ESPN, You’ve done it again!

Busy doing my usual never-ending housework, I almost missed a great event on the Foxtel ESPN channel today. Not that I ever have time to sit and watch television, the show just happened to be on while I was cleaning the microwave shelf in the sink, which overlooks the lounge room, which happens to have a television in it,....on.

Being a man, I don’t wear gloves while washing the dishes, I jump in au natural just as the good Lord intended. I was picking up the bits of broken glass when the.. wait for it... UCA National All-Star Cheerleading Championship Worlds came on. It came on after that great old movie “Earth Girls Are Easy” with Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis, only caught the end of that while the sink was filling up, that’s how I broke the glass, flicking through channels with the left hand while the right was stacking stuff. Househusbands are ambidextrous, or so I thought.

Cheerleading has always been one of the world’s greatest motivating and inspirational sporting movements, surpassing even golf in its ability to reach every human emotion at all levels. Drama, romance, action, conflict and even sex have been part of this ever unfolding tapestry of human endeavour. Young girls, and guys, striving to reach the ultimate goal, the dizzying heights of schooldays youth,... popularity and fame. There, I’ve offended all those young athletes who spend hundreds of hours perfecting every move, miles of jogging and tons of weight training to maintain a level of fitness surpassed only by those who specialise in say, jogging or, weight lifting.

These dedicated high school and college students must realise that their predecessors didn’t always have their motives in mind. Helping your team to win by shouting encouragement bears little resemblance to the mass entertainment and visual delights we see today.

Way back then, I mean the late 1800s’ when colleges in the American north had few female students, cheers, or yells as they were known, were led by male students, I think Princeton was the first. Horrible thought isn’t it? Today of course, the male members of the cheer squads know to hide behind the young ladies we all love to watch. During the competition shown on the programme I was almost watching, they did have some trouble hiding, those girls uniforms are great, small but great.

While watching the show I begin to think, if you could call it that, about cheerleading even earlier than the 1800s’. Jousting came to mind, having recently watched some of “A Knight’s Tale” with the late Heath Ledger, didn’t have time to watch all of it course. Although this movie used a little “creative license” in its portrayal of those days, surely there were cheerleaders, and crowds giving their team, or man, encouragement. Even back in the Roman days there were gladiatorial “groupies” as it were. I’ve seen documentaries where the evidence is clear, graffiti on walls obviously proclaiming “Go Attilus” or along the lines of “ Flash rules” no.. that’s a modern gladiator name.

The point I’m trying to make is, back in those days, the cheerleaders were not trying to get themselves noticed, gain an audition for a commercial, or just get to flash those huge white teeth at the camera in hope of... getting a part in a cheerleader movie. They were there to help, help their team succeeded, help their town to win, they were there for the group effort.

Having said that, the cheerleaders on TV this day did help me, those dishes almost washed themselves. Now, hide the broken glass.


JAWhite                                              Return to main page
April 2011

The Great Aussie Barbeque, First: Catch Your Roo

Dawn was arriving, light had filtered its way past the closed curtains through the narrow slit my mismeasured drapery purchase had left between window and wall. The sun always starts peeking directly into that slit around this time of year, early spring. Trees are starting to sprout buds where new leaves would be in a few weeks if not days. I had told the wife all this only last week, she had replied, “spring won’t be here until the Rugby League grand finals”, I of course know better, spring comes when I say so.

The mornings are still cold, I continue sleeping in my “lightweight” thermal vest until that sneaking stream of sunlight finally moves around to meet the edge of the bedside table each August, exact date depending on when I decide I’m brave enough. The bathroom heater is still in use while I attempt my morning toe touch and deep knee bend, the former during the latter. In spite of the cool mornings I’m certain spring is already here, old people with arthritis can tell these things. Confirmation came with a loud heartbreaking argument among the other residents of my castle.

