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Colonoscopy Post-Mortem
10 hours ago
Sunday, February 08, 2009
My heart aches
My heart aches for the people, the communities, the wildlife and livestock, the farmland and bushland that have fallen victim to the horror of the bushfires in Victoria. The death toll stands at 84 people. Hundreds of homes have been lost. At least 200,000 hectares of land has been burnt out in over 400 fires all over the state.
Donations can be made via the Red Cross Victorian Bushfire Appeal - online or phone 1800 811 700.
Food and love (Part 1)
Some time ago Liz posted a piece titled Love You With Food, it ends with these lines:
It's hard for me to write about this without feeling that I'm being too harsh about the choices my mum made when I was a kid and as reached my late teens. I know she was doing the best she could as a mother and many of her choices are ones I have made too. My dad played his part in shaping my relationship with food too, and mum's for that matter, but he wasn't ever much involved in the shopping and cooking side of things, he comes into play more on the emotional side and with 20/20 hindsight we now know that much of what he did was down to him being bipolar (he was diagnosed about 5 years ago).
So I'm going to talk about my good food memories first.
Liz writes about the foods her mom cooked for holiday meals, dishes that were loved by particular family members -
Grandma (Mum's mum) and Nana (Dads' mum) both had special things they would make for when we came to visit. Grandma did the Christmas cake every year, there were always homemade scones (apparently she used to win prizes for her scones) and slices for afternoon tea, and baked dinners at Grandma's house were often followed by a baked fruit crumble. Nana used to make a fabulously sherry drenched trifle which I famously loved so much that when I was very young I was discovered after the meal with the empty trifle dish spooning the remaining sherry out of the bottom of the dish and exclaiming "Lovely gravy!" She also made rock cakes, I think I have her recipe for them somewhere but I've never made them, must do that one day, they were good and we'd get to take home the left-over ones with us when it was time to leave. Nan's Christmas specialty was hot brandy sauce which she would nurse over "a bead of gas" for hours on end, used to drive my dad nuts. We might mock but it was awesome with Christmas pudding. My brother makes it now, he's less precious about the slow heating, it tastes about the same but it tends to separate a little and I don't remember Nan's doing that.
When I was first going out with Adam and he started coming over to our place for dinner my friends all asked him if he'd survived the ultimate culinary test. Had my mother fed him the dreaded Chicken and Broccoli*? Of course the answer was yes, it was one of my mum's staple feeding of guests dishes, I loved it but I gather it caused much trauma to my friends over the years.
Oh, here's another one! Each year we would go to the Royal Easter Show, almost always on the Thursday before Good Friday. Mum and Dad would come and pick us up from school at lunchtime and we'd spend the afternoon and evening at the show, coming home after the fireworks display. The food that was available at the show back then was truly awful, overpriced and almost exclusively deep-fried, pretty much my mother's worst nightmare in food terms, so Mum would try and take food with us so we wouldn't have to buy dinner there. One year she made Cornish Pasties, they were awesome, I have the most vivid memory of unwrapping them from their foil packages, dolloping tomato sauce on them and savouring every bite. As far as I can recall this was the only time Mum ever made them.
When we were living in the US, in Boulder, Colorado, my mum perfected the high altitude pavlova. I gather her first attempt as per cooking in Sydney was not a success but pretty soon she had it down to a fine art and the Aussie dessert (yeah yeah, I know, shut up you Kiwis and let us cling to our illusions :P) was shared far and wide. Or, you know, with anyone who came to dinner or at any "bring a plate" function. I seem to remember there was some re-adjustment required on returning to Sydney, Mum being unable to remember what she used to do before the high altitude tweaks were made.
I'm actually really reaching for good memories here. I know there must have been many, many wonderful meals and a great deal of my mother's love for the family poured into providing for us. It kind of scares and saddens me that the not so wonderful stuff has overshadowed the good stuff so much. In fact, I'm getting a bit depressed thinking about it, don't know when I'll ever get around to writing Part 2....
*BBQ chook cut up, placed in a casserole dish with a layer of steamed broccoli on top. Then pour over a can of cream of mushroom soup mixed with some milk, thyme, lemon juice and maybe extra mushrooms, sprinkle with grated cheese and bake till hot and bubbly with the cheese nicely browned. Serve over rice and glare at any child that dares protest (my sister wasn't a fan and nor are my kids sadly).
There is a legacy of love and food and cooking in my family. I'm so glad to be part of it and so glad it doesn't end with me.I wish I could say the same thing about my family. It's not that there was any lack of love, or indeed of good food, in my childhood - far from it! But somewhere along the way food became a problem instead of an uncomplicated celebration and the legacy I inherited could be better described as a fraught relationship, with food often being both the focus of special times and at the same time an enemy to be controlled and guarded against.
