Saturday, June 18, 2011

Just Like Dorothy!

We had just come back from a big weekend celebrating our friend Mick Fanning's 30th birthday up in Byron and visiting our friends, Al and Cindy, and their kids. Joe had been sick all the week before and we were pretty exhausted from several late nights and the trip itself. The drive home was pretty intense with plenty of rain and flooding across the highway just before our turn off.

We put the kids to sleep early and Joe relaxed in front of the telly while I had a couple glasses of wine while skyping with my friend Michelle. We went to bed around 11.30 and were looking forward to a nice big sleep.

I woke up at about 6.00 in the morning to the sound of the rain drumming on the roof. I wear an eye mask to sleep, so not only did I look particularly glamorous with my unwashed hair, my stripey flannel pyjamas, and my leopard print light blocker, I was also oblivious to the lightning that was apparently flashing across the sky.

During the next twenty minutes the rain got louder and louder and louder to a point that I have never heard anything like it. All of the sudden there was an almighty crash. This will bring the kids running, I thought! And it sure did. Well, sort of. True came running in, but Rêve was already cuddled up in my bed. The door burst open and so did True's mouth.

"There's a fire and sparks and an explosion everywhere at the bowlo!" he yelled.

Well nothing gets me up and out of bed than the possibility of danger. They don't call me Five Alarm Carm for nothing!

We raced into the kitchen and peered across the street at the bowlo. We could see straight away that the flag pole had been knocked over and there were bits of broken tree branches all over the place. We saw Keryn, the cleaner, come out of the club looking a little bit stunned.

I went out on the deck and yelled across to her to see if she was okay. She said she was fine but that we should called Triple 0 because there were downed powerlines across the road. She was soon stopping cars from driving through. After we made the call, curiosity got the better of us.



The rain had stopped and there was an eerie silence all around. The world was still grey tinged because the sun had not yet risen. We started walking across the street and just couldn't believe our eyes. There were large trees down across the road and the club carpark. There were bits of metal roofing wrapped around poles and draped across power lines. There were bits of wood impaled in houses and into the ground.

Then we looked closer.

The bowling club roof was half gone!



Joe was busy taking photos on his iPhone and I ran back and got our camera.

The neighbours' houses that face the club had all suffered some sort of damage. The first house in town was newly renovated and was now missing a roof and all it's windows. The one next door had busted windows on all sides and their car had also lost three windows. The next house was missing heavy roofing tiles, which later were found in the middle house. Sharon and Wayne's house across from us had smashed windows out the back and a large piece of rafter had struck the house with such force it came through the wall inside beside the fridge.




At the end of our street is a big bushy area that was now littered with insulation and large pieces of corrugated iron. The house at the end of the street belongs to Glen Ralston. The large long green bush fire fence he had been told to erect by council was now bent, buckled and broken in several spots. Just beyond there was a swath cut through the trees and the area was covered with broken branches.

We had just had a tornado!

We wandered around the bowlo carpark and our street for a while drinking hot Ovaltine that Joe whipped up on our camp stove. Rêve  was still sleeping. He finally woke up around 10.30, completely unaware of what had gone on.

When Helen, the club manager and her husband Phil, the greenskeeper showed up later we showed them around with all the pride of parents of newborn twins. Phil and Helen live on the far side of town and had basically slept through the whole thing until someone called them to come down.

Everyone did their best to get interviewed by the various news stations that had arrived. NBN was first on the scene and I helped Sky get an interview with Essie who was the bloke in the house next to the reno house. He lives there with his wife and two young children. The baby boy woke up because of the noise of the storm so Essie had taken him into the kitchen to rock him back to sleep. He said he was standing there and heard the storm build and could vaguely see that the trees were bent over in the dark. Suddenly there was all sorts of sparks and a bang and he just ran and hid against a wall to protect his little boy and all the glass smashed in and everything went flying and then it was all done! Must have been terrifying!

