Boxing Day daze in Oz After the Christmas day indulgences yesterday I don't care if I never eat any food again, apart from a bowl of corn flakes with a sliced banana and some icy cold milk.
The day was mostly pleasant apart from a short period an hour or so after the main meal when a certain individual insulted all the cooks by getting a meat pie from the freezer and attempting to heat it up in the microwave. In this house its a tradition of leftovers or nothing else on the afternoon of Christmas day. There were plenty of those. So amid protests from the "insulter" our Daisy the dog received the warmed up pie as unexpected present.
Oh, and there was another brief moment in the morning when the same person took a disk of traditional Christmas music from the CD player and replaced it with something which might be described as grunge-heavy-metal. It wasn't a Christmas present, just an attempt to impose an alternative music taste pirated from somewhere beyond this adobe structure. Unfortunately my correcting these little transgressions is giving me the reputation as a power freak.
There was another incident unwitnessed by me during the morning, but I heard the awful crash. Son number two had accidentally managed to back into a flower arrangement on the window sill of our lounge room. A large crystal glass-vase heirloom which had been in my family for at least 60 years was broken. What else can I say? Nothing is probably best.
I have been given a lot of wine over the past few days. Everyone must think I'm a wino. It's going to last a long time because I'm down to one or two glasses a week. One of our gorgeous female visitors who is keen on one of my sons gave me two bottles of Wolf Blass shiraz cabernet sauvignon yesterday. I will certainly drink them, one at a time. The bottles had a sticker with a unique number. The print was about five-point - the sort which was used for exclusions on old insurance documents. It said if I visited their web site and entered my personal details along with the number I could win a new Mercedes sports coupe.
I didn't really want a new Mercedes. Another Yaris would be better. Nevertheless I went to their website this morning and did as I was told. The answer came back in a flash. Mr Blass must have been sitting at his computer waiting. "Sorry you have not won a new Mercedes, but..." Darn! I'd been sucked in again. Now he has my details and I'm probably going to get flooded with his wino spam.
The young woman who gave me these bottles sometimes drives here in a very nice yellow VW. That's the new style of VW which is the fashion symbol for the rich and famous. Her mother won it in a competition. Just one form dropped in a box at a supermarket or something. So it's true. Some people do win nice cars, but not me.
There were actually two gorgeous girlfriends at our table yesterday, both admirers of our sons. Later, the two couples departed to the respective houses of the girlfriends to do it all again in the evening with their families. Another son also departed to collect his girlfriend from her mother's house. They were off to a friend's farm near York and were hoping to get there in time for yet another evening Christmas feast. Thankfully all our sons have a responsible attitude towards drinking and driving.
I'm afraid I wouldn't have the stamina for two Christmas dinners. To use an expression of my late father, I was pretty well stonkered by about 3pm. I didn't come good until the evening when I watched the Queen's Christmas message. In essence it was, "It's been a rough year for some folk. Don't be bad, be good." I like the Queen. "Queen rules, OK." No sedition here.
She had a group of tamed English choir boys for background music - the ultimate in Queenly stereo hi-fi systems. I noticed one of them had a very pimply face. Pulpit pox maybe? He was kept out of camera much more than the others. There were some ethnic minority faces included to offset accusations of racial bias, but no token blacks or girls.
After the Queen and her lads had left the screen for lemonade and cakes in the vestry, there was an interesting program about whether or not
Tyrannosaurus rex was a blood thirsty hunter or a leftovers specialist. "Mmmm, leftovers."
It's obvious to me that the paleontologists are very confused about T. Rex. They haven't got it right yet. So here it is. The bit none of them understand. The animal was aquatic, see. It had to spend most of its time in swamps to support its huge and ungainly bulk, see. Its comparatively small limbs, even its hind drumsticks tell you that it couldn't go for long on land. " Mmmm, drumsticks." Nor could it drink water easily if it were land based, see. It might be forever falling on its face in embarrassment if it were. The shape of its tail vertebra says swimmer to me, see. Powerful rhythmic movements side to side like an iguana or Ian Thorpe. So do its clawed feet say, "swamp. " Are the claws to rip flesh? Yes, but mainly to get a grip on the floors of the slimy swamps, see. Did it eat carrion? (Leftovers - Mmmmm.) Of course, like a crocodile, but it also ate the very big slow fish of the swamps, see. It's mouth dimensions and teeth structure tell us it was a snapper and gulper; and probably belched. Bad table manners and bad breath, see. Not the sort of things to get you invited to the Queen's Christmas dinner. Now, what else do you want to know.
Today is Tsunami Day. The day the earth moved this time last year for the populations around the Bay of Bengal. The total number of people who perished is unknown, but is believed to be in excess of 200,000. The survivors are still doing it tough in many of the effected areas. The largess of many nations failed to materialise as much as had been promised. Why am I not surprised?
There is to be a memorial service at Perth's City Beach at 8:59am local time where people will cast flowers into the surf.
© MMV Paul R. Weaver.
About the writerCheck out each month's subject index on the Calendar Page for my "common-man" monologues about survival in 21st century Australia – plus a little history occasionally. An original essay is added most days.
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