Squibblog

a tribute to Howard Florey, or why I am not dead yet

I don’t know how many times I have cut myself, but I realize now that in all those time I have not marveled enough about my skin’s ability to heal. Until last weekend when it didn’t.

Last weekend I have a few scratches on my hands from pruning the overenthusiastic bougainvillea that brightens up our back corner. They weren’t anything serious but I came in from the garden and soaked my hands in Dettol, smeared on some Savlon and trusted the rest to my immune system. The scratches scabbed over and all was well.

Except on Saturday night the scratch on my thumb started to really hurt, then it started to throb and look a bit nasty. On Sunday Soy and I made jokes about my thumb having a life of its own. I was a little dismayed by how much it hurt, but it’s a little scratch and my skin will heal quickly, I thought.

Sunday night the joint in my thumb started to ache and grow hot and I knew I needed to see a doctor. All the late night GPs were shut, so I headed over to RPA hospital to enjoy the ambience of late night A&E. I have to say, I felt a little foolish because I thought this was a problem that could be dealt with by a GP, a hospital seemed like overkill. The doctors and nurses at RPA didn’t share that view, especially when they pulled up my sleeve and saw the pink line tracing up my arm, showing how far the infection had spread.

They pumped me full of antibiotics via IV drip, cleaned up the wound (now 3 times the size of my other thumb) and sent me home with a script for oral penicillin. They had mentioned scary things about infections in bones and tendons, confirming that it was entirely appropriate to come to Emergency with an infection like that.

Today my thumb is back to normal size, my skin is normal colour and I am tempted to revert to my old view that it was really a lot of fuss over nothing. But 100 years ago, before Howard Florey experimented with using penicillin on human infections, that infection would have raged on and done who-knows-how-much damage to my hand and, possibly, my life. How lucky I am to live in this age of modern medicine and this country with a free health system.

Euro 2012

For the past year Soy and I have been planning a trip to Europe. We first became serious about itineraries when Soy was  sick in October last year - I gave him my laptop and said 'if you're going to be stuck in bed for a week I want you to work out where we're spending three weeks in July 2012'.

That was when July 2012 seemed like a long way away. Now it's only a few weeks away and we are starting to get seriously excited. All of the accommodation is booked, itineraries are sorted, we have been printing out public transport maps for the cities we are visiting, bought Oyster cards for London and forced the kids to start reading the pack of Paris Walking Tour cards we purchased. I am making lists of rooms in the Louvre, cafes in the Tuilleries and places to hire bikes near Loire chateaux. 

It's been six years since we last took the kids to Europe. While that was a wonderful trip that time, we were travelling with toddlers. We are in such a golden period with the kids at the moment - they are old enough to behave properly in public, young enough to be enthusiastic about everything. And they still think we are cool and fun. So this time we are not just planning how to see the things we want to see, in spite of the children, but how to see things that they will love as much as we do. We are shamelessly plugging castles and pastries. And I am looking forward to eating in cafes without tables being knocked over this time.

attention deficit guilt

I saw this article by Amity Dry about mother guilt for spending time on a smart phone instead of with kids and it made me want to scream. It's not just that I hate articles about mother guilt (as if we don't heap enough of that on ourselves) but I actually think that paying too much attention to kids is counter productive. 

My kids are no longer toddlers and now I can share why I think that too much parental attention is bad for kids. Aged 10 and 7, my kids couldn't be more different from one another in personality. Nell enjoys spending time alone devising her own play. She reads for hours, makes up elaborate fantasies and draws and draws. Zac, on the other hand, has a lot more trouble entertaining himself. He still needs much more parental attention than Nell ever has. He's the one who comes to us on rainy days saying that he's bored. I know that this is a familiar story for many families because my friends and I call it 'first child syndrome'. While some of that behaviour is explained by the fact Zac is a boy and Nell a girl, friends with first-born girls confirm that it applies to those kids as well.

