Tag Archives: australia

June 28, 2012

Quick & Dirty Reviews: Get out, Get breakfast.

By Cassie

It’s about time I did another quickie review blog.  A lot of times I bypass book reviews for several reasons:

  1. My review will be despicable to an author out there who worked until their fingers blistered with pencil scars and bubbles.
  2. I just didn’t want to write a book review at the time, I wanted to eat a sandwich.
  3. Some books need to be shared, and mulled over, and some books just need to be read for the personal journey the reader undertakes.  We’re all Odysseus while we read.
  4. Some books just don’t touch me enough to use my words to share them.  (Sad, but true).
  5. Some books I loathe and I just know my review would be like summer heat blurring and rising from North Carolina asphalt.
  6. Sometimes I finish a book and have no energy at all.  I feel completely depleted.

Without further adieu, here are some honorable mentions (and winners):

1. Salvage the Bones – Jesmyn Ward 

Salvage the Bones – Jesmyn Ward

Don’t get me wrong, I loved this book.  I think that this book is an important read for anyone who wants to become a writer.  One of the most crucial elements of a book is sadness; a dark side, an element of mystery and madness, tension in your muscles, goosebumps rising along the ridges of your arms.  I remember a girl in my advanced fiction class finally unleashed the fury on my professor (Jill McCorkle) because she no longer wanted to write in the dark, she wanted to just write about happiness.  (Not gonna happen).

If you ever want to learn how to build tension, this is the first book I would point you to.  Throughout, I was expecting Hurricane Katrina to hit like a siren and she doesn’t come until the final chapters, that “blood dazzler.”  However, the entire book is tension leading to that storm, to those floods that ripped families and floorboards apart.  It’s amazing how Ward captures the tension of landscape and weather with only mentioning the coming eye in brief sentences strung like laundry from clothespins.

“My baby is solid as a squash, because there is this baby inside me, small as Manny’s eyelash in mid-sex on my cheek.  And this baby will grow to a fingertip on my hip, a hand on the bowl of my back, an arm over my shoulder, if it survives” (57).

In my journals while reading this book I wrote: “How weird is it when you read  passage to decide if you want to buy a book and then you read that passage again within the context of the story and it means something totally different, totally unexpected and you’re not sure how to feel after that moment.  It’s like dating someone thinking their historically European and really they’re Native American and whole worlds suddenly open up for the two of you, dream catch.”

2. Authobiography of Red – Anne Carson 

Autobiography of Red – Anne Carson

This book burned a whole through my idea of poetry.  Anne Carson took a restaurant matchbook and lit the small page of poetry in my mind.  And to think she did it all with a main character that’s a little red monster with wings.  I never knew poetry could look like this, could tell a story this wide and still tell a history of people.  This book was kind of an awakening for me.   I had believed poetry was like a Peace March and everyone is there for some different reason but you all want to find a collective rhythm to your voices, want to huddle in some sort of crowd.  Anne Carson beat the crowds away and wrote on her own terms.  What more do people need than someone who writes who they are on the page in a story that has little to do with them at all.  I’m floored by this, in fact, I’ve sunken through the floor and I’m in the basement against the cold slab of concrete listening to the silence of the pour.

“It was the year he began to wonder about the noise that colors make.  Roses came roaring across the garden at him – of those he interviewed for the science project had to admit they not hear the cries of roses being burned alive in the noonday sun.” I have no page number, I just drew a stick-figure sun here.

Eucalyptus – Murray Bail

3. Eucalyptus – Murray Bail 

If you like trees, Australian countryside, and love stories that are hardly told, then this might just be the book for you.  It took me a while to get into this book, but I was allured by the tree language of Eucalyptus – how they were all named, how they were founded and grew, where they grew, who collected them and who could name them.  Plus, at the heart of this story is a traditional fairytale.  A father sets out to find a worthy suitor for his daughter by having men from across rivers and territories name the Eucalyptus plants he has collected for over twenty years.  What girl doesn’t fall for the fairytale?

Tattoos on the Heart – Gregory Boyle

4. Tattoos on the Heart – Gregory “G” Boyle 

I didn’t review this book because my social justice rant would have loomed large and so would my Catholic understanding.  No really, I would have sounded like Nancy Pelosi at the pulpit.  Sometimes I can get a little over the top on my world views and so I kept quiet on this.  I did try to write this blog several times and still have a draft post lost in my dashboard.  I read this book shortly after coming home from Philadelphia and after working over a year at the teen center.  This book and Homeboy Industries cracke open the world for me when I was trying desperately to glue it shut.  Can’t let light in without a few cracks though. For this, I can’t say it better than G, so here are quotes from the book:

  • “Here is what we seek: a compassion that can stand in awe at what the poor have to carry rather than stand in judgment at how they carry it” (67).
  • “Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded.  It’s a covenant between equals” (77).
  • “He says, straight out, ‘you are the light.’  It is the truth of who you are, waiting only for you to discover it.  So, for God’s sake, don’t move.  No need to contort yourself to be anything other than who you are.  Jason was who he was.  He made a lot of mistakes, he was not perfect, and his rage called the shots for a good chunk of his life.  And he was the light of world.  He fit the description” (108).
  • “Mother Teresa diagnosed the world’s ills in this way: we’ve just ‘forgotten that we belong to each other” (187).

Briar Rose – Jane Yolen

5. Briar Rose – Jane Yolen 

This year my number one book trend has been WWII literature.  I think there’s something immeasurable about WWII that makes us all connect in some way to the length of terror that happened.  I’m fascinated by WWII because I don’t know my grandfather, but I know he was overseas at that time and came back with PTSD so bad he was calling his own children derogative terms and holding his shaking fingers together like he curled them around a soft neck.  I’m fascinated by the way Hitler used language to round up a civilization.  The first step in mass-murder, and mass-genocide is the power of language, of propaganda.  Whenever someone tells you that infamous nursery school rhyme, “sticks and stones will break my bones, but words can never hurt me,” it’s beyond untrue.  (I’m sure I will tell my future kids that though).

Jane Yolan’s Briar Rose is the second retold fairytale into WWII literature that I’ve read this year.  The first was The True Story of Hansel and Gretel which left me weeping whenever I was in silence (usually in the car) for about a week.  My expectations for Briar Rose were high and I can’t say it didn’t meet expectations, but it was a young adult novel that wasn’t as outrageous as The True Story of Hansel and Gretel.  The thing I love about this book is that it’s competent YA literature.  Jane Yolen didn’t dumb down the story, she didn’t make sure nothing gruesome was told in less detail – she put it out there and let it fester.  I think this is a pitch-perfect YA book and the fact that she retold Briar Rose using it as a scar story rather than a triumph made it all the better.  For kids like me who desperately yearn for knowledge of their grandparents and great-grandparents, it’s a fantastic read.

6. Life on Mars: Poems – Tracy K. Smith 

This book has lines of beauty and poems that make you feel like a speck of pepper on someones sandwich.  Was it the best book of poetry I’ve ever read? No.  Did it win a Pulitzer? Yes.  Sometimes books that win prizes have agendas far more complicated than just the fact that they’re wonderful books.  This year the NASA program had to go through a funding cut, this year Tracy K. Smith wrote Life on Mars mostly about space and its many mysteries but also about her father who worked for a number of years at NASA.  This is just a correlation, not a cause and effect of Smith winning the prize.  This book of poetry has moments of subtle tenderness, but I can’t say that it’s a complete collection of poetry.

Sometimes, I wasn’t sure if Smith was actually on Mars when she wrote these poems and other times I was right there with her, huddled in the vowel and reading aloud as fast as I could just to feel my body melt into the words and sigh with my “Oh my God, that’s beautiful.”  The poems where I was lost or made little sense were altogether frustrating because I could see that she was getting at the heart, her heart, but she never broke through.   I hate when poets say they wanted that poem or that line to be ambiguous.  While sometimes that can mean “showing not telling” usually it means pure confusion.  I hate poems where I feel like she’s so close to saying something meaningful and yet she gets to the crust and backs off.  FACK. Don’t back off, cut your feet on the cliffs and jump.

  • “We have gone looking for it everywhere:/in Bibles and bandwith, blooming/like a wound from the ocean floor.” – It & Co.
  • “When our laughter skids across the floor/like beads yanked from some girl’s throat,/what waits where the laughter gathers?”
  • “Tina say what if dark matter is like the space between people when what holds them together isn’t exactly love, and I think that sounds right” (37).

Read “Interrogative” Here.

I happened on this wordpress review/conversation and it matches my sentiment exactly.  Thank you, Nancy.

My Instagram of Embroideries.

7. Embroideries – Maryjane Satrapi 

Reading this book was like going to a tupperware party with your grandmother and her Bunko group.  Believe me, you’ll never guess what embroideries stands for and you’ll probably never want to experience that meaning without pain medication.

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter – Carson McCullers

8. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter – Carson McCullers

Jinger, I’m sorry I have to do this to my dear penpal.  I HATED THIS BOOK.   THIS IS A SPOILER SENTENCE: You want me to spend a whole book with a mute who loses his odd other half, helps a bunch of people experience a journey that moves them almost nowhere, but through a life that none of them really want, and then kills himself at the end.  You have to be kidding me.  Was there anything to like about this book ever? …Maybe I liked the way Mick was described as the neighborhood tomboy in her rolled up jean shorts and her secret cigarette purchases. MAYBE.

That’s it. I never want to see this book ever again.

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June 10, 2012

Project 365 | Week 23

By Cassie

This week was probably my least inspired week while participating in Project 365.  My mother had to literally carry my family outside and make me take self-timer photos of us in the front yard.  Last night, the deer ate all my mother’s impatiens leaving the sad little stems withering at the edge of our garden plot.  Funny thing is, just yesterday I learned that deer are the only animals around (squirrels and bunnies) that eat flowers right off the stems.  I wonder what a flower tastes like, I only ate mud pies as a child.

Day 155: 

“She saw something awful in the very simplicity she failed to understand.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald

All the men in my life have green thumbs so they’ve taken to sharing flowers.  It adds new meaning to the idea of bringing flowers to a date.  These are the gerber daisies from the boy’s front yard to the pot on the side of our house.

