Grace Notes @ Snarkattack

The very first time I went to Sydney, it was pretty boring. I was with an aunt, who was excellent company, but we knew no locals and let’s face it, hotels everywhere all look the same. It’s not really an ideal way to get to know a city.

One of my closest friends, L, was kind enough to put me up for a few days when I went to Sydney in late January. She is owned by a certain Ms Monkeypants, or Monkey for short, who is a rescued cat. As you can see in the photo, she’s got very long fur.

L tells me it’s taken a while for Monkey to open up – not unusual for rehomed cats. I was pretty nervous about meeting Monkey, because…what if she didn’t like me? My own cat is very wary of strangers and I was expecting the same from Monkey. I would’ve understood, but still been a bit sad…

She was guarded, but kind. I tried to be respectful of her and not too crazy-excited (which I was). There was one day that she forgot I was staying at L’s and jumped at first seeing me. She got her own back when one morning, she came and cat kissed me – I sat bolt-upright in bed wondering what on earth the cold wetness on my nose was. I turned to see an inquisitive creature, observing me, a little puzzled. Not even my own kitty greets me with cat kisses.

Monkey and L let me into their lives and most intimate living space. I could not have enjoyed Sydney as much as I did without either of them.

Recently, @halia reminded me that I wrote a post once, about a year ago on meeting a cat that belongs to a beautiful old cinema in Melbourne called the Astor. Her name is Marzipan. She is lovely – keep an eye out for her if you see a film there, as she’s not afraid of people and happy to mingle.

I thought it might be nice to recount parts of my Sydney week-long holiday through the felines I met and fell in love with. I know, you’re thinking for me, not hard. It’s true. Both of the cats I met I missed as much as the people to whom they belong.

Chloe is an old lass, but in good health. She’s got the colouring that means that in Japan they call her mike-neko, or roughly ‘tricoloured cat’ – which are only ever female. My human host at her house was @deconstructo, though oddly, Chloe does not formally belong to him.

He explained that Chloe adopted him, and her actual owners are a lovely couple with whom @deconstructo lives. But who can argue with a cat? Chloe sat on @deconstructo’s feet, and it was decided that the three humans, and cat would all live together.

As is indicative of Chloe’s nature, the people who live in the house are warm, generous and open. My memories of the house include good food, beer and excellent conversation. All three humans in the house looked after me, as did Chloe. She basked in the extra attention lavished upon her while I stayed there, apparently, and I missed her very much upon my return to Melbourne. She likes to be near you, is quite talkative and looks after her humans well who reciprocate in like fashion.

I look forward to @deconstructo visiting Melbourne, though he will need to give me warning so I can make sure I buy enough cider and perry for us to guzzle. What luck to find wonderful new friends.

I was brought up as a Catholic, and when we moved to Australia in 1987, I attended a Catholic primary school. After that, I went to a largely Catholic private high school, though they were very open-minded and liberal in their views and most certainly did not believe in shoving continued belief down our throats.

I was pretty happy about this, because by about Year 9 due to some personal traumas, I’d totally given up on believing in God. Naively, before this, I used to pray and talk to God as if he were in my life, not as if he were some stuffy meanie to be scared of, but some grown-up that lived in the clouds who could hear me.

In Year 8, my mother briefly lent me a miniature rosary. It was gorgeous. Instead of the usual string of beads, it was a metal ring, with a cross.

I thought it was metal, but inside was stone. I accidentally snapped it in half and was devastated. Also shit-scared my mother would kill me and she did indeed tell me off proper, but I was more disappointed in myself for breaking something so beautiful, and precious.

I also felt cheated – it wasn’t solid metal. Why wasn’t it solid metal? my young mind demanded.

Why am I writing about this now? It’s because I found some beautiful examples of miniature rosaries at my parents’ place. I’m a bit miffed that my mother doesn’t have them in better places – they’re just lying on a table, and because of the tablecloth, rather difficult to see.

And the ring-sized one – just a little too big for my middle finger.

After my dining experience at First Taste, I called a friend in the hopes of catching a drink with him in his hood.

Not sure when, but quite some time ago, I had the pleasure of meeting a true Renaissance man. His name is Justin. Alas, he decided to leave Melbourne for more adventurous climes, that being Istanbul (who, seriously, just ups and goes to Istanbul?! Justin, that’s who).

I do not use the term ‘Renaissance man’ lightly: Justin is a tech geek of the highest order, who makes me hard whenever we talk lit. I fondly remember him reading me passages of Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men In A Boat as I drove us to the local fast food joint for disgusting burgers. He likes good music. He taught me to play croquet. He did aikido. Alas, I am reliably informed he can dance, but I never witnessed this. He’s also a fellow flute-player.