I think that this behaviour is not because our kids have been deprived of attention, but precisely because they have had too much. When Zac was a baby there were no smart phones, blogs were few and far between and I never took calls on my mobile phone because I was far too busy paying all of my attention to him. I let him know from the time he was born that he was the absolute centre of the world, just as the mother-guilt lobby said I should. And now I wonder why he finds it hard to think of other people.

I had relaxed a lot by the time Nell came along, but I think the main difference between them is because, by necessity, I simply could not focus all of my atteniton on Nell because Zac was there, still demanding to be the centre of the universe.

Let's be frank: Nell has a lot easier time functioning in the world because she understands that the world does not revolve around her. She understands inherently that other people have needs, and that, while she's important, she is ultimately responsible for herself. I am sorry that I didn't get those messages across to Zac as a baby, and he has a harder time working them out as a child.

Sometimes when I am with the kids I deliberately turn away from what they are doing, because I think they need to work stuff out without the glare of parental attention. While I began raising my children I believed that they needed stimulation, guidance, love and attention. I am more and more coming to the view that benign neglect makes for healthier kids. I try to ensure that my kids spend some time every day (especially on weekends when we are together a lot) doing something without me, so that when we sit down to eat at the end of the day, they can tell me something I didn't know - rather than me 'being present' for every single second of their lives.

 

I refuse to feel guilty for looking at my smart phone when I am with my kids. Indeed, I think it's probably a good thing for all of us to have a little time away from each other's every attention.

musical obsession

When I was in my early teens I spent hours in front of the stereo, album cover in hand, listening obsessively to music. One of my great musical obsessions was with Prince's Purple Rain album. It was everything from Prince's look, his ambiguous sexuality, the funky beats and the tortured screaming that embedded those songs deep in my psyche. Even during the years when new Romantic music was most on the nose, I still loved everything Prince produced.

On Friday night my friend and fellow Prince devotee, Jackie, and I went to his stadium concert in Sydney. It was probably the most polished, staged and glittery spectacular I have ever been to (I'm more a pub-rock gig kind of girl than a stadium-spectacular lover most of the time). What I loved most about it was not just the three-hour non-stop hits playlist, or even the beautiful deconstructing and reconstructing of truly excellent guitar riffs, it was being so expertly emotionally manipulated. When Prince first came on stage, dressed in gold sequinned tails and five inch heels, I screamed and held my face in my hands like a teenaged Beatles fan. When he slowly descended off stage after an epic twenty minute jam of Purple Rain (during which we all sang the backing for at least ten of those minutes) I cried. Not because he was leaving, but because it was just so beautiful. And all that time I was fully aware that my reaction was EXACTLY what Prince had scripted.
I jumped to my feet to the first strains of 1999, and I sat down when his backing singers sang a slow number (allowing him time to change, and us time to rest - we are all a lot older now, you know). It is so rare, these days, that I allow myself to be emotionally manipulated because I am so cynical about what someone is trying to tell me or sell me. It was liberating to feel like I was fourteen again. Like no one has ever felt like this. Like it was just me and Prince.

And twenty thousand other people all feeling EXACTLY the same way.

The kids are just reaching the golden age of musical obsession themselves. Zac is learning to play guitar. As we hoped, this is mostly taking the form of obsessive practice in his room, because we haven't enrolled him in paid guitar lessons yet (he is still learning violin and two instruments, plus swimming, footy and homework seems a little excessive). The real devotion began when we were recently in Canberra, travelling home from Tidbinbilla. We had my nephew in the car as well who requested we play The White Stripes Seven Nation Army. The boys then asked for it over and over. Zac came home and learned the riff on his guitar and whenever he has a spare moment, he's in his room, picking out that riff. 

Yesterday Nell heard, for the first time, the Gotye song Somebody I Used to Know. It instantly grabbed her and she begged for it on her iPod. She has spent hours in her room since, listening over and over and learning the lyrics. Now she can sing it. With feeling. Of course it's vaguely inappropriate, being a song about heartbreak, loss and being treated badly by your ex, but my early obsessions (Bonnie Tyler's Total Eclipse of the Heart, as but one example amongst many) covered similar topics and my innocence was not spoiled for the times I was *actually* screwed over badly by an ex, so I'm not too worried for Nell.