Day 156:

The fun Jas and I have with photo booth. Thanks Steve Jobs. Love, Cat Lady’s everywhere.

There are girls in bedrooms that are hyped from the gym and craving eggs, but all they have is cats.

Day 157:

Sunday Church

My mom is a photo-pusher.  She’s an enabler of photo albums, cluttering a house with pictures of people you love, and making my dad and I pose near blue hydrangeas and in our “Sunday best.”

Day 158:

Cupcake Shoppe

Cupcake Shoppe Register

My dear friend Catie and I walked all the way up the giant Glenwood hill for these delectable treats.  I just love the smell of bakeries, and this particular Cupcake Shoppe has my favorite bronze old-time register.  I had a salad for lunch so I decided to just go ahead and coat my nose in buttercream.  My mom sighed and said, “Oh my God, did you eat that this week?” when she saw this photo.  I’m still a rebel at twenty-four.

Day 159:

Jinger’s stampage

Australia: Society of Stamp Counters

“Here’s the mail, it never fails.  It makes me want to wag my tail.  When it comes I want to yell – MAIL!” – Blue’s Clues

Day 160:

Hope.

Read small printed caption for details.  All this industry and roots still grow.

Day 161:

Laundry Day

Not only does he enjoy climbing into the dryer, but he also likes the feel of warm jeans.  Don’t we all?

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May 31, 2012

Lesson 3: She is forever pursued by a host of vague adjectives ‘proper,’ ‘correct,’ ‘genteel,’ which hunt her to death…

By Cassie

Warning: This blog involves a pro/con list.

I also want to say that I do recommend this book because I could never not recommend Gemmell.  She’s done too much for me with her cheeky interviews, weekly columns, and the Bride.

PRO CON
It made me cry. It may ride on the side of making women objects. Just a bit, a tad.
It is the well-written 50 Shades of Grey — with a better ending. The ubiquitous “you,” or as you grammar types like: second person.
Voice. Repetition.
Australia (Bush Girl). England (Rain).
Nikki Gemmell Wasn’t as good as Bride Stripped Bare
Harper Collins (P.S.) First Section

Okay, now I will work my way through this.

UK Cover

American Cover (Someone needs to do a backstory on why these covers are so vastly different).

Bride Stripped Bare is one of my top five books ever.  If you are wondering about what to read next read Bride Stripped Bare.  It was the first book that made me pay attention to the publisher.  I loved that book and I loved it even more when Nikki Gemmell came out as the “anonymous” author because she’s Australian, and fiesty.

I have high expectations for all of her novels.  I wasn’t too keen on Shiver, but it was interesting because of the arctic.  Going into this new book, with the nude cuddle cover and the font very much like Bride Stripped Bare, I was thinking, once again Nikki Gemmell has hit rock solid gold rush.  While I think her voice is still the voice I loved in Bride Stripped Bare, I’m not sure this story gives the same resonance metaphorically, or the same want is driving the story.   In both books, a woman is finding herself, but in With My Body, Gemmell has made the main character a woman with life stages that I haven’t ever found myself wanting to have.  I’m sure I’ve been this woman in various stages, but I’m not sure I wanted to, which made this book a struggle to read.

Here are the phases of womanhood in book order.

  1. Upset Housewife
  2. Bush Girl
  3. Step-daughter
  4. Unwanted Child
  5. Flirt
  6. Seductress
  7. Naive pre-teen
  8. Sexual Deviant (society standards)
  9. Happy Housewife
  10. Happy Mother
  11. In-love woman with husband
  12. In-love woman with self

Obviously, those last four I would like to be, but the rest…not so much.

I think Gemmell has always done a good job of showing us the inner lives of humans.  There is someone in your cubicle row who goes home and uses the dotted tie around his collar in his bedroom exploration.  He is the Columbus of that room in 2012.  There is someone who is divorced, and lonely who cries not because the work day was especially hard but because the stove light is the only thing on when they come home.  There is a woman who wishes she wouldn’t see you at the school gate.  There is a woman dreading the next PTA meeting.  There is a family who can’t afford tissues for the classroom list, but will buy them anyway.

We are surrounding each other.

Gemmell’ Books

Gemmell shows that well in every novel she writes.  These inner-workings, not only in households, but in psyches.  She explores the dynamics of this woman’s life through a diary of thought.   My problem with the way she went about this is that silly little “you.”  While the you is a dang powerful force in short fiction, and should be taken very VERY lightly in any form, in a novel it’s kind of heavy.  Maybe not even kind of, maybe really heavy.

I’m not even sure we ever get a name for this woman we’re with throughout 462 pages.  She is called various names, “annoyance, mum, wife,” but I don’t think she’s ever given an actual name.  She is always, and forever will be, “you.”  I understand the idea behind this, make the reader feel as if they are the one in the story, they are living through this trauma, this boarding school, these artistic men who leave them broken and unhinged, but the “you” is simultaneously too far away, and too private.  I can’t scrape enough details from the page in the first section (pre-Tol) to really feel like I’m reading a grand novel, with a voice made of desire.

Gemmell is trying so hard to make this every woman, instead of just making it one woman who is relatable.  Then the voice is so private and so much Gemmell’s own writing voice that it’s too private – it leaves the reader out of the loop.  We are not the watcher of things happening, or the reader of the diary, we are just reading.  I hate books where I’m just a reader, I want to be in it, in the thick bush of it (literarily).

I’m frustrated by this.  I so badly wanted to be this woman, and I was excluded because of that darn second person.  I couldn’t be her because I wasn’t let in with enough details and metaphors.  It was almost too much thought, and too much in the specific mind of this woman that the surrounding details weren’t there.  I want to know what she smells like, what the bush smells like, what it tastes like when the pages of eucalyptus are burning.  I need these fine things in writing, and I need them in order to place myself there.  I need them to travel with the book and feel the Australian dead soil on my bare feet making them black and molten.  But, you’re not given that because all you get are thoughts and feelings which can almost never drive a narrative.

When you do get to the sexual exploration with Tol in the middle parts of the book, it does pick up.  We’re learning with the two of them about bodies and teenage excitement, and the tools of writing that Tol uses, like feathers, knap-sacks, tin cans filled with pencils.  However, because this is an older man “teaching” a younger woman how to be an instrument of pleasure, it rides a little on objectification.  I think the ending is needed just so women accept the advantages taken.  While “you” learns what her body can do, and learns how to control it, this man is also feeding her pleasure, making sure she is anchored to him.  It’s a bit unsettling when you really think about it.  Obviously, she finds herself by the end (can’t tell you how) and finds how much it helped her to be seventeen and spending her summer against a spring mattress on the floor.

All I can think about after finishing this book is the dust that settled into that house, coated dressers and collected on windowsills is the same dust that traveled with her always, connecting her to Tol and that summer.  And that’s a lovely sentiment.  How that one piece of place, a sense of it, dusts us and brings us back to those people.  For me, dirty dishes carry me to Australia.  Anytime I’m doing dishes, I’m thinking about the rain in Canberra and the e-mails warning us not to walk in tall grasses unless there’s a clear path.  It’s funny how these domestic things tie us to places.  Obviously what ties her to this place is her own sexual awakening in a house that is crumbling by death, and Australian dust.

I love finding out what brings people to memories.  And they’re always dainty things; sounds, smells, simple mannerisms.  Moth balls in the stairwell bring the linings of my father’s suit jackets that are huddled on hangers like birds on electric wires.  Honeysuckle means catching crayfish in the creek behind the playground.  If you take anything from this book, take the symbols of your memory.  Take the smell of your mom’s sugar icing and let yourself drift into her yellow kitchen, her ladybug curtains.

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December 27, 2010

Post-Australia Stress Disorder

By Cassie

I realize I’ve been pretty boring lately, maybe more than boring, maybe droning, robotic (and not in the really rad, classic, dance move way).  I guess it’s taken me a while to be able to write something about leaving Australia, and my almost-disasters on the planes, and being surrounded by family I love, and missing other people I love.

Oh, Australia, where do I start with you anyway?  Because I got so attracted to the landscape, and the mismatched assortment of fauna and trees, or so attracted to the people with their wonky accents, or just attracted to the boy in college shirts, who knows really?   (I really have no idea where this sentence is going because my Uncle is talking to someone on the phone in the room next to me and I have a funny feeling he’s staring into my room while talking and trying to dissect what I’m saying.  Plus, the whole house smells like pork chops and lasagna because my Aunt couldn’t decide what she wanted to cook.  By the way, these two people, completely unrelated).  And what more can I really say about Australia, other than I miss it….without mapping out all the gory details of the missing?

I always have a word for when I’m missing that other part of the world: Saudade (singular) or saudades (plural) (pronounced or in European Portuguese, or in Brazilian Portuguese and in Galician) is a Portuguese and Galician word for a feeling of nostalgic longing for something or someone that one was fond of and which is lost. Here’s another if you know me, then you know that I have words for all the different facets of my life, and my favorite word on the planet is kept. See below paragraph about why that is:

I think….right now…my favorite word is “kept.” I guess that’s kind of a strange one, but let me figure out why I love it so much by trying to explain.

The definition of “kept” according to a google search is this; unbroken: (especially of promises or contracts) not violated or disregarded; “unbroken promises”; “promises kept.”

I think this word really translates to me right now because I’ve broken a few promises in the past and I’ve broken a few hearts (har-har) and I’m really making an effort (within the last month) to start keeping all my promises.

I think “kept” also can relate to keeping yourself busy, keeping yourself hygenic, keeping yourself healthy which is something I’m also trying to do these days. I’ve been eating a lot more produce (and some cupcakes too) and been really making an effort to floss, and shower daily (ya know, college isn’t the best place for showering daily…sometimes you get a little lax and now that I’ve graduated I’m trying to end that cycle).

