohol. Percy the pelican was hanging around and got a little excited at one point because he thought he was going to get a bit of the good eats, too, but his day did not get made. There was, of course, a sausage sizzle - what else would Aussies eat on their day?
Eric's Dad's surgery went very well so thanks for your prayers. I'm slowly improving and have greatly improved mobility. I am now dealing with a lot of soreness and weakness, but I can move much better so I am counting my blessings.
Eric left before 6:30 AM and spent the entire day exploring some of the "real" Sydney using Ron's store of information from growing up there. Even though they opted not to stay for the fireworks show, they'll be getting back real late. I look forward to the next time we get to go to Sydney so Eric can show me all the cool places he now has in his hip pocket.
I spent the afternoon doing another version of the real Aussie experience. I got to eat handmade meat pies made by Aussies who clearly had some experience in this. I found out Aussies all go for a swim on Australia Day. There were Australian flags everywhere, it was hot, and there was plenty of alcohol. Percy the pelican was hanging around and got a little excited at one point because he thought he was going to get a bit of the good eats, too, but his day did not get made. There was, of course, a sausage sizzle - what else would Aussies eat on their day?
Eric's Dad's surgery went very well so thanks for your prayers. I'm slowly improving and have greatly improved mobility. I am now dealing with a lot of soreness and weakness, but I can move much better so I am counting my blessings.
Monday, January 24, 2011
For Better or For Worse
I had a grand vision when we got back from Seattle of spoiling Eric until he was completely recovered and we could get back to the "for better" part of our arrangement. Little did I know that January 2011 was going to be quite different than I planned. I think I accomplished about a day and a half of treating him right and then the wheel fell off completely. Instead of being pampered he ended up doing the pampering as I suffered through three days of fever that plastered me to any available horizontal surface. I was still awfully weak for several days after that so aside from asking him often how his chest was feeling, he wasn't getting much of the "better" part of our arrangement (so sorry dear!). I'm happy to report that in spite of my lack of ministrations he managed to make his way back to very nearly normal and was even able to go shoot some hoops a few days ago without much aggravation and he shot really well to boot! Yay!
We were both feeling pretty decent by the weekend of the 15th so it became shopping day because we definitely needed some things and it was time to get a barbecue of our own. We were standing in a store waiting in the queue to check out and the lady in front of us starts acting a little odd. She's talking to seemingly no one in particular and a surreptitious check of her ears found no bluetooth apparatus. It soon became apparent that she is talking to her purse or little backpack thingy and saying soothing words to it. Well now that's interesting. Next thing I know she looks at us sheepishly and says she's not crazy, she has two dogs in there. We're both thinking to ourselves, "Lady, claiming there are two dogs in that little thing is not helping your case any." Then she opens up the thing and sure enough, there are two dogs in there. Okay, I guess recognizing crazy people isn't our gift or at least not if it involves two tiny dogs in a backpack in a store.
We next went barbecue shopping. We became the proud owners of the "Down Under" brand or at least the box that contained one. Eric spent a few hours assembling the thing and decided it should start with a different instruction #1 that says, "Go get a nice, big, cold beer because you're going to be here a good long while and you're going to need it." He was successful and had that beer a bit later even though the instructions didn't call for it.
I had a hectic week of the 17th at work. I knew things were going to heat up in 2011 and it sure didn't wait long. I'm trying to get a big upgrade going and as we keep finding more "uh ohs", I decided it was like peeling back the layers of an onion - it just makes you cry more. I guess the good news is the days will go fast because the deadline for completion is far too soon.
Now it's back to the worse part. Friday morning I woke up awfully stiff and sore, but didn't think too much of it because once I got going it was okay. Saturday I woke up in the middle of the night with pain and stiffness in nearly every joint I possess and they were starting to swell. What?! It was really, really hard to walk, I had no strength in my hands, and I couldn't begin to make a fist. Thankfully, the walking part improved somewhat after a shower.
