Falls apart

Recently a friend of mine held a large party and a raging bonfire on his remote country property. The invitation: to consume many, many, many beers. The response: many, many, many takers.

Fundy and I were little late and by the time we arrived proceedings were well underway. As designated driver, I cracked a cold can of lemonade and joined in the revelry. Beer or no beer, I sensed that that this would be no ordinary night.

Suddenly there was a commotion. Marty had fallen over. Not only had he fallen over, he had hit an angular rock with his face, splitting his eyebrow to the bone. It looked like he had been javelined with a star picket. With at least an hour’s wait for an ambulance to reach the place a call went out to the crowd: “Can anyone drive?”

*Eee-orr Eee-orr* - Doctor Lemonade to the rescue. I was happy to take on the mantle and, when we at last made it to the hospital, helped Marty to fill in the forms. A tired nurse then looked them over and, in the Office Use Only section, penned the large letters ‘PFO’.

Pissed Fell Over.

Apparently this is a standard hospital abbreviation on a Saturday night, particularly on a full moon.

In the past I have staged my own unfortunate PFO, though thankfully with fewer witnesses. I had been at the pub with Fundy on a routine Friday after work and, although we only planned to have one or two before trundling home, it transpired that an old friend was in town so we stayed for three or four. Or five.

To cut the story short, the ‘old friend’ needed a place to crash and I, not having met him before, unwittingly offered him our couch. I wish I hadn’t. He took over our house and for hours we were forced to listen to him babble and spurt about his fame and fortune in the music industry. He was desperately trying to impress. He also adamantly let it be known that Oasis were the greatest band in the whole world, never to be beaten or bettered, no matter what your own tastes or experience.

I hate Oasis. Stone Roses try-hards in my book. Nevertheless, Fundy had recently been given a ‘best of’ CD from some guys at work and knowing that it lay, unplayed, in the car I rushed out to find it. Why I did, I will never know. This ‘friend’ was a loser. I mean, if he was so famous and connected, what was he doing sleeping on our dodgy hand-me-down couch?

Anyway, bumbling back with the CD in hand, I tripped and fell spectacularly down the five concrete stairs leading to our front door. It didn’t really hurt but dark blood soon started to soak through the leg of my jeans. I had deeply punctured my knee.

Limping inside, I rolled up the denim to inspect the damage. Fundy helped out, calmly finding the first aid kit while discussing whether it needed stitches. Our guest, however, appeared frantic and stressed. “That is the most gruesome thing I have ever seen,” he declared, pointing his finger and hopping from foot to foot. “It’s so grisly I can’t look away. I have witnessed a lot of things in my time but I have never seen anything so sickening...” He went on and on.

I looked up in alarm. He seemed so affected by my injury that I thought perhaps I had misjudged him. Perhaps he did care about more than just Oasis and himself? Perhaps I should give him another chance?

But no, that wasn’t it. He couldn’t give two hoots about my embarrassing PFO or how to treat the gore. He was simply too shocked at the sight of my scaly, white and undeniably hairy wintertime legs.

Stepping out

I love to dance. I always have. I admit I am no Ginger Rogers, but I am not scared to take to the floor whenever the music is good and the occasion arises. I also like to watch other people dance, especially old couples who have been together for aeons and who move as one without thinking.

Last weekend there was the chance for both. Fundy and I were invited to a wedding with the reception including a typical covers band. Actually, I’ll take that back. They weren’t a typical covers band, they were exceptionally good and all the guests, young and old, were drawn to the dance floor from the start.

There was the young guy in green who obviously had had some sort of training. Although he seemed to want to channel Bruce Springsteen, his footwork was too good and later he was a favourite of the older ladies, expertly manoeuvring them about the floor while they giggled and twittered and flushed.

Then there was a young lady in black cowboy boots. She danced up a storm, oblivious to all around her, especially the beer drinking yokels who swigged and salivated at her uninhibited wiggle and twist.

My particular favourite, though, was a grizzled old guy in a checked shirt. He was a closet groover, concentrating on keeping it together before forgetting himself and breaking out into a series of smooth Elvis-type moves all around his conservative wife. She pretended not to notice and primly continued to shuffle a standard grandma two-step from side to side.

Then there was Fundy. At six foot four and built like a whippet, he was all jerks and angles with no logical timing. He was in a league all of his own. In fact, I would go as far as to say that dancing with Fundy can be bit of a dilemma. Indeed he is the first to admit that he moves like a stick insect, but on this particular occasion he truly outdid himself.

