This is a practice blog, to see if I can actually do it, then stand to do it from my ipad.

I MAY have mentioned that we are GOING TO AMERICA for Christmas, and I know you’ll all be gagging for my hilarious updates on the state of the nation, so I have to decide: to Macbook, or not to Macbook?

Will this tiny screen and keyboard made for hamsters (See? I’m already talking like a Seppo) drive me slowly insane? Or will the superior charge-holding abilities, the lighter weight, and the fact that it doesn’t toast my (now practically obsolete) ovaries to cinders when I have it on my knees, finally win out?

All shall be revealed when I try to import a picture presently, and then view the preview, check for dreaded typos etc….

It’s taxing stuff, this blogging caper.

PS I know you don’t give a rat’s, but I was typing this anyway, so I thought I might as well publish. Sharing is caring, right?

PPS I did it!! And I didn’t even have to ask the Evil Geniuses once!!!  My computery skills know no bounds. Nor does my use of extraneous exclamation points!

!!!!

!!

…From The Ashers

Here are the hits for you… A litle late I know, the 5am club went on strike today. I guess it was all of the WEEK adding up.. It’s been a bit of a rollercoaster.

1.  BLOOD DONORS BLOOD DONORS.

The kid got her top up of the good stuff this week- a little earlier than anticipated, but still in great timing for the festive season. So, I’d like to send out a big thank you and virtual cuddle to all of the wonderful blood donors who give up their precious red stuff for our kid, and kids just like her. Without you we wouldn’t have much of a life, to be honest, and we definitely wouldn’t be able to GO TO THE USA for our Festivus celebrations. THANKYOU ONE AND ALL.

2.  All of my wonderful patients, who, without even a hint of grumbling annoyance, rescheduled their appointments so that we could go ahead with point 1 above. I am so lucky to have such a gorgeous group of lovely, understanding people to work with. Blessed I tells ya!

3.  You lot.

This week I have had such lovely feedback about the blog. I have had people complimenting my writing, telling me they like coming here to visit, sharing with me the things that make them laugh and cry as they sponge up my tales of whinging and general carry on. We might be perched here in a tiny little corner of the internet, but to all of you who come on over and read From The Ashers, thank you. Thanks for reading, commenting, sharing and just generally being part of this community. I love that you bother to stop by.

4.  This book.

I finally have a copy in my hot little hands, and almost want to cry just looking at the cover. It was written by the clever, humble, patient and incredibly persistent Allison Paterson. I’ve only read a tiny bit so far, but I can already tell it’s going to be a cracker. I’m so proud of her for forging ahead with this massive project, creating this important work and giving heart to these pieces of Australian History.

5.  All of the small things.

The delicious crumble of home-made shortbread. The sound of rain on our tin roof at night. The snuffling movements of our children sleeping. The gentle winking of Christmas lights. The joyful noise of children splashing in the pool. The salty fragrance of warm, wet air. The crackling anticipation of the record player. The pungent smell of the first coffee of the day in my hideous Christmas Mug. The delivery of gifts from far away. Colourful paper. Curling ribbon. People who say thank you and mean it. Fresh new haircuts. Juicy Summer fruits. Laughing with friends. Silly Christmas movies. Getting dinner cooked for me. Music. New ideas. Almost sunburnt skin. The calming lull of cricket on the telly. Home-brewed ginger beer. Long days. The whisper of ceiling fans that stir the hairs on my arms. Life.

Small things. But they add up okay. They make a big life.

So what are your hits people? Any big wins this week? (Don’t be shy- we are a community, remember.)

…From The Ashers

The doors sense your presence as you approach, and like a bride, the moment  you step over that threshold, life becomes something different.

The air is cooler than it needs to be, so despite the sticky, liquid heat of the Queensland Summer, you have to remember to wear long pants and covered shoes, or you will be shivering by the end of the long, long day. The lighting is vivid, casting shadows on your face, highlighting the bags of concern that have grown, dark and haggard, under your eyes these last few days as you waited for this moment with fearful anticipation. Equal parts relief and dread.

