Sea Change

July 11, 2013 (Part 3)

Day 12--Walter, Adam, and I peeled off in the rental car and headed down to the coast.  On the way, we stopped off at Fitzroy Falls 

and then wound our way through Kangaroo Valley which is as different from the Snowy Mountains as you can imagine.  I pictured a road winding through pasture with herds of kangaroo hanging around and maybe a kangaroo-herd keeping watch.  When we drove through, I realized we were sooo wrong.  Kangaroo Valley was like driving through the set of The Shire from Lord of the Ring.  I really thought I saw a hobbit.

Day 13--We stayed in Kiama, two blocks from the beach.

and two blocks from the Kiama blow hole.

  

Climb

July 11, 2013 (Part 2)

Day 10--Our trip moved further west and to higher elevations.  We had to stop in at Jindbyne to get fitted for our snow shoes before we checked in at the Crackenback Farm.  Snow isn't common in Australia, except here, in the Snowy Mountains.

Day 11--We headed to the top of the Porcupine Summit.  Adam and I stopped for the first photo op at a stand of snow gum trees.

We actually made it up to the very peak and and had this panoramic view.

Play Catch Up

July 11, 2013

Sometimes you have so much fun, you don't stop to talk about it.  So today is catch up day.

Day 8--Day tripping.  We all loaded up and headed west to see the Blue Mountains:  picnicking at Wentworth Falls, a stop by Sublime Point (how yummy is that moniker for an inspiring view?),

and a look around the Three Sisters in Katoomba (and like so many places in Australia, this one is terribly fun to say:  Katoomba, Katoomba, Katoomba.  I think Walt Disney named some of these places.)

Day 8 was just a warm up to Day 9

We started our excursion.  First stop Canberra (pronounced Canbra) where we visited both the Australian War Memorial (for Walter's book on history, memory, and identity) and the National Museum of Australia.  While we saw many mazing sites that deserved photos, I chose two of the same subject, an unknown Australian Serviceman, because he had a striking resemblance to WB.

Apple Crisp--Almost

July 6, 2013

Day 6--Walter and I packed up the bags, hopped a train, and ended up in Linden, NSW.  The Tjoelkers home is brilliant, tucked into the edge of national park in the Blue Mountains.  After a quick tour about the house, Adam was excited to demonstrate his cooking prowess, learned in cooking technology at school.  He prepped his space and as he cored the first apple the knife slipped.  We spent the next six hours exploring the intricacies of the Australian health system.

Six stitches on the web between his thumb and forefinger on his violin hand.  I think he will still be able to make it to Carnegie Hall, and also to the Sydney Opera House where he has a solo at the end of the month.

Day 7--We had a chance to catch up, relax, and get our reading in on Day 7.

Explore

July 4, 2013

Day 4.5--We capped off our 4th day with a rooftop dining experience at the Sydney Cafe.  I won't rub it in that we are experiencing brilliant weather (high expected today of 70F), but I will say that the roof view from atop the fifth story of the historic Sydney Charter House was sublime.  Unfortunately, I'm a bad photographer (but here is an attempt at the Harbor Bridge and to the right, the edge of the Opera House:

Day 5--I'm not sure what it's like to travel and not see folks we know  We knew we'd be with the Tjoelkers, but we also had the good fortune to connect with some of the Keblises.  Hilary taught 6th grade math at Jane Long when Erin was there ,and Cat was a brilliant all-around soccer player from the earliest days, who I apparently didn't ruin by bad coaching when she was a elementary and intermediate school student.

I could actually go on and on about the Royal Botanical garden, where we saw one of the rarest trees in the world, a wollemi pine, and acres and acres of amazing gardens and botanical specimens.  However, let me just show you the scale of what I'm talking about.  [NOTE BENE:  Walter's wing span is six feet six inches.  There is no photoshopping involved to stretch the scale of the girth of this Moreton Bay fig tree.  Yes, I said fig tree)

Arrive and Thrive

July 2, 2013

Day 2--in flight.

Day 3--In awe and almost forgot to take pictures.  Missed the ancient fig tree in the botanical garden and the sunset over the Harbor Bay from our 31st floor room.  Luckily, WB was on the ball and captured the Sydney Opera House.

Day 4--Today we visited Manly, a beach town accessible by ferry and named by Captain Arthur Phillips because the indigenous people discovered there were such fine physical specimens.  It is "Seven miles from Sydney and a thousand miles from care."

Don't the Tjoelkers look fabulous?

