That Was Definitely A Weekend.

It started Friday morning, more or less. Or maybe it started Tuesday night. I'm not sure.

Natalie took the Younger Son to Queensland on Tuesday evening. She had a medical conference to attend, and she felt that it would do the boy some good to hang out with his grandad (Nat's father), who is a long-time rally-driver, dirt biker, and competitive sailor.

Younger Son, as you know, was born with Attitude. Thus, for the first few nights I got phone calls (via Natalie) from the kid, telling me all about his adventures riding a motorbike, learning to swim (finally!) and so forth. All good.

Mind you, that left me doing sole parent with two kids. Still, that's not such a big deal. The only real issue was Wednesday evening, when I had to teach the ju-jitsu class. The Mau-Mau is not yet an attendee... so she caught the bus home from school to her best friend's house while I took the classes. That worked okay.

However, a very dear friend of mine had the very poor manners to schedule his wedding for Saturday. (Yeah, I'm staring at you, John.) I mean - it's not even his first! He's done it before!

Nevertheless, I wanted to attend. Of course, it was happening in Briz.

So -- I teed up a couple of minders, and I packed bags for both kids on Friday morning. Elder Son Jake went to his best friend's house for the weekend, and the Mau-Mau went to hers. (And I am undyingly grateful to two different families for that one!)

Meanwhile, I rounded up things about the house, packed my gear, grabbed a fine bottle of Tasmanian bubbles for a wedding present, and hit the road.

I got into Briz on Friday evening, and immediately incurred another debt. Another beloved friend of many years standing -- the other half of the Barnesm team, as a matter of fact, whom we shall call 'Charlotte' in honour of her unnatural predilection for Victorian literature -- kindly picked me up at the airport, and drove me out to the wilds of Fig Tree Pocket, where my sister lurks. Seeing as how Charlotte was also on the invite list to the wedding in question, we organised a pickup time for the morning, knocked off a pizza, and then she headed back home. I had a couple beers with my brother-in-law who is one of the more relentlessly big-hearted, decent, kind and funny individuals I know, and then I did The Big Crash.

So, yeah. Next day saturday. And the world being what it is, by coincidence also the fourteenth birthday of my nephew. Seeing how he's fourteen, and I had no real idea of his interests (I knew he used to like archery... and that's about all I knew) I slipped him a decent-sized bill, and then did my best impression of a Bad Influence Uncle: I taught him how to sweep the cards on his deal so that he put an ace on the bottom of the deck. Then I taught him how to keep the ace on the bottom of the deck through the two most common forms of shuffle... and finally, I taught him how to deal a card from the bottom of the deck without being spotted.

I'm not sure he realises the value of these skills yet. But nevertheless, I'm quite proud of myself. I feel I've done my duty as Bad Influence Uncle. I also taught him to cut the deck when anyone else volunteers to deal, and gave him a few pointers on how to spot a rigged game, how to avoid the most basic forms of con and cheat, and when to get the hell out gracefully to save his hide.

The wedding invite said "dress for cocktails." I did. Rum cocktails, to quote my comrade Arian, who was also at the wedding. In fact, I was the only bloke there without a tie. I hate ties. I hate suits. I don't do them. So I had my best piratical shirt, my leather vest, a gaudy sash, my baggy black Thai fishing trousers, and my black, suede, kneehigh moccasins.

Before you ask: yes. That is absolutely what I would wear to some sort of goddam cocktail do. In any case, John invited me. He knew what to expect, and he didn't bat an eyelid.

The wedding went off very nicely. There was a smattering of folks there I'd not seen in many a year, which was entertaining, and it's always good to swap bullshit with Arian. (I also left him with a message for Girl Clumsy... which should be entertaining.) The new Missus John is a gorgeous, doe-eyed lass who goes by the name of Amy, and gets the Flinthart Stamp of Approval. We had a fine conversation about "The Journey To The West", by Wu Ch'en En, and I look forward to further discussions at some time in the future. But in the meantime, the couple is off to China to have a SECOND wedding in China, for the sake of Amy's family. (Her parents were there, and a few others, but I think she has a bit more in the way of family back in the Old Country.)

I did, in fact, get invited to the China do as well, and I was sorely, sorely tempted... but the timing is not at all good, and then there's the money, and... ah, hell. At least I made it to the Brisney do, eh?