It's hard for me to write about this without feeling that I'm being too harsh about the choices my mum made when I was a kid and as reached my late teens. I know she was doing the best she could as a mother and many of her choices are ones I have made too. My dad played his part in shaping my relationship with food too, and mum's for that matter, but he wasn't ever much involved in the shopping and cooking side of things, he comes into play more on the emotional side and with 20/20 hindsight we now know that much of what he did was down to him being bipolar (he was diagnosed about 5 years ago).
So I'm going to talk about my good food memories first.
Liz writes about the foods her mom cooked for holiday meals, dishes that were loved by particular family members -
"something that my mother [had] made for that person. Ryan's Stove Top. Jason's Roasted Potatoes and Carrots. Jeff's Angel Food Cake. Ted's Chocolate Cream. Martha's Cheesecake."My mum did cook special things for us, I'm told I requested veal casserole, which featured regularly at our family table, for dinner on my 3rd birthday and I remember boiled fruit cakes being made, also for birthdays. What I don't remember much of is Mum cooking anything just for the fun of it, I don't think she really liked cooking very much, so most of my good memories of food and Mum are of once off type experiences. Except for when we were camping, there were lots of camping trips and something about an open fire seemed to demand frivolous fare - damper cooked in the coals, twist bread toasted on sticks over the open fire, marshmallows all singed and gooey, jaffles made in a proper jaffle iron with their edges burnt black and filled with hot baked beans and melted cheese. Good times.
Grandma (Mum's mum) and Nana (Dads' mum) both had special things they would make for when we came to visit. Grandma did the Christmas cake every year, there were always homemade scones (apparently she used to win prizes for her scones) and slices for afternoon tea, and baked dinners at Grandma's house were often followed by a baked fruit crumble. Nana used to make a fabulously sherry drenched trifle which I famously loved so much that when I was very young I was discovered after the meal with the empty trifle dish spooning the remaining sherry out of the bottom of the dish and exclaiming "Lovely gravy!" She also made rock cakes, I think I have her recipe for them somewhere but I've never made them, must do that one day, they were good and we'd get to take home the left-over ones with us when it was time to leave. Nan's Christmas specialty was hot brandy sauce which she would nurse over "a bead of gas" for hours on end, used to drive my dad nuts. We might mock but it was awesome with Christmas pudding. My brother makes it now, he's less precious about the slow heating, it tastes about the same but it tends to separate a little and I don't remember Nan's doing that.
When I was first going out with Adam and he started coming over to our place for dinner my friends all asked him if he'd survived the ultimate culinary test. Had my mother fed him the dreaded Chicken and Broccoli*? Of course the answer was yes, it was one of my mum's staple feeding of guests dishes, I loved it but I gather it caused much trauma to my friends over the years.
Oh, here's another one! Each year we would go to the Royal Easter Show, almost always on the Thursday before Good Friday. Mum and Dad would come and pick us up from school at lunchtime and we'd spend the afternoon and evening at the show, coming home after the fireworks display. The food that was available at the show back then was truly awful, overpriced and almost exclusively deep-fried, pretty much my mother's worst nightmare in food terms, so Mum would try and take food with us so we wouldn't have to buy dinner there. One year she made Cornish Pasties, they were awesome, I have the most vivid memory of unwrapping them from their foil packages, dolloping tomato sauce on them and savouring every bite. As far as I can recall this was the only time Mum ever made them.
When we were living in the US, in Boulder, Colorado, my mum perfected the high altitude pavlova. I gather her first attempt as per cooking in Sydney was not a success but pretty soon she had it down to a fine art and the Aussie dessert (yeah yeah, I know, shut up you Kiwis and let us cling to our illusions :P) was shared far and wide. Or, you know, with anyone who came to dinner or at any "bring a plate" function. I seem to remember there was some re-adjustment required on returning to Sydney, Mum being unable to remember what she used to do before the high altitude tweaks were made.
I'm actually really reaching for good memories here. I know there must have been many, many wonderful meals and a great deal of my mother's love for the family poured into providing for us. It kind of scares and saddens me that the not so wonderful stuff has overshadowed the good stuff so much. In fact, I'm getting a bit depressed thinking about it, don't know when I'll ever get around to writing Part 2....
*BBQ chook cut up, placed in a casserole dish with a layer of steamed broccoli on top. Then pour over a can of cream of mushroom soup mixed with some milk, thyme, lemon juice and maybe extra mushrooms, sprinkle with grated cheese and bake till hot and bubbly with the cheese nicely browned. Serve over rice and glare at any child that dares protest (my sister wasn't a fan and nor are my kids sadly).