“Kept” heat is one of my favorite, well maybe my all time favorite phrase from a line in one of my poems. I love the mental image of someone walking in the winter, maybe upset about something, their teeth clicking back and forth to warm their face, and their cheeks rosy with winter glow. Their hands are folded indian style across their chest and their feet are clacking across the pavement, spurting up water puddles with each step. But between their arms, right where their heart lies, they have kept heat.  Heat only they can feel that isn’t going into the outside world yet and they’re keeping, selfishly or not, for themselves. To warm themselves. It’s like a warming image of the soul. I don’t know, maybe I went too deep there but “kept” always makes my mind go there.

And lastly, it’s got the strangest letters forced together. Who thought of putting a k,p,t in one word. “Ke-pa-te” – you really have to use your whole mouth for that. And I love that, I love words that make you work to use them. And if I look in the mirror and say it to myself right now – it looks pretty on my lips. And a favorite word should definitely do that.

Right now I could used some “kept heat” being stuck in the snowy anti-wonderland of North Carolina.  Wonderland will forever be in Floriade, Canberra for me.  (My mom actually bought me a mini-Alice-tea-set for Christmas, which brings in everything I’ve loved about Australia.  The fact that I felt lost in a Wonderland, being surrounded by various animals-tons of breeding white-tailed rabbits-, falling in love with my own independence, falling in love with a whole land of obnoxious animal kingdom birthing and a land of people who once all came from convicts.  Oh, and not to mention I worked a few “high-teas” for the fancy-bonneted women when I worked at Adore).

Here are some photos from Carolina’s supposed “Winter Wonderland” with the family (aka our competitive side at beating the neighborhood kids in some stellar snow-man building.  He came out flaming homosexual according to my cousins).

SNOWBALLS THE SIZE OF YOUR HEAD

It's like the Easter Bunny threw up all over me and came at the wrong time of year.

A happy cousin, and a pretty tree. Always good things.

I admit, I picniked the snowman, I couldn't stop myself.

Snowman creators - badass

I wish I could encompass everything a person should feel when they return from someplace they love, only to be back someplace that they once loved, but now look at completely different.  (Wow, my cat just brushed his whiskers up against my ankles and it felt like a spider and I FREAKED out a little bit).   The most I could grasp of this idea, that you’re in love with two places, for two completely different reasons, and you might just love one more than the other, even though the other has been your home since you were just five and still wore frilly socks, was learned in the bathtub this morning.

My whole family is in town, and by whole I mean, 4 cousins, an aunt and uncle (who are not related at all), my parents, and obviously my brother and his mini-clan.  And since I’ve been home, most of my friends have been really itching to see me, even though I think I did a pretty good job of keeping up with most of them via skype, but they want crazy stories, not sure I have that many, but I have pocketful. And so, I desperately needed some alone time in the bathtub this morning.  Now I admit that my mother’s bathtub hadn’t been used in so long that I slipped my naked body into a bit of rust colored water just because the urge was so strong to sink into my own dirt.  I can mark that off the list of semi-disgusting things I’ve done in my life, so we  got that over and done with.  But the key to a good bath (sometimes equal to the key of a good shower, but I would argue a bit stronger) is that you are literally washing off all the decay from that day, or that month or even that year with just one dip into the porcelain depths.  I read a bit of a book that was written by someone who has a twin soul to me (her name is Ursula, so you can already see the connection).  I lounged around, rubbed my ass against the bottom, let my knees feel the chill outside of the water, stuck my toes just above the knob that determined when the experience would be over, watched the shampoo swirls surround me and dipped under the water and closed my eyes feeling it drowned my ears (I hate that feeling, but it may be the closest feeling to that of being on a plane and feeling your hearing go in and out.  That’s almost a funny image because it’s like being in the height of air, and being in the deep of oceans and water, is almost the same for your ears.  Scary a bit, and ironic).

I think my language is getting fruitier as I go deeper into this blog, and my psyche on missing Australia, just bare with me.

Okay, so, going home from a place you love, to a place you used to love and how to do this in a very classy, non-flaky way.  (Hint: Don’t cry a lot like I did…everyday…since last Monday).

I’ve spent my entire life in North Carolina pretty much.  I’m not born and raised, but I’m definitely raised.  I went to elementary, middle and high school all in the same place, five miles from my cookie-cutter neighborhood.  I went to daycare, four miles away until I was eleven after school.  My mom works within walking distance and my father is retired.  I progressed to go to NCSU for college, a total of thirty long, hard minutes from my house and am now, back here, from Australia which is literally across the globe (I know I sat through each and every flight…four times now).  I know my favorite coffee place is New World near where my best friends, the Joyner brothers used to live.  I know that the best Mexican food is on Hillsborough Street and the only place that serves peanut butter & chocolate ice cream is there also.  I know the exact layout of Crabtree Valley Mall, and Brier Creek and I know where my friends work and I can get free food on a regular basis.  I mean, I know this town.  I took driver’s ed and almost killed a few people on the highways.  I’ve gotten speeding tickets here in the middle of the night, I’ve swam across town every morning of high school for two hours.  This is my home.  This is where my childhood bedroom still has the same bed, and where the wall color has changed probably nine times since I’ve been five.  It is currently back to pink.  Australia, was not like this.  I landed in Australia, full of tears, and only had been there for three weeks, two years before.  I knew one person, and had one relative.  I would never drive there, I would always take public transportation (and if you’ve been reading my blogs you know this was not always safe, or handy).  I worked two jobs, I learned the art of drinking tea, and I tried to sneak back plant seeds in order to create a yard like that of Australian people.  I found a beer I actually liked.  I walked to the library and the grocery store twice a week.  I ate lots of Schnitzel, and only had brownies called “American Brownies.”  This wasn’t my “home.”  If you asked me today where I lived, and if you looked at my facebook, it would still say “Canberra, Australia.”

I think the best way to say this is that you find homes in people.  If your parents move from your childhood home, and they move states, your new home isn’t in that home you grew up in, it’s where your parents live.  This isn’t a Miranda Lambert song, this is real life.  I have a home on two sides of the planet and I want to be, as of right now, in the one that I didn’t grow up in, with someone I’ve only known for 3.5 years and where I eat noodles everyday because I’m not the best cook.  Oh, and where it’s SUMMERTIME.

I’m being boring again.

I don’t want to be boring.

I can’t help being boring sometimes.

The book I’m reading was saying that no one likes to read about people with perfect lives.  (And in my final year at State, someone yelled at my fiction professor because this chick didn’t want to have a “dark side” of her story, she wanted her characters to be happy).  So, I guess my dark side is that I’m not used to Raleigh anymore.  Today in the movie theater (where I saw the third Focker movie, even though I hate watching a million terrible things happen to Ben Stiller and then he finally gets a fair chance at the end – and Along Came Polly really made me believe I was Polly reincarnated)…today in the movie theater, I saw one of the “mean girls” from my high school, I don’t want to see these people.  I don’t even want to see my neighbors.  I liked being in a place where I wasn’t seeing kids I coached in summer swimming shopping with their mother.  Or going to a restaurant and having my waiter being my ex-bestfriend’s older brother.  I have a little Emily Dickinson in me to where I like to hide in my room and read a good book and drink hot cocoa out of my large, cat-lady mug (it literally has cats all over it, I’ll post a picture) and wear my mismatched socks.   None of these things happened to me in Australia, I was allowed to spend days in bed reading thrilling novels.  I was allowed to go talk to Christina downstairs for four hours at night about her boy crushes, and my issues at work, and our silly lives.  I was allowed to ignore people (this may be key to my discovery of how I form friendships too…but that’s another therapy session.  Well maybe not, I have a few good friends, and I push everyone else away.  It’s like having a “Circle” from the Focker movies.  I have an inner circle, and if you’re not in it, you get nothin’.  That’s not healthy, nor is it friendly, nor does it create good networking skills, but it is a fact of my life and probably why I have a blog).  And probably why I thought Australia was just so perfect, because the bulls-eye part of my inner-circle was with me pretty much 24/7.  Oh, and the fact that I literally had no worries, other than quitting my job at the tea place near the end, since they thought I was working until July, oops.  That’s one planned lie…in heaven are pre-mediated lies worth more naughty points than lies that are just made-up on the spot?  These are questions no one will be able to answer.

I honestly have no idea when this blog will end because I have no idea HOW THE EFF I’M FEELING RIGHT NOW.  I guess this would be called some sort of depression (thus the title of this blog).  So, anytime you want to quit reading, feel free.  Even my best friend, Jess, couldn’t really make this one feel better, I was totally flaky and ridiculous hanging out with her and I created the most ugly black and brown painting while sitting around a house (that she was house-sitting) that was unbelievably inspiring (there was even an old-fashioned type writer, I mean WHAT is not to love there).  That and currently, Chris is explaining to me how hot & bothered I’m going to get while watching his highlights package of his football season, I do love that though, THAT is the opposite of depression, that is pure bliss.

I guess I wasn’t as ready to write about this as I thought.  Sorry for the manic-ness.  It’s my new found personality trait.

I’ll try again in like three days. Bore-bot out.

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December 23, 2010

My 2011 Word (this was going to be about post Australia, but I’m not ready for that yet).

By Cassie

I’m currently watching Salt, where Angelina Jolie (no, she doesn’t play a man stealer, when I will get over this, probably never hah) plays a BADASS, possibly Russian spy.  Not sure quite yet, I won’t spoil it, but it’s damn good so far.  So, just a heads up.

Okay, December 20th, all two.5 days of it.  Presently, (well, one ish days ago on the plane) I was flipping through various languages of Eat Pray Love on my arm rest, movie, volume, and music adjuster.  I was thinking about how my poetry professor, Dorianne Laux, said one of her goals was to get published in one of those airplane seat magazines, on United it’s called Hemisphere.  I hope they publish poetry at some point, I mean unused sudoku was in there for heaven sakes.  And don’t you wonder about that?  How many people have sat in those seats and NOT done those Sudoku’s and then there’s selfish person like me who sits down, sees it’s not done on December 20th and does it…in pen, so no one else can.  Sometimes, when you’re already upset, little things like Sudoku doers of the world can make you feel like a horrible person.

