Things I'm Gonna Do When I Get Back To DC

1. POPEYE'S! (sing it with me now) Love that chicken from Popeye's.

The fried chicken (commercially available, since I can't fry chicken without starting a conflagration) here in Australia is either KFC (bleeah) or an Aussie chain, Red Rooster (slightly better).

Oh, how I miss Popeye's Fried Chicken. The crunch. The grease. The salt. Don't start with me, you know you love it too. ;)

This Bag's For You

One of my New Years resolutions this year was to give blood as often as I was eligible. When I reported in to Australian Red Cross blood donor center downtown in January, they suggested I donate plasma. It takes longer (I budget 2 hours for the process from start to finish) so many people aren't willing.

Me? I got lots of time. I've been dutifully reporting downtown every two weeks since January. Well, except when they told me to take a month off to pump up my iron count (lots of red meat and leafy green veggies that month!) and when I got deferred for not having drunk enough water and when they couldn't find my regular thyroid meds in their list of approved meds....

I've been there a lot but have not always been able to part with my plasma. But I think I've got the system (and their requirements) worked out and haven't been turned away for a month at least! And you know what I learned today? The more you weigh, the more plasma you can give. I (cough)(cough) can give at the higest levels.

So there are some benefits to being....me.

The donor center downtown is clean, shiny, bright, and friendly (much more so than the donor center I go to in DC). The staff are efficient, organized, and seem to work well as a team. I get called in on time every time.

(Snack bar lady)

Best of all, they have way better snacks than the blood donor centers in the US! When you check in they hand you a form asking for your snack preference. Tea, coffee, water? Cheese, crackers? Cookies with or without filling? Need anything gluten-free? And if you're donating over lunch you can get a sandwich or a sausage roll (though I don't recommend the sausage rolls) (in general).

When you've finished your donation, you hand your form to the lady at the snack counter and she brings it out to you! How fancy is that??

If you haven't donated blood before you may not know the process.

* First, you fill out some forms.
* Second, you meet with a staff member who checks your blood pressure and iron count (via finger prick) and reviews the forms with you.
* Third, you're handed off the to staff person who actually takes your blood/plasma.
* THEN you get the snacks. Blood first, then snacks.

I was chatting with the forms / BP / finger stick lady today. She asked if I knew what plasma was good for. I'd looked that up a few months ago. It has a number of uses but it's especially useful to burn victims.

She said the true value of blood donations hadn't become real to her until her mom was diagnosed with leukemia and had to go through the usual treatments for it (successfully, thankfully). One day she was with her mom during a blood transfusion and realized that every bag they hung from the pole for her mom represented a person, a real person and a complete stranger, who had spent one or two hours of their time filling this bag that her mom needed so much. Some bags are actually a compilation of several donations so they represented several people.

These donors, of course, don't know her mom but what they did was vital to her life and health. They literally gave her a piece of their own body.

I almost cried.

It's true. I will never know who receives my plasma. Perhaps it will be used for testing and it will never meet a live person. I don't think of myself as some kind of altruistic superhero for donating. I've done it since I was 17. I don't even remember why I was moved to start donating then but I do remember that I had to get my parents' permission because I wasn't 18 yet.

But in some very concrete ways, I am a hero as is every person who donates. Someone's life literally depends on the stuff that fills that bag hanging next to me. It costs me nothing but time and I get snacks!

On 9/11 lots of people headed to donor centers to give blood and that's great. But most people who need blood products can't send out a call when they need it. Someone has to have made the trip to donate in advance of their need. The blood product needs to be sitting there just waiting for them.

And 99% of the time it will be a stranger. In the case of my donations here in Brisbane, a foreigner to boot.

Today, I feel very special for doing what I do.

Is We Are or Is We Ain't?

Heads up: this post isn't about Australia or about living in Brisbane. It's about creation and humanity and possibly God too.

So the internet is all a'buzz about the "impending Rapture" (7 hours and counting here in Australia!). Who's going, who's staying, who's partying, who's looting. I don't subscribe to the brand of Christianity that waits for a Rapture. I think the Kingdom of God is already here whenever a heart re-connects to the Divine and remembers its essential holy nature.

I was also listening to some podcasts yesterday (they're my reward for a long week of work) about creation and evolution and vegetarianism and the planet and love and all that happy hoo-hoo. I found myself reflecting on an essential conflict in the way we view our role in this creation -- are we a natural part of the creation (just like trees and the oceans and baby seals) or are we a separate thing from the natural world?

The thing that makes me sigh is this:

"Environmentalists" (at their extreme) treat humans as a parasite upon the perfection of creation. They treat humans as not an equal part of creation with everything else. They treat humans as separate from creation.

Those "humans uber alles" types (often religious, also often in the extreme) do the same thing. There's creation and then there's us standing on top of it (probably with our hands on our hips, chest out, and maybe a superhero cape a'flutter behind us), master of all, with "dominion" over everything. We and creation are two separate things, in opposition to each other.

