After one whole grueling day of work, today was Papa and Boy Z party day. Rather than letting my little terrorist destroy the family home, we hit the road for a visit with the Family Arizaphale. Lunch by the pool and then a trip south to Port Noarlunga was a perfect way to spend an absolutely gorgeous summer day.

Arizaphale’s become one of my favorite people that I’ve met in Australia – charming, gregarious, and an easy conversationalist. Despite her Pommie heritage, she’s characteristic of the friendly Aussie. After four years spent struggling to crack the iron veneer of the painfully reserved English, I find myself almost suspicious when I’m bowled over by affable Aussies strangers. But in general, they’re just genuinely good natured and friendly, much more like my fellow countrymen than their former colonial masters.

In fact, in most ways Australia is more like the U.S. than the U.K. There’s room for the suburban sprawl characteristic of American cities rather than the claustrophobic crowding of British city centers. Once you get into the countryside, the wide open spaces are reminiscent of parts of the American West. The Aussies love their cars and their sports and their road trips. And their donuts. They are often individualistic to a fault and fiercely nationalistic – like their American cousins. We’ve got all the American chain stores, all the American TV (or Australian imitations) and based on the news coverage during the election you would have thought that Australia had a few electoral votes at stake. Now that the Aussie twang sounds normal to my confused ears, sometimes I forget that I’m 10,000 miles away from my birthplace.

A little while before we departed for the Antipodes, I read a comment by The Prettiest Denny’s Waitress describing going to Australia as “like going to San Diego except the people use some funny words and the snakes are more poisonous”. I bristled a bit at that – surely Oz would be more exotic than a medium sized California city full of retirees and uniformed servicemen. But you know what? If you unfocus your eyes a bit while driving through parts of Adelaide, you could easily be in SoCal – San Diego with the occasional wandering marsupial and fewer Marines.

If Australia had been my first expatriate experience, I think I would have been disappointed. When I left the States in 2004, I was looking for something foreign. I got more of that than I expected in Britain, so much so that I was almost completely overwhelmed for the first couple of years. But four years into my expat adventure, I relish the familiarity that Australia offers. I’m looking for a home and on days like today – with my son, in the company of friends, basking in the sun and surf – Australia’s beginning to seem like just the right place for that elusive home.

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Badly Drawn Boy’s “One Plus One Is One” is available from .

Of Chris’ many wanderings and meandering through life, no turn has surprised me more than his (recent) emergence as a fan of the most miserable Georgia Bulldogs.  Allow me to explain.  Chris and I grew up in a wretched little town in North Florida and attended an even more wretched high school, about which Chris has blogged of late.  Academics were of almost no import at said institution, and of the graduating class of over 400 (more than 600 were in our sophomore class), less than 20 (perhaps less than fifteen) went on to a four-year college or university right away.  Only two or three went out of state, one being Chris, but he did not initially go to UGA.  College was simply not expected, and no guidance was given, the counselors more concerned with stemming the massive drop-out rate.  I ended up at the University of Florida because it was close by and I really had no idea that there were other options.  (Now this was a good thing, as in all seriousness, UF is by far the best public university until you hit UNC to the north and UT to the west.  I could whip out all kinds of stats to demonstrate this, but I won’t bore you).  The point is that I did not choose UF (and I will leave it to A Free Man to tell how he ended up at what he, with a wink, calls the finest educational institution in the South), and I certainly did not go there because of UF football, although I was already a fan of sorts, as were about 1/3 of the town.

What I can assure you is that Chris was not a fan of the Dogs in high school, although about 1/3 of the high school population were, the other 1/3 being Florida State U. fans (with a sprinkling of mutant Miami fans thrown in).  In a town and high school with so little connections to higher learning, how did people choose their team?  Well, I did have some relatives that went to UF (and also FSU), but I think it was probably pretty random why one choose to root for UF or FSU.  However, it was not random if you chose to wear the red and the black (in complete ignorance of those colors’ historic and political significance).  You chose UGA to proclaim you were the biggest, dumbest, most profane redneck of them all.   You picked an out-of-state school, much further away, precisely because no one you knew had ever gone to school there, in fact, it had no connection to school what so ever.  You just thought it marked you as a bad ass, and its relation to the Deep South (more so than any Florida school) bore all the unfortunate racial connotations you might expect.  So imagine my surprise years later when my friend started blathering about the glories of going “between the hedges” (which must also be slang for some bizarre sexual practice).

