Ya Wanna Play Some FOOTBALL!?!

The biggest complaint I hear about soccer in America is that it's too slow; more specifically, no one hardly ever scores. I have the solution: Australian Rules Football.

I loves me some footy (and not just because they wear those adorable little shorts) (though I will admit that helps). It's just a great game to watch.

Imagine soccer -- the ball always in motion, possession changing every few minutes, people running, running, running -- but allow the players to use their hands. In fact, they aren't allowed to "bump" the ball with their head or their body parts. They throw it or punt it up and down the field.

Oh, yeah, and get rid of that silly goalkeeper. Wiiiiiiide open goals that are absurdly easy to get a ball through. So it's quite normal to have a score of, say, 120 - 95.

And did I mention the little shorts?

OK, that's Australian Rules Football.

Jeff and I went to see the season opener last week for the local team, the Brisbane Lions. They were playing the Freemantle Dockers (whose colors exactly matched my purple hair. Woops!). The Dockers wore the cutest striped long socks.

Ah, it's possible they wouldn't like them being called "cute"....

We went for the cheap seats -- $25 -- and were surprised that we were close to the goal and maybe a dozen rows off the playing field. I think if you're up a level you get a better view of the entire field of play (and don't get whacked in the face when a ball goes sailing into the stands) but we loved it.

The field is large and oval and play covers the entire thing. The actual size of the field is roughly 150 x 135 meters (165 x 145 yards) (it varies a bit from stadium to stadium). These guys run their legs off!

The ball looks a lot like an American football with more rounded ends. They can kick it or punt it (hit it with their hands) or toss it. I don't remember anyone doing an overhand pass like an American quarterback would do.

Forward progress is a bit like sailing into the wind: tacking left and right to eventually end up going forward.

The goal is 4 poles. You get 6 points if you get it between the center two poles. You get one point if you get it through the outer poles. The "goal refs" have these very stylized movements they do to signal the type of goal it is, which cracks me up every time. The "field reps" also have a funny way of tossing the ball back on the field when it goes out of bounds -- the stand with their backs to the field and toss it high and hard over their head.

The game has 4 quarters but they're 30 minutes each. Except the 4th quarter which often is longer than 30 minutes due to calculations I will probably never understand. So when the game is close, I don't actually know what "zero" time is (since the clocks count up rather than down). You just keep cheering.

The game we went to was a lot of fun. The Lions were 25 point underdogs, according to the bookies, but they took the lead early and kept it, except for a few minutes, through the entire game (which actually lasted about 2.5 hours). At times, they were ahead by more than 10 points.

Until the last 6 minutes. Which is when they lost the game. Aaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrgggggggghhhhhhh!

Very frustrating. They lost by 2 points. TWO POINTS. Kill me already.

Two guys got taken off with bloody faces (so, yes, it has some resemblance to rugby too). One of these guys is going to need reconstructive surgery, it turns out. Ouch!

Very physical game.

And I love it!

A Funky Afternoon

I've been hearing about the Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA) here in Brisbane, so I decided to wander over on Sunday afternoon. It's in the cultural centre on the Southbank. And I have this to say about that: what a fabulous place!

When I think of "modern art" I tend to think of things very abstract or weird or disturbing. What I found was some of that but a whole lot of creative and funky and interesting. I took the 30-minute free tour (I really need to do that more in museums) which really was a great help. We went through the main exhibit -- 21st Century: Art In The First Decade -- and the guide's talk honestly did help me understand it better.

The museum was also quite full of families with small kids (at least in part because of the big tube slide and the room full of purple balloons and the room full of finches and...well, you get the picture). I left after about an hour (lines too long) but I hope to go back for a weekday visit next week.





This last one was the only one I saw meant to be "controversial". Notice how much those look like US dollar bills? They are.

This exhibit was created by an American artist. She was upset about how American corporations doing business in South America were changing the physical environment there. Specifically, she became focused on the birds that have become (or are becoming) extinct because of, in her view, "the American dollar".

She shredded dollar bills and has re-created the literal shape of the birds and their unique nests in this exhibit.

There's Nothing Like A Girl...

Saturday night, Jeff and I went to an Australian Rules Football game. Had a great time.

Took the bus over and back. The neighborhood right next to ours is the party/bar district. The bus home was full of 'young people' -- 20-25 years old -- most of them girls. Most were decked out for a Saturday night drink/dance/hook-up marathon. Short skirts. Heaps of cleavage. Thick black eye makeup. Hair that took 1-2 hours to get it to look so artfully shaggy.

A lot of them had also gotten pre-tanked. One woman sitting next to us was guzzling a can of Smirnoff Ice (oooh, vodka in a can!). When she finished it, she very carefully smashed it down between the seats.

The sound on the bus was roughly similar to being locked in a hen house full of chickens...and one hungry fox. That volume, that pitch. The silence was almost deafening when they all got off at the same stop.

