This week I had my first Aussie close encounter contact with a cockroach, a snake and fear itself. It all started on Monday when the house was inspected for termites. Because of the climate it seems houses need to be inspected every few hours. While the inspector was here I tried, as nonchalantly as an insect phobic person can, to inquire about the deadliness of the great big hairy spiders that laze about on their webs in my yard. "Oh, yeah no, those buggers are harmless mate! It's the ones that hide that you need to be careful about. No worries though, they won't kill you, they'll just make you feel like you want to die, ha! Ha ha!"
Many people here have the perimeter of their houses and yards sprayed with some kind of magic insect/reptile/things that go bump in the night shield. I decided it was time to look into this and fired up Google and, unfortunately, my imagination. By the time my research was complete I realized I would need a budget of approximately $13,000 to keep my family safe. Once you get started there is no end. And I really don't see how I can par down the list. I mean, if I'm going to invest in the "Outdoor Exterminator Axe Elixir" (which, trust me, is a no brainer) then it seems only logical to also get "Snake Away" and "Die Vermin Filth". Why wouldn't you? The only thing I don't think we need is the "Animal Away". I'm not sure I need to go that far….not yet.
We've all heard about the deadly creatures in Australia. There are more things that can kill you here than anywhere else in the world. I'm sure you'll agree that all this could put one slightly on edge. It could even put someone, say me, over the edge. Particularly when the guy who mows the lawn can't stop reminding me to wear gloves and shoes every time I open the door, and to check first before opening the gate to make sure there aren't any nasty spiders lurking under the handle. "They like to hide under car door handles too" he told me, with not a little malice. Then it happened, I saw my first cockroach in the house. As if that's not bad enough it was in the kitchen under my foot. Then, later that same day, as I walked to the garage I saw a black snake slither down the path and into the scrubbery. I tell you this so you can understand my frame of mind as I drove home from the school meeting at Nola's Kindy tonight. I had a little conversation with myself that went something like this, "Ack! What was that? Something landed in my lap! Jesus, Mary and Joseph! It's crawling on me! Eyes on the road. I bet it already laid eggs in the backseat! Don't panic. I can feel it on my lap! Disgusting! It's going to bite me! It's probably going to kill me! Shitshitshitshitshit!"
Shaking, heart thundering, I screech to a halt at the side of the road, leap out of the car and hear something hit the pavement. Every muscle in my body tenses as I realize just how narrow an escape I had from my hair clip.
I hope by writing about this traumatic experience I will be able to put it behind me. But I know there are nightmares in store for me tonight.
Before this happened I was extremely happy. I recently celebrated my 42nd birthday and it was a doozy. It was the most exciting birthday I have had in at least a year. This past Friday, March 2nd, or as they say here in Australia, 2nd March, all the material possessions from our past life were delivered to our new house. We had been getting email updates as to the progress of the ship, customs, quarantine, etc. and the moving company projected a delivery date of 2nd March a few weeks ago. But it never occurred to me that it would actually happen on time. But it did! Right as I was leaving to take Rosie to school the trucks with our containers pulled up. Rosie saw them and immediately developed an acute case of Being-Too-Sick-To-Go-To-School. I told her that since it was a special day I would pick her up early, right after Assembly (where she has to pretend to sing along to Advance Australia Fair, Australia's national anthem and perhaps the hardest song in the world to memorize).
As luck would have it, 2nd March also coincided with one of the only days Mike will be in Brisbane this month. While the movers did all the heavy lifting, they did require one thing of us. We had to stretch our brains super far and fast so that the grey matter would snap back leaving small welts on our foreheads. Let me explain. All our stuff - every book, spoon, towel, broken toy and pair of jeans that I wore in 1987 had been carefully packed, labeled and shipped. For insurance purposes the moving company had to know that it all arrived safe and sound. Here's where we come in. As the movers carried out each box from the two containers, they would shout out the box number to us (a number between 000 and infinity) we then had to correctly interpret the number they had just called out, flip through 89 pages of inventory, check off the box number and in a split second decide where that particular box should go, for example, "inthecrazywallpaperbedroom1stfloor!" before their arms gave out and they dropped the box on the pavement. And there were four of them so it was like clowns popping out of circus car. They just kept coming and coming. And this went on for hours. I thought I'd get faster as time went on but I didn't. I would look at these poor guys in the blazing hot sun with two hundred pounds of crap in their arms and think, Dear God! I'm killing them! All the while Nola is running madly around yelling things like, "My BIKE!" "My BED" "PLAY WITH ME!" Luckily Mike took over this job and spared me the misfortune of losing my sanity on my birthday.
Finally, despite me and Mike, the movers got everything inside, and the furniture unwrapped and reassembled. They left us with a house full of boxes and the worst BO smell high heat and heavy lifting can produce. Which let me tell you is bad. Really, just really nasty bad.
Unpacking has been kind of fun. Especially for the girls. They are really good at taking things out of boxes, unwrapping them and then, and this is most helpful, scattering what they find wherever it happens to drop as they run from room to room. My mom and her husband have been a tremendous help. Dick has been a real trooper, breaking down boxes and organizing the never ending stream of packing material we throw at him. And my mom knows just where everything should go and puts it there. She transformed the girls room from an upside down inside out ferris wheel ride to a lovely pink and yellow paradise. Thanks yous twos!
Mike left again on 3rd March, with instructions not to unpack his 500 boxes of books which, while I'm pleased I married a reader, left me with the Great Wall of China between my bladder and the bathroom. Not super convenient. If you are reading this now Mike I am sorry but we brought down the wall. Let freedom ring.
I think, so far, the greatest treasures I have unpacked are the paintings Mike's mom, Kathryn, did of Max and a complete surprise….an empty, but very used, Cilantro Lime Shrimp container from Costco that for some reason was deemed necessary by the movers to pack. I don't know how this nugget of nefariousness slipped through quarantine and Nola's Easter basket was denied entry, but it is not my place to question. Only to unpack.
I remember as we were preparing to leave Seattle l was moved and inspired by all those books about people simplifying their lives. The woman who didn't buy anything for a year, the couple who stopped buying anything made in China, the family who gave away all their possessions - so inspiring - but I have to say now that I looove my pillow and am so deliriously happy to be reunited with my bed. I enjoy drinking coffee out of my really big heavy mug, and I'm sorry, but I actually don't think it's possible to have too many shoes or fluffy soft towels. Yes, possessions can become burdensome, and perhaps we rely too heavily on them, but they can be very comforting too. Especially when you have been drinking coffee out of styrofoam and your kids have been playing with nothing but matches for two months. What a treat to have all my old stuff made new again, and on my birthday to boot.
Australians end the Happy Birthday song by shouting Hip Hip Hooray! Which, no surprise, is really fun. When Rosie turned six her classmates shouted it 6 times. For me, in order to keep it fun, we decided to just shout it once. Since all the rental stuff had been collected but our kitchen boxes were still taped shut in the kitchen, except for the ones that somehow ended up in thecrazywallpaperbedroom1stfloor! we decided it best to go out for my birthday dinner. Even though Nola had only that day been reunited with her full wardrobe, she knew without hesitation what she wanted to wear - her mermaid costume from halloween, a pair of flip flops, and a pink cowboy hat. We celebrated at the 100 Acre Bar, but told the girls it was the 100 Acre Wood, and they kept busy most of the evening by keeping their eyes open for Christopher Robin. It was a great day, and a great night. Hip! Hip! Hooray!
You can check out Nola's outfit here:
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