|
| Monday, July 31, 2006 |
| I Hate Grapevines |
Has it really been a Whole Week since I posted last? Deary me. How Time Flies. And I have done some interesting things, which you will all have to wait to hear about until tomorrow, because I don't feel like blogging right now. Instead, treat yourselves (or bore yourselves to tears, one of them, your choice entirely) with this. It was to be an element of last year's Nanowrimo effort. More accurately, WILL be an element of last year's Nanowrimo effort, which I still work on occasionally.
The Story of the Falanhi
In the time when the world was yet young and barely formed, People were created from the veins of the earth and the Children of the Stars were with them. The Children did not create the People, yet the Children were fascinated with these beings, who looked like the Children but were not the Children. From the veins of the earth were People made, and the reflected the colours of the earth’s veins as the Children of the Stars reflected the pale, cold light of the stars themselves. Bronze, copper, silver, gold and iron was the hair of the People, and the shining Children saw them and could not resist them. They went down from the heavens to walk with the People, and speak with the People, and soon they were so captivated by the varied beauty of the People that they took lovers among them.
The Creators, the parents of all that is and was, were unhappy with the Children of the Stars. For the Children of the Stars were made for their own purpose, and People for a purpose also. The Children of the Stars were stronger than the Earth’s People, as they drew strength and power from the stars they belonged among. As long as the Children of the Stars were besotted by People, they forsook their own purpose, and the People could not become their own tribes as long as the Children dominated them. So the Creators took the Children aside and spoke with them, and gave them their choice: the Children could return to their own places and purposes, and the Creators would take away from them the ability to return to the places of the Earth’s People; or, the Children could remain in the world, in the places of People, able to watch them and be near them but unable to walk with them or be with them.
So the Children made their choices, each of them deciding as it pleased themselves. Some of them returned to the places and purposes of their birthright and mandate, and from these the Creators took away the ability to return to the places of the Earth’s People. Some of them remained with the Earth’s People, and these the Creators turned into great birds, so they could soar above the People they were so enraptured by and watch everything they did, but could never again be among them. The People called them the Falahandra, and all of the People knew they had once been the Children of the Stars.
Never again would the Children of the Stars be seen among the Earth’s People.
Many of those Children who chose to remain and were turned to the greatest of birds to be seen in the sky above the earth were those who had taken lovers among the Earth’s People. A number of these had given children to their lovers, or become with child themselves, and it was as these children quickened and grew within the wombs of their mothers that the Children of the Stars were set into the skies. Those Children who were pregnant gathered on a high mountain top, where they laid their eggs in great nests lined with their own feathers. When the eggs hatched, the infants inside were not birds or Children, but like People – and yet not like People. Across their backs and shoulders and arms was a layer of the finest down, and their tiny hands and feet bore claws where People had fingernails. As they opened their mouths and cried for milk, the Children took them up in their claws and bore them down to the cities of the Earth’s People, leaving the infants in the town squares and in front of the homes of the greatest leaders of the People. Seeing the feathers and claws of the babies, the People knew that they were not foundlings to be raised as scrap-boys, and they took the downy infants to the great Palace in the South. As the infants grew and their down gave way to feathers, they were called the Falanhi. The Falanhi were much honoured by the People, and became great men and women. They had wings, but too small to lift them from the ground – only enough to remind them that part of their ancestry was not of the People. Like their parents before them, they looked upon the Earth’s People with rapture, and many took husbands and wives from among the People. The children of these unions, though, bore none of the feathers and claws that marked their parents. Only those Falanhi who took partners among the Falanhi bore Falanhi children.
The Falanhi grew in strength and power among the People, because the People loved them and revered them. As time passed, the Falanhi became rulers and monarchs among the People, and from the great Palace in the South they built an empire. Because the Falanhi were descended from the Children of the Stars, they drew some power from the stars as their parents had done. But the Falanhi also drew their ancestry from the People, and because of this many of them became intrigued by the study of the earth from whence the People were created. They studied closely the powers and laws of metals and gems, and through this study became stronger and more powerful, and ruled over the Earth’s People so that as time passed, and the People forgot the Children of the Stars and the Falahandra, the People began to fear the rulers they had once loved.
