thailand once more.

Happy times for the family of four at the moment. Sure, there's been some tummy bugs, and a substantial mosquito problem in our villa, but it is Thailand. And that makes everything okay.

Independence weekend in Port Moresby.

the bougainville bamboo band

as the sun sets

shake that grass

merging with the crowd

our girl in awe

....and what kids come up with when the parents are eating.

No title.

This week I am remembering my friend, who one year ago, ended her life.

I have had more conversations with her in the past year than any other year in recent times. It's been quite a flurry.

The prevailing feeling I have as her anniversary rolls around, is that I just need to see her one more time. Then I can capture her essence and bottle it, once and for all. Hear her laugh, have a fight, clink glasses, shed some tears, drink too much, rehash 20 year jokes that only our trio thinks are funny, be ridiculous, and feel that absolute comfort of being with your own.

If I could just have that one more time, maybe I would know how to let go.

I have spent the past year trying to find that technical glitch in the finality of life and death. Not to be outfoxed however, death remains steadfast against my pestering and occasional optimism that I have found a way to make it happen.

One more time. That would be enough.

Some final words on the matter.

Dear local supermarket,

You have been but a stone’s throw away for all these years. My one stop shop for … well whatever you had on the dusty shelves at that time. I stopped writing a shopping list somewhere back in our first year together. What I wanted was of no import! It was your shelves that determined what we ate.

But of course!

Eat local, as they say. Only buy the freshest of ingredients and let the seasons determine what you plate up day after day. I never could find a good recipe for chicken feet, oranges and apples, but I assure you – I tried. I hope one day someone buys that AU$25 punnet of withering blueberries, you know the ones tucked away in the deep dark corner of your room temperature refrigeration ‘system’? In any case, you should certainly continue with importing blueberries, times might change, right?

In recent months, you felt the winds of change blowing right through your isles. I know you did, because suddenly there was rampant renovation underway. This included the installation of a refrigeration and freezer system that looked as though it was designed to do as the name suggests. The car park guards got new blue shirts. The pothole that went below sea level was repaired, after an adventurous nine months of actually driving through it. New registers were installed. Isles were expanded. Your products did not change, but you were making an effort. That much is clear. Yes, my old friend, you knew that a multinational was moving into your patch. Finally, it was time to compete.

I recalled with fondness an earlier time when your efforts were somewhat shallower, cosmetic you could say. Remember when management purchased that compact of blusher, and made it mandatory for the checkout chicks to wear it during work hours? For a while there (I assume, until the compact ran out), all the ladies had little red circles of blusher on their cheeks. I do not think it was applied to illuminate the cheek-bone, but rather to ‘look as though we give a shit (but we don’t want to spend a dime), so we better objectify our female staff’. I would have been happy to give some quick makeup tips. For future reference, blusher does not go on as a circle. But now I’m just being picky.

In more recent times, I was excited to see a wheel of washed rind perched happily in the new fridges. Oooh! I exclaimed. How exciting. It’s not that I don’t trust the ‘new you’, but old habits die hard and I did find myself checking the expiration date before I went any further. Alas. It expired some months ago. Given that this cheese has never been for sale before, and you import all dairy products, I wonder how long that wheel had been buried out the back? A year? Have to fill all the new shelves with something I suppose!

In what was to be my last foray with you and your dying monopoly on this side of town, I was forced to buy a phone card from that sour faced woman perched on her stool-throne. ‘What!?’ she spat at me as I woke her from slumber one last time. I stopped using words with her a long time ago, and now just let the kina do the talking. With a shudder I took my card and left. Fare thee well.

At the checkout the ladies moved slowly. I stared at the wall. And stared some more. My girl pulled all the Schick razor blades down from the display. Then I think I saw the checkout chick staring at the wall too. In the distance was the sound of a rotating saw and the not-so-faint aroma of toxic chemicals wafting through the supermarket and over the bakery as people compulsorily worked around the clock to complete the transformation. After an eternity, we exchanged words.

She says to me “Now we have to compete, you know?”

Yes, I do.

The glistening, functional and fully stocked evil multinational has opened its doors. 

Like a moth to a flame, as they say.

