On Holiday

We just returned from a really fabulous vacation -- not the kind of holiday vacation where you realize you are in-between lockdowns, and you search through AirBnB listings to see where you could go within a three hour drive in the next two weeks. That kind of holiday can be good too, and it has had its place in the last two years.

But not that kind.

The kind of vacation that is planned*
(*as much as possible given uncertainty of border closures, lockdowns, etc)
where you fly a very long way to see people you love who you haven't seen -- unexpectedly -- for years. 

The kind of vacation that involves beaches and warm breezes and tropical fruit*
(*but maybe show a little restraint because too much tropical fruit can mess with your system)
and sand and turquoise water and sunsets in the palm trees. 

It was spectacular in every possible way*
(*excluding long brutal flights with no leg room, lines in the hot sun, migraines, tropical-fruit-induced-system problems, snorting sea water, and sand in awkward body crevices).

And now I can relive it a little as I write up a few posts, evenings and weekends, around the return of Real Life (TM) which involves winter, darkness, the teaching semester starting in a week, and 204 unread work emails. 

In June

Early June started Early. No -- really really early. I was invited to give three keynote talks in an online workshop that was running in the US, in the Texas time zone. My talks ran from 4-5pm in Texas. Which was 7am in Melbourne. The other talks started at 3:30am. I thought I might try to make it to the 3:30am talks. But I couldn't. I'm just ... not ... strong enough to get up for 3:30am talks. I made it to the 5:00am talks three days in a row. And that was hard, and I may have kind of dozed off during a couple of them. But I stayed awake through my own online talks. Although wow. It is really hard to give three online talks three days in a row.

In June, Jonathan says he "sat my examinations. And got really stressed for no reason." That's a direct quote. You notice that Jonathan speaks Australian. He doesn't take exams. He sits them. But getting really stressed for no reason seems to be a family problem. His friend Edward came back for a visit. Edward graduated from high school with Jonathan but then returned to Singapore to do his mandatory military service. He had a week of leave, which he took here in Melbourne. During that week, he and Jonathan and other friends planned to take a few train trips and have adventures. They went to Ballan and hiked to a lake. The next morning, Jonathan got a text from Edward: Edward had tested positive for Covid. So that was the end of the adventures, and Edward got to go back to the Singapore military after a fun week of isolation in Melbourne.

Tim says that he spent his June hanging out and avoiding being Covid-positive in spite of all our close contacts. Boring, Tim. Boring.

The other thing I did in June was travel to my first international conference since 2019. I went to Austin, Texas. There were three flights involved, in theory, to get from Melbourne to Sydney to LA to Austin. I got a message the night before the trip saying that my flight from Sydney had been delayed 90 minutes, and I'd been put on a later flight from LA to Austin. I wondered if I might bump back my flight from Melbourne to Sydney as well, so I didn't have to get up at 4am. But in the end I just got up at 4am and headed to the Melbourne airport. And that was a good thing, because it took me the extra 90 minutes to stand in security lines in Sydney, where a lot of staff had called in sick with the flu and Covid -- people get sick in the winter in a pandemic. 

 

The 14 hour flight from Sydney to LA was fine. When I got off the plane in the US, I went through customs, and sent my bag along to the connecting flight. When I tried to get my boarding pass to send myself along to the connecting flight, I was told it had been cancelled -- but not until after I had stood in a two hour line.

 

They put me on a new flight the next day, and booked a hotel room for me right next to the airport. 

 

I slept. Got up rested. Went to check in for my new flight. Unfortunately, someone had screwed up the booking the day before, and I was not on the flight. I had to walk 30 minutes to the other side of the airport to try to fix it. And then walk back. And then I still couldn't check in. Another long line. 

 

As I reached the front, and the helpful woman at the desk took my ticket and proceeded to make frowny faces and spend 15 quiet minutes typety typing, I thought -- maybe it is too early in the pandemic to be flying internationally. And then: If she sends me back to the other side of the airport, I am going to just get in line there and demand that they put me back on the next flight home to Melbourne. 

