Floods, Mates, Cats, and Dragons

1. Dreamed about a flood. I hear a story of a couple who died in a flooded restaurant.  I see an image of them somehow.  They sit at a table, and water has risen so the table is underwater. But the man and the woman still have their heads above the water.  The table doesn't rise and float away.  It's as if it's anchored to the ground. The couple doesn't seem at all distressed.And then suddenly I'm the one who can't breath. I feel like I'm drowning.     

2. Got an email from someone saying that I misspelled Coober Pedy yesterday. A while back I had learned how to spell it correctly, and then I guess I went back to old habits.  I shall go fix that now.   

3. Watched the trailer for the Cloudstreet miniseries. It looks beautiful. It makes me excited to reread the book.  

4. Read article about Gillard's speech to the American congress.  Our governments are great mates.   Gillard says, You have an ally in Australia. An ally for war and peace, an ally for hardship and prosperity, an ally for the 60 years past and Australia is an ally for all the years to come.  I'm surprised she didn't start singing I'll Be Your Candle On the Water.

I'm glad Australia and America plan to be best friends.  That's very sweet.  Seriously. I hope our two governments are best mates forever.  HOWEVER,  I hope they both remember the words of the brilliant Dumbeldore (the film version). It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to your enemies but a great deal more to stand up to your friends.   

5. Read article about tourism in Australia. The Chinese are the biggest spenders.  I'm not sure if that's because they're sending more tourists or whether the Chinese spend more (on average).

6. Read more about floods in Queensland.  There's a town called Cardwell.  It was attacked by Yasi.   They're trying to recover, but that's hard to do when you keep getting attacked by more and more bad weather.

7. Looked up Cardwell on Google Maps.  It's between Innisfail and Townsville.   

8. Listened to Hello by The Cat Empire. It sounds like they're trying to sound Hebrew.  Or maybe Arab?   Does Arabic make those same sounds? I think maybe they do.  It sounds like someone trying to clear their throat.

Lord Wiki says they're from Melbourne. Are they Jews from Melbourne? Arabs from Melbourne? A mixture of box?  Or maybe they just enjoy making that sound.

Oh!  I get it! Maybe? Are they trying to sound like they have a hairball. You know...cats and hairballs?  

9. Read exciting story of Weipa man surviving a crocodile attack. He used his strength to hold on to mangroves; and prevented the crocodile from dragging him underwater.  The struggle lasted for fifteen minutes. Wow.  I'm thinking this guy is very strong....and lucky. Good that he's alive to tell the tale.

10. Related to this quote from Steven Carroll's The Gift of Speed.   Cricket?  I've never understood it- with it's silly names.  As soon as anyone starts to explain the whole damn silly business to me, I stop listening straight away and wait for them to finish.  None the wiser and no more interested than I was before. But they don't stop. They go on and on. 

Yeah.  That's pretty much how I feel about all sports.

11. Tried to sing, There's Room For Everyone in This World, while in the shower.  It didn't work so well, because I don't know enough of the lyrics. It's a really beautiful song, though.

12. Felt thankful to Noel Pearson and Ruth Parks, because I found two of my favorite friends through them.  I once wrote blog posts about Parks and Pearson. Later they were read by strangers who were kind enough to write to me.  Now those strangers are my friends. I think that's really awesome.  

13. Decided to read an article about Kristina Keneally.  It's part one of the article. I wonder when part 2 will appear.

It's interesting. At one time Kenneally wanted to be the first female president of America. To me, it seems weird that a Premier in Australia is American.  But I guess it just shows that Australia is multicultural.  

I find this bit of the article offensive:

When Kristina was four she told her mother she wanted to be a nurse or a teacher. "Why are you picking those things?" asked the mother. "That's what girls do."

"No," said the mother. "No, no, no. You can do whatever you want." 


I'm disgusted with this mother.  What's wrong with being a teacher or nurse?  It's such an incredibly small-minded and sexist thing to say.  To me, it's just as bad as telling a young girl that she HAS to be a nurse or teacher because she is a girl.

14. Became even more disgusted by things in the article.  Keneally's mother said I used to tell her, 'You can do anything, you can become a doctor. Just because you're a female doesn't mean you have to settle for jobs that are typically for females.

SETTLE?   It's such a snobby thing to say.

15. Decided to give up on my plan of going through every photo on the National Archives of Australia website.  I'm tired of it.  What bothers me is the dates of the photos are messed up.  For example, I'm supposed to be looking at pictures from the 1910's right now, and there was a photo of the Harbour Bridge. That wasn't built until the 1930's.  And there were a bunch of 1970's/1980's photos of Canberra in the 1910's.   

There IS some great stuff on the site.  I just don't think it's wise to do what I had planned to do.  It's probably best to just look at some pictures here and there.

16. Put one of those reaction box things on my blog. I add it every so often, and then I end up taking it down. Maybe this time I'll keep it up for more than a few hours. We'll see.

I like when people have them on their blogs. Sometimes I read something, and I want to show SOME reaction, but I don't know what to say.

I'm thinking of adding a button  The given ones are interesting, cool, and funny.   Okay, but what if I write about abused farm chickens or slaughtered dolphins.  It might irk me if people check off that it's interesting, cool, or funny.  So, I think I'll add a sad button. Can you check off more than one thing?  Because my blog posts kind of have a mixture of stories. Some parts might be cool, and others might be sad; or whatever.     

Okay.  I just checked. You can mark off multiple things.