Fly

June 29, 2013

Day 1

This evening we fly to Australia.  Kat and Emma are taking us to the Dallas airport. The waiting is the hardest part.  Well, it's the hardest part except for the 17 hour flight.  Leaving 105 degree temperatures is the easiest part.

Happy Birthday, Erin

June 20, 2013

Ten years ago, Erin celebrated her 6th birthday and a year of treatment with a strawberry birthday cake and three special friends--Nico, Katie, and Tiffany.  These fine children stuck with Erin through thick and thin.  She had many more birthday with these and other friends, but not enough.

Excavate

 June 18, 2013

My porch is on my porch.  By which I mean, someone is slowly, but steadily, moving the header beams and posts of my porch down to the porch deck.  This happens a few grains of saw dust at a time, but it happens inexorably

Some of our guests think we have bumble bees.  We don't.  We have those industrious carpenter bees who live to excavate tunnels in the softwood of our cedar porch.

I guess it would be okay if these little guys were just digging a small hole, but once they get about an inch in, they take a right or left turn and keep burrowing.  Before too long it is conceivable that my porch roof will be supported by hollow beams (hollow, except for the baby carpenter bees that soon hatch out.  They are also never satisfied with one hole. . .

If our house falls down while we are in Australia, at least you'll know why.

In the nonce, I need to go to the steel wool  and dowel rod store.  Can you guess why?

Spur

June 3, 2013


Last year about this time Matt Yglesias made this observation in Slate:

America—at least in its own imagination—stands for certain things. For the idea that hard work and sound judgment bring success, and that success deserves celebration. That winners should be celebrated as long as they play by the rules. That teamwork, leadership, loyalty, and excellence all count for something. And that’s why the San Antonio Spurs, currently riding a stupendous run of 19 straight victories, are America’s favorite professional basketball team.

Except, of course, they aren’t. 

I so relate to this, and I guess a couple of you do, too.  

The rest of you have probably been ignoring the basketball playoffs for weeks and could not care less whether the Spurs are America's favorite or least favorite professional basketball team.  [Or perhaps you have wondered why would a "spur" be a good mascot?]

Maybe you have entirely different NBA favorites.  Or maybe you turn to football, soccer, or baseball to get your kicks and give your loyalties.  I'm guessing that for some of you, college sports always has and always will trump those staffed by professionals.  

There are also among my friends, who have already tuned me out in favor of sorting your yarn or to return to your kvetching about The Game of Thrones.

There are, however, few clubs that match the Buengers' psyche more than the Spurs.  No side orders of drama, peevishness and petulance, impulsive bad behavior, or narcissistic attention seeking.  Step up.  Work together.  Do things right.  Appreciate the success of those around you.  Even if it is boring (although, really, is winning ever boring?).  

Tonight the Miami Heat and Indiana Pacers will decide who goes forward to face the Spurs in the Championship Series. I'm hoping for a physical clash of the Titans, where all the starters have to play more than their usual minutes and the game is not decided until the last seconds.  

Davis and I have been and will continue to wear Spurs black for good luck (and most of you know Vickie in Black is a pretty rare occurrence).  

I've even been sleeping in the Spurs shirt Davis silk screened for me for Christmas.   He actually made one for each of us, which we wore like we were identical triplets (awkward or not) when we went to SA for a real live game.

So, tonight, Pacers and Heat. . . play hard!  By Thursday the mantra will be Go Spurs Go!

Cloves

June 27, 2013

I'm afraid it gets worse.

Along with the ancient box of corn muffin mix, I explained a couple of days ago, we also composted four boxes of barley. . . and I can't possibly explain how a single family (a couple, actually) comes to own four opened and expired boxes of barley.

I do know that we had, for some time, added pearled barley to stew when we made it, but stopped doing so suddenly and permanently after Erin sobbed about it at the table one evening, "why do you always ruin the stew by putting oatmeal in it?!?!"

We were laughing about that memory this morning with my mom, which got us riffing on my complaints about the family stew recipe.  Years ago, some point early in our marriage, I had to forbid the addition of whole cloves to the stew.

My mom wasn't that familiar with cloves, so I reached up in the spice rack to let her sniff the cloves so she could understand why, though lovely in hot tea or wine punch, they would be an objectionable ingredient in beef stew.

The label described in detail all the different ways you might use the "pungent-sweet flavor" of the "dried flower buds of the clove tree picked just before they open."  

It also specifies where these cloves, in particular, had originated.  I have to admit that I was on geographic shaky ground when I read that "Top quality cloves are produced in Penang and the Malagasy Republic."  A quick google showed me that Penang is a state in Malaysia.

The Malagasy Republic, however, no longer exists, and hasn't since 1975.

