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January 28, 2002
Late January, 2002.
Well, we’re off to the beach this coming Saturday and I simply CANNOT WAIT! I am frothing at the mouth from anticipation and am heartily sick of hanging around the house passing the time. My every thought and motivation is focussed on this holiday…it has been so long in the longing. We booked last March, and I swear, the passing of every month since then I’ve been counting it down. I have postcards of the beach we’re going to pinned on my toilet wall, directly at eye level, and I’ve been drooling and dribbling over it for 10 long months. This holiday is so badly needed, so deeply anticipated, so desperately longed for, that I’m almost going stir crazy sitting out this last week. The thought of plodding through four more working days is almost too much to bare!
Listen to me complaining…I’m sure you’re all rolling your eyes to the rooftops as you read. Especially those of you freezing your booties off in a northern winter. You’d probably pluck out your pubic hairs one by one in exchange for two weeks on a hot beach about now…nothing to do but swim, and sunbath, watch your naked-bottomed toddler romping in the waves, eating on the balcony overlooking the pool, tropical fruits for breakfast and chicken salads for lunch, licking big dribbling icecreams as you stroll along the lake waters at sunset, slowly getting drunk on a bottle of wine after dinner on the balcony, maybe even going for a drunken midnight dip in the pool! Oh boy, I’m glad you and I are not sitting across a café table from each other about now, you’d probably lean across and jab me in the eyes with two splayed fingers. Ha! Sorry for slavering over your computer screen like this, but there’s a permanent line of drool running down my chin these days. I might take to wearing one of Pixie’s old bibs if this waiting goes on much longer. I’m in danger of developing a noticeable dribble rash! Distract me, PURLEASE!
Okay, what’s been happening in Pixieland I hear you ask? Well we’ve been to Adelaide for a week where Pixie and her 9-month younger cousin fought with each other like pit-bulls for the entire week. I kid you not, I arrived home hoarse from all the yelling I did (“Pixie stop that!” “Girls stop fighting,” “Pixie stop taking Ellie’s toys!” “Ellie stop pinching Pixie!”). Pixie kept stealing every toy Ellie ever picked up, and after a while everytime the Pix dared to go within coo-ee of her cousin, Ellie’d start crying. Pixie got in a lot of trouble for things she hadn’t even got around to doing. Ellie had her measure, down pat! And when Pixie got home she had scratches and bruises all the way up her arms from Ellie’s attacks! Some she heartily deserved, others she didn’t. The entire week was exhausting. The two cousins could not be left alone for a milli-bloody-second. I haven’t seen Pixie fight with any other kid to such a degree, but I daresay next time they meet they’ll probably be best-bloody-friends! What can I say? They were in fierce competition for the crappiest cousin of the year award!
Did I mention that the apartment we’ve booked is right behind the beach? Yes, you simply wander behind the apartments, along a sandy trail through scrubby trees and undergrowth, and there you are: metres of soft yellow sand lapped by the crystal clear waves. The water glimmers and sparkles in the fierce Aussie sunlight, and the beach curves around a slight bay, green bushland pressing up against it, not a building to be seen. As far as the eye can see, kilometres of soft yellow sand and sparkling clear waters, fenced with bushland. I shall head out for long solitary beach walks, every chance I get. There is nothing more conducive to deep introspective thought that a long solitary walk along the waters edge…the sound of the waves feeding your tired spirit…
Oops, sorry, I lapsed. I’m supposed to be talking about something-bloody-else aren’t I? Anything to make the time pass quicker…this is really feeling like torture now…
Well, you’ll be relieved to hear that Pixie enjoyed her plane flights to Adelaide last week. We had connecting flights each way so we had four one hour flights all up. The first flight was a shocker…smallish plane, no seat for Pixie (she was strapped to my lap and wriggling the entire time), and it was a seriously bumpy ride. I was sweating, clutching the armrests with white knuckles, and for the life of me I couldn’t stop thinking about those poor people on the September 11 flights. I know one or two had 2-year-old children with them, and their horror and fear must have been out-of-this-world. I cannot imagine their final minutes, to do so would probably send me to an asylum.
Anyway, by the final flight I was sitting at the window seat, most of my fear conquered, my nose pushed against the double-glass pane, watching the land beneath me. Nothing compares to the view from above, it’s unbelievable to see winding rivers and puckered mountain ranges, gridded towns and sprawling lakes. And looking out across the huge horizon is awesome; all brown and dusty and hazy and empty, as it is in Australia. But the fear of being up so high was always there, a little knot deep inside, a little voice mocking, “I wonder when we’ll fall out of the sky?” Because flying seems so unnatural, so ludicrous, such a mind-blowing concept, that I can barely believe that humankind can do it! I keep wondering when the illusion will be smashed and we’ll go plummeting to earth because the Gods have finally noticed and say, “What the hell is this? Human’s flying? They’re not allowed to do that…it’s far to God-like! Let’s change the laws of gravity so they fall out of the sky and can never fly again. Who the hell do they think they are?”