Saturday, February 07, 2009
Other Mother is here
Freaky!I've been exploring the Coraline movie website, so much awesome! I particularly like the clip showing the miniature knitting (it's in the top drawer under the mirror in Coraline's bedroom). I'm extremely peeved that here in Australia we have to wait till MAY for the cinema release *grumbles*
I have to confess I haven't read the book yet, but I did read an excerpt from it in the Nebula Awards Showcase anthology for 2003, the year in which Coraline won the novella category.
Oh well, at least I've got plenty of time to grab myself a copy of the novella and the graphic novel before I go see the movie.
Friday, February 06, 2009
Snippets revisited
Caitlin's a total drama queen so, yeah, she did have a bit of a difficult day but she gets over these things pretty quickly too. Thanks everyone for the kind words :)
The hat reappeared the next day, as I knew it would, I'm well trained in the clear labeling of kids clothes. Working in the Uniform shop at the school taught me that much, at the end of each year we'd get the unclaimed stuff from Lost Property to resell through the shop - so many things with no names in them! Lost Property is a peculiar repository in which clothing that has been missing for many weeks will occasionally mysteriously reappear but which almost never holds the item you lost in the last day or so.
The fruit bread sangers were not a hit, both Cait and Tom had left half uneaten.
The reason the kids' classes usually aren't organised before the beginning of the year is that when student numbers at a school are borderline for getting another teacher allocated (as we always seem to be) they end up having to wait till they're sure everyone who is going to enroll for the year has done so and that there are no kids who did enroll but aren't going to turn up. Otherwise they might find they've formed classes with the expectation of having, say, 16 teachers only to have the Dept of Education say oops, sorry, you can only have 15 teachers and end up having to reshuffle all the kids into new classes a couple of weeks down the track.
As far as I know David is getting on just fine in Mr M's class, I'm not asking too many questions at this stage ;-) I will make an appointment some time soon to have a chat with Mr M just to give him a bit of a heads up on some of Dave's little quirks, though I'm quite sure he's had a very thorough briefing from Dave's previous teachers.
The composite class thing doesn't really worry me as far as the academic side of things goes, because of the size of the school there are a lot of composite classes and the teachers have plenty of experience in making it work. Most of the steep learning curve with letters and writing seems to happen in kindy now and they'll have put the more competent kids from last year's kindy class into the year 1 half of Tom's class.
The rest of this week has been dominated by an ear infection which had me feeling pretty rotten for a couple of days (almost better now though) and the dreaded covering of books with bloody contact. I swear I used to be able to do it perfectly every time. Well, not any more! Bubbles of air, creases, crooked edges, covers cut too small so there's not enough to fold over the edge and, my favourite, the cover ending up too tight and the corners bending up in a lovely half bowl shape. Bugger.
The hat reappeared the next day, as I knew it would, I'm well trained in the clear labeling of kids clothes. Working in the Uniform shop at the school taught me that much, at the end of each year we'd get the unclaimed stuff from Lost Property to resell through the shop - so many things with no names in them! Lost Property is a peculiar repository in which clothing that has been missing for many weeks will occasionally mysteriously reappear but which almost never holds the item you lost in the last day or so.
The fruit bread sangers were not a hit, both Cait and Tom had left half uneaten.
The reason the kids' classes usually aren't organised before the beginning of the year is that when student numbers at a school are borderline for getting another teacher allocated (as we always seem to be) they end up having to wait till they're sure everyone who is going to enroll for the year has done so and that there are no kids who did enroll but aren't going to turn up. Otherwise they might find they've formed classes with the expectation of having, say, 16 teachers only to have the Dept of Education say oops, sorry, you can only have 15 teachers and end up having to reshuffle all the kids into new classes a couple of weeks down the track.
As far as I know David is getting on just fine in Mr M's class, I'm not asking too many questions at this stage ;-) I will make an appointment some time soon to have a chat with Mr M just to give him a bit of a heads up on some of Dave's little quirks, though I'm quite sure he's had a very thorough briefing from Dave's previous teachers.
The composite class thing doesn't really worry me as far as the academic side of things goes, because of the size of the school there are a lot of composite classes and the teachers have plenty of experience in making it work. Most of the steep learning curve with letters and writing seems to happen in kindy now and they'll have put the more competent kids from last year's kindy class into the year 1 half of Tom's class.