I’ve already seen this movie, not exactly my favorite, but there’s one part where she’s learning Italian words and her tutor friend teaches her the word, “Attraversiamo” which means “let’s cross over.”  I can’t help but think this may have been my word for the last six months, and am literally living it now while crossing over the vast expanse of another world ocean, the Pacific.  In the movie scene, they all choose words for themselves and most people, I know, choose a word for going into the New Year.  My facebook friends have posted countless women’s inspirational websites on the word choosing process.  The last six months, “Let’s cross over” has meant many things to me. Don’t worry, I won’t list them out for you.

While mulling this all over in my head, I read my horoscope in the $8.20 Marie Claire that I bought before leaving Australia, waiting on delay.  And I honestly remember nothing of what it said (But I’m taking a look, hold on)….here’s the quote:

“Courage and power  take deep root in your character.  For every ending, you’ll be rewarded with amazing new beginnings.”

Of course, even though horoscopes probably mean nothing, this is what I needed to read.  After crying through any rare thought of hugging the people in Australia I love at the Sydney airport – I needed to know the beginnings are going to be just as good as the endings. Maybe in the middle of this new-year-old-place will be swell as well.  Although, I admit, as soon as I was in the car after arriving at the Sydney airport in July,  I was sobbing and exclaiming plans to leave “tomorrow, in a week, or by Thanksgiving” it gives no less merit to me not even wanting to leave at all by the end.  (I have homes inside of people, not inside of countries, at least that’s what I’ve learned through this).

That all being said, I think I found out through tears, burns, and bad magazine reading at the airports that my word for 2011 is going to be, dun dun dun duuuunnnn, rewarded.  While sometimes (blame Australia for this) I may seem elated and positive all day, everyday…truth be told I can dwell at the bar with a glass half enpty.  I’m jealous, obsessive, a bit manic (not like medication manic, just soul manic) and sometimes (ah!) I put people down around me to make myself feel better.  But why the hell should I continue any of that in 2011?  I can instead; think positively, search for jobs I want and will be happy at, love people near and far, and for that be rewarded.  And that’s what I want for 2011, a karmic reward for good behavior.  I think, and this is going to sound corny, in order to seek positive rewards in my own life, I will have to reflect positive rewards on others.  I plan to still make my 100 resolution list, coming up in just a second on this blog…, but it’s always helpful to have more words, (as a writer), and more resolutions, goals and lists.  (That would be the obsessive Capricorn in me).

So here goes nothing, quickly after Australia, I need goals, ideas, and things to fall back in love with in Raleigh (the first love I will earn back will be with Mexican food, I’m coming for you Senorita).

100 Resolutions

  1. Travel someplace you’ve never been before (not including PR).
  2. Continue to write snail mail.
  3. Give away clothes/shoes you don’t wear.
  4. Learn to/create a colorful quilt.
  5. Read 60 books (holy shit, writing it made it that much more terrifying).
  6. Cook dinner for my parents a total of ten times.
  7. Get a poem published.
  8. Write a poem on a subject completely foreign to me.
  9. Continue to blog twice a week.
  10. Volunteer with a non-profit.
  11. Do something alone, for yourself, outside of the house once a fortnight.
  12. Use the public library.
  13. Wear all the clothes in my closet.
  14. Take up swimming again (exercise will also cover this one).
  15. Support your friends in any and all creative venues, without taking refuge in jealousy.
  16. Find new ways to do eye make-up (last year I dealt with this hair I have).
  17. Make my bed everyday BEFORE my dad says anything.
  18. Continue to eat more fruits and vegetables.
  19. Write for, just write everyday, and not a journal, creatively.
  20. Go to a SEARCH closing.
  21. Volunteer for something at church.
  22. Drive the speed limit (I’ll never be able to succeed at this one I don’t think).
  23. Call more, text less.
  24. When you read for The Raleigh Review, don’t quit on people for having a typing error (give everyone one free error – wouldn’t want this to happen to you).
  25. Let go.
  26. Get a job you don’t hate.
  27. Create your own book, like sew it together.
  28. Create quilt headbands (you know what you mean).
  29. Repaint the tree on my bed post.
  30. Keep my room organized on a day-to-day basis.
  31. Not be so flaky.
  32. See Allie McCaslin.
  33. Keep my car clean.
  34. Get a short short published.
  35. Read all the poetry of Carolyn Forche.
  36. Read through my Post-ACT library booklist.
  37. Read the rest of the TOMORROW series.
  38. Do something for the environment (plant a tree in the backyard maybe).
  39. Grow my own plant (last year I kept one alive, now I’m going to focus on the whole growing process….I need luck for this, my thumb is the color of killing).
  40. Read the newspaper (aka keep up with current events so I can be well-informed).
  41. Eat a whole Moe’s burrito, or an ENTIRE plate of Mexican in one sitting.
  42. Go to Ashville with Nat and/or have a flaming Amy’s Burrito.
  43. SOMEHOW get to Abby while she’s still in Europe.
  44. Save more money than I spend in 2011.
  45. Create art out of a. recycled goods, b. flea market recycled goods, c. cheap antiques.
  46. Keep an agenda for an entire year.
  47. Floss.
  48. Spend a day in Duke Gardens.
  49. Take a road trip alone.
  50. Drive the Blue Ridge Parkway in the Fall.
  51. Give more than I receive in 2011.
  52. Go to Church at least twice a month.
  53. Learn to eat dinner out/see movies alone.
  54. Wear heels to class.
  55. Eat three solid meals a day, stop grazing.
  56. Fix something around my parents house.
  57. Help my mom out with cleaning house.
  58. Learn to appreciate classical music.
  59. See a play, somewhere.
  60. Don’t wake up past 10 am, daily.
  61. Write three poems in a form I’ve never written.
  62. Visit NCSU professors.
  63. Finish Flannery, by Brad Gooch (only the most attractive author out there).
  64. Stop bribing my nephew into photos with jelly bellies.
  65. Get my nephew to eat cheese, WHO DOESN’T LIKE CHEESE?! Other than lactose intolerant people.
  66. Join a bookclub? This may be pushing my reading life.
  67. Don’t text out of boredom.
  68. Go fishing.
  69. Sell five things on etsy.
  70. Don’t quit on anything, give it at least three tries.
  71. Keep off the six pounds you lost in Australia.
  72. Learn something new everyday.
  73. Wear every pair of earrings I’ve made.
  74. Organize my “stuff” in the garage.
  75. Use power tools to build something.
  76. Keep in contact with faraway friends better.
  77. Answer your phone.
  78. REALLY start collecting elephants from anywhere, and everywhere.
  79. Visit the Schiedler’s.
  80. Find some sort of Chinese food you like (so if ever in China).
  81. Throw a themed party.
  82. Win at trivia (first step, find a place to play trivia).
  83. Visit the scrap exchange in Durham (preferably with Jess).
  84. Create a “rejection letter” frame for all my literary rejections.
  85. Use 200 words I’ve never even heard of in stories and/or poems.
  86. Use a scientific name for a plant, animal and body part in a poem.
  87. Remove clothes from closet that don’t fit.
  88. Finish mom’s AMAZING Australia scrapbook.
  89. Wear a beret (stolen from last year’s list).
  90. Wear a giant bow headband (Lady Gaga style).
  91. Come up with a completely original Halloween costume.
  92. Write over 200 blogs.
  93. Make healthier choices.
  94. Organize my computer files (taken from last year’s list).
  95. Paint a doorknob, and/or other foreign objects.
  96. Get an A in the Wake Tech Poetry class.
  97. Visit that art shed in Greensboro from Poetry 2 years ago.
  98. Learn more French, how to write it.
  99. Be more positive (goes with my word).
  100. Jump at the chance to experience new things, every time.  (1 get out of jail free card for pure laziness).

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December 17, 2010

Quilting is NOT for the quiet, the quite contrary, or the quavery.

By Cassie

We’ll we’ve found another creative gene in the Mannes family tree today.  About five months ago I blogged about my lovely Aunt Nancy and her mural/museum house and now I’m going to tell you about my cousin (but I will forever call her Caunt) Kathy.  I finally got around to meeting her after avoiding and/or being too busy or too away in Canberra to do so.  I say avoiding, because I’m an awkward person.  I tend to not make conversation well with people I just meet, and I don’t like to be put on the spot and I think meeting people you share blood with, for the first time, at twenty-two can be very awkward.  SURPRISE SURPRISE, it wasn’t.  Kathy is very much like her mother, a social butterfly.  I think Chris put it well when he said “she’s really cool for her age without being a want-to-be cool mom.”  He’s so right, she was dancing and tapping her feet, and snapping her fingers to new Jason Mraz music and ended up being “totally cool,” but mostly because she was being totally herself.  I think I need another lesson on portraying, and putting forth my real, and potentially awkward self in front of anyone I meet.  I can’t be bashful or fear that they may not laugh at my jokes, or they may not like my Elaine Bennis-esque dance moves, but they will still like me, because I’m an actual person, and even though I’m awkward, or weird, or a want-to-be-wit-superstar, I’m still, after all of that, myself.  So, lesson learned already in this blog; always be yourself, even when it makes you blush.

We both admitted to feeling very familiar with each other, and she exclaimed that I, once again, everyone in the family agrees, look just like my Aunt Nancy (my daddy’s younger sister).  I don’t mind the comparison, my Aunt Nancy isn’t only gorgeous, but her house is this immaculate mural that she painted.  So, praise on.

My Aunt Kathy is a quilter, which adds another element to the creative in my families long line.  Thus far I’ve found my Aunt Nancy, the painter and interior decorator, my Aunt Kathy, the quilter, my Grandma and Aunt June both sewers and croshay-ers, and then my brother who plays the guitar.  At first, I thought I must be adopted because I might be the only creative person other than my brother in the family (my brother could seriously be a world famous guitarist but he chooses to play local, he’s amazing).

