Sorry The Rooster's Not Red

Merry Christmas my friends!  We're having Christmas here this year....it is long overdue.....it will be the first since we have been married.  Christmas Eve will be at our house with Albert's family & Tifenn & Max.  Oysters will also be on our menu...it isn't Christmas without Oyster pies.  Too bad I can't get a hold of one of those Moreton Bay Bugs!  Christmas day will be spent at Maria & Nick's in the east village...the same apartment building that we lived in until we had Grace.  The day after Christmas we will head to Va to celebrate with my family & check on my grandma. The kids are still into Santa & mailed him letters addressed to his house in the North Pole.  I insisted that no postage nor return address was neccessary.  

Kristen, Sally & I went out for drinks & dinner the other night.  Roh, you'll be very proud of me I had 3 half pints.  I believe, I'm  going to have to change my name!

The city is having another one bite the dust.  Djonibas dance & drum center is closing.....they are hit by fewer students attending classes because of the economy  and a major rent increase.  I am sick over it!  Lily, you won't be able to see Djoniba strut his stuff in his baggy diaper pants ever again!  Seriously,  over the past 10 years we have lost 2 really great African dance schools and tons of cancelled programs & classes.  This is really, really sad.

http://infinitebody.blogspot.com/2008/12/djoniba-centre-to-close.html

On a lighter note......I hope you all have the very best holiday and I wish so much that we could have a toast together!

Roh, what is your email address? I have sent you several things and they keep coming back. The kids were thrilled to receive a card all the way from Australia!

  

Merry Christmas Chicks

Here are the children in summer clothes and Christmas gear - just to prove it really is warm here at Christmas. It certainly makes most Christmas carols sound more ridiculous than usual ("Walking in a winter wonderland" - what?). We are heading down to my parents' house today and there will be ten around the Christmas lunch table supping on oysters, lobsters, Moreton Bay bugs and any other seafood delicacy my mother can find in the local fishmongers. Australia virtually shuts down for a couple of weeks at Christmas and New Year and most of January is pretty sleepy with the children on their summer holidays and most families hunting for a spot on the beach. On Boxing Day (December 26), I will be going to the Test Match at the MCG with Dad, Dean, my brother-in-law Duncan, and 90,000 other people. Most of the day will be spent in the Long Room where we are required to dress up in suits and ties despite the hot weather, but where we can drink good beer out of glasses not made of plastic, and have the best view of the game. By the end of a long day (a day at the cricket is from 11am to 6pm), we will have watched the world's best sporting contest, have resolved most of the world's problems, and I will probably have attempted to climb over a fence or two.

So everyone have a very merry Christmas and we will drink you all a toast on Christmas Day.

Merry Merry Martini's and Manhattan's

Ok - so it is cold as ass here - I am still trying to ride a bike -- I know I am crazy - I will have to send you some pictures of me in my full bike gear - it got so cold the other day that my chain would not even move -- can you believe it??

So I had a kick ass party on Friday! I invited a few people from work, a few I have met in other locations and a couple I have known. It all accumulated in about 17 people gathered in my home for "Martini's and NYC Manahattan's". It was quite successful! I had a lovely time and my home looked quite lovely and ended pretty dirty. I realized I still have not shown you pictures of my place -- here ya go -- a little out of order but hey:














Lets see what else...I think I told you all about my promotion right? Well, I am now Education Manager - but I only got a little over half of what i asked for finacially - they pretty much have me by my balls with this financial market though. People are really being affected here that is for sure - friends are losing jobs all around me...it is a little scary...how are all of you and the people around you? I am starting to loose perspective -- the middle class in the midwest always seem to be affected first when it comes to finacial slumps -- and -- this one -- is not pretty. I just cross my fingers I don't loose my job -- it is already a bit freaky that my Dads building business had cut in half.

Let see maybe something a bit more cheery...my girlfriend Sarah just had her baby -- a boy! I haven't seen pictures yet but I can't wait. It is the end of an era - she was the only friend in my life who was childless -- now it is just me. I guess I am keeping the statistics even...but it still is a little weird. Now she will disappear like everyone else and there will be no one to talk to -- ok, now I am feeling sorry for myself -- sorry -- I will just have to either wait for all the babies to grow up...or have one of my own.

Ok - that was not a cheer up -- sorry...