The Lord is pretty amazing about looking out for us in our troubles and when Eric called a medical center that was open on Saturday mornings they were able to take us right away (wow!). Even better - the doctor was awesome! He set up some tests to figure out what was going on and said the fever a couple weeks earlier was quite likely the trigger for this episode.
Soon after we got back from the doctors, the Skype phone rang. It was Eric's brother, Dave, calling to let us know Eric's Dad, Bill, is going to have major surgery on Tuesday. Poor Eric was completely torn with the feeling that he needed to be in two places at once. He really wanted to go back to Indiana for his Dad's surgery, but clearly I was needing him here. In the end, he decided to pray for his Dad from here (two hemisphere prayer coverage is good) and stay here and make sure I was okay.
After we tried to digest that news and since I was walking okay at this point, Eric and I decided to go to Newcastle with Ron and Pam to see the ministry they're involved with, YWAM. YWAM stands for Youth With A Mission and is a great organization with many similarities to Young Life in the states. I think the difference that stood out the most to me is that the schools here in Australia really embrace YWAM and actually invite them to come into their schools.
We next took off for Tahlee which is a huge site that YWAM has on the other side of the water from our house. We could get there in 20 minutes or so by boat, but by car it takes quite a bit longer. Sadly the long drive completely did my joints in and the best I could muster was the Tim Conway old man shuffle from the Carol Burnett show. Frustrating for sure, but I still think it was worth it because it was a fascinating place.
There were some wallabies peacefully eating grass by one of the driveways. At least they were until we went by. They hopped off to a safer distance and kept their eye on us. We stopped at the stand of bamboo they have and those bamboo are huge! We learned they have a 3-4 meter python (yes, like 10 feet+!) that lives in those bamboo and my less than bright husband decided to wander around the bamboo looking for it. I had to wonder if he was contemplating having to take care of me and thought being a python meal would mean he could get out of some of the "worse" part of the deal.
The good news (actually it's really bad news, but good for Eric since he was not in danger of being eaten) is we found out from Georgeena (sp?) who lives there that the python had gotten into the chicken coop the night before and eaten the three chickens! I guess some of the other residents carried the python off to the woods so he could sleep off the triple chicken combo meal for several days.
I was properly horrified by the outcome of the poor chickens and also that Australians pick up pythons and carry them places - ever! Right after that Georgeena told us that early that day a big goanna had gotten into another pen and killed a couple ducks. Georgeena had to go in and get the goanna out of there to save the other three! That seems equally crazy - just what is in that Vegemite anyway?! Georgeena said she hadn't yet mustered up the courage to go back in and clean up the mess in the pen. Well, of course not, she clearly had to use it all up on battling the goanna.
We saw more cool stuff and then dropped Ron and Pam off at their place and headed home. It was at this point that I realized I was in big trouble. I had to crawl up the stairs and, dang, it was painful. I got inside and dropped onto the bed feeling as though I had just run a marathon. Not good. Eric did a fabulous job of taking care of me although I couldn't tell if it was so much work he'd rather have been a python dinner or not.
Sunday was worse. The swelling was worse, the pain was worse, the stiffness was worse, and now my neck decided to join in on the stiffness action. I am so thankful for everyone's prayers as Monday morning held the first hope in this strange odyssey - the swelling was slightly less because my knuckles were showing signs of appearing again.
I was able to make it to the tests although I think Eric would have rolled me there if necessary. The body scan was interesting and based on Eric's research I think I'm still technically radioactive. The best part of the scan was I'm laying there with nothing but the ceiling and four fluorescent lights to contemplate and the next thing I know is I see the silhouette of a lizard on the other side of the light cover! I watched him until one of the panels of the machine obscured him from my vision. The lizard was gone by the time I could look again which was a bit disconcerting, but it was the last test so I just beat a hasty (actually, really slow) retreat.