I’ll stop boring you with family history though and get to my day and the past few days.  Today we went to Bondi Beach, the world famous beach where some random woman ran up to Prince Charles and kissed him square on the lips.  It also houses a million little rascal surfer boys who are tanned, and peeling, and not even four-foot tall yet, carrying their long boards and swimming into the ruthless seas.  They’re like vikings, who try to take on waves instead of dragons.  I didn’t go super stalker and take any photos of them, but I watched them for a while and they might pop into a story or two about the beach.  Unfortunately it was a cloudy day so I wasn’t able to take any pictures to make Americans drool over the blueness of the water, but I did take a picture of all the graffiti on the surrounding beach boardwalk.  You can google image for the shiny beach, palm trees, nude women photos.

Here are just a few of my favorites:

I love this one because people have come and written their initials in the hearts, unfortunately I wasn't aware of this before and didn't have my paint brush handy.

Alice the villain. I quite like this look on her.

Everyone knows I love swirly bird pictures. What else is new?

So, more on Bondi Beach because my lovely mother pointed me in the direction of information (I think she secretly believes my blogs may take off and I will actually have a steady writing career, but that is a mother’s way isn’t it)?  Bondi is named after the Aboriginal word “Boondi” which means “breaking over rocks or noise of water breaking over rocks.”  I thought this was pretty spectacular.  If you haven’t already figured out, my children will probably have very strange names because I tend to go after name meanings and not really look at the name, other then the name Octavia, I’m just destined to have that girl-child.  (I think this is in the same vein as my palm reading, tarot believing, horoscope reading activities). I will also have a dog named, Oscar-doodle, at around the time Octavia is born.  I read in a book recently the name of someone with the meaning “fairy-wanderer” and I plan to have that child a few years later. Just a heads up, friends.

And here’s just a quote from wiki because I’m not sure I could say it better:

An ordnance[5] governing the decency of swimming costumes was in force between 1935 and 1961, and resulted in public controversy as the two-piece “bikini” became popular after World War II. Waverley Council‘s beach inspectors, including the legendary Aub Laidlaw, were responsible for enforcing the law and were required to measure the dimensions of swimwear and order offenders against public decency off the beach. The rule became increasingly anachronistic during the 1950s and was replaced in 1961 with one requiring bathers be “clad in a proper and adequate bathing costume”, allowing for more subjective judgement of decency. By the 1980s topless bathing had become common at Bondi Beach, especially at the southern end.[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bondi_Beach,_New_South_Wales

That’s about all I got for ya that I found interesting for Bondi Beach.  It really was kind of a let down, but that might only be because I’m such a Cronulla/South Sydney kind of girl.  I’m not really a city girl at all, or a city beach kind of girl.  I will one day plan to go topless on the beach just to cross that off my bucket list.  I may be seventy-plus when I do this because I’ll be too insecure at any other age, and when can you go wild, if you can’t at seventy-plus?  This might be a before-it-happens warning on where I’ll be at seventy.  How many wrinkles, and how much sagging I can’t really say for sure, but definitely will be topless and wild.  Girls gone Wild that is.

After this lovely little Bondi experience, you can tell I was thrilled, we caught a bus to Circular Quay (pronounced Circular Key) and waited for a bus that never came.  When CK was thoroughly pissed and I progressed to pick my hair out of stress (it’s like when my neighbor, when we were seven, picked all of her eyelashes out as a nervous habit when her mother would go on business trips, except I’m not that manic).  We finally caught the next 506 and made it to Material Obsession, my Caunt Kathy’s quilt shop.  I was, with pride, the first family member that had ever made it to her shop and so I pretty much deserve a trophy.  She did WAY better than that though and started me off with material, thread, a needle, and brief lessons on what I can start with on the plane.  AND a personal signing of her first, out of two – third coming, books.

None of this is the best part.  Not only is she amusing, and so much like my dad’s side of the family in both looks, and mannerisms, but this woman can quilt AND blog.  It’s like my wildest dream. So, in an effort to make you love my family, and just see some damn good quilting, here’s her blog:

http://www.materialobsession.typepad.com/

We decorated her Christmas tree, which I’ll put pictures of below because it’s a REAL, Australian Christmas tree (that is crooked, and somehow reminded me of a woman’s shaved leg.  There’s pieces of the leg where you miss full chunks of hair and you find this out later, maybe sitting in  your desk at school scratching an itch and you realize you missed a place, three days ago when you shaved – usually behind the knee).  It had places of heavy bush, and places of patch.  Still my first real tree, that smelled most excellent, so I have no bad news bears about that.

We talked about my family which explained SO much.  My daddy never talks about his father (even though from what I understand they’re a bit similar).  I’ll talk to him about this later, since now I need all the information, but I learned some … things about my basically imaginary grandfather.  I always liked to think my Grandma Dolly was a woman of the future, but it seems she didn’t drive, or have money that my grandfather didn’t give her, so that definitely frustrated the inner feminist inside me.  I think my favorite thing that Kathy told me was that the women on my side of the family have psyhic and/or ghost encounters.  If you’ve known me a while, you KNOW I think I see ghosts.  She told me this story about my Aunt Maureen (who from what I know is a real piece of work and NOW after this I know why).  She was in love with this guy (John maybe, or that might have been my Aunt Nancy’s love who my Caunt was secretly in love with at fifteen.  He had flowing gold locks, in the sixties, so you can see why.  Que Dazed and Confused).  and he died in a car accident unexpectedly, Kathy said she’s never seen someone so broken.  But anyway, Maureen was recounting a story about him to Kathy and Connie in Kathy’s room, with tears in her eyes and all of a sudden when she said his name, the lights in the room blinked on and off three times.  He … was an electrician.  I’m telling you, I knew there was a reason for why, until I was sixteen, I slept completely under all my covers, head and all.  My family sees ghosts.  I knew it.  It gets better though, AND the story deepens.  Not really, just a funny add-in.

A few months ago my nephew went through this period where he would sweat really intensely in his crib and hide under the covers, like a little ball of heat and not take his naps when I’d put him down and my mother also.  And if you went to check on him, he’d tell you there was a ghost hanging on his fan.  Obviously, being an adult everyone was like, oh he just heard about ghosts because it’s Halloween time and they’re in the stories (my nephew isn’t related to my dad so his ghost encounters are from the other, also crazy side, my mother’s).  However, I told my mom that I thought he really was seeing a ghost and that society educates these beliefs out of us at a young age and that’s why adults who no longer believe, no longer see.  I might also, still secretly believe in fairies and in Santa Clause.  Not the Easter Bunny or Tooth Fairy though, I’m not that insane….just a little off my rocker.  And so I think my nephew really saw ghosts.  This is why Ghost Adventures, one of my favorite shows is still on television after five seasons, I’m not the only one as the good ol’ John Lennon would say.

My Caunt (cousin-aunt) Kathy also is a stellar quilt maker, I think I mentioned this once or twice and she owns a shop called “Material Obsession.”  She has an amazing use and talent to work with colors, obviously to sew, and does more contemporary quilt styles.  She also has published two books and is on her third right now.  She also, ALSO, married an Australian and moved to Australia to make her life.

To hear her talk about what quilting does for women, you’d swear I was talking.  I think it’s an understatement to say I’m big into women’s and gender studies, and women’s lives and work and education and equality.  I think it’s a healthy obsession to have.  And not only does quilting have a long standing tradition, but it’s long standing historically.  Women have been coming together to work in quilting circles for ages, I actually don’t know exactly how long, but I know it’s been a while. And as she spoke about it being a creative outlet, and a way for women to express their creativity and most importantly this, “women have been taking care of others for their entire lives and quilting gives them something for themselves.”  I think that, during this talk, not only did the spark of family and familiarity really ignite in me, but she also ignited a spark in me to try and quilt.  My grandmother on my mother’s side (the only grandparent I’ve ever met) quilted and sewed and so I know it now runs in both sides of my families and I’m really into meticulous activities (like jewelry making) and so my Caunt Kathy cut me some fabric, gave me a spool of thread and a needle, and gave me a very quick basic lesson hoping she was creating a future quilter.  And you know what, I don’t want  to let her down.  I want to be part of this long standing quilting group of strong, creative women.  I want to be in the circle.  I feel like I’m saying “Pick me!” on a little league team, but I think this is something I can really put my mind too and start doing.  I urge people to do the same with whatever makes them happy and continues to give them growth.  Here are a few inspiring pictures of both my Caunt, and her store (her “Material Obsession”).

Flowery, colorfully quilt in my Caunt's shop.

Just one room of colorful fabrics, there was about three. I love it.

Another gorgeous little quilt, well the corner of it.

Focusing intently on learning from the master

The one she's working on in her AMAZING newly redone house. Do you see the trees and birds, seriously this woman and I...family, family, FAMILY.

Us on, well basically my dream porch, her actual - newly done porch

My lesson from this blog (other than being yourself in any situation, which I still need to listen to my own advice, damn..isn’t that always the way)?  But maybe not more importantly, but just as important, VISIT YOUR FAMILY. Meet your family if you haven’t, go and visit, seek them out.  You may learn new things about yourself in the process.   You’ll see things in the blood that you never knew were something that you got from a historical gene line.  It’s more important than you think, don’t even avoid the old people in your family.  Go to that old folks home where in girl scouts you used to sing Christmas carols.  Go to that residential, gated community in the middle of Old bastards, Florida.  Road trip to meet your third cousin in the middle of Wyoming.  MEET YOUR FAMILY.  There’s a reason they say blood is thicker than water.  You’ll need them, and they’ll be there.  We’ll we can only hope on that part, but … seriously.  Listen to me for once, even though I’m obviously a crazy person.

I have to add this in, even though I feel like a school girl, but her friend was in town, Bill and he just happened to be Jason Mraz’ manager.  Yep, met Jason’s manager, found out Jason was camping this week on the beach.  Found out some more news I can’t really say, but while I decorated the tree I listened to this man name drop and name all the places he’s been traveling to in the last year. Needless to say I was fascinated, and ready to draw hearts around the Jason Mraz picture in my locker. Bah, I’m a giant dork.  But not only that, he told us this video that he wanted my Caunt to watch that apparently made Jason Mraz call him sobbing.

So, obviously, I googled and wanted to share it with you all.  It’s the author of Eat Pray Love (the only time I felt something during Julia Roberts’ depiction of Gilbert was when James Franco was reciting his poetry and then about four scenes later when she crawled into bed to have sex and he says, “Don’t you want to give me something to miss?” Just recently she wrote, Commited. She gives a speech on nurturing artistic genius.