At the check in they call your kid by name, but they place a band around her foot, tagging her for the duration, and although they still refer to her by the name you chose for her, they really know her as UR 54021. Those five digits storing all that they need to know. Her name is just a concession to convention.

As you walk the long corridor to your glaring, sterile habitation for the day, all sense of who you were out in that other world sloughs off you, and you become part of the machinery of intervention. The more completely you can exfoliate the remnants of your concerns and your individuality, the better you will fare on this day of immersion. Cleansing yourself of your self makes for a smooth transition into a day where all decisions will be made for you.

The people in white are also tagged and numbered, and they will direct your progression. Come here, move there, put your arm here, wait there, eat this, hold still, hold still hold still HOLD HER STILL, whilst they prick and insert this steel along the lines of her veins, filling her up with the liquid of life that you know she needs, and yet the last remnant of you that still recalls the outside you, resists and recoils from.

The day is long and long, and long after you have forgotten your own name, or the feel of the fresh brush of sunlight on your skin, you are released out into the bigness of the twilight sky and you can fill your alveoli with air that is moistened from sugarcane and life.

You breathe that warmed air in gulping mouthfuls, filling your cheeks like the guppy at the bottom of the fluorescent fish tank you have left behind. Fare you well little fish, and all of you big fish, stuck in your tank of surreal activity.

‘Til next time.

And you silently cross your fingers, hoping with futile desire that there won’t be a next time.

But you know better.

…and so does she

My friend had breast cancer.

When you have cancer, and somehow the body that grew those rogue cells is able to overcome them, people say that you are lucky. That always makes me cringe. I know they are talking about the fact that you had the Big C and are still here to tell the tale, but from what I’ve seen, it doesn’t look very lucky.

Have you ever looked at cancer cells under the microscope? Even if you know nothing about histology, when you see them, you know something has gone terribly wrong. Under the microscope, there is an organisation and structure to normal cells, and in fact, the cells of each organ have distinctive features. So you can tell the difference between a thyroid cell and a liver cell, a heart and a lung. Cancer is not something from the outside, it is those self-same cells, but they are in a death rush to end it all. They are multiplying and dividing and multiplying again, in some frenzied tornado of reproduction, so that they become some mutated, ugly cousin of the original cells, hideously echoing the family traits.

Their evolution is like Gremlins, but they have the malevolent fury of something from the other side of the Pet Semetary.

I despise them.

My friend had breast cancer.

It ravaged and contorted and shrank her body, killing her from the inside out, just as mine swelled and glowed and created a new life.

She used to talk to my fecund, streched skin, right up close, whilst I was doing for her the only thing my hands know how to do for people in pain. I would rub away on her tissues from the outside, hoping that I was erasing some of those cells deep within. She would tell my baby all sorts of things, and I now realise I was squirrelling those stories up, like quotes in one of those “Words of Wisdom” books, saving them for the Winter of my empty.

When someone you love dies, that is all you have. Photos, stories and perhaps some things that they used to wear. Nothing new gets added as the years mount up, so you have to save up those fragments and slips of ideas that you shared, and store them deep inside, for it is all you will ever have. Nothing new will be added, not ever. So those fragile wisps must be wrapped lightly in the most delicate of tissue papers, and stored in a box with plenty of air around them, so they can breathe and retain their shape and stay precious and safe.

When my friend used to talk to my ripening abdomen, I was often struck by the thought that we were both growing things within us. She talked to mine, she told it to be good and healthy and strong and creative and funny and to pop out at home in a rush of bursting life. I talked silently to her’s and told it to fuck right off and leave her alone and have our business done and done and over and done.

Mine listened. Her’s did not.

So now I count off the years gone, in the milestones of my daughter. Every December as Christmas draws near, I wait for the punch in the guts and I struggle and claw myself past that day on the calendar fearful that if I go down, it will kick and kick me, as I cower on the floor. I hold myself rigid as I think of the people who have more right than me to grieve, the people who share those very same cell lines that took her down. And I think of the love of her life, and the hole that he has somehow filled with wonderful things, old and new.

I don’t even know what to say to them any more.