John's dad was looking pretty good, despite being 80 not out. He was, at one point, a professor of mine at UQ, teaching a course on science fiction. He's had the odd stroke over the last few years, and speech isn't as easy for him as once it was, but he's still sharp as ever, and he knows how to get his point across when he wants to. Late in the evening, after I'd had a few ales and was shooting the breeze with John, said father came out with a copy of 'How To Be A Man' in his hand, and the most wonderfully accusatory expresssion on his face. Once I finished laughing, I pointed out that clearly, not all my hours in his tutelage had been wasted...

The bride and groom made a disappearing act at a very reasonable hour, in a car duly decorated in shaving foam, toilet paper and soft-drink tins. Mme Charlotte and I trundled off not too much later, and after another couple of brother-in-law accompanied ales, I crashed out again...

... because the next morning at 0900 Briz, Charlotte collected me and we went off to Chermside in pursuit of another very dear old friend. This gentleman I shall refer to as Major Disaster for his connections with the military, and for his frequent bouts of accident-induced hospitalisation. Seriously: this man is amazing. I have seen him cut his finger on a drinking straw. He's not clumsy or stupid - far from it! He's simply one of the physically unluckiest individuals I have ever seen, and it is occasionally downright scary. I can only hope the two endearingly cute kids he has managed to raise with the aid of his good wife, Madame Disaster, have not inherited this particular problem.

I'd not met the kids before at all, since Major Disaster and co have been hangin' in Wales for lo, these many years past. But now they are returned as prodigals to the fold, and all is right with the world, more or less. Or at least, he wasn't wearing any new bandages when I saw him.

We had about an hour and a half at Chateau Disaster, and then it was off to the airport. A farewell to the lovely Mme Barnesm, and then a stint with the Deathstar, and I was home...

... about an hour and a half later than I expected. So I had to race like hell to collect Jake and the Mau-Mau from their various minders, offer up heartfelt thanks, then get home, make 'em a nice cup of hot chocolate, and put 'em to bed.

Natalie and Younger Son are due in 'roundabout midnight, at last text notification. I'm guessing the Deathstar is treating 'em roughly the way I expected. And for those of you wondering why we actually succumbed to the Deathstar, it's simple: nobody else at all flies direct Launceston to Brisbane.

Which sucks. Because the Deathstar is no way to fly.

Good weekend. Nice to see so many much-loved faces, and very fine to be part of John and Amy's big day. But... it's good to be home!

Well, I Don't Have TB

It's true. My Mantoux Test was negative. No surprises there.

Let's see what the CAT scan has to say next, shall we?

Not All My Experiments Work Out.

It occurs to me that in posting successful and interesting recipes, I give a somewhat mistaken impression of my cooking. Not everything works.

Of course, I'm long past the early, foolish stage of throwing together something new and trying it out on people. Nope: when I want to try something different, I do it quietly, and consider the results for myself.

Case in point: I was just preparing some twice-cooked pork, and I really went the indulgent path, shallow-frying the already steamed, marinated, and seasoning-coated pork-belly pieces in vegetable oil. (Normally I'd stir fry them with veg. Or even grill them.)

There was a half-packet of Udon-style Japanese noodles on the countertop, left over from young barf-boy Jake's luncheon. (He had a tasty, easily digestible soup with a little thinly-slivered spiced beef and fresh vegetables as well as the noodles.) Seeing as how I still had a pot of hot oil after the pork came out, I figured I'd chuck in the Udon noodles and see what happened.

For those who may not know, Udon noodles are a relatively thick rice/wheat noodle which you can often find in Japanese soups and stews. They're a bit chewier than your usual rice stick, and actually, they're a big favourite around here. I wondered what would happen if I dropped 'em into oil hot enough to give 'em a crunchy outer surface.

The answer? Nothing good. By the time the outside goes crunchy, the middle has become very damned chewy indeed. I may consider trying this again with MUCH hotter oil, but for the meantime, the idea is: don't deepfry Udon noodles.

To which you might reply -- why the hell would I want to do that in the first place? And I'd have to say: I'm not sure. But you never know. Sometimes these odd experiments turn out very, very well indeed. Like making ice-cream with Mascarpone instead of cream, for example. That works brilliantly.

But not fried Udon noodles. Nope. Yuck.

Hmm. There Goes One Theory...

Turns out I'm not asthmatic.

At least, that's what the peak flow/spirometry test I did yesterday insists. As a matter of fact, the doc reading the results took one look and said my lungs were in remarkable shape. Apparently one one of the key indicators was at something like 120% of expected for my age and size, while the others were not far below 100%. And given that I've been rattling and coughing horribly for a month and a half, I guess being a little below 100% is kind of understood and assumed.

More to the point, there was no significant change after a dose of Ventolin.

