Rhonda Bracey: At Random

Oooo! I just received an email from a Lone Writer colleague telling me that a sentence I posted at the end of a response to someone on a discussion list is going into his quotes file. Ah, the fame! The quote?

Beds of roses have thorns when you look closely.

Thanks to Steph…

1. Heard a kookaburra in person [yes, and seen plenty too]
2. Slept under the stars [yes]
3. Seen a koala [yes]
4. Visited Melbourne [yes]
5. Watched a summer thunderstorm [yes]
6. Worn a pair of thongs [wearing thongs right now!]
7. Been to Uluru (Ayers Rock) [yes, twice]
8. Visited Cape York [does the Daintree and Cape Tribulation count?]
9. Held a snake [yes]
10. Sang along with Khe San [absolutely]
11. Drank VB [no – I never drink beer of any description]
12. Visited Sydney [yes]
13. Have seen a shark [yes]
14. Have used Aussie slang naturally in a conversation [fair dinkum! what sort of question is that? ;-)]
15. Had an actual conversation with an indigenous Australian (aboriginal) [yes]
16. Eaten hot chips from the bag at the beach [yep; yum]
17. Walked/climbed over the Sydney Harbour Bridge [does driving over it count?]
18. Used an outside dunny, and checked under the seat before sitting down [yep – there was a slimy frog on it the one time I didn’t check the top of the seat one night when I was a kid!]
19. Seen Chloe in Young & Jackson’s [no, but I know what/who Chloe and Young & Jackson’s are — does that count?]
20. Slept on an overnight train or bus [yes, bus]
21. Been to Sydney’s Mardi Gras [no]
22. Have gone bush-bashing [yep, when I lived up north]
23. Taken a sickie [not as far as I can recall]
24. Been to see a game of Aussie Rules football [plenty since my nephew started playing AFL!]
25. Have seen wild camels [yep, and have even eaten camel!]
26. Gone skinny dipping [yes, though it was MANY years ago]
27. Had a Tim Tam Slam [absolutely]
28. Ridden in a tram in Melbourne [yes]
29. Been at an ANZAC day Dawn Service [no]
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset [yes]
31. Held a wombat [no]
32. Been on a roadtrip of 800km or more [often]
33. Seen the Great Australian Bight in person [yes]
34. Had a really bad sunburn [too right — sun/heat stroke too…]
35. Visited an aboriginal community [yes]
36. Seen a redback spider [many]
37. Have watched Paul Hogan [in ads, on TV and in films only]
38. Seen Blue Poles in person [no]
39. Wandered barefoot in the bush/outback [are you crazy? no way!]
40. Eaten Vegemite [I’ve eaten more kilograms of Vegemite in my lifetime than I’d care to count…]
41. Thrown a boomerang [tried in vain]
42. Seen the Kimberleys [yes — well, Kununurra, Wyndham, Emma Gorge – does that count?]
43. Given a hitch-hiker a lift [yes, once, years ago…]
44. Been to Perth [lived there for ~30 years!]
45. Have tried Lemon, Lime and Bitters [plenty]
46. Tried playing a didgeridoo [no]
47. Seen dinosaur footprints [yes, in Broome]
48. Eaten Tim Tams [of course!]
49. Been to Darwin [yes, for work]
50. Touched a kangaroo [yes, and I had a pet euro for a time]
51. Visited the Great Barrier Reef [yes and swam with the fishies]
52. Listened to Kevin Bloody Wilson [on tape and radio only]
53. Killed a Cane Toad [no]
54. Gone to a drive-in theatre [yes; ah, memories…]
55. Have read and own books by Australian authors [yes]
56. Visited Adelaide [yes]
57. Know the story behind “Eternity” [what’s “Eternity”?? guess the answer to that one is ‘no’]
58. Been camping [yes]
59. Visited Brisbane [yes, mostly for work]
60. Been in an outback pub [yes]
61. Know what the term “Waltzing Matilda” actually means [yes]
62. Gone whale watching [yes]
63. Listened to Slim Dusty [yes]
64. Own five or more Australian movies or TV series [don’t own ANY movies or TV series, Australian or otherwise]
65. Sang along to Down Under [often!]
66. Have stopped specifically to look at an historic marker by the side of the road [no]
67. Eaten a 4’n’20 pie [yes, and have even had a pie at Harry’s Cafe de Wheels in Woolloomooloo]
68. Surfed at Bondi [I’ve walked along the beach — does that count?]
69. Watched the cricket on Boxing Day [on TV only]
70. Visited Hobart [no, but I went to Launceston for 24 hours once to watch an AFL game (see #24) — does that count?]
71. Eaten kangaroo [yes and often, and very nice it is too]
72. Seen a quokka [yes]
73. Visited Canberra [yes]
74. Visited rainforests [yes]
75. Used a Victa lawnmower [yes, years ago]
76. Travelled on a tram in Adelaide [not that I can remember]
77. Watch canefields burning [I’ve watched them growing, but not burning]
78. Used a Hills hoist [every week…]
79. Visited the Olgas [yes]
80. Used native Australian plants in cooking [no, though I’ve eaten dishes with them in]
81. Visited the snow [yes]
82. Chosen a side in Holden v Ford [no, and I don’t care]
83. Visited the desert [yes]
84. Been water skiing [tried once; failed miserably]
85. Read The Phantom [when I was a kid!]
86. Visited Parliament House [yes]
87. Gone spotlighting or pig-shooting [yes, but it was kangaroo and wild goat shooting]
88. Crossed the Nullarbor [yes, road and air]
89. Avoided swimming in areas because of crocodiles [yes]
90. Listened to AC/DC [absolutely, and as loud as possible!]
91. Called someone a dag [yep]
92. Voted in a Federal Election [yes — even though there have been times the fine for not voting looks more attractive]
93. Have been swimming and stayed between the flags [yes]
94. Had a possum in your roof [yes]
95. Visited the outback [yes]
96. Travelled over corrugated roads [yes, too many times]
97. Hit a kangaroo while driving [no, thank God]
98. Been well outside any mobile phone coverage [yes — a few years back you only had to be 10 mins out of Albany and you had no coverage… And we lose coverage about 5 kms out of town here]
99. Seen an emu [many]
100. Have woken to the smell of bushfires [yes, unfortunately]

