Regicide by dwarf
Gimli killed Aragorn, and Watson hid the body.
Perhaps I should explain.
Gimli and Aragorn are guppies, a decorative but tempestuous fish. Male guppies are constantly fighting (unless they are given a harem of female guppies, in which case they apparently get along fine, having better things to do – does that shed new light on “Lord of the Rings” for anyone else?) This is roughly what mine look like (Gimli being the orange one):
Watson is a bristlenose catfish who is five times the size of the guppies, but doesn’t attack unless one of the guppies tries to take his food. On the other hand, he’s been known to dispose of bodies before today. (Oh, and Watson is actually a girl – you can tell because, unlike this picture, he doesn’t have a moustache.)
I like to think it was actually Watson who ordered the hit. He is the big fish, after all.
I first noticed something was amiss when I saw Gimli chasing Frodo. Frodo is the smallest fish in the tank, a neon tetra, and had maintained his health by keeping out of everyone’s way. (Frodo is of indeterminate gender – is anyone surprised?) But Gimli’s thirst for blood was unquenchable.
I immediately removed Frodo from the main tank, and put him in with Gandalf, our Siamese fighting fish. Fighting fish will attack anyone with decorative fins (as will guppies), hence his solitude. He was a bit grumpy about sharing his space, and chased after Frodo a little, but isn’t nearly as vicious as Gimli. Frodo is neither a challenger nor a handy snack, so he is allowed to stick around.
And so an uneasy peace returned to the household.
Next time, I should name my fish after family members.
Experimentation
In over two and a half years of marriage, CJ and I have never once eaten tofu. Every so often I make a dodgy fried rice with whatever is in the fridge – usually ham and eggs, with sugar and soy sauce for flavouring. This week I tried something new. I cooked coconut-flavoured rice by adding a cup of coconut milk to the uncooked rice instead of water (then stirring it a few times as it cooked, rather than just letting it go). It tastes brilliant. I fried the results with Chinese-style honey soy tofu (a pack of it from a supermarket shelf – in the same aisle as cold meats and cheese), and topped it with boiled eggs. We then added soy sauce to taste.
This is a great vegetarian meal, and without the eggs it’s even vegan.
Who’s in the wardrobe?
My nerd network is sufficiently sensitive that two different friends sent me this within the last twenty-four hours. And I am doing my part and passing it on to you. You’re welcome, specfic lovers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qN9X9tyHkw
From the point at which there was a large war-era house, I knew what was going on (having failed to notice the title). I did write a review of “The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe” only a few weeks ago, after all.
Canberra Exhibit at Regatta Point
Canberra has several man-made lakes (a kind of apology for being the only Australian capital city without a beach), and dozens of picturesque penninsulas including the tourist-oriented Regatta Point.
I’ve been there several times in my life, and my favourite part within the Canberra exhibit (which is pleasantly compact) is a beautifully made 3D display that talks to you at the press of a button, and lights up the areas of Canberra that it’s talking about. It reminds me very much of certain videos of Walt Disney (or the equivalent 50s-ish videos in Iron Man 2). It’s very well done, and I’ve found it strangely compelling since the first time I saw it as a child.
Failing as a parent
One of the things about parenthood is that you’re guaranteed to fail. Most women first feel their dreams of supermumhood falter during labour, when they decide after planning for months (or years) to have a natural birth that what they really want is AN EPIDURAL, NOW. And despite the fact that childbirth involves sensitive, private organs being shredded, many women feel awful about using a very safe and common medical procedure to deal with it.
Then there’s three seconds after birth, when a slippery, pruney gross thing is put into mum’s arms. Shockingly, her reaction is not always one of consummate joy. Particularly not when, three days later, she is still sore and exhausted and her entire chemical makeup drastically alters in one day – while she’s also dealing with relatives, pain, bleeding, more pain in her OTHER sensitive private organs (breasts this time) – and the baby that has taken over her life is doing nothing but scream, poo, and cause pain. It doesn’t even smile yet. Having been blasted with cooing, airbrushed infants for nine months, many mums are shocked to find that they don’t feel high on sheer maternal love.
Again with the guilt.
I’ll stop there, rather than doing a blow-by-blow account of the next twenty (or thirty) years until the job of being a parent is mostly (but actually not at all) done. Suffice to say, none of us get it right, no matter how hard we try.
Personally, I got a head start on practising self-acceptance of parenting failure. Like most mums, I wanted a medication-free pregnancy. Hah!
Here’s some of the medicines I’ve taken (all but the last two on a daily basis):
1. Zofran (which many doctors won’t give to pregnant women because they feel it needs more testing first).
2. Maxolon (also a prescription drug).
3. Gaviscon (for heartburn and reflux – so far I’ve drunk over two litres).
4. Durotuss for dry cough (which keeps my cough mild enough I don’t throw up, but doesn’t actually get rid of it completely).
5. Metamucil (pregnancy, zofran and iron supplements all cause constipation).
6. Vitamin B, C, D, iron, and folic acid.
7. Kenalog (for mouth ulcers).
8. Panadol (pregnancy, zofran, and nausea-induced dehydration all cause headaches).
I don’t blame myself for any of this. It’s just. . . sad.
It’s been a little while since I gave an update on my current physical status, so here are my main issues:
I’m still extremely nauseous, and lately I’ve started losing some of my range of edible foods (now I can’t eat avocado – my one edible green substance – or chicken, and I’m iffy on tomatoes and mince – and, unfortunately, bread), and my sense of smell is starting to cause issues again. Drinking more than 100mL of water in a half hour period generally makes me throw up in my mouth (I regularly fantasise about how nice life would be if I was on a drip), and I’m not able to clean my teeth every day. Lying down now makes me nauseous, so I’m learning to sleep at a 45 degree angle to minimise illness. Louisette’s movements often make me feel sicker, or they hurt. Sheer gravity means that every time I shift position in any way, Louisette pushes against my skin and/or organs, which also hurts.