“You only turn the steak once, not more than once and only when the first side is well done” said one voice, the other not waiting until the first finished before ending it with a simple, “I like sausages anyway.” I knew it was coming as the wife walked down the hall toward me, It’s happened before and I dread it each year. Quickly searching for a rational justification for delay I looked up from my dusting as she said, “We want a barbeque tonight.” That’s it, just dropped the bomb and walked away, truth popped into my brain a second after words left my mouth, “We can’t, you didn’t clean the barbeque at the end of last summer.” Yea, that had done it, fixed them all good and proper.

I lifted the dusty metal cover from the barbeque and looked inside, it had been sometime in March since the last ritual burning. The tiny peaked mountains of solidified oil and grease were covered with caps of dust looking for all the world like European alps, the twisted bits of petrified onion, tiny Chalets awaiting skiers, but of course, it’s spring not winter, I’d said so myself. Carefully searching for any reason to abandon this horrible enterprise I examined every nook and cranny of the wheeled man killer, no luck, or none that would fly with the jury. With a silent prayer I looked toward heaven, there it was, my prayer answered, “Looks like rain”, I said with great sadness, “We’ll have to wait for another day”. I hadn’t anticipated her counter move, she must have watched George C. Scott in Patton on TV last night, like the General she was ready. “You can clean it on the grass and I’ll paint it for you, we’ll have steak and sausages for dinner tomorrow night.”

Everyone who knows me knows I hate shopping, with the wife that is. We arrived at the hardware store my list in hand, new volcanic rock for under the grill, a strong cleaner, chemicals are a barbeque must, if you forget to clean it last year, and paint. Don’t you love hardware stores, I actually saved money, didn’t use ink adding to my list, just put stuff straight into the trolley. I picked up a plastic cover for the barbeque since we had decided to move it into a spot not under cover, two great folding chairs, which were on special and some clamps for the light stand I was building for my “photography studio”. I didn’t say anything to the wife but made mental note of quite a few things I can’t do without now that I know they exist, what great places hardware stores are. It turns out I had a good day cleaning the damn thing, and watching the painting get done, It did rain but somewhere west of us.

I hate barbeques because: sounds like a school assignment. Standing over a smoking hot plate, getting splattered with popping oil is not a good time, very un-Australian I know, but that’s how it is, messy, Smokey, usually hot and the clean up! And I have to do the preparation to boot, here we go again, another Australian summer, guess what, I don’t drink, it’s going to be a long hot one.

This morning I looked with pride at the “new” barbeque, the cover made it look great in its new spot on the edge of the patio. I quickly pushed the ideas for improvements in our outdoor living area which flashed into brain, to the back of my mind, I can’t have everything at once since she says she too busy to do them all.

The supermarket trip today was a voyage of discovery, not only did the wife stay home, I set out to turn the family into gourmet barbeque lovers, intending to bypass the usual plain steak and sausages with burnt baby potatoes and onions, going for the unusual. I looked at the Italian and German sausages, various spices and herb mixtures along with meat cuts other than the “mixed grill” special of chops, steaks and cutlets. They had protested that they wanted a real “Aussie Barbie” none of this fancy “Shrimp on the Barbie Paul Hogan stuff” I discovered “Real Aussie” for them, it was right there in the meat cabinet.

Kangaroo has been on the Aussie barbeque menu for centuries, Europeans just didn’t know where to find it until recently. In my supermarket it’s next to the chicken, just before the lamb. Now, being health conscious I read the labels. “Approved by the Heart Foundation, 98% Fat Free, High in Iron,” and other stuff in small print, always forget to take the reading glasses. Kangaroo sounded great, and wasn’t badly priced, steak was $15.99, sausages $7.85 and mince $7.79 a kilo, good value, in fact a lot cheaper than other carnivorous fair, didn’t check it against pet food, us old guys have that to look forward to on our pensions.

I already know I love Australia’s spring and summer, I might just grow to like the great Aussie barbeque as well, Can’t wait to see their faces at tonight’s feast.