True was awake and had just put his XBox on when he heard the crash. He went outside to have a look and it was all sparks and crazy and then came up to us. We have since suggested that perhaps next time he just come up to us and not go outside...

Anyway, after the kids had done their various walk byes while the cameras were rolling and Rêve had given the world the finger in the background we offered our help and then went home to grab a bite to eat. We tried to think of what to do with no electricity. Neighbour Bec came over and we thought maybe we would play some board games. We looked over at the club, and there was Phil and Ray Ray starting to clean up the greens.

Since we had offered, we all put on gumboots and went over to lend a hand. I thought we'd be there for ten or fifteen minutes, but about three hours later we were still there. Bec and I had raked and carried all the debris off one of the greens. This included brick seats, green shade cloths, broken branches and one small dead bird.

Not long after several other blokes in town showed up and they were on the other side of the club with Joe and the SES cleaning up tree branches and large and small chunks of metal and insulation. A group of us girls went into the club and moved all the cloth furniture and tables from the main bar into the dining area as it still had a roof.

They decided to tarp the bar and the gaming machines so I ran home and got our big camping tarp and several little ones. Another fella brought over his big arse tarp and there was plenty of coverage. I suggested we rescue the bottles of alcohol that line the back wall. My offer of storing them at my house was met with laughter, so we ended up putting them in a cupboard behind the bar.

There was a big crack in the main beam of the bar and a large rafter had smashed through the ceiling almost hitting the carpet. There were big cracks between the ceiling and the wall even in the restaurant. And there was a beam of sunlight pouring through and gaping hole above the bain maries.

The men who work at the club were worried about how to protect the poker machines. I suggested calling up some of the more avid players and watch as they draped themselves over their favorite money suckers. But apparently there are health and safety issues, so we just draped a tarp over them until they could be removed.

Eventually some safety people came and kicked everyone out of the club, but basically most of the work was done. We'd even saved all the photos and certificates that lined the wall, taking the greatest care of Polly's fish. You don't want a mad Maori, not matter how tiny she is!

By this point it was actually quite hot outside and everyone was pretty sweaty and tired from all the work of clearing up downtown Red Rock. We coerced the club into selling us a few slabs on tic and we all retired to the deck.

A little while later we saw that Wingy and Sunni who run the Chinese restaurant - the Red Wok - were wandering around the front of the club looking pretty helpless. Everyone was pretty much gone by then except some gawkers, so we went out to see what we could do to help.

Soon everyone was back up moving four large freezers of food over to neighbour James' shed where they could keep working until we found out what was happening with their insurance. The boys all chucked in and it didn't take long til that was all sorted. We asked around for extra freezers and Tim and Katie came to the party with one, bringing it on the back of a trailer and also some young fellow from Corindi who had recently moved from over West brought one down for them to use as well.

Finally it seemed all the hard work was done and the excitement was over. The whole gang was back on the deck and us girls prepared some rice and a whole bunch of Chinese food that Wing and Sunni had given to us as a thank you.

By this point more stragglers had arrived. Cathy and Ben Pellow couldn't make it home from Corindi due to the flood waters so they came to stay the night. There were two random girls that rented out James' place because they couldn't get to Brisbane, but they had no food and everything in town was shut. So they all got fed too.

The ABC had a live feed set up and there were seven blokes that hadn't eaten for ages looking a bit miserable with their limp white bread sandwiches so we brought over plates of food for them. They were ferried across the road by all the young kids and the guys were thrilled. Young Zoe and I brought them over a beer each and then offered them seconds. The last four blokes took up the offer of seconds and Zoe did a beautiful welcome to country for them. After they finished their news report we invited them back to the deck to meet the locals which they happily did. By the time they got up there though, every one had a their "more than merry" hats on and it was all quite raucous.

