Urgh

Genghis' pet chest infection is leaving him. I didn't have to drug him at all last night. He coughed for a while after he lay down, but then he went off to sleep nicely and stayed that way.

Wish I could say the same. It would appear I'm still on the downslope of this particular bit of nastiness. I'm not enjoying the situation at all.

We took a trip to Launceston yesterday to see 'Captain America'. I'd rate it one of the best superhero flicks so far. The look was perfect, the acting was fine, and Hugo Weaving made a most excellent Red Skull. And who can argue with a story about Nazi super-science and lost Asgardian technology threatening to destroy the world?

There really was a lot to like in the film. If you're an old Marvel fan, watching Captain America hook up with the likes of Dum-Dum Dugan and a young Nick Fury (from a very old comic called 'Nick Fury and his Howling Commandoes') was pretty cool. I admit to a warm, fuzzy moment when Dugan took over the zap-ray tank during the escape-from-Hydra sequence, purely because of the cry of "Waaahoooo!!!". I don't think I've seen one of those old comics since I was about seven or eight years old...

They did well with 'Bucky' Barnes, too. A sneaky, fun moment when Captain America features in the scope of a sniper rifle... then the scope climbs, finds another sniper about to shoot our hero; the trigger of our POV scope is pulled and the sniper onscreen dies, then the camera pulls back to reveal 'Bucky' behind the scope of 'our' rifle, and a quick thank-you wave from Captain America. Shades of the Winter Soldier and the 'Death of Captain America' plotline from a few years back.

And a bit of respect for film history: Hugo Weaving as the Red Skull, unearthing his Asgardian toy. He says something like "...while the Fuehrer plays in Northern Africa, digging for trinkets, I have found this..." Heh. Anybody remember a movie where Nazis in Northern Africa were trying to dig up an item of Great Magic Power? Nice touch.

Genghis and I did not travel alone to the cinemas, however. We took with us the redoubtable Baggins sisters (Not their actual name. It's an in-joke that they'll understand if they read this. Hi April! Hi Amy!) and the eldest of the Viking Neighbour clan to round out the expedition. A trip to my favourite secondhand book store made things even better. I found a compendium of the first fifteen Marvel 'Godzilla' comics in a single cover, still in its shrinkwrap. That may not seem like much a find to you - but then you don't have a daughter who thinks Godzilla is the greatest thing ever to reach cinema. Said daughter has a birthday coming in about a week - so a mint, unopened Godzilla compendium is a Huge Goddam Score. I'm really rockin' the dad thing here.

We had another Skype attack from Natalie and Jake last night. It went... marginally better than the last one. (The Mau-mau did not stand up, lift up her dress, and scream "Booooooobies" at the camera this time. I count that as progress.) Our farflung family members are apparently in a backpacking hostel in Galway. They affirm that the place is nice, and everybody's friendly, and they're having a good time. The bastards.

Anyway, today the rain is closing in cold and grey, and I have three extra kids in the house. Genghis and one of the Viking Neighbour kids are taking apart the clothesdryer that died. The Mau-mau and the Double-trouble daughter have got out "The Craft Box" (a big cardboard box full of pipecleaners, tassles, string, paddlepop sticks, glue, crayons, paper, cardboard and all kinds of similar epic shit) and are making a fucknormous -- but very creative -- mess on the dining table. The eldest Double-Trouble child is slouching about aimlessly.

Soon I shall have to feed them all. Best I conclude this now.

Not The Best Of Days

Genghis has got some kind of vile chest infection thing; a cough which is ramping up his asthma. It isn't really slowing him down or anything. (I'm not sure what would do that.) But it does tend to make him cough horribly at night.

Horribly. As in: parent lies awake upstairs, cringing and anticipating the next bark. To top it off, he's given a version of it to me, so I'm kind of wheezy and unwell too. Not good. So, last night -- no sleep until about 0300. Awake again by 0630 in anticipation of getting kids on track for the day. And I recall waking up and seeing the clock at 0430, so it was pretty shitty sleep. All three and a half hours of it.

The clothesdryer has died, too. Not a simple, repairable death. What we have here is not a mere worn belt, or a broken heating element. Nope: the drum is literally off its rails. Normally, that central drum kind of 'floats', on some sort of shock absorbers, and spins fairly freely. Lately, I've noticed a tendency to get stuck, but I could get it going if I just reached in and gave it a spin.