I would be curious to know when Chris actually became a fan of the Dogs and how many games he actually attended, because it did not really seem his style while he was living in the, I admit, most pleasant town of Athens.  I suspect, like myself, he became a true fan years later after having left Athens.  My first year at UF I went to all the games like any other stupid newbie, but a trip to Mexico and the lefty political types I hung around with soon convinced me that football was for the brain-dead, plastic-fantastic mainstream.  I started scalping my tickets after that (I was also desperately poor, so that made it easier).  And while I was more likely to find myself being asked to leave a political rally by a smartly dressed law enforcement agent (I like to imagine it was Secret Service) for yelling to Dan Quayle “Can you spell “cat”?” than attend a football game, I still went to a game or so a year for old time’s sake.  But I was no longer a fan, even the indifferent one I had been in high school.  I became a true fan again only after I had moved away, and as a Florida boy, was freezing my ass off experiencing winter for the first time in Pittsburgh and wondering why people thought I talked funny.  It took a few years, and by then I was way too lefty and, I imagined, hip to publicly admit I cared about football. But I did; it gave me a connection to home, and to my surprise I found myself depressed after a UF loss (next year!) and elated after a victory.  So I should forgive my friend for his apostasy, I suppose, as the heart of the college football fan is a strange and unmapped territory.

Okay, I know this is supposed to be smack talk so forgive the digression above, and let’s get to it.  Umm, let’s see….GEORGIA SUX…no, no, I can do better, just give me a second…

On the first day of the eleventh month of the two thousand and eighth year in the Faulknerian fever swamp of Jacksonville, two forces will meet, one representing good and the other the most foul and pestilential evil.  Our beloved Gators will come for vengeance.  The force of arms shall be our only ornament-our only rest, the fight.  Upon entering the arena, as Urban Meyer brings forth the machine he has constructed of the blood and sinew of mere mortals, he will turn to the assembled Bulldogs, shaking but perhaps still confident in their arrogance, and proclaim: “Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair.”

And then we shall see the Evil Creature known as Uga gathering his forces and armies to fight against the wise Urban Meyer and his army. And the Evil Creature will be captured, and with him the False Prophet, Mark Richt, who could do mighty miracles when the Evil Creature is present—miracles that deceive all who have accepted the Evil Creature’s mark [G], and who worship his flea-infested, mange-ridden carcass.  Both of them—the Evil Creature and his False Prophet—will be thrown alive into the Lake of Fire that burns with sulfur [also known as losing by three touchdowns].  And their entire army shall be killed with the sharp sword of Tim Tebow and all the Gators of the heavens will gorge on the flesh of the dog.

And when the battle is complete and the tableau is one of the dogs’ utter ruin, the Gators will leave the field triumphant, the pride of having vanquished a scurrilous foe their only reward, with none of the pathetic parading the dogs embarrassed themselves with last year.  The dogs will lay on the field destroyed, defeated, and in despair, weeping at their own futile efforts and gross inadequacies—the only sound the groans and cries of the beaten dogs and the lamentations of their women.  And they will finally know their place and bow their heads before their betters.

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Well, Jamie’s certainly raised the bar for Deep South Smack Talk – Courtney, Angel you’re going to have to take it up a notch. Your underwhelming apostate is currently constructing his defense of the Georgia Bulldog Nation and, apparently, his place in it. 

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I can’t think of a more appropriate artist to accompany this post than Hank Williams III. The son of Bocephus and the grandson of the godfather of country music, Hank III has a new album, “Damn Right Rebel Proud”, out on Curb Records. It’s a pure, old-school country stomp with a bit of punk ethic thrown in to differentiate it from your Grandaddy’s country music. Hank III is blogger friendly, so if you like what you hear, support him by buying his new album.

