Hey Plain Jane

I admit to it; the last week I have been dreading the end to Jack’s Day Care days and the beginning of his Primary School days. They call it Prep. I’ve never heard anyone call Prep anything else but ‘prep’, but it appears to be short for ‘prepartory’. The concept, hatched by our formidable education leaders, is that this is a year devoted to preparing young fertile minds for school life. It gets children out of the kindergarten phase and into a education mode…that’s the theory. So far, all I understand of prep is that Jack will be doing much the same sort of thing but in a school uniform.

So why am I dreading? Good question.
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We never used to do a lot of things to do with Australia Day. When I was a kid, you’d never wish someone a ‘Happy Australia Day” on the 26th of January. You’d never ever hoist up an Aussie flag in your yard, unless you were a resident of Government House. You were reasonably unlikely to do anything remotely “Australian” like whack a few snags on a barbie or sing Advance Australia Fair or cook a damper and serve it with golden syrup. TIme was it would never even enter our minds that this might be Invasion Day to some.

I suppose that things are not what they were is a sign that our culture is alive and moving. I cannot count the number of times I was spontaneously greeted with the dubious salutation of ‘happy Australia Day’. Not only were Australian flags quite commonly hoisted from makeshift flagpoles everywhere (including one neighbourhood wit who pegged his flag to his Hills Hoist clothes line, a potent Aussie icon), every third car was bedecked with fluttering flags of the blue, white and red. As it happens our car was one such car, sporting three flags. We found one of them on the roadside (having broken off a car apparently) and were given two others by a generous and patriotic  mate. He revealed that the local bottle shop was the main culprit in starting the flag to car trend; “buy a carton get a free flag for every kid in the family” and I cannot express how deeply Australian that advertising sentiment is. Riding about town with three flags fluttering was John’s idea of sensational, and my idea of a bit gauche. But there we have it. The flag car tradition starts about here.

Yesterday in church once of the hymns chosen was Advance Australia Fair, and yet another was “We Are Australian”. Hmmm.

Today we took up an invitation from the parents of one of Jack’s long-time day care friends to go for an outdoor barb-b-que brunch at a swimming hole in the bush. What we have done in years recent is to drive up to Palm Cove, a posh Northern beach mainly for tourists, were the council throws a free sausage sizzle and puts on irritatingly loud bush bands singing scratchy versions of ‘ Ryebuck Shearer’ at eight in the morning in the blazing beach heat. A chance to do something different and perhaps much quieter and shadier sounded good to me. We went down in a convoy with others (all cars fluttering with flags, of course!) to an incredibly beautiful bush area with a quiet crystal creek, a large sandy bank area overhung with lush leafed trees…..in short, absolutely Australian. No-one there. Just us. In the utter Australian-ness of it all. We had a snag barbie, boiled a billy, and I even brought freshly made damper with golden syrup. The kids yahooed through the water for hours, we sat about having tea and occasionally got into the water to wallow about. It was about the pinnacle of Australian-ness, in truth.

And to make it just that tinsy bit more Australian, one of the friends in attendance was indigenous. His wife wished us a “Happy….Uhm…Australia Day” as she applied an Aussie flag temporary tattoo to my arm. She added that it’s also Invasion Day, which is not something to be happy about. It’s a complex nation. While her Aboriginal husband was handing out the Aussie flags he’d procured at the bottle shop, she was tattooing me and reminding me that it was not a day to celebrate if you’re black. Uhm…

This is our culture in motion.

I do not know where time goes. It is as slippery as hot rocks on a chocolate mudslide. Gone. Whole days!  There was a period in my life when I could safely lay the blame for lost days on the onerous tasks of early motherhood. But, alas, I no longer have chronically interrupted sleep patterns, nappy rash anxiety or  general mummy-brain-itis to blame for my apparently complete lack of time management. Oh, for the days!

Perhaps in as little as 15 months I will be thrown into all sorts of new and extreme forms of “time disemblage”. I’ve just been reading a few recent blog entries for a couple who have just brought their baby pinoy boy home. Between the sleeplessness and the temper tantrums and the bonding issues and the runny tummy and the scabies and the language barrier, they are having a brilliant time of it. Most of it sounds very normal for the state of parenthood really. But as I read their blog, entries about their allocation phonecall, and of course picking up their child from the Philippines, I live a little vicarious fun. 

