Trailing Spouse

I fear I have become a trailing spouse cliche. Last week I attended my first Relocation Luncheon at a golf club with a group of expat wives, joined the Australian American Association, the Newcomers Network, The Newcomers Club, the Ionian 91 Club of Queensland, three committees at Rosie's school, volunteered to be the room parent, joined the board of Nola's Kindy and joined a health club. If the mountain won't come to Muhammad…..

I was super skeptical driving into the health club's parking lot, one, because you can only join so many things in a week, and two, my mom found it on line before she got here. But as soon as my foot landed inside the air-conditioned lobby I knew I was going to sign up. Have you ever heard of a family run health club? I hadn't. They opened it 30 years ago and still live upstairs. Upstairs! They have free child-minding in a glorious sunlight filled space that opens onto a grassy lawn where bubble wands lay scattered like easter eggs. Of course, I do have to wait until my tennis shoes arrive on the container ship before I can really hit it - there is just no way I am going to the mall to buy another pair. By the way, someone finally told me, it's not a mall, its a Shopping Centre. I stand corrected, but still not convinced.

The expat luncheon was an eye opener. These ladies are the real deal. I am merely a pretender. Collectively the 7 of them have lived in each country on the planet with a border. The woman sitting on my left cooked every meal for her family, including birthday cakes, out of a BarBQ the entire 5 years they lived in St. Petersburg (not to stereotype but, she is Australian). The woman on my right got into a crazy heated debate with the woman across from her about the best place to buy tea in Dubai. I didn't say much during lunch, deciding it best to keep a low profile and see if I could pick up any tips.

Which I did, but I don't honestly think I can execute any of them. The women who have most recently lived in Asia were all adamant I take up golf, every day all day and with a head lamp at night, provided there is a caddy. I also was instructed to start hosting large teas. It does not matter that I don't know anybody. The woman who arrived here via India told me she hosted an afternoon tea for 20 only five days after she deplaned. My hat was instantly off to her, but wondered if she invited random people off the streets? I bravely contemplated doing just that, but then, with relief remembered I only have 4 utensils, so it just wouldn't work. All in all it was a delightful lunch and I am looking forward to next month's meeting. You can't go wrong with a group of well traveled and interesting women gathered around several buckets of champagne.  

This past weekend, in our never ending quest to replace electrical appliances we became the deliriously happy owners of a washer and dryer. I must admit though, I had started to enjoy putting clothes out on the line. Which was fortunate since our rental dryer didn't work. And neither did the one it replaced. Clothes actually dry faster outside here in the heat of the day than they would in a properly functioning dryer anyway. The only thing is, you have to remember to bring them in before it rains. Which is hard because the downpours sneak up on you. It will be hot as hades all day, I'm talking 95 degrees with 82% humidity, then with out warning a monsoon will hit. Drenching all your sun dried clothes instantaneously. Had I a working dryer, I would have shoved them into it and pressed "start" and that would have been that.  As this was not an option I left the clothes out on the line to dry again. But then the cycle would repeat itself. After a few days of this I considered bringing them in to dry somewhere in the house, but good sense prevailed. I have learned something vital about vomit avoidal in a hot climate - and that is to never leave anything wet inside. If there is something wet in the house run, do not walk, run, as if your life depended on it, and find a way to dry it. If you have been quick enough it won't smell like you are hiding a trio of dead bodies in the closet. 

So when Mike returned from his latest trip he came home to a house that didn't smell like a graveyard, and a lot of clean, but wet clothes. He wasn't too keen on drying his boxer shorts with my hairdryer, even though I knew from experience it worked quite well.

There is a large appliance store at the shopping centre. So off we set. Parking level pink. After circumnavigating the shopping centre on a series of travelators, stopping once for coffee, then again to consult the map, then once more for water, we finally landed at the store entrance. Where we found it closed. There was a sign posted reading, "Harvey Normans has relocated to Wooloogaba in preparation for the Indooroopilly Shopping Centre Expansion". Expansion? Unless someone has invented time travel expanding this mall, sorry, Shopping Centre, seems like a bad idea. But indeed Brisbane is about to embark on a 500 million dollar expansion of the Indooroopilly Shopping Centre. Incredible. I suppose we can look forward to water slides.

We left and drove 20 minutes out of town to another Harvey Normans where we bought telephones, a blender and the washer and dryer. We would have also bought a vacuum, toaster and several lamps but they wouldn't fit in the car. The salesman repeatedly told us if we could wait a day, just one day, the washer and dryer would be delivered. We could not, however, wait one more bloody day. We drove to the warehouse, crammed the set into the car, sped home and somehow pushed/dragged/carried the washer and the dryer from the garage into the laundry room and promptly started drying underwear.