The body scan films would be sent by post later so we paid the bill ($800+), and took the x-rays with us to take to the doctor. He took one look at the knee one and said "that's awful". So, while he doesn't have all of the test results back yet, I think that and a couple of the blood tests convinced him that starting with a real good arthritis drug was in order because that was one cause for sure even if it might not be the current cause. I already took the first pill and I'm actually hopeful I'll get to sleep more than 20 minutes at a stretch tonight and if I'm really lucky, the pain alarm will not go off.
Sorry to be so blabby about the health stuff - you'd think I was getting old or something (please, no comments from the peanut gallery!). I am so thankful to have a wonderful husband who doesn't run from the "worse" part (except where maybe pythons are involved) and for all your prayers. Please keep Bill's surgery and recovery in your prayers. Love you all.
We were both feeling pretty decent by the weekend of the 15th so it became shopping day because we definitely needed some things and it was time to get a barbecue of our own. We were standing in a store waiting in the queue to check out and the lady in front of us starts acting a little odd. She's talking to seemingly no one in particular and a surreptitious check of her ears found no bluetooth apparatus. It soon became apparent that she is talking to her purse or little backpack thingy and saying soothing words to it. Well now that's interesting. Next thing I know she looks at us sheepishly and says she's not crazy, she has two dogs in there. We're both thinking to ourselves, "Lady, claiming there are two dogs in that little thing is not helping your case any." Then she opens up the thing and sure enough, there are two dogs in there. Okay, I guess recognizing crazy people isn't our gift or at least not if it involves two tiny dogs in a backpack in a store.
We next went barbecue shopping. We became the proud owners of the "Down Under" brand or at least the box that contained one. Eric spent a few hours assembling the thing and decided it should start with a different instruction #1 that says, "Go get a nice, big, cold beer because you're going to be here a good long while and you're going to need it." He was successful and had that beer a bit later even though the instructions didn't call for it.
I had a hectic week of the 17th at work. I knew things were going to heat up in 2011 and it sure didn't wait long. I'm trying to get a big upgrade going and as we keep finding more "uh ohs", I decided it was like peeling back the layers of an onion - it just makes you cry more. I guess the good news is the days will go fast because the deadline for completion is far too soon.
Now it's back to the worse part. Friday morning I woke up awfully stiff and sore, but didn't think too much of it because once I got going it was okay. Saturday I woke up in the middle of the night with pain and stiffness in nearly every joint I possess and they were starting to swell. What?! It was really, really hard to walk, I had no strength in my hands, and I couldn't begin to make a fist. Thankfully, the walking part improved somewhat after a shower.
The Lord is pretty amazing about looking out for us in our troubles and when Eric called a medical center that was open on Saturday mornings they were able to take us right away (wow!). Even better - the doctor was awesome! He set up some tests to figure out what was going on and said the fever a couple weeks earlier was quite likely the trigger for this episode.
Soon after we got back from the doctors, the Skype phone rang. It was Eric's brother, Dave, calling to let us know Eric's Dad, Bill, is going to have major surgery on Tuesday. Poor Eric was completely torn with the feeling that he needed to be in two places at once. He really wanted to go back to Indiana for his Dad's surgery, but clearly I was needing him here. In the end, he decided to pray for his Dad from here (two hemisphere prayer coverage is good) and stay here and make sure I was okay.
After we tried to digest that news and since I was walking okay at this point, Eric and I decided to go to Newcastle with Ron and Pam to see the ministry they're involved with, YWAM. YWAM stands for Youth With A Mission and is a great organization with many similarities to Young Life in the states. I think the difference that stood out the most to me is that the schools here in Australia really embrace YWAM and actually invite them to come into their schools.
We next took off for Tahlee which is a huge site that YWAM has on the other side of the water from our house. We could get there in 20 minutes or so by boat, but by car it takes quite a bit longer. Sadly the long drive completely did my joints in and the best I could muster was the Tim Conway old man shuffle from the Carol Burnett show. Frustrating for sure, but I still think it was worth it because it was a fascinating place.