Then, lastly, I think you all should get to see the glorious end to my day which consisted of a beautiful sunset, and some Australian Christmas lights.  Tis the season, right mate?

Train station sunset, the pluses of public transportation.

I think this was my favorite house, because they lit the grass, but I really can't decide. Check facebook tomorrow (Australian time) for more!

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December 12, 2010

‘Tis the season for Cows & a caravan trip to Kiama

By Cassie

It’s starting to get REALLY weird that it’s UNHOLY hot in Australia right now.  We just put up the plastic Christmas tree and I’m in short shorts and a tank top.  My hair is up because I hate when the back of your neck gets sweaty and then those small, wispy hairs at the back stick.  And I haven’t showered since yesterday because who showers everyday in the summer unless you’ve been in the chlorine water.  That’s what oceans are for, and Australia has plenty of them.    I have sunglasses next to this computer and flip-flops (thongs) at my feet.  It’s pure summer goodness in Australia right now while it’s normally wintry and Christmas music-ee in North Carolina.

I just got back from my very first caravan vacation and other than the tremendous amount of work taking the caravan from huge robot transformer, to small, carted metal box at 8 am, I’d say it was a success.  I don’t think caravan holiday’s ever caught on in the US, trailers are kind of looked at as a white trash thing.  I’m not saying that is my personal opinion because my grandma lived in a trailer for majority of her life after my grandfather died and she was quite happy and kept two dogs, and all the major things.  I guess this wasn’t really a trailer, but people did have trailers around the park.  It was a caravan.  That means it was hoisted up into the air, beds were pulled out on slabs and you were (well almost) floating in the air while you slept.  It’s also a whole kitchen and dining area that shrinks into a box and fits in the backyard.

This wasn’t a family vacation for the weak.  We hiked through Kiama to get to town to post Christmas letters and take a look at the big blow hole, Kiama’s main attraction (a let down, waves weren’t big enough for it to actually blow that day).  Unfortunately I had my “THERE SHE BLOWS” voice and accent ready for action and had to pout like a child for a few hours afterwards.  So instead I climbed the rocks and gave a thumbs-up to the “danger: rocks my cause serious injury or death sign” and had a good ol’ time with that.  We also hiked along the coast cliffs to see the little blow hole, which wasn’t a let down at all and we almost succeeded in taking a picture of it blowing right out of CK’s head, but he was a few inches off (definitely not my fault, I was just holding the camera, he would beg to differ I’m sure).  Unfortunately number two, I forgot all about “there she blows” and just stood there staring at this mass of water shoot out of this tiny mouth hole in the rocks.  We definitely don’t have blow holes in North Carolina (I say that in my best small town, country accent).

My just missed shot of the blow hole, blowing out of CK's head.

THERE SHE BLOWS (got to use it now).

Those noodle arms in the background are mine. YES!

I’m feeling a little bit light headed, literally, from all this heat so from here on out if this blog makes absolutely no sense it’s because there’s no tang available to replenish my thirst and I was forced to drink orange juice instead.

I hate to say this, because it’s odd coming from me.  But, my favorite part of this vacation, wasn’t the beach or the caravan park pool which had its own waterfall (like we were living in the Hugh Hefner mansion), but the favorite was probably the family/cow pasture hikes.  (I’m sorry this blog went to favorites, but this is the question my parents ask me every time I get back from somewhere, most likely in the car, almost as soon as I step in.  Which will probably happen after I get off the plane from Australia, but I won’t remember that my mom is most likely going to be joking about this very blog, because I will be strung out on plane air and my brain will be mush from trying to decide whether I’m freezing, or on fire on each plane ride and through each airport).  Long parenthesis end.

My parents love to explore a city, don’t get me wrong, but my dad’s not really an up-and-moving type of guy.  He likes to be planted in his beach chair, reading a good Grisham while my mother applies sunscreen to his nose ever so often.  My mom does love to go on Nature Hikes and hikes of that sort (she’s a walker), but I don’t think we’d ever just walk into town to post letters and buy milk.  That’s more of a-driving thing.  But, needless to say we walked into town on this vacation.  It was hot, CK was making sure I was lathered in sunscreen every five minutes (literally on the beach, we would put sunscreen on like every fifteen AND I still got a really awkward forehead burn.  I’ll post a photo to make everyone happy (see I definitely pick on myself on this blog).

Awkward sunburn

And THAT is why, kids (especially in Australia) you don’t just take your three fingers and rub them in one stripe across your forehead with sunscreen.  You actually have to take the time to lather your entire forehead, even near the hairy scalp so you don’t have an awkward sunburn, or a sunburn really at all.  This is also proof of the benefit of sunscreen.  Where I put it – pale.  Where I didn’t – burnt.  I’d like to take this moment to thank my Irish heritage and all the clovers in the hills of Ireland.  Where was my magic leprechaun when I needed him (in case you didn’t know, us Irish have magic leprechaun’s instead of fairy godmother’s, because we don’t need glass shoes, we need freakin’ pots of gold).   (See: http://www.dickipedia.org/dick.php?title=Leprechauns).

I think the hike was interesting because it actually reminded me of North Carolina beach towns.  Beaches in Australia are way more attractive than beaches in North Carolina.  Where we have flat, small-wave coastline…Australia usually has massive waves, with beautiful inlet cliffs and country pastures on the sides or a city of beach condo’s on the side.  I mean it’s something everyone should definitely see before they croak and/or get too obnoxiously senile to take that long of a flight.  But beach towns are almost always the same.  We had fish&chips at a small shop next door where kids who had to be no older than seventeen (I call them kids like I’m a grandma, teenagers I mean) were barefooted, without shirts eating fries and holding hands.  Girls in school uniforms walked past (normally Australian girls where long, knee length skirts to school) but these girls would have super rolled up school skirts and a lot of eye liner, talking to boys with excessive tans and blonde (not even dyed) highlights.  Does anyone ever leave beach towns?  I mean, Does anyone ever get out?  Or are beach kids destined to forever ride the waves of life and be too easy-going to not care much else about anything, but the surf.  Beach towns in North Carolina with their small shacks of food by locals and their small town post offices and massage places (I am not speaking of Wilmington here, but other places) are just like beach towns in Australia and you know I’m always trying to find comparisons between the two.  (Side note:  I think my fish and chips, were shark and chips.  Ck’s mom pointed out that most fish in these local places were shark.  So, here’s to going in there not really eating fish, and coming out eating shark – HERE HERE)! Unfortunately I have no photos of this experience and therefore have short changed you with this blog.

But, “when the goin’ gets tough, the tough get goin” (Sars dad amongst other people)….so, We took other gorgeous nature hikes along the cliffs edges, we didn’t just walk through the streets of towns, holding hands and pointing out the plethora (YES) of Australian foliage (DOUBLE YES).  My word choices, gosh, I’m a word art-eest right now.  On the side of East’s beach in Kiama, there’s not any hotels lining the beaches and taking up industrial space above sand, but there’s pastures and farm houses and caravans and COWS and when there’s cows, there are cow patties.  CK and I had the audacity to (after taking a million photo shoots of the two of us with self-timer because we’re THOSE people and why else would I buy this ridiculously huge camera, that IS the elephant in the room…club, or car) walk around in flip flops through these fields of bees, and angry Australian flies, and wild flowers, and cow patties and mush from the rain before, oh, and cows.  Being a Carolina girl (and dating my fair share of rednecks before I went to college and realized this wasn’t the way to eternal salvation) I know that you shouldn’t really get near a bull.  I think people far beyond the areas of North Carolina probably know this, but maybe not and so I avoided getting to close to the cows and just took photos from a few feet away.  I’m a dare devil, but I don’t want to die.  CK really wanted to walk up and smack one on the ass, but cows kick for one, and he said “I’ll smack from the side” which I’m not sure was a genius comment or just a stupid one.  Either way, the French people that followed us up the lizard-covered stairs and through the barb-wire gates that most likely meant “KEEP OUT” didn’t really heed to those rules and went closer.  Aw, French people, if I had been to France before I would be able to say something witty about French stupidity, but not knowing myself, I guess I’ll have to keep those views to myself for the time being.  (These views come from endless French language classes in both high school and college where I avoided the language at all costs and scraped by with average grades in order to cover the credit.  When I say endless French classes, I mean they would NEVER END.  I did get one amazing professor out of it, who actually was completely against shaving any part of her body or wearing a bra.  A Saint with a naked, hair-monger habit.  Gotta love that).

Kiama, back to Kiama.

Cows:

Bessie, she starred. At least she didn't run at us with rage in her eyes, like what's his face. BULL.

Cows, Cows, Cows. Milk, Milk, Milk. Meat, Meat, Meat.

CK has a thing against my parenthesis so when I just asked him if he wanted to add something to my blog or had any ideas for what to write about, he said “something about you” and I said “lots of parenthesis.”  I think that pretty much sums it up, but alas for you reading this, there’s still more about my vacation.

Birds.  I know I talk about this in every blog, but seriously Australia has the most ridiculous bird species (CK’s dad had a book about the birds and so I went through and read the names of all the ones I’d already discussed in blogs and I think I’m just becoming a regular bird watcher now).  The bird I want to find the sound for is this, shot-gun, whoop, ending call bird that we couldn’t ever see because he hid in the trees.  Sounds like a lazor (does anyone know if this word is spelled with a o, e or a, spell check disagrees with them all.  My resident star wars expert/best friend Sars will probably know when she reads this).  A Space gun according to CK, that “zaps people and shrinks them.”  I WILL find this sound, it is my main goal for the day (this is a normal goal for me in Australia as I really have no goals at all and am simply floating through my days like a little starfish.  (weird).