The rest of this week has been dominated by an ear infection which had me feeling pretty rotten for a couple of days (almost better now though) and the dreaded covering of books with bloody contact. I swear I used to be able to do it perfectly every time. Well, not any more! Bubbles of air, creases, crooked edges, covers cut too small so there's not enough to fold over the edge and, my favourite, the cover ending up too tight and the corners bending up in a lovely half bowl shape. Bugger.
The 9th Down Under Feminists Carnival is up.
This month's carnival is hosted at The Hand Mirror. As always, lots of great reading to be done - perfect for a too-bloody-hot-to-go-outside weekend!
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
Snippets from the first week back at school
In the morning on the day the kids were placed in their classes David was pale-faced and anxious, dreading getting the deputy principal as his teacher. This very likely result did indeed eventuate which was not at all surprising as I had had conversations with the teachers at the end of last year in which we agreed that Mr M (who is a lovely person and, from what I've heard, a great teacher) would be the best option for Dave this year. David mock scowls at me, knowing I've had a hand in his fate.
When I came to pick them up Caitlin was in tears because her best friend is not in her class, but very happy about her teacher for the year. We promise many play-dates to compensate for this cruel separation. With any luck Caitlin will broaden her circle of friends, I wouldn't be at all surprised if this is what the staff had in mind when they formed the classes.
Tom, thrilled to be back at school, was entirely content with his teacher but assured me none of his friends are in his class. In fact he can't remember any of the people in his class. Further investigation reveals that he has exaggerated just a bit, and anyway Tom's happy to play with anyone really. He's in a composite class, years 1 and 2. Great, he's already twice the size of half his year and now he's in a class with a bunch of even younger kids. I worry that his self-consciousness about his size might be exacerbated by this situation, I hope my worry is unfounded.
Yesterday as we left the school our lovely librarian was on crossing duty. For some reason she had with her a new book which she had been showing to Tom's class in library that afternoon. Tom had started to tell me all about it as soon as he came out of class and, spotting the book in her hand, brazenly asks to borrow it. The book hasn't even been processed into the library yet, it has no plastic cover, no stickers and no label identifying it as property of the school. So of course she says yes to him. Apparently it's something about his enthusiasm for reading and books, makes him irresistible to librarians.
This morning when it comes to sandwich making time I discovered we had run out of bread. Fabulous, one week in and I'm failing school parent 101. Luckily there was a loaf of raisin bread in the freezer, fruit bread sandwiches all round!
This afternoon saw Caitlin's first ever loss of a hat. You'd have thought her world was coming to an end. When I saw the look on her face as she came out of class I thought something truly hideous had happened and braced myself for damage control. When she confessed the terrible tale of the missing hat I'm afraid all I felt was an enormous irritation that something so trivial was causing so much angst. Perhaps I'd feel differently if my kids were prone to losing stuff but I don't think any of them have ever lost anything at school, at home yes, all the time, but not while at school. I know kids who lose hats and jackets on at least a monthly basis, sometimes weekly!
I'm on Canteen duty tomorrow. What's the bet I can't remember the price on a single thing we sell?
When I came to pick them up Caitlin was in tears because her best friend is not in her class, but very happy about her teacher for the year. We promise many play-dates to compensate for this cruel separation. With any luck Caitlin will broaden her circle of friends, I wouldn't be at all surprised if this is what the staff had in mind when they formed the classes.
Tom, thrilled to be back at school, was entirely content with his teacher but assured me none of his friends are in his class. In fact he can't remember any of the people in his class. Further investigation reveals that he has exaggerated just a bit, and anyway Tom's happy to play with anyone really. He's in a composite class, years 1 and 2. Great, he's already twice the size of half his year and now he's in a class with a bunch of even younger kids. I worry that his self-consciousness about his size might be exacerbated by this situation, I hope my worry is unfounded.
Yesterday as we left the school our lovely librarian was on crossing duty. For some reason she had with her a new book which she had been showing to Tom's class in library that afternoon. Tom had started to tell me all about it as soon as he came out of class and, spotting the book in her hand, brazenly asks to borrow it. The book hasn't even been processed into the library yet, it has no plastic cover, no stickers and no label identifying it as property of the school. So of course she says yes to him. Apparently it's something about his enthusiasm for reading and books, makes him irresistible to librarians.
This morning when it comes to sandwich making time I discovered we had run out of bread. Fabulous, one week in and I'm failing school parent 101. Luckily there was a loaf of raisin bread in the freezer, fruit bread sandwiches all round!