If there is a gene for sociability, Z’s got the Social Butterfly variant. He doesn’t get it from me. Once I get to a party or a dinner or drinks, I usually do OK. I just dread the thought of trying to interact with my fellow man, have done since I was small. That’s one of the downsides of moving country every few years – you get comfortable with a social group and then take off. At the new destination you have to start again. It’s actually been a lot easier since we moved Down Under. The Australians, for the most part, are outgoing and vivacious and draw you out of your shell whether you want to be drawn or not. Having a baby, and friends with babies, means that you have an easy topic of conversation at most social outings.The boy seems to be finding it easy as well.

Making friends at Z’s age seems to be very tactile. I guess if you can’t use verbal communication, then your hands are the next best alternative. The problem is that these kind of friendship gestures run the gamut from “Aww, isn’t that cute” to moves that would be illegal in the World Wrestling Federation. I’ve opted for the former for the photos in this post, but Z seems to prefer The Bushwhacker type of interaction - eye gouging, face scratching or just the good old-fashioned Double Gutbuster. On multiple occasions this weekend, at multiple kid parties I’d hear a kid screaming, glance in that direction and see Z – looking pleased with himself – on top of the screaming child. Nobody says anything, polite company and all, but as I’m pulling my child off theirs I’m pretty sure they’re making judgements on my parenting skills.I wonder if “bullying” is genetic. He gets that from his Mum.

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Neither the title nor the song from which it comes has anything to do with this post. But I’ve been playing this less racist version of the Rolf Harris classic all weekend long. I challenge you not to get it stuck in your head.

We also had a pleasant surprise. Arizaphale, who we only knew from the blogosphere, offered us the use of her parents’ car for a couple of months so we could shift the expense of a new car onto the back burner. Her parents spend half the year here in Adelaide and half the year in Britain. They’re back in Blighty for the English “summer”, so their car was just sitting in the driveway. There was a bit of hesitation on their part, not knowing us, but ultimately we were offered the loan of their car.

Now, some of you may know that I am not a fan of cars these days. Primarily because they just tend to be more hassle than they’re worth. Give me two wheels and a chain. One of the best things about living in Oxford was that I rarely had need of a car. I basically cycled everywhere. I realized quickly after moving to Adelaide that my lifestyle was going to change a bit. Adelaide, like a lot of American cities, sprawls for miles and miles. Public transport is OK, it can get me to work for example, but doesn’t get me everywhere I want to go. There are some brave souls that cycle around, but I’m used to the flat cycle paths of the south of England, not the hills and highways of the southern suburbs. Like it or not, I am going to be doing a lot more driving.

Needless to say, I was grateful for Arizaphale’s loan and it has been a god send. It’s given us the freedom to travel outside the bounds of Adelaide’s Metro service – from the beach to the hills, from the city to the bush. It’s been fantastic and a real weight off my mind. Until yesterday when the door bell rang.

It was a guy who had been doing some work across the street and I knew what had happened as soon as he said, “Is that your car our front?” I knew without even walking down to look at the car. This fellow, in his ute I might add, has backed to quickly out of the driveway without looking and smashed into Arizaphale’s parents car. For a while he tried to be hickery dickery about it, saying it shouldn’t have been parked where it was parked la de da de da. But he ultimately drove away with the admission that he had made a mistake.

Thing is, that doesn’t make me feel any better. Not only because the damage severe enough that we are now temporarily back at the mercy of Adelaide Metro. The bigger issues is that the car was in my custody and got smashed up, whether or not I’m at fault is irrelevant. All of Arizaphale’s folks’ fears have come to fruition on my watch. I’ve smashed up the kindness of strangers.

* I had originally planned to post a photo of the car, but it was a bit too depressing. So, you get Stanley.

Since before Z was born, the dog’s reaction to a new member of the pack has been a source of a little bit of concern – moreso to Dr. O’C than to me. If I’m being honest, there have been a couple of dicey moments. While Timmins has accepted his demotion in status, he’s not been terribly thrilled about it and his reaction has ranged from ignoring Z entirely to mild annoyance (voiced in the form of a low growl). In the last couple of weeks, as Z is becoming more mobile, it’s been harder for the dog to ignore him – particularly when Z chases him yelling at the top of his little lungs, as he is wont to do.

