Late night whimsy

It's midnight. Wide awake and thinking.
Still ruminating on the transformation thing.
I realise this is a current bugbear, a bee in my beret, a splinter in the big toe of my life. I believe I have become a little complacent about certain things, become a bit of a hermit this last year.
Change is required but what?

How about a list then.

-spontaneity
-whimsy
-fancy

Well, yes those three are obvious.

-fun
-frippery
-frolicsome things

Those too.

-moonlight and stargazing.

Now we're getting somewhere.

-music: where ya been?

oh yeah. live.

-wining
-dining . . . . .

-love

Someone light a cigar I think she's got it.
Well whaddya know. That old nugget.

Who'da guessed?

Listing

Having just read through the last few posts, I feel a burst of happy-go-lucky is required.
Let's see.
(a list)

1. My tax refund enters my bank account on friday - woohoo!

2. I am in a position to replace my current car with something more a. comfortable, b. reliable, c. economical.

3. Change is something that can be relied upon.

4. I'm waiting on news which could be very good.

5. Results for my dissertation have arrived and could not be better.

6. After a character-building year, my character is an edifice.

7. Plans are afoot for a day at the spa.


There, that feels better.
Call me Pollyanna.

Quiet desperation

I am in need of a change. A big one.

In lieu of a holiday that is. Apparently it's as good as.

I am being rendered uninteresting by the immense structure of my days.

My strategy, you see, for motherhood, until now, has been routines, routines, routines. This was a necessary adjustment from my previous life as a fancy-free, responsibility-phobic night owl musician. The pendulum has swung entirely the other way, and seems to be stuck.

I have now become an early riser whose day is charted weeks before it dawns.

Holy sh*t, you can see my problem.

Where is the middle ground?

I have always been a touch extreme, I admit.

New year's resolutions are thus formulating.

Dreaming of a . . .

I confess to an inner humbug when it comes to Christmas. Back in the fargone glory days of childfree wandering, I tended to ignore this celebration if I could, usually working on the day (music) thereby ensuring a provided lunch, money in the pocket, and another Christmas side-stepped. I don't know what it is - well I do, but I won't go into it here. Suffice to say, it's not my favourite time of year.

Now with an eight year old child, the humbug is kept on a tight leash as I do my best to make her experience magical. And despite myself, I have, in the last few years, quite enjoyed it too. Wonders never ceasing etc.

Last night we put up the tree and decorated, and then had the switching on of the lights which we toasted with lime sodas clinking with loads of ice. And it occurred to me that what I'd REALLY like is a white Christmas.
Next year.

My father now lives in Europe. Don't know why I didn't think of it before.
Now there's something that would wipe the smirk off this humbug's face.

Transformation

I'm thinking about transformations. Something I'm fascinated with; the human capacity to transform. The drunks who get sober, the large who shrink themselves, the slobs who get fit, the dowdy who scrub up into swans, the houses groaning with junk which, decluttered, become places of solace.

It is that last one that I'm preoccupied with at present. My home, while not groaning with junk, is grumbling a bit at the quantity of books I have encouraged it to swallow over the six years I've been here. I just keep buying book shelves at garage sales to accommodate the screeds of words that it is my compulsion to consume.

The problem is that there has never been a plan as to the placing of these shelves, or the ordering of the books. I now have shelves everywhere and anywhere they'll fit, filled with books in the order they were bought, or read. A few months ago I bought a very large, and much needed old wooden shelf at a garage sale, which had been converted from a cupboard, and as I stood gazing in satisfaction at it, smug with the knowledge that the latest piles would now have a home, the owner said, 'and I'll throw in the books too, if you like.' How could I resist? There was Le Petit Prince, various guide books to Paris, and novels by Dickens, Miller and of course E.

So, you see. I have a problem. And this is only part of it.

I am in the midst of transformation of a kind. The spaces of my house are being rearranged according to the type of things we (my daughter and I) are working on at present. She is doing a lot of dance practice, and so therefore needs uncluttered space in which to do this, while I am spending a lot of time at the computer and (quelle surprise!) reading.