Today? Nope. Dead. The drum is sitting low, and I can barely get it to turn. I think the mounts or the bearings or whatever have given up. You can hear the motor hum in frustration, and you can feel the heat from the element, but the drum steadfastly does not turn. Most irritating, since we've drifted into that phase of winter in which it's pretty much cloudy and showery every goddam day.

So tomorrow, I shall pull out the old dryer, and put it in the top shed. Genghis can take it apart over the weekend. He'll enjoy that. I shall then hitch up the trailer, head down to Scottsdale, and pay off the new dryer I've already picked out. The last one did its work for something like seven or eight years. Hopefully the new one will manage at least as much, once I bring it back up the hill and wrangle it into place. Yay.

Hitching up the trailer will serve a double purpose. I'm currently building a nice fire-pit with a stone retaining wall. To do that, you dig a Flogging Great Hole, and then level the bottom with a good, thick layer of gravel. You lay an inner cylinder of heat-resistant brick to the requisite height, and then for cosmetic purposes, you build a nice outer cylinder of fieldstone and mortar, and finally you level the top with some slates, or the like. (Not a good idea just to build the structure out of fieldstone. Repeated heating and cooling can lead not just to cracking, but with some kinds of stone, random exploding. We don't want that. No. Hence the inner cylinder.)

I dug the hole. I got myself some gravel. I placed it in the hole and levelled it. Then I lay my first ring of heat-resistant brick... and realised there wasn't quite enough room between the brick and the walls of the hole to build my fieldstone cylinder.

No sense fighting it. I pulled out my first layer of brick, and then I widened the entire goddam hole, and dug out all the gravel. So tomorrow I have to take the trailer to some gravel-supply folks, get a decent load aboard, then come back so I can re-gravel and re-level my pit. Then I can at least get through laying the heat-resistant stuff down, I hope.

Genghis. That kid kills me. We came back from ju-jitsu class, picked up the Mau-mau from the Viking Neighbour Clan, and went home. I threw some marinated diced lamb under the grill, made a quick salad, and served up flatbread with a nice yoghurt/mint sauce, plus the salad and the lamb. Healthy, tasty, and quick.

So I'm sitting there, enjoying a bit of well-deserved dinner. The Mau-mau is staring at hers fearfully, as though it's going to attack her. This is her standard approach to dinner. Food seems to frighten and dismay her, unless it's spaghetti, pizza or chocolate. Those she understands.

Anyway, I'm trying to encourage her to eat, when I hear an almighty racket from Genghis. He's stuffing salad into his mouth, but he's shrieking "Nooooo! Noooo!".

I'm not stupid. I didn't ask. I just watched him.

Apparently, he'd decided that he was a fiercenormous gigantic monster, and the salad was a crowd of innocent little creatures he was devouring. The shrieks of "No! NOOOOO! Look out! Don't eat us! Aaaarrghhmmmkmffmfgrmgrmgrrmmchomp!" were... kind of disturbing.

But I figured he was eating, at least. Shovelling it away by the handful, even as it screamed for mercy... if only I could convince the Mau-mau to do something similar.

Wow. I am sooooo tired.

Sole Parent Saga Continues

It's kind of hard to get shit done when you're on Sole Parent Duty. The writing is not moving well. Every time I turn around, I'm either playing chauffeur, or cook, or just cleaning and motivating and suchlike. Bah.

Winter weather is doing its thing. Ironically, it got a lot warmer just about the time Natalie left. She's been whining for months about the cold, and to be fair, up until Wednesday last week, we were having an unusually bitter winter. However, the moment she left on holiday, things reverted to the typical mild, damp Tasmanian winter. I've kicked off half the covers, and young Genghis told me this morning that he tried sleeping on the floor last night because he got too hot with the cats in his bed.

Of course, one has to wonder why he didn't throw the cats off. But wondering would do no good at all. Genghis is the kid who created the Rhino of the Twilight, and often wonders what the world would be like if God was a great big chicken. For him, no doubt it's much more rational to climb out of bed and sleep on the floor to escape the excessive warmth of cats.