There were some wallabies peacefully eating grass by one of the driveways. At least they were until we went by. They hopped off to a safer distance and kept their eye on us. We stopped at the stand of bamboo they have and those bamboo are huge! We learned they have a 3-4 meter python (yes, like 10 feet+!) that lives in those bamboo and my less than bright husband decided to wander around the bamboo looking for it. I had to wonder if he was contemplating having to take care of me and thought being a python meal would mean he could get out of some of the "worse" part of the deal.
The good news (actually it's really bad news, but good for Eric since he was not in danger of being eaten) is we found out from Georgeena (sp?) who lives there that the python had gotten into the chicken coop the night before and eaten the three chickens! I guess some of the other residents carried the python off to the woods so he could sleep off the triple chicken combo meal for several days.
I was properly horrified by the outcome of the poor chickens and also that Australians pick up pythons and carry them places - ever! Right after that Georgeena told us that early that day a big goanna had gotten into another pen and killed a couple ducks. Georgeena had to go in and get the goanna out of there to save the other three! That seems equally crazy - just what is in that Vegemite anyway?! Georgeena said she hadn't yet mustered up the courage to go back in and clean up the mess in the pen. Well, of course not, she clearly had to use it all up on battling the goanna.
We saw more cool stuff and then dropped Ron and Pam off at their place and headed home. It was at this point that I realized I was in big trouble. I had to crawl up the stairs and, dang, it was painful. I got inside and dropped onto the bed feeling as though I had just run a marathon. Not good. Eric did a fabulous job of taking care of me although I couldn't tell if it was so much work he'd rather have been a python dinner or not.
Sunday was worse. The swelling was worse, the pain was worse, the stiffness was worse, and now my neck decided to join in on the stiffness action. I am so thankful for everyone's prayers as Monday morning held the first hope in this strange odyssey - the swelling was slightly less because my knuckles were showing signs of appearing again.
I was able to make it to the tests although I think Eric would have rolled me there if necessary. The body scan was interesting and based on Eric's research I think I'm still technically radioactive. The best part of the scan was I'm laying there with nothing but the ceiling and four fluorescent lights to contemplate and the next thing I know is I see the silhouette of a lizard on the other side of the light cover! I watched him until one of the panels of the machine obscured him from my vision. The lizard was gone by the time I could look again which was a bit disconcerting, but it was the last test so I just beat a hasty (actually, really slow) retreat.
The body scan films would be sent by post later so we paid the bill ($800+), and took the x-rays with us to take to the doctor. He took one look at the knee one and said "that's awful". So, while he doesn't have all of the test results back yet, I think that and a couple of the blood tests convinced him that starting with a real good arthritis drug was in order because that was one cause for sure even if it might not be the current cause. I already took the first pill and I'm actually hopeful I'll get to sleep more than 20 minutes at a stretch tonight and if I'm really lucky, the pain alarm will not go off.
Sorry to be so blabby about the health stuff - you'd think I was getting old or something (please, no comments from the peanut gallery!). I am so thankful to have a wonderful husband who doesn't run from the "worse" part (except where maybe pythons are involved) and for all your prayers. Please keep Bill's surgery and recovery in your prayers. Love you all.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
One Day = Four Countries and Two Hemispheres
In less than 24 hours, we passed through the USA, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia. Even though it was only through the airports for Canada and New Zealand, we were definitely hearing the different accents of each one, not to mention some French added in for good measure. I liked the Kiwi accent the best although maybe part of it was the very amusing Air New Zealand safety video. I think it’s the first time I’ve ever seen a safety video that would have been X-rated but for some timely body part blurring.
Eric weathered the trip pretty well all things considered. He’s napping now (no surprise there!) and I’ll probably get him up later so he can go to bed. ;-) Thanks so much for all your prayers – Eric is improving in spite of all the travel, the problems we encountered on each leg of the trip were solved without upsetting the next leg of the trip, the flights were smooth, and the landings exceptionally ordinary (my favorite kind!).