I am shrinking down the art area, which consists of a long table atop which are gathered an easel, tubes of paint and a variety of paintbrushes, a stack of w/colour paper at the ready and our art diaries (mine and hers). Next to it against the wall are frames, sketches and works in progress. This all takes up a considerable amount of space and neither of us has spent much time there in the last 6 months so, it goes. To make way for her dancing, and perhaps another book shelf. It won't disappear altogether, and will be accessible but it will be put away to make way for the new, the people we have become.

As for the many musical instruments that we have hanging around: the piano, 2 guitars, a violin, a djembe drum, a ukelele, various percussion and an antique piano accordian, these will be worked around. You never know when the urge may take you.

So, for the next few months, the Christmas season, in fact, I will be preoccupied with cataloguing, with space, with the question of who I am now as opposed to who I was last year. All in preparation for New Year's when I shall begin the wishing. Dreaming of the who I'd like to be this year.

You know me, I like a good wish. It's the way all tranformation begins.

What I missed Vince for.

Have just been out of town, accompanying my daughter to a Ballroom dance competition. She (only 8) had a great time and took out a few trophies too, slick little hip swinging chacha sweetheart that she is, but, as for me, her highly strung, bookish, grave-wandering maman, I fear I haven't the heart, or indeed the claws, for the competiton that plays out around the edges of the floor.

Oh, E. I'd rather run with the bulls in Pamplona.

Summer

It's starting to heat up. Summer is bearing down and I, as ever, am not really prepared. Not ready for the clouds of mosquitoes and the profusion in the garden which will grow wild through the wet if I let it. Not ready for the humidity and the endless hours of light, or for the approaching hysteria that is the commercial side of Christmas.

I do look forward to the sunsets, though, the intensity of the colours at this time of year. I wish for some good storms too. We'll put up our feet on the patio and watch the lightening claw across the sky, shout over the rain that 'IT'S REALLY CLOSE!' as the thunder claps overhead.

I look forward to putting the cotton net up over my bed, and crawling into my own little world at night, just like I did as a child. Then, the summers brought fireflies too. Lying in bed after lights out I would gaze enraptured at these magical little creatures as sleep drooped my eyelids and the fans whirred.
Everything was a possibility.

The heat just seems hotter now than it did then. There's not as much magic hanging in the air.

Que sera, it's not all gloom.
There is champagne, after all.

A Reminiscence.

Watching the SBS classic albums doco on The Doors tonight put me in mind of the autumn I was in Paris. It was the nineties, I was very young and, mais oui, I was indeed in love. The day we, mon cher and I, strolled arm in arm around Pere L'Achaise cemetary was windswept and suitably spooky. Cold too, after a summer in the south of Spain. I wore red gloves. My hair was rich with Moroccan henna. I had eaten brioche and bananas for breakfast. Dead leaves fell all around. He took my photo as I stood breathless at the grave of Oscar Wilde, where someone had laid a single red rose.

We followed the trail of graffiti to Jim Morrison's grave, heard him before we saw it. A group of people were gathered around, the Doors were playing on an old tapedeck and the grave was a mound of flowers. Candles and incense burned, joints were passed around. Someone stood and read some of Morrison's poetry, quiet and reverential at the head of the grave while we lay about and got high, and the leaves scudded and the clouds rolled by and the crows cawed in reverence to the Lizard King.

I wandered off then, and found Piaf. No hoopla there. Standing before her headstone, I thought about regret. Young and in love, I found I had none. Now, years later, I wonder at the girl I was.

My friend, J, she of the Hemingway story, has also visited Jim. J likes to write her poetry on toilet doors. On the door of the toilet at Pere L'Achaise, J wrote (one poet to another):

'Poor old Jim, you're better off dead

You've got a bunch of hippies sitting on your head.'

She has a certain turn of phrase, oui?

To Paris.