I literally just googled for about twenty minutes and listened to over 40 bird noises (it’s my after dinner sit time so I’m allowed to do this) and I just can’t find one that matches that bird.  CK and his dad can do the noise pretty well so maybe I’ll record them doing it and put it up here to give you a little taste.  Otherwise, I’m fresh out of luck in the bird department today.  And every other time I’ve come up with something to share with you guys.  Other birds that wake you up at 6 am because you’re camping and they’re awake so everyone else should be; lapwings.  The lapwing I love in Canberra must be mute or something because he was never as annoying as this bird.  There were also numerous amounts of ducks, that were quite friendly with the park.  One of them came up and ate right from our hands and watched CK’s dad take apart a faucet for a while.  I have some photo’s of him too, maybe too many photo’s of him.  CK was like this is just a duck, and I was like IT’S MORE THAN A DUCK. (And then I found twenty dollars)! So, here they are: Fred.

Fred and Faj K.

Freddie McFrederson and his adorable duck feet.

PS. I hate when “P.S. I love you” is on television and then I get sucked in to his dreamy Irish accent and their stupid fighting, and his mad guitar/singing skills (and thinking about all the women who have ever been on millionaire matchmaker and say Gerard Butler is their type) and then he dies.  Then I become sad and angry while reflecting on what would happen,  if this happened in my own life and nothing good comes from it.  I am letting you know this is happening as a warning to any angry comments that may be coming from me.

I guess there’s not really much else to tell you.  We mostly just slept in the caravan and ate heat up dinners and watched movies I had never heard of (aka “Love’s Brothers that has an-incredibly awkward when you think about the progression of the movie-happy Ending).  We walked along the cliffs and the beaches, we approached cows and moo’d at them.  We rode in a car full of everything we own in Australia and tugging a caravan.  I slept most of the way.  It rained the first day.  There was a family next to us with a daughter that will one day be a world famous model and I’ll be able to say, I knew her during her caravaning family days.

I suppose I should give you cliff views and world views of our stay so if you’re ever vacationing in Australia and you want to literally have your own beach that’s against cliffs and there are no sharks and you’re wearing sunscreen.  (I’ve become like a super hero for sunscreen.  That would make a cool commercial, maybe..probably not on further thought).  Easts beach, in Kiama.  Google map it.  Here’s what you’re getting.

My favorite view, just off the river.

Holiday Caravan's on the mountain top

And little old me, still holding on to my love for the WWJD bracelet of the 90s (my rainbow, Gay pride WWJD broke so now I'm stuck with plain black). I don't know why I'm telling you this...probably to prove I'm not a fundamentalist, extremist or fascist. I believe in COEXISTing

That was probably the longest caption I’ve ever put on a picture in this blog, ever.  And I have over 50 posts from my Australian journey.  I have a few more up my sleeve (yea, I kind of plan these, because I’m a giant goober and I love listening to my fingers type).  Tonight, I’m going to sit down and finish PS. i love you because it’s one of those movies you have to watch the entire thing just to feel better about it.  I plan to try and convince CK away from dickepedia.org.  And maybe open my suitcase and see what goodies I can find.  There’s no way I’m going to fit everything people, but I will shove and push and maybe let go of a few favorite sweatshirts.  Until my next update about Sydney and other silly things I’m sure.  Stay tuned.

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December 2, 2010

Normal Blog…no heated debates here. PACKING.

By Cassie

So, last week I opened my big mouth and blogged about something that I probably shouldn’t have.  Pretty sure it’s the first time (on my blog) that I’ve picked on (even though I really didn’t and talked about her many wonderful qualities as well) someone I know, other than myself.  I often criticize my own ridiculous, and crazy actions on this blog because that’s who I am.  I’m genuinely genuine (Honestly Honest, Trustworthy Truthful…etc etc).  I think it’s safe to say I should not have found pictures of someones tattoo and projected it for the world of my friends to see, but you can’t take things like that back now can ya?  My mom always said NEVER EVER EVER write something down that you don’t want the world to know about (she’s a pretty smart cookie) and I definitely wrote about something (that I didn’t believe anyone was ashamed of by their flaunting it on their public website) but that possibly brought shame or humiliation to people close to them.  I guess if my cousin got a tattoo like that and then someone posted a poll questioning whether they were a slut, or a person that shouldn’t be judged based solely on a tattoo, I’d be pissed to (probably not ashamed, because hey, that isn’t my body, but pissed none-the-less).  It obviously isn’t my intention to anger people on this blog, but it is my intention to show my friends how Aussie life is and to show them what a wonderful time I’ve been having and what a wonderful place Australia is.  I like to think I’ve been successfully documenting these experiences for people around the world, but maybe posting someone else’s body for the effect of a poll wasn’t my best idea.  I apologize.  And I have learned a valuable lesson.

Now, I plan on successfully moving on (entirely) from this matter and blogging about something I’m not particularly enjoying right now: packing.  I’m leaving Canberra in exactly a week (onto Kiama and Sydney next) and so I’ve been packing my humble little room up.  I never knew one person could own so many pens – but it seems I am a regular pen collector, possibly even an officienato (I spent about ten minutes trying to find that word in spell check and now I have given up, it sounds like o-fish-ee-an-ah-do…therefore it should also be spelled this way, but this is a timeless argument so why even get myself started).

I have so many books as well, that I’m actually giving all to the ACT Library.  I’ve been checking out four books about every two weeks from the public library since September.  So, in an effort to give back for all the free reading they’ve let me do and free quote-stealing, free story ideas, free time spent smelling books, free magazine reading, free non-fiction section study group coughing – I’m giving back.  Now, this is a huge step for me because I really REALLY hate parting with books.  My mom and dad thought long and hard before purchasing me an e-reader because I’m the girl that’s constantly saying “I like to hold the book, feel its back and cover, smell it” (it really sounds like I’m the perverted book reader here) but I just really enjoy having a good page to turn, that may or may not have stains from previous readers in it (yea, I like those stains…and the margin notes…etc).  So, for me to take majority of the books I’ve bought here and donate them – it’s huge for me and also a blessing because there is absolutely no room on my bookshelf for anymore books…or anything.  (I collect elephants – mostly from my father and so most of those are stored in and around my bookshelf).  I didn’t give up the Holly Goddard-Jones book “Girl Trouble” because she teaches at Greensboro and I’m applying there so I need more time to dissect her.  Nor did I give up Dorianne Laux’ book “Facts About the Moon” because it’s one of my favorites.  But, pretty much everything else, even books straight out of Raleigh’s used bookstores are now going to be available to readers in Canberra, Australia.  Books Across the Globe – Horray! That should seriously be the name of a non-profit company (like Toms, buy a book, give a book type thing.  Just think about it).

Then, there’s letters.  I’ve gotten more letters in Australia then I can count (seriously, I have the most amazing, old-fashioned friends) and so I’ve packaged those in these heavy-duty HUGE ziplock bags I found, quite handy.  One of these blogs I’ll quote random sentences throughout the letters I’ve received (graduated college and still can’t get the i before e rule) just to show you how hilarious my mother can be mostly.  I’ll also take pictures so you all can see the creative card section of my luggage (hah). I should probably highlight this paragraph to remind myself to do this.

I have a hat fascinator from horse racing that I have no clue how to pack.  It might not even get packed, it might have been a one-time thing that may have to go.  You just can’t bring giant, fashionable hats the size of your head across the world.

I have a huge bag of Christmas presents (mostly for my silly nephew who I can’t seem to stop buying things for, guess that means I love the little monster).  And a few odds and ends for the rest of my family, I tried to buy small, but then I bought my nephew a Roary the Racing Car and everything went down hill from there.  I also ate the gourmet chocolate I bought my cousin and his girlfriend, so I’m going to need to get something else for them.  Christmas shopping is so exhausting, good lord.

While I was packing (it’s been raining the last four days so there’s not much else to do but pack) well..I guess I took a break and went grocery shopping.  And I actually saw two roo’s boxing, which I hadn’t yet seen in Australia and was really excited because I feel like I’ve seen it all now.  They were really going at it, and making these guttural noises, pushing their heads back (they have very short necks) and sticking their miniature arms out to bop one another.  Finally, the biggest mom broke them up by pulling one off the other.  I think the coolest part though was that they stood on their tails to try and kick one another with their feet.  I have to admit, (sorry PETA) that I wanted to see one go flying across the grass hill, but unfortunately didn’t get that chance.  I did see the cutest, smallest, miniature bunny though and a possum followed me home the other night, oh and all of a sudden since it’s summer there’s like 2083742834 species of birds in Australia so it’s pretty much the animal kingdom over here and I’m waiting patiently to have a snake encounter…terrifying.  We literally got e-mails that now that it’s summer not to walk through the grasses, AND if you see snakes on the highway to slow down so that you kill them completely and they don’t get stuck in your tire rotation and bite you when you get out of the car.  I mean could anything be more terrifying than that?  Good thing I don’t have a car in Australia.  And good thing I brought my tough and rough cowboy boots.  And good thing I always avoid tall grasses because it always makes you itch and the only thing their good for are shooting rockets.

I’ve packed away MOST of my winter clothes too (as I say this I’m typing in a sweat shirt, with a fur hood and some VS sweatpants…so I guess I can’t say all of my winter stuff) but most of my winter stuff is packed away because it’s summertime and it’s hot.  Except when it rains for days on end (like now and supposedly for the next three days.  It saddens me because all of the lily pads in the lakes have been covered up and I really wanted to take a photo of them all before I left.  Also there’s the cutest baby duck family at the lake, 11 babies and I just hope they’re surviving the weather because I want to see their little teenage selves in a week.  Yes, in Australia I have taken to watching the life cycles of animals, since they barely have a spring and I was here for the week that it all happened).

I have successfully thrown out a pair of shoes.  Treated myself to not one, but two romantic comedies after my efforts.  Am halfway through Larry Levis, “The Selected Levis” and still only in the first part of “Flannery, The Life and Times of Flannery O’Connor” by probably the SEXIEST male author I’ve ever seen on a book flap.  I mean seriously, check him out next time you’re in B&N.  I guess that’s it on the packing front.  I’m NO BUENO at taking out the trash I’ve figured out this week, I’m actually quite … well I just don’t do it, there’s no smart way to say that.

Now I plan to break out my pen collection and continue to chisel away at a short story I’ve been working on for graduate school.  Here’s to hoping people!