Because everyone likes to talk about their itty bitty travel problems, here we go:
Seattle to Vancouver – our three bag tags were printed out with final destinations of Vancouver, Auckland, and Auckland. Huh? Eventually we got it straightened out to be Sydney for all of them, but it sure makes you wonder what gremlin was running their system!
Vancouver to Auckland – somehow we ended up with four reservations in the system instead of two. Don’t ask me how, but this caused us to end up with no assigned seats at all (wouldn’t you think we could have chosen between the set of four?). Especially since we had “confirmed” two of the seats just two days earlier. The guy “got” us exit aisle row seats which sounded great until we found out that was where the queue for the four lavatories was just about ALL NIGHT LONG. When there wasn’t a queue for the lavatories, we had the great “privilege” of watching people decide to demonstrate all their stretching exercises right in our face. Eric had the aisle seat and lost count of the number of times people stepped on his feet. Ugh! All I know is a seat is a seat if it gets you where you need to go so we’ll stick with that.
Auckland to Sydney – we were waiting to deplane on arrival in Auckland when we hear an announcement that “Eric Easterbrook should check in with the ground staff”. Uh oh. It turned out that they couldn’t find Eric’s Visa in the system. Since he had already traveled three times using that Visa, we knew it was in there, so it was a bit of a puzzle. After a little investigation, the ground staff realized his passport had been incorrectly entered somewhere along the way. It did make us wonder why this wasn’t noticed until the very last flight of our entire trip – maybe it was the gremlins again.
Sydney to Salamander Bay – as luck would have it (or should it be wouldn’t have it?) our bags were essentially the last ones off the plane from Auckland, so we stood there waiting and waiting while woefully watching the line for customs start to snake from one end of the baggage area to the other. The baggage gods can be so mean, but at least the bags did show up! When we finally had our turn at the customs 20 questions food and prescriptions game, we passed with flying colors and then we were out the door into HEAT! Whoa, that warmth and sun were a jolt! Our friend Ron successfully picked us up and then drove us by his boyhood home not too far from the Sydney airport. It was interesting listening to what life was like growing up in Sydney and how things have changed – like fishing from the pier before there was an Opera House. After that we left Sydney for what should have been a 2½ hour drive home. We ran into some serious traffic outside Newcastle (what happened to our idyllic and quiet neck of the woods?). We finally got through that only to run into another backup on Nelson Bay Road which is the only way to get to the bay area and home. Even though we ended up getting back more than an hour later than we thought we were going to, we were counting our blessings because the traffic coming out of the bay area was completely nuts. The line going the other direction snaked down Nelson Bay Road for miles! Apparently most of Sydney’s residents were either leaving or coming to the bay area today.
Pam (Ron’s wife) had a great lunch waiting for us when we got back and then she and Ron took off for their next house-sitting stay. Pam was sharing that in the last 20 months they have moved something like 48 times! I can’t even imagine that especially since it involved the United States, India, and Australia. They will probably be moving back to the states near the end of March and their hope is they can stay put for a while! We will surely miss Ron and Pam, but know that this is the next step in the Lord’s plan for them.
The beach here is a little busier than before we left – maybe 20 people or so and a couple hopeful pelicans. It does seem really weird to go from the Pacific Northwest green, cold, and wet to this blue, warm, and dry place in such a short time. It’s also a little hard to decide where home is again. Did I go home for Christmas or did I just get back home today? If home is where the heart is, I’m thinking I must have left a chamber or two in Seattle because I’m feeling pretty confused.
I do know I’m already missing family, friends, and some of the comforts of home (the Seattle one). We sure could use some visitors, hint, hint, hint!