Certainly his sister would think differently. I had them strip their beds today so I could change the sheets. When I went into the Mau-mau's room with the fresh bedding, I found I was walking over... something. Little hard lumps of something on the carpet.

I knelt, and looked closely. Cat food. Dry cat food.

Hmm.

I called the Mau-mau. "Why is there cat food on the floor?"

"I don't know," she said. Not unexpectedly.

"Why did you put cat food in your bed?" I figured a quick change of tack might shake her.

"I didn't," she said.

At that point, I allowed myself to play Angry Dad. I snapped at her, cutting her off, and told her flatly that she was lying. I did so because I'd worked out what was going on.

"I'm not," she said. And if I didn't know better, it might have been convincing.

"You wanted the cat to climb on your bed," I told her. "So you put cat food up there. But when you took the sheets off, the cat food fell on the floor."

And that was it. She crumbled, and admitted she'd been trying to get the cat to sleep on her bed. I told her off sharply for lying, and made her clean up the cat food. Frankly, I'm just glad we only give the cats kitty-crunchies... I have no doubt at all the Mau-mau would quite happily have put a big, wet bowl of sloppy cat food on the end of her bed if she thought it would attract the cats.

Anyway. I've worked my way through the laundry. I've run the pump, and organised firewood. I spent half the weekend taking Genghis to lessons and running errands in Launceston, and the other half helping look after spare Double-Trouble kids.

Oh -- that ended well, actually. I had a new computer monitor for the Double-Troubles, plus drivers for a USB wifi aerial, so I thought I'd load both the Double-Troubles and my two kids in the car and head out to Bridport to return the non-Flintharts to their lair. When I got there, I was able to help figure out the reason for patches of mould on the ceilings. I theorised that perhaps the insulation in the ceiling was incomplete, leading to cold patches on the interior where breath/vapour could condense, allowing mould to grow. Once the theory was devised, I despatched the eldest Double-Trouble kid into their ceiling crawlspaces - and voila! Problem identified! All they really need to do is organise to fill in the missing patches of insulation, and the Mystery of the Ceiling Blotches should resolve.

Even better: the Double-Trouble matriarch told me that a new restaurant in Scottsdale actually had a woodfire pizza oven... so Genghis and the Mau-mau and I put it to the test on our way home. Hooray! It was quite a decent bit of pizza, and thus I didn't have to cook for the evening. Better stil, there was enough left over for lunches the next day...

And finally: tonight, a quick phone call from Natalie, in Ireland. She's managed to get sunburned, which is kind of impressive. More impressive, though, was the fact that she was calling from the Jameson distillery, and wanted me to tell her what I wanted.

"Something interesting and reasonably expensive," I said.

I wonder what she's going to buy?

Thank You, Norway.

Commiserations, sympathy, best wishes and all the rest to Norway and the Norwegian people. They've been through -- are still going through -- a powerful, testing series of events. The bombing and the murders carried out by a right-wing anti-Islam freak (won't bother with his name; let history lose his identity utterly, says I. The Romans did that: erased people utterly from their records for certain crimes. I think we should consider bringing that back.) have rocked a historically peaceful and tolerant society, and brought the glaring light of world scrutiny to the most heart-rending and personal of tragedies.

And in response, what have the Norwegians done? Have they started piling on the extra security measures? Have they begun cracking down on personal expression? Have they put aside their tolerance and their freedom in the name of 'safety'?

Hardly.

Statements from the Prime Minister and from the Mayor of Oslo - not to mention many others - have reaffirmed a powerful commitment to tolerance and openness. The people themselves have spoken, again and again. A huge rally in Oslo, in support of the Norwegian way of life and society, drew more than 150,000 people. The funeral of an Islamic girl killed in the attack has been carried out with the greatest of honour and respect.

They're not backing off. Not one iota. The absolute worst they've done, so far, is to remove some video games from sale - because the idiot murderer apparently spent a lot of time playing shoot-em-up games. Okay, so the connection is tenuous... but I'll give 'em that one. Because they could have done so much worse.

And you know what I mean by 'worse', don't you? No-fly lists. Massive wiretapping programmes. Invasive searches in airports and in other public transport hubs. Laws, laws, and more laws designed to curb rights and freedoms, and empower the government with ever greater control. "Free Speech zones."