 

But to make a long story less long than I've already made it, she put me on a late flight to Austin instead. I got to spend the next 9 hours in LAX, but at least they were 9 hours inside security, with restaurants and chairs and not standing in lines. So ok. And I made it to Austin in time for the conference. 

 

And Austin is still as hot as it ever was in June when we used to live there. I did things like buy a massive container of Excedrin migraine pills at Target -- because they don't sell those in Australia, and after two and a half years of a pandemic, I was down to my last three pills. 

 

 

I walked around the Capital building, since it was near my hotel. The last time we were so close to the Texas capital, we were watching a Thanksgiving parade with a two year old Jonathan. 

 

I also checked out all the podiums on the University of Texas campus where the Confederate statues have been removed. And I walked down to the Congress Avenue Bridge at dusk to see bats -- which I never did when I lived there. 

 

On campus, of course the tower is still there.

Texas barbecue still tasty.

The turtle pond is still there.

But the fountain where we used to get off the bus, and the rock garden from my days of taking Jonathan to day care, are now gone, no trace. That was a long time ago.

 

The conference was very nice. Though hot. And the day after the conference dinner, we all received email that multiple people had tested positive for Covid. So watch for symptoms! I made it home with no symptoms, and no flight cancellations, even with three flights. *Phew*

 

In June. 

 

Happening in the park

We live next to a large park. 

I love living next to a park. It's like having a massive back yard that someone else takes care of. Mowing, watering, gardening. They even keep the play equipment in top shape, and this weekend they opened a new outdoor basketball court. Living by a park is way better than having a back yard. Trust me. I've had both. 

Anyway, a fun thing about the park is that stuff happens there. 

Standard stuff, like community sports: soccer, football, tennis, softball, quidditch. 

Parties. 

Dog gatherings. Weekend mornings, everyone and their dog is in the park. I mean it. At least as many dogs as people, and the dogs love it. 

Running. I go running there too, on Sundays. I usually just zigzag around a few of the sidewalks for 20 to 30 minutes. Twice around the perimeter is a 5K, but it's more fun to run diagonally through and diagonally back. Dodge the dogs and the little kids and the old people. 

There is a hospital directly across the park on the south side, so helicopters fly in and out at odd times. The park is a good place for watching helicopter take off and landings. 

Hot air balloons. 

We also seem to be one of the standard take-off and landing spots for hot air balloon tours over the city. That means that on a Monday morning, I might interrupt my commute to work to take photos of incoming balloons:

And on a Tuesday, if it takes me a little longer to get out of the house than the Monday, I find the balloons already scattered around the park -- landed -- in various stages of deflating. 

And then on a Thursday, the smell of smoke fills the air, with firetrucks lining the access road over by the primary school. 

When the main artery on the opposite side of the park was blocked by police, I did a quick scan on my phone. 

The church was on fire!

The church pretty much completely burned down, taking with it a private kindergarten. But the school was ok.

 

The park. The place where stuff is happening.

Three adults and an election

We have become a household of three adults. 

Don't act so shocked. You knew it was going to happen. The years keep spinning, like a roulette wheel. They were going to land on 18 eventually.

Tim makes a delicious vegan cake.

***

In Australia, we had an important election last night, and because we were a household of three adults, all three of us could vote. 

One of us voted for the very first time anywhere. Three of us voted for the very first time in Australia. 

It was glorious. A little cold, and longer lines than expected. But ultimately glorious.

This is the community hall where we voted.

We had a federal government that had been disastrous. We had a prime minister head out on a Hawaiian vacation anyway, when bushfires ravaged the country in 2019-2020. The feds pushed hard-Hard against the state-led lockdowns that were saving lives and saving the economy in 2020-2021. They bullied women, and ignored their concerns aggressively. They tortured refugees on a scale that made international news in 2022. Gave billions of taxpayer money to their mates, couched as 'pandemic' related, while locking universities out of job keeping programs in the pandemic, and vetoing a small handful of carefully vetted research grants. They ignored devastating floods, and the climate science that had predicted them. From my view from here, they seemed to be as corrupt as they could get away with, and with the blessing of Murdoch media, they were confident they could get away with a lot of corruption.