I think, perhaps, I should pitch a new PBS series:  Antique Roadshow--Pantry Edition.

Confess

May 25, 2013

Do you collect antiques?  I don't.  

At least I don't on purpose.  I have a few things in my house that came from my family or Walter's that probably qualify:  a terrific old rocker, the clock his grandparents received as a wedding gift in 1905, possibly some other stuff.

I'm not sure how old something has to be to qualify as an antique.  It probably depends on the category.    Furniture probably has to be older than a car to be called an antique.  I'm not sure.

What I'm even less clear about is how old food has to be considered antique.

Do any of you have food in the house that's older than your oldest child?  

I tidied up the pantry today as my Saturday chore, tossing out things that had passed their "use by" date.  I found this:

I searched for the "use by" and couldn't find one.  I was about to stick it back on the shelf (which evidently, I have done before) when I spotted this info for a special offer on the back panel:

Walter and I got married in October 1984.  I'm guessing this was one of our first newlywed purchases.  

Should we put it up on the mantle next to his grandparent's wedding clock?

Streamline

April 19, 2013

This is going to have to be an audience-participation post.

While I have been profligate today (in fact, joyfully profligate--at least with my time, though not, in fact with my money) that has not been the case for the last month.

I have had to act with such efficiency that I have really had to streamline my life just to get through the daily "to do" list.

The first "vic" (as they say on Law and Order) was my Google Reader which I swore off of on March 18.  Late Lent?  Not really.  I just knew that I couldn't spend the time I usually did skimming through my blogs and news sources if I was going to survive.  When  I logged back on this morning, the counter had stopped keeping track of the counter.  By the look, I only had 1000+ articles to catch up on.  The reality was more like 9,400+

This was probably a reasonable idea, BUT I also know I have made some bad choices in the last month.

No, adding half and half and sugar to your cup of tea doesn't substitute for lunch.

    . . . Even if it saves you twenty minutes or more that it would take to prepare and eat some canned soup.  
    . . . Even if you also grab a peppermint from the receptionist desk to stand in as dessert.
    . . . Even if you can hold your cup with your left hand, while you grade with your right.

No, "holding it" until the end of the work day so that you don't waste a trip down the hall and can jet "go" on your way to the car isn't a good idea.

I have some more confessions to make about my "time-saving" during crunch time, but I'm going to hold out on you, until you tell me what short cuts you have taken or "read about" when you are pressed for time and need to get more done.

In the meantime, I'm going to pause a moment and get the palm fronds out of my car, that I have been chauffeuring around since Palm Sunday, because I wasn't willing to take the time to do whatever it is that one does with leftover palm fronds.

Please chime in.

Miss

April 9, 2013

Everything goes better with avocados.

Or whipped topping

List

March 21, 2013

And here I am, about to apologize again.  About the make promises I can't really keep.  About to vow more fealty to the blog.

Don't believe me.

You know that April is coming.  The cruelest month.  The one that involves more grading than I should have assigned if I had paused for even a moment back at Christmas break when I was finalizing the details on the syllabi.  I would even call it wall-to-wall grading.

I'm already behind and every day new students show up at my office with new assignments to turn in.  They shove them into my hand at the end of class.  They attach them to emails.  They slip them into my mailbox when no one is watching.  

The one thing I can honestly say about spring break last week was that I didn't get any further behind.  That, dear friends, isn't true here in the week after spring break.

But I didn't log on to blogger to complain and make false promises that I was going to get after all the stories that are building up that you need to know about (including the Tale of the Lost Glasses, which happened on a dark trail in the wilderness this very morning).

I came to give you some advice.  This week.  Next week.  Soon.  When the delights of lolling around during spring break is still fresh on the minds of your children.  When their imagination is still ripe with all of the things they could have done during the break but ran out of time.

Sit them down.  Give them paper and pencil.  Or a tablet.

Make them EACH compose of list of 100 Things They Like To Do:

work a jigsaw puzzle
learn to jump rope
skate
make paper airplanes
climb trees
play with sidewalk chalk
make woven potholders

Keep after them until they have at least 100 things if not more.  Have that list handy through April and May, when you are making them go to bed when it is still light outside.  When you have to pry them out of bed in the morning.  When all they can think of is summer break.  When their imagination is full of all the things they'd rather be doing.

Add to the list.  Plump it up.  Guide it so that it isn't a list of 100 video games (make that count as one thing).  Shape it so that it doesn't cost an arm and a leg to do most of the things.

As the countdown to the last day of school starts, post the list in a prominent place in your house.  

