sydney sydney sydney

I've never actually seen the Brady Bunch episode where Jan, in a fit of sibling rivalry-induced angst, veritably shakes her fists to the heavens and rages, "Marcia Marcia Marcia!" But I moved to Brisbane and all I heard was "it's a country town, it's no Sydney" (from nearly all the locals we ran into), "I hate it here, there's nothing going on" (from transplants from other parts) to flat out "go to Melbourne" (from my former manager in Vancouver, a born and bred Gold Coastie).

I'd always wondered, WTF? It's perfectly fine here, if a bit hot. Now I'm known to be stubborn and I'm sure a lot of this was due to my making the best of things, determined to embrace my new home and I like to think I look at every situation anthropologically, for it's own merits and every new opporunity is a chance to observe and winnow out the unique and special. So it is with a heavy heart that I confide I FUCKING LOVED SYDNEY!!! I kinda want to move there. We had to visit the US Embassy (there isn't one in Queensland so we headed to Sydney, capital of New South Wales) to straighten out our passports and it was a fine excuse to spend five days in a city city.

It rained a little which of course made us ecstatic. We sat in cafes and wondered "what are we doing in Brisbane?" We walked through seedy neighborhoods, through reclaimed light industrial areas, alleyways, poking through nooks and crannies, wrestling milk crates and beer bottles out of The Bun's grasp (We did a lot of this at 6am since The Bun woke at 4, much to the chagrin of our neighbors in the edgy boutique hotel with paper thin walls...I think we've outgrown these).

It was like London with a comprehensive subway but about 1/10th the people and the people who were on the trains were NICE. Men would often grab the front of the pram and heave it off the train or up and down stairs with nary a look up for a smile or thank you. Weird! The streets were like New Orleans. The vibe was like San Francisco. The harbor was like San Diego and Vancouver. With a shot of Amsterdam. It was many favorite cities rolled up into one. Nuts.

Months ago, I saw a recruiting site looking for creative directors in advertising based in Sydney, boasting a fat salary...I mean PHAT. 4x what I could make here. A salary that would have us burning drugs and money in the front seat of our Porsche. It makes you think...

culture clash

When Little Miss Organic falls off the wagon, she falls hard. After serving up a dinner of brown rice with tempeh and vegetables last night to my beloved husband (and soba noodles with tofu, flaxseed oil and shredded carrot, zucchini and broccoli to my unsuspecting baby), I decided what I needed for lunch today was...Kraft Macaroni & Cheese. Is it different here in Australia? You bet your arse it is.

a) it's called "Macaroni Cheese" (what's that? aren't "macaroni" and "cheese" two different things?)

b) it's not orange

c) the packaging says "no artificial colours, flavours or preservatives*" and "*preservatives are not included in this product in accordance with Australian food standards." WTF?

d) it lacks that tang, that saliva-inducing sensation when the fake, chemically-enhanced cheese product hits your taste buds.

Know what else is different here? Sara Lee frozen chocolate cake. Drier, not as dense and buttery. Don't tell Kirk I've been eating crap while he's out of the house.

wee shaolin

ji xiang

Boring but true...in spite of all the midges, huge grasshoppers, golden orb spiders, possums, dying beetles beating their upturned legs against the sky, blue-tongued lizards and other sundry 2+ foot long lizards everywhere...these bits of Australiana all but go unnoticed by me now. And that's just the wildlife in the city. I say “I reckon” all the time and I’ve taken to wearing shorts in public. I drink ginger beer and I eat Weetbix and Tim Tams (still can’t get onboard with Vegemite though). I can drive on the left like nobody’s business (Aussies regularly cross the lines anyway, I’m just fitting in). We haven’t journeyed into the outback so I can’t report on the bush or the red centre or Aboriginal rock art as I haven’t seen any. Brisbane is a modern city (or big town as the locals like to call it) and my time is spent on universal pursuits such as...where can I find good daycare to appease my guilt-wracked post-feminist mind?

The Bun goes to a daycare centre two days per week. When I picked him up the first two times, I found him clutching his Elmo doll with tears silently streaming down his little face. If that doesn’t make me feel negligent...

So in typical fashion, I launch an all-out assault gathering info on alternatives (this is the second all-out info gathering assault, the first happening when we first arrived and I surveyed the daycare options and waitlisted at five centres). I wind up with two interviews from the local family daycare coordination facility and meet: a) a very nice, very intense Sicilian Australian woman with children in their 20’s and a small coterie of toddler boys in her care, and b) the most lovely, beatific tiny Indian woman who has a 10 year old son with a severe disability called fucosidosis and is so complementary to me for my “broad-mindedness” that it’s embarrassing. She calls me three times the next day, hoping I will place Kai with her. I am wracked with more guilt as I wonder why her life is so challenging...a single mother living on what I think must be some kind of public assistance and a son with a disability so rare fewer than 100 cases have been written up in medical literature.

Ironically, that morning, I had dropped Kai off at the centre and there was a teacher in his room who I hadn’t previously met. I thought she was another parent. She hailed me from across the room and I thought “friendly, must be because she’s my people.” But she was the teacher and not only is she Chinese, she’s from Luoyang (the ancient capital of China!) and she speaks Mandarin. Proper Mandarin, from the north only without the Beijing rolled R which, truth be told, kind of drives me crazy. She was like some shimmery vision, a sign of...something.