They are out. 

Out! Out! Out! Resoundingly out!

I hoped as I voted that they would be out, and that little voters like me could send a message about climate, corruption, and bullying. We sent a message. 

Both major parties took a beating, but especially the incumbents. Many of the people replacing them are respected, independent, professional women, who campaigned on climate and on integrity. And they have won! Decisively!

Pandemic, war, climate crisis, inflation. We don't need politicians anymore. We need leaders. We desperately, desperately need leaders. And maybe, just maybe, we got them.

And the fact that this vote happened in the country that birthed Murdoch media brings me so much hope. Friends, I have been so hopeless in the face of news media that spurts anger and lies and manipulation.

But people are still good. People are still smart. People can still see when they are being manipulated and lied to, that they can push back. And our system still lets them push back. They pushed!

I am so so so grateful to be an Australian today.

***

Jonathan, now 18, was eligible to work the polls. He applied, and received a 1-night job counting ballots. 

Tim and I dropped him off around 3pm at a warehouse further down the river. He was there until around 11pm, home at midnight, walked in the door in time to hear the speech of Australia's next Prime Minister.

Tim and I sat on the couch watching the election returns, becoming more and more hopeful, and more and more relieved.

I was massively relieved when Trump was dumped in 2020. But in the US, the reasonable voices at the center can still hardly be heard over the crazies, proven by January 2021.

But here? Here, reasonable seems to be a possibility. Maybe?

This strange, tentative feeling emerging from the worry and the fear. I think ... I think it might be ... 

Hope?

 

Stuff that happened in April

I've hung onto this blog about 15 years longer than most of the people I started blogging with. At first, it was a fun place to throw out my thoughts on life and the world, and hear others' thoughts in the comments. It was also a place to let far away family and friends know what was happening in our lives, when they couldn't see us frequently. 

And then the world moved on beyond blogs, and we got used to living far away from family and friends. But the blog was still a fun place to put out thoughts and photos, for me, writing for my Future Self. Sometimes, now that I am Future Self, I look back at old posts and remember Past Self, as though Past Self and Current Self and Future Self are really very different. They don't feel different. They're actually all here all the time, bouncing around in my head when I would prefer quiet. Needing therapy. And yet, here I am. Posting. 

Let me also state for the record that it has become more tricky, deciding what to write, and finding the energy. My life is all tied up in the lives of other people in complicated ways, and a lot of the interesting, funny, thought provoking stories I would tell are not really my stories to tell at all. And even if they are my stories, I think of them while walking, or working, or on the train, and forget them before I sit down to write. If I bother to sit down to write. Writing takes energy, and I've been saving up energy for Important Wordle, or similar tasks.

I've also developed complicated opinions and world views that don't match the world views of the people I was writing to back when I started the blog -- as though those people aren't just versions of Me, versions who have also moved on and developed their own uncomfortable opinions.

In any case, while writing an update on April for my family, I realised I might want to put some of that update here. For the occasional reader. For Future Me. And also because I couldn't really remember what happened long ago in April until I started looking at photos. 

So here goes. Stuff that happened in April.

1. The Grand Prix came back to Melbourne. In 2020, the Grand Prix was the first event shut down by Covid-19, when a team member from Italy tested positive the night before the race. And then the city shut down. And the borders didn't open in time for a Grand Prix in 2021. But in April, 2022, the Grand Prix came back. 

The mysterious reader in my head will be wondering why we care about the Grand Prix. Of all the updates, why that one? We are not really race car people, here. 

The reason why is that we live only a few minutes' walk from the track. So when the Grand Prix comes back, it comes back with lots and lots of noise. Cars we cannot see whine around the track nearby, all day. Helicopters just hover. And hover. And hover. Good grief, helicopters. Take a break!