That's only the tip of the iceberg. I don't even want to think about the nauseating shift to fear-driven conservatism and jingoistic bigotry that's infected even my own country. The crap I read every day from contemptible imbeciles who lap up every word that Andrew Bolt defecates onto the pages of Uncle Rupert's press; the violent, flag-wrapped pinheads who use Australia Day as an excuse to terrorise anyone who doesn't drawl their words with a decently Strayan accent...

Sometimes you find yourself thinking there's no damned hope. Sometimes it's just impossible to believe the human race is worth the effort.

And then, Norway.

Thank you. What happened was an unforgiveable, unforgettable horror - but the response of the Norwegian people, their government and their society, is the first truly hopeful thing I've seen in a long time. I'll do my best to try and live up to the example.

On Being An Instructor

They sent a bloke along today to assess my performance as an Active After Schools Community Coach. Which was fun.

The school gets me in a couple times a year to run mickey-mouse introductory courses on martial arts one afternoon a week. It's a hangover from a programme the Howard government put in place, aimed at getting lardyassed kids out from behind Nintendo screens, and back onto the sportsfields. I don't much care about the politics one way or the other, mind you. I like working with kids, and giving them a chance to try something different.

The thing is, these courses are maybe five to eight weeks long. They're not what you'd call deep immersion efforts. I plan them out so the kids get exposure to a nice range of martial skills: throwing, grappling, wrestling, joint-locks, strikes, kicks, blocks, break-falls, body-movement and evasion... then I tie it together with some self-defence work, and throw in a few fun bits (boffer-type swordfighting; flying kicks and funky martial stunts) and we all have a good time.

Some of the kids go on to the regular class, which is great. Some just keep coming back to the intro class, which is puzzling, but perfectly okay. And of course, there's always new faces, which is good as well.

The assessment... I understand why they need to do it. The Active After School Communities programme was designed to unearth skills possessed by people not usually involved with the schools - hobby players of sports, things like that. They probably don't see a whole lot of black-belt instructors who routinely teach classes for primary-age schoolkids. I don't mind the assessor turning up and checking out the show, in any case, and he's a cluey sort of bloke. He took maybe five minutes to look over what I was doing this afternoon, and then trotted off to check the football guys. He came back two or three times, but -- not unexpectedly -- he was quite happy, and signed off on the class after asking if there was any more equipment we could use.

All of which is nice. Good to know that somebody's prepared to look in, check it out, and give me credit for being able to wrangle a few kids.

But the whole instructor thing is a weird gig. I'm forty-five now, and among my older students, I've got a handful of young blokes who are my size, and have been at this martial arts stuff for a few years now. The good news is that I can still chase them 'round the floor in open sparring, or randori, or even on the ground in full-on groundfighting mode. That's kind of gratifying, I admit.

What annoys me is that I know perfectly well, the next morning those bastards are going to be more or less fine. They'll have some bruises, sure. And because they have to work harder than me (the loser always works harder in martial arts. That's the point, after all. You want the other guy to have a worse time than you do.) I expect they'll even have a few aches and strains.

But I'm forty-five. I still have those goddam twinges two days later... and I bloody hate that!

However it be, there's something extremely satisfying about seeing people gain skill and confidence under your guidance. I should stress that I don't imagine it's down to me: these are people who have made the decision to learn, and to train, and they could pick up these skills from anybody who cared to show them. There's no such thing as teaching; there's only learning.

Mind you, I'm not denying the existence of good versus bad teachers. Good teachers understand they need to find ways to engage the interest of their students, and to present the material in a fashion which the student will find easy to assimilate. Bad teachers believe they have an important body of knowledge which they have to drill into the students, whether they want it or not.

I try to stick to being a good teacher. And yeah, it's rewarding when a ten year old kid runs up to me at school, proud as hell, and explains that he '...fell off his skateboard but he did a forward roll the way he learned at the martial class, and he didn't even get a scrape!' But the credit goes to the kid, for listening and practicing and overcoming his fears to the point where he can relax during a high-speed fall. That's a shitload more difficult than demonstrating a forward roll on a crash mat for a bunch of students!

