A night at the races

Last night we went to the races. The greyhound dog races. Like the kind you see in tourism ads for the state of Florida. Not the kind of place I would normally be hanging out. Nor am I offering a treatise upon the subject. But the social club at Kev's work makes an annual trek to the greyhound track every September.

For the seafood buffet. The dogs are just an aside.

I avoid all-you-can-eat places because invariably that is exactly what I do. And after the last mussel I ate several years ago sent me to the hospital, I avoid seafood as well. But its an outing with people I like and a new experience. And an eye-popping dessert table. Oh dear. Quite the hodge podge of people here. The 20-somethings came totally vamped up. The 30-somethings came with kiddies in tow (the track touts its family atmosphere). Everyone came hungry. Did people notice the band? They played both kinds of music--country and western in between races. There was actually a gaming table, just one, with an even-odds game called Crown & Anchor. Don't ask me, I don't gamble. No bookies. A few tote windows. The requisite TV monitors. Most replaying dog races. One with a nearby horse race. The last with the movie Naked Gun 33-1/3, The Last Insult playing on it. Sounds a little more frenetic than it was. Pretty laid back, I thought.

Went out to trackside for one of the races. No thundering hooves from large beasts. No animal smells. The quiet, swift flash of whippet thin dogs whizzing past. The only smell was from the wet, white sand they ran on.

Interesting. And yes, I ate too much. Desserts

Oh, it's the Cheese Lady...again.

I've mentioned before about the lamentable state of dairy products on offer here in OZ. These poor blighters sink their teeth into puce-colored rubber because the package says it is cheese. The type? Tasty. You know, like Gouda, Havarti, Swiss or Cheddar--Tasty. I am here to tell you that it is neither cheese nor tasty. One bite into this nasty stuff will send you into raptures of swimming in vats of warm Velveeta. And loving it.

So what is a gal to do on the odd occasion where she just cannot live without real cheese? Well, there is the gourmet food section of the toney department store, David Jones. They have real cheese with prices up to $123/kilo (just under $60 a pound.) The local grocery stores, Woolworth's & Coles, do have Brie and Camembert available and the King Island brand is my preferred brand. King Island is a little speck in the Bass Strait just northwest of the island state of Tasmania. The air and water there are said to be the purest in OZ. Which makes the beef legendary (probably because no one can buy it anywhere) and its cheeses prize winning. While not costing a king's ransom, it is still too dear for our budget--at regular retail.

I have taken to trolling the dairy aisle checking for expiration dates. I pick out cheeses that have long been expired but not plucked from the shelves with my left hand and in my right hand pick up the King Island packets due that day. I find the person in charge of dairy and hand them the out-of-dates with a most sympathetic look. Unfortunately for retailers, it is not legal in this state to sell past-date dairy products. Such a waste, tsk tsk. And then I present them with my now-or-never beauties for a price reduction. "I would be happy to save you from throwing this away in a mere few hours if you mark it down appropriately, say, to one dollar?" And so the 250 gram, $9.95 round of cheese is mine for a buck. This works quite well at my local Coles. In fact, most of the dairy case folks now know what I will propose even before I open my mouth. Saves energy all the way around.

Woolworth's is a slightly tougher nut to crack, especially for so ...reasonable...a discount. Recently, I spotted an empty shelf where eggs had been on sale for $1.99 instead of their usual $4-5 per dozen. "Oh, how disappointing. Gee, Grant, do you think a substitution can be made?", I ask the stock clerk. This is an unheard of concept in this country--making a substitution for a sale product that has run out. However, Grant didn't laugh. He recognized me. He looked for a similar product: XL, grain fed, dozen. "This expires at the end of this month, will that be OK for you?", he asks earnestly. I think so and he replaces the $4.69 price tag with one that says $1.88.

Now, I know many people who are very adverse to the idea of buying food so close to expiration date. Indeed, there are comestibles that I would not even consider purchasing with very little life left in them. But ripe cheese just gets riper, eggs are stored in warehouses for months before they make it to the store shelves (fresh eggs will not hard boil in under 20 minutes, as a matter of fact) and even bottled water has a legally-mandated expiration date. So I buy with confidence and consume in good time.

And enjoy my reputation.

Koala Kiropractic

I don't want to give my gentle readers the wrong impression of Perth. It is a thoroughly modern, cosmopolitan city that fits into the universe just as well as Sydney or Melbourne do. The Indian Ocean beckons surfers & whale watchers and sends a cooling breeze to the concrete jungle that is the Central Business District (downtown). OK, 20 minutes outside of the metro area will see the famous/infamous sunburnt red dirt collecting on your shoes and car tires, but that's practically the bush. We're The City.