And there are airplane shows in the daylight.

Fireworks at night.

Noise. 

April began with noise.

2. Easter.

Easter is a big national holiday here. The Melbourne museum only closes two days of the year: Christmas, and Good Friday. The university was closed. 

To celebrate, we took a long walk through the Botanic Garden. 

... And home past the trees turning for autumn.

We didn't go away for the Easter break this year. But we did spend a little more time walking. We took a long walk along the bay on Easter Sunday.

And then came home and enjoyed a fancy Easter dinner, motivated by Jonathan, who said we needed to be more serious about celebrating holidays. It takes more thought to plan a fancy meal, though, when the family now only cooks vegan meals. What replaces the roast lamb or turkey for a holiday dinner? (Answer: just omit the roast. There is enough of the other foods to go around.)

3. ANZAC day is also in April, the week after Easter this year. ANZAC day is a day to remember the lives lost in war since World War I. There is a dawn ceremony held each year, also not far from our home. I was tentatively planning to attend this year....

Except I was invited to attend a conference in the US virtually that weekend. I woke up on Saturday morning at 5am to listen to talks, and to give a talk at 8am. And then on Sunday at 5am to listen. So on Monday morning, when I did wake up at 5am in time to get dressed and go to the ceremony, I actually rolled over and went back to bed.

Yes. I am also disappointed in my Past Self who couldn't be bothered to get out of bed for such a major event held in-person for the first time in two years. But I also sympathise with past self. Unless life is full of other stressors, it can be hard to get out of bed. 

And then back to work. 

And that was April.

You see? There are some interesting fun things that happened, but nothing that really needs special noting. And if there had been something needing special noting, I probably wouldn't have noted it here, because I was too busy living it. That seems to be the problem with keeping a blog.

But I'll try to keep up anyway. Because I don't know how to stop. 

Backup speech

 I was asked to represent the Dean at one of a few recent graduation ceremonies. No problem. I double checked, and my graduation robes that had been hanging unused in my office for six years seemed to be in good shape. I could wear them over one of the other dresses I found at the upscale used clothing store recently. It would be fun!

A week before the ceremony, I got an email. Would I please prepare a backup graduation speech, in case the main speaker came down with covid or was in quarantine?

(Eeek!)

After a couple of days, I tentatively responded. I guess so?

Jonathan had been invited to give a speech in March at his old high school. I asked Jonathan if I could please use his speech as a backup graduation speech. Ha ha ha. Everybody laughed and Jonathan walked away. No wait -- I was serious. 

I thought back over other speeches I'd given in the last few years. They were all about mathematics. Every one of them. Except the church talk about playing the organ and Jesus. I couldn't see any way to reuse the Jesus talk. Maybe I could use a story about mathematics?

The day before the ceremony, I mentioned to the Dean and Associate Dean of Education that I was not super comfortable about preparing a backup graduation speech. In what must have been an attempt to be empathetic, the Dean recalled the time he had been asked to prepare a backup graduation speech, and then actually had to give it. Eeek!

I asked the Dean if I could please use his backup speech as my backup graduation speech. 

"It's a bit personal," he said. 

"That doesn't bother me," I said. 

Ha ha ha. Everyone laughed and the Dean walked away. I was serious, though. Mostly.

The night before the event, I locked myself in my room and scribbled out a speech. Start with short reminiscing on my own graduation. Follow up with three dot points: advice. The mathematical story goes into the second dot point. Close with a joke. Ha ha ha. 

Fold the papers into my backpack and hope hope hope hope hope that the real speaker didn't come down with covid. 

The real speaker didn't come down with covid. 

*PHEW!*

Now what to do with a backup speech? Advice, mingled with mathematics? I'll save it for next time. 

 

Best dressed

Now that I'm going back to work two to four times per week, I've had to think about clothing again. I'm totally set in the casual outfit department. I have jeans and t shirts to last me through the apocalypse. The closet is a little shabbier in the dressier clothing area. I still have nice skirts and slacks, but a lot of the button up shirts and blouses I wore for professional or dress occasions are worn and tired looking, no longer fit for purpose. And I've taken on new leadership roles that will require more professional dress. Sigh. Time to shop?