They posssess the same worldview -- separation between creation and humanity -- for different reasons but with similar results: they're not getting anywhere productive with the rest of us.

What if -- and I know it's a stretch for some people -- we're only a part of creation? After all, we're made from the same storehouse of raw materials as the stars and dandelions and the platypus. We're just another mammal. We're not on the top, we're not on the bottom, and we're not a tick attached to the ass of Mother Nature. We're equals with all the rest of it (even the dandelions).

It's an integrated whole. We consume resources, as does every other part of creation. We kill things, as do many other parts of creation. We create waste, as do most processes. We're self-centered, as is the rest of creation (what, you think the bears are worried about the destiny of the salmon?).

Can we be permitted to love creation without hating ourselves? Can we honor ourselves without demeaning creation? Does it always have to be hierarchical -- one better, one worse; one on top, one underfoot?

If there's no God and creation occurred out of some natural explosive process, then we're a right and proper part of that. If there's a God and it's all an extension of His will and desire, then we belong here too. Either way, there's no separation.

OK, what about all the "destruction" we've wrought? We create havoc and destruction because we think we're separate from creation. Blame who you want but when you understand yourself as part of the whole, it's a lot harder to f**k it up.

But first, the two (or more) sides to the debates about creation need to quit setting humanity apart. Us and the ducks (and dirt and seaweed and and lichen) are in it together.

And that's what we need to be teaching and we need to be learning. Nothing good, productive, or useful has ever come from self-hate or self-aggrandizement. Until the two sides get there, we're not going anywhere useful.

And Now For A Completely Different Country

This past weekend was another international jaunt, to New Zealand. Jeff and I were last there in 2000 for our honeymoon. We also have friends who used to live in DC but retired back to NZ 6 years ago. He'd made it abundantly clear that he would not be pleased if I got this close to NZ and didn't make it to see him.

So, time for a hop across the Tasman Sea.

Jeff and Linda live on Waiheke Island, which is in the Auckland bay. I decided to spend a day in Auckland doing the 10-mile Coast-to-Coast walk before taking the ferry to Waiheke for 3 days with Jeff and Linda.

The C2C trail takes you across the city, passing through several parks and peaks. It's a nice idea, though I found the neighborhoods kinda dull (and empty, mid-day on a Friday). The peaks -- spent volcanoes since that's what created most of New Zealand -- were fun. Excellent views.

Sadly, I found the map put out by the Department of Conservation to be half-assed. It presumes you already know the city pretty well, which is a spurious presumption, given how many visitors Auckland gets, especially of the walking variety.

I ended up walking 7 of the 10 miles due to fatique (spent at least an hour between all my meanderings off-map) and sunset.

Waiheke was gorgeous and Linda and Jeff were superb hosts. The island is something of an artists colony (which I also dubbed "The Island of Short-Haired Women") so we spent time in several art galleries. The rest of the time was spent wandering the gorgeous countryside (and catching the finale of Masterchef New Zealand, which was a bona fide nail biter!).

I could keep going but I think I'll let the pics tell the story.

Near the beginning of the trail in Aucklands' Domain.

The trail through the Domain.

The tree at the top of rise in the Domain.

Heading up Mt. Eden.

The view towards downtown from the top of Mt. Eden.

Mt. Eden has the most clearly delineated volcanic crater on the walk. It's tough to appreciate how deep and steep it is from this pic but, trust me, it's steep and deep!

Yours truly, half-way through the hike.

More views off Mt. Eden.

Someone got whimsical with rocks on One Tree Hill.

The view from Jeff and Linda's living room. Anzac Bay.

resting in the sunset

Jeff and Linda on the beach

Saturday was a perfect day for a walk.

view from a bluff

This Dollar Used to Be Bigger

Been tracking the US dollar lately? Oy vey...

In an effort to make US exports more attractive (from what I understand) the US has been reducing the value of the dollar against foreign currencies (no idea how that works, I just know that's what I've heard).

Good for exports, bad for ex-pats.

When we were in Australia in 2009, the Aussie dollar was worth about 80 cents against the US dollar.

When we arrived last August, the Aussie dollar was worth about 90 cents against the US dollar.

Today, the Aussie dollar is worth about 1.10 against the US dollar.

Jeff is paid in US dollars into our US bank account. That means that when we transfer money from our US account to our Australian account, we get less money.

Back in August, if we transferred $1,000 from our US account, $1,111 showed up in our Aussie account, less the bank fees (I think; it's never a good idea to completely trust my math).

Now, transferring $1,000 from the US gets us ... $900 Aussie. Less the bank fees.

Ah, the joys of international finance.

There's really nothing we can do about it but sigh and continue to enjoy this time as best as we can.