frikken cockroaches, swings and zombies.

It was a long week at work last week and so on Saturday night Pete and I took ourselves out to dinner in Southport. They sat us tucked round the corner in a little darkened alley with a big  mood lighting candle on the table, very romantic I thought. I joked to Pete that this was where they put the ugly people so other diners wouldn’t be put off entering and he pointed to the big window next to us looking out onto the street and said on the contrary, we were window eye candy to attract more clientele, we bantered on a bit and drank wine till the food arrived. 

Just as I was slicing into my steak a MASSIVE cockroach came scurrying across the stone floor towards my feet.  It was the length of my pointer finger and it scuttled high off the ground on horny spiked legs. It made the bush roaches we get at mums look positively tiny. Shit I am getting crawly just writing about it. I lifted my feet and kept my eye on it until it disappeared behind a pot plant and praying that it would remain in the dark corner recess went back to my meal.

Unfortunately this was not the case, within minutes I felt it crawling up my outer calf and leapt up to see it fall onto the paved wall level with my knee. I ran round the table behind Pete and said “I’m sorry, I can’t I’m sorry”. The waiter came over and said ‘what’s the problem?’ and I pointed out the cockroach now making a hasty retreat back to it’s pot plant. “Can you please get rid of it?!’” I begged and he bent down and as he scooped it up in his cloth napkin I saw it filled his fist. Ahh shit, shit, shit I thought and reluctantly went back to my meal feeling itchy and scratchy all over. Pete gallantly swapped seats with me so I now sat in a little pool of light from the bar and he took the dark corner that I now felt sure was INFESTED with roaches.

Just for the record, I am not short of stamping on the buggers and have squished and removed many ‘big’ roaches under protective swathes of toilet paper in the past, the problem here was:

1. no toilet paper to hand

2. I only had on thin ballet pumps from cotton on that were falling apart at the toes, I felt certain that one stomp in these shoes would leave me with roach guts all over the sole of my foot.

3. I was in public and therefore couldn’t let rip my um… ‘battle cry’ that was a necessary part of the squishing.

As conversation resumed, somewhat tersely, another roach came scuttling out of the light towards my feet but this time I leapt up off my chair in a flash. “NO, nope, no I can’t do it, nope” I said in my most authoritive voice as I picked up my glass of wine and moved to a spare table in a well lit part of the restaurant. Pete came trailing after me seconds later, miffed that I was causing a scene, I pointed out to him that most other woman would have screamed and made a horrendous fuss and he finally realised I was being pretty tame about the whole thing . We got a cap for our half bottle of wine, threw it in my handbag and left. Jesus it was awful. Like big scuttling rats. Fudgeee-magola. Not going back to that restaurant.

Still we managed to cheer ourselves up by heading to the park over the road that we’ve been eyeing up for some time now. They had a flying fox that could take our weight, a bicycle train race track and a big circular basket swing that we stood on either side of and tried to create momentum by bending and straightening our knees. As we slowly started to swing I got impatient and so swept back full force knees bent, butt to the sky and as I came rocketing forwards I went face first across the swing into Pete’s white shirt and left a big smear of tinted sunscreen down it. Hahahahha.

Finally we walked down to the cinema and saw ‘Funny people’ which was good but most of the funny bits had already been shown on the trailer. When we left the cinema there was another dust storm rolling in on 30kph winds and it was like there had been a nuclear explosion, everyone had disappeared, it was eerie. I freaked myself out asking Pete what he would do if a mass of zombies started spilling out behind us. He was very practical and said he’d pull down the cinema roller door. ‘Boring’, I said. ‘So’ he said and that was that. 

Mum’s holiday in Samoa

Following a 4am finish the night before I got up late on Wednesday morning. I padded out into the living room in my jammies, put on the jug for coffee and turned on the news.

The screen lit up aqua blue as it displayed a map of the pacific ocean with Tonga and NZ and a graphic of concentric circles undulating over Samoa. I watched in that sleepy way, simply letting the noise of the TV bring me to my senses and picked up my phone to listen to my messages. They were both from Lou but in reverse with the last one first she said:

‘Mum, I mean.. Am, mum’s fine, I’ve just spoken to her and they have been moved to a room higher in the hotel. If you want to call her she’s at Aggie Greys in Room 51, ok, call me back, bye’.