He began gently, keeping his elbows tightly to his side while performing ‘the lawnmower’, ‘big fish, little fish’ and a brief sample of something that could have been ‘skip to my lou’. As the night wore on, however, his special dance floor overbite became more and more pronounced, turning his bottom lip as white as his movements. At one stage the floor cleared around him for safety as he bodged a backwards moonwalk while simultaneously nodding his head, rolling his forearms and flapping his ‘chicken wings’. Then came an erratic knees-up Riverdance routine with hands in the air like he just didn’t care. His pièce de résistance, however, was an impromptu Russian Cossack number, complete with flexed feet and fingers pointing like Yosemite Sam shooting guns to the sky. He could only complete one full crouch but his scrunched up face and special dancing overbite were always painfully present and correct.

The dilemma of being Fundy’s partner on nights like this is that he doesn’t so much dance with you as dance at you. I hate to say it, but sometimes I can’t cope at all and secretly feel like and sneaking away. Usually, though, I just look at him and laugh. Here is a man having fun, dammit, and he doesn’t care who knows it.

But heed my warning, people, and take this advice: if you see Fundy on the dance floor, never look him in the eye. He is a male Medusa – except, instead of turning into stone, you will find yourself compelled to dirty disco, vogue and ‘funky gibbon’ without mercy. You won’t be able to help it and, worse, you won’t care.

At least that’s my excuse, and I’m sticking to it. ;D

Heaven and hell

I’ll never forget the first time I heard a Tasmanian Devil. I knew the slobbering growl and nonsense of the Looney Tunes character, of course, but nothing could have prepared me for the auditory experience of the real McCoy, unrestricted and wild.

It was my first ever visit to Tassie. Taking up the invitation of an old friend, I found myself on a road trip of the state in a banged up old blue station wagon with a taped-on wing mirror. By the end of it we had christened the journey “Ten Days at 80 K’s” because that was as fast as we could go. It was perfect. We alternated daily driving shifts through the dazzling scenery, stopping for walks and food, before sleeping scrunched up in the back at night. My friend, a born and bred local, honoured me with official admittance to all manner of secret places I never would have otherwise known.

One of these was a small hamlet of rustic fishing shacks facing the west coast sea. We camped up the hill a way and I have truthfully never felt air penetrate me so deeply or seen such a sunset. We were the only ones there and, as the sky darkened to an inky night, all you could hear was the roar of the waves, the hiss and spit of our campfire and the occasional fizzy exhalation of a freshly cracked beer. For dinner we made toast on a stick.

Sooner or later, of course, the beer completed its bodily journey and I had to acknowledge the first and fatal call of nature. It was alright for my friend - being male, he could just tick off twenty paces, turn his back and relieve in comfort and ease. Being a girl, however, I insisted on distance and privacy. Gathering a small flickering torch I adventured alone into the darkness to locate a more personal latrine.

I found the perfect spot: a tiny clearing at the edge of the heath, facing out to sea. A ‘loo with a view’, if you will. Looking left then looking right then looking left again, I at last slid my jeans to my ankles and lowered to the ground. Happy days.

But suddenly, mid-stream, I was accoustically accosted by a blood-curdling screech followed by the spine-chilling cries of merciless strangulation. The victim was just behind me, possibly bovine and definitely in torment and agony. Amidst the noise of choking and death also came a series of evil cackles and demonic snarls.

Have you ever tried to run with your pants around your ankles? Have you ever tried it when you are frightened out of your wits? Dropping the torch so that it blinked and died, I hobbled and crawled, fell and rolled, bare essentials to the wind and knees full of gravel, into the blinding darkness. It was a race for my life. There was a maniac there.

Arriving inelegantly at the fire, I breathlessly semaphored that we had to call the police. My gesticulations and babbling imparted that there was possibly a murder and definitely a psychopath mere metres away. If nothing else, we had to save ourselves.

Adam took one look at me and doubled over, tears of laughter spilling onto his cheeks. “Pick the mainlander,” he mocked. “How do you think the Tassie devil got its name?”

“Oh... right...”

Zipping my fly and smoothing my hair, I initially stood indignant. Then I slowly allowed an embarrassed grin. Later, when I again had reason to re-visit my ‘spot’, I was no longer so unprepared. It’s true, what they say - ‘Better the devil you know’.

Seeing stars

This morning, Sunday morning, Fundy and I tumbled blindly from our toasty winter bed in a call to arms. Our beach had been invaded. Grabbing beanies, buckets and a thermos of hot milky tea, we undertook a tour of duty along with other good folks in our wee community. Mission: Fight Back.

Our enemy: the Northern Pacific Sea Star.