Time to find something else to talk about!

Social media: just do it.

A quick look into the hoo-ha regarding Target's range of slutty clothes for young ladies has really got me thinking.

Firstly - no matter how hard I try (and I really do try), I just don't seem to be using social media the way everyone else is. Never in my wildest dreams would I think to 'like' a retailer's facebook page. Never in my wildest dreams would I even think to look up my local retailer on facebook. Why bother*? I don't care where it went on holidays, or what it is eating for dinner. Retailers belong in malls. That's the first thing.

Another thing, is that if I did allow a commercial entity into my facebook activity, where would I find the time to monitor developments on their page, when I am already working around the clock to monitor what 167 other people are doing at various critical points in their busy, fascinating days. I am too busy stalking people I no longer care to speak to, to have time with writing down discount coupon codes that can be renewed elsewhere, at an online check out. Really, who has this kind of time?

And say for example, I did have this kind of time, as well as some odd inclination to participate. Well, would I actually bother to write responses to sale notifications (30% off ALL towels!!)? And if I did, would this mean that I had to read the 564 other comments to ensure mine was relevant and unique (a quick look at the Target page suggests this is not standard practice). People are writing paragraphs on this stuff! I tried to read some to get across the general vibe, but honestly. I could not give less of a shit about what Maryanne thought when she went in to buy some leggings and a new lunchbox for Isabella.

If I had a few moments of my life I wanted to piss up the wall (already all used up by facebook participation), I may have tried to peruse some of the little fights customers have with each other in the comments box for some cheap amusement thrills ... "you are all such selfish materialistic women, I just want a cuddle from my kids on Mother's Day".  Oh my God. I think I just projectile vomited across the compound.

And the other thing that really had got me thinking hard is this: Target lost me at the sequinned g-string for the under 10s the minute I laid eyes on it. No, I didn't want to buy knee high hooker boots for a young girl thanks, and actually those appalling slogans on various garments are so excruciatingly embarrassing, I could not imagine any person in their right mind buying them. Surely this shit does not sell, right?

You just take your cash somewhere else. Let the money do the talking. Best to let the money do the talking actually, much better than the voices of literally THOUSANDS of your average Target customer bleating on about tablecloths and ambient air temperature and shopping philosophies and ..... <insert coma here>.

Finally - I am just curious why people even bother to get annoyed. It's not like Target is the overlord of the kids' fashion world, leaving parents with no choice but to dress Olivia in hot pants and a crochet crop top saying "cheeky, naughty, and the gates are wide open". No, we actually do have a c-h-o-i-c-e.

As some insightful customer duly pointed out on the Target facebook page "just go to Gucci and Prada for kids - they still look good and cover everything up." Yeah .... thanks for that. Said as though the Target audience easily hops between high end and high street. There's always gotta be a tall poppy!

Until next time .....



*The first time this really dawned on me was the Airwick ad on TV. You know Airwick, the toilet spray for unpleasant odours? Yeah, that Airwick. At the end of the ad, viewers were asked to 'like' Airwick on facebook.

A few things ...
1. facebook is no longer what it thinks it is when toilet sprays have a status.
2. No Airwick, I am not keen for my 167 'friends' to know that I 'like' you ... even though I may have a can of your product perching on my toilet.
3. Airwick - please don't do social media anymore. It just makes us all look bad.

A whole lotta paperwork, and a little thrill.

Ok, so the tables have turned in life a little. After an eternity of being on the 'tenant' side of a lease, I am now co-occupying the 'landlord' title.

How strange!

We are homeowners, from afar. The papers are signed, the money is gone, in a faraway land called Australia, our purchase was settled today.

We didn't even have to turn up.

Someone is dropping our keys to someone else. The tenant just keeps on keeping on.

Meanwhile, I am drinking champagne and picking out wallpaper.

Yeah baby ... first step - feature wall with cool hooks in the entry.

I've become another statistic! Never been happier.

London 2012

I know I'm coming in a bit late to this particular issue, but I'm really starting to LOVE the Olympics.

The women's marathon has BLOWN MY MIND.

42 KILOMETRES.

A SPRINT to bring it all home at the end.