Horns

Good glory, I've gone all green. Some sort of bug surely, you say.

No, in fact, its all in honour of envy. Vince Jones is hitting town next weekend and I"m heading out. Yes, that's right, I'll be out of town that weekend so I won't be there. Thus the envy.

I love the trumpet. If you're not with me on this then go listen to Chet Baker's version of 'My Funny Valentine'. That's him up there.

Go on.

Oh alright, then, here: http://www.last.fm/music/Chet+Baker

All a-quiver girls?

Now, go buy a ticket to Vince. You'll love me for it.

E.

Here's something muscular.

My friend was here recently from Out-of-Town and while admiring my ancient Remington on my great-grandmother's wooden table in its very own pride-of-place with a bentwood chair at the ready, she (who has been to E. Hemingway's house) said 'it looks just like his writing table'. 'Oh except there was no chair. Apparently he wrote standing up.'

Oh.

All drinking, all shooting, all fishing, up standing, all pacing man -o-man.

Lets raise our glasses, shall we?

dissing

Today, I express-posted my dissertation (Masters) to its final resting place. I am about to have some more letters after my name in exchange.

Fancy.

I now assume that I will post more often than the blue moon shows its face.

And if I had a face like that, why wouldn't I?

Weekend trivialities.

This is turning into a crush blog, a list of sweethearts, a wish.
I have actually been doing things other than swooning, you know.
This for example: watching the complete first and second series of 'Entourage' which I should hate but, in fact, love. It's snappy and smart and damn funny.

And just yesterday I made Pho, Vietnamese beef noodle soup. A charming and comforting TV companion when watching the aforementioned series.

The Pho followed an admirable number of laps at the local (heated) pool, and the laps followed a chai ritual with a friend at The Edge cafe.

All in all, a good weekend. And it's not over either, I have tomorrow off.

-smiles smugly-

And, yes, alright, HBO enters the list.

The Tempest.

I went to see Tropical Arts' production of The Tempest last week. I lay on the grass of 'The Tanks' amphitheatre wrapped in blankets while the full moon rose directly overhead and watched Shakespeare in the tropics.

Hey, no-one said it would be easy.

Directed by Avril Duck and Kevin West, it was an atmospheric interpretation, albeit with a few flat moments. Andy Bramble was the standout for me, in the role of Trinculo. I see he's the kind of actor who loves the audience to love him.
So I did.

Warren Clements treated us to a didge-wielding Caliban, and delivered his lines resoundingly in his Tjapukai accent, resulting in an authentic portrayal, resonant, as it should be, with colonialist tensions.

Laila Thaker, as Ariel, was shimmery and flighty, powerfully will-o-the-wisp. I wondered how on earth John Lipscomb's Prospero had ever captured her in the first place.

Sarah Urquhart gave us a few good laughs as the drunken Stephano, and an extra snicker at the reversal of the tradition, of Shakespeare's day, of men taking women's roles.

I would have liked to have seen more from Jim Hill who's (brief) turn as the Boatswain was really rather good.

I shall be present at their next shindig.

Oh, and Mr Bramble earns himself a place on the list.

Crush.

It has come to my attention that Hugh Laurie is a piano player. He thereby enters my Crush list. Forthwith.
OOh la!

Food and Other Pursuits; a revelation at Cafe China.

I love noodles. Slurping up a good noodle soup fragrant with chilli and coriander is, for me, the ultimate in comfort eating. At home I keep the pantry well-stocked with noodles, fish sauce and chilli in various forms and lovely fiery orange chilli oil, for those occasions where comfort is required (rather often in our house). My garden is dotted with chilli bushes too.

So, what to do when chilli has become forbidden (and therefore, by the way, taken on a more seductive and alluring charm).

I skipped into Cafe China the other day with an eating companion who, it must be said, has a charm not unlike the aforementioned chillis, that is seductive and alluring, though not, I believe, forbidden. But wait, I digress.