So -- what's up with that? They treated me as an asthmatic as a kid, and it certainly seemed to work when I got wheezy. Then I did a lot of swimming in my teens, and I did some growing, and it went away.

I know I've got occasional allergies. I discovered just last spring that if I take something like Telfast once a day, suddenly all the night-time snot and sneezing goes away. That's pretty cool.

But this cough. Yeah.

You might remember that a few years ago, after a truly amazing bout of laryngitis, I lost the ability to produce that deep, chesty cough that is oh-so-necessary when you've got a good bout of lung lurgi. It just went away. I can cough, sure, but it's all up in the throat, not in the chest, which is annoying as all fuck.

I'm pretty healthy generally, despite the best efforts of my children, so I don't usually have chest problems when I get some kind of cold, and even here in Tas, I'm usually good for maybe one decent cold per year. Two in a bad year. But I admit it: I've been expecting to get something ugly, and hard to shift, purely because I can't cough like I should. Means all that crap rattling around down there doesn't really move the way you'd want it to, you see.

Right now, the Mau-Mau has a deep, rattly cough of which I am, frankly, quite jealous. Younger Son, meanwhile, has at least temporarily freed himself of any kind of cough at all, which is great since he's being treated as an asthmatic too. Elder Son Jake, who brought the whole goddam cough home with him from summer music camp, is over it completely, but is currently lying in his bed having barfed all over the place at school this morning.

And me? Comes and goes. I can exercise effectively again, which is good, but I'm definitely not up to par. And I tend to have wheezing fits at odd times -- wheezing fits which, despite the spirometric analysis, do seem to be somewhat improved with Ventolin.

Thus, on Monday, I shall be off to have my very first ever CAT scan. Wooowee! Technology! Yay!

It's going to be a busy day. I need to get my ID at the university, and grab a couple books from the library. I need to pick up a present for Jon Strugnell's upcoming wedding. I've also gotta get a Mantoux test to rule out Tuberculosis, of all things... gotta love this medical stuff, eh?

Meanwhile: looks like three extra kids staying over for the weekend. (Assuming Jake improves. Which he probably will. Wish I knew what was going on there, though... he never throws up.) Natalie's aiming for a bike ride on Saturday, and Younger Son is due to head into Launceston for another bass lesson.

It's all good, I guess. I've still got a little bit more time this year, even adding in the extra driving around for gymnastics, and the fact that I'm tutoring a youngster in the flute. Hopefully the writing will unroll in front of me nicely...

A Somewhat Disturbing Tale

I believe I have mentioned from time to time that the Younger Son is... a little dangerous.

Nobody ever takes it seriously, though. He's the middle kid, after all. Jake is taller and much more talkative and gregarious. And of course, the Mau-Mau is terminally cute, and vivacious, and determined to be the centre of attention. Younger son is just a small-ish, slightly stocky blond boy with a mischievous grin.

Of course, if you look carefully, you discover stuff. For example: he's been helping me in the kitchen, slicing vegetables, since before he turned four years old. Seriously -- he really wanted to be involved, and he showed me that he had the necessary concentration and dexterity. He's not fast, no, but he handles a chef's knife better than most adults I know.

And for his fourth birthday he got a cordless electric drill. Okay - it's actually a cordless screwdriver, because his hands are small, but he loves taking things apart and trying to figure out how they work, and an electric drill was the great desire of his life at the time. He still has the device, with all its bits. And he still uses it.

Then there's that slight stockiness. He's going to basic gymnastics once a week now. Last week, he broke their local record for holding a reverse-grip chin-up. Watching him on the beam, you feel he might as well be trotting along open ground. They use an odd, lozenge-shaped cushion thing to force the kids to work their balance while doing deep knee bends: Younger Son doesn't wobble at all while he's doing his bit, and instead of doing a measured count of knee-bends, he just keeps going until they finally notice and tell him to stop.

He's not a talker, though. It would never occur to him to make much of these things. They're natural to him, and from time to time he expresses puzzlement that others can't do the same. But he is learning. And he has something else on his side: patience, and a devilish concentration.

They've only been back at school about four weeks. In his new classroom this year, Younger Son found that one among the various laptop computers didn't have a power supply. When he asked, he was told that the power supply had been misplaced because they'd lost the password for the computer, and they were waiting for the (harried and harassed!) IT guy to come and reset it.

Younger Son ferreted about the classroom until he found an appropriate power supply. Then he asked for permission to try and use the computer. His teacher, not knowing the little beast for what he is, apparently thought nothing of it.