I really feel God’s hand in this. Which is a big call, I know. I don’t wish to be trite, either. But this has been a long road. There have been odd pointers along the way. I realise that superstitious beliefs are not exactly Godly, but I am at a loss as to how to explain some of the things. Minor things, that, out of context are too ordinary to be called co-incidence. But in combination I do consider that God or his Angels have been busy sending messages big and small.

Lately I have been keeping a keen eye out for people who may be Filipino. It never hurts to know as many as I can in town. As I approached the check out at my local supermarket, I read her name tag; Annie. Not Ann or Anna or Ann Marie. Annie. I have always thought that if we are matched with a girl, I would call her Annie, after my mother and John’s late sister. (My mother’s middle name is actually Annie, not Ann.) I could see the woman was of Asian heritage, possibly Filipino. I asked her whether she was from the Philippines. I was completely amazed.  Yes, she is Filipina.  A Filipina called Annie.  You may not think this is out of the ordinary, but in my small suburban world and in my life story, this is significant.  Coincidence. Oh yeah. Perhaps. But add to it other stories, too detailed for this account and I will tell you……God has His Hand in this.

Today, at the gym, the man in front of me on the walking machines had a map of the island Mindoro (an island of the Philippines) printed on the back of his T-shirt. Yes, yes. A co-incidence. But was it? Yes, yes. I’m more sensitive to so-called “signs” such as this because of my heightened awareness of all things connected to the Philippines. But, there is also a possibility that I am being spoken to.

Enormous news. At 9AM yesterday (Wednesday) we got the call. We are officially approved by The Philippine government adoption authority, ICAB, as prospective adoptive parents!  Yes!
Philippa from the state adoption department called with the news of a confirmation email from ICAB, and I just burst out crying. The long wait of 18 weeks just fell away from under my feet and I was amazed!

It means we are on their list of parents who are able to adopt a Filipino child. Anytime after mid 2010, we could get that allocation phone call. It means that child who is destined to join our family  is already alive, is already walking the earth. Boy or girl? I wonder.

In honour of this extraordinary turning point in our lives, I cooked a special dinner. Pork Adobo, a Filipino favourite. It was so yum, laced with excitement and love. 

Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Amen.

One day, possibly one day this year, I am determined to stage a Winter Christmas. I’m not asking for snow, it  just needs to be cooler….it is too much in this tropical swamp pit to expect a cold Christmas.

The reasons are myriad for me wanting to do this, and some you perhaps would not suspect. For a start, Christmas here is hung on the humid air. Humidity of upwards of 90% most days. Try to bake a cookie in this cloud of moist air and see how long before your cookies go limp. Gingerbread house? Very much a lean-to to after a hour or so. Chocolate is also pretty useless; a beautiful chocolate Christmas truffle  will melt before you get it to your lips. Eating hot food like turkey roast or flambe plum pud with brandy custard or drinking lovely warmed spice wine? All basically uncomfortable pursuits.

No, this year, I want to send out four to six Christmas cards as invites for a midyear get together. We shall have mulled wine and toasty fireside muses beside our tiny outside brazier that people laugh at because nobody else in Cairns has braziers, we shall gaze at a twinkling Christmas tree and sit on lovely snuggling quilts, we shall eat our fill of crisp Christmas cookies, and we shall even frollick in fake snow if it so takes our fancy.

June 21 this year is the Winter Solstice. It is a Sunday. Looking good.

Jack will begin prep school at the end of January, and hey, where did those five years go? Seriously.

But loooooooooook, his ickle black school shoes we bought today. So ickle. So shiny. Although I note with some grrrr that he has already managed to scuff both of them as he lollopped about the lounge room in them. He’s very excited. Gary, who visited this afternoon for a cup of tea, said “well aren’t they just the very bricks of love.” I thought it apt. There is so much love in our eyes as we gaze at their chunky, shiny goodness.

Whenever I’ve mentioned the shoes to anyone today they ask if he got the brand “Bata Scout”, which to many people around my age is the name of the coolest pair of school shoes imaginable. Bata Scouts looked like any normal black school shoes, but they had secret properties; the lion paw imprint it left on the ground for a start, and the most secret squirrel hidden compass nestled in the heel. They were de rigour and deliriously funky stuff. Oh course I had a pair, are you nuts? As poor as my parents were, they got me a pair of them. You can still buy them, but alas, without the miniature compass.