Eric weathered the trip pretty well all things considered. He’s napping now (no surprise there!) and I’ll probably get him up later so he can go to bed. ;-) Thanks so much for all your prayers – Eric is improving in spite of all the travel, the problems we encountered on each leg of the trip were solved without upsetting the next leg of the trip, the flights were smooth, and the landings exceptionally ordinary (my favorite kind!).
Because everyone likes to talk about their itty bitty travel problems, here we go:
Seattle to Vancouver – our three bag tags were printed out with final destinations of Vancouver, Auckland, and Auckland. Huh? Eventually we got it straightened out to be Sydney for all of them, but it sure makes you wonder what gremlin was running their system!
Vancouver to Auckland – somehow we ended up with four reservations in the system instead of two. Don’t ask me how, but this caused us to end up with no assigned seats at all (wouldn’t you think we could have chosen between the set of four?). Especially since we had “confirmed” two of the seats just two days earlier. The guy “got” us exit aisle row seats which sounded great until we found out that was where the queue for the four lavatories was just about ALL NIGHT LONG. When there wasn’t a queue for the lavatories, we had the great “privilege” of watching people decide to demonstrate all their stretching exercises right in our face. Eric had the aisle seat and lost count of the number of times people stepped on his feet. Ugh! All I know is a seat is a seat if it gets you where you need to go so we’ll stick with that.
Auckland to Sydney – we were waiting to deplane on arrival in Auckland when we hear an announcement that “Eric Easterbrook should check in with the ground staff”. Uh oh. It turned out that they couldn’t find Eric’s Visa in the system. Since he had already traveled three times using that Visa, we knew it was in there, so it was a bit of a puzzle. After a little investigation, the ground staff realized his passport had been incorrectly entered somewhere along the way. It did make us wonder why this wasn’t noticed until the very last flight of our entire trip – maybe it was the gremlins again.
Sydney to Salamander Bay – as luck would have it (or should it be wouldn’t have it?) our bags were essentially the last ones off the plane from Auckland, so we stood there waiting and waiting while woefully watching the line for customs start to snake from one end of the baggage area to the other. The baggage gods can be so mean, but at least the bags did show up! When we finally had our turn at the customs 20 questions food and prescriptions game, we passed with flying colors and then we were out the door into HEAT! Whoa, that warmth and sun were a jolt! Our friend Ron successfully picked us up and then drove us by his boyhood home not too far from the Sydney airport. It was interesting listening to what life was like growing up in Sydney and how things have changed – like fishing from the pier before there was an Opera House. After that we left Sydney for what should have been a 2½ hour drive home. We ran into some serious traffic outside Newcastle (what happened to our idyllic and quiet neck of the woods?). We finally got through that only to run into another backup on Nelson Bay Road which is the only way to get to the bay area and home. Even though we ended up getting back more than an hour later than we thought we were going to, we were counting our blessings because the traffic coming out of the bay area was completely nuts. The line going the other direction snaked down Nelson Bay Road for miles! Apparently most of Sydney’s residents were either leaving or coming to the bay area today.
Pam (Ron’s wife) had a great lunch waiting for us when we got back and then she and Ron took off for their next house-sitting stay. Pam was sharing that in the last 20 months they have moved something like 48 times! I can’t even imagine that especially since it involved the United States, India, and Australia. They will probably be moving back to the states near the end of March and their hope is they can stay put for a while! We will surely miss Ron and Pam, but know that this is the next step in the Lord’s plan for them.
The beach here is a little busier than before we left – maybe 20 people or so and a couple hopeful pelicans. It does seem really weird to go from the Pacific Northwest green, cold, and wet to this blue, warm, and dry place in such a short time. It’s also a little hard to decide where home is again. Did I go home for Christmas or did I just get back home today? If home is where the heart is, I’m thinking I must have left a chamber or two in Seattle because I’m feeling pretty confused.
I do know I’m already missing family, friends, and some of the comforts of home (the Seattle one). We sure could use some visitors, hint, hint, hint!
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