Bummerrewski!

Can physical impairment suffice for lack of existential drama?

Rigged up with my new German mate Luggi, that’s Ozzi-talk for “Ludwig”, went out to a) train and get back in shape after scallop episode b) take advantage of gorgeous summer sea breeze on Sydney Harbour. Was enjoying an awesome “downhill ride” – sailing with the wind, spinnaker up, me hanging off the trap wire out the back, boat leaping out the water we were flying! – off a huge wave and BANG!

Like a gunshot the boom vang blew… a very important line that keeps the boat under control in big breeze… and with no time to think the bow of the boat dug into the waves and we were launched through the air, me flying over Luggi and landing 200% on top my bicep across the wire holding up the mast. I meant to hit the sail, but, whoops, missed. “Are you ok?!” almost instantaneously a red line burned through my rashie. “Yeah, I’m good!” Swam around the boat to pull myself up and YOW!! That don’t feel good… left arm out of commission, and still had to sail a K back to the yacht club. We switch and I skipper the upwind track home, Luggi adding, “I hope it isn’t broken.” Suddenly my mind floods with hospital bills, do I even have insurance? Will I be able to sail next week, Miami?? Ride my bike?! Thank god I got a salsa dance in last night.

I can still wiggle my fingers and bend my arm (even though it might hurt like a @#*&%$! to do so). Pile o’ ice and a few Bundy dark and stormy’s – feeling HEAPS better, even if I look a bit T-Rex with my arm gimpishly pasted to my side.

Picture entitled, "Merry Christmas Mama"

Second picture entitled, "First photo!"

Si, es verdad!

A little bit m.i.a. this week because there are so many boats to do and boys to sail! And preparations for imminent departure to Ingleterra, my new port of call for 2010! I will be in "sails", sailing boats around Europe.

Christmas approacheth which means it is only sunnier and more gorgeous by the second. Perfect sea breeze begging me to go sailing, millions of fishies glittering all around me during morning swims... try not to think about sharkie snacks. Salsa dancing last night, Canadian sailors sleeping on my floor - all good things!

Hmmmm... will need to scrounge up some more existential crises. Utter Joy is so drab!

Lime green bikini and revenge of the scallops

I celebrate being back in Bondi by running to meet Diane at the beach – bikini and keys, no I don’t need a cell phone I’ll find her. Diane who has spent 4/7 days this last week as a browning beach bum and who never wears a top because why would you. She is so wonderfully French she is absolutely impervious to the radius of gaping mouths drinking up her delicious figure – not a care in the world as we are jumping and squealing in the brisk surf. Gossip exchanged and evening breeze setting on, it’s time to head home. Kisses as she ascends the bus. I turn to cross the street and realize, oh Diane, you have my keys!

I beg the grocer to loan me two dollars for the bus. The driver picks me up – we both know I’ve under paid but he doesn’t seem to mind. At the next stop two Orthodox Jewish women hop on, long-sleeves, flowing skirts, head scarves. And there I am in dripping wet lime green (not my most modest specimen of beach-wear) without a peanut to my name. Not a completely uncommon site – Bondi is home to both the beach-bunnies and Orthodox Jews – but this juxtaposition pushes the extremes.

When we get to Vaucluse, the wealthy Jewish neighborhood, I of course cannot remember which mansion it is where Diane works, so I have to head to Giselle’s bakery where Diane works part-time. Giselle hasn’t seen me much of late, and now she’s seeing a whole lot.

“Lizzi! You’re back!” She quickly sends me off with Diane’s correct address around the corner and I return with keys and $10, half of which I immediately spend on a pie. “What are the choices?” Would you believe? Plain, steak and mushroom and… Malaysian curry! I go for the latter and settle into Giselle’s most recent chapter, “The Un-expecting Grandmother”…

A year ago when I first met Giselle she was a seasoned single mom with grown(ish) boys who worked with her in their traditional Dutch bakery. The room has the classic immigrant business signature: two giant flags, Holland and Australia side by side. Below lie a host of Aussie and European cakes, pies and shortbread that makes sticks of butter a light snack. The only thing heavier is Giselle’s workload as she has been working off loans left to her by the long-gone ex. She’s ecstatic to tell me the loans are now gone, but so are her boys. Just one year ago the boys were dancing and dating, and now they are wed-locked dads. Only last January Giselle, her boys, Diane and I went on a “Salsa Cruise” on Sydney Harbour, a dinner and dance spectacular where I may or may not have had a dance off on-stage with a bride to be and win free drinks at the bar… Just one year ago! And now Giselle has TWO granddaughters. Beautiful girls, but she can’t help taste the bittersweet of this sort of spontaneity. Not when birth control is so readily available.