So imagine my surprise recently when I dragged my aching frame to the closest chiropractic clinic nearest my CBD office. Dr J. Gilmore, Chiropractic care for Adults & Children. His daughter, Pamela Hellemons, Chiropractic care for Adults & Animals. What? Mooo? Never heard of such a thing, and I know that nothing bigger than a kitten can fit into the incredibly tiny elevator up to the fifth floor. Turns out, Pam is my bone-cracker. Prefers that hands-on, Hong Kong movie style of adjustments as opposed to the less aggressive mini-thumping Activator Dr Skaates uses. I didn't have the nerve to ask about animal chiropractic until the second visit.

Apparently, people really prefer their show/race horses to have spinal harmony. Fido, Spot and Alexander The Great II frequently get adjustments before big dog shows. Who knew? Is it covered by pet health insurance? Where does one get trained for that? Actually, a quick check of the internet shows that quite a few people crack horses into equine equilibrium. Pam tells me that horses respond readily to adjustments...and fall out of adjustment almost as fast, as well. She told of an incident at AQWA-a marine park at the ocean's edge- about ten years ago. A shark was starting to swim rather sideways. The staff (heavily) sedated it and a chiropractor went in to set it right. Put that on your resume.

Cheeky customer that I am asked if she could adjust kangaroo, koalas or the everyday wombat. Hasn't yet, but is confident in getting the job done should the occasion arise.

Life hands out lemons....

...and I make lemonade! Quite literally. Half of every home has a lemon tree and everyone's lemon tree is groaning under the weight of rapidly ripening fruit. What to do with all this stuff????? Think of your average garden zucchini. You can't help but get excited when the first few are ready to be picked. Then you get rather blase' about zucchini for supper again. Make zucchini bread, foist them off on friends and neighbors. Finally, panic sets in as the squash-on-steroids vegetable overtakes the backyard. You take boxes of the stuff to soup kitchens (and run fast before they refuse yet another donation of the green monsters), leave a few in the church vestibule and in a crate on the berm with a sign that screams, FREE!

Well, that is the point where our neighbors are now. I picked up a bag of them from the bench outside church this morning. I've picked up bags hanging from fence posts and entrances to CWA meetings. My sister-in-law has them ready for when our paths might even remotely cross. Further down our street, one homeowner got fed up, cut down the entire tree and dragged it to the curb--with tons of ripe lemons still on the branches. I was far from the only vulture at that carcass scavenging what I could carry.

So what do I do with them all? I told you. I make lemonade. Actually, I juice them and freeze one-cup blocks for use when summer arrives. I aim to have half the freezer full of lemon blocks before its all over. Kevin doesn't really need all that meat in there (I much prefer eggs for protein anyway) and he can always find it on sale year round. But I have only now to seize this opportunity to build my defenses against the longest, hottest summers I hope I'll ever have to endure. A one-cup block makes only one quart (liter) of lemonade. That's about two days, if we're lucky. And summer seems to last about 270 days. Do the math. Hmmmm. Maybe half a freezer just isn't enough.....

Creative Writers Group

I have joined a Creative Writers Group. Actually, we have just formed under the Victoria Park Library's aegis. The library collected names and preferred times, collated the results and threw nine names into the first Tuesday evening of the month slot. A rainy night, three called in regrets, two didn't show up, so the four of us looked at each other and wondered how a writers group was supposed to work.



The cast of characters: Melissa, an architectural drafter who wields a pen after hours. Jacqueline, former ESL teacher and an internationally published travel writer (we're all impressed, she isn't) who is tired of lots of work for little pay and is chucking it in for her first novel. Ceilin, a library science student who has all of her writings categorized & numbered in books. And me, short form writer with no delusions of making JK Rowling bucks with her 50 word scribblings. (Short form. Apparently only a term used by electronic media types. Those print guys, always in the middle of a 175,000 word novel when not paying the bills with police blotter or obscure magazine blather, have trouble with the phrase.)



Eventually we decided that we would do a mix of things. We will share some of our current or previous writing projects plus finish a writing 'assignment' for the next month. The assignment for October: Random Trash. That curbside bulk trash collection occurs this month in Victoria Park. We will be inspired by the roadside offerings of our neighbors and write from any perspective for no more than two pages. Two pages! Have I mentioned yet that I write short form pieces? I have promised not to print out my blog entry on the subject [Trash & Treasures, March 5, 2009] but will write something new. We are away!