This afternoon saw Caitlin's first ever loss of a hat. You'd have thought her world was coming to an end. When I saw the look on her face as she came out of class I thought something truly hideous had happened and braced myself for damage control. When she confessed the terrible tale of the missing hat I'm afraid all I felt was an enormous irritation that something so trivial was causing so much angst. Perhaps I'd feel differently if my kids were prone to losing stuff but I don't think any of them have ever lost anything at school, at home yes, all the time, but not while at school. I know kids who lose hats and jackets on at least a monthly basis, sometimes weekly!
I'm on Canteen duty tomorrow. What's the bet I can't remember the price on a single thing we sell?
Sunday, February 01, 2009
Seventeen years
In September of 1988, one month shy of my 18th birthday I went to a party I had not been invited to. My best mate's girlfriend had been invited so we figured that was close enough. I knew a fair few of the people there, well, their faces and names at any rate, they were people who had been 2 years ahead of me at high school. It was a pretty good party, we danced and were silly and there may have been some booze involved (ok, there was definitely half a bottle of vodka involved but SHHH don't tell my mum!*). My parents were away on holiday for the weekend, I don't remember why I didn't go with them, I didn't have a job or anything, maybe I was supposed to be studying for the HSC? Anyway, at the end of the night my friends and I were heading back to my place to continue festivities and, um, I took this guy home with me (it's ok Mum - NOTHING HAPPENED!). Except here we are twenty years later and I still haven't got rid of him.
Three and a bit years later we got married.
Yesterday we abandoned the kids with my mum (or perhaps abandoned my mum with the kids?) and took ourselves off into the city for a bit of celebratory eating, theatre going and...er...sleeping, yep, that's what hotel rooms are for you know.
We had dinner at East Chinese Restaurant at Circular Quay then popped over to Portobello Cafe for coffee and tiramasu before wandering down to the Opera House to see The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged). We were a little early for the show so we sat on one of the benches looking over the harbour and watched the sun set.
The show was brilliant and hysterically funny. Adam and I had seen it before but neither of us remembered it very clearly and it has a significant element of improvisation and topical references, I'd go again in a heartbeat, in fact we're thinking if the opportunity arises we'll take the kids next time too. Nothing quite like laughing so hard it brings tears to the eyes, good for the soul that is.
On the way back to the hotel (we were staying overnight at the InterContinental) we picked up some chocolates from the Guylian Cafe, there's still half of them left for tonight, I'm hiding them from the kids.
This morning we were not woken by a dog's tail wagging with great force against the bookshelves beside our bed, or by a small boy climbing onto our bed and talking non-stop to said dog, or by the sound of children fighting. Instead we woke of our own accord - AT 6:15AM! Well, I did anyway, Adam was snoring gently still. I managed to drift off again till about 7:45am and then took another 45 minutes to actually get out of bed. We had breakfast at the buffet and then headed for home.
Happy wedding anniversary Adam. Thank you for a lovely evening and for 17 years of putting up with me. You're my best friend, a wonderful hubby and terrific dad, I love you.
*I know, this will be the day she finally remembers to check that link I sent her *waves* Hi Mum!
Three and a bit years later we got married.
Yesterday we abandoned the kids with my mum (or perhaps abandoned my mum with the kids?) and took ourselves off into the city for a bit of celebratory eating, theatre going and...er...sleeping, yep, that's what hotel rooms are for you know.
We had dinner at East Chinese Restaurant at Circular Quay then popped over to Portobello Cafe for coffee and tiramasu before wandering down to the Opera House to see The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged). We were a little early for the show so we sat on one of the benches looking over the harbour and watched the sun set.
The show was brilliant and hysterically funny. Adam and I had seen it before but neither of us remembered it very clearly and it has a significant element of improvisation and topical references, I'd go again in a heartbeat, in fact we're thinking if the opportunity arises we'll take the kids next time too. Nothing quite like laughing so hard it brings tears to the eyes, good for the soul that is.
On the way back to the hotel (we were staying overnight at the InterContinental) we picked up some chocolates from the Guylian Cafe, there's still half of them left for tonight, I'm hiding them from the kids.
This morning we were not woken by a dog's tail wagging with great force against the bookshelves beside our bed, or by a small boy climbing onto our bed and talking non-stop to said dog, or by the sound of children fighting. Instead we woke of our own accord - AT 6:15AM! Well, I did anyway, Adam was snoring gently still. I managed to drift off again till about 7:45am and then took another 45 minutes to actually get out of bed. We had breakfast at the buffet and then headed for home.
Happy wedding anniversary Adam. Thank you for a lovely evening and for 17 years of putting up with me. You're my best friend, a wonderful hubby and terrific dad, I love you.
*I know, this will be the day she finally remembers to check that link I sent her *waves* Hi Mum!
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