I thank my uterus for having kept it’s population sub-one thus far. Otherwise I wouldn’t be wining and dining with Demetra and Jazz in little black dresses this Friday night. Grilled haloumi, slow-poached pork and braised scallops – oh they were so good going down… Demetra’s a diva and South African television star and knows her way around the Sydney music scene. Jay Z’s DJ is in town, and she somehow gets us on the guest list. Equipped with amaretto sours, I immediately ask the guy on the couch if this seat’s taken, so us girls can sit right up front at the DJ station. The second we sit down Demetra and Jazz are in fits of giggles, and I know we’re not drunk because dinner was a one-glass event. It turns out the random guy next to me is Australia’s biggest dance celebrity. Of course he is. The girls can’t believe I even talked to him. I pulled a similar move last year near Election Day. Enjoying my cappuccino in a café, I overheard two gentlemen discussing Obama and the election process. “Excuse me”, I interrupted, “May I ask you a question?” The man in the suit looked somewhat annoyed, and begrudgingly replied in the affirmative. “Are you Australian?” I continued, at which point the man broke out a huge smile. I had a question about the Australian electoral process, and after he sorted me out, wished me good morning, and took his leave. Once out the door, his friend leaned over and told me he was one of Australia’s most successful comedians.

Unfortunately the Australian dance-extraordinaire left quite early so we never got to see his moves, but the music was hot and we grooved until our feet gave out.

Oh! And then those conniving mollusks had their day! While I lost mine. Sailing was out of the question, and I barely had enough strength to lounge around on the beach with as brasilieras in the afternoon. Unfortunately said sickness made laundry an imperative, and after biking back from the laundromat and hanging up my sheets, I was in bed asleep at 5pm. Woke up once disoriented at 2am and then straight on till morning.

Today there’s not much I can do other then discern whether my intestines are still in knots and whether or not that very cute dress I tried on the other day will alleviate the symptoms.

I heart local news.

Take a seat MJ, the thesis-writer is in town!

(picture refers to "Omm Salaam and Amen" post in November)

Selamat Pagi, Terengganu, Malaysia

"Good Morning Terengganu Malaysia"

Sunrise from my hotel veranda.

Piccadilly to ???!!!

Selamat malam Malaysia, at least for the weekend.

Am greeted at the airport in KL by not one but a team of four “meet and greet” personnel employed by the Monsoon Cup. They literally whisk me to the hotel that is attached to the airport and deposit me there where I will spend 6 hours before breakfast with Kevin Wilson and 12 hours of drugged discomfort to London. Asian hospitality makes Arab culture seem standoffish.

Kevin Wilson was the Principal Race Officer (el jeffe) for the event I had just finished as Regatta Secretary aka “torture on a spreadsheet”. He was PRO for the Olympic Sailing in Quingdao, and absolutely sparkles when doling compliments or sharing autobiographic accounts. An absolute peach of a man – and if that isn’t a metaphor it should be. Slightly crisp, and sweet with a warm fuzzy embrace. He had some radical theories about Olympic sailing – great amo for my interview in England.

I landed, half-heartedly hoping my friend had checked her Facebook messages so she would know SURPRISE! I would be in town, and could I stay over, and perhaps she could bring some gloves when she came to meet me? Gracias! And by god I received a text at baggage claim – Piccadilly line to Baron’s Court. Despite my dazed post-flight indifference to the world around me, and admittedly residual post-sleeping pill shakiness, I couldn’t help but freak out when I found out where I was headed: “This is the Piccadilly Line to Cockfosters” – WHAT?! Did that polite automated English woman just say what I thought she did?

Miracles happen – and I was met by girl and gloves. A necessity as going from 5 to 55 degrees North can be a SHOCKER in the imminent December days. Rosie ironically just had two job interviews herself, and I was headed to one the next evening in Newcastle. We spent the next morning tromping all around central London – pictures in front of Big Ben, ate “Sausage and Mash” etc.

After flying up to Newcastle, I was checked into a proper B&B, and I could help feeling like I was actually IN a quaint British “PommyWood” picture like Calendar Girls. Complete with the “exploding toilet” episode when I woke up at 0300 to check the trickling sound, soaking wet floor, opened the bowl and was shot in the face by a freezing waterspout. I wedged a cup over the leak and somehow forced the whole operation at least into silence if not submission. Was tickled in the morning by the gregarious clucks of the women who ran the kitchen, “Whot cannAYE getchya, love?” and by the fact that I was literally on the other side of the planet from my habitat of late (Sydney) and I had paid for none of it.