Kathy, on one of my tech writing lists, told us about this cool website: http://www.jacksonpollock.org/

You open the page, and it’s blank. So you click (left mouse) and a splotch of colour appears. Now keep clicking and dragging and you too can be Jackson Pollock! Each time you click the colour changes.

Here’s my first attempt—”Blue Poles” it’s not…

It's not Blue Poles...

Thanks for the link, Kathy!

The local family of magpies is growing up, and the parents have decided that humans are a good source of food. So a couple of weeks ago, a couple started coming on to the back veranda and just standing near the back door looking plaintively at us. Silly me — I found something to feed them, and now they come back pretty much every day. I should get a standing order for mince (ground beef) with the butcher! 😉 Some days there’s a just a few; other days we get the entire extended family — I think 12 is the largest number I’ve counted so far.

The reconnaissance magpie standing at the back door

Let's bring in some more troops

Hell, let's bring the whole family!

Four day weekends should be compulsory! Especially for your birthday. I had my birthday this past weekend and had a lovely time. Here are some of the highlights:

Friday

• Massage given to me as a gift by Suzanne from Tasmania for helping her out with some marketing. It was the first deep tissue massage I’ve had since moving down here and I really must get back into having massages once a month to keep my ‘mouse shoulder’ in order.
• Payment for the “Sun and Earth” quilt received from the friends who are coming down today. They paid me FAR more than I suggested. Thanks guys! It will go to more fabric! 😉
• Lunch with my friend Bobbie at the Bridgetown Hotel. We enjoyed their great Beez Neez fish and chips, and Bobbie gave me a lovely gift of a needle case (I’ll take and post a picture later).
• Late afternoon sitting out on the back porch with friends from Perth and Tasmania (yes, the Suzanne of the massage!), enjoying a glass of wine and feeding the magpies. And lots of chatting and laughter!
• Dinner for six of us at the Bridgetown Hotel (yes, I ate there twice in one day!). Four of us had the racks of lamb (delicious) and two had the steak (equally delicious). This was followed by a HUGE chocolate mud birthday cake for Suzanne and me (Suzanne’s birthday was three days before mine). Sparklers, candles, the lot. We took the remainder of the cake home.