JAWhite
August 2010                               Return to main page
Spring and Painting Photo:  JAWhite
Good Food Photo:  Gourmet Game 

Life Seems Confusing

But then it might just be me. It’s been a long time, or at least it seems so, since I’ve managed to get away from the housework and retirement to write much, or even play around with the blogs HTML script. I always had fun changing things around by using the editor provided, but actually typing in the code and watching pictures change size or position, and other things move and morph, that was really good fun. I even invested in a thick book named “Complete HTML”, as if anything is ever complete.

Like all those people who constructed and wrote the blogs which we see floating around the web from time to time untended, I too found myself unable to forge ahead uninterrupted. Those apparently lost and lonely pages aimed at fame or fortune or even more importantly, adventure, which for one reason or another became abandoned with last post dates long gone, almost had a new companion.

For me though, it seems I have to keep putting things down on paper, just like on my lists. Ideas float around almost every moment, and not just those waking ones, but unless I write them down they disappear as new thoughts enter my limited storage space. I wish I had one of those memories that accumulate thoughts with no apparent boundaries or limits, mine is like RAM while running Photoshop, frequently insufficient. Plenty of people not ardent readers, have said to me “Get a life” I always reply “Don’t confuse me, I think I have one here somewhere.”

Since retirement chased me from my first love, “Work”, as some call it, or as I referred to it, “Challenge”, I’ve had to broaden my view of "important". That view always included family and friends within the important umbrella, but not much else, and sometimes not enough of them. When first retired, time was all over the place, I just had to pick it up and put it somewhere. Ventures into directions I hadn’t considered of use to me in the past, suddenly became all consuming of time and thought, not to mention money. The blog was one of those ventures, it led to an interest in the code involved, which led to study of that, and other things I came across as a result of people I met on the web investigating this and that, etc, etc, etc. A real snowball effect. I’ve met many retired people now, they all have the same problem, not enough time.

So I decided to attempt to do a little more with less, concentrate on fewer activities but spend the extra time on each of them. To some people that might have been obvious from the start, for me ,having such a limited number of interests to begin with it wasn’t, I needed to try everything I could. At the end of the day we do what we find the most pleasure doing. I’ve concluded I’ll never make money at my “hobbies” so I’ll make good instead.

I guess I’m lucky, I discovered that one of the things I seem to love doing can encompass a number of the things I also like being involved in. I may not be great at it, but I hope to attain ‘goodness’ in photography, unfortunately it’s one of those pastimes that run on money but I’ll do the best I can. I like history to my surprise, always hated it in school, I now get to take photos of historic buildings and places, learning about them, and particularly people associated with them. I’ve had an interest in the outdoors and the “stuff” in it for a long time but haven’t pursued that interest, now I do, with my camera, I’m not going to go as far as studying Latin but I will look up names of plants now and then. As time goes by I’ll find other things I feel that I can add to my camera bag, perhaps I may even find an interest in people one day, that would be good, my family won’t let me take their photos, they say my camera makes them ugly. Candid is the most beautiful photo that can be taken of anyone.

It seems to only take one thing to trigger a purpose for being, for me it was finding a love of photography. That one trigger, regardless of what it is, can tie together so many other things that go to make up a full “Life”. I’m still confused, but one day I’ll learn how to think, until then I’ll take photos and write things down, so I can understand them.

JAWhite                                                         Return To Main Page
July 2010

Image : Courtesy U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

The Old Girl Chronicles

Maybe there’s a few miles left in her yet. I retired a few years ago, bad health and too much effort ploughed into my time on the line just wore me down. The wife, like the battery, just keeps on keeping on... Thank God.

