Chickafinty ~ A Life in the Laundry

Fully sick and totally random

Had the most amazing experience tonight.

We booked in for the Family Astronomy Night at the local university and saw a presentation on black holes, which was mostly incomprehensible, but nonetheless interesting.  (My notes from the lecture are even more interesting as they were written in the dark with a none too sharp pencil!  We heard about "spaghettification", which has to be the second best word I have learned this week after pandiculation.

Then, then! we got to look at the night sky through two of the telescopes.  Despite a lot of pollution in the air from fires - it was smoke so presumably it came from a fire somewhere?? the view was spectacular.

ALPHA CENTAURI

We saw Alpha Centauri through the first telescope.  It was hard to stand still enough to see a constant clear image, but the double star could be seen.  It was incredible to see with such clarity what the naked eye misses.  The chappie with the telescope assured us that there were actually three stars there, but I'll have to take his word for it.

BUTTERFLY NEBULA?

I think this was the second thing we viewed through the larger of the two telescopes, but I'm not sure.  It could have been a butterfly I suppose, but the thing that spun me out was this: looking at the sky with the naked eye, about 15 stars/objects were visible.  Look at the same place through the telescope however and thousands of stars instantly sprang into view.  It was (literally) breathtaking.

Then, the piece de resistance, and the one thing we booked in to see:

JUPITER

Oh.  My.  Goodness.

I was expecting to see a white blob in the sky.

I saw a planet, not white but slightly beige with darker brown stripes running through it.  I saw three of the 49-odd moons, the Galilean moons to be precise.  There are four Galilean moons: Io, Europa, Ganymede and Calisto, but I don't know which three we saw tonight. 

Mind blowing, indescribable wonder is the only way I can think of to describe what we saw tonight.  it was nothing short of incredible and worth every cent of the $35 it cost for a family ticket.

I want to go back and look again.

I want to say along with the Psalmist

The heavens declare the glory of God;
   the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

 Day after day they pour forth speech; 
  night after night they display knowledge.

 There is no speech or language
   where their voice is not heard.

 Their voice goes out into all the earth,
   their words to the ends of the world.

Psalm 19:1-4

The whole earth is full of His glory indeed.

Thirty years ago

I know exactly what I was doing thirty years ago today.  We, mum,dad, sister and I, were in the car travelling from Newcastle to Gosford.  Grandma had rung early.  Grandpa had had a heart attack and was in the hospital and it didn't look good.  She rang early, but not early enough to catch dad before he went to work, so mum had to wait until he got there and got the message to come home again.

Dad prayed for travelling mercies before we left the driveway and something about what he said and the way he said it, meant that I knew.  I was seven, nearly eight, but already I knew.  I remember crying in the car, silently and messily.  There were no tissues in the car and I hadn't brought a hanky.  The only thing available was the knitted hat off a doll I had received for Christmas.  It was a very little doll and consequently the hat was also little and totally inadequate for stemming the flow from eyes and nose.

We reached the hospital and went to the appropriate floor.  Dad asked for Grandpa's whereabouts and the nurses were evasive.  Dad looked at mum and she looked at him.  I saw the expression in their eyes and realised.  We were too late.  Grandpa had already gone.  They look us to a side room where Grandma sat, wearing for some unfathomable reason, a raincoat.  I remember giving her a hug and seeing my tears drip onto the coat and slide down.  I remember my dad crying.  From there the memories are less clear.  They are jumbled together like toys in a box; no chronology or sense to hold them together.

Someone asked if we wanted to go and see Grandpa.  I declined, but dad and my sister went.  She said he was covered in a sheet and someone had put a rose on it.  Relatives came; dad's sisters and their husbands.  The cousins were there too.  Rob was shattered- Grandpa was hers in a very special way.  She was his first grandchild and they adored one another.  A nurse came with a paper bag labelled "Patient's Effects" and dad took it from her.  Somehow we left the hospital and drove to Grandma's house.  Up to then it had been Grandma's and Grandpa's, but now Grandpa was gone.

We had chicken for lunch - at least I think we did.  I know that Grandma put a chicken in the oven when Grandpa was taken to hospital and I assume we had it.  I was lying on the lounge and Uncle John came over.  He used his pet term for us, Schnookums, and was sympathetic and kind.  My aunty was like a boat cut adrift.  She was the youngest child of the three and was devastated by her father's death.  Dad was up to his neck in the business of death; undertakers, funeral homes, wills, and trying to cope with his own personal deep grief.

The rest of that day is a blur.  I know we came home without dad.  As the only son, he stayed with Grandma to help her deal with all the arrangements and to cope with the paperwork.  At some stage Grandma left to stay with my aunty and uncle.  There was a funeral and my sister and I were given the option of going or not.  I chose not and have regretted that decision ever since.  I grieved for Grandpa and it was grieve that didn't end.  What I didn't know at seven was that the funeral is the place for saying goodbye.  It doesn't end the grieving process but it helps it along.  From June 1978 to January 1997 I could not speak of my grandpa without crying. 

The first morning after our wedding, when Mister Bear and I woke in the same bed for the first time, we got talking about the wedding and the people who were there and the people who were not.  Mister Bear spoke of his Marmee and I spoke of my grandpa and we both wept.  Our shared grief worked its way out that morning and for the first time, that burden of grief lifted.

It's been thirty years and I miss him.  Just writing this today has made the tears flow again.  But they are not the tears of hopelessness, for one day I will see my Grandpa again.  He left, but only in a bodily sense.  Grandpa went Home on that cold Tuesday morning. 

One day I'll get to go Home too and meet up with him again in the place of no tears and no grief.

On this day in...

2007: Even I can't keep up

2006: Out of character

2005: It broke my heart clean in two

2004: Gettin' down and eating dirt

2003: We have a Ladybaby

Beautiful

They're just...beautiful.