The “interview” entailed more dog-walking and infant and bottle-feeding than I expected, but it was all enjoyable, and only got better when we finally got down to boats. I could be UK bound come February. I’ve always fantasized about having an English bank account…

But in the meantime, I’ve got to get back to Malaysia by Wednesday morning, so can we talk more next week?

Stowaway

(This is something I wrote a while ago, still unfinished, but sharable at this point)

something shaking.

stirring inside - like a whole world stored that is aching to get out. storied. stow(ed)-away.

like the story forever on hold - the english page boy who ran away from a broken home, he is hiding behind the potato barrels in the dark galley on the spanish ship off the coast of turkey. a stow-away, but three days out he was found by the cook. and he had to work for his keep, the price of a secret, endlessly peeling potatos while keeping in the shadows. because if they found him - before he could escape down the docks and slip into the sprawling markets of constantinople, crowded with spices and noise and the allure of the gateway into that other world beyond where camels carried caravans and thieves with wide swords wore gold coins and purple cloth and travelled by moonlight... then he overhears them talking, and he doesn’t speak the language, but he just understands the gravity of his situation, with pounding heart and muscles tense as he crouches in the storage, in the hold, the next second never quite unfolding, a story forever untold because after that moment you could no longer.

you lost the ability to bring that world into our own. your own mind under arrest as the body surrendered to attack. that year we were not allowed to see you. but our parents did and we sat downstairs at the wood table on wooden chairs our feet not quite touching the wood floor, the large sliding glass doors letting in light and a view of a big garden full of green and stone footpaths. We could almost hear you - even though it didn’t sound at all like you. the voice that came muffled through the ceiling, through closed doors and down the stairs sounded like a deformed creature holding the memory of someone we knew. our parents returned, grave but strong, and then we left. that was one of the few times we ever visited the house where you grew up. where when you were young your family had a pig and named it nancy, our grandmother’s name, which was fine until it was killed and eaten and she took great offense. but deep down she was laughing because she and your mother were like sisters. they used to walk to the post office every morning together and i used to tag along - one mile and back! I was so proud, I was five. we never got the chance when I was six, my grandmother didn’t want to go alone, but we never forgot the talks and your mother’s smiles.

we were told you were sick and could no longer walk. you had a problem with your blood. that sometimes when you got a cut your blood wouldn’t stop bleeding, your body couldn’t make it stop, it would just keep going. so sometimes you lost too much and needed to go to the doctor to get some more. and sometimes blood can hold a disease and the doctor one time gave you some blood that had some disease in it. and this is why you were so sick. because this type of sick meant that when you got a another kind of sick, like a cold or an ear infection, your body didn’t know how to make itself better so you just stayed sick. like how your blood couldn’t make itself stop. only this kind of sick was more serious because you might not get better, because your body didn’t know how.

and then one day it all stopped. you would no longer be in that room in a wheel chair with a broken voice. you ceased. and the next summer we were all a little bit older, the tall bed with the horse hair mattress and the mustard coloured blanket was still there, the one that was hard to climb up onto, but we all used to fit, even though no one liked it that much because it made small crunching noises under your bones because of the horse hairs. our parents hated sleeping on it, but we loved being so close to the ceiling. like being on the ship with close quarters, all of us huddled as if it were crowded with kegs and barrels and crates and whispers in languages we weren’t suppose to understand, but magically we knew the meaning anyway. they meant imminent danger, they meant hold your breath, they meant heart beating in your throat and your skin nervous for fear of flinching and being caught. with you we could play hide and seek without ever leaving the bed. somehow you knew how to play our heartsrings to the edge of adrenaline and our eyelids couldn’t open wide enough to see the reality you fed us.

and sometimes we used to think, if we could just open our eyes wide enough, we could see what happens next. and now, sometimes i think if i could just remember enough i could remember what happened before. but the hold is all i can remember. how you kept us so tightly wedged amongst the potatos, somehow safe as you let us peer into the perils of adventure.

“you can rob me of my sight and you can poison my blood stream, but as long as i can dream, than life is worth living” -- Brett Dennon (song lyric)

there's no "I" in censor!

didn't feel like censoring myself, so i've censored the audience - ha! anyway, hence the invite.

Still a BlonDuh at the end of the day

Back in Terengganu after a whirlwind trip to the other side of the planet, aided by drugs given to me by one of the international race officers before I split Malaysia – essential for inducing an artificial night at 1100 hrs Greenwich standard time. Woke up in London at 0600, breakfast with Rosie adjacent the Baron’s Court underground, then off to Heathrow, of course not knowing what terminal, and of course the “number to text” was invalid, so of course spent an extra HOUR transferring between terminals – I can’t tell you enough IT WAS SO AWESOME! But no worries, twas a Malaysian Air flight. Punctuality is practically a crime. Not to mention, any time you can cut back hanging around in airports is money saved because somehow that plastic is easier to swipe when you are tired and disoriented.