Saturday

• Showing our friends around our little town, including the estate where we have our land (they met Bobbie and Brian), and the Peninsula Rd circuit. Then they went off to enjoy the Cherry Festival at Manjimup, before going on to Pemberton and then back to Nannup for the night.
• Quiet afternoon and evening at home. I did some quilting in the afternoon, finishing the back of the queen bed quilt! photos to come…

Sunday

• Drove to Busselton to have lunch with my parents who have just returned from 8 weeks overseas. Celebrated my birthday, my Mum’s birthday next week, and their wedding anniversary last week.
• Drove to Bunbury to spend the night in an ocean view room at the Lighthouse Beach Resort Motel. Hot day, calm beach. About a 3-star place, despite how they advertise themselves.
• Birthday dinner at a local Thai restaurant (Just One Thai). Ordinary ambience etc, but HOT HOT HOT food! We asked for ‘hot’, the waitress advised against it, but we insisted. It was VERY hot — and very yummy!! So much so I asked if we could buy some of their chilli paste. I lead with the “we’re from out of town, we don’t have a local Thai restaurant” argument and the manager let us buy some.

Monday

• Had an egg and bacon breakfast at Buck’s Diner in Bunbury. Mine was good, though my husband said his scrambled eggs were a little dry and lukewarm, as were his baked beans.
• Got some crocs for me and sandals for my husband.
• Did some grocery shopping in Bunbury to stock up the pantry with stuff we can’t get locally or that was on special.
• Purchased some more quilting fabric!

It was a lovely weekend — filled with friends, laughter, food and various non-strenuous and non-taxing activities, like shopping! We contributed more to the economy this weekend than for the past few weeks combined, so that’s gotta be good!

Back in September when I left a major project, Sarah P, one of my colleagues in the Brisbane-based company, said she was going to get a fish for her desk and call it Rhonda! A fish called Rhonda… get it? (guess you have to be a certain age where you remember the movie ‘A fish called Wanda’!)

Anyhow, she has FINALLY sent me a photo of Rhonda (who is a ‘he’ by the way, so some in the office call him ‘Ron’). Sarah reckons whenever anyone asks its name, she says ‘Rhonda’ and they say ‘Perth Rhonda?’ so I guess some of them still remember me. 😉 (and no, I have NO idea why there’s some space-suited figure with a ray gun hanging over the side of the fishbowl!)

A fish called Rhonda

Update, 2 June 2011: I just heard from Sarah P that Rhonda passed away last night. 😦 He will be buried in her backyard in Queensland, under the poinsiana tree, next to the guinea pig, so he’ll be doing a little bit towards improving the environment.

Last night we were driving back from Balingup and low in the crystal clear western sky was a terrific sight—a sliver of a moon topped by Jupiter and Venus. Tonight’s meant to be even better as the planets and the moon line up into a ‘smiley face’—at least in Western Australia. Even nicer is that Sagittarius (my star sign) and Capricorn (my Mum’s) are in the picture.

Planets and moon in a smiley face configuration

More information:

• http://www.astrovisuals.com.au/Events.html
• http://www.sydneyobservatory.com.au/blog/?p=1428
• http://www.skymaps.com/events/20081201/index.html

Update 9:00pm: I took a photo at 8:30pm. My (old) digital camera doesn’t have a way to stop or minimise camera shake, so there’s a little bit of shake in the photo, even though I steadied my arm against a back veranda post. Here’s my photo:

My photo of the smiley face

We’ve been having some really unusual weather the past week or so. Here, it’s rained heavily—we’ve had twice our annual rainfall for November and most has fallen in the past week. Huge drops, and big heavy gushing downpours. Good for the dams as we come into summer… not so good for the farmers who are in the middle of the grain harvest right now.

Yesterday, over near Salmon Gums, they got massive hail and ice and it flattened the crops. Now to put this into perspective, it’s late November here. It’s getting hot (usually). Salmon Gums’ average maximum temperature from 1932 to 2008 throughout November is 26C (about 75F), and their average minimum is around 10C (http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/averages/tables/cw_012071.shtml)

So, here’s what happened near Salmon Gums yesterday (photos courtesy of my friend Bobbie’s chiropractor!):

Highway, Coolgardie to Esperance, 26 Nov 2008

Highway, Coolgardie to Esperance, 26 Nov 2008

So we opened the gate...

I guess if you don't laugh, you'd cry — drought, now this...

Hailstones the size of small eggs

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