The Creators saw this, too, and were sad. They could not bear to take from the world they loved the Falanhi, who were after all descended from the Earth’s People as much as from the Children of the Stars, and still had a place and purpose there. Instead, they took the People from the Falanhi, and spread them over the world according to the veins of the earth they were made from. The golden People to one land, the iron People to another, and so forth. In this way they also took from the Falanhi some of the power and strength they had gained through their study, dividing and scattering the metals and gems so the Falanhi could not use their combined strengths to further their own ends.
The women of the Earth’s People who carried children sired by the Children of the Stars, however, did not give birth to feathered Falanhi. Instead, their infants had reflected in their eyes the Children of the Stars, white as starlight, and in their touch the cold of the stars themselves. At first they were recognised as descendants of the Children, and brought into the communities of the Earth’s Children. But in time, as the People forgot the brief age when the Children walked among them, they began to despise these pale-eyed cold-fingered ones, and called them Saparden, meaning empty. The children of the Saparden sometimes bore their features, and sometimes not. Where the child of one of the People and a Falanhi would be wholly one of the Earth’s People, the child of a Saparden may have appeared to be one of the Earth’s People, but later bear a Saparden child. The Saparden were rumoured to hold unearthly knowledge, to practice dangerous arts, and became despised and cast out. As the Falanhi became strong, the Saparden became creatures to be feared and loathed. They lived on the outskirts of towns and villages, and became slowly more shy. Saparden children would sometimes be taken to the woods and abandoned, and some Saparden made it their business to ensure these children were found and brought in. Although the Saparden became seen less and less frequently, and began to pass from the daily minds and cares of the Earth’s People, they still could not forget the love of the People that ran in their blood. But where the Falanhi admired and worked with the metals and gems of the earth, the Saparden were drawn to the living warmth of the People. Some of them studied and practiced healing arts, the better to understand the life that beat and flowed warm in their own bodies – the legacy of their Earth People parentage – while others became fascinated by the likeness of the People in the other creatures that walked upon the earth. Thus, woven into the web of rumour and legend that grew about the Saparden, came stories of their powers over all that lived and breathed, from beasts in the woods and cattle in the fields to house animals by the fire – and even the People themselves.
When the Creators scattered the People, the Saparden begged to have a place of their own, apart from the People who feared them and the Falanhi who despised their Saparden cousins. This the Creators granted, but some Saparden feared for the children that may be born to the Earth’s People, and begged to be sent about the world with the People. This the Creators granted also to those Saparden who asked it.
And the People grew and prospered in their different lands, until the Falanhi and the Saparden became part of history, then of legend, then finally of myth, and their power in the World was scattered and gone. |
posted by Ata @ 3:58 pm  |
|
|
|
| Friday, July 21, 2006 |
| Sugar |
This week, Ata has been trying to kick the sugar habit.
As a result, she has only eaten three small sharepack-thingies of mini M&M's, about a handful of assorted snakes & gummy lollies, one handful of jellybeans, two soft drinks, two sweet biscuits and a Tim-Tam. And dipped into the sugar bowl once. There. When you spread that over five days, it's really not so bad.
The result is that Ata has sugar cravings. While Ata will admit to being a bit of a sugar junkie, she's generally not the type to develop addictions, and it used to be that giving something up was simply a matter of, well, giving it up.