It's easy enough to sit on the couch, eating chocolate and watching these ladies run. But to do it? I cannot imagine. The personal discipline, sacrifice and determination these women represent is really at a remarkable level. They are the real deal, and a real inspiration.

When I heard about the tennis results, my first thought was 'who cares about Wimbledon?'. Then I remembered that tennis players get to have it both ways. There is so much more to pay attention to in the Olympics than tennis! Isn't 4 major grand slams a year enough?

What about the shooting? These guys do not get anywhere near the same time in the sun as Murray or Federer. In fact, some of those guys do not look as though they have seen the sun in years. It did cross my mind that they might have been locked in a basement for sometime, such was the deranged look in their eye (the one not covered by that bizarre plastic square tinted window connected to a headband, somewhere on their head) and slight pudginess. Some more sunshine definitely needed there. And maybe a new hobby. Sorry, sport.

The coverage I watched of the shooting was so focused on the shooters themselves that it actually only showed their faces. As in, there was one camera shot only. On their faces. No second camera to capture a long shot, or indeed the target, or outcome of their shooting. Just one ongoing shot of ... their faces. Very very weird.

North Korea v South Korea on the ping pong table. International diplomacy right there! It made me wonder what the North Koreans think of London. They would need some kind of radical high-speed western/free-world induction on arrival, and then a nation-state-still-at-war-with-the-world induction when they got back home. What a wild wild ride for that team. I really hope they have a good time in England. And maybe defect.

This is the great thing about the Olympics - it really is an international equaliser (and there are worse countries to seek asylum in). It is so moving to see the reaction of competitors and their teams when they succeed. The feeling of reward and wonder to win a medal, or beat a time, or break your personal best, or even just to see the world and other competitors like you have never seen it before must be a huge rush.

The pole vault! That is SO HIGH! How do you even become good at that? And when do you decide that you want to be? It's this kind of thing that I LOVE about the Olympics. An international showcase of decisions and sacrifices people have made in the course of their lives to get good at something, and commit to it. Not many people could look good flying through the air in their undies and a bra top, but those women did it. At five meters! Amazing.

One small negative - whassup with the London 2012 branding? The logo looks like graffiti someone did on my schoolbag in 1989. And as for all that daggy italic marking the course for every event, I desperately want to Select All and de-italicise. For the love of God!

One more week to go .... may it be gymnastic-filled with a dash of diving. You'll find me rooting for all the little countries, and competitors without a suite of sponsorship deals. I'll probably also be filling up on Coke and McDonald's without even realising, such is the not-so-subliminal power of the key Olympic 'partners'.

With the good, you must take the bad .....

To market, to market.

Early one Sunday morning at Gordons Market, Port Moresby.

It's hard to be clean.

When I took the plastic wrapping off our new wooden dish rack this afternoon, I could actually smell the deforestation.

I couldn’t make eye contact with it for a while. It riled me. I riled myself.

Another day, another piece of crap. 

To be fair, I did buy it at the local megamall, the one that the Malaysian logging company built. It’s not a place that’s ever going to care too much about ‘ethically sourced’, or ‘fair trade’. Fair enough. I suppose the dish rack is actually brilliant product placement: the fruits of company labour and investment.

It’s the only place in town to buy stuff. And I, like most people with the means to be, seem to be caught in this endless cycle of consumption, discarding, consumption and discarding. I don’t know how to make it stop!

When that place first opened, I did quite enjoy walking through the home wares section, and amusing myself with the appalling light fittings, black leather look seat covers and faux wrought iron dining settings. I would have a chuckle at the bad English on the rows and rows of plastic lunch boxes and food containers; every day is sun ….you and me look together always. Occasionally, I would even buy one. Who can resist a panda face for a lunchbox? Then of course the book “Slow Death by Rubber Duck” came into our lives, and I have been ignoring the growing pile of coloured useless plastic we have amassed in our kitchen cupboards ever since. 

Anyway that was then, I was allowed a brief moment of nostalgia for the Chinese retail sector and all the amusement it provided me. But now when I look at those isles and isles of odd brands and not-quite-right products, all I can see is a graveyard. It’s where the rotten fruits of large-scale cheap manufacturing have come to die. No one really wants this stuff. At best it is a novelty or amusing gimmick, but the joke wears off pretty quickly.