In his last week in Melbourne, we caught up at a bar near his place that he became very fond of – for good reason. The staff are knowledgeable without being snotty. They also serve Young’s Chocolate Stout. If you live in the North Fitzroy area, you should definitely visit Deco Bar on St Georges Road.

The sign above was taken inside Deco Bar and harkens back to my modernist sluttiness, so I had to snap a pic.

We miss you, Justin.

Nearly a decade ago, I once got paid by a small orchestra to go on a tour into a town that is on the border of my state, Victoria, and New South Wales. The town is called Swan Hill. It was summertime, and the heat seemed unbearable.

It was a fantastic gig: I was just a temporary flautist, the music was amazingly hard but a great challenge and the conductor came up to me to tell me I played well, which never happens (I’d not seen the music before: it was my first time through). I remember it fondly because I got paid (thus actually making me a real classical musician…for a bit!) and because, I played so well and it seemed so…effortless. Ah, the zone.

Now, I’m not the sort of person who really wanted to believe in the “country people stereotypes” but (that lethal word but!*) when I got billeted out with a member of the community, it did make me reconsider my position.

In case you didn’t already know, I’m not white. Apparently, this was cause for fascination on the part of my host.

“So, where are you from?”
“England, originally.”
“But…what nationality are your parents?”
“Well, my father’s from Guyana, and my mother’s from the Philippines.”
“Oh. So…you must have been brought up in the Filipino…way, then.”
“I’m sorry?”
“You know, brought up like someone from the Philippines.”
“Well, that would have been hard, given that I grew up in the West. My first language is English, you know. It’s what we speak in England.”
“But you would have eaten different food…”
“Different from bangers and mash?”

Myself and my billetee exchanged knowing glances.

“Right. Well, let me show you my scrapbook. I keep it to show my grandchildren when they come to visit.”
Billetee and I again exchange glances. Um, sure, why not? Not much we can do to refuse, really.

At first, she starts talking about God. This is fine. Then she opens up the scrapbook. There are newspaper articles pasted in it. The one she shows us is a car mashed up in an accident. She starts to tell us about how she shows these things to her grandchildren to remind them how lucky they are and how good God is to them. She saves similar such articles for her grandchildren.

Fellow billetee and I went to bed in shock that night.

I am happy to report that I did meet people the next day of a similar generation who were quite the opposite to that particular lady, thankfully.

I really do like bangers and mash. But damn, I’d kill for a decent trifle.

Or, silly westerners, if you prefer.

Once upon a time, I fell in love with a Japanese lad, at a Japanese restaurant we both worked at. In some disgusting fit of maturity, I had decided that the workplace wasn’t to know. It was successful.

Now unbeknowingly, I used to torture the poor nihonjin with my silly westerner questions. As I was sitting alone tonight at Momotaro Rahmen in Richmond, I remembered some of these now quite amusing stories.

One intensely hot summer’s day, Nomura-san is making us a cold noodle salad. Oh my lord – the gustatory bliss that is cold noodle salads. Wow. So Nomura-san is wrapping cold soba around this massive block of ice. I blurt out “Wouldn’t it be faster if you just put it in the fridge?”. Nomura-san looks at me, eyes sparkling and says in his accented English “Ahh, Jam-ma, that is, how we say, very Wes-tarn thinking”

Oops. I really felt like a stupid Westerner then, which is amusing, given that I’m different kinds of Asian. Watashi wa baka gaijin desu…

Employee lunchtime. We all say itadakimasu – I was told that this translated to “thank you for the good meal”. Now being an appalling liar, I was concerned…what if the meal isn’t a good one? Do you still have to say this? I voiced my concern to Yoshi, who quickly became confused and said yes, you still have to say it even if the meal is bad. He looked deeply confused by my question.

Okay, this last incident, I was just being difficult. In Melbourne there is a lovely bar called Ume Nomiya. Apparently in Japan, you can go to a bar, and they put your name on your bottle of alcohol so you can keep going there to drink it rather than downing it in one go. This is a cool system, but one can imagine this being abused in the West. Ume Nomiya is one such place that incorporates this Japanese custom – buy a bottle, and if you don’t finish it, you can return at another time to consume. Sugoi, ne?

“So, Kei-chan, what if you have the same name as someone else?”
“It doesn’t matter – the kanji will be different.”
“But what happens if someone walks into the bar and they have exactly the same kanji as another person? And they cheat and ask for the bottle?”
“It’s not gonna happen, Jam”
“But you never know, it might – ”
“It would never happen in Japan, Jam” (at which point my Japanese boyfriend is getting irate and trying to hide it).

