Santa's Little Helper (& notes)

Why does the end of the year always sneak up on me?  It happens every year, you’d think I would learn.   So, what did we do, see or even learn in 2012?

Margaret

Margaret continues to work part-time.  She has enjoyed volunteering for ‘Clean up Australia Day’, ‘Tree Day’ and ‘Open House Melbourne’ with the family.  Thoroughly enjoyed the amazing Napoleon Exhibition when it was in town.   Is enjoying our blackberry crop and all is well with the world when little George (see below) is around.  Loves the delight she sees in ‘Uncle Simon’ and ‘Uncle Richard’ and wishes that she could bottle it.

Martin & Roni

Martin & Roni became parents.  Margaret became a grandparent. Lee is in denial and, at best, will concede that he is married to a grandmother .

Martin  has been accepted into Insead Business School (Singapore & Paris) to do an MBA, starting in September 2013.

Richard & Shu

Richard continues to work at a philately auction house but is study editing  at Melbourne University.  Shu continues to progress at the ANZ Bank.  They are buying an apartment, working on Sundays at Shu’s dad’s bottle shop and planning a trip to Shanghai in the New Year.  They are both enthusiastic members of Toastmasters.

Simon

Simon is studying  urban design at RMIT and also working as a barista at Gloria Jean’s Coffees.  Enjoying being an uncle.  Earlier in the year he won tickets to six concerts at the Recital Centre and has enjoyed taking different people along to see them.  Also went to see Coldplay perform earlier in the year.

Lee

Lee continued his battle with the possums, continued with his new job with the company that bought the company that bought his company and his alter-ego terrorised the internet with various writings, some of them rhyming.  He delighted one and all with his culinary exploits, on Halloween especially, and he is currently planning the appropriate meal for the end of the world, Dec 22nd, according to the Mayans.  The garden is an oasis, thanks to his TLC. 

George Gomez-Kennedy - October 17th, 2012

Baby Shower - 29/9/2012

Margaret, Lee, Simon, Shu, Roni, David, Martin, Romilla, Sachin (peeking) & Russell.

David learns that not all interesting toys are electronic.

Martin & Roni

The fine art of fairy bread manufacture.

Mum, Roni & Martin.

The Wedding

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Richard, Dave Lane, Martin, Simon.


She's late. Where is she?


The bride and her rightfully proud mother.


Doing the ring thing.


Roni & Martin


The view from Mt Rael, the backdrop to the wedding, the following morning.
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My Three Sons

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I forget sometimes that readers of blogs are a fluid crowd and that there are new folk who would have had no idea who Richard is.

Above are my three sons. L>R: Richard 24, Martin 26, Simon 20.

He is OK today, a bit sore but OK.
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My Dad

Returned home to the news that my father has been diagnosed with lung cancer.

Poo.

Chemotherapy and radiotherapy to start this week.

The good news is that the specialists talk of 'cure' rather than 'palliative' objectives when discussing the effects of the treatment. It will be less than pleasant though, these things always are.

How do I feel about travelling while this is going on? Mixed feelings. Obviously I would like to be here but it is a six month treatment and what could I do? And it may make Dad feel worse if he feels that he is stopping my travelling.

Both he and Mum have said 'Go, go...'.

But I will be twitchy.
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Cat amongst the pigeons...

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Here we are, twelve days out from a eight month holiday, a cat has been thrown in amongst the pigeons!

No, no more wobbles from Richard.

This time it is Martin.

He and his girlfriend, Roni, announced their engagement yesterday.

We are, of course, enormously happy for them. But it has, also of course, started all sorts of maternal juices flowing in Margaret. Can we organise an engagement party before we leave? No. Will their be two weddings, one here, one in Malaysia? Who knows? When will they get married? About this time next year, we are told.

So many questions. So much 'flutter'.

Going overseas for eight months seems a perfectly sensible thing to do under the circumstances.

The half-year mark.

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It wasn't intentional but Valentine's Day marks the half way point of our wedding year (our wedding anniversary is August 14th) so, naturally, we went out for dinner.

Yes, romance lives.

So as to not over do it too much, and to balance out the day, we spent the rest of the day sitting in the Supreme Court of Victoria. In the visitor's gallery, I hasten to add. It was our fourth day there and we will be there again tomorrow. More about that tomorrow.

A happy Valentine's Day to all the lovers out there.
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On top of the world!

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So, a quiz.

What is going on in the photo above?

Margaret, walking with Simon, at Mt Dandenong.

And why are we at Mt Dandenong, north east of Melbourne?


Well, you see, we will be overseas when Margaret would officially graduate from her course and those horrible, horrible people at Holmesglen TAFE would not let her put off her graduation until next year.

So we hired a robe and headed to the hills. Took lots of photos and celebrated with coffee and cake.

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The Birthday Girl

Yesterday, as a belated birthday treat, we headed off on a river
cruise up the Yarra, the river running through Melbourne.

Three hour leisurely affair, complete with a five course dinner.

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This post started life as an email post to Blogger, to prove that I could post photos by email in anticipation of life on the road.

I had two issues: 1. The photo, sent as an attachment, was left justified while I prefer them to be centred. And 2, lines left blank to space the document disappeared, running the two sentences into one block of text.

I logged in and tweaked the post to correct both these issues after posting.

Anyone out there know how to work around these issues more elegantly?

Small critters!

"Build a better mouse trap and the world will beat a path to your door" -anon.

I was fossickinig around for something else this morning and found a copy of my Grandfather's 1936 patent for "Improvement in spring¬actuated animal traps." Patent No 100,692.

My Grandfather invented the better mousetrap!

Sadly, it seems that someone must have invented the better mouse as the path to his door was very weedy indeed.