My friend had breast cancer, and she didn’t let it stop her one bit. Until it stopped her for good.

She was not one of the lucky ones.

None of them are.

RIP Rick. Miss you. Still.

…From The Ashers

Last week I scored a magnificent bargain.

I was flicking around on Facebook, when one thing led to another, and before too long, I managed to procure what may (or may not) be the deal of the century. I found a woman on Bribie Island who was willing to sell me her deceased grandparents’ record collection for two pineapples. Or five lobsters, in the old measure. I couldn’t believe my luck. For not only did she want to sell for a song, Nathan and the kids just happened to be kind-of-almost-sort-of going past Bribie on Saturday. So I got a lifetime of someone’s music (or muzak as it should rightfully be called) without an ounce of effort.

That’s the kind of Christmas Sale transaction I like.

We (well, Nath) hefted that box of shiny black discs upstairs, and I spent the rest of the weekend sneezing, (old records really do have a distinctive smell) and singing along. Happy Days. (But not “Happy Days”, surprisingly there is no Happy Days soundtrack in the mix, although there are many, many more of that ilk)

As I flicked through the piles (I had them in piles so that I could immediately put them in alphabetical order- funny, I did this without even thinking) I silently wished I had this Modern Device:

Can you read the text? It’s a SPACE AGE device!

yet still, labour or not- shrieking as I uncovered each new gem. Ol’ Joy purchased some pearlers and some shockers in her time, and it seems she had a particular penchant for the compilation album. Ahh, compilations, my second favourite genre. (My favourite is duets, if you have to ask)

I was deliriously happy as I spun disk after disk, finding that by some freakish sorcery, the words to these songs were stored in the back recesses of my gyri, intact, after all these eons. Lyrics to songs that, if you asked me, I would say that I am only vaguely familiar with, came flooding back as soon as the first verses began.

Sometimes I was a bit behind- like when you do that thing with your friend, pretending to guess what the other will say, speaking the same words at the same time in a kind of slow motion- but often I was right on time, knowing the words as if they were my favourite songs, now playing on 3XY.

I found a surprising joy in this. In finding that my brain somehow knew some things that I don’t. It was like there was me, and then another me, both sitting on the couch with a beer, familiar together, yet not quite sure what the other one would do next.

My favourite was when I played this album:

I remember the cover distinctly- Mum had it when I was a kid- and I knew it contained the tracks Disco Duck and Cherry Bomb, but other than that, nothing. It turns out that Old Me has some bytes of information stored up, and she knew all of the words, to all of the songs, even ones that New Me doesn’t really like. What fun. And what else is stored up there? Do I secretly know how to play piano or speak German, two things I have been exposed to, but have no working memory of? And if there is more up there, how do I get it out?

In the end I guess it doesn’t really matter, it will all come out when I’m old(er) and nuts and asking my children as they change my Depend, for Choo Choo Bars because they were-are my favourite confection, circa 1978.

Nathan and the kids were vaguely interested in all of my nonsense, but by and by they grew tired of the crackling and the scratchings of the turntable, and decided to introduce my to the soundtrack of their Saturday drive: Uptown Fudgey Wudge.

My synapses hurtled through time and space, one moment dealing with the tricky intricacies of stuffing those thin black circles pressed with the voices of The Temptations from long ago, into those strange clingy bags, to the next, downloading the latest Mark Ronson track (which is actually called Uptown Funk, if  you wanna do yourself a favour and go listen) and having it almost immediately available to listen to with the caress of a screen.

So we jumped and funked and grooved around the dance-floor to something that some guy probably could have made in his bedroom, and beamed to my phone the second after he pressed the STOP button on his Garage Band app. It’s probably not how it happened, but it could have. And that’s the crazy bit of Uptown Fudgey Wudge vs Karma Chameleon. Both are hits in their time. And both are fantastic in their way. Both make your feet tap and your brain smile. Both know how to pick you up and shrug off some of the load.

Music eh?

Wow.

This morning as I write, I am looking up from time to time at the mountain of vinyl shoved in the corner, and I see I have inadvertently placed the early birthday pressie I procured for myself from Typo last week, on top of it.