Now don’t get me wrong. I love all living things and have a particular fascination for the evolutionary eccentricities of invertebrate marine life. But Northern Pacific Sea Stars do not belong in our back yard. Traversing the globe as babies in the ballast water of Japanese ships, they have nevertheless flourished in Tasmanian waters in the absence of predators, parasites and weaponed competitors. Given their ravenous appetite and broad diet, they force our fragile local marine critters to fight exhaustedly for their own survival. They are the gun-toting, stinky, tobacco spitting baddies to be swiftly chased from your favourite old western town. No tequila. No conversation. No prisoners.

Though well established in the Derwent estuary of Hobart, the Northern Pacific Sea Star has rarely been reported in our bay. That is, until recent rogue weather conditions hoisted them upon our shore. Thousands of them, in fact. And it just so happens that winter (i.e., now, for all you northern hemispheroids) is when they breed. This means war!

Now, anyone who knows me will attest that the chances of seeing me out of bed before midday on a Sunday are worse than none. But I am mightily glad I made the effort. Not only did we have a great laugh while rounding up thousands of the quinqui-pointed enemy, but again I was reminded of the exquisite place that we live.

I never thought I would say it but, surprise surprise! Sometimes Sunday sleep is over rated.

Before:

During:

After:

Weeks end

Last Friday evening: our wintery Tasmanian shack. That is, before friends came round for 'pizza and a few quiet beers'.

Note the far distant bongos arrear the candle to the left. Turns out that, although we all thought we were spectacularly gifted, we are, in fact, not.

All welcome anytime. ;D

Poetic licence

In an effort to move forward, for the last two Sunday mornings I have been getting up at sparrows fart to present myself at an Adult Education course: 'Breaking into Magazines'. To be honest, the only reason I picked it was because 'Creative Writing' was full. Not that I think I belong in either class, mind you. I just wanted to do something.

The course was an epiphany. Over a ten thirty cup of tea, a fellow student gazed at me with the comment:

"You're too much of the poet and not enough of the journalist."

I'm still speechless. What does that actually mean? And would it be so bad if he was right??

Feeling cactus

It was the worst party I had ever been to: the University of Port Elizabeth graduation do, 1993. I had only been in South Africa for a few months and had otherwise been having a blast working as an assistant in Zoology. It was my first time overseas and I couldn’t stop exclaiming at everything around me. It was surreal.

I even had a boyfriend there. Well, kind of. His name was Jason and we had worked together on a number of field trips. There was no doubt we had a spark. We spent the whole time laughing. He was going to be at the party that night and I could feel in my bones that things between us were about to ramp up a level.

The theme for the night was ‘Mexican’ with everyone coming in costume. At first I was stumped. What would I do? I didn’t have a poncho or a sombrero or anything else remotely Hispanic. I also didn’t have enough money to buy anything. But I couldn’t turn up in jeans and a T-shirt. That just wouldn’t do. I pulled out my solitary suitcase and rifled through it in the hope of inspiration.

I don’t know how I came up with the idea in the end but I was, at least initially, very proud of myself. Pulling out a bottle green pair of shorts and a bodysuit (remember, it was the early 90’s) in nearly the same colour, I approached my flatmate for some of her sewing pins. By applying these all over my body, poking out from the inside, I would transform myself into a cactus. Surely no one else would think of that!

Arriving at the party in prickly green glory, I revelled in the compliments on my imagination. But the costume soon turned from the source of my success to the source of my sorrow. Not only would no one stand near me for fear of being spiked, but every time I lifted my elbow to sip my drink the pins stuck painfully into my side. I put up with it for a while before retreating to a corner to stand still.

At that moment Jason entered the room. My eyes lit up at the sight of him – but wait a second, who was that with him? Who was that holding his hand and greeting everyone like a long lost friend? Yep, you guessed it; Jason had a long term girlfriend. A little detail he had neglected to mention in all our late night trysts. He caught my eye and looked as guilty as sin.

I felt like a fool. Standing there in my stupid cactus outfit while everyone else whirled around in their colourful ponchos and silly drawn-on moustaches, I have never felt so left out, foreign and forlorn. The sympathetic glances of those who understood made me feel even worse. I was a dunce of the highest order.

Feeling like I was going to cry, I knew I had to do something to save myself or go home. I groped blindly to the Ladies where, muttering under my breath, I removed every last pin from my ‘costume’. Leaving them in a pointy pile by the sink, I then stared into the mirror for a long, long time. Stupid green eye shadow. Stupid green outfit. Stupid girl. What was I going to do now? Nothing to be done with bad man Jason, but do they have leprechauns in Mexico? No, I thought, but they do have jalapeños.

With that in mind I returned proudly to the dance floor in my new incarnation: a chilli. There I hugged my friends tightly and, without catching anyone’s eye, danced like a dervish until dawn.