Courage = Benazir Bhutto

Rest in peace.

Target 140: place unused ice cubes in your pot plants.

The 4 minute shower

As you can see, the Queensland Water Commission is giving very useful advice. The average use of water across the city has hit a nadir of 127L per person per day. I can go with "yellow let it mellow, brown flush it down" but generally speaking, it is becoming harder to stay cheerful about the drought.

In first year psychology tutorials we were taught that in difficult times, it can be helpful to write down the pros and cons of a situation. [Really?] So, after years of perpetually fine weather, here are my lists to date.

Good things about the drought:

~It doesn’t rain.

~Losing favourite umbrella in 1998 no longer an issue.

~Cockroaches large enough to have landing lights rarely seen.

~Drought fighting community spirit to the fore (expect to hear re-worked WWI songs any day now).

~Free 4 minute hourglass egg timer from Queensland Water Commission.

~Jungle of weeds growing with less vigour; fewer withering looks from garden-obsessed neighbours.

~Less spent on lawn-mowing (countered by increased cost of lettuces and avocados though).

~Tomato vine on back door neighbour’s fence dying.


Bad things about the drought:

~It doesn’t rain.

~Everything is grey-green, brown-green or yellow-green but never green-green.

~Garden-obsessed neighbours very sad.

~Previous swamp lands drained. Urban sprawl sprawling. New houses built without insect screening. Dengue fever epidemic when drought breaks (not joking).

~The 4 minute shower.

~Large family of cane toads now resident under water mains cover: assistance and or moral support from Mission Control (Mum and Dad) required in order to change tap washers.

~Price of veggies going up (more consideration given to virtues of string beans and frozen spinach).

~City may run out of water (Brisbane a weatherboard Fatehpur Sikri?)

Magma rocks!

Waikiki: A challenging wilderness experience?

As it came to February 2005, my sister and I felt we both needed a holiday. We were delighted to realise we could take the same couple of weeks leave from our respective jobs. The decision was made to go OS but where? Our holiday key selection criteria were fairly straight forwards. Our destination had to, in order of importance:

a. Get us out of the summer heat,
b. Have deck chairs or similar on which to lounge, read, snooze and write post cards, and
c. Involve some sort of reasonably challenging wilderness experience.

When we thought about it, atlas open before us, we found our choices were few. For instance, an ecology cruise to the Antarctic would satisfy criteria (a) and (c) but not (b). Similarly, a package holiday to Fiji would satisfy (b) but not (a) and (c) and the famous Salzburg ‘Sound of Music’ tour (that was my idea) in the European mid-winter would deal with (a) and less likely (c).

You may not know that zimbles have an innate fascination with exciting natural phenomena such as meteorites, deep sea trenches and tornados. Hence, it came as no surprise to near and dear, when we decided on Hawaii: volcanos here we come! A quick email to our ever cheerful travel agent, Manic-Louise and it was F.A.B. Virgil! A short(ish) hop across the Pacific and there we were, first on Oahu and then on the island of Maui.

From Maui, we joined a day tour to “The Big Island” to see Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. It was an awesome experience (almost better than 'quokka' on a triple word score!). I’d love to go back and walk rather than coach through the park.

Here are some of my favourite lava photos from the trip.

Molten rock at 1100 C. It was a bit warm standing there.

The southern flank of Kilauea.

More lava.

Blame it on the Foucault

Michel Foucault, French philosopher, 1926 - 1984.

(Photograph from Clare's website gallery)

Today, at last, my very good friend, Clare O'Farrell, closed her laptop and joined the rest of us at our habitual local haunt for lunch and a well deserved slice of flourless chocolate cake with ice cream. Clare had been missing in action for weeks. Rumour had it she was in a deep self-imposed seclusion. Hidden in the wilds of the Sunshine Coast hinterland, Clare had been beavering away on a complete overhaul of her academic website.

I'm very pleased to give an emphatic plug to the new, improved and indubitably world's best Foucault site.

http://www.michel-foucault.com/

Keep on fighting - till the end.

I've been dithering for the past few days about whether to post anything about World AIDS Day, 1st December. I seem to have posted a lot of reminiscences. Any more might be tedious for my reader. (G'day, Mavis). Nevertheless, what are blogs for, if not for whatever comes to mind.

The statistics say there have been about 26 000 HIV infections diagnosed in Oz to the end of 2006, just over 10 000 cases of AIDS and around 6000 deaths. The number of diagnoses of AIDS peaked in 1994. Since then, the incidence of AIDS has declined and the duration of survival after an AIDS defining illness has increased from a mean of 13 months to over 30 months.

For a lot of the time, in the years 1992 to 1995, my regular and after-hours roster at a Brisbane teaching hospital included work in the infectious diseases ward as a resident then registrar. So, even though AIDS had no immediate impact in my personal life, it was there day to day, as part of the work.

I remember there was a vague but constant worry about where it would all end up. Ten years on from the start of the pandemic there were good diagnostic tests and clean blood bank supplies. Public education was in full swing. Even so, what would happen if HIV spread to the general community?

It may be a false perception but it seemed to me the disease effected itself in a cyclical fashion with small cohorts of men being diagnosed with AIDS about the same time, being admitted about the same time as they deteriorated and dying about the same time. Then it would start all over.

My bosses were working incredibly hard to keep up with the HIV research. They had journals and journals of the stuff to read every week. Their efforts to get funding for involvement in the international drug trials and particular medications for individual patients were unbelievable.

Mostly though, I remember sensing the tragedy of it and at the same time, seeing the strength of the human spirit brought to bare. It seemed a particular cruelty that these previously fit, handsome (even beautiful you could say) men became so thin and gaunt.

There was a young man whose partner was in his last hours. The man came up to me at the nurses' station where I was sitting writing something. He said he had to go home and could I check that we had his phone number and call him when it was over. I asked him if there was anything I could do or anyone I could call to organise something so he could stay. He said he wanted to stay but he felt it would be distressing for his partner's parents, who were about to arrive, if he did stay.

What courage it must have taken to say goodbye and leave that bedside. I'll never forget him walking out of the ward with his partner's jacket over his arm.

Anyway, that's just my little bit.