 

 

new newness is news

I have been feeling a little complacent about sharing much on this blog lately. It hasn’t been a dramatic decision, just a lack of stuff to say. Perhaps it’s because my kids are older and it feels weird writing about them when they can read. Perhaps it's because so many blogs are slicker and more commercial than mine. Maybe it’s the rise of Facebook and Twitter. In truth, I have a little bit of sharing overload.

And yet, almost ten years after starting this blog, I didn’t really feel ready to give it up completely.

So I have taken the first step in getting my blog mojo back (if it’s going to come back, that is) by giving my blog a face lift. A new pared back look for pared back visits. Perhaps this fresh new face will inspire me to share a little more and if it does, I hope you will visit from time to time.

beautiful stories

Nell was home sick today. She decided to watch the lovely film "Up" which we haven't seen for ages. I was reminded again how much I admire Pixar and their focus on beautiful, complex and moving story telling.

Soy came out of his office to tell me something during the first few minutes and stopped. We both just stood there watching that first story of love, joy and loss and we both shed a tear, even though we've seen it at least twenty times before.

I have only seen one Twilight film, but I think this is certainly true:

the first baby to grow up

The weekend before last we travelled to Canberra for Sienna's 18th. Sienna was the first baby in my family to be born after me and my siblings were grown up. I had just moved to Sydney and was working in my first lawyering job in the city. I remember going up to the hospital (the same hospital I was born in) to see her when she was only one day old. Her Dad, Nick, unwrapped her and we looked at her fingers and her toes and her wrinkly little face.

Just on the face: Nick reminded me of his first call after she was born. I asked "does she look like you, or does she look like Angela?"and Nick said "Actually, Lis, she looks like you. But I am pretty sure her face will straighten out as she grows."

Charming.

Anyway, what surprised me was that all of that happened when I was a fully fledged,  salary earning, tax paying, adult. And now she's a salary earning, world travelling, champagne quaffing adult herself.

Here's a picture of us (and my two nephews) at my wedding. Sienna was the cute little girl with the flowers in her hair, holding the bouquet, who was star struck by everything bridal. 

 

And here's a picture of her with her lovely Dad on her eighteenth birthday.

 

the annual blog hiatus or why is there sand in my sheets?

We are back from our beach holiday, filled up on sun, swimming and games of barefoot cops 'n' robbers. I've been off work for almost four weeks and have only brushed my hair twice: the last time was for a wedding just before New Year. Soy's glandular fever which has laid him low since October is just starting to abate, although it hung around long enough for him to spent much of the summer in front of the tests against India. Zac has a new cricketing hero in Michael Clarke.

And me? I had a moment last Saturday, when a long held ambition was finally realised. 

Before we had kids Soy and I used to snorkel every weekend. We tried to keep up our snorkeling in the years we were parents but let's face it - there's no taking off to hours to tool about underwater when you have little ones. Especially little ones as pale as ours. But each year we have wondered would this be the one when all four of us would snorkel together? Would we be able to share our love of the underwater world with the kids this summer? Last year we snorkeled a little in Fiji - but the water was incredibly shallow and the kids never wanted to do it together.

This year, on our holiday near Currarong, I took each of the kids out snorkeling with me. Both of them are now confident in deep water, but are excellent at spotting schools of garfish or tiny iridescent squid. And on our last day we hiked out to Shell Beach near Currarong with our snorkeling gear and all four of us swam together. We saw rays, big fish, little fish, crabs on the rocks, jelly fish in the deep, acres of sea weed and lots and lots of sea urchins. I took a moment to look about at the legs of my whole family, all equally enthralled with the sea life, and know that we have reached a milestone.

lost in translation, or do you not know that I am a hunchback?

When Soy and I were growing up in Canberra there was an excellent Arthouse cinema called Electric Shadows. No Canberra student household was complete without an Electric Shadows poster on the back of the toilet door, showing the listings for the coming months. In amongst those listings was, inevitably, a running of the Gerard Depardieu film “Jean de Florette” and its companion piece “Manon des Sources”. They would usually play back to back on a Sunday afternoon.