All this came to a head a few weeks ago. Through connections made in one of those leadership roles, I was invited to a gala awards dinner.  Dress code: cocktail.

No way. I've never owned a dress appropriate for a cocktail-dress event. While the event sounded great, the dress code was enough to scare me away. But I didn't need to RSVP immediately. So out of curiosity, I ran an image internet search for "cocktail dress."

I know it seems like I just started this blog as a 20-something year old, stepping out freshly into life. But while we weren't paying attention, I aged into my mid-forties. I can't wear strappy, sleeveless, backless, tight, short. I was looking for a dress that was sufficiently dressy, but didn't shout "look at me" or expose the lumpy parts.

The internet showed me a few that might work. Price ranging from $200 to $800. Order online. Hope it fits.

I told Tim I wasn't going to go. He suggested a used clothing store near a well-heeled market that we pass regularly on the way to the grocery store, but had never entered. I decided to give it a shot.

So the next Saturday, while Tim and Jonathan went to the grocery store, I peeled off and ducked into the used clothing shop. 

Long story short-er-ish: I found four great dresses, each less than $50. One was a little too big, but for only $18, I thought I could make it work. I bought them all. At home, I RSVP-ed yes!

The dress that didn't quite fit was the most "cocktail" dress. Time to try to take in the seams. As I pulled the zipper out of the fine fabric, afraid I would ruin everything, I had to keep reminding myself it only cost $18. I can afford an $18 experiment.

And I no longer own a sewing machine. So I sat on the couch with needle and thread, trying to make short straight stitches that followed the lines of the safety pins I had stuck along the seams to indicate how much fabric was not needed. I felt like an old-English lady doing needlework.

When the pins came out, the dress fit better than ever expected. This was perfect! For fun, I tried it on with my black platform heels and walked into the living room to show the family. Then I told them that although the platform heels looked good, I would have to be able to walk to get to the event, so I showed them the flats I would really be wearing. 

"You can't wear those," said Tim.

"You have to wear the other shoes," said Jonathan. 

And I guess I agreed. It really is a dress meant to wear with platform heels. 

But I will have to be able to walk to get to the event -- even if it's just down two flights of stairs and through the courtyard of our building to catch a taxi. More likely it will be up the street half a block to catch a tram. Or I could even walk 30 minutes to the venue itself -- it's that close. And yet all scenarios require walking, which is pretty impossible in the platform heels. 

I could wear the flats outside, then change into the platform shoes when I arrive. 

But then I need to be able to carry shoes with me. 

The internet says I should take a sparkly clutch to a cocktail party. But I pulled out my black purse to see if I could fit a pair of shoes inside. Definitely not. The purse is too small. No hope for a clutch then.

Now I needed a handbag nice enough to take to a gala event, but large enough to carry shoes inside. 

I tried the well-heeled used clothing store across from the market one more time. They had a Prada bag in a glass case that looked possibly perfect. $500. Uh. Probably not. 

The charity shop down the road had some options as well, but they all looked too small. 

Ruminating on this new challenge, I happened to see a rack of handbags at the outlet center while shopping for clothes for Jonathan. I picked out a black handbag for $40 that will suffice. I do admit, it looks a little more Maternal than Cocktail, but even carrying a handbag makes me feel a little more feminine than usual, since I typically just carry stuff in pockets or a backpack.

So this is it. For $18 + $40 + a few hours hand-sewing on the couch, I have a nice looking dress + shoes + accessories for a gala dinner. And I'm committed to going. 

And it's going to be awesome, because even though I didn't want to stand out, with the platform heels I will stand at 6 foot 3 inches tall, and therefore dominate the room. Chin up. Shoulders back. Confidence.

I hope I don't twist an ankle!

There is an extra pair of shoes hiding in that hand bag.