As the vodka-sucking woman next to me got ready to get off the bus, I asked her to hand me her can. She looked at me with shock and confusion. The impression I had was that she was so focused on her night ahead, she had filtered out anything that wasn't related to it. She had definitely filtered out the purple-haired middle-aged woman standing next to her; effectively, I didn't exist.

She just....gawped when I asked for the can. I had to ask twice and then explain that I was going to find a trash bin and throw it out for her. She finally dug out the can and handed it to me.

I posted something on Facebook about the experience and, sadly but not surprisingly, the first response was "jealous??". (sigh) That speaks volumes about my "friend". It also invites me to reflect on what it means to be female today.

Jealousy. The assumption, I presume, is that the poster figured they were all "cute" and perky and I, in my middle years, am not. The assumption, I presume, is that I would give my left arm to be 20-something-cute-n-perky again.

I'll admit I'd love to weigh 10 (or 30) kilos less. But what I really don't want to be again is 20-something.

Do you really remember being 20-something? High school and/or college may have been difficult but that was nothing compared to learning to live on your own income and sharing an apartment and trying to find a job and/or launching a career with no idea how it would turn out or what you'd really gotten yourself into.

I remember having to fit into a "grown up" workplace while secretly not being sure how to do that. Being hyper-conscious about whether I was being taken seriously and thinking at the same time that everyone was taking everything too seriously.

I remember never having enough money for all the things and experiences I was "supposed" to have when it seemed like everyone else had enough. I remember wracking up debt, not aware that so was everyone else.

I remember "adulthood" not being quite the freedom-fest I presumed it would be.

I also remember the intense pressure -- biologically and socially -- to mate, to find a partner, to secure the attention of men. I remember how much of my time and energy was sucked up in that vortex of looking and being looked at. Not sure what I was looking for (because that would have required me to have a pretty clear sense of who I was) but looking desperately nonetheless.

So a lot of energy -- way too freakin' much energy -- went in to "do I look right/hot/good enough"? Do I look better than her? Do I look like the ads/the TV? Am I attracting attention? Then not being entirely sure how to handle any attention I got!

I knew I wanted sex but I was unwilling and unable to admit that what I really wanted was intimacy, connection, relationship. I presumed sex would get me that. I had a lot -- a whole lot -- to learn about intimacy.

So, would I want to go back to being a 22-year-old? Hell no!

It's not easy being a woman and it's even harder to be a young woman. The simple truth is that our bodies are treated by your culture and mine as commodities. Our parts are used to buy and sell everything from toothpaste to trucks. Our breasts, our hair, our abdomens, our legs, our butts are all used to attract attention and convince the consumer -- men and women alike -- to part with their cash.

We receive dozens of messages a day about how our bodies are supposed to look -- the magazines in the 7-11 or the grocery store, billboards, TV ads, songs on the radio, newspaper ads and newspaper articles, internet ads and promotions -- it's everywhere. Virtually none of those messages have anything to do with the reality of being a female homo sapiens but everything to do with our bodies as selling devices.

Live up to the standards and we are admired and applauded. Fail to live up and we are chastised, "encouraged" -- strongly -- to change, or ignored.

It's hard enough to deal with that some days as a grown woman who has put a massive amount of time and attention into developing my own center, my own solid sense of self, my own strength, and a clear eye for the bullshit of the advertising world. How can a 20-something cope?

Many of them cope by becoming more like their peers, the boys. Their definition of "strength" is to be just as coarse, just as profane, just as callous and pseudo-hip as the average 20-year-old guy. With (some) apologies to guys, making a 20-year-old guy your role model is not a step up to me. I do know 20-year-old guys that I respect but, on the whole, I find most 20-year-old guys, ah......well......let's just say I'm looking forward to the day when they're no longer 20-year-old guys.

When I was 20-something, the profanity/coarseness/promisciuity did not seem to be so omnipresent. Maybe it's an evolution. I hope it is just a phase and we, as women, keep evolving. Wherever "there" is, we aren't "there" yet.

The Face Of Immigration

I had lunch with a 30-something woman who lives here in Brisbane. She, her brother, and her parents emigrated to Adelaide when she was 15 from Moscow. Her father was the co-founder of an engineering company in Moscow and had to walk away from it (a partner who sold his share of the company 10 years later made $1 million). The family had $2000 when they got here and they spoke virtually no English.

She said her father (who is 55) has no hope of retiring at 65 because he's only had 20 years to build up his retirement account here and doesn't have nearly enough. My lunchmate and her husband moved here because her husband lost his job in Adelaide and could only find work in Brisbane. Her parents would like to move from Adelaide to Brisbane to be closer to their daughter and grandson but it would be hard for her dad to find his kind of work in Brisbane, so they can't.