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November 21, 2010

“I’ll just put on my Southern Accent and say ‘ya’ll’ a lot”

By Cassie

This week in my Australian life was actually really American.  (Strange how it happens that way.  You can take the girl out of America, but you can’t take the twang out of the girl).  I’ve been a bit odd all week because Thanksgiving’s coming up and I’m not sure how I feel about my first Thanksgiving away from home (maybe the Embassy I stalked today will let me come feed off of them…I’ll just have to get passed all of the guarded police cars).  My friend Christina has commenced in cheering me up for the Thanksgiving holiday by taking me to the bus depot markets and buying Bagels, Baklava and miniature cupcakes with dresses atop them for our Thanksgiving dinner this evening.   I mean we all know everyone eats the most random food on Thanksgiving anyway (canned cranberry sauce, come on….seriously?  Who eats that on a regular basis?…yea, thought so).

So, anyway, earlier this week we all went to the very first Canberra Cavaliers home game, decked out with short shorts, (I wish I could say foam fingers), a feel-himself-up mascot named Serge and “Dug Out Dogs.”  It’s the Australian version of major league baseball, ya know minus the ridiculous amounts of money, a team that almost always wins (Yankees) and as I’ve said already, HUGE lacking in foam finger supplies, HUGE.  I’m the queen of the foam finger, not so sure what that says about me, but I like that sponge on my hand throughout the whole game.  I like to block people’s views behind me and point to people without thinking while whomever I’m with swats my hand down so the point-victims can’t see.  There WERE pluses, don’t get me wrong.  For instance, you could bring your own case into the stadium, rather than paying 4$ a beer.  (Mother, beer is an integral part of a baseball game and I didn’t over do it and fall down the bleachers, don’t worry. I was wearing VERY short shorts so it would have been ugly if I at-all face planted during this experience).   A bunch of us actually went to the game (got to meet Jono’s missus which was an honor since he sort of hides her around…or maybe he’s just hid her from us).  She touched him a lot (yea, it’s my blog I say what I want and I’m almost sure he reads it….so, I’VE NEVER SEEN A GIRL TOUCH YOU THAT MUCH … EVER).  Anyway, she was cute, they were cute…even though he looks like Yo Seminity Sam with his Movember Mo.

Wow, anyway, I digress.  The soundtrack to the baseball game was almost better than the baseball game and because of the large crowd I was able to yell the words to every song.  All the players would hit the ball (finally) and it would either be a foul ball (where usually in America they would yell foul ball, which I did, they didn’t here so I would be the only one yelling.  I got the stink eye from a seven year old who looked like an Albino Aiden from John & Kate Plus Eight) or, the outfielders would ALWAYS catch the high balls.  It got to where I was rooting for both teams, just to get some action.  Maybe this is why I don’t really like baseball at home, I’m more a full contact sport kinda girl.  I also quite liked the singing, did I say that already?  I mean they literally played old school Britney, then “I want it that way” BSB, and THEN, Justin Bieber.  Throw a little Chumbawumba in there and you know why I was very excited.  At one point, someone put a hand over my mouth.  It didn’t stop me from singing “Take me out to the ball game” at an octave higher than glass breaking (because the kids they chose to have on the field sing it didn’t even know the words.  At this moment my fairy Godmother should have turned me seven again like she turned Alice small and large by eating bread and drinking … drink…and yet she lets me yell out at twenty-two every word to “Take me out to the ball game” even though no other adults felt like participating).  I also chicken danced, because they played the song.  No one in the stadium stood except for me, but no one in Australia knows me anyway so WHO CARES.  People need to live more freely, what’s wrong with flapping your arms and swaying your butt in the wind, NOTHING.  Sway away!

I had fun.  That’s it.  I even got an honest compliment that I would be the person they laugh at during American Idol, but hey, at least my dream of being on reality television has finally come true.  Now onto The Real World.

It took us forever to get to the baseball stadium because it’s hidden so I needed to blow off some steam by the time we were there anyway.  SING LOUDLY FOLKS, THAT’S THE POINT OF THIS BLOG.

 

Jono's Mo, Beer and Dug Out Dog, happy camper!

 

 

Clearly ecstatic with my dug out dog. Bacon, cheese, onions, dog.

 

 

Baseball in Australia, Take me out!

 

So then, everyone knows I’m pretty obsessed with two parts of Australia: Kangaroos (aka large squirrels) and Clouds/Skyline (aka sunset capital of the world).  The other night I got a bit of both and just wanted to share them before I go into my stalking the Embassy’s episode.

 

flat & sunset, gorgeous.

 

 

Avatar tree and sunset on my walk to the public library

 

 

Avatar tree where all the interesting birdies live

 

 

my favorite roo picture ever I think. Baby Joe and momma. I got way closer then I should have & then I ever have.

 

Today, I went to the Bus Depot Markets with Chris Loeuve and we just marketed (yes!).  They were kind of like Raleigh flea markets, but indoors and a bit more …high class.  That isn’t rude to say because everyone knows that I want a puppy just to be able to walk him around the flea market.  I just took photos of the most …. interesting things I found.  Flavored Olives, etc.  I had olives soaked in garlic sauce, which was delicious and then I had one soaked in something else which was the most taste I’ve ever had in my mouth (Not what she said, Michael Scott).   We literally just walked around trying stuff and then walking away.  I believe we had, two olives each, chocolate covered cherries, nougat, four oven roasted peanuts, three fruit snacks,  some creamed honey (obsessed) and …. heard an old man talk about these immaculate ginger bread houses he’s been building for over fifty years and selling.  This dude should really have his own blog because he had so much explanation to keep us standing there it was unreal.  For instance, each house had a gummy man guarding the door, not a bear, but a man.  Each house has the chimney on the left because he’s left handed.  Each house had five m&m steps going to the door.  They were edible until April too, but I can’t afford a sixty dollar gingerbread house even if it would be amazing to do a demolition with Jack for it.  Pretty much everyone was on their best salesman game.  It took all that I had to put down a princess head band that I thought would make me look like a fairy and Chris thought I’d look like a nut.  I just liked all the color in there and all the button tables.  Women were making all sorts of things out of buttons, inspired me to go button collecting…maybe I’m torn between growing younger and growing ancient with this blog.  So, here are some photos.

 

Olive collection, perfect for a short story on Australia

 

 

Button men and women, I mean why not. Like Barbies, they don't have the proper parts.

 

 

I wish this said "headache" so I could say, I believe this is the story of my life...in a comic book print.

 

 

My favorite recycled material/environmentally friendly bags. I'll make one when I get home.

 

and then we were driving passed the croquet range (cracks me up, I literally live in Wonderland) and we past by a few high commissions: Britain, Canada and New Zealand.  And I’m like, “I want to see the US Embassy,” and if you knew my friend Chris, you knew she’d just whip that car around and whip out her street directory because she’s handy like that and drive around the city until we found all the Embassy’s, especially the US one.  At first, when we got there, we were freaking out about getting out of the car because there were camera’s everywhere and I wanted a photo with the sign, because I’m a freak and because I wanted to be arrested/invited in for a giant American extravaganza.  Neither of these happened, the federal agent did just jump out of his car and walk around us while I made Chris take my photo with the sign like four hundred times and then this other random guy who was a total tourist (not just a creeper like us) and I’m talkin’ Hawaiian shirt, giant camera around his neck, safari hat and mirror sunglasses.  But we drove around taking pictures of all the signage and picking which Embassy’s we loved the most.  I actually was quite obsessed with Papua New Guinea because it was the one with the most decorations out front.  Papua New Guinea is the neighbor with a highly intelligent gnome garden in their yard and may also happen to have flamingos, a waving flag for the team they support that week, a country flag on a high pole, blue glass balls, (like at the fortune tellers but on a sculpture base) and other assorted yardigans.  Thus, why they are my favorite.   Egypt had a really rad sun dial, it was burnt orange and had their crest on it.  Finland was like half a skyscraper just ripped off the top and placed onto Australia soil.  America was white picket fence with a million bricks, duh.  Welcome back to NCSU, you’ve reached your holiday destination.  Japan I thought was going to come out of their house and hunt us down.  China had the shiniest roof I’ve ever seen and South Africa had the gardens complete with angel and God sculptures throughout.  Woof, I feel like I just said an essay in very few sentences.  Photo time (obviously):

 

South African Secret Gardens

 

 

Me with the USA sign, complete with federal patrol car in the back

 

 

Papua New Guinea painted side house

 

 

China's shiny roof.

 

 

German Embassy, encase my brother reads this

 

And that’s all folks.

Oh wait, I read the Sunday Newspaper this morning (The Sunday Telegraph) and I had a few favorite article titles to share with all my lovely American friends.

  • “Just like old times, Christmas beer strike”  It seems my favorite beer will be on strike until money issues are resolved this Christmas season.  Goodbye Toohey’s Extra Dry, our relationships been fun, but I’m sticking to apple juice from now on anyway.
  • “Thorpey’s bid sunk”  You know, because he’s a swimmer, and he didn’t get his house renovations accepted by the historical council…..oh what millions do to famous Olympians.
  • “Email Romeo stays Offline” It seems a government worker sent an e-mail to his entire agency of 700 to find out who a girl was at a work party.  Once he found her, she proved to be …just not as into him as he was into her.  Looks like this Juliet has plans other than death (just a point here really quickly….why did Juliet have to die so much more painfully than Romeo.  I mean the chick stabbed herself and all he had to do was drink some poison.  Seriously…unfair).
  • “Premier Party Pooper”  It seems the head of the country wants her staff to keep their clothes on and keep their drinks to a minimum.  Too bad, I was really looking forward to running around the government office naked and double fisting drinks when I became American Ambassador.
  • “Green Light for Brothel”  Sydney allows Brothels.  Sydney also allows brothels within five mile radius’ of elementary schools. AND WHO SAYS AMSTERDAM IS THE BADDEST CITY?
  • “Flush with great ideas”  Sydney may be counting the amount of times a toilet is flushed in a hotel to figure out how regularly they have tourists and visitors in town.  Really, no need to comment.

And now, that’s all folks.

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