I have muscle pain in my hip/s or back about 90% of the time. I never walk faster than a zombie shuffle, take forever getting up the stairs, and I wish I had a crane and sling to help me turn over at night.
Some days, I am sore and fatigued as if I have the flu.
Overall, I’m down to an average of two functional hours a day (from three). I have bad days and good days. Luckily, tonight is the last of the two-and-a-half hour birthing classes (which have been exhausting and nauseating, while also interesting) and my three hours of tutoring per week is about to start dropping off as my students get close to the end of the year. I was hoping to be in better shape at this stage of the pregnancy, but if I have to eat nothing but breakfast cereal, and do absolutely nothing but watch TV and sleep for two months – well, CJ and I have been through worse.
Louisette now weighs one and a half kilos. This Friday marks the beginning of the second-last month. Every day that passes is one day less to go. I’m still looking forward to labour (and yep, I’ll be trying for a natural birth. Make of that what you will).
Construction
I think when a person gets to a certain age, there is a huge amount of joy to be had in knocking down bits of one’s house and making them better. I don’t own a house yet, but I’m already looking forward to being fifty or sixty years old and enjoying a parade of home improvements.
My friend bought a house only a few years ago, so she has a long way to go until that certain age – but, on the other hand, her husband (pictured below in non-OH&S-approved footwear) is a builder. So they bought a really cheap house and they’ve been doing marvellously messy things to it ever since.
I am heartily enjoying watching all of it. . . from a safe distance, of course! Renovation is a wonderful thing, but it can also be incredibly stressful for all involved.
By Christmas, this space will be a gorgeous North-facing multipurpose room. I can’t wait to see it done!
Do you look forward to renovations – or dread them?
What do you look forward to doing when you’ve reached fifty or sixty years of age (or, if you’re there already, when you’re another ten or twenty years older)?
Adoption in Australia
Every country has its areas of weakness, stupidity, or sheer badness. Australia has three that I know of that are fairly unique to us:
1. Our bizarre paranoia and lack of compassion regarding boat people – that is, refugees who arrive by boat (who are constantly the target of political rhetoric despite being incredibly rare compared to say, illegal immigrants who are rich enough to arrive by plane).
2. The life and death and health and crime statistics for Aboriginal Australians are drastically worse than those for the rest of Australia (although this is in part due to the city/country divide).
3. It is incredibly difficult, invasive, and time-consuming to adopt a child. Clearly, we want children to be protected from bad parents if possible, but this process in Australia is simply tragic. Good people who want to adopt children are put through so much lengthy red tape that even if they are eventually approved, they have passed the acceptable age range and are not allowed to adopt younger children.
If someday you get a chance to vote to change #3, please do so.
Baby Brain versus the Fuzz: Conclusion
As detailed here, here and then here, my general lack of practical life competence caused a police officer to pull me over in September and tell me that the registration I’d paid for our car had not gone through. It later became clear that, although the money had indeed left our account (just after we knew I was pregnant, and just before I became extremely sick – sick enough to fail to notice that the rego sticker never arrived), the customer reference number was incorrect.
Our bank automatically remembers customer reference numbers, which is super handy for every type of bill except car registrations, which require unique numbers each time a payment is made. (This is not something I’ll be forgetting in a hurry, but I’ve written it down most emphatically in a number of useful locations all the same.)
It was easily sorted with the Road Transport Authority, but the police were another matter. They’d given us fines totalling $1100 for driving around all unregistered for so many months. The RTA and I together explained the error via email, but the police chief’s representative said that the fine still applied. If I objected, I could appeal to the Magistrate’s Court.
I appealed, and was instructed to wait for a summons to court. Would we be given a court date while I was still sick, and so giantifically pregnant I could barely walk? Would it be in January, when I could go into labour at any moment? Would it be in February, when I’d just given birth and hadn’t slept since? Or would it be in March or April, when CJ and I would be in Beijing for a wedding?
Yesterday I received a letter from the police saying they’ve reviewed my case and cancelled the fine.
And voila! All is well once more.
Labour Part One
The class was. . . boring. Certainly not scary at all. The next class is also on labour, with more of a focus on pain relief options (which I already know fairly well). At present there are three things that concern me about labour:
1. It’s so far away (I actually came home and cried because of this).
2. I start labour from a position of weakness because of this stupid pregnancy. My cardiovascular health is rubbish, I’m unable to eat most vegetables, and I’ll be nauseous the whole time I’m in labour – bleaugh! It’s very likely that I’ll throw up at least once. Awesome.
3. It’s well established that fear/anxiety makes labour worse. This is not a nice thing to tell a person with an anxiety disorder.
But I did realise, with #3, that this is another place where seven years of anxiety is actually good training (much like my well-established ability to cope with the humiliation and boredom of not being able to work decent hours – it is much easier for me to deal with a reduction from 12 hours to 3 hours/week than a normal person who would have had to adjust to 3 hours/week after 35 hours/week).
There are very few people with as much practice at dealing with fear as yours truly. I may well have a labour experience that provokes the response of, “Was that it?” (at least in terms of fear/anxiety).
I tend to take a different emotional path than other people, so while grocery shopping is terrifying, labour is not – and it’s possible it never will be.
But, for the record, this is not a good time to find flaws in my logic. A mental placebo needs to remain sacred in order to work.
Here’s a shot of the calender from our bedroom. Each week is marked out, and the 18th (which marks the theoretical point at which I have two months to go).
Felicity Banks 