I thought, eh?? The news had moved off the map and a reporter was waffling on as I picked up the second message:

‘Am, it’s Lou, there’s been a massive earthquake in Samoa and I can’t get hold of mum, give me a call!’

And as the reporter on telly said something about Tsunami and Upolu, Samoa I thought to myself, gee, I sure am glad I got the last message first.

There had been a massive earthquake in Samoa measuring 8 on the richter scale and causing a tsunami that was to kill over a hundred people in Samoa, Tonga and American Samoa.

I called Lou back and got her at coffee group,

‘Hello’ she said in a strained voice,

‘Can you believe that mums in the middle of an earthquake and tsunami?’ I said. I could hear a lot of babies in the background, ‘where the hell are you?!’ I asked.

‘I Know!’ said lou, ‘I’m at coffee group, god only mum eh? She’s going to call me again at 5pm tonight but they’re safe, their TV came flying off the wall and smashed all over the floor!’.

This was very exciting stuff I thought, we rabbled on for a bit until I had to go back to work with promises to talk again after mum rang that evening.

After lunch at work I logged onto the NZ Herald Website where they were posting updates on the Tsunami’s destruction at roughly 20 minute intervals. There had been aftershocks and the tidal wave had since hit Tonga with reports that it had killed 10 people. The death toll in Samoa was now at 28 but they were expecting numbers to reach the 100’s. I also read these two headlines:

2:07pm - The village of Lalomanu so far has sustained the highest number of casualties, with reports of bodies being found buried in the sand.

2:43pm - The New Zealand High Commission in Apia confirmed this afternoon that at least two New Zealand holidaymakers had been hurt by the tidal wave.

"As far as we can tell though their injuries are not serious or life-threatening," said acting High Commissioner David Dolphin.

He said it is possible that more Kiwis have been caught up in the disaster.

There were a known 76 Kiwis holidaying in Samoa when the Tsunami struck, these did not feel like good odds. It also said that one NZ woman had been reported dead, we later found out that this was a woman in her late 50’s called Mary who was on holiday with her husband Andy. She was staying in a tourist hut along the shoreline and was flattened by the tidal wave.

My heart was beating really fast and I could feel the blood from my face draining into my neck. I knew Lou had spoken to mum earlier and she was safe that morning, but it felt like anything could have happened since. At that moment two of the Executive Producers walked past my desk, they smiled and said ‘Hello, how are you?’, my face broke into a massive grin and I boomed back, ‘I’m GREAT thanks! How are you!’  They  left and I went outside and called Lou.

‘Hello!’ I said in my best possible bright and breezy voice

‘Have you heard from mum?’.

“Not yet’, said lou, ‘but she said she’d call around 5pm her time which should be….about now’.

‘Ok’, I squeaked, ‘have you been following the news?’. 

Lou said she hadn’t watched anything since she’d heard from mum that morning. I told her what I’d read on the website trailing off with 4-6 meter high waves and aftershocks…

‘shit am’ she said.

‘Yeah, shit, I’m trying not to panic’ I said. ‘I’ve rung Aggie Grey’s 3 times but it just rings and rings and rings, I tried her mobile too but I bet she didn’t take it’.

‘No’ Lou said, ‘she didn’t take it with her, fuck I wish she had, hold on Am, I’ve got a call coming through’.

I listened to the call waiting tone for 2 minutes before feeling satisfied that if it was anyone but mum Lou wouldn’t keep me waiting so long and so I rang off. I searched back through all the bulletins posted that day until I came across this:

12:03pm - From Mike Purchase, whose ex-wife and kids are on holiday in Samoa: "I finally managed to talk to them after a stressful morning of no contact. They are at Aggie Grey's Lagoon on Upolu Island and appear to have avoided the worst of it. The quake woke them this morning and they described it as the earth 'rolling'."

Apparently one guest at the resort took a leadership role and ran around waking other guests and getting people to the reception area. Staff then took them in trucks to safety in the highest part of the resort. The sea receded substantially but it sounds like they avoided any surge on that part of the island.

