September 21. Day 265. Food for thought

There was this story on the radio this week about crows. Apparently crows in a couple of different parts of the world have learned to create tools. The New Caledonian crows, for instance, have been recorded creating hooks to remove food from hard to reach nooks. Researchers say they are the only birds believed to be tool makers. Frankly I am only a bit surprised that birds and not just higher order mammals have the ability. Anyone who has watched birds faced with an eating challenge will know they are both innovative and determined. Today it was the noisy miners at a cafe at the Gardens Point campus. I don't often visit GP but a meeting today took me away from Kelvin Grove. There was lunch provided. You can't argue with that. But before the meeting I had another meeting with a student at a cafe. It was raining. actually, it was bucketing down. Everyone, including the birds, was sheltering under the covered eating area. The humans were ordering and paying for food and coffee. The birds were just stealing everything they could get their beaks into. And they were showing a great deal of creativity in filling their bellies. I love them for that (in fact, I may have borrowed some of their techniques at the buffet table just a few minutes later at the catered lunch meeting). And neither of us was actually bothering too much with "proper" tools.

September 20. Day 264. Driven to distraction

I know plenty of people with furry fur friends who conduct home hairdressing services. The mere thought makes me a little pale.  My dogs are adorable but on the squirmy side. The distance between the delightful facial hair and the eyes is far too close to be a margin of error I'm prepared to accept. There are risks that you accept and try to mitigate and those you just avoid. So I outsource grooming. They don't love it but they put up with it and I know this is one of the instances where you have to be cruel to be kind. No trimming. No seeing. It's a job that needs to be repeated every six weeks conducted by the lovely people at Grand Designs Dog Grooming. Today was that day. It's a six hour process that makes my grooming needs seem amateur. I'm always sure to be ready to pick them up right on 3pm. I was on my way there when a car drove up my arse. It was hard enough to give me a serious jolt and a serious scare but not enough to damage either car. The male driving the other car was incredibly apologetic. He said he had been distracted for just a second which is, of course, all it takes. It can happen to anyone and that's the point. I don't blame him at all. I do, however, blame the drivers of at least eight cars that sped through the zebra crossing when I stood there with the freshly groomed dogs waiting to cross. The thing is cars are mobile killing machines if not handled with care and drivers who don't see a woman with two dogs standing at a zebra crossing are not handling the vehicle with care. That worries me immensely. Fortunately we eventually all managed to make it home safely and the dogs look awesome.

September 19. Day 263. Cold snap

It's said there's no such thing as bad weather only bad clothing choices. Perhaps so but sometimes the clothing choices are forced upon us. After what might be considered a false summer, it was cold and wet today, at least in Brisbane spring terms. The sensible clothing choice would include little visible flesh. That's all very well but if you are an indigenous dancer performing in traditional dress to an international delegation, the dress mainly involves body paint. There's not much in the way of protection from the elements. The rugged up observers watched in warmth and interest. Even my dogs who happened to be on campus with me today had more on. It is just another example of suffering from your art and being warmed by the reactions of those enjoying what you do. It's not really a substitute for a coat but it's sure better than nothing.