We introduced them to Stone's Ginger Wine (a Red Rock deck party staple) and of course I was dropping F bombs and other naughty words like a Honours Student of the School of Tourettes. They, like may other people, suggested that we just reopen the club on our deck. I wasn't sure how I felt about P****making himself at home and gorging on plates of food all day and Joe wasn't thrilled with the idea of J**** waking him up early in the morning to borrow twenty bucks to put through the pokies!

After a couple cups of tea, a few beers and draining the last of our Stone's,  the ABC guys decided it was time to hit the road. We offered them the option of staying at Dr. Phil's empty holiday house at the end of the road, but they declined. And it was a good thing too!

Not an hour after they left, there was a big brown out, where the lights got light and dark and light and dark. Amid cheering and laughter, we got out and lit about four thousand tea candles in preparation for a black out. Tony kept saying my candles smelled funny but I thought it was because some of them were fancy frangipani shaped lights.

Tony insisted he could smell burning plastic. Then wood. Suddenly Joe leapt up.

"The fucking freezers!"

He was sure that all the freezers we moved in Jame's shed had caught on fire. In retrospect, we should have known it was not the case because it didn't smell like a Chinese BBQ.

"Call Triple 0! Calling fucking Triple 0!"

Well, something was on fire!

I ran downstairs to see what was happening while Katie called Triple 0.

Glen Ralston's house was completely on fire and Dr. Phil's was already looking charred on one side.

The boys leaped into action. They went around banging on doors and waking people up - although most people were still awake probably listening to us noisy crew on the deck. Tony made everyone move their cars off the street and over to the bowlo. Anna and the other mothers gathered all the kids and brought them to safety across the road in the carpark and then moved them to Anna's house.

Eventually about eight fire engines showed up. At one point it looked like Dr. Phil's place was going to totally catch so Joe started getting a few precious things out of the house but then thought fuck it. He had the photos, the computers and the hard drives. The kids were safe and so was I so it was all good.

We watched the house burn and burn and burn until the police arrived and decided to send everyone away. Joe had an argument with a copper trying to find out if it was safe for us to go home with all the crazy electricity but the officer remained staunchly unhelpful til the end. We waited on the deck until almost all the crews left. An SES officer came over and said that, although they reckoned it was safe to stay for the night, why didn't we all turn off our power and sleep somewhere else for the night as it was probably going to put our minds at ease. Which we did.

Welcome to hotel Tony and Anna!

The next day we found out that almost all the houses on our street had not just lost electricity but they also lost all their appliances that were plugged in due to a huge power surge that blasted through six or seven houses. Somehow we remained unscathed. I have no idea how.

We did however end up with no internet or phone for over a week and it's still running kinda shitty.

The area is now being called a disaster area and there is assistance available from Centrelink and the council for all those people who were affected by the storm.

Whew!






Monday, June 6, 2011

Gamer

It's kind of embarrassing but I'm a gamer. And not a cool one.

First I was addicted to iSketch which is like Pictionary and really fun if you have a drawing tablet and pen. Sometimes played with my kids so that people would just think I was an indulgent mother trying to increase their artistic abilities.

Then I played Lexulous, an online multiplayer version of Scrabble. I played so much I learned all those crazy words that when you play with your friends in real life, they think you are a cheater, a nerd or both.

Now? Now I can't get enough of Rummikub. We got the board game from my sister and brother in law as a gift for the kids this past Christmas, but I'm so obsessive that I would play fifty games a day. That is unlikely to happen as pretty much everyone else in the house has a life. Instead, I play with randoms from around the world. And if I'm lucky, Joe and I will cuddle up in bed, each with our own laptops and play a few games against each other before bed.

I don't want anyone to think I'm a complete loser. I do have other interests. Like Survivor. Oh wait, what? That's another game? Why so it is! I've been spending days trying to figure out how we could play it at Station Creek in the summer when we go camping. Who would play? What would the challenges be? The rewards? Who would host it? What would the prize be? There must be a way to do it over a few weeks. Any ideas?