Okay, as I did promise myself, I’m nutting out the finer points of the resolution.

Seeing as I completed the rehearsal draft of Cake in the very early hours of this morning, and seeing as the dramaturg has already called to say it all looked fine, I felt at liberty to approach one of the resolutions with caution…..”be organised”. I cannot contemplate entering into this year with an urgent agenda to smarten up my organisational skills. With Jack starting at school, a school that is miles away from where we live, a school that starts at 8:30 every morning, sharpish, I cannot afford to have no routine and nothing sorted, and great piles of  project related things strewn about, and the fridge in an uproar, and meals planned hickity-pickity, and everyone eating dinner at 8, and me staying up til all hours, and sleeping in til 8am. What am I like?

So.

A routine. I will draw up a schedule of general daily events. A chart. For the wall or the fridge. 
I printed out a shopping list, even remembered to take it shopping. But I hadn’t done a plan of all the meals for the week, so still it all felt ad hoc. Even worse, the meal I had planned for tonight, Fried Ginger Fish with Mirin dipping sauce, was stymied when John announced he was “not in the mood for fish”, Never mind. The goal here is to develop a weekly menu planner, and a weekly shopping list to match it. There are bound to be stumbling blocks like men with contrary tastebuds!

My list of New Year resolutions is quite monstrously long. It is so long and seemingly so critical to my general life happiness that I decided I should break the whole thing into smaller bite size chunks of possibilities, consider the goals, objectives, strategies, blather, blather, blather. I began this task days ago and much to my disgust, have found it all too much to finish. I just know I want a bunch of things to be different! But I also know that without some real effort and organisation these things will not happen. Perhaps it is an ongoing thing.

So, I’ll list them here, and they may get elaborated upon as the week goes on. 

FAMILY:
I resolve to spend more quality meaningful, fun and soul-loving time with my family.
I resolve to spend time creating and nurturing traditions within my immediate family. 

A film, a picnic, going to a festival, or a Museum or just a walk or a lagoon swim. This year I want to go camping at least once with Jack and John. Why? Because we’ve never been camping together. Because camping can fill up your spirit even when you don’t believe in all that. Because invaribaly something small or large goes awry on camping trips and the fun part is testing your combined mettle to fix the problem. We live in the oldest continuous rain forest in the World, the original Gondwanna-land, on the shores of one of the seven natural wonders of the World. At age 5, Jack has not seen any of it except that forest-laden range of mountains that tower in the distance from our yard. Unbelievable fact. That’s just shameful.

Go crabbing and fishing. Spend a night at Green Island or Fitzroy Island resort. Do a Daintree River Cruise in a fruitless search for crocodiles (who are far too clever than to hang about waiting for tourists to spot them). Do the free Tai Chi and aqua-robics classes at the Lagoon some early mornings. Plus I want to get some time away with John, just the two of us.

I also need to visit my hometown this year once, if not twice. There’s a reunion of some sort, being organised by our beloved school captain who is now the Editor of the hometown newspaper. Besides, I haven’t been home in years.

HOME
I resolve to take the risk of selling and building a new home in the midst of world economic mayhem. 
I resolve to be more economical, more organised and  more diligent when it comes to domestic management. 

House sold, home built, moved by Christmas 2009. End this procrastination.
Be organised: cupboards cleared.
Know what I own and be content.
Make do.
Throw trash responsibly, but throw it.
Plan meals.
Be on time, every time
One “buy nothing day” per fortnight 

Jack baptised.

WORK
I resolve to passionately pursue creative employment to fulfill my needs and to pay the bills. 

Set up a recycled art business?
Four hours with my craft pal, Soo, once a week.
Part time job that brings in at least $200 cash per week
Build my Art confidence.

LIFESTYLE

I resolve to take back control of my errantly menopausal body and claim the right to be fit, slim and energetic.
Lose 10 kilos (one kilo per month)
three gym classes per week
Thirty minutes exercise per day

Write lists.