Her part-time job keeps bread on the table as well as those few luxuries we’ve become fondly attached to, stuff like soup to dip the bread in really rounds out a day. Learning to manage on a tight budget wasn’t easy but we got on with what we had to do. Turning off a light when you leave a room is basic stuff, saving those little stubs of soap until you have six or seven to squeeze together making one big lump is an acquired habit. Being the househusband I learned to search high and low for money saving ideals early in the retirement, I even searched the women’s magazines, when I could do so in the supermarket without having to pay for them, now the wife doesn’t know I do that so don’t tell her, you see, I make fun of her when she does it. All those househusband duties are second nature to me now, I just do my work with minimal complaining.

Tonight I was thinking about things from her point of view, you know, an open mind, without the man’s attitude toward “women’s work”, that kind of thing. You might be wondering what brought on this contemplative interruption to my life, I’ll tell you. Last week she asked me to put an advertisement in the paper.

We had been quietly discussing the polarizing filter for my camera which I’d managed to purchase with the few cents a week I somehow saved from the housekeeping money. That was when she said with strong determination and grim lips, “Write this down! Work wanted...“House Cleaning”.

You could have knocked me down with a feather, she was going to sell me, farm me out as a servant, make money from my labour...hang on, it suddenly occurred to me that something like this was already going on. Here I was at home taking care of things there, while she was out earning a wage, part time it might be but working for other people and being paid for it is still work of sorts. I thought a moment, then I thought for another moment, and so on, then I looked at her and said:

“Alright, you’ve been saying that I’m always bothering you when you’re reading, that I’m in the way, Okay, I wouldn’t mind going out and doing some light housework for people, I just don't have the time."

My forced smile was wide but suddenly became real when she replied “Not for you stupid, for me.” Those words hurt me, literally, I had been polishing her bowling ball at the time and dropped it in shock, my right foot, mostly the big toe.

I picked up the ball as she tried to control her laughter, luckily I was sitting at the time and didn’t have to bend far to reach it, my back was still in pain from the days vacuuming. She explained... the way she put it, was that time wore heavily on her shoulders, not one to sit and read her historical novels all day and having me to do the dishes and cooking, she sought something else to occupy her restless soul. It was impossible for me to argue against such profound logic, I had to agree that her idea was for the best. The advertisement was placed, $30 for the three lines including her mobile phone number, that would have been enough to buy the lens hood I needed for the camera.  With fingers crossed I hoped the ad would work.

You know, I’ve never thought of my wife as a salesperson, sure she’d sold men’s shoes many years ago in a department store, quite successfully as well, I’ve always put that success down to the fact that mini-skirts were in fashion then. I didn’t worry about the customers looking at her legs, but those two guys she worked with though. Anyway, her first call arrived very soon, she sold the benefit not the product, just like a professional marketer, I was proud of her.

Off she went the next morning to meet her first customer.  The lady showed her each room explaining the little details which, in her opinion needed special attention. Things like the corner where the dog curls up to sleep every afternoon, it needs extra vacuuming as does the cats favourite cushion on the couch where the sun shines the longest on cold days. Both cat and dog were long hairs of course. As the wife put it “The fun started when she showed me the first bedroom.”

My wife entered first and looked around, noting the ornaments which seemed to be everywhere in the house, the wife calls that decor “Nouveau Dust” I think it’s called clutter. She smiled at the ceramic chicken on the bed, thinking a strange place for a strange ornament much less a ceramic one, and with a dog in the house. The lady walked in saying how the en-suite bathroom was hardly used since here older son had moved out and taken his worm farm with him.

As they were leaving the room, the wife was surprised to hear the lady call out “Chook Chook, out you go”, she was even more surprised when the ornament jumped down from the bed and the lady nonchalantly exclaimed “Ah good, two eggs today.”

Isn’t it funny how you don’t really hear what a person’s saying when they’re rolling around on the floor laughing so hard they can’t breathe. The wife finally got out the part about the eggs, just before she had to run to the toilet, I’m not sure she made it in time.

JAWhite                                        Return to Main Page
May 2010 

Image of Beautiful young lady (sigh): Scott Snyder

Image of Chicken: Mikdesign

Image of the wife's Bowling ball: JAWhite