Thanks Joy B. Thanks for taking the time to collect the songs of your life, carefully writing your name on their covers so that I can send you a cheers, whenever I take them for a spin. You made me Happy.

Do you still have a record player (yes, I know it’s now called a turntable)?

What songs are on the soundtrack of your life?

…From The Ashers

By all reports, things have officially gone nuts “out there”, so I have retired to what I like to call THE COMPOUND. I do it every year around this time. All you extraverts can have the shops to yourselves. I’m IN for the Season.

Once school breaks up I try not to go out in the world if I can at all help it. To get to the beach I go out my back gate and cross the road, so I include that as my compound. I may occasionally be spotted in public places when the lure of fancy champagne gets too great, but I keep my appearances fleeting.

Working from home has compounded my compound lifestyle, and one holiday season I only drove the car twice in three weeks, (which is my personal record). It was an amazing feeling once I jumped back behind the wheel- I felt like a P-Plater again, and if it wasn’t for the babyseats in the back, I reckon Nath might have found out the full benefits of the modern split-seat configurations.

It appears the children have inherited the hermit gene, as they have not asked once to go out into the world. I suggested we pop to the shops today, for I am in desperate need of some Pearl Cous Cous, and they wrinkled up their freckled little noses and said, “Can’t Dad get it on the way home?”

Yes, my little troglodytes, he can. Rest easy, you can stay in your pjs this day.

So, as I have no news from the outside world, I thought I would share with you some of the Christmassy things from The Compound. It turns out, that not only am I a recluse, I am a crazy one. No, it’s not cats I collect (One #shitcat is enough thanks). My collectables are all things Christmas. (Oh, and Pez dispensers, but that’s a story for another day).

So here are a couple of things from my collection of christmascrap:

The “Elf Truck”.
My biggest festive success and failure in one handy truck.
Success: the kids go NUTS over the fact that the elves deliver two tiny presents into the corresponding drawer every.single.night.
Failure: See ‘success’ above. EVERY.SINGLE.FRIGGING.NIGHT!

This is the “non-crap” corner of the house.
A clever craftmaster friend made these cushions. Coupled with DH’s ridiculous standards of Christmas styling… This is the daydream area of The Compound.

And yes, I can crapify even a lovely Chrissy sanctuary (above) with this shit christmas mug. I drink the brown life-elixir from it every day from the 1st of December….

We try this every year. The results are always craptacular, and nothing like the DH version above.

The kids call these the NutNut animals (I know: weird) they are from Bali, and all I can assume is that the Balinese have no idea what Christmas is, but they do know that idiots from Australia really will buy anything if it’s cheap enough. QED.

Necessary to set the mood, no? This is a small selection of my stuff. (Yes, there is MORE on the ipod… Happy Days)

A few years back I was the fundraising organiser for kindy, so I needed to boost the numbers. Hence: my very own stylish picture plate.

Of course there’s napery. SO MUCH NAPERY. For, who can resist it??

Test tubes. With red Christmas lights. Made in our initials by the talented Ben from Infinity Eco Furniture. I suppose you can guess what kinds of “experiments” occur when these babies come out to play… Let’s just say that what happens on the iDeck, stays on the iDeck (I’m looking at YOU Christmas 2013)

Oh yes, I will be subjecting people to Christmas games…

My Christmas earrings. There is more (oh so much more) where this came from, but I thought I’d just show you the classy shit.

Christmas crockery.
There is SO much more than this, including (of course) an entire set of gold-rimmed crockery and glassware (minus one, as smashed by someone who WAS smashed back in the great Christmas debacle of ’09.)

An assortment of crappy christmas tableware. A must for every tragic family..

NOT crap!
My gorgeous chrissy handbag. It’s hand-crafted from a kimono, and was given to me a few years ago by the owner of “Kimono Collections” who understands and encourages my addictions.
I LOVE THIS BAG.

So there you have it, the tip of the Asher Christmas iceberg. Whew, I think I need a good lie down now….

What about you? Any Chrissy Crap to share?

…From The Ashers