In the climax of Jean de Florette, Gerard Depardieu’s character, who is generally optimistic and forebearing, is cursing God for not sending rain to his farm. He raises his fists to the sky and shouts for God to remember that he is a hunchback. For years whenever something random has gone wrong around the house, be it a broken glass or a broken nail, Soy and I would to raise our hands to the sky and say, in an outrageous French accent, “Do you not know I am a ‘unchback?”

The other day Zac was in the back yard and he lost his ball over the fence. He raised his hands to the sky and shouted “Do you not know I am a ‘unchback?”  It suddenly occurred to me that not only has Zac never seen the film Jean de Florette, but Gerard Depardieu does not deliver the line in an outrageous French accent, because the whole film is in French.

Last night Soy and I sat down to watch Jean de Florette again. It is beautiful and tragic and I cried even though I knew what was going to happen from the start. But I was a little apprehensive when I saw that Gerard Depardieu actually says “I am a hunchback! Have you forgotten? Do you think it is easy?” For years we have been misquoting poor Monsieur Jean.

Still, next time I hit my thumb with a hammer, I’m pretty sure I will still cry out “Do you not know I am a hunchback?”

un-Christmassy Christmas songs

Since childhood I have had an aversion to Christmas-in-a-department-store Christmas songs. For the last few years I've been perfecting a playlist of songs which mention Christmas, but which aren't your usual Frosty the Snowman annoying crap. So here is my alternative Christmas playlist:

How to Make Gravy - Paul Kelly

They say it's going to be a hundred degrees, even more maybe, but that won't stop the roast. Who's gonna make the gravy? I bet it won't taste the same

The only song I know about what Christmas is really like in Australia, with our hot, hot Christmas days where we still eat roast turkey and steamed pudding. Also, it makes me cry every time I hear it, which is extraordinary because I hear it four times a day in the month before Christmas.

Fairytale of New York - The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl

So happy Christmas, I love you, baby. I can see a better time, when all our dreams come true.

Those happy words start the song, it ends with "Merry Christmas your arse, I pray God it's our last". Love, disappointment and hate: what Christmas is really about.

Tojo - The Hoodoo Gurus

I said 'Tracey, this is Christmas, don't you know? don't you know?
She said 'Baby, I wouldn't miss this for the world. I've got to blow. I've got to blow.

For many of the people I grew up with in Darwin, Christmas was synonymous with memories of Cyclone Tracey which devastated the city on Christmas Eve 1974. So a song about pleading with Tracey to have mercy because it's Christmas speaks to me. Also, it's the Hoodoo Gurus whose style is very un-Christmassy.

River - Joni Mitchell

It doesn't really snow here, it stays pretty green, I'm gonna make a lot of money and quit this crazy scene.

A beautiful song of lost love, with a jingle bells riff.

Merry Christmas (I don't want to fight tonight) - The Ramones

There's something about hearing Joey Ramone singing mournfully about reindeer and sugar plum fairies that makes me smile.

Another Lonely Christmas - Prince

Baby you promised me (you promised me) you'd never leave, then you went and died on the twenty-fifth day of December

This song is everything I love about Prince and a whole lot more. Reverb, falsetto, lyrics about swimming naked, reverb, melodrama, screaming and more reverb.

Santa's Beard - They Might Be Giants

When she stands beneath the mistletoe screaming, for him to stand beneath the mistletoe screaming, I can't help but feeling jealous, each time she climbs on his knee. Why must she climb on his knee?

Ostensibly a song about Santa, but really a song about your wife cheating with your best friend. And it contains the ultimate anti-Christmas line: "and I don't want that fat guy around." And a piano accordian.

I want an alien for Christmas - Fountains of Wayne

I want a little green guy about three feet high, with seventeen eyes and he knows how to fly, I want an alien for Christmas this year.

This is my favourite find of the year, the kids and I are addicted to singing it loud in the car.