The passwords for these 'puters are alphanumeric, and nine digits in length. There are some limits on the character range they use at the school, but I'm not going to detail them here. Likewise, they have some habitual patterns they use in their passwords, apparently, but again, no details needed.

It took him about two and a half weeks of brute-force password entry tests. And then one day he came home with a big grin. "All the other kids want to use my computer," he said. "But I won't tell them the password."

Of course, he'd not told me anything about the whole matter, so I had to tease the details out of him. But yes: he'd slowly, patiently, methodically worked his way through a range of potential passwords before he found it. And now he has essentially private access to the hitherto unusable computer...

He will be nine years old on his next birthday, on Christmas Eve. I have absolutely NO idea what to give him for his birthday this year...

Movie Talk: Rango

Frankly, I should just say "see it", and leave it at that. But to be fair, the film is pretty damned cool, and deserves more.

I wasn't expecting much. After all, 'Rango' is directed by Gore Verbinski - and even if I did enjoy his work on the first 'Pirates' film, there's that whole Hollywood-populist-director bullshit to overcome. And it was animated.

First clue that it's a lot better than you'd expect? It's not in 3D. Coulda been. Wasn't. And the animation is farking beautiful. Much, much more beautiful than with stupid glasses balanced on my nose, giving me a headache.

Second clue? Well... there's that cast. Johnny Depp as the out-of-place chameleon who calls himself Rango. Ned Beatty as the mayor of the town Dirt, doing a vocal James Coburn so damned good I found myself trying to remember whether or not Coburn is still alive. (I don't think he is.) A whole bunch of others with some decent acting chops. Yeah.

Then there's Hans Zimmer's score. I am really starting to like Zimmer's cinematic work. Loved the 'Pirates' score. Really enjoyed the 'Sherlock Holmes' score. And this one? Well, let's just say the blue-grass version of 'Ride Of The Valkyries' done on banjo is about as special as it gets.

The storyline is nothing too outrageous. Rango is a chameleon who lives in a tank. During a move, he falls out of the car and into the desert somewhere near Las Vegas (and there is a fucking hilarious cameo from an animated Hunter S Thompson which will send anyone who remembers 'Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas' into fits of laughter. Damn near killed me.)

Abandoned in the burning sun, Rango-to-be finds a shaman in the form of an armadillo flattened on the road who gives him the usual sage, cryptic advice. Then he wanders off and is found by a female lizard named 'Beans' who takes him to the local dead-end town, Dirt.

Dirt - and the rest of the movie - is populated by animals who stand in for the usual Wild West characters. And frankly, it's here that the movie begins to become truly outstanding. There's been a lot of good animation in the last few years, but the visualisation of the animal characters in 'Rango' is truly brilliant. The creatures are utterly believable, wholly convincing to the eye - and yet they still suggest the classic Western stereotypes from which they are drawn.

The film is doubly plotted. The town is running out of water, courtesy of the villainous machinations of a character who shall not be announced in this review, not that it would really spoil anything, and it's up to Rango to save it. And of course, Rango himself is nothing more than a creation: a lie, invented on the spot to keep himself out of trouble. (He's a chameleon, remember? Blending in is what he does.) Therefore he has to undergo the inevitable quest to discover his own true nature, and be the hero of his own story.

Neither of these is particularly new, of course. But they are played out with subtlety and just enough irony against a backdrop composed of a loving homage to all the great Western films -- and the animators are allowed to join the game, which makes the entire 'feel' of the film truly wonderful. For example, the scene of the animal posse riding out on roadrunners, silhouetted in distorting heat-haze against a setting sun, is done so very beautifully that were it shot in a 'real' film, somebody would be up for cinematographical awards. Here, in an animated film, it's entirely gratuitous, and therefore hilarious in its self-aware irony - but it's also still very beautifully done, enjoyable on several levels simultaneously.

The film is full of clever, subtle pop culture references, and some which are less subtle but still clever. It's beautifully realised. The dialogue is marvellous. The characters are charming, and deeply individual while recalling their western-film origins. There's plenty of action, remarkable visuals, tonnes of invention, and an altogether satisfying conclusion to both levels of storytelling.

I'm very glad I saw 'Rango' on the big screen with the kids. I'd see it again, if it wasn't such a fuss, and I'm sure I'd get new things from it. As it is, I'm going to buy it on DVD and chances are it'll become a favourite for family film festival nights.

Rango is hot. Go and see it. Now.