Told you. The resolutions are a-plenty. Almost all of them are part of an overall picture of me in 2009 as a more organised, sharper, fitter, more responsible, more thinking individual. I’ll let  you know how that works out….

To bring in the new year, and in keeping with my new year resolution to create more family traditions and spend more time with family doing family things, I hereby announce the inaugural New Year Family Picnic.

The tradition is declared to be that the picnic is casual, that everyone must bring something simple but good, that the picnic never starts before two in the afternoon, and that there be a swimming hole nearby.

And by goodness, I also decree that there be Cherry Pie.

Australians don’t do Cherry Pie much. We honour the Lemon Meringue Pie, the Pavlova, the Caramel Tart, and perhaps we could be talked into the Apple Pie (but not the American Deep Dish variety) especially when it’s actually Apricot Pie not Apple. But Cherry Pie is not generally our way. I don’t see why, though. We get beautiful cherries here. 

And I don’t see why Cherry Pie should be a Winter thing, either. Often hear folk talk as if it’s something to be eaten warm with lashings of custard whilst sitting by a roaring fire. I say make yourself a fresh Cherry Pie, make it in the height of Summer, serve it chilled from an esky at a picnic, with a dollop of fresh whipped cream. Magic.

At two, we gathered at the city lagoon, John, Jack, myself and a small squad of mates. We landed a stunning shady position on the grass, just meters from the lagoon’s edge (this was just such an extraordinary piece of luck because the place was quite crowded with other dear folk busy going about their own family picnic traditions). We had some of John’s exquisite lime-roasted organic chook, some fine cheeses, a powerfully impressive salad that included Persian feta, and the best cherry pie in the known universe. One tiny piece of pie came home with us, as photographed. Minutes after this photo was taken it mysteriously vanished.

Be My Cherry Pie

170g sugar
50g brown sugar
30g cornflour
¾ cup of water
½ teaspoon lemon essence (or indeed lemon juice, ½  tablespoon)
½ teaspoon vanilla
½ teaspoon cinnamon
450g FRESH pitted cherries 
1 tablespoon butter
red food colour (optional but it makes for a very alluring pie)

1.5 quanity of sweet pastry with very finely grated rind of one lemon.

—-

 Oven temperature at 200  degrees C. Grease a shallow oblong fluted tart case (mine is about 26cm long, 10cm wide) with melted butter.

Make your pastry. Roll it out between sheets of baking paper to a long-ish shape that will fit the tart case. Chill it in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile combine the first four ingredients of the above list in a saucepan. Bring to the boil to dissolve. Simmer on a slow boil for a few minutes. Take from heat, add essence, vanilla, cinnamon and cherries. Stir in the butter and food colouring if you’re using it. Allow to cool a bit. Resist temptation to gobble cherries in syrup.

Fit the pastry into the case. Trim the sides. Blind bake for ten minutes then remove from oven. Take out the baking beads. Put cherry mixture into the case, then decorate the top with interlaced strips of pastry (diagonally placed over and under each other like a lattice fence). Shield the sides of the tart with 1 inch strips of foil. Trust me, the edges will burn otherwise.

Place the tart on a baking tray because if the syrup spills you want to catch it before it makes a mess of the bottom of your oven.

Cook for 30 minutes. Remove from over, take off the foil shields and brush the lattice top with beaten egg. Put back in the oven and cook for a further 10 minutes or until golden brown.

Let cool completely. Serve with freshly whipped cream. Is nice. Very nice.

Nintendo (任天堂) is translated roughly as “leave luck to heaven” or “in heaven’s hands,” (’do’ is a common suffix for names of shops or laboratories) was originally founded in 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi to produce handmade hanafuda (Japanese playing cards. Over the years, it changed to a video game company and became one of the most powerful companies in the video game industry. 

So I have Fusajiro-san, late great card manufacturer from Kyoto, to thank for my son’s utter disinterest in doing anything, responding to anything or speaking to anyone because he’s got his face pressed up to a game of Mario Speed Cart? 

A little late, yes, but none the less heart-felt. The decorating was not quite as inspired this year as last. I couldn’t understand how I had got so much done last year. I did what I could muster my mind to, but many plans went astray in favour of quietly sitting still. Not a bad thing, surely. But it inspires me to be more prepared next Christmas. Start in July, I should think.