I asked what motivated her parents to move here. She said "Us. My parents wanted us to grow up to live healthy and have opportunities." Apparently she and her brother got sick every other month of so because of the pollution in Moscow among other things.

Can you imagine walking away from everything you have for that? Your house, your family, your friends, your professional accomplishments and standing, your retirement account, your furniture, your car(s), your language -- everything -- because your kids can't be healthy where they are?

Would you give up being American?
Would you give up being Australian?
Permanently.

Imagine your kids desperately needed to leave America (or Australia) and your choices were Japan or the Czech Republic. And the only thing you could bring with you is your clothes and about $5,000. Which country would you choose?

And imagine once you got there that half the people you met in Japan/the Czech Republic looked down on you for "stealing" local jobs and being a drain on society and not speaking Japanese/Czech as soon as you got there. Oh, also, you're diluting "the culture" by keeping your own American/Australian traditions.

It's a hell of a thing to abandon home, family, culture, language (not to mention money and possessions) on the hope -- not the guarantee, the hope -- that it will be worth it in the long run. Probably not for you but for your kids.

I can imagine it but only just barely.

Immigration isn't a new issue. In DC, I'm surrounded by people who've immigrated and whose story is just as hard, often harder. Why did this story connect for me?

Because she's white, like me. Because she's a writer, like me. Because she speaks fluent English, like me. Because she's middle-class, like me. Because she's a foreigner here, like me. Her story can sink in to me because I allow it. I allow it because I identify with her. The truth is, everything is easier to hear and see when we recognize ourselves in the other.

Am I callous because I haven't opened myself to the immigrant stories around me in DC (and I haven't, not really)? Maybe, maybe not. I wonder if I will experience the immigrant stories around me more viscerally when I return to DC, now that I've had a taste of being a foreigner. I hope so. I hope my heart recognizes myself in the others.

If so, it will be because of this lovely Russian-Australian.

I Love Jaime Oliver

One of my goals when we moved to Brisbane was to cook more. I've gotten out of the habit of cooking simple weekday meals over the last 10 years, in part because of my erratic schedule as a massage therapist.

I started with Rachel Ray's 30 Minute Meals. Got a few good recipes out of that. Went looking for more. And discovered that cookbooks have a Great Divide:

• On one side is the quick and simple (but not always good) cookbooks that rely a lot on cream of mushroom soup. "4 Ingredients" is a good/horrific example of this.



• On the other side is multi-step recipes that require lots of time (even when they're advertised as quick) or ingredients I've never heard of. Donna Hay and Cook's Illustrated are good examples of this side.

Rachel Ray fit nicely in the middle. I've discovered that Jaime Oliver does too.

In case you haven't heard of him, he's an English celebrity chef who has a TV show and books and specials and etc. etc. etc. I've caught his show a few times here in Australia (he may be available on BBC America at home). Like Rachel Ray, he's all about making a full meal in 30 minutes. His meals usually include a main dish, a side/veg, a salad, and dessert.

He uses more international/exotic ingredients than Rachel Ray does and is big on time-saving steps like electric tea kettles. He also loves the word "whack" to refer to ways of chopping, temperature, and quantities. That takes a little getting used to.

I picked up his book (finally! Huge waiting list.) at the library and, on the advice of our English houseguest Vickie, tried the baked crusted fish with tapenade (that's not what he calls it but that's what it is).

Excellent. Since I'm a little hesitant/inexperienced with fish, I was doubly happy. I also recently tried a mashed potato/peas/broccoli dish. I liked it better than Jeff did, mostly because I suspect he thinks mashed potatoes by themselves may be God's most perfect food (or maybe that's me...).

Tonight it was Cauliflower Macaroni Bake and a spinach/cucumber salad. Another big hit.

I can't do the whole shebang in 30 minutes like he can and I'm only doing two dishes, not four! But I got those two dishes out in about 45 minutes and that was fine by me.

The biggest drawback to his cookbook is that he assumes you're cooking all four of the dishes he's put together and he hops from one dish to another and back again, often without giving baking/frying/boiling times. The assumption is that you bake/fry/boil it for as long as it takes you (or more accurately, him) to do the next step.

Ah.....no.

So before I took the book back to the library this morning, I went through it and identified the dishes I'd like to try and transcribed the instructions into standalone recipes. I've now got my own little database of new fun recipes.

I'm particularly excited because I have virtually no imagination when it comes to salads and vegetables and he does. I transcriped a lot of salad and vegetable recipes.

He's apparently cooking for 8, given how many leftovers we have, so I'll have to learn how to cut them down. But I am very excited to have some new recipes to try and I am, for the moment, quite mad for Jaime Oliver.

More Adventures In The Grocery Store

What the "Mexican" section of the local Cole's grocery store looks like.




And Easter is definitely coming!





