Hats Required

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!

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.