At least for me.

For the real residents of this town however, this mall is the jewel of the city. There has never been anywhere else like it. A huge air-conditioned public space where people can come freely, and shop, or just hang out. There is always a crowd outside the electronics shop watching the flat screen TV. There’s a food court, undercover parking, and a play area for kids. The modern middle class reality has reached Port Moresby.

As for the dish rack: it made it into our home because it wasn’t plastic. Yet, it is the crappest, cheapest, and no doubt, most unsustainable woodchip imaginable. And now, in the interests of reducing the turnover of ‘stuff’ that passes in and out of our home – it must stay. In order to make this work however, I will now have to go out and buy any number of anti-deforestation deoderisers to neutralise that pesky “I’m burning alive!” smell trees sometimes make.

You see what I mean? I simply cannot get off this ride.

Being a family, within the compound. As always.

park your plane the right, thanks.

pensive, and chubby.

new day, new hair.

wind! i'm alive!

learning the camera ropes.

we just love hanging by the clothesline.

man love.

lost in a sea of grass and washing.

When the only thing left to amuse is cheese.

I've got the thesis blues, baby.

My idea is stupid! I can't research. What was I thinking? There is no data on my topic. I will not be breaking any new ground here.

Unfortunately for me, and those around me, I am not channelling my unrest into productive home-making, crafting, sewing, cooking or any of the other distractions that a gal like me might ordinarily turn to. No, I am just miserable, tired and cross.

What a bore!

All feelings only compounded by the .... compound!

There may be a new splash of paint around the pool walls (think grey - the most alive and party-going shade of,) and some new toys in the haus win, but the days are the same as they always were.

There may be some new fridges and freezers at the supermarket, but the shelves are stocked as they always were - with whatever remains in unpacked boxes.

On this point - the world's largest block of mozzarella is back, just waiting for someone to attempt to lift it into their trolley. At a bargain price of around 500 kina, and weighing in at around 20kg, it is not the cheese for everyone. In my malaise and general despondency, I did consider buying it yesterday.

No doubt, it would have been packed into a single plastic bag, as though it was of a more pedestrian size.

Of course this is only speculation, and I await the time when I actually see an attempt on scanning this thing through the checkout. (If you cannot get a visual on the size of this thing - think a standard full-size pillow). This is what we're dealing with here, folks.

Anyway, must go. Back to staring at the razor wire!

My favourite photo this week.

The above image is precisely why parents can get up and do it all over again the next day. Nothing matters anymore. The past is the past. The future is golden. Kids are beautiful. There are no tantrums in the world. Everyone is happy. A sleeping beauty looking after her Daddy's birthday present. Night night.

An apartment for four.

It was a miserable holiday, that much is certain.

So much phlegm. So much rubbish in our hire car at any given moment. So many moments of family fracturing. The Canberra winter as our backdrop, there waiting for us every morning as we set out to another open house. The market may have been saying now is a great time to be a first homebuyer, but the screaming children and stress of it all suggested to us it was anything but.

Moments of doubt were many. Another apartment, another spa. What was it with the 90s? A helpful briefing by a friendly real estate agent intercepted by our two year old declaring it was poo time. Plastic smiles concealing deep alarm on the parental faces. No, it wasn't really cute. Generously, she allowed us to use the bathroom, and perhaps even more generously, our little lady gave the most extensive commentary to date on the process, including a toilet paper evaluation and post-mortem. No doubt, all people over the age of two, were at that point thinking I just want to get the *&*^ out of here.

As the days passed and our winter colds settled in to well and truly debilitate us all, we came closer and closer to making an offer. Each night my investment partner and I would rehearse our cutting edge Gordon Gekko-esque negotiating lines. These agents would not know what hit them. They would never have met such cutting and sharp first homebuyers in their lives. We would get a place for 200K, so weak was the market, and so desperate were people to sell. This was our time.

We rehearsed our offer over and over and over and over. I got handed the phone, as it were, every time. My partner scurried under the rug. It was hard to talk without laughing. We had no idea what we were doing.