Then, three days into summer vacation, the first time you hear "Mom, I'm bored."  "Dad, there's nothing to do."   Point them towards their list and give them the choice of choosing something from the list or doing chores.

Trust me.  You will have a happier summer with just this little planning tip.
  

Explain

February 17, 2013

My niece Emma isn't really a puppy dog.

But she is as awesome as she looks.  Check out how well she entertained Davis when he got bored at Christmas, even when she was already dressed for the ball (except her glass slippers):

She just had a birthday. . . the one that looks like infinity if you lay it over on its side:  "8"

I sent her what I would have wanted for my eighth birthday.  If you don't know Bad Kitty you are missing.all.the.fun.

She also got a special trip to Great Wolf Lodge with her friend Sammie.  Don't you wish the place where you spent your birthday looked this much fun?  

Last time Emma visited me she wrote me some books.  The first one was called "Canser."  It was dedicated to a lot of people, including me and Uncle HaHa (which is what she calls Walter).  It went like this:

We

All

Fight

Agenst

Canser

The next page had the title "Lucky" with the picture of a person in a wheelchair, saying "Yay" and a doctor saying "Cured."

After that came the page titled "Not Lucky."  I'll let you imagine what the picture looked like.

I'm thinking of making copies and sending it to my Congressman and Senators who are on recess right now instead of working in DC on the sequester.  Have you heard what will happen if the sequester goes through?  Research that funds most of the childhood cancer research in the country will be cut automatically by 8%.  Do you know how much 8% is?  Our friends at Ph.D. Comics explain:

Budget

February 4, 2013

Walter and I drove to Coryell County on Saturday to attend the burial and funeral of a friend's mother.  Yes, I said that in the right order.  First time for me, but it worked pretty well.  We met at the cemetery in the late morning, took care of business there, had lunch with friends and family, and then went to the funeral.

I heard the land for the cemetery had been donated by the family patriarch and by the size of the family monument, I have no reason to question that.  The real question arises around the story that accompanied the telling--that the patriarch, only 24 at the time and living in New York, had won a big poker game and the pot had included a homestead and land in Coryell County.  So he moved, eventually married, and ultimately had a family, some of whom I now know.

It could be true.

What's also true is that this is the fifth funeral Walter has been to in the last three months.  He is almost the tip of the spear in his family--only his mother's youngest brother and his wife remain of that generation.  When Uncle Paulie died last week, I told Davis that dad was going to do pallbearer duty yet again.  This concerned Davis and made him worry out loud about how Walter was taking it.

I told Davis that I never expected to get to the point in my life that I actually had to add a monthly budget category to the family finances for funeral flowers, memorials, and out-of-town travel to funeral services.  Yet, given the expense of flower arrangements, our desire to be generous in our memorial gifts, the overall cost of travel, and the regularity of our involvement, this has become a reality and a necessity.

What is also true, is that during those same three months, over eight hundred children with cancer have died.  Many of them we knew or knew of.  Just outside that three month window was our extremely special friend Hans.  We don't often actually make it to those funerals and memorials--too hard in too many ways, but we budget in the same way we do for our friends and family in the next generation that are moving on to their great rest.  We make memorial contributions to some of the finest organizations that fund childhood cancer research--Children's Neuroblastoma Cancer Foundation, Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation, St, Baldrick's, Touch-A-Truck, Cure Me I'm Irish, MaxCure--to many really to try and list.

Truth the tell, with all of them, but especially the children, I sure would rather budget for birthday gifts than funeral memorials.

Serve

January 15, 2013

Uma went on a few days ago.  Her last sounds were little snores.  Walter dug an excellent hole.  Thank goodness for 5.25 inches of rain beforehand, but even with that the digging was pretty stiff work after about foot and a half down.  Our twelve year gag gift finally ended, and in the end, we all had found a place in the family for her (even Willie).  I have already begun musing about what kind of dog will stumble into our lives next.  We claim an eclectic, some would say checkered past:  a German shepherd, a couple of labs (one black one yellow), a rottweiller, a Welsh corgi, a Rhodesian ridgeback, a shih tsu, and one so completely mixed we haven't a clue.  I think if we are going to continue to cover the continents like they are a Risk board, we'll need to look for dingo (an Australian shepherd might be too energetic) or maybe an Argentine Dogo.

I've bee getting messages about the national day of service coming up either on Saturday or on Martin Luther King Day on Monday.  I think this is a fabulous idea.  There are actually few things in the world that can make you feel better that applying one of your talents or skills to helping someone out.  Do any of my friends have any ideas for service that others might join in?   If you are already booked this weekend, I know you can hang out with me at First Presbyterian Church on February 6 in the evening to help me and lots of others pack 40,000 meals for STOP HUNGER NOW.  No skills or talent required, just a desire to help.