Truly, I have no idea how long I'll go on as an instructor. One of these days, I'll get around to doing my second dan. That calls for some weapons training, among other possibilities and by no very great coincidence, I've been working in Iai-do these last few years. Between that and the ongoing commitment to the dojo, I suspect I'm probably in line to do the grading sooner rather than later.

But I don't really care. I have two or three major reasons for doing this. The first is the students: my own kids, and other people in this community. As long as I see people getting something out of what I do with them, I think it's worth the effort. And helping country kids get a start - that's a good thing.

The second reason is more selfish. Ju-jitsu is interesting. It makes me think... around corners. I meet interesting people through the martial practice. It provides an ongoing challenge which I enjoy.

The third reason is probably even more selfish. Some of the people I've admired most have been elderly martial arts instructors. Gentle, friendly, good-humoured men with white hair and stooped frames - men who could very possibly kill you by raising an eyebrow. I may never wear a red-and-white striped belt, or carry a list of dan gradings as long as my arm... but I would very much like to have the alertness and the physical skill and confidence that those dangerous, wicked, kindly, hilarious old men possess when I too reach that kind of age.

And the only way I know to ensure that is to practice, the same as they did. So: I'm going to keep dragging my bones down to the dojo, keep wearing the bruises and nursing the strains and the sprains... and let's be honest, I expect to keep enjoying it.

As an aside, there was a discussion the other night on the mat about the difference between a black belt and a good student. One of the most important and underrated things, I think, is persistence. The really good student who picks up technique easily and learns everything beautifully is in a great situation. But the one who's likely to wind up with a black belt is the one who keeps coming back, week after week, session after session, time after time. No matter how cold it gets in winter, or how hot in summer; no matter how many repetitions it takes to get things right, he or she just keeps on coming.

That's half a black belt right there. And though you may think you possess this quality, you who read this... I assure you it's a damned sight more rare than you believe it to be.

Okay. That's enough of that.

In other news: I had a phone call from Natalie about an hour and a half ago. She and Jake are now on the ground in Dublin, desperately trying to stay awake long enough to bring their jetlagged brains into synch with the local timeframe...

Sole Parent Duty

Well.

Natalie and Jake got away okay this morning. More accurately, we all got up a half hour or so earlier than usual, and shivered our way through an early breakfast. Then Genghis and the Mau-mau got dropped down with the Vikings, to catch the school bus with the Viking kids. Meanwhile, yours truly chauffeured the cheerful travellers to the airport, along with their baggage... then turned around, and drove home again.

Lots of cleaning up ensued. Natalie has spent the last three days packing and panicking, and the place looks like five bombs went off. It's horrible. I've been gathering up her bathrobes, slippers, undergarments, random clothes, papers, lists, etc. I've been rounding up dirty dishes from all over the house. And I'm not enjoying it, thanks.

Of course, the sole parent stuff doesn't mean I get a break from the regular crap. So tonight, I taught the usual two and a half hours of ju-jitsu. Except that Genghis had to stay with me through the later session. The Mau-mau took the bus home, and hung out with her Viking friend until I got back and collected her. Then I dashed home, fed the kids, did some more cleaning, got the kids showered, etc.

Since then, I've contacted my prof to arrange a talkfest about the Master's degree on Friday morning. And I've contacted Genghis' music teacher to ensure we're supposed to have a lesson on Saturday morning. So: tomorrow, I drop the kids at school and arrange the keyboard and the music, etc, for the Mau-mau's piano lesson. Then later, I go back to the school and teach a flute lesson. Later still, I go back and teach an introductory martial arts class. Then I get to do the shopping, go home, clean and cook until Genghis and the Mau-mau come back from their gymnastics class, as chauffeured by Anna the Viking.

Of course, the after-school martial class isn't as simple as that. Normally it's just an hour-and-a-half of light exercise aimed at giving the kids a glimpse of martial practice, and helping them pick up a few physical skills. But tomorrow, they're sending someone around to "assess" me. I guess they have to do that from time to time, but it means that I have to have a nice, shiny lesson plan for them to see, etc. So, yes. Paperwork tomorrow morning, between ferrying kids and teaching flute.