But we appear to be making progress toward friendship between boy and dog. Timmins is, as most dogs are, driven almost entirely by his stomach. Z has begun to eat more food that a dog might find tasty. Z is not a tidy eater. Hence the image of love and friendship (OK, maybe tolerance and grudging acceptance) that you see above.

There are good things. Lots of good things. I’m trying to focus on those on a daily basis. One of them is a beautiful night sky with stars and constellations that I don’t have a clue what to call. I sit looking up into the night sky humming that Eagles’ song “Seven Bridges Road” that Dolly Parton did better. There are stars in the Southern sky…

We also had the unique pleasure of meeting up in real life with a blogging friend. We spent a couple of hours with Arizaphale and her family up in the house in the hills. It was a bit strange (surreal as Arizaphale put it) to sit down with someone that you’ve only “met” on the internet, but she’s as engaging and entertaining in real-life as she is on her blog.

See, not all bad at all.

Nick Drake – “Northern Sky”

This was meant to be a kind of flippant Tuesday post about berry picking, but as it’s a gloomy August day – British specialty – and I’m feeling a bit maudlin. I fear I may veer towards the emotional and confessional posts which I generally try and avoid.

As you can see from the pictures below we spent part of this past weekend picking raspberries in the mild August sun. Nothing particularly special, but a nice way to spend part of a Saturday and a good way to get Vitamin D flowing. Doing this reminded me of picking berries with our friends Alex and Nichole back in Missouri about five years ago. That’s the balance of the pictures in this post – amazing how much we age in five years – more me than the rest of them! Apparently at some point in your 30’s you start aging exponentially instead of linearly or maybe it just feels that way. We followed that blueberry picking expedition with a themed dinner menu with all dishes involving blueberries. (This was the heyday of “Iron Chef“) Nichole actually remembers the menu which speaks well to her memory. I was impressed that I could remember the dinner. At any rate just a nice moment in time to remember.

But then, Alex posted this story for his daughter’s 2nd birthday and started me into this whole spiral. I got to thinking about good friends and how they are such a rare commodity and a relationship that takes time to grow. I’m such a private person generally that it takes me a few years to really establish a good friendship with someone. Five years in Missouri meant that I had made some really great friends ones that I hated to leave behind. I remember when Dr O’C first moved to Missouri in 2001 she struggled and was unhappy because she didn’t have many friends. By the time we left in 2004, I think even she shed a tear or two for some of the good friends we were having to leave behind.

Leaving friends behind has been kind of a pattern for me – I’ve spent most of my life moving from place to place within a few years, a pattern that I think got established from early childhood. I was talking to my Dad over the weekend about just that. With a baby on the way I was fretting about getting geographically settled. When I was younger, because of the nature of my Dad’s job, we moved every few years New York to Canada to California back to New York and finally to Florida. I remember when we moved to Florida I was 10 and I hated it. I had started school and had good friends in New York. The people in north Florida talked funny and it was hot and I didn’t have any friends. I wanted the contentment that I had established in my ten year old mind in upstate New York. I eventually settled and made friends and did just fine but from the time I hit adulthood I went back to the nomadic lifestyle – South Carolina back to Florida to Washington to Georgia to Missouri to Britain. Always looking for that place where everything is going to be perfect…

Oxford was the latest move and it’s been good for what it was supposed to be good for – moving on in careers for both Dr O’C and I. We’ll have been here three years in October and I’ve started to make some good friends now. But as is the pattern, our time here is coming to an end in the next six months or so and it will be time for the next place. Always looking for that place where everything is going to be perfect. It’s only recently that I’ve realized that place can be wherever I and the people I love are – you make your own home. With our own family on the way – 36 days at last count – I think its time to settle, maybe not here, but somewhere and soon.

“It’s easier to leave than to be left behind
Leaving was never my proud
Leaving New York, never easy
I saw the light fading out…”

R.E.M. – “Leaving New York”