I miss all of you -- where are you? What are your holidays amassing to? please send pictures soon -- oh yeah, and I have completely failed in the "skype talk planning" I promise I will be on it in the new year...2009...shit...where have the years gone. I will be 39 this year ...that is f$#%ing crazy!!

Beatles concert

Here are the children in their end-of-year school concert:

something to make you smile...

Ok -- because I don't have the likes of my wonderful Rooster and his chicks to run with I have lowered myself to dressing as Santa and running with a bunch of other ding dongs through the streets of Minneapolis...what do I say...I miss you all...we looked better in red...but I have to say that beard really accentuates my cheekbones...I do make one sexy ass Santa!


But I finished all the same and raised some money for a good charity -- would have been more fun with all of you.


Besides running like a ninny with a white beard I was recently on the decorating committee of my Guthrie Staff Christmas party and I have to say my ideas worked out pretty good. It was an "enlarged theme" with X-Large cut out snowflakes (which gave me a blister on my finger after 3 hours of cutting) and my fireplace DVD projected on the wall of the studio looked pretty cool--that is one hell of a yule log!



But regardless of the fun I have to say I would love some sun. The snow, sleet, slush make it hard to bike...but as many are saying I am "hard core"...little do they know it is necessity. The lonely subsides when in the comfort of my apartment but it is hard to meet people -- thought I keep pushing through. The job is really quite fantastic, all that I have been looking for...so I can say balance will come in time. I think overall, I am pretty happy. I started my "professional coaching" and it has been enlighting. This has been a good move...might not be the location for life...but it was the right move.

Six months

Six months in Australia and what have I discovered? I really enjoy seeing my parents' joy at being around my children, I like going to my club at the MCG to watch footy and cricket, all this sunshine is pretty good, I like having a beer with my brother once in a while, Australian newspapers and television are 97.5% crap, books are incredibly expensive, until about 1960 the history of this country was based on a racist ideology that would not have been out of place in 1960's Mississippi or South Africa (I already knew that, but now I understand it in a lot more detail), Melbourne has the best coffee in the world, people here live in their backyards and therefore neighborhood communities do not exist, it's eerily quiet during the day in my street, I could not be a stay-at-home Dad for too long here and I'm looking forward to starting my Master of Teaching course at Melbourne University in February (if I get accepted), Australian radio is 100% crap, I am lactose-intolerant, it's very dry and we need a lot of rain, parents don't hang around in playgrounds after school, I am still resisting the Australian habit of shortening everybody's name and putting and "ee" on the end (I have two friends who I had not seen in 20 years. Their names are Annette and Janine - they now get called Nettie and Neenie. Sheesh), I have a barbecue - what is the big deal?, Peter Carey should win a Nobel Prize, I've had about as much as I can take of Nicole Kidman and "Australia", Kevin Rudd is a very boring man.

The Turkey Blues

Hello my friends!

We went to Va for Thanksgiving because my other grandmother is not doing very well now. Remember I lost my Grandmother Hudgins at 98 this past February. Grandmother Hammond is now 94 and as she so plainly put it during our most recent visit...."Old age is catch'in me!"

Grandmother had a very bad case of shingles a couple months ago from which she is still having residual pain and eyesight loss. Her short term memory has also gotten so bad that she can no longer follow her books on tape which were her only remaining form of amusement. Her quality of life consist of sitting in her chair or the bed all day with her eyes closed. She seems to enjoy a little conversation and sometimes wants to be read the paper. She has little desire for food, is skin and bones, although, I found that I could feed her quite well because she would forget what she had eaten....so she got two of every meal when I was around. My Dad has hire help to stay with her a majority of the time. She is so proud that it is humiliating for her to have my family helping her. She cried when my step mom had to take her to the bathroom. My Dad has never been able to sit around for too long, he is constantly moving from project to project, inside to out. Well, he sat with my Grandmother the day that we arrived from 8:00am until 3:30pm and he said that it was the longest he had ever been inside in his entire life!

Grandmother has had many lives...a painter, sculptor, teacher, crafter, first female treasurer of Mathews County, Va., and solo world traveler, just to name a few. She lives on a small creek called "Put-in Creek" where I collected so many fond childhood memories of being on the water. When my Grandfather died about 15 years ago, my Dad built a weekend house next to my Grandmother which we stay in when we visit. We were married on her dock. Our life in Va. so deeply entwined with hers will make the waiting, untangling, separation & loss very, very difficult. I don't know what to wish for.