September 18. Day 262. Questions. Questions

 There's no such thing as a stupid question, or so I tell the journalism students. Often I add that the stupid question is the one you don't ask. I now know I am wrong. Very wrong. Drama Teen wanted to attend Oz Comic-com at the Convention Centre today. He was interested in the panel sessions with Game of Thrones actor Daniel Portman who plays Podrick Payne and Harry Potter actor  Devon Murray who plays Seamus Finnigan. Seemed interesting enough so the camera and I tagged along. Even though I have never watched an episode of Game of Thrones I asked a question inquiring about his reaction to the controversy surrounding the rape in the most recent season. You don't need to be a fan girl to be up with the news. Portman said that while he would never condone sexual violence against women, the reaction seemed odd given all the outrageously violent and inappropriate things that happen the GoT universe. He listed many of them. The questions continued until one woman raised her hand. She said she didn't watch Game of Thrones and had no idea who he was or anything about the character he played. Her question? Can you tell me about your character? Eyes rolled everywhere in the room. That is why Google was invented. Portman said he played The King ... no John Snow ... no Daenerys ... no Cersei ... and while the audience watched awkwardly he confessed he played Podrick Payne. Of course, that meant nothing to her because she didn't watch the show. Pointless and embarrassing. That's the other rule of interviewing I talk to students about: find out as much as you can about the subject so you don't look like an idiot. At the Harry Potter panel I was in more familiar territory. This time I asked about Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Rather than just answering he asked me what I thought as well so we ended up having a bit of a chat about whether it would make a good 9th film. We agreed it would be an awesome stage production. Had I not actually read the script I would have looked like a bit of a goose. It was all a bit of fun. It's not that I've become an immediate convert to the fan convention but I found it to be an interesting experiment and an enjoyable way to fill in a few hours on a wet Sunday.

September 17. Day 261. Playing dress ups

 I am fully aware that some people (by which I mean just about everyone) find dressing up your dogs as a superheros is either tragic or sad or possibly both. Fact is, I don't care. I'm not hurting my dogs or anyone else so I am certainly not going to apologise. I am, however, selective when it comes to exactly where I take the super dogs. A walk past the Convention Centre when Oz Comic-con is on is a bit of a no-brainer. They were an instant hit. These people love to dress up and yes they judged me: their verdict was awesome. Rumple, normally the quieter less sociable of the pooches, was in his element. He was patted and petted and photographed with all of the colourful characters on show. There was probably no point in telling him that a dog should not suck up to a woman dressed up as Cruella de Vil ....

September 16. Day 260. Thank You for the Music

 A friend's 14-year-old daughter confessed to me the other day, in a slightly panicked fashion, that she had no idea what post school career she wanted to follow. Relax, I told her. At 14 you're not supposed to know what you want to do when you grow up. Hell, I'm still trying to work that out. Seriously, I said, few 14-year-old have a plan and those who do will probably change it a million times before they have to put it into fruition (and very likely many times after that). And then I thought about the teenager I know most intimately, the young man I refer to as Drama Teen. He was no more than four when he decided he wanted to be on the stage. It's a passion that has never waivered. Not once. Not for a second. My young man has been steadfast in his determination to pursue a theatre career and since the age of five the Fame Theatre Company has been  a large part of that plan. It has served him well but that journey is nearing its conclusion. The theatre's rules mean you can stay for one year after you finish school and that deadline is rapidly approaching. After tonight there will be two more concerts, then tears and then that chapter is closed. It will be a bitter sweet moment. Sweet because it is extraordinary to see just how far he's come in those 14 years but sad because goodbyes always are especially when it involves a group that has been such a large part of your lives for so long. But that's a problem for December. For now it's all sweet. I mean, what mother wouldn't delight in seeing her young man performing an especially camped up Village People medley? And any concert that finishes with a bit of Abba's Thank You For the Music gets a big tick from me.

September 15. Day 259. Hungry/Angry

Hangry according to the urban dictionary is when you are so hungry that your lack of food causes you to become angry, frustrated or both. An amalgam of hungry and angry. I suffer from a variation. Humpy. I don't get angry but when the blood sugar drops I become irrationally grumpy and irritable. I don't do hungry (I don't do tired either. That also makes me grumpy). At lunch time today I found myself at Newstead House (well actually in the street right next to the house). I was waiting to collect Drama Teen but due to some misunderstanding he'd already left. The minutes ticked on. The volume of the grumbling increased (in my stomach as well as in the internal monologue). I walked through the gardens of the house and the birds were also grumbling - really, really loudly. There was this ham sandwich which had been abandoned. The noisy minors were being especially noisy. At least it drowned out the stomach noise. And then I found out Drama Teen was already at home. I was out of there.