Oh, and we’ve been buying a few odds and ends in anticipation of our holiday: a couple of new books to read, some pool toys for Pixie (a blow-up dingy, a swimming ring, some beach balls, and a kite for out on the beach), I’ve got delicious new soaps and moisturisers and bath treats (we all know we have to pamper the skin after a long day of sunbathing and swimming), new shorts and tops, a wrap-round skirt for over my bathers, new music to listen to. And I fully intend to completely blow-the-budget and smash-the-diet while we’re away: icecream in the freezer, wine and beer in the fridge, every exotic fruit I can lay my hands on, exotic tea for icing, chips, crackers and dips, expensive steak for the BBQ, fresh seafood. I’ve been scouring my books for yummy summer recipes for a few weeks now: fancy salads and BBQ and seafood recipes to tinker with while away. As a consequence I’ll have to cart a box of kitchen utensils and supplies with me – all the fancy oils and sauces, dressing and vinegars, spices and herbs and seasonings that I don’t want to have to buy. But this is a holiday in every sense of the word; I usually don’t allow myself many food treats these days, I eat easy and simple and LOW-FAT…so it’ll be nice to throw out the rule book and do what I like…even if I risk oozing out of my bathers by the final week…
Dammit Janet! There I go again. Ranting about our holiday. I’m sorry, forgive me, you are jealous enough as it is, I’m quite sure, without me going into all this painful detail…;^)…;^)
Pixie went to her first protest rally this past week. I guess you’re never to young to be politicised…especially for a good cause. The current Aussie government, I am ashamed to say, is detaining Afghani refugees in a remote outback detention centre, refusing to process their refugee applications! Some have been trapped in these outback centres, awaiting processing, for 18 months! It’s stinking hot out there and there is nothing for them to do. They are being treated like cattle. It’s a serious breach of their human rights, so a group of them SEWED their friggin LIPS TOGETHER in protest because when they tried to hunger strike they were force fed by detention centre staff. Needless to say I played no part in electing the current government, and have moments these days when I’m ashamed to be Australian. So Pixie and I went to a protest rally to show our support for these poor suffering people, because we cannot believe such an horrendous breach of human rights is happening in our own country. Anyway, believe it or not, I intended this to be a funny little story, so to get to the punchline: when everyone at the protest was chanting, “Sing it loud, sing it clear, refugees are welcome here!” Pixie would spot a bus driving past and during the pause in chanting she would yell out with unbridled excitement … “Loooooooooook! BUUUUUUUSSSSSSSSS! LOOOOK!” I tell you, the girl’s enthusiasm could put a trainspotter to shame! But it gave a few hot steamy protesters a reason to smile amidst their serious work!
Yes, the girl is OBSESSED with buses. It’s truly weird, but maybe it’s my fault. For a few years around the age of seven I wanted to be a bus driver – desperately. I would ride my bike up and down the road stopping at everyone’s driveway, pretending to be a school bus picking up children. But hell, I never knew that my secret bus-fetish was part of the genetic inheritance I would pass down to future generations…sheesh! You would hope for something exotic, like green eyes, or white hair, or the ability to calculate complicated mathematical equations off the top of your head. Not bus-spotting for Christ’s sake! Sometimes this parenthood gig is not as romantic as I imagined it!
Now, where was I? Ah yes, the beach!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’m sorry, I can no longer pretend to be interested in any other topic of conversation. I have a single-grooved train of thought and it’s leading me down the Monaro Highway, three hours toward the coast to our little apartment by the beach!!! I’m a lost cause, a hopeless case full of desperate anticipation, good for nothing but sweaty-daydreams and beach-fantasises for the next four days! I won’t write again before we leave, for fear of alienating all my readers with my sun-drenched obsessions, but rest-assured, you’ll be given ocean’s full of swimming details when we return in mid-February.
God, I must go before my metaphors reach greater lows. But before I leave I want to let everyone know that I’ve finally up-dated Pixie’s online photo album. Yes, I added three new albums, dating back to September, so wander over and check out the albums titled: ‘Spring 2001,’ ‘2nd Birthday’ and ‘Xmas 2001’. The albums can be found at ‘http://photos.yahoo.com/pixstersplace’…under Pixie photos. I have two films currently being processed and no doubt will return from the beach with endless rolls of dull holiday snaps, so I’ll be forced to up-date it again very soon. Stay tuned…
All the best from this warm, beach-beckoning corner of the globe,
The drool-soaked Eloise and the bus-spotting Pixster.
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