I have been doing my food shopping of late at neither a mall nor a centre, but at the Kenmore Shopping Village. It's where the girls take ballet and I decided to "give it a go". It reminds me of a miniature Pike Place Market, but inside with air-conditioning and no pigs. There is a wonderful fruit and veggie stand that sells terrific produce. Across from that is an Italian market where I bought some caramelized balsamic vinegar that my mom and I have been drinking straight from the bottle. Best of all there are no travelators or multi level parking garages. 

I also found the best cake shop in the entire world. If you come to visit I will get a cake from Kenmore Cakes just for you, and the 14+ hour flight will have been worth it. Rosie's birthday was on the 13th and she told me she wanted a round vanilla cake with pink frosting and rainbow butterflies. If you recall my kitchen trials, you will understand the fear in my heart when I thought about baking this cake.  Fortunately a friendly local told me about Kenmore Cakes and I rushed there to place my order. But Paul, the proprietor shook his head when I told him I needed a cake in three days. He needed at least a week's lead time. Swallowing my disappointment I ordered a meat pie for Nola and we sat down to regroup. It was a small shop, and Nola is awfully charming, and we got to talking with Paul. Turns out he and his wife relocated to Brisbane from London, 35 years ago when their two daughters were exactly Nola's and Rosie's age now. I can't say if it was this shared coincidence, Nola's enthusiasm for his meat pie, or my pathetic desperation, but before we left Paul said he would make Rosie's birthday cake.  "But it will have to be simple!" he told us. When we returned three days later we found a lovely (but simple!) round vanilla cake with pink frosting, and the most delicate rainbow butterflies found this side of fairy land. So while it's true I became a loyal customer even before eating one bite of cake, I cannot impress upon you how good it was. 

We explored more of South Bank this week by hopping on the train Sunday with the girls to check out the Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA). The train is great. It's super efficient, convenient and has all the requisite sleek subway tiles and groovy underground tunnels to make pretending you are in London quite easy. If you felt like doing that. And let's face it, coming from Seattle, Brisbane's public transportation feels mind blowingly wonderful. The only drawback for Nola is that she is too young for a ticket, which was terribly upsetting. Classic age discrimination. This was the first time we visited South Bank without going swimming. I think the girls just didn't realize we were there since we took the train instead of the City Cat. GoMA is part of The Queensland Cultural Centre, which consists of The Queensland Performing Arts Centre, the Queensland Museum and the State Library of Queensland. Before we left Seattle, Nola's teacher (we miss you Jane!) told us about a cool children's exhibit at GoMA and I realized we had exactly one week left to check out "The Obliteration Room".

"The obliteration room invites visitors to obliterate the completely white surfaces of a life sized Australian living room, re-created within the Gallery, with coloured adhesive dots. For 40 years, Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama has made paintings, sculptures and photographs using dots to cover surfaces and fill rooms. Kusama calls this process 'obliteration', which means the complete destruction of every trace of something." (like what Brisbane has done to bagels. Sorry to digress, but I can't understand how the fastest growing city (and 3rd largest) in Australia, with a population of 1.5 million has no bagels.)

There was a large picture of the artist outside the The Obliteration Room in which her hair is bright orange. Next to this picture museum staff hand out stickers. Rosie and Nola stared at the picture of Kusama with squinting eyes, furrowed brows and gaping mouths, then demanded orange stickers and were off and running. We had to Obliterate again after lunch. 

The other children's exhibit currently on was something called "We Miss You Magic Land", by two Australian artists, Pip & Pop, (who are from Perth, where Mike saw a pink limo hummer, which makes sense if you saw the exhibit).

"Drawing on children's fairy tales from all over the world, creation myths, Buddhist cosmologies and video games, Pip & Pop create magical lands coloured with a bright, often fluorescent palette. The finished result is a series of delightful magical worlds where make-believe becomes a part of reality." 

You can check out my pictures of this and imagine going through with two little girls. There were several instances when I feared their enthusiasm might be life threatening.

So we go, "good 'on ya!" here in Brisbane. Waiting patiently for our container to arrive. Staying alternately covered in sunblock or an umbrella, but open to all friendly overtures.

There's pictures here:  https://picasaweb.google.com/103336932121670450817/TrailingSpouse?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCPrwvqfov5vEjgE&feat=directlink