The drugs would have worked brilliantly if the flight attendant hadn’t wrestled me into consciousness, “Would you like breakfast?” I appreciate the offer, but what was it exactly about the eye-mask+blanket over my head that said, “Sure! I’d love some!”? [most excellent sequence of punctuation, sending Word’s spelling into fits!] I managed to fall asleep somewhere over Berlin and wake up over Phuket. Desperately hoping that after landing in KL at 0900, jetlag wouldn’t slap me in the face when I started work at 1030…

My job at the Monsoon Cup (World Match Racing Tour Championship) is “on the water reporter” or the “eyes and ears” of the Race Office. The RO conveniently has absolutely no viewing whatsoever of the racing, so I perch at the top of the building, with laptop and a trilogy of radios so I can see and hear everything and translate it into a live Skype-update that gets sent to on-the-ground and off-shore press, Twitter-update on the website, and the live TV broadcasters of the event. Umpire calls, racing “stats” such as results and wind direction, a play-by-play of the racing, and most importantly a translation from “sailing” into “lubber” of what the hell this is all about anyway.

And while I love swimming in a bath-ful of professional sailor boys, and may or may not have made fun of veteran Olympic medalists for sailing “slow boring boats”, the inner perfectionist in me (devastatingly latent for the past 13 years) can’t withstand any more setbacks. The harder I try, and the more I accomplish, WITHOUT FAIL any minor slip-up I (mis)manage land on the director’s feet. Perfect bulls eye every time. Low point score wins, right? Why do you think I’m any good at this sport?

BlonDuh.

Nothing a long run on the beach can’t fix. And perhaps a mango-vodka cocktail and a few beats from my favourite Mexican reggae band du jour.

Piccadilly to Cockfosters

Selamat malam Malaysia, at least for the weekend.

Am greeted at the airport in KL by not one but a team of four “meet and greet” personnel employed by the Monsoon Cup. They literally whisk me to the hotel that is attached to the airport and deposit me there where I will spend 6 hours before breakfast with Kevin Wilson and 12 hours of drugged discomfort to London. Asian hospitality makes Arab culture seem standoffish.

Kevin Wilson was the Principal Race Officer (el jeffe) for the event I had just finished as Regatta Secretary aka “torture on a spreadsheet”. He was PRO for the Olympic Sailing in Quingdao, and absolutely sparkles when doling compliments or sharing autobiographic accounts. An absolute peach of a man – and if that isn’t a metaphor it should be. Slightly crisp, and sweet with a warm fuzzy embrace. He had some radical theories about Olympic sailing – great amo for my interview in England.

I landed, half-heartedly hoping my friend had checked her Facebook messages so she would know SURPRISE! I would be in town, and could I stay over, and perhaps she could bring some gloves when she came to meet me? Gracias! And by god I received a text at baggage claim – Piccadilly line to Baron’s Court. Despite my dazed post-flight indifference to the world around me, and admittedly residual post-sleeping pill shakiness, I couldn’t help but freak out when I found out where I was headed: “This is the Piccadilly Line to Cockfosters” – WHAT?! Did that polite automated English woman just say what I thought she did?

Miracles happen – and I was met by girl and gloves. A necessity as going from 5 to 55 degrees North can be a SHOCKER in the imminent December days. Rosie ironically just had two job interviews herself, and I was headed to one the next evening in Newcastle. We spent the next morning tromping all around central London – pictures in front of Big Ben, ate “Sausage and Mash” etc.

After flying up to Newcastle, I was checked into a proper B&B, and I could help feeling like I was actually IN a quaint British “PommyWood” picture like Calendar Girls. Complete with the “exploding toilet” episode when I woke up at 0300 to check the trickling sound, soaking wet floor, opened the bowl and was shot in the face by a freezing waterspout. I wedged a cup over the leak and somehow forced the whole operation at least into silence if not submission. Was tickled in the morning by the gregarious clucks of the women who ran the kitchen, “Whot cannAYE getchya, love?” and by the fact that I was literally on the other side of the planet from my habitat of late (Sydney) and I had paid for none of it.

The “interview” entailed more dog-walking and infant and bottle-feeding than I expected, but it was all enjoyable, and only got better when we finally got down to boats. I could be UK bound come February. I’ve always fantasized about having an English bank account…

But in the meantime, I’ve got to get back to Malaysia by Wednesday morning, so can we talk more next week?