They've also been promoting hot cross buns for about a month. They are a much bigger deal here than what I'm used to in the US. I'm not sure I've even seen them in the US except the week right before Easter and I'm not sure I've ever eaten one.

Chocolate bunnies, on the other hand, I am very familiar with.

Feed me

Australia is not a cheap country. Backpackers arriving in Brisbane are always shocked about the costs. I don't mean NYC-level costs but definitely DC-level costs.

Jeff and I aren't eating out nearly as much as we do in DC (again, cost) so I'm cooking a lot more. But, for just the two of us, we're regularly spending $70-$100 a week in groceries and we're not doing anything extravagant (or even all that interesting) in the kitchen. Lots of chicken. Lots of pasta-n-sauce. Veggies. Rice. Couscous.

Now, back in DC Jeff is responsible for the grocery shopping so I'm not as intimate with grocery costs as I am here. Here's some recent examples. High or I'm just out of touch with grocery costs?

24-pack Coca-cola: $24
6.5 pounds potatoes: $8
18 oz yogurt: $5.69
1 leek: $2.65

Thank You, Skype

I'm a wiz at e-mail and FB but sometimes I want something more real-time, more intimate. If I can't see you in person, a phone call would be great. But, damn, international phone calls are crazy expensive (and there's the whole 14-17 hour time difference).

Which is why I'm so grateful for Skype. This morning I was able to talk to my mother-in-law for almost 2 hours. At 2 cents a minute, that 100-minute phone call was....$2. I can't share a cup of coffee with her for $2!

We did video for about 2 minutes just to remember what we look like (and so she could see my new hair color in person) and then went to voice only to improve the sound quality.

Loving Skype today.

Aussies love....the beach

Wait, he's not Australian....

Aussies love.....thongs

No, not that kind of thong.

Aussies love....surfing

They really love surfing.

Aussies love...eating outside

The Ex-Pat Love

Jeff and I had dinner last night with Philippe and Kathrinn, a German couple I met at Byron Bay last month. We talked endlessly in Bryon Bay and continued it last night. Such a good time!

We are finding that in some ways, it's easier to make connections with other ex-pats than with Aussies. This is not an indictment of Aussies! I think it's really more about having a stronger point of connection -- the stranger in the strange land -- with other ex-pats.

Plus, of course, for the Australians this is home and they already have their friends and family networks in place. The other ex-pats are more likely to have the time and the stronger need for new friends.

Every time we spend time with other ex-pats, we do talk alot about what it's like to be a non-Australian here. We talk about our observations on Australia in general. When it's not your own country, you see things you don't see as a local.

But even with Aussies, we talk alot about the United States. We Americans "know" we're a big influence in the world but I never appreciated just how much till I moved here. We are the 800-pound gorilla in the world, through our military, our money, but most especially through our cultural exports.

There is a TV channel here that shows nothing but American re-runs all day! I Dream of Jeannie. The Brady Bunch. McHale's Navy. I Love Lucy.

All. Freakin'. Day.

Even the major channels have American shows helping anchor their prime time viewing. NCIS. Hawaii 5-0. Glee. The Mentalist. NCIS Los Angeles. CSI. Even outside of prime time, it seems like I can catch an American show on some channel every time I turn on the TV (and we don't have cable, this is free broadcast).

Ellen. Dr. Phil. The View. Oprah. Even Xena and Hercules.

We are everywhere!

It's been so good and informative to talk about what it means to be an American and what it means to be influenced by America with people from different countries (in an intelligent, non-bombastic, honest kinda way).

So here's a big thank-you for a great meal and conversation to:

Kathrinn and Philippe (Germany)

Brenda and Brad (Canada)

Davin and Michelle (Australia)

Ben and Andrea (Australia & America)

Marty (New Zealand)

Tara and Josh (Americans transplanted to Australia)

Another Reason The Revolution Was A Good Idea

Some things that are different between Australia and the US can be traced right back to England. Australia is still part of the Commonwealth and The Queen is still the official head of state. Accent, vocabulary, general sense of reserve in public, the omnipresence of the pub are clearly rooted in their English roots.

Most fascinating is the parallels in foods -- meat pies, puddings that are actually a baked dish, etc. Last night I saw something else that I have never seen in the US (and pray to God that I never do):

Lamb and mint-flavored.....potato chips.

No, I didn't try them and I think I can get through the rest of my life without doing so. I first encountered potato chips flavors that I couldn't fathom (or, it turns out, stomach) in New Zealand in 2000. Chicken-flavored chips? Turns out that's a big "no thanks" for this Yankee.

Since I have only encountered these weird chip flavors in Australia and New Zealand (both members of the British Commonwealth) and England, I'm blaming England!

And come July 4, I'll have one more reason to celebrate politely (ok, not so politely) asking them go home 235 years ago. And succeeding in making them do so!