The next week, I’m sitting on the deck of my friend, Sandra’s beautifully renovated home (she’s an interior designer, her husband’s an architect so it’s spectacular) and she’s telling me “I reckon people have their priorities backwards” regarding early daycare and American women going back to work in their baby’s first year. She’s got two boys, one three years old and another 11 months. As I’m looking out over her perfect backyard with a sandpit, tree-swing and banana palms and thinking about her parents and in-laws all around the corner...I don’t know what to think. All I know is ever since having The Bun, I long for family in the most visceral way. I long for dream family, maybe not the one that I actually have...the family that I came into (although I’d pick my mom and my brother all over again or at least pluck them into my bucolic reality). Is longing the root of suffering?

Regarding luck...a) I’ve read recently that optimistic people define themselves as lucky, even if their path hasn't always been smooth (thank you psychological research), and b) I’ve also recently read that perhaps what most of us define as luck is actually having been “unmarred by fate” (thank you Peggy Orenstein). I’ve always thought of myself as lucky, childhood notwithstanding. Gratitude is what I feel lately, more grateful than lucky. Despite the longing.

My baby’s name...ji xiang: peace and prosperity and happiness and all good things in the new year.

cycles

How can you be ONE?! They say the first birthday is as much a celebration for the parents as for the kid...surviving the first year is an accomplishment, even though you still get up at 5am every morning and call it a good night's sleep. We're fortunate in so many ways, not the least of which is that landing a mere five months ago still gave us enough time to make fast friends who came out to celebrate Kai's birthday with us. Is it better to emigrate from North America to Australia when a) you're 7 months pregnant, b) your baby is 6.5 months old or c) your baby is 7 weeks old and you also have a 4 year old? Ask a) Kylie, b) me and c) Clarine.

Here are our beautiful friends, Francois and Clarine (photographing) with their son Noa (4) and Luca (asleep in pram) who came from Quebec via Oregon, Mireille and Mike (4 month old Jason is in his pram) from Montreal, Kylie from New Guinea and Australia (holding Kai) and Dylan (with Cole) who met in Whistler and moved from LA, Angela from Sydney (with Jaye) who settled here after working in London for years. Jaye, Cole and Kai are almost the same age and are quite the trio. I think mine's the troublemaker...

11 months

Rahm-SHTINE!!!

Sorry, another text-heavy/photo-light entry. The characters you meet in Brisbane, I tell you people...

Kirk and I were invited to the wedding of Christie and Andy (fellow Pandemic-ites, Christie in fact runs the whole operation). Lovely wedding, formal dress at the Stamford Hotel for which I busted out my mauve Rick Owens getup and Alexander MacQueen medieval hunting bag and a pair of suede heels that I had bought as wishful thinking back when I was heavily pregnant and had not yet had occassion to wear. Kirk rocked his Prada wedding suit (our things had arrived on a slow boat from Vancouver just the previous day) and we packed up The Bun and all his accoutrements for an overnighter at Kylie and Dylan’s. Kylie had been kind enough to offer up her family (mum, dad and brother) to watch Kai as well as their baby, Cole. Excited at the prospect of our first night out without The Bun since he was five weeks old, we over-indulged in the drinks (Kirk was seen with pastry on his head at one point but you all know he doesn’t need drink for that to happen) and all four of us wobbled into a cab for a quick ride back to Dylan and Kylie’s as the night waned.

Kylie gets in next to the cabbie in front while Kirk, Dylan and I climb into the back. Kirk immediately launches into a drunken impression of The Jerky Boys, going on and on about his GASSSSS. The cabbie, not amused, advises (in heavily accented English):

cabbie: Hey, I am not kidding if you have a problem man it is a HEALTH ISSUE go see a fucking doctor man get the hell out I don’t need this trouble...

Dylan: Are you kidding me? Are you fucking kidding me? We’re CUSTOMERS.

cabbie (still doing 40 kph): I don’t care man I don’t need the fare get the fuck out I don’t know where you going anyway.

Kylie (calmly): We’re going to Newman Street in Gaythorne (sidebar: that’s Newman Street in Gaythorne in Queensland...another ongoing thing).

Me (whispering): Is this (general hand gesture in the air, sign for what are we listening to on the audio system?)...Rammstein?

Kirk: RAMM-STEEN? Is this RAMM-STEEN??

cabbie: Rahm-SHTINE!!!!

Sound of four pairs of hands immediately clapped over four mouths and various pitches of “PFFFFHHHHTTTTT!!!“ stifled laughter.

Dylan: Did you hear the cover of that Depeche Mode song they did?

cabbie: No.

Dylan: No?

cabbie: No. I am not the gay.

[SIDEBAR: Gentle reader, may I direct your attention to the lyrics of track number six from the Rammstein classic, “Sehnsucht”, a dreamy little ditty entitled “Büch dich” (English translation: BEND OVER):

............................................................
Bend over, I command you
turn your visage away from me
I don't care about your face
bend over

A two-legged being on all fours
I take him for a walk
ambling along the corridor
I am disappointed

Now he comes backwards towards me
Honey stays stuck on the garter
I am disappointed, totally disappointed

Bend over
your face doesn't interest me

The two-legged one has bent over
and moved into a good light
I show him what you can do
and I start to cry

The biped stammers a prayer
because he's scared I'm feeling even worse
he tries to bend over even more
tears run up his back

Bend over

Bend over, I command you
turn your visage away from me
I don't care about your face
bend over once more

Bend over
............................................................

Ummmm...Mr. Cabbie? Care to comment? Or maybe you’d like the one written from the POV of a HERMAPHRODITE. And have you SEEN this CD cover art (above)??? END SIDEBAR]

OK, know what? I’ve been sitting on this half-assed blog entry since October so I’m posting it anyway finally. Couldn’t find a nice coda to end it on. Blah. I’m a hack.