Being a woman of her word (yes, the change of diet), I ordered a chicken soup; noodles, chicken, vegetables and herbs in a clear soup and walked determinedly past the chilli. We sat in the front of the restaurant in order to watch the passing traffic but frankly my eyes didn't stray much beyond S__'s and even the soup didn't have much of a chance of competing, fragrant though it was, and not without it's attributes. You see, if I'd scattered the chilli generously, as I normally do, this soup would have been irrisistible, but as it was, my heart wasn't really in it. I had ordered a small bowl. Dear reader, I didn't finish it.

This is not wholly the fault of the soup. After all, not it's fault that I didn't dress it properly. There was a problem though. As per usual the stock was delightful, the vegetables fresh, and the noodles emminently slurpable but the chicken, bite after bite, was gristly and inedible. Cafe China has been a favourite comfort stop of mine for years, so this one problem will not deter me from their table but it was disappointing.

The other portion of fault is to be found within myself. As I gazed at S___ and disregarded the soup, I realised that, with the change of diet, has perhaps, come a change of focus. Are my attentions wandering from food to other pursuits?
Comme ci, comme ca. I'll go where the capricious wind blows.

Confessions

Confession No. 1: I have developed a condition (alright,alright - chronic reflux, happy now?) that requires a change of diet. Yes, I know there are pills for such things but I am the type to tackle things head-on and have decided on the most drastic (and rather tragic) course of action, which is of course a change of diet. Italics don't seem quite ominous enough here. How about A change of diet! or maybe A CHANGE OF DIET! No wait, let's just go the whole hog:

A CHANGE OF DIET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There, that's better.
This means no coffee, alcohol, fatty foods, spicy foods. All the good stuff, right?

*cries*

Confession No 2: As a result of confession no. 1, this restaurant review blog is no longer that which it was.

Once started though, I couldn't just abandon it, poor waif blog floating around in space waiting for a paragraph or two, a sentence, even a word from it's creator.

Hmmm.
Well, I shall start with the Health Food shops, and there's Japanese, right? Salads, though not Caesar, obviously, and um, you know, clear broths and the like. Brodo, consomme, lovely.
In place of wine there's, well there's water isn't there?

*sighs*

In the meantime, I'll rant and rave and ruminate. Can't leave the poor blog floating out there now, can I?

To market, to market.

Saturday mornings, I do my fruit and veg shopping at Rusty's markets in Grafton Street. This morning, I woke with my head still full of the weeks work, then the delightful realisation washed over me that it was, in fact, Saturday morning and I was filled with a lovely yellowness. (A result of my synasthesia; Saturdays are always yellow. They just are.)
First up a freshly ground coffee at home while I indulge in the no-work-today feeling. I usually wander down to the corner to buy the Weekend Australian and, I have to admit it, dive straight for the Review and the latest books, books, books, while my daughter munches on her cereal and skips around in various stages of dress-up in preparation for her dance class.
When she's ready, and there's really no rush, we head out, she to her twirling and flourishing and me to mine. I take the longest time wandering the rows of fresh produce, discerning this week's best, and often stop for breakfast, in the form of a vegetable samosa from the Hare Krisna stall, or less often, sticky rice wrapped in banana leaf from one or other of the Asian stalls. I buy coffee beans first from Coffeeworks, the Cosmic blend is my current favourite, and usually linger a bit just, you know, smelling.
Then, onto the fruit and veg, fresh herbs, and finally flowers (heliconias, huge bunches of them). Thus loaded, it's back to the car and home with my plunder, the car fragrant, the day stretching ahead, what to do for dinner on my mind, and all at peace and as it should be.
I could almost compose a poem. In Praise of Saturdays.
Almost.

Better late than never at all.

I'm back. Changes are afoot. Winter is almost upon us and I, finally, am back at the blogface so to speak, so to write, so to ramble and rant and wistfully dream.
Today, a mess around with templates and fonts, tomorrow the world.
And not too soon, either.
Until tomorrow, then.