And yet, Wednesday night found Ata sitting in front of the idiot box after dinner, thinking.... "There's some M&M's in the cupboard. I could just have a few. Maybe Mr Ata wants some, then I'll have to open the packet. NO - focus on the show. You don't need sugar. Maybe there's some icecream. Youdon'twantsugaryoudon'twantsugaryoudon'twant - maybe a cup of tea instead. That'll take your mind off sugar. Or you could make toffee..." and so forth. Craving sugar like that is something of a new experience for Ata. And it is in some ways a little odd... it's not that she craves the sweetness, for there are sweet apples in the fridge. It's not that she is trying to cut sugar out entirely, for we had dessert two nights - apple tarts made with filo pastry and sprinkled with sugar. It's not even that she is trying to break long-formed habits, for it has been many years since she took sugar in her tea or coffee, and the munching-on-lollies is a relatively new thing. Still. All the sweets are gone from the house now - bar the unopened packet of M&M's in the cupboard - and Ata thinks it will stay that way until she recovers her self-control. |
| posted by Ata @ 5:55 pm |
|
|
|
| Saturday, July 15, 2006 |
| Day in the Life of Ata |
So, what has Ata been doing, I hear you ask? Well, given that there has been no new post for a short time, I thought I might tell you. Today, I:
1. Dropped Mr Ata off at the Airport
2. Watched TV whilst eating M&M's
3. Got a phone call from FAtC, asking if I wanted to go to the gym with her
4. Scoffed down some porridge, thinking that exercise should be done on more than chocolate
5. Rounded up motivational pants and picked up FAtC
6. Did Balance class
7. Realised exactly how much muscle strength has been lost in the last 2.5 years
8. Realised that wrists are more dodgey than previously believed
9. Ran into two long-unseen used-to-be-friends
10. Went home, dropping FAtC off on the way
11. Found little brother's degree in shed (proved easier than feared)
12. Decided that variable humidity conditions in shed are no good for degrees
13. Decided to bring little brother's speakers and certain other humidity-sensitive items inside
14. Decided his clothes didn't count as humidity, dust, or other shed condition sensitive
15. Stacked items to bring inside on a small table outside
16. Decided to mark out area intended for paving with a hoe
17. Decided to use shovel
18. Decided to use pickaxe
19. Decided to buy a tin of spray paint later for marking out area
20. Attempted to locate drain-pipe underground
21. Dug weeds out of planter box to begin preparation for planter box removal
22. Began digging soil out of planter box
23. Stood in backyard considering Drainage Issues and Lawn Slopage
24. Decided not to empty soil out of planter box in case we decided not to remove it, due to Drainage Issues
25. Took stack of items inside
26. Stacked items on spare bed
27. Rounded up Roswell from outside (it's hard to move things indoors without letting the cat escape)
28. Watched some more TV with more M&M's
29. Wondered where Bosco was
30. Found Bosco locked in bedroom
31. Watched more TV and considered cleaning up
32. Decided cleaning up could wait at least until Monday
33. Emailed little brother to tell him about having located his degree
34. Switched on kettle
35. Blogged.
Are you thrilled? Tonight I am going to see Jingo with the Friends-Around-the-Corner. I will wear the very large, very warm black coat I bought yesterday, that Mr Ata says makes me look like a stripper who has just turned up to a bucks party*. I figure that wearing jeans and boring black school shoes should negate the potential stripper effect.
*Mr Ata once saw a stripper at a bucks party. The buck in question was missing at the time of her arrival, and was later found asleep in a puddle in the empty block next door. Given that he seems to think she was a very unimpressive stripper, I'm not really sure how I feel about the comparison. |
| posted by Ata @ 3:36 pm |
|
|
|
| Wednesday, July 12, 2006 |
| Ata - The Return |
So Ata is back in Adelaide. This trip was my first time flying with Jetstar. There are, apparently, only two real certainties with Jetstar -
(1) You will stand in queues.
and
(2) The flight will be late.
On the trip to Darwin, it was a 50-minute wait in line to check in. On the way back, it was a 20-minute wait in line to get on the plane. Whoever thought no allocated seating was a good idea should be taken out to the tarmac and run over by a jet full of cranky passengers.
Anyway. Back home at last - at about 11:30 at night (hooray! the flight was only 20 minutes late, instead of the 4 hr delay Ata's parents had flying Melbourne-Darwin a week ago) - Ata pulls a book out of her case. AM gave an Indian recipe book as a gift.
"Here," says Ata, "see what Mum gave us."
"Ooh," says Mr Ata, with delight, "are you going to cook me some Indian?"
"I thought you could cook ME some Indian!" replies Ata, in mock horror.
"But I can't!" retaliates Mr Ata, "I... I... I brew the beer, to have with the Indian!"
"Pfft," says Ata. "I don't LIKE beer."
"Well," responds Mr Ata, clearly thinking he now has come up with the final witty reply, "I might not like your Indian."
Ata smiles. "In that case," she says, triumphantly serene, "there's no point me cooking it, is there?" |
| posted by Ata @ 10:48 am |
|
|
|
| Monday, July 10, 2006 |
| Darwin Dayze |
I thought I had posted something here while I have been in Darwin, but now on examining my blog it appears I have not. Mind you, I can't think of what my imaginary post was meant to be about, so it is more likely that I have created an elaborate fiction in my own head about having posted than that the computer has somehow mysteriously eaten the post.