I breathed a big sigh of relief. My phone rang and it was Lou. Mum was fine, her friend Liz was fine, the impact of the tsunami seemed to have left old Aggie Greys unscathed. What a bit of luck. Photo’s of the destruction were beginning to be posted on the website showing rubble, cars crushed, boats flung up onto roadsides, just chaos and somewhere amongst all that sat mum with her big fat guardian angel on her shoulder without a scratch.

Thank god. Below is a map of Samoa, worst hit by the tsunami was Lalomano at the southern tip of Upolu Island. Mum was staying in Apia at the time.

Hundreds of Samoans were not so lucky. Mum decided to stay until her flight was booked out on Saturday and has been working with the Red Cross to help people pick up the pieces, sorting clothes as they came in from all over the island and cooking food for people in the community.

I finally spoke to mum this morning and after hearing her account first hand really realised how terrifying the whole experience was. She told me that she can't believe how lucky Liz and her really were as they had planned to go snorkling at Lalomanu that morning, the worst hit beach on the south coast. They were just about to have a quick breaky and jump on the bus. Thankfully when the earthquake hit they were still stood in the doorway of their room swearing all derivatives of ‘fuck’ while watching the concrete building across from their window shake and sway like it was made of jelly. Mum said they were terrified.

After the quake they were moved to the 2nd level of Aggie’s despite the rest of Apia being evacuated to the hills. When the 2nd tsunami warning came out they were eventually moved higher up the hill of the resort and into the 3rd storey of one of the buildings. As the 3rd level was full they had to sit in the stairwell for hours, waiting for news that the danger had passed.

Mum also told me two stories of people she met that broke my heart. One of a mother unable to hold onto all 3 of her young children, watched as her two oldest were swept away by the waves, clutching her baby to her chest the water swept over her again and again and she knew that her baby was drowning against her with the constant water flow. Eventually, she lost her too.

The other was from a father of four only having two arms grabbed two of his children and ran for the hills as the tsunami struck, his other two children were not fast enough and were swept away by the tsunami.

If you want to help you can donate to the Red Cross here:

http://www.givealittle.co.nz/default.aspx

Protests of a different sort.

Mum wrote me this email the other day: >>

“hi chicken, so sorry I was teaching when you rang, I told my s/s that you called me from Australia and they were suitably impressed!!  Dashed in after that to the protest march, regarding the total cut of all ACE funding which will affect me badly.  There were maybe 200 there and about 4 party members from Greens and Labour. I did a lot of yelling. “ <<

See if mum says she did a lot of yelling, then hells bells you better believe she battle cried. The reason I believe this is funny is based on a story of hers of a previous outburst a while ago that I’ll retell best I can here...

A while back when cousin Adri was running for Council mum went along to a rally night to show him some support.

It was held in a local community hall with the 6 candidates sitting in a row on the stage. Each person took their turn to tell the gathered voters how they would best represent them. Locals nodded or shook there heads appropriately before politely clapping each speaker and then it was Adrian’s turn to take the podium.

Mum beamed with pride and made sure to nod MORE vigorously and even to murmur out loud the odd affirmation to show her support. As his speech drew to a close and people began to clap, so brimming with encouragement was she that she leapt from her seat and shouted “GO ADRIAN TYLER!” whilst punching the air triumphantly with her fist!

The clapping faded out as people turned in their seats to seek out and eyeball the raucous maker. Adri flushed brilliant red as he returned to his seat and the woman next to mum leaned over with a knowing sneer and said, ‘I suppose that’s your son then’.

Unusually for mum such was her obvious embarrassment that she beat a hurried exit feeling rather as if she were leaving a wounded comrade on the battle field, a comrade that she herself had shot in the foot.

And that’s why it’s funny. The protest march. Cause you know with mum, it’s never just that simple. 

Dust Storm

Check out the pics of the dust storm swirling down the East Coast of Australia right now.

Pete and I just took these photos out the front of the facility in the Warner Studios in what should be midday sun. It looks like we’ve left the sepia setting on our camera but it is truly that golden and pinky colour outside from all the dust in the air.

You can see these and some more sent in from all over Queensland here:

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/photogallery/national/sydneys-red-dawn-heads-for-brisbane/20090923-g0x8.html?selectedImage=0

Also, just to add to the amazing things we’ve seen in Australia so far, check out these little beauties hanging out on our balcony in the morning. They’re loud but very beautiful…