Forty-- The New 21

This past weekend, we went to the 40th birthday party of my brother-in-law Brian's girlfriend, Donna.

[Hold narrative here. The terms "girlfriend" and "boyfriend" are all but eliminated from the Australian lexicon and replaced by the term "partner". Long term partners are also called "de factos". As I like Donna, none of these clinically sterile terms shall I use. Henceforth, she shall just be Donna.]

It was a nice little party in the very recently finished backyard of the "renovator's dream" Brian has been chiseling into a home for the last 12 years. Friends, neighbors, kids, hippies and the august were there to wish her well, eat lots of good nibbles and sip on champagne. After the contemporary bit of art doubling as chocolate birthday cake had been presented, people called for a speech. Donna became teary eyed as she figured her last twenty years weren't as nice as her next twenty shaped up to be now that she had little Natie and Brian.A table groaned under fancy presents all making my jar of homemade jam look lame.


It all seemed a bit much for an adult birthday that didn't come with "the keys to the house." Kevin's 40th was a big deal for his family and they collected lots of money to give him which, in turn, paid for our hot air balloon ride. I thought he did rather well by me when I presented him with his long dreamed of yellow Ferrari. (Parks very nicely in a matchbox size garage, thank you.) It's rather an Australian thing. Eighteen, twenty-one or thirty aren't real hallmarks of adulthood or maturity. "Forty. It's the new 21," explained Kev and echoed by some of the ladies I was chatting with. Indeed, Donna will be going back home to Adelaide later this month to celebrate this momentous occasion with her family.

So now I have something to look forward to in a dozen or so years when I turn 40. ahem.

Random Musings III

Today we are having a little dinner party to celebrate my first week of employment as a Court Monitor (log & record proceedings for transcription.) I have cleaned the house and soon Kev will start cooking for his brother & family. In the meantime, a few odd 'n' ends to share:

Attorneys everywhere seemed to have gotten that dark-suit-as-uniform memo. But why don't any of them anywhere brush their hair? Must be in the Universal Lawyer Code. Only one grand exception that I can see. A lawyer came through yesterday with dark hair & a modified blond Mohawk---and a suit doubtless borrowed from a not-the-same-size cousin, with a rock n' roll voice to match.

At the risk of sounding like my grandmother, here is a garden report:

I thought the almond tree out front that was whacked down by a botanical butcher posing as an arborist was a goner. But lo, we have white flowers popping up. It lives!

The colorful singing birds all disappeared (except the nasty black crows) when the estate agent chopped down out two mature trees. One little songbird has returned. You go, Tweetie!

The rosebush I liberated from the closed Carlisle-Lathlain Bowls Club and replanted by my front porch clings to life as evidenced by a single peach colored bloom.

There was a newspaper columnist (Kirkpatrick? by name) who lamented improper use of English words. Like using "regime" instead of "regimen". And "regimen" instead of "regiment". Absolutely no one in the media here seems to know the difference. I try not to roll my eyes when I hear about healthy eating regiments and exercise regimes.

I hadn't thought I was all that big on fast food but I continue to miss the $1, 'value' or 99¢ option. Mind you, I'm not buying anything else, but its the option I miss. Value Meals are rather not inexpensive. Hmmmmm, I think I have been to "Maccas" four times since I arrived in OZ.

Caught me by surprise. I was walking along the sidewalk of a suburban strip mall when my eyes spotted two horses. Mounted police patrols ticketing parking infractions. Don't know why I would think a major city which hosts many large public events would not have a mounted patrol or that, in absence of large events to monitor, the officers wouldn't be doing other duties but there they were. The Perth police department has 20 mounts--most are large draft horses or draft horse cross-breeds.

Egg rings. You know, those round metal rings used ensure perfectly round fried eggs found at fast food places? Don't recall seeing any back home. Seriously popular here along with egg cups.

Way early on in these blogs, I remarked at the odd habit of growing vegetables to detrimentally large proportions. Well, I've got artwork that set me to laughing again. A national grocery concern was promoting healthy eating and released this picture. Her left arm cradles a pumpkin. Her right shoulder braces a bale of green onions complete with carrying handle.

And finally, I've seen my first dolphin in the very brown Swan River! Followed by a few dozen pelicans floating with the current. It was during a Bridges Tour being held as part of Engineering week. What I learned of the area bridges was interesting. The dolphin and swans were exciting.

Oh, the chef has entered the cooking temple. More musings at another time.