Offer day arrived. There we were with the agents, our two children, walking amongst what was to become our new residence. Stern looks on faces, yes please, we just need a moment alone to deliberate. Giggle giggle. You talk! No, you do it!


Somehow our starting offer came in 15K higher than we had both agreed. How? We have no idea.

In any case, we obviously had a great perception of what 'the market' wanted as our offer was accepted. After a request to touch it up with a few more thousand, of course.

Take that vendor!

Sold.

Our new home awaits. We are thrilled. And even better, it will be summer time when we arrive.

Hello lifestyle.

Dignity.

At the moment I am eating room service in the bathroom, crawling around on all fours in the main room, with the TV on mute, the tiny girl asleep in the king size bed, and the baby asleep in his cot, with one eye open at all times awaiting my return from the ensuite. Hello parenthood in a hotel room. I think I caught myself thinking I would meet friends at a bar later tonight for a moment back there. In reality, even having a shower, finding my pj's in the dark and watching Top Model at minimum volume would at this point, be on par with cocktails and djs. Really, what was I thinking? At least there is wine and a view of big city lights.

Onto the plane we go.

Trips can take weeks in the planning.

Or you can do it in an hour, as I have done this time around. So today, my people, we fly!

The kids and I are headed to Sydney, I need to give my friend a big big hug and share some tears with her as she grieves for her Mum. It will be great to just get there and see her.

In the meantime however, I have to grapple with more immediate priorities. The plane ride to Sydney as a single mother with a baby and toddler. In truth, the only thought in real circulation at the moment is how can I possibly get out of this?


The slightly rushed frenzied way we are leaving has forced me to tie up a few administrative loose ends that I had mentally scheduled to do over the next week. It's amazing what one can achieve when there are not endless aimless days in compound land to fill. One morning can result in incredible efficiency.

I've distributed cash like I've won big in Vegas, debts are clear! I've stocked the fridge and cupboard for  weeks ... for the man of the house you ask? Well, no. For our haus meri who we of course ensure is well stocked and comfortable in our home, while we are away. Hmmm ... yes another day of the picture looking slightly whack to me.

Me to her as I am rushing out the door to tie up my loose ends: "Are there any urgent things you need from the supermarket over the next few weeks?"

Her (musing for a moment): "No, just get me some bleach."

Me: "Okay"

Her: "And get me some Chicken Tonight."

Me (a brief pause, scrambling to make a list, which seemed necessary all of a sudden): "What flavour do you like?"

Her (again, musing): "Oh, I don't know. Just get me any."

And so it happens that on this particular departure morning, I found myself in the supermarket isle grappling over whether to get lemon mustard, chicken tikka, or apricot chicken Chicken Tonight for my haus meri.

Solution: throw money at the problem and buy them all.

The bad samaritan.

Having a miserable sick husband has shown me just how uncharitable I can be.

The poor thing is desperately sick, searching for sympathy, and unfortunately for him - he is searching in all the wrong places. What has driven me to this cold dark place?

Kids.

When he came home at lunch today, sad and sorry and just wanting to reach for bed, I was doing some serious food processor/blender work to make the lunch orders of my screaming kids. A piece of vegemite toast upstairs in bed? You must be f***ing kidding me.

He retired to the lounge room where he thought he could unwind with some soothing newfolk music.

Umm ... SICK PEOPLE GO TO BED, THEY DO NOT RECREATE AS THOUGH THEY ARE LIVING IN INNER CITY STUDIO FLAT WITH NO CHILDREN.

Up the stairs he went ... miserably.

Lunches done, baby asleep, young lady amused at least momentarily, I ripped off the apron and grabbed the car keys to make the supermarket run. I popped my head in to see the man reclined on the bed, bathing in the gentle rays of the afternoon sunlight, perusing the latest Vanity Fair.

I took a deep breath and asked him if he was okay, or needed anything .... no thanks, he said weakly as though even that took more energy than he could really spare.

I threw an sandwich at him and left, desperately hoping that I could be sick too. How fun! No jobs, just bed and magazines for a few days.