Thank you, Mr Bear

Nine years ago

Happy Anniversary, Mr and Mrs Bear. 

WOOOO HOOOOO!!!

I just had the most wonderful early Christmas present.  Maria just rang all the way from Denmark and we were able to speak in person for the first time.  It was marvellous to hear her voice and we chatted lots.  Maria was even able to speak to Chickabid and the Ladybaby...the difficult part was getting Chickabid to surrender the phone lol.

Thank you, Maria.  It was a moste excellente surprise and a wonderful gift.  Thank you!!

In memory of Nanny

I got an SMS from Birdie on Wednesday night:

"Thought you might like to know that my Nan passed away this morning"

and my mind flew back 11 years to the Christmas holidays of 1994/1995.  Birdie and I drove to PM to spend a week with her Nanny and Poppy at their house near the beach.

Birdie clearly loved her grandparents and they clearly doted on her.  We had a lovely week with them...quiet, restful and they made me feel so welcome.  I'd never met them until that week, but I felt like a part of their family.  I was allowed to share in some of the less illustrious moments of Birdie's early life (ahem...bean peeler mean anything?), in the pieces of history that make up a person's existence...the framed jigsaws on the wall that Poppy made after the holiday visits of Birdie and her sister when they were small...games of Uno around the kitchen table while the crickets and cicadas competed in the backyard...the final photo in the backyard of Nanny, Poppy, Birdie and me - a photo that I still have.

Birdie, my friend, my heart is with you today and tomorrow as you prepare to say "Goodbye" to Nan.  My heart is with Poppy who must be feeling so desolate as he farewells his wife, his love of 66 years. Someday soon I'll cry with you on the phone even as I am crying now.

Goodnight, Nan.  Sleep well.

Ninety Years Ago

Every year we remember

In April and November

The boats on the water

Carrying the brave

They heard the deadly order

To wade through the water

It's time for you to jump, boys

You're fighting to be free.

With every year that's passing

Our nation's souls keep marching

Though country towns and city streets

Their memory lives on

And as peaceful rays of sunlight

My face shines upon

Feeling somehow different

Cos the last Anzac's gone.

If we've got a problem

Can't we talk it through?

The water looks much better

Better when it's blue

Remember the last Anzac

And how he cried for peace

Forever under gum trees blue skies over me.

One of the most beautiful pictures I own

Normally there's no way I'd share this pic...not on the web, but now that Chickafinty is password protected, I feel a bit safer about it.  This picture is beautiful to me because it is proof that I did in fact feed my own baby.  Not for very long, and in Chickabid's case not terribly successfully, but I did feed them.  Myself.

I've been reading Tertia's blog and Julie's blog and reliving the whole nightmare and the guilt and the grief.  I know that I should just look at my happy, healthy babies and be grateful for a clean water supply and a viable substitute, but it still hurts that just when I needed them most, B1 and B2 let me down.

Obsession

Australians are obsessed with sport. I am probably the person least likely to be involved in any sort of sport, yet for me the Olympics represent two weeks of excitement and fascination with sport.
I, along with a lot of other Aussies, have been stunned at the poor crowds at the Olympic events in Greece. Just harking back to the delirium of Sydney 2000, we had to put our ticket orders in by I think iw was June the previous year, with a ticket ballot being held and many thousands disappointed at not getting the tickets they wanted. I remember there being an additional rush in late August for the less popular tickets like table tennis and rowing as people began to get into the excitement of the Games.
Mr Bear and I had tickets for the Men's Volleyball and Men's Handball in the first week of the Games, but booked a holiday in Canberra for the second week. I was a bit worried that we'd miss out on seeing the Games being in Canberra, but not so. Everywhere we went there were televisions showing the Games; restaurants, shopping centres, tourist attractions, everywhere - even the theatrette at Parliament House was showing live Olympics coverage and not the boring old "History of Canberra" that usually screens.
For me, the magic of the Olympics is wrapped up in moments that even now four years on I cannot remember without tears in my eyes.
Moments that I wish we could have shared with Chickabid, but he was in utero at the time.
Moments like these:
- sitting on the road outside Circular Quay railway station right in the middle of Sydney, in front of the big screen, watching Cathy Freeman qualify for the 400m
- running to the theatrette at Parliament house when word spread that Natalie Cook and Kerry Pottharst were doing well in the Beach Volleyball final
- standing shoulder to shoulder with thousands at Darling Harbour in front of the big screen watching Kieran Perkins and Grant Hackett eing awarded gold and silver for the Men's 1500 Freestyle, and then singing the National Anthem with all those thousands of people, but not really being able to sing bacuse of the lump in my throat
- trying to stay up late enough to watch "The Dream" with Roy and HG...Roy and HG and the Dream actually made it onto NBC news in the USA as it was attracting so much attention
I'm not sure about other countries, but here in Oz, one of the four National tv station, Channel 7, is showing the Games around the clock. All regular programs except for the News and one children's program in the morning have been suspended and the rest of the day from midnight to midnight is nothing but Olympic Games...likewise the woggy channel SBS, it is doing a supplementary coverage of the things which Channel 7 don't tend to broadcast, like soccer(football) and handball. So, in effect, of the five tv channels that operate in Sydney SBS, ABC, 7, 9 and 10, two are showing nothing but Olympics.
Poor Chickabid is a bit upset as "Larry" aka The Price is Right (his favourite show) is "not on" at the moment. Actually it is, but Mummy reserves the right to hog the Olympics channel once every four years. A fortnight without Larry won't hurt him. Me either, for that matter.
Just as a contrast with Athens, attendance at Olympic venues was at an average 95% for the whole of the Sydney Olympics.
Give us back the Games, IOC, we'll show you (again) how it's done.