The Thing I Miss Most

I was chatting with a friend a while back. Not what you'd call deep stuff. But - we've made different life choices, she and I. And we were kinda comparing notes a little, and thinking, and she allowed as just maybe, you know, the family-and-kids thing has something going for it.

And she's right, yep. But that doesn't mean the choices she's made don't work. And I'm never really going to know, am I? Because I made my choice and here I am, and I'd be five kinds of an idiot if I bothered to regret it, or wish for something else. Life is what it is. One finds a way to live it, and appreciate the living of it.

But as a result of that particular conversation, I did do a little thinking, and honestly - yeah. There's some shit I miss from the no-kids side of the equation. I could make a few quips about money, and sleeping late, and being able to find my books and tools wherever I leave them, but they've all been done a thousand times before. And besides, they all actually relate to one common thread.

Responsibility.

What I miss: I miss being able to make simple, tiny choices without the possibility of weighing down somebody else's life, maybe for good.

I'm going to have to explain this by example, because if you aren't a parent, then I truly don't believe you can really wrap your head around what I'm saying. Because it's just not intuitive. It's too big. It's too pervasive. Ten years now, I've been a parent, and I'm still just beginning to understand.

Let's consider something simple. You're cooking a hardboiled egg. The phone rings. Do you duck over and pick it up?

Of course you do. Unless you have a small kid. Because if you have a small kid, the first thing you do is turn the handle of the pot to the back of the stove, and turn off the heat. (You were already using the burner at the back. You use those burners for pretty much everything, even though the big one at the front delivers more heat.)

And once you've secured that pot of boiling water you take a look around and assure yourself of the kid's whereabouts. Then you grab the phone. And because you're a parent, it's a walkaround phone, so you can go back into the kitchen to keep an eye on that dangerous pot of water while you talk to whomever.

What time do you get up in the morning? Any morning? Every morning? When do you go to bed? How much do you choose to drink, in terms of alcohol? Or even soda - because what their parents do is, for small children, the very literal definition of true and right and proper.

Driving. How many of you curse at the fucknuckles on the road who brake and turn without indicating, pass on blind corners, swerve gormlessly around at 60kph on roads designated for almost twice that speed?

Yeah, the kids are listening. What I do these days: I point out the vehicle in question, and I show my older kids the reason why what they're seeing is dangerous as hell, and stupid. (Like the tailgater on Thursday afternoon who followed me out of Launceston all the way to Nunamara so close behind I couldn't read her license plate in the rear view.) But I don't curse, and I don't run down the drivers of those vehicles: I just point out that their driving is dangerous and stupid, and that hopefully, when the kids grow up they'll remember not to do that.

What do you read? What do you watch? Do you get your exercise in? Do you clean up after yourself? Your speech -- is it articulate and thoughtful, or do you toss poor English after half-considered slang?

Everything you are, everything you do is up for evaluation. Your kids -- they want to be proud of you. They want to have reasons to believe in you. Do something clever, or accomplished, and they think it's wonderful. Problem is, do something half-assed or stupid or foolish and they'll find excuses for you, and they'll take away the lesson that half-assed and stupid and foolish are okay.

It's a bitch. Stone-cold. If you've ever worked in a job where the boss was watching you every second, you've almost got a hint of it. Except you get to go home from a job. And you can quit. And fuck it, no matter what else, it's just a goddam job. It's not you. But there's almost no time-out from the parent gig. And home is where it happens. And if you quit, you're not done: you've just become a bad parent, a fuckup - and chances are, your kids will love you anyway and take it all on board, maybe even blame themselves.

It's not a job. You even try thinking of it that way, and you're lost.

I'm sure the day will come when I'm not carrying this any more. I'm sure of this because somewhere along the line, I figured out that both my parents were adult human beings whose choices were entirely theirs, and didn't necessarily have to have any effect on mine. My mother's dead now, but I think she finally got used to the idea, in the last few years of her life. And I know my father has worked it out now, even though he still occasionally lapses into trying to set an example for me... but that's cool, because he does it for 'most everyone he believes might be smart enough to learn from him.

I'm not sure how I will feel about it when that day comes. The unrelenting, ubiquitous nature of this responsibility is such that it can very easily feel like it's your reason for living. You can become a parent first and foremost, and forget the other parts of your life. People who do that - you see them once the kids leave, and they look around like they can't quite figure out what the hell just happened, or where they should be, or what they should be doing.

I don't want to be that way. I need to keep hold of the other stuff. Writing. Martial arts. Drinking good wine. Languages, art, travel. Making music purely because I enjoy it.

But oh, hell, it's hard.