In sickness and in health .... I shall remain the grumpy woman of the home. Oh dear. Hope I get some sleep soon so I can be less Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction and more bouncy and fun like Jennifer Anniston in well, anything (for his sake).

Today's destiny.

In my desperate driving mission today to secure a wheel of brie for my 5pm wine-time, I overtook at least two cars that advertised they had a Glock on Board (what happy, go lucky people!), sat in two traffic jams, crossed over the freeway median strip when it all became too much, patronised the B-lsit supermarket in vain hope for the Jindi, came out with some dusty cartons of UHT milk instead and came home.

Lesson: learn to love Kraft singles.

This round goes to the kid.

So anyway, about this journey we call *parenthood*.

At the moment I feel a bit like an all night-worker who also works the breakfast/lunch/dinner shift at the local cafe. Toast, milkshakes, five portions of vegetables per day, lunch, snacks, dinner, it is all a blur. In the midst of the sleep deprivation, and quite frankly - general confusion as to the day of the week/time/where I or my brood are supposed to be at any given time etc, I am learning that I/we are also supposed to have some kind of disciplinary/ethical/moral framework to raise our children within.

As small ones leave baby-hood, they become *people*, and as they are still quite new to the world, they need to be taught how to behave, or so the theory goes. Where I am a bit lost at the moment is on the matter of how in god's name my young lady learnt how to mis-behave without so much as a peep from any of us. She's got it down, straight up!

In the midst of pureeing something and boiling something else late in the day yesterday, I reached for a new tactic. The Behaviour Watch Board. I had no idea what I was doing. Anyway, it involves days of the week and happy and sad faces. The aim is to have more happy faces, as that equates to the predominance of good behaviour. Some kind of tallying exercise and active participation from all adults. Sounded good to me! Serious, yet not punitive. A chance for her to 'take ownership' of her own behaviour. (I really hate that expression, and recognise that my family and I are not on a reality TV program). I dropped the pumpkin, reached for the white board, put on my serious but not scary voice, and cobbled together some kind of chart-type creation.

Her response: "I want a sad face." "Mummy, I want a sad face now."

Goddamn her subversive tactics!

My stupid white board was to her passion for crime what the International Criminal Court is to a rogue state. Irrelevant. She refused to recognise its legitimacy. Therefore, it does not exist.

One day on, the only sad face is mine, as the crime wave continues unabated. The white board remains blank, and is in the distant recesses of whatever it was that happened yesterday.

The Dump.

Lately I have had my head in a lot of garbage. Scavenging is my thing, as in - my thesis topic.

Thankfully I stumbled onto this website in the course of my research, it was a welcome break from statistical data sets of solid waste breakdowns.

Joakim has been kind enough to let me use one of his photographs in my work. Check out the Scavengers series , and the rest! This series reminded me that there is always beauty, and if not beauty then at least something interesting to be found in the most unexpected of places. I am desperate to grab my camera and start a series on Port Moresby, especially at the moment in the midst of this noisy, unpredictable and electric election campaign. There is so much urban decay that I think it ends up creating a weird kind of beauty. People always make things so much more interesting.

What I find hard to resolve is how to get the photos I want, without being a white woman with an expensive camera shooting kids selling peanuts with no shoes. Denial seems like the only way forward!

How can you take beautiful intimate photos of certain human experiences you are not a part of? I wish I knew!

My inability to resolve this means that I have about 2000+ photos of my kids on the living room floor. Now there's something I am a part of!

With only six months to go, my challenge to myself is to create a series of photographs of Port Moresby, this razor wire town that will have been my home for three years. I just hope it goes better than last time - I got reprimanded by the bank security guards and had to delete all my photos in front of them, before then getting heckled by truckloads of amused young men as they drove on by. Needless to say, I did not get the sense that I was 'blending in' to my surrounds.

How to not be conspicuous? Losing the 6+ month pregnant belly is surely a step in the right direction! At least this time I will be able to slip through small spaces sideways. Perhaps I should have a realistic goal, and attempt to photograph Port Moresby as I know it, the people, the places. Go somewhere that I feel comfortable, and somewhere that is familiar.

I know!

A series called Checkout-Chicks: SVS Harbourside and Boroko Foodworld.

Actually, that would be pretty cool.