Sit

January 6, 2013

Some of you know Uma Thurman Calvert Buenger.  She's our 13.5  year old Welsh corgi.  She may be the only dog I have ever owned that was bred on purpose and came with papers.  She was bought, paid for, and spoiled by our dear, long time friend Bob Calvert in the months after he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.  When he died, his wife thought we might like to have Uma.  It was Bob's last big (HUGE) joke on us.

In the dozen plus years that followed, we tried with Uma, but she was never that willing to fit into our family.  She really wanted to be an only dog, not part of a three- or four-dog pack.  I think it is too late to enumerate the many ways she didn't fit in, but they had to do with her pervasive prejudice against anyone having fun.  She combined this general grumpiness with an exceptionally shrill and repetitive bark.  She overate as a matter of course.

And yet, you know the Buengers.  We're dog people.  She may not be overly lovable, but she's *our* not overly lovable dog.

For years, she split time with us and my mom next door.  She slept over there and ate over here.  We always hoped she'd burn some calories trotting between the two.

Right before Walter's surgery last May, she went in for her annual exam and came home with orders for hospice care--two terminal diagnoses, congestive heart failure and a hemangiosarcoma near her liver.  

Then she proceeded to exceed expectation like she never had before.  As a woman of experience, I knew the signs to look for, but I didn't see them.  

Appetite--enthusiastic
Drinking--good
Enthusiasm--good
Spark of Life--good

This has gone on and on--eight months.  She did retain fluid almost from the start, despite some high quality meds (and 160 milligrams of lasix/day. . . yes, she pees like a fire hose).  A couple of months in, she could no longer manage the stairs up to my mom's house and moved back in with us permanently.  Ultimately, her back legs have failed her, forcing her to drag herself along on her stubby front pegs.  Her vision has mostly faded.  Her hearing has slipped.  Yet even today she remains:


Appetite--enthusiastic
Drinking--vast quantities
Enthusiasm--fair
Spark of Life--fair

So, in some ways, my world has grown quite small again.  Uma doesn't really like to be alone and will bark to signal that preference.  I have taken to working at the kitchen table so she's quiet and her little accidents are easier to clean up and so she doesn't wander around to other parts of the house looking for me.  

I can't really foresee the end.  She hasn't taken to sleeping around the clock.  She hasn't developed a cough.  Her ins and outs roughly match.  She eats every damn thing she's offered and is always on the look out for more.  She remains interested in the household goings on (as much as she ever was).  I keep on looking for a sign that she's ready to move on to the next thing, but she's not signaling.  So, mostly I sit.  At least she can take pride in having taught me one trick.

Soar

January 4, 2013

I could give you the whole rundown of house guests since December 20 (there has been someone here from out of town every one of those more than twelve days of Christmas), the amazing presents given and gotten, the meals that would make you salivate, and the many and spectacular laughs and moments of love we have all shared (including my fantastically high score on the Tina Turner "Rollin' on the River" selection from Wii Just Dance).  Instead, I'm going to tell you about my trip to the Burleson County sod farm.

Actually, it's a turf farm.



View Larger Map 

Which means there are acres upon acres of stuff you might find on your front lawn, at your football stadium, or at your favorite links.

And no, I wasn't so hard up for some peace and quiet that I drove the more than several miles to get away from the holiday happenings around the house.

The drought has almost dried up the watering tanks at the sod farm--leaving the fish more than marginally exposed.  The usual bird gluttons have shown up in high numbers to take advantage of the easy pickings.  They are a raucous and boisterous crowd, fighting over the spoils of drought.

There are also a pair of adult bald eagles and their extended family living at the sod farm.

They delighted us by moving off their perches in the the far tree line and swooping and gliding over us.  Zooming in.  Fading out.  Circling directly over out heads.  Doing moves that the Blue Angels only dream of.  Showing us why they were chosen as the American bird, despite Benjamin Franklin's considerable lobbying on behalf of the turkey.   In all, the eagle spectacle rivaled the Melbourne New Year's fire works--not as loud and not as colorful, but much more inspiring.

I didn't have a camera, not that my skills could have done them justice.  Here is sort of what they looked like as they perched.

And, what impressed me the most was how their enormous wings worked and what they looked like from underneath.  Again, not my photo, but one I wished I took, since this is the way they looked from underneath:

Is spotting a bald eagle the wildlife equivalent of finding a four leaf clover?