Anyway.
The weather is a little on the cool side, but mostly glorious. The wedding went well, pictures later. The only thing I forgot to bring was my camera, so I must wait to be provided with a CD by one of the more organised attendees. Honestly, I stood at the bus stop at the end of my street for 40 minutes (long story, but one element was that a bus did not arrive and the next one was late) on my way to the airport, thinking, "Have I got everything? Dress... shoes... other shoes... yep, that's everything" for forty whole minutes. The bus arrived (finally), I sat down, I thought - "Hmm, I haven't recharged my MP3 player batteries... hang on, something else takes batteries... the camera!"
Yesterday we visited Howard Springs. Well, we went to a couple of my mother's favourite garden/landscaping suppliers first. Darwinians seem to have a particular talent for names. For example, there is a hairdressers called "Curl Up & Dye". Yesterday, we went to the Pot Shop, then to Get Stoned - which has a nice little cafe on site, called Finlay's Joint.
Ooh, Dad has just walked in. We will be going to the wharf for tea in a minute, so I'd better make this quick. I was going to tell you all sorts of interesting things about Howard Springs, but I only have time for the barramundi. Howard Springs is now a popular swimming spot, originally a dam dug by soldiers to provide water for the town. A bridge crosses over the small weir. On the downstream side, small fish swim in the current, and plaques on the bridge rail help you identify them - catfish, scats, long toms, and others. On the swimming side - undisturbed by the children splashing around the edges, two large barra circled serenely ner the bridge. They were each over a metre long. Schools of other, smaller fish could be glimpsed in the shadowy depths. Someone threw a chunk of bread the size of a child's fist, and the larger barra nonchalantly opened it's maw to scoop up the gift.
A couple of long-neck tortoises paddled enthusiastically closer to the bank, much to Ata's mother's delight, but didn't stay in view long before plunging into the depths.
Have to go now. Dinner on the wharf awaits. |
| posted by Ata @ 7:12 pm |
|
|
|
| Sunday, July 02, 2006 |
| Oh, and I forgot to tell you - |
| That after her round of appointments last week, Ata was formally excused from taking one of her medications. That has her down to a single prescription. Which is, officially, the least amount of medications she has been prescribed for the last ten years. (note I say 'prescribed' as opposed to 'actually taking' - though I have been a Good Girl for the last ..mm.. eight years! Really!) |
| posted by Ata @ 11:04 pm |
|
|
|
|
| Baby boom |
It must be the age I am at. Everywhere I look, it seems I am in the midst of a veritable baby storm. People having them, planning them, talking about them... it goes on and on. Even those who, barely a year ago, turned up their noses and said... "babies? I don't think so." Now they put their heads to one side and say, "well... next year, perhaps."
You see?
It is the first flakes of the snowstorm. Ata must Grow Up, at least enough to be Auntie Ata.
Today I volunteered to assist with the proposed creche at the evening service. I thought, well, I have been Out of the Sunday School a couple of years... it would be nice to be involved in SOMETHING... surely just helping out in creche will not suck me back into the black hole of church responsibility (to anyone who has never been a part of a church - volunteering must not be taken lightly. Agree to stack chairs after the service, and you will shortly be running a cafe/organising working bees/playing at least two instruments), and the evening service could not possibly have more than a handful of toddlers. Anyway. Having located the right person and offered my services, I was outside watching Mr Ata and another Person play basketball when the three-year-old son of a pastor came to join in. And it occurred to me - I have not had anything to do with small children since leaving University. Zilch, zip, nada. Except to make faces at stranger's tots on the bus, of course. I watched the mini-basketballer do his best to get the ball through the hoop. Even when held up by Mr Ata, he bounced it off his own forehead several times before giving up and returning to Mum. I hoped she was not watching when he was almost concussing himself with the basketball, assisted by mine own husband. And I don't even know what age groups attend the creche!
What have I done?
Oh well. I will get some Auntie-ing practice in, anyway. |
| posted by Ata @ 10:46 pm |
|
|
|
|
|