I think for his sanity, I may have abandoned being so insistent that someone theoretically could steal your very expensive bottle of sake or similar such delicious Japanese alcoholic beverage.

These were the thoughts that entered my mind, as I dined at Momotaro Rahmen. I had their cold noodle salad (ramen), and in typical gaijin style, green tea ice cream. I’m currently sado-masochistically on wasabi peas. Oishii desu!

I went home last weekend, and saw a brand new Mozilla Firefox on the dining room table.

Having mentioned it recently, I thought I might tell the tale of Conrad Fox.

Conrad Fox is the name of my Mozilla Firefox. I sleep with him nearly every night (I don’t mind admitting it – I get cold, and hugging him happens to keep me warm).

He got his name after a childhood anecdote that Z told me – one of very few.

When Z was little, he didn’t quite understand the whole communist thing which is perfectly understandable. I’m of adult age and I still don’t understand it. He didn’t know why everyone was called ‘Conrad’ and it puzzled him to hear his former yippie sociology professor parents always talking about communists and Conrads.

Yes, he misheard ‘Comrade’ as ‘Conrad’.

Now, the firefox, or ‘red panda’, being red (ie. communist, haha), I thought it would be amusing to name him Conrad in honour of Z’s misunderstanding as it was quite a cute anecdote and Z is steely: it’s hard to imagine him doing anything ‘wrong’ or ‘cute’ – even as a child. I’m sure he did heaps of things that would prove otherwise, but he most certainly didn’t tell me. As far as I was concerned, as soon as they pulled him out of his birth vessel he probably started creating his first masterpiece or recording a face-melting grindcore vocal track * rolls eyes *. Or painting Warhammer 40k figurines…

His only other ‘weakness’ that I can think of: when I had a sweet in my mouth and put it to the side of my cheek resulting it it bulging – he used to tell me when I did that I was having a ‘cute attack’ which apparently meant being too cute according to him and his brother. Though many have remarked on my supposed ‘cuteness’ (ie. Due to my compact size rather than aesthetic pleasure), this was the only time Z fell into such a trap.

That’s the tale of Conrad Fox. Here’s a picture below. He’s a good deal more battered, squashed and drooled upon than the pristine model I saw today on the table downstairs. But, I love him all the same. My father bought him for me instead of a Mozilla shirt.

(The photo lies – it was taken two years ago)

Thank god for uni, I say (because people started to find me aesthetically passable, haha). I remember, in my second year of high school, there was a guy in my class who used to pretend to like me – we both knew he was just mucking around, it was cool.

Then one day, another classmate asked him “Do you really like her?” and immediately he said “Her? Who on earth would like her?”

I still remember the disgust in his voice.

However, it’s not quite as bad as the story in the following poem I’m about to post. Wow, even my ex never burnt me as badly as the object of affection did the girl in this poem. The only parallel I can draw is when DC first told me the reasons he couldn’t see me and I went and password protected my blog posts about you-know-what (well, if you know me well enough, you know what that is…). Up till then, I’d been fairly open about that aspect of my life. Apparently that will get me nowhere: society is not as understanding as it likes to make out.
Continue Reading »

I ventured out today for the first time since I’ve moved house to go to the doctor – this druggie needs her fix, alas. It was quite a long walk – all up I spent an hour walking which was great (take note Katie!).

I noticed something that struck me as peculiar when I went to the pharmacy to pick up my prescription: at the front of the counter was a product display for yet another lip plumping product.

Lip plumpers seem to be all the rage these days which is funny because I remember a time when I was derided for my self-confessed bee stung pout. Can’t do anything about it – I have fat lips (or should that be ‘phat’, haha).

Of course it was back in high school, and I was a young nerdy band student (a flute player too which drew even more attention to my lips, groan) and I remember someone calling me fish lips. Apparently, having fat lips wasn’t in. It was just another one of many things I was picked on for. Funny how years later, things have changed so that no one in their right mind would hope for thin lips (no offence to those that have them – what nature has given you is beautiful, remember that! Truly!). I wouldn’t trade my fat arse pout for them, I confess. It’s been a long, long time since anyone ever remarked upon my lips being too fat. Actually, quite the opposite! Woo hoo!

I can’t sleep. I was chatting earlier in the day to a pal in Arizona (hi C!) in talking about her significant other, it reminded me a lot of my ex, who sounded similar in a particular situation and aspect. So I’m up, trying to sleep but not really getting anywhere. Missing one’s ex is very inconvenient, if not pathetic. Go on, I beg you to tell me.

I decided to try and deal with this constructively and write about a treasured memory.
Continue Reading »