I know the game is played in the US every year. Australia had a couple seasons but sadly it never caught on here. It also is still going in several other countries, but you have to be a citizen of them. Of course Canada doesn't have it either, so I'm twice out of luck! I can only hope that Australia suddenly embraces Survivor fever as much as I have. In the mean time, I'm going all Bear Grylls and practising making fire with my cool flint lighter. I'm looking for bamboo (have you got any?) to make a rustic shelter, get my fishing skills up and then I'm gonna go eat rice from a coconut shell.

But not until I finish my next game of Rummikub.

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Happy Dance Chicken



I love experimenting with cooking and I'm always inspired by sites like Foodgawker and by my big collection of recipe books and magazines.

A few years ago I entered Australia's Good Taste Magazines Home Cook of the Year competition and was the State Finalist for NSW. I was pretty stoked with the whole thing and it spurred me on to be more creative with my own recipes.

This one I came up with late last year and I call it Happy Dance Chicken because when I tasted it I was happy dancing for about half an hour. I could have called it OH MY FUCK THIS IS THE BEST CHICKEN EVER chicken, but it takes too long to say it when I'd rather be eating!

So how do you make Happy Dance Chicken? With just a few simple ingredients!

You can use any kind of chicken but I would suggest something with a bone and skin. I have used drumsticks, maryland and thighs and they all work great.

So lay out your chicken in your pan. Then get jars of garlic and ginger. I know a lot of people are purists about using fresh garlic and ginger, but for this recipe the really wet jarred stuff is perfect. So add a heap of that, then a whole bunch of paprika. Then take three or four preserved lemons (which you can make if not available to buy), cut out the white bits and dice up the skin into tiny pieces. Chuck that in. Then pour in a whole bunch of white wine. I get goon cos it's cheap and make sure it's not sweet.

Then bung it in the oven somewhere between 160 and 180 and cook it for ages turning every twenty minutes or so. I usually go for about an hour. But DO NOT LET IT DRY OUT! There should be quite a bit of sauce left over that you can pour on the chicken again just before serving.

I eat it with hot crispy chips from the Red Rock shop and it's fucking amazing.

This chicken is so good I was this far into it before I could take a picture!



My parents and my niece are giving happy dance chicken the thumbs up! The boys are too busy hoeing in!

Please enjoy Happy Dance Chicken!

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Northern Light


This is another painting from the same series. It has a big silver frame and the background has little silver stars and lots of glitter. I was pregnant with True as you can tell by her cute tummy. I was living in Byron Bay and this was a way of feeling connected not just to my home in Canada but also to my family.

Dad loves seven pointed stars and him and mum live on a big property. The North Star is a beautiful beacon in the sky and the northern lights are an incredible sight that you often see on cold evenings in the sky.

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Megan Rising


I love this painting. This is of my friend Megan who was one of the best friends I've ever had. We lived together in Toronto, worked at the Big Bop and always had these amazing adventures.

Megan was taller than me, lean and had big huge eyes and lips and a long nose. She had lanky brown hair that she'd casually flip from one side to another, unaware of how natural and beautiful she was. She always wore cut off vintage nighties or shabby white t-shirt, cut off jean shorts that were several sizes too big and belted low on her bony hips. My fave thing she wore was old police parade boots. They were steel toed and I had my own pair. All of us that worked in the clubs and lived the Queen St. scene seemed to have them in the late 80's/early 90's.

Megan was a muse for me and I think I did three paintings as well as heaps of sketches of her. We've sorta lost track of each other over the last few years, which is sad, but every now and then I track her down to see how she is going.

It might be time to do that again!

This painting is of course of her, but when it was done it reminded me of Bottecelli's Venus Rising, if she was a skinny punky kinda girl!

Buddha Baby


I did this painting when I was pregnant with True, my first baby. It was funny cos that's what he basically looked like not long after he came out!
True was born at my home in Byron Bay and it was a really amazing experience. The midwife who attended was Pam Sonia and I gave this to her as a gift and a thank you for helping me bring True into the world.