Meanwhile on Friday morning I'll have that talkfest with my prof. But come Friday afternoon, I'll be picking up the kids from school and zooming into Launceston so Genghis can attend his orchestra practice. While he's doing that, the Mau-mau and I will get the shopping done, and perhaps afterwards I'll save myself the grief of cooking, and drop in at a pizza pub I know. That could be nice.

Saving myself a bit of effort there is kind of desirable, because on Saturday morning, I'll be driving back into Launceston yet again, so Genghis can have his bass lesson. Yippee.

Sole parent stuff sucks. Nat and Jake don't get back for a couple weeks at least, so I've got plenty of this super-chauffeur bullshit to look forward to...

Joe Appears To Have Run Out Of Organs

Oddly, Natalie gets "Readers Digest" in her mail on a regular basis.

This has nothing to do with any money changing hands. They just send her the magazine. Our best guess is that Readers Digest probably do this to a lot of doctors (it's pretty easy to get a mailing list of registered doctors courtesy of the AMA, among others. After all, somebody's got to tell all those fraggin' drug companies where to send their advertising.) in the hopes that said doctors will then use RD to fill out their quota of ancient, decaying magazines in the surgery waiting room... and perhaps some desperate souls will stumble upon RD and decide that a subscription to said publication is precisely the prescription they require.

Or something.

Normally, Natalie does just that: throws the RD into the waiting room, and forgets it. Good thing too. But she brought the latest home by accident, and it's been a source of fascination to young Jake. He's read us all kinds of (excruciatingly dull) snippets of (utterly pointless) information. He's done the vocabulary quiz. He's checked out "Laughter, The Best Medicine", or whatever they're calling their humour column these days. And altogether, he seems to have enjoyed himself.

At first, I was appalled. But then I remembered that at age eleven, I didn't mind Readers Digest either. Some friends of my mothers had a colossal frockin' collection of the things - a vast double-shelf probably four metres long, spanning most of their lounge room, which had pretty much every issue from the late sixties up to the late seventies (which was the time I was reading 'em there.) I certainly wasn't riveted by the things, but there was stuff in them that I found interesting. Sometimes.

Anyway, in light of Jake's recent infatuation, I thought I'd glance over this modern-day RD, and see what kind of crap they were purveying. I do recall that by the time I was fifteen or sixteen, I was reading RD in an almost Deconstructionist mode... sort of deriving a mental image of their target demographic from the nature of the stories and writing, and from the advertising. Even back then, it was painfully obvious that RD was attempting to address an astoundingly bourgeois, fundamentally conservative and naive population - and so I was quite curious to see who they thought they were reaching these days.

The first conclusion was that the Readers are now a fuckload older. So many adverts for adult diapers, mobility aids, wills, funerals... it's spooky. Makes me think that a lot of the people who were reading the RD seriously back in the seventies are still doing so. Only now, they're not reading about Joe's spleen any more. (That's the tie-in with the title of this post, by the way. There was a whole series of articles back in the seventies entitled "I Am Joe's {Insert Body Organ Here} ". These articles explained, in nice, simple terms and with discreet but colourful diagrams, the mysterious workings of Joe's kidneys, lungs, thyroid glands, pancreas, etc. Poor Joe. Must have been a hell of a series of interviews.)

The second thing I noticed: attention spans have shortened. The old RD used to carry a few long articles among the short stuff and the fillers, and often, the latter third or quarter of the thing would be a single piece of writing - sometimes an adapted piece of fiction, sometimes a biography, sometimes a lengthy exposition on some kind of real-life incident. ("Drama In Real Life", I believe they were called. And the fact I can remember that makes me want to go and drink slivovitz until those particular neurones are dead.) The modern RD has nothing similar. The "articles" and essays are all quite short, and there are many more little columns and quizzes and games.

The last thing I noticed: despite the reduction in size, and particularly in the depth of the writing, there's as much advertising as ever there was. Maybe even more. And it's all still wrapped around that fumblesome, bourgeois core of conservative naivete.

Ah well. It's probably harmless enough. And in another year or two, Jake will be ready to start deconstructing the magazine, and thinking about the reasons it is published, and why it is laid out as it is, and so forth. In the meantime, I suppose the damned things might as well languish here as in the surgery. In any case, I think they've got two or three other copies turning up down there every month...