But it got me thinking about how superficially we deal with many other people in our lives. My grandfather died when I was four so I remember very little of him. However he must have had a big influence; my four earliest memories all involve him. It is easy to remember him as "my grandfather, the plumber" and yet there was obviously much more to him than that.

We stereotype people - salespeople, bank clerks, policemen, aunts, uncles, politicans, students, women in high heels and men in suits - all get pigeon-holed on the flimsiest of evidence. We tend to forget that all people have a story to tell, that in their own way they live rich and full lives, lives full of triumphs and disasters, loves, regrets and dramas.

And mousetraps.

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My Grandfather and me, circa 1955.

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Getting the band back together...

.Richard, Martin & Simon

We collected Simon from the airport this morning. A little weary around the edges but otherwise none the worse for wear.

His flight got in at 6:25am (ugh!) so we headed off to Rathdowne Street in Carlton to meet up with Martin for some breakfast.
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Richard update:

Richard, in about 1986.

Thank you all for your thoughts.

Richard has had no reoccurence of the seizure. The results of an EEG come back tomorrow so that may tell us something.

In the mean time, life goes on.
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Will you be in for dinner?

Life, said John Lennon, is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.

Seems true enough today at least.

The scene: the Kennedy Family kitchen. Richard and Margaret are sitting at the bench on stools talking, I am in the kitchen doing stuff for lunch and dinner. I had observed to Richard that he looked very tired. He said he had felt 'funny' all morning. "A headache?" "No, just a funny feeling".

I am putting some frozen prawns out on a tray to defrost and ask "Will you be in for dinner?" This is a regular question to assist with aligning the kitchen staff's agenda with Richard's social agenda.

No answer. But is a sort of odd no answer, as if the universe is not quite right.

I look up and Richard has a most strange expression. Every muscle in his face is taut like twisted ropes, his eyes are looking nowhere in particular. Instinctively I race around the bench, happily fast enough to cradle his head in my hands as he falls to the floor. Margaret, sitting beside him, had no chance of stopping him falling.

For what seems an eternity but was probably only about a minute or so, Richard convulses on the floor, seemingly every muscle in his body intent on the maximum contraction. I cradle his head in my hand to stop it banging on the floor but can do little else. A little blood comes from his mouth; I suspect he bit his tongue. The seizure stops and, mercifully, Richard starts breathing.

Margaret, in the meantime, has called 000, the local emergency number, and an ambulance is on its way. She relays breathing rates and such like to the operator.

The rest of the afternoon is one of extreme tedium, the sort that always goes with sitting around hospital emergency wards. Blood tests, CAT scans, x-rays, and large slabs of nothing, waiting for results.

More tests are due to be done next week but we still don't know what triggered the seizure.

He is home, after eight hours at the hospital. He is sleeping.

Every so often Margaret goes in to listen to his breathing.

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Memo to Richard: Next time I ask "Will you be in for dinner?", a simple "no" with be just fine.
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Twenty three years!

Happy 23rd Birthday Richard, son #2.

No, he doesn't have his head stuck up a weasel's fundamental orifice - he wore an fake mullet to a treasure hunt recently.
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What's 38 years between friends?

Exhibit A:

Two school boys in a 1969 photo at Healesville High School.

Exhibit B:

The same two boys, 38 years later.

Damien and his wife, Fran, came to dinner tonight. First time I had seen Damien since year 10 at high school.

Neither of us had changed a bit.
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Father's Day - Australian version.

Unlike the majority of the world which celebrates Father's Day on the third Sunday in June, Australia celebrates Father's Day on the first Sunday in September.

So, it was bacon and eggs in bed with the paper. Side orders of grapefruit and coffee.

I am off doing a LifeLine shift tonight (yes, I know, poor planning) so the official dinner was last night with my parents over as well. The meal was done by Martin and Richard, Simon's in Beijing and so was given the year off. Martin's girlfriend, Roni, was in the thick of things as well. The menu was a prawn and avocado starter, coq au vin with ratatouille, finished off with creme caramels.

Suitably spoiled, it is now time to return to studies...

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Freudian footnote: when I first typed the last line, I wrote "it is not time to return to studies".

Greedy footnote: I went to Wikipedia to check up on when the rest of the world celebrated Father's Day and found that their are 21 different dates around the world. Hey guys! There must be a way to cash in on this!!
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In Memoriam (Modified).

After hearing from my cousin, Undine, I have added to the post about my aunt, Christa, four posts back.

Not quite glow-mesh but close.

Yesterday (Sunday) was Martin's 25th birthday. The previous night he and some mates had a party to celebrate the occasion and he had wanted a 'mirror suit' to wear for the night. Above is the result of Margaret and him spending a fair slab of Friday afternoon with sewing machine and mouths full of pins. A little cursing and swearing on occasion, too. (Although Margaret's idea of a fully fledged expletive is "Auchtermuchty!").

Some have argued that it was the nicest birthday suit since the original one.

The actual birthday was thrown into some disarray by Martin's girlfriend, Roni, landing in hospital in intensive care with a urinary tract infection of some sort. She's on the mend, happily, although still in intensive care.

After some will-we wont-we discussions we pressed on with the family dinner. I chose an Indian theme, partly because we hadn't eaten Indian for a while, partly because I had spent my 25th birthday at Agra, in India, admiring the Taj Mahal.

Pappadums as pre-meal nibblies,
Spicey prawns with a walnut chutney as starter,
Lamb & eggplant curry with tomato salad and basmati rice for main,
Cumquat & cardamon syrup cake with yoghurt for dessert.
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A step in the walk...

No, not lost, just busy. Sorry, a busy week.

One of the highlights was Martin's graduation - Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Commerce.

The photo above